Characters don't belong to me.
6 July 1998
"Harry what you doing today?" Hermione asked looking concerned. Harry had been rather depressed since the end of the battle. Of cause it was understandable, Harry had good reason to be feeling down, he had lost his best friend, his best friend since he was eleven years old. Ron's sister was also in critical condition in the hospital wing with the rest of her family around her.
The war had not in any way spared the Weasleys. Arthur had died on a mission for the order the year before, as had Charlie in a different mission. Fred had also died in an attack of Weasleys Wizard Weazes at the beginning of the year. Percy of cause had defected to Voldermort's side and had been killed by Ron after he tried to kill Ginny. So it was a much smaller Weasley family that surrounded Ginny in the hospital wing.
Harry had of cause spent much of his time in the hospital wing sitting with Ginny himself. The Weasleys of cause did not blame Harry for anything that had happened to the family over the last two years. They knew where the blame lay, and were trying to support Harry in any way that they could. However Harry felt slightly guilty about leaning on the Weasleys as they had had more than their fair share of disasters in the last two years.
Hermione also was trying to give Harry as much support as she could, though Harry was also aware that Ron's death had effected her almost as much as it had effected him. She however had Draco to lean on, over the last year they had been seeing each other in secret. Ron and Harry had known about this as at the beginning of the sixth year as the three of them had agreed not to keep secrets from each other unless it was essential to the order, and they had all kept to the rule.
It had been important before the battle that Hermione and Draco keep their relationship secret as it could have lead to both being ostracized from their Houses. Though for Draco it would have been far worse, as his family would never accept that he was dated a Muggle born witch. It was possible that Lucius would have killed Draco as he had tried to in the final battle. Things now were much safer for them to be honest about their relationship and while Hermione really was grieving for Ron, she was revelling in being able to be honest about her and Draco.
"I'm fine Hermione I'm just reading this diary I think I will have to finish by today, I have a feeling that if I don't something else bad will happen."
"Harry you have to stop taking responsibility for every bad thing that happens try to do something fun today. I'll get Draco to go flying with you to take your mind of things."
"I understand what you are saying Hermione, but I really think that I need to finish this. Once I have finished reading through this I'll take you up on that offer. I'm going to see Ginny as well but I should be free after that."
"Okay I'll see you later then Harry."
"Okay, see you later."
Harry soon got lost in reading the diary. It gave him an insight into Snape that he had not had before. It became obvious why he was so grumpy all the time with all the responsibilities that he had. Of cause he also in the past had to pretend that he was far more cruel than he infact was. The biggest surprise for Harry however was the way that Severus felt about him. He and Professor Snape had been getting on far better in the last few months, but that Snape was in love with him was something that truly shocked Harry.
Harry needed time to process this information, the thought that Snape would feel that way about him had never crossed his mind. Shortly after his short time dating Cho Harry realised that while he liked girls, he found that he found men to be more attractive. So he had no problem with Severus being a man. He had even developed a rather overwhelming crush on the Professor, however he never thought that Snape would like him back. He also was not sure that if the feelings that he had towards Professor Snape could be described as love.
It was ironic that the man who was often used by the wizarding world as the poster child as to what love could achieve, really didn't know what love truly looked of felt like. He knew that there were many people who truly loved him, but it was something that he had lived without for such a long period of time he had never been truly comfortable with the emotion.
He decided to go and see Ginny before finishing the rest of the diary. As Ginny wasn't conscious yet he would have time to think about what he had found out in the diary, and process the information before he read anything else.
When he got down to the hospital wing he found that there was only Molly Weasley sitting with Ginny. As usual she fussed over him, asking whether he was okay or not. She also told him that Ginny had woken up earlier in the day and had now been given dreamless sleep potion to aid her healing. However it looked that in a few weeks that Ginny would be absolutely fine. Harry couldn't make up his mind whether this or finding out about how Severus felt about him was the best news that he had heard about that day.
At this thought Harry realised that he was thinking about what he had found out about Severus being in love with him was good news. Which made him realise that he felt the same way. Now he only had to figure out how to approach Severus, since it was obvious that it would have to be him who made the approach. He decided that he would read the rest of the diary as soon as possible to see if he could find any clue as to what the best way to approach him would be.
As soon as Harry could get away from the hospital wing without looking rude, or looking that he didn't really care, Harry left to finish the diary. An hour later Harry had finished reading the journal.
Harry and Dumbledore had suspected that there was a reason that he was supposed to receive the diary, something that he was supposed to change. He of cause now knew what it was that he was supposed to change.
Harry knew how to make the antidote to the draught of living death, he also knew that if taken before or very soon after taking the lethal version of the potion it would lessen the effect and that the person who had taken the poison would in the end just have a very good sleep. There was also the advantage that this potion was colourless, odourless and tasteless he realised that it should be able to slip the potion into something that Snape was drinking pretty easily he had a feeling that he knew when he would be able to do it.
He decided to get Hermione to help him to make the potion though, as while he had before a far better than average potion brewer over the last two years, Hermione was still better at it than he was. This was not a potion that Harry could afford to mess up, so he needed Hermione on the case.
Harry realised that he still had his DA coin. This was used to call DA members in the case of an emergency. As far as Harry was concerned this counted as an emergency, so you used the coin to call Hermione.
It took a few minutes for Harry to fill in Hermione into what he had read and what they would need to do. Hermione knew what ingredients the potion would need before she even looked in her text books even though she did refer to the text book. It became obvious very quickly that there were certain ingredients that they would have to steal, while neither of them had a problem doing this they had stolen plenty of potion ingredients in the past. The problem was that they had less than 24 hours in which to do it.
"Harry, Draco could get these ingredients easily, can you imagine we'll actually be able to make a potion outside of class and not have to steal the ingredients. I never thought that that would ever happen."
"Typical it would have to happen in our last week in school. Can you get Draco do you think that he would help?"
"I'm sure that he will, I'll ask him to meet us with the ingredients tomorrow after breakfast in Myrtle's bathroom. Is that ok?"
"It takes 24 hours to finish brewing so that should give us plenty of time."
"Okay see you tomorrow Harry."
"See you tomorrow Hermione."
Thanks again to everyone who had reviewed this. I'll try and post again soon.