Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter, and all characters therein, do not belong to me. They belong to JK Rowling; I've merely borrowed a few of them for a little while.

No warnings needed: this chapter's pretty PG...

PS. I liked the epilogue of DH ;P

A Beginner's Crash-Course to Dimensional Travel

By CalamityM

Chapter 9: Fee Fie Foe, Fun For Me.

"My first name's Angelene

Prettiest mess you've ever seen"

- PJ Harvey, Angelene

I spent a lot of my time thinking as I lay in the hospital bed at St. Mungo's, up in the Janus Thickey ward; there wasn't much else I could do. I thought about philosophy, psychology and quantum physics. And, for the most part, I thought about how annoying it was that I knew so little about any of them. They're the sorts of topics you'd study in university, if you selected those majors that is, but rarely go near on your own accord. There's always something else you have to do; some chore that comes first, or appointment you just have to keep. Another day at work, or social occasion, or nightclub, or internet browsing session; until there is no time to sit down with a copy of 'A Brief History of Time' and a large mug of hot cocoa. I was regretting it now, since I was so goddamned bored!

There's very little to reflect on when you've lead a dull existence; other than the dullness of that existence and how much you wished you'd done things differently. Life regrets nag at you, 'what-ifs' heckle you from fantasies of how things might have gone: if only you'd got better grades, or a better job; if only you'd gone to uni or played more sports in high-school; if only you'd done a little more exercise and maybe a few crunches on occasion… If only you hadn't gone to work that day…

Well, at least I had lost a bit of weight over the past few days in St Mungo's, 10 kilos in fact! If only it hadn't been mostly in organs.

From what I had overheard from the whispered and urgent discussions of my carers, my organs were constantly liquifing inside my body. They seemed rather surprised by this – which wasn't very reassuring – and seemed perplexed as to what to do about it, which was even less reassuring. They seemed to be morbidly curious as to the cause of my condition; though when one of the Healer's had expressed further interest in my chest region – for some disturbing reason – the others had promptly reprimanded him. Apparently there was something wrong with my chest. I tried not to think about it too much.

Potions kept me alive, one every six hours on the timer; which was a large time-turner full of slowly draining sand and situated a foot above my bed. Just for fun, when I was particularly bored, I would watch the last few dregs of sand spill into the bottom half of the timer, while silently counting down to the moment the lid of the top half popped itself open and a sudden, loud alarm howled out across the ward for the Healer to give me my medicine. I'd watch the harassed-looking healer tap the offending thing with her wand before fetching out a thin, yellow bottle and a large spoon from her robes and poured a spoonful of the contents carefully out; the liquid itself was a muddy-brown, from what I could tell, smelt of scrambled eggs and asparagus, and tasted like vomit. The sixth hour was never Happy Hour.

The ward was resonably quiet with only a half-dozen patients in residence, who never made much sound except the occasional bark, quack or incoherent babble. Most of them stayed in their beds for the exception of maybe three or four of them – it was hard to tell who they all were exactly, since my view mainly consisted of the ceiling directly above me or the underside of someone's nostrils whenever I got a visitor. I had, however, heard the healer taking to Mrs Longbottom; though the lady never responded. A bit like me in that regards.

Most of the patients kept to themselves, except for poor Mrs Longbottom who would wandered around aimlessly, with her vague eyes gazing unseeingly, and who would sometimes pick things up, study them without seeming to notice them, before placing them back down again. I found this out when she had wandered over to my bed to look down at me, tapped vaguely at the timeturner, and then walked off again like a sleep-walker.

Poor, poor Mrs Longbottom.

It hit Unhappy Hour; I found myself trying to ignore the nausating taste as I had my dose spooned carefully into my slack mouth and felt the Healer gently caress my throat to coax the liquid down, before she refilled the spoon again. The game played on till the bottle was emptied and she put both spoon and bottle back into the recesses of her robe. She smiled down at me kindly and smoothed my hair down with a tender hand.

"There now," she said. "That's better. And you're looking better by the day! I fact, I'm quite sure I can see a little colour in your cheeks today!" She lied, reassuringly. "Who knows, by tomorrow you might be up and talking!"

And there was the brunt of my misfortunes; on top of liquefying organs, being bed-bound, and having a howling time-turner as an alarm clock, I had also been rendered into a vegetable state. I couldn't move nor talk, and I could barely even react properly.

She patted my arm in a friendly manner and fussed over my blankets and pillows motherly. She frequently smiled down at me in a reassuring way, and the only thing I could do in return was to try not to dribble too much and focus my eyes straight ahead. They seemed to have found a new and unfortunate habit of slowly revolving around in my head on their own accord if I wasn't careful; and though she never stopped smiling reassuringly, I was pretty sure it freaked her out. It certainly did me!

I couldn't help but wonder why I was still alive; though crippled as I was, I should have been dead. It was possible that Black Sun had been responsible, that she had died in my place; but there was a nagging doubt as to how much effect the death of someone already dead could have on the Killing Curse. If a person was possessed by a ghost at the time they were struck down, would they survive? Somehow I didn't think so, which left the question as to why I was still alive unanswered.

The Healer was steadily finishing her rearrangements of my bed when another Healer approached. He had a permanent untidy look about him, as though he was scruffy by nature and couldn't stop regardless of what he did or tried; as he neared, his hands flew up to his dishevelled hair and tried to fix it down again. Even still, it still stuck up in various places, but stiffly as though it was fighting its way through a thick layer of hair gel.

"Uh, Miriam?" he started, looking nervous; the lady-Healer looked up at him and smiled broadly.

"Oh, hello, Sabastian! What are you doing up here? Shouldn't you be on the Second Floor?" she asked him, politely.

Sabastian seemed to hesitate before responding, possibly unsure if he was being reprimanded or not,

"Um, I, er, I wanted to see how the patient was. Doing all right, is she?" he began, glancing at me nervously and patting his hair again.

"Oh yes," said Miriam. "She's doing very well!" She added and patted my arm lightly as though to encourage me. "Should be sitting up soon! I was just saying (she turned her attention back to Sabastian) how I think she's looking much better today, don't you agree?"

Sabastian stared at her for a moment before realising that that had been his cue, then nodded quickly,

"Oh? Oh yes! Yes, much better! Um, Miriam, there was something I needed to talk to you about..." he moved over to stand beside Miriam and bowed his head down to whisper something in her ear (I suddenly realised how much taller than her he was) and she blinked and looked at him in surprise.

"Well!" she said. "I'm not sure where you've heard a rumour like that, Sabastian-"

"But Miriam, don't try to pretend it isn't true! Marius swears he saw it with his own eyes! Is there or isn't there a mark-"

But Miriam rounded on him, an unexpectedly angry expression on her face. I had never seen her angry before and it was more than a little concerning,

"Now look here, Sabastian, I do not go around listening to rumours and I certainly do not go spreading them - especially ones about my patents! Now is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?"

I could see Sabastian's eyes widen in shock and realised he must have felt quite abashed by Miriam's sudden defensiveness, it had certainly taken me by surprise.

"No, no nothing at all," he said stiffly and turned to leave. I heard his footsteps stopped abruptly at the door, then heard him say: "You know, Miriam, it's no crime to be a little curious! Maybe you ought to be a little more curious about your patents, after what happened to one of them last time!"

But Miriam didn't acknowledge this, though she frowned and her mouth tightened into a thin line; instead she continued to bustle around me and I soon heard Sabastian leave via the door. Finally Miriam glaced at the door, tutted to herself and muttered something about people keeping their own noses clean, and never making another mistake again if she could help it. I was pondering what exactly this all could mean when my view was suddenly obscured by a large grinning face.

Gahh!I thought, and I felt my left eyeball roll up in suprise.

"Afternoon! A good afternoon now that I've come to visit, wouldn't you say?" said the mouth hovering mere inches from my face. The face moved back a bit and I could finally identify it's owner: Lockheart.

Aw crap, not Gilderoy!

"I've brought her a nice little prezie!" he told Miriam, jovially, before leaning down to talk into my face again. "I- have- brought- you- a- pres- ent!" He said and then moved so that he could wave a glossy rectange of paper in front of my face.

"Gilderoy, you silly, you don't need to talk so closely to her face, she isn't deaf, dear," said Miriam as she tended to the next patient in the next bed.

"Just making sure! Here you are, see?" he held the paper up infront of my eyes (or at least the one that hadn't rolled up and hid under my eyelid in fear of him) so that I could view the A4 size photo of him portrayed therein. His image was grinning and waving enthusiastically at me and the words 'Get well my no. 1 fan' was scrawled in rough, cursive handwriting above it. I tried to shut my eyes in frustration and felt my left eye roll back down again, which wasn't exactly a great help.

I had been sharing a ward with Lockheart and the other unfortunate victims of magical accidents for the past month now, and for some odd reason I had become the focus of Lockheart's attention. Miriam seemed annoyingly cheerful about the whole situation, mentioning occasionly to my prone form – and any other healers that visited the ward – that he might rather like me, and wasn't that sweet? The other healers seemed to think it was pretty funny and-or adorable. I didn't. There's nothing pleasant about waking up to a view of teeth mere centremetres away from your face every day, as some madman grinned down at you like the bloody Cheshire Cat.

I managed to blink a few times, then my eyelids fluttered a bit but I succeeded in keeping them from closing entirely.

HaHA! Got it! I felt triumphant!

Lockheart was babbling in earnest now as he sticky-taped the photograph onto the space of wall above my bedhead, along with the other dozen or so photos he had put up on other occasions. I concentrated on my blinking exercises while half listening to his ramblings.

"I've been terribly busy today," he was saying. "Mrs O'Patrick from 74 Bay View sent me a letter! I've been writing a reply, would you like to hear it?"

Left-eye shut, I thought to myself, Left-eye open. Left- eye- open... Damn it, left-eye! OPEN!

"I'm thinking I'll write the good copy on that nice pad of paper Mrs Yeats of Unit 4, 17 Elizabeth Street, sent me, you know, the purple and green one? I do rather like the shades and patterns of it! Do you suppose Mrs O'Patrick will?" there was the rustling of paper as he sorted through what sounded like a small novel, which I could only assume was the 'letter' he had been composing.

I ignored him; it was generally best to just let Lockheart get on with it and focus on something else while he rambled, and I had more important matters to contend with,

Damn, okay, trying again: left-eye- open! Open! Op- Yes! Left-eye is now open! Now, moving on to right...

"You're quite right!" he said, as though I actually had the capacity to respond. "I should use the other pad with gold stars and matching envelopes! That's a much better idea!" He leaned over to grin down at me again, only slightly yelling this time, "Why, we do make quite a team, don't we!"

It felt like it was going to be another long day.

A/N: To be continued... I swear, it's going to stop being boring soon... I hope.