"Liz, what do you think?"
"Hmm?" Liz looked up from her copy of Echoes of the Past, blinking around their table in the library. "What was that, I wasn't paying attention."
Megan and Lisa giggled a little, but Padma, who'd asked the question, just gave her a bland sort of smile. "We were talking about our essay for Defence. We can't decide whether lethifolds should be considered a fear demon."
"Oh." Lupin had assigned them an essay on fear demons, about the different kinds, how they were similar or different and how to deal with them. The ones they'd talked about most in class were boggarts, obviously, but there were other kinds too — boggarts were actually one of the weakest and easiest to deal with, some of the others sounded a whole lot more scary. "I don't think lethifolds count? They're bloody terrifying, sure, but they don't target fear specifically. I'm pretty sure they're just magic leeches, the only difference from something like wisps is that they take magic from beings instead of, you know, just eating magic floating around. I can check what I said quick..." Liz slid her book aside, pulling out her finished essay from her pile of notes.
While she skimmed through her essay — yep, no lethifolds — Justin asked, "What's the difference between a fear demon and a demon that causes fear? I thought that's how they were classified."
Liz blinked across the table at him. "Well, no. See, fear demons sustain themselves by scaring you, and then feeding off of the energy your fear releases into the environment — it's specifically that process, feeding off of your fear, that makes them fear demons. If a different kind of demon scares you, that's incidental. I mean, if a sylph or something startles you, that dosen't magically make it a fear demon, you know?"
"What's a sylph?"
...She guessed she really couldn't blame Wayne for that one, she had been reading ahead...
Once again, Liz had been dragged off to a meeting of Dorea and Hermione's study group, a few tables in the library pushed together to fit them all in the corner in the craft magic section they'd practically taken over back in first year. (It was out of the way, they didn't teach this kind of witchcraft at Hogwarts anymore.) Due to how tight Liz's schedule was this year, she'd missed half of their meetings so far, but she didn't have quidditch practice or dueling club this evening, so Dorea had wheedled her into coming.
Liz had whined about it a little, but she didn't actually mind that much — Dorea and Hermione's friends weren't too annoying, especially since they'd mostly just leave her alone if she was trying to read. She only really ever needed help in Transfiguration and Herbology, but it wasn't so bad when they dragged her in on other things either. Figuring out how to say things in a way that made sense to other people also helped her figure it out better, if that made sense, so it was sort of win-win. She assumed to get that effect for herself was why Hermione was so insistent they regularly talk about their school work — other than magic just being neat, of course — but she didn't really know.
Liz's best subjects were Charms and Potions and Defence, so when people had a thing with one of those subjects she often ended up being dragged in to help explain. She was kind of considered their group's expert in Defence, actually. Not quite the whole group had showed up, but it was a lot of them. From Slytherin they had Liz and Dorea and Tracey (Daphne was doing something with her sister); from Gryffindor there was Hermione, Nevile, and Lily; from Ravenclaw they had Padma, Lisa, and Mandy (Terry, Michael, and Tony were hanging out with some boy friends instead); and from Hufflepuff they had Susan and Hannah, Wayne, Justin, Megan, Sophie, and Sally-Anne (which was most of the Hufflepuffs). With sixteen people total, this was a little under half of their entire year, which was slightly ridiculous, but Dorea and Hermione were much better at making friends than Liz was.
So it was slightly ridiculous that, with all the people they had, they needed to ask Liz about demons at all. But she was their Defence expert, she guessed, so it did kind of make sense they went to her when they weren't sure about something, but really, she'd rather be focusing on her book right now.
Especially since she found this demon stuff really very simple, and kind of boring. But there was an obvious reason for that, one she couldn't just come out and explain to the group: she was a mind mage, the idea of weird little spirit things feeding off of people's feelings, and how they might be different based on which feelings they fed off of, was something that'd made immediate, intuitive sense to her, she hadn't even needed Lupin's lectures on the topic to get it. How it made sense to her was something she couldn't really put into words, which made trying to explain it to other people kind of difficult.
But sure, she could do that, whatever.
After a few minutes talking about how the distinction between a fear demon and a scary demon really did make sense — and trying not to reveal she was a mind mage while doing it, which was actually more difficult than it really had to be — the group moved on to something else. Right, cool, Liz could go back to her book then.
Or not right away. Dragging her book back over, Padma asked, voice lowered a little, "What's that you're reading?" She turned her head to the side, lifting up the cover of the book. (Padma often sat next to Liz at these things, which was fine, she was much less annoying than her Gryffindor sister.) "Echoes of the Past: A Primer in the Exploration of, ah..."
"...the Memory of Objects and Locations," Liz finished from memory. Padma let go of the cover, Liz slid the book back right in front of her. "It's a divination book. There's a little bit of psychometry in here—" How to do it for people who didn't have the natural talent Tamsyn had mentioned, which wasn't that bad, pretty basic divination stuff. "—but it's mostly about... I'm not really sure what to call it. You meditate or even fall asleep somewhere, and you can kind of look back and see what happened there?"
"Oh!" Padma said, perking up in her seat a little, smiling. "That sounds a lot like... I'm not sure what the word is in English. Spirit-walking? Proper divination is much more common in the east than here in Europe, you know — I even have a few cousins who work as diviners."
Liz didn't realise you could do divination for money, though when she thought about it that should have been obvious. Maybe that was something she could do with her time after school? Divination was much rarer here, and it was kind of neat. "Yeah, I know. There probably isn't a proper word for it in English, European mages don't practise this stuff very often anymore."
"Which really is a pity, I always thought divination was interesting. I mean," Padma grumbled, rolling her eyes, "proper divination, not the superstitious bunk Trelawney teaches here. I don't know how Parvati can be so impressed with her, we've both met real diviners and Oracles before..."
"Yeah, I was kind of looking forward to Divination, but Trelawney is completely useless." They weren't done working on star charts of their birthday yet, which was all total nonsense, and would mostly be doing more tasseomancy in class until their star charts were finished, which was also total nonsense. Or superstitious bunk, Liz guessed — proper Seers or Oracles (people who made prophecies) could divine the future, but ordinary people couldn't, and they definitely couldn't do it by reading tea leaves, ridiculous. "I've just been studying it on my own instead. So far I've gotten scrying to work, now I'm working on this stuff."
"Scrying, you mean far-seeing? That's rather impressive, you're barely even thirteen."
"It's not like it was hard, it's pretty simple magic. Also, I enchanted a scrying focus, so, easier than just doing it straight out." And that hadn't been a difficult enchantment, either.
Padma's smile twitched, a little twitter of amusement in her head. "Liz, scrying is quite difficult, actually. Using a focus to help form the spell makes it easier, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It often takes months of meditation and study for new students to open themselves up to magic even that much."
"...Oh." Sure, Reflections had said scrying could be pretty finicky to figure out — there were reasons it'd gone out of style in the West — but Liz hadn't realised it was that hard. "Well, I got it to work the first time I tried it. It took a few times to get it right, but, the same night."
"That's really quick, Liz. You must have natural talent to open yourself to magic that easily."
She guessed she kind of did, technically — Tamsyn had mentioned that mind mages tended to have a gift for divination as well, just by default. Since Severus had explained how mind magic worked, she thought their ability to instinctively match the minds of people around them, to be able to pick up things from them, also made it easier for their minds to match the magic of the world, so they could pick up things from that. That was how divination worked, she thought — information carried through ambient magic, just like reading people's minds but...other stuff? That made sense to her, anyway. It sounded sort of confusing trying to put it into English, but on an intuitive, this feels right and I don't know why level, yeah, she was pretty sure that was it.
Which, she thought that meant all mind mages were technically Seers, they just also had the ability to funnel magic into their minds, so they could then use their mind-stuff to reach out to other people's. That was how Severus had said that worked, making their magic the same stuff as their mind, giving them more to work with, like. (In fact, Liz had a theory that the reason her mind was so loud was because she was always pushing magic into it, not just when she wanted to do something with it.) If she was right, that should be the only difference.
She thought she should be able to learn how to do psychometry just all the time, without needing to do anything special or anything, just by learning to attune herself to ambient magic like it was a person's mind — Echoes of the Past didn't say that was a thing that was possible, but it didn't linger on psychometry that much and also wasn't written with the assumption the reader was a mind mage. So. That was maybe something she should play with sometime, until she could figure out how to get the big stuff in this book to work.
Because she really did think that might take a while. The topic the author spent most of the book on — exploring events that had occurred in the past through meditation or dreams — sounded very complicated, it might take her ages to figure it out. Liz didn't exactly have a whole lot of experience achieving altered states of consciousness, it was all very trippy stuff. Neat, yes, but not easy. The book did talk about shortcuts, involving the taking of certain potions or the burning of certain herbs, but Liz suspected that getting high in an effort to cheat at divination would end badly.
(The book actually said that might be a bad idea for people who had a history of traumatic experiences — Liz didn't like the thought of freaking out while half out of her mind on magic drugs. No thanks.)
She and Padma talked about the whole meditation to See the past thing — after a minute or two, Padma was very certain this was the same as the spirit-walking she mentioned earlier, apparently a well-known thing in magical India — which was a pretty interesting conversation, Liz guessed. Dorea and Hermione and Daphne didn't really do any divination, and it freaked Tamsyn out. (Felt like a mental attack to her, which kind of made sense, though they felt totally different to Liz.) Padma didn't really know any either, but she had relatives who were practically professionals in the stuff, and she knew a lot about it even if she'd never done it herself, so, close enough.
The more they talked, the more Liz was convinced she really did have divinatory talent of some kind. Which was neat, she hadn't realised that.
Anyway, as distracted as Liz was talking to Padma, she'd completely lost track of the other conversations going on around them. But as much as she wasn't paying attention, she was still open to their minds — she always was, she hadn't gotten any better at turning this shite off — so when something fucking weird started happening she noticed it immediately. It was...
Well, she didn't know what it was, exactly — it wasn't something she'd ever felt before. It sort of reminded her of the radio in the car, a bit of static leaking into the signal, the sound distorted with a constant hissing. Though, it wasn't an even, constant thing, coming in little pulses, a burst of static and then quiet and then static and then quiet again, never quite going silent entirely, the lingering background noise slowly growing louder.
It was weird enough Liz completely lost track of what Padma was saying, turning to stare across the table, frowning at Dorea in confusion. What the hell was that?
Whatever it was, as it got louder Dorea clearly began to notice something was wrong too. First Liz caught a sort of confused shiftiness, Dorea leaning back away from the table a little, blinking. Then, as an especially loud pulse of noise hit, Dorea winced — and Liz was immediately slapped over the head with an intense flare of ice-cold dread, Dorea's eyes going wide, the blood running out of her face so suddenly it was visible despite how pale she was to begin with. Liz noticed her fingers shiver, not from cold but the fear quickly taking over her mind, her breath caught in her throat.
No, seriously, what the hell was going on?
Before Liz could decide what to do, Dorea pushed herself up to her feet — rather clumsily, overbalancing a little, a foot catching on one of the legs — leaning over toward Hermione a little, one hand tightly grasping her shoulder. (They'd sat next to each other, Liz had set herself up on the opposite end of the group, away from the centre of the talking.) The chatter around the table immediately went silent, enough Liz could easily make out what Dorea said, despite how quite and shaky her voice was. "I'm about to have a seizure."
Sparks of surprise and concern shot through most of the group. Hermione asked, "You're sure?" but it didn't sound like she doubted it, her mind firming with a steely, determined sort of sheen — rather like she felt going into exams, actually — already making to stand.
"Yeah, I—" Dorea cringed, shivering a little, as the noise keyed even louder, the peculiar static grating enough Liz winced along with her. Her fear growing even worse in response, she could only manage, "Yeah."
"Someone go get Pomfrey." As though that was a signal of some kind, their group started moving all at once, voices going back and forth, talking about who should go and what else they should do. "It doesn't matter who does it," Hermione yelled at them, "someone go, now!" Neville immediately scurried off, dashing out through the stacks, Susan and Sally-Anne right behind him — Sally-Anne hitched for a second, realising she wasn't the only one moving, but then kept running anyway. Didn't really need three people to go find Pomfrey and bring her here, but okay...
"Liz!" She jumped at the call of her name, Hermione had taken a few steps away from the table, Dorea still clinging on to her sleeve. "Come over here, pay attention to what I do." Everyone who wasn't running off to the Hospital Wing was sort of just standing around uselessly, Liz had to push her way through them around the table to get anywhere close. By the time she got there, Hermione had helped Dorea, visibly weak and shaky, down to the ground, lying on her back. "You might need to help her if this happens when I'm not around, make sure you— Hold on, I need a—
"Oh, that'll do." Hermione reached back over her shoulder, leaning around Lily, and whipped her cloak off the chair, started rolling it up, before abruptly stopping, her mind twitching. "No, I'm an idiot," dropping the cloak and drawing her wand, "this is better, hold on..." She started casting softening charms on the floor, helping Dorea roll half over to make sure she got everywhere under her, a foot or so around.
Liz grimaced against the weird static stuff — it was starting to give her a headache, making her a little nauseous. Suddenly, with another pulse of louder noise, these weird, colourful, glittering spots appeared in her vision, blotting out every hint of the things behind them, a wave of shivering weakness sweeping over her head to toe. Shaking her head, Liz drew herself in as far as she could, making herself small, the weird spots and the weakness lifted instantly. Right, next time whatever this was happened — and Hermione did seem to think it might happen again, the way she'd said to pay attention — do not touch Dorea's mind, or else the static might spread into Liz's and do to her...whatever it was doing to Dorea, fucking weird...
"Um," Sophie muttered, "is there anything we should be..."
"No, just stay back and give her space." Dorea's hands were scrabbling at her throat, Hermione gently brushed them aside and undid Dorea's tie with a few quick pulls, balling it up a little and pressing it into Dorea's hand. She shifted the loose folds of Dorea's robe, revealing the row of laces running up the side, plucking up her wand again to run the tip down the length, loosening them.
"How do...?" Dorea was breathing heavily now — from terror or whatever was happening to her, Liz couldn't tell — that was all she could manage at the moment.
"My parents are medical doctors, I took a first-aid course a couple years ago." One hand squeezing Dorea's shoulder, "Anything else?"
Dorea shook her head, her free hand coming up to grip Hermione's for a second, then giving her a sweeping sort of go away wave. While Hermione stood up, walking around her toward Liz, Dorea...started shoving her tie in her mouth? Okay...
"Everyone keep back, make sure she has a couple feet of space at least." Reaching Liz, Hermione gently pushed her back a couple steps, the kids around Liz scrambling to get out of the way. "It'll be scary, but there's nothing we can do to help, just wait for it to stop." Hermione took a last glance at Dorea, and then wordlessly pressed her face into Liz's shoulder, frizzy brown hair scraping at her face — that couldn't be comfortable, Liz was a lot shorter than her...
Liz had pulled herself in, but from this close she could see what Hermione was thinking: she didn't want to watch.
Less than a minute later, Dorea started shaking.
Not like anything Liz had ever seen before, though, it couldn't be mistaken for really bad shivering or something — especially considering how it started. The little, restless twitches Dorea had had going on stopped, and a second later Liz cringed as a sudden wall of noise crashed over her head, despite how small she'd already made herself, she flailed to push it away, to keep it out, and Dorea went rigid, extremely rigid, her arms and legs extended straight, Liz was pretty sure her elbows actually bent backwards just a couple degrees, her fingers splayed, back arching enough her loose uniform robe left the floor, tilting to the side at an awkward angle, propped upright against a too-stiff arm and the top of her head, jaw clenched so tightly Liz could make out the tendons in her neck.
Then the stiffness broke, and she was shaking. It looked a lot like shivering, quick jerking back and forth and back and forth, but everywhere at once, the twitches rather further than people did shivering, Dorea seeming to vibrate in place, the occasional harder twitch sending her limbs slowly wandering across the floor, little meaningless noises wrenched out of her throat.
Liz felt Hermione's fingers clench in her robes, flinching with each moan and thump from Dorea.
The shaking wasn't uniform through. It could be Liz's imagination, but she thought they were slowing down a little — not getting smaller, just not as fast — and after a bit of watching — she couldn't look away, she hardly even felt like she was breathing — she thought the weird rigidness from before was involved, like Dorea was switching rapidly back and forth between the weird too-strong shivering and the unnatural stiffness. But it wasn't even, different sections of her body doing the back and forth out of sync, as the shaking slowed down more, the rigid moments holding longer, they kind of started throwing her back and forth a little, the force sending her slowly crawling across the floor, inch by inch, but in no particular direction, one second a hard twitch would send her one way but then another—
There had been random muttering from around them, the occasional sound of someone sucking breath through their teeth. The slower, harder twitches did look terrible, almost painful, the muttering sounding very worried. The first person to raise their voice was Justin. "I don't know, should we try to— Here, petrifi—"
"No, stop!" Liz twitched at the sudden shout, Hermione's head close enough her ears stung. Hair fwoofed across Liz's face as Hermione turned her head — at the angle Justin was around the circle Hermione's head wasn't in the way, Mandy and Wayne had each grabbed one of his arms, pulling him back and yanking his wand out of line. "Don't try to hold her still, she'll hurt herself." Once Hermione got a (shaky, wide-eyed) nod from Justin, she glanced down at Dorea — she was back to the smaller, quicker twitches all of a sudden, as though she'd gone right back to the beginning of the whole thing — and immediately turned back around to press her face into Liz's shoulder again, hands fisting in her robes, let out a hot shivering breath.
As Dorea kept shaking, Liz was pulled back enough she couldn't feel it, but Hermione was close enough, feelings Liz couldn't put a name to lapping against her, hot and squirming and shifting and just...unpleasant. Out of a lack of anything better to do, Liz wrapped an arm around her, trying to push less awful feelings back at Hermione, cooler and smoother and calmer, but she really had no idea how well it was working.
And the shaking just went on. Slowing as it went, transitioning into those painful-looking stiff jerks, but then going right back to the rapid not-shivering again, and on it went.
And on.
And on.
And on and on and...
How long was this supposed to last, exactly? Dorea and Hermione had both clearly known what was going on, but they hadn't said, this couldn't be healthy...
Liz jumped as someone came bursting out from around the end of the row — Pomfrey. The kids in the way scattered without being asked, and the air was suddenly filled with babbling, seemingly everyone trying to tell her what was happening at once. The Healer completely ignored them and walked straight to Dorea, sinking to her knees a short distance away. "Quiet, please!" she called, her wand in her hand, making little jabs around Dorea. It didn't look like whatever she was casting was actually aimed at Dorea, Liz had no idea what she was doing. (She had to risk reaching out to try to get a feel for the magic, she'd probably just get that staticy stuff in her head again.) "How long has she been convulsing?"
Multiple people answered the question, all giving variations on a few minutes.
Pomfrey frowned. "How many is a few?"
"How are we supposed to—"
"I don't know! It's been a little—"
"There isn't a clock in here..."
"Please, Madam Pomfrey, just help—"
"All right, that's enough." Her bottom lip shifting a little, as though biting at the inside of it, Pomfrey frowned down at Dorea — in the quick shivers again — for a few seconds, fingers tapping at her thigh. Then she let out a sharp sigh, pulled a large potion bottle out of a pocket. She tapped the glass with her wand, made a little swish at Dorea, the level of the potion noticeably dropping.
The effect wasn't immediate. Dorea went on shaking for a few more seconds, but little pauses between the jerks started opening up — not like before, as though she were going too stiff to move for a blink, instead seeming to relax, just for an instant. The space between the jerks gradually widened, but Pomfrey must have decided it wasn't going quick enough. Another tap of the bottle and a swish, a couple seconds for the potion to take effect, and the shaking abruptly tapered off. It didn't completely stop right away, Dorea still shivering a little every once in a while, but after another ten seconds or so she, finally, went still.
Liz let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding — fucking hell, that was...not fun. What the fuck was that?
Pomfrey had sidled closer to Dorea, pulled the tie out of her mouth, peeked inside for a second before gently pushing her chin up, the tie slipped into Dorea's pocket. Her hair was brushed out of the way to reveal her face, sweaty and pale, Pomfrey pulled up her lids to check her eyes. She started prodding at Dorea, squeezing all the way down each arm, which was kind of a weird thing to do, Liz thought — shouldn't there be charms to detect whatever she was looking for? "Who cast the softening charms?"
"That was Hermione, Madam."
"Yeah, she took over right away, helped with her tie and everything too."
"None of us were any help..."
Liz barely held in a snort at the last one — not about to disagree with that, they'd all just stood around gawking the whole time. She hadn't done any different, of course, but she still didn't really know what was going on...
"Good work, Miss Granger. Take fifteen points for Gryffindor."
"Oh, um..." Hermione's face wasn't pressed into Liz's shoulder anymore, turned to watch Dorea and Pomfrey. She was still holding on to Liz's robe, if much less tightly than she'd been a minute ago. Hermione decided she didn't know what to say to that. "Will she be okay?"
Pomfrey was kind of jabbing her fingers into Dorea's stomach now, which looked really uncomfortable, but she guessed it didn't matter so long as Dorea was still unconscious. "I can't say for certain without doing tests, but I think so. She has an underlying condition, which—"
Dorea let out a sudden, surprisingly loud snore. A few of the people around broke into giggles, much of it sounding a little hysterical, the air around Liz's head sparkling with a confusing mix of relief and amusement and concern.
The Healer waited for the giggles to die down before continuing. "She'll be fine, but I'm going to bring her down to the Hospital Wing for tests."
"Can we come with?" Hermione asked — Liz knew without even looking that she said "we" because she was including Liz.
Busy conjuring a little stretcher thing, carefully shifting Dorea onto it — okay, there was definitely an easier way to do that, Liz suspected she was avoiding casting any magic on Dorea — Pomfrey glanced up at Hermione for a second. "You may, if you wish. You won't be able to sit with her until she's back to normal — I can't tell you how long that'll be, anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour or two."
"That's alright. Just Liz and I will go," Hermione said, glancing around their study group crowded around. Oh, Neville and Susan and Sally-Anne had reappeared at some point, Liz hadn't noticed. "We don't want to take up all the space in the Hospital Wing. Okay?"
Again, everyone seemed to answer all at once, agreeing that seemed reasonable and demanding Hermione or Liz get news out to them before the end of the day, but Hermione had actually been talking to Liz. Hermione was aware, from her complaining earlier in the year, that Liz kind of hated being in hospital, and also tended not to like being dragged places, she wasn't sure Liz would want to wait with her.
And normally she might not, but... This was... She didn't know, she wasn't entirely certain what she was thinking. It was kind of a mess in her head right now — that had been freaky as hell, okay, and she didn't think...
Was she worried? Was that what this was? It didn't feel like it normally did, for some reason, but she was kind of twitchy, and she could tell she still wasn't breathing quite right, and... Yeah, if she were off somewhere else, she kind of doubted she'd be able to do anything productive right now anyway. She might as well tag along.
But she didn't know how to explain any of that, or if her voice would even cooperate with her if she tried, so she just nodded.
Quickly packing up their bags to follow after Pomfrey (Tracey was taking care of Dorea's), Liz noticed her fingers were shaking, squeezed them into fists, took a long breath. Liz was fine, Pomfrey said Dorea would be fine, it was fine. Stop being ridiculous, fuck...
Even slowed down a little with that nonsense, Liz still finished before Hermione, since she'd had less of her things scattered around. Once Dorea's bag was packed, she slung that over her shoulder too — Hermione might be bigger than Liz but she wasn't exactly the athletic type, Liz was far more fit — a couple seconds later started off with Hermione toward the Hospital Wing, a round of tentative good byes following them out. Pomfrey had left a minute before them, but they knew the way there, obviously, the pair of them picked their way through the library without a word.
"Liz?"
She jumped — they were on the stairs when Hermione finally spoke, neither of them had said anything the whole time, hadn't expected it. "Ah." She cleared her throat. "Yeah?"
"Are you okay? You seem...not."
Did she? She'd admit she felt kind of...weird, but she didn't realise she was so off it was noticeable from the outside. "I... Fuck if I know, Hermione, I don't— Feelings are hard."
Hermione's head bubbled with one of those warm squishy feelings, brushing against Liz all tingling, kind of tickled. "It's okay, Liz." Without warning, Hermione was grabbing at Liz's hand, fingers knotting with hers. It took some effort for Liz not to yank her hand away, assumed this was more normal people feelings stuff, like the hugging. "Dorea will be okay."
...Okay, then? Not making Liz any less confused, Hermione, seriously...
፠
When the world began to make sense again, like coming out of a dream, Dorea found herself giggling.
Not that there was any obvious reason she should be giggling. Everything hurt, a warm, dull ache everywhere at once, like her legs sometimes got after climbing far too many stairs. (Living at Hogwarts could get very annoying sometimes.) Exhaustion dragged at her, like the morning after getting too little sleep due to Astronomy class (again, Hogwarts), but on top of that a weird, tingling numbness, sort of like a limb falling asleep, but everywhere, which was really kind of weird, no idea what was up with that.
And the worst of it was her head. An intense throbbing pain, centred toward the front but radiating outward with each throb, heat stretching back and down into her neck. Her hands came up to clutch at her forehead, just instinctively, but as numb as she was right now the motion was clumsy, one hand ending up flopping against her face before she adjusted, nearly poking herself in the eye. She grimaced at another pulse, a hissed breath forced through her teeth, lights flashing behind her eyes.
But a second later she was giggling again, though she didn't quite have the breath for it, the muscles of her sides straining against her empty lungs, finally she managed a gasp, the relief only making her giggle harder. Distantly, she thought it was kind of fucking weird. What was she so happy about?
Because she was happy. A warm swooping giddiness, reminding of her sitting with her mother on rainy days with cups of hot cocoa, back when she'd been a little kid, and at once the ecstatic thrill riding a rollercoaster, all too intense, overwhelming, and for no real purpose she could see, filling her with pleasant, tingly warmth — obviously different from the numb tingling, which was kind of funny, she hadn't realised it was possible to feel tingly in two different ways at the same time — so much that she couldn't help it, she couldn't stop herself from giggling, to the point it was kind of difficult to breathe.
"Miss Black? Do you understand me?"
Dorea struggled to hold in the giggles, to draw enough breath to speak. "Yeah, I— Ow, ow, ow..." She'd opened her eyes, but hadn't been able to make much out, just vague shapes wreathed with eye-stabbingly bright light. Even cringing from the pain, the inexplicable happiness didn't lessen at all, her throat filled with more giggles, her teeth clenched trying to hold it in, the shaking of her chest forcing out little coughing laughs. "My head..."
"Mm. Is it a constant or throbbing pain?"
"Throbbing," she groaned through her teeth, her voice sounding a little choked, still trying to hold in giggles.
"Okay, try to hold still, Miss Black." There was a faint pressure on her shoulder, right at the base of her neck, it took Dorea a second to realise that was someone's hand — she was so numb, it felt weird. Nothing happened at first, but then the agonising heat in her head started to cool, softening with each throb, until the pain abruptly vanished entirely. Her head still felt weird, a vague sense of warmth and an odd pressure, like she had just too much stuff in there at the moment, making her feel slow and slightly dizzy, but at least it didn't hurt anymore.
She let out a sigh of relief, breath wiggling a little from laughter. "Oh, that's a lot better, thank you." Dorea blinked her eyes open, to find it was darker than before, shadows heavy and thick. There were a couple candles floating around, the only source of light, but their flames seemed far brighter than they should — looking too close to them made her vaguely nauseous, so, it was probably a good thing it was so dark in here. It was dark enough it was kind of difficult to make out colours, but by the way the yellow-orange light caught her surroundings, the sheets of the bed she was lying in were white, a side-table there light wood, a plain porcelain water pitcher, but there wasn't much else, a little island surrounded by curtains in all directions (probably also white), the narrow space above them up to the ceiling lost into shadows too thick and solid to be natural.
The Hospital Wing, she was in the Hospital Wing. Right. She'd had no idea they could cut out the light in one spot like this, interesting. Standing near the bed was a short, round-cheeked woman in pale white and green robes, the sleeves cinched tight around her forearms, pale straw-blonde hair mostly hidden by a little brimless hat.
Dorea squinted up at the woman, trying to place her — she was familiar, Dorea knew she should know who this was, but for some reason her face didn't quite— Oh! "Madam Pomfrey. Hi."
One corner of Pomfrey lips curled up in a smile. "Hello, dear. Can you sit up?"
"Yeah, um..." She broke off to laugh for a second. Feeling numb and weak and clumsy, Dorea struggled to push herself up against the headboard. Pomfrey stepped closer to the bed to give her a hand, taking some of her weight, rearranging the pillows behind her. When she was finally up, leaning heavily against the headboard, Dorea felt unreasonably exhausted from such a small effort, flushed and shaky, breathlessly giggling. "That was hard."
"Some lingering weakness isn't uncommon. Is it limited to a particular part of your body, or everywhere the same?"
"Everywhere. Kind of hurts too — not really bad, but—" giggles "—just like I worked too hard, you know? Sore, like. And kind of numb," she said, scratching at her palm with the nails of her other hand, "I barely feel this at all." It felt kind of funny, actually, she couldn't help giggling some more.
Pomfrey hummed, nodding. "Is anything else bothering you?"
"Not really. I kind of feel..." She laughed. "...really, really good, actually. Is that weird?"
For some reason, despite trying to hold her warm, friendly smile, Pomfrey's brow stitched with a faint frown. "It's an uncommon reaction, but it's not a bad sign. It'll wear off — could be anywhere between a half hour or so to a couple days." Oh, jeez, a couple days of this sounded like it'd be exhausting, her throat already kind of hurt from trying not to laugh... "If you find you're still feeling numb tomorrow evening, come back here and we'll do some tests. I've held off doing anything too invasive for the moment. I don't know if Madam Tonks ever explained this, but casting magic on the brain, even just diagnostics, too soon after a seizure sometimes causes a second episode."
"Oh." No, Dorea remembered Andi had always waited a few hours before doing tests and things, but she'd never actually explained why. "So I had a seizure, then? I thought I might have..." Why else would she suddenly find herself in the Hospital Wing feeling terribly exhausted? It wasn't like this was the first time, after all, it'd been ages (literally half her life) since she'd had one, but she still remembered.
Weirdly, the expected fear — they'd been killing her before, this wasn't supposed to happen anymore, she was supposed to be better — didn't come at all. She knew this was maybe a problem, and she should be concerned, but she just...wasn't. Her chest was still bubbling with inexplicable happiness, even while wondering to herself whether this meant her treatment was failing, that she'd have to go through all of that again, she was still giggling.
She didn't know, Pomfrey had said this was normal (if uncommon), but Dorea thought it was fucking weird, she remembered feeling terrible after the bad episodes...
"You have. What do you remember?"
Well, not much of anything, obviously — the bad episodes tended to fuck with her memory. "Um, I was feeling kind of weird for a couple hours. Like, I'd forgotten something important, worried about that, and also nervous about, like, sort of like an exam I didn't think I was ready for coming up?" Dorea broke to giggle for a second. "Anticipation, but the bad kind. Kind of both of those, but also kind of neither, if that makes any sense." If that was a you're going to have a seizure sign, it was new to her, so, noted. "Ah. And then, er, we were in the library, and words started to look weird? I could still read, mostly, but they seemed...off, I'm not sure how to explain it. And then I had one of those weird...glittery blob things — what are those called again? I know Andi told me, but it was ages ago..."
Pomfrey looked slightly uncertain, probably not sure what she was talking about. "Scintillating scotoma?"
"Yeah, that was it." No wonder she hadn't remembered, that was a complicated term for a seven-year-old. "After that, I just vaguely remember feeling really awful — I've only had a couple so far, but for some reason auras seem a lot worse than they were when I was a kid. I think I might have asked Hermione for help? I don't know. And then I woke up here a couple minutes ago." Giggles crawled up her throat, she held it back enough only a little uh hee hee slipped out. "Um. That's it."
The Healer nodded. "Miss Granger did well — she even charmed the floor around you softer, which isn't the sort of thinking I expect from muggleborns." Because even the ones who would have learned a little first aid before coming here would have learned it the muggle way, she meant, obviously mages were taught to do that kind of thing. "By what I've pieced together, you're only missing maybe a minute before the convulsions started.
"I don't know exactly," Pomfrey was saying, Dorea giggling too much again to ask a question, "but I think the seizure lasted for three or four minutes before I arrived — certainly no more than six. That isn't too concerning, but I'm sure you know seizure states become more dangerous the longer they last, and since I didn't know how long it'd been I thought it best to intervene. I gave you an emergency anticonvulsant, and you only needed a relatively low dose, so I think the seizure might well have ended on its own anyway. You were brought here immediately, and woke up within fifteen to twenty minutes. You were really only half-awake for maybe another five to ten minutes before you finally woke up the rest of the way, which should be when your memory starts again.
"Now, I want to try to put your mind at ease, Miss Black: I am almost positive this episode is not a sign of your condition relapsing. It's not unusual for people whose treatment is working to develop epilepsy later in life, especially in the years around the start of puberty. Their symptoms are, for the most part, exactly like normal epilepsy, the major difference being the intensity and duration of auras — your treatment attempts to keep your brain working the way it should, which slows down the process of the initial disturbance developing into a proper seizure. From what I observed, both during the episode itself and the symptoms you've described now, this is a normal epileptic seizure. Postictal migraines in particular are almost unheard of for people with your condition. Have you ever had one before?"
"A migraine? Er..." Breaking to giggle again, Dorea considered the implications of all this for a couple seconds. It was a weird mix of good and bad news, really. "I don't think so? Was that what that was?"
"Yes, it is. I haven't gotten rid of the migraine, I'm afraid it's still there. Numbing your ability to feel the pain of it isn't difficult, but I can't get rid of the migraine itself — I would need to cast magic directly on your brain, and that's simply not safe at the moment. The light sensitivity will last as long as the migraine does, if it hasn't gone away before you leave I can give you some charmed glasses to shield your eyes.
"A feeling of euphoria after a seizure isn't common, but it's not unexpected, either. Have you noticed you sometimes feel rather melancholic after an episode, for a few hours to a couple days?" Dorea was busy trying not to laugh again, so she just nodded — it'd been a long time, and it was hard to say whether that'd been some effect of the seizure itself or just Dorea being sad about her own brain trying to murder her, but she did vaguely remember that being a thing. Giving a sharp little nod in return, Pomfrey said, "That's a perfectly normal thing to happen, in people at a baseline mood. But sometimes, if someone is already feeling depressed when they have a seizure, when they come out the other side they'll feel very happy instead, for a few hours to a couple days."
"Um, but I don't think I was feeling depressed?"
"There are dementors in the Valley, Miss Black — even if you didn't consciously notice it, their presence even at this distance does have an effect on people's mood. We've had a few epileptic episodes already this term, and I've noticed this same thing almost every time, and it'll probably continue as long as the dementors are posted here."
...Oh. Dorea hadn't even thought of that. "Okay, that makes sense, I guess."
Pomfrey's lips twitched with a wry sort of smile. "I guess. I will ask you stay here for a couple hours, just in case something comes up, but other than that I don't think there's anything to worry about yet, so far as your condition is concerned. But, it's very possible that you might continue to have episodes going forward. If they become serious or too frequent, I'll be recommending you start taking a daily potion for epilepsy — it may not stop the seizures entirely, but it will make them less common and less severe. In this case, we'll also have to begin doing tests every once in a while to make sure you're not relapsing. Once a month would probably do.
"Also, that you're having a migraine now means you might have more later. Migraines are also often preceded by auras, and you might not be able to tell whether an aura means you're about to have a seizure or a migraine. You should ask for help anyway, and we'll respond appropriately depending on which you end up having. Professor Snape formulated a very good potion that greatly reduces the pain of a migraine, but does nothing for the other effects — your sensitivity to light right now, for example — but is safe and non-addictive. If you start having frequent migraines, I'll be giving you a few doses to carry with you at all times.
"Now, as much as I don't think you're in serious medical danger, there are safety concerns with epilepsy. Until we know which kinds of seizures you'll have, and how frequently, you shouldn't fly on a broom at all." Dorea bit her lip to keep herself from laughing — would have been nice to have had that excuse back in first year, she didn't like flying anyway. "I would like for there to be at least one person with you whenever possible, to go get help if needed. I'll be assigning an elf to watch your room, just in case — you won't notice him and he won't be able to see you, he'll only be observing the magic in the room for any sign of an episode. There are a number of charms, enchantments, and potions that are risky for people with epilepsy, I'll get you a list before you leave. We might be able to relax some of these measures down the road, depending on how things turn out.
"Do you have any questions for me right away?"
"No, ma'am," Dorea said, shaking her head. She could hardly feel her hair shifting against her neck at all, weird. "Um, did you write my mum about it? And my aunt, I guess." Andi was the only Healer she saw, and had been in charge of her treatment since...well, since the muggle doctors had figured out what was wrong and told Mum that Dorea would inevitably die, and she'd decided that was crap and contacted her magical ex's cousins to magically fix her problems. Okay wow, that was a silly way to put that...
"Yes, but I'm certain neither of my letters have arrived yet — it's been less than a half hour, and they both live in the south. Madam Tonks may have her own tests she would like to do, to confirm you're not relapsing, she already knows she's welcome to come meet you here at any time." Because she'd had to do it a lot for Dora when she'd been a kid, magical accidents could be very dangerous for metamorphs and Pomfrey wasn't an expert. "If your mother has questions, I can send her information about magical interventions for epilepsy, but I'm sure Madam Tonks will tell her anything she'd like to know."
Dorea would complain (silently, in her head) that she wasn't getting that information...but she kind of was, right? Pomfrey had already told her about potions and stuff, and the list of magic things to avoid, so, no real reason to be annoyed about that. "Um. Okay."
"All right. I'd like you to stay here for a couple hours, which means you'll be here through dinner. Something will be brought in for you instead. I'll be back in a half hour or so to ask if you have any preferences. Miss Potter and Miss Granger have been waiting out in the ward since you were brought up — if you'd rather be alone just now I can send them away."
"Oh, no, that's okay." Dorea glanced down quick to make sure she was presentable. She was in a kind of...loose gown...thing, the fabric too smooth and silky to be anything but magically-made. She plucked away the neck to look underneath — she was still in her vest and knickers, Pomfrey had just swapped out her uniform for this, right. "I'm fine, go ahead and let them in." As exhausted as she was, she felt kind of great, so she really didn't mind. Plus, they'd probably be worried about her if they didn't see she was fine, so.
(For a certain value of fine, anyway, they'd probably think the all the grinning and giggling was weird. Probably gonna creep them out a little, actually...)
"All right. The enchantments on the curtains will stop outside light from coming in, but the opening will seem bright. You might want to close your eyes while people are coming in and out."
"Right, thanks."
Once Pomfrey was out of her little closed circle — actually saying the curtains were closed, which was thoughtful of her — Dorea didn't bother opening her eyes again, just let her head tip back against the headboard. She let out a long sigh, her breath wavering a little with more suppressed laughter. She was very tired, weighed down into the bed, the thought of having to move really quite terrible, but it was a body tired, she didn't think she'd be able to steal a nap right now even if she wanted to. The inexplicable, overwhelming happiness would probably also make it bloody impossible to sleep, or even really be properly worried about the prospect of having to deal with seizures again (which Pomfrey seemed to think was very likely), or much of anything at all, which was kind of...
It wasn't going to be like this every time, was it? As much as she felt pretty great right now (except for the soreness and exhaustion, she meant), this would probably get old real quick.
"Dorea?" called a voice from outside the curtains — Hermione's voice, she was pretty sure. "Can we come in?"
"Sure." Dorea nearly opened her eyes just on impulse before remembering she was specifically not supposed to do that. "Oh, er, make sure the curtains are closed behind you."
"Yes, Pomfrey warned us." There was some shuffling, the rustle of cloth against cloth, the soft clunking of shoes against stone — that would be Liz's boots, the flats Hermione wore at school were softer and almost silent — a rattling as the curtains were yanked closed again. "Wow, it's dark in here — how did she do that? Er, I mean, the curtains are closed, you can open your eyes now."
Chuckling a little at Hermione being, well, Hermione, Dorea did. And then blinked in confusion, glancing between the two girls near the foot of her bed. She didn't recognise them. She meant, she did know who they were, how could she not? One of them — taller, skin darkened and frizzy brown hair lightened at the edges from the sun, her uniform worn picture-perfect, not a speck visible on the cloth and set perfectly symmetrical (as though compensating for her disobedient hair), round-cheeked face trying to smile, but not quite managing to hold back a concerned frown — that had to be Hermione, and the other — short and scrawny, enough she could pass for a first-year, black hair a mess of thick, asymmetrical curls, Slytherin tie (cravat, really, but the students called it a tie for some reason) half-undone and hanging loose, her narrow face almost too white, so pale she might never have seen the sun in her life, steadily staring at Dorea wide-eyed but otherwise expressionless — must be Liz, Dorea knew that, who else could they be? She'd recognised Hermione's voice a moment ago, and obviously it would be them, but for some reason they just...didn't seem quite right. Looking at their faces, part of Dorea was drawing a blank, like they were perfect strangers, but she knew they were Liz and Hermione, she knew that, it was...
Well, it was rather disturbing, honestly — her helpless giggles came out kind of nervous-sounding, she had to stop herself from reaching for her wand on the side table. She remembered she hadn't recognised Pomfrey either, so, maybe this was just a weird seizure after-effect? Actually, now that she was thinking about it, she vaguely remembered something like this happening before, she hadn't recognised Mum and kind of freaked out over this random stranger being all... But she'd been so little at the time, she didn't really remember, could just have been a random nightmare for all she knew. Maybe she should tell Pomfrey about this — she doubted it'd do any good, diagnostically, but just in case.
If it was a seizure-related thing, there was nothing she could do but wait for it to wear off. So Dorea forced a smile, hoping it didn't look too unnatural — given how inexplicably happy she still was, she couldn't imagine it would be. "Hey, girls. Didn't worry you too much, I hope."
The-stranger-who-Dorea-was-certain-was-Hermione let out a little sound that seemingly couldn't decide whether it was a cough or a laugh. "You and Liz are both ridiculous."
The-stranger-who-was-obviously-definitely-Liz turned to Hermione, slowly, her eyes drawn away from Dorea seemingly against her will. "What did I do?"
"Liz, you spent the first couple days at school in a coma, and when you woke up you talked like you were fine and nothing was wrong."
"I was fine, though..."
"We obviously have very different definitions of that word."
"Well, then yours is wrong. The only reason I could wake up was because nothing was wrong with me, I don't know what fussing over me about something that's already been fixed is supposed to accomplish."
Hermione huffed, rolling her eyes. Dorea giggled — yep, definitely Liz and Hermione. Turning back to Dorea, Hermione said, "You are okay, though?" She sidled closer, in a few steps standing next to Dorea at the side of the bed. Liz didn't move, though, still lingering near the sealed gap in the curtains, steadily staring. "I mean, I know you have some kind of condition, but you've never had a seizure at school..."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Well, I mean..." Dorea lifted her shoulders in a shrug, then broke off into giggles again, because she was still numb and that felt really weird. "Er, I guess I have epilepsy now, which means I get to deal with that, but I'm not dying or anything." Hermione gave her a very uncertain sort of look, brow furrowed and worrying at her lip a little. The inappropriate laughter was probably throwing her off. "The giggling is a seizure after-effect thing — apparently the dementors mess people up from all the way over here, who could have guessed posting soul-sucking demons at a school might be a bad idea, Jesus. I feel sort of great, actually, but it's not real, it should wear off before too long. Um, and I have a migraine, obviously," she added, waving a hand at the unnatural shadows clinging to the ceiling. "But I'm fine. Really."
"Oh. Good." Hermione hesitated, just for a second, before leaning over to hug Dorea. Some instinctive part of her twitched at the impersonator getting too close, started to cringe away, but Dorea forced herself to stop, and just hugged her back. "I'm glad you're okay, I was so worried. I don't know anything about your condition, just that it causes seizures, and..."
"Yeah, I did—" The giddy, bubbling, stubborn happiness filling her middle had started crawling up as soon as Hermione touched her, the gentle heat constricting her throat, making her voice come out wrong. And now she felt her eyes start to water, and oh God, she was crying, why was she crying?! It got worse the longer the hug went on, the warmth and the tingling entirely overwhelming, her head spinning, Dorea could hardly breathe, a sound that couldn't seem to decide whether it was a sob or a laugh wrenched out of her throat, fuck...
Dorea had started pulling away, hoping the hug being over would stop whatever the fuck this was, but she was finding it weirdly difficult, some visceral urge to cling on she could barely control — if Hermione hadn't leaned back, frowning down at her in concern, she might not have managed it at all. While Dorea focused, scrambling to control herself, Hermione said, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I— Is something wrong? Do I, um, need to get Madam Pomfrey?"
"No, no, it's just..." Leaning forward, covering her face with both hands, Dorea forced in and out a hot, half-choked, watery breath. "Nothing's wrong, I'm just—" She was cut off with another awkward giggle/sob. "Ugh! Sorry," she groaned, straightening a little, wiping at her eyes. "Apparently I'm a mess right now. No hugging until the giggles are gone, I think."
It could be Dorea's imagination — or she just couldn't see very well, the tears still in her eyes making her vision too blurry — but she thought Liz actually looked a little horrified, still watching wide-eyed from the entrance, almost seeming to lean away as much as she could while still remaining in Dorea's little circle. Liz had never been great with feelings things, always seemed extremely uncomfortable whenever someone was crying, Dorea being a mess must be really...unsettling? Not sure what word she was going for. Now that she thought about it, with how intense and overwhelming this was for Dorea, she was certain Liz couldn't not pick up on it, that must be uncomfortable.
Hermione still looked concerned, confused, but the corner of her lips curled a little, as though just a little amused too. "Right. No hugging, I can do that."
"Okay." Dorea took another moment to wipe her eyes, trying to get her breathing under control — the giggles really didn't help. "Okay. What did I miss, though? I don't really remember much."
A little reluctantly, clearly uncomfortable with the subject, Hermione told her more about what had happened. (Pomfrey hadn't been there, so.) They'd just been talking about their homework when Dorea had stood up and grabbed Hermione's arm out of nowhere, looking very pale and shaky, and told her she was about to have a seizure — Dorea only sort of remembered that, more a feeling it'd happened than any details. Hermione had immediately taken charge, like she had on the train a few weeks ago, sending a couple of their friends to get Pomfrey, helping Dorea, weak and unsteady already, down to the floor, softening everything around (which Pomfrey gave Gryffindor points for later), getting her tie off and loosening her robes a little. (Oh, she'd forgotten about the tie, Dorea should have that washed before using it again...) While the seizure itself had been going on, Justin had nearly cast a body-binding curse on her, but they'd stopped him. Dorea winced — restraining someone having a seizure could have some nasty effects if they were unlucky, tearing muscles or ligaments or dislocating joints, good on Hermione for catching it.
All that could be healed with magic pretty easily, Dorea might not even have noticed by the time she woke up, but still.
It was right around that point that Liz finally found her voice. While Hermione was explaining, Liz had drifted further into the room, coming to the opposite side of the bed from Hermione — not standing nearly as close, though, still looming awkwardly in the shadows. They'd just gotten done talking about Justin, from that point they'd all just had to wait for Pomfrey to show up, when Liz suddenly blurted out, "I don't understand."
Hermione cut off in mid-sentence, Dorea turned to blink up at Liz. "Um, what?"
"I'm sorry, but Hermione told you everything that happened now, and— What was that?"
...Had no one explained any of this to Liz? "I had a seizure."
Liz's blank, wide-eyed stare abruptly shifted into a glare. "People keep saying that, but I don't know what that is!"
Right, that should have been obvious, Dorea was an idiot. "Um, well, it's... That's sort of complicated, actually..."
Hermione, being Hermione, picked it up immediately. "You know how the brain works through a bunch of little electrical signals being zapped between the different bits of it, right?"
"Yes, of course."
"These signals are controlled and directed by a very delicate balance of all kinds of chemicals and stuff. Sometimes, a person's brain will fail to regulate all these chemicals and stuff correctly, and the signals will get all messed up. A seizure is when the electrical signals in a person's brain go off all over the place like crazy — due to drugs, or a high fever, or a hit to the head, or the person's brain can just be bad at regulating itself, a lot of things can cause them. I'm oversimplifying a bit, of course, but that's the general idea."
"Right." Liz was quiet a moment, blinking to herself. "That makes sense. It kind of felt like static, and if things were firing off randomly, I guess it might feel like that."
"You could feel it?" Honestly, Dorea hadn't even considered what someone having a seizure might feel like to a mind mage.
"Yeah, it was really..." She trailed off, and in the end didn't finish the sentence at all, apparently couldn't think of the word she wanted. "I noticed something was wrong before you said anything, I could feel it from across the table. It was really weird, when I looked closer there were these weird sparkling blotches in my vision, and—"
"Don't do that!" she blurted out — louder than she meant to, both Hermione and Liz twitching with surprise. "If I have another one, don't do that, stay away from it." Dorea had absolutely no idea if it was possible for a seizure to spread from one person to another through mind magic, but if Liz had been getting her aura through contact like that, yeah, that seemed pretty damn likely.
Liz scowled a little. "I figured that out for myself, thanks. I wasn't trying to— It was just... It was just really weird, you know, and loud, I... You are okay, though? It looked...not healthy, and I can't imagine your brain zapping itself like that is good for it..."
Was... Had Liz actually been scared for her? Huh. She was doing a terrible job talking about it, but that wasn't unusual for Liz. The wide-eyed staring, how Liz was still awkwardly lingering far away from the bed, she was acting strangely, if she was still kind of scared and had no idea how to deal with it that would all make sense.
That was...kind of touching, honestly, enough Dorea had to take a few seconds to consciously fight off tears again. (God dammit, if this could wear off soon, that'd be great, thanks.) Liz was not exactly an affectionate sort of person, and she was terrible at expressing she gave a damn most of the time — Dorea was convinced she'd simply never learned how, didn't know how to do that kind of thing. That she'd apparently been so deeply affected by Dorea having a medical episode was...almost sweet, in a way? That wasn't the right word, but still, it was strangely nice.
"Come here, Liz," she said, lifting her hand to wave her closer. (Yep, still numb, that was weird.) Reluctantly, Liz started slowly drifting over, as she did Dorea said, "It's fine, really. Seizures can cause brain damage if they go on too long, but a few minutes is perfectly safe." Once Liz was close enough, Dorea snagged her hand, lacing their fingers together. Which was slightly awkward to do, because Dorea was still numb and clumsy, Liz's skin little more than a vaguely warm sense of pressure, no texture at all. "I'm okay, Liz. I promise."
Somewhat to her surprise, she was pretty sure Liz was holding on to her hand pretty tight — it was kind of hard to tell, with how numb and tingly she still was, but she thought so. Actually, the pressure around her hand was hard enough she thought it might hurt a little if she were capable of being hurt right now. Liz stared at her for a long moment, her face completely blank, but not the same kind of blankness, very intense and... Dorea didn't know, exactly. Liz was a terrible liar, yes, but that didn't mean her expressions were actually readable all the time.
After maybe ten to fifteen seconds — which wasn't very long to be holding someone's hand in absolute terms, but that was kind of a long time for Liz to put up with any physical contact at all — Liz nodded, muttered, "Okay." With a little twitch, she extricated her hand from Dorea's, and took a little half step down, turning to face away. Her shoulders rose and fell with a slow, deep breath, the motion just a little shaky.
Was she... Was Liz crying? Or, forcing herself not to cry, at least, it was quiet enough in here it'd be obvious if she really was. That was...unexpected. Dorea had literally never seen Liz cry before — well, once, in the mirror room after the Dark Lord's spirit or whatever had tried to get them, but she didn't think that counted. She realised watching your best friend have a seizure might be pretty scary, especially if you didn't even know what was going on, but still, she really hadn't thought Liz would be this affected by it.
It was weirdly sweet, to be honest. Enough Dorea felt more of those random inexplicable happy-tears coming up, ugh, if her brain could go back to normal that'd be great, this was exhausting. "Anyway—" Her voice came out wrong, constricted, she cleared her throat. And then immediately burst into more wet giggles, because of course.
Hermione was smiling a bit, watching Liz — probably having similar thoughts to Dorea, she just wasn't nearly as much of a mess right now. "Right," she said, looking back down, reluctance wiping away her smile, "I was wondering about... I mean, I don't know anything about your condition — I asked people, but nobody would tell me much — and I was thinking, is there anything we should be..."
"Oh, this seizure didn't have anything to do with that. I'm not relapsing, or at least Pomfrey doesn't think so."
"But..." Her brow furrowed in a thoughtful frown, the same one she got turning over a more difficult concept doing their homework. Which was funny, Hermione still kind of looked like a stranger to Dorea, but that expression was perfectly recognisable anyway. "I thought the seizures were because of your condition."
"They are, sure, but..." Dorea sighed, her eyes flicking up to the ceiling for a second. "Right, I can explain this quick. I have something called childhood regressive seizure disease with aphasia — that's what the mages call it, I forget the muggle term. Muggles do get it too, Daphne was wrong about it being a magical disease, it's just far more common among purebloods. You might have noticed the magical noble families are horribly inbred, this is hardly the only heritable health issue they have floating around."
Liz, still facing away, let out a little snort of laughter.
"It starts with just these little random twitches, beginning when the kid is as old as ten but sometimes as young as two. My mum started noticing them when I was four or five, but they might have been going on longer than that and she just missed it — they start pretty small and innocuous, they're sometimes mistaken for normal clumsiness. These gradually get worse, until the person starts having seizures, primarily of the kind I just had earlier. I was five the first time I had one of those." She'd been at school when it happened, apparently it'd been a whole mess, which she didn't at all remember, having been unconscious at the time. "These get worse and worse, lasting longer and longer.
"As I mentioned a moment ago—" She nodded at Liz, who'd turned back around to face her — there were no obvious signs she'd been crying while looking away, she looked the same as always, blankly staring down at Dorea. "—seizures can cause brain damage if they go on long enough. The regressive part of childhood regressive seizure disease is because of this: all the seizures happening all the time makes the kid start...you know, the steps they have for normal childhood development and everything, they start going backwards, forgetting how to do things. It's usually language stuff that gets hit first — that's what the with aphasia means. I remember I started getting words mixed up, which was extremely confusing for me and everyone else — what I was saying made perfect sense to me, but it sometimes sounded like word salad to everyone else — and then I just started forgetting words entirely."
Hermione had covered her mouth with a hand, her eyes gone wide with horror. "That... Oh my god, that sounds terrifying."
"It was, yeah, I did not have fun between the ages of five and eight or so." It was kind of scary to even think about, even years afterward...except right now — she was too distractingly happy to really be bothered by it. This was probably the best time possible to have this conversation, honestly. "It was when I started obviously getting words wrong that the doctors realised what was going on. They told my mum that I was going to die, and there was nothing they could do about it. See, what happens is, the seizures just keep getting worse and worse. Eventually, people with it lose the ability to speak, and their coordination gets hit too, until they can't even feed themselves anymore, and in the end fall into a coma they'll never wake up from. Muggles with it rarely live past their twelfth birthday.
"My mum thought that was shite, obviously, and wrote to Andi. We didn't really have much to do with my magical relatives at the time, so they didn't know I was ill until then. The muggles don't have a treatment for it, but mages do — a kind of terrifying and painful one, honestly, I think it's technically a soul magic ritual — so a few months later I was perfectly fine. Well, not perfectly fine — there are side effects. You might have noticed I get tired or dizzy pretty easily, and while mages can reverse nerve damage any memories lost are gone forever. My vocabulary was pretty terrible for my age, and I had to relearn how to write almost from scratch. I was actually homeschooled for most of the rest of primary, to catch up." That was actually why her handwriting with a quill was better than any of the muggle-raised students, despite being mostly muggle-raised herself — Cassiopeia had re-taught her to write starting with one, which had been extremely frustrating. "But yeah, other than that, fine."
"But this isn't that," Liz said, sounding more like she was asking than stating.
"Um, this seizure wasn't like the ones when I was a kid, you mean? No, Pomfrey says they're almost certainly not. See, the treatment stops my nerves from slowly falling apart, but sometimes people with it still get epilepsy. Especially starting around puberty, because hormones are terrible."
Hermione snorted, when both Dorea and Liz glanced at her added, "That's common for normal epilepsy too, actually. Because puberty isn't uncomfortable enough on its own, apparently, some people get to deal with seizures on top of it."
"Ugh, yeah, you're telling me, bloody annoying." Literally at times, obviously, but also Dorea was ninety per cent certain she had a crush on Adrian Pucey. He was very handsome, of course, but he was also surprisingly nice for a sixth-year boy...but then, her only real contact with him was when he was talking to Liz about quidditch practice schedules and stuff — or lately the dueling club, which Liz was joining this year — and he and Liz were teammates, so maybe he only seemed nice to her for that reason? Thankfully, she'd managed not to make an idiot of herself so far, but it was distracting and frustrating, and she didn't know how to make it stop.
For some reason, Liz looked a little confused, which was funny just by itself. Lately Dorea had noticed Liz rubbing at her chest more than once, probably growing pains — she hadn't said anything about it, not wanting to draw attention to it and potentially embarrass Liz — but she was one of the youngest in their year, and tiny, so... "Have you had your first period yet?"
Liz blinked. "No?"
"Yeah, well, it's great fun, not uncomfortable or painful or just unnervingly weird at all, trust me." Actually, come to think of it, it probably wouldn't bother Liz much at all? Unless she got terrible cramps and stuff, anyway, but other than that — at least judging by her behaviour in Potions class, Liz had to be the single least squeamish girl Dorea had ever met. "Anyway, no, this wasn't like the seizures I had as a kid, I'm not dying again or anything. I'll probably have more of them though, because my brain hates me.
"About that, since I'll probably have more of them, Pomfrey doesn't want me to be out around the castle alone, until we know exactly what this is going to look like, in case I have another one. So they can go get help, you know." And also so she didn't fall down the stairs or something, she guessed. "So, er, I realise this might be kind of annoying, but someone's going to be stuck with me whenever I'm out of the dorms," she finished, a little sheepishly. Facing Liz, since it was probably going to be her most of the time, what with Hermione's dorm room being all the way on the opposite end of the castle. And Liz did like her space sometimes, so...
But Liz gave a limp shrug, said, "That's fine. We already spend most of our time together anyway. But there are quidditch and dueling meetings, I guess you could come along, but..."
It would be dead boring for Dorea, she meant. "I'll just hang out with study group people those times, it's fine. Thanks."
She shrugged again, a little awkwardly, but didn't say anything — Dorea guessed she wasn't sure what to say, because Liz was completely terrible at feelings things.
"So, right, um." Dorea played at her lip with her teeth for a second, her fingers tapping at her thighs. "That's all that's going on with that. We can talk about something else now."
Liz looked almost as lost for what to say as Dorea was, but Hermione came to their rescue, talking about their homework for Runes. Good old reliable Hermione, could always be counted on to fill awkward silences with academic rambling. Which, good, a distraction was good, Dorea didn't want to still be thinking about having seizures again when this weird annoying happiness finally wore off. It didn't really bother her right now, so much, but she knew she might be freaking out right now normally, so. Distraction, good.
She hoped Pomfrey was wrong about the seizures, because that was going to be terrible, she just knew it. It didn't seem too likely, but, she could hope, right?
(Not really, her luck on medical things wasn't that good. She was screwed.)
And that's that thing. Bluh.
I considered having a third scene in this one, but I think the next two chapters work better if I put the chapter break here. Also, I kind of just wanted to get something out, because it's been a little while now.
No idea when the next chapter will happen. I've been trying to work on the Plan lately, but I've also been feeling completely terrible — I've had days where I can barely top 500 words (2000 in a day is normally the low end for me), and other days where I can't write at all, which is just absurd, and extremely frustrating, and ugh.
Anyway, bye.