This was written for The Sad and Depressing One-Shot Challenge, by Alarice Tey. It feels like years since I did a challenge, and I did love this one very much.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, and if you don't know who it does belong to then I am so sorry for your lack of childhood.

It's Wednesday, and it's ten o'clock in the morning. The weather is nice. You're alive, yet from how sick you feel you wish you weren't.

I must have sinned really bad to deserve this, you groan internally.

You brush some of your spikes of greasy black hair from your face, where they had stuck due to the beads of sweat on your forehead, pick up your mobile from beside your bed and hold it against your ear.

"Hey, Albus, baby," you hear your beautiful boyfriend, Scorpius, say. "We still on for five?"

You clear your parched throat. "Oh, God," you rasp, "I am so sorry. I'm sick."

You try to reach for the glass of tempting water but your arm feels like lead. It takes all of your effort to keep the phone held up. You eye up the water – is this what Chinese water torture feels like, you wonder?

"Oh," Scorpius says. "Do you want me to come round?"

"No," you quickly say, "you might catch it."

"You know what it is?"

"No."

Scorpius pauses, but you can feel his presence through the phone; he hasn't left. "Do you need to see a Healer?"

You sigh, but it is muffled by how dry your mouth is. "Nah. I've probably got some virus or something. Nothing big. I'll be okay by the end of the week. Mum and Dad will take good care of me."

"As long as you're sure," Scorpius mutters reluctantly. "It's really no trouble at all if I come round, just to check if you're all right…"

You smile weakly, despite knowing he can't see. "I'll call you when I'm feeling better, okay, Score?"

"Okay."

"Love you."

"Love you too, Alley Cat."

You grin at the nickname, before hanging up. Your arm drops like it weighs a ton and your head falls back onto the pillow with a thud. You manage to lift your arm again for the water on pure adrenaline alone, and it feels like heaven down your throat.

Ugh, you can't wait until you get better.

It's Friday, and it's five o'clock in the evening. The weather is horrible. You can hear the rain on the glass of your bedroom window. You're alive, but numb.

You are curled into a ball below your duvet, your body alternating from blistering hot to sub-zero freezing. You don't have the strength to move the duvet with each turn. The most you have eaten since you got sick on Wednesday is a slice of buttered toast, made by your mother. You couldn't keep it down. Water tastes like the vomit, and the pills your father had brought from St Mungo's were like mushy paper clogging up your already tight throat. They provide no relief.

You want to sleep, and you would have done if not for the arrival of your mother.

She walks into your room and sits at the end of your bed, near your frozen feet. Her hair is the same colour as the blazing heat licking up down your body. She shuffles along the bed until she is sitting level with your chest and puts a cold hand on your forehead. It feels like pure, unadulterated bliss. Then, she pulls down the duvet to your hipbones and her eyes are as soft as melted chocolate as she gazes down at you.

"You're not feeling any better, pet?" she murmurs softly to you.

You like her presence. Her voice isn't rough, it doesn't make your ears ring and it distracts you from the bubbling and churning in your stomach. You summon up the strength to shake your head the tiniest bit.

"Scorpius is here to see you," she says, smiling.

Panic flickers in your eyes. "Don't let him in. I don't want him to see me like this. I don't want him to catch it," you manage to croak out. It hurts, but it must be said.

Too late. Scorpius had entered the room and you hear him gasp as he looks at you. You wonder what you look like. Do you look feeble? Weak? God, he'll break up with me after this.

Suddenly, he rushes over to you and wraps his arms around your frail body. You hold your breath, worried to pass on your disease. When he pulls back and leans down again to press his lips to yours, you turn your head to the side and whimper.

When your eyes turn back to him, his lips are pressed together to make a line, his posture is taut and you can sense the worry in his eyes.

"Get better for me, Albus. Be strong," he begs.

You don't feel strong. But you're trying. You're trying really hard and you can't tell him, and you feel like you're snapping in half.

He leaves, and you can vaguely hear the snick of the door as it closes behind him, and the hands of your mother, suddenly warm, running down your frozen cheek as you drift off to sleep.

It's Sunday, and it's ten o'clock at night. You don't know what the weather is like, as it's too dark to tell. You're agonisingly awake.

Someone is crying, and you can see red hair in your eyes. You focus in on the tear-stained face of your mother.

"Albus, can you hear me? Al?" she whispers, her tone frantic.

"Mm," I hum faintly, my eyelids heavy for me.

"Thank Merlin," she breaths. She stands up straight and looks over her shoulder. "Have you called St Mungo's, Harry?"

Your father's voice rings down the hall from downstairs. "They're on their way. James and Lily are coming too."

Oh, you interrupted their trip with your grandparents, it seems. You feel awful now.

You have missed them, though. It'd be nice to see their faces again.

Someone you don't know is leaning over you now, the bubble around their head making them look like a Muggle astronaut.

"Stay with us, Albus, stay with us," he says.

You're here.

You're here.

You're here.

You're here.

You're here.

You're here.

You're here.

It's Monday, and it's two o'clock in the morning. The weather is white, as is everything else. You don't know what you are anymore.

You open your eyes wide, and you see white. You can hear voices, but they are all fuzzy and hard to understand, as if they were behind glass. It smells like mint in this white dome. You feel alive, more alive than you have been for a long time.

But behind your eyelids you can see those piercing, stormy grey eyes you so love, and smell cinnamon, and taste strawberry jam, and you look around again at this wonderland and it's more of a prison to you than anything else.

This is where the sinners go. The ones that can't fight it. The weak ones. You're sad to admit you must be one of them.

Everything is very bright and light and happy, and your brain takes it in as easily as candyfloss melts on one's tongue, but it seems so wrong.

This is so wrong.

You have to get better. For the voices outside. For the people you love. For Lily, and James, and your mother, and your father, and your grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins and friends and even enemies, just to show them you can.

But most of all for him.

"I'm going to get better," you say.

You wonder if they can hear you from outside, but although it was intended for them, you know that it's for yourself that you said it. Just to convince yourself that this isn't real, and that there is an escape.

Just to convince yourself that you can do this.

And you still don't believe it.

It's Wednesday, and it's ten o'clock in the morning. The weather is nice.

I'm sorry.

Fin.