True Intentions

To that end, he'd left them both a note separately - Theo's on his pillow and Hermione's in her notebook - telling them to meet him in the seventh floor corridor at 8 pm on Thursday night. He'd told them separately, of course, because he feared that one of them might not come if they knew the other was also coming.

When they arrived, he was hiding under his cloak, standing in the corner.

Hermione scowled upon seeing Theo. "You!"

He scowled right back at her. "Me."

Hermione pointed at him accusingly. "This was a trick, wasn't it! You sent the note! Wait -"

"Actually, that was me," he spoke from his place in the corner, and relished in their surprise when he unveiled himself.

"Harry!" Hermione shouted, "Where on earth did you come from?"

Harry grinned gleefully, holding up the cloak and flourishing it dramatically with a spin.

Meanwhile, Theo's eyes had gone wide. "Is that...an invisibility cloak?"

"An invisibility cloak? What's an invisibility cloak?" Hermione exclaimed, of course not tolerating being out of the loop.

Theo completely ignored her, as usual, so Harry answered for him. "It's a cloak that makes you invisible!"

Hermione scowled at him, apparently completely dissatisfied with the answer.

Meanwhile, Theo was examining the cloak with a deeply fascinated look on his face. "It's very high quality. Where did you get it?"

Harry's grin faltered a bit. "Headmaster Dumbledore gave it to me."

Both of his friends' eyes went wide.

"Dumbledore?" Theo exclaimed. "Why would he give you a Christmas gift, let alone one so expensive?"

Harry shrugged. "Apparently it belonged to my dad. He was just giving it back."

Theo quirked an eyebrow.

Now it was Hermione who was running her hands all over the cloak, exploring the texture. "How does it work?"

"I don't know. Do you know, Theo?"

He made a face that clearly said, "do I look like I know?". Instead of answering, he asked, "Why did you make me come all the way up here to show me? You could have just shown me in our room."

Hermione scowled, realizing she was being ignored once more.

Harry's lips quirked upward again. "Because, I have something else to show you."

And with that, he marched up to the wall in front of them, and began pacing.

Show me the place where everything's hidden

Show me the place where everything's hidden

Show me the place where everything's hidden

"Harry, what are you -?"

Hermione's question was silenced when she saw an enormous doorway slowly morph into existence on the wall Harry had been pacing in front of, rising out of the stone like it was being carved out right in front of their eyes.

Harry looked over his shoulder with an impish grin. "Follow me."

With a flourish he led them into the enormous room, relishing in the awe on their faces.

Hermione looked like she was going to faint. "What is this place?"

"It's called the Room of Requirement, or the Come and Go Room. All you have to do is pace in front of that wall three times thinking about what you want, and the room will give it to you."

Hermione gasped. "But that's not possible!"

Harry smiled at her. "It's magic, Hermione, everything's possible."

She was about to argue when Theo spoke up. "Wait, so, you could have summoned anything, and your brain came up with this?" he asked incredulously. "A room full of junk?"

Harry shook his head. "This is the room that's summoned when you want to hide something. This is hundreds of years worth of objects hidden away by Hogwarts students who never thought to come back for them."

"Brilliant," Hermione breathed.

Harry's grin widened. "I know! See, it might be a room full of junk, but I think it's really fantastic junk."

Theo rolled his eyes."How did you even find this place?"

Harry's grin turned mischievous in an attempt to hide the apprehensiveness he felt at the question. "That would be telling."

His friends glared at him.

"Anyway, I figured we could use this as our own secret room."

Hermione tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Well, for example, I could pace outside the room and ask it for a 'secret library that only Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Theodore Nott can find'."

Hermione's eyes lit up. "Oh, that would be spectacular!" she exclaimed, the excitement on her face unmistakable.

Harry turned to Theo. "We could also use this room to practice spells that we...don't want to use in public."

Theo smirked darkly at the implication, and Hermione looked concerned.

"Also," Harry said, looking at Hermione again, "We can use this as a place to study occlumency!"

Hermione could not contain a giddy grin, at that, and Theo looked at Harry, curious. "You're learning occlumency?"

Harry shook his head. "I already know how to do it, but I'm going to teach Hermione. You can come too, if you want."

Theo nodded his head slowly. "I think I might take you up on that."

Harry smiled. "Now we can have our own secret study club! We can learn occlumency, do our homework, create our own potions, read all sorts of amazing things, practice our dueling, learn some dark arts -"

Hermione looked at him, alarmed. "Dark arts?"

Theo shook his head. "Honesty, Harry, not one of your better traits."

Harry smiled sheepishly. "I meant really nice, happy, light magic?"

Hermione scowled. "You can't fool me, Harry Potter, you mean to learn the dark arts!"

"Yeah," Theo piped up, "She may be a muggleborn but she's not stupid."

Harry was relieved when her glare turned on Theo.

"Listen," he began, unsure of himself. "I just want to learn magic." Which was true.

"Dark magic!"

"It's still magic!" Harry exclaimed. "I want to learn everything I can – I need to learn everything I can."

"Everything? You want to learn about magic that hurts people – even though it's against the rules!?"

"Of course he does, he's an obsessive bookworm, aren't you, Harry?"

"I like to read just as much as Harry, and I've never gone looking for books on dark magic!"

"Because you're a goody-two-shoes teacher's pet!"

"I am not!"

"You are too!"

This was...quickly getting out of hand. What could he say that would satisfy them both? He couldn't just pass this off as curiosity – Hermione wouldn't allow that. She was far too inquisitive and clever to let that slide. So what could he say? Well...the truth. Or at least, part of it. They were friends with him - as long as he was in danger, they would be too. Perhaps it was time they understood. "Lord Voldemort isn't dead."

His scar started to burn.

...

Want to read ahead by 60+ chapters then join my p*atreon right now.

Free members an get up to 6 free chapters if you join my pa*treon as a free member right now.

Join now before it's too late.

Link: pa*treon.com/GalaxyWonder (Remove the *)