If he wanted to take care of sickly children, he would have applied for the paediatrics ward. Any reasonable person would assume that this meant he wanted nothing to
do with children. But apparently there might be an outbreak of black cat flu, and with the holidays quickly approaching, there were practically half the number of regular healers, many of them having chosen to extend their leave. So that left Theodore, ever the hard worker, with extra rounds. Not to mention that besides the extra work (which he put a reminder in for extra pay), he had to deal with more incompetency than usual: more healers-in-training on rotation to make up for the lack of manpower. What a Christmas miracle.
His wardrobe suggested this morning — rather rudely — that his sour mood had something to do with the fact that this will be yet another Christmas without any plans. Theodore briefly considered having it chopped up for extra kindling, but it was still the holiday season and he didn't like giving the house elves more work. Maybe some furniture shop will see a new donation after New Year's.
It wasn't hard to figure out that the annoying hunk of wood was right about these sort of things, as it tended to be. That was the unfortunate part of having old, magical furniture that have been in the family for at least two generations– they never shut up. Of course, now they were pretty much the only voices Theodore heard in the manor. Theirs, and the house elves'. He's not made of stone, and there's no one alive who would relish spending the holiday season alone, but by now he's mostly gotten used to it spending most of the year like this. Work is a welcome distraction, and he doesn't mind putting more into what he's already good at. This manner of living suited him just fine.
"Just fine." Theodore repeated the last part of his thought out loud, ignoring the strange looks from some healers-in-training. While he didn't mind so much in terms of being overworked, he didn't fancy the idea of missing lunch break entirely. Merlin knows they had an endless supply of students from Dilys to make sure that didn't happen, and yet, a cold sandwich from the tea room is the best he could manage at times. He was about to decide which unlucky students were to accompany him on midday rounds when he noticed someone loitering around the supply closet.
He seemed vaguely familiar, older and more qualified. Theodore couldn't tell if he was just another Healer from a different floor, or a Mediwizard, or even a student who's been held back three times too many. "You," he frowned, tapping the other man's shoulder to get his attention, "you're not in regulation robes." Pointing out the fairly obvious. "But if you're just going to be hanging around you may as well be useful. I assume you've gone through standard hygiene procedures? We'll just be doing rounds and making sure the patients who have contracted black cat flu have the symptoms under control, so please tell me you're with paediatrics or bugs and have half a decent idea as to what we're dealing with." Again, he chose
spell damage for a reason.
@Hal Trickett 
