Hannah Abbott watched the first year boy with fascination. It had been four days since Hitsugaya had fallen off the top of Gryffindor tower, or had been pushed out, or whatever it was that people were saying now. He was asleep now, but she could see that the unrest that had possessed him just the day prior was gone. In fact, he didn't seem injured at all. She shook her head and snuck past him towards her dorm room.
It wasn't possible. He was probably just putting up a brave front. But he was incredibly proud and had tried hiding his pain before. That hadn't stopped her from noticing the winces and the special care he put not to jostle his healing body too much. But now, he seemed just fine.
Madam Pomfrey had declared that he had several broken bones and internal bleeding. Hannah wasn't all that familiar with medicine, but that didn't sound like something that healed that fast. Especially since, for some reason, the salves and healing potions prescribed by Madam Pomfrey had little effect on him. And that was in the event that they could actually get him to take the them. She had seen first-hand had bull-headed he could be.
She quickly changed into her night clothes and slipped under the covers of her bed. She cleared her mind of her worried in order to rest properly. After all, it would do no good to worry too long and be tired the next day. She wouldn't be of any help in that case.
She allowed all the stress in her body to flow out and settled into the mattress. The covers were warm, her breaths were even and soon enough she found herself sinking into a deep sleep.
"Hannah!"
She stirred at the call, more eager to return to her peaceful dreams than to respond, or worse, actually crawl out of bed.
"Hannah!" Her shoulders were being shaken now. Hannah groaned.
"What do you want?" she slurred out.
"It's the hurt kid, Hitsugaya. His magic is exploding everywhere! We can't leave the Common Room, Hannah. We've tried everything-"
"Woah, woah, slow down," said Hannah, her grogginess vanishing. "What happened?"
The girl who had shaken her awake, Penny, took a few breaths to calm herself before restarting.
"I went down to the common room this morning. You know how I like to head down to the grounds in the morning before breakfast. And I saw that Hitsugaya was sweating like crazy and and panting in his sleep. He's been doing pretty good, so I thought maybe it was just a nightmare or something. I was the only one in the common room, so I tried to wake him up, but the second he opened his eyes he sneezed and had an outburst of accidental magic. There's ice all over the common room! He fell asleep again right away; I think he's sick. Anyways, the doorway has been frozen shut and no one can get it open. On top of that, being in the common room is dangerous. There's more ice that appears whenever Hitsugaya sneezes or coughs, and touching it make it spread onto you. Some of the students have their feet frozen in it."
Hannah's eyes were wide. She pulled on her robes and hastily tied her hair up before heading down towards the common room. Hitsuagaya had been fine the night before, the picture of restfulness. What happened?
Despite Penny's warning, she was caught off guard. When she had said that there was ice everywhere, she had really meant everywhere. Every inch of place was covered in several inches of ice. The floor, the wall, the ceiling. The couches and tables too. The large Hufflepuff fireplace next to Hitsugaya looked as unfit for fire as could be. And it was freezing.
There were some students at various places that were indeed frozen to the ground. One girl had her entire lower body encased in ice. Most, however, had nothing but their feet in it. She only recognized Ernie Macmillan, the others were older than her. They were viciously pulling this way and that to free their feet to no avail. Spells for cutting, breaking and melting barely affected the ice. Everyone was panicking.
Hitsugaya himself was sniffling in his sleep. His face was flushed, it looked like he had fever. This was bad. Cases of accidental magic when wizards were ill were nothing to scoff at, especially since first-years often had very little control of their magic in the first place. And it looked like Hitsugaya had a knack for ice-based magic.
Hannah didn't know what to do. Why did Penny come to her, anyway? She wasn't a prefect or an upperclassman. She didn't know any special magic, she didn't know how to fix this. It wasn't as if she was Harry Potter or something.
She felt dread seep through her pores. If they couldn't get out of the common room through the door, then they coudn't get out at all. They were in the basement: there were no windows. Even if they knew how, they couldn't apparate on Hogwarts grounds. They couldn't leave through the fireplace since the fire was out because of the ice. Besides, she didn't even know if they connected to the Floo network. They couldn't send a scrawny first year up the chimney of the fireplace either. Magical fireplaces were enchanted to simply get rid of the smoke. There was no chimney.
A portkey then? She didn't know how to make one, but surely someone in Hufflepuff must know. For sure.
"Hey Ernie?" she called, "Do you know anyone who might know how to create a portkey?"
Macmillan paused in his fight against the ice. He thought about it for a moment, catching up with her train of thought. She loved that about him. He always seemed to be able to follow everyone's thought processes, even if he disagreed with them.
"I believe Bernard Bishara in sixth year does. Try him." He smiled uneasily at her. "And Hannah? Don't forget us here."
She looked at him seriously for a moment before nodding. As funny as it might look, it really wasn't. The ice was dangerous and they were after all trapped with no way out. She could only hope this Bernard Bishara might be able to create a portkey so that they could send for help.
And if they failed, surely the rest of the school would notice. Right?
Still, she wanted them to solve this themselves. Everyone always looked down on Hufflepuff. And even though they were all trapped and panicking, there was a part of her that didn't want to send for help. She didn't want to go crying to Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Hufflepuff was competent too! They were wizards too! She wanted to solve this with a swish of her wand and show that Hufflepuff didn't need help. Hufflepuff was the helpful. They gave out help to others, not the other way around.
She shook away the inane thoughts. Her stupid pride didn't matter. There were kids younger than her here in danger. There was no food in the common room and she could feel her own stomach growling at the thought of food. Her housemates were frozen to the ground and her wand-waving had proven useless against it.
Jutting up her chin, she walked to the sixth year dorms.
Author's Note: If you would like to add your input or have some suggestions, let me know in the comments or PM me.
