I thought I’d seen it all, until I got a job working with a Dr. Gandalf at the Hogsmeade Veterinary Hospital, the never-before-talked-about pet practice for the wizarding world of Harry Potter.
Every morning, I trundle my veterinary management books down the steep station stairs to Platform 9 3/4 and wait with a bunch of other weirdoes for a train that will take me to the office.
Once there, I have a pumpkin juice with Dr. Gandalf who lazily passes a wand over a sick owl here and lazy-eyed rat there. All the receipts are taken in gold by a young witch from the school, a Missy Ditherling, a nice enough girl, with a limp due to a cobra bite she received while holding one of Dr. Gandalf’s patients. I said, ‘Dr. Gandalf, number one, Workman’s Comp! And Number two, how on earth did it bite her in the leg? She was supposed to be holding it, not flopping it around with her feet.’
Dr. Gandalf never listens to a thing I say. I ask him, ‘Steven, what’s the point of me being here? If I’ve told you once I’ve told you fifteen times, I don’t want you doing any spells for nail trims free of charge.’ And he looks at me over those half-moon spectacles and says, ‘my dear man, it’s just a wave of a wand. It’s not that big a deal.’
Not that big of a deal. I don’t know the last time you took a stroll in Hogsmeade, but it’s not for the penny-wise. When I was young, well, you probably remember too, you could pick up a bag of Bixley’s Magical Cat Food (shaped like tiny little mice, it scrambled out of the bowl and ran for cover as soon as you poured it out of the bag), for a mere 4 Quibits. Now, everything is a goblin’s fortune. Our veterinary hospital’s rent was increased last year, and due to a clause in the magical lease (who in their right mind would sign a magical lease???) jumped up again this past month.
I took the job because I had to. I was working for some muggles in Akron, OH. They have an office manager there, nice enough, who thought she could outsmart me with her own kind of magic (she called it an iPad…muggles…you know?). She said, according to my figures, we don’t need you. According to my figures, we’re doing just fine on our own. We’re as happy as a pig in a poke. Really, I said, with a gleam in my eye. And with a wave of a wand, she was.
You can imagine that didn’t go over well with the people down at the Ministry. I was forced to turn her back. They took one look at her and said, ‘well, we’re ready when you are. Change her back.’ And I looked them and said with a thin smile, ‘I already did.’ So that was that. They banished me from muggle veterinary management, and I’m stuck here with Dr. ‘Moon Eyes’ and ‘Limpy’ Dithering. I’m trying to make the best out of what I consider to be a very bad situation.
That said, I suppose I should get on with why I’m contacting you to begin with. The Hogsmeade Veterinary Hospital is in desperate need of someone to work the vampire bat kennels. The prospective applicant should have a pleasant disposition, be able to work evenings…very late evenings…be able to work around garlic and be gifted with fresh blood and guano spells. Suitable candidates should owl their application to me at the earliest Eastern Wind. And remember, Hogsmeade Veterinary Hospital: our heartworm tests are a <snap> !