Author's Note
Thank you all reviewers, especially the recent, desperate, anonymous ones who helped motivate me to pick up this fic again. I began The Visit over two and a half years ago, and have been anxious to finish it as I've known the ending since the beginning. I hope you will all continue to motivate me through your reviews. Thank you all!
The Mediwizard that Ron led to Hermione was quick to banish Harry and Ron from the compartment. He examined Hermione while Harry and Ron waited just outside in the train's corridor.
"It'll be okay, mate," Ron said. "She... she might not be—"
"She's dead, Ron," Harry interrupted, stone faced. He was staring at a spot on the ceiling, wishing he could get rid of Hermione's words from his memory. She had been in so much pain, even though it happened so quickly. There was no question in Harry's mind that she was dead; he was holding her, he felt the life leave her. He wished it could have been him instead...
Harry paused, dropping his crossed arms. It was supposed to be him. The realization stung more than if someone had slapped him across the face. What could it have been? A curse that hit the wrong person? No, they had been alone in the compartment. A magical virus? Harry hadn't ever heard of that, but he was wildly trying to come up with an explanation for her sudden sickness.
Then it hit him: Poison. She had been poisoned with something that was meant for him. The pumpkin pasties...
Harry gave Ron a sideways glance, not bothering to hide the fact that he was suddenly deeply suspicious of his friend who had spent his only sickle on a train-ride snack. Ron wasn't looking at Harry, though. He was trying to see through the opaque glass of the compartment door, incredible worry etched in his face.
"Stop looking in there; she's dead," Harry said again, studying Ron's repeated reaction of denial.
He felt like a shell of a human, unable to feel anything, as if he was witnessing his life from another person's eyes. Why was he suspicious of Ron? It was because of Malfoy's warnings, he decided. But Ron only bought the pasties; it could have been the old lady with the cart, or the reporter who had given Ron the money, or any of the strange wizards or witches who were on the platform at King's Cross.
But how would anyone but Ron have known which one was poisoned? He was the one who chose which pasties to give them. Unless more than one was poisoned...
As if on cue, Harry heard a scream from the front of the train.
"Help! Please! Somebody help!"
Since Harry and Ron were already in the corridor, they were the first to arrive at the compartment. It was a painfully familiar scene; Parvati and Padma Patil were in the compartment and Lavender Brown was curled up on the seat exactly like Hermione had been, cold sweat and all.
Ron ran to get the Mediwizard, but Harry just stood and watched Lavender convulse exactly as Hermione had.
"Help her, Harry!" Parvati was crying. "Please!"
Harry didn't help her, though. He saw half a pumpkin pasty on the ground, and that was enough evidence for him; he knew it was too late.
He ran up the corridor and caught up with the old lady who pushed the cart.
"Who bought pumpkin pasties?" he asked. She jumped, looking as though nobody had ever interrogated her about her candy sales.
"Tell me!" he demanded when she didn't respond quickly enough.
"You did, and the girl in there," she pointed to Lavender's compartment. "And there," she nodded to the door behind her.
Harry opened it. There were three second year Ravenclaws sharing their newly bought pasty, and it was almost gone. They innocently looked up at Harry, who didn't know what to do...
Harry and Ron found a compartment near the front and stayed there as pandemonium ruptured throughout the train as news of the poisoned pasties traveled like wildfire. The head boy and girl had to banish all the students back to their compartments and ordered them to stay there with their doors shut until the train got to Hogsmeade.
The suddenly overworked Mediwizard tried to save Lavender but it was too late, as Harry had predicted. One of the three second years didn't make it, while the other two were very ill, but alive. Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan, who had each eaten half of one, didn't get sick at all but almost made themselves ill with angst about the possibility of being poisoned.
Ron looked devastated, staring out the window at nothing in particular and wringing his hands numbly, seemingly unaware that they were shaking slightly.
"You okay, Ron?" Harry asked, breaking the oppressive silence.
"No," he replied, not looking away from the window.
Harry suddenly felt terrible about suspecting Ron. As much as Ron and Hermione fought, they were as good of friends as Harry and Ron were to each other. And even if Ron tried to kill him – which he wouldn't, Harry quickly told himself – he wouldn't have poisoned the entire batch of pasties and killed others in the process.
As easy as it seemed for Harry to accept that Hermione was dead, it still wasn't real to him. She would get better somehow, she would discover an antidote to cure her death-like sleep and the three of them would grow up together as they had always planned. While his brain could say to itself "Hermione is dead," his heart wouldn't believe it.
When they arrived at Hogsmeade, Harry had never seen everyone so eager to get off the Hogwarts Express. He didn't know where Hermione and Lavender's bodies were, and he was anxious to know where they were so that he could be sure to not see them as they were taken off the train. If he saw her dead, it would mean it was real.
Harry and Ron were last off the train, the mild autumn night greeting them more warmly than they would have expected. The two second year girls who had become sick from the poison were levitating on either side of Madam Pomfrey, who was hurriedly boarding one of the horseless carriages. It took off immediately towards the castle. The crowd of students was silent, and Harry saw why; Albus Dumbledore was on the train platform, his light blue robes glowing in the moonlight.
He began to speak, and while Harry could clearly hear the words, they didn't mean anything to his addled brain.
As Dumbledore gazed over the students' faces during his speech, he stopped at Harry. Harry lowered his eyes, as if he could hide his feelings from the headmaster's penetrating stare. Not wanting to look at Ron, either, Harry turned to face the train. At the very back entrance, someone was exiting the train, followed by a levitating body covered with a white cloth.
Harry closed his eyes. Dumbledore's speech was creating a distraction so that the dead bodies could be removed without the students noticing. Harry wished he hadn't seen.
There was no feast that night. The first years were sorted privately and escorted to their houses. Food was brought to the common rooms, and the students ate in near-silence.
Harry didn't eat at all; instead he retreated to his dormitory, closing the curtains around his bed while still clothed. He hadn't even changed into his robes on the train, he realized suddenly, and was still fully dressed as a muggle.
Ron was the first of his roommates to come up, as Harry could see through a crack in his curtains. He changed very quickly and went to bed. Neville came up next, not bothering to hide a few sniffles. Then came Seamus, who sat on the edge of his bed for a long while, looking deep in thought. When Dean arrived, Harry was surprised to see Parvati by his side, crying as softly as she could manage.
"Thank you again, Dean," she whispered.
"It's fine," he said consolingly.
"I just couldn't stand going up there... I mean, there's only one bed now!" Her cries became louder, and Dean gently shushed her, pulling back the covers and sitting her down on his bed.
"Where will you sleep?" she whispered.
"The floor's comfortable enough."
Harry shut his eyes as Parvati's gentle sobbing subsided. Her presence aggravated him, a constant reminder that Lavender and Hermione were really gone and it hadn't all been a dream. He slipped into a dreamless sleep, dreading the time when he would be forced to accept all that had happened.