Chapter 298: Auburn Conjectures

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.

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29 November 1994, Rome, Italy

Hermione Granger watched as Harry Potter ran as quickly as he could and warped the exterior of McGonagall's metal dragon. He jumped in without even giving her a look and she had no choice but to follow him.

As the walls morphed back into place, Hermione couldn't help herself to reassess her threat assessment of her former friend. Holy shit, this was insane. Nothing in the Department of Mystery's training remotely prepared her to deal with anything like this.

Harry Potter had just literally taken out hundreds of attacking wizards, which was practically a small army, and five fucking dragons…

Yes, five fucking dragons that some idiot tamed thanks to his family crest… It took half a dozen of mages trained specifically to handle dragons, to knock a single one of the beasts out, by attacking it at once… And he did it on his own… He somehow got past the creatures' magical resistance with a single spell…

It was fucking insane. Who did this?

And he didn't even look winded while doing it…

No wonder he didn't take the tournament seriously. Things would have been boring if he did. The tasks wouldn't have been more than five minutes long…

It was a nice piece of the puzzle though… Harry didn't like monotony or boredom. He didn't steamroll them, but tried to trick them instead, get them to beat themselves instead of him being involved… She could understand that a bit. In a weird way, he liked the challenge, putting restrictions on himself to win without overwhelming the others. It was evident with the way he handled the second task. He could have easily just put a potion in the competitor's system, or even some kind of rune on their person, and he could have just taught Chang to activate it and that would have been it… A nice clean win…

But he wanted to be clever, wanted Hogwarts to win without even knowing that they did it themselves. As far as anyone was concerned, they cast the spells that won them the second task, and that was because they actually did just that… They just didn't know it at the time.

This was the first time Hermione had seen him fight without making some kind of quip or some long overcomplicated plan to defeat all enemies at once by tricking them into doing so… And it was fucking terrifying.

He was like a storm, obliterating everyone around without even acknowledging them… He hid it underneath his mask of impudence, jokes, and absurd plans, but underneath it all, the storm was still there, waiting to be unleashed and the muggleborn shakily thought that she had barely seen a glimpse of what it was capable of…

As they walked in silence, Hermione couldn't help but ask, "Why did you ask me to come with you?"

The last Potter snorted, "You're capable enough to have my back."

"So was Greengrass, and yet you left her safe inside…"

The boy didn't answer for a few seconds before finally saying, "It's not about capability… It's about the mentality. You've been so close to death, undergone training from the Unspeakables. You can handle seeing death… I'm not willing to see if Daphne could do the same."

Hermione hummed, "This is your first time killing someone, isn't it?"

"No, it isn't... But it was the first time where I had a choice in the matter. The other time, it was purely for survival's sake, but here I actively didn't want them to be a threat. You could argue that their kill switches did the most damage and that killing them protected the rest of the students, but it was still my choice. I guess I'll have to live with that…"

"When was the first time you killed someone…"

The young Slytherin chuckled, "Death is such a curious thing. For example, you were so close to it, and yet you keep skirting the line, courting it… it's a very dangerous way to live."

"Not so much with a Phylactery. It's one of the few upsides," she replied with a snarky tone.

Harry turned towards her with a blank expression on his face, "Do you really think there are no ways of bypassing the Diary… That no one could hurt you without access to your soul?"

The hair on the back of her neck started to tingle, "Are you threatening me?"

"No… Just giving you a word of caution. An illusion of invincibility is easily a door to one's downfall. I'm impressed with your work with Lily, by the way."

Hermione stiffened, "I just wanted you and Neville to be safe…"

He shook his head while chuckling, "Perhaps it was a small part of it… Perhaps, it's what you tell yourself at night… But the naked truth is that Lily Evans held the leash around your neck, and you didn't like having such a constant threat being around you… It was clever, telling Daphne, knowing that she would either tell me or stick with Lily. If she hadn't told me, you would have put the blame on them, forcing me to confront them. If she had told me, then someone would have arranged that our conversation be intercepted, forcing a confrontation that would inevitably end with Lily leaving, willingly or not… Either way, you got what you wanted, and Lily wouldn't be with the delegation… So, tell me, how right am I here?"

Truth be told, he was very right… Hermione had followed Lily around like a hound for weeks to find anything condemning… She didn't like it, of course, hurting Harry the way she did, but she knew that Lily was probably up to something, and she could have used it. In the end, Lily was gone, and Harry and Neville were safe, which was a win all around. She did them a favour, really.

Still, she had trouble formulating a response to Harry who grinned, "Oh, I'm not complaining. You took me off-guard. People rarely do that… Sure, Lily leaving the way she did means that I lost a very powerful ally, and you put me in a very vulnerable position, now that I don't appreciate…"

"Harry…" she stammered.

He gave her a serious look, "I pray that you're satisfied with your small victory and that you would not do this again… I cannot promise that I would react the same way."

Hermione could barely breathe… It was like someone was pressing down on her chest and she was practically hyperventilating trying to let some air in. She just nodded her head, shakily and the pressure disappeared.

Harry's jovial smile returned, "Now, was that so bad? With that out of the way, it better that we focus on the attack."

The muggleborn took the olive branch as quickly as she could, "Voldemort?"

Harry nodded, "Yes, it's been a while, hasn't it? I think the last time you saw him was in our first year, outside the Diary of course… But he was present during the World Cup finals, the attack, and he was still a shade. I don't think a few months would have changed that much. And if Voldemort is involved…"

"Then, Neville is the target," she finished.

This had to be one of Hermione's worst nightmares. An entire attack, an army of wizards, going after Neville… She wouldn't have been able to fight them off, especially the dragons. The plan was quickly coming together. Whoever planned this knew that McGonagall was the only professor in the dragon, but that wasn't supposed to be the standard. There were supposed to be at least two, maybe even three staff members. After all, with McGonagall possibly occupied, someone needed to make sure that the students didn't hurt themselves.

Someone had made sure that the staff members were all busy in Britain, and a small trip wasn't a big deal… Someone had planned this attack, knowing that McGonagall would be forced to actively control her construct, and had planned on downing it, taking her out while she was exhausted, and kidnap Neville.

The sad thing was that it would have worked had Harry not been there. For all her skills, Hermione couldn't have done what he did, not even close…

They walked towards the front compartment and quickly redirected the spells coming their way. Thank Merlin… Everyone was safe.

Harry simply raised an eyebrow, "Seriously?"

"We thought you were the attackers," Diggory answered seriously.

"Well, the attack is over. We just need to clear the rest of the ride and put the Imperius attackers in another place."

Greengrass ran towards Harry looking worried, "Are you alright? We heard some weird sounds…"

"Oh, that was just the dragons," the boy casually responded.

"Dragons?" all of them seemed to utter at once.

"Don't worry about it, although, we might need to talk to the authorities to obliviate the muggles. Dragons falling out of the sky might keep them busy for a bit."

The last Potter ignored their questions and turned, "Where's Longbottom?"

"I'm here Potter," Neville answered from the back.

Harry made his way to Neville and sighed in relief, "Good… Were you hit by any spells, or hurt in any way?"

"No, Hermione got us out without any problem, then we follow you and Greengrass…"

"No cuts, bleeds or anything like that?"

Neville gave him a weird look, "No, nothing."

Harry sighed in relief and Hermione couldn't help but ask, "What is it?"

"I needed to know if someone had taken his blood."

"Why is that?"

He simply shrugged, "It doesn't matter. I'm going to speak with McGonagall, and tell her about the attack and everything. She must be exhausted, keeping the dragon together like that… I'm kinda impressed, to be honest."

And just like that, he walked out, with Greengrass following him…

Hermione took Neville aside and put on some privacy charms. Neville spoke up first, "What was that about?"

"He was just worried about you…"

"What happened out there?"

She sighed, "There were a lot of attackers and five dragons… We think that they came here for you, Neville."

"For me? Why?"

Neville looked so vulnerable when asking this. It was hard to equate the person in front of her to the boy who fought a Basilisk for her sake, who jumped into the forbidden corridor with barely a year of magical education to face a Dark Lord…

It was ironic that these events didn't scar him, but it was the public's opinion of him, the way they targeted him, that truly sapped away from his enthusiasm.

And now, it was up to Hermione to bring him back, to mould him into the Child of the Prophecy, make him become Britain's saviour once more, "Harry interrogated one of the attackers. They said that they were sent by Voldemort… And when Lord Voldemort is concerned…"

"I'm also involved…" he finished, "Fuck! Why now? I thought he was gone. We haven't heard anything from him for years. Why is he back now? And why did Potter ask me about my blood?"

"I don't know about the blood. He must know something that we don't."

"I almost got everyone here killed. I almost got you killed…"

Hermione shook her head vehemently, "I'm here. And so is everyone…"

"Because of Potter! It's always Potter this, Potter that…"

"Look, the fact is that Harry Potter saved our asses this time. But that says nothing about you. I'm telling you this because I'm your friend, but ever since I came back, I've seen you wallowing in the background, almost as if you are afraid that someone would talk to you. You need to get over it and train. If Voldemort is out to get you, then be ready for him… I'm perfectly ready to train with you… But you need to stop hiding and go back to being Neville Longbottom. If you want people to talk about you the way they do him, then you'll have to prove yourself. If you want to regain your honour, show the world that you're not some joke, then act the part… You need to stop wallowing in pity all the time."

Neville Longbottom's spine finally straightened, and he stopped hunching in defeat. There was a glint in his eyes that had been missing for months that just appeared to be back, "You know what, you're right. If Voldemort is going to come after me, then I'll be ready… I'll show him and everyone else that I won't be so easily taken out and I'll do that by winning the third task of the tournament…"

This wasn't exactly what Hermione had been aiming for, but it was better than the blank expression that had been on his face for months. For the first time in a long time, it felt like Neville was finally back… And for a fraction of a second, Hermione started to feel a shade of happiness, before it faded away like most of her emotions, overwhelmed by the coldness of her logic.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.