Chapter Two
Strong, large hands grip her shoulders as she practically launches herself head first off the bed. They push her back, and despite her cry of protest, desperation, and fear, they continue to force her against the plumped up pillows.
'Please...' she whispers, her voice thick and raspy from disuse. This starts a coughing fit which is only stopped as a glass is held to her lips and something bitter and gloopy invades her mouth, causing her to choke before the retching stops suddenly along with the pain in her throat.
'Don't speak.' The voice commands her, worry evident in each syllable. The blurred form above her looks as if its searching the room for another person, but their gaze returns to Elaina when she struggles against the hands holding her down again as pain begins to leech from her body as well and her brain begins to go foggy once more.
'No! Please!' Her protest is weak, even to her own ears as the darkness descends and she curses herself for swallowing the foreign liquid.
'You're safe, I've got you! You're safe!' The voice replies as if shouting in order to hammer home their intentions, and Elaina winces against the pain it causes her ears before the buzzing blocks out most of the background noise in the room. She begins to lose her fight against the hands and covers, sleep beckoning her.
'Please don't hurt me...' She whispers, and the blurry images weave into view again as her struggling ceases and the numb feeling spreads through her like a stream, tickling her slightly as it does so.
'No one's going to hurt you. Not anymore. You're at Hogwarts. You're safe.'
Elaina can't shake the feeling that her strange dream leaves her with. She must still be sleeping, in that odd place between dreams and reality when you begin to believe the strange stories your unconscious mind creates for you.
It doesn't concern her that she feels numb, or the sensations of light flashing on the other side of her eyelids, the pillows raising her head higher than usual, pushing her neck into an uncomfortable position... Or that the sheets feel so foreign. Her mind explains those all away as a simple quirk of being half asleep. After all, she's only just woken from this dream, hasn't she?
Something small in the back of her mind seems to poke her, as if to remind her that there is something amiss with this particular haze, and when she tries to work out what it is and it escapes her, familiarity rears its head.
Déjà vu.
The first proper thought she manages to form. It flashes through her entire being, repeating over and over in her mind until it forces Elaina to shift awkwardly on the bed, trying to get the calm feeling back from only a moment ago.
'Are you awake?' A whisper invades her mind, putting a stop to all internal questioning and making her wonder for a moment whether to answer or not. For some reason, she's thankful the voice is so quiet, but she can't work out why that might be. She decides not to answer. Its a dream after all, and she doesn't tend to talk in her dreams... That she can remember, anyway.
'Of course she's not awake, Prongs! She'll be out for ages!' Another voice replies from the other side of the bed, whispering slightly louder than the first voice, both soothing to her ears.
'What if she is, Padfoot? I mean... Logically speaking, she's a strong witch-' A third voice joins them from further away. The end of the bed by the sounds of it. If Elaina thought the first two voices were soothing, this one is much more so, both calm and kind.
Elaina notices that the light above her seem to be moving, although that might only be because of her eyes moving behind her eyelids, or the chance that she's still dreaming. She has to struggle to keep her eyes closed, her limbs from shifting again, her voice from giving her away as she wants nothing more than to ask them what's going on. A large part of her feels that she should be scared... But then, why would the Marauders be standing around her bed with their wands casting lumos and discussing her health if she was awake?
Unless someone was just messing with her as she woke up from a particularly confusing Harry Potter related dream... But who would go out of their way to make such a ridiculous joke? No, she's still dreaming, the obvious choice and the only explanation really-
PAIN.
So much more than before. She must have ignored her other senses reengaging for too long. How could she not have remembered this pain? There's so much of it. Its so agonising. EVERYWHERE.
Elaina wakes properly with a scream, surpassed only in pitch by the shriek which is emitted from the side of the bed where the one named Padfoot, had been standing a moment ago, and the low shouts of shock and horror from the boys positioned elsewhere about her hospital bed.
'Calm down!' Prongs' voice begs her as three strong sets of hands hold her still, trying to stop her from fighting with the last of the feeble strength she has in her. 'Please, calm down, its okay!'
'Its okay, love, its okay,' comes the echoed sentiment from above the hands forcing her waist to lay prone against the mattress.
'I don't think I can hold her,' a desperate plea for help from the end of the bed, where her ankles are being held with less conviction than the rest of her. 'I've only just changed back, I'm too weak!' Elaina manages to extract her left foot from his hold, and kicks about desperately as he tries to grab it once again.
'Moony. If you're weaker than a girl who's still meant to be under the effects of three different sleeping draughts, you've got bigger problems than the change.' The sarcastic remark to her right makes the boy at the end of the bed make an angry noise, but then his friend removes one hand from her waist, reaching across and down to easily secure her by the shin as well.
Just the feeling of hands on her legs makes Elaina kick for all she's worth and leaves Padfoot struggling just as much as Moony.
'Not so easy now, is it Padfoot?' Moony's smug reply echos around her head for a moment as the pain recedes to the point of just being bearable again and she realises that she can't be dreaming as she'd thought.
'Help.' She whispers, horrified to find her voice as quiet and raspy as she now remembers it was last time she'd woken up. 'Please let go and help me.'
'What can we do? Tell us what you need.' Prongs tells her urgently, leaning down so that his whisper passes by her face, the cool air of his breath soothing against her hot and painful skin.
'So. Much. Pain.' The waves of agony continue, and Elaina attempts to get them to release her as she'd asked, by twisting her body out of their slackened grasp, curling herself into a little ball. As soon as she does this, she wonders why. It never seems to work, no matter how many times her mum's told her that it will stop her stomach or belly hurting, so why would she attempt it now as if it might suddenly relieve her pain. She straightens, still lying on her side but stretching out, before she snaps back into a ball when the pain is worse than ever.
Elaina's mind registers footsteps. Running footsteps, leaving her side and then returning impossibly quickly in order to place something cold and damp against her forehead. She whimpers in response, unable to mutter a thank you as she desperately wants to.
A moment later, another set of feet complete their hurried circuit of the room in order to press a glass jar of sorts against her lips. A vial perhaps.
'No.' Elaina protests, turning her body in the opposite direction as a few tears escape her eyes and she forces the words out despite her throat feeling as if its on fire. 'No more sleep. Please. Let me wake up. Just let me wake up and let the pain stop. Please,' It's probably no use fighting with them, especially as the vial is suddenly pressed against her lips again as an arm reaches around her, holding her down as another forces the object into her mouth as gently as possible.
As soon as the overly sweet fluid enters her mouth she tries to spit it out, but they appear to be ready for this, holding her jaw closed so that she has to swallow it in order to breath properly. At first, she feels despair at the thought of waking up unsuspectingly to that pain once more, or what could have happened to her before or during her memory loss and unconsciousness... But then, as quickly as the pain arrived what feels to her like a lifetime ago, it leaves in one quick sweep down her body.
This time her mind is not fogged by sleep as she'd feared, but given a clarity that she'd not had since she could remember.
'Why does this remind me of Sirius when he has a hangover?' Prongs asks as Elaina's body uncurls with a small moan of happiness.
'Because this is exactly what happens whenever he drinks?' Moony replies, sounding extremely tired as he seems to slump against the end of the bed.
'If I'm this bad, I'm never drinking again,' Sirius assures them as Elaina opens her eyes and attempts to concentrate hard enough to sharpen the blurry images enough to see his face.
'Don't make promises we all know you'll break, or we'll give up and leave you to your pain.' Prongs tells him loudly, and Elaina's gaze settles on him, wishing she could be rude enough to ask him to keep his voice low because its too loud. He leans into her view, brushing her hair away from her face with a gentle hand as his face softens and he smiles gently at her. 'How's the pain?'
'Prongs! She's in the hospital wing for Merlin's sake!' Sirius complains gently from her other side, and she turns to see him lean down as well, smiling just as kindly although his mischievous eyes seem more like they're laughing than anything else. 'You okay, love?'
