Hermione lay in my arms, panting uncontrollably. She continued to twist and seize violently in my grasp. I saw the sweat gather at her brow, and her hands were hot in mine. Her face was flushed red, and her eyes rolled back in their sockets as she fainted and grew still. The color drained from my own face as I attempted to revive her. There was a pulse beating in her neck, but it was fast and irregular. I knew that McGonagall was standing over me still, unable to fathom what had happened.
“Potter, what did she say to you?” she asked me, but I wasn’t listening. I was trying desperately to shake Hermione awake, searching for some kind of explanation. Infected? What did she mean by infected? Infected with what? A disease? Or perhaps she meant she was possessed by Voldemort?
“We must move her Potter,” McGonagall said, though her voice was unsure. Neither of us knew how safe it would be to move Hermione in such a condition. The small crowd that had gathered around us seemed to back away slowly, as though transfixed by the small, unconscious figure lying so limply on my lap. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I recognized the pressure instantly. Ginny was there, hoping to give me strength. But I didn’t need it. I stood up on my own, and Hermione’s head flopped down somewhat. I placed a hand beneath her thick, brown curls, the entirety of my arms focused on cradling her like a child. To anyone else, she would have been dead weight. But to me, she was as light as a feather, as easy to carry as a baby would have been. The strain did not seem to affect me, I was so concentrated on getting her somewhere safe. My mind was numb as Ginny motioned to Neville.
“Let me help you with her, Harry,” he said to me.
“No,” I felt myself say, though the voice did not sound as though it belonged to me. “No, I’ve got her.”
McGonagall was walking in haste beside me, her fingers knotted in worry and anxiety.
“We must send an owl to St. Mungo’s,” she said.
“No!” I answered quickly, and she turned to me as if in awe and confusion.
“Potter, we cannot identify the condition she is in!” she retorted, staring at me as if I were some sort of madman. “Madam Pomfrey may not be able to cure her of whatever this is that she has, and we cannot be sure it is not by Spell Damage that she has succumbed to this kind of state! She has to be sent off to a professional, and she must be taken care of by the physicians at the hospital! Here, she may die within a few short days!”
“She can’t be around people,” I uttered, and part of me didn’t understand why. I had no right to argue whether or not Hermione should be sent to St. Mungo’s. But something in my gut told me that there was storm coming, and I would rather have it concentrated in a small area than raining down over the entire Wizarding community. “She…she told me that…”
“What is it, Potter?” McGonagall asked. “What did she say?”
“She said that…that she was infected,” I finished, though I didn’t bother to tell her that she had said that I too had the disease. I didn’t feel there was a need to mention it. “She didn’t tell me how she knew it or what she had. All she said was that she wanted everyone to stay away from her because she was sick…er…or something along those lines.”
McGonagall looked at me, her face strewn with questions she knew I could not answer. I, after all, did not know what had happened in the cabin at Spinner’s End. All I did know was that Snape, in some way or another, had been good and that Draco had killed him. I knew that Hermione, at some point, had been tortured and abused. And I knew that Bellatrix had to be in on that in some form or other. But I couldn’t understand what Hermione had been talking about before she had passed out. I had never heard of Voldemort using an infectious disease or anything to cause wizards to suffer. But something was going right for them, and I knew it. I remembered the smirk on Valil’s face as I had Disapparated with Hermione in my arms, and I knew that it couldn’t be a good sign. His eerie blue had reflected a gleam of triumph, and it was enough to send me spiraling into that dark abyss known as uneasiness.
“When we were leaving, I saw Valil,” I told her, “and he didn’t seem troubled about letting us go. Instead he acted…well, he seemed happy. Victorious almost. There was this look in his eye…something that just doesn’t seem good. There’s this feeling that I have that…I don’t know…that this is only the beginning of something.”
A sudden wave of dizziness broke over me. The room seemed to spin around, colors swirling together. Hermione’s body teetered in my arms, and I felt McGonagall reach for her as I swiveled forward. For a moment, they both disappeared from view all together, and then slowly began to fade back in. I shut my eyes for a quick moment, as though in a long blink, and then opened them again. The Headmistress was staring at me in nervous curiosity.
“You all right, Potter?” she asked me. I didn’t want to answer, for I would have had to lie. The dizziness was beginning to churn down in my stomach, and it took all of the will power within me to swallow the urge to retch. Then, as soon as it had come, the feeling vanished. I was standing before McGonagall, my palms sweating but my heart rate calming down, as though I had just come back from a long, vigorous run. “Potter? Do you want me to take her?”
“No, I’m fine,” I answered. “I just hit my head back at the shack, and I guess I had a small headache from it or something.”
She didn’t seem to care about that. Instead, she placed both hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. “You said you thought it was the beginning of something?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m almost positive of it.”
“What is it?”
“I…I’ve really got no idea,” I replied, and then I felt something tug on my shirt. I looked down and found myself looking into the chocolate eyes that I knew so well. Hermione clawed at my shirt again, and I stopped and bent down on the ground, resting her body against my knee.
“What?” I asked her anxiously, stroking her feverish forehead with my hand. “What is it?”
“He knows,” I heard her choke, her throat raw from struggling to breathe. I shook my head, not understanding. She inhaled, wheezing, and then looked at McGonagall. “Ask Ron.” Then, she was out again. And as I stood up, she began to seize. I couldn’t contain myself anymore. I made a run for it, Hermione’s body bouncing as my feet made impact with the ground.
“Harry, wait!” McGonagall called after me, but I wasn’t listening. In that moment, there was no disease or Voldemort. There was no Valil and eerie eyes. There was only an ill Hermione, lying unresponsive and possibly dying in my unhelpful arms. I ran up the stairs, desperately hoping that they would turn quickly into their rightful cases. Then, as if by some spell, I stood in front of the hospital wing and forced the double doors open with my shoulder. Madam Pomfrey, alerted already by some student or a whisper that reverberated through the ghosts at Hogwarts, motioned for me to drop her in a bed. I obeyed, watching as Hermione shook violently in the bed. Her body contorted into twisted shapes, her head jerked from one side to the other. Her eyes opened for a fraction of a second as she looked at me, and then it shut again. McGonagall rushed to her side, and she took my hand as if to squeeze it, but I pulled away. I was rushing away again, down the hall, my mind focused on Hermione’s words. I descended staircase after staircase, waiting, waiting, waiting. I had to stop once, as the room had begun to spin again, and then I stopped and looked at the ceiling. Pushing through the pain, my mind focused only on the sick girl above me, I made my way into the Great Hall. The group that had gathered around Hermione were still there, whispering in a circle to one another. They spotted me, and some backed away as though scared. Others began to tail me, throwing question after question at my back.
“Is she all right, Harry?”
“What happened to her?”
“Is she sick, Harry?”
“What’s she got?”
“Do you know who did this, Harry?”
Harry, Harry, Harry. How cursed my name could be. Like a parasite, echoes of it followed me all the way to the end of the Gryffindor table. Ron sat there, his fingers knotted together, staring at the wood. He knew I was there, but would not turn around to face me. I could see him huff as I stopped walking.
“Talk,” I demanded of him, but he still would not budge. I watched him tap a finger on the table, and then I felt the rage boil up inside of me. The monster that had once roared because of a simple kiss in the hallway was now flying, up into my throat. The fire erupted out of my mouth, and I flung my hands onto the back of Ron’s robes and pulled him around. I slammed his back into the table, out of my skull and my own mind. My actions were not my own anymore…they were being driven by anger, fear, and the pain of not being able to understand what was going on. “TELL ME! SHE SAID YOU KNEW, SO YOU TELL ME NOW! YOU TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO KNOW!”
Ron’s eyes were wide in surprise and fright. There were different hands on my shoulders now, attempting to hold me back. But I couldn’t help myself. I seized the collar of Ron’s robes and pulled him up out of his seat, my own strength overwhelming me. I shook him back and forth violently, his neck bouncing back and forth.
“TELL ME, RON! TELL ME NOW!’
“I don’t know anything!” he squeaked, but the look in his eyes told me differently. He was lying, and somehow I knew it. I could see the answers there in his gaze, and I felt like Voldemort, reading a person’s mind. Legilimency. I was performing it here, on my best friend. But he wasn’t my best friend anymore. He had turned into something else entirely, and I was going to find out what that something else was if it killed me.
In his eyes, something surfaced. It wasn’t as clear as I thought it would have been, and I realized that it was because I wasn’t good at it. I had never mastered Occlumency, so how could I hope to be a good Legilimens? But there was something there, and it was dark and shadowy. I couldn’t make it out though…it was just a simple, black smudge of some kind or other. I threw him from me and back onto the seat as my mind whirred, trying to identify the object. Then, I felt myself sink to the floor, my vision cloudy and foggy. The group of people moved in closer, and I heard from a distance Ginny murmuring, “Back up! He needs air!”
My heart was beating in my ears, and I could feel the blood drain from my own face. Something was happening to me, and it wasn’t anything good. Again, the room began to spin. I could hardly feel Ginny’s hands on my shoulders anymore, and then my knees collided with the stone floor. My face hit the cold marble, but I wasn’t in my body anymore. I was in darkness, and it swirled around me, engulfing me. There was a single light in the center of it all, a harmonious blue in the sea of black. And then, there was a soft, cooing voice inside my head. It told me to grab hold, to hold on and squeeze tighter, and I obeyed it. I didn’t know what I was squeezing, didn’t know what I was doing. My mind had broken, my arms were shaking as I heard sputtering, and then something collided with my ear. I blinked and then fell backwards, having stood up again. And Ginny was up against Neville, her hand clasped around her throat, gasping for air. Neville’s fist was raised, and the entire room was staring at me as if I had just killed someone. Ron was on his feet, his own fists clenched. And the cold sweat washed over me again and I backed myself into a wall.
“What…what did I just…” I felt myself stuttering, but I couldn’t form words. It was like my tongue was dying, numbed from a Killing Curse. My thoughts wouldn’t gather, and I was sinking again, sinking towards the floor. I forced myself to remain standing.
Infected, Hermione’s voice said in the back of my pulsing brain, but I knew this couldn’t have anything to do with an illness. No, it was something all together different. And I didn’t have the answers to either of the problems that I faced. But Ron did. Ron, who stood there staring as though I were a criminal. He held the key to the facts, and I had to unlock the door.
“Harry,” I heard Neville say, “I think you need to…to sit down. Something’s not quite right with you right now. You…you need to go and si…”
“No,” I interrupted, though I wanted badly to obey him. My legs were shaking beneath my own weight, but somehow I remained upright. I focused on Ron, my thoughts clinging onto the real person in front of me. And suddenly, the bout of dizziness, of insanity, began to lift. I was myself again, and the color returning to my cheeks. I had thrown it off casually, almost like a cloak, and now I was able to talk to him the way I wanted to. I pointed at him. “I want answers from you. I don’t care if I have to torture you to get them, either.”
Ron opened his mouth as if to begin to answer, but he never got the chance. At that moment, I heard someone behind me.
“HARRY!”
I turned to see Professor McGonagall, out of breath and leaning against the wall as though she might topple over were it not for its support. She heaved in gulps of air as I approached her, leaving Ron.
“It’s…it’s an attack,” she breathed, and I cocked my head to the side and stared at her. “There…there’s an illness. Hermione and you…you both have it. And we believe that Voldemort created it. It doesn’t seem that we can…we can…”
“What?” I asked her desperately, but she shook her head.
“We can’t do anything!” she replied, and then I heard Neville shriek behind me.
“GINNY!” he shouted, and I whipped around. This couldn’t be happening. She’d only been around Hermione for a few minutes, a few small moments. This…this wasn’t possible. But as I turned, I knew that a nightmare was being realized. Ginny was held up in Neville’s arms, her hand on her chest. Heaving, she began to shake in Neville’s grip.
“NEVILLE, GET AWAY FROM HER NOW!” I screamed, desperate to protect him. But he wouldn’t move. He held onto her as she began to shake like Hermione had, the violence of the fit threatening to send them both falling to the ground. I rushed forward, not realizing what I was doing. Supporting Ginny’s flailing head, I stared back at Ron, whose face was ashen. He took a step forward, and I drew my wand.
“You stay away from all of us!” I ordered him.
“She’s my sister, Harry!” Ron reminded me, but I shook my head.
“I don’t know how or why, Ron,” I said to him, “but you’ve got something to do with this. I can sense it. And I’m not letting you get near any of us! I don’t care who you’re related to, if you take another step towards any of us, I’ll blast you right through that window!”
And I meant it. I didn’t know what Ron was up to, or what he had been doing, but there was something different about him. The fact that he hadn’t been surprised at Hermione’s fit, how he had known where I needed to go…none of it seemed right. And I bent down to Neville again, who lay sobbing over Ginny’s body.
“Professor!” I said to McGonagall, more in desperation and uncertainty than anything. She shook her head at me, signaling that she was at a loss for what to do as much as I was.
“An attack,” I uttered more to myself, “are you sure, Professor?”
“It fits, Harry,” she said anxiously, and I saw fear in her eyes. “You…you left that place! And now…and now Ginny too!”
“I’ll take her to the hospital wing!” Neville bellowed.
“No!” I told him. “No, I’ll do it! I’m already exposed, probably already sick in…in some way!”
I took Ginny into my arms, and then glared back at Ron. His eyes were full of the emotion I had seen when we were twelve and being attacked by spiders. And there was a certain bit of bitterness there too, but I don’t know who it was intended for. I rose up, his sister cradled in my arms just as Hermione had been. And then I heard him cry out.
“NOT YOU!” he shouted, and I turned abruptly around as Ginny’s body finally came out of seizing and grew limp in my arms. I glared at him.
“What did you say?” I asked him, and he rushed forward and took Ginny from my arms.
“I’ll take her,” he snapped, and he pried her away from me. My eyes shot daggers at him.
“Why?”
“Because,” he choked, “you’ll kill her before you get up to the floor. Your…your disease will make you kill her.”
“What?” I asked, not understanding.
“You aren’t sick like they are, Harry,” Ron said, and there was a trace of remorse throughout his cold tone. “He’s done something…different with you.”
“And what is that?” I asked. “And furthermore, how do you know?”
But I never got my answer. Ginny had begun to seize again, and Ron rushed up toward a staircase. My eyes followed him, and he was almost out of sight when he turned. His mouth moved to form words, but they were drowned out by screams. And as I turned, I saw Neville collapse on the floor, his legs buckling underneath him. And I knew that this was it. Voldemort’s great attack. A plague on the castle of Hogwarts, an infection that spread like a lightning bolt, sickening one student after another. And it would only be a matter of time before the entire Great Hall was seizing, retching , and sputtering. And I was one of the sick, Ron had said, but not like the others. What was it that set me apart?