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Chapter Sixteen: The Unbreakable Vow

(Funny little Mandela Effect that happened to me that you might have noticed in the Quidditch tryout chapter, I could have sworn that Romilda Vane was a Ravenclaw, and that just the films made her Gryffindor like how they seemingly made Luna the same year as Harry, well man was I surprised when reading the canon version of this chapter to realize she's Gryffindor. So I guess in my version of events the sorting hat made a different choice for her.)

Snow was swirling against the icy windows once more; Christmas was approaching fast. Hagrid had already single-handedly delivered the usual twelve Christmas trees for the Great Hall; garlands of holly and tinsel had been twisted around the banisters of the stairs; everlasting candles glowed from inside the helmets of suits of armor and great bunches of mistletoe had been hung at intervals along the corridors. Large groups of girls tended to converge underneath the mistletoe bunches every time Harry went past, which caused blockages in the corridors; fortunately, however, Harry’s frequent nighttime wanderings had given him an unusually good knowledge of the castle’s secret passageways, so that he was able, without too much difficulty, to navigate mistletoe-free routes between classes.

His friends teased him about needing to take these routes, but it was all good hearted and he knew they meant well.

'They're all desperate for you to ask them to Slughorn's party,' said Tracey. 'They think if they can trick you into kissing them you'll suddenly fall in love and ask them out.'

The party was the following night, and Harry still hadn't asked Allison or anyone else to be his date. He had managed to convince himself though that tonight, after classes had finished, he would ask her.

'Well, at this rate you might as well go with one of those girls,' said Theodore with a chuckle, 'seeing as you still do not yet have someone to go with.'

'I have someone in mind,' Harry said quietly.

'Well that's good, make sure its someone you like spending time with,' said Theodore. 'I don't know what I would have done if Allison hadn't said yes.'

Harry's heart nearly stopped beating. Did he hear that right? Theodore was going with Allison.

'What?' he managed to gasp.

'Just as friends,' said Allison stone faced with a shrug. 'Should be a fun night.'

'But-er-what about Colin?' said Harry in a desperate attempt.

'I asked him, but tomorrow night Gryffindor is hosting an event to make enchanted baubles, wizard crackers, and Christmas paper lanterns, and Dennis wants his brother's help making some to bring home to their family,' Theodore had a smile on his face. 'Its quite sweet actually.'

'Er, right,' said Harry, then pretended to be absorbed in the book they were supposed to have read before Charms next morning, “Quintessence: A Quest”.

Harry remained quiet for the rest of classes and threw most of supper. He probably was the only one quiet as nearly everyone in the Great Hall was abuzz with excitement for the Christmas holidays that started in only two days. Everyone except him and Malfoy, who had been taking a lot of late night Prefect shifts and often looked exhausted late in the day. Harry continued to say little throughout the meal until Theodore mentioned he was going to do some potion ingredient research in the library and Harry quickly said that he’d join him.

So the foster brothers went to the thankfully mostly deserted library where only a few sixth and seventh years were reading books, and the librarian, Madam Pince, prowled the shelves nearby.

Theodore wanted to gather some knowledge for his own personal theories and hypothesis on how to improve his own potions in Slughorn’s class. Harry was mostly helping him find copies of the books he wished to study, or was going over his own copy Advanced Potion-Making and continued to make notes on the current class project of Everlasting Elixirs, occasionally pausing to decipher the Prince’s useful additions to Libatius Borage’s text. He was trying to come up in his head a way to ask Theodore to not take Allison so that he could ask her out without necessarily revealing that he likes her. Theodore ended up being the one to bring up the topic of dates.

‘Harry, I want you to know that we weren’t kidding earlier when we said these girls that are crazy about you want to trick you into going to Slughorn’s party with them,’ said Theodore in a more serious tone than he had when discussing the topic earlier.

‘What do you mean? I’m not going to randomly take someone I don’t know.’

‘The other day as I was going to the gents I overheard the tale-end of a conversation between Romilda Vane and her friends as they were leaving the girls bathroom,’ started Theodore. ‘They were saying how they have a couple bottles of Fred and George’s love potion and that they intend to slip you some. My advice is don’t eat or drink anything that you didn’t get on your own.’

‘You sound very worried, what’s the worst that could happen? I act lovey-dovey towards someone for a few hours?’ asked Harry, thinking that it being a joke product and them being in the safety of Hogwarts nothing as bad as Merope giving Tom Riddle Snr a love potion could happen.

‘The twins said it could potentially last more than twenty-four hours, and it is incredibly tricky to make the antidote so if you ingested some you’d be, how you put it, “lovey-dovey” for quite a while.’

‘Okay, okay, no food from anyone except what’s right in front of me during meals,’ Harry said with a chuckle, although caught himself as he didn’t want to get kicked out my Madam Pince. Then a thought entered his mind. ‘Theo, I thought Filch had banned anything bought at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes?’

‘Filch would ban happiness if he could, I don’t think anyone ever cares about what he bans or not,’ answered Theodore absentmindedly as he went back to reviewing his books.

‘But I thought all the owls were being searched. So how come these girls are able to bring love potions into school?’

‘The bottles are disguised as cough potion and perfumes I believe, it’s part of Fred and George’s Owl Order Service.’

‘You know a lot about it.’

This got Theodore to look up from his books.

‘I didn’t buy one if that’s what you’re wondering, I don’t need one as me and Colin are still quite happy. I just simply inspected the bottles when we were in the shop to see if they were real or if the twins were selling fake products.’

‘No, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything,’ said Harry quickly. ‘What I mean is, Filch is being fooled, isn’t he? These girls are getting stuff into the school disguised as something else! So why couldn’t Malfoy have brought the necklace into the school—?’

‘We’re back to this again? I thought you dropped the topic back in October?’ said Theodore with a bit of an annoyed sigh. ‘No Harry, Malfoy could not have smuggled the necklace into Hogwarts.’

‘Come on, why not?’ demanded Harry.

‘Listen,’ said Theodore as calmly as he could, ‘the Secrecy Sensors are designed to detect concealment charms, as well as powerful curses, hexes, and jinxes. Anything dark that could cause harm. They don’t detect prank love potions, but they would pick up on a necklace so cursed that a less than half a centimeter squared of skin contact nearly killed Katie Bell. Love potions just aren’t dangerous enough.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ muttered Harry, thinking of Romilda Vane.

‘Anyway, without the Sensor to detect anything it would be up to Filch whether something was perfume or love potion, and short of testing it on himself I don’t think he’s got the knowledge to tell the difference considering he’s a squib.’

This seemed to put an end to that conversation, but it was getting later and Harry still hadn’t brought up the real reason why he was here with Theodore.

‘So, speaking of potions, how come you asked Allison to Slughorn’s party and not Tracey?’

‘I actually did ask Tracey first after Colin told me he couldn’t go, as she had been so bummed about not being allowed to go to the suppers. However when I asked her she refused because if Slughorn didn’t think she was worth of his time then he wasn’t going to be worthy of hers. I then asked Allison as I remember how excited she was that Gwenog Jones had been to one of the suppers and maybe her or other famous Quidditch player might be at the Christmas party.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Harry, realizing Theodore had remembered more about Allison’s ambitions more than he had. Harry felt quite deflated.

‘If I may ask,’ said Theodore, raising an eyebrow, ‘how come you’re so inquisitive today about who I’m bringing as a guest?’

‘Oh, er, it’s just that I had been sort of hoping to ask Allison to go with me,’ said Harry trying to sound as casual as possible, but when Theodore’s eyes widened with realization he quickly added. ‘But-it’s-not-a-big-deal-or-anything, I’ll-find-someone-else-to-ask-and—‘

‘Oh Harry! How could I have been so blind! You got that hots for Allison!’

And that was when the vulturelike countenance of Madam Pince came running into their isle, her sunken cheeks, her skin like parchment, and her long hooked nose illuminated unflatteringly by the lamp she was carrying.

‘Stop this nonsensical yelling. The library is now closed,’ she said. ‘Mind you return anything you have borrowed to the correct—what have you been doing to that book, you depraved boy?’

‘It isn’t the library’s, it’s mine!’ said Harry hastily, snatching his copy of Advanced Potion-Making off the table as she lunged at it with a claw-like hand.

‘Despoiled!’ she hissed. ‘Desecrated! Befouled!’

‘It’s just a book that’s been written on!’ said Harry, tugging it out of her grip.

She looked as though she might have a seizure; Theodore, who had hastily put his books back on their shelves and packed up his notes, grabbed Harry by the arm and frog-marched him away.

‘I think you’ve done it, you’ll be the first person I know who’s been banned from this library,’ he said laughing as they slowly started making their way back to the Slytherin Dungeon. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have brought your book where it could be mistaken for one of hers.’

‘It’s not my fault she’s barking mad, Theodore. Or d’you think she overheard you being rude about Filch earlier? I’ve always thought there might be something going on between them…’

‘Ha ha ha, very funny,’ said Theodore still smiling. ‘Speaking of something going on between people, when did you realize you fancied Allison?’

‘Well, I never said I did…’

‘Oh there is no more use denying it, I’ve seen the way you look at her I just didn’t figure it out until now.’

‘Ok, fine, yes, I like her,’ said Harry, and Theodore practically squealed like Tracey sometimes did. ‘Remember that night in our dormitory where you were describing that the scents from Amortentia could represent people we are attracted too, well I realized there that the Aloe Vera I smelled represented Allison. It all kind of hit me like a stun spell after that.’

‘That was all the way back in September, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I didn’t want anyone to really know. If things went bad it could ruin all four of our friendships. I was planning on asking Allison, but if she said no I was going to never bring it up again.’

Theodore took a moment to process this. Harry could see him calculating all the potential outcomes in his head. Slowly he then responded.

‘I think it is still worth a try asking her out. Do you want me to tell her I’m not going to the party anymore so that you can ask her to be your date?’

‘No, if you tell her you don’t need her as a date anymore that might put her in a bad mood and then she might not want to listen to me when I try to ask her. She’s going with you as a friend, so I can just hang out with her once we’re there.’

Harry was being evasive when it came to dealing with his feelings for Allison and taking the step to asking her out, he was also pretty sure Theodore realized that as well, but perhaps from being tired after a long day he didn’t not argue with Harry about it.

‘Alright, well you should still invite someone to go with you, that’ll hopefully stop the attempts of dosing you with love potion,’ suggested Theodore.

‘But if not Allison, then who do I ask?’

‘You seem really fixated on the idea the person you bring you have to be romantically attracted too, you can bring a friend. Just make sure to pick someone that will know you mean it as a friend, and that Allison won’t mistake as a romantic date. Ask someone you’re very specific just friends with. I’d say Hermione Granger or Tracey, but Hermione’s already going to be there and even to help you out I doubt Tracey would break her no Slughorn rule.’

‘Yeah, Tracey would stick out like a sore thumb, being practically the only non-teachers pet there?’

‘When you say nearly everyone in the Slugclub is a teachers pet, you weren’t including me, were you?’ asked Theodore, dramatically putting his hand over his mouth in surprise shock.

Harry have him a gentle shoulder bump, ‘Oh no, I was definitely including you.’

Enjoying the fact that they could speak normally again, they made their way along the deserted, lamp-lit corridors back towards the common room, joking about whether or not Filch and Madam Pince were secretly in love with each other.

As they entered the Entrance Hall there were still some people lingering, so Harry didn’t notice her until she was physically blocking the entryway to the Dungeons.

‘Hi, Harry!’ said Romilda Vane, the moment Harry was about to walk past her to start descending the stone stairs. ‘Fancy a gillywater? I just came from the kitchen and accidentally got two.’

Theodore gave him a “remember-what-I-told-you!” look over her shoulder.

‘No thanks,’ said Harry quickly. ‘I don’t like it much.’

‘Well, take these anyway,’ said Romilda, thrusting a box into his hands. ‘Chocolate Cauldrons, they’ve got firewhisky in them. My gran sent them to me, but I don’t like them.’

‘Oh—right—thanks a lot,’ said Harry, who could not think what else to say. ‘Er—I got to get to my House…’

He hurried down the stone steps with Theodore laughing right behind him.

‘I warned you,’ he said as he began to calm down. Better ask someone quick or else she’ll just keep piling you up with tainted goods. Speaking of which, hand me those.’

And so when they reached a landing Theodore put the package of Chocolate Cauldrons on the ground and took out his wand.

‘Incendio Duo!’ and with a jet of green flames from his wand the chocolates and their contents were incinerated.

Harry went to bed comforting himself that there was only one more day of lessons to struggle through, plus Slughorn’s party, after which he, Canini, and Theodore would depart all together for Mould-On-The-Wood Cottage. It was going to likely be an emotional roller coaster of a Christmas Holiday without Sirius, but Harry was still looking forward to it.

With less than twelve hours to go it now seemed impossible that Harry would be able to find someone to go with him to Slughorn’s party. He asked Canini at breakfast, but she had to politely decline as she and her three best friends already had their own. Still, perhaps he would find someone by the end of the day…

But his hopes were not high, and they continued to sink as the day went on. He then had to endure an awkward Transfiguration lesson. They had just embarked upon the immensely difficult topic of human Transfiguration; working in front of mirrors, they were supposed to be changing the color of their own eyebrows. Harry had been attempting to perform the spell with the help of Tracey, but because distracted when Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger seemed to be having an odd row that ended with Ron doing a cruel but accurate impression of Hermione jumping up and down in her seat every time Professor McGonagall asked a question, which caused Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil to laugh quite shrilly in the direction of Hermione. This left her on the verge of tears and she raced out of the classroom on the bell, leaving half her things behind.

Harry knew that besides Ron, Hermione’s closest friends were Neville, Ginny, Colin, and Luna, none of which were in this class. While he wasn’t super close with Hermione he did consider her a friend, so he told his friends not to wait up, scooped up her remaining possessions and followed her so that he could return them.

He finally tracked her down as she emerged from a girls’ bathroom on the floor below. She was accompanied by Luna Lovegood, who was patting her vaguely on the back.

‘Oh, hello, Harry,’ said Luna. ‘Did you know one of your eyebrows is bright yellow?’

‘Hi, Luna. Hermione, you left your stuff…’

He held out her books.

‘Oh yes,’ said Hermione in a choked voice, taking her things and turning away quickly to hide the fact that she was wiping her eyes on her pencil case. ‘Thank you, Harry. Well, I’d better get going…’

And she hurried off, without giving Harry any time to offer words of comfort, though admittedly he could not think of any.

‘She’s a bit upset,’ said Luna. ‘I thought at first it was Moaning Myrtle in there, but it turned out to be Hermione. She said something about that Ron Weasley…’

‘Yeah, I think they’ve had a row,’ said Harry.

‘He says very funny things sometimes, doesn’t he?’ said Luna, as they set off down the corridor together. ‘But he can be a bit unkind. I noticed that last year.’

‘I s’pose,’ said Harry. Luna was demonstrating her usual knack of speaking uncomfortable truths; he had never met anyone quite like her. ‘So have you had a good term?’

‘Oh, it’s been all right,’ said Luna. ‘A bit lonely without the D.A. Ginny’s been nice, though. She stopped two boys in our Transfiguration class calling me “Loony” the other day—‘

‘How would you like to come to Slughorn’s party with me tonight?’

The words were out of Harry’s mouth before he realised what he was saying; they just sort of popped out.

Luna turned her protuberant eyes upon him in surprise. ‘Slughorn’s party? With you?’

‘Yeah,’ said Harry. ‘We’re supposed to bring guests, so I thought you might like…I mean…’ He was keen to make his intentions perfectly clear. ‘I mean, just as friends, you know. But if you don’t want to…’

He would probably enjoy going with Luna, but he was now getting embarrassed from blurting the question out and fumbling over his words.

‘Oh, no, I’d love to go with you as friends!’ said Luna, beaming as he had never seen her beam before. ‘Nobody’s ever asked me to a party before, as a friend! Is that why you dyed your eyebrow, for the party? Should I do mine too?’

‘No,’ said Harry firmly, ‘that was part of my Transformation project, though I’m not entirely sure how to change it back so I’ll probably have to get Theodore or Tracey’s help. So, I’ll meet you in the entrance hall at eight o’clock then.’

‘AHA!’ screamed a voice from overhead and both of them jumped; unnoticed by either of them, they had just passed right underneath Peeves, who was hanging upside down from a chandelier and grinning maliciously at them.

‘Potty asked Loony to go to the party! Potty lurves Loony! Potty luuuuurves Looooooony!’

And he zoomed away, cackling and shrieking, ‘Potty loves Loony!’

‘Nice to keep these things private,’ said Harry. And sure enough, in no time at all the whole school seemed to know that Harry Potter was taking Luna Lovegood to Slughorn’s party.

‘Well, going with Luna will certainly be…interesting,’ said Tracey during supper.

‘She fought with us in the Ministry, I thought its best I ask someone I can trust rather than someone like Romilda Vane,’ Harry had told them act the previous nights attempted love potion spiking.

‘Her hair is rather a nice shade of blonde, and she is really kind, I’m sure she’ll be a lovely, er, guest,’ said Allison, seemingly choosing her words carefully. ‘And I was talking to her earlier, she seems so excited.’

‘Yes, it’ll be nice to have so many friends there,’ said Harry, emphasizing the word “friends”, to hopefully counteract the humour Peeves spread to the entire school. He didn’t want Allison to think he was dating someone else. ‘Maybe with enough allies it’ll be able to tolerate Slughorn’s constant attention.’

‘Did you remember to pack your dress robes at the end of the summer?’ asked Theodore. ‘I didn’t see them out earlier.’

‘I did, I just didn’t want to take them out in case one of our roommates decides to redecorate it,’ said Harry. ‘I have been using the Anti-Alohomora Charm on my trunk everyday just incase.’

‘Might need to be steamed then if they’ve been folded up, or most likely crumpled into a ball for over three months,’ Harry thought Theodore was making fun of him, but he then leaned closer and added, ‘you’ll want to look your best tonight.’

Harry hadn’t really considered this, so when he finished eating he ended up spending more time than he would have thought getting ready for the party. He put on his bottle green dress robes and tried his best to flatten his untidy Harry. He now wished he had some of his grandfather’s Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, but normally he didn’t care much about what his hair looked like so he didn’t buy any when he was in Diagon Alley. Theodore finished getting ready before Harry and headed up to the party, leaving Harry to finish getting ready on his own.

When he arrived in the entrance hall at eight o’clock that night, he found an unusually large number of girls lurking there, all of whom seemed to be staring at him resentfully as he approached Luna. She was wearing a set of spangled silver robes that were attracting a certain amount of giggles from the onlookers, but otherwise she looked quite nice. Harry was glad, in any case, that she had left off her radish earrings, her butterbeer cork necklace, and her Spectrespecs.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Shall we get going then?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said happily. ‘Where is the party?’

‘Slughorn’s office,’ said Harry, leading her up the marble staircase away from all the staring and muttering. ‘Did you hear, there’s supposed to be a vampire coming?’

‘Rufus Scrimgeour?’ asked Luna.

‘I—what?’ said Harry, disconcerted. ‘You mean the Minister of Magic?’

‘Yes, he’s a vampire,’ said Luna matter-of-factly. ‘Father wrote a very long article about it when Scrimgeour first took over from Cornelius Fudge, but he was forced not to publish by somebody from the Ministry. Obviously, they didn’t want the truth to get out!’

Harry, who thought it most unlikely that Rufus Scrimgeour was a vampire, but who was used to Luna repeating her father’s bizarre views as though they were fact, did not reply; they were already approaching Slughorn’s office and the sounds of laughter, music, and loud conversation were growing louder with every step they took.

Whether it had been built that way, or because he had used magical trickery to make it so, Slughorn’s office was much larger than the usual teacher’s study. The ceiling and walls had been draped with emerald, crimson, and gold hangings, so that it looked as though they were all inside a vast Christmas themed tent. The room was crowded and stuffy and bathed in the red light cast by an ornate golden lamp dangling from the center of the ceiling in which real fairies were fluttering, each a brilliant speck of light. Loud singing accompanied by what sounded like mandolins issued from a distant corner; a haze of pipe smoke hung over several elderly warlocks deep in conversation, and a number of house-elves were negotiating their way squeakily through the forest of knees, obscured by the heavy silver platters of food they were bearing, so that they looked like little roving tables.

‘Harry, m’boy!’ boomed Slughorn, almost as soon as Harry and Luna had squeezed in through the door. ‘Come in, come in, so many people I’d like you to meet!’

Slughorn was wearing a tasseled velvet hat to match his smoking jacket. Gripping Harry’s arm so tightly he might have been hoping to Disapparate with him, Slughorn led him purposefully into the party; Harry seized Luna’s hand and dragged her along with him.

‘Harry, I’d like you to meet Eldred Worple, an old student of mine, author of Blood Brothers: My Life Amongst the Vampires—and, of course, his friend Sanguini.’

Worple, who was a small, stout, bespectacled man, grabbed Harry’s hand and shook it enthusiastically; the vampire Sanguini, who was tall and emaciated with dark shadows under his eyes, merely nodded. He looked rather bored. A gaggle of girls was standing close to him, looking curious and excited.

‘Harry Potter, I am simply delighted!’ said Worple, peering shortsightedly up into Harry’s face. ‘I was saying to Professor Slughorn only the other day, “Where is the biography of Harry Potter for which we have all been waiting?”’

‘Er,’ said Harry, ‘were you?’

‘Just as modest as Horace described!’ said Worple. ‘But seriously’—his manner changed; it became suddenly businesslike—I would be delighted to write it myself—people are craving to know more about you, dear boy, craving! If you were prepared to grant me a few interviews, say in four-or five-hour sessions, why, we could have the book finished within months. And all with very little effort on your part, I assure you—ask Sanguini here if it isn’t quite—Sanguini, stay here!’ added Worple, suddenly stern, for the vampire had been edging toward the nearby group of girls, a rather hungry look in his eye. ‘Here, have a pasty,’ said Worple, seizing one from a passing elf and stuffing it into Sanguini’s hand before turning his attention back to Harry.

‘My dear boy, the gold you could make, you have no idea—‘

‘I’m definitely not interested,’ said Harry firmly, ‘and I’ve just seen some friends of mine, sorry.’

He pulled Luna after him into the crowd; he had indeed just seen the tips of some spiky black hair with a red headband, and slicked back dark brown hair disappear between Professor Camelia and what looked like Weird Sisters’ member Donaghan Tremlett. As he continued towards his friends he made a mental note to tell Nymphadora about seeing him later, as she was a big fan of Weird Sisters.

‘Hey! Theodore! Allis-woah…’

As Harry caught up with his friends he became speechless at Allison’s appearance. She was wearing a single sleeved knee length dress that began as black at the top and faded into red by the end of the skirt. On the sleeve and waist it also had large silvery snowflakes that complimented Allison’s several silver ear piercings. She had replaced her round silver nose stud with a small black gem that matched the top half of her dress well. Finally both Allison and Theodore had glittery white double liner around their eyes that complimented Theodore’s blueish-grey eyes while making Allison’s ocean blue eyes absolutely sparkle.

Slug Club Christmas party

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