Concussion. [Open]

Matthew groaned and looked around. He couldn't see very well, he wasn't wearing his glasses. Everywhere was white. Startlingly so. He rubbed his eyes and felt around, eventually locating his glasses and slipping them on. His hair was matted with dirt, he felt, and was that... Blood? He winced slightly when he felt the wound on the back of his head- Ah, he remembered now. It was all coming back to him. It was the morning, by the looks of things. That made sense. He looked back on what had happened last night.

He had convinced himself to sneak out of the castle and into the quidditch pitch. There were the school brooms, in that wooden shed over there. It was funny, there wasn't even a charm on the padlock, so it was easy to use Alohamora to get inside. His stomach was doing backflips- he didn't often break the rules, so this was a new experience. It was thrilling. Picking up one of the brooms he decided he wouldn't fly high, because then if he fell, he wouldn't hurt himself too badly...

Well that plan failed. Matthew had lost control of his broom, he remembered, and he flew too high. The last part after that was falling, so far down... And barely managing to cast a spell on the ground below him. Unfortunately, he didn't completely hit the large pillow he'd conjured, and the blow to his head had knocked him out. He wasn't sure who'd found him or taken him to the hospital wing, but someone must have... Oh god, he must be in so much trouble right now!

In his free time, Dominik found that he was quite fond of simply roaming the school grounds to occupy the time. Like any student, he really did have better and more productive ways of spending his free time. Homework or extra studying surely was supposed to be a priority over other useless activities, but it wasn't that way for him. Usually nothing exciting happened during his aimless wanders. He would find a nice new place to sit in the shade and catch up on sleep, find a roaming harmless animal that had wandered too far from the forest, or sometimes even just watch people from afar to watch them be idiots for his amusement. At night when he took up this activity, there were far less people out. Dominik always had trouble sleeping so never seemed the harm in going out.

Today though, it seemed to be fate that Dominik decided to explore somewhere out of the ordinary -- the quidditch pitch. Of course, he went there often for matches and things, but never too much just to walk around. By the time that Dominik made it there, he found that he wasn't going to have a simple game of exploration. He could have if he had wanted to ignore the body that was not moving in the field...

Now he found himself spending time in a place he honestly didn't expect to have to visit today. With few friends and no family in this country, never mind this castle, he didn't expect to be in the hospital wing for anyone he knew either. Still, here he was for a second time.

Despite what some people would say, he did have a heart and wanted to make sure the poor guy wasn't dead. Even if whatever had happened to the boy wasn't his fault, he would still feel guilty if he dropped dead and he was the last student he had come in contact with. That is why he made sure to come back in the morning and to see if he was still alive. That, plus he had a morbid curiousity. Pulling up a chair to the bed, he just wished the kid would wake up. It didn't take long though before there was an audible groan, signaling that the previously unconscious boy was now awake. Finally!

Clearly the boy wasn't expecting him there. To make his presence known, Dominik decided to speak. "Finally awake there, sleepy head?"

Matthew nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a voice. "Finally awake there, sleepy head?" Who? What? Matthew's head turned in the direction of the voice and blinked. Then blinked again. "I..." He said, softly. "I'm not sleepy." Because this was obviously the first thing to tackle in that sentence. He wasn't sleepy, he was knocked out! ...By the ground! He tried to nod descisively at that thought, but the movment made him dizzy and his hand went to his forehead. It throbbed dully. But moving on- "A-And yeah... I'm awake." Apparently. Unless he was dreaming everything, but that seemed like the least likely option.

Finally, though, he got to the most important bit. "Er, who are you? And were you the one who saved me?" He tilted his head very slightly, worried that too much movement would make him dizzy again. Already his stomach was lurching and he was scared he'd throw up all over his supposed saviour. As he thought for longer, more questions swam up to the front of his mind, such as, "What happened to the school broom? Am I in trouble now? D-Did you tell the teachers how I got hurt?! I don't want detention!" He had a clean record! A perfect one! Of all his three-and-a-half years here, he'd never once been in serious trouble! He'd never even lost more than 10 points for Hufflepuff at one time!

Then, quieter, he asked, "Did you laugh at me?" He must have looked pretty stupid, flying around before dropping off the broom like a bird that had been shot out of the sky.

For a split second, Dominik felt bad for startling the boy in the bed. That feeling was quickly abandoned when he let out a snort of laughter that he couldn't control. Really, was he that frightening? Having never met the boy before this incident, he couldn't decide if the blonde just had a strange way of talking or if he had actually suffered some kind of serious head trauma. If it was the latter of the two, he really did feel bad for laughing.

"I'm Dominik." was the only think he really got to reply to before being bombarded with more questions. Maybe this boy really did hit his head too hard. He wasn't even sure he had heard half of the questions that were being thrown his way. Dominik wasn't aware of it, but he was giving the injured boy a rather puzzled expression. At least by the end of his rant the kid seemed to have calmed down a bit so Dominik could actually hear.

"Yes, yes. I am the one who saved you if you want to call it that." He decided that if he talked then maybe he could stop the other boy's babbles. Dominik really hated being confronted with so many questions, not that he was about to say it. "I don't really know what happened with anything. I just found you and brought you here." He looked to the boy's head. "You were bleeding so...yeah. You needed to come here." Remembering the last of his speech, he added, "No? Why would I laugh at someone bleeding from the head alone?" He hadn't even really seen what had happened. Who knew how long the time was between when he fell and when Dominik had found him?

Matthew's pace had slowed down. He seemed to be confusing the other boy- was it confusion? Or was that disbelief on his face? Matthew tended not to talk a lot but right now, it was really important he got answers, but he must be asking questions too quickly, the words spilling out of his mouth so fast they started to get jumbled together. So he snapped it shut and let the other speak. He found out the other's name- Dominik, he called himself. Matthew listened to his explanation, nodding every so often, forgetting that it made his head spin.

After a short silence, Matthew figured he should respond. "Oh." A good start. Then, "N-No reason to laugh... That suggestion was silly of me." At that, he let out his own high-pitched, nervous laugh before promptly shutting his mouth, feeling stupid. "W-Well, I'm Matthew..." Had he said that yet? He couldn't remember, his thoughts were getting jumbled up. His hands twitched and Matthew vaguelly thought about how much he needed a hug right now. Not that he'd ask the boy- Er, Dominik- for one, then he'd think Matthew was strange for sure.

"Wait... What time did you find me?" That was important. "Because I'm sure I fell off around 2 o'clock in the morning..." That sounded roughly correct, Matthew thought, nodding to himself again. And stopping because of another dizzy spell (He really needed to remember to stop doing that). "Also, what time is it now?" That'd tell him how long he'd been out. Hopefully the boy next to him had gotten some sleep! "Aren't you tired?" Matthew nibbled his lip in concern, he didn't like the idea of prevening someone from sleeping. And then he realised he'd gone back to asking many questions in a row, and held his tongue.

After all that rambling from the injured boy, the silence after Dominik himself had finished speaking was a bit unsettling. He hadn't said anything wrong, or even strange. So whatever the problem was baffled him. Luckily before he made some kind of awkward comment, the boy decided to actually answer. The boy identified himself as Matthew. It was at least nice that he now knew his name. He hated not knowing people's names when he was actually having a conversation with them. Matthew sure had a strange laugh though. He sure was a twitchy little fellow. Dominik wondered if he was like that normally or if the fall had really messed him up.

"What time?" He repeated, mostly for his own thinking. When he wandered around, he rarely actually took in the time. This held especially true for the night hours when he wasn't even supposed to be out in the first place. Dominik wracked his brain, trying to produce some time that sounded fairly logical. "Maybe it was close to 3? I am not really sure actually. I wasn't looking at the time." The nurse had asked him how long Matthew had been unconscious before he brought him to the hospital wing, but he wasn't even able to answer. "Looks like you were almost not with us for an hour. You are lucky someone found you!" He said it with a smile, but it really was the truth of the situation.

"I'm fine, don't worry. I already went to bed and woke up. It is nearly time for classes to start." Sure he was tired, but that really wasn't anything new in his life. Dominik often looked like he lacked sleep in the first place for the reason that he simply was.

Once he was satisfied, Matthew sighed and relaxed into his pillow, relieved. He wasn't in trouble just yet, he had time to come up with an excuse as to why he was lying on the Quidditch pitch with a potentially fatal injury. Now all he had to do was research on Defence against magical creatures and he was all set! Matthew felt glad everything was going smoothly, and offered Dominik a smile. "Thank you." He was grateful, very grateful for Dominik. He was sure that it would have gone wrong had another student found him. And it could have gone terribly if his brother of all people found him.

Then another question swam into his head (He was getting a surprising amount here). "Hey... Do you know any cleaning spells? My hair is quite... Unpleasant." He wrinkled his nose and felt the hair on the back of his head, all knotted. Obviously the nurse was in too much of a hurry to heal him to think about the state of his hair. "Also.... When do you leave to go to class?" Hopefully for not some time, Matthew enjoyed having company, especially if it was someone around his age.

The truth was, this Matthew guy was getting all worked up over nothing. In revealing the location and time of where he had found the other boy, he also would have been getting himself into a good deal of trouble. No matter what the situation, he wasn't really supposed to be roaming around the grounds late at night. He was glad that he was able to help but he wasn't about to risk getting himself in trouble. Dominik had been very vague on the details surrounding the whole think when he had brought Matthew to the hospital wing the previous night.

Dominik looked at Matthew's hair when the subject was brought up. He had noticed the boy was kind of a mess, but had failed to notice to what degree. That hair was kind of matted with dirt and blood and was rather disgusting mixed in with his naturally blonde hair. "I don't have class for a while more. I'm fine." Added on with his usual lateness, it was plenty of time. With a sigh, he answered "Yes, I think I know something that can fix it." Dominik reached in his pocket and took out his wand. He pointed it in the direction of Matthew's hair and mumbled the only cleaning spell he knew and hoped that it worked fine for hair. "That should do it."

Matthew ran his fingers through his freshly cleaned hair and beamed at Dominik. "Thanks!" He sat up a bit more, looking around. The nurse waddled in and started to direct Matthew to drink potions and eat a good-sized breakfast before leaving again. Matthew happily accepted the porridge and turned to Dominik again. "You're in Gryffindor, right? What's that like?" He asked, more cheerful and willing to make small talk with the other while he was there and keeping Matthew company. "I'm in Hufflepuff- we don't get a tower. I wish we did! But then climbing all those stairs would be tiring. Instead, we go down a small flight of stairs, and then in the morning we can have breakfast in bed- that is, if we're willing to drag ourselves out of bed to ask the house elves, who're really friendly and always wanna cook food for you. Then you can take the food back to bed and eat it there! And having the kitchen so close makes slumber parties in the common room really fun! Everyone drags their blankets down to the warm, large common room and we talk and stuff, it's so cosy! And sometimes we roast marshmallows over the fireplace! Have you ever done that? Oh, you must!" He rambled on, half to himself.

He soon fell silent when he ran out of things to say, and instead continued to eat his porridge which was quickly losing warmth. Pulling out his wand he stared at the porridge, trying to remember the spell to heat things up. He'd read it somewhere- a Defence against the Dark Arts book, he believed, where they'd mentioned it in passing, and Matthew had decided to learn it. But obviously he hadn't learnt it well enough because it wasn't coming to him!

For someone who was supposedly so injured, the boy sure could talk. He had asked a question and didn't even give him enough time to respond. Dominik was glad that his spell worked and cleaned up Matthew properly, because he didn't want to deal with having to explain why Matthew's hair was pink, bald, or something of the sort. That would not only be unfortunate in Matthew's case, and he was sure that he wouldn't be too fond of him after that. This conversation was a little strange since Dominik was pretty sure that eating habits weren't what normal strangers talked about. He didn't even know the eating habits of some members of his family, never mind people he bumped into.

Though he was sure that he had missed part of the story when he was trying to process other parts, he still answered the best he could. "It sounds like your house knows how to have fun. Especially with food." That was mostly what he had gotten out of the story. Hufflepuff seemed to have some nice food choices. From what he had heard around the school, the Hufflepuff was near the kitchen so that made sense. He had to admit to himself that he would like the Gryffindor common room and dorms to be more food oriented. What guy wouldn't want that though?

Dominik would have answered with his own half thought out story, but something caused him to stop. Matthew suddenly was taking out his wand. He also didn't seem to be doing anything with it. Strange. Dominik quirked his head to the side a little in confusion. "Is your food making you angry or something?" What, as he going to curse the porridge? Hospital wing food had to taste the same as the food from the kitchens which was delicious.

Matthew frowned slightly in concentration. "No, it's just gone kinda cold... So I was trying... To warm... It up..." He explained in between waving wand. However, at a particularly vigerous swish and jab at the porridge, a large bubble started protruding from the porridge, and it grew larger, and larger and larger. That caused porridge to gloop over the side and onto the tray the bowl was sitting on. By this time, Matthew had pulled his wand back in surprise, and had only seconds to shield his face when the bubble burst, splattering scalding hot porridge on the both of them, and all over the surrounding area. In the back of Matthew's mind, he couldn't help but notice how much it resembled the outcome of an extremely sick child.

"Eep!" He squeaked when the porridge burned his face, and he tried to wipe it away. Something told him that maybe it had been a bad idea trying to use magic while he probably had a concussion or something of the likes. Turning slightly, he apologised repeatedly to Dominik, and drew his knees up out of the blankets and up to his chest, so that they weren't underneath the blankets while they were covered in his breakfast. Now if only he knew some cleaning spells... No! He berated himself, Don't do spells, stupid! To which he responded, Ok... Meekly, in his mind.

"That really doesn't look good..." Dominik would have commented more on the whole situation if not for the end of Matthew's experimentation with the porridge. He would have told him that it couldn't have possibly been that cold since it was so recently brought over to him to eat. He would have said that heating up porridge and taking care of Matthew was the school nurse's job so he could just ask her to either get him more or reheat it. Unfortunately, the only statement that he did manage to say before the bubble burst was one hundred percent correct. The bubble wasn't a good thing and whether or not Matthew agreed with him, both boys learned it firsthand when it popped and covered the both of them.

Fortunately in Dominik's case, he was a bit further from the bowl than the other boy. This meant that he was hit by less of the oddly exploding porridge, but was still hit with the burning food. When hit, he let out a small hiss of pain, rubbing it off of his skin as quickly as possible to prevent any other burning. At the same time, Matthew seemed to be apologizing profusely. "It...it's fine. Don't worry about it." He could feel himself gritting his teeth a little in the back, because really it wasn't okay and he normally would have said something. This kid was hurt though so he would have to forgive him. "I'll live, promise."

It seemed that Matthew had more of the mess here anyways. Dominik was no doctor, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't good for someone who had hit their head that badly to be flailing about like that. "Hey, should I get the someone over here for you or are you alright?" Dominik gave Matthew a strange look at this, and figured that the boy wasn't exactly looking great.

Matthew held up his wand again, not providing a responce. He wasn't sure what he'd say other than 'Sorry', and he was sure he'd used that just a bit too much by now, and would just annoy Dominik further than he must already be doing. Instead, he said, "Scourgify," watching as the porridge slowly vanished in little patches. He continued this until the porridge was completely gone and then retrieved a handkerchief, offering it to Dominik to clean himself. Eventually, he spoke.

"I'm sure Nurse can give you an ice pack if the burns bother you..." He mumbled, guilt still plastered all over his face (which was red from both embarrassment and little hot porridge burns). Perhaps he should try listening to that part of his mind called 'Common Sense'... And now was a good time to start, he decided, placing his wand back on the table by the bed so he wasn't tempted to perform any more stupid spells and inevitebly scew up again (But didn't his brother always tell him to have more faith in himself?).

(( u__u This is the reply I've been slowly writing and modifying over the course of a month? My apologises for both lateness and shortness. ))

When offered the handkerchief, Dominik took it from the other boy. Perhaps he tugged it away a bit more forceful than necessary, but he himself didn't give much of a second thought to his actions. Normally he would be very rude towards someone who did that to him, but Dominik really wasn't a horrible guy, despite what some people might say. He did have a heart and this kid was stuck in the infirmary so he had to try to be on his best behavior. With the handkerchief, he wiped himself as clean as he possibly could with the piece of cloth. Of course, porridge never liked to cooperate that easily when stuck to clothes, and it was especially visible on darker colors such as he was wearing now. It looked like he was going to have his uniform washed after this mess. "No, I'm fine. Food won't kill me. Neither will some small burns." Even when saying this he looked a bit grumpy, but he was still trying to be on his best behavior.

((Actuallllyyyyy....I am the late one hahaa...))