Back in the common room, none of them felt like talking today, but for some reason, they weren't comfortable leaving for the dormitory, either. The fire had been reliably lit by an anonymous, diligent elf and a late ray of sunlight lingered in the corner of the high tower, as if hiding from the inevitable eclipse.
"This – is – disgusting", Harry ranted when the spring sun had finally set, "How am I supposed to 'provide reasons' for an absence of empathy in punishment? What is it my business punishing people at all? How about first exploring someone's motives, or look at the circumstances of their accused wrongdoings, or questioning the standard I'm applying?" Hermione watched him cast quick look across the room to the fireplace, uncertain whether he almost tossed the book into the flames. "How can this bullshit be part of any syllabus, High Inquisitor aside? There must be some people with brains in the Ministry -"
Ron chuckled. "There are."
"We've been sitting through years of 'History of Magic', haven't we?", Hermione threw in. "Not so much of a difference there."
"What's that got to do with an essay egging us on to torment each other?", Ron scowled.
"I'm just saying, the History we've been rehearsing is the wizards view upon things, isn't it?", she calmly replied, "It's history, but written by the winners. We'd talk about the Goblin Uprisings as revolution if they had won. We'd celebrate our open and liberal society if centaurs had been granted sovereignty over the grounds, or at least some rights to decide their living conditions."
"Are you defending -?", Harry asked through gritted teeth, dancing on the edge of a tantrum, but Hermione wouldn't let him develop a full outburst.
"It's not the same denying them rights and purging all non-pure blooded magical creatures, human or other", she laid out, "But the mechanism is similar. She's creating a narrative, or making us create one with this essay. We're not asked to discuss reasons for lack of empathy. This phrasing is pretty sophisticated – yes, it is", she stated over Ron's snorting, "We'll identify with the reasoning we'll come up with, under pressure and threat with any punishment she deems appropriate -", a quick look to the scars on Harry's hand added a lot to him calming down, more than any of her words could have, "And with this uncertainty we're much more motivated than if we knew what to expect if we blantly refused her commanding. Instead, we'll create a superficial frame to see ourselves in – bullying all she deems unworthy for the Greater Good -, vague enough to be filled with any rationalizations required by current politics."
Both displayed blank, staggered faces as she had come used to.
"You amaze me, Hermione", Harry admitted.
Ron obviously still processed what she had said.
They turned back to their essays, struggling to keep focused.
"See, what I don't get about Umbridge and her framing", Ron raised his voice after a while, "If she's against empathy in punishment, why's she making Harry scratching scars into his hands? That's the hell of an empathetic move, isn't it?"
"Actually, I have been thinking about -", Hermione answered, but the deafening sound of trumpets drowned her words.
"What the -", Ron yelled through the noise, "Are those fripperies?"
Tiny, golden leaves had started to rain down from invisible clouds. Catching one, Hermione discovered they were neatly folded hearts. Soap bubbles in all colors of the rainbow followed.
Faint piano music swept through the entrance, as the Fat Lady swung aside, revealing Dean with a flower bouquet large enough he must have used a Levitation Charm to carry it. His deep, soft voice caressed their ears like cotton candy, when he half-spoke, half sang the lines:
"If happiness were like the flowers of June then I would take - the best of them, roses and columbine, … the lilies, and bind them in your hair."
"Someone must be in love", she whispered, unable to suppress a giggle. Even Harry grinned. Dean had floated a few steps into the room and all Gryffindors held their breaths simultaneously.
"They are not more beautiful but they add - Meaning to my love. For all our words are short and lame of breath and stumble ...", the floating interrupted by a well-rehearsed stumble, holding the flowers up straight, "And you surpass them though I know not why, Shy love I think of you as the day wanes."
Great performance, Hermione silently commented. And to her biggest surprise, he turned to Ginny, who had been watching the scene with a mixture of amusement and affection.
"And as the sun sinks deep into the ocean - And as the stars turn round above in silent motion."
Gryffindors burst into applause. Among "uuuhh's" and whistles Ginny turned blushed to a deeper red than her hair.
"I thought they had agreed they didn't work out?", Hermione tried to check with Ron, who seemed in a worse mood than with Umbridge's essay.
"Thought so, too."
"Harry?"
"Dean's such a piece of-", but Hermione never learned what Dean was supposed to be a piece of, since he obviously wasn't done yet.
"And how into the dark deeps of your eyes, I'd look and think of angels." He ripped the bouquet in half, waving it like wings. Tossing them aside, he sang, "Then your breath - and all the aura of your body's breathing", he started to turn on his heel, arms stretched wide open. He'll trip again, Hermione thought. The music stopped.
"Intoxicatedly would overwhelm me -"
Dean pulled in his arms, hands held to his throat, "And I would die -"
As expected, he stumbled, hands clutching his collar. "For it is too much -" He started to cough heavily.
Within the fraction of a heartbeat, it hit Hermione. Something was just going horribly, horribly wrong.
"Ok, come on, I've got it", Ginny mumbled, too ashamed to look at him, tossing on the ground.
"Finite incantatem", Hermione yelled, wand pointed at the coughing students, who had ripped open his shirt, "Remedio!"
"Get McGonagall", Ginny screamed, her face vivid from shame, grimacing in terror. "Dean, come on, it's not worth it -"
Dean had stopped turning, his breathing much more a screech now.
"Magia relevio!"
Both she and Hermione rushed to his side, as Parvati and Lavender ran from the common room, slamming the Fat Lady against the wall.
Had he been strangling himself? "Relashio", Hermione made a desperate attempt to give him ease. "Help us! Anyone!"
Gryffindors seemed to overwhelmed to move, their silence in horrible contrast to Dean's loud and laboured suffocating. The spell worked no effect on him. Tears appeared in the corner of his eyes.
"They'll be too late!", Ginny whimpered.
"We need an antidote", Hermione whispered, thinking hard.
"Accio Bezoar", she heard Harry yell behind her. Seconds later the grey stone hoovered through the entrance. With the skill of a Seeker, Harry caught it, rushed over and shoved it into Dean's mouth.
Dean was sweating from the struggle and distinctly blue at the lips. Forcibly removing his hands with Ginny, Hermione discovered the veins at his throat had turned pitch black. The rattling sound eased a little, but the faint blue stayed.
"It's not enough", she concluded. "Please - someone help - we need to – Expecto Patronum!"
She had voiced the incantation without thinking: a silver otter broke from the tip of her wand, rushing through the common room, leaving toward the distant steps in the corridor.
Seconds later, McGonagall appeared.
"Everyone who's breathing normally: off to your dormitories!", she commanded, "Finite incantatem!"
"The Bezoar helped a little", Hermione explained while their Head of House knelt beside the still pale and bluish, gasping, slackened Dean, "But I don't -"
"We need to get him to the hospital wing", McGonagall concluded, casting an obviously worried look on her student, "If you've given him an antidote already, we can't deal with this here. Which one of you can tell me what happened here?"
Ginny remained silent, whether in shock or still ashamed.
"We all have", Hermione admitted.
"All of you -?"
"Well, Dean popped into the common room with some theatrical -"
"Must have been quite an event", McGonagall snapped, "Miss Weasley, you'll stay here, Miss Granger – with me. Locomotor."
With the familiar flick of her wand, their Head of House pushed Dean on an invisible tray, and wasted no more time: Rushing to the hospital wing half-running, Hermione summarized the events over Dean's loud and heavy breathing.
"Nothing worked", Hermione concluded, as they positioned Dean in the first empty bed, Madam Pomfrey fetching the most important potions, "So I hoped you might know what to do."
"A Patronus is a much quicker way to communicate, and necessary in such cases", McGonagall advised her, less stern and strict than Hermione felt she deserved to be addressed. "I know you can produce one, so send yours to me in case anything like this -", the deeply worried expression still looked strangely unfitting on her, "Happens again."
So where did my otter -
"Severus", McGonagall greeted the potions master, clearing the bedside. "Merlin's beard, I thought you were still on your trip. Look at him."
Wasting no time with greetings, he tended to Dean, bending over him closely. His thin fingers followed the black lines, which were elevated veins. In a swift and skilled move, he removed Dean's sleeves, only to discover that his arms bore the same marks. Just as quickly had he combed through Deans hair, inspecting the skin at several points.
"Put him up. He'll have to drink this", Snape muffled, pulling a flacon the size and shape of a tangerine from his robes.
"He can barely breath, let alone drink -", Madam Pomfrey rejected, but Snape cut across her.
"Do as I say."
Hermione and the nurse took a shoulder each and pushed him up to a seating position. Snape made short work of the puzzled, exhausted student: unbottling the flacon, he grabbed Dean's chin, removed the Bezoar, poured roughly five drops on his lips, and closed his mouth. Excruciating seconds of waiting followed. McGonagall turned around, facing the wall, for she could not bear the sight any longer.
Then, Dean inhaled slowly. It was a labored move, but deep. He held it, then let go. Another inhale. Certain now, that this was not the last bit of fresh air he would get, Dean exhaled slowly. He continued to breath steadily, of a bit too quick, and was calmed down by Madam Pomfrey.
"Love's a battlefield", Dean muffled finally. McGonagall turned around at the sound of his voice, wiping a tear from her cheek.
Snape kept watching, unmoved and expressionless as ever.
"Argentinian Sour Grass", he explained, noticing the questioning look on Hermiones face.
"Just that?", McGonagall voiced Hermiones surprise. "But this must have been very Dark Magic – poison -"
"No, Minerva", Snape rejected her. "Dark Magic does not leave Marks like he's had on his arms – perhaps at the throat, but not in more peripheral parts of the body. And poison had made his hair fall out when I brushed through, as the quickly proliferating cells always die first."
"Then what was it?", the nurse inquired. "A rotten love potion? A paradox reaction? He's half-blood, isn't he – maybe it was one designed for pure-bloods?"
"Please put that idea right out of your mind", the potions master declined, badly hiding his annoyance, "There's no difference in the effect of magic on wizards and witches, whatever their heritage might be." He sighed. "I am disappointed to see that teachings of genealogy have worked on you, Madam Pomfrey. You should know better."
She did not comment on that.
"As I was saying", Snape went on, "This is not the result of a love potion, rotten or foolishly brewed or whatever. This is the result of an overdose with Veritaserum."
The two witches looked as stunned as Hermione had ever seen them, with her expression no less surprised.
"How?", Dean croaked.
"Mr Thomas, where have you been before you went to -"
"The common room", Hermione added. "He – collapsed -", Dean's face had a much more healthier color suddenly. "in the common room."
"Where were you before that?", Snape repeated.
A cough, a deep breath, and Dean replied. "Umbridge."
McGonagall's posture stiffened visibly. Almost back to her old self, her lips became very, very thin.
"Have you been to dinner tonight, Mr Thomas?", Snape tried to exclude different causes, "Have you secretly left the grounds for Hogsmeade?"
"Paid a visit to Hagrid's, perhaps? Or been out for a walk with another student with some butterbeer?"
Three times a shaking of his head in denial.
"It's important that you're telling the truth here", Snape insisted, looking him directly into the eye.
"I am", Dean replied, frowning, probably louder if he had been able to.
"He is", Snape confirmed. Much to her surprise, Hermione noticed a hot and fiercely burning sensation somewhere in her stomach.
McGonagall spoke first. "Miss Granger, we are grateful for your help, but I guess the Gryffindor students deserve an update that Mr Thomas here has survived the incident, and will make a full recovery. That is, if Mr Thomas does not mind you telling them this."
"Don't mind", he replied.
"And your most ambitious schedule certainly allows no further postponing of rehearsal."
"Yes, Professor", Hermione gave in, "I'll tell them Dean will be fine."
McGonagall was way too much a strict and decisive teacher not to obey, and as long as she was told to leave so politely, Hermione left the hospital wing without further discussion.