Grindelwald's Burden (Books 1-7)

102. Silver and Opals

It was Halfway through October now and Y/n had been continuing to sneak out of Gryffindor Tower at night to practice in the room of requirement. But finally, the first trip of the term to Hogsmeade had come up.

Harry had wondered whether these trips would still be allowed, given the increasingly tight security measures around the school, but was pleased to know that they were going ahead, it was always good to get out of the castle grounds for a few hours.

Harry woke early on the morning of the trip, which was proving stormy, and whiled away the time until breakfast by reading his copy of Advanced Potion-Making. He did not usually lie in bed reading his textbooks, that sort of behavior, as Ron rightly said, was indecent in anybody except Y/n and Hermione, who were simply weird that way. Harry felt, however, that the Half-Blood Prince's copy of Advanced Potion-Making hardly qualified as a textbook. The more Harry pored over the book, the more he realized how much was in there, not only the handy hints and shortcuts on potions that was earning him such a glowing reputation with Slughorn, but also the imaginative little jinxes and hexes scribbled in the margins, which Harry was sure, judging by the crossings-out and revisions, that the Prince had invented himself.

Harry had already attempted a few of the Prince's self-invented spells. There had been a hex that caused toenails to grow alarmingly fast, he had tried this on Crabbe in the corridor, with very entertaining result, a jinx that glued the tongue to the roof of the mouth which he had twice used, to general applause, on an unsuspecting Argus Filch and, perhaps most useful of all, Muffliato, a spell that filled the ears of anyone nearby with an unidentifiable buzzing, so that lengthy conversations could be held in class without being overheard. Y/n had deemed this spell a most fantastic find and quickly found himself learning it. The only person who did not find these charms amusing was Hermione, who maintained a rigidly disapproving expression throughout and refused to talk at all if Harry or Y/n had used the Muffliato spell on anyone in the vicinity.

Sitting up in bed, Harry turned the book sideways so as to examine more closely the scribbled instructions for a spell that seemed to have caused the Prince some trouble. There were many crossings-out and alterations, but finally, crammed into a corner of the page, the scribble.

'Levicorpus (n-vbl)'

While the wind and sleet pounded relentlessly on the windows, and Neville snored loudly, Harry stared at the letters in brackets. 'N-vbl...' that had to mean non-verbal. Harry rather doubted he would be able to bring off this particular spell, he was still having difficulty with non-verbal spells, something Snape had been quick to comment on in every D. A. class. On the other hand, the Prince had proved a much more effective teacher than Snape so far.

Pointing his wand at nothing in particular, he gave it an upward flick and said Levicorpus! inside his head.

"Aaaaaaaargh!"

There was a flash of light and the room was full of voices, everyone had woken up as Ron had let out a yell. Harry sent Advanced Potion-Making flying in panic, Ron was dangling upside-down in midair as though an invisible hook had hoisted him up by the ankle.

"What on earth..." Y/n said getting out of his bed and looking up at Ron.

"Get me down!" Ron shouted.

"Sorry!" yelled Harry, as Dean and Seamus roared with laughter, and Neville picked himself up from the floor, having fallen out of bed. "Hang on...I'll let you down..."

He groped for the potion book and riffled through it in a panic, trying to find the right page, at last he located it and deciphered the cramped word underneath the spell and praying that this was the counter-jinx, Harry thought Liberacorpus! with all his might. There was another flash of light, and Ron fell in a heap onto his mattress.