The Keep

46. Blatant Betrayal

The unpleasant jolts of electricity through the entirety of Hazel's nerve system and the strong jerks of her contracting muscles went on for several minutes, before her body started to calm down.

Hazel took the robe out of her mouth, and laid herself on her back. Her body felt as if it's been struck down by a mating Erumpent, trampled under a stampede of Hippogriffs, and used as a trampoline by a Ukranian Ironbelly (the biggest dragon of them all).

Hazel breathed the overwhelming weariness of her body. She heaved her lungs to breathe in and out. And slowly, the dark and blurred sight of classroom 7A's ceiling came back to her.

The sound of the strong wind cracking on the old glasses of the Turris Magnus' windows came to Hazel's ears soon after. She looked to the windows, and found that it wasn't the wind who was cracking the glasses. It was Ogre and Gretel.

Hazel rummaged her heavy hands around for her wand, and opened the window for them. Both ravens came flooding inside and softly pecked every inch of her uncovered skin. "Mm fine, ss alright, mm fine," she told them, and herself. 

"It's alright, it's alright," Hazel told herself again and again.

"Flaming Firedrake's Fangs," Hazel wiped her frustration tears from her eyes, which only made her frustration grew even more. 

Hazel let herself cry.

The image of Lily Gillivray's angelic ghost came to Hazel's mind, and oh, how she wanted to land a jab to that serene ethereal face if she could.

Lily might have found her peace after centuries of soul-searching, but she can't, Hazel thought.

She doesn't have time to contemplate for the silver lining of her disease. She doesn't have time to be sick. She doesn't have time at all. There are still so many to do, so many responsibilities left to her, and so many to save before it's too late.

But, something is wrong, Hazel thought. Where was the cold and fever? Why has the seizure came out of nothing at all? Why did it all escalate so quickly?

Hazel's eyes came to the canteen lying on the floor just beside her briefcase. Her mind went to the Grey Lady's puzzling question the night before. 'Why do you call it potion, when it is poison?'

No, Hazel thought to herself in disbelief.

Hazel heaved herself sitting, and summoned Professor Ishrani's dried Synsepalum berries from inside her briefcase. The one the professor gave Hazel when she found herself to be without appetite just after Etta died. The one which could hyperbolize the taste of any food put on one's tongue.

As soon as the wrapping landed on her hand, Hazel took one and ate it. It tasted just like any other berries she ate before, sweet and sour. She chewed the berry down, and took a sip of the potion inside her canteen.

The very strong scent of yucky and muddy Lung-Grazer leaves attacked her senses that she gagged at once. It took a long while for her to get used to the magnified scale of Lung-Grazer leaves scent to be able to notice another ingredients: Wormwood, Bubotuber Pus, Dittany, Bicorn Horn, Jewelweed, Dandelion Roots, and Mandrake Roots. (Lung-Grazer Potion is just a glorified, more disgusting version of Pepperup Potion, after all.)

But one, among all those familiar taste was alien to Hazel. Something that tasted so sweet, kind, and gentle. It tasted almost like a Sleeping Draught. 

It lulled Hazel to sleep. And just in time, really. Hazel usually spends two to three days to sleep after a seizure. (Yes, that's how exhausted she feels after a seizure.)