Ch 17
"Oh, my head." I moaned as I sat up, rubbing the back of my throbbing skull. I swooned, the blood rushing to my head from sitting up too quickly. I fought to stay upright as my eyes struggled to focus and muffled voices began to break through.
"She's waking up."
"Oh thank goodness."
"Do you think she remembers what happened, Madame Pomfrey?" Asked who sounded like Harry. He seemed to be a few feet to the left of and in front of me.
"It's too early to tell." Madame Pomfrey answered back.
My vision was clouded, and the light in whatever room I was in blinded me until everything was a uniform white. If I hadn't heard all of these familiar voices, I would have questioned whether or not I was even still alive.
"Remember what?" I drawled. As I sat up fully and the excess blood drained from my head my vision cleared somewhat and I realized that I was back at Hogwarts. I was in the Hospital Wing on one of the patient cots. What was I doing here? The last thing that I remembered was seeing my mother appear out of a bright light right after Harry gave the Prophecy to Draco's father. Oh no. Did he still have it, or had he given it to Lord Voldemort already? "The Prophecy?!" I shouted, my pulse accelerating in panic, sending another wave of throbbing to my head. If Lord Voldemort had what was in that Prophecy, what he didn't have the last time, trying to fight him would certainly lean towards a losing war.
"Destroyed." Said someone. I focused on the voice, but I couldn't quite tell if it was that of our Headmaster or if it was Harry's. My hearing was still very fuzzy and ringing excruciatingly. I could see more or less clearly though, with widening tunnel-vision.
As my vision cleared, I began to see everyone who occupied the room. Directly in front of me, sitting on the foot of the bed, were the Twins, and Ron on the left side.
In the aisle stood the Headmaster, obviously returned to the school somehow, next to Professor McGonnagal and Professor Snape, looking as uninterested as ever but I hoped that it was just an act. He was now among the only family I had left. I saw the semblance of a stooped figure behind them but I couldn't make out who it was.
I turned my head sluggishly to the right and saw that my second-year sisters sat on the edge of my bed with Ginny in a seat next to me. After I registered them I turned my head the other direction and saw Harry and Hermione standing by me, worry and astonishment flooding Hermione's gaze as it fell on me. "Are you feeling alright?" she asked, distressed for some reason unbeknownst to me.
"Yeah, I'm fine... except that I have a massive headache." I scanned the room again. "Where are my parents? If all of you are here then they should be too, right?" I said uneasily. Everyone looked away from me to silently converse. I really hated it when people did that. I felt so left out. The expressions on their faces are what signaled to me that something big had happened. They wore various masks of sadness and mourning. "Where are my parents?" I asked again, a little harsher than I intended, but I was growing anxious.
Finally, Ron spoke, his voice much too calm. "Do you remember what happened?"
Why was everyone being so cryptic all of the sudden? "What do you mean 'Do I remember what happened?' Where are my parents?!" I demanded angrily. Why wasn't anyone listening to me? My parents had been helping us... My eyes widened in worry as I back-tracked. "Wait. Why are we here? We were just at the Ministry," I murmured.
Everyone in the room looked away from me again. My pulse rate quickened again as the tension in the room thickened. Panic rose as the silence lingered. "What happened to my parents?" I asked in a small, quiet voice.
That seemed to crack them. "Rose," said Hermione, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking my hand. "Your parents are gone."
The words failed to penetrate. Gone? What did she mean gone? My parents could never have died unless...
"What do you mean gone?" I asked my house mate. Once again the room fell silent for a long moment.
The silence was broken when the figure that I hadn't recognized stood up and made himself visible. "My aunt killed them," Draco said solemnly, his head lowered in regret and shame.
"Bellatrix?!" I breathed in disbelief. As Draco nodded, my amnesia lifted and all of the memories from that night flooded my mind, giving me a full play by play – plus the crucial moment in slow-motion – of the second I lost my parents to death and Bellatrix Lastrange. Tears welled and I leaned onto Hermione's shoulder, desperately needing a shoulder to cry on whether she was willing or not. I sobbed for many minutes as the air grew heavy with grief and I heard someone leave the room.
When the tears began to subside I stared at the people in the room and realized that Draco was the one who'd left. I didn't particularly miss him at the moment, even if he had saved my life. I couldn't sort through the situation at the present. I had more pressing issues. "How long have I been out?" I asked softly, occasionally sniffling.
"Three days." Violet answered quickly. "We haven't left your side since they carried you in."
Satisfied, I asked another. "What happened after I blacked out?" The people in the room were hesitant to answer.
"Well, after you passed out we all rushed out to help Harry, but by then Professor Dumbledore was fighting You-Know-Who. The Minister showed up during the fighting and acknowledged that the You-Know-Who was back, and then we were all shipped back here." Hermione explained.
I was still puzzled about one thing but Ginny cut in and answered it for me. "Right before you collapsed, there was a pulse or something, and it seemed to come from you."
I groaned. I'd been afraid of that.
I thought back to what Harry had said after our first detention with Umbridge.
"You'll have to tell them sooner or later."
I defiantly answered back, "No, I won't."
It appeared that Harry had been right after all. He usually was.
I took a deep breath, preparing to let the cat out of the bag, but Madame Pomfrey intervened. "That's enough questions. She needs to rest."
I looked towards to old woman and objected. I may have been tired, but they deserved an explanation. "No, it's okay Madame Pomfrey. I need to tell them."
Madame Pomfrey pursed her lips and looked resigned.
Harry urged me on, knowing that he'd been right. I breathed slowly, figuring out how to tell them in a way that wouldn't frighten them but also wouldn't give too much away either. I wanted to keep the particulars to myself. "Okay. What you saw did come from me." The people in the room leaned in, interested. I wished that there weren't so many people in the room, but part of them had seen my gift that night, and I knew that I could never get rid of them. "I... I was born with this Gift. It allows me to heal people, but using it drains me."
"It doesn't just heal does it?" asked Ron keenly, rolling up his sleeve and showing me a mark on his arm from a curse he couldn't avoid. It looked like a perfectly circular month-old wound about the size of a sickle, but the edges of it were angry and red, as if it was infected, and there were small gashes radiating from it. It looked rather like a sunburst. He must have gotten the large wound from the battle, and then when my gift was unleashed it simultaneously healed and injured its unfortunate victims. I suspected that many of the people in the room had similar strange wounds.
"No. It doesn't Ron. It can also hurt people, which is why I've had to keep it hidden my entire life. I'm not entirely sure what sets it off either. It seems to feed off of my emotions – strong ones that is – but sometimes it doesn't. Consequently, I can't really control it."
"When did you get it?" Asked Hermione. I knew that should want to know everything about it. Now I suspected that she hadn't gathered as much as I thought she had, judging by how intently she was listening, but she could just be being her inquisitive self too.
"I'm not sure, really. I was probably born with it."
I watched the group, their eyes inquisitive, wondering. They seemed to have a million more questions. I didn't want to answer them all, because they would doubtless delve into the particulars. "I don't want to talk about it anymore." I said firmly. I knew that they would be disappointed, but I couldn't let them know that much. Some secrets were better left buried.
"What of your sister?" Asked Harry after the room had fallen silent for several moments. It seemed that they were trying to think of things to ask me without upsetting me or touching on sensitive topics. Surprisingly, I didn't flinch or feel like beating around the bush about Lily. Maybe now that I'd let it slip that I even had an older sister at one point, I could talk about her without breaking down.
"Lily... died when she was eleven... protecting me from Bellatrix." I explained. The room stilled as the reality of that sank in. I continued. "She was the kindest and most supportive big sister I could have asked for. Then she was dead before I turned five."
"Oh, I'm sorry." Harry replied. It seemed that he thought he'd asked too much and that I would close up again. I wouldn't though. It felt good to let my sister be known. She deserved to be known.
"No. It's okay. I've come to terms with her death, it just was always painful to talk about her till now. Lily was home for Winter Break from her first year here. Bellatrix and a few other Death-Eaters broke into our house on Christmas Eve and my parents fought them but Bellatrix slipped through their fingers. Lily took me and shoved me in my closet before Bellatrix killed her. My parents came before Bellatrix could kill me. That was the night she was put in Azkaban. I should have known that she'd come back for me."
The room fell silent once again as they listened to my story. Professor Dumbledore mumbled something and left the room before I laid back down on the bed, closing my eyes for a minute.
Instantly, Madame Pomfrey leapt on my apparent dosing. "Everyone out. She needs her rest."
I waited for the visitors to leave the room until I heard were various moans and groans of the other patients and Madame Pomfrey's solid footsteps as she tended them. I tried to sleep, but within an hour I was sitting back up in bed and lifting the covers to swing my legs out. Seeing me awake, Madame Pomfrey rushed over. "Can I go, Madame Pomfrey?" I asked quietly.
She bade me sit back down on the edge of the bed and I waited patiently as she looked me over. "I don't see why not."
"Thank you." I said politely, standing up and gathering my uniform that sat neatly folded on the side table. I ducked into the store room to change. When I was dressed I found that my wand was laying on the side table. I must have missed it. I picked it up and walked out of the Hospital Wing.
There was someone that I had to talk to, but I hadn't really a clue how to find him. Our houses didn't exactly interact after all. Not knowing what else to do, I simply roamed the halls aimlessly. Since he was a Prefect, he would surely be roaming the halls hunting for not-so-innocent victims.
After walking the halls for an hour or so I finally ran into the blond, literally, as he was making his way out of the Great Hall. "Hey!"
"I'm sorry, Draco. Can you give me a minute of your time?"
He looked at me and thought. I looked around and pulled him into a side hallway. It would be awkward if other students caught us talking, a Gryfindor and a Slytherin, but I needed to ask him why he came to my rescue. I knew it was more likely for Merlin to walk through the Great Hall than Draco Malfoy to go off to rescue a bunch of Gryfindors and students that he either detested or bullied to no end.
"What?" he said curtly, an icy chill tainting his voice.
I nearly lost my nerve, but continued to look into his cold gray eyes. They were hiding several conflicting emotions behind an impenetrable mask of indifference, but I knew that I could get through if I tried hard enough. I took a deep breath, collecting my resolve. "Why did you come to rescue me?"
He stood stark still, betraying no emotion, but I knew him better than anyone and knew that he was thinking very hard about what to say. I watched as the wheels turned in his head.
Finally he answered me. "I don't know."
My face fell. "Oh," I said turning away. "Thank you for saving my life Draco."
As I walked away and back into the hall I heard him whisper. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."