For my three reviewers: Eggo, you made my day. Thanks for reading! Yonder, thanks for the praise. Underlines are just as correct as italics; it's a personal preference. And you'll have to review again and explain your review, because I read my fic over and I couldn't figure out what "tenses" you were talking about. And Katie, thanks for your kind comments. You made me feel like David Copperfield for a second. :D

Here's Number 2. Cheers, everybody!

FAST-ACTING

After Sirius chucked him out of the kitchen, Harry got himself under control and ran up to the second floor guest quarters to help his friends. Hermione greeted him while twiddling her wand to scrub the floor, and Ron waved before returning to blasting scum off the shower in the guest bathroom and muttering about useless house-elves. Harry walked over to a small closet on the wall, wondering what could be inside.

Hand on the knob, he turned to Hermione. "You two opened this closet yet?"

"No," Hermione said distractedly, twiddling her wand harder. "Would you take a look?"

"Sure," he said, and pulled the door open. A massive amount of dust erupted from the closet, covering Harry from head to foot and making him cough.

Hermione spun around. "Harry?"

Harry, still spluttering, slammed the closet shut and began to dust himself off. "Right, let's see if anybody can scourgify it and then we'll get in there. I couldn't see anything with all the dust!"

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Well, you look a sight! Go wash your face."

Harry nodded at Hermione's sensible suggestion and left. He was halfway down the hallway before he coughed twice into his hands.

He was still coughing later as he and Ron hung the Father Christmas hats on the elf heads downstairs (the twins attached the beards). He coughed his way through the excellent dinner Sirius made. And he coughed so violently into his after-dinner cocoa that he had to mop up his mysteriously wet mouth. The napkin came away stained with blood.

Hermione screamed and Harry started panting in horror, as blood had begun to fill his mouth and dribble down his chin before he could do anything about it. The twins stood up, Ron looked up in shock, Ginny gasped, and Harry saw Sirius get up and run around the table to him, although Mrs. Weasley and Lupin beat him by a nose. All three adults were shouting at once, but Sirius managed to make his question heard.

"Harry, how long have you been coughing?" he asked.

Harry, who was busy stuffing his mouth with napkins and well aware of how stupid he must look, mopped up enough blood to talk, swallowed the rest, and replied, in a rather wheezy voice that quite alarmed him, "Since the closet."

Hermione made a little strangled noise and Sirius whirled on her, saying, "What closet?"

"The one in the guest suite. Harry opened it and there was all this dust …" she said faintly, turning pale. "It must have been poison! And it's been in him for hours!" she finished, her brain finally catching up with her mouth.

Harry saw Sirius shoot a significant glance at Lupin, then turn to Mrs. Weasley. "Molly, stay here with him."

Sirius left Molly with the children and hared off, thundering up the stairs two at a time, Remus right behind him. They burst into the guest suite and sized up the offending door.

"I've got it," Remus said, and mumbled "Frontere!"

A shimmering glass box formed around the closet, and Remus nodded at Sirius, who pointed his wand at the doorknob and yanked. As though his wand and the knob were connected by an invisible string, the door swung open, releasing the dust, which swirled inside the box. Sirius lit his wand and held it up to the particles ... they turned blood-red.

"Spemfidia," they said together, each adding a curse under his breath.

"Do you have any –?" Sirius asked, but Remus nodded before he could finish. "I'll get Harry into my room. Bound to be warmer than the one he's sharing with Ron."

"I'll meet you there!" Remus said, and left in a hurry, his voice tight.

Meanwhile, Harry felt like his chest was in a vice. His heart was thudding painfully and his breath came in gasps. What was going on? He squeezed Hermione's hand and pressed another napkin to his face, this time to his nose, which had started a competition with his mouth to see which could stain his shirt better. That was right about when Sirius came barreling in, his eyes wild, lips a thin line, and shoved Hermione out of the way. Harry was about to object to this (however incoherently), but Sirius picked him up like a small child and whisked him out of the kitchen before he could say anything.

Sirius carried him up to a bedroom and dropped him gently onto a soft bed with a green duvet. Harry coughed, stared dizzily at the matching canopy, and vaguely wondered how much blood he'd lost. Something was being pounded on the other side of the room.

"Get him into pajamas, Sirius, I'm mixing it for you now," he heard Lupin say.

And then Sirius was leaning over him. "Harry, you were exposed to Spemfidia Spores. They're harmless to the touch, but if you breathe them in, they can do real damage to your lungs and eventually, well … never mind. Remus is mashing up some Galavan's Peas – it'll kill the spores and heal the damage. We're going to take care of you."

Harry hadn't the slightest idea what Sirius was on about, but that last sentence was very reassuring, so he nodded. His godfather quickly helped him out of his blood-stained, dirty clothes and into some warm pajamas and socks that he'd conjured up.

Harry had just enough time to say "thanks" before he started coughing wildly again, feeling his deep, inner muscles strain and protest. A cloth was thrown over his face. As he brought up his hands to hold it and catch any blood, he felt strong arms underneath him, picking him up and then laying him back down on the bed.

It seemed to take an age, but the fit finally stopped. Harry took a shuddering breath and pulled the cloth away. Sirius was tall above him, looking off towards someone that he assumed was Lupin, nodding and accepting a bowl of something.

"Harry, can you hold your shirt open, please?"

Harry coughed slightly and obliged him. It was then that he saw the bed clothes were drawn back and he was lying on a spread-out quilt. Both Sirius and Lupin were leaning over him, Lupin with a small towel, Sirius with the bowl. Sirius put his hand into the bowl repeatedly, scooping out an acid green sludge that he patted all over Harry's chest. The relief was instantaneous. Harry took a deep breath and found that his insides felt much less as though they were on strike. He'd also lost the urge to hack up a lung.

"Right," said Sirius, finishing his work and throwing Lupin's towel over Harry's chest to keep the salve from getting everywhere. "This stuff should sink into your skin quickly and start working. And don't worry if you feel sleepy, it causes drowsiness …" Harry didn't catch the rest of it. He was sinking, down, down, down … into darkness.

"And a dip in body temperature, but with a good bundling you'll be all right," Sirius continued. He and Remus were crossing to the other side of the room to wash their hands and clean up. "It's very fast-acting stuff, too. You'll be fine by morning. … Harry?"

There was no answer. Sirius walked back to the bed, only to see that Galavan's Peas were indeed fast-acting. His godson was completely limp, nose pointing at the ceiling, his big green eyes closed behind his glasses, his jaw as slack as his limbs. He snored.

Sirius caught himself on the edge of a laugh, fastened the buttons on Harry's pajama shirt, wrapped him up snugly in the quilt, and pulled the covers up to his chin. Then he dragged a chair over to the bedside, well-aware of Remus's eyes on him.

"Well, at least he's the only one who got a blast of it," Remus said lightly. "I'll just go chuck a sporicide bomb in the Border Box and be off to bed, then."

Sirius removed Harry's glasses and turned around. "Sleep well, Remus."

"You too," said Remus, with a smile and a knowing, kind look. He waved his wand in Sirius's direction, making a pillow and a pile of folded blankets appear on the chair. "I wouldn't want him to wake up alone, either. Goodnight."

Sirius nodded, his eyes shining with warmth and gratitude. "Goodnight."

FINIS