Addiction and Withdrawal (2)
Don’t you get on me about Longbottom! He’s--” he faltered. “He’s not such a bad
bloke. Even if he is after Ginny. I never would have wished this on him. Don’t you think I wish
I’d known he was doing something dangerous? Don’t you think I’d have stopped him?”
“Would you? Do you care about anyone? Ginny turns fifteen, and all you can think is ‘shagging
time!’ Is that how you treat people you care about?”
Malfoy looked shocked. “Did she tell you that?”
Harry opened his mouth, then shut it. “Never mind.”
Suddenly Malfoy shoved him up against the wall and spoke very close to his face. “My
relationship with Ginny is between the two of us. You do not talk to me about her. Not if you
want my father...”
Harry pushed him off, sending him staggering into the opposite wall. He held his arm painfully.
“Stop telling me you’re not planning to do anything to your father. You want him where he can’t
touch you. That’s all the motivation you need.”
Malfoy glared at him. “Maybe. But watch your back; maybe the act I’ll catch him in--the one
that will get him sent to Azkaban--will be your murder.”
And with that, Malfoy went tripping down the stairs, leaving Harry seething outside the
infirmary. He had dropped Ron’s homework. He gathered it up, his head whirling as he
wondered how capable Draco Malfoy was of carrying out that last threat...
Then, after the first week of the term, Neville entered the second stage. George was sitting with
him when he starting flailing around; he gave George a bloody nose and a black eye, and from
then on, he was tied securely to the bed. He was eating food now and sometimes talking, but
usually it degenerated into incoherent raving, sometimes even cursing, followed by crying and
wailing, followed by hysterical laughter.
On the last Saturday of the month, Slytherin and Ravenclaw played their Quidditch match;
Slytherin won. Harry watched listlessly as Roger Davies and Draco Malfoy shook hands again
at the end. He was trying to think of Neville, and instead kept thinking of Hermione walking
across her dorm room with nothing on...
By the end of the weekend, he had stopped the violent outbursts, but he was still restrained. A
week after that, Madam Pomfrey took the restraints off and allowed him to go for escorted
walks on the grounds. Finally, a couple of days later, he was pronounced recovered, and
released from the infirmary.
Harry would never forget when Neville returned to the common room. He moved slowly; he
was very thin and pale, but his eyes were dark blue again. Fred and George escorted him to an
armchair, Ginny came and sat down on the floor next to him with her cat, Mackenzie, who was
now more than six months old and had the personality of a kitten still, while starting to have the
body of a full-grown cat. Mackenzie climbed up the arm of the chair and crept onto Neville’s
lap. He looked nervous about this, but cautiously reached out to pet the cat, who purred and
rubbed the side of her face against his hand. Harry watched with his heart in his throat.
Once back in the classroom, Neville seemed to be a little more alert than he had been before he
started taking the Mnemonis Potion, but not as alert as he was on it. Harry realized that that was
the other secret to Neville’s dueling success; the ability to remember a large number of obscure
spells and the ability to think very quickly (because of the potion) when deciding which one to
use next. Neville dropped out of the Dueling Club. Harry tried to talk him out of it, to no avail.
Neville's first Potions class after he was released from the hospital wing was more than a little
tense. Snape did not comment on his absence or the reason for it, but Harry did think it was
significant that he was paired up with Malfoy, and that the two of them had been placed at the
front of the class, closest to Snape.
Snape was writing the name of the day's potion on the blackboard: Euphemos Potion, page 477
in the potions text. Harry started; that was the potion Ginny and Malfoy were making on the day
he had made Eutharsos Potion. The day he asked Snape about his mother...
"Potter!" Snape's sharp voice brought him out of his head again. "Give your potions text to
Longbottom and Malfoy. They have both forgotten theirs today. I see Granger has hers, so you
can share that one."
Harry sighed and carried his book to the front, handing it to Neville, then walking back to the
rear work station he was sharing with Hermione. He marveled at Snape's ability to make it seem
like Harry was the one at fault for not knowing his potions text was needed up front, delivering it
before it was asked for. He also managed to make Hermione sound like she was at fault for
having her potions text. There was a time when he would have castigated Neville for not having
his book. Now he mostly seemed intent on ignoring him.
Harry remembered Snape sitting by Neville's bedside, sometimes checking his pulse, feeling his
forehead. Harry wondered how much he blamed himself for what happened to Neville, both
when he was a baby and his addiction to Eutharsos Potion. Then Harry realized that Snape may
or may not have known about Lockhart's overenthusiastic memory charm work. If he knew,
that might explain why Snape didn't like Lockhart. Then Harry realized that no one really
needed an extra reason to dislike Gilderoy Lockhart.
Harry was brought out of his head again by hearing his name, but this time he heard his first
name, not his last. It was Neville. He was handing a small cardboard rectangle to Malfoy, who
gaped at it. Both boys turned to look at Hermione and Harry. Sandy hissed at Harry.
“Much will be revealed.” What did that mean? he wondered. But he didn’t dare start talking to
her.
Malfoy handed the rectangle to Crabbe, behind him, who squeaked, a noise Harry had never
heard him make. Harry looked around, wondering where Snape had gone; Then he saw that the
office door was open. Snape must have gone to get something. What was Crabbe holding?
Why had Neville said his name? He wasn't actually addressing Harry. Crabbe leaned over to
Goyle, next to him, showing him the rectangle. Goyle's jaw dropped. He turned and handed it to
Parvati, in the row in front of Harry and Hermione. She gasped. She turned it over and read
softly; this time Harry heard "birthday," and Hermione's name.
Oh, no no no no no, he thought desperately. Tell me I didn't leave that in my potions text...
As if in a dream, he watched Parvati hand it to Ron, who was working beside her, with a smirk
on her face and an appraising look aimed at Hermione. Harry's stomach clenched as he waited
for Ron's reaction. He saw Ron standing utterly still staring at it; he turned it over and moved his
lips while silently reading the inscription. Slowly he turned and looked at Harry, stony-faced,
then Hermione. He dwelled on Hermione, though.
His expressions were a succession of hurt, betrayal, sadness and anger. Oddly, anger seemed
less than the other emotions. Hermione had only met his gaze for a moment, then looked down,
coloring.
Harry didn't see Snape come out of the office, but suddenly he was standing next to Ron,
holding out his hand expectantly with a grim set to his sallow face. Ron promptly handed the
photo to him; Snape's eyebrows rose, and the look of surprise Harry saw on his face was one
he'd only seen a few other times. He looked at Hermione, who was still staring down at the
table, starting to seem like she was going to cry from embarrassment. Then Snape did it; Harry
had felt it coming.
"Happy Birthday, Harry," he read from the back of the photo, his voice dripping with irony,
"With love from Hermione."
He held it out to Harry as though it were covered in dung. "I believe this is your property,
Potter." Harry took it hastily, shoving it into his rucksack, feeling a heat moving up his face
starting from his neck. "And," Snape continued, "Twenty points from Gryffindor for bringing--
inappropriate material to class."
Harry sputtered with the injustice of it; Neville and Malfoy forgot their books and he was the
one who got points deducted for Gryffindor. Hermione held her lips in a grim line, shaking her
head at him almost imperceptibly.
"All right," Snape said now. "For arguing with a teacher--" although he hadn't said a word "--
that will be a detention. Tonight at eight o'clock right here."
Harry was seething now; he had to remind himself that he and Snape were on the same side,
they were allies. He looked up to see Malfoy looking smugly at him, then turning a frankly
lascivious gaze on Hermione. Harry remembered the Hogwarts express and his reaction to
Krum kissing Hermione. Neville also had turned to look at Hermione, as well as Crabbe and
Goyle. Of the boys who'd seen the photo of her in her bikini on Corfu, only Ron would not look
at her now.
It was worse than the time Snape had read the Rita Skeeter article in class. Harry went through
the rest of the class in a daze, only speaking to Hermione when he absolutely had to in order to
make the potion. It was bad enough he felt like he wanted her all the time, especially since they
hadn’t so much as kissed since he found Neville; seeing the photograph again, and knowing that
others had seen it was almost unbearably distracting...
When class was over, Ron and Parvati strode out before anyone else, arms around each other's
shoulders. Ron avoided looking at Hermione still. Harry and Hermione looked at each other for
a moment, then packed up their potions supplies and cauldrons, the last ones to leave.
"Potter!" Snape said imperiously as he was going out the door. Harry waved Hermione on.
"I'll catch you up."
She nodded and went out; it looked to Harry as though she couldn't bear to meet Snape's eyes.
Harry stood waiting, his stomach still roiling with anger from the reprimand he'd received earlier.
If only I'd remembered I was using that photo as a bookmark...
When they were alone, Snape said tersely to him, "Good potions work today, Potter. Twenty
points for Gryffindor." First Harry thought, Has he gotten into the Euphemos Potion? Now
he can't say anything that's not nice? Then Harry realized that that would balance out the
points he'd taken earlier. "And--your godfather wanted to speak with you tonight, at eight. My
office."
Ah, thought Harry, that explains the detention. The anger that had been like a clenched fist in his
stomach suddenly evaporated. He had to stop reacting this way. Snape had no choice but to
put on a good show for the Slytherins. And the photo! If he had let it pass without comment of
any kind, it would have been most un-Snapelike, which was proving to be a very convenient
word, to Harry's mind.
"Yes sir," was all he said to Snape before shouldering his bag to leave. Hermione was waiting
for him in the corridor.
"Oh, Harry," she said, tears in her voice, "why did you have to leave that in your potions text?"
They walked up the stairs to the entrance hall. "I'm sorry, Hermione,” he whispered. “When
Snape told me to give my book to Neville, I forgot it was there..."
They had arrived in the entrance hall now. It was deserted except for one person: Ron. He
stood before them, all six-foot-three of him, looking like a volcano getting ready to blow.
"Would you like to explain to me," he said to Harry, "why in the bloody hell you have a photo
like that in your bloody potions text?" He turned to Hermione. "And why you gave it to him in
the first place?"
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