Go on, Scream

Seamus had never managed to open his eyes underwater before. Dean had always made fun of him for it. Today, the reflex that kept his eyes tightly squeezed shut had disappeared and he looked around in awe. He kept his wand tightly gripped in his hand even though he had not yet mastered the art of wordless magic.

He looked around for some hint of the drowning child but saw nothing.

At least under the water he didn't have to hear the awful scream coming from Audriell Seamus doubted that he would ever hear such an awful noise again.
Just as he was starting to think he was going to have to go up for air, Seamus caught sight of what might have been a swirling set of robes. He hurried toward the bit of flora that they had become entangled in, managing to break his head over the water for a second to draw breath, and found the first year.

It wasn't hard work to rip away the plant and heave the boy up and out of the water, where Professor McGonagall stood waiting. Her wand was drawn and Seamus wondered what spell she had been planning on casting- what spell he could have used to avoid diving into the lake like this.

The relief of having brought up the boy and of having McGonagall there to deal with it now erased his panic. Without that buffer, he began to feel the deep cold that had set into him from his impromptu dive. It didn't matter, at least, not after he glanced over at Audriell and saw that she was lying on the ground, limp and pale and looking ghastly.

"Dria!" he called as he rushed over. She didn't stir. Seamus collapsed on the ground beside her and gently lifted her up so that her head rested on his lap. Her skin, usually impressively white, was now eerily corpse-like. More than he'd been when the screaming had first started, more than he'd been when he was in the water searching, Seamus was scared.

He looked around for someone to help. She was still alive. He could feel that from the beating of her heart underneath his hand. But something was obviously wrong. Professor McGonagall was, naturally, crouched over the child he'd pulled out of the lake. No other teachers had come out yet.

Seamus hoisted Audriell up and cradled her as he ran back to the castle. He ran faster than he had in his life, even with the additional weight. It wasn't until later that he would feel the burn in his arms, feel the tightness in his calves. For now, he simply sprinted up one staircase and the next, desperate to get her to the hospital wing.

"What happened?" Madam Pomfrey demanded the instant he had thrown the door open.

"There was screaming and a first year was hurt and she was screaming too and I had to leave her, just for a couple of minutes, to pull the kid out of the water and she was like this when I got back," Seamus said hurriedly. His breath was coming in great gasps now and he sat uneasily on the nearest bed after depositing Audriell on it. His eyes did not for an instant leave her, though he was hacking and coughing from the exertion. Meanwhile, Pomfrey was bending over her, checking her vitals and tutting to herself.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked once he had his breath back.

"I dont' know," Madam Pomfrey said. She walked away from Dria's limp form and headed in to the office.
"Well, keep looking, then!" Seamus told her angrily.

She stuck her head out of the office to give him a piercing glare. "Due to her... unusual circumstances, I'm owling her parents. Perhaps they will have some clue as to what this is about."

"The person to owl might not be her parents. What about her grandmother, who was the banshee that started all of this? Or her brother, who might have had this happen to him before?"

"Policy states that I must first contact the parents." She said this with an apology on her face, but it wasn't enough for Seamus.
He shot a regretful look at Audriell, pausing only to adjust her arms on the bed so that it looked less like she was an invalid and more like she was asleep before sprinting out of the Hospital Wing.

"Harry!" he called, bursting into the Gryffindor common room not much later. Thankfully, he spotted the chap by the fireplace, sitting with Ron. "Can I borrow your owl? I don't want to use the school ones, they're too slow."

Harry looked wildly surprised but nodded. "Yeah, that's fine. Why-"

Seamus was out the door before Harry even had a chance to finish his question.

Not ten minutes later, Seamus had returned to the Hospital Wing, only to find the door barred. He pounded on the door until Madam Pomfrey opened up, looking exhausted.

"I'm sorry, Mister Finnegan, but things are just a little too crowded in here without you hovering about."

"I'll be good! Please, ma'am, I'll stay by her bed and I won't move, won't even speak. Just please, don't keep me out." She passed a critical eye over him before nodding with a heavy sigh.

"But don't you be giving me any reasons to regret this, Finnegan." He didn't hear the warning, as he had already darted past her and was perched on Audriell's bedside. She hadn't moved at all since he had left her.

A time of waiting ensued. Seamus kept his word, not leaving Audriell for an instant- of course, he wouldn't have wanted to even if he had been allowed. At one point, he heard Madam Pomfrey telling Audriell's friends that they would have to come back later, that she wasn't allowing anyone else in at the moment. Though he had already been allowed in, Seamus did his best to disappear in that moment, just in case she took it into her head to send him away.

And he kept on waiting.

At one point, he swore he felt her fingers twitch against his, but she when she didn't move again, he put it down to wishful thinking.
Eventually, it was impossible to say how much later, the doors opened and another visitor gained entrance. Seamus knew who he was immediately, not because they had met before, but because of his stark resemblance to Audriell. That pale skin, those red eyes, even the hair color and the proud cheekbones... This had to be Audriell's brother. Seamus resolutely held his position by Audriell's bed, keeping his fingers intertwined with hers.

Her brother didn't even seem to notice.

He walked over to the bed, running his hand over her cheek and briefly touching her hair. "For how long has she been out?"

Seamus glanced up, more surprised than he should have been to be addressed. "Since one."

The man slowly nodded. "She will wake up soon," he predicted. Though Seamus didn't know whether there was any logic or whether it was simply wishful thinking, he felt the tight ball of tension he'd been battling all afternoon loosen its hold on him, just a little.

"I'm Bartholomew," the man said. He held out his hand and lifted a brow in challenge. Seamus released Audriell's hand to shake it. He found that afterward he didn't quite have the nerve required to hold her hand again and instead sat there, feeling awkward.

"You were there when she started the screaming?" Seamus thought that he spoke with what might have been a faint Brazilian accent and wondered how he had picked one up while Audriell still spoke with a soft Irish lilt.

"Yeah."

"Tell me the story? I have only been given a vague outline of what happened." So Seamus did.

"Thank you," Bartholomew said after he'd finished. "For telling me what happened and for owling me. It is nice to know that my sister has people looking out for her. She's usually too busy doing what she can for others that she loses herself in the process." Seamus nodded. Yes, he had noticed that about her, too.
After that they seemed to have run out of things to talk about, here in the great, silent wing. Seamus found himself silently begging harder than ever that Dria wake up soon.

"Finnegan, this is getting ridiculous. Do you really expect me to allow you to stay up here through dinner? I'm the school nurse! It's my responsibility to do what I can to keep students healthy. I will not condone malnourishment." Seamus had been arguing against leaving for the past five minutes. He had made no progress.

"Will you let me come back after I've eaten?" he finally said, resigned.

"Perhaps. But not for too long. I'm sure that you have schoolwork piling up right now. I shouldn't have let you stay for as long as you have. Still, these are special circumstances." She pursed her lips and glanced back at Dria, who looked like she had always been and would always be asleep. Her brother, used to a different time zone, had passed out on the bed next to hers.

"Thank you, ma'am." Seamus took off, getting to the Great Hall as quickly as he could. He would be upset if he missed her waking up.

What Seamus did not reckon on was the crowd that ran up to him as soon as he entered the Great Hall. Among them were Dean, Morag and his twin, Isodel, a small blonde girl who was clutching at Morag's arm whose name might have been Sara, and a few other Ravenclaws whose names he had never learned.
"What's going on?" Morag demanded. "No one's been allowed in to see her except you." His tone was accusatory.

"She's still unconscious, but her brother came and he doesn't seem worried- seems to think that she'll be waking up soon." Of course, Seamus thought, this estimate had been given two hours ago.

He pushed past everyone and sat at the closest end of the Gryffindor table, hurriedly filling his mouth before anyone could ask any more questions. Nearly everyone had gone to sit back down, but Dean, Morag, and the blonde who was clinging to him followed.

"You look like you need to sleep," Dean commented. "Leave it for today. You being there isn't helping any." Seamus could tell, though, that his friend didn't actually expect Seamus to take his advice.

"Everyone's talking about what happened. I could hear her from the Transfiguration room," the blonde said, her eyes wide with fear.

Morag nodded. "It was awful. No one knew what was happening, and then there you were, carrying her in..."

"She looked dead," said the blonde.

"But she isn't, Sara." Morag put an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him, taking comfort from the contact.

By this time, Seamus had eaten as much as he could stand to at the moment. He stood and made his way to the door, the three still trailing after him. He turned to them angrily. "If you lot are all with me, I bet Pomfrey won't let me back in. I'll tell you more when I know more."

"No, mate, we're coming with you. You know she's not going to let you stay long either way," Dean said with a sort of finality that signaled an end to the discussion.

"I didn't even think that you and Dria were that good of friends," Sara said a moment later.

Seamus colored. "I just feel responsible. I left her there on her own, and it was too much for her. Maybe if she hadn't been alone..." They were just reaching the door to the Hospital Wing, and Seamus heard voices.

To be specific, Dria's voice. She was talking with her brother.

"Audriell!" Seamus rushed in. He was at her bedside in an instant, but as soon as he got there, he felt horribly awkward. Sara was right, he thought; he and Dria were friendly acquaintances, nothing more.

But Audriell was smiling at him shyly. "Seamus, hi. Barty told me all about how you helped me, how you stayed here." Seamus found that he suddenly couldn't meet her eyes, though they were burning into him. "Thank you."

"It was nothing."

"If that's what you want to pretend, I guess I can go along with it for a bit." Her gaze moved away from Seamus and he would have sworn he felt a little bit colder because of it.

Her eyes landed next on Sara, who fidgeted uncomfortably. "Hi, Dria," she said in a soft voice. "I was so worried."

Audriell raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what to say to you right now," she admitted.

Sara hung her head a little. "I know that I haven't been around much-"

"Much? No. You haven't been around at all. But you know what? That's fine. If you want to push me away, do it. But don't come up here trying to make excuses. Let me just say that I am not in the mood. It's been a long enough day without all that."

Madam Pomfrey glanced over, her gaze disapproving. Seamus feared that she was about to come over and kick them out for upsetting Dria. "Audriell," he said, stepping closer to her. He hadn't meant to speak, didn't have anything to say to her that he felt comfortable having all of these people hear. It was enough, though. Their eyes locked and he drew comfort from her steady gaze. She was taking all of this much better than he had.

Audriell yawned and glanced over at her brother. "I think it would be best for us to let her get some rest," he said. "Come. I will return in the morning," he promised, and kissed her forehead.

Everyone followed Bartholomew out of the room. They all said their goodnights and Dean stood expectantly. Seamus found himself rooted to the ground. Bartholomew was staring intently at him. He wanted to know why.

"Seamus, would you walk with me a bit?" Bartholomew asked. He started down the hallway, not waiting for a response.

"I'll catch up with you later," Seamus told Dean. He caught up to Bartholomew and the pair walked in silence down the hallway and along another.

It wasn't until they reached a stairwell that Bartholomew said to Seamus, "I need you to show me the way to Professor Dumbledore's office."

Seamus almost sighed in relief but managed to catch himself. He didn't want Audriell's brother realizing just how nervous he was. "I can get you there, but I don't know the password."

"I do," Bartholomew assured him. "We have a meeting, he and I." When Seamus didn't reply, Bartholomew said, "Aren't you at least a little bit curious?"

"I am," Seamus confirmed, "but I reckon that if you want me to know something, you'll tell me." He could tell that Bartholomew was surprised by this response.

"I think that Audriell will be unhappy with me for this, but I am transferring into Hogwarts. I had a job playing Quidditch in Brazil, but there are more jobs out there and she needs me here."

"She is going to be okay, yeah?" Seamus asked.

"I am starting to wonder whether you're too concerned about her," Bartholomew said, raising a single eyebrow, "but of course she'll be alright. I went through this, too. It wasn't pretty, but it had to happen at some point."

"What exactly happened today?"

"You need to understand something for me to explain this. The reason for a banshee's scream is that she is taking in too much emotion to handle. It is painful, feeling so much. That boy, he was drowning this morning, yes? She was feeling that. Once the floodgates open, it is very hard to stop sucking out the emotions. She had never experienced it before, she didn't even know what was happening. Her body couldn't take it, so it shut down the part of her that was taking it all in.

"In the future, it will not affect her like this. She will be stronger. Still, I know that she was badly shaken. I want to be here to keep an eye on her." The look that Bartholomew gave Seamus implied that she was not the only one he would be watching.

Seamus didn't care right then. He couldn't feel his apprehension of Bartholomew past his relief. Audriell was going to be alright. Understanding what had happened took away a lot of the horror of that morning.

They reached the gargoyles marking the entrance to Dumbledore's office. "I'll leave you here, then," Seamus said. "Good night."

"Thanks, Seamus. Wish me luck with my Sorting!"