Chapter 33

Tuesday, December 17, 1991- St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, London, England

"Then what happened?" Patricia asked.

"Quirrell just sort of..." Harry made a crumbling gesture with his hands. "And then I...fainted."

Sirius patted Harry on the shoulder. "There's no shame in that. You're alive, that's all that matters."

That didn't stop Harry from grimacing. Fainting in front of the only friends he had ever had was embarrassing no matter what way you sliced it.

"But everyone else is fine?" Patricia checked.

Harry, Sirius and Remus confirmed that, yes, everyone else was alive and well. Then Remus picked up the bag that he had and began emptying it onto the table next to the bed.

"We've been getting your redirected owls since you got here," Remus said. "Fred and George tried to send you a box of Dungbombs but McGonagall confiscated them before they could get out of the school."

Patricia laughed so hard that her chest hurt. "Ow, ow, ow," she said as she kept laughing.

She didn't know why she was laughing. It wasn't that funny. Maybe it was just nice to laugh.

A mediwitch came over and shooed Harry, Sirius and Remus away, but not before Sirius could tell Patricia that Harry was staying at Grimmauld Place for the Christmas holiday and they expected her to join them as soon as Healer Smith let her out.

After Patricia had taken a terrible-tasting potion to fix the tearing that her laughter had created between her ribs (maybe she wasn't as strong as she thought she was), she turned her attention to the pile of packages that Remus had left behind. The first was a bundle of get-well cards from her roommates with an accompanying note that told her that they were keeping hold of the message parchments so that Fred and George, who were staying at Hogwarts for Christmas, would be able to get messages out to someone who wasn't in the hospital. The next card had been signed by Penelope Clearwater and her roommates, one of whom had charmed the rainbow on the front to colour itself in one colour at a time every minute or so. Fred, George, and Lee had each pitched in during the December Hogsmeade weekend to send her a box of Honeydukes chocolates, plus some blood-flavoured lollipops as a joke in lieu of the Dungbombs.

The last two cards were a surprise to Patricia. The first was a homemade teddy bear shaped card from her Muggle friends, Tracy, William and Ava. She hadn't even known that Remus (she assumed) had told them that she was in the hospital. She tried to write to them every week, but school was busy. O.W.L.s were coming (never mind that they were two years away) and Quidditch practice seemed to take up most of the time that she wasn't studying.

Those were bad excuses for not contacting her oldest friends.

The second card engulfed Patricia in butterflies when it was first opened. The butterflies then dove back into the card and were confined to the card's surface, where they condensed into a bouquet of flowers every few seconds. Patricia stared at the moving watercolours for a long time before she actually read what was written in the card. It said:

To Patricia Stimpson-Black, daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, daughter and heir of House Stimpson, greetings from Adrian Pucey, son and heir of House Pucey.

There, now the formal bit is out of the way.

Your friend, Violet Moon, she told me that you were in St Mungo's. I don't know why she told me but I thought that since I knew I should write you get-well wishes or something.

That came out wrong. Can I start over?

To Patricia Stimpson-Black, etc.

I hope that you're feeling better. I don't know why you're in St Mungo's, but I was in there with mumblemumps before first year and it's dead boring. I've got a book I read that I'm going to send you in case no one else remembers to, to help you pass the time.

If you're back at school in January, would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me? As friends, not formal courting or anything like that.

From,

Adrian Pucey

The last few sentences were squished into the bottom of the inside of the card where Pucey had nearly run out of room.

Patricia stared at the message written in the card for nearly as long as she had spent staring at the painting on it. Why would Adrian Pucey, a Slytherin, be writing to her? Why would Violet tell him she was in St Mungo's?

She picked up the last paper wrapped package that was sitting on the table and untied the string that was holding it shut. The book that Pucey had sent was a thick novel called Lena Burgess and the Silver Phoenix, which Patricia couldn't believe that he had ever read. In an attempt to prove herself right she opened the book to the first page.

When the mediwitches and mediwizards didn't hear any complaints from Patricia Stimpson-Black's room for a full half hour, one of them stuck his head through the doorway and saw that the girl was a third of the way through a giant book with no plans to stop reading any time soon.

Wednesday, December 25, 1991 (Three days after the full moon)- Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, London, England

The kitchen of the Black house was warm and cheerful. The rest of the house had been fully cleaned, cleared out, and made livable, but the portrait of the late Walburga Black was still gracing the hallway with its presence. Even Kreacher hadn't been able to get the thing down, and he was getting as tired of the screaming as the rest of them. Taking Sirius's side hadn't been good for the house-elf's standing with the painting. Instead of setting up Christmas celebrations somewhere where they'd be likely to wake the painting up, the tree and presents were waiting in the kitchen to surprise Harry and Patricia when they came downstairs.

Presents were opened before breakfast because three of the four people in the room were (practically) children and Remus didn't feel like wasting energy trying to stop them. Harry seemed to get mostly sweets from his friends, plus a Weasley jumper like the ones Molly Weasley made for all of "her" children. Sirius had gotten Harry a wand holster and said that it was from him and Patricia since Patricia hadn't gotten out of St Mungo's until Christmas Eve. Remus had done the same with the copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard that he had gotten for Harry.

Patricia was pulling her Weasley jumper over her head when Harry opened his last present. The exclamations from Sirius and Remus startled her and she got tangled in the jumper for a few moments. Once she'd gotten her arms and head in the right places she could see the silvery cloak that Harry was holding up.

"Is that a real invisibility cloak?" Patricia exclaimed.

Sirius shook his head. "It's James's invisibility cloak, I'd recognize it anywhere."

"Who sent it?" Remus asked. "Was there a note?"

Harry dug through the packaging and came out with a slip of parchment that read:

Your father left this in my possession before he passed. Use it well.

Sirius scowled. "That's Dumbledore's handwriting. Why did he have James's cloak? The meddling—"

"Sirius," Remus interrupted, "leave it. It's Christmas."

Sirius sighed, but he left it. He didn't send a Howler to Dumbledore until New Year's.

On the third Saturday of January, Patricia and Adrian Pucey were shadowed around Hogsmeade all day by Lee Jordan and most of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"Do you think they know that we know they're there?" Adrian whispered to Patricia when they stopped at the Three Broomsticks for hot butterbeer and were followed in by the Gryffindor mob.

Patricia shrugged. "Fred and George probably do, maybe Angelina, hard to tell with the others."

There weren't any Gryffindor/Slytherin altercations by the end of the day, so Patricia and Adrian called it a win. It may have helped that Patricia told her friends that it wasn't a date.

The school year ended without anyone else having to fight a possessed teacher. The Bloody Baron and Nearly Headless Nick actually ended up covering all but the O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. Defence Against the Dark Arts classes (which were taught by an Auror on loan from the Ministry). They were better teachers than Quirrell, and would have been at Professor Darrow's level if they were able to teach spells that living wizards and witches could actually use.

"Why can't they always teach Defense?" Grace complained. "We can learn spells from books."

"Because Hogwarts would quickly run out of ghosts," Patricia replied. "Look at Quirrell, he didn't even last the year."

All of the third years passed their final exams, even Warrington.

Patricia was picked up from King's Cross by Sirius. They crossed into the Muggle side of the station with Harry and Sirius informed the whale-like man and horsey woman who were Harry's uncle and aunt that Harry would only be staying with them for twenty-eight days before he came to pick him up and Harry had better be unharmed or else. Harry pitched in by saying that Sirius had been arrested for murder once and who knew what he was capable of? The worse half of Harry's family went running back to their car with their tails between their legs and Harry shared a grin with Sirius before going after them.

All was well, for the moment.