Disclaimer: I don't own the characters; they are property of JK Rowling.
A/N: as usual, please leave me a comment, it takes you few moments and makes me happy. Thanks to my beta GeoTube.
Chapter Six
"The revelation"
At those words, Hermione stood up, and stormed out of the room, yelling.
"You are all gone mad!" then she reached her dorm, and lay on her bed, crying. She was near to a nervous breakdown. She wanted so much to help the Order, but at the same time, she wanted to help Harry too, so she had to resolve a painful conflict with herself.
The night passed in this way, and she wasn't able to rest a minute. All what she was able to do was cry. Next morning, Ron saw her distressed look, and hugged her.
"Do you see it? He is able only to make all of us, and you, suffer. Why don't you want to get rid of him finally? Why do you still want to try to help a guilty person?" he said softly to her, whispering in her hair. Then he tried to kiss her, but she managed to go away.
"It isn't his fault, Ron, and you know that…" she managed to mutter through her tears, she then went down for breakfast, managing somehow to avoid Harry's eyes. She could not let him see that way, or he would eagerly take blame of that on himself too.
All the day she avoided both of them, trying to understand what was the right thing to do. All the time she wasn't able to concentrate on the lesson. The only thing she was able to focus on was the Headmaster's sentences of the previous night.
"Now, I see our plan is slowly working. But we are still far from the goal. We have to be always attentive about Potter. We have to make him unoffensive for us. Then we can concentrate on finding Voldemort and bringing him out in the open."
How was possible that the Headmaster, once so linked to Harry, had changed so quickly, becoming one of his worst opponents? Why cannot they see the truth, the bloody simple truth? Why they had to blame Harry for what happened?
Those questions filled her brain all the time, and for many days, too. Then, another Hogsmeade weekend arrived.
They were now near Christmas, so the village was covered with snow. Harry saw his former best friends going away, one in the other arms, and shook his head, while going upstairs, to the library. The last experience in Hogsmeade had not been a joyful one, to say the least, so he thought better to pass the day collecting Dark Arts books, even in the Restricted Section, using his Invisibility Cloak, then he hid them in his trunk, with a Disillusionment Spell on them. In this way, nobody could find them, neither accidentally, and report him for having taken them. It was the last thing he needed.
After having done this, he went to have dinner in the Great Hall, and took a glimpse of a couple kissing in the park, from the window in the common room. The boy's red hair couldn't give him the chance to make a mistake. They were Ron and Hermione.
The school life was becoming always worse for him. Snape, Mcgonagall, and even Hagrid, treated him extraordinarily coldly, as members of the Order; Hermione and Ron were now a couple, and even his best female friend, his unique confidence seemed oblivious of him.
But once again it wasn't true. She wasn't oblivious of him at all, only she had to be careful about her moves. However, she decided to act after another meeting, just before the start of the Christmas holidays.
All the Order members were reunited in the usual secret room in the dungeons. Hermione listened angrily to all the idiocies on Harry, and Snape's satisfied behaviour. He often criticized Harry for being like his father, swaggering in the castle, but if there was one swaggering in those meetings it was him. She however reached the limit of tolerance. It happened after the last sentence of the Headmaster.
" Remember who our primary target is: Harry Potter"
"Your primary target has to be your brain, all of you!" she shouted, and exiting the room, she took the decision she wanted to take for so long time. She didn't care she had been rude to the Headmaster and some of her professors.
Hermione searched for Harry, and finally found him in the common room, led him in a secret room she found casually one week before, and then she hugged him, with tears running on her face.
After some minutes of holding each other close, she spoke.
"Oh, Harry, please, forgive me…I should have said this to you a long time ago…"
"What's happening, Mione? What is frightening you so much?"
"Harry, the Order blames you for all what happened. Sirius' death, the Ministry inquiring, the attack at Grimmauld Place…even Dumbledore is saying you are the Order's primary target…"
"I'm what? And how can you know this, Mione?" he asked, suspicious.
"Harry, I'm sorry. I know you'll be upset at me, and you're right to be. Me and Ron were chosen as members of the Order this summer. Our task was to `protect' you…well, really it was to control you, and report all your suspicious behaviours."
"What? You and Ron were spying on me? Hermione, I thought I could trust you…have you said something about the `Fortress of Shadows'?" Harry said angrily, standing up and walking away from her.
"Harry…no…I told nothing about that…I swear you!"
A sad look filled her eyes, showing that her regret for what she hid him was true. After some moments, he hugged her.
"Don't worry, Mione. I'm not angry with you. I could never be…" he said softly, kissing the top of her head, while his shirt was becoming soaked with her tears.
After some moments, though, he left her, went to a chair, and threw it on the wall, destroying it. He did the same with many things in the room, shouting against the bloody Order and all its members, Dumbledore included.
Hermione was frightened by his reaction, but after some time he calmed himself, then he thanked her, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"Please don't mind my outburst. It came from months of suppressed tension and anger. You are the only person in the world who cares about me, and I treated you so bad, tonight…I'm sorry, Mione…"
"No, Harry. I'm sorry for all the time I kept you without knowing the truth…"
"Well, the thing that more shocked me of your story is Ron…I really thought he was my friend. One of my best friends. But it is obvious that I was making a mistake. I swear he'll pay for that as well as the whole bloody Order…"
Then, he exited the room, and went to his dorm. When Ron entered, Harry pretended to be asleep.
"Sleep well, Potter. Sooner or later we will make you pay for what you did," Ron muttered, but Harry heard it.
"No, Ron. You'll pay…you and all the Order, for having tried to convince Hermione to follow your silly rotten brains," Harry thought.
***
He passed the holidays studying very much, but not for the works their Professor gave them. He had lost faith in Hogwarts staff, so he studied those Dark Arts books that he took from the library. He was alone, since most of the students had gone home for the holidays so nobody could control him, apart from Dumbledore and the teachers, but he had enchanted the books to look like normal school books for the other people. Only he could see them in their true nature.
He also studied Occlumency and Legilimency, to be able to read other people's minds, and find their most secret thoughts. He remembered the lessons with Snape, and for a while he wished he never stopped them, but he couldn't change the past, so he concentrate on his work, trying to improve his future. If that would come as a favour to the Wizarding World or not, he didn't care. They did not deserve him to help them to defeat Voldemort.
He was readying himself to fight just for avenging his parents and for keeping Hermione safe.
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