But Slughorn had gone. Disappointed, Harry emptied the cauldron, packed up his things, left the dungeon, and walked slowly back upstairs to the common room.

Ron and Hermione returned in the late afternoon.

“Harry!” cried Hermione as she climbed through the portrait hole. “Harry, I passed!”

“Well done!” he said. “And Ron?”

“He—he just failed,” whispered Hermione, as Ron came slouching into the room looking most morose. “It was really unlucky, a tiny thing, the examiner just spotted that he’d left half an eyebrow behind… How did it go with Slughorn?”

“No joy,” said Harry, as Ron joined them. “Bad luck, mate, but you’ll pass next time—we can take it together.”

“Yeah, I s’pose,” said Ron grumpily. “But half an eyebrow—like that matters!”

“I know,” said Hermione soothingly, “it does seem really harsh…”

They spent most of their dinner roundly abusing the Apparition examiner, and Ron looked fractionally more cheerful by the time they set off back to the common room, now discussing the continuing problem of Slughorn and the memory.

“So, Harry—you going to use the Felix Felicis or what?” Ron demanded.

“Yeah, I s’pose I’d better,” said Harry. “I don’t reckon I’ll need all of it, not twenty-four hours’ worth, it can’t take all night… I’ll just take a mouthful. Two or three hours should do it.”

“It’s a great feeling when you take it,” said Ron reminiscently. “Like you can’t do anything wrong.”

“What are you talking about?” said Hermione, laughing. “You’ve never taken any!”

“Yeah, but I thought I had, didn’t I?” said Ron, as though explaining the obvious. “Same difference really…”

As they had only just seen Slughorn enter the Great Hall and knew that he liked to take time over meals, they lingered for a while in the common room, the plan being that Harry should go to Slughorn’s office once the teacher had had time to get back there. When the sun had sunk to the level of the treetops in the Forbidden Forest, they decided the moment had come, and after checking carefully that Neville, Dean, and Seamus were all in the common room, sneaked up to the boys’ dormitory.

Harry took out the rolled-up socks at the bottom of his trunk and extracted the tiny, gleaming bottle.

“Well, here goes,” said Harry, and he raised the little bottle and look a carefully measured gulp.

“What does it feel like?” whispered Hermione.

Harry did not answer for a moment. Then, slowly but surely, an exhilarating sense of infinite opportunity stole through him; he felt as though he could have done anything, anything at all… and getting the memory from Slughorn seemed suddenly not only possible, but positively easy…

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Malfoy, on the other hand, did not crack a smile.	\|	He got to his feet, smiling, brimming with confidence.

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