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One of the reasons why children often faltered when they turned into adults was that they were suddenly faced with a multitude of responsibilities rather than a single one.
Considering that up until this point they had been responsible for only one thing, going to school, adulthood would naturally appear daunting in comparison. The thing about adulthood wasn't only that, instead of school, you had to start going to work, with work often being more complex. The thing was also that while you worked, there were often responsibilities running parallel to it that you had to fulfil. For example, depending on the country, declaring your taxes either monthly, quarterly, yearly or all of the above, which was the worst option.
Additionally, there were things such as rent, mortgage, banking services that weren't quite free anymore, and the responsibility to take care of one's own healthcare. Then you also had to buy your own groceries, cook them, or suffer the consequences of eating unhealthily and eventually becoming out of shape and out of health.
Through this variety, one could see that the difference between kids and adults wasn't necessarily their ability to complete a given task, but their ability to complete a multitude of tasks.
Having to do two things instead of one was much harder than simply one plus one equalling two, because the exhaustion from the first activity would make it harder to commit to the second one. This meant that as you took on more responsibilities, your life actually became more difficult by a multitude rather than a surplus. This then often impacted one's temper, which, if not handled correctly, could also ruin one's personal relationships, thus adding additional stress on top of all else.
The way that adults handled these things wasn't only by simply getting better at doing stuff, but also by developing what one called coping mechanisms.
It wasn't only necessary to do a variety of tasks at the same time, but also to be stress-resistant enough to endure several waiting periods at the same time.
Waiting periods for things out of one's control. Some worried about a thing until it happened, while some forgot it until it came. The latter suffered less.
When wondering which one of these two categories of people Harry Evans belonged to, one should note that due to having been reincarnated into a baby, he had developed a fairly developed skill to not think too much about things he currently had no control over.
It was thus that even in the face of the horrible ongoing investigation of his mother's sexual assault and eventual death, he was nevertheless able to focus on other things and put it out of his mind until it once again became necessary to think about it.
Instead of sitting in his room, paralysed and lost in his own thoughts, one could thus find him sitting down in an abandoned corridor and producing mist out of his wand.
Harry's choice of distraction in cases like this was physical exercise, magical exercise, learning, or time with friends.
Currently, he was in the magical exercise part of the process and was learning how to cast the Mists of Moria that Flitwick had told him to learn.
"Nebulae Moria."
A faint white mist emerged from Harry's wand and started filling the grey corridor while Harry kept his concentration on the spell.
However, the second that he stopped casting it, the mist quickly dissipated.
The concept of the spell was simple enough. The basic wand movement and incantation produced the mist, whereas the understanding and willpower of the caster turned that into an enchantment which someone else would have to work particularly hard to dispel.
Currently, Harry was familiarising himself with the feeling of producing mist in the first place and not trying particularly hard to make it last. If this was simply because he didn't want to hurt his own pride with failure, he kept to himself.
After all, he was still struggling with the self-cleaning broom that he was trying to create for his aunt. Enchanting a space, which was the first step to warding, was suffice it to say, much more difficult.
He would get there eventually, but Flitwick's casual mention of a one to two-year timeline was perfectly understandable.
Going from Charms to Enchanting was a hard task that disqualified most who attempted it. Going from enchanting objects to enchanting space was another harrowing learning curve that eliminated more than half of those who tried to ascend it. Going from enchanting space, towards warding it… Now that was where you cut the wheat from the chaff.
There was a reason that warding masters were rare, and those who were able to do so on the side without making it their whole profession resided in the upper echelons of wizarding competence. Dumbledore, Moody, Flitwick, etc.
It was as Harry practised that he was suddenly disturbed by a shrill, girlish scream.
"Give that back!" a girl's voice that he almost, but not quite, recognised, resounded through the corridors, echoing towards him.
It was immediately followed by the shallow laughter of those who took out their own feelings of inadequacy on others.
It wouldn't really be a school in an English-speaking country if it didn't have several instances of bullying a week, would it?
Harry decided that even if he couldn't stop all instances of bullying at the school, he might as well do something when one started knocking directly on his doorstep.
He was currently on the fifth floor, albeit on the other side from where the entrance to the Ravenclaw Tower tended to ask annoying questions to anyone who passed by.
Maybe it made sense then that this would happen in his vicinity.
He had noticed throughout his years at Hogwarts that the worst bullies were actually in Ravenclaw, at least when it came to their own members. They didn't quite have the guts to go against someone in another house.
Slytherins were the worst bullies for houses such as Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, while Gryffindors, if anything, were antagonistic towards Slytherins, and if they didn't like someone in their own house, they would, at worst, exclude them.
Hufflepuff, in comparison, had basically no conflicts and was filled with people who were the human equivalent of marshmallows, plus Harry, whose adult qualities of loyalty and hard work didn't translate into how those qualities looked in children.
He tapped himself on the head as he turned the corner to turn himself invisible and stopped with a tilted head as he beheld the scene in front of him.
Hermione Granger, in her black robe and bronze and blue tie, was hopping around barefoot while three other girls levitated a pair of leather shoes above her head, just out of her reach.
His mind inevitably flashed back to how he had punched the boy who had been harassing Harley Black when she'd been sorted into Hufflepuff last year.
People had had a lot to say about that, and he'd come to regret his actions because there had been better ways to resolve that conflict. He could have just jinxed the boy with something minor. Punches were considered too crass here, and in the muggle world as well, to be fair.
Should he involve himself then? Hermione would probably figure it out on her own at some point, right?
Then, in the future, he could proudly say that he'd let her get bullied and had learned his lesson from involving himself last time.
He looked again at her desperate hopping and the laughter of the other girls. Not retaliating against children was what an adult would do, right?
Of course, if someone was a bully, they only understood strength, and with that, they meant that you had to become strong enough to inconvenience the bully enough that the pleasure they gained from bullying you wasn't worth it.
Well, he thought as the three girls danced a jig around the first year, calling her an arrogant, stuck-up smarty pants. He could help out this one time, but keep himself in check, to not merit a detention if he was caught.
He thought he recognised Chang and Edgecombe, actually. He wondered what Cedric would think about the Chinese second year if he found out that the girl he had started to look at more often liked to bully first years in her free time.
Alas, love was blind, and infatuation was the death of reason.
Harry raised his wand, disillusionment still in place. It was once you had completely mastered the spell that you could uphold it with little to no effort while you cast other ones.
Considering that he'd been walking around the castle completely invisible for two and a half years now, he'd gotten enough practice to consider himself a master.
First, a finite escaped and dissolved the levitation charm on the shoes. These then fell flat on Hermione's face, at which he winced in apology.
Then his wand produced a strong white mist. It eerily started filling the corridor and reducing visibility.
"Finite," Chang was able to cast, which unfortunately did nothing. Not because Harry's Mists of Moria had reached the stage of enchantment, but because in terms of ability, she would never be able to cancel any of Harry's spells.
The trio of bullies turned tail and ran.
Hermione, who was also quite spooked, apparently, turned to run after them. Harry sincerely hoped it was to get revenge, but feared that she was just panicking. He interrupted her.
"All the effort to separate you and then you go running after them?" he asked. "There's no need. It's just me," he said, dropping the invisibility and dispelling the Mists.
Hermione stopped in her tracks, shoes clutched in her arms.
"Put on your shoes," Harry reminded. "Your feet are probably cold by now; it's a draughty castle, not something you should brave in socks only."
"What are you doing here?" the girl asked as she bent down to put on her shoes.
The third year raised an eyebrow. He and Hermione didn't really know each other. They just sat together in the library sometimes. Of course, because of the nature of the space in which they interacted, they hadn't really talked much.
He'd thought they were at least somewhat familiar, though.
Was the girl maybe embarrassed that he'd caught her in a moment of weakness?
"I live here," he replied sarcastically.
"What on the fifth floor?" Hermione asked, some confusion evident in her tone.
Harry then realised that it wasn't that she was dissing him, but that she was simply high on adrenaline and pain, probably physical and emotional.
"No, in the Castle. It's a pretty big place, there's no point in staying on one particular floor all the time," he remarked more kindly. "Have they been bothering you for long?" he suddenly asked, changing the topic.
Hermione hesitated before shaking her head.
"Since two weeks ago. I saw a mistake in the homework that they left out in the common room and corrected it," she said awkwardly.
Harry rolled his eyes. "God, I guess there's a reason Ravenclaw is known as the house of fragile egos," he said.
"I thought that they'd accept me there," Hermione suddenly sniffled as tears welled up in her reddening eyes.
So she'd been able to keep it together while under the effects of the direct bullying, but now that she felt safer, she could express herself? Harry wondered. At least she'd already incorporated the lesson of never showing weakness in front of an enemy.
"To be perfectly blunt, I don't think the situation would have happened if you hadn't shown them up like you did," he said. "It doesn't matter in this case what your intention was, and that if someone else had helped you with your homework, you would have simply been grateful. You have to keep in mind that other people react to situations differently than you would, and while you didn't do anything wrong, it was a relatively high-risk thing to do in the house where everyone values their own academic performance more than anything else. You hurt their self-esteem."
"But doing homework together is how I've always made friends," Hermione complained/explained.
Harry, for his part, could only helplessly shrug. "Join a club, I think that's a pretty good shortcut as well." Then he suddenly got a devious idea. "But if you're looking for friends, you don't have to look only in your house, you know. I also have friends in other houses (he didn't), and it's not weird at all (it was a bit weird). In your year," he made a fake pause, "I know that Neville Longbottom is a nice boy and he's quite serious about studying as well. I'm sure that your technique of doing homework together would actually work on him."
"Thanks for your help," Hermione said awkwardly at some point after she noticed that she hadn't thanked him yet.
"Just don't tell anyone that it was me," Harry said before backing off. He paused. "Also, I suggest learning some basic jinxes. No one's going to try to bully you if they have to risk lying on the floor, petrified for hours on end for the pleasure of it.
"You're going?" Hermione asked confusedly.
Harry shrugged. "Of course, I think I said everything I have to say here. See you in the library," he said before walking off and waving at the girl over his shoulder. Heroes always left as mysteriously as they arrived.
After turning a corner, he once again disillusioned himself and watched in glee as Hermione turned the same corner and looked around in confusion.
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AN: This was another chapter that was slightly controversial on Patreon, but I didn't really feel there was anything wrong with it so I left it as is. Just wanted to do something introspective to show Harry's character and something with Hermione as a character so I did, that's it. Completely no deeper motivation here ;)