Infected- Part 1

Albus pulled his blanket over his head, trying to drown out the voices around him. His body felt as if someone had bound it to his bed and random images kept popping up in front of his eyes.

"It's 6:50, Al, we're already going to be late."

Albus ignored his best friend and took in a shuddering breath. The few bites of food he had eaten at dinner last night seemed like they didn't want to stay in his stomach any longer.

"I'll get up in a minute, I'll see you in Greystone's office." He forced out between gritted teeth.

"You sure you're okay?" Scorpius asked and Albus could hear the worry in his voice.

He reluctantly pulled the blanket from his head and sat up. Forcing a smile on his face, he nodded at Scorpius who, after lingering a moment longer, returned the smile and followed the rest of their dorm mates out of the room.

As soon as the other boys had left, Albus scrambled out of his bed and into the adjunct bathroom, where he emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet. When he was sure that the sudden wave of nausea had passed, he stood up and walked over to the small sink in the room where he quickly brushed his teeth and looked at himself in the posh, but very dirty mirror hanging on the wall.

He was paler than normal, paler than Scorpius even and dark circles had formed under his eyes. The anxiety that had kept him up all night was back in full force. What if he had gotten it?

The wizarding world had been hit with a health crisis that it had never had to deal with on such a big scale before. Wizards all over the world were used to dealing with unimaginably difficult and dangerous situations. Had they dealt with evil wizards trying to take over the world? Yes. Corrupt governments? Yes. Wars? Yes. But a magical virus that was endangering their entire species? No.

The virus had spread slowly at first- or at least they had thought so. Only a week ago they had all been at home, celebrating Christmas with their families, thinking that they had nothing to worry about. Now, barely seven days later, the crisis, as everyone called it now, had reached England.

There had been rumors about Hogwarts closing, of course, but none of the students had believed them. How often in the school's history had there been talks about a temporary shut down and how many times had it actually happened? After all, Hogwarts was supposed to be the safest place on earth.

That's why all of them had been so shocked when headmistress McGonagall had announced that all students were to meet up in front of their head of house's office the following morning at 7 am sharp, to travel home via the floo network, at last night's dinner.

Albus saw Scorpius standing a few meters in front of him in the line that had formed before Professor Greystone's office. The Slytherins who, under normal circumstances, could be seen standing in circles and whispering amongst each other were making sure to stand at least two arm lengths apart from the students behind and in front of them, tough they were only required to maintain a one-arm length distance.

After a few attempts, Scorpius heard Albus' quiet calls and turned around to face him. Albus simply held up both thumbs to assure Scorpius that he was fine. His friend didn't seem convinced, but had no time to voice his concerns as he was the next student to be called into Greystone's office.

The minutes passed and Albus felt his body becoming weaker and his anxiety growing stronger. He had seen pictures of the Impetum-animi virus patients in the newspaper- they all had. The wizards who were unlucky enough to contract it weren't only physically weakened, their minds were affected as well.

The virus had developed when a group of witches and wizards working for an experimental-magic program in Brazil had tried to directly transfer memories from one wizard to another, instead of viewing the memories in a pensive. The wizard's magical core had identified the memories as those of a stranger and had attacked his mind and body in an attempt to free itself from the intruder.

Albus' name was called and he hesitantly stepped into Greystone's office, trying to look as carefree and healthy as he possibly could. The older wizard didn't even look up from his list of student names when Albus approached the fireplace. Trying to not draw too much attention to his condition, Albus wordlessly took a handful of floo powder out of a ceramic bowl that was standing on a small antique-looking chair and stepped into the fireplace.

He filled his lungs with air, ready to name his address and disappear, when Greystone raised his voice.

"Potter," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "how are you feeling?"

Albus released the breath he had been holding and stared at him for a split second.

"I'm feeling fine, Sir."

"And you are certain of that?"

Albus nodded. In that moment, he truly wished that he had been born a witch instead of a wizard. Society was changing, but people would've undoubtedly been suspicious if he had magically covered up the dark circles under his eyes or his paleness with makeup.

Greystone turned around and hastily scribbled something on an old piece of parchment, before handing it to Albus.

"Give this to your parents." He said and looked Albus over once more. "You may leave."

Desperate to get out of Greystone's office, Albus named his address and allowed the floo powder to turn the flames around him green. He kept his eyes closed and fought another wave of nausea as he was whirled around and finally fell onto the Potter's living room floor, the piece of parchment crumbled in his fist.

The first thing Albus saw when he opened his eyes, was his father's concerned face above him.

"Still sick when travelling with floo powder, little brother?" Someone standing behind Harry asked. James had apparently arrived before him and looked like he wasn't sure whether he should be amused or concerned about the state Albus was currently in.

"Are you alright?" His father asked, ignoring James' comment.

Albus gave him a shaky nod and got to his feet, swaying slightly. The next thing he knew was that a small red-headed girl was running towards him.

"Lils wait, you can't hug me!" The last thing Albus wanted was for one of his family members, least of all his younger sister, to catch the virus, should he really have it.

"He's right, Lily-bug," his father intervened, gesturing for Lily to take a few steps backwards, "I told you that we all need to keep some distance for a week or two so that we can't make each other sick."

Lily looked disappointed and even a little hurt, being denied physical comfort from her parents and siblings during this scary time, but listened to her father anyway.

"Have you eaten, honey, you look like you've lost weight." His mother commented. She was standing by the bookshelf in the living room, holding a leather-bound book with the title 'Healing in the 21st century. A handbook for aspiring heelers'. Albus knew that his mum had considered studying healing magic after graduating from Hogwarts, but had decided to follow her passion and pursue a career as a professional Quidditch player instead.

"You're starting to sound like grandma" James threw in, earning a stern look from his mother and a barely contained chuckle from his father and little sister.

"I did," Albus said, answering his mother, "I've just been stressed because of everything that has been going on. It's not like we don't hear anything from the outside world once we're at Hogwarts, all everyone has been talking about for the last week is this virus.

James nodded and fixed their father with a stern gaze. "Tell us what's going on dad. How bad is it?"

Harry rubbed his eyes and looked from his wife to his children. "Pretty bad, I'm afraid. It's spreading faster than we could ever have predicted and St. Mungos isn't equipped to care for so many witches and wizards at once. Most injuries and illnesses can easily be cured with spells and droughts everyone who has graduated from Hogwarts could make themselves, so St. Mungos only ever had to care for the really bad cases. Now, the situation is different. We don't know much about this virus. No healer in the world has a cure for it. St. Mungos will be flooded with infected wizards and witches in no time."

What followed was a short but heavy silence that was followed with a few light-heartened jokes and ended when James and Albus excused themselves to unpack their trunks.

Albus had just sat down on his bed, ready to get a few more hours of sleep, when there was a knock on his door. James didn't wait for an answer though, he crossed Albus' room in three big steps and flopped down beside him on his bed.

"So," he said, getting straight to the point, "your white-haired friend says you've been feeling sick."

"His name is Scorpius." 'And he will receive a very angry letter for ratting me out.'

"Don't try to change the topic."

"It's just the flu, James," he said, "and maybe you shouldn't sit so close to me."

"I'm not afraid of getting the flu." James said, trying to stifle a yawn. "In fact, why don't we go and ask mum to give you a pepper-up potion. The flu isn't really an illness wizards have to deal with nowadays."

"It's fine." Albus said, panicking slightly. "It's not that bad and aren't you the one who's always telling me not to be such a baby?"

"That's my job as your big brother." He said. "That and protecting you."

He made to get up from the bed, but Albus grabbed his arm and pulled him down again.

"Can't you just keep your mouth shut?" He asked desperately. "After everything you put me through during my first month at Hogwarts."

Albus hated bringing this up again. Sure, James had been a jerk after Albus had been sorted into Slytherin, but he had apologized. Multiple times.

James' cheeks turned red and he looked at his lap, ashamed of his behavior.

"I'm sorry Al," he said, for what felt like the hundredths time, "I know that I was an ass."

"It's fine now," Albus said, regretting that he had opened old wounds again. It had been over five months now. "I promise I'm good, I just need some sleep."

James didn't seem convinced, but left anyway, closing the door behind him.

James POV

It was well past midnight and he was aimlessly wandering around in his room, fighting the urge to slam his fists into the wall. Why had he agreed keep his mouth shut? It would only make his betrayal that much worse now.

He sighed. There was no way around it. And he was doing it for Albus' own good. He hated himself. His relationship with Albus had finally started improve again, his brother had even started opening up to him about some of the problems he had been facing with a few of his Slytherin class mates. Everything had been going so well.

He walked down the stairs, knowing that his parents liked to stay up late to talk, especially during times like these.

"This will go on for months." He heard his mum say. "They should have acted weeks ago, we'll never be able to contain it now. Who knows how many people have gotten infected by now."

"We'll get through this," his father said, "we've won battles before."

"Battles against enemies we could see. This is a virus, Harry."

"Do we even know how it spreads?"

"There are theories." His mother answered. "It seems like the magical core of the first wizard who was experimenting with memory transfer created the virus to fight the memories off and while his colleagues were trying to heal him, it infected them as well. Just that..."

"What?" Harry asked.

"Well," Ginny hesitated, "the virus doesn't have a stranger's memory to fight off when other witches and wizards contract it, so it tries to destroy their magical core."

James had heard enough. He walked down the last few steps and straight into the kitchen, where both of his parents were standing, looking rather tense. Both of them looked up when James entered the room, but didn't say anything.

"I have to tell you something." He said, putting his hands into the pockets of his pajama pants to stop them from shaking.

"What is it, sweetheart?" His mother asked, and both her and his father looked even more worried when James didn't scoff at the nickname.

"I think-" He took a deep breath. "I think Albus has the virus."

HPHPHP

Thank you for reading :)

I just wanted to say that yes, this is obviously "inspired" by the whole corona virus situation, but I am in no way trying to water down how dangerous the virus is by using it as a fanfiction idea. I just wanted to explore what a pandemic could look like in the Wizarding World. In my country, we're pretty much under lock down as well, so I've done nothing but think about it for a week now.

If you would be interested in reading a part 2, please let me know in the comments, I have some ideas about Albus being treated in St. Mungos, if you guys would be interested in that.

Stay inside, stay safe and obviously: I don't own Harry Potter ;)