The Potter Twins and the Half-Blood Prince {6}

17. Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff

"Between the peace and the panic I can't break out the static, I need a cleaner freqeuncy" - Motion Sickness, Neck Deep

"So, all in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?" says Fred.

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

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

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

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

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

"We were thinking of buying Zonko's," Fred says 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 draws up a chair beside me and looks at Ron's pale face.

"How exactly did it happen, Harry, Haylee?"

We retell the story we've already recounted, it feels like a hundred times to Dumbledore, to McGonagall, to Madam Pomfrey, to Hermione, and to Ginny.

"...and then I got the bezoar down his throat and his breathing eased up a bit, 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," says George in a low tone.

"Lucky there was one in the room," I say, turning cold at the thought of what would have happened otherwise.

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

"Do Mum and Dad know?" Fred asks 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 is a pause while we all watch Ron mumble a little in his sleep.

"So the poison was in the drink?" Fred asks quietly.

"Yes," I say at once. "Slughorn poured it out --"

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

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

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

"Why would Slughorn want to poison Harry and Haylee?" Ginny asks.

"I dunno," Fred says, "but there must be loads of people who'd like to poison them, musnt't there? 'The Chosen Ones' and all that?"

"So you think Slughorn's a Death Eater?" Ginny asks.

"Anything's possible," says Fred darkly.