Strokes of Luck

The party was raging around the relatively quieter corner of the Gryffindor Common room, where Harry and Hermione sipped their butterbeer with indulgent smiles on their faces as they observed the joyful chaos thunder around them.

"Aren't you glad you came, Harry?" the Gryffindor witch lounged in a comfy armchair, doing her level best to ignore the many blatant infractions of the rules happening everywhere because of the party while she began to enjoy the buzz given by the butterbeers drunk up to that moment.

"I enjoyed the game, yes." Harry smiled slily, "But is that approval that I hear in your voice? Hermione Granger, thinking that time is better spent at a Quidditch math than in a library?"

"Oh, shush it, Harry." Hermione sniffed playfully, letting her eyes roam over the common room.

Colorful banners hung from one side of the room to the other, bold red and gold almost punching in the eye whoever dared to look towards the depicted stylized lions eating the animals representing the other four Houses between an actual roar and a strip of a song: "Every two he catches three! And we sing because, because Weasley is our King!"

Harry had been forced away from his endless, self-imposed training in order to attend the first match of the Quidditch season, a match that saw Ron enter his first official game as a star-Keeper, the kind that Oliver Wood would have dreamed to be back in school, and from the smug glances that Hermione from time to time threw him, he knew that she was barely holding back a 'told you so'.

"I need to train, Hermione."

"We've been at school with a stranger for all this time, and we've left you your space even if you kept blowing us off: you know how much it would mean to him, Harry." her reply had come as the snap of a whip, "What is the point of becoming strong enough to protect us if you lose us in the meantime, Harry?!"

The Chosen One had quickly ended up following his bookworm friend to the game, where, almost despite himself, he had enjoyed every moment, and had quickly found himself shouting alongside his peers, even if he fancied that he would have spotted and caught the snitch faster than Ginny did.

"Yes, yes, I know." Harry rolled his eyes, laughing heartedly as he saw Ron being hoisted upon the shoulders of a group of students for yet another victory dance, "This is fun." for the first time since the previous June, the Chosen One almost felt normal: it was still there, the rage that never left him since Bellatrix's death, the heaviness of the tasks ahead still weighed on his shoulders, but it was as if, while submerged in all the joy around him, he felt more capable of withstanding the pressure.

Inevitably, his mind returned to what he'd need to do: alongside his training,the study of Charms, Transfiguration, and Defence Against the Dark Arts, he had to figure out a way to get Slughorn to tell him the truth about that encounter with Riddle.

"You know Slughorn, right?" Harry's green eyes turned towards Hermione, spotting her head snapping back towards him from where she had been looking at Ron, "I imagine he likes you."

She gave him a rueful smile while she pushed herself back into her armchair, her eyes half-lidded as she left the minute quantities of alcohol to do their work: "Slughorn? Whatever made you bring him up?"

With a smirk, the Chosen One simply tapped his temple, taking another sip from his butterbeer while he rose to his feet, casually stretching to work out some of the kinks that the training had left on him. In the middle of the Common Room, he observed with wide eyes as Ron avoided a ravenous Lavender Brown, only to turn towards Hermione and gain a determined, serious expression on his face.

Hermione's head quickly snapped away from the scene of an ashamed Lavender Brown retreating into the crowd, even if a satisfied smile appeared on the bookworm's features and she blushed. Still, she proved how extraordinary her brain was as she didn't get distracted from the topic of her conversation with Harry: "I'm getting there, I think. I mean... how do you know when you...?"

"Dumbledore tested me in the summer, and gave me a few pointers." Harry shrugged, sitting back once more in his armchair with an expectant look in his eyes while he observed Ron determined steps, "So, what would you do to broach a delicate topic with Slughorn?"

"You should talk to the Prince of Potions over there." a faint frown appeared on her face while she jerked her head towards the quickly approaching Ron, "He got a book with annotations that basically allowed him to cheat himself to the top of the class."

Of all the things his bookworm friend could have said, that was the last Harry expected: "How does one cheat in potions, Hermione?"

"He followed different directions!" she snapped back, her good mood from the afternoon and ongoing party quickly evaporating, "So..."

The Chosen One found the situation hilarious, but refrained from laughing: "So, given that Ron and I have no idea of how potions work, he followed the instructions well enough to outdo you?"

"They were different instructions!" she barely refrained from hissing back, stubbornly downing her own butterbeer before opening a second one.

"It's still an improvement, isn't it?"

Before she could answer, a tall, gangly redhead stumbled upon them, his eyes bright and his face flushed as he grabbed Hermione's wrist and quickly, if gently, pulled her to her feet. "Wha..?"

Before Hermione could truly realize what was going on, Ron had bent down and was kissing her, her arms closing around his shoulders as the partying crowd in the Common Room thudnered its approval.

As the kiss grew more heated, Harry joined the hollering and the cheers deciding then and there that he'd find himself some of that firewhiskey that he had spotted being passed around among the older students when they knew Hermione wasn't looking: tomorrow he'd return to his training, but maybe for one night, he could keep celebrating.

He could enjoy feeling alive.

In Dumbledore's office, the portraits of past headmasters were quietly snoring the night away while odd trinkets of any kind tinkled and whirred and zapped on shelves and tables, besides countless tomes, leaves of parchment, and quills.

Instead of sleeping, Albus sat at his desk, a bright, spherical light hovered over the open deluminator at his left while his blue eyes hopped from one object to the next: a punctured diary, a cracked ring, and a vial containing the faux memory of Slughorn's fateful meeting with a young Tom Riddle. Of course, while his eyes moved only a little, his mind was miles away, rushing unthinkable distances as easily as a fish was able to swim.

Hufflepuff's Cup and Slytherin's locket were almost certainly vessels for Voldemort's mutilated soul. Somewhere was hidden something of Ravenclaw, maybe the once bright young wizard that Tom Riddle had proved himself to be had found even the Lost Diadem. It was more than likely that the snake was a horcrux too: Harry's brief stint in his body the night Arthur was attacked was proof enough.

Then, of course, there was... Dumbledore sighed, the light hovering to his side cast harsh shadows across the crinkled surface of his skin, while he went one last time over every single detail, hoping for any inconsistency that could make him reconsider the readied steps that Harry would have to walk, only to come up short.

As if in answer to his companion's mood, Fawkes let out a mournful tune from his perch, only to ruffle his feathers and chirp a more uplifting tune, which managed to bring a smile to the old wizard's face: "Thank you, old friend."

But even the joy that the majestic firebird seemed to exude by virtue of merely existing wasn't enough to take away the headmaster from his heavy thoughts, and soon his expression returned sombre.

It was of paramount importance to know for certain how many of the vile things Voldemort had wished to make, Dumbledore couldn't let his own calculations, intuition, and experience take him away from the need of being certain. Seven was the most powerful number, that was basic knowledge in Arithmancy, and something that would have stroked Voldemort's ego. Given the undeniable 'condition' of one Harry James Potter, Albus could easily imagine how the death of the baby prophecy defined as a potential 'equal' would be used as a ritual to create the final horcrux.

Diary, Cup, Locket, Ring, something of Ravenclaw, and another soul vessel that would have been crafted with Harry Potter's murder. The logic was almost inescapable, but exactly for that reason Albus couldn't let it define his planning. His blue eyes drifted to the uncovered, gnarly, black hand that was the price of his last blunder.

If only he had had more time, he could have figured out a way or a hundred to get Horace to divulge what was needed, but the problem was exactly there: he didn't have time. If any attempt of using force to extract that memory failed, Slughorn would vanish from the headmaster's reach, even risking being captured by Voldemort's forces. Of course, any sudden departure from Hogwarts would make the Dark Lord curious as to the why: why would a respected Potion professor of his calibre and experiene abandon his post?

And above all, Voldemort must not learn of Dumbledore's knowledge about the existence of Horcruxes.

And that meant that a feather-like touch was what was needed: it would have been easier, in Dumbledore's opinion, if Harry had agreed to attend Potions, but suggesting it to Minerva had only made the Transfiguration Professor more aware of the changes in her charge when the Chosen One made it clear that he had chosen after a lot of careful thinking, and Albus didn't have the heart to push the young wizard away from his grown dedication to his studies, not when his determination to grow seemed to be the only thing holding him together since Sirius' death.

Still, Miss. Granger was as bright as they came, muggleborn, and a close friend of Harry: surely Horace wouldn't hesitate in drawing his own comparisons with Lily, and the ex-Head of Slytherin House wouldn't miss the opportunity of using the witch to get closer to such a young, famous and powerful wizard as Mr. Potter was.

Albus sighed: once more, it seemed that he had to rely on a child to do something that only an adult should be tasked with.

Once more, Fawkes trilled an uplifting tune, and almost without realizing it, Dumbledore's mind went back to a wide-eyed, young Harry: as a first year, he almost disappeared in his robes, but even then he had such a fierce temperament. He chuckled lightly at the story he had been told of Harry's first snitch, almost swallowed in the match that the headmaster had later seen through Severus' memories of the event.

How lucky that Minerva had managed to prevail upon Albus upon buying a brand new set of Quidditch in occasion of James' son first match, just five years before.

Dumbledore's exceptional brain quickly provided a little-known nugget of information about Snitches, and his blue eyes stopped upon the cracked ring that he knew housed the Resurrection Stone. If there was any truth to the Tale of the Three Brothers, well, Harry could do with all the help the ancient headmaster could provide.

Albus was dying, he knew that much. Severus would do everything in his power, but the headmaster couldn't put all his eggs in one basket, so to speak. So, as the ancient wizard invented another piece of the puzzle that would lead Harry where he'd be needed, as he plotted the end of the bloody game that Voldemort had begun so many years before, a single tear fell from the corner of his eye.

And a single, simple phrase appeared in his mind's eye, a puzzle tauntingly impossible to solve if not at the right moment, by the right person: 'I open at the close.'

AN

It's been a really long while has it not? Sorry, but I'm really busy lately, and I've got little time for fanfiction.

So, I'm trying to keep my promise to only focus on the entirely original or diverging moments from the standard storyline, but I want to avoid a chapter made of mismatched puzzle pieces, so I didn't add an endless sequence of POVs, choosing to focus on the new development between Hermione and Ron, and on Dumbledore's perspective on the events up to this point.

Also, I did wonder how astronomical the chances were for Harry to almost swallow a brand-new snitch in his first year. I mean, it clearly was something that Rowling came up with during the Deathly Hallows, but since I have to treat it as a world-building truth, I chose to have Dumbledore think of the Snitch as a delivery for the Resurrection Stone by pure, dumb luck.

Also, I addressed the obvious: 'why the fuck didn't Dumbledore simply interrogate Slughorn when it was needed'- plot hole of the canon Half-Blood Prince, I hope the explanation managed to be swallowed without too much hassle.

The truly big diverging points will fall with the next chapters, but we're getting there in a couple of chapters, and from then it's all new stuff.

As always, let me know what you think, and what you hope to see!