Damaged (A Marauders Era story)

First Year, Part 10 (The Boy Centaur)

I climbed down the cliff, grabbing onto the tree roots as I climbed down. The cliff had plenty of roots on it and plenty of footholds, but it still took a few minutes to reach the bottom. The cliff was steep.
I rushed over to where Aileen sat.

"Aileen, are you alright?" I asked, kneeling down beside her.

"Yeah, I think so. I twisted my ankle when I fell," Aileen looked down at her ankle. "I think I might've broken it," she admitted, wincing in pain.

"Let me see," I said, gently moving her hands away from her booted foot. I removed the boot as gently as I could and looked at her ankle. There was a large lump on her ankle with a dark bruise already forming. There was also a gash on her ankle that blood was seeping through.

"Goodness! How on earth did you manage to twist it like this? How is it bleeding?" I asked, surprised.

"I didn't expect there to be a bloody hole where there was only supposed to be tree roots," she replied grumpily. "I think I hit it on that rock," She pointed to a rather large rock a foot away from where she sat.

"How are we going to get back if you have a broken ankle, Aileen?" I asked, glancing at the woods around us, my eyes wandering to the cliff I had climbed down. There was no way Aileen would be able to climb that in this condition, much less walk all the way back to the castle.

"Can you fix it?" She asked, "I certainly can't, you know how dreadful I am at Potions, but you told me you wanted to become a healer. Surely you know a spell to heal this."

"Well, I can try. But we've only been taught to heal mild wounds, like a bloody nose or something, not a broken ankle. Especially one as bad as yours. I might end up causing more damage."

She sighed, glancing down at her rapidly swelling ankle.
"If anyone here can do it, it's you, Alexa. Besides, you have any better ideas?"

I didn't reply. Maybe I could go back and get a professor's help. But, I wasn't going to leave Aileen here alone. Nor did I want to go back alone. Not to mention we would be in heaps of trouble if anyone found out we had snuck out.

I tried to remember a spell from the variety of potions, Healing Magic, and Charms books I'd read. Although it was not required of me for school, I read a lot of those books I found in the Hogwarts Library. I had read about and tried to memorize plenty of healing spells from the books, but I had never attempted them on someone, as they were more advanced spells than I had been taught yet, and I had no need to until now.

"Okay," I said, taking a deep, steadying breath. "This would be easier if I had access to some potions ingredients, but I'll do my best."

Taking my wand from my pocket, I pointed it at her ankle. Though I was worried my wand movement wouldn't be precise enough, or I would mispronounce the spell, I muttered the spell anyway.
Nothing happened at first, then Aileen's face turned a deathly pale shade. She didn't make any sounds of pain, but I knew that whatever I did wrong must've hurt from the expression on her face.

"Sorry, sorry," I muttered apologetically.

I flicked my wand and tried it again. This time, her ankle slowly turned back to its normal shape, the bruise fading, the gash fading into a dried scratch, and the bump vanishing. Her face got some color back into it, and she grinned. She slipped her boot back on.

"See, told you you could do it," she said as she stood up, moving her ankle in circles to test it.

Smiling proudly, I stood up and looked around us.