"It doesn't look like it. I don't see how a harsher curfew is going to stop the Heir. I had an idea before break. We need to find where Salazar Slytherin was buried."
"How would that help us?"
"Don't worry about it. I'm going to go do some research." And Ron was left standing alone with Hermione before he could comprehend how Harry had left. Luna found him there, trying not to cry.
"I was talking to McGonagall," she explained in a whisper. "They still have no leads. Nothing."
"Fuck. Great job, Hermione, honestly." He glared at his frozen friend. He gave a big sigh and rested his head against her bedsheets. "Why'd you have to push him so hard? Why'd you run off?" His hand twined through her thick curls. He felt Luna press a hand against his shoulder, and he shuddered, trying to remain calm. "Is it stupid of me to ignore it all? It's not like Harry doesn't scare me too, sometimes. But I'd rather play chess or Quidditch and not think about it. As his friend, I guess I should care more, but -" He sighed and lifted his head up, wiping away the tears that had gathered. Luna pressed into his side and they both stood there, hugging as they looked at their petrified friend.
"I feel the same. It's odd, but it's Harry. It doesn't bother me. I trust him to talk about it when he wants to. I trust him to know what he's doing. I think Hermione feels the same - but Hermione needs to know things, it's who she is. She's too curious for her own good. She had to push him."
"I'd tell you to loosen up as usual, but that seems in poor taste really. Same with 'I told you so.' But I'll tell you later, once you're ok." He said to Hermione. "Harry's not taking this well."
"We'll just have to be there for him," Luna agreed.
...
January passed in a tense, slow crawl. Each day, each hour felt like double the time it should. Harry sequestered himself in the library, barely coming out for classes and breaks. Hogwarts, A History - The Four Founders - Slytherin's Legacy - all gave a vague 'buried on the castle grounds' but not where. The graveyard of some of the most influential wixen of British society had to be a significant location. Why would it be hidden? Harry wanted to explore the grounds in search, but between the winter chill and the strict curfew, he didn't have many options besides digging through books. There were a few altercations where McGonagall had to drag him away from a book because he'd missed curfew again, too focused to notice the passage of time. The stern professor was keeping an annoyingly close eye on him, so he could hardly afford to have an absence noticed as he searched the grounds.
He tried to keep Ron and Luna out of the loop, disheartened as he was by Hermione's reaction. The cat was out of the bag, but he still had no desire to test his friend's loyalty by admitting to necromancy in addition to hemocraft.
Still, they joined him in the library and didn't ask him any questions and Harry was eternally grateful.
"Attention students!" Dumbledore announced one night at dinner. "I have good news in what I know has been a trying year. Tomorrow we will be hosting an expert to assist Madame Pomfrey in brewing the very complicated potion needed to rouse our petrified peers and friends. She estimates the Restorative Drought should be ready by the end of next month."
And when they went to visit Hermione that next day, Alabasandria Adams stood in the Hospital Wing, alongside most of the professors and some Ministry officials.
"Mama!" Harry shouted with glee. He pulled her into a hug, his relief was instantaneous. Mama would be able to fix this.
"Hello Harry." Her apprentice's face was stricken with anguish so Alabasandria gave him a brief squeeze back to his crushing hug, shuffling them off to the side so they could talk alone. She hadn't been sure if interfering at Hogwarts was a good idea, putting on a public face was not her strong suit, but the despair in Harry's letter was matched with the sniffles he was now trying to hide in her sweater. She hadn't seen him this upset in years. Harry needed her here.
"You're the expert Dumbledore called in?"
"Yes. Mandrakes only mature in the summer, so they needed a supplier from outside the country and Snape wasn't helping much so here I am. When you wrote to me about Hermione I owled an old colleague of mine from Peru and now we're all arguing about the price of things and other such bureaucratic nightmares."
"You'll be able to fix it, right mama?" His head poked out from her sweater, eyes wide with hope.
"Of course, Harry. It's a simple potion. Just time-consuming and expensive. Although to prevent this from happening again, something should be done about this Heir of Slytherin business. Again, there is a lot of talking being done, but not a lot of doing."
Harry's face hardened.
"I'm working on it," he said. His voice dropped lower. "I'm hunting down Slytherin's grave but there's a strict curfew in place. Students can't go anywhere alone. I'd have to sneak out after dark so I want to have a better clue of its location beforehand."
She nodded. "Let me know if you need help." She pried her koala-esque apprentice off of her, giving him a final pat on the head. "Now scurry off and let the adults talk. I'll be in the castle for a while if you need me." She turned back to the group, giving them an awkward, forced smile as they began to coo over how sweet Harry was and what a loving mother she was.
Despite the morale boost provided by the petrified students' imminent recovery, Harry still couldn't find anything helpful in his books, and the few times he ventured outside of the library to interact with the world around him, he saw that the rumors and theories about him being the Heir had only increased. Despite his worry over Hermione being obvious, it deterred none of the students from their wild gossip, and a few brave or stupid souls began to follow him around in hopes of catching him in the act. Jokes on them, his anger was on such a short fuse they had better hope he didn't start killing them out of spite.
It was because of both of those things that Luna finally insisted on dragging him away from his books and succeeding one weekend in February.
"This is an odd spot to meet up, Luna." Harry looked around the girls' lavatory with confusion. "I suppose none of my stalkers will look for me here, though."
"Exactly," Luna said. "No one goes in here because of Moaning Myrtle. And you can't bring books into a bathroom or else they'll get wet. It will be a nice break for you."
Ron and Harry looked around the empty bathroom, wondering how they were supposed to spend their free period in such a place.
"Er, thanks Luna," Harry said. "I guess we could play a round of Exploding Snap?"
"Looks like someone's been here recently," Ron muttered from where he'd wandered off to explore. On the other side of the sinks, fine mist sprayed from a busted pipe leaving a layer of water across the area. He noticed something laying on the floor and headed over to investigate.
Harry followed his movement and felt a sudden rush of dread settle inside him. Something was wrong.
"Yeah, look guys. Someone left this book on the ground."
.....
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