I needed a break from my other stories, but I still wanted to write some fanfic.
This is heavily based on the play Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph. I worked on a production of it a couple of years ago, and this fanfic idea has been in my head ever since. I will not do the play any justice.
Thank you for reading. I'll have the rest posted if not tonight, tomorrow night. Please favorite/review.
-alienoctopus
Age Eleven: Face Split Open
Hazel sat in a bed towards the entrance of the Hospital Wing. She wrung her hands, impatiently waiting for nothing. She could hear Madame Pomfrey shuffle around in her office if she listened hard enough, but aside from that, Hazel was alone. Once she properly tuned out the distance sounds, Madame Pomfrey left her office and the Hospital Wing in a hurry. Hazel didn't give it a second thought.
She sat up on the bed and kicked her legs beneath her. Her stomach stung her with each movement, but she could not help but move. Boredom was almost more painful than anything her body could do to her.
The sound of the Hospital Wing door opening jolted Hazel out of her boredom. She quickly returned to lying on the bed, feigning sleep, but facing the door so she could see who came in. All she could see was a small boy with bright red hair from the back while Madame Pomfrey fussed over his face.
"Drink this." She said, handing the boy a potion.
"What is it?" Hazel couldn't place the voice.
"A blood-replenishing potion. Drink it and then go lie down until I check up on you again. You should be fine in about an hour." Madame Pomfrey wrapped his face in a bandage, all the way around his head. She dismissed him by pointing to the bed next to Hazel and left for her office once again.
The boy sat on the bed Madame Pomfrey pointed at, facing Hazel. She examined his face through her fluttering, fake-closed eyes. He looked familiar—one of the Weasley twins, she concluded. He barely looked bothered by the bandage on his head, which was growing increasingly bloody by the moment. Hazel couldn't feign sleep any longer and sat up.
"What did you do to your face?" She asked, pressing and perhaps rather rudely.
"Fell on it." The boy said.
"Doesn't it hurt?" Hazel looked at his bandage with wide eyes.
"Not really." It was quiet for a moment.
"My stomach hurts." She said. The boy didn't give a response. "My stomach hurts a lot. Mum says it's because I have bad thoughts."
"Bad thoughts? Like about vampires?" The boy piped up.
"No." It was Hazel's turn to ignore him.
"Blood tastes funny." He said. "It's almost good."
"It doesn't!" She protested, sickened by the thought.
"Have you ever had your face cut open?" He asked.
"No."
"I get cuts all the time." He said proudly.
"Good for you."
"Sometimes, I get stomach aches. If I eat too many pasties."
"Why is there so much blood?" Hazel asked. She had yet to take her eyes off the bandage.
"Because I fell."
"How'd you fall?"
"Off a broom."
"But you're not supposed to fly outside of flying class."
"So?"
"So? You're not supposed to be flying."
"That's how I broke my face."
"You didn't break your face."
He didn't respond.
"Does it hurt?"
He paused. "One time, when I was younger, I was trying to trick my younger brother, but he scratched me and I was bleeding out of my eye."
"Did that hurt?"
"No. Eyelids are small so they don't hurt too bad. I have a scar on my eye now."
"Cool."
"Girls don't get scars."
"Yes we do."
"I was trying to fly out of the Gryffindor tower, but I got too close to the lake and fell off."
"That's stupid."
"I'm not stupid."
"Yes, you are."
"Shut up."
"One time when I was little, I threw up because I had a stomach ache and I threw up so hard that there was blood in my eye."
"No. But it was red."
"I like having to take healing potions."
"Why?"
"They make your skin feel tight."
"Does it hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Can I see it?"
"What?"
"Can I see your cut?"
"Sure." The boy grinned. He unraveled the gauze that was wrapped around his head. "What happened to your eye?" He asked as he took off the bandage.
"My eye? Oh. I dunno, the blood just went back into my head."
The gauze fell to the floor. Hazel's eyes grew wider. "Whoa." She said.
"The air hurts it a little."
"Can I touch it?" She asked. The boy didn't even have to think before he answered.
"Sure."
She touched it. Coagulated blood squished beneath her finger. "Gross." She whispered.
"Your hands are cold."
Hazel took her hands off the boy and looked at his hands.
"At least mine are clean."
"Mine are dirty because I fell. They're full of rocks."
Hazel kneeled in front of him and started to pick the rocks out of his hands, dropping them on the ground next to the bandage. The boy couldn't take his eyes off her as she did so. "Thanks." He said. "Ow."
"Does it hurt?" She asked.
"A little."