The Secret Harry Wanted to Hide

It takes only a mouth to spread rumors, but it takes a lot of legwork to refute them.

The three Harry now have this feeling, especially with the existence of the photographs.

Harry wanted to explain why the two of them were so concerned about his health, but he didn't want anyone else to know about the power that had transformed into Phoenix and taken up residence in his heart.

Dumbledore may have known he could summon Phoenix, but he didn't know that the summoned Phoenix hadn't disappeared; it had taken up residence within Harry's body.

To be honest, that Phoenix gave Harry a feeling of his mother.

Harry couldn't accept that feeling disappearing.

"We're just friends!" This was the answer the three of them kept giving after what seemed like an eternity of questioning.

No, saying three people isn't quite accurate. Apart from Draco, Ron and Harry's parents didn't really care much about their sexual orientation.

Ron was also questioned only because Ron mother cared a lot about it, and Mr. Weasley was a husband who respected his wife.

As for Harry in the end, he was actually just an afterthought. In Lucius Malfoy's eyes, he was the little Goblin who turned his son gay.

Mr. Weasley was quite happy to have Harry as part of their family, but at his wife's insistence, he had to do some pretense.

"Okay, I actually really like Pansy." Draco finally couldn't take the pressure anymore, and as the one who was targeted the most, he had no choice but to reveal his true feelings.

He could actually reveal the origin of the photo, but that's Harry's secret, and since Harry hasn't said anything, Draco, as a friend, has a duty to keep it a secret for him.

"Parkinson family? We'll get engaged as soon as we get back! I'll have Narcissa contact them!" Mr. Malfoy finally heard the answer he wanted.

He loved his son very much, just like Arthur Weasley loved his son; he also cared a lot about his son's happiness.

But if your son gets engaged early and has children later, what does it matter if he has an ambiguous relationship with Harry Potter?

"This—isn't this too hasty? I'm still a child!" Draco wanted to drink something to calm his nerves.

"If you don't agree, I have reason to suspect you're lying. Look at our the Greatest White Wizard, he died alone because he wasn't engaged," Mr. Malfoy said maliciously, leaving Dumbledore, who was suddenly brought up, completely bewildered.

Dumbledore was unfamiliar with this feeling, but with his rich experience, he quickly understood what it was—the feeling of being pressured by his parents to get married.

This was quite unusual for Dumbledore, given that his father had been imprisoned early on and his mother had always kept her eyes on her half-mad little daughter.

Dumbledore the eldest son in the family and more the father figure.

"Well, so you've come all this way for this—and for that you drove Petunia and Dudley away?" Dumbledore said in a light tone, having regained his composure.

"Come on, you're just empathizing with Dumbledore, that's why you don't think Harry and the others' situation is a big deal," Sirius always felt like an outsider, retorted.

Where did you get this photo?

"I tested my spell again, which attracted Fawkes and other classmates. So we kept running and running, and I got exhausted and was covered in sweat."

"I'm not as strong as Ron and Draco to begin with, and running for so long has made me very uncomfortable. Ron and the others used the Muggle auscultation trick they learned from George and Fred to check if I needed to go to the Hospital Wing." Harry finally came up with a reasonably logical explanation.

Moreover, he posed a question at the beginning, and they should recall the answer to that question first, while ignoring the incompleteness of his subsequent explanation.

This seems to be called psychology. Harry once secretly turned on the TV and saw it on a program when he was left at home because his Uncle Dursley were out and Mrs. Figg was not home.

Harry had used it on Dudley many times before, and it had worked well. Now Harry just hoped that things would really turn out the way he hoped.

However, this reminded Harry of how he had become so engrossed in watching television that he had forgotten to turn it off beforehand—and Aunt Petunia eventually discovered Harry secretly watching television from the top of the still-warm set.

Since then, unless absolutely necessary, they would ask Mrs. Figg to look after him before going out, and Harry lost the opportunity to be home alone.

"Sirius gave it to me."

"Black Family gave it to me." Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley both looked at Sirius.

"It's no secret, you just didn't ask me."

"Okay, I'll say it. The Daily Prophet is now my property. The photos were taken by Rita Skeeter, but she didn't reveal exactly how—she said it was her secret weapon for getting a lot of inside information." Sirius shrugged.

"Dumbledore, do you know what's going on?" Harry immediately thought of the person most likely to know the answer—right here in the room.

"I'm not sure if the more a person knows, the more ignorant they become."

"Given Rita Skeeter's level, if she doesn't improve much after graduation, I can think of a dozen ways she could have taken your picture," Dumbledore replied.

Not to brag, but his intuition is sometimes quite accurate.

In addition, he has a very good memory, and he still remembers Rita Skeeter's level in each course, even though she was a popular figure at school at the time.

Rita Skeeter is actually very skilled at Transfiguration, but for some reason she likes to hide it.

Given that she had left the castle during Christmas thunderstorm, the solution became clear— Rita Skeeter was an unregistered Animagus.

However, Dumbledore was not prepared to voice this speculation.

"Okay." Harry nodded.

Night fell quickly, and everyone had reached a consensus on Harry and the others' problem—leave them alone.

Mr. Malfoy had received an affirmative answer from the exasperated Draco, and he was in a hurry to get home to help his wife make arrangements to visit the Parkinson family.

No one else really cared about the relationship between Harry and Ron.

"Alright, you can go back now," Dumbledore, dismissing them.

"Aren't you going to leave?" Mr. Weasley asked, snapping out of his Niffler from the Muggle creatures around him, as if he'd fallen into a vault. The others who were also preparing to leave perked up their ears.

"I don't think I can leave until Petunia and the others return," Dumbledore said seriously, then glanced at Sirius, the culprit.

"I know I was wrong. I'll go get them right now," Sirius said quickly.

"Do you know where Aunt Marge is?" Harry asked suspiciously, sensing that Sirius must have done something to Dursley before he returned.

"There's a lot you don't know." Sirius smiled mysteriously, then disappeared with a crisp sound.