Chapter 6: On the Road to Recovery
Dudley woke slowly. He tried opening his eyes but they felt very heavy and gritty as if he had somehow got sand in them. They itched so he slowly reached up to rub away whatever it was that was irritating them, and once he touched his cool hand to the inflamed skin he knew that they were buffy and swollen. What had I been doing before I went to sleep? He tiredly asked himself, attempting to figure out what had caused his eyes to react like so. Slowly his conscious thought crept in and with a startled yelp, he remembered. Harry! Dudley wrenched his eyes open, ignoring how much it hurt to look around him, searching for some sign that Harry was near and had miraculously recovered only to stop short once he brain caught up to his frantic searching movements to realized that he had no idea where he was. He was laying on a rather big bed with four columns running up each leg. Above him he noticed as he slowly followed the columns up was a curtained ceiling built onto the bed itself, attached to the four columns. Looking to the right side of the bed he saw that there was a door. Looking to his left there appeared to be another curtain attached to this side of the bed which was partially closed, which Dudley tentatively drew it back to reveal that there was another bed exactly the same style as his, separate only by the width of the nightstand that sat between them. Dudley sat up unhurriedly as he wasn't sure who he'd find laying on that other bed. He knew though that someone was there as there was a mound beneath a really soft looking blanket, and soft subtle rise and fall that represented a person breathing. Dudley hoped, even though he knew that he was likely to be massively disappointed, and that the likelihood of it being true was far beyond slim, that the other bed contained Harry.
As much as he wanted to believe it was Harry, and prove to himself that it was indeed Harry, he was too afraid to leave the security and safety of the bed he found himself in, because deep down he knew that it couldn't be Harry. Which left the question then of who was it? And how did he come to be here with them?
Trying to find some sort of clue from the relative safety of his borrowed bed, Dudley looked closer at the limited items that were visible in the room. The room itself was huge and shaped like a rectangle with the beds and night table being against one of the walls that made up the narrow part of the rectangle facing out towards a fireplace opposite, above which there was a painting. On either side of the fire place were two wall length book shelves. The man in the painting had an angular face which was framed by long black hair that at the top close to his temples appeared to be turning a whitish grey, which looked to be being pulled back by something. He had the look of an aristocrat. He wore what look like a dark green almost black frock coat. The subject was painted into a scene that looked like an old den from movie's Dudley had seen, with a fireplace in the background, and bookshelves lining the walls much like in the room Dudley was in, but instead of beds there were two high backed wing chairs facing the fire between which was an end table holding a bottle of brandy and two nice glasses. It was a well done painting Dudley thought but it wasn't really providing him with any clues so he turned back to the room he was is. The wall to the left of Dudley made one of the longer wall of the rectangle. Against this wall there was a big and impressive desk, upon which there lay, Dudley believed, some very old paper that had at some point turned yellow, and a green and silver feather. 'Weird?' he thought, and more books. Dudley squinted in an attempt to read the bindings of the books, but he wasn't really able to see them clearly enough as what he could make out made no sense to him. On the wall opposite that of the desk was only two wooden doors. The parts of the floor not covered in a tanned carpet showed a dark hardwood floor. The walls themselves were painted a very warm cream colour with a lighter coloured inlay design Dudley wasn't sure of though it look similar to ivy. His study of the room done, and no closer to figuring out the; who, what, why, and where, Dudley was stumped on what he should do. Should he check out where those doors led? Would they be locked he wondered, and he felt fear momentarily crawl up his back before forcefully pushing it down. Or should he sneak over and peek at who was in the other bed? He glanced over at the other bed as he considered about the person within it. Whomever it was they were still off in the land of nod and hadn't shifted a bit.
Dudley finally settled on checking the doors. If they were locked then his only other option would be to try and sneak a peek at the other person. And if they weren't maybe it was because the other person forgot to lock them, or assumed they'd wake before Dudley. What if this was his only chance at escape and he threw it away to peek at a person, whom if Dudley didn't know them, would only cause more question than answers, it was best to try this route first. So taking a big inhalation of breath and gathering his nerve around him Dudley as quietly as he could slid from the bed and headed over on tip- toe to the closes door. He prayed as he reached out for the door knob that if the door did open it wouldn't do some horror movie worthy creak. He slowly rotated the knob until there was a soft pop sound of the latch releasing and he pulled the door open.
"Well, I would have needed this eventually" Dudley thought sarcastically to himself, and if he were to be honest, slightly disappointed, for the door led only to a washroom. A very beautiful one, he admitted mutely to himself, but still just a washroom. The floors and walls were all done in a beautiful cream and tan marble tile. Set in the far wall was a sunken in bathtub, which had Dudley ever seen the prefects bathroom at Hogwarts would have look somewhat familiar. There wasn't as many different faucets but there was still quite a few, and though the tub was only about half as wide in perimeter it was just as deep. Set into the wall beside it was a corner shower with glass doors. The shower could have fit three of him comfortably and Dudley pondered to himself that at least if he had been kidnapped he had a nice bedroom and bathroom to use! The only other thing in this room was another door on the wall to the left before the bathtub. Dudley decided to check this out too before trying the other door, he already thought he knew what he'd find behind that door and planned to make use of it before continuing his adventuring. So walking forward into the room Dudley moved to the other door and opened it to find a small square shaped room which housed a toilet and sink, separate from the bathing area. At least, He mused to himself, if I have to share with whomever that is out there, we can bath and be able to have some privacy in the privy. Once finished his business Dudley went back through the washroom and into the bedroom. He walked carefully across the floor so as to not wake the other person up and taking a deep breath, he reached out for the door knob and turned. But as he turned it, he felt resistance, almost as if someone on the other side had tried to turn it the opposite way at exactly the same time. Spooked Dudley scrambled back to the safety of his bed which he climbed into and laid down upon, throwing the covers over most of him, and tried to quickly slow his breathing and his racing heart in order to foreign sleep should someone walk through that door.
He waited, watching through half lidded eyes as the door he had nearly just walked through open as if of its own accord. He waited for someone to walkthrough the now opened doorway but what came through wasn't a someone, but a something. Dudley let out a surprised yelp as the creature move in to the room and towards the beds. Covering his mouth hurriedly but a little too late to block the sound from escaping Dudley waited to see what sort of doom he had just caused himself as the creature stopped its forward movement and turned to look at him. What happened next left Dudley with his mouth hanging open, and silently staring at the creature. For it hadn't attacked him as Dudley had expected it to do, but it had shushed him! As if it were talking to a small child that was being too loud.
"You must be being quiet Mister Dursley. Master Harry be sleeping and Master Harry be needing his sleep!" It continued indignantly as it continued to move forward towards the beds.
At those words Dudley's brained stopped shouting at him that a monster, a talking monster had just shushed him! And rebooted.
'Wait did you say Harry?! He's alive, is he okay? I tried everything to make him wake up.' Dudley rambled out to the creature as he untangled himself from his bed sheets and climbed hurriedly back out of bed to follow the creature to the other bed, Harry's bed. Dudley was suddenly so happy, euphoric even and felt like he would burst, and he started crying and laughing at the same time. Harry was alive! God he was alive! It didn't matter that Dudley hadn't been able to save him, this creature, this tiny green creature with huge blue eyes and wearing a purple pillow case had.
'Thank you, Thank you so much for saving him!' Dudley told the creature as he whipped the tears streaming down his face.
The creature turned to Dudley and with a look of that of bemusement said, 'I didn't Mister Dursley.' It said it so precisely that Dudley knew he was missing something.
That stopped Dudley's hysterical thanking of the creature. Confused Dudley then asked, 'well then who did?'
The creature just stood there for a moment and smiled at him, 'you did, Mister Dursley.'
'No I didn't,' he said back at it, quickly spiralling from his high at Harry being alive back to upset that he hadn't been able to do anything to help Harry. 'I tried but by the time I realized he wasn't just sleeping, I was, I was too late,' he hiccupped sadly.
'No you wasn't Mister Dursley, you saved him.' The thing said, and then it walked closer to Dudley and laid a green calloused hand on his arm, though calloused it was remarkably soft.
'How?' Dudley asked it brokenly, fresh tears spilling.
'Love. You asked that someone save him, out of love, and so they did, you did.'
'I don't understand.' Dudley said, using his sleeve to whip the tears and snot from his face. The creature wrinkled its nose and said disgustedly, 'yucky Mister Dursley, clothes a be for wearing not whipping up messes,' and with a snap of its fingers the clothes became clean once more and Dudley found that his face had been dried and even felt cleaner too. 'I knows you not be understanding Mister Dursley, Betsy be trying to explain it to you in a moment. We'll have some tea and cookies and I'll be explaining. But only after I have given Master Harry his potions.' And with that she walked over to the bed that Dudley hadn't quite made it too, and with another snap of her fingers, as Dudley had realized now that she was indeed a she, she rolled Harry over and somehow, Dudley had missed the how, opened his mouth and slowly started pouring a vial of some weird looking goop down his cousins throat. She gave him two more vials of whatever these potions were of different colours and textures. Dudley assumed that potions were similar to medicine in some way. He didn't envy his cousin any for having to have that stuff though it looked pretty gross, and Dudley was willing to bet that it probable tasted just as bad.
The little she- creature finished up her potion given and tucked Harry warmly back in before turning to Dudley once more. 'Now I be showing you to the tea room. And will gets to working on the explaining, and cookies.' And then she mumbled quietly but not as quietly as she may have meant. 'Betsy be liking eating the cookies with tea, yummy.' She then proceeded to head back out the way she came. Dudley took one last look at the bed that he now knew held his cousin, whom was alive and healing, and with a sigh and a small if slightly strained smile, followed Betsy from the room.