The Heiress of Slytherin

Poor Harry's Having a Really Bad Year

Recap: "Oh Gaia," her voice was so quiet and raspy that Draco suddenly felt horribly ashamed of himself for laughing instead of noticing the impact his recounting was having on her. He rushed to her and wrapped his arms around her shaking frame. "Somebody has to tell him. He deserves to know."

Ivy had sent Draco off, much to his dismay, and was now wandering the halls, muttering so viciously under her breath that students and teachers alike looked at her rather askance and gave her a clear berth when they passed. 

Once she felt she had gained enough clarity to realise she had absolutely no clarity on how to approach this piece of monumental information that Draco had dropped on her like he was discussing the weather, she decided that she needed a second opinion immediately. Having some sense of direction established, she made a beeline to the library, where she knew the only clear-headed and informed person who could help would surely be: Hermione.

Just as predicted, her bushy-haired friend was hunched over a pile of books, scribbling furiously on a piece of parchment without ever removing her eyes from the text in front of her. Ivy marched over to her and sat so loudly and abruptly in the chair across from her that Madam Pomfrey looked as though she'd been hit by a curse and Hermione was immediately ripped from her studying, as vigorous as it was.

Before she could even open her mouth for anything more than suprise, Ivy leaned across the table and gripped Hermione's hand tightly, needing every shred of her focus to be on her. "Hermione I need your help desperately." Her friend opened her mouth again, this time to respond, but Ivy merely tightened her grip and continued. "I need you to listen to everything I'm about to tell you and I need you not to respond until I'm through. As much as you can, limit your reactions because my mind is in an absolute flurry and I simply will not be able to get out all the details unless I can do it in one run."

Hermione nodded with an amused expression lifting the corner of her mouth and leaned in conspiratorally, but, as requested, silently. With a deep breath Ivy launched into the most complete and thorough explanation of what she'd just discovered as she could manage, attempting to keep the information strictly to what was essential and not wander, finishing with the question she'd ultimately come here to ask. "What do I, or rather we, do now? How do we tell him? Should we even tell him? Merlin help me Hermione I don't know what to do."

Hermione was now leaning back in her chair, the amused look gone without a trace, replaced by a look of complete shock and rapidly increasing comprehension (mixed with a fair bit of what Ivy interpreted as dread). They sat like that for quite a bit of time, in Ivy's opinion, the Slytherin staring anxiously at her friend, bouncing her knee like she'd had three too many cups of coffee, while the Gryffindor pondered the issue with impressive stoicicsm.

At last she sighed and leaned forward with her elbows on the book (a clear sign of deep distress for the girl who often remarked how people did not properly care for the volumes in the library) and her hands clasped against her forehead.

"We've got to tell him. I'm not sure it will help, in fact I'm willing to bet it'll make things a great deal worse, but he deserves to know, and knowing Harry, keeping this from him would be almost as terrible as knowing, if that makes any sense."

Ivy nodded grimly, "That's sort of the conclusion I came to, but I'm relieved to hear that you agree. The question now is how in Salazar's name do we go about telling him?"

After enough deliberation and back-and-forth to get Hermione kicked out of the library for the first time in her life, which was almost more horrifying to her than the subject matter, they reached the somber conclusion that there was no good way to go about this, and that all there was left to do was sit him down and tell him as directly as they could. After that they would do anything within their power to help him with the fallout that would inevitably occur.