Effervescence | h.p.

i | xxvi. confusion comes before help

Five thirty-four in the morning on Sunday the twenty-second of September, Lyra woke up in a bright room where she could only see white. She couldn't hear anything distinct, maybe some muffled snoring around her, which led her to believe it was either very late, or very early.

Lyra was feeling discombobulated and confused, so she tried to think of what had happened that she last remembered:

She remembered feeling dizzy, then losing her vision, thinking about dropping to her knees before . . . she had apparently fallen to the ground.

She slightly recalled being woken up by Madam Pomfrey, a concerned-looking Severus Snape, and a shaky, red-eyed Draco. She recalled Madam Pomfrey making her drink something while her mouth moved, indicating that she had been speaking — but Lyra heard nothing.

Now Lyra lay in a bed, in what she assumed to be the Hospital Wing — if she had previously seen the school's matron. Her body ached and her head felt like it was being pressed between a wall of bricks and an iron door.

She let out a small grunt of pain as she attempted sitting up in her bed. She found that this task was difficult in itself with her normal pain from the days before the full moon, but it seemed even harder in the hospital bed. The obvious concussion she was suffering from hadn't helped, and neither did the weight of a black dog's head resting in her lap.

Padfoot was curled in on himself, the only part of him that broke the circle being his head — which rest on his daughter's blanket-covered lap. He was sleeping and let out dog-like snores. Then, sitting in the chair next to the hospital bed was his best mate, James Potter, who was also snoring.

Noticing movement from beneath him, Padfoot lazily opened one of his grey eyes and found his daughter. He snapped out of his drowsy state within seconds of realizing the movements had been caused by her attempting to sit up, meaning she was awake.

His body shot up to a standing position on the bed and he let his tongue flop out of his mouth, which hung open in a grin. He jumped lightly and excitedly on the bed, causing the mattress' springs to let out high-pitched squeals.

Seeing the dog's happy demeanor, the little girl let out a small giggle, which woke her Godfather. He let out a small sigh of relief seeing his Goddaughter awake and, even better, laughing lightly at her father's amusing antics.

James got up and walked to where Madam Pomfrey had last disappeared and knocked on the door. He called lightly, "Poppy, she's awake."

Madam Pomfrey appeared next to the bed within seconds, holding onto a small paper cup. "Drink this, dear," she said as she handed the cup to the girl. Upon seeing the girl's hesitation and her prying eyes on the liquid, she stated, "it's just a simple — " before being cut of by the small child on the bed.

"Calming Draught mixed with a small dose of pain reliever. I know," the girl said. Noticing the wide-eyed expressions of the adults surrounding her, she added, "I know my potions," while shrugging. Then she drank the cup's contents slowly as to avoid it coming back up within seconds.

James informed the group that he was going to head to the Gryffindor common room to wake Harry up and bring him to the wing.

"What happened, exactly?" Lyra asked Madam Pomfrey as soon as James left.

"You fainted from exhaustion. How have you been feeling before this?" the matron asked in return.

"Tired, sore, and sick. I can't sleep at night because of the pain in my head, stomach, and body in general."

"Why didn't you get help from anyone until it got this bad, Pup?" Sirius asked his daughter. He knew she would deny the severity of her pain but he hoped she would at least tell Harry about it. "Why didn't you tell Harry? He would've at least asked me and your dad what to do."