Lily Potter - Proud or Disappointed?
"YES!" Everyone in the great hall sighed collectively, some in disappointment and some just because yet another meal had been interrupted. "TAKE THAT YOU STINKY RAVENS!"
"Harry and Daphne found the hat, then." Hermione said mildly, not looking up from her breakfast.
"Indeed they did." Ginny smirked as two sleep deprived teenagers rushed into the hall, holding the sorting hat between them.
"You cheated!" Zacharias Smith complained loudly from the Hufflepuff table.
"Did not!" Harry retorted.
"Liar!" Zacharias yelled back.
Harry pouted. "I'm telling your great aunt you said that."
"You don't even know my great aunt, Potter."
Harry smirked. "Don't I? Anyway, HAHA! WE GOT THE HAT!" Daphne grinned widely and high-fived Harry.
"How have you managed to enter all four common rooms already?" Michael Corner asked, looking impressed.
"Oh, it was simple really." Harry said airily. "Ravenclaws is sort of obvious, and not once did the rules say you couldn't ask Luna for help."
"The rules said no asking assistance from other students." Ernie pointed out. Harry nodded.
"Yeah, exactly. Luna doesn't count, do you Luna?"
"No, I'm a Beauxbatons student. I just decided to unofficially stay here when they all left after the tournament." Luna said, giggling as a cloud on the ceiling took the shape of a unicorn.
"There is no way that is true." Terry Boot said firmly. "Right, Headmaster?... Professor Dumbledore?"
Dumbledore just shrugged imperiously. "I do not recall, Mr Boot."
"Either way, if you check the student roster Luna's name isn't on there." Harry said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "After Ravenclaw, we revisited Slytherin in case my second-year visit didn't count-"
"I forgot about that!" Ron exclaimed, slapping his forehead. "I can't believe I didn't bother to try and win this time!"
"We weren't friends in second year, Potter. That's another lie." Draco said. Harry grinned at him.
"We might not have been, but you were still the one to let us in." Harry winked at him and Hermione dissolved into a fit of giggles at the befuddled expression on Draco's face, before the realisation dawned on him.
"It was YOU!" He gasped, standing up and pointing accusingly at Harry. "I thought Crabbe and Goyle were just being their usual dumb selves, but it was you all along!"
"Anyway, after a quick detour to Gryffindor we tried to find Hufflepuff's entrance." Harry said hastily, avoiding Draco's icy glare. "In the end, I wrote to Cedric and Tonks. Tonks laughed in my face, quite literally as she sent a howler, and Cedric just said something weird about the third floor."
"There's no way Diggory betrayed his own house." Padma pointed out.
"Yeah, he didn't. The third floor thing was a trick. Which looking back should've been obvious after it being closed for the whole of our first year. Moving, on, after two weeks of being complete idiots, I spoke to ex-Professor Lupin and my godfather, who told me to just use my invisibility cloak and follow one of you back." Harry said. "They also reminded me I have a super cool piece of parchment in by trunk I keep forgetting about that also could have told me. But oh well, I got there in the end."
"Stupid elf." Snape muttered, still annoyed about the invisibility cloak he managed to confiscate for all of three hours.
"So, you two actually won this time." Parvati said, looking slightly proud. "I'm impressed."
"Good, because every single one of you owes me and Daphne twenty galleons each." Harry grinned. "I'm sure my mum will forgive me now, Snape, eh?"
Snape ignored him, as usual.
"Oh no, we didn't agree to that!" Hannah cried in outrage. "YOU said you would pay the winner twenty galleons, not that we would have to!"
"Oh, did I? That's a shame."
"Lily would be disappointed in your oversight." Snape said monotonously. Harry pouted.
"You know what, you're all annoying and it's time for me and Daphne to crown Slytherin the title of best common ever! And before you ask, no, I'm not gunning for Gryffindor as the hat wanted to put me in Slytherin first anyway. You're welcome, pleasant mixture of decent humans and children of Moldy's emo-pals!" Without further ado, Harry jammed the hat on Daphne's head.
"Ow! That was unnecessary." Daphne swatted Harry's arm.
The Hogwarts populace watched with baited breath. Whispered bets and a flurry of parchment could be heard across the room.
"Interesting. Mr Potter, your turn."
"What happens if the hat gets two different answers from you both?" Hermione asked.
"Then the Hat will be put on Pipsqueak's head as the decider." Harry explained, gently placing the hat on his own head. Daphne scowled and poked him.
"Oh, how very interesting indeed! Well, dear students, I can confirm that Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass do indeed agree on one house."
"No." Harry whispered, and everyone watched with a mixture of hope and confusion as Harry clearly tried to argue mentally with the hat.
"Sorry, Mr Potter, but the instructions you gave me were very clear." The hat chuckled. "I am pleased to announce that the in the opinions of both Miss Greengrass and Mr Potter, the title of the best common room and therefore the common room in which I shall reside until the title is given to another house, goes too...."
"No!" Harry pleaded.
"RAVENCLAW!" The blue and bronze table screamed, clapped and cheered, laughing manically. With a tear-filled look at each other, Daphne and Harry ran from the hall, hand in hand.
"Where are they going?" Ginny asked.
"Probably to gorge on ice cream in the kitchens and cry." Hermione said, turning back to what was now her potions textbook. Harry had lost interest eventually and only cared about it in class, so Hermione took over ownership. Hermione got fed up of trying to copy the notes into her own textbook, so pledged with herself to duplicate the Half-Blood Prince's copy whenever Snape demanded it back.
"What an unexpected turn of events." Draco drawled, looking completely unsurprised. "Would now be good time to go and remind them they owe us both ten galleons each?"
"Oh yes." Hermione said with a smirk. "Now is perfect."
Ginny shook her head. "You two are so evil sometimes."
A scowling Minerva slid three gold coins across the table to a smirking Severus.
~
"So, to summarise, Voldemort had a discussion with Professor Slughorn about horcruxes, who then gave you a fake memory."
Yes."
"So you decided to re-employ him, despite him obviously giving students information they should not have and playing favourites-"
"...yes."
"-so that you could get three teenagers to get him to give up the real memory whilst exposing them to one of the darkest forms of magic. According to Slughorn anyway, since he tampered with the memory."
"........yes."
"To top it all off, your original plan was just to tutor Harry, so it was actually one teenager you were planning on doing this for you." Hermione summarised, sounding impressively diplomatic.
Dumbledore was speechless for a few seconds. He cleared his throat and nodded. Ron shook his head, tutting.
"Bad Headmaster!" He scolding, wagging a finger at the man he used to hero-worship and be slightly afraid of. Harry smiled proudly at his best friend. Ron really had grown as a person recently.
Dumbledore inclined his head. "I'm afraid you are our best hope at getting this memory. Especially you, Harry."
Harry sighed. "How much?"
Dumbledore blinked "How much what?"
Harry sighed. "How much are you going to pay us?" He said, as if it were obvious.
"Pay you?" Dumbledore murmured.
Ron scoffed. "You thought we'd do this for free?" He asked, genuinely surprised. "You want us to manipulate a man into divulging what is clearly his deepest darkest secret without any sort of reward?" Dumbledore held both his very healthy hands up. Harry shook his head. Sometimes the things Luna said made him notice things that were a bit weird or random. Why should he care about the state of Dumbledore's hands?
"I rather thought the reward would be gaining strength for our side in the war." He said placatingly.
Harry laughed. "The war we shouldn't be fighting in as kids anyway. Look, either you pay us, or you owe us a favour." He crossed his arms and pouted the way Dudley used to when he got less then thirty presents. Before his-self-growth, anyway. Last Harry heard, Dudley had asked Dobby to go through all of his stuff and help him decide what to keep and what to donate.
Dumbledore frowned. "What sort of favour?"
"Nothing that would harm or kill anyone, of course." Hermione said briskly. "Or any creatures or animals as well. Nothing that would make you commit a crime." Ron nodded along with her, an innocent expression plastered on his face.
Dumbledore sighed. "If you can get this memory, I will give you fifty Galleons each."
Harry sighed, disappointed. "I really wanted you to go for the favour, I had so many great ideas! Oh well, we're going to go and find Dobby and Kreacher and have them try and get this memory for us. Bye!" Harry pulled Ron and Hermione from the room before Dumbledore could scold him for using his increasingly terrifying house elves.
"We aren't actually going to use them, are we?" Hermione asked, struggling to keep up with Harry's brisk pace. "You know what those two are like."
"No, of course not! What we need, Hermione dear, is a little bit of luck!" Harry booped her on the node.
Hermione smiled. "That's it!"
"What's what?" Ron asked, looking between the two with a slight frown.
"Harry and I won Felix Felicis, remember? We can use that to get Slughorn to divulge the memory!" They sprinted back to the dormitory and Hermione found the small phial in her trunk, examining it carefully as she showed it to the other two.
"I don't think all of us should take it." She said. "This could be useful still."
Ron and Harry nodded in agreement.
"I'll do it!" Harry volunteered eagerly.
Ron laughed. "No way, you're mental enough as it is!"
In the end, it was agreed Hermione would take the potion.
She took a small sip and instantly relaxed. Her eyes glazed over slightly and she smiled as if everything was right in the world.
"We should go and see Hagrid." She said. Harry stood up and moved towards the dorms, but she stopped him. "Leave the invisibility cloak here, we won't need it. Come on, Ron."