Draco felt awareness slowly slipping back to him, voices muffled as he turned his head slightly, groaning. His eyes flickered open, blurry movements sending him into dizziness again.

A voice he dimly recognised fluttered through to his consciousness, causing him to turn towards it.

"Poisoned? Who would want to poison our son? He's done nothing to anyone. I want this matter sorted out immediately. Check the god damned food on that train. Pull that blasted witch in for questioning. I want this matter dealt with immediately!"

Draco sat up shakily, blinking rapidly as he tried to focus on his Father's features.

"Father…"

He flinched as raw pain shot down his throat, causing him to whimper.

Instantly, someone was there, a hand rubbing up and down his back. He turned and saw the tear streaked features of his Mother beside him.

"Mother…"

He swallowed, his throat feeling hugely constricted by something. He raised his hand up and felt his neck. The glands were right up, swelling his neck to twice it's normal size.

He tried to sit up to see his Father better, not quite believing that he was actually there. He felt himself begin to shake from the exertion of it, but carried on.

"Lucius, darling, our son wants to see you."

Lucius gave a dismissive gesture to the man he had been talking to and turned to his son, noting the fever bright eyes and the determination that he kept himself propped up in the bed with.

"Draco, who have you been alone with that you can remember?"

Draco swallowed and tried to talk again, but his breathing was coming in sharp, painful gasps.

"Potter…"

He saw his Father's eyes narrow as he whipped his head round to a corner of the room where someone was sat, quite calmly, that Draco hadn't noticed.

"He didn't do anything to me…"

His Mother's hand tightened it's grip on his shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly, whilst slipping her other hand up and down his arm.

"Potter…what did you do to my boy?"

Draco's gaze focussed on the figure in the corner and saw, to his immense surprise, that it was Harry.

"Why…why is…he still here?"

He had to pause between every few words to catch his breath, his teeth chattering slightly from the exertion of propping himself up.

Everyone ignored him, apart from his Mother who put a finger to her lips, then glanced back to where her husband was questioning Potter, who had not bothered to climb out of the comfy chair he was sat in.

"I didn't do anything. I found him like that in the toilets. Brought him straight up here. I may think you're son is a insufferable idiot, but I wouldn't poison him. So, if that's all you wanted to know, then I think I'll go back down to my friends now."

He climbed to his feet, popping his back as he did so and slipping past the angry form of Lucius Malfoy, throwing Draco an annoyed glance as he left.

Draco settled back down onto the pillows, his head spinning, his stomach threatening to empty it's contents again if he wasn't careful of the way he moved.

"Draco, are you feeling any better?"

Draco nodded, feeling someone put a goblet of something to his mouth, the icy coolness of it causing him to flinch away, opening his gaze.

His Father was stood before him, holding the goblet, his face full of concern.

"Drink up, Draco."

He nodded and allowed his Father to hold the goblet for him whilst he drained it.

Laying back on the pillows, he felt his eyes closing almost straight away, his Mother and Father's voices sounding faraway as he lost consciousness and drifted into the realm of dreams.

Page Break

"Drake, you awake?"

Draco glanced up from the book he was reading and nodded, a smile slipping across his features as he saw it was Blaise walking across the room.

"Hey."

His voice was still croaky, but the feelings of nausea and being sick had passed.

Blaise's face was filled with concern as he pulled a seat up, resting his hands on the side of the bed Draco was in.

"How are you feeling?"

Draco shrugged, putting his book to the side on the table on the opposite to where Blaise was.

"Better than I did. My throat is apparently ripped to ribbons though inside. Don't know how."

Blaise nodded, biting his lip as he asked,

"People have been saying you were poisoned?"

Draco shrugged, settling back comfortably on the pillows.

"Wasting poison. Don't know who would. I've not pissed anyone off to warrant that abuse surely?"

Blaise shrugged then, trying to make light of it, joked,

"Well, there's always Pansy. You've turned her down that many times, she might be getting desperate. You know, the whole render you helpless then have her wicked, vile way with you."

Draco grimaced, a grin forming across his features.

"Shut up Blaise. She isn't that desperate to get her own way, I'm sure."

Blaise grinned back, his hand raising to scratch his chin.

"No. She's not that desperate. So, who is?"

Draco shrugged.

"I don't know. I'm sure my Father will find out who. He's good at that sort of thing."

Blaise nodded, glancing swiftly round the hospital wing room, biting his lip as he did so and looking unsure of whether he should speak.

Draco waited, knowing his friend only too well. Counting silently in his head, he smirked when his friend eventually spoke.

"What did you honestly get up to this summer, Drake? We've heard you saying things sometimes whilst we've been visiting you when you've had your slightly worse moments. You know when you've had a bit of a fever…"

Draco fixed him with a calculating stare, weighing up what he was about to do.

"It's probably been about as good as your holiday was…you know what I mean?"

Blaise' gaze instantly dodged away from Draco's and nodded.

"Him…"

Draco nodded, his fingers gripping the covers tightly, swallowing loudly as he opened his mouth to speak again.

"Right Zambini. Out." Madam Pomfrey drew the curtain across, revealing the rest of the hospital wing and the newly taken bed opposite Draco. "That's enough for visiting time today. You need more rest Mr Malfoy. You may feel like you could go back to school and do everything as you normally would but you are actually at the pivot point where if you do too much then you'd most likely end up being badly ill again and I'm not having that. Take your medicine."

Draco grinned apologetically at Blaise as he climbed slowly to his feet, giving him a swift look that said he could come back later if he could.

Blaise gave a slight nod and moved away to the door, rubbing his left forearm absent mindedly as he did so, showing clearly to Draco that his suspicions at least were correct.

"Come on Mr Malfoy. Take you're medicine. You haven't got all the poison out of your system yet. We need to expel all of it before your allowed back to your classes and dormitory."

Draco nodded and took his medicine without any grumbling, causing Madam Pomfrey to look at him in surprise.

Draco swallowed and then said, nonchalantly,

"What? I'm getting bored of the hospital wing. I want to get back down with my friends and into my classes again."

Madam Pomfrey smiled encouragingly at him.

"All in good time Mr Malfoy. It shouldn't be more than a couple of days now."

Draco nodded, feeling the familiar drowsiness steal over him from the medicine as he settled down into the comfortable pillows of the bed.