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Author’s Note: Don’t have much to say other than a massive thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and favourited this fic! Also, another massive thanks goes to my beta RAfan2124 – he always does a great job in making me suck less. I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

Disclaimer: Anything that you recognize, I do not own. J.K. Rowling is to thank for this lovely world that I play in. No copyright infringement is intended and I definitely am not making any money off of writing this.

Duality: Parapraxis

OoO

It was Saturday noon, the Great Hall was teeming with students eating lunch, but Harry was waiting in the Hall of Hexes. As his watch ticked over five minutes past, he started to wonder if using Ron’s tiny owl, Pigwidgeon, was such a good idea. A school owl would have done well, but Ron didn’t give Pig much attention – Harry couldn’t help but take pity on the poor thing. It looked so eager to deliver Harry’s letter that it was in a tizzy over it, flapping about and annoying all of the other owls to no end.

When Zabini rounded the corner, coming from the Grand Staircase, Harry’s worry settled.

“I’m in no mood to do you any favours after sending me that infuriating little owl, Potter,” Zabini said, a contemptuous look on his face as he stalked toward him. “So, make it short, what is it that you want?”

Great, maybe he should have sent a school owl instead.

“I don’t really want anything particularly…” Harry started, letting out a breath. “I needed to talk to you more out of concern.”

“Daphne’s just fine – you need to stop worrying about her or she’ll probably end up maiming you one of these days. And if she doesn’t, I will for badgering me about it,” Zabini threatened.

“It’s not about Daphne. It’s Hermione.”

Zabini’s brow arched. “Is there something wrong?” The tone of his voice changed instantaneously, from drawling contempt to immediate unease.

“Not really,” Harry said a bit anxiously, staring up at the tall Slytherin. “It’s… Well, I don’t mean this to be – in any way – insulting, but your relationship with Hermione is a little confusing.”

Zabini’s expression shifted and the Slytherin boy stared at him blankly, not making any motion to speak.

Harry continued, “It’s just that you’re not known to be very friendly toward Muggleborns and have a rather prejudiced reputation… Not that I think you’re prejudiced, exactly – that could be for show, I know how that is with you lot – but I’m confused as to why you’re contradicting your reputation by pursuing a relationship with her.”

Letting out a patient sigh, Zabini pivoted on his feet. “Walk with me, Potter,” he said with a wave of his hand, gesturing for Harry to follow.

Taking a hesitant step after Zabini, Harry cautiously strolled alongside him, stealing suspicious glances up at the dark Slytherin and fingering his wand up his sleeve in case this got ugly.

“I know the relationship I’m… ‘pursuing’ with Hermione is probably a shock to you, and – to be completely honest – it’s an even more shocking development to me,” Zabini stated calmly, in a cold and vaguely aloof tone.

“I don’t know if Daphne told you this,” he said after a brief pause, “but we had an amusing agreement involving Slughorn’s Christmas party. She proposed that she would ask Weasley to the event if I asked Hermione. I accepted, because seeing Daph manage lightweight dunderhead Weasley would at least provide me with some entertainment for that night.”

They slowly made their way up the stairs and Harry gazed at Zabini with his brows furrowed, remaining quiet as the Slytherin boy went on, “Nevertheless, I didn’t foresee her accepting my invitation. And, I certainly didn’t expect her to keep approaching me afterward, but it wasn’t as if I could ignore her since I’d asked. She was… very nervous and angry all the time and we often ended up speaking of various things until she was calm. She has this interesting way of venting frustrations...” he trailed off, letting out a breath, his eyes unfocused as if trapped in a memory. “It was surprising – getting to know her.”

“Not that… that isn’t a great story and all,” Harry said slowly, “but I don’t see your point. Why her? And why you?”

“I’ll put this in simple terms for your thick head, Potter,” Zabini drawled, rolling his eyes. “We have shared interests, academic and otherwise. She’s steadfast, intelligent, inventive, attractive, and ambitious – I’m very much the same. Our personalities meld well together, even if she has far too many morals. Normally, I’d drop someone for that; however, she ticks so many of my boxes that it would be stupid of me. No one in the world has ever come close to my ideals, but she practically is my ideal.”

They stopped at the sixth floor, loitering on the landing of the stairs and silently staring at each other.

“So you’re not coercing her in any way at all?” Harry finally said, unsure of how he felt about everything Zabini told him. “And you have no problem with her being Muggleborn, yes?”

Those were two important questions that had yet to be clarified.

Zabini snorted. “You’re more prejudiced than I am if you’re asking that,” he retorted, causing Harry to glare at him doubtfully.

Rolling his eyes once more, Zabini sighed. “To ease your worries, if only because you’re her friend: No, I am not coercing her in any fashion, neither do I have a problem with her being Muggleborn – not much of one anyway. Yes, it spoils my reputation and, yes, it will cause my mother to have a coronary. But, as I said, she’s too ideal to let go over simple details. My mother does whatever she wants with men without my questioning and it’s time for her to return the courtesy.”

Harry’s brows rose as he took in Zabini’s tone of speech, his body language, his… everything.

This wasn’t a joke like with Millicent Bulstrode and the toaster – Zabini was sincere. He actually, genuinely, fancied Hermione. Not a drop of his body language indicated that he was lying. In fact, the way he spoke of her… it was almost as if…

Merlin, it was weird.

Blinking away some of his astonishment, Harry nodded once. “Oo-kay...” he drew out the word. “You never gave any indication….”

“In this world?” Zabini questioned derisively. “You have to be tactful to survive well, Potter.”

“That’s why I said before that it was probably all an act. But I had to make sure,” Harry explained quickly. “Hermione’s my best friend and I care about her.”

“Glad we could have this understanding then,” Zabini said, offering him his hand and smirking. “Truce?”

“Er – aren’t we past the ‘truce’ point?” Harry replied, staring at Zabini’s proffered hand.

“Barely,” Zabini responded. “It means that you’ll tolerate me and I’ll tolerate you, if only for Daphne and Hermione’s sake.”

With only the slightest hesitation, Harry reached out and firmly grasped Zabini’s hand. “Truce then.”

After a pause, where they separated, Zabini had an expression on his face as if whatever he was about to say he was going to regret, looking at Harry in consideration.

“Now that that’s done,” he dryly intoned, cocking his head toward the stairs leading to the seventh floor, “do you want to come spy on Cornfoot with me?”

Harry’s eyes widened. “Obviously. What’s the plan?”

“Disillusionment Charm, get into the room of many things, and find a spot to watch him.” Zabini patted his school bag at his hip as they climbed the stairs. “I brought lunch – there’s probably enough for both of us. Grundel, my house elf, always over-packs.”

“D’you know if he’s in there already? We’re likely not going to get in if he is,” Harry said, reaching into the pocket of his cloak and pulling out his Marauder’s Map, which Zabini stared at with a strange, vaguely bored expression on his face.

“Don’t tell me that that’s a map of the school that shows everyone’s location,” he deadpanned.

Right, he’d never actually mentioned the Marauder’s Map to Zabini before, had he?

“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Harry remarked, spotting Cornfoot’s name in the Great Hall. “You’re sure he’s going to come to the Room of Requirement today?”

“After lunch. The scrying mirrors planted on Runcorn gave me the tip. Daft girl brought one to him right after the race.” Zabini paused in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching ballet to trolls and he took out his wand. “Can you perform a decent Disillusionment Charm or do I have to do it for you?”

Harry tossed him a petulant glare, slipping his wand from his pocket and making a show of executing the charm perfectly – tapping his head and shivering from the sensation of it. It didn’t matter if they had a truce; Zabini’s words were always going to have an occasional insulting flair to them, he imagined. It was just how Zabini spoke.

The phrase ‘conceited tosser’ came to mind as they entered the Room of Requirement and Harry found a good vantage point on top of a solid pile of stacked sofas. It wasn’t far from the Vanishing Cabinet and just high enough to see everything, even if Cornfoot walked around to the back of the cabinet. Casting a Stabilization Charm to make sure the pile was doubly safe, he climbed atop the highest sofa and signaled Zabini by flapping a tattered cushion in the air.

“Oi – over here!” he called.

Scaling the pile, Zabini nearly climbed on top of him, not that Harry could really see anything other than Zabini’s school bag, which was the only thing that Zabini left un-disillusioned. His large invisible hand grasped Harry’s thigh before pulling away as if it had been burnt.

“Sorry, Potter,” Zabini idly apologized, more out of propriety than anything else, as he settled the bag between them on the sofa.

“It’s fine,” Harry muttered, waving his wand around them and casting a quick Muffliato.

Whispering a Notice-Me-Not Charm, Zabini started pulling out the food and they ate in odd – slightly uncomfortable – silence, staring down at the Vanishing Cabinet.

“Do you know what’s wrong with it?” Harry conversationally asked after a long while, fidgeting in his seat and setting his half-eaten container lid full of pasta salad aside. “Like… what it would take to fix it?”

Zabini made a non-committal humming noise and a cloth napkin floated up into the air, dabbing at Zabini’s invisible lips. “I haven’t gotten much time to inspect it so I haven’t been able to do it fully. There’s definitely something wrong with the magical limbo between the two cabinets – it’s deteriorated.”

Harry bit the inside of his cheek. “D’you think Cornfoot can do it?”

“Not certain. I know Draco probably could’ve – given enough time. Despite his many faults, he wasn’t bad with a wand; but, I don’t know Cornfoot as well. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Zabini passed him a bottle of Butterbeer as silence fell over them once more, with only the sounds of chewing and the light glugging of beverages between them. Just as Zabini packed up their empty lunch containers, the door to the room opened and Cornfoot strode through with Runcorn trailing behind him. In contrast to the tall, well-built athletic Hufflepuff girl, Cornfoot was a short and scrawny little bloke, with messy shoulder-length sandy hair and dark eyes.

“Did you set the ward?” Harry heard Runcorn ask as they rounded a stack of desks. She was holding a large writhing cloth bag in her hand and her wand in the other.

“I’m not stupid, Dahlia. We’ll know if anyone comes sniffing ‘round,” Cornfoot replied in his gruff nasally voice, staring up at the Vanishing Cabinet and opening its doors. “Got the toads I asked you for?”

Runcorn passed Cornfoot the bag. “Frogs – all I could get. Why do you need them?”

“Testing – I’m not risking my life by going through that thing while we’re fixing it,” Cornfoot said, flicking a Summoning Charm at the room and causing a giant glass tank to fly toward them. Another flick of his wand shallowly filled the tank with water and he released the frogs into it, setting the tank aside on an ancient desk near the cabinet. “We need live subjects for this. Frogs’ll do.”

Runcorn’s seemingly-perpetual acquisitive eyes were glancing between the Ravenclaw boy and the Vanishing Cabinet. “So, what’s faulty? It looks in good condition – my aunt’s is just like this one.”

Harry listened carefully as Cornfoot confirmed Zabini’s speculation about what was wrong with the cabinet, but there was another detail – apparently the deteriorated magical limbo had caused an unstable vortex of magic to open up, which they also had to eliminate or close off. Being the Ravenclaw that he was, Cornfoot got a giant pile of books out of his bag and sat with his girlfriend, rifling through the tomes on the floor while they discussed the needs of the cabinet.

Shifting more on his seat, Harry moved to the side, leaning against the edge of the sofa to get as comfortable as he could on the busted old couch. Reconnaissance was really bloody boring – and it wasn’t like he could leave without getting caught. He almost felt bad for sending Dobby, who he had contacted this morning, to do such a mind-numbing job. In fact, Dobby was probably in the room with them somewhere, but he wasn’t likely to detect the elf. Dobby could move about completely silent and invisible with the aid of his special magic.

After the first few hours, Harry considered taking a nap until his bladder started nagging him. The most entertaining thing that happened all afternoon was when Cornfoot shot the wrong spell at the Vanishing Cabinet and was hurtled backwards into a mirror, shattering glass all over the place. The spells that followed seemed to be accepted a lot better and the two proceeded with far more caution, occasionally arguing with one another. Over and over, they endlessly consulted the books strewn about the floor; the two kept going back and forth – shooting spells and referring to the books.

It was like watching a tennis match in absurdly slow motion, with Cornfoot and Runcorn playing the tennis balls.

By the time the two had packed up, dragging their feet abysmally out the door after failing to send three frogs through the cabinet alive, Harry desperately needed a piss and a fag. And more food. It was past dinner time.

“Well that was disappointing,” Zabini intoned, speaking for the first time in hours and materializing on his side of the sofa once Cornfoot and Runcorn were safely gone. “However, I’m certain we’ve a while before the Death Eaters come. They were pulling at strings at best.”

Harry tapped his wand over his own head, stretching his newly visible limbs. His body felt cramped all over and his arse had fallen asleep ages ago. “Yeah…” he trailed off, rolling his stiff shoulders and flexing his buttocks to wake them up. “It’ll probably be safe enough to let Dobby take over for us. I don’t fancy doing this again.”

“Spying not your thing, Potter?” Zabini drawled, a smirk tugging at his lips as he started to climb down the pile of sofas.

Shaking his head, Harry retorted, “Not this type. How can you possibly sit still for that long? I couldn’t even hear you moving over there.”

“Patience.”

Harry’s nose scrunched up at the comment and he followed Zabini down, quickly as he could with his arse starting to wake up – his bottom tingled painfully. “I prefer action, I think.”

“Of course,” Zabini said with a snort. “That’s why you’re a Gryffindor and I’m a Slytherin.”

“Hard to be patient when your bladder’s about to bloody burst,” Harry groused in response, jumping off the last sofa and making a beeline for the door. “Thanks for this though – it was… erm – enlightening.”

“Yes,” the dark Slytherin boy replied, holding open the door for him, “we now know that Harry Potter’s got a bladder the size of a walnut. Surprise, surprise – alert the Evening Prophet.”

“Oh, sod off, Zabini. We’ve been in here for nearly seven bloody hours!”

Zabini just laughed.

OoO

Astoria Greengrass had an interesting way of working, Harry’d noticed over the past week or so of watching the scrying mirror case from time to time. He rarely caught her in the room with Malfoy or Goyle, but he knew she spoke with both of them. Their conversations were always seemingly sociable with laughter and smiles and Harry expected much of the same today. However, watching Draco Malfoy go all teary-eyed and seeking comfort in the older Muggle woman’s arms as he cried was… an interesting progression. Behind Malfoy’s bowed back, his blonde head tucked against Asoria’s shoulder, Harry watched Daphne’s cousin roll her eyes and gently stroke her fingers through Malfoy’s hair.

If Malfoy knew he was being comforted by a Muggle, Harry wondered how it would go.

“Where were you all day? I’ve been looking all over!” Hermione whispered loudly as she sat next to him in the corner of the Gryffindor common room. He was curled up with his heavily annotated Potions textbook hiding the scrying mirror case.

Quickly, he shut the book and the case, leaning over to mutter, “I was with Zabini, spying on ‘you-know-who’ and ‘you-know-who’s’ girlfriend doing ‘you-know-what’ in the ‘you-know-where’.”

“Oh.” Hermione tilted her head significantly toward the stairs to the boys’ dormitories and Harry nodded, following her.

They passed the students loitering around the Apparation Lesson sign-up sheet and Ron on the sofa with Lavender, doing an impression of two beached fish flapping about with their lips glued together. Harry could only sigh at the sight of them – knowing that it there would be no luck in trying to pry them apart. After Hermione had made it clear on Ron’s chances with her, Ron seemed to start going out of his way to snog Lavender at every free moment he had. It didn’t leave Harry much time to talk with his best friend, who often stumbled in late at night, his lips swollen and neck filled with so many love bites that his skin resembled that of a cheetah’s.

After making sure his dormitory was empty, Hermione shut the door behind him and sat heavily on his bed. “Any news?” she asked, which prompted Harry to tell her nearly everything about this afternoon, barring his and Zabini’s talk over the Slytherin boy’s relationship with her.

He knew Hermione wouldn’t take it well if she knew he went snooping into that.

She was silent as he finished his brief recap of the boring afternoon and he finished with asking, “How about you? Did you find anything on horcruxes in the library yet?”

A dark look passed over Hermione’s face and her eyes narrowed as she glared at the wall. “No, not yet,” she said, her lips pursed. “I haven’t gotten to it all, but I’ve been through most of the Restricted Section and the normal part of the library. There isn’t much left and they’re not mentioned anywhere. I’ll get to the rest tomorrow, but if I can’t find something in the restricted Divination books, I’m going to have to ask Nott or Blaise for help. They both have private libraries at home. Of course, there are also the rare and dubious book catalogues that I could order from… but that could get very expensive very quickly and I have no idea if it would turn up any results.”

“You think we should trust this information with them?” Harry hesitantly asked, fidgeting with the scrying mirror case in his hand.

“It might help,” Hermione replied, shrugging. “Nott comes from a large Pureblood family that has connections with other families who are Death Eaters. And Blaise, while neutral, has an extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts. Even Greengrass does – and she actually uses it.” Hermione’s upper lip curled into a modest sneer before she went on, “They might have heard of horcruxes or perhaps could point me to a book that would give me an idea of what in Merlin’s name they are.”

“I’ll ask Daphne then,” Harry decided. “It’s not as if we have to tell them why we need to know what horcruxes are.”

The centre of Hermione’s forehead creased. “What if they ask?”

“Tell them that it’s not in your place to tell – and that this topic involves the lives and trust of many people who you wouldn’t want to betray,” Harry answered, regurgitating and slightly altering Daphne’s reasoning for not telling him about what she did during her holiday.

Hermione let out a sigh and nodded reluctantly. “Okay. I’ll look more tomorrow and then ask Blaise or Nott – whoever I see first.”

They had made their decision. Drastic as it was, they needed all the help they could get and Harry reluctantly agreed with Hermione’s assessment of the situation. Knowing what horcruxes were could give him an edge on getting that memory from Slughorn.

OoO

After a night of not-so-fitful sleep thanks to Ron and Lavender giggling in Ron’s bed under terribly casted silencing charms, Harry found himself back in front of the entrance of the Slytherin common room, loitering behind a small group of first years under his invisibility cloak. A boy with dark hair and snooty features whispered the password – ‘Devil’s Snare’ – which allowed Harry to enter behind them. From there, he quietly made his way across the common room, sneaking by various bunches of students, including the Quidditch team – Zabini was amongst them since he apparently filled in as a chaser on occasion. Their talk, however, wasn’t strategy so Harry didn’t stick around them for long, despite being tempted to.

Swiftly slipping by a mousey seventh year boy, Harry tip-toed up the stairs to the heavily warded door of the Slytherin sixth year boy’s dormitory. He glanced around before knocking – he knew Daphne and Nott were in there due to the Marauder’s Map; they were probably plotting, knowing them and judging by the extensive spells on the door. The wards lowered in front of him, layer by layer, and Daphne opened the door as Harry shoved back the hood of his invisibility cloak, pushing into the room before anyone could see him in the corridor.

The door slammed shut behind him and he could feel the wards being spelled back on it by Daphne as she greeted him with a slightly surprised, “Hello, Harry.”

Inside the room, Nott was sitting behind a large cauldron on the floor, his flying rodents all gathered round him like he was their bloody king. There was another cauldron in the corner, away from everything flammable, emitting sparks. Harry didn’t want to go anywhere near it from the sizzling sound it was making – it sounded dangerous.

“Morning, Potter. To what do we owe the pleasure?” Nott idly asked, looking up at him. His blank stare in Harry’s direction was mirrored by the horde of squirrels surrounding him, who all moved in tandem with their ‘master’.

It was… unnerving. What exactly did he do to those squirrels?

He wanted to question it, but he had come there for more important – pressing – matters, unfortunately.

“I need to ask you about something,” Harry said, shifting out of the invisibility cloak and folding it over his arm. “And it’s very important that this remain secret – just between us and Hermione and Ron… and probably Zabini.”

“Ask away then,” Daphne prompted, taking a seat on a trunk next to the sparking cauldron in the corner, glancing into it for a moment before gazing back up at him.

Harry sat heavily on one of the four-poster beds facing them. “Have either of you ever heard of… horcruxes?”

Nott’s eyebrows rose and Daphne’s lips pursed in thought before she dug into the expanded pockets of her robe. Harry spared her a quizzical glance.

“Why would you want to know about those?” Nott questioned.

“I can’t tell you why,” Harry said, shaking his head, “I just need to know what they are. It’s important. Do you know?”

“Got it.” Daphne’s hand emerged from her pocket with an old ragged book and she flipped through it quickly. “Here it is: ‘Of the Horcrux,’” she read, “‘wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction.’”₁

“Well that’s very helpful,” Harry muttered cynically. “What book is that?”

Daphne shrugged. “Magick Moste Evile. It’s in the introduction – never seen that word mentioned anywhere else.”

“Did you get that from the library?” Harry asked, his eyes roving over the book in her lap for any markings that would indicate it was from there.

“No, this was my father’s book,” she said with an ironic smirk tugging at her lips. “My ‘inheritance’, you could say.”

“It’s doubtful that you’ll find out what a horcrux is from a book,” Nott interrupted and Harry’s gaze moved to him. “Soul magic is controlled by the Ministry and studied by the Department of Mysteries.”

“So a horcrux is soul magic,” Harry deduced, his brows furrowing.

“I think so…” Nott trailed off, scratching at the side of his neck. “I’ve read a redacted file of my father’s on it before. But reading a redacted file is a lot like reading a story with all of the best bits removed so you only get the general idea, but nothing precise. He was the head interrogator on a case of this wizard some years ago who made a horcrux – two murders occurred as a result of its making and its… implementation. Apparently horcruxes kill people, but they’re also devices that house souls or use souls in order to work, I believe.”

“So this… wizard sucked out the soul of someone using Dark Magic, which probably killed them, used it to make a horcrux, and then… used the horcrux to kill another person?” Daphne clarified warily, shutting Magick Moste Evile and stowing it back into her expanded pocket.

“Yeah, I think that’s what happened,” Nott said, placing a lid onto his cauldron and leaning back against his bedside table. “I’m not sure how it works or anything. That bit was redacted.”

“If it’s Department of Mysteries-related, Croaker would be the best person to ask, but you probably don’t want to let Croaker in on this,” Daphne said, her gaze moving to Harry. “Do you?”

Harry let out a sigh, considering the harm of it.

It all just didn’t make any sense. Why would Voldemort want to suck souls out of people, make horcruxes, and then kill people with the horcruxes? Avada Kedavra seemed a lot quicker and Voldemort definitely wasn’t afraid of using it.

There had to be something more to horcruxes than just killing people... something more that could’ve been on that redacted file that Nott was missing. If Croaker could get that redacted file…

“Maybe – if you don’t mention it’s me you’re asking this for,” he answered with a reluctant tilt of his head.

“Oh, that’s easy. I could tell him that I came across horcruxes in a book–” She patted her magically expanded pocket containing Magick Moste Evile. “–and that I’m curious as to what they are. I’m sure he’ll give me an idea if he knows anything. He was a boffin before he went into the field.”

“How do you even know Croaker so well?” Harry asked, his brain burning with curiosity over everything involving Daphne’s private life that she kept from him.

“I told you – Johnson. He introduced me, and Croaker and I just… get on,” Daphne explained with a wave of her hand, slipping off the trunk and rifling through it. “So do you want me to ask him or…?”

“Yes. Fine – ask him,” Harry said, wondering if Hermione’s investigation into horcruxes in the library was yielding any better results than he was getting at the moment. That was doubtful.

Soul magic. The only upside was that he now had an idea of what Hermione could double check or order books on.

Daphne pulled two pieces of parchment and a quill out of the trunk she was rifling through and immediately got to writing numbers on one of the pages. She didn’t even consult a numbers table as she worked, which told him that she had probably contacted Croaker so many bloody times that she likely had the lateral shifted numerological sequence they used committed to memory.

“Is that all you needed to know?” Nott asked, idly petting the head of one of the squirrels surrounding him.

Harry considered asking Nott if he’d help him get that memory from Slughorn, but decided against it, finally settling on nodding his head. “Yeah,” he said, fiddling with the cloak in his lap.

After a short bout of silence, where he watched Nott dote upon his flying rodents while Daphne swiftly spelled Arithmancy into the coded piece of parchment, she announced that she was done. Harry’s eyes moved to her and she folded the note, shoving it into a box of Honeyduke’s chocolates, which she had pulled from her pocket.

“Want to come to the Owlery with me?” she asked. “I sort of need to talk to you about Weasley.”

Harry’s brows rose and he stood up. “Erm – sure, what about him?”

“I’ll tell you after we get out of the common room,” Daphne said, moving toward the door and waiting for him to put his invisibility cloak back on.

She re-warded the door on their way out and was briefly stopped on their jaunt through the common room by a fifth year pulling her aside and telling her that Rowstock was the one who cursed Gloria. Pressing himself against a column as someone walked by them, Harry looked onto the scene.

Daphne nodded at the fifth year, quickly responding, “Okay, we’ll take care of it. Thanks,” before pausing near the wall entrance, which made Harry tap her shoulder to alert her that he was there.

As the bricks shifted back into place behind them, Harry moved closer to her and whispered, “What was that all about?”

“Just Muggleborn issues,” Daphne muttered back, glancing around the corridors for eavesdroppers and finding none. “The bigoted Pureblooded Slytherins target them – us – sometimes. And Gloria is this sweet little first year who’s still new to the house hierarchy – she got sent to the hospital wing on Friday.”

Harry stared at her in disbelief from under his cloak. The sheer idea of it was horrifying. “There are Muggleborns in Slytherin?”

Daphne’s lips pursed and she nodded. “Only five – it’s not that common, but they slip by the Sorting Hat from time to time. And then there are a couple halfbloods like me who grew up in the Muggle world as well – basically Muggleborns ourselves. We all look out for each other when someone goes in for the attack; they have to be reminded of just how Slytherin us ‘dirty bloods’ can be. We have to… earn our place in the house. It’s not given to us freely.”

“So that’s how you’re known to be ruthless,” Harry commented, following her up the stairs and in the direction of the exit that led to the Owlery.

“Not exactly,” Daphne stiffly replied, pulling the hood of her cloak up to shield herself from the snow falling outside. “But anyway – I wanted to discuss Weasley.”

Harry blinked. “Oh yeah, what about him?”

“He’s been having ‘girl trouble’ and seems to think that I’m his new psychologist on the matter,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Why is he talking to you about it?”

“Slughorn’s Christmas party, I suspect.” Letting out a sigh, Daphne pulled her silver case and lighter from her pocket and lit a cigarette. “Want one?”

Harry nodded, reaching out of his cloak to pluck a fag from the case and pushing back the hood of his invisibility cloak while she continued, “I gave him some pointers involving girls that night, to be nice. And my advice of ‘date around’ that I gave him doesn’t seem to be sticking with him. He can’t get it through his thick skull that ‘dating around’ does not mean ‘keep fucking Lavender Brown’ – who he wants to break up with, by the way. Maybe you can take over the advice giving stuff with him; he doesn’t listen to me very well and he’s really too obvious about approaching me sometimes. I’ve had to tell people that someone gave him a love potion that won’t bleed out.”

Bleed out?

Harry’s brow arched.

“Okay, I’ll talk to him – he’s been spending an awful lot of time with Lavender so it’s hard to shake him off her,” he said, taking a drag off his cigarette as he climbed the Owlery stairs behind her.

Then, he realized that the scene they made would probably look bizarre to any outsider – the floating smoking face and hand of Harry Potter following Daphne Greengrass. Thankfully the Owlery was empty.

With a short wave of her wand, Daphne spelled the box of chocolates shut and attached it to her large tawny owl, Mavis, who eagerly took off with the package. “You usually sit next to him in Potions – Slughorn probably won’t oppose a little chatting between you two. You’re his favourite.”

“Well, if he gives me detention for it, all the better,” Harry muttered without thinking and he bit the inside of his cheek after he realized exactly what he had just said.

Daphne’s brows rose. “You actually want detention with Sluggy? Why?”

“It’s nothing,” Harry said shaking his head. “I don’t mind detentions with him so much.”

“Right,” Daphne drawled. “You know that I know all of your lying tells, love.”

“Well, I can’t say much about this either,” Harry replied, “so you’re just going to have to trust me like I have to trust you in spite of all of the mysterious things you do with Johnson and Croaker that you don’t tell me about.”

Blowing out a short breath of smoke, Daphne smirked. “Alright. Fair, I guess.”

Harry shifted uncertainly on his feet. “That was… easy.”

“I’m not one to pry unless it’s important,” she said with a shrug. “You don’t make it far with Johnson or Croaker if you do. You just accept it as it is and move on.”

“So there’s definitely no hope for me knowing what you do for them,” Harry concluded, flicking ashes off his fag over the edge of the railing on the Owlery.

“I wouldn’t say that there’s no hope.”

“Really.” His eyes narrowed skeptically.

Daphne sighed, leaning against one of the wooden roof supports for a long moment, scrutinizing him. Then, gradually, a small smile pulled at her lips.

“Did I ever tell you how I met Johnson?”

Harry shook his head, slightly caught off guard by the topic change.

“It was at the Hog’s Head – beginning of fifth year. Not many students like to go there because of all the dodgy people who hang around and it’s off the path, so it’s great for solitude and a decent drink.”

“It also reeks of goats,” Harry added as another reason why people didn’t like to go there, “but go on.”

Daphne gave a short laugh. “Yeah – goats… Anyway, I was studying for a potions exam and got into a small debate with Aberforth – something involving fluxweed and dragon’s blood. Johnson joined in somewhere along the way and that’s how I met him.” She flicked the ashes off her cigarette and took a drag, shrugging. “Four Firewhiskeys in, he hired me for a potion’s job. It paid well, so I accepted. And he obviously can’t do it on his own – he may be better off than most squibs but he’s still magically disadvantaged.”

“What kind of potions did he ask you to make?”

Daphne’s smile turned wry. “Now that’s the part that’s not only mine to tell.”

“Of course,” Harry said, rolling his eyes and still burning with inquisitiveness over it all.

Letting the subject drop and pushing away his desire to know with a hearty inhalation at his fag, he asked, “Any more news on the Cornfoot front then?”

“No, but I have a few ideas on the asset cultivation front…”

Harry’s interest flipped inside him, the burning inquisitiveness momentarily redirected. He’d always had a secret fondness for conspiring.

Daphne definitely didn’t disappoint.

OoO

“I think Slughorn’s gotten wise to what you were doing to avoid his meetings,” Hermione said as she caught up to him in the corridors during one of their shared study breaks, passing him a velvet ribbon-adorned scroll.

In the past, the mere sight of the infamous scroll would have sent Harry careening to the Quidditch Pitch sign-up schedule. But now, his heart was about to burst with glee.

“It’s tonight,” she told him before he could slip the aubergine-coloured ribbon off the parchment with his eager fingers. “Doesn’t give you enough time to write-in a Quidditch practice, does it?”

“It’s not like that matters now – I’m definitely going,” Harry replied, reading over the note, which told him the usual time and place of the Slug Club meeting, all done in ornate calligraphy.

“You’re not going to approach him about… ‘it’ yet, are you?” The centre of Hermione’s forehead wrinkled slightly. “Because we still don’t know exactly what you-know-whats are other than what Nott’s mentioned and that book… Can’t believe I didn’t read the introduction while we were revising. I had full access to it when we were there; it would have saved me ages in the library.”

It was Hermione’s favourite tragic story as of late – that the library had failed her and the only book that mentioned horcruxes – in passing – was one she had already read while they were staying at the warehouse, which was why she overlooked it in her library search. Harry simply nodded in absentminded sympathy, knowing that he’d only irritate her if he told her off about being a broken record.

“I’m only going to try and get closer to him tonight – I’m not about to approach him about ’it’ until we know more and he’s extremely comfortable,” Harry reassured her, pausing and leaning toward her to whisper, “Have you gotten anywhere with that letter Croaker sent us?”

Two days back, Croaker’s reply to their first missive had come to them in the grip of an eagle owl. Hermione had spent hours on it afterward, even neglecting her homework in favour of trying to crack the code out of the Arithmancy.

“It’s slow progress…” Hermione muttered, glancing at him; her shoulders hunched a bit self-consciously.

“I still think you should ask Daphne for help,” Harry said, as he had numerous times before.

And, Hermione replied as she had numerous times before, “If she can do it, I can do it.”

Harry turned his head away from her to discreetly roll his eyes. “Alright, but when the moles take over the Department of Mysteries, don’t blame me if I tell you I told you so.”

Hermione glared at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “We’ve time.”

“We don’t know that for certain.”

Her glare withered microscopically, but she pursed her lips, nodding determinedly. “I’ll get it decoded.”

Based on her tone, he knew there was no point in arguing with her. Harry was half tempted to steal Croaker’s note out from under her nose and bring it to Daph, but he was certain that Hermione would probably send a horde of birds and Merlin-only-knew-what after him if he did that. He’d learned a lot about the bushy-haired Gryffindor girl’s wrath from watching her and Ron row for years – and he knew better.

“You should just focus on getting that memory,” Hermione haughtily added.

“Yeah, yeah – I’ve been making nice with him in class, haven’t I?”

“By cheating.”

Not this again… Harry thought, wishing he could bang his head against the wall until he could forget whatever it was bezoars were used for. The stunt he pulled in class yesterday, counteracting his poison with a bezoar instead of the complicated law that Slughorn was talking about, had magnified and renewed Hermione’s hate for the Half Blood Prince.

“You may not like that book, but it’s come in useful for this – and many other things; you even use Muffliato now – you can’t deny that,” Harry retorted, causing Hermione to deflate a little as they paused in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, whispering the password to her and entering the common room.

Hermione lowered her voice, “Don’t insult my intelligence, Harry. Muffliato is… different than cheating in class. We know things that can’t be overheard and it’s more flexible than silencing barriers. I’m not so foolish as to deny a helpful spell when it’s required, even if I disapprove of its origins.”

“Well, if I wasn’t ‘cheating’ with that book, I doubt I’d be Slughorn’s favourite and I really doubt I’d be able to get ‘it’ from him then,” Harry hissed quietly, his eyes glancing around the common room for anyone who could be listening.

Hermione’s hair puffed up in response to his argument but then it settled as she stared at him with a begrudging expression. “I don’t like it though.”

“Can’t you just be happy that I’m actually interested in a school subject other than Defense Against the Dark Arts for once?”

“If I’d known you’d be so readily seduced by an annotated textbook, I’d have let you read from mine after I was through with them for our assignments,” she bitterly replied as they sat back on the plush sofa in front of the fire.

“Yeah, but I doubt that you change things that the books say or instruct and write your own invented spells in the margins.”

The corners of Hermione’s lips tightened. “Well you’re never going to find out with that attitude.”

“It’s not like I’d know if you did.” Harry sighed, running an exasperated hand through his hair and knowing exactly why she was nitpicking at him and being unnecessarily difficult.

Her insecurities were running a bit wild, thanks to Croaker’s letter, the horcrux stuff, and him usurping her top spot by ‘cheating’ in Potions. Didn’t help that he wasn’t being very tactful, but he shouldn’t have to be; she was his best friend, not an asset.

Hermione’s face softened slightly as she looked at him and she ran her fingers along the edge of her book bag. “Would you mind if I used your dormitory to work on the note? I don’t want to be interrupted by Parvati and Lavender.”

“Yeah, I’ll come up with you – I’ve an essay for McGonagall to get done anyway.”

“You still haven’t finished that?”

Harry tossed her a crooked smile. “Not all of us can be you.”

OoO

It was a bit of fast work trying to get his hands on a tin of crystalized pineapple once the idea hit him during lunch, but the utilization of Ginny had led her to contact the DA and, fortunately, Stewart Ackerley had a tin of it on hand. Not long before the Slug Club meeting, Harry made the exchange with the Ravenclaw third year outside of the Great Hall, paying him two Galleons even though the boy was more than glad to help and said it wasn’t necessary, but Harry insisted.

As he walked toward Slughorn’s office, he considered everything that he knew about the man and the personality traits which he could exploit during the meeting and in the future. Slughorn was exceptionally covetous and prized those who were useful and sycophantic – that was as far as he had observed.

The problem was that Harry had no idea how he could possibly be of any use to Slughorn as anything other than an association to boast about. Perhaps if he became something more… or provided more use. But how?

Harry paused in front of the door to Slughorn’s office, coming up with nothing and checking his watch to make sure he was definitely early so he could discreetly deliver the sweets. To his surprise, Daphne was already there, sitting at the table around which the professor held his Slug Club dinner parties with a glass of elf-made wine resting between her fingers. They were discussing something quietly and Harry thought he overheard one of them say something about a potion ingredient that went for twenty Galleons an ounce on the market.

“Oho, Harry!” Slughorn called out when he spotted him. “Come join us, m’boy! Please do help yourself to the wine – had this lovely bottle given to me from the ever-generous Madame Cavell; never forgets an old colleague, that one!”

Harry was immediately seated at the table to the right of Slughorn with a wine glass being pressed into his grip in one smooth motion. “Thank you, sir,” he said, digging into his pocket with his free hand and pulling out the tin of crystalized pineapple. “I’m very sorry I haven’t been able to make it to all of the meetings in the last couple months – being Quidditch captain and all. I got these for you, as an apology. I know they’re your favourite.”

Slughorn’s eyes widened and he happily snatched up the tin, a wide grin on his face. “You spoil me! How did you know they were my favourite?”

“Just a guess. You always have a tin of them in class,” Harry replied with a genial smile, repeating the lie he had thought up earlier on the subject – he really knew of it from the tampered memory of Tom Riddle asking about horcruxes. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Daphne was watching him carefully.

“Of course – of course! You’re like your mother in that way. Very perceptive!” Slughorn then turned his attention to Daphne. “Speaking of which, I believe you’ve met Daphne Greengrass before, haven’t you? Takes right after her father, much like you your mother. Natural at potions, though I would say a little unconventional…”

“Well, my mum’s a chemist, Professor, and I was raised by her,” Daphne said, setting her wineglass down on the table and leaning back in her seat. “Chemistry isn’t much different from Potions. There are many types of useful Muggle technologies that wizards aren’t privy to.”

“Yes… petrol, was it? You discussed that in your last assignment on Moonwort,” Slughorn said with a nod, idly stroking his chin. “I’d have never thought to use Moonwort – and flobberworm bones – in that manner. Very destructive, but from a purely academic standpoint – a novel discovery.”

“What’s the ‘novel discovery’?” Harry asked. His eyebrows rose as he glanced between the two of them and sipped at the sweet wine that Slughorn had handed him. He was hoping Slughorn would go on a bit more about Daphne’s father since she didn’t seem very forthcoming about the topic, but she unfortunately diverted the conversation.

She was good at that.

“If you steep Moonwort in petrol and brew it gradually in a gold cauldron with flobberworm bone dust, you get an explosive mixture that – when ignited – is almost as powerful as trinitrotoluene, the magical equivalent to which would be an extremely powerfully executed blasting spell,” Daphne explained, trailing her fingers along the rim of her wineglass.

Harry’s lips twisted into a smirk and he wondered if Astoria had any influence on that particular experiment.

“Amazing what Muggles are capable of without magic, isn’t it?” Slughorn said, popping open the tin of crystalized pineapple and plucking out one of the sweets. “Wizards don’t use potions for those means, naturally, but it is interesting to know that there is an alternative. A blasting spell without magic…”

“Don’t you think that there could be a potion-equivalent for almost every spell?” Daphne asked, raising an eyebrow toward the plump professor. “The possibilities are endless with what you can do with them, even if you are a bit limited with the method of deployment.”

“See what I mean by unconventional?” Slughorn said good-humouredly, nudging Harry in the shoulder with his elbow. “You’ll go far with that open mind of yours, Daphne. Oh, and I believe it’s time!”

The Professor’s attention turned to the door to his office, which had just opened, revealing various members of the Slug Club. “Please, come in, everyone – have a seat! The starters shall be arriving any minute!”

Hermione took the empty chair right next to Harry with Zabini sitting on her other side. McLaggen, trying to get as close to Professor Slughorn as possible, rushed to the chair next to Daphne on Slughorn’s left. The rest of the Slug Club trickled in slowly amongst the wide-ranging conversation that Slughorn struck up. Melinda Bobbin, the Carrow twins, Ginny, and a few other people that Harry wasn’t well acquainted with filled the rest of the large table.

Since Harry and Ginny were the newcomers to the already familiarized group, some of the conversations were a bit confusing – they seemed to pick up right where they left off at the last meeting – but Slughorn made an effort to include them, especially Harry. It was actually kind of amazing to watch Slughorn work. He quite literally directed the conversation around the table, much like a conductor would an orchestra, somehow involving every single person in the room. It became extremely apparent as to why the man had so many connections – he had a way of appealing to everyone and manipulating the conversation just to his liking while engaging the prospects at hand.

It was brilliant, if a little disturbing and incredibly devious, considering that Slughorn would probably exploit nearly everyone sitting around the table in the future in order to continue with his well-connected and comfortable lifestyle. Slughorn was every bit a greedy, cunning, and ambitious Slytherin.

Harry shifted in his seat amid the entrée that appeared on everyone’s plates, which was announced by Slughorn to be some sort of Ukrainian dish he became fond of during his travels throughout Europe studying potions in his youth. A soliloquy about Slughorn’s studies followed, during which Harry realized that Hermione and Zabini were playing footsie under the table; though, from the waist-up, they appeared completely normal. She even had one of her shoes off and was sneaking her sock covered toe up one of his trouser legs.

In spite of the fact that Harry had somewhat accepted their relationship and agreed to a truce with Zabini, it was still a bit alarming to see it unfold.

But that alarm was short lived and slowly morphed into panic as one of the Carrow twins – Flora – interrupted Slughorn’s story about his apprenticeship under a man named Master Greggor to ask, “Is it true that you might be taking on an apprentice this term?”

Slughorn’s eyes widened and his lips parted in a long pause as he stared at the Slytherin girl. “Well… that may be so, Miss Carrow,” he articulated slowly, his eyes shifting around the room.

Harry’s heart was beating so hard, he could feel it in his throat and he forced himself to swallow his mouthful of soup, setting his spoon aside. He didn’t think they’d actually… ask Slughorn about it.

From across the table, he shared a look with Daphne. She seemed more curious than panicked, which made his blood settle a little, but it didn’t do much. She could have been putting on an act.

What was her contingency for this? He knew she had to have one – she had bloody contingency plans for ruddy well everything.

“How did you come across such a rumour?” Slughorn inquired uneasily, his face still frozen in a wide-eyed expression.

“I may have met Mr. Voynich on his way out of the castle,” Flora lied, a little smirk curving across her lips. Harry was tempted to reach for his wand and cast a quick ‘Langlock’ on her, but it would have looked very suspicious all around, especially since she was an asset. And they were in the middle of a crowded table.

“Yes, of course…” Slughorn nodded absentmindedly, muttering, “Mr. Voynich – Tom. Very bright. Rather not sure if I shall take him on…”

Daphne’s gaze narrowed a fraction and Harry’s stomach felt like it was slowly filling with lead weights as he snuck glances between her and the plump professor.

Tom.

He definitely said ‘Tom’.

What in the bloody hell did Daphne do to him? Harry was pretty certain she did do something from the small changes in her expression as the whole thing went on.

“Why not, Professor?” Flora asked, tilting her head curiously.

Harry tried not the glare at the girl and kept his face straight. Inside his mind he was screaming at her to SHUT UP!

Slughorn cleared his throat, speaking louder and more confident than before, though still somewhat anxiously, “The position is for me to determine privately, Miss Carrow. And it would be appreciated if we could keep this between us, yes? Wouldn’t want the Headmaster knowing that I’m looking into an assistant – he isn’t quite aware of it.”

Everyone around the table nodded and the Professor let out an almost imperceptible breath, bringing his glass of wine to his lips for a drink, which seemed to calm him.

“Now, I believe I was in the middle of telling you all about Master Greggor!” Slughorn declared, jumping right back into his monologue about his own apprenticeship and taking most of the room’s attention off of the interruption, but it was easy to see in his body language that he was still unsettled by the mention of Mr. Voynich.

Harry was left feeling as if he had taken a massive dose of pepper-up potion that went straight through his system very quickly and he took deep, even breaths through his nose to clear out his emotions. It was only a matter of time before Slughorn struck up a conversation involving him and he didn’t want to appear nervous.

First chance he got, he was going to grab Daphne and ask her what the bloody hell she did to him.

OoO

“Yeah, it wasn’t supposed to happen like that…” Daphne said with a sigh as she leaned against the wall in the secluded and warded alcove he had pulled her into after the meeting.

“How was it supposed to happen?” Harry hissed, not bothering to be particularly quiet. The Muffliato he’d casted would hold.

“He was supposed to be able to easily distinguish Mr. Voynich from Tom Riddle – I tried to make sure of that – but Thaumaturgy can be a bit unpredictable.” Daphne paused, her lips twitching. “I’ve not gotten the hang of it yet – I thought I had. I never put in the idea that Mr. Voynich’s name was Tom, so something must be flowing in from his memories.”

Harry pulled his red leather case from his pocket and lit a cigarette with his wand, taking a much-needed calming drag.

“Can you fix it?” he asked. “Because we can’t have him going around thinking that Mr. Voynich is Tom Riddle if I’m going to use that disguise to cultivate people.”

Among other things.

Daphne rolled her eyes. “Obviously we can’t have that, but it’ll take some tinkering to fix it. Hallucinogenic bewitching is incredibly complicated magic.”

Glancing at her sharply, Harry blew out a breath full of smoke. “But you can.”

“Yes. I’ll have to put some more practice in first – figure out precisely what went wrong so I can fix it properly. At least I got him to confirm the existence of Mr. Voynich, so it wasn’t a complete failure.”

“Not to the Carrows, but to Slughorn it is!” Harry retorted. “He looked bloody horrified when that was brought up.”

“Fear can keep things isolated pretty well – it’s a great motivator,” Daphne countered, shrugging. “And even if he goes to Dumbledore with it, I doubt that Dumbledore would know what to make of it all.”

Harry let out a gust of a sigh. “Or maybe he’ll catch on to whatever we’re doing immediately and everything will be ruined.”

“You’re being paranoid,” she said blankly, her brow arching. “The most that Dumbledore could possibly see from Slughorn’s mind is a young man who looks like Tom Riddle interviewing for an apprentice job – the Thaumaturgy I wove in there looked very good when I did a sweep. I probably just didn’t have the bewitching part solid so there wasn’t enough separation for Slughorn… I think. I’m not sure.”

“Just fix it,” Harry implored. “Soon, if you can.”

Daphne’s brows rose and she moved next to him, reaching up to rub one of his shoulders and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and feeling himself deflate ever-so-slightly at her casual touch. “I will. Calm down. It’s not the end of the world and panicking over mistakes and regrets is not a productive way to move forward. You know this – or didn’t I teach you well enough back at the warehouse?”

He could hear the smirk in her voice and he let out another sigh. “You did. It’s just that I need to get something from Slughorn and I can’t have him like this if I’m going to succeed.”

“Well, it might not be a bad idea to have me plant a suggestion to give you that something while I’m playing around in there,” Daphne offered, her hand slipping from his shoulder. “Since I’m going to have to do it anyway.”

Harry glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Do you think that would work?”

“I dunno,” Daphne said uncertainly, biting the corner of her lip. “Depends on what you have to get from him.”

Flicking the ashes off his fag, he tilted his head back against the cool stone wall behind him. “I was told that methods such as Legilimency and bewitching wouldn’t work… or else it would have already been tried.”

The centre of Daphne’s forehead creased. “What is it that you need to get from him?”

“A memory,” Harry said and he didn’t know why he was saying it, but his nerves were frazzled from the meeting and it was late and he probably could use her help too. “It involves Tom Riddle, that’s why he can’t be this way. It could hinder things.”

That was an evasive enough truth.

“Hm,” Daphne hummed, looking away from him, her eyes unfocused in thought.

They stood in silence against the wall while Harry’s fag dwindled between his fingertips and he considered the possibilities of how Thaumaturgy could help him.

It wasn’t Legilimency or Veritaserum or strictly bewitching…

“If Slughorn is so horrified of him, why not use that?” she asked suddenly, nearly startling him because it was so quiet around them for a few minutes.

Harry’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Daphne shrugged. “Fear is a great motivator,” she repeated. “Maybe you can scare it out of him somehow.”

Scare it out of him…

Harry bit the inside of his cheek, pondering ways and debating how... His neglected cigarette burnt down until he had to vanish it.

He couldn’t bewitch it out of Slughorn. He couldn’t use Veritaserum, and definitely not Legilimency. But scaring it out of him… it had the potential to give him exactly what he needed – what he was missing before. Slughorn needed a way to use him other than simply something to boast about.

Harry’s eyes lit up as he stepped off the wall.

“You know, that just might be crazy enough to work...” he said, pacing around and coming up with a plan – all of the possibilities – in his head.

It would take time, but probably less time than his current plan. And effort. And he’d still have to continue on with his cultivation maneuvers.

However…

A slow smirk unfurled over his lips as he looked at her. “I’ve an idea. But I’ll need you to teach me a few things…”

OoO

₁ Rowling, J.K. (2005). Chapter 18: Birthday Surprises. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (US edition) (pp. 381). New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.

OoO

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