Raised By Wolfstar: Slytherin Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

Chapter Twenty-Three: After the Burial

Patches of bright blue sky were beginning to appear over the castle turrets, but these signs of approaching summer did not lift Harry's mood. He had been thwarted, both in his attempts to find out what Malfoy was doing, and in his efforts to start a conversation with Slughorn that might lead, somehow, to Slughorn handing over the memory he had apparently suppressed for decades.

'Instead of focusing on both, just focus on Slughorn,' Theodore told Harry in almost a begging tone.

They were sitting with Allison, Tracey, Terence, and Colin in a sunny corner of the courtyard after they ate lunch. Theodore and Allison were both clutching a Ministry of Magic leaflet—Common Apparition Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—for they were taking their tests later that very afternoon, but by and large the leaflets had not proved soothing to the nerves. Terence was sharing his Apparation practice experience with Tracey, and telling her despite failing his first test he still succeeded with flying colours when he took the next test. Harry was looking over the Half-Blood Prince's book for the thousandth time, trying to find answers. Finally Colin was looking over a copy of "Witch Holiday? Magazine", he said he was looking for somewhere he could take his family on vacation in the future, but Harry had a dark suspicion he was looking for places his muggle family could hide if the war got worse.

They were all so engulfed by the different things they were focused on that when the young Ravenclaw girl cleared her throat they all were a little startled.

'Harry Potter?' said the girl. 'I was asked to give you this.'

'Thanks...'

Harry's heart sank as he took the small scroll of parchment.

Once the girl was out of earshot he said, 'Dumbledore said we wouldn't be having any more lessons until I got the memory!'

'Perhaps this is just a check up on your progress or to see if you need some help?' suggested Allison, as Harry unrolled the parchment; but rather than finding Dumbledore's long, narrow, slanted writing he saw an untidy sprawl, very difficult to read due to the presence of large blotches on the parchment where the ink had run.

"Dear Harry, Canini, Tracey, Allison, and Theodore,

Aragog died last night. Harry and friends, you met him, and you know how special he was. Canini, I know you'd have liked him. It would mean a lot to me if you'd nip down for the burial later this evening. I'm planning on doing it round dusk, that was his favorite time of day. I know you're not supposed to be out that late, but you can use the cloak. Wouldn't ask, but I can't face it alone.

Hagrid"

'Look at this,' said Harry, handing the note to Allison.

'Bloody hell! No!' she said, scanning it quickly and passing it to Theodore and Tracey.

'He's gone mad,' said Tracey. 'Aragog didn't care about any of us, why should we go to his funeral, he told his family it was ok to eat us and we barely made it out of the forest alive.'

'We wouldn't have without you, Tracey,' said Theodore in an appreciative tone. 'I was nervous about me and Allison's test later, but now I'm just glad it's giving me an excuse not to go if the test lasts into the evening.'

'Isn't that a bit rude?' asked Colin. 'Hagrid's your friend and he's in pain, shouldn't you go?'

'Colin, I love you, but you don't what the four of us went through. Aragog wanted to eat us and we had to fight with and run from his hundreds of children, it scared Tracey so bad she hasn't liked spiders since. If it was Fang that was dead I'd happily go to the funeral to support Hagrid, but I will not attend a funeral for something that willingly tried to kill me.'