InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I hope your apple pie is freak"

Ophelia Smith (missophelia) wrote in castagain,
@ 2008-01-23 18:35:00

Who: Ophelia Smith and James Bradfield.
What: Hospital Wing visit and mayhaps some lecturing from James.
When: Afternoon, during one of Ophelia's free periods.
Where: Hospital Wing.
Warnings: Some swearing and stealing (from her brother, so it's okay).
Rating: PG.

Ophelia was worried, which bothered her because she was hardly ever worried. It was a little after two o'clock and she had been loitering around the almost empty Slytherin Common Room, thinking of things to do. Ophelia had managed to finish writing the thirteen-inch Charms essay for James as well as the rather torturous essay on human Transfiguration assigned to them that week. Her mind wandered vaguely to her close friend's rather blunt reply to her journal entry and it stuck there. Why was it so hard for him to understand that she didn't exactly know how strong her feelings were? Ophelia was practically out of her depth in the current situation. She'd heard the girls in her dorm speak about 'liking' or 'fancying' someone but she'd never really involved herself in those conversation enough to know the difference between the two. What she felt about Dorian was inexplicable, as far as she knew.

Sighing, Ophelia made her way to her dorm room and pulled out a large canvas bag from her school trunk. She hesitated for a minute before deciding not to bring her sketch book and some charcoal sticks. She doubted she'd be able to draw while she visited. Ophelia wasn't one to go unprepared, of course, and she knew exactly what would distract James enough to stall the topic. She made her way to the Seventh Year boys' dormitories, feeling a little sheepish. She didn't really want to be caught lurking around her brother and Dorian's living quarters so she was glad to find the place deserted. Working quickly, she managed to find East's old turntable and two records from his trunk. Ophelia had heard James talk about Muggle music long enough to know which ones he seemed to favour. She carefully placed East's possessions inside the canvas bag and made her way back to the incredibly chilly Slytherin Common Room. There had been puddles of water forming every day and Ophelia barely missed one by the portrait hole.

It took her the best of fifteen minutes to get to the Hospital Wing since she tried to avoid taking the route that her brother and Dorian frequented. Ophelia didn't think they'd take kindly to her visiting James after the duel. It isn't as if she didn't feel sorry for Dorian, he broke his arm and all, but this visit wasn't about the duel at all. James was sick and was clearly quite bored in the infirmary. Surely, if Dorian was sick, East would have been there to visit at one point or another.

Ophelia hesitated at the Hospital Wing's doors before shaking her head and walking in. She gave a curt nod to the severe-looking nurse before hastily walking away to find James' bed.

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bradders
2008-01-23 10:29 am UTC (link)

James had been sleeping twenty minutes ago. His dark hair was more disheveled than usual and he was pretty scruffy, even by his own standards. He wanted a shave, and to stretch his legs. He always enjoyed his bed until he was confined there, which was exactly what Madame Pomfrey had done with him. But despite all that, he looked leagues better than he had even two days ago. With almost a full day of sleep to go on, he looked quite well rested and perhaps he'd gained weight again as well. His shirt was off, as per usual when he slept. Having not expected visitors, he hadn't bothered to put it back on when he woke up. The chain of bruises that had once covered his entire right side were gone, thanks to the nurse's bruise healing paste.

Granted, he still had the slightly feverish, flushed look of someone who was quite sick, and that was because he was. The nurse had stuck a thermometer down his throat when he'd woken up and it'd spiked to 102. So he wasn't totally healthy. But he looked better. Hell, he felt better.

Emotions were not James' strong suit, by any stretch of the imagination. He had worked these last few years to distance himself from them as much as possible. So it shouldn't have been any surprise that he didn't really understand how Ophelia felt. In her journal, she'd told him that she couldn't compare it to what he had with Tucker. In the back of his head, James knew that even if she could, he still wouldn't understand. He barely knew what was going on between him and Tucker any more. He was only aware that he liked it, liked being around her, talking to her, holding her, kissing her... But beyond that, he struggled with exactly what he felt. How could he compare what he had to what Ophelia felt when he wasn't even sure what he had in the first place?

He had the Prophet open in front of him when she came in. Upon seeing her, he folded it back up and tossed it onto the table next to him. James was certainly glad to have a visitor — especially one that seemed to be bearing gifts. He even forgot that he was supposed to yell at her. In fact, the idea of Ophelia Smith and Dorian Fucking Nott had quite escaped his mind. At least for the moment. He even gave her a small smile as she approached.

"About time you found your way up here."

That alone had to be a sure sign that he was, at least, feeling better.

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missophelia
2008-01-23 12:33 pm UTC (link)

"It didn't take me too long," Ophelia replied, returning his smile, "You're looking better. Did Madame Pomfrey say when you'll be getting out?" She fussed around the small area first, fixing the draperies surrounding the bed and moving the potion bottles and medical paraphernalia into more orderly positions, before sitting down on the chair beside James' bed. She gave him a rather wry smile when she noticed that the bruises she saw while they were on the Hogwarts Express had healed. "James, you should put a shirt on, you know," Ophelia began in what she hoped was a matter-of-fact tone that actually came across more... well, motherly, "Your back might get cold and you'll get even sicker." She'd always been a little maternal towards James, which was a little amusing because Ophelia would swear that she doesn't have a maternal bone in her body. It just wasn't her, she says. Thankfully, it only strikes when one of her friends were hurt in one form or another.

Ophelia fidgeted with the straps of the canvas bag for a while, lost in her thoughts (which seemed to swim between a new drawing she was working on and Dorian), before realising what she brought. As if startled from sleep, she said, "Oh, uh, I brought music." The Hospital Wing was a place of quiet, of course, so Ophelia turned the turntable's volume quite low. She was sure Madame Pomfrey wouldn't appreciate the sort of music Ophelia brought with her echoing through the vast space of the infirmary. "You mentioned you like, er, The Clash, was it? I remembered that East kept this somewhere in his dorm so I went to--," Ophelia coughed, "Borrow it, for a while anyway." She set the needle to start on the first track, like she'd seen East do several times before, and a jangly guitar riff began to quietly play.

Sitting back down, Ophelia let the music take over conversation for a while. There wasn't much to say or talk about, which she considered as "safe" topics. For one thing, she can't talk about the duel without bringing up the subject of her relationship with Dorian and she couldn't bring up Tucker because that would bring up the topic of the duel. It was a rather awkward situation to be in. Naturally, Ophelia chose to talk about the most neutral thing she could think of: Charms (because Herbology reminded James of Professor Longbottom... then Tucker... and so on). "I finished that Charms essay, by the way."

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