Ch 8: Always blushing or unconscious

"Miss Rosier?" the concerned voice brought her back to earth with a sudden jolt.

Her eyes flicked open to reveal the equally concerned face of Professor Moore hovering just above her. The cool cobblestone floor pressed uncomfortably into her spine as the room came back into focus with a dull ache.

"Sorry Professor, I must have stood up a little too quickly," she groaned and struggled to sit up.

"No, don't move," he ordered and laid his hands gently on her shoulders, preventing her from trying to get up any further, "You hit your head quite hard on the floor when you fainted. I've called for Madam Pomfrey. She should be here any moment."

He turned to address the rest of the room with a frown, "The rest of you can leave, I'm sure you have other classes to get to."

The realization slipped into Elsa like ice, all 4 or 5 students were still in the classroom and all focused quite intently on her. She could feel her hair getting pinker by the second as she tried to shake off his hands and sit up, "There's no need for that. I'm fine, I'm fine."

But the professor continued to restrict her movement and instead cast a meaningful look at the remaining students, who finally took that as their cue and trickled out, "Miss Rosier, I must insist you wait for Madame Pomfrey."

"Quite right," Madame Pomfrey agreed sternly, sweeping into the room as the last student left.

Professor Moore excused himself as Madame Pomfrey knelt by the prone girl and began a cursory examination, not wanting to move her just yet after hitting her head on the stones. A quick once over and several diagnostic spells later, Elsa was sitting upright and sipping on a pumpkin juice as Madame Pomfrey lectured her about eating enough. Elsa sighed and nodded, attempting to drain the juice quickly enough to make it to her next class on time, but somehow only managed small sip.

"You're not having your night-terrors, again are you?" Madame Pomfrey asked as she swished her wand over Elsa for a final diagnostic.

"Not really," she muttered into her goblet, "The nightlight helps."

The older nurse nodded and eyed the goblet expectantly, "You do have to finish that before I let you out of here my dear."

Elsa sighed and sipped it intently under the nurse's expectant eyes. Unfortunately, the room seemed to only be used by Ancient Runes, meaning it was just her and the nurse until she was ready to leave. Nearly 20 minutes later and she was finally allowed up and off to potions. The dull ache from the knot at the back of her head a subtle reminder of her time on the floor as she sped down the maze of staircases.

"Ah, Miss Rosier, glad you were able to join us after all," Professor Slughorn's jovial voice announced her entrance into the dungeons.

Heat rushed to her cheeks along with the familiar tingle at her hair roots. She took a deep breath and hoped desperately she'd managed to school her features into something at least mostly normal, "Sorry, Professor I-."

"Think nothing of it, my dear, Poppy sent ahead word about your unfortunate slip," he cut off her reply, oblivious to her increasing panic at the many sets of eyes that were now scrutinizing her. Instead, he swept his gaze over the class looking for an empty seat, "We've already assigned partners for class, but I believe someone was short a partner."

"Me!" Peter squeaked and rose his hand from the back of the classroom.

"Ah, perfect, why don't you go join Mr. Pettigrew," Slughorn nodded towards the empty seat and Elsa slunk over, breathing a brief sigh of relief as she realized that meant she wouldn't be partnered with Sirius.

Her eyes shot around the room to find him at the desk next to Peter, partnered with none other than James. What was Slughorn thinking? The two of them together was asking for disaster. At the professor's small ahem, she realized she'd been staring too long, and flushed again. Keeping her eyes down so she wouldn't have to see Sirius' response to what she was sure was her now pink hair, she hurried to the waiting open seat. Peter wasn't so bad, the quiet boy probably wouldn't draw any additional attention to her.

Smiling a brief welcome, Peter cleared her side of the desk and waited for her to get settled, "Hi Elsa."

"Hey Peter," She murmured and settled in next to the mousey boy before looking over his shoulder at his textbook to orient herself, "Calming draught? I guess that's one way to start off the school year."

Peter chuckled at her sarcasm, "Yeah, he said something about jumping right in before you showed."

She nodded and went over the list of ingredients, checking against what was already on their desk, "You forgot the moonstone and laurel. I'll be right back."

Just as she jumped up to go raid the ingredients cupboard the classroom was rattled by a loud boom. She threw herself to the ground as her ears reverberated painfully and panic caused her heart to thud painfully in her chest. Green smoke filled the entire room, tasting acrid on each inhale.

"You were supposed to crush the mayapple seed first," James' chastising whisper reached her through the haze.

"Either way that was one hell of an explosion," came Sirius' hushed but satisfied reply, "So long as the smoke is as harmless as you said, I'd call it a success."

"Everyone out!" Professor Slughorn boomed from somewhere in the smoke-filled room before he began shouting air clearing and containment charms.

She wanted to rise, she really did, but the bitter smoke was making her head feel fuzzy and she wasn't quite sure which direction was up. She was pretty sure the floor was stone down here in the basement, but it was beginning to feel warm and soft under her. Her musings were suddenly and harshly cut off with a blow to her stomach. She let out a small cry and curled around her middle, trying uselessly, to block further attack. The Lady of the House never stopped at just one blow.

"Merlin's beard, little mouse?" Sirius' husky voice cut through her panic, shocking her back to reality. She cracked her eyes open to find his stormy grey ones through the smoke as he knelt beside her with a hand outstretched as if he wanted to touch her but then thought better of it, "Sorry I didn't see you there. I-er… didn't mean to run into you like that. What're you doing down here on the floor?"

Her panic drained leaving her heart pounding but beginning to clear her head. She was in the basement and it had been his foot painfully connecting with her middle. Things began to make sense again as her breathing evened out.

Her subsiding panic quickly turned to anger, "You bloody stupid arse! You could hurt someone with these fumes!"

She grabbed his hand and used it to pull herself up, coming only about shoulder height on the tall Gryffindor, but furious enough it didn't matter. His eyes widened at her fury and he opened his mouth to explain that the smoke was supposed to be harmless. Of course, all the fear she'd managed to draw out of him immediately dropped away when she stumbled back, black swallowing her vision for the second time that day.

"Not again," she mumbled as the blackness gripped her and her consciousness began to falter again.

Sirius lunged forward and managed to catch her just in time, alarm rising in him at the dead weight in his arms. The smoke wasn't supposed to do anything other than cloud up the classroom and smell a bit bitter. He hefted her into a more secure grip and raced from the room, shouting for Remus in his panic, knowing the responsible Marauder would know what to do better than him. He'd been so stupid, a prank wasn't worth this.

"Moony, you have to fix her!" Sirius thrust the unconscious blonde towards Remus, "It wasn't supposed to do this."

Remus blanched at Elsa's state before throwing his cloak on the stone floor and motioning for Sirius to set her down. Moving with agility borne of panic, he grasped her wrist and felt for her pulse before leaning an ear over her chest to check her breathing.

"Whoa there Moony, taking advantage of the poor mouse?" James laughed as he sauntered up.

"I'm checking her breathing you complete bloody bellend!" Remus rebuked, "What in Merlin's beard did you do?"

"Hey, mouse is my name for her!" Sirius looked affronted at the appropriation of the nickname.

"Moony!" James gasped, but completely ignoring Sirius' outrage, "I don't think I've ever heard you swear!"

"Now is not the time for your inane jokes," Remus growled as he pried her eyelids open to check that her pupils were normally dilated, then breathed a sigh of relief, "I'm pretty sure she's alright. And bellend isn't a swear."

Sirius sighed in relief but continued to eye Remus as he started pawing through his bag, mumbling something about knowing he had something. Finally pulling out a tiny vial and chocolate bar frowning at it, "I suppose this will do."

He uncapped the vial and wafted it under her nose, muttering under his breath, "Come on, Ellie, wake up."

Her eyes fluttered open at the sharp smelling salts, "Only my brother calls me Ellie."

Remus chuckled at her dry response before shoving the chocolate at her, "Eat this."

She sat up slowly, taking in the four sets of eyes on her and felt herself blush for the thousandth time. She needed to go back to no one paying attention to her, she never used to blush this much, but now it seemed like her hair was more often pink than blonde. Honestly, you would think embarrassment was the only emotion she had. And what was it with everyone trying to feed her today.

She tried to wave away the chocolate, "I'm fine, it was just the smoke."

"Of course, it was the smoke!" Remus exclaimed, but refused to retract the chocolate, "Now eat."

She searched his warm golden eyes, trying to measure his resolve, before realizing it was hopeless and accepting the bar, "Fine if it'll get you all to stop looking at me like that."

Peter jumped at the accusation in her voice and immediately looked away, but Sirius and James just laughed. With her recovery assured, they shed their worry and began animatedly discussing modifications they could make to the potion. She broke off a corner of the chocolate as she watched them, bemused.

The rich chocolate melted in her mouth, coating her tongue in a heavenly mixture of bitter and sweet. A small moan escaped her as she turned back to Remus, surprise making her eyes wide, "This is amazing!"

He smiled and shrugged, a bit of pride glimmering in his eyes at the compliment, "There's no point in getting bad chocolate."

"It's fantastic," she gushed as she took another small bite, before looking down at the bar a bit guiltily. She swallowed hard, "It probably costs at least double a normal bar. Here, I'm alright now."

"Don't worry about it," he protested as she shoved the bar back at him, "You needed something after fainting like that."

But she held firm, forcing the bar back into his hands, "I'm fine now." Then, softening at his distressed look, "Thank you though, I really do feel much better after that."

She could have sworn a bit of pink crept up his pale cheeks and he returned the bar back to his book bad, "Think nothing of it. I'm just glad you're feeling better."

"If you two are done flirting," Sirius cut in in a harsh whisper, "Is there any chance we could get Ellie standing? Ol' Sluggy is headed this way and I don't want to know what he'll do if he thinks we actually hurt someone."

"Oh!" Elsa grasped his hand without a thought and pulled herself up quickly.

Remus let out a dismayed sound and lept up, moving as if to steady her when she wobbled but stopped himself short of touching her. The world felt a bit unstable, but the blackness didn't take over her vision again. She steadied herself and as the fogginess cleared and wondered why she'd jumped up like that. She really didn't need to cover for Sirius, it had been a stupidly dangerous prank. Of course, the last thing she needed was another Professor fussing over her having passed out or anything else drawing more attention to her. She looked up to watch Professor Slughorn storming towards the group and tried to slip behind Sirius more. He was tall and she'd be barely noticeable in his shadow.

"Messrs. Black and Potter, I believe that explosion came from your cauldron," Slughorn's voice probably didn't have the capacity to be cold, so instead it was just full of exacerbation, "Two nights of detention each and 50 points from Gryffindor."

The raven-haired boys looked down, having enough sense to at least pretend to be regretful, and not interrupt as he continued.

"I also doubt it's a good idea to leave the two of you paired together," he looked over their assembled group, eyes somehow landing on Peter, who looked as though he'd rather be anywhere else, "Mr. Pettigrew, you and Mr. Black will be swapping partners, you'll be working with Mr. Potter from now on."

Elsa let out a small squeak of dismay when she realized the implications of the swap. She'd be partnered with Sirius. Bold, eternally undeterred Sirius, who seemed to see more than he was supposed to. She wanted to argue, but what could she really say to a Professor.

"The classroom should be clear now," Slughorn announced to the entire gathering of students, "Everyone back in and back to work."

Sirius let out a dry chuckle as he turned to face Elsa, "I guess its just you and me now, my lovely little mouse."

Seeing her obvious distress, Remus shot Sirius a warning glare before turning to her, "I could ask the Professor if I could switch partners. You don't have to put up with this oaf taunting you all class."

She shook her head quickly, the idea of calling any more attention to herself making her breath hitch painfully, "It's fine. I don't want to be any more of an inconvenience."

There was something too knowing in the sad look he gave her in return before lifting his gaze to Sirius, "Be nice."

With that parting command, he followed the rest of the class back into the room.

Sirius shrugged and offered his arm gallantly to Elsa, "I suppose we better follow."

She shook her head and edged around him. Carefully avoiding any contact, she also headed back into the classroom, a sullen Sirius trailing her.