She passed on visiting Dru the next day, and opted to spend some time wandering around in London by herself to clear her head. Mrs. Longbottom wasn't too happy with that idea, but Neville had realised that she needed some time on her own and he said he'd take the blame if his grandmother would be mad.
For wizards and witches there was of course Diagon Alley, but Rose liked some of the muggle 'wicca' stuff too, because sometimes they'd have ancient spell books, or even new books that were pretty smart and insightful. Also, some of the ointments she could buy at Camden Market were just amazing.
She had been thinking about what she had felt the day before when she had touched Dru; she wasn't an empty shell, just hidden away from the rest of the world. Shut down, like a muggle robot, and she was going to do her best to find out if it was a good idea to try and slip inside her mind to make an attempt to 'restart' her.
Maybe she was going to mess with things she shouldn't mess with but she didn't want to wait for the hospital staff to get their act together. She was actually wondering why they hadn't gotten their act together in the day or so that Dru had been there. She just wanted some more information before she'd talk to Neville about it all.
She bought an amulet for luck at one of the stands at the market to give to Neville after she quietly spelled it with a spell to make him sleep at ease at night, at least for the next few days or so when the spell would wear off. Rose then made a stop at a hamburger restaurant before returning to St. Mungo's with at least five new books to read.
As she waited on a bench in front of the hospital, she was reading one of the books, sipping on a Cola, looking like any other muggle when she heard a familiar voice talk to someone, and it made her look up as they passed by. She scrambled to her feet and said; "Mr and Mrs Malfoy, I'm so sorry for what happened to Dru."
Lucius looked at her. "You're Rose, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir," she replied with a small smile. "Dru's my best friend and I can't honestly begin to think what you must be going through."
"Thank you, Rose. That's very kind of you to think of us." Narcissa put a hand on Rose's arm. "Have you just been to visit her or do you want to to come with us?" her voice, however sad and tired, sounded friendly but still cold at the same time.
Draco didn't look at Rose. He stared at the floor. His face was ashen and his eyes filled with more worry than Rose had ever seen them.
"Oh, no, thank you. I've visited Dru yesterday, and I just couldn't today... I'm just waiting for my friend to come back so we can go home."
Draco looked shocked at Rose. She didn't had to mention Neville's name for him to know who she was waiting for. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't bring him to do it. He hated the fact that his beloved sister was dating Neville, the blundering idiot, but if there was only one little chance that he could trigger something inside of Dru, Draco wouldn't risk that chance being taken away.
"I do not wish to intrude or anything, but have you found a specialist that deals with Dru's particular gift?" Rose asked a little hesitant as she didn't want to overstep her boundaries. She then looked at Draco with a small smile, as he sort of knew about Rose's own gift. "I like to think that she's still in there."
"You think?" Draco asked.
"Yes," she nodded.
Draco gave Rose a weak smile.
"Well, we have people looking into it, but nobody seems to know the answer. we better go inside." Lucius squeezed Rose's shoulder and walked into the hospital with his wife. Draco gave Rose a kiss on her cheek. "Thank you." he said and followed his parents.
She didn't have to wait long for Neville to come come out with his grandmother and smiled. "How is she?"
"Miss Shepherd, you're under my protection!" Mrs. Longbottom started, "Even if you know London like the back of your hand, you will not wander off without me in your presence. Neville should not have allowed you to go off on your own!"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Longbottom," she said with a sigh. "But I was out of books and wanted to buy some new ones at the market."
"Well, very well then. But next time you want something, you tell me and we can go with you."
"Even in Muggle territory?"
"Especially in Muggle territory."
"Yes, Mrs. Longbottom," she said with a nod. "It won't happen again."
"Gran, can we go home now, Please? I want to..." Neville's voice was shaking.
"Alright, but …"
"Please, Gran. I want to get away from here." Neville's voice was on the verge of crying.
"Alright alright!" Gran responded and took the hands of Neville and Rose and while they walking, they apparated into the Longbottom sitting room. "There, home. Now, let me start cooking, how about some Shepherds Pie today?"
Neville didn't say anything, but he just went up to his room.
His grandmother shook her head. "It's terrible how it happened, but he should have know this was going to happen one day."
"What was what?" Rose said confused, as she kept her bag filled with books close to her.
"Don't get me wrong, dear. I like your friend and it is terrible what happened to her, but for Neville to be so upset about possibly losing her, he should have known they wouldn't last."
"Mrs. Longbottom..." she said with a small smile. "Your grandson and Dru are the two most wonderful people that I know, they're a real good fit, actually. Dru will get through this."
"Oh, I do hope so. Dru's a nice girl and I can see how Neville cares for her. But he should realise that they would never have stayed together for long."
"Why not?"
"Honestly, dear. Beautiful girls like Dru and yourself may be friends with someone like my grandson, but Dru is obviously out of his league. Now if you would please entertain yourself for a bit. I have to make supper." She patted Rose on the back as she went to the kitchen.
"Unbelievable," Rose muttered as she made her way up the stairs to Neville's room. "Neville? Can I come in?"
"Yeah." He was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, while playing with something in his hand.
Smiling, she entered his room and sat down on the bed next to him. "I brought you something," she fumbled a small package holding the necklace with the small token on it out of her pocket and handed it over. "It's an amulet, it's supposed to help you sleep better for about five days when given to someone as a gift."
Neville sat up, took the package, while placing the item he was holding in his hand beside him, and unwrapped it. "Thank you, Rose. I'll think this will come to good use." he put it around his neck and tried to pick up what he had put down without Rose noticing.
"Oh, what's that?"
Neville opened his hand. He was holding a small, sparkling hairpin in his hand. "I found it next to my nightstand yesterday. Dr- She was probably wearing it when she came here. She hit her head on the nightstand, when she fell out of the bed."
"Ouch," she laughed and pulled her bag onto the bed before opening it and laying out the books. "So, I have a confession to make," Rose sighed and looked at Neville. "I don't want to give you false hope, so it's not. It's hope. Something... when I touched Dru yesterday? She didn't feel empty!"
Neville narrowed his eyes at Rose. "I'm not sure I know what you mean by that."
"I felt something when I touched her yesterday! It wasn't... I mean, I know you're in there. You, your energy, it's right here," she knocked on Neville's head. "I don't need to touch you to know you're in there. I usually don't have to touch Dru to actually communicate with her in her head either..." she was trying to be clear, but realised that she wasn't really. "When I touched her yesterday, I felt an energy buried deep beneath her consciousness, Neville. She's not empty! She's just... lost."
Neville just sat there quiet. Anyone else would have thought he didn't hear a word of what had just been told to him. But Rose knew better. He was going over it all in head, letting it sink in, before responding. "So, how do we find her again?" Neville picked up one of the books lying in front of him and started flipping through the pages. "What do I need to look for?"
"These are muggle magic books, they're a bit... crazy. I don't know what to look for, just ways for me to get deeper inside her mind, safely. I've spoken to the Malfoys today and they had a specialist in everything concerning the mind look at her, but nothing has turned up," she then got the ointments out of her bag. "I think that she just needs a familiar presence to coax her out... maybe she got so scared out of her wits that she's gone into hiding, or maybe that whoever did this to her, buried her so deep that she needs someone to lead the way out of it all. I don't know, and I don't know if I should try or not, but that's where research is important, isn't it? I just want to know if I am capable of... well... finding her."
"Capable or not. You're gonna try tomorrow." Neville's voice was determined, even a bit demanding. He was grabbing every chance he could, even though he feared that the situation was not going to improve for her. But he wasn't going to let that stop him. He wanted Dru safe, whatever the cost.
"No." She said firmly. "Absolutely not. If I'm going to do this I want to be prepared. I want to find some stuff in these books and I want to read your books on Spell Damage..." she saw the look on Neville's face and sighed. "Listen, Neville, I want Dru back as bad as you, but I don't want to make things worse! I want to know how I can do it and if I can do it. Do you understand?"
Neville took his book about spell damage out of his night stand and started reading it again. He was contemplating how he could force Rose to get into Dru's head. He didn't care Rose was insecure about this. She needed to give it a try at least.
"The mind is a fragile thing, Neville," she pointed out.
"Yeah, you don't need to remind me of that. I know that better than anyone."
"Then please, give me... three days to at least figure things out? Professor Lupin is stopping by tomorrow and he and I need to have a talk too. I need a few days. Please."
"Fine, three days, but then you are going to try."
"No, then I'll tell you if I can try or not."
Neville growled, but looked at the book. He realised he wasn't going to win this.
She opened one of the books and started to read. She didn't like the subject matter much but it was teaching better relaxation techniques than any of the wizard books she had read.
That evening she was still reading in her room while Neville took an early night for once. At least her little spell seemed to be working. She fell asleep on top of her books when it was long dark outside.
Neville and Mrs. Longbottom had gone to London for the day, again, leaving Rose at the residence by herself, reading her book as she waited for Professor Lupin to arrive.
She nearly jumped ten feet in the air when he appeared through the fireplace with a big smile on his face, carrying treats in his arms. "Alright! Let's have a sweet fest, shall we? Does Mrs. Longbottom have any tea?"
"I guess?"
"Off to the kitchen we go!" He said with an even bigger smile and started the kettle. "Right, you have questions, Dumbledore instructed me to answer as much as I can, but I don't have much time."
"Are you alright?" she hadn't noticed before, but he looked even more awful than the last time she'd seen him.
"I'm fine, dear. Don't you worry about me," he replied with a smile.
Rose thought for a moment and if she hadn't been talking to the real Dumbledore when she did, there were many things that Lupin couldn't know. "Did my grandfather really tell Dumbledore that he put me under a curse for two months?"
"Yes, he did, believe me, Dumbledore was furious, it's an unforgivable curse, and to do one on a child..." he shook his head. "And I'm so sorry that it happened to you. I should have checked up on you earlier, because he's also one of the reasons that his son went off the rails..."
"You couldn't have known."
"But still, I'm your godfather, I promised your mother I'd look after you, that included looking in on your grandfather."
Rose shrugged. "It happened, and I know everything that happened now from the summer and it's not all good but... it happened... I was just worried that I was responsible for Dru's... thing."
"No, oh no, you're not responsible for that, nor is your grandfather."
Once the kettle was boiling, Lupin made the both of them a cup of tea and he handed her one of the sweet cookies. "Mrs. Weasley made them, they're actually quite good," he smiled. "She received an owl from George yesterday, he was telling her something very special."
She sighed as she sat down in the kitchen chair. She still had to receive an owl from George, she was wondering what was taking him so long. Not that she was waiting or anything. Or thinking about it when she wasn't thinking about how to deal with Neville or Dru. Not at all.
"I think it's a great idea that you've reached out to someone other than Neville and Dru. You need someone you can trust, confide in, especially someone of nearly your own age. I can imagine it's hard to trust adults."
"Yeah, I don't really have the best experience with adults..." she blushed as she nibbled on her cookie. "George... he surprised me."
"He's a Weasley, he's full of surprises and you couldn't have chosen a better boy. He'll keep your head out of the dark places it tends to wander in to."
"I told him everything that I didn't even tell Dumbledore and he didn't run off scared."
"As I said, he's a Weasley. And not to worry, you'll receive an owl from him soon, it's just that Neville's address isn't really known amongst you young people."
"I was never meant to make friends."
"Everyone needs friends, Rose. And your choices have been... surprising to say the least but they're good choices."
"It's weird."
"You'll be okay, your friends are patient," he smiled. "Some more than others... what happened to your wrists?" he said, noticing the fading bruises when her long sleeves had started to ride up from eating the cookies.
"It's nothing," she said with a sigh. "There's something else... I think that I may be responsible for something terrible that's going to happen to Harry at the tournament."
"Oh don't you worry, they're all keeping an eye out. The tournament is brutal, yes, but Harry gets all the help he needs."
"No... that's not what I meant... I..."
"Rose, don't worry." Lupin reassured her. "And as to the question of what you're doing here, why Dumbledore let you go with Neville and his grandmother... the real answer is that he felt that something, or someone, has been messing with you. Now, he can't really shelter Harry from Voldemort, but he could at least take you away for a week and give you some rest from whatever has been bothering you, and at the same time you could visit Dru at the hospital."
"I don't think she's getting the best care, to be honest."
"Did you know, Dumbledore didn't want her to leave Hogwarts but that her parents insisted? Apparently Madame Pomfrey and the knowledge of all the teachers wasn't sufficient enough."
"Yeah, Neville told me," she responded as she took a sip of her tea. "But you know that Dru has this special gift, right? Their specialist couldn't find anything!"
"Did you?" He said surprised.
She shrugged for an answer. "I'm 14 years old, what do I know?"
"Because you're a lot smarter and a lot more capable than other witches of your age."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are, but please Rose, whatever is going on inside your head..."
"I'm not going to do anything."
"Both Dumbledore and I know you better than that." Lupin spoke slowly, hoping that she'd get the hint.
"As I said, I'm 14 years old, I'm not capable of helping her."
Lupin gave an all knowing smile and shrugged. "Was there anything else I could help you with?"
"No, I think I got over the whole wanting to be expelled thing."
He laughed. "What? You wanted to be expelled? What for?"
"Didn't Professor Dumbledore tell you? I spoke to him the day they sent Dru to St. Mungo's." She wanted to try and see if Neville had been right, that Dumbledore had been gone that day.
"When was that?"
"The day they decided to send Dru away."
"Dear, he wasn't at Hogwarts that day."
"Oh."
"But you..." Lupin was confused now. "Oh dear, I need to go, now."
Rose sighed. "I figured as much. Good luck, professor, thank you for coming."
"Isn't it about time that you start calling me Remus? Or Lupin? I stopped being your professor when I resigned," he chuckled as he made his way back to the fireplace.
"I don't know if I could do that, sir."
"Take care of yourself, Rose," he smiled and hugged her. "Take care of Neville, and, should you try, Dumbledore and I believe in you to bring Dru back where she belongs."
"No pressure there then. Say hi to Tonks for me."
"Yes, about her, how did you know about her?"
Rose just smiled and waved as he stepped through the fireplace and disappeared. She grabbed her book and made her way back to the kitchen to drink the rest of the tea and probably polish off all the cookies Mrs. Weasley had made.
The next day upon their return from St. Mungo's, there was an owl waiting for her. She squealed like a little girl as she got the letter and bounced her way over to her temporary room, closing the door for privacy.
My lovely Rose, I'm sorry I haven't written you sooner, but I first had to turn Hogwarts upside down trying to find Neville's address. Ginny finally had the brilliant idea of looking through Dru's trunk and found a letter from Neville she'd saved. I hope Dru is doing okay. The teachers won't tell us much even though we do try to make them. Fred and I even thought about slipping something into their morning drink. We haven't decided if we going to, maybe we should keep that trick for another time. Neville better be nice to you or he's going to answer to me. Nobody touches my girl, apart from me then. I hope you're doing okay and think about me a few times a day. I know I've been thinking about you a lot. See you soon. Love, George
Neville looked up to the ceiling from where he sat in the sitting room, hearing sounds of excitement coming from the room above him. "Gran, is she ill?"
"No dear," his grandmother chuckled. "That, is a young girl in love."
"You reckon that... she did it for me too?"
"I wouldn't know." Gran shrugged.
Dear George, Thank you so much for your letter! I was thinking you had forgotten about me, but then professor Lupin reminded me that nobody but Dru writes letters to Neville and yes, that his address wasn't public knowledge and all that. I'm keeping my promise of thinking about you every 5 minutes of every hour, except for when I'm asleep of course. I'm still wondering what you see in me but … alright! I won't go there. Dru is... well... according to her parents they don't know how to help her at St. Mungo's. Which is sad really, because I think that they should know better at that place, there were so many people in that ward with spell damage, George. It's so depressing and scary! However, I'm not giving up hope. There is still hope, George. I know it. As for Neville... he's doing okay, well as okay as he can be. He's so afraid that he'll lose Dru, and it's heartbreaking. At least he's sleeping a little better these days. As for him being nice, he is. Don't worry. He's really sorry that he hurt me the other day, so we're okay. Looking forward to seeing you again, Rose.
She walked down the stairs and went to look for the owl to send the letter back to George, as she giggled at the sight of a confused Neville. "George wrote to me!"
Neville smiled. "Took him long enough. Are you coming with us tomorrow too?"
"Of course," Rose nodded as she attached the letter to the owl's leg and let it fly out of the kitchen window again. "I'll be back upstairs, I have a few more books to read."
Neville nodded, while he was looking at the hairpin he was fiddling with. "Can you help D-her?"
"Not sure yet, Neville," she replied and ran back up the stairs. She had found a way the day before, but she wasn't sure if she could do it without doing some damage. As much as Rose wanted to help her friend, she didn't want to hurt her for the sake of bringing her back. And Lupin had seemed somewhat to be pushing her to bring Dru back, that he and Dumbledore were certain of her gift and basically that she was the one able to do it. But Rose wasn't so sure.
"What do you mean, you're not sure? You said three days!" Neville said, bounding up the stairs behind her.
"It's been two!"
"Rose..." Neville made himself appear taller than he was already and walked towards her in attempt to intimidate her. He was tired of waiting.
"I... I may have found a way but..."
"Well, we'll try that. We have to.' Neville said, when he saw Rose shaking her head.
"Can I try something on you?" She said after a long moment of silence.
Neville took Rose's hand, pulled her gently into his bedroom and closed the door behind him. "Where do you want me?"
She blinked at him. "You pervert," she retorted and pointed at the bed. "For the sake of recreation, please lay down on your bed."
Neville tried his best not to grin and laid down on the bed. "Exciting!"
"Neville!" she warned him as she sat down on the bed next to him. "I want to try and see how deep I can get inside your mind, so I want you to relax. If I'm hurting you, I want you to squeeze my leg." She placed his hand on her leg. "I need both of my hands and I want you to be quiet, so if you're in pain, even if it's not that much. You need to tell me this, I don't want to end up scrambling your consciousness, you understand?"
"You mean like this?" He squeezed her leg hard, but only for a second. He needed to laugh to be able to relax.
She rolled her eyes at him and replaced his hand as it had been at her inner leg. "Yeah... don't take advantage of the spot, my boyfriend likes to hurt people who hurt me. I want you to close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Relax."
Neville did what she said, while still playing with the hairpin in his hand.
She sighed and tried to relax herself, using one of the relaxation techniques she had read about in the books she had bought. "I might find some things in your mind you don't necessarily want me to know about, but I promise I won't hold anything against you or talk to you about it, okay? You trust me, right?"
"Not completely, but let's do it anyway?" Neville grinned. He knew all too well Rose might see some private thing she was going to throw back at him at some point, but he would take it if it meant helping Dru.
"Fine," she said and sighed. "Close your eyes again and keep them closed." When he had done as she had asked him to, she carefully placed her hands on each side of his head, right at the temple and closed her eyes and it was easy to get into the first layer of Neville's mind, where she found thoughts of him being hungry and strangely turned on by the current situation despite his worry and his willingness to help Dru. Casting those thoughts aside (boys were boys after all), she found her way through to the second layer.
It was the place where he stored all his feelings for Dru, and a part of her felt relieved that she was so close to the surface in his mind, and that she was really important to him. It was good. Neville's dirty thoughts were just that and it was so weird to pry into someone's private thoughts like she did. Dru was much better at this, where Rose's gift mostly focused on seeing the future and planting images into Dru's head, Dru was the true mindreader of the both of them. Rose needed touch to get this far.
Neville stirred a little underneath her little investigation, but as long as he wasn't squeezing her leg, she was determined to dig deeper. She hit a wall when she went to another area of Neville's mind. There was a door, heavily fortified and she couldn't get in. Rose didn't want to get in there, but she knew that if she wanted to help Dru, she had to, because she didn't know how bad Dru's head was and this was a challenge she needed to do.
Thinking Alohomora obviously didn't work, and she tried several other things before realizing she was standing ontop of a doormat. It would be too easy if she'd find a key underneath it, but it was also a brilliant hiding spot just because it was too easy. She imagined moving the mat and found the key to the door. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and was overwhelmed by the emotions that had been locked away behind that door. Feelings of being inadequate were mixed between feelings for his parents, and his hatred towards mostly Bellatrix LeStrange for what she did.
She quickly made her way out of his head before removing her hands from his head, because it was too much for her, by the time she did remove her hands from his head, she was sobbing on the bed.
Neville sat up and put his arms around her. "It's ok. You did good, Rose. You did good." He patted her back. "It's ok." He felt bad for putting her through this, but he didn't have a choice. They had to do it for Dru.
"I'm sorry that I... I'm sorry that I peeked in there but I had to... to test myself... and... it's so dangerous, I was so afraid that I'd mess things up in there... and your emotions in there overwhelmed me so much..." She turned her body so that she could bury her face into his shirt as she fisted it and sobbed. "You know you're a great wizard, don't you? You're a great person, Neville, you have to believe that."
"I think right now you need to believe you're a great witch. You've done it perfect. Now why don't you go get some sleep. You're gonna need your rest for tomorrow."
She sighed and nodded. She was a little unsteady on her feet when she got off the bed and slowly made her way over to her room and crawled onto the bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell asleep.
She was nervous the next morning and kept eating little bits and pieces of cookies and fruit until it was time to leave for the hospital. Apparating had made her feel nauseous a bit, but it soon cleared as she breathed in the London air. As soon as they walked into the ward, professor Lockhart approached her again, this time with even more papers and a hand drawn picture of himself, or at least, she thought it was. It looked like a children's drawing. She smiled politely and since he was looking expectantly, she asked for him to autograph it, which he happily did and then bounced off again.
Neville gave Dru a kiss on her lips as he whispered "I love you." in her ear. He knew she couldn't hear or feel what he was doing, but something told him to do it. Somehow he needed to say goodbye to her.
Rose put the papers down on the nightstand next to Dru's bed and looked at Neville. "You have to keep Lockhart away from me," she told him. "And you have to keep an eye on her, and on me. If she looks in pain, pull my hair. If I look like I'm going to lose it, pull me off of her."
Neville nodded. He put his hands in his pockets and stood guard so Rose could do her thing.
She sat down on the bed and looked at her friend. "You're going to be the death of me, aren't you?" she smiled weakly at her and warmed up her hands. "Leave it to Rose to stomp over other people's castles." She then tried to tune out the sounds of the patients of the ward around her as she tried to relax at the same time. "I'm still not sure if I can do this, Dru," she whispered. "But people seem to think that I can. I'm just a teenager and this is heavy duty stuff..."
"Rose, this is not the time to doubt yourself," Neville told her as he looked at her. "You can do this."
"Shut up, Neville," Rose said as she placed her hands on Dru's head and tried to find her way in. She couldn't even get into the first layer of Dru's mind without thinking of a sledgehammer smashing walls, and she really didn't wish to do so just to get through, she wanted to be gentle, elegant, so that she wouldn't make things worse or hurt her friend even more. "Come on Dru... make me a crack!" she hissed.
Dru gave a weak moan.
"Yeah, useless as always," Rose bitched at her and looked for her way in. "Asleep for days and all she can do is moan." She finally found the crack she so desperately desired and smiled. "Oh there you are!" By making her way through the crack, she shattered the wall that was protecting the first layer of her mind.
Rose found that everything was still in place there, thoughts about Draco, thoughts about Hogwarts and classes, followed by thoughts about Narcissa. "Roomy," she smiled and hit another wall, this time a bit more sturdy than the first one. "Permission to think of a sledgehammer?"
"Rose." Dru's voice sounded distant.
"Yes, that's right! Does that mean I have permission to blow up your mind? Great!"
"Wait, what?" Neville's voice sounded. "What are you doing?"
"Shut up, Neville," Rose shot at him, sounding strangely empowered and confident. "Dru and I are having a talk." She hadn't lost her focus, and she was amazed by how well she seemed to be doing. Whatever Rose was doing, she was sure that any specialist of St. Mungo's could have done, but it felt almost as if it was too easy. She had the second wall down and felt how she was falling down a deep black hole, which gave her a slight feeling of panic, and was relieved when a safety net caught her. "Thanks, Dru."
Yes, things had been too easy. Something was obviously missing. If she had to compare the second layer of Dru's mind to Neville's, something was definitely missing and it already broke her heart. She nearly had a fright when she had climbed out of the hole and saw an image of someone she didn't recognise. "Who are you?"
"What are you doing?" the image asked her.
"Saving Dru, what does it look like?"
"But she doesn't need to be saved, she's safe now."
"Why don't you show who you are?"
"No need to," the image shrugged and looked around with pride. "Roomy, isn't it? Less clutter now that Neville boy has been banished."
"Oh, so that was the whole reason of knocking Dru unconscious? To erase Neville? Why?"
The image shrugged. "All feelings she had for the boy were tainting her, she'll be better now."
"Leave."
'No, it's time for you to leave."
Rose was suddenly out of Dru's head and off her bed. Neville had pulled her of her. Rose looked at Dru.
Dru was moving a little.
"Ow... what happened?" Rose said confused. "I wasn't ready..."
"She said it hurts." Neville said. "You told to pull you off her when it hurt."
"She spoke?" Rose crawled her way to the bed and started to poke Dru. "It hurt? Did it? How's this?" she then started to tickle her friend in the sides, knowing that she was ticklish. "Wake up, you silly git!"
Dru slowly opened her eyes and the closed them again. "I feel like 10 giants are sitting on my head."
Rose squealed loud enough to alert the nurses and hugged Dru. "You're back!"
"Where did I go to? Did I got some good souvenirs?" Dru grinned a bit.
"Well, St. Mungo's has a little shop," she retorted. "You can buy a souvenir when you get out of here."
"Merlin's beard! The girl has awoken!" The nurse called out and soon Dru's bedside was buzzing with nurses and doctors and Neville and Rose were being dragged away from there.
Rose felt deflated, tired and relieved as she sat down on a bench outside the ward. "Neville... she's back!" she smiled goofily. "Oh, I can sleep for ages now."
"Thank you." Neville didn't sound as happy as Rose as he was standing there with his hands in his pockets.
"You're not happy?" she asked confused.
"You opened her mind again. She's like she was before. Just as wonderful, just as beautiful, with everything intact...Well... almost everything that is."
"What are you talking about?"
Neville smiled at her. "You didn't realise it, did you. Everything you said when you were in her head, you said aloud."
She thought about what she had said, but she was too tired to remember. "What did I say, Neville?"
"Whoever you were talking to, you said that the reason that Dru was unconscious was to erase me from her thoughts..."
Rose was quiet for a moment and then looked at him with a sad face. "I am so sorry... I didn't know... I'm sorry..."
Neville put an arm around her and gave Rose a kiss on her forehead. "She's safe. That's all what matters."
She gave a little smile and laid down on the bench. It was a hard surface but she was so tired and drained, she needed to sleep. She folded her arms underneath her head and closed her eyes. "I did it," she muttered before she drifted off in sleep.
