Chapter 59. Hospital Bed

Waking up with a start, I gasped as my eyes darted around the room. I quickly realized I was inside the Hospital wing, Pansy laid sleeping by my bedside. “Welcome back Lucas…” A warm voice called out to me, one that I recognized instantly. I turned to see Dumbledore, sitting on a nearby chair, closing the diary I had stabbed to death with a somewhat penitent expression. Matching my gaze, his warm smile soon reappeared on his face, silently telling me that everything was alright.

“It was that diary that did it. Pansy was just confus-” I started to defend her, but Dumbledore nodded slowly while waving his hand. “I know… There is no blame for Ms. Parkinson…” He chuckled a bit under his breath at my relief. The sound of birds chirping from outside the open window nearby was all that could be heard for a while as we both sat silent. I glanced over at a nearby bed to see Hermione still sleeping with her back facing me. “Hermione was going to die… I could only save her through Unicorn’s blood… What kind of curses will we both have?”

Dumbledore hummed for a moment. I grabbed my chest, the vial I usually played with between my fingertips now missing. “The curse of the unicorn is there, yet not…” Dumbledore sighed as I kept staring at Hermione’s back, worrying over what sort of life I forced her to live. “Drinking the blood of a unicorn is a sort of curse that also does not exist…” I looked back at Dumbledore with confusion as he smirked at me for a moment, before his smile changed back into sadness. “The act of killing such a majestic creature for your own life, is a sort of curse one must live with for the rest of their life… One lives their life, with the knowledge of it only existing through the act of killing a perfectly innocent creature… A curse, it is not… However the guilt that builds over time might as well be… Many wizards and witches lost their minds after committing such an act.”

I smiled pensively, clutching at my chest, the only part of her left was now with me at all times, never to be lost. “So I’m the only one who’s cursed…” I mumbled, glancing at Dumbledore’s unsurprised gaze. He knew, he had to have known before I enrolled in school here. That special room he let me use, was for other students with the same condition as I now knew I had. “Unfortunately… Yes…” Dumbledore answered concisely, not sugarcoating his words.

I sighed, now that I could finally process what I was, it finally started to sink in. I had a monster living inside of me. I held my head in my hands, blocking my eyes while I muttered. “I don’t remember any of it… I should at least remember the times I was… changed, right?” I sat in silence, waiting for Dumbledore’s response. “Normally… Yes… However, you Lucas are special even among others of your affliction…” I scoffed at his wording. Using the term ‘special’ as a nice way of saying I was mutant even among monsters. “Special how?”

“That I cannot say for certain… However you are the only student I have had that cannot remember the times you have been changed, or reacts to Vitamix in the way I have seen myself…” I glanced at my hair to see it was brown again, no longer the dark black that seemed to suck in the very light itself into my shaggy mane. “You’ve had others before?” I asked, he smiled in response with an assured nod. “Of course… Hogwarts takes in all students that are willing to learn…” He chuckled, no sense of worry or concern in his gaze as he looked at me.

I smiled and laughed a bit in relief, a burden I had just gained, already being lifted with the help of the headmaster’s aid. “What was that sword Hermione suddenly had?” I asked, thinking now of how she helped me in the Chamber. Dumbledore and I both looked over at Hermione’s sleeping back, gently resting on the medical bed.

Dumbledore chuckled as his gaze moved to the window behind her. He noticed in the reflection in the glass, Hermione’s gaze was looking right at the both of them, hiding the fact that she was listening in. It wasn’t Dumbledore’s place, so he just nodded ever so slightly while Hermione’s and his gaze met. Promising to keep silent for her.

“That is an heirloom of one of the founders of this very school…” Dumbledore answered, and the red ruby's that adorned the handle came to my mind, as well as the hands of who it appeared in, and whose House she was in. “Godric Gryffindor…” Dumbledore nodded at me. “Indeed… In time of great need for aid, and the courage to stand up against great odds… Only then… Would the sword show itself…” I frowned at the traits the sword looked for. “Why would you give me the hat if I weren’t in Gryffindor?” I asked, seeing as the sword only came to those in Gryffindor.

Dumbledore smiled and hummed, still looking out the window. “Because… Even if you are in one house… Does not mean you do not share traits with another…” I pondered in silence at his meaning, but Pansy stirred, before her head popped off the bed she was leaning against, she instantly latched onto me, hugging me while speaking words in incomplete sentences. “I was so scared! I didn’t- I shouldn’t- Are you ok!? I’m so sorry!!” It consisted of her apologizing and making sure I was ok. I gently rubbed her back while my heart stirred, unsure of how she might react if she knew of my curse.

Dumbledore left silently, letting Pansy and I have some space alone. “I don't know why, I just found the diary in the girl's bathroom! After that, I just k-kept hearing your thoughts, a-and Tom said you would love seeing-” I cut Pansy off while patting her back. “It’s all right… You have nothing to feel ashamed about. Having Voldemort in your ear for half a year could drive anyone mad.” I chuckled as Pansy’s worried panting slowed.

She let out a sigh, resting her forehead on my shoulder. “I… I just wanted you to be happy…” Pansy muttered, seemingly remembering my horrified expression, seeing her as the culprit behind the attacks. I squinted with a frown, my chest clenching in pain, wondering if she would think the same if she heard everything down there. I looked at Hermione’s back as I sighed, continuing to rub Pansy’s back in comfort. “I know… That’s why I’m not mad…” “You mean it?” She asked, not moving an inch. I nodded without a word. ‘I’m worried…’

Seeing how far Pansy was willing to go with Voldemort pushing her, I worried how far our beliefs truly were. Salazar's desire for segregated peace had been morphed into pure disdain for anyone 'unpure'. Even thought Voldemort ushered and steered her, he didn't pull her hatred of the unpure from nowhere. How would she react if she found out my blood was no longer pure? How close could we be as friends? What would she think if Hermione let it slip? 'Hermione was wide awake behind me as I screamed at Tom.' I wasn’t angry at Pansy, I enjoyed learning and talking together a lot, avoiding our difference in values as much as possible, and she was good company along with Draco. However, now I was truly an imposter among the Slytherin house.

After visitation hours were over, and Pansy had to leave, albeit after a lot of ‘goodbyes’ and promises to take care of Val, I was left alone with my thoughts. “What am I gonna do…?” I muttered, seeing another half of the school year ahead of me with Hermione as a ticking bomb of my most hidden secrets. I glanced at her, and shook my head. I couldn’t trust her to keep silent over everything she heard down in the Chamber. I then noticed my robe nearby, hanging on the nightstand beside my bed. I quickly grabbed it, and found the last vial of potion I had left inside.

Hermione heard Lucas mutter under his breath, and saw his reflection through the window. She couldn’t see much of what he was doing, but the sound of parchment and quill was unmistakable. She heard him continue to mutter as he wrote, seemingly acting out the voice of his writings to avoid mistakes, something that made Hermione grin at his quirk. He then got up from his bed, and Hermione clamped her eyes shut as he silently darted over to her bed.

Hermione did her best to pretend she was asleep as she felt Lucas’ shadow blocking the light from the window in front of her. He set down something on her nightstand, and quickly jumped back over to his bed, avoiding madam Pomfrey’s attention as she continued to sort potions and other assorted tools onto her shelves for ease of access. Hermione squinted her eyes back open, and saw a folded ‘Get Well Soon’ card with a vial of some potion just underneath it.

Hermione soon recognized its orange color as something they learned to make this year, something she might have drank without much thought if she weren’t fully awake. A Forgetfulness potion. Hermione frowned at his clear attempt of removing her as a loose end of his true self. Hermione was filled with relief for Lucas being just an innocent suspect for the attacks, and grateful for him to perhaps be an actual good person. However it was just as overshadowed by his disbelief in her, not even asking her to remain silent, but just forcing the memory of it to be forgotten.

Hermione began scowling while staring at the vial of orange liquid, seeing it as an enemy that would take away something she wanted to keep. A very important memory that proved Lucas was more than just a rich snob, one she guessed her friend Chiara also already knew in the fact she asked Lucas to be a friend in his first year. Perhaps the reason why she was watching Lucas at night to see if she could find the real culprit looking at him.