Chapter 3

_

"What? You have to come down to the feast. You haven't had anything to eat since this morning," Rose explained when Al had told them that he wanted to head straight to the Gryffindor Common Room without dinner.

"But, I am not really hungry, guys," Al said just as his stomach gave a loud, audible growl.

"Right, well, I think your stomach says otherwise," Lysander said with a smirk.

"If you don't want to eat, then you can at least join us!"

"But, there's something I really want to do," Al said in a weak tone, trying his best to avoid Rose's gaze. "I have… a lot of homework, and I want to get started on it so I am not up half the night."

"You actually want to skip a meal to do homework?" Lorcan asked with disbelief. His stomach growled.

"Did Agatha slip you something when you were in her office?" Lysander said, finishing what Lorcan was thinking.

Al laughed weakly, and diverted his eyes. He had to find a way back up to the Common Room. He desperately wanted to know more about his special book, and even about Severus Snape when he was Al's age. He furrowed his brows as he contemplated faking an illness, but he knew they'd figure him out immediately. He was a hopeless case.

Rose gasped and glared at Al. "You're wanting to skip dinner to look at that damn book, don't you?"

Lorcan howled with laughter. "Why would Al do something like that? I mean, yeah, that book is going to be handy, but Al certainly doesn't want to study it. It is a cheat book after all! Studying defeats its purpose."

Rose ignored Lorcan. "It's true, isn't it, Al?"

Al rolled his eyes. His lips turned into a line as he tossed his hands into the air. "So what if I do? What does it matter?" he realized he had acted slightly out of line and immediately blushed. "Sorry, it's just that… well, Agatha told me some things and I am just really interested in what she had to say. I'm just curious."

"Mate, there's time to be curious after you've eaten something. It can't be that important," Lysander said in an understanding sort of way, but he was looking at Al like he was going crazy.

Al looked down at his leather bag that held the book to his body. He ran his hand gently over the leather. He could feel the corners of the book, the delicate binding that had deteriorated over time, even the coolness through the fabric. Nothing seemed important to him. Not food, not what his friends were saying, nothing. Maybe he was going crazy.

Rose's eyes grew wide and she yanked Al's hand away from his bag and dragged him in the direction of the Great Hall. "You're coming whether you like it or not, Al."

The two twins followed them close by, and whispered to each other soft enough so that only they could hear it.

"Did you see how he was… touching… that thing?"

"Yeah, like he was caressing his first born child or something."

"D'you think Rose is right? That it's dangerous? Al's really changed a lot since he got it, and it's like he is starting to have feelings for that book the closer he gets to it."

"That's crazy."

"But Ly, that's how he's acting. Like he's crazy."

"Well, whatever is going on, that book is no good."

*

As soon as the four of them made it back to the Gryffindor Common Room (Lysander had to travel under the Invisibility Cloak that Al's father had bought for him. It wasn't as nice as Harry's, but it did the job nonetheless), Al zipped past them in a hurry to get up to his dormitory. He was clutching the book in his bag as if he was holding it - protecting it - from a beating against his thigh as he took the stairs two at a time. Instead of the twins following Al, they pulled Rose to the side far enough away from everyone else so that they would not be overheard.

"We have something to tell you," Lysander said immediately, sounding quite serious as his hand clutched Rose's right shoulder.

"Al's having a baby!" Lorcan explained sarcastically as he clapped with fake joy.

Rose blinked and looked at the two of them as if she had never seen a set of twins before. "What… are you two talking about?" she asked, confused, but clearly trying her best to stifle a laugh when she looked at Lorcan.

"His book! It's his baby!"

Lysander rolled his eyes. "What Lor means is," he started, nudging his brother in the side with his sharp elbow. "Is that Al's a little too close to that book. I mean, it's creepy. He caresses it. And we think he's obsessed with it or something."

Rose didn't try to hide her giggle this time; in fact, she nearly snorted. "Of course he is, Ly. I mean, it's obvious. He's acting so… crazy. But he won't listen to us, so what are we supposed to do?"

"Don't you think we should at least try? Report it or something?" Lysander asked, his eyes widened with disbelief.

Rose smiled weakly and shrugged her shoulders. "Of course we should report it, but it won't do any good. Whenever he's with that book, he is not reasonable. And he is always going to try and be with that book, if tonight wasn't enough proof of that."

One of Lorcan's eyebrows raised and his head cocked slightly to the side. "Well, if we turn it in, maybe someone actually can confiscate it."

Rose shrugged again. Clearly she was already defeated, or else she would have already run up the stairs after Al to knock some sense into him. "I really don't think it's going to do much good. He'll still try and find it. I don't think he's caressing it for his health, or because he's crazy. There seems to be some kind of… connection."

"Connection?" Lysander questioned softly, slowly.

"Now you sound crazy, Rosey."

"It's so unlike Al to act like this. There has to be a reason for his behavior, and I don't think it's him," Rose said with a sigh. "It's that book that's to blame."

*

Al finally made it to his dormitory. He scanned the room quickly, and when he was certain that no one else was there, he closed the door shut behind him and locked it. He ran to his bed and gently put down his bag as he sat across from it and drew his curtains around the two of them.

He drew in a quick breath and opened it; a chill ran down his spine as the coolness from the book touched his face. He gently ran his fingers over the writing on the pages, thinking - expecting - for something to happen. He shut his eyes as he stilled his touch over the words Half-Blood Prince, and he held his breath.

But nothing happened.

His eyes opened, and he sighed. Al flipped through all of the pages frantically, looking for anything out of the ordinary that might be a hint to whatever it was he was looking for; he didn't quite know yet.

But he found nothing.

He had flipped through the book front to back at least three times, studied the cover and the binding, reversed the book to read upside down, and nothing seemed odd about it other than all of the notes it had.

Al groaned in frustration as he flipped the book back to where it had been addressed to the Half-Blood Prince, and stared at it. Maybe the only magic that it would ever possess for him was the coolness that had emulated from it.

He figured it'd be best if he gave up on the book for tonight until he knew more about it. He'd just have to go see Agatha tomorrow and try and get some more information out of her. He pulled out a spare piece of parchment from his bag and a quill that was slightly bent in the wrong direction from lack of care.

He reached over for the ink well on his bedside table and dipped the tip of his quill into it. Al brought it back over to his piece of parchment, which he had rested on top of his book. If he wanted to go see Agatha, he needed to remind himself.

He held the quill over his piece of parchment as he thought about the right time to go and see her. As he did, ink from his quill welled up into one large, black drop and fell down onto one of the open pages of Advanced Potion-Making.

As soon as Al heard the ink drop onto his book, he knew immediately that he had discovered what he was looking for. He felt a tug all over his body, pulling him forward, welcoming him in the direction of his book. All he had to do was lean forward just slightly, and his body gave in to the unknown strength that was pulling him down, down, down…

Until he landed on a hard, stone floor with a thud, followed immediately by a groan from him. His knee smacked against the stone below him, as did the side of his forehead. Al's arm, which was sprawled out in an odd direction above his head, came to caress the side of his face where it had collided with the stone. He winced in pain.

Hold on. Stone. Stone meant he was no longer in his dormitory, or the Gryffindor Tower for that matter. Then where was he?

Al looked up only slightly, and he saw a pair of black shoes that were stained with clumps of dried mud in front of him. He looked up some more; two thin legs that had columns of black trousers to protect their scrawniness. An off-white shirt, likely from unknown stains, untucked, and his gray vest that had lines of silver and green along the hem had several holes, from burns, scattered across the all but destroyed fabric. His hair was to his shoulders and had a sort of damp look, and Al wondered if the reason he didn't wear his school robes was because he was sweating from being so hot. His skin was pale, his nose was hooked, and his eyes were a cool black. Cool. It reminded him of the coolness from the book.

When Al's eye's met the person's standing before him, the stranger spoke. "I've been waiting for you, Albus."