Harry was excited, it had been a long week, between his confrontation with Snape, and their efforts to brew the polyjuice potion but now it was finally the weekend. Today Harry would be playing in the first inter house quidditch match of the year against Slytherin, He was also nervous especially after Draco Malfoy had bought his position as seeker with a set of top of the range racing brooms for the entire team.

The game got off to a good start, Angelina Johnson scored three points for Gryffindor within moments of kicking off the ground. Then came the bludger, it was acting very strangely, it seemed intent on chasing Harry no matter which direction the twins directed it with their bats. It was getting ridiculous, it seemed impossible but one of the Slytherins must have put a jinx on it. It took so much of Harrys concentration to avoid getting hit that he nearly missed the tell-tale glimmer of the snitch flashing about Malfoys head. Unavoidably alerting the other seeker to its presence, he dived for it. Malfoy had the better broom but Harry was a far superior pilot and quickly out maneuvered the spoiled Slytherin. He reached out to grab the tiny golden ball worth 150 points, momentarily forgetting all about the rouge bludger until just as his fingers closed around the snitch it impacted with his broom, Harry tumbled through the air before landing on a bean bag which had been hastily conjured beneath him. It took him a moment to come to his senses before raising the snitch into the air victoriously. The crowd cheered. The bean bag had prevented any injury related to the fall however a large chunk of wood had flew up and hit him in the face when the bludger smashed through his broom, breaking his nose and leaving him covered in blood. Concerned about his injury a number of staff and many of his friends hurried towards him from the sidelines. Harry groaned as Gilderoy Lockhart made it to him first, offering to heal him and refusing to take no for an answer. He succeeded in mending the break but had made the bleeding worse. Blood was now pumping from his nose and he was feeling quite faint by the time Professor Snape arrived and halted the flow.

He was taken to the hospital wing to a furious Madam Pomfrey.

She prescribed a blood replenishing potion and while fetching it from the store she remarked that she was down to her last bottle and had just asked Snape if he could brew some more for her before she ran out, when all of a sudden she tripped. The bottle fell to the floor and shattered, its contents spilling.

"Never mind" Dumbledore said cheerily, vanishing the mess before the mediwitch could attempt to salvage any of the elixir "looks like we will just have to go with a traditional blood transfusion"

" Are you offering to donate Albus we have no blood bank here?"

" Of course poppy" he stepped up eyes twinkling as she ran a diagnostics spell over Harry to determine his blood type

She sighed, "you will have to lower the wards Albus, let me transfer him to St Mungos, his blood is rare enough in the general population and is pretty much unheard of in the magical one. He is already incredibly weak, I don't have enough time to check all the students for a possible match."

" What blood type is he?" Dumbledore asked making no move to cancel the wards that prevented anyone from apparating into or out of Hogwarts.

"O negative"

Snape glared at Dumbledore before offering to donate.

"Your O negative?" She asked, surprised, it was a very rare blood type in the Wizarding World, even in muggleborns.

"Clearly" he stated bluntly as she verified for herself

Ron and Hermione gasped.

Madam Pomfrey rummaged around in a drawer before finding the equipment she needed, and performing a sterility spell on it. She took a small blood sample from both Snape and Harry, mixing it together in a tube before waving her wand over it. It must have had the desired effect because after gesturing for Snape to sit down in the empty seat beside Harrys bed she ran a line from Harrys vein to Snapes artery. Harry was spelled asleep to help with the dizziness but Snape looked furious.

Procedure in progress she turned to the crowd of amused onlookers, demanding from Dumbledore the immediate purchase of some blood replenishing potion. "Harry lost a considerable amount of blood, and I can only take so much from Severus. They will both be quite weak following the transfusion." She then asked that they all leave, agreeing that they could come back after dinner.

"Albus" Snape called him back," we will resume that conversation we had the other night later."