The ingenious Ms. Rowling owns Harry Potter and its characters. I claim only the plot.
If I stumble
They're gonna eat me alive
Can you feel my heart beating like a hammer?
Beating like a hammer
Help, I'm alive
~Metric
On a good day, no one even recognizes her.
Those are the days she enjoys the most.
But sometimes it happens that she's not so lucky. She'll walk into a room and feel that vague aura of familiarity surrounding the patient. They'll stare at her intently for a few minutes, curiously trying to place her as she begins leading them through warm up stretches. Then the realization will come in a blinding flash:
"Hey, I know you!"
"Fantastic. Let's move on to ankle rotations, shall we? I want you to really try and keep the movement sm—"
"You're Katie Bell. That girl who got cursed in her seventh year."
Things generally tended to go downhill from here.
It seemed that she was forever going to be known as that girl. That girl who was weak enough to allow herself to be imperiused. That girl who was unlucky enough to allow herself to get cursed. That girl who was unfortunate enough to land herself in St. Mungo's for nearly six months.
That girl.
The one who seemed perfectly fine when she returned to play Quidditch at the end of the year. The one who seemed fully recovered when she stepped into the Room of Requirement to join the Battle of Hogwarts. The one who seemed invincible as she dueled Death Eater after Death Eater. The one who seemed done for when a dark curse from Yaxley hit her arm.
The arm.
The arm that had served her so well as a chaser. The arm that had withstood the dark magic of the opal necklace. The arm that had the healer in a panic when Alicia Spinnet had apparated with her unconscious form to St. Mungo's once again. The arm that had managed to survive but also condemn.
Yes, she was that girl who had effectively ruined her life in a single moment of recklessness.
When the healers had first told her, she had only blinked. They carefully explained that while they had saved my arm, they could not undo the damage to the underlying tissue. While she could use it for everyday activities, she would not be able to build up the muscle that is required to play any sort of contact sport. Her sinews couldn't handle the stress of such exertion and would, regardless, remain frozen, incapable of being strengthened.
In short, she would never play Quidditch again.
They were concerned by her silence but figured that, in her devastation, she could use a moment to herself.
But she had seemed so eerily calm because she truthfully was. As the healers had been droning on, her mind had kicked into overdrive. She was a good chaser. A wonderful chaser, actually. In her studies she had been ordinarily average, albeit a bit lacking in Transfiguration. She had instead spent every minute of her free time on the Quidditch pitch, making shot after shot as she worked to improve herself. She had had scouts at nearly every game in her final season. In fact, the Holyhead Harpies had offered her a contract at the close of her seventh year. There was nothing she could do besides play Quidditch. She therefore came to the only plausible conclusion:
This wasn't happening.
The healers had to be mistaken because no other reality existed for her. Eventually, when she got out of this bed, she would prove them all wrong. She would leave and as soon as she walked out those doors, things would snap back into their normal places. It was just the war, she thought, with its oppressive atmosphere that had led to such a ridiculous prognosis.
Sometimes she still feels like she's waiting on a catharsis that will never come.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
She was a fantastic wallower.
Probably because she was always fascinated by the changes such introspection could bring. She liked to let the emotions swallow her whole until they finally spit her out on the other side of the abyss. Each time she came out a little bit different: happier, braver, sadder, angrier.
It reminds her of that book she read in Muggle Studies. Where the creatures went in one side of the machine and came out the other end with stars on their bellies. They kept going in and out and in and out until nobody could recognize their friends from their enemies. Until nobody could recognize themselves.
She knew exactly how they felt.
A/N: I know it's a bit dark at the moment, but I promise it gets lighter in the next chapters. I'm not sure on the length yet, but I have a few chapters I'll post soon. Any comments or constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!