The Classroom Event
(A/N: I'm really sorry about this update! It's been so long, I'm sorry to have kept everyone waiting like I have. I can only apologise with this chapter! Again, this story hasn't died...my muse has been acting up lately...)
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The arrival of Monday morning didn't slow as much as Harry had wanted. It was a blistering, chilly dawn of early Spring, and it looked as if it had rained again during the night. The wind had been howling against his window, causing him to bury his face in the pillows, hiding his head and ears from the noise. He still felt awful, with his nose stuffy and his throat and head still hurting painfully.
If he had to admit it, he felt worse. He couldn't go to school like this! Aunt Petunia would be mad if she sent him off with a cold...parents would complain and everything. He could just picture an angry mob charging through the open door, threatening with pitchforks and flaming torches...the Dursleys crouching and cowering in the corner...
It sort of made Harry smile a little.
He stretched; the foggy dim greeting his face as he slowly rose from the bed. He grunted, blinking his eyes tight shut as a tight ache rippled throughout his body. The sweater still lay at the edge of his bed, and Harry brightened. He remembered the shocked look on his aunt's face, and he still couldn't figure it out.
Since there was no clock in his cupboard at this point (Vernon kept saying he was going to replace the battery...he had most likely stolen it), Harry had to make do with his watch to tell the time. A spark of hope filled him...it was past usual that his aunt normally came to wake him up. Maybe she had decided against school and thought about him having the day off for his condition.
So much hope swept over him that he didn't even think about the downside. Ten minutes later the door was being rapped on sharply, and Petunia's screeching voice was there, demanding him to get up and dressed. Harry felt it so unfair that he actually protested against her will.
"You shouldn't let me go, I told you I'm sick! They'll just send me home again!"
"You'll do as you're told!" Petunia snapped. "It's only a cold! What about Dudley? He still has to go, doesn't he? Diddums doesn't make a fuss when he's sick! He never pretends like you do – trying to save a day, I won't have it!"
Diddums? Harry forced back a laugh with another one of his coughs. "But what about that time when you fed him those carrots?" he questioned back. "You let him stay off school then when he swore you gave him belly-ache!" He could remember the day so well. One of Petunia's old school friends had arrived and had disapproved on Dudley's weight. His mother had tried to make a dent in the works, but came out unsuccessful.
Behind the door, Petunia straightened up as if she had been offended, her lips pursed. "That was different – he had food-poisoning! He might've died if he had gone!"
"He never ate them!" Harry cried exasperatingly. "He flushed them down the toilet!"
There was a silence.
"Oh, I've had enough of your lies!" she said. "We all have! Stop trying to get your cousin into trouble and get up! You're going to school whether you like it or not! And it's not my fault," she added as she turned to leave, "It's not my fault if you cause a sickness to rouse in that school, it's your fault for sleeping in the rain! Silly boy! – and if you even try to get Dudley sick – there'll be trouble, young man..."
Harry rolled his eyes and flung his head back into the pillow, his head burning and a groan escaping from his throat. He knew it was a hopeless chance, he knew it! Offering a thump to the bed, he climbed out and began to change, a level of anger and impatience dwelling through him, though not much because...liking it or not, Harry did feel as if some part were his own fault.
Bring on the hate. Those were his four basic word groups for today.
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After emerging from his cupboard, dressed and ready for breakfast, Harry retreated directly to the living room, while he waited for the rest of the household to wake. He had already set everything up for making their morning dish, but again didn't feel like anything for himself. It wasn't the fact that he wasn't hungry (because he was), it was only the matter of keeping it down.
His aunt and uncle shot him a glare as he made his way out of the house with Dudley. Harry could have sworn that Vernon had taken him aside and whispered; "Keep at least two metres distance, son...remember what we talked about...", treating Harry as if he were carrying some deadly virus or if he were a bomb about to explode.
Of course, Dudley tried to pretend to his father that he understood, but was so unsure of where exactly two metres stood that he ran in front, leaving Harry behind to walk on his own. Not that Harry minded this. He preferred it than listening to his cousin blubber all the way about his illness.
He tried to ignore it mostly. The school nurse in passing him gave him a strange look, which didn't make him feel any better. He guessed even from the outside he was beginning to look sick...and he wondered what his teacher would say. His maths teacher, tall and eagle-like, was a strict woman with rather peculiar hair (all of her classes claimed it was a wig), and she wasn't that fond of him, mainly because very 'funny' things tended to happen in her classroom when he was there.
Funny odd funny, not amusing.
He took his place at his seat, trying to be as invisible as he could. He could hear whispering all around him, and passive looks, and he knew that they were talking about him. He must have looked terrible, with his dreary eyes and ever-messy hair...and his pale face. His hands were shaking too.
Dudley wasn't in the same class as Harry. He was in the one next door, which made him feel glad. Otherwise, the whole of the room would have had to take safety precautions from the likes of him, and Harry didn't think he would have been able to bear it.
A golden-haired girl in his class, named Betsy Myers, quickly scooted over to sit next to him. Whenever Harry was teased, or blamed, Betsy always claimed that she felt sorry for him, and made a friendly effort to try and include him in her group, or at least partner him when teams were chosen. She was secretly afraid of Dudley, but tried not to make her attempts popular.
"Hello, Harry," she said.
"Hi," Harry replied, with little enthusiasm. He didn't mind Betsy coming over and talking to him, only today, he wasn't quite in the mood. She seemed to be dancing about before Harry's eyes, and he blinked a bit to steady them. His vision was going a little blurry around the edges too, even with his glasses on.
Betsy frowned. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah – yeah," Harry answered back, trying to sound surprised. "Why?"
"You just..." Betsy paused, hoping to sound out the words right on her tongue. "You don't look very well, that's all." She watched his face fall at the sound of her voice. Obviously she had hit out at a precautious point, and she felt the usual sympathy as he leaned forward and placed his head in the palm of his hands.
"Sorry," she sighed.
"It's O.K."
"Well...are you? Sick, that is?" Betsy turned her head around to her friends, who were giggling and making strange noises that reminded her of gagging, and some were pretending to kiss in mid-air. Betsy scowled at them playfully and turned back.
"I'm fine," Harry said.
"What's wrong with you? Do you have a headache? Is that why you're holding your head in that way?"
"I said, I'm - "
But Betsy never found out what he was, in case she hadn't been listening to him. For at that moment, the door burst open and in walked his teacher, muttering inconstantly to herself, and apologising cheaply to the students about some form of 'car trouble'. It was her same, usual excuse, and she found to her disgust that most of her class went along with her, saying the words.
"That's quite enough of that," she spat, which got everyone else spitting, and mimicking her tight, wiry voice. She was not a very favourite teacher with the children, and even though she was strict, she hardly had any ability to keep full control of her class. She fixed this by dealing punishments out, which kept some silence when she got going.
"Right, everyone. Let's keep our eyes on these exercises," she told them, demonstrating towards the board and then retreating to her desk, fishing out some past reports and marking them in her bold, black pen. In a few moments, there was complete quiet, everyone wisely seeing her temper behind her comic glasses (not to mention the preposterous wig).
Harry found it difficult to concentrate with his throbbing head and aching throat, which was again beginning to act up when he swallowed. Betsy hung over his shoulder every now and again, asking and asking under whispers if he felt all right. It began to annoy him, as he knew that she was only trying to be helpful, but the more she asked him, the more he seemed to remember it, and it only became worse on his senses. He found that it died down a bit if he thought about something else.
"Harry. Harry. Harry…"
"What?" Harry whispered back impatiently. He never quite realised how irritating that was, when people kept repeating one's names over and over. He bleakly turned to face Betsy, whose blue eyes now opened in astonishment. Harry couldn't get around to understanding why she was looking at him like that, but before he could ask, she addressed the class in a very loud voice:
"Gosh!"
Everyone, including the teacher, stopped what they were doing to look at her, their attention easily forgotten on their math problems. Harry stared at her in shock, as she never took her eyes off his face, and her own seemed to show a little sadness for him. After a while a few people laughed to themselves, surprised at the interruption.
The teacher quickly silenced them with a hand motion, and an expression of inner rage. "Yes, class! Thank you!" Looking over at Betsy from behind her textbook, she slammed it shut into a thud of the silence, and marched her way over to the girl, not seeming very impressed with her exclamation of astonishment. She stopped in front of her, Betsy now behaving in front of her classmates, and her eyes wide and approachable to the teacher's voice.
"Miss...Myers, is it?"
Betsy nodded fervently.
"Please, Miss Myers, would you be so kind as to tell us...yes, the whole class, what was so important that you had to disturb their math lesson?" This was where the teacher became her hawkish self, as her eyes rather narrowed and fixed on poor Betsy's face, and her mouth stuck out very beak-like and dangerous, as if she would snap out at the nearest person to disagree with her.
A row of giggling went up, which was immediately stopped by the teacher's stern look. Nobody wanted to try her patience now, when she was on a roll like this. Betsy tried not to appear as if the staring bothered her.
"W-what I was trying to say," she began, "Is that...um...I think that Harry isn't very well. I said 'gosh' because he...well..."
"Spit it out, girl!" the teacher cried impatiently. It was one thing that she utterly couldn't stand...when people took so long to say something.
"Well...look at him, Miss," Betsy merely said, hiding her flushed face from Harry.
The teacher turned, and almost gasped herself. School was indeed taking its toll on Harry, and hadn't been helping him at all. His eyes were bright and glassy, his cheeks pink against his paling face, dreary gaze and matted hair, where he was beginning to sweat at the brow. The teacher knew just as well as he did that he should have stayed at home, tucked up in bed. He looked so unwell that she had to say something.
"Mr. Potter! Heavens, child! You're ailing!" she shrieked. "Why have you come to class like that – to school like that? You can't work in that condition!"
"I'm fine," Harry said again, though he didn't feel fine. He just didn't take to the thought of going home under his aunt's glare, and she would have been put in her place by his earlier words. "It's just a cold, Miss."
"It's more than that!" she continued. "Mr. Potter – Harry, I'll have to ask you to go down to the nurse."
Harry sat up. "No, I'm fine," he begged. "Please, Miss...she'll send me home!"
"Which is exactly where you need to be!" his teacher argued. "I can't have you sitting here, spreading your germs to the rest of the class! You'll bring everyone down with flu! No – Harry, you'll go to the nurse, I'll write you a note...and I'll hear no more of your backtalk...your cheek -"
At her words, and out of nowhere, a fire suddenly sprang in the corner of the room, burning away the small stepladder the teacher used to reach high places. In moments, the class was in screams and shouts, beckoning to the teacher to turn around and see the ladder, while she was busily writing away.
"Teacher, teacher! The room's on fire!"
It was the smell that caught her attention. Turning around, she produced such a screech that the children were quickly in pits of laughter instead of screams. Betsy Myers squealed, and jumped up, away from Harry. Instantly, the teacher turned on him with a furious glare.
"What have you set off, Harry! Mr. Potter, is this your idea of a joke?"
"No, Miss! I-I didn't!" Harry protested, truthfully. "I don't know...it just started!"
"Typical lie!" the teacher snapped. Breaking through the crowds of ranting students, she held out a quivering arm, containing Harry's note to the sanitary. Her writing was wobbly and her expression poisonous. "Go..." she growled. "Go...and don't come back..."
Harry took the note, still in shock from what had happened. He was barely out of the door when the class rioted, bumping the teacher back and forth - and one show-off leapt onto the awaiting teacher's back with a yodel, causing her wig to tumble off. "It's true!" he had laughed, and the ringing sound of excitement followed Harry down the corridor, as he made his way to the nurse.
He was still burning with anger and confusion. Another accident...it always seemed to be whenever he was in the classroom. He was beginning to wonder if he was a curse, or jinx...something that the children detested against. He hoped that it wouldn't come to that.
The nurse was not happy with him either. She told him he was a foolish boy for coming to school, and why his parents didn't keep him at home like the sensible idea that it was. Harry glumly wanted to say that they weren't his parents, they were his aunt and uncle and they hated him...but he didn't think it would be wise.
"You're in for a batch of flu, Harry," she said. "I'm going to send a call to your guardian and ask to take you home. You can't keep coming to school like this."
Harry sighed. He should have known from the beginning that the teachers would have sent him back in the first place. He had even tried to tell his Aunt Petunia but she only scolded him for it. Now she was probably going to think this was all his fault too. In gloominess, and frustration, Harry knew that it was, as well.
Petunia arrived twenty minutes later, her handbag swinging wildly over her arm and her teeth grit behind her thin mouth. She didn't look pleased, and she marched over to her nephew as she uttered a low growl in her throat. Harry only exhaled.
"Get your things," she hissed. "I'm taking you home."
To be continued
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(A/N: Another chapter done! Please tell me what you think!)
