build me up buttercup [s.black]

[39] Late

It was a Saturday morning and the Gryffindor breakfast table was humming with chatter as students started the day, excited at the prospect of the first Hogsmeade trip that term. For many of the older students, it was a relief to be able to take a break from the mountains of homework they were being given. Aisling was among these thankful teenagers, and sat at the table with her fellow Gryffindors.

"Toast, Ash?"

Aisling looked up to see Lily pointing at the toast rack.

"No thanks, Lil." She said, her left hand moving absent-mindedly over her stomach. "I'm not really hungry."

"Stomach still a bit off?" Lily asked. "I heard you get up for the bathroom like four times last night."

"Dude." Aisling made a face and jerked her head towards Sirius. "Maybe stop with the stomach talk."

"Sorry, Alice?"

She offered the toast across the table to Alice; who was sitting on the bench with a rather impatient look on her face, and pulling her bacon apart with her fork. When Lily spoke, Alice didn't even look away from the windows, which she had been staring at for the past twenty minutes, she simply shook her head.

"She's waiting on a letter from Fr-"

Aisling stopped mid-sentence. The sight of Alice picking bits of fat off her bacon had made an unpleasant feeling wash over her. Just as she was reaching for a glass of water, she felt bile start to rise in her throat. She quickly swung her legs over the bench and sprinted out of the hall. She only just managed to dash into the first floor bathroom and lean over a sink before she started heaving. What little breakfast she had managed to eat came up and fell onto the cracked, white porcelain with an unpleasant splattering sound.

Aisling wiped her mouth and slid down the wall onto the cold floor, closing her eyes and sighing. She felt disgusting, she was tired, and stressed, and sick now too apparently. She hadn't really been looking forward to Christmas as it was, but this was even more bleak than what she had envisioned for the festive season. Suddenly, she sat bolt upright.

"It's not December already." She muttered to nobody in particular.

"Yes it is."

Aisling jumped, she hadn't expected a reply. She looked up to see Moaning Myrtle floating above her head.

"I thought you lived on the second floor Myrtle." Aisling said, only realising her mistake as the words left her mouth.

"LIVED!"

Myrtle let out a long wail and sped into a cubicle, slamming the door behind her. Aisling rolled her eyes and stood up, steadying herself as her balance faltered slightly. As she went to walk out, Myrtle spoke again from inside the cubicle.

"Quite a mess you've made there. Hope you're feeling better soon."

Her voice was laced with malice, it was very clear that she hoped that Aisling's illness, whatever it may be, was extremely long lasting.

Aisling didn't go back to The Great Hall, but instead trekked all the way back up to the Gryffindor common room and into her dormitory; because she knew that, above Alice's bed, hung a calendar.

"Halloween." Aisling said to herself, flicking the calendar back to October. "I remember because Sirius wanted me to dress as a corpse bride but I didn't want to wear a white dress because..."

She turned the pages of the calendar, frantically counting the weeks.

"No, but that means – six weeks."