Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

Since Dumbledore wanted them to continue only after obtaining that memory, then they needed to get it as soon as possible.

Evan thought of a few ways. It was unlikely to use tough measures on Slughorn, so he needed to use a soft tactic: make him happy, so that he could hand over his memory.

There were many ways to make Slughorn happy, such as giving him a bottle of his favorite wine… Well, after Ron was poisoned in front of him, he would never drink wine given to him by others casually. So instead, they could give him his favorite desserts or candies — tasty treats would have the same effect.

Or they could introduce him to some famous people. He’d probably be really interested in meeting Caresius.

Otherwise, kill Aragog and present him as a gift. The venom of the Acromantula was worth a fortune, especially the venom of the Spider King.

In a nutshell, the way to make Slughorn happy was to cater to his preferences and meet his hobbies and needs.

If he was happy and satisfied, he would naturally hand over the memory.

Of course, throughout this process,they absolutely had to not mention Voldemort, Horcruxes, or memories. These topics were too direct and would scare him off.

Also, as for Dumbledore saying that Voldemort didn’t actually want to teach, Evan didn’t quite agree with that.

Even though Voldemort’s intentions were clearly impure, he definitely wanted to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have cursed the position after Dumbledore turned him down — ever since then, no Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had been able to teach for more than a year.

After leaving Dumbledore’s office, Evan shared his thoughts with Harry, telling him that to get Slughorn to hand over the true memory, they had to play to his interests and make him happy. If necessary, they could use Felix Felicis, and the Luck Potion would guide him on how to do it.

The next day, after Potions class, they followed the plan and gave Slughorn a box of chocolate candies.

This definitely surprised him in a good way, but it still wasn’t enough to get the memory. This would be a long game!

As for when Slughorn asked them why they sent him candies, they simply said that they were delicious and they wanted him to try them.

That explanation was enough for Slughorn to gladly accept the gift. He never turned down presents from students and clearly enjoyed them.

Aside from the memory issue, Harry had also become more focused on Malfoy’s movements than before!

On the night he returned from his meeting with Dumbledore, he had a discussion about it with Evan, Hermione, Ron, and Elaine.

“I know where Malfoy’s been going. Dumbledore and Evan’s conversation just reminded me — he’s been sneaking off to the Room of Requirement,” said Harry. “That’s where he’s doing … whatever he’s doing! And I bet that’s why he’s been disappearing off the map — come to think of it, I’ve never seen the Room of Requirement on there!”

“That room is magical. It’s connected to the ancient magic of the entire castle. If the person inside doesn’t want it to appear on the Marauder’s Map, then it won’t,” said Evan. “Alright, I agree that Malfoy’s probably in there. Now that we know where he’s going, what do you plan to do?”

“If we don’t know what Malfoy asked the Room of Requirement for, we can’t get into the same version of the room that he does.”

“That’s the crux of the problem,” said Harry. “Do you have any good ideas?”

“How about just blocking him?” Ron suggested.

“Not going to work. If that were possible, we would’ve done it already and forced him to say what he’s up to. Would’ve saved us all this trouble.”

“Yes, we need to follow him into the Room of Requirement to find out what he’s doing,” said Harry thoughtfully. “Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve seen him going to the seventh floor with two girls — quite a few times. Maybe he’s letting them inside. We could use Polyjuice Potion.”

He suddenly got excited and seemed to have thought of a brilliant idea.

“Remember our first Potions class this term? Slughorn showed us Polyjuice Potion. He’s got an entire cauldron of it. Maybe we can find a way to get some and use it to turn into people close to Malfoy. Just like we did in second year when the Chamber of Secrets opened.”

“That’s a brilliant idea!” said Ron immediately. “I’ve never used Polyjuice Potion before!”

“Hold on. Who are you planning to turn into? Goyle and Crabbe? Or the two girls around Malfoy you just mentioned?” Evan asked.

Harry suddenly became quiet, and after a long time he said, ““I think… the girls. Hermione?”

“Sorry, I’m not interested in what Malfoy’s doing with two girls in the Room of Requirement, and I don’t want to become one of them and go with him,” said Hermione at once. “Dumbledore asked you not to worry about it, Harry, you should think more with Evan about how to get Slughorn’s memory.”

“If you want to transform, you don’t need to steal Polyjuice Potion from Slughorn, I have it here,” said Evan. “But I don’t want to become a girl either.”

He had previously transformed into Gabrielle and knew how that felt, but since Evan already knew what Malfoy was doing in the Room of Requirement, there was no need to go through a pointless transformation.

But in the end he still handed Harry and Ron a large bottle of Polyjuice Potion and left the decision to them.

If they insisted on finding out what Malfoy and the girls were doing, this bottle of Polyjuice Potion would come in handy.

But now that he thought about it, Malfoy was supposed to be fixing the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement… so why was he taking two girls with him so often?

Could it be… some other kind of physical activity to relieve stress?! No way…

Also, where had Goyle and Crabbe gone? Weren’t they supposed to be standing guard for Malfoy?

Wait, Evan suddenly thought of a possibility. What if Malfoy had Goyle and Crabbe take Polyjuice Potion and turn into girls to conceal their tracks?

If Harry and Ron wanted to sneak close to Malfoy, they’d need to transform into those two girls; but in reality, they’d actually be turning into Goyle and Crabbe.

It was not impossible for Malfoy and his crew to do something like that. As Harry had just said, there was a whole cauldron of Polyjuice Potion in Slughorn’s storeroom, and stealing a bit wouldn’t be that hard.

But Goyle and Crabbe turning into girls… cross-dressing… seriously? That was just too ridiculous. Even a third-rate novel wouldn’t come up with something like that.

Evan only thought about it briefly and then decided to ignore it altogether. Whatever happened, Harry and Ron wouldn’t really suffer from it. Let them do whatever they wanted. In his opinion, their plan wasn’t going to work anyway. Malfoy would never tell anyone else about the Vanishing Cabinet, not even those girls by his side.

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