Isolation Tricks
Chapter Three
As in celebration of my 18th birthday yesterday and late celebration of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, I give you chapter three a little early. No worries of spoilers because I’m still going with my original ideas.
--Chapter Three--
“Ron! Hermione!” Harry’s face flushed scarlet as he pushed Draco away and stood on unsteady feet.
“Harry,” Hermione began calmly, “Is there something you would like to explain to us?” She asked.
“Well, you see…” Harry began, trailing off slightly.
“He put a spell on you didn’t he?” Ron interrupted angrily. “You bastard ferret! How dare you do that to Harry!” Ron shouted as he charged at Draco.
Harry stepped in front of him. He pushed to keep Ron from reaching Draco.
“He didn’t put a spell on me Ron. Please calm down.” Harry pleaded. Hermione came up and helped get Ron away.
“Then what Harry? Is it blackmail? Did he threaten you?”
“Ron be quiet.” Hermione demanded. “Let Harry explain it himself.”
“What’s wrong Weasel?” Draco said suddenly with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “Mad because I got him first?”
“Draco!” Harry and Hermione doubled their efforts to keep Ron from attempting to rearrange Draco’s face. “Why don’t you go put on a shirt?” Harry half asked, half demanded.
“Fine, I wouldn’t want the commoners ogling me too much.” Draco said as he strode into the bedroom. As he disappeared, Harry and Hermione slowly let go of Ron.
“Harry what is going on?” Ron asked. “Less than a month ago, you were trying to kill each other and now we find the two of you making out on a writing desk.”
“Calm down Ron,” Hermione said, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation to what we saw. It’s not like they’ve gone all the way.” Hermione said looking to Harry.
Harry blushed and avoid any eye contact with his friends.
“Oh Harry,” Hermione said accusingly.
“It’s not my fault.” Harry replied meekly. “I couldn’t help it.”
“So it was a spell.” Ron moved to go after Draco again but Harry stopped him.
“No it wasn’t a spell. It was a potion that we both took.”
“You both took a potion before this developed?” Hermione questioned. “What was the name of it?”
“I don’t know. Snape gave it to us in an assignment but we couldn’t read it clearly. I think we added the wrong ingredients.”
“Why’s that?”
“I looked them up and they were mostly… aphrodisiacs.” Harry flushed at their stares. “I thought the effects would have gone away by now but they haven’t.”
“Harry can you give me the ingredients page for this potion?” Hermione asked after a second.
“Sure.” Harry went to the desk and shuffled through parchment until he found the right one. “What are you going to do?” He gave Hermione the parchment.
“I think I’ve heard of a potion like this.” She answered. “Come on Ron, we’re going to the library.”
“Why do I have to go?” Ron whined.
“Because I need your help. You don’t expect me to be able to go through all those books quickly by myself do you?” Without waiting for an answer, Hermione grabbed hold of Ron’s ear and dragged him through the portrait hole.
“Ow ow ow Hermione stop.” Ron rubbed his abused ear as soon as Hermione released it. He continued to follow her, mostly to spare the rest of his body any more pain.
“Please don’t tell me we’re going to the library.” Ron whined. Hermione rolled her eyes and kept walking.
“Yes Ron we are going to the library. Something was familiar about that potion and I am going to figure out what it was. For Harry’s sake.”
They entered the library and Hermione pushed Ron into a chair while she went I search of books. Once her arms were full of potions books, Hermione put them on the table and sat opposite of Ron.
“These,” Hermione began, pulling out the parchment Harry had given her, “are the ingredients and instructions to the potion Harry and Malfoy drank before their little…development. Look through the books until you find a potion that matches it exactly.”
“But Hermione, that’ll take forever.” Ron said looking at the stack of books.
“Do you want to help Harry or not?”
“Of course I want to help Harry.”
“Then get your nose in those books and look.” Hermione demanded, not looking at Ron as she grabbed a book. Ron groaned and grabbed a book himself.
Ron and Hermione looked through the first half the stack without any luck. Hermione searched in a book of love and desire potions before she came across one that looked familiar.
“Ron let me see the parchment.” She said holding her hand out. Ron handed it to her.
“Did you find it?” He asked, abandoning his book to come around and look at hers.
“I might have.” Hermione looked over the potion in the book and the potion written on the parchment in her hand. “Yes, yes. This is it.” She said excitedly. “This is the potion that’s making Harry and Malfoy act so odd.” Hermione quickly began to copy the facts and background of the potion before she stood. “Come on, we’ve got to tell Harry. This may very well change his life.”
--Not much of a chapter but it’s just a filler to get the plot moving along. Can you guess what the potion is? I promise the next chapter will be better and hopefully longer.--