Recnac Transfaerso

3 - Decisions

The first few weeks passed by very quickly for Harry. His emotions flipped back and forth. He was so thankful to be back at his school among his friends, joking, complaining about homework, knowing that he wouldn't have to go hungry for quite a while. Despite the extra load of homework the fifth years had been given in preparation for the upcoming O.W.L.s, Harry was even enjoying the simple time he spent with his friends doing their homework, making up predictions with Ron for Divination, and trying not to roll his eyes as Hermione tried to explain to him the concept behind every charm or spell they were learning.

He was happier than he had been in months, when he had been plagued by thoughts of the third task, with nothing to distract him from it, and of course, being mistreated by his so-called "family". However, he was constantly thinking of the Stensons and his mission to help them. Ron teased him by commenting that he was turning into Hermione with all the visits to the library he had been making. It was true though. At every free moment, Harry would slip off to the library looking for anything that would help, from magical medical books to books about Muggles. There were a few references to Muggle ailments, but nothing to help his cause. He even asked Mrs. Pince if she knew of any books on the subject, but she only guessed and pointed out books that he had searched through several times already.

The new knowledge he had gained while reading through all the possibilities had helped him only by gaining a few points for Gryffindor whenever a teacher asked a medical question in class. As he was walking away from Herbology, in which he had just named all the illnesses that could be cured from the petals of a Hintlybloom earning Gryffindor ten points, Hermione came up beside him.

"Harry, good job! You see? I told you this extra studying would be helpful! You've learned so much already! Just think of how well you'll do on your O.W.L.s if you keep it up!" she said enthusiastically, thinking that Harry's newfound knowledge was the result of her "encouragement" (or "constant badgering" as Ron called it) to study things beyond what they were required to learn for classes.

"Please don't tell me you're going to turn into Hermione, mate," Ron said clapping a hand on Harry's back and earning a glare from Hermione. "Who am I going to hang out with if you both are always in the library?"

"Well, Ron, you could always come with us, you know. O.W.L.s are coming up." Hermione began. Harry caught Ron's gaze and they both rolled their eyes.

"Sorry, Mione, I'm allergic to libraries," Ron stated casually. "Just found out this summer."

"Er yeah, and the reason I know so much about medical stuff now is because I was the one trying to find out what was wrong with Ron." Harry laughed. "Now I probably know more than Madam Pomfrey." Harry all of a sudden stopped in his tracks, unnoticed by Hermione and Ron, who was joking about how Harry, the medical genius, had found the source behind his deadly allergy.

'That's just it,' he thought to himself. 'Madam Pomfrey must know something. She had to study all kinds of medicine to be a doctor, magical and Muggle so she'll always be prepared. It said so in one of those books, I just know it.'

He jogged up to Ron and Hermione who were now both laughing and adding on to the now miraculous adventure of Ron's allergy to libraries and the search for the cure.

"Hey you guys, I need to go do something for a bit. If I don't make it to dinner bring me up something from the Great Hall, okay? I'll see you guys later." He immediately started to jog off to avoid questions, faintly hearing Ron yell something about Harry being his hero for curing him from the illness he never really had.

Harry cautiously walked into the infirmary. There weren't any students in there luckily for Harry. He didn't really want any of his inquiries to Madam Pomfrey to be overheard by students and twisted into some rumor about how Professor Trelawney's predictions about Harry's death were going to finally come true.