6th Year Part Five: Chapter 33

"Her perfume reminded me of freshly picked flowers and sticky candyfloss, mixed with a gentle hint of debauchery."

~ Michael Faudet

~.O.~

Harry simply stared at the thinly veiled look of adoration written upon Hermione's face as their new Defense Professor took up the front platform of his new classroom, the post he had so wanted and wished for all the years they had known him. Once again, he wondered how he could have been so blind to how his absolute best friend in the world felt for the man, but then again he remembered several instances of writing it off as Hermione being Hermione. Of looking up to their professors and respecting them so fully that, yes it was weird in some instances that she saw their Potions Professor in that way as he treated them just as any other Gryffindor, but it had never once crossed his mind to think anything untoward. Granted, he had always been less than temperamental with the curly haired girl during their schooling years as well as actually speaking to her outside of those months within Grimmauld Place, always without the note of derision in his voice he normally had for his other students, barring Slytherins. The professor never finding anything of fault within her work or personality that she herself wouldn't have held herself accountable.

Severus began his yearly speech before every class, just as he had in potions to remind them they would have no use for foolish wand waving, and his love listened to every detail knowing just how much she had loved how highly he held each subject he specialized within. She seemed not to notice the pair of green eyes watching her all the while.

"The Dark Arts are a branch of magic which is many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal." His deep drawling voice began, eyes skimming over each of his new students to ensure they paid even a modicum of attention to his words, "A subject in which, if you choose to dabble within it, you may just lose yourself to the seductiveness in which the power you are controlling turns back onto your mind and you lose yourself into insanity." He paused just long enough on the girl in the very front of him, smiling slightly as she watched him pause in eye and voice for a split second before continuing to the boy beside her and on, "Fighting them is like fighting a many headed hydra, which, as each head is severed, is just as powerful as the dark where another grows in it's place even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that of which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Something that has the ability to control you as much as you have control over your own movements if you slip even a small bit when performing it.."

The green eyed boy noted the pause once he turned his own attention to their professor, glancing to Hermione while thinking just how prettily her cheeks flushed when the older man looked in her direction, the almost imperceptible softening of her mouth. What attracted her to him, he wondered. Seeing as how he was obviously a very dark man, even without the knowledge that he had once joined the Death Eaters of his own free will despite the fact he was now a spy as a result of reasons unknown to Harry, but most likely known to the girl. This speech in which he spoke of the Dark Arts with the same caress as he would give to those he would love, had he ever spoken to Hermione with such a tone veiling his voice? He must if his normally logical and rational friend was seduced by him, but then again, maybe she was the one to seduce the temperamental man. Harry could clearly see how that could be if even he sometimes falls into his love for her that sometimes surprised him with thoughts as such as the ones he now found swirling in his mind.

He looked between them with the knowledge that the man whose face never broke character for anything other than the end of last year while watching Hermione sleep in all her wounded glory, was in love with Hermione just as much as she seemed to be in love with him. He had after all felt the love the dark man felt for her, and understood it completely. He wondered though what exactly she had told Sirius who had somehow known of their relationship before his godson, or what he had thought when finding out that the man he had always seemed to loathe was involved within a relationship with the girl he had always called kitten. He must have respected Hermione just as Harry did to accept her own actions regarding her own life, and not putting it upon himself to interfere like many others would for the good of that person. As if they could ever interfere into something seemingly as deep as the love the two had for each other, if the looks in plain daylight were to speak of anything they could ever say.

…

His previous thoughts on his friend's life dissipated once Potions with their other new professor began, Harry watching in amusement as Slughorn noticeably took an interest in Hermione as he had once thought on the Hogwarts Express. With the older man's impressive affinity in the collection of intellectual students who had a knack of sending him copious amounts of precious gifts, he had no doubt just days ago that he would be even more inclined to the girl after simply hearing Harry's glowing words of her. Words of praise that had made her squeeze him tightly once he told her of his recommendation because, no matter how old she became or liked to deny, she has always had an affinity herself to seeking out those who would praise her good work.

Such as a professor for a boyfriend…

She answered each question on the potions sitting before the class, each emitting a veritable amount of steamy mist upon their boilers that gave their professor a sort of greedy glint in his eye simply speaking of his want to have her for his little group. The one in which she called Amortentia, the love potion that was not true love, was the one he had thought smelled much like treacle tart, fresh cut wood, and a light musk that had surprisingly reminded him of how Hermione had begun smelling sometime in the last year or so. He had flushed as Slughorn elaborated on the potion's properties, the infatuation it caused with the person wearing it as it spoke to your innermost loved smells which was an all powerful thing. A thing in which could take you back to your childhood of freshly made pie and the person who had made it for a special occasion, for example. Creating a false sense of obsessiveness that mimicked love, the Professor was very nosy in asking Hermione what it smelled of to her, to which she replied with new parchment which now always reminded her of the diary in which she first met her brother through, leather, black tea, and bergamot. Pinning down exactly the citrus like smell Harry always smelled in her curls each time he hugged her, without fail burying his nose in them to get even more of it to which she always knew he loved doing. The leather she had spoken of being the Quidditch gloves he wore that also smelled much like newly bound books, and the leather flying jacket Harry wore on rainy or especially cold days during practice or matches. The black tea smell was all Severus, and the bergamont an oil Draco had recommended Severus to begin putting in the smoothing potion he made for her hair. How the blonde knew which smell would best suit her and her curls she would never know. All four of her most important men in her life represented by one potion was very much nice, with a side of scary.

As they began brewing Draught of the Living Death for a chance at the Felix Felicis luck potion held in a small vial beside the other cauldrons, Harry was having much trouble deciphering the blacked out instructions and paragraphs from the book the professor had given him. So as this was, he simply began following the instructions and paragraphs written in the margins and hoped the cauldron wouldn't explode. Once their time was up and it came to Slughorn to grade the competition of who could ake the perfect Draught, he was much surprised to find that the potion was the exact shade the book said it should be as well as matching Hermione's. Covertly glancing over at the girl whose curly bun had simply began resembling a ball of frizz rather than the smooth curls she had been able to tame it into, each of their potions matched with the small exception that her's was an unnoticeable shade darker than his own if he were simply glancing between the two rather than scrutinizing them in the way he purposely was.

Looking through the scribble as Slughorn slowly made his rounds about the room, intermittently telling each student where they had gone wrong, he thought maybe he would simply keep the book to look over later. Flipping through the pages of just familiar black spidery ink marking most of the printed words, he absently thought on how the book resembled one of Hermione's own when she found a better way of doing things and scribbled quickly in her textbook so as to not forget later on. As if she ever forgot a spell or charm she had performed, or a potion she had memorized because one never knew when they would need to make one and are denied access to a list of ingredients and instructions.

"Bloody hell, Harry." Came Ron's voice from beside him, Harry looking up to see the red head looking between his own cauldron that had thick bubbling sludge compared to Harry's own thin misting brew. "How were you able to do that?"

Hermione who had been so focused in her own element of checking her own Draught, looked into his cauldron with a frown of her own, "How were you able to do that, Harry? You've never made this potion before. No one has below 6th year."

"Then how do you seem to always make yours so perfect?" Ron mumbled under his breath to which Hermione glared and Harry raised a brow with a shake of his head, knowing exactly how. No doubt she helped her boyfriend with his brews, or more like pestered him to allow her to brew her own under his supervision to get that much more knowledge within that little head of her's as soon as possible.

Harry handed over his book, a look of surprised comprehension falling over the girl's face while Harry looked on questioningly as she flipped the pages over with a slight smile when she came to the cover, to which was inked in the upside down words Harry could see: Property of the Half- Blood Prince. Her smile was very familiar, so familiar that he had seen it in the last few hours of classes directed towards or hidden from their Defense professor between working on non- verbal spells. Just opening his mouth to question her, Slughorn waddled up to them to look between their two cauldrons they had to offer up with a look of astonishment upon his face.

"Well done you two!" He raved once more, allowing Hermione to stash their now shared prize of liquid luck within her beaded bag seemingly glued to the inside of her school satchel as well as her side, not deeming her dorm safe enough from prying eyes nor hands while in classes. The professor once again placed a green leaf within each of their brews and watched as it turned from red to yellow and finally brown before crumpling and disappearing all together. "Perfect lilac shades, only one other student of mine has been able to achieve it on the first try in all my years. It seems he has taught his students well all these years," he said while glancing around the room sheepishly for a moment, Draco all the while glaring at the professor from his place behind Ron who mimicked his expression. "And you too seem to have pure talent. Just like your mother, Harry. As I thought."

Hermione met Harry's eyes that complemented their potions just so as he jolted at both the mention of their previous Potions Master as well as his mother, "Professor Snape was a very harsh professor, indeed Professor Slughorn." Hermione said quietly as well as privately to the man who leaned towards her, "But he did teach us much when it came to technique and execution, though he had not taught us this particular potion just yet. As you know, it is only reserved for NEWT level potions."

As they made their way to lunch, Hermione cautioned Harry to be careful with those instructions within his new potions book that did not pertain to specific potions, "Listen to me, Harry." She told him as he simply nodded to her words, "Do not try those other spells in that book, Severus had been an ametur spell maker with little to no schooling in that subject, and I would hazard that many of those spells will either backfire on yourself or cause damage to whoever you are trying them on that the book does not reference. I am sure he never meant to leave it laying around, but he did, and I know you." She paused, glancing down to the arm that held the textbook tightly to his side, "Must I lend you mine so you will not be tempted? I know most of the potions we are to learn anyway, I would not need to look at it as much as you will be."

Harry sighed heavily, but knew she simply meant well with all her pestering. "I will not try any of them, Hermione. I will return it to Slughorn once I am able to receive my own from Flourish and Blotts." He wraps an arm around her shoulders to once again silently reassure her he won't do anything stupid, guiding her to their spot at the Gryffindor table. Not not once having felt the dark eyes of his Defense professor who had just finished speaking with a glowing Slughorn.

…

"You shouldn't leave your belongings lying about, Severus." Hermione told her love as she spread herself out on his couch with her Ancient Runes textbook resting on her thighs bent towards her torso.

He continued grading while he answered her, "What exactly have I lost track of, my girl?"

"Harry has found the Half- Blood Prince's old potions textbook," his head shot up to stare into her glinting eyes, narrowing his own at her as he had never before thought to even mention that damnable 6th Year moniker he had made himself. The name quickly fell away from him in the next year as he began to become involved within the Death Eater circle, per Lucius who he had been friends with even though the older man was several years his senior as well was the blonde's acquaintances. "Slughorn, as I am sure you are aware, gifted the both of us a shared vial of Felix Felicis for our perfect Draught of the Living Death. Mine due to your first hand instruction, and Harry's due to your misplaced textbook."

He raised an eyebrow, "I simply thought it was a fluke of Slughorn's eyes that gave Harry Potter an Outstanding on your first lesson of the year. Granted, he does have looser standards than I, shown by his even accepting Potter and Weasley as students."

Hermione shook her head at his words while mumbling, "I have half a mind to just take the book from him and give him my own as I suggested until he buys his a new one, to remove his obvious temptations into trying spells he is specifically told not to try. He did promise, but my book is also written in and I don't particularly feel like enabling him to cheat either way."

He snorted, allowing his eyes to return to skimming an absolutely horrible essay on Essence of Mandrake and it's properties, "You must do it quickly then so as to keep him from eviscerating another student."

The next day of double potions arrived at the end of the week, with Hermione ready to take the book from Harry as well as rid herself of the worry she felt at him being tempted by the damnable object and the words written in it's pages. But instead, her worry was abbated once she saw the new clean book courtesy of a fast owl from Flourish and Blotts sitting next to his hand. Should she have thought to look in the school bag rather than trusting Harry's judgement even she herself had admitted was lacking at times, she would have found the innocuous book just in the middle of his layers of essay parchment instead of safely back into Slughorn's cupboard.

~.O.~

The beautifully ornate dark wooden Vanishing Cabinet with all it's broken and fractured dormant energy was exactly the twin to the one in which currently sat in Flourish and Blotts, although that one did have a certain aspect of crackling health this one did not. The two sister's connection had been severed years ago due to inactivity, resorting them to simple wardrobe props that would sometimes vanish their contents into the ether at the oddest of times, and as one was hidden within the Room of Hidden and Missing Things, it's magic was sent into a sleep. As Draco placed the first of many mending spells that would hopefully spark that first bit of magic the Cabinet desperately needed to reunite with it's sibling, Hermione searched the Room for the diadem Tom had assured her would be placed not too far from their project. With the Room being such a large place with piles of books, brooms, clothes, and other miscellaneous items littering about the floor, it had taken them a while to find the Cabinet even with her brother's outdated directions. Being as it was, many things had been added to the room in the years after he had visited for the last time. But that did not hinder her in the least in finding the Ravenclaw house heirloom sitting right upon the head of a greek statue, just where Tom had placed it all those years ago amounting to over half a muggle's own lifespan.

Running her fingers over the dark blue and clear stones of the beautiful diadem, a whispering began building within her head, calling out to the shared blood coursing through her veins. Draco, who had finally finished with his first day of mending the inanimate object, found Hermione quietly stroking the tiara still sitting high above her head on the noble looking statue and hissing eerily in lazy parseltongue. Judging by the glazed look in her eyes, she did not know of her actions as she talked without blinking once to the object she had found.

"Hermione, what are you hissing for?" Draco asked while gently placing a hand on her shoulder so as to not startle her out of her stupor, but quickly found it would have simply been just as easy or even easier to talk her through her trance. If she could even hear him. The shorter girl quickly struck up to the head of the statue as tall as Draco and in the blink of an eye was several feet away from him hissing and spitting with the tarnished object pressed to her breasts protectively, as if to hide it from those who would seek to take it from her. "Hermione!" Draco practically yelled at her as, suddenly, a medium sized snake slithered out from beneath one of the large piles of clothes and began flicking it's tongue out to Draco while crowding him against a stack of books he then proceeded to knock down.

The girl blinked rapidly a few times before looking down to the boy's feet in confusion as the snake grew ever closer, "Stand down," she hissed at it while it turned towards her in question. "Thank you for your help, dear." Sheepishly turning towards the paler than usual boy, she padded up to him silently before patting him on the cheek lightly. "I am sorry, Draco. My mind must have wondered." All the while she still had the diadem clutched tightly to her chest, just in case.

He nodded hesitatingly towards the object, "You might want to put that somewhere until you can return it to the Dark Lord."

Her curls twitched for a moment before she regained her smile as if anything out of the ordinary occuring within the last few minutes had simply been a very vivid daydream. Or that was how surreal the situation seemed to Draco as she turned from him while saying, "Of course." His Hermione never would have set a snake on him for the life of her.

Hermione placed the precious heirloom within a velvet lined jewelry box befitting it, the object made all that more precious with the piece of soul it held as Hermione warded it with a quick yet complex spell. Knowing that not many people found this part of the room as many were in a hurry to hide something and then scamper back off, the box would be safe from the few students who would think to look for anything in the mess the room made.

As she walked over to a large pile of books, she noted Draco still giving her a cautious look out of the side of his eye but disregarded it as she knew her actions must have been very startling to him. Had anyone other than her held that talkative diadem within their hands, they surely would have been very startled at what they would hear themselves as they most likely would have been driven slightly insane. Words of egging on the innermost anger and fear, to all those but his blood in any case.

It has been so long since I have talked to another being… a parselmouth… of our blood… you will rid us of this cage we have been trapped inside of, girl of my blood?

I will rid you of your cage brother… you will be reunited with the others of your soul once more… made whole…

Sister… I have longed for a sister of the soul for many years… knowing it was to never be…

I will protect you brother…

Amitantly, the darkest piece of the soul her brother had made being held in her hands did cause a bit of jumpiness and overreacting or her own person, obviously, hence calling any snakes forward that might defend her and the precious bit of soul she had held close. The last piece he had made held the smallest yet most corrupting magic even against it's own blood and loyalties, but what was done was done.

Although many of the books within the pile she examined seemed to be that of missing textbooks dating back to even Tom's years in school if the outdated recipes and directions were anything to show, there were a few that looked interesting. Waving the Malfoy Heir over to her in order to go through the large pile more efficiently, she smiled brightly at him to once again reassure him she had no ill intent this time around.

…

As Hermione and Draco had sequestered themselves within the Room of Hidden and Missing things despite Ron looking all about the castle for the girl in question, searching for an audience to his Quidditch practice with Seamus and Dean, Harry was immersed within the memories of a former Ministry employee who encountered the last of the Gaunt family many decades ago. A man named Ogden setting into events of which may have never occurred should horribly mistreated Merope Gaunt had continued to be under thumb of her ugly mannered brother and father, Harry tells his friends the first of many tidbits of life Dumbledore had sought to share with him for some unknown purpose. The woman finally being free of her family's shackles had used a love potion on Tom's father, a wealthy muggle she had run away with the first chance she got once she gained enough courage after watching the Ministry drag her last living relatives away to Azkaban.

What absolute rubbish… the Dark Lord becoming what he had for want of never even having the capabilities to feel such emotions as love, being conceived by a man under the influence of such a potion… if only Dumbledore could see how gently her brother grazed her cheek with his lips… held on to her in his moment of pain as his soul mended together once more… she was inclined to believe that it was simply a matter of Tom's neglect and ambitions getting in the way of allowing himself to feel for others as he does now… finally acknowledging the fact that love will get him what he has truly desired all this time...

Having an almost insatiable curiosity to see her brother's mother as she was before resorting to drugging muggles, she insisted on seeing the memory for herself thinking maybe if Tom had any inclination to ask of the woman who birthed him she could answer at least a limited amount of questions. Dragging Harry to Severus' office that opened readily to her despite the wards tingling threateningly over the boy's skin, he became a bit jittery at being within the man's rooms after the last time he had been kicked out in the aftermath of the Occlumency fiasco. Only becoming especially so once Hermione levitated the man's declicate bowl of a pensive into the open from where it had been hidden, Harry too distracted by searching around them to make positive the owner was not hiding in any dark corners of the room to see where it had lain previously.

His eyes widened behind his glasses before taking an involuntary step back from the girl and the white bowl that swirled with previously hidden and extracted memories, he said to her, "Hermione, I don't know about this."

The curly haired curl laughed at him with a twinkle within her eye, knowing exactly his cause for false alarm, "It's alright, Harry. You won't have to stick your nose into anything today, only I will be doing that. Just think of the memory you saw through Odgen's eyes and I will take care of the rest."

The boy stood perfectly still as he looked at the single beauty mark on Hermione's cheekbone as she placed her fingers on his chin and wand to his temple, wincing slightly at the pulling sensation as she extracted a silvery flow of memory from his head. Rubbing his eye as a sharp pain stabbed behind it, he looked to his best friend who gently flicked the memory into the pensive and tipping her forehead into it. The girl never noticing as she bent herself forward over the shimmering waters that Harry's fingers froze from where they had been massaging his temple and eye, hands hanging limply down at his sides before two fingers softly grazed her own fingers that gripped the side of the bowl. The same delicate fingers that boasted a familiar ring upon the same middle finger the stone and gold had graced Marvolo Gaunt's hand within the memory in which she was now immersed. Wondering all the while as he watched her curls floating gently around her face above the enchanted water, exactly how had she come into possession of it.

…

Hermione watched as Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt mistreated Merope, Tom's small boned squib mother who had apparently not inherited the most of the Slytherin line. Had not inherited a certain sense of madness and darkness that seemed to flow at least a small bit through Hermione's own veins. Then, as Tom riddle Sr appeared outside of the dirty house, the absolute lost look upon her face as well as an undertone of hope that every mistreated girl had for a handsome prince to come whisk her away almost breaks Hermione's heart. She had many times written a variation of that mask upon her lips and eyes when surrounded by children who had either been scared of her in muggle primary school, or had been ostracized by the remaining ones. It was like nothing else in the world, that feeling of absolute sadness.

But all of hermione's thoughts paused at the sight of the ring in which she held on the same finger that was no doubt being waved in her best friend's face at that very moment. The now restored horcrux locket simply an overtone in her mind as she moved her face from the waters only to come face to face with a pale Harry. Not having to hide the shock upon her face as she saw Harry looking down to her hand wrapped around the side of the bowl, but for very different reasons than than thought. How was she supposed to explain this ring to him? The more feminine of the two Slytherin heirlooms Tom had gifted her as he mended his locket that had been destroyed by the restoration of the horcrux residing in it, to be kept for himself after charming it to it's former glory.