Rating: E
AU Half-Blood Prince & Deathly Hallows
Summary: There is a period of 'coming down' when Felix Felicis wears off. During this time, the user's sense of confidence fades, and unlucky circumstances can quickly catch up to them if they are not vigilant. It is unclear whether Felix wearing off actually increases the user's bad luck in a small overbalancing period (though obviously not so great as to undo whatever they have just accomplished), or whether the user simply keenly perceives the return of 'ordinary' levels of luck and all the subsequent challenges and dangers. - Zygmunt Fudge
Sometimes, seemingly inconsequential events can have massive ramifications.
Multiple Horcruxes.
Harry contemplated the concept as he left Dumbledore's office. The weak light of dawn was creeping through the windows. Harry headed towards the Common Room in a half-jog, desperate to tell Hermione and Ron of the events of the night. The impossibility of the task set ahead of them was daunting. The high of Felix felicis had long faded in the wake of the revelations he'd seen in the Pensieve. Thinking of Voldemort's undisguised want only served to reinforce the reminder that he'd split his soul. Multiple times. Their containers could be anywhere.
We're not so different you and I. Half-bloods –
Harry aborted that train of thought and turned towards the staircase with a shake of his head. It was with those dark thoughts in mind he didn't see the person descending the staircase. He made out a pair of slanted dark eyes and dark skin. Zabini, he noted to himself before everything fell apart.
Harry would look back at the coming chain of events as nothing but a comedy of errors. What should have been a simple collision became disastrous in the blink of an eye. A beaded braid (and when did Zabini have hair like Angelina used to?) somehow slipped between his glasses to whip his right eye, blinding him in a sharp jolt of pain that had Harry pushing Zabini away in reflex. The odd two-step Harry did to move off the Slytherin's cloak was almost funny until Zabini vaulted over the banister with a whoosh of fabric, leaving his cloak to pool at Harry's feet.
Harry didn't even think. He vaulted over the banister, already drawing his wand. Harry's mind raced with the same hyper-alertness that had gotten him through years of continual brushes with danger.
"Accio!"
Zabini rose upwards, a look of surprise crossing his face at the sight of Harry falling towards him.
"Wingardium levi – osa!"
What would have been a masterstroke failed as Blaise's head collided with his wand hand, and the spell that would have been their salvation became a bolt of light flying skyward. Cursing under his breath, Harry fought to secure his grip on his wand. He used his idle arm to secure Zabini to him with a haphazard grip around the Slytherin's back. As they fell closer and closer to the unforgiving ground, Harry heard above them the rumbling crash of a suit of armour falling off its plinth. It resounded throughout the castle with a cataclysmic racket.
With his grip secured on his wand, he attempted again to cast a Levitation Charm, but Zabini rotated in his grip with enough force to wind Harry. It threw him off again, and there was a dull thunk as a painting fell off its perch to his right. As Zabini's arm wrapped around Harry's waist and elbow, he heard a screamed 'Hey!' from the painting's inhabitant. With a sinuous sleight of hand that involved a painful looking contortion of his torso, Zabini managed to pull his wand out and silently conjure something several feet beneath them.
"Spongify," he heard Zabini hiss before his grip around Harry became vice-like, making any further wand movements impossible.
Harry landed on top of Zabini, feeling his glasses catapult off his face with the impact, but his right leg missed the soft, bouncy landing that Zabini had conjured in his haste. A sickening crack resounded through the chaos of their laboured breathing. All the while, Zabini hissed against his cheek in a constant stream of frantic Italian. A scream bubbled in his throat at the ensuing agony, but before he could even voice it, everything went black.
Harry regained consciousness in the Hospital Wing. It had become such a constant in his stay at Hogwarts that he was comfortable with the situation. At least he wasn't dead. He groped for the bedside table, hoping to find his glasses and finding his wand instead.
"Where are my glasses?" He murmured.
"I have no idea," came the familiar voice of Madam Pomfrey.
Harry finally opened his eyes, sighing. Surveying his surroundings, he accepted the blurry sight of weathered stone with a grimace. Pomfrey walked towards him with her lips in a thin line.
"You fell from the second floor of the Grand Staircase to the ground floor. You have a shattered kneecap and a broken femur, snapped where it meets the pelvic bone and near pulverised almost everywhere else. I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to move," Madam Pomfrey said with a sniff. "The pain you're feeling now is the Skele-Gro at work."
Harry groaned. He'd swore to himself in second year he'd never experience that again. Now that he was more lucid, he took note of the fact that the pain radiating from where his pelvis met his thigh was agonising. Every intake of breath was a harsh whistle through his teeth. Harry barely suppressed a whimper at the excruciating ache in his knee when he pushed himself upright.
A hand guided him back down onto the bed. Even with his blurry vision, he could make out Pomfrey giving him an admonishing shake of her head. He was in too much agony to even question who'd pushed him back down onto the bed. He hoped it was Ron or Hermione. Or Ginny.
"Don't be stubborn. Lie down and keep your leg straight, Mr. Potter," she ordered with a sympathetic wince.
"It hurts," he groaned.
His stomach lurched at the unbearable agony that ensued when he lay flat in his bed once more.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
Pomfrey conjured a bucket with a quick flick of her wand.
There was a delicate wrinkle of her nose when Harry finished, but she vanished the vomit and bucket without a word. She leant in close and placed a wet cloth on his forehead with a gentle pat.
"I can't promise this won't get any more painful, Potter. I preserved what little that was intact of your femoral shaft in your right leg and vanished the rest. If it becomes too much, I could vanish all the bones in your right leg, but you'd be in the Hospital Wing for maybe another two days – "
"And this?" Harry muttered.
"Your femur and kneecap should be done by the end of dinner," she said with the air of someone pleased to be delivering good news. "Three hours from now."
Harry sighed in relief. He'd mentally prepared himself for a lengthy stay.
"You slept through the worst of it. Mr Zabini did a good job of keeping your femoral fracture aligned on the way here."
Harry felt sick all over again at the thought of having to align someone's snapped bone.
"And Zabini?" Harry croaked, looking around for the Slytherin.
Focusing his mediocre vision as best as he could, he could make out Zabini's frame in the chair beside his bed. The Slytherin gave him a nod.
"Bruised shoulder and mild shock, but I'm fine otherwise," Zabini said in his familiar Londoner drawl. Harry could recognise the sleepy slur to his voice to be the influence of a Calming Draught.
"He brought you to the Hospital Wing, Mr Potter. It was not a pretty sight," Pomfrey added. "If you need anything else, I'll be in my office."
She handed a blue glass bottle to Zabini with a nod before she walked away briskly, leaving Harry and Zabini in a strange silence.
"You saved my life, Potter," Zabini murmured as soon as the door to Pomfrey's office closed with a click. "Without that accio, I wouldn't have had enough time to conjure that cushion.
"You would have conjured that without me," Harry ground out.
Zabini looked disbelieving, but he said nothing. He gave Harry's leg a pointed look. "I should have made it bigger, but I was panicking somewhat."
Harry nodded, a weak grin crossing his face at Zabini's self-chastising sarcasm. He wasn't upset about that; at least they'd survived more or less intact.
"Panicking a lot actually," he admitted after a slight pause. "If you hadn't grabbed me I'd have likely plummeted to my death without doing a thing."
His voice trembled. "I was terrified."
Harry was sympathetic. Unfortunately, he didn't feel properly equipped right now, with the unbearable pain and all, to properly console a Slytherin. The only reason Zabini wasn't breaking down was likely the Calming Draught he'd been forced to take.
"If I hadn't bumped into you, this wouldn't have happened," Harry said.
He was already dreading the reaction when people found out he'd almost killed someone.
"That's true," Zabini admitted, his voice approaching his usual calm baritone.
He even managed a weak smirk. "The day I try something different with my hair is the day it almost gets me killed," he remarked dryly. The Slytherin's fingers toyed with the hair that gathered around his shoulders.
Harry eyed the beads in Zabini's braided hair with more than a little annoyance.
"Where are my glasses?"
"I was too busy taking you to the Hospital Wing to recover them. They looked beyond redemption before anyway. With all that Spello-tape… how many reparos have you used, Potter?"
Harry sighed. "Enough."
"With that in mind," Zabini said, his gaze fixed on the bottle in his hand, "whilst you were out, I gave Madam Pomfrey the gold to acquire an Opia Rectification Remedy. It's guaranteed to, according to the label, 'improve the vision of those with visual defects at least threefold with no side effects'."
"How expensive was it?"
Zabini hummed under his breath. "Two thousand, three hundred and eighteen galleons? About that."
Zabini ignored Harry's sudden gasp with a shrug of his shoulders. It may have seemed like a dismissible amount of gold to Zabini, but Harry was sure that that cost more than his Firebolt. Maybe even two.
"You had that amount of gold on hand?" Harry gasped.
Zabini snorted. "The adult variant is more expensive, and it doesn't help that the potioneer who invented it still holds a monopoly over its production. No one else knows how to make it," he explained, ignoring Harry's question.
Harry sunk into his pillow, still shocked and trying to comprehend the amount of gold that Zabini had spent on a whim.
"And Pomfrey agreed so readily to this?"
"Well, she only caved in when I offered to buy enough to keep some on hand for other students who wanted to correct their eyesight," Zabini admitted.
Harry was initially awed at the idea of Zabini, infamous amongst their year for his snobbery and disdain for nearly everyone, giving up so much money to other students just to pay Harry back, but the tie around his neck immediately had his hackles up.
"Is this how you view this, Zabini? Like a transaction? Are you going buy me out?" Harry asked, bewildered and with the beginnings of anger building in his stomach.
Zabini smiled, appearing pleased that Harry had come to that conclusion.
"Well… yes, in a way. I owe you a life debt now after your suicidal heroism," Zabini said.
Zabini's smile became lopsided, though there was clear disbelief in his tone. "It's almost like you can't believe that I'm grateful. It's not everyday a Gryffindor decides to put his life on the line to save a Slytherin… particularly given that we haven't said a word to each other before."
"So this is a way to get rid of the debt?"
Zabini's eyes rolled. "You really know nothing about life debts, do you? I can't repay a life debt by doing something so convenient like using my mother's money to fix your poor eyesight."
Harry recalled Dumbledore's words in first year about Snape. He'd saved Harry's life when Quirrell had cursed his broom, thus removing his life debt to Harry's father.
"You would have to save my life in return?"
Zabini nodded, though the easiness of his smile faded.
"You understand what my life involves, Zabini? Voldemort?"
Zabini swallowed audibly at the name, yet his expression grew contemplative rather than afraid. Harry thought he could come to like the Slytherin, purely out of that reaction. It was a simplistic way of judging character, but Harry had noticed how Zabini had not brought any attention to how his own quick spell work had saved them both. It further framed the Slytherin into a better light for him. Despite that, there was something strange about how everything Harry had tried had gone wrong earlier.
"Almost dying like that in such a silly way makes you realise how… fragile life really is," he said with a serious look at Harry. "As I said before, you have no reason to like me."
Harry remembered what he'd heard Zabini say about Ginny and his lips thinned. Zabini laughed lowly at his reaction.
"Yeah… despite whatever misgivings you have of me, whatever you may have heard about me," he looked at the green and silver of his own tie, "of my house, you didn't hesitate. If you'd landed with say your head outside of the cushion, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?"
'You'd be dead' was the silent message Zabini was trying to tell him. Perhaps something in Harry was warped by Zabini's standards, who still clearly couldn't quite comprehend the idea of Harry endangering his own life to save him, but Harry felt certain that he'd have done the same even for Malfoy. Hermione did always say he had a thing for saving people. He believed if saving someone is within his power, then there was no reason not to at least try.
"Perhaps," Harry said with an uneasy laugh.
Zabini nodded, still sombre. "I didn't get sorted into Slytherin due to ambition. Cunning, self-serving, arrogance, and shrewdness. Those are what made the hat put me there instead of Ravenclaw. And here you are, Potter, an antithesis to that."
It sounded a lot like a laundry list of character flaws to Harry, but he didn't voice that thought and nodded him on. In his largely Gryffindor perception of the world, it was almost like a compliment to be considered the opposite of cunning, self-serving, arrogance, and shrewdness. Though he couldn't deny that cunning and shrewdness had their place. He'd almost been sorted into Slytherin after all.
"All my life I'd just expected to leave Hogwarts, work for a bit, and then spend the rest of my life doing whatever I wanted with my inheritance, but as I said… life is fragile. You showed me that. I could have died today and what would I be remembered for? Being the son of a famously reclusive, wealthy witch with seven dead husbands? Who would even miss me apart from family? I'm sure you didn't even know my name until this year."
There was a light to his dark eyes now, a sort of desperation as he looked to Harry, searching for confirmation of whatever epiphany their near-death experience had brought him. Harry thought of Zabini at Slug Club, cold and unfeeling compared to the emotional teen before him.
"How do you just thrust yourself into danger like that? I don't even understand it. I... I'm not that important," Zabini cried, his hair shaking to-and-fro with a gentle tinkling, forming a strange juxtaposition with the sudden energy he'd found. "Aren't you prophesied to defeat the Dark Lord? What if you'd died?"
Harry just looked at the dark-skinned teen across him. Amusement was what first came to mind. The fact that Zabini still couldn't comprehend that Harry did it because it was the right thing to do was both funny and disturbing.
"It was the right thing to do," he repeated.
"Right thing to do," Zabini muttered, a disdainful expression on his face. He was not convinced.
Harry nodded, putting as much finality into the motion as he could. Zabini sighed before relaxing back into his chair with an almost frantic rub of his face.
"It's that type of thinking. That mindlessly noble, Gryffindor sentiment which is why I'm not too bothered about owing you a life debt, Potter. As terrifying as the experience was, it has given me a wakeup call."
He nodded to himself, almost as if he needed to convince himself.
"Are you looking for me to provide your life with direction, Zabini?" Harry asked.
Zabini looked like he had been hit with a Stinging Hex, lips slackening to release a brief gasp, but he recovered. As if to cover up his slip, he shrugged and gave Harry a smile that didn't meet his eyes. Cataloging this, Harry felt it was the closest he'd get to a yes to that question but exercised some wisdom and kept silent.
"You know what they say about life debts, Potter?"
Harry sighed. "What?"
"'Dishonour a life debt and one might wish they'd lost their head'?
"Really?"
There was dawning horror in Harry's mind. Was this a form of magical servitude?
Zabini lifted the bottle that Pomfrey had given him closer to Harry. It was made of ornate blue glass, covered in intricate little engravings of pairs of glasses with deep depressions running through them.
"No. I just made that up," Zabini said deadpan. There was a tiny smirk on his full lips, "but seriously, life debts are powerful magic. I could conspire all I want to harm you, which I don't, and through mysterious twists of fate, I'd end up obliged to pay you in full."
"It's old magic," Zabini said. "Magic that I don't intend to ignore."
"I understand," Harry said, not understanding at all.
Zabini's ensuing smirk was indulgent as if Harry were a toddler who'd yet to master walking. "I don't know how I'll make you believe that I'm truly grateful, and not doing this out of obligation, but I suppose I'll have to show you."
He pulled the eyedropper out of the vial with a significant arch of an eyebrow.
"This will be a good start, I think," he remarked.
"Go ahead," Harry said.
There was an undercurrent of excitement in Harry. He'd never considered searching for magical solutions for his eyesight. It hadn't really been a significant problem. As Zabini approached him, Harry admitted that there was an allure in being able to see without them. The idea of playing Quidditch without having to apply Sticking and Impervius Charms made him giddy.
"It will tingle for a second," Zabini warned as he leaned over with the eyedropper in hand.
A dull numbness crept over Harry's eyes after each eye received a drop. Without warning, his vision blurred further as if he were seeing through an opaque film. An edge of panic overcame Harry as the tingling started, and with it came the sudden realization that he had been foolish to trust Zabini.
"I can't – Merlin!" Harry breathed.
The sudden clearing of his vision made Harry choke. He'd known that his prescription had been out of date for years, but the difference in the quality of his vision now was incredible. He rubbed his eyes, almost convinced for a second that he was dreaming. The unnatural clarity of his persisted when he opened his eyes anew.
He looked to Zabini, taking note of how he could see the individual stitches of Zabini's grey sweater.
"Thanks…" Harry said. He couldn't think of a way to thank Zabini that could ever articulate how grateful he was.
"You're welcome, Potter."
Zabini nodded with a pleased curl of his lips. "You have nice eyes," he added in a pleasant tone. "I hope you're ready for the school's reaction to the Chosen One's brilliantly green eyes. Without those horrible glasses of yours, they'll be even more of an attraction."
Harry could feel himself blanch at the idea. He only managed a weak glare at Zabini.
"And now I've found the thing that terrifies Potter. You had everyone convinced it was Dementors, but it was public attention all along," Zabini said with a laugh.
"Shut up, Zabini," Harry said, still taking in every inch of the Hospital Wing with his improved eyesight.
"Call me Blaise," he said with a challenging lift of an eyebrow. "Saving my life confers upon you at least that honour."
"Honour?"
"Well, we can at least say that the eyedrops didn't have any adverse effects on your hearing, Potter."
Harry snorted.
"Did any staff come?" Harry asked, wondering why McGonagall hadn't made an appearance.
"Slughorn and McGonagall came whilst you were unconscious, not even ten minutes after I'd brought you here. I told them what happened; Slughorn had looked horrified for the whole thing, probably at the prospect of losing his prized brewer. McGonagall had been simply concerned. I imagine her reaction would have been worse if she'd been here while Pomfrey had been cleaning up your leg like Slughorn had."
Blaise used the word cleaning as if it were a euphemism.
"Cleaned up my leg?" Harry prodded.
Blaise gave him an awkward squirm, entirely out of character, and Harry's suspicions grew. "She'd understated the state of your leg, believe it or not," he said grimacing with each word he said.
"That bad?"
Blaise gave him a flat stare.
"Alright, alright! My friends?"
"They were here just before breakfast. McGonagall must have told them," Blaise said with an absent shrug.
"Did they say anything?"
"Well, they didn't say anything to me. I was asleep when they came; Pomfrey told me in case you woke up whilst she was at breakfast."
Harry was quite offended at the idea of Pomfrey being so familiar with his visits that she planned solutions to his concerns.
"I saw them at lunch. They looked worried as you can imagine," Blaise said in response to his silence.
"Did you go to class?"
"Well, Potions started about two hours ago, and Pomfrey said I shouldn't go. Brewing whilst under the influence of a Calming Draught would be a disaster in the making."
"Really?" He asked, disbelieving.
He remembered Hannah spending the entirety of the exam season on Calming Draughts in fifth year.
"Well, Dreamless Sleep Potion and Calming Draught in combination were a disaster in the making when brewing," Blaise admitted.
His face turned from Harry in what could only be shame, and Harry finally understood what he'd meant when he'd said it was bad – bad enough to cause nightmares. Still running high off the adrenaline, having handled Harry's leg whilst bringing him to the Hospital Wing, and then watching Pomfrey put together what Harry concluded had been a disturbing sight. It had to have taken its toll.
"You saved my life as well, you know. No need to be ashamed about having nightmares," Harry said.
"I know. Pomfrey said the same thing."
Drawing from his own experience with nightmares: Quirrell, the Basilisk, the Dementors, Cedric, Sirius…. Voldemort.
"Time is the best healer, Blaise. Nightmares they'll come, and they'll go," Harry said.
Silence descended upon them, but Blaise put a quick stop to it by getting to his feet after looking at his watch.
"I'm going to go to Charms," Blaise said with a dull tone before sighing. "The questions will be irritating."
Harry smiled. It wasn't him which was all that mattered.
The tall Slytherin paused at the foot of his bed, seeming to be on the verge of shuffling his feet. "Thank you," he muttered.
Harry waved him off, grinning despite the burning of his leg. "As I said, it was the right thing. Cheers for the eyesight. I'll make sure to thank you when we win the Quidditch Cup."
Zabini grimaced, seeming to remember that he was a Chaser for the Slytherin team.
"What Malfoy and Urquhart don't know won't hurt them. Or me," Blaise said as if to convince himself.
Harry frowned at him, torn between guilt and realization of the awkward position that Blaise was now in. "You'll be alright?"
Blaise squinted at him as if he made little sense. "I will be." Whatever he was looking for, he must have found it as he nodded to himself. "I'm on your side now, Potter," Blaise said, deadly serious. "If there's anything you need, just let me know."
Harry nodded, already thinking of the possibilities of getting to the bottom of what Malfoy was up to. It would be a lot easier with someone associated with him on his side.
"We'll see," Harry simply said.
He watched Blaise walk out of the Hospital Wing, deep in thought.
"Oi, Harry!"
"Ron! He's sleeping," Hermione berated him with a huff.
A lazy smile crossed Harry's face at the sound of his best friends approaching his bed. He'd been dozing on and off for the last hour or two.
"See! He's awake," Ron exclaimed.
Harry could hear Hermione's eye roll. "You woke him up by being loud," she retorted.
Harry sensing unending bickering about to begin interjected. "She's right, you know?"
"Sorry mate," Ron said, a faint blush crossing his face. "Are you alright?"
Harry moved his leg, wincing at the faint sharp pain of the Skele-Gro finishing up. Pomfrey said it would be finished any moment now.
"Never better."
"I'm glad you're okay, Harry. The rumours around the school have been worrying," Hermione said with an earnest squeeze of his shoulder.
"Rumours?"
Ron and Hermione exchanged looks.
"Well, Harry. Some have been saying Zabini, that arrogant git in Slughorn's Club, had tried to duel you on the second-floor staircase. At breakfast, Romilda Vane's convinced you'd used a spell that Dumbledore had personally taught you to cause an earthquake to defeat Zabini," Ron said.
"An earthquake?" Harry asked, already dreading the answer.
"Well, something incredibly loud woke up all the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins this morning," Hermione added.
Harry knew that the Hufflepuff common room was in the basement and the Slytherins weren't too far away in the dungeons, and he cringed remembering his mishap with the suit of armour.
They shared another look at his reaction.
"One of the paintings, an oil of a medieval Belgian landed noble, has been telling everyone that would listen that at the height of your duel, the raw magic flowing around the corridor had been enough to knock his painting from its place. Only his, as well," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. "He'd never seen such a display of valour from young wizards since the days of the chevalier errant."
Ron chuckled heartily, and Harry followed in a weak mimicry. To think that the painting had fabricated such lies to impress children was hilarious.
"Don't forget the best bit, Hermione. He seemed convinced that 'at the height of your valour, you'd both taken your duel to the sky, falling and flinging spells at each other all the while."
"A très magnifique display," Ron imitated rather horribly going by Hermione's ensuing giggle.
"Well, that part of his story is actually the most truthful," Harry said.
Harry almost wished the rest of it was true as it made him sound far more impressive than he felt.
"Well, I'd just delivered Slughorn's memory to Dumbledore," Harry began in answer to the questioning gazes on their faces.
Hermione smiled, and Ron jolted in his seat to attention.
"Blimey," Ron murmured, "to think that all you needed was to use that potion months ago."
"Don't remind me," Harry snarked back. "We'll talk about that in private."
He continued with his explanation, outlining that he was distracted following his talk with Dumbledore.
"And then, everything went horribly, laughably wrong," Harry said with a disbelieving chuckle. "I bumped into Zabini on the Grand Staircase."
"Think he was with Malfoy, Harry?" Ron asked.
"I have no idea," Harry said.
"He was likely coming from Astronomy," Hermione corrected. "Terry told me in Arithmancy this morning. They share the class."
"Like you believe that he was just coming from Astronomy," Ron said with a snort.
Hermione gave Ron a particularly scathing glare that Ron simply smirked at. Harry lamented over the idea of them ever getting together. They seemed to be forever stuck at the hair-pulling stage, yet they were friendlier now than they'd been in a long while. Harry half-hoped that his stint in the Hospital Wing had knocked some sense into them.
"And then you duelled?" Ron asked.
"Well, no. It was… stupid. We just jostled into each other for a couple of moments and then suddenly Zabini had fallen over the banister," Harry said.
"And you saved him by jumping after him," Hermione responded with a certainty that made Harry sigh.
"You could have died," Ron muttered aghast.
"Well, I couldn't let him die for something that was mostly my fault," Harry retorted.
Before Ron could say anything else, Harry shook his head, seeking to put an end to this now. There was no use hand-wringing about what had been done. It was ironic that Ron, someone that Blaise would call a blood traitor, was so quick to identify with the Slytherin's viewpoint.
"I Summoned him to me and grabbed him. Then I kept on trying to use a Levitation Charm but every time I managed to point at us with my wand, Zabini moved in a way that my aim was off."
Ron laughed, and Hermione's gaze grew more thoughtful by the second.
"That earthquake was a suit of armour, I'm guessing," Ron said. "Ernie had described it as a rumbling crash that echoed on and on."
"And Sir Lies-a-lot was just levitated off his perch," Harry added.
"And none of the staircases realigned to catch you?" Hermione questioned.
"They do that?" Ron asked.
Hermione sniffed delicately. "I keep on telling you to read Hogwarts: A History, don't I? Helga Hufflepuff enchanted the Grand Staircase, Ravenclaw's creation, so that the staircase on the level immediately beneath the student would immediately move to catch a falling student – better broken bones than death, after all."
"Well, they didn't do that this time," Harry muttered.
There was a little disturbed silence at that revelation.
"Anyway," Harry said, "we'd probably have both died if Zabini hadn't managed to conjure a cushion in time. I wasn't as lucky and ended up with my right leg landing on the stone. Shattered and snapped from Pomfrey's explanation."
Ron cringed.
"That's an awful lot of bad luck, Harry."
Hermione leapt out of her seat with a grin.
"Ron, you're a genius!"
"I am?" Ron asked, and a brilliant smile crossed his face, "I am. Repeat that for me, Hermione."
Hermione grew animated, dismissive or unaware of both Ron and Harry's laughter.
"Felix felicis has a coming down period, Harry. It's said that following such extraordinary luck, the return to normality can result in the taker being profoundly unlucky. I think that's what happened to you."
"Seems plausible," Harry agreed. "It's worn off by now."
"Hopefully," Ron said. "Wouldn't want another accident."
Hermione nodded before sitting back down with a sigh.
"Where are your glasses?" Ron asked.
"Well, you can thank Zabini for that," Harry said with a wide grin.
"You seem oddly happy about that," Ron said, disbelieving.
Hermione's lips pursed in thought as she looked at Harry's eyes.
"You're not squinting, Harry. Did Madam Pomfrey fix your eyesight?" Hermione asked.
Harry was cagey, not knowing how to broach this subject, but he shook his head. Blaise deserved the credit.
"Zabini?" She asked.
He nodded slowly, and Ron and Hermione's ensuing questions were in unison.
"What?"
"How?
"He bought an… Opia Rectification Remedy for me and enough to cure visual abnormalities for nine other students," Harry recited, remembering what Pomfrey had told him after Blaise had left.
Hermione was still confused, but Ron's mouth gaped wide open.
"Bill used to wear glasses, you know? He ended up taking that Remedy when he became a Curse-Breaker. He got it through the Goblins, so it was at a discount I imagine, but he said it was worth almost three months' worth of pay."
Ron sucked in a great gout of breath, still shocked.
"What did you do to do that Slytherin? He's obviously… rich, but that must have been at least a couple hundred galleons, Harry."
"About two thousand," Harry said with a cringe.
"Two Triwizards," Ron whispered. "Two whole Triwizards."
They fell into a heavy silence.
"He saved his life," Hermione said in the sharp silence. "That's about fifty thousand pounds if what you say is right Harry."
"He did say he owes me a life debt," Harry added.
"Well, I like it you have – " Hermione began.
"My mother's eyes," Harry completed with an eye roll.
"I was going to say nice eyes, Harry, but alright," Hermione said with a laugh.
Ron nodded, but his eyes still gazed into nothing. He was without a doubt stuck on the galleons part of Harry's story.
"Well, fixing your eyesight doesn't exactly fix a life debt," Ron said with an incredulous laugh. "Merlin, he really means it, doesn't he?"
"What do you mean by that?" Harry asked.
Hermione bit her lip.
"Parkinson was pestering him at lunch, for details about what happened this morning, and he just blew her off. Malfoy tried as well, but Zabini didn't even look at him. He hasn't told anyone what happened. In fact, I don't think I've seen him speak to anyone today," Hermione explained.
Ron snorted.
"Yeah, he gave us that blank look he always has when we approached him in Charms."
"Not a word at all," Hermione said with a nod. "Now that you've explained what happened it makes sense."
Ron and Hermione shared a dark look.
"Can't imagine a Slytherin would want to be known to have a life debt to Harry," Ron explained.
Harry felt like an idiot at that fact. He'd never considered beyond Blaise's role in his new, improved eyesight. What would happen to the Slytherin if it became public knowledge he held a life debt to Harry? Admiration almost swelled within Harry at the fact that Blaise had so readily committed himself to fulfilling his debt, but he was still a tad suspicious.
"Of course," Hermione said.
Whatever else Hermione wanted to say was interrupted by the door to Pomfrey's office opening. Harry fell back into his bed doing his best to look restful, eyes closed and features lax.
"Mr Potter, you're still here? You're still in pain?" Pomfrey asked. Her voice grew louder as she approached his bed.
Harry realised that he hadn't felt any pain for the last fifteen minutes and slid out of his bed, both legs functioning perfectly, with a curse.
"Language," Hermione muttered.
Harry ignored that and stretched. Ron and Hermione rose to their feet after him.
"No?" He hedged, half-asking in fear Pomfrey would change her mind about letting him go.
Pomfrey nodded at Ron and Hermione in greeting.
"Good. Your eyesight perfectly functional?"
"Better than I could have imagined," Harry said, feeling giddy at just the thought of his vision.
Pomfrey gave him a thin smile.
"Now, let's all go to dinner. It starts in a couple of minutes, and I don't want to see you here for at least a month. Any of you," she declared, walking towards the Hospital Wing exit with a beckoning gesture.
"Only a month?" Harry said under his breath.
"You're accident prone, Mr Potter!" Pomfrey called. "Come on, hurry up."
They shadowed her towards the Great Hall, ignoring the murmurs and sudden silences from their fellow students at the sight of Harry. Ron nudged him and leaned in.
"You given any thought on how you're going to handle this?"
"Well, the idea of pulling a Zabini is very enticing," Harry said with a smirk.
"You don't owe anyone an explanation, considering Zabini isn't volunteering anything," Hermione murmured.
"Not even Professor McGonagall?" Ron teased.
Hermione huffed.
"She already knows," she retorted.
"Right," Ron said lamely.
They came to the threshold of the Great Hall, already buzzing with lively conversation and the tinkling of cutlery. No one inside had yet taken notice of them, though with the frequent flow of students into the Hall eyeing them, it was only a matter of time.
"Well," Harry said brightly with a confidence he didn't feel. "Here goes nothing."
"Come on, Harry. You've faced You-Know-How how many times? Hogwarts can't be that bad," Ron said.
"I don't live with Voldemort," Harry snarked back.
Ron laughed, and Hermione shook her head with a smile.
"Fair enough," he agreed.
"Let's go," Hermione said with a determined stride into the Hall and towards the Gryffindor table.
They followed, quickly catching up and ignoring the sudden silence that followed their progress.
Luna gave him a radiant smile as he passed the Ravenclaw table. Harry returned her smile, though with considerably more restraint, and ignored Cho's sudden look at him with ease as he passed Hufflepuff. Shooting a look out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Luna turning back to her neighbour and talking animatedly about something likely beyond their imagination. Gryffindor grew audibly noisier as he approached, and as Harry took his seat next to Neville, he could feel Malfoy's stare on him. Looking up, easily ignoring the sea of students looking to make eye contact, he found Zabini sat at the far end of the Slytherin table, a gulf in distance between him and where Malfoy was holding court in the middle of the table. He was deep in quiet conversation with two Slytherin girls in their year. Greengrass and Davis, if he remembered correctly.
"Harry! Glad to see you're alright," Neville said with a smile. "No glasses?"
"No glasses," he confirmed.
"Don't think I'll get used to it," Neville said with a chuckle, "but it definitely suits you."
Ginny, sat next to Neville, gave him a fierce grin. Her gaze kept drifting up towards his eyes. It was transparently appreciative and Ron, at Harry's left, coughed pointedly.
"Glad to see you, Harry. We wanted to visit but Pomfrey only let Ron and Hermione in," Ginny said.
She gave a playful glare at her brother who was, like Harry, now taking notice of the fact that Dean was sat several seats away with Seamus. Dean was watching their conversation closely, a dark expression on his face. Harry noted, elated and anxious in equal measure, that it was likely they'd broken up. Going by Ron and Hermione's suddenly regained friendship, it was likely Ron and Lavender had broken up also. It was rather telling now that he thought about it. Lavender hadn't hailed Ron over, instead choosing to continue speaking with Parvati.
"Did Zabini, that poser, do something to you?" Ginny murmured intently.
Harry forced back a cringe around a sip of pumpkin juice. There was a subtle promise in her voice that spoke of Bat-Bogey Hexes and trickery better suited for Fred and George. At his side, Neville was listening with a fork idly moving his mashed potatoes in circles.
"He didn't do anything," Harry said.
Neville nodded, taking Harry at his word, and simply turned back to his food, but Ginny tilted her head in question. Inside, Harry was panicking. How did he frame this without revealing anything potentially compromising? What if Malfoy found out that Zabini was indebted to Harry?
"I'd tell you more, but it's… embarrassing," he said incredibly lamely.
Ron and Hermione were eating silently, likely enjoying Harry's suffering.
"Embarrassing," Ginny repeated.
Harry shrugged.
"You won't tell me anything else?"
Harry shook his head, using the excuse of dishing roast potatoes to avoid making eye contact. Ginny shrugged and continued eating her Shepherd's pie with a faint smile.
"It must be important then," she said calmly.
"Harry!" Colin called across from them and several seats down, his brother grinning frantically over his shoulder.
"It begins," Ron said darkly between chews of his lamb chop.
"You are disgusting," Hermione said flatly, though with none of the heat she'd usually use when addressing Ron's hasty table manners.
Harry desperately looked around for treacle tart and found none. Thankfully, Demelza was sat on Colin's other side.
"Let him eat, Colin," Demelza said with a sympathetic nod at Harry.
Colin visibly deflated but turned back towards his brother.
"Cheers, Demelza," Harry said with such relief he was momentarily embarrassed, "I might consider being easier on you in practice."
Unlike Ron, Demelza had the decency to finish chewing before speaking.
"Better yet, no detentions for the Ravenclaw match, Potter. Not like last year," she ordered before wincing at how forceful she'd sounded.
Harry nodded, hopeful himself. Part of him suspected that the universe would conspire against him. He watched Snape eat, surly as ever, with a beady eye.
"Will do," Harry said with a soft smile.
Demelza nodded back. "That's all I ask," she said with a smile before returning to her food.
Hermione gave him an inscrutable look over Ron's shoulder.
"You're actually promising to avoid trouble, Harry?" She asked, audibly incredulous.
Harry would have sighed but deserts had appeared, and he served himself a slice of treacle tart with a content smile.
"You know me, Hermione. Trouble tends to find me," Harry answered easily.
Harry followed Hermione's ensuing gaze towards Zabini, still in deep conversation with the two Slytherin girls.
"I can't argue with that," Hermione acquiesced.