The second weekend in October was a greatly appreciated distraction from everything else that had filled Harry's mind. It was the first Hogsmeade trip, and Harry was exceedingly grateful for the opportunity to try and get his mind off of his many problems. Or at least, that's what he had hoped would happen.

The morning of the Hogsmeade trip dawned cold and stormy and Harry lay in bed flipping through his potions book rather aimlessly, waiting until it was time for breakfast. The potions book in question, which according to the writing scrawled on the first page, had belonged to a self described 'Half-blood Prince', had proven a treasure trove to fascinating material, far beyond the range of simple potions. The margins were filled with imaginative little jinxes and hexes which, judging by the crossings-out and revisions, the Prince had likely invented himself.

Interestingly enough, Harry found that he'd known a couple of those spells already - or rather, his Slytherin counterpart had known them. One called Muffliato, which filled the ears of anyone nearby with an unidentifiable buzzing, so that lengthy conversations could be held without being overheard, was a spell that Harry was positive Draco had showed him at some point.

There was another one that would hoist the victim up by their ankle and dangle them in mid-air that Harry's Slytherin self had been familiar with. Now, from his Gryffindor memories, he recalled the memory in Snape's Pensieve of Harry's father casting that spell upon Snape, so the spells were obviously old enough that even Harry's parent's generation had been familiar with some of them.

If the Prince had been the one to invent these spells, they had to have gotten out and about at some point, since other people obviously knew at least some of them. Perhaps the Prince had published a spell book at some point? Harry considered the value of searching for any other materials that made reference to some of the spells he found scribbled in the margins, to see if he could discover the identity of this mysterious student from years past.

However he'd discarded the idea as mostly unwarranted. Perhaps if he found himself exceedingly bored and desperate for a distraction, he'd reconsider it later. He was definitely curious as to the identity of the previous owner of his potions textbook, but it wasn't exactly a high priority, given just how much other crazy stuff he had going on at the moment.

Harry did finally manage to drag Ron out of bed and the pair met up with Hermione in the common room before the three of them made their way to the Great Hall. About halfway through their breakfast, Ginny showed up and made her way over towards them..

"I'm supposed to give this to you," she remarked absently, handing over a rolled up scroll of parchment to Harry before bidding them farewell and making her way over to where Dean was sitting.

Harry quickly unrolled it to find the familiar thin, slanted writing, that belonged to Dumbledore. Harry felt his heart begin to race in his chest, but he wasn't nearly as excited about this new development as he had been the last time it had happened.

"It's Dumbledore's next lesson," Harry said, trying to conceal the tight nervous fear curling in his chest, since he knew he couldn't rationally explain it to either of his friends.

"Really?" Ron said, perking up with curious excitement. "When?"

"Monday evening," Harry said, scanning the rest of the short note. There really wasn't much to it. Certainly nothing to indicate what they might be covering in the meeting, but then again, Harry supposed there really was no way that something like that would be safe to be put in writing.

A short time later and the trio were making their way out of the castle and towards Hogsmeade. Filch was prodding everyone with a secrecy scope as they left, and Ron couldn't help but remark how ridiculous it was to check them as they left the castle, when it made much more sense to check people as they came back. This only served to earn him a few extra jabs with the device before they were allowed to pass.

The trip down to the village was awful. The weather was miserably cold, and the exposed parts of Harry's face felt as if it were being attacked with daggers, the wind was so icy and biting. The trip which was already looking less than stellar, got even worse as they finally made it to the village just to discover that Zonko's was closed and boarded up. They hurried into Honeyduke's instead, and Harry was instantly greeted by the large round figure of Professor Slughorn.

The man spent a couple minutes genially trying to convince Harry to attend another one of his Slugclub dinners. Harry made his empty apologies, remarking how unfortunate it was that they keep coinciding with his Quidditch practices.

"Well, I certainly expect you to win your first match after all this hard work!" said Slughorn. "But a little recreation never hurt anybody. Now, how about Monday night, you can't possibly want to practice in this weather. . . ."

"I can't, Professor, I've got — er — an appointment with Professor Dumbledore that evening," Harry replied, suddenly grateful for the meeting, even while another part of him dreaded it.

"Unlucky again!" cried Slughorn dramatically. "Ah, well . . . you can't evade me forever, Harry!"

And with a regal wave, he waddled out of the shop, taking as little notice of Ron as though he had been a display of Cockroach Clusters.

Ron managed to find this whole interaction as a suitable reminder for how he'd been repeatedly snubbed by the professor and his Slug Club, and spent the rest of their stint in the sweet-smelling shop in a rather sour mood. The trio finally opted to leave and make their way towards the Three Broomsticks.

It was on the way there that Harry came across a figure that managed to trigger a flash of insight that he hadn't registered before.

Mundungus Fletcher was standing out front of the pub holding a suitcase full of random trinkets, and talking with a man that Harry knew to be the man who ran Hogsmeade's other pub, the Hog's Head. While Harry had been vaguely familiar with the man since the previous year when the DA had held it's initial meeting in his pub, it was only now, in this instance, where Harry suddenly realized he knew who this man was.

"Dumbledore's brother," Harry muttered with a mild air of shock, as he came to a halt in the middle of the road.

Ron, who was hunched over against the biting wind turned back and called out "What?"

Harry's jaw floundered for a moment as his mind churned over a confusing swirl of half-understood thoughts. Something about the prophecy and Snape, and this man… And something else, looming on the edge of his thoughts. Something that made his stomach churn, even though he couldn't quite grasp hold of whatever it was.

Harry's stupor was broken as Dumbledore's brother - Aberforth Dumbledore, his mind supplied him - turned and quickly escaped into the sleeting cold, leaving behind Mundungus by himself. Dung spotted Harry and instantly staggered, dropping his case which burst open, releasing it's entire contents across the slush soaked ground.

"Oh, 'ello, 'Arry," said Mundungus Fletcher, with a most unconvincing stab at airiness. "Well, don't let me keep ya." He said as he began scrabbling on the ground to retrieve the contents of his suitcase with every appearance of a man eager to be gone.

"Are you selling this stuff?" asked Harry, watching Mundungus grab an assortment of grubby-looking objects from the ground.

"Oh, well, gotta scrape a living," said Mundungus. "Gimme that!"

Ron had stooped down and picked up something silver. "Hang on," Ron said slowly. "This looks familiar —"

"Thank you!" said Mundungus, snatching the goblet out of Ron's hand and stuffing it back into the case.

A flash of recognition shot through Harry's mind, and this wasn't some half-remembered foggy memory from his counterpart's world. This was his memory, and he knew that for a fact because it involved Sirius and his Slytherin doppleganger had never spent any time with Sirius as far as Harry could tell.

No, this knowledge was sharp and crisp, and anger boiled to the surface as Harry registered, in a flash, just what was happening.

Harry rushed forward and pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. The man yelped and coughed as Harry held him fast with one hand, and pulled out his wand with the other.

"Harry!" squealed Hermione in startled shock.

"You took that from Sirius's house," Harry growled through clenched teeth. "That had the Black family crest on it."

"I — no — what — ?" spluttered Mundungus, who was slowly turning purple.

"You've nicked it from Grimmauld Place! You've been nicking Sirius' stuff!" he snarled. "What did you do, go back the night he died and strip the place?"

"I — no —"

"You dirty bastard!"

"Harry, you mustn't!" shrieked Hermione, as Mundungus started to turn blue.

There was a bang, and Harry felt his hands fly off Mundungus's throat. Gasping and spluttering, Mundungus made a quick attempt to grab his fallen case, but Harry was faster and yanked it out of his hands instead. Dung apparently gave it up as a lost cause because the next second — CRACK — he Disapparated.

Harry roared and swore at the top of his voice before spinning around to identify who had allowed the dirty sneak thief to escape.

"Tonks!" Harry exclaimed. "How could you? How could you let him get away!"

"Harry, calm down," Tonks said in a tired voice. She had appeared out of nowhere and her mousy hair was wet with sleet.

"He's nicked Sirius's stuff! Nicked it!" Harry exclaimed finally taking a moment to look down at the ratty case how in his hand, but Tonks didn't seem the least bit troubled by this piece of information and she quickly shuffled the group into the Three Broomsticks.

Hermione and Tonks both made a brief effort to get Harry to calm down before Tonks left and Hermione hurried to the bar to get three butterbeers in hopes of taking Harry's mind off of what had just happened.

Harry just sat and fumed for several minutes before opening the case and taking a quick look. A few more Black Family Crests decorating various objects were all that Harry needed to see to confirm his suspicions. Hermione insisted that Harry close the case and deal with it later, obviously in hopes of preventing Harry from getting even more angry and upset over his godfather's death, and Mundungus' disgusting actions.

The group ended up staying just long enough to finish their butterbeers, but there didn't seem to be any reason to stay beyond that. The whole trip to Hogsmeade had been a bust and the group opted to head back to the school after that.

They left the pub following behind Katie Bell and her friend Leanne, the two groups a short distance apart as they each trudged on through the swirling sleet, making their ways down High Street and towards the long winding path that led back up to the school.

It was a little while before Harry became aware that the voices of Katie Bell and her friend, which were being carried back to him on the wind, had become shriller and louder. Harry squinted at their indistinct figures. The two girls were having an argument about something Katie was holding in her hand. "It's nothing to do with you, Leanne!" Harry heard Katie say.

The two seemed to tussle with a package for a moment before it appeared to rip and fall to the ground. At once, Katie rose into the air, gracefully, her arms oustretched, as though she was about to fly. Yet there was something wrong, something eerie. A horrible sinking feeling began to swirl in Harry's gut, and some part of him knew - just knew - that what was happening was very, very bad.

Katie's hair whipped around her face with the fierce wind, but her eyes were closed and her face was quite empty of expression. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Leanne had all halted in their tracks, watching.

Then, six feet above the ground, Katie let out a terrible scream. Her eyes flew open but whatever she could see, or whatever she was feeling, was clearly causing her terrible anguish. She screamed and screamed; Leanne started to scream too and seized Katie's ankles, trying to tug her back to the ground.

Ron and Hermione raced over and began grabbing at Katie's ankles as well, but Harry found himself rooted to the spot. His mind was racing over spells - diagnostics, preventatives, and counter curses. Many of them felt just beyond his mind's grasp, as the memories that gave them context were still lost in a fog, but he was able to pull some of them into focus just long enough to decide if they were worth trying.

Without even making the decision to do so, Harry's hand had reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand. Katie fell to the ground a moment later, toppling Ron, Hermione, and Leanne as they attempted to catch her and move her on the ground more gently. But she was still thrashing about in painful spasms and screaming at the top of her lungs. Harry ran forward, pushing between Hermione and Ron and with wand aimed directly at Katie's chest he began making a series of intricate motions and muttering spells under his breath.

"What —" Hermione sputtered in surprise as she moved to the side, giving Harry more room to work.

A moment later Katie's whole body glowed as Harry began casting some unspoken spell over her. Her eyes were still wide and unseeing, and she was still screaming horribly, but at least she'd stopped convulsing around on the ground.

"Someone go get help!" Harry shouted, a mild hint of exasperation in his voice, but his eyes remained determined and entirely focused on Katie.

It was Ron who seemed to jerk into awareness enough to scramble to his feet and race up the path towards the school.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione finally managed to get out as she watched him work.

"Ghouthall's spreading impediment counter-curse," Harry muttered before a frustrated growl escaped his lips. "No… not good enough. Merlin, what the hell is this curse? Maybe… maybe Strausberg's Prohibre…"

Harry moved his wand in another intricate movement and a gentle blue light began to draw from the tip like a mist, enveloping the the air directly over Katie's body. Her screams finally stopped, but she still looked entirely unaware of them with blank unseeing eyes, and her chest rose and fell in rapid succession as she sucked in fast, heaving, and desperate breaths.

Harry's wand stopped suddenly as a dawning light seemed to enter his eyes. "It's an Ardebit type curse!" He stopped and turned to look around. He pointed at the torn brown paper package on the ground, half-buried in snow and slush. "I need that. But don't touch it! Warp it in your scarf or something."

Hermione rushed over to it, unwinding the scarf from her neck and carefully wrapping it around the package and picking it up cautiously.

"Set it down there," Harry said, indicating the sodden ground beside him, and he made a few more wand movements over Katie's body.

Hermione placed it down, looking worriedly between Harry, Katie, and Leanne, who was still sniffling and whimpering in terrified horror.

Harry turned his focus on the package, nudging the scarf and brown paper out of the way with the tip of his wand and revealing a jeweled necklace within. His eyes widened as he recognized it, but he couldn't worry about that right now. He began casting a particularly specific diagnostic spell over the necklace, trying to identify a few key details to the magic that had attacked Katie. Finally he stopped, looking at the necklace in horror.

"Bloody hell. This is too much for me. This is really serious," he muttered.

Leanne let out a strangled sob followed by a moaning wail of despair. Harry grimaced at her and was about to try and figure out something less dismal to say in hopes of calming her down, but was gratefully distracted by the sight of a large hulking figure appearing from around the bend.

It was Hagrid with Ron racing up from behind him.

"Get back!" shouted Hagrid. "Lemme see her!"

"Something's happened to her!" sobbed Leanne. "Harry was helping, but she's still like this! I don't know what —"

"It's a nasty curse, Hagrid," Harry pushed in. "Like, really nasty. She needs a professional curse breaker, and fast."

Hagrid stared at Katie for a second, then without a word, bent down, scooped her into his arms, and ran off toward the castle with her.

Hermione hurried over to Katie's wailing friend and put an arm around her.

"It's Leanne, isn't it?"

The girl nodded.

"Did it just happen all of a sudden, or — ?"

"It was when the package tore," she sobbed, nodding her head towards the package that now lay in the snow beside where Harry was still kneeling.

Harry pushed himself up to his feet, brushing the wet snow from his pants before bending over and carefully wrapping the necklace back up in Hermione's scarf.

"What are you doing?" Ron asked, eyeing the package warily.

"We need to get this up to the castle," Harry said, taking another moment to examine it more closely.

"I've seen that before," Hermione said, thoughtfully, frowning at the bundle in Harry's arms.

"You have?" Ron said, surprised.

"Yes, it was at Borgin and Burkes," Harry confirmed with a sigh, feeling a sinking suspicion that Draco was somehow behind this - not that he was going to mention that to Ron or Hermione. It's not like they'd believe him anyway. He took a moment to secure the necklace better inside the package and scarf before reaching down with his free hand to grab Mundungus' case from where he had dropped it in the snow earlier.

"Where did Katie get this?" Hermione asked Leanne.

"Well, that's why we were arguing. She came back from the bathroom in the Three Broomsticks holding it, said it was a surprise for somebody at Hogwarts and she had to deliver it. She looked all funny when she said it. . . . Oh no, oh no, I bet she'd been Imperiused and I didn't realize!"

Leanne shook with renewed sobs. Hermione patted her shoulder gently.

"She didn't say who'd given it to her, Leanne?"

"No . . . she wouldn't tell me . . . and I said she was being stupid and not to take it up to school, but she just wouldn't listen and . . . and then I tried to grab it from her . . . and — and —" Leanne let out a wail of despair.

"We really do need to get this up to the school," Harry insisted, looking uncomfortably from the sobbing girl to Hermione. "It'll help if they know what kind of curse they're dealing with, and that's easiest learned from examining this thing."

Hermione nodded. "You're right." She helped Leanne steady her footing and the four began to trudge through the snow and sleet up the path following in Hagrid's oversized footprints.

They'd just reached the grounds when Ron called out warningly, "McGonagall!"

Harry looked ahead and sure enough, Professor McGonagall was hurrying down the stone steps through the swirling sleet, to meet them.

"Hagrid says you four saw what happened to Katie Bell — upstairs to my office at once, please! What's that you're holding, Potter?"

"It's the thing that cursed Katie," said Harry.

"Good lord," said Professor McGonagall, looking alarmed as she took the necklace from Harry. "No, no, Filch, they're with me!" she added hastily, as Filch came shuffling eagerly across the entrance hall holding his Secrecy Sensor aloft. "Take this necklace to Professor Snape at once, but be sure not to touch it, keep it wrapped in the scarf!"

"It's some sort of Ardebit curse," Harry called out after Filch. "One of the maior types, but I couldn't work out which. Tell Snape!"

Filch faltered and looked questioningly at McGonagall who looked a bit bewildered but she nodded her head. "Tell him."

"Yes, Ma'am," Filch said with a dip of his head before he hurried off.

Harry and the others followed Professor McGonagall upstairs and into her office. The sleet-spattered windows were rattling in their frames, and the room was chilly despite the fire crackling in the grate. Professor McGonagall closed the door and swept around her desk to face Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the still sobbing Leanne.

"Well?" she said sharply. "What happened?"

Haltingly, and with many pauses while she attempted to control her crying, Leanne told Professor McGonagall how Katie had gone to the bathroom in the Three Broomsticks and returned holding the unmarked package, how Katie had seemed a little odd, and how they had argued about the advisability of agreeing to deliver unknown objects, the argument culminating in the tussle over the parcel, which tore open. At this point, Leanne was so overcome, there was no getting another word out of her.

"All right," said Professor McGonagall, not unkindly, "go up to the hospital wing, please, Leanne, and get Madam Pomfrey to give you something for shock."

When she had left the room, Professor McGonagall turned back to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"What happened when Katie touched the necklace?"

"She rose up into the air and just hung there for a minute," Hermione answered quickly.

"But then she started screaming like a banshee," Ron added, looking a bit green. "It was awful."

"After she fell to the ground Harry —" Hermione hesitated here for a moment, "Harry told Ron to go get help."

McGonagall's gaze centered on Harry now. "You mentioned you believed it was an Ardebit curse? How exactly do you know that?"

"I used a couple diagnostic charms on Katie to try and work out if there was anything I could do to help her. At first I thought that maybe it was some sort of parvus curse - what with how she went floating up in the air, but even after she fell to the ground, she still kept thrashing about in pain and screaming. A parvus curse would have stopped once she dropped. I used one of Madam Morasis's identification charms and it turned up in the orange-ish red range, so I knew it had to either be an ardebit or a holocaustum type. I cast a general counter-curse for holocaustum types, since they're a lot easier to deal with, and it stopped her seizures, but it only muted the effects, and it was obvious she was still in a lot of pain, what with the screaming, so it had to be an ardebit."

McGonagall looked legitimately surprised. "Where did you lean how to do all that? I had no idea you had any experience with counter curses!"

"Er… I've um… been studying," Harry muttered, ducking his head.

"Well, it certainly is true that your class performance has shown a significant improvement this term…" McGonagall said thoughtfully, eyeing Harry with a look that was both surprised and impressed. "Is there anything else you can think of I should know?"

Hermione looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking up. "I've seen that necklace before. It was for sale in Borgin and Burkes and there was a sign under it that said it was cursed."

McGonagall raised a pointed eyebrow in Hermione's direction. "And what, exactly, were you doing in a place like Borgin and Burkes?"

Hermione flushed and ducked her head.

"We were following Malfoy. He was the one who went in there," Ron said quickly in defense of Hermione.

McGonagall looked mildly exasperated and shook her head. "What possessed you to follow Mr. Malfoy down Knockturn Alley?"

Ron glanced towards Harry but didn't say anything. McGonagall turned her expectant eyes upon Harry now and folded her arms impatiently.

Harry shrugged awkwardly. "I thought he was being suspicious," he muttered under his breath, not making eye contact.

McGonagall made an exasperated sound and shook her head. "For future reference, I would prefer if you did not repeat such an action. Thank you all for your information. Now, I need to go up to the hospital wing to check on Katie Bell. Good day to you all."

She held open her office door, giving them no choice but to file past her, though Harry was perfectly happy to put some distance between him and the events of that afternoon. Unfortunately, his friends were not about to let that happen. As soon as they'd put a good amount of distance between them and McGonagall's office, they started up discussing what had happened.

"So who do you reckon Katie was supposed to give the necklace to?" asked Ron, as they climbed the stairs to the common room.

"Goodness only knows," said Hermione. "But whoever it was has had a narrow escape. No one could have opened that package without touching the necklace."

"Katie was lucky Harry was there, though," Ron said enthusiastically. "Merlin Harry, that counter-curse stuff was brilliant. It's about time that mirror stuff actually paid off in something other than class work and essays."

"That really was something," Hermione agreed. "I didn't realize that you had gotten information like that out of the whole thing. Where did the, uhm… other… where did he learn about counter-curses like that? I've done some reading up on the subject, but I wasn't familiar with any of the spells you were using."

Harry's steps slowed as he tried to dredge up any contextual memories that would actually answer her question, but every time he felt like he was close to something, it would slip between his fingers like smoke.

Part of him had the sinking suspicion that he didn't actually want to know the answer to the question, and that scared him. He had a feeling that if he really wanted to know when and how he'd learned about curses, he could dredge it up. But he was afraid to. Part of him knew he couldn't remain ignorant of it for too much longer.

"Honestly I don't know where I - er… where he learned it. I haven't stumbled across any contextual memories to go along with it. It's just the curses and counter curses. Not how or when I learned them."

"So you know how to cast curses like that too?" Ron asked, his voice a mix between awe and horror.

"Well not like that," Harry said defensively. "That was horrible. But I mean… you've got to understand the curses if you're gonna understand how to counter them. They kind of go hand in hand. The more you know about curses and how they work, the better you get at also countering and disabling them."

"Do you think that Katie will be alright?" Hermione asked then, looking worried.

Harry sighed and shrugged. "I sure hope so… I mean, I doubt that Madam Pomfrey would have much luck with something of that level, but Snape's another story. And hopefully once they have her stabilized enough, they can transfer her to St. Mungo's…"

"Snape?" Ron said with a disgusted grimace.

"The man knows his curses," Harry drawled cynically.

"You think it's serious enough that they'd have to move her to St. Mungo's?" Hermione asked, choosing to ignore their tangent.

Harry nodded. "Yes. I do. That curse was serious business. It was intended to kill the recipient - of that I'm sure."

"Merlin…" Hermione whispered in horror.

—