Harry's day was flying by quickly. He found that classes continued to be quite easy for him. His initial success in Transfiguration on the first day of classes had not just been a fluke. All manners of magic were just coming easily to him. He actually began restraining himself from progressing too quickly in public. He would let Hermione beat him to spells here and there to keep up the guise that nothing was out of the ordinary. He wanted it to look like he was just trying hard and taking his studies seriously, not that he was just picking things up with remarkable ease.
Hermione continued to spend the majority of her time in the library. She seemed bolstered every time she would work out a spell before Harry, and part of Hermione's attitude since the start of term started to catch up with him. She was jealous that he was doing better than her in classes. She had become used to being the first one to master every spell. She had been doing it for five years after all. Now this year came around, and Harry was beating her as often as not. Harry found that he didn't feel as bad about this as he thought he might have. Hermione needed to learn some humility. She placed too much emphasis on being the best at everything. But he was careful not to call attention to his new success or to rub it in in any way. That would just be unnecessarily cruel.
But her obsession with studying all day to keep up with Harry was not healthy for Hermione. It was only a matter of time before she began to burn out like she had in their third year. Harry was afraid to broach the subject, though, knowing she would not take it well and most likely deny everything fervently. She would make a grand speech about NEWTs and how important they were. No, this was a lesson she needed to learn on her own. He just hoped that she learned this as quickly as she learned things in class; otherwise, she would have a rough time of it this term.
Before Harry knew it, he was finishing up his last class of the day, and incidentally only his second class: Care of Magical Creatures. Ron, with whom he shared the class, was off to Divination, leaving Harry free to make his way to the Room of Requirement for his daily training without either of his two best friends being any the wiser. He wasn't worried about most of his other friends noticing that he was sneaking away for time off by himself. Nobody else would call him on it, and if they did, the most simple of excuses would suffice.
His two best friends, on the other hand, were an entirely different story. Keeping his training hidden from them was not an easy chore. They were both inquisitive in nature, especially Hermione. And Hermione really could be much too clever for her own good, or Harry's good as the case may be. No, they were bound to get suspicious if they saw him slipping away on his own all the time. And they were bound to question him about it until they got answers. So it was best if they never caught him at it. Luckily for Harry, Hermione was so busy with all her studying in the library, that she probably wouldn't notice his absence anyway.
Ron was another story. Harry had a feeling that Ron would soon ask him where he was spending all of his free time. In the past, any time they had a break, Ron and Harry always spent that time together, the only exception to this being when the two were fighting. So it would be hard to explain his absence during those free periods to Ron. Harry tried to arrange his training during times that Ron would be in class so as not to miss him, but that didn't always work out. And the weekends proved even harder to arrange.
Harry thought about all of this as he warded the room and began his training exercises with the practice dummies in the Room of Requirement. He hated having to be so secretive in everything he did, but at this stage in the game, he couldn't afford anyone else to find out about his abilities.
When Ginny realized that he was the one who had saved her in Diagon Alley over the summer, Harry didn't know what to do. He thought he had been so careful, but thinking back on it, he realized that he made one really big mistake: his hair. He modeled his new hair style on the way he wore his hair in disguise. He never really thought much about it. He had just liked the way his hair looked longer. He had never planned to have any interaction with anyone that he knew while in disguise. And he knew that nobody he saw while shopping would ever make a connection between him and the stranger unless they saw his scar.
When Ginny had figured it out, Harry had briefly considered obliviating her. He had read up a bit on the spell in one of his books, but he had never tried the spell. He would have to do some additional reading about it before he would even think about trying it on another person. So Harry immediately dismissed the thought. He couldn't do that to her. What if something went wrong? He would never be able to live with himself if he caused her any harm. Not only that, but it just seemed wrong to him to do that to a friend. If a death eater found out some vital information, he wouldn't have second thoughts about removing the memory, but doing that to a friend without their knowledge was just wrong.
When he reflected back on it, Harry was just glad it had been Ginny who found out and not anyone else. Ron couldn't keep a secret to save his life. He'd probably tell Hermione first thing, but even if he tried to keep it a secret, the minute Ron lost his temper it was bound to come out. And Ron losing his temper was a given. It was only a matter of when. If Hermione were to find out, she'd feel compelled to tell an authority figure. Not only was Harry breaking the law by performing magic away from Hogwarts, but he was also placing himself in danger. No amount of pleading would ever convince her otherwise. Her tattling would be out of a misplaced way of showing that she cared, but Harry knew that he would never be able to forgive Hermione if she ruined this newfound freedom for him. So he prayed that she didn't find out any time soon.
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