Lunch didn't come quickly enough on this Thursday. Harry hadn't been able to concentrate in class all morning, because he didn't have them with Hermione. Alas, he had overslept again, thus managing to not see the girl half of the day. He wanted to know whether she'd found out anything the day before in the library. Knowing her, she'd probably managed. But Malfoy was sly; maybe he used a spell even she couldn't find. No, Harry corrected himself quickly, that wasn't possible.

Thinking of Malfoy - Draco as Harry only dared to call him in his head - the boy just walked out of the Great Hall, followed by the simpering Pansy Parkinson. Harry unconsciously tightened his grip around his spoon, imagining it to be the pug's throat. It only served as a small consolation. The fact that Draco kept snarling at the girl for following him around like a lost puppy begging for a bone did much more for Harry's wellness.

"Hey, Harry," Hermione said, plopping herself down next to her friend. Ron sat down, as well, immediately reaching for three plates at once - left hand, right hand, and teeth. Hermione rolled her eyes at him.

"Did you find anything about the spell?" Harry asked immediately.

"Unfortunately not," she said, shooting the boy an apologetic glance, before she filled her own plate. "I'll keep looking, though."

Harry was disappointed, but not overly so. This meant that he could still confront Malfoy. 'Hehe,' he thought, slurping his alphabet soup absentmindedly.

Suddenly, the letters in his soup began to rearrange themselves, forming new words. As this was nothing special in itself - Wizarding soup tended to speak with its eater - Harry wasn't concerned. Until he read the words, that was.

"This is going to be your last meal!" it spelled.

"Hermione?" Harry said apprehensively, pointing to his soup.

Hermione took a look. "What a polite soup you have," she said, smiling. "Wishing you bon appetite, even though you're eating it." Then she went back to her own plate.

Incredulous, Harry's eyes snapped back to his plate as Hermione said the word 'polite'. The second she had looked away, though, the words morphed back from "Enjoy me!" to "You're not going to live to digest me!"

Slightly confused, Harry frowned. Why was he being attacked by food all the time? Then his eyes widened in disbelief as the letters built a new phrase.

"Avada Kedavra!"

He had barely the time to wipe out his wand as a green stream of light shot out from his soup, hitting him squarely in the chest. He fell from the seat, landing on the floor with a hard smack, out cold.

When Harry came to again, he was in his customary bed in the hospital wing. There was Madam Pomfrey shuffling about, Lupin was calming a nearly hysterical Hermione, and Snape was taking points from Ron for one reason or another. So it hadn't been a dream, after all. He had been nearly Avada Kedavra'ed by his own lunch. Just his luck that after Voldemort died, Harry was immune against the Killing Curse.

"Harry!" Hermione cried, when she saw that the boy had woken up. She rushed over to him. "How are you?"

"All right, I guess," he said.

The other occupants came over to Harry, as well. Snape was his old foreboding self, but it was Lupin who spoke up then.

"You could have killed yourself!" he said. "What did you think you were doing?"

"I-I," Harry stammered, flabbergasted that Lupin was against him again. "I didn't-"

"No, Potter, you didn't," Snape sneered, crossing his arms over his chest. "You didn't pull out your wand. You didn't cast the Avada Kedavra. You didn't try to impress us all with your spectacular ability to ward off the Killing Curse. You didn't do it because you were the only wizard allowed to cast the curse, and you didn't do it because you had to. Let me guess," he went on, leaning closer to the prone boy. "It was the soup."

"How did you-?" Harry gasped. "You believe me?"

"Of course not!" Snape snapped.

"You really want to tell us that you were attacked by your soup?" Lupin said, torn apart between incredulity and pity for the obviously delusional boy. He looked over to his lover. "I never thought you could be right all along."

Ron opened his mouth to say something, but Hermione stomped on his foot, causing him to groan instead.

"Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said, shaking her head and clucking. "I'm sorry, but this doesn't look good for you. I'm going to have to do a complete check-up. Now, though, you require rest." She sent both of the professors out and told the other two students to only stay for a few minutes.

"Harry..." Ron said slowly. "I think I just realised something. Don't you think these incidents are kind of - familiar?"

"Familiar?" Hermione repeated, voicing Harry's thoughts. "How could they be familiar? Harry has never been nearly killed by his soup before."

"No, I don't mean this kind of familiar," Ron said. "And you wouldn't know, Mione. You didn't take Divination long enough."

Something clicked in Harry's mind at that. Divination. That was it.

"Out with the two of you," Pomfrey's voice echoed through the hospital wing just as Harry wanted to get into details. The matron didn't allow disobedience, though, and so Hermione and Ron left, albeit reluctantly, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts - and his escape plan.

Follow to the Room of Requirement