Cedric was as good as his word. He burst into the twins' dorm room about an hour before dinner the next day, robes still transfigured to look like a Gryffindor's, and pockets bulging suspiciously.
"Brilliant," Harry said, jumping off the bed from where she'd been watching Lee trounce a very flustered Hermione at Chess. The twins were conspicuous in their absence, and Neville was down in the common room, studying furiously for end of term exams creeping closer with each hour. They had Transfiguration and Potions on Monday, two of his worst subjects, and he was turning greener with each passing minute.
"How'd you do it?" Lee asked, putting away the board as Hermione eagerly abandoned the game in favor of new ingredients for the cauldron bubbling atop the radiator, hovering over conjured blue flames that didn't leave so much as a mark on anything they touched - not even Fred and George's most intent tampering could catch a piece of parchment on fire.
Cedric grinned, the sort of grin Harry had never seen on the Hufflepuff's face before - the sort of grin she'd expect to see on one of the twins faces, or perhaps her own. "That's for me to know and you to - "
"Don't say find out," Harry warned from her spot next to the cauldron, helping Hermione crush Ashwinder eggs (the other girl didn't like their slimy texture). "Because I can tell you from experience that he will."
The next five minutes passed in silence, except for the occasional burst of sound from the Common Room (followed by Percy's bellowed 'Shut it!') and the gentle clinking of glass against stone as Hermione or Harry set the unused ingredients on the floor next to the radiator.
"Done," Hermione said after another three minutes of carefully moderated stirring.
"How long until we can add the potion?" Cedric asked interestedly from his seat on George's trunklid. "I want to see what it does."
"Twelve hours and forty-eight minutes is the called for boiling-time," Harry answered promptly. "Same as for Ichibods' Poison Detector."
"But we can add the solvent any time after that time," Hermione chimed in, casting a protective spell - really just an anti-tampering spell from The Housewife's Handbook - over the cauldron to insure no more ingredients, intentional or otherwise, could be added. "I think we should do it early in the day - seven thirty or so, if we can."
"I'm game," Cedric said while Lee sputtered at the early time Hermione had decided on.
"What are you groaning about?" Harry asked him. "You don't even have to get up if you don't want to - we're doing it in here, after all. Just cast a Muffling Charm around your bed and you won't notice a thing."
"What - no - I'll be up!" Lee protested.
"Excellent," Hermione said briskly, getting up and gathering up the notes she'd taken throughout the course of the day. Harry put the unused ingredients back in her potion's kit, taking the extra Ashwinder eggs and Demiguise hairs as well. It would probably be best if Fred and George never got their hands on such potent ingredients (or at least waited until they wouldn't bring down the entirety of Gryffindor Tower if their experiment exploded).
"Coming, Harry?" Hermione asked from the doorway.
"Right behind you," Harry said as she secured the lid of her kit and picked up her book. "Okay, let's go."
"Wait - where're you going?!" Lee called after them. "We weren't finished - you owe me a game!"
"You would have won in three moves anyways," Harry heard Cedric tell Lee as she followed Hermione out the door. She didn't catch Lee's reply before the door swung shut.
Early the next morning, a yawning Neville and a clear-eyed Cedric joined Harry and Hermione back up in the room where the potion had been simmering overnight. The entire dorm smelled like the potion, a surprisingly pleasant combination of lavender and what Hermione described as 'hot sand' that had even the twins stirring in their beds.
"Should we get them up?" Hermione asked, giving the potion a few last-minute stirs.
"No," Harry said. "If they wanted to see it they'd be up already." And it was true. While Fred and George enjoyed a good sleep-in, their other priorities - namely mischief-making and quidditch - were important enough to get up early for. If they weren't up, they didn't care to see it.
Hermione pulled the vial out from her robes' pocket - she was the only one beside Cedric who was actually dressed - and opened the cork.
"Hold a sec," Harry said as her friend made to pour the few drops in. "I want to sniff it."
"Careful," Hermione warned unnecessarily; Harry knew the dangers of inhaling fumes, probably better than she did.
"Scentless," Harry muttered in disappointment, giving the vial back to Hermione, who promptly upended it. It took two long, unendingly slow minutes for the thick potion to drip into the cauldron, but when they did, the effect was nearly instantaneous.
Harry stood and watched the surface of the potion as it turned a deep, glassy purple. "Ready?" she asked. Hermione nodded her approval, quill poised and at the ready of a fresh piece of parchment. A few seconds later, it began.
The cauldron frothed a little, and then words began to appear in the foam. Harry read them aloud as Hermione wrote. "Autumn Misery, Everbright's Stomach Soother, Sense Repressing Draught, and…" she trailed off as she peered at the last words, which appeared so faintly that she almost missed them, "Jobberknoll feathers and Lethe water."
"That's brilliant," Hermione said in awe as she scratched the last words across the parchment. "Adding the repressent to decrease the likelihood of being woken up by pain or hunger, and the Jobberknoll feathers and Lethe water to create a feeling of confusion even when not awake. Ooh, that's going to be really difficult to make an antidote."
"Can't we just give them a - a sensory enhancer, or something?" Neville asked uncertainly.
"No," Harry, Hermione, and Cedric all answered at the same time.
"Sorry," they apologized at the same time, and then laughed, the tension draining from the room.
"Hermione?" Harry asked, knowing that the other girl was probably the best to ask. Sometimes it seemed like she knew everything.
"Right." She straightened up and recited, "Golpalott's Third Law decrees that the antidote to a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum of the antidotes for each of the separate components."
Cedric frowned in thought, but Neville just looked confused. "Come again?"
"Basically, we can't just give people the antidote for the potions that make up the potion that the students drank," Harry explained.
"And it'll be even more difficult," Cedric added pensively, "because we're not even dealing with poisons."
"The theory should hold true," Hermione argued.
"We don't know that for sure," Cedric pointed out. "We could end up making it worse."
"What do you suggest we do?" Harry asked, a little peeved at his reluctance. "The resident potions master is currently the living equivalent of a - an inferi." Neville shuddered, and Hermione looked confused.
"It's like a zombie," Cedric explained to her. It was Harry's turn to be confused.
"Muggle thing," Hermione said, a little pale. "Anyways. We can at least try to come up with something."
"We could write the healers at St. Mungo's," Neville suggested. "They're all versed in potions."
There was a moment of silence. "That's a good idea," Cedric said. "I can do that, pass it off as some sort of project. It'll be more believable coming from a third year than a firstie."
"And until then," Hermione said stubbornly, "Harry and I will get started on a cure."
"Perfect," Harry said, although she wasn't entirely sure if Galpalott's third law did apply to non-poisons. She wished she'd read her mother's potions books more carefully, or, better, brought them with her. At least with Hermione working with her, there was a far greater chance of success. No matter how talented Harry was at potions, most of it was simply prior knowledge of the subject from reading her mother's books and notes, as well as good technique; Hermione hadn't been reading about potions and brewing for her entire life, yet still the other girl was rapidly beginning to out-perform Harry in the class. She seemed to have a knack for the theory that Harry didn't.
"What about me?" Neville asked timidly as Cedric left the dorm, probably to the Hufflepuff common room and then the owlery. "What can I do?"
"Quiz us on transfiguration," Hermione, "and - "
"Maybe we should move first," Harry cut in. "We're going to need a better place to brew."
Hermione looked around, taking in the clothes and trash strewn about the room, and nodded, her nose wrinkled. "Move first," she agreed.
They ended up using an abandoned cloak-room on the sixth floor. Fred and George found them shortly before lunch, and Cedric had to be brought with them after lunch.
"I tried to find you in the dorm," he said, "but you weren't there, or in the library, so I just went down to the Great Hall. Knew there wasn't a chance of me finding you if those two were involved," he added, nodding towards Fred and George, who were following Harry and Hermione's movements with sharp eyes.
Brewing an antidote was extremely difficult. For one, Autumn Misery had no known antidote - it was supposed to be a flu-inducer, and had largely been forgotten in the aftermath of the hallucination scandal. Even worse was the stomach soother; it was an antidote of sorts all on its own.
By the end of the day, they'd hardly made any progress, and Hermione was nearly in tears of frustration.
"I don't understand!" she all-but-wailed on their way down to dinner. "Why is it not working!"
"It'll be alright," Harry said automatically, equally tired and frustrated herself. Potions wasn't her favorite subject, or even her best, but even she couldn't deny that the sheer amount of reading she'd done on it in previous years - her mother had a lot of potions books - had elevated her potions skills far beyond that of the typical first year. That Hermione knew as much as she did - possibly more - was incredible.
"No, it won't! It won't work and then everyone will be asleep forever and it'll be all my fault!"
Harry rolled her eyes. Alex had, occasionally, been over-dramatic in his enthusiasm for whichever subject had caught his attention latest. "Keep going, we'll meet you there," she said to the alarmed-looking boys, and tugged a hyperventilating Hermione into a classroom.
"Look," she said. "You've got to calm down. You won't be any good to anyone if you work yourself into a frenzy, not to mention you'll fail all your exams tomorrow."
She felt a little ashamed of herself for using Hermione's most vulnerable weakness against her, but the feeling faded when Hermione immediately stopped breathing so shallowly and stared at her with wide eyes.
"Oh no," she moaned, "I forgot all about the tests!"
Harry stifled a bark of laughter. She couldn't believe that Hermione - Hermione!- had forgotten about exams. Instead, she said, "I bet you'll still do the best out of our class, overall," she added at Hermione's stubborn face as she opened her mouth to protest. "We'll study after dinner, and then get up early to take another stab at an antidote. We'll have something by dinner tomorrow."
Harry's prediction was, not surprisingly, completely false. They were no further in their attempts to find a cure the next evening, nor the evening after that. As the week progressed, a feeling of doom descended upon the six of them - seven, if she included Lee, who hadn't joined them since Legilimency training.
By Friday morning, even the smallest provocation could set Hermione into tears, and Neville was spending more and more of his time trimming the plants in their dorm. Cedric was getting short-tempered, and the twins were constantly plotting new pranks.
"Right then," Harry declared as she, Hermione, and Neville walked down to the Great Hall for breakfast. "We go to the room as soon as the last finals are done, and if we don't get anywhere by dinner, I'm going to try Legilimency with Dumbledore."
"Harry! No!" Hermione looked aghast. "You could destroy both yourself and him!"
"We're running out of options, Hermione," Harry said seriously. "We only have a week left before we have to go home - what will happen to the students in the Hospital Wing? What will their parents do?!"
"I - well, alright," Hermione ceded. "But only if we haven't made any progress."
Harry hoped that they would; she didn't want to go into anyone's mind if she could avoid it. Cedric hadn't been too bad, but Oliver's mind had reminded her that people had bad memories as well as good, and the older they were….well, the more bad memories they'd have, especially those who had fought in the war against Voldemort. And Dumbledore had been both Grindelwald's and Voldemort's main opponent, not to mention he was over a hundred years old.
Nine hours later found the three of them plus the twins grinning and laughing.
"How did we not think of that before!" Harry exclaimed, smiling victoriously at the cauldron, which held the first potion that hadn't gone inert or turned to goo. "It's so basic!"
"To the kitchens!" George declared pompously.
"A feast for the winners!" Fred proclaimed.
"Oh," Hermione said softly, looking at the potion, excitement fading from her face. "What if - "
"It'll be fine, Hermione," Harry said, already shoving what books and parchment she preferred not to leave in the room back into her bag. "The lacewing flies need a good nine hours of stewing before the base will be stable enough for us to add the Wit-Sharpening Tincture.
"I - " Hermione started before sighing in defeat. "Oh, all right. We did just finish our exams, and I've read a little on house elves - did you know that there's only one book in the entire library that even mentions house elves!"
"What I want to know, Hermione," George drawled as they locked the room behind them, "is when you found time to go to the library in the past few days between brewing and studying."
Hermione blushed and muttered something inaudible, while Harry just shook her head. They chatted about trivial matters on the rest of the journey to the kitchens, passing a few students who were doubtlessly heading towards the Great Hall. While the food for the informal 'end-of-exams' dinner wasn't as impressive as the food sent up for any of the termed 'feasts', it was still markedly better than the normal everyday food, which, in itself, wasn't bad by anyone's tastes. Harry guessed that most, if not all, of the students would be there.
As they neared the kitchens, Harry kept an eye out for any Hufflepuffs - Cedric would want to know that they'd finally made some progress.
When they stopped in front of the portrait hiding the kitchens, Harry turned to the others. "I'm just going to see if Cedric's still in his common room," she said. "And no," she added when Fred opened his mouth. "You can't come. If Lee didn't want to tell you where their common room is, I'm not going to either."
"Oh, come on!" George pleaded.
"It's the only one that we don't know where it is!"
"Lie," Harry accused tartly, already turning back where they'd come from. She'd take a different route, the one that Cedric had led her and Lee out of two weeks ago, even if it felt like it had been months instead. "I know for a fact that you only know where Ravenclaw tower is."
Fred mock-scowled at her and shook his fist threateningly. "Why, you little - !" he called after her as she raced away, ignoring the few portraits that she passed that scolded her for running in the halls.
It took only a few minutes for her to get to the barrels guarding the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room. She pulled out her wand, and then frowned, trying to remember the rhythm that Lee had tapped out. Carefully, she rapped on the second barrel. When nothing happened, she relaxed, only to shriek in surprise as a shower of sticky, smelly black stuff doused her head to foot.
"CEDRIC!" she bellowed, pulling off her glasses and trying to charm them clean. The black substance on her wand just smoked a little and gave off a green glow that was more a blur than anything else to her terrible eyesight. She cursed and kicked the door. It only made her toes hurt.
The barrel-top opened, and a foggy face poked out. Then Harry heard a hearty guffaw and the figure stepped completely out and closed the lid behind them.
"Having fun?" Cedric asked, and Harry could hear the laughter in his voice.
"Just get this - this - stuff off of me!"
She couldn't see what Cedric did, but the black substance vanished from her body - even her wand and glasses were cleaned.
"For future reference," Cedric said, mouth twitching as he tried not to smile, "the pattern for visitors is in the rhythm of 'butterbeer and cake for all'."
"Thanks," Harry said grudgingly, sticking her wand back into her pocket. "But that's not why I came - we've made progress!"
"Really? That's great!" Cedric seemed suitably enthused, so Harry continued.
"We're celebrating in the kitchens, if you want to join us."
Cedric agreed, so they set off, Harry explaining exactly what they'd done that was so successful.
"…so it's not a cure, or anything," she finished as they reached the painting of a bowl of fruit, "but we're closer than we'd been before." She reached out and ticked the pear. It giggled and wriggled itself into a small handle, which Harry grasped and turned.
"You know," Cedric said as they climbed the small set of stairs that appeared, "I live so close to the kitchens, but I've never once gone in."
"I wouldn't have even known where they are except for the twins," Harry replied, leading Cedric past the house elves, who had seen Harry often enough that they didn't even come over to greet her because of the sheer amount of food they were transporting from stove-top and warming ovens to the four large tables in the middle of the room, over to the much smaller table where the others were waiting.
"Excellent," the twins said together as Harry and Cedric sat down. They dove right in to the food, loading their plates and sometimes stealing each other's.
"We waited for you," Hermione said, pouring each of them a goblet of juice from a pitcher that had condensation making slow tracks down its side.
"Wow," Cedric commented, staring at the food. "You'd think there wouldn't be much difference, but the food down here looks better than it does up there."
Harry lowered her voice so that the elves wouldn't hear. "They try their best," she said, "But it's got to be hard cooking enough food for five hundred people and serving it all at the same time."
Neville spoke around his mouthful of chicken. "They used to have to serve closer to two thousand," he said. He swallowed before continuing. "Back when my Gran was here, there were about a thousand students."
"He's right," Hermione chimed in eagerly. "Hogwarts was built to house about six times the current amount of students, and twice the number of professors. That's why the castle is so big, and there's so many unused classrooms."
"But the war made the number of students drop," Harry said in a low voice. She hadn't read much about the war that had come to an unofficial halt five years ago - her father had made sure that any books he didn't want her or Alex to read were jinxed against them, and Remus had done much the same as well. What little knowledge she had was gleaned from questions, the Daily Prophets that her father had left on the dining room table, and books from the Hogwarts library. "People moved to the mainland or overseas, and lots of them were killed, too."
"Two Dark Lords and two Muggle wars in less than a century make an impact," Cedric agreed somberly.
"Didn't stop Quidditch!" George cut in. The conversation moved on to less serious topics, and for a while Harry could almost forget that students and teachers alike were in trance-like states - the only difference being that the teachers were essentially just sleepwalking - and that there was a blood-chillingly frightening person out for gold and ever-lasting life. A man who had easily put Dumbledore out of play.
They didn't emerge from the kitchens for nearly three hours, and curfew was only a few minutes away. Hermione was flustered, trying to herd Fred and George away from the array of desserts presented by the house-elves, all-the-while glancing longingly towards the door. Harry was half-listening to Cedric and Neville discuss plants - she didn't recognize half of the ones they mentioned, and was more concerned with trying not to fall asleep where she sat.
Finally, when the elves looked like they were about to burst into tears at the twins and Hermione's arguing, Harry stood. "Enough," she said sharply, but the effect was ruined by the giant yawn that followed.
"Is the ickle firstie all tuckered out?!" Fred asked in a condescending voice.
"Does little Harrykins need an early nighty-night?" George added in an equally saccharine tone.
"Shut it," Harry grumbled. "Let's just focus on getting up to the tower without getting caught."
"Why Harry!" George exclaimed. "You insult us with your doubt!"
"Not once have we - "
"Norbert." Fred didn't bother finishing his sentence, and Hermione's frown relaxed into a small smile. Even Cedric gave a small chuckle.
"Harry's got a point, you know," he said. "My common room isn't that far, and I can make it by curfew, but you guys have to get all the way to the seventh floor."
"Like the teachers would care," George grumbled, but they all gravitated towards the short staircase leading from the kitchens to the rest of the castle.
"Even if the teachers aren't patrolling," Hermione chimed in, a bit sniffily, "I can guarantee that your brother is. He takes his status as Prefect very professionally." Harry thought she heard Hermione mutter, "As he should," but a house elf had dropped a large brass pot so she couldn't be sure.
Fred scoffed, but Harry elbowed him in the side. They didn't need Hermione to go off on a rant just now.
"Excellent point, Hermione," she said, leading the way down the stairs and talking over her shoulder. She pushed the portrait open and stepped out, still looking back towards the others, saying, "We need to act as if nothing's wr - oof!"
"Harry, are you all right!" Hermione was the first to her side, pulling her up.
"Yeah, yeah, just fine," Harry muttered, picking herself up and squinting in the darkness of the unlit corridor. "I landed on something soft." Neville and Cedric, the last out of the kitchens, moved aside just enough to let the candle-lit from within to land on what had cushioned Harry's fall: a body.
Silence reigned until the closing portrait clicked gently shut. One of the twins - Harry was too preoccupied to try and figure out which - croaked out, "Lumos", and a small sphere of white light illuminated the scene.
"Who - ?" Hermione squeaked, unable to finish the sentence.
Harry swallowed and turned the body over, letting out a breath she'd unconsciously held when she realized that she didn't know whoever it was.
"Kathleen Alexander," Cedric said hoarsely. "Sixth year Prefect in my house."
With a flash of understanding, Harry pressed her first two fingers into the girl's neck. "She's alive."
The group as a whole heaved a relieved sigh. "Drugged?" George asked.
"Most likely," Hermione replied, lighting her own wand and searching the ground. "Look! A biscuit." And indeed, a mostly-eaten chocolate biscuit had rolled towards the far wall.
"D'you think…" Neville trailed off, staring at the biscuit.
"Did anyone eat any biscuits?" Harry asked, trying to remember back to when they'd eaten dessert. She herself had had a rich chocolate mousse that had reminded her of her brother, but the others…
"They didn't serve us any." Fred spoke in a tone that suggested he was frowning; Harry was yet unable to tear her gaze away from the unconscious girl.
"I tried to snatch one, but the elf said that they - that they…" George stuttered to a halt. "That they had special orders," he finished.
Harry finally looked away from the fallen girl and turned to face the others. "So," she said. "This is it."
Hermione, face pale and eyes wide, nodded. "Whatever's happening, is happening tonight," she agreed.
"What do we do?" Neville asked.
Harry's stomach sank; she'd wanted to avoid this, but the only logical path was undeniable. "I'll have to try Legilimency on the Headmaster," she said slowly, already looking past her friends and down the corridor.
"No." Hermione, Neville, and Cedric spoke at the same time.
The two boys allowed Hermione to speak first. "Harry, it's too dangerous! You don't know the Headmaster at all!"
"He's too old," Neville said bluntly, in a tone she hardly recognized as his. "You'll go insane trying to sort through all his memories." His jaw tightened as he spoke, and Harry frowned momentarily before Cedric's words caught her attention.
"You don't stand a chance if he's awake. Professor Dumbledore is a master Occlumens and Legilimens. His mind is - "
"Not his own," Harry interrupted fiercely. She wasn't looking forward to this, but a feeling of dread was starting to grow in the pit of her stomach, creeping and growing like a fast-spreading fungus. "Look, if there were any other way, I would take it! But whatever that thing - " she spat the word out like a curse " - has planned, we're just giving it more time by sitting here and arguing!" She prepared to storm off, but Hermione caught her arm.
"Maybe - maybe we should check the common room," she suggested in a shaky voice. "Just to - to see, if the others are…"
"No need." The twins, conspicuously silent, spoke up, emerging from the shadows they'd been whispering in. George held a piece of old parchment in his hands, and when he held it up, Harry could see that it was -
"A map?" she blurted out.
"Not just any map," Fred boasted proudly, but with nowhere near his usual cheerful tone.
"A map of Hogwarts."
"Shows all the rooms - "
" - except the other House's common rooms - "
" - all the corridors, and more secret passages than anyone else knows."
"Except maybe Harry."
"Except maybe Harry," Fred agreed.
"And how does that help us?" Harry asked, curious despite the circumstances. Even Neville looked intrigued, and Cedric was actually trying to read it, leaning forwards until he was in danger of tipping over.
"It doesn't just show rooms and corridors," George said.
"It shows where people are in the castle, every second of every day."
"Thing is," George cut in, "we haven't been able to find those under the compulsion of the potions."
"The professors still show up," Fred clarified, "but, according to the map - "
" - which has yet to fail us," George added seriously.
" - which hasn't lied to us once," Fred said, a little more emphatically than necessary, "the Hospital Wing is completely empty."
"Which," George said, "we know for a fact it's not."
"And?" Cedric asked after a moment of silence. "What's it say now?"
By the time Harry realized what exactly the twins' map signified, Hermione had already let out a soft gasp, and the twins had turned the map around. "Well," George drawled slowly, "besides the six of us, the only people still walking - "
" - or sleeping of their own accord - "
" - are a cluster of Ravenclaws in the library, and - "
"You've got to be joking!" Fred exclaimed. "The entire school's basically brain-dead and Percy's still walking around on patrols?!"
Harry could've sworn she heard Hermione mutter, "I told you so," under her breath.
"The Ravenclaws aren't that unusual," Cedric mused as George added his own words of disgust at his Prefect brother. "There's always a few of them in the library trying to look up which questions they got wrong."
"Are the teachers on the map?" Harry asked the twins, interrupting before they could go on an insult-competition against their brother.
Fred froze mid-insult (poncy perfectionist priss of a -) and glanced at the map. "No."