Chapter 104

Chapter 104

At Sunday breakfast, Hagrid sent an owl with a note scrawled in a sprawling hand–“Got everything yeh wanted–Hagrid.”

“Thank you so much, Hagrid.” Suer thanked him while checking the ingredients and placing them one by one into a small cloth bag fitted with an Extension Charm.

Fang panted and drooled beside him, a hopeful look in his beady eyes. He thought the entire pile was food.

“Ha ha, I was lucky. Found the lot in one shop,” Hagrid said with a hearty laugh.

“Didn’t go ter the match yesterday. How did it turn out?”

“Gryffindor won.” Suer put the final item into the bag. “But Harry broke his arm.”

“What happened?” Hagrid looked worried. “What did Madam Pomfrey say?”

Suer gave Hagrid a full account of the previous day’s events, including Lockhart taking it upon himself to treat Harry and managing to remove all the bones from his arm.

“He’s a great fool!” Hagrid was furious, as expected. “I don’t understand it. There are so many outstanding wizards in the magical world, and Dumbledore invited him.”

Suer shrugged in complete agreement.

“Madam Pomfrey will heal Harry.”

After joining Hagrid in a fierce denunciation of the undeserving Lockhart, Suer picked up his little bag and left Hagrid’s hut.

“Where are you taking me?” Hermione nimbly hopped over a step that abruptly vanished and gave the secretive Suer a puzzled look, a bulging bag containing her cauldron slung over her shoulder.

He had interrupted her just as she was about to light a fire and begin brewing Polyjuice Potion in the little room behind the portrait on the second floor.

“If you want to brew Polyjuice Potion, that room may not be the safest place.”

“Fred and George might have told any number of people where it is.”

“Come with me. I know a good place. No one will find it.”

But no matter how many questions Hermione asked, Suer remained mysterious and refused to explain.

She could only puff out her cheeks and follow him to the eighth floor.

“I know.” Hermione’s eyes lit up as she studied the familiar decorations. “This is where I lost track of you last year.”

“Is there a little room behind one of the portraits here?”

“Something like that.” Suer nodded. “But it is far more magical than you imagine.”

Marvelling at Hermione’s quick mind, Suer led her to a halt before the tapestry of a troll clubbing Barnabas the Barmy.

I need a room where I can brew potions without being disturbed, Suer repeated silently as he walked back and forth past the tapestry three times.

Hermione watched in astonishment as a doorway slowly materialised in the blank wall opposite the tapestry.

Suer stepped forwards, grasped the handle and pushed the door open. Then, with one hand behind his back, he released the handle and swept his other arm towards the entrance. Looking at the wide-eyed Hermione, he said,

“Welcome to the Room of Requirement.”

The Room of Requirement had provided the perfect space. Cauldrons of every shape stood on shelves, alongside a brazier, a long workbench and all manner of glass vessels. Every piece of equipment needed for brewing potions was present. It had even thoughtfully supplied a number of books on potion-making, though they had been piled haphazardly to one side.

Beyond these, there was an empty little rack meant to hold completed potions.

“This is incredible,” Hermione exclaimed. The doorway vanished as soon as she entered. She reached out to touch it, but found nothing except a blank wall.
“This must be the most secret place in the castle.”

“How did you find it?” Hermione looked at Suer in delight.

“Er…” Suer obviously could not tell her the knowledge came from memories of his previous life, so he invented an excuse. “I found it by chance. I got lost on the eighth floor, and then…”

“So you’ve known for ages that there was such a magical place here?” Hermione’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Of course.” Suer had not noticed the change in her expression. He smiled smugly. “I found it last year…”

“Then why didn’t you tell me last year?”

Oh, no. Hermione was upset.

“Let me explain,” Suer said with remarkable speed and perfect sincerity.

“Hmph.” Hermione put her bag on the workbench and regarded him with her large eyes. “Go on, then. Let’s hear how you talk your way out of this.”

“Ah…” Suer’s eyes darted about. “Of course I thought of you the moment I saw it. I was going to tell you at once, but I was preparing your present at the time. I made that scarf in here.”

“Besides, I discovered I wasn’t the only one who knew about it. Last year’s Defence Against the Dark Arts professor did too.”

“You know, he…”

“…”

Suer’s explanation clearly soothed Hermione’s wounded feelings. She gave a soft huff and began taking from her bag the potion ingredients she had found an opportunity to remove from the student stores.

“Oh, that’s right. Hagrid bought the boomslang skin.” Suer took a bottle from his bag and shook it gently. A thin skin covered in tiny scales floated in the liquid.

“Brilliant. Now all we need is the bicorn horn.” Hermione inspected the neatly arranged ingredients. “There’s plenty here. We can afford to make mistakes several times.”

“The bicorn horn can be ready whenever we need it. Let’s complete the early stages first,” Suer said. He would visit Hagrid again in a few days. Surely Hagrid would not refuse to let him grind off a little powder.

“A whole treated skin like this can’t have been cheap, can it?” Hermione arranged the containers in the order in which the book instructed her to add the ingredients.

“It doesn’t matter. Harry is filthy rich. He can afford it.” Suer shrugged, drew his wand and lit the flame beneath the cauldron.

“Speaking of Harry, I wonder how he is.” Hermione kept adding ingredients to the cauldron as she spoke, worry in her voice.

“As long as Harry isn’t dead, Madam Pomfrey can always bring him back. He may have left the hospital wing already.” Suer tore the knotgrass into pieces and handed it to Hermione, comforting her.

“His bones were only missing, after all.”

While the two of them prepared ingredients in the Room of Requirement, Harry had already walked out of the hospital wing in one piece. Madam Pomfrey’s potion was extremely effective, and the missing bones had grown back overnight.

After Harry ate breakfast in the ward, Madam Pomfrey released him.

Once outside the hospital wing, he hurried back and forth through the castle, looking everywhere.

Something as yet unknown to everyone else had happened the night before. He desperately wanted to share the information he had overheard by accident with his friends.

But Harry wandered the castle for ages without finding any sign of Suer or the others.