ALIUS EGO ALIUS RUDIMENTUM
CHAPTER V
This took longer to get written, I know, but I've had a very stressful past few weeks. Between classes, tests and my grandmother passing away, I haven't had the time nor desire to write.
I don't own it, I never will, and I'm okay with that.
Okay, the last time she checked dead floating people weren't supposed to have live breathing bodies. What the hell was going on? This couldn't be normal, not even for the wizarding world.
Bri moved to sit cross-legged in a chair next to the bed holding her body. She rested her right elbow on her knee and put her head in her hand. Things were definitely not looking good. How in the world was she supposed to get out of this mess?
She glanced to the bedside table and analyzed all the potions sitting there that appeared to have been used on her corporeal body to find any possible clues as to her current predicament.
Blood clotting potion, a variety of painkillers, blood replenishing, scar reducing, a potion to heal burns, another to promote new skin growth, a bone-mending potion, and an anti-concussion potion. Well, it certainly looked like she'd been given some of everything Mdme. Pomfrey kept in stock except for dreamless sleep. Even if dreamless sleep had been present, it wouldn't explain the current out of body experience – that potion promoted sleep with no dreams. Maybe there had been a bad reaction between two of the potions? No, that didn't make sense either; Pomfrey always knew exactly what each thing did and its effects on a patient. Besides, she'd been given most of these potions together before on multiple occasions.
Well, if . . . . Wait a second, what was that? Another small bottle had fallen on its side in-between the larger ones. Briara stood from the chair and picked up the small bottle to examine it. She had seen it before; Malformed had overdosed on dreamless sleep back in fourth year when his nightmares had gotten really bad. It was a waking potion, the counter potion to sleeping potions. It was meant to wake a person instantly when a drop was placed in each eye. Bri looked around and saw a used eye dropper that had fallen to the ground. But, if the potion had been used on her, why was her body still asleep? Why was her consciousness stuck floating around in this gray, water colored counterpart to the real world?
With a sigh, Bri dropped back into the chair and slumped down. This majorly sucked. She hated not knowing what was going on. That and she was getting bored, not to mention sleepy, which was strange since she could see herself sleeping right in front of her already. No knew ideas where coming to her about the predicament, so, with nothing better to do, she leaned her head back against the chair and drifted (not literally) into sleep.
Harry snuck back through the castle halls to the infirmary under his invisibility cloak. He knew that McGonagall had said she would update everybody on the girl's condition in the morning, but he had the strangest feeling that something important was happening right now.
He glanced at the Maurader's Map to be sure Filch's cat was nowhere near him to sniff him out. He was in the clear. Mrs. Norris seemed to have stumbled across two recently graduated Hufflepuff students, um, saying their goodbyes in the Astronomy Tower. Filch was on his way to join them.
Turning one last corner, Harry reached the infirmary. That's funny, he thought, noticing the doors left open wide enough for someone to slip inside, Madame Pomfrey always closes the doors at night when she has patients staying overnight. Harry stepped through the open doors quietly so as not to wake Pomfrey. He could get in real trouble for A) being out at night (again) and B) disturbing a patient.
He made his way over to the only bed with the curtains partially drawn around them, pushing the curtains aside; he stepped in next to the bed. The girl looked a lot better, Pomfrey had healed her wounds and provided her with clean clothing.
The feeling that something important was occurring had not disappeared, but at first glance Harry couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. He glanced around, closely taking in all the details around him, hoping to find the source of the feeling. Still noth . . . hey wait! Since when was someone sleeping on the chair next to the bed? Harry blinked his eyes and looked again, the figure was gone.
It must have been his imagination, it was pretty late (or early, depending on how you looked at it) and he hadn't been able to sleep in a while. He glanced at the map just to be sure no-one else was there. There wasn't anyone, just him. Wait, what about he girl on the bed? Her name wasn't appearing on the map! Harry looked closer. No, a name was written there, but it was terribly faint and blinking. He couldn't even read it. Was that what the map did when someone was dying? But she couldn't be dying! Madame Pomfrey had cured her. She didn't look deathly.
Harry shook his head to get the dismal thoughts out of his head. He really needed to get back to bed. Nothing was happening down here and he had a long train ride in the morning. With one last glance towards the unnamed girl, Harry left the infirmary, softly closing the doors behind him.
Morning seemed to come far too quickly after Harry had finally gone to sleep. He wouldn't have woken up as it was except for the pillow that had been thrown at him by none other than his best friend.
"Come on Harry! Hermione's dressed and waiting downstairs. I'm starving, let's go eat breakfast. Everyone else from our dorm is already down in the Great Hall. Oh, and I want to know what happened to that girl from last night. That was really strange, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, it was something else." Harry said, pulling on a clean shirt. "Let's go."
Harry and Ron ran down the stairs to the common room where they met up with Hermione. Together they went down towards the Great Hall.
"So, do we eat first? Or do we find Professor McGonagall and ask about the girl?" Hermione said as they reached a junction, one way leading to breakfast, the other to the infirmary.
"McGonagall will most likely be in the Great Hall overseeing breakfast, so we may as well go on down there and eat first. She would have come to us if something major happened." Harry reasoned. Both he and Hermione turned to Ron as his stomach rumbled. "Besides, I think Ron's hungry."
"You got that right Harry, I feel like I haven't eaten in forever." Ron said.
"Ron, you ate enough to feed a small family in Ethiopia last night at dinner." Hermione pointed out.
"So?" was his answer.
As they entered the hall McGonagall caught their eyes and then went back to her breakfast, signaling that she knew they were there.
The sat down at one end of the Gryffindor table and spooned various breakfast items onto their plates. They were all preoccupied, even Ron, thoughts of the girl in the infirmary souring the taste of the delicious food. When Ron, the last to put down his fork, finished they all got up and made their way to the professors table.
When McGonagall saw them approaching, she excused herself from a conversation with Flitwick and rose to great them.
"Alright you three, come with me. Madame Pomfrey has been able to heal all the girls wounds however she won't wake up despite our best efforts. That will have to happen naturally if it does at all. I was in contact with the other schools in the region this morning; no-one is missing any students. So we still haven't a clue as to who the child is. Perhaps if you told me how she got here it would answer some questions." McGonagall was talking quickly as they all headed towards the hospital wing.
"Well," Hermione began, "We were all heading back towards the castle from Professor Dumbledore's memorial when it felt like lightning was going to strike, energy was tangible in the air. Then a glow developed over the quiditch pitch. It got brighter and brighter, and then she just . . . appeared. Does that help?"
"It is a start." McGonagall said, opening the infirmary doors. "It doesn't sound like any spell I know of, but it does seem to be some sort of magic. I'll start researching as soon as all the students leave this afternoon. Here we are." They had reached the girls bedside.
Harry looked over the girl on the bed; she appeared the same as she had last night. On a sudden impulse, he glanced towards the chair where he had thought he saw a figure sleeping the night before. To his surprise, the figure was there, a transparent carbon copy of the girl lying comatose on the bed was staring directly at him.
Briara had been woken up that morning when a grey Madame Pomfrey had come to look after her body. Try as she might though, she couldn't get the nurse to see her or perceive her in any way. It was official- life (or whatever it was that was going on) sucked. Giving up, she had curled back up in the chair and stared at her body.
That had been her first visitor. Professor McGonagall had come by a few minutes later and left shortly after she came. So far, no-one had been able to see her.
Until now. A strange boy had come had just walked into the room. He was giving off some sort of light which blurred the other three figures that walked in with him beyond recognition. Once he had noticed her sitting in the chair, they had engaged in a staring contest.
Bri decided to make the first move. "You can see me?" She said. The boy shook his head, either he couldn't understand her or he couldn't hear her. She pointed to eyes then to herself. "Can you see me?" she repeated. The boy nodded then pointed to his own eyes and then to her. "YES! Contact with the world!" Briara shouted enthusiastically, jumping up and down. The boy appeared to laugh.
"Uh, Harry?" Hermione asked, sounding worried "What are you laughing and pointing at?"
"Can't you see the girl?" Harry asked, turning to the others "She's standing right there." He indicated the floor in front of the chair.
"He's gone mental!" Ron said.
"No, I'm not crazy Ron, the girl is there, she's like a ghost of the girl on the bed. She seems excited that I can see her."
"But the girl on the bed is alive, Potter, she couldn't be a ghost." McGonagall said.
"I think they are the same person, I'll ask her." The others watched as Harry pointed at nothing and then at the body on the bed and then held up a single finger. "Are you and she the same? Are you one person?" he asked aloud for good measure.
Briara watched the boy's gestures. Me, my body, a finger. No, that doesn't make sense. One? Me, my body, one? Are my body and I one thing, one person? She nodded happily as she deciphered the charade. "Yes!"
She touched her ghostly chest and then moved to touch her body to show they were one and the same. As her hand came into contact with her body, however, she became disoriented. She closed her eyes to block out the swirling that had started. Upon opening them again, the world was in color and she felt a soft pillow under her head and a mattress under her horizontal body. She was back in her body!
"Man, I really should have tried that sooner." She said turning to the people standing next to her bed. She fixed her eyes on the boy who she had communicated with "Thank you so much for . . ." she stopped, her brain finally realizing who was standing with the unknown boy. "Hooters? Bushytail? Oh God! You guys survived! I am so glad! Where is everyone else? My parents, did they make it?" Briara jumped out of the bed and hugged Ron and Hermione. "Why isn't anyone else in the hospital? How long was I out?"
Hermione and Ron looked at each other. "I'm sorry." Hermione said "You must have us confused with someone else. I'm Hermione Granger and this is Ron Weasley."
Bri was sure her friends were playing a stupid joke on her. "And I'm Briara Potter, of course you're Hermione and Ron, now stop the stupid charade."
"Briara who?" Harry asked.
"Briara Potter. And who are you, I don't recognize you."
"I'm Harry . . . Potter, and these are my two best friends. None of us have ever seen you before."
Something stranger than usual was going on and Bri's already stressed mind couldn't handle it; she fainted.
Longest chapter yet. Yay me.
To clear things up; Harry didn't go to the infirmary at night because he was attracted to Briara or anything, he just had a weird feeling. There is no romance planned for this story and that pairing would be crazy/gross anyways since they are both children of Lily/James Potter.