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There was a pause while they all watched Ron mumble a little in his sleep.

“So the poison was in the drink?” said Fred quietly.

“Yes,” said Harry at once; he could think of nothing else and was glad for the opportunity to start discussing it again. “Slughorn poured it out—”

“Would he have been able to slip something into Ron’s glass without you seeing?”

“Probably,” said Harry, “but why would Slughorn want to poison Ron?”

“No idea,” said Fred, frowning. “You don’t think he could have mixed up the glasses by mistake? Meaning to get you?”

“Why would Slughorn want to poison Harry?” asked Ginny.

“I dunno,” said Fred, “but there must be loads of people who’d like to poison Harry, mustn’t there? ‘The Chosen One’ and all that?”

“So you think Slughorn’s a Death Eater?” said Ginny.

“Anything’s possible,” said Fred darkly.

“He could be under the Imperius Curse,” said George.

“Or he could be innocent,” said Ginny. “The poison could have been in the bottle, in which case it was probably meant for Slughorn himself.”

“Who’d want to kill Slughorn?”

“Dumbledore reckons Voldemort wanted Slughorn on his side,” said Harry. “Slughorn was in hiding for a year before he came to Hogwarts. And…” He thought of the memory Dumbledore had not yet been able to extract from Slughorn. “And maybe Voldemort wants him out of the way, maybe he thinks he could be valuable to Dumbledore.”

“But you said Slughorn had been planning to give the bottle to Dumbledore for Christmas,” Ginny reminded him. “So the poisoner could just as easily have been after Dumbledore.”

“Then the poisoner didn’t know Slughorn very well,” said Hermione, speaking for the first time in hours and sounding as though she had a bad head cold. “Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he’d keep something that tasty for himself.”

“Er-my-nee,” croaked Ron unexpectedly from between them.

They all fell silent, watching him anxiously, but after muttering incomprehensibly for a moment he merely started snoring.

The dormitory doors flew open, making them all jump: Hagrid came striding toward them, his hair rain-flecked, his bearskin coat flapping behind him, a crossbow in his hand, leaving a trail of muddy dolphin-sized footprints all over the floor.

“Bin in the forest all day!” he panted. “Aragog’s worse, I bin readin’ to him—didn’ get up ter dinner till jus’ now an’ then Professor Sprout told me abou’ Ron! How is he?”

“Not bad,” said Harry. “They say he’ll be okay.”

“No more than six visitors at a time!” said Madam Pomfrey, hurrying out of her office.

“Hagrid makes six,” George pointed out.

“Oh… yes…” said Madam Pomfrey, who seemed to have been counting Hagrid as several people due to his vastness. To cover her confusion, she hurried off to clear up his muddy foot prints with her wand.

“I don’ believe this,” said Hagrid hoarsely, shaking his great shaggy head as he stared down at Ron. “Jus’ don’ believe it… Look at him lyin’ there… Who’d want ter hurt him, eh?”

“That’s just what we were discussing,” said Harry. “We don’t know.”

“Someone couldn’ have a grudge against the Gryffindor Quidditch team, could they?” said Hagrid anxiously. “Firs’ Katie, now Ron…”

“I cant see anyone trying to bump off a Quidditch team,” said George.

“Wood might’ve done the Slytherins if he could’ve got away with it,” said Fred fairly.

“Well, I don’t think it’s Quidditch, but I think there’s a connection between the attacks,” said Hermione quietly.

“How d’you work that out?” asked Fred.

“Well, for one thing, they both ought to have been fatal and weren’t, although that was pure luck. And for another, neither the poison nor the necklace seems to have reached the person who was supposed to be killed. Of course,” she added broodingly, “that makes the person behind this even more dangerous in a way, because they don’t seem to care how many people they finish off before they actually reach their victim.”

Before anybody could respond to this ominous pronouncement, the dormitory doors opened again and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley hurried up the ward. They had done no more than satisfy themselves that Ron would make a full recovery on their last visit to the ward; now Mrs. Weasley seized hold of Harry and hugged him very tighty. “Dumbledore’s told us how you saved him with the bezoar,” she sobbed. “Oh, Harry, what can we say? You saved Ginny… you saved Arthur… now you’ve saved Ron.”

“Don’t be… I didn’t…” muttered Harry awkwardly.

“Half our family does seem to owe you their lives, now I stop and think about it,” Mr. Weasley said in a constricted voice. “Well, all I can say is that it was a lucky day for the Weasleys when Ron decided to sit in your compartment on the Hogwarts Express, Harry.”

Harry could not think of any reply to this and was almost glad when Madam Pomfrey reminded them that there were only supposed to be six visitors around Ron’s bed; he and Hermione rose once to leave and Hagrid decided to go with them, leaving Ron with his family.

“It’s terrible,” growled Hagrid into his beard, as the three ol them walked back along the corridor to the marble staircase. “In this new security, an kids are still gettin’ hurt… Dumbledore’s worried sick… He don’ say much, but I can tell…”

“Hasn’t he got any ideas, Hagrid?” asked Hermione desperately.

“I ’spect he’s got hundreds of ideas, brain like his,” said Hagrid. “But he doesn’ know who sent that necklace nor put poison in that wine, or they’d’ve bin caught, wouldn’ they? Wha’ worries me,” said Hagrid, lowering his voice and glancing over his shoulder (Harry, for good measure, checked the ceiling for Peeves), “is how long Hogwarts can stay open if kids are bein’ attacked. Chamber o’ Secrets all over again, isn’ it? There’ll be panic, more parents takin their kids outta school, an nex’ thing yeh know the board o’ governors…”

Hagrid stopped talking as the ghost of a long-haired woman drifted serenely past, then resumed in a hoarse whisper, “…the board o’ governors’ll be talkin about shuttin’ us up fer good.”

“Surely not?” said Hermione, looking worried.

“Gotta see it from their point o’ view,” said Hagrid heavily. “I mean, it’s always bin a bit of a risk sendin a kid ter Hogwarts, hasn’ it? Yer expect accidents, don’ yeh, with hundreds of underage wizards all locked up tergether, but attempted murder, tha’s diff’rent. ’S’no wonder Dumbledore’s angry with Sn—”

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1. A few people mumbled “good afternoon” in reply.
2. A little girl eats a big apple
3. A vivid image of the shrieking, spitting portrait of Sirius’s mother that hung in the hall of number twelve, Grimmauld Place flashed into Harry’s mind. “I bet there has,” he said.
4. A. Which of the following phrases would you use while commenting on someone's features to express a) respect b) amusement c) contempt?
5. And he too put his head on his arms, gave a deep sigh, and fell asleep.
6. And now Karkaroff raised his wand. He paused for a moment, and then a number shot out of his wand too—four.
7. And there it was, scrawled right across a long list of antidotes.
8. And with a regal wave, he waddled out of the shop, taking as little notice of Ron as though he had been a display of Cockroach Clusters.
9. Another pause, more protracted, and then—
10. Are There Any Messages for Me?
11. As Harry sat down, a furry ginger cat with a squashed face lumped onto his knees and settled there, purring.
12. At that moment there was a diversion in the form of a small, redheaded figure in a long nightdress, who appeared in the kitchen, gave a small squeal, and ran out again.

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