I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.
Trouble
Alex stared at the wooden hoop he was meant to Apparate into. Then, on command, he, like everyone, turned sharply. And promptly staggered to the side as he lost his balance. The whole of the Great Hall did the same. Twycross, the Apparition Instructor the Ministry had appointed, called dor them all to get back into place and try again. They all regrouped. On the second try, Alex turned too sharply and fell. As he reset again, he all but glared at his ring, forming a perfect replica of it in his mind so that when he blinked, he could still see it with crystal clarity. He felt determination to succeed filling him. He would Apparate successfully. He refused to fail. Then, Twycross gave the command and he turned. Agony, unlike anything he'd ever felt flooded him. Something solid slammed into his back as he screamed and writhed. He could hear other screams, but he couldn't process anything. His eyes were wide open, but unseeing, his vision bleached white by the indescribably pain flooding from his waist. Then, there was a bang, and his vision began to clear, along with a cloud of white smoke around him, and he looked down, still shaking, to see his robes stained with blood.
"Are you alright, Pruitt?" McGonagall asked.
"I don't...feel..." Alex slumped back to the ground, and McGonagall sighed, flicking her wand at him and levitating him out of the room and up to the Hospital Wing.
Within minutes of him arriving, Luna reached the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey assure her that he would be fine, but that did nothing to ease her worry. However, after a few hours of rest, Alex finally stirred.
"Hey!" Luna smiled, taking his hand. "How do you feel?"
"I fucking hate Apparition," Alex groaned. "Why the fuck did Wizards invent something as stupid as risking leaving bits of yourself behind?"
"Because it's convenient once you learn how," McGonagall said, walking in. "It's good you're feeling better."
Alex sighed heavily. "What'd I do wrong?"
"If I had to guess, you were focusing on Apparating too much and not enough on where you were Apparating too," McGonagall said. "You'll get the hang of it."
"I think I'd prefer to stick to water," Alex said. "How long am I in here for?"
"Until tomorrow," Madam Pomfrey said, walking into the room and handing him a potion. "And you need plenty of rest."
Alex sighed heavily, but nodded, settling in to sleep, keeping Luna's hand in his. McGonagall left, as did Madam Pomfrey, and within moments, Alex had dropped back into sleep.
The next few weeks passed rather quickly. Apparition practice was the only thing that failed to settle into a routine. More and more people began to Splinch themselves. The same day Alex split himself in half, Susan Bones had left a leg behind. There were others as well, ranging from eyebrows to limbs, but none as bad as Alex's. Alex himself lost an arm during the next class, then a foot the next attempt. The third lesson, he lost his upper lip, then his nose. Other times, he simply failed to Apparate at all.
However, the fourth week, he didn't attend. Before he could, he was informed that Ron had swallowed a love potion and Harry took him to Slughorn. However, after being cured, he then swallowed poison from a mead bottle unknowingly, Slughorn, who had been intending to give the mead to Dumbledore as a gift, not knowing it was poisoned either. Hours later, he, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, George, and Luna were gathered around Ron's bed. It was already after eight, and Ron hadn't stirred yet.
"So, all in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?" Fred asked.
"This isn't how we imagined handing over our present," George said grimly, putting down a large wrapped gift on Ron's bedside cabinet and sitting beside Ginny.
"Yeah, when we pictured the scene, he was conscious," Fred agreed.
"There we were in Hogsmeade, waiting to surprise him-" George began.
"You were in Hogsmeade?" Ginny asked, looking up.
"We were thinking of buying Zonko's," Fred said gloomily. "A Hogsmeade branch, you know, but a fat lot of good it'll do us if you lot aren't allowed out at weekends to buy our stuff anymore...But never mind that now." He drew up a chair beside Harry and looked at Ron's pale face. "How exactly did it happen, Harry?"
Harry retold the story he had already recounted to Dumbledore, McGonagall, Madam Pomfrey, Hermione, Alex, and Ginny. "...and then I got the bezoar down his throat and his breathing eased up a bit. Slughorn ran for help, McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey turned up, and they brought Ron up here. They reckon he'll be all right. Madam Pomfrey says he'll have to stay here a week or so...keep taking Essence of Rue..."
"Blimey, it was lucky you thought of a bezoar," George said in a low voice.
"Lucky there was one in the room," Harry said.
Hermione gave an almost inaudible sniff. She had been exceptionally quiet all day. Having hurtled, white-faced, up to Harry outside the hospital wing and demanded to know what had happened., she had taken almost no part in Harry and Ginny's obsessive discussion about how Ron had been poisoned, but merely stood beside them, clench-jawed and frightened-looking, until at last they had been allowed in to see him. Alex had tried to reassure her that Ron would be alright, but it had been futile.
"Do Mum and Dad know?" Fred asked Ginny.
"They've already seen him, they arrived an hour ago," Ginny said. "They're in Dumbledore's office now, but they'll be back soon."
There was a pause while they all watched Ron mumble a little in his sleep.
"So the poison was in the drink?" Fred asked quietly.
"Yes," Harry nodded at once, seeming glad for the opportunity to start discussing it again. "Slughorn poured it out."
"Would he have been able to slip something into Ron's glass without you seeing?" Fred asked.
"Probably," Harry nodded, "but why would Slughorn want to poison Ron?"
"No idea," Fred admitted, frowning. "You don't think he could have mixed up the glasses by mistake? Meaning to get you?"
"Why would Slughorn want to poison Harry?" Ginny asked, sounding worried.
"I dunno," Fred shrugged, "but there must be loads of people who'd like to poison Harry, mustn't there? The 'Chosen One' and all that?"
"So you think Slughorn's a Death Eater?" Ginny asked.
"Anything's possible," Fred said darkly.
"Possible or not, it's unlikely," Alex said. "If he was, he wouldn't have poisoned only one. He'd have done them all, then just not drank."
"He could be under the Imperius Curse," George said.
"Or he could be innocent," Ginny said. "The poison could have been in the bottle, in which case it was probably meant for Slughorn himself."
"Who'd want to kill Slughorn?" George asked.
"Dumbledore reckons Voldemort wanted Slughorn on his side," Harry said. "Slughorn was in hiding for a year before he came to Hogwarts. And..." He thought of the memory Dumbledore had not yet been able to extract from Slughorn, "and maybe Voldemort wants him out of the way, maybe he thinks he could be valuable to Dumbledore."
"But you said Slughorn had been planning to give that bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas," Ginny reminded him. "So the poisoner could just as easily have been after Dumbledore."
"Then the poisoner didn't know Slughorn very well," Hermione said, speaking for the first time in hours and sounding as though she had a bad head cold. "Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he'd keep something that tasty for himself."
"Er-my-nee," Ron croaked unexpectedly from between them.
They all fell silent, watching him anxiously, but after muttering incomprehensibly for a moment he merely started snoring.
The dormitory doors flew open, making them all jump. Hagrid came striding toward them, his hair rain-flecked, his bearskin coat flapping behind him, a crossbow in his hand, leaving a trail of muddy dolphin-sized footprints all over the floor.
"Bin in the forest all day!" he panted. "Aragog's worse, I bin readin' to him. Didn' get up ter dinner till jus' now an' then Professor Sprout told me abou' Ron! How is he?"
"Not bad," Harry said. "They say he'll be okay."
"No more than six visitors at a time!" Madam Pomfrey said, hurrying out of her office.
"We'll go," Alex volunteered, standing with Luna. "I need a cigarette after this anyway."
The others all nodded, and as they left, Madam Pomfrey hurried off to clear up Hagrid's muddy foot prints with her wand. As soon as Alex and Luna were outside, Alex lit his cigarette, both heading for the lake. He finished it by the time they got there, and they both got in, swimming to their cave before drying themselves and holding each other.
"I'm glad he's going to be alright," Alex sighed.
"So am I," Luna nodded.
"Don't accept a drink, or food, or jewelry from anyone but me or our friends, alright?" Alex asked.
"I won't," Luna promised, kissing him. "Are you alright?"
"I will be," Alex nodded. "Just worried right now."
Luna nodded. "It'll be okay."
Alex nodded, holding her more tightly, and Luna curled into his side.
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