Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Whatnot

The rest of February went on into March, and our few Apparition lessons had still resulted in nothing but several more splinchings.

Hermione and I woke up on the first of March, noticing that it was quite the dreary day. It didn’t help that it was Ron’s birthday, and he and Hermione still weren’t speaking. We went down to breakfast and ate in relative silence, Hermione reading the Daily Prophet, and me throwing in my witty observations that she chose mostly to ignore.

It was late morning when we were sitting in the common room, beginning to wonder where Harry and Ron were, when Ginny came sprinting in the portrait. She looked upset.

“Ginny? What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Ron,” she panted, “in the hospital wing, Harry says he’s been poisoned.”

“What?!” Hermione and I both said, jumping up.

Now evening, we were all sitting around Ron’s bed in the hospital wing. We'd spent the day pacing outside the doors, trying to peer in whenever somebody went in or out. Madam Pomfrey hadn’t let us in until eight o’clock, and Fred and George had shown up not ten minutes after.

“So all in all, not one of Ron’s better birthdays?” said Fred.

“This isn’t how we imagined handing over our present,” said George grimly, placing the package on Ron’s bedside table.

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

George sat down next to me, taking my hand and Fred drew up a chair on the other side of Ron’s bed.

“There we were in Hogsmeade, waiting to surprise him – “said George.

“You were in Hogsmeade?” asked Ginny.

“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. How exactly did it happen, Harry?”

Harry retold the story he’d told us earlier. The love potion, going to Slughorn, the poisoned drink, and the bezoar.

“Blimey, it was lucky you thought of a bezoar,” said George in a low voice.

I squeezed his hand.

“Lucky there was one in the room” said Harry.

I shuddered slightly. I didn’t like thinking about what could’ve happened. Hermione, who was sitting on the edge of Ron’s bed and who had been quiet most of the day, gave a little sniff.

“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”

“So the poison was in the drink?” said Fred quietly.

“Yes,” said Harry. “Slughorn poured it out – “

“Would he have been able to slip something into Ron’s glass without you seeing?”

“Probably, but why would Slughorn want to poison Ron?”

“No idea,” Fred said, 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?” asked Ginny.

“I dunno,” said Fred, “but there must be loads of people who’d like to poison Harry, mustn’t there? ‘The Chosen One’ and all that?”

“So you think Slughorn’s a Death Eater?” said Ginny.

“Anything’s possible,” said Fred, darkly.

“But Slughorn loves Harry! He’d have to be a really good actor to pull that off, and although he might think he is…” I shrugged.

“He could be under the Imperius Curse” said George.

“Or he could be innocent,” said Ginny. “the poison could have been in the bottle, in which case it was probably meant for Slughorn himself.”

“Who’d want to kill Slughorn?”

“Dumbledore reckons Voldemort wanted Slughorn on his side,” said Harry. “Slughorn was in hiding for a year before he came to Hogwarts. And maybe Voldemort wants him out of the way, maybe he thinks he could be valuable to Dumbledore”

“But you said Slughorn had been planning to give that bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas,” said Ginny. “So the poisoner could just as easily been after Dumbledore.”

“Then the poisoner didn’t know Slughorn very well,” said Hermione, finally speaking for the first time in hours. “Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he’d keep something that tasty for himself.”

“Er-my-nee” croaked Ron unexpectedly.

We all froze for a second, watching him, but after muttering a few things no one could understand, he just started snoring.

A few minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came in, and Mrs. Weasley started gushing over Harry and how he’d saved half their lives, which when you think about it, he did. Madam Pomfrey came in then, though, and reminded us that there were only to be six visitors. I kissed George on the cheek and left with Harry and Hermione, leaving Ron with his family.

When we got back to the common room, it didn’t seem like anybody knew about Ron’s poisoning yet, which was just as well because none of us wanted to talk about it right now.

Hermione and I went up to the dorm, Hermione going straight to bed and I sitting at the window for a while, watching the rain and listening to her sniffling.