Suffocating In Darkness

Chapter 19

"So, all in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?" said Fred holding onto me.

It was evening; the hospital wing was quiet, the windows curtained, the lamps lit. Ron's was the only occupied bed. Harry, Oliver, Lyra, Hermione, Ginny and I were sitting around him; we had spent all day waiting outside the double doors, trying to see inside whenever somebody went in or out. Madam Pomfrey had only let us enter at eight o'clock. Fred and George had arrived at ten past.

"This isn't how we imagined handing over our present," said George grimly, putting down a large wrapped gift on Ron's bedside cabinet and sitting beside Ginny along with Lyra.

"Yeah, when we pictured the scene, he was conscious," said Fred.

"There we were in Hogsmeade, waiting to surprise him -" said George.

"You were in Hogsmeade?" asked Ginny, looking up.

"We both have girlfriends here." George says shrugging.

"We were thinking of buying Zonko's," said Fred gloomily. "A Hogsmeade branch, you know, but a fat lot of good it'll do us if you lot aren't allowed out at weekends to buy our stuff anymore ... But never mind that now."

He drew up a chair beside Harry, sat me on his lap and looked at Ron's pale face.

"How exactly did it happen?"

Harry, Oliver and I retold the story we had already recounted, it felt like a hundred times to Dumbledore, to McGonagall, to Madam Pomfrey, to the others, and to Ginny.

". . . and then I got the bezoar and Harry shoved down his throat and his breathing eased up a bit, Oliver ran for help, McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey turned up, and they brought Ron up here. They reckon he'll be all right. Madam Pomfrey says he'll have to stay here a week or so ... keep taking essence of rue . . ."

"Blimey, it was lucky you thought of a bezoar," said George in a low voice as Lyra cuddled into him.

"Lucky there was one in the room," I said, who kept turning cold at the thought of what would have happened if we had not been able to lay hands on the little stone.

Hermione gave an almost inaudible sniff. She had been exceptionally quiet all day. Having hurtled, white-faced, up to us outside the hospital wing and demanded to know what had happened, she had taken almost no part in our obsessive discussion about how Ron had been poisoned, but merely stood beside them, clench-jawed and frightened-looking, until at last we had been allowed in to see him.

"Do Mum and Dad know?" Fred asked Ginny.

"They've already seen him, they arrived an hour ago - they're in Dumbledore's office now, but they'll be back soon. . . ."

There was a pause while we all watched Ron mumble a little in his sleep.

"So the poison was in the drink?" said Lyra quietly.

"Yes," said Oliver at once; he could think of nothing else and was glad for the opportunity to start discussing it again. "Slughorn poured it out -"

"Would he have been able to slip something into Ron's glass without you seeing?"

"Probably," said Harry, "but why would Slughorn want to poison Ron?"

"No idea," said Fred, frowning. "You don't think he could have mixed up the glasses by mistake? Meaning to get you?"

"Why would Slughorn want to poison Harry or Minnie? I mean, Oliver was there as well!" asked Ginny.

"I dunno," said Fred, "but there must be loads of people who'd like to poison Harry or Mel, mustn't there? 'The Chosen Ones' and all that?"