UDM: Granger Yet - Distraction (Harry Potter Fanfic)

Distraction

Regulus lay on his stomach in a hospital bed in a small cottage hospital run by the Grangers, the parents of Olivia Granger. The start of snow falling outside brought a welcome distraction from imagining himself holding a conversation with the rabbit sitting on the nightstand next to his cot, not that he found himself able to vocalize much of anything since he awoke to find himself alive thanks to the intervention of Olivia's parents.

He needed the distraction, as his mind kept drifting to thoughts of Bella bursting through the door to kill him for defecting from the Dark Lord's cause, which only served to remind him that he'd placed Olivia and her entire family in danger by showing up in a bloody state at the Granger family home. The fact he never intended to show up there, let alone knew where they lived didn't soothe the feeling of disgust Regulus held himself in.

He hated himself before entering the cave, but now he hated himself even more.

Worse—he found himself completely useless, entertaining himself with imaginary conversations with the rabbit on the nightstand as his ability to speak for some reason locked up. He couldn't even scream in frustration, which was in itself a frustrating matter that was driving him as mad as being stuck on his stomach unable to move, which in turn—

Somewhere Regulus lost his wand, yet having the wand nearby would have brought little to no comfort with the knowledge that he found himself unable to move an inch from the hospital bed he awoke in with Olivia's mother telling him he was lucky to be alive only for him not to feel lucky at all, not when the fear of getting Olivia and her family killed as well as himself lurked through his mind.

There was something about Olivia that he couldn't place his finger on, a feeling so to speak that he couldn't quite put into words. "No. You know what the word is, but don't want to admit it simply because you know it's forbidden. If mother knew..."

He'd fallen in love with a Muggle girl.

Regulus still didn't understand any of it, beyond the fact there was an inkling in the back of his mind that his feelings for that Muggle girl resulted in whatever magic that led to him escaping the cave and landing as he did in the front room of the Granger family home.

He wanted to be with Olivia, but that also gave him a reason to live, even if it was forbidden, filthy and ever so wrong.

Except, lying there watching the snow fall, it didn't feel wrong or filthy, though the fact falling in love with a Muggle was forbidden and would get him blasted off the tapestry didn't change. Regulus also knew in the back of his mind that he'd not had his own reasons for living that truly felt like his own, something Regulus found quite strange.

Yet—he'd not seen her since he crash landed in the front room of the Granger family home, or at least Regulus thought he'd seen her.

"Olivia's not allowed to visit yet..." he remembered her mother saying, his mind not understanding why at first.

That was the first time Regulus up in the hospital bed, lying on his stomach with every injury carefully bandaged and he'd thought nothing of what she'd said. The bandages wrapped around his left arm, but also his entire torso and upper legs, which Olivia's parents came and changed multiple times over the course of the next couple of days.

"It doesn't faze you?" Olivia's father finally asked, with Regulus mind still not following, not that he could answer the question even he knew what the man was getting at.

"Why would them changing my bandages bother me? They're kind and gentle, beyond what I deserve. And ever so patient as well, given nothing comes out of my mouth."