"There were no doors, it was entirely enclosed in stone. I think it may have been the same stone as the castle," Clover mused aloud. She and Blossom were sat in the garden they'd hosted the founders in, The Garden of Reflection.
Looking into the pond was like looking into a pensive of sorts at their memories. Of course, just like a pensive the pond was equally as prone to memory corruption.
Blossom only hummed as she watched the same memory of Clover waking up in the dim room repeat on a loop.
"Any ideas?" the younger of the two asked.
"A few."
Silence lingered only the sound of the trickling of the small waterfall into the pond filling the air. It had not been more than a day, but Clover was desperate to return to how she felt as her fingers hovered above the box. The box that contained the magic, her magic, which had brushed over her skin like silk lulling her senses into a dull daze.
She could feel her own mortality, the fragility of her human body without the protection of her magic. She craved for this protection, this security with an ache she felt in her bones.
She'd nearly fainted when she'd found her way up the astronomy tower that night, as the overstimulation from each students' auras encroached upon her from every direction.
Not even a day since then, Saturday afternoon, and with the excuse that she was in need of an overdue nap Clover had shut the curtains around her bed and slipped into the shelter of her mind.
"Would you like to share?" Clover drawled contemptuously. She had long since deserted the niceties with her other self.
Blossom's eyes were darting about blinking erratically as she tried to piece her thoughts together.
Clover liked to watch Blossom think, it was captivating. Despite being the same person, sharing the same mind, they processed thoughts so differently.
If both were given a puzzle Clover would rely on the logic- of starting from the corners and moving her way inward as she sees the pieces that would fit from each consecutive piece, systematically working towards the completion of the puzzle. On the other hand, Blossom would start from a less organized place, building small clusters until she could see the bigger picture until she found how they all fit together.
They would finish the puzzle in roughly the same amount of time for the most part. However, typically the more abstract the puzzle the greater Clover's method was. Paying the images, no particular mind benefitted her as opposed to Blossom.
Magic, to the girls, was as abstract of a puzzle as one could get.
"Okay, try to follow me on this because I'm afraid it's not going to make much sense alright?" Blossom prefaced, and Clover nodded in affirmation.
"So, I think you were on to something about the stone and the castle, I agree that it does look the same," the girls looked from the image in the pond and to the castle in the distance again comparing the two.
"Which got me thinking this alright, so our mindscape is just a manifestation of our mind, right?"
Blossom's eyes rolled upwards as if to roll back into her mind, foregoing the fact that they were already sitting in it. Her fingers were rubbing together in the way they did when she intended to say something she knew required the right words the first time around.
"Yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory," Clover voiced, and Blossom shot her a dull look.
"Anyways," Blossom paused for a moment before continuing, "if the mindscape is a manifestation of our mind, anatomically, our brain is connected to the rest of our organs," Blossoms eye's locked on Clover's with a quirked eyebrow as if to question if the other girl was understanding the direction she was taking with this inquiry.
Clover's thoughts drifted back to the steady thrum she felt in the room. "Like our heart," Blossom confirmed.
"So, you believe our magic is located in our heart?" Clover scoffed. "A little cliché don't you think?" She shot Blossom a disbelieving look.
"Of course, it is," Blossom brushed off the comment flippantly. She shifted a bit off of her knees and into a cross-legged position.
You're looking at it too simply though," she admonished. "I don't think reaching our heart is as easy as you would suspect."
"I mean I've never found it" she mumbled almost too quiet to hear herself.
Blossom laid back on the grass her thoughts focused on how she'd designed her internal world since being thrust here. Years spent within her mind, not her heart, never her heart.
"Alright let's say this bizarre parallel is correct," Clover ran her fingers through her hair absentmindedly.
"If this," she waved her arms around gesturing at the scenery around them.
"-the mindscape is actually the brain," Blossom hummed to indicate she was listening.
"And our magic was located in our heart," she reiterated using the time to organize her thoughts.
"There should be, anatomically, a network of veins and arteries connecting the two," she supplied, "it was closed off though on all sides, so I suppose that's not an option then."
She breathed out a sigh, but Blossom who'd been resting with an arm over her eyes snapped up into a sitting position.
"No, it still certainly is an option!" she'd all but screamed.
"What do you mean?" Clover asked her heart rattling against her ribcage from a scare she wasn't expecting.
"It's all symbolic, holy hell I can't believe I wasn't thinking of this!" Blossom continued excitedly.
"Thinking of what? Finish your thoughts!" Clover chastised.
"Okay, so the reason we can't access our magic is because there is a block, which we quite literally saw as all the walls were shut in, so there must be a physical block between our mindscape and our heart chamber," Blossom rationalized.
Clover mulled the concept over in her mind and it was beginning to make sense in a backwards sort of way.
"So, what are we going to do? How do we plan on unblocking it? We don't actually know where the chamber is located or how to get to it," Clover questioned guardedly
She'd long since learned to not get her hopes up when the end seems to be in sight, at least not with the magical world. Magic is never as straightforward as it seems.
"Well, I tear down walls all the time in this place, just takes a bit of mental will, so it shouldn't be all too hard," Blossom mentioned nonchalantly as if it were completely obvious.
"As for locating the chamber," her voice trailed.
A smirk quirked upon her lips, "Well little one, are you up for a bit of exploring?"
Clover was not, but she didn't feel she had much of a choice.
"You're right. You don't. C'mon!" Blossom grabbed onto Clover's hand dragging her as she so often does into the fortress. They'd entered into the knowledge warehouse- the space, aside from the garden and bedroom, they were most familiar to use as a starting place.
"Where to next then," Blossom pondered aloud.
"Well, if we're going with the brain analogy, we're likely in the anterior cingulate cortex," Clover provided, and Blossom looked at the young girl as if she'd grown a second head.
"Do you not know brain anatomy?" Clover questioned at Blossom's odd response.
Blossom shook her head.
"But we read all those psychology books in primary school. I don't understand how that is possible?"
"Well," she dragged out the vowel as a sheepish grin pulled at her cheeks, "you did."
"The book popped up before me, but in all honesty, I was too busy trying to figure out what was going on. Then to come to terms with the rebirth and all that. Then figure out how I'm going to relate to you and I've gotta admit I didn't read them; I was the slightest bit occupied."
Clover didn't realize that her knowledge didn't just transfer to Blossom in the same way her thoughts did.
"Yeah it's a weird system, but would you mind putting what you said about the anatomy in simpler terms?"
"Uh, sure," Clover wasn't used to explaining things to other people so she tried to think of how one would explain brain anatomy to a child.
"So if this were the brain our long-term memories like those in the warehouse would likely be stored in the anterior cingulate cortex or ACC for short. The ACC is at the front of the cingulate cortex which is in the medial wall," Clover still saw a blank look on Blossom's face, so she tried to simplify the concept in a way that she would think Lily or Petunia could understand.
"Essentially it's situated a little deeper within the brain," she tried again. Blossom gave her a nod, understanding at least this bit.
"Like I said, you find the long-term memory function there, which is the same for the warehouse. Not to mention the warehouse being located in the basement," Blossom's eyes were dashing around again as she tried to create a mental visualization of the mindscape as a brain.
Clover continued seeing as Blossom was starting to catch on, "However, it is said to be uniquely situated between the 'cognitive' prefrontal cortex and the 'emotional' limbic system, which if I was to take a guess is where we should probably be aiming to head to next."
"The limbic system?" Blossom checked.
"Yes."
"Alrighty let's go then," Blossom announced starting forward leaving Clover behind.
"Wait where are you going! You know where the limbic system is?" she jogged to catch up to the slightly taller girl.
"No, but you said it was more emotional, and if we are trying to find the heart, I don't think searching for a pathway based on logic, or more 'cognitive' reasoning, is going to find you there," Blossom provided.
"Fair enough."
Clover came to regret her words though as it felt like hours that the girls were walking the halls. She had no concept of how much time in reality had passed, but when she walked past the shelf of Petunia's recipes for what she believed to be the third time she firmly planted her feet and clenched her eyes shut.
"What is it?" Blossom enquired blissfully unaware of the extent of Clover's irritation.
"We're going absolutely nowhere! Maybe you should stop 'following your heart' and we should make a reasonable route going forward," Clover seethed through her teeth.
"I wasn't 'following my heart'" Blossom responded plainly "I was following you."
Clovers anger was dulled by her confusion, "Following me, but I was following you!"
Blossom allowed a wry smile to rise on her face "No wonder we haven't found anything then! I haven't been able to feel much of anything in years actually. I'm relying almost entirely on you to get us there," she admitted.
Clover rested her head against the cool metal of the shelves trying to recenter herself.
"How about you give it one more try and then we'll rethink all this, but I really believe this is the way we have to do this," Blossom tried to soothe the girl by rubbing large circles along her back.
"Fine," Clover tried to feel for something like she did when she was navigating to the kitchen's, her gut feeling, her intuition.
There was a lot of nothing and then, "Follow me."
Like Ariadne through the Labyrinth Clover focused on the tether she felt faintly threaded through her toes as she followed its tugging. She moved slow at first but built, in speed and confidence, as she wove through the aisles with swift precision. By the time they came to a stop before the smooth concrete wall they were full out sprinting down the passage.
"Dead end," Clover panted, her hands on her knees as she slouched forward.
"Is it?" Blossom asked.
Clover shot her a glare fed up with the indirect language the girl was so fond of using.
"Clearly, if you look forward, it is," Clover languidly waved her hand in the direction of the wall. She hung her head again as lifting it to look at Blossom required too much energy.
"But" Blossom trailed off. Reading the frustration rolling off the small girl in waves now, she finished her thought far weaker, "is it?"
"What is that supposed to mean! Speak your mind. Stop talking in riddles!" Clover burst out.
"What if it's not a dead end, not really at least," Clover didn't say anything as Blossom paused yet again. "What if it's a mental block… keeping you from the limbo something."
"The limbic system," Clover corrected.
That made sense. If there was a block on her heart it wouldn't be odd that there was a block in her mind as well.
"So what do we do about this? We never got this far in our planning," Clover asked, finally collapsing onto the floor rather than attempting to keep on her feet.
"We unblock it," was Blossom's sure reply.
Clover wasn't sure if she'd ever contemplated homicide before, but she was surely considering it in this moment. By Blossom's flinch she was most certainly aware.
"Thank you, Sherlock," she seethed, "How!"
"Let me think!" Blossom shouted back exasperatedly her hands raking through her hair as she too collapsed to the floor.
The girls had never experienced such animosity between themselves. They were usually two sides of the same coin, a perfect match. But now, sitting here, neither girl could recognize the other.
The anger was, like they never experienced before, and it seemed to sink deeper and deeper within themselves. Raw, unfiltered anger.
"What would cause a mental block," Blossom thought aloud again, her voice eerily monotonal as she wracked her brain.
"What qualifies as a mental block, is it like writer's block, or the type of block when you can't remember an answer on your test that you've studied for," she continued to rattle.
"No those would have to do with memory and creativity, not the heart," she answered her own question again aloud to herself.
Clover looked on without seeing. She was tired of this mission. Tired of searching for her magic. Tired of failing.
Blossom rocked back and forth appearing as if she was teetering on the edge of insanity. In all honesty, she very well was in this moment.
"Trauma! A trauma block," she called out her voice echoing off the cavernous walls.
It all came together, and the guilt pressed down on Blossom greater than ever before. She had her suspicions that she may have been at the root of all this turmoil, but to have it all but confirmed in this moment put her over the edge.
She could remember it, but vaguely. The feeling of adrenaline burning through her veins. The thundering sound of her blood rushing through her ears. The flashes of bright lights, the crushing weight in her chest, the way her tongue felt like cotton in her mouth.
She could remember the feeling of something tearing within her, it was a pulling sensation behind her eyes, and then the feeling of folding in upon herself. There was heat and cold, and pain and chilling calm, and then she was here.
There was more, she knew there was more, but as she rocked back and forth she could feel bile coat her throat and it took everything within her to swallow it back and not give in. She looked to Clover who was looking at her, or perhaps beyond her in this moment.
She'd done that to this girl, because she was weak. She was in this situation because she was weak. She was someone who hid from her problems, avoidance was her best tactic, which is why she wasn't meant to be here.
She just wanted to go home. She was scared. She wanted her mom, her dad, her sister.
Home.
Everything crashed down on her, the guilt, the pain, the fear, the screams, the anger.
Sobs, wracking heart wrenching sobs, ripped from the girl as she fell forward curling into herself.
Clover not expecting this type of response froze, the frustration within her sinking away as she watched her other self, shatter before her.
"Blossom," she gently called out as she slowly crawled forward, but her whispers were no competition for the howling cries.
"Blossom," her voice rose a little louder, but still not enough to compete with the girl who was unaware as she lurched in her sorrow.
"Blossom!" Clover had gripped both biceps and shook the girl as she began to stir from her stupor and the panic of watching Blossom break down began to set in.
A stinging singed its way up her arms and was like she dove headfirst into a frier as white-hot pain wracked through her body, and Clover couldn't help, but lose her grip. Thankfully, Clovers recoiling returned some semblance of rationality to Blossom.
The older girl slowly lifted her head, tears still streaming down her blotchy face, snot pooling at her nostrils. Clover's breathing was erratic as well, as she tried to fight against the phantom pulses from the sudden agony she'd endured.
Apologies were dripping from Blossoms lips in fanatical ramblings. For what, Clover did not know. Eventually, the room settled as the girls finally returned to their bearings.
Clover didn't ask Blossom what had occurred. She wouldn't risk the chance of watching Blossom fall into such a state again. Instead, she just watched the girl, who simply looked back, like a staring contest with neither having any drive to win.
"I'm sorry," Blossom broke the silence with the soft mumbling that slipped from her lips.
Clover geared herself to respond when the sound of something solid dropping to the floor drew her attention.
A rock, more accurately a chunk of the cement wall before them, crumbled down from the wall revealing a hefty sized hole. A kaleidoscope of colored light filtered through and onto the floor and Blossoms breath hitched.
Flashes of emotions passed over Blossom's face as Clover looked on with quiet fascination. Blossom was her rock typically, this was true. She was entertaining and witty and usually had a lot of brilliant ideas and beliefs, but she was detached. There were walls in Blossom, that Clover had quite literally watched crumble, at least in part.
Clover could feel it too, the presence of something more within her. The grief, the elation, the distress, they coursed through her with an intensity she had never before experienced. Clover supposed she was always a bit dull; she would never have assumed this to be the reason why.
Blossom was crying again, but not out of distress, more so due to the emotional overload of what she was experiencing. She couldn't possibly respond in any other way to the feelings that she'd long forgotten. Clover too, sobbed she realized.
"We have to keep going," Blossom announced rubbing her runny nose against her long flowy sleeves, "we've made it this far we need to keep going."
Clover nodded along confirming her similar feelings on the matter. They both crawled towards the hole ignoring the blunt pain of their exposed palms against the jagged rubble.
The other side was warm, unlike the cool air of the warehouse. The floors were soft with the elastic bounce of a gymnastic mat with many variations of colour in a tie dye spiral design. The walls seemed to move, and vibrant neon lights floated around as if they were trapped inside a giant lava lamp.
The girls had certainly hit the mark when they considered the matters of the heart and their magic, far more abstract than their mind.
The heightened senses from outside tripled within the room and Clover hesitated only a moment before gripping onto Blossom to ground herself, who only slightly flinched before relaxing in her hold.
They would need to continue on together, they had no hopes of making it through this journey on their own.
Not a word was passed between the two as they stumbled along the brightly colored tunnel. Their minds felt foggy at best and it was as if all they knew to do was move forward and hope.
Step after step, their feet moved in sync further and further down the winding hall.
Their thoughts began to cloud, rationality drifting, their grasp on past and present felt as if it had converged. It was a surreal state that Clover had never been exposed to before.
Both nothing and everything, all at once. Blossom had experienced this once, but she was alone. All alone, nothing to hold to, nothing to escape to, no way to know up from down, forward from back, real from imagined.
Her mind was drifting, floating away and anxiety, insurmountable fear was leaking into its place from somewhere deep inside she'd long since buried. Then the feeling of something winding around her, something solid, something warm, an arm. Clover's arm was around her waist.
She wasn't alone. Not this time.
The disorienting swirl of colorful, pulsing fluorescent lights began to shift and dim to the ethereal blue glow that solidly permeated the room. The tunnel was disguised with uneven cobbled walls and the temperature cooled, but still the two girls persevered.
"We're almost through," Blossom's voice was so breathy she could barely recognize it, but she could feel the arm at her waist squeeze just a bit in acknowledgement and she felt her mind clear slightly with the recognition of comfort.
While this increased clarity, it was nowhere enough to support rational thought. It did but enough to fully quell the irrational panic for good.
"I think I can see it," Clover whispered.
Yet, as they strode to the end of the hall and loomed within the curved doorframe, disappointment sunk at the sight of an unfamiliar room, enclosed on all remaining sides. The hope that they'd be arriving at their destination at the end of the corridor had accumulated as the girls descended through the halls. In turn the hope only served to aggravate the girl's helplessness as they wondered how to move forward from here.
The walls were not damp grey stone, but a regal purple paneling, eye-catching and elegant. Deep nearly black plum carpets stretched the floor, that the tips Clover's bare toes dug into.
Clover felt as if she was walking through cling wrap as she crossed through the arched barrier into the room. The air felt still, with no breeze or weight like they'd experienced in the halls, and even the most shallow of breaths spurred the feeling of oxygen penetrating deep within her lungs.
"Where are we?" Clover tried to ask, but felt her voice caught in her throat as not a sound emerged.
She took her right hand, the one she had not wound around the still trembling frame of her older-self and rubbed at her throat feeling it contract beneath her fingers as she swallowed.
The room was shockingly bare empty but for a spindly silver microphone stood at the center.
There was a tenseness that wanted to settle within Blossom. She could faintly hear the warning bells she'd installed far up at the top of the tour sounding off. Something was desperately out of place with the space they'd just entered.
The two girls shuffled forward their eyes caught on the glinting metal, ensnared by the sole object within the room without a single desire to look away. Clover reached out, her finger barely brushing against its polished surface, before screams, piercing screams, reverberated off the walls at decibels so loud she could feel the echoes slicing through her ear canals.
Her fingers slipped and the bloodcurdling cries came to a sudden halt, a sudden repreive.
Her eyes drifted to Blossom who was already glancing down at her. She threaded her brows together, eyes wide and glossy with a mouth slightly agape as her form trembled with shuddered breaths. She hoped it was enough to convey her questioning, silently, if she'd truly lost it. Blossom shook her head with minute quivering motions, face whiter than usual, indicating to some degree she'd just experienced something disturbing as well.
The air that had felt full was starting sour leaving a foul taste on their tongue.
The unspoken question resounded between the two girls; what were they to do next?
This room was much like the presumed heart chamber their magic was stored in. Though spacious it felt like the walls were constricting in on them. It was barren lacking any clue to where they could be.
Clover instinctively rubbed at her throat again as thoughts circulated, each option feeling less appealing than the last. She'd narrowed it down to two clear choices, wait in this room for a hint to miraculously appear, or turn around and give up on this fruitless adventure.
A vicing grip wrapped itself around her wrist and Clover's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
Blossom pulled Clover's hand down, the one at her throat, and wiggled her own fingers in the air with narrowed eyes that seemed to say watch closely. Her arm stretched out and Clover braced herself for the screams, but they never came. Prying her eyes back open relaxing from this development, she saw Blossom frozen with her fingertips just a breath away.
A lingering pause stretched on and then fingers, Blossom's fingers, weaved through Clover's own and their arms curved over the microphone before together grasping around its base.
A heavy beat of silence passed, then another, and nothing. No screams, no new clues, just quiet.
"Well, that was anti-climactic," Clover said aloud after a long pause expecting not to be heard, except they could.
Blossom jumped a bit at the sound, but nonetheless smiled.
"The truth can't lie in one of us or another," Blossom announced eyes never wavering from the silver in her hands which was warming rapidly beneath her palms.
"Only somewhere in between" she breathed the words out like a prophecy, and they flooded through the room echoing off the walls in a million tiny whispers.
Somewhere in between.
Somewhere in between.
Somewhere in between.
The phrase penetrated deep into Clover's brain, but she unsuccessfully wracked her mind for how this could actually help them in this moment.
Somewhere in between the two girls? The only thing between the two girls was the microphone in their hand.
Somewhere in between.
The warmth that was penetrating at her palms was swirling up her arms in a steady stream and pooling in her throat.
"The truth lies somewhere between our heart and our mind," Clover added lamely, she wasn't expecting the whispers to grow in fervor at this new addition. Yet they did, growing louder and more persistant.
Somewhere in between.
Between the heart and the mind.
Somewhere in between.
The two girls shared a shuddering breath.
"The truth will reveal the path connecting the two," Blossom's voice had grown in conviction, she was all but commanding the room and it submitted to her will with no hesitation.
Somewhere in between.
Between the heart and mind.
The truth will reveal the path.
There was no room for thoughts as the mantra filled into every crevice and the room shuddered.
There was a vibration beneath their feet that grew in intensity. A block of stone dropped downwards, then another shifted to the side, revealing a spiral staircase before them.
Somewhere in between.
Between the heart and mind.
The truth will reveal the path.
"Are we really doing this?" Clover asked as she looked down into the black depths of the staircase that stretched on deeper than she could see.
"We've come this far," came the expected response.
There was no turning back now. Clover moves first leading the way for Blossom. She takes one cautious step after another, travelling beyond where her eyes can serve her. Her foot trails across the surface of each uneven step first, before slowly lowering it down onto the next. She was relying on the feel of the rough cobble walls to direct her down and Blossom's firm grasp to keep her from turning tail.
The light above was no longer visible, but neither was whatever awaited below. The two girls were enveloped in absolute darkness. Clover didn't believe she feared the dark, not even what lurked in it. Rather, what Clover feared was the unknown.
In this moment, for Clover, she felt like she did not know anything, not herself, not Blossom, and not where to take her next step. Her foot caught on an unexpected slick spot and she felt herself plummeting backwards dragging Blossom down with her.
They were falling, fast but the fall went on for sometime. They expected their backs to slam against the hard stone, but it never did. Instead they wind was whipping through their hair as they entered into a lengthy free fall.
Someone was yelling, Clover wasn't sure if it was Blossom or herself or both, but they were yelling, and their voice always seemed to trail behind them.
Then as quick as it all began it stopped.
Clover felt like a marionette suspended by an assortment of strings as tension pulled at each of her joints. Their descent had slowed upon the bright evergreen glow below them, fondly resembling their middle sister's eyes.
Their feet were planted on the floor and the thrum of a heartbeat was so much stronger than how Clover had recalled it being before.
Torches lined the walls blazing a lime green fire, not purple, but Clover paid this inconsistency little mind.
They'd made it, they really made it. Clover was both elated and immobilized by this fact.
Blossom however had no hesitation as she swiftly strode across the room to the box at the center.
There air tasted sweet, like a smooth caramel coating her tongue. The texture was icy, but soft as it brushed against her skin. Almost creamy in the way melting ice cream as it steams down its cone and onto the hand feels. Sticky even.
This was her magic. She knew it without being told, knew it from the completeness she felt at her core, from the euphoric vibrations that settled in her bones.
Blossom's hands gripped the base of the box, a reddish wood with swirling engravings not pewter. She tried to peel open the cover, frustrated when it didn't give with even the roughest of tugging at its flimsy golden clasp. The box was locked.
"Clover?" Blossom's voice called out, but her other self's eyes were glossed over, and Clover began to take mindless steps forward.
Blossom backed away until her back was pressed the wall as she looked on with horrified captivation.
Clover's hands pushed upon either side of the wood and the pads of her thumb pressed into identical indentations. The lid flipped open releasing a burst of jade light that grew larger and larger before streaming throughout the room and coating the girl herself.
A pathway to the realm above, back to the mind, was illuminated for Blossom. She smiled to Clover as she watched her fade away, the greatest expression of elation overtaking the young girl's delicate features.
Don't let it go to your head. Blossom thought as she ground her teeth. They'd certainly found something, but it was not what they were looking for.
She licked her lips as the staircase mocked her, she supposed she should prepare for the long journey up.
Clover on the other hand was wriggling uncomfortably as her mind slowly returned to reality. A thundering headache split her skull at the seams, but the frosty current flooding her veins thrummed with unmistakable magical power.
Despite the absolute agony that it put her through Clover slowly peeled her eyes open and was shocked to see not the sight of the mustard yellow curtains of her canopy, but the sterile white ceiling of the Hospital Wing.
How had she gotten here she wondered, her headache still too much to voice the question aloud.
The thought, however, as she woke up to see her distressed sisters face. She was cradling Clover's hand gently as she conversed with Severus who was as apathetic seeming as ever.
"Lily," her voice croaked roughly, and it felt as if her throat was rubbing on sandpaper to merely speak the short word.
"Clover!" her head whipped around. "Oh thank Merlin! You don't know how much you scared me. Four days you were asleep!" Lily exclaimed with a mix of both relief and exhaustion tinging her expression as her shoulder's relaxed.
Four days?
At the sight of Clover awake Severus offered a slight nod of acknowledgement to Clover, she returned it and he swept from the room not wasting a second longer than necessary.
"I'm so sorry I haven't been there, if I'd known you were struggling this much, I wouldn't have let this silly fight drag on so long," Lily spoke out, her guilt tingling like pins and needles across Clover's skin.
Clover opened her mouth to respond, but the lack of any moisture on her tongue kept a single sound from tearing out.
"Here, drink some water," Lily offered and Clover took the glass gratefully letting the liquid slide down her throat with greedy gulps.
"Madam Pomphrey had wanted to give you some potions to help with the dehydration, but Professor McGonagall warned that any disruption to the state you were in could be detrimental to any progress that you'd made." Her sister offered as an explanation.
Did McGonagall know what was happening to her? She supposed that made sense, the older witch seemed to be quite well read on the subject.
"So did you do it?" Lily asked the guilt melting away to the buzz of eager curiosity.
"Do what?" Clover asked dumbly as she set the glass back down feeling her headache dull ever so slightly.
"Can you access your magic?" her sister rephrased, not at all put out by Clover's lack of comprehension.
Rather than with words Clover took hold of both of Lily's hands in her own and let the frigid sugary energy stream between their palms, eliciting a gasp of awe from her sister at the feel of someone else's magic within her.
"Is that?" Lily didn't finish her sentence, but she didn't have to.
"It is."
Now to just figure out how to use it.