Ron shook his head.  "Hermione, you're just making this harder on yourself."

She glared at him over the top of the large book she was holding up, almost as a shield.  "At least I get my homework done in a timely manner, Ronald Weasley."

"Yeah, you rush through it and then go plowing in like you want to earn yourself some medical degree," he agreed.  "You can't tell me your grades haven't dropped these past few weeks."

"So it's not over one hundred percent; I'm still averaging an O," she shot back, the book rising up again.

He sighed, reaching for her hand and forcing her to lower it again.  "'Mione, you're running yourself ragged.  I think you really should see Amy yourself."

"I've just not been sleeping well," she argued, but it was true: she was looking slightly ill.  Paler than usual, it only served to bring out the bags under her eyes, which were slightly red.  "I'm worried about Harry."

"Amy's doing all she can," he said consolingly.  "'Sides, Harry's not going to like it if he wakes up and you're too exhausted to even tutor him."

She tried a smile, but it seemed she was too tired to manage one.  "It's not just this, Ron.  I'm seriously ill."

"What?"  The background noise in the common room seemed to fade away as he focused on her.  "Hermione, what's wrong?"

She took a deep breath.  "Remember when we went after . . . after Sirius in the Ministry, and we dueled with the Death Eaters?"

He first nodded, then shook his head.  "Madame Pompfry took care of that, remember?  You had to take something practically every twenty minutes."

"She tried," Hermione said.  "But . . . well, two of the curses really aren't meant to go together, and . . ." She trailed off.

Ron took a deep breath, realizing he had grabbed her hand.  "How serious is seriously ill?"

"It's just – well, I get more tired than usual, and . . . well, some potion ingredients can set off bad reactions if I come in contact with them, so that's why Snape's been a bit . . . strange . . . sometimes."

"'Mione, why didn't you tell us before?"

"Because Harry would feel guilty!" she exploded.  "You know he would."

"He didn't make us go," Ron argued.

"Since when's Harry been logical?" Hermione asked, smiling, though her eyes were slightly teary.  "And you know he'd think it was worse . . ."

"Worse than being exhausted and having Snape hover over you?" he asked wryly, trying to lighten the mood.

Hermione laughed.  "Yes, I see your point . . ."

Ron smiled.  "Isn't there something Amy can give you?" he prodded.

She rolled her eyes, shoving the book aside and getting up out of the chair.  "Fine, fine: I'll ask.  Just don't nag, or I'll have to curse you."

He threw a mock salute and watched her leave through the portrait hole.

* * * * *

Amy did not look surprised when Hermione entered; rather, she looked stern.  "How often do I have to tell you to take it easy?" she said, bending once more over Harry to check his pulse and smooth his sheets.  "You're not going to help him by hurting yourself."

"And I'm certainly not going to help him if I don't try," she returned, brushing her hair off her face.  "I can't just sit there and do nothing!"

Amy looked up, eyes dark and sad.  "Meaning I am?"

"And what if I did mean it that way?"  Hermione crossed her arms.  "You couldn't do anything about it.  Even if I accused you of –"

"Even if you accused me of what?" Amy asked softly in the silence.  When Hermione did not answer, the Healer turned, following her gaze to find Snape framed in the doorway of her private office.  "I gave you more credit than that, Hermione."

"That doesn't mean people wouldn't believe me."

Amy shrugged, gathering up empty vials and tidying Harry's bedside table.  "Is that the way you mean to fight, then?  By trying to undermine me?  I can tell you here and now that no Healer would be able to wake him, though the others would not be nearly so cautious as I am now."

"What's that supposed to mean?"  She took two quick steps forward, breathing hard.  "You know something, don't you?  Something you're not telling us."

"I know a lot of things I'm not telling you," Amy agreed, opening a cupboard and running her finger along the labels of the potions within.  "Most of them because they would do you more harm than good if you knew them.  It's all right; you can go."  This last was directed to Snape.

He shook his head, looking concerned.  "Something's wrong."

"It's not a reaction," she argued.  "Besides, you said you were watching her.  And that was a week ago; it wouldn't take this long to show itself."

"Not if it were a small enough dose," he argued.  "Look at her; you can't say she looks well to you."

Amy smiled wryly.  "I never said she was.  Hermione, if you would just drink this . . ."

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the glass of dull blue the Healer was holding out to her.  "It's poisoned.  You're working for him, you have been all along!  Traitor!"  Turning, she began to run.

"Classic symptoms, Ames!" Snape grunted as he dove after her, catching her around the knees and causing her to fall.

"Accelerated," she argued tersely, not caring when the glass – hurriedly set on her desk – was knocked over as she hurriedly reached for another vial, quickly drawing some into a syringe.  "Hold her steady."

"Yeah, right," he grunted.  Hermione was struggling, now screaming out things like, "Murderer!  Double-crosser!  Betrayer!"

Tongue poking out from between her lips in concentration, Amy eased the needle into Hermione's arm.  "Can't you just Stun her?" Snape asked, knowing she was trying to find a vein.

She shook her head.  "This potion's too iffy as it is; something like that could damage her immune system irreparably, resulting in –"

"Fine, fine!  Just do it already!"

"Done," Amy breathed, quickly Banishing the empty syringe to a table and steadying Hermione's head as she shuddered, fighting the relaxant as it spread through her muscles.

Snape took a deep breath.  "She reacted a week late."

"It can take as long as seventy-two hours."

"When she only contacted a variant of the trigger, and only barely, if then."

"Which could explain the delay."

"But not the full-blown, accelerated reaction."

Amy frowned, brushing the hair out of Hermione's face.  "No, look – classic symptoms include bruising in the –"

He cleared his throat, indicating that she should speak plain English.

"She should have black eyes, all right?  And a nosebleed, something awful.  That's the first thing I told you to look for.  It should have happened within minutes of contact and it still hasn't happened."

"So, what, you're trying to tell me this isn't a Lembis reaction when they used Tarnis just last week in their advanced Spell Resistance Potion?"

She shook her head.  "It's not."

"Ames –"

"Sev, just listen to me, all right?  Who's the Healer here, me or you?"

"You!  But –"

"Hush!"  Carefully Amy took Hermione in her arms, lifting her smoothly to avoid jostling her head and laying her gently on a bed, adjusting her limp limbs into a more comfortable, natural position.  "I don't like it when people underestimate me, and I'm being underestimated."

He chose to remain silent, simply raising an eyebrow.

"This is a reaction similar enough that at first glance the untrained eye would think it caused by Lembis, or the variant you used.  But it's not.  Whoever did this doesn't know me and thinks I'll miss it."  Her eyes were hard.  "I need to find out who."

"Hey, stop."  He put a hand on her shoulder.  "You need to stay here and look after her.  I'll get on that right away.  After all" – he tried a smile – "you happen to be the Healer here."

Amy took a deep breath and nodded, gaze spanning the Hospital Wing.  "They're striking at children now, Severus.  We need to stop them.  Now."

Nodding once more, he turned and left.

* * * * *

Looking worried, Remus strode into the hospital wing.  "Severus' with Moody right now," he said, putting a hand on Amy's shoulder as she was bent over Hermione, taking a pulse.  "What's going on?"

"I don't know," she said, scribbling something on a sheet of parchment.  "Her adrenaline level's normal, which means this was not a Lembis-induced –"

"English, sweetie," he said wearily, kissing her cheek before collapsing into a chair.

"Meh."  She made a face.  "Okay, so that one spell she was hit with last spring – the one by the mute Death Eater, apparently?"

"I'm following."

Amy shrugged.  "It caused an imbalance in her – well, it caused an imbalance, weakening her immune system and making her more susceptible to diseases." She paused, waiting to see if she'd used too much official jargon.  "It's also affected her metabolism, making her tire out more easily, though I've been giving her treatments for that and she's been doing fine, up until right after Christmas when she started running herself ragged."

"Okay.  So what happened today?"

"The Lembis plant, when she comes in contact with it, would give her a severe reaction.  It affects the nervous system, making the patient start to hallucinate and become very unreasonable, also causing the muscles to seize up.  That's why she needed a dose of relaxant, to keep her safe."

Remus nodded.  "So she came into contact with Lembis.  Severus couldn't keep an eye on her all the time, honey; mistakes happen."

"This reaction also acts as a blood thinner," Amy continued as though he hadn't spoken.  "One of the first symptoms is a nosebleed and two blossoming black eyes.  That didn't happen, Remus.  I've checked; she's normal."

"Except her muscles seized up and she seemed to go crazy," he agreed.

She shook her head.  "It's not overly difficult to make a potion that will do that to someone, and anyone can act crazy for long enough to spur a trained Healer into action.  This may have been done by an ignorant mind, but not an untrained one."

He raised an eyebrow.  "Care to explain that last little comment?"

"They're expecting me to diagnose it right away as a Lembis reaction, which is where they fail: whoever did this doesn't know me well enough to realize I'll have read up on it.  It's rare, so they usually would be able to get away with it." She shrugged.  "I've not heard a thing about it from my godfather.  And I can tell this isn't his work: he'd be overly meticulous, perhaps even stooping to buy a Skiving Snackbox for the Weasleys' Blood Blisters, just to make sure everything's perfect."

"Or maybe it is his idea," Remus mused.  "Maybe he wasn't planning on enacting it so soon, or maybe this is just the beginning."

"For what point and purpose?  To fill every bed in here with some strange case that no one else would understand?  And why Hermione?  What interest does he have in her, a Muggle-born?  He's not so rash as to kill her straight out and not so random as to attack her like this with no reason."

"Well, with every bed full, it wouldn't be a surprise that Harry's not improving . . ."

"No one could help him improve anyway!" she cried, throwing up her arms in frustration.  "I don't need an excuse, he knows it, and he'd tell me of any plan involving me, anyway!"

Her husband looked thoughtful.  "Maybe this one doesn't involve you."

"What?"

"No, hear me out: maybe he wants to keep you out of this, to keep you legit.  He's doing . . .  something . . . that he doesn't want you caught up in, so you'll still be in good stead for a St. Mungo's job next year."

Amy rolled her eyes.  "Listen, Remus, the only reason he'd want to keep me out of this was if . . . if . . ." She swore.

"If what?" he asked quietly.

She met his eyes.  "If he's trying to kill Harry."

It took a moment for that to register.  "He can't.  They can't duel; the possibility of their wands connecting is just too great."

"But has anyone proved that he's the only one who can hurt Harry?" she asked quietly.

"But the Prophecy . . ."

She shook her head.  "It only says they can't both survive.  It doesn't say they're immortal unless killed by the other.  My godfather was reaching for immortality, remember?  There has to be a reason for that."

Remus stood quickly, almost knocking over his chair.  "You stay here.  I'm going to get Dumbledore, Severus, Moody . . . anyone in the Order I can."  He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly and left.

* * * * *

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips, looking most severe.  "We can't draw the conclusion that this is a plot to take Mr. Potter's life."

Amy's eyes narrowed.  "Just the same, Minerva, I would like it more if you'd be able to tell me that no one wants to kill the boy in the next room, and we both know you can't."

"You-Know-Who wants him dead, certainly," she agreed, pushing her spectacles up on her nose, "but he'd know better than to try something within the walls of Hogwarts, right under Dumbledore's nose."

"That's what's bothering me," the younger woman said quietly, and her husband took her hand.

"We just think it's something worth noticing," Remus said calmly, looking over the assembled group.  Hagrid was taking up the sofa, Dumbledore and Moody had the armchairs, Snape was out in the hospital wing under the Auror's Invisibility Cloak, and he was leaning against Amy's desk while she was sitting on it, looking weary.

"O' 'course it's worth noticin'," Hagrid agreed, nodding and running a hand over his unruly beard.  "'s actually somethin' happenin' that shouldn' be."

Moody shook his head, electric blue eyeball whirling around, pausing at the back of his head to check on Snape before circling up to the ceiling and back around.  "It's been in the Prophet that Madame Amy's no regular Healer.  Would they expect her to fall for this?"

McGonagall checked the clock.  "If you'll excuse me, tonight's my night on duty after hours.  If you want my personal opinion, here it is: this is all a ruse to take our attention off the real important things that are going to be happening, and possibly are happening, right now.  You know the trick, Remus; I've seen it from you and the other three often enough."  Nodding to the headmaster she left her post in the corner and exited the room.

"You gotta admit, she has a point," Hagrid said grudgingly.

"But if they only want us to think it's a ruse?" Amy persisted.

Dumbledore looked pensive.  "Amy, my dear: could it be possible that you're overanalyzing this?"

She laughed dryly.  "You know what Sev tells me all the time?  'You know that part of your mind that tells you you're overanalyzing things?  You don't have one.'  But I'm still not willing to drop this."

"Just because Minerva left doesn't mean she has," he pointed out gently.

"I know," she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose to try to ward off a headache.  "I'm just not used to having to use so much guesswork."

Remus raised an eyebrow.  "Says the woman who used to rant in her letters that she was never going to get her vampire-friendly products right because she had no clue what she was going."

Amy gave him a Look.  "But that didn't mean someone was going to die if I got that wrong.  I had more than one chance."

Dumbledore nodded slowly, thoughtfully.  "All right: I'll place a spell on the room.  It will allow you and Remus to enter, though, if anyone else does through any entrance, an alarm will alert us to it straight away, unheard by anyone but us, so that we might take the intruder by surprise.  With as little information as we have, that seems like the best we can do."

After a moment, Amy nodded.  "All right."

"D'you wan' me to spend the night close by?" Hagrid asked, looking at Amy.  "I coul' kip on the floor."

She smiled at him gratefully.  "If you're willing, Hagrid, I would love to accept your offer."

Dumbledore stood, causing them to all follow suit.  "Get some sleep," he advised Amy.  "Take one of your own potions if you have to; we'll want you rested, come morning."

Amy nodded, leaning into her husband as he put his arm around her.  "Good night."

The headmaster bade them sleep well before he and Moody went into the wing itself, informing Snape of the plan.  The Potions professor frowned slightly, but agreed to it, returning the Cloak before he, too, left.  Moody went on his way before Dumbledore performed the complex charm, one that would detect any living creature entering through even a hairline crack before turning in himself.

The moon shone through the windows in the Hospital Wing, falling across the beds of Harry and Hermione, both caught in an unnatural sleep.

* * * * *

Although Harry would not remember it, his waking was preceded by a prick in his arm from a needle and a smooth injection by experienced hands.  The syringe was tossed carelessly to the floor.  There was not long to wait.

Harry moaned, raising a hand to his aching head.  It felt as though his brain had been replaced with cotton and his limbs were heavy, telling him that it had been a long while since he had used them.  A second moan and something cool and smooth pressed to his lips.  "Drink this," a familiar voice whispered, tilting the cup.

He swallowed greedily, almost as quickly as she could pour.  Gradually the room seemed to stop swimming and he sat up, reaching for his glasses and looking around.  "What – what happened?"

She shrugged, taking a seat on the bed next to him.  "They tried Occlumency on you when you were sleeping.  It's been ages; we weren't really sure you'd ever wake."

Squinting, he looked around the darkened room.  "Hogwarts . . ."

A nod.  "Yes, Harry.  You're back here.  It's supposed to be safer."

The tone of her voice made him focus on her face.  "Supposed to be?"

Another nod.  "But there's a place even safer for you than this.  We need to leave now."

He choked back a laugh. "Me, leave with you?  The two of us alone?  Are you kidding?  Hey, look, if I need to be someplace safe –"

"They won't be expecting this," she cut in smoothly, raising and eyebrow.  "You know they won't."

Harry paused a moment.  "So I'm supposed to leave with you, and risk you along with me."

She shrugged.  "I'm willing."

He felt another snort of laughter rising.  "And if I'm not?"

"You won't be safe if you stay here."

"So I'm supposed to gamble you by leaving?"

Sighing, she brushed the hair out of her face.  "Better me than you.  We need you, Harry.  You know that."

Still he balked.  "So I'm supposed to, what, just walk out of here in my pajamas?"

Wordlessly she pointed to where his trunk was at the foot of his bed.

He took a deep breath.  "So I can get dressed.  Then what?"

"We have your Firebolt."

Harry raised an eyebrow.  "You and me on my Firebolt, and no one's supposed to notice?"  Then he smacked himself in the forehead.  "Right, my Invisibility Cloak."

She tried to mask her flash of surprise.  "Right.  Of – of course.  Your Invisibility Cloak.  We'll manage with that somehow."

"Fine," he sighed, throwing back the covers.  "Would you mind pulling those curtains while I get dressed?"

"Of course not."

Five minutes later, Cloak tucked closely around them, they shot out of the window on his broom, passing the sleeping castle and veering off into the distance.

* * * * *

Professor Lupin gave his wife an appraising look.  "You really need to sleep, Ames."

She laughed dryly.  "I'm worried."

"I know."  He sat next to her on the bed, sliding an arm around her shoulders and kissing her forehead.  "But you shouldn't be.  What can they do to Harry if they can't get in?"

"Mmm."  She closed her eyes.  "You've been too busy with the Order these past few days . . ."

"Have I?"  Though he knew that it had been taking up a lot of his time.

She pulled back to look at him.  "Harry almost woke up two days ago."

Remus blinked.  Then, as that didn't seem to help, he blinked again.  "Harry woke up."

"Almost," his wife corrected.  "Remember, he's safe, as long as he's asleep."  She gave him a wry smile to show just how much faith she put into those words.

He took a deep breath.  "That changes things.  Why didn't you tell me?"  Yet he knew her answer.

"What could you have done?  Worry?  How much would that have helped either of us?"

"Just the same . . ." He stood.

Amy sat fully up.  "Where are you going?"

"There's a window in your door; I'm going to check on them."

* * * * *

Harry dismounted from his broom, sneakers crunching through the layer of ice atop the snow.  He looked around, breath smoking the moonlit air.  She had directed him to land atop a hill.  Before them sprawled a large house that might have once been an imposing Victorian but was now desperately in need of repairs.  The paint had faded and peeled, the windows were either boarded over or cracked, and the garden was overgrown with weeds.  There was a field off to their right, with something lumpy buried under the snow, and for some reason hot lead slid into his stomach when he looked that way.  Quickly he turned back to the person who had brought him here.  "We're going in there?"

She nodded, cupping her hands and blowing in them to warm them.  It was the first time he noticed she wasn't wearing so much as a cloak.  "That's where they're waiting for us.  We might not stay there; we need to keep moving, in case . . ." Glancing over her shoulder, she trailed off.

Harry nodded, feeling the weight of his Firebolt in his hand – his [i]left[/i] hand; his wand was in his right.  "You're sure about this?"

The look she gave him told him he should have known better than to question her.  Meekly he ducked his head.  "Sorry, 'Mione."

"It's fine, just – come on, before we freeze!"  Grabbing his arm, Hermione led him down the hill.

* * * * *

Amy was on his heels as Remus looked through the window and swore.  "Harry's gone," he said, angrily pushing the door opening, sending a signal to the Order.

She swore as well, adding to what he had said as she pushed him aside and went to the bed that was still occupied, putting a hand on her girl's forehead and seeming to have used up all the words she wanted to say, wheeling around to her cupboard.  Her husband backed out of her way, not saying a word as Amy drew a syringe and injected Hermione with a second shot in less than six hours.  Her foot kicked something on the floor, which rolled away.  Tossing the now-empty syringe aside, Amy got down on her knees.  "[i]Lumos,[/i]" she whispered, shining the thin beam of light under the beds and tables.

"What is it?" he husband asked quietly, watching her intently.

Amy emerged holding two used syringes, one with the needle broken off partway.  Her eyes spoke the anger she felt words could not convey.

* * * * *

No one spoke as Snape and Amy set to work.  She had rattled off a list of tests for him to perform on one needle, taking the other – the unbroken one – and simply dripping two drops of a blue solution onto it.  The potion fizzled pink and sent of small silver sparks.  "Harry's awake," she said numbly, staring at the results.  "Awake, and he managed to get out of here somehow."

"His trunk's here," Moody observed, magical eye whizzing.  "His pajamas were tossed on top . . . clothes, missing."

"And his broom," Lupin added, going through the contents.  "And – and James' cloak."

"Someone musta been in here," Hagrid said slowly, looking angry with himself for having let this happen.  "No one coulda gotten in, not with the spell."

"Or so I would like to think, Hagrid," Dumbledore said heavily.  "Alistair, you looked around before we left?"

The Auror nodded.  "But if you messed up the spell, I sure as anything could have missed something."

"A spider?" Amy suggested dully.  "But it was a large one; you would have seen him."

"Him?"

"Lucius Malfoy."  Amy ran a hand over her face, turning to look at Snape, who was still working to figure out what had been injected into Hermione's veins.  Sighing, she pulled out her wand and went over to Hermione, running it up and down the length of her body, searching for the rest of the needle.

"Is it possible it broke off with the fall to the floor?" Dumbledore suggested.

"Possible."  Amy's lips barely moved, so great was her concentration.  "But at this point, Albus, I'm not sure I'd even trust a certainty unless I see it for myself."

Snape sighed.  "It's not reacting to anything, Ames.  Those are the most common tests . . ."

She nodded once, moving to his side.  "You need to see if you can find out where they took him.  Take Remus; I'll be fine here."  As if to stop any more of his protests, she took the potions out of his hands.

"I can't leave, not when the students are here," Dumbledore said softly, apologetically.  They understood: all of them verses Harry would force him to choose all of them.

"Yeh can send for us when yeh find where he is, Severus," Hagrid said, nodding to a thus-so-far silent McGonagall.

"And I'll be coming with you, of course," Moody said, waving for the two men to proceed him out of the hospital wing.  "The sooner we get started . . ."

Amy didn't look up as the rest of them left, though McGonagall paused a moment as though to say something – perhaps to apologize – but she left before opening her mouth.  Mouth set in a firm line, Amy went back to the needle.