A Dark Surprise

Harry was ushered out of the hospital wing before he could object, so he sat outside the door on the cold cement floor. He tried to listen inside to hear what was going on, but it seemed the walls were sound-proofed for this very reason. He sighed slowly and then decided to make his way back to the common room, Hermione wasn’t likely to wake up for a few more hours, and Ron would want to know what was going on. Dumbledore hadn’t let Ron come with them to the hospital wing, the sight of Hermione being hovered stiffly in the air by a wand made him too upset to come along.

      Harry realised he’d left his invisibility cloak in Dumbledore’s office, but he was too distressed to care. Who would do this to Hermione? The person that immediately came to mind was Draco Malfoy, the son of a death eater, who believed that mudbloods such as Hermione weren’t good enough for Hogwarts. He also despised her because she was smarter than anyone in Hogwarts, which likewise was why she would have been the one to hurt him, not the other way around. No, Malfoy wasn’t powerful enough to do this. But if he had his band of followers along, that might be possible.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a canvas bag poking out from under a statue beside him. He knelt down to pick it up, and realised it had the Gryffindor crest on it. With a quick look inside, he could tell it was Hermione’s. He held it to his chest as he continued on his way to the tower, this time running as fast as his tired legs could carry him.

 *******

 By the time Harry got back to the tower, Fred and George were awake with Ron in the common room. The twins were sitting beside each other on the couch where Hermione used to lie, and they seemed to be almost as upset as their younger brother who was sniffling into a handkerchief.

   “What happened?!” Fred demanded of Harry when he saw him come in.

   “Whoa, calm down Fred, it’s not Harry’s fault,” said George to his brother.

    “I have no idea,” sighed Harry, “they wouldn’t let me go into the hospital wing”.

    “Damn,” muttered a previously silent Ron.  

       Harry sat down on the cushioned chair he had been sitting in earlier that night. He bent forward and let his face rest into his open hands, sighing again with grief.

     George broke the silence with the obvious question,

      “So, uh, who do you think did it?”

       Harry just shook his head in exasperation as his answer, still with his head hidden from view.

      “Well, isn’t it obvious it was Malfoy?” asked Ron, looking at everyone’s face in the room in confusion.

        Harry sat back in his chair, and explained what he had figured out before, that Malfoy would need help from a whole lot of his friends in order to do that much harm to Hermione.

       “I’m just scared that they didn’t do it to hurt her”, confessed Harry.

        “What do you mean?” asked a confused Fred.

        “He means that whoever it was might have done it to hurt Harry, you idiot,” explained George.

         “I hate that I didn’t go to check on her. I mean, it was 3 in the morning, who stays in the library til three in the morning?!” screamed Harry.

          “Hermione does, all the time,” answered Ron, “listen Harry, you had no way of knowing she was in trouble, just be glad you were awake in the common room, because she couldn’t have come up the stairs to find you.”

          Harry nodded solemnly, let his head fall back onto the top of the chair, and then took off his glasses to massage his tired eyes.

          The four of them sat there all night long, Fred and George played a record number of games of wizard chess before falling asleep on the couch, and Ron just sat there fuming in his chair. Harry’s eyes began to close around 6 am, when some of the other Gryffindors came downstairs to head off for breakfast. Harry had no desire to explain what had happened during the night, and so he answered all the questions with “we’d been up all night studying”. However unbelievable it might have been during the day that Fred and George had stayed up all night studying, the barely awake Gryffindors simply accepted it and made their way off to breakfast and classes.

            About half an hour later, Harry woke to see Dumbledore standing over him. Ron, Fred, and George were all asleep around him. He fumbled around beside him for his glasses, before sliding them up the bridge of his nose to see the headmaster standing before him.

        “You may see her now, however she won’t be awake for awhile now,” explained Dumbledore.

        “And the others?” Harry questioned, referring to his friends that were still sleeping.

         “I think it would be best if you came on your own for now.”

          With that, Harry slipped on his school cloak that he had abandoned the previous night, and followed the headmaster out of the tower and into the hallway. The two of them walked silently through the halls. Harry was aware of his fellow students giving him questioning glances, and some Slytherins sneered at him once Dumbledore had passed. For once, Harry didn’t care, he only wanted to see Hermione, and make sure she was alright.

            They reached the hospital ward after what seemed like an eternity of walking. Dumbledore stopped at the double doors to let Harry go in by himself, and so Harry did just that.

            He entered the wing quietly, and walked past all the hospital beds until he reached the end. ‘Why was it that they always put the patients at the back of the wing?” he thought to himself, before finding that he had reached her bed. The curtain was drawn, and he pulled it back to see Hermione lying motionlessly on the bed he had recovered in many times before. She looked the same as she had before, except the gash on her right cheek had healed, and the bruises seemed darker. He saw that they hadn’t changed her clothes, as she had dried blood around the collar of her shirt. He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Madam Pomfrey walking up beside him, and then turning around to close the curtains he had opened.

           “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about her bruises,” she explained to Harry, “but they’ll heal in soon enough. By the looks of it, she’s going to be unconscious for at least another few hours.”

           Harry simply nodded and sat down in the hard chair that was on Hermione’s left side. He watched Madam Pomfrey make her way out of the wing before letting the tears flow down his cheeks. He had seen Hermione in the hospital wing before, but only once before when she had been petrified, and even that was impossible to deal with. But seeing her in pain that was likely meant to hurt him, just made it even worse. He’d realised during the night that the wizard or witch who’d done this had seemingly meant to kill her, but she must have done enough damage to them as well to stop them from completing their goal. Harry smiled at that thought, thankful for her intelligence and courage. He took his hands out of the arms of his long sleeves, and wrapped them around her left hand which was remarkably warm compared to his cool fingers.