Child Counsultant's Magical Anxiety Reducing Potion Shop.

Percy and his hypnotising hippogriff's pastry eating has been briefly suspended for a far more important post. 

for the past five weeks, Percy has been waking up at five in the morning, driving absurd distances from his house to get to his assigned hospital paediatric ward for that week and then to his university for two-hour long lectures on children with coughs and babies with congenital heart defects. this would be after he'd spent the whole morning taking histories, botching up clinical exams and then making a fool of himself to the healers by not being able to answer half their questions. he typically returns home at five-thirty or six-thirty in the afternoon most days. at times, he would have not had a single tea break during the day. 

this following week is the last week that Percy has to go to the hospital, because after this week, he has his FINAL exams. yes, after spending approximately 1 1/2 months in paediatric wards, Percy is now expected to examine an ill child for his paediatric examination on the 23rd, followed by a neonatal exam on the 26th of October where he is supposed to examine a baby that is not even a week old. 

did he mention that this week was the first week he'd even held a baby? 

in typical chewing-tables-and-having-relentless-anxiety fashion, Percy was told to evaluate his own performance by a paediatric counsultant on Thursday. after he told the consultant that he believed that his performance was satisfactory, the man said that he thought that Percy was better than that. when Percy mentioned that he was unhappy with his neonatal exam that he did with Dr Crup, the healer said, 

                                                      "Dr Crup* was very happy with you."

and when he said this, Percy thought that he was about to dissolve into happy tears. a counsultant paediatric healer had told Percy that he thinks that Percy's problem is that he overthinks things, and that he blanks out and gets nervous unnecessarily. and then he told Percy, 

         "people are nervous when they don't have the knowledge or the skill. you have both of those." 

it is the sentences and words that everyone had been telling him all his life, but Percy had never had a CONSULTANT take an hour of his day to sit with him, and tell him that he thought that Percy was doing more than satisfactory. in fact, if Percy had to genuinely rate himself, he would give himself an etremely subpar rating. it is with this thought that Percy decides that no matter what happens during the examinations, he realises that he should take the time to calm down. there will be NO third wizarding world if he had forgotten to ask the mother if she had a standard vaginal delivery if the rest of his history is still intact. 

Percy honestly felt like crying tears of joy when the doctor told him this. he felt like the heavy weight of his own expectations of himself disappear. Percy is fully aware that he will still leave his examination feeling like he could've done much better, but he is also aware that the healers know that Percy is under stress, and that he is truly his own worst critic. knowing that how he rates himself post-exam is nowhere near how the professors are going to rate him brings him a closure NOW that he is attempting to embrace. Percy knows that he will not be calm during his exam. he will be tachycardic, talk too quickly, have a resting tremor and suffer from signs of hyperthyroidism. and he will probably leave the exam with a mixture of doom and nausea. but at least he knows that it is perfectly normal. as is passing out, and ingesting his body weight in carbohydrates straight after. 

also, apparently, because Percy asked - the healers are not bothered when Percy repeats himself, or when he does not say anything for approximately ten seconds during said examination... who would have thought? 

*the healer that Percy was referring to has a surname that is a carnivorous animal of the dog family.