Chapter 68: News in Daily Prophet
Hermione pulled with all her will and intent behind her magic and was rewarded as the stack of cards came to her one by one.
It was just one of the five exercises that Harry had asked her to perform during the stay in her home over the winter holiday.
He had promised her that she would not be caught by the ministry for her use of underage magic and be then be expelled from Hogwarts for her trouble.
And against her better judgement, she had followed his orders blindly and was rewarded with a holiday during which she was able to use magic in front of her parents.
She still felt scared from time to time that the Ministry would somehow find out that she had been using magic and the aurors could come and capture her and send her to the prison for breaking the law so blatantly.
But she trusted Harry. And he had told her that such a thing would never happen.
And even if by some chance it did, he would break into Azkaban and free her.
And she had believed him once again.
She sometimes felt rather stupid for falling for all of his words without ever thinking about it. For trusting him so blindly but he was her friend.
And he had never led her astray either.
In fact, she had no idea where she would be right now without him.
Maybe she would still be bullied by her class and housemates for being a know-it-all. Or maybe she would have managed to make some friends in her house and would be learning magic like how it was taught in the school.
The mediocre way.
Huh… even her thinking was changing and becoming similar to that of Harry's. At least she had not called any of the student in her class a sheep. Yet.
Still, she couldn't lie and say that she wasn't enjoying learning magic in the new way that Harry taught her.
And even though she would never admit it to Harry, she felt a certain thrill in knowing that she broke some kind of rule and got away with it.
No, she would never admit such a thing to him.
Though she had a feeling that he already knew about that part of her as well.
He always seemed to know her so well.
She sighed as she realized that she had stopped her exercise while thinking about him. She had been doing that a lot lately. A bit too much for her comfort in fact. Not that she didn't like thinking about him. But…
And now she was thinking about him again.
She shook her head and looked outside the windows.
The surrounding neighborhood looked just as peaceful as ever as their neighbors went about doing their daily activities without any care of the world. Not knowing about the hidden society in which people could use magic and so much more.
Not knowing that the leaders of that hidden society had been waging war among themselves just a decade ago and that the death of these people would be counted as mere collateral damage to them.
She shivered at the thought as she looked at the garden where the employees from Gringotts had buried the wardstones.
She knew that there were wards around her home now and that knowledge made her feel safe.
And even though the wards were invisible to the naked eyes. she was still able to feel them thrum with power every now and then.
Harry had told her that as she learns more about magic, she'll get more in-tuned to it and would start to feel it sooner or later.
The fact that she could feel the wards around her house was a sign that she was becoming better at using magic. If only just a little bit at a time.
Nothing like Harry who could simply look at an object for a single moment and name all the charms used in it.
And even then he had admitted to her that he considered himself nothing but a novice in the use of magic.
For all of his frustrating tendencies, he could be surprisingly humble when it came to magic. It just showed how much he respected magic, which made her respect for him grow even more.
She felt the thrum of the wards around her house and knew that she was safe.
It was kind of him, to think about her and her parents and go to such length for them. She knew that only a few people would ever see such a kind side of him because of all the mental shields he'd built around him.
She cursed his abusive uncle and aunt in her mind once again for what they did to him.
No child should ever be treated this way. No…
A tapping sound from outside the window broke her out of her thoughts and she looked up to find a brown tawny owl looking at her impatiently with a copy of daily prophet in it's talons.
She quickly opened the window and let the owl in, depositing the newspaper (which had lost all of her respect for their baseless slander of her friend at the start of the year. He might have been a Parselmouth but they had no right calling him a Future-Dark-Lord just because of that) in the bed and giving owl treats and a bowl of water to the owl who happily nibbed away at the treats before flying away.
Harry never bothered to read Prophet, claiming it to be just another way to control the sheep of the wizarding world and she agreed with him.
But another part of her, the intellectual part told her that even though the newspaper showed rumors and gossip most of the time, there was still a little bit of truth in it every now and then. So she ignored his grumblings and bought herself a subscription of the Daily Prophet anyway.
She jumped on her bed and laid down comfortably before she removed the thread tying the paper in a roll and opened it to read the latest happenings in the wizarding world and gasped at the headline.
Biggest supporter of You-know-who takes his last breath!!!
Betrayers of the Potters and murderer of 12 muggles, Sirius Black, who was also said to be the right hand man of You-know-who finally succumbs to his injuries suffered from in the last war during his time in Azkaban.
She read the whole article within the next few moments before reading article all over again in order to make sure that she had not missed anything.
This was huge.
Who was this Sirius Black.
Did Harry knew that this man had betrayed his parents?
Did he even knew that this man has finally died? Most likely not.
Still, she should tell him as soon as possible. Maybe she would be able to comfort him through whatever he would feel when he heard the news.
She wondered how he would feel once he hears this news. That the person who betrayed his parents had finally been served his due.
She felt a bit joyful at this death even though she felt that it was a bit immoral to do so.
But this man was the reason behind the death of Harry's parents. He was the reason why Harry suffered so much in his life.
Yes, see needed to give him this good news as soon as possible.
—————
"Do you know who was the last person who was this talented in transfiguration at such a young age?" Daphne's father asked after a long silence and she thought upon this question and came up with the most likely answer that she could find.
"Headmaster Dumbledore?" she guessed "He was said to be a genius in Transfiguration and…"
"No." He cut her off with his stoic reply "Dumbledore was a genius, true. But even he was not capable of transfiguring an inanimate object to an animate object at the age of eleven."
"So who was the last person as capable as such a thing?" she asked after mustering up some courage. He didn't like it when she questioned him most of the time but she had a feeling that he wanted her to know more about this event for some reason.
He still sent her a glare for questioning him before he dropped it and simply stared at her unnervingly for a long moment before saying "No one."
"No one?" she gasped in surprise. Which was rather unlady like behavior but the news was just that surprising to her.
"Yes. No one in living history has been so good at any of subjects being taught in Hogwarts." He said "There are no records of such a genius ever being born in any of the Pureblood families either."
His words rang into her mind with the intensity of a large bell as she realized how truly talented Harry actually was.
And when she stopped to think about it with a clear whit, that fact did made a little of sense to her.
After all, inanimate to animate transfiguration was not taught until the end of fifth year. And you have to be a once in a millennia genius to able to do it in his first year.
But still. Was it true no one ever managed to achieve such a feat in the past?
Her thoughts must have shown in his face cause her father sneered at her before he stood up and went to the corner where he had kept his pensive.
She couldn't even remember how many times he had seen the memory by now but she knew that something in that memory truly fascinated him.
Something that even she had not managed to see.
Something that she missed.
"I know what you're thinking." He said as he gazed at the pensive. "I know because that's what I thought at first as well. That the Potter boy used a 5th years spell to turn the matchstick into a butterfly but that's where I was wrong."
"Wrong?" she asked, confused. He usually never admitted that he was wrong about anything so this must be something huge.
"Yes. Because the boy never used any spell." He said and she froze.
What?
She closed her eyes and recalled that bit of memory with the help of occlumency and realized with growing fascination that yes, Harry never chanted any incantations before turning the matchstick in to a butterfly.
He never used any spell.
He just… did it.
As the implications behind that thought struck her, she gazed at her father, who simply nodded at her, confirming that she had reached the right conclusion.
But… how?
The thought was baffling.
The thought was frightening.
There were rumors that he was exceptionally good at charms.
Did that meant that he was hiding his talent at Transfiguration.
Or was he equally good at charms as well.
Her brain was already hurting from all the implications that this memory brought with it.
The most important of it being that Harry Potter had the potential to be a far greater wizard than even Dumbledore.
And that he wanted to hide his powers for obvious reasons.
She sighed in her mind as she realized what her father wanted from her.
In fact. It was pretty clear not that she thought about it.
He wanted her to build a relationship with him.
Being a friend would be good but she knew that her father would pressure her in being more than a friend with him and it was not like she had much of choice in this matter either.
If she failed to do what he wanted her to, then he would set up her marriage with some other pureblood snob who might ten or twenty years older than her and then he would give her sister the same option. To either seduce Harry Potter or marry some old dude.
She had thought about running away many times but she was just a minor and had no idea how she would support herself once she runs away from her home. And if she runs away then she would have to take her little sister with her as well otherwise she would not be able to live with herself.
They talked some more after that. And by talking she meant that her father talked and she just nodded her head before she was allowed to go back to her room.
That night, she made plans to get in the good graces of on Harry Potter.
Her father might be a bastard but he was right. If she married Harry Potter then she would be able to live her life in luxury so she should at least give this courting business a try.
Author's Note:- For all the Sirius fans who were hoping to see the Godfather and Godson duo get up to some pranks, I'm truly sorry to disappoint.
I know you were hoping to see some fluffy moments between the two of them like in the movies and other fanfictions but I don't think I would have been able to create such a dynamic between the two of them because of this Harry's anti social tendencies.
So in essence, Sirius' presence in Harry's life would have made things even more complicated which is something that I'm trying to avoid.
So yes, Sirius had to die.
Sorry about that and I hope that you'll accept this decision of mine and not hate the story because of this one chapter.
Hope you a have a good day.
And if you like my work and have a few changes floating around then please support me at:- Pat.reon.com/ankit1
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