Chapter 17: Get Well Soon
Sunday, November 28, 1944
3:02 P.M.
"Hermione! We've got a snowball fight going on in the courtyard, come on!"
"Hate to disappoint you, Idiot Number Two, but I'm actually off to see Idiot Number One," Hermione teased Harry over her shoulder as she jauntily strode off toward the Hospital Wing. She laughed as Harry clasped his hands over his heart and pretended to yank out an imaginary knife before he turned and chased Ginny out the quad door.
Her feet danced lithely over the steps as she climbed, staircase after staircase. She dryly remembered the time in third year when she and Harry had used the time turner and sprinted up every single flight so they could make it back to the Hospital Wing before Dumbledore would shut its door. Even though the werewolf hadn't killed her then, that mad dash almost had.
Shaking her head reminiscently, Hermione briefly ran over the wild events from the day before. Thinking of the adrenaline-spiked Saturday, she couldn't help but smile, but it turned into a huge yawn from the four hours of sleep that she had gotten the night before.
Yesterday had been the huge Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch game. Hermione guiltily admitted to sitting in the Gryffindor stands but still cheering for Harry, Draco, and Ginny on Slytherin, as well as Gryffindor Keeper Ron. The game had been one of the best Hermione had ever seen. It had gone back and forth, neck and neck, for hours and hours... Until, in the wee hours of early Sunday morning, both Ginny and Gryffindors' seeker, Jacobson Andrews, had simultaneously spotted the Snitch floating between two prowling Bludgers.
Draco, the Beater nearest Ginny, had swept in to clear the way for her broom... and had whacked the first Bludger away so powerfully, the CRACK could be heard throughout the entire pitch, his club completely splintered into an unusable mess of jagged wood in the attempt. Of course, that didn't help Ginny much when, as she and Jacobson hurtled toward the Snitch at hair-raising speeds, the second Bludger locked onto her like a torpedo to a submarine. By this time, Harry, too, was rushing over to help out, but he was still far too far away to do any good.
It was then that Draco made the ultimate sacrifice. Seconds before impact, Draco threw his broom next to Ginny's, and a moment later the Bludger smashed his arm bone into pieces. Miraculously, although being quote 'blinded by pain,' Draco, being Draco, managed to stay on his broom long enough to see Ginny shove Jacobson Andrews out of the way and close her hand around the tiny, elusive golden ball, finally ending the Quidditch game at half past one o'clock in the morning.
Even though Ginny captured the Snitch that morning, Draco du Lac became the certified hero of every girl present at the game... His Hospital Wing quarters were enough proof of that. As she entered the gaping wooden doors of the Infirmary, Hermione's eyebrows arched, and, shaking her head for a completely different reason, she laughed in spite of herself at the endless piles of sweets, cards, and flowers surrounding Draco's sickbed.
Or, like Lavender had done earlier that afternoon, she could have screamed, "Bloody hell, you are so sharing all of that!" and taken a wild dive onto the bed with him.
Hermione decided to stick with the "Hey, ferret boy" greeting that she used whenever Draco was in a particularly spoiled mood. "Good morning sunshine, and how are you on this lovely afternoon?" Draco called out cheerfully, waving her over with his uninjured left hand, his right arm in a white sling wrapped securely around his neck. As she approached, he began to bounce up and down in his bed like an over-enthusiastic five-year-old.
"I wouldn't be so cheeky if I were you, I saw Madam L cooking up something freaky weird in her little pot back there in her office", she advised him, still smiling, as she stopped next to his laden-down bedside, accidentally stepping on a pack of chocolate frogs left by some admirer in the process. As she did, one of the frogs wrenched itself free of its wrappings and launched itself at her. Letting out a muffled shriek, she nimbly leapt a foot backward as the chocolate menace took off around the Hospital Wing.
"Are you kidding?" Draco smirked as he watched her glare at the spot the frog vanished and straighten her shirt with a huff. "She loves me. Watch this." Clearing his throat, Draco winked at her, slumped against the bed, and set up a tortured wail, moaning piteously, "Oooooohh, the pain, the pain... Mary, I can't take it anymore!"
"Mary?" Hermione echoed with an incredulous grin, one thin eyebrow rising in barely controlled humour as she tried not the give the already egotistical blond an even bigger head. "Her first name", Draco muttered. "I read it in the yearbook before we came— Oh, Mary, thank goodness you're here", he whimpered dramatically as the plump, midwife-like Mediwitch ran up, moving surprisingly quickly for her older age. Dropping his whine, Draco sat up and shot her a charming smile. "Mary, darling, I know you're already married, but maybe we could have an affair?"
Madam Lamberdeau—or Madam L, as students liked to call her—raised both of her eyebrows and brandished a large goblet. "I'll be sure to put you on the list, laddie", she said wryly, her voice smothered by a thick Scottish accent. From the Mediwitch's amused eyes, Hermione could tell that Madam L found Draco hilarious.
Draco's eyes grew as wide as saucers, however, when he noticed the smoking liquid inside the goblet. Hermione could see all thoughts of eloping with the salt-and-pepper-haired school nurse fly out of his head like a Snitch as he nervously chuckled, "Ohhh, Mary..."
Smirking wickedly, Hermione murmured, "Oh, she looooves me," just loud enough for Draco to hear and Madam L, on the other side of the bed, to miss. He glared at her but then spluttered and began to choke as the Mediwitch poured the disgusting smelling—and, Hermione assumed, equally disgusting tasting—gooey, bubbly mixture in the goblet down his throat. "Ohhhhh..." he feebly choked out again, coughing loudly as he finished the potion, the wisps of smoke still rising from the now-empty but smouldering goblet.
Madam L winked at Hermione cheerfully. "Give him two seconds, dearie, and he'll be out like a light." Hermione decided that she liked Madam L much more than she had liked Madam Pompfrey. "I don't know you how you stand him," she remarked good-naturedly, fondly smiling down at the now-unconscious-as-predicted Draco.
Madam L waved her free hand dismissively. "Oh, he's one of the more exciting ones, lassie. When he whines, it's all in good fun—I've had many a student who honestly does whine that much. Like sirens, they are. Although Merlin only knows how he found out my first name so quickly..." The Mediwitch frowned briefly, hands on her hips thoughtfully, before shrugging and walking from Draco's greatly adorned bedside and into the main aisle. Hermione followed a few steps behind, one hand wrapped around her wand in her back pocket, cagily searching the Infirmary for the runaway chocolate frog. If the little pest decided to come back, she would be ready.
"And then I have the patients who never say a word, even when there is a problem", Madam L continued, oblivious to Hermione's search-and-destroy mission stance. She gestured to a bed closest to the farthest wall of the Hospital Wing, across the aisle and two to the right of Draco's. "Those are the most difficult ones, lassie. With them, you have to probe and probe until they finally tell you what's wrong."
Hermione's eyes momentarily abandoned her hunt for the chocolate menace and followed Madam L's nudge toward the only other occupied bed in the Infirmary, its empty bedside appearing severely austere and depleted when compared to Draco's ridiculously oversupplied one. "Who is that?" she asked curiously, squinting toward the far wall. Madam L casually resumed making her way back to her small side office. "Tom Riddle", she said unceremoniously.
Time froze.
As if they had a life of their own, Hermione's feet stopped moving. WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME IS GOING ON?, her mind screamed.
Without a moment's hesitation, she spun around and swiftly took the few steps necessary to make it back to the other taken bed. Its occupant's back was facing the entrance of the Infirmary, making it difficult to tell exactly who the patient was. Maybe Madam L was wrong. Maybe it wasn't really him.
Not giving up, Hermione went around to the other side of the cot, her shoulder brushing up against the cold stone wall... And saw that Tom Riddle was indeed lying in a bed in the Hospital Wing.
With his eyes closed, he looked surprisingly peaceful, she instantly noticed. His entire face was relaxed, not composed, severe, and emotionless like it usually was. So dramatic was the change to his features, it was like... like a mask had been removed. Images of Riddle nonchalantly reading the notes at the prefect meeting the day before filled her mind. He had seemed completely fine then... And that had only been a little more than twelve hours ago...
So distant were her thoughts, she barely felt Madam L come up and stand behind her until the Mediwitch said sympathetically, "Poor boy." "'Poor boy?'" Hermione echoed, frowning in disbelief and shifting her eyes away from Riddle's sleeping face to Mrs. L's plump one, totally confused.
Madam L shook her head compassionately, looking down at him. "He was cursed, poor boy, a horrible curse, by his own mother, no less. Just terrible, what people in this world can do. One of the worst ones to be inflicted with, too; it's one of those curses where it either hits you or it doesn't, but if it does, it's nearly untreatable if allowed to significantly progress."
Untreatable if allowed to significantly progress? Good Merlin... sounded like the wizarding equivalent of cancer. "What is it?" she asked innocently, crossing her fingers behind her back and hoping... Madam L shook her head in a No, her face automatically turning professional - probably routine after years of repeatedly hearing that same question. "I'm afraid that's private information only Mr. Riddle himself would be able to share with you. Miss Nefertari. I'm sorry."
Well, great, then, I'm never going to find out that way. Back to square one we go. An idea suddenly seemed to strike Madam L, and the Mediwitch moved from behind Hermione to her side, studying her slender face closely, Hermione's profile more visible because she had put her curly hair into a loose bun. "You are the Head Girl, Miss Nefertari, are you not?"
Hermione narrowed her eyes slightly, and she nodded, unsure of what whether or not she was Head Girl had to do with anything. Madam L, though, simply gazed down at the unconscious Riddle as if she could read his mind through his dark hair. In a distant voice, she mused to herself, "I wonder..."
The Mediwitch trailed off before she finished the statement, and Hermione pivoted her head to the right so she could fully see Madam L, see any faulty reaction the woman might accidentally give in her next response. "Excuse me, you wonder... what?"
Madam L walked around to the other side of Riddle's bed and absently set Draco's empty goblet down on the small bedside table, raising both of her hands in an impassive shrug. "I just find it interesting that the curse has not affected Mr. Riddle at all, his entire life... until this year."
Yes, I find it interesting that it has affected him at all ever, considering that this little curse business is not mentioned anywhere in any of the Dumbledore's notes! "How much longer will he be in here?" she innocently asked the Mediwitch. She tried to come off sounding unconcerned as she casually glanced from the many get-well letters and candy wrappers littering Draco's bed to the pristine but forlorn white sheets of Riddle's. And suddenly, for some perverse, ungodly reason, Hermione involuntarily felt the slightest twinge of sympathy for the seventeen-year-old lying unconscious in front of her. Sympathy? For Lord Voldemort? her rational side scoffed quickly, shoving the radical notion from her mind. Last night was a late night, Hermione, you clearly need to get some sleep. As if on command, she yawned again.
Madam L again shrugged in reply. "I can only do so much. The length of recuperation depends entirely on the patient. If I had to speculate, I'd say two, maybe three days if he recovers quickly, but with his particular curse, he could be here for weeks if he doesn't..."
Weeks? Good Merlin, what is this thing? Suddenly in a foul mood, Hermione resumed staring at Riddle and wrinkled her nose pensively. "It's just so... so strange. He was at the prefect meeting yesterday afternoon, and he seemed all right... Well, as all right as he normally is, which can sometimes be called insufferabl— Erm", she cleared her throat, "Anyway, I meant to ask you, how could this have affected him so suddenly—Wait."
Suddenly, she turned and pointed at Madam L, and the older woman's face seemed bemused at Hermione's stream-of-consciousness speech. "You know, something strange happened to him at a..." Hermione quickly searched her imagination, "at a social event a few weeks ago. It was a... a house party, and he was there..."
She frowned, easily recalling the odd events of that night. "I was talking to him, when he almost passed out, and for no apparent reason, really. It was as if... as if there was some sort of internal pain that just rose up and held on to him for a good two minutes. I..." Momentarily distracted, she glared down at the unsuspecting Slytherin, "I tried for days to get him to tell me what had been wrong with him, but he refused, the stubborn prat."
Madam L nodded thoughtfully, giving Hermione another one of those shrewd but unreadable expressions. "It was most likely a side effect of the curse, I'll wager." "Yes, but why then?" Hermione asked in frustration, frowning at the very strong I-Know-Something-You-Don't air that the Mediwitch had begun to give off. Nothing seemed to make any sense! "Why at random times?"
When Madam L didn't answer her question—probably 'classified medical history'— Hermione sighed at the mystery. Now, since Madam L clearly wasn't going to provide her with any more information save the fact that Riddle did have something, all of the answers to any of this looked hopelessly unattainable.
"Do you think I should send him a get well card or something?" she mulled. Her own eyes widened in astonishment as soon as the words spontaneously exited her mouth, but she tilted her head toward Draco's bed and continued, "I mean, he couldn't exactly compete with that nearly disgusting amount of support, but at least he'd have something..." A small smile spread across Madam L's face. "I think he'd like that very much, Miss Nefertari."
She nodded, still beset with hundreds of warring, perplexed emotions. Now, on top of that, she tried to figure out where on earth she was going to find a get-well card for Tom Riddle, and another part of her tried to figure out what she was even thinking, doing something like that in the first place. Drawing a blank in both respects, Hermione shook her head, mystified, and smiled tiredly at the Mediwitch standing to her right. "I think I should go, then, Madam L. Thanks, though. Have a good day!"
Still wrapped up in her thoughts, still shaking her head, she absently strode off. By the time she had reached the Infirmary door, she was too far away from Madam L to hear the Mediwitch murmur to herself, "Well, there goes the answer to all my questions..."
8:09 P.M.
Tom Riddle woke from his sleeping draught at exactly seven minutes past eight in the evening.
Hermione knew this because she had finally managed to throw together some kind of goodwill packaged for Riddle and set it on his bedside table one minute earlier, and she had nearly jumped out of her skin when he heaved a deep sigh and rolled over. She had managed to flee to safety behind the Infirmary/ Private Sick Room floor-to-ceiling cloth divide. Unfortunately, she had not made it to the safety of the Hospital Wing door and the freedom of the corridor.
Resigned, she settled on waiting for Madam L to make an appearance, and, in the distraction, she would make a stealthy exit. Wishing that she had remembered to borrow Harry's invisibility cloak, Hermione silently pulled out a chair from beside one of the beds and yawned, sitting down to pass the time behind her curtained cover. As Madam L hustled out of her office and made her way over to Riddle's bed, however, Hermione just couldn't help but be drawn to the crack in the fabric.
Now was her chance, her chance to make a run for it. Go, Hermione, go, her mind urged... But she didn't. Instead, she watched, her curiosity rendering her immobile, as Riddle slowly pushed himself to a sitting position, and Madam L began to fuss over him—much to his irritation, Hermione could tell. Finally, Madam L seemed to be satisfied with her miniature check-up. "And how are you feeling, Mr. Riddle?" she asked briskly.
"Like I could take on a herd of hippogriffs single-handedly and win", Riddle said tonelessly, his face bored, already pulling away the covers from his bed. "Can I go, please?"
"You most certainly cannot; get back in that bed!" Madam L exclaimed, for the first time strongly reminding Hermione of Madam Pomfrey. She waved her wand at Riddle indignantly and firmly pushed him back into the bed despite his considerable height advantage over her, returning the covers to their original position. "I will not allow you to leave this Hospital Wing until I observe you for at least one more day, so don't you even think about it, laddie!"
As soon as Madam L turned to check up on the still-unconscious Draco - Hermione couldn't help but grin; whatever smoking potion Madam L was giving to her patients was certainly potent - Riddle scowled at the woman's back, visibly annoyed. It was then that he noticed the card and wrapped package on his bedside table.
Without even glancing at them closely, Riddle reached over and snatched up the two rectangles, one paper thin and lightweight, one wide and heavy. "Excuse me, Madam Lamberdeau?" Oh, how polite he becomes.
From her place at the foot of Draco's bed, the Mediwitch turned expectantly, and Riddle held the card and present out to her. A small smirk had edged its way onto his face as he glanced toward Draco' bed. "I think someone got their deliveries mixed up", he noted indifferently, almost mockingly. He tilted his head toward Draco's wall of worship. "Somehow missed the big pile next to du Lac."
But Madam L squinted at the package and shook her head. "Oh, no, laddie", she said with only the slightest of smiles. She expertly checked the sleeping Draco's stats, hung his chart off the side of his bed, and headed back to her side office. "Those are for you."
For about a minute after she disappeared, Riddle stared at the spot near Draco's bed where Madam L had last been standing, the smirk gradually fading from his face. Slowly, he lowered the card and package onto his bed, and his grey eyes flickered down to read the name on the envelope.
Hermione had debated furiously on how to address the card. She had considered her four options: Tom Riddle, Riddle, Tom, and Lord Voldemort. Option Number Four wouldn't have gone over too well for obvious reasons, and for some reason, Hermione was becoming slightly irritated with her friends whenever they constantly referred to Tom Riddle as Voldemort. It just... Well, she didn't know, exactly, but it just didn't seem right, somehow.
Anyway, using Tom Riddle would have sounded ridiculous; who called people by their first and last name in a get-well card? So it was either Tom or Riddle. She hadn't the slightest idea why she even thought that the name was such a big deal; after all, a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. Out of politeness, she chose to write Tom.
Riddle silently read his name, turned the envelope over in his hands, and opened the flap, pulling out the card. Hermione hated to pry—or, more appropriately, spy— but her curiosity at his reaction was boiling over. When Riddle saw the cover, his eyebrows shot up, and Hermione almost laughed, then almost punched herself for almost blowing her cover.
The card was ridiculous, she knew. Not ridiculously bad, just ridiculously cute for a recipient like the Heir of Slytherin. After looking in her trunk and finding that she had irresponsibly overlooked packing get-well cards for possible future dark lords who had been cursed by their mother, Hermione had been forced to raid the Ravenclaw common room. After a good hour of searching and a few tense moments, she had finally found a fourth year who was staying in close owl contact with her sick Muggle cousin back home.
The get-well card had, ironically, cost her a ten-inch scroll on the pros and cons of time travel.
Hermione had to admit, the card was even too fluffy for her taste, but it was all she could find to work with in such a short amount of time. So the front page of the card showed a black Labrador retriever and a fluffy white cat. The dog sported a bandage that had been wrapped haphazardly around its paw, the cat was curled up beside the dog, and they both looked pretty content. Symbolic, the card was not.
Slowly, almost hesitantly, Riddle flipped open the cover. Hermione knew the first words he had to see were: 'From a friend—GET WELL SOON,' because, well, they had already been scrawled across most of the page. For the personal message, though, she had decided to go with light humour, and underneath, she had scripted in her own handwriting:
'Because if you don't get well soon then I would have no one to argue with and I might have to murder you for abandoning me to carry the weight of this entire school on my poor little back unless the responsibility of it all drives me to insanity before I get the chance... so don't you dare stay in that bed much longer!'
She smiled, remembering her run-on message, and, in his bed, Riddle mirrored her expression. Then he squinted at the last line and frowned. This time, Hermione smiled.
'P.S. Keep it. –Hermione'
Still seeming a bit confused, Riddle set the card back down on the bed and lifted the brightly decorated package, wrapped in alternating shades of shiny forest green and silver paper. It looked very Slytherin, if Hermione did say so herself.
Oh, please, she thought as Riddle flipped the package over and onto its back, you have to guess what it is! There is only one thing that can be that square, that compact, and that heavy! To her chagrin, he found the paper's seam and carefully slid his finger along it, as if he didn't want to tear the wrapping paper. People like that drove her mad. Come on, she wanted to scream, Just rip it open!
Of course, being true to his meticulous self, he didn't, but he successfully managed to cleanly split the seam. He pulled the paper away, revealing the back of a very old, worn, and dusty book. His expression surprisingly curious — surprising because he was actually showing emotion — Riddle turned the aged book over and read the cover.
Hermione watched in shock as, for the very first time since she had met him, a faint, hesitant but genuine smile reached his face. The edges of his grey eyes crinkled slightly, his pale face gained some healthy colouring...
And, for a single moment, as he held The Most Thorough and Complete History of the Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in his hands, Tom Riddle looked happy.