The Granger Twins

Chapter 17

Madam Pomfrey insisted on keeping Selena and Harry in the hospital wing for the rest of the weekend. They didn't argue or complain, but both of them wouldn't let her throw away the shattered remnants of their Nimbus Two Thousand's. They knew they were being stupid, knew that the Nimbuses were beyond repair, but they couldn't help it; it felt as though they'd lost one of their best friends.

The duo had a stream of visitors, all intent on cheering them up. Hagrid sent them a bunch of earwiggy flowers that looked like yellow cabbages, and Ginny Weasley, blushing furiously, turned up with a get-well card she had made herself, which sang shrilly unless Harry kept it shut under his bowl of fruit. The Gryffindor team visited again on Sunday morning, this time accompanied by Wood, who told Harry (in a hollow, dead sort of voice) that he didn't blame him in the slightest. Ron and Hermione left Harry and Selena's bedsides only at night. But nothing anyone said or did could make them feel any better, because they knew only half of what was troubling them.

He hadn't told anyone about the Grim, not even Ron and Hermione, because he knew Ron would panic and Hermione would scoff. The fact remained, however, that it had now appeared twice, and both appearances had been followed by near-fatal accidents; the first time, he had nearly been run over by the Knight Bus; the second, fallen fifty feet from his broomstick. Was the Grim going to haunt him until he actually died? Was he going to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for the beast?

And then there were the Dementors. Selena felt sick and humiliated every time she thought of them. Everyone said the Dementors were horrible, but no one else collapsed every time they went near one. No one else heard echoes in their head of their dying relatives.

Because Selena knew who that screaming voice belonged to now. She had heard his words, heard them over and over again during the night hours in the hospital wing while she lay awake, staring at the strips of moonlight on the ceiling. When the Dementors approached her, she heard the last moments of her uncle's life, his attempts to protect her, Selena, from Lord Voldemort, and Voldemort's laughter before he murdered him...Selena dozed fitfully, sinking into dreams full of clammy, rotted hands and petrified pleading, jerking awake to dwell again on her uncle's voice.

It was a relief to return to the noise and bustle of the main school on Monday, where they were forced to think about other things, even if they had to endure Draco Malfoy's taunting. Malfoy was almost beside himself with glee at Gryffindor's defeat. He had finally taken off his bandages, and celebrated having the full use of both arms again by doing spirited imitations of Selena and Harry falling off their brooms. Malfoy spent much of their next Potions class doing Dementor imitations across the dungeon; Ron finally cracked and flung a large, slippery crocodile heart at Malfoy, which hit him in the face and caused Snape to take fifty points from Gryffindor.

"If Snape's teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts again, I'm skiving off," said Ron as they headed toward Lupin's classroom after lunch. "Check who's in there, Hermione."

Hermione peered around the classroom door.

"It's okay!"

Professor Lupin was back at work. It certainly looked as though he had been ill. His old robes were hanging more loosely on him and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes; nevertheless, he smiled at the class as they took their seats, and they burst at once into an explosion of complaints about Snape's behavior while Lupin had been ill.

"It's not fair, he was only filling in, why should he give us homework?"

"We don't know anything about werewolves --"

"-- two rolls of parchment!"

"Did you tell Professor Snape we haven't covered them yet?" Lupin asked, frowning slightly.