After a brief stint in the Naruto fandom, I'm back! And HA! It didn't take me a year! I just had to get over the fact that I don't own Harry Potter, if I did you guys would probably still be waiting for the third book and there would be quite a few differences, like the twins would become joint ministers of magic. To address those of you who thought Hermione had the diary- since when can she be described as weak willed? Also, I'm disappointed, only five of you answered the question at the end of the last chapter and many thanks to those of you who did so, now onto the story
Chapter: 17
It was the slight pain that awoke him at first, a dull throbbing in his chest that he couldn't remember feeling since he was in elementary school, when the teacher thought field hockey was a great idea and he had been forced to be the goalie. This pain though seemed to go a bit deeper and it seemed a little more insistent now that he was broken out of his dreams into the state of half wakefulness, but it was still easy to ignore. He had slept through worse. He had almost managed to fall back into his dreams when the thought crossed his mind,
Hermione
He jolted upright in his chair, almost slipping out in the process, and winced as his ribs protested the sudden movement and then he looked around. Sunlight was pouring into the hospital wing and he thought that Hermione looked less pale than she had the night before, though she still seemed unhealthily thin.
As if his observations of her had reached her, she began to stir. He watched as her eyes fluttered open and quickly focused on him.
"You're awake!" he stated unnecessarily but it felt good to say those words aloud. He hadn't realized how worried he had been about his friend until this moment when it suddenly came crashing down on him.
"Ha-" Hermione started to say but her words were lost in a fit of coughing. Harry quickly located a jug of water and poured a cup. Hermione continued to cough and he felt a flare of panic as he realized that she was trying, and failing, to sit up on her own. He helped her up sit up and she managed to stop coughing long enough for him to help her drink the water. She gulped it eagerly and when she had finished Harry gently laid her back onto her pillow. She glared at him with reproach,
"You shouldn't be up," she croaked, "I saw that blooder hit you! You fell from your broom! Why aren't you in bed?"
"I'm fine, just some bruised ribs from the bludger," Harry lied easily, not really having an idea about his condition, "But what about you? Madam Pomfrey said something about magical exhaustion?"
He saw Hermione frown and for a moment he felt the increasingly familiar sting of her magic as it sought for a lost memory in his mind but, unlike previous times, the brief touch was faint and when it disappeared he couldn't remember anything new.
"Exhaustion?" Hermione managed to say in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Yes," Harry confirmed and he glared lightly at his friend, "You haven't been eating." He accused her and noticed a faint blush appeared on her cheeks.
"Well Miss Granger, it's good to see you awake," a voice interrupted before Harry had the chance to say anything else. The two looked to see Madam Pomfrey with a scowl on her face and balancing two trays, both piled high with so much food that Harry believed even Ron would have trouble finishing even one tray, "Mr. Potter, I'm sure you will be back in your bed in a few moments so I won't be required to do anything drastic."
Harry waited a moment, glancing at Hermione, before reluctantly returning to his bed. Madam Pomfrey immediately placed the tray of food in front of him and then went to place the other in front of Hermione. The young wizard blinked at the amount of food and looked over to where Madam Pomfrey was propping Hermione up with pillows so the girl could reach her tray. Harry watched carefully and saw Hermione attempt and fail to even lift a hand.
"Both of you are going to need to start eating much more than you've been eating." Madam Pomfrey said bluntly.
"We've been eating about the same amount we usually do," Hermione protested and Madam Pomfrey took the opportunity to stuff Hermione's mouth full of a bite of broth.
"I'm sure you're both aware that at this time in your life you're starting to experience physical changes, correct? That girls and boys are different?"
Both pre-teens nodded furiously. Neither wanted to go through the Talk, as both had already received instruction from their respective muggle schools and Hermione was blushing furiously from the memories of a shockingly frank, surprisingly detailed and somewhat embarrassing version of the Talk from her Nana Kim of all people when she first left for Hogwarts and every time she left for Platform nine and three quarters since then.
"For witches and wizards it isn't just your body which changes, it is also your magic. Your magical cores are starting their first real growth spurts and in order to fuel that growth spurt you need to eat, especially you Mr. Potter."
"Hmm?" Harry had just taken a bite of rice that had apparently had bits of chicken mixed in it. He looked over at the nurse curiously.
"Ms. Granger's magical exhaustion came in part from overexerting herself magically but also because she hasn't been eating or sleeping enough so her body hasn't had the resources to replenish her magic to a reasonable level. The only reason you're not in the same condition Mr. Potter is because you have a larger magical core to deal with from the start but if you had tried to push yourself magically at all recently then you would have quickly gotten to the same point as Ms. Granger. As it is, I won't be able to use any spells to finish the healing process."
"But you gave me that potion last night!" Harry protested.
"If I hadn't you would be dead." Madam Pomfrey said bluntly as she spooned another bite of soup into Hermione's mouth when the girl tried to say something, "Last night you had three broken ribs and a punctured lung which was filling up with blood. Your ribs are now more bruised and slightly cracked rather than broken and your lungs are healthier than ever. While it's inconvenient, attempting to fix your ribs magically now would hurt you more than it would help. Healing doesn't use just the healer's magic, it also uses the magic of the person being healed, encouraging it to work more efficiently to heal the patient. With your magical core in such a state I cannot, in good conscience, use any magic to further spur on your healing until your magic has reached more appropriate levels."
Harry narrowed his eyes at the nurse who was calmly feeding Hermione. The younger witch looked torn between embarrassment at being so weak that she couldn't even feed herself, hunger and her ever present curiosity.
"And until your magic is at more appropriate levels, the two of you will remain in the hospital wing. You can arrange for a friend to bring you your homework but you may not cast any spells." Madam Pomfrey said adamantly. Harry and Hermione both stared at her for a moment before exchanging glances.
"How long would we have to go without magic? Wouldn't we fall behind in class if we can't practice our spell work?" Hermione asked between bites.
"How long you remain here greatly depends on you. If you both eat properly and rest then your magic will come up to acceptable levels in a week and you can perform normal school work. If you keep your magic usage to a minimum and if you continue to eat properly and rest then your core should be fully replenished within a month and your ribs should be completely healed naturally." Madam Pomfrey informed them.
At least it gives me a good excuse not to go to defense Harry thought and turned his mind to what had happened last night. Why had Dobby acted so strangely?
He sent a guilty look over towards Colin's bed. If he had just ignored Hermione's advice then that could have been prevented. He knew the proper way to take out a basilisk and he was pretty sure Hagrid could get a rooster from somewhere. If the half giant couldn't do that then Harry was hoping that he could maybe talk to the beast, persuade it to stop listening to Tom's memory.
The pair was silent as they finished their food, both surprised that they had actually managed to eat so much. By the time they were finished, Hermione had regained control of her limbs and could sit up on her own, though the pillows helped to keep her from becoming too tired, and she ate eagerly.
"I'll inform Professor McGonagall to arrange for your school work to be brought to you for the next week." Madam Pomfrey told the two and after a brief check on the petrified patients, the Hufflepuff from last night had left while Harry and Hermione were eating, she left the two alone.
"I'm going to go after the monster," Harry declared as soon as he was sure that Madame Pomfrey was out of earshot. He looked at his friend with a stern expression though he hoped she wouldn't protest. She looked so weak and frail that he was uncomfortable with the idea of pushing her over anything though he knew that she would resent the idea that she was delicate and be annoyed if he treated her as such.
Hermione frowned for a moment and then she looked over at Colin's bed and sighed.
"You probably should," she admitted, "I had hoped that Fred and George's traps over the entrance would be enough to at least slow the diary's holder down long enough for us to get to him, or her, and take the diary from them and that spreading the information through Lavender and Parvati that the monster is a basilisk would cause students to take appropriate precautions until we had the diary but the basilisk might be more of an immediate concern than I thought. Though I would like to be able to figure out why you haven't been able to summon it."
"Maybe it's too far away?" Harry offered and Hermione looked thoughtful.
"It's true that we don't know how far your summoning spell can reach," she admitted and then she looked serious, "But Harry, I want you to at least wait until you find a rooster. That's the only safe way to dispose of a basilisk. There's no guarantee that you can pull off the events that let you defeat it last time so this time you'll do it safely."
Harry again felt the strange feeling that he was forgetting something, that something danced on the edges of his mind and Hermione looked as frustrated as he felt with his inability to remember. But there was something, something he knew that he needed to know.
"Don't worry Hermione," Harry assured his friend, "Everything will work out." He did not promise to wait. He was fairly certain that he hadn't used a rooster last time and there must have been some reason for that and he doubted that the diary holder, whoever they were, had failed to go through whatever measures to make roosters impossible to use as they had the last time he had to kill the basilisk. He didn't want to break a promise to Hermione if he could help it but he wasn't about to promise to wait any longer than absolutely necessary. He was going to break out of the Hospital Wing as soon as possible and get rid of the basilisk. How he was going to do that he wasn't too entirely sure but he had a few ideas.
"Did you ever tell me about those diaries you translated?" Harry asked before Hermione thought to confront him about the lack of promise. Hermione's face brightened.
"No actually, some of the things your ancestors wrote are absolutely fascinating, a bit redundant and unnecessary because of some of the advances in magic but it's always useful to have more than one way to do something and many of the spells and such they describe are more of exercises to prepare for larger magical workings. One particularly fascinating part is a section about using gemstones. Apparently some are very good to store magic in, just in case something like this happens. Of course since I haven't found a way to access any of the stones mentioned there isn't much to be done there so I've been working towards mastering what one of your ancestors calls lady magic, called so because generally it was only the women who used it. It takes an incredible amount of control and basically magic is used to manipulate things on almost an atomic level. My control isn't quite there yet so I haven't been able to do anything beyond the meditation exercises and being able to use wandless magic to make things levitate. I'm still working on my control of the objects, as you well know."
Harry smiled slightly, remembering the various things that Hermione usually had orbiting around her and sent flying towards him. He made a note to get to Gringotts, perhaps over Christmas, and get a few of the gemstones he knew were in his vaults. If he could figure out how to store magic in them then next time something like this happened he would be prepared and wouldn't have to deal with such a long recovery time.
"Actually, if you like, I can teach you the start of the meditation exercises. They're very good for controlling magic and organizing the mind." Hermione offered shyly.
"Sounds good," Harry agreed, "It's not like we'll be able to do much else for awhile."
"And knowing how to organize your mind will be a very important step in learning occlumency." Hermione chirped.
"What?" Harry asked. Hermione blinked and took a deep breath.
"Remind me that if I ever have the chance to do something to Dumbledore's lemon drops." She said in a tight voice, "It's a type of magic designed to protect a person from another branch of magic called legilimency which allows a person to view thoughts, a bit like when I pull memories forward in your mind but it's a bit more reliable and they can get a better sense of what a person is thinking than my method. Legilimency also allows someone to plant false impulses, such as a desire to trust or to distrust whoever the legilimens wishes another to trust or distrust in another person and of course it can be used to see if a person is telling the truth. Dumbledore is very good at both of these branches of magic and Snape is, was, a master at them as well." She glanced over at the bed where the still unconscious potions master lay.
Harry frowned at the revelation, something was niggling at the back of his mind, screaming almost, but he couldn't quite reach the memory. He growled and then turned to Hermione.
"How do I start?" he asked and Hermione smiled brightly.
When Madam Pomfrey returned a few hours later to check on and feed her charges she found the only unpetrified patients sitting up on their beds, eyes closed and looking utterly at peace. It was not an expression she had ever seen on either of their faces, not even when they had been asleep. She lay down the trays of food and waved her wand over the two and she raised a brow when she saw the results. The head of the medical wing made her rounds, neatly ending a particularly nasty curse on flowers that would have suffocated their recipient, namely Professor Snape.
\V/ LLAP
Yes it's a bit more of a bridge than an actual chapter, Harry's finally going to do something in the next chapter, this is to hold you guys off while I go traveling again. And now, why are you reading this part? It's not part of the story… oh, I know! You want to know the results of the question from the last chapter- as a note, only five people gave answers. I asked my brothers and two of my cousins who were visiting what they thought and added my own vote, this is what came of it
Ninja- 6 votes
Pirates- 2 votes
Robots- 1 vote
Pokémon- 1 vote
NINJA WIN!
Now, new question- who is the most romantic fictional character you can think of?
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