I glared at the back of Aidens head when he walked down the boy's side of the dormitory. He was sporting a bruised lip and a black eye, limping towards the exit of the painting to head to breakfast. All of his injuries had been inflicted by me, Draco, Harry, and Ron combined. He knew better than to even dare approach me right now while I was surrounded by my friends and I was sober.
I explained what happened to Hermione the next day. It was a short conversation, not something I wanted to expand on, but I made her swear not to let Fred know. I knew he wouldn't be mad at me but instead try to murder Aiden, id tell him the next time I saw him when the time was right.
When I first woke up I got pitiful looks but I put on my strong face and tried to ignore everything that happened the night before, there were more important things going on in the world.
"That's it. All I need is a bit of luck!" Harry said at the same time when we were sitting on the couch. Exams started next week and we had a lot of material to look through.
"What are you talking about I asked about the ingredients for a sleeping draught?" I raised my brow at him.
"No! The memory! I can use the Felix potion," he stood up and ran to his room to go get it.
"I don't think that's the best idea," Hermione said reluctantly wanting to stand up and tell him no.
"Hermione leave him," Ron grabbed her arm and pulled her back down, "he's not using it to cheat on an exam. You know how hard he's been trying to get this memory." Harry came scuttling down the stairs in the next couple minutes and had the tiny golden potion in his fingers.
"You don't need to drink it all," Hermione sighed when she realized she couldn't convince him otherwise, "1/3 of the bottle should last you at least three hours." At that he turned the potion back and sipped it until almost half was gone.
"Well, how do you feel?" Ron asked curiously. Within a couple seconds a giant smile overtook his face.
"Excellent. Really excellent!" He grinned and looked at the common room as if he was seeing it in a new light.
"It's a great feeling when you take it," said Ron reminiscently, "like you can't do anything wrong."
"What are you talking about?" said Hermione, "you've never taken any!"
"Yeah, but I thought I had, didn't I?" said Ron, as though explaining the obvious, "same difference really..."
"I think Violet should go with you," Hermione added nervously shrugging off Rons idiotic comment, "just in case anything happens to you guys she'll know before it does." I nodded along with it, knowing that leaving the castle meant leaving Dumbledore's protection, and there was a dark wizard trying to kill us both.
"Okay let's go yeah?" I turned to Harry.
"You should know, Slughorn usually leaves the castle early, takes a walk, and then returns to his office," Hermione repeated his schedule to Harry.
"Right...I'm going down to Hagrid's," Harry smiled and turned around." Wait what?
"Harry, you've got to go to speak to Slughorn. We have a plan—"
"I know but I've got a really good feeling about Hagrid's. I feel it's—it's the place to be tonight. Do you know what I mean?" He nodded his head as if anyone understood what he was saying.
"No," the three of us chorused.
"Well, trust me. I know what I'm doing. Or Felix does," he finished and grabbed my arm to tug me out of the common room, "hi!" He greeted some incoming students.
"Stop being such a crackhead," I whispered over to him. We went towards the front doors of the castle, which were surprisingly unsupervised.
Walking further towards the door and past the green house, we saw a body sticking out through the window. This person was cutting the leafs off the plans and putting them in a container. I elbowed Harry at this, and instead of being careful he walked right up to the person.
"Merlin's beard, Harry!" The person who ended up being Professor Slughorn slid from out of the window and exclaimed.
"Sorry, sir. I should have announced myself. Clear my throat. Coughed. You probably thought I was Professor Sprout?" Harry rambled with an odd smile on his face.
"What makes you think that?" Slughorn tried to dismiss.
"Besides your reaction to seeing us?" I scoffed.
"Exactly just your general behaviour, sir. The sneaking around, jumping when you saw me. Are those tentacular leaves, sir?"
"Yes. They're very valuable, aren't they? Ten galleons a leaf to the right buyer. Not that I'm familiar with any such back alley transactions but one does hear rumours. My only interests are purely academical," Slughorn defended."
"Alright well farewell I'm off to Hagrid's, you see," Harry turned and started to walk away. I grabbed his sleeve since the whole point of tonight was to talk to Slughorn and here he was.
"It's nearly nightfall. Surely, you realise I can't allow you two to go roaming the grounds on your own."
"Well then, by all means, come along, sir," Harry said in a teasing voice. This Felix potion was really showing a different side to Harry. We walked out of the castle in silence and began our walk to Hagrid.
"Why couldn't we just talk to him at the castle?" I whispered over to Harry. In which he responded with a shrug and continued skipping down the grass. Yes. Skipping.
By the time we got to Hagrid's hut, I could see the man standing by a large black ball of something. When we got closer I could see it was actually a dead something.
"This has to be a fucking joke," I spoke under my breath and shivered from looking at the creature.
"Merlin's beard! Is that an actual Acromantula?" Slughorn shouted in shock and got closer to the spider.
"A dead one, I think, sir," I narrowed my eyes at Harry for stating the obvious.
"Seriously misunderstood creatures, spiders are," Hagrid sniffled as he looked down on it.
"It's the eyes I reckon, they unnerve some folk. Not to mention the pincers," Harry said and started making a hand motion to visually show where a spiders pincers are.
I pinched his arm to get him to set them back down at his side, it was no time for jokes right now. Slughorn then stood tall and said a goodbye speech to the...dear spider.
"Farewell, Aragog. King of the arachnids. Your body will decay... but your spirit lingers on and your human friends find solace, the loss they have
which was sad."
After sitting there for a few moments appreciating the spider, the wind started to blow harder and we made our way into his hut. Immediately Hagrid started pouring some drinks for him and the Professor while I placed myself in a chair by the fire to get some warmth.
"I had him from an egg, you know? Tiny little thing he was when he hatched. No bigger than a Pekingese. A Pekingese, mind you," Hagrid said much happier now that he was drinking some mead.
"How sweet! I once had a fish. Francis. He was very dear to me. One afternoon, I came downstairs and... it vanished. Poof. That's very odd, isn't it? Yes, doesn't it? But that's life! I suppose, you—you go along with and suddenly... poof. Poof. Poof," he chuckled but he had little humor in his voice.
"Where did you buy this fish?" I asked him while leaning forward in my chair.
"I didn't! It was a student who gave me Francis. One spring afternoon, I discovered the bowl on my desk... With just a few inches of clear water in it... And floating on the surface was a flower petal. As I watched, it sank. But just before it reached the bottom, it transformed into a wee fish. It was beautiful magic. Wondrous to behold. The flower petal had come from a lily. Your mother Harry. The day I came downstairs, the day the bowl was empty. That's the day your mother..." his words drifted off and we know exactly how to finish it for him.
I looked to Harry who's humorous face had disappeared from earlier and he was staring expressionless at Slughorn.
"I know why you're here. But I can't help you. It would ruin me."
"Do you know why I survived, Professor? The night I got this?," Harry spoke up and pointed to his scar, "because of her, because she sacrificed herself... Because she refused to step aside. Because her love was more powerful than Voldemort—"
"Don't say his name," Slughorn winced.
"I'm not afraid of the name, Professor. I'm going to tell you something. Something others have only guessed at. It's true. I am the Chosen One. Only I can destroy him, but in order to do so, I need to know what Tom Riddle asked you all those years ago in your office and I need to know what you told him." We sat there for a few seconds and I could see Slughorn have a mental argument with himself.
"Please sir," I pleaded softly making him look back up.
"Be brave, Professor. Be brave like my mother. Otherwise, you disgrace her. Otherwise, she died for nothing. Otherwise, the bowl will remain empty. Forever." I stared into Slughorn's head and tried hard to pierce through his mind block and see what he had decided. I made no move when I found it but I saw his brain decide to perform the memory extraction charm.
"Please, don't think badly of me when you say it. I had no idea what he was like, even then," Slughorn said ashamed and pulled the blue chord from his head, straight into the vial Harry was already holding. We quickly said our goodbyes, leaving him to deal with a sleeping Hagrid.
"Wow we did it," I awed at the vial in Harry's hands while we walked back to the castle. In that glass was the tiniest blue sliver that could change everything. It was crazy to see how small something could be to have the biggest impact.
"I should go show this to Dumbledore. I would ask you to come but he told me to go alone—"
"Oh you're fine," I assured, "go now! Report back to us as soon as you guys figured it out." With a nervous smile Harry turned on his heel and went to the headmasters office while I went the other direction. I knew Hermione and Ron would still we awake, anxious to see if our plan had worked.
I jumped through the painting and saw my two friends sitting in front of me. Hermione was combing through her ancient runes textbook, no doubt studying for our upcoming exams. Ron on the other hand had his head back on the sofa and he was snoring quite loudly with his mouth agape open.
"You're finally back!" Hermione exclaimed slamming her book shut. The noise made Ron jump up in fright and he wiped his eyes trying to look awake.
"We got it," I said immediately, "it took quite a lot of convincing. We ended up staying most of the night at Hagrid's hut but Slughorn handed it over."
"Blimey," Ron spoke lightly and shook his head, "so we're really going to find out how to kill him." The idea had gone through all of our heads but Ron was the only one to speak it out loud. Harry had been trying all year to get this memory but we never talked about what would happened when we finally did.
"I never considered what we would do once he got the memory," I whispered, "I mean if this weapon is an object how are we going to find it? And if it's a spell can any of our wands handle that type of dark magic?"
"I don't know," Hermione said truthfully, "but I don't think we're going to be spending next year eating in the great hall and taking charms class."
"What you think we won't come back?" Ron said surprised.
"I mean you can't tell me you do? Our parents were already hesitant about this year. Imagine what will happen when you know who discovers that Harry figured out his weapon," Hermione said sadly. She was right, the connection their minds had didn't just let Harry see into him but vice versa soon. It was only a matter of time before Voldemort stopped playing around, and tried to kill Harry himself.
"Are you okay now?" Hermione shot me a worried look, "I mean after last night? I don't know if you want to talk about—"
"I'm fine," I interrupted. What happened last night was something I wanted to pretend never happened, "I don't want to to talk about it honestly."
"What's going on?" I heard Ginnys voice come from behind me, thankfully being a distraction for the conversation. She was wearing her pajamas and had a sleepy look on her face.
"Nothing Gin go back to bed—" Ron tried to demand.
"No I heard you say Harry's name. Is something wrong, where is he?" she started to say hurriedly.
"He's fine," I assured her, "he got the memory he's been trying to get from Slughorn. He's been in Dumbledore's office."
"Okay that's good news then right?" she said and joined us on the couch beside me, "that's what he was supposed to do."
"Yes Ginny but who knows what they're going to find in that memory," Hermione said nervously. We sat in silence for a couple seconds before she spoke again, "Violet I looked into that thing you asked me about. The 'ARY'?"
"And did you figure it out?" I asked sitting up straighter.
"Well no there was no sign of any mystical object that had those letters but I thought about it. What if it stands for something?" I opened my mouth to ask what she was thinking but Harry burst into the room. Our eyes went straight to his which were frantically scoping the common room.
"Hey what did Dumbledore say?" Hermione sat up at once, "Harry, are you okay?' She added anxiously when he didn't answer.
"I'm fine," said Harry shortly, racing past us. He dashed up the stairs and into his dorm room while we sat there with confused looks. Did the memory end up being the wrong thing? Maybe they hadn't discovered anything at all.
"I haven't got much time" Harry panted as he came back down the stairs a minute later, "Dumbledore thinks I'm getting my Invisibility Cloak. Listen..."
He told us then what he was doing with Dumbledore and why. Apparently Voldemort had created a Horcrux, which is a damaged piece of his soul. The only way Voldemort could be killed was by destroying the hidden pieces of his soul first.
"The first one was the diary," Harry rambled as he tried to explain as fast as he could, "that's why I saw him in the chamber, why I defeated his memory with that basilisk fang in the diary. That killed the Horcrux."
"Do you have any idea what the next one is?" I managed to fit in my question.
"No I don't, but Dumbledore thinks he does and we have to go find it now. So you see what this means?' Harry finished, "Dumbledore won't be here tonight, so Malfoy's going to have another clear shot at whatever he's up to. No, listen to me!" He hissed angrily, as both Ron and Hermione showed every sign of interrupting him again.
"I know it was Malfoy in the Room of Requirement Dobby and Kreacher told me, here," he shoved the Marauder's Map into Hermione's hand, "you've got to watch him, Pansy, and you've got to watch Snape, too. Use anyone else who you can rustle up from the DA. Hermione, those contact Galleons will still work, right? Dumbledore says he's put extra protection in the school, but if Snape's involved, he'll know what Dumbledore's protection is, and how to avoid it—but he won't be expecting you lot to be on the watch, will he?"
"Harry," began Hermione, her eyes huge with fear. Ginny was the only one who sat there still, un-interrupting and listening to every one of Harry's instructions.
"I haven't got time to argue Hermione," said Harry curtly, "take this as well—" he thrust a pair of white socks into Ron's hands.
"What?" I stammered.
"Thanks," said Ron, "er—why do I need socks again though?"
"You need what's wrapped in them, it's the Felix Felicis. Share it between yourselves and Ginny take some too. I'd better go, Dumbledore's waiting—"
"No!" said Hermione immediately when she saw Ron unwrap the tiny little bottle of potion, looking awestruck, "we don't want it we have Violet, you take it! Who knows what you're going to be facing?"
"Violet can't protect all of you at the same time. And I'Il be fine, I'll be with Dumbledore," said Harry, "I just want to know you lot are okay...don't look like at me like that, Hermione, I'll see you all later." He reached over to squeeze Ginnys hand and give her one last look.
With that he was off, hurrying back through the portrait hole towards the entrance hall, leaving the four of us staring at him in shock.
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