Most of this chapter is based off my own experiences with anxiety. I will address what caused her fear in the next chapter when Laura confronts her about what happened. This chapter is also one of the longer chapters in this story because of the number of scenes and the amount of dialogue and ended up being about as twice as long as one of my average chapters.
Chapter 10-Victoria's Worst Fear
The rest of the week following Harry Potter's appearance in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classes pass relatively quickly for Victoria. She had even asked McGonagall if she and Olive could have some time off to visit their family for Thanksgiving, but the headmistress turned her down, saying she couldn't make "that much of an exception" for two students. That was the beginning of one of Victoria's worst days at Hogwarts.
Before she had even been to the Headmistress office she was awoken that morning to find her alarm shrieking shrilly. Glancing at it she realized she had overslept. It was only by about ten minutes, but those ten minutes made all the difference, they made the difference between being able to get breakfast before class and not.
Grabbing her wand off her bedside table she dressed as quickly as she could, realizing she only had fifteen minutes to get to her first class. She tossed the appropriate books and supplies into her bag before sitting on the edge of her bed, sliding onto her broom and zooming out of the dormitory; as she went down the staircase she cast an Impervious charm on her broomstick handle because she had visions of the entire thing snapping in her haste to get down to the Great Hall.
She was expecting the look Laura gave her when she arrived at the Gryffindor table.
"What happened?" Her friend mouthed.
"Overslept." Victoria mouthed back as she grabbed some toast and pumpkin juice, she was going to be starving by lunch. If she had any more time she would have run back to the dorm and brushed her teeth, but at the moment that wasn't a luxury she could afford, she didn't even have time to read the letter Jeremiah had sent that morning.
Her morning would've been okay if it hadn't been for the disaster in Charms. Today's lesson was trying to turn a hedgehog into a powder puff and while Victoria was normally quite good at charms and could do animal Transfiguration decently, today she had neglected to take the legs off of the hedgehog first so now she had a powder puff which was running around her desk squealing. That was definitely something she wanted to tell Jeremiah later.
Victoria was thankful she didn't have Quidditch practice that day because there's no way is she would have caught the Snitch in her state of mind. As she and Laura were hurrying to Defense Against the Dark Arts Victoria figured there was no way her day could get any worse.
Unfortunately, she was wrong.
The classroom looked different than it had the previous times she had been there. Professor Quinn had pushed all the desks to the side of the room leaving a large empty space. The only desk in the room was the teacher's desk which had a large case on top of it.
"Please stand in a circle while I explain the lesson." Professor Quinn the students did as they were instructed, for once everyone was listening.
"Today, we will be learning how to repel boggarts. Can anyone tell me the significance of a boggart and what they do to the witch or wizard they encounter?"
Laura raised her hand.
"They take the form of the things we fear most."
Professor Quinn smiled at her, his blue eyes twinkling, and nodded.
"Exactly. Now, I will divide you into groups and you will form a line and take turns facing the boggart."
So they all divided into groups, Victoria was in a line with Laura and four other students. She decided to take the position last in line. She knew what form her boggart took, she had known this ever since she was about 8 or 9 years old, the fear was hard to explain to anyone and she hoped Professor Quinn understood.
She watched the girls in their group. One girl was afraid of birds, another of spiders, another was afraid of death and her boggart took the form of a dead body.
Laura's boggart took the form of a burning house and Victoria assumed this was a fear that had come about during the war possibly from a Death Eater attack or something of that nature.
Finally it was Victoria's turn, and swallowing she moved to the line. For a brief moment Laura's boggart hovered in front of her; the burning house with the licking flames and scorching heat but then it changed, shifted into something totally different.
Victoria found the face of Jeremiah staring back at her he only stared at her, not speaking, as if he didn't know her at all. The boggart began to move, walking as far away from her as possible as close as the door of the classroom before turning around and walking back. Victoria watched it, forgetting for a moment it wasn't really her friend.
Then everything was closing in around her, she couldn't breathe, couldn't feel her wand in her fingers, couldn't form the incantation that repel the boggart. Blood rushed in her ears and she couldn't hear anything anymore, could barely see anything anymore. Then she saw Professor Quinn moved as if in slow motion in the boggart took the form of a small boy with sad looking eyes.
That was the last thing Victoria remembered… Everything after that was fuzzy she felt someone pick her up (what happened to her broomstick?) and everything slowly turning from white to gray and finally to black.
Her next conscious thought was of the voices although it took her a moment to place them.
"Had to give her two doses of a calming draft…" That was the school nurse.
"What happened?" She now heard Professor Quinn, he sounded concerned, "I've never had a student react to a boggart that way."
"She had a panic attack, although I'm not quite sure about what." Madame Pompfrey replied.
Finally Victoria opened her eyes, she was not surprised to find the two adults looking at her. She was in the Hospital Wing, feeling vaguely light and floaty.
"Are you all right?" Professor Quinn asked anxiously. His blue eyes were unusually wide and his hair looked like he had been running his hands through it.
"Fine…" Victoria muttered rubbing her temple.
"Ms. Smith can you tell us what happened?" Madame Pomfrey asked, she also looked concerned.
"Jeremiah… My best friend… My boggart… So afraid of losing him; you have no idea." Victoria's explanation came out in a series of phrases. Explaining why she had this fear would require a very long explanation going back to when she had first started school. That wasn't a story she wanted to share with just anybody.
"So you're afraid of losing someone you love?" Professor Quinn asked.
Victoria nodded.
At the moment that was all the adults seem to have required of her and Professor Quinn left soon after; after he returned her broomstick.
Victoria spent most of the afternoon in the Hospital Wing, her only visitor was Laura who came in over lunch demanding to know what had happened. Victoria gave her a similar explanation she'd given the adults, it was all she felt up to at the moment.
"Look," she said carefully, "it's pretty personal, I'll tell you later okay."
Laura seemed to accept this and after sharing a lunch of pumpkin juice, biscuits and ham and cheese sandwiches (which was brought up by two house elves from the school kitchen) Laura left and Victoria was left alone again, which, at the moment she preferred.
In the quietness of the almost empty room Victoria turned her attention to the letter she had gotten from Jeremiah that morning, which was still in her school bag.
Victoria-
Got your pictures from your Quidditch match, looks like it was pretty exciting. Hope you got my package with the updates from the matches here at AWI (isn't that a mess about Harper Harris? He is still in the hospital btw)
I didn't mention Jason working with Harry Potter because I honestly forgot about it, I didn't even see him when I was over there before because Jason left before I did both days leaving very early and coming back to the inn very late. That's cool you got to meet him, he seems like a decent guy but I guess you would have to be if you defeated the most evil dark wizard ever and be so chill about it.
I'm celebrating Thanksgiving with my family right now, we don't go back to school until later next week. My holiday break is December 18 through January 2 and we will most likely be in London for Christmas. I hope to see you soon.
Jeremiah
Victoria wrote back a reply, although she wouldn't be able to mail it until she could get Alastair to take it for her.
She wrote:
Jeremiah-
You won't believe what happened to me I was in Defense Against the Dark Arts this morning, we were working with boggarts when it happened. I had a panic attack! Scared everybody, in the Hospital Wing now, probably won't be out until later this afternoon.
Call me!
Victoria
Madame Pompfrey let Victoria go shortly before her last class that day, Potions. She was grateful when Laura came to meet her at the end of the corridor before they made their way down to the dungeons.
Victoria thought her bad luck was over for the day, but she was wrong. She was barely halfway through class when it happened. It seemed everything she was doing with the potion, which was supposed to be a cure for the hiccups, was going terribly wrong. Instead of being the yellowish green it was supposed to be it was the color and texture of sludge and to add insult to injury, the mixture caught fire before blowing up in Victoria's face causing singed hair and eyebrows.
By the end of the lesson, Victoria had enough of her unfortunate incidents and took off from the dungeon a little faster than she meant to, nearly running over a couple of second years.
After class she returned to the common room, not caring if Laura was looking for her not. As soon as she found quill and parchment she scribbled out another short note to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah,
call me ASAP! Potions disaster; as if my day hasn't been bad enough!
Victoria
She whistled for Alastair, who was just coming back from a hunt; he had just enough time to drop the remains of a dead mouse on her windowsill before flying off again with the two letters Victoria had composed.
It was after dinner before Victoria heard back from Jeremiah, Alastair was waiting for her when she returned to her dorm.
Jeremiah's reply was short.
Victoria,
What happened? Mirrors; tonight at 11 PM (your time)
Jeremiah
Victoria waited until the common room was empty before she contacted Jeremiah. As it was almost midnight the common room was dark and deserted and even Laura and the most studious Gryffindors had long since gone to bed.
For once Victoria was not seated on her broom, but rather the broom was resting against a nearby table and Victoria, with a few pillows part behind her, was sitting in one of the armchairs by the fire.
Finally she reached for the mirror which was sitting on a nearby table and whispered:
"Jeremiah."
After a few seconds the mirror began to glow and Jeremiah's face appeared in the glass
"What was with the emergency owl?" Jeremiah asked as soon as his face was visible, "Alastair almost got caught in the middle of a game of Exploding Snap… May have singed his tail feathers a little bit."
Victoria chuckled, "Really?" She could just about picture the scene.
"I have quite possibly had the worst day of my life." Victoria stated.
Jeremiah frowned.
"How so?"
Victoria gave a wry smile.
"Where do I start? I was almost late for class, I screwed up my Transfiguration so I had a powder puff running around on my desk… I'm lucky if McGonagall doesn't give me a "Dreadful" on today's lesson."
Jeremiah continued to frown.
"That bad huh?"
"That's not all, actually, that's minor compared to what happened later."
Jeremiah continued to listen.
"During Defense Against the Dark Arts we were working with boggarts, you know how I am with those things, it's the one piece of Dark Arts defense I have trouble with."
"Oh, yeah." Jeremiah replied, his blue green eyes looking concerned. "Your boggart is me, isn't it?" Jeremiah continued to look concerned, "you never did tell me why…?"
Victoria blushed.
"I'm sure you can figure it out." Victoria replied stiffly. "… Anyway, I ended up in the Hospital Wing."
Jeremiah looked momentarily alarmed.
"Why? Oh yeah, your letter said you had a panic attack."
"It was so bad I needed to doses of a calming draft."
"Oh," Jeremiah said again, "I'm sorry."
"It's better now, and much better than it was this morning, I had lunch in the Hospital Wing and I thought my afternoon would be better… It wasn't."
"What happened?" Jeremiah asked.
"Long story short, my cauldron blew up in my face, Professor Slughorn said I was lucky it wasn't any worse, just a few burns, and I lost some hair and eyebrows."
Jeremiah chuckled.
"Yeah, I noticed. Is this all because you're missing me?" Jeremiah asked.
Victoria shrugged, still looking embarrassed.
"I don't know, maybe. I was so anxious today… Everything just spun out of control."
"Maybe that Calming Draft is a good idea," Jeremiah murmured, "don't worry, we'll see each other in less than a month, my parents are booking the port key in a couple of weeks, I'll send you an owl with the arrival date."
"Promise?" Victoria murmured.
Jeremiah smiled.
"Promise."
They talked for another few minutes before ending the call.
"Just hang in there," Jeremiah said bracingly, "the holidays are only a few weeks away. Look, I know it's pretty late over there, maybe you should go to bed. What time is your first class?"
Victoria yawned.
"No class tomorrow," she reminded him, "it's Saturday, remember?"
"Oh yeah." Jeremiah replied. " I'm on vacation so I've kind of lost track of the days."
"Guess I better go before you fall asleep on me. Really, get to bed." Jeremiah advised.
"Right…" Victoria mumbled. "Night… Jeremiah."
"Night." Jeremiah replied. Victoria saw one last sparkle in his eyes before the mirror went dark. Then she slowly got onto her broom (with some difficulty because she was tired) and made her way up the staircase to the girls' dormitory.
