𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝; 𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐡.𝐩

𝓨𝓮𝓪𝓻 3, 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 10: 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓾𝓭𝓮𝓻'𝓼 𝓜𝓪𝓹

~ chapter ten: the marauder's map ~

Madam Pomfrey insisted on keeping Harry and I in the hospital wing for the rest of the weekend. I didn't argue or complain, but I wouldn't let her throw away the shattered remains of my first broomstick. I was being stupid. I know. Laugh at me all you want. I knew the Nimbus Two Thousand was beyond repair, but I couldn't help it; I felt like I'd lost one of my best friends, one that helped me through my first two years of being a student here.

Harry and I had a stream of visitors, all intent on cheering us up. Hagrid sent us a bunch of earwiggy flowers that looked like yellow cabbages, and Ginny Weasley, blushing furiously, turned up with get-well cards she'd made herself, which sang shrilly unless we kept it shut with our bowls of fruit. The intention behind those cards was really quite sweet, and besides, it was the thought that counted. The Gryffindor team visited us again on Sunday morning, this time accompanied by Wood, who told us (in a hollow, dead sort of voice) that he didn't blame us in the slightest. Ron and Hermione left our bedside only at nights. But nothing anyone said it did could make me feel better, because they only knew half of what was troubling me.

I hadn't told anyone about the Grim (except Harry, because as it turned out, he'd seen it too), not even Ron and Hermione, because I knew Ron would panic and Hermione would scoff. The fact remained, however, that it had now appeared twice, and both times had been followed by near-fatal accidents; the first time, we'd nearly been run over by the Knight Bud; the second, fallen fifty feet from our broomsticks. Was that it? Were we going to be haunted by the Grim forever, then?

And then there were the dementors. I felt sick and humiliated every time I thought of them. Everyone said that the dementors were horrible, but no one else collapsed every time they went near one. No one heard echoes in their head of their dying mothers.

Because I knew who those screaming voices belonged to now. I had heard their words, heard them over and over again during the night hours in the hospital wing while I lay awake, staring at the strips of moonlight that decorated the ceiling. When the dementors approached me, I heard the last moments of mine and Harry's mothers lives, her attempted to protect us, Harry and Y/N, from Lord Voldemort, and Voldemort's laughed before he murdered them. . . . I dozed fitfully, sinking into dreams full of clammy, rotted hands and petrified pleading, jerking awake and talking with Harry, both of us dwelling on the last moments before they got murdered.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was a relief to return to the noise and bustle of the main school on Monday, where Y/N was forced to think about other things, even if she and Harry had to endure Draco Malfoy's taunting. Malfoy was almost beside himself with glee at Gryffindor's defeat. He had finally taken off his bandages, and celebrated having the full use of both arms again by doing spirited imitations of them falling off their brooms. Malfoy spent much of their next Potion class doing dementor imitations across the dungeon; Ron finally cracked and flung a large, slippery crocodile heart at Malfoy, which hit him in the face and caused Snape to take fifty points from Gryffindor.

"If Snape's teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts again, I'm skiving off," said Ron as they headed toward Lupin's classroom after lunch. "Check who's in there, Hermione."

Hermione peered around the classroom door.

"It's okay!"

Professor Lupin was back at work. It certainly looked as though he had been ill. His old robes were hanging more loosely  on him and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes; nevertheless, he smiled at the class as they took their seats, and they burst at once into an explosion of complaints about Snape's behavior while Lupin had been ill.