Struggle in the Classroom

Harry woke from his sleep.

He did not know that far away, someone had only recently finished their work and entered a dream, someone who had been secretly manipulating many things happening around him, even arranging his fate.

But even if he had known, he would not have cared at that moment.

Because lately, something had been troubling him.

Hogwarts's new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, the Ministry of Magic official Dolores Umbridge, had been targeting him for some unknown reason.

Rumor had it that he was being targeted because of Voldemort's return, and the people at the Ministry of Magic clearly did not want to accept that fact.

But so what?

A fact that people could not accept was still a fact, and at this point, there was simply too little he could do.

He had no way to make people believe Voldemort had returned, nor could he fight Voldemort like Dumbledore and the others. Even the students around him did not believe him, thinking he was a liar seeking attention.

Endure humiliation and bear the burden.

That was something Sirius had once told him.

But Harry did not think he could necessarily do it.

If he could, he might have long since become the person Dumbledore had hoped he would be.

Harry lay in his bed for a while as the sky gradually brightened. A few rays of sunlight slipped through the bed curtains, and dust danced in those beams.

It reminded him of the first Saturday of the new term, when he had written a letter to his godfather Sirius.

He wanted to visit Hagrid, but Hagrid still had not returned. No smoke had risen from his hut lately, and its curtains had remained tightly drawn. It was clear that no one was living there.

He