Harry Potter and the Hospital Wing
The following morning Madam Pomfrey gave a blushing Neville a stern lecture on being out of bed after hours, with particular attention to the health risks of being in a cold, draughty stairway ridden castle, and sent him back to Gryffindor tower. Harry, who felt fine, wanted to go with him, but she insisted that he stay in bed. “Magical exhaustion is not a joke, Mr. Potter. I’m not having you up and about yet. You only woke up yesterday. I dare say that you can still feel the absence. You can stay here today, and go back to the tower tomorrow.” So, Harry resigned himself to a day doing nothing.
Hermione, Ron and Neville came to see him during break, which cheered Harry up, and Hermione left him with a pile of notes from yesterday’s classes. These broke the boredom but weren’t what Harry would call fun.
He talked to Nagara a lot. It turned out that, in her own way, she was as worried as Harry about the confrontation in the forest. “Quirrell was going to hurt Harry. Harry wanted to hurt Quirrell. Nagara wanted to help Harry. So Nagara bit Quirrell and used venom to hurt him more. It made Nagara’s head feel cold. Then Harry fell over and Nagara was very worried. Large-Hagrid came and took Harry away to the castle. Nagara followed and went to warm-plant-buildings to wait for Neville. Neville didn’t come, but it was too cold for Nagara to get to Harry by herself. So Nagara waited. The next day Neville came. He took Nagara to Harry. Nagara worries because Harry says that biting people is wrong and will get him taken away. But Nagara had to bite Quirrell because Quirrell wanted to hurt Harry.”
Harry comforted her as best as he could. He didn’t think he’d still be in the school if he was going to be arrested. Neville had said Quirrell was dead or something. Harry wondered what that meant. Had Nagara’s bite killed him? Had Voldemort? Had Harry? If he was dead what was happening to Defence Against the Dark Arts? How had Quirrell, who everyone said was friendly, come to call Voldemort master? Questions filled Harry’s mind the more he went over everything he could remember Voldemort and Quirrell saying to him.
After lunch he had another visitor. Professor Dumbledore himself came to sit with Harry. Harry felt distinctly embarrassed. It was an unwritten rule that students shouldn’t argue with teachers and Harry felt certain that this went double for fighting and killing their teachers. But Professor Dumbledore didn’t look as though he was about to berate Harry. His blue eyes twinkled in the sun and his smile seemed to touch the whole of his face.
“How are you feeling, Harry?” he asked gently. Harry was suddenly very aware that he was wearing pyjamas.
“Fine,” he squeaked. He tried again, “I’m fine, sir, thank you.”
“Excellent. You had several people quite worried, you know.” Harry couldn’t think of a response, so he kept quiet. “Your friends have been badgering Madam Pomfrey, I understand, and I see you have already been given class notes. From yesterday, I assume?”
Harry nodded, “Hermione brought them to me after breakfast.”
“Excellent. By all means go through them, but, Harry, remember that Madam Pomfrey wants you to limit your magic for a few more days. The effort you went to in the forest, though short-lived, drained your magic to a point which could be quite dangerous.”
Harry nodded again. He didn’t feel ill, but, even with Nagara, he still felt there was something missing.
“And so, you faced Lord Voldemort again. How did you find that?”
“I-” Harry faltered. “I didn’t mean to.” Harry suddenly felt this was very important. He didn’t want Professor Dumbledore to think that he’d gone looking for Voldemort.
“To be sure. I understand that Professor Quirrell had to argue quite hard to orchestrate the meeting.”
“He said I kept getting in his way. I didn’t think I was getting in anyone’s way. He talked about Fluffy but that was an accident. And I didn’t mean to be in the forest when he met me there.”
“It is a curious thing, Harry, but those who behave suspiciously become suspicious of others. To you and your friends, with nothing more in your minds than your studies, your actions appeared totally innocent. To Professor Quirrell, afraid at every moment that someone would detect his intentions, your actions were the height of intrusiveness. It is remarkable how many plots have been foiled unintentionally.”
“Am I going to get in trouble about Fluffy?”
Dumbledore smiled in a suddenly mischievous way, “I have no evidence at all that you entered the corridor you were specifically told to avoid. Unless you tell me otherwise, I can only assume that you found out about Fluffy, what a name, through your friendship with Hagrid. Are you telling me otherwise, Harry?”
“Um… no?”
“Excellent! And Professor Sprout tells me that you and your friends are conducting quite an experiment because you did find out about Fluffy. I’m delighted that you are, but I must stress, Harry, that experiments like that must be overseen by an adult.” Harry nodded. Professor Sprout and Professor Snape had, between them, not let more than a fortnight pass between comments along the same lines.
Professor Dumbledore’s smile became grave again. “To return to Professor Quirrell then, Harry, did he tell you why he came to carry Lord Voldemort?”
“No sir, I don’t think so.” Harry screwed up his nose as he tried to remember. “He said I was getting in the way, and then Voldemort said something in parseltongue, and I asked Professor Quirrell who he’d brought with him, and then Voldemort got Quirrell to take off his turban. He was just sticking out the back of his head! It was horrible!” Harry ran his hands over his own head in a sudden need to be certain there was no one there.
“Did you speak to Voldemort, Harry?”
“Yeah, he said he wanted me to know who was going to kill me. He said it would be an honour. He said-” Harry broke off, suddenly remembering, “he said he’d come to kill my parents because they wanted to stand up to him, and they thought I would too. He said it like that was important, I think.”
“Do you want to stand up to Voldemort, Harry?”
Harry bit his lip. He wanted confirmation from the headmaster that he was, as Neville had said, not evil. But he didn’t want to risk seeing disappointment in those kind blue eyes. He thought about what he knew of Voldemort. “Yes. Because he killed my parents. And because he’d want to kill Hermione.” Harry thought of his mother, crying out her love in a mirror. Voldemort had done that. Voldemort had made her cry.
“So your parents weren’t wrong, Harry. You would have stood up to Voldemort. As they did themselves.”
“Why couldn’t he kill me?” Harry’s question was a whisper. It was a question that had haunted him all his life. He heard echoes of his aunt why you couldn’t have died with your parents I shall never know! He heard Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge should have drowned him, that’s what we do with animals that come from bad blood. He felt again the longing to push through the mirror, to join his parents, embrace them for the first, the only, time in his life. “Why didn’t I die too?”
“That,” said Professor Dumbledore, sighing deeply and suddenly looking very old, “is a bit of a mystery, Harry. What is known is that you mother died to save you. The magic of souls is a complex and powerful field which is best approached with caution. But it is my belief that, in sacrificing herself, your mother gave you protection. Her sacrifice, her love, lives in you, and defends you from Voldemort. He could not kill you that night, and he did not hurt you in the forest, because she loved you.”
Harry found he had to look away from the blue gaze as those words sank in. When he was sure he had control of himself again, Harry asked, “what did happen in the forest, sir? How come he went away?” Another question struck and he appended, “how do you know anyway?”
“As to that,” Dumbledore returned his gaze to Harry from the window, where he had apparently been watching a bird, “I am a wizard Harry, and, if I say it myself, rather a powerful one. And Voldemort, I have just told you Harry, you carry the protection of your mother’s love. To Quirinus- ah, Professor Quirrell to you, Harry- and to Voldemort, love is, or was, anathema. That is to say that for someone who had sunk so low as to share body and soul with Voldemort, who is filled with greed, ambition, hatred, and pride, the touch of love was enough to destroy them. Voldemort fled Professor Quirrell when you touched him.”
“I didn’t love him. I hated him.” Harry had to know, “I hated him, because he killed my parents. Am I- Am I like him?”
“Think Harry!” exclaimed Professor Dumbledore, eyes suddenly bright, “think! You said it yourself. You hated him because he killed your parents. You said you would stand up to him to protect your friend Miss Granger. You may have hated, Harry, but that hatred was driven by love. Voldemort’s is not. His hatred is driven by envy, by fear, by prejudice, and by pride. Only if you let those emotions dictate your life, Harry, will you become like Voldemort.”
Harry felt considerably cheered up by this. He did remember being afraid for Nagara, but it was protective fear, he reasoned, and therefore acceptable.
A jingling noise sounded from Professor Dumbledore’s pocket and he pulled out a watch. Harry looked, curious to see the time. But there was no time on the clock face, if Harry could call it that. It had lots of hands, and planets seemed to be moving around it. Dumbledore pocketed it again, and smiled at Harry’s apparent bafflement. “I find I need to keep track of more than the passage of hours, Harry. The watch helps me to do that. But now, I must leave you again. I have taken over Professor Quirrell’s classes until the end of term, and must get back to my classroom so that your fellow students can find me.”
He stood to go but stopped at the foot of Harry’s bed. “Incidentally, Harry, you said Voldemort spoke in parseltongue. Did you understand him?”
Harry briefly considered lying but decided against it, “yes, Sir. I always have.”
“I should keep that to myself if I were you, Harry. People might not like it.”
“Yes, Sir.”
***
When Harry was allowed out of the Hospital wing the following morning, under stern instructions not to do any magic for the next week, he felt oddly out of place. For the last two days he had been in a kind of suspension, while the world passed him by. Now he was back and trying to make up for the two previous days, while also keeping pace with the present. His three friends were invaluable. Hermione made sure he had all his homework done, Neville had made sure that Suku and Nagara were cared for, and Ron caught him up with the gossip of the last few days.
Most noticeable was that Neville had been talking to Susan Bones and her friend Hannah Abbot when Malfoy had surprised them. Susan had been on the verge of tears at whatever Neville had said, when Hannah up and punched Malfoy for laughing at her. Ron said that Malfoy was now spreading the story that they had been comparing what happened to their parents. Ron put on the high, nasal voice he always used to quote Malfoy and said, “as if it’s a competition for the worst sob story.”
Ron made a face and returned to his normal voice, “he’s just annoyed that Ravenclaw overtook Slytherin in house points yesterday. Apparently, their Seeker and a bunch of other seventh years tried to set a booby trap in the quidditch changing rooms. They got into loads of trouble.” Harry grinned. Quidditch practice was another thing that was currently prohibited, so Harry had promised only to watch during the next two practices. He hadn’t told Oliver Wood yet but imagined that the captain wouldn’t be happy.
Neville looked sheepish when Harry accosted him with “I thought we were going to see Susan together!”
“Sorry Harry, I just- It- I thought we were alone, and it seemed like a good time, and Hannah’s really nice and wouldn’t say anything, so I just, sort of, asked, and- and then she started to cry.” He trailed off, looking guilty.
“And then Malfoy showed up and got what he deserved,” Ron added, stoutly.
“Well,” Harry said, “he wasn’t wrong. You were comparing sob stories. And I’m going to find Susan and compare them too. There’s nothing wrong with being an orphan. Or, you know,” he floundered as he looked at Neville.
“What?” Ron asked, not understanding.
“It’s nothing,” Neville whispered.
“Nothing!” Harry repeated, “come on, I wanted to check some things about Nagara’s eyes in the library. Hermione might be onto something with her metal theory.”
Between Quidditch, homework, revising, and four days in the hospital wing Harry hadn’t had a lot of time to think about Nagara’s eyes. Hermione had occasionally mentioned some new fact, and had most recently been looking into leaded glass. Harry had been content to let her do the legwork, feeling that he would devote time to it over the summer. Since Nagara had acknowledged to him that she had deliberately attempted to incapacitate Quirrell, and had then deliberately killed him, Harry was feeling rather more urgency for a solution.
One afternoon Harry sought out Professor Dumbledore in the Defence classroom to ask him whether it was known how Professor Quirrell had died. Professor Dumbledore explained, kindly, but sadly, that Voldemort forcibly leaving Quirrell’s body had left a nasty hole in the back of Quirrell’s head, which had, it was felt by staff and auror’s alike, killed him. He further explained that Harry was not to feel guilty for any of it, as Quirrell would have known that such a cohabitation with Voldemort would have left him dead when it ended, and that Quirrell must therefore have accepted his own demise many months previous.
Harry was left with a strange double feeling: at once relieved that it hadn’t been Nagara who had caused Quirrell’s death, despite the snakes best efforts, and simultaneously berating himself for not feeling any guilt before or after this conversation with the headmaster.