A/N: Six reviews within 24 hours! You guys have no idea how happy it made me to see all those review alerts in my inbox! It made me so happy, I got right on writing another chapter. So here you are. Enjoy. Oh, and I still would like to know if you guys want a sequel of some kind. And I start school for learning Danish soon, so I will not be able to post near as often, but I will keep working on the story and will post when I can.

Disclaimer: Bah, humbug. That is all I have to say.

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Chapter Fifteen: Overdose-Withdrawal Syndrome

For one brief moment Jessica considered calling after Draco. But he had, she realized, said all he planned to say. Calling after him would achieve nothing.

She sat back down, leaning against the tree as she tried to puzzle out Draco's behavior. The way he had been so annoyed with her starkly contrasted with his remorseful words. When he had said, "So am I," Jessica had gotten the feeling that he was apologizing for more than his angry snappish words. But he hadn't done anything bad, at least not something he hadn't already apologized for, and she knew from experience that Draco would never apologize more than once for anything. Still very confused, Jessica sat there a while, staring at the lake. Then, at last, she got up and headed back up to the castle.

As she neared the doors to the castle she saw one of the horseless carriages pulling up to the front. Draco came down the stairs, a suitcase hovering behind him. Jessica glanced at her watch and realized that she had spent at least twenty minutes at the lake side after Draco had walked off. Well, she mused, that would have given him enough time to pack. She continued to walk towards the castle, watching as he walked towards the carriage, stowing his luggage in a compartment in the back and then climbing in. The carriage pulled away just as she reached the steps and for one brief moment she was able to peer inside. To her surprise, Draco was not the only one in the carriage. A man with blond hair and features so similar to Draco's that they could only be father and son, sat next to him, his face twisted into a permanent sneer of disdain.

What is Draco's father doing coming out here? She thought, thoroughly confused now. If his wife is so ill that Draco has to go home, shouldn't he be at home with her? Draco's more than capable of getting home on his own.

Jessica headed into the castle, and up to the owlry. She was going to mention it to Harry, Ron and Hermione later, but she was going to write Mr. Weasley first. Maybe he would have some sort of idea.

Writing a quick note on a piece of paper in her pocket she sent it off, hoping that she would have a reply by the next day and then she headed back to the Gryffindor common room.

Hermione was waiting at the foot of the stairs to the girls' dorm, frowning slightly. Jessica sighed.

"Where'd you go?" Hermione asked. "You know it's not safe to wander around at night with Filch and Mrs. Norris on the lookout."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Spare me, Hermione. I went for a walk outside." She quickly told Hermione about how she had seen Draco's father in the carriage. When she had finished Hermione was frowning again, but for a totally different reason.

"But, shouldn't he be at home?" she said.

"My thoughts exactly," Jessica said. "I think that his mother's not really sick. But I don't know why he would lie about something like that."

They both decided to mention it to Harry and Ron. Then Hermione got out a book and went to a corner to read until everyone else woke up and Jessica sat down at a table to start on the huge stack of papers Snape had given her for make-up work. As she looked through them she realized he had included a set of directions for each of the potions she had missed. She would be required to make each potion and give him a bottle by Monday, plus she had an essay to write on the properties and uses of each of the ingredients in the Draught of Peace. Annoyed again she headed to the library to check out every book she could find on ingredients of potions.

x x x x x

Jessica did mention Draco's father to Harry and Ron. Their reaction was just as she had thought it would be, they immediately jumped to the conclusion that Draco and his father were up to something. As reluctant as she was to admit it, Jessica had to agree that their arguments did explain certain aspects of Draco's behavior. She just hoped that all of them were wrong, because she didn't want to think that they had been right about Draco and she had been wrong.

Jessica worked on potions all day and she finally had gotten them close enough to the desired effect that she figured she would get an 'Acceptable'. Again she was too tired to work on the essay so she went straight to bed. She knew that she would be cutting it close with the essay, but she couldn't help putting it off. Besides, if she was too tired to discern the difference between the letters 'u' and 'w', she was hardly capable of writing an essay which was supposed to be at least two rolls of parchment long.

Sunday she barely got a break from the work on the essay. Snape could not have chosen a worse potion to do an essay on. She could only find a little information on each of the ingredients and no matter how much she rambled she couldn't fill up two rolls of parchment. Finally she asked Hermione for help. Hermione wouldn't tell Jessica how to fix her essay, but she did recommend a few books. This in itself was a great help and by late evening she managed to finish her essay.

Draco was still not back by dinner time and Jessica had not even gotten a reply from Mr. Weasley either. Jessica was tempted to write another note to him but she didn't, she knew that being annoying and impatient wouldn't get her an answer any faster and it would only annoy Mr. Weasley and she didn't want to, not after he had agreed to take in Jessica into home with four other children still living there.

Monday and Tuesday passed in a blur of classes that Jessica was hardly awake for. She had not slept well on Sunday or Monday night. She was having nightmares. She was pretty sure that they were not Voldemort related because they were different from the other nightmares he had sent her. She kept waking up yelling though, so, to save Hermione and her other dorm mates from having to wake up, she soundproofed her curtains.

x x x x x

Wednesday evening at dinner, Jessica was listening to Hermione as she tried to explain Arithmancy to Ron and laughing when suddenly everyone around her went quiet. Jessica looked up to find, to her shock, Snape had paused by their table on his way out.

Snape met her eyes and said, "Bring your empty bottle of potion to my office after dinner, Miss Banks, and I will give you more." Then he walked off and a moment later he was gone from the Great Hall.

It took Jessica a moment to process what he meant because her bottle of potion was not empty yet. Then she realized that it had been a week since he had given the potion. Snape's words about how he would know if she didn't drink the potion came back to her and she finished off her dinner quickly. With a quiet apology to her friends she raced up to Gryffindor tower. For a moment she considered dumping the potion into one of the toilets in Moaning Mytle's bathroom, but she disregarded. They had just learned this week that many of the more advanced potions often reacted negatively with water. The last thing she wanted to do was to blow up one of the toilets. She instead downed the entire bottle of potion, fighting the intense desire to be sick that always rose up when she drank it. Then she walked down to Snape's office, still fighting the urge to be sick. Halfway there she had to stop a moment and lean against the wall. Finally, the sick feeling left her and she proceeded towards the dungeon.

Snape was waiting, as she had expected. He watched her as she walked in and his dark eyes were unreadable as she handed him the empty potion bottle. He studied her for a moment more, then he handed her another bottle saying, "I expect to see you in one week with that bottle empty Miss Banks."

Jessica nodded and hurried from the dungeon. She went back to the Gryffindor common room where she found Harry, Ron and Hermione. Harry and Ron were playing chess, and Jessica went to sit down and watch them. Harry managed to do some damage to Ron but finally, and as expected, Harry lost.

"Would you like to play a game, Jessica?" Harry asked. Jessica nodded, ran up to grab her own chess pieces and was back in a minute.

"Can I be white? Since I'm probably going to lose anyway?" Jessica asked.

Harry laughed. "Sure," he said. They set up their pieces and then Harry smiled at her and said, "Your move."

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Harry watched as Jessica stared at the chessboard, apparently deciding where to move. He rolled his eyes and said, "Jessica, just move a piece ok? Don't worry about it yet. The game hasn't even really started yet."

She reached up to move one of the pawns in the front row and knocked over a couple of her pieces. She picked them up and began to set them back, then stared at the king and asked, "Where does this go again?"

For a moment, Harry almost laughed. Then he met her eyes and realized that she was dead serious. A feeling of nervousness hit him. Something was wrong here. Jessica had played chess tons of times and you didn't just forget the placement of chess pieces after tons of games.

"Jessica, are you ok?" he asked, concern in his voice.

Her brow furrowed a minute and she looked like she really had to concentrate to say, "I'm tired. I don't think I wanna play chess."

"That's ok," Harry said quietly. He turned towards Hermione and said, "Hey Hermione come here a second." She got up and came over.

"What is it?"

"Look at Jessica," Harry muttered. Hermione did. Jessica's face was now flushed and she looked dizzy.

"She looks sick," Hermione muttered back. "Jessica? Do you want to go to the hospital wing?"

"No, I'm just tired," she said, but as she said this she swayed and fell out of her chair and onto the floor.

Harry jumped up and moved over to her. He touched her forehead and looked down at her flushed cheeks.

"She's got a fever." Harry turned to Hermione and said, "Quick, go tell Madame Pomfrey. Ron, help me lift her." Hermione ran ahead of them to the hospital wing while Ron and Harry picked Jessica up and tried to carry her out of the room. Half the room stared as the two of them slowly made their way through the portrait hall to the hallway.

They were about halfway to the Hospital Wing when Harry heard Professor Snape's voice coming from behind them, saying, "What is going on here, Potter?"

"Jessica just collapsed in the common room, she's got a fever so we're taking here to the hospital wing," Harry answered, his voice short.

"She collapsed?" Snape asked his voice suddenly sharp. "Put her down, both of you." The two of them did as he said and Snape conjured a stretcher and levitated Jessica onto it. He walked off down the hall, barely pausing to say over his shoulder, "Potter, follow me. You as well Weasley. I want to know exactly what happened." Harry and Ron looked at each other a moment, then followed Snape to the hospital wing.

Once Jessica had been placed on a bed Madame Pomfrey examined her. Frowning, she turned to Snape, Harry, Hermione and Ron.

"Well, she's not sick," Madame Pomfrey said. "At least, not with anything I've ever seen before." She looked at Snape. "Severus, has she been taking any potions? Anything she could overdose on if she wasn't careful?"

Snape's eyes flashed. "It would take a great deal of stupidity on her part to overdose on the potion I had her on." He turned to Harry, Ron and Hermione and said, "Before she passed out did it seem as though she was forgetting things?"

Harry nodded. "She forgot the placement of the chess pieces and she's played games with us almost every night since the beginning of the year."

Snape turned to Madame Pomfrey. "I will have to speak to her. When should she be conscious again?"

"In just a few minutes," she said. Snape nodded.

"Potter, Weasley, Granger, out, all of you." Ron made a noise like he was going to protest and Snape said, "Now, or all of you will have detention for a month." Harry turned to go, he already had two weeks worth of detention left, he didn't need any more. Ron and Hermione followed suit. As they left, Harry heard Snape saying, "Madame Pomfrey, I need you to leave. She will appeal to you for help if she sees you and I have to make sure I know what she has overdosed on, if that is indeed what happened."

How could she overdose on a potion when she know better? Harry wondered as the doors to the hospital wing closed behind them.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Jessica returned to consciousness slowly. She felt awful, like she had felt that one time when she had caught the flu in third grade.

"Wake up, Banks," a voice ordered. Jessica moaned, trying to return to unconsciousness to escape from that voice.

"Wake up!" the person ordered again, and she felt them slap her face. It hurt and she opened her eyes, gasping.

Snape stood bent over her, his dark eyes furious. "You stupid girl," he hissed. "You forgot take the potion, so you took it all tonight didn't you? Didn't you?"

Closing her eyes to escape from his piercing gaze she shook her head furiously.

"Open your eyes!" Jessica did so, cringing at the harsh anger in his voice.

"Do not lie to me," Snape said.

"I'm not," she said, feeling miserable. One way or another he was going to be furious but she wasn't going to tell him. "I think I'm sick."

"You have overdose-withdrawal symptoms. Which potion did take, if not the one I gave you?"

"Nothing," Jessica said, feeling tears leaking out of her eyes. She tried to stop but she couldn't.

"Stupid girl," he said again. "You can die if you do not tell me what you have taken! Now tell me!"

She shook her head again, still crying. She stared up at nothing in particular, no longer reacting to his harsh expression. Snape slapped her again she flinched and her eyes went wide, focusing on Snape, no longer crying. "You slapped me," she said, astonished, and somewhat afraid.

"And you were slipping into shock. One last chance. Tell me what potion you have taken."

"I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't..." She repeated these words over and over again.

"Stop!" Snape ordered. Afraid he might slap her again, she stopped, staring at him. He pulled a needle out of his robes, and moved it towards her arm. She drew back and he grabbed her arm, pulling it forward. Carefully inserting the needle into her arm, he withdrew a small amount of blood. He then pulled the needle out. "I will test this," he said. "And if I find you have lied to me, you will be very sorry." He turned and walked from the hospital wing.

Jessica turned and cried into her pillow. He would find out what she had done, and when he did he would be even more furious than he was now.

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Overdose-Withdrawal Syndrome: Characterized by a vast cornecopia of physical and mental complaints, this 'illness' takes place when a person who is taking a potion fails to take it for any period of time more than three days and then attempts to remedy this by taking all the missed doses at once. Most common complaints are brief periods of memory loss, fever, upset stomach and unconsciousness, though the 'illness' may reveal itself by completely different symptoms. Once discovered and the potion revealed treatment must be undertaken. Failure to treat can result in death.

Potions and Their Effects- Page 149
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Reviewer Thanks:

Diet Cigarette: Right in one! I know it's technically not possible, but Voldemort was the one who stated it, and he has been know to make mistakes. I have a very long and complicated explanation for it but rather unfortunately I cannot explain it right now as it would give away part of the story. But I'm glad you like in spite of its obvious impossibility.

This Time Imperfect: Glad you like it! Yeah, I think so too, and he would do well with a muggle. I'm in Denmark for a year on a student exchange. It's a lot of fun. And I'm sixteen. I'll try not to leave you hanging, but info on my posting rate is in my profile.

pinkpenguin28: I'm glad you like. I know it's technically impossible but I sort of have figured out how to get around it.

Trinka: He-he. I'm glad you like. It is indeed a tough choice and I think she's going to need a while to decide anyway. Poor Jessica... she has to see the good in everyone... how cursed she is.

You guys are so awesome! Remember to review! And if reviewing is impossible because of your computer (like it is with the computer I have back in the US) then email me your review.