Harry Potter Breaking The Chains

The rest of the train ride went quickly enough. She noticed that Harry didn't talk much about his summer, but she was hardly surprised about that, given her suspicions plus what she knew of his muggle relatives. The only real excitement had come in the form of Draco Malfoy's visit. She had been all set to jump in and remind him of what her bat-bogey hex felt like when Harry had help up his hand to stop them all from rising to his aid. When Malfoy's curse backfired on him, she was sure that he hadn't used his wand, and her suspicions were quickly becoming confirmed. She didn't buy his explanation about the disappearing wand and holster for one second. He hadn't used a wand at all.

As if Harry's change in appearance and apparent wandless abilities, not to mention the fact that he had saved her life, again, weren't all enough, there was the shock of the announcement that Harry was an assistant professor. It was funny, really, that Harry would accept the position, knowing it would put him in the spot light. He always tried to shy away and keep a low key, but everything he did and everyone around him just seemed to thrust him right back into the center of attention. So she wasn't surprised later that night when he started complaining that this was just going to set him apart from everyone else, one more thing to make him different, to draw attention to him. Of course she didn't hesitate to put him in his place for whining like that. The position also had its advantages, as he well knew, or he wouldn't have taken it in the first place.

Her thoughts drifted over to Ron and Hermione and their relationship with Harry. They were good friends, of course. But they were demanding and tended not to look at things from Harry's point of view. They seemed to think that Harry owed them something, that he was expected to share every detail of his life with them right away. And they seemed to bring about the worst in him at times, making him see the bad side of things. Other than being slightly embarrassed, he had seemed fine with his new position in the school until Ron and Hermione had started grilling him.

Those two had proved incapable of dealing with a moody Harry the year before. They just didn't seem to know when to back off or when to confront him. When he needed space, they would force the issue. And when he needed to be put in his place, they would tiptoe around him and pretend like nothing was wrong. When it came to getting information out of him, they pushed as hard as they could, but in helping him deal with everything, they shied away, letting him shoulder his own burdens.

They would always be there for him when he was in a tight spot, but they didn't seem willing to lay down their own needs every once in awhile to help with his needs. It was sad, really, considering Harry's natural tendency to put everyone else in front of himself. He would give you the shirt off his own back if you needed it, but no one seemed to be willing to do the same for him. Granted he would never ask for help, but that didn't mean he didn't ever need it. And shouldn't his best friends be able to see that?

She could unmistakably see that there was some tension between the trio. There was, of course, the ever present friction between Ron and Hermione. But this was more than that. Hermione had obviously been upset that Harry hadn't been talking to her about Sirius. Not that Ginny could really blame him after hearing about that birthday gift she had sent him. Only Hermione would send someone an instructional book to help them through their grief.

The thing that annoyed Ginny most was the fact that despite the fact that Harry seemed okay with everything, Hermione seemed to be determined to drag him into depression so that she could pull him out of it. Harry had freely admitted to her that he had been utterly depressed, but he adopted a new outlook on life that helped him work through it. He had been meeting with Remus during the summer, which must have helped him through things. So why was Hermione so upset that he hadn't been talking to her? Shouldn't she just be happy that her friend seemed to be doing okay?

Ginny wasn't sure what it was that was causing Hermione to push the issue. Did she want to be the one to help him? Or was it just her need to know everything about everything that was driving her? Hermione was a brilliant witch by any standards, but what she had in intelligence she often lacked in social skills. It was not that she was socially inept. Hermione was very good at reading people and interpreting their actions, but she often let her intellectual pursuits override everything else. She was like a reporter in that respect. When she smelled a story, she wouldn't stop digging until she had all the details, regardless of who might get hurt in the process. Ginny decided that she would keep an eye out on it. She wouldn't let Hermione drag Harry down into the dumps if she could help it.

Then there had been their conversation that night. All her suspicions had been confirmed. Harry had saved her life at Diagon Alley. He was an animagus, a panther, and he was rather proficient with wandless magic. Even though she had been expecting all of that, it still shocked her deep down. How could she not be shocked? It's not every day you meet a man capable of casting wandless spells with ease, who learned to be an animagus and to apparate in the span of one summer.

In his office, she had seen the Harry that she really knew, the one with the weight of the world on his shoulders. She wondered how much of the Harry that he presented to the world was real and how much was just a mask. He seemed to be okay. She was usually pretty good at reading people, and she didn't think that his new happy, somewhat carefree attitude was fake; it was just another part of him to go along with the tortured soul. Even without the new attitude he wasn't as moody as he had been the year before, but she could clearly see that he had quite a load on his shoulders. But she could also see how determined he was to bear it. It was in his eyes. All she had to do was look into those emerald orbs, and she knew that he could take on the whole world if need be. And he probably would too.

She knew he had barely told her anything. That was plain for anyone to see, especially by the panicked look on his face when she had asked how he learned to apparate. She knew exactly why he looked panicked at the question too. He had expected her to push and push for answers and force it out of him. She knew why he expected this too: Ron and Hermione. Well, mostly Hermione, if she was completely honest. Hermione had said it all at the feast the day before: "I'm not going to drop this, Harry. I will find out what you're hiding from us." Yep, that would do it.

She hoped that he would come to trust her with more and more of his secrets as time went by, but she wouldn't force him to. That's not what he needed right now. He just needed support, someone in his corner to let him know that he's doing alright and to encourage him to keep going, someone who didn't expect anything in return. Most people had that in their families, but Harry didn't. He needed that quiet support from somewhere, and since none of his other friends seemed to be willing to put him in front of themselves, she'd have to be the one to do it. Not that she minded, really.

According to Harry she already knew more than anyone else. She found it hard to believe that he would hide all of his abilities even from Dumbledore and Remus, but she knew it wasn't her place to question him. She was sure he had his own reasons for doing so. Maybe he'd tell her one day, maybe he wouldn't. He really was a complicated guy, but that really just meant he was all the more interesting. She could tell that he had done a lot of maturing over the last year and especially over the summer. She decided one thing was certain as the drowsiness started to settle in on her: this was going to be one interesting year.

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