Hospital Wing
Typical hospital wing. The matron here, Madame Pomfrey,
can mend almost anything in an instant, though beds have been set up for
prolonged stays.
Although his cuts were healed instantly, the blood
cleaned from his clothes, which lay folded in a neat pile on the seat of an
empty chair at his side, Madam Pomfrey insisted that
he stay the night, just so she could make sure his head injuries weren't too
bad in the morning. Perhaps he should just put his name on one of the beds
here, in order to reserve it, since he seems to spend more time in the hospital
wing then his own dormitory. Draco Malfoy's eyes soon open, waking from a sleep that he wasn't
even able to slip deep into. Sigh. Morning is so far away... and the nurse could
have at LEAST given him something to soothe the pain! Wait till his father
hears about this!
It's not even close to dawn, but Cho
has found a way out of the Ravenclaw rooms and snuck
down. She hasn't had a chance to make the sleeping potion yet, so she's
suffering from the normal fits of insomnia, and figured she could check on Draco and make sure he was comfortable. Madam Pomfrey had said she would be keeping him over night, and
since there's rarely anyone there at night, if he had any problems he would be
left alone until someone showed up. She knows that if she gets caught... points
taken away, badness, but... Madam Pomfrey might get
her off, since she has a viable, non-rule breaking reason for being up at this
time. She slips into the Hospital Wing silently, changed into her school robes,
hair free to fall down her back. She moves over to the bed he's sleeping in,
trying not to make a noise, and fails when her foot slams into the leg of one
of the beds. "Ow." . . . This is probably
why they should leave more candles burning during the night...
It's a good thing that he was already awake, for the most
part, because that would have woken him up. But then again, even if he had been
asleep, though, it wasn't so much of a deep one that it would have really made
much of a difference. He keeps his breathing steady, wondering if perhaps he
should pretend to play at being asleep, while also trying to figure out just
who might be here so late, though one thing is for sure, the voice in which he
heard sounded distinctly feminine. Madam Pomfrey? Draco begins to push himself up a little just to see, his
eyes still adjusting, but even then, that outline certainly doesn't belong to
the nurse. "Cho?"
@.@; The name to the darkened shape comes to him a second later, feeling his
jaw drop slightly, not only has she snuck out after hours, but she's come to
visit. Hm.
There must be a mistake on the parchment that she's probably hoping to clear
up.
Ow. Her toes gonna be sore for a few minutes. And no,
certainly not Madam Pomfrey. She's taller, no
doubt. Probably bigger in general as well. Cho's a fairly petite young woman, after all. Most Seekers
are. "Sorry, Draco, I hope I didn't wake
you." She says softly, moving a bit closer so that she can make out his
outline a bit more, moving to stand at the side of his bed (and luckily
avoiding any sharp impacts this time as well). "Are you doing all right?
Did Madam Pomfrey leave you any pain remedies?"
She looks around, trying to get her eyes to adjust. There was enough light in
the corridors to make this room slightly dimmer, so it'll take a few moments to
get fully adjusted. And pretty soon she might just light a few candles. She
does have her wand with her, after all.
Why not just use a light spell? It's not as though the wand
requires batteries, unless you happen to be a muggle-child
with a simple toy... and if that's the case, then what would she be doing here,
after all? "No..." Draco murmurs, shifting
a little to sit up properly and ensure his complete comfort on the uncomfortable
bed, even going as far as to prop up his pillow a little for his back. "I
was already awake when you came in... my head aches enough that it's difficult
to get to sleep for long. She didn't leave anything, as far as I could
tell." That mean old bat.
Well, she certainly isn't a Muggle-child
playing with toys, unless muggle-children somehow can
learn to fly on brooms now. Cho offers an unseen
smile, "I'll fix something for that headache. It'll take a few minutes though;
the remedy has to sit for a while once it's made." A hand reaches into her
robes for her wand, moving towards the table where she knows the supplies for
the remedies are and says, "Lumos." as she
waves her wand, creating light from the end of it. She lights four candles with
a simple incendio spell, then cancels the beam of
bright light. No need to attract too much attention. A couple candles are more
than enough. Once that's done, she glances back and smiles again, this time
seen, "At least there isn't going to be a scar." Her wand gets placed
back inside her robes and she gets to work on the remedy for him.
He'd probably hunt down that cat and cook it for
breakfast had there of been. If he knew anything about them, on cue, Draco would probably be thanking his lucky stars that he
had not been of muggle-birth, where the cuts would of had to heal all on their own. Something that'd leave him,
indeed, physically scarred for life on his rather good-looking face. Too bad
his personality betrays it, but there's just some rule out there that true
assholes must be gorgeous, or something akin to that. "Yeah..." His
fingers brush over his chin and lower lip, just to check and make sure there
isn't. But it seems as though it's healed fine, much to his relief. "What
are you doing here, Cho?" The pupils in the
depths of his blue eyes narrow. He had been expecting to get questions on the
potion, told about a mistake in the parchment or something along those lines,
not for her to make a pain remedy for his head. However, his words don't sound
as mean and nasty as they might, had he of been fully awake. Some traces of
sleep manage to linger and it sounds more sharp than rude.
There's a long moment of silence from Cho
as she concentrates on putting the right amount of different powders and
extracts and oils and other such goop into the little cup she has ready to give
him. Once she's got then all in, she nods her head and takes a step back;
planning to let it sit for the time it needs to turn the right translucency.
She turns as she answers, "I hadn't had a chance to put the potion
together, much less grab the ingredients, so I couldn't sleep. Madam Pomfrey had said you'd be staying all night, and you'd hit
your head pretty hard. I figured you might need something." Perhaps she
/wouldn't/ do this for just any one, but she was standing right beside him and
saw his head hit the floor and rebound like that, so she has a little guilt and
sympathy pulling her along. Plus, she should have taken the cat away as soon as
she saw how uncomfortable he was holding it. And besides, this gives her the
chance to grab all the ingredients without worrying about Madam Pomfrey seeing her, but she hadn't even thought of that
until just now.
Ah. So that means that the potion was indeed for her and
not for anybody else, as he had been suspecting. Or at least, the words confirm
it for him, though others might have remained without a second thought.
"I... see." Well, then. He's at a loss for what to say after that,
turning over the thought that it might be just an act of sympathy, something
which he certainly does not approve of. Draco's nose
wrinkles a little, as though he had just tasted something horrid, which is
probably a disgusted face that could rival that of his mother's. "How did
you manage to get down here without being caught?" He's heard Filch and
Mrs. Norris pass by quite a few times, already, as though on guard, recalling
for a brief second.
Yes, it's for her. She figured he had it all figured out
anyway. Besides, like said before, she's as good at lying and hiding things as
a peacock in a turkey farm. "I happened to pass by the corridor near the Gryffindor's Tower just as Filch was entering it." Cho says with a smile. She's not the sneaking out type, but
she has done it a few times during these fits of insomnia this year. She may
not be good at hiding things, but she was easily able to avoid being seen. They
were far more interested in that area, after all, with the troublemakers who
frequently come from there. "I was more worried about avoiding Peeves, honestly.
But I guess he was haunting another area of the castle tonight." She moves
over to seat herself on the bed next to the young Slytherin,
resting her hands on her knees. And approve with her sympathy or not, he's got
it right now. She does notice the face though, and adds, softly, "I also
want to get all the potion components. I recognized all of them from Madam Pomfrey's supplies, so I know she has them."
Well. That's absolutely wonderful, then. *snort* Just as
long as she's not completely coming to drop by just to feel sorry for him. His
expression loses that touch of disgust; he rubs his fingertips over his healed
chin a second time, then drops the hand to rest over
the top of his bedsheets. The blonde Slytherin's mouth opens to say something, but then he just
ends up gaping momentarily as nothing escapes. What to say? Should he be
casually indifferent, outright cruel or neutrally pleasant? 'So, why don't you
get them and leave?' No. Had it of been Potter or a member of his fan club, Draco might of been that rude, but this is Cho, the Ravenclaw seeker whom
he's talking to, who hasn't done anything to warrant nastiness... and... Potter
appears to have crush on her, he remembers suddenly, thinking back to the Yule
Ball. Well. That changes everything! "I'm glad that you've found one that
matches what you were hoping for, then." Argh. He's going to have to
take a nice, long cold shower after this, to prevent ANY niceness from seeping
in through the skin.
Better be careful where you shower. Moaning Myrtle is
well known for spying on Hogwarts Seekers in the bathtubs. Cho
relaxes a bit as the nasty expression leaves. It's just not something she's
generally used to receiving (well, except maybe from Snape),
so she hoped that the simple vouch that it isn't /just/ concern that would lead
her down would clear up anything. "It looks about right. Too bad it
doesn't raise pain tolerance though," she says. It won't kill her, but if
she accidentally gets smacked by a bludger in a Quidditch game while she's still taking this, it'll
probably hurt like hell. "Professor Snape didn't
give you too much trouble about it, I hope?" Making
small talk while the remedy settles. Fun.
The Slytherins probably treated
Moaning Myrtle terribly; she doesn't even bother to visit their bathrooms,
probably in fear of being mocked or something. But, why on Earth would he ever
receive any trouble from Professor Snape? He'd have
to do something truly terrible for that to happen, which is rather unlikely.
"It seems as though they all have some sort of side-effect, unfortunately.
Out of them all, it was the best one. Professor Snape
was quite willing to be of assistance, as well. I said nothing about who it was
for or anything along those lines, of course." He agreed to not mentioning
it and certainly hasn't. Unless Rita Skeeter's out on
the prowl as a beetle, once again, then it's not likely that word will get out
about it, either.
Nodding steadily, Cho does look
relieved, even if she did trust him not to tell anyone about it. She wasn't too
happy with his brilliant disguise of the note though, but alas, not like she
can really say anything about it. She didn't offer any other ideas, though
given the time she could have. "Of course. I'm
just glad it wasn't too much trouble." She didn't really want to burden
anyone with her own problems, which is why she's been trying to keep her
insomnia secret from her fellow housemates and Madam Pomfrey.
She doubts very much that they would approve of her resorting to Potions to
take care of it. They'd probably want her to take grief counseling, or some
other stuff... and no. She doesn't need a counseling,
and she certainly doesn't want to dump her emotions on anyone. She hops down
deftly from the bed and checks the potion. It seems to have reached the right
translucency and she picks it up and brings it over. "It'll taste a bit
tart. The pain will start to fade right away." Or, that's if she did the
potion right. If she even got one ingredient wrong... oy.
There was no other way he'd be able to transfer the note
from his possession to hers without seeming rather phony. Not only that, but it
was the first thing that he could think of; Draco
wasn't about to go out of his way to do a favor, but at least didn't want to
draw too much attention to it. It seems as though the only people who even
bothered to notice were Aranea and the group of
giggling Ravenclaws. With a bit of
his nose wrinkling, once again. The young Slytherin
reaches out for the cup with the supposed 'pain remedy' liquid. Eventually,
he's going to wind up getting used to these nasty things, considering that this
is the second time in two weeks that he's had to drink one.
It's not /too/ nasty. Unlike Madam Pomfrey,
Cho likely doesn't slip some extra nasty flavored
stuff in there just for the nose-turning effect. But most likely the potion
will start to work right away, pulling the pain down from wherever it is
focused (the head in this instant) and absorbing it. She says that, and
continues to explain, "The effect will last approximately eight hours, and
it will probably make you a little drowsy. Not enough to knock you unconscious
or put you to sleep, but it can help sometimes." This was one of the first
things she tried, but one can only use a pain remedy for a sleep aid so often.
She waits a few moments, and then asks, "Feel any difference?"
With a bit of a skeptical look, he lifts the cup to his
lips and downs the substance in one gulp. So, it wasn't as nasty as he was
expecting, but in no way is the remedy pleasant, either. The pain seems to seep
away, however, almost numbly being distributed to the point where it's as
though it were never there in the first place. Drowsiness holds to be true,
though, he can already feel it weighing down upon him. "The pain's gone
away." He's DEFINATELY going to have to take a nice, cold shower after
this one. A really nice, cold LONG shower.
"...Thanks." Draco mumbles, a bit into the
cup, hoping that it becomes too muffled to be distinguishable. It hurts him to
be nice to people, but when it may hopefully get him in Cho's
good-books so that he can piss off Potter, he can live with playing up the act.
There's a dazzling smile as he confirms the remedy's
effect. "You're welcome, Draco." Cho reaches forward and takes the cup, replacing it on the
table with the remedy components before returning. And a /cold/ shower? Tsk. Didn't know she had /that/
effect on you, Malfoy! *ahem* She certainly did hear
the muffled thanks and says, "You can lay back; I'll blow out all but one
of the candles while I dig up the components that I need so you can sleep. I'll
try my best not to kick anything this time." She may even fix up the
sleeping potion while she's down here. Just to make sure she understands all
the instructions. If she doesn't, then she can ask him about it in the morning.
And good books? It doesn't take much to get in her
good books, and the effort seems to be enough.
You only wish you had that effect on him. o.-; Or something. He's only 15! Sure, he'll be 16 in
February, in the prime of puberty with a cracking voice and all that jazz, but
that's beside the point! It's a downright shame that she heard the thanks,
though, but in a sense, considering that he wants to make Potter angry by going
through with this, it's a good thing that she did hear. Draco
nods, though, settling back against the pillow and headboard to the bed before
sinking into it, under the covers. He doesn't fall right to sleep, no. He stays
awake and will wait until she leaves. Wouldn't want to have
any tricks played on him while he sleeps. u.u Not that he's paranoid, just taking precautions.
Potter would curse him the first chance he had, as would Weasley,
perhaps even Granger, too.
Since he stays awake until she leaves, he hears Cho mix the potion as silently as possible, wait a little
while for the desired sign of its completion. Once she's satisfied, she pours
it into a bottle with a lid, tucks it into her robes and blows out the final
remaining candle. Once it's dark, and one would expect to hear footsteps a
somewhat amused voice whispers rather softly, "Merry Christmas." Then
the steps sound as she silently pads out of the wing; luckily avoiding any beds
or solid objects (and even avoids the door frame!) this time.