Hiding at Hogwarts
~ by Healer Pomfrey ~
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.
11 – Birthday
"Professor Lupin, are you all right?" Harry asked in concern.
"Don't get sick on us and waste our potion," Severus warned, looking worriedly at his former classmate.
"I don't think I'll get sick," Lupin said slowly. "I seem to have some kind of stomach bug. I already didn't feel too well yesterday, but I didn't get sick yet, and I'm definitely not going to waste your potion. Thank you so much, Severus and Harry, for doing this for me."
"You still need to spend the night of the full moon in the Shrieking Shack. As I said we can't guarantee that it works," Severus said sternly. "Now if you could excuse us from breakfast please. We need to catch up on some sleep."
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Harry slept until Severus woke him up in time for dinner. The Potions Master carefully knocked at the door to Harry's room to give the boy some distance in case he wasn't ready to have him enter his room, considering their former unpleasant relationship. Harry quickly scrambled out of his bed and threw his guardian a grateful look when the professor waved his wand and magically transfigured his pyjamas into black trousers and a dark green jumper.
"Thank you, sir," Harry said as he pulled his robes over and followed the professor out of his quarters. "Um… excuse me, sir," he hesitantly began to ask when they strode through the corridors to the Great Hall, "am I allowed to tell my best friends that I'm living at Hogwarts and you are my guardian now?"
Severus let out a long sigh. "Harry, it's up to you if you tell your friends. However, I suggest that you ask them to keep both matters for themselves. Your House mates probably won't like to hear that I am your guardian, and it might be safer for you if no one knew that you are the heir of all four Founders," he said thoughtfully. "Why don't you invite your best friends for your birthday?"
"My birthday, sir?" Harry blurted out in surprise, causing the Potions Master to smirk. "I'm sorry, sir, but I completely lost track of time…"
"Today is the thirtieth of July," Severus informed him and raised an eyebrow at the boy as he held the door to the Great Hall open for him.
'Tomorrow is my birthday,' Harry realised. 'Did he suggest that I invite my friends here? But tomorrow? Will Hedwig even manage to deliver the letters on time?'
"You could write a letter after dinner and ask Fawkes to take it to Granger and Weasley," Severus suggested, interpreting Harry's silence correctly.
"Oh no, they're not at home," Harry suddenly remembered. "Ron is in Egypt and Hermione in France."
"And why would that be a problem?" Severus queried. "I can make two Portkeys, which you can attach to your letters, so that your friends can come here in the morning, if that's what you want."
"Yes sir. Thank you so much," Harry said, sighing happily as he hesitantly sat between Severus and Poppy.
"Where is Lupin?" Severus asked, glancing at the Healer in concern.
"He is sick with the stomach flu," Pomfrey replied, sighing. "I just hope that the potions I had to give him won't interfere with your potion. According to Salazar it shouldn't be a problem, but of course he didn't use exactly the same potions for the stomach flu in the past."
~ Harry's rooms ~
Harry couldn't wait to return to his room and write his letters to his friends.
'Dear Hermione, hi Ron,
I'd like you to come to visit me tomorrow for a few hours. I have much to tell you. This parchment is a Portkey, which will activate automatically at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. I hope that you'll be able to come, because I have to tell you very important things.
Harry'
'I think that'll do,' he thought as he hesitantly entered Severus' living room to ask for the Portkeys.
The professor took the first of the parchments, pointed his wand at it and uttered a long incantation in Latin, before he repeated the process with the second parchment.
"Very well then; hand them to Fawkes and instructed him to wait for a reply."
"Yes sir. Thank you, sir," Harry replied gratefully and returned to his rooms to send Fawkes to Hermione and Ron. To his surprise, the phoenix returned shortly later with two small parchments in his beak. 'They're both going to come here tomorrow,' he thought happily as he pondered how far he should tell them the truth. 'I'll just tell them everything,' he finally decided. 'I just hope that Ron will take the news about Snape being my uncle and my new guardian well. Oh well, at least Hermione will be happy for me.' With that relieving thought he went to bed, noticing that he felt strangely tired in spite of having slept through the day.
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At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, Hermione and Ron arrived in the Great Hall, where Harry was eagerly waiting for them, still sitting at the breakfast table together with the teachers. Earlier, a huge birthday cake in form of a miniature Hogwarts had appeared on the table. It was decorated with thirteen candles, and the Headmistress had instructed him gently to extinguish them.
"Good morning Harry, Professors," Hermione said in surprise, before she pulled Harry in a gentle hug.
"Hi Mione," Harry replied smiling.
"Happy Birthday, Harry. How are you doing?" Hermione asked in concern, handing him a present that looked like a very thick book.
"Hi mate. Why are we at Hogwarts?" Ron queried as he pulled a number of smaller presents out of his robe pockets, quickly pointing out from whom they were.
"Ms. Granger, Mr. Weasley," McGonagall greeted her students. "Why don't you take a seat and have some birthday cake? Afterwards, Harry can explain everything to you."
~ Harry's rooms ~
After Ron admitted that he was full after eating the whole Transfiguration classroom, which equalled three huge pieces of cake, Harry led his friends to Helga's quarters and motioned for them to sit on the sofa in the living room.
"Is that a picture of the Founders?" Hermione queried, eyeing the painting with interest. "Harry, where are we?"
Harry sighed, before he hesitantly began to explain how he had returned to Hogwarts at the beginning of the holidays. He told his friends about the Founders and how he had found out that he was the heir of all four of them.
"Wow, that's cool, mate," Ron blurted out. "I just wonder why all these things always happen to you."
"That is because he is Harry, the many times great grandchild of the Founders. It is not as if Harry did have a choice on this," Hermione slightly reprimanded her friend.
'I certainly didn't,' Harry mused as he summoned his courage to admit to his friends that he was even related to Severus Snape, who had saved his life and had become his new guardian.
"That evil git is your guardian? Didn't you have anything to say about that? My mother often enough offered to Dumbledore to become your guardian," Ron said heatedly.
"My only other choice was to return to the Dursleys," Harry replied in a small voice, looking sadly at Hermione. 'I knew that Ron wouldn't understand,' he thought forlornly.
"Harry, I am very happy for you. Professor Snape will be a much better guardian than the Dursleys," Hermione said warmly. "And it's great that you have your own quarters at Hogwarts and are able to stay here all year. Congratulations, Harry."
"Thank you," Harry said gratefully, smiling at the girl's kind words.
For the rest of the day, the three friends evaded any conversation concerning guardianship or living conditions at Hogwarts. However, it didn't go unnoticed by Harry that his supposed to be best friend kept shooting him strange looks, and he inwardly sighed in relief when Fawkes flashed his friends back to their families after dinner.
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When Harry returned to his own room, profusely thanking Dobby for taking the huge pile of presents, which he had received from his friends and the teachers, to his room, he noticed that he wasn't feeling overly well. 'It's probably just that I'm disappointed about Ron's reaction,' he thought and resolved to go to bed early.
However, during the night, he realised soon that his friend's behaviour was not the only reason why he felt sick. His stomach and his head began to hurt terribly, and at two o'clock in the morning he had to run to the bathroom, because his stomach wanted to get rid of its content. By the time Harry returned to his bedroom, he felt utterly miserable. His ears were strangely clogged, he felt dizzy, and his was shivering violently in spite of the sweat that was building on his forehead.
He grudgingly obeyed when Helga called him over to the living room. "Are you all right, little one? You don't look well," she asked, eyeing him in concern.
"Of course, I'm fine," Harry replied warily and slowly returned to his bed, only to have to run to the bathroom again twenty minutes later.
A while later Harry had just scrambled back under his covers, when Severus entered the room. "Harry, are you ill?" he asked in his soft, baritone voice. "Salazar told me that you had to throw up a few times."
Feeling too bad to hide from his guardian how miserable he felt, Harry merely said, "I don't feel so good, sir."
Severus carefully laid a cold hand on Harry's forehead. "You're burning up," he said in concern and pulled his wand to conjure a thermometer. "Maybe you caught the stomach flu from Professor Lupin," he said thoughtfully as he coaxed the glassy device under Harry's tongue, summoning two phials from his quarters while they were waiting for the reading to take place. "39.3," he read, sighing, and made Harry drink the two potions, before he conjured a bucket, which he placed next to the bed.
"Pfessor, is it somow possible to obliviate Ron?" Harry asked, slightly slurring the words, before he leaned over the bucket to empty his stomach again.
"Well see," Severus replied, glancing at the glassy green eyes that looked at him in desperation. "Try to sleep, Harry. I'll be back shortly. Fawkes, could you please take me to Ronald Weasley," he asked the phoenix, muttering something to himself that sounded like "Making the dunderhead see reason or hex him into the next millennium."
tbc...
Thank you so much for your kind comments and sorry for the delay. I wrote this chapter while taking care of a sick child during the night. I'm sorry if there are more mistakes than usual...