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: Keep an author going: Comment; react; question.
Chapter Ten: Draining Water
The wand seered through her. Not literally, but close enough. Down down down. Again. It wasn't as shocking this time. She forced her eyes open and looked as hard as she could in the dim light at the closed bed curtains. The wand was pulsing through her as it fed on the Earth's energy, turning itself and her into a sort of magic electrical outlet waiting to be tapped. It felt like one long static shock from throat to stomach, over and over again. But the blasted wand wouldn't let her let go.
She did the only thing she really knew how.
The wand was in flames in an instant. Big blue flames, bigger than any she had ever made before. It was almost enough of a wonder to lessen the nausating feeling of energy rushing even faster through her. With that, the wand let out a yellow puff of glittering dust and extinguished the flame. It wasn't even scorched.
Then it spouted out random magic. Not a spell. Just raw magic. Bringing it through her and out into the room. She might have screamed, but it was so loud she couldn't be sure any sound came out at all. Her body felt on fire. Up was down, and down was sideways.
No. Down could be down. She followed the wand's grounding cord to the earth. Down was down. She threw out her own cord and braided a third in and then a fourth, desperately sending the energy back where it came from. Just when she thought she had it covered, the free floating energy outside her started whirlpooling toward her.
She couldn't even see the curtains anymore. Down is still down, she reminded herself, and threw down more cords. If she let go of down now, she would loose it. Down was important. Down was steady.
Down was bringing the tail of that tornado straight to her.
Hannah threw up her hands--as though her hands could do anything--against the incoming storm.
But it didn't hit.
She blinked. Bending around her hands by the force of the whirlpooling magic was something Hannah could only describe as a wall of nothing. And it was holding.
The tornado calmed and became a cloud. The wand, still in her hand, continued to pour magic out into a river beyond her wall. But it was stuck in the wall and in a few minutes she managed to wrestled her hand free.
River slowed to stream, to creek and stopped.
Hannah had figured out her walls enough to modify them to encompass her area of the room, and move the wand out of the way enough so no one would walk into it. She was just trying to figure that out when she noticed a very faint buzzing.
Roommates talking. She'd almost forgotten about them. How long had they been hiding somewhere on the other side of the wall? She tried pushing it back further--so she could see the whole room--but she was afraid if she made it that big it might pop like a soap bubble.
"Buzz buz buzz buzbuz buzzuzz," someone else said. It was louder now that she was listening. Eleanor Branstone came through the wall. A dusting of magic evaporated from her like snow on warm pavement.
Eleanor buzzed a question to the two moving blobs, presumably Jaci and Laura. Based on whose bed was whose, Hannah could even tell which was which. But now Eleanor was asking her a question. Waiting for a response.
"Sorry?" Hannah asked. To her it sounded more like, "Buzzy?" but Eleanor seemed encouraged. She repeated her question. Hannah rubbed her eyes and shook her head. Nothing useful. She couldn't keep the wall up and concentrate on her ears at the same time. Something, among many things, to work on.
Eleanor noticed the wand, floating two feet above Hannah's dresser, "Buz buzz, buuz a buzz." She took a step towards it and looked at it from different angles to see if it was really floating. "Bu buzbee buu buzz?"
"Buu buzz?" Jaci asked, coming over. Eleanor responded by moving out of the way for Jaci and Laura to see. Hannah watched them wearily. Laura Madley flicked a glance at her.
"It's stuck in the wall," she told her, "Leave it there."
There was more buzzing Hannah didn't bother trying to figure out. But when Eleanor reached out to touch it, Hannah was on her in a heartbeat; grabbing her by the shoulders and knocking the unsuspecting girl to the floor.
"I said don't touch it!"
"Hannah! No!" she could almost make it out. Laura was yelling it practically in her ear and she and the almost Slytherin were pulling her away. They let her go when she stopped struggling. She rubbed her ear. Eleanor was staring at her, eyes wide.
"It wants you to take it out," Hannah panted, "It's a bad wand." She couldn't hear herself saying it and that only made her explanation feel all the more rediculous.
Eleanor glanced doubtfully at the offending magical stick, "Buz buz buz?"
"A bad wand," Hannah repeated, guessing at what the question might be. It was just hanging there looking all innocent and trapped in the wall, Don't give me that. You know what you did. You are a bad wand. To her roommates, she warned, "It's trying to kill me. Stay away from it."
"Buzzbu? Buzz buzzy. Buzzz buz buu buzz," Jaci looked concerned.
Hannah pursed her lips for a moment, watching the magic pound against her wall. Tearing it down would not be a good idea. Jaci was still watching her when she looked back, though the others had gone back beyond the wall. I guess I've been missing a lot today, she thought.
The part-Slytherin was still waiting for a reply. Hannah gave her an "I don't know what to say" sort of shrug and climbed into bed, closing the curtains behind her.
CLATTER!
Jaci looked up from her Potions text to see Hannah's wand rolling across the floor. Laura and Eleanor exchanged glances.
"Well," Laura said, "I guess she's asleep."
"I guess," Eleanor rubbed at her sore shoulder. One didn't expect someone--particularly someone as small and out of it as Hannah--to attack. "Do you think she'll be better tomorrow?"
"Unlikely," Jaci hate to burst their hopes, but if Madame Pomfrey had sent her back here then there probably wasn't anything they could do for her, "They'll probably send her away."
Laura shook her head, "To Saint Mungos, you mean? That's--"
Hannah screamed.
There was a second where none of them moved. Then, Laura volted out of bed and pulled back the mad mage's bed curtains. Jaci was close behind, with Eleanor hanging back. Hannah was curled up in a fetal position, crying. Her eyes were closed.
"Hannah. Hannah, wake up!" Jaci shook her, "It's okay. It's a bad dream. Hannah!"
Hannah eyes fluttered open and widened at something somewhere inbetween Jaci and Laura. Part of Jaci had believed it was just a bad dream, despite the falling wand; But it didn't seem to be getting better. "Down," the mage panted in between sobs, curling up tighter, "down down."
Laura backed away, "I don't know what to do." Her hands were shaking.
"I'll get a prefect or someone," Eleanor volunteered and ran out the door. In Jaci's estimation, it was unlikely that whoever came would know what to do either, but she could have kicked herself for not thinking of it herself.
The mage squeezed her eyes shut and hid her face behind her hands. Jaci found herself wondering if she should be afraid of that piece of air as well. She hoped she didn't look as scared as Laura did.
"You know," Laura said, probably to fill the silence with something besides Hannah's unrelenting seizure--if that's what it was, "I don't think she's going to be okay tomorrow either."
The door banged open again and Niobe and Cedric--the two prefects--finally arrived. A few of the other students congregated outside the open door to see what was going on. Jaci had a sudden urge to tell them to go away. What she did do, though, was move out of the way so Niobe could get in closer.
"I don't think we should try to move her," Cedric told Niobe.
"We don't need to. Professor Sprout and Madame Pomfrey are on the way."
No, Hannah probably wouldn't even be here tomorrow.
