Better Than The Hospital Wing

Andy finally made it to the seventh floor, far more exhausted than he should have been, not that he'd let Bri in on that. He was trying to convince her to let him be here, not drive her to send him back.

He scratched his chin with his hand, trying to remember what Tahlia said about this room. Something about walking past and thinking super hard about what you need from the room.

Andy tried just that, thinking "I need a place to relax and not get sent to the Hospital Wing" He paced the corridor, hoping that the room would just....

"Here it is!" Andy exclaimed, looking at the door which suddenly appeared. "Gotta thank Talhs when I see her next!" Andy looked at Bri and took her hand again. "Come on!" He pushed the door open and grinned when he saw the set up. The room was decorated with hundreds of book titles, some of which, Andy couldn't even pronounce. Couches which looked good enough to spend forever on were in abundance and just calling to Andy to sit on.

"Awesome, ain't it?"

Bri kept a tight grip and a close eye on Andy the whole way up the stairs, petrified that his knees would buckle and he would collapse and fall down them. That would be horrifying.

She followed Andy into the room, wondering what could be so great about it. Her jaw dropped once she was inside. It wasn't overly large, but rather cozy, and the walls were lines with every book she could possibly think of. "I feel like I'm in Beauty and the Beast or something," she remarked quietly. She hardly even noticed the inviting looking couches, she was too busy surveying the titles that the room had to offer.

"This is absolutely incredible," she said. She ran her fingers along the perfectly aligned spines of the books on one of the shelves. "Where do we start?"

Andy laughed, "Beauty and the what?" He hadn't heard of that title before but it sounded completely too girly for his liking.

Andy grabbed a book from the shelf, laughing at the title and the memory it provoked. The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

"I love this! My dad used to read this to me as a kid." He showed Bri the front cover. "Have you read it?" Andy turned the cover over and started to read the first story. He truly used to pine for bedtime just so that his dad could start another story from the text. They were one of his favourite childhood memories.

"It's a children's story," Bri explained.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard? It was so strange sounding that she was nearly certain she'd misread the title. "No, I haven't," she replied, taking a seat on the other end of the somewhat small couch that he'd seated himself on.

It was a little chilly in the room. I need a blanket or something, she thought. Out of nowhere, she spotted one draped over the back of the couch they were on. She swore that it hadn't been there before she thought of it. This room is amazing.

"Will you read it to me?" she asked, draping the blanket over her legs. After all, if it was a children's story, it was meant to be told, not read to oneself.

Andy pulled the blanket off of Bri slightly so that it would cover him as well. "Who's the sick one, hmm?" he asked, cheekily, using his near death experience to gain some extra blanket from the girl. They were sitting rather close to each other, so the distance wasn't great, but it could have been smaller. Andy scooted slightly closer to her. "Now we can share," he stated, feeling warmer already, but he wasn't sure if that was due to having some blanket or being closer to Bri.

"Read it to you, hey? I don't see why not. But I must warn you, I'm prone to doing the voices, just like my Pa did when he read it to me, so don't laugh." Andy made a serious face at Bri, which he didn't hold for very long.

He cleared his throat and started to read, giving Bri mock glares when she giggled at his voices.

"Hey! What did I say about not laughing!?" Andy cried and placed the book aside. "I'll give you reason to laugh." Andy reached out and started to tickle the Ravenclaw.

"Sharing is fine," Bri said, smiling. She liked this Andy much more than the "so angry he was about to go hunt down a Slytherin and beat him to a pulp" Andy. "Voices are also fine, my mum used to do them as well," she added.

She couldn't help but laugh at the voices he did. Some of them were just truly ridiculous. "I can't help it!"

She shrieked with laughter as Andy started to tickle her. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" she scrambled to catch his hands with hers to get him to stop.

Andy relented his tickling and laughed a little. He had never seen someone squirm so much before.

"You are really ticklish, aren't ya?" he asked. "Me? Not so much!" He really wasn't. His parents used to try when he was younger and he'd just stare at them blankly.

He saw the skeptical look she was giving him and laughed again. "I'm serious. Try and get me to crack a smile." Andy tried to place the most dead-pan face he could manage on his face, but failed even before Bri touched him. He tried again, but found it ridiculously hard to do. He heard Bri laugh at him again.

"Oh! You have a go then! You try and keep a straight face, and I'll try and make you laugh. I promise I won't tickle you though. That would be too easy."

Whatever this game was, Bri liked it. It was genuinely funny to watch Andy try to keep a straight face. "Alright then," she said.

She put on her best poker face, although it probably wasn't a very good one, which would explain why she was rubbish at poker. The first time she tried it, she burst into a fit of giggles almost immediately.

"Wait, wait, I can do this," she said, taking a deep breath and attempting to clear her face of emotion once more. She again, failed quickly. "Okay, it's hard, I believe you," she conceded.

Andy watched on and burst out laughing at the faces Bri was pulling. They were hilarious.

"Bri! Seriously. I have to get a picture of you doing those faces. I swear, if I'm ever sad, they'll cheer me up immediately!" He dodged a wack from her hand, and laughed again.

"I'm so glad I'm not down in that stupid Hospital Wing," he said, facing her again. He pulled the blanket back up and onto them as it had fallen off during the tickle war.

"I still can't believe you stayed there for three days. Weren't you bored out of your mind, just listening to me snore for the whole time?"

Bri flushed with embarrassment and tried to swat Andy with the back of her hand, though he dodged it. "Are they really that bad?"

She drew her knees up under the blanket and hugged them to her chest. "You didn't snore... that much," she said jokingly before switching to a more serious tone. "Both of the Coopers tried to get me to go sleep and stuff, but that wasn't likely to happen. I was worried... I was worried that if I left, you'd... you know, and I wouldn't be there so you didn't have to be alone if it did happen," her voice wavered slightly; she still dreaded to think what could have happened to him.

Andy nodded with mirth. "They're pretty awful!" he laughed, and then shook his head. "No. I'm only teasing. They weren't that bad." Andy still chuckled lightly, as he leaned back against the couch.

He turned his head as he listened to her. He reached out and took her hand in his. That small hand had become somewhat of a lifeline to Andy. He woke up holding her hand, and he knew it was silly, but he had the feeling that her being there with him is what pulled him through.

"Well.. I'm glad that it didn't happen. For your sake." He couldn't imagine how grief stricken she would have been had he actually died in the Forest. She was battling with her emotions now, and he was fine, but Andy shuddered to think what his death would have done to her.

He gave her hand a squeeze of reassurance. "You're not still worried about me, are you?"

"A little," Bri said honestly. "You were so close. Fifteen more minutes and you'd be..."

She squeezed his hand back. She was glad it didn't happen for her sake as well. She really didn't have a lot of friends at the school and that happening to him would have taken away the closest one she had, which would probably make her keep to herself more. Plus she would have to live with the guilt of knowing she'd caused the death of her best friend.

She took a deep breath and pushed back the tears that wanted to start up again; she'd done more than enough crying for the week. "I'm really glad you're alright," she said.

Andy's face was rather void of expression as he listened to Bri. He hadn't thought about what may have happened after something like that occurred, not only to Bri, but how James would have dealt with it, how his family would have reacted. He shivered, reflecting on how close he had come to death. All due to a stupid plant. Sheesh, he hated Herbology, and now he had even more reason to.

"Spose, I had better thank the Coopers, and, who was it? Professor Hamilton?" Andy asked. "I reckon that'd be pretty pissed to see me out of bed, but I really don't feel the need to stay there. Besides, If I need anything, like say, a glass of water..." A pitcher of water and two glasses appeared on a nearby table. "Then I can have it."

Bri nodded. She smiled delightfully at the pitcher of water and glasses. It didn't matter that it was something so simple; the fact that the room could do it was astonishing. The only thing it didn't seem to be able to do was get the temperature right. She edged closer to Andy without realizing she was doing it.

"You'll have to go back for the night though. They check on you three or four times a night," she told him. "I can stay with you, if you want though. I think they'll all but named the bed next to yours after me, so it wouldn't surprise them."

Andy found himself placing an arm around Bri unconsciously as they sat on the couch. There was something instinctively comfortable about having her close.

"I suppose I'll have to. They've probably already gone to check up on me and seen me gone." Andy sighed. "I guess the sooner I get the healing over with, the sooner I can get out."

He looked at Bri and realised that he forgot to ask her something that he was supposed to when he first woke up. "Did my parents come to see me? Or Tahlia?" He hadn't heard from his sister or his parents, so he assumed that they didn't know, and wondered why Professor Cooper, either of them, didn't tell them. Maybe they didn't want to worry them, or something.

"I think the Coopers wrote them but they were having trouble getting the message there. Apparently they're on holiday somewhere. I have no doubt that you'll be getting a visit from them soon," Bri said, remembering bits and pieces of what she'd heard the professors saying. "Your sister came to see you though. I like her, she was very nice. She left a few hours before you woke up, something about needing to go back to work and you being well tended," she blushed as she spoke, finally starting to realize what Tahlia had meant.

She looked around, thinking that she needed to know what time it was, and her eyes fell on a clock on one of the shelves. "Their first check is usually sometime around 8. It's half three now, so we've got a few hours until they come to check on you, if you want to read me another story," she smiled up at him.

Andy nodded. He did vaguely remember something about them going away. He was kinda glad that they didn't get the message then. He'd hate to have spoiled their trip just because he was sleeping the days away. Seemed rather pointless.

"Oh yeah?" Andy asked. Tahlia had her moments, but for the majority of the time, she was a pain in the proverbial. Andy saw a slight red tinge to her cheeks and wondered what Tahlia had said to her. Something embarrassing about him, no doubt.

"Another story? I don't know if you can be trusted not to laugh at my voices again. Cut me real deep that did." He was glad that they had some time before he had to rush back to the Hospital Wing and pretend that he had always been there.

Bri smiled and rested her head on his shoulder once more. "I'm sure it did," she said, a hint of laughter in her voice. "I think I can manage to keep it to myself."

She liked the voices Andy did; they reminded her of being told stories when she was little. Although, when she was little, the stories were being read to her by her mother, not by an abnormally cute boy who she happened to be friends with.

She hoped that he wasn't bothered by how close they were sitting; she hadn't really thought of it before but boys were practically a different species and she didn't know if it would make him uncomfortable. She internally shook the thoughts from her mind since they were only going to give her a headache. "Or I can read one, if you want," she offered.

Andy stretched across and grabbed the book he was reading before Bri started to laugh at him. He hadn't got very far through, but handed he the book to her instead. He was feeling slightly tired, not that he'd let on to Bri how he was feeling, so he liked the idea of just sitting back and hearing the old tales.

"Your turn," he said, smiling. "I dare you to make me laugh. Go on." Andy still had his arm around her shoulder and was absentmindedly stroking her arm, as he listened to Bri read from The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Bri took the book from Andy and silently accepted the challenge of making him laugh. She picked up reading just where he had left off, doing her best to do the voices just like he had, although she doubted she was anywhere near as good at them as he was. Even if it was a bit silly, this was definitely something that she could get used to. Forget Thomas and James and anyone else who had seen fit to be rude to her in the past few days; she was content to sit there and read to Andy, even if her voices were terrible.

"So, how did I do?" she asked when she finished off the story.

Andy tried to hold back laughter at the truly terrible attempt Bri was making at doing the voices. At one point, he had to bit his tongue to quit from laughing.

"So, how did I do?"

Andy couldn't hold back the laughter anymore. "Oh Merlin's beard. They were awful!" he exclaimed, in between chuckles. "So bad!" He saw the pout she placed on her face and stopped laughing, though a grin still remained on his face. "They weren't that bad," he said, drawing out the word that, so it was more like 'thaaaaat'.

She still looked forlorn, but Andy started to see Bri in a different light. He hadn't paid particular attention to girls before, only knowing that most of them were downright annoying, but now, he seemed to notice how Bri's eyes were a sparkling shade of green, but they had brown flecks within in, making them a hazel colour. He noticed even though she was pouting, her eyes still shone with mirth. Andy could feel his face flush due to the fact that he was staring at her so intensely, but he couldn't seem to stop.

Bri must have said something, but he didn't quite catch it. Andy cleared his throat, which seemed to have formed a lump within it, and said, "What? Sorry, I was miles away."

Bri gave Andy a slightly exaggerated pout as he laughed at her terrible voices; she wasn't offended, she knew how bad they were. She noticed he was looking at her a little oddly, like he was... evaluating her or something, and she asked him what he was staring at but he didn't seem to hear her.

She didn't really mind him looking at her like that though because it gave her a chance to do the same, letting her note that his eyes were a truly beautiful green color, although there were little flecks of blue in there as well, and his hair was messy but not quite in a "I've never brushed this stuff in my life" kind of way, but more of a "I've tried to get it to behave but it does whatever it wants" kind of way, and his lips...

"What? Sorry, I was miles away."

She was shaken from her thoughts by his voice. "I was just... do I have something on my face or something?" she asked, wiping the nonexistent thing from her cheek with the back of her hand.

Andy shook his head, both to answer her question and to rid his mind of these thoughts, although a quick shake of the noggin wasn't helping the latter cause all that much.

"No. You're perfect," he said, before realising what he said and how it sounded. He felt his cheeks redden and turned away slightly, which was hard as his arm was still around her shoulders.

He ran a hand through his hair thinking how he'd change the subject, but coming up with nothing.

Bri blushed slightly at his words. They were few in number but the impact was huge, because she knew how she was going to take it even if it wasn't exactly what he meant. "Thanks," she said softly.

She turned towards him and removed his hand from his hair before setting it back to normal. "Just can't keep your hands away from your head, can you?" she teased.

She put her hand back down when his hair was fixed. "I'm glad you decided to have a little field trip outside the hospital wing," she said. If he hadn't, she probably still would have been sitting in an empty classroom crying and he still would have been sitting in a hospital bed bored out of his mind. "Are you still feeling okay?" she asked, not wanting to keep him from being in the hospital wing if it was where he needed to be.

Andy smiled as she fixed his hair. He shook his head, which caused part of his fringe that she had previously pushed back, to fall into his eyes again. "It's not my fault. It's a habit." He knew it was a stupid excuse, but it was true. Whenever he was stressed, or nervous his hand would immediately go to his hair.

"It happens when I'm stressed out or nervous," he tried to explain, to give reason why he did it but stopped talking. He just sounded pathetic.

Andy nodded his head, smiling reassuringly. "Yeah. I'm doing alright. Not looking forward to the stairs back there," he stated, honestly. They nearly killed him the first time.