Like Rain to Fire

CHAPTER 5

With Lena's sleeves of her white button-down shirt rolled up to her elbows, she was able to put her hands into the creature's deep gash.

Lying in the front of the forbidden forest, the creature was a fully-sedated raindeer who had a wound on its side, caused by a sharp branch.

As proof, Lena's hand caught the stick and pulled it out. She fished around some more to collect the splinters.

An hour ago, it had wailed to the point where it disrupted the flying class and quidditch practices. It was a miracle it was still alive at all.

Madam Pomfrey and Lena were sent to heal the miserable thing, but when the matron sealed the cut, it had immediately turned infected-there was something in it.

And since it was a magical deer and a spell couldn't just easily pull out the object, Lena had been the one to do it. Manually.

Lena stood and threw the branch to the underbrush. "Clean the wound," she said to Pomfrey, who was holding her breath at the sight of Lena's bloody hands. Even as a healer, Pomfrey hadn't usually done these kind of things where it was hands in.

"Aguamenti," the matron muttered, bringing a wand up to pour water over the sleeping deer.

"Twenty points to Slytherin," Madam Pomfrey said. "Thank you so much, Lena."

"I would say that it was an accident, but there's no way a branch can cut so deep. I'll talk to McGonagall, see what she can do about it. This was done on purpose."

With Pomfrey's nod, Lena doused her forearms with water from her wand. Cleaned up-slightly-she then walked back to the school.

Finally reaching the closest bathroom, she put her wrists under the running water and scratched away the blood that she hadn't completely gotten rid of. At this point, they were clotted by the cool September air outside.

"What's that?" Moaning Myrtle asked, suddenly appearing beside her.

"Blood," Lena said simply, continuing to wash.

"Who did you kill?"

Lena turned the tap off and marched out of the bathroom, making sure to pass through Myrtle.

She moaned-as her name suggested-and wailed, rushing to a bathroom stall where a toilet erupted in a spalsh of water.

Lena returned to her house's common room, suddenly feeling tired. Her shift in the Hospital Wing was over, too, so the rest of the day was free. She changed out of her clothes and into a large shirt and shorts.

She wrote a quick letter to McGonagall for an appointment and sent it through her new cat. After that was crawling into her bed and taking an extra long nap until she had to wake up for class in the morning.

-

There was a cat in the middle of the hallway when James passed by. He almost tripped over the tiny gray thing, since it appeared almost out of nowhere.

"Shit," he said, half tumbling. Callum, his friend beside him, laughed at both James's comment and the way he stumbled to straighten himself.

And then James choked at something in front of him.

A blonde, gray-eyed Slytherin who was walking past him down the hall. Lena Wagner, he remembered. Quite, reserved. They had been partners in Potions all of one time, and that was enough for him to realize that she was much out of his league.