Disclaimer: I keep forgetting this, but Harry Potter and anything else which you recognise belongs to JK Rowling. I'll just have to content myself with Professor Caverleigh.

"Pride is a personal commitment. It is an attitude which separates excellence from mediocrity." - Anon

I'm not a naturally clumsy person. When fully conscious, I can stand on one leg without wobbling, and carry out quotidian activities as a well-balanced young woman. It's just in those few moments when I am subconscious that I suddenly lose my balance. This often occurs when I am day-dreaming, the art of which I have almost perfected. I can sit at a desk and stare at a teacher, even nodding every so often, with a look of attention on my face. However, I'm not really paying attention. It is often in those moments when I am subconscious that any vestige of the balance that I retain when I am fully alert dissipates like sunshine in the Slytherin dungeons. If, say, I am walking along and day-dreaming, I can easily trip over the air. It can be embarrassing, to say the least.

The Monday morning following the victorious Quidditch match, I was day-dreaming my way through a Defence Against the Dark Arts theory lesson. Off in my own world, I was oblivious to the question posed to me by Professor Caverleigh. And so it resulted that the board rubber he then proceeded to throw at me hit my arm, knocking it out from under my chin. My subconscious clumsiness kicking in, my head fell forwards to whack against the desk.

My neck muscles finally began to work, and I lifted my head up from the desk, a dull ringing in my ears. Everything was spinning, and I could feel my body swaying as I tried to regain my balance. My subconscious clumsiness wasn't normally like this. I then heard someone say my name in a strange way, as though the person was calling through a glass wall, or water. It took me a few moments to reply, and when I did my voice did not sound as though it came from my larynx, but rather as though it were a mere echo, bouncing back from the cliffs which threw darkening shadows upon me. It was becoming more difficult to concentrate, and all I could really focus on was an overwhelming urge to sleep. My eyelids felt so heavy, as though they were guillotines barely restrained by a single thread of rope. My name again - other snatches of conversation.

"Concussion…lump… I can't believe… board rubber at her… asleep? …Tennis ball… hospital wing…Nurse Roberts…"

I tried to process this information, but I was so tired. Huge waves of sleep were crashing over me, as a rip-tide of drowsiness tugged me away from the shore. I let the warm, welcoming blackness envelope me and let go of the guillotine, dropping my eyes shut as I slumped more into my chair…

SMACK!

A stinging pain flared across my cheekbone, and my eyes snapped open.

"Rose."

I mumbled.

"Rose!" For some reason, this female voice reminded me of red hair, and green eyes. I didn't feel like waking up this morning.

"G'way." I replied.

"ROSE!"

"Wha'?" I dragged myself up in reply. "Slee-"

I let my body roll towards that warm darkness once again.

SMACK!

The other cheek flashed with pain.

"I know that you're tired, Rose honey, but please try to stay awake. Please? It's really important that you don't go to sleep." The girl's voice was pleading now.

I groaned. She sounded serious.

"'Kay. Try."

"Right. Can you stand up?"

The dense fog of sleep and dizziness surrounded me. My vision was so blurred that I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed. My muscles pushed against the floor, and I felt my body rise, aided by many hands, until I was upright. A wave of dizziness hit me and my knees buckled. Hands grabbed at me, but I was already falling towards the floor, or was it sleep? The darkness I barely held at bay reached out to brush me, and I was about to surrender to it as arms caught me.

"Rose! ROSE!" The green-eyed voice sounded urgent now, but I couldn't fight it anymore. I could miss first lesson anyway.

A new voice called my name, right in my ear.

"Come on, Rose. Keep your eyes open. You can do it. No, don't go to sleep. No."

The voice was indomitable. I could tell that it belonged to the arms that were holding me up, and it started to walk me forwards.

"See if you can walk. Just a few steps."

I stumbled. There was a distant murmur of voices, and I felt the gentle arms release me, only to be swung gently into them again, cradled against a warm chest. The voice was speaking again, right next to my head. Something soft brushed my cheek, and I smelt a heavy aroma of male aftershave, soap, wood and grass. The Voice was speaking again. Other voices buzzed, but I only paid heed to the soft lilting in my ear, gently coaxing me. It would not let me sleep. Every time I reached out to embrace the blackness, the Voice would call me back, not letting me sleep.

I wanted to be angry at it; why couldn't I lie in if I wanted to? However, the soft commands had to be obeyed; the coaxing brooked no argument; the cajoling whispers would not let me give in. After what seemed to be an age, every second of which was a struggle against sleep, I felt myself being laid down on something comfortable, and the Voice began speaking again. But I could hold off sleep no longer, feeling a pillow beneath my head, and with a small regret at letting the Voice go, I lost myself in the tsunami of blackness that engulfed me.

When I awoke, I immediately wished that I hadn't. The front of my head was throbbing, sending waves of pain ricocheting around my skull. It felt like someone was banging my forehead with a hammer. I groaned, and felt a warm hand clasp my own. It took me a few moments to open my eyes, and when I did, I was drowned in deep blue oceans. I blinked, and the concerned face of Professor Caverleigh swam into my vision.

"Miss Loganberry. How are you feeling?"

"Uh… my head." Apparently,the concussion made me concise.

However, at that moment I was interrupted by Nurse Roberts, the school nurse, who bustled up with a bottle in her hand. I eyed it warily. I had only been in the hospital wing as a patient twice before, and each time I was given a potion to swallow that tasted like dirt, fluff, and acid all rolled into one. The thick, brown liquid in the bottle she held did not bode well.

She poured the sticky gloop out for me and handed me a glass. I took it and raised to my lips, then promptly forgot how to swallow. Seriously. Where did I put my tongue? How wide was I meant to open my mouth? How did I swallow?

"Come on now, Miss Loganberry. Drink up."

Grimacing, I tipped the brown liquid down my throat, hoping that it would just glide down my throat. It didn't. Gagging at the foul taste, I choked, and the liquid oozed down my oesophagus. After I finished coughing, Nurse Roberts handed me a glass of water, saying;

"I'll just go and get my torch and tongue depressor."

What the hell is a tongue depressor? I was interrupted from my musings by Professor Caverleigh.

"Miss Loganberry. I would like to apologise for throwing that board rubber at you. I wouldn't have done so if I had foreseen the consequences."

He did seem generally concerned, as well as guilty.

"It's okay, sir. I probably shouldn't have been day-dreaming in your lesson." I chuckled. "However, I think you demonstrated to me, and probably to the rest of the class, one of the most important lessons of Defence. Constant Vigilance."

He laughed. "Yes. Perhaps people will now think twice about paying attention in my lesson. Maybe I'll let you off detention this time, Loganberry. Very strange sort of berries, loganberries. Do you know if your ancestors were loganberry farmers or something?"

"Actually, Professor, my surname is just Logan. A joke in first year that seems to have stuck."

"Ahhh. I see. Well, Logan, I hope that your head feels better soon. You've had constant vigilance knocked into you rather literally."

With that he left, and Nurse Roberts came back and started looking into my ears and up my nose with her torch. It was rather disconcerting. Although it turns out a tongue depressor is a little wooden stick, like an ice cream stick, that healers use to press your tongue down when they look inside your mouth. Strange, huh?

Nurse Roberts did not discharge me from the Hospital Wing until the next day, after various tests to check that I was in possession of my bodily functions. As I made my way to the Great Hall for breakfast - still slightly breathless from the numerous star jumps I had had to perform to prove I was not concussed - I felt the first few twinges of embarrassment from my predicament yesterday. I fainted because I hit my head on a table. How pathetic.

I have never actually fainted before, and have always secretly wanted to, but not in a feeble manner. In my imagination, it would happen after a heroic deed – after I had run a marathon, or been hit by a bludger as I was winning the House Cup. But no, I had to faint in a girly way after banging my head on a table, of all the ridiculous things, as though I was some simpering, theatrical nineteenth century miss, who fainted at the mere consideration of a spider.

My reveries took me into the Great Hall, and before I realised it I was making my way to sit next to Lily and Katie, who expressed their relief at seeing me up and about. Breakfast was for the most part peaceful, until James Potter and his cronies waltzed in. You could ascertain the moment when James first caught sight of Lily. His eyes glided across the Great Hall until they caught the flash of her hair, at which point a gleam coruscated within them as they alighted upon her. Lily, blissfully unaware of her impending trial, continued talking to Alice. I felt the first stirrings of anticipation in the pit of my stomach. Of course, Pettigrew, Black and Lupin were not far behind one of their group.

"Ah, Evans."

Potter's voice was smooth as he ran his hand through his hair, making it stick out like some sort of strange Mohican. His voice was so deep I almost thought that it would drop out of his stomach, and he had puffed his chest up so much that it was possible that he would just float away, from the sheer amount of air he had inhaled that made his chest stick out like that of a duck. It was rather amusing.

"You're looking particularly lovely today, Evans. Now how about that date we talked about yesterday?"

Lily, who upon hearing Potter's voice had sagged against the table, now drew herself up as if to steel herself for the battle to come. She drew a deep breath.

"Potter, are you blind?"

A different tactic. James looked confused.

"No." He drew out the word into almost two syllables.

"Are you deaf?"

"No."

"Are you inordinately stupid?"

At this, he beamed and proudly announced, like a self-satisfied child.

"No. I attained ten OWLS. Six O's, three E's and one A. However, that was for Divination so I don't think it really counts."

"Congratulations." replied Lily disparagingly. "Be that as it may, you have given me more than enough evidence to deduce that you must be either blind, deaf or inordinately stupid, or perhaps all three."

"How so?" Potter questioned.

"Every time you have asked me on a date, I have verbally refused, something which your power of hearing should have conveyed to your brain. Your unrelenting questioning of me has failed to induce me to go on a date with you, and therefore you must be inordinately stupid. Furthermore, as my facial expression has never shown desire or even a hint of liking when my eyes happen to skim over you, you must be blind. If you are, as you claim, to be neither blind, stupid or deaf, and if you wish to stay in your present state, then I suggest that you LEAVE ME ALONE."

The last three words she snarled into his face, before barging past him and storming out of the Great Hall. I wish I could give such set-downs as Lily. Potter deflated as he watched her leave, looking slightly disconcerted, but Pettigrew came up behind him and slapped him on the back.

"Well, I think that went well, Prongs." consoled Pettigrew. Potter looked at him in askance.

"I mean, she didn't hex you or anything. It could have gone worse."

Katie snorted at this, then wilted as four pairs of eyes turned on her, three narrowed.

"Something amusing, Rowe?" Black glared down at her. "Or were you just laughing at swoony-girl here?" He raised his hand to his brow and pretended to faint.

I felt anger rise.

"Excuse me, Black. I actually happened to obtain concussion. I did not swoon. I passed out."

"Whatever it was, it was amusing." he snickered.

I glared back at him. "Little things please little minds."

"Just admit it, Loganberry. You were caught daydreaming in class. Naughty, naughty. Not paying attention. Were you fanaticising about me?" He questioned, with a roguish smirk and a raised eyebrow.

Of all the arrogant…

I moved my plate aside and braced my hands on the table.

"What are you doing?" asked Black, curiously.

"I was thinking that perhaps if I lose some more brain cells by banging my head against the table like yesterday, I'll be able to understand your previous comment."

"Of course," I mused, considering, "It'll have to be quite a few bashes in order to lose that many brain cells."

"I'll have you know that I got as many OWLS as Prongs here."

"And as Lily so kindly pointed out, he is inordinately stupid." I countered.

He had no reply for that, and Lupin, with an apologetic smile, dragged on his arm and pulled him further down the table to have breakfast.

I returned to my breakfast, then looked at Katie. The Great Hall rang with our laughter as I shouldered my bag, and we left breakfast in search of Lily.