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Sensing in her half-sleeping state that something was wrong, she suddenly woke fully and immediately. So very wrong things were.
Firstly, she was not in her bedroom, not in her makeshift "bed," which was to say, a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. She was also not feeling clammy all over, and desperately anxious for a shower. The feel of the air on her skin told her it was mid-morning; however a look at frost-coated window a few yards away revealed the icy blue-green luminaria of dawn. But she was actually quite cozy - supported by firm cushions, and draped in semi-permeable heat. She puzzled over the latter for a moment. She distinctly knew the feeling but could not identify the cause. She looked sidewards at her arms and lower body. She lay perfectly uncovered, save for her clothes, upon her yellow paisley sofa. Yet she breathed through her mouth and saw a small steam cloud.
Blimey, it was a heating charm.
It all flooded back to her then - the collapse, her uninvited guest, and her descent into unconsciousness after her initial, amateurish foray into the world of Occlumency...and she remembered who the person casting the long shadow from just above her head must be.
Reluctantly she glanced upwards to meet the much-dreaded topaz gaze.
There was no use hiding behind any metaphysical wall now.
"Feeling better?"
She scowled and rolled her eyes. After drumming her nails against her belly some time and releasing an exaggerated sigh, she replied:
"I'd still like you to leave, and, now."
His porcelain face twisted into a saccharine smile, off-setting the strange glint in his eyes prettily.
"Darling, I think you'd better answer my question before making any requests."
"And why should I? You're in my house, you know. I'm not requesting anything of you. I'm telling you to go. So be off like the good, well-bred boy you are, or I'll be forced to become quite unpleasant."
His face still loomed eerily above her in the dim light - the colour of his eyes electrified, and the brows above them fixed in a decidedly sinister fashion. His intrusion was supposed to scare her, but here she was, feigning indifference and batting him around just as she did before. As though it hadn't been six months since they last laid eyes on each other, in the flesh.
As they say, desperate measures...
"It might interest you to know that the newest group of internees at St. Mungo's include one Frederick Weasley," he countered, biting off the end of each syllable.
The oxygen seemed to freeze in Angelina's throat. The ensuing disconnect between her brain and her body caused an intense tension in her chest which felt like a veritable explosion when it finally erupted from her lungs.
"He's not better? I...he...will he...?" she stammered uselessly, fighting back the urge to scream, cry and thrash about all at once.
"He's a bloody vegetable."
That was it. She turned over onto her stomach and howled wildly into her pillow. She began to viciously bite and claw, infuriated with whatever abstract force that had allowed this grievous wrong to befall her best friend. Her only remaining friend.
But somewhere inside, she also wished to join him, leaving her miserable reality for good and embracing a superbly holistic numbness. Then again, the guilt and despair she felt realizing the de-facto death of her sweet Fred might well be the catalyst.
Hours later, she finally tired. Her eyelids were red and bloated, allowing her only limited vision. Her head pounded relentlessly as though her various emotions wanted to escape through her skull. Once more, she glanced upwards wearily to see Montague standing over her, a glass of cold water proffered forth from his hand.
She threw it on herself. All over her face and hair, wanting nothing more than to feel it absorb instantly into her skin and somehow normalize the situation. Instead, the water droplets rolled steadily off her smooth cheeks and shoulders and onto the sofa cushions. She began to weep silently.
Shrugging, he pried the glass from her fingers, went into the kitchen and returned again with water.
"This time drink it, Johnson."
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