RP: How many wizards does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Date: 18 February 2005, early morning
Characters: Cedric Diggory, Hermione Granger, Kenneth Towler
Location: 35A Alpha Lane
Status: Private
Summary: How many wizards does it take to screw in a light bulb? Only one ... but why is he doing it in the first place?
Completion: Complete
Both 'petit mal' and complex partial seizures were a normal part of Cedric's life ever since he'd died and come back. They occured several times a week -- sometimes as much as once or twice a day, sometimes considerably less -- although most people didn't even realize when he was having one. He didn't fall to the ground, jerk, or swallow his tongue -- nothing so dramatic. He simply ... spaced out. To anyone watching, it looked as if the lights were on but nobody was home, and episodes typically lasted only moments. If they were of the complex partial type, they might last as much as a minute while he repeated a movement, like blinking or clicking his tongue or rubbing his hand, but those were rarer.
Perhaps he should have worried about it, doing such things as driving, but he'd not told anybody and so nothing had been marked on his driver's permit. It had never caused an accident -- and he'd spent hours and hours and hours behind the wheel. After so many years, he could often feel them coming on, and he doubted anybody but he knew how often they occurred ... and he wasn't telling. He'd fought far too long and hard to regain control of his body; a few seconds of mental absence a few times a week wouldn't stop him. His tendency to go into mental overload if he tried to multi-task was far more disruptive and annoying. The dead tissue in his brain made smooth connections between synapses impossible. If he were trying to concentrate on more than one thing at once, and especially if more than two, everything went to hell in his head.
But the problem with his petit mal seizures was that the law of averages was bound to catch up with him eventually. There would be that one time he didn't feel it coming and it hit at exactly the wrong moment.
Such as when he'd climbed up on a chair to change the light bulb in his kitchen. Only later would it occur to him to wonder why he'd made it difficult for himself by climbing up on a chair in the first place. But at the time, it was the wee small hours of morning, the sun not yet up, and he'd risen, dressed only in his ratty old sleep trousers and a long-sleeve t-shirt, because he was hungry and couldn't sleep. Nonetheless, he wasn't fully awake, so when the overhead light blew as he flipped the kitchen switch, old instinct was to swear, search for a bulb, drag in a chair, and change it Muggle fashion because that's what he'd been doing for years in Toronto.
And it was as he leaned just a little backwards, lamp cover, screws and cross-head screwdriver in one hand, lightbulb raised in the other to be screwed in, that one of his absences hit. Even if it lasted only a few seconds, it took only a few seconds -- off balance -- to fall.
He cracked his head on something on the way down. Glass from the cover and bulb both shattered all around him on the kitchen linoleum.
Characters: Cedric Diggory, Hermione Granger, Kenneth Towler
Location: 35A Alpha Lane
Status: Private
Summary: How many wizards does it take to screw in a light bulb? Only one ... but why is he doing it in the first place?
Completion: Complete
Both 'petit mal' and complex partial seizures were a normal part of Cedric's life ever since he'd died and come back. They occured several times a week -- sometimes as much as once or twice a day, sometimes considerably less -- although most people didn't even realize when he was having one. He didn't fall to the ground, jerk, or swallow his tongue -- nothing so dramatic. He simply ... spaced out. To anyone watching, it looked as if the lights were on but nobody was home, and episodes typically lasted only moments. If they were of the complex partial type, they might last as much as a minute while he repeated a movement, like blinking or clicking his tongue or rubbing his hand, but those were rarer.
Perhaps he should have worried about it, doing such things as driving, but he'd not told anybody and so nothing had been marked on his driver's permit. It had never caused an accident -- and he'd spent hours and hours and hours behind the wheel. After so many years, he could often feel them coming on, and he doubted anybody but he knew how often they occurred ... and he wasn't telling. He'd fought far too long and hard to regain control of his body; a few seconds of mental absence a few times a week wouldn't stop him. His tendency to go into mental overload if he tried to multi-task was far more disruptive and annoying. The dead tissue in his brain made smooth connections between synapses impossible. If he were trying to concentrate on more than one thing at once, and especially if more than two, everything went to hell in his head.
But the problem with his petit mal seizures was that the law of averages was bound to catch up with him eventually. There would be that one time he didn't feel it coming and it hit at exactly the wrong moment.
Such as when he'd climbed up on a chair to change the light bulb in his kitchen. Only later would it occur to him to wonder why he'd made it difficult for himself by climbing up on a chair in the first place. But at the time, it was the wee small hours of morning, the sun not yet up, and he'd risen, dressed only in his ratty old sleep trousers and a long-sleeve t-shirt, because he was hungry and couldn't sleep. Nonetheless, he wasn't fully awake, so when the overhead light blew as he flipped the kitchen switch, old instinct was to swear, search for a bulb, drag in a chair, and change it Muggle fashion because that's what he'd been doing for years in Toronto.
And it was as he leaned just a little backwards, lamp cover, screws and cross-head screwdriver in one hand, lightbulb raised in the other to be screwed in, that one of his absences hit. Even if it lasted only a few seconds, it took only a few seconds -- off balance -- to fall.
He cracked his head on something on the way down. Glass from the cover and bulb both shattered all around him on the kitchen linoleum.