"Look who's decided to grace us with their presence," drawled a silky voice, oozing with malice and sarcasm. "Our loyal protectors are here to save the day again. Where were you? Out chasing more trolls? Or were you at a photoshoot? Sit down. Twenty points from Gryffindor and a detention for each of you."

"Twenty?!" said Ron and Hermione together.

"Each. Plus an extra twenty to Potter for not bothering to show up at all. Or has he been eaten by today's troll?" Snape chuckled to himself, which was an unusual sound, and the pair sat themselves behind a cauldron of water. "As I was saying, the Potion of Portliness is a complex potion, and I doubt many of you would succeed first time. The instructions are on the board-" he waved his wand lazily "-and your ingredients are in the cupboard. You have precisely one hour and three minutes. Begin."

There was a scuffle for the ingredients cupboard as most of the class rushed to get the necessary ingredients. As Ron and Hermione hung back, they took the opportunity to take the locket out and examine it in more detail. Inscribed on the back was another note to 'Lil', but around it were words that didn't seem to be truly on the locket. They read "Amulet of Amortentia".

"What is it with the awfully annoying alliteration, o Amulet of Amortentia?" murmured Hermione softly. Ron smiled as Hermione's intelligence became apparent once more. "I've read about Amortentia in-"

"The library," finished Ron, earning himself a dark scowl from Hermione for his efforts. As Hermione held the locket out in her hand, he noticed a slight jump in a particular direction. "What's over there?" he asked, pointing to the ingredients cupboard, where it seemed to want to go. The crowd around the cupboard had dissipated, so they strode over towards it. As they gathered their ingredients, the locket's jumping grew more fervent. Looking to where it was pointing, Ron, observant as he was, noticed a small square of parchment secreted behind some of the more dusty bottles. He took it out and looked over it, trying to read the same spiky writing as before.

"Lost the lacewings, have you, Weasley?" said Snape behind them, making them jump. Ron immediately shoved the parchment into his pocket and grabbed a handful of lacewings from the jar above him.

Ron and Hermione returned to their cauldron after gathering, among other ingredients, lacewings, billiwig stings, moondew, wand cork and leadbeetle eyes. As Hermione brewed the potion, with a little help from Ron, she muttered the theory behind each of the ingredients.

"Billiwig stings to cause the swelling, but with the side-effect of hovering. Can't put too much in or the effect will be permanent. Leadbeetle eyes to counter the hovering. Need to be cut in half to release the juices well. Side-effect of difficulty walking. Lacewings to ease walking problems, but cause destabilisation of facial features. Moondew to prevent transformations from the lacewings and wand cork to aid the metabolism."

With a final flourish, she stirred the finished potion and left it to simmer for the remaining ten minutes. As she smelled the potion, it smelled like cream buns and she remembered that she had lost track of the conversation earlier.

"As I was saying, amortentia smells like what attracts us most. I can't smell anything on the locket, so the power must be inside." explained Hermione to Ron, who was looking over at Crabbe and Goyle's potion. The surface of their cauldron was covered with lightly flickering flames and filled the dungeon with the smell of roasted pine-nuts. It was another failure for the two lackeys. They were clearly part troll.

At the end of the lesson, Ron took out the crumpled note and opened it up in the corridor, careful to do it after Snape had gone. The two of them knew they should be in Defence against the Dark Arts, but wanted to see what was on the parchment Snape had tried to conceal. It seemed to be another letter to 'Lil'. How many of these were there around the school? Ron tried pressing the locket to the parchment, but the locket just pulled in a different direction. They decided to go to Defence against the Dark Arts with Professor Quirrel before they investigated any further.

After an interesting hour studying the relative power of attacking and defensive spells, it was lunchtime. Again, Ron and Hermione waited until everyone had filed out and had gone to the Great Hall before getting the locket and parchment out. As they touched the two together again, the locket seemed to pull slightly downwards, as though it wanted to go downstairs.

"Wherever it's leading us must be between the dungeons and this floor," concluded Hermione, running down the stairs, leading Ron by the hand. He was just smiling as he half fell, half tripped down the wide, sweeping flight of stairs towards the Great Hall. As they reached the entrance hall, the locket began to glow. They stepped towards the centre of the room and it glowed brighter. Suddenly understanding what they had to do, they walked into the middle of the room, onto the Hogwarts crest on the floor, and were whisked away to the cavern beneath the dungeons.

Hermione immediately strode over to the wall and began looking carefully at each of the blank parchments. When she found a piece similar to the one she had taken from Ron, she creased the written fragment slightly to see if the blank fragment reciprocated the action. Meanwhile, Ron opened the locket.

"Hermione," Ron asked as she finally found the correct parchment, "why are you in the Amulet?"

"What?" she asked, bewildered. "Where? Let me see..." She peered into the opened doors of the locket and frowned. "That's not me!" she exclaimed.

"It clearly is," claimed Ron. "Flowing brown hair, cute smile..." He smiled to himself.

"No," she reiterated, "it's not."

"Who is it then?"

"Harry..."