Before the Storm

Chapter 11

Harry opened his eyes to the far too familiar ceiling of the Hospital Wing, and a deep, bone shaking chill like nothing he had ever felt before. Suddenly he was shaking and try as he may to relax his muscles and stop, he couldn't. Despite the warmth that surrounded him, blankets probably magicked to emit heat, he had never been colder in his life.

"Harry?"

He tilted his head enough to see Tom, who was seated in a high backed chair at his side. He had a pillow at his back and a blanket over his knees, a book that looked suspiciously like a textbook open on his lap. And even though he looked as clean and put together as always, there was a pinched quality to his eyes and an unusual paleness to his complexion that the the golden light streaming in through the windows couldn't lift.

Harry managed a shaky smile through the shivering, "hey." He cleared his throat, it was horribly dry, "wh-what happened, what time is it?"

Tom moved the book from his lap and took up a glass of water on a nearby table, with a gentleness that would have surprised Harry at one time, he helped Harry sit up enough to take a few sips. When he laid back down something in the stiffness in Tom's shoulders relaxed. Even though the worry was still clear in his eyes.

"It's morning, Harry. Wednesday. What's the last thing you remember?" When he had sat down the glass Tom returned his hands to Harry. Smoothing back his hair, tucking the covers more securely around him, brushing the side of his neck as though checking for something. He didn't seem to be able to keep himself still.

Harry began to worry himself, if whatever happened had Tom this frantic...What did he remember?"

"We were at the Quidditch pitch...I remember going into the maze," it was dark and cold and wet...the tasks had been, strange, "I remember the Devil's Snare, and the pack of mannequins, the bogart..." The event's were a swirl of shadows and bright spell light, there had been something off about the whole thing.

"You remember the mannequins?" Tom asked excitedly, leaning forward, something bright and fevered in his eyes.

"Yeah...they were odd. They fought as one, I managed to tie them up."

Tom's eyes narrowed at that, "you did? When was that?"

"I think they were the second thing I encountered, after the Devil's Snare, then...the bogart, the peskies...there was acid ooze, but it was different than what Merrythought taught us," Harry wracked his memory for anything after that, he remembered being exhausted after trying to neutralize the ooze, then...

"There was no acid," Tom said, his voice was suddenly cold.

Harry leaned back a little, something twisting unpleasantly in his chest, "there was, it was pretty far in, but I think I was on the right track. Only...the neutralizing spell wasn't working right. I had cast it so many times that I was starting to get tired after, then...then," what had happened after that?

"Harry," he looked back the strangeness of Tom's voice, he appeared calm, but it was as though his whole countenance had been cast in shadow, "you're telling me there was a...lake of acid?" Harry nodded, "and you don't remember anything after that?" When Harry shook his head Tom sighed, he stretched a hand out to cup the side of Harry's face, it was nearly burning against Harry's cold skin.

"When I found you the mannequins were attacking you, not as one, but as a unified team working together. They hit you with a curse of some sort. You don't remember any of that?"

He tried, but nothing formed out of the chaos of blue light and murky shadow, he shook his head again, "nothing."

Tom sunk into his own thoughts, eyes dark and unfocused as he drew his own conclusions of the night. His hand was a warm and stabling presence, Harry leaned into it, and once the question had burned it's way to the surface, and he could think of nothing else, he asked, "Tom, what happened? That wasn't...that wasn't how the test was supposed to go, was it?"