The Charm of a Riddle (tomione)

Chapter Twelve-Lost and Found

He tried to open his eyelids, and ended up blinking into the morning sun. He looked around the hospital wing, vacant, and had a million questions.

For one he hadn't remember getting here, and also wondered why the back of his head ached as though it was on fire.

"Exscuse me!" He yelled, which echoed through the room. "Is anyone there?"

Just then he heard the footsteps of the nurse, Madam Ritcher, and he watched as she approached him. "Drink this!" She instructed, and he did so, wincing at the awful taste.

"What happened?" He asked.

"So impatient Mr. Riddle. Well yes I guess you ought to know. Nothing to terrible. You must have fell. Cracked your head right open. But It should be mended now."

Is that why he had been hallucinating? Did the wierd dreams of Granger only come because he had cracked his skull? Whatever they were, they most certainly weren't normal.

"Who brought me here?" He asked dryly.

He didn't think of it as a complicated question, but the lady stopped what she was doing momentarily, and looked away from him.  "Well....um" She stuttered and he was wondering if she was mentally stable.  Was anybody in this damn castle?  "It was a boy...." She said all of a sudden.

"A boy?" He questioned

"Yes, a boy."

"Who?"

"Well I didn't pay much attention to her-I mean him."

"Describe him.  Maybe I would recognize the person than."

"He was quite young, probably a first year, no chance you would know him."

"Right." He stared out the window opposite him before asking another question.  "How is it such a young boy carried me all the way down here?" 

"Riddle, stop fussing.  The point is you are here, and to your luck alive."  She bore a wide smile, that unsettled him slightly how one could be that happy. 

She began to walk away. "Wait!" He called. "When can I leave?"

"Well you were out for three days.  I would suggest you remain here overnight once more.  But if you feel up to it, can return to your own dormitory." 

She disappeared once more, and he was left to his thoughts.  For one, nothing that lady had said added up.  If he knew better, he swore she was lying. 

He scanned the area, noticing nothing out of place.  The only thing near him was a bin.  Quite normal in hospitals.  Yet he looked deeper into the basket, and saw a strip of cloth, stained in dried blood.  His stomach must have did a double flip once realizing it was from a jumper.

Granger.

It couldn't be.  He realized it could be anyone's jumper, yet a feeling in his gut stirred that it was her's.  He wanted it to be so bad.  So where was she? 

'Gone. She's gone, and there is nothing you can do about it.' A voice nagged him, running through his skull, and he wasn't sure if his headache was from this thought, or the physical injury.

Driven mad, he decided a change of scenery would to him good, so he pocketed the mystery cloth and headed to his dorm. 

The days went on since his accident, eventually him returning to lessons, and the fabric he kept with him now was only a distant hope of her, that had diminished with time.  He had grown far too attached to the ragged thing, and saw it as a sick joke the universe played on him.  He knew now it wasn't her's.  If it was, she would be with it.