He stood from his position on the floor and began pacing. He had been in this room for three hours, and he would be missed if he were absent from both divination and lunch. That meant he would have to leave soon, to go back out there and pretend that his world had not just been destroyed. To look at Ron and Hermione and resist the urge to bash their skulls in. Harry wasn't sure he could pull that off.
Think, Harry, he scolded himself. How do you get out of this? So much about what the Patil twins had told him didn't make sense. Ron and Hermione think I'm about to die, but how is that going to save the world? Why would my death save the world from Voldemort? Harry shook his head in exasperation. He needed more information to make sense of that.
But if Dumbledore believed it to be true, his behavior over the last year finally made sense. Dumbledore was surprised when Harry returned from the graveyard with Fawkes because he had expected him to die. He had refused to train him because he wanted him to be helpless. And…
It shouldn't have been such a surprise to him, but it struck Harry with the force of a revelation that Dumbledore must be behind his faulty magic. The old bastard had done something to prevent him from casting powerful spells. And Dudley had died because of it.
Harry could see clearly now that Ron and Hermione had been manipulating him for months, at least. How long had they known about this? he thought, pacing ever faster. They had helped to isolate him at the Dursleys, and Hermione had constantly encouraged him in her letters to trust Dumbledore. Padma had said that she seemed regretful about the whole thing, but that was cold comfort to Harry.
And then there was Ginny. Ron was giving him love potions to make him like Ginny. This was another thing that made no sense to Harry. Why would he want us together if he knew I was going to die?
Harry thought back over his encounters with Ginny, and didn't think she was part of this plot. For one thing, the shy, sweet girl just didn't seem capable of it. Plus, Padma had thought that Ron was doing this without Ginny's knowledge. When I get my hands on Ron, Harry thought, he may not live through it.
When did I start fancying Ginny? Harry thought, trying to remember. And then it hit him. This summer she had constantly occupied his thoughts, and this summer he had received weekly packages from Molly Weasley. Bloody fucking hell, Harry thought. Is the whole family in on this? Would the twins do something like this to me?
Harry stopped pacing as he felt the world close in on him again. He should have been more suspicious of his friends, he now recognized, but he needed to believe that someone, anyone, was loyal to him, on his side in all of this, and in his desperation he had blinded himself to their treachery. Am I even thinking clearly with a love potion in me? Harry wondered. Have they been slipping me something to keep me loyal to Dumbledore too?
A feeling of righteous fury pulsed through Harry alongside an overwhelming sense of helplessness and despair. The more he thought things over, the harder it was to quell his growing sense of rage. But what could he do about it in his present state?
Harry's instincts were screaming at him to run, to get out of the castle immediately, but where would he go? Where could he hide? He needed more time to think things through, and he didn't know how much time he had.
Harry was suddenly very afraid of leaving this room and stepping back into the castle. Who could he trust now? Dobby and the Patil twins, he thought. Everyone else is suspect. Harry remembered that Dumbledore had placed guards at the Dursleys without his knowledge, and his skin crawled at the thought that he was being shadowed at Hogwarts. Am I being watched here too? he wondered. Is someone waiting on me outside this door, underneath an invisibility cloak?
Paranoia was beginning to make Harry's head spin, so he took a few deep breaths and tried to think clearly. He succeeded again in stemming his rising panic, but only barely. Get it together, Harry, he chided himself. No one's watching you, or they would show up on the map. You just need to make it through classes today, and then you and Dobby can think of a plan.
Why couldn't some seventh-year have overheard that conversation? Harry griped mentally. Someone who's powerful and would know how to help me? Instead I get the Gryffindor gossip queen and her sister.
Harry sighed as he fixed his appearance and prepared to exit the Come-and-Go Room. Today was going to be a trial of epic proportions. He couldn't skive off of lunch and afternoon classes, so he would have to behave normally around Ron and Hermione. This evening he would have time to think through his problems alone and come up with a solution. Maybe Dobby can save my arse again, Harry thought.
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