The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|105| Hospital Wing

I don't think I've ever run as fast as I did that evening. Hermione, Ginny, and I made our way down the corridor and up the stairs as soon as Professor McGonagall told us Ron was in the Hospital Wing. We didn't wait for her, no hesitation. My vision blurred as we ran, I willed myself to not cry. Pushing the doors of the ward open, I saw Harry standing around a bed.

"Miss Weasley, Miss Granger, Miss Potter, no running," Madam Pomfrey said sternly.

"S-Sorry Madam Pomfrey," I said and went over to Harry. "What happened?"

"He ate the chocolates Romilda Vane gave me and I had to get the anecdote from Slughorn. After he took it, Slughorn wanted a birthday toast for Ron, but the mead was poisoned," Harry said.

"Slughorn poisoned Ron?" Ginny breathed. Hermione sniffled behind me.

"I... I don't know," said Harry truthfully.

By the time everyone— Fred, George, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley— came, it was already past ten. We were kicked out after we checked on Ron. The hospital wing was quiet, the windows curtained, the lamps lit. Ron's was the only occupied bed. Harry, Hermione, and Ginny were sitting around him; Fred was holding me as I sat on the bed next to Ron; George was sitting at the foot of his bed. Madam Pomfrey had only let us enter at eight o'clock.

"So," Fred broke the silence, "all in all, not one of Ron's better birthdays?"

"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 moving to a seat 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?" I asked, wiping my nose.

"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?" George asked.

Harry retold the story he had already recounted to me and everyone else who had asked.

"...and then I got the bezoar down his throat and his breathing eased up a bit, Slughorn ran for help, McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey turned up, 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," said George in a low voice.

"Lucky there was one in the room," said Harry.

Hermione gave an almost inaudible sniff. She had been exceptionally quiet all day. Having hurtled, white-faced, up to Harry and demanded to know what had happened, she had taken almost no part in Harry's and my obsessive discussion about how Ron had been poisoned, but merely stood beside them, clench-jawed and frightened-looking, until at last they had been allowed in to see him.

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

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

"Yes," said Harry at once; he could think of nothing else and was glad for the opportunity to start discussing it again. "Slughorn poured it out —"