It was a quiet cloudy morning of winter holidays, the morning of first January. There were children playing with the snow and many students were attached to the windows watching it gently flake. It was breakfast time, and the Great Hall was illuminated by a dim clear light.
"Hi, Ginny, did you sleep well?" Hermione asked, going down to the great hall with a bag full of books to do her homework. "Mmm, enough." Ginny answered yawning. In the room there were already almost all the students who had decided to stay at school instead of returning home for the holidays.
Ginny shot a grim look at Hermione's books. "Please no." she said exasperated, she didn't really want to do her homework, after all, who wants to? "please YES!" Hermione answered smiling. "today: homework!" she said to her friend. "Nonononono." Ginny said trying to avoid her homework. "If you don't do them today, you'll find yourself doing them all the last two days of vacation." Ginny snorted. "I allowed you to drag me to buy a dress and you even made me the makeup for the ball, I would say that now it's your turn to do something I chose." Hermione retorted.
"Pff, okay. But now let me finish eating in peace." "fine, I haven't eaten yet." said Hermione, sitting down next to Ginny. "Hey, would you pass me the pumpkin juice." Hermione asked yawning. "oh, it's finish, I'm going to ask the house elves for more; just enough to tell them that it's for the great Hermione Granger, founder of the S.P.E.W." Ginny replied. "Okay, but hurry up." said Hermione, taking a muffin instead of her desired glass of pumpkin juice.
A few minutes passed, then a pitcher of pumpkin juice appeared before her, and a little further on, three more appeared. Ginny had managed to corrupt the house elves. Hermione poured herself a glass of juice and immediately drank the contents. While Ginny sat next to her.
"'Mione, are you okay? " asked her friend looking at Hermione who had huge eyes and the skin of a cadaveric pallor.
"Yes, why?" she asked, continuing to eat her muffin.
"you are a little pale." observed her friend. Pale was a euphemism.
"No no, I'm fine, just a slight headache." Replayed Hermione continuing to eat her muffin like nothing happened.
Pansy walked over to the table accompanied by the Greengrass sisters, Astoria and Daphne. "can we take a few pitchers of pumpkin juice? it's finished at our table." without waiting for an answer, she grabbed three pitchers and handed them one to Daphne, one to Astoria, and she kept the last. Depriving Hermione of her pitcher of pumpkin juice. She went to the other two, and whispered something in their ear, then they left.
"How rude." Ginny commented. "what you expected? They are snakes." said Hermione. "they're like that" Ginny looked at her as if she had forgotten a little detail. "well, everyone except Blaise and Draco. Up to a certain point. And I didn't said that it's a bad thing, there are two types of snakes, you know, the totally evil ones, and the evil but in good sense, really caring, protective, and nice. You know that it's always fantastic having a Slytherin friend? Everyone, excepts Gryffindors says that." Hermione corrected herself.
Now the girl as white as snow, she stiffen a little on the bench, then fell backwards, on the ground.
"Hermione! Hermione!? Professor McGonagall!" Ginny called shouting, collapsing on her friend as Draco, Blaise, Morgan, Luna, Neville, and a lot of other students, arrived from the hall.
Harry and Ron leaned out of their position a little further at the table, Ron don't wonting to show that he still worried about her. Harry started to get up to go to Hermione but Ron blocked his harm with and hand. "Ron let me go to Hermione. I don't care if you forgot about everything we have done together and hate her now, but she is my sister and i want to go see what happened her!" he said freeing himself from Ron's grip.
Then he ran to the body as the principal ran there too. "What happened?!" she asked trying to hide her panic.
"I don't know! I went to the kitchens to ask for more pumpkin juice, and when I left she was fine, but when I came back she was white in the face, Parkinson and Greengrass passed to get the pumpkin juice I had just brought and then, Hermione is... Hermione is..." she couldn't finish the sentence.
The professor didn't have time to take her wand that Draco had taken Hermione in his arms. "we take her to the infirmary." he said disappearing into the crowd that moved as soon as they approached. They crossed the entrance of the hospital wing, and Madam Pomfrey, arrived worried, together with McGonagall who joined them from the corridors, with Harry and Ginny.
"Quick, tell us what's wrong!" McGonagall urged the nurse.
Draco laid Hermione on one of the beds in the room as the nurse approached.
"It won't not take long. Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter, go to class, you too Miss Weasley." McGonagall said, noticing the red tufts that fell next to her.
"But..." the girl tried to say, but was stopped by a furious look from the professor. "Can I at least wait for the results of the analyzes?" asked the girls with pleading eyes. "okay, but later, in class!"McGonagall admonished. Madam Pomfrey, approached with a worried air.
"Hurry professor! She has been poisoned!" shouted the nurse as she came back after she had finished visiting Hermione.
"What?!" yelled Draco, Harry and Ginny, more than worried.
"she doesn't have much left: two hours, two and a half at the most. But you have to find out what poison has been used on her to prepare the antidote. Hurry, or she will die!" said Madam Pomfrey.
An expression of terror hurriedly painted on the faces of Draco, Harry, Ginny, and professor McGonagall.
"go, we'll take care of it." McGonagall said.
Draco didn't move. "No." He replied imperturbably. The principal looked at him bewildered. "she is the only person who has managed to awaken that little of heart that was still in me, I will not leave her now." he said as Ginny promptly lined up beside him.
"she is my best friend."
"and my sister. I will try everything to save her." Harry added.
"Okay then. What can you tell me?" McGonagall surrendered.
"It was Pansy." Draco affirmed.
"Why?" Ginny asked.
"You said she came to your table to get pumpkin juice."
"So what?"
"what has she said when she came there?"
"that it was finished at your table, so she came to take it from us."
"ahà . She hadn't even been to our table!"
"What?!"
"So she wanted to take the jugs. The poison must have been there."
"she whispered something to Astoria, maybe she told her to get rid of the evidence."
"possible... So we can't take the poison from the jugs. Her glass?!"
"it fell with Hermione. maybe it broke."
"professor, we go to see if there is still pieces of the glass in the great hall." and with this Draco, Harry and Ginny ran as fast as they could to the great hall, but the glass was gone. So they ran back to the infirmary.
"Professor... it's no longer... there." Harry said while catching his breath. Ginny didn't have the strength to speak.
"Do you still have any trained Nifflers to find objects?" Draco asked.
"Someone should still be there. Ask Hagrid!" replayed McGonagall.
For a moment Draco felt faint. Still running! He took a breath and ran to Hagrid followed closely by Harry and Ginny a bit further.
They ran into the snow without their jackets, and the cold froze them to the tip of their hair, right down to their bones. It didn't matter, they had to save Hermione.
Draco arrived before the others. And he knocked loudly on the Hagrid's hut.
"Hagrid! Hagrid, please open the door!" he shouted as the giant opened the door.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" he asked with a frown. Harry popped there a second after and at his sight Hagrid calmed down a bt, even f he was stll uncomfortable with Malfoy around.
"It's for Hermione. She has been poisoned." he explained.
"We need a trained Niffler to find the poison!" Harry added.
"Well, I could ask you a million questions, Malfoy, but if it's for my Hermione, there is no time to waste!" he said entering the house.
"come, here's the only one left, and he's still a little traumatized from the battle, but he should be able to find the poison. You must first let him sniff it a little." Hagrid instructed him, while he was taking a black fur ball from a cage.
"come on, run!" encouraged Hagrid.
Draco took the niffler, and ran outside, with Harry after him. Just out of the hut they met Ginny, who had lost them, because she was exhausted and they run to Hagrid without waiting for her. A frightened expression took hold of her face when she saw Draco rush back to the castle. They crossed the corridors until they reached the hospital wing.
"Professor! here!" called Ginny as soon as they entered the hospital wing. Professor McGonagall took the Niffler that Draco handed her carefully and approached it to a spot on Hermione's uniform, a patch of pumpkin juice, the pumpkin juice that probably had poisoned her. The Niffler, who knew his task well, began to look around smelling the air around him, then he began to run, faster than a mouse. Ginny made a pleading expression full of pain, when she realizing that she would have to run again.
Everyone followed the Niffler in the great hall, stopped, sniffed the spot where Hermione had fallen, and started again hit the ground running, followed by the others. McGonagall looked like an Olympic sprinter, Draco and Harry were now on their last legs for running from one part of the castle to the other, but they tried to keep running; and Ginny was about to collapse on the ground and proceeded almost dragging.
They arrived in the kitchens, the Niffler entered the half-open door, the others, to enter, opened the doors wide, and the noise frightened the house elves, who cursed under their breath against those who had disturbed their work.
"Look, it's there in the corner." Ginny said pointing to a corner of the room.
There was a broom and a dustpan leaning against the wall. Inside the headstock were the shards of Hermione's glass, and the Niffler was sitting quietly nearby, he had completed his mission.
"Hurry, to Slughorn!" said McGonagall gathering the remains of the glass. Ginny looked at her with wide eyes, Draco instead, started running towards the potions room, after professor McGonagall, with Harry in tow, and Ginny a few meters behind. They arrived at the door of the potion class, Draco was about to knock, but he remembered that Pansy was inside, and that perhaps, despite being one of his best friends, he would have wanted to throttle her only seeing her, so he stopped and let McGonagall enter.
"sorry for the interruption, but I would urgently need Professor Slughorn." She said. It was the only thing they could hear. Probably in those two minutes that passed, Professor Slughorn, will have assigned something to do to the students. He left the room with his usual quiet smile, but was soon muffled.
"Professor, Hermione has been poisoned. We have traced the glass that probably contained the poison and we must find the antidote, or she will die." explained Draco. Slughorn's smile disappeared, letting room to a worried expression.
"what are we waiting for! Come on, at the lab!" Slughorn exclaimed, starting to run through a door just beyond and running down dark stairs. They arrived in a black room, full of bottles with various ingredients, and a table with a cauldron.
"give me the glass, Professor." as soon as he finished speaking, McGonagall placed the remains of the glass on the table without hesitation.
Slughorn threw the shards into the cauldron and then went to rummage through the bottles with such a slimy, strange and disturbing content; until he returned to the cauldron with five vials. He threw everything in the cauldron and started and stirred the contents first in one direction, then in the other. The liquid boiled on the flame that had been lit, and after a while it abruptly changed color from green to intense red.
"oh dear! How could this happen." Slughorn whispered almost as if he was referring to himself. "It's a very rare poison, and difficult to prepare, how did it come here?! Hermione has little time left, it is a deadly poison, which acts rather quickly, she has another one or two hours at the most."Slughorn said with pure terror on his face.
Ginny, Harry, Draco and professor McGonagall bleached. "What can we do? what is the antidote?!" Ginny asked terrified.
"I'm sorry Miss Weasley, but you haven't studied poisons and antidotes of this type yet. Mr. Malfoy, Mr Potter, do you remember the revew lesson at the beginning of the year? I remember to have assigned also a standard antidote for advanced level three and four poisons, right?" The two nodded.
"This is a poison is originally from the north, but can also be produced elsewhere. There is dementor blood, algae from the north sea, poison of acromantula, and werewolf hair." explained Slughorn.
"So is the antidote what we've already done?" Asked Harry hopefully.
"Not so simple unfortunately. The base is the potion you already did, in addition you have to add three poison ivy leafs, you have to dry them with magic, making them turn purple, before adding to the potion, and the distillate of healing plants of greenhouse number four. I think... Craspedia, Heather, Hellebore, Peony, Elder, Celosia, and Amaranth; ask Professor Sprout. You have to boil it over high heat, and mix well in both directions, being careful to cut each ingredient in the right way, and remove it from the heat at the right time, or the potion will not succeed, and there will be no time to redo everything. Make or break."said Slughorn.
Draco and Harry noded again, while Ginny and the headmistress were a little shocked and disappointed of being cut off from the conversation.
"Mr. Malfoy, Professor and Miss Weasley, you have to collect all the ingredients for the basic antidote, which are already here, and start preparing the basic part. Mr. Potter, go and ask Professor Sprout for the ivy leafs and the greenhouse four distillate, although probably there is lesson, I will go to give the rest of the hour to my students and then I will come back here to set the potion. Okay?" Slughorn asked, ordering left and right, which did not please Principal Minerva McGonagall at all.
"okay, I'm going." Harry said going out of the room. He ran through all the corridors, until he went out into the garden, ran through the deep snow to the greenhouses, and entered the room, slamming the door, between the astonished faces of the class.
"Mr. Potter, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in class?" Professor Sprout asked at the end of the table.
"it's an emergency, can I talk to you for a minute?" Harry asked, recovering from the cold outside.
"Well, if it's an emergency, I'd say yes." Replied the professor. The looks of all the fifth year in the greenhouse were filled with hope, maybe they could get a few free minutes! Professor Sprout came out of the greenhouse with Harry.
"Hermione has been poisoned, and with Slughorn we are preparing the antidote, but we need three ivy leafs, and the distillate of healing plants from greenhouse number four. We must hurry or she will die." Harry explained quickly.
The teacher paled and her quiet expression disappeared. "let's not waste time, come!" said the teacher running awkwardly towards the greenhouse of the healing plants. She twirled among the plants that overflowed from their pots, tore off some petals and a few leaves, then opened a drawer and took out the Ivy's leafs.
"run. Here are all the ingredients, you have to boil them all together until the whole room is filled with a pungent smell of resin, instead, the final antidote will be ready only when a cloud of orange smoke rises from the cauldron. Do you understand?" asked the professor putting all the flowers and leaves in a bag, and throwing him in Harry's arms.
"This are the three ivy leaf, chop it and sprinkle it on the antidote." Harry nodded, taking the leafs that Professor Sprout was holding between her fingers, and putting them in his pocket.
"Thanks professor." he greeted leaving. "Good luck." She replied, just loud enough to be heard from outside the greenhouse.
Harry started running again with the snow in his shoes. When he entered exhausted in the laboratory of Slughorn he saw Ginny and professor McGonagall, fumbling with a potion book and all those bottles of ingredients. Instead Malfoy was cutting hundreds of ingredients skillfully. As Snape had said: only a few chosen by fate... A row of tools to make the potion was already on the table, and a few ingredients too. The potions book was open on page number 782 and showed a long list of ingredients.
Draco explained to Harry and Ginny how he had to cut and chop the various things before putting them in the potion. And Harry repeated at professor McGonagall, every single word Professor Sprout had said to him. After about a fifteen minutes, the room filled with a smell of resin, they all drew a sigh of relief, at least, the greenhouse distillate was ready. Ginny was constantly stirring the potion as Draco kept adding things to it, and Harry was doing random things to help them.
Another half hour had passed.
They had poured both the distilled spirit and the chopped leaf into the potion, and it was a long time since Draco had given Harry the change after he replaced Ginny and both of them now were gone while he was constantly stirring the potion. McGonagall had left ordering Draco to call her as soon as the potion was finished, and she had dragged Ginny and Harry away, who reluctantly were forced to go to class. Slughorn was gone.
The potion began to gurgle furiously, and to emit yellowish smoke that floated near the cauldron. The antidote was ready.