6 ~ What a Cliché

Some thoughts do not fade with daylight, they merely learn to sit quietly in the corner.

     The following days passed slowly, like sluggish syrup. As always, I spent the days after full moon in the Hospital Wing. I slept most of the time and avoided looking into the farthest corner, where the girl still lay. I had not dared to ask Madam Pomfrey how she was doing.     Dumbledore had not come to visit me again. It was probably because other students at Hogwarts also had complaints for Pomfrey. He did not seem to want the girl to receive too much attention until she woke up. She certainly was not a student.     I wondered if someone was looking for her. A parent perhaps, who did not know how to deal with a werewolf as a child. Maybe they sent her into the Forbidden Forest every full moon to transform?

After all, there are plenty of werewolves in the depths of the forest, I thought, or at least that is what the rumours say.     It had been the reason why Dumbledore had assigned me the Shrieking Shack. Alone in the forest as a werewolf, I could run onto the castle grounds, or encounter other werewolves and dangerous animals in the forest. After full moon I would not know where I was, and one did not leave a child wandering in the forest. An adult could pparate or find their way more quickly.

     In the following days I often thought about how foolish it had been of me to go into the forest. Although Dumbledore seemed to believe my lie, it gnawed at me more with every passing day. In my thoughts it was entirely my fault that I had injured the girl.     A girl who was still unconscious when I left the Hospital Wing. I was not yet fully fit, but I could not bear it any longer, being in the same room as her. So I was released by the nurse, though with the warning that I should not attend lessons for another day.     That had been yesterday. Today I sat with my friends in the dormitory, who had endured full moon better than I had. Yet I believed that they were pretending for my sake.     "You are still thinking about her, aren't you?" I heard a voice. It came from the other side of the dormitory and reminded me to blink again.     I rolled onto my stomach, ran a hand over my face, and peered through my fingers towards James. He twirled his wand between his fingers and was so focused that his tongue was slightly visible between his lips.     The Gryffindor sat cross-legged on his, notably unmade, bed, and when his wand slipped from his fingers and flew between his legs, he looked at me again. He raised a dark brow, seeming to expect an answer to his question.     "How could I not think about her? She is still lying in the Hospital Wing and-"          "You blame yourself, we get it," Padfoot finished for me.     I shot him a deadly glare.          "But how can Moony blame himself for it?" Wormtail asked and looked up from his parchment roll, which showed his Transfiguration essay that I had finished a week ago. Peter tried to write on his thigh, which looked very clumsy.     "That is the point, he is not to blame," James said firmly and this time his wand fell to the floor.          "Leave it, Prongs," Sirius began. For over half an hour he had been deciding which sweater to wear to dinner. That during his search he had started sorting and folding his clothes made no sense to me, and I did not want it to make sense to me either.

Padfoot is Padfoot and some actions should not be questioned.

     In any case, I was busy glaring at my friends in annoyance. Sirius held a black shirt stretched out before him in that moment, James raised his voice: "Exactly, Moony always blames himself for things he did not do."          "So I did not hurt her?"     "You did. But you are not unhurt either, remember?" he teased, speaking the reality aloud. At his words my side began to throb again, as did my back and shoulder blade. I remembered how I had collapsed in the Hospital Wing and how Pomfrey later told me that my injuries had been worse than the girl's.     Yes, she had struck me hard, and yet I kept telling myself that I could have prevented it. Of course I could not have, yet that was how it felt.

I am a monster, and even if she carries the same curse, I see less of the monster in her than in myself. To me she is a girl lying unconscious in the Hospital Wing, whom I injured.

     "You see, now he has no comeback left," Padfoot remarked and began stuffing the tops into his small dresser, which made me fear that he was undoing all his careful folding.     "Pff, I still have words," I sat up, "and to answer your very first question, James, yes, I have been thinking about her. Is that forbidden now as well, like thinking about guilt?"     Towards the end my tone had become mocking, yet the boys ignored it. They knew how I was when I was in this mood. In moments like these I would rather not speak at all and sink into my thoughts, yes, even if they did me no good. My friends knew me far too well by now, and although I appreciated that they always pulled me out of my darker thoughts, it was exhausting.

I hurt the girl, that is it.

     "Thinking is not forbidden, but you do it too much," James explained, which made me sigh loudly.      The bespectacled boy focused on his wand lying on the floor. Whether he was trying to summon it through sheer thought, I did not know. He quickly ended the staring contest with the piece of wood and his brown eyes landed on me, then he continued, casting a sideways glance at Sirius: "You think too much, maybe you could give some of it to those who need it." James nodded in Sirius's direction, who was kneeling on the floor with his back to us.     "Mirror!" said the one mentioned, calling his reply, because he knew James was teasing him. His word made me shake my head, since it meant as much as 'same to you.' Something one always said when nothing better came to mind. One held up a mirror to the other person.     "Same mirror!" came from James, which was the so-called 'same-same.'          "I said it first!"     "And I thought it!"          "Pff," Sirius made, who had finally put on a sweater and shoved his trousers as a heap into the last drawer.     "'Pff' is what those say who have nothing left to say," James countered and crossed his arms before his chest like Sirius.     "Actually they say 'same,' like you did earlier," I added, and both pairs of eyes landed on me. As a result Sirius began to laugh, his laughter echoing through the entire dormitory. From James I received a venomous look, and after Sirius's barking laughter it became briefly quiet.      Only Peter's quill scratching over parchment could be heard, until James raised his voice: "She will wake up soon, I am sure," he tried to encourage me.          "Hm," was all I said.

Elizabeth's POV:

     I liked the lessons at Hogwarts. Something many would not believe, since I was, after all, myself. Nevertheless, I had to note that lessons lost quality when classmates were stupid. That annoyed me.     I understood the concepts immediately, could not comprehend how one could take an eternity for a simple potion - with a recipe - or even make it explode. Or how one could fail to imitate a simple wand movement.

All people are stupid.

     The Charms classroom was more brightly lit than usual. For some unfathomable reason, today was a sunny winter day. Although some clouds hung in the sky and an icy wind blew, at first glance it looked as if it were summer.     I let my gaze wander through the classroom. Tall windows, rows of wooden desks, and a board on which the professor had already scribbled. He called it wand movements, however.     Professor Heffordson was an incompetent man. He stood at the front, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his crumpled coat, because he always seemed to be cold. His ash-blond hair fell crookedly into his forehead, the silver spectacles sat so loosely on his nose as if they might fall off at any moment. He looked like someone who could not decide whether to flee the classroom or conduct the lesson.     Eventually he began the lesson, which we unfortunately shared with the Gryffindors every Wednesday.     "Today we will be dealing with a spell that seems harmless, but requires much discipline. The Accio. Can anyone tell me what this spell does?"     Several hands shot into the air. Mine as well, since I liked to raise my hand and had already taught myself much of the material.     "Please, Miss Lestrange."          I lowered my hand. "The Accio is also called the Summoning Charm."     "Very good, one house point for Slytherin."     It was nothing new, since the professor gave one house point for every correctly answered question. For that reason he asked many questions.     "You will need it, more often than you would like," Heffordson continued tiredly and coughed, because he had a cold.

Perhaps that was also why he wore the coat.

     I rested my chin in my palm and looked further through the classroom. As always, Sev sat beside me and together we occupied our place in the first row. In every classroom, a place near the professor belonged to me, because I hated watching other students not paying attention.           It was distracting.     In the Charms classroom, however, the rows of seats faced each other. So on the opposite side I had to look at the Gryffindors, among whom the brainless ones were also sitting.           I hated them.           Black and his group of friends deserved only the worst in life.     Before Black could catch my gaze, I looked back to Heffordson, who demonstrated the spell and summoned a book from a shelf to himself. It landed directly in his hand.     "As you see, the principle is simple. Yet the art does not lie in the movement, but in thinking. You must imagine the object, crystal clear, where it should land. Otherwise all sorts of things will fly at you. You want only one book, but five set their sights on you. We will practise a little now, with cloth balls. I learned my lesson last year..."     The last part the professor muttered to himself and with a swing of his wand, on the side of the Slytherins a cloth ball landed in front of each of us. Red and small.     "The young witches and wizards from the first row of Gryffindor will try to fetch the balls from the first row of the Slytherins. One after another, then we move one row higher."          I rolled my eyes, because this way the lesson would never pass.     "What do you think he used last year?" I whispered to Sev, who was making some notes. He always held his quill too far forward, which meant he constantly got ink stains.     Now his hand paused, then his black eyes glanced sideways at me and he said: "I heard that they were books, but proper tomes. One was hurled against the window and shards of glass supposedly landed in Heffordson's face. One in his eye."     A wicked grin appeared on my face when I heard the story. I was not surprised, however, since Heffordson was incompetent.      So I waited until the first ones mastered their spell, and when everyone had taken their turn once, the professor gave us the homework to demonstrate the spell by the next lesson - flawlessly.

James' POV:

     All my attention was fixed on those beautiful green eyes that could belong only to Lily Evans. She was talking to her friends and walked past us in the corridor. That her eyes did not look kindly at me hurt, of course, yet they were still beautiful.      Lily had always appealed to me, but during the last few months in fourth year she perhaps appealed to me a little too much. That my friends had already noticed it, and that I was therefore the first one to be struck by having a crush, was obvious. I did not admit it.

I am not in love with Lily.

     Slowly we were all reaching the age where girls became interesting, and for me Lily was the most interesting girl at Hogwarts. Even though she had never smiled at me, I had often seen her smile. I had to say that she had a charming smile.     Unfortunately, I, but Sirius as well, because Remus liked her, was not popular with her, since we teased Snivellus, but please. Snape was simply perfect not to like.     That was what I did not understand about Lily, how she could be friends with a snake. Otherwise she had normal friends, although normal was a term in itself - they were simply girls. Alice Fortescue, Mary Macdonald and Dorcas Meadowes were Lily's best friends, with whom she shared a dormitory. Of course Lily had more friends, since she was popular among the Gryffindors.     At that moment the four walked past us, while I stared at Lily. It would remain nothing more than staring. Girls were still strange, and so I did not dare to speak to Lily, not properly and personally.          "Uh, this will soon turn into real falling in love," Sirius teased, which made me take my gaze away from the redhead. For that my friend received a solid punch against his shoulder.     "I was looking perfectly normally!" I complained and tried to make a serious face.          "Sure," came the reply from Moony, who walked ahead of us. I eyed him with narrowed eyes. Last summer he had grown again, and if it continued like this in the next years, we would have to shout to speak with him.

But Remus' father is tall as well.

     However, at that moment it was about the fact that I was being teased.     "If looks already mean that one is in love, then Sirius is in love with Lestrange."          "You! Take that back!"     "Me?" I asked with a grin, since Sirius pointed his finger at me. "You always stare at Lestrange."          "Because she always stares at me!"     "And?"          "Nothing 'and'!"     I loved teasing Sirius, since even now in Charms his glances had been fixed on the snake the entire time. They were arch-enemies, hated each other deeply. Still they spoke to each other every day, well, they insulted each other.     "Moony," Sirius demanded and Remus did not react to the nickname, since he found them stupid. Sirius therefore sighed and said: "Remus!"     This time our friend turned around while walking. We had just left the classroom and were on our way to the next lesson: Transfiguration.     "What?" Remus asked.          "Help me!"     "No." Our dear Moony turned back again and continued walking.     Remus had generally not been in a good mood since the last full moon, which was logical, since I also had to think about it every day. Of course we had apologised to him for pushing him to go into the forest with us, but it had not helped. Yesterday I had even lain down in his bed beside him, because he had stared at the ceiling until two in the morning.     He did not eat much and blamed himself. Even I blamed myself, yet I held onto my words that nobody could have foreseen that we would encounter another werewolf in the forest. On top of that, a girl with a pack of wolves.     Moony had told us that the girl showed a poor general condition - Pomfrey had told him that. Dumbledore had said that it was good that he had found her. Nevertheless Remus thought only about the fact that he had injured the girl.     That was why I hoped that she would soon wake up.

Perhaps Moony will feel better when he sees her alive?

     Just as I was about to turn back to Padfoot, who had said something rather unpleasant, a commotion sounded around the next corner.           One could hear murmuring and shouting, which made us, but also everyone else in the corridor, stop in surprise.     The commotion explained itself quickly, and the cause was something nobody had expected. Because when Moony turned the corner first, he landed with full force on his back.     Startled, I jumped a step backwards, bumping into Peter, who crashed into the wall. Padfoot clutched his rapidly beating heart.           The cause of the commotion had become clear, almost cliché-like.     As fate would have it, Remus had been run over by none other than the mysterious girl. Unlike in the night when we had brought her into the castle, she was very much alive.     Breathing quickly, she lay on top of Moony. In her blue eyes I could see confusion and fear. She seemed to have fled from the Hospital Wing and logically did not know where she was.