chapter five : Horace Slughorn
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Juniper had expected many things of tonight. However, she did not expect her father to be brought up in any of them.
Dumbledore, who had been eying them silently, said, "Would you like my assistance clearing up?"
"Please," Horace said, averting his eyes from June.
They stood back to back, the tall thin wizard and the short round one, and waved their wands in one identical sweeping motion.
The furniture flew back to its original place; ornaments re-formed in midair; feathers zoomed into their cushions; torn-books repaired themselves as they landed upon their shelves; oil lanterns soared on to side tables and reignited; a vast collection of splintered silver picture frames flew glittering across the room and alighted, whole and untarnished, upon a desk; rips, cracks and holes healed everywhere; and the walls wiped themselves clean.
"What kind of blood was that, incidentally?" Dumbledore asked loudly over the chiming of the newly unsmashed grandfather clock.
"On the walls? Dragon," Horace shouted as, with a deafening grinding and tinkling, the chandelier screwed itself back into the ceiling.
There was a final plunk from the piano, and silence.
"Yes, dragon," Horace repeated conversationally. My last bottle, and prices are sky-high at the moment. Still, it might be reusable."
He stumped over to a small crystal bottle standing on top of a sideboard and held it up to the light, examining the thick liquid within.
"Hm. Bit dusty."
He set the bottle back on the side-board and sighed. It was then that his gaze fell upon Harry.
"Oho," he said, his large round eyes flying to Harry's forehead and the lightning-shaped scar it bore. "Oho!"
"This," Dumbledore said, moving forwards to make the introduction, "is Harry Potter. Harry, this is an old friend and colleague of mine, Horace Slughorn."
Horace turned on Dumbledore, his expression shrewd. "So that's how you thought you'd persuade me, is it? Well, the answer's no, Albus."
He pushed past Harry, his face turned resolutely away with the air of a man trying to resist temptation.
"I suppose we can have a drink, at least?" Dumbledore asked. "For old times' sake?"
Horace hesitated. "All right then, one drink," he said ungraciously.
Harry and June moved towards one of the couches and sat down next to each other. Both of them had no clue at all as to why they were there but June got the feeling that Dumbledore wanted to keep them as visible as possible.
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𝐌𝐀𝐃 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 → 𝒸. 𝓌𝑒𝒶𝓈𝓁𝑒𝓎
Fanfiction𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐘𝐑𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊, born to Lyra Potter and Regulus Black, is Harry's older cousin, 1/3 of the Prankers Trio and niece to mass murderer Sirius Black. Life at Hogwarts was fun, relaxing and normal. That's until her younger cousin sho...