Part 2 – Down with the Sickness
It had been four days since Harry had been brought into the infirmary unconscious. Draco had only left to bath and when he absolutely positively no way he was getting out of going to class. When Draco wasn't by Harry's side one of the half dozen other people he trusted was there.
Seamus would regal Harry with stories about how Ron, Hermione and any other Gryffindor that had screwed up at some point in the day. Neville would go on about what they went over in class that day. Remus and Severus, sometimes together sometimes alone would talk either about each other or about James and Lily. Lucius would sit with Charlie and the redhead would often tell Lucius stories about when he had met the young saviour. While several students from other houses, Luna, Blaise, Hannah to name some, would come down to see Harry, leaving some sort of gift for him. Apart from Neville and Seamus none of the other Gryffindors came anywhere near the infirmary.
Apparently Ginny, Ron and Hermione were threatening everyone to not see Harry lest they want to sleep in the hallway naked. They were also told not to go to a professor namely because nothing would be done because the Tarnished Trio had Dumbledore on their side.
No one was sure what was wrong with Harry because whenever Poppy would try to scan him the results would come back unintelligible or the spell would rebound on who ever cast it and any potions they tried to give him his body would just expel, that wasn't ever pretty.
On the fourth night Draco who hadn't been able to sleep in the dungeons where he'd been banished to by Poppy, had made his way under his own invisibility cloak to the infirmary. He was about to pull off said cloak when he heard someone talking.
'... and we can't have that now can we? Oh no Mister Potter, you are far too unstable and far too dangerous in your natural form,'
Draco was suddenly stuck on "natural form." What the hell was going on? He gently pushed open the door enough to look inside Harry's private room. Where the hell were Remus and Severus?
He didn't notice the two unconscious bodies on the floor as he watched as Albus Dumbledore preformed a magic suppressing curse and a couple more spells he didn't recognize. His eyes wide he backed away from the door, a groan caught his attention and he finally noticed Remus and Severus on the floor it looked as if Remus was coming to.
'No,' he mumbled weakly.
'Oh yes I'm afraid Remus.' Dumbledore said, 'stupify,' he cast with bored flick of his wand, The red light slammed into Remus and his slid backwards slamming into the wall.
Shit, Draco knew he was no match for the headmaster so he turned and fled from the infirmary.
A few minutes later he was pounding on the door to Professor McGonagall's office hoping it like Severus office was connected to her private chambers.
Just as Draco was about to give up and go find his father the door swung open revealing a dishevelled Minerva who could only gaped at the empty hallway.
Draco pushed past her startling the witch before he pulled off the cloak. 'I think I know why Harry won't wake up,' he panted.
'What? Draco what are you doing out of bed? It's almost one in the morning,' she stated both concerned and irritated.
'I couldn't sleep so I went to see Harry, when I got there I heard someone talking and it was Dumbledore and he did something, then he knock Remus out again and oh Merlin he's going something to Harry. He's why Harry's sick!' Draco blurted almost incoherently as he paced Minerva's living room.
'Drink this Draco,' she thrust a cup of tea into his hands.
'No, I don't want it, I don't want to be calm or to sleep,' he replied pushing the tea back to her with a glare.
'It's just tea, French Vanilla tea,' Minerva replied guiding him to the couch. He took as sip as he sat down.
'Now care to try again as to why you are out of bed? I only caught about every third syllable,' Minerva asked pouring herself a cup of tea.
'I just told you what happened and you offered me tea, I thought you were Scottish not British,' Draco huffed.
Minerva surprised him by laughing, 'Mr Malfoy, Draco, I know your scarred and worried sick about your boyfriend but unless we have proof and not just the word of a 16 year old who has always thought the headmaster was a crackpot there won't be much we can do. So, from the beginning, slowly and coherently please.'
'Can we please go to the infirmary, Remus might be hurt and I want to check on Harry, whatever it was the Dumbledore cast on him it work, Harry didn't reject his magic.' He said setting his now empty cup down.
Minerva agreed, from what she had heard she realized that maybe she should have taken Draco to the infirmary sooner.
When they arrived they found Poppy rushing from her private quarters and heading to Harry's room. 'Merlin's ghost what are you doing here?'
'I saw Dumbledore doing some sort of ritual spells over Harry.' Draco replied leading the way to the room.
Poppy and Minerva both hurried to the room, afraid of what they would find.
'That doddering old meddling obnoxious irritating egotistical old man! He locked me in my room, I heard the alarms going off and I tried to get out but I was trapped in my own room.' Poppy fumed as she tended first to Remus then to Severus. Remus would have a bad headache for a day or two and both would be a little stiff but otherwise they were both alright.
'What happened?' Remus asked holding an ice pack to the back of his head.
'Albus Dumbledore stunned you then preformed ritual magicks on Harry at one point you woke up then he stunned you again sending you into the wall.' Draco replied, giving an abbreviated and more coherent version.
'Oh,' Remus replied before he closed his eyes, 'Ow, why did I ask?' he whimpered, the pain potion hadn't quite kicked in yet. Severus gently massaged his neck.
'Did these magicks work?' Severus asked.
Draco nodded, 'yeah I think they did, I mean I didn't exactly stick around to find out.'
'That means that whatever is going on with Harry is a result of Dumbledore's meddling.' Severus replied with a sigh.
'But if it is then what ever it is shouldn't have worn off, which is what it seems to be doing,' Remus replied his head bowed as he held the ice and Severus hand worked the tense muscles.
'So whatever was in the pumpkin juice must have inadvertently broken through a barrier or two,' Minerva added.
Severus nodded, 'the results should be finished today sometime. Maybe then we can start to figure out this mystery.
'Draco?' Remus asked looking up with a wince, 'would you be willing to put the memory of what you saw tonight in a pensieve so Sev, Luc, Charlie and I can look at it later, maybe see if we know what the old man was doing.' Minerva cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow in a move reminiscent of the potions master she worked with. 'And Min and Poppy too of course,' he added with a faint blush.
'Of course,' Draco replied, ready to do it now.
'Come to my office after breakfast,' Remus began.
'No need. He can store it in mine,' Poppy offered. She vanished only to reappear a few moments later.
'If Dumbledore realizes that he was seen that night he would go to the most obvious people, Your Remus and Minerva because you are the only two with their own pensieve that he knows about. He is not allowed any spies in my infirmary, so he has no idea about this one.' She offered.
Draco focused on his most recent memory of Dumbledore and he slowly pulled a long slivery strand from his temple with his wand and deposited into the stone basin.
'While it is important we find out what happened to Harry it is also important that we all get some sleep. It will be easier to focus tomorrow after we have all had some sleep,' Poppy commanded politely.
'Very well, good night Poppy, gentlemen.' Minerva gave a nod before she vanished down the hall and into the school.
'Good night Remus, Severus,' Draco said before he went to leave.
'Mr Malfoy where are you going?' Poppy asked stopping him in his tracks.
'Back to my room, I'm not allowed to stay here at night,' he replied a little bitter still at being tossed out of the infirmary away from Harry.
'You will do no such thing,' Poppy replied and gave him an apologetic smile, 'I insist that you stay here, it can be somewhat taxing when you first start to remove memories,' she practically tucked him into the bed that had appeared next to Harry.
Severus watched in amusement at his godson's predicament, 'Poppy let the boy sleep,' he said softly.
Poppy blushed, 'Good night then gentlemen,' she then headed back to her rooms with the pensieve.
Severus stayed awake for a little while longer watching his family sleep. Why couldn't anything be easy or just not complicated?
..o
It was just after lunch when a panicked Charlie Weasley came rushing into the infirmary with a small limp blonde child.
'Charlie what?' Poppy was incredibly confused, having no idea where Charlie would find a blonde child who was clearly not old enough to attend Hogwarts yet. 'Who is this?'
Before Charlie could reply the small blonde in his arms started to stir. 'Poppy what's going on?' Draco asked having heard the pair from Harry's room and coming to investigate.
'No!' the small blonde screeched, 'No Daddy! Please I'll be a good boy I swear!' the blonde buried himself or rather tried to bury himself in Charlie.
'Oh for the love of Merlin's left testicle that's not my father is it?' Draco asked staring wide eyed at the blonde boy that was wrapped around Charlie's torso.
'He was your father,' Charlie replied looking incredibly awkward.
'Oh ah, well then... um... I will just be over with Harry,' he pointed back to Harry's room, 'in his room and,' he was silent for a solid minute, 'yeah.' With one last glance at the child shivering in Charlie's arms he went back to sit with Harry.
'Put him here Charlie so I can take a look,' Poppy said guiding Charlie to the bed.
'What do you suppose that was about?' Charlie asked after giving up trying to get Lucius to let go of his shirt that he had in a death grip and sitting on the bed.
'Draco bears an uncanny resemblance to Aloysius Malfoy, a monster in his own right,' Poppy replied. 'Every year Lucius would help Severus to the infirmary, I didn't know who was worse, Tobias Snape or Aloysius Malfoy, while one used physical abuse the other used mental which is just as bad. Do you know what happened to him for him to be like this?'
'He was caught between two spells. I have no idea what they were but I know my idiot brother cast one of them,' he replied, 'so the spell he cast was probably not the one he was supposed to have cast.' He added as an afterthought.
'I was afraid of that,' Poppy muttered as she checked Lucius over.
'How do you feel Lucius?' she asked softly.
'I'm not suppose to talk to strangers,' he mumbled into Charlie's shirt.
'My name is Poppy, I'm a healer here at Hogwarts.' At that proclamation the blonde head snapped up.
'I'm at Hogwarts?' he looked around curiously, confirming that he was indeed at Hogwarts or at least not at home, 'Oh I am in so much trouble.'