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Disclaimer: I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good, but I am definitely not making any money off of it.

Duality: Important Questions

oOo

Six heathens fight a troll ox.
- T

Harry stared at the note for a long time while he fed some bacon to the tawny owl that delivered it. His brows furrowed and he looked over at the Slytherin table, where Nott was seated. The Slythern boy stared back at him and then raised his eyebrows before going back to his bowl of porridge.

"I'm pretty sure that's an anagram," Hermione muttered from behind the Daily Prophet.

Harry glanced over at her. "Why can't he just write it normally?"

"Because he's Theodore Nott. I saw him working on it earlier in the library." Hermione grinned and took a sip of her pumpkin juice. She seemed to be in a better mood than she was last night. That was probably due to Ron not being around – he was likely still sleeping in since he came back at around half three in the morning after his night with Lavender.

Harry narrowed his eyes at the paper, trying to figure out what other words he could make out of it. After a few grueling and frustrating moments, he gave up with a drawn out sigh. "Isn't there an easier way to do this?"

Taking a small bite of toast, Hermione replied, "Vertere. You have to run the tip of your wand over the words."

Harry glanced around the breakfast table – very few Gryffindors made it to breakfast after Quidditch celebrations – and pulled out his wand. The spell made the letters glow and arrange themselves on the page in front of him. Harry's stomach turned when he realized that it was the same spell that Tom Riddle used to rearrange his name in the Chamber of Secrets years ago and he shook that thought from his mind.

Hall of Hexes tonight at six.

-T

Six would work, if he got his charms essay done before then. Hopefully he'd also have enough time to research a bit on Dumbledore. He felt as if he shouldn't listen to Daphne, but she definitely had gotten him curious. Harry grinned when he thought of a different source that he might be able to use.

He could ask Nott what she was on about tonight, after dinner. And after he finished that blasted charms essay.

oOo

"So where's this bloody 'troll ox'?" Harry asked when he walked through the door.

Nott snorted. "They monitor the post. I couldn't very well owl the note in its original state, Potter – I tried to make it easy for you," he said, focusing on the black board in front of him. Judging by the title, the theme for the day was going to be 'Important Questions'.

Warily, Harry looked over the topics and sat in his usual desk. As much as he wanted to get on with the tutoring for every-subject-surrounding-manipulation-but-not-exactly-manipulation, he definitely needed to ask Nott about Dumbledore. Every book he picked up in the library only seemed to cover his achievements and a few personal facts, but very little else. If that was what Daphne considered the 'Apocrypha', it wasn't very good to go off of.

"Could I ask you a question before we start this?"

Nott pivoted on his feet, tapping the overly large pointer against his hand. "As a portion of the lesson, or otherwise?"

"Unrelated." Harry paused. "Daphne told me not to trust Dumbledore. Do you know why she would say that?"

With his eyebrow raised, Nott pursed his lips. "That's curious," he mused.

"What is?"

"Why would she…" Not trailed off suddenly, which made Harry wonder what Nott was thinking. "Well… it may have something to do with Aberforth."

"The barman at the Hog's Head," Harry clarified. The centre of his forehead creased as he went over the scene between Aberforth Dumbledore and Daphne a few weeks ago.

"Yes, but it's merely a guess. Daphne is on friendly terms with Aberforth – has been for years. So, considering that he's Professor Dumbledore's brother, he's a potential source of information. We'll be getting to useful sources to exploit later."

"And that's what she meant by related Apocrypha," Harry realized with a sigh, ignoring the prospective subject in manipulation, which didn't sound very savoury in a moral sense.

"She really must like you," Nott commented.

Harry looked up at him. "Generally, you're supposed to like the person you're… intimate with."

However, there currently was a resounding lack of that. He had never had too many problems with his cock before the thing with Daphne, but it was as if losing his virginity had opened the puberty floodgates from hell. He got a hard-on simply from watching her twirl her hair between her fingers in class. Or watching Ginny at…

Harry halted his thought process before it got out of hand and focused on Nott.

"That doesn't mean anything. Physical attraction is paramount in a purely physical relationship. Personalities don't matter regarding sex. If she didn't like you, she definitely wouldn't say anything useful." Nott paused, staring off into space, and then shrugged. "And she'd probably ensure that you're premature death is very inevitable and possibly speed up the process."

That didn't sound like Daphne, from what he knew of her. Daphne was rather nice to him, most of the time. But that conversation he had with her about their relationship and other things, paired with Nott's description, made him wonder what else he was missing. That feeling nagged at him a bit until he decided that Nott had to be wrong about her.

"She wouldn't do that," Harry protested.

Smirking, Nott explained, "You'll understand after you've known her for a while." Tapping the pointer against his hand, he turned his head toward the blackboard. "Shall we get started?"

Sensing that the allotted questioning period was over, Harry sat back in his chair, lit a cigarette, and prepared himself for another couple hours of Nott's lecturing. He almost had more questions swirling round his head than what he came in with.

oOo

Author's Note: Thank you for reading and please review!