He, Tracey, Allison, and Theodore spent the whole of break speculating on what Dumbledore would teach Harry. Allison theorized that it would be defensive spells of Dumbledore's own creation so that Death Eaters wouldn't known how to counter. Tracey suggested it might be untraceable charms that will help keep Harry undetected even without his Invisibility Cloak. Finally Theodore thought Dumbledore wanted to teach Harry some forbidden knowledge, similar to the knowledge contained in the Prophecy. After break, he went off to Alchemy while Harry, Allison, and Tracey returned to the common room, where they grudgingly started Snape’s homework. This turned out to be so complex that they still had not finished when Theodore joined them for their after-lunch free period (though he considerably speeded up the process). They had only just finished when the bell rang for the afternoon’s double Potions. Harry and Allison explained to Tracey that she could still attend even though she only got an "Exceeds Expectations" but she insisted she was happy with her schedule as it was and so only Harry, Allison, and Theodore beat the familiar path through the dungeon classroom that had, for so long, been Snape’s.

When they arrived in the corridor they saw that there were only a dozen people progressing to N.E.W.T. level. Crabbe and Goyle had evidently failed to achieve the required O.W.L. grade, but three other Slytherins had made it through, Daphne Greengrass and to Harry's dismay, Malfoy and Zabini. The second biggest demographic was Ravenclaws were there, Terry Boot, Michael Corner, Sue Li, and Padma Patil. Hufflepuff and Gryffindor only had one student each, Hufflepuff's Ernie Macmillan and Gryffindor's Hermione Granger.

'Harry,' Ernie said portentously, holding out his hand as Harry approached. Harry liked him despite his rather pompous manner, 'didn’t get a chance to speak in Defense Against the Dark Arts this morning. Good lesson, I thought, but Shield Charms are old hat, of course, for us old D.A. lags...And how are you, Theo—the lovely Miss Allison?'

Allison rolled her eyes at Ernie's attempt at flirting and the others managed to say 'fine,' before the dungeon door opened and Slughorn’s belly preceded him out of the door. As they filed into the room, his great walrus mustache curved above his beaming mouth, and he greeted Harry and Zabini with particular enthusiasm.

The dungeon was, most unusually, already full of vapors and odd smells. Harry and his friends sniffed interestedly as they passed large, bubbling cauldrons. Draco and Zabini sat together with Daphne reluctantly joining them, the four Ravenclaws all took to the same table, Hermione and Ernie took a table near the front. This left Harry, Theodore, and Allison to share a table with Ernie. They chose the one nearest a gold-colored cauldron that was emitting one of the most seductive scents Harry had ever inhaled: Somehow it reminded him simultaneously of chocolate frogs, the woody smell of a broomstick, and an oddly familiar scent of aloe vera that he couldn't quite place. He found that he was breathing very slowly and deeply and that the potion’s fumes seemed to be filling him up like drink. A great contentment stole over him; he grinned across at Theodore, who grinned back lazily.

'I think I know what potion that is but I'm not positive,' said Theodore happily. 'I smell smoke from the fire under a potion caldron, fresh news papers, developing solution potion, and oddly enough Prickly Ash wood. Do you guys smell something different?'

'For me it smells like buttered toast, heather, and that handle polish Fleetwood makes,' said Allison in uncharacteristic zen. 'And you Harry?'

But before he could say, Slughorn started the lesson.

'Now then, now then, now then,' said Slughorn, whose massive outline was quivering through the many shimmering vapors. 'Scales out, everyone, and potion kits, and don’t forget your copies of Advanced Potion-Making...'

'Sir?' said Harry, raising his hand.

'Harry, m’boy?'

'I haven’t got a book or scales or anything—nor’s Allison—we didn’t realize we’d be able to do the N.E.W.T., you see—'

'Ah, yes, Professor McGonagall did mention...not to worry, my dear boy, not to worry at all. You can use ingredients from the store cupboard today, and I’m sure we can lend you some scales, and we’ve got a small stock of old books here, they’ll do until you can write your parents to go to Flourish and Blotts...'

Slughorn strode over to a corner cupboard and, after a moment’s foraging, emerged with two very battered-looking copies of Advanced Potion-Making by Libatius Borage, which he gave to Harry and Allison along with two sets of tarnished scales.

'Now then,' said Slughorn, returning to the front of the class and inflating his already bulging chest so that the buttons on his waistcoat threatened to burst off, 'I’ve prepared a few potions for you to have a look at, just out of interest, you know. These are the kind of thing you ought to be able to make after completing your N.E.W.T.s. You ought to have heard of ’em, even if you haven’t made ’em yet. Anyone tell me what this one is?'

He indicated the cauldron nearest to Draco's table. Harry raised himself slightly in his seat and saw what looked like plain water boiling away inside it.

Hermione Granger’s well-practiced hand hit the air before anybody else’s; Slughorn pointed at her.

'It’s Veritaserum, a colorless, odorless potion that forces the drinker to tell the truth,' said Hermione.

'Very good, very good!' said Slughorn happily. 'Now,' he continued, pointing at the cauldron nearest the Ravenclaw table, 'this one here is pretty well known...Featured in a few Ministry leaflets lately too...Who can—?'

This time Theodore's hand raised.

That one is Polyjuice Potion, sir, it makes you look like someone else,' he said.

Harry too had recognized the slow-bubbling, mud-like substance in the second cauldron, but did not resent Theodore getting the credit for answering the question; he, after all, was the one who had succeeded in making it, back in their second year.

'Excellent, excellent Mr Nott! Now, this one here...yes, my dear?' said Slughorn, now looking slightly bemused, as Hermione’s hand punched the air again.

'It’s Amortentia!'

'It is indeed. It seems almost foolish to ask,' said Slughorn, who was looking mightily impressed, 'but I assume you know what it does?'

'It’s the most powerful love potion in the world!' said Hermione.

'Quite right! You recognized it, I suppose, by its distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen?'

'And the steam rising in characteristic spirals,' said Hermione enthusiastically, 'and it’s supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass and new parchment and—'

But she turned slightly pink and did not complete the sentence.

'Very good Miss Granger,' said Slughorn, ignoring Hermione’s embarrassment. 'Say, I never got a chance to ask on the train, but despite your muggle heritage you wouldn't possibly be related to Hector Dagworth-Granger, who founded the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers?'

Harry saw Malfoy lean close to Blaise and whisper something; both of them sniggered. Daphne looked mortified to be in close proximity to them.

'I do not know sir. Although I do not know much about my father's side of the family.'

'Oh well, take ten well-earned points for Gryffindor, Miss Granger,' said Slughorn genially. 'And Mr Nott, take five fore Slytherin, as well.'

Malfoy looked rather as he had done the time Harry had punched him in the face at the end of their second year.

'Amortentia doesn’t really create love, of course. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room—oh yes,' he said, nodding gravely at Malfoy and Blaise, both of whom were smirking skeptically. 'When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love...And now, it is time for us to start work.'

'Sir, you haven’t told us what’s in this one,' said Ernie Macmillan, pointing at a small black cauldron standing on Slughorn’s desk. The potion within was splashing about merrily; it was the color of molten gold, and large drops were leaping like goldfish above the surface, though not a particle had spilled.

'Oho,' said Slughorn again. Harry was sure that Slughorn had not forgotten the potion at all, but had waited to be asked for dramatic effect. 'Yes. That. Well, that one, ladies and gentlemen, is a most curious little potion called Felix Felicis. I take it,' he turned, smiling, to look at Hermione, who had let out an audible gasp, 'that you know what Felix Felicis does, Miss Granger?'

'It’s liquid luck,' said Hermione excitedly. 'It makes you lucky!'

The whole class seemed to sit up a little straighter. Now all Harry could see of Malfoy was the back of his sleek blond head, because he was at last giving Slughorn his full and undivided attention.

'Quite right, take another five points for Gryffindor. Yes, it’s a funny little potion, Felix Felicis,' said Slughorn. 'Desperately tricky to make, and disastrous to get wrong. However, if brewed correctly, as this has been, you will find that all your endeavors tend to succeed...at least until the effects wear off.'

'Why don’t people drink it all the time, sir?' said Terry Boot eagerly.

'Because if taken in excess, it causes giddiness, recklessness, and dangerous overconfidence,' said Slughorn. 'Too much of a good thing, you know...highly toxic in large quantities. But taken sparingly, and very occasionally...'

'Have you ever taken it, sir?' asked Michael Corner with great interest.

'Twice in my life,' said Slughorn. 'Once when I was twenty-four, once when I was fifty-seven. Two tablespoonfuls taken with breakfast. Two perfect days.'

He gazed dreamily into the distance. Whether he was playacting or not, thought Harry, the effect was good.

'And that,' said Slughorn, apparently coming back to earth, 'is what I shall be offering as a prize in this lesson.'

There was silence in which every bubble and gurgle of the surrounding potions seemed magnified tenfold.

'One tiny bottle of Felix Felicis,' said Slughorn, taking a minuscule glass bottle with a cork in it out of his pocket and showing it to them all. 'Enough for twelve hours’ luck. From dawn till dusk, you will be lucky in everything you attempt. Now, I must give you warning that Felix Felicis is a banned substance in organized competitions...sporting events, for instance, examinations, or elections. So the winner is to use it on an ordinary day only...and watch how that ordinary day becomes extraordinary!'

Slughorn continued to reminisce for another couple seconds.

'So,' said Slughorn, suddenly brisk, 'how are you to win my fabulous prize? Well, by turning to page ten of Advanced Potion-Making. We have a little over an hour left to us, which should be time for you to make a decent attempt at the Draught of Living Death. I know it is more complex than anything you have attempted before, and I do not expect a perfect potion from anybody. The person who does best, however, will win little Felix here. Off you go!'

There was a scraping as everyone drew their cauldrons toward them and some loud clunks as people began adding weights to their scales, but nobody spoke. The concentration within the room was almost tangible. Harry saw Malfoy riffling feverishly through his copy of Advanced Potion-Making. It could not have been clearer that Malfoy really wanted that lucky day. Harry bent swiftly over the tattered book Slughorn had lent him.

To his annoyance he saw that the previous owner had scribbled all over the pages, so that the margins were as black as the printed portions. Bending low to decipher the ingredients (even here, the previous owner had made annotations and crossed things out) Harry hurried off toward the store cupboard to find what he needed. As he dashed back to his cauldron, he saw Malfoy cutting up valerian roots as fast as he could.

Everyone kept glancing around at what the rest of the class was doing; this was both an advantage and a disadvantage of Potions, that it was hard to keep your work private. Within ten minutes, the whole place was full of bluish steam. Theodore, of course, seemed to have progressed furthest, though Hermione Granger was close behind. Theodore's potion already resembled the “smooth, black currant-coloured liquid” mentioned as the ideal halfway stage.

Having finished chopping his roots, Harry bent low over his book again. It was really very irritating, having to try and decipher the directions under all the stupid scribbles of the previous owner, who for some reason had taken issue with the order to cut up the sopophorous bean and had written in the alternative instruction:

"Crush with flat side of silver dagger, releases juice better than cutting."

'Sir, I think you knew my grandfather, Abraxas Malfoy?'

Harry looked up; Slughorn was just passing Malfoy's table.

'Yes,' said Slughorn, without looking at Malfoy, 'I was sorry to hear he had died, although of course it wasn’t unexpected, dragon pox at his age...'

And he walked away. Harry bent back over his cauldron, smirking. He could tell that Malfoy had expected to be treated like Harry or Zabini; perhaps even hoped for some preferential treatment of the type he had learned to expect from Snape. It looked as though Malfoy would have to rely on nothing but talent to win the bottle of Felix Felicis.

The sopophorous bean was proving very difficult to cut up. Harry turned to Theodore.

'Can I borrow your silver knife?'

He nodded impatiently, not taking his eyes off his potion, which was still deep purple, though according to the book ought to be turning a light shade of lilac by now.

Harry crushed his bean with the flat side of the dagger. To his astonishment, it immediately exuded so much juice he was amazed the shriveled bean could have held it all. Hastily scooping it all into the cauldron he saw, to his surprise, that the potion immediately turned exactly the shade of lilac described by the textbook.

His annoyance with the previous owner vanishing on the spot, Harry now squinted at the next line of instructions. According to the book, he had to stir counterclockwise until the potion turned clear as water. According to the addition the previous owner had made, however, he ought to add a clockwise stir after every seventh counterclockwise stir. Could the old owner be right twice?

Harry stirred counterclockwise, held his breath, and stirred once clockwise. The effect was immediate. The potion turned palest pink.

‘How’d you get it to do that?’ demanded Theodore, who was red-faced and whose silver eyeliner was beginning to smear thanks to the steam from his cauldron; his potion was still resolutely purple.

‘Add a clockwise stir—‘

‘What do you mean? The book only says counterclockwise!’ he snapped in frustration.

Harry shrugged and continued what he was doing. Seven stirs

counterclockwise, one clockwise, pause…seven stirs counterclockwise, one stir clockwise…

Across the table, Allison was cursing fluently under her breath; her potion still had the black currant-colour, and it didn’t look as smooth as it should at that stage either. As far as he could see, no one else’s potion had turned as pale as his. He felt elated, something that had certainly never happened before in this dungeon.

‘And time’s…up!’ called Slughorn. ‘Stop stirring, please!’

Slughorn moved slowly among the tables, peering into cauldrons. He made no comment, but occasionally gave the potions a stir or a sniff. At last he reached the table where Harry, Theodore, and Allison were sitting. He smiled ruefully at the tarlike substance in Allison’s cauldron. Theodore’s potion he gave an approving nod. Then he saw Harry’s, and a look of incredulous delight spread over his face.

‘The clear winner!’ he cried to the dungeon. ‘Excellent, excellent, Harry! Good lord, it’s clear you’ve inherited your mother’s talent. She was a dab hand at Potions, Lily was! Here you are, then, here you are—one bottle of Felix Felicis, as promised, and use it well!’

Harry pretended to slip the tiny bottle of golden liquid into his inner pocket. He was feeling an odd combination of delight at the furious look on the Malfoy’s face and guilt at the disappointed expression on Theodore’s. Allison looked simply dumbfounded.

‘How were you able to beat Theo?’ she whispered to Harry as they left the dungeon.

‘Got lucky, I suppose,’ said Harry, because Malfoy was within earshot. He then very quickly slid the bottle into her pocket and then whispered. ‘Keep this safe for me, I fear Malfoy is going to route through my stuff to find this. Don’t nod or say anything, just wink if you heard me.’

And she did wink.

Once they were securely ensconced at the far end of the Slytherin table away from Malfoy for dinner, however, he felt safe enough to tell them. Theodore’s face became more uneasy with every word he uttered.

‘I s’pose you think I cheated?’ he finished, aggravated by his expression.

‘I wouldn’t go as far as saying cheat, but you certainly were using innovations you yourself didn’t come up with,’ said Theodore carefully.

‘Well it wasn’t a quiz or test, there is no rule about deviating from what the teacher indents during a lesson, although usually the result of deviating is the potion exploding in your face,’ said Allison. ‘He offered you advice Theo, but you didn’t take it, although I’d happily except some potion advice in the future.’

Tracey, who had been eerily silent up until this point finally spoke.

‘And you’re sure it is just ink writing in the book? Nothing else contained in its pages?’

Harry knew what was on her mind at once.

‘Yes I’m sure,’ he said reassuringly, lowering his voice. ‘It’s not like, you know, Riddle’s diary. It’s just an old textbook someone’s scribbled on.’

‘I’m just concerned about it, Harry,’ said Tracey. ‘You’re following what is written and now defending the book, it sounds a lot like how Hermione descr—‘

‘I just tried a few of the tips written in the margins, honestly, Tracey, there’s nothing funny—‘

‘Tracey’s not wrong, Harry,’ said Allison, defending her friend. ‘We should just make sure the book isn’t hiding anything.’

‘Hey!’ said Harry indignantly, as she pulled his copy of Advanced Potion-Making out of his bag and a Revealer out of her own.

‘We use these sometimes in Runes class, now let’s see,’ said Allison as she started rubbing it along some random pages, though nothing extra appeared as she did so. ‘I can think of a couple spells to try, but we’ll need a little more room and privacy.’

So they finished up supper and Harry reluctantly joined them as they headed down to the dungeons and entered a long abandoned classroom. Allison opened the book and placed it on the floor, she then took out her wand as she pointed it at the book.

‘Revelio!’ she said, but the book did not change. ‘Next.’

Theodore moved forward and pointed his wand, ‘Aparecium!’

But still the book remained the same. Finally Tracey stepped forward.

‘Ok,’ I know a bit more advanced version, let’s see if this works,’ she said and raised her wand. ‘Specialis Revelio!’

But once again nothing whatsoever happened. The book simply lay there, looking old and dirty and dog-eared.

‘Finished?’ said Harry irritably. ‘Or d’you want to wait and see if it does a few backflips?’

‘You win Harry,’ said Tracey truthfully. ‘It simply appears to be a normal textbook.’

‘Good. Then I’ll have it back,’ said Harry, picking it up off the ground.

They started making their way to the Slytherin common room, but as the others walked slowly ahead Harry took a closer look to the page Allison had randomly opened it to. He saw that there was something scribbled along the bottom of the back cover in the same small, cramped handwriting as the instructions that had won him his bottle of Felix Felicis, now safely hidden somewhere inside Allison’s trunk a few floors above.

“This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince.”

Ahh! this read is amazing!

Thank you, I am so glad you enjoyed this chapter.

Great as always! I want more Tracey and Allison - I can never get enough of them!

There will be plenty of both, I promise. I love the girls and love coming up with arks for them.

So, what did you think of this chapter and the small divergences from canon? You don’t have to respond if you don’t want to, I just love reading your analysis’.

Thank you!

I loved seeing how Quidditch is different without Harry being the captain. Don't get me wrong, Terence definitely deserves this but just the way things changed gives a lot to think on and I like how you built it.

Tracey and Ancient Studies surprised me in a nice way and I want to see how far this will go.

The way Amortentia smells to Harry can only keep me guessing who will take Ginny's place in this version. My best guess is Allison but I am still not sure.

Speaking of Allison, I want to see her way of thinking towards Potions now that she might have trouble with her dreamed career because of it. And I want to see how she'll deal with the expectations.

Yes, while Terence is the captain I want Harry to also take a leadership role on the team as he and and Terence have been members for the same length of time. Terence respects Harry and if he needs an opinion he’s probably going to go to him.

As for Tracey I wanted to expand her experiences, yes she is the groups Charms expert but I want her to have interests outside of Charms and Terence. While Theodore maybe a gifted student, I like thinking of Tracey as someone who equally likes to learn new things she just might struggle with it a bit.

I promised myself I would not reveal who Harry’s final love interest will be until Harry himself figures it out (and for you guys it is I believe only two chapters away), but until then I won’t confirm or deny if you are right. I will say the clue is in the potion, what each character smells more or less correlates to who they like.

Finally, for Allison, she is going to struggle between her loyalties to her father and his wishes vs her own dreams, but as the book continues which she’ll choose will become clear.

Thanks again for your comment with your thoughts. 😁

Hey, so I had to go to the ER today and had minor surgery done to my arm. I am fine, but my arm combined with the pain killers I’m on are going to delay my Harry Potter writing. I do have the next chapter already finished though so that should come out tomorrow, but further chapters will likely be delayed.

Again, I am fine, I’m just letting you all know.

Oof, get well soon!