Treacherous | Hermione Granger Book II

|67| Chapter Sixty-Seven

S I X T Y  S E V E N 

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

"Rowan?"

Rowan was sat on a seat, asleep, next to Saffron, with his head resting on a pillow (which was being held up by his head) against the wall. He, alongside two others, were gathered around her bed and had been doing so for the past twelve hours or so. All three of the people who remained, precisely a day after Saffron had been crushed by the debris as a result of Lockhart's backfired Charm.

Once the three Mitchell siblings heard what had happened to their sister the morning after the ordeal at the Chamber of Secrets, they made their way briskly to the hospital wing and hadn't left her side in the time that passed

Saffron hadn't been breathing ever since Ron had uncovered her from the debris. She had been carried by the phoenix Fawkes through the Chamber of Secrets and all the way to the foot of the hospital wing. The phoenix had cried on her but to no avail. Saffron's eyes didn't open and her lungs didn't gain a new lease of life. Fawkes made quite the fuss to garner attention from the hospital wing, and when Amanda Endacott opened the doors to the wing she was horror-stricken by what she had born witness to. The sight of a rigid, seemingly dead Saffron terrified her. Yet, when she checked to see if she was dead, her wand told her that she wasn't, despite showing all the signs that a Muggle doctor would state to be as dead.

The girl was supposed to be dead, but she wasn't. At that moment, Amanda knew that the Grey had had something to do with it. That some semblance of ancient magic had provided Saffron Mitchell with a new lease of life. The lack of physical injuries made sense, any wizard would be able to shield themselves in a moment of desperation. That was common, particularly in adolescence. But the fact that she hadn't died of suffocation was miraculous.

However, just because she was alive didn't mean she would remain so. After trying numerous times by both Madam Pomfrey and Amanda alike to resuscitate her, to no avail, the nurses made sure to tell the likes of the Mitchells, Harry, Ron, Lavender, Parvati and others who visited to see if she was okay, that there was no guarantee that she would ever wake up. Quite simply because they didn't have any other explanation than magic being the cause of her states, and oftentimes that magic was going to be the very thing that woke her up.

Little did they know, as Saffron opened her eyes slowly and gazed around at the blurry surroundings of the hospital wing, that that was the case.

The first person that Saffron noticed was Rowan seeing as he was so close to her. Saffron's heart fluttered at the sight of him and she did her utmost to call out to him. The entirety of her body seemed to be on shut down. The one word that she uttered upon waking up seemed to suck all of the energy out of her. Her body felt tense and delicate like she didn't know how to move it. Any time she opened her mouth to say something, all that came out was a wheeze. So all she did was flicker her eyes in numerous directions, trying desperately to get someones attention.

Amanda, unlike the sleeping Mitchells, however, did notice her. Whilst working through the night on the mandrake solution, she saw that there was the slightest of movements coming from Saffron's bed. She saw that Saffron was breathing. With a faint shriek and sigh of relief, she rushed over to the bed. Saffron's lungs were functioning meaning quite simply that she was alive.

"She's awake!" said Amanda loudly, which signalled to Madam Pomfrey to come rushing out of her office. "She's awake, oh thank Merlin, she's awake!"

Maya awoke with a start from the bed Amanda had insisted she stay in beside Saffron. The older girl jolted upright and was instantly alert and desperately hoping that she was going to hear good news.