On The Hunt: Chapter 5 (2/2) (Patreon)

While Harry was talking to Remus and Mr Weasley at the dining table, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were standing in front of his room.

Hermione broke the silence.

“Ready?”

Ron nodded.

“He’s usually getting up around this time. We should talk before breakfast. Better get this out of the way soon, eh?”

Hermione nodded and tapped the door twice. The trio waited for Harry to open the door, but nothing happened.

“Do you think he’s still asleep?” Ginny asked.

“Maybe,” Ron nodded and twisted the doorknob. However, he was surprised when the door didn’t open.

“It’s locked.”

“What now?” Ginny asked.

“Remember your father telling us that the ministry cannot trace it when we do magic here?” Hermione asked as she brandished her wand and pointed it at the door.

“Alohamora!”

Nothing happened, to Hermione’s surprise.

“What are you three doing here?”

The trio whirled around to find Sirius leaning against the wall opposite the room.

“Er... nothing. We just wanted to go to breakfast together, but it seems Harry is still asleep. Honestly, he should start getting up earlier. It’s past 8 already,” Hermione huffed. Sirius chuckled.

“Well then, Ms. Granger, you’d be pleased to know that Harry is already up and is done with his breakfast as well.”

The three had their eyes widened at that bit of information.

“Already?” Ron blurted out.

Sirius nodded.

“He’s been getting up around 6 every day since the summer started, even though I keep telling him to get a sleep-in every once in a while. If you want, you might find him at the dining table.”

Hermione nodded.

“Come on,” she motioned the two to follow her, and they made their way down to the kitchen.

“Just what happened to him, I wonder,” Hermione muttered with a frown. While happy that Harry was changing his regular habits for the better, the changes seemed too sudden, and she had a tough time coping with the situation.

“Do you think, you know, he’s decided to get serious because of what happened last year?” Ginny asked, and Hermione thought upon it.

“It’s possible, isn’t it? I mean, think about it. He saw You-know-who come back to life.”

Ron and Ginny shuddered as they thought about that and nodded.

“No matter. We’d talk to him. I don’t like this distance I am feeling between us.”

With grim determination, the trio entered the kitchen and found, to their relief, Harry sitting there. What surprised them slightly was the look on his face. It felt as if he was thinking too hard.

“Come on, you three. Sit down.” The voice of Molly Weasley prompted Harry to look up, and his eyes met Hermione’s.

For a long moment, nothing happened until Harry gave her a nod and a small smile, gesturing for her to join them. Relieved, Hermione looked at Ron and Ginny, and the trio walked over to sit in front of Harry.

Hermione went on to open her mouth, but Mrs Weasley cut her off as she placed their breakfast in front of them.

“You should eat it before it gets cold,” Harry remarked, gesturing to the food, before he turned toward Mrs Weasley, “The food was excellent as always, Mrs Weasley.”

The woman beamed. She had been slightly upset with his words the previous night, but Arthur had had a long talk with her. She didn’t like it, but she knew she had no choice. All she could do was support them and understand.

“You’re too kind, Harry dear,” she smiled. Harry nodded to Mr Weasley and Remus before turning around to walk out.

“Harry... uh... can we talk after breakfast?”

Hermione looked on as Harry stopped before turning around. Her hopes rose when he gave her a smile and nodded.

“I’ll be in the basement. Come there.”

And without another word, he walked out of the room.

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Harry had his eyes closed and leaned back against the wall when Ron, Hermione, and Ginny arrived in the basement. The duelling arena had been cleared of all the dummies and props, and only his solitary self stood there.

In reality, he was honing his Occlumency once again. He had grown leaps and bounds in the skill and didn’t wait to dedicate any free time he had to perfect it. After all, the sooner he became a master in the art, the sooner he’d get to know all the secrets that the headmaster was surely keeping.

Their footsteps alerted him to their presence, and Harry slowly opened his eyes. A sharp intake of breath prompted him to look upward, and he saw the three looking at him with slightly widened eyes. Quickly, he established firm control over his magic and nodded at the trio.

Looking critically at them, Harry waved his wand. In an instant, four comfy-looking chairs materialized out of thin air. His friends looked on with widened eyes at the blatant display of advanced conjuration, and silently on top of that. However, Harry was busy doing something else.

‘I’m sorry for doing this, but I need to know your true feelings. Only then can I know if you’re deserving of knowing some of my true secrets that I’m allowed to share.’

While the trio was looking at the conjured chairs in shock, Harry was delving into their minds, only scanning their surface thoughts. He had never had any reason to doubt them, but he was not blind either. Hermione had this tendency to feel jealous whenever she saw someone doing better than her, and Ron had an inferiority complex so massive that he was also prone to jealousy.

True to his suspicion, Hermione was shocked, as expected. However, he could also feel her thinking about how he had done this. As he delved slightly deeper, he felt her thinking how she would grill him for this significant increase in skill and knowledge.

Harry internally scoffed. Entitlement was an off-putting trait and one he hated so much. Many people had treated him as if he considered himself entitled to preferential treatment solely because he was the Boy who lived, and he resented it.

The fact that Hermione felt she deserved to know anything left a sour taste in his mouth.

Ron, although not bearing a sense of entitlement, wasn’t without his faults either. As Harry delved into his mind after his perusal of Hermione’s, he felt the jealousy the youngest male Weasley harboured. The sentiments of the previous year when he had been chosen as the Hogwarts champion and not Ron echoed once again. Although the boy had not accused him of lying when he said that he had not entered his name, Harry clearly recalled the distrustful looks and the instances when his jealousy and resentment would surface.

His mind wandered to the talk he had once had with Sirius regarding Pettigrew and his motivations. Sirius had recalled with detachment how thick as thieves they had been.

However, he also told him how Pettigrew had started to resent the other marauders. James was a charismatic Quidditch star. Sirius had been a quintessential playboy, popular with the ladies, while Remus was academically brilliant.

Pettigrew, when compared to the others, saw himself as an ordinary person overshadowed by his three friends. That was what led him to start resenting his friends. What followed was anything but pleasant. The marauders had never expected that one of their own would betray them in such a manner. The boy they had grown up with had turned out to be a traitor.

Harry, never for a moment, imagined that Ron or Hermione would turn out the way Peter did. But could he take the chance? Dumbledore had made him keep the knowledge a secret, and Harry was sure more would follow. Would they still stand by him when they knew just how his magic worked and how much advanced he was already? Could they bear living in his shadow as they were bound to be, given the growth Harry was undergoing? Harry didn’t know.

He didn’t know, but he couldn’t take any chances. He would not ostracize them, for they had done nothing against him yet, but he realized he could not confide in them. Not until he was sure he could explicitly trust them. The older Harry would have never thought of doing what he had just done, never would have thought of the things he had just now, but the older Harry existed no more, did he?

He had died. He had suffered. And he had a burden on his shoulders, a responsibility so massive that anyone else would have crumbled already. Could he afford to have knives hidden in his blind spot? Obviously no. Too much was at stake here.

However, there was no need to uselessly push them away. They had not done anything yet, and just because he couldn’t trust them with his deepest, darkest secrets and plans, it didn’t mean they couldn’t remain friends. After all, they had supported him so far, and he didn’t see the need to blow things out of proportion.

“Take a seat, guys,” Harry said, sitting down on a chair opposite the other three and leaning back. The trio looked at him for a moment before sitting down.

“How did you do it, Harry?” Hermione asked, gesturing to the chairs, and Harry could easily decipher the bewildered tone she used. He leaned back slightly and gazed at them.

“To tell you the truth, I have no idea.”

“How can you have no idea? You conjured these chairs! We don’t learn basic conjuration until 6th year!” Hermione went on at a rapid pace that was so like her that Harry internally chuckled. However, his demeanour remained calm as he took them in. Ron was looking at him with a frown, while Ginny had her eyes slightly widened as if she still could not believe he had displayed such advanced magic.

“Well, ever since I fought with Voldemort in that graveyard,” he rolled his eyes when the trio flinched, “seriously guys, it’s just a name. You don’t have to react that way every time someone mentions it.”

“Easy for you to say mate,” Ron muttered.

“Anyway,” Harry shook his head, “ever since that night, my magic has been slightly different. Had a talk with Dumbledore about it. Although he didn’t know much, he told me to keep practicing the advanced spells from our NEWT syllabus. I’d been tinkering with them during the tournament as well, so it was not a bother.”

Hermione had a frown on her face, while Ron and Ginny were surprised.

“There isn’t something wrong, is there? I mean, you’re fine, right?” Ginny asked, and Harry smiled.

“Yeah. There isn’t anything to worry about.”

Internally, Harry frowned. While not having any jealous feelings toward him, Ginny harboured a certain degree of obsession over him, or rather, on who she perceived as the Boy who lived. He had tried to quell that obsession over the years, treating her like a little sister, but nothing seemed to work. She had her heart set on them getting together, and Harry knew that.

However, he simply didn’t see her in that light. Sure, she was a beautiful girl on the cusp of adulthood, but her personality left a lot to be desired. It didn’t help that she displayed a certain degree of similarity with Mrs Weasley whenever she was with any boyfriend of hers, and Harry preferred to stay away from that kind of behaviour. His life already had a lot of drama. He didn’t need an overbearing girlfriend on top of that.

Another fact that didn’t help Ginny was that he already had feelings for someone else. She might have looked like a child, but her personality stated otherwise. She had told him that veela matured on their 18th birthday, and he really looked forward to seeing her next. If Fleur and her mother were anything to go by, he knew he would be blown away. He would be a blind person to not notice the unearthly beauty the two women possessed.

A soft clearing of the throat brought him out of his funk, and Harry looked to see Hermione looking at him nervously. He cocked his head sideways and furrowed his brows, silently asking what the matter was.

Hermione sighed.

“It’s just... you seem different somehow,” she stated.

“Hmm? Different as in?”

“I don’t know,” she said, exasperated, and threw her hands up.

“You’re not making any sense here, Hermione, and that is uncharacteristically unlike you.”

“See! That’s what I’m talking about!” She pointed her finger at him. Harry was thoroughly confused now.

“What exactly are you talking about?”

“All this!” She exclaimed, “Your entire demeanour has changed. Your way of speaking has changed. How you sit, how you walk, how you think. You’re very confident now, and it’s totally visible. Just look at how you are sitting right now. Earlier, you used to slouch, while now you’re leaning back and looking so comfortable. And don’t get me started on that piece of magic! Hexes and jinxes are understandable, but silent conjuration at such scale!? How did you change so much in only a few weeks!?”

Ron and Ginny sat there in silence, their eyes on Hermione as she breathed heavily. Harry frowned.

“I really didn’t notice any of that,” he began, “in fact, you are the first person to say all this to me.”

“That’s because no one else knows you as well as Ron and I do! Admit it, Harry, you’ve changed,” she stated before lowering her voice and adding, “and I’m not sure I like these changes.”

Harry had his eyes widened as he looked at her, who had her eyes opened in shock as if she couldn’t believe what came out of her mouth.

With a slight edge to his voice, he replied, his voice a bit soft but easily carrying across the small distance between them, “So you don’t like the fact that I’m a better version of myself, is that it?”

“Harry I-” she began, but he cut her off abruptly.

“You don’t like that I am a more confident person now. More aware of myself. Or that I know some advanced magic now, something that happened because I studied on my own? Is that what you’re saying? That you preferred it when I was worse? Is that what a friend wants?”

His voice was dripping with disdain in the end, and he watched as Hermione’s eyes widened with every word that came out of his mouth. Surprisingly, Ron kept silent, his eyes on the floor. Harry went for the offensive. He had the opening he needed to entirely confirm the suspicions he had harboured for over a year, and the beast inside him wanted to hunt.

“And what about you, Ron?”

Ron slowly looked up at him, and he was taken aback at the look of abject disdain in Harry’s eyes.

“Do you feel the same way? Do you prefer it for me to stay the same pathetic child who stumbled over his words frequently? Who threw himself head on in dangerous situations without a care for his self-preservation? Who possessed little to no ounce of critical thinking? Is that the Harry Potter you’d have preferred to be friends with?”

Ron started feeling nervous now. The air had thickened inside the basement. The entire conversation had gone downhill quickly, and all that was because of one slip-up from Hermione. He mentally chided her.

Harry was hovering over his surface thoughts the entire time, and when he felt what Ron really thought, he mentally sneered. The redhead didn’t know that Harry had invaded Hermione’s mind. Not to see her memories or anything like that, but to lower her corrective reasoning slightly so she would express her true feelings on the matter. And damn was he spot on in his analysis.

He didn’t need to hear any further response. Now he knew exactly how these two felt. Their inferiority complex ran so deep that they never wanted him to get better. He had suspected it for a while, but having it confirmed in such a blatant manner was surprising, to say the least.

He recalled when it all began. The changes had first started when he had mastered the Patronus. That was when he had first felt that something was off with the two, but being a naive young lad, he had not let it affect him any bit. The matter had slightly escalated when he had been chosen to be the Hogwarts champion. The two didn’t abandon him or anything, but he could feel a slight distance between them. Something he didn’t pay any mind to, yet again.

However, things were different now. He was different now. Not burdened with any external influence while being aware of how capable he truly was, his thought process had entirely changed. Adding his rapid advancement in the mind arts to the mix and it was not wrong to say that Harry Potter had improved dramatically in a very short span.

“You know what? Save your lies. Your faces are shouting the truth.” Harry said as he stood up and turned around to walk away, and the trio abruptly stood up as well.

“H-Harry! We’ve been always with you. We supported you all these years. First year with the stone, then the Chamber. We helped you free Sirius! We supported you all throughout the tournament, and – “

Harry cut Hermione off with a raised hand, not turning around.

“Thank you for reminding me, but you don’t need to,” he remarked with a rueful chuckle, “I appreciate you for that, and I am grateful for all the support. But you cannot expect me to just let this go as if this doesn’t exist,” he sighed. “I’ll never turn my back on you if you ever need my help, but that’s all there is to our relationship now.”

Without a second glance, Harry walked away. However, as he reached the door, he grabbed the doorknob and paused.

“We are not enemies, and I really hope we’ll never be. But we’re not friends either, not anymore. Stay out of my way from now on. I’d appreciate it.”

The trio watched with wide eyes as with those parting words, Harry shut the door behind him. Ginny could only stand there, shocked, as she looked on. Slowly, she turned toward them.

"What was that?" She asked disbelievingly, her wide eyes taking in the expressions on their faces.

Ron stood there, looking at the floor. Ginny turned to look at Hermione, who was looking at her with her eyes wide in shock as if she couldn't process what had just happened.

"Tell me!" Ginny cried out. Her voice fell on deaf ears as Ron and Hermione simply averted their eyes and failed to form any response whatsoever.

"I see," she whispered, glaring at them. “If that’s how you really feel, then you’re pathetic. Good riddance for him, I’d say,” she hissed before shoving Ron out of the way and walking off with a snarl on her face.

Hermione dropped on the chair as her eyes welled up. Tears spurted out of her eyes as she looked at Ron, who was looking anywhere but her.

She couldn’t believe she had said that. It was the truth, she knew, but to say it out was entirely different.

She buried her face in her hands and cried as Ron stood there, seemingly uncaring of her plight and his face frozen in shock.

What they had feared for some time had now come true. The so-called Golden Trio was no more.

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To be continued...