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.
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Notes: So, we left Harry and co on their way to the headmaster's office. What will Professor Dumbledore do?
Chapter 25: The Seer Overheard
The headmaster listened to Professor McGonagall's hasty report in silence, glanced over the assembled students and then asked the Professor to take the rest to wait outside his office while he talked with Hermione first.
"Don't let them out of your sight, though, Minerva," he added. "I fear we might see a repeat of the incident if we leave them unsupervised."
It didn't seem like the caution was necessary, though. The group waited meekly and silently with Professor McGonagall having nothing more to do than to stand between the Gryffindors and the Ravenclaws looking stern and angry.
Harry was still feeling too shocked to speak or even pay much attention to what was going on around him.
How could there have been a spell like that in his beloved Potions book? Why would a boy like the Half-Blood Prince even write down a spell like that to use on his school rivals?
And then Harry realised that that wasn't what he had written into the book at all. He had written 'for enemies' and Harry had assumed that by enemies he must have meant fellow students What if he hadn't though? He still didn't know when the Half-Blood Prince had been at the institute. What if it hadn't been just a few years before Harry, but before Harry had even been born? Back then the Wizarding World had been at war with You-Know-Who and enemies would probably have referred to the Death Eaters. Perhaps the Half-Blood Prince had intended to become an Auror and help fight them. He had taken Potions which was one of the NEWTs subjects required for that profession. Wouldn't it be perfectly sensible for a wizard who knew that he'd be fighting dark wizards when he graduated to collect all the deadliest fighting spells he could?
And Harry had mistaken it for a simple hex and cast it on an innocent child! Oh, how he hoped that he hadn't killed that girl!
Hermione didn't take very long in the headmaster's office. She came out after just a few minutes and sent the Nathalie with the blue and silver hair inside.
"What happened, Hermione?" Neville asked her nervously "What did he say?"
"Oh, he just wanted to know exactly what I saw and why I ran into the Great Hall instead of letting Ron handle the situation. I described what everybody was doing when we arrived, how Ron told them to stop and they hexed him instead and how I realised that he wouldn't be able to control the situation and we'd need an adult to fix it. I didn't know how the fight started, though, so he decided he needed someone who'd been there from the beginning. It's going to be fine, Neville. You only tried to help a prefect break up a fight. Ron has the authority to do that. You didn't do anything wrong."
"I caused Belinda to fall and be hurt," Neville argued. "They probably wouldn't have dropped her if I hadn't interfered. They probably would have levitated her onto the chandelier with the others. What if she's badly hurt now?"
"She isn't," Professor McGonagall said. "I would never let a badly injured child walk to the hospital wing on her own. She was stunned by the fall and has several large bruises, but I doubt that there's anything more than that wrong with her, certainly less than there would have been if the weight of three girls had torn the chandelier off the ceiling and they'd have dropped down all the way with it. I'm sure any moment now Professor Snape will return from the hospital wing and report that she is fine."
And he'd probably also tell the headmaster what Harry had done to that poor Ravenclaw! But the minutes ticked by and there was no sign of Professor Snape.
Instead Nathalie came out of the office again with her hair back to its normal colour and what was probably a lemon drop in her mouth. She nodded at the other Nathalie.
"Your turn."
"What happened?" her remaining dorm-mate, Mary, demanded of her.
"Nothing really. He just fixed my hair and asked me what happened. I told him and he said we shouldn't have taunted those idiots, but if that’s really all we did he can't really give us detention for mere words."
When the other Nathalie returned she reported the same and Mary went into the office looking a lot less pale than before.
Five minutes later Professor Snape walked past them without even glancing at them and entered the office unbidden even though Mary was still inside.
She came out only moments later fuming despite her lemon drop.
"Detention," she reported. "For attacking the idiot that was floating Belinda about. I was just trying to save her and didn't even do him any harm!"
"Ha! Serves you right, little bitch!" The idiot in question announced before Professor McGonagall silenced him.
Mary had heard nothing of Professor Snape's report and when the Professor himself came out he didn't answer any questions either. He simply sent the first of the Ravenclaws in and turned to Harry.
"You," he ordered sharply. "Come with me!" and led him to an empty room that was apparently used to store superfluous desks and chairs.
"Where did you learn that spell?" he demanded sharply.
"I didn't mean it!" Harry wailed. "I had no idea what it does. I thought it was just a normal hex!"
Professor Snape grabbed Harry by the shoulders and shook him.
"Where! Did! You! Learn! That! Spell!" he repeated shaking him harder with every word.
"I didn't! Honestly! Is that girl alright?"
"Of course not. She's been slashed open and almost died and will probably be scarred for life," Professor Snape snarled. "Now where did you learn that spell?"
"From a book," Harry admitted.
"Don't lie to me! That spell is in no book. Never was and never will be."
"How would you know?" Harry demanded. "There are thousands of books in the library. You can't have read them all. And ... and it was in a book. How to cast it, I mean. It didn't say what it does. That's why I remembered it. I wanted to try it to see what it does."
"I know," Snape hissed. "Because that spell is my own creation and I never let it be published. It is much too dangerous."
Professor Snape's own creation? Was he the Half-Blood Prince then? But that was nonsense why would Professor Snape give himself such a weird nickname?
No, most likely the Half-Blood Prince had been his classmate. The Professor had taught Potions for years so he probably had taken a NEWT in it and someday during a seventh year Potions lesson he'd told somebody about this horrid spell.
"Well, I suppose somebody must have seen you use it and written it down then," Harry declared. "Because I found it in a book. You know you didn't teach me so where else do you think I could have learned it?"
Professor Snape still didn't believe him and gave him detention every Saturday until he told him the truth.
When Harry realised that that meant that he'd miss the final Quiddich game of the season he almost decided to bring Professor Snape the Half-Blood Prince's book to prove his statement, but then he realised that the Professor would probably confiscate it and show it to Professor Slughorn and then Professor Slughorn would know that he had been cheating in his class all year.
So Harry resigned himself to missing the game instead.