dursley [h. g.]

••dursley•• || summer's gone

The witches of 16th century England were often tortured with a tickle me elmo device.

Kendra smiled triumphantly as she dotted her i's and crossed her t's. She was very proud of her new, bound to instantly fail her, summer assignments. Her papers were all the assigned length, all of the questions answered, but not of word of it was true. One of her prouder examples had to be 'in conclusion, powdered moonstone is proof that the muggles faked the moon landing. In fact, is there even a moon? If it's real, why do we use it in potions?'. It had been the most fun having her homework that she had ever had.

Her dorm mates were all asleep by the time she tucked away her work into her book bag, down for the night, having slipped into their dreams long ago. Kendra's aching head informed her that she too should have joined them much earlier. And as much as she wanted to crawl into bed with her robes on, she kneeled before her trunk and pulled out a pair of her mother's old socks, feeling the tiny pills inside rattle against the plastic bottle. She glanced around, making sure no one was awake.

Grabbing her glass of water, she pulled two bright pink pills out of the orange bottle. Placing them on her tongue, she took a gulp of water and swallowed them with ease, her face contorting at the acidic taste. She had eaten something that she wasn't supposed to have eaten at the feast, and though she didn't quite feel it yet, as she climbed into bed, she knew what awaited her.

She had been a sickly baby, constantly coming down with colds and catching fevers, pulling muscles and getting scars that never went away. When she was five, she was diagnosed with a chronic connective tissue disease along with an auto immune disease that made her frail, weak, prone to life threatening injuries, susceptible to other illnesses, and very sensitive to certain foods. She had spent most of her life in pain, and there was no cure. The only thing she could do was to take pills that Kendra was convinced were only placebo and did nothing for her, and avoid foods that she couldn't eat. However, most foods were foods she couldn't eat, and every time she ate, she discovered a new one. And though her friends likely could have been a great help to her, none of them knew.

Though Kendra had been able to pry herself from many of the habits that she had learned as a child, her mother and father's fear of anyone knowing about her illness had stuck with her long after she began to disagree with them. None of her friends knew. Harry knew, but she had sworn him to secrecy. Professor Dumbledore, Professor Flitwick, and Madam Pomfrey knew. And that was all. In a school of thousands, five people knew, including herself. And she would very much have liked to keep it that way.

When she woke up, as she suspected, pain riddled her body, her joints crying out as she shifted. She lay, unmoving, eyes still shut for several moments. When she opened her eyes, the pain hadn't gone away like she had hoped it would. As she sat up, trying not to hiss from the sharp, shooting pain that spread through her head, she saw that her roommates were still asleep. She, sloth-like, began to move until she was sitting up and could reach across to nightstand, which held a box, charmed to only open at her touch (she had lost the key second year and was feeling particularly adventurous in the library the day after). Within the box, there was another pair of her father's rolled up socks, and that was where another orange pill bottle sat. Her trembling hands struggled to open the bottle, and when she did, she took two out before resealing her secret within its many layers of protection.

She sat absolutely still for nearly half an hour, waiting desperately for the pills to do something, for the stabbing pain to go away. "Kendra?" Lisa's sleepy voice came from the bed next to her. Kendra's eyes darted over to the clock and saw that it was time for her dorm mates to start waking up. "Why are you up so early?"

"I think I've caught something," Kendra said slowly. There was little she could do about it on her own at this point. Her joints being as sensitive as they were, magic often She must have overextended something in her sleep, she remarked, gingerly testing her legs.