Another Prisoner, Another Professor

After falling off his broomstick during the Quidditch match, Harry is in the hospital wing.

He was very small, wrapped in a blue blanket, with plush animals lying next to him. He had just woken up and he was holding a yellow dragon, its face wet from his saliva; he sat up and put it with some of his other animals, a black dog on one side of the dragon and a gray dog on the other. He had been asleep for a long time and now he was hungry.

He could hear voices in another room, low and steady, then a light, pretty laugh. He called out and he heard his name; there were footsteps coming closer.

A loud noise made him cover his ears and suddenly it was cold in his room, far too cold for inside. He grabbed the two dogs and the dragon and started to cry. He was hungry and the cold made his face sting.

There were no footsteps now and in the other room there was shouting, screaming, and then a deep thud like when - when - when someone whom he couldn't remember landed outside in the garden. Landed? Landed what? Landed -

The footsteps were fast and he could see the red in front of him, the pretty long red that he knew now not to grab. Something was behind her, something in a black cloak like - like they wore sometimes in the winter when they took him to the big house and he lay on his blanket with his animals and with the other boy and his animals, the round boy.

She was screaming and he was frightened; he pressed his face against his dragon's belly so that everything went dark, but he could still hear her even though he tried not to:

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not - "

"Potter, it's time for breakfast."

He opened his eyes to see Madam Pomfrey standing next to his bed, holding a tray of pumpkin juice and porridge. "Oh my, you're sweating. I ought to check for a fever - "

"No, I'm fine," Harry said, pulling away his covers and reaching for his glasses on the nightstand. "I just - I had a bad dream."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Madam Pomfrey replied, nodding sagely. "I was planning on keeping you here for the rest of the weekend, but now there's no question about it."

"I'm fine," Harry insisted at once. If there was one thing he didn't need, it was another person feeling sorry for him. "I can go back to Gryffindor Tower, honestly."

"I'd rather stay on the safe side and keep you here," she said, handing him his tray. "If you keep improving you ought to be able to go back to classes on Monday morning."

Shortly after Harry had finished eating and changed into a new pair of pajamas, Ron and Hermione arrived and sat down on the edge of his bed, Ron with a bag of Ice Mice and Hermione with a pile of Harry's schoolbooks. "I told her not to bring those," Ron said at once, noticing Harry staring at the enormous stack. "If there's ever a time where the teachers will let you off without having done your work, it's now."

"Snape won't," said Hermione, setting the books down on Harry's nightstand and placing a quill on the top of the pile. "McGonagall probably won't either, you know how she is."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't explain why you brought his Charms book," Ron retorted. "We haven't even got Charms until Wednesday." He turned the spines of the books towards him and looked at them. "You even brought his Divination book! You think Divination is rubbish."

"Well, just because I think Divination is rubbish doesn't mean that we don't have an essay due on Thursday."

As much as he thought Professor Trelawney's brand of predicting the future was based on a lot of guessing and dramatic voices, since seeing the black dog in the stands during the Quidditch match Harry had begun to wonder whether Divination really was a useless branch of magic. He knew Hermione would say it was just a stray dog, but had anyone else ever seen a stray dog around Hogwarts before? Even if they had, he was positive no one else had seen one sitting eerily still in the Quidditch stands moments before they fell off their broomstick and plummeted to the ground.

"Here, have some Ice Mice," said Ron, passing Harry the bag. "Maybe if your teeth chatter enough Madam Pomfrey will think you're still sick and you can get out of more classes." Hermione gave him an irritated look.

"I'd rather go back, so people know I'm all right," Harry said, but he took the Ice Mice anyway. "I bet Malfoy's telling everyone I'm on the verge of death."

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other. "Well," said Hermione slowly, "he was being really horrible at breakfast. He was talking about you falling off your broom and he kept exaggerating everything."

"He's had practice at that," Harry remarked. "How long now has he been wearing bandages on the tiny scratch on his arm?"

"Weeks," said Ron. "I lost count."

"Hagrid's still really worried about Buckbeak," Hermione said as Harry took two Ice Mice from Ron's bag and slipped them into his mouth. "He thinks - "

She broke off, looking past Harry to the door at the end of the row of beds. Harry turned. Cedric Diggory was standing there, wearing jeans and a blue jumper and looking nervous.

"Er, hi," he said, walking over to Harry's bed and standing awkwardly by its side. "I just wanted to tell you that I -" He leaned closer and stared at Harry's mouth. "Are you all right? Your teeth are chattering."

"I-i-i-i-i-c-e M-i-i-i-i-i-i-c-e," said Harry, feeling himself blushing and desperately wishing he'd never eaten the stupid sweets at all. It was bad enough to have lost to Diggory without looking like an idiot on top of it. Suddenly he was conscious that Diggory's hair was waving softly down his neck and he smelled like some sort of cologne, while he himself hadn't washed his face or brushed his teeth. "H-h-h-h-h-h-here, s-s-s-s-i-i-i-i -"

"I think he's saying 'sit down'," said Hermione, rescuing Harry from his embarrassment.

Diggory sat on the side of the bed opposite from Ron and Hermione, his firm weight pushing down the mattress. "I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry about the whole match. I don't think it was fair, and I asked Madam Hooch if we could have a rematch, but she and Wood both thought Hufflepuff won legitimately. I don't think we did, but - well, I just wanted to tell you that. I'm really sorry."

"That's all right," Harry muttered, realizing the effects of the Ice Mice had worn off. "Thanks."

"You've still got a chance to win the Quidditch Cup, you know," Diggory said. "If we lose to Ravenclaw by something-hundred points or Slytherin loses to us by something - I can't remember, I'm not any good at maths."

"Yeah," said Harry. "That's what Fred and George said. About the points, I mean."

Diggory gave him a hesitant smile. "Well - see you later, then."

"Yeah," said Harry again, feeling stupider by the minute.

"What a moron," said Ron the minute Diggory had closed the door behind him. "What does he want, an award for being so bloody fair?"

"He was just trying to be nice," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "Honestly, Ron, do you have to assume the worst about him?"

"Look who talks," said Ron, "the girl who thinks Black is secretly out to get Harry, even though he told off Malfoy for us - "

As Ron and Hermione argued, Harry settled back into his pillows and shut his eyes for a second. If Professor Black didn't bring up the anti-dementor lessons again, Harry was going to. He couldn't take any more chances, not with a Quidditch Cup at stake and, more importantly, the terrified screams that echoed in his head. He knew the dream had been not just his imagination but a memory of the night Voldemort killed his parents. It was too vivid; there was something in his mind that recognized it, the way that a person could recognize the face of someone he hadn't seen in years, the face of an old enemy who had been out of sight but still every bit as dangerous.

As he opened his eyes and was just about to try to calm down Ron and Hermione, it occurred to him that when Diggory sat down, he could have sat on the empty bed next to Harry's.