A Tale of Two Brothers

Chapter 22

Harry lived a double life since then. Literally.

The time turner, bless the one who made it, allowed him to spend the whole day inside the secret room and also attend his classes at the same time.

Visiting the room during the classes meant that he had more than five hours to himself everyday in that room. Then came the times he hid under the invisibility cloak when the other students were present in the room; and of course, the lessons with Montague gave him the room completely to himself, without needing to hide or lie.

Harry practically started living in Salazar's room ever since he learnt the password. He also started to carry a muggle camera with himself during his time down there, clicking pictures of the ancient texts to study them later during the holidays, an idea he got from a first-year muggleborn.

Of course, the whole thing had taken a toll on him and his studies, but he survived.

That's how he spent the rest of his third year, completely immersing himself in learning dark arts to the point of perfection.

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"Merlin, Harry. Just how many hours did you study this year, kid?" Sirius asked, looking downright horrified at his ragged state. The man came forward and hugged him fiercely. "Are Jamesie and Lils being this strict about your education? Honestly, kid, I swear I'll kick their asses if they are. There's so much to life--"

Harry chuckled slightly and leaned away from his godfather. "No, Sirius. This is all me."

The older man nodded his head, not really satisfied with his answer but sat down on his chair. The house-elves bustling around them filling their plates.

"I think he's aiming to jump directly into fifth year." James said, adding more stew on his plate. He looked pointedly at the vegetables in front of Harry, which made him take a bite of it immediately.

"That's not how it works, kid." Sirius said, looking genuinely concerned.

"I know that– dad, seriously, I can't eat all of this." He looked at James with exasperation.

"Yes, you can, hon." Lily said, passing over the mashed potatoes to Regulus, who hadn't stopped staring at Harry, who avoided his eyes ever since entering the dining hall.

"If they don't give you a first rank or something, Albus will have hell coming to Hogwarts." Remus sighed and shook his head at Sirius' words.

"No, I am not getting first rank or anything. My exams did not go that well."

"Then what were you doing, Harry? You look like you haven't slept for days." Regulus finally decided to speak up. Maybe others did not, but Harry heard the slight suspicion in his voice. Or maybe it was his own panic that did the trick.

"Freaking out? Regretting my choices? There is no way to change my electives, is there?" He continued when the others shook their heads. "Well, Care of Magical Creatures is not that great. They just teach us about animals we've studied about in second year defence class or have known them our entire lives. Professor Kettleburn taught us about unicorns and flobberworms. Unicorns and flobberworms." He whispered sarcastically. "Those disgusting things made me want to kill them and then myself. Seriously." He breathed in, tearing apart the chicken in his plate angrily. "And then Divination. What the hell was I thinking? There is not a single Slytherin in that class. Not a single one! I am embarrassed to even walk to that bloody tower. On top of that, I've to share the class with bloody Gryffindors. And there's twenty of them."

That all was true. Harry hated the subjects he'd chosen.

But that allowed him more time to study what he really wanted, without caring about exams and assignments much. Ancient runes and arithmancy wouldn't have allowed him such freedom. But they would've been more useful than the jokes in the name of subjects he'd chosen.