(1) Lux Brumalis (R. Weasley)

Chapter Forty-Eight

Ron's hand does not get better. In fact, it gets worse. It swells and swells until he can no longer hide it from the world. So he ends up going to the hospital wing to see Madam Pomfrey when the bite turns green. So when they get the chance, when they can, they go straight to his side. Pixie follows after Harry and Hermione as they make their way into the hospital wing after all their classes had finished. Each of them worried about their friend.

"It's not just my hand," Ron admits to them. "Although that feels like it's about to fall off. Malfoy told Madam Pomfrey he wanted to borrow one of my books so he could come and have a good laugh at me. He kept threatening to tell her what really bit me...I've told her it was a dog but I don't think she believes me...I shouldn't have hit him at the Quidditch match, that's why he's doing this."

"It'll all be over at midnight on Saturday," Hermione tries to soothe him but this doesn't work. Instead, it causes him to sit upright. Alarmed.

"Midnight on Saturday!" Ron squeaks out. "Oh no...oh no....I've just remembered...Charlie's letter was in that book Malfoy took, he's going to know we're getting rid of Norbert" And before any of them could say anything in response to that, Madam Pomfrey comes in and begins to shoo them from Ron's bedside. Pixie's fingers curl up into her palm as she contemplates just what Draco has done. Pixie turns and storms out of the medical wing, not waiting on her friends.

.....

Later, Ron wakes again to the soft scratching of a quill close by to him. His head shifts towards the noise. Subconsciously comforted by the noise. There is a little bit of humming too. A soft noise. Ron blinks, opening his eyes to find that Pixie is sitting at his bedside with her project on his bed, her eyes on the little bits and pieces. His chess set has been set up on the over-the-bed table, waiting for him to wake so they can play. She hums away to herself, so focused on what she's doing that she doesn't realise that he's awake for a moment. His eyes are on her hands as she deftly does whatever it is that she is doing.

"What are you doing?" He voices. She jumps a little, dropping the screwdriver in her fingers. "Sorry" He offers as she looks at him.

"Hey" She whispers softly. "How are you feeling? Are you feeling better?"

"A little" He mumbles as he tries to move the fingers of his bandaged hands, but there is no movement at all, his hand way too swollen to do anything. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I set up your chess set, thought you might be bored" She offers. "But you were asleep so...Urm...it's quiet in here" She admits.

"Malfoy?" He asks her, she shrugs. After he took Ron's book, she had confronted Draco about it. technically not breaking her threat, but enough to warrant a warning. She'd really snapped at him about minding his own business, when he jinxed her. Which is the main reason she is actually in the hospital wing. Under observation following a counter jinx that removed the rabbit ears from her head. With Ron still being here, she asked Harry to bring the chess set and Pansy to bring her little box of engineering things. She's probably fine to go back now, to be discharged, but she doesn't want to go back to the common room, rather embarrassed by what happened. That she let him get to her like that. "What are you working on?" He asks as he sits up, pulling her sketches closer to him to have a look. "Is this it?" She hums and nods.

"One of many, actually" She admits. "I started on something and then I realised it would be easier if I made something that would help make making it easier so then I started on something else and then..." She stops and shrugs. She isn't ready to explain it yet. She wants to have a prototype ready.

Some kind of round device. Like a tube. He shrugs a little and puts it down. He can't see it in his mind the way she does. She can look at that and immediately see the end result.

"You really like this stuff" He muses, she nods.

"Guess I take after my parents" She offers.

"What is it? This thing?" He asks, motioning to the device in her lap, to her notes and designs. She glances at him and then at her design.

"Well...My mom designed this umbrella device for wands, it's like a handle thing..."

"Yeah, you put your wand in the handle and it creates a spelled brolly from it" He admits with a smile.

"Well, I thought of something similar for....tools" She motions to her tool kit. "Instead of having like 100 different pieces...you could have two...this device, and your wand...."

"You would slide your wand into this" He muses as he picks up the sketch again to look at it. He sees it now. The little buttons on the side of it to programme whichever tool is needed. Instead of carrying around a bulky tool kit, a wizard or witch would only need two. He knows how many different tools his own father has sitting around the house when something falls apart. The space some of them take up.

"And from it, you could have a screwdriver or a wrench, in whichever head you needed, or a hex key, or a hammer, or...just whatever it is" He snorts and looks at her. They all know she is magical smart, she's at the top of all their classes, with even Hermione a few steps behind her, but they keep forgetting that she's muggle smart too. "I'm hoping to use some form of magical solid holograph" She points out as she turns the device in her hand around. "Or a conjuration spell..." She hums a little and then shrugs. "I'll figure it out once I've made the actual thing" Ron lifts his eyes to watch her as she fidgets on, mumbling to herself about the device. She gets this little crease between her eyes, a crinkle at the corner of them. So focused and determined. He can't imagine the way her mind works. How all these ideas just pop up and how she can see the end result without having it in her hands.