CONFUNDUS; harry potter [UNDER EDITION]

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

Lucca has been anticipating this encounter ever since he returned to England.

He wasn't sure whether Ron's passive aggressiveness started before Harry left or when he came back and left again. One thing is certain, Ron blames Lucca on Harry leaving that first time. He doesn't say it. He wouldn't dare to point his finger at Lucca and yell all those stupid accusations in a room full of coherent people. But he is waiting in the corner, blue eyes dark with hatred focusing on Lucca's movement, a predator ready to shred him in pieces.

Must have been impossible for him to swallow that resentment because, days after Harry came back and his appointment for the medication started, Ron said it was enough of silenced loathe.

"Shouldn't you be in Italy already?" He asks. "For the exams and stuff?"

Lucca narrows his eyes at him. Yes. He has missed two assignments so far. Harry's mental health is more important, though. Harry needs his company.

"I'll leave in a day or two," he mumbles dryly.

"Why?"

Hermione, who has been warily watching the interaction, snaps. "Ron, stop."

"I want to be sure Harry is in good hands."

"He is in good hands. He has Mione and me."

Lucca wants to point out neither of them noticed Harry has been struggling since the beginning of the war, ever since Sirius' passing truly kicked in. The signs were there, Lucca sees them now he looks back and sort of blames himself too. There wasn't much to do. Lucca was grieving his late mother. Harry was grieving Sirius and trying to stay on his feet while the expectations of society pressured him to do something as the Chosen One. Harry was taken as a leader of a war he didn't want to participate in. Marked by a lunatic and made a hero out of the lack of competence of said lunatic, it's a lot to just accept everything and move on.

It boils his blood that at this stage in his life Ron doesn't seem to recognise Harry never wanted this; fame, fortune, the hero persona people made out of him.

"Is he now?" Lucca's sarcasm is hard to hold back.

Hermione chooses the right moment to interfere because she speaks above Ron's grumbling. "I understand your concern more than you can imagine, Lucca. Harry is our friend —" she throws Ron an annoyed glare, "— and while we've been worried about Harry's mental health. We also think that your codependency — well, Harry's dependency on you... May be really bad."

Lucca should have locked the Floo network. He wouldn't be dealing with this right now. He doesn't have the energy to deal with them. As much as he likes Ron and Hermione, he can't tolerate how they think of themselves as Harry's parents. They act as if they know better and Lucca doesn't. They think Lucca is beneath him.

It's not jealousy. Lucca understands their friendship has inimaginable levels of trust after all they went through together. However, their shared past isn't reason enough to try and push Lucca out of Harry's life when he is in another country. Initially, Lucca was more concerned about Harry's sudden absence to recall how it was Aurora the one who called him and asked him to come. Then, after Harry's first potioner appointment and Hermione's confusion on why Harry hadn't asked her to go with him first, Lucca found himself moving in an unknown territory of passive hostility. They started barely glancing at Lucca when speaking to him and escalated to actually ignoring him when Harry asked him to explain.

Now, sitting in the kitchen, Lucca nurses a cup of cold tea as the duo in front of him stare at him as if he were an intruder.

Harry is unaware of this, the new medications kick him harder than usual, sending him into deep sleep after taking the dose. Lucca is keeping him company until his body gets used to the side effects, a thing Ron and Hermione can't understand. Lucca has built an immunity to those side effects after years of treatment, Harry was never put under such heavy medications. If they can't understand this, it is not Lucca's problem. He won't leave.