Chapter 8

Harry's Sunday was spent doing homework and figuring out how to kill Rita without being caught. The homework wasn't too bad, in fact, Harry thought it was pretty easy, looks like buying all those books and paying attention in class paid off. Plotting Rita's murder was hard though, it wasn't like Harry did this all the time and knew what to do, he talked to Slytherin about it and all he said was to make everything seem completely different to what it was.

Slytherin also convinced him to do a ritual Friday night that would give him the best eyesight possible for a wizard, which is five days from now. For now, Harry will have to go through a whole school week with his terrible eyesight.

Non-verbal spells were now expected, not only in Defense Against the Dark Arts but in Charms and Transfiguration too. Harry frequently looked over at his classmates in the common room or at mealtimes to see them purple in the face and straining as though they were constipated; but he knew that they were really struggling to make spells work without saying incantations aloud, non-verbal spells came easy to Harry, much to Hermione's dismay. It was a relief that he dropped Herbology if any of the things he heard were only half true, and apparently, they got to swear loudly if a plant got them.

Harry was walking down to the Great Hall for lunch with Katie, they passed multiple students still grumbling about how much they hate Mondays.

"We got lucky that you got an early tryout spot for the Quidditch team, the other three are fighting over what times they get to hold the tryouts," Katie said.

"I guess, it was still annoying dealing with the number of people that showed up, why was Quidditch so much more popular this year?"

"Oh, come on, Harry," said Katie, suddenly impatient. "It's not Quidditch that's popular, it's you! You've never been more interesting, and frankly, you've never been more fanciable."

"Everyone knows you've been telling the truth now, don't they? The whole Wizarding world has had to admit that you were right about Voldemort being back and that you really have fought him twice in the last two years and escaped both times. And now they're calling you 'the Chosen One'-well, come on, can't you see why people are fascinated by you?"

That sat down at the Gryffindor table and started loading their plates.

"That makes sense, I should've realized that earlier," Harry said while mentally berating himself for not being as observant as he wanted to be. Harry looked down that table to see Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Ginny giving him glares.

Hedwig landed in front of him carrying a large, square package and today's copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Ha!" said Harry, unwrapping the parcel to reveal a new copy of Advanced Potion-Making, fresh from Flourish and Blotts.

"What's that for?" Katie asked.

"Oh, it's nothing." Harry said and he pulled the old copy of Advanced Potion-Making out of his bag and tapped the cover with his wand, muttering, "Diffindo!" The cover fell off. He did the same thing with the brand-new book. He then swapped the covers, tapped each, and said, "Reparo!"

He did it after making sure no one else saw him as to not raise suspicions. Harry grabbed the paper and looked to see if there was anything worth knowing. Some Dementor attacks and there was also something about another raid on the Malfoy manor with Arthur Weasley leading it, he got an anonymous tip-off that they missed something during the first raid. Their effort was fruitless though as they didn't find anything dark in nature.

There was also an arrest. Stan Shunpike was the one who got arrested, which confused Harry because he didn't seem like Death Eater material, though that's who the most dangerous one is, they are while looking like it. If Harry had to guess though he'd say he was under the Imperius curse. The paper said that he was overheard talking about the Death Eaters' secret plans in a pub. Now, if Harry were Voldemort then he would put the Imperius curse on someone and have them talk about secret plans in the open to lure Aurors into a trap.

"Anything interesting?" Katie asked, pulling Harry from his thoughts.

"More Dementor attacks and an arrest. Sometime during the week, a paper will come and it will tell everyone how multiple groups of Aurors were killed or captured." Harry said.

"How do you know that?" Katie asked.

"Because I'm not stupid and it's exactly what I would do if I was fighting the ministry. Stan Shunpike just happens to be talking about secret Death Eater plans in a pub? Voldemort would make Stan do that to lure Aurors into a trap." Harry said.

"Well if you're so sure write to the Ministry, warn them," Katie said. Harry sighed and nodded, he got out a piece of parchment and his quill and ink.

Dear Minister,

I believe that the arrest of Stan Shunpike was to lure your Aurors into a trap. Stan was conveniently overheard talking about secret Death Eater plans, a little suspicious don't you think? I write this letter to warn you that the probability of the information you received from Stan being used against you is very high, I hear you were formally Head of Auror Department so I'm sure you will understand where I'm coming from.

Yours Respectfully,

Harry Potter

"There, I wrote a letter to the Minister," Harry said while folding the letter and tying it up. He gave it to Hedwig telling her where to take it and watched as she flew away.

"See you later," Harry said to Katie, who was just staring at him, most likely to do with how nonchalant he talked about sending a letter to the minister. He stood up and left the Great Hall, wanting to be early for the first class of the day, Potions with Slughorn. Dumbledore needs something from Slughorn and intended for Harry to get it from him, he wouldn't have left Harry and Slughorn alone if he didn't want them to get more personally acquainted than the student and teacher relationship, plus being friendly with the guy who knows everyone successful could be useful anyways.

On his way to the dungeons, he passed Hagrid who sniffed when he saw Harry and completely ignored him as he walked by. Hagrid has been upset ever since he found out that his three favorite students weren't continuing with his class, he ignored Harry every time he tried to talk to him. It was upsetting that the first magical person he'd seen who also was his friend wouldn't talk to him anymore, hopefully, Hagrid will come around.

Harry was just putting the finishing touches to the ritual pentagram with Slytherin watching over and guiding him, it had to be perfect or something would go horribly wrong. Harry wouldn't be surprised if it was early Saturday morning instead of Friday night because of all the time Slytherin made him redo everything.

The ritual set up was a pentagram inside a circle with runes at each point, all of it carved an inch into the ground. Harry looked at his handy work and breathed a sigh of relief when Slytherin didn't say it was terrible immediately.

"Perfect, now all you need is your sacrifice. Take your clothes off and cut your wrist and let the blood flow into the open eye rune and wait until the pentagram and all the runes are filled with your blood. When you are done that lay down in the pentagram with your head at the open eye rune. Remember, if you quit halfway through the ritual the consequences will be terrible and do not use magic to heal your wrist." Slytherin said in the most serious voice Harry had heard from him.

"Alright," Harry said meekly, trying to pump himself up. He undressed and summoned a proper ritual knife from the Black family vault, he walked over to the open eye rune and crouched down, he lifted the knife to his wrist and took a deep breath. The knife sliced cleanly through the skin of his wrist and Harry immediately put his bleeding wrist over the open eye rune and let it flow through the carvings, It seemed as if the blood was drawn to the carved area, leaving blood only in the inch deep carvings even if the blood had landed next to it.

The pentagram filled up a minute later and Harry was sure he should be dead right now, his instinct was to heal his wrist but he thought back to what Slytherin said. He laid naked in the pentagram with his head directly under the open eye rune.

"Perfect, now release your magic," Slytherin said.

Harry released his magic and the circle around the pentagram immediately lit up in white light, creating a wall around Harry. The pentagram followed and the runes right after, suddenly Harry was consumed by massive amounts of pain, he bit his lip to keep himself from screaming out and somehow his body didn't move once.

After what felt like forever the light dimmed and extinguished completely, leaving Harry shivering in the middle of a pentagram that wasn't filled with blood anymore. Harry crawled out of the pentagram to get to his clothes, finally reaching them Harry grabbed his wand and pointed it at himself and cast a warming charm non-verbally. He quickly put his clothes back on, slightly warmer than how he was before, he unconsciously put his glasses on only to see nothing, he took the glasses off and was amazed that he could now see without help and he was even more amazed that he could use his peripheral vision perfectly without glasses getting in the way.

"Finally, you can take those hideous glasses off," Slytherin said.

"No, not really. I need to wear glasses without a prescription so people don't get suspicious." Harry said with a yawn.

"At least change the style a bit to make them look better," Slytherin said, making Harry wonder why he didn't do that earlier. He vanished his old glasses and thought of what he would like to wear.

He conjured a pair of golden glasses with a thin frame and arms, he put them on and looked at Slytherin, while yawning again.

"Much better, the color is way better and these fit you because you made them," Slytherin said.

"Thanks, I should go to sleep now, see you soon," Harry said with another yawn.

"Don't expect to wake up for a whole day, you're gonna be really tired because of blood loss and using most of your energy on the ritual," Slytherin said.

"Great. Well, I'll be back next weekend for that regeneration ritual." Harry said.

Harry slowly walked back to the Gryffindor tower, getting weird looks from the prefects that were patrolling because of his uncoordinated movements, if they took points from him or gave him detention Harry wouldn't have heard them because he was solely focused on making it to his bed. At some point he must have fallen because, by the time he was in his dorm room he was crawling weakly, he hoisted himself up onto his bed and fell asleep on top of his blanket, still wearing his clothes and shoes.