1.2 ARTEMIS | James Sirius Potter

xi. 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖕𝖎𝖙𝖆𝖑 𝖜𝖎𝖓𝖌

eleven
the hospital wing

        Artemis awoke in a tangle.

On the bed beside her slept another person whose limbs got tangled amongst her own and the bedsheets. She didn't know how she got here—where exactly here was, or when she was. All Artemis knew was that one minute she was face to face with a pack of Dementors and the next, lying in bed beside someone she didn't know.

Artemis opened one eye first to get a feel for her surroundings. Just in case she's been kidnapped and might need to escape, there was no reason to disturb her possible kidnapper as they slept. The familiar walls of the hospital wing greeted her sights, thankful to finally look at something other than her last breath, carved stone wall arched upwards to the heavens, soft daylight poured in through the ceiling tall windows and single beds scattered the hall, some window the curtains drawn and others left empty.

So she's alive. In the hospital wing. Good.

Her second eye opened and this time she was a lot more curious about the person whose chest she laid upon. Tilting back her head she immediately recognised the soft white hair that fell over his wrinkled forehead, as if his dreams were stressful. Scorpius had one arm limply stretched out across the bed, the other gently placed over her waist, their legs intermingled beneath the sheets and Artemis noticed her feet were caught in the bedsheets. She had no recollection of Scorpius coming to see her or feeling asleep next to her, but he had and that meant the world to her.

        Gently her fingers brushed away the hair on his forehead, her brothers eyes fluttering open. "Artemis," he croaked and shifted, much to her annoyance, until he sat bolt upright on the small hospital bed, nearly knocking her off the other side. "How're you feeling?"

        For such a simple question that required a simple answer, she didn't know how to answer it because she didn't know how she felt. Tired, definitely. Drained, too. But there was something else stirring inside her that she couldn't yet figure out. Not necessarily bad or good. It was just there, stirring away and growing into something more. She wanted it to grow into something more. So, she settled for the former. "Tired."

        "Here." Scorpius got up from his place on the bed and reached for the table at the foot of her bed, decorated with cards, confectionaries and chocolates from Honeydukes—a Galaxy bar too, she suspects its from Kreacher—and the wooden box she retrieved. Scorpius was still wearing his school uniform, excluding the emerald and silver tie, obviously there had been too much on his mind to worry about pyjamas. He broke off a large bit of the Galaxy bar and gave it to her. "Eat it."

        Artemis obliged and munched on the velvety chocolate in silence. Her brother didn't return to the bed, instead sitting down in the chair next to it and leaned backwards, crossing his legs and closing his eyes. He looked tired. He looked exactly like Draco and Artemis knew from old photographs that Draco as a teenager was the spitting image of Scorpius. For a moment she thought she was looking at fifteen year old Draco Malfoy.

"Scorp?" He barely opened his eyes to look at her. "Are you alright?"

"'M fine," he hummed, not entirely convincing his sister. Considering how tired he looked when she was the one to battle a pack of Dementors, she dropped it. "Your Patronus changed." He surprised her and leant his forearms on the bed, looking slightly more alert than seconds ago. "A wolf, huh?"