InsaneJournal

Current mood:	scared
Current music:	HELP! The Beatles

The End of the Beginning
Hurt! Burning! GOD! What was that?! Hands? Voices shrieking, one of them his! Someone yelling at him to get something! He was trying, but the pain! It hurt too much! He couldn’t! He MUST! He couldn’t! He was dying from the pain! He didn’t want to die! NO! Hurts! Can’t! Make it stop! I’m dying! Must stop the pain! Don’t want to die! A flash of silver in the corner of his eye. Water? Maybe. Stop the pain! He lunged…falling…all was lost. His head exploded and he fell into blackness, down…down…down…

A nightmare! No, not a nightmare. It really happened. It was dark. He stared into the gloom, trying to see where he was. His head ached abominably and he reached up with a shaking hand to touch the back. His hand encountered cloth and he panicked!

“NO!” he shrieked. “Get him off!” His hands tore at his head. “Get out! Go away! Please?!” he begged. “I don’t want to do this anymore! Get out of my HEAD!

The door crashed open. “Christ!” a voice exclaimed. “He wakes up with a vengeance!” Hands grabbed his wrists and a voice spoke to him but Quirrell was too hysterical to make sense of what they were saying at first. His eyes were staring and his face was white as milk.

“Calm down!” Someone said to him firmly. “You’re going to be all right! You’re in the hospital and you’re going to be fine!” Strong hands pulled his own away from his head. Quirrell blinked, and a face swam into focus. A kind, worried face, frowning at him seriously.

“What?” he asked stupidly, in an almost-normal tone of voice. “Where am I?”

The grip on his wrists relaxed a bit. “You’re in Margate Hospital,” the nurse (it was a man) holding his wrists explained slowly. “You were found in an alley and they called an ambulance. Can you remember what happened to you?”

“I remember falling…”Quirrell’s voice faltered. “My head hurts.”

“I don’t doubt it!” the nurse told him. “The whole back of your head is one massive bruise. You must have hit your head on the wall. We think you were hit by a car. Can you remember anything else at all?”

Quirrell shook his head slowly. He had just barely enough coherent thought processes working to realise that he was in a muggle hospital and trying to explain things to them wasn’t the wisest thing he could do under the circumstances.

“Not really surprised,” the nurse said, though he sounded disappointed. “You’ve got a dandy concussion and some bleeding.”

“Bleeding?!” Quirrell thought he might panic again. “In my brain, you mean?”

“Just a bit,” the nurse soothed him. “With the wallop you got, you’re lucky it isn’t any worse. But I’ll let the doctor tell you himself tomorrow. Are you going to be all right now? We don’t like to sedate head injuries, but if you’re going to have another episode, we’ll have to make an exception.” He looked stern.

“It won’t happen again.” Quirrell was certain of that. Voldemort wasn’t in his head any more and that was such a relief he couldn’t even say. Though he did wonder how he’d ended up in a muggle hospital instead of St Mungos.

“Good.” The nurse let go of his wrists, but stood near just in case. “You try to go back to sleep and the doctor will be in to look at you in the morning. We’ll be able to do more tests now that you’re awake.”

“I’ll try to go back to sleep,” Quirrell told him sincerely. To be able to lie on his back again! How he had missed that! He lay down again and the nurse backed away. “There’s a button next to your bed. You just push it if you need anything.” He stepped to the door. “Oh by the way,” he turned back, “what’s your name? You didn’t have any ID on you when they brought you in.”

“Quirrell,” he replied yawning. “Quirinus Quirrell.”

“Well, good night Mr Quirrell. I hope you sleep well.” The nurse left the room.


The next afternoon, after undergoing numerous tests, Quirrell was wheeled back to his room in time for dinner. He’d been x-rayed, cat-scanned, poked, prodded, bled and examined until he was sore all over. He hadn’t been given anything to eat because it might interfere with the tests and now he was ravenous. An orderly brought him a tray and put it on the little pull-out table that was attached to the side of the bed. Bland pap, but he didn’t care. It was still better than his mother’s cooking. Quirrell dug into his soup. There was a newspaper on the tray and Quirrell picked it up. He’d always read while he was eating and was grateful for the paper. There didn’t seem to be anything else to read in this place. He took another huge bite of soup and scanned the headlines. His eyes strayed to the top of the paper and he glanced at the date. His eyes widened and he dropped his spoon! “Oh no!” he whispered frantically. “It can’t be!” He pushed the table away and hurried out of bed and into the hall, oblivious to the fact that he was clad only in his hospital johnny. He looked up and down the hall. A man dressed in a gray cover-all was pushing a sort of wagon toward him.

“Excuse me,” Quirrell’s voice quivered and he cleared his throat.

“Do for you?” the man asked. His hair was short and his horn-rimmed glasses had the thickest lenses Quirrell had ever seen.

“Er…is this the correct date?” Quirrell held the newspaper out to him with slightly shaking hands.

The man just glanced at the paper. “Right as rain.” he told Quirrell with a smile. “Today’s Monday. Guess you lost some time getting a head bashin’ like you did.” His eyes strayed to the bandage that circled the other man’s head.

Quirrell shook his head. “Not the day,” he said earnestly. “The date. The year? Is…is that right?”

The man (a janitor?) gave him a sympathetic glance and nodded. “Right as rain,” he said again. “2008. Were you expecting something else?” His voice was gentle and he didn’t seem at all surprised.

Quirrell nodded. “Last I remember,” he said in a faint voice, “it was 1992.”

“Ah.” The man nodded, apparently understanding. “Listen, when you get out of this place, head into town and find The Seaside Café. You can find out more about what happened to you there. But in the meantime,” he looked up and down the hall before pinning Quirrell with his eyes, strangely magnified by his glasses. “I wouldn’t let on to them here that you’ve lost sixteen years. Might not let you go at all.” He gave an emphatic nod.

Quirrell nodded in turn. “You’re right. Not a good idea.” He tucked that paper under his arm and went back to his room. “Seaside Café, you said?” he asked, turning back. The man was gone. Quirrell’s eyes widened and he went back to his bed, his appetite gone completely. “Seaside Café,” he muttered to himself. “You’d better believe I’ll go there.”