"There's only one thing that'll be taming the savage beast. That's music. Any dumbbell that's read a fairy-tale knows that."

-Seamus Finnegan

Chapter 15: Turkeys In The Rain

It's been two weeks since Daphne and I agreed to be friends. Having friends was nice. Daphne, Dean, and I would all eat lunch together at the Hufflepuff table with stupid chapped-lipped Cedric who I still wasn't talking to. Any time he looked at me I made the ugliest face I could think of, so he wouldn't get any ideas. The pervert. Daphne seemed to show an interest in getting to know my other friends too. She didn't seem to speak to Cedric too much and always looked like she was running a fever whenever he was nearby, but I'd occasionally catch her staring at him. I did that too, when I was nervous about what to say to people. Maybe Daphne was just nervous. He is an older stupid crackle-mouthed boy after all. What do you say to someone like that? Surely not your true thoughts and feelings because he's just going to go and call you stupid for them and shout in his stupid scratchy-cracked voice to match his stupid cracked-lips.

Daphne, Dean, and I would often do our homework together. When Me and Dean played cards, she would sit nearby and read one of those romancy-cootie books of hers. I liked mystery books best. Mama said reading romance novels while you were still young and impressionable would lead to premarital sex. That, like a lot of things Mama and Papa warned me about, led to hell. Now I don't really know what all you have to do to have sex, but I know it starts with kissing and I didn't want any parts to do with it. She didn't seem to like Seamus at all and would often disappear with her housemates-not-friends whenever he came around. It's okay. Seamus could be a lot at times. I didn't understand how he had friends like Dean or Neville. Neville was so gentle and kind. He helped change my band-aids after my most recent flying lesson with stupid unibrow having scaly-snakeskin-but-I-hate-Slytherins-mouthed Cedric.

I was feeling a little down today. It was the middle of October and overcast. I sat alone outside, staring at the Whomping Willow as it smacked away yet another migrating bird foolish enough to try and rest on its branches. The others birds all perched on the roof of the castle.

"Mary?"

I couldn't pay attention in any of my classes again. Professor Snape issued me a detention with him for Saturday for failing to remain alert and attentive during today's lesson. He thankfully hadn't asked me about the medicine he gave me since the day he'd given it to me, but I was sure he could tell I hadn't been taking it.

"Hey, Mary?"

I felt a small drop of water hit my nose and looked up. It seemed like storm clouds were forming. I had such a bad feeling about today. Another drop plopped onto my forehead. I heard turkeys stared up into the sky when it rained, with their mouths wide open and drowned themselves. If a person stared up into the sky for long enough with their mouth open, would they drown? I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue as steady droplets of water began to fall.

A hand gripped my shoulder just then. And I looked over my shoulder, mouth still open but a familiar feeling washed over me. "Mary, what are you doing," Cedric pimply-jaw Diggory chided.

My eyes clouded over, revealing the stony visage of a boy, maybe in his sixth or seventh year, with a cut and dirt smudged face. "This is a long shot but if I'm right, I'm just hoping I have the chance to say goodbye. I never wanted to leave you behind, but you'll have to do this without me now. But you don't need me. You never needed me. Just please, tell her…tell her I loved her. Tell her I loved her and I'm so sor-" And with a flash I was jerked back to reality. Cedric was cupping my wrist. The ball on my bracelet glowed white before settling into a swampy green color. I could still hear a haunting cackle in my ears. "What did you see?" He asked in a softer voice. "You look terrified."

I snatched my wrist back and cupped it to my chest. "I'm fine," I said, forcing a smile and saying my first words that I've said to him since our argument.

"It's raining, Mary," Cedric said matter-of-factly. "We should get inside."

"We should." I nodded but didn't move. Cedric didn't either. Instead he sat down with me. He tilted his head back and looked at the sky and opened his mouth, tongue hanging out. "What are you doing?"

"You seemed interested in it," He paused briefly to shrug. "I was curious what you were thinking."

"I was thinking about turkeys," I answered back.

"About the drowning? Wondering if maybe you could drown too?"

Well not myself specifically. I didn't think. But I nodded anyway. We were soon both sitting in the pouring rain with our mouths open like a couple of turkeys, ready to drown.

"I think I just saw a boy say good-bye. But I don't know who he was or who he was talking to…"

Cedric just hummed in response.

My Guide made some excuse as to why we returned soaking wet and late for my after school lesson. It was a weak excuse about me getting lost on the castle grounds but Professor Sprout seemed to accept that answer. She was always so warm and friendly in Herbology class. The other students were all so jealous we had a head of house like Pamona.

They didn't know her.

She was apathetic. Cold. Aloof. There were times when I noticed her studying us. Her eyes were so sharp and intimidating. Intimidating was a word I'd had to look up recently. It was perfect for Professor. She gave out hugs and high-fives to kids but none of the other houses ever seemed to notice how never-not once- had she ever hugged any of us Hufflepuff first-years. She seemed to be focused on out of house relationships too.

Sure, we received smiles and kind words, but never once any genuine affection. I almost felt like maybe a hamster or a rat that the scientists in movies put through the maze? Like that. She was watching us to see who would get to the cheese the fastest. Who the smart rat was and who the dumb rats were. I always felt like the dumb rat.

Part of the reason it was so easy for me to stay up and study in her room was because I was honestly afraid to sleep around her. I had a dream once that I had woken up in the middle of the night and she was standing over me, watching me sleep. It felt real but a lot of my dreams did.

Tonight, however, I was unable to stay up and study. I was too tired and just plain not up for it. After a short bath, I lie in bed staring at the low earth covered ceiling. My vision was blurry. It was shaking. I was seeing stars and angels. Little yellow painted stars and angels on my pink ceiling. They would glow in the dark when the lights were off. I had begged and begged and BEGGED Mama to buy the painted wall stickers when I first saw them at the Christian artists festival we went to. I remember cupping my hands around part of the wings like the art sales lady told me and I could see the neon-yellow glow. I'd never seen anything glow in the dark before.

It was like magic.

I couldn't move my arms. I couldn't move my legs either. That was right. I was still tied down. It was for my own good. I coughed, and pain shot like a burning tearing in my throat down to my chest as I felt the bone pop. Like a knuckle. I was so thirsty. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a drink. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a bite to eat. I couldn't remember much.

Droplets of water hit my face. That must have been what woke me up. I opened my mouth and stretched my tongue out. I could feel the rough texture of it wipe across my cheek until- WATER! I licked at it until it was immediately absorbed into the sandpaper appendage. "I knew it," a gruff voice piped up. "Look how it laps at the Holy Water. It's making a display of how powerful it is." I blinked the blurry images into focus. Papa sat nearest the bed on a hard plastic table I'd colored all over. I wanted it to be fancy enough to host tea parties with my friends, Godric, Salazaar, Rowena, and Helga. Mama had been instructed to throw them away. They were potential conduits of the devil, available for potential possession. All but Helga, my first stuffed bear and very best friend, were taken out to the garbage. Helga sat idle at the end of my bed, golden yellow soft fur and one eye replaced with a bright blue button much larger than the other eye. I didn't know what a conduit was but Helga was one. The demon inside me was meant to latch onto her.

"Mama," I choked out. She stood at the end of the bed, wringing her hands, but a bit messier than I've ever seen her. "P-…ease….irsty." I was so thirsty. It burned to breathe.

Mama looked to the holy man in the room with us while he corked his flask of holy water. "We can't feed the beast. Like we discussed, it's trying to appeal to you. It may even let your daughter speak to beguile you into giving it nourishment. But this just means the connection it shares with your daughter has grown weak."

The woman touched a hand to her lips. "Oh, Mary." She looked like she would touch me, but didn't. "It's almost over sweetie. You have to be strong. When you come out of this, you'll be cleansed. You won't ever have to worry about these impure thoughts and feelings. You won't be seeing things anymore." She clasped her hands in prayer now, pleading with me. "You won't be a danger to anyone anymore."

I wanted to reach out to her. I was scared. My head lulled to the side, heavy and unable to hold itself straight. Papa looked more worried than I'd ever seen him. "Pahpah." I wanted him to read my plea in my eyes because it hurt so much to speak. He looked more distressed than Mama, but he didn't budge.

My stomach made a weak whining sound. The first few days it growled so loud. How long has it been?

"It's best we get started now. The girl's body won't survive this much longer."

"Wake up, Mary!"

My eyes pried open but they felt sticky. "P-Professor?" Sprout was standing over me, her eyes more frantic than I'd ever seen.

"That's it, Mary. It's me." She pulled out her wand, the tip of it poking at my temple. "I need you to relax."

Just then, the door opened, and Cedric came bounding in. "Everyone's being evacuated to the Great Hall. We don't have much time. The tunnels won't be safe right now."

My bed was shaking. Was there an earthquake? No. This felt familiar.

Like the time I turned the house upside down.

"Not again," I whimpered.

Professor gave me a strong pluck to the forehead, but her wand never stopped circling my temple. "Pathetic. You must fight this yourself, Mary. You have to try to real it in."

I tried. I remembered the time I was able to stop an episode from happening before. But this wasn't like that time. It felt like trying to stop a river with my bare hands. The flow of what I now knew to be magic and not demon energy, flowed between my finger tips and spilled over the sides of my hands. It poured out of every part of me and hurt wherever her wand pressed. "I can't."

Instead, Professor Sprout grabbed my blanket and wrapped me like a burrito. "Lift her, Cedric. Be careful not to touch any skin." There was another loud bang from above us. Something had fallen over.

Cedric nodded and hefted me into his scrawny but surprisingly strong arms. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Shh," Cedric smiled. "It's okay. We're going to get you to Madame Pomphrey and she'll get you sorted right away, okay?"

I was so sorry I had called Cedric all those mean names. I never said them out loud, but they were still pretty mean. "What if I," It was hard to talk. Sweat got into my eyes and there was hair in my mouth. "What if I destroy the school?"

"Well, Hogwarts is a little sturdier than that, I would hope."

As we made our way down the halls, I could hear the frantic shouting of paintings as the pillars creaked. Dust fell from the high ceiling, almost making me sneeze. My skin was beginning to burn everywhere the blanket pressed. Finally, we reached the nurse Madame Pomphrey. "Set her down here. We need to get her sedated immediately the muggle way." Pomphrey held out up an old-timey looking syringe, and I immediately tried to crawl out of bed.

"No needles!"

But vines snaked up and bound me to the bed. "Stay still," Professor Sprout chided.

There was a quick brief sting in my arm, and I suddenly felt like I was floating out of myself. The tendrils of magic pulled back and dissipated. I felt…lighter. "She's still got a fever," Pomphrey announced. "I can't use any magic on her and risk the malignant force around her twisting it into something different, so I'll need to keep her overnight until her fever breaks the old-fashioned way.

"I think someone else is worried after Mary." Just then, Dumbledore breezed into the room, closely followed by Dean Thomas.

"Dean!" I smiled. I think I would normally be embarrassed. Whether at him the thought that he may find out I almost brought the roof down on him, or at my fuzzy halo pajamas. "You're here?"

"I didn't see you in the Great Hall, and so I came looking for you," Dean mumbled, clearly embarrassed at all the attention. He approached my bedside and sat in the chair. "I saw Cedric and Professor Sprout carrying you to the hospital wing and thought maybe you got hurt in the earthquake."

"That was brave," Cedric praised, but then gave me a pointed look. And foolish it seemed to say. A little secret club Hufflepuff humor.

"Thank you, Dean. But I'm fine." He didn't believe me. And why would he? My face was flushed and covered in sweat.

"Actually far from it," Headmaster chimed in, approaching my other side. Both Professor Sprout and Madame Pomphrey, as if sensing they had been dismissed, disappeared. "It is time Mary. We need to know what happened." In front of Cedric and Dean? I couldn't. But Dumbledore pressed on, placed his wrinkly hand of my clammy one. "Sharing, is the first and biggest step in recovering from something like this. If you don't always want the thoughts of your past to trigger your episodes, sharing goes a long way toward fixing that. But you must tell us everything that happened."

"But-." I looked over to Dean. He was my friend and I didn't want him to know I was a freak. What if he looked at me different.

"It's okay Mary," Dean encouraged instead. "We're mates. Always."

Cedric nodded as well. Everyone was here. They were all here for me. "I saved a puppy," I began. "Part of the roof almost fell on both of us and then it didn't. I stopped it." I pulled my hands out of Dumbledore's and wrung them together. "Everyone saw. After that, Mama and Papa locked me in my room. Th-they said I was possessed by a servant of Satan. Father Michael came and after that they-they tied me down to my bed." I rubbed my wrists. The scars were faint, but they were still there. "I can't remember how long I was there. It was a really long time though. It was September when they tied me down and I think one day I remember seeing people trick-or-treating outside. I've never been trick-or-treating. It looked like fun."

"You were there for a whole month?!" Dean blurted out but immediately shut up and Dumbledore's sharp look.

"I guess so. Maybe longer. I couldn't eat or drink. Father Michael said the weaker I was…the closer I was to death, the looser the ties the demon had on my soul. They wanted it to jump out of me and into Helga. I didn't know it at the time, but I had named all my bears after the founders. They were my friends. Sometimes, if I listened closely enough, I could hear them speak to me." My cheeks were sticky with more than sweat now as tears fell. "Sometimes, when they needed me to eat, I would get a little peanut butter. I really like peanut butter and I was so hungry. They would give me two spoonfulls. Most other days it was just a few sips of water." I think my hands were shaking. Normally, this is when things started to shake, crack, and fall apart. Instead, a warm hand reached out and pulled me close. Cedric's skinny chest had a steady heart-beat. "They would cover me with a blanket and press all of their weight. I couldn't-" I was hiccupping now, "breathe. I couldn't breathe. They couldn't hear me anymore toward the end because they were praying so loud. It was so hot. There were two heaters in my room. But Helga saved me."

"Your bear?" Dumbledore asked in a curious manner.

I nodded awkwardly against Cedric's chest. "One day it was really bad. I thought I'd die. I looked at to Helga and she waved. She waved and they saw it. The demon in me leapt out and possessed Helga. They burned her after but by then, the house had been turned upside down. Literally. I almost killed everyone. But Helga saved me-"

"Shh," Cedric hushed. "That's enough now. You need rest."

I practically melted back onto the bed and just like that, I was out.