New Year's was about to hit, and while for most it would be a pleasant affair, for Hermione it was truly joyous. That force that had ensnared her for the last few months had finally let her go, but it had removed her memories of the last few months, and she was free to go about her days like any other student. She had lost a lot of weight this year and was incredibly underweight, which spurred her to visit the Hospital Wing as soon as she was free.
Once she opened the door to the Hospital Wing, she collapsed onto the floor, knowing she would be safe there, alerting Madame Pomfrey to her new charge. She levitated Hermione onto a bed and began her on a course of nutrition potions, before contacting Professor Dumbledore over the floo, asking him to come down.
He stepped through the fireplace and walked over to her side, noting the jewelry hanging around her neck. The sight of it had filled him with dread and he went to remove it, before he was distracted by Madame Pomfrey, who had asked rhetorically about what could have caused her to starve herself like this. By the time the old wizard returned his attention to Hermione, the necklace had hidden itself from his perception. He asked Poppy to keep an eye out for any signs of Dark Magic, but couldn't explain his reasoning behind it.
When he got back to his office, Professor Dumbledore was left with a feeling of impending doom, and helplessness when it came to stopping it.
/—_—_–_–_‐_-/
Once January had begun, it marked seven weeks until the second task on the 24th of February.
After their first day of lessons after the Christmas break, Harry went to the Library to find Hermione, only to see that she wasn't there. Excited at the prospect of her finally having finished her project after many months, Harry tried to contact her with his ring, with no success. He decided to contact every member of the Vipers, with all of them saying that they hadn't seen her at all today. Slightly panicked he began to search for her, only to bump into Luna Lovegood who was putting up a poster about evil magical artifacts.
"A bit heavier than your normal topics there, Luna, are you okay?" Harry asked, concerned for the odd girl.
"Why yes, Harry, I am. Thank you," she answered before returning to putting up the poster in her hands.
"What's with the new posters? Has something happened over Christmas?" he tried asking her again, but she infuriatingly just responded with
"Not over Christmas, no." She began to skip away, searching for a place to put her next poster up. Harry had to jog to keep up with her, she was surprisingly fast. Once he overtook her and stopped in front of her, her face lit up, as if finding the answer to a puzzle, and she stuck a poster on Harry. He looked down at his chest and just laughed.
"Did the poster tell you to put it on me?"
"Yes, actually. It figured you would be the most mobile place to put it."
"Right, so you said nothing had happened over Christmas… did anything happen before that? Anything specifically linked to your new posters?" Harry added after realising how open-ended that question was.
"I couldn't say, one of the bookshelves in the Library seems convinced that someone in the castle holds a very dark item. Though it's a Cedar wood bookshelf so its memory isn't always reliable." She said the last thing so matter-of-factly that Harry agreed without thinking.
"What wood has the best memory?"
"Elder wood and Hawthorn wood both argue their superiority, but, if I'm being honest, Holly wood is the best at remembering."
"Good to know, Luna. I have to look for Hermione now. but it's been nice talking to you."
"Goodbye, Harry Potter."
Harry turned and left, no closer to finding Hermione.
/-_-_-/
It wasn't until three days later that he finally managed to speak to Hermione, she was in the Hospital Wing being treated for malnutrition and starvation. Immediately after finding this out, he ran to the Hospital Wing, not stopping for anything.
"Hermione? Are you okay?" he asked upon entering, it wasn't until she looked over at him that he realised just how skinny she was.
"Yes Harry, why wouldn't I be?"
"Why wouldn't…? What the hell are you talking about? You've been starving yourself all year while carrying out this research project and you have the gall to ask why you wouldn't be okay… have I got that right?" Harry instantly became frustrated with her, doubly so when he heard her reply.
"Harry Potter. I am old enough to look after myself so I would ask you to kindly back off."
"Merlin, Hermione, I'm worried about you. I have been all year, yet you didn't want to let me in, you gave the same answer to everyone. That you were busy and not to be disturbed. I've respected your decision and yet you still feel the need to push everyone back. Dudley told me that when I asked if you were coming to the first task you asked for help as I left, why couldn't you have asked me earlier? Hermione, I care about you and don't want to see you wasting away."
"I'm sorry Harry, but I don't think I asked your opinion," she sniped at him.
"What happened to you? If you find the Hermione Granger that I know, make sure to seek me out."
With that Harry left the Hospital Wing, at which point Hermione began to cry. She wanted to tear this cursed necklace off, but was stopped by something every time, she couldn't even mention it to people.
/_-–—_—––_/
"... and she just told you to leave her alone?" Dudley asked incredulously, not wanting to believe that Hermione was acting in such a way.
"Yeah. Can you believe it?" Harry answered back.
I wouldn't have expected that from her… do you think she's found out about Daphne?"
"There is no reason for her to be upset over that, Hermione rejected me, remember?" Harry responded bitterly, immediately following up with
"I want to go somewhere quiet where I won't be disturbed. You're free to come with, or leave me to it if you wish."
"I'll let you get some alone time, mate."
So Harry bid Dudley goodbye, before heading down to the Chamber of Secrets.
Once he was down there, he was immediately surrounded by two very large snakes.
"Master, you've come to visit us," Rigor called out, holding himself in a way that indicated that he wanted some fuss.
"I expected you to return to the school occasionally, Rigor, I don't think I've seen you once this year," Harry laughed back at the snake, who immediately launched into an excuse.
"If I was to leave then would you come down to visit the King of Serpents? I don't think so."
"He has more important things to do than come down here, Rigor, it's nice that he comes down at all."
"I've come down for two reasons, the first is to see you two, my second reason is a bit more complicated. I'm looking for any powerfully enchanted metals. I wish to attempt to melt them down into a sword. I figured that doing so would require a lot of magic and focus, which is exactly what I need right now."
"There are metals inside Slytherin's study, but it is locked to anyone not of his bloodline," the Basilisk informed him, but Harry had a counter to that.
"Most allusions to bloodline are actually in reference to being a Parselmouth, at least when it applies to Slytherin. Besides that, I have a shard and a fragment of the soul of the last blood descendant of Slytherin. Maybe that will help, considering that the two versions of him are in my brain near constantly," he informed the snakes, expecting to hear either Tom or Voldemort in his mind, but they weren't there.
Harry entered the hallway leading to Slytherin's office feeling optimistic. After all, Professor Flitwick did always say that will was the most important part of magic.
He placed his hand on the door and hissed "open." At which point he heard a click and the door swung open leading into a very poorly preserved office, all of the books lining the walls looked too fragile to move. He ignored them and focused on gathering any metallic objects in which he could feel a magical signature inside.
Once he had gathered enough metal he brought it back into the main chamber and began to work. He transfigured a pebble into a workstation before he drew his magic around him. He focused on making the tang first, almost using a ring emblazoned with the Gryffindor family crest. Harry had suspected that this ring may have helped cause the end of Slytherin's and Gryffindor's friendship. It was possible that this was the Gryffindor family ring and so Harry decided not to destroy it, instead pocketing it until such a time that he could take it to Gringotts to find out.
He instead moved on to a small tiara-like item with an eagle on it.
"This must have belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw," he informed the snakes, who weren't all that interested.
When working the metal into a different form he felt something… familiar about the tiara. Something that tried to fight the reshaping process. He managed to fight it successfully and it began to shape itself into what would become the tang of his sword. Once Harry had managed to successfully change its shape, which had taken a lot of his power, he was suddenly very tired. Deciding that he didn't want to knock himself out with fatigue, again, Harry decided to leave the rest of the process to another day, he would put the ring away somewhere safe and continue his sword later.