Delicate | James Potter

2.12

~

Dorcas and June were finally shooed away by Madam Pomfrey, eager to force them to go to lunch. They would have stayed longer if they could have, Alice certainly wished they would. Dorcas promised she'd bring back some pepper imps. Each one of them was keen to avoid the subject of her injury, ignoring the masked panic from Pomfrey, the scared mumble. It was getting worse, she'd said. She wouldn't be able to keep replenishing her blood forever.

For the mean time, Alice was left to rest. It was a peaceful few moments, though there was a lot on her mind. She'd heard the words St Mungo's mumbled a few times now by various teachers, all popping in to see how she was doing which was nice enough but didn't do much to make her feel any better. Each time they'd have the same reaction, mouth parting with a gasp and eyes widening. Alice was thankful there were no mirrors nearby; she didn't want to see how dreadful it must be.

Now, it was almost silent. Gold dust floated past the windows, disappearing every time the sun went behind a cloud. She watched with a curious boredom. Anything to take her mind off of the pain. A clock ticked on the wall, slowly and loudly as if there just to taunt her. Alice reached over to the bedside table where she thought her wand was (so she could perhaps try silence the ticking), but instead of touching wood, she touched someone's hand.

Alice yelped and shifted sideways causing a ripple of searing burn up her side. She hissed and bit down on her lip whilst simultaneously trying to focus on the floating hand on her bedside table which was really quite alarming. It was just there by itself, no arm attached, only a little wrist.

"Hello?" Alice tried.

Nothing happened.

She took a hold of her actual wand and prodded the hand with it. It twitched slightly before suddenly pulling back and disappearing completely as if under a cloak, replaced by a loud invisible snoring.

She stared blankly. What? "Um... hi? Hello?"

Then suddenly there was a ripple to the air. Alice would have thought she was just seeing things if not for the voice that came next.

"You alright?"

The air was quite literally pulled back, revealing one James Potter. His hair was all messy - more so than usual - and his face was still bruised from the fight. His glasses sat askew on his face until he pushed them up his nose with his finger and they fell perfectly straight.

She gaped at him. "You just - was that - was that an invisibility cloak?"

Despite his initial oddly serious expression, he grinned. "Maybe."

"But those are - I thought those were super rare."

He shrugged. "They are."

"Oh... oh, cool." Alice nodded slowly, staring at the chunk of his leg that appeared to be non-existent. "How long have you had it?"