Little Snake - A Black Legacy

Chapter Twenty Four - Sorrow

Hazel slowly drifted from a deep and quiet sleep into a half-sleep when there was some noise in the hospital wing. She heard a female voice that sounded indignant, almost angry, and one that sent an uncomfortable shiver down her spine as she slept, but she didn't really wake up yet and didn't understand anything that was being said. Hazel moved restlessly back and forth in her sleep.

"You should leave, Miss Reyes. Now!" Noreen commanded. Her patience with the young Slytherin had run out. Imelda Reyes had rushed into the hospital wing, giving no thought to who might be lying there resting, and had loudly demanded to speak with Hazel. Noreen, who knew that Hazel suffered from panic attacks, especially after traumatic events, had not agreed and had repeatedly asked Imelda to leave her patient alone. But this girl was as stubborn as a graphorn.

"I won't leave until I've had a chance to talk to her, Nurse Blainey," she said. Eventually, Noreen gave up and just asked her not to come too close until she woke up. Unfortunately, Noreen couldn't pay attention to what Imelda was doing because she still had to prepare medications for other students. When a commotion broke out in the hospital wing and a fearful scream rang out, she deeply regretted not having insisted more on keeping Imelda away.

"Wake up!" Hazel heard this voice whisper urgently, which made her shiver. This voice did not leave her in peace, shook her. She did not want to wake up. Hazel was simply afraid of this voice, even if she didn't know why in her sleep. She would rather keep sleeping, keep chasing the beautiful dream that had felt like a summer dream. But instead, this voice crept into the dream, making it cold, windy, rainy, gloomy.

Footsteps and voices became loud, the sinister voice became more urgent, more impatient and when Hazel recognized the voice, recognized the person standing next to her bed, Hazel could no longer think. She opened her eyes, and - when she recognized Imelda - sat up straight in bed and screamed. Fear was tightening her throat and she hardly noticed how Ominis ran to the bed and dragged Imelda away with Sebastian.

Hazel was shaking all over and crying. She tightened her knees and made herself very small, arms around her knees and her face in her arms. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to feel. When someone gently ran his hand over her arm, she winced violently and her sobs grew stronger until his gentle voice reached her.

Imelda saw with horror what she had done. She had only wanted to tease Hazel a little, a little fun, nothing else. But she had miscalculated, she had overdone it. When she had seen Hazel's panic-stricken eyes, the horror in them... At that moment Imelda had realized that she didn't really know Hazel. Sebastian had told her that she had not chosen any of this. Nurse Blainey's behavior towards her classmate, as she stood there at the bedside and hugged Hazel together with Ominis. It told her that she and Ominis had been in the hospital wing many times. Otherwise they would not have been able to make friends with the nurse, who was working too much. Sebastian said that Hazel hated the attention - which made Imelda so insanely jealous - and that she had not chosen it and was therefore under enormous pressure. She realized that Hazel had lived as a Muggle until she was 14. That this was all new to her. And although she had had so many bad experiences, she had saved Hogsmeade, helped her classmates and Imelda knew that she had good grades despite everything.

She shouldn't be jealous of something that was forced on Hazel or that she had worked hard to achieve. She realized that she had really fucked up. And she realized that she had unintentionally touched a trauma that Hazel had not yet dealt with in the least: that of her childhood, that her parents had tried to kill her, what Malfoy had done to her, what had happened on her trip to Hogwarts. Unintentionally, Imelda had touched the trauma of death, and she deeply regretted it.