Magic? || Years 5-7

Golpalott's Third Law: Year 6

After breakfast—a very quiet, awkward breakfast considering Hermione still refused to breathe the same air as Ron—Amisty, Harry, and Hermione were shuffling through the grounds as Harry explained what happened during his lesson with Professor Dumbledore.

"Apparently Slughorn messed with his memories. Something about Horcruxes," Harry said, sidestepping a branch. "Dumbledore wants me to get the real one."

Amisty pursed her lips. "Why couldn't he—?"

"Use Legilimency?" Harry said. "That's what I said. Dumbledore said he didn't want to risk Slughorn leaving Hogwarts if we force it out of him. . . he said he thinks Slughorn'll give it to me."

"He must be determined to hide what really happened if Dumbledore couldn't get it out of him," she said quietly. "Horcruxes. . . Horcruxes. . . I've never even heard of them."

"You haven't?" And the disappointment was evident in Harry's voice.

"They must be really advanced Dark Magic, or why would Voldemort have wanted to know about them? I think it's going to be difficult to get the information, Harry, you'll have to be very careful about how you approach Slughorn, think out a strategy. . ."

"Ron reckons I should just hang back after Potions this afternoon. . ."

Yikes.

"Oh, well, if Won-Won thinks that, you better do it," Hermione said, firing up with venom dripping from her words. "After all, when has Won-Won's judgment ever been faulty?"

Harry wilted. "Hermione, can't you—?"

"No!" she said, whirling around and stomping away.

Amisty turned to Harry, one brow quirked as she crossed her arms. "Really?"

"Don't give me that look," he said, scowling. "They need to talk to each other at some point."

"And you think mentioning him offhand is just going to make her change her mind?"

He huffed and dragged a hand through his hair. "I wasn't thinking."

"That's not a strange occurrence."

The snowball that nearly hit her in the face wasn't really surprising, in hindsight.

When Amisty walked into the Potions classroom later that day, Hermione had dragged her cauldron to the far end of the table and bodily put Amisty in between her and the boys.

"Are you serious?" Amisy said out of the corner of her mouth.

"Don't."

Rolling her eyes, Amisty pulled out her textbook and slumped into her seat.

"What've you done?" Ron muttered two seats down.

But Professor Slughorn bustled in before Harry could reply, waving his hands to call for silence. "Settle down, settle down, please! Quickly, now, lots of work to get through this afternoon! Golpalott's Third Law. . . who can tell me—? But Miss Granger can, of course!"

Hermione took a deep breath. "Golpalott's Third Law states that the antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum of the antidotes for each of the separate components."

"Precisely!" Professor Slughorn said. "Ten points for Gryffindor! Now, if we accept Golpalott's Third Law as true. . ."

Amisty blinked twice, still trying to wrap her head around the textbook-explanation Hermione had just spouted off.

". . .which means, of course, that assuming we have achieved correct identification of the potion's ingredients by Scarpin's Revelaspell, our primary aim is not the relatively simple one of selecting antidotes to those ingredients in and of themselves, but to find that added component that will, by an almost alchemical process, transform these disparate elements—"