Chapter 67 is here... Enjoy!

Dumbledore calmly sat down. He was just a minute early. Nowadays, it was these sessions of the week that excited the old headmaster the most.

He hadn't been there for over a minute when he heard loud approaching footsteps.

Ron walked inside the classroom and waved his wand at the door behind him, making it slam shut with a loud thud. Ron continued muttering furiously under his breath while he waved his wand around.

His first spell rendered the classroom completely silent to the outside world. His next made sure that the doors were sealed, and that no one from outside could enter. The next moved the chairs, tables and everything else to move to the edge of the room, making for ample space in the middle of an already massive classroom.

"Good evening, Professor," greeted Ron, finally.

"Good evening, Ron," greeted back Dumbledore, with a warm smile. Ron's expression, however, remained far from warm.

"That was quick work... well done," remarked Dumbledore as he glanced around the room.

Ron nodded the remark off nonchalantly. Over the following few moments of silence that lasted between the pair, Dumbledore keenly observed Ron's behaviour. He looked intense and ready to take on anything Dumbledore threw at him. His actions, from the moment he stepped into the room and shut the door, till now revealed a raging anger.

"Shall we begin?" asked Dumbledore.

Ron pointed his wand at Dumbledore and nodded intently.

Dumbledore flicked his wand and there was a low rumbling. Almost instantly, Ron had his shields up, felt them breached and got pushed back by a gust of wind.

Dumbledore didn't waste any time and with another flick of the wand, a furiously blazing fire approached Ron. Ron, who was ready for it, swirled his wand around himself while chanting, "Perdere Aerem".

Immediately, there was a vacuum that got created around Ron. The blazing flames that approached Ron, got extinguished. However, Dumbledore was relentless, and he kept the flames going.

Ron felt the heat and kept his wand up, maintaining the wall of vacuum he had created for himself. However, he couldn't match Dumbledore's will to prolong.

After a few moments of feeling breathless, Ron succumbed to the pressure and gave up. The vacuum dissipated and the flames approached Ron. However, Ron was prepared and with another slash of his wand began extinguishing the flames.

In their sessions together, this wasn't the first time Dumbledore had used fire against Ron. The first time he had done so, Ron automatically used the extinguishing charm. However, to his surprise, the fire was way too potent and Ron stood no chance. After a few failures, Dumbledore suggested creating a vacuum instead.

Though his suggestion came with a caveat. Creating a vacuum around oneself meant that, while they used the spell, they wouldn't be able to breathe.

Ron's attempt at extinguishing the flames remained fruitless, just like it had been in their sessions prior.

After a few seconds of letting Ron struggle, Dumbledore retreated the fire. And this angered Ron further.

Ron furiously began a barrage of attacks aimed at Dumbledore. But everything Ron threw at him, he defended effortlessly. Ron's anger seeped into his attacks. They were much more vicious, yet much less potent for they weren't coordinated well. Ron was all over the place.

After some time, Ron began yet another set of attacks. However, something happened that left him speechless.

Ron had used different types of attacks and hadn't managed to accomplish much. He had now resorted to the explosion curse. The first couple of times, Dumbledore seemed to defend with ease. However, the third time, the burst of blue light seemed to miss Dumbledore entirely. Frustrated, Ron continued his pursuit. However, none of his next few attempts yielded a different result, as Ron's attacks kept missing Dumbledore. Attacks getting defended easily was one thing, attacks missing the target were something entirely different.

With every miss, Ron's frustration grew manifolds.

And then something happened that made Ron rub his eyes. He had known about Dumbledore's ability, but he was witnessing it for the first time. Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen. He had become truly invisible.

Ron started looking around hastily, but Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen.

And then suddenly, Ron felt something hit him from the side and he fell to the floor, motionless.

About 5 minutes later, Ron woke up and sat up straight on the floor. Dumbledore was coolly sitting on a chair in front of him.

"Welcome back, Ron," he remarked with a smile. Ron got up and looked ready to go again.

"We are not going to be duelling anymore today, Ron," said Dumbledore.

"I'm fine, Professor... I'm ready," replied Ron.

"I'm sure you are physically ready," retorted Dumbledore with a smile. "I should have perhaps addressed your anger earlier," he added.

Ron stared at Dumbledore and, after a few seconds of silence, walked up to the Professor and sat beside him.

"Anything you want to say?" asked Dumbledore.

"I hate that there's nothing we could do about... about all these attacks You-know-who has been carrying out," replied Ron, clenching his teeth. "Charlie escaped by the skin of his teeth..." he added.

"Tom's ambitions have grown since last time. In the past couple of years, he has been playing a game that we have failed to grasp," retorted Dumbledore, looking depressed. After a few seconds, he continued. "But not everything is as bad as it seems. We have made great strides in some other aspects. There are these paths that we could go down, all of which have a bright light at the end of them," he added, his expression turning more optimistic.

Ron's expression turned optimistic as well. "What have we been doing?" he asked, curiously.

"I wouldn't want to burden you with such things," replied Dumbledore with a smile. Ron understood that the reply was a polite way of refusing to tell. On the other hand, Dumbledore continued, "You... and Harry... and Miss Granger, and everyone else have a part to play in this war. But, your time is yet to come. For now, I would like you all to focus on getting better... better people, better friends... better companions," he added.

"For now, leave the war to us," he finished.

Ron glanced at Dumbledore, with an empty look. He didn't know what to say.

"Anger can be useful. Emotions are good. But you can never let it control you," remarked Dumbledore after a few seconds.

"I was terrible today, wasn't I?" retorted Ron, dejected.

"You were remarkable..." replied Dumbledore. "But, you were an easy target. You were not concentrating," he added. "You were vulnerable to manipulation and hence why I had to trick you," continued Dumbledore.

"Trick me?" asked Ron, confused.

"How many times in the past 2 years have you missed your target while duelling?" asked Dumbledore with a glint in his eye.

"Not... many times... I don't get it," replied Ron, still confused.

"I tricked your mind into believing that you were performing poorly. Your anger made you susceptible to legilimency. And you can never let that happen," replied Dumbledore.

It was a beautiful Autumn morning. Ron woke up after a good sleep. The moment he did, his eyes fell on Harry's bed. He hadn't seen Harry come to the dormitory the previous night and it was empty now as well. Either Harry had sneaked in late and woken up quite early, or he had not been there all night.

Ron made it to the great hall for breakfast. He spotted Hermione sitting alone, with an untouched porridge in front of her and a newspaper in her hand.

"Good Morning, Hermione," greeted Ron. "Have you seen Harry?" he asked.

"Ron," exclaimed Hermione. "You are not going to..." she began and paused. "Harry? No, I haven't seen Harry since yesterday evening," she replied instead. "Why?" she asked.

"I haven't seen him since yesterday evening, either," replied Ron, confused. "He had his session with Professor White, didn't he?" he wondered, out loud.

"Yes... he left for his session, last I saw him," remarked Hermione. "You are not going to believe what's written in the papers," she said, with a shocked expression and handed the paper to Ron.

"What?" retorted Ron, disinterested as he took the paper. If it was going to be mentions of more killings, he'd incinerate the paper right there.

"... Black has switched sides?"

"A fresh investigation shows Janus Keddle's death had foul play involved..."

"... Black's ally, Jane Smith..."

"What a load of nonsense? Where do these people get ideas like this?" remarked Ron as he continued reading the article.

"... speculations around Jane's involvement in Peter Pettigrew's death..."

"It is widely believed that Sirius Black and Jane Smith are old sweethearts, and she has finally managed to get Sirius out of trouble..."

"Bollocks..." remarked Ron, sounding annoyed.

And just then, he heard footsteps and glanced up. "Hey... where have you been?" asked Ron, looking at Harry, who was walking towards them, gingerly.

"I... uh, was at the library, catching up on some Snape's homework," replied Harry as he made his towards Ron and sat down beside him.

"This early?" retorted Ron, surprised.

Harry shrugged in response and began tucking into his porridge.

"Anything interesting in the papers?" remarked Harry as he glanced at Ron.

"Uh... There is something..." replied Hermione, looking uncomfortable.

"Yeah... you should probably avoid it," added Ron, pushing the paper away.

"What is it?" asked Harry, curiously.

"There are some... unsavoury things... written about Sirius..." replied Hermione.

"... and Jane," added Ron, uncomfortably.

"Spit it out, guys... What have they written about Sirius and Jane?" retorted Harry, impatiently.

Ron heaved a heavy sigh. "Well... Jane helped Sirius escape Azkaban. She tortured and coerced a false confession from Peter Pettigrew. And then she killed Janus Keddle to secure Sirius' 'not guilty' verdict. Sirius has switched sides and pledged loyalty to Jane in return. And Jane went to all this trouble for Sirius because they are old sweethearts and now that he's free, they are together..."

Harry's eyes grew wider with every statement Ron made.

"Harry..." began Hermione as she placed her hands on top of Harry's. "They don't have anything better to write..." she added but paused upon seeing Harry's reaction.

Harry burst out laughing.

"Jane and Sirius?" he remarked and continued laughing his heart out.

Hermione's expression turned. Even she began to see the comical element in it and joined Harry in the laughter.

"That's pretty stupid..." chimed in Ron as he gave a chuckle.

As much as Harry would have laughed his heart out in front of his best friends, there was a small part of him that processed everything Ron said seriously.

"Voldemort helped Sirius... There was foul play involved in Janus Keddle's death. And for the past few weeks, the number of articles written against Sirius has increased..." he thought to himself.

"Are you coming to quidditch practice?" asked Ron, diverting the conversation.

"Why would you ask that?" retorted Harry, surprised.

"Don't you have your 'party' with Slughorn?" retorted back Ron, with a chuckle.

"I am not going to miss quidditch practice for anything... and I have no interest in going to the 'party'..." replied Harry, leaving the reply open-ended.

"But... you are going to go, right?" suggested Ron with a smirk.

"I don't think he left me with any choice," remarked Harry.

"The boy-who-lived... and the student of the year," remarked Ron.

"Shut up," snapped Hermione, though she failed to hide the blush.

The day went by quickly. It was a pretty normal day for everyone by all standards except for Harry. It started off with the transfiguration class where Harry struggled to transfigure a simple bowling ball into a balloon and back to a bowling ball.

Even McGonagall inquired, "Are you alright?"

And when Harry replied that he was fine, her reply left him embarrassed in front of the class.

"Then your performance has no excuses, Mr Potter..."

Defence against the dark arts went just as bad as Harry's reflexes in dealing with "Lacarnum Inflamari", a charm that was used to ignite items of clothing, were below par.

"If you wish to incur death by fire... Mr Potter... why bother attending my class? You could have done so easily from the comfort of your dormitory..." chastised Snape.

And to cap it all off, Harry's quidditch practice went awfully poorly. He got knocked down from his broom by a bludger, not once, but twice. And for the first time, Colin managed to get the snitch before Harry did. How much of it was a reflection of Colin's improvement as opposed to Harry having a terrible day, only time would tell.

Harry rushed back from his quidditch practice, freshened up and got ready for the evening meetup. The moment he was ready, he went down to the common room. Hermione wasn't there yet. Either that, or she had left without him.

Just as he was about to ask someone about her, he heard his name being called out.

"Harry," called out Hermione. Harry turned around and glanced at Hermione.

"Hi, Hermione," greeted back Harry as he walked over to her.

"I didn't know you were waiting for me..." she remarked with a smile.

"I... uh... I figured we'd go together... I guess," replied Harry, stumbling his way through it.

Hermione gave a soft smile in reply.

The pair made their way to Slughorn's office, which was located on the sixth floor. The moment they arrived, they were warmly greeted by Professor Slughorn himself. A quick glance around indicated that the pair were the 6th and 7th to arrive, after Cormac McLaggen, Blaise Zabini, Melinda Bobbin and the Carrow twins. Not long thereafter, arrived a couple more students, both in their 7th year and finally after a couple of more minutes, arrived Cedric Diggory.

The first gathering of the infamous slug club had thus officially begun.

Professor Slughorn was quite chatty from the get-go. He was a well-respected Professor among the students. Of course, a lot of them had parents who had Slughorn as their Professor as well. But, even within the one month that had gone by, the students grew a liking for the old man, and a taste for the subject of potions as well.

His appearance in the slug club wasn't unlike his appearance during classes, if anything it was a bit more magnified. As the students arrived one by one, Slughorn immediately started striking up conversations with them. It was like watching a music artist play their most popular tune. Slughorn's ability to make students extremely comfortable stood out. He initiated a conversation with everyone about their time at Hogwarts that year, the month that had gone by, the 4 and a bit years spent at the school, their favourite subjects, and their favourite Professors. Talks about their friends and family blended in quite effortlessly and soon everybody was having fun.

One such conversation was with Cedric.

"So, Mr Diggory... 7th year, eh? All set to explore the magical world?" asked Slughorn as he dug into the lavishly spread feast in front of him.

Cedric chuckled in reply. "Yes, Professor," he added.

"For those of you who do not know, Mr Diggory was one of 3 students who had the exciting opportunity of spending some time at the wonderful Beauxbatons Academy of Magic," remarked Slughorn proudly. It seemed like the 7th-year students and Hermione were the only ones to know about it. Harry and the rest glanced at Cedric, surprised.

"Yes, those few months were quite exciting," replied Cedric, blushing.

"Don't be shy... If you could tell us all a bit more about your time there, Mr Diggory," remarked Slughorn with a smile.

"Of course... I was informed by Professor Sprout about the chance to spend some time at the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. I went there in the first week of March... And I was there till the end of August. It was absolutely wonderful. The students there were great, and the Professors too. And it was fascinating to see how differently they did things. It was a memorable experience," replied Cedric.

"Does this happen every year? Do some students get to go to different countries to study?" asked Harry, curiously.

"No... It was..." began Cedric.

"No, Harry..." began Hermione and realised she had just interrupted Cedric.

Hermione gave an awkward smile while Cedric returned a polite smile.

"No... So, this one was a one-off thing. But I'm sure there are other wizarding schools that we could have a tie-up with and continue this as a tradition," replied Cedric.

Hermione was at first, reluctant about the get-together Slughorn had invited her to. But upon finding out that Harry was invited as well, she decided to come to the slug club. She would of course later find out that Cedric, her newest friend from her time at the duelling club was also invited. Hermione realised that her ambitions for her career could very well use such gatherings and hence accepting the invite soon became a no-brainer.

Being the only muggle-born in the group made things a little awkward, though. There were a few snide remarks at muggles, a few unsavoury jokes made at the expense of muggle-born wizards and witches, and she had to spend quite a few minutes explaining what her parents did in the muggle world.

Otherwise, the evening was reasonably pleasant. Having at least 2 friends with her, helped a lot. However, there was one thing in particular that she curiously observed. Harry was behaving differently. He was unusually talkative.

Harry could be talkative. Often around herself, Ron and back when John was there, the 4 of them would get into long conversations in which Harry would be the centre of. Whenever something excited him, he would go to great verbal lengths to express it.

But this one felt different. Harry was showing unusual levels of interest in everyone's story. He was asking questions and making jokes like he knew them all for all his life. At one point, she couldn't resist the urge to whisper in his ear, asking him what he was up to. Harry, however, brushed it off casually and went back to laughing around with the others.

The evening came to a pleasant end as Professor Slughorn greeted and wished everyone the best. He also promised them to arrange another meeting or two before Christmas.

"Thank you for inviting us, Professor... This was an enjoyable evening," remarked Harry.

"Thank you for attending, Harry... It was a pleasure hosting you," retorted Slughorn with a big smile.

"I wish I could spend more time... Alas, I'm a prefect and my duties of the night beckon," retorted Harry as he gave Hermione a glance.

"Thank you, Professor," remarked Hermione with a smile.

And with that, the pair left Slughorn's office.

"You were quite chirpy today," remarked Hermione as the pair made it a bit away from where they had left.

"You keep telling me that..." chuckled Harry, nervously.

"Because... you were... I haven't seen you like this... in a long time," retorted Hermione, curiously.

"I don't know what to tell you, Hermione..." remarked Harry and gave a chuckle. And with that, Hermione decided not to prod further.

Harry woke up the following morning with a satisfied look on his face. The previous night was a lot of effort but a glorious success. Not only had he built a good rapport with Professor Slughorn, but he had also acted interested in everyone there, creating a perfect cover story. And now, all he had to do was, maintain his relationship with Slughorn, get closer to him, and get him to reveal the all-important conversation he had with Voldemort before he was Voldemort.

Harry hadn't had any Felix Felicis, but luck was all on his side. Harry stumbled upon the one thing that was going to help him achieve his goal.

Harry had double potions and lunch after that. Using that to his advantage, Harry stayed back after the end of the class.

"Mr Potter, you are still here?" asked Slughorn, surprised.

"Yes, Professor... I was just finishing up," replied Harry. Truthfully, he was trying to think of an excuse to initiate a harmless conversation with Slughorn.

"While you are at it, can you fetch me some peppermint and moonstone from the cupboard?" requested Slughorn.

"Are you brewing a love potion, Professor?" remarked Harry, chuckling as he made his way to the cupboard.

"Very funny, Mr Potter... In this old age... No, these are for some experiments I'm running for a friend," replied Slughorn.

Harry opened the cupboard and found the ingredients he was looking for instantly. While he was at it, there was something else that caught his eye, an old tattered textbook, "Advanced Potion-Making by Libatius Borage".

And an idea came to his mind.

Harry took the requested ingredients and the textbook along with him to Slughorn.

"Here," said Harry as he placed the ingredients beside Slughorn.

"Thank you," replied Slughorn.

"Professor?" remarked Harry.

"Yes, Harry"

"I was wondering... if I could borrow this book. I saw it in the cupboard," said Harry and held out the textbook. "I have been liking potions this year... I was hoping to borrow this book and give it a read," he added.

"Advance Potion... but Harry, this book is for 6th-year students," remarked Slughorn in reply.

"They are all potions, aren't they, Professor? I'm sure this book would have some interesting potions that I could read about," replied Harry.

"Okay... sure, take it..." replied Slughorn.

"And I can come to you with any doubts, I'm sure?" retorted Harry.

"Yes, of course, Mr Potter," replied Slughorn.

And with that, Harry left the class with an additional textbook in his hand.

Harry, later that day, would realise that the book he took from the potions class was no ordinary book. He might have merely borrowed it to make frequent trips to Slughorn's office, but the book he had would be of much greater help.

After all, it was the "Property of the Half-Blood Prince".

PS - Hope you enjoyed this chapter... Will be back with chapter 68 soon. Ciao!