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Part Two / Chapter Fifty-Two
"When I said I'd seeyou later, I did not picture it like this," said Venus.
It was evening; the hospital wing was quiet, the windows curtained, the lamps lit. Ron's was the only occupied bed. Venus, Harry, Hermione, Constance and Ginny were sitting around him; they had spent all day waiting outside the double doors, trying to see inside whenever somebody went in or out. Madam Pomfrey had only let them enter at eight o'clock. Fred and George Weasley 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 next to Venus' present and sat beside Ginny.
"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 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 Hermione and looked at Ron's pale face. "How exactly did it happen, Harry?"
Harry retold the story he had already recounted, in a much more duller tone than he'd taken with Venus and Constance.
"Harry!" said an awfully high-pitched voice from the entrance of the Hospital Wing. Maria Glossop appeared, smushing herself in between Venus and Harry, who were sitting beside one another. "I'm so sorry about Ron," she said, looking down at Ron in his hospital bed. "What happened?"
Harry looked like he had no energy to retell the story again. "I don't—"
"Tell me," Maria said sternly.
Almost immediately, Harry began retelling the entire story of Ron's poisoning and the Bezoar. Everyone glanced at each other uneasily.
