Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

“Do we really need to use Felix Felicis?” Harry hesitated. The thought of that little golden bottle had hovered on the edges of his imagination for some time; vague and unformulated plans had been fermenting in the depths of his brain, unacknowledged except during dreams or the twilight time between sleeping and waking. …

These plans involved Ginny splitting up with Dean, and everyone being happy to see her with a new boyfriend.

A boyfriend that everyone could accept and support, a boyfriend that the Weasleys and Ginny’s brothers could identify with, a boyfriend who had always been close to her, who had grown up around her and suddenly started seeing her in a different light, a boyfriend who could hold her like a big brother but also be something more. A boyfriend named Harry Potter…

Yeah, Harry was imagining himself as Ginny’s new boyfriend.

But the idea of confessing his feelings to her by his own effort felt far too daunting — he needed a little help from Liquid Luck.

Just like how Polyjuice Potion helped Ron cope with stress, potions could sometimes have miraculous effects.

Some things could only be done with the help of potions — things that ordinary spells could never achieve. Like becoming luckier, more likely to win someone’s heart, turning into someone else entirely, or even changing a boy’s appearance into that of a girl…

Harry had originally planned to save the Felix Felicis for this time, but it was also important to get the memory from Slughorn.

After getting a positive answer from Evan, he weighed his options and finally nodded.

“Okay, I’ll bring some Felix Felicis this afternoon, just in case we need it.”

In the afternoon Potions class, because all students who were seventeen years old before April 21st had gone to take the Apparition Test, the huge underground classroom seemed very empty, with only four students: Evan, Harry, Ernie and Draco Malfoy.

“All too young to Apparate just yet?” said Slughorn genially. “Not turned seventeen yet?”

The three shook their heads, and Evan naturally didn’t need to, he was not even sixteen yet.

Harry, Ernie, and Malfoy were all born between late April and September. Among the sixth-year students in Slughorn’s Potions class, they were the youngest, because any wizard who hadn’t turned eleven by September 1st would had been placed in the following school year.

“Ah well,” said Slughorn cheerily, “as we’re so few, let’s not bother with the textbook today. We’ll do something fun. I want you all to brew me up something amusing!”

“That sounds good, sir,” said Ernie sycophantically, rubbing his hands together. Malfoy, on the other hand, did not crack a smile.

“What do you mean, ‘something amusing’?” he said irritably.

“Oh, surprise me,” said Slughorn airily. “Whatever, any potion will do, the one you are best at or the one you’ve always wanted to try brewing, well, it’s better if it’s the formula you have improved yourself, and it can be interesting to me.”

Malfoy opened his copy of Advanced Potion-Making with a sulky expression. It could not have been plainer that he thought this lesson was a waste of time. He was begrudging the time he could otherwise be spending in the Room of Requirement.

Harry had been watching Malfoy closely the whole time, and Malfoy shot him a glare full of loathing.

He must have known clearly that it was Harry and Ron who turned into those two girls last time, no, they turned into Goyle and Crabbe to get information from him, knowing that Harry had discovered that he was secretly doing something shady in the Room of Requirement.

Maybe this made him anxious, or like Ron, he was under a lot of pressure, because he now, like Tonks, looked thinner.

He looked paler; his skin still had that grayish tinge, probably because he so rarely saw daylight these days.

Hiding away in that junk room day after day to repair the Vanishing Cabinet was no light work — especially when the magic required was already beyond Malfoy’s current skill level, and he had to do it under the looming pressure of Voldemort. He was making little progress.

Evan could sense that clearly from Malfoy. Maybe he needed some Polyjuice Potion to help with the stress too.

With that thought, Evan decided to brew some — his modified version of Polyjuice Potion.

Because of frequent use, Polyjuice Potion was one of the potions Evan brewed the most, and he had also done a lot of research and improvement.

Normal Polyjuice Potion required twenty-one days of brewing, but after repeated experimentation, Evan had discovered that using the saliva of a boomslang and common python skin could replace the boomslang’s skin, significantly shortening the brewing time.

This resulted in a version of the potion that only lasted for one to three minutes, but the brewing process was much simpler and faster.

Evan called this new version “Metamorph Potion,” and he was planning to promote it at Fred and George’s shop. It wasn’t suitable for long-term disguise, but it was great for pranks or other fun uses.

Evan decided to brew the Metamorph Potion today. He was confident Slughorn would be surprised.

Next to him, Harry skimmed through his copy of Advanced Potion-Making and found a heavily corrected Half-Blood Prince’s version of “An Elixir to Induce Euphoria,” which seemed not only to meet Slughorn’s instructions, but which might put Slughorn into such a good mood that he would be prepared to hand over that memory if Harry could persuade him to taste some.

That was what the description claimed, anyway, and Harry was hopeful. If it worked, he wouldn’t need to use Felix Felicis.

And if it really did work, he could save that precious potion for something else he wanted even more.

Sure enough, an hour and a half later, Slughorn was amazed at the potions that Evan and Harry had brewed.

“Well, now, this looks absolutely wonderful,” Slughorn said as he approached Harry first, clapping his hands together as he stared down into the sunshine yellow contents of Harry’s cauldron. “Euphoria, I take it? And what’s that I smell? Mmmm … you’ve added just a sprig of peppermint, haven’t you? Unorthodox, but what a stroke of inspiration, Harry, of course, that would tend to counterbalance the occasional side effects of excessive singing and nose-tweaking. … I really don’t know where you get these brain waves, my boy … unless —”

Harry hurriedly and guiltily pushed the Half-Blood Prince’s book deeper into his bag with his foot to keep it out of sight.

“— it’s just your mother’s genes coming out in you!”

“Oh … yeah, maybe,” said Harry, relieved.

“Well, let’s see what Evan has made,” Perhaps because of the effect of the Elixir to Induce Euphoria, Slughorn’s interest was obviously much higher. He came to Evan’s side and stared at his cauldron. “Hmm, this kind of bubbles, this kind of color, my God, this can’t be Polyjuice Potion? Impossible, only an hour and a half has passed, it’s impossible to make Polyjuice Potion.”

“You can try, sir!” said Evan, and he threw a strand of his hair into the cauldron.

Before their eyes, the potion rapidly turned a pale blue…

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