Tansy woke with a groan and prised her eyelids open – her head felt as if she had been put on a spin-drier cycle and her legs throbbed rhythmically. She was lying between the scratchy sheets of a narrow cot in the hospital wing and bright November sunlight was streaking though the long windows, falling in golden rivers across the floor. Harry, Ron and Hermione were sat around her bed, all three of them looking relieved that she had woken up. She tried and failed to sit up.
'What happened?' She asked weakly, suddenly feeling slightly lightheaded and more than content to stay lying down.
'Well, Madam Pomfrey reckons that you hit your head on a toilet…' Ron chortled.
'Shut up Ron…' Hermione interrupted him snappily, but Tansy noticed that Hermione's tone was far less bossy than usual. '...you've been asleep for five days. When the troll knocked over the toilet cubicles you got trapped under the splinters and one went right through the back of your knees…' Hermione turned slightly pale and her voice shook slightly.
Tansy felt suddenly sick and swallowed quickly. She twitched her legs experimentally; yes she could still move them and, surprisingly, it didn't hurt at all. Taking a deep breath, she lifted a corner of the blankets to peek under it; her legs looked like they always did, the only difference was that they were wearing borrowed pajamas. More experimentation revealed that they felt normal too. She looked up, amazed by the skills of magic-medicine; if this had happened in the muggle world then she'd have been lucky to walk again...
'…then Harry and Ron got there…' Hermione continued, obviously not noticing her friend's experimentations. '…Harry stuck his wand up its nose and Ron knocked it out with its own club – it was the most impressive thing I've ever seen. Then the teachers turned up and I told them that it was entirely my fault – I've got three detentions with McGonagall next week and she took ten points off Gryffindor.'
'But... but it wasn't your fault Hermione, I mean you didn't even know about the troll did you?' Tansy asked, feeling slightly confused by this explanation.
'I know, but, well I couldn't let Harry and Ron get into trouble; not when they'd actually come to save us.' Hermione blushed slightly and Tansy didn't press the point.
'Anyway Madam Pomfrey says that you'll be free to leave the hospital wing by the weekend - just in time for my first Quidditch match.' Harry broke in enthusiastically, although Tansy thought that he looked slightly nervous.
At this point in the conversation, Madam Pomfrey hustled her friends out of the ward so that Tansy could 'rest in peace'. Tansy, personally, felt as if this was a slight overreaction because she'd been resting for nearly a week already, as well as being rather horrible choice of words because muggles tended to write it on gravestones. Even so, she obeyed the Matron because her head did feel extremely rocky and she was glad for an excuse to snuggle down and shut her eyes.
Madam Pomfrey kept the young witch in the hospital wing until Saturday morning when she was finally released with a command to 'take it easy'. Tansy was extremely relieved to return to the normality of school-life because she had been bored to tears lying down all day. She had been thrilled to find out that Harry, Ron and Hermione had become close friends whilst she was unconscious – although she had wanted them to reconcile their differences, she had never imagined that a fully grown mountain troll would be the answer to her wishes!
Over breakfast, in between trying to coax Harry to eat something, Ron told her how he and Harry were convinced that Snape was trying to steal whatever the three-headed dog was guarding. Hermione looked sceptical but didn't argue with him because she was too busy trying to wheedle Harry into eating a bit of toast. Tansy didn't like Snape but nor did she think he would be trying to steal whatever Dumbledore obviously wanted to keep safe so she put it into the back of her mind until after the Quidditch match. This turned out to be a mistake because Snape actually tried to bewitch Harry's broomstick in mid-fight. Although Hagrid was adamant that they were getting worked up over nothing, Tansy wasn't so sure, and that, she reflected gloomily as they walked up to the castle for dinner, didn't really make the prospect of individual Potions with Snape any easier.
Oh Monday, Tansy watched sadly as her friends left the breakfast table without her – her cooling porridge suddenly seemed much less appealing so she put it aside and made her way quickly to the Transfiguration corridor on the other side of the castle. Trying to ignore the stares from the third years, of which the only ones that she recognised were Fred and George Weasley, Ron's twin brothers, she sat down at the back of the class and took out her brand new copy of Intermediate Transfiguration, which had arrived in the post the week before. They learnt how to change teacups into mice, which was more complicated than anything Tansy had ever tried before although she thought she managed quite well even if her mouse still had a faint willow print pattern to its fur at the end of the lesson. Professor McGonagall seemed pleased with her efforts and awarded her with a rare smile and ten points to Gryffindor.
She was extremely happy to re-join her class for Herbology and was thrilled when Professor Sprout told them that they were finally ready to begin work on the melianthus major plant – the huge honey scented plant in the corner of greenhouse one had been catching their eye since their first ever Herbology lesson. That evening she also had her first individual Charms lesson with Professor Flitwick and successfully levitated a feather, a textbook and finally one of the desks which was a vast improvement on her achievement in class a week and a half ago.
On Wednesday morning a huge Slytherin fifth year brought her a roll of parchment at breakfast which contained the unwelcome information that her first individual Potions class was to be held at seven that evening in dungeon one. Tansy pushed her sausages away from her as her insides twisted like live snakes. The plate grated across the rough table top and her friends looked up from their own breakfasts.
'Omeonansyiwobethaba!' Ron had a huge mouthful of sausage and bacon so Tansy thought that it was actually quite an achievement that he had managed to get any sound out at all. Nevertheless, she did not understand what he had said until he swallowed with difficulty, and tried again.
'It won't be that bad – I mean Snape can't be too mean can he? 'Nyway he can't get much worse than he already is…'
He loaded up another enormous forkful of breakfast and Tansy had a mad urge to throw her orange juice in his face, (which she resisted); instead she left the table and walked out into the cold November morning and managed to get to the edge of the lake before she burst into tears.
The day seemed to fly by and quarter to seven came round far too quickly. She left her friends in the library, where they were unsuccessfully researching Nicolas Flamel - something that Tansy had very little patience with, and made her way downstairs to dungeon one as slowly as possible. The torches in the underground passage flickered ominously and she shivered, wrapping her arms nervously around her skinny body. She knocked as quietly as she could, still vainly hoping that Snape wasn't going to turn up, but her heart sank when his snide voice answered. Her knees quaked slightly as she pushed open the door and walked inside.
'Laverstock, I want it made clear that you will not waste my time tonight or in any of our future lessons…' Snape didn't bother with a greeting of any sort.
Tansy swallowed saliva; it was now or never. She choked suddenly as the words got stuck on their way out before swallowing again to clear her throat.
'No sir,' she answered, her voice tiny and scratchy.
'Do not interrupt!' Tansy blushed and hung her head as the Potions master continued to rant at her.
'I am not here to suffer cheek from the likes of you – you are here because your potion brewing is absolutely and utterly appalling and you are lazy and sloppy. In my opinion, Laverstock, any pupil who cannot brew the simplest potions correctly does not possess the inherent magical ability to be a pupil at this school. So I will grant you one more chance before I go to the headmaster to ask for your immediate expulsion.' Tansy gasped – she knew that she was bad at Potions but not that it could result in her expulsion from the school.
'Well? What are you waiting for? We will start with a simple potion to cure boils – even your thick brain shouldn't find that too problematic. Hurry up and get your things ready, I haven't got all night.'
Tansy rushed over to the huge ingredients cupboard in the corner of the room and grabbed the first pile of boxes that she could lay her hands on. Her fingers scrabbled at the dusty, cracked cardboard, knocking a great many of them over, but finally she had an armful, although she was shaking so badly that she managed to drop half of them before she made it back to the bench. This caused Snape to remove ten points from Gryffindor for her clumsy and wasteful behaviour.
The lesson progressed about as well as it had started; although Tansy did manage to brew a respectable boil-curing potion she made so many mistakes along the way that she thought that Snape would probably empty the Gryffindor hour-glass before the lesson was over. Finally, ten minutes before the curfew, she was allowed to leave the dungeon with about twice as much homework as normal and a warning not to return without it next week.
Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think.
