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A/N: WARNING: depression level has
kicked up a notch.
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Oh, wait, NO ONE reviewed. No one loves me. Okay, that's cool, I'm just gonna cry for a bit, okay? Nah, im j/k.
Recap:
All the sudden, she felt hot jets propelled into her side. She fell to her proverbial knees. She was being dragged up, away from her vision… why wasn't she drifting on her own, like always in the past?
Chapter 18: Seer's Suicide
Heather woke in a sweat, thrashing from side to side, trying to escape her pain. She felt hands grasp her shoulders and try to still her. She panicked. What was going on? Who had her? Was it a death eater? She slowly clamed. It was Madame Pomfrey.
"My goodness, child, you had us worried."
"What happened?"
"You've been sitting in that vision for days on end. If you don't get some food and some sleep soon, you're going to be very sick, young lady!"
Heather nodded mutely, not noticing that Madame Pomfrey had continued to mutter to herself about 'not making a difference anyway' and such. She could agree to a nap. And some food. But especially a nap.
At that moment, Harry came running into the ward, followed by Professor Sprout, and, to her great shock, Professors Dumbledore and Trelawny.
"Oh, Potter, good, you're back. Headmaster, she's awake now."
"Thank you, Poppy." Dumbledore surveyed Heather carefully. She felt as though he was looking inside her very deeply. He sighed. "Sybil, I thank you for all the advice you gave me before in my office, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would escort Mr. Potter back to class."
"But Headmaster-"
"Professor, please, can't I just-"
Dumbledore raised his hands and they both turned to go without making the Headmaster give a comment, though Harry paused to give Heather a look that she could not read.
"Will you let us know, Poppy, when we can have a minute with her?" Dumbledore asked politely.
"You can take it now, Headmaster, she's not in danger at the moment." Madame Pomfry replied, pressing a goblet of some foul potion into Heather's hands. "I'll be in my office." And she strode away.
Professors Dumbledore and Sprout seated themselves next to Heather's bed, Dumbledore fixing her again with his piercing gaze.
"Heather," Dumbledore began. She nearly jumped. She had been expecting "Miss Kline" or something of the like. "Do you know how long you were out with that last vision?"
She shook her head mutely. She knew how long the vision had lasted, but hadn't the slightest clue how long it had been in the "real world."
"You have been in that vision for two weeks." He paused, as though this ought to mean something to her. She blinked up at him, bewildered. He sighed.
"Visions can only be this long on one of two occasions: the first being a state I will discuss with you momentarily, and the second being that the vision is large and significant enough to take up all of that time. However, the second is not the case with you. When seers are having relevant visions, they remain perfectly still, the theory being that this is so because the seer is subconsciously paying avid attention to what is going on before them. You, however, began to fidget halfway through the first day of your vision. That meant that, at that point, there was an unimportant point in time in your vision, during which you should have woken up. You may well have returned to get to the next relevant bit in a few days, in a different vision that took place only moments later chronologically, but you should have left he vision at that point.
"Now, we could hardly fail to notice that you did not. We therefore commenced on a gigantic search for information. We looked for more on this state of being you had fallen into, and how to revive one from it, and thanks to Madame Pince, we were able to find all we needed," Here Dumbledore paused in his long monologue and took a deep breath. "Madame Pomfrey was able to revive you today after a week of giving your system as much shock as it could handle every day. Normally, this would not have been advisable, but given the circumstances, it was our only hope."
"Sir? What exactly do you mean? What 'state' was it that I feel into? I don't understand. . . ."
"Miss Kline," began Professor Sprout in a quiet, almost wavering voice, "seers are capable of falling into this state. . . and only seers can. . . in which they. . . well, when they. . ."
Dumbledore continued to look concernedly down at her through his half-moon spectacles. "It is called seer's Suicide."
The silence was deafening.
Heather looked at him. She was floored. Being a seer could be fatal? She tried to pose a question, but couldn't begin to phrase one. Were they telling her that she would have died for all practical purposes, had they not madly gone on a search and tried to save her?
"A seer will drift into a vision and may never come out of it. In some cases, the seer's body continues to live like that until old age stakes its claim. In others, the seer's body dies as well. It makes little difference which way the seer's body goes, because after a given amount of time, the spirit becomes irretrievable."
She could have died. Now that this gift she had wanted all her life had awoken, she had nearly died because of it. "But. . . Sir. . . I've never heard of. . . I mean, there are a good number of seers I know of. . . none of them. . . ." The questions her mind was flinging around madly were not answered, nor were they whole. But something was nagging at her, different from the usual things that nagged at the back of her mind.
"Miss Kline, this only occurs in very select circumstances. . . That is to say, the average seer. . ." Professor Sprout trailed off, not able to say whatever it was she was trying to express. She had a very pained expression, as though something deeply tragic was pressing in on her. Heather supposed the near death of a member of her house might well be the thing to bring that about, but all the same, she was confused.
"Heather, this state comes about in precisely one circumstance." At this point Professor Dumbledore fixed Heather with a gaze so piercing that she squirmed under it, unable to bear its intensity. "When any person so despises their life that they want to end it, they have many avenues by which they might attempt to accomplish their goal. In the case of a seer, there is one more avenue available. Heather, you literally tried to live inside a vision, ignore the real world completely, and you would have lived the rest of your life that way. seers have done this in the past very rarely- only to avoid torture for fear of revealing a vision or something of the like. It is necessary for the seer to have all the determination, depression, or whatever else it would take for that seer to end their life a different way to commit this act. The seer must be ready to commit the act another way, in other cases, seers prepared themselves for death, accepting that their deaths were necessary to preserve the lives of others. In short, you attempted suicide. And it was only through Madame Pince's research and Poppy's skill we were able to bring you back."
A/N: Yes, you should thank me, because I wasn't cruel enough to leave an evil cliffie. On top of whch, because I avoided that cliffie, this is 2x the usual length. Happy Birthday! (or not-birthday)
Next one nest Thursday or before! Betas leave me a message!!
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