Chapter 22

Harry opened his eyes and blinked. He sat up and rubbed his face as he reached for his glasses. He looked around him and eventually found the alarm clock next to him. It read twenty to nine.

'Oh you have got to be kidding me!'

He threw his covers off him and flew into the bathroom, bouncing off the doorframe and into the small room. In two minutes he had flown back out and started pulling on his school robes on haphazardly.

'Bloody brilliant way to start the week, Potter!' he growled to himself.

When he was just about dressed he hurtled out of the dormitory and took the stairs three at a time. He skidded to a halt in front of the portrait hole and realised he had none of his books with him. Knowing he wouldn't have time to come back up after his breakfast he swore loudly and hurtled back up the stairs and into his room.

Miraculously, the night before he had already got his things ready for his day's lessons, but as he took a quick glimpse into his bag he noticed his potions book was missing, having fallen asleep reading it last night. He frantically looked around his unmade bed and his eyes finally fell upon the open book on the floor. He bent down and stuffed the book into his bag. He looked into one of the side pockets to make sure the Marauders map was still safely in place and felt the familiar lurch in his stomach he often felt when he wanted to look at the map, but couldn't. He stood up and slung his bag over his shoulder and for the second time that morning sprinted down the stairs.

He turned left into the great hall, still at a run and bumped hard into someone.

'Oof!'

'S…sorry,' the voice that belonged to the other person said hurriedly.

Harry looked up having recognised the voice.

'Ginny! Sorry about that, I got up late!'

'Harry! Oh! Have you seen Ron? Have you seen my parents?'

'I…what?' Harry's brow furrowed as he tried to grasp at why Mr and Mrs Weasley would be at Hogwarts. 'Your parents?'

'Yes! Colin just said he saw them upstairs with McGonagall!'

'What?'

'So have you seen Ron or Hermione this morning?'

'No! I've only just come downstairs…hang on,' he opened his bag with one hand and pulled Ginny out of the view of the students of the hall at the same time. As he left he caught sight of the Slytherin table and his stomach twisted when he saw Malfoy looking directly at them, the ugliest smirk on his face. He pulled out the Marauders map from his bag and hurriedly (and quietly) muttered the sentence that would show the school to him.

Ginny's brow furrowed before she realised what the piece of parchment was, and what it was telling her.

Both of them searched for the names of any other Weasley than Ginny. Pessimistically, they both looked to the hospital wing, and both of them gasped when they read the names in there. Surrounding Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger were Charles Granger, Veronica Granger, Arthur Weasley, Molly Weasley, Albus Dumbledore and Poppy Pomfrey.

'Oh no!' Ginny whispered. 'This isn't good!'

Harry and Ginny's eyes met and they both spun round at the same time, only to take a step forward straight into Professor McGonagall.

'There you are Potter, Miss Weasley,' McGonagall said. 'I'm afraid I have some rather alarming news.'

'Why are my parents here and why are Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing?' Ginny demanded.

Normally that type of tone would have deserved a scolding from McGonagall, but she understood Ginny's panic.

'Follow me, I shall explain on the way, you are both excused from your morning lesson!'

Harry and Ginny hurried after the deputy headmistress.

'Auror Tonks found Miss Granger and Mister Weasley unconscious in separate classrooms at around four o clock this morning.'

'No! But they…' Ginny started, before fading off into her own frantic thoughts.

'As yet, neither of them have woken up. They don't seem to be getting any worse, but, needless to say, we are concerned about their condition, that is why both your parents,' she looked over her shoulder at Ginny, 'and Miss Granger's were called to the castle half an hour ago.'

Ginny sniffed quietly and Harry tried to give her an encouraging look, but she wouldn't look at anything other than the floor.

'Do you know why they won't wake up?' Harry asked.

McGonagall didn't answer at once. Before she did she took a deep breath. Harry didn't like what that insinuated.

'All we can deduce from their previous episodes is that they have woken up after a period of time relative to the time they were separated for. We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that they were separated for a long period of time, and that is why they haven't woken up yet.'

They had reached the doors to the hospital wing. McGonagall turned around and faced the two students.

'There is something else though. I will say before I tell you that I have been asked to tell you this by both the Grangers and your parents, Ginevra, they are hoping you might be able to help both Hermione and Ron at this time.'

Harry noticed the use of Ron and Hermione's first names, and wasn't comforted by his revelation.

'Their hearts were barely beating when they were found. I have never been so scared for the health of two of my students as I was when I performed the diagnosis spell on them last night, but their condition has improved since they have been put in the same room. We can only hope that they continue to improve over time. I tell you this and do not sugar coat their condition to show you how important it is that we get any information about what happened to them last night. I'll leave you for a few minutes to think of anything that may help and then we shall see about you visiting your friends and brother.'

Both Harry and Ginny nodded in understanding and watched as McGonagall disappeared through the hospital wing doors.

Harry looked at Ginny and realised tears had escaped her eyes.

'Hey, come here,' he said quietly, and she didn't resist as he pulled her into a hug. 'They'll be okay, they're together now and they'll help each other heal like they did last time.'

He felt Ginny nod in agreement against his chest, but despite of her actions she continued to cry and shake in Harry's arms.

Harry closed his eyes and a wash of guilt overcame him. It was, after all, his potion that had caused all of this to happen. The scene of the classroom on that day in January filled his mind, he saw the shocked faces of the Ravenclaws and the looks of shear glee on the Slytherins—

'Malfoy!' he said harshly, causing Ginny to jump away from him.

'What?' she asked shakily.

'He knows!' Harry replied, his voice getting louder. 'He was smirking at me when you found me, like he knew exactly what was going on! I'll put good money on him being involved in this in some way.'

'Okay,' Ginny said weakly.

'Okay?' Harry asked, slightly surprised. 'You believe me?'

He was so used to Ron and Hermione shouting down any thoughts of Malfoy being up to something that he was surprised when Ginny listened to his thoughts.

'Yes, if you say you think he has something to do with…this…then I believe you. Just tell McGonagall.'

'I will.'

He closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. It was then that another revelation came to him. If only he had looked at the Marauders map last night, he would have seen them and stopped this before the situation became this serious. His stomach squirmed with the huge amount of guilt that he was feeling, and he was about to sit down on the floor, when the doors to the hospital wing opened and McGonagall appeared at them.

'You may both come in now.'

…oooOOOooo…

Arthur Weasley heard the hurried footsteps of his daughter before he saw her. He watched as she ran around Ron's bed to the head end and noticed she didn't acknowledge him or her mother until she had seen her brother with her own eyes.

After a few seconds she lifted her eyes and looked at him. Tears fell down her face and she crumpled into the seat next to the bed.

Arthur untangled himself from Molly and walked so he was stood next to Ginny. He slowly stroked her hair and she stood up and hugged him.

'Stupid git!' she shouted as she sobbed into his chest.

Despite the circumstances, Arthur smiled.

'His is rather, isn't he!' he said with a smile.

Ginny pulled back from him and managed a watery smile, but her face almost instantly went back to concerned.

'Is he going to be alright, dad?' she asked him quietly.

Arthur looked down at his youngest son and then over at Hermione.

'Well, I think they'll take care of each other, wherever they are. They helped each other last time; no doubt they'll do the same again.'

Ginny gave the smallest of nods.

Arthur looked around the hospital wing. Molly was talking to Hermione's mother, both resisting the tears that threatened to fall, Charles was sitting, stony faced next to Hermione's bed, and Harry was talking to Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall.

Ginny started to cry again and he held her tightly to him, her quiet crying was matched by her mother's.

Arthur decided that they needed a break from the hospital wing.

'How about we take your mum and Mrs. Granger somewhere where they can have a stiff drink, eh?'

Arthur watched as Ginny looked at her mum and Mrs. Granger. She turned back to her brother and Arthur knew she wanted to stay with him.

'He'll still be here when we get back, you know how lazy he is!'

Ginny chuckled quietly and nodded her head in agreement. She followed her father and waited quietly as he persuaded the two mothers to take a break from possibly the most depressing part of the castle. Eventually he worked his charm and they all turned and walked away from the two beds.

Arthur walked over to Charles and put a hand on his shoulder.

'Charles, do you want to get a drink and some air?' he asked kindly.

Charles came out of his thoughts and turned to face Arthur. He just about managed a half smile.

'Er, no thank you Arthur, I'll stay here.'

'Well, if you're sure, I can bring you a drink back if you want?'

'No, really, I'm fine. Thank you for asking though.'

'Okay, well, come and join us if you want.'

Charles nodded and turned back to Hermione.

Arthur sighed and hurried to catch up with Ginny, Molly and Veronica. As he got to the door and held it open for them, he took one last look over at Charles. His head was in his hands and Arthur thought he saw his shoulders shaking. He thought about going back to him, but then decided against it, realising Charles probably wanted to do his crying alone.

He was exactly the same.

…oooOOOooo…

Someone had hurt her. Someone had seriously endangered the life of his only child but he didn't know whom. Despite his seemingly calm appearance, Charles Granger was livid.

He had managed to suppress the hurt and pain that had tried to rear it's ugly head ten minutes earlier and he was trying to work this whole situation out logically, the same way he had taught Hermione years earlier.

'But Dad, how can you be sure? We're not told everything we need!'

Charles smiled down at his nine-year-old daughter who was sat on the floor, cross-legged at his feet; a puzzle book in is her left hand and a pencil in her right

'What are you told?'

'Well, we're told-'

'Ah ah!' he said cutting her off. 'You don't need to tell me, you need to tell yourself, Hermione. Write the information down you are certain of, and when you work something out that can't possibly be wrong, have that as your starting point. Build the other information around that until you can work out the things you're not told.'

Hermione's brow furrowed, still unsure of how she was supposed to work out the information that the puzzle didn't tell her.

'You can do it Hermione! Just read it through as many times as you need.'

So she did. He watched as she jotted down the occasional note, wrote the occasional sentence and then crossed out her previous jottings, obviously not needing that piece of information anymore.

Five minutes later and she had looked up at him with a look of utmost glee on her face.

'I did it!' she exclaimed jumping onto the sofa next to her dad.

'See!' he said pulling her into his side and looking at the puzzle book she had thrust into his hand. 'I told you, you could do it! You just have to take your time and read things through, more than once if you need to.'

Hermione beamed at her dad and he handed the book back to her and she had turned the page to start on the next one.

'Oh, it's a dot-to-dot! They're for children!' Hermione said, her voice full of disdain for the 'child's' puzzle.

Charles inwardly laughed at his 'too old for children's puzzles' child.

'I bet I can do it faster than you!' Charles said with a grin on his face.

Hermione turned to face him and a he could see her need to prove herself beating down her dislike for the simple puzzle.

'But we can't do the same puzzle! The pencil will leave marks in the paper even if we rub out the lines, so the person who does it second will find it easier, unless…'

Charles waited for Hermione to voice her thoughts.

'I know! We can do half each. I'll do numbers one to fifty and you can see how long it takes me and then you can do fifty-one to a hundred and I can time you!'

Charles beamed at his daughter.

'A perfect solution, Hermione. Just perfect.'

'Just perfect,' he muttered.

His thoughts returned to the present day and he tried to do what he had told his daughter to do all those years ago.

He really wished he had a pen.

He had dismissed the idea of her testing the strength of their connection, it just didn't fit. His daughter may have been headstrong and it was the hardest thing in the world to dissuade her to do something she was sure would work or help, but she wouldn't have done this.

Too many things didn't sit right with him, the main one being he was sitting next to his seventeen-year-old daughter in a hospital wing with potions, wands and what not surrounding him. This shouldn't be happening.

'Oh Hermione,' he said through a sigh. 'When did I stop being able to stop you hurting with a hug and a tickle?'

He had barely spoken to anyone since they had arrived at the school, merely nodding at the correct times when the headmaster and deputy headmistress had told them what had been going on over the past few weeks. He had been taken aback when he had found out that this wasn't the first time his only daughter had ended up in the hospital wing of the school. As far as he and her mother knew the side effect of whatever they had swallowed were minor and only disrupting their normal school life minimally. The fact that she and Ron now had to share a room had somehow managed to slip his daughter's mind when corresponding with them, but in all fairness, nothing else could be done. They fell unconscious when they were separated; so being together for every minute of every day it had to be. He trusted his daughter and her judgement and he was sure she had behaved properly.

He shifted in his seat so he was leaning forward towards the bed. He reached over and took her hand in his, still very unhappy about the paleness of her skin. She didn't have that much colour to her skin anyway, never mind when she was 'ill'.

'Who did this to you, Hermione?' he whispered to her.' Wake up and tell me who did this to you.'

He closed his eyes.

'Please, Hermione, wake up.'

His voice cracked on his last word and he stood up abruptly, still hold of her hand. He placed it back on the bed and then walked to the window on the other side of the bed. He gazed out over the grounds and his eyes fell on the three tall hoops in the grounds of the castle.

So they're the Quidditch hoops, he thought to himself. A small smile crept onto his face. He loved Hermione, more than anything in the world, but he would have liked his only daughter to take an interest in sport, any sport, but alas, it wasn't to be.

He was interested in the way the hoops looked, all different heights and so high off the ground.

Not that that's a problem when you're on a broomstick, I suppose!

He turned and walked back to the chair he had been sat on since he had arrived at the hospital. Even when Professor Dumbledore was explaining the situation to him he had sat in the chair, never taking his eyes off his daughter's still form.

It was the second time he had been to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and it was four years since the first time he had been.

He wasn't exactly sure how to react when he had been told that his daughter had been petrified. He instantly thought that any 'side effects' would be having nightmares or the such like, but she would get over them eventually.

Apparently not.

No, petrification in the Wizarding world was something entirely different. It meant you turned into a statue and didn't move.

He had visited Hermione in the hospital wing but he didn't see his daughter when he saw her petrified form. He saw someone who looked like her, had her out of control hair, had her pale skin, but it wasn't Hermione.

Looking back he could see he was in denial. He was told that in a very short time the right potion would be able to be made, brewed, that would revive her and she would be back to his Hermione.

Once again he leaned forward towards the bed, and closed his eyes.

'Find the logical way out Hermione, just find the logical way out.'

…oooOOOooo…

Arthur had made his excuses from his wife, daughter and Mrs. Granger. He knew that Charles was upset and he didn't like the idea of him being angry and on his own in a place he was unfamiliar with.

He knew Charles was angry because he was. Someone had purposely harmed his son and it made his stomach squirm with rage. However, he knew now was not the time, and the hospital wasn't the place to vent his anger. He'd have plenty of opportunity to do that at home.

He walked through the doors to the hospital wing and quietly shut the door behind him. He slowly walked over to Hermione's bed and sat down in the chair Ginny had fallen in to earlier. He cleared his throat and Charles looked up at him.

'Oh, Arthur, I didn't hear you come in.'

'It's a habit I'm afraid, every time I come in here I feel like I should be quiet.'

'Every time? That doesn't sound good.'

Arthur smiled. 'Well with seven children you've got to expect that they'll end up in here at one time or another. But this is only the second time I've felt…' he sighed, trying to find the right word, 'well, really worried about the Weasley in here.'

'I don't think I've ever been so terrified in my life.' Charles said in a hurry. 'She's…she's my little girl, Arthur! On the day she was born I told her I'd protect her, but I haven't!' His voiced had cracked and he had hastily looked at the floor. 'But I don't need to tell you this,' he continued, 'I suspect you feel the same about Ron.'

Arthur nodded his head. 'Don't get me wrong Charles, I love all my children equally, I'd be equally upset if any of them were in the same situation as Ron is, but, well, Ron's the youngest of my sons and he hates hearing it, but he's my baby boy, always will be.'

He took a deep breath before continuing.

'And then there's Ginny, she's the first female Weasley to be born in generations. I'd told all the other kids that there'd be another Weasley son arriving and then she arrived, bawling at the top of her lungs telling the world she was there. She's my only daughter and I'll feel the need to protect her until the day I die, however much she hates it. When she was in here and she was telling me what she had been made to do, I felt so guilty. But of course you know about that too, Hermione was petrified, wasn't she?'

Charles nodded his head. 'She was, but I don't think that whole situation sank in really. I looked at her lying on the bed, but I didn't see my little girl, it wasn't Hermione Jane Granger on that bed, it was someone who looked like her, who was pretending to be her. It just wasn't Hermione. Denial's a wonderful thing sometimes!'

Arthur managed a weak chuckle. 'It really is.'

'Do we know anything else about this?' Charles asked, vaguely waving his hand, gesturing to the two beds.

'No,' Arthur replied quietly, 'nothing new. Harry has his suspicions about who is behind all this but—'

'Who?' Charles said, his eyes suddenly alert.

Arthur didn't really like the idea of telling Charles who Harry thought might have something to do with this whole thing. But he knew he'd want to know so he decided to tell him.

'One of the other students, they're not exactly friends.'

'It was that, what's his name, Malfoy, wasn't it? He's always bullied Hermione since the day he found she was, she was, muggle born!'

Arthur was ready to stop Charles storming out the hospital wing if he decided that was what he wanted to do, but after a few seconds it became apparent he wasn't going to.

'Hermione's a strong girl, Charles, from what Ron's told me, and what I've seen, she can give as good as she gets, and not all of us share the same views as the Malfoys. You and Hermione will always be welcome at the Burrow, any time. I'm just sorry it's taken something like this for me to be able to extend the invitation to you.'

Charles looked directly at Arthur and slowly nodded his head.

'Thank you Arthur, I appreciate everything you've done for Hermione. You've let her stay with you and you've made her feel welcome, more than that, from what she's told me, you've treated her like a daughter, and I can't thank you enough for that.'

'You're more than welcome, Charles.'

A comfortable silence fell between the two of them. After a few seconds Charles raised his head and tried to catch a glimpse of the Quidditch hoops at the far end of the pitch.

'Were you a Quidditch player Arthur?'

Arthur smiled broadly. 'No, well, not really, I wasn't in the school teams, in all honesty I have no idea where my sons, and Ginny for that matter, get their passion for it from.'

Charles managed a wry smile. 'It seems we have the opposite problem, I played a lot of football in my youth, but Hermione has never really found the passion for sport, apparently it's far more important to learn another fact about the world than it is kicking a football around a pitch!'

Arthur chuckled. 'That's why they balance each other out so well.'

'These two?' Charles replied, already knowing he was right in his reference to Hermione and Ron. He chuckled. 'So you've noticed it too have you?'

'I think the only people who haven't realised it are Ron and Hermione!'

'It has to be said, Arthur, I have never had a full blown conversation with Ron, but with everything Hermione's told me about him, not that she ever admitted anything to her old dad, I feel like I know him!'

'Oh I think I knew more about Hermione than Ron realised before she actually came to stay with us. He doesn't realise he's doing it sometimes!'

Both Charles and Arthur sat for a few minutes, remembering conversations they'd had with Hermione and Ron and slowly their thoughts were brought back to their currant situation.

'They will help each other, won't they Arthur?' Charles asked, the sadness back in his eyes.

'If Ron can help Hermione in any way, I know he will, and I think I'm right in saying Hermione will do the same too. They'll come through this, Charles, they will.'

Charles nodded. 'They will,' he repeated quietly.

He looked at Hermione's face once more and sighed.

'They have to.'