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The next two chapters are already available on pat re on along with a link to my discord server where you can get updates and sneak peaks of upcoming fic's.
Chapter 16
Harry felt like he had to force himself awake. He imagined it was like trying to swim in a pool full of golden syrup, a lot of effort for not getting very far. It was still too much effort to even open his eyes, but as Harry became aware of himself he noticed that he was lying down in a bed. Someone holding his hand and his lungs felt like someone had filled them with sandpaper. "Oww." His voice was weak and raspy.
"Harry! You're awake, oh finally, how are you feeling?" Harry recognised Hermione's voice and sentence structure, and the hand holding his tightened as she spoke.
"Oww," Harry elegantly repeated. He heard someone get up and leave the room, but he knew it wasn't Hermione as she was still holding his hand.
"What...ha-" He tried to speak, but it was hard. It hurt and his voice was weak.
"You shouldn't try to speak yet. Just nod and shake your head for now,OK?" Harry nodded. That made sense and talking hurt. "You wanted to ask what happened?" At his nod, Hermione told him about how he had been poisoned. "Oh Harry, it was horrible. Once we Floo'ed here to St. Mungo's, they took you straight into a treatment room and I was left just sitting outside. The Aurors came and talked to me, they wanted me to go to the Ministry with them but I refused to leave. I gave them samples of the food and drink you were eating to test, turns out that was a waste of time. For poisonings, the DMLE sends samples here to St. Mungo's to test. Apparently they have the best potions team in the country and they specialise in breaking down poisons and working out an antidote. The healers had already collected samples for their team, and it's standard practice to send a report to the DMLE in a case that looks like it might be deliberate poisoning."
Harry was finally able to open his eyes as he continued to listen.
"They had you in the treatment room for hours. Sirius turned up at some point, I'm not sure when, I just noticed at one point that he was sitting next to me and I had been crying on his shoulder. Eventually they worked out the counter to the poison, but it had already damaged your lungs, the foam that I was clearing from your lungs wasn't just choking you but was also acidic and burning away at your lungs. You have been in a healing coma for three days while they worked on your lungs."
"How… long…".
"...I told you, three days."
Harry shook his head.
"How long till you can go back to Hogwarts?"
Harry shook his head
"How long till your lungs heal?"
Harry nodded.
"Well, Healer Nightingale (and it's no relation, I asked) said that it will take a month to fully heal, but you should be at 95% within another three days." Harry was confused; he didn't think he knew any Nightingales to connect a relation to, Hermione must know one at Hogwarts. None of that mattered to him, though, it was going to take three days until he could breathe properly again.
The door opened and Sirius walked in with a man in lime green healer robes. The healer was all business and examined Harry and the condition of his lungs, then wrote out a prescription that copied itself, one set attaching itself to a clipboard at the foot of Harry's hospital bed and the other folding itself into a paper aeroplane and flying out the door, presumably off to wherever St. Mungo's potion lab was. He must have guessed right, as not even ten minutes later an apprentice healer came in with a tray of potions. Harry had to drink six: one to stop the pain from his lungs, one to oxygenate his blood directly to cope with his currently diminished lung efficiency, one to remove the carbon dioxide from his blood, one to vaporise any dead skin in his lungs so he could just breathe it out, and two to actually heal his lungs. The apprentice healer told Harry he would be taking these potions every six hours for the next three days. Harry did the math in his head quickly and realised he would have to drink 144 potions over the next three days, and all of them probably tasted like water that a troll had used to soak its feet.
Five minutes later, he had to admit he was wrong about the taste of the potions, they tasted worse. But he also had to admit that after the pain potion and the potions that replaced his breathing, he felt a thousand times better. His breath was shallow and a little laborious, but he didn't feel out of breath and when he tried talking the pain was gone, though his voice was huskier and he still had trouble saying more than three or four words before he had to breathe in again.
"So tell me… who did this… to me?" Harry asked Hermione and Sirius after the healer and his apprentice had left.
"Well Harry…the Aurors don't know yet. They found out it was Madam Rosmerta who put the poison in your butterbeer but they also found out she was under the Imperius Curse. She is incredibly shook up by all of this and has written to me to convey her deepest apologies," Sirius explained.
"Fuck." It was all Harry needed to say. It was impossible for the DMLE to track who had cast that spell on Rosmerta without testing the wand of the person who did, and the chance of that happening without an eyewitness was remote at best. Even with the potions, the more he talked the more the soreness returned to his throat, although now it was more like a bad cough. Understanding that Harry couldn't talk much, Hermione pulled out a book and started reading it to him.
"...hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort….."
-ϟϟϟ-
"So, it was Malfoy, right?" Harry asked Hermione as they walked from the hospital wing to the Gryffindor common room. It had been impossible for the two of them to talk about their suspicions at the hospital, as they were never alone. Hermione hadn't left his side, sleeping in the chair next to his bed even when he said it was fine for her to go home or back to school to sleep, but there had also always been an adult there with them who wasn't in the know. The most common was Sirius, followed by one or the other of Hermione's parents, but even Professor McGonagall and Professor Lupin had each stopped by for a shift. Harry understood, he had been attacked and they were worried for him, but he would be lying if he said he hadn't found it a little irritating after two days.
"It was his plan in the other timeline, but that in of itself isn't proof, and it's not like we can tell the authorities why we suspect him."
"True. Is there anything we can do?
"I don't think so Harry, it's not like we can tell anyone how we know what we do."
"True, we'd end up with Lockhart as a roommate."
"No, remember? He still has his memories this time.
"Oh right, I wonder what happened to him?"
"I heard that his publishers dropped him after he got students pregnant and he is on the hook for child support. He is now working as a freelance manuscript editor - basically, if a writer wants someone to check their punctuation and spelling, they can pay him to do it."
Harry laughed and Hermione looked at him. "I wonder if he will edit essays. I could send him my Defence Against the Dark Arts one and maybe he would learn some of what he was supposed to teach." Hermione laughed along as well. "I'm just glad that this won't interfere with the third task, the last thing we need is me losing my magic due to not being able to compete."
Hermione looked at Harry, surprised, and then she smiled. "Harry, that's it!" She took off running back the way they had come from, Harry guessed towards the library. Still unable to run yet, Harry followed at a walking pace. He found her in the library, reading a thick leather bound tome that looked like it was a couple hundred years old. When Harry put a hand on her shoulder to tell her he was there she looked up at him, "It's right here, Harry, look!" She passed the book over to him.
Harry looked at the passage that she was indicating and gave a quick read through. "This is perfect, almost too good to be true. Are you sure it would work?"
Hermione bit her lower lip, her nerves failing her a little, and said "Well, I need to do a little more research to check, but I think so."
He recognised when she was just second guessing herself, so he just leaned in and gave her a quick kiss before saying, "This is perfect."
-ϟϟϟ-
It took Harry and Hermione three days to finish checking what she had found would work the way they wanted to, then another week To check the legality of doing it and they were in the clear. They decided on doing it on Friday, as the weekend would likely be needed for dealing with the fallout. After classes had ended, Harry and Hermione walked into the Great Hall hand-in-hand, but instead of going to the Gryffindor table to eat Harry (with Hermione there supporting him) walked up to the staff table and waited politely, as Dumbledore was in the middle of a conversation with Professor Vector and had held up a hand asking them to wait a moment.
Once Dumbledore had finished with his conversation he turned to Harry and Hermione. "Good evening Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, what can I do for you this evening? And how are you feeling now Harry, everything healed up after the unpleasantness?"
"I'm mostly good now sir, still a little short of breath but Madam Pomfrey assures me everything will be back to normal in two weeks."
"I'm glad to hear it." Dumbledore said, sounding sincere.
"Sir, as per my right as a champion of the Triwizard Tournament, I formally request an audience with the Goblet of Fire," Harry said in the most polite way he could.
"Harry, that's extremely dangerous. You could very easily lose your magic if you do anything even slightly wrong. I refuse your request." Dumbledore said in his usual grandfatherly tone, the one Harry wished he could still trust.
"I'm afraid I must insist Professor, and with all due respect I phrased it as a request as a courtesy. If a champion asked for an audience with the Goblet of Fire then there is nothing a judge can do to prevent it."
"But Harry-" Dumbledore started, but Harry cut him off.
"Sir I understand why you are concerned, but I have already made up my mind." Harry tried to be as nice as he could, considering he was dismissing the headmaster's concerns and essentially using the Triwizard contract to order the man around.
"Headmaster, if the boy wants to rush in like an idiot Gryffindor and destroy his magic, then that's his choice. I say we let the fool go right ahead. Maybe once he is done, there can be some peace around here again." Snape sneered at him. Harry had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes, but he was only now realising that all of the staff were looking at him, as were three quarters of the students. Dumbledore visibly deflated as he gave in and called on a house elf to retrieve the Goblet of Fire from his office, then with a flick of his wand he created a small table in front of the staff dining table. When the house elf got back, she placed the cup on the small table.
Harry nodded to Dumbledore and then turned to address the students. "As you all know, as a Triwizard champion I have a contract with the Goblet of Fire, as do the headteachers of the three schools. What many of you may not realise is that all of you in this room also have a contract with the Goblet, when the headteachers signed their schools up for this event. You are all part of the school that was signed up. There is almost nothing you are required to do, so this is mostly just a quirk of magical contracts. However, there is one clase that students can fall afoul of, and that's not to interfere with the tasks." Everyone was listening to Harry now.
"As you have all probably heard, I was poisoned almost two weeks ago. Despite what anyone has heard, this was an attempt on my life, and as a dead champion can't compete in a task this counts as interference." There were stunned looks on most of the faces. Harry glanced at Malfoy and noticed the little shit was wearing a smirk that basically telegraphed to Harry that he had done it and thought that his use of the Imperius curse left him untouchable.
Harry turned back to the Goblet of Fire. "Goblet of Fire, I, Harry James Potter, Champion of the Triwizard Tournament, ask you to render judgement. It is my belief that a student of one of the schools of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons or Durmstrang did attempt to cheat by bringing about my death before the end of the final task." Once Harry finished talking, he stepped up to the Goblet of Fire, the flame of which had just turned black, and pulled his potions knife from his pocket. After pricking his thumb, he let a single drop of blood fall into the cup.
As soon as the blood touched the fire, it jumped out of the Goblet to about three and a half feet over the surface, then it turned pure white. When Harry was in his last year in Little Whinging Junior School, he and all the other students had taken a tour of the local comprehensive school. It was just an orientation for the incoming students, but when they were being shown the science labs the science teacher had decided to impress everyone by burning a strip of magnesium in a Bunsen burner. The light from the fire over the Goblet reminded Harry of that, brilliantly white and almost impossible to look at due to its brightness.
As Harry was bathed in the light, he could feel the magic of the Goblet reach into him and judge him. What it was looking for Harry wasn't sure at first, but then he was replaying some of his memories connected to the tournament. First was him giving Cedric a warning about the dragons after he had confirmed that the other champions knew about them, then it was him giving Fleur his copy of the clue for the second task. Harry was a little worried now that the Goblet could easily take those instances as cheating. However, he soon felt a rush of approval coming from what he now realised was a fire spirit of some type. a spirit that seemed to think Harry's actions were fair to the other champions.
Next he had to relive his experience of being poisoned. The spirit definitely didn't seem to like that, but when it withdrew from Harry he could tell that there was no danger to him anymore. From next to Harry there was a little "oh" from Hermione as the spirit examined her, and then there were little sounds of surprise from almost everyone in the hall as the spirit searched for who had tried to kill Harry. For almost everyone there were also little sounds of relief or curiosity, but from Malfoy there was a scream of terror.
"No, please no, please no!" Malfoy called as he was lifted into the air by an unseen magic, leaving him floating at the same height as the ball of fire that was floating over the Goblet. The area above the Slytherin filled with a dense cloud of white smoke, and almost like the smoke was a projection screen, Malfoy's memories started playing out over the surface. The first memory was Snape handing Malfoy a book and telling Malfoy to be careful with it, as there were dangerous potions in the book and that he needed to keep the book hidden because it was banned in Hogwarts to any student not studying N.E.W.T. level antidotes. The second was Malfoy brewing a potion. The third was him sneaking into the stockroom in The Three Broomsticks, and when Madam Rosmerta came to investigate what she thought was a Hogwarts student trying to steal a bottle of firewhiskey, Malfoy hit her with an Imperius Curse, gave her a vial of poison, and told her to make sure it ended up in Harry Potter's drink. Then he slipped out of the back room, ordered a drink, and sat down in a corner and watched as Harry and Hermione came into the pub and ordered drinks and food. Then he watched as Harry drank the poison-laced drink.
Everyone got to watch Harry as he started to choke, then foam at the mouth, Hermione desperately doing everything she could to keep him alive. The real Hermione buried her head into Harry's chest, the images of Harry's near-miss with death distressing her. Harry put his arms around her and ignored the rest of the Hall as he reassured her that he was okay. Everyone else was now looking at Malfoy, and apart from a few hold outs in Slytherin, they were all looking at him like he was something disgusting they had trodden on in Care of Magical Creatures class. Even the people who didn't particularly like Harry were horrified that Malfoy had used an Unforgivable on Madam Rosmerta, someone that was almost universally liked by the students third year and up.
Snape snapped at Harry. "Potter, you have proved your point. End this now or I will have you in detention for the rest of your time in this school!"
Harry turned to the irate professor. "There is nothing I can do, this is out of my hands now. And maybe if you hadn't given him a how-to guide on making poisons then this wouldn't have happened." Harry's words were cold and calm.
"WHO DO YO-" Snape started yelling at Harry, but he was cut off by another scream from Malfoy. The fireball was no longer floating over the goblet but flying straight at Malfoy. It flew directly into the Slytherin, but instead of striking him it flew into his chest and was almost absorbed into his chest. The Goblet of Fire had determined that Malfoy was guilty of interfering in the tournament and now his magic was now forfeit.
A part of Harry was disgusted with himself for doing this to someone, but another, bigger part of him was thinking about the bigot's attempts to kill Dumbledore: how he had hospitalised Katie, almost poisoned Ron, let a gang of Death Eaters and Fenrir Greyback into a school, and now used an Unforgivable to try and murder him, all for a belief that his blood status made him better than other people. Taking his magic was justice.
Less than a minute later, Malfoy fell unconscious and the fire, now back to its regular blue, emerged from Malfoy's chest and floated back into the cup that was its home. As soon as the fire touched the Goblet, whatever magic that was holding Malfoy in the air ended and the blond git crashed to the floor.
The whole room was silent now, looking at either Harry or Malfoy. Harry went to walk out of the Great Hall, as the excitement had ruined his appetite and he just wanted to leave, but Dumbledore stood up and shouted, "Mr. Potter! My office, NOW!"
A/N
Hermione was asking if the healer was related to Florence Nightingale, an English woman who was basically the founder of modern nursing when she and a number of other women aided wounded soldiers. She gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making the rounds of wounded soldiers at night. This is someone most British children are taught about in history classes, though some teach it at junior school level and some in early comprehensive school which Hogwarts replaces, hence why Hermione knows but Harry doesn't.
Hermione reading to Harry. OK I think this might find itself sneaking into any long Harry/Hermione fic I write. The idea of them reading to each other is just so cute to me.
