CHAPTER THIRTEEN
sectumsempra
⋆. ────────── ꕥ ────────── .⋆
"WHAT HAPPENED TO RON?" June asked again, as Harry was dragging her to the hospital wing. He had told her before but she couldn't quite believe him.
"He was poisoned," he repeated.
"But-but who wants to poison Ron? I don't get it," June said, looking puzzled. "He's okay now, right?"
"Yeah, I shoved a bezoar down his throat," Harry said, still looking a bit pale.
"Smart," June said.
The two of them hurried along the corridors to the hospital wing where Hermione and Ginny were already sitting around Ron's bed. Fred and George were there, as well.
"So, all in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?" Fred said, once the twins had greeted June.
"This isn't how we imagined handing over our present," George said grimly, putting down a large wrapped gift on Ron's bedside cabinet and sitting beside Ginny.
"Yeah, when we pictured the scene, he was conscious," Fred added.
"There we were in Hogsmeade, waiting to surprise him—" George went on.
"You were in Hogsmeade?" Ginny questioned, looking up.
"We were thinking of buying Zonko's," Fred said gloomily. "A Hogsmeade branch, you know, but a fat lot of good it'll do us if you lot aren't allowed out at weekends to buy our stuff any more . . . but never mind that now."
He drew up a chair beside Harry and looked at Ron's pale face.
"How exactly did it happen, Harry?"
Harry told them the story that he must have already recounted before.
". . . and then I got the bezoar down his throat and his breathing eased up a bit, Slughorn ran for help, McConagall and Madam Pomfrey turned up, and they brought Ron up here. They reckon he'll be all right. Madam Pomfrey says he'll have to stay here a week or so . . . keep taking Essence of Rue . . ."
"Blimey, it was lucky you thought of a bezoar," George said in a low voice.
"Lucky there was one in the room," Harry stated.
"Do Mum and Dad know?" Fred asked Ginny.
"They've already seen him, they arrived an hour ago—they're in Dumbledore's office now, but they'll be back soon . . ."
There was a pause while they all watched Ron mumble a little in his sleep.
"So the poison was in the drink?" Fred said quietly.
"Yes," Harry said at once. "Slughorn poured it out—"
"Would he have been able to slip something into Ron's glass without you seeing?" June questioned him, crossing her arms.
"Probably," Harry said, "but why would Slughorn want to poison Ron?"
"No idea," Fred said, frowning. "You don't think he could have mixed up the glasses by mistake? Meaning to get you?"
"Why would Slughorn want to poison Harry?" Ginny asked.
"I dunno," Fred said, "but there must be loads of people who'd like to poison Harry, mustn't there? The 'Chosen One' and all that?"
"So you think Slughorn's a Death Eater?" Ginny said.
"Anything's possible," Fred said darkly.
"He could be under the Imperius Curse," George suggested.
"Or he could be innocent," Ginny said. "The poison could have been in the bottle, in which case it was probably meant for Slughorn himself."
"Who'd want to kill Slughorn?"
"Dumbledore reckons Voldemort wanted Slughorn on his side," Harry said. "Slughorn was in hiding for a year before he came to Hogwarts. And maybe Voldemort wants him out of the way, maybe he thinks he could be valuable to Dumbledore."
"But you said Slughorn had been planning to give that bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas," Ginny reminded him. "So the poisoner could just as easily have been after Dumbledore."
"Then the poisoner didn't know Slughorn very well," Hemione said, speaking for the first time in hours and sounding as though she had 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," Ron croaked 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," Harry said. "They say he'll be OK."
"I don' believe this," Hagrid said 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," Harry said. "We don't know."
"Someone couldn' have a grudge against the Gryffindor Quidditch team, could they?" Hagrid said anxiously. "Firs' Katie, now Ron . . ."
"I can't see anyone trying to bump off a Quidditch team," George said.
"Wood might've done the Slytherins if he could've got away with it," Fred said fairly.
"Well, I don't think it's Quidditch, but I think there's a connection between the attacks," Hermione said quietly.
"How d'you work that out?" Fred asked.
"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 anyone could respond to this ominous pronouncement, the doors of the hospital wing opened and in came Molly and Arthur. June stood up and decided to leave the family alone. She strode back to her chambers but Hermione's words did not leave her mind.
—
"June!" A hand landed on her bicep and pulled her away from the other trainees. The three of them had finished training earlier and they were heading to dinner.
June automatically reached for her wand, but relaxed when she saw that it was Harry.
"What's up, Harry?" she questioned her cousin, as he dragged her through the castle. "I can walk for myself you know," she added more amusingly.
"It's Malfoy," Harry said. "He's up to something. Something bad."
June raised an unimpressed eyebrow, though a feeling of worry started to build up in her chest. "Harry, I think the Aurors would know if—"
"No," Harry said, interrupting her. "You guys are protecting us from things that are outside of the castle, not from things inside the castle!"
June froze, not letting Harry continue to drag her away. "Harry, where are we going?"
"The Room of Requirements," Harry said, as he turned around. "I noticed Malfoy heading in and out for months."
"The Room of Requirements?" June repeated, frowning. "What does he want with that?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Harry said, taking out the Marauder's Map as they continued their way to the seventh floor. He glanced down at it and frowned. "That's weird. He's with Moaning Myrtle."
"Moaning Myrtle?" June said, even more confused than she was before. She glanced over his shoulder and saw Draco's tiny, labeled dot standing in a boy's bathroom on the floor below, accompanied by no other than Moaning Myrtle.
Harry and June only stopped staring at this unlikely coupling when they walked right into a suit of armour. The loud crash brought them out of their reverie. June waved her wand, fixing the statue, before they headed down the marble staircase and along the passageway below.
Why was Draco with Moaning Myrtle? Certainly he would go to her instead of a ghost if he'd have problems?
A flash of guilt entered June's heart. She should have seen this coming. She should have been his backup if things were going wrong.
They were outside the bathroom now. Harry pressed his ear against the door while June stood still a bit dazed beside him.
Harry very quietly pushed the door open. June's eyes darted up and saw Draco standing with his back to the door, his hands clutching either side of the sink, his white-blond head bowed.
"Don't," Moaning Myrtle's voice crooned from one of the cubicles. "Don't . . . tell me what's wrong . . . I can help you . . ."
"No one can help me," Draco said. The way he said it made June's heart shatter in a million pieces. His whole body was shaking. "I can't do it . . . I can't . . . it won't work . . . and unless I do it soon . . . he says he'll kill me . . ."
A fury she had never felt before filled her body and June vowed she would never let anyone hurt Draco. She would fight Voldemort for eternity if that would mean Draco was safe.
Draco was crying now, tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin. He gasped and gulped and then, with a great shudder, looked up into the cracked mirror and saw Harry staring at him over his shoulder. June, who had been standing behind Harry, had still been out of sight.
Draco wheeled round, drawing his wand. Instinctively, Harry pulled out his own. Draco's hex missed Harry by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall beside him. June ducked away, missing the pieces of glass that shattered around.
"No! No! Stop it!" Moaning Myrtle squealed, her voice echoing loudly around the tiled room. "Stop! STOP!"
There was a loud bang and the bin behind Harry exploded; Harry attempted a Leg-Locker Curse that backfired off the wall behind Draco's ear and smashed the cistern beneath Moaning Myrtle, who screamed loudly; water poured everywhere and Harry slipped over as Draco, his face contorted, cried, "Crucio!"
"No!" June exclaimed, throwing herself between the boys.
"SECTUMSEMPRA!" Harry bellowed on her other side.
A pain so overwhelming hit June, she could not bare to stand. Blood spurted from her face and chest as though she had been slashed with an invisible sword. She staggered backwards, collided with Draco, and collapsed on to the waterlogged floor with a great splash.
Everything seemed to disappeared around her. All June could see was Draco's crying face hanging over her and moments later, it was joined by Harry's.
Staring at the two of them, June felt life literally starting to flow out of her. And this time, she would not come back. This time, Death awaited.
"MURDER!" she vaguely heard Moaning Myrtle shriek. "MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!"
"No, no, no," Harry said, his face paling more and more as the water started to turn red. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I'm so sorry!"
"June," Draco sobbed, holding her hand. "Don't go, don't go, don't go. Please, don't leave me."
June wanted to tell him—reassure him—but she couldn't. All she could do was stare at him, hoping her eyes told him everything he needed to know.
Her vision started to turn blurry as something black pushed Harry aside and hovered over her.
Death had come.
The pain seemed to fade away. Her sight got better. A groan escaped her lips. Someone wiped the blood off her face. She blinked. It was Severus.
"Sev?" Her voice was hoarse.
"You need the hospital wing," he said. She could detect the worry in it. "There may be a certain amount of scarring, but if you take dittany immediately, we might avoid even that . . . come . . ." He pulled her up and supported June across the bathroom.
"I don't feel good," June admitted quietly, stumbling into Severus.
"You'll be all right, June," he told her, though she noticed him quickening their pace. "I will make sure you are."
June did not reply. It took her everything not to pass out. She vaguely remembered stumbling into the hospital wing, laying on a bed and passing out.
—
It was dark. June tried to open her eyes and succeeded without much resistance. She blinked a couple of times as her surroundings became more clear.
She was in the hospital wing.
Feeling warmth from one hand, she glanced down and saw Draco sitting onto a chair next to her bed. He was holding one of her hands and he seemed to be asleep.
"He hasn't left your side," a voice from her other side came.
Turning her head, June saw Severus sitting in the other chair. She raised her hand to rub her eyes but winced when she still felt her chest hurting. She lifted the hem of her shirt and saw that her upper body was fully bandaged.
"I'm afraid you'll have a scar," Severus said, a guilty expression crossing his face.
June dropped her shirt and put her hand on the mattress as she tried to sit up.
"Easy now," Severus said, helping her up.
Draco stirred but did not wake up. June glanced up at Severus. "Is there any way I can help him?"
Severus gave her a look that said that would be the stupidest thing on earth.
"You know nothing about this, June," he quietly said. "It would be wise to keep your nose out of this. He doesn't want you involved." He dark eyes darted to Draco. "It is up to him and him alone."
Juniper pursed her lips. "How can you just sit and do nothing?"
"I'm already doing everything I can," Severus flashed back. "Stay out of it, June, I mean it."
He stood up, gave her once last glance, before striding out of the hospital wing. June sighed and looked back at Draco. A straw of platinum blond hair had fallen in front of his closed eyes and she carefully tucked it back behind his ear. Draco stirred and opened his eyes. He blinked a couple of times before fixing them on her.
"June!" he said, relief clear in his voice as he leaped towards her to hug her.
"Careful!" Madam Pomfrey said. "She has yet to make a full recovery!"
Draco did not pull back, but June could feel his tight loosening up. His shoulders shook and much to her surprise, she noticed he was crying.
Gesturing for Madam Pomfrey to leave them alone (which she reluctantly did), June proceeded to rub Draco's back, muttering comforting words.
"I'm sorry," Draco sobbed, his face still burried in her stomach. "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, Draco," June said, going with her hand through his wary hair. "I understand."
His head snapped up. His cheeks were stained with tears, but his eyes were full of horror.
"Y-you know?" His voice was barely a whisper.
June merely nodded.
New tears filled his eyes. "I didn't want you to know. I didn't want you to see me like this. I wanted you to think I was good. That I am good. But I'm not." He pulled back, wiping the tears away. He stood up, his eyes filled with sadness. "They are coming, June."
☆ ☆ ☆
Published 11.06.2022
I hope you enjoyed it & tell me what you think of it!
Will Draco get his redemption? Who knows?
I hope you are all doing great :)
— Laura