Harry tried to open his eyes, his weighted eyelids refusing to cooperate at first, then lifted his head off the ground an inch before his neck gave out and pain ricocheted inside his head as it collided with the floor. A wave of nausea crashed and he rolled his head to the side in time expel a milky substance, nothing he remembered consuming. He grimaced as the liquid seeped through the thin fabric of his shirt, uncomfortably warm and sticky.
He rolled his head back up, his breath short and ragged. The room was dark, the only light a shaft slipping through a break in the curtains, but it was his own living room, he recognized the dark forms as his furniture. He couldn't remember why he was on the floor trying not to get sick all over himself, or even what day it was. He tried to move his fingers and toes but nothing responded.
"Draco?" he whispered soundlessly, his voice lost in the dark.
Harry lay there on the floor, drifting in and out of consciousness, disturbing figures flitting through the boundless stretches of time when he could not tell whether his eyes were open or not, if he was awake or dreaming.
At last the fog surrounding his mind started to clear and he was able to marshal his strength enough to roll onto his side and from there push himself to his knees. He wobbled and dropped back onto his hands, panting from the effort, and after a moment he was able to crawl towards the couch, stopping only for a moment to nurse his shoulder after banging into a table leg.
"Lumos," he muttered and a few candles in the room lit up, casting faint light through the room.
He hauled himself up onto the couch after a few failed attempts then stopped to catch his breath and take mental stock of his condition: his stomach roiled and heaved, his head pounded, his shoulder ached from the collision with the table, and his glasses were missing. Squinching up his eyes, he scanned the room for the glasses, but he was unable to see them anywhere.
"Draco?" he called again, this time his voice strong enough to fill the room, unsurprised that there was no answer because of the unsettling quiet of the flat. Harry decided not to risk moving about without his glasses and called for them with an accio charm.
Rustling in the bedroom told him his glasses were back there, so he called again and this time he was rewarded by the spectacles soaring into his outstretched hand. He shoved them onto his nose, oblivious to a crack in one of the lenses, and he looked for his wand; a quick pat of his pockets had revealed the wand not on his person, and he spied it on the floor in the kitchen.
"Accio wand."
The clock on the wall showed one, and Harry rubbed his head and sat back on the couch to figure out what had happened. He could remember last night perfectly fine: the broom ride back from the Ministry with the needed papers on Hogwarts, Draco confronting him about the whole scheme upon his return, their ensuing argument and subsequent make up session, after which he easily fell asleep.
But he could not remember anything past that, including why he woke up on the floor in the living room completely clothed. Or, as his eyes happened upon the spot by the door where he had left the bag filled with Snape's potion and the papers about Hogwarts, why the bag was no longer there. As soon as the fact that the bag was missing had sunk in, he saw a piece of paper on the floor in front of the door. Harry leapt to his feet, waiting through the sudden dizziness which allowed his legs time to readjust to use, and he crossed the room as quickly as he dared. He snatched the paper from the ground and his eyes darted over the lines, barely able to take in the words as he passed over them. As the paper slipped from his hand, the other hand flew out to the wall as he nearly collapsed and cried out,
"Draco, no!"
The potion should wear off early afternoon, so you should go as soon as you read this. He will come here, and he will stop at nothing to find you. I know you love me, but I hope one day you understand how much I love you.
Classes dragged by all morning until it was finally lunch and Hermione had to force herself not to run to the hospital wing. Expecting only to walk into a quiet wing and speak with Poppy, Hermione was surprised to find herself in the middle of a full-blown argument from the mediwitch herself and Severus Snape near the bed where Dumbledore lay, oblivious to the commotion surrounding him.
"Wake him up!" Severus roared at Poppy, who, to her credit, did not flinch nor step back from the imposing figure before her.
"Severus, I will not! In his condition, it could be damaging to force him into consciousness!" the small witch argued, a finger out and pointing into Severus's chest.
Neither of them noticed her arrival, so she stepped up and joined the fray saying, "Poppy, we have to talk to him, otherwise we wouldn't be asking."
Both faces swiveled to face her, surprise at first on both, then Severus frowned and said, "We aren't asking." He turned away and looked at Dumbledore's unconscious form.
"Yes, we are," Hermione contradicted him, ignoring the scowl he shot into the side of her skull. "Because Poppy will know how best to wake Dumbledore. But we have to talk to him Poppy, it's not optional, and we need your help."
Poppy glared at Severus, and he glared right back until finally she sighed and agreed. "I don't like it, let me say that, but I trust that the two of you understand how ill he is." She looked severely from Severus to Hermione before sighing and saying, "Let me get the draught."
Hermione watched the older witch as she walked back to the office before turning back to Severus. "You were gone pretty quick this morning."
He gave her a calculating look before answering, his voice devoid of emotion, "I had things to do."
"Of course you did," she answered coolly and crossed her arms over her chest.
An uncomfortable silence descended upon them as they looked at one another and it was broken only upon Poppy's return with a bottle of Worme's Wake-Up Draught but she was too distracted to notice the tension between the two teachers.
"Here we are. I need one of you to hold up his head."
Severus was closest and moved to Dumbledore, gently raising his head as Poppy opened his mouth and poured in the recommended dosage from her spoon. Severus laid him back down on the pillow and everyone watched expectantly for the potion to take hold, but nothing happened for the first minute.
"How long does this potion take to work?" Severus asked, his impatience growing visibly as he crossed and uncrossed his arms repeatedly.
"It should be working by now," Poppy said, her wand whisking irritably over Dumbledore and she frowned at the readings. "Something is wrong if the potion isn't waking him up."
"Did we ever figure out what's wrong with him anyway?" asked Hermione as she chewed her bottom lip, sifting through the evidence in her own mind.
Poppy answered, "I had believed it to be a curse, but now -- I've never seen this potion fail on reviving someone from a curse. But perhaps it was a potion after all."
"Severus, does this look like any potion you know? Dark or otherwise?"
"Not from what I have seen and Madam Pomfrey has told me, but I can hardly be expected to remember the effects of every potion ever concocted," he snapped, glaring at Hermione before spinning on his heel, his robes flapping up behind him as he stalked to the door. "Inform me at once if there is any change," he called over his shoulder without looking back.
Hermione stared after him, until the doors slammed shut and she turned back to Poppy, shrugging at the mediwitch's curious stare. She didn't feel like making excuses for his rude behavior at present, so she left to grab a spot of lunch before classes resumed.
The afternoon dragged by and with every footfall outside her classroom door, her heart leapt with hope that it was word about Dumbledore, but no such news ever came. When her final class was through, she hurried back to the hospital wing to check in with Pomfrey, but the mediwitch had nothing good to offer.
"He's worse," she whispered to Hermione as they stood before Dumbledore's bed. "His heart rate has slowed and his temperature his dropped. I think the draught is interacting with whatever is causing this."
"Have you given him anything else?"
"No, of course not. I summoned Severus as soon as I noticed the changes and he is working on something now."
After leaving instructions for the mediwitch to summon her if Dumbledore's condition deteriorated further, Hermione headed off to the dungeons to check on Severus, since Poppy didn't know what he was working on exactly.
She entered the laboratory without knocking, as she had for months now, and she was startled to find herself on the receiving end of a trademark Snape glare.
"I have enough to worry about at present," he snarled from where he stood stirring a potion, "that I do not need to add you to the list."
She froze halfway across the room, her eyes locked on his.
"Excuse me?" she responded, not quite sure where this conversation had come from or was going. "Poppy told me you were working on something for Albus and I wanted to see if you needed anything."
He continued to hold her stare until he returned his concentration to the potion, saying, "I require nothing, so if that is all, I must insist that you leave at once."
The ease with which he dismissed her did not suit her at all and her temper flared.
"Actually, I did want to talk to you about how you snapped at me in front of Poppy at lunch. It was thoroughly unnecessary, and I don't care for you speaking to me in the manner which you have been."
For a long moment, Severus continued to give his full attention to the cauldron before him until he slowly raised his smoldering eyes to her.
"Is that all?"
"No, it's not! I want you to answer me! I want to know what is happening between us!"
"I believe we have more important things to be concerned with at present," he said quietly, his voice infused with the dangerous tones she had not heard directed at her in some months. "I repeat, if there is nothing further…."
Hermione felt as if he had crossed the room and slapped her, and she left the room without answering. Severus watched her leave with only a small twinge of guilt. He knew he was being exceptionally hard on her through no fault of her own, but he did not have the energy or desire to go into what promised to be a lengthy discussion over their standing.
He dropped the pretext of working on the potion and threw himself into his armchair, painfully conscious of Hermione's empty one as he brooded. Everything was wearing him thin: Dumbledore, the lost potion that he was working hard to replenish, Hermione, Harry bloody Potter. He picked up the book he had been using for research on Dumbledore's condition and forced his attention back to the pages.
Feeling trapped inside the castle, Hermione eventually found herself outside in the cloud-diluted sunlight, and she meandered around the grounds, eventually settling near the quidditch pitch, and she absently watched the Gryffindors practice. Her thoughts alternated between Dumbledore's condition and who put him there, and her own situation with Severus, which only angered her, since the other matter was much more important, as Severus himself had so kindly pointed out. She scowled at the quidditch pitch through the golden, late afternoon light and started back to the castle.
Hermione froze as a familiar figure trudged up the walk. Harry saw her at the same moment and immediately veered off to intercept her. She reached in her robes for her wand and slowly pulled it out, holding it at her side, the tip aiming at the ground in what she hoped was a non-threatening manner while sending him the message that she was prepared.
He slowed, his hands deliberately at his sides, away from his body. He stopped a few yards in front of her.
"I have the antidote," he began, "for Albus."
"How did you get it?" she asked.
"Draco," he said simply. When her eyebrows creased in a frown, he elaborated further. "Albus was given a potion --"
"By you?"
"Yes, by me," he admitted resignedly. "It was one Draco had made for Voldemort, and he developed the antidote at the same time, of course."
She didn't know what to think. She stared hard at the person she had believed to be one of her closest friends. It was Harry who had attacked Albus, Pomona Sprout and Filius Flitwick. Finally knowing the truth, or at least some piece of it, did not make it easier for her to accept; she realized all this time she had still harbored some hope that Harry was not involved in any way, even though increasingly the evidence pointed to him.
"How can I trust you, Harry?"
"I'll tell you everything, all of it. Give me Veritaserum, I'll take it."
Again she watched him. Her instincts said that he must be telling the truth, or else he never would have returned, but after everything that had happened….
"Where is the antidote? Give it to me." She quickly added, "And your wand."
He carefully withdrew the wand from the inside left pocket of his robes, holding it by the tip as he gave it to her, then reached into the other side for a flagon that he also passed to Hermione.
"Let's go, then."
She stuffed her hand in her robes, though she kept firm grip on the wand and directed it towards Harry. He nodded and walked to the castle, a terrible silence between them.
As they approached the doors, Harry turned to her and asked, "Are we going to the hospital wing?"
"No, the dungeons."
He gave her a feeble smile, a half-hearted attempt that did not touch his eyes and only brought up one corner of his mouth. "I guess you're going to take me up on the Veritaserum, huh? I don't blame you."
She snapped, her patience wearing thin, "As a matter of fact, yes, but I would think Dumbledore's well-being is a more pressing issue right now."
Harry hung his head and nodded in agreement. He preceded her to the dungeons, moving towards the laboratory at her prompting.
Severus stood with his back to the door, at a different potion, and he scowled as he heard the door bang open, immediately turning to berate whoever was interrupting him. He could not help but let his jaw drop when he turned to see Potter in the doorway, Hermione right behind him, but he recovered almost immediately and acted as if he had expected Potter to show up all along.
"Sit," she instructed Harry, pointing at the armchairs. He obeyed and rope shot from her wand to keep him in place, though each in the room knew that it was really a futile display if Harry wanted to escape.
She crossed the room to Severus placed the bottle of antidote in his hand, which he examined suspiciously.
"What is this?"
"Something that is supposed to cure Albus."
An eyebrow leapt up and he directed his gaze to Harry, before returning his attention to Hermione and asking snidely, "How do you know this what he claims?"
"Why do you think I'm here?" she barked, irritated that he would second guess her. "Do you think I would just take some potion and give it to Albus because Harry claimed it would fix him?"
His black eyes bored into her and she glared straight back before turning to Harry.
"Tell him about the potion."
Harry gave a small sigh and, without meeting either's eyes, said, "Draco made it, for Voldemort. It puts the victim into a coma, an unwakable coma. Voldemort didn't want him making the antidote, but he did anyway. I think he had started to develop a conscience after all."
"Unlike you," she said, her voice low.
Severus dug out a flask of Veritaserum from his robes and walked to Potter.
"There is only one way to know for sure."
Ten minutes later, Poppy and Hermione stood beside Dumbledore in the hospital wing, while Severus paced the opposite side, Harry perched at the foot of the bed. With bated breath, they watched for signs of the antidote to take hold.
"How long are we supposed to wait, Potter?" Severus growled.
Harry shrugged. "Draco only told me it was the antidote."
The mediwitch checked the readings and said, "His heart rate is increasing. And his temperature."
Suddenly the electric blue eyes fluttered open.
"Albus!" Poppy cried.
A faint smile lifted the corners of his mouth as his eyes focused first on Poppy, then Hermione and Severus, finally settling on Harry, still seated at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed and a sad look on his face.
Dumbledore's mouth moved and they all leaned forward to hear him whisper, "Did Draco foil your plan? I thought he might."
A/N:
Writing and I have had a problem or two over the last couple of months, but I think I beat it into submission and we'll be fine 'til the end of the fic. Of course, I say that, but who the hell knows? Thanks for the continued support through my sporadic postings -- Mara, thanks for the criticism, actually made me think more in detail on some things I hadn't before, and I think you'll find it satisfactory!
As a side note, I have nearly completed a little one-shot, my very first non-HG/SS fic -- actually a pairing I would not have EVER considered except for Shiv's pairing of them as a sub-plot to Arithmantic Dating Agency, go read it if you haven't already! -- so be on the lookout for it in the next week or so, and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!