The venture into the Restricted Section was, as Ariana had predicted, a catastrophic failure. Harry's initial foray led him not to a book about Flamel, but to a screaming tome that alerted Argus Filch, the castle's malevolent caretaker. A frantic escape under the cloak led Harry to stumble upon an unused classroom containing a magnificent, ornate mirror—the Mirror of Erised—in which he saw his parents standing beside him, a vision so beautiful and heart-wrenching it became an obsession.
He managed to make it back to the common room undetected, but the seed of a bad idea had been planted. On his second trip, this time with a reluctant but curious Ron in tow, their luck ran out. So captivated were they by the mirror's power—Ron seeing himself as a Quidditch-triumphant Head Boy—that they lost track of time. A creak in the hallway sent them scrambling back under the cloak, but in their haste, they knocked over a suit of armour. The resulting clang was enough. Filch was on them in an instant, followed shortly by a furious Professor Snape, who seemed to materialize from the shadows with a vindictive glee.
They were dragged, shivering and terrified, to Professor McGonagall's office. She arrived in a tartan dressing gown, her face a mask of profound disappointment, which was somehow far worse than rage.
"I cannot believe it of you two," she said, her voice dangerously quiet. "Fifty points. Each. And that is on top of the fifty you have yet to earn back. You are putting Gryffindor into a deficit from which it may not recover all year." She stared at them, her eyes boring into them. "And detention. You will both be serving detention with Mr. Filch. I trust he will find a suitably unpleasant task for you. Now, go to bed. I am so deeply disappointed, I can barely stand to look at you."
The walk back to the common room was a long, silent march of shame. The common room was empty and dark, save for the dying embers in the hearth. As they slumped into the armchairs, the weight of their failure pressing down on them, Ron finally broke the silence.
"It's her fault, you know," he muttered, his voice sullen.
Harry looked up, confused. "Whose? McGonagall's?"
"No. Ariana's," Ron said, his face twisting into a resentful scowl. "If she'd just come with us, none of this would have happened. She could have done one of her mad, silent spells to shut that screaming book up. Or created a distraction. But no. She was too good for us. Just sat there with her nose in the air, knowing we'd get caught and letting it happen. She probably enjoyed it."
The logic was twisted, but to a boy as hurt and embarrassed as Harry, it held a perverse appeal. He thought of Ariana's cool refusal, her logical dismissal of their plan. Ron was right; she hadn't seemed to care at all. The memory of her kindness over his photo album warred with this fresh sting of rejection.
"I don't know, Ron…" Harry began, but Ron cut him off.
"Don't you see, Harry? She's not like us. She's… different. She's friends with Hermione now. They just sit around reading. They don't care about getting their hands dirty. About helping a mate."
The words, poisonous and potent, began to take root. Over the next few days, a quiet but firm schism formed in their little group. Ron, nursing his grudge, made a point of steering Harry away from Ariana and Hermione. If the girls sat down at one end of the Gryffindor table, Ron would pull Harry to the other. In the common room, he would pointedly start a loud game of wizard's chess whenever the girls tried to approach. Harry, caught in the middle and swayed by the simple, uncomplicated loyalty of his first-ever best friend, went along with it. He avoided Ariana's calm, questioning gaze, a hot flush of shame and resentment rising in him whenever he did.
Ariana, for her part, seemed completely unbothered. She continued her studies, her conversations with Hermione, and her quiet observation of the world, her serenity an infuriating counterpoint to Ron's simmering anger.
The breaking point came nearly a week later. Hermione, who had been watching the growing rift with increasing frustration, finally snapped. She cornered Harry and Ron near the Charms corridor, her face set, her eyes blazing with a righteous fury.
"Alright," she said, her voice trembling with suppressed anger. "I've had enough. I want to know what, exactly, your problem is with Ariana."
Ron folded his arms, jutting out his chin. "She's a bad friend. She let us get caught."
"She let you get caught?" Hermione's voice rose to a near-shriek. "She warned you! She told you it was a stupid, illogical plan and you went anyway! She is not responsible for your poor decisions!"
"She should have helped!" Ron shot back.
"Helped you do what, Ronald? Break more rules? Lose more points?" Hermione took a step closer, her anger making her seem taller. She jabbed a finger at Ron's chest. "Let me remind you of something. For Christmas, Ariana gave you a brand new, custom-enchanted Silver Snitch because she saw how much you love Quidditch and wanted you to have something that was just yours, not a hand-me-down."
Ron's face went pale.
Hermione then whirled on Harry. Her expression softened for a fraction of a second before hardening again. "And you, Harry. You, of all people. She gave you the most precious gift anyone could have given you. She gave you your parents back." Her voice cracked with emotion. "Do you have any idea what she did to make that album? She didn't just wave her wand. She spent weeks talking to people. To Hagrid. To Professor McGonagall. She even went to Professor Snape, Harry! She faced down Snape in his dungeon to ask for a photo of your mother! She did all of that, she gave you that treasure, and you turn on her because she wouldn't help you sneak out of bed?"
Harry flinched as if he'd been slapped. He hadn't thought of it like that. He stared at the floor, a tidal wave of shame washing over him. The photo album, which he kept under his pillow and looked at every night, suddenly felt impossibly heavy.
"She… she didn't have to be so… cold about it," he mumbled weakly.
Hermione let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "Cold? You think she was being cold? You have no idea, do you?" She was shaking now, the force of her anger and frustration finally overwhelming her. "Do you want to know why she didn't help you? Do you actually want to know the real reason?"
Harry and Ron just stared at her, silent.
"It wasn't about the rules! It wasn't about fear! It was about you, Harry!" she cried, tears
beginning to stream down her face. "She knows who Nicolas Flamel is! She's known all along! She said he was a famous alchemist, a friend of Dumbledore's, that the answer was in a dozen books in the main library!"
The revelation hit the two boys like a physical blow. They stared at her, dumbfounded.
"She was waiting for you," Hermione sobbed, her words now tumbling out in a rush. "She was waiting for you to trust her. For you to come to her and ask for help, for knowledge, not just for an accomplice in a stupid, late-night adventure. She said… she said trust was a currency, and that you spent yours on Ron's bad idea instead of on her. She wanted to help you, but she wanted you to learn to ask the right way!"
She stood there, breathing heavily, tears tracking paths through the dust on her cheeks. And then, a new, horrified realization dawned on her face. Her anger collapsed into utter despair.
"And now… now I've told you," she whispered, her voice breaking completely. "She told me that in confidence. Because she trusted me. And I've just… I've just betrayed her. I broke my best friend's trust just to try and make you two see how awful you've been."
Her face crumpled. With a final, heartbroken sob, she turned and fled down the corridor, leaving Harry and Ron standing alone in the echoing silence, the weight of their foolishness, and now her broken trust, crashing down upon them. They hadn't just gotten into trouble. They had fractured their friendships in a way that felt, at that moment, utterly irreparable.