In the mornings on weekdays, Harry would most often be found in the Emergency hall at St Mungo’s. He was working closely with Healer Sheno, his mentor, who let his young apprentice assist in all sorts of matters, from small ailments to learning to deal with complicated spell damage. Shortly before noon one day – Harry was already starting to get hungry – Sheno was called on his alarm.

“An injured Auror is coming in,” he exclaimed. Harry's eyes widened and he felt his heart start to beat faster. It might be someone he knew.

“Ok, Harry, let’s meet up with them. Remember now not to be too hasty. In cases like this there might be multiple injuries. You need to keep your head cool and assess the whole picture before you start healing your patient.”

“Otherwise you might start healing a less serious wound and miss a major one.” Harry confirmed that he understood, while they were running towards the emergency booths. “You want me to do the diagnostic scan?” he added a bit nervously. Sheno nodded.

“Unless they’re unconscious – in which case it might be a head injury and that’s a bit advanced for you as yet.”

The drapery was lifted magically for them to enter the booth. Harry instantly recognized Ron in company with two Aurors gathered around a still and bloodied body. Ron’s face was screwed up in concern and met Harry’s eyes briefly, backing off to make room for the healers.

“OK, Harry, I’ll take this…” Sheno started to say when they were interrupted by a woman’s voice behind them.

“I’ll wake him up.” To Harry’s surprise, Mrs Steadfast took a few quick steps past them towards the wounded wizard and before Sheno could stop her she had waved her wand over the wizard's face. Harry had by now recognized Soundy, Mrs Steadfast’s right hand, as the victim.

“My dear lady, that wasn’t very wise…” Sheno started to scold, hurrying up by Soundy’s side. To their surprise the wizard opened his eyes, his gaze quickly clearing up. He fastened them on Mrs Steadfast and said hoarsely:

“I didn’t betray anything, Mrs Steady. When I felt the first sensation of the Imperius, I self-stupefied and blanked out.”

The book, Harry thought instinctively. Soundy must be in on the secret where Voldemort’s book was hidden and someone from the Shiftings had abducted him to torture its whereabouts out of him.

“I knew you would resist, Soundy, I knew I could count on you.” Mrs Steadfast had taken the wizard’s hand in her own, a bit moved after all. “They still seem to have roughed you up a bit,” she added with sympathy. Soundy made a grimace of pain.

“They ambushed me outside my house this morning,” he said. “Both Mr Burgess and Mr Hatch were there. When I think that Bellamy used to be one of my trainees, I…”

“Hush, we’ll talk later, when you’re healed,” said Mr Steadfast. “Bellamy Burgess is a lost cause - it happens. Now, we found you, didn’t we? We even caught a couple of Shifting members. Easy now.”

“He’s yours for diagnosis, Harry,” said Sheno. “No head injury, I checked. Self-stupefaction – what a thing to do when you’re captured and exposed!” He sounded both incredulous and disapproving. Harry stepped forward to proceed with the examination, gesturing to a care wizard to help him Tergeo the blood away for visual inspection of the wounds as well. While he started his diagnostic incantation, he was only vaguely aware of what was going on around him.

“If you know for a fact that you’re unable to resist the Imperius curse – which very few wizards and witches are able to do – you need another strategy to avoid it,” said Mrs Steadfast. “I always teach my crew self-stupefaction. It’s difficult enough, it needs to be brought on quickly before the Imperius starts to act.”

“But you’re at your opponents’ complete mercy!” Sheno objected, keeping an eye on Harry while debating with Mrs Steadfast.

“Well, it needs to be used with discernment. When you’re certain that you possess a knowledge that your opponent wants, you can be pretty sure they’re not going to kill you – they’re going to wait for you to wake up, and you’ll have bought yourself – and your rescuers - time.”

“I suppose it’s quite difficult?” asked Ron, looking with admiration at Soundy.

“It takes some time to learn, lad,” mumbled Soundy, shutting his eyes and grimacing with pain again.

At that moment another imposing figure entered the booth.

“Did they get the location out of him?” Snape barked without preamble. Mrs Steadfast looked at him with reproach and Soundy snapped his eyes open again.

“Thanks for your concern, Professor,” he said sarcastically. “No, they didn’t…” he added weakly and closed his eyes again.

“Sorry,” muttered Snape. “I just heard about the abduction. I came here as soon as I could. I wanted to know if we needed to take further actions. No actual damage done then?” he asked Mrs Steadfast.

“Well… yes and no!” She rolled her eyes and gestured at Soundy’s injured body.

“Of course, but this can be managed,” said Snape. “Diagnosis?” he added to Harry who had just lowered his wand.

“Just a minute,” the young wizard muttered, lifting his hands and humming an incantation over Soundy’s upper abdomen. Sheno and Snape observed him impassively.

“Young Evans is doing well,” Snape murmured to Sheno.

“Indeed,” Sheno said. “Harry’s doing well whatever he has a try at, but I believe he has a special talent for diagnostics. He’s got very sensitive hands when it comes to detecting magical injuries.”

“I noticed so, too, last year in Defence against the Dark Arts class. Sensitive hands can get you quite far if you’ve got a good head to interpret your results,” Snape answered.

“Yeah, you should know…” Sheno replied. ”There are stories you know, among the staff at St Mungo’s, dating decades back, of your detection abilities.”

“Exaggerated, no doubt,” Snape muttered. Sheno opened his mouth to reply when Harry stopped his humming.

“The physical injuries are moderate,” he said. “The worst injury was a ruptured spleen which I healed right away and spelled the leaking blood back into the circulation.” He waited to get an affirmative nod from Sheno that he had done well to do so, before he continued. “Otherwise cuts and bruises mostly. Care-witch Isobel will heal them, but I’ve also discovered that Soundy’s been hit with a dark curse!”

“Bellamy Burgess had a go at me before I blacked out,” Soundy’s eyes darkened. “Quite uncontrolled in his manners that man is. I don’t understand why I didn’t realise what a lunatic we had among us last year before he left us for the Shiftings.”

“I’ll catch him for you, Soundy,” Mrs Steadfast said with grim determination.

“Please wait before you tell us which spell was used on you,” Snape said to Soundy and turned to Harry. “In this case you have a conscious patient who is able to speak for himself and who is moreover an experienced Auror. He’ll no doubt be able to tell you which curse was used, or at least be able to give you some clue to it. But, please consider alternative ways of diagnosing the curse, other than asking the patient. What could you do? What did the diagnostic spell tell you?”

With Snape’s guidance Harry was able to reason his way both to the cause and to the cure of the curse. Since he had never performed the healing incantation before, however, Snape showed him, and Soundy drew a deep breath.

“Much better,” he said. “Glad to contribute to your education, Harry!”

“I’m sorry!” Harry exclaimed, guilt-stricken. ”It would’ve been quicker if I hadn’t…”

“No, no…” said Soundy.”It would’ve gone marginally faster. Marginally,” he reinforced. “I meant what I said – I’m really glad to see you make such progress. I hope that you’ll impress us with your Auror skills at the upcoming exam tomorrow as well, Harry. Walter here is preparing something special for you all.” The tall and fair haired wizard beside the stretcher grinned broadly.

“Are you, Sir?” Harry said, trying to stifle a wry face. In his view, the American physical education trainer was a bit over zealous. What was he doing on the rescue mission anyway? He was not a proper Auror to Harry’s knowledge.

“We need to know that you’re able to protect yourselves before joining in on real missions. Ron accompanying the rescue team today was a reward for good thinking,” said Mrs Steadfast. Harry looked appreciatively at his friend and Ron blushed.

“I only kept my head cool,” he said. “It was discovered right away that Soundy had been taken, because his wife saw what happened through the window and alerted us…”

“By Jupiter!” exclaimed Soundy, “I need to floo-call Sîan and tell her I’m okay.”

“Already done,” said Mrs Steadfast. “She’s on her way.” Soundy sank back on the stretcher, looking embarrassed.

“That was not strictly necessary,” he muttered. “I’ll be able to go home soon, won’t I? I’m healed and done.”

“You’ll stay twenty-four hours for observation,” said Sheno. “Routine after a Dark Arts injury,” he added sternly when Soundy opened his mouth to protest.

“Possible late effects,” Snape clarified for Harry’s benefit. “Rare, but possible. Late organ failure. You’ll need to spell check the magical content of the organs every three hours during admission.” Mrs Steadfast picked up the previous tread.

“Mr Weasley was the only one of the students and one of very few of my own Aurors who didn’t vote for going straight to the place where the… er… a certain protected object is hidden,” she said. Harry did not know how many on the team knew of the book Voldemort had left for his son, which they had managed to lay hands on last term, but it seemed that Mrs Steadfast had kept even the majority of her Aurors in the dark, which was good. The fewer that knew the better.

“I said I thought that Soundy would resist for a while and that we had time to plan our rescue, “said Ron.

“Thank you,” said Soundy drily. “I had expected better of my colleagues.”

“You know what happens when one of our own is targeted,” said Mrs Steadfast. “They panicked. But rushing straight to our hiding place would’ve compromised us,” she added. “I’m sure they had spies in the quarters surrounding the Ministry to track us. We would have led them to the hiding place.”

“I was thinking of all the times I’ve rushed ahead on impulse over the years,” Ron muttered. “I must have learnt something from our adventures.” Harry and he smiled at each others in understanding. Harry would never forget the trauma of having lived with Voldemort looming over his existence all those years, but with time passing, some of his and Ron’s and Hermione’s adventures over the years had started to attain a certain mellowed lustre. “And then Walter came up with this brilliant plan,” Ron pursued. Walter was the only teacher who permitted the students to use his first name.

“It’s new, but I had seen it done in the States,” Walter drawled importantly.

“We were able to find Soundy thanks to his security watch,” Mrs Steadfast explained.

“The Auror in charge of magical artefacts did the job,” Ron said enthusiastically. ”It wasn’t easy, but it was possible to track Soundy very accurately even though he was unresponsive at the time.”

“We were lucky,” said Mrs Steadfast. ”Security watches are new. It’s only a matter of time before criminals will learn how to manipulate them if they don’t want to be traced. There’s a lot of creativity in the criminal world as well. We just need to keep ahead of them.”

Care witch Isobel and one of her colleagues were preparing to move Soundy to the Dark Arts injuries ward. One Auror was to remain with him, but the others prepared to return to headquarters. Snape said he was needed back at Hogwarts. He had only been able to join them by skipping lunch, and there was a class waiting for him right now.

“A bunch of nitwits,” he muttered. Mrs Steadfast raised an eyebrow.

“You obviously should have chosen to become an Auror or a Healer full time if you wanted to be closer to the action, Severus. Can’t help you there, but there’s nothing dishonourable in the task of a headmaster,” she bantered. “I can fill you in on details later if you’ll have dinner with me tonight?” she offered. Snape narrowed his eyes.

“Muggle restaurant?” he asked suspiciously.

”Why not?” Mrs Steadfast answered innocently.

”Humph, maybe, I’ll be in touch,” said Snape and swept away.

“Such a charming, forth-coming wizard,” Mrs Steadfast said sarcastically, shaking her head to herself before lifting her gaze to Ron and Harry. “Why does he stay as a teacher at Hogwarts when he could work as a healer? You can tell he’s more passionate about healing than about pupils.” She looked inquiringly at Harry. For some reason she seemed to regard him as some sort of expert on Snape behaviour since the close of last term. She was wrong, Harry thought, Snape was quite as much an enigma to him as to her. Although some things were obvious.

“Why, out of loyalty,” he said. Mrs Steadfast nodded thoughtfully before she knitted her eyebrows again.

“Loyalty to whom?” she asked.

“Why, to Albus Dumbledore,” said Harry.

“Ah, of course,” Mrs Steadfast said, looking more puzzled than ever. She cleared her throat and said sternly: “You two should make sure to revise properly for tomorrow’s test. No other plans for tonight, I hope?” The two young men looked slightly guilty. Mrs Steadfast raised an eyebrow.

“We’re attending a Quidditch match this evening,” said Harry. “But it won’t get late, and I’ll bring my notes to revise between scores.” Mrs Steadfast raised her eyebrows even higher. “Ginny’s team is playing France. It’s a matter of…”

”National honour,” Ron filled in.

”Suit yourselves,” Mrs Steadfast muttered. ”But don’t fail your tests!” she cautioned them.