* * *

            THE NEXT DAY Elara and Harry confided in both Ron and Hermione the task that Dumbledore had set Harry, though separately, for Hermione still refused to remain in Ron's presence longer than it took to give him a contemptuous look. Ron thought that Harry was unlikely to have any trouble with Slughorn at all.

            "He loves you," he said over breakfast, waving an airy forkful of fried egg. "Won't refuse you anything, will he? Not his little Potions Prince. Just hang back after class this afternoon and ask him."

            Hermione, however, took a gloomier view. 

            "He must be determined to hide what really happened if Dumbledore couldn't get it out of him," she said in a low voice, as they stood in the deserted, snowy courtyard at break. "Horcruxes . . . Horcruxes . . . I've never even heard of them. . . ."

            "You haven't?" said Elara, disappointed.

            "They must be really advanced Dark Magic, or why would Voldemort have wanted to know about them? I think it's going to be difficult to get the information, Harry, you'll have to be very careful about how you approach Slughorn, think out a strategy. . . ."

            "Ron reckons I should just hang back after Potions this afternoon. . . ." said Harry.

            "Oh, well, if Won-Won thinks that, you'd better do it," she said, flaring up at once. "After all, when has Won-Won's judgment everbeen faulty?"

            "Hermione, can't you — ?"

            "No!" she said angrily, and stormed away, leaving Elara and Harry behind and ankle-deep in snow.

            Potions lessons were uncomfortable enough these days, seeing as Elara, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had to share a desk. Today, Hermione moved her cauldron around the table so that she was close to Ernie, and ignored both Harry and Ron, and most hurtfully, Elara.

            "Settle down, settle down, please! Quickly, now, lots of work to get through this afternoon! Golpalott's Third Law . . . who can tell me — ? But Miss Granger can, of course!"

            Hermione recited at top speed: "Golpalott's-Third-Law-states-that-the-antidote-for-a-blended-poison-will-be-equal-to-more-than-the-sum-of-the-antidotes-for-each-of-the-separate-components."

            "Precisely!" beamed Slughorn. "Ten points for Gryffindor! Now, if we accept Golpalott's Third Law as true . . ."

            Elara was going to have to take Slughorn's word for it that Golpalott's Third Law was true, because she had only understood bits of it. Nobody apart from Hermione seemed to be following what Slughorn said next either. 

            ". . . which means, of course, that assuming we have achieved correct identification of the potion's ingredients by Scarpin's Revelaspell, our primary aim is not the relatively simple one of selecting antidotes to those ingredients in and of themselves, but to find that added component that will, by an almost alchemical process, transform these disparate elements —"

            Ron was sitting beside Elara with his mouth half open, doodling absently on his new copy of Advanced Potion-Making. Ron kept forgetting that he could no longer rely on Hermione to help him out of trouble when he failed to grasp what was going on.

            ". . . and so," finished Slughorn, "I want each of you to come and take one of these phials from my desk. You are to create an antidote for the poison within it before the end of the lesson. Good luck, and don't forget your protective gloves!"

            Hermione had left her stool and was halfway toward Slughorn's desk before the rest of the class had realized it was time to move, and by the time Elara, Harry, Ron, and Ernie returned to the table, she had already tipped the contents of her phial into her cauldron and was kindling a fire underneath it.

            "It's a shame that the Prince won't be able to help you much with this, Harry," she said brightly as she straightened up. "You have to understand the principles involved this time. No shortcuts or cheats!"

            Elara remembered Anya teaching her something about Golpalott's law, so she went based off a very loose memory of that particular lesson. When Harry and Ron saw Elara tie her hair back (a usual sign she was about to do dive into something head first), they began copying everything she did.

            "Two minutes left, everyone!" Slughorn called as Harry was rummaging through a strange box. "Time's . . . UP!. Well, let's see how you've done! Blaise . . . what have you got for me?"

            Slowly, Slughorn moved around the room, examining the various antidotes. Nobody had finished the task, although Hermione was trying to cram a few more ingredients into her bottle before Slughorn reached her. 

            Ron had given up completely, and was merely trying to avoid breathing in the putrid fumes issuing from his cauldron. He sniffed Ernie's potion and passed on to Ron's with a grimace. He did not linger over Ron's cauldron, but backed away swiftly, retching slightly. He nodded at Elara's but showed some contempt.

            "And you, Harry," he said. "What have you got to show me?"

            Harry held out his hand, a bezoar sitting on his palm. Slughorn looked down at it for a full ten seconds. Harry wondered, for a moment, whether he was going to shout at him. Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

            "You've got nerve, boy!" he boomed, taking the bezoar and holding it up so that the class could see it. "Oh, you're like your mother.. . . Well, I can't fault you. . . . A bezoar would certainly act as an antidote to all these potions!"

            Hermione, who was sweaty-faced and had soot on her nose, looked livid. Her half-finished antidote, comprising fifty-two ingredients, including a chunk of her own hair, bubbled sluggishly behind Slughorn, who had eyes for nobody but Harry.

            "And you thought of a bezoar all by yourself, did you, Harry?" she asked through gritted teeth.

            "That's the individual spirit a real potion-maker needs!" said Slughorn happily, before Harry could reply. "Just like his mother, she had the same intuitive grasp of potion-making, it's undoubtedly from Lily he gets it. . . . Yes, Harry, yes, if you've got a bezoar to hand, of course that would do the trick . . . although as they don't work on everything, and are pretty rare, it's still worth knowing how to mix antidotes. . . ."

            "Time to pack up!" said Slughorn. "And an extra ten points to Gryffindor for sheer cheek!"

            Still chuckling, he waddled back to his desk at the front of the dungeon. Harry dawdled behind, taking an inordinate amount of time to do up his bag. Neither Ron nor Hermione wished him luck as they left; both looked rather annoyed. Elara kissed him swiftly on the cheek ad wished him good luck quietly, leaving Harry and Slughorn to talk.

            However, it did not go well. Slughorn stormed out the room and slammed the door behind him, muttering furiously to himself.

            Neither Ron nor Hermione was at all sympathetic when Harry told them of this disastrous interview. Hermione was still seething at the way Harry had triumphed without doing the work properly. Ron was resentful that Harry hadn't slipped him a bezoar too.

            "While I love the two of you," said Elara angrily, "This is more than school work! These Horcruxes are the key to everything! Hermione, you do understand that if we figure out what these things mean, that chance I told you about might become real?"

            Meanwhile, the Hogwarts library had failed Hermione for the first time in living memory. She was so shocked, she even forgot that she was annoyed at Harry for his trick with the bezoar.

            "I haven't found one single explanation of what Horcruxes do!" she told Elara and Harry. "Not a single one! I've been right through the restricted section and even in the most horrible books, where they tell you how to brew the most gruesome potions — nothing! All I could find was this, in the introduction to Magick Moste Evile — listen —'Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction. . . .' I mean, why mention it then?" she said impatiently, slamming the old book shut; it let out a ghostly wail. 

            "Oh, shut up," she snapped, stuffing it back into her bag. 

            The snow melted around the school as February arrived, to be replaced by cold, dreary wetness. Purplish-gray clouds hung low over the castle and a constant fall of chilly rain made the lawns slippery and muddy. The upshot of this was that the sixth years' first Apparition lesson, which was scheduled for a Saturday morning so that no normal lessons would be missed, took place in the Great Hall instead of in the grounds.

            When Elara, Harry, and Hermione arrived in the Hall (Ron had come down with Lavender), they found that the tables had disappeared. Rain lashed against the high windows and the enchanted ceiling swirled darkly above them as they assembled in front of Professors McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick, and Sprout — the Heads of Houses — and a small wizard whom Elara took to be the Apparition instructor from the Ministry. He was oddly colorless, with transparent eyelashes, wispy hair, and an insubstantial air, as though a single gust of wind might blow him away. 

            Elara wondered whether constant disappearances and reappearances had somehow diminished his substance, or whether this frail build was ideal for anyone wishing to vanish.

            "Good morning," said the Ministry wizard, when all the students had arrived and the Heads of Houses had called for quiet. "My name is Wilkie Twycross and I shall be your Ministry Apparition instructor for the next twelve weeks. I hope to be able to prepare you for your Apparition Tests in this time —"

            "Malfoy, be quiet and pay attention!" barked Professor McGonagall.

            Everybody looked around. Draco had flushed a dull pink; he looked furious as he stepped away from Crabbe, with whom he appeared to have been having a whispered argument.

            "— by which time, many of you may be ready to take your tests," Twycross continued, as though there had been no interruption. "As you may know, it is usually impossible to Apparate or Disapparate within Hogwarts. The headmaster has lifted this enchantment, purely within the Great Hall, for one hour, so as to enable you to practice. May I emphasize that you will not be able to Apparate outside the walls of this Hall, and that you would be unwise to try.

            "I would like each of you to place yourselves now so that you have a clear five feet of space in front of you."

            There was a great scrambling and jostling as people separated, banged into each other, and ordered others out of their space. The Heads of Houses moved among the students, marshaling them into position and breaking up arguments.

            "Harry, where are you going?" demanded Hermione.

            But Harry did not answer; he was moving quickly through the crowd towards Draco. Elara rolled her eyes. Twycross waved his wand. Old-fashioned wooden hoops instantly appeared on the floor in front of every student.

            "The important things to remember when Apparating are the three D's!" said Twycross. "Destination, Determination, Deliberation!" Step one: Fix your mind firmly upon the desired destination. In this case, the interior of your hoop. Kindly concentrate upon that destination now."

            Everybody looked around furtively to check that everyone else was staring into their hoop, then hastily did as they were told. Elara gazed at the circular patch of dusty floor enclosed by hishoop and tried hard to think of nothing else.

            "Step two," said Twycross, "focus your determination to occupy the visualized space! Let your yearning to enter it flood from your mind to every particle of your body!"

            Elara glanced around surreptitiously. A little way to her left, Ernie Macmillan was contemplating his hoop so hard that his face had turned pink; it looked as though he was straining to lay a Quaffle-sized egg. Elara bit back a laugh and hastily returned her gaze to her own hoop.

            "Step three," called Twycross, "and only when I give the command . . . Turn on the spot, feeling your way into nothingness, moving with deliberation! On my command, now . . . one —"

            Elara glanced around again; lots of people were looking positively alarmed at being asked to Apparate so quickly.

            "— two —"

            Elara fixed her thoughts on her hoop again.

            "— THREE!"

            Elara spun on the spot, lost balance, and nearly fell over. She was not the only one. The whole Hall was suddenly full of staggering people; Neville was flat on his back; Ernie Macmillan, on the other hand, had done a kind of pirouetting leap into his hoop and looked momentarily thrilled, until he caught sight of Dean Thomas roaring with laughter at him.

            "Never mind, never mind," said Twycross dryly, who did not seem to have expected anything better. "Adjust your hoops, please,and back to your original positions. . . ."

            The second attempt was no better than the first. The third was just as bad. Not until the fourth did anything exciting happen. There was a horrible screech of pain and everybody looked around, terrified, to see Susan Bones of Hufflepuff wobbling in her hoop with her left leg still standing five feet away where she had started. The Heads of House converged on her; there was a great bangand a puff of purple smoke, which cleared to reveal Susan sobbing, reunited with her leg but looking horrified.

            "Splinching, or the separation of random body parts," said Wilkie Twycross dispassionately, "occurs when the mind is insufficiently determined. You must concentrate continuously upon your destination, and move, without haste, but with deliberation . . .thus."

            Twycross stepped forward, turned gracefully on the spot with his arms outstretched, and vanished in a swirl of robes, reappearing at the back of the Hall.

            "Remember the three D's," he said, "and try again . . . one —two — three —"

            But an hour later, Susan's Splinching was still the most interesting thing that had happened. Elara had been able to move a few feet, but she wasn't sure if she had stumbled or actually apparated. Twycross did not seem discouraged.

            Fastening his cloak at his neck, he merely said, "Until next Saturday, everybody, and do not forget: Destination. Determination. Deliberation."

            With that, he waved his wand, Vanishing the hoops, and walked out of the Hall accompanied by Professor McGonagall. Talk broke out at once as people began moving toward the entrance hall.

            "How did you two do?" asked Ron, hurrying toward Elara and Harry. "I think I felt something the last time I tried — a kind of tingling in my feet."

            "I expect your trainers are too small, Won-Won," said a voice behind them, and Hermione stalked past, smirking.

            Elara tried her best to hide her smile as she realized she was a horrible influence over Hermione.

            "I didn't feel anything," said Harry, ignoring this interruption. "But I don't care about that now —"

            "What d'you mean, you don't care? Don't you want to learn to Apparate?" said Ron incredulously.

            "I'm not fussed, really, I prefer flying," said Harry, glancing over his shoulder, and speeding up as they came into the entrance hall. "Look, hurry up you two, there's something I want to do. . . ."

            Perplexed, Elara and Ron followed Harry back to the Gryffindor Tower at a run. They were temporarily detained by Peeves, who had jammed a door on the fourth floor shut and was refusing to let anyone pass until they set fire to their own pants, but Elara, Harry, and Ron simply turned back and took one of their trusted shortcuts. Within five minutes, they were climbing through the portrait hole.

            "Are you going to tell us what we're doing, then?" asked Elara, slightly annoyed.

            "Up here," said Harry, and he crossed the common room and led the way through the door to the boys' staircase.

            The dormitory was empty. Harry flung open his trunk and began to rummage in it, while Elara and Ron watched impatiently.

            "Harry . . ." said Elara, wanting to take a nap.

            "Malfoy's using Crabbe and Goyle as lookouts. He was arguing with Crabbe just now. I want to know — aha."

            He had found it, a folded square of apparently blank parchment, which he now smoothed out and tapped with the tip of his wand.

            "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good . . . or Malfoy is anyway."

            At once, the Marauder's Map appeared on the parchment's surface. Here was a detailed plan of every one of the castle's floors and, moving around it, the tiny, labeled black dots that signified each of the castle's occupants.

            "Help me find Malfoy," said Harry urgently.

            He laid the map upon his bed, and he and Ron leaned over it, searching. Elara had little to no interest, especially since she already knew what Harry was trying to confirm.

            "There!" said Ron, after a minute or so. "He's in the Slytherin common room, look . . . with Parkinson and Zabini and Crabbe and Goyle . . ."

            "Well, I'm keeping an eye on him from now on," said Harry firmly. "And the moment I see him lurking somewhere with Crabbe and Goyle keeping watch outside, it'll be on with the old Invisibility Cloak and off to find out what he's —"

            He broke off as Neville entered the dormitory, bringing with him a strong smell of singed material, and began rummaging in his trunk for a fresh pair of pants.

            February moved toward March with no change in the weather except that it became windy as well as wet. To general indignation, a sign went up on all common room notice boards that the next trip into Hogsmeade had been canceled. Ron was furious.

            "It was on my birthday!" he said. "I was looking forward to that!"

            "Not a big surprise, though, is it?" said Elara. "Not after what happened to Katie."

            She had still not returned from St. Mungo's. What was more, further disappearances had been reported in the Daily Prophet, including several relatives of students at Hogwarts.

            "But now all I've got to look forward to is stupid Apparition!" said Ron grumpily. "Big birthday treat . . ."

            Three lessons on, Apparition was proving as difficult as ever, though a few more people had managed to Splinch themselves. Frustration was running high and there was a certain amount of ill feeling toward Wilkie Twycross and his three D's, which had inspired a number of nicknames for him, the politest of which were Dogbreath and Dunghead. Elara had conspired with Seamus and Aspen to come up with the more. . . . inappropriate ones.

            "ELARA!" came Harry's voice from the boy's dormitory on the morning of Ron's birthday.

            Elara rolled her eyes and stood up rather slowly. She promised she'd wait before going to breakfast but she's sat on the common room couch for thirty minutes, starving.

            "RON ATE THE LOVE POTION FROM ROMILDA VANE," Harry yelled again.

            "Shit," whispered Elara before breaking off into a sprint.

            She entered the boys dormitory to find Ron being dangled by his ankle, arguing with Harry.

            "They'd fallen off my bed, all right? Let me go!" said Ron, swinging and slowly rotating in the air.

            "They didn't fall off your bed, you prat, don't you understand? They were mine, I chucked them out of my trunk when I was looking for the map, they're the Chocolate Cauldrons Romilda gave me before Christmas, and they're all spiked with love potion!"

            But only one word of this seemed to have registered with Ron.

            "Romilda?" he repeated. "Did you say Romilda? Harry, Lara — do either of you know her? Can you introduce me?"

            "I am going to humiliate the hell out of Romilda Vane," said Elara blankly, anger bubbling.

            Elara stared at the dangling Ron, whose face now looked tremendously hopeful, and fought a strong desire to laugh.

            "Yeah, I'll introduce you," said Harry, "I'm going to let you down now, okay?"

            He sent Ron crashing back to the floor, but Ron simply bounded to his feet again, grinning.

            "We need to get him to Slughorn's," whispered Harry quietly to Elara.

            "She'll be in Slughorn's office," said Elara confidently, leading the way to the door.

            "Why will she be in there?" asked Ron anxiously, hurrying to keep up.

            "Oh, she has extra Potions lessons with him," said Harry, inventing wildly. 

            "Maybe I could ask if I can have them with her?" said Ron eagerly.

            "That'd be romantic," said Elara, forcing down a laugh.

            Lavender was waiting beside the portrait hole, a complication neither Elara nor Harry had foreseen.

            "You're late, Won-Won!" she pouted. "I've got you a birthday —"

            "Leave me alone," said Ron impatiently. "Harry's going to introduce me to Romilda Vane." 

            And without another word to her, he pushed his way out of the portrait hole. Elara tried to make an apologetic face to Lavender, but it might have turned out simply amused, because she looked more offended than ever as the Fat Lady swung shut behind them. 

            Elara had been slightly worried that Slughorn might be at breakfast, but he answered his office door at the first knock, wearing a green velvet dressing gown and matching nightcap and looking rather bleary-eyed.

            "Harry, Elara," he mumbled. "This is very early for a call. . . . I generally sleep late on a Saturday. . . ."

            "Professor, really sorry to disturb you," said Elara as quietly as possible, while Ron stood on tiptoe, attempting to see past Slughorn into his room, "but my friend Ron's swallowed like three love potions by mistake. You couldn't make him an antidote, could you? I'd take him to Madam Pomfrey, but we're not supposed to have anything from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and, you know . . . awkward questions . . ."

            "I'd have thought you could have whipped him up a remedy, Harry, an expert potioneer like you?" asked Slughorn.

            "Er," said Harry, somewhat distracted by the fact that Ron was now elbowing him in the ribs in an attempt to force his way into the room, "Well, I've never mixed an antidote for a love potion, sir, and by the time I get it right, Ron might've done something serious —"

            Helpfully, Ron chose this moment to moan, "I can't see her, Harry — is he hiding her?"

            "Was this potion within date?" asked Slughorn, now eyeing Ronwith professional interest. "They can strengthen, you know, the longer they're kept."

            "That would explain a lot," said Elara, now positively wrestling with Ron to keep him from knocking Slughorn over. 

            "It's his birthday, Professor," she added imploringly.

            "Oh, all right, come in, then, come in," said Slughorn, relenting. "I've got the necessary here in my bag, it's not a difficult antidote. . . ."

            Ron burst through the door into Slughorn's overheated, crowded study, tripped over a tasseled footstool, regained his balance by seizing Harry around the neck, and muttered, "She didn't see that, did she?"

            "She's not here yet," said Harry.

            Elara simply watched Slughorn opening his potion kit and adding a few pinches of this and that to a small crystal bottle.

            "That's good," said Ron fervently. "How do I look?"

            "Very handsome," said Elara amusedly, as Slughorn handed Ron a glass of clear liquid. 

            "Now drink that up, it's a tonic for the nerves, keep you calm when she arrives, you know," said Slughorn smoothly.

            "Brilliant," said Ron eagerly, and he gulped the antidote down noisily.

            Elara, Harry, and Slughorn watched him. For a moment, Ron beamed at them. Then, very slowly, his grin sagged and vanished, to be replaced by an expression of utmost horror.

            "Back to normal, then?" said Elara, grinning. Slughorn chuckled. "Thanks a lot, Professor."

            "Don't mention it, Elara, don't mention it," said Slughorn, as Ron collapsed into a nearby armchair, looking devastated. 

            "Pick me-up, that's what he needs," Slughorn continued, now bustling over to a table loaded with drinks. "I've got butterbeer, I've got wine, I've got one last bottle of this oak-matured mead . . . hmm . . . meant to give that to Dumbledore for Christmas . . . ah, well . . ."

            He shrugged. 

            "He can't miss what he's never had! Why don't we open it now and celebrate Mr. Weasley's birthday? Nothing like a fine spirit to chase away the pangs of disappointed love. . . ."

            He chortled again, and Elara and Harry joined in.

            "There you are then," said Slughorn, handing Elara, Harry, and Ron a glass of mead each before raising his own. "Well, a very happy birthday, Ralph —"

            "Ron —" whispered Harry.

            But Ron, who did not appear to be listening to the toast, had already thrown the mead into his mouth and swallowed it. There was one second, hardly more than a heartbeat, in which Elara knew there was something terribly wrong and Slughorn, it seemed, did not.

            " — and may you have many more —"

            "Ron!" exclaimed Harry.

            Ron had dropped his glass; he half-rose from his chair and then crumpled, his extremities jerking uncontrollably. Foam was dribbling from his mouth, and his eyes were bulging from their sockets.

            "Professor!" Harry bellowed. "Do something!"

            But Slughorn seemed paralyzed by shock. Ron twitched and choked: His skin was turning blue.

            "What — but —" spluttered Slughorn.

            "Oh, fuck this!"

            Elara leapt over a low table and sprinted toward Slughorn's open potion kit, Harry following suit, pulling out jars and pouches, while the terrible sound of Ron's gargling breath filled the room. Then she found it —the shriveled kidney like stone Harry had used to get ahead in Potions. She hurtled back to Ron's side, Harry wrenching open his jaw, and she thrust the bezoar into his mouth. 

            Ron gave a great shudder, a rattling gasp, and his body became limp and still. 

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE

— since i am leaving for two weeks,
i thought i would release another chapter
just cause :)

written: june 29, 2020
published: june 30, 2020