Happy Potter isn't mine.
Constructive criticism is appreciated!
Badum
Badum
Badum Badum
I could feel my heart; I could heart its steady cadence rushing through my body. Contract, expand. Systolic, diastolic.
Badum Badum
Better to listen to my heartbeat than the gasp at my right-hand side; better to feel the blood moving than someone trying to find my brachial pulse. Better to see nothing than whatever awaited me in the conscious world.
Badum
Involuntarily, I twitched. Whoever was feeling up my arm had touched a nerve. My head hurt. My face tried to work itself out. Open mouth, close mouth. Breathe. My hair was plastered to my forehead. Something warm was under my head, releasing the smell of iron into the air.
Badum
I opened my eyes & all I saw was red. All I heard was my heart. Someone brushed the hair off my face & I could see…. I could see Professor McGonagall hovering by my head.
My consciousness snapped back to me.
Where was I? A grey flagstone ceiling; a ring of onlookers in scarlet & gold-striped ties – the Gryffindor common room. The stairs? That's what I remember last. My head was in a pool of blood. James Potter lay next to me, his scalp bleeding; it was his blood. Revolting.Still, I lay, while McGonagall peered at me, figuring out whether I was seriously hurt or not.
"Don't try moving just yet, Ms. Evans" she said to my vain attempt to hoist myself to my elbows.
Fine. I rolled over onto my side to study the counterpart to the incident.
A large purple lump was visible above his eyebrow. Without thinking, I stretched my arm across the gap between us & flicked it.
He awoke with a sound like a foghorn. I stared with wide eyes as James Potter clutched his head & writhed back & forth in a pool of his own blood, some sort of poor sick joke. I felt bad, but only mildly because this boy had spent the last 6 years making my life some sort of hell.
He was crying. Noooo this can't be happening right now – my head hurts too much & Potter is crying like a baby – with dry heaving sobs. Enough to inspire tears in my own eyes. No no no no…..
He turned toward me, sobbing & sat up. Sirius rushed to his side, stroked his head until he calmed down – this boy must have some experience with 3-year-olds I suppose.
When James was able to speak he looked up at me beseechingly; accusations in his eyes. "Why would you DO that?" he cried, clutching Sirius' arm to his chest like a lifeline. Sirius was looking uncomfortable; hunched over & in the grasp of his best friend.
I started to say something but it felt pointless. What was wrong with him?
"You don't just do something like that to someone you don't know!"
What?
The common room was very quiet now, confused.
"Potter, come off it." I growled. After all, this was a bad impression for the head boy to pass on to third years.
"My name is JAMES. J-A-M… E…… S!" He pronounced like someone who had forgotten how to spell.
McGonagall shot me a look that told me not to respond to that. Expertly, she moved down to James' level & spoke to him softly. "Mr. Potter are you feeling alright? Does anything hurt?" He whimpered & pointed to the lump on his brow. "Alright, well how about I take you down to get fixed up & we'll get you some hot chocolate to make you feel a bit better?" He looked down & nodded, fighting tears.
Oh this was too pathetic. Had he forgotten who he was? Where was the real James Potter? The one who hung me by my ankles over the squid, who bleached my hair, who teased me relentlessly for anything & everything for the majority of my time at Hogwarts?
Now he was being coaxed to let go of Sirius who was complaining of circulatory problems.
& hey where's McGonagall going without me?
I'm hurt, too!