A man and his dog

The way Apollo talked tempted Michael to tell him to cut his parents some slack, regardless of how bad they were at parenting. He hoped Jenna didn't talk about him like that.

"If you ever want to talk about it," he offered with an awkward shrug, "that's my speciality. Minds, relationships, all of that."

And then the moment was over, thank Merlin. Michael nodded as he turned back to the forms from the Ministry and began filling them in.

"Muggles," he confirmed.

"I don't know about sentencing. I imagine it would depend on how badly the person had breached the Statute of Secrecy."

He paused to look over at Apollo again, and was reminded how young the kid was. And it wasn't like when they were his age. How old was Apollo? It was with a twinge that Michael realised he must have already been older than Michael had been when his father was killed.

"Muggles aren't part of our world, Apollo," he gently explained. "There are attorneys who'll go before the wizengamot and argue that if we can heal the muggle and obliviate them, it's paramount to nothing ever happening."

"There are perfectly well meaning people on the wizengamot who think that if the punishment is more severe than a fine, it could drive the practice even more underground than it is now."

He went back to his paperwork.

"What's this all been about, anyway?" he asked. "I'm not just here to teach you about crups, you know."

One thing that Apollo never did was talk about it. Unless he did so with Lily. And perhaps stewing in it was unhealthy, but he knew exactly how vulnerable he could be before he snapped and said something he didn't mean to. So keeping quiet was a decent way to keep from making things worse for himself. At least in the public sphere.

So he grimaced slightly before he could catch himself. To be fair, Michael didn't seem entirely thrilled with the idea, either.

Unfortunately, Corner's argument was enough to take the wind out of Apollo's sails. He still hated it, but that wasn't something he could reasonably counter. And, again - he had never actually met any Muggles. So what did he know, anyway?

But despite his grudging acceptance of that bit, his eyebrows pulled together at the next. "Um, I'm not sure what you're asking. Some healer said she wanted a break so I was told to replace her."

"Did she," Michael said, unimpressed. "You'll have to point her out when she comes back."

Apollo wasn't qualified to be covering a real healer's breaks. If something happened while he was "covering" for someone and he made a mistake, they'd never hear the end of it.

"I mean you're not in Hogwarts anymore. Nobody's going to teach you the answers ahead of time. You have to teach them to yourself. Hell, if you do well enough, in a couple of years you'll be the one deciding what the right answers are."

Michael finished signing off on the file and spun his chair round to face Apollo.

"So, if you don't know what I was trying to teach you, at least tell me what you did learn," he said.

Apollo nodded and lifted an eyebrow in a silent version of easy agreement. It made no bloody sense, yet here he was. "I was just here to drop some things off for the Minister. I had no intention of getting pulled aside. Can't say I felt qualified."

Now that he had, though, he knew that Michael had a point. He reached up, running a hand through his hair as he tried to visualize a day that he would actually be as prepared as Corner assured him he could be. But he felt like he'd failed some sort of test, so he tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible. Even if it made no sense, doing so made him feel better.

"Well," he mused after a moment, "I certainly don't approve of what that man is doing, but I suppose the whole personal feelings bit is irrelevant regardless. I don't like it, but I see why it's important."

Apollo lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "That, and I evidently need to broaden my studies."

Michael leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Was that something Apollo had been taught, or just an assumption?

"On the contrary, your feelings matter. The reason you disapprove is because you have empathy for the child. I'd be concerned if you didn't."

"Emergency gets pretty intense sometimes. You'll see things that'll make you angry, or upset or just plain turn your stomach," he said, "but there's no potion or spell which can stop you feeling like that without taking away everything that makes you a good healer, too."

"Obviously, I'm not suggesting you ignore empirical evidence, of course," he added.

He leaned back and crossed his ankle across a knee.

"I wouldn't say you need to broaden your studies," he said. "There's no way you can know everything. I'm the same age as your father, remember, I have a bit more life experience."

"It's more a matter of thinking bigger. Instead of just thinking about how we can get a crup off a boy's foot, we think about how there came to be a crup biting the boy in the first place. If we can diagnose the big picture, we can prevent more crups biting muggle children."

This was not a good time for Robert to be in the States on some international matter with Lee Shepherd. Nor was it a good time for Brian and Khaat to be taking their much earned time away, even though it was only two nights.

Kate had been managing fine with the kids, all seven of them, because she had a great deal of help from the estate staff. Kate continued to be concerned for Dakota. The seven year old ginger was normally spunky and usually getting into some sort of harmless mischief.  

Dakota had not been herself, though, lately. Robert had noticed it before he left, and everyone had thought perhaps she had a touch of some sort of a bug. The child barely ate anything. Food just didn't interest her. Angus had been able to take a recipe for Hawaiian Sweet Bread and make it into a sweet and savory cracker that everyone liked, especially Dakota. Angus could get her to eat that, with some herbal tea, but that was about all.

Dakota didn't play much anymore either. Kate was finding her asleep somewhere more and more. This morning, though, when Dakota didn't come down for breakfast, Kate had found Dakota far more ill, and Dakota complained of aching everywhere. That was the first Kate had ever heard Dakota complain of any kind of pain.  It made Kate uneasy. She and Marcus Belby decided to take Dakota to St. Mungos together. Kate put some of the crackers in a plastic bag in her purse and dressed Dakota in a pair of denim crop pants and her favorite purple t shirt, and Marcus picked up Dakota who laid her head on his shoulder tiredly.

They arrived together in the emergency department, and the head nurse recognized them both at once but not Dakota.

"Mrs. Lupin? Mr. Belby?" the nurse asked. "Your daughter, Mr. Belby?"

"My granddaughter," Kate spoke up. "We need to see someone. She's not well."  Well, truth be told Dakota was her granddaughter and her great granddaughter. Dakota was Kate's daughter and granddaughter both. How bizarre was that?

"Bring her here," the nurse said, leading them to a treatment room. Marcus put Dakota on the bed, seeing her shiver. Kate picked up the blanket at the bottom of the bed and covered the fragile looking little ginger.  

"We may have to send for them," Kate told Marcus quietly, believing that Khaat and Brian and Robert would surely want to be here.

"We will if we need to," Marcus nodded.

"Let me go see if I can find someone for you," the nurse said, "and then we'll get the paperwork completed." The nurse left them to try to find a healer or an apprentice for them.

With the paperwork all signed off and his point made to Apollo (and in all honesty, that was the real reason they were in here - Michael was perfectly capable of signing a couple of papers out in the ward, thank you very much), he shut the ministry's folder and stood.

He didn't get much further, though. There was a knock on the door, but the person on the other side was in such a rush, she didn't even wait for an answer before opening it herself.

"Oops! Sorry!"

Michael was fairly sure he'd heard the other staff refer to the girl in blue scrubs as Eppi, and she usually seemed more capable than she was coming across right now. Right now, nervousness was practically radiating from her.

She eyed Apollo curiously before snapping her attention back to Michael.

"Anna told me to tell you that Katherine Lupin is here. With one of her grandchildren," she said.

Michael really wanted to roll his eyes. That family! He used to think Harry Potter was bad, but that was before he'd met the Lupins. Well, before he met the extended Lupins. Professor Lupin - Remus - wasn't so bad. Honestly, they should just install a penthouse in this hospital (Robert practically lived here anyway).

He gave Eppi the paperwork to give to the Ministry worker, and then turned to look quizzically at Apollo. He liked the Lupins, didn't he? Besides, in Michael's opinion, Kate was refreshingly sane compared to the rest.

"You coming along?"

Apollo jumped when the door opened, turning over his shoulder to look at the woman who had burst in. He expected it was nothing, but then another Lupin was brought up - one that Apollo wasn't sure he could place. But at the mention of grandchildren, he supposed she must be Robert's wife. And certainly someone that the Minister would be concerned about later on. When he found out, that is.

So, of course he was going. It took him a second, considering he'd expected to be told he should go home. He wasn't even supposed to be there anymore, considering his trip to retrieve supplies. But the option made itself available, so he stood and followed.

Merlin, Lily was going to kill him if he didn't stop coming home so late. Or leave him, more likely. But the idea of that was discouraging as well.

So perhaps he would have to duck out sooner than he ought to, but he was curious. And he felt like he owed it to his mentor, even if Robert had never once called himself that.

They made it to the Lupins' room as the nurse started to draw out the necessary paperwork, and Apollo made sure to keep out of the way, standing by the door and taking stock of everyone in the room and how they were faring.

Of course the staff recognized Kate--she didn't come here very often, but people did seem to make a point of noticing who Robert was related to or hung around with. Marcus would have been more surprised if they did not know her, and he expected them to recognize him in their sleep. After all, whenever Khaat was here, he was here, and wherever she went, he went. It had gotten to the point where he was finally viewed as pretty much just part of the furniture.

Marcus had always liked Kate. Since starting to work for them, Marcus had observed that she was the strength and staying power in the Lupin household. It certainly wasn't Robert, not for all his internalized thinking and overly controlled outward demeanor. She seemed, to Marcus, to be content to let Robert do whatever shining needed to be done, and she was content to be in the background.

She had been wise enough to not make any sort of fuss with Dakota, had been trying to keep things quiet, and Dakota seemed better for it than probably Marcus's children might have been. Dakota apparently saw no real reason to be unnerved, and she seemed to be half dozing.

"Shall I send for Khaat and Brian?" Marcus asked quietly.

"Not yet," Kate said. "I'm hoping I'm just overreacting. How would you even reach them anyway?"

"I have a couple of portkeys," Marcus said. "It wouldn't do for us not to be able to reach them or Robert."

"Did I miss anything, Marcus?" she asked.

"When you described the symptoms for the paperwork? No. I don't think so," he said, noticing a tiny squeaking sound. He frowned.

"What's that noise?" Kate asked, hearing it too. Marcus went to Dakota and gently loosened the child's fingers. "Here's your noise," he said, taking a newborn baby pygmy puff from Dakota's fist. "Any other child would bring a stuffed animal. Why is it a Lupin that brings a pygmy puff?" He dropped the tiny lavender furball in his jacket pocket, hoping the thing didn't get loose and cause havoc here. His squeaking pocket would surely be annoying enough.

"Keep a watch on that thing, please, Marcus. We don't want any trouble," Kate said, sitting well out of the way of the bed, to not get in the way of any medical staff that might come in. "I just want her to feel better. I want her to go back to starting food fights at the dinner table." He did not want to point out to her that she had picked up a stray paperclip off the tray table and was sitting silently, fiddling with the paperclip to keep her hands busy. She was working hard to try to not be seen as anything other than calm and not as panicky on the outside as she felt on the inside.

Michael wasn't as well acquainted with the rest of the Lupin household as he was with Robert, but he did know that practically all of them were healers.  And even those who weren't... well, people picked things up.  It was unlikely they would have brought one of the children here unless they thought it was serious.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asked as they entered the room.