Chapter 56: The Watcher
Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 56: The Watcher
The first week of term was the loneliest Harry had ever experienced.
Ravenclaw Tower was truly beautiful, with its sweeping views of the grounds and its massive common room. The blue and bronze furnishings were elegant, and the bookshelves that lined every wall were filled with volumes Harry had never even heard of.
It should have felt like a dream.
But right now, it was feeling more like a prison.
Harry sat by himself at breakfast each morning. The other Ravenclaw students seemed to be trying their best to avoid him without looking overly rude. They did not meet his eyes, did not speak to him, and sometimes, did not even acknowledge his existence.
It was as if he were invisible, or worse, as if he carried a disease that they were afraid to catch.
He tried to strike up a conversation with a girl sitting next to him on the second day.
"Good morning," he said, forcing a smile.
The girl flinched, her eyes darting away. "Good morning," she muttered, and then she hurriedly gathered her things and moved to a different table.
Harry stared after her, his stomach sinking. 'What is wrong with everyone?'
He tried again with a boy in his Transfiguration class. "Do you know where the Charms classroom is? I'm still getting my bearings."
The boy barely looked at him. "It's on the fourth floor. Ask Granger. She's supposed to help you." He walked away without another word.
Harry's frustration grew. He had done nothing wrong. He had barely been in Ravenclaw for a week. Why was everyone treating him like a pariah?
He soon realised the harsh truth: they had been told to avoid engaging with him.
The instructions must have come from either McGonagall or Dumbledore themselves, and the students were too afraid to disobey.
They didn't want to be associated with him, didn't want to risk being caught in whatever trouble he was supposedly involved in. It was as if he had been marked, branded as someone dangerous.
And so Harry was left alone.
Well...except for Hermione Granger, who seemed to be everywhere he went.
She sat beside him in classes, and he could hear her quill scratching across her parchment the whole time.
She walked beside him in the corridors, her eyes scanning for any potential infraction, any rule that might be broken. She even appeared at his table during meals, sitting opposite him with a plate of food she barely touched.
After the first day, her presence had already started to feel suffocating. He knew she was only doing this because it was her assignment, but she was truly taking things to the extreme.
Harry even tried to make conversation on the third day. "So, Hermione," he said, forcing a casual tone, "what do you do for fun? When you're not studying, I mean."
Hermione looked up from her book with a blank expression on her face. "I study."
"Yes, but...all the time?. Surely, you must do other things as well."
"Education is the foundation of a functioning society," she said, reciting the words like a script. "Without knowledge, we are nothing."
Harry blinked. "Right. But you must have some hobbies? Things you enjoy?. At least one thing...right?"
Hermione's eyes flickered, just for a moment, and then the mask returned. "I enjoy being useful. I enjoy following the rules. Those are my hobbies. Is that acceptable to you?"
Harry felt a chill run down his spine. 'She doesnt feel like a person... it's more like a machine, something programmed to obey.'
He tried again on the fourth day. "Do you have any friends? Anyone you like to spend time with?. Because I have never seen you talk with anyone other than me, and this is our second year so..."
Hermione's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "I have colleagues," she said carefully. "People I sometimes study with. People who share my goals."
"That's not the same as friends."
"Friendship is a distraction," Hermione said. "It clouds the judgment. It leads to poor decisions." She paused, her eyes meeting his. "You would do well to remember that, Potter. You have been instructed by the Headmaster and the Chief Inquisitor to focus on your studies and avoid more distractions."
Harry fell silent. There was no point trying to reach her. The walls she had built were too high.
<><><>
Classes were a bizarre experience.
Harry found himself in Charms with Professor Flitwick, who was as energetic as ever, though he seemed to avoid looking directly at Harry.
Transfiguration with McGonagall was tense to say the least.
She called on him frequently, as if testing him, but her expression gave nothing away.
Potions with Snape was the worst. The Potions master's dark eyes followed Harry throughout the lesson, and Harry felt a deep, inexplicable unease whenever Snape looked at him.
'Why does he make me so uncomfortable?' Harry wondered. 'What did he do to me?'
The lessons themselves went by in a blur.
Harry took notes, completed the assignments, and answered questions, but he felt disconnected from it all. His mind kept drifting to other topics, kept trying to grasp at something just out of reach.
And then, during a particularly dull History of Magic lecture...something strange happened.
He was staring at the back of a girl's head, a Ravenclaw student with dark hair tied in a neat ponytail...when her face seemed to shift. For just a moment, he saw someone else. A girl with short black hair and sharp eyes, a familiar smirk playing at her lips.
'Pansy...' He still didn't remember her, but at the same time, he was sure this was her.
Harry gasped in shock, and his quill went clattering to the floor. The girl turned around, looking annoyed, and Harry saw that it was just a stranger.
"Sorry," he muttered, picking up his quill. "I dropped something."
But his heart was pounding. 'I saw her again. I saw Pansy. She was there, and then she wasn't.'
It was just like how it happened during his encounter with the Weasleys at the train.
He tried to hold onto the image, to keep it in his mind, but it slipped away like water through his fingers.
<><><>
Friday brought a double Potions class with the Slytherins.
Harry's stomach tightened as he entered the dungeon classroom. He was welcomed by the familiar green glow of the torches producing eerie shadows on the walls, and the smell of dried herbs.
He noticed them immediately.
Draco was sitting at a table near the back, his blue eyes fixed on Harry with an intensity that made his skin prickle. Beside him sat Crabbe, his broad shoulders hunched, his expression worried.
And on another table nearby, Daphne Greengrass sat with her friend, Tracey, her amber eyes fixed on him.
Harry wanted to go to them. He wanted to sit with them, to talk to them, to ask them what was happening. But he knew he couldn't. If he got too close, they could be punished.
So he sat at a table near the front, as far from them as possible.
Snape swept into the room, his black robes billowing behind him. His dark eyes scanned the class, lingering on Harry for just a moment too long.
"Today," Snape said, his voice soft but carrying, "we will be brewing a Draught of Living Death. I trust you have all read the relevant chapters."
Harry opened his textbook, but his eyes kept drifting to the back of the room. Draco was still watching him, his expression a mixture of anger and frustration.
'I'm sorry,' Harry thought.
He looked away before the tears could come.
<><><>
It was on the fifth day that Harry caught a glimpse of something he did not expect to see.
Another side of his constant watcher...Hermione Granger.
They were in the library, obviously studying, since it was the only thing he was allowed to do.
Hermione was hunched over a book, with her quill moving across the parchment.
Harry pretended to read, but his eyes kept drifting to her.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, worn object. It was a photograph...Harry could see that much. The edges were frayed, and the image was faded. Hermione stared at it for a long moment, her expression softening in a way Harry had never seen before.
For just a second, her mask slipped.
Something was being reflected in her eyes...pain, perhaps, or longing. Something that looked almost human.
Then she noticed Harry watching, and the mask slammed back into place. She tucked the photograph away and returned to her book, her face cold and unreadable.
Harry's curiosity was piqued. 'What was that photograph? Who was in it? Why did she look at it like that?'
He tried to ask her that evening. "Hermione, what was that—"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, cutting him off. "Focus on your studies, Potter. You have a Potions essay due on Monday."
Harry sighed and turned back to his book. But he couldn't stop thinking about the photograph. It was the only moment he had seen any real emotion in her. It made him wonder if there was still a person underneath all those layers of cold efficiency.
'Maybe she's not just a machine,' he thought. 'Maybe there's more to her than she shows.'
The week dragged on.
Harry had a few more classes with the Slytherins, and each time, he saw Draco, Crabbe, Zabini, and Daphne. They would look at him with expressions of concern and frustration.
He wanted to go to them. He wanted to talk to them, to explain what was happening, to ask for their help. But he was afraid of getting them in trouble.
And so he kept his distance. He nodded at them from across the room, a silent acknowledgment that he saw them, that he hadn't forgotten them. But he didn't approach.
By the end of the first week, Harry was exhausted.
He had barely slept, his mind swirling with unanswered questions. He had eaten little, his appetite gone. He had spoken to almost no one, his only company the cold, robotic presence of Hermione Granger.
He sat alone in the Ravenclaw common room, staring out the window at the darkening sky. He could see the lights of the castle flashing below, and the Forbidden Forest looming in the distance.
'Why is this happening to me?' The feeling that something was wrong did not go away as time passed.
And then, as if trying to distract himself from his own issues, he thought of Hermione and the mysterious photograph she kept hidden in her pocket.
He knew that as a Muggleborn, she had been through the Ministry education system, which focuses on inculcating loyalty in the children that they take from Muggle houses.
Hermione Granger was supposed to be the poster child for what this system can accomplish, and that is why they sent her to Hogwarts. But it seems like there is more to her than he initially thought.
'She's not a robot,' he realised. 'She's also a victim. Just like the rest of us.'
He made a decision. He would keep trying to reach her. He would keep trying to break through the walls she had built. He would keep trying to find the person underneath.
Because if he could help her, maybe he could help himself too.
And maybe, just maybe, he could find a way out of this nightmare.
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