The Slytherin Transfer

47: "No one is too cool for colour coding."

I wake up at the crack of dawn, and my leg feels like a pile of lard. I'm still curled up in the same bed I was sitting in, and I feel like I've just woken up from a two year coma, though it's only been a couple of hours.

I sit up, and to my right I see a sleeping James, and to my left is Sirius, who watches me intently.

"What time is it?" I ask him groggily, and he checks his watch.

"Five thirty."

I nod, and he continues to stare at me.

"Look, Sirius—"

"No," he says quietly, cutting me off, "you don't get to make any excuses."

"I wasn't going to—"

"I've sat here how many times now? Worrying if you're going to get better, or even wake up," he says, "So many times I've watched you sleep, afraid to shut my eyes in case you stop breathing. Do you know what that does to me?"

I'm quiet, and he stands.

"And now you've gone and done it to yourself. You've gone and done something so incredibly stupid I can't even comprehend it," he continues, "You went and nearly got yourself killed. And now, because you didn't use your head, I've spent another night watching your chest rise and fall. I can't do it anymore, and I certainly can't do it if you do it to yourself."

He's strangely calm, but I know it won't last.

"I didn't know what Snape was doing—"

"You could have talked to us!" He shouts, and I knew it was coming, but it doesn't make it any easier, "We had it under control, and even if we didn't, it's not your responsibility!"

"You didn't let me talk to you!" I argue, "You left to go see James! I didn't know you told him, I didn't know he stopped Snape, all I knew was you gave him this vital piece of information that could've gotten him killed! That doesn't sound like my fault!"

"Well it is!" Sirius yells, "It is your fault, Cass! You don't have to be a hero all the time! You don't have to save lives!"

"So you'd rather I let him die?"

"That's not what I said!"

"Then what?" I get up off the bed, my leg rather useless at my side. "Because if I think some student is in danger, even Snivellus, I'm not gonna stand by while you let him die! That makes you no better than a Death Eater!"

He looks taken aback at that, and I immediately regret saying it. I know how much it affects him, and I can see it in his eyes that he's hurt.

Suddenly, the doors open, and Remus comes barging in, chest heaving. James is awake now, having roused from the shouting, and we all look to the boy at the door.

Remus's eyes trail from my torn, bloody pants, to Sirius's scratched face and stained hands, to James's elevated leg, which is still in the process of being repaired by Skele-Gro and therefore looks limp and mangled. He takes one look at us all, turns on his heel, and runs out the door. I look from Sirius to James to myself, all of us frozen.

"Well, you're the one with the working legs," I say urgently to my boyfriend, "so go!"

He springs into action, leaping over the bed he had been watching me from and sprinting out the door. I watch him go before sighing and sitting on my own mattress, burying my face in my hands.

"You're right, you know," James says tiredly from beside me, his eyes also on the door, "I don't know what Sirius was thinking telling Snape that. It was stupid and terrible and look what it's led to. So, just for the record, I'm on your side, because you're right."