Not All-There
Chapter 10
Oh there are a lot of things I want to ask you, Lin...
"Well, Lin, there is one thing that I really have been wanting to ask you…"
"What is it?"
"Well… I heard someone of high intellegence-"
"McGonagall?"
"Erm… well… yeah… Anyway, I heard McGonagall telling someone that you are well…"
" 'Not All-There'?"
"Well… yeah… I was wondering… If you could elaborate."
I held my breath, wondering if it was too much of a personal question. She turned her eyes away from me, up towards the sky, then closed them as she moved closer to me and on instinct I wrapped my arm around her to make her more comfortable.
"It means… that I… can't… understand things very… well…" She had started slurring and speaking slowly again, and I realized that whatever part of her had come back, had left, and once again she was not all-here.
"It means… that I… don't… understand things that happen… around… and… or… to me…" When she said that I couldn't help but look at the still-healing cut on her cheek and for a moment I wondered if she was remembering about how she had got it.
"It also means that… I can't understand… some feelings… some emotions…"
I felt my eyebrows crease together as I thought about that.
"You can't feel some emotions?"
"I can, but… I don't understand them, or I can't understand… things that would cause them… I've… never felt… anger… before…"
"Anger? Never?"
"Never."
"What about love?"
I didn't even know I had asked the question until I heard it leave my lips, and when Lin heard it she opened her eyes and looked straight at me.
"I don't know what that is, Draco…"
I was about to try and explain it, but she had gotten up and ran over to a large, thick bristled pine tree, under which there was no snow, but rather small plants.
"Look, Draco! Look!"
I started to get up, but immediately fell back down, I hadn't even realized that my legs had started going numb from the cold, I must've been really distracted if I hadn't noticed it.
So I slowly sat up, wiggling and shaking my limbs to get the blood pumping back through them.
I had finally reached halfway between the snow pile and where Lin was croaching when she turned, holding out her hand and in it I could see small red spheres.
"Look, Draco! Look at them!"
And in a second she had picked one up and before I could finish speaking she had already swallowed it, so my voice rang through the empty area…
"LIN DON'T EAT THAT!"