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Partially Mad
The war had stolen from all of us. From Ron, it had taken a brother. From Harry, it had taken his parents, and then Albus Dumbledore. From me, it had taken my sanity.
Bellatrix Lestrange had torn my mind into pieces with each graceful cruel flick of her wand, and the natural way her tongue curved around a single, small word that is able to cause so much excruciating pain.
They told me she had tortured me for almost six hours, not as long as Neville's parents, but long enough for my mind to not work the way it used to. Where my thoughts used to flow smoothly, now they are fragmented. One moment I'll be thinking of one thing, and then on my best days I'll just trail of into something completely different without even realizing. On my worst days, my thoughts will dissolve and I'll be back at Malfoy Manor. Logically, I'll know it's not real because the pain is not the same. When it happened, it was the equivalent to every nerve in my body being set on fire, burning alive, but instead of burning externally, my mind was the thing melting in the flames. However, when I go back to that place, the pain is in the remembrance. I know it's not real, but the panic wells inside of me anyway, and I'll be stuck in the fear for a while.
Mentally, it took me a week to leave Malfoy manor. That week was spent in St. Mungo's hospital, with my arms strapped to the bed because I wouldn't stop thrashing and screaming and pulling at my hair. When I was finally lucid, a healer came to talk to me. She told me I was lucky because if I had been in that manor even an hour more, I may have been completely mad. Completely mad were actually the words she used.
I laughed about that when she left. She called Remus and Sirius, and they arrived only ten minutes after that. Apparently, they were to be taking care of me, because they were they were the only adults that lived in a quiet environment that would help me adjust.
They stayed with me as the nurse removed the restraints from the wrists, and then as I ate. Finally, the healer came back. She pulled Remus outside of the room, and I could see her talking to him outside my window, probably discussing my diagnosis, not completely mad.
Sirius drew my attention from them when he sat in the chair next to my cot and took my hand gently in his. I turned my head so I could look at him. He was attractive in an older guy sort of way with his long shaggy black hair, and kind eyes that were displaying a gentleness toward me that I had only seen him show before when he was looking at Harry.
"How are you feeling, kitten?" he asked me in a soft, husky tone.
Remus came back into the room without the healer. "You have been discharged," he told me quietly. "We made up your old room at Grimmauld Place. It'll just be Sirius there for now, but in a few weeks, after you've settled in, I'll move in with Tonks and Teddy"—little Teddy. He is the most precious child, never failing to amuse me with his constantly changing appearance. One moment, while cuddled in his father's arms, he will adopt matching sandy blonde hair and kind eyes, but the next he will be sprouting randomly colored hair and his mouth will be stretched in a wide smile, such a happy innocent child, untouched by the hardships of life.
I came too when Sirius clutched me further up my arm, and pulled back the thin sheets to help me out of bed. Remus came to his side to help and soon I was standing outside the hospital. People were passing in the street, their smiling faces taking in the sun. I felt like I hadn't been outside in years. But all too soon I was back inside again.
I stood in the gloomy, silent entryway of Grimmauld place. Curtains were closed over the portrait of Walburga Black. Remus went into the kitchen. He mentioned something about tea, I think. Sirius kept a firm grip on my arm and led me up the staircase, down the hallway, and then into the room I had shared with Ginny just months earlier. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
Suddenly, I am feeling so tired, which doesn't make sense considering I had been bedridden for an entire week, but I guess it wasn't the most peaceful week, with the struggling against an enemy that was no longer there and the sedation and all.
"I'm tired," I hear a voice telling Sirius. It surely wasn't mine, because this voice was raspy from disuse and all around defeated. Sirius looked down at me.
He smiled softly, and the corners of his dark eyes crinkled from the action. "Let's get you into bed then," he said gently. He walked me over to the queen sized bed that was pushed against the wall, and under the window. I sat down on it and let my legs hang over the side, and I could feel the mattress sinking under my wait. It is much softer than the bed at St. Mungo's.
"Wait here," he told me before he disappeared out of the door. I remained where I was, my hands twisting around one another in my lap until he returned a minute later, a black t-shirt clutched in his hand.
"You can wear this," he says, "and I'll have Harry bring your clothes over tomorrow". I take the shirt from him and then stand up and start removing the hospital gown. He politely averts his eyes until I have pulled his t-shirt over my head. When I'm finished he moves around me and pulls back the covers on the bed, pulling them back around me once I have snuggled deeply into the pillows.
I expect him to leave, but instead he sits on the edge of the bed and once again takes my hand. He pauses when my arm stretches out before him, and I would know what he's staring at even if I wasn't directly staring at him. The way his fingers tense, I can just tell.
The scar of that awful word, that is now permanently etched into my arm from Bellatrix's cursed blade. Mudblood.
Sirius brings my hand up to his mouth and lightly presses his lips to my hand, trying to assure me that I am not what that word means. I matter to people, and I am loved. I wish I could feel it.
Sirius sits with me, and it doesn't take me long to start drifting. As my vision becomes darker and darker, I answer his question. "Only partially mad," I say in my new voice. Confusion fills his eyes, but I'm too tired to explain that I remembered the question he had asked me earlier at the hospital, and I wasn't just talking for any reason, so I don't. I close my eyes as realization dawns in his.
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