The Devil Doesn't Bargain (MatD part 2)

Chapter FORTY SEVEN - Glimmer and Hope

(Home - Soft Version - Good Neighbours)

I slipped back to reality with my head nestled on a familiar lap, skull pounding and skin unusually tender and aching. The rest of my consciousness climbed in slivers over my shoulders, drifting back to me in rough drags. The smell of cedar wood and lighter notes of something sweet like honey clung to my cheeks.

Cool, smooth skin brushed a hair from my forehead. It continued in gentle strokes across my head and down over my shoulder, deftly working through the snarls.

The colors returned next.

Creams and light wash cobalts. Slate grays, muted scarlets and deep, verdant greens.

Textures followed on the heals of the hues. Brittle linens draped, pools of silk and velvet folded and tucked against cool, smooth metal that curved in intricate circles by my feet - the outline of a bed frame. Uneven, jagged stones stacked and arched around tall windows and behind other beds and a wooden, wheeled chair in the far corner.

Ah.

The Hogwarts hospital wing.

Relief trickled through my limbs, the nightmare of my mind reduced to its cage behind which only sleep could unlock.

Sinking back into the lap of my supporter, I tilted my nose up to the touch finding not my Sallow, but his sister, 

smirking at me. Her whisper just as gentle as her eyes.

"You look like hell."

I sniffed. "Thanks Anne."

Her smirk widened, her hand that had brushed through my hair moments ago tapped my forehead playfully. "You know, I realize he's quite the chore but when I told you to straighten him out, I really didn't think you'd go and make such a show of it. Passing out and all."

Something in this snapped my attention back to reality. "Where is-"

She nodded with her nose back over her shoulder. 

Two scraggly heads of hair nestled into the mattress the next bed over. Ominis, hair a neat mess that brushed the very tops of his cheek bones looked far more comfortable than his brown haired counterpart. His head and back were propped up on two pillows, his eyes peacefully closed, arm rested over the other's hip and chest rising and falling slowly at the center of the bed. Sebastian, on the other hand, looked as if his body had just been tossed there on the edge. One arm hooked over his head nearly knocking against Ominis' face, his other dripping off the side of the bed where I couldn't see. His legs were curled up aside him, shoes and all. His mouth hung open wide, a small snore slipping from within. I'd never seen him quite so eased.

My eyes wandered to the side table between us, its top littered with questionable looking bottles, a nearly full blue and cream painted teacup, Ominis and Sebastian's wands, crossed across each other and a sealed envelope with a little S scribbled neatly on the front.

Sebastian snored once loudly and shifted in his sleep, turning away from us and tucking his head against Ominis' rib at such an angle that his hand had nowhere to go but directly up between them. The hand that had been hanging off the bed pulled between them, clutching something small I couldn't quite make out. He snored again.

"Wow."

Anne grunted a little sort of laugh. "He came in here absolutely hysterical, carrying you and mumbling nonsense. Wouldn't listen to a word anyone had to say so nurse Blainey had to slip him a bit of sleeping draught in a cup of tea. Practically had to force him to drink it or do anything other than worry over you really."