𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 || 𝐀 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐜

7. ATTACK

MAEVYN
✧˖°.☾

There are many words in which I could use to describe asthma. Most of them would be a way for me to get my anger out such as annoying, stupid, inconvenient. But there's a word that out of them all is the most serious. Quick.

There's nothing slow about asthma getting worse, in fact it's usually scary how quick it can happen.

Give it just one night and suddenly what was seemingly just a bit of lung irritation has suddenly turned into barely being able to breathe. It nosedives quickly, and it nosedives dangerously.

After years of experience, I consider myself well acquainted with my asthma. I know its triggers, and I can read its warnings. 

For days now it has been doing exactly that. Giving me warnings. 

Warnings that tell me that if I don't want to worsen it, I need to rest my lungs and not fight against said warning. It's a trap, really. It taunts my mind relentlessly.

Asthma has always been something of a mind game. 

"Feeling any different from yesterday, my dear?" Madam Pomfrey asks me, tidying up the room as I sit on one of the infirmary beds. 

I take the deepest inhale I can as a way to test out what limits my lungs are constricting me to. Disappointingly, it's not much of an inhale.

"Is there any point in me telling you I feel better?" I ask, exhaling frustratedly.

She stops her cleaning to look at me, a small frown on her lips and compassion in her eyes. She walks to my bed, bringing her pile of pillowcases she's in the middle of folding. 

"You know better than to lie to me." A small sigh leaves her, her hands once again busying themselves with the laundry. 

I nod slowly in response, my head tilted downwards as I watch my black school boots tap each other over and over. Toes, heels, toes, heels. The pattern is typically how my body fidgeted.

"There's another quidditch practice I'm supposed to be at tonight," I say, lifting my head to look at Madam Pomfrey. 

Although she doesn't take her eyes away from her task, I can tell she's thinking. "Could you just watch from the field while they practice? Take some notes, possibly?"

I give this a moment of thought before shaking my head. "No. No, that's just more reason for them to make fun of me."

Her lips tighten into a straight line. "I don't mean to speak badly of your house, but my do you have some... interesting boys on that quidditch team."

A humorous huff leaves me at her choice of wording. "I might just have to agree with you on that."

Silence follows my words as Madam Pomfrey continues folding the rest of the pillowcases and I zone out in thought. 

I had missed every quidditch practice for a week now, my lungs continuously not feeling well enough to let me do any sort of exercise. I've even been too scared to go swimming.

I wouldn't really mind the fact that I had missed a whole week any other time of the year, but we were only a few days away from our first game and tonight would be our last practice before then.