Disclaimer 1: This is fanfic. That means I do not own any of it. I just borrow it to play with for a little while and let people see the pathetic results if they really want to.
Disclaimer 2: I'm not making any money from it. It's just for fun.
Disclaimer 3: What isn't borrowed is all made up. None of this is real or most likely at all realistic. Please don't trust any of the information in here. Most likely you know more about whatever I'm writing about than I do.
Disclaimer 4: Attitudes, views and opinions expressed by the characters or in the story are not necessarily those of the author. Even when writing Science Fiction or Fantasy I do not tend to attempt to create perfect/better worlds in which everybody gets a happy end ... or whatever is best for them. Please accept that some characters will have a bad ending or be unhappy.
Disclaimer 5: I intend no insult to anyone. If I offend anyone I'm very sorry. Please understand that it was an accident as I tend to be very clumsy in these things.
Notes: Harry's Potions book is of little use in this and then he loses Hermione's paper.
Chapter 21: The Unknowable Room
The only thing Harry could think of doing about his two impossible tasks was to search his Potions book for anything that might possibly help.
The official text, unsurprisingly, held no recipes for being introduced to girls of any kind, not even if they were only one's little sister and one had no unseemly intentions towards them at all, nor did it mention any memory extraction potions.
Harry briefly considered trying to find the recipe for Veritaserum, but that only forced people to tell the truth not to hand over actual memories of it. It might make Professor Slughorn tell him what had actually happened the night Tom Riddle had asked him about Horcruxes, but that wasn't the task Professor Dumbledore had set him.
What he needed was something that worked like the imperious curse, but of course he couldn't use that, because it was an unforgivable. He was pretty sure Professor Dumbledore wouldn’t forgive him if he even just attempted it.
The notes of the Halfblood Prince weren't any use either, even though Harry discovered several more interesting spells scribbled into the margins among them one called Sectumsempra that didn't even come with any explanation of what it did, but simply the note "for enemies".
Since Mafalda was supposed to become his friend and Professor Slughorn could hardly be called an enemy either no matter how hard he was trying to avoid being alone with Harry, Harry merely made a mental note of it and continued to search for something that could be applied to his current problems. Perhaps they'd duel in Defence Against the Dark Arts sometime and he could try the spell and see what it did then.
Another notice in the common room created quite a stir among Harry's classmates, but when Harry finally managed to squeeze through and read it for himself he was disappointed. It announced a trip to Hogsmeade for extra apparition practise for those students that would be taking their apparition test soon. Harry couldn't go since you had to be seventeen to take the test. He'd be missing out on a Hogsmeade trip once again.
He half hoped that Ron would decide to postpone his exam since he was the only one in their class that still hadn't apparated successfully even once, but Hermione soon talked their friend into going along for the extra practise.
"You can always withdraw your application for the exam after the last practise if you don't think you're ready," she declared and Ron nodded and handed in his application alongside her.
At least Draco wasn't old enough to go either and so Harry didn't have to spend the morning entirely alone.
They played chess in the great hall for a while and when they grew bored of that Harry appropriated the newspaper Hermione had forgotten on the Gryffindor table and they made fun of what articles they could.
Unfortunately there weren't all that many funny articles there these days. Most of them were about people having been murdered or arrested for attempted or even successful murders committed while under the imperious curse.
No, it definitely didn't sound like a good idea to use that on Professor Slughorn. Harry didn't like the paper's suggestions on what ought to be done to the perpetrators once they were caught at all.
A story about a thief pretending to be an inferus was rather funny, though. Or at least it was until Professor Flitwick overheard them laughing about it, confiscated their paper even though Harry told him it belonged to Hermione and explained just why the thief had done it and what a large role inferi had played in the last war.
"It is most certainly not funny that someone played with people's fears like that," he declared once again as he stalked off with Hermione's paper in hand.
Harry was quite worried what he would tell Hermione if she asked what had become of her paper, but luckily when they returned from Hogsmeade she was much too busy scolding Ron for his attempts to charm Madam Rosmerta to think of it at all.
When they came down for lunch and it wasn't on the table she probably assumed that she had left it elsewhere or the house elves had taken it away when tidying up before the meal.
Ron was delighted at having finally managed to apparate at all, though also slightly annoyed by his failure to make Madam Rosmerta laugh. All Harry’s attempts to explain to him that even though he was now seventeen and thus an adult he still remained just a student and Madam Rosmerta was a grown up who had been productively running a business for many years proving her value to society were in vain. Of course such a woman wasn't interested in Ron, but Ron seemed to be convinced that since he had graciously bestowed his attention on a witch it was her duty to fall madly in love with him.
"I'm sure she's had a lot of more handsome and accomplished wizards," Neville informed Ron a lot less tactfully, and Ron stalked off to sulk in some hidden corner.
Harry gave Neville a reprimanding look, but Neville just shrugged.
"Well, it is the truth, you know," he said.
For some reason the whole affair annoyed Hermione so much that Harry decided to leave it alone and change the topic to Potions homework.