September 2, 1996

Harry woke up to yelling.

"How could that boy even be allowed in my class, Albus, he may have managed an E on the O.W.L., who knows how exactly, but he remains as brainless as ever. More than one students could have been injured had it not been for Potter and Malfoy's potion."

Dumbledore said nothing in response, as far as Harry could tell and then there were footsteps approaching his cot.

"He's awake, Professors," Madame Pomfrey announced to the entire room, looking down at Harry.

Someone else stepped forward and Harry could make out the blurry figure of Severus Snape.

"Glasses," Harry said, attempting to look for them on the table next to his bed where he usually found them when he woke up from his latest incident in the infirmary. However this time, he couldn't locate them there.

Snape reached into his robes, not saying a word, and brought out Harry's broken pair of glasses. He also took out his wand and waved at them, fixing them, before he handed them to Harry and turning to Madame Pomfrey.

"How is he?"

"Fine," Madame Pomfrey said. "He's just fine."

Snape nodded.

"It was lucky, I must say," the nurse continued. "That second potion that was splattered all over him really did more than I could have done for him by the time he arrived here."

Snape merely nodded again.

Harry looked around at all the adults around him and made to sit up, but the nurse pushed him back into his cot. Harry rolled his eyes. The woman and he were ever having a fight over his health whenever he wound up in her territory. He sighed and leaned back knowing it was useless to fight her. Instead he addressed the entire group.

"What happened?"

"Well," Snape said. "Longbottom once more caused an explosion during class. I must say I was surprised. I would have though with Granger next to him nothing could happen, but something did and the potion was not thrown towards them, but rather in your direction. Part of it landed into your own cauldron and the mixture of both potions caused a reaction. A strong healing potion, I myself have never seen the likeness of it, however, the potion turned into some sort of foam and covered the entire classroom including you which at the first touch healed you. I have taken samples of everything made and will be testing it. The healing potion could be a great addition to our side of the war."

Harry listened to all of this intently; surprised at everything he had missed during his first potions class.

"Was anyone else—"

"No," Madame Pomfrey answered before he could finish the question.

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September 4, 1996

“I am so sorry, Harry!” Neville said the moment Harry stepped into the full common room.

Hermione ran to his side and gave him a scrutinizing gaze before throwing her arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry, Harry, I should have been paying attention to the potion, but I was talking to Ernie and Neville added the wrong ingredient, and then it all happened so fast. I'm so glad you're okay."

Harry patted her on the back and then pulled away. "It's alright. Dumbledore told me what happened."

Hermione nodded and sat down, pulling Harry to sit down as well. Ron who was already sitting gave Harry a grin and a pat on the back before he turned back to his game of chess with Seamus.

"Dumbledore only let us see you right after and then Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore himself pushed us out the door," Ron commented after having made his move.

"Considering everything else that's happened to you, this wasn't the worst and we're usually allowed to stay with you," Hermione said. She looked offended by the mere thought of her not being allowed to stay with him in the hospital wing.

"There is a lot more to it, Hermione. Not everything is the same, Voldemort is out there and everything is changing, everything and anything that happens to me has to be kept away from him at all costs, especially if something went completely wrong. At the time they didn't know if there was some sort of side effect. They couldn't have known with the two potions, for all that it matters, I could have lost my magic had there been a certain reaction with two of those ingredients, even if I did look okay."

Hermione grimaced. "You've changed, Harry," she said thoughtfully after a moment's pause during which Ron concentrated on his game. "Maybe it's all to do with Sirius' death, or maybe even something else, but you've changed."

Harry shrugged and stood up. "He's dead. Sirius is dead and it is all my fault. Voldemort is back and out in the open. I—when I started training for it, I began to see it as a more personal fight than ever because it is, and really I've begun to realize that I have to do this. I can't wait for someone else to. I have to do something about it all."

Hermione was giving him an odd look, but Harry said nothing. Instead he got up and left the common room altogether, walking out into the hallway. He didn't know where he wanted to go exactly, but he just didn't want to remain in the common room under Hermione's scrutinizing gaze. She had been looking at him oddly since he had entered the common room, and now he was wondering exactly why.

Harry didn't notice where he was going until he was in the dungeons and walking in the general direction of Snape's rooms. He didn't stop and instead continued on until he had reached the tapestry that led to the potions master's rooms. He pressed his hands at two specific points on the tapestry and then pushed the door open. He went into the sitting room and found his father there.

Snape was reading near the fireplace. He looked up and lifted his eyebrow at Harry when he spotted him. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know," Harry said, truthfully.

Snape turned back to his books and then said, his eyes remaining of his book. "Could this have anything to do with your face?"

"What about it?" Harry asked.

"Go look at a mirror Po—Harry."

Harry nodded and walked to the bathroom. He looked into the mirror and gasped. It wasn't a big change, in fact, if he hadn't been looking for a change, he wouldn't have really found it. His face wasn't obviously different, it was just thinner, and his cheekbones were slightly more prominent, but it wasn't something that someone would notice right off the back.

"Why?" he asked when he once more entered the sitting room.

"You got hurt, that does lead to advanced changes, Harry. How is your magic?"

Harry hadn't done any magic all morning, so he brought out his wand at once and waved it at the book in Snape's hands. He meant only to levitate it, but it flew up to the ceiling. Harry barely stopped it from hitting it.

"Obviously that too has been affected."

They were having a relatively good conversation, Harry realized a moment later. They weren't at each others throats but they were also talking about nothing that was remotely important. Maybe Snape was in a good mood, and wasn't exactly bothered by his presence.

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September 5, 1996

"Acid pops," said Harry, and the gargoyle leapt aside. He walked onto the spiral stone staircase and was carried in smooth circles up to the door. Once there, Harry knocked.

"Come in," said Dumbledore's voice.

"Good evening, sir," Harry said as he walked inside.

"Ah, good evening, Harry. Sit down." Dumbledore gave him a smile.

Harry looked down at the desk and found himself looking at Dumbledore's hand. His eyes widened.

"Professor!" He said at once. "Your hand—what happened to it?"

"It is a story for a later time, Harry, but I have taken the glamour off for the night. I wanted to show you how much I trust you, my boy. This has been like this for a while."

Harry nodded, and tried to look away from it, but couldn't. He couldn't even imagine what could have happened to Dumbledore's hand to blacken like that.

Harry chose that moment to look around. The circular office looked just as it always had on any of his past visits; the delicate silver instruments stood on spindle-legged tables, puffing smoke and giving off some sort of buzzing sound; portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses slept in their frames without a care in the world that this meeting between the current headmaster and a student could be in any way important. The last thing Harry took a notice in was Fawkes, who stood on his perch, watching Harry with bright interest. From everything around him, Harry realized that he had no idea whatsoever what Dumbledore would be planning to do with him that evening.

Dumbledore suddenly turned businesslike. "So, Harry," he said. "You have been wondering, I'm sure, what I had planned during these lessons, as we called them last time we spoke of them?"

"Yes, sir."

"I said I needed to tell you a lot more. It is time that you know what prompted Voldemort to try and kill you fifteen years ago. It is time you are given certain information."

Harry frowned in thought. He knew that he hadn't been told everything to do with the order at the end of the last term, but hadn't Dumbledore already told him about the prophecy and everything else? He didn't think he should accuse Dumbledore of lying to him, however, and with that thought in mind, said nothing.

"I told you everything I know, Harry," Dumbledore said as if he had read Harry's thoughts. "From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork. From here on in, Harry, I may be woefully wrong as Humphrey Belcher, who believed the time was ripe for a cheese cauldron."

"But you think you're right," said Harry, when Dumbledore nodded he added, "does what you're going to tell me have anything to do with the prophecy? Will it help me…survive?"

Dumbledore didn't answer, instead he got to his feet and walked around the desk. "It has a lot to do with it," he said as he opened the cabinet near the door, "and I certainly hope that it will help you to survive." Dumbledore returned to the desk and placed his penseive in front of Harry.

Harry couldn't help but remember his fourth year, or for that matter just the previous year. Invading both Dumbledore's and Snape's personal penseives had not been in his place, but he had done that regardless.

Harry shook himself and instead asked, "Where are we going, sir?"

"For a trip down Bob Ogden's memory lane," Dumbledore said as he pulled, from his pocket, a crystal bottle containing a swirling silvery-white substance. He pulled out his wand and tapped the bottle, the cork came off easily and Harry was once more reminded of Dumbledore's hand.

"Sir—how did you injure your hand?" Harry asked again.

"I must ask you once more Harry to not ask me that question. I will tell you, just not now. This is not the moment for that story. We have an appointment with Bob Ogden."

Harry nodded. He bent forward and plunged into the pensieve and the memories that awaited him.

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Harry re-entered the Gryffindor common room two hours after curfew, though this had been the first time that he had any sort of proof that it had been because of Dumbledore that he was out late.

Ron and Hermione, as he had expected were waiting up for him, and Harry wondered if he should tell them about the prophecy. Dumbledore had told him that it would be alright for him to tell them, that his friends were trustworthy, and he knew he had to tell them something, and he did plan on sharing Voldemort's past, but the prophecy? Did he want his friends to know that there was a reason he had lost his parents, that Voldemort had followed the words of a prophecy?

Hermione questioned him at once, "What happened? What did he want to talk to you about?"

"Well," Harry said, sitting down. "He wanted to tell me more about Voldemort, to tell me about his past, I guess."

"Oh, really!" Hermione seemed to think it was a great idea. "What did he tell you?"

Harry laughed. "We went into the memory of this guy that worked in the ministry, a muggle-born. His name was Bob Ogden, anyway, he was in Little Hangleton looking for Morfin Gaunt to tell him that he was being summoned to the ministry for a trial because he had used magic on a muggle.

"See the Gaunts were the last ones alive from the Slytherin line, and they were proud and all that stuff at least Marvolo and Morfin were. Marvolo was Morfin's father. The person that really interested me though was Merope. She was Morfin's sister. She was practically a squib according to her family and they treated her terribly for it which is why she couldn't use her magic. After Ogden knocked on the door and was allowed in, the Gaunts all had a disagreement about Merope's love for Tom Riddle. Then after an attempt on Merope's life Ogden was thrown out. That was the end of the memory. By the end there, we got to see Tom Riddle."

"Voldemort's father, you mean?" Ron asked.

"Yes," said Harry. "Dumbledore told me that Morfin and Marvolo were sent to Azkaban. He said it was during this time that Merope decided she needed to have Tom. He likes to think that she used some sort of love potion on him. Well, he got her pregnant, and then left her when she couldn't bear to keep him on the potion. Of course she must have died soon after giving birth because he hated his mother and was raised at an orphanage."

Hermione looked thoughtfully at Harry. "It's really interesting stuff. I wonder—" she trailed off.

"What?" Ron asked.

Harry laughed.

"Well," Hermione said with slight hesitation. "He's like Harry isn't he? At least I think Dumbledore may want you to understand that it isn't that he is evil because of the way he grew up, but the choices he made about everything. Last year you said you felt as if you were evil, I told you, you weren't, maybe this is Dumbledore's way of telling you that it is in everything that you do that he doesn't that you and he are different."

Harry said nothing to Hermione's outlook to things, instead he nodded silently. She had a point, but he knew that there was more to the memory than just showing Harry that he wasn't evil. Dumbledore after all had said that there was something about them that had to do with the prophecy.

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September 6, 1996

"Enter," Severus called. He was sitting behind his desk a book open in front of him.

Draco Malfoy opened the door cautiously. "Are you busy, Severus?" He asked.

His godfather shook his head. "What can I help you with, Draco?" Severus asked. He marked the page of his book and closed it.

Draco snorted. "You know very well what you have to help me with, don't you. I rather get it over with quickly, not have to worry about it at all."

Severus noticed at once that Draco was not being completely truthful. He was good at hiding his feelings, a Malfoy trait, but Severus was better at noticing when someone was trying to hide something, and he could tell at once that Draco didn't want to kill Dumbledore.

"Tell me, Draco, do you really want to kill the headmaster?"

"What difference does that make?" Draco asked. "Even if I didn't want to, one of us would have to do it. If the dark lord didn't see to that, then it was my mother that did. She made you swear it under the unbreakable vow, didn't she?"

Severus nodded. "It does change things, however. Killing someone will haunt you for the rest of your life, Draco, you do not want that. I do not want that for you."

Draco snorted again, but said nothing.

There was a pause.

"Fine," Draco said. "I don't want to kill him. I want to get out of this entire business. I don’t want to wind up in Azkaban like my father or dead for betraying him, and I see no way out."

Severus nodded thoughtfully and didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“Draco, I am not sure if trusting you is the right thing to do,” Severus said. “Your father has an uncanny ability to do the things that always benefit him and his family. I fear you share his selfishness this way.”

“I am not my father,” Draco said.

Severus lifted an eyebrow, and then, “But you are a Slytherin.”

“So are you,” Draco said at once.

Severus chuckled and didn’t answer him. Instead he changed the subject. “I don’t want you to do anything, Draco, I want you to ignore your task for as long as possible.”

Draco shook his head. “My mother,” he whispered.

“Is able to take care of herself,” Severus finished for him, “and as to that father of yours, he is safer in Azkaban than anywhere else.”

Draco glared at him. “How can you say that when you’re the one that put him there!”

“I was not,” Severus said. “Your father put himself there by his stupidity. He should not have approached me like that, I did not tell the Dark Lord, as much as you wish to see it that way, however, he did see most of that conversation through Nagini. Do not blame me where I did nothing.”

Draco seemed to take all of it in. Severus watched the blond as he sat with a pensive look on his face, looking down at his hands. Suddenly he looked up.

“Are you a spy for the order?” He asked.

Severus didn’t know how to answer that. To say yes and then get his cover blown was not what he wanted to do, but he needed Draco to trust him, and if telling Draco where his loyalties lied would help, then he would have to.

“I don’t trust you enough, Draco, to tell you where my loyalties lie.”

Draco nodded as if he had expected that. “Then I will continue with my own plans,” he said.

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September 7, 1996

His first lesson with his father was not something that Harry was looking forward to, especially since the moment he had mentioned that he had to go to remedial potions that night, Hermione had given him a suspicious glare, while Ron had all but wondered why he was even bothering before changing the subject to quidditch.

“Is it occlumency?” Hermione asked in a whisper while Ron rambled on about some new quidditch move he had heard about.

“No, Hermione, remedial potions,” Harry said with a sigh. “I am not lying to you. I need to do this in order to remain in the class and become an auror.”

Hermione gave a small huff and turned away, pulling out her transfiguration book.

Harry sighed. It would be hard, he had realized, to keep everything secret when Hermione was always after his case, but as soon as it was ten minutes to eight, Harry stood up, waved at his friends and left the common room.

When he entered Snape’s rooms a moment later, Harry noticed at once that Snape was not in his quarters, but he had specifically told Harry to meet him there at eight through Remus. Harry sighed and walked to his room. He had kept a number of his things within this room, clothes that he knew he wouldn’t use throughout winter, books from years previous, and small knick knacks that he had accumulated throughout the years. As he walked to his room, however, he spotted a book sitting on the coffee table. He picked up the rather worn object and tried to make out the title, but couldn’t. He opened the book and found the title of the book.

Advanced Potion-Making

Harry flipped through a couple of pages and found that the entire book was scribbled on in small, cramped handwriting. Handwriting that looked almost familiar but that Harry just couldn’t place. He stopped at the potion that he knew they would be brewing sometime in the next few weeks, the Draught of the Living Dead, and decided that he would try to ignore the fact that the entire page was covered in writing and try to go over the potion while he had the time, however, as he began to read he noticed at once that half of the things written on the margins were in fact alternate instructions. As he read through the instructions he found a number of alterations that for some reason Harry couldn’t help but feel could help him with the potions. Trying to remember the ones that looked most important; crush with flat side of silver dagger, releases juice better than cutting and, add clockwise stir after every seventh counterclockwise stirHarry closed the book. He made to put it back on the table, wondering if that had been Snape’s potions book when it fell to the floor.

Harry bent down to pick it up, as he did, he saw something scribbled in the bottom of the back cover in the same handwriting.

This book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince