Disclaimer: Harry Potter? Not my character. What's the matter? JKR wrote it better.

Pansy

Draco should be right there. But he wasn't. Pansy's hand shook as she lowered her wand dejectedly, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. Why wasn't the spell working? This wasn't the psychopathic ward, this was just a corridor!

Unless... Her eyes narrowed. "Homenium Revelio!"

Two human presences to the right. "Finite." 

Pansy bit back a scream and stumbled back. There was a... thing facing her. It looked pale and skeletal, wide, sunken, bloodshot brown eyes staring at her with animal desperation. It had stringy, limp brown hair and dry, cracked lips. It was gripping a wand shakily with fingers that looked bony and brittle, its bruised and callused knuckles clenching and unclenching periodically. It took her a while to realise that this thing was a person. A horrifyingly skinny person, but a person nonetheless.

The person was standing protectively in front of Draco, who had also, she realised, lost a substantial amount of weight since she'd last seen him. He wasn't quite as skinny as the other woman, thank Merlin. He appeared to be in a dead faint, however.

Pansy's hackles rose. "Who are you?" She demanded, raising her wand at the person in front of her.

The person appeared quite shocked to realise that she didn't recognise her. "Hermione Granger. And you're Pansy Parkinson, right?"

Pansy nodded, shocked into silence.

"What happened to you?" The two girls finally said, almost simultaneously.

Granger frowned, her eyes darting from side to side as if in search for escape. She gripped her wand tightly enough for her bruised knuckles to start turning white. "Nothing."

"Nothing? You look like a bag of bones!"

"I don't! Stop lying!" Granger hissed, looking furious.

"You are not okay." said Pansy, shaking her head slowly. "Look at yourself -"

"Like you're okay! You look at yourself! Are you on drugs?" Granger peered at her. "Your eyes are all dilated, your hands are trembling, you're pale as death..."

"Shut up!" Pansy growled. So she'd stolen a vial of Dreamless Sleep when she spied it on a random medicine cart. So she'd taken it almost immediately to calm her shaking hands and her palpitating heart. But Granger wasn't supposed to know! 

The world was spinning a bit. Her hands were shaking again, aching for another vial of Dreamless Sleep that she didn't have. They must have watered down the vial, she realised belatedly. "Shit. Shit. This is all your fault, Granger."

"My fault? How is it my fault -"

"Shut up and just give Draco to me!"

"Why should I? What are you going to do to him?"

"In case you've forgotten, Granger, we were friends. Very close friends."

"Exactly. You WERE friends. I haven't heard him mention you once in the entire time we were in the same room-"

"Why would he mention me to you, you ugly, malnourished, worthless, pathetic thing!" Pansy spat.

Granger was silent. She seemed to shrink into herself. She took two steps back and dropped her wand, wrapping her bony arms around her emaciated torso. 

Pansy shuffled closer to her. Granger hurriedly shrank away from her and pressed herself against the wall, shaking like a leaf. "Stop. Stop. Stop. Get away from me." She whimpered, her face paling.

"Shit, Granger. Calm down." Pansy tried to move closer, but Granger's movements just got more and more frantic.

Pansy backed away slowly, but Granger didn't seem to be calming down. "Toilet." She gasped desperately. "Where -" She made a mad grab for the wand she dropped. "Point me toilet" The wand spun wildly, not responding. She dropped it again, her hands shaking and her face twitching. "I-" Finally her face turned blankly resigned. As if in a trance, she turned away from Pansy and stuck her fingers almost mechanically up her throat. She shuddered and shook and threw up what looked like water, blood, and half-digested nutrient potion against the wall. Then she grabbed the wand again, and calmly scorgified her vomit.

She slumped down against the wall, her body still trembling slightly. Tears were leaking from the edges of her bloodshot eyes, Pansy realised with some alarm. 

Pansy froze, not knowing what to do. Her brain was screaming at her for Dreamless Sleep, Granger had just done the weirdest and most unexpected thing ever, and Draco was unconscious. 

"I'm fine." Granger rasped, suddenly speaking. "That was nothing."

"Do you have Dreamless Sleep?" Pansy suddenly blurted. "Please, I need some right now, please."

"What?" Granger looked confused and disoriented, her eyes going out of focus. "I'm okay. I'm fine."

"Dreamless Sleep!" Pansy yelled. "I need it. Give it to me!"

Granger shrunk away from her. "No... what?" She squinted, shaking her head.

Pansy was near tears. "Dreamless Sleep! Give. It. To. Me."

"I don't have..." Granger whispered. She smelled like vomit, Pansy realised dimly at the back of her mind. It was gross.

Withdrawal was kicking in, and hard. Pansy's entire body was aching for more Dreamless Sleep. She screamed and cried, begging Granger and even the unconscious Draco for more, snot and drool running down her face.

Eventually someone came to investigate because of the noise.

Pansy felt herself being dragged away, kicking and flailing, screaming for Dreamless Sleep. She saw, as if in a dream, Granger's wide, bloodshot eyes staring unseeingly at her, her face puffy and swollen, and her knuckle bleeding slightly. She looked vaguely like a badly-made doll, sitting limply on the floor with her limbs sprawled around her awkwardly, her hair unravelling from her head.

And Draco remained unconscious through it all, his face pale and perfect. The dark shadows under his eyes made him look older, sadder. He looked tired.

All this Pansy filed away in her subconscious. Right now she needed Dreamless Sleep, and people were restraining her from it. She let herself be dragged out, dimly registering other people in guard uniform picking up the limp and unresisting forms of Draco and Granger. She made a mad grab for a vial of Dreamless Sleep on a random cart as they passed through the hospital, kicking and screeching. She got it, but it smashed in the struggle that ensued. The glass dug into her palm. She swore she could feel the bits of Dreamless Sleep still adhering to the glass pieces seeping into her bloodstream. Someone shouted an incantation at her, and she succumbed to the wave of cold that urged her to sleep.

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Blaise

Blaise stood in front of the old Ministry entrance.

"Theo!" He shouted. "Come out! It's Blaise!"

The old, dilapidated telephone booth shook and jumped. Theodore's tall, weedy form emerged from it, his blue eyes glinting with mad glee and his teeth bared in anticipation. Blaise took one look at his face and immediately knew he shouldn't have come. He tried to disapparate, but realised that they'd put up Anti-Apparition Wards. They'd been prepared for him. 

More and more people filed out from behind Theo. He recognised a lot of them. "Shit." He breathed.

"Well, well, well." Theo rumbled, grinning horrifically. "Look who it is. Blaise, old friend! It's been a while! So good of you to visit!"

The crowd laughed.

Blaise sighed. "Theo. Drama queen as always."

Theo visibly reddened. "Zabini. Acting like a Gryffindor." He spat. "It's very unbecoming of you."

"Look, this is clearly an ambush. What do you want?"

Theo smiled, baring his teeth ominously. "That's more like it. How would you feel about accepting an invitation to tea?"

"Can I say no?" Blaise looked resignedly at the wands that were immediately trained at him. "Guess not."

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Ginny

"Look, I'll swear under Veritaserum that I'm Harry Potter, okay?" Harry said urgently. "I really need to find my friend Hermione, she's in trouble of some sort..."

"Shut up." said the Auror. "And hand over your wand."

Harry and Ginny handed over their wands.

"Now strip off your robes for a standard weapon check."

Harry started blushing. "Could I possibly... not?"

The Auror glared at him. "Got something to hide, Mr. ... Potter?"

"No! No, I -"

The Auror jerked his robes apart roughly.

Silence reigned as Ginny and the Auror processed what they were seeing. 

"Harry." said Ginny carefully. "There's no need to be embarrassed about it. In fact, I think you're pretty cute in -"

The Auror started laughing. "There's no way you're Harry Potter!" He laughed. 

"- a cartoon unicorn t-shirt." Ginny finished.

Harry was blushing like crazy. "Unicorns are cool, okay?" He defended. "Just give me the Veritaserum."

The Auror complied, still laughing slightly. 

"Who are you?" He asked once the potion had been administered.

"My name is Harry James Potter."

The Auror gagged on his laughter and started coughing. Harry reached over to awkwardly pat the man on his back.

"And the woman with you?" The Auror managed to choke out.

"She's Ginevra Weasley, also known as Ginny."

"What were you two doing in Miss Hermione Granger's flat?" The Auror asked, finally regaining his composure.

"We were looking for Hermione because she hadn't contacted us in a while. She wouldn't open the door for us or respond when we called for her. We were concerned so we broke into her flat to see if she was inside. She wasn't, but the toilet bowl had blood in it. We think she's in danger."

The Auror frowned. "Be that as it may, breaking and entering is a serious crime..."

"Hermione Granger is in danger!" Ginny yelled in exasperation. "Can we do this later? We'll just bail ourselves out now, and -"

The Auror raised a hand. "Actually, we can do better. We can help you find Miss Granger."

"Really?" Ginny said. "That's great!"

"Anything for Mr. Potter." The Auror bowed respectfully, his lips twitching as he glanced again towards Harry's unicorn and rainbow themed t-shirt.

"Now, since you mentioned blood in the toilet bowl, perhaps we should contact St. Mungo's first to see if she's there. Miss Granger may have checked herself in, after all."

The three headed off to the Auror's office to use the Floo.

A/N: I realise that I've completely forgotten about Harry and Ginny for the last few chapters, so here's a scene with them around! Hope you enjoy as always~