The Dragon King Bloodline of Hogwarts

Chapter 26 Intelligence and Disagreements

Behind the stone statue at the end of the corridor, Harry leaned against the wall, his voice so low that only the two of them could hear him.

"Fred and George said there have been people near the Forbidden Forest recently." He paused. "They weren't students; they sneaked over there at night to feed their Thestrals and saw lights in the woods."

Viserys leaned against the opposite wall. "What light?"

"A still light. Unlike a lantern, like—"

"campfire."

Harry nodded. "They said they saw it twice, not from the same location. The first time was on the west side of the Forbidden Forest, near the wall, and the second time deeper, almost to the edge of the centaur territory. Fred went again last night; the fire was still burning, but he didn't see anyone."

Campfire, twice. Location changes. The enemy is moving purposefully in the Forbidden Forest, familiar enough with the terrain to traverse between centaur territory and the western side of the Forbidden Forest without triggering any alarms. Centaurs will not tolerate intruders unless they know how to avoid them.

This aligned with his deductions made through elimination in the medical wing corridor. The only places in the entire school where one could hide were the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade. Hogsmeade was too crowded, making it impossible to move freely within the same area without being noticed by the villagers and the Honeydukes's line of third-year students.

The priestess didn't try to approach him. She was in the Forbidden Forest. Waiting for Voldemort to give her a signal, waiting for the next opportunity to throw both of them into battle at the same time. The Forbidden Forest was large enough, dark enough, and close enough to the castle that she could set up a makeshift camp, set up a fire barrier, and perhaps even hide something there.

The light the twins saw wasn't a trace of passing by. She was moving out of town, marking routes with campfires, or maintaining some kind of magic with them. Either way, the Forbidden Forest was no longer a safe buffer zone.

"Well done," Viserys said.

Harry's shoulders relaxed very slightly. "And about your trip to the Forbidden Forest—"

"As planned, we're supposed to go in and patrol over the weekend. Before that, I'll go find Hagrid."

"Won't he ask you why you suddenly became interested in the Forbidden Forest?"

"The dragon's eyes recovered faster than expected after the medicine treatment, and I asked him if there were any plants in the Forbidden Forest that could help with scale regeneration. That's the truth."

Harry thought for a moment, then his lips twitched. "You've already thought of all your excuses."

"It's not an excuse. It's for filing a record."

Harry repeated the word to himself, then shifted his stance. "There's one more thing Ron knows. He stopped me in the common room last night and asked if I was in contact with you. I didn't deny it. He said he wanted to help too. Fred and George should keep an eye on the edge of the Forbidden Forest and let me know as soon as there's any new information. We can take him with us at the next intelligence exchange."

"no."

Harry paused, taken aback. "You don't trust him?"

“This has nothing to do with trust,” Viserys said. “If Voldemort is really in the Forbidden Forest, anyone who gets close to him is entering his range. Ron isn’t in my circle; he doesn’t need to take that risk for me. Don’t drag anyone else into this.”

“He’s no one else,” Harry said, his voice low but without hesitation. “He’s my friend.”

"Precisely because they are friends, we should not involve him."

Harry was silent for a moment. Then he looked up, his green eyes unwavering.

"You know how I spent my time at the Dursleys. Eleven years, I had no friends. No one waited for me to eat with me, no one asked me why my clothes were too big, no one wrote 'Harry's room' on the first letter I received. I thought coming to Hogwarts would be different, but when the Sorting Hat called my name, the whole Great Hall was staring at my forehead. Most people wanted to see the scar, not me."

He paused, lowering his voice further, but it wasn't weak.

"Ron was the first. He sat in my compartment on the train, not because of the scar, but because there were no other seats available. He gave me a Chocolate Frog, asked me about the Muggle world, and told the pieces not to yell at me while we played Wizarding Chess, saying, 'He's learning.' He never asked me about the scar, not even once. If he knew Voldemort might be in the Forbidden Forest, his first reaction wouldn't be fear; he would say, 'Then we need a plan.' I'm not trying to pull him into your circle. He's already mine. If you won't let him get close to your circle, then I'll act as an intermediary between him and your circle. After each intelligence exchange, I'll decide what can be told to him and what can't. He won't directly participate in your operations, but his twin brother is observing the Forbidden Forest for me; he's already on the outer layer and can't go back. If you don't want to take him directly, then I'll do it for him."

Viserys looked at him for a long time.

Then he nodded.

"It's up to you to decide. But there's a bottom line: don't get any closer to the light source. Look from a distance, remember the location, and come back immediately. Ron can know what's happening at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, but he can't go near it. If one day you find him waiting for you in the forest, don't go alone."

Harry went over these points in his mind, then nodded. "I've got it."

The Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade—now only one option remains. The priestess is in the Forbidden Forest, neither approaching the castle nor attempting to contact Voldemort. She is still preparing. The flames of the Lord of Light's priestess do not burn out of thin air; they require a catalyst, an altar, or some kind of continuously supplied energy.

The question then isn't "Where is she?" It's "What is the next thing she's going to burn?"

Viserys paused for a moment after saying goodbye to Harry.

Hermione. He had promised her he'd go see the dragons that weekend. He hadn't contacted her since that night in the foyer. She probably thought he'd forgotten.

He hadn't forgotten. He did it on purpose.

There might be a priest's campfire in the Forbidden Forest now, Voldemort's trail is becoming increasingly clear, and anyone who gets close to him is entering danger. Greengrass needs dragon blood, Malfoy needs the future of the pure-blood circle, Potter needs revenge—these are the burdens they each carry. Hermione doesn't. She's the daughter of a Muggle dentist, she doesn't need to inherit anyone's curse, she doesn't need to repay anyone's blood debt. She's already done enough. There's no need to drag her down this path further.

He'll take Draco and Daphne to the Forbidden Forest this weekend. She'll be safe.

But when Viserys pushed open the library doors, he realized that fate doesn't always work according to your plans. It always has an unexpected twist. Hermione, standing before him at that moment, was one of them.

"You're in danger again, and you don't tell me."

Hermione's voice wasn't loud, but in the empty library, every word struck him like a hammer blow.

She knew. Daenerys had probably already told her about Voldemort.

"It's not that I don't want to tell you," he said, "it's just that there's no need."

"Unnecessary?" Hermione repeated, her pace quickening. "In the Gringotts tunnels, you made me hold the dragon egg, saying 'Don't put it down,' and I didn't. In the Chamber of Secrets, you made me recite that line of French, saying 'These words look a lot like those on the ring,' and I did. I memorized the array of runes on the stone door in one go. You weren't sure about the ingredients of that potion, so I told you it was white sage, rue, and comfrey, and you drank it. I was there for every crucial moment, and now you say it wasn't necessary?"

"Those things were things I should have done myself. You've already done enough."

"It's not a matter of enough or not!" Her voice suddenly rose, then fell back down, her fingers gripping the edge of her robe. "You're deciding what I should know and what I shouldn't know. You're making the decisions for me."

"Because this has nothing to do with you," Viserys said. "Voldemort is looking for me, not you."

"Then why did you let Malfoy help you? Why did you let Greengrass help you?" She took a half step forward, tilting her head back to look at him, her brown eyes meeting his purple ones. "You let them get close to you, but you wouldn't let me. Is it because I'm useless, or because I'm not from your world?"

Viserys remained silent.

The silence stretched on for so long that Hermione could read the answer from his face.

"...So that's how it is." She said, her voice suddenly becoming soft, like a stone falling to the bottom of a well, with an echo only heard after a long time.

Hermione.

"I know I'm not from your world." She avoided his eyes, looking down at the table. "I know there's a language between you and Malfoy and Greengrass that I don't understand. I know that when she was adjusting your collar in the hallway, the laughter you shared was something only the two of you understood. I never tried to fit into every circle. I just thought—"

She stopped. It was that kind of voice that, despite having prepared for so long and thinking she could finish calmly, couldn't be suppressed halfway through.

"I thought that when I drank that potion in the secret room, I was already the one who would be told where to go next. You said, 'We have to go in.' You said 'we.'"

"You never contacted me after that. I think it was probably because you were busy. Potions class on Mondays, Transfiguration class on Tuesdays, Charms class on Wednesdays, you had classes every day, and you were in the same castle every day. You glanced at me as you passed the Gryffindor table, then went over and sat down opposite her. I knew then that those things were over."

"I've been waiting for you to tell me yourself. What are you busy with? Where are you going? Are you hurt? You haven't said a word. It's not that you don't have time. It's that you don't want to say."

She looked up at him, her eyes already red, but she didn't look away.

"You didn't tell me, not because I'm useless. It's because you think I don't have to face all this. You think I don't have what you have, no curses, no blood debts, no vengeance I must avenge. So I should stay in a safe place, wait for everything to end, and continue taking my exams and studying. You made that decision for me. You didn't ask me."

Her voice faltered on the last few words, tears welling up and streaming down her cheeks. She quickly raised her hand to wipe them away, as if erasing a wrong answer. But the tears wouldn't listen and continued to fall. She took a deep breath, her voice reduced to a whisper, her lips trembling, but she managed to utter each word.

"You asked me why I didn't raise my hand again in Potions class. It's because I was afraid that if I spoke up, you'd think, 'Hermione's trying to prove she's useful again.' I wasn't trying to prove I was useful. I just..."

She stopped. She wanted to say "you."

Then she realized she didn't know if she was qualified.

"I just want to know if you're in danger," she said, her voice almost inaudible, "not afterwards."

She took a step back. Silence stretched between them.

"What do you want to know?" Viserys said. "Voldemort is in the Forbidden Forest, and the priests might be there too. I need to get close to Snape, I need Greengrass to investigate the Castor Beanstalk, I need information on the Malfoys, and I need Potter to observe Quirrell. You ask me what else I need you to do? I can't think of anything. Not because you're unimportant, but because I don't want you standing so close to Voldemort. Can you accept that answer?"

She neither spoke nor nodded.

I just stared at him for a while.

Then she turned and walked toward the Gryffindor Tower. Her steps were slow; she hadn't wiped the dust off her robe at midday from her knees. She'd forgotten.

Daenerys slid off her chair, walked over to Viserys, and tugged at the corner of his robe. "Brother, Hermione is crying."

"……I know."

Why is she crying?

"Because of me."

Daenerys lowered her head and thought for a moment, then hugged the picture book to her chest and said in the most mature tone she could muster, "Then you should apologize."

"...I can't."

Why?

"Because I apologized, I'll still do it next time." He bent down and picked her up. "Some things can't be resolved with just an apology."

Fox leaped from her shoulder onto his, its claws hooking the edge of her robe, unusually not turning its back to him. It simply crouched quietly, its tail feathers drooping and gently brushing his back, as if reminding him of something.

He stood there, watching the library doors close gently behind Hermione. Then he carried Daenerys toward the dungeons.

He remembered the vial of potion in the secret room. The pumpkin pie in the foyer—she said that was an exception.

She always made exceptions for him.

He gave her a rule.

That's for the best. He was from another world to begin with. His Iron Throne isn't here. His enemies shouldn't be her enemies, and his war shouldn't spill over into her textbooks. She has exams. She has a home. She'll be safe, in her own world, reading all the books she wants to read, the way she was meant to be.