Madam Pomphrey bent over the prone body of the student, lying colourlessly in a hospital ward bed. The symptoms displayed were…strange. She muttered them to herself as she flicked through several books of reference. She'd used a Pausing Potion to make sure that the student didn't move, speak or breathe. She knew the disease was dangerous, even if she didn't know what it was. As soon as she did, she would inform the Headmaster.
Harry, Ron and Hermione were wandering down the hallway to the Hospital Wing. They wanted to check up on Ginny, who'd been knocked off her broom by a bludger at Quidditch practise earlier in the evening.
"Come on, Ron, you know she'll be fine," Harry told the redhead, wishing Ron'd get over it. "She only fell off her broom, a knockout's no problem to Madam Pomphrey."
"Yeah, but I'm worried, okay?"
Hermione sighed. "It's nice you're finally showing some responsibility for her, Ron, but this is really too much."
Entering the wards, they didn't have to look too hard to spot her. Weasley hair screamed like a siren against the spotless linen of the hospital bed. Ginny waved to them.
"Hi guys. Thanks for coming to see me!" she welcomed them.
"Well, we had to see if you were all right after that tumble you took," Harry told her. "Not to mention that Ron here was trying to have a hippogryph."
Ginny chuckled. "Aw shucks," she said sarcastically. "Is big stwong Ronnikins feeling all 'sponsibble for his wittle sister Ginny-Winny?"
Ron scowled. "Fine then, next time I won't bother."
Madam Pomprey noticed the laughing group of teenagers, and came to hustle them out. "This is a ward for sick people!" she yelled. "I have a student in a critical condition, I don't know what's causing it, and now you're here! Get out!"
Hermione looked up nervously. "Uh, maybe I could help? I read a lot and-"
"Maybe you do, Miss Granger, but this is a hospital wing, and not a place for people who don't know what they are doing. Get out!" As they scattered, leaving Ginny behind, waving at them, Ron muttered to Harry. "Never knew she could be so like Madam Pince."
Madam Pomfrey, unaware of the aspersions cast upon her personality by Ron's retreating back, continued poring through her books. At one page, the symptoms listed began to fall into a disquieting echo of the one the student displayed. She gasped, and rushed to the Headmaster's office. There was no time to lose.
"Freddo Frogs!"
Meanwhile, Ginny gingerly got up from her bed. She had come to some time ago, but Madam Pomphrey had not yet attended her. Always busy with that book, and with that patient who lay behind a curtain. Ginny was curious. She winced as she walked over to the bed. Broken ribs.
Then she switched back the curtain to reveal the motionless, colourless form of Draco Malfoy. He wasn't breathing, and she panicked. She looked around- no one else was in the ward. She tried to nerve herself up to it. Her dad had sent her on a Muggle medical course, and she still remembered how to do Mouth to Mouth. But to Malfoy of all people! Errrcchh! But he didn't want him to die, foul scum though he was. So she bent over him, and began.
"Poppy, what is it?" Dumbledore asked the nurse, who looked extremely flustered.
"Headmaster, the entire school is in danger! One of our student has come down with a very rare plague, and there's no known cure."
"Who is it?"
"It's Draco Malfoy, Headmaster."
"Bad news indeed. Lucius will be on my back like a leech. What has he come down with, Poppy?"
"Well, it doesn't have a name, as such, Headmaster. But the effects are clear, and it is extremely contagious."
Dumbledore inspected his glasses, and began to polish them. "Well, what is the plague, Poppy? What will it do to Hogwarts?"
"Headmaster, it will turn all our students into Mary Sues."
