Extracurriculars

The corridors of St. Mungo’s were unusually quiet for a Thursday afternoon, the usual bustle of Healers and patients subdued by the oppressive tension that seemed to hang in the air. Hermione moved swiftly down the familiar halls, her mind preoccupied with the troubling cases that had surfaced in recent weeks. It had been over a month since she had first encountered the mysterious illness—starting with that very first patient she had obsessed over, trying to understand what had gone wrong.

She still remembered the night she had stayed late in her office, combing through diagnostic spells and potion recipes, desperate to find a pattern. But whatever was afflicting her patient had remained stubbornly elusive, defying her expertise and knowledge. Since then, three more cases had come in, all with similar—yet maddeningly inconsistent—symptoms. Each new file on her desk felt like another piece of a puzzle that refused to fit.

She reached her cramped office and pushed open the door, the familiar smell of dried herbs and parchment greeting her like an old friend. The space was a mess—books piled haphazardly on the desk, scrolls half-unfurled, and three glowing silver diagnostic charms still hovering over the patient files she had left open from the night before. The hovering charms threw pale, shifting light across the room, casting long shadows that seemed to flicker and pulse like the illness she was struggling to understand.

The original patient had been a well-known curse breaker—Alexander York—a middle-aged wizard who had come to St. Mungo’s complaining of chronic fatigue and strange tingling in his fingertips. At first, she’d thought it was simply a case of magical exhaustion, but the symptoms had worsened: his hands had begun to tremble, and he had started experiencing unexpected surges of magic—spells misfiring at odd moments, flickers of uncontrolled energy crackling at his fingertips. Then came the strangest symptom of all—his eyes. A faint, silvery sheen had settled over them, clouding his gaze as if he were staring through a veil of mist.

He was still at St. Mungo’s now, and three more patients had joined him—none of whom had crossed paths with Alexander. They were from different backgrounds, different ages, different magical specialties. Yet the symptoms were hauntingly similar. It was as if the illness was following a slow, unpredictable course, tightening its grip on them little by little, and Hermione felt powerless to stop it.

Hermione dropped her bag and slumped into her chair, opening the top file in the pile. The name Jane Pritchard glared up at her from the neatly typed label—a forty-two-year-old Potioneer who had been admitted three weeks ago. Jane’s condition had progressed slower than Alexander’s, but her symptoms were eerily familiar: fatigue, numbness in her fingers, and flashes of uncontrolled magic that had shattered several glass vials in her workshop.

What am I missing? Hermione thought, rubbing her temples as she leaned back in her chair. She felt the weight of each failure pressing down on her shoulders, a constant reminder that time was slipping away. The illness seemed to move at its own pace—slow and deliberate—leaving her feeling like she was always one step behind.

“Granger,” came a familiar voice, and she looked up to see Healer Althea Whitmore standing in the doorway. The older Healer’s expression was weary, but her eyes held a glimmer of determination. “Another flare-up in Room 5,” she said, nodding toward the files on Hermione’s desk. “Alexander York. The magical surges are getting worse.”

Hermione’s stomach twisted. She had spent so much time trying to stabilize Alexander’s symptoms, but every attempt seemed to offer only temporary relief. “How bad?” she asked, standing up and grabbing her wand from the desk.

“Bad,” Althea said, her tone grave. “He’s having trouble controlling any magic at all now. Nearly every spells is firing drastically wrong. We had to ban his usage when the apprentice doing rounds got caught by a stray.”

Hermione nodded, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline that accompanied a crisis. She hurried out of her office, following Althea down the dimly lit corridor toward the Isolation Ward. It was a small, secluded section of St. Mungo’s reserved for patients with severe or unusual conditions—patients who needed close monitoring. It had become the home of the four patients who were now at the center of her focus.

The heavy door to Room 5 opened with a soft creak. Alexander sat propped up against a pile of pillows, his eyes half-closed and unfocused. Faint tendrils of magic flickered sporadically around his hands, barely visible in the dim light. Hermione cast her standard diagnostic charm, but the spell’s faint silver glow faded into nothing before it could show anything conclusive.

“Try to rest,” Hermione said gently, adjusting his pillows and taking note of his shallow breathing.

She moved to the next room, where Jane was awake but withdrawn, her fingers curled tightly around the edge of her blanket. Hermione cast the same diagnostic spell she had used on Alexander, watching as the light shimmered uncertainly in the air before dissolving into pale wisps of magic. There was a pattern there—she could feel it—but it kept slipping out of her grasp.

By the time she made it to Edgar Bones’s room, she had abandoned any hope that today would bring a breakthrough. Edgar gave her a weary nod as she entered, his eyes dull beneath the same silvery sheen that had marked all the other patients. He attempted a simple charm, at Hermione’s request, but his wand flickered with weak, sputtering magic before he set it down with a defeated sigh.

Back in her office, the frustration gnawed at Hermione’s focus. Each file lay open in front of her, the symptoms and observations blurring together in a tangled web of half-formed theories. She tried to draw connections between the cases—geography, family history, magical specialties—but the illness seemed random, striking without warning or pattern. It was as if the disease had a mind of its own, shifting and evolving just out of reach.

She reached for another diagnostic manual, flipping through the pages with a growing sense of urgency. The glow from the charms hovering overhead seemed to pulse in time with her rapid heartbeat, casting shadows across the scattered papers. She made notes in the margins, her quill scratching furiously, but nothing clicked. No matter how many spells she tried, no matter how many potions she tested, the illness defied everything she knew.

Maybe it’s not an illness, she thought, her eyes scanning a passage on obscure magical ailments. Maybe it’s something else. A curse?

Her gaze fell on a half-empty potion vial she had tried on Jane last week—a blend meant to stabilize magical flux. It had done nothing, and she had abandoned it after the second patient, but now she wondered if she had missed something.

But no matter how long she stared at the files and the potions and the pages of handwritten notes, the answer didn’t come. Each time she thought she was close, the pieces would scatter, leaving her more confused than before.

The night stretched on, the hospital quieting as the evening shift settled in. Hermione’s eyes burned, and her fingers were stained with ink, but she couldn’t stop. She spread the files out across her desk, marking down each new observation, each small anomaly that had seemed irrelevant.

As the clock ticked forwards midnight, she felt the walls of her office closing in. The air was heavy with the scent of old parchment and potion residue, and the flickering diagnostic spells overhead seemed to taunt Hermione, like they knew she was at a complete dead end. Her thoughts spun in circles, caught in the same endless loop of symptoms and unanswered questions.

She was still staring down at the files when the knock came—a soft, hesitant rap that barely broke the silence. Hermione looked up, bleary-eyed, to see Althea standing in the doorway.

“You need to go home, Hermione,” Althea said quietly. “You’ve been here for seventeen hours. You’re not helping anyone by running yourself into the ground.”

“I just… I can’t stop,” Hermione said, her voice rough with exhaustion. “I’m missing something, Althea. I know I am.”

Althea’s expression softened. “You’ll see it more clearly in the morning. Get some rest. Come back tomorrow with fresh eyes.”

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but the words died on her lips. She knew Althea was right—she was too tired to think straight, and the lines of text were starting to blur. Reluctantly, she nodded, gathering her notes into a haphazard pile.

“I’ll try,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Hermione’s route home via floo then disapparation felt like a trudge through mud. She briefly thought perhaps it was finally time she hired someone to add her cottage onto the floo network.

The door creaked as she pushed it open, and the quiet warmth of home wrapped around her like a blanket. It felt safe, familiar, but the weight of her failure hung heavy in the air. She dropped her bag by the door and leaned back against the wall, her eyes closing for a moment as exhaustion washed over her.

She always seemed to forgot just how much magic and energy healing took. Coupled with the hours she’d spent brewing experimental potions, it was really no wonder she felt drained and dead on her feet.

A soft, insistent meow broke the silence, and she looked down to see Crookshanks weaving around her ankles, his orange fur a comforting blur in the dim light. He bumped his head against her leg, purring loudly, and she managed a tired smile, reaching down to scratch behind his ears.

“I know, I know,” she said softly, her voice thick. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”

Crookshanks meowed again, a little louder this time, and padded toward the bedroom, glancing back over his shoulder as if to make sure she was following. Hermione sighed and pushed off the wall, her legs aching as she made her way down the narrow hallway and into the small, cozy bedroom.

She barely had the energy to change into her worn flannel pajamas before collapsing onto the bed. Crookshanks leapt up beside her, settling against her side with a contented purr, and she felt the warm weight of him press into her ribs. She turned off the light with a flick of her wand, plunging the room into darkness, and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

For a moment, she lay there staring at the ceiling, her mind still racing with the fragments of the day’s work. But the weight of exhaustion was too much, pressing down on her like a heavy blanket. The frustration, the endless dead ends, the faces of her patients—Alexander, Jane, Edgar, Bethany—blurred together in her mind, mingling with the shadows that danced across the ceiling. She wanted to keep thinking, to chase down one more theory, rework one more potion in her head, but her body was already shutting down, dragging her toward sleep.

Crookshanks shifted closer, his purrs a steady vibration against her side. She reached out, letting her fingers sink into his soft fur, and felt the comfort of his warmth seep into her bones. It was a small solace, but right now, it was enough. A reminder that, for all the mysteries and the chaos she was facing, there were still simple, grounding moments she could hold onto.

I’ll figure it out tomorrow, she promised herself, her thoughts growing hazy.

But the promises felt distant, her resolve swallowed up by the sheer exhaustion of the day. Her eyelids fluttered, heavy with fatigue, and the images in her mind began to fade. The room was silent now, except for the rhythmic sound of Crookshanks’ breathing and the faint rustle of the wind outside her window.

Hermione didn’t dream that night, and for the first time in weeks, she didn’t wake up with her mind already churning through possibilities and failures. She was lost in a deep, dreamless sleep, her body finally surrendering to the exhaustion it had been fighting for so long.