The Son of Mystery - Harry Potter Male Insert

Puzzle Pieces

All in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?" said Fred.

It was evening; the hospital wing was quiet, the windows curtained, the lamps lit. Ron's was the only occupied bed. Harry, Y/N, Lauren, Hermione, 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 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.

"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 Y/N and Lauren and looked at Ron's pale face. "How exactly did it happen?"

Y/N retold the story he had already recounted, it felt like a hundred times to Dumbledore, to McGonagall, to Madam Pomfrey, to Hermione, to Lauren, and to Ginny.

"...And then I held his nose so he had to breathe through his mouth, and Harry got the bezoar down his throat. Slughorn ran for other teachers, McGonagalla and Pomfrey were the first to show up and Ron was taken here. They say he'll be okay. Pomfrey said he'll have to stay in here for about a week or so... keep taking the essence of rue."

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

"Lucky there was one in the room and that Harry didn't freeze when I realised what had happened," said Y/N quietly, who regretfully had thought about what would have happened had they not been able to get their hands on one. Lauren leant her head on Y/N's shoulder, an act that she hadn't done properly since before he had started Hogwarts, so he let her, his heart warming slightly.

Hermione gave an almost inaudible sniff. She had been exceptionally quiet all day. Having hurtled, white-faced, up to Y/N and Harry outside the hospital wing and demanded to know what had happened, with Y/N concluding quickly that the mead Slughorn had given them was poisoned, with the Potions master having mentioned that he was meant to give the mead to Dumbledore as a present. 

"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 they all watched Ron mumble a little in his sleep.

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

"Yeah," said Y/N, eyeing Harry to keep him from jumping to conclusions. "Slughorn poured it out and Ron downed the lot before any of us could even take a sip."

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

"It wasn't Slughorn," Y/n shook his head, "No, right before he gave us the drink, he said he'd been meaning to gift the mead to Dumbledore-"

"So you're saying Slughorn meant to poison Dumbledore?" asked Ginny.

"No," said Y/N. "There's a chance it was poisoned without Slughorn's knowledge, meaning someone might've been trying to poison Slughorn, which could have been disastrous if he had given it to Dumbledore."