SMILE » n. longbottom

viii

"THE HOSPITAL WING"

The scent of butterbeer and pumpkin pasties filled Alana's nose as she awoke to the joyous scent. She jolted upward in the bed, wondering if the chefs of Hogwarts had made the dishes and if her roommates snuck some in the dormitory. She blinked the brightness coming through her eyelids, trying to adjust as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Want some?" A voice spoke, and as Alana adjusted to the bright light - she saw someone she would believe to be in her dormitory: Neville Longbottom sitting beside her on her bed.

She shouted an inaudible rambling of words as she threw herself off of the bed. She looked down at the hard stone floor, then she realized: Alana wasn't in her dormitory. Her dormitory didn't have fancy stone flooring, it had cheap yellow carpet. She looked around in a panic and noticed yet another thing: She was in Hogwarts' hospital wing. "What are you doing here?" she spat vigorously as she tried to contemplate how, or at least why she was in the hospital wing.

"Well the hospital wing is public, but only during visiting hours," Neville sipped butterbeer from a large cup. He picked up the plate of pumpkin pasties and hung the plate in Alana's direction, "Well, do you want some pasties?"

"No! — urgh —," she groaned, as she saw she tripped on her oxygen tank as she was falling over the side of the hospital bed a moment ago. "I know why you're here, but — I mean ... why am I here?"

The clicking of heels against the hard floor interrupted their conversation as it echoed throughout the hospital wing's hall. Both students looked toward the noise and saw it was Hogwarts' one and only nurse: Madam Pomfrey. "Miss Wallace," she looked down at the Hufflepuff girl in an unreadable glance, perhaps confusion or concern. "What are you doing on the floor?"

"Examining the dust, Madam Pomfrey," Alana said sarcastically as she stood up from the floor, and sat on the closest bed. "I don't know how I got here, Madam. Should I be concerned?"

Alana's words hung in the air, until the old nurse sighed and began to tidy up Alana's bedsheets. "Of course not, dear, you just passed out yesterday afternoon. Professor McGonagall brought you in, you're alright — nothing serious." The girl could tell the lies that the lady spoke, as they seemed to be coated with sugar.

"Oh," she muttered, as she looked to her hands, then to the floor in a low, tired voice. She was manipulated yet again due to her abnormal condition, and because of her abnormal condition she couldn't find why.

"Well," the nurse took the beverage and pasties from Neville Longbottom, and handed it to Alana. "Those were actually yours, and ... I was actually checking on you, and I heard that one of the boys from Durmstrang was poisoned. So I'll have to attend to that, as Dumbledore suggests."

The nurse left as fast as she'd arrived, and this time the two students at least knew of her exit. "Sorry about eating the pasties and drinking the butterbeer...," Neville muttered, "I'll give you some of my treats during feasts if you want ..."

"Why won't you let me be, Neville?" Alana spoke in her most clearest pronunciation, she didn't look at him when she spoke. She stared out of the glass windows of the hospital wing onto the Hogwarts' castle grounds.

Silence continued between the two until Neville began with a stutter and shuffled his feet uncomfortably, "I-I ... I just ... want to show you that you're still the happy Hufflepuff that I remember."

Alana shot him a death glare, and spoke in a tense, rough tone, "That's nonsense ..." The Gryffindor's words of truth were what she never believed was true.

"Alana, I know that you are still the girl I remember," Neville paused, he looked away down the doors of the hospital wing as though he'd seen something standing there. He ignored the sense, and turned back toward Alana, and stared at her, "I know that you can smile again, I have faith in you."

Her glare eased, as she looked down at the pumpkin pasties that laid next to Alana. Every pasty looked cold, and she now felt a distaste for pumpkin pasties, "Do you know how long I've struggled? How many days I spent in hospitals with the scent of pills and chemicals in my nose? I hate the smell of it, Neville. I hate hospitals, so so so much. I've been nice to everyone before I got Pneumonia, even that git Draco Malfoy! Merlin's beard ... I do not deserve a hell like this, Neville, I do not deserve to end up connected to machinery." She sobbed into her Hufflepuff sweater. Alana turned away, and sunk into the bed that she laid in.

"Ala—Alana," Neville's teeth chattered. He paused for a while as Alana's sobs became less loud, meaning she was listening. Neville began, slowly trying to explain the tricky situation, "I've suffered too. My parents were tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange for the whereabouts of You-Know-Who ... she used the Cruciatus Curse on them, Alana. They're both in St Mungo's, in a hospital ... I visit them every chance I get. The scents of a hospital assure me, Alana — it assures me that my parents weren't killed at Bellatrix Lestrange's grip ... It gives me hope, Alana." Long, utterly quiet minutes passed as the two Hogwarts students basked in the silence. They both understood the idea of suffering, and the Gryffindor and the Hufflepuff both knew that they had suffering. "There's something odd about the golden eggs from the First Task of the tournament," Neville muttered, as Alana's breathing hitched to calmness. As the girl listened to the Gryffindor's words, she began to wipe the tears that had fallen previously. Neville stood, "Harry opened the egg and the noise that it made was horrid. The Second Task might be interesting ... I'll see you when you're better." And with that being said, Neville Longbottom nodded to Alana and dismissed himself from the hospital wing.