Chapter Four: Jake

Bucky came back into the Hospital Wing with a black eye and a busted up lip.

  “Bucky!” he shouted.

  “What happened?” Sirius added.

  “Nothing,” Bucky replied. She looked pissed, which meant you didn’t want to bug her, so Jake stayed quiet. Jake stared at Esme’s porcelain white face as she slept. She looked so peaceful. She looked as if she was simply sleeping, like she wasn’t in a coma, like her life wasn’t at risk. He watched her chest rise and fall. He watched her nostrils flare as she breathed. He watched one of his best friends laying, helpless, and utterly alone.

  He was forced to resume his studies. Everyone was. Bucky was still angry as all get out. No one was allowed to talk to her, let alone touch her. She locked herself in her room during spare time. Not even Jake was allowed to be near her.

  It worried him. Not just Esmeralda being in a coma, but everyone’s reactions. James would only talk to his closest friends. He refused to make eye contact with Jake, as if his sister’s condition was his fault. Remus had tried to stay strong. He’d still talk to people and do what he was supposed to, but Jake knew Remus was a bloody mess. They all were.

  Esmeralda would never know how much everyone cared about her. The teachers, and most of the students, went around the school, furiously trying to discover who had jinxed the Bludger.

  Jake knew it was a Gryffindor. It was a Gryffindor who was too serious about the game. It was someone who wanted Gryffindor to win, at all costs. That person had put Jake’s best friend’s life in risk, and that wasn’t something you just said sorry for.

  Days past and still nothing. The only thing that changed was the amount of get well cards esmeralda got. The cards and gifts stacked up higher and higher, as if the more people who wished she was well, the more likely she were to wake up. Jake visited her every day, along with Remus and James. Remus only left her side to go to classes. He didn’t even go to Hogsmead.

  Bucky never came to see Esmeralda. Jake knew it would be too hard for her. He knew she would cry, and he knew she didn’t want to cry. Jake hadn’t been able to produce a single tear since the incident first happened. Yes, he cried the first day, but there were few who didn’t.

  Many other of Esmeralda’s friend’s grades dropped. They all ate together, which was difficult, being there were so many of them, but they ate in silence. They never talked to each other during those long dragging hours of eating.

  Emma and Rupert were the only one’s who tried to stay happy. They were the only one’s who could. Both were naturally happy, which Jake admired about them.  They tried to lift everyone’s spirits, but it didn’t work.

  “Someone should collect the homework for her,” Andromeda, a seventh year Slytherin, the only one in the group besides Bucky, said a week after the accident while they ate lunch. The group stared at her.

  ‘Why?” Marie asked.

  “It’s Esmeralda we’re talking about. She’s always cared about her homework. If we didn’t collect it, she’d never let us hear the end of it,” Lily agreed.

  “When would she do it?” Olivia Donlan, also known as Livy, asked.

  “When she wakes up of course,” Emma said cheerfully.

  “You mean, if, she wakes up,” Daniel snapped. Emma and Rupert gasped.

  “Daniel!” Andromeda scolded. Lily let out a sob.

  “What? Do you really think, after all that, after all she’s been through, that she’s ever going to wake up?” He retorted.

  “I don’t care what you think, Radcliff, but my sister will wake up. I don’t care what I have to do, or what anyone has to do, but Esmeralda is waking up,” James hissed, slamming his food onto the table and storming out. The other three Marauders ran after him.

  “Don’t ever say things like that, Daniel,” Rupert whimpered. The group fell silent once more.

  Later that day, Jake was walking through the halls on his way to Potions, when he heard a sob and a sniffle. He frowned. He, being the gentle soul he was (and the innocent one of the trio), trotted towards the sound. He spotted a piece of cloth peeking out from behind a column.

  “Excuse me? Are you alright?” Jake asked. The sniffling stopped. The cloth shifted, making Jake believe the person looked up.

  “Jake?” A sniff, “Is that you?”

  “‘Dromeda? Are you alright?” Jake peered around the corner. Andromeda’s normally brown hair was now a deep blue. She was a metamorphosis, but only partially. Her hair and eyes simply changed colours. She had tear tracks running down her cheeks. Her eyes were puffy and red, as was her nose. She forced a smile and wiped away her tears quickly. She stood, too fast for her feet and stumbled over. She leaned against the wall, pretending like she did what she did on purpose.

  Jake was too worried to laugh.

  “‘Dromeda, what’s wrong?” He asked. She flashed another grin.

  “Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. I just had a little something in my nose,” she replied innocently.

  “‘Dromeda,” Jake stepped forward, “Your hair is blue. We all know what blue means.” Andromeda shook her head quickly, her smiling fading for half a second. It returned to it’s normal colour, and her smile returned to her lips.

  “Not blue, see?” Jake took another step forward.

  “What’s wrong?” he pressed. Her smile fell immediately, as did her act. She collapsed onto Jake in sobs. Jake wrapped his arms around her back, rubbing it gently.

  “Oh, Jake! What if Daniel’s right? What if she never wakes up?” she cried.

  “Hey, it’s going to be alright. You know how I know?” He asked. She pushed away from him, silver tears rolling down from her brown eyes, rapidly turning blue.

  “How?”

  “Because it’s Esme we’re talking about. The best Beater at Hogwarts. The smartest witch around! She’d never miss anything we’d do. She’s going to be so mad at herself when she wakes up, she’ll probably knock herself out again. There is nothing our Esme can’t do,” he said. Andromeda wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Plus, if Bucky, James, and Remus have anything to say about it, you bet she’s waking up,” he added. She laughed.

  “Wait, Remus?”

  “Yeah, it’s obvious they like each other,” Jake sighed, a smile creeping up on his face. The two stood for a second, in an awkward silence.

  “Well, this is awkward,” Andromeda said.

 "Maybe we should both grow sparkle beards to make it less awkward," Jake suggested, though the two were still embracing each other.

 "Sparkle beards?"

 "It's a long story.

 Jake and Andromeda became better friends that day than they had ever been, all Jake's years at Hogwarts. They spent a lot of their free time together. They'd talk about school, and home, and their families. But mostly they disused how Emse was attacked, and who it could have been. They plotted and wrote things down. They investigated and interrogated people. They were set on finding the culprit, at any cost.

 Everything seemed to be going normally for a week or so, when They spotted Bucky for the first time in weeks. She was crying.