Previously:
"Come in," Madam Pomfrey called out.
One last chance to back out...
Chapter 9: Unknown
Or search for a third option. Ginny sighed. That seemed overrated. There was hardly going to be an ideal solution anyway. Happy endings and convenient deux ex machina only happened in books, and Ginny wasn't even that fond of fiction to begin with.
Ginny hastily entered before Madam Pomfrey would call out again. She'd rather just get this over and done with now.
"Good morning, Ginny. Flu again, is it?" Madam Pomfrey asked.
She spared a glance from her work and waved Ginny over to a bed. Ginny sat down and planted her feet firmly on the ground. She stared at the Madam Pomfrey. The woman was hunched over a cauldron, intent on the concoction.
"Uh, I guess," said Ginny.
Did that mean Madam Pomfrey wasn't just an applied Healer? Healers, and especially those who acted as school nurses and worked alongside an expert Potions Master, didn't prepare their own potions. Their time was better spent with patients. That must mean that Madam Pomfrey was an experimental Healer too and she was inventing or something. She owned more qualifications than Ginny ever realised. What was she doing working in a school? Or was it just some bizarre hobby? It seemed unlikely.
Madam Pomfrey wiped her hands on a tea towel and abandoned her apparatus to examine Ginny. She felt Ginny's forehead. Her hand was icy. Ginny shivered.
"You have a temperature," Madam Pomfrey noted. "Headache? Nausea?"
"Um, yeah..." Ginny trailed off. "But I don't feel warm. Do I have a high temperature?"
It was actually one thing that was alright with her – not having a high temperature. This was why she hated hospitals. They always found something wrong with you that you were perfectly happy not knowing. Was there anything not wrong with her?
Defective.
"Accio thermometer," muttered Madam Pomfrey.
The device dashed into her hand. Madam Pomrey fidgeted with it briefly and passed it to Ginny. Ginny pulled a face but inserted it in her mouth. Madam Pomfrey fluttered away and half vanished into a large cabinet at the end of the room.
Pressure pushed on Ginny's spine. The shakes escalated. Quivering qualms stretched through her very being and tore her apart. Ginny clenched her hands against the edge of the bed. Her arms trembled as though straining against a heavy weight.
Madam Pomfrey returned with a small globe. Ginny saw similar ones before when she was in St. Mungo's. She didn't know what they did, just assumed that they were paperweights. Evidently, they actually had a function.
"Keep still, don't want to affect the reading," Madam Pomfrey instructed.
"Don't move," snapped the Doctor. "Or I'll have you restrained and put into isolation."
The transgenic lay on an examination table. Cold metal pressed into Its stomach. It inhaled a shallow breath and released it slowly, hardly daring to breath for fear that it would qualify as movement. It clenched Its eyes closed and tensed.
The Doctor leaned over It. It remained stiff, wanting to move and hide, but frozen by the threat, passively waiting the pain. It would hurt. It always did. But It was a good soldier and accepted that pain. The Doctor rubbed a swab against the small of Its back. The scent of alcohol whiffed at Its nostrils.
Protocol. It was a necessary action for hygiene, and It understood that otherwise the Doctor wouldn't have bothered. This operation was very important. It was imperative that it went perfectly.
It felt a tip of a needle against Its back. Then the needle plunged into Its back. It managed to remain still, avoiding flinching away from the penetrating tip or crying out. The needle poked down an inch, or perhaps several. It couldn't tell. Its eyes flickered open. Its reflection stared up at It from the metal table, face pale and strained.
It didn't move.
Madam Pomfrey clucked her tongue, and read the thermometer, unimpressed with the result. She didn't tell Ginny, and Ginny didn't ask. Her headache turned into a full-blown migraine, and Ginny felt vaguely detached, like if she let go of the bed she might fall away into oblivion. She couldn't deal with words too.
Madam Pomfrey fiddled with the globe. She opened a hatch, which she placed the tip of her wand in. Ginny craned her neck to see what was inside, curiosity overcoming pain and dizzinness, but she couldn't see anything. The globe glowed.
"What's that?" Ginny asked.
"It's the Fieurt test," Madam Pomfrey said. She pulled her wand out of the globe. A sandy substance clung to the tip. "Lie down."
Ginny didn't move for a long moment, already regretting her decision to come here. But it was too late to turn back, and doing things half-way would be just as bad as submitting completely. She sank back into the narrow bed. Her feet hung off the end and her head rested a foot from the pillow. She looked up at Madam Pomfrey expectantly.
Madam Pomfrey placed the tip of her wand against Ginny's forehead. A cool trickling sensation shivered down from it. It opposed the shakes, and the two sensations seemed to cancel each other out. A temporary haven. Ginny's nerves tingled on edge.
Madam Pomfrey pulled her wand away and stared at it.
"What does it say?" Ginny asked, unable to spare the energy to move her over-strained muscles. She was content just to lie here in this cocoon of safety.
"Not what it should," Madam Pomfrey muttered.
Safety shattered. Madam Pomfrey's face was grim, lines pulled downwards, as opposed to her usual upbeat expression. Her eyes met Ginny's. They contained an indecipherable gleam.
"What is it supposed to be?" Now Ginny was frowning too.
"The common case of someone displaying your symptoms would be someone over-exerting themselves magically, body unable to cope and brain sending off haywire signals," Madam Pomfrey explained. Her voice was distant like she was thinking aloud. Her textbook explanation lacked any real depth of clarification.
It – the eye of the storm – ended and without any warning the shakes snapped back into full affect. Ginny's back arched, body spasming. Her whole frame trashed and jerked, muscles pushed beyond limit. Infinitely shaking. Nothing else existed but the shakes, the crisp Hospital Wing and its neat rows of beds and Emma's sister faded into bleak barracks. Madam Pomfrey was replaced by a gruff drill instructor.
"Attention," the Drill Instructor bellowed. His voice reverberated in the narrow space, echoing off the grey walls and drifting out the window into the cold snow outside.
The order was met with a prompt response. Everyone had been woken up by his heavy footfalls and the door slamming closed. Within seconds, the transgenics scrambled out of bed and stood at the foot, postures rigid and ramod. Blank eyes gazed a hundred point stare. Perfect response. Perfect formation.
Perfection.
Although pregrey dawn light had yet to filter into the room, they were all alert and prepared for this unscheduled training session.
Except Jack. From the corner of her eye she saw Jack's eyes grow very round with badly concealed surprise and not a small amount of fear. His hands were clasped behind his back, but that pressure wasn't enough. The tremble was minute, but it was there. Shakes – loss of motor function control
The thump of the Drill Instructor's boot fell silent. He stopped in front of her. His nostrils flared, the only warning, and his hand snapped out. It collided solidly with her cheek. She staggered back with the blow, but quickly resumed her stance. Her cheek burned, both with pain (even a transgenic couldn't stand against a six-foot man using his full strength) and humilation that he found fault and made her an example.
"Do you think you're better than the others?"
"No sir."
"I can't hear you!"
"No, sir," she repeated, voice as loud as his. The throb in her cheek, which had faded, made its presence known at movement.
He loomed over her. An unfamiliar smell wafted from his breath. She struggled not to cringe away from the overpowering stench and his twitching hand.
"Then why did you choose to keep your eyes front?"
She didn't say anything. The truth was not an option, and anything else sounded like an excuse.
"Inability?" he hissed. His voice was soft now. Dangerous.
"No sir," she responded.
She ensured that her eyes were glued ahead now, exactly how the Drill Instructor wanted. From the side of her eye, she could see her cheek swell and begin to turn an unpleasant mottled purple. The sight of her pain seemed to intensify it.
"I don't believe you," the Drill Instructor claimed. There was a shadow of stubble on his chin, not clean-shaven as usual. In the darkness of night, his eyes flashed dangerously. He found a victim that he could exploit.
"You stay here with me, solider, and we'll see if we can't rectify that," he decided. He stepped away from her, and paced up and down the line again. "Everyone else report to training room 1C."
"Yes, sir," a resounding echo filled the barracks. Ominous. Words perfectly in unison.
"Dismissed."
The crunch of boots filled her ears as they marched by. Zack spared her a long look, and Jack a grateful one. His hands were steady again. He must have thought her slip was intentional, to save him, but Zack knew better, understood that she wasn't as perfect as was required to be. The shakes haunted Jake, but inferiority stalked her steps.
She'd have them yet, she knew, but for now, she stood at attention and dismissed all thoughts of the future and the coming punishment. The Drill Instructor drew out the suspense, letting fear creep in, and then he stepped forward.
Someone moved. Quiet footsteps shuffled around Ginny's bed. Ginny resisted the urge to open her eyes and check whom. She lay still, and took a moment to organise her thoughts. They were fuzzy and distant like a radio playing softly in another room. But Ginny figured it out.
She was in the Hospital Wing. The shakes. Ginny stiffened and took a register of her limbs, but found no telltale twitching. Had Madam Pomfrey fixed the shakes or did they just pass? There was a deep ache in her body. Ginny couldn't pinpoint the location; it was just a large throbbing pain.
Something cold clasped around Ginny's arm. Ginny spent long enough in Hospitals to identify it as a monitor. A small little thing, no more than an armband, which alerted the Healer in charge of any unauthorised change in state. It would register Ginny's consciousness any second now, best to do this on her own terms.
Ginny shifted causing a flash of pain to shoot up her spine. She let out a quiet groan. Ginny cracked open her eyes and blinked several times rapidly. The Hospital Wing came into focus from a swirl of cream objects.
"You're awake?" Madam Pomfrey asked.
She pressed her hand against Ginny's forehead again. It lingered, as though she didn't want to believe the warmth emitting from Ginny. Madam Pomfrey checked the the band. "It must be dysfunctional," she muttered.
"Hmm?"
"It has you recorded at normal temperature," said Madam Pomfrey. Frustration thickened her voice with a Southern twang, echoing Emma who came from thereabouts.
"Am I not?"
"You're still running a fever. The Xeridition should have treated that," Madam Pomfrey informed her.
Ginny nodded slowly although she didn't even know what Xeridition was. She couldn't even supply any logic to satisfy Madam Pomfrey. She rubbed at her dry, and presumably horribly bloodshot, eyes.
"Wizards have a higher temperature than Muggles, don't they?" Ginny suggested. She had a vague memory of a Healer looking at results and immediately dismissing any temperature inequalities off. It never seemed particularly important to Ginny. Why did Madam Pomfrey care so much?
"This is above the norm." Her voice was like a whip crack.
Ginny shrugged. Madam Pomfrey was almost definitely an experimental Healer. No one else would care about such a small margin of abnormality. What was she doing in a school? It just didn't add up.
"How do you feel? Drowsy? Unfocused?"
"Fine," Ginny maintained. The word fell out of her lips out of habit, not any real thought. It was just an auotmatic response to the oft repeated question which Healers were fond of. How many times had she said fine? At least five hundred. Fine. Fine. Fine. She was fine.
"I'm fine."
"You don't look it."
The gentle words slapped Ginny in the face. She flinched. She was always fine. How else could she deal with everything? Ginny needed to be fine.
"I feel it," she said softly.
Bill moved closer, still a good metre away, but edging near to her. He took halting steps, voice carefully lowered like she was a dangerous and cornered animal...which wasn't strictly false. But mostly, Ginny felt like a helpless child. Inept. Sandman's words and blurry images of events up until this moment came rushing back and...failure. What happened? It was all dim and distant, like maybe it was a story someone once told her and not her life.
"Your hands," said Bill.
Ginny looked down at them. Bill's hand twitched closer, she saw it out of the corner of her eye, but her gaze was fixated on her hands. The half-healed cuts fascinated her. Blood was caked dry on her hands, her knuckles scrapped clean. Ginny put her hands behind her back.
Evidence of another failure. She couldn't get out. How long has she been stuck? Immobilised in her own mistakes and weakness. The XX encased her, until they opened it. Weak. Worthless. But what was her worth to Adams and Bill? The former had an unholy gleam in his eyes.
"How...how long?" asked Ginny. She gestured vaguely with one hand, unable to gather the necessary words to describe the experience. She wasn't even sure what the question was. How long had she been dead? How long had she been comatose? How long had she been an inanimated corpse?
Adams checked his watch, a digital one with a dozen little buttons, and quickly informed her of the time. His eyes darted between her and the XX, and in a strangled tone added the year. "2012."
In Adam's brief pause, Ginny knew that the date alone was sufficient and that knowledge was overwhelming. Her world split down the sides and cracked into two. The truth was undeniable. An unwilling sob escaped her throat. Shit. The word echoed around her and seemed so utterly insignificant. Ginny slid down the wall to the floor, her shaky legs unable to support her anymore. She looked up at the two tall, hovering men.
Pity shone in their eyes. Instead of asking her what date she thought it was or questioning her further, Bill repeated his earlier question. "Are you okay?"
Ginny's shoulders shook with restrained sobs. Soldiers didn't cry. Suck it up. Ginny closed her eyes for several moments, heard Adams suggest hesistantly that she was going into shock.
"I'm fine."
"Do you have my medical file? Like from before?" Ginny asked suddenly. "If it's some sort of condition they would have noticed it at St. Mungo's and at least temporarily treated it."
"No. I'm aware it exists, but with circumstances…" Madam Pomfrey trailed off. Her eyes were distant and then they focused on Ginny. Pity reflected in the whites. Sympathy. The Healer didn't even know what she was pitying, and that bothered Ginny more than the pity itself.
"I suppose I shall have to owl them, see if they can shed any sort of light on your condition," said Madam Pomfrey, reluctant, as if it hurt her pride to ask for help, wounded her dignity.
Ginny nodded. Nothing she could say would influence Madam Pomfrey, especially not some stupid excuse about wanting to leave old skeletons resting in their closets, not to have a circle of Healers standing around her again like she was a freak show. She already endured enough of that after the freak accident in Egypt.
"I want to look over some of your test results again. You should rest," advised Madam Pomfrey, only it was more or an order than advice.
Ginny nodded. This battle wasn't worth fighting. It was easier to comply, or at any rate, pretend to comply. She closed her eyes and shifted, with flares of pain, into a more comfortable sleeping position on her stomach. Ginny didn't expect to actually fall asleep, but she did and when she opened her eyes it was dusky.
Ginny blinked rapidly and her eyes adjusted to the dark. Vicious rain pounded off the window in a lilting lullaby, tempting Ginny to go back asleep. She yawned and sat up, peering around the ghostly room. Light flickered from underneath Madam Pomfrey's office door, evidently she was occupied inside.
Ginny took a deep breath and sung her legs over the edge of the bed, bracing for the pain. It never came, only the jarring twinge of her bladder complaining. Ginny hesitated to ensure she wouldn't be caught unaware by agony and in several stages stood up and crossed the Hospital Wing to the toilet, pausing only to shoot the bed pan a dirty look and gawk at Emma's sister.
Ginny stood rooted to the spot as she stared at the pale, motionless body. Jill's head was tilted towards Ginny, not of conscious desire (for that was stolen) but rather a twisted coincidence. An ominous symbol, as though she was watching, expecting...waiting. But for what? For company in her half-state? Ginny inched forward and touched Jill's face. Her skin was warm and soft, not the deathly cold Ginny expected. Ginny turned Jill's head so that it looked directly up at the ceiling, and then rushed into the bathroom, overcome by revulsion and fear. Dementor's Kiss. Ginny's chest was tight and there was an ache in her throat.
The girl would be moved home soon. Her parents were busy arranging a suitable environment and care, unable to bare her being shoved into a dusty, forgotten hospital ward. But no fate could be any worse than Jill's current one. One lie. One mistake. And her life was forfeit. Game over. No redos or undos or extra lives. Just gone. This wasn't like Ginny's brush with ancient Egyptian magic (although Ginny could erase the image of Jill's body. God, she must have looked so much more like a corpse in what was essentially a coffin), Jill had no hope.
When Ginny managed to leave the bathroom, she kept her eyes pinned on the ground. She hastily searched for her clothes. Madam Pomfrey left them conveniently folded in drawer of the locker beside her bed. Ginny quickly changed into her robes, moving silently to avoid alerting Madam Pomfrey. She couldn't stand staying here one single longer let alone enduring tests. Ginny didn't bother with the laces on her purple runners, and just shoved her feet in.
Then she vanished from the Hospital Wing, footsteps quick and her stride long. The distance lengthened but it wasn't enough. Ginny needed to be further away. She paused briefly, and decided on a location. She hurried up several flights of stairs to the top of the school. Well almost. She went to the second highest tower, because she didn't want to interrupt anyone in the Astronomy Tower. She just wanted distance and peace, and maybe somehow, perspective.
The circular stone room was rather cold and draughty. None of the windows had glass in them to allow easy exit and entrance for the hundreds of owls. They stared at her, every breed imaginable, all nestled on high perches, watching her with beady eyes, sensing that she shouldn't be here. Ginny tore her eyes away from the wise birds, and made her away across the straw covered floor doing her best to avoid the owl droppings and regunirated skeletons of mice and voles. She stared out the window, the ground was very far below, dark and quiet, but she could sense the Dementors lingering, drawing closer to the school at night trying to feed off the unsuspecting sleeping students. It was no surprise that more people than ever staggered down to the Great Hall for breakfast with dark bags under their eyes and complaining about bad sleep. And the existence of poor unfortunates like Jill.
Ginny perched on a windowsill. On impulse, swung her legs out the window and faced the grounds. Her legs swayed in the cool night air. Ginny fell into a blank mediation. She was almost content, secure in the fact that the shakes wouldn't strike and send her plunging to her death below. She couldn't survive that fall, and shouldn't be even tempting faith, but Ginny didn't pull her legs back in even after they grew numb.
She fancied that she could see the invisible horses out there, lurking at the edge of the Forbidden Forest but she could only see taunting shadows, which in daylight would flicker away, just as fleeting as her memories. But Ginny had a vivid imagination and pictured them. The type of horse that Death should ride if the fictional stories were real, thought Ginny.
Ginny pushed her legs against the wall, and stilled, lingering on the brink of more than a ledge but of discovery too. She clenched her eyes shut and tilted her head back, repeated her thoughts and actions in her head, knowing that one contained the clue to their mystery. A frown pulled at her face. Ginny swung her legs back in, eyes preoccupied as she wandered out of the Owlery and over to Gryffindor Tower, even forgetting to take the shortcut.