Blame it on Monday: Part 2
Lunch was in full swing when Harry got to the Great Hall and he took up his customary seat next to Ron and Hermione. Ron was conspicuously shooting Dean warning glances when his classmate sat down next to his sister. Harry just poured himself a glass of Pumpkin Juice and sipped on the juice as he watched his friends.
"If you hurry," Hermione said, getting Ron attention away from the couple, "you could still find your paper before class."
Smiling sheepishly, Ron said, "Oh I didn't actually forget it. I put it into my bag last night."
"You lied to me?" Hermione said. Her voice was rising dangerously.
"Well, no," Ron said with a nervous glance at Harry. Harry just gave him an innocent look and refilled his glass of juice. "I was actually talking to Harry."
"So you lied to Harry too then," Hermione said. She scoffed at Ron's floundering fish-face and took a large gulp of Pumpkin Juice before continuing. "I was right next to you. You know I was listening."
"How was I supposed to know that; you weren't saying anything." Ron argued. He carefully poured himself a glass of Pumpkin Juice and downed nearly half the glass.
"Well of course I was listening. I always listen to.... Ginny, what's wrong." Hermione stopped her just beginning tirade when Ginny burst out into tears where she was sitting two seats down form the trio.
"You're always fighting," Ginny sobbed. She grabbed onto the front of Dean's shit and wiped her snotty nose on a bit of lose cloth (Dean's face was priceless at that moment). "People who love each other like you do shouldn't fight so much."
Ron and Hermione looked at each other and burst out laughing. "Are you daft, Ginny?" Ron sputtered out, but his insult just made Ginny cry even harder. She unceremoniously buried her face in Dean's shoulder and muttered unintelligible insults at Ron.
"Have a drink of Pumpkin Juice, Love," Dean offered, but Ginny just threw out her arm and knocked the glass of juice all over the table.
"I don't wanit," she whined.
"Ginny!" Dean said in surprise. He looked at Ron for help, but Ron was looking just as baffled.
Harry couldn't help it; his head felt all messed up and he just burst out laughing. "That wassin vera nice, yano," he said. The rest of the table looked at him as though he had just lost his mind, and maybe he had, he was feeling a very dizzy. A couple of third years down the table from them nearly fell over in a fit of giggles.
"What?" Hermione said. "Are you all right, Harry?" Harry just laughed and poured himself his fourth glass of Pumpkin Juice since lunch began.
"Sure, 'ermione," He said as he downed another glass of the juice and quickly refilled. Some of the juice dribbled down his chin and into his lap, but he didn't really care. The juice seemed to taste exceptionally good today, he thought.
"He'd drunk," Harry heard someone state, but to his foggy brain it sounded far off and utterly stupid.
"That's absurd," Hermione said. "All he's had was...." She gasped and looked immediately at Ginny, then the Pumpkin Juice spilled all over the table, then to the ever-refilling pitcher of juice, then to Harry downing his fifth glass with a lopsided grin, then to Ron and said, "I think we need to get him to the hospital wing."
"Really?" Ron said with a grin. "Someone's spiked the Pumpkin Juice?" He quickly reached for his own glass of juice, but Hermione slapped it away from his hand. Ron looked dejected.
Dean spoke up over Ginny's sobbing head and said," How can you be so sure he's..." Ginny gave a loud sob and clamped on to Dean even tighter, "they are drunk?"
"Ask Harry something he's sure to know." Someone suggested. Harry was beginning to feel a little put out that everyone was talking over his head.
"Like what?" Ron asked. He glanced at his Harry and Harry looked back with an overly friendly grin.
"I'm not drunk," Harry said and wiped his pumpkin juice covered chin with a flourish. "Really, I'm not." Ginny's sobbing seemed to grow in intensity.
"How many days are there in a year?" A first year they didn't know asked.
"396," Harry stated finally. That didn't seem quite right to him, but that was just what popped into his mind right then.
"He's drunk," Hermione concluded.
"You can't tell from that. He got the question right, didn't he?" Ron asked. Harry could vaguely see Hermione look at Ron in amazement before she exploded.
"There's 365 days in a year, Ron, except on a leap year and then there's only 366." Hermione's look clearly stated that Ron was running a few bricks short of a full load. "Everyone knows that."
"I was joking, Hermione," Ron said, but Harry wasn't sure that he was by his tone of voice.
"Well, let's get them up to the hospital wing," Dean said. He grabbed Ginny's arm and helped her up from her seat.
"Um..." Neville said nervously to everyone and no one. "I think there's something wrong with Lavender and Parvati too."
Harry leaned over onto his plate to look at the girls and landed in something warm and squishy. "What's up with that," he muttered, but no one was paying attention. They were all considering Lavender and Parvati's states.
"Oh, perfect," Hermione said. Lavender looked like she was pissed off and brooding and Parvati was leaning carelessly on a fourth year's shoulder. "I guess we'd better take them with us." Hermione sighed. "Ron, you take Harry, and I'll help Neville deal with Lavender and Parvati."
"Sure," said Ron. "Come on, Harry,"
Harry stood up quickly and rocked backwards into Ron when he saw his plate stuck to his shirt. "Oh, lookie, Ron," he said and smiled. "Take-out."
Ron grimaced and pulled the plate off Harry's shirt and threw it back on the table. "Disgusting," Ron said as the cheese and massed potatoes came away in a large clomp and splattered all over the floor. "Come on."
The walk to the hospital wing was rather eventful as far as Harry's fuzzy brain was concerned. Neville got caught in a trick step (yeah, the sober one got stuck) and Hermione ended up losing track of Parvati when she was helping him out. Parvati subsequently ended up wandering into Professor Flitwick's office. Luckily, he wasn't there, but what was very unlucky was that Parvati retched all over a stack of graded papers. It took a bit for Hermione to clean this up and in the end she had accidentally cleaned all the words off the essays as well as the vomit. Hermione quickly denied any knowledge of being anywhere near those papers, but everyone there had seen what happened.
"Don't worry, Hermione," Ron said, trying to be helpful. "I bet they were the Slytherin's." Hermione just sent him an evil glare.
They were just coming upon the Hospital wing, when Hermione whispered, "Look sober!" and the intoxicated ones did their best to look normal as they passed a very angry looking Professor Snape in the hallway, but the professor didn't seen to notice them. He was quietly muttering something about how his inebriation potion had just gone missing (whatever that was). Hermione gave the professor a sideways glance as they passed and when they were finally out of earshot, she turned to Ron and Harry with a look that said lightning had just struck her brain.
"It was that potion, I bet," she said. Not that anyone else really cared (especially Parvati who was looking a little green around the gills and relying heavily on Hermione to walk).
Dean and Ginny made it to the hospital wing first and opened the door to an awaiting Madam Pomfrey.
"Oh goodness!" She declared. "What happened?"
"They're intoxicated," Hermione explained as she deposited Parvati on one of the beds. "I think it was an inebriation potion in the pumpkin juice." Ginny just happened to pick that moment to up-chuck all over Neville's shoes as if to prove Hermione point.
"Gross," Neville muttered and cleaned up the mess with a wave of his wand.
"Oh dear, that's a highly illegal...and on school grounds. Whoever brew this will be severely punished, I'll see to that myself," Madam Pomfrey said as she flitted around between students, checking their eyes and tongues for tell tale signs of contamination. "The headmaster will hear about this if it is the last thing I do."
Harry saw Madam Pomfrey move in front of her face, but everything seemed to be swirling up and to the right. "Hold still, Mada Pompy," he said and put his hand on her head to keep her still, but his hand started moving in the same direction and he laughed. "Weird," he said.
"Okay, it's best now just to get them into bed," Madam Pomfrey instructed. Harry could feel Ron pull him towards the bed next to Parvati.
"Are they going to be all right?" Ron asked. He pushed Harry slightly and Harry tripped over his own feet and fell roughly on the bed.
"Ouch, Ron," he said.
Madam Pomfrey was half buried in her supply closet and responded with a bit of an echo, "They'll just have to sleep it off. That will probably take most of the afternoon depending on their level of intoxication, but they should be fine by dinner time."
"Dinner time!" Hermione yelled, "But that will mean they'll miss their evening classes."
"Hush, Miss Granger. This is an infirmary," Madam Pomfrey said with a scowl. She handed the nearest infected student a glass of potion. "Of course sleep, in this case, is the best cure, although some will wake up with quite a hangover.
"Miss out on potions?" Ron said. A smile formed on his face. "I drank some too," he volunteered. Madam Pomfrey looked into his eyes with suspicion and Ron did his best fake drunk act.
"Did you," the nurse asked. "And how much was that."
"A whole glass," Ron said almost proudly as he swayed on his feet.
Hermione scoffed. "It was a half a glass and you are not missing potions if I can help it."
"Hermione," Ron whined.
Madam Pomfrey shoved a glass of dreamless sleep potion in Harry's hand and he thoughtlessly chugged the entire goblet of the putrid potion. He watched sleepily as Hermione waved good-bye to him as she dragged Ron (who was acting like a cranky three year old) out of the infirmary.
"Just get some rest Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said as she pulled off his glassed and gently pushed him down onto his pillow. Her voice was gradually getting softer and more distant. "You'll be fine in no time."
No time for Harry was ten hours of good hard sleep and he basically woke up in time to go back to his dorm for bed (so much for dinnertime).
"What's goin' on," he said sleepily and reached out to find his glasses, but instead found the hand of the girl (Ravenclaw, third year) in a makeshift bed next to him. He dropped it like it was diseased and she didn't seem to notice.
Harry finally found his glasses on the bedside table and pushed them onto his nose. He was greeted with the sight of the Hospital Wing filled to the brim with sleeping students. "Wha..." he stated dumbly.
"Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said as she hurried through the maze of cots to his side. "It's good to see you're awake. How are you feeling?"
"Feeling?" Harry said thickly. "Fine, I guess. What happened? What's going on?"
"You should be fine now, Mr. Potter. You've been asleep for nearly ten hours," she said without answering his question. She looked at his eyes and yanked out his tongue before declaring him cured. "You appear to be fine. Headache?"
"Wha?" Harry said, getting to his feet. "No. No headache."
"That's good," she said. "Good, good, good. You had better run along to your dorm to get some rest." She put her hands on his shoulders and quickly guided him towards the door. "If you feel any side affects be sure to come here right away, understand?"
Harry nodded, but asked, "What is going on?"
"Oh, just a little...." Madam Pomfrey quickly dropped what she was saying to help another sick looking student that had just come through the doors. "Oh, right this way, dear. Don't worry; you'll be all right."
Harry just shook his head and left the infirmary.
The halls were quiet as Harry made his way back to the Gryffindor tower, but he hurried along anyway. Even though he had a good excuse for being out, he still didn't want to get caught by a teacher and forced to explain why he was in the hospital wing when he wasn't really clear on that matter himself.
And why did he have such a craving for pumpkin juice all of a sudden.
"Odd," Harry muttered and continued on his way.
"I told you to steal the Amore Potion, you fool." At the first sound of the approaching voice, Harry ducked behind the nearest suit of armor.
"Sorry, Draco, I..."
"I don't need you're excuses, Goyle." Draco chuckled. "I can't believe McGonagall awarded you the special services to the school award for catching that filthy pig. With the amount of brainpower you just displayed...well, it doesn't take a genius to see that he was already captured when you found him."
What in the bloody hell was Malfoy talking about, Harry thought as he tried to keep as still as possible. Malfoy and Goyle came to a stop right in front of Harry's hiding place and Harry held his breath.
"The potions weren't labeled," Goyle whined.
"The potions weren't labeled, "Malfoy mocked. He gave Goyle an icy glare. "I told you blue. The inebriation potion is clear, you idiot."
"It was dark," Goyle said quietly.
"Use your wand to see next time," Draco snapped.
"I..."
"Snape will most likely be fined for this and it's all your fault. If you weren't so stupid..."
There was a crash from down the hallway from the direction the two Slytherins had just come and they immediately dropped down into a whisper Harry could barely hear.
"First you mess up the Dark Lord's plans by running into Nott by the Whomping Willow and then," Draco looked down the hallway to see if anyone was coming, "and then you go and..."
Harry tried to listen a bit longer, but just had to exhale. He couldn't hold it any longer and the breath came out much louder than he intended.
"Who's there?" Draco demanded. He lit his wand and searched the hallway with it, but Harry was too far into the shadows for him to see.
"Huh," Draco said. He grabbed Goyle's arm and marched him in the direction of the Slytherin dorm saying, "We'll talk about this later."
When Draco was out of sight, Harry bolted for the common room. He couldn't wait to tell Ron and Hermione.
"Grenadine," Harry told the fat lady as he ran up to the portrait hole.
"Don't mind if I do," she said and all the memories of the spiked pumpkin juice came back to Harry.
"What a day," he muttered and climbed into the Gryffindor tower.
"Harry," Ron yelled. He abandoned the game of chess he was playing with his sister to meet Harry at the door. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine, just fine," Harry said impatiently as he led Ron back to the chairs by the fire. "Where's Hermione?" He looked all around the nearly empty common room and frowned.
"Off to bed already. Said she was tired," Ron said.
"Oh," Harry said. He really would have liked to tell them both about Malfoy at the same time, but he didn't want to wake Hermione, so he related the conversation to just Ron instead.
"So that must be why Goyle was in McGonagall's office last night," Ron said with a laugh. "Accidentally caught one of his own. Wicked."
"Yeah, but what did Malfoy want with an amore potion?" Harry asked. Ron just shrugged. "That's a love potion, I'm sure."
"A love potion?" Ron laughed. "Maybe he wants you to fall madly in love with him, Harry, so he can get you to follow him to You-Know-Who."
Harry gave him an evil glare. "Shut up, Ron. I doubt I'm his type. Mud-blooded, you know." Harry smiled a crooked grin that would put fear into the hearts of even the most gallant warriors. "In fact, you're more his type than I am."
"He's right, Ron," Ginny said as she picked up on Harry's joke. Harry supposed she was out for revenge because her brother just left her in the middle of a close game.
Ron blanched. "In your dreams," he said and then smiled. "Maybe he's after you Ginny."
"If that was the case he wouldn't get very far," Ginny said. "I already have a boyfriend I'm madly in love with. I mean, Dean and I have gotten so close that I think that I..."
"Ginny, please," Ron shouted in horror. He pretended to be about to vomit at the thought of Ginny and Dean having anything more than a stage one relationship.
Ginny just laughed. "Fine," she said as she cleaned up her chess pieces. "I guess I'll be getting off to bed."
"Yeah," Ron said. "I think I need to...(yawn) head off to bed too. It's been a long day."
"Yes, it has," Ginny said. "Goodnight Ron, Harry."
"Goodnight, Ginny," Harry muttered.
Harry got up off his chair and headed off to bed not knowing if he would be able to sleep anyway, but he figured he should try. Ron followed close behind.
"You look like someone just used your head to mop out the toilet," the fowl mirror at the bottom of the boy's staircase (compliments of the Weasley twins) yelled as they approached. Harry just ignored it.
"Stupid mirror," Ron muttered
"And what are you supposed to be, a drag queen in those pig tails?" it yelled at Ron. Ron looked up at the mirror in surprise and grabbed hold of his pigtailed hair. "As a woman you're so ugly not even you're mother would love you."
Ron just scowled and yanked the binders out of his hair. "I can't believe no one told me."
Harry just laughed and trudged up the stairs to their room and pushed open the door.
"Bloody hell," Ron said when they stepped inside. "Neville, what are you doing with my pillow." Harry couldn't help but laugh at what he hoped was the last surprise of the day.
"I, ah..." Neville stammered as Seamus's pillow came up and smacked him in the face. When they had walked in he was jumping on his bed in his pajamas, throwing pillows at himself with his wand. "I, ah...."
"Never mind," Ron said with a yawn. "I probably don't want to know. Can I have my pillow back?"
"Sure," Neville said. He handed both Ron and Harry their pillows with a furious blush on his face. "Sorry."
"Yeah, sure," Ron said. He climbed into his bed and said good night before closing his curtains.
"Good night, Ron, " Harry said. He quickly changed out of his robes.
The door slammed open and Dean walked in with a smile on his face and nearly tripped over his own pillow that was lying on the floor near the door. "What's my pillow doing over here?" he said. Neville just blushed and looked away.
"So, where's Seamus?" Neville asked to change the subject.
Dean's smile brightened. "Last time I saw him he was talking with Hannah Abbott in the library."
"Really," Neville said and raised his eyebrow.
"Maybe he'll be able to keep that forked tongue of his in check this time and keep this one round for longer than one date," Dean said. He shrugged. "They seemed happy, though. Hannah was laughing."
Harry laughed and said, "Well, good for Seamus."
"Yeah," Dean said. "Well, good night and sleep well."
"Good night, Dean," Harry and Neville chorused. Dean climbed into bed pulled his curtains closed.
"Good night to you too Harry," Neville said. Poor Neville was still blushing when he closed his curtains for the night.
"Good night," Harry said. He closed his curtains and set about trying to get to sleep. He hoped tomorrow wouldn't be so...strange.