Better late then never (Open)

Aquila wobbled slightly as he walked down the corridor.

Damn, these walls need to stay still he thought to himself, as the stones around him began to twist and turn.

His head felt like a ton of bricks, and he couldn't focus on anything for more than a couple of seconds. Delirous, only one thought could stay in his head. The hospital wing.

Honestly, the boy should have gone to the hospital weeks ago, when the stupid book had first bitten him. Or when the bit hadn't gone away upon using the spell himself. Or when he had first noticed that far from getting better the things had seemed to be getting worse. He should have let the Dueling Professor take him up there when she had offered.

There were thousands of instances - moments he should have taken, signs he shouldn't have ignored - in which he should have admited defeat and gone to the Hospital Wing. Now all that he was left to do was hoping that he wasn't too late, and that the phrase it was better late than never would indeed hold true.

The feeling in his arm had started to go about a week after the bit. A little after that it had reached his chest. Soon it had spread through most of hsi body, and of course, had he bothered to take the bandaged off the mark he would see that it had swollen to twice it's size and was a highly unhealthy shade of green.

It was obvious that the book - not only from annoyingly having teeth - was also quite posionness and at the rate that Aquila had let the posion spread through him he'd be lucky to just stay alive. (let alone have to worry about return unscathed from such an event)

However, he was now so delierous that none of this mattered to him.

Taking a finaly step, he stumbled against the door to the hosptial Wing, bracing himself on them heavily, crashing right through as the opened and falling upon the floor. Where he continued laying, curlled into a ball.

"I don't want to get up right now, Ceph," he mumbled to himself, completely at a lost to what was going on around him.

Isabel frowned slightly as she walked along a corridor. How did she manage to end up on the first floor, when she was headed to the library? She was just about to turn around and go back to the main staircase, when she saw a boy collapse on the floor.
"What the..." she mumbled, running to the boy. He was mumbling something about staying asleep and some person named Ceph.
"Are you okay?" she asked, prodding the boy gently with her finger, then noticed loose bandages on his hand, which she carefully moved aside, and gasped. The boy's hand was swelling to a huge size, and it was green.
'Mobilicorpus," Isabel said, pointing her wand, and the boy rose into the air. She set off for the Hospital Wing.

Aquila was beyond noticing what was going on around him. He was beyond much else besides breathing.

And even that was coming out in horrible sounding gasps. As if there was something blocking his air ways and that was strugging to come out.


He curled up on the bed, some part of his brain aware of the change, and deleriously asked for people who were not there, and would not come.

Isabel frowned as she walked quickly down the hall. It looked like the boy was struggling to breathe.
"Anapneo," she said, and the boy's breathing slowed and the purple color faded from his face. Izzy broke into a run, making it to the Hospital Wing in record time, putting the boy down on a bed before sitting on the floor, catching her breath as the matron came out of her office and began tending to the boy.

Aquila's breathing was eased some by the girls spell. He was silent as the matron worked, falling into unconsciousness, at least the deleriousness was gone for the moment.

Thanks to the posion that the book had carried, and he had foolishly let spread through his blood stream to almost every part of his body. It was a long process. There had to be potions administered that took just as long to spread as the posion did.

It was almost two days before Quil woke again, very groggy and with a rather throbbing head.

Isabel looked up from her book as she heard a grunt from the boy laying on the bed.
"You're awake, then? Gave me a right good scare," she said softly.

Aquila turned to the sound of the voice. It belonged to a girl in his own house, but she looked to be younger than himself. Probably a first year.

"Hello there," his voice was weak, but at least he was making sense now.

He looked about him and immedately recognized the hospital wing. He really was spending way too much time in the place.

"I take it I did something that resulted in a near death again, then." Ceph wasn't going to be happy about that... gah his parents weren't going to be happy about that. Maybe they don't know. "Would you mind telling me how long I've been out of it this time?"

"Hi," Isabel replied, smiling at him. "Yeah, you collapsed in the hallway. I don't know what happened, but your hand was all funny. Do you remember what happened?"

Aquila saw a date of a calender on the wall that state it was two day since he last remembered checking one of those. Damn, his parents were definitely going to here about this one... if they hadn't already.

Quil felt a small knot of worry grow in his stomach. He felt as if the result from this incident wasn't going to be good. The last straw so to speak.

"My Hand..." he repeated softly looking down at his hand, in which - although it looked a lot better than before - there was still a bright white scare of the teeth. The posion taking its mark on his skin, "Damn, that book must have been posion. Well that's got to prove what I always said. Books are evil and I should not have to touch them anymore."

He laughed despite the fact that it made his still achey head hurt more.

Izzy felt worried about what the boy said about a poisonous book.
"A... book? Did it do that to your hand? You must have been in the Restricted section. And not all books are evil, just the ones that defend themselves, usually in harmful ways." Isabel sighed. She still didn't know this mysterious boy's name. "Oh, and I'm Isabel Vector. You?"

"If your not going to tell anyone who cares then I was in the Restricted section. Otherwise, I have no idea what you're taking about," he winked and the girl and then laughed.

Now that he was awake and doing what he normal did he was starting to feel a fair bit better.

"And Isabel quite ruining my plot to get out of reading and school work." He gave her an impish grin, and wiggled about on the bed until he was in a more comfortable postion.

"Aquila Turrow, the far better half of the not so famous Turrow brothers."

Isabel laughed at his antics. "I won't tell anyone, but you should think twice before going in there again. Some of those books have pretty gruesome effects. I should know," Isabel shuddered, remembering when a particular book's screeching had rendered her deaf for nearly a week and turned her ears into kumquats.

"Get out of reading? And you call yourself a Ravenclaw," she teased, grinning back.
"That's a nice name. You've got a brother? Lucky, all I've got is a grumpy old cat."

Aquila snorted, "Please I never think once." Really when you put it all down, he wondered how he got into Ravenclaw himself. THough he guessed, his brain was okay when he actually chose to use it... he just didn't a lot of the time.

"A cat's pretty cool; they can't steal your things," Aquila smirked, "Or blame things on you.. Oh wait, I'm the brother who does all that." He laughed again.

"Yes, well, that's probably the reason you're in the Hospital Wing. Also the reason that you get into life-threatening situations," she said, smiling and tilting her head a bit, and biting her lip as she looked over the boy. For someone that had just woken up, he seemed perfectly alert and fine, as if he had not just spent two days unconscious with a dangerous poison running through his veins.
Isabel chuckled, "Oh yes they can, trust me. The amount of times my wand has gone missing, and I find him later messing with it as he turns some odd color. It's not fun. So, I take it you're the mischievous one?"
Isabel suddenly frowned a bit, looking at Aquila's hand. The matron had healed it, but she just wanted to be sure. A book like that, biting into his hand and spreading poison, was obviously dangerous. It made her nervous.
"Let me see your hand,"

"Of course its the reason," he smiled. He knew perfectly well that was the reason. That, however, didn't mean he was going to change anytime soon. Really, he liked things the way they were. Even with the occational - often - trip to the hospital wing.

It made life interesting.

"Mischievious? Me, no whatever would give you such an idea?" he smirked as he spoke airily.

He handed over his hand, "What do you think you can do for it. I think saving the whole things not bad considering."

"Well, I think it would be best if you just stopped to think things over once in a while. You could have died, and I don't think you'd be as lucky next time," Isabel said softly. It was horrible seeing someone so close to dying, even someone she didn't know. Izzy had always cared about other people, that's why she wanted to be a Healer someday.

Isabel pretended to think, "Hmm, well, it could be that you snuck into the Restricted Section, or many other reasons that would fill a book..."

As Aquila held out his hand, Isabel took it in her own and started examining it, running her fingers over the scar. "You should be careful with it for a while."

Quil smiled at her words but made no promises. After all he had been hearing lines like that all his life. It was true logic should state that next time he wouldn't be as lucky but honestly...

Next time he always was. In his very own private thoughts he always sort of thought the only thing that would stop him would be the time that he wasn't lucky - the time he finally bite it.

"Really? Those things don't sound like me at all," Aquila laughed knowing perfectly well the oposite was true, "You must be confusing me with someone elses."

"Drat, I was really thinking about holding it open a burning flame."

Isabel watched the boy think about her words. True, she had only just met him, but Aquila had told her enough for her to know that he was a risk taker. How he talked, his not caring, it scared her. She knew that probably nothing would put sense into him, but that didn't mean she couldn't try.

"Oh, silly me," Isabel said sarcastically, "I'm thinking about your evil twin."

"Can you ever be serious? I mean it, rest that hand for a couple of days,"

"You must have been. Honestly he has been causing me so much trouble. Falling out of trees, sneaking out, going places he doesn't belong," Aquila shook his head sadly, "I just don't know what to do with him anymore."

He smirked. He could tell that she was getting annoyed with him slightly. He knew that kind of annoyed. Ceph gave it to him all the time, and Tobi use to too.

It didn't really bother him all that much, to be perfectly honest.

"If I try really, really, really, really hard... then it might be possible that I could be serious for the mere-est of instances without self imploding. Maybe." He smirked again. "How ever, if this resting the hand thing includes not writing, thennn I may just take you up on that suggestion. Buh-Bye school work."

"You're an idiot," laughed Isabel, "Even if you had an evil twin, which you don't, you wouldn't even try to control him. You'd use him as a partner in crime."

Isabel smirked at Aquila. Sure, he was annoying, didn't take anything seriously, and had no Ravenclaw morals whatsoever despite being one, but he was funny. And with what the world was going through, you needed to be able to laugh, even in the dark times.

"No, I take it back. You couldn't be serious even if your life depended on it, which, coming from your various death-defying incidents, it usually does," Isabel frowned a bit, "And I hate to burst your happy bubble, but if you do rest it, you'll still be doing your work. I'll write essays for you if I have to, but you'll be telling me what to write. No more slacking off, Mister Ravenclaw-but-totally-not."

Aquila smirked, "I don't know about idiot I rather think I'm quite ingenius at times."

The boy sighed dramatically, "Well then. That's no fun. And I'll have you know that I get perfectly fine grades thank you." He really did. He just didn't act like he did.