She woke up not too long later, just a few hours, and there were six people around her. Her parents, Lily, James, Remus, and of course, Sirius.
She looked down at her arms, they weren't the blue-black they were before from the bruises, they had faded to a gross green-blue-yellow color. She frowned.
"How do you feel?" Her mother asked.
"A little numb." She told her, looking at her left hand and she wiggled her fingers. "How long have you been here?"
"Since we heard about the accident." Mr. Potter told her. "We got here a few hours after the match."
"You scared me." Mrs. Potter said passionately. "What happened?"
"I took a dive," the rest that came out was grumbled before she went. "La la la, sorry, my tongue isn't working yet."
"It's alright," Her mother told her.
"She pulled up on her broom too roughly." James told her. "I saw it, you lost balance and fell."
"Pretty much." Loralei agreed. "That's the gist. I just panicked, and I should've put my other hand on the broomstick to pull it up."
"You need to be more careful." Mr. Potter told her. "That was a close call."
"I know, Sirius already told me." Loralei told him. "I really don't want to be reprimanded right now."
"Okay, I'll save that for later." Mrs. Potter sighed.
"At least you won." Mr. Potter told her.
Everyone turned towards him, confusion on their faces.
"They did, it's better than being injured with no good news." He told them.
Everyone underage laughed while Mrs. Potter smacked her husband's arm lightly.
"Yes, how nice that would be, being bed ridden for a few days with no win." Loralei lifted her arm, and took a bar of chocolate she got from the nightstand, and struggled with the wrapper and her weak fingers until her father took it from her and opened it, breaking off a piece and handing it to her.
"Here," he said as he took it.
"Thanks," she said, feeling weak. "At least I can pick up my arms now."
"You couldn't before?" Her mother asked.
"Did I forget to mention that?" Sirius asked, guiltily.
Lily frowned at Sirius. "You think?"
Loralei turned to her mother. "Have Lily and James been fighting?"
"No, they're actually civil, it's not at all like last Christmas break when she came for a day." Her mother told her. "I'm very surprised."
"We've been worried!" Lily said.
"Mutual love brings people together." Loralei smiled.
"What?" Lily asked.
"You both love me." Loralei told her. "That's what I said."
"I'm going to get Madam Pomfrey." Remus told them, getting up from his chair and behind the privacy screens they set up.
"I get out of class, did you hear?" Loralei asked Lily.
"Yeah, but you're missing your favorite class." Lily told her.
"One class out of the year." Loralei brushed off. "It won't be a big deal, there's no test tomorrow."
"True." Lily agreed. "When are they releasing you?"
Loralei turned her head to her left to look at her parents. "When?"
"I'm hopefully going to find out now." Madame Pomfrey said, she was young, with light brown hair, and sharp features, she was probably around thirty years old, maybe a little older.
Madame Pomfrey looked her over, and ended up pressing on her ribs and stomach lightly. "You seem fine, I would like you to keep the bandages on for another day, take your potion-it's in your bag take two a day,-and put this salve-" she pulled a tube of ointment out of her apron, and put it in the tote bag that was next to her father's chair. "-On your skin, but other than that you can go to your dorm room." She paused. "Do you need help getting back?"
"No, my parents and friends can help me." Loralei replied.
"Okay, your bones are completely healed, but you will have some soreness for about a week." She told Loralei. "Come here after classes on Tuesday so I can check you out again, okay?"
"Okay," Loralei repeated.
"You can go now, if you have any concerns just come back any time." With that, the healer left.
Loralei threw back the blanket and carefully put her legs over the side of the sick bed, her father getting up from his chair to help her, taking her hand.
"Who put these pants on me?" She asked, looking down. "These aren't mine."
"They're mine." Lily told her. "I couldn't find your pajamas."
"Of course, there's food on them." Loralei smiled.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Yes, I thought you'd rather have strawberries than cupcakes."
Loralei nodded, ignoring the stiffness in her neck. "You're right. I love strawberries"
Lily smiled. "Everyone knows."
Loralei smiled, and pushed herself off the bed, stumbling until her parents held her up.
"James, can you carry her?" Mrs. Potter asked.
"Sure," James said, coming over, and scooping her up. "You're heavy."
"Shut up, I'm stronger than you." She replied.
"Just saying," James said.
"Stop saying."
He laughed. "Who's gonna bring her candy and flowers?"
Together, the parade of seven people went to the Gryffindor common room, and all the conversations that were going on were cut off. This Minister of Magic was in their common room, taking their daughter to her room.
A small light blonde first year went up to Loralei. "How are you?" She asked. "I saw the fall."
"I'm fine, just a little weak." She smiled at the girl. "Thank you, Lizzie, I'll see you later."
The girl smiled, and went back to her friends.
"How am I going to get you up the stairs?" James asked, looking at his sister.
Mr. Potter laughed, and whispered in his son's ear something Loralei couldn't hear.
James grinned. "Good idea." He started taking her up the boys staircase, the other's following.
"What are you going to do?" Sirius asked.
"Fly her to her room." James said, as Loralei opened the door, he walked through and put her on his bed before getting his broom out from under it.
"Apparently Dad found out a loophole in his seventh year."
"Don't tell the story, Dad." Loralei told him.
He laughed. "I don't plan on telling it."
"Good." Loralei said, as her brother appeared with his Nimbus 1500, smiling.
"Are you ready to get back on the broom?" He asked.
"One fall, you broke your arm last summer." She told him. "I only fell once, you fall at least once a month."
"Not as bad as you." He replied.
She frowned. "Shut up."
He laughed, and opened the window, it was large enough for them both to get out of it easily, and he flew her to her bed, where Lily and Mrs. Potter were waiting to catch her. Once they got her safely in bed, they told her to take another potion, so she could heal. She happily slipped back into sleep.
"Your dad and I had a very awkward talk while you were sleeping." Sirius groan to Loralei the next day after classes. "It was terrible."
Loralei laughed. "What about?" She asked innocently.
"You, we had the awkward, 'hurt my daughter and you're dead' talk." He told her. "I've never had that talk with a girl's dad."
"I'm happy to be your first." She teased, leaning into him. He was sitting next to her on her bed, well half under her since the bed was so small.
"Yeah, at least he was pretty cool about it." Sirius smiled. "Didn't threaten me or anything, just told me not to mess with you."
"I wonder what would happen if I messed with you." Loralei mused.
"They already know you won't." Sirius told her. "It's not your type."
"Really, and how do you know that?" She replied.
"You're too empathetic for your own good." He told her. "You wouldn't hurt someone unless they hurt you, and even then it would have to be pretty bad."
Loralei frowned. "You make me sound like a push over."
"You're not that either."
Loralei rolled her eyes. "Anyway, Alice and Lily are taking it upon themselves to get my homework done for me, I have to say that it's nice not having to do anything but the reading."
"Is that what you were reading?" He asked, pointing at her book.
"Nope, free reading, muggle, Lily turned me on to it." Loralei told him, picking it up.
"Pride and Prejudice." He said. "Really?"
"It's sweet, I love, love and hate stories." She told him. "Every girl is lying if they say they aren't in love with Mr. Darcy."
"Oh, now I'm jealous." He teased.
She laughed. "He's a fictional character, unless he pops out of the book, you have nothing to worry about."
"Really? And when will you choose me over him? Our fiftieth anniversary?"
"Of course not, the fifth will do." She replied.
"So when we're twenty you'll choose me over him?" He asked.
She nodded. "Pretty much."
"So I'll give you, like a diamond necklace and you will just say, 'I choose you over Mr. Darcy,' and I'll be the one saying thank you? Not fair." He shook his head.
She laughed. "I can picture that, except I'm probably going to be a little nicer and make you dinner or something."
"We'll have house elves." He replied.
"Really? Because I'm planning on getting a small house somewhere in the country." She told him. "I won't need house elves."
"You think that now, but just wait, you're going to get at least one." He told her.
She rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to be a rich kid that everything comes easy to, I want some normal struggle, I don't want to count on my inheritance."
"There is a war going on." He told her. "Jobs are getting scarce."
"I know, I'm just saying I'm not going to sit around like a bum because I have the choice to." She told him. "I want to do something."
"I thought you were going to fight."
"I am, I will be, but you have to pick your battles, I'm not suicidal." She told him. "Anyway, onto easier things, how was class today?"
"Boring without you, Divination's more fun when you try to explain things to me." He told her.
"Of course it is, I'm always the one who answers the questions anyway." She smiled, playing with his fingers. "You all must have been lost."
"You have no idea, Melanie actually had a few answers, but I have a feeling that she got them from you."
"She did, when we were studying last week." Loralei told him. "I helped her with her Dream Diary and such."
"I have to say that the Dream Diaries are better than crystal ball, I cannot see a thing in that."
"It's not something you can learn." She told him. "You have to be born with it."
"And you are?"
"It comes with being a veela." She told him offhandedly. "It's hard not to have it."
"Have you tried?" He asked.
"Yeah, once." She told him. "It took me a week to realize that I couldn't not have it. I love it too much anyway. It's great."
Of course it is." He told her. "Otherwise I would be failing it right now."
"Not yet, when you get to your OWL you won't be able to get a high enough grade though. Not many people do, after this year she only has about five people in each class. I hope I get private lessons."
"You're going to get an O, of course, everyone else averages on P, so the odds are in your favor."
"Probably," she agreed. "Even people who get in usually drop it for a different class anyway. I'm hoping to get Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Divination, Astronomy, and Care of Magical Creatures."
"Over achiever, you want to be a teacher, why do you need the other classes?"
"If it doesn't work out I could still be a Healer or Auror." She told him. "Or I could be a professional seer, I hear that if you're legitimate they're payed a decent amount." She paused. "You're lucky, you know what you want to do."
"Yeah, and even if I don't get in I can be a bounty hunter." He teased.
"Oh, you'll get in," she told him. "You get great grades in everything you need for it."
"You outdo me in Potions." He told her. "How?"
"If you know the theory it gets easier," she told him. "I know how to use the ingredients, and why they're used so when I make a mistake I can fix it with a few extra steps."
"And where did you learn that?" He asked.
"When Severus and I were friends, he showed me and Lily a few books, I got my mother to send me them and I got in the top three, Sev, Lily, and I have been battling for first spot ever since."
"So Sniv-Snape isn't as stupid?" Sirius has learned not to call Severus "Snivillus" ever since he got the cold shoulder from doing it the month before.
"He's very smart, very awkward too." She said. "It was adorable until he became an ass. Being awkward and a jerk doesn't work, it just makes people hate you."
"So you do hate him?" Sirius asked, maybe a little too happily.
"No, but I don't agree with him. We're never going to be friends again." Loralei told him.
Sirius smiled, happy she couldn't see how happy he was at her statement. He was always a little jealous of him during their first three years, though he would never admit it. She would always go to Severus Snape if she needed help with her homework or anything. He didn't exactly know back then he was jealous, but he does now. He wanted to be the one she went to if she needed help, and he still wasn't that guy. She goes to Lily or James if she needs help with Transfiguration, or Lily or Remus if she hurt herself in some way and didn't want to go to the Hospital Wing. Not that she didn't ask him to help her with anything, she did, but nothing that actually mattered. She sprained her ankle a week before and he didn't hear about it until Remus asked him if her ankle was better after he fixed it. He didn't like that.
He wouldn't mention it though. It wasn't the kind of thing he would ask her to do, he wanted her to go to him because she wanted to, not because he asked her to.
"Your birthday's coming up." She said, bringing him out of his reverie.
"So?"
"What do you want to do?" She asked.
"I don't care." He told her. "We can just hang out."
"But it's your sixteenth, the last year you're underage, it's the last bit of your childhood." She said. "We have to do something. The boys agree."
"We can just hang out in the common room." He told her. "It's not a Hogsmeade weekend so it's not like we can do much else."
"We can sneak out." She told him. "We've done it before."
"Naw, I'd rather keep it simple."
She pouted. "Okay, as you wish."
Sirius did this every year, playing down his birthday, since his parents never made it a big deal when he was younger.
"It's not a big deal." He muttered, kissing the side of her head.
"It is to me," she told him. "Every year is different."
"That's what you say every year when it's my birthday."
"Because you're the only one that I have to force to celebrate it."
"When it was your birthday, you didn't do anything special." He told her.
"Yeah I did, I had a birthday cake, and stuff." She replied. "Mum and Dad took us all to Italy for dinner."
He rolled his eyes. "That's not much."
"It is to me," she told him. "I like simple things."
"So if I said I wanted to go to Italy for dinner, what would you do?"
"Make it happen, but I know you don't want to." She replied.
"True, so something small if anything okay?" He asked.
"Okay," she smiled. "Something small."
A/N Thank you, Firefly1939 and ForeverTeamEdward13 for reviewing most of these ten chapters! Your reviews always put a smile on my face, and thank you to the people who put this story under favorites or alert!
Kat