The Sickness (Rich and Bri)

Richard whistled a little bit as he worked away in the kitchen. He was glad he'd been able to talk the house elf into letting him cook occassionally, he really did enjoy cooking. Right now he was making the favourite meal of his two favourite women in the whole wide world; lasagna. He was lined the pasta sheets on top of the mince right now and turned when he saw his little girl Raven stood in the doorway,

"Hey there Rae-Rae!" he greeted her brightly as he added some white sauce, "We're going to be having some lasagna in about an hour so I hope you haven't filled up on sweets or anything like that."

He was just sprinkling his cheese on top when his daughter made a small moaning sound. Instantly he left the cheese and moved closer to his daughter, concerned. She pouted a little bit and shook her head,

"I don't want any lasagna please daddy..." she moaned with a small whine to her voice, "My tummy hurts and I'm all sweaty..."

True enough, little Raven looked both clammy and hurt. He pressed the back of his hand against her forehead and his eyes widened. She was running a massive fever right now. Before he could ask her anything else her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she collapsed. Richard caught her before she could hit the ground and cradled her to his body as he began to rush her to her room,

"Briony!" he called out as he entered Raven's room, setting her down on her bed before going back out into the corridor, "Briony, Raven is sick... I think we might even need St Mungos at this rate!"

Briony had been looking over some of the paperwork that she needed to do for Hogwarts in her study every day she had a designated study hour where she would do all of the paperwork that she needed to do, and, it was coming to the end of it now, thankfully. She would much rather be lounging with Raven, or as they called her Rae-Rae.

When Richard called to her, sounding concerned, Briony stood up immediately and she popped her head out of the door, when she heard that Raven was sick, she walked into her room and peered at her daughter intently. She hadn't been ill last night, a little tired that was for sure but...maybe it had come on while she was asleep last night?

"Did she say anything before she passed out?" Briony asked, concerned "Maybe it's just the dragon pox, or that muggle disease, chicken pox, all children have it love, it might just be little Rae-Rae's time to catch it."

Biting her lip she sat down on her childs bed and pressed her hand to her forehead, she really was hot, and she could see that she was sweating a lot...maybe she would need some medical attention if this kept up but, they'd need to keep an eye on it.

"Let's not panic Rich, I think that she'll need to rest for a while, but there's no harm in calling for our Doctor, see if he'll come out to the house please, I'll keep an eye on her while you're away." she smiled lightly, strained by her worry.

Richard was slightly more relieved when Briony came in and tried to reassure him that it was nothing but it was still playing on his mind. He frowned a little bit,

"She said she didn't want any lasagna." he told her before looking at his wife, concerned, "She ate lasagna even when she had that stomach bug. The girl loves lasagna even more than you do! But she said she didn't want it... she's clammy to the touch but has an incredible fever."

Richard was trying very hard not to pace. Some part of him was sure that what was happening wasn't something normal. He'd studied normal diseases and this wasn't really like any of them,

"I guess we should remain calm and carry on? Isn't that the british saying?" he agreed with a small smile before nodding, "I'll go floocall him now."

Getting down on his knees in front of the fireplace, Richard threw some floo powder in before sticking his head in,

"Patrick Flannery!" he called out and almost immediately he could see into a study of some kind, "Patrick! Patrick it's Richard Romain, husband of Briony. Our little girl is really sick and we have no idea what it is so we'd apprecite it greatly if you could make a quick housecall."

Patrick was in his laboratory, he had received so many animal cadavers in the past few days that he was getting more and more worried that the disease was going to progress onto human subjects, and he was spending more and more time in the laboratory, and less and less to seeing patients to which he hoped they would understand.

The latest sets of cadavers had worried him the most, they were from a pet shop in Diagon Alley, if this thing was going to infect humans, it was going to be hard to contain after being in such a hectic place, with so many people probably touching the pets and then passing this touch on.

Hearing a call from the Floo, Patrick blinked out of his daze, staring at the virus cultivating under the microscope and he appeared by the fire, it was Richard Romain, and his child was ill.

"I shall be there in a moment Mr. Romain, keep her cool until I get there please."

Immediately, Patrick hoped it wasn't what he thought it might be, as he grabbed his kit and apparated into the Romain home.

"I came as soon as I could Richard, where is little Raven, I'll see what's wrong with her." he smiled reassuringly "Don't worry so much, there's nothing that I can't heal."

Richard was grateful that Patrick seemed willing to come to help Raven out. He was aware that Patrick was a research doctor almost before he was a treatement doctor. And the word on the street and in the halls of the ministry was that there was some kind of disease ravaging both the creatures and animals across europe,

"Thank you Patrick." he whispered before withdrawing his head from the floor and conjured an ice pack which he gently laid across Raven's burning brow, "She needs to be cooler he said..."

As soon as Patrick arrived, Richard nodded to the doctor before gesturing for him to follow,

"Thank you for being so quick Patrick." he replied before pausing, "She's got a very high fever, clammy to the touch, complained of no hunger, was dizzy and she passed out. I hope you can heal this..."

He opened the door to his daughter's room and gestured to the bed,

"She's right over there..."

Briony was looking over her daughter, when she had the Dragon Pox she hadn't looked like this, and there were no spots that she could see, so it couldn't possibly be that, but what could it be? What could be effecting her so much...she was normally such a strong child she never let illnessed affect her this much.

With a small sigh Briony kept the pack of ice on her brow and felt her cooling down slightly, which was a good sign she thought, it meant that the fever was getting under control, and with their healer on the way, she was going to be diagnosed and treated in no time.

Seeing Patrick being lead into the room Briony stood up from the bedside and allowed him to come closer to the bed, to see their little girl and treat her immediately if he needed to. Moving around to the other side of the bed Briony bit her lip;

"She passed out a few minutes ago Patrick, and she hasn't regained consciousness since then, we thought that it might just be the dragon pox but there aren't any spots on her..." Briony explained in a hushed tone "Do...do you want us to leave the room while you diagnose her or can we stay?"

Holding Richard's hand tightly Briony rested her head on his chest, she was so worried, what would happen if she had some god awful thing that they couldn't cure? What if it was one of those muggle diseases that Patrick might not have knowledge in treating.

Richard was a bit concerned about this whole thing. He was a worrier by nature after all and this was most definately something to worry about rather a lot. Holding his wife's hand tightly in his own he nodded a little bit in agreement with her,

"If at all possible we'd like to be here while you work." he told Patrick with a small smile, a sad smile, "We want to be here when you figure out what's wrong with our little girl."

He held Briony close to him, stroking her hair when she rested her head against his chest and wrapping his other arm around her to hug her closely to him. He swallowed nervous as he continued to stroke her hair. Out of all the times in his life was it wrong that he was the most nervous right now?"

Patrick could sense that it was a tense and nervous situation for the two parents, and he wouldn't be doing anything that was disgusting or delicate so he would have no problem with them both being in the room while he had a look at the little girl in front of him, she looked very ill and he sighed internally.

"Of course you may stay in the room while I work, I'm just going to use some diagnostic spells and it will tell me what the disease is if I cant tell already." he smiled a warm reassuring smile.

Looking at the little girl more closely, Patrick took out his equipment, listened to her chest, her heartbeat was still there, nice and strong, but her breathing had slowed down, that would seem to show that there was some sort of disease that effected the respitory system effecting her.

"Her breathing is very shallow, it shows that she might have some difficulty with her chest, or her lungs." he stated, folding his stethoscope and placed it on the beside table, taking out various other objects he ran through all the tests and then sighed softly.

This was not looking good.

"Well, the diagnostic spell is going to be needed." tapping Raven's head he sighed lightly and muttered the spell under his breath, it would take a while for him to get the results and he was going to need to tell the parents the results while it worked.

"As I said, her breathing is very slow, but her blood pressure and heart rate is still as I would expect for an ill person. Can you tell me if she had eaten anything strange, or come into contact with any creatures? She could have a disease normally found in creatures if so" he stated with a smile

"So far I can tell you it's none of the usual childhood illnesses so a trip to St Mungo's is needed after this spell has finished working."

Richard was very grateful when Patrick said that they could stay in the room because Healers tended to get rather defensive and sometimes even confrontational when people wanted to stay when they were asked to leave. And right now he was sure it would take an imperious curse to get Briony to move. It would have taken several to make him move as well.

He gripped Briony's hand tightly, giving it a reassuring squeeze as he tried not to let his nerves show. Shallow breathing was never a good sign, especially in someone so young when the lungs needed to be stronger. Holding his wife, he licked his lips nervously,

"If it's a problem with her lungs or chest..." he whispered, "Doesn't that tend to mean it's rather serious?"

When Patrick tapped her on the head to begin the diagnostic spell Richard was careful not to swear in frustration. Healers only used diagnostic spells when something was so rare that they didn't know what it was by manual tests. He swallowed a little bit before shaking his head,

"No she's not eaten anything different to what she normally eats." he told Patrick calmly, the calm completely put on, "As for creatures... I don't know really. We went down diagon alley and she checked out some cats in a pet store but other than that no."

He hugged Briony closer to him and nodded to Patrick,

"We shall get her there right away when the spell is finished."

Briony was so worried, she didn't even want to speak, it was so strange for this to happen, Raven was hardly ever ill! What could posisbly make her so out of it like this...biting her lip, she looked at her baby and she didn't let her eyes move from her, she would do anything to make sure that she was safe, she would give anything she needed.

When she heard that it was very serious because it was to do with the chest and the lungs, Briony couldn't help but let her head fall a little bit, maybe that meant they would need to go in an operate on her little girl, maybe something was wrong with her heart or...something?

"Will you need to operate on her?" she asked quietly, but she assuemed that the answer was already yes "Of course, depending on what the results are from the diagnostics spell...how long will that take to work by the way?"

She felt like the time between that spell being cast and the spell finishing was the most agonising wait of her life, she wanted to see what was wrong with her baby, and she wanted to be able to have it fixed sooner rather than later.

"Should wa admit her through emergency or...or what?" Briony asked, her usual air of confidence slowly melting away when she realised how bad this might be "And we'll be allowed to stay with her wont we?"

Richard was, quite frankly, at a bit of a loss. He had been making some of the exilier of life for little Raven for awhile now, to get her body used to the effects it would have when she decided she wanted to stop aging. The result had been a vastly improved immune system to name just one thing. And that should have meant that this disease couldn't have taken hold. The fact that it did spoke of how serious this was.

When Briony asked if the healer would have to operate on Raven, Richard's eyes widened. He didn't want them to operate on his little baby girl! They might make some kind of mistake,

"The spell shouldn't take too long..." Richard muttered quietly, having cast it himself several times, "But would she really need an operation? Operations on the chest or lungs are critical surgeries..."

Richard hugged Briony close to him as she started to grow more and more worried. He nodded slightly,

"We'll be allowed to stay with her." he told her before frowning slightly, "Even if we have to demand permission from the minister himself."

Patrick was just assuming that the little girl might have some sort of pneumonia in the lungs so that would explain the pressure that she was getting on her chest, and the shallow breathing, however that was inoperable and all they would be able to do was wait until it ran it's course, pump her full of antibiotics and keep her under observation.

However, then he heard the one thing that he did not want to hear under any circumstances and he knew what he had to do, he had to act fast and he had to act now, standing up swiftly he packed the equipment away and looked at Richard and Briony.

"Pick her up now, we have to get her immediately to my laboratory in St. Mungos." he stated, clicking his fingers at the small girl to illustrate that they needed to pick her up fast and move her.

Could it be that this thing had mutated already? Faster than he could have come up with a solution for it, he sure hoped not, but he didn't know what else it could be, especially if she had come into contact with the infected animals. Gritting his teeth he waited for them to be ready.

"I shall apparate us all there, time is of the essence and I need to give her the needed treatments as soon as possible, I'll explain everything in more detail when she's in a stable state." he all but commanded, not giving the Romains much choice, but this situation was serious.

Richard was instantly moving when Patrick stood up swiftly. The man was obviously very distressed about something so he rushed right up to Raven's bedside in case there was anything that he could do for her. When Patrick told him to pick his daughter up he hesitated... for about a second.

Scooping Raven up in his arms, craddling her small body against his chest as she made delirious murmours against him. He nodded to Patrick, feeling the panic beginning to set in,

"Alright we need to go to St Mungos..." he agreed and stood next to Patrick with Briony by his side, "Tell us what you think it is that she has?"

When he remembered where they were going, which part of the hospital, he gritted his teeth in frustration,

"This is new isn't it?" he whispered quietly, "That's why we're going to a lab and not a ward or A&E..."

Briony felt her eyes widen when the two men jumped intp action, her heart was in her mouth and she wanted to be able to just wave a spell and he could fix her in an instant but...but she couldn't and this was something that Briony couldn't accept. What use was it to be the Headmistress of Hogwarts if she couldn't even help her daughter when she needed it?

Moving towards to two gentlemen Briony was focused entirely on getting the trip to the hospital done, she wanted her daughter treated and she didn't want to waste time. When she was under control in a medical setting then they could talk about what it was that was wrong.

"Let's just get her in the lab and treated with whatever Patrick thinks is best, then we can talk about what's wrong." she stated through gritted teeth in an attempt to stop her distress coming through.

Then, in a blink of an eye, Patrick apparated them to his laboratory, and the agonising wait continued, to find out what was wrong with her baby.