Surprisingly Pure- mypseudonym
Chapter 12 Birthday & Detention
Brenna woke the next morning to someone lightly shaking her foot. She grumbled a little and rubbed her eyes. When she opened her eyes to the dark room, Draco was standing at the foot of her bed. He had a muffin with a candle in it on a plate.
"What are you doing up this early?" she asked. Her voice cracked a little with sleepiness. Draco chuckled at her.
"It's not that early. It's almost 9 o'clock. They must have drugged you well last night." he said. Brenna sighed and sat up in bed. Draco sat the muffin on the table and moved to help Brenna stack her pillows into a more comfortable shelf. It was still a little painful for her to bend. Once she was settled, Draco passed her the muffin, lighting the candle with his wand. "Happy birthday, sis."
"Thanks." she said, smiling at him before blowing out the candle. She waved her wand to bring the lights in the room up to normal brightness. "So what are you going to do in Hogsmeade today?"
"Not much. I thought I'd just walk around, visit Honeyduke's, maybe have a butterbeer. Just the usual stuff, you know." Draco said casually. "I brought your books and the other stuff you wanted."
"Thanks. You don't have to stay with me. I don't want you to miss out on any time in the village because you were here talking to me. I'll get out of here after dinner tonight anyway." Brenna said. Draco stacked her books and materials on the rolling table.
"Okay. I'll go then. I'll see you tonight." Draco said, walking out of the wing. Brenna sighed. She ripped off a piece of the muffin and ate it. It was blueberry; her favorite.
Madam Pomfrey came to check on her a few minutes later. She told Brenna that they could begin healing bruises at half past two that afternoon, twenty-four hours after the incident.
Brenna spent the day reading and working on her homework. She tried not to think about what a horrible way that was to spend her birthday. She tried not to think of the others in Hogsmeade, having fun while she sat here and worked.
Professor Snape came by before lunch to see that she was well, but she had no other morning visitors. Cho Chang came to visit after lunch, bringing along some candy from Honeyduke's. They had a very pleasant visit until Cho left to do some homework of her own. Brenna found out that she'd been left behind a year because of issues after Cedric's death. She hadn't managed to pass any classes fourth year between worrying about him and mourning him. Brenna felt bad for her.
At half past two exactly, Madam Pomfrey was standing at the foot of the bed with the bruise healing paste. Brenna looked at her excitedly.
"Now, Miss Malfoy, I can apply this to one area of your body every twenty minutes. It doesn't hurt, though it does tingle a bit. It will take about two hours for the initial application, then we may need to apply more paste if some bruises didn't disappear completely." she explained, drawing the curtains around her bed.
They healed her arms up to the shoulder first, one at a time, then her legs up to the hip. Her stomach and back were rather awkward times, as they also had to heal the bruises on her chest and buttocks. Finally, Madam Pomfrey dabbed some of the cream on her face and looked her over for areas needing a second application. There was still some bruising on her stomach and her leg where bones had been broken. The medi-witch dabbed on a little more cream there before allowing Brenna to dress. Her overall health was scanned once again before dinnertime.
After dinner, Brenna had to demonstrate that she could walk normally, climb on and off the bed, and go up and down steps all without pain before she was allowed to leave.
The corridors were mostly clear when Brenna walked through them. Everyone had left dinner by now, and most were engaged in their evening pursuits. She was thankful for this as she walked along in her pajamas, carrying Draco's bag full of her stuff. The oddest thing was that there were no Slytherins out. A first year leaning against the wall at the bottom of the dungeon stairs was the first Slytherin student she saw the whole way through the castle. The first year ran away as soon as she turned to walk downstairs.
It was pitch black in the common room when she opened the portrait. Now Brenna had an idea what was going on, but she would play along.
"Hello?" she called. "What's wrong with the lights?" As soon as she put both feet in the common room the torches relit themselves.
"Happy birthday, Brenna!" the entirety of Slytherin House cheered. Brenna then noticed that they had decorated the room. There were balloons and streamers everywhere. Barrels of Butterbeer were propped in one corner with cups, and there was a huge birthday cake. Just as she finished taking it all in, Draco was at her side handing her a cup of butterbeer.
"Do you like it? Were you surprised?" he asked gleefully.
"Yes and yes. Draco this is fantastic! How did you get it organized?"
"Well, Mother told me to buy balloons, streamers, and butterbeer on family credit in Hogsmeade. The house elves were more than happy to bake your cake, especially after we told them what happened to you. All the 7th years came back from Hogsmeade early to decorate, and the theme was easy enough to come up with." Draco explained. It was then that Brenna looked around the room and noticed that every Slytherin she could see was wearing pajamas. "Happy birthday, sis. Enjoy your party." he said, hugging her.
Brenna spent the evening dancing, drinking butterbeer, eating birthday cake, and chatting with nearly every member of Slytherin House. A little after midnight Professor Snape came to break up the party. The younger students went to bed while the 6th and 7th years lazed on the furniture. Brenna cast a few spells to get rid of the garbage in the room before she flopped down on a couch with the other 7th years. She answered questions about her accident for an hour or so before excusing herself for bed.
The next morning at breakfast, Brenna and Draco received notice that their detention would be that night. They were to report to the trophy room at 8pm.
When Brenna and Draco arrived at the trophy room that evening Harry and Ron were already there. The four students stared at each other for a few minutes before Professor McGonagall entered carrying several lengths of rope.
"Good evening everyone. I volunteered to run your detention tonight as I feel it is particularly important that we end this. You four will be polishing the trophies in this room in pairs. Mr. Potter, you will be working with Mr. Malfoy. Miss Malfoy, you will be working with Mr. Weasley. To ensure that you and your partner do work together, you will be tied at the knee and you will keep one hand behind your back. Now, stand beside your partner so I can bind you." McGonagall said. Harry reluctantly moved to stand next to Draco. They were soon bound tightly at the knee with a piece of rope. "Now, put the hand you won't be using behind your back." the professor ordered. Each boy each put his inside hand behind his back. Professor McGonagall spelled them to stick back there. The two boys glared at each other as they stood shoulder to shoulder.
"Alright Miss Malfoy, Mr. Weasley, the same if you please." the Professor said. Brenna and Ron slowly assumed the same position. When the rope bound them around the knees, Brenna felt uncomfortably close to Ron. She huffed a bit.
"Now, when you've finished the work those spells will end automatically. So, in short, the sooner you learn to work together the sooner you get to leave," the Professor said. "Also, no magic. You will do this by hand." She waved her wand again and their wands stuck firmly inside their robe sleeves. She placed a stack of polishing cloths and two bottles of potion on the floor in front of them before walking off.
"This is ridiculous." Ron mumbled.
"I agree, but let's get to work. I don't want to be here all night." Brenna replied. They started moving slowly toward the supplies.
"Come on Malfoy. The less time I have to spend tied to you, the better." Harry grumbled.
"Believe me Potter, the feeling is entirely mutual." Draco replied. They too began to move toward the supplies. Brenna and Ron got there first, collecting a bottle of potion and two polishing cloths.
"Alright, I think we need to establish some ground rules to make this work a little better. If you object to anything I suggest, feel free to speak up with a suggestion. First off, I think we should address each other by our first names. It's friendlier, and will keep us from getting confused which Malfoy you mean." Brenna suggested.
"Sounds fair, Brenda." Harry said.
"Now don't start that. My name is Brenna. There's no D. D is for Draco, while you're Harry and this is Ron." she said.
"I'm sorry, I really thought your name was Brenda." Harry said.
"That's okay. I know we probably won't be friends, but we can at least be civil. So I also suggest that we refrain from insulting each other, and that includes namecalling." Brenna suggested.
"Fine." Draco said, sounding rather put out. No doubt he had been thinking of some terrific insults for Harry and Ron.
"Anybody else have any suggestions?" she asked.
"No, can we get to work now?" Ron asked. "We'll start at this end; you guys start at that end." He practically pulled Brenna over to the far end of the display case.
They soon learned that is was impossible to do unless one person held the trophy while the other polished it. Ron and Brenna were successfully taking turns holding trophies while the other polished. It was a good break for your arm as well. Draco and Harry struggled for a while, but they too reached a silent agreement.
"I heard it was your birthday yesterday. I'm sorry you had to be in the hospital wing." Ron said quietly.
"It wasn't so bad. It was kind of nice to be out of the limelight for a while. Plus Draco threw me a party last night, so it ended up being a pretty good day." she said.
"Is that why you and Pansy were running back and forth across Hogsmeade?" Harry asked.
"Yes, we had a lot of stuff to get and people to coordinate. It would actually have been a lot more difficult if Bren hadn't been laid up and we'd've had to work harder to keep it all secret." Draco said.
"It was beautiful." Brenna said, smiling.
"You know, yesterday would have been our friend Hermione's birthday. Harry and I just noticed today." Ron said.
"Oh yes, your friend that died. I'm sorry; I'm sure you both miss her." Brenna said, sympathetically.
"Yeah." Ron said.
"Potter if you start tearing up over here I'm going to smack you." Draco warned.
"Draco! Be nice!" Brenna yelled, shooting him an angry look.
"What? Just because you're over there trying to be all buddy-buddy doesn't mean we all want to be friends. I'm only here to get this over with. I've got plenty of things I'd rather be doing this evening." Draco growled.
"Whatever, little brother. You break my rules again and I'll come over there and smack you." Brenna warned. "Who did you get to watch Crabbe and Goyle tonight anyway?"
"Blaise and Theo are doing it. Pansy said she'd help too." Draco responded. "You got Daphne to watch Dolce right?"
"No, she had to study for a test tomorrow. Astoria is doing it though." Brenna responded.
"I could be snogging my girlfriend right now." Harry said.
"Hey, that's my sister you're talking about, Harry. Watch it." Ron said.
"What? You know if we were in the common room now you'd be taking first years' money over the chess board." Harry said.
"True. Too true." Ron replied, scrubbing a rather large trophy while Brenna held it still.
"I'm really good a chess." he told Brenna.
"I gathered." Brenna replied.
"What do you like to do?" Ron asked.
"I like to garden." she replied.
"Oh, you must love Herbology class then." Ron said.
"No, I prefer plants that don't want to kill me." Brenna replied. Ron laughed.
"Hey, what's going on over there?" Harry asked.
"Nothing. Brenna just made a joke." Ron said. They returned to working quietly for a while.
Within three hours they had managed to polish every trophy. Harry finished polishing the last one as the clock struck eleven. Suddenly there was a quiet thump as both ropes fell to the ground and everyone could move both their arms again. No one moved for a second, but then they all reestablished personal space and stood rolling and rubbing their shoulders.
"Well, boys, that was fun, but let's not do it again any time soon." Brenna suggested.
"I'm all in favor of that." Harry said.
"I suppose we could continue to be civil to each other." Draco said, moving closer to the exit. "C'mon Bren, let's go."
"Alright. Goodnight, Ron, Harry." she called.
"Goodnight, Brenna, Draco." they replied. The two groups split their separate ways again, each headed to their own bed in the dormitories of their rival houses.
AN: Sorry for the lack of update. I got minorly singed by flames recently, and it caused me to stop writing temporarily. Then I remembered that I do have many readers who are enjoying this story and would probably appreciate another chapter. Thanks to all of you who are reading and enjoying.
