Rosalyn held the felix felicis in her hand, looking at Harry, Hermione and Ron who were facing her. Slowly, she uncorked the bottle and tipped its contents into her mouth. She instantly felt much more motivated to do it.

"Well?" Harry asked. "How do you feel?"

"Excellent," Rosalyn smiled. "Really excellent."

Hermione stood up. "Remember, Slughorn usually eats early, takes a walk and then returns to his office."

"Right," Rosalyn smiled. "I'm going down to Hagrid's."

She was halfway to the portrait hole before Ron pulled her arm and she turned round. "No, Rosie- you have to go and speak to Slughorn. We have a plan."

"I know," Rosalyn said, positively deranged. "But I've just got a really good feeling about Hagrid's, I feel as though it's the place to be tonight. You get me?"

"No," Harry, Hermione and Ron said in unison after a short pause whilst they looked at each other.

"Well, trust me, I know what I'm doing, or felix does," Rosalyn replied as Neville walked into the common room.

"Ahh, I'm politely apologetic, Neville, but I can't go on a walk with you tonight because I have much more productive and interesting things to be doing!" Rosalyn recited, before walking out the portrait hole. "Hi!" She added to a few very concerned people that were coming inside.

Neville looked at the three of them. "Is she breaking up with me or is she just being extremely crazy tonight?" He asked uncertainly.

"Nah, mate," Ron said. "She's taken felix felicis to help with the whole Slughorn situation."

"Are you sure that's felix felicis and not some weird vocabulary-enhancing, crazy-speaking concoction?" Neville asked, still not convinced.

"She's fine, Neville, I promise, and trust me, she would not break up with you for anything, she loves you."

Neville calmed down respectively after this had been said.

Meanwhile, with Rosalyn, she was down at the greenhouses when she saw somebody peeking in one of the windows. Normal Rosalyn would have ignored this. Lucky Rosalyn didn't.

She went over and tapped the person on the back. The surprised shout gave them away immediately, it was Slughorn, holding a pair of secateurs and a small tub. "Merlin's beard Rosalyn!"

The girl smiled jovially. "I'm sorry, Sir, I should've announced myself. Cleared my throat, coughed! You probably feared I was Professor Sprout."

Slughorn nodded absent mindedly, but this was a mistake. "W-w-what makes you say that?"

"Just your general behaviour, Sir," Rosalyn remarked. "The sneaking around, jumping when you saw me... are those tentacula leaves, Sir, they're very valuable, aren't they?"

"Ten galleons a leaf to the right buyer..." Slughorn started, then realised where he was. "Not that I'd know, of course, I've just heard it... somewhere... my interest is purely academic, of course..."

"Personally these plants have always kind of freaked me out," Rosalyn told him honestly. "Anyway, must be off!"

She said goodbye to him genially and headed off. "Rosalyn!" Slughorn stopped her before she got very far. "How exactly did you get out of the castle?"

"Oh, through the front door, Sir," Rosalyn explained. "I'm off to Hagrid's, you see, he's a very dear friend and I just fancied paying him a visit, so if you don't mind I will be going now."

She turned around and tried to head off before Slughorn's voice stopped her. The potions Professor was very confused by now. "Rosalyn!"

"Sir!" Rosalyn said in a mock imitation of him. She did, however, let him go on.

"It's nearly nightfall! Surely you realise I can't allow you to go roaming the grounds on your own at this time!" Slughorn told her, but he didn't even try to stop her.

"Well then by all means come with me, Sir," Rosalyn told him, setting off.

It became rather comedic. Rosalyn, racing down the hill to Hagrid's, a wide smile on her face and her eyes bright. Slughorn, trying to catch up with her, behind her, obviously a lot less fit than she was. He huffed and puffed and eventually shouted out.

"Rosalyn... I must insist... that you accompany me up to the castle... immediately!"

"That would be counterproductive, Sir," Rosalyn smiled as she neared Hagrid's hut.

"And what makes you say that?" Slughorn asked her warily.

She shrugged. "No idea."

Hagrid was out on his lawn when they got there, the dead carcus of a spider in front of him. Rosalyn, despite her head being filled with weird, incomprehensible luck, still knew what it was. The body of Aragog the spider, who had once tried to kill her, Harry and Ron.

"Rosie, Horace," Hagrid said gruffly as they accompanied him, standing on either side of him whilst he grieved his pet.

"Merlin's beard!" Slughorn was a little bit more than slightly surprised. "Is that an actual acromantula?"

"A dead one, I think, Professor," Rosalyn said wisely.

"Dear god," Slughorn said. "Hagrid, fella, however did you manage to kill it?"

Hagrid looked at him scrutinizingly. "Kill it? Me oldest friend he was!"

"Oh I'm so sorry I didn't-" Slughorn started.

Hagrid cut across him. "Oh, don't worry youself you're not alone! They're seriously misunderstood creatures, spiders are! The eyes, I reckon, they unnerve some people."

"Not to mention the pincers," Rosalyn put her fingers up in an imitation and made clicking sounds with her mouth. She soon stopped.

"Yeah, that as well..." Hagrid said awkwardly.

"Hagrid," Slughorn asked. "The last thing I wish to be is indelicate but acromantula venom is uncommonly rare. D'you mind if I extract a vial or two?"

"Well I don't suppose it's gonna- do him much use now," Hagrid cried.

"My thoughts exactly!" Slughorn smiled, getting a vial out of his robe pocket and stepping round to where the spider's fangs were. "I always have one of these on my person for occasions such as this!"

"You should've seen him in his prime!" Hagrid assured him. "Magnificent he was, just magnificent!"

Slughorn returned to Hagrid's side and there was a short pause before he spoke again. "Would you like me to say a few words?"

"Y-yes," Hagrid was properly crying now.

"He had a family, I trust?" Slughorn asked.

"Oh, yeah," it was Rosalyn who answered this. She had remembered her close encounter with the spider's family.

"Farewell..." Slughorn began.

"Aragog," Hagrid wailed, as Slughorn didn't know the name.

"Farewell, Aragog," Slughorn began. "Much loved by all his family, your body will decay..."

It went on and on. Eventually, Slughorn finished the epitaph and the three of them went inside the cabin. Hagrid poured them all some firewhiskey and he and Slughorn started to sing an old song.

"...And his wand, snapped in two, which was sad!" They finished, elongating the end of the 'sad'. Rosalyn was in the corner, smiling and laughing.

"I had him from an egg, yeh know," Hagrid started talking about Aragog again. "Yeh should've seen him when he hatched, tiny thing, no bigger than a pickenese, a pickenese!"

"Ah, sweet!" Slughorn remarked. "I had a goldfish once, called Francis, and one afternoon I came downstairs and... it vanished, poof."

"Very odd," Hagrid told him.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Slughorn nodded. "But that's life! You go along and then suddenly... poof!"

"Poof," Hagrid repeated.

"Poof," Rosalyn nodded.

Soon, Hagrid had his head rested and he was snoring heavily. He was asleep. Rosalyn knew (lucky or not) that this was her chance.

"It was a student who gave me Francis," Slughorn told her. "One spring afternoon I discovered a bowl on my desk, with just a few inches of clear water in it, and I saw a flower petal floating on the top of the tank, on the surface. It sunk down and down... and just before it got to the bottom, it transformed... into a little fish. It was beautiful magic, wonderous to behold..."

Rosalyn looked at him as he disclosed yet more information. "The flower petal had come from a lily. And the day she died... Francis disappeared... poof...

"I know why you're here," he told her. "But I can't help you, you don't understand... It would ruin me."

Rosalyn braced herself. "D'you know why Harry and I survived, Professor? Because of her. Because she sacrificed herself. Because she refused to step aside. She gave her life for us, because her love was stronger and more powerful than Voldemort-"

"Don't say that name!" Slughorn warned.

"I'm not afraid of the name, Professor," Rosalyn told him, finally standing up to him for this. "I'm going to tell you something, something others have only guessed at. I am the Chosen One. I can stop him, I know I can, but I need to know what Voldemort asked you and what you told him in return. Be brave, Professor, be brave like my mother. Otherwise, you disgrace her. Otherwise her death means nothing... otherwise the bowl will remain empty, forever."

"P-please," began Slughorn as he pulled his wand and a vial out. "Don't think badly of me when you see it. You have no idea what he was like, even then..."

He tapped his wand to his head, pulling it away, he released a silvery string that Rosalyn knew was the real memory. He put it in the vial, corked it and gave it to Rosalyn who squeezed it comfortingly. "Thank you," she breathed, happy that she had finally done Dumbledore justice.

☆☆☆

Speaking of Dumbledore, it was his office that Rosalyn was in now, plunging into the pensive yet again. She felt some fear, but also some excitement. What on earth could be in this memory?

She watched the whole bit of Riddle buttering up Slughorn, and braced herself as the bit that was previously muffled. Blocked out.

Not this time, though.

"...It's called, as I understand it, a horcrux," Riddle told the Professor. Horcrux, Rosalyn thought, what's a horcrux?

Contrary to the Slughorn in the other memory, who had started yelling, this Slughorn asked quietly. "I beg your pardon?"

"A horcrux," Riddle repeated. "I came across the term whilst reading, and I didn't quite understand it."

"I'm not sure what you are reading Tom but his is very dark stuff, very dark indeed..." Slughorn assured him.

"I just didn't know who else to go to," Riddle protested without protesting.

Slughorn relented. "A horcrux is an object in which a person conceals part of their soul."

"But I don't understand how that works, Sir," Riddle advanced closer to Slughorn.

"One splits one's soul and hides the broken part in an object," Slughorn said, not able to maintain eye contact. "Therefore you are protected, should you be attacked."

"Protected?" Riddle checked.

"The part of your soul hidden in the object lives on..." he trailed off. "In other words, you cannot die."

Riddle nodded slowly and walked over to the fire. It was easy for Rosalyn to understand. He was going to get exactly what he wanted, because he had Slughorn completely wrapped around his finger. "But how does one split his soul, Sir?"

"I think you already know the answer to that, Tom," Slughorn told him.

"Death," Riddle whispered, his body still in front of the fire, his forehead rested on the mantle piece.

"Yes, killing rips the soul apart enough as it is, it's a violation..." Slughorn nodded.

"Can you only split the soul once, Sir?" Riddle moved on. "Just say, for instance, six or seven..."

"Seven!" Slughorn burst out in panic. "Merlin's beard, Tom, isn't it bad enough to kill one person, but to rip the soul into seven pieces..."

He suddenly snapped up again. "Of course this is all theoretical, Tom, isn't it, all academic?"

Riddle finally turned round. "Of course, Sir. I'll keep this absolutely secret."

Rosalyn suddenly felt herself shooting upwards, and she had a nasty feeling that 'absolutely secret' hadn't happened in the way Slughorn had thought.