Only Half-Weasley
Chapter 10
A/N- Yes, it's been quite a while, but worth it, I assure you! Thank you, Epona, for reading this and going through it with me. I know that I haven't been doing very well with updates, but I have the next chapter all lined up after this and written down in my notebook. Never fear- I will never give up! Thank you to everyone who reviewed on my last chapter and now this chapter. I really appreciate the reviews and all support!
The sky was threatening to rain when Ginny left her apartment. She pulled her cloak tighter around her as the wind beat against her back and tried to ignore the icy sting on her neck. Diagon Alley was several miles from her apartment, but Ginny didn't seem to mind the walk--it would give her some time to think. For several weeks, multiple thoughts lingered in Ginny's mind and she could swear that she was going crazy. She needed some time and space away from her muggle life to think clearly about her life and so she took the journey to the little pub unusually slow.
It was difficult for Ginny to think of her life before Alex. She knew that if she looked into the past that she would long for the life she had. She wouldn't admit that leaving the wizarding community was the biggest mistake of her life, but she realized soon after that she had decided too hastily and had been regretting it for twelve years. Many times, she had considered going back and apologizing to her family, but when Ginny would look at her blonde daughter, all she could see was misery. Holly acted so much like a common Muggle that Ginny couldn't imagine her having a drop of magical blood. Sometimes she would watch her daughter sleep and hope that a miracle would happen…but how could miracles happen to someone who deliberately chose the wrong path? It wasn't possible. For the first eleven years of her daughter's life, Holly did not show any magical characteristics and this had confirmed Ginny's fears. If only she had known sooner that the letter was going to come, maybe she would have thought differently over the last twelve years. Maybe she would have returned sooner…
Step by step, her feet carried her steadily through the pouring rain. Cars zoomed past, spraying water at Ginny as they hit puddles. She was now drenched to the bone, but there was something satisfying about it. She struggled to keep her body temperature up and pulled her cloak tighter around her, but strangely, the cloak did nothing to keep the water out. Ginny stopped in the middle of a deserted alley and looked up at the sky and the falling water.
"This is my punishment, isn't it?" she asked the sky. "This is my punishment for leaving my family for twelve years and marrying a Muggle and keeping my daughter away from the wizarding world! Did I really make the wrong decision? If this was you, would you have acted differently? I gave my life to my daughter these past twelve years! I worked and ate and breathed for her! Could you blame me? Of course you can't. You're only the sky. You rain on everyone that's foolish enough to step outside."
She sensed a bitter taste in her mouth before realizing that she had bit her tongue. Although the sting hurt, a sense of relief flooded over her and she moved on. She knew she deserved this; she deserved all of this. She hadn't been living for her daughter at all. She had been only been justifying the mistake she had made by thinking that it wouldn't benefit her daughter to return. Even if her daughter was a squib, Holly had the right to know the truth. Ginny had no right to deny her that. Now, Ginny truly understood. She understood all of her anxiety, all of her bitterness, and all of her worries. They had all been for herself and no one else. Now the world was telling her how selfish she had been. The rain poured down, the wind became stronger, and Ginny knew that she had brought this upon herself. The only way she would be able to get out of this storm was to find shelter.
Through the downpour, Ginny spotted the pub half hidden in the shadows between two other stores. The street was nearly deserted of both cars and people, but that didn't surprise her since she wouldn't be out in this dreary weather either if she didn't have to. Walking up to the entrance, Ginny yanked the door handle aggressively and stepped inside the pub.
The warm air surrounded her and melted her frozen bones as she closed the door behind her. As the pounding rain ceased in her ears, the soft mumbling of the other customers took its place. Ginny rung out her hair and cloak and let the water form a puddle at her shoes. As nervous as she was to be in there again, no one around her seemed to notice her at all. This gave Ginny more confidence as she made her way through the moderately filled pub and out to the back where the pouring rain drenched her once again.
It surprised her to feel the rain cease it's rapping on her cloak as she stepped through the entrance to Diagon Alley. She zigzagged through the crowd of Saturday shoppers until Ginny stood in front of steps leading to Gringotts bank. Her first idea was to exchange some of her muggle money to galleons, sickles, and knuts. She could just imagine the shopkeepers' responses when she handed them her British notes.
A pair of goblins greeted her at the door with smirks on their faces. Ginny moved quickly past them and found an available goblin among the line of windows. The bank was oddly empty for this time of day on the weekend and this made her nervous.
"Yes?" the goblin said, giving her an odd look.
"I need to exchange my currency," she said, pulling out a large sum of notes from a pocket in her cloak.
The goblin's expression changed as he looked at the money. "Do you have a key?" he asked.
Ginny looked at the goblin questioningly. "We need a key? I have never needed a key before."
"It's the procedure now," the goblin answered indifferently.
"Since when?"
"Since it has become our policy," the goblin said angrily. "Do you have your key or do you not?"
Ginny dug her hands into the pockets of her cloak. Her right hand grasped a small metal object and pulled it out. With a grimace, Ginny placed the key on the counter and watched as the goblin examined it. His eyes moved from the key to Ginny, back to the key, and back to Ginny. If Ginny wasn't so irritated, she might have found the goblin's expression comical. However, her face paled slightly as she realized that the goblin recognized her key.
"Yes, yes," the goblin said suddenly as if interrupting his own thoughts, "this key seems to be operational. Come this way and I will escort you to your vault."
"But I don't want to go to my vault," Ginny protested. "I just want to exchange these muggle notes for galleons!"
"Well, then, follow my instructions and we will exchanged your currency. New procedure," the goblin spat.
With a frustrated sigh, Ginny followed the goblin to one of the carts that lead into the dark caves. The cart twisted, turned, spun, right, left, right, left, left, left, right, down, up, faster, faster, faster. After a few minutes, the cart jerked and halted in front of Vault #874. The goblin got out and unlocked the door with Ginny's key. The room inside was quite bare as it had been emptied twelve years before.
Ginny got out of the cart and looked inside her vault. "So, how are we going to exchange currency in here?" she asked, taking a step inside, expecting some hidden door to pop open and answer her question.
"Like this," the goblin said with a grin and shut the door behind Ginny.
The sudden darkness caused Ginny to trip over herself and crash into a wall. Her head hit the rock wall and she nearly fainted as the rest of her body slid to the ground. Her hands stretched around her, trying to feel the room, but nothing was there. Nothing was everywhere and this frightened Ginny even more. It took several minutes to organize her jumbled thoughts enough to reach into her pocket and pull out her wand.
"Lumos," she whispered. The light was powerful against the previous nothingness and Ginny was able to make out the corners of the vault. An outline of the door was to her right and she stared at it, expecting it to open at any moment. Yet, it didn't open and something inside her told Ginny that it wouldn't.
"What is going on?" she thought to herself. In the twenty-one years that she had lived in the wizarding world, she had never heard of goblins locking up witches and wizards in their own vaults! Why, this was unthinkable! If the Ministry of Magic heard about this, they would be outraged! But how were they going to hear about it? Ginny was locked up in a vault three miles below the earth's surface. No one was going to hear about it. She was going to die and Holly was going to be an orphan and live with her grandmother.
A frustrated tear fell from Ginny's lashes. "Why does this always happen to me?"
Hermione pulled her daughter through the unusually crowded streets until she was in front of the joke shop. "Mum!" Meredith cried. "The shop is closed!"
The two halted in front of a sign that Hermione didn't know existed. "Closed?" Hermione read on the sign. "Since when do the twins close their shop?" She peered into the windows of the shop and it was confirmed; the shop was dark and there was no movement from within. Hermione turned around and looked into the growing crowd around her.
"Mum, it's Uncle Harry!" Meredith squealed.
Hermione jumped at the site of her best friend. "Harry! What are you doing here?"
Harry squeezed through the crowd until he stood in front of Hermione. "The Ministry called," he replied. "I tried to come as quickly as I could, but they have already taken several hostages."
"What?" Hermione asked in confusion. "Hostages? Who has taken hostages?"
"The goblins!" he exclaimed. "Isn't that why you're here? I just saw Ron."
Hermione's attention quickly moved to the crowded street where she gazed intently as if her husband was going to appear at any second. "Ron? Ron's here?"
"Yes, the Ministry called him, too," Harry said, running a hand through his hair. "How do you of all people not know what's going on?"
Harry ducked in time to miss a bag of books aimed at his head. "I came here for a book so I can clean Ronald's house!" Hermione said. "Now tell me why my husband who was at home only a few minutes ago is now fighting against goblins!"
"The goblins are upset about a new law that was passed last week that will limit their use of magic," Harry explained, still eyeing the bag of books nervously. "Ministry Officials have been keeping their eyes and ears on the bank with the help of Mr. Fred and Mr. George Weasley. They have finally found a productive use for those extendable ears."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm glad that all of their mischief has finally proved to be helpful," she said with a hint of sarcasm. "How do you happen to be here, then? You're not a part of the Ministry."
"The goblins called me, of course," Harry replied with a mischievous grin. "Alright, Ron told me. As soon as we detected that the goblins were locking people in their vaults-"
"They're WHAT?" Hermione said in astonishment.
"Quiet! This isn't supposed to get out!" Harry whispered fiercely.
"Oh, really? Then why are you discussing this with me in a crowd full of people?"
"Muffliato," he answered simply.
Hermione cast Harry an indignant look. "I can't believe you're still using that spell!" Hermione said angrily. "After all of the trouble that got us into-"
"Look, that's not the point," Harry interrupted her. "Ron thought he might need some back-up and it looks like he's right. The goblins have made an invisible barrier in front of Gringotts and the twins sent me here to grab a few supplies. I recommend you take Meredith home before she gets hurt."
"I don't want to go home! I want to watch!" Meredith, who had been unusually quiet during the conversation, piped up.
Hermione looked down at her daughter, trying to hide the worry in her eyes. "This not the time, Meredith," Hermione told her 9-year-old sternly. She turned back to Harry who was unlocking the door to the shop. "I'll be back in a minute, Harry. Tell Ron that I'll be back!"
Harry nodded as he watched his best friend disappear into the vast sea of people crowding the street. He turned back to the shop and slid through the narrow gap in the door before closing it behind him. "Lumos," he whispered and held up his light to the dark walls filled with every imaginable thing known and unknown to man. "Pee-Wee Robes, Edible Fuzzy Sneakers…Burping Mothballs?"
His eyes scanned the little fur-balls curiously. Years of experience with Fred and George's pranks told Harry to step away from the dangerous little things. Yet, how could these little fur-balls be dangerous? They almost looked like mini pygmy puffs….
Harry reached out his right hand and was about to grab one when it went off; a giant belch with so much force that Harry was temporarily deaf and didn't hear the twenty other mothballs begin to belch in rhythm to what wizards would recognize as a popular song sung by the Weird Sisters. He also didn't hear the bell ring behind him or realize that someone was in the room until a tap on his shoulder sent him flying to the ceiling.
"Harry!" Fred Weasley mouthed while holding his hands to his ears. "What did you do?"
"Shut up," Harry replied with glare. "Help me."
The force of the on-going belching blasted Harry to the floor while Fred took cover behind one of the other shelves. The noise vibrated through the store like a massage chair gone wild with an atomic bomb. It took more skill than energy for Fred to pull out his wand and cease the belching before he, too, could become deaf.
"You ok?" Fred asked.
Harry looked back up with water pouring down from his eyes from the huge amount of pressure. "Can't…hear…sound…hurts," he whispered.
"Alright, mate," the Weasley twin replied and walked to the end of the shop where he and George had stored all of the more dangerous items. "I came back to warn you not to touch those. They have a…sort of attraction charm on them that makes you want to pick one up. Then, when you do, they belch like crazy; one of our more brilliant—and annoying—inventions."
Harry picked himself off of the ground and watched Fred fill a bag full of odd objects. A high-pitch ring was still echoing in his ears and he couldn't hear a word that Fred was saying. "What?" he asked when he noticed that Fred's lips were moving.
The other man shook his head and muttered, "Never mind."
Fred finished rummaging through the shelves and handed Harry a large bag filled with items that would make Mrs. Weasley shriek if she knew her boys had invented them. Harry gave Fred a quizzical look as he followed the twin out of the shop. "Is this legal?" he whispered, cringing slightly as he was still in quite a lot of pain.
"With five relatives working in the Ministry, do you think that it wouldn't be legal?" Fred challenged him.
Harry looked at Fred doubtfully. "That didn't stop you from inventing biting toilet seats," he pointed out.
"And it made us a fortune, too!" Fred replied thoughtfully, as if recalling a sweet dream. "Besides, my brother asked for some of this stuff. We can't let the law stand in the way from helping family, can we?"
Harry picked up what looked like a mini torpedo decorated with spikes. "Like this?"
"Let's go," Fred answered quickly as he snatched the torpedo out of Harry's hand and shoved the dark-haired man out the door and into the crowd.
"Where were you?" Ron asked his brother and best friend impatiently as they approached.
Fred grimaced as he handed Ron the sack of goodies. "We thought we would stop for ice cream on the way back, Ron. Harry was hungry," he said sarcastically.
"Harry!"
"Don't bother talking to him," Fred advised, motioning to Harry who was setting his sack on the ground carefully. "He's half-deaf now."
"Huh?"
"He had a run-in with the Burping Mothballs."
"Why didn't you warn him about those?" Ron snapped.
"I dunno, Mum," Fred replied. "It must have slipped my mind. If I had to-"
"Forget it, Fred," said Ron, turning to a Ministry Official next to him. "Get these bags to Tucker and Winder," he instructed.
"Harry, you ok?"
Ron spun around to find his wife standing next to his best friend and examining his ears. Fred smirked while Ron just gaped in disbelief. "Hermione, what are you doing here?"
Hermione handed Harry a vial out of her handbag and looked at her husband. "The same thing you are doing here," she replied. "I came to help."
"We don't need you to help, Hermione," Ron protested. "We have all the help we need. I have stationed sixty-five Aurors around the place. You don't need to be here."
"You're right: I don't need to be here," Hermione agreed. "I want to be here. Meredith is with your parents right now and since there seem to be no Healers here, I'm stepping in. What if someone gets hurt and needs immediate assistance? Wouldn't you agree that having a well-trained Healer on hand is a good idea?" Hermione's eyes challenged Ron's until he grudgingly backed off.
Harry shook his head, testing his sense of balance. "You always have to be right, don't you?" Harry said with a grin.
"It's not about being right," Hermione replied with a hint of pride. "It's about doing what's right. Ron won't challenge that."
Harry nodded in agreement and watched Aurors around the building making use out of the Weasley Wizard Wheezes' most dangerous pranks. He couldn't imagine how useful any of these weapons were when the goblins had an invisible barrier running across the entrance, but he never did have the same thought process as Fred and George. The crowd that had been suffocating Harry and Hermione before were now being pushed back by the Aurors so that the first fifteen feet in front of the bank were clear. Everything was being set for the raid on the bank until-
"Mr. Weasley!" an Auror shouted. "They're coming out!"
Everyone's attention immediately focused on the door that was now opened. Four goblins hobbled out of the bank and Ron signaled for the Aurors to get ready to fire.
"That is not necessary, Mr. Weasley," the goblin on the left announced. "We have come to negotiate."
Ron whispered something to the man next to him before he answered. "Negotiate?" Ron said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, negotiate," another goblin spat. "We do not agree with your laws!"
"That's not why laws are made," Ron answered. "Laws are made to protect the community- not for everyone to agree with them!"
The goblin on the right stepped forward and was now several feet away from Ron. "Some laws are made for protection. Other laws are made out of fear. The Ministry does not trust us. That is a mistake."
"What do you want?" Ron asked.
"We want the law revoked. We want our freedom back. We will give you the prisoners in exchange for the law's annulment," the goblin stated.
"Give us the prisoners first and then we will talk about."
"Foolish wizard!" the goblin stated. "Even you do not trust us! If the wizards believe us to be dangerous creatures, then we will show you how dangerous we can be! Bring out the girl." Through the doors, two goblins dragged the blonde Ginny who was struggling under invisible binds to break free. The crowd gasped in shock as she was being displayed before them. "Do you still not trust us?"
Before Ron could reply, the prisoner was raised into the air ten…twenty…thirty feet into the air. Her invisible binds were released and she began to flail uncontrollably. "WHY YOU EVIL PIECES OF SCUM! WAIT UNTIL I COME DOWN THERE AND WRING YOUR NECKS UNTIL YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN!" Ginny continued to throw curses and insults at the goblins; some she knew her mother would faint if she ever heard her daughter say such things.
One of the goblins smirked in amusement and with a nod, Ginny was doing flips. Another goblin, joining in the game, turned Ginny's legs into jell-o so that her legs seemed to flop with every flip. Itchy warts. Hair on fire. Ticklish toes. Stinging hiccups. The spells seemed to mesh into one horrible nightmare. Never had Ginny been so humiliated in public, but after several minutes of this torture, she finally gave up fighting. Her body became limp in the air and she ceased to shout curses at her torturers. It was no use; she was helpless.
"Let her go!" Ron cried instinctively, feeling a sense of panic.
One of the goblins grinned maliciously at Ron and said, "Very well." With a snap of his fingers, the woman who was spinning and flipping through the air was released from the spells and her body dropped to the ground like a rag doll. Before any wizard or witch could reach her, Ginny collided into the top of the stairs, blood spraying the steps as her head cracked open and continuing to dribble down the steps while her body rolled down the bottom and landed in front of Ron, Hermione, Fred, and Harry.
Hermione was the first at her side, her wand out and her bag open next to her. Spells flipped through her mind like wildfire until she could find the right one to stop the bleeding. There were bruises covering her upper body while her lower body was trembling from the effect of the numerous hexes and curses.
"Is she going to be ok?" Ron asked worriedly, kneeling down next to his wife.
Hermione bit her lip and nodded. A long strand of light was carefully running between Hermione's wand and the witch's body and no one spoke until the Hermione was finished. "It's just a concussion and fracture," she replied. "Some lingering spell effects, but I think she'll be alright with a few days rest."
"I've seen her before," Harry spoke up from behind Hermione.
Hermione and Ron spun around to look at their best friend. "You have?" Hermione questioned.
"I broke her nose, remember?" Harry muttered, hoping no one else would hear.
Ron snorted into his robes. "I'd say this woman has bad luck!"
"I thought you didn't believe in that stuff, Ronald," Hermione retorted.
"I don't," Ron replied. "But she will when she wakes up."
"The guys from St. Mungo's are here, and Ron, you still have a goblin problem to deal with," Fred interrupted, eyeing the four goblins in front of the building.
"Oh, right," Ron stood up and dusted his robes off. He motioned for two Ministry workers and together, they approached the goblins. A bloody battle of negotiation ensued full of yelling and fist-waving. For several hours, the lingering spectators witnessed more curses, more shouting, more threatening, but by sunset, the two parties were able to come to an agreement. The goblins assured that they would release their remaining prisoners, not take anymore prisoners, and abide by the law if the Ministry would revoke their new law prohibiting goblin magic in the wizarding community.
By sunset, Ron was sitting in his office at the Ministry, filling out paperwork, and recalling the events that had occurred that day. The screams, the curses, the fighting—everything seemed to stab him like a knife. He had been in these situations before; he had seen women injured due to their own recklessness. His job with the Ministry was to get people out of these situations. Yet, today was different; every part of it was different. The scene had never hit so close to home…
"Ron, you're still here," a voiced startled Ron from the doorway. Harry stood in the doorway looking worn and beat from the adventure that day. After the negotiations, Harry saw to it that all of the hostages were released and taken to St. Mungo's for examination. "Hermione asked me to see what you were up to. She thought that we maybe we could meet for dinner."
Ron looked at the ceiling for a moment before he turned back to Harry. "After all that happened, we can still go out and meet for dinner," he said curiously.
"Well, yes, that was the whole point in getting rid of Voldemort- freedom to eat," Harry replied jokingly. "Are you ok?" Harry asked seriously when Ron failed to laugh at his joke.
"Yeah, I'm ok," Ron said after a moment. "It has just been an odd day and I can't seem to get that woman's screams out of my head. I feel like I'm going insane."
"You, too?" Harry replied with a raised eyebrow. "Those screams have been haunting me since I left Diagon Alley for St. Mungo's. I did check up on the woman and the Healer said that she should be fine."
"Do they know who it is?"
"Her name is Jenny Miller," Harry answered. "I have her daughter in my Defense Against the Dark Arts class—she's the one that was catapulted off of her broom in the Quidditch Pitch. Professor McGonagall granted me permission to take the student to see her mother when the two are in better shape."
Ron chuckled, relieved to know that the woman was going to be ok. "Like mother, like daughter," he chanted.
"I'd say!" said Harry. "Come on, Hermione is waiting for us and I'm starving."
"I'm coming," said Ron, tossing some papers in a folder and sending it out the door. The two exited the Ministry and five minutes later met Hermione in front of St. Mungo's. It only took a good meal and laughter between old friends for Ron's worries to escape him and by the end of the night, Ron felt like his old self.
Yet, Ron did not completely forget about the goblins and the woman. He would meet them again in his sleep that night but this time, the woman would take the more familiar form of a red-headed girl with large chocolate eyes…
Unaware of her mother's condition, let alone anything else in the world, Holly woke up to the sound of laughter after being unconscious for three days. Her head felt like an axe had split it in half and her muscles ached horribly when she tried to move. For several moments, she could only stare at the ceiling in wonder of where she was and why she felt like she had been run over by a bulldozer.
"Holly! You're awake!" an excited cry echoed painfully in Holly's head. Cynthia's smile came into view above her along with the Weasley twins, Daniel and Michael. "How do you feel?"
Holly closed her eyes tightly as the pain increased and then subsided. "Horrible," she whispered, opening her eyes to look at her friend. "What happened to me?"
"You flew across the Quidditch Pitch fifty feet in the air before crashing," Michael informed her with a grin. "It was brilliant, really."
The memory of the flying off of the broom suddenly flooded back to Holly conscious mind and she groaned. "No, it wasn't brilliant. It was stupid. I am never going to fly a broom again!" she said determinedly.
"Out of the way! Out of the way! This is my patient, children!" The three Gryffindors moved back to let Madam Hertz approach the bed. "Finally! A few more hours and I was going to have to send you to St. Mungo's. Never mind that, though. The good thing is that you're awake." The nurse took several moments to check her over and ask her if she was experiencing anymore pain. The group next to the bed watched as the nurse gave her several potions to gulp down before leaving the room again.
"A worry-bird," Daniel mumbled as the door shut to Madam Hertz's office. "She has been like that all day."
"All day?" Holly repeated. "You guys have been here all day?"
"Of course!" Michael answered. "That's what friends do, right?"
Holly looked doubtfully at the twins. "Friends? Since when have we been friends?"
The twins exchanged a nervous look before Daniel responded. "Look, we're really sorry about that. We were being-"
"-idiots-" Michael inserted.
"-and we didn't mean to be so rude."
"We want to be friends again. That is—if you'll take us back as friends."
Cynthia read the anger and distrust written clearly on Holly face and came to their defense. "Emma is the one who has been telling everyone to avoid you. She told Michael and Daniel that you had called her some names and insulted her family. All lies, of course. Don't blame them, though. They understand now."
"Yeah," Michael agreed, "and we're going to give her a taste of her own medicine."
"See how she feels to have rumors spread about her," Daniel chimed in.
"Forgive us?" Michael added.
Holly looked slightly relieved and simply nodded. "Alright, I forgive you," she muttered.
The doors to the hospital wing opened and Professor Potter walked in. "It's good to see you awake, Holly," he said, approaching her bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I got run over by a bulldozer," she replied automatically. "But besides that, I'm fine."
"I'm sorry about that," Professor Potter apologized. "I will leave flying instruction to Madam Hunt from now on. On another note, I need to talk to you about something—your mother. She is in St. Mungo's Hospital. There was an incident in Diagon Alley yesterday and your mother took quite a fall. In a few days when you're ready to leave the hospital wing, I will take you to see your mother."
Holly jumped up in alarm. "No, I can leave now," she said, getting out of bed and searching for her robes.
"We can't go now, Holly," Professor Potter stopped her. "You need rest and your mother is unconscious."
"But she needs me!" Holly pleaded. "I'm the only family she has left!"
"And I assure you that you will be there when she wakes up," the teacher answered. "That might be a few days. Until then, you need to rest." Professor Potter gently led Holly back into her bed, hoping not to disturb the nurse.
"What's going on?" Madam Hertz asked, peeking from behind her door. "Who's shouting?"
"No one is shouting," Professor Potter answered good-naturedly. "Everything is under control. I will see you in a few days, Holly." The teacher nodded to Holly and then to the three other students before leaving the wing.
At his exit, the nurse came out of her office mumbling, "Good, he's gone. Does more harm than anything. The Headmistress will be hearing about this." The nurse looked at the three students who were still surrounding Holly's bed and now looking at her curiously. "Alright, it's time for you three to leave! The hospital wing is closed!"
"Closed?" Daniel said.
"But it's only two-thirty!" Cynthia whined.
"Yes, and it's closed!" the nurse answered crossly. "Now scat!"
The room became quiet as the three left the room. Holly was slightly thankful for this silence because the noise was causing her head to ache and despite being unconscious for two days, she was still feeling quite exhausted. It wasn't long before Holly drifted back into dreamland where she never had to ride a broom ever again…