A/N: I heard the shouted cries of UPDATE! and decided I should as I have been ignoring my fics of late. Well, here you are then- updates. Oh yeah, I neither own nor profit from any of the HP characters cries. On to the story then...

Meanwhile in the hospital wing, Ron was sitting by Harry's bedside waiting for his best friend to wake up. He wondered vaguely why Hermione was taking so long to get Dumbledore, then remembered that she'd only seen the Headmaster's office once.

"Come on Hermione," he whispered "hurry up…"

As if on cue, the door of the hospital wing swung open and Ron jumped to his feet, his eyes lighting up in relief as he whirled to face whoever was at the door. His face fell again as he caught sight of the tall, black-robed figure sweeping down the ward towards him and the still unconscious Harry.

"I asked for a bumblebee and I got a snake…" Ron muttered sullenly, trying to keep his voice low.

The potions master glared at him. "I'd watch what I said if I were you Weasley. I'm the only one in this school who has the potions skills to make an antidote to whatever Potter took. I might decide the cure is too difficult for me to make and just leave him like this."

"But of course, you would never do something like that. Am I right, Severus?" a new voice asked from the doorway.

Snape inclined his head respectfully. "Of course, Headmaster. I wouldn't dream of leaving Potter a five-year-old forever." he replied smoothly, though his tones implied otherwise.

Dumbledore smiled a little and shook his head in amusement. "Is that what was so urgent?" he asked lightly, going over to Harry's bed and looking down at the small boy in under the covers. "The way Miss Granger described what had happened I thought I'd walk in to find Harry three feet tall and covered in tentacles."

Ron looked around Dumbledore to Hermione who stood behind the older wizard. Her cheeks were bright red and she gave Ron a helpless sort of look. "I-I was afraid…" she stammered. "I thought Harry was in serious trouble…"

Dumbledore put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "It's alright. If I was your age and one of my best friends had suddenly collapsed, I would have been frightened too."

Hermione smiled tremulously at him and turned back to Harry. "Do you know what happened to him?" she asked worriedly. "Why did he turn into a little boy?

"I have many theories." Dumbledore told her, still gazing down at the sleeping Harry. "I think we shall see which one is correct in…" he pulled his twelve-handed watch out of his pocket and studied it for a second. "approximately two minutes."

He turned to the others. "I need you to take three steps back." he instructed, stepping back himself. "I cannot risk having Harry see one of us."

"What? Why not?" Ron asked in confusion. "Harry's seen us plenty of times!"

"Idiot." Snape snapped, backing away as far as he could without having to leave the room "He will be bound to you if he sees you when he wakes!"

"Now, now Severus." Dumbledore chided lightly. "No need for insults." He addressed Ron again. "Professor Snape is trying to tell you that one of the after effects of this kind of transformation is that the victim will be bound to the first person he sees. That's why I asked you all to step back out of Harry's line of sight. I cannot risk having him bound to one of us- the one he first sees will become like his parent and he will never want to leave that person until the day he is restored to his proper age."

"Oh! Is it like when a newborn baby sees their parents for the first time?" Hermione asked in awe. "They have the images imprinted in their minds and become attached right away?"

Dumbledore beamed at her. "As usual Miss Granger your intelligence astounds me."

Hermione blushed. To cover her embarrassment she shoved Ron backwards. "You're too close!" she snapped. "D'you want to have to take care of a five-year-old!"

"Oi, I wasn't even close to him!" Ron protested "Don't shove me around when it's you who's in his space!"

"I was not-!" Hermione started to argue back. Suddenly she froze and pulled Ron even farther back. "H-he's waking up!" she breathed. "I saw his eyes move."

All eyes turned to watch as Harry slowly made his way back to the conscious world. The little boy blinked a few times, trying to see where he was but without his glasses everything was one big blur. He sat up and crawled to the edge of the bed, reaching for the night-table and feeling around for the familiar wire frames of his glasses, still unaware that only a few feet away eight pairs of eyes were fixed on him. He pulled the now too-big glasses on and they slipped right off his face. Harry tried again to put them on, this time holding them to his eyes with his hands. He looked up and the first thing that came into focus was a set of star patterned, deep blue robes. His eyes widened in apprehension and he followed the robe upwards until he came to a lined and ancient face. His eyes moved higher still until he was staring directly into a pair of light blue eyes, nearly hidden behind half moon spectacles.

Five-year-old Harry Potter jumped back in surprise and dropped his glasses. "H-how'd I get here!" he cried in alarm "Th-this isn't my room! And why is there people watching me sleep!"

"Harry, don't be afraid." Hermione reassured, going at once to the little boy's side and picking up his glasses. "Miniatura." she breathed. The glasses in her hands shrunk by three sizes and she handed them back to Harry, who hastily shoved them back on and scrambled back from her.

"How many of you are there!" he yelped in horror. He looked around him and his eyes got wider and wider at the sight of each face until tears had started in his emerald eyes. "What happened?" he asked shakily "Why's there so many people here? An' why am I in the hospital wing?"

Dumbledore moved forwards and knelt before Harry. "You had an accident." the older wizard explained "You passed out and we brought you here."

"Why did I pass out!" Harry cried, his voice panicked and starting to waver "What happened t'me?"

"You took an aging potion and, for some reason, it reversed your age instead of increasing it." the headmaster explained gently "That's why you fainted. Now I need your help, do you remember anything that happened before you took the potion?"

Harry started to shake his head, then his tear-filled eyes widened and he reached into his shirt pocket and drew out the glass phial he'd taken the potion from. "I took this an' then I felt kinda funny an' it all went black an' then I was here." he told Dumbledore. "An' that's it."

Dumbledore examined the phial for a minute, then looked back at Harry. "Do you remember what you put in this?"

Harry nodded. "I made it like the teacher said, 'cept Malfoy was s'posed t'help me an' he wasn't. He just put it in the glass an' gived it to P'fessor Snape t'see."

"I knew it!" Ron cried "Malfoy must have put something in it when he put the potion in the phial! He's the reason it turned Harry into a kid!"

"Talk sense Weasley." Snape spat. "I examined the potion myself, I think I would have noticed if it had been tampered with."

Ron turned red and started to argue back, but Hermione spoke up before he could open his mouth. "Alright, we know that whatever went wrong had to have been sometime before Harry took the potion and after Professor Snape looked it over." She looked up at Dumbledore "But the only person to have it in their hands in that time other than Harry was Malfoy…"

Harry, who had been listening intently to the discussion up until then, pulled on Dumbledore's sleeve. "I didn't put anyfin' in it." he said solemnly "An' when I had th' potion, it looked funny. It had li'l leaves onna top of it."

Dumbledore nodded and turned to Snape. "Severus? Would you please go fetch Mister Malfoy for us?" he asked softly.

Snape nodded shortly and swept out of the hospital wing towards the Slytherin common room.

A/n: And it ends because I am tired and need to get up early tomorrow. Hope you liked it and I apologize for the shortness, but life is crazy so I haven't got alot of time at the moment. More later, I promise!

Tenshi Kitsune