A Marauder's Guide to Falling Together

Chapter Fourteen

It was the next day that Marlene found herself in the company of a roommate. The bed beside her had apparently remained unoccupied during the time she had been unconscious but during the particular rainy afternoon while Marlene was working on a Herbology essay a young woman a year or two older than her was brought in.

"Oh good," the girl's voice had been the first indication that she had company in the room, "you look positively normal."

Marlene glanced up to the doorway to see the brunette strolling in with a different Healer she had never met before. She was dressed in a hospital gown and threw herself into the bed next to Marlene while the healer scribbled away on a chart before handing over a cup of something steaming. The girl guzzled it down before her face twisted in revulsion and she muttered a simple "yuck."

"I'll be back in a few hours to check on you," the Healer said in a stern voice, "please try to behave with this one."

"She's kidding you know," the girl laughed after the Healer had moved from the room. She had turned her face towards Marlene and grinned widely as she said it. "It was really my old roommates fault, she was absolutely batty."

"Er – "

"I'm Emmeline," she continued, "Emmeline Vance. Hogwarts?" she was pointing towards the textbooks scattered around on Marlene's bed and table. "I finished at Hogwarts two years ago. Ravenclaw. How about you? You look like a Hufflepuff to me. Please don't tell me Slytherin. If you're a Slytherin they might as well just switch me rooms right now."

"Gryffindor, actually," Marlene said slowly. Emmeline's vivaciousness was slightly unappealing but she brought a new energy into the normally lifeless hospital room that was rather refreshing.

"Oh Gryffindor," Emmeline leaned back into her pillow and folded her hands behind her head, looking up towards the ceiling. "Yeah, alright, I think we can get along then."

"What happened with your old roommate?" Marlene asked despite the fact that she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"Like I said, she was batty. Suffered from a poorly performed Imperius Curse and is not really in the right state of mind."

"What about you then?" Marlene asked. Emmeline seemed to be doing rather well and she couldn't guess what it was that was keeping her inside.

"I got hit with a few too many stun spells," she laughed. Marlene wasn't sure why it was so funny. "How about you?"

"Uh some unnamed curse that causes me to bleed to death."

"You don't say?" Emmeline's eyes had grown wide and she twisted her head to look at her. "You're that girl that all the Healer's have been talking about. Pretty famous in the hospital right now. Is it true they brought you in stitched up with fabric thread?"

"I don't know, I've been unconscious for weeks," she felt annoyed. Either it was her abrupt rudeness or the fact that she was interrupting Marlene's studying, there was just something about this girl that she didn't quite like.

"My old room was stationed right outside the Healer's desk. I heard a lot of things I probably shouldn't have. Your first week you were the only thing they talked about. Something about you being quite the magical mystery. It was actually quite the source of entertainment you know, not being able to have any visitors here and having to room with dear Jody, I'm almost sad to move away from it."

"That's ... nice." Marlene really didn't know what else to say. This girl enjoyed relishing in all the horror stories from the patients around her? It really didn't seem like an appropriate thing to do, labeling it as entertainment and bashing the poor girl whose brains had been fried.