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"Hannah?" Hannah could hear her name being called from somewhere but all she could see was a thick black fog that she couldn't seem to wade through at all to get to the other side. She needed to know who was calling her, to find out why they sounded so distraught. "Hannah? Please, Hannah!" She tried so hard to force her eyes to open as she started to recognise the voice as belonging to someone that she cared deeply about. She might not have been able to put her finger on just who that person was just then, but she did know that she wanted - no, she needed to stop them from hurting. "Wake up, please. Just open your eyes… Please."
Hannah managed a sort of strangled sound in response; though she had hoped to sound just that little bit intelligible, it would seem that her body had other ideas. The fog seemed to be starting to lift a little now, or at least her brain didn't feel as if it was being held under water. Her eyes still didn't want to open but she was starting to become aware of there being another hand inside her own. She managed to close her fingers around the hand, and tried her best to ignore the fact that this was the only part of her body that she could currently feel, especially as a small voice at the back of her mind was telling her that there was probably a good reason for that.
"Oh thank Merlin. Hannah." The voice sounded as though the owner was on the brink of tears. "Susie, she can hear me! Can't you, Hannah? Squeeze my hand again!"
Hannah did as she was instructed and as she did so she found that she finally recognised the owner, recognised who was there with her. One of her lovely best friends, Justin. Things started coming flooding back then - or at least the moment that she had said "good luck" to her three best friends and then parted ways before the battle had started was now at the forefront of her mind and now it was replaying over and over again.
"Han?" Susan's voice joined Justin's and she could feel another hand on her own now. Susan had definitely been crying, her voice was thick with tears both shed and unshed. "Hey there, Sunshine."
The old nickname was enough to tell Hannah that something bad had happened, and when she took into account the fact that they had headed into battle what felt like mere moments ago - and yet decades ago at the same time - that made sense. But the three of them were alive, even if she was unable to fully wake up. That just left Ernie. Her blood turned to ice in her veins. Was he dead?
Somehow Hannah managed to summon the strength to open her eyes up, though as she was greeted by the bright whites of the room she had to close them again before mentally preparing herself and trying again.
"There's those bright blues." Justin hummed and she watched as he reached forward to sweep a strand of hair from her face. She tried not to let herself be too concerned about the fact that she could only just feel his fingers graze her skin and instead let herself focus on the whys, the whats, and the hows of the current situation. She definitely wasn't at Hogwarts any more. She could tell just by looking at the white walls that this wasn't the school.
"Ern?" She managed to ask after trying and failing to make herself sit up on the bed that she found herself to be lying on. This had to be St Mungo's; she'd never been unfortunate enough to be a patient before but it seemed that this was going to be the first time.
"He'll be back soon." Susan's voice was soft and Hannah felt her give her hand a squeeze before she moved to sit on the bed next to her. "He just went to get some air."
Hannah let out a sigh of relief. She wanted to ask whether they had won, but she supposed that the fact that they were all there together was all the answer that she needed. She let herself relax on her pillows and let her eyes fix on the ceiling above her head as she let everything sink in. She still didn't remember anything after the last time that they had parted ways, and she didn't know what had put her in this hospital bed in the first place, but at least the three people that mattered most to her in the world were okay.
She supposed that she just must have dozed off because the next thing she was aware of was a healer running a diagnostic spell over her and the soft blue glow that was radiating off of her own body. She managed to move her hand up so that it was level with her face and she watched the glow until a voice snapped her out of her thoughts again.
"Miss Abbott?"
Hannah managed to turn her head in the direction of the voice to see a healer standing next to her. She tried to read the woman's expression but that proved to be near impossible as she stood there with a serious expression on her face.
"Do you know where you are?" The healer asked Hannah, her voice gentle in a way that didn't quite match her face. "And why you're here?"
Hannah swallowed thickly, hoping that now she would be able to speak without feeling as though her throat was going to close in on itself. "St - St Mungo's." She managed to get out before she cleared her throat and continued. "The battle…"
"You were crushed under rubble. We had to completely regrow your spine." The healer explained. "We've had you in an induced coma for a month."
Hannah blinked a couple of times as she tried to take that in. She'd been asleep for a month? How could that be right? She took a slow breath as she let her hand drop down onto the bed next to her. She didn't try to speak again and instead managed a nod as her eyes went back to the ceiling. A month on her back. A month having her back reconstructed.
"I'll go let your friends know they can come back in."
Hannah swallowed thickly again. She could feel tears welling up at the back of her eyes but she was determined not to let them fall. Her friends had been brave for her all this time and it was her turn to be brave for them. Though the more that she thought about it, the more that she realised that her tears were not ones of sorrow but of anger.
She didn't really know who she was mad at - the wall that had fallen on her, maybe? The death eaters that she had been fighting? Voldemort, who was surely dead by now?
She came to the conclusion as she heard the door open again that she was most annoyed with the world and the way in which her particular cookie had crumbled. She had so many questions, but she couldn't seem to make those questions out of the words that were now swirling around inside of her head.
"There's my sunshine." Ernie's voice cut through the fog that had tried to descend again and almost immediately lifted it from her. "J said you asked for me before?"
Hannah reached out for his hand. "I thought… I thought bad things." She whispered, her voice shaking and sounding very croaky but at least intelligible words were coming out of her mouth now and not just sounds.
"Hey now, the bad things are over." He said softly as he sat down on the edge of the bed and gave her hand a small squeeze. "We made it. And now all you need to do is concentrate on getting better."
"Getting better…" Hannah repeated. "I can't believe…" She trailed off as the words escaped her again. None of this made sense. Part of her had to wonder if she had actually died during the Battle, that would have made more sense than whatever was happening now.
"That's your one job, okay, Han?" He said softly as he ended up lying down on the bed next to her, his head leaning against her shoulder in a way that felt familiar, as if he had done that a lot during the last month.
"Is it really over?" Hannah asked after a few moments of silence in which she managed to steady her breathing and started to feel just that little bit more normal.
"It's really over." Ernie promised. "We won. Well, Harry… in the end he did it. He killed You-Know-Who and it's over."
Hannah gave a small nod at that. She couldn't quite believe it, but then that seemed to be the theme of the day and she was starting to get used to the sensation of not at all understanding what was going on.
The world, it would seem, was to blame for a lot of things, but she was starting to now see that not all of these things were bad things. She let her eyes close as she leaned her head against his and just let herself soak in some of his positivity. They always referred to her as their sunshine because she was the one that made them all feel better, but her three best friends did exactly the same for her.
The world was to blame for her having the best three friends that anyone could ever ask for and while anyone who looked at her current predicament wouldn't say the same, she knew that she was extremely lucky.