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Author’s Note: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! This is another short chapter but the next one is an absolute monster. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: They’re all hers – you know who I’m talking about – and, although I wish I owned one of them (hell, I’d take Walden Macnair at this point), I don’t own them at all. I’m just playing around with them a bit.


Duality: Badgering

oOo


“You smell like smoke again,” Hermione huffed into his ear; he could feel her stern gaze boring into the side of his face.

Harry didn’t look at her.

Dumbledore wasn’t teaching him much of anything and it was frustrating. Glimpses of Tom Riddle’s life flashed quickly before his eyes. What Dumbledore showed him was quite disturbing, possibly useful, but it was too early to see its purpose. Was there a purpose or did Dumbledore just want him to get to know the enemy better?

“So I do,” Harry blankly replied to Hermione’s remark.

How was he going to defeat Voldemort by traveling into just a few memories that Dumbledore could gather? It seemed quite pointless. Voldemort was powerful – he should learn some sort of advanced magic, at least. He was reminded of Lupin in third year, teaching him the Patronus Charm. Professor Lupin was more help to him then than Dumbledore was currently.

“You’ve been smoking.” Hermione was just a faint voice in the distance to his thoughts.

Harry kept staring into the flames in the common room fireplace. What was there to gain from psychologically profiling Voldemort? “Yup,” he said, aloof, exhaling a long sigh.

Well, on the upside, this way he might be able to understand the way Voldemort thought, but that was quite the mystery to him even after what he saw. Dumbledore still wouldn’t tell him what happened to his hand either, but Harry had a feeling it was all connected somehow. That ring…

“It’s a nasty habit, Harry! Addicting… do you want to kill yourself? There’s too much at stake for that!” Hermione exclaimed as quietly as she possibly could into his ear. Harry wasn’t paying much attention, but he could feel the frustration rolling off her in thick waves.

He ignored it.

It wasn’t as if he had the chance to defeat Voldemort. He’d probably die in the end. In what way could he avoid that? Voldemort had fifty-some years on him! And Harry’s magical ability, in his opinion, was only sub-par at best.

No, there wasn’t any way Harry could beat him.

The power that the Dark Lord knows not…

Well, Harry didn’t know what power he had either.

Love? Was Dumbledore fooling himself with that? How could love destroy Voldemort?

Why not get Snape to brew the Dark Lord a love potion then? Slip it into his drink, set him on Malfoy. But oh! Big accident: Snape accidentally got his greasy DNA into the brew and Voldemort falls in love with the git. Voldemort’s obsession turns to Snape. The world is saved! Snape and Voldemort live happily – or miserably – ever after.

The corner of Harry’s lip twitched into a faint grin and he shook his head. Daphne must have been rubbing off on him.

“Harry? Can you hear me?” Hermione waved a hand in front of his face and he blinked, turning toward her.

“Hm?”

“Honestly!” Hermione stood up and placed her hands on her hips. “You boys are all the same!”

His brows furrowed as he watched her walk away, stomping up the stairs to her dormitory. He thought he had heard her… Something about smoking being bad for him. Yes, she had point – it was.

Harry shrugged to himself and retreated to his dormitory, only to be attacked by Seamus. Did the badgering ever cease?

“So, Daphne Greengrass, eh?”

Harry rolled his eyes and started unbuttoning his shirt. The rest of the boys were downstairs in the common room, thankfully. It was bad enough that Ron and Seamus knew about Daphne. “Just as long as you don’t tell anyone that.”

Seamus gave him a calculating look, his eyes narrowed. Then suddenly, he nodded, a smooth grin spreading across his face. “You’re keeping it a secret?”

“Slytherin, Gryffindor… Probably a good idea,” Harry answered, shrugging the shirt off. Not to mention the possible ramifications that would result if something like that became wide-spread knowledge, he added in his head.

“Yeah…” Seamus trailed off but he perked back up with a smile. “So tell me about it.”

With a sigh, Harry stripped down to his boxers after kicking off his shoes. He shrugged. “Not much to say.”

Groaning, Seamus fell back on his bed dramatically. “You’re killing me.”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” Harry told him, with a cheeky grin, before sliding beneath his covers.

“I hate that saying.”

Smirking, Harry reached over to his bedside table for his Potions text, ready to settle into the Half-Blood Prince’s notes.

“Merlin, you have one of the fittest girls in our year and you’re not gonna brag about it?”

“Don’t need to,” Harry replied, disinterestedly, opening the book to his dog-eared page. Hermione always hated it when he dog-eared the pages. He grinned at that and looked over a potion’s table in the chapter on Sleep Potions, containing the ingredients for Dreamless Sleep and their properties.

“You’re no fun – just as bad as Dean. He won’t even tell me about Ginny.”

Sighing once more, Harry set the book down in his lap. “Okay, I’ll tell you,” he relented.

Seamus bolted upright, sitting on the edge of the bed with a wide smile. “Knew you’d come around, mate.”

“Daphne’s great.” He left it at that.

Seamus hung on his words, obviously hoping for more.

His face fell after a few seconds of silence. “That’s it?”

Harry didn’t respond; his eyes were fixed on the page, barely registering what he was reading at the moment.

“No one gives me any decent wank material anymore! What happened to you lot?”

Frowning, Harry glanced out of the corner of his eye at the Irish boy. “Maybe because you use our ‘stories’ as 'wank material'.”

“You didn’t know that - I only just told you!”

“Your silencing charms aren’t that great, you know.”

A look of horror crossed over Seamus’ face and he slunk back against the headboard, deflated. Satisfied that he’d shut up Seamus’ badgering for a while, Harry picked up the Prince’s book and read.