Ch 123
"Harry, I think I know where Hagrid is," Ron said with a serious expression.
"What?" Harry blurted out in shock, his voice rising before he could stop himself.
Madam Pince shot him a razor-sharp glare from behind the desk, her eyes full of warning.
The two of them immediately lowered their heads.
They really had no choice but to come to the library and study properly. The semester was almost over, yet they hadn't fully mastered many of their subjects. There were plenty of reasons for this. Gryffindor's Quidditch team had undergone intense extra training to fight for the Cup, which had eaten up most of their free time. On top of that, Sirius's repeated intrusions had left the entire school on edge.
Those were the objective reasons.
As for the subjective ones—aside from a handful of terrifyingly self-disciplined students, who hadn't crammed desperately before exams? It was like dancing on the edge of a blade. Only when the deadline loomed did efficiency suddenly skyrocket.
Harry had just been forcing himself to memorize the formula for the Shrinking Potion when Ron interrupted him with news about Hagrid.
"What happened to him? Where is he?" Harry asked urgently, snapping his book shut.
"My dad mentioned him in a letter," Ron said, lowering his voice further. As he spoke, Madam Pince's sunken eyes fixed on them again, as though they had committed some unforgivable crime.
"He said he saw our big friend," Ron whispered, slipping the letter across the table.
"But he had no idea how worried we've been about Hagrid," Ron added with a sigh. Arthur Weasley had only mentioned it in passing—just a casual remark.
From his father's point of view, it was nothing important. And Ron, not knowing the full situation at school, had been too embarrassed to explain that his own mistake might have dragged Hagrid into trouble.
Harry skimmed the letter, then suddenly looked up.
"Ron… you didn't finish reading this, did you?"
"Huh?" Ron blinked. "At the end he's usually just lecturing me, telling me to learn from my brothers. He never means Fred and George, of course—they give him more headaches than I do. I usually skip that part."
"But this time," Harry said quietly, handing the letter back, "it's different."
Ron frowned and read the last paragraph carefully.
At the bottom, Arthur Weasley had written:
> "I don't really want to complain about work to you, but I should tell you this: if you don't want to be pushed around in the future, you have to work hard now so you won't have to depend on other people's moods.
You'd never believe it—Foggy has actually pulled Lucius Malfoy into the Ministry. I can't believe he's become my colleague.
They say he's registered with the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
Merlin knows how much gold he donated. Luckily, we're not in the same department. Otherwise, I can't imagine what work would be like every day."
Ron's face darkened.
"That's… definitely not good news."
The image of Lucius Malfoy surfaced in his mind—pale blond hair, cold gray-blue eyes, and that sharp, aristocratic face. None of their past encounters with him had ever ended pleasantly.
"Read it again," Harry urged, pointing at the paragraph.
Ron reread it slowly. Then his eyes widened.
"Committee for Dangerous Creatures… Magical Creatures Control…" Ron sucked in a breath. "He's targeting Hagrid!"
"Exactly," Harry said quickly. "Last semester he even tried to impeach Dumbledore and failed. Now he's seized the perfect opportunity. We all know Hagrid is Dumbledore's man.
If Lucius can pin something on Hagrid—anything he can exploit—it'll be a direct blow to Dumbledore's reputation. Then he can make a huge fuss out of it."
Ron clenched his fist angrily.
"What about Hermione? Where is she? She'll definitely know what to do!"
Harry shook his head. "I haven't seen her outside of classes all month. She's even busier than usual. I accidentally saw her timetable—she'd written two classes at the same time."
Ron stared at him.
"You think she's learned a spell to split herself in two?"
"If I had that spell," Ron muttered jealously, "I'd send one body to class and the other off to have fun. She's using both of hers just to study."
"Either way, we need to find her," Harry said firmly. "Now."
---
The person they were looking for was currently in the second-floor girls' bathroom.
Hermione stood alone before a cauldron, carefully brewing a potion.
"Today is the last day," she whispered to herself, forcing her trembling hands to steady.
This time, she had no helpers. Everything depended on her alone.
Well—not entirely alone.
Moaning Myrtle hovered on top of one of the toilets, watching Hermione's precise movements with rapt attention. She had been observing Hermione brew potions here for almost a month now.
Hermione always spoke to her kindly, always praised her, and that made Myrtle strangely happy. So she had decided to keep Hermione's secret.
She still remembered second year, when this girl had rushed into danger without hesitation for the sake of her classmates.
Maybe she was facing something just as difficult now.
Myrtle, for all her gloom, was a soft-hearted ghost.
"I'll keep quiet," she muttered to herself.
"Next… wormwood juice," Hermione murmured.
She had found that quietly talking herself through each step helped her stay calm and avoid mistakes.
The dark green liquid in the cauldron, which had been boiling violently moments before, gradually settled. It was as if raging waves had finally exhausted themselves and returned to stillness. The sharp, choking smell faded, and the color slowly drained away until the potion became clear and transparent.
Colorless. Odorless.
Those were the defining traits of Veritaserum.
Hermione stared at the liquid, her reflection faintly visible on its surface.
The wizard who had invented this potion had done so for a single purpose—to steal the truth from others, silently and mercilessly.