The Grey | Hermione Granger

|15| Chapter Fifteen

F I F T E E N

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When Saffron woke up in the Hospital Wing the next afternoon, shattered memories accompanied her. So much so, she couldn't remember which had truly happened and which happened in her head. Beyond that, as of late, she was finding it hard to distinguish a difference.

She remembered levitation. The literal, a charm, resulting in the catalyst for what was to follow. Her day was spent trying to find Hermione. Trying to be the friend that Hermione was for her if she remembered what followed correctly, she had failed. But the silver lining was levitation of the figurative kind, hadn't she met Olly Jowett? She had, and with him came new possibilities, new smiles and most paramount of all, a rekindled sense of hope.

Then came what happened in her head, after three trolls and Hermione knocked her into the Grey. Whilst there, Saffron found herself even more mad than she had been before and had left feeling confused but warned that making further peace with Maya was the way to go. She could not disagree but nevertheless none of it was making any sense to her. For years, she had assumed that Hogwarts was going to give her answers about her past. Not new questions and answers to questions that hadn't even crossed her mind.

All she knew was this: a shift had occurred that night. She could not quite put her finger on where exactly the shift had occurred but she felt it. To her, that was more real than anything else she experienced and was what mattered the most.

"Ah, Miss Mitchell, you're awake,"

That was real. It was then Saffron was out of the state of waking up and was awake. She looked at her surroundings to see the entirety of her body was hidden under an abundance of blankets. A bright light shone down on her and a cool Autumn breeze had crept in from the window that must have been outside her area. Around her, were thin white curtains to block off any onlookers. Madam Pomfrey, the woman who gave the strict but friendly wake up announcement, was an exception to onlookers.

The matron offered a still sleepy Saffron a warm smile. She carried a tray and set it down on her bedside table. "Drink this, and you'll be out of here soon enough," Madam Pomfrey waited until Saffron took her arms out from under beneath the blankets, to hand her a phial of medicine.

Saffron crinkled her nose as she looked down at a vile looking creamy red substance. Madam Pomfrey merely laughed at her expression. "I wouldn't worry, dearie, you've had it three times already today,"

With her spare hand covering her nose, Saffron gulped the substance down. To her surprise, it didn't taste completely revolting. She then began to ask the questions that had popped into her head as had gulped the substance down.

"What happened?"

"A mixture of a state of shock and head injur—"

"No," said Saffron briskly. She didn't care about what had happened to her. She needed to know about the others. "What happened to Hermione?" She paused for a split second. "and-- and the others?"

"Your three fellow Gryffindors, I have been told, got through that awful ordeal unscathed," Madam Pomfrey informed her, resulting in Saffron letting out a big sigh of relief. "Professor McGonagall allowed them go back to Gryffindor tower. I trusted her judgement that they were well enough to not have to be treated for the shock,"

"Has anyone come to see me?" It was a sign of how shallow Saffron felt that that was her next question. But she wanted to know. Had anyone been bothered to see how she was doing? Had Maya? Madam Pomfrey's answer pleased her.