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It was very exciting - the first time.
‘Young male,’ he had been told hurriedly as he strode quickly down the corridor, ‘fractured spine and possible internal bleeding from the curse blasting him into the air-’
‘Any magical effects?’ he’d barked, holding out his hand for the clipboard.
‘No, just some minor burn marks across the torso - but, Healer Gower, you should know who it is-’
The trainee handed him the clipboard, and, for the first time in his career, Gower stopped dead in his tracks. ‘My goodness…’
‘Yeah,’ said the trainee.
‘And does he have the…?’ He gestured to his forehead. The trainee nodded. ‘How extraordinary. Well, better not let him die then, eh?’ He smacked the trainee lightly with the clipboard with a ‘hah!’ of laughter, and resumed his rapid pace.
And there he’d been, lying on the hospital trolley, looking, quite frankly, bored beneath the grazes and burns. He’d had his head put in a brace - spines were always tricky to heal so couldn’t be done on scene - so he could only flick his startling green eyes to Gower as he leant over him.
‘I’ve always wanted to meet you,’ he told him cheerfully. There was the scar on his head. As all the stories described. What he wouldn’t give to poke it with his wand, see what was happening there.
He looked incredibly young. Gower had read in the paper recently that he was eighteen, but had put it down to one of Rita Skeeter’s usual mistakes, because that would have meant he was only seventeen last year, and that couldn’t have been right. The boy’s mouth twitched into a weak smile, and he said, ‘I’m sure you’ll see a lot of me.’
‘Is that so?’ said Gower. ‘No good at your job, are you?’
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Harry Potter said, and Gower barked with laughter again. He liked him. Most of his patients would be screaming or crying and shaking, and it was always such a faff.
But now Gower could get easily to work, and he enjoyed the boy’s dry humour about it all. ‘You’ve got some tricky internal bleeding,’ he informed him, running his wand over his stomach.
‘That’s all right, that’s where it’s supposed to be,’ said the boy, and for half a second Gower wondered if he was stupid, before realising he had an amused glint in his eye.
The second time wasn’t long after the first, but there wasn’t as much rushing. He was clutching his arm, rather mangled, but sniggering with a red-haired young lad who was stood by the bed, both of them still in their Auror robes.
‘Back again!’ Gower said to him jovially.
‘Thought I’d pop by,’ Harry Potter replied. ‘I hope it won’t be long, I’m meant to be at the pub in half an hour.’
‘It’ll take as long as it takes,’ Gower told him sternly, but he didn’t mind really. It was still very exciting to have Harry Potter in front of him. ‘That’s a strange tattoo,’ he said, nodding to the back of the boy’s hand as he held it out, his wand stitching back the flesh of his ripped arm.
‘Oh, no, it’s a scar,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t want it there.’
Gower raised his eyebrows at him. It wasn’t often you saw scars that formed neat words. ‘That must have been a funny accident.’
The boy grinned. ‘Yeah, what are the chances?’
By the third time, the excitement from the trainees that Harry Potter was in the ward was a bit wearing. ‘Leave the boy alone,’ Gower snapped at them impatiently - they kept popping into his room under the guise of checking his chart, even though it was a simple case of a fractured skull and he didn’t require any more treatment, just some rest. ‘I’m sure you’ll see him again soon, he’s not going anywhere is he?’
The fourth time was far more serious. His blood had splattered the ground and he had moaned in pain as they lifted him from the stretcher to the trolly, his head lolling, his eyes blinking blearily up at the ceiling. It had been so bad, that Gower thought it was probably time to call in his loved ones. He looked down at the chart, the information the boy had had to fill in when he joined the aurors, and then he huffed, leaning down and speaking slowly and clearly to him.
‘Mr Potter, you’ve not put down a next of kin for me to inform.’
Potter had moaned and blinked confusedly at him, and one of the trainee healers had gone scarlet, and hissed at him. ‘Healer Gower! He…’ she looked down at Potter, and kept her voice low. ‘He hasn’t got any, has he?’
‘He must have someone to call on!’ Gower said irritably. ‘You - Jorkins! Continue with the fib charm, keep the rhythm nice and steady. I’ll be back in a ticket.’
He marched out of the ward to speak to the aurors that had brought him in - one, the same red-haired boy as before, was pacing nervously, so Gower approached him. ‘You, what’s your name?’
‘Er, Ron- ’
‘You’re often with him, aren’t you? You have been before.’
‘I- yes, is he all right?’
‘He hasn’t put any emergency contacts down - the paperwork is never bloody right from your department. Who needs to know he’s in here?’
The boy paled beneath his splattering of freckles. ‘Er… A bunch of people. His girlfriend, and my mum-’
‘Right, go and tell them to get here then - don’t look like that, boy, we’re doing our best!’
A few hours later, Harry Potter was conscious again, surrounded by a group of red haired people and a young lady with bushy brown hair. Gower walked past just as the red-haired girl was scolding him.
‘Ron said you didn’t have anyone down as next of kin, you plonker.’
‘Well, I-’
‘Oh, don’t be so obtuse! Someone’s got to be informed if you snuff it, haven’t they?’
‘Just attention seeking at that point, really, aren’t you?’ said a man with only one ear. ‘All these years and you still don’t think to put the name Weasley down anywhere.’
‘Sorry, I just-’
‘Ron’s brought the paperwork, we’re doing it right here,’ said a plump woman sternly. ‘For goodness sake, Harry…’
Healer Gower barely got a break, because Harry Potter was in again the very next week. ‘I’m getting a bit sick of you,’ he told him. Although he noted that he now had a very long list of emergency contacts.
Potter had just laughed. ‘I did warn you. Erm, I got hit with a funny spell and my leg has started turning blue.’
Gower huffed. ‘Have you thought about a different career?’
‘Really, Healer Gower, I don’t think that would make much difference to how often you saw me.’
The worst time had been when he was rushed in by a whole group of aurors, Ron Weasley included, looking as though he had been trampled by a gang of trolls.
‘They tricked us,’ said one of the aurors. ‘It was an ambush - we just went to arrest one person, but then when we thought it was over, they all came out of nowhere - they waited until he was in a separate room, we couldn’t get to him-’
As he had leaned over him, working with his team to fix the injuries, Harry Potter had raised a fist and gripped the front of his robes. ‘Dumbledore,’ he’d gasped. ‘You need to let him know-’
‘All right,’ Gower had replied, and he glanced up at the other Healers. ‘Tracey, could you check for any skull fractures?’
‘I need to speak to Dumbledore-’
‘You will-’
‘Now! I need to speak to him, there’s no time - the graveyard - Riddle-’
Ron Weasley swore, and Gower looked up at him to see him gripping his hair while another auror, a blond young man, gripped his arm.
‘He’s all right, Ron-’
‘He’s not, he’s not, that’s from fourth year - are you gonna tell him, Nev? You gonna tell him everything that’s happened?’
‘Gower,’ Tracey called, and he looked over to see her trying to hold his head still as he thrashed, trying to get up.
‘I need to- Dumbledore!’
‘Stop him moving!’ Jenkins shouted. ‘If I don’t fix this he’s going to go into cardiac arrest-’
They’d had to pin him down, and in his panic and adrenaline they struggled to get the pain relief to work. Finally, he started to calm as they worked on him, though Tracey kept the head brace on him, looking down at his pale face. His eyes had gone glassy as he stared up at the ceiling.
‘Can you hear me, Harry?’ she asked him.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You’re in St Mungos.’
‘OK.’
‘Can you remember what happened?’
‘Erm…’ His lips moved soundlessly. Gower was surprised to see his eyes grow even glassier.
‘Can you tell me who the Minister for Magic is?’ he asked him briskly.
Harry Potter was silent for a few moments, and then said, ‘Kingsley.’
Tracey nodded in relief, but Gower wasn’t so sure. Memory could be a funny, confused thing. ‘Anyone you want to speak to?’
‘Ginny,’ he said, but then his eyelids had drooped, and he had fallen unconscious.
They left young Ron Weasley in the room with him for him to wake up - it was best, Healer Gower thought, that the rest of the family waited outside so they didn’t overwhelm him, and then Ron could explain what had happened. ‘I expect his memory will be fine,’ he told him. ‘Once we fixed the concussion he seemed to recall more up to date information.’
‘He’ll remember that Dumbledore’s dead, then?’ Ron asked.
‘I should expect so. I don’t think we’ll see any problems. It was just a nasty bump on the head, it wasn’t magic induced as far as I can tell.’
‘Right. Good.’ Ron Weasley shook his head. ‘I’ll bloody kill him, worrying us like that.’
It was months later before Gower saw him again, but the moment he walked in and saw that familiar mop of messy hair and sheepish grin, he threw his clipboard on the floor. ‘Not you, Potter! Sort yourself out!’
Harry Potter had just laughed, holding out a very burnt looking forearm. ‘Sorry. I promise I’ll be quick. I’ve really got to be somewhere tonight. I don’t need the full works, just patch me up enough so I can be discharged.’
‘Well you should have been more careful then, shouldn’t you?’ said Gower. He glanced at the clipboard as he picked it up. ‘Oh, happy birthday. Nineteen, is it?’
Harry Potter nodded. ‘If I’m late for dinner, Molly will kill me.’
‘Ah, that woman who did your paperwork?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right, yes, we’ll I’ll just grab you some balm and a sling for now then, and you can come back in tomorrow. I don’t want her marching in here to come and get you.’
All in all, the first year Gower knew Harry Potter was fairly eventful. He did think, many years later, that it should have been a sign. He marched down the corridor, a trainee jogging at his heel.
‘Not Harry bloody Potter again,’ he said, glancing at the chart.
‘Er, no, Healer, but he is here-’
‘Eh?’
He went into the room. Harry Potter was there, standing anxiously at the foot of the bed, rubbing at that scar Gower had been so excited to see all those years ago. ‘Ah, Healer Gower,’ he said. ‘This is my son, James. I expect you’ll get to know him.’