Harriet Potter

For the next week, I racked my brains to figure out how to get Slughorn to hand over real memories, but to no avail.I had to do what I do more and more now when I'm at the end of my rope: look through the Potions textbook, hoping the Prince had written something brilliant in the margins.

"I tell you, that stupid prince won't help you, Harry!" Hermione asserted on Sunday night. "There's only one way to force someone to do what you want them to do, and that's the Imperius Curse, but that It's illegal to-"

"Well, I know, thanks," I said, looking at the book without looking up, "that's why I was looking for something different. Dumbledore said Veritaserum didn't work, but there could be something else, potions or The curse..."

"Your method is wrong," said Hermione. "Dumbledore said that only you can get that memory, which must mean that you can persuade Slughorn and others can't. It's not about giving him a potion." Question, then anyone would—what did you find?"

"No," I said, but Hermione had already held out her hand, and I had to turn the page to the corner-folded page.

"The sharp edge is invisible, against the enemy." Hermione frowned as she looked at the word that had been altered many times and the label next to it, "This doesn't seem like a good spell."

"What news."

"No, I mean the pronunciation of this spell is very similar to black magic! And the way of spelling..." Hermione said and wanted to copy the spell down, and I closed the book and put it in my bag before she could do so, "If you're so sure that that prince-something is a good man, what does it matter if I investigate the spell?"

"Since you're so sure there's something wrong with the prince, what does investigating a spell change?" I countered. "The prince still has so many good spells."

"How do you write 'provocation'?" Ron asked, staring at the parchment and shaking the quill vigorously. "It can't be 'peach provocation'—"

"No," Hermione said, pulling Ron's paper, "'Divination' is not 'Old Ten'. What kind of pen did you use?"

"It's Fred and George's typo-checker, but I think the magic is starting to fail..."

Ron's typo-laden essay allowed Hermione to break the spell, but only temporarily, and half an hour later she asked me to show her the textbook again.If she didn't know that it would piss me off, she would definitely grab it directly.We quarreled all night, I couldn't do any homework, and finally threw my schoolbag over my shoulder and got up to go back to the dormitory.Seamus also went upstairs, cursing Snape's papers, and there were only the three of us in the common room.

"Okay," said Hermione angrily behind me as I reached the foot of the stairs, "Shooting!"

Chi la, followed by the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground.When I turned around, an armchair had been cut in half, and the cotton inside was scattered all over the floor.I looked slowly back at Ron and Hermione, who were equally dumbfounded.

"'To the enemy'?" said Hermione after a long while.

We struggled until nearly two o'clock to clear the common room, the armchair was so badly damaged and something seemed to be preventing us from fixing it.Hermione ended up making a new copy of the armchair, and together we smashed the broken one into the fire with the Smashing Charm, watching the last bits of sawdust turn to ashes.

"I think it seems to be getting smaller." Ron sat on the replica chair and shook it a few times.

Neither Hermione nor I answered, so he rubbed his nose, yawned, packed his things, and kissed Hermione as he left. "It's okay, don't be too nervous."

Hermione softened a bit, but still refused to look at me as I went upstairs.

The next morning Hermione woke me up as usual, and didn't say anything to me other than that, we put away our class stuff and went to have breakfast in silence.Ron, sitting next to us, was literally silent, and I stared at the innocent peanut butter sandwich in my hand for a moment before tossing it back on my plate.

"Go ahead," I said, and Hermione finally gave me a look, "'I told you so,' or something."

"I wasn't going to say," said Hermione dryly, "but you've got to stop relying on that stupid textbook. Either give it back to Slughorn, or destroy it or throw it away."

"Hermione, this is too—"

"The prince induced you to cast a dark magic spell! Who knows what's next?"

"He just wrote it in the corner of his textbook and didn't 'trick' anyone into using it!" I argued, "Maybe it's just a spell someone cast on him!"

"He wrote 'against the enemy'! Who would use such a spell against his enemies?"

"Knowing it and actually using it are two different things! Don't we all say the Unforgivable Curses too?"

"We fully understand the consequences of the Unforgivable Curse! But if I hadn't found out, you might have tried this spell on an 'enemy'!" Hermione stared at me sternly, "You've been too affected by that book, Harry. Give it to me and I'll keep it for you for a while and make sure you don't have any other problems."

"Other problems," I repeated. "You mean I've got a problem?"

"You're still speaking for the prince, who just showed you a powerful dark magic spell 'on an enemy'!" said Hermione. "You didn't even think about doing that to a Death Eater. !"

"How do you know that I haven't thought about it?" Our voices became louder, and many people were already looking here, so I had to lower my voice, "I used the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix, After she killed Sirius." Hermione looked terrified for a moment, and I added subconsciously, "Although I'm obviously not evil enough to use it. That doesn't mean I don't want to."

"We all want to fight Death Eaters with fire if they hurt someone we love," said Ron suddenly. "We won't be evil for that."

"But that's different from plotting to cast an evil spell on someone else!"

"The prince didn't—"

"Give me the book, Harry," said Hermione firmly, "or I'll tell Professor McGonagall about it and see what she thinks of a textbook with Dark Arts spells in it."

I glared at her, knowing she meant what she said.I'm sure she's going to go through the Prince's textbooks from cover to cover this time, and somehow I don't want to share information about the Prince with anyone, not all about Potions grades.

"I'm not going to give it to you." I made up my mind. "I'm going to stay away from this textbook for a while, but not with you. I'm going to put it in the Room of Requirement."

"You can't trust me?" said Hermione, in a tone of hurt anger. "Or do you think I'm going to use it to steal your 'Potions Princess' reputation—"

"Maybe it's because you're always so fond of pretending you know what I'm thinking!" I said roughly. "That's it. I'm going to put it up there now. You can follow me if you want. Report to Professor McGonagall It's up to you. If you think I'm going to peek, I can lend you the Marauder's Map to watch me, okay?"

"Harry!" said Ron reproachfully, "Hermione never said—"

I didn't listen, and went straight to the Room of Requirement, and when I got to the eighth floor, hesitated, realizing with a little discomfiture that neither of them had followed.I walked a few times in that corridor thinking "I need a place to hide things", and seeing a smooth door appear on the wall, I pushed it open and walked in.

The door closed behind me.I found that in front of me was a place as big as a church, and the surrounding scenery looked like a city, except that the high walls were made up of the things hidden by thousands of students who had long since died.The streets and alleys are lined with crumbling piles of broken furniture, possibly stuffed here to hide evidence of misguided magic; thousands of books are piled up, no doubt raped, defaced or stolen. books; winged slingshots and maces, several of which were still hovering limply over forbidden objects; broken bottles of frozen potions; hats, jewels, cloaks, dragon eggshells things; a few corked bottles still glowing evilly; and a few rusty swords and a bloodstained axe.Even with the rage still bubbling in my temples, I'm still in awe of what I see.

I went into an alley among the treasure piles, turned right past a stuffed troll, walked a little further, and walked a short distance past a cracked disappearing cabinet (much like the one the twins stuffed a Slytherin in last year) Turn left, and finally stop in front of a large cabinet with blistered surface, which looks like it has been splashed with strong acid.The cabinet door creaked as it opened, revealing the cage inside. The contents of the cage were long dead, and the skeleton had five legs.I straightened up and looked around. There was a crate next to the cabinet. On it was a sculpture of an old wizard wearing a ridiculous wig and a rusty crown, which was a relatively obvious identification in this dump.If the house doesn't reposition things on its own, I should be able to find it the next time I visit.I stuffed the textbooks behind the cage and closed the door.

Suddenly, I felt a tingling sensation in the back of my neck, as if a Bludger was flying from the blind spot of my vision.Instinctively, I shrank back and rolled to the side twice. The first spell flew over the cabinet and shattered the cabinet, the second spell hit the ground beside me, and the third spell was caught by my iron armor. The curse blocked it.I jumped behind the crate on all hands and knees, and the red light flew high, knocking the diadem off the old wizard's head to the ground.I gripped my wand tightly, my palms sweating and my heart beating wildly.

There was a hoarse cry of pain, the voice was very familiar, as if someone had been hit by a spell rebounded by my Iron Armor Charm.

"Who's there?" I asked as calmly as possible, already vaguely having an answer in my heart.

"Good morning, Potter," came Malfoy's drawl.