𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚍 𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝙿𝙾𝚅

☞ 𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲, 6𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫, 1996

Since term started again, and Hogwarts once again opened its doors to pupils from across the Great Britain and a few from further afield, the Restricted Section hasn't been as restricted as one thought.

It has become a nightly routine for a group of young Slytherin students to neglect their sleep in hopes of finding something long forgotten in the dust.

They've been tasked to retrieve a book. A book once found by a former student 50 years ago who also chose to neglect his sleep in hopes of finding something extraordinary. Needless to say, he found it. And now these students must also find what that previous student had found, without any direction of where to begin.

"We've looked everywhere, Mattheo." Blaise spat quietly, trying to keep his voice down despite his frustration. Slowly he put back the book he attempted to search through, only to get bitten by a cursed book for the third time this evening.

Draco sat idly off to the side, keeping an eye out for Filch or Madame Pince. Boredom bugged his brain as he twirled his wand effortlessly through his fingers. "Yeah. We've searched this and every fucking section 3 times over. There must be somewhere else in this bloody school where forbidden knowledge is hidden away."

Mattheo sighed. His friends were right. Searching the restricted section had become an abysmal loss. Despite their hours of searching, they had nothing to show for it. Nothing. It was his fault for assuming things would be this simple. They were exhausted and their bodies and minds ached for a rest, yet Mattheo's determination and fear drove him to persevere.

Across the school, deep in the dungeons, a girl was quietly reading through her Defence Against the Dark Arts book as she jotted down some useful information. Suddenly a knock echoed through her lonely silence, ripping her out of a world of knowledge.

Begrudgingly, Y/n left the comfort of her four-poster bed and opened her dormitory's door. At first glance, there was nothing in sight, until a sneaky Gryffindor pulled away his cloak of invisibility, showing himself to the now frightened girl.

Y/n grabbed her friend's arm, yanking him into her room before he could be spotted. The alarmed girl stuck her head down the corridor to check for bystanders, seeing none, she closed the door and turned to greet her friend.

"Harry! What the bloody hell are you doing here!" She huffed and began to pack her schoolwork away. Harry cautiously looked around the space, a huff of relief left his lungs upon realising they were alone.

"Sorry, Y/n. I needed to speak with you. And we've both been rather occupied the past few days with schoolwork and such. It was now or never really." Harry awkwardly scratched the back of his head, realising he could've at least given the Slytherin girl a heads up to his visit.

Y/n gestured for Harry to take a seat on her now empty bed. "I only came by to show you this." Harry carefully took out a tatty old Advanced Potion-Making book, the very one we are using this year, however, his one looked like it had been hurled down the Chamber Of Secrets and back.

The girl slowly flipped the book open to the first page, to not damage the aged pages any more than they already were. "The Half-Blood Prince?" She read aloud. Confused and fascinated, Y/n glimpsed through the rest of the book, noticing that whoever this 'Prince' was had annotated the whole book, from cover to cover, with notes correcting the original author's methods and noting improved ways to brew a concoction. "This is incredible! The level of detail-" she stopped herself. "Where'd you get it?" Y/n finally looked up at Harry.

"Last Sunday, Slughorn had asked me to help him get his new classroom ready for the school year. Since Dumbledore has requested for me to get closer to Slughorn, I agreed to help him. That's when I saw this book buried beneath other things in an old cabinet, and Slughorn happily let me have it since I didn't have one already. I only noticed the writing in our class on Monday." Harry explained, carefully taking the book back. He worshipped this book, worship is an understatement. He yearned to know more, his mind burned for it, like a drug addiction he couldn't shake.

"So that's why you did so well on Monday." Y/n laughed, feeling slightly better her skills in potions hadn't depleted over the summer and it was just Harry cheating. She didn't mind that he did, she would've too if she got to that book before him. "And why has Dumbledore asked you to get closer to Sughorn?" Y/n eventually asked.

"I'm not sure... but that's not what I've come to talk about. I was wondering if you knew who this Half-Blood Prince is?" Harry asked hopefully, had he began to fiddle with the book in hand.

"I've never heard of a Prince in the wizarding world... although that handwriting did seem familiar." Y/n thought for a moment, straining to remember if she'd ever heard of this Prince.

"And what about this spell?" Harry pointed to a word scribbled in the corner of the page. Sectumsempra. "Ever heard of it?" Harry asked again with hope. He knew Y/n had been researching spells they could use for Dumbledore's Army and had confidence she had heard of it.

"Doesn't ring a bell, sorry." Y/n frowned until an idea sparked in her mind. "What if we search through the restricted section? I know an easy passage there that will help us avoid Filch and his bloody cat. If there's anything about this Prince or this spell, it would be there." Y/n and Harry beamed, before promptly leaving the Slytherin common room, concealed by Harry's invisibility cloak.

They walked down the halls, cautious not to make any noise, and they approached a damp mossy wall. Y/n mumbled 'i vis scientiam' and the wall parted, revealing a narrow spiral staircase.

"Check what that old book your father gave us says. There has to be something in there!" Theo sighed, his lack of sleep wearing his patience thin. He wandered along the corridor in the Restricted Section with his arms crossed and his eyes glaring at the ground.

Mattheo pulled out the green leather book, set it down and began to read through it. It was spell after spell and potion and potion that some death-eater friend of his father's had created. All equally as detrimental and lethal as the last.

"Oh look." Blaise pointed at the page he'd been reading over Mattheo's shoulder. "An invisibility spell. Allows the caster to turn themselves or a group of individuals invisible for as long as the caster desires, allowing the group to still see each other and communicate clearly without alerting any unwanted attention." The boy read aloud to the group.

Theo hummed in amusement as Draco added, "That would be useful, I guess." The group gave up looking for the book roughly 20 minutes ago. Once again their search was fruitless. "What's it called?" Draco questioned the two boys who were still skimming through the book.

Suddenly a piercing noise of bricks sliding and smashing one another rang through the dim room. In a frantic panic, Mattheo whispered the spell his friend read only moments ago. "Videnihil!"

"How did you know about that passage, Y/n? It's not even on the marauders map!" Harry spoke, awe dripping from his words as he glanced around the room in delight.

"I am a woman of many talents, Harry. Don't you forget that." Y/n mused as she walked down the same corridor the boys are in. To Y/n Snape, there was no one around, only her, Harry and dusty old books. To Mattheo Riddle and the rest of his friends, they were moments from being caught. "I found that passageway all by myself when I was six and running from my father." She chuckled at the memory as her hand trailed the books, looking for something about old spells or a Prince.

Y/n eyes looked down to an open book. A book with that familiar writing. "Shit Mattheo you didn't pick it up!" Draco stressed only standing a few feet from the girl, however, she didn't hear him. She picked up the book and flipped to the cover to find it blank. Y/n figured out that this book didn't belong in the Restricted Section. Somebody was here... or just was.

Her eyes looked around the room, looking for any sign of life. Mattheo looked at her intensely, soaking up her presence. Little did Y/n know how close she had placed herself next to the heir of the Dark Lord. Her body stiffened when she smelt an all too familiar smell. Although she dismissed it and pushed aside her burning thoughts.

Y/n flipped through the book, finding the spell they had hoped to find. It was strange they found the very book they had hoped to find and it was sat there open for them. As if it was waiting for her. "Harry! Quick!" She called out for her friend who came running as she flipped to the first page.

"What! Are you hurt? Are you-" Harry's words were ripped out of his throat when he saw what the girl was pointing to.

ᴘʀᴏᴘᴇʀᴛʏ ᴏꜰ:
𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐻𝒶𝓁𝒻-𝐵𝓁𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝒫𝓇𝒾𝓃𝒸𝑒