Chapter Two
Harry woke up the next day to a pounding headache and an a wave of nausea so intense he would have barfed if it were not for the fact his stomach was completely empty. Lifting his head off the pillow, Harry noticed that it was quite damp. Still feeling foggy-headed from sleep, he went through several moments of confusion before he came to the realization that it was his own sweat. Sitting up, he now noticed his shirt was also clinging to his form, nearly drenched through. Harry frowned, wondering how hot it had gotten in the room to cause him to sweat that much. He knew it was far too early in the year for the heating charms to be in use yet.
Sliding off the bed, Harry peeled his sweaty shirt off his body and tossed it into his trunk before heading towards the showers. Though not as nauseated as he had been upon waking up, there was still a lingering feeling of dizziness that persisted throughout his morning routine. Now clean and dressed in fresh clothes, Harry felt a little bit better, though and he found some renewed energy because of that.
When he went down into the common room, he saw Ron and Hermione already there, sitting rather close to each other. Harry smiled at the sight, enjoying watching his friends finally be happy together, after so many years of stubbornness and denial. In turn, things between Ginny and himself had fallen through, though oddly he found himself relatively unaffected by it. Somehow, being friends with Ginny felt more right than anything romantic.
"Morning," Harry said, yawning slightly as he walked over to his two friends. They both looked up at him and smiled, though Hermione's eyebrows were slightly furrowed as she took in the sight of him.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asked him. "You're looking a bit peaky."
"Oh don't worry, Hermione, that's Harry's natural look," Ron cut in before Harry could respond to her question.
"Oy! I'll have you know I actually got a bit of a tan this summer," Harry responded with fake offense. He was grateful that Ron had diverted the conversation into lighter territory, though. He did not want to deal with a bunch of questions and worrying, not having near enough energy to spare for that. Though, to put Hermione at ease, he decided to add in, "Besides, I feel much better than I did last night."
"Well, that's good," Hermione said, though she seemed to be having an internal battle over deciding whether or not she believed him. She appeared to settle on believing him, though, because her face eventually relaxed.
"Anyway, are you two ready to head down to breakfast? I'm starving," Ron said as he stood up. He grabbed Hermione by the wrist and pulled her to her feet after him, planting a quick kiss on her lips that took girl by surprise, causing her to make a soft noise and blush.
"Ron's hungry? What madness is this!" Harry teased with mock surprise.
"Oh, ha-ha, Harry," Ron said, giving his best mate a playful shove on the shoulder. "Get your arse moving."
Harry just laughed as he lead the way out of the Gryffindor common room, Ron and Hermione following behind and holding hands. Sometimes Harry felt somewhat third-wheelish when they were acting particularly couple-y, but he always convinced himself that neither Ron nor Hermione would ever view him that way. He was just a paranoid person by nature.
As they entered the Great Hall, there were already students scattered about at their respective tables. There were never as many people at breakfast as there tended to be at tea time. However, Harry did receive a few pats on the shoulder/back and murmurs of praise as other students walked past him. He still wasn't used to the increase in attention he now received after defeating Voldemort. Being the Boy-Who-Lived had been bad enough, but being the wizarding world's hero made it ten times worse.
Sitting down heavily in an empty seat, Harry immediately plonked his head on top of the table and groaned. Between his head hurting and the unwanted attention, his mood had drastically taken a turn since leaving the common room.
"Uh oh, Harry's in a mood again," he heard Ron say from beside him. "Better eat fast Hermione, he might flip over the table."
Harry turned his head just enough so he could shoot a glare at the red-head, though he couldn't help but snort in amusement as well. There had been one incident over the summer, where an innocent comment concerning the war had caused Harry to become unreasonably angry, and as a result he'd flipped over the table and stormed out of the flat. At first, it had left Ron and Hermione shell-shocked and Harry extremely ashamed, but after they'd all gotten over it, it had become somewhat of an inside joke between the three of them.
"It'd be an impressive feat to flip over a table this size," Harry commented, finally lifting his head up and sitting normally. His shoulders were still hunched a bit though, his whole body feeling a bit achy and tired.
"With your temper, you could accomplish any number of amazing and scary things, my friend," Ron said, spooning large helpings of eggs onto his plate, followed by several sausages and a couple pieces of toast. Hermione was sipping a glass of pumpkin juice while reading over one of her text books. Harry, on the other hand, stared down at his bowl of porridge, and after deciding it looked far too much like vomit, he pushed it away away from himself and settled on a piece of toast.
"Is that all you're going to eat, Harry?" Hermione asked, lowering her book so she could look at him. It took all of Harry's willpower to resist the urge to roll his eyes.
"No, mum," Harry said, picking up a piece of bacon and shoving it into his mouth pointedly. "Better?"
Hermione just shook her head at him. "Real mature."
Harry just grinned around the mouthful of food, though he was secretly regretting eating that bacon. Just the taste alone was causing a sickening feeling to rise up in his stomach, his throat clenching as if getting ready to vomit. With considerable effort, he forced himself to swallow the bacon down. He'd much rather deal with a little queasiness than endure Hermione's incessant questioning and fretting all day.
He managed to dodge needing to eat anything else for the rest of breakfast, as Hermione's attention had become focused on Ron. When it was time for the first lesson of the day, they threw down the scraps of their breakfast and got up from the table. Harry tried to ignore the way blackness trickled over his vision once he was standing, and attempted to blink it away. Realizing he was now lagging behind Ron and Hermione quite a bit, Harry jogged to catch up with them, striding evenly alongside Ron.
The three of them arrived at the Charms classroom, and Harry couldn't sit down fast enough. Setting his books on top of his desk, he resisted the urge to lay his head down and close his eyes. Even sitting had not done much to alleviate the dizziness he was experiencing and he thought for sure he was going to topple right out of his seat.
'Ah, yes, that wouldn't garner a ridiculous amount of attention.'
Ron and Hermione sat next to him, and it was only a few minutes later that Professor Flitwick arrived in the room. He gave a short speech on the subjects they would be covering this year and the upcoming N.E.W.T exams. Like most of the other professors, he only accepted students who had gotten at least an 'E' in Charms on their OWLs. In this case, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had all three been accepted into his N.E.W.T course.
While the lecture began, Harry tried his best to take notes on what the professor was saying, but it was made difficult by the fact that his vision kept blurring on him. He had to repeatedly set his quill down and rub at his eyes until they cleared up again. As they were approaching the last half-hour of the class, Harry had only succeeded in writing down half of what Flitwick had said. He tried not to stress too much about it, though; he could always borrow the notes off of Hermione or Ron later.
Throughout the remainder of the lecture, Harry kept wondering how much more time was left until they were allowed to leave. His stomach was rolling and cramping uncomfortably and he could feel the pressure from the need to vomit building up in his throat again. Jiggling his leg, Harry tapped his quill against his parchment in an attempt to distract himself, sweat building up on his forehead. When the lesson was at last over, Harry hurriedly stuffed all of things into his bag and grabbed his books before jumping up out of his seat and taking off running.
He only just managed to avoid collision with some very confused students as he ran through the corridors, only barely making it to the bathroom in time. Dropping his books unceremoniously to the ground, Harry fell to his knees and started to violently puke into the toilet. Considering he had barely eaten since leaving for Hogwarts, he was really only bringing up a bit of bile and spit. Despite that, his body continued heaving until the nausea finally passed.
Panting heavily, he fell back on his butt and wiped his hands over his face, weakly cleaning off the saliva dribbling from his chin. He was vaguely aware of the door to the bathroom opening and a pair of feet walking towards him.
"Harry?" he recognized Ron's voice immediately. "Blimey, mate, you look terrible."
Harry glanced up at Ron and gave him a half-smile, trying not to look as awful as he felt. "Gee, thanks, Ron."
"Hermione's worried sick about you, running off like that," Ron said, kneeling down next to Harry. "Do you think you caught a bug or something?"
"Yeah, I think it might be the flu or something," Harry said, pushing himself to his feet and using the seat of the toilet as a brace. Ron started gathering up his books for him and held onto them for Harry.
"You should go to Madam Pomfrey," Ron suggested as he waited for Harry to exit the stall before following after him. "She could fix you up quick."
"Yeah, I s'pose," Harry said, turning to Ron and holding his hands out to take his books back. Ron just shook his head and held them against his side, along with his own.
"I got these. You should go to the infirmary before our next lesson."
Harry dropped his hands and sighed in defeat. He really hated the hospital wing, it bore too many memories for him, and the general requirment of sitting still and enduring incessant prodding was unappealing to him at best. However, he'd been there enough times throughout his years at Hogwarts for him to probably have been used to it by now.
"Alright, I'll catch up with you later?" Harry said and then waved in farewell to his friend as the two of them broke off and headed in different directions. Harry took his sweet time getting to the infirmary, though it wasn't entirely due to childish unwillingness. His legs would only move so fast, and if he even attempted to speed up, the ground beneath him would start to tilt.
By the time he reached the infirmary, he was breathing a bit harshly and he had to steady himself with a hand against the wall. When his head cleared a bit, he walked through the doors and looked around for Pomfrey. She was standing on the far end of the room, making up one of the hospital beds with fresh linen.
"Erm," Harry said, catching her attention. Madam Promfrey looked up and when her eyes landed on Harry, he could tell she was resisting the urge to sigh in frustration.
"Ah, Mr. Potter. I was wondering when you'd be paying me a visit," she said, bustling over to him. "I didn't think it'd be quite this soon."
Harry just smiled sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. "I think I've got a bit of the flu."
"Oh?" she asked, raising a brow. "So soon in the year?"
It was more common for flu to start spreading among the students during the winter months. He was still tempted to point out that it was possible to get the flu any time of the year, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of the medi-witch's ire.
Madam Pomfrey actually did sigh this time and she ushered Harry over to one of the beds, sitting him down on it and looking him over. "So, what's the problem?"
"Er, well, I've been feeling really nauseated lately and I threw up just a few minutes ago," Harry explained. Even just thinking about it made the nausea start to rise up again. He swallowed thickly and pushed it back down; the last thing he wanted to do was puke all over Pomfrey.
"I see, you just sit right there, I'll be back in a moment," Pomfrey instructed before walking off. Harry just waited quietly for her return. She came back with a couple of goblets and potions bottles. Setting them down on the table next to the bed, she began pouring the two different potions into different cups.
"Here, this one should take care of the nausea," she said, handing Harry the first potion. Taking a breath, he steeled himself for the awful taste that was sure to come. True enough, the potion slid thickly over his tongue and down his throat, making him shudder more from the feel of it than the taste of it. He suffered through it to the last drop and handed the cup back to the nurse.
"Ugh," he said, wiping his mouth roughly with the back of his hand, trying to get any remaining potion off his lips. He'd need a liter of pumpkin juice to wash out that taste.
"And this one should take care of that bug," she said, handing him the remaining potion. Harry wanted to tell her he needed a minute to let the last potion settle, but he decided he'd rather just get this over with. Taking the cup, he gulped down the potion as fast as he could, even going so far as to pinch his nose closed so he didn't have to smell it.
"That was rank," Harry coughed as he handed back the goblet.
Despite the unpleasant experience of the potions, he did start to feel almost instantly better. The nausea lifted and the dizziness started to fade. He was glad for it, because he was starting to think he'd rather be hit with the Cruciatus curse than deal with that nausea any longer.
"Just sit there for a few more moments, dear," Pomfrey instructed as she gathered up the used goblets and disappeared into the back room again. 'Not bloody likely,' he thought as he watched her retreating back and as soon as she was out of sight, he stood up and walked out of the infirmary. He didn't want to be in there any longer than necessary, and he was already feeling exponentially better.
When he found Ron and Hermione, they were sitting in the common room, talking to one another. Harry walked over to them and sat down in one of the big armchairs directly across them. They both looked over at him, and just by the expressions on their faces, he could already see the plethora of questions they were about to slam him with.
"Harry! How are you feeling? Did you go to Madam Pomfrey?" Hermione asked immediately. Harry resisted the urge to laugh at the girl. She hadn't even given him two seconds to get comfortable.
"Yeah, she gave me some potions and I already feel loads better," Harry explained, easing any further worries his two friends might have had. If he didn't know better, he would have thought they'd never seen someone with the flu before.
Hermione looked relieved and Ron grinned at him. "Good on you, mate," he said. "Up for a game of chess before our next lesson, then?"
"I don't know if I feel like suffering horrible defeat today," Harry said. "Oh and Hermione, could I borrow your notes from Charms later? I didn't get all them all considering I was feeling unwell."
"Of course, Harry," Hermione nodded. Normally she would chastise him for being lazy and careless with his studies, but it seemed she sympathized with his situation this time.
"Now, how about that game? I'll go easy on you," Ron said as he took out his favorite chess set and set it on the table. Harry figured he had no choice in the matter, so he just chuckled and slid closer to the board.
"Alright, alright, you're on."