Hey Lovelies! Here's chapter 5! Hopefully you will like this one, I sure do! Enjoy!
Chapter 5 – Aftershocks
Harry followed Ginny into the kitchen and joined everyone else around the dinner table. There weren't very many extra Order members around tonight it was just the Weasley's, Lupin, Sirius and Harry. Normally the less people that were around the better Harry felt, but tonight was different.
He could feel Sirius's eyes on him as he picked at his food. He didn't feel much like eating. Honestly, he didn't feel like doing much of anything besides sleeping. There was a nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't ignore, and an unconscious tugging at the back of his mind telling him he needed to be somewhere else.
He was having a harder and harder time ignoring his discomfort. It had started around lunchtime, he hadn't wanted to eat then either, but had forced himself to have something. That was six hours ago now though, and he was only feeling worse and worse.
"Hey Pup," Sirius looked across the table at him, "what's wrong? Molly's cooking is pretty good, and the girl's aren't dreadful. Here," he loaded Harry's plate with food that the teen knew there was no way he was going to be able to eat.
"Thanks Sirius." He mumbled. He started pushing his potatoes around his plate with his spoon and Sirius sighed.
"Harry, what is the matter? You have been acting oddly since lunch." Grey eyes were scanning over Harry as if they were looking for any lasting damage from the previous nights attacks.
"Nothing. I just don't feel all that well. I think that I'm going to go on up to bed and try and get some sleep. Maybe I'll feel better in the morning." He had just stood from the table to head back upstairs when the fireplace roared to life behind him.
Minerva fought the urge to skip dinner. She knew that she wasn't going to be able to eat anything, she couldn't remember feeling this awful ever in her life. She took her seat in the Great Hall next to Albus just as the elves sent the food up from the kitchens. She put a few things on her plate, but she hadn't really touched any of them.
"Minerva?"
"Hmm?" She looked over at the Headmaster and he noticed that she seemed a littler paler than normal.
"Are you alright? You don't seem to be eating much my dear?" He nodded towards her practically empty plate. "Are you feeling alright?"
She gave him a small smile and shook her head, "Not particularly. I think it might be better if I go and lay down. I don't believe I would be keeping anything down anyhow." She scooted her chair back from the table drawing Poppy's attention to her.
The mediwitch had been watching her friend since she entered the Hall and she knew that she hadn't eaten anything. If Minerva was leaving now, this was worse than she had thought. She watched as the dark-haired witch stood, a little shaky on her feet, and stepped back around her chair.
Just as Minerva started to sway on her feet Poppy was there. She wrapped an arm around her and offered her the support she needed to stay on her feet. "Come on. Hospital Wing. No arguments." Minerva just nodded and allowed Poppy to guide her out of the room. When Albus started to follow them Poppy shot him a glare over her shoulder. "I can take care of her myself Albus. I'm sure she will be just fine."
The two women made it up the stairs and Minerva was sitting on a bed before her legs gave out on her completely. "How long have you been sick?"
"What?" She looked up at Poppy from where she was leaning down to remove her boots before putting her feet on the bed.
"Minerva you are weak and shaky and the color of a bed sheet! Why didn't you tell me that you were feeling like this? How long have you felt like this?" She was fussing around at the end of the bed, one eye trained on the other witch.
"I don't know. Since around lunchtime I guess. I'm just worn out Poppy, after the attacks and getting hit by a car yesterday I don't think I can take much more. I think I just need to sleep."
"Minerva Isobel McGonagall! Do you honestly think that this has nothing to do with that Bond between you and Harry?" Her eyes went wide for a moment and she rushed off into her office. When she returned she was holding the same book that Minerva had been reading out of earlier that day. "These are all negative symptoms of the Bond! Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't I see it sooner?"
She looked at her friend and then at the doors to the hospital wing. She pulled out her wand and magically barred anyone from entering that way. "Come on. Come with me." She helped Minerva off of the bed and onto the couch in her private rooms. "Stay here."
"I'm not in any shape to go anywhere." She smiled weakly at her friend, but Poppy was not amused.
"This is not a matter to joke about Minerva. I'm serious! I'll be right back." She moved to the fireplace and used her own Floo access to disappear in a whoosh of green.
Harry turned around as the fireplace lit up. He was surprised to see Madam Pomfrey step out of it, clearly in a hurry. She scanned the faces sitting around the table, and then her eyes locked on Harry. "How do you feel?"
"I'm really tired, I think I'm just going to go to bed."
"No you're not. Come on." There was a look in her eyes that left no room for argument. Suddenly Harry realized what that tugging in the back of his mind was.
His eyes went wide and he saw the mediwitch nod at his reaction. "How do I get there?"
"Hogwarts Infirmary will take you to the right grate." She stepped out of the way as the boy moved towards the fire. With one last look at the dumbstruck faces of those that they were leaving behind she followed Harry through the flames.
When they had gone Mrs. Weasley rounded on Ron, Hermione and Ginny. "What is going on here? Why did Harry just take off like that? And don't tell me you don't know! He tells you all everything!"
"Not this time." Ron wouldn't meet his mother's eyes. "He wouldn't tell me a bloody thing. I have no idea what's going on."
"Neither do we." Hermione looked across at Ginny who was shaking her head at the fireplace. "Harry just said that there was a dementor attack and that McGonagall saved him and Dudley, and we know that she was hurt, but that's it." She turned to look at the fire, "I hope that she's okay, but why would Harry need to go?"
Sirius took a deep breath and without a word he pushed his plate away from him and shoved his chair back. He stood and was out the door and up the stairs before anyone could see where he went. Hermione followed him and found him in the library, pulling a number of dusty, old books off of the shelves.
"Sirius, what are you doing?"
He looked back over his shoulder at her. "Trying to figure out whether or not I saw what I think I saw this morning."
"What did you see?"
He merely shook his head; he wasn't going to answer her until he knew for certain. Situations such as this required extreme caution and discretion.
As Harry spun out of the Floo Minerva sat up on the couch. She had stopped shaking the moment that the Floo had lit up and she knew on instinct just who was going to come tumbling out of it. "Harry…"
Her voice drew his attention to where she was sitting on the couch and he looked up at her. She looked ill, like something had been plaguing her for weeks. "Minerva?" There was concern in his voice, and they both looked over when Poppy came out of the Floo behind him.
"You already look better." Her focus was on Minerva, as she was obviously the worse off of the two in the situation. "How do you feel?"
"I'm not shaking anymore, so that's a good thing. What is going on though? Why is Harry here?"
"He's the reason that you aren't shaking anymore. Both of you were pale and peaky ten seconds ago and now your color is returning. You are connected more deeply than we thought." She watched with wide eyes, as the two seemed to heal right before her.
"What does that mean?" Harry had gotten up off of the floor where he had landed and had taken a seat not quite touching Minerva on the couch. "More deeply than we thought?"
"Harry," Minerva reached over and put her hand on top of Harry's and the effect was instantaneous. Whatever magic had been slowly returning the two of them to normal rushed in all at once. Both sets of cheeks had their color back and the nausea drained away from both of them. Emeralds met emeralds as they both looked down at their touching hands and then up at each other.
Poppy intervened then. "Harry, we know that the two of you share what's called a Soul Bond. The last time that this has happened, well the last documented time, was over three hundred years ago." He started to interrupt but she held up her hand. "We don't know much about it except that it is an act of Old Magic, like what your mother used to save you that night in Godric's Hollow."
"So that's what happened when I saved you in the alley?" He was looking at Minerva.
"Yes, and no. This is a Rite of Protection. One of you is the protector of the other's soul. Harry, in this case you are Minerva's protector."
"How do we know that?"
"This." Minerva lifted her left hand, where the ring was glowing brightly around her finger. "It's connected to you and I both. Just like we thought. It's a tangible patronus, of sorts. You are my protector, and so I must wear your token."
"So all of this, this getting sick, that's because of the Bond?" He looked back and forth between the two women and Poppy nodded her head.
"Yes. I'm afraid I didn't catch that in the writings earlier, there's nothing in there that says that you can't be apart. Hopefully it's just a temporary thing, but for now it seems that you two are safest when you are together."
"So what are we going to do? If we can't spend time apart without getting sick what do we do about the next two weeks?" He looked over at Minerva, "You have to stay here, you have to help run the school, but I can't stay here, not without everyone knowing."
"I think I have a solution to that. Albus seemed extremely worried about Minerva when she nearly collapsed at dinner."
"You nearly collapsed!" He looked over at her, "Why didn't you say anything to anyone? Is that why I was so exhausted? I was trying to lend you strength that I didn't have?"
"Possibly." Poppy answered for her, "But more importantly, Albus was concerned. I can use his concern as a reason to monitor you both for, "aftershocks of the dementor attack," at least until school starts and you don't need an excuse for being here."
Minerva seemed to think it over, and as much as she didn't want to play on Albus's concerns for her she would allow it this once. This was as much for Harry as it was for her. "Alright. Set it up for Harry to remain here for the rest of the summer. Someone is going to have to go and collect his things. I have a feeling if one of us goes we would both need to go and that would be rather difficult to explain."
"Especially since Sirius won't stop asking questions." Harry mumbled from beside her.
Poppy nodded and moved towards the door. "I'll go talk to Albus about Harry staying too. I'm sure by now he knows he's here. Don't go anywhere."
"We won't." Minerva assured her friend as she left the room.
Convincing Albus that Harry needed to stay here in the castle was easier than Poppy had thought that it was going to be. When she had said that it was in the best interests of not just one of them, but both of them that she be on hand to monitor them he seemed to understand and take it in stride. He promised to go and collect Harry's things himself and he would see to it that an elf delivered them to the hospital wing.
When she pulled the door to her office open she couldn't help but smile. Harry was sitting propped up in one corner of the couch, his head lolled back and his arm around Minerva's shoulders. The witch was leaned against his chest with his shirt caught tight in her left hand. Both of them were sound asleep.
Poppy backed out of the room quietly, deciding that she could update them on what was going on in the morning. Right now, she would just let them sleep.