November was a cold month. Gen hadn't been in so cold a place since she was eight, and went skiing in the Rockies. Even as Gen lay for three solid weeks in the hospital wing, she could feel the bitter cold through the pain killer potions she was taking. In the first week of her healing period she couldn't even think straight, and all she remembered was the terrible chill, and seeing faces go by in a blur. Harry, Ron, and Hermione came by a lot. It wasn't until their fifth visit that Gen put two and two together.
"Hey!" she said, as if she had just put together a very complex puzzle and was pleased with herself indeed, "you two are together, and you aren't fighting!" Harry laughed, Hermione coughed, and Ron looked at his feet, mumbling something awkwardly that Gen couldn't make out. Days past, and the quidditch season would soon start. Harry became very jumpy all the time. He was so nervous that he was practicing every free minute that he had. One day the three came in, or rather Ron and Hermione came in dragging Harry along by the hand. He seemed to be sleep walking, but Hermione assured Gen that he was just fatigued from quidditch practice. They propped him up in a chair, and his head lulled down to his chest. Every so often he would have a spasm where he would become suddenly alert in his chair, and shout random quidditch trivia. Evidentially Hermione had lent him her "Quidditch Throughout the Ages" book, and whenever he wasn't on the field he was reading it. It seemed to comfort him, but his comfort disappeared one frosty day. As it seemed Snape had taken Harry's book for no reason at all. This wasn;t so hard to believe, but what was hard to believe was the other half of Harry's story.
"When I went to get the book," Harry whispered to the three as they sat in the empty Hospital Wing the day before the first game, "I saw Snape and Filch alone in the teacher's lounge."
"Slashy," Gen said hazily with an inward laugh. They looked at her questioningly for a moment, but then looked away.
"They were talking about the three headed dog."
"Fluffy?"
"Fluffy?!?" Ron shouted, fed up with Gen's strange, and stupid comments, "Why in the name of Merlin would that thing be called Fluffy?"
"Leave her alone," Hermione said warningly, "She's delusional."
Gen shut up, and Harry continued with his story. "Anyway, I peeked in and Snape's leg was all bloody. It looked like he had been bit by something big. Remember how when Snape took the book he was limping? And remember how we saw him near the girl's bathroom on Halloween, when he should have been in the dungeons? I'd bet my broomstick that he's the one who let that troll in on Halloween, and that he did it to try and get past that dog."
"No way, Snape wouldn't do that! He's a Hogwarts teacher," Hermione said, appalled at their assumptions.
"She's right you know," Gen whispered, but they were ignoring her, "I wouldn't do something like that. But the fact that he's a Hogwarts teacher means nothing… we all know the things that go on." Ron looked at her like she was speaking in another language.
"You're being backed up by a mentally incapacitated person," Ron said to Hermione, "it's not like that's going to help you at all."
"I know Snape wouldn't do that."
"Well," Ron said angrily, "I know that he would."
"Well," Hermione snapped, "if he does want to get past that dog what's his reason? I mean, what's down there?"
"I don't know," Harry frowned, "but what ever it is it must have been pretty important for someone to try to steal it from Gringotts."
So they made some discoveries while I was out of it, Gen thought, good. Maybe the world isn't totally, hopelessly lost…
That night was Harry's first quidditch match. Gen didn't see it, though it seemed to have been quite the show. According to Ron Snape was a "good-for-nothing son of a banshee" who "aught to be cursed with the grim a million times, and back." Neither Harry nor Hermione seemed to understand the last part of his comment, but they didn't question it. Ron seemed shocked by something Hagrid had told them. Something to the effect of the three headed dog's name really being Fluffy. Still despite the fact that "Snape" was hexing Harry's broom Gryffindor won, and after a very short visit to Gen the three left to help the Gryffindors celebrate.
Gen would be out of bed soon, within the week. This made Hermione fell better, but not as much as it did so for Ron. He felt guilty for the whole thing. If he hadn't insulted Hermione no one would have gotten hurt in the first place, and Gen would still be in class. Gen assured him constantly that it was okay, but the guilt was eating him alive. One night when Hermione and Harry were gone, and Gen was near sleep she could hear Ron whisper a soliloquy to Gen, begging her forgiveness. He thought she was asleep, but he was wrong. She heard every word that traversed his youthful lips. He could not see her for the dark of the night, and her eyes sprang open the minute that he spoke. Those eyes could see by the flickering light of a candle the glossy wet in Ron's, and seeing the shine found a film of bittersweet on themselves. Ron fell asleep that night in the Hospital wing, his head resting on the side of Gen's bed. After bearing his soul before her, his heart rent so strangely for an eleven-year-old boy, he passed out, fatigued with sorrow, and Gen whispered comforting words to his shuttering frame, and before long he rested peacefully, hunched over in a wooden hospital chair, Gen's fingers running through his soft red hair. Morning broke on the two, Ron was fast asleep, but Gen wasn't. Being knocked out by the troll was the closest she had gotten to sleep in months, and she didn't expect to come that again close for quite a while more…
*Fanfare* Chapter Thirteen! Yay. I hope you liked it. Tell me what you thought, please!!! I'm sorry about how short it is, but it makes up for how long chapter nineteen will be. I hope to finish this whole thing up by the end of December, or sooner. Well, finish this part of the story. I want to tell you a little secret. After I finish with "Genevere Bangle's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" I won't quite be finished with the story as a whole. Heh… but then, you'll just have to wait and see.