𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐇 ── harry potter

viii | wooded conversations

ACT I — CHAPTER VIII
Wᴏᴏᴅᴇᴅ Cᴏɴᴠᴇʀsᴀᴛɪᴏɴs

⊱ ────── 𖥔 ✶ 𖥔 ────── ⊰

While Quinn and Hermione were enjoying their holiday in the comfort of their own homes, Harry and Ron were getting into all sorts of trouble.

It started when Harry received an Invisibility Cloak from an anonymous source. Quinn saw this as a red flag, but chose to keep quiet on the matter because the Cloak had supposedly belonged to Harry's dad, James. With the cloak, Harry had snuck into the Restricted Section of the library in order to find information on Nicolas Flamel. This proved to be futile as he found nothing, yet again.

Harry did find something else, however. The Mirror of Erised, which Harry and Ron explained showed you what you desired most in the world when you looked in it. Ron said that he had seen himself as Head Boy and winning the Quidditch Cup. Harry said that he had seen his family.

Quinn knew that if she had looked in that mirror, she would have seen her family, too. Emmeline and Mary would have been there, of course, but also her parents, and her uncle, Caradoc. She didn't know much about Caradoc, other than that he was one of her father's best friends, apart from Emmeline. A lot of the time, Quinn wished that Emmeline would talk about them, just a little bit, but she knew not to ask. Quinn knew the memories were too painful for Emmeline.

Hermione was not exactly thrilled when the boys recounted their break. She was torn between horror at the idea of Harry being out of bed, roaming the school three nights in a row, and disappointment that he hadn't at least found out who Nicolas Flamel was.

"So you didn't find anything either?" Ron asked.

"No, my parents had no idea who he was," Hermione said.

"My grandmother said that his name sounded familiar, that he might be a chemist. She wasn't sure though," Quinn told them.

"What's a chemist?" Ron questioned.

"Like a Potions master," Hermione explained, "But if he was a Potions master then we would have found him in Greatest Potions Brewed in the Twentieth Century."

"Yeah, probably," Quinn agreed, "My grandmother is a Muggle, so she really wouldn't know."

At this point, the chances of them finding out who Flamel was through a book were slim, and the four of them knew it. Despite this, they went right back to skimming through books every chance they had once the term started.

Quinn got right back into the swing of things very quickly. She and Justin would study in the library, most of that time consisting of her helping him with Potions homework. Kevin would drag her to any Quidditch practice that would let them watch, which was really only the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor teams.

At night, Quinn would talk with her dormmates about anything and everything. Mostly they would gossip. Padma would tell them everything she heard from Parvati, and Morag and Mandy would tell them anything they heard from Tracey. Lisa somehow knew everything about everyone, and she would tell them about the drama that was going on in fourth year. Quinn never had much information to contribute, which she felt bad about, but no one else seemed to mind.

A week and a half into term, Quinn was hanging out with Ron and Hermione in the Gryffindor common room. Quinn and Ron were playing wizard's chess, a game that Ron had recently taught her how to play. Hermione thought that the pieces destroying each other was barbaric, but she kept a close eye on the game anyways. Chess was the only thing Hermione ever lost at, and she was determined to start winning by picking up on Ron's moves.