Harry and Morticia were the first to class. Everyone else stayed clear of them as they arrived. Harry ignored the empty space around them and the looks thrown their way. Moritica tried but she knew it would only get worse. As soon as the class ended, she started for the infirmary yet again. Herbology was her last class for the day. Harry rushed after her and quickly caught up with her.

"So... How about that chess game?" He gave her a hopeful look.

"I'm going to the infirmary. I promised Poppy I would help her."

Harry smiled. "I'll go with you." He took her arm and started toward her destination. He ignored the look Malfoy threw them as they entered the castle. Both of them missed the hidden jealousy. Even Draco was not aware it was there.

Morticia shook her head at Harry. "I don't need a bodyguard, Harry." She looked up at him pointedly, her eyes changing slightly before going back to normal.

"Hell, I'm sticking with so you'll guard me." He grinned at her. He doubted if something happened he would be more capable of handling it than she was.

She snorted. "From?" She could not think of a thing he had to fear at Hogwarts.

"I just don't want to be around people who can't accept you for who you are." He shrugged, not thinking he needed any other reason, but for the hell of it added, "There was a mean looking Hufflepuff girl galring at me earlier." He again smiled at her. She was surprised he did not have permanent smile lines around his mouth.

She returned his smile. "That's so sweet, kind of grossly sweet, but thanks."

"I do mushy well." She had to agree that he did, overly. "What can I say?" He again shrugged. He seemed to do that a lot. "So... About that Hufflepuff girl..."

Morticia grinned. "She wasn't glaring at you. She was glaring at me. She finds you quite attractive and thinks her company would be far better than my own."

Harry looked at Morticia in slight awe and shock. "How can you know that?" He was certain the girl had not told Morticia, or that anyone else had for that matter as he was the only one talking to her.

Morticia smirked. "Let's just say she... reeked of it." Morticia twitched her nose slightly to emphasize what she meant.

Harry shrugged yet again. "Not my type," he said simply.

Still smiling, Morticia answered, "No, she isn't."

He looked at her in shock. Only Remus knew that secret, and he would not have told Morticia or anyone else. "How do you know?" His voice was soft, worried she would turn her back on him.

"I can hear your blood. I know what excites you, what turns you on." She shrugged herself. "Just like I do everyone else."

"Looks like we all have our little secrets."

"Yes, but you don't really find anyone here to your liking."

"Haven't found anyone yet... Sometimes I wonder if I will." A sadness, a lost look, appeared in his eyes.

She nodded, a sadness in her own eyes. "I feel the same way." She had only found herself attracted to one person since coming to Hogwarts, and that person wanted nothing to do with her but to ridicule her.

"Well," Harry told her confidently, "I'll marry you if worse comes to worse."

She laughed. "I doubt that would work. The sex would just be... We probably don't have the same tastes in bed," she told him as they entered Poppy's office from the back. She highly doubted he would like how rough she would be, or could be at least.

"Probably not. It was worth a try." He looked around at the inside of the office. He couldn't remember ever being in that part of the infirmary, though he spent enough time in the other part. "So, what are we doing here?"

She smiled at him yet again. He had a way of bringing that out in her. "Maybe we'll experiment sometime," she said with a wink. "Poppy wants to go over the potions we went over a couple days ago."

"Maybe," he agreed about the experimenting. "Then why are we going over them?"

Morticia shrugged before catching herself. She was picking up on Harry's habit. "Madam Pomfrey!" She called when she did not at first see the matron.

"In here, dear," Poppy callled back. She was with a first year girl from Hufflepuff.

Morticia walked from Poppy's office to the main part of the infirmart. She looked at the first year. "Oh my." She could not think of anything else to say. Her sense screamed that the girl was, at the moment, quite unnatural.

Harry walked up behind Morticia. His eyes widened at the sight of the blue haired girl with purple skin and pink spots. "What happened?" He could not think of a thing that would do that to a person, not that he really read up on such things.

"I'd say Proffessor Snape is not happy." Morticia smirked. Snape hated someone messing up even slightly. The girl looked like a Longbottom accident.

"No, he was not. She put too much dried toad stoole in an anit-itching potion." Poppy finally looked up. "What are you doing here, Mr. Potter?" She was glad to see Harry with Morticia. She needed at least one of her classmates to be there for her.

"Are those spots... fungus?" Morticia asked, leaning in to look closer.

"Are you hurt?" Poppy asked Harry before again looking at Morticia. "I think so. Can't be sure until I run some tests. Don't touch her."

"No, I came to help Morticia with the potions count," Harry answered Poppy.

Morticia raised a brow but nodded. The fungus would hardly harm her. "A count that we did a couple days ago." Morticia eyed Poppy.

"Well..." Poppy did not have an answer. She did not want to make Morticia think she felt little hope of the girl having friends amongst her classmates, even if a little hope could go a lont way.

Morticia knew why Poppy had said they needed to do what was done already. She understood Poppy wanted to make her feel needed, wanted. "I understand," she told the matron with a small smile.

Poppy nodded and went back to sample of the spots she was testing. "They are fungus, and contagious," Poppy confirmed.

Morticia eyed the terribly frightened girl. "Has she touched anyone since?" She could hear the rushing of the girl's blood, the quick beat of her heart, the rapid breathing. Her reaction to Morticia was making the effects of the potion work more quickly. Morticia moved away slightly.

"No, he got her up here straight away."

The girl started to tremble under Morticia's gaze. She was frightened beyond words by the daywalked. Morticia ignored the fear as best she could, though the smell permiated the air. "Did he haul her up here like he usually does students?"

"Yes." Poppy did not sound too pleased by the way Severus handled the students.

Morticia smirk grew slightly. "So, he touched her?"

"He had gloves on. You know him, he's not stupid."

Morticia sighed. "Well, there goes that fun." She sounded very disappointed.

"Why is she purple?" Harry asked, but before anyone could answer Mortica spoke up.

She moved closer to the girl again. She sniffed the air, smelling something other than fear. "Uh oh." She again stepped away from the girl.

"What?" Both Poppy and Harry asked.

Morticia looked at them. "She's giving of spores, and we are breathing them."