Hufflepuff Concerto

You'll never see Hufflepuff the same again. Set in the year of the TriWizard Cup. A reluctant student comes to Hogwarts, is not a Mary Sue, and meets other OCs who are also not Mary or Marty Sues. I promise. Give it a try.

DISCLAIMER: That Harry Potter Universe and Characters are not, alas, my own.

A/N: Thankee for pointing out typos. They've been fixed!... I think.


Chapter Eight: Mixed Nuts

Washed up. The waves still rolled, but she wasn't in them. Up was up. Down was clearly down. Blinking, the lights didn't swim quite as much as before.

It was almost calm.

A mental search revealed two living bodies in the room and a class of wandwavers far enough away to ignore.

In the space of a blink, a face materialized two feet away, and a cold hand went immediately to her forehead and retreated just as quickly. The face--it was a woman's--was moving oddly and buzzing. Strange thing to do. But why would Madame Pompfrey be buzzing?

A lower buzzing responded. Maybe it wasn't buzzing. Things were starting to come together now. A kind faced old gentleman leaned over and smiled at her. Dumbledore. Yes, that was his name. What on earth was the Headmaster doing here? She smiled back.

And now that she thought of it, "here" was somewhat of a mysterious place. There were other beds. Madame Pompfrey, being the school nurse--or whatever the wizarding folk liked to call their school nurse--belonged in a place like this. Hannah did not. In fact, Hannah had made it a personal goal of hers to stay away from these sorts of places. That was twice today--for both seeing Madame Pompfrey and seeing Dumbledore--assuming, of course, that today was still the first day of classes. Oh, now they were offering her something in a glass? It was in her hands. Cold. Liquid. Clear. Oh, right. Water.

The wandwavers downstairs were putting their magic sticks away.

"Here" must be Madame Pompfrey's office. That seemed a pretty fair deduction, but it made her think about the word "hear" as well. If the people weren't buzzing--which they seemed to be doing quite a lot of--then they must be talking because that's what people tended to be doing, at least in her experience, when they moved their mouths like that.

She ventured a sip of the cold, clear, liquid she liked to commonly think of as water. It occured to her, as it slipped smoothly down her throat, that when you hear you do so with your ears and right now she wasn't paying too much attention to hers. Now that she thought of it, in fact, she could really do with paying somewhat more attention in general.

"Buzz she, bu bubuzzbuzz, buzz to be buzzbuzzing," Madame Pompfrey was saying. This must have made an awful lot of sense to Dumbledore, because he nodded and smiled at her again.

Hannah smiled back.

"Buzz burry," he said, "Everybuzz is buzzing to be fine."

"Everybuzz is buzzing to be fine," she repeated. Yes. Good. Most sense she'd heard all day. She took another sip of her water. Why was she already sitting up when she woke up?

"Ah, buzcome buzz, Hannah. Do you rebuzzbur what hapuzzed?" the Headmaster asked. It seemed important.

Do I remember what happened? she filled in the missing spaces, I don't know, do I? "Um." The day started with Potions. She needed to copy someone's notes about the cabinate organization because she couldn't write it down and understand at the same time so she managed neither one with useful results. Then was History of Magic with the ghost teacher. Then the fight in the hallway, the trip to the nurse and then to the Headmaster's office and chasing after Jaci and getting to Charms late, but then professor was late too so it didn't matter.

"It's alright," Dumbledore started to stand up.

"No, no. I do remember," Hannah wracked her brain as he settled back down. It was something in Charms and had something to do with why she knew someone was practicing a spell in the courtyard, "It was the--the wands."

He sunk back down, "The wands?"

"Yes. They made everything spin."

"The wands did?"

"Yes."

"Did someone curse you using a wand, perhaps?" Madame Pomfrey asked.

"No, no," they weren't believing her, "It was just the wands. And the spells made it worse."

"What were the words of the spell?"

"It was one we were learning. Wingardium leviosa."

"Hannah," Madame Pomfrey insisted seriously, "Professor Flitwick has been teaching that spell for longer than I've been here. It could not have caused you to break down the way you did."

Dumbledore nodded, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "Tell me, Hannah,do you know why mages don't like wizards?"

"Why?"

"Well, if you think about it, you'll find you already know."

Yeah, wands make mages go nutters, Hannah concluded, "Does that mean I have to leave?"

"That is up to you."