“No, Colin, you’re all right, okay?”

My mouth was dry as I formed the words, holding onto the sweaty hand in my grasp. Weeks had passed, and the hospital wing continued to grow more crowded by the minute. Students began to arrive in droves, assisted by those too stupid to stay away. Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas now sat in a bed next to my own, each suffering seizures and spats of fever here and there before falling into uncomfortable slumber. Lavender Brown was tucked into a corner, and had failed to awake for breakfast that morning. And I was standing over Colin Creevey, who appeared to be seeing things that I could not.

“They’re reaching out for me, Harry,” he said, his eyes focused on something entirely invisible. It was beginning to scare me, that blank look. His eyes were glazed, his heart beating feebly in his wrist. I gripped his fingers tighter, praying a silent prayer. This couldn’t be happening, he had only been sick for a few days. But the small body was writhing in the sheets, attempting to fight off a power that was stronger than anything in the castle. I turned about, looking for Madam Pomfrey. I called out and she came running, leaving Hermione’s bedside for a moment to come peek at the boy who appeared to be fading away all too quickly.

“Professor,” Colin uttered, and he seemed to smile.

“No, Colin,” I told him. “No, that’s Madam Pomfrey, that is. She’s gonna take good care of you, you’ll see.”

Colin’s eyes gave a final roll, and then I heard him take one rattling breath. His grasp upon my hand grew limp, and I watched as he stared up at the ceiling.

No. No, it doesn’t kill. It hasn’t killed.

But that had changed. For as Madam Pomfrey bent to feel Colin’s forehead, I continued to watch his face. His hand, though warm, was growing heavy. It was like holding some kind of toy, the way it continued to remain stationary. And as I looked down at him, his lips began to turn paler and paler. I swallowed the stale air that hung over the body and released him, backing up as though I were afraid he may rise and kill me. But those once excited, exhilarated eyes would never open again. The light had left them, the life had expired within them, and they were nothing but a plain, flat line in death.

“Potter,” I heard Madam Pomfrey utter, but I wasn’t listening to her. I left the bedside, wanting nothing more than to leave the wing itself. But I was sick, though I did not yet know how. I had failed to fall victim to a seizure, never lost consciousness. The only time I seemed to exhibit symptoms was when I ran a fever, and that was only once or twice a week. My dreams at night were troubled, it was true, and there were hours in which I did not feel like myself entirely. But I had been employed as a sort of nurse for those too sick to rise from their beds, served potions to those who needed them, and kept those who remained awake company. I ran from the sight of Colin and Death to the sink on the far wall and retched from something that had nothing to do with illness. I thought at first that it was shock that made my stomach sour. But as I continued to look into the depths of the drain, my heart gave a lurch as I realized that it was not shock at all. This, all of this, was because of me. Hermione had spoken of an attack on a public building, had predicted it would be Hogwarts. And the reason for it all? Me. Voldemort sought to weaken me, to allow me to sit back and watch as my friends fell victim to this evil while I remained healthy and somehow sick. My fault…as was everything else. It would be better if I could have changed places with Colin, allowed myself to be taken by the Grim Reaper. His death couldn’t have been real, I thought at first. But now I realized that it was, and that there would only be more.

“Harry,” a voice called out to me, and I knew it all too well. Whirring away from the cold porcelain of the sink, I saw Hermione, sweat on her brow but looking marvelously well otherwise. I gulped away the sickness that threatened to come again and made my way over to her. She was smiling a miniscule, pained smile, but I could see essentially that she wasn’t feeling too horrible. I kneeled down beside her and took her hand in mine, holding it tightly. Her eyes made their way to Colin’s bed, where Madam Pomfrey was drawing a sheet up over his face. A few students around him who were well enough to see what was going on gasped, while others began to cry. Hermione, the strength within her heart reflected in those chocolate oceans of happiness, remained brave and apparently unbothered by him.

“He died, then?” she asked, and I felt myself nod. There was something hot in my own eyes, but I blinked it away. Hermione’s arm shook a bit from what I knew to be chills, but as I looked back at her, she didn’t lay back or show her exhaustion. “He was really sick when they brought him in. And I think he might be the only one, it doesn’t seem like anybody’s…well…”

But I knew she was making that part up, mainly to assure herself that she would be okay. The truth was, none of us knew what to expect. There was only one person who knew how to end the suffering taking place at the castle, and he was somewhere far away from us. The cure he held would have to be forced away from him, and the chances of someone surviving to obtain it were slim to none. No one could leave to get it, and there was only one person whom would be able to carry out the task that it would require. And here I was, already infected and trapped, unable to go out and defeat Voldemort. God only knew when I would finally begin to exhibit the symptoms.

But Ron said you were different. There won’t be symptoms.

But Ron had been wrong, for I wasn’t sick at all.

“I’m going to get you out of this, Hermione,” I promised her, and I felt myself draw her fingers up to my mouth. She closed her eyes, as if to really feel the kiss. I pulled my hand up to brush her feverish cheek, and then I leaned into her gently. She tasted of struggle, of something that I did not yet know, but I wanted so badly to find out so that I could save her. And then, I felt the room spin. At first, I thought that it was from my elation at being close to her again, to knowing her like I wanted to know her and from the small piece of happiness that I gripped in the darkness that had become my life. But then, something changed entirely. My thoughts were not my own anymore, and I had left the hospital wing all together. I was no longer with Hermione, no longer in the same room as anyone.

“Harry,” called a voice in the whiteness. The walls, the grass upon which I stood, everything was a white of some kind. The brightness of the place threatened to blind me, but I kept my eyes open in search of the voice. It was soothing, inviting somehow. I allowed it to envelop me, wrap itself completely and totally around me. I gave myself over to it, hoping that it would tell me to do something. I was a slave to its bidding, to its word. “Take her,” it said, and I longed to understand it. “Take her away from this place. Get her out in the way that you see fit. She doesn’t want this pain. Bring her…bring her away from it all.”

“Who are you?” I asked the voice.

“Whose what?” someone asked me from far away, but they didn’t matter, for I could not see who spoke. The whiteness did not dissipate, and my ears were only sensitive to the questions the voice asked me.

“Listen to me, Harry,” it demanded, and I closed my eyes so as to allow the voice to enter into me without being disturbed by anything…sight or feel or anything. “Take hold of her. Don’t let go. Just take hold of her like you know you want to.”

My fingers enclosed over something, and I heard a relinquishing sound of gasping and moaning. Part of me dreaded the sound, and part of me relished in it. My grip was like stone upon the being in my hands, and then the whiteness was gone. I swirled between reality and the other land, and when my eyes snapped open, I let out a shriek of fear. My hands were gripping Hermione’s throat in a deadly fashion, choking the life from her weak body. Not knowing how or why I was strangling her, the panic began to flood from her into me. I released her instantly, and I heard her gulp for air and cough as I crashed to the floor. She rolled over to the side of the bed and vomited, causing Madam Pomfrey to come running from the corpse she was tending to and reach for Hermione’s shoulder. She steadied her up in bed and wiped her mouth, but Hermione flung her away.

“I’m fine!” she insisted, though her throat was raw. I did not dare get up from the floor, I was shaking so badly. I was beginning to feel the cold sweat on my face and my body, and I realized my robes were drenched in it. My head was spinning still, and I had to blink several times. Each time my eyes closed, they did not meet the usual blackness but rather white, something very bright and unusual. It took all of the will power I possessed not to allow myself to slip back into the land that had invited me to strangle Hermione. And I remembered Ginny as well. Hermione, still being fussed over by Madam Pomfrey, did not seem to be frightened. “I’m all right, but check on Harry, he seems to…to have collapsed.”

Madam Pomfrey came over to take a look at me. I didn’t want to meet her gaze, didn’t want her to look at me for fear I might repeat my actions. I felt her cool hand on the back of my neck, and I welcomed its pressure, though I didn’t want it.

“Potter?” the nurse said, and there was a string of concern in her voice. I didn’t move, but merely continued to stare at the ground. “Are you all right? Do you feel faint?”

“No, Madam Pomfrey,” I answered, but it was a lie. In truth, I didn’t even know if I could stand up. “I’m fine. Like I always am.”

Madam Pomfrey said nothing, but continued to lean down and look at me.

“It’s just…it was Colin,” I said, “and his death. It threw me a little.”

“He confirmed it,” Madam Pomfrey replied, her voice grim. “The fact that this illness is deadly.”

The doors to the hospital wing burst open in that moment. I snapped my head up and peered over the edge of Hermione’s bed. She instinctively groped for my head and grabbed my hair. I pushed myself up to take her hand, resisting the urge to fall down upon the mattress and let my mind sleep. There stood Ron, his face ashen and grim, carrying what appeared at first to be a bundle of robes. But as I looked closer, I could make a face out from under the emerald material gathered in his arms. It was Professor McGonagall, gone rigid after a seizure. Swallowing hard, I released Hermione’s hand and dragged myself over to them. Ron seemed to want to hold her, but I supported her on my shoulder, her weight pressing down on me like an anvil. And I set her down on the mat that Madam Pomfrey had conjured, for there were not enough beds left to accommodate her.

“It started in the common room,” Ron said, and he seemed to be reliving the incident. “She was talking to the ten of us still left there, and then she just started coughing. And the seizure started after that.” I realized that, though there was a small amount of fear in his voice, he seemed rather calm. Just as he always did where the disease was concerned. Like he didn’t underestimate it at all. He looked at me. The hatred in his eyes at my going out with Hermione had not disappeared, but there was something that mimicked desperation there too.

“You’ve got to find the cure, Harry,” he said to me, blatantly. He looked around, as though expecting to be caught in blowing a large secret. “You’re the only one with the power to defeat him and take it. You’ve got to find the solution before it’s too late for all of them.”

“Them?” I asked him, and I felt myself sway as the room gave a spin. “What about you? Whose to say you won’t get sick?”

Ron said nothing, but took a chance glance at Ginny. She was sitting up in bed with her feet dangling over the side, talking to Neville who lay beside her. I felt a pang enter into my stomach, and for some reason found myself wishing to be the boy next to her. But I was with Hermione now, and that was enough for me.

“It’s not safe for you to be around them, Harry,” Ron said. “And it’s true, you’re getting sick too. But sick in your mind, not your body.”

I cocked my head and glared at him. What did he mean by that? And how did he know?

“What?”

“The Dark Lord has infected you in your thoughts and mind,” Ron said. “He has set it so that by the time you’re able to battle him, you won’t have the sanity to do it properly. You’ll be dead before you can muster up the brainpower to utter a single curse or jinx. And if you stay here and don’t search for that cure, the time you have runs short. The time you have to help them,” he gestured out to the invalids lying on the beds, “and yourself. And my sister and…and Hermione.”

I didn’t understand what he was saying at all. Me? Insane? Two words I knew very well, but I didn’t want to think about. It had happened only once before, the thought that I might very well be going out of my mind. Fifth year. It had been a nightmare. But now…was I truly losing my mind? The look in Ron’s eyes told me yes. And it also told me that I needed to leave…to leave and attempt to find the cure before it was too late for me or the others.

“How do you know these things, Ron?”

“It doesn’t matter how I know them,” Ron said. “It just matters that I know they’re true. So if you want to play the hero again, I’d say now’s the time to do it.”

Nodding, I took a look at Hermione. She coughed a bit and shot a glance in my direction. Her chocolate eyes invited me to swim, but I looked away in fear. I didn’t want to be pulled into that land of whiteness again, didn’t want to endanger her. With a final nod at Ron, I sauntered over to where she lay. His gaze followed me, and I thought I saw a scowl appear on his face before he swept from the room all together.

“Listen to me, Hermione,” I said to her. “I’ve got to go somewhere. I’ve got to leave and find a way to stop all of this.”

“But I just saw you a moment ago,” she replied. “There’s something wrong with you, Harry. You’re infected, don’t you forget that! You can’t just go off and think that you’ll be okay.”

“It’s our only chance,” I said. “If I don’t leave now, I’ll never be able to…to do what must be done to save us.”

“I don’t trust him anymore, Harry,” Hermione said, and she gestured towards the empty doorway. She took a labored breath in, as though she were attempting to fight some fit off. I brushed the sweat laced hair from her face. “He’s changed…it’s almost like he’s tainted. With what, I don’t know, but he’s not Ron anymore. At least, not in the sense we know.”

“I know that,” I murmured, and I didn’t want to tell her my theories. The way he had called Voldemort The Dark Lord stuck fast in my mind. “But his is the only word we have. If I die, I die. But I’m going to do it knowing that I was trying my best to save all of you. To save us.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but never got the chance. Her chest heaved, and she gave into a fit of coughing. She looked away to cough into the sheets, and then I swallowed the impulse to gag as I saw what lay on the material. A spot of red…blood. That’s how it had started with Colin. And I couldn’t sit there anymore. Pushing myself from the mattress, I kissed her briskly on the cheek.

“Wait,” I heard her choke, but I didn’t turn around. I was rushing out the door, turning corners and rushing up staircases. I entered the Gryffindor common room, grabbed my pack, my Cloak, my wand, and a few clothes, and swept from the dormitory. No one would have even known I was there, save for one red headed boy tucked out of my sight in a corner. There was a grimace on his face, and a breath of hope in his heart. I didn’t see him, didn’t hear him, but he said something that I thought I could feel as I stepped out of the portrait hole.

“Good luck, Harry.”