Harry Potter rolled over onto his side to better itch his back. His eyes were still closed, half-asleep, as he absent-mindedly ran his fingernails along his back. His eyes shot open in pain after mere seconds, however, realizing that this was no ordinary morning itch. He felt along his back, more aware now.

Knowing for sure something was wrong now, he rolled onto his back, sat up, and examined his arms. He stared in astonishment. Not only were his arms covered in obnoxious, sore, red pockmarks, but his skin beneath was also discolored – it was green, a sickly pale greenish tinge on Harry's otherwise fairly ordinarily pale complexion, to be exact.

After a few moments of astonished staring, Harry sneezed. Like everything else this morning, however, it was no ordinary sneeze. His nostrils seemed – no, not just seemed, actually happened – to shoot sparks out. Harry stretched his feet beneath his blankets and a horrible sinking feeling swooped through his body right down to his toes, his toes which happened to feel extraordinarily wrong. He whipped his blankets off, throwing them to the floor and leaving him feeling the chill of the early spring air.

Below were his feet and… they were webbed. Webbed feet. Also covered in the angry pockmarks.

Was he turning into a dragon? Harry fell backwards onto the bed and fought the urge, now that he noticed that his entire body was likely covered in the pockmarks, to itch every surface of his body.

Well, he'd just have to stay in for a few days. He could call in sick to work – it wasn't like he was too fresh at the Auror department anymore and his attendance had been flawless previously. They would forgive him a few days. He was obviously ill.

Harry had read about dragon pox. From what he understood, it was similar to muggle diseases. Dudly had gotten chickenpox when they were young, around seven or so. Harry remembered very vividly Dudley's thrashing and whining and Aunt Petunia's doting on her poor baby. She hadn't even bothered to quarantine Harry, who hadn't gotten chickenpox before. But then, he still hadn't caught them. He thought he must've been resilient.

Then, when Harry figured out he was a wizard and that there was a dragon pox cure, when he eventually wondered if he would ever acquire the disease, he figured his parents would've taken preventive measures when he was a baby. It seemed, however, that his reasoning had been wrong.

Dragon pox. Well, at least he was still young. Harry figured twenty-one was a little old for the disease but had to be better than when he got old eventually.

When he got old eventually… it had been nearly three years since Voldemort had been destroyed and yet the immense sense of liberation Harry had felt after the Dark Lord's fall still lingered. The knowledge that there was no one anymore determined to make his life short-lived, but instead a whole host of people invested in keeping him around for quite some time… it was an incredibly uplifting thought. It was wonderful to know that Ron and Hermione and Ginny were there for him, amongst many others…

Ginny!

Harry made to smack himself, but felt a bit dizzy when he jerked up into a sitting position again, so he simply mentally berated himself. He was supposed to go to dinner with Ginny tonight. Just the two of them. Ever since Ron had proposed to Hermione – which had been mere weeks ago now – he had become much less of a bully when it came to Harry and Ginny wanting to spend time together.

For a few months after the final Battle of Hogwarts, Harry and Ginny had sort of avoided one another, not because they wanted to, but because so much had happened and Harry knew that he had needed some time to himself, to think about the potential and the life that had lay ahead of him and still did.

Then, when Harry finally worked up the nerve to ask Ginny out again, Ron had started bullying Harry about the way he had left things with Ginny before. A dozen rows between Ginny and Ron later and nearly a year after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry and Ginny had resumed their relationship though it was much different than before. No longer were they school kids – Ginny had finished up at Hogwarts and Harry had been in the midst of his exams to become an Auror. They had been through a war. They had both lost a lot.

These days their time together was not plentiful. Though the wizarding world was much more peaceful than it had been most of Harry's life, work as an Auror was not glamorous – it was hard, even if Harry didn't dare regret his decision to pursue this career choice. More than Harry's demands at his day job, Ginny was now flying with the Holyhead Harpies. She was away at games constantly and had practices any night she didn't have games.

Tonight had been one of the rare nights she was actually free and she and Harry had made plans to finally spend time together. Since resuming their relationship, either Ginny was bombarded with her family or Ron was trying purposefully to keep Harry from potentially hurting his sister again, even when Harry assured Ron he had no intentions.

Now that Ron spent most of his time away from his and Harry's shared flat in London, too Harry had been thrilled that he might have the space entirely for himself and Ginny. But his health seemed to have other designs…

Harry sighed, which turned into a violent coughing fit, which concluded in a series of sparkling sneezes. He shivered. Without his blankets, now, he felt naked in the arctic. He leaned over his bed with immense effort and dragged his blankets back onto him. This small amount of effort exhausted him. But he couldn't go back to sleep yet.

"Gunhilda," Harry called hoarsely. Nothing – no response. "Gunhilda!" he called again, croaking, but more loudly.

A fluttering of wings answered him. A handsome great grey owl swooped into the bedroom. Gunhilda situated herself next to Harry on his night table and stared at him curiously, as if wondering if her owner were still her owner, considering his wildly different appearance.

"Gunhilda, I need you to bring a letter into the Ministry of Magic for me, please," Harry said, sitting up and pulling a quill, ink bottle, and parchment from beside Gunhilda onto his lap. He quickly wrote out a note explaining his absence and saying he wasn't sure how long he'd need to stay home.

He finished slowly, dropped the inkbottle, cursed, and tied the letter to Gunhilda's leg rather clumsily. She gave him a sympathetic hoot. Harry gave her a pat and then she hopped off the table and out his door to an open window in the hallway.

Harry grabbed for his wand and cleaned up the inky mess he'd created. Exhausted from all the effort he had exerted in the past few minutes, he set his wand down gingerly and rolled onto his side, curling into an uncomfortable ball, though warm.

He started to wonder if he might have enough energy to concoct some potions to minimize the itching before he fell back asleep, his thoughts drifting to Ginny, wondering what fate was trying to say, assigning him this disease the first time he'd see her in weeks…