THE GOOD



October 1992.

"Good morning, Mr. Kaiton."

"Good morning, Madam Healer."

"You sound quite cheerful," the woman smiled. "Did you sleep well?"

"Not at all," he beamed. "It was absolute, horrendous torture for hours on end. Even worse than regrowing the tissue yesterday." He carefully wiggled his fingers. "Seems to have worked though."

"You know, my usual patients aren't quite so happy about taking Skelegro."

"Yeah, well, they're wizards, ain't they?" She nodded. "They take it for granted. Me, I've had to do without my right arm for five years. I never thought I'd get it back. That's... I'll take all the pain you can dish out for that. Do you have any idea just how many things need two hands?"

"Quite a few, I imagine." She gave him a long look. "I never really thought about it that way, but I suppose it must be a very different experience for Muggles who never realized that a cure existed."

"Totally. But you know, even knowing about magic, it wasn't like I could hope to get it. There's nowhere near enough magic to cure everyone, and me, I'm just a ex-metal worker living on benefits, there's no way I could afford to pay for this! I wouldn't have had a chance if it weren't for the NHS lottery. And with that, not one in a thousand people like me end up getting help. I'd be an absolute prat to be ungrateful for any of this."

"I see your point. But for a happy thought, problems like yours are going to be a lot more rare in the future." She smiled as she started running her wand over his arm. "It takes a relatively high effort to regrow limbs – at least for Muggles where the potions need to be guided along – but it's the work of a few minutes to stop them from getting amputated in the first place, if all that's wrong is something like a squashed arm. A number of people are working on an initiative to enable Muggle Healers to inform available Magic Healers for specific high-urgency issues. We're using the trial run as a training tool for Healers, actually. Even a first-year apprentice can handle many of the emergency room problems that typically get Muggles killed or handicapped."

"I hadn't heard about it..." Peter smiled contently. That sort of precaution would definitely have helped him. Yes, the world was getting better by the day.