B.Q. Book One: Princess of the Blacks

Chapter 26: End of a Long Day

It was the smell that woke her.

Before Jen had been the unofficial madam of a child brothel, before she had been a practitioner of Voodoo, before she had possessed even a modicum of control over her own magic, she had been a slave serving three pathetic caricatures of humanity out of fear of further pain, pain she had never, no matter how hard she worked, been able to avoid. One of her most common duties had been to clean their suburban house from top to bottom every other day. That would have been exhausting for a full-grown woman, let alone a child younger than five. She had never been permitted to use soap and water, though, oh no. The vile horse-faced shrew she had had the great misfortune of sharing blood with instead forced her to use barely diluted bleach.

The odor of bleach meant servitude. It meant being a non-entity. It meant pain as a bulbous sack of flesh not fit to be used as a sacrifice or even consumed by worms blinded her with the chemical because he had been taught all his life that she was a worthless freak who could not feel emotions like other people did, or if she could, that her emotions, her hopes, her agony were somehow less important than his own simply because that she was born blessed with the ability to distort the very foundations of reality on a whim.

Needless to say, as soon as she smelled that particular substance, she bolted straight upright.

"About time you woke up."

Jen whirled at the words to feel Cedric laying on a cot half a dozen feet from her. Sensing about herself, she realized she was in the hospital wing and quickly pulled back the blasting curse she had nearly thrown out of reflex. "You're here, too?"

"Yep."

Her sonar had curled up to only ten feet when she passed out, but now she stretched it to its full thirty-meter range, not that she could use that entire space surrounded by walls on all sides as she was. Interestingly, four of her fellow champions were in the same predicament she was. "I know Potter's in St. Mungo's, but where did Leroux disappear to?"

Little Ingrid cleared her throat hesitantly. "He is in de hospital as vell. I might haff stabbed him vith his own sword. It vas an accident!" she exclaimed when the others turned to her in surprise. "How vas I to know he vould not dodge?"

"Girl has a point." Renewing her degrading numbing charms and mental protection against sexual enticements, then subtly casting another notice-me-not charm over her blindfold as she realized the old one had faded away, Jen turned to the third female in the room. "I know this is likely crass, but if the worst should happen and you need a replacement junior champion, you're more than welcome to take Potter back to France with you."

Even blind, she would be hard-pressed to not detect the Veela's withering glare. "Non."

"What's with that stick up her arse? You'd think she'd never been struck by lightning before," she muttered, just loud enough for her fellow Hogwarts champion to hear. He promptly choked on his own soft chuckles.

"So vhat did happen to Potter?"

"Have you ever heard that hitting someone with a number of different spells at the same time will have unpredictable effects?" At Krum's nod, she continued, "It turns out that that handy piece of advice should be extended to cover topical potions as well. Last I heard, they were carting him away as an oversized slug. Jury was still out at the time over how long he'd need to stay."

"Longer than any of the rest of you," Madam Pomfrey stated brusquely as she bustled out of her office. "Miss Black, let me take a look at you. Being the least injured, you'll probably be free to leave when I'm done." She swiftly tugged the curtains closed, then followed that action with a number of silencing and anti-eavesdropping spells.