Warnings, disclaimers, boy I hope chapters will start getting easier to write.
A/N's -
- Hiei calls Hermione "Granger" and Ron "Ron" because he's stuck living with Ron, and he doesn't feel like bothering with the extra attention of ignoring that custom. /bs
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Ch. 14 - Ugly Pictures
Leaning back in the hard wooden chair, Kurama wearily ran an ink-spotted hand through his hair and exhaled softly. The precise lines of his final essay gleamed wetly up at him, the letters stark in the light of his single, nearly-spent candle. Done. Finally.
He blotted the ink dry, rolling and tying the scroll neatly, then set it down with the others. All his classwork for the day, plus a note for Genkai. He'd much rather be spending the day in class, all told, but that wasn't going to happen. He could already feel the effects creeping in.
Standing, Kurama stretched, twisting to peer at the grandfather clock behind him in the empty Slytherin common room. The hands read ridiculously late and dead of night, and he spared a moment to wish for a clock that would display actual numbers.
The clock's machinery ground sullenly into gear, and the hands racheted to nearly half past four. The lettering, however, didn't change, dim writing under the hands spelling out too late to bother.
"Thank you," Kurama murmured. The clock creaked, a muffled gong echoing softly in the room. He would have smiled, had it been any other day. The wizarding world was just so different from the Makai and Muggle worlds, so many small details that teased at what little he remembered of being a child.
And so many that were entirely the opposite.
Kurama frowned, gazing blindly towards the windows under the lake's cove as he remembered the argument with Harry just last week. He'd not been paying much attention then, but the suspicion was all too clear in his memory... All that damned human prejudice spewing from Harry, of all people. He'd somewhat liked the boy, for all that he'd avoided him due to House rivalries, and taken a bit too much amusement in baiting Harry under the guise of Youko. Granted, with that, it only made sense that the Brat-Who-Lived would get worried after accepting the additional 'demon' label. It was even good that Neville had people taking an interest, even if it was late in coming.
Still, Harry's suspicion had stung. Still stung, really, if Kurama felt like being honest.
A tendril of panic coiled around his stomach at the thought. He couldn't afford that much honesty today.
So Kurama shook such notions out of his head, scooped up his homework scrolls, and set off to deliver them to their respective professors.
Hurt. By a human kid. Ridiculous.
It was just the stupid equinox.
-0-0-0
Harry couldn't find the room's door.
He had been prowling the room with the silver-framed paintings for what seemed like hours now. His bare feet had long since gone numb from the cold stone underfoot; his fingers were sore from prodding at the rough masonry of the walls. The wandless Lumos spell wouldn't budge from the center of the ceiling, and it was fortunate there didn't seem to be anything nasty hiding in the shadowy nooks and crannies of the room.
By this point, he was ready to risk messing with the paintings: random land- and cityscapes, one blank, of a wide variety of sizes and shapes. All except the blank one gave occasional glimpses of Death Eaters in the background. The chance that any were Portkeys...
Well, Harry had never heard of a Portkey that showed its destination. Not that it was much comfort. There was a lot he still hadn't heard of in the wizarding world.
Biting his lip, Harry reached up to nudge at the blank painting.
Harry woke with his hand numb, the memory of sizzling magic ringing in his ears and down his spine. He squinted blearily through the dark, only belatedly realizing that it was stupid to try to see anything right now, and groped for the numb hand with his free one.
The numbed skin was cool to the touch, almost puffy, and started to prickle after a moment under his fingertips.
"Ow?" he muttered.
He would never have noticed the soft rustling in the background had it not abruptly stopped at his voice. Harry blinked.
"Who's there?"
No response. The prickling soared swiftly into full-blown pins-and-needles, and Harry bit his lip. His hand curled around the injured one, checking for odd welts: he'd been bitten by spiders often enough in the cupboard, a magical one might've gotten in...
Or something else.
So even though he didn't feel anything, no lumps or trickling wetness, and the flesh was starting to feel normal instead of puffy, Harry carefully pictured a snake and tried again. It was worth a shot, anyway.
"Who's there?" he hissed in Parseltongue.
Still nothing.
Harry fumbled for his glasses and wand, murmured a soft "Lumos", and poked his head out of the curtains at the foot of his bed. He scanned the room carefully, from the shadows under the unlit coal burner to the dirty socks under the window.
Nothing. Neville's bedcurtains swayed slightly in the night breeze, that was all.
He was paranoid. The noise must've been somebody rolling around in their sleep, and his hand felt fine now. He'd probably slept on it wrong. Shaking his head, Harry pulled his glasses off once more and flopped back into his bed. There was still enough time to get a bit more sleep before he had Madame Pomfrey check him. Just in case.
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Several stories below the Gryffindor boys' windows, Kurama crouched on the ridgepole of the castle roof, back braced against the tower wall as he panted. He hadn't dared breathe after Harry's voice had shocked a good year's growth out of him, even as he crept back out the window. Tense muscles and a pounding heart had eaten away at his oxygen, setting his lungs to burning with the need for air.
What on earth had woken the boy? It certainly hadn't been Kurama, not as good as he was at silence. The faint crinkling of parchment, the near-imperceptible fall of a slippered foot on bare wood, an eighth pattern of breathing added to the seven already in the room... none of it should've woken any of them. Except maybe Hiei, but not on this night, not unless Kurama had broken the barriers on Hiei's curtains.
All this for a few scrolls of homework. Though, to tell the truth, it hadn't been until Kurama was reaching for Hiei's bed that he'd realized: he probably shouldn't be in the Gryffindor dorm until after the students left for breakfast. Stealing Hiei and Neville's homework to deliver it to the right professors, thus retracing his earlier steps and wasting time, had been done on impulse.
Granted, it was a better idea than the short-lived notion of waking somebody (not Harry, not when Kurama was upset... er, when Harry was annoyed with him over Neville) to help prevent him from being discovered instead. Sure, Kurama would be safely hidden under Hiei's blankets right now, instead of doing stupid things to distract himself from the near-blinding despair radiating from his intrinsic magic. But then he would have to acknowledge that somebody knew.
It was one thing to admit vulnerability in himself. It was something else entirely... on a level where 'something else' meant 'justified in having his head lopped off'... to tell about Hiei's or Neville's. There was just a certain etiquette to these matters.
And dwelling on manners and Hiei's bed was not distracting him from the ache of falling leaves in the forest. Moving, however, would.
The slightest shift of his weight sent Kurama skidding, soles kicking up grit, down the shingled roof. He kicked himself away a finger's width from the gutter, stomach surging weightlessly towards his lungs in the instants before he landed atop a lower roof. Withered vines crumbled under his toe, dry and frostbitten and dead to his magic, but he managed not to flinch as he swung under the eaves and dropped lightly onto a windowsill.
The window wasn't even locked, Kurama noticed. He automatically avoided the frosty glass, the wooden sash worn smooth under his fingertips, as he slipped into an old storage room. Dust covers made pale, lumpy shadows of everything. Kurama edged past them with less care than he would have taken had the covers been necessary; not a trace of dust lay on either them or the floor to show his footprints.
Once in the hallway, passage was both more and less difficult than his previous trip. The sky was starting to pale in the east, sunrise and the end of student curfew approaching fast.
He couldn't afford to get caught, not if he wanted to claim illness later. But the encroaching light gave him that much more to focus on outside of his magic. The first flash of sun stabbing through a piece of red glass: one of the few stained-glass windows in the castle, Helga herself in a rose garden. How easy it was to take a ridiculously complicated route through the castle; how one staircase, when he backed down it to avoid an early-rising Ravenclaw, let him out in an entirely different wing. The intricate, deep carvings of an archway, as he clung to a shadowy upper corner of it and waited for a group of Hufflepuffs to wander past.
Humans never looked up. Callous, mindblind brats, oblivious to everything, to the painful surge of magic, how dare they be... but no. No, these were just weapons students, common as dirt and almost as useful. They should be oblivious, just like Yuusuke and Kuwabara were.
He slid to the floor in the wake of their passage, darted past the DADA classroom and down a staircase, and found McGonagall's office on the left. His vines, hidden in a nook above the door, hadn't budged. He added Hiei's and Neville's scrolls to his own, cocooned in the vines, and left them primed to slip in under the lintel when the door opened.
It was too late to try to reach Snape's office by now. The dungeons had almost no cover to speak of, what with low ceilings, tapestry-covered flat walls, and sharp-eyed, wary Slytherins about.
Kurama slipped into the shadowy alcove behind a large statue, within earshot of the moving staircases, and settled in to eavesdrop and wait for breakfast to start.
-0-0-0
Hiei's eyelids felt like lead when he dragged them open, his fingers twitching with equal exhaustion. Something had woken him. He'd long since gotten used to the pandemonium several teenage boys could produce first thing in the morning, so what had...?
"I said go away!"
There. The break in Neville's voice. Though it wasn't his voice that had woken Hiei; it was the absence of something related to it. Kurama should've been here by now, even if only for his student, but Hiei's bed was unaccountably empty and the dorm filled only with human boy-scent. Where was Kurama?
"Neville," Dean said reasonably, "if you're sick, you should go to the Infirmary. We can hardly tell McGonagall if you don't."
Clothing rustled as Ron, half-muffled, added, "Yeah. You can go with Harry." His voice became clear, as if he'd finished pulling a shirt on. "He's off for a quick check before breakfast anyway."
Something thumped, somebody kicking the base of a bedpost. If it was Neville's, Kurama would throw a fit. "You'll feel better with breakfast in you, at least," Seamus said.
"Merlin, no breakfast..." Neville moaned.
Hiei snorted. "Bugger off, you idiots," he grumbled, not bothering to open his bedcurtains. "He's old enough to decide for himself." This was Kurama's goddamn job, where the hell was the fox?
Harry choked out a cynical laugh. "Tell that to McGonagall."
"Tell her yourself," Hiei snapped, not as sharply as he'd have liked. His voice felt and sounded thick with sleep. "I'm..." sick too "... not going to classes."
A moment's silence. Then, "We've got Potions," Harry said slowly.
Way to state the obvious. Hiei yanked the blankets over his head, ignoring the noise resulting from that pronouncement. Even Neville chimed in, not that Hiei was bothering to interpret any of the cacophony. He waited for it to die down, then pulled the blankets away from his lower face. "I've got something more important to do."
More noise. Hiei waited this out too, until somebody batted aside his bedcurtains and tore the covers off him.
Kuwabara. Hiei bared his teeth, hands curling into claws. Suicidal idiot.
"Damn... you look like shit," Kuwabara breathed, ignoring the cracking sizzle of enspelled cloth against the stump of his rei sword. Their eyes met, and Kuwabara flinched, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ow. Fuck. Yeah. These guys are so not going to classes."
The oaf. Was going. To die. Painfully.
Kuwabara draped the blanket back over Hiei, held up his hands in a concilatory gesture, then stepped back and let the curtains fall into place. The wards reactivated, the hum of their protective magic blunting the edge of Hiei's offense.
It wasn't much, but it was enough to let Hiei sink back down into the mattress, tense and wary and almost too drained to remain so. Kuwabara wasn't a threat, as sickening as it was to put up with all that honor and chivalry crap. So no matter what the idiot did, it wasn't enough to spark the desperation that could get Hiei moving today. Although displaying his lethargy for the whole room to see... that was pushing it.
Still seething, Hiei ground his teeth and waited for the room to clear out. It didn't take very long: whatever Kuwabara had sensed made him hurry the rest of their dormmates along. Soon, the door slammed shut on a room empty of everyone except Hiei.
And Neville. Whose breath, now that Hiei could hear it properly, was shaky and too quick. A risky pattern, but since Hiei wasn't planning on getting up, much less harassing the upset boy, perfectly safe. Hiei felt the rest of the tension drain from his body, and the red-tinted darkness behind his curtains seemed to warm.
He was safe.
Safe...
Some time later, Hiei jerked back out of a half-doze, nostrils flaring. Cool air trickled past his curtains, tinged with the scents of wood smoke, decaying leaves, and almost-fox. Then a floorboard creaked, faint and deliberate. That would be Kurama, making sure Hiei was awake and aware. Even softer, cloth rustled; Neville's breathing stuttered, choked off and held.
"I've not done too right by you, have I, Neville?" Kurama murmured. Hiei frowned, not sure what was wrong about Kurama's tone as Neville answered.
"You're not fine," Kurama replied, voice even, warm, tightly controlled. Too tightly. "I'm not fine," he added, and that was enough to shock Hiei's own breath to a halt. "Sheer bloody-minded stubbornness, and years of knowing what to expect, is all that's keeping me upright at the moment. I fully intend to hide in bed too until the day's over, now that everybody's out of the way."
A pause, then Neville's mattress creaked. "Shh..." Kurama murmured. Neville's breath caught and shuddered.
I shouldn't be listening to this, Hiei thought, ludicrously.
"It'll be okay," Kurama added. "Are you sure you don't want that sedative?" Another pause. "All right, then. We'll save it for Halloween."
Halloween. Kurama's most vulnerable time. Most dangerous, too: Koorime and Hiei went into dormant states at their respective low points, unless roused to violence. Kurama had been conscious and controlled last year, at least up until nightfall, but the murderous rage, the lashing out against any percieved threat... that had to be the same. And he'd just admitted he was going to spend the entire day drugged to insensibility, while within earshot of a demon as strong as he was?
I REALLY shouldn't be listening to this!
A few more quiet murmurs, that Hiei was Not Listening To, and then the mattress creaked again. Footsteps approached Hiei's bed, so he dropped the wards before Kurama burned himself on them. The curtains parted, sun making Hiei narrow his eyes reflexively.
"May I?" Kurama asked. When Hiei grunted, rolling out of the way, Kurama toed off his shoes and sank into the bed with a relieved sigh. "Thanks."
"Hn." Stupid fox. Hiei flopped an arm over Kurama's waist, pulling until there was enough room in the narrow bed for them both. "Th' hell was that?" he mumbled.
"I'm not sure." A shrug pressed Kurama's shoulderblades against Hiei's ribs. "Something I learned from Kaasan."
That hadn't been what Hiei meant. He'd been asking about Kurama discussing plans to be drugged while in earshot... but if Kurama was going to play it like this, fine. He wasn't sure he wanted an honest answer anyway. "It's creepy," Hiei muttered. Which was entirely true. Watching Kurama be nice, without any hint of ulterior motive, was disturbing.
"I'll be an amused Slytherin bastard later," Kurama replied, managing something closer to his usual tones, "just for you."
Hiei closed his eyes, managing not to exhale with any sign of relief. "Much better."
-0-0-0
Harry was going to kill Hiei. Top of the list, right after Voldemort and that damn rat Wormtail, and right before...
He abruptly recalled Youko's face, the faintest of smirks and a "sayonara" on his lips, in the split second before the Forest's canopy rained blood.
... okay, not Kurama. But they were both in so much trouble. Why couldn't they have picked Tuesday, or Friday, or basically any day except Monday to not show up for class?
Slowly, Harry raised his eyes to meet his professor's. Snape's black glower lingered for a long moment, then passed on to each student in turn, before stopping on the two empty spots.
"We seem," Snape's voice fell heavily, quellingly, on Harry's ears, "to be missing some students."
Silence. Harry dared a glance at the rest of the class; even Malfoy seemed paler than usual, though that was likely a trick of the light. Or perhaps not, since Kurama was the one Slytherin Snape didn't seem to like.
(Harry had a sudden wild thought: was that because Snape knew Kurama was a demon?
... no. No, if Snape knew, he would've "accidentally" let the rest of the school know, to get Genkai and her students sent packing.)
Ron cleared his throat. "Jaganshi's sick, Professor."
Snape's eyebrow twitched. "Indeed." It wasn't a question. "He can be located in the Infirmary, then."
Harry winced, and more felt than saw Hermione and Ron do the same.
"Er, no," Ron mumbled.
"Then, clearly, he is. Not. Sick." Snape slammed both hands on the table in front of Ron. "Are you aware of the punishment for skipping classes, Mr. Weasley?"
Harry's mind went blank. He had no idea. He'd never heard of somebody skipping, though Hermione had fallen asleep and missed Charms once. But that was Flitwick, and all the teachers had known about the Time-Turner that year...
Before Ron could answer, Keiko's voice rang out, too loud and shrill.
"Did you not get Professor Genkai's note?" Snape whirled on the girl, staring straight ahead and not meeting his eyes. "...Sir." she added as an afterthought.
Snape stalked to her table, robes billowing and eyes flashing.
Keiko gulped. "She should've sent a note. Sir. For Hiei... and Kurama."
Harry held his breath. Keiko had to be lying; Hiei would've told them to shut up and quit worrying, that a professor was dealing with his absence, had that been true.
Evidently, Snape didn't believe it either. "How... convenient," he sneered.
Keiko's gaze flicked away as the professor moved to meet it. "Sir?" Keiko asked. "The lesson?"
Another long moment, Snape staring the Ravenclaw girl down, then he spun away to the board with a snarl.
After that came Transfiguration, where the conversation with the professor repeated itself, albeit much more pleasantly. Harry had harbored some hope that Neville would feel better after a bit of a lie-in, and actually make it to class, but he failed to appear.
Then, since Harry and Ron hadn't been quick enough to spot the all-too-familiar gleam in Hermione's eye, they didn't realize she was steering them to the kitchens... until she got them into the wrong corridor and charmed the hallway behind them to be impassable.
The afternoon went downhill from there.
At least Hermione let them get a picnic basket overflowing with food, and even eat a full sandwich each, before she announced, "I've realized what's wrong with Neville."
Harry blinked, staring at her past his half-eaten apple, then swallowed his bite. "Er, we already told you. He's sick."
"But I know why," Hermione persisted. "It's not an ordinary cold or anything. Kurama's missing too! I'm right, I know it... it's just like last May!" Ron made a soft sound, but Hermione ignored it. "The day Hiei got me to fetch Neville out of Divination, it was because Kurama was sick. He put Neville to work and that helped Kurama..." She stopped short. "Except that doesn't explain why Hiei's sick too. You did say Hiei was sick, right? Because he was fine last May..."
Ron shifted on the stone windowsill they'd picked to have lunch on. "Um, I didn't see. Kuwabara said he was."
Except that was wrong. "No," Harry quickly filled in, "Kuwabara said he looked like hell and wasn't going to classes. And Hiei said he had something more important to do."
"So he's NOT sick!" Hermione crowed. "He's helping Neville! And that's got to be where Kurama is too, because it's like their powers are tied somehow. That's why Neville had to use his magic to help when Kurama was sick, so Kurama's using his magic to help because Neville's sick..." For the second time in as many minutes, she trailed off. "Um. Oh dear."
"What is it?" Ron asked.
"Um. When Kurama was sick, he, er..." Hermione inexplicably blushed. "Ohhh dear. This isn't good."
Kurama was a demon, Harry thought. Had Hermione seen...? "What? What's not good?"
Hermione tugged at a lock of hair. "He. Er. Kind of..."
"What?"
Her next words came almost too fast to pick out. "Tackled Hiei and I'm not sure what he was about to do but Hiei said something about consent and he just froze..."
Ron's expression twisted to match Hermione's. "Hermione?" he asked slowly. "Tackled him how?"
"You know, tackled him! In a way that required shoving Kurama back off onto the ground. Why?"
"Because..." Ron took a deep breath, then shamefully said, "I wasn't supposed to ever mention it. But the reason Kurama told me about side effects? Was because I found Hiei in the bathroom one morning looking like he'd gone ten rounds with a hippogryff."
Or, Harry thought, a demon with nails like claws? Youko had trailed one down his cheek while trying to scare the shit out of him during Genkai's test.
Ron finished, "And that was last May."
Hermione paled. "Oh my god."
May. Harry had met Youko in April. He'd broken Kurama's potion in June. Kurama could turn into Youko in May.
Harry barely heard Ron add, "He said... he said something about not leaving Kurama in pain."
"Because Kurama was sick," Hermione murmured. "And now Neville's sick..."
Harry dropped his apple and bolted for Gryffindor Tower. Dimly, he heard Ron's half-panicked shout of "Mobiliqualus!", and the pounding footsteps of Ron and Hermione in his wake.
"Harry! Harry! Wait up!"
He didn't understand. Kurama had told him he wouldn't understand, but he hadn't said a word about connected magics. Just about treasures and guarding and raw power...
Things were adding up to something very, very ugly in Harry's head.
He nearly crashed into the Fat Lady's portrait, Ron and Hermione and the floating picnic basket knocking him off-balance. He caught himself on the frame, panting out an apology to the appalled Lady.
"Per..." Hermione gasped, "Perspective it is best painter's art!"
The portrait swung open, tsking as they stumbled through the hole into the common room. They spared barely a glance for the room, only enough to see it was deserted, before tearing up the stairs.
The dorm was just as Harry had left it this morning. Sunny. Intact. Quiet. Hiei's curtains were closed; Neville's only mostly so. And the mound of blankets behind the half-shut curtains was moving, a face peering out.
Neville looked miserable. Though that was a lot better than missing, or injured, or having some sort of knock-down no-holds-barred fight. As much as Harry couldn't really imagine that last one.
He abruptly realized that he... and Hermione and Ron, and a picnic basket of all things... had just crashed into the room like Death Eaters were on their tail. It seemed pretty ridiculous, in retrospect.
"Neville. Um." Hermione, fortunately, filled the awkward silence. "How are you feeling?"
A blink. "I've been better," Neville replied, bewildered.
"We brought food," Ron said, rallying. "If you're up to it."
Food. Brilliant, Harry thought. He glanced at the basket. They'd barely made a dent in what the elves had put in, so... "There's enough for Hiei and Kurama," he said. "You know. If they're around."
Neville pushed himself partway up, trying and failing to offer a lighter expression. "They were sleeping," he said, jerking his head towards Hiei's bed. "Probably not anymore, though."
"Sleeping?" Hermione echoed, stepping curiously towards Hiei's bed. Her head tipped up, as if she thought she could see in if she just found the right angle. "They're not helping you?"
"Helping?" Neville echoed, incredulous. "They're as bad off as me."
Kurama's voice floated out from behind the curtains. "Neville," he said, warningly.
"Guess I'm not supposed to say that," the sick boy muttered. He glanced up, caught Harry's eye. "Slytherin paranoia, you know? Don't show weakness..."
"Neville," Kurama repeated.
Neville's face fell. "Sorry."
Hermione took another step towards Hiei's bed. "So wait," she murmured, gaze flicking from the closed curtains to Neville's face. "They're sick, and you're sick, and it's all the same 'weakness'..."
Kurama interrupted. "Please don't finish that thought, Miss Granger."
"But..." She took another step forward, reaching out for the bed.
"Please," Kurama repeated. "And don't touch the curtains, either, they'll burn."
She froze. Paused. Frowned. "Isn't that dangerous? The bed's not that big."
Why am I surprised that was her first question? Harry thought.
A weary sigh. "We're both quite used to it."
"Uh..." Ron cleared his throat. "Isn't that a bit... er..."
"Customary," Kurama finished.
"Oh."
That sounded extremely fishy to Harry, especially the way Hermione was glancing at Neville's blatantly unprotected bed, and the boy curled miserably in it. Alone. He leaned in close, whispering, "Did they even offer to put protections up for you?"
"'S a Slytherin thing," Neville mumbled. "Or a Japanese one. Something. 'M fine."
Slytherin, Japanese... or...
Kuwabara had opened them just fine that morning.
Kurama's 'custom' suddenly sounded much more a demon one than a human one. Custom meant it happened more than rarely. Custom meant it happened a lot. Demon custom, for demon weakness, which Neville was sharing... no. Was being affected by.
Back to the ugly picture in Harry's mind.
-0-0-0
Dear Prof. Remus,
I'm afraid this isn't going to be an easy letter for you, but I need some advice. The situation is... complicated, and I can't say too much because then you'd know who I'm talking about and that's not fair. In fact, I can barely say anything, but he's got a secret that's sort of like yours, and I found out by accident.
Well. Sort of by accident. In the sense that I snuck out after him one night and nearly got us killed, except that he killed the thing that I think would've eaten us. Or broken the gates to let YKW in, I'm not sure. It was really a mess.
The problem is that he's a... I can't say that, it'll identify him. He did threaten me once, but I didn't know it was him at the time, and I think he was trying to provoke me instead of seriously meaning it. He could've just knocked me out if he'd meant it, or taken my head off when I hurt him, but he didn't.
But I can't be sure. He... I can't say that either, the Aurors will tear the school apart and the git's fine. The problem is that something he's doing, something that's because of what (not who) he is, it's affecting someone I know. Badly. Someone who is a good guy and doesn't deserve what I saw. But whatever it was, it was hurting him too.
I don't know if I should tell Ron and Hermione, is what I need advice on. I wouldn't out him to the entire school, not like that bastard Snape did to you, and I know... we know we can trust Ron and Hermione. Ron blurts things out but not secrets, no matter what. But it's not my secret to tell, except that I'm the one keeping it. And then the friend who's being affected, I'd want to tell him, but I'm really worried about how the guy with the secret would take it. He seems to genuinely like my friend, but he also seemed to genuinely be nice and friendly but he gutted an attacking... thing without even blinking!
It's not really fair of me to say that, though, is it. I think I killed Quirrell. The man screamed when I grabbed him and I didn't let go. I only realized that a couple of weeks ago, that it wasn't YKW who did it. And you would've killed Wormtail. So it's different, somehow, since it's... I don't know.
Everybody would hate him if they knew. Except Hermione, she'd probably grab a stack of books and a lot of parchment and pounce him with questions. I'm not asking because of his secret, just that I'm not sure he's... er, I'm pretty sure he's on our side somehow, but I'm not sure he's a good guy. Whatever he's doing to my friend made them miserable, like Dementors were in their beds.
I want to warn Ron and Hermione, and my friend. But I don't know if I should.
- Harry
TBC