I'm back! 💙

Last I posted the chapter, was in the first week of this year. At the time, I was mentally tired, I felt drained of energy. I was also finding it difficult to focus on my writing. But the break I took, helped me immensely.

During this time, I worked on some basic short stories, and finally, I turned my attention to this, "Harry Potter And The Friend He Never Had", the crown jewel of my writing ❤️

And here I am, back with Chapter 36 of this wonderful thing. Hope you enjoy the chapter!

"Crucio"

The woman twisted and turned in pain. It was the most intense variety of pain she had ever experienced. It felt like a million needles pierced her skin, all at the same time. She tried to control it but after a while, she could no longer control her screams.

The man stopped the torture for a few seconds. "Answer and I'll stop," he said.

She was too weak to respond. Even if she wasn't weak, she was never going to reveal the secrets.

After a few seconds, "I can do this all day," said the man and pointed his wand at the woman. "Crucio" he muttered coldly and watched the woman scream in pain, begging for him to stop.

After a few minutes, he stopped again. "But, I know now that I have my work cut out. He has friends who are willing to suffer for him. That is admirable," he said kneeling down and staring at the woman's face from a very close distance.

He got up slowly and looked at his wand and then back at the woman.

"Goodbye, Doctor," he said. "Avada Kedavra" he muttered and a jet of green light escaped his wand and hit Kristin.

Harry was standing in the lush green grass. There was a cool breeze blowing gently in the direction Harry was looking. But Harry couldn't see anyone. He turned back sharply and saw an enormous house, that looked more like a palace.

"Come on Harry," said Daisy laughing. Standing beside her was Ron who burst into a laugh. And beside him were John, Jane, Hermione and... and a cloaked figure.

"What are Hermione and Ron doing here?" said Harry to himself.

"We are gonna be late," came the voice of Daisy.

"Late? Late for what?" he wondered. Curious to find out, Harry started walking towards his friends. He had only walked a few steps when he found himself inside this palace. Beautiful lights were hanging from the chandelier.

"Hey look, don't they look beautiful," said Harry and turned to look at his friends. But there was no one beside him. Suddenly, he heard laughter from a room that was on the other side of the palace. The laughter he heard was extremely familiar and a few seconds later, it struck him.

"Lockhart? What's he doing here?" he thought and briskly made his way to the room. But the closer he got to the room, the fainter the laughter got. When he finally reached the room, he pushed the door wide open and found the room completely dark and seemingly empty.

Harry cautiously walked a few steps into the room. From the moment he entered the room, he started smelling something weird. He couldn't place it at first but soon realised that the room smelled exactly like the Chamber did. Instinctively, Harry looked back and to his surprise, there was no door, but only endless darkness and a path that led to where he didn't know. Harry walked a few more steps ahead till he came across a bed. Suddenly, his legs started to ache and the bed looked more and more inviting. Giving up, Harry walked near the bed and sat comfortably.

It had only been a few minutes when he heard the sound of the door in front of him breaking open. A cloaked figure walked in and there was a jet of green light. And Harry woke up screaming in the middle of the night.

The moment Harry woke up, he looked for his glasses and quickly wore them. He picked up the torch from the table beside his bed and lit it bright. He looked around his room and to his relief it was empty. It only took him a few moments to realize what had happened.

"Oh no! Not again," muttered Harry under his breath. And soon enough, Petunia came running into the room.

"Harry... had another bad dream?" she asked softly and sat down beside him. Harry was still lying down. He remained silent. "What happened tonight?" she asked.

"I was talking to Daisy... Uh... I was in this place..." said Harry in reply, trying hard to remember what it was he dreamt.

"It's okay... you are home. There is nothing to be afraid of. He can't get to you here," said Petunia, petting Harry's forehead.

But Harry wasn't afraid of Lord Voldemort. He had tried giving it a thought, on why he was getting these nightmares. It had already happened on countless occasions since he had come back home from Hogwarts. But he never got anywhere in his thoughts.

"I'm not afraid Aunt Petunia," replied Harry boldly. Petunia just smiled in response.

After a couple of minutes of silence, she replied, "don't worry about anything. Everybody needs a good sleep to be healthy, wizard or not. I know I will sound like a broken record, but think about happy things. Try to remove as much negativity from your head as possible. Just let yourself wander in happy memories before you go to sleep," said Petunia soothingly.

Soon thereafter, Petunia left Harry to back to sleep. The following morning, Petunia was frying eggs and bacon in the kitchen when Harry woke up. He walked down to the hall and saw Dudley sitting at the table.

"MUM! HARRY'S UP..." shouted Dudley at the top of his voice.

"No need to shout," screamed back Petunia.

"Morning, Harry," greeted Dudley.

"Good Morning, Dudley," greeted back Harry, yawning.

"Woke up again last night?" asked Dudley digging into his eggs. Harry sulked in response. Just then Petunia came from the kitchen, holding a plate. She handed the plate to Harry and glared at Dudley.

"How many times have I told you not to poke him about his nightmares?" she asked angrily.

"I didn't even do anything," replied Dudley fiercely.

Later that morning, once Petunia had an opportunity to talk to Harry alone, she decided to bring up the subject she had been meaning to for a few days.

"Harry, dear... Why don't you invite Ron to stay with us for a few days... a couple of weeks even?" asked Petunia. "I'm sure it would be a nice change of pace for him too," she added.

Harry was speechless for a moment. He couldn't believe he didn't think of it earlier.

"Inviting Ron? Oh that would be fantastic Aunt Petunia..." replied Harry with a glow on his face that hadn't been there ever since he came back from Hogwarts.

"Good... I am glad you feel the same way," said Petunia.

Harry immediately went back to his room and fetched his quill and parchment from his trunk and began composing a long letter for Ron. In the weeks he had spent since coming back from Hogwarts, Harry had already sent and received multiple letters from Ron. Most of those letters were about Ginny, Professor Jane and the media flare up on the same. His communication with Hermione on the other hand was much more scarce in comparison since Hermione was visiting her cousins. And finally, there was absolutely nothing with John. Harry didn't even know where John lived and frankly, he wasn't sure if he wanted to contact him.

Once Harry was done with his letter, he gave it to Hedwig along with a few treats. Harry had gradually grown fond of his snowy owl. At first, when he got the Owl, he wasn't sure about it. Coupled with sudden celebrity status and being thrown into an alien world, Harry barely had any time to appreciate his pet owl. But, ever so recently, he had started enjoying its company.

One morning, a few days later, Ron's much-awaited reply arrived. And to Harry's relief, Ron had accepted the invitation. But there was another envelope in the mix that had Harry's name on it. It was a beautiful white sealed envelope with 2 dark diagonal stripes on each corner. Harry carefully opened the seal and removed the letter.

Potter

I apologise for what happened to Ginny. I didn't want to believe it for a long time, but I was just fooling myself. It was my dad that gave "The Diary" to Ginny at the start of last year. Please pass on my apologies to Ron and the rest of the Weasleys. I am not writing to them directly. I am not sure how well my apologies will be received, especially at a time like this.

Sincerely
Draco Malfoy

Harry read and re-read the letter multiple times before accepting what was written in it. Draco apologising was beyond Harry's expectations. And how Draco even knew about the diary's involvement was a mystery to him. However, Harry now had confirmation on one thing. It was indeed Lucius Malfoy responsible for everybody's troubles. Everyone who knew the truth about what had happened had only one person to suspect, and that was Lucius Malfoy. Nobody in the public had any knowledge of the diary's existence. For all the ruckus the Daily prophet had created, for all the troubles it had created for Jane and John, for all the annoyance they had created for the Weasleys in the name of justice, even they had no clue about the diary's existence.

The Daily Prophet had portrayed the Weasleys as the ultimate innocent wizarding family. The Prophet had managed to create a soap opera around the whole Ginny incident and the Chamber of Secrets demanding justice for the Weasleys, even though it was built on an entirely false premise. The truth however was known only to a handful of people which included Albus Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Snape, John, Ron, Hermione and Harry. Hundreds of interviews had been conducted with the Weasley family, individually and as a family. Even Harry and Hermione were chased around for interviews. But they managed to evade most of them owing to their muggle surrounding. And the villains of this soap opera were not only the Smiths, but also Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic, and its incapacity to uncover the truth sooner. And at the centre of all of this chaos was Rita Skeeter.

Rita Skeeter who was at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on the day the events unfurled often wrote scathing articles about Jane Smith and her nephew John Smith. She also took every opportunity to reiterate John's attack on Hermione as the beginning of the onslaught.

The Ministry's image was being torn left, right and centre. Not only were they criticised for letting the situation escalate, but they were now being called the choicest of words for letting their prisoner escape from right under their noses. Jane Smith's escape from the Ministry on the very day she was arrested did not go down well with the public. There was a massive amount of support to the Weasleys and just as much condemnation against the Ministry.

And things got worse when, for the first time in living memory of most of the public, a prisoner from Azkaban had escaped. And this was not just any other prisoner. This was You-Know-Who's right-hand man, Sirius Black. The streets had ever since been filled with not just outcry for justice, but also fear.

But the one thing that bothered Harry in all of this was the negligence shown to Ginny. Everybody was busy demanding justice, but nobody cared about Ginny's actual health. Harry had yet to visit Ginny at St Mungo's, but from everything he had heard from Ron about her state, she was in the wizarding world's version of "a coma". Even the healers at St Mungo's barely knew anything about what was wrong with her. She hadn't gained consciousness once in all this time.

Harry was in a world of his own, lost in his sadness, anger, grief that he didn't even hear what the person next to him was saying.

"Harry... you haven't said anything for the last 10 minutes. Are you ok?" asked Daisy.

"Uh... what? I'm sorry, I was thinking something else. You were saying something?" asked Harry in return.

"You didn't hear anything I said, did you? What's up with you? You have been distant ever since you came back. Were your exams bad or something?" asked Daisy.

"Exams? What... no, we didn't have any exams," replied Harry hastily.

"You didn't have any exams? What do you mean? You don't have any exams at the end of the year?" asked Daisy.

"Daisy... we didn't have exams this year... We have exams just like muggles do," replied Harry but stopped himself from saying anything more.

Every time he saw Daisy, the only thing that he could think of were the threats posed by Emily Davies. And the only thing Harry thought of doing was to avoid Daisy as much as he could. And that was proving to be extremely difficult since she was his best friend.

"Why didn't you have exams this year?" asked Daisy.

"The memory of the dark wizard who tried to kill me when I was an infant managed to bewitch my best friend's sister into opening the Chamber of Secrets and unleashing an enormous snake. But for some reason, my other friend's aunt who is actually his twin sister took the blame for it and ended up escaping as well. Yeah, so the school decided to cancel exams for everyone below 5th year," is the reply Harry wanted to vent out.

But what he actually managed to reply was, "A student was almost killed by somebody. So, they cancelled our exams and sent us home."

"Wait... what?" asked Daisy, in shock.

"Yes"

"Oh my god! How's the student? Did you know him?" asked Daisy.

"It was a girl," replied Harry and continued, "she is... uh... I don't know... I'm sure she is fine now," he lied.

"Oh my god, Harry! That's why you have been all weird this summer. Couldn't you have told me this earlier? And all this time I thought you were mad at me for something," replied Daisy and grabbed Harry into a hug.

Suddenly, unexplainably, the weight of sorrow and guilt that Harry was carrying around seemed to have lightened up.

Back with a bang? Beginning of yet another journey... Hope you are excited about the ride, because, there is so much more to come. And all of that will arrive in the coming days and weeks. So, stay tuned!

PS - Chapter 37 will be out towards the end of the week. Ciao! 💙