Halfway through herbology it started, the coughing, it was minor at first, just a single random cough, but that single cough steadily grew into a harsh coughing fit. "You ok, Harry?" Padma asked, giving her friend a worried look, as the coughing fit began again. "I'm fine, Padma," Harry replied, waving away her concern.
"If you say so," she replied, giving her friend another concerned look as he coughed again; she noticed both Daphne and Tracy looking over.
Harry's coughing grew steadily worse through the lesson, attracting the attention of Professor Sprout. "Mr. Potter, are you alright?" the herbology professor enquired.
"I'll be fine Madam, it's just a cough," Harry stated, waving away her concern, before coughing again violently, the coughs sounding harsh and unforgiving.
The head of Hufflepuff house gave Harry a pointed look, clearly disagreeing with him, "Mr. Potter, I think you should go to the hospital wing and get yourself checked out immediately," her tone of voice making it clear that this was a command and not a request that he could refuse.
"Yes Professor," Harry reluctantly agreed, before coughing up some darkish blood, his hands shooting out to grab hold of the desk to support himself, as Padma jumped back away from the desk, several of her watching classmates gasping in shock and horror. Professor Sprout's face paled by several shades.
"You're definitely not alright Mr. Potter!" Professor Sprout declared as she gave the Ravenclaw seeker another alarmed look as Harry coughed up some more blackish blood, even as a faint drop of blood bled from his left eye, the dark red blood running down his paling flesh, just as more blood started to run from his nose.
"Come with me now, class dismissed," the professor stated, the worry easily detectable in her voice as she pulled Harry out of the greenhouse. However, the pair didn't even get past the greenhouse door before Harry suddenly went completely slack, his body dropping like a puppet with its strings cut as Harry started violently coughing up more blood on the gravel path, the blood covering the stones beneath him.
Professor Sprout's wand quickly appeared in her hand. Padma watched the head of Hufflepuff wave her wand over the coughing Harry, the tip of her wand turning an eerie black.
"Mr. Potter has been poisoned, he needs to be taken to the hospital wing immediately," Sprout declared in a panic, even as she cast a levitation charm on Harry and took off running with him in tow. It took Padma a moment to process the professor's panicked words, before she instinctively gasped in shock, much like the rest of the class, her hand slamming over her mouth as panic started to surge through her.
...
At the Same Time
Professor McGonagall was having a chaos filled day, even more so than usual given her chosen choice of career.
First, she was forced to deal with running the school, as the headmaster had been called away on urgent business at the Ministry of Magic to prevent an extreme anti-creature bill from being passed. This ultimately left her to handle the business of managing all this Valentine's Day chaos, caused by Professor Lockhart and a dozen dwarves running around the school. Truth be told, she privately suspected that the headmaster had arranged this urgent business intentionally, so that he wouldn't have to deal this headache himself.
However her internal ranting was abruptly interrupted as her office door violently burst open, with young Dean Thomas running into the room in a near panic.
"Professor, come quick, something is seriously wrong with Neville! He just suddenly started coughing up a lot of blood in the middle of the common room!" Dean explained between several fast breaths.
It took her a couple of moments to process what Dean was saying, as she mentally replayed what he was saying over in her head at a much slower pace. Once she realized what had been said, she leapt into action, displaying a surprising amount of quickness and energy for her age.
"What happened? Tell me everything," she instructed Mr. Thomas, as she quickly made her way towards the Gryffindor common room at a near run.
"He just started up coughing. It wasn't much at first, but it grew worse and worse, the coughing fit lasting longer each time. We thought at first that it was some type of plank, a coughing jinx or hex, then he started coughing up dark blood," Dean explained, as he hurried to keep up with her fast pace. "Then I came to get you Professor."
"Did none of the older students try to help?" she asked, wondering why the portraits hadn't reacted and notified her immediately. They could travel very fast through the other frames.
"Some of them tried to help, but it just seemed to make things worse. Hermione even tried some non-magical techniques," he replied, her face turned even grimmer at the news.
Her mind quickly went through several different possibilities to explain away Neville's sudden sickness and coughing of blood, before her mind stopped on assassination. Already there had been a number of attempts on Neville's life throughout the years before coming to school, and two happening during two separate quidditch matches, both the boy's first year and second year.
She began to quicken her pace instinctively. But she didn't voice this out loud; it wouldn't do to panic the young lad.
...
( Number 12 )
Harry looked up from the textbook he was reading to see his godfather standing in the bedroom doorway, his face grim and serious. "Something has gone wrong hasn't it?" he asked carefully, his godfather just nodding in response.
"What happened?" he asked, as he closed his book and gave his full attention to his godfather.
"Your auror replacement was poisoned for real, and unfortunately died. Neville Longbottom was poisoned as well, but is hanging on by a thread. We don't know if Neville will live through the night," Sirius offered grimly, his eyes meeting Harry's own. "There is another assassin out there, not just Pettigrew," Harry just looked out the window at this grim piece of news.
His godfather's words caused him to close his eyes as he thought about the terrible news, the auror's real poisoning and subsequent death and the attempt on a fellow classmate had shaken him deeply. Personally, he didn't like Neville, but he still wouldn't want the fool to be hurt or killed. "Despite the auror's unfortunate death this can be worked to our advantage Sirius. It will bring the Longbottoms and their allies onto our side and strengthen Madam Bones' resolve. It will also increase the severity of the charges brought against Lord Malfoy," Harry voiced coldly.
Sirius gave him another look, before finally agreeing with him. "Indeed, despite this, Madam Bones and the Headmaster have agreed that the plan will still go forward. It's still our best chance to catch Lucius in the act and bring him down for good; it just needs to be adapted in light of the new circumstances."
...
( Friday )
Sitting on the rim of an empty hospital bed, his hands resting on the soft white bed sheets, he felt all his many years weighing on him as he watched the nurse hurriedly work on her sole patient, desperately working to restore Neville's health and heal the extensive damage done by the destructive poison.
As far as the rest of the world was concerned it was a miracle that Neville was still alive. It was yet another chapter to add to the boy's elaborate life story, at least that was what everyone else was led to believe. He certainly wasn't going to correct them.
He pinched the bridge of his nose in thought whilst he looked down on the prone form of Neville Longbottom, Britain's young saviour. The child's face was relaxed and restful despite the physical torment that the second year had just gone through. He now knew what young Neville was, why the boy could sense the Dark Lord, why the boy's magical core was so well developed for his age, and just why the boy was a parselmouth.
He looked down yet again at the lightning shaped curse scar on his brow even as his powerful, occlumency enhanced mind went over the exact wording of the prophecy for the thousandth time, and what the curse scar truly meant...how it all fit together.
After all 'mark him as his equal,' took on a much greater, more sinister meaning when you considered that Neville was actually carrying a fragment of the Dark Lord's twisted and corrupt soul within him... The boy was an unknowing abomination of dark magic; Neville was a living horcrux, a soul anchor for the fallen Dark Lord, just like the cursed diary found upon Ginny Weasley.
These horcruxes chained the dark wizard to this plane of existence and prevented his soul from passing on to the next life. He let out a depressed sigh before it caught in his throat, as he suddenly realized in dawning horror that as long as Neville was alive, the horcrux would endure, and thus so would Lord Voldemort.
Neville had to die for Lord Voldemort to die, or the rogue soul fragment had to be removed by the Dark Lord himself, but the question was how?
But, the horcrux was also unintentionally anchoring Neville to this plane of existence as well, preventing the child of prophecy from dying when others would have most certainly. His tired mind once again went over the exact wording of the prophecy, as he started to understand its full, twisted meaning.
"Headmaster, are you alright?" Poppy asked from her place by his bedside.
Acutely feeling his age for once, he gave a tired sigh, "Fine my dear, just lost in thought," he replied, as the healer nodded her head in understanding before turning back to her primary patient.
...
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