Chapter 141 — The Chair Beside the Bed

Pomfrey lifted the edge of my dressing and stopped talking. After everything else that evening, I found the silence remarkably effective; I sat still while she inspected the part I had been hoping would look better than it felt.

‘How much running?’ she asked. I told her it had been more than I ought to have done, and she looked up at me. ‘That is not a quantity, Mr Mercer.’

I had no useful quantity to offer. My shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat now that I had stopped asking it to do anything, and she cleaned the disturbed edges before checking my palm and making me move my knee. By the time she finished, sitting still required no persuasion.

‘You’ve aggravated it. You will remain here tonight and stop testing whether pain can be ignored.’ She reached for a fresh dressing while Ron looked down at his supported leg as though he had finally won an argument.

The door opened before he could mention it. Luna stood there in her outdoor scarf, one end nearly reaching her knee and her hair caught under the other. She said my name while looking from the bandage in Pomfrey’s hand to my face.

‘I’m here,’ I answered. It was obvious, but it was the only useful thing I could think of as she crossed the ward and stopped beside the bed.

Her hand rose towards my shoulder, changed direction and settled against the iron bedstead. Pomfrey finished the clean dressing, then told her she could sit with me provided she did not help me out of bed.

‘I wasn’t going to,’ Luna said. Pomfrey called that excellent news, with enough emphasis to make it clear how unusual she found the intention, and moved towards Harry.

Luna pulled the chair closer and unwound her scarf. It sat badly folded in her lap while she looked at the things on my table: watch, glass, robe and a dose of medicine waiting for me.

‘Someone said you’d been bitten,’ she said. Her eyes returned to the bandage as I explained that they were claw marks and Pomfrey had checked them.

She looked towards the matron, who nodded before going on to Harry’s bed. Only then did Luna take my left hand.

‘You could have asked someone to find me.’ Her fingers were cold, and I closed mine around them while trying to decide what part of the evening could excuse that.

There were explanations for the hours before the ward, and the time I had barely been awake, and the urgent business afterwards. None explained why her first reliable information had come from looking at my bandages.

‘I should have asked. I’m sorry.’ I moved my thumb over her knuckles, and she sat nearer without letting go.

‘I kept hearing different things,’ she said. ‘It was hard to work out which person had actually seen you.’

‘Some of the stories were probably invented before we got back.’ That nearly earned a smile, but I did not try to turn it into another joke. ‘I’ll tell you what I can, properly.’

Harry had been listening. When Pomfrey moved away, he pushed himself higher against his pillows and told Luna that Sirius had not betrayed his parents. She turned towards him while her hand stayed in mine.

‘We saw Peter Pettigrew alive,’ Harry said. ‘Lupin made him change back, and Snape saw him too.’

I explained enough of the discovery for Luna to understand how the man from the old newspaper had spent years as Ron’s rat. Ron supplied the indignity of the pocket himself; Hermione corrected which pocket only when he began implicating every piece of clothing he owned.

‘He was in my room,’ Ron finished. ‘For years.’ The attempted joke had gone out of his voice by the time he said it.

‘That’s a horrible thing to find out,’ Luna said. Ron agreed without trying to improve the sentence, and for a little while nobody spoke.

We told her Pettigrew had escaped and Sirius had got away before the Ministry could take him. Harry glanced at me as the account reached that point, leaving the next part for me to explain.

‘There are details of how he left that we can’t pass round,’ I said. ‘Other people would be put at risk.’

Luna nodded, though her gaze stayed near my bandage. ‘Is he somewhere safe now?’ she asked Harry.

‘He’s away from here. He said he’d write when he could.’ His voice caught, and she waited without making the pause feel like an audience gathering round him. ‘He knew my parents before I was born.’

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‘Then I hope he writes a very long letter.’ Luna shifted her scarf before it could slide off her lap, and Harry smiled down at the blanket.

‘Do you ever forget things about your mum?’ he asked. I looked at Luna, who kept watching him rather than turning towards the rest of us.

‘Yes. Sometimes I remember them suddenly afterwards.’ She tucked the scarf beside her on the chair. ‘It can be a very inconvenient place to start crying.’

‘Does talking about her help?’ Harry asked. His wand lay on the table beside him, and he rested his hand near it while waiting for her answer.

‘Sometimes. I like telling people things she used to say.’ Luna thought for a moment before adding, ‘I don’t like being told I must feel better because I’ve told them.’

Harry nodded slowly. He wanted to ask Sirius everything and did not know where to begin; Hermione suggested writing the questions down, and Ron pointed out he did not have to fit them all into one letter.

‘I’d ask what made her laugh,’ Luna said. Harry stayed quiet for a while, then asked me for paper.

I reached left-handed towards my notebook and stopped at Pomfrey’s look from the end of the ward. Luna took it instead and gave him an ordinary sheet from the back. He settled it on the firm cover and began without anyone asking him to read the first question aloud.

Hagrid arrived before visiting time ended. He nearly filled the doorway, then seemed unable to move any further; Dumbledore had told him Buckbeak was alive, and that was all he could get out at first. He blew his nose into a handkerchief large enough to serve as a towel while Ron beckoned him over.

‘I thought, when I couldn’t find him—’ Hagrid stopped to look at us. ‘An’ then all that with you lot.’

‘He’s alive,’ I said. Hagrid nodded hard and patted my uninjured arm with enormous care.

‘So are you. All of yeh.’ Hermione made space for a chair, which he inspected doubtfully before deciding how much weight to trust to it.

The ward felt larger after he left. Pomfrey began sending visitors away, despite Hermione’s insistence that she could remain perfectly quietly; Ron pointed out she had already fallen asleep over her sleeve. She objected to his accuracy, stood and nearly forgot the glass he had given her.

Luna rose more slowly. ‘I’ll come tomorrow,’ she said, taking up the scarf while keeping hold of my hand.

‘I should be—’ I stopped at her raised eyebrows. ‘Here. Unless Pomfrey says otherwise.’

‘That sounds more likely.’ She folded the scarf over her arm and waited, perhaps because I still had not let go.

There was no next emergency to hide behind. I simply wanted her to stay, and when I asked whether she could come early, she promised to try if they would let her. She bent to kiss my cheek; I turned carefully, nearly caught her nose with mine and managed to kiss her properly before either of us had to rearrange the effort.

It was brief and awkward and better than the sentence I had been preparing. Luna smiled against my forehead and told me to sleep, then squeezed my hand once before releasing it.

Ron waited for the door to close. ‘Pomfrey should have let her give the orders,’ he said, drawing his blanket higher when I asked whether he had volunteered to take Hermione’s.

Harry laughed, winced and decided against doing it again. I drank the medicine while my watch ticked through an evening that was, at last, happening only once for me.

***

The following morning did not bring a convenient ending to anything else. The Prophet still wanted Sirius caught, and its report mentioned an unidentified accomplice without saying anything about Snape’s signed account. Harry read it twice before folding the page with unnecessary precision.

‘The Headmaster is still pressing for the evidence to be considered,’ McGonagall said. She had brought the paper and noticed how he held it. ‘What you witnessed has not ceased to matter.’

‘They can still take him if they find him,’ Harry said. She did not offer a reassuring answer she could not support, and he put the newspaper down beside him.

There were more questions for us about the Shack, Pettigrew and the broken bottle. I kept to what I had seen while McGonagall took notes; remembering part of an evening twice did not make me an eyewitness to things that had happened elsewhere. When Snape came to speak to Pomfrey, Harry asked him to stay.

‘I need to apologise,’ he said. The professor turned, his shoulder moving stiffly beneath his robes. ‘For firing at you. I thought you’d stop us finding out, and I didn’t wait.’

‘You did not merely fail to wait.’ Snape stopped beside the bed, leaving Harry to answer while McGonagall watched from the other side.

‘I know. I broke the bottle, and you were hurt.’ Harry gripped the blanket. ‘I’m sorry.’

Snape looked at him long enough for a turning page at Pomfrey’s desk to become audible. ‘I had brought medicine,’ he said. ‘Your spell put it on the floor.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Harry kept looking at him. I wanted to say none of us had understood quickly enough, but that would have answered an accusation Snape had not made.

‘We will deal with the attack when Madam Pomfrey releases you,’ McGonagall said. ‘Two detentions, supervised by me. You’ll begin with a written account of your decisions and the alternatives you ignored.’

Harry nodded and looked down at his hands. McGonagall waited until he raised his eyes before continuing.

‘This is not permission to blame yourself for every adult decision that evening. Professor Lupin was responsible for his treatment. You are responsible for attacking a teacher; keep those facts separate.’

Snape’s mouth tightened, but he did not contradict her. Harry thanked him for telling the others about Pettigrew before he could turn away.

‘I told them what I saw,’ Snape replied. Harry said he knew, and neither tried to make it into forgiveness or friendship.

After Snape left, Harry let out a breath he had been holding badly enough to make his chest hurt. I pushed the newspaper further from his hand, and he left it there while McGonagall gathered her notes.

Luna arrived later with a book she said I would enjoy and another she thought I would argue with. She put both within reach before sitting down, explaining that she had not been sure which would keep me in bed longer.

‘The second sounds safer for everyone else,’ I said. She agreed and opened the first across our knees while I moved over as far as Pomfrey allowed. Luna began to read, and for once I had no reason to ask the morning to go faster.