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Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter and anything associated with him. Kay Bye.
Chapter 28- Coincidence? I think NOT!
Oakley looked up as she heard a groan beside her. Mercy shifted slightly in the white sheets of the bed; her eyes fluttered open.
"Hey," Oakley said quietly. Mercy looked at her in confusion. She tried to sit up and let out a spastic gasp. "Oi! Don't move around so much, Merce."
Mercy settled back into the bed, and in a croaky sigh muttered, "Fuuuuuuck." She blinked and looked back to Oakley, "What happened to me?"
"Well…" Oakley took a deep breath. Mercy stared expectantly. "Er… Well… you're in the hospital wing," She said rather lamely.
Mercy's face went blank and her eye twitched. "I kind of figured that out on my own, mate." She continued to stare, but Oakley didn't have much more to offer. She couldn't think of what to say. Silence continued as they stared at each other.
"Well are you going to tell me what the fuck happened or am I gonna have to…"
"I don't know what happened, Mercy." Oakley interrupted, cutting across her angry retort. "You disappeared."
Mercy looked back to the ceiling, and closed her eyes thoughtfully. Oakley could tell she was trying to remember, but when Mercy sighed she knew it had been fruitless. "I've got nothing, Oaks. Everything is fuzzy." There was more silence. "What day even is it …?" Mercy said offhandedly.
"Saturday." Mercy's eyes flew open again and she looked over at Oakley in alarm.
"Saturday!? Jesus! How long have I been out?"
"Well… we found you on Thursday evening. So about three days."
Mercy's brow furrowed thoughtfully again. "Thursday, huh… I can vaguely remember class… but then…" She sighed. "Nothing. I have nothing."
"Well I can fill in a little." Oakley began. "You had dinner with me and Charlie, and you were going to meet him in the library before coming to practice. You didn't show up to either. So… We went looking for you."
"Oh bloody hell! I went and missed practice too? Was Trina pissed?" Mercy asked. Oakley shook her head. Here Mercy is lying in a hospital bed and she was most worried about Quidditch practice? And Charlie thought I was bad… well maybe he has a point…
"I mean… sort of. But I think she was mostly concerned. Cause it wasn't like you mate." Oakley shrugged.
Mercy was silent again for a few seconds before asking, "Where's Remus?" Oakley couldn't hold back a grin. "Oh and Charlie." She added.
"Well Remus I think has been sleeping off a bad cold. At least that's what James said. But it's odd he isn't down here, now that I think about it." Mercy looked conflicted. Oakley knew her well enough to see that she was both concerned and disappointed. "You know you ought to be glad."
Mercy looked over surprised. "Why?"
Oakley grinned. "You were drooling something fierce this morning. It wasn't attractive."
Mercy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. But Charlie?"
"Oh well, he's in the library. Big surprise there." Oakley said. Mercy nodded, but Oakley could tell she was still feeling slightly disappointed. "Well you can't expect him to sit around here can you? It's not like you make great company when you're knocked out."
"I didn't say anything." Mercy said, blushing angrily.
Oakley shook her head. "You didn't have to. Besides, I'm pretty sure he's consolidating his notes for you. So you shouldn't be complaining."
"I wasn't!" Mercy said indignantly, before blushing more. Oakley chuckled. Riling her up was far too easy at the moment. "Aw… but he doesn't have to do that."
"To be honest, I actually think he does." Oakley said plainly. Mercy looked over confused again. "Well I think it's like… therapeutic" She thought for a moment. "You know. He was really mad. Just about as mad as when he got... Well I just haven't seen him that mad in while…" She said. Mercy nodded.
"Okay can you run me through what you know? So I was just found knocked out somewhere? Like what was wrong with me?"
"Well your… there were gashes all over you stomach. Like blood everywhere." Mercy gingerly ran her hand over the bandages on her abdomen. "James and Remus found you. I still don't really know how, because Sirius and I must have walked around the second floor about a dozen times."
"Strange…" Mercy said, her voice trailing off.
"Ah, you're awake Miss Baines." Madam Pomfrey hurried over. "Why didn't you call for me Miss Milova?"
"She was alright." Oakley said, raising her eyebrows.
Madam Pomfrey clicked her tongue in annoyance, and began waving her wand over Mercy and muttering to herself.
Oakley and Mercy didn't have much time to talk, because Madam Pomfrey kept insisting Mercy needed more sleep while Mercy argued in vain that she had already spent a good two days unconscious.
There was a loud thud on the door to the Hospital Wing. Startled, Mercy and Oakley turned toward the sound. After a muffled curse, the door hurtled open and crashed loudly into the wall. Blake ran through the doorway.
"What is all this racket Miss McLellan? This is a hospital!" Madam Pomfrey said indignantly.
"Please ma'am!" Blake said breathlessly. "It's Kat. Dez and I found her all bloodied up in a corridor."
Madam Pomfrey's face softened into a worried gaze. "Not another one. Where is she?"
"Dez is bringing her down; he's not far behind me." On cue, Dez rounded the corner carrying the still figure of Karina Hughes, a Hufflepuff in her year.
There was blood all over her forehead from a nasty gash, as well as on her cheek and down the right side of her torso. Oakley looked over at Mercy, whose face reflected her startled expression. She was white as a sheet.
Oakley knew she needed to stifle her curiosity and go, before Madam Pomfrey forced her out anyway. Oakley stood and exchanged one last look with Mercy. "Hey Merce… try to get up and about soon. It's your turn to watch Charlie."
Mercy shook her head and with a grimace said, "I'll do what I can." Oakley shut the door behind her with a click.
The attempt to walk to the Gryffindor common room was long, because with everything that was going on, Oakley kept making wrong turns. She ended up in the Owlery somehow…
With a sigh she sat down on a windowsill. An owl fluttered down to her; Charlie's owl.
"Sagitta…" She said softly. Sagitta hooted expectantly and poked her beak repeatedly at her pockets. "You're probably looking for crisps or something. Sorry mate, I don't have any." Sagitta gave her a surly look, but didn't fly away.
"To be honest, I don't even know how I ended up here." She gently stroked Sagitta's feathers. She sighed.
She knew she had a bunch of homework to do. But with everything going on, well that didn't seem important anymore.
Nothing had been found out about Mercy, and the circumstances certainly were infinitely more mysterious now that Karina was hurt too. This can't be just a coincidence, can it?
"No it can't possibly be a coincidence. There has to be something…" She said to Sagitta. "Look at me, I've been talking to an Owl. I must be losing my mind."
He called me a Mudblood. The memory of Karina's voice stirred its way to the forefront of her thoughts.
Oakley stopped stroking Sagitta. Karina is Muggleborn. That was the connection.
"Of course! That's what it is! Sagitta I could kiss you!" Oakley said, rubbing the owl affectionately.
Oakley jumped as the door to the Owlery creaked open. Sagitta nipped her finger and flew to the rafters. Oakley whipped around to face the door as a messy mass of black hair became visible.
James… Shit. Oakley froze, as the boy stuck his head through the door.
He grinned at her. "So, you're talking to the owls now?"
Oakley blushed, but was glad it was just James. "It's not what you think." She said, grinning. "What are you doing up here?"
"Well I was going to send Sirius a howler."
Oakley cocked her head to the side. Why is he sending a howler to his best friend? "Errrr... Why?"
"I just had an idea that it would be pretty funny if I sent him a howler that screamed... well instead of like, angry stuff like happy things?" He ruffled his hair with a thoughtful expression on his face. Lily, one of her dorm-mates hated it when he did that, because she thought he only did it to make his hair look messy and windswept: like he had just been out flying. Truthfully, Oakley wondered if it might also be a nervous habit. Even so, she felt bad that James had such a big crush on Lily. He wouldn't leave her alone half the time. James was... complicated. He could be a decent bloke sometimes, but sometimes Oakley had to admit his bullying, especially of a boy named Snape, could be petty and unwarranted sometimes.
Oakley shook her head. "Are you always this articulate?"
"Only on Tuesdays... but what are you doing?" He finally walked into the room and sat down on the windowsill. "Did you need an expert opinion?" He added with a grin.
"Well I didn't really mean to end up here... I was just thinking." She said, sitting next to him.
"About Mercy." It wasn't a question. He just know.
Oakley nodded. "Yeah. Because Karina Hughes just got brought to the Hospital Wing and she was covered in blood." James's mouth opened in surprise.
"What? Do you know what happened?"
"Erm. It was queer because it was very... like déjá vu. Blake came running in and Dez was carrying her and she was just covered in blood." James ruffled his hair again. Maybe it was just a habit.
"Well that's... Do you think maybe... Well could it just be a coincidence?" He asked, somewhat hopelessly.
Oakley shook her head. "See that's what I thought. But isn't it weird that two students attacked, found abandoned in a corridor, and both of them are Muggleborn?" Jamess eyes widened in surprise behind the frames of his glasses; then his mouth twitched in disgust.
"That's revolting." He said simply.
Oakley nodded. "Its terrible." If this was the case, was someone targeting Muggleborns? How far will they take it?
Okay that's it for now. I got some new stuff for you coming up soon! (Like really soon. I won't promise by the time of the next full moon... But that is actually my goal here) Please shoot me a review if you have the chance. Buh bye!
