Hermione and Ron were sitting in a couple of chairs in the common room discussing Harry. Hermione was worried. She'd watched Harry's behavior get increasingly frightening. He barely talked to anyone anymore unless they approached him and he ran away as quickly as he could. He avoided all physical contact. It seemed he couldn't stand to even be touched. There was also of course the way he stormed out of potions the other day. "I'm scared, Ron. Something is wrong with Harry."

"He says he's fine," Ron stated lamely. Honestly, he was becoming worried as well, especially with the incidents in Defense and Potions, but he wasn't ready to accept that something was wrong with his best friend. Harry was always really strong. He'd faced You Know Who several times and come out find for Merlin's sake. For something to bring Harry down, it had to be worse than that and he didn't want to believe that that was possible. "It's probably just Sirius' death. It's hitting him hard that he lost his godfather."

Hermione huffed in annoyance. Ron was either incredibly dense or in denial. She was leaning towards the second because even Ron couldn't be so dense that he didn't see the changes in their friend. He just didn't want to face it. Well, they didn't have time for denial. She didn't know what was wrong with Harry, but it was tearing him apart. "It is not and you know it. Harry was okay when he showed up at the Burrow. He was fine until recently. Now he's pretty much us and everyone else out. He's only around people when he needs to be and he's very uncomfortable when he is. He freaks out whenever someone tries to touch him. You saw him when Slughorn tried. He hasn't been much better in any other class either.

Ron thought about the class with Snape. It was weird how he messed up that spell. Harry was brilliant at Defense. Yes, as he pointed out to Neville, the non-verbal spells were harder, but he still did pretty well. Perhaps it was time to admit that something was very wrong. "Okay, you're right. But what could be wrong with him?"

"I'm not sure, but it happened very suddenly. He was one day and not the next. He was shaky, withdrawn, and scared," Hermione said.

"He's been a lot like Neville," Ron commented.

Hermione agreed with that assessment. Those qualities weren't worrisome in Neville, as the shy, nervous boy had always been like that, but Harry hadn't. He wasn't by any means boisterous, but he wasn't like he was now.

Speaking of Neville, he and Ginny walked into the common room at that moment and walked towards them. "Hey, guys."

"Hey," Ron said.

"Are you guys okay?" Ginny asked.

"We were talking about Harry. We're worried about him,' Hermione said.

"He has been acting weird," Ginny said as she and Neville joined the two and sat down. "I saw him talking with the Baron the other day outside."

"Why would Harry want talk with the Slytherin ghost? Why would the ghost even talk to him?" Ron asked confused. He hadn't known the Bloody Baron to speak with much of anyone but the Slytherins and the staff. Why would he speak with a Gryffindor?"

"I don't know. I didn't hear what they were saying, but he almost seemed to be trying to comfort Harry," Ginny said.

"The Bloody Baron?" Ron asked skeptically.

Ginny shrugged. "Maybe talking to someone who's not alive and he doesn't really care about was easier."

"And what is it he needed to talk about? We haven't figured out what's going on with him," Ron said.

"Someone hurt him," Neville said certain. He'd been paying very close attention to Harry since the incident in potions. the unwillingness to be touching and avoiding everyone as often as he could told Neville that someone had done something to his friend. Plus, the way Harry had denied it when Neville asked him had been too strong and too quick. Someone did something to him.

"He hasn't looked hurt," Ron said. He agreed that something happened to Harry, but it didn't make sense that someone actually physically did something. He looked fine.

"He doesn't have to have been beaten bloody to have been hurt," Hermione said.

"She's right. There are ways to harm someone without there being physical scars. Look, the way he's acting is strange. He avoids people and he hates being touched. I've seen his hands shake like crazy on occasion. That doesn't happen spontaneously unless something very bad happened to you," Neville explained.

"Fine. Who do you think it was? Malfoy?" Ron asked.

Hermione shook her head. "No, if he did something, he would be in Harry's face all the time to provoke a reaction. He hasn't. He's barely bothered Harry since school started.

"One of the other Slytherins then," Ron said.

"You're assuming it was a student," Hermione said.

"Well, it happened after school started and we haven't had a Hogsmeade weekend yet. It has to be a student," Ron said.

"No, it doesn't. We all had that lecture from Snape about teachers," Ginny said. She'd thought that lecture was extremely weird and unnecessary at first, but now she was glad for it. It might just explain what had happened to Harry. Though if it was, it was too bad that it didn't save him from it.

Ron scoffed. "No teacher here abuses their power, except for Snape. None of them would hurt Harry. They've been here longer than we have. If they were gonna hurt him, they wouldn't have waited six years.

"They haven't all been here that long, Ron. Slughorn is new," Neville said. He had been thinking it was Slughorn. He provoked the biggest reaction out of Harry.

"Slughorn? No bloody way. Harry likes Slughorn. Harry's Slughorn's favorite student because of his mother and because of how well he does in Potions now. Slughorn's not totally knew. He's been here before. Dumbledore wouldn't hire him back if he thought the man would hurt one of us."

He may not know. Dumbledore may want to think so, but he doesn't know everything. He's hired dangerous teachers before. In fact, he's done it almost every year we've been here. Do you not remember Lockhart and Moody? Plus, there was Quirrell during your first year. Dumbledore's not above mistakes," Ginny said.

"And Slughorn's not liked by everyone. Professor Snape can't stand him," Hermione said.

"So? That's a point in his favor," Ron said.

"No, it's not! Professor Snape may be unfair, but he's usually right about things like this. He knew Quirrell and Lockhart couldn't be trusted," Hermione pointed out.

"Guys, I have to say that Slughorn creeps me out a bit, especially with that club he holds. That's just really weird and creepy for a teacher," Ginny said.

Hermione suddenly thought of something. "Ron, do you remember the night Harry disappeared all night? That was when his all started."

"Yeah," Ron asked, prompting her to go on.

"When we last saw him that night, he went to go meet Slughorn. We didn't see him again until morning," Hermione said. She couldn't believe she'd forgotten about that. She should've seen right away that that had something to do with Harry's sudden behavior.

"You think he did something then?" Neville asked.

Hermione nodded. She was now sure it was Slughorn and that whatever happened happened that night

"What do we do?" Ginny asked.

Hermione's first instinct was to confront Harry about it, but she quickly decided against it. Whatever happened was bad and he'd be reluctant to talk abou it. If he did tell, he'd probably ask them to keep it to themselves, like he did with Umbridge. That wasn't an option this time. "We need to tell Dumbledore."