by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Thirty-Three: Slytherin
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The hospital wing wasn't a terribly fun place to be. Harry had known that ever since first year, but of course he'd never been laid up for quite this long before. At least at first he'd had plenty of company, people dropping by at odd hours, catching him between classes; visitors from every House but Slytherin.
Well, every House including Slytherin, if you counted Draco Malfoy. At least his newfound affinity for Harry's company hadn't lasted past Harry's stunt with the letter. Draco had made himself absolutely scarce in the two days that had passed since then.
But then again, so had nearly everyone. Ron and Hermione still came by three times each day, but nobody else, not even from Gryffindor. His only other visitors were staff members. McGonagall came by just once, Harry noted. He couldn't help but think dark thoughts at that. In contrast, Snape, who wasn't even his Head of House, was a surprisingly frequent presence despite his heavy work schedule. They talked more about magic, and ate together more than once, and whenever it was time, Snape would salve just his back and let Harry take care of the rest of it. He also told the Medi-Witch to stop worrying whenever Harry wanted to get out of bed. Blessed relief -- Harry could finally make his own way over to the loo.
He still hadn't had a chance to carefully examine the letter Draco had drafted. He knew from squinting at his textbooks that his eyes weren't up to reading yet, so he'd have to use the talking quill, and he never had a moment alone! Well, unless he wanted to take the letter to the loo, but he wasn't that desperate to hear it. Actually, the thought of hearing it made him feel faintly ill; he had really said some terrible things... but then again, Draco had deserved to hear them, so Harry wasn't going to feel that bad about it.
Still, he couldn't quite help remembering the things Snape had said. Indulging his anger like that was probably pretty Gryffindor of him, but it certainly hadn't been cunning in the least. What if Draco had really been trying to turn, and Harry's complete contempt for him really did end up pushing him back toward Voldemort's camp?
Of course that was ridiculous -- Draco wasn't really turning toward the light. He couldn't be. He had no real reason, and that vapid rationale of his... It was just so awful what my father did to you... well, that wasn't going to wash, it really wasn't. The Draco Harry knew wouldn't give a shrivelfig about the Boy Who Lived being tortured and killed, so that was no real reason to switch loyalties.
Which meant, of course, that Snape was wrong. Draco had some trick up his sleeve, some evil plot, something positively diabolical, and it was anybody's guess what part the wand played in all of it. Harry sighed thinking about it all. He really, really wished that Snape hadn't gotten drawn into this Draco-is-good-after-all fantasy. Still, maybe it wasn't so surprising that the normally wily Potions Master had been taken in. It must get awfully lonely being the only good Slytherin in the history of the House.
No, no, Draco simply wasn't to be trusted; Harry was sure of that much.
He was sure of something else, too: there was something odd going on at Hogwarts. Why had his floods of well-wishers suddenly disappeared just at the time when, paradoxically, he was never left by himself in the ward? It was very strange. Before, there'd been times when nobody was around... Or at least he thought so; he had been blind, after all. Now though, there was always an adult present. Always. Usually, there was more than one about, and they were never too far away from his bed, either. Like... they were expecting something.
Harry had had just about enough of it, and enough of the hospital wing, for that matter, "When can I start going back to classes?" he abruptly demanded one day.
He didn't think he could have caused a bigger ripple of shock if he'd asked instead when he could go visit Voldemort. The room fell silent, absolutely silent, which was really saying something, as the moment before Ron had been telling Hermione a joke, Professor Snape had been debating some Latin incantation with the headmaster, and Madame Pomfrey had been fooling around with the enchanted quill. She said she was examining its usefulness for the hospital wing, but Harry thought she just plain liked to hear it blathering on and on as she made it read from mediwizard texts.
"What?" Harry pressed after a second or two of that dead silence. "I can see for about six hours at a stretch, now. Stuff's awful blurry..." Now that was an understatement... "but even if all I could do was listen, I'd still want to attend lessons."
Still, dead silence, until in exasperation Harry finally exclaimed, "Hermione, what's the matter? I can't believe you want me to fall further behind!"
If he squinted hard, he could just make out a fuzzy image of her sort of drooping. "Nobody wants you to fall behind, Harry," she quietly asserted. "But... ah... I don't think you really realize what's been going on while you've been laid up."
"Perhaps Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger should leave," the headmaster gently suggested.
"Why should we?" Ron erupted. "We already know what you're going to tell Harry! Everybody knows!"
It was very disheartening, Harry thought, to once more know less about himself than everyone else seemed to. "Yeah, well why don't I know?" he waspishly demanded.
"We didn't want to upset you while you were recovering," Hermione delicately began.
Ron scoffed out loud. "Oh sure, like finding out Draco Malfoy's in deep shite is going to upset Harry!"
"It's stress," Hermione hissed, "because Malfoy's problems are the same as Harry's! And he doesn't need more stress, Ron! Don't you remember yesterday? The juice?"
Harry scowled. She would make a big deal of it. So what if he'd yelped and flung pumpkin juice all over the bed when Ron had handed him the glass? He'd just been startled, that was all. Ron's fingers had brushed his when he wasn't braced for it...
"It is so nice to be mental enough that my friends are afraid to talk to me about anything real!" Harry suddenly shouted. "There's more news than just Dennis and Colin dating the same girl without knowing it, I take it? And you didn't tell me!"
Ron cleared his throat, and put in, "The headmaster said it would be better---"
"Oh, the headmaster keeping me out of the loop. Big effing surprise, there!"
"Gryffindors, out!" Snape announced, advancing on Harry's friends, who bid him a rather alarmed goodbye before the Potions Master practically swept them from the room. Harry heard the door being slammed, then thoroughly warded, and wondered over that.
"Mr. Weasley's asinine convictions aside," Snape sneered as he stalked back, "everybody does not know all we must reveal to you."
Harry sighed, pushing away from his pillows to sit up straight. He reached awkwardly out to grasp the water on his night-table, and took a drink. Good thing he hadn't given into the urge to throw it. He was just sick of secrets, even though he knew he was just as guilty as his friends of not coming completely clean about everything. Since waking up at Hogwarts, he'd told them about his aunt, and the operation, and he'd even admitted he was afraid of needles...
He hadn't told them, though, much about Samhain. Or Devon, or about Snape not hating him at all. Or about how he really needed Snape sometimes, now. They wouldn't understand... well, Hermione might understand some of it, he supposed. She wasn't quite so irrational about Snape as Ron was, but the way she liked to play amateur psychiatrist was so annoying that he didn't want to get into details about his stress and how he was dealing with it. She'd probably agree with Madame Pomfrey that he was nutters to want Snape touching him, after all that. And of course Ron would blow a gasket if the word touch came up in the same conversation as the name Snape.