【 CHAPTER SEVEN 】
the hospital wing
(- THE CURTAINS DECAYED
THE DAYLIGHT POURED IN )

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You know when you're having a staring contest with someone and suddenly you're super aware of your eyes trying to blink and you're desperately trying not to let it blink which turns out to be no use at all and you blink and cause dishonour to fall on you, your family and your cow?

Yeah, the concept now applied to ignoring Mr Potty. That didn't work out too well since Miri now knew that his name was actually James Potter, he was a Gryffindor, his family had taken Teddy in after he'd lost all his immediate relatives and that his father was Wizard Jesus. She wished she was kidding.

Miri started Teddy. 'You can't be serious. No. No! I believe most of the things you've said out of pure survival instinct but I refuse to believe that his father is the saviour of the magic world. As if being better than me in every class isn't enough, he cannot have the most influential person in current memory as his father.'

'You do realize that most people are better than yo-'

'Shut up, Kenneth!' Taliana elbowed him.

'Thanks, Tal.'

And although Miri wanted to plan revenge, the days passed far too quickly with classes and homework harder than week-old baguettes so, unfortunately, she'd had to content herself with the guilty-slash-angry-slash-smug looks the wazzock shot her way whenever they had the same class. Besides, he had yet to pull more stunts like that yet so it seemed that he'd learned his lesson so fine. Fine. She'd only intervene if someone got hurt again.

(Not that she'd be able to do much but her imagination takes criticism from absolutely no one so Ha!)

Soon, she and Jamilah worked out a routine. Her friend would wake up at dawn for Fajr and would then spend her time reading up on whatever caught her fancy that day since Jamilah took an excruciatingly long time every night to fall asleep.

Then, Jamilah would scramble to wake her up at 8:30, using a variety of methods that included dumping water on her ('It's freezing!' 'Not my problem.'), taking away her blanket ('It's freezing!' 'Still not my problem.'), singing The Song that Never Ends ('Shut up!' 'Wake up!') and tickling ('You kicked me!' 'Shouldn't have tickled me now should you?'). She was pretty sure she saw her and Liam exchanging notes on how to wake her up, the traitor.

Breakfast was spent with Kenneth and Taliana at Slytherin table (since the House Elves would set their special food there for their convenience) with the occasional company of Liam and Teddy, the former still half-asleep until he had caffeine in his system and the latter usually writing something for the weekly school paper, being the co-president alongside her brother, Liam handling the photographers, graphic placement and overall aesthetic while Teddy was in charge of the writing aspects and proofreading of articles.

However, that didn't really explain why there was a Hufflepuff girl at their table reading something aloud about two weeks after the 'accident', seeing as Teddy was nowhere to be found. Miri watched as her brother nursed his coffee, the latter nodding to what the girl was saying.

'...interested students may contact Professor Dennis Creevey, the lower form Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and founder of the Creevey Daily. His office is located off the second-floor corridor of Hogwarts, near a staircase to the first-floor corridor. Office hours are eight a.m. to ten p.m. daily. Applicants' deadline for submissions is-'

'Switch that to the deadline of submissions,' said Liam, interrupting her.

The girl replaced the phrasing and continued. 'The deadline of submissions will end on the 20th of September (Sunday) so don't forget to sign-up!'

'Ditch the exclamation mark and we're good to go.'

Miri said, 'Umm, Liam? Wanna introduce your friend?'

Liam looked up, confused, 'What do you mean? It's Teddy.'

'What?!' Miri took a closer look at the girl, taking note of the blush pink streaks in her hair. Before her eyes, the pink encompassed the girl's entire head, swallowing the brown in its wake.

'Surprise!' said Teddy, smiling.

'Awesome,' Miri breathed.

Beside her, Jamilah's jaw dropped open. 'Ya, Allah.'

'Right?' said Kenneth excitedly. 'I mean I knew that a metamorphmagus can change their appearances at will but this? And I read that some people can only change their eye colour. The fact that you can change your gender it's... It's amazing!'

Teddy shook her head, wincing. 'That's not... no. No, Kenneth. My gender doesn't change because I'm a metamorphmagus. It changes because it changes. I can't control it. The only thing setting me apart from other gender-fluid people is that I can change my physical appearance to fit my current gender, get it?'

Kenneth nodded before tilting his head. 'Wait then what are your pronouns?'

'Usually, it's he/him but I do have she/her days. I always change my physical appearance so you can immediately tell what my current gender is.'

'And what if I'm referring to you to a stranger while you aren't there? Do I just use male pronouns?'

'Or they/them if you want,' she confirmed. 

Kenneth, eager to sate his curiosity on a new subject, fired off more questions at Teddy, who was happy to educate them. 

'As long as you remember that I'm only one gender-fluid person,' she warned them. 'I can't speak for every non-binary person since our experiences and preferences are different. I mean, some prefer to use they/them pronouns all the time while I don't.'

The First Years nodded before Kenneth shot off again, the others chiming in when they wanted her to elaborate more on something or if they had a question Kenneth hadn't gotten around to yet.

Liam's neck prickled and he scanned the Great Hall, catching James Potter staring intently at their group. From the looks of it, he'd been gauging his sister and her friends and whether he needed to step in to defend Teddy. 

He caught the boy's eye and nodded. James relaxed his hold on his cutlery, exhaled and smiled in relief before returning to his conversation with a brunette and a blonde boy that, if eleven wasn't the youngest a Hogwarts student could be, Liam would've said was seven. (He just had that much of a babyface, okay?)

He tuned back into the conversation and smiled softly at how relieved Teddy looked. He knew that she was always nervous about revealing the fact that she was gender-fluid since not everyone was as accepting as Miri and her friends.

Hell, they'd been terrified telling their family after Teddy had figured it out in Fifth Year even though they had never given them a reason to doubt they'd be anything other than accepting of them. They had even thrown them a party with their Grandma Molly baking them a 5 layer cake in the colours of the genderfluid flag.

There had been a fair amount of tear stains on the letter they had written to him about it. Liam wasn't afraid to admit that a good part of them had been his from the many times he'd reread the letter.

He couldn't help it. Teddy's joy and relief had shone through their writing, the uncannily vivid descriptions of their emotions after they'd received the entire family's reassurance of their love and support. There was a reason they were the one in charge of the writing aspect of the paper instead of him after all.

Liam also knew they knew that his family meant the world to him and that they were secretly scared of losing his friendship if Miri had reacted badly. Completely understandable.  Stupid, but understandable since Liam was his own damn person that could make decisions for himself.

Unfortunately, Liam had picked up on this. As in, Teddy didn't tell him about it so if he brought it up to the Hufflepuff they would've only clammed up and refuse to talk about it until they'd exploded in a mess of angst, nerves and awkwardness.

So he had resisted the urge to just shake some sense into his best friend and waited until they had bonded with Miri and was comfortable enough to trust his sister with the information. Or until they'd inevitably slipped and confessed like it was a low budget badly written rom-com plotline.

Woe is the curse of knowing your best friend too well.

He'd allow them to keep it a secret from Miri as long as they didn't lie about themself just to keep his friendship. It wasn't worth it because 1) Miri was eleven. Kids would accept anything, logical or not and 2) Teddy shouldn't have to act out a false version of themself, no matter what the price.

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October came and with it, a paranoid Liam.

'I'm sorry why are you so nervous?' said Teddy, watching as the Ravenclaw bit his nails when he should've been eating his breakfast.

'Miri. She's been here a month now.'

He waited for more. Liam just kept biting. 'And?'

'Which means that she knows enough about the school and its rules and punishments to know how far to push.'

'You make her sound like an evil mastermind.' Liam slapped a hand on his mouth.

'Don't say that!' he hissed, scanning their surroundings. 'That'll just encourage her.'

'Encourage who?' came a new voice.

Liam screamed. Teddy, Kenneth and Taliana jumped back while everyone in the Great Hall looked at him.

He smiled sheepishly. 'Sorry!'

Grumbling, the students ignored him in favour of their own less paranoid lives.

Liam smiled at his sister's friends, then narrowed his eyes at the lack of said sister. 'Where's Miri?'

'Hospital Wing,' they chorused.

Teddy started. 'What? Why?'

Taliana glared at Kenneth. 'Yeah, Ken. I wonder why our friend that usually ditches school around this time of the year is at the hospital wing.'

'Look in my defence she asked me to.'

'Doesn't mean you had to do it! Now Miri's in the Hospital Wing with no bones in her toes!'

'What?!' Liam shot up and marched to the Hospital Wing, the First Years chasing after him. 'What happened?'

'Miri stubbed her toe and asked Kenneth to fix it for her. Kenneth, the eleven-year-old without any sort of medical training. Kenneth, the guy who should know better. Kenneth, the dumbass.' Taliana tripped over a loose cobblestone as she hurried after his long strides. Jamilah caught her and she murmured her thanks.

'I can hear you, you know,' Kenneth grumbled.

'Oh, can you now?' she said, glaring. 'Because it didn't seem that way when I told you not to do a spell on Miri that we haven't learned yet. Now she has to stay at the Hospital Wing all day for her bones to grow back!'

'Giving her just what she wanted,' said Liam, annoyed. He increased his speed, eager to get to the Hospital Wing and scream at- ahem, check on his sister.

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Miri guzzled a potion straight-faced before slamming the bottle on the table, blinked twice, and deadpanned, 'Gotta say, not terrible.'

Miss Edgecombe's assistant gaped at her. 'That was Skele-Gro! It's horrid! I've seen people puke after just smelling it!'

'Really?' Miri snorted. 'Wimps. They should drink my grandma's herbal medicine. I've built up an immunity to nasty liquids. I don't think I can be poisoned.'

She didn't look like she was joking.

'The effects of this thing though?' Miri screamed from the invisible giant splinters in her toes.

The assistant nodded. 'There it is.'

'MIRIAM CHENG YI YEN!' Liam bellowed, barrelling past the wooden doors. 'Ngo man nei a, nei lam mat je gwai aa?!' (What the hell were you thinking?!) 

He broke off, confused. 'Wha- What are you doing?'

Miri had grabbed another potion from the assistant's hand at the first syllable of her name, drank it quickly and snuggled back into bed.

'Oh no,' she yawned, 'I've accidentally consumed a sleeping draught. Good night.'

And before the group's disbelieving eyes, Miri fell asleep.

Liam looked as though he wanted to kick her awake. 'That- little- ARGHHHHHHHHH!'

The first years took a step back as Liam began to rant at Miri's prone body, switching between English, Cantonese and Mandarin as he saw fit.

The poor assistant looked conflicted, not sure whether to step between the screaming lunatic and her patient or not. In the end, it seemed as though she'd reached the conclusion that Oh wait, I'm not getting paid for this and my boss isn't here and escaped into her office, the door slammed and locked.

'I gotta say...' Kenneth whistled, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. 'That was pretty smart of her.'

'Pretty smart of who?' said Teddy, entering the Hospital Wing with his and Liam's textbooks in tow.

They filled Teddy in and he chuckled. 'God I love that midget and her devious little brain. I see why Liam was so sure that she was a Slytherin now.'

Somewhere, the bell struck and students walked past the Hospital Wing to get to class.

'You guys should go before you're late,' he said, settling the books on one of the nearby tables. 'I'll get the big boy to stop throwing a temper tantrum.'

'How?' said Jamilah.

'With some good old fashion bait.' He grinned, pulling out a thermos flask of coffee. Jamilah wasn't sure from where since his hands were very much full when he came in.

'Now go. You don't want to be late.'

The First Years left and Teddy slung an arm around Liam, who paused in surprise. Using the opportunity, he shook the flask, Liam's eyes following each movement. He grinned at his friend's predictability.

'Come on. We gotta get to class and shouting at your sister while she can't even hear you isn't going to solve anything.'

'But-'

He shook the flask again. Liam sagged.

'Fine. Now give me that,' he said snatching the flask, gulping the coffee down with fervour. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he coughed. 'Did you put firewhiskey in this?!'

'You looked like you needed it.' Teddy shrugged.

Liam gave him the stink eye but then caught sight of Miri, who snored loudly. Resigned, he took another swig of the flask. 'You're lucky I love you.'

'Awww. Love you too.' He smiled. Then he shoved Liam's books into his friend's arms and pushed him out of the Hospital Wing. 'But if we don't get to the greenhouses right now Longbottom is going to tattle to Ginny and that's never a good thing so if you could just move your arse!'

'I am moving my arse!'

'Move it faster!'

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Miri woke up to loud chatter in the Hospital Wing. Only thing was, it wasn't around her bedside.

'Drink this, both of you,' said Miss Edgecombe. 'It'll take a while to take effect so I'm afraid you'll have to miss the rest of your lessons for the day.'

She heard someone take a big gulp of something and spit it out. 'Ugh!' someone exclaimed. 'Why is it so foul?!'

'It's medicine. Not desert.' The matron handed the students a note before going back to her office. 'In case your teachers ask about you.'

Yawning, Miri stretched and asked, 'What's going o-OH MY GOD!' Miri stared slack-jawed at the split lip of a Hufflepuff, who looked at the sky in exasperation and the bandaged head of a Gryffindor, who just sighed.

'Not that bad, huh Rebekah?' the former said sarcastically.

'Not as bad as me, Lorna,' Rebekah mimicked.

'What happened to you two?' Miri asked, concerned.

'Oh,' Lorna said, nonchalant. 'Someone tampered with our chairs in the Transfiguration classroom. And by that, I mean someone chopped off the right foot of my chair and used really shitty glue to put it back weakly so that the next person to sit on it would fall face first towards the ground. Guess I win this round folks.'

'Ha, no,' Rebekah protested. 'The same person cut off the two back legs of my chair so when I sat on it I fell backwards. And didn't you hear Miss Edgecomb? I have a hairline fracture on my skull. You may not look very pretty right now but at least you didn't have to drink that nasty concoction from hell. '

'The Skele-Gro?' Miri asked. Rebekah nodded. Miri raised her eyebrows but let it go. The girl already had enough on her plate. 'So you guys don't think that it was an accident?'

Rebekah scoffed. 'Absolutely not. If the chair broke because it was too old or something it would've been reported and replaced. 

'And besides,' Lorna continued, 'the cut on the chair was clean. Someone deliberately sawed our chairs in half and planted them there.'

'And when I find out who, they're gonna meet my umbrella,' Rebekah threatened.

'Do you have any suspicions?' Miri said, channelling her inner Nancy Drew. She caught sight of a stack of pancakes and a bottle of maple syrup on the table by her bed. Her stomach growled and she made quick work on drowning her pancakes. Through a stuffed mouth, she asked, 'Oso, wha tam ish it?'

'Just after lunch,' answered Lorna. 

Miri swallowed. 'So they must've done it during lunch. I mean, there's no one else here so you must be the only victim.'

'Lucky us.' Rebekah smiled sarcastically. 

'Oh, umm, I don't think I've introduced myself. I'm Miri. Miri Cheng. First Year.'

'Lorna Naylor, Second Year.'

'Rebekah Papillon, same.'

'It means butterfly, right?' Miri asked. 

She nodded. 'Yeah. How do you know that?'

'Oh, my cousins are half French and at some point, you get tired of being left out of conversations so I started learning the basics.'

Lorna raised her hand. 'Same. It gets annoying listening to her sing fast. The amount of songs written in French have got to be illegal somewhere. She's not even French. She just sings a lot of French songs.'

Rebekah rolled her eyes even as her smile betrayed her. 'Shut up.'

Miri laughed at their antics and couldn't help but feel like this was the start of a beautiful friendship.

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As dinner time came, Miri's two new friends were released while she was held back.

'Well, what do you expect?' Miss Edgecombe said. 'Their's were mostly external injuries while you have to regrow all your toes. Of course, it takes more time.'

The good news was that her bones were nearly done growing so she'd be able to sleep in her own bed tonight. Thank goodness for that. The hospital beds were not, in fact, beds but more of a thin piece of softness that deflated the longer you slept in it.

Yeah, she couldn't wait to snuggle into her beautifully thick mattress tonight.

The bad news was that she was going to receive the scolding of her life when Liam brought in her dinner later on. And no, this was not just her being paranoid. She's found a note with the words 'You're screwed.' in Taliana's handwriting underneath her plate from lunch. 

Apparently, her strategy of Liam gradually cooling down throughout the day had been a bust but Miri still had faith since a good 5 hours had gone by since her friend's note. 

She was debating whether he would scream at her in English or Cantonese first when someone pushed the doors of the Hospital Wing hard enough that they'd open with a bang. 

'OH MY GOD I CAME HERE AS FAST AS I COULD WHAT HAPPENED ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!' James Potter burst, emitting nervous energy in waves. 'I-'

They stared at each other, shocked into silence. Then, 'You?' they exclaimed at the same time.

'What the hell are you doing here?' Miri asked, trying her damndest not to yawn in front of him. 'You don't seem to be injured.'

'Well last I checked, the Hospital Wing is a public place,' he said condescendingly before his demeanour did a full flip. 'And I'm here to check on two students. I heard that they got injured in Transfiguration and I wanted to see how badly they were injured.'

She blinked. 'You know Lorna and Rebekah?'

'Who?' he said, confused.

Something clicked in Miri's brain and she groaned. 'I'm surprised. I can honestly say that I'm surprised that you are behind this. I'm not sure what that says about my hopes for humanity or your competence but I don't want an answer on both.'

He frowned. 'What?'

'It was you behind the chairs, wasn't it? You sawed them in half and caused two innocent girls to end up in the Hospital Wing. Face it dude: You're not good at pranking business.'

'I didn't mean for them to get injured!' he protested. 'It just-'

'But it did! And it's not the first time either! Or did you just conveniently forget this?' She jabbed pointedly at the side of her head.

He threw up his hands in exasperation. 'I already said that I was sorry. What more could you possibly want from me?'

'Sorry doesn't take away the pain, Potter,' she argued, her voice rising. 'One of Miss Edgecombe's potions did. Nor does it mean anything if you're just gonna turn around and pull another stunt like it.'

'Look I don't plan my pranks specifically to hurt people, alright?' he defended stubbornly. 'Sure some of them are a bit risky but most of them work out just fine. It's not my fault if the precautions I put into place don't work.'

She shook her head and huffed out a laugh. 'Precautions? What sort of precautions did you take when you oh so cleverly sawed off someone's chair?'

'Well for one, there was an invisible string attached to some cushions so they'd fall on that instead of their faces but apparently, it didn't work.'

'No, it's a complete mystery why you're in the Hospital Wing right now when you don't have any injuries.' Yet. she added mentally. 'And the bucket?'

He groaned. 'I told you, it was only supposed to be the orange juice.'

'But it wasn't. Potter, we've only been here for a little over two months and three people have already been injured in your pranks. Three. And these are just the ones that I know of. How many others have had to let Miss Edgecombe stitch them back up just because of your "harmless pranks"? '

He turned his head sharply to the side. 'No one else-'

Miri barrelled on, not giving him a chance to defend himself. 'We're gonna be here for seven years, Potter. How many more will get hurt because of your carelessness? Because you wanted to have fun?'

For most of her tirade, it seemed like she was getting to him. Which was when she messed it up and muttered, 'Honestly, you should do something right or not at all.

He snapped to her, posture as tense as a bow. 'Fine! If you're so clever why don't you try pranking and you see if you can do better than me. I admit that I could've done better but it's hard! It's a delicate process and you don't get to criticise me when you don't even know what you're talking about.'

Not one to back down from a challenge, Miri jutted out her chin and said, 'I will. In fact, I challenge you to a prank war.'

James opened his mouth to reply but didn't get the chance as they heard a loud crash in the hallway followed by explicit cursing. They exchanged confused glances as he strode to the door.

'There's no one here,' he announced, shrugging.

They faced each other again, the air around them radiating with tension as they sized each other up. 

He set his shoulders, feet planted firmly on the ground. 'Okay,' he finally said. 'What are the rules?'

Miri smiled.

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Nelia Horn burst into the teachers' lounge, panting and said, 'James Potter and Miri Cheng are going to have a prank war.'

A beat of silence, then:

'Ten Galleons on Cheng,' said Stacy Mulligan.

'Double on Potter,' Neville Longbottom shot back.

'Cheng's gonna win, no doubt,' Nelia said, adding her two cents.

Tatsuo Ichikawa snorted. 'You're kidding, right? She can't even do a decent Vera Verto.'

'But it's not a competition of their magical ability now, is it?' Dennis Creevey said logically. 'It's about who can think of the most creative prank and no offence to Potter but he's not really the sharpest tool in the shed.'

'How do they even decide who's gonna win?' Aurora Sinistra asked. 'Is it based on the number of pranks or the quality of them? Who's gonna be the judge anyway?'

The other teachers turned to Nelia as one and she couldn't help but feel intimidated. 'I... I don't know,' she stammered. 'All I know is that I was walking past the Hospital Wing when they agreed to it and from the sounds of it, any injuries from their pranks would automatically disqualify that particular prank.'

'So I suppose that until you get more information, you'll just have to do your jobs?' Minerva McGonagall said, raising her eyebrow.

A chorus of 'Yes, Minerva.' echoed as the Headmistress resumed her journey to her office, immediately collapsing at her desk when she did.

'Are you alright, Minerva?' Albus Dumbledore asked in concern.

'No,' she said, letting out a groan. 'Hogwarts is going to be another victim of a prank war.'

The portraits all winced in sympathy. They had all been head of the school before and at some point in their careers, they'd been on clean up duty.

'Between who might I ask?' said Phineas Nigellus Black.

'James Sirius Potter and Miri Cheng, the younger siblings of Teddy Lupin and Liam Cheng.'

Dumbledore blinked. 'But aren't the two boys best friends? Why would their siblings be competing against each other?'

'Pride,' she guessed. 'And James hit her with a metal bucket and she insulted his pranking abilities.'

'Ah. That does tend to make enemies.' He looked down at her. 'Do you think this will end up like the Marauders' Fourth Year?'

'Worse.'

As one, the past heads offered their condolences.

'I am so sorry. I wish you all the luck.'

'I don't need luck,' Minerva grumbled. 'I need retirement.'

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ngl, i'm not the proudest of how some of the scenes turned out
(the fight being primarily one-sided, the ending of teddy's coming out scene,
shoe-horning the mulan reference; yeah no that one i'm actually proud of)
honestly point out any scene and i can tell you immediately what i wish
i could possess the writing skills to change. ah well, practice makes perfect.

are you guys tired of me starting scenes with breakfast yet?
b

ecause i cannot stress the fact of how much i am. also in case you haven't figured it out by now,i'm not really going to focus on the 'school' part of school.

on another note, I'm sorry this chapter took so long but
i really wanted to make sure that teddy was written accurately.
however, all the information i have on gender-fluid people comes from
research and not first-hand accounts so if i got something wrong,
please tell me.
(also if you're interested in being a sensitivity reader
please let me know i would be very grateful.)

in the same vein of thoughts, i will not tolerate any slurs directed at teddy.
any negative comments will be deleted and your account will be blocked.

moving on to lighter topics, Lorna and Rebekah are
dedicated to LornaNaylor and petitpapillon666 respectively.
these two are literally the greatest online friends I could ever have and
I am so grateful for them every day. go check them out because
i love them and all their books are literal masterpieces.