wanna be yours

XXI. ROGUE BLUDGER AND DUELLING CLUBS

"Why can't I just go to the hospital wing?" said Harry through clenched teeth.

"He should really, Professor," said a muddy Wood, who couldn't help grinning even though hisSeeker was injured. "Great capture, Harry, really spectacular, your best yet, I'd say. . . ." Through the thicket of legs around him, Fred and George Weasley, wrestling the rogue Bludger into a box. It was still putting up a terrific fight.

"Professor, I really think he should go to Madam Pomfrey," Alyssa   said worried.

"Nonsense," he said. "Stand back," said Lockhart, who was rolling up his jade-green sleeves.

"No, don't. . . ." said Harry weakly, but Lockhart was twirling his wand and a second later had directed it straight at Harry's arm.

Harry had shut his eyes, his face turned away from his arm, the people above him gasped and Colin Creevey began clicking away madly. Elodie's eyes went wide with horror as she gasped.

"Ah," said Lockhart. "Yes. Well, that can sometimes happen. But the point is, the bones are no longer broken. That's the thing to bear in mind. So, Harry, just toddle up to the hospital wing, ah, Miss. Wilson, Mr. Weasley, Miss. Granger, would you escort him?, and Madam Pomfrey will be able to er, tidy you up a bit."

As Harry got to his feet, he took a deep breath he looked down at his right side. What he saw nearly made him pass out again. Poking out of the end of his robes was what looked like a thick, flesh-coloured rubber glove. He tried to move his fingers. Nothing happened. Lockhart hadn't mended Harry's bones. He had removed them.

Madam Pomfrey wasn't at all pleased.

"You should have come straight to me!" she raged, holding up the sad, limp remainder of what, half an hour before, had been a working arm.

"That's what I said!" Elodie said.

"You have some common sense then Miss. Wilson," Madam Pomfrey said. "I can mend bones in a second, but growing them back. . . ."

"You will be able to, won't you?" said Harry desperately.

"I'll be able to, certainly, but it will be painful," said Madam Pomfrey grimly, throwing Harry a pair of pyjamas. "You'll have to stay the night. . . ."

Elodie and Hermione waited outside the curtain drawn around Harry's bed while Ron helped him into his pyjamas. It took a while to stuff the rubbery, boneless arm into a sleeve.

"How can you stick up for Lockhart now, Hermione, eh?" Ron called through the curtain as he pulled Harry's limp fingers through the cuff. "If Harry had wanted deboning he would have asked."

"Anyone can make a mistake," said Hermione. "And it doesn't hurt anymore, does it, Harry?"

"No," said Harry, getting into bed. "But it doesn't do anything else either."

As he swung himself onto the bed, his arm flapped pointlessly. Elodie, Hermione and Madam Pomfrey came around the curtain. Madam Pomfrey was holding a large bottle of something labeled Skele-Gro.

"You're in for a rough night," she said, pouring out a steaming beakerful and handing it to him."Regrowing bones is a nasty business."

So was taking the Skele-Gro. It burned Harry's mouth and throat as it went down, making him cough and splutter. Still tut-tutting about dangerous sports and inept teachers, Madam Pomfrey retreated, leaving Ron and Hermione to help Harry gulp down some water.

"We won, though," said Ron, a grin breaking across his face. "That was some catch you made. Malfoy's face. He looked ready to kill. . . ."

"I want to know how he fixed that Bludger," said Elodie darkly.