George, Fred, and I sat inside of the three broomsticks, waiting for Ron to come down with his class on their field trip. Instead of Ron however, we received an owl from the school telling us of Ron's poisoning.
~~~~
"So, all in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?" said Fred.
It was evening; the hospital wing was quiet, the windows curtained, the lamps lit. Ron's was the only occupied bed. Harry, Hermione, and Ginny were sitting around him; they had spent all day waiting outside the double doors, trying to see inside whenever somebody went in or out. Fred, George, and I arrived by the time that Madam Pomfrey was allowing visitors.
"This isn't how we imagined handing over our present," said George 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," said Fred.
"There we were in Hogsmeade, waiting to surprise him --" said George.
"You were in Hogsmeade?" asked Ginny, looking up.
"We were thinking of buying Zonko's," said Fred 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 anymore ... 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 proceeded to recount the tale of woe about Ron drinking a love potion, and Slughorn making the antidote, and about the poisoned mead.
"... and then I got the bezoar down his throat and his breathing eased up a bit. Slughorn ran for help, McGonagall 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," said George in a low voice.
"Lucky there was one in the room," said Harry, looking rather uneasy.
"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?" I asked quietly.
"Yes," said Harry at once; he could think of nothing else and was glad for the opportunity to start discussing it again. "Slughorn poured it out --"
"Would he have been able to slip something into Ron's glass without you seeing?" Fred interrupted.
"Probably," said Harry, "but why would Slughorn want to poison Ron?"
"No idea," said Fred, 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?" asked Ginny.
"I dunno," said Fred, "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?" said Ginny.
"Anything's possible," said Fred darkly.
"He could be under the Imperius Curse," said George.
"Or he could be innocent," said Ginny. "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," 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 had been planning to give that bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas," I reminded him. "So the poisoner could just as easily have been after Dumbledore."
"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 I known there was a good chance he'd keep something that tasty for himself."
"Er-my-nee," croaked Ron unexpectedly from between us.
We 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 toward us, 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 okay."
"No more than six visitors at a time!" said Madam Pomfrey, hurrying out of her office.
"I'll leave." I awkwardly grinned and stepped into the hallway.
There I caught a slight glimpse of a patch of blonde hair on a tall and lean body. Draco. He looked sickly, his usually white skin now looking more grey, even the slight ever present blush on his cheeks seemingly invisible. We made eye contact only for a split second, before he quickly turned away and stalked off in the opposite direction.