38 Chapter - 38 : Revelations

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"Ah, Harry. How are you and Hermione doing this fine morning?"

The couple looked up from where they'd been standing at the edge of the Forbidden Forest and about to enter, to see the young Ravenclaw coming directly towards them.

"Good morning, Luna." Harry answered. "How did you know I was here?"

"By your feet," she kindly pointed out. "They press down the grass."

The boy nodded. "Ok, fair enough. How did you know Hermione was with me?"

"Who else do you trust?" Luna came close and reached out, grasping a hold of the cloth, and, after a second feeling around for the front fold, allowed herself in. "Well, in past years, there would also have been Ronald. But you haven't had much time for him this year."

"We're sorry," Hermione apologized. "We keep meaning to, but with all our classes..."

"Oh, don't be," Luna affably cut her off. "It gives him less ammunition to use to start rumors behind your backs. You've both realized that people are less hostile to you this year? That's because Ron is so estranged from you no one believes anymore when he starts rumors saying you two shared in confidence with him things revealing how much you hate the other students at school. It is starting to make people wonder how much of what, along those lines, he's told them in the past might not be true."

Hermione's eyes had bugged open, and her mouth flew wide.

Luna gazed at her curiously. "Oh? Don't tell us you don't recall your first year, when Ron was saying all of those horrible things and telling people he was just passing on what Harry told him? There were those months before the troll you were on the outside of this."

"But... but I thought..." the bushy haired one stammered.

"No, you didn't think. You trusted. And Ron was not a good choice of person to trust. In fact, he is a very poor one. Have you never wondered why Harry here is so isolated? Everyone in our world supposedly adores him, and yet here at school he is ostracized until he is practically a pariah. How is it that the world as a whole can love him, but the school, as a subset of that whole, hates or avoids him almost universally?"

Seeing Hermione gape in wordless astonishment, Luna fired off a clincher, "Why do they buy ugly rumors like him being the 'Heir of Slytherin' so easily and so completely? Yet never trust him when he says otherwise? Doesn't he have the image of a hero? He certainly performs heroic actions. So why does everyone here seem to view him as some sort of villain just waiting to throw off his cloak and start killing people?"

Harry was nodding. "Negative PR. Someone has been working very hard to blacken my image, yet it would have to be someone close to me, or else the rumors would not seem very credible. People would think Malfoy were just jealous, if he tried. Most people don't have the kind of position to launch a smear campaign, as people would know they didn't have access to the right sort of information to go against the public perception like that. They'd have to have close access to me to reveal my 'secret nature' to all, in order to get me hated like this."

"But WHY?" Hermione starting shaking her head at the nonsense of it all.

"One of the five great questions." Harry slid an arm around each girl's waist and led them deeper into the forest. "Once we know Who, What, Where, How and Why we'll have the entire story. But I think you're starting out at the hard end. We'll only know that one once we've already got answers to most of the others. I think our first clue is Who, and my first guess as to that lies somewhere in the vicinity of another question: Who was it who arranged for me to be waiting, scared and helpless, abandoned outside the platform for the Hogwarts Express? And was it this same person who told Ron to use that easily disproven lie to share a compartment with me?"

"Somebody set you up!" Hermione breathed in horrified wonder. "Someone wanted you to meet the Weasleys, and for Ron to be your friend, then used him to spoil your reputation!"

"Now we know a bit of What they have done, the Why seems more obvious." Luna observed. "Someone wanted to isolate Harry, to hurt him, or make him more vulnerable, less influential and all of that. Ron has been their tool to this end from the beginning."

"But the Weasleys are NOT a dark family!" Hermione was shaking her head, then threw down her hands in frustration. "Argh! I could so easily see a Death Eater wanting to do this, and that's probably what Draco was trying to do when he offered Harry his hand in friendship. But why would a Light family want to hurt Harry?"

"Again, you're starting at the hard part," Harry reminded. "Why is always the most difficult question to answer. What is usually far easier. And if you can solve one or two others, the rest usually fall into line."

"Speaking of that, What are we doing out in this forest today?" Luna asked while batting her eyelashes.

Harry sighed. "Do you remember dinner last night?"

"Of course!" both girls choruses. Who could forget? But Hermione took it on herself to elaborate. "Professor Snape showed up, which was shocking seeing as how we all witnessed his death in class before. But he seemed hale and healthy, up until he started eating and his guts exploded out over the Slytherin table, then he burned to ashes from the inside out."

Harry fought hard to conceal a grin.

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