Close Calls
Following the dungbomb incident, Fred and George made much more frequent appearances at Anna’s side. And that wasn’t even including Flying, Herbology, and History of Magic lessons, which the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors shared. But even in those lessons it was becoming quite normal for Anna to receive a prod in the ribs from one of their wands or find them leaning over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of her homework.
Outside of lessons, the twins were like a second—and third—shadow to her. Often times she’d sit next to Cedric in the Great Hall only to look up and suddenly find Fred and George sitting across the table. In fact, unless Anna was in the Hufflepuff dorms or the bathroom, the twins were likely not far behind.
Cedric had asked her about it after the third time their breakfast conversation was interrupted by the Weasley twins, but she’d just shrugged it off.
In truth, she wasn’t sure why Fred and George had taken a sudden liking to her. Perhaps they were just sticking close to ensure she wouldn’t forget about the favour she still owed them. Whatever the reason, as the weather cooled and the leaves outside turned colours and fell from their branches, Anna grew comfortable in the twins’ company.
In the rare moments spent alone Anna wrote letters home. She wrote about how the school was beautiful and the classes were interesting, how she and her new friends spent sunny afternoons by the lake, and how she was learning a lot. She tried not to lie too much, but it was difficult.
There were things she couldn’t tell her friends from home—her muggle friends—like how the classes taught spells and potions, how the lake housed a giant squid, and how the pain in her body was spreading steadily.
A stabbing bolt struck Anna’s side. She dropped her quill and hissed in a breath. Ink splattered the desk. The quill clattered to the floor.
“Oy, you alright?” Cedric whispered. He bent low next to her so their heads were close enough to hide the conversation from Professor Flitwick. They were meant to be copying down the Charms blackboard.
Anna nodded quickly, not wanting Cedric to worry. “I’m fine,” she lied.
The pain was getting worse. She’d woken that morning with a burning ache somewhere between her stomach and her spine. At breakfast the ache had turned sharp and two searing bolts of pain had lanced her organs. She’d nearly thrown up at the table.
This was the third—and most blistering—jolt of pain.
“You don’t look so good,” Cedric mumbled. He had that concerned crinkle in his brow again.
“You really know how to flatter a girl,” Anna said dryly.
“Anna—”
“I’m fine, Ced, really.” She took a tentative breath, half expecting another stabbing pain to her lungs. But finding that the pain was truly gone, she retrieved her quill and sat upright.
Anna pulled a fresh roll of parchment from her bag and began copying the blackboard anew. Her old notes were so thoroughly splattered with ink that she could hardly see the wand movement diagrams she had painstakingly drawn out.
“Maybe you should go to the hospital wing again. It could be another fever—”
“I said I’m fine,” Anna hissed more viciously than she’d meant to.
Cedric’s face turned cold. He leaned away and went back to his notes without another word. The fire in Anna’s stomach died abruptly. Now she felt terrible for an entirely different reason.
A tear fell onto her parchment. It streaked through the new diagram she’d drawn.
The following two weeks were the worst of Anna’s life.
Cedric wouldn’t speak to her. Not one word. He sat with his other friends in class and during meals. She’d tried to talk with him, tried to apologise, but he hardly even glanced in her direction. That hurt more than she expected. But she couldn’t bring herself to blame him.
Anna knew that she’d been awful during their last conversation. She hadn’t meant to snap at him, but she’d always found it hard to control her emotions. She’d been mean and she had no clue how to remedy her mistake.
And, as if things weren’t miserable enough, the pain was worse than ever. The stabbing jolts were growing more painful and more constant. Anna knew she should go back to the hospital wing, but she couldn’t muster the courage to go alone.
Getting through each day felt like crawling through a thick, black sludge. The only bright spot in all the misery was Fred and George. Each time that Anna felt close to drowning in her own head, they were suddenly at her side, relentlessly pulling her along without even knowing it.
“Oy, look at this!” Fred shouted excitedly as he shoved the latest Seeker Weekly magazine under George’s nose, startling both him and Anna, who was standing knee-deep in the Black Lake. “Self-steering brooms!”
George whipped his head away from the transfiguration essay he was working on. “Wicked! Reckon they’ll use them in the Premier League?”
“Dunno, might be against the rules.”
Anna listened to Fred and George discuss the merits and pitfalls of self-steering brooms, all the while wading slowly deeper into the Black Lake. Even in daylight the water was dark and murky. Anna couldn’t see her toes where she now stood waist-deep in the water. She didn’t even mind it very much, not when the water was blissfully cool on her over-heated skin. Her robes were heavy with the frigid water, but it was a strangely comforting kind of weight.
She passed her hands along the surface of the lake, leaving ripples in her wake. Anna took a step deeper, her robes dragging behind her. Fred and George’s conversation felt distant. She took another step, but her foot didn’t land on the pebbled lake floor.
All at once she plunged into the water. There was a shout that hadn’t come from her mouth. The voice was lost as she sank.
Anna whipped her head around, trying to see something, anything, but her hair snaked out in every direction. She couldn’t see which way was up or down. Her arms flailed and feet kicked furiously. The formerly comfortable weight of her robes was now strangling. She cartwheeled uselessly in the water. Panic bubbled in her throat. Her air wouldn’t last.
And all Anna could think was that she would die having never made up with Cedric.
Her temples throbbed as she fought to not inhale. If she breathed in she would die. She flailed and fought against the frigid water until her skull threatened to crack, until her energy waned and her struggles grew weak.
Finally, Anna stopped fighting. She hung suspended in the black water, a chorus of faraway voices echoed somewhere below, singing words that she couldn’t quite make out. The idea of breathing in didn’t seem so awful anymore. Maybe she could sing too. If she just took a breath. She used to love singing.
Something large seized Anna around the middle and yanked her backwards. She had no energy left to fight it. Her hands slid uselessly off the slimy tentacle that dragged her through the water.
Anna had already resigned herself to death when her head broke the lake’s surface.
The first breath hurt. The air Anna had so desperately wished for when she was underwater felt like fire in her lungs. She coughed violently as the large tentacle lowered her onto the grassy bank and slipped back into the water.
“Anna!”
“Go get help!” someone yelled.
“Anna!”
Her whole body shook with coughs. Water streamed from Anna’s hair and robes, turning ground beneath her muddy. She pressed her cheek to the cool grass just as someone fell to their knees at her side.
Frantic hands turned Anna over, desperate to see if she was breathing, if she was alive. She coughed again and opened her eyes.
George and Cedric were staring down at her, their faces pale with fear.
“I fancied a swim,” Anna mumbled hoarsely.
George broke into a relieved grin while Cedric’s face crumbled. Cedric yanked her upright and crushed her in a hug. Warm, bone-deep relief flooded her body. Anna clutched at Cedric’s robes as a sob bubbled up her throat. She clung to him and cried into his shoulder. Later she would find it in herself to feel sorry for soaking his robes.
“Hate to break up the reunion,” said George, “but we’ve got company.”
Anna and Cedric peeled apart. She looked up at him and the first thing she noticed was that Cedric was crying too. The second thing she noticed was Fred and Professor McGonagall rushing down the hill towards them.
Fred skidded in the large muddy patch that Anna had created and slid into George, who steadied his brother just in time for McGonagall to reach them.
“My word! Miss Alsaint, are you alright?”
“I’m okay, Professor.”
“Regardless, let’s get you to the hospital wing. Boys, help her up.” McGonagall stood impatiently as George and Cedric each took one of Anna’s elbows and pulled her upright. Under McGonagall’s steady eye, George and Cedric dragged Anna to the hospital wing despite her insistence that she was fine—soggy, but fine. Of course, no one listened to her.
They received many stares on their way through the castle. Professor McGonagall was excellent at shooing away nosy students and blocking curious stares. A group of Slytherins sniggered as they watched Anna pass by, trailing mud and water down the cooridor. They disappeared quickly when Professor McGonagall threatened them with detention.
The five of them, George and Cedric with Anna between them and Fred and McGonagall following close behind, were rounding the corner to the hospital wing—and Anna was insisting yet again that she was fine—when the shouting started up.
“Filth! In my fresh mopped corridors. Which one of you little—”
“Mr. Filch!” McGonagall snapped at the fuming man. “I am escorting an injured student to the hospital wing. I am doing my job. I suggest you cease shouting long enough to do yours!” McGonagall directed the boys to steer Anna away, whose face was burning with embarrassment.
“Poppy!” McGonagall shouted as they burst through the the hospital wing doors.
The healer came rushing out of a back office, her white cap slightly askew. “Merlin’s beard! What’s happened, Minerva?” Madam Pomfrey rushed over to Anna and had the boys sit her down on one of the empty beds.
“I’m fine, really,” Anna insisted again. “I just need to get changed.”
“Hush, Miss Alsaint,” McGonagall interrupted, turning her attention to the healer. “She fell into the Black Lake. I don’t know how long she was in the water—”
“A few minutes professor,” Cedric volunteered.
“But then the giant squid threw her out,” Fred added.
Madam Pomfrey gasped and Professor McGonagall paled.
“How many minutes was she in the water?”
“We weren’t exactly counting,” George said, and earned himself a cold look from both women.
“Approximate it for me, Mr. Weasley.”
Madam Pomfrey rushed off and began to fiddle with one of the locked medicine cabinets.
“Five minutes?” said Fred.
“I saw her fall and ran over. She was in the lake for at least a five minutes after that,” Cedric chimed in.
“Five it is, then,” George said. “Give or take.”
Madam Pomfrey bustled over with a clean set of pyjamas and a bottle of something greyish. She shooed everyone away and drew the curtain around Anna’s bed. The healer stripped Anna of her wet robes and wrapped her in a blanket.
Anna plopped down on the bed as Madam Pomfrey bustled off, murmuring something about pepper. She reappeared a moment later with a goblet, into which she poured the grey sludge from the bottle. The potion began to bubble and steam as soon as it hit the glass.
“Drink up. Merlin knows you’ll need it after taking a swim in the Black Lake.” Madam Pomfrey shoved the goblet into Anna’s hands.
Anna took a sip and nearly spat it out. Violent coughs shook her body. The thick liquid sloshed around the goblet and splashed onto her hand.
“Oh my word,” Madam Pomfrey pulled the cup out of Anna’s grip, set it aside, and patted Anna’s back. “Don’t worry deary, you get used to the flavour.”
“What is that?” Anna chocked out.
“Pepper-Up potion. Best way to warm up quickly,” the healer explained.
“But I’m not cold.”
Madam Pomfrey looked at Anna in surprise before schooling her expression with a shake of her head. “That’ll be the shock talking. The Black Lake is freezing, you’ll feel it in a moment. Now drink up.” She put the goblet back in Anna’s hands and disappeared around the curtain.
Anna stared down into the grey potion. Her mouth twisted. A peppery taste from that first sip still clung to the back of her throat.
“Oy,” a voice called from the other side of the curtain. “Can we come in?”
“Yeah,” she said.
Fred yanked aside the curtain and he, George, and Cedric were standing on the other side. Anna pulled the blanket a bit tighter around herself. The pyjamas were sitting on the bed next to her but she didn’t have the energy to put them on. The adrenaline of the past half hour had faded and exhaustion was sitting heavy on her shoulders.
The boys crowded in around the bed. Cedric looked worried. Fred and George had their usual half-smiling expressions in place, but Anna could see the heaviness in their eyes too.
“Just fancied a swim?” Cedric asked.
Anna fiddled with the blanket. “I didn’t mean to. The water’s too dark, I couldn’t see the drop off, and then I was just falling.”
Cedric sighed and plopped down next to her. Their shoulders pressed together and it felt just like when they’d been huddled in the Quidditch stands watching team tryouts on his birthday.
“You can’t just half-drown any time we gave a fight, you know.”
“It’ll have to be poisoning next time then,” Anna chuckled.
“Don’t even joke about that,” Cedric mumbled and wrapped an arm around her. His cheek rested on her sopping wet hair.
“Or you could jump in front of a nasty hex,” Fred chimed in.
“Yeah, the right one oughta do you in quick,” George added.
Anna rolled her eyes but smiled at them. “Are you volunteering to accidentally hex me?”
“We are at your service.” Fred grinned.
“But don’t spread the word just yet. Mum’s still on us for the dungbombs.”
“I appreciate you boys helping your friend,” Madam Pomfrey cut in as she came bustling back into the room. “But the best way to help her now is to make sure she drinks that.”
Anna scrunched her face. The taste of the Pepper-Up potion still lingered on the back of her tongue.
“I know, Miss Alsaint, but it’ll warm you up. Drink please. I need to check on another patient.”
Cedric leaned over to grab the still-steaming goblet and set it back in Anna’s hands. She didn’t bother arguing—again—that she wasn’t cold. Reluctantly, and with more gagging than Miss Frethey would deem ladylike, Anna downed the foul tasting potion.
The boys kept her company as they all waited for Madam Pomfrey to return and dismiss her from the hospital wing. Fred and George talked relentlessly while Anna used Cedric as a pillow. She was half asleep on his shoulder when Madam Pomfrey finally came back to her bed.
The healer checked the empty goblet, felt Anna’s forehead, and deemed her well enough to go down for dinner. She shooed the boys back beyond the curtain, helped a very sleepy Anna dress, and sent her off.
The Pepper-Up potion did not sit well in Anna’s stomach. She sat through dinner at Cedric’s side but she couldn’t bring herself to eat. He didn’t harp on it, seeing as she was a little green in the face. And she was content to just enjoy being by her friend’s side for the first time in weeks.
When dinner ended Cedric threw an arm over Anna’s shoulders and they walked to the common room together. She turned back briefly to wave goodnight to Fred and George, who were heading upstairs.
Despite it being a Sunday night and Anna being admittedly exhausted, she and Cedric spent a while sitting in front of the fire talking. They talked about the past couple weeks, exchanged apologies—though they each insisted the other didn’t owe them one—and just enjoyed spending time together again. Anna didn’t tell him about the real reason she had been so cold to him in class. She didn’t want him to worry. Hour later, when the fire had grown dim and Anna’s head drooped onto Cedric’s shoulder, he’d pulled them both upright and they went went to their respective dorm rooms.
The girl’s hallway was deserted. Anna suspected everyone was already sleeping, seeing as tomorrow was Monday and they’d all need to be in class. She went into the shared bathroom rather than making noise around her room. The last thing she needed was for Theo and Patricia to wake up and ruin her good mood with their bickering.
She was washing her hands when a bolt of pain shot through her. Anna fell with a gasp. Her knee cracked against the stone floor and more pain radiated in her bones. One wet hand slapped against the sink as the other clutched her side. Pain pierced her like a dozen swords.
This was worse than drowning in the Black Lake. It was worse than being ignored by Cedric for two weeks. This pain came from somewhere deep inside her. It clawed at her insides as if it were trying to escape her body. Anna wanted to escape right along with it.
But when the pain couldn’t find a way out, it grew angrier. It thrashed inside of her and grew in its fury. A black haze crept around the edges of her mind as Anna lay panting on the floor. Her body would not listen to her. Not when she told it to get up. Not when she asked it to call for help. Not when she begged for it to end.
When pain finally receded to a dull ache, when she found the strength to drag herself upright on trembling legs, Anna nearly threw up. In the mirror staring back at her was a girl with messy hair and a dark grey scales creeping up her neck.