Some considered this recovery of my fic to be a sign of the apocalypse, and thought it would not happen for many, many years to come…. And yet that day is here.
Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I pretty much don't own harry potter and it keeps me awake crying every night.
The Erised Effect
Chapter 6: Mourning and The Morning.
The next morning, Neville awoke rather unnaturally, but a force of a great pin that was being pushed into his side. As he lay with his eyes yet unfocused, he concentrated more on his surroundings and found he had several spots of pain over his sides and a great bruising on his nose, and that even slightly moving his head gave him immediate discomfort. But what surprised Mr. Longbottom the most was the fact that he was incredibly restricted to the area in which he lay. Indeed, there were so many ropes and scarves and neckties surrounding him, it was hard to tell where one started and one began, though each somehow made its way around him, pinning to the couch and keeping his struggles unsuccessful in dislodging any fixture.
With a great cry he rolled over and found his bruised nose crushed against the rug.
Suddenly, there were the sharp, quick footsteps of high-heeled feet, and the sight of pointed toes beside him. He attempted to look up but the feet scuttled away, with Pansy's voice clearly shouting "I don't think I can get you back up on the couch, you know! Its your own fault for falling down!"
"Pansy…" Neville groaned weakly. "Why am I all tied up? My head hurts…" He whined as though he were asking his mother to kiss a scrape.
Though Neville could not see it, Pansy's expression hardened her lips shrinking themselves into a fine line that parted only for cruel things. "You are tied up because last night after our argument you got DRUNK. And not only did you get drunk, but you went and took it out on Draco Malfoy! And tried to do some damage to Ginny too!"
Neville tried to roll over but any way he moved, his head hurt. He groaned an apology. "Um… I'm sorry Pansy."
Pansy's expression softened, and she looked to the high ceiling of their home as though the answer were written there. She brought her hand up to push back the hair from her eyes and left it resting on her forehead as though she had come down with something. Pansy Parkinson-Longbottom sighed and knelt beside what she was forced to call her husband.
Neville also sighed, though his was of relief and not frustration, as she pushed him to roll over on his back, which was also sore, but not as much as his nose. "Thank—"
"Don't thank me!" Pansy interrupted. "You know you had me worried sick! I didn't know what to do, Neville, I couldn't think! I was just so… so sorry for what I had said! I wasn't thinking when I said those things, I really wasn't, because if I had been thinking I would have known that I can't know possibly if you're a good husband or not, because I've only known you a few days, and really, if you'd had a crush on me that was alright, I wasn't…. disgusted. That was a terrible word to use and I'm sorry. I'm sorry, alright? I said it, I said I'm sorry, so now you can forgive me and you won't have to get drunk or hit anyone and I can untie you if you forgive me because then I won't be scared!"
Neville looked up at her—his wife who was crying over the front of his sweater-vest, and thought she could not stop from being beautiful even if she scrunched up her face like that for a thousand years.
"Okay," He said. "I'm okay." And he was, despite a little nose-bruising. While she pulled a necktie from around his ankles, he thought to himself how he was more "okay" than he ever was in school, tied up and immobile, but next to Pansy nonetheless.
Ginny awoke to find herself lying alone on the living room floor, with a sore back and an even worse-feeling hip. Groaning, she sat herself up and leaned against the base of the couch, secretly wishing to herself that the children would find it in themselves to behave like teenagers for a day and sleep in until one p.m. Pulling her hair out of her face, disheveled and beyond hope though it was, Ginny sighed and found it easy to remember that a mere few days ago she was a student, a child. She had no one to worry about besides her self, save on holidays, on which occasion she had to spare time to think of someone else and purchase a present. But other than that, Ginny's life had been solely about Ginny: the boy she wanted to date, the things she wanted, the classes she wanted to take, the time she devoted to herself in the morning, primping and getting ready. Now even when she was by herself, she was thinking of others: what she had to do to get the kids ready, where they were going today, what Draco was doing, when they were going to visit Ron and Hermione, when would be a good time to check on Pansy…
Ginny had ceased to exist, and there was only this machine that knew it had responsibilities to fulfill and lacked the right parts to do it.
Heaving another great sigh, she brought herself to a standing position and lifted her arms high above her head, her back curving. Stretching and yawning and soon slouching back into her former position, she looked at the clock and saw it was as early as eight, and that any minute there would be cartoons on the television and children demanding breakfast. Ginny moved quite mechanically toward the kitchen, but as she did, the corner of her eye caught a glimpse of Draco through the window, standing by himself on the porch.
Ginny might not have ventured outside if she had known that Draco had been pondering hating himself for allowing her head to rest on his shoulder as she had dozed off in the middle of her sentences, for staring at her sleeping form and thinking thoughts that would have sent his former classmates on a murderous rampage, that would have made him an outcast of the Slytherin circle. But then Ginny came out and intterupted his thoughts and he could dwell no more on the idea that marrying her might not have been the biggest mistake of his life.
"What are you doing out here?" She asked, still clearly drowsy, speaking slowly.
Draco could not look at her. He hated himself too much to look at her, for what he was thinking, for what he could not push out of his mind. How could he have known her for six years, and within a week of being forced to be with her everyday, begin to think this way? His eyes looked across a yard littered with kiddie slides and toys, and gripped the railing he leaned on. "I was just… thinking," He admitted.
Ginny tilted her head to the side and made a small pouty face for him. "Aw. You miss your big house don't you?"
Draco's brow furrowed. "What?"
"Your big, fancy house. This must be a shack compared to what you live in, normally." Some days, Ginny could wake up and find herself completely immersed in this dream world, believing whole-heartedly that she was Draco's wife and enjoying it very much. On other days, such as this one, she could awake and be fully aware that what she was living was not at all real.
Draco shrugged his shoulders. "It's alright. That's not what I was thinking about though." He was almost inviting her to ask him again directly, wanting to let out that he was weak and stupid and didn't like the way he was thinking. The joking they had done the night before, so completely light-hearted and easy, free of ulterior motives of pureblood courting games… He shook his head as though to get the words to stop pounding in his ears. "You know what? I have to go for a walk. I'll be back for breakfast."
Ginny protested, but was ignored, and finally crossed her arms in an annoyed manner and huffed back into the house as Draco strode down the sidewalk, head down and hands in his pockets. As she closed the door, Ebony was halfway down the stairs, one hand gripping the railing, the other dragging a doll behind her. She sat down at the table and stared at spoons.
A few moments later, the rain came with a sudden jolt and only a slight spattering of it at first, plish-ploshing here and there and then very quickly, it was unleashed in drops quite large in size, falling one after the other, one racing the other to hit the pavement and join oblivion on the asphalt. Puddles gathered, and soon gutters were filled, the streets were shining, and lights in restaurants lit themselves quietly, and were reflected in the surface of the sidewalks beside traffic.
Ginny brought the baby downstairs and began attempting to make a small, green spoon resemble a flying broomstick by zipping it here and there and into the baby's mouth. "Good Gabriel! What a good boy…" The baby squealed in excitement at the prospect of being a "good boy" and banged on the tray of his highseat, thereby spilling all the contents of the spoon over his bib. Ginny sighed, and cast a lonely glance out the window. The rain was coming rather hard, and Draco was not yet home. Perhaps he had ducked into some ambiguous place for shelter, or was nice and dry in some coffee shop, or having the time of his life at a party, meeting people, smiling at girls… Ginny's face flushed and she became furious. She was being silly, and told herself so, but could not stop her worrying. She only wished she had one of those clocks like her mother kept, which was so lovely with keeping track of everyone.
Since the great disaster had descended upon Hogwarts, students had subconsciously formed the habit of taking the long way to their classes, and just happening to walk past the hospital wing in a long detour, as though hoping to be the ones to see someone awaken. When Mrs. Weasley screamed, several students were right outside the door, and gave a quick jump before rushing off to Divinations as Dumbledore came striding down the hallway with his wand and a large set of keys. After removing several spells for his own well-being (not wanting to be foaming at the mouth anymore than was necessary and not really understanding the fad behind unusually stained and dyed hair), he placed inside the lock one very large key which was turned a grand total of fifteen times before he was able to unlock the first lock. The second only took twelve.
When the doors were opened at last, Dumbledore was greeted by the sight of a sobbing Mrs. Weasley, and a very, very angry Mr. Malfoy.
"DUMBLEDORE," he greeted the aged man very sternly, "I am VERY disappointed with your administration here."
"Good heavens, calm down," Dumbledore motioned with his hands as though watching them flutter up and down somehow made Mr. Malfoy feel a little bit easier. "I have come to attend to the boys, it will be just fine."
"That NURSE of yours—"
"I am very much aware of the trouble Madame Pomfrey has been having this morning, as she sent me a note about it. And she is not my nurse, simply my employee. Now then, what is the matter, Mrs. Weasley?"
The wailing of the rather large woman could not have been forgotten or easily ignored for all of Malfoy's complaints and accusations, for she howled and bawled unceasingly until the volume of her blubbering pulled itself down from the rafters, and disapointed Moaning Myrtle, who was watching quite a show with admiration. "Oh, ALBUS!" She mumbled through a glob stuck in her throat. "MY BABY'S HURT!"
Dumbledore frowned through his beard and his brow furrowed. He had not expected one of the Weasleys to have been involved in this. "Mrs. Weasley, please take a moment to calm yourself and breathe."
Mrs. Weasley gulped in oxygen, as a large fish thinking it were in water, and slowed her tantrum. Her face was twisted up when she finally looked from the stone floor to the headmaster and began to tell what she knew. "I didn't really know what all the ruckus was about last night," She admitted. "It frightened me, sure, but I didn't think any of my babies would be involved. Well last night I just couldn't stop thinking about it, and I had to check on them. So I came in last night with the password you taught us—"
"You are aware that changes daily."
"—yes I know but yesterday it was 'banana pudding on waffles' so I tried that and it worked and I got in. Anyways, I checked Ginny over and she looked completely fine, breathing as usual. She looked as though she was happy about something and so lovely, so then I went to Ron—"
"Is it Ron you're upset about Mrs. Weasley?"
"NO but I want to tell a STORY!" She wailed, pushing a tissue closer to her nose, threateningly. "Now, I checked Ron last night and his face seemed a little flushed and I just wondered if he could have been involved in that but I checked him over too and he was fine: injury-free."
"Is that the end of the story, Mrs. Weasley?"
"NO IT IS NOT. I'm sorry, Albus, but it distresses me when you interrupt."
"Yes do go on, I love stories," Mrs. Malfoy confessed, brandishing a plate of breakfast from the kitchens. "Yours is terribly exciting."
Mrs. Weasley held in her pride at her marvelous tale and continued, sniffling. "Well anyways, I had checked them both and they were fine, except it seemed Ron might have had a fever so I came back this morning after Arthur went to the Ministry, and Ron didn't have a fever, I was very glad about that… but MY BABY, ALBUS—" She wailed once and silenced herself. "SHE'S BRUISED. I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED ALBUS."
"Oh, terrible," Mrs. Malfoy shook her head. "I was so looking forward to happy ending. Those are my favorites."
"Well they're in a dream world right? Well WHOSE dream, Albus? Whose? What if she's attached to someone in this dream who beats her? What if my baby's being beaten and there's nothing I can do about it?" Mrs. Weasley plunged herself back into hysterics without care of who was watching. Mrs. Malfoy went over to her to pat her on the back and offer her a sausage.
Mr. Malfoy approached Dumbledore. "Now see here, Dumbledore," He began, with his best business-deal voice. "Your nurse has been trying healing spell one after another all morning and not a single cut or bruise has lifted from my boy."
"I realize this, Lucius. I got the note."
"Well, what do you propose we do about it?" He demanded. "I won't have Draco brandishing any magical scars! It could do strange things to him—it could lower his self-esteem and I won't have any of that. Not in my family. Confidence, Dumbledore, Malfoys have confidence superior to others because of our blood line and relations—"
The front door flew open just as lightning flashed and thunder began its low, unsteady rumble, causing Ebony to scream as long and as high as her voice would allow. Because of this stimulus, the baby began to wail in its playpen and Jonathon covered his ears with two pillows as Ginny tried desperately to calm them both. When the soggy figure stepped in the doorway, kicking off its shoes, Ebony silenced herself, yet the baby kept crying.
"Oh," Ebony walked over to Draco and hugged his legs, though they were soaked.
"Ebony!" Ginny protested. "Now look at you, you're all wet! Go change your clothes, please."
"Okay." Ebony retreated up the stairs, allowing Draco to walk freely without her attached to his jeans. Ginny approached him with a confused look on her face.
"You're soaked through."
Draco met her gaze as he was taking off his socks, which dripped over the entirety of the entryway, as he laid them down. "Yeah, I know," He answered.
Ginny watched him as though he were a stranger, or insane. "Do you want a towel or something…?" She asked, ever the helpful housewife.
"That'd be nice," Draco admitted, and allowed himself to be pampered. He waited in the entryway, commanded by Ginny, who did not want him dripping all over "her" carpet. When she returned to him, still wearing her pajamas and yawning, he shivered. This was an admittance of his humanness, a realization that he was not completely perfect, and Ginny liked a little shiver from him. But when she handed him the towel, it continued.
"Draco, are you alright?" She asked, trying to keep concern out of her voice, and finding it impossible to do with a sentence such as that.
"Y-yeah," He answered, standing straighter and trying to control a shudder. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," Concern was easy enough to hide in that one.
"Well you're not exactly… a.. you're not—" Draco's mind was also numb.
Ginny knew him well enough to know that when he was cold enough to not be able to properly insult her, he was close to hypothermic. She ran to gather more towels from the linen closet and brought them back to him quickly. He made very feeble gestures and attempts to refuse her help, but she ignored them by pulling him down to where she could reach the top of his head and scrubbing his bright blonde hair dry with a pink towel. She placed another in his hands and allowed him to dry his face off, and the rest of him and then stepped back to see if he would be alright. He persisted in shivering. What was worse, he was now sneezing in his protests to get her to stop. She pushed him up the stairs, though he refused and wanted to stay downstairs for breakfast. Ginny's hold on his upper arm was strong and steady until they reached the master bedroom, where Ginny had slept previously by herself, with Draco on the couch or a cot.
"We need to get those clothes off of you," She declared.
"What—" Draco could not say anything further, as his shirt was already coming off over his head. Once it was gone, he began again. "GINNY—" But she hadn't gone further. She stood there before him, in pink cotton pajamas, holding his shirt and staring at him. She beheld the bruising on him, the cuts he had sustained keeping a crazed man away from their family. Her eyes filled themselves with tears, but Draco sneezed and did not see. Before he looked up, she shoved the shirt at him.
"You need to take a shower," She commanded. "And then some cold medicine. And you just need to rest today. I'll go make breakfast." And with that, she was out the door and down the stairs, wiping her eyes and sniffling.
Draco sat there a moment, confused and shirtless, but eventually brought himself to do what he had been told.
Stepping out of the bathroom, one of the multitudes of towels wrapped around his waist, Draco coughed harshly and frowned. Soon his eyes laid on a green set of pajamas on the bed with a very large "D" embellished on the pocket. It was at this moment that he realized how badly he wanted sleep. He changed into the cotton set and walked, barefoot, downstairs, to where he smelled food. Halfway down the stairs, in mid-cough, Ginny stopped him. "What are you doing?" She demanded. She stood at the bottom waving a spatula at him. She flinged it at she spoke and something flew onto the floor. "Go back upstairs and get in bed until I bring you something for a cold!" Draco hesitated, but then considered having to fight her, bruised as he already was, and now on the verge of being ill. He turned around and went back.
The second floor was quiet, void of all squealing babies and noisy cartoon-shows, yet Draco's now stuffy head was no more cleared by this than it had been on his walk. He lay down on the bed, convinced he was not going to stay there all day just to listen to Ginny, but could not help sliding between the sheets, rolling over on his side, and closing his eyes for a bit. Soon Ginny entered to the sound of a great, ugly cough, and a shaking Draco in the large king-sized bed, looking entirely too small and curled up to be the only one in it. She said a little "ahem" and he noticed her presence, yet still continued to cough.
In her hands was a great tray, with a large plate of waffles adorning the middle, and glasses of orange juice and milk on one side. She had fixed eggs and sausages and rolls and every breakfast thing imaginable piled atop the tray. Draco sat up almost mechanically, his labored breath taken away by the sight of all that warm food. She set it on his lap and he began to eat, saying nothing.
"I didn't know what you liked for breakfast," She admitted. "So I just… made it all. Of course, its close to eleven now, so lunch isn't that far but…" She trailed off, realizing she was just talking to herself. The cold medicine sat in a bottle on the corner, and Ginny picked it and the spoon from their former places and began to pour the liquid into the spoon. Draco had finished the waffles. "Open up," She ordered.
"Hm?" He responded, drinking orange juice in great gulps. He was not going to question where or how Ginny had mastered Muggle cooking skills so quickly, and was only grateful for it, as he seemed to be warming from the inside out.
"Open up," She ordered again.
Draco shook his head. "Mm-mm. I don't want it."
"Draco!" She chastised him. "Open your mouth or have a cold for the rest of your life." But he shook his head defiantly. Ginny reached out and pinched his nose before he could wiggle his face away from her grip.
For a moment, they sat there like that. Ginny had never before imagined that she would one day be pinching Malfoy's nose, trying to get him to down cough syrup, but then again, stranger things had happened. Draco, meanwhile, was having a hard time, as he had been hit on the nose quite recently and had the urge to sneeze arising in the back of his throat. Also, he could not breathe.
In one quick motion, Draco's mouth opened wide and the spoon came in, dumping the contents on his tongue and almost making him gag. Ginny smiled triumphantly and clapped her hands as her husband grimaced. "All better?" She asked. He squinted through a bad aftertaste and looked up at her from the bed.
"That stuff isn't magic, Ginny. Muggle medicine takes a while to start working."
"Oh… I forgot, I guess," Ginny frowned as he coughed again, shaking the tray in his lap. "Well what am I supposed to do with you until you're better?"
"I'm not sick, Gin--" He paused to sneeze. "—ny… I just had a little walk in the rain—" again, to cough. "—but I'm find."
"You're what?"
"Find."
"Come again."
"Oh shud ub," Draco accepted a tissue from Ginny and could suddenly breathe again. "if I get up and start walking around, I'll get better."
"You're a liar."
"Nuh-uh."
"Yuh-huh! You're staying in this bed until I say you're better."
"Or what?"
"Or I kick your butt. And don't feed you." The first was not as intimidating as the latter, and Draco took this threat quite seriously.
"Oh. Will you say I'm better now?" He sneezed. Then he looked up at her and smiled, trying to win her over so he could get up.
"No." His smile instantly vanished, replaced with his usual scowl.
In silence, he finished his food, and then handed the tray to her in exchange for a new box of tissues. She left the room with the tray and shut the door behind her, commanding him to get some rest. For a while, he sat in his green cotton pajamas with the large "D" emblem, and thought of acrostics for his name. D is for daring. R is for right all the time. A is for awesome. C is for charisma. O is for outstanding. D is for devilish good looks. R is for right all the time…. After a while, there were only so many things that would correctly fit him in an acrostic, and he sat, sniffling and pondering how to entertain himself. Laying blame was always a great activity to pass time at school.
Well it was Ginny's fault he was sick. She was the reason he had to walk so distractedly away from his home, so that he got himself lost in his own neighborhood when the rain started pouring, and she had not even recommended to him before he left that he should take a jacket. So she should take care of him. It certainly wasn't out of the kindness of her heart. That would be... silly.
Draco refused to think about her anymore. He got up from the bed and moved the trashcan to a far corner of the room and then retreated back to his former position. As he blew his nose, he would wad up the tissue and toss it towards that far corner, whispering to himself "two points" if he made it and occasionally humming a fight song or muttering a "… and the crowd goes wild. Haaaaa… haaaaa…" Thus, Draco passed the time while the rain beat against the window, and coughs and sneezes came quite often.
Feeling a little weak, he eventually lay down and closed his eyes, wanting only to rest for a minute. He had been laying still on his side--facing the door and listening to the children downstairs laughing and giggling and crying at having fallen down—for about five minutes when the door opened slowly. Ginny succeeded in opening it quietly without the creak occurring as it had before, and tiptoed in, making little sound as she crossed the room to the bed. Draco feigned sleep and listened to her moving about the room, probably picking up tissue wads that had missed the trash can. This was confirmed when he heard the trash can itself being lifted and placed by the bed where it had been previously. Draco did not stir, hoping she would just finish this task and go so he could actually try to sleep, but he then heard a creak in the floor, and realized she must be very near to him, kneeling beside the bed. He did not move when she slid her hand across his forehead, a caring gesture, measuring his temperature. The hand soon was lifted off and placed on both of his cheeks, measuring their warmth. Draco tried to let his breathing continue steadily. Ginny did nothing for a few moments after that, and Draco had assumed after a long minute of waiting, that she had left.
Then, without warning, she placed a kiss on Draco's warm and feverish forehead, stood up, and left the room. When he heard the door shut, Draco opened his eyes, looked about, and then closed them again, shut tight and defiant, determined to sleep and hopefully be unaware of it, if that sort of thing ever happened again.
Over the years, several theories have been made on the adaptive quality of human beings. Hundreds of thousands of college students can raise their hands and honestly testify that they have been victims of endless lectures on the development of technology to change our surrounds, from the first cavemen sharpening sticks, to American highways, to the clever Japanese creating computers that fit over one's eye. Though there are many different arguments as to which part of the brain this quality involves or how humans acknowledge first the need to use it, the information stands stagnant in the argument of whether or not this trait is actually a blessing or a curse. Of course it gave us vehicles, the Information Age, the microchips and the cell phones and laptops of our day, but in matter of fact, it can be quite harmful to a body in a certain position: one of inverted reality and confused psychology. This is the case of several students at Hogwarts, who have found themselves to have been turned against by the very trait that enabled their existance through the junior high years, and would continue to profit them further, if they ever chose to awaken.
To adapt meant-- to Ginny, Draco, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, and Pansy—to accept their surrounds as they were and adjust their own lives to them. For the women this translated into motherhood, and for the men, they saw only the immediate interest to put food on the table and toil at their jobs wherever they were allowed to earn their pay. And so it happened that the entire group forgot their previous existance in the wizarding world—save one. Harry however, lived so far from the rest of them and found his bachelor existance of fame and fortune received from a life of sports quite pleasing, and was in no mood to reject it anytime soon.
The students continued to lay immobile on their beds, their parents by their sides and on scheduled watches in case one miraculously awoke. Christmas had passed without them, and soon the New Year would as well. Some struggled to keep a waning grip on their optimism, others had given up completely and begun to continue their daily lives, such as Lucius Malfoy. Work was most certainly a priority for him, but his wife stayed by her son's side constantly. She had learned several new card games and most recently, how to knit from Mrs. Weasley, and had produced several good sweaters, hats, and a multitude of blankets that would be absolutely perfect for Draco once he woke up. The material used was all in various shades of green, with some silver laced in amongst the elaborate designs. Mr. Weasley completed his summer reading list for next summer and began a parent book club in the hospital wing in the school, beginning with Pride and Prejudice, and most recently reading a few Hemingway short stories. Mrs. Malfoy was most interested in this—as she saw it—the "piddling literature of American Muggle society" until it was revealed to her that Hemingway was in fact, a warlock that chose to live among Muggles… which was why he was a wonderful fisherman and why so many Americans admired his style and how he had gotten so many wives. Really, he just wrote with a special pen, which had belonged to a British wizard in the first world war, but when he was wounded he just happened to leave it in the ambulance Hemingway just happened to be driving, and Mrs. Weasley began to persist that Mr. Weasley must stop his lecture or she would beat him with her purse and umbrella.
Each parent took turns on a nightly watch, keeping an eye out for any movement such as the previous apparent seizures that Draco and Neville had had. According to Dumbledore, as he continued to research the earlier case of this rare ailment, the students were still acting as though they were in their own physical bodies—that whatever sort of dream world they were in was made by magic to be somewhat tangible, and whatever injuries they may sustain would show on their bodies. While this appeared to the parents as another horrifying way to be tortured—not only do they have to sit and watch their children suffer unknowingly in a comatose state, but they must also watch them be beaten for no apparent reason?—it was evident to Dumbledore that it might provide some sort of clues for them. A faster heart rate told them there was stress. Cuts on fingertips and callused hands meant they were working and making their own meals. Perspiration meant they were running around. Dumbledore wrinkling his forehead occasionally meant he was thinking… and he didn't have to think long and hard to realize what was going on.
Even in school, the Headmaster had always caught on rather quickly to things other people could not perceive. His intuition latched onto the idea of what these students were being put through, and yet he did not want to alarm the parents.
So he said nothing.
Authors notes: we meet again. Please tell me what you think of it and have a nice day. The next chapter will not be two years coming.