For a moment Taylor was frozen in terror as all the air squeezed out of her lungs. She stared at George, his wide blank eyes staring back right through her, and she felt as though the room had gone deathly cold.
A hand closed too tightly around her upper arm and Taylor was dragged back to a sitting position, pulled painfully out of her stunned reverie. She looked back at Charles, who was still stuck in a half-crouch from when he'd stooped down to help Taylor to her feet.
"Merlin," he whispered.
The rest of the team was coming back out of various bedrooms, fully-clothed now, and everyone was talking loudly and at once.
"Charles, what's going on?"
"Is that Taylor?"
"What's she doing here?"
"Everybody shut up, shut up!" bellowed Charles.
No doubt surprised by the harsh tone in Charles' usually calm voice, everyone fell silent. Taylor saw fear and uncertainty clear in Charles' face, but her attention was drawn away at a sudden shout of alarm. Someone had evidently seen George lying unmoving on the ground between them.
Taylor's own rapid heartbeat began thundering in her ears, somehow drowning out the cacophony of voices filling the room. Charles, apparently unfazed by the noise around them, rolled George onto his back.
There was something clutched tightly in George's right hand. It was an electrical cord, disappearing off into the dark outside the distorted circle of light from Taylor's fallen wand. Stripped copper wire was visible protruding from George's fist, and Taylor was struck with a terrifying thought. A quick glance at her surroundings revealed a nearby electrical outlet, and the cold she felt increased tenfold.
"He's not breathing," she said, suddenly realizing, putting one hand on George's still chest. She felt desperately for a pulse at his wrist and found none. "His heart isn't beating!" Taylor croaked, her voice coming out broken and weak as she tried not to hyperventilate in panic.
"Charles, do something!" someone shouted, more loudly than the rest.
"I need my wand." He was already pushing through the gathering crowd, which closed in around Taylor in his wake.
"Ennervate," said a voice behind Taylor. A burst of silver light shot over her shoulder and hit George squarely in the chest.
George's body seized once, his spine arching away from the floor as his limbs jerked fitfully. His eyes opened even more widely for a moment before falling finally shut as his body went limp and collapsed.
"Stop it!" shouted Taylor, turning to knock aside the wand-hand of one huge, broad-shouldered teammate. He was looking back down at her, frightened and confused. "This isn't magic!" she told him, hoarsely.
That's it, she realized.
"This isn't magic," Taylor said again, more to herself than anyone else as she spun back to face where George lay. "Magic isn't going to help."
Taylor knelt at George's side, thinking hard. It had been a long time since she'd taken that Muggle first-aid class (at her mother's insistence), and she tried desperately to remember what to do. She carefully tilted George's head back, his chin pointed at the ceiling, and pinched his nose shut. She took a deep, shaking breath before pressing her mouth to his and pushing air forcibly into his lungs.
Around her she was vaguely aware of a marked increase in shouting and confusion and as she sat up again someone grabbed her shoulder. She shrugged it off with a sharp, wordless growl, and the restraining hand did not return.
Pressing the heel of her hand into George's sternum, Taylor covered it with the other hand and pushed down. His ribs bowed awkwardly under her weight and she settled into an uncomfortable rhythm, compressing his chest repeatedly. She bent to repeat the breaths, feeling a growing terror at the cool clamminess of George's mouth under her own.
With each compression of George's chest, Taylor's heart sank a little lower as he still didn't wake. Her head felt heavy, blank and numb now, as though it were packed in ice. The shouting all around her seemed muffled and it echoed hollowly through her body. All she saw were shadows cast across George's closed eyes from her own forgotten wand. Dread was growing, coiled tightly somewhere in her gut, but she pushed it out of her thoughts as best she could.
No, she thought. No, no, no, no, no…
The fourth time she blew her own breath into George's lungs, he coughed, forcing air painfully back into Taylor's mouth and making her ears pop with the pressure. Startled, she fell back on her hands, coughing, sliding sideways to the wall at her left, the cool surface anchoring her.
Suddenly all the noise and chaos of the situation rushed back to her in force, nine people's bellows and cries thundering in her ears. Her heart was beating furiously against her ribs and she struggled to breathe evenly.
Charles had returned, appearing again in the dim light across from her. He knelt on the carpet next to George, who had rolled onto his side away from Taylor, still coughing. Charles stared from Taylor to George, and back up again.
"What did you do?" he asked, over the din, but Taylor just shook her head, swallowing hard. Tears of both relief and residual terror were welling in her eyes and she blinked furiously against them, still trying to catch her breath. Charles frowned worriedly at her once, but turned his attention back to George, who was attempting to push himself up on his elbows. Charles forced George back down, trying to control both his reluctant patient and the rest of his flustered flat mates.
Taylor let her head fall back against the wall, closing her eyes tight against tears and feeling herself start to shake slightly. She held her breath, hoping to slow her heartbeat, and tried to block out the terrified voices of her shouting teammates.
"What in the seven hells is going on?" boomed a new voice from the door, startling Taylor and jump-starting her breathing again as she gasped. She recognized Oliver's familiar voice.
Charles looked up from where he was checking George's eyes with light from his wand and caught sight of Taylor, who was still shaking and breathing hard.
"Oliver, get her out of here," Charles said over the rest of the noise, nodding toward Taylor.
"Charles," Oliver started, confusion and anxiety clear in his voice, "what—"
"Just do it!" roared Charles, making Taylor jump again. She shifted against the wall, beginning to stand, and felt more hot tears threatening to squeeze out the corner of her eyes. She wiped them away surreptitiously on one sleeve.
Much to Taylor's surprise, Oliver crouched down next to her and gathered her up in his arms. She opened her mouth to protest even as her arms went around his neck automatically, and before she could say a word Oliver was carrying her swiftly down the short hall just past the kitchen.
Taylor suddenly picked George's voice out from among everyone else's confused shouting.
"What happened?" George was asking. Then, after a pause, "Why is my mouth minty?"