-- Author's Note: A chapter a day keeps the story-crazed readers from stringing K up and burning her alive! =) And, yes Ron does need anger management classes -- which is the reason (or, one of them, anyway) he had to fight Harry. To answer a very old question: you'll see just why Malfoy gave Harry the truth serum in this very chapter. ^__^ Also, I'm much inclined to agree . . . there's something very satisfying about Ron punching Harry, that thick git! Lol. Anyway, thanks to Josh and Jude and all those wonderful people reading my story. I feel loved and am very flattered by all these lovely reviews. Thanks a million!
"What are they doing here?" Ron inquired, though his voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper, while leaning heavily against the wall of the corridor which branched into the different areas of the locker room and led directly to the field from which he had just been dragged away from. His blue eyes -- barely recognizable behind the bruise around one and the blood dripping near the other from the cut at his eyebrow -- moved to rest upon the seemingly unconscious Crabbe and Goyle laying in a heap near Seamus's feet down the hallway.
Hermione, though fairly curious as to why Dean and Seamus would seemingly stupefy two students to drag them to the Quidditch Pitch, ignored the question and continued to tug at Ron in attempt to get him down the corridor and out of the building. "It doesn't matter, we need to get to the Hospital Wing." It was no longer a matter of if she was right -- it was clear by Ron's appearance that she was right.
"It does matter, Hermione!" Dean countered from down the hall, despite the fact that he looked rather confused over Harry and Ron's appearances. The evidence he and Seamus had to present was far more important than the two Quidditch players being patched up by fussy Madam Pomfrey after a rough practice. "We followed them into the dungeons and heard them talking and we think we know what's wrong with Harry!"
"All we have to do is wake them up and have them tell him!" Seamus shouted, pulling out his wand and pointing it smack between Goyle's eyebrows (though, there was barely a space there at all, considering the aforementioned had nearly grown together).
The youngest Chaser -- Natalie McDonald, Hermione noted -- spoke up with a scoff, neither afraid to speak her mind, nor intimidated by being surrounded by students years ahead of her (and a rather confusing turn of events). "They won't tell anyone anything! They're Malfoy's guard dogs. I mean, I don't think they're honestly that intelligent, but they are loyal and I don't want to be caught in the middle of an Unforgivable Curse when you try to pry their fat lips open about whatever it is!"
Dean and Seamus looked almost scandalized, before they realized that she was right. They would flab about anything they wanted in the safety of the dungeons, but it would take a Cruciatus Curse to get Crabbe and Goyle to say anything about Malfoy in the presence of ten Gryffindors.
"We could give him some of this truth serum?" Harry suggested, looking terribly much like an overly abused stray dog as he leaned heavily against the other two Chasers. Strangely, all three of them looked ill -- Harry was drenched in blood, sweat, tears, rain, and mud, while the Chasers were looking almost deathly pale.
"No!" Hermione burst out at the notion, though was unable to tear herself away from Ron in time to prevent the next series of events or force her fellow house-mates to understand. In no time, Harry had pointed out the chilling hot chocolate on the table, Dean had cast ennervate on both of them, and Seamus had grabbed two of the remaining cups and poured their contents down Crabbe and Goyle's throats. There were no protests in the room, save those of Hermione, as the two Slytherins would have enjoyed eating anything in the world, so long as it had a taste of chocolate to it. Hermione's objections, of course, were ignored, the Gryffindors having grown used to her disapproving of even the slightest breaking of rules.
"Now," Seamus crouched by Crabbe, who had been the one to recount most of the story anyway, pointing his wand as he large, piggy face. "Let's have that story again, shall we? The one about Draco's plan."
"We made the distraction, Draco and Blaise skived off, and Pansy went to find Potter," Crabbed finished, having been slow to recount the tale due to his own ignorance and the pounding of his overly large head in the aftermath to the stunning spell. "That's it, though. That's all I know. It was Draco and Blaise, not Weasley. Draco wanted Potter to think it was her when it wasn't."
Witht he story they had partially heard recounted in full, Dean and Seamus looked eagerly around at those gathered, eyes darting back and forth to gauge reactions.
Ron had since seemingly fallen asleep, though every once and a while he'd grunt to show that he was listening, just with his eyes closed. The story didn't phase him for some reason -- either, he had been expecting as much or suddenly didn't care. His sister, on the other hand, looked as if she had just seen some manner of ghost: pale and horrified. For Harry, there was nothing to do but slide his way down the wall he was by that time leaning on (having nearly crushed the Chasers with his light weight) to the floor and break down in a torrent of quiet, yet anguished sobs. No one, however, moved to comfort him.
"That's not all," Goyle broke the silence, though his voice sounded oddly distant from his prone position on the floor, either too lazy or too stupid to sit up, pay attention, and wipe the dribbled hot chocolate from his cheek.
Seamus immediately turned his attention to Crabbe's companion, pointing the tip of his wand right at Goyle's nose. "What else, then? Go on!"
Goyle struggled for some time, more than simply scared at the wand aimed at his face. Clearly, being stunned by two Gryffindors had taken almost all the fight and bravado out of him. "I . . . I heard Draco and Blaise this morning. He was upset that Potter hadn't done anything -- accused Weasley or something -- so he said he wanted to make sure something happened. He said . . . he wanted to make Potter suffer."
A blanket of silence settled over the crowded hallway, which was littered with used cups, patches of mud, pools of rain water, and two Slytherins. No one could work that clue into the jigsaw puzzle of the situation -- Draco hadn't done anything . . . yet, had he? After the silence had began to pound in the ears of the confused, Harry suddenly let out a loud yell. Under normal circumstances, Hermione would have scolded him for his use of filthy language, but instead she looked triumphant (if not pale and withered) and rushed forward to the table. "I knew it!"
"Knew what?" Natalie, who was the only person in the room who had taken the smallest bit of pity on Harry, questioned quietly after tearing her eyes away from her Quidditch Captain.
Various items were moved around on the table, the previously boiling water inspected, the empty and full packages of hot chocolate poked at, until at last Hermione discovered what she was looking for. "This," she replied, turning back to those assembled. In her hand, held up for all to see in the dim light of the torches lining the walls, was a small vial, a purple liquid pooling in the bottom.
"The truth serum?" someone asked.
Hermione's expression turned annoyed and concerned at the same time. "No, it isn't a truth serum. At first, I thought it was, just brewed incorrectly. That was, until, Ron and Harry started . . . " she paused, trailing off to prevent to use of the word fighting. After a brief shake of her head, Hermione continued undaunted. "I knew that an uninhibited truth serum made a person willing to speak anything that popped into their mind without questioning, but it doesn't cause a person to do anything that comes to their mind."
Another bout of silence came over the other nine Gryffindors and two Slytherins (though Hermione honestly didn't expect them to understand a single thing), before Harry finally raised his tear-streaked face from his hands. "It isn't a truth serum, then," he spoke, his own voice hoarse, but dripping and quivering with the emotions welling within him. "I should have known!" Yet, his anger was not enough to overcome the shame he felt (doubled -- tripled by the new evidence) and he went back to burying his face in his hands once again.
"You should have," Hermione agreed, though not in her usual snappish tone. "Don't ever trust anything Draco Malfoy gives you, Harry. Or, at least not without looking at everyone else's potions first." Reaching into her robes, she removed a similar vial from her inner pocket -- it was filled with a thick, blue substance, as opposed to the thin, purple one. It was her truth serum, brewed to such perfection that Snape had taken points off.
There was a muttered protest from Crabbe, "You don't know Potter got that from Draco, mudblood."
Although the use of the name Malfoy had coined for Hermione since their second year at Hogwarts did rouse some other emotion from the Gryffindors aside from confusion or bleak understanding, none but Dean and Seamus moved to take action (though, Ron's eyes had opened and he had attempted to come forward, before stumbling) . . . before Hermione stopped them. "Actually, I do know that Harry obtained this from Malfoy," she said, a smug look shining through her features, which were just as pale as nearly everyone else's in the room.
Holding up the nearly empty vial in the light, she turned it slowly until the opposite side showed. There, in elegantly scripted letters, were the initials D.L.M. etched into the glass. "There's only a handful of people at this school who would bother personalizing potions equipment . . . and only one of them has a name which matches these initials."