35Idiot One and Idiot Two Are Lectured
Normally, a fall from the level where the rest of the students were would not be fatal, but Stephen couldn't control his broom and went far too high. A fall from that height...that would onlyreonly resultsult in death.
The students watched in horror as one of their own fell to his inevitable death.
"Someone do something!"
"Stephen!"
"Try to grab onto something!"
"You dolt! He's in the air! There's nothing to grab on to!"
Just then, Madam Hooch snapped out of her shock ( and remembered that she was a witch whocould do magic to save him, and should save him because a kid was falling down and woulddie ) and did a frantic spell to slow him down. He fell with a sickening crack and promptly fainted, but was very much alive.
Before the students do run to his side, Madam Hooch barked out an order for them to land andstay put, all the while levitating Stephen to the hospital wing.
No one disobeyed as they might have, too shaken and worried by a fellow student's close brushwith death ( and the hawk eyed instructor who looked quite terrifying at that time too ) to even think about mounting their broom.
Harry and Padma rushed anxiously to the hospital wing after classes were finished for the dayto check up on Stephen. As it turned out, they did not need to worry about the boy, who wasquite happy with his sudden abundance of free time and was happily reading a book. He lookedup as he heard his friends entering ( and was that a pile of homework in Harry's hands? Oh good, he needed to catch up with his work, otherwise there would a lot if he kept it for later ), calling out a greeting.
"Well Stephen, you look perfectly fine, considering what happened." Padma remarked dryly, but the boys heard the underlying concern with ease.
"Don't worry guys. It was terrifying, but at least it got me out of flying lessons for at least my firstyear, what with my motion sickness and deathly fall. Couldn't be happier." Stephen replied witha big grin, but both the first years could see his trembling hands.
Harry pushed his guilt of not being able to catch Stephen to the back of his mind and tried to remain cheerful, if only for the sake of the aforementioned boy. If he could beall happy and good in front of them after a near trip to heaven, then he could very well be strong for Stephen.
He sit down beside him and dumped the pile of papers on the bedside table. "Chop chop! Time for naughty boys to do their homework! Honeymoon time is over for you now!"
Stephen merely smiled in response. "How bad can it be?"
"Weeeeell", drawled Padma with an evil look, "If you don't count the three feet essay Professor Snape gave us to write, and the two feet essay that Professor McGonagall assigned us, and the six feet essay in Charms, not much."
Stephen paled, looking more like a ghost than a human being. "You got to be kidding me." He looked at both their serious faces and gave a nervous laugh. "Guys? Come on. This is not funny."
Padma and Harry stared at Stephen's disbelieving face, turned to look at each other, and promptly burst out laughing.
"You're right," wheezed Padma, clutching her stomach. "It was not funny."
"Yeah," agreed Harry, trying very hard to control his laughter. "It was hilarious!" He dissolved into laughter again.
Stephen gave them the unimpressed looks they deserved. Then one corner of his mouth lifted up, then the other, and he soon joined the other two idiots and was chucking at his own reaction to the prank.
"Okay," said Stephen when they all had calmed down, "What really is my homework? And no more jokes, you two. God knows that you are trying to kill me with homework."
The tension is the room heightened after Stephen words, the two students remembering the reason why the aforementioned boy was in the hospital wing in the first place. "Guys? Why are you- Oh, for heaven's sake, stop beating yourselves up over that, would you? Especially you, Harry. Hey! Don't avert your eyes! Look here!"
Reluctantly, Harry looked up from the floor to meet Stephen's eyes. Whatever Stephen may say to assure him, it still didn't reduce the guilt that was eating away at him inside. He should have been able to save him if he had a little more skill and talent. He felt like a failure. Maybe there was some truth in what the Dursleys have told him after all.
Stephen stared at Harry long and hard. "Now hear me carefully, got it? It's not your fault bro. I repeat, not your fault. You tried your best, and you're still only a first year. And you too, Padma. It's not any of your faults. If anything, it's my fault for not riding the broom properly." When Harry and Padma tried to protest Stephen quickly shut them up. "Just let me complete, would you? Look, you guys are the best friends I could ever ask for, and I don't want to see you depressed over something that wasn't even your responsibility to begin with. Get it?"
They stared at each other. Finally, Padma broke the silence. "Y-yes, we understand." Harry nodded in agreement, not trusting himself to speak. And Stephen might have said that, but he still blamed himself for what had happened, what could have happened.
Stephen gazed at him thoughtfully. "But do you really?"
Padma gave him a confused look. "What are you talking about?"
He just smiled and replied, "Nothing. Never mind. And aren't you both forgetting something?"
Now both of his friends gave him baffled looks. "Forgetting what?"
"You still haven't told me my homework." Answered Stephen with a chuckle.
That effectively broke the tense atmosphere that had fallen upon the room and all three of them dissolved into laughter.
AN : Please don't kill me! But anime and Uncle Rick's book were my new obsessions, so I was busy with those. And yes, my writing style has changed a lot since I began this, which is my first fanfic.