Pain. That's all that I can recall from my first few seconds of consciousness. Exhaustion. Confusion. Debilitating pain. My throat was raw and dry. I winced, then groaned a bit. My stiff joints ached. I tossed my head to the side and tried to take a deep breath. I coughed a little, then a lot. My eyes fluttered open and adjusted to my dim surroundings. I was on a white hospital bed. I clenched the sheets in my hands and let the fabric run through my fingers. It was light outside, I could see through the little window across from my bed. The rest of the room was quiet, but not empty. Five other beds were spaced out evenly along the walls of the room. I noticed that one of my sleeping companions had thick white bandages wrapped around his head and lower arm, typical for severe injuries that require time, as well as magic, to fully mend themselves. A stabbing pain jutted through my forehead, slicing it from one temple to the other. I moaned and squeezed my eyes shut to block out the pain, tossing my head from side to side.

Why am I here? I thought as the pain subsided. Obviously, the place was St. Mungo's. I had been here once before after I had broken my arm…. But why was I here, now?

I propped myself up on my elbows and scanned the room again. I saw a pile of gifts and flowers and balloons next to my bed that I had overlooked before. A little toy dragon perched nearest to me on my bed-stand, his eyes occasionally glowing red and blue and green and pink. Next to him, a tiny, fluffy little stuffed critter, a niffler, I recognized from Care of Magical Creatures, stood. In between them, animated and stationary pictures decorated the fronts of every card. Boy, there must have been twenty of them! A quidditch player zoomed across the front of one. The caption at the bottom kept re-writing itself and then erasing and re-writing once more. It read, "You'll be in tip-top quaffle chasing shape in no time. Get Well Soon, Friend!" I smirked and read the front of the next card, "Feel better or I'll sick this niffler on you!" A small black creature, identical to the stuffed one on the table next to the card, was digging madly in the dirt. When he came up with a gold ring, the woman handling the niffler took it and put it on, staring admiringly at the pretty piece. Then, from the side of the card, the niffler launched itself onto the woman's hand and both of them tumbled out of the card's frame.

I giggled and turned away from the gifts, peering more closely at the beds near me. There was a sleeping little boy at the end of the hall, closest to the only door in the room. He was the one with gauze wrapped around his forehead and his arm covered in white, much like a muggle cast.

Across from him was a kind-faced elderly woman reading a book and glancing at her watch occasionally. She had dark blonde, graying hair tied back in a loose bun, her reading glasses perched on her nose, her finely featured countenance, and a hint of a regal posture gave her an unintentional guise of superiority.

Next, a man in his late teens or early twenties lay, snoring softly in his own white hospital bed. He had an assortment of vile-looking potions next to his bed and I was grateful that mine was merely piled with gifts.

Across from the snoring boy was an empty bed and next to that bed, was mine. In the last, directly across from mine, an elderly man was grumbling.

He had his eyes closed but venomously complained under his breath about the woman's reading light and the snoring boy and his inability to fall asleep. Brown, almost completely gray hair covered his head, but thinned to almost nothing at the top. His narrowed, blue eyes opened and stared hard at the foot of his bed, willing the snoring boy to be silent but finding no success. He clenched his teeth together in frustration, sighed loudly, and closed his eyes again. I decided that the man across from my bed had probably been present when I was brought to mine, so I asked in a quiet, polite voice, "Sir?" The man grumbled some more but didn't acknowledge me so I tried again a little louder, "Excuse me? Sir?"

"What do you want?"

I jumped, startled by his sudden response, but composed myself quickly and formed my question,

"Um.. Sorry, I don't mean to bother you-"

"But you are, so spit it out already," he gruffly interrupted me, his bright blue eyes fixing me with a piercing glare.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. You didn't hear what happened to me, did you? Do you know why I'm here?" I whispered frightfully. His eyes softened when he heard my request, but he quickly resumed his impolite demeanor and answered me.

"Of course I did! How could anybody have slept through that? There were healers bursting in here every twenty seconds or so, some auror was making a right fuss in the hallway, then they had a noisy pair of security wizards take him away, then of course there was the fact that all of this commotion was centered around the bed right across from me! How is a man supposed to sleep when noisy distractions keep me up all hours of the night?" His biting comment stung me, but I was too intrigued, and afraid of what might have happened to be put off,

"Do you know why I'm here?" It terrified me to be in a hospital when I didn't even know what had happened to me, especially if there were dozens of healers swooping in the night I was brought in. How long have I been here? Are my injuries going to affect me for life? Can I still walk? My toes. I'm moving them. I can feel them moving. But then what was wrong? My eyes stung with tears. "Do you know what's wrong with me?"

"Don't worry, dear," came a voice from across the room. It was the woman who had been reading, "Don't you mind Mr. Arnold Penny, he means well. He just likes to complain. You are going to be fine, dear. They fixed you right up, they did.

"Yes, yes, yes. I was just about to tell her that, Andromeda, you nosey old woman," Mr. Penny grunted from his position across the room.

"They brought you in a few days ago. There was a Death Eater attack on Diagon Alley. Many casualties, terrible… terrible. Brendon, the boy next to the door, he was in the attack, too. Poor dear, his mother was killed. And young Alex over there," she indicated the boy who had been snoring, "he's Florean Fortesque's grandson, you know! He was cursed helping his grandfather flee Diagon Alley. And you were also found by the aurors after the attack and they brought you here," Andromeda explained.

" The healers were talking about it- cursed. Nearly fatal. Lucky they brought you in quickly, you are."

"Arnold! Don't frighten the poor girl!" Andromeda scolded, narrowing her sharp brown eyes.

"It's fine. I asked," I lay back down and gazed out the window over Mr. Penny's bed.

"What's your name, dear?" the woman's quiet voice gently prodded through the silence. I looked at the kind-faced old woman and she smiled at me encouragingly. I contemplated her request and took a deep breath, fighting the tears building just behind my eyes.

"I don't know."