The Secrets of The Sighted (Golden Trio Era) {3}

Roonil Wazlib

For the next week, Mikayla and Ron had caught up with everything that they had missed during the week out of commission, with Hermione's help. While they did that Harry wracked his brains as to how he was to persuade Slughorn to hand over the true memory, but nothing in the nature of a brain wave occurred. Harry was reduced to doing what he did increasingly these days when at a loss. He sat in the common room by the fire, poring over his Potions book, hoping that the Prince would have scribbled something useful in a margin, as he had done so many times before.

"You won't find anything in there," Hermione spoke up after she finished the last of her tutoring of Mikayla and Ron late on Sunday evening. "Don't start, Hermione, if it hadn't been for the Prince, Ron wouldn't be sitting here now." Harry tried to argue but Hermione just reminded him that Snape had mentioned bezoars in first year. Mikayla watched as Harry folded down the corner of a page in the book after double checking that Hermione wasn't watching him, meaning it was probably something she wouldn't approve of.

The common room was mostly bare, with only a sprinkle of fellow sixth year students grouped up whispering. There had been a certain amount of excitement earlier when they had come back from dinner to find a new sign on the notice board that announced the date for their Apparition Test. Those who would be seventeen on or before the first test date, the twenty-first of April, had the option of signing up for additional practice sessions, which would take place (heavily supervised) in Hogsmeade. Ron had panicked on reading this notice, he had still not managed to Apparate and feared he would not be ready for the test. Hermione, who had now achieved Apparition twice, was a little more confident in her abilities.

Harry and Mikayla, who would not be seventeen for another four months, meaning they could not take the test whether ready or not. "At least you can Apparate, though! You'll have no trouble come July!" Ron pointed out rather tensely. "I've only done it once," Harry reminded him, he had finally managed to disappear and rematerialised inside his hoop during their previous lesson. Mikayla kept silent, knowing she had no room to complain as she's been successfully apparating since their first lesson in February. Having wasted a lot of time worrying aloud about Apparition, Ron was now struggling to finish a viciously difficult essay for Snape that Mikayla, Harry and Hermione had already completed.

Harry fully expected to receive low marks on his, because he had disagreed with Snape on the best way to tackle dementors, but he did not care. Slughorn's memory was the most important thing to him now. "I'm telling you, the stupid Prince isn't going to be able to help you with this, Harry!" Hermione spoke louder this time around, "there's only one way to force someone to do what you want, and that's the Imperius Curse, which is illegal-" Harry cut off Hermione, stating rather tensely that he is aware that the Imperius Curse is illegal, whilst not lifting his eyes from the book.

"That's why I'm looking for something different. Dumbledore says Veritaserum won't do it, but there might be something else, a potion or a spell..." Harry trailed off and Mikayla shook her head, grabbing the book and pulling it out of Harry's hands. "Hey!" Harry yelled moving to snatch the book back off Mikayla, who simply raised her hand in warning for him to watch his tone with her. "You're going about this all wrong. You really think Dumbledore would give you this task if the answer was as simple as slipping him a potion, which is impossible now since he has become overly protective of his liquids since Ron's birthday." The three of them looked over at Ron, to see that he was looking at his essay a little confused.

Mikayla cleared her throat before continuing her rambling, "Dumbledore wants you to persuade Slughorn to give up the information, you always seem to find out things that you shouldn't, and Dumbledore wants you to use this skill." Mikayla tries to hint at Harry of how they used to solve mysteries before he came into the possession of the Half-Blood Prince's book. "Some detective work like what we did in our first three years." Hermione connected the dots after they both saw that Harry looked utterly loss at Mikayla's hints.

"How do you spell 'belligerent'?" Ron asks as he's shaking his quill very hard while staring at his parchment. "It can't be B-U-M-" Mikayla almost choked on her water as Hermione confirmed that it wasn't, pulling Ron's essay toward her. "And 'augury' doesn't begin O-R-G either. What kind of quill are you using?" Hermione asked him as her eyes widened in shock at the obviously crude word. "It's one of Fred and George's Spell-Check ones, but I think the charm must be wearing off." Ron theories looking a little out of his depts, "yes, it must," Hermione commented as she pointed at the title of his essay, "because we were asked how we'd deal with dementors, not 'Dug-bogs', and I don't remember you changing your name to 'Roonil Wazlib' either."

Mikayla let out a snort at this, she put Harry's book down on the coffee table as she looked over Hermione's shoulder to see it for herself. "Ah no!" Ron exclaimed staring horror-struck at the parchment. "Don't say I'll have to write the whole thing out again!" Hermione told him that it would be okay and that they could fix it as she pulled out her wand. "I love you, Hermione," Ron smiled brightly at the bushy haired girl while sinking back in his chair and rubbing his eyes wearily. Hermione turned faintly pink at the proclamation of love, Ron hadn't seemed like he realised what he had said.

"Shit, I just remembered that I wanted to tell you lot something." Mikayla as she was reminded of her meeting with Dumbledore over a month ago. "What?" Ron asked as he watched Hermione silently tapping each of his misspelled words with the end of her wand, so that they corrected themselves on the page. "After our first Apparition meeting, I was summoned to Dumbledore's office for a meeting, Percy, Scrimgeour and Remus were there too." Hermione stopped what she was doing as the three of them turn to Mikayla with their full attention. "What did the Minister want?" Hermione questioned, "to accept my request to get rid of the Proclamation of Aevus. He said that it would better safer in case the Ministry does get overpowered not to give Voldemort the power over my abilities."

They all nodded their in agreement as Mikayla has voiced her worries about what would happen after she turn seventeen and had to sign that contract. "So, we disbanded it for the next five years, said that was the best he could do." Mikayla announced but Harry knowing from experience with the Minister that that wasn't all, "what did he want in return?" Mikayla sighed, "for me to prevent Moons' Mitigate from being released to the public, because he said that it would make the attacks easier for the werewolves if they suffer from the pain of the transformation. I refused this at first." Harry smiled proud that I didn't give into the Minister instantly and fought for what I believed in.

"What changed your mind?" Ron asked once he realised that I said at first, "the Minister informed me that Greyback had escaped during the January Full Moon and the Ministry hid it from the public." "What?!" Harry yelled shocked causing everyone to turn and look at the foursome but he quickly feigned embarrassed by his outburst to make them disinterested in what they were discussing. "Yeah and I obviously don't want to give him anything that it makes it easier for him to be a monster. So Remus came up with a counter offer. The potion will be given to the werewolves registered with Romulus for free until the Ministry recaptures Greyback, which in return will mend those werewolves relationship with the Ministry and make them less likely to join Greyback's army, thus the Ministry gaining some powerful allies."

The group seemed satisfied with the counter offer, "and the Minister agreed to this?" Hermione questioned and Mikayla confirmed that he had agreed to Remus offer. "I can't believe that they didn't put it in the prophet that Greyback escaped." Hermione shook her head disappointed at this, but both Harry and Mikayla knew that it wasn't anything new for the Ministry to cover their failures and mistakes. The group fell into silence once again, Hermione working on Ron's essay, Ron watching her, Harry had his nose in his potion's book, so Mikayla sighed and decided to get a head start on reading the next chapter in their Herbology book.

"There," Hermione broke the silence about twenty minutes later and handed Ron back his essay, "thanks a million, 'Mione." Ron smiled looking down at the fixed version. "Can I borrow your quill for the conclusion?" Hermione instantly handed Ron the quill he request. The breaking of their previous silence, broke Mikayla's unfocused gaze of her Herbology book, realising that she hadn't actually read anything for the past ten minutes. Mikayla closed her book as she looked around and noticed that they were the only ones left in the common room after Seamus having just gone up to bed cursing Snape and his essay.

The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and Ron scratching out one last paragraph on dementors using Hermione's quill. Harry had just closed the Half-Blood Prince's book, yawning, when a loud crack sounded made Mikayla jump, Hermione let out a little shriek and Ron spilled ink all over his freshly completed essay, while Harry shouted, "Kreacher!"