Flu (Cece)

It had been a long night. Around midnight, Emma had grown fairly ill. She was pale and shivering. She was lethargic. She was vomiting and her body was burning up with an extremely high fever. Ella knew she'd had the flu, and while she had taken Magical Healing, she didn't want to do something wrong and harm her daughter.

Typically, the Hospital Wing was for students and employees, however, since Ella was an employee, Emma was qualified to be cared for there. It pained Ella to see her flesh and blood sick as she was. She needed food, she needed fluids, but she couldn't hold anything down. She couldn't even walk or run or be the rambunctious three year old that she usually was.

Ella wrapped the toddler in a fleece blanket and made the decently length walk to the castle. She stayed in a nice cottage near the lake, along with some of the other employees. Often, she held the duty to keep an eye on the grounds and make sure no student roamed after curfew or visited forbidden places. However, it was times like these that she'd wished she had a room inside the castle. She dared not apparate while holding Emma, and if she wanted to, she couldn't on the grounds anyways.

After crossing the grounds she trekked up the stairs and into the hospital wing. "I think she has the flu." Ella said in a huff, setting Emma on a nearby bed. The healer looked familiar. She'd seen her before, maybe in Diagon Alley? Cece, she remembered.

Cece did a lot of night shifts. It wasn't difficult. The only hard part was staying awake if she'd been working in the day too. But that wasn't anything a few cups of coffee couldn't fix. Admissions to the hospital wing during the night were very rare. All she really needed to do was keep an eye on patients staying overnight, and work on some paperwork sort of stuff. In some ways it was easier than working during the daytime because there was so little to do, however she rather enjoyed doing hands on work and keeping herself busy, so often these shifts would seem to drag on and on.

There was only one patient there that night, a small Hufflepuff boy with a particularly difficult case of the flu. But he seemed to be gradually getting better and sleeping fine, so Cece didn't need to actually deal with any patients. Instead she was in the little office flicking through the admissions book to check it was all in order. It was past midnight now, and she'd been working since midday, with only one short break for dinner. So she was exhausted. The effects of the coffee she'd had a couple of hours ago were wearing off and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay awake. Cece was constantly rubbing her eyes and flicking herself on the face. It didn't really help that the task she was doing was incredibly boring and difficult to concentrate on.

The sound of the door opening had her jump out of her seat and practically sprint to the door. Whatever this was, it was probably important since it was the middle of the night, and she was desperate to get up and do something other than reading through a boring, repetitive book of student names and conditions. Cece was a little surprised to see a woman with a baby standing there, but she quickly deduced that it was the caretaker, the one with the little girl. "Yeah, there's been a few cases. How old is she?" she asked, beckoning for the woman to follow her. "Take a seat," she added, pointing to a bed, as far as possible from the Hufflepuff kid sleeping.

It was very visible that the girl was sick. If you didn't know better, perhaps you'd think it was something much, much worse. Her eyes were closed, she was trying to sleep but you could tell it wasn't happening. Ella hated seeing her little one like this. It seemed like just yesterday, they were out by the lake looking for mermaids. Emma loved mermaids and butterflies, both of which she couldn't pronounce but tried her best.  Now they were here.

The room was warm and the lights dimmed. There was only one other person in the hospital wing. As soon as Ella came through the door with Emma, the healer had came out of her little office. She looked tired. In fact, she looked so tired that the word was an underestimate. She'd come to the door pretty fast, meaning, Ella opening the door either scared the shit out of her or woke her. Either guess would make sense.

It was only the flu Ella told herself as the healer began to do her job. "She's three." Ella said, no tone to her voice. As she watched her sick baby girl, her mind flashed through all of their memories together. The times her and Rhys seemed happy, her pregnancy, feeling her kick from the inside and even her birth. Some memories, Ella would never forget, while some, she would. The fact that they'd had many cases of the flu already settled well on Ella's mind. Emma's young, but she's a fighter and the wizarding world had the best medicine to help her get well.

Cece didn't like small children. Babies were fine: they just slept and the worst trouble they'd cause was keeping their parents up all night. Toddlers and small children, though, they were the stuff of nightmares. The whining, the screaming, the constant talking, the sticky fingers, the runny noses. If she wanted to deal with all of that stuff she'd be working with small children in somewhere like St Mungo's. She wouldn't have taken the job at Hogwarts, where patients would be teenagers and adults only. But what could she do other than plaster a fake smile on her face and pretend she wasn't hungry, exhausted and terrified by the monstrous small child. She did feel sympathy for the mother, though. The woman looked as tired as Cece felt herself. Realising that she had been standing, lost in thought, for a few seconds longer than necessary, she smiled at the two.

"Three? That's fine." It would be worse with a really young baby, and this case would be easier to fix. From observation, the child didn't seem as bad as cases like the Hufflepuff kid. "I wouldn't worry, Mrs... I'm sorry, I don't know your name. But she'll be fine, nothing a little medicine won't fix." As she spoke, Cece rustled in the medicines cupboard nearby, trying to find the vials of potion she'd put in here only the other day. Muggles had only their useless antibiotics, which took hours to settle in, and longer still for the patient to recover. The wizarding potions were much quicker and more effective, causing little or no pain for the recipient.

After a moment, she'd found them, and took out a single vial filled with a silvery, transparent liquid. Seeing as the kid was only three, only a little of the potion would necessary. More than a few drops would do more harm than good. "Do you want to give her a spoonful of this? No more than that mind," she smiled, holding out the vial and a spoon for the caretaker to take. "She looks awfully dehydrated, I'll get her a little water for her to have once the potion starts working."