31 Rift in friendship

Harry sat beside Hermione in the Herbology class and wondered if he should drop out of this class as well.

Now that he had talked with Albus Dumbledore and they've made it clear between themselves that he was not really interested in remaining in this school anymore and the only reason he was even here was because Dumbledore couldn't allow the Boy-Who-Would-Be-Sacrificed-For-The-Greater-Good to slip out of his fingers, he could literally stop coming to any class that he didn't like.

In fact, he had not attended the last two classes of Potions and History of Magic and the last three classes of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Now he was wondering if he should drop out of Herbology as well considering how he was not really all that interested in that subject.

Learning how to plant and nurture Bubotuber might be good for anyone who was interested in learning about plants and wanted good marks in their classes but for him, it was nothing but a huge waste of his time.

Time that he could spend doing something else.

But then again, Pomona was such a nice woman and he didn't want to leave Hermione all alone in case she might get bullied by her classmates which would force him to retaliate against them.

Not that she'd been bullied by anyone recently.

His name carried at least that much weight around here. Especially after he sent one Slytherin 3rd year to the infirmary for calling Hermione a mudblood behind their backs.

No concrete evidence of his involvement was found as the boy simply tripped his legs and fell to the ground, hard, breaking his jaw and countless teeth.

But regardless of any concrete evidence, everyone knew that it was him who did it so bullies now stayed well away from Hermione.

Except for the few girls who were now bothering her even more now that they know how protective Harry could be when he wanted to.

He wanted to teach the girls a lesson on his own but by some divine intervention, Minerva Mcgonagall took the incentive herself and called those girls to the office in order to deal with them.

Those few that were called to her office had been strangely subdued since after their visit and Harry wondered what happened inside those closed doors.

From the looks Minerva was giving him, it was clear that she was trying to turn over a new leaf.

Or maybe she was doing it all under Headmaster's order in order to make his stay in Hogwarts more comfortable. You could never tell with all the manipulations going around.

And Hermione had also told him that Snape had also become a bit subdued lately.

Maybe threatening the headmaster with leaving the school was not such a bad thing after all.

Not that he was ready in any shape or form to leave the school in the first place.

He still wasn't anywhere close to copying all the books in the Restricted section and even if he did, he still needed time for using the Room of Requirement properly. After all, he doubted that he would be able to find any such room anywhere else in the world.

He was brought out of his musings by an elbow on the ribs.

He turned to look at Hermione who was sending him a glare telling him to focus on the given task and he sighed once again.

He might have decreased the trust she had on the authority figures but there was still a lot of things about her that he didn't particularly liked.

One of them being her obsession with studying every single subject and getting top marks in every one of them.

He could still remember how she took 11 classes in her 3rd year and had to use a time turner simply so she could keep up and even then she seemed haggard and tired all the time.

Of course, she would probably never get the top marks in Herbology because of Neville who was a prodigy in that subject but that didn't change the fact that her obsession with getting the top marks in all the other subjects was very unhealthy.

Especially when some of those subjects were Muggle Studies, Divination and History of Magic.

Wait, didn't she dropped out of Divination when Trelawny predicted Harry's death once again.

Huh, the exhaustion must have caught up to her otherwise she would have never insulted a teacher to her face no matter how batty the teacher seemed to be in the movies.

He looked around the class and noticed the other students learning to plant the dark red seeds with the black spot in their respective pots.

An overall boring exercise in his mind especially when he'd made it clear that he was never interested in Herbology in the first place.

He looked at Hermione who was now focused on her task and sighed.

He didn't know if he could find some way to change her mind so that she would stop paying so attention to things like these that would not matter in the long term.

Tom Riddle was also a genius of his own but Harry doubted that he would have ever spent most of his time focused on subjects like these that would not help him in the long run.

If he did, then he would not have found The Chamber of Secrets or The Room of Hidden Things. Nor would he have created such a large following in the Slytherin house.

You don't win the respect of your fellow Slytherin peers by getting top marks in Herbology.

And even though he was not much of a fan of Voldemort, he knew that there was always something that you could learn from people like these.

He looked at Hermione and wondered what he could do that would break her out of her fantasy world in which Higher Marks equals to huge success in the world.

Words would not work on her. Especially when his conversation skills were rather bad and he had doubts that he would win an argument against her even if he was on the right.

She needed to go through a dangerous situation that would change her world view.

Something that would make her realize that things like Herbology, History of Magic and things like these won't really help her in the long run.

Not that he had anything against Herbology but he felt that the both of them could do much more in subjects like Transfiguration and Charms if they just put their minds together.

So where was he, yes, she need something drastic to happen in her life which would help her understand that using her precious time on things like Herbology won't be of much use in the long run.

But what to do.

And then he remembered a plan that he had scraped some time ago.

The plan about the troll.

The incident with the troll was something that he'd decided to stop when he became friend with Hermione.

After all, there was not way he would endanger his friend and pit her against a troll just so he could come and save her at time.

Such a traumatizing experience might bond them together like how it did in the real movie but that didn't mean that he would continue with that event.

What's more, with all the changes he'd made in Hogwarts, he doubted that anyone would bully Hermione anytime soon, or that she would ever have to run to a bathroom in order to cry her tears out.

So the troll incident was something that he'd scraped up some time ago and decided that he would rather leave it to the Headmaster and the other teachers like how it should have been.

But here was a great learning experience for Hermione and if he was careful then no harm would come to Hermione.

And who's he to say 'No' to such a bonding experience.

But regardless, he still felt like a dick for betraying his friend like that.

"Say Hermione." He said in order to get her attention and when she looked at him with scrutiny, he continued "You already know about my confrontation with the Headmaster. If, I leave this school at the end of the term, would you come with me?" he asked hopefully cause he considered himself a good friend if you ignore the incoming troll attack which might traumatize her a bit.

Hermione looked at him in a complicated manner and chewed her lips for a moment but when she didn't replied for a long moment, he felt something shatter in his heart.

"You're a very good friend Harry. But I don't know if my parents would allow me to change school just because of a friend." She said slowly and he felt a stab in his heart.

Because he had genuinely believed that he was her best friend and that she would follow him to the ends of the world with him.

Well, maybe not to the ends of the world but he still believed that she thought more about their friendship than he did.

But maybe it was just him.

Or maybe she simply valued her education more than her friendship with him.

A heavy feeling settle in his heart and he felt something prickle in his eyes.

"I see." He managed to say which out a bit croaked because of his emotions and he could see Hermione's face suddenly turn pale but before she could say anything, he turned his Shroud of Concealment to it's fullest and watched in sadness as Hermione suddenly looked a bit unsure before she went back to her work.

And he had thought that he had a friend in her who would always stay with him no matter what.

The fact that she valued the school more than him felt like a stab to his heart.

It should not have been as the logical part of his brain knew that such a feeling was a bit childish but his emotions didn't let him think about any such logic.

And he felt like she had betrayed him in some way even though she really didn't.

She really just... didn't valued their friendship as much as he had thought.

Well, in the end, you cannot really expect a person to leave his or her school just because their friend did so as well.

And what made him even more of a hypocrite was the fact that if Hermione left the school then he would not have followed her, though he would try his best to make her stay.

But that didn't change the fact that he felt like utter shit right now.

He left the class without anyone noticing anything strange and it would be a few minutes before even Hermione would realize that he'd left her side.