"Ms. Kingsley. Ms. Kingsley. Wake up, please." A sharp voice disturbed my slumber.
I blinked and saw the odd sight of Professor McGonagall in a dressing gown. What's more, her hair was down.
"This is a dream," I murmured sleepily, beginning to pull the covers over my face.
"It most certainly is not," Professor McGonagall said severely.
"Yeah, yeah, go away, ya old maid," I mumbled, closing my eyes.
"Get up, girl, up, I say!" Professor McGonagall said angrily, her nostrils flaring.
Realizing that I could not produce that amazing of an impersonation of Professor McGonagall, even in my dreams, I hastily got up.
"P-Professor!"
"If you will follow me," she said curtly and led me out of the dormitory and the common room, down into the corridor.
I stubbed my toe and stumbled trying to keep up with her for she was walking very briskly. I had the strange notion that she was determined to avoid my gaze.
"Professor," I said, rubbing my eyes, "I don't understand. Where are we going?"
Just as I asked, Professor McGonagall stopped in front of a large statute of a Gargoyle. I almost walked straight into her back.
"Sherbet lemon," Professor McGonagall declared. My mouth dropped open when the gargoyle, with a grinding sound, rotated sideways to reveal a stone staircase carved into the back of the statute. We climbed the stairs and Professor McGonagall knocked on a handsome wooden door, which slid open to reveal a large and circular office filled the most beautiful tapestries, curious instruments, and all along the walls were lined the portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses. And behind a great oak table was Dumbledore himself.
"Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore inclined his head in greeting before his bright blue eyes swiveled onto me. "Ah, Ms. Kingsley. Yes. Please, take a seat. This news may be difficult for you to hear."
"Difficult?" I repeated, confused.
"Please sit down."
I took a seat and faced Dumbledore, uncomfortable under his surveying look, not in the least because I was still in my pajamas.
"Sir," I asked. "What time is it?"
"It is three in the morning and it is currently six in the afternoon in the United States."
Why is he talking about United States time?
"At five thirty-four in the United States, your brother Jamie was playing a Quidditch match there, Ms. Kingsley."
"Oh, yes," I said nervously, my throat beginning to close in on itself.
Dumbledore spoke solemnly. "He was attacked while playing by an unnamed spectator in the stands. The spectator cursed your brother before beginning to hex every Muggle-born he could lay his wand on. Your sister, Sola, who was watching the match with your parents, attempted to stop the attacker. Your parents escaped any harm. Unfortunately, both your siblings have sustained serious injuries, though I am told they have both managed to hold onto their lives."
My lips trembled.
"They are currently at St. Mungo's, receiving treatment. I have established a Floo Network directly to St. Mungo's, which you should take directly."
This has to be a dream.
I numbly got up and followed Dumbledore to the fireplace.
"You have used Floo Powder as transport before, Ms. Kingsley?"
It took a moment for his words to sink in. I shook my head.
"Very well, it is quite simple. But you must remained focused."
His words seeped into my brain, though my mind was still cloudy and scattered.
I stepped into the fireplace with an anxious Professor McGonagall watching, threw in a handful of powder, and said, "St. Mungo's."
I whizzed off, spinning in the fireplace, passing by an odd assortment of living rooms- there was a bottle of rum, then plastic cups of milk, perhaps a jug of water, followed by a vase of flowers and a shining golden trophy cup, then glasses of wine besides cups of Muggle soda… Then I came to an abrupt halt and fell, ashy pajamas and all, onto a cold white marble floor.
I found myself utterly overwhelmed by how vast the hospital was, with its vast white walls and tall arching windows that showed the deep black of the night and its sparkling stars. I was relieved to find the Welcome Witch and asked her where I could find Jamie and Sola Kingsley.
"Oh, yes, fourth floor- Janus Thickey Ward", the Welcome Witch told me and I left to enter the lift and enter the fourth floor.
By the time I got there, my heart was thudding furiously. Dumbledore had said that my siblings had managed to escape with their lives and that made it sound like they were perilously injured.
I hurried down the corridor and finally found myself in front of the door labeled Janus Thickey Ward. I began to push it open when I heard Sola shouting and froze. Relief flooded me. She was alive, but that relief was quickly replaced by a fearful jump back when I heard a loud SLAM!
I slowly peeked inside. Sola was sitting up and seemed in all right, though her clothes were incredibly bloody and there was a large open gash on her right arm. But it was her face was contorted in anger and pain. My mother was sitting next to Sola, holding her other hand and hunched over, sobbing loudly.
My father was the source of the noise. He was repeatedly slamming his fist against the wall. Dark red blood came trickling down his arm.
"I'm telling you!" Sola yelled angrily. "That it's not your fault!"
My mother kept mumbling apologies through her flood of tears. "It's because we're Muggles, isn't it? I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."
SLAM! I flinched as my father pounded his fist into the busted wall again.
"Can't- even-" SLAM! "protect-my-own-" SLAM! "children!"
"WILL YOU STOP IT?!" Sola finally screamed in a voice that was strangled with sadness. "IT'S MY FAULT, OKAY!? MINE! I'm the one who argued against the pureblood privilege laws and put our name out there!" She broke down sobbing.
I don't remember sitting down, but some part of my brain recognized that my legs had given out and that I had fallen to the ground, with my back to the wall. I shut my eyes, trying to keep the burning hot tears back. I gripped my hair tightly with my hands.
This is a dream.
This is all a dream.
But Jamie- where is Jamie?
Blinking back the tears, I shakily managed to get back on my feet. I pushed open the door, just as the nurse from a back room connected to the ward entered and began to speak in a rapid voice, "We've got all our best Healers here, but his heart is so faint…" My mother let out a pained moan.
"His entire side is burned," the nurse went on, putting a gentle hand on my mother's shoulder, but still speaking in that rapid voice. "He must have been hexed with some variation of a Confringo jinx. We'll do our best, I promise. I'm needed but I'll be back shortly to keep you updated." She rushed back inside the side room. Smoke and fumes were sprouting from the door in the brief moment that she opened it to enter.
His heart is faint…? What? What are they saying? Jamie's heart can't be faint. He has the strongest heart of anyone I know.
"Ray?" Sola noticed me standing silently in the doorway and called out to me. I could not comprehend what was going on.
"Ray," my father said, his voice breaking, "are you all right?"
"Honey, come here," my mother hiccuped, her tear-filled eyes staring at me.
I nodded slowly and walked forward. Everything felt so slow. I took the seat on Sola's other side, staring down at the floor, unable to look at my mother just across from me. I tried to swallow, but it physically hurt to do so because my throat was so dry. I grasped my hands together tightly. Across from me, my mother was crying again.
This is just a dream.
And I wished with all of my heart, that I could please wake up. Because this dream was nothing but tortuous, slow pain. Millennia. That's what it felt like. All these Healers were racing back and forth- I couldn't even tell them apart. Couldn't think straight. Every second was just a gigantic blur, spread across an endless number of canvases.
Merlin, when am I going to I wake up? Somebody wake me up- Alice, Dorcas, Lily, Marlene- anybody, please...
The nurse stepped out again, followed by a trail of Healers. Then, in a soft, slow voice that made me want to strangle her, she said, "He's alive. We've saved him. But, he won't respond. He's in a coma…"
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed.
Finally- "Can I see him?"
Oh. That was my voice.
"Of course," the nurse said gently and stepped aside as my father and I trooped into the procedure room while my mother helped my sister up, who shut her mouth tightly to keep from crying out in pain.
Jamie looked perfectly calm, as though comfortably asleep, his arms above his blankets, palms up. His left arm was badly scarred and some kind-of foul-smelling Potion had been dabbed on it. Thick bandages wrapped the whole of his right arm. Cuts on his cheek were also mending, including a particularly nasty gash above his right eyebrow. The blanket covering him was sparring my eyes from the worst of it.
"Jamie?" I whispered, my voice sounding strangled.
No response.
"Jamie, come on."
I half-expected him to jump up laughing at this obvious prank, but he didn't respond.
"Jamie…"
"Jamie, please."
"Jamie, come on," I said, becoming slightly impatient now. This joke had gone on for too long. This dream had gone on for too long.
"That's enough, dear," my father said to me quietly, and it was those words that hit me like a brick wall.
This is not a dream.
"No!" I screamed. "He's lying to us! He's fine! He's just-"
My father grabbed me and forced me back into the main ward but I couldn't stop myself, couldn't-
"He's just pissing us off! That- stupid- fucking-!"
My father pressed me to his chest, holding me tightly, lovingly.
"It's all right," my father murmured, tears streaming down his own face.
"It's all right, sweetheart," my father repeatedly softly, stroking my hair.
This is happening.
"He's playing a prank on us," I half-whispered in a mangled voice, tears slipping down my cheeks and staining our shirts. "Why's he doing that? Why's he being so mean?"
"Because, Ray," my father murmured to me, "that's what older brothers are to younger sisters, always."
This is real.
I disintegrated into wretched sobs, cradled against my father, whose own blood stained my shirt as he held me close.
I vaguely remember being introduced to several people as they filtered in and out of the hospital. They couldn't see Jamie, but they could see Sola or my parents if they wished.
There was Chris, Sola's long-time boyfriend, and Charlotte, Sola's apartment roommate.
Jamie's fellow Quidditch team players also came by to offer their support and condolences.
Then, there were Andromeda and Ted Tonks, a young couple who had offered their home to be ours for the time being as Dumbledore believed it too dangerous for us to return home for the time being. A strange flicker of unease passed through me when I saw Andromeda, but I didn't react.
There were several others, including news reporters and Jamie's fans, that had to be chased away, but really, nobody I saw that night remained in my memory. I felt like a ghost: my mind was numb, my vision blurred, my hearing fazed, and yet my heart pounded painfully in my chest, reminding me that I was all too human, all too subject to suffering.
Finally, Andromeda took my arm and gently murmuring words of comfort I could not hear, Apparated with me to her home.
For a moment I thought I was dying as my entire Being was sucked into that crushing colorless vortex of Apparition. But then the sensation was gone and I was somewhere else altogether. Andromeda led me to a small bedroom and left me to myself, touching my cheek gently and murmuring again. I don't know how much time had passed when the door opened again and Andromeda spoke in a higher voice of surprise and led me to the bed, pushing me gently to make me sit. And then she left again.
I had no desire to sleep or rest right now. I had no desire to move or hear. I couldn't understand.
Why Jamie?
My brother, my kind brother, whose charm and generosity had always been the center of his group of friends, his Quidditch team, his family…
The first words that came to me were Regulus'. "Shut up and listen to me, Raylynx. Your brother- And your brother- he's got to stop playing Quidditch. He won't be a match for his supporters."
His?
And then Lily's words came floating out of my memory. "There have been rumors and whispers going around that someone is on the move against Muggle-borns. That he's advocating use of Dark Magic to put Muggle-borns back in their 'rightful' place."
Voldemort.
Slowly, color seeped back into the world and meaning back into sound, though nothing seemed as bright or beautiful as before.
It had been two days since St. Mungo's and I was staying at Andromeda and Ted's home. Sola was still receiving treatment and my parents only came to the house for a few brief hours at night after spending all day at St. Mungo's at Sola's and Jamie's side.
I was constantly tired and seemed to fall into a pattern endlessly sleeping, but really, the nightmares that invaded my mind stopped me from ever sleeping more than three hours at a time and therefore, I still always felt exhausted.
I once woke up screaming loudly and sweating profusely. Andromeda and Ted had both rushed in and held my hand and wiped my forehead with a cool cloth until I'd managed to calm down.
"I-I'm sorry," I said, my voice quaking. "I'm really s-sorry."
"Don't be foolish," Ted replied gently, "it's only natural to have nightmares."
They stayed on either side of me, comforting me until I had somewhat regained my composure. Andromeda looked at me kindly, but her gaze was full of pity and worry.
"I'm all right," I said quietly and I meant it. "It's not me who's suffering. It's Jamie and Sola and my parents who are hurting." My hand curled into a fist and tears flooded my eyes yet again as I thought of my parents at the hospital.
"It's because we're Muggles, isn't it? I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Can't- even-" SLAM! "protect-my-own-" SLAM! "children!"
"WILL YOU STOP IT?! IT'S MY FAULT, OKAY!? MINE!"
It felt like a knife had stabbed straight to the deepest part of my heart and was twisted in my flesh. What was this feeling? This disgustingly deep, biting feeling that cut into my very heart and soul?
"All the same," Andromeda said softly, "it's all right to feel grieved."
Yes. Grief. That was the name of this wretched pain.
