Prongs' Potions Pandemonium
Note: I wrote this drabble BEFORE Robin posted the chapter where Severus smelt the potion brewing at Grimmauld Place. Go me!
"If this started off as a bad day, it's only gotten worse!" James ranted, resisting the urge to roll his chair back and forth as though pacing.
Across the room, his wife and son looked at each other, then back to the Minister, wondering what had happened to make him act more frazzled than he had been lately.
"What is it?" Lily ventured, breaking into her husband's muttering.
"Sirius and Peter thought that, if I changed into Prongs, then I might be able to feel my legs," James answered, surprising the room's other two occupants. They hadn't thought he was listening while he muttered. "And since I'd been feeling a little better lately just before I took those potions, they thought that would be the best time to test their little theory."
"Well, that certainly wasn't the best idea they ever had," Lily answered, shaking her head to clear out the confusion.
"Actually, it was a brilliant idea," James countered.
"Only, when I tried it, I could only sort of feel my legs, so ol' Prongsie fell arse-over-teakettle in no time. Peter wondered what was in the potions—and honestly, I'd never thought to question the Healers, but I should have. You see . . ." he paused. "We have a Slytherin problem."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"Maybe you should go get something to eat, dear," Lily said in her "This-is-a-grown-up-conversation" voice.
"But Mum—"
"Harry, food. Now."
As the twelve-year-old skulked down the stairs into the gloomy basement kitchen of Twelve Grimmauld place, Lily turned back to her husband, crossed her arms, and said merely, "Explain."
"Sirius and Peter went to St. Mungo's to what the potions were, and who'd prescribed them."
"And?"
"Well, the potions, according to Severus, when combined cause temporary paralysis. But taken too long, the condition can become permanent," James explained with gritted teeth. Ignoring Lily's gasp for the moment, he continued, "And the Healer in charge is someone Peter remembers from, well, you know." He ran a hand through his hair, waiting for his wife to say something to break the tension he'd created.
"What are you going to do?" she finally asked. "Is it too late to stop taking the potions?"
"I hope not," James said. "Because I already have. Severus tells me that, unless feeling comes back within the next week, I really will never walk again."
Words (not including note, title, or word count): 397