Panic. It was all I could feel, drumming hard in my chest as I dashed to the hospital wing, thoughts racing as fast as my feet. All the numbness I felt before--it was as if the Dementor had sucked out my soul already, leaving me with no hope. Was 'R' really trying to single me out as the threat, rather than the curse that the Vaults have unleashed upon the school?
Two people had already fallen victim to the horrors around the school. How many more would fall? Would I be too late by then to free everyone from these horrors?
"Miss Lin! It is not yet time for visiting hours!" Madam Pomfrey cried the minute she saw me run right into the Hospital Wing. "And what happened to your face? Goodness me..."
She quickly waved her wand over my face with an "Episkey", and I wasted no time in telling her about Barnaby's admittance into the Hospital Wing and that I wanted to see him.
"The poor boy's been through...quite an ordeal, so to speak," Madam Pomfrey told me quietly, leading me to his bed farther into the ward. "Had Cecil Lee not been close by, the boy would have been finished off completely. I'll leave you with him, dear," she eventually relented as she noticed me staring at him, eyes trailing over his sleeping form. "I'll write Professor Binns a note explaining the situation."
Of course. With this visit, I might as well risk missing out History of Magic. Not like anything interesting would happen during the lesson, though. No one ever pays attention in that class, with Binns' sleepy drone putting us all in a stupor and out of focus. I simply nodded, though, as Madam Pomfrey walked away, leaving me and Barnaby alone.
There was no one else in the hospital wing that day--the boy who succumbed to the Kiss had been sent to St. Mungo's, though everyone knew there was no chance of recovery for him. He had lost his soul. He couldn't be retrieved or called back. As I sat down in the guest chair beside Barnaby's bed, I couldn't help but wonder what I had done to deserve this--to see Barnaby lying there, as if in a coma, instead of his usual happy self. Had my numbness really spread to the rest of my friends? Were they going through the same things I did when I shut them out?
I thought I was keeping them safe.
How very wrong I was.
A thread of guilt tingled through my arm as I reached out for Barnaby's hand, which was as cold as ice. Fingers interlocked with one another, I lifted our hands and gently planted a kiss over his knuckles. The blanket covered the rest of his body, but his pale face told me he must have lost a lot of blood. I laid my fingers over his wrist--there was a slight pulse drumming, but it was weak. His eyes still remained closed the entire time, without a sign of stirring.
I slowly took the rings off his fingers, in case they cut off circulation in his state, and began to rub his hand in both of mine to regain some warmth. His ice-cold palm against my somewhat warm ones almost made me recoil in shock. How could I have done this? My cold shoulder ended up turning them into ice. And now here I was, on the brink of losing the one I love more than anything, facing nothing but a black hole in my uncertain future. I glanced down at his sleeping face, eyes glancing over his handsome features, and tears sprang to my eyes at the prospect of never seeing his emerald eyes spark with joy ever again.
As soon as I thought that, though, I heard a weak groan escape from his lips, and I glanced up to see him roll over and yawn, opening his eyes to see me sitting next to him. I expected him to pull his hand away, but instead, he just smiled, almost as if everything was still normal. "Hey, Clara."
"H-hey." I tried to smile in return, but the guilt in my chest overpowered any other relief I felt at seeing him wake.
"So, it seemed like my uncle got to you," Barnaby simply said, squeezing my hand lightly. "Not that I didn't expect him to. It's just..."
"I know. I thought I was keeping all of you safe, shutting you out like that," I confessed. "I felt like I was poisoning you already, pulling you all in with me to see all these dangers and stuff from the Cursed Vaults. None of you guys deserve that."
"Clara..."
"No. All of you came to Hogwarts to pursue your future careers, and having a normal school life has become impossible because of me," I finally said, the tears now flowing non-stop over my face. "Don't you remember what I said once before? I hurt you all with everything going on with the Vaults. With the Slytherin prefect dead, and the Gryffindor student succumbing to the Dementor's Kiss...I thought I was a goner for sure. Everyone would be blaming me for putting their lives in danger. For putting Hogwarts in danger."
Barnaby fell silent then, a frown slowly settling upon his face as he tried to process what I said.
"The message in the Black Quill...'R' had done more than give me a threat," I told him. "They're taking the students, one by one. Who knows who could be next? You? Rowan? Someone who doesn't deserve to die?"
"Clara." Barnaby tried to sit up, but winced as his wounds got the better of him. "All of us--we were all lost without you."
"How? You all had the resources for finding the next Vault." I quickly helped him up, though it wasn't an easy feat with the pain.
"No one knew what happened that night when you went into the Forest on your own," Barnaby told me. "It really bugged all of us. That was why I went into the Forest just last night. I wanted to see what happened--why you went.
"It was scary, Clara. The trees, the wolf howls...I don't know how you did it. Next thing I knew, I was attacked by something--I couldn't see what it was, but it jumped on me and scratched me on the stomach. And then this Centaur saw me and shot me in the gut, too. He probably thought I was trying to disrupt the Forest's peace."
What? No. I couldn't have heard this clearly.
"And then the Dementors...there were so many. I felt like I lost everything..." He shivered and gripped my hand tighter. "The last thing I remembered seeing is something white galloping towards them, and then it picked me up, threw me on its back, and took me to safety."
Something white saved him--a horse of some sort? My mind must have stopped working then, because now I had no idea what to say.
Barnaby went into the Forest just to find out what happened to me, why I've changed. He did this to try and bring me back to him--to my friends. And all I did, this entire time, was treat them like garbage.
"You don't think it was a werewolf?" I finally asked.
"No. It looked too big to be a werewolf. It had a lion's mane, too," Barnaby recalled. "Probably a Chimera, but it was too dark to see."
I gently lifted Barnaby's blanket to see the bandages that covered his torso, some of the blood bleeding through the area where the Centaur's arrow must have pierced him. The wounds were not that deep, but I couldn't help feeling guilty over the sight. The wave of panic soon consumed me again, and I let go of Barnaby's hand, suddenly disgusted at myself.
"I'm so stupid," I finally said. "I thought I was doing the right thing, and yet..."
"No. Clara, you're not stupid."
"Yes, I am! I put you in even more danger!" I cried. "I was the reason you ended up like this!"
"Clara, please, listen to me," Barnaby pleaded.
"I don't deserve you," I finally said. "I don't deserve any one of you."
Barnaby caught hold of my hands and pulled me onto the bed, shaking his head as he lifted his hand to trace my cheek.
"None of this is your fault," he said softly. "We don't know who built the Cursed Vaults. We don't know who unleashed the curses, or how long it's been going on. We don't know why Greyback escaped. But we know that you couldn't have seen any of this coming."
"But--"
"Shh." Barnaby pulled me close to him so our foreheads touched. His thumbs gently erased the tears that flowed down my face with a touch so gentle, I felt myself surrender to him.
"But 'R'--"
"--wouldn't want to see you do anything to stop them. They wanted to unhinge you, Clara."
"I don't know," I murmured. "Maybe they already did."
Was there really any way for anyone to bring me back from the brink of fear? For all the time I lived, I had never let fear overpower whatever courage I used to have. Now it was dictating me to fall, surrender to hopelessness beyond my worst nightmares. I closed my eyes then, trying to imagine what falling into the precipice of oblivion felt like, when I felt something capture my lips, as soft as a moth's wings, and my thoughts jolted to a halt.
Barnaby's hands might have been cold, but his lips were warm as they brought me away from the precipice, faint whispers escaping his mouth with every breath. The comforting sounds brought sparks of warmth through my chest as I kissed him back, the numbness in my chest crumbling into oblivion. A burst of light penetrated through the cloudy haze once more, the ice soon melting away within, and I felt myself--my old self--settle back into my chest, a peaceful feeling prevailing over the fear that once dictated my thoughts, my actions.
"I won't let that happen," he finally whispered as we parted for air. "I promised I'd protect you, hadn't I?"
His eyes. I had never seen such a vibrant green in my life before, but now they were blazing in my sight with a fire reignited.
"You brought us together," Barnaby told me then, a small smile on his face. "And we've come so far to be stopped."
"You're right." The warmth in my chest soon flooded into the rest of my body, and I nodded in agreement. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Barnaby gently kissed my cheek, coaxing a smile out of me. "We're all doing this for you."
I nodded again, and as our foreheads touched again I felt myself come alive once more, no longer numb with worry, but now at ease with a newfound determination.
I couldn't leave my friends alone. Not after all they've been through to help me find my brother again. If they saw me as such an integral part of their Hogwarts career, then I might as well stay for them--to help them in return.
Little did I know, though, that someone was actually listening in on the entire conversation.