Chapter 35 - Patience

10th January 1993

Harry gripped his broom tighter as he zoomed through the many loops that Wood had set up for him to practice. Although it was freezing outside, he found his hands clammy with sweat. But Harry didn't really mind. Even though he had been flying for more than a year now, he still felt the same exhilaration every time he sat on his Nimbus and shot off into the sky.

Up there, he felt he owned the sky. Up there, he felt free.

But lately, Harry found himself lost in a sea of thoughts. He found himself unsure—unsure of what he was supposed to do, unsure of how he was supposed to do it, and perhaps most alarmingly, unsure of himself.

All his life, before coming to Hogwarts that is, Harry had been alone. Though he had lived with the Dursleys since he was one, they never considered him one of their own and Harry had been happy to reciprocate that feeling. Even though he had to do a mountain of chores, listen to whatever drivel the Dursleys poured on him, and become the primary target of Dudley's 'Harry Hunting', Harry had always felt in control of his actions. He had always been sure of his actions; even if said actions would earn him long punishments and starvings, he had always been sure of them.

But ever since last year, that had changed. Now he had friends, and Harry was afraid for them. The incident with Quirrell had shown him the truth; the possibility of dire consequences, all because he had been too sure of his actions. His actions could get his friends hurt; could get them killed. And that scared Harry.

It wasn't as if Harry was not grateful for his friends. On the contrary, Harry often felt like the luckiest guy alive. Of all the first-year Gryffindors, Ron and Hermione were the only ones who had stayed back along with him during the Christmas hols. Granted, the main reason for doing so was that they could illicitly brew Veritaserum, but Harry knew they wanted to keep him company; to make sure he wasn't left alone.

And that was the crux of the issue. That night, when Harry had decided to go and try to protect the Philosopher's Stone himself, his friends had insisted that they join him despite his protestations. Even Neville and Mark, once they knew of the danger, refused to leave him alone to face the danger.

What was he supposed to do then? And what was he supposed to do now, when they came face to face with danger again? They were planning to question Lockhart with Veritaserum; a plan in which a million things could go wrong. And now, for the first time in his life, Harry didn't feel sure of himself.

As he rolled left through the final hoop and began to descend, Harry wondered how the whole business with Lockhart was going to go. Now that the potion was days away from being complete, Harry's mind kept wondering about how they were going to give it to Lockhart and how he would react to it. Now that the classes had commenced once again, Lockhart was even more insufferable than ever.

The lessons were still useless; all they consisted of were elaborate enactments from various sections of his many books. And now, ever since Professor Dumbledore had announced that the Chamber of Secrets was real and that the monster inside had been killed, the rumour roaming around the castle was that it was Lockhart who was responsible for the heroic deed.

Harry was willing to bet his broom that it was Lockhart who had started the rumour in the first place.

In any case, they would know the truth soon enough. Shouldering his broom, Harry began to walk towards the changing rooms. Ever since they had lost their chance at the Quidditch Cup last year, Wood had been more tougher on them during their practices. Harry couldn't exactly blame him; having a Quidditch Cup win on his record would really help Wood's future prospects as a professional quidditch player. Harry was determined to not let him down this time. As Harry remembered their last match against Slytherin, he was painfully reminded of the rogue Bludger that had smashed into his arm as well as the individual responsible for the same; Dobby.

Harry wondered what had happened to Dobby. The little elf had singlehandedly wrecked his summer, tried to prevent his coming to Hogwarts by closing the barrier at platform nine-and-three-quarters, and finally he let loose the rogue Bludger against him in the last match. All because he thought Harry was in danger at the school.

And now the danger was gone. At least that was what Professor Dumbledore had said that day. Somehow, Harry wasn't exactly satisfied with the explanation that had been given to the students before the Christmas break. What was the monster inside the chamber? And exactly who was responsible for opening it? For attacking Mrs Norris and leaving that message on the wall? And if what Dobby had said was true, then the chamber had been opened once before. Who had opened it back then?

As he changed into his school robes, Harry shook his head silently. Whatever had happened, Harry wasn't sure he would ever find answers to these questions. After all, what was the point? There was no sense trying to solve a mystery that clearly didn't need any solving. Besides, he remembered Professor Dumbledore's words at the feast—Harry was pretty sure Dumbledore didn't want anyone nosing around in the matter. And so, Harry decided to let the matter be. For now, at least.

Who knew, maybe he would nose around in it someday. Harry was sure this bug wasn't going to leave him alone forever. For now, he had other business to nose around in.

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Ron closed his eyes in silence as he crumpled the letter in his hand. What did he need to do for his mother to care even a bit more? If he was being honest, a part of him had been expecting this response.

Ever since he and Harry had flown in to Hogwarts in his dad's flying Anglia and broken his wand in the painful crash landing, Ron had been forced to do his schoolwork with a spellotaped wand. Although he had managed to temporarily fix it—after the humiliating Slug eating curse had backfired on him in front of Malfoy—with the help of the Twins and Mark, Ron was still unable to perform some of the complex spell work required of him this year.

After receiving the Howler on the first day of term—which again, he had his mum to thank for—Ron had decided not to mention the broken wand in his letters home. There was no need of getting another Howler from his mum for this. But once he had received his latest marks, he had thought about writing home and explaining the whole situation. Perhaps, he thought, seeing his more than satisfactory grades would impress his mother enough to agree to the substantial expense.

Instead, the exact opposite had happened. In the letter he was clutching now, she had said that since his marks were good, his wand was clearly not damaged. There was no need for such an unnecessary expense at this moment, and that she would consider the matter after seeing his end of year marks.

But that wasn't what had irritated Ron the most. No, what had irritated Ron was that this explanation—the response to the letter he had written his mother, was just a small postscript in her reply. The rest of the foot-long parchment was instead dedicated to chiding him for being careless about taking responsibility of his sister Ginny at Hogwarts.

Ginny. For some reason, his mum was exceptionally angry on Ginny, and she had decided to take out this anger on her son. True, Ron hadn't spent much time with his sister this term, but that wasn't something unusual. She was a first-year, and was probably spending time with her new friends than with her older brother. After all, that was what Fred and George had done for him last year. Perhaps they would have spent some more time if Ginny had stayed over at Hogwarts for Christmas, but she hadn't. Mum and Dad had asked her to return to the Burrow, and she had spent the holidays there.

Had something happened then, when Ginny was at home? Why was their mother cross with her? Had she gotten detentions or something? Ron remembered Hermione mention that Ginny was spending every Saturday for the last few weeks before the Christmas holidays in detention. Was that why?

Deciding that he needed to get some answers, Ron got up from his bed and walked down the stone stairs to the common room. Looking around, he saw Ginny sitting in a corner, her head down in a book. He walked up to her and beckoned her to the side when she looked up.

"What did you do?" he asked, once they were standing near the fireplace. "Why is Mum so bloody angry at you?"

"What?" Ron saw that Ginny had paled considerably and was clearly nervous.

"She's mad at you, and now she's mad at me," he growled. "What did you do? What happened back at the Burrow?" Seeing that Ginny was out of words, he continued, "Is this related to the detentions you had every Saturday?" Ginny's eyes widened in surprise before she gave a shaky nod.

So this was what it was about? Why couldn't his mother get over it?

"Why is she taking this out on me then?" he shouted, and saw Ginny flinch back. Realising that he was being too loud, Ron took a deep breath before continuing.

"Why is she harping on me for not looking after you," he hissed. "Aren't you old enough to look after yourself?" Ron glared at her and Ginny bowed her head.

"I'm—I'm sorry," she said, and Ron flared again.

"Didn't you apologise to her? Couldn't she punish you and get this over with?"

"She—she did," Ginny stuttered.

"She did? What was it?"

"No—no Quidditch till—till my third year." Ron sobered up a bit at that.

"That's a bit harsh," he said after a moment, staring into the burning logs in the fireplace. "What did you do for her to give a punishment like that? She's acting as if you're the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets."

"You think I did?"

Ron snapped his head to look at Ginny, who looked as if she was about to cry.

"What?" he asked.

"You think I opened the Chamber of Secrets?"

"Of course not!" Ron retorted angrily. "You could never want to hurt Hermione. And the other muggle-borns," he added hastily. "I was just trying to make a point how absurd it all was!"

Realising that Ginny seemed extremely fragile, he cursed himself for being so insensitive. Ron knew that Ginny had been adversely affected by the news of Mrs Norris's petrification, and it wasn't nice of him to accuse her of it, even ironically. He found his anger dwindling away and he decided to apologise.

"I'm sorry, Ginny," said Ron. "I shouldn't have said that. I was—I was mad at Mum, and I sort of took it out on you. I'm sorry." Seeing that Ginny was still silent, he continued, "And whatever you did, Mum has already punished you for it, right? Not that the punishment matters much to you. You can't even fly yet."

Ron looked up to see Ginny watching him with a hurt expression; the chamber comment must've hurt her more than he realised.

"I didn't mean any of—what I said earlier. I was just—I wasn't accusing you. I was just angry that —" Ron stopped himself from saying anything more. He didn't want to seem needy in front of his baby sister. ��I'm sorry I took my anger out on you."

"I understand," Ginny replied finally, rubbing her face on her sleeves. "It's okay."

Ron nodded in relief. Realising that he had nothing more to say to Ginny, he awkwardly shifted on his feet. Thankfully, Ginny took her leave.

"I'll get back to my Charms essay," said Ginny. Ron gave her a weak smile, and saw her heading back to her chair. Seeing that Harry wasn't back from his practice yet, he decided to go back to the dorms and wait there.

As he bounded up the stairs, Ron hoped his mother would leave Ginny alone. She needed to learn to take care of herself.

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15th January 1993

"No bloody way," Mark whispered. As he examined the sight in front of him in the light from his wand, he silently shook his head in disbelief. The odds of him finding this was pretty much next to nothing.

Now that he had finished an initial ȧssessment of the vast amounts of stuff inside the Come and Go Room, Mark had begun separating and sorting everything according to category. The majority of the contents of the room were old, tattered books and broken furniture. This Mark decided to leave for last. The other, more exotic jumble of stuff he decided to tackle first.

Most of it was boring—quills, parchments, old, musty potion kits, mouldy chocolate frogs, damaged brooms, sneakoscopes, foe glasses; stuff that the thousands of students that came to Hogwarts had left behind. Then there was the rare stuff; dresses, jewellery, weapons; all from a time when Hogwarts was more of a castle than a school. Every once in a while, Mark would stumble upon a trinket interesting enough to deserve a second glance, but otherwise, the job of archiving this room was pretty much monotonous.

The research for the cure was going much slower than Mark had expected. Or maybe he was just being a tad impatient.

Over the Christmas break, Mark had gone over to his old school and met his chemistry teacher, Mr Trentham. In order to make up an excuse, he had asked if he could analyse an old family medicine—something he found in the attic—in the school laboratory. To his surprise, Mr Trentham had readily agreed to run the tests; he had even offered to send up a sample to the chemistry department at the University of London for more advanced tests. Mark had readily accepted the offer, and his dad—under the ȧssumption Mark was doing an extra credit project—had sent it forwards to Hogwarts via the owl post from Diagon Alley.

Mark had spent more than two days trying to understand the pages of detailed reports. Now that he had a much clearer picture of what the Elixir was, he needed to understand why it was the way it was. And for that, Mark had realised, he would need to know how the Elixir was made.

This had stumped Mark a little. He wasn't sure if the Flamels would ever agree to share that information. Even if they did, it would probably be after a long time. In any case, Mark did what they had agreed upon; he wrote his report—explained all his findings, his hypotheses, as well as his interpretation of the chemical analysis of the Elixir. He told them what more he needed to know, and why he needed to know it. And then, with a heavy heart, he tied the magically lightened stack of parchment and paper to a school owl and sent it off to the Flamels.

He had loitered around the library all day yesterday, trying to figure out the next step—trying to figure out what he would do till their reply arrived. So, when he set out for his weekly session of archival work in this very room, Mark had been glad for the distraction. He had found the monotony of the sorting much more bearable today, and that was before he had hit the proverbial gold.

Mark studied the objects in front of him carefully. They were old, obviously, but showed no physicals signs of damage. The large wooden ċhėst storing them had done its job well. The spells and charms on them had probably lost their potency over the years, but those could always be recast. Maybe even improved upon.

A ghost of an idea flittered through Mark's head. Of course, it would take a lot of effort and time; but that was the only con he could think of. The pro, on the other hand, was a lot more substantial. It would be a great learning experience—Mark was sure Professor Flitwick would be more than willing to help him out with this. And from what Ginny had told him, he had a clear two years to work on this, if not more.

Mark couldn't wait to see the expression on Ginny's face when he would finally give this to her.

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Harry and Ron made their way to the girl's bathroom on the second floor, which was currently serving as their makeshift laboratory. Hermione had asked them to meet her there before Herbology. The reason they were currently running late was that they had stopped for what Ron now called his 'second breakfast.'

Lately, Ron had been spending his time reading The Lord of the Rings, a birthday gift he'd received last year from Mark. Hermione had been approving of the decision; that was until Ron discovered the Hobbit eating habits and now insisted on having second breakfast, elevensies, and afternoon tea.

As they turned the corner and entered the corridor to their destination, Harry saw Ron brush off the crumbs on his robes. He shared a conspiratorial grin with Harry as they entered the bathroom.

"How are we looking?" Harry asked. He saw the smile slide off Ron's face as they saw Hermione pacing around the tiled floor, her expression etched with worry.

"What's wrong?" asked Harry. "Did something happen? The potion isn't ruined, is it?"

"No," Hermione answered after a long time, "The potion's going as expected. It'll be ready tomorrow." Although this was good news, Hermione was obviously upset over something.

"Then what's the matter?" Harry asked. It was easy to tell when something was bothering Hermione because she would start pacing around nervously while wringing her hands; just like she was doing now.

"It's—it's just that —" Hermione started hesitantly. Seeing the impatient look on Ron's face, she finally stopped pacing. "I don't think we should use the potion."

"What?!" Ron exclaimed. Harry just stared at her in confusion.

"Why?" Harry asked calmly.

"It's—this is not right," Hermione cried out, "For all intents and purposes, we will be drugging Professor Lockhart!"

"That's because we want to know the truth," Harry retorted, his frustration simmering to the top. "I don't understand, Hermione. It was your idea in the first place. After all the planning and the crazy stuff that we did—you want to back out now?"

"We shouldn't be the ones doing this," Hermione replied, looking at her feet guiltily. "Maybe we should tell a teacher or something —"

"And what?!" Ron exploded, "Get expelled for illegally brewing a class D potion? Are you out of your mind?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Hermione retorted. "We'll be using this potion on someone without any proof! We'll be caught and we'll be expelled!"

Harry saw Hermione's eyes misting over in fear and he realised that this was the cause for her hesitation. Ron was about to say something when Harry silenced him with a hand on his shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself down.

"Hermione," said Harry, "We have enough evidence for this. Wasn't it you who said that we needed solid proof that something was fishy with Lockhart?" Harry waited for Hermione to acknowledge this with a small nod. "Well we went and found it, and I showed it to you —"

"So, we should take it to a teacher then," she interrupted. "They'll know what —"

"Hermione." Ron stepped closer. He had picked up on Hermione's mood and sounded surprisingly calm. "Last year, we went to Professor McGonagall with our information that the Stone was going to be stolen, didn't we? And what did she do? Told us off for inciting mischief."

"But we were wrong, weren't we? It wasn't Professor Snape who was going after the Stone, was it?"

"How is that relevant? We didn't tell McGonagall about Snape."

This stumped Hermione for a moment, and Harry saw that she was clearly still upset. He decided to make her see reason.

"Look, Hermione. Lockhart is a teacher. That's why we need to do this behind his back. If he finds out, he'll likely have the evidence disappeared."

"You can't believe that!" Hermione exploded. "Professor Lockhart wouldn't do such a thing,"

"What makes you so sure that he's so innocent?"

"What makes you so sure that he's guilty of something?"

"Because of how he acts!" Harry exclaimed. "He bȧrėly teaches us anything, always having us enact stupid scenes from his books —"

"He's teaching us through his own experiences." Hermione crossed her arms in defiance. "So what if he's a bit proud? It's not like he doesn't deserve it, with everything that he's done."

"Listen to yourself, Hermione!" shouted Ron, clearly exasperated. "It's like you've turned into one of his giggling —"

"Wait Ron," Harry interrupted coolly. "Let's say Hermione's right —"

"What?"

"No, wait. Hear me out." He gestured Ron to calm down before he turned to Hermione. "Let's say you're right. Lockhart isn't guilty of anything. Why hasn't he held a single demonstration in class? Even Quirrell—with Voldemort sticking at the back of his head, I may add—held demonstrations for spells. How are we supposed to learn a spell if he doesn't show it to us? Or are our exams going to be essays on Lockhart's exploits with the Wagga Wagga Werewolf?"

Ron got a triumphant expression on his face, while Hermione wilted under the argument

"Maybe he doesn't know about demonstrations?"

"Yeah right," Harry scoffed. "He was a student at Hogwarts once, Hermione. You're saying he doesn't have any idea about class demonstrations?"

"Maybe he's forgotten," said Hermione, before she brightened with an idea. "What if we remind him? He'll have a demonstration in class and then we can judge for ourselves."

Both Harry and Ron stayed silent at this. Harry was completely convinced that Lockhart was guilty, but he was willing to give him another chance, for Hermione's sake. If he was right, it couldn't hurt his case. Sharing a look with Ron, they both nodded.

"Is that acceptable? If the demonstration is good, we'll know we were wrong," Hermione repeated.

"But if it's not …" Ron trailed off, and Hermione gave a grave nod before replying.

"We go ahead with the plan."

A heavy silence followed the statement. Before it could turn awkward, Harry changed the topic.

"The potion," he said, looking at Hermione. "It is going well, isn't it?"

"Yes," Hermione replied, now back to her normal self. "Just one more day left before we distil it."

"How do we figure out if it works?" Ron asked.

"We'll have to test it of course."

Both Hermione and Harry shared a conspiratorial look before turning back to Ron. It took a moment before it dawned on the redhead.

"Oh, come on."

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