Skill and Seclusion [2] || Harry Potter x OC x Draco Malfoy

142. Strong or Safe

DISCLAIMER

I do not own Harry Potter ... but I just read Manacled for the first time and now my life is forever changed

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There were two things that Bel thought as she slipped out of darkness back into the day.

Firstly, why her pain was almost gone.

Her body was barely aching, her head wasn't spinning, the voices had vanished, and her vision was clear.

She was ... better?

Which led her onto the second thing she thought.

What on earth was going on?

As her eyes opened, she didn't instantly recognise where she was.

The plain white and stone walls and high ceiling meant she wasn't in her dorm room or the room she used during the holidays.

It also meant she wasn't in Professor Moody's office anymore, which is the last place she can remember herself being.

So how the hell has she gone from being in copious amounts of pain and distortion in Moody's office to lying down in another room feeling significantly better?

The answers were about to be revealed.

"You're in the hospital wing, little one."

Dumbledore's voice made Bel panic immediately.

She was in the hospital. She couldn't be here.

Dumbledore was here. He couldn't be here.

Bel sat up to see that she was, in fact, lying in one of the hospital beds.

Dumbledore was sat to her right side on a small stool, and the rest of the room was empty.

It was just mentor and ward, about to have a conversation Bel had gone to extreme lengths to avoid.

"Care to tell me why you're here?" her mentor began.

He didn't sound angered, nor disappointed, nor impatient.

He sounded just as calm as every other conversation they have had.

Which led Bel to think for just a moment that he didn't know the full story.

So she would have to pick and choose her words carefully until she had sussed out exactly what he did know.

"I don't actually remember how I got here, sir."

"Not how you're here. Why you're here."

"I'm not feeling well."

Dumbledore wore a faint smirk upon his lips, finding the humour in her lie.

But the time for lying had come to an end.

"It's been three days since you were carried in here in Mr Diggory's arms. And since then, you have been placed under extremely intensive care", Dumbledore explained.

Bel sharpened her ears.

This was all new information to her.

Cedric bought her here.

How did that happen?

"You see ... it's not an easy thing. Reversing the effects of continuous torture", her mentor said.

Bel swallowed harshly as she watched him stand, walking over to the end of the hospital bed.

Her chest ache returned as it always did, but less so compared to the pain she was in prior to her three days in darkness.