A Nightmare in Heaven

Chapter 3

From that day on, Harry did his absolute best to not let anyone see him studying with Hermione and Draco in the library. He'd wear his invisibility cloak and sneak into a seat at their table before Hermione would cast notice-me-not charms around their area and strong silencing charms so no one would hear Harry talking.

The rest of that year went by relatively calmly, with Harry doing his absolute best to ensure that Ron had ample time with Lavender and minimal time with him. He missed his best friend, but he really didn't want to slip up and mention something about studying with Hermione in the library again. Ron had made it very clear it wasn't acceptable for him to be going to the library for anything other than resources to check out. And it worked well, Ron would spend the majority of his free time with Lavender and that allowed Harry to be able to go about his life relatively normally. That is, until he realized he was being followed by Colin.

"Hey Colin, is there something I can help you find?"

"No," the younger boy answered cheerfully. "I'm supposed to tell Ron where you went so he can find you. He's been looking for you, you know." Harry felt a flash of panic but managed to push it down.

"Not to worry, I'm just headed for the library for a book on defence. I should be back to the common room in the next quarter hour or so."

"Cool, I'll come with you. I need a book about defence as well." Harry did his best to figure out a way to get Colin to leave him alone but gave it up as a bad job and went to the defence section. As he passed by the usual study table, he shook his head ever so slightly and completely ignored Hermione before selecting a book and making his way to Madam Pince to check it out.

He could practically feel the concern coming from Hermione boring a hole into his jumper.

Colin didn't even pick up a book to try and look like he had told the truth and chattered incessantly the entire way back up to the common room where Ron was waiting for him. He sat down on the floor since all the chairs were taken and pulled out a bit of parchment to start taking notes when Ron cleared his voice.

"Defence Against All the Arts? What on earth could you possibly need that for?" Irritation coloured Ron's voice.

"You know my best subject is defence, I thought this would challenge me a bit." Harry went back to the book, only getting a sentence in before Ron snorted and started talking to him about how he wished he were good at anything and how easy it must be to not have to worry about homework for one of his classes. Harry tried tuning him out but from the way the comments swirled around in his head, it must not have worked out so well.

"Are you even bloody listening to me?"

"Yes Ron. You were just saying that you want to study with me more about defence. So what do you want to learn?"

"The patronus charm." Harry immediately regretted offering to help Ron.

"That's a bit complex, don't you think?"

"Well, you can do it so easily, it must be easy for you to teach it as well. Unless you just don't have to try for anything in defence."

Anger at that boiled in Harry's veins. The patronus charm was extremely hard to pull off for him, having had so few happy experiences in his life strong enough for it to even work. He'd had to fabricate a memory, falsify the feeling of happiness in order to produce the corporeal form and spent months just trying to get a wisp to appear. To hear his best friend say that he must not have to try if he can't explain it to him was maddening. In the end, he calmed himself. After all, Ron had to deal with being overshadowed at home. It must be hard dealing with your best friend seeming to do better than you as well.