The Art of Secrets

Chapter Twenty: Almost the End

When Erica came to it was with Ginny and Harry hovering over her nervously, touching her face and hands as if to check that she was okay. She smiled up at them weakly, her head spinning slightly as the whole ground seemed to rock underneath her, but she managed a weak, "Hey," before her eyes fell closed and she was drifting back off again.

When she next came to she was being carried through a hole that had been dug out of the crumbled remains of a stone wall, the body holding her warm and solid, and she marvelled at that warmth as she clutched at a robed chest and whimpered slightly. There were no words, but she felt the smooth slide of wood as her wand was slipped back into her grip and what sounded like Ron's rough tone saying "How did she even get down there?" before blackness encroached once more.

The next time was even stranger, dim light all around and warmth underneath her and surrounding her, the vague sensation of arms holding her tight, and it took her too long to realise that she was sat in someone's lap as she tried to blink herself awake.

"Erica," she winced when she heard her name spoke, too drowsy to open her eyes as they fluttered open and closed and the pounding in her head grew worse. There was a feeling that she couldn't describe as more than cold washing over her which she vaguely recognised from the diagnostic spells she'd had cast on her before, and fuzzy words like "magical exhaustion" and "nearly killed herself" and "could still die" were somehow heard over the cotton wool that seemed to be blocking her ears before she was falling once more.

She couldn't say how long she drifted for, waving in and out of half-dreams and memories and fuzzy dream-like sequences which must be from reality itself though seemed to fade in and out along with the darkness. She was back in Romania with the dragons and teasing merpeople in the common room and in Paris with Nicolas and being carried down dark hallways and up stairs all at once, blurring together, making a mess of everything, darkness interwoven with it all.

"-said that she controlled the basilisk, that it listened to her-"

"-name, Nagendra, and it was so big, and she-"

"-screaming, like you wouldn't believe-"

"-Saw her fading, just a little around the corners-"

"-so light, as though I was carrying air, but she gripped onto her wand all right-"

"-you told me that was a story! That things like that didn't-"

"-makes you wonder, what this girl's been going through up there-"

"-the pendant, take it off of her-"

"strength, she's losing it-"

"-the pendant, Severus, I don't care about her wishes-"

"-not coming off-"

"-get Dumbledore, we need-"

"-Poppy, what is happening-"

"-muggle surgery isn't something that we condone-"

"-St Mungo's might be the only place-"

"-the healers at once, the situation is growing-"

"-surgery may be the only way, with the pendant acting how it-"

"-don't know how this is happening-"

"-symptoms showing so early and yet you didn't think to-"

"-we need Dumbledore, and-"

"-I'm sorry sir, but you won't be allowed in the room whilst we-"

"-there's no way, a magical transfusion has never been-"

"-it's reacting, so cold it's burning-"