RP: Did we win? Date: 7 March 2006 Characters: Minerva McGonagall, Poppy Pomfrey (NPC) Location: Hogwarts Infirmary Private/Public: Private Rating: General Warnings: - Summary: Minerva is feeling her age
Why should she have thought it anything worse than just a cough? In spite of her exceedingly good bill of health, Minerva could accept that she had managed to catch whatever bug had been sweeping through the school. The law of averages told her that it was to be expected.
When students started dropping like flies, quickly followed by the teachers, Minerva was worried. Poppy had been completely run off her feet, so why should she have bothered her with just a simple cough.
The pepper-up kept her going a day or two, and by mid week, she knew that there was something drastic going on. More than half of the students in school were sick - some gravely so. She spoke to the teachers and as more students seemed to come down with symptoms that were slowly worsening, she ordered classes cancelled, and students who were currently fine to be quarantined from the rest of the student body.
That seemed to be the last thing she remembered as she broke down in a coughing fit in the front of the Great Hall. Tossing and turning, she felt severe pain behind her eyes as she opened them. Her throat was dry, and her breathing ragged as she looked up to an unfamiliar ceiling.
Her vision blurred, but the voice of Poppy was in her ears. Raising a hand from the covers, she opened her mouth to cough, only to feel her whole body ache. The pain was unbearable, and had she heard the pitiful sound that escaped her mouth, she would have thought it was that of a dying cat on the side of a road.
It was all too much, and a warm hand gripped hers. A moment later a potion was down her throat and the edge eased from her pain. Her mouth was far too dry and sore, the taste of copper on her tongue.
In a lucid moment, she swore Poppy saying something about a pox, but even as she formed an answer, a sweat broke out on her brow. This had to be a nightmare. This wasn't real. Nobody could voluntarily be in this much pain. Why just before she had been playing Quidditch with the rest of the Gryffindor team - thrashing Slytherin for all it was worth.
Of course - that had to be it. Damned McNair had aimed the bludger at her, and it had struck her. That would explain the pain, and the fact she was in the infirmary. Poppy was visiting her, worrying over her friend. But where was the matron? Surely this much pain wasn't normal.
"Poppy, did we win? Did somebody report McNair to Headmaster Dippett? That was so typical of him. Bastard." Her breathing became belaboured, and she coughed. The pain wracked her again, and she felt a cool compress on her forehead as she was given another potion. Poppy's soothing voice told her everything was fine, and that McNair was already in the Headmaster's office and would be having detention with the groundskeeper for a month.
She managed a weak, but very satisfied smile through the pain. That would teach those Slytherins for not playing fair. That would teach them for messing with a Gryffindor. "Just as long as we won, it would be all worth it."
It was going to take a hell of a lot more than a bludger in the head to bring Minerva McGonagall down!
But as the coughing fit started up again, her mind was jumbled with far too many other thoughts that didn't make sense. Animagi, wars, battles, classes where she was standing up the front. Standing over the coffin of Albus Dumbledore - Merlin, the bludger really was messing with her.
Too weak to even move, it was only moments before sleep overcame her, and the coughing subsided into ragged breathing.
---
Poppy was bitterly worried. When the students started coming down with this plague (what better word could be used to describe it?), she tried to keep others isolated. MInerva - stubborn old woman that she was - was determined to soldier on. When she collapsed in the great hall mid week, Poppy cursed her for being such a damn stubborn old witch.
Some of the students were starting to be on the mend, some were getting worse, but with Minerva's age and health factored in, she wasn't faring nearly as well as the worst of the students. There were definitely hallucinations, as she regularly woke and talked as if it were still their own school days. Poppy was glad for the small mercy that was her rattling breath, as it meant she was still alive. Poppy knew what a death rattle sounded like, and Minerva was so close to that, it frightened her.
Minerva couldn't die. Not like this. It just wouldn't be fitting. Struck down by some damn unknown plague (not even the healers at the shack knew what it was) was a far cry for such a loud and brave lion. As much as Poppy chastised Minerva for going out on her own during battles, a death on a battlefield would have been a fitting epitaph. "Come on Minnie, not like this," she said quietly as she fed her the deep sleep potion. At least then she wouldn't be in nearly as much pain as those who were in the other beds.
"You can't die on us Minnie," she repeated quietly as she held her friend's frail and pox covered hand. "You have to fight it."