The next day, Phineas Black asked Harry to partner with him for their Defense Against the Dark Arts project, as if nothing had happened.

His answer was a cold: "What makes you think I want to work with you?"

The Slytherin blinked, as if he couldn't understand why the other boy hadn't said yes. "Don't tell me you're still upset about yesterday," he said not without a hint of incredulity in his voice. "Potter, don't you think you're overreacting a little there?"

Harry glared at him.

The more he was thinking about it, the angrier he was at the whole situation. Not only hadn't the Slytherin warned him, he had used him. Just as he was coming back from perhaps the most harshest detention he's had, he and Mesmer had bribed him just so they could get something they wanted. They had used him and Harry wasn't certain the Slytherin hadn't warned him because he expected him to do something stupid and wanted to watch the fallout at a safe distance.

When Harry said that much, the Slytherin stilled before looking away.

It took everything for Harry not to take his wand and curse him.

"You used me," he said through gritted teeth. "What makes you think I'm going to let you use me again?"

"Listen-"

Harry turned away, not even bothering to listen to whatever excuse the wizard had cooked up.

It wasn't as if he needed Phineas Black's help anyway. He'd just partner with Albus and that'd be that.

When Harry asked him the next time he saw him however, the other boy's face fell.

"I'm afraid I've already agreed to partner with Elphias," he regretfully informed him.

His heart dropped. "Oh right," he heard himself saying. "Elphias."

"I'm terribly sorry, Harry."

"No, no, it's alright. I should just have you earlier so it's my fault really. I-I'll just ask somebody else."

Except with Albus and Elphias being the only Gryffindors besides him in Defence Against the Dark Arts, there weren't many students Harry was comfortable enough to work with.

Seeing Albus' crushed face he smiled and decided to worry about this later. "We have alchemy now, don't we?"

Albus' face immediately lit up and Harry couldn't help smiling. "We do.

As the two of them took the stair to go to the second floor where they were expected to have alchemy Harry asked Albus what he thought their alchemy lessons were going to be like be like.

"I admit I'm as much in the dark as you," he answered. "Alchemists as a rule are very tight-lipped on what they're doing and are undoubtedly keeping many secrets to profaness like you and I. We can only hope our teacher will deem us worthy of learning this sacred magical art."

When the five Sixth Year who had elected to learn alchemy entered the alchemy classroom, a dark-haired and tanned woman was already there, looking outside through the window.

With her white sheath dress which reached her ankles and seemed to be made of linen, it was clear she was not from here. Yet it was the jewels she was wearing that drew Albus attention.

To the untrained eyes, the pendant around her neck meant nothing. Some would even drew back at the sight of the emerald snake biting its own tail and assume she was a dark witch. Albus however knew exactly what this pendent actually represented and couldn't stop a soft gasp from leaving his lips when he realized what that means.

Ouroboros, the symbol of the circle of life, death and renewal. Not only was it one of the many concepts at the heart of alchemy, it was also the symbol of the oldest and arguably the most mysterious alchemy organisation in the world.

How on earth did Hogwarts manage to ask an alchemist from the Circle of Cleopatra to teach them? Albus incredulously thought.

Finally, the woman turned her head and her deep green eyes outlined with kohl starting looking at each student one after the other, her face not giving anything away. Finally she went back to observing the scenery outside and pointedly ignored them.

Next to him, Elphias tentatively raised his hand. "E-Excuse me," he tentatively began. "A-Are you our alchemy professor, ma'am?"

For a long time the woman gave no sign she had heard question. Finally, just as Elphias was about to ask again, she murmured, "What is alchemy?"

There was a pause. Then the students uneasily started looking at each other, unsure whether the question had been directed to them or not.

"Or rather," she said as she finally stopped looking at the window and turned to them, "what do you think alchemy is? I confess I'm quite curious to learn why you five suddenly want to learn it. So go ahead, introduce yourself and tell me what you think alchemy is." When nobody raised their hand she sighed. "You're all going to answer that question, you know? Oh well, let's start with you then," she said as she pointed a finger to Albus. "Introduce yourself and tell the class why you want to learn alchemy."

He smiled and introduced himself. "My name is Albus Dumbledore. As for why I am interested in studying alchemy, I must confess it is because I find the concept of transmutation fascinating and wish to lean how the concept is handled in alchemy and compare it to transfiguration."

The woman absent-mindedly nodded. "I see… So for you alchemy is all about change. What about you then?" she asked as she pointed her finger to the Slytherin on Albus's right.

"Name's Slughorn. Horace Slughorn. As for why I picked Alchemy..." The Slytherin seemed to think about it a moment. "Well, I must say I rather enjoy potion and somebody told me studying alchemy that several major potion discoveries were made thanks to alchemy."

"Phineas Black. I..." He grimaced. "I cannot really say I actually know much about alchemy. But there many secrets around it so you can say I'm curious."

When it was Harry's turn to answer the question, Albus couldn't help tilting his head to hear what the Gryffindor would say.

"My name is Harry Potter. As for why I'm here..." He hesitated and Albus couldn't help leaning to hear his answer.

Not even ten minutes ago the wizard had called the Philosopher's Stone a rock. And unlike the other students, there didn't seem to be quite an obvious reason for his decision to learn alchemy. So why was Harry Potter here? he couldn't help wondering. What was he truly seeking?

"Well, I've been told that alchemy could break the laws of the universe," Harry finally decided to say and Albus couldn't help sighing.

He hadn't said that alchemy could 'break' the laws the universe, Albus couldn't help thinking. He had only implied that it could bend them or at least making look like said rules got broken.

"Sooo… So maybe studying alchemy may help me for… stuff."

Albus turned his head and like the other students blankly looked at him.

The woman however merely nodded. "I see. What about you?" she asked to the last student. "What's your name and wy are you studying alchemy?"

"My name is Elphias Doge. And why I'm here..." Elphias scratched his neck. "Well, you see… I'm only here before Albus asked me to."

He then nervously chuckled when he noticed his classmates were all giving an unimpressed look.

"Although it'd be neat to learn how to make the philosopher's stone, I reckon."

"You will never manage to make the philosopher's stone," their teacher absent-mindedly murmured. "Very well, I suppose it is my turn now. You may call me Professor Neotera. I first studied alchemy in Greece and before coming here I was working in Alexandria as a member of the Circle of Cleopatra." She paused a moment before giving them a sly smile. "Cleopatra the alchemist, that is."

"So what is alchemy? As you can see, each of you gave me a different answer to the same question. It is it is a magical art about transformation, it is a magical art with strong ties to Potion, it is a very secretive magical art, it is a mean to 'break the laws of the universe' and some even believe it is all about creating the Philosopher's Stone, an artefact able to bring fortune and eternal life to its owner. So which one is the correct answer? What is alchemy truly about? Well… alchemy is all this and even more."

"You see," she began explaining, "humans have always dreamed of finding a way to live forever. They believed eternal life could be possible if one were to just look around them and just get what laws govern the world we live in. The same way you take a potion to be cured of an illness, there had to be something able to cure death. As that artefact needed to be physical to be useable and as we didn't have better words for it, we referred to that 'something' as the Stone. If one were to manage to make the Stone, death would be nothing but a far-away nightmare, an old enemy forever vanquished and only mentioned in some old stories talking about a time before wizards reached Enlightenment."

"It was the very early days of magic," she continued, "a time when witches and wizards had no wand and very often didn't know what they even were doing. You just knew, deep in your bones, you had magic. You know there was something else out there, but you didn't know what. So those who had decided to create the Stone were more than aware that they were lacking, that to make the Stone they would first need to build what you today consider to be the very foundations of magic. Why when two ingredients get mixed the potion change colour? Why am I able to lift that feather? If I want to turn a wooden stick into a metal one, why can't I do the same with any metal and make it gold? What can I do? What can't I do? So many questions, and if you wanted to find the answer of any of them, you knew you'll need to work for it. Hard. Everything you are now taking for granted, from Potion, to Charms and even Herbology….Everything you have learned or will ever learn can have its roots traced back to Alchemy and all men and women who have undertaken the gigantic task of crafting the very tools they were going to need if they ever wanted to fulfill that mad, mad dream that is the creation of the philosopher's stone."

Heart racing, Albus leant on his table, totally enraptured by the tale the woman in from of him was waving. "So what is alchemy?" he heard her asking once more. "There is no wrong answer to that question really. Yes, transformation is at the core of alchemy. Yes, alchemy and potion are strongly linked. Yes, many secrets are being jealousy kept by those practicing alchemy. Yes, some of us do still dream of 'breaking the laws of the universe', or even making the Stone and cheat death. Alchemy at its very heart is everything. It is the starting line of magic."

"Fascinating!" Albus exclaimed once Alchemy was finally over. "Utterly fascinating! Don't you think, Harry?"

Harry chuckled.

Before today, Harry had always believed the prefect to be a very composed person. Watching him in class today however had showed him just how wrong this was. Yes, Albus was an extremely polite person who as a rule always kept his cool.

But when something was really interesting him? The man was even worse than Hermione.

Cheeks flushed, the auburn-haired boy said, "To think alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone was behind so much we take for granted."

At these last words, Harry couldn't stop a smirk. "It's just a red rock, you know?"

He then burst to laugh at the sight of Albus' offended face.

"Harry!" Albus exclaimed. "You cannot call the philosopher stone a rock!"

He grinned. "Sure I can. I just did."

"This is the pinnable of magic," Albus insisted as they were heading to their next class. "The most valuable artefact of all time."

"Still a rock."

They kept bickering until they were in front of the Potion classroom. When they stood in front of the door, Albus said, "You're learning alchemy, Harry. Why would you do that if you refuse to see the true value of the one thing defining alchemy?"

Harry shrugged. "I just think the stone brings more problems than what it's worth."

Albus let out a long-suffering sigh. "I really cannot understand you sometimes, Harry."

"You will."

Hadn't it been Professor Dumbledore himself who had destroyed the stone after all? This young Albus Dumbledore might be worshipping alchemy and the stone, he was going to destroy the very thing he was presenting as worth more than anything else one day.

Albus glanced at him and shrugged. "If you say so."

"I know so. One day," Harry said, "you will hold the stone in your hand and see that it's nothing more than a troublesome rock."

That made him smile. "You hold me in too high esteem, Harry. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm not stupid in the slightest but I somehow doubt I'll manage to make a philosopher's stone. After all," he smile turned sly, "It was only our first lesson."

"Well," he grinned, "I didn't say it was going to be 'soon', did I?"

Albus laughed.

A week after the incident between he and Phineas Black, Harry still hadn't found anybody to partner with.

"Very well," Professor Merrythought said when the others had told her who they were going to work with and what they more or less wanted to work on. "If it's alright with you, I suppose you and Mister Slughorn can do this together."

The Slytherin whooped and Harry groaned.

Horace Slughorn might not be the worst in Defence Against the Dark Arts, his habit of kissing everybody's arse and playing as if they were the best of friends never failed to piss Harry off.

Albus winced in sympathy and whispered 'sorry'.

Phineas Black's face on the other hand was disgustingly smug.

When class ended, Harry rushed to leave the room.

Unfortunately the Slytherin was faster and quickly caught up with him.

"I'm so glad we're going to work together," Slughorn started babbling. "True, I had asked Black and Dumbledore whether they were interested on partnering with me but they already had agreed to do this with somebody else but you're also good at Defense so i'm sure we'll do our best. Have you got any idea on what you want us to work on? I do have a couple ideas but if you want we can-"

He took a deep breath and mentally braced himself. "I was thinking on working on the Patronus charm."

The Slytherin tilted his head. "Don't you know how to do it though?"

"Yes." That was why he had picked it, in fact. "It's excellent against Dementors but it can also help with Lethifold and-"

"Potter, we're supposed to learn something new. If you're reusing something Professor Merrythought knew you already know, the two of us are bound to have a bad mark."

No matter how much it annoyed him, Harry couldn't say the Slytherin didn't have a point.

"What are you thinking about then?"

He took a pensive face. "I think it'll be easier if we study something nobody has heard of before. I went to the Restricted Section Thursday and a book mentioned something. I admit I've never heard that term before and I'm not sure what it is exactly but from what little I understood I think it'll be be interesting to work on it."

"Sure," Harry said. Whatever, he almost added. "If you think it's a good idea, then I'm sure it is."

The Slytherin grinned. "Great! I'm looking forward to work with you, Potter."

Harry was most definitely not looking forward to it. "What's that word you saw by the way?" he asked.

"Horcrux."

Tom Riddle: There's no way my excuse that I'm researching horcrux for some DADA project is going to work on Slughorn but I've got to try it /
Slughorn *uneasily looks away*