Disclaimer: All characters recognized in the Harry Potter books are under copyright of J.K Rowling. The character Madam Chervil belongs to me.

-oOo-

Chapter 4 – Becoming Friends

White walls and the strong smell of disinfectant and rosemary blended together in Princesa's nostrils as she stared down at the bed, her friend Esterella lying there with her eyes tightly shut. She was breathing, but there wasn't any other sign of movement. Her head was placed on a small bag of ice and herbs and the side of her face was rather bruised.

Princesa wiped her damp cheeks and looked around at the Hogwarts nurse, Madam Chervil, who seemed to be writing something down with a small quill, her greying hair scattered all around her cheeks. Her assistant, young Poppy Pomfrey (who looked to be in her early twenties), stood at her side, her kind face looking rather grave.

"Is she going to be all right?" asked Princesa in a choked whisper.

Madam Chervil sighed heavily. "She suffered a very severe concussion when she hit the floor," she explained to her, tickling the feather of her pen over the parchment. "It was lucky that Mr Montez cast a small charm to make the blow slightly less critical than it could have been. Her legs have been mended as well as her elbow...but the concussion was a little more intense than expected."

More tears sprang into Princesa's eyes. "T-then..." she stammered, her lip trembling. "What's going to happen to her?"

"She'll be kept in the Hospital Wing until she is fully recovered," replied the nurse, readjusting her spectacles. "We cleared up the head wound as best as we could, but she may be unconscious for a while. She should be up and about in a few weeks, I'd wager – "

"A few weeks?" gasped the girl, her mouth hanging open. "That long?"

Poppy Pomfrey shrugged, her green eyes trying to be as helpful as possible. "She's out of our hands for now," she told her solemnly. "We'll just have to give her as much time as she needs."

-oOo-

"Missing time from revising," muttered Regen with a shake of his head at the supper table that night after Princesa had told them all the news. "In her second week! What about her O.W.L.S?"

Danielle chomped furiously into her toast, her eyes set in frustration. "Well, if you ask me," she dealt out, her mouth full as she struggled to express her feelings before swallowing. "It's all Mr Montez's fault! He left us unsupervised whilst giving Lorna private instructions!"

"I blame her!" suddenly snapped Lucy, plunging her fork into her egg salad with suppressed rage. "Stupid cow! She should know how to lift off from the ground by now – she's in her fifth year!"

Princesa frowned as she held her head in her hands. "I blame the doxy," she whispered in a tiny voice. She swore under her breath in Spanish.

"I suppose it could have been worse," brought up Rosa with a roll of her eyes.

Lucy glared at her as if she were mad. "Worse?" she brought up with disbelief. "If you ask me, it's as worse as it is! My sister is in the Hospital Wing, unconscious! And..." Her features suddenly dissolved into sadness. "And I was so looking forward to coming back this year..." she trailed off, her voice breaking.

Rosa bit her lip, feeling very sorry for her. "She'll be ok, Luce," she comforted; noticing the second year was fumbling uncomfortably with her bag strap. "In a few weeks, she'll be fine."

Lucy drummed her fingers on the table. "Yeah." With a small intake of breath, she nudged her plate of half-eaten salad away from her. "I'm not hungry anymore," she murmured. "I'm going to go visit Essie for a bit, and – you know, talk to her...and stuff..." she swiped up her satchel and began to head out of the Great Hall towards the Infirmary.

Princesa raked her fingers into the scalp of her hair, her teeth clenched. "Ohhh...God! This is all my fault!" she moaned.

"How is it your fault?" questioned Regen with curiosity. "You didn't even do anything – "

"Exactly!" the girl exploded, untangling her hands from her dark red hair with a growl. "I didn't do anything! I didn't help her, I didn't stop her from falling, I didn't – "

Rosa raised her hands. "All right, then! Calm down," she commanded. "Neither did we, you know? You shouldn't punish yourself over this. It was an accident."

"Accidents, accidents!" Princesa responded, pitching her voice to an annoyingly high tone, raising her eyes to the ceiling as if she were a juvenile. "Everything's always a bloody accident, isn't it!"

Danielle blinked. "Princesa – "

Slam! The Spanish girl's palms met in full contact with the hard table, as her temper finally could stand no more pressure. She scraped herself to her feet, her cheeks flushing furiously, her blue eyelids brimming with fresh tears. "I don't want to hear it!" she lashed out, her eyebrows meeting in the middle with the bridge of her nose. "We should all stop blaming people – because there's nothing we can do about it! We might as well be counting the rafters on the ceiling – there's no point!"

And with that, she gathered up her books and bag and hurried out of the Great Hall towards the Ravenclaw common room, moving as quickly as she could with her head bent down towards the floor, an attempt to hide the tears rolling down her face.

Regen let his fork drop to his plate with a bored expression on his face. "Why does everyone have to be so fickle?" he thought aloud, turning his gaze to the other girls at the table. "You try to make them feel better, but they throw it all back in your face. I mean...what did we do, exactly?"

Rosa shrugged. "I don't know. She's a sensitive person, I suppose."

"Oh, says you!" Regen laughed, giving her a playful shove.

"But anyway, they are best friends," Rosa continued, running a finger through one of her brown locks. "Maybe this has just hit her really hard, you know? She may have a right to blame herself –"

"Well, she's our friend too!" Danielle randomly exploded, sneering at the doorway where Princesa had just passed through, down the corridor. "I mean, who does she think she is sometimes! She thinks that she's the only one who cares about Essie – well, I don't know about you, but I certainly care about her!"

Regen scoffed to himself. "Yeah, me too. I almost passed out when I saw her fall – I thought that was the end for her!"

"So did I," included Rosa.

"You had enough trouble staying on your broom, ninja!" came Drew's voice from the other side of the table, friendly but teasing at the same time. "Don't think I didn't see those moves! I thought you were afraid of heights, anyway?"

The girl blushed, her cheekbones burning. "Y-yes, I am...but, you see...the doxy – "

Clicking her tongue, Danielle scooped up her satchel and began to rise from her chair. "Well, if you're all going to change the subject," she scolded in a rather imperial tone. "I've got a lot of homework to catch up with. I'll meet you all later in the common room." And then she was on her way, taking long, furious strides so she could be as far away from them as possible.

"Hey! Where's she go – Ohhh! Never mind," Regen finished in a groan, cupping his cheek into his palm as she watched her leave, before darting his brown eyes over to Rosa. "You won't storm off too, will you?" he practically begged. "Please don't – I can't take anymore!"

Rosa actually laughed. "Don't worry, I won't. I'm in about the same boat as you are." She exhaled noisily and rubbed feebly at her temples, her expression flickering in worry. "Regen, what are we going to do? Everyone's ripping each other to pieces! How will we sort things out again?"

"On a wing and a prayer," Regen muttered sarcastically as he tucked into the rest of his sandwich.

-oOo-

Fluttered gasps sounded around the hallway as Princesa walked hastily down the corridors, clutching her books protectively to her chest. She sniffed and tried to force away the newfound sting that was invading her eyes; the salt attacking.

It was hurting her inside, all of this. A fortnight back at school and so much wrong had occurred. What happened to the carefree, easy year that Essie and I had planned in the summer? She thought bitterly, fighting back more tears. Why can't things just be normal? Why can't – ?

"Outh!" came a pained cry as the Ravenclaw's shoulder collided with an unfortunate passer-by. She fumbled with her books and almost dropped them, managing to catch them just in time to hear the person say:

"Printhetha! Wath where you're going!"

The Ravenclaw rolled her eyes and spun around incredulously to glare into the pouted face of the girl from her own house. She did her best to hide her face, but it wasn't easy to conceal her sorrow from her words. "Look, Olivia," she spat. "I don't have time for this, I've been through enough already this week without you – !"

Olivia frowned through her mop of brown hair. "Hey, are you ok?" she asked kindly in her lisp, the tone altered almost instantly at the sight of Princesa's tears. "You look really upthet, like you've been crying – "

"It's none of your concern!" Princesa hissed back spitefully, glowering.

"Well!" Olivia huffed, turning up her nose at the fuming Spanish girl, turning on her heel and beginning to storm away. "Forgive me for athking, why don't you! I wath jutht contherned about your well being, and you treat me like thith! I've never been more – !"

"WHEEEEEHEEEYYYY! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" came a sudden cry, cutting off Olivia's indignation, and the two of them jumped out of their skins as the hollow, high-pitched shout of a blue-skinned ghost popped out from a knight's armour, the head visor clanging shut. His bow-tie flipped as he laughed mockingly at their colour-drained faces.

"Peeveth!" growled Olivia to the bouncing poltergeist. "What do you think you're doing!"

However, her exclamation only seemed to make Peeves chuckle harder. "Oooh!" he chortled teasingly, doing a few flips in the air as he pointed a finger at her, his wicked face lighting up with humour. "Hisses and spitses just like a snake!"

"Get knotted!" retorted back Olivia, her freckles turning browner as the blush brightened them into view.

Almost immediately, the pesky ghost zoomed towards the unsuspecting Ravenclaw with a shrill cackle, grasping hold of her thick, russet locks and yanking them unmercifully in his cruel fingers, intending to tie them into one another, giggling the whole time.

Princesa merely stared at the scene, not really knowing what to do.

"OW!" shrieked Olivia, swiping at him as she attempted to free herself. "GET OFF ME, YOU STHUPID PRAT!"

Peeves ignored her completely, his annoying chuckles echoing their way around the castle walls, bouncing back, causing them to sound even louder. "You will not knot me, I will knot you!" he chanted unkindly, threading her hair all over the place, pulling and tugging at it whenever the girl tried to escape. "Little snakey gets tied up in two!"

"Leave her alone!" Princesa's normally neutral temper had risen to a point where she could feel her temples throbbing slightly, and she marched over to the despicable fight with her wand aiming straight at the poltergeist's forehead. "Stop it, Peeves! I mean it!"

She had wanted her voice to come out as strong and ominous, perhaps in a way that it would frighten him off. Instead, it wobbled and shook as if it were bouncing on a trampoline, dotted with tears.

For a few seconds, Peeves actually stopped and gazed at the wand, bewildered, but then his small, black eyes lit up in a new light of amusement, and he released poor Olivia's mop of hair, snorting with laughter and rolling over and over in the air, his horrible cackle ringing in Princesa's ears, like an awful playground taunt.

"S-Stupid old fifth year pointing a wand at me!" he spluttered out, tossing back his head and falling on his chest, pounding the air with a fist. "Trying to scare Peeves – you can't scare me, silly fifth year!"

"SHUT UP!" she cried out, her tone breaking from past tears, the humiliation springing into her eyes in the shape of water. "Shut up, you pathetic...ridiculous, disgusting – !"

"Priceless! Priceless!" the ghost hollered out, gasping for breath and clutching his sides, tears of laughter beginning to form in his own seedy eyes. "Whiny little fifth year – why do you cry, stupid fifth year?" He only just had chance to let his words escape, when he suddenly blurted out into a song, his teasing voice rippling with chuckles as he hovered there, sneering at the girl:

"Sniffles, screechings and weeps,

It is no wonder you don't get any sleep,

Just like a goose

Or maybe a moose

You honk rather than utter a peep!"

It wasn't a brilliant limerick, as it was thought up at the last minute through the ridiculing laughs and mocking of the blue ghost, but it wasn't exactly pleasant for the poor girl to listen to. After all that had happened to her friend, the last thing that she needed was to be made fun of in such a distasteful manner.

"Stop it!" Her threatening shouts seemed to scatter on the wind and fall on corpses, for the chuckles and screaming drowned her words, bringing even more misery on her. "Stop it...stop shouting at me! It's not funny!"

Olivia had disappeared.

Peeves opened his mouth again, about to add another remark to the weeping Ravenclaw, when another voice broke the atmosphere, a lot more domineering and stronger than the girl's. "Stop this at once, Peeves!" it ordered, demanding instructions from the shadows, and a wand's tip pointed threateningly forward. "I wouldn't cause any more trouble, if I were you. I wouldn't want the Bloody Baron to be involved in this." His tone sounded serious and surprisingly calm.

A flicker of fear danced in Peeve's beady eyes at the name of the Slytherin ghost, but before it could be judged upon he made a long, sickening raspberry noise and vanished through the wall, out of the room.

"Are you all right?"

Princesa turned around and saw a familiar face step out in front of her, his green eyes clouded with questions. He pocketed his wand in the inside of his robes and moved closer towards her, frowning a little. It took the girl a while to place his identity, but when she did, it came so clear to her and her blue eyes widened.

"It's you – Tom!" she blurted out, wiping away the tears. "Tom Riddle!" She dusted her robes off a little and smiled at him, her damp face beaming. "Thanks for scaring Peeves away, I thought that he would never leave me alone."

Tom shrugged, his expression casual. "You just have to know what to say to him," he replied coolly, glancing at her. "The Bloody Baron frightens him out of his wits." Suddenly his gaze directed back onto Princesa, to her tear-stained cheeks and her choked voice. He raised an eyebrow. "I certainly choose bad times to bump into you," he pointed out.

"Sorry," she mumbled, twiddling with her fingers as her ears grew warm. "I've just...you know, been having a lot of bad days recently."

There was an uncomfortable pause that seemed to last for minutes. Finally, Tom broke the silence, clearing his throat.

"I heard what had happened to your friend," he brought up, rather reluctantly. "Is that why you're so upset?"

Princesa seemed to think this over for a moment, breaking down the question. Yes, she was upset about Esterella's accident. It was such a shock, and at the time she thought that she might be seriously hurt. Yet...shouldn't she be happy now that she was getting better? Why was she still so miserable? Could she be miserable that she was all right?

No, no! she told herself, brushing the thoughts away. That's ridiculous! Why would I be upset about the fact that she's getting better?

"I don't know," she eventually brought up, her voice distant. "I...I think so."

Tom nodded slowly, darting his vision around as if looking for a way out. "Oh," he fumbled with a small sigh, starting to walk away down the corridor. "Well, if you're going to be all right now, then I'd better be getting back. I've got homework and – "

"Wait! Tom, wait!" protested the girl, taking off after him, her shoes pounding the carpet as she attempted to keep up with him. "Let me walk with you for a while. It's the least I can do, after what you just did."

There seemed to be a sheer glimpse of annoyance on the Slytherin's face for a moment, but then it seemed to dissolve into a small, sideways grin, and he slowed down a little so that she had the chance to catch up and walk besides him. "If you insist. I didn't really do anything that important, Princesa."

She girl blinked in surprise. "You remembered my name?"

"Of course," he replied, his smile enveloping itself into a bigger one. "Why shouldn't I? We're friends, remember?"

A small sweep of delight swam through the Ravenclaw's body as he said those words. It was nice to have another friend, someone who didn't judge her, or wouldn't contradict her whenever she tried to bring up something that she classified as important in her eyes. She found herself beaming all over her face, and the tears finally disappeared and faded away into nothing, her sorrow forgotten.

"Yes," she agreed. "We're friends."