Instead of doing my assignment that is due early next week, I have decided that Chapter 25 is more important, than anything else.
This chapter contains ableism and uses an ableist slur that is discussed and challenged. It is at the end of the chapter so you can skip if you want. It's just a reflection of Saeviour's defeated mental state.
Chapter 25: The Consequences to Our Actions
Harrison spent the remainder of the weekend in the Chamber of Secrets as soon as his meeting with Headmaster Dumbledore was over. He read countless scrolls and books with very old bindings-all written in parseltongue. He spent time conversing with Amara and practicing several spells that he had found through the books. Harrison didn't bother emerging out of the Chamber of Secrets until Monday morning, where he had to go to his first class: Potions.
Harrison took his time getting to the Potions classroom in the Dungeons. He entered the classroom, walking to the corner of the classroom where he sat next to Draco. Draco's silver eyes stared at him as he paid no attention to his curiosity and simply pulled out his textbook out of his bag.
"Where were you?" Draco asked, whispering. "What did Dumbledore want with you?"
Harrison smirked, and was about to answer before the door to the classroom opened. The door slammed shut as Professor Snape stormed through the classroom, his pace quick as he stood in the middle of the classroom.
"You'll be brewing the Antidote to Common Poisons. You'll be working in pairs and I expect the potion to be in vials by the end of class…" Professor Snape announced then started listing off the pairings.
Draco let out a small grin as soon as he heard the pairings. He looked briefly at Harrison, who only gave him a slight smirk as a response.
"You may begin," Professor Snape finished.
He flicked his wand at the board, where small white printed letters that were barely eligible to see appeared on the board. Harrison and Draco flipped open their books and quickly found the page to the Antidote to Common Poisons.
After setting up the cauldron, Harrison turned to Draco and asked,
"Can you get the ingredients?"
Draco got up to get the ingredients from the cupboard. He came back, carrying several ingredients like Bezoars, mistletoe berries along with other things. He set the things down on the table in front of them, and went back to his seat.
"So are you going to tell me what Dumbledore talked to you about?"
"Depends, which part?" Harrison amused him.
He watched Draco's face for his reaction as Draco put a bezoar into his mortar.
"On which part?" Draco said in a loud whisper, "What did he do?"
He began crushing the bezoar with the pestle. With every crush, it turned the bezoar into small pieces before it turned into a powder that he then poured four measures of the crushed bezoar into the cauldron, and proceeded to add two more after that.
"He unsuccessfully tried to give up my secrets by wondering what on earth happened to poor Saeviour Potter," Harrison told him.
"What did you do to him?" Draco hissed. "You didn't try to murder him with your midnight adventure did you?"
Harrison added a thing of crushed mint sprigs into the cauldron as he proceeded to answer Draco's question,
"No… That thought did cross my mind, but I didn't kill him… Dumbledore would have become more suspicious than he already is."
"I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that you didn't kill him," Draco pointed out. "Or both."
"He tried being the kind and trustworthy grandfather and proceeded to guilt-trip me in things that were irrelevant to the fact that he has no idea why Saeviour is in St. Mungo's."
"He truly is incompetent," Draco sighed. "Why hasn't he gotten sacked yet?"
Harrison shrugged. He raised the temperature on the cauldron slightly to let it brew for forty minutes.
Harrison was about to tell Draco about the fact that Headmaster Dumbledore tried using Legilimency, to get him to spill his secrets as if he didn't have his mind already protected and wasn't careless to leave evidence from his actions too much.
BOOM!
A large boom was heard in the entire classroom as dark smoke piled into the air. Harrison and Draco turned to look at the emotion to see Longbottom covered in smoke and burn marks all over his round cheeks. His cauldron that he was working on was no more, as the contents of the cauldron spilt on the table and onto the floor, seeping through the classroom. The Gryffindors all hopped onto their stools to avoid the hot, dark colored-liquid- afraid to know what the liquid would do to their clothing or shoes.
Professor Snape wasted no time in getting to where Longbottom was at with Weasel staring at the spot where the cauldron once was. HIs obsidian eyes looked at the disaster,
"Longbottom, are you that incompetent of counting how much bezoar powder you add to the cauldron?"
His dark eyes flickered towards Hermione who was paired up with Blaise Zabini. She had a shock expression on her face,
"Granger, Why didn't you stop him?" Professor Snape said harshly, "Twenty points from Gryffindor."
Draco smirked as Professor Snape took points away from the Gryffindors.
"Weasley take Longbottom to the Hospital Wing," Professor Snape ordered.
Professor Snape took out his wand and waved it around. The mess of the potion disappeared, and so did the scuff marks on the table. Professor Snape returned back to his attention of walking throughout the classroom; monitoring of what they were doing. Everyone returned back to their seats and resumed what they were doing.
Harrison and Draco returned back to their potion once that was settled and returned their attention back to the potion. There were still so many minutes left before their potion would be done brewing, before they could add anymore ingredients into the potion. They went back to their conversation.
"Did the headmaster try anything else?"
Harrison proceeded to tell me about Dumbledore's usage to Legillimens on him, and how he caught him in the act.
"He really tries anything, doesn't he?" Draco shook his head in astonishment.
"Of course… He's the headmaster after all," Harrison added dryly. "Don't be surprised if Dumbledore tries to question you especially since he did question my whereabouts."
…
Harry was right, Draco thought to himself as he headed back down towards the dungeons and into the Slytherin Common Room. After Harrison told him about Dumbledore, it only took Dumbledore a couple of hours later to question him. It wasn't to the extent that Harrison described to him during their conversation in Potions earlier. He told Dumbledore nothing, but simply told him that Harrison was with him through the night and knew nothing about his actions (if he had any).
He entered the dark common room. The common room illuminated the color of light green, and reflected off the walls as he quickly scanned the room, hoping to find Harrison. It didn't take him long as he saw Harrison lounging in an armchair right by the lit fire. The fire crackled, shooting up orange embers upwards in the fireplace, and cast shadows on Harrison's thin and pale body. Shadows etched on his face as he simply wrote in the small, black book.
"Harrison," He greeted.
"Draco," He drawled. He set his quill down in the book, and shut the black book. HIs green eyes flickered towards the flames and then met Draco's silver eyes. "How was your meeting with Dumbledore?" He kept his voice down to the point where Draco could barely hear him
"It was fine," He told him. "He only wanted to know what we were doing on Friday night… It was almost like he was trying to get me to turn on you."
Harrison shook his head.
"Perhaps we can go to the dormitory?" Draco suggested.
"No need… I already put a silencing ward around us," Harrison waved him off. "What did he do?"
Draco proceeded to tell him:
Draco entered the Headmaster's eyes. His face was bare of any emotions as he walked into Dumbledore's office. HIs office was bright and cheery with the past headmasters' portraits. Draco recognized a couple of them from what his grandfather and father told him during their time at Hogwarts before Hogwarts went downhill soon after Dumbledore took over.
"Come sit, Mr. Malfoy." Professor Dumbledore beckoned to the seat that was in front of Dumbledore. HIs baby blue eyes were twinkling as Draco approached him.
He clenched his fists as he took a seat in front of the headmaster. His gray eyes revealed nothing as he simply looked in between Dumbledore's eyes.
"You're pretty close to Mr. Peverell-Slytherin, aren't you, my boy?" Dumbledore asked warmly.
"Yeah… He's my best friend," Draco told him.
"Can you tell me his whereabouts on Friday night?"
Draco quickly stitched together the story he needed to fabricate in his head. It wasn't hard as he was expecting this, since Harrison told him that Dumbledore questioned him.
"He was with me almost the entire night. He was just reading a book in the common room while I was playing chess until night fell," Draco told him.
"Interesting. Mr. Peverell-Slytherin also mentioned that you were also doing work late at night?"
Shit! Draco wanted to get up and leave from Dumbledore's office. He honestly wished Harrison would have told him about this so they could have gotten the story straight.
"Yeah. It must have slipped my mind as I was working on an essay late at night as I nearly forgot about it," Draco admitted.
Dumbledore nodded,
"You may go."
Without another word, Draco left Dumbledore's office.
Draco finished telling Harrison what happened. Harrison had a small smile on his lips as his green eyes shone brightly against the dim lighted room.
"Hopefully that'll get the old man off my back," Harrison told him.
"I don't understand why he wouldn't want to go question the Gryffindors. They have plenty of reasons for them to be suspicious. No, he has to go after the snakes. Wait, until my father hears this."
"I wouldn't even doubt that he wouldn't even bother questioning the Gryffindors. He's so worried about precious Saeviour, but doesn't care about anything else," Harrison commented. "I honestly doubt he's so worried about the stone."
"I know right."
…
Bright light filled the entire room as Saeviour came to it. Everything was white- the floor, the curtains around him, and the blanket- they were all white! For a moment, Saeviour considered if he was blind so he rubbed his eyes, hoping that would help.
It didn't.
There was simply no color other than white in this room, and everything looked so blurry. He couldn't really see the door knob on the door in front of him. Wait, the door in front of him? Saeviour scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion as he had little to no memory of where he was. It didn't look like the hospital wing.
So, where was he?
Saeviour looked on the side of him, and there was a mahogany-colored table right next to him. It contained a thing of red flowers, cards and various types of candy in their packages, but he could tell from the shape of the packaging that they were Bertie Bott' Every Flavor Beans and some that were shaped like Chocolate frogs. In front of all that stuff were his round glasses, folded up neatly.
He tried making a reach for them…
Sharp pain shot up his spine! He had to clench his fists and bite his tongue to keep from screaming out in pain. He also realized as he tried to twist his back to grab his glasses that his legs were refusing to cooperate with him. Correction, he couldn't feel them whatsoever.
"Why can't I move my legs?" Saeviour whined.
"You're finally awake, son," he heard someone say.
He turned his head to see a figure standing up, stretching as he stood up, from the chair he was sitting in. His father entered the view of his vision as he leaned over Saeviour and grabbed his rounded glasses from the bedside table.
HIs father put them on his face and Saeviour's vision became much more clearer and sharper instead of the blurriness he had without his glasses.
He could see that his dad looked like he hadn't slept decently for the last couple of days. His messy hair was more disheveled than it normally was, while he had bags underneath his warm brown eyes.
"Dad," he spoke softly. Tears pooled in his eyes and he let them fall. Grateful to see such a familiar face in this very un-familiar room. "What happened?"
"That's what I would like to know," his dad stated, "Headmaster Dumbledore woke me up in the middle of the night and said that you were injured and needed to be transferred over to St. Mungo's. What did you do?"
Saeviour thought long and hard about that night. He remembered glimpse of the invisibility cloak he snagged from his dad, Hermione and that bloody snake. He briefly remembered the forbidden corridor on the third-floor but that was it.
He couldn't remember anything else.
"I- I don't remember," He admitted. "It's a blur and nothing. It's like something should be there, but I don't remember."
"Of course," his dad huffed.
"Dad, I'm sorry."
"Now you're sorry. What were you thinking?"
"Dad, I don't remember. I wish I did."
Tears started streaming Saeviour's face as he sobbed. HIs dad was angry with him, he couldn't move his lower half of the body. Everything was going so wrong and he didn't even remember why!
"Why can't I feel my legs?!" He cried out one more time.
He looked at his dad's expression. How crestfallen and defeated he looked. His dad let out a long sigh that he had no idea if that was good or a bad thing.
"The healers said it's just temporary paralysis."
"Temporary paralysis?!"
"The healers said in a couple of days or so, the swelling in your spine should go down and you'll be able to move your legs again."
"Great…" Saeviour muttered darkly. "The hero of the wizarding world failed so miserably that he won't be able to move his legs."
"It's just temporary," his dad reasoned with him. "You'll regain feeling in your legs again soon…"
Saeviour tuned him out and simply said, "I'm fucking crippled! I'm so weak that I can't even remember what happened. I'm a failure."
He turned his head away from his dad. Sobs echoed through the room as he couldn't hold them back in any longer.
God, he was such a failure. How can he do this to himself?
This chapter just didn't want to be written and when I did, it took life and formed something different. I wasn't expecting several things mainly those last couple of sentences especially that is hard-hitting. That word is never okay to use, and I don't mean it in a harmful way.