Butterfly Effect ; H. Potter

108. dobby and kreacher.

"He could be under the Imperius Curse," said George.

"Or he could be innocent," said Antheia. "If it was in the bottle, then it was probably meant for Slughorn."

"Who'd want to kill Slughorn?"

"Dumbledore reckons Voldemort wanted Slughorn on his side," said Harry. "Slughorn was in hiding for a year before he came to Hogwarts. And ..." he thought of the memory Dumbledore had not yet been able to extract from Slughorn, "and maybe Voldemort wants him out of the way, maybe he thinks he could be valuable to Dumbledore."

"But you said Slughorn told you he was going to give that bottle to Dumbledore," said Antheia thoughtfully. "So whoever poisoned it could have been after Dumbledore instead."

"Then the poisoner didn't know Slughorn very well," said Hermione, speaking for the first time in hours and sounding as though she had a bad head-cold. "Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he'd keep something that tasty for himself."

"Er-my-nee," croaked Ron unexpectedly from between them.

They all fell silent, watching him anxiously, but after muttering incomprehensibly for a moment he merely started snoring.

The dormitory doors flew open, making them all jump: Hagrid came striding towards them, his hair rain-flecked, his bearskin coat flapping behind him, a crossbow in his hand, leaving a trail of muddy dolphin-sized footprints all over the floor.

"Bin in the Forest all day!" he panted. "Aragog's worse, I bin readin' to him – didn' get up ter dinner till jus' now an' then Professor Sprout told me abou' Ron! How is he?"

"Not bad," said Harry. "They say he'll be OK."

"No more than seven visitors at a time!" said Madam Pomfrey, hurrying out of her office.

"Hagrid makes seven," George pointed out.

"Oh ... yes ..." said Madam Pomfrey, who seemed to have been counting Hagrid as several people due to his vastness. To cover her confusion she hurried off to clear up his muddy footprints with her wand.

"I don' believe this," said Hagrid hoarsely, shaking his great shaggy head as he stared down at Ron. "Jus' don' believe it ... look at him lyin' there ... who'd want ter hurt him, eh?"

"That's just what we were discussing," said Harry. "We don't know."

"Someone couldn' have a grudge against the Gryffindor Quidditch team, could they?" said Hagrid anxiously. "Firs' Katie, now Ron ..."

"I can't see anyone trying to bump off a Quidditch team," said George.

"Wood might've done the Slytherins if he could've got away with it," said Fred fairly.

"Well, I don't think it's Quidditch, but I think there's a connection between the attacks," said Hermione quietly.

"How d'you work that out?" asked Fred.

"Well, for one thing, they both ought to have been fatal and weren't, although that was pure luck. And for another, neither the poison nor the necklace seems to have reached the person who was supposed to be killed. Of course," she added broodingly, "that makes the person behind this even more dangerous in a way, because they don't seem to care how many people they finish off before they actually reach their victim."

Before anybody could respond to this ominous pronouncement, the dormitory doors opened again and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley hurried up the ward. They had done no more than satisfy themselves that Ron would make a full recovery on their last visit to the ward: now Mrs. Weasley seized hold of Harry and hugged him very tightly.