A/N: My monitor died—had to wait until payday to replace it (when the paycheck only comes once a month, that's sometimes a long time in coming). One week later, a thunderstorm blew out my power supply. Again, had to wait until payday. Due to mounting health problems, having to put my dog to sleep, and a changerover in personnel at work that had me working 60 hour weeks, I have had neither the time nor the access to my computer to do any writing. My direct supervisor quit, leaving just me to run the clerical/administrative/personnel sides of a 35-person division in a medical teaching and research university. Anyway, I hope this chapter is worth the wait.

A/N #2: Here is my response to those readers who have bombarded me with thrice-weekly private emails DEMANDING an update because "my obligation is to my readers." Ummm….no. It isn't. My obligation is to myself first, the craft of writing second. It's nice to have fans who enjoy my work, but I could continue writing only for myself the rest of my life and be just as pleased with the result. "If you don't post another chapter within one week, I'm going to stop reading" has gone out of style right along with "I'm taking my ball and going home."

I will say this…a printout of the bash-mail made a really good fire in my fireplace. Took care of the night chill quite nicely.

Chapter 24

The cloying scent of baked cinnamon swirled around Draco Malfoy the instant he opened the door to the potions classroom. A golden, powdered haze hung in the air, thicker in some places than in others, like a Midas fog. Every piece of equipment and furniture in the room already sported a light dusting of amber pollen.

Draco sneezed hard enough to call up his toes. His eyes watered, his sinuses clogged, his throat burned, and his head felt light enough to float.

"Close the door, Mr. Malfoy," Snape commanded. "The last thing we need at this juncture is a stray draft affecting the flame."

The Slytherin boy did as instructed even as he said, "Hagrid said you were back."

Draco descended the stairs and wiped his tearing eyes with a green and silver monogrammed handkerchief. He studied the brewing area with a perfectly raised eyebrow. Professor Snape stood next to a size eighteen gold cauldron, carefully placing drops from a yellow-glass bottle the size of a wine decanter into a small earthenware cup. A distant, tart, unfamiliar scent tickled Malfoy's senses.

Neville Longbottom never looked up from his place at a sideboard overflowing with blossoms from Dawn's Glory. His job, apparently, was to separate the pollen from the blossoms and place it in a bell-shaped, white glass jar, a task to which he devoted his complete attention to the exclusion of all else. Draco saw no sign of Hermione Granger, though the open storeroom door and the clink of muffled bottles gave him some clue where she might be.

"I see that you found what you were looking for," Draco said. He eyed their appearances, taking in the cuts, burns, scrapes, tears, and overall state of near-exhaustion. A discrete sniff of the air next to Professor Snape caught the faintest smell of smoke, crushed greenery, and ... roses? "I see that you had a fun time getting it, as well."

Professor Snape transferred the contents of the cup to the cauldron under which a controlled fire burned atop a silver plate seemingly without fuel. As he sealed the mouth of the yellow-glass bottle with a clear glass dewdrop stopper, Snape asked, "How are things in the hospital wing?"

Draco shrugged. "You wouldn't believe all that's gone on since you left. It would take the rest of the night to tell it all."

"Give us a condensed version then."

Malfoy leaned against the least cluttered corner of the table, crossed his ankles, and ticked off each relevant point on his fingers.

"Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, is here at Hogwarts. Those Muggle relatives of Potter's proved themselves to be perfect examples of why the Wizarding world and the Muggle world should never, ever, mix. Dursley did his best to intimidate me, but the sight of my wand pointed at his pork belly popped his bubble fast enough."

Hermione's disembodied voice echoed from the storeroom, "Wish I'd been there to see that. What happened then?"

"Madam Pomfrey threatened to hex both adult Dursleys if they carried through with their threat to remove Harry to St. Mungo's, and the junior Dursley is off eating next year's entire stock of food. Dumbledore, McGonagall, and the Weasleys took Pomfrey's side, and Minister Fudge showed himself once again to be a blithering idiot who can't make up his own mind. It was almost funny, watching him yanked back and forth between siding with Dumbledore and caving in to the Muggles."

"And Harry?" Hermione asked as she stepped out of the storeroom, her arms overloaded with metal racks filled with bottles and vials. Bags hung from a rope tied around her waist like bizarre war trophies. A garland of dried elephant garlic encircled her neck, while strings of petrified peppers and salted salamander tails trailed down her back. "What about Harry?"

"The Muggles were demanding we take Potter to St. Mungo's. Fudge threatened to bring in the Aurors. Ron Weasley came up with the idea of calling Dobby. The house elf hid Potter and Weasley somewhere in the castle. They'll stay hidden until we call Dobby to bring them back."

Neville repeated Hermione's question. "But how was he!"

Draco shrugged again, as much to hide any personal feelings he might have as to answer Longbottom's question. "He was still alive the last I saw of him. That was a little over an hour ago."

Hermione called out, "Dobby! Dobby, come here!"

The house elf, clad in a dozen knitted caps, one scarf, two sweaters, and mismatched socks (one argyle, the other orange with black cats), appeared in with a crack of sound and a puff of silver mist.

"Dobby is here, miss."

Hermione knelt down and said, "Dobby, I need you to go to Ron and Harry, let them know we've returned and have the Dawn's Glory. We're working on the antidote now. We'll call them back to the hospital wing as soon as it's ready."

Dobby's ears peaked with joy. "Ohhh, brave miss, gladly will Dobby deliver that message."

The house elf vanished in a puff of silver smoke.

Draco leaned back to look at Longbottom's heaping mounds of pedals, most of them now cleaned of the vital pollen. "How much of it did you bring back?"

"Enough, hopefully," Snape answered, "to do the task."

A snakelike hiss rose from the cauldron. Severus Snape whipped around to face the work area. His already pale skin lightened two more shades.

"No ... it's too soon for--get down!"

Severus threw himself away from the worktable, raised his wand, and shouted a hasty spell. A weak oval of orange light sprang up between the table and the two students closest to him, Hermione and Draco, who instantly dropped to the floor.

The cauldron erupted in an explosion of green sparks and blue-white flame. Dense smoke filled with moist grit, like a dirty fog, swirled around the edges of the fast-fading magical shield. A rank odor of rotten eggs flooded the chamber.

The shield wavered and weakened. Snape held his vibrating wand with both hands, desperate to hold back the destructive flames. His magic, weakened by events in the secret arboretum, could not withstand the onslaught.

The shield failed.

A fraction of a second before the magical protection shattered, a second shield molded itself to the inside of Professor Snape's. A third layered itself to the second shield moments later, forming a reinforcing lattice-work of support. The Potions Master stared at the two students kneeling on either side of his leg. Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, wands drawn, bolstered his weakening shield long enough for the pyrotechnics to subside.

Their shield, however, did not extend to cover Longbottom's work area. Sparks from the eruption caught the heaps of pedals that promptly burst into gold-haloed flames.

The laboratory's fire-suppression spells kicked in, spraying foam onto the sideboard, but not in time to save the Dawn's Glory.

The shield, no longer needed, disappeared at a whispered command from Draco Malfoy.

Snape helped Hermione to her feet even as Draco coughed against the rain of dust from the rafters overhead and waved himself a small, clear bit of air in front of his face. Neville Longbottom peered from beneath the table, his entire upper body wrapped protectively around the precious, hastily lidded jar of pollen.

"Was it ... supposed to do that?" Longbottom whispered.

Snape's answer was not verbal but quite comprehensible nonetheless.

"Oh, no!" Hermione studied the foam—soaked, gooey mess that had once been flower pedals. "The Dawn's Glory is destroyed!"

Longbottom lifted the lid of the jaw and angled it toward Professor Snape. "Will this be enough?"

Snape studied the nearly two cups of pollen accumulated in the jar and answered to everyone's relief, "Yes, it will, but only just. If you value Potter's life, you won't lose even one grain of that pollen, Mr. Longbottom."

With great caution, Hermione approached the table and examined what remained within the bowl of the golden cauldron. She wrinkled her nose against the lingering stench.

"What happened?" she asked.

Everyone in the room heard the distinct sound of grinding teeth.

"The flame was too hot," Snape reported. "The mixture boiled before it was supposed to. Damnit, that should not have happened!"

"That fire plate was spell-controlled, wasn't it?" Draco asked.

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy," Snape growled, "it was."

Before Draco could ask how so experienced a Potions Master could make such a beginner's error as to the exact temperature of a fire plate spell, Hermione whispered in his direction, "The Professor had a bit of a run-in with Vulcan's vine. His magic is a tad wonky at the moment."

Understanding dawned. "Oh."

Hermione and Neville studied the still-smoldering cauldron, glanced toward each other then, as one, turned back to their Potions Professor.

"Sir, does that mean we won't be able to finish the antidote in time?"

"No, Miss Granger," Snape answered as he cleared away the debris and regathered his ingredients. "It simply means we have used up what little extra time we might have had. From this point forward, we dare make no mistakes."

"Miss, sirs."

Dobby had returned. The joy they'd last seen on his face had vanished.

Hermione knelt down before the little elf and said, "What is it, Dobby?"

"I have a message from the Wheezy. He says ... he says to tell you that Mr. Harry Potter is ... is not well at all. He says that ... Mr. Harry Potter is ... is fading fast. He asks that you hurry quick as you can." Dobby dabbed at his liquid eyes with the end of his muffler. The house elf moaned and rocked on his feet. "I saw him. Poor Mr. Harry Potter. Oooooooh, he looks terrible!"

Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, and Neville Longbottom exchanged a single, long look between them. Draco sensed a new undercurrent between the three, a new understanding, perhaps even a fragile alliance.

Draco Malfoy stepped up to the table and asked, "What can I do to help?"