Happy reading you awesome peeps :)
It was the second lesson of apparating that Al managed to do it properly, much to Hermione and Harry's combined delight and jealousy. She'd run out of her first roll of film for her camera, as she'd given free access to her camera on Christmas day, so now she needed to get it developed, which they'd do for her at the post office in Hogsmeade. However, she was sorely disappointed, when that particular trip to Hogsmeade was cancelled, so she had to send the film off with Dill instead.
"Hardly surprising though is it?" Harry said to Ron and her as they walked to lunch from Transfiguration. "After what happened to Katie?"
"No, I guess not," Al said looking to Ron, who was even more disappointed than she was. It was his birthday that weekend. "I've got that bottle I've firewhiskey from last Christmas," Al said casually, "We could pop that open in the Room of Requirement instead if you want?"
Ron perked up considerably at this. "That'd be great! Thanks Al!"
Al ploughed through Friday, and kept her head down on Saturday, feeling very excited for that evening. But when she arrived back from the Duelling Club there was a huddle of students waiting outside the common room, all of them from the advanced group, and all of them from different houses. "There she is!" someone from the middle called.
"What's going on?" she asked cheerily, but her mood dropped at the sight of them. "What's happened?" she asked feeling the grin fall from her face.
Anne stepped forward urgently as everyone else watched on. "It's Ron Weasley - he's been taken to the hospital wing." Al swallowed a lump in her throat and headed off in the direction of the hospital wing at a brisk trot, the group of about six students flurrying behind her.
"Freddie Chadwick said he's been poisoned," Anne's friend Marlene said, walking quickly at Al's side. "They're not sure if he'll..."
"If he'll what?" Al snapped, and Marlene fell quiet at her side. "Sorry, Marlene," she said quickly, "I'm just-"
"Stressed," Marlene finished for her, "It's fine, I get it." Thankfully, she sounded as though she did.
They reached the hospital wing, and Al turned to face them all. "Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention - I'll let your heads of houses know." They all understood this as a dismissal of sorts, and hurried off, most likely to tell everyone what had happened.
Al opened the door to the hospital wing quietly, so softly that only Ginny looked up when she walked in. Al produced what she hoped was a comforting smile, and walked over to the group, spotting George sat in a chair by Ron's bed. "Hello, Love," he said quietly, as Al put her hands on his shoulders and squeezed them. "How are you?"
He turned his head to face her over his shoulder, and Al bent down and kissed him lightly, before pulling up her own chair and letting him lean into her side, playing with his beautifully soft hair. "Better than Ron, apparently." Fred and George produced identical, if faint, chuckles. "What happened?"
Harry told her the story about how he'd accidentally taken some love potion and Slughorn had fixed him a cure, before they opened a bottle of mead and Ron drank some and then fell to the ground. "And Slughorn didn't do it?"
"No," Harry said firmly.
"So it was already in the bottle then," Al said, receiving nods, "But who'd want to poison Slughorn?"
"Voldemort," Harry suggested, and Al shrugged. She supposed he was right, but if that was the case then Slughorn would be dead.
"But Harry," Ginny said, "You said the bottle was supposed to be for Dumbledore." Al sat up straighter at this, and hoped no one had noticed. That meant that the mead, like the necklace, had been from Draco Malfoy.
"What kind of mead was it?" Al asked, only half-joking.
"Oak-matured," Harry replied gloomily. Al sat up even straighter.
"Ow," George said, sitting up and rubbing his head. "Yank my hair out why don't-"
"Harry," Al said quietly but firmly, cutting George off, "Where've you had oak-matured mead before?"
"I dunno," Harry shrugged, "Dumbledore gave us some, but-"
"And where did Dumbledore get it?" Al pushed.
"He said it was Rosmerta's finest, if that's what you mean," Harry said, "But that's what this bottle was too."
"Right," Al said, "Now think back to Katie Bell's attack. Where did it happen?"
"In that street," Harry said, frowning.
"It was the girls loos in the Three Broomsticks," Hermione said quietly, speaking for the first time. "That's where she was imperioused."
"Exactly," Al said.
"You're not saying...Madame Rosmerta...?" Harry said frowning.
"Well, maybe she's got something to do with it," Al said. Fred and George burst out laughing.
"Rosmerta is not a Death Eater," Fred said, looking on the verge of tears as he laughed.
"Well, neither was Katie or Slughorn," Al said.
"You think she might be imperioused?" Harry asked, and then something clicked in his mind. "Then, Malfoy could've been at school while she did his dirty work! It fits!"
"No, it doesn't, Harry," Hermione said, both exasperated and firm.
"Er-my-nee," Ron croaked, drawing everyone's attention. The room was silent except for the faint and raspy breaths of Ron. Then, the doors burst open, and Hagrid walked in, looking over at Ron.
"Sorry I only jus' got 'ere-" he began, but Madame Pomfrey came rushing out.
"Six visitors only!" she said, looking furiously at them all.
"I'll go," Al volunteered, getting up reluctantly. "See you," she said to them all, bending down and giving George another quick kiss.
"Bye, Love," he said quietly. Al gave Harry a quick hug, before heading down to the Great Hall for a late dinner.
*****
Al was enjoying the peace and quiet of the castle during the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff quidditch match by reading the duelling book that Remus had given her. She was almost finished now, and only had a few chapters left of it. She was rather enjoying herself until a first-year Gryffindor girl came running up the stairs. "Hermione Granger sent me to find you," she panted, and Al immediately stood up in concern for her, hoping she didn't have asthma or something. "Harry Potter's been hit in the back of the head with a bludger."
Al's stomach dropped and she felt her hands go clammy, "Did he fall?" she asked, already panicking. Harry had had plenty of quidditch accidents before, but he was bound to run out of luck at some point.
The first-year nodded, trotting beside her. "Quite far, I think." Al swallowed the lump in her throat as she burst into the hospital wing. The Gryffindor quidditch team were crowded around him, and Hermione sat between Harry and Ron's beds.
"Only six visitors!" Madame Pomfrey screeched from where she was hovering over Harry's bloody face.
The two people in beater's uniforms stood up, but Al stopped them, "Did either of you hit the bludger?" she asked, and the smaller one looked a little bit scared.
"No," he said, shaking his head. Al nodded once and jerked her hand ever so slightly, waving them away. They hurried off, clearly seeing the anger that seeped through Al's very veins.
She sat down in a chair next to Harry's bed. He looked pale and ghostly, like he'd lost a lot of blood. It seemed like it was all over the bed. "Who did it?" she asked, her throat dry as a couple of tears dripped down her face.
"McLaggen," Ginny said bitterly from where she stood next to Hermione.
"I'm going to kill him," Al whispered, her teeth grinding.
"No, you're not," Hermione said quietly and warmly. Al supposed she was right. She wasn't sure if she quite had the energy to anyway. She was shaking with fear, or rage; she wasn't sure which.
"He'll be okay?" Al asked Madame Pomfrey, who had now straightened up and stepped back.
"He's fought off worse," Pomfrey reassured her, and Al was rather worryingly reminded of her first stay in the hospital wing, when Harry had actually fought Voldemort for the second time. She took a deep breath and looked back to Harry, her hand gripping his so tightly she thought she might break it off.