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Chapter Text

Harry was running.

His feet slammed painfully against the cobblestone floor and he clutched at a burning stitch in his side as he hurtled along the darkened corridor. The only light came from up ahead, around the corner, dull red flashes that pulsed over the walls like some kind of ominous warning: Turn back now!

But Harry couldn’t turn back.

He had to keep going. He did not know why, he did not know what he was doing here…he knew only that he had to reach that sickening, dreadful red pulse, had to help whoever was waiting for him around that corner. He, Harry, was the only one who could stop it, who could fix it….

Every breath he took was a searing pain, and he felt sure his lungs must be about to burst, yet he pushed himself harder still, feeling as though he were moving through water, through molasses…he was almost there, but he seemed only to be inching forward…a sob built in Harry’s chest, despair creeping into his heart…only a little farther….

A blood-curdling scream echoed suddenly into the silence, sending terror lancing through his body – someone was in terrible pain, he had to reach them, he had to save them.

Harry stumbled to the corner just as the tortured screams built to a frantic, chilling pitch…he reached out his hand, squinting into the now blinding red light-

Harry shot straight up in bed, breathing fast and heavy as though he really had been running. He blinked, wide-eyed, into the pitch black of his four-poster, heart thumping madly in his chest as his mind slowly emerged from the nightmare.

The familiar sound of Ron and Neville’s snores drifted over to him across the dormitory and he slumped wearily as his heart rate slowed, resting his head on his knees and burying his hands in his hair. The strands were damp with sweat. Harry shivered, suddenly becoming aware that his pyjama top was soaked through, too. Disgusted, he quickly stripped it off and tossed it to the foot of his bed.

Harry hesitated for a moment before swiping his wand from beneath his pillow, feeling stupid and childish, but knowing all the same that it would help to ease the last remains of the dream from his mind, make it seem less real.

“Lumos,” he whispered, and a narrow beam of light shot from the tip of his wand. He blinked blearily into the sudden brightness as his surroundings came into focus, everything appearing slightly blurred without his glasses. He absently rubbed his forehead and stared at one of the intricate, swirling patterns that decorated his bed curtains; he was infinitely glad he had pulled them closed when he’d gone to bed, and even more relieved he’d remembered to put up a Silencing charm.

He had been having the same nightmare for weeks now, since shortly after his arrival at the Burrow for the summer holidays.

Ron hadn’t mentioned anything to him about talking (or possibly shouting) in his sleep, but there had been a few mornings over breakfast his best mate had seemed more blatantly concerned about him than usual, throwing Harry furtive glances, and whispering to Hermione when he thought Harry wasn’t paying attention.

Harry couldn’t explain why he kept having this dream, or what it might mean, but something told him he did not want to examine this particular one too closely.

Of course, he had had recurring dreams like this before; dreams about long corridors and mysterious locked doors…but Harry was quite sure this one didn’t have anything to do with Voldemort. For one, his scar never hurt when he had it, and in any case Dumbledore had told him he suspected Voldemort was now purposefully blocking his connection to Harry.

Either way, he was relieved to be back at Hogwarts where underage magic wasn’t off-limits. He did not need his dorm mates witnessing his odd sleep problems, or Ron reporting back to Hermione in a fit of unease.

Sighing to himself, Harry extinguished his wand and stashed it again before slipping quietly from his bed, making the familiar trek to the bathroom in the dark.

“You look terrible,” Hermione told Harry, her eyebrows knitting together over the top of her copy of the Daily Prophet as he settled into a seat across the table from her and Ron.

“Thanks,” he said dully, flattening his hair and reaching for a plate of bacon.

He hadn’t got much sleep after he’d woken up the night before; he had tossed and turned for hours until finally managing a light doze just as the sun had begun to creep in under the edges of his curtains. He’d awoken to find the other boys already gone, dressed in a hurry, and rushed down to the Great Hall, arriving only minutes before breakfast was scheduled to end.

“You could have got me up,” Harry told Ron grudgingly, straightening the collar of his robes.

Ron shoveled a forkful of food into his mouth and shrugged. “I tried,” he managed cheerfully around a mouthful of eggs.

A groggy memory of swatting Ron’s hand away and exchanging sleepy, half-hearted insults flashed across Harry’s mind. He grunted and took a bite of bacon.

“Didn’t you sleep well?” Hermione pressed, lowering her newspaper to look at him fully.

Harry shrugged noncommittally, having no desire to discuss the subject with her at the moment, and nodded at the paper. “Any deaths today?” Hermione frowned at him, and opened her mouth to say something, but Ron cut her off.

“Yeah, my Defence Against the Dark Arts mark,” he said gravely, shaking his head and pouring himself a bowl of cornflakes. “I never did that essay for Snape yesterday,” he mumbled to Harry out of the corner of his mouth.

Harry smirked at him, but Hermione had heard and apparently found this less than amusing, for she started in immediately on a long-winded lecture about the importance of sixth year studies and the impact their academic performance would have on their N.E.W.T. exams the following year-

Harry only half-listened as he glanced down the Gryffindor table.

A few seats away, Colin Creevey was talking excitedly to his younger brother, Dennis, holding what appeared to be a thick stack of glossy photos. Harry looked away quickly; making eye contact with Colin usually resulted in a tiring and repetitive conversation in which Colin asked Harry if he would finally be willing to pose for some Quidditch action shots, and Harry was forced to say “no” about a thousand times.

Harry’s gaze landed on Ginny Weasley, who sat half a table away, chatting animatedly with her friends. Dean Thomas sat next to her, his arm curled loosely around her waist.

Harry’s gut squirmed uncomfortably as he stared at them, and he dropped the piece of toast he’d just buttered back to his plate. He found he wasn’t that hungry all of a sudden.

A soft thump jolted Harry out of the beginnings of a rather pleasant daydream about the games of two-a-side Quidditch he'd played against Ginny and Ron during his last stay at the Burrow, and he looked round to see that Hedwig had landed next to his plate. She held a small dead frog in her beak, which she swallowed at once with a flourish and ruffled her feathers, looking haughtily at Harry as though expecting praise. A gaggle of second years shrieked in disgust at Hedwig’s display and sprang out of their seats, gathering their things and running off hurriedly to queue for their first class.

Harry stroked her white feathers fondly, chuckling. “Good girl. Been off hunting?”

She had brought him no mail this morning, but Harry hadn’t been expecting any – she’d delivered a letter from Lupin just yesterday.

The letter was stowed safely in the bag by Harry’s feet, though he didn’t need to retrieve it to know what it said – like the one he had received during the summer from Dumbledore before the headmaster had come to pick him up from the Dursleys’, he had already committed the words to memory:

Harry,

I hope your first week back at school is going well – try to enjoy yourself as much as you can, though probably your coursework is piling on already. If memory serves, your father was threatening to live out the rest of his life as a stag at this point our sixth year. You see the brilliance, it would be difficult to complete two rolls of parchment on Everlasting Elixirs for Professor Slughorn with only hooves to work with. (How are you finding Potions these days, by the way? I have no doubt how your new professor finds you.)

Molly told me you made Quidditch Captain. Congratulations – you deserve it. Have you scheduled tryouts yet? I want to hear all about them when you do.

I’ll soon be busy with a favour for a mutual friend, so my next letter might be delayed. Don’t worry about me, I’m perfectly alright. I want you to focus on your studies.

Take care of yourself.

- Remus Lupin

Harry assumed ‘a favour for a mutual friend’ meant Dumbledore had given him a mission for the Order and, whatever Lupin’s reassurances, Harry hoped he would be okay.

He smiled to himself as Hedwig nipped at his fingers affectionately. He’d been hoping Lupin would write, and he was far more pleased than he was willing to admit. There was no longer anyone else outside Hogwarts likely to send him letters, not since Sirius….

Harry mentally shook himself. There was absolutely no use thinking about that.

Anyway it was a shame Lupin’s next letter wouldn’t come for a while, Harry thought regretfully, his gaze moving down the table again…it might make life a bit easier if his old professor could somehow know to offer advice, without Harry having to ask, on what to do about his strange, newly developed impulse to jinx Dean’s-

“Harry!”

Harry gave a guilty start and looked up at Ron, who had already half-risen out of his seat.

“You still with us? C’mon, mate, we’ll be late for Defence if you don’t get a move on,” he said, quickly snatching up another piece of toast. Sure enough, most of the students had already left the Hall; great scraping noises echoed around the room as the last-minute stragglers pushed benches hastily back from tables. Harry caught sight of Hermione near the great oak doors, shuffling along a group of dawdling first years.

Grabbing his bag, Harry swung his legs quickly over the bench and made to follow Ron, but a sharp screech behind him made him turn back. Hedwig was still sat upon the table, looking at him with what could only be described as a stern expression. She nudged his plate with her foot as if to say ‘Finish your breakfast!’

Harry rolled his eyes and waved her off impatiently.

She'd been doing that a lot lately.

Harry caught up with Ron and Hermione at the doors to the entrance hall and glanced back just as the last few students hurried past them. Hedwig had gone.

Ron was not the only one whose Defence score was in danger, Harry reflected bitterly a half hour later as he and the rest of the class watched Snape stalk around the classroom, offering advice that was far more insulting than helpful and docking points for incorrect wand movements.

They were continuing to practice nonverbal spells, and Snape’s mood was as foul as Harry had ever known it to be. It might have been the fact that not a single person (apart from Hermione, of course, though Snape had not found her success something to be celebrated) had yet to master the simplest of spells without uttering a word; or perhaps Snape was thinking, like Harry, of their detention together Saturday next, and the lesson in which Harry had earned it.

“Switch partners!” Snape barked abruptly.

Although, Harry thought with a hint of satisfaction as Ron stepped away to work with Neville and he turned to square off against Hermione, he was sure he had a fonder memory of that lesson than Snape did.

… “There’s no need to call me ‘sir,’ Professor.” …

Hermione had reminded him more than once since then that he ought to watch his tongue in class, but Harry couldn’t find it in himself to regret it with Ron, Dean, and Seamus still maintaining that it had been the singularly most savage thing they’d ever heard anyone say to another human being.

“And what, pray tell, are you smirking at, Potter?” demanded Snape, halting on his way past Harry and Hermione and glowering.

“Nothing,” said Harry evenly, then after a fraction of a pause added, “sir.”

Snape held Harry’s gaze for another moment before striding away again, robes billowing behind him as usual. “Ten points from Gryffindor,” he threw over his shoulder.

Harry’s grip tightened around his wand and he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from opening his mouth. Ten points for breathing, more like, he thought as both he and Hermione glared at Snape’s retreating back.

What Harry wouldn’t give to finally see that great overgrown bat get what was coming to him….

Scowling, Harry turned back to Hermione and redoubled his efforts to produce a Jelly-Legs Jinx without speaking, determined to spite Snape in any way he possibly could.

Lupin’s prediction about the sixth years’ increased workload had unfortunately proven to be true: by the end of their first week, they had been set so much homework that Harry was unsurprised to see a few of his classmates burst into frustrated tears on more than one occasion as they sat tucked away in quiet corners of the common room or library, frantically reviewing complicated diagrams and attempting to decipher their own hastily written notes.

Transfiguration had become so difficult that not even Hermione fully understood the concepts McGonagall was attempting to teach them these days. Defence, which had always been Harry’s favourite subject, was now one of the most dreaded by nearly the entire student body. A great pity, in Harry’s opinion, as the curriculum was now more fascinating than ever, but this was effectively cancelled out by Snape, who seemed incapable of mustering any semblance of good temper, or indeed providing any truly useful guidance despite the fact he was now teaching the subject he’d been after for years.

Potions, to both Harry’s surprise and Professor Slughorn’s unending delight, had suddenly become one of his better subjects.

“I reckon it helps that we don’t have Snape breathing down our necks anymore,” Ron mused as he, Hermione, and Harry sat doing their Potions homework in front of the common room fire on Saturday evening.

“I reckon you’re right,” Harry said, moving his finger down a page of his copy of Advanced Potion-Making in search of an appropriate quote to add to his essay. “That, and Slughorn doesn’t give me zeros whenever he bloody well feels like it….”

Hermione looked up from her roll of parchment. “Harry, did you write ‘add five ounces of African Sea Salt’ under step eight or nine?”

Harry blinked at her. Hermione had taken to checking her Potions work against Harry’s over the past few days, and it still startled him slightly every time it happened.

“Eight.”

“Good….” she nodded, turning back to her own paper. “That’s what I’ve got…..”

“I’ve got it down under step eight, too,” Ron mumbled, a hint of annoyance in his voice. Harry glanced over at him and saw that he was scowling at Hermione.

Ron had taken to doing that quite a lot over the past few days, too.

“Hmm?” Hermione hummed absently.

“Nothing,” said Ron, but he closed his textbook a tad more aggressively than was strictly necessary and tossed it aside, glaring at a couple of fourth year girls who’d been staring over at them and whispering behind their hands, and reaching instead for a copy of the Evening Prophet someone had left in an empty chair.

A stiff silence fell briefly over the three of them, the only sounds the scratch of quills on parchment and the rustle of pages as Ron flipped through the newspaper.

“Blimey!” He burst out a few minutes later, his irritation apparently forgotten. “These Death Eater loonies get worse every day! They’re sick, they are….”

A cold hand seemed to twist Harry’s intestines. “What’s happened?” he asked quickly.

“‘Family of four killed in ‘brutal’ slaying in Berwick-upon-Tweed’,” Ron read aloud, grimacing. “Bloody hell, it sounds like they even tortured the kids.”

“Oh my God,” Hermione said tearfully, her hand covering her mouth. She got up and moved around the table to read over Ron’s shoulder. She looked sick as her eyes scanned the rest of the article. “That’s horrible! How can they possibly think this stuff is…is fun?”

But Harry did not hear Ron’s reply.

His fingers tightened reflexively around his quill, and he stared into the fire, seething.

Of course Voldemort and his followers were not above torturing kids.

Harry knew that firsthand.

The chilling reports of Death Eater activity had begun trickling in from every corner of the country. Hogwarts students were receiving more mail than ever, letters from anxious parents checking to make sure their children were safe; Hermione had informed them earlier that Eloise Midgen’s father had already come to pull her out of school less than a day ago.

Voldemort was still underground, still working from the shadows, but there was no doubt that the war was on. It was inching slowly into every aspect of their lives, like some kind of creeping, sinister poison.

Harry ran his thumb distractedly along the tip of his quill.

Voldemort had to be stopped.

This thought had begun to dominate most of Harry’s waking hours, ever since Dumbledore had finally told him the truth about the prophecy last term…he had to be stopped, before there were more families like the one in the paper, more families like Neville’s...and Harry’s.

The enormous scale of Voldemort’s powers and influence was becoming clearer to Harry every day. Dumbledore seemed confident in Harry’s ability to go up against him, even to defeat him; as Ron had pointed out, Dumbledore wouldn’t be bothering to give Harry private lessons if he thought Harry was a dead man walking.

But with each new gruesome news story, each rumour passed around in hushed, terrified whispers, each fresh sign that the Wizarding world was gradually being taken over by a gathering darkness, Harry felt more and more powerless to stop it, and lately, once or twice, he had caught himself secretly wondering if they even stood a chance…if he stood a chance, when everything was said and done.

A sudden sting of pain pulled Harry from his thoughts, and he looked down in mild surprise at his fingers. He'd accidentally punctured his thumb with the sharp tip of his quill. Harry watched idly for a moment as the blood welled up into a tiny red bubble, then brought the injured digit to his mouth, nursing it.

Feeling relieved and anxious all at once that he was starting his lessons with Dumbledore tonight, Harry checked his watch and sat up with a jolt, startling Ron and Hermione.

“It’s nearly eight,” he told them, shoving his book and unfinished essay hurriedly back into his bag. “I’d better get to Dumbledore’s, I’ll see you later.” And Harry left through the portrait hole with Ron and Hermione’s assurances that they would be waiting up for him when he got back.

Five minutes and a very close call with Peeves later, Harry had given the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore’s study the correct password (“Acid Pops!”), ridden the spiral staircase up to the door with the brass knocker, and been told to enter.

“Good evening, sir,” said Harry, closing the door behind him. The circular office looked just as it always had; the curious silver instruments were puffing and whirring upon their little tables, the portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses sleeping, or pretending to, in their frames, and Fawkes the phoenix was watching Harry from his perch with pure bright interest.

A sudden sense of awkward embarrassment stole over Harry. The last time he’d been in this office, he had tried his best to destroy quite a lot of its contents.

But Dumbledore was smiling behind his desk, and Harry felt himself relax a little.

“Ah, good evening, Harry. Sit down.”

Poor, sad, miserable Merope Gaunt….

Her face swam before Harry’s eyes as he made his way back to Gryffindor Tower.

The scene Dumbledore had shown him in the Pensieve had been…well, horrifying.

It had been a bit unsettling to be introduced to Voldemort’s family, to see them in the flesh (so to speak, after all it had been inside someone else’s memory, he supposed), to see where it was Voldemort had come from. But still more disturbing to Harry had been Marvolo Gaunt’s behaviour towards his daughter. In his mind’s eye, Harry watched over and over as Marvolo’s hands closed around her throat, squeezing till she could no longer breathe, her pale face shining with terror.

Harry’s hand rose absently to his neck as the phantom sensation of other, beefier fingers seemed to momentarily press around his own throat, and he was suddenly, viciously glad Marvolo Gaunt had been sentenced to Azkaban.

As Harry turned a corner, a sudden whisper of movement broke through his thoughts of Voldemort’s pitiable mother, and he plunged his hand into his robes, fingers curling around his wand before he’d even fully realised what he was doing. He turned sharply about, heart thudding hard against his ribs, and stared into the darkness, wand held tight in his fist, listening hard.

The torches set high into the stone walls gave off a wavering, flickering light that seemed eerie in the stillness of the castle…several seconds of silence passed.

Harry dropped his wand slightly.

He had just come to the conclusion that it must have been one of the ghosts, or possibly Peeves again, when another whisper reached his ears – there was the hiss of a spell, a slight disturbance of air, and Harry instinctively flung himself to the side. He fell, hard, against a statue of Diarmuid the Daring, forcing the air out of his lungs in a great whoosh. He leaned heavily against the statue, struggling to draw breath and looking around wildly, wand still clutched in his hand – but...what...what was he looking for?

Harry straightened up slowly, clutching his freshly bruised ribs. His grip slackened around his wand, arm falling to hang limply at his side.

Why was he holding his wand?

He couldn’t remember….

He looked up and down the corridor, but it was still and silent. There was no one here.

Come to think of it, Harry couldn’t recall why he was here in this corridor at all. His brow furrowed as he turned slowly on the spot. Which way had he come from?

It was late – shouldn’t he be in Gryffindor Tower? Unless...unless he was supposed to be out of bed. But why should that be? Maybe Ron and Hermione would know…he looked around again for them, but they were nowhere in sight.

That was odd.

They were usually with him.

Harry hesitated. Perhaps he should sit down here and wait for them? He stood stock still for a moment, chewing his bottom lip, wishing childishly that someone might appear miraculously to help him.

He decided he ought to just head back to the common room, but as he took a step forward he discovered he wasn’t entirely sure which way to go. Had he been coming or going, just now?

A leaden feeling settled sickeningly in his stomach, a thin tendril of panic wrapping around the edges of his brain – how was he going to get back?

But just then a soft, steady voice called behind him.

“Are you lost, Harry?”

Chapter Text

Harry’s heart leapt and he whirled around, brandishing his wand again, a spell on the tip of his tongue – but the words retreated back into the recesses of his foggy brain faster than water through a sieve.

He clutched his head, dizzy at the sudden movement, and blinked, squinting across the corridor.

A girl with long dark hair stood half-concealed behind a tapestry. The moonlight streaming in through the mullioned windows illuminated her eyes, her prominent chin...Harry recognized her. He might have met her on the train to school.

She was smiling at him.

“You’re Romilda Vane,” Harry said suddenly, the memory falling into place as she stepped out fully from behind the tapestry. He thought she might have been a fourth year.

Romilda nodded, seeming satisfied. “And you’re Harry Potter,” she simpered. “The Chosen One, they’re calling you these days….”

Harry frowned. He did not like people calling him that.

Romilda eyed him in an oddly eager way and beckoned him closer. Harry’s feeling of dislike deepened, but he couldn’t recall a reason he might feel that way and tamped it down.

She was a Gryffindor. Maybe she could help him.

He crossed over to her (carefully, so as not to lose his balance, which seemed suddenly very poor), tucking his wand back inside his robes.

She peered up into his face with a look of great pity. “Are you lost?” she asked again. “You seem...confused.”

She was still smiling.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “I...I am, a bit,” he admitted, not quite meeting her eyes. He felt his face heat with humiliation. He should know what to do, but he didn’t, he couldn’t think…. “I have to get back to Gryffindor. I- I don’t remember how....”

“Well, I can help,” Romilda said brightly. “Follow me!”

She slipped her hand into his and turned to lead him back down the hallway. Harry was immediately seized by the urge to pull his hand away, but he mentally scolded himself…she was only trying to help.

Romilda tugged him a few more steps and stopped at a plain, unassuming door halfway down the corridor. She threw it open, and Harry had just enough time to think that he was quite certain this wasn’t the way back to the dormitories before he was shoved across the threshold. Romilda followed quickly and pulled the door shut, plunging them both into total darkness.

Harry squinted and tried to make out Romilda’s shape next to him but the black pressed against his eyes like a funeral shroud…he reached out and ran his hand along the wall behind him, trying to get his bearings, but a second later, Romilda had whispered something and a small flame sprang from her wand to settle in the palm of her outstretched hand, flooding the room with light.

It reminded Harry forcefully of Lupin, and the shivering flames he had conjured the night they had first met on the Hogwarts Express.

Harry looked away, examining his surroundings as his eyes adjusted.

“This is a broom cupboard,” he said stupidly.

There were shelves of cleaning supplies and stacks of boxes lined up against the walls, leaving a space just big enough for two people to move around in.

Romilda hummed in agreement and set her little flame down on an upturned box. The fire was obviously only an imitation of the real thing; it burned away happily without any apparent effect to the box it rested upon and did not seem to give off any heat.

“Why are we in here?” Harry asked as Romilda turned back to him.

Romilda gaped at him, as an exasperated parent might look at an ill-behaving child. “You can’t very well go back to the Tower like this, can you? You’re acting oddly, Harry, people might ask questions, I’m sure you wouldn’t want that. Would you?”

“No….” Harry said truthfully, and he watched as she reached into her robes and produced a small pink bottle.

He eyed it warily.

“This,” Romilda said, shaking the bottle a little, “will help you to think more clearly.” She held it out to him.

Harry did not take it.

“It will?”

“Oh yes,” she nodded. “You’ll see things exactly as you ought to.”

Harry looked into Romilda’s face. She seemed calm and confident, but a tiny voice in the back of his muddled mind told him that drinking anything of which he wasn’t certain himself was a very, very bad idea...an odd, murky foreboding settled in his gut.

“I need to find Ron and Hermione,” Harry blurted out, surprising even himself with the force of it.

Romilda’s eyebrows scrunched together and Harry felt badly about the look of shock and, he thought, hurt, on her face, but he was suddenly highly aware that he did not want to be in this broom cupboard with her, and he did not want to drink that potion. He just needed to go back to the common room…surely Hermione would know how to fix whatever it was that had scrambled his mind.

Harry shook his head once, twitching it as though he were trying to dislodge a fly; a confusing jumble of thoughts raced around in his head, faltering strangely like a film reel with missing frames…he didn’t want to be here…he reached out behind him again, fumbling for the handle of the door. A look much less like hurt and more like anger flitted over Romilda’s face.

“You can’t leave,” she said in a clipped voice. The sweet-bright edge had left it - she sounded annoyed now.

But Harry’s fingers found the handle of the door and pulled. He opened his mouth to say he’d find a way back to Gryffindor on his own, when Romilda whipped her wand from her robes and pointed it at him in one quick motion, hissing “Petrificus Totalus!” before Harry had any time to react.

His fingers froze instantly, curled awkwardly around the door handle, as did the rest of him, his mouth still open, his eyes staring at Romilda in disbelief.

He couldn’t move a muscle. He felt, for a moment, that he was back on the Hogwarts Express, Petrified humiliatingly by Draco Malfoy. He could almost feel the crunch of his nose breaking under Malfoy’s boot.

Romilda put her hands on her hips and looked Harry briefly up and down, frowning.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she said, and beneath the tide of panic rising in his chest, Harry thought she sounded oddly as though she really meant it. “I didn’t want it to go like this, I didn’t want to...well,” she paused, frustrated. “I didn’t expect you to be so uncooperative. I heard you telling your friends you were going to the headmaster’s office tonight, and I thought it would be the perfect time to finally get you alone. I know if you’d just give us a chance….”

She let out a quick puff of air, resigned, and uncorked the pink bottle of potion.

Harry frantically strained against the spell holding him in place, or rather tried to – it was as though his body had been cut off from his brain. His eyes alone remained unaffected, and Harry could only watch, his alarm rising, as Romilda drew closer, the flickering light of the conjured flame glinting merrily off the little glass bottle.

Harry focused as hard as he possibly could on freeing himself, willing his body to move, but this yielded no more results than it had done the night on the train. Snape’s sneering face intruded into his mind, unbidden, and Harry could practically hear his scathing taunt about being able to perform magic without spells.

“Not all wizards can do this, of course; it is a question of concentration and mind power which some…lack….”

Harry’s panic spiraled higher still, and something of his dread must have shown in his eyes, because Romilda paused, the bottle inches from his lips, and said quietly, “It’ll be okay, Harry, I promise.” She placed a hand on his chest, right over his heart, and Harry wondered whether she could feel its frantic beat beneath her palm. “Just...don’t fight it. We’ll be great together, you’ll see.”

And she tipped the contents of the bottle into his open mouth.

The potion was pure cloying sweetness, floral and fruity in equal measures; it dripped thickly down Harry’s throat, and he would have gagged if his body had allowed it.

Several seconds passed…a minute...Harry waited, stunned and miserable, for Romilda to release him, but she simply stared back, eyes raking over his face.

She seemed to be waiting for something, and perhaps she’d seen it for a moment later she raised her wand again. There was a flash of red light and Harry’s body unfroze.

His knees buckled slightly, catching his weight, and he leaned heavily back against the door of the cupboard. His throat constricted instantly of its own volition, swallowing most of the sickeningly sweet syrup down in one. A burning sensation flared in his stomach, and he quickly spat out the rest of the potion onto the floor.

“Harry...how do you feel?” Romilda asked tentatively.

Harry stared down at the small puddle of pinkish goo, breathing heavily.

A blinding hot surge of rage reared up inside him like a snake and for a brief instant, his mind felt sharp and clear, miraculously free of that strange, dazed confusion.

She’d Confunded him!

Harry’s jaws clenched together so hard his teeth ached and he jerked his head up to glare at Romilda. She had planned it, waited for him, and she...she had…she...was….

She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

As his eyes rested on her face, the thought pierced him so powerfully it was almost painful. He felt suddenly dizzy with the realization…how had he never noticed it before? How had he never noticed her before? Her long black hair, her big dark eyes...she was stunning, she was brilliant.

Harry could not even think of words worthy enough to describe her, and his heart clenched at this tragic shortcoming.

Romilda was watching him expectantly, bottom lip between her teeth, a hungry look in her eye.

Harry smiled at her tremulously, and her features immediately relaxed as she smiled back (a radiant, glittering, beautiful smile that made Harry feel as though he were bathing in dazzling sunlight).

Romilda reached up to touch his face and butterflies churned to life in his stomach in an achy, highly pleasant way as she rested her hand tenderly against his cheek. Harry’s eyes closed in bliss, and he stood stock still, hoping fervently that this moment would never end...her skin was so smooth and cool against his...Romilda swiped her thumb over his bottom lip, clearing away the last of the sticky liquid.

"There's a good boy," she whispered.

Her hand fell away –

Harry’s eyes shot open and a strangled grunt of despair escaped his throat at the loss, but Romilda shushed him with a single finger against his lips before turning away from him, taking his breath with her…she bent low over something in the corner, and Harry watched, transfixed, as her hair slid from her hunched shoulders to shield her face.

Harry stared at it, her shiny black hair...it looked so soft and silky…he longed to touch it, to feel it slide through his fingers...he licked his lips nervously and slowly extended his hand. Lightly, ever so lightly, he ran a finger reverently down a lock of her hair, and the feel of it nearly brought tears to his eyes.

Romilda straightened back up, turning to face Harry again, and he sucked in a breath with a sharp, shuddering gasp, like a drowning man suddenly returning to the surface...she had a small roll of carpeting clutched in her hands...he watched as she shoved a crate of Madame Glossy’s Silver Polish out of the way.

God, Harry thought, his eyes tracing the curve of her nose, her lips, her jaw…he never wanted to stop looking at her. And it occurred to him, abruptly, that there was something he ought to tell her:

“I love you,” Harry said breathlessly, the words laying strangely on his tongue. He had never said them to anyone before.

But if felt right to say them to her.

Romilda looked up at him quickly. Her eyes, if possible, brightened, and Harry could not stop himself burying his hand fully in her thick glossy hair, sliding it around to rest gently against the back of her neck. His other hand found her waist and Romilda promptly dropped the roll of carpet, grasped the sides of Harry’s face, and plunged forward, kissing him forcefully.

The kiss was desperate and burning, Harry felt like white-hot flames were licking every inch of him, consuming him…there was nothing else in the world, only Romilda, her fingers buried in his hair, her breath on his face, her tongue inside his mouth.

Pulling Romilda still closer, Harry dimly recalled the first and last kiss he’d ever had, with Cho Chang. He reflected giddily that this was nothing like that had been, before becoming immediately and thoroughly ashamed of himself for even thinking of another girl, another person, when Romilda was right in front of him, real and close and perfect against him.

The kiss seemed to go on forever; Harry couldn’t breathe properly, but he was quite sure he’d rather die of lack of oxygen than ever have to stop kissing Romilda Vane.

They stumbled backwards as one until Harry’s back hit the wall and they broke apart, gasping.

Romilda giggled breathlessly, her hands sliding down to his chest. “You’re a really good kisser, Harry....”

Harry felt his cheeks turning red, the praise sending a rush of gushing warmth through him as though he’d swallowed a mouthful of hot chocolate. “Thanks,” he breathed, grinning crookedly.

“Not that I’m surprised, of course,” she added, flipping her hair.

Her fingertips trailed slowly down his arms, leaving goosebumps, and ghosted lightly over his palms as she backed away from him. Harry leaned forward automatically, as though a giant magnet were pulling him toward her, but she pushed him firmly back against the wall and turned to pick up the piece of carpet she’d dropped in her haste to snog him half to death.

Harry watched, his mouth dry, as she unrolled the rug and spread it out on the floor of the cupboard. He suddenly became aware that his palms were sweaty. He hoped fervently that Romilda hadn’t noticed and wiped them quickly on his trousers…his robes must have come off sometime during their energetic snogging, but Harry did not have a thought to spare for them at the moment; Romilda shed her own robe and a second later her lips were back on his.

Harry moaned softly into her mouth…being here with her like this...it was brilliant...utterly indescribable. He felt…happy, for the first time in a very, very long time.

Romilda bit his bottom lip in response, and Harry was quite sure he would have fallen over if it hadn’t been for the wall supporting him. She yanked his shirt from the waistband of his trousers and shoved her hands up under it, her fingers stroking across his stomach, and Harry started to feel light-headed as blood rushed decidedly southward.

The butterflies tumbling around in Harry’s stomach kicked it into high gear as Romilda’s hands found the buckle of his belt and unfastened it, slipping it quickly from Harry’s waist in one smooth motion before tossing it aside where it clinked dully against the stone floor.

Harry’s brain felt as though it were short-circuiting, his entire body was trembling and unnaturally hot like he was burning from the inside out.

He yearned to slip his fingers under the edges of Romilda’s blouse, to touch her soft, perfect skin, but some distant, strangled part of his mind held him back…told him he might regret it, if he did.

Their lips broke apart again as Romilda reached for the buttons on Harry’s shirt. He held still as best he could and watched, panting, as her nimble fingers made quick work of them and came back up to shove the offending material off his shoulders and down his arms....

His shirt joined his belt on the floor and Romilda stood back briefly to admire him. She let out a soft, barely audible “oh” as her eyes raked over his torso, inspecting him greedily like he was a particularly delicious-looking piece of meat.

Harry suddenly felt highly exposed, a chill sweeping across his overheated skin, and his fists clenched nervously at his sides.

Romilda seemed not to notice his discomfort, and a moment later Harry had forgotten it, too, as she placed her hands on his naked chest, setting his nerves alight all over again.

“You’re so gorgeous, Harry, hasn’t anyone ever told you?” asked Romilda quietly, leaning up to nuzzle his jawline. Her breath ghosted over his ear, and Harry shivered. “Everyone wonders why you don’t have a girlfriend already.”

“Nngh,” Harry answered eloquently, for just then she had fastened her lips to his neck in an open-mouthed kiss right over his pulse. Her hands were sliding further down his chest, caressing his stomach…Harry’s head fell back against the wall and his arms went around Romilda, grasping the back of her shirt in an effort to ground himself. His legs were like jelly, his brain on fire, he couldn’t think.

One of Romilda’s hands had reached the top of his trousers.

Her fingertips slipped underneath the waistband, and Harry felt the first weak flutterings of an unnamed fear ripple through his oxygen-deprived, love-sick mind...a tremor ran through his body, and that small, strangled part of his brain that had told him not to touch Romilda seemed to grow louder.

Romilda giggled into the skin of his neck. Harry closed his eyes, the material of her blouse bunching in his fingers as he gripped her more tightly, and he wondered dazedly if she had felt him shaking against her…her fingers slid suddenly past his underwear and moved even lower.

Harry froze, his brain fighting the sudden urge to shove Romilda away, his body screaming at her to keep going, and when the hand in his pants finally slid home and wrapped around him, the sharp burst of arousal was overshadowed by a sickening swoop of nausea deep in his belly.

No….

“N-n….” Harry tried, but Romilda’s mouth found his again and he stood there like a statue, solid and unmoving, letting her kiss him as the hand inside his trousers started to move back and forth, a furious, painful battle raging inside his head.

After a minute, Romilda withdrew her hand and pulled back, beaming up at him. Her smile faltered when she caught sight of his face. “Are you alright, Harry? You look funny. Didn’t…didn’t that feel good?” She frowned, and glanced toward the floor at her discarded robe. “Maybe you need a bit more potion.”

“N…no….” Harry managed, his hands moving jerkily to grasp her forearms as she made to turn away. “No…I…I’m fine....”

It felt like the world had suddenly tilted sideways on its axis, his thoughts were a tangled mess, he was so...confused, it felt like his mind was splitting itself, rending in two…but he didn’t want to drink anymore of that potion, he knew that much.

He just needed to…to….

Get out of here, whispered the voice in the back of his head.

But that didn’t make any sense! He couldn’t leave Romilda. He had to show her that he could do what she wanted, he loved her, and he had to show her how much...he had to make her happy, no matter what…she was the only important thing in the world.

Wasn’t she?

Romilda was watching him, her expression troubled, and Harry knew immediately that he had to fix it.

He took Romilda's hand tentatively in his own and smiled at her.

Harry supposed this must have been the right thing to do, for her face burst with happiness, like the sun shining suddenly through a dark storm cloud, and she threw her arms around him.

“I knew it,” she sighed into his chest, an unmistakable note of complacency in her voice. “I just knew you’d want this too.”

And next second she’d released him and was removing her own shirt, with a little wink at Harry, and throwing it to the floor. She toed off her shoes and socks before pushing her skirt down over her thighs and kicking it away.

Harry watched in morbid fascination as she reached deliberately behind her back and unhooked her bra. It was made out of some kind of silky black material and, despite his weird sense of growing trepidation, he couldn’t help but notice how nice it looked against her pearly skin, her dark hair.

Her eyes never leaving his, Romilda slid the straps of her bra languidly down her arms, openly reveling in the sight she knew she must be making…she plucked the garment off her body, let it dangle for a second, then dropped it to the floor on top of her shirt.

Harry's brain seemed to have jammed. He swallowed, his throat dry, as Romilda hooked her thumbs into her underwear, which were the same black material as her bra, and eased them over her hips till they slid down to join her other clothes on the floor.

He couldn’t stop himself staring as Romilda straightened back up: he had never seen a girl naked before and the reality sent both excitement and terror thundering through him all at once...he realised his hands were shaking.

“Well?” said Romilda expectantly, tossing her hair confidently over her shoulder. “Your turn.” She gestured at his trousers.

Harry glanced down at himself…he supposed it was only fair…wasn’t it?

He kicked off his shoes. His hands went hesitantly to his zip, but his bloodless fingers were trembling too hard.

“Here, let me help,” Romilda said sympathetically, as though she were offering him a great kindness. She batted his hands out of the way, and as she fumbled with the button, Harry only prayed that she would not try to make a show of undressing him. But as soon as she’d got his trousers open, she pulled them unceremoniously over his hips, underwear and all, and slid them down so Harry could step out of them.

Romilda nudged their piles of clothes into a corner with her foot, and then took both of Harry’s hands in hers, looking him up and down...Harry felt his face heat up again as her gaze lingered at his groin, and he resisted the overwhelming impulse to cover himself with great difficulty. She wants to see you, you have to let her, she wants to.

Romilda looked back up at his face, and he could see the honest excitement brimming in her eyes.

This is for her, he told himself, for Romilda…just do it for Romilda…let her have what she wants…do it for her.

Harry's thoughts echoed like a desperate mantra inside his head as she pulled him down to the floor and manoeuvred him until he was lying on his back in the center of the small carpet.

Her hand settled between his legs again and Harry could do nothing but simply lie there, his entire body so tense it ached, and let Romilda touch him. Let her touch him in a way no one had ever done, before.

The cupboard did not allow enough room to stretch out. Harry’s knees were bent up at an awkward angle and something hard was digging painfully into shoulder, but he could not bring himself to move…he was afraid if he moved, he would want to run…and he couldn’t do that to Romilda…she needed him…she loved him.

This isn’t…right, whispered the little voice, and it sounded as though it were coming from a long way away, from far beneath an ocean of thick, pink, swirling waves.

This is….

Good, Harry thought firmly. It’s fine, it feels…good…feels….

Wrong. It’s wrong, god, don't….

His hands twitched where they lay uselessly at his sides, his fingernails scraping at the thin carpet.

Stop….

“Please,” Harry gasped, and Romilda finally released him. For one shining moment, he thought she might be finished with him, but Romilda simply smirked and patted his cheek affectionately.

“Shh, I know.” she crooned, and a terrible feeling of dread settled thickly in Harry’s veins as she swung a leg up and over his hips so that she was straddling him. Propping up her weight with one hand on the floor next to his head, Romilda used the other to guide him inside of her, sinking down slowly until her thighs met his pelvic bone and she let out a quiet, gasping sigh.

Harry’s hands jerked up instinctively to grasp at her thighs, a heady surge of intermingled pleasure, shock, and horror crashing over him…he’d never felt anything like this in his life, there was nothing to compare it to, it was…wrong…wonderful…and Romilda was suddenly moving above him, blocking out everything but the feel of her around him, the heat of her skin on his, the pressure of her knees against his ribs.

Romilda’s free hand came down to rest on the other side of Harry’s head. She tucked her head down, her hair cascading over her shoulders to spill across Harry’s chest, little gasps issuing from her open mouth.

Harry shut his eyes tight, pleasure flooding his gut and bile rising in his throat, his fingers digging into the flesh of Romilda’s thighs, and he hoped that it would…be over soon, dear god, please….

Harry’s grip on her legs tightened against his will, and Romilda whimpered, seizing his hands and yanking them above his head where she pinned them to the ground with both of her own. Harry tried automatically to tug his hands out of her grip, but she did not let go, and he could not find the strength within himself to fight her.

Can’t, not allowed, don't...hurt her....

A tight coil of pleasure was building rapidly in Harry’s lower belly, while something entirely different but equally powerful constricted his chest…Romilda moved above him…and then his back was arching off the ground as he spilled inside of her, a dry sob escaping his throat.

Romilda stopped, breathing hard, her limbs trembling with exertion. Harry slowly opened his eyes and watched helplessly as she leaned down to kiss him again, brushing briefly against his chapped lips. She pulled back a little, sighing against his cheek before her head dropped heavily onto his shoulder.

Alright…done…she’s done…just let it be over…please….

A few minutes passed, and Romilda straightened, rising up on her knees. But instead of climbing off of Harry, she reached down under herself to molest him again.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on another sob.

Don't…I don’t want to do this anymore.

“Please….” he whimpered.

Harry was not sure how much time passed.

It might have been seconds, or years.

He lost track of it all…lost track of everything but Romilda, and as she used his body, he began to feel as though she were leeching something from it, from him.

Like his magic.

Or his blood.

Something enormously, deeply important.

Romilda collapsed on top of Harry, her breasts pressing against his chest, her hips resting firmly against his, and as the two of them lay there, Harry felt a dull rushing in his veins as the last remnants of the potion burned away.

The obsessive feelings of affection for Romilda that had so consumed him had evaporated, as well as that strange, terrifying sense of devout obligation, leaving nothing in their place but a cold emptiness…a numbness so complete he felt almost as though he were not inhabiting his body at all, but simply looking down at himself from the ceiling of the broom cupboard.

Romilda shifted, releasing Harry's hands, and as she rolled off of him, Harry felt something deep inside him give, and he found he did not care what happened next.

He did not care much about anything at all.

He could not even muster the energy to feel embarrassed about his nudity, or about what he and Romilda had just done. All he wanted was to lie here till the end of time, until the walls of the castle came crumbling down around him, and he’d forgotten he had ever existed.

“That was brilliant,” Romilda breathed, getting to her feet carefully and pulling her arms above her head, stretching. She turned her back on him and fished her wand out of her robes, directing various cleaning spells at herself before gathering up her clothes and starting to pull them on. “Charlene, she’s my best friend, she always did say you’d be an amazing shag, she….”

Harry lay there, unmoving, until he realized faintly that he was uncomfortably cold.

He didn't want to be cold.

With a massive effort, he rolled halfway over to rest on his side. His muscles quivered underneath the surface of his skin, and he brought his knees up slightly, trying his best to curl in on himself as Romilda’s words washed over him in a meaningless stream of noise.

She turned around, still chattering away, fixing up the last few buttons on her shirt, but then stopped mid-sentence, spotting Harry still lying on the floor.

“Are you alright?” Romilda asked him curiously, leaning over to peer into his face. She frowned and searched around in her robes before pulling out another small pink bottle. Harry’s heart thudded dully at the sight, but Romilda, rather than uncorking it, simply turned it over in her hand to read the label on the back. “According to this, there shouldn’t be any complications.” She placed the bottle back into her pocket and shrugged. “Probably you just need a rest, I’ve heard boys usually do, after….”

She considered him regretfully. “I thought we'd walk back together, but I'm sure I'd get caught if I had to drag you along half-asleep...I suppose you’re a big boy, and after all it isn’t that far, you can come back when you're ready.”

Romilda glanced about, then picked up Harry’s discarded school robe, threw it over his shivering body, and patted his shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon, Harry,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

With that, Romilda pushed open the door to the cupboard and stepped out into the deserted corridor.

As the door creaked shut behind her, the little dancing flame which she had conjured earlier fizzled into nothingness, and Harry was left alone in the dark.

Chapter Text

Harry knew he should get up.

He knew he should get up and go straight back to Gryffindor Tower. This thought turned dimly over in his mind as he lay there in the darkness. He knew that if he could just make it back to his own bed, just curl up under his blankets and sleep, then when he woke up he would find all of this to be a dream.

His muscles would not obey his commands to move; he told himself to sit up, to stand, but he might still have been Petrified for all the good it did. It seemed strangely to him that moving was a very dangerous thing to do. That if he moved, he might awaken something, might startle into life some lurking creature that was waiting in the shadows to devour him whole.

The robe Romilda had thrown over Harry was doing little to help defend against the draughtiness of the cupboard. Shivers wracked his body so fiercely they were almost convulsions, his chest shuddering oddly as though he were burning through the last dregs of an adrenaline high.

Harry stared into the gloom.

He wished that he could Apparate – disappear and reappear suddenly in his bed out of thin air, or maybe not even reappear at all….

He already felt as if he were Apparating. Already felt like he was being sucked through that unforgiving tube of dead space, his ribs constricting, his eyes blinded and sinking deeper into his skull, his breath crushed out of his body as he was pressed relentlessly into nothingness...it was easy to imagine, lying there in the cold dark, that he did not actually exist at all…that he had accidentally slipped onto some weird, forbidden plane where being alive or dead did not mean anything, and everything was the same thing and nothing all at once.

Harry gasped suddenly; he’d been holding his breath without realizing, and he gulped down great lungfuls of air, his brain buzzing…he noted faintly that he had stopped shivering, though he was still cold.

Extremely cold.

His body felt like a solid block of ice.

He slowly became aware of his glasses digging into the side of his face, and of the burning itch in his side where it met the carpet underneath him. The itching sensation seemed to spread as he focused on it, like little biting ants crawling over all over his skin, until Harry was seized by the overwhelming need to be somewhere, anywhere, but this wretched cupboard.

He sat up abruptly, his heart stuttering into overdrive at the sudden movement. He threw off the robe and reached blindly for his pile of clothes.

The clothes Romilda had stripped off of him, while he just stood there -

Harry moved with the odd, jerky, movements of someone who had fallen asleep accidentally, and awoken to find they had not yet brushed their teeth, nor changed into their nightclothes.

He staggered to his feet on autopilot and bent down to step into his underwear. They felt strange against his skin as he pulled them on; his groin was wet and sticky.

Scrambling, Harry yanked on his shirt and trousers, snatched up his belt and shoes and robe, his hand going unconsciously into his pocket, checking for his wand. His hand closed around the wood, and the tingle of warmth that travelled up his arm was the tiniest of comforts. His knuckles brushed against the light, silky material of his Invisibility Cloak, which also lay inside his pocket. He heard, distantly, as though they were coming to him through a thick wall of glass, Dumbledore’s words of caution to Harry two months ago, to always keep his Cloak on him, even within Hogwarts.

Just in case.

Harry wrenched open the door and slipped quickly out into the corridor, fighting a sudden growing blackness around the edges of his vision.

He quickened his pace and did not look back as the door slammed loudly behind him.

It sounded like the jaws of a great beast snapping shut.

Next thing he knew, Harry was standing outside the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, with no memory of how he had got there. The portrait of the Fat Lady shimmered oddly before him, and Harry realized he was looking at her through his Invisibility Cloak.

He did not remember putting it on.

“Who’s that? I know you’re there.” said the Fat Lady drowsily when Harry continued to do nothing but stand there silently. She sat slumped against the edge of her frame, her eyes drooping with the lateness of the hour. “You’ll need the password, invisible or not.”

But Harry’s mind felt as blank and empty as fresh snow. His stomach dropped; he did not know the password. The space in his brain normally occupied by mundane, trivial facts seemed to have been erased somewhere in the past few hours.

“Dilligrout,” said a hollow voice, and it registered dimly with Harry that it must have been him who had spoken. He had felt his lips move. The Fat Lady stifled a yawn and waved her hand about aimlessly in agreement, swinging forward on her hinges to allow Harry to climb through the hole.

The common room was dark and silent. Stray books and papers littered the tables and chairs, their owners having gone to bed long ago. There were no flames left in the grate. Not even a single ember. The fire was dead, and Harry moved soundlessly across the room as though he were too…as though he were a ghost, wispy and frail and not-really-there.

He crept silently up the stairs and pushed open the door to the sixth year boys’ dorm.

This room, like the one below, was also dark. And oddly silent. The usual sounds of snoring and tossing and turning were glaringly absent, and this only increased Harry’s strange sense that he had walked into a peculiar dream…his feet carried him without thought, and he found himself standing beside his bed. He glanced over at Ron’s. The curtains were open – Ron was lying flat on his stomach, an arm dangling over the side of the bed, his mouth wide open on the pillow.

Harry stood there, looking down at Ron, considering him as if he were some fascinating specimen who belonged to another species. A species to which Harry did not belong, anymore.

“You’re a really good kisser, Harry.”

All of a sudden, the idea of falling straight into bed no longer seemed appealing – Harry couldn’t stand the feel of his clothes against his skin, they were too tight, too much, they were strangling him – they’d been on the floor of that cupboard, they were dirty, and they were making him feel dirty -

Harry turned abruptly, tugging at the collar of his shirt, and stumbled towards the bathroom.

The room lit automatically as he entered and he shut the door quietly behind him, remembering at the very last second not to slam it. He couldn’t wake the others, they couldn’t see him like this, they couldn’t know.

As Harry locked the door, an oddly detached calm came over him, walling off the thumping panic into a space so small it hardly seemed a part of him, like it belonged to another Harry, a Harry who was standing just behind the real one. He pulled off his Invisibility Cloak, rolling it up and placing it on the counter, careful even now to keep it safe, to take care of it…he stripped off the rest of his clothes and tossed them into the laundry basket in the corner, avoiding looking in the mirror over the sink.

He did not want to see his reflection. Did not want to see whatever it was he could feel written all over his face. He wondered if his eyes were still their same bright green, or if they had faded to something duller.

Perhaps it wouldn’t even be his face at all, the one that everyone told him looked so much like his father’s. Maybe he would see a stranger’s face, an imposter that looked like him but wasn’t. Or maybe he would see some kind of monster. A monster with a big, black hole where a chest was supposed to be.

Harry removed his glasses, his blurry vision a strange relief, and put them on top of the Invisibility Cloak that had been his dad’s, too, just like Harry’s face, and his hands, and his wild black hair…he wondered what his father would think of him, what his mother would think, if they could see him now…see their son losing it over -

Over what?

Sirius would probably say Harry was less like James than he’d thought.

Harry gripped the edge of the sink and squeezed his eyes shut.

Less like James -

Sirius had said that to him once, and Hermione had got so angry.

Harry lurched toward the toilet and fell to his knees in front of it, emptying the contents of his stomach. He heaved until only bile came up, and sat back, wiping his mouth. The sour smell of vomit permeated the bathroom, and Harry quickly flushed the toilet, his stomach rolling again. Goosebumps rose on his bare skin, and he staggered to his feet to turn on the tap in the shower. He waited, trembling, for the water to warm up and then stepped under the spray – the warm water barely did a thing for Harry’s icy skin, and he turned the knob as far towards hot as it would go.

He stood there, arms crossed tightly over his chest, head bent, letting the water beat down on him. It was now so hot it was scalding. Harry watched dispassionately as his arms and his belly and his feet turned bright red. He could barely feel it. He still felt weirdly cold, like a deep chill had penetrated him clear through to the bone and taken hold, and nothing so ordinary as a hot shower could pry it out of him.

Harry hugged himself tighter. What the hell was wrong with him?

There were strange gaps in his memory of the past few hours, and he kept recalling them in disorienting flashes.

Romilda’s lips on his neck -

Her fingernails scraping his scalp -

He had kissed her back.

He had liked it. He remembered that.

Her hand trailing down his stomach, plunging into his pants -

Harry reached out, bracing himself against the tile as his stomach turned over again. He felt dizzy. The steam of the shower must have gone to his head.

He’d had sex.

The fact was so astonishing, so colossal, that he couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around it. He had snogged a girl, and seen her naked, and shagged her. And she had seemed to enjoy it. A lot. So why did he feel so...heavy?

Wasn’t this what people were supposed to do? What teenagers were supposed to do?

He was sixteen. Wasn't that about right? And he was pretty sure he was the first of his friends to do anything like this. Didn’t that give him…boasting rights, or something?

He imagined, for a second, the awestruck look on Ron’s face when Harry told him.

“Blimey…you - ? With a girl? You actually did it? Wow…what was it like?”

He could see Fred and George giving him the thumbs up and winking at him and wiggling their eyebrows every chance they got.

So why didn’t he feel like telling them?

Why did he feel like making sure that no one, ever, found out about it? If this was how sleeping with someone made you feel, Harry wondered how anyone ever brought themselves to do it more than once.

His forced calm faltered, and he grabbed a face cloth, lathered it heavily in soap, and started scrubbing every inch of himself he could reach.

The friction was comforting – it warmed him up, and he scrubbed harder till his skin was an even angrier red than before – he scoured his arms, his legs, his chest, his groin, cleaning away all evidence of his and Romilda’s activities, every trace of her that she’d left on him. He felt like she was under his nails, in his hair, beneath his skin.

He scrubbed feverishly until the muscles in his arm throbbed, and when he brought the cloth away from his body there was blood. Harry looked down at himself curiously and saw that he’d rubbed away a patch of skin on his stomach.

Where Romilda’s fingers had lingered -

It wasn’t big. A square inch or two, right below his navel. Harry stared at it for a minute, impassive, as the water washed away the last of the blood, and then wrung out the rag, making sure there was no tinge of red left on it. Nothing for the other boys or the house elves who did the laundry to find.

Harry shut off the water and stepped out. He stood there for a moment, dripping on the rug, and then reached suddenly for the stack of large, fluffy white towels, as if only just remembering that drying off was what one usually did after washing.

He wiped himself down and wrapped the towel around his waist, having no fresh clothes to change into. His mouth still tasted of sick and he went over to the sink to quickly drag his toothbrush around his mouth a few times. He gathered up his glasses, which he did not put on, and the Invisibility Cloak, which he did – he did not truly need it to leave the bathroom, he supposed, even if someone woke up. He and his roommates had all seen each other naked, or nearly so, a hundred times over the last five years. But for some reason it felt different this time, and the thought of one of them seeing him shirtless at the moment felt (unbearable) awkward.

Waving his wand to douse the magical lights, Harry opened the door and slipped out into the main dormitory. He let his eyes adjust for a second and then padded over to his trunk, tossing the towel into the laundry and pulling on a clean t-shirt and pyjama bottoms. He removed the Cloak and crawled, finally, into the soft comfort of his bed.

Harry stashed both wand and Cloak under his pillow and pulled his blankets snug around himself, up to his ears, glancing at the bedside alarm clock.

It read: 2.03 am.

He had enough time to get some sleep before his first class of the day, but Harry soon realised his body had decided sleep wasn’t going to happen. He tried closing his eyes a few times, but Romilda Vane’s grinning face played unremittingly across the backs of his lids, until he gave in and lay there buried under his blankets, completely unmoving, staring steadily out the window as the sky lightened slowly from inky black to a soft, pale lilac.

The drone of dozens of voices drifted up to Harry as he descended the staircase to the common room. He stifled a groan and checked his watch again; he’d felt sure most of the other Gryffindors would have gone down to breakfast by now.

The idea of facing so many people made him want to sink straight into the ground.

He’d lain awake that morning until the other boys had begun stirring and then, stiff and sore, quickly tugged his curtains closed and waited for them all to make their way out of the room. Ron had called his name hesitantly, and Harry, fearing Ron might peek in if he didn’t get an answer, managed to croak out a raspy, “I’m up.” And Ron had left.

After allowing what he thought had been sufficient time for everyone else to filter out into the rest of the castle, Harry had finally dragged himself from the warmth of his bed. His body had seemed weighed down by solid lead, but he knew he had to go to class.

There wasn’t any reason for him not to be able to go to class.

So he’d splashed some cold water on his face and attempted to tame his hair, hoping that he didn’t look as bad as he felt.

Now, Harry leaned against the smooth stone wall of the spiral staircase. After a second, he took a deep breath and steeled himself, descending the last few stairs in a hurry-

And nearly collided with Ginny Weasley.

“Oops, sorry, Harry!” said Ginny, straightening up from where she had been kneeling on the floor. “Arnold’s just been making a bid for freedom again,” she smiled, shaking her head fondly and opening her cupped hands to show him. Arnold the Pygmy Puff sat nestled between her palms, making odd little cooing noises.

“‘S alright,” said Harry quickly, readjusting his bag, “It was my fault, wasn’t watching where I was going….”

Ginny looked at him carefully, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. “Are you okay, Harry?”

“‘Course I am,” he said, forcing a smile. “Have you seen Ron and Hermione?”

Ginny nodded her head towards a far corner of the room, where he saw them seated together at a table. The tight obstruction in his chest seemed to ease a little.

“Thanks,” said Harry, and headed off before she could say anything else.

He could feel Ginny’s eyes on him as he made his way across the room.

“There you are!” Hermione exclaimed as he approached. Crookshanks, whom she had been petting absently, jumped hastily off her lap as she stood up. He gave an indignant sort of meow and slinked away, tail twitching high in the air. Ron whipped the Fanged Frisbee he’d been playing with at a pot plant, missed, and hit a miniscule, curly-headed first year girl in the knee, shouting a hasty “Sorry!” as she cried out in surprise and earning a look of deep disapproval from Hermione.

“Good thing you’re not trying out for Chaser, eh, Ron?” Seamus called from across the room and he and Dean Thomas both rolled around in their seats, roaring with laughter.

Ron scrunched up his face and ignored them, turning to Harry instead. “At this rate, we’re gonna have to start setting three alarms just to get you up in the mornings – c’mon, breakfast, I’m starving.” And he led the way out through the portrait hole.

Breakfast did not sound appealing to Harry in the least, but he was glad of the excuse to leave; the buzz of the crowded common room had touched off a headache near the back of his skull, and he was quite keen not to run into…anyone he might not want to run into. As soon as the portrait of the Fat Lady closed behind them, Ron looked around furtively to make sure they were alone, leaned in, and said in a low voice, “So? What happened last night?”

Harry was so startled he almost tripped over immediately. His heart leapt into this throat, his mouth going dry. “What d’you mean?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.

“With Dumbledore!” explained Hermione, giving him a look of exasperation. “We waited up for you for ages, but it got to be so late…we figured you’d tell us everything in the morning.”

“Oh,” said Harry, his shoulders relaxing slightly as relief swept over him. Dumbledore. Had that really only been last night? “Right.”

“What time did you get back? You look tired.”

“Never mind that now,” Ron said, flapping his hands at her. “What did you do, what did he teach you?”

They were looking at him intently, and it was slightly off-putting. “Er, well, we talked about Voldemort mostly….” Harry trailed off, wracking his brains. His meeting with Dumbledore felt like a thousand years ago.

Ron flinched, as usual, at the mention of Voldemort’s name, but Hermione lit up as she stared at Harry. “Oooh, what did he tell you?”

Harry shrugged. “He told me about Voldemort’s family, about his parents – ”

About how his mother had tricked his father into taking a love potion, tricked him into marrying her, and having a child with her.

Harry rubbed his knuckles against his palm; he felt suddenly cold again, like he’d been doused with a bucket of ice water. “Listen, can we just talk about something else?” he asked, nettled. He didn’t look at either of them.

“You said you’d tell us everything Dumbledore told you!” Ron said indignantly as they descended the staircase to the fourth floor.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t that interesting,” Harry lied. His voice sounded odd. Flat.

Ron and Hermione were both staring at him.

“Harry…are you alright? You’re very pale,” Hermione said, her voice heavy with concern.

“I’m fine,” Harry said shortly.

The three of them were silent for a few steps, and then Ron said awkwardly, “Is it…was it scary, or something? The stuff Dumbledore taught you? I mean, this whole prophecy thing is mad, I’d be terrified it were me, we wouldn’t blame you if – ”

Hermione was nodding her agreement, but Harry cut him off. “I told you, I’m fine,” he said tersely. “And I’m not scared about anything.”

He sped up to walk ahead of them, but not before he saw Ron and Hermione exchange a look out of the corner of his eye. Irritation flared in Harry’s gut, but they both dropped the subject and none of them spoke again until they had reached the Great Hall and settled into their seats. Harry spooned some scrambled eggs onto his plate and picked up his fork, staring down at the food. His stomach clenched unpleasantly.

“Harry…you should really be eating more than that,” said Hermione tentatively as she surveyed his plate. “You’ve just had a growth spurt.”

Harry glared at her and pointedly speared a bite of egg on the end of his fork to pacify her. Ron appeared to be deciding whether or not to intervene, and compromised by taking a giant swig of pumpkin juice, which he promptly choked on. Hermione rolled her eyes.

After a brief round of coughing, Ron took a deep breath, and then, very red in the face, turned to Harry again. “I just realized, you haven’t heard! Not unless Dumbledore told you, but he can’t have done, it happened so late. Everyone in Gryffindor was talking about it this morning.”

“Talking about what?” asked Harry. He lowered his fork, curious despite himself.

“The second-floor corridor,” Ron told him. “Someone wrote stuff all over the walls, all this anti-Muggleborn rubbish, it was disgusting.”

Harry’s heart stuttered, his mind immediately jumping to Tom Riddle, and the Chamber of Secrets, and giant basilisks with poisonous fangs. “You mean like…?”

Ron shook his head quickly. “Nah,” he reassured Harry, “That diary’s gone, innit? But it was the same idea.” He glanced uneasily at Hermione, but she only shook her head.

“It said something about ‘Mudbloods’ and how all of us should go back where we came from or die painful deaths or some dross like that,” she said briskly. “No one really knows, do they, the teachers had most of it cleared up before anyone really saw? They don’t seem worried, and neither am I,” she finished coolly, and pulled out her Arithmancy textbook, propping it open against a milk jug.

“Oh come off it!” Ron scoffed. “Since when do the teachers know everything about what goes on in this place? Merlin knows we’ve done our share of breaking the rules without them noticing a damn thing.”

Hermione sniffed, and Harry almost smiled.

“Do they know who did it?” he asked, his eyes wandering automatically over to the Slytherin table, where Draco Malfoy sat laughing at a joke Pansy Parkinson had just told him. He looked entirely too smug, in Harry’s opinion…Malfoy noticed Harry staring and winked, bursting into another round of laughter.

“No,” Ron said, and scowled, his eyes following Harry’s gaze. “But I can think of a good bet.”

A companionable silence settled over them as Ron and Hermione tucked into their meal. Harry pushed his eggs around his plate, contemplating what they had told him. His mind seized on the welcome distraction, and he turned it all over in his mind…he wondered whether Malfoy (for Harry was already convinced it was him) would be stupid enough to risk doing something like it again, and if it might be possible to catch him at it.

Hagrid came in halfway through breakfast and smiled brightly at Harry, waving. Harry smiled back, with a mouth that didn’t feel quite like his, and watched absently as Hagrid turned to talk to Professor McGonagall. Harry entertained himself with highly pleasant scenarios involving Malfoy being expelled, until he realized that Ron and Hermione were both finishing up.

Harry took a last sip of water and leaned down to grab his bag. “What have we got first today? Charms?” He couldn’t quite remember. His timetable seemed oddly fuzzy to him, like it had been years since he’d had to follow it. When he received no answer, he looked up.

Hermione and Ron were staring at him. They looked curiously at each other, and Harry wondered, annoyed, why they were acting so strangely until Hermione said slowly:

“It’s…Sunday, Harry.”

Harry stared back at them, his brow furrowing. Sunday? That didn’t seem right.

But he supposed it would have be. Yesterday had been Saturday, the day Dumbledore had scheduled to meet with him; it made sense, now, why all the Gryffindors hadn’t cleared out of the Tower by the time he’d got up.

“Oh,” Harry said. “Right, yeah, ‘course…Sunday.”

After a minute, he realized he was staring off into space, and he shook his head.

Ron and Hermione were still looking at him.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Harry?” Hermione tried again.

But Harry waved her off and stood, forcing a laugh. He shouldered his bag. “I’m fine, Hermione, can’t a bloke forget the day of the week once in a while? Fancy going for walk, then, since we don’t have class?” he asked, trying to sound thoroughly sane, and hoped they’d go for his suggestion. The magical ceiling of the Great Hall was a clear, bright blue, dotted with puffs of fluffy white clouds. It was a nice day to be outside. He didn’t want to have to go back to Gryffindor quite yet, if they didn’t need to.

Ron and Hermione agreed but kept shooting Harry worried glances, and by the time they made it to the entrance hall, Harry could feel that bitter taste of panic trying to claw its way back up his throat. He stopped in the middle of the hall, his thoughts beginning to race…he could feel something coming on, something screaming to get out of him, and wished suddenly, desperately, that he was alone. But he did not want to wander off by himself…since he’d got up that morning, he’d had the most inexplicable feeling, a weird, childish urge to never let Ron and Hermione out of his sight again.

If they were always with him, then he couldn’t be alone, and no one would be able to find him, and trap him, and steal from him -

The pressure in the back of his skull was growing fast, his head was pounding.

Ron and Hermione stopped, too, and looked back, realising Harry wasn’t with them; Hermione came back over to him and peered into his face, frowning. She said something, but Harry didn’t catch it…her voice sounded muffled…Harry stared at a single spot on the stone floor and tried to focus on breathing…his vision was going fuzzy.

Hermione said something again and reached out, gently putting a hand on his arm, and Harry’s skin crawled, erupting in goosebumps where she’d touched him.

What was happening to him?

Harry flinched away from her.

“Er, bathroom – ” he gasped and turned on the spot, pushing through a group of Hufflepuffs on their way to breakfast. Harry distantly heard Ron calling after him, but he didn’t stop – he walked as fast as he could and when he was sure he was out of sight of any other students, he broke into a run.

Harry’s feet carried him automatically to the nearest boys’ bathroom, which was usually blessedly deserted this time of day. He hurtled inside and, after quickly checking to make no one else was in any of the stalls, locked himself in.

He fell back against the door, breathing heavily through his nose…his thoughts were spinning so fast it was impossible to catch up…he felt like he was spinning, he was so dizzy, and his hands were starting to tingle. Harry staggered to a sink and bent over it. He did not think he was going to be sick, but it had come on so suddenly last night, he’d had no warning…a dull pain flared across the skin of his stomach as he leaned against the porcelain, and Harry moved his robes and shirt out of the way to look.

He’d forgotten about the burn he’d accidentally given himself in the shower, the skin he’d rubbed raw, and he examined it for the first time. It had scabbed over but was still tender…it would be fully healed in a few days. Harry dropped the hem of his shirt and turned on the tap, splashing his face with cold water. It helped a bit. He tried to focus on calming down. He was breathing too fast, becoming more and more light-headed, he felt like he was going to pass out.

He needed another shower.

But he couldn’t go back to the Tower, not yet, in case she was -

Harry turned the water quickly to hot and shoved his hands under the stream.

It instantly burned his skin, but he did not move, and before long he started to feel a little calmer…the pain was grounding him, and after a while his breath stuttered slowly back to normal. Harry opened his eyes (he didn’t remember closing them) and looked down at his hands. They were a vivid, ugly red. Harry turned off the tap, his fingers aching, and gripped the sides of the sink. He stared, unseeing, at the drain.

He reckoned he should probably run some cold water over his abused skin, but he did not move.

Harry's eyes flicked up, taking in his reflection for the first time in nearly two days.

He did not look any different. He still had the same black hair, the same nose, the same green, almond-shaped eyes, like his mum’s. Only his were stained a light purple underneath like he had never seen in the pictures he had of her.

He looked the same.

And, yet, there was something…off. It took Harry a few minutes to realise what it was.

He looked fragile. Like he might fracture at the lightest touch. He did not know if anyone else could notice - but he could. He could see it clearly.

The memory of himself cowering away from Hermione only minutes before sprang up in his mind, and the boy in the mirror grimaced. Harry felt a brief flicker of hatred, and he had a sudden, fierce urge to hit the face staring back at him, to punch, and punch, and punch until it shattered into a million broken pieces -

A knock at the door made Harry jump, startling him out of his thoughts, and he knew instantly that Ron had followed him.

Harry glanced at his reflection again, shaking his head to clear it, and went to unlock the door.

Harry went to bed early that night. He begged off dinner, claiming he wasn’t feeling well, and in light of his unusual behaviour that morning, Ron and Hermione did not seem to have any trouble believing this.

After mumbling his goodnights to them, Harry trudged slowly up the stairs to the dormitories. He had two essays and a sketch for Herbology due tomorrow, but he reckoned he would just have to find time in the morning. He was utterly exhausted, even though all he’d done that day was sit out in the grounds in the sunshine, and then, when Hermione had insisted on dragging both him and Ron to the library to get some work done, dozed off on a stack of books.

There hadn’t been any run-ins with Romilda, but Harry had found himself on high alert all day, constantly glancing around himself, and scanning every room he walked into for any sign of her…well, Moody would have been proud, Harry thought dejectedly, and despite his impromptu nap in the library, he felt more tired than ever. It was with great relief that he pushed open the door to his bedroom.

But Harry had hardly taken one step inside when he froze. The room was empty of any other occupants, but it felt…not quite right, like there was something here that shouldn’t be. Harry’s eyes searched the room and fell upon his own bed – there was a box sitting on it.

A box that had not been there this morning.

Harry approached it cautiously, as though afraid it might jump up at any second and bite him. It wasn’t wrapped, but tied neatly with a curly pink bow. There was a folded red note on top that simply read ‘Harry.’

Harry’s heart sped up, beating a tattoo against his chest. He was quite sure he knew who the package was from, and he reached out mechanically, almost against his will, to pick up the note. It smelled of rosy perfume. Harry unfolded the paper.

Inside it said ‘For last night’ with several hearts drawn next to it.

Harry stared down at the bold, curling script, the letters blurring together, and then his fist closed around the paper, crumpling it in his hand. The box on his bed drew his gaze, and he saw that it was a container of chocolates.

Harry stood stock still for a moment and then, quite suddenly as if he’d been planning it, the straining tension that had been building inside him all day snapped like huge elastic band and he seized the chocolates, hurling them at the wall as hard as he possibly could.

They hit the wall with a hard thwack but did not burst open, like he’d hoped, and simply fell to the floor, landing behind his bedside table.

Harry stood there, breathing hard, and tried to determine what it was he was feeling – a dozen conflicting emotions had rushed up inside him all at once and interpreting them was like trying to discern a murmuring voice on a staticky radio.

She had been up here, in his room, had touched his blankets, his bed.

A blazing burst of anger pushed to the forefront and he seized on it immediately, letting it fill him up and burn away everything else.

He viciously ripped up the note in his hand into little tiny pieces and let them fall to the floor, where they lay spread about like St. Valentine’s Day confetti. Harry dug around in his pocket and pulled out his wand, pointed it at the pile of shredded paper, and snarled, “Incendio!” He watched as the pieces of Romilda’s note burned up into nothing and then Vanished the ashes, leaving no trace.

Harry had no clue when she had come up here, or if anyone had seen her. If anyone had seen the package she had left sitting out in the open, for all the world to see.

“I’m sure I’ll see you soon, Harry….”

His eyes burned, a lump rising in his throat, and he sank down on his bed, burying his face in his hands. Hot, boiling tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, but he squeezed his lids shut tight and did not let them fall.

He was not going to cry over this.

Over a girl giving him a stupid box of sweets. He pressed his fingers into his eyes until he saw stars; his chest was constricting again, his insides felt clawed up and raw, like a wild animal was fighting to escape them. For a brief moment, Harry had an overwhelming desire to go find Ron and Hermione, to tell them about everything that had happened, about him being Confunded and Petrified and force-fed that potion, and about how even his own bedroom wasn’t safe anymore because she’d been there -

But it sounded stupid, even to him, and he could already hear Hermione’s rational explanations about how Harry must have really wanted it to happen – he and Romilda couldn’t have successfully done that, could they, if he hadn’t? He saw, in his mind’s eye, Ron waving him off and telling Harry not to worry, it was normal…it’s not that big a deal, don’t question it. Be grateful. Any bloke would kill to be in your shoes.

Harry growled in frustration, ripping a hand from his face and bringing it down, hard, to smash against the wooden bed frame. He had to bite his lip to stifle a shriek of pain, but his mind felt instantly clearer. He felt more in control of himself, and the lump in his throat began to dissolve.

No, he was not going to tell Ron or Hermione. He was not going to tell anyone.

Harry’s exhaustion seemed to increase tenfold as he sat there. He slumped back on his bed fully clothed, not even bothering to kick off his shoes. His pillow smelled of roses – the sickly-sweet scent invaded Harry’s nose and clung to his cheek. He wondered if Romilda had sprayed his sheets with the same perfume she had used on her note and felt the corners of his eyes prick again. But the thought of getting up to strip the bed was unthinkable, and he waved his wand tiredly, muttering a Freshening Charm. It helped marginally – he had never quite got the hang of cleaning spells.

Harry turned over, wand still in hand, and closed his eyes, praying to anyone who might be listening just to let him sleep.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Harry rolled over, half-asleep, putting his back to the door. He did not want to see anyone.

Don’t come in here, he thought sluggishly, go away…Ieave me alone.

But the door opened a second later and he heard Ron call softly. “Harry?”

The door closed. Quiet footfalls over to Harry’s bed.

“You awake?” Ron asked, still more quietly.

Harry kept his eyes shut…he did not think he had the energy to open them anyway.

“Hermione was worried, she wanted me to come check on you.”

Through his grogginess, Harry felt a vague sense of gratitude that she had sent Ron and not come up herself…had not trespassed where she wasn’t supposed to be.

“We brought you back some dinner, in case you were hungry.”

Ron’s voice was barely a whisper now. There was the sound of a plate sliding onto the bedside table. The smell of roast beef and vegetables.

Ron sighed.

Harry felt his shoes being taken off…his glasses were gently removed, and he heard Ron fold them and place them on the table.

He did not take Harry’s wand from his hand.

There was silence again…the hair on the back of Harry’s neck prickled, and an image of Ron standing there, staring down at him, filled his mind.

Then there were footsteps crossing the room again, the door opening, and Ron was gone.

The next time Harry woke, there was more than one pair of footsteps ascending the stairs, and though his back was to the alarm clock, he knew it must be late. The door opened again and he could tell all four of his dorm mates were coming in to get ready for bed.

Seamus laughed loudly at something Dean had just said, and Ron quickly shushed him.

“Keep it down, will you?” whispered Ron furiously. “He’s not feeling well.”

Harry felt all their eyes linger momentarily on his prone form.

“Is he alright?” came an anxious voice.

Neville.

The sounds of trunks opening and pyjamas being pulled on.

“Yeah….” Ron said lowly. “Yeah, I think so. Just not feeling well.”

As the other boys climbed into bed, Harry found himself wondering listlessly what they would all think if they knew the real reason he wasn’t feeling well…if they knew it was because he’d had sex…had sex with a pretty girl, who’d left him chocolates next day.

He knew what they would think.

They would all laugh themselves silly.

Harry dug his nails sharply into his arm as a wave of self-loathing crashed over him, so strong it made him feel ten years old again, huddled on the little cot in his cupboard in Privet Drive, adrift and alone and waiting…waiting for a long lost someone to rescue him, and take him away from his nightmare.

Chapter Text

Life settled into a comfortable rhythm for the occupants of the castle over the following week, as it always did after the whirlwind first week of classes. The first years were gradually learning to navigate the twisting corridors and jump the trick stairs and stopped getting lost so much on their way to lessons, the older students were gradually learning to accept their doomed fates as O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. students who had suddenly very little free time and quite a lot more stress, and that usual, somewhat surreal air of nervous excitement which surrounded returning to Hogwarts faded naturally into the feeling that they had never really left.

A brutal wind had blown up around the castle, whipping steadily across the grounds and sneaking through the gaps under doors, rattling the windows in their frames and chilling the hallways.

This, Harry brooded as he shifted positions uncomfortably, must certainly be why he was so bloody freezing all the time now, and he pulled his robes more tightly around himself.

It was his Friday morning free period and he was sitting crouched in one of Hogwarts’ secret passageways, hidden behind a tapestry, head bent low over the Marauder’s Map. He scanned the miniaturised drawings of classrooms and corridors, eyes darting about rapidly, searching…he had just seen…there! Harry smacked his finger to the parchment triumphantly, tracing the little dot labeled ‘Draco Malfoy’ as it moved down one of the tiny staircases, flanked by two other dots marked ‘Gregory Goyle’ and ‘Theodore Nott’. Malfoy was heading to the ground floor…he, Harry, was only one floor above! He thought quickly…if he left the passageway and used the stairs to the right, he could overtake Malfoy easily in minutes. But if he followed the passage, it would take less time…though that would lead to more classrooms, and a higher chance of getting caught…Harry rubbed his hands together in an attempt to warm them. He wasn’t out-of-bounds, but he would rather no one knew what he was up to, not yet…not until he had proof.

Harry’s elbow brushed a small lump of material balled up inside his pocket, just over his hip, and he nearly startled as it struck him: his Invisibility Cloak!

It was so obvious he felt stupid for not realising it earlier. But then again, he supposed as he fished it out of his pocket, he wasn’t quite yet used to having it with him all the time, before now he’d always kept it in his trunk when he was at school.

Well, that settled that, he decided – he’d take the shortcut. A thrill of anticipation and purpose raced through Harry as he made to stand.

But then he hesitated, checking Malfoy’s progress: he and his lackeys were on the ground floor now, and they were heading toward the dungeons…Harry felt quite sure that if they were about to deface something or cause any trouble, it would be out in the open again for the whole school to see, not down in the dungeons…Harry sat still another minute and watched the three dots rove deeper into the bowels of the castle, and then pass through the entrance to the Slytherin common room, as he’d suspected they might.

Harry slumped back against the wall, disappointed.

This was the third time this week he had sat hidden away in a secluded section of the castle, alone, waiting for Malfoy to make a mistake…to perhaps wander off somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, or to linger too long anywhere that was not a classroom, or a bathroom.

And this was the third time he had been left with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Harry knew Malfoy was up to something. He knew it had been Malfoy who’d written those foul things on the wall in the second-floor corridor, and if no one else was going to do anything about it, then Harry would.

It had not been difficult, these past few days, to slip away unnoticed by Ron and Hermione whenever they started up into one of their usual rounds of bickering. They had been doing that quite a lot recently. Bickering, that was. Harry supposed that they had always done that – had always liked to needle each other to the point of exasperation, but he had noticed a definite uptick over the summer, and he had a sneaking suspicion as to why that might be.

And he was not sure how to feel about it.

About the possibility of Ron and Hermione…what? Abandoning him? Shutting him out forever, so they could be on their own?

But Harry mentally kicked himself. Surely that would never happen. They had, both of them, stuck by Harry, even through some pretty tough times, and he was certain that wouldn’t change just because they might want to start dating each other.

Harry let out a quick puff of air. His free period was already half over, and he still had to run back to the Tower to get his books before his next class. Resigned, Harry quickly rolled up the Marauder’s Map and tucked it back inside his robes. He climbed to his feet and stretched, pulling his arms briefly above his head. His back was aching and sore from sitting still for so long, and he took a moment to stretch that out too, his spine popping in several places.

Cautiously, Harry poked his head out and looked up and down the corridor. Seeing no one, he stepped out from behind the tapestry.

He had to switch up his strategy, Harry thought as he made his way toward the stairs, mulling over his Malfoy problem again…the Slytherins (collectively, for Harry was positive Malfoy'd had help) had last struck in the middle of the night, and Harry had so far only managed to post himself throughout the school at random times of the day, whenever a break in his timetable allowed it. It would make more sense to keep watch at night…it was not as though this would interfere with all the solid sleep he was getting, he considered ruefully...but then again, there was the risk of getting locked out of Gryffindor Tower if the Fat Lady decided to visit another portrait.

“Hi Harry!” a voice called brightly behind him.

Harry’s hand jerked, ready to draw his wand, but as he turned and saw who it was, his arm fell back to his side.

“Hi Luna,” said Harry, relieved in spite of himself. The sight of her, wearing her usual radish-shaped earrings, blonde hair as long and straggly as ever, was oddly comforting, and his heart stuttered back to normal. He realised with a twinge of unhappiness that he had not seen her properly since they had shared a compartment on the train. As she caught up to him, Harry dug his hands into his pockets and turned automatically so that they were walking together.

“What are you doing down here? Haven’t you got class?” Harry asked her.

“Oh yes,” Luna nodded serenely. “Charms. But Laura Hinkley accidentally overdid her Summoning Charm and smacked herself in the face with a globe. She broke her nose and knocked out two front teeth, so Professor Flitwick ended class early to take her to the hospital wing. I feel a bit badly for her – I would feel much worse, only she’s one of the girls who calls me ‘Loony’ sometimes,” she said matter-of-factly.

Harry grinned at her, and he was surprised to find it came easily. He hadn’t grinned in what felt like ages.

“I’m glad you got out early, then. It’s nice to see you,” he told her sincerely.

Luna’s wide, silvery eyes lit up, and she absolutely beamed at him. “It’s very nice to see you, too, Harry.”

They chatted companionably through a few more corridors, and as Luna told him all about her first week of school, Harry scratched absently at his wrists.

His hands itched all the time now; the strange, intense urges to bathe himself had not abated over the last week and had continued to strike him randomly at thoroughly inconvenient times. He wasn’t, of course, able to sneak away half a dozen times a day just for a shower, so he had found himself slipping into the bathroom between classes and meals to quickly shove his hands under some hot water. It seemed to help suppress his odd new compulsion, but the skin on his wrists and the backs of his hands was now cracked and dry, and he had begun to develop tiny blisters.

Harry wasn’t exactly sure what was driving this weird impulse. Perhaps it was his now seemingly permanent case of the chills – a hot shower seemed to be the only thing that could sufficiently warm him up these days.

Or perhaps it was the fact that he now felt very like he had done after witnessing Nagini’s attack on Mr. Weasley the year before and subsequently hearing some of the members of the Order speculate that he might have been possessed without his knowing…Harry remembered, very clearly, how…separate…from everyone else he had felt on the train ride home from visiting Mr. Weasley at St. Mungo’s – contaminated, infected...dirty.

Harry found himself thinking, sometimes, though he tried very hard not to, about that night in the broom cupboard with Romilda. He had neither properly seen nor heard from her since the evening she had left him chocolates in his room, and Harry felt quite certain that the best thing he could do would be to just forget about what had happened between them. The only problem with this, however, was that she seemed to have transferred something to him that night. Left some parasite on his skin that had crawled up inside him and latched on, releasing a kind of vile toxin that made him itch all over, made him feel like he had a thin layer of living grime sitting just underneath the surface of his skin…Harry found that the feeling went away, for just a little while, after he’d scrubbed himself sufficiently, though he could never quite seem to fully eradicate it.

Harry pulled his sleeves down over his hands and shoved them back into his pockets, forcefully shelving all thoughts of Romilda Vane and focusing instead on Luna’s animated description of a Blibbering Humdinger her father had claimed he’d seen a month before.

“Anyway,” Luna said as they climbed another set of stairs together, “what were you doing down there, all by yourself?”

Harry shrugged. “Enjoying the view,” he said as though it were obvious, gesturing grandly at the exceptionally uninteresting bare stretch of wall they were passing, and Luna broke out into giggles. She snorted slightly, which Harry might usually have found a bit grating, but coming from Luna he found it somehow endearing, and he felt his spirits lift considerably as he watched her, another smile tugging at his lips.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Luna stopped and turned to Harry, tucking her wand more securely behind her left ear. “Well, I suppose I’d better be heading back. I’ve got Care of Magical Creatures next, and I’m afraid I’m already quite late,” she said, smiling widely. “See you, Harry!”

“Bye, Luna,” said Harry, her words sinking in as she climbed back down the stairs. She hadn’t been heading this way at all, then, but had simply walked with Harry to keep him company, even though he had made her late for class.

Harry watched her go, a fierce sort of affection rising in his chest, and hoped, as Luna disappeared around the corner, that Laura Hinkley’s broken nose was still smarting.

“Been stalking Malfoy again, have you?” Ron said offhandedly without looking up from his Charms text as Harry plopped into the chair next to him and put his feet up on the table.

Harry laced his fingers over his stomach and did his best to look highly affronted. “Who says I’ve been stalking him?”

Ron glanced up at him, giving him a look that said quite plainly he wasn’t fooled, and Harry gave in.

“Yeah, alright,” he shrugged easily, and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.

He heard Ron snort and turn a page. “Don’t know why you’re wasting your time.”

Harry lifted his head again to look at Ron incredulously. “What, you don’t think it was him who wrote that rubbish in that corridor? You said you did!”

“‘Course it was,” Ron agreed, squinting at a footnote. “It’s just…I mean, how d’you think you’re going to catch him at it? Better to just wait and see if he does it again, and then you can see what his game is, where he’ll make his next move.” Ron trailed off, tapping his quill against the table as he looked something up in his text’s index.

Harry stared at him. It was no wonder Ron Weasley won every game of chess he ever played, he thought wryly. But it was, in Harry’s opinion, a moot point. He had admittedly already considered this strategy and discarded it – after all, what if Malfoy ended up hurting someone next time? But when Harry voiced this concern to Ron, he merely laughed.

“Malfoy? Come on, Harry, he’s a filthy rotten creep, yeah, but he’s a cowardly filthy rotten creep,” Ron pointed out, closing his book and leaning back against the wall, mirroring Harry’s position. “Since when has he ever done anything more than stand there insulting people, and threaten everyone with his father?”

“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” Harry pressed. “His father’s in prison, isn’t he, and now Draco thinks it’s his job to prove the Malfoys aren’t all worthless, they’re still useful…hey!” A sudden idea had just struck him. “D’you reckon he’s working for Voldemort already?”

Ron cringed at the name but did not attempt to challenge Harry’s use of it. “Are you serious? What would You-Know-Who want with a slimy, spineless little git who’s not even fully qualified yet?” Ron shook his head. “Not a chance.”

“Well, I still reckon he ought to be expelled either way,” Harry said grimly. “I mean, you do realise it was people like Hermione he said should pop their clogs, don’t you? I thought you’d be more upset about this.”

“I am!” Ron said indignantly, sitting up a little straighter and frowning down at Harry. “I just think you’re getting a bit obsessed, that’s all.”

“Who’s getting obsessed with what?” asked Hermione, who had just appeared next to them. She set down a rather large stack of books and pushed Harry’s feet off the table, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “boys” and “respecting the furniture.”

“Harry’s getting obsessed with Malfoy,” Ron informed her as she sat down across from them.

“Oh, that,” she agreed conversationally. “Yes, I do think you’re putting a bit too much energy into it, frankly, Harry…until you’ve got proof – ”

“Ron thinks I’m right that he’s up to something, don’t you?” Harry demanded, but Ron simply held up his hands as if to say ‘sorry, nothing I can do’ and Harry glared at him.

Hermione ignored both of them. “Until you’ve got real proof, there’s really no point in wandering about the school, wasting time when you should be studying.”

“And how am I supposed to get proof without going looking for it, wait for it to fall into my lap?” Harry challenged.

But Hermione seemed to have lost interest in discussing the matter, giving him a stern look but declining to answer. Harry looked away in defeat, vowing to bring it up again next chance he got. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Hermione looking him up and down, as though inspecting him for any visible signs of an ailment.

Harry rolled his eyes.

Between Harry’s frequent trips to the bathroom and his continued lack of appetite, Ron and Hermione had started to express the concern that Harry might have come down with some sort of stomach illness. Every time Harry had looked at food for the past week, he’d felt a rolling sense of nausea, and after several days of consuming only water, tea, and modest portions of whatever soup the kitchens had produced that day, Hermione had become increasingly insistent that he should try to eat a bit more. It was just no use telling her he wasn’t hungry, and that probably he wouldn’t be able to keep any of it down anyway; her incessant harassment was starting to wear on him, and he had begun to find a certain bitter pleasure in refusing her demands.

Just then the bell rang, much to Harry’s relief, and the three of the them headed off to Charms, where he knew Hermione would have blessedly little time to focus on his well-being, physical or otherwise.

The next day dawned grey and calm. Overcast, but no sign of rain yet, and the brutal wind had died down to almost nothing. Perfect Quidditch conditions, and Harry could not have been more pleased – it was Gryffindor tryouts today, his first official duty as Captain of the team, and he wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible.

The thought of the good weather sustained Harry all the way down to breakfast, and he even managed to get down three sausages and a pile of eggs before Hermione announced over the morning paper that Stan Shunpike had been arrested.

“What?” he and Ron both said at once.

Hermione read the rest of the article aloud, and it seemed clear to the three of them that the Ministry had now reached a point of desperation, and had resorted to merely constructing the appearance of doing something about the growing threats to the community they were supposed to be protecting, even if it meant jailing innocent people.

Harry sat there silently as Hermione and Ron continued to discuss the subject, fingernails scraping absently against the back of his wrist, and glanced up at the staff table. For a while he watched Dumbledore, who was deep in conversation with Professor Flitwick, and wondered when their next lesson together would be.

Harry certainly wasn’t managing to do much on his own to improve his chances of helping to win the war: with his growing inability to concentrate properly in lessons and an ongoing struggle to get a full night’s sleep, Harry’s classes had become an even bigger challenge than before. The printed words of his textbooks blurred together and sometimes did not even seem like they were written in proper English, and he would find himself reading the same sentence a dozen times as his mind wandered off completely. His teachers’ voices oftentimes faded to a dull buzz that he had trouble deciphering and he would feel his eyelids getting heavier and heavier, until he was inevitably nudged awake by Ron’s elbow, or startled by the bell.

And the worst part was he could feel himself beginning not to care.

He wanted to care, he knew how important his education was (what use was he to anyone else as an underqualified wizard) but he sensed his motivation for schoolwork slipping through his fingers and he did not know how to stop it. What was the point in trying, after all, if he couldn’t keep any of it inside his brain.

Harry knew his marks were already starting to suffer for it.

He’d caught McGonagall frowning at him more than once, and Flitwick had handed Harry’s last essay back to him with a rather baffled look of dismay. Slughorn, with a rather melodramatic expression of pure agony on his round, walrus-y face, had expressed his profound consternation that the evidence of the talent Harry had obviously inherited from his mother had disappeared so entirely and had offered to tutor Harry privately.

But the thought of being alone for hours on end with Professor Slughorn, who often looked at Harry as if he were a delicious prize to be won and whom Harry did yet know very well, was deeply unsettling to him for reasons he did not know how to name, and Harry had flat-out refused this proposition as politely as he possibly could.

The breakfast Harry had managed to get down churned unpleasantly in his stomach, and he shoved his plate away, blaming it somewhat truthfully on the nerves of the upcoming tryouts when Hermione asked him if that was all he was going to eat.

The weather held as Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way down to the Quidditch stadium fifteen minutes later.

Ginny caught up to them about halfway down, her broom over her shoulder, and was joined shortly thereafter by Dean, which Harry would not have minded, as he liked Dean quite a lot, except that he casually slipped his hand into Ginny’s, and this seemed to coincide with a slight dip in Harry’s mood (although he saw Ron glance pointedly at their clasped hands and felt a bit better).

A rather large crowd had already gathered by the time they reached the pitch, and Hermione departed to find a seat in the stands, wishing them all a hasty good luck. Ron, Ginny, and Dean wandered off to join the rest of the hopefuls, leaving Harry alone to survey the massive group of applicants. Harry couldn’t believe how many people had shown up…he tried to perform a quick headcount but it was impossible to tell for sure, as everyone kept moving around. Definitely more than had ever turned up to trials over Harry’s previous years on the team. He felt his nerves flutter again.

Harry glanced up at the grey sky, thinking he had better get things started up before it decided to rain, and felt a faint tug on his sleeve. He looked back and abruptly found himself face to face with Romilda Vane – a sharp bolt of lightning seemed to lance through Harry in the millisecond it took for him to recognise her face, and he stepped back hastily without thinking.

“Harry,” she said, smirking, and Harry was oddly surprised to find that her voice sounded perfectly normal. Like it could have belonged to any other girl.

“Hello, Romilda,” said Harry evenly. He forced himself to stand his ground, even though what he really wanted to do was turn around and march across the field until he was as far away from her as possible. The vague beginnings of a headache throbbed to life at the back of his skull, but the panic that he had felt every time he had thought of her over the past week did not come. In fact, he suddenly felt terribly, mercifully blank. “Er – what are you doing here?”

“Trying out!” she beamed, gesturing at the crowd behind her, and winked conspiratorially. “Figured I had an in with the Captain.”

Harry gave her a tight smile and thought privately that Snape had a better chance of winning a tap-dancing competition than Romilda did of getting on this Quidditch team. “Right. Well, if you’ll just wait over there.” He tried to direct her back over to the others.

“And anyway,” she continued as if Harry had not spoken, “I haven’t heard from you, did you like your present?” She gave him a knowing smile.

A box, a little box on his bed, and a note that smelled of roses -

She had-

“Please.”

been in his room-

Don’t.

His fresh headache gave a nasty throb.

“I don’t like chocolate,” Harry said stiffly.

“Oh! Well, if you – ”

“And like I said, you can wait over there with everyone else,” he told her, pointing.

Romilda’s expression faltered for a moment at his tone, but she recovered quickly. “Sure, if you like.” She moved as if to touch Harry’s arm, but he jerked it abruptly out of her reach, and her hand fell back to her side. The barest trace of annoyance flashed across her face, and then she smirked at him again and walked away to rejoin the group.

Harry watched her go, and wished it were just a bit sunnier; the cool breeze seemed to have taken on a harder edge.

Harry wiped his palms on his trousers, squared his shoulders, and lifted the whistle hanging round his neck to his lips, giving it a sharp blast. The talk died down immediately as everyone turned to face him.

“Alright, you lot,” he announced firmly, “we’re going to start with the basics, I want you to split up into groups of ten.”

“So assertive,” someone whispered, and several girls broke out into hysterical giggles. Harry pointedly ignored them and began relaying instructions to the first group of ten to fly once around the pitch so he could get a sense of their abilities.

Romilda Vane was in the second group. When Harry blew his whistle, not a single one of them kicked off from the ground, but merely dissolved into another fit of giggles, and Harry felt irritation flare in his empty chest.

“Leave now, please!” he barked at them, before turning to the rest. “And if there’s anyone else here who’s not going to take it seriously then you can get off this field.”

Romilda and her friends ran off the pitch, still laughing, and Harry noted with annoyance that they did not head back up to the castle but rather went to sit in the stands to watch everyone else. Harry grimaced, scratching his hand, the pressure in the back of his head increasing, and turned to direct the third group.

The rest of the trials took several hours and were somewhat of a blur. Harry could feel sweat running down his back despite the cool weather; he focused all his concentration on the players before him and did not look into the stands, though he imagined, in the back of his mind, that Romilda’s eyes were following him…he thought Hermione might have tried to wave at him once, when he’d finished the flying tests and the Chaser candidates had stepped forward, to give him the thumbs up, but he steadfastly refused to look in her direction…he was vaguely sure she was sitting in the row just above Romilda…the pulsing heaviness in Harry’s head seemed to be growing, twisting.

Harry watched, trying to absorb every detail, as each Chaser attempted to score as many goals as possible; Katie Bell was still as good as ever, and it was no tough decision to welcome her back on the team; Demelza Robins, whom Harry had only seen in passing before now, was a nice surprise, and had a particular talent for avoiding Bludgers; Ginny scored more goals than anyone before her, and managed to look damn good while doing it (although Harry didn’t suppose this was relevant to her Chasing abilities, and it did not, of course, have any bearing on her acceptance to the team).

By the time Harry had chosen two new Beaters, Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote, he had shouted down several arguments and complaints from those who had failed to make the cut – normally he would have found this infuriating, but as it was Harry couldn’t seem to muster any real sense of exasperation.

As Jimmy and Ritchie went to join the other spectators, Harry glanced toward the stands. Romilda was still there.

Harry’s head pulsed again, and he wiped a bead of sweat off his temple, turning to watch Ron, who had flown up to the goal posts to start his trial for Keeper. Ron looked like he might be sick, and Harry felt his stomach dip in sympathy, but Ron managed to save all five penalties without much trouble, something no other Keeper applicant had managed to do, and Harry felt a relieved delight try to stir in his heart as Ron landed to the cheers of the crowd.

With the excitement over, the onlookers began to file quickly out of the stadium, and Harry waited until Cormac McLaggen (who had done second best as Keeper but who also seemed to possess both a nasty temper and the idea that Harry had not given him a fair shot) had stomped off to the castle, aiming a kick at one of the benches as he went, before making his way over to Ron and thumping him on the back.

“Well done!” said Harry fervently, slightly hoarse from all the shouting he’d had to do. “Really great, Ron, that last save – ”

“Thanks,” said Ron, grinning ear to ear. “Almost thought I’d missed it, did you see – ”

“Congratulations, Ron!” Hermione was running toward them, and when she reached them, she leaned up quickly, kissing Ron on the cheek. A second later, she seemed to realise what she had done and stepped back quickly, blushing and looking everywhere but at Ron’s face. Ron’s ears turned red as he stared, dumbstruck, at Hermione, then touched his cheek lightly where she had kissed him, beaming. Ginny, who had just walked up with the rest of the new team, caught Harry’s eye and they both looked away quickly, trying not to laugh.

After consulting everyone’s timetables, the first full practice was fixed up for the following week.

“You were all brilliant,” Harry congratulated them, and for a second he felt a true glow of pride as he looked around at them all.

Katie smiled at him fondly. “You too, Mr. Captain, nice job.”

The last stragglers were leaving the Quidditch pitch, and as Harry shook Ritchie Coote’s hand, he glanced away, inadvertently catching Romilda Vane’s eye. She gave him a little wave then turned back to her friends, their tinkling laughter fading as the little group strolled away.

Ron’s enthusiastic re-telling of his third save faded to a buzz in Harry’s ears as he stared after them. He dropped Ritchie’s hand, his skin crawling…his head throbbed like a heartbeat…his arms were beginning to itch again.

“Gonna go put these up, be right back….” Harry said mechanically, and kicked shut the lid of the crate containing the Quidditch balls, scooped it up, and headed toward the equipment shed. He quickly stowed the crate and glanced back at his friends. No one was watching, and he felt safe slipping away to the changing rooms.

Harry stopped just inside the door, pulling it closed and looking around. His eyes drank in the long benches, the pads and gloves hanging on the walls, the section leading off to the showers.

He loved this room.

He still remembered the first time he had sat in it before an actual Quidditch game, how nervous he had been…he saw himself quite clearly as he imagined it, his tiny little eleven-year-old self in those scarlet robes, trembling and anxious and so very, very excited.

Harry locked the door and went around to the showers. He wanted to rinse off, he felt sweaty and gross, but as soon as he turned on the tap, he remembered that Ron and Hermione would be waiting for him…they had planned to go down to Hagrid’s after tryouts…Harry reluctantly switched off the tap. He wandered over to the lockers, running his hand along the metal doors until coming to the one that had first been his, five years ago…it wasn’t his anymore…George had switched his and Harry’s as a joke in third year and they had never bothered to swap back. Harry turned around and leaned against it, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor. His wrists tingled more intensely and he scratched them one at a time, digging his nails in, prying out the itch.

He felt…odd.

Like how he imagined it might feel to stand at the edge of a cliff and look down, and feel no awe, or anticipation, or fear.

He was satisfied with his performance as Captain today, and truly happy for Ginny and for Ron for making the team, but it was like all that was buried underneath a massive, solid layer of…nothing.

The headache that had been developing all morning, since the moment he’d seen Romilda, gave a particularly intense throb…something was pulsing at the back of his mind like a tumor, begging to be examined - 

“…did you like your present?”

– and Harry did not want to touch it, but it was like being in the room with a dead body, and you didn’t want to look at it, but it was so awful it drew your eyes against your will.

There was a knock at the door.

“Harry?”

It was Ginny.

He stared across the room. He wanted to call out to her, to go back out and join the others and talk about Quidditch like it was the only thing that mattered, but his mouth and body had disconnected from his brain, and Ginny’s voice felt very far away, and he stared.

“Are you in there?”

In his mind, he inched closer and closer to that ugly, red, pulsing mass, and he wanted very much for someone to yank him back, to stop him, this did not belong in his head.

DON’T!

He reached out, and touched it, and his mind burst open.

– it felt like acid was leaking into his brain –

“Are you lost, Harry?”

His head was swirling with an artificial confusion, he felt dazed, he felt wrong, and then there was darkness.

“This is a broom cupboard….”

His body was frozen, he was helpless, he couldn’t do anything to protect himself, and there was –

Sweet, sickly syrup sliding down his throat –

He could taste it now, like he was being forced to drink it all over again, and he gagged, retching.

“Harry?” came that nice voice again, and it was louder, and not so calm, anymore.

There was a boiling, raging heat inside him, nothing but heat, heat, heat, and he was burning up…she was beautiful, so beautiful you couldn’t see what was hiding underneath.

“There’s a good boy.”

He could feel her hand on his face, as surely as if she were sitting next to him, and he wanted to jerk away, but he was paralysed, he couldn’t move, and then her phantom lips were pressing against his, forcing them open, and her tongue was in his mouth.

Stop her, or you won’t like what comes next – stop her, you sorry little –

There were other voices outside the door now.

Help me.

“I love you.”

Those words were everything, they were the only important thing in the world, and she had taken his first ones, all for herself.

There were hands all over him….

He couldn’t breathe. His head fell back and hit the locker behind him with a metallic bang. He lifted his head and slammed it back again, and again.

“Get out of my head!” Harry gasped into the empty room.

“You’re so gorgeous, Harry, hasn’t anyone ever told you?”

A hand slipping into his pants –

Harry’s whole body jerked and he kicked out, his foot slamming into one of the wooden benches. It toppled over with an almighty crash.

The door was pounding now, pounding like the inside of Harry’s head.

“Harry Potter, open this door right now, or I swear – ”

She was pulling his clothes off, and then they were both naked, and she was on top of him.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut.

DON’T. PLEASE.

There was the shout of a spell, and the door burst open.

Someone shrieked.

“Oh my God! Harry!”

There was a clatter around him, and voices.

He was so cold.

“Harry, stop!”

Hermione….

He sensed a body kneeling down beside him, and a hand closed over his burning wrist.

Harry startled at the contact, his eyes still shut tight, and he jerked away from it violently, his shoulder banging painfully into the lockers, and the hand released him. He still couldn’t breathe….

“Harry!” Her voice was trembling. “Harry…open your eyes….”

Harry forced himself to focus, his breath coming fast and sharp. He concentrated all his willpower on slowing his racing thoughts, shoving the images of her face, her hair, her hands back through the door in his mind he never should have allowed himself to open in the first place – he pushed as hard as he possibly could – the door slammed shut…the too-real sensation of Romilda’s hands on his body began to fade, her voice draining out of his ears…when Hermione told him again to open his eyes, he obeyed on instinct.

Ron and Ginny were standing over him, their faces stricken and pale. Hermione knelt next to him, tears rolling down her cheeks, her eyes wide, her hands held up in front of her as if to show she meant no harm…one of her hands was covered in blood.

Harry stared at the bloody hand in consternation. Why was she bleeding…? His shoulders were hitching with the force of his breath, which was still coming too fast and shallow, his head was swimming.

“Ginny, quick, go get help, Hagrid’s closest – ” Hermione said frantically.

“No!” Harry croaked, hardly knowing what he was saying, and grabbed her wrist, his breath stuttering. “N-no…pl-ease….”

“Harry, you need help, you’re hurt,” Hermione said shrilly.

Harry blinked at her, confused, and his eyes fell to the hand he had wrapped around her arm. His wrist was torn open and raw, dripping blood down his arm, onto her skirt…Harry released her at once, mortified, and looked down at himself. His other hand was in a similar state, and there were drops of red spattered across his shirt.

“I don’t….” he panted. “What…what happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Ron asked tensely, his eyes raking over Harry’s face. His freckles stood out starkly in his bloodless face.

Harry shook his head slowly, trying to think. He’d been scratching his wrists (had to get the itch out), he remembered that now…had he done this to himself? He hadn’t felt it.

Ginny knelt down on his other side. “You need to breathe, Harry,” she instructed, and her voice was steady despite the white-knuckled grip she had around her own knees. “In and out, come on.”

Harry tried to obey. He focused on the hair framing her face, admiring its colour, even in the dim lighting of the changing room…it reminded him of the Burrow…of sunny days spent playing Quidditch in the apple orchard, and Mrs. Weasley humming to herself while she cooked supper…Mr. Weasley reading in his worn, patched armchair…Harry’s heart rate began to slow, and he managed to take several deep breaths.

Ron had been hovering uncertainly, apparently debating whether to run and fetch help after all. But as Harry’s breathing slowed, he sank down onto his knees next to Hermione so they were all on the same level.

A heavy silence fell over the four of them as Harry calmed, and he looked down at his mangled hands, drawing them close against his body, and refused to look at anyone. Nobody said anything for what felt like an eternity; then Hermione reached out tentatively, giving Harry time to refuse her touch if he wanted to, before resting her hand gently on his arm, careful to avoid his injuries.

“What happened, Harry?” she prompted gently.

Harry thought about that for a minute, his brain feeling sluggish and slow. He shrugged hopelessly, still not looking at any of them. “I don’t know. I…I was thinking, and then I just…I dunno, blacked out, I guess.”

Exhaustion was setting in fast, dragging at Harry’s bones, and he thought he would like nothing more than to roll over right here and sleep for a week.

“You mean like - a vision?”

Harry wanted to say yes: here was a ready-made excuse for this…episode. An excuse that relieved him of all guilt for making them worry, for making them break down a door and find him collapsed on the floor of a locker room, covered in his own blood…but he could not bring himself to do it. And besides, if they were put under the impression that a vision from Voldemort had affected him this badly, they would want him to go straight to Dumbledore.

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“You don’t have anything to apologise for,” said Ginny softly.

A pause. “Where’re the others?” Harry asked, hoping the rest of the Gryffindor team weren’t standing outside, that they hadn’t heard.

“They went back up to the school, before I came looking for you,” Ginny told him, and Harry felt a bit better at that.

“What were you thinking about, that made you...?” asked Ron suddenly, as though he wasn’t sure whether he should, and Harry glanced up at him. His expression was clouded.

Harry shrugged again. “Something stupid. It doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t, Harry decided, because was never going to go there again, was never again going to open the door in his mind that made him lose control like that, ever.

Ron’s eyes did not leave Harry’s face. “You hurt yourself.”

Harry bristled, and said a little defensively, “I didn’t do it on purpose, I told you, I blacked out.”

“Yes, well,” Hermione said, her tone taking on some semblance of its usual briskness as she wiped the tears from her face. “We’ve got to get you up to the hospital wing.”

“I don’t need the hospital wing,” said Harry, and was shouted down at once.

“Harry – ”

“Are you mad?”

“Yes, you do!” Hermione insisted heatedly, and they were all looking at him as if he’d grown another head. “You’re injured, Harry, and probably you need something for shock, too.”

“I’m not in shock,” Harry growled, climbing to his feet, and the three of them scrambled to stand as well. “And it’s just a couple of scrapes, Hermione, I’m fine – ”

Though this statement lost something of its merit as Harry wobbled uncertainly and Ron reached out to steady him. Harry did not fancy the idea of traipsing through the school covered in blood, he could imagine the rumours it was bound to start. He just wanted to lie down, and for Hermione, Ron, and Ginny to forget this had ever happened.

“Look,” he said tiredly, looking around at their determined faces. “I’ll let one of you lot have a go at healing me, if you want, but I’m not going to Madam Pomfrey, and I’m not changing my mind.”

“We can’t do that, Harry, we’re not qualified,” said Hermione. “What if something goes wrong? Besides, I don’t know those kind of healing spells.”

“I do,” Ginny said quietly, and they all looked at her.

“You do?” asked Ron, nonplussed.

“Mum taught me.”

“How come she never taught me?” Ron demanded, looking put out.

“I asked her,” said Ginny, giving him a look.

“Oh.”

“But I still reckon we should take you up to the school, whether you like it or not,” Ginny said, turning back to Harry. There was a hard, blazing look on her face, and for a brief second Harry’s resolve weakened and he almost considered going.

But he shook his head, looking into her eyes. He hesitated, and then held his ruined hands out to her. “Try? Please?”

Ginny held his gaze for another second, then sighed, pulling out her wand.

Hermione covered her eyes for a brief moment, shaking her head. “Unbelievable,” she whispered, and then fixed Harry with a glare. “Don’t you think you’ll be doing anything other than going straight to bed, when we get back up to the castle.”

“Fine by me,” Harry said wearily.

And then Ginny, very gently, took one of Harry’s hands in hers. Ginny’s skin was warm against his, and Harry’s belly performed a pleasant little flip, but that thing in the back of his mind into which he had vowed not to look loomed larger as she touched him, and he had to fight the urge to pull away.

“Tergeo,” she said quietly, siphoning off the dried blood, then tapped her wand gently to his wound and the ravaged skin started to knit itself back together as Ron and Hermione watched. Hermione was still looking very worried, but fascinated, too. Harry could practically see the gears of her mind turning, trying to work out the mechanics of the spell, and he would have smiled under different circumstances. Ginny repeated the process with Harry’s other hand, and then pointed her wand at Harry’s shirt, said “Scourgify!” and Harry’s clothes were suddenly blood-free.

Harry held his hands up, inspecting them. They were not quite good as new; the skin had closed up completely but was raised and slightly pink, like it was in the final stages of natural healing. But they were loads better than they had been, and Harry was more than a little impressed.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

Ginny smiled at him, a little sadly, and said, “You’re welcome.”

Harry swallowed and looked away, crossing his arms over his chest and hiding his newly-healed hands from view. He nodded awkwardly toward the door and said, “Erm – guess we’d better be getting back then….”

“Harry – ” Hermione started significantly, but Harry walked quickly past her and out the door before she could say anything else.

Plunk.

Plunk.

Plunk.

Harry pulled two more dead flobberworms apart and tossed each one into a bowl. He glanced at the clock behind the desk where Snape sat, bent over a stack of paperwork, and groaned inwardly.

He’d only been at it for half an hour. He had another whole hour left.

Snape looked up ominously at the pause in plunking sounds, and Harry grudgingly dug his hands back into the giant barrel of flobberworms he was sorting into rotten and not-rotten for use as Potions ingredients.

Hermione and Ron had been furious at him when he had announced he was leaving the common room to serve his detention with Snape as planned. Ginny too. And she had looked so much like Mrs. Weasley as she’d threatened to hex Harry back into bed that even Ron had recoiled under the strength of her glare.

The three of them had tried to convince Harry to tell McGonagall or Dumbledore what had happened so he wouldn’t have to attend this detention, but honestly, Harry thought grimly, as he dumped the bowl of rotten flobberworms into the rubbish bin and continued sorting, it was almost a relief to be down here up to his elbows in slimy dead worms with only Snape for company instead of up in the Tower with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.

Harry had gone straight to bed like he’d promised after the...fiasco...that morning. But when he had tried to lie down, he found he was too jittery to rest and made his way back down to the common room to ask Ron if he was up for a game of chess. Ron had kept shooting Harry highly anxious looks, however, and after their match Harry had gone right back up to bed. And on it had gone all afternoon, back and forth, bed, common room, bed, until Harry thought he’d go stark raving mad if he had to spend another second in Gryffindor Tower. So at half past eight he had been more than glad to depart for the dungeons, if only to get away from the oppressive pall of his friends’ worry and his own jumpy, restless nerves.

Harry peered up at Snape again through his fringe. Snape didn’t teach in the dungeons anymore, of course, his office was up on the second floor now, but perhaps Snape missed his old stomping grounds, and that was why he had insisted on dragging Harry all the way down here to stock Potions ingredients, just like old times.

It was odd, Harry thought, that he felt no misgivings about spending time alone with Snape, when the idea of being alone with Slughorn had nearly sent him into a panic.

Then again, Harry considered, throwing away another flobberworm. Perhaps it was not so odd after all.

Snape was safe.

Well, maybe ‘safe’ wasn’t exactly the right word. Harry knew Snape wouldn’t mind hurting him, given half the chance. He could still vividly recall the feeling of Snape’s fingers digging into his arm the day Harry had accidentally viewed his memory in the Pensieve, holding him in a vicious, biting grip, shaking him, throwing him to floor....

Harry’d had those bruises for two weeks, though he’d never shown anybody, not even Ron and Hermione.

Old habits, he supposed.

But that was just it, wasn’t it? Snape was predictable. He hated Harry. Despised him. And Harry returned the feeling with interest. Harry knew Snape was capable of hurting him, that Snape even took great pleasure in his misery and pain. But Snape did not like to touch Harry if he could help it. The ways he could choose to hurt Harry were expected, and obvious, and to the point.

Snape was like the Dursleys.

And Harry gleaned a small measure of bitter comfort from the unfailing certainty of that fact.

Because he had started to think, somewhere behind that door in his mind that he couldn’t ever touch again, that maybe it was the less obvious ways of getting hurt that could really mess a person up. The ways you didn’t see coming. The ones that slithered in, disguised as something else, something nicer…something prettier.

Maybe, he thought, looking down at the damaged skin of his hands, the worst bruises did not come from fists, but flowers.

Chapter Text

The early morning sky was painted a pure light pink. The distant shadows of the mountains surrounding the school marked a jagged edge against the horizon, where the tiniest hint of gold was starting to emerge, and the last of the night’s stars were winking out as the darkness faded: the most skilled artist could not have created a better view than this one.

And Harry would have liked to stop to appreciate it, only he had another lap to finish.

His thighs burned, and the growing stitch in his side flared painfully as he rounded the outside wall of the Quidditch stadium, but still he pushed himself harder, his feet beating even faster against the ground, his breath sharp and searing in his chest…he was almost there.

Harry came around another corner and saw, to his relief, the main entrance to the stadium looming ahead. He put on an extra burst of speed, ignoring the white spots bursting in his vision, and concentrated his entire being on making it to the posts that marked the entryway.

He staggered to a stop as he reached them, placing his hand against the wall, supporting himself as he bent over double, gasping for breath, fighting not to pass out.

After a minute or two, he straightened back up cautiously. His head was pounding and the acid in his empty belly churned unpleasantly, but his vision had cleared and he didn’t feel quite so dizzy. Sucking in great gulps of air, Harry pressed a hand gingerly to his stomach and limped his way inside the stadium, all the way over to the Gryffindor changing rooms where he’d stashed his bag earlier. Kicking the door shut behind him as he entered the room, Harry stumbled straight over to one of the benches and collapsed onto it gratefully, putting his head between his knees and breathing in deeply through his nose. As the cramping in his stomach subsided, Harry sat up a bit straighter, resting his head in his hands.

These morning runs had turned out to be a good idea in a lot of ways, but hell if they didn’t make him feel like he might drop dead.

Harry sighed and scrubbed his hands roughly over his face, shivering slightly as the sweat covering his body cooled in the chilly morning air. Knowing he didn’t have much time before he had to be back up at the school, he reluctantly hauled himself to his feet and shuffled over to the showers, stripping off as he went.

He really hadn’t meant to develop a whole…exercise regimen, he reflected as he stepped under the hot spray, but he was sort of glad he had. Probably he should have been doing this all along, anyway. Seekers were supposed to be light and speedy, after all.

It had started, rather accidentally, when Harry had woken up exceptionally early one morning and left the dormitory on a whim, sneaking out of the school for a walk around the grounds, thinking vaguely of visiting Buckbeak at Hagrid’s. He’d changed course halfway down, however, and had found himself walking, and then running, around the pitch, his feet flying over the ground, pushing himself as fast as he could go.

And he had found that it helped.

Helped to bleed some of the restless anxiety from his body, some of the racing thoughts from his mind…had made him feel like he was getting rid of everything he had eaten the day before, wiping the slate clean.

Because food had begun to sit even more heavily in Harry’s stomach. And he did not like the way it felt. Like it was dragging him down, making his body seem sluggish and slow. He felt most like himself, these days, when his belly was empty and he could think – it was like the less he managed to eat, the more that weird parasite inside him starved, and the itch in his arms faded a little, and he felt like maybe he might be okay.

Ron hadn’t been happy, that first morning, to wake up and find Harry gone. Evidently, he’d gone off straight into a panic and enlisted Neville and Hermione’s help to try and find him, and when Harry had returned, safe and sound, to the common room to change before class, Ron had promptly called Harry a git, and both he and Hermione had been on edge the rest of the morning.

So Harry left notes, now, when he went out in the mornings.

Ron and Hermione had been almost constantly on edge, really. Ever since The Incident, as Harry now referred to it in his mind.

Panicked and blind and bleeding all over himself in a locker room –

Harry often caught them staring at him when they all sat together doing homework, or whispering with their heads bent close when he walked into a room, before breaking apart suddenly, pretending that they hadn’t been. Harry knew they were worried. Hermione, who was taking more classes than either him or Ron, was becoming increasingly busy and had backed off a little of nagging Harry about what he was eating, if only due to a lack of time in which to do it. Ron, however, had taken up the mantle for her, spooning extra food silently onto Harry’s plate and giving him pointed looks.

But he wasn’t sure how to explain to them that they didn’t need to be worried.

Harry had tried to think through it all rationally, step by step, what his problem was, after his friends had found him such a mess that day, and he thought he had figured it out.

He had slept with someone. He had slept with someone, and he had reacted badly. Which Harry supposed was only natural. It hadn’t been how he had pictured his first time going, and it hadn’t been with someone he liked all that much, so it was really no surprise that he hadn’t been fond of the experience. He had decided that that wasn’t such a big deal, really, and he felt a lot better about the whole thing, only his body was turning out to be a bit slow on the uptake – he kept feeling odd bouts of nausea, that weird, constant chill, and an unnerving thrum of anxiety in his belly, in his chest, in his brain.

This was all helping, Harry thought, now scrubbing himself down with soap in the changing room shower…his new running routine, keeping his stomach empty and clean and void of anything for the nerves to toss around…he was fixing his body, and he was feeling better than ever. He still wasn’t doing very well in classes, and the Daily Prophet continued to bring nothing but bad news, but he hadn’t thought as much about Romilda Vane, or The Incident, for over a week now, and things felt like they were getting back to some semblance of normal.

Well, Harry supposed, running his hands through his hair, working out the soap bubbles, he hadn’t thought about Romilda much when he was awake.

Asleep was another thing entirely.

He was still sleeping poorly, and he’d started having weird dreams. More weird dreams. Besides the one he kept having about the red light.

Dreams in which Ginny was holding his hands gently, healing them, repairing the damage he had accidentally done to himself…but then her tender smile turned feral, and hungry, and her face melted into Romilda’s sharp features, the fingers encircling his wrists turning into ropes that bit into his skin, burning him and holding him down while she ran her hands over every inch of him –

Harry had awoken more than once, mortified, to find that certain parts of his body had responded in his sleep. Even worse was the very first time it had happened, and he had rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep, relieved that it had only been a dream, and discovered that his shorts were already wet and sticky.

That had been the morning Harry had first left the castle looking for a distraction, wishing to be anywhere but his bed, and found himself on the Quidditch pitch.

Turning the water off, Harry stepped out of the shower and quickly dried off. He padded over to his locker, retrieving his bag and pulling out the change of clothes he’d grabbed before he left. It was easier that way, he’d found, to bring his clothes and school things with him, so he didn’t have to go all the way back up to Gryffindor before class.

Harry pulled on a pair of jeans and fastened his belt, slightly surprised when it slipped past its usual notch and settled on the next one in, but he shrugged it off – that happened to him, sometimes. He dragged his t-shirt over his head and put on a fresh set of robes before going about gathering the clothes he’d shucked on his way to the showers, casting a Freshening Charm on them so they wouldn’t stink to high heaven all day, and shoving them into his school bag.

Harry left the changing rooms, pausing briefly to make sure everything was exactly as he had left it, and skirted around the wall of the arena to the main entrance.

The sky was decidedly blue by now, and Harry hoped fervently that the students and staff were firmly ensconced at breakfast; he didn’t fancy trying to sneak back in through the front doors with everyone milling about in the entrance hall. Harry shoved his hands in his pockets, dragging his feet and kicking at the occasional rock on the abandoned dirt path.

He had a free period this morning before Potions, but he knew if he wasn’t back soon, Ron might organise another search party.

Harry amused himself for a moment with an image of Ron holding a clipboard and megaphone, directing groups of students and house elves into every corner of the school grounds, before he sighed again, hitching his bag more securely over his shoulder, and walked a bit faster.

“Hey.”

Harry froze a single step inside the entrance hall, turning his head to see Ron leaning casually against the wall behind the front doors, arms folded over his chest, holding a couple of crumpets in a napkin.

Harry’s stomach dropped. Though, of course, he had no reason to feel guilty. He hadn’t been doing anything wrong – at least, not according to anyone but a teacher, being out-of-bounds before dawn.

“Hey,” he answered back easily as Ron pushed away from the wall.

“Got you these,” said Ron lightly, holding the crumpets out to Harry, and the two of them set off across the entrance hall together. “Didn’t want you to miss breakfast again.”

Harry took them. “Thanks,” he said, his heart sinking slightly.

He had planned on skipping breakfast, and he had not counted on Ron going to the trouble of bringing him any. His stomach rumbled quietly as he stared down at the cakes, even as he wracked his brains for a way to dispose of them without Ron noticing. Part of him wanted to wolf them down immediately, but he’d done so well this morning already, he felt clear and alert from his run, and if he ate them, he’d feel so awful, and heavy, and it would ruin everything.

Ron yawned, shaking his head. “I’ve still got no idea why you’re waking up so early, couldn’t get you out of bed before half past nine all summer and now you’re up at dawn running your arse off,” he laughed, but Harry could tell Ron was watching him closely.

Harry shrugged and tore off a small chunk of bread, popping it into his mouth and chewing slowly under Ron’s gaze. “Got to train, haven’t I? ‘M Captain now.”

“‘Training’,” Ron scoffed. “Come on, you’re the best Seeker Hogwarts has ever had,” he said bracingly.

Harry hummed noncommittally, fiddling with his napkin.

“But if it’s so important to you to be fit for the team,” Ron continued with a thoughtful look on his freckled face, “maybe I should come with you, and we could both do it.”

Harry laughed smoothly, ignoring the small burst of alarm inside him at the suggestion. “Right, you managing to get up at five every morning, that’s likely.”

“True,” Ron conceded, nodding wisely. “I’d last about a day, if I’m being honest.”

They grinned at each other and stopped outside a bathroom so Ron could duck in. Ron glanced quickly back at Harry, and the crumpets in his hand, before going in, and Harry, pretending he hadn’t noticed, tore a huge piece from one of them and lifted it to his mouth as Ron disappeared through the door.

As soon as he was sure Ron was gone, Harry tossed the bit of bread to the floor, along with the cake he hadn’t yet touched, and quickly Vanished them with a wave of his wand. He kept the crumb-covered napkin, waited for Ron to come out of the bathroom, and then when he knew Ron was looking, crumpled it up as though he’d just finished and stuffed it into his pocket.

A satisfied look stole over Ron’s face, and he seemed to relax as he and Harry made their way up the next flight of stairs, chatting enthusiastically about the strategy for their first Quidditch match of the season.

Hermione joined Harry and Ron in the queue outside the Potions classroom an hour later, attempting to cram three giant books into her already straining bag, looking harried and out of breath.

“Arithmancy went over,” she explained, swiping several strands of frizzy hair out of her face. “Professor Vector lost track of time, I had to run all the way down here, I’m sure I’ve only just made it.”

Sure enough, Professor Slughorn threw open the door to the classroom not a second later, his great belly jiggling as he gestured them all inside.

The group entered and Harry, Ron, and Hermione took a table near the front. Harry began pulling out his book and supplies as Ernie Macmillan, who usually shared a table with them now, settled on the other side of Hermione. Harry glanced over at the Slytherin table, eyeing Malfoy, who sat speaking to Nott and Zabini in a low voice. Harry strained his ears, hoping to catch some of what they were saying, but Slughorn clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention and Malfoy stopped talking at once.

“Alright, alright, boys and girls,” Slughorn boomed genially from the front of the room, rubbing his hands together. “Look sharp, we’ve quite an interesting lesson in front of us today – ”

Harry paused, his hand stilling inside his bag in its search for a usable quill, and sniffed the air cautiously.

The sixth year class had been working their way through brewing the selection of potions Slughorn had showcased in their very first lesson. So far, they had covered Felix Felicis and Veritaserum, and if the smell of treacle tart and broomsticks and that oddly familiar, flowery scent wafting towards Harry was anything to go by, today they were going to be brewing –

“Amortentia!” Professor Slughorn announced merrily to the class, moving aside so they could see the cauldron bubbling away happily behind him.

One of the Ravenclaws gasped, and Hermione let out an “Ooh!” of excitement; Slughorn twirled his moustache and bounced on the balls of his feet, quite plainly pleased at the class’s open looks of thrilled anticipation. But Harry felt like a rock had slid down his throat into his stomach as he stared at the wisps of vapor spiraling lazily up from the cauldron.

Sometimes, Harry felt sure his life was just one big cosmic joke.

As much as he had made his peace with the way Romilda Vane had chosen to go about…spending time with him, Harry didn’t quite like the idea of passing the entire class period going over the specifics of love potions and how they worked. He was not entirely sure, truthfully, that he wanted to know. And what was Slughorn thinking, anyway, teaching them to brew Amortentia? Didn’t he realise it would be easy, so incredibly easy, for anyone to just bottle up a bit of their potion at the end of class, and keep it for their own, and use it on someone…?

Harry slowly lowered his bag back to the ground, debating quickly. He could feel sweat gathering at his temples…he did not want to be here, he did not want to do this –

“Harry, m’boy?” questioned Slughorn, noticing Harry’s raised hand.

“Sorry, Professor, I was wondering – could I go to the bathroom, sir?”

Ron and Hermione’s faces turned towards him, but Harry did not look at them as he waited for his professor’s answer, fighting the impulse to scratch at his arms.

“Of course, my dear boy, if you need to,” said Slughorn, an expression of bemusement and slight concern visible above his enormous silvery moustache. “But hurry back, you really can’t afford to be missing any instruction time at this point, I’m afraid.”

Malfoy sniggered into his hand, but Harry ignored both him and Ron, who was trying to get Harry’s attention as he stood up.

Harry made straight for the door, leaving his things, and stopped, breathing deeply, once he’d made it out into the empty corridor.

He was not sure where to go. He already knew he wouldn’t be going back to Potions. But he didn’t really need the bathroom, either. He turned and walked slowly up the corridor, thinking possibly of heading back to Gryffindor for a quick kip.

Harry managed to make it all the way up to the third floor without running into anyone; most of the staff and students were in class. He was just thinking, as he glanced over his shoulder, that probably he should don his Invisibility Cloak anyway, when he walked straight into the unyielding form of Severus Snape.

Caught by surprise, Harry lost his balance and toppled over, landing hard on his backside.

Snape narrowed his eyes and stared down at Harry coldly. Pinned momentarily to the floor by shock, Harry watched as Snape stuck his head inside the Defence classroom’s open door, barked at his third year students to quiet down and stay in their seats, and then slammed it shut, turning back to glare at Harry.

Harry scrambled to his feet, dusting himself off, and opened his mouth, not quite certain what he was going to say, but Snape beat him to it.

“Well, well, well, what a fortunate day for me,” Snape said in a low, dangerous voice. “Running into the Chosen One…tell me, Potter, what impressively important reason could you possibly have for not being in class?”

Harry’s mind raced, searching for an excuse that did not sound unbearably flimsy. “I was….”

“Yes?” Snape prompted, moving a step closer to Harry.

Harry stood his ground, holding Snape’s gaze.

“On a mission?” Snape suggested, his black eyes boring into Harry’s. His voice lowered even further until it was just a whisper. “Off to save someone who doesn’t need saving in the first place, perhaps?”

Snape smirked, and an ugly, vicious rage tore at Harry’s insides. His hands balled into tight fists at his sides as he fought to keep his expression neutral. He desperately resisted the image threatening to break across his mind, an image of a lifeless body, arching gracefully behind a veil...hate filled Harry so strongly he thought it must be radiating off of him, and he wanted nothing more than to lunge at the man before him, to hit him, to hurt him, to wrap his hands around his filthy neck and break him.

“No,” Harry said quietly, and he poured all of his will into keeping his voice even. “I was going to the library, actually. Sir.”

Snape’s face was closed, inscrutable, and then, finally, he said softly: “Detention, Mr. Potter. Thursday, my office. Get back to class. Now.”

Harry glared at him for another second, then wheeled around and stalked away without another word. He knew Snape was watching, and he waited until he had rounded the corner, and heard the door close behind Snape, before he pulled his Cloak from his pocket and threw it over himself. He had mentioned the library on a whim, but it seemed as good a place as any, and Harry was not much in the mood for a nap anymore, he thought sourly.

He had not yet made it to the stairs leading back down to the second floor, however, when he heard somebody else coming, and he crouched down next to a suit of armour. A moment later, Hagrid stumped around the corner in his giant moleskin overcoat. Harry silently watched him pass, wondering what he was doing up at the castle this time of day, and whether he might be going to see Dumbledore…Harry was struck by the sudden desire to call out to him, to let Hagrid know he was here, just to talk to him, but Harry knew that Hagrid, like Snape, would want to know why Harry was wandering about the halls, and the urge passed…Harry’s eyes followed Hagrid until he was out of sight, and then he straightened up, adjusting the Cloak, and continued on his way.

The library was empty, save for Madam Pince and two seventh year Hufflepuffs, and Harry made his way directly to the back, putting himself as far away from them as possible. He meandered aimlessly up and down the aisles, stopping every once in a while to peruse an interesting title, before coming to stop, realising he had wandered into the Defence section.

Thinking he might as well make himself useful even if he was skiving off, Harry scanned the shelves, looking for anything that might be generally helpful. His eyes fell upon a familiar spine, and he took the book down, inspecting it. With a pang, he recognised it as a copy of the third volume from the set of Defence books that were sitting upstairs in his trunk. The set of books Sirius and Lupin had got him last year for Christmas. Sinking down to sit cross-legged on the floor, still under his Cloak, Harry opened the book and flipped through it, admiring how the moving illustrations still hadn’t lost a bit of their brilliance, even after having studied them for hours.

The bell rang a while later, signaling the next class, and Harry saw the pair of Hufflepuffs leave, but he stayed where he was, pulling down more books to examine.

Lunch came and went, and Harry endured the rumbling emptiness in his belly with an odd sort of vindictive pleasure. But the next section of the day was a free period for the sixth year Gryffindors; he knew Ron and Hermione would be heading back to the common room and if Harry wasn’t there, they would come looking for him.

Grudgingly, Harry got to his feet, replaced his books, and headed out of the library at last, careful not to make any sound as he passed Madam Pince’s desk.

The common room wasn’t crowded; only half a dozen older students occupied the armchairs around the fireplace, and Harry saw at a glance that Ron and Hermione were not among them. Remembering with a small jolt that he had left his bag in the dungeons and therefore could not start on any of his homework, Harry settled at a table in the far corner of the room to wait for his friends, hoping that they had thought to grab his things before they’d left Potions.

He did not have long to wait; the portrait hole opened a minute later, and he looked up to find Ron and Hermione climbing through. He was relieved to see that Ron had Harry’s bag slung over one shoulder. Hermione glanced around the room, and when her eyes fell on Harry, she tugged at Ron’s sleeve, nodding in Harry’s direction, and a look fell across her face that Harry did not much like.

He knew she would be disapproving, exasperated, even angry, that he had skipped class. But her expression, as she and Ron made a beeline for him, was something more along the lines of determined.

Upset, but determined.

“Er,” Harry said, as they reached him. “So, what did I miss in Potions – ?”

“We need to talk.” Hermione stood with her arms crossed over her chest, staring resolutely down at Harry.

“About what?” asked Harry cautiously, glancing from her to Ron. Ron simply held Harry’s bag out to him silently and nodded towards the stairs to the dormitories, his expression serious. Harry took the bag from him and rose to his feet. He gave the two of them a pair of suspicious looks but followed them nevertheless upstairs to the boys’ dormitory.

Hermione held the door open pointedly, motioning Harry inside, and when she’d closed it behind the three of them, she turned immediately to Harry, hands planted firmly on her hips.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked baldly.

Harry glanced between them again, at their identical sober expressions, and had to fight the bizarre urge to smile as a great swoop of nerves swept through him.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what we’re talking about,” Ron said sharply.

Harry licked his lips uneasily, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Look, if this is about what I did in the changing rooms, that was nothing, I shouldn’t have – ”

“It wasn’t nothing, Harry,” said Hermione quietly. “It was awful, I’ve never seen you like that.” Her hands came off her hips, and she started wringing them together as she looked at him. “I’m starting to think we made a mistake, not taking you to Madam Pomfrey, you still haven’t told us what happened, what made you – ”

“I’m sorry I worried you, alright? I haven’t told you because there isn’t anything to tell, I’m fine, honestly,” said Harry fervently, and Ron snorted. Harry looked at him; he had folded his arms over his chest and the look on his face was one of plain disbelief.

“I don’t think you are, Harry, and it’s not just what happened after tryouts,” Hermione continued, and her voice had taken on a slightly shrill quality. “You aren’t eating. You’re skipping classes, I know you’re not sleeping properly.” she said, glancing at Ron.

Harry sent him a glare, and Ron had the decency to look guilty, but his eyes did not leave Harry’s face.

The room felt very hot all of a sudden, and Harry’s nails went automatically to his wrist, scratching absently. “I’m sleeping just fine,” he said, irritated, choosing deliberately not to address the first part of her accusation. They would not understand if he tried to explain to them why he didn't like to let himself eat.

Hermione moved forward, taking his wrists gently in her hands and pulling them away from each other so he couldn’t scratch. His skin crawled where she held him, and he tugged his hands out of her grasp, sinking down onto his bed, unable to meet their eyes. None of them moved, and for a moment there was a strained silence, until Ron unfolded his arms and sat down on the edge of his own bed. Hermione followed suit, perching tentatively next to Harry.

They both stared at him, waiting, but Harry could not bring himself to be the one to break the silence. He felt beleaguered and trapped, and he wished the floor would just open up and swallow him whole. His skin seemed to blister under their combined gaze.

Finally, Hermione said:

“Please talk to us, Harry.”

Her voice was trembling slightly.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Hermione,” Harry said flatly, still staring at the floor.

Hermione made a noise as if to protest, but Ron cut her off.

“You know, the last time you didn’t tell us something, Umbridge was making you carve yourself up every night.” His tone was hard, and Harry raised his eyes to meet Ron’s. “I only found out because I saw your hand. And even then you wouldn’t let us tell McGonagall or Dumbledore, you wouldn’t really let us help.”

Hermione carefully reached out to touch Harry’s hand again, the one Umbridge had forced him to slice up. The damage from Harry’s scratches had mostly healed, and the words ‘I must not tell lies’ were faintly visible once more; Hermione ran her thumb over them lightly, but Harry stiffened and pulled away.

It wasn’t like they all hadn’t kept secrets from each other.

“You didn’t tell me you were trying out for Keeper last year,” Harry accused Ron, firing up. He turned to face Hermione. “And you didn’t tell Ron and me about that Time-Turner third year!”

“Because I wasn’t allowed!” Hermione said indignantly. “And that wasn’t the same! This isn’t about taking a few extra classes and trying out for Quidditch – you don’t seem well, Harry, and, to be honest, I’m getting a little scared.”

“Well, you don’t have to be – ”

“Is this about Sirius?” Hermione asked abruptly, and Harry felt his intestines turn to ice. “Harry, I wish you would just talk to us, I know it’s hard, but you haven’t even said his name once since he died, and I think you really need – ”

“Don’t, Hermione,” Harry said dangerously.

He did not like people talking about Sirius.

“Mate – ” Ron started, but Harry stood up suddenly and strode around to his trunk.

“Listen, I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” said Harry tightly, tossing open the lid of his trunk, blocking Ron and Hermione from view as he bent over it, busying himself with searching for the pair of gloves he needed for Herbology next period. “But you don’t know what you’re talking about, either of you, I’m fine. I’m just tired, that’s all.” He shifted his things about in his trunk unnecessarily, waiting for them to take the hint and leave.

There was a long silence, the only sounds the rattle of Harry’s belongings and the thump of books against books as he switched out his texts from his bag.

After a minute, Harry heard Hermione let out a low sigh, and she got up from his bed. He did not look up at her, but as she passed him, she brushed her fingers lightly against his shoulder. He heard the door open, and then she was gone.

Ron was still in the room, but Harry had stretched the excuse of readying his bag as far as it could go, and he unwillingly closed the lid of his trunk and stood up. Ron stood, too, but instead of leaving, he looked at Harry.

“You sure there’s nothing, mate?”

There was something imploring and slightly challenging about the way he searched Harry’s face, and Harry found it was one of those times that he became aware of exactly how tall Ron was.

“Yeah, of course,” said Harry. “I’m fine, Ron, really….”

The stared at each other for a long moment, and Harry resisted the urge to look away.

“Okay,” said Ron finally. But as Ron turned to go, Harry was sure he saw a look of disappointment flash across his face.

Once Ron had left, Harry sank back down onto his bed, staring out of the sunlit window, a strange hollow emptiness in his chest.

He noticed his hands were shaking slightly, and he clenched them together.

Harry glanced at the door, where Ron and Hermione had just disappeared, and took a deep breath.

He would have to be more careful from now on.

Hermione scratched the final translation for her Ancient Runes essay at the bottom of her third sheet of parchment, just barely squeezing it into the last little line, before rolling it up neatly and tucking it safely away inside her bag. She had always found it was better to go back and edit later, after she’d had a chance to clear her mind a bit.

Instead, she pulled out her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6, and glanced up at Harry for the hundredth time.

He had acted overly cheerful all afternoon, ever since she and Ron had taken him aside, smiling more than usual, and speculating with Ron about the Chudley Cannons’ chances for the season as if their talk with him hadn’t happened. Whether it was to try to convince them or himself that nothing was wrong, Hermione did not know.

But something was wrong, and of that she was certain.

Unaware that he was being watched, the false cheer had disappeared from Harry’s face, and he looked completely exhausted. Like he did so much of the time these days. There were dark smudges under his eyes that seemed to grow worse every day. The crease between his eyebrows never seemed to disappear, as if every thought he had was troubled. His wrists were starting to look blistered again, like he'd been picking at them.

She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he had lost weight, and his eating habits were starting to worry her. He had skipped more than a few meals recently, and her efforts (and Ron’s) to ensure he made up for it did not seem to be helping much. She knew Harry sometimes went through odd periods where he became forgetful and had to be reminded to eat, but he had never before seemed quite so…disinterested…in food.

She often caught him, now, staring blankly at nothing, lost inside his head. Harry had started off so well in lessons this year, but he didn’t seem to be putting much effort into his schoolwork anymore. She and Ron had waited all Potions class that day, expecting him to return any minute, but he never had. He had looked so pale before he’d left…and he hadn’t shown up to their next class, or lunch.

He had been acting oddly, too. Obsessing over Malfoy’s whereabouts half the time, waking up at the crack of dawn to sneak down to the Quidditch pitch, seeming even more uncomfortable than usual with people touching him.

It was strange, and Hermione didn’t know what to make of it all.

As she watched him, Harry leaned over his homework, squinting at a caption in his textbook, and his glasses slipped down his nose a bit. Harry absently pushed them back up with the tips of his first two fingers, and despite her distressing thoughts, a fond smile touched her lips – the gesture was so very Harry. He straightened his glasses the exact same way every time, ever since she’d known him, and she’d always found it incredibly endearing.

Hermione wondered wryly what Ron would think if he heard her say that, and she looked over at him. He was bent over his own books, but he, too, was staring surreptitiously up at Harry. She briefly caught his eye and they both shared a knowing glance before looking back to Harry, who was now twirling his quill absent-mindedly in his fingers and gazing impassively into the fire.

Hermione knew Ron was going spare.

Harry’s episode after the Quidditch tryouts had rattled him, had rattled them both, but Harry was refusing to let them in on what was going on, and neither one of them knew what to do about it.

She suspected at least part of it was to do with Sirius, but she was not convinced that was all of it. Harry’s behaviour seemed to have changed rather suddenly after his first lesson with Dumbledore. He still hadn’t told either her or Ron much about what the headmaster had shown him about Voldemort, and she wondered if Ron was perhaps correct in thinking something had frightened Harry that night.

Hermione looked down at her own quill, thinking about that unbearable, dreadful prophecy, and about Sirius.

An idea struck her, as thoughts of Harry’s godfather turned over in her mind – she knew Lupin and Harry had been exchanging letters, and she suddenly wondered if maybe she shouldn’t write one herself.

If Harry wasn’t going to talk to them, maybe he would talk to Remus Lupin.

As far as she was aware, Lupin did not know about the prophecy and how it applied to Harry, but he was in the Order, and had known Sirius well, and she knew he cared about Harry very deeply.

And Harry respected him to boot, which made him quite the perfect candidate for the job.

Sitting up a bit straighter, Hermione glanced at Harry one more time, pulled out another piece of parchment, and began to write.

Chapter Text

Dear Harry,

Is it much colder there yet? It’s freezing here, I’m afraid, and I must confess I’m eager to be home.

How are you? I hope your classes are going well. It’s difficult to believe it has already been nearly a month that you’ve been back, and regrettably two since we last met – forgive me, I had hoped to see more of you over the summer holidays. Molly and Arthur have invited me to spend this coming Christmas at the Burrow, and I look forward to seeing you again.

If there’s anything, at all, you wish to talk about, I want you to know you can contact me at any time. Please take care of yourself.

– Remus

Harry stared at the letter, an odd squirming sensation in his gut. He sank down to perch on the edge of the windowsill, elbows resting on his knees, and quickly scanned the page again. He wondered where Lupin could possibly be, to complain about it being colder than Britain.

Hedwig, who had set to preening herself as soon as Harry had let her in the window and relieved her of the little roll of parchment, edged up to Harry’s side and nuzzled her snowy head against his ribcage. Harry’s hand moved without thought to pet her reassuringly as he took in Lupin’s neatly-written words again.

‘I want you to know you can contact me at any time….’

Harry’s stomach tightened again with a pleasant sort of thrill.

A bit of the warm glow drained away, however, as he ran his fingers slowly down Hedwig’s back. Lupin’s sudden concern that Harry might have something to talk about seemed a little suspicious the more he thought about it. He wondered, with an alarm he couldn’t explain, if Ron or Hermione had maybe said something to him. Harry’s stomach dropped like a stone – he wondered if they had told him about what Harry had done in the changing rooms. Unless he was talking about Sirius.

A trunk thudded closed across the room and Harry looked up as Neville made his way towards the door. Neville smiled at Harry as he passed, then did a brief double-take and paused, his forehead scrunching as he looked at Harry.

“Alright?” Neville asked.

Harry smiled back at him, hoping it didn’t look too forced. “Yeah. Just a letter from Lupin,” he said, waving the piece of parchment slightly in explanation.

Neville’s eyes brightened. “Oh, how is he? I haven’t seen him since – ” He broke off awkwardly, his eyes darting to the ground then back up at Harry.

‘Since the Ministry’ hung heavily in the air between them – Neville hadn’t seen Professor Lupin since the Ministry, when the man had practically had to wrestle Harry to the ground to keep him from following Sirius through the Veil.

Harry cleared his throat. “He’s fine. Actually, he told me to tell you ‘hello’ from him,” he said, only just remembering one of Lupin’s earlier letters and feeling a bit guilty for forgetting.

Neville beamed, and Harry thought he looked more than a little relieved at the change of subject. “Thanks! Tell him I said ‘hello’ back.”

“I will,” said Harry, giving him another perfunctory smile and dropping his gaze back to the letter in his hand. After a second or two, he could tell Neville hadn’t moved and he glanced up again. Neville shook himself slightly, as if only just realising he’d been staring. He grinned at Harry with a little more sympathy than Harry thought was strictly necessary, and quietly left the room.

Harry let his head fall back against the window with a dull thunk. Hedwig fluttered onto his lap and turned her head to the side, fixing him with one beady eye.

“Oh don’t you start, too,” Harry grumbled, chucking her gently under her beak.

Hedwig nipped at Harry’s finger fondly before drawing her wings a little tighter against her body and turning her head away pointedly. Harry sighed and stowed Lupin’s letter in his pocket, making a mental note to ask Hermione about it later.

Not quite sure how to answer Lupin for the moment, Harry sent Hedwig off the owlery and followed Neville down into the common room. He fell into an empty sofa as far away from the other students as possible – even after only a few seconds, all the noise started to set his teeth on edge. He briefly considered heading back upstairs to attempt some of his homework assignments, before conceding that he didn’t really have the energy.

Hermione and Ron were off performing prefect duties (though truthfully Harry hadn’t been listening too closely when Hermione had told him where they were going) and a listless boredom had begun to set in. Harry stared across the room, unseeing, and let his thoughts wander…he wondered vaguely what Malfoy was up to at that very moment. If, being a prefect, he had been summoned to duty like Ron and Hermione, and if he had shown up like he was supposed to…Harry itched to check the Map, but he’d left it upstairs in his trunk.

So preoccupied was he with thoughts of Draco Malfoy’s potential wrong-doing that he nearly jumped out of his skin when somebody plopped down next to him on the sofa.

His hand was already around his wand before he even knew what he was doing, but he looked round, saw that it was only Ginny, and let go immediately.

“Blimey, Ginny, make a noise or something, you can’t just sneak up on a person like that,” Harry said indignantly, settling back into his seat.

Ginny drew a leg up onto the cushions and rested an elbow on the back of the sofa, smirking. “Maybe you just have to be more observant,” she shot at him, winking, but her smile softened, taking the sting out of her words. “What’s up?”

Harry shrugged noncommittally. Ginny pulled her hair around to rest on one side of her neck, and a pleasant, familiar floral scent drifted faintly through the air. She held an open bottle out to him. “Pumpkin juice?”

“No, thanks,” said Harry automatically, and as if on cue he suddenly became aware of how very hungry he was. Harry thought he saw a brief flash of some indefinable emotion in Ginny’s eyes, but she shrugged indifferently and took a swig herself.

“What are you doing over here alone, why don’t you come sit with me and Neville?”

Ginny nodded over to a far corner, and Harry followed her gaze to see Neville poking cautiously at a tiny spiked plant resting in the palm of his hand. As Harry watched, one of the miniscule spikes lashed out suddenly, pricking Neville’s finger, and Neville whipped his hand back, frowning at the small plant in disapproval. Harry felt a smile tug at his lips.

“I reckon it’s a miracle he’s not been strangled to death by one of those things yet,” he mumbled.

Ginny laughed, and Harry looked at her, smiling for real this time at the sound of it. Her eyes seemed to light up as she laughed, and Harry appreciated for the first time what a nice shade of brown they were. Harry stared at her as she glanced over at Neville again.

She was, genuinely, very pretty and it was really no surprise, he thought, that half the school wanted to date her. Dean Thomas was a lucky bloke.

One of Ginny’s friends passed by their sofa and Ginny said something to her that Harry didn’t catch before sticking her fingers up in a rude gesture. Ginny laughed again, and Harry noticed that her lips were slightly chapped, like a lot of Quidditch players’. That half-pleasant, half-queasy feeling swooped through him again, and he suddenly wondered what it would be like to kiss her –

A lump of lead seemed to slide down Harry’s throat into his aching stomach as his brain caught up to him. The realisation of what he had just been thinking washed over him like a bucket of icy water:

He'd wanted to kiss Ginny Weasley.

All at once it tumbled into place like a landslide, his strange and sudden antagonism toward Dean, whom he had absolutely no reason to dislike. Why he always felt oddly guilty when Ginny and Ron were in the same room, why it was always her turning into Romilda when he had those weird dreams.

Ginny turned back to him, and the grin slid off her face. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyebrows scrunching together.

But Harry’s throat seemed to have closed up. He stood abruptly, making Ginny jump. His head swam for a moment at the sudden motion, and he furtively clutched the arm of the sofa for support, hoping Ginny wouldn’t notice. He opened his mouth and then closed it again as she sat up a bit straighter and stared up at him in concern. He cleared his throat. “I - nothing….” he said finally. “Nothing, I just…I have to go.”

The clock over the fireplace chimed eight o’ clock, and Harry suddenly remembered with enormous relief that he really did have to go.

“Detention. With Snape. See you later,” he said shortly, jabbing his thumb toward the portrait hole and backing away.

“Harry, wait,” Ginny insisted, moving to rise off the couch, but Harry turned away from her, nearly bumping into two different people as he hurried toward the door.

When the portrait closed behind him, Harry ducked quickly behind a statue, his mind racing as he listened to the Fat Lady and her friend Vi gossip about a painting of nuns down on the fifth floor. Several seconds passed, and when it became clear that Ginny was not going to follow him, Harry sagged against the tower wall in relief. He squeezed his eyes shut briefly and ran a hand over his face.

How could this possibly be happening?

He, Harry, fancied Ginny Weasley. And he’d been so absolutely thick about it that it had crept up behind him and practically clubbed him over the head.

Harry groaned, and he would have liked to have sunk down onto the floor and stayed there only he had a detention to get to, so instead he forced himself away from the wall and stalked off towards the stairs.

He hadn’t liked anyone since Cho, and that whole situation had turned out to be a complete disaster. Ginny was his friend, they’d practically grown up together. She was Ron’s sister, for heaven’s sake! Harry didn’t even want to think of Ron’s reaction if he ever found out.

Or her parents’ for that matter, Harry thought, his spirits sinking even lower.

Why did it have to be her? he thought in frustration, walking a bit faster. Why now, after he had just recently decided that he’d be quite content never to kiss another girl as long as he lived?

And there was no avoiding her. He had to see her, in the common room, at meals, during Quidditch practice…god, Quidditch practice. Harry felt like groaning again, and he ran a hand distractedly through his hair.

Harry’s flustered thoughts stumbled over each other, spiraling higher into something resembling panic, and he was just thinking about the fact that Ginny had six strong and healthy older brothers, all bigger than he was, when he ground to a halt, realising that he had come to Snape’s office door. Harry stared blankly at the grain of the wood, distantly aware that he had at least a few minutes before he really had to go in.

As he studied a particularly dark knot on the door’s surface, another thought came to him, bright and clear, closing off his developing panic like a thick curtain. A soothing, peaceful sense of calm came over him as sanity returned:

He didn’t have to do anything about his feelings.

He couldn’t do anything about them.

It was unthinkable.

Ginny already had a boyfriend, for one thing, and for another, there was his friendship with Ron to consider.

Most of all, Harry knew, deep down, that Ginny could never really be happy with someone like him – a boy with a target painted on the back of his head and enough baggage to fill several entire compartments of the Hogwarts Express.

Feeling suddenly much lighter than was usual for someone about to experience a detention with Severus Snape, Harry squared his shoulders, raised his fist to knock, and forcefully pushed all thoughts of Ginny from his mind.

“Potter,” Snape said without preamble as soon as Harry had entered. “Don’t bother getting settled, you will be serving your detention in the dungeons this evening.”

“Yes, sir,” said Harry, doing his utmost to hide his disappointment as Snape gathered books and papers from his desk; it might still only have been September but the dungeons were already far colder than the rest of the castle.

Snape swept by Harry without looking at him, and Harry followed him silently down through the narrow, damp passageways to a disused classroom where Snape pointed to a pile of filthy, crusted cauldrons.

“You will clean all of these – without magic,” Snape informed him, his lip twitching slightly, and Harry could tell he was trying not to smirk. “You have two hours. If you have not scrubbed out every single cauldron, or have not cleaned them to my satisfaction, you will be…provided the opportunity to finish the job in another detention. On Saturday,” he finished, and this time he did smirk. “Well? Get to it.”

Harry doubted very much whether any of the cauldrons he washed that evening would satisfy Snape, but he clenched his jaw tightly to keep from saying this. Without a word, he retrieved a bottle of cleaner and a scrub brush from the supply closet and set to work as Snape seated himself behind the teacher’s desk, burying his large, crooked nose in a giant, very boring-looking book.

Harry sank to his knees and delved into the first cauldron with a grimace – there was a thick layer of what looked (and smelled) like solidified vomit coating the bottom and sides, and Harry resigned himself to a long evening of holding his breath and attempting not to gag.

Harry painstakingly made his way through the pile, the muscles in his arms and back protesting as he scrubbed. As the minutes dragged on he started to feel increasingly lightheaded, but he didn’t dare pause in his cleaning; he could feel Snape’s eyes on him from time to time, watching him like a hawk. And anyway, he wanted this detention over with as quickly as possible. He had Quidditch practice on Saturday, and his homework situation was becoming rather desperate. He couldn’t afford another detention this week.

When he’d got most of the way through the pile, Harry dropped his brush, stretching out his aching fingers, and moved to gather up some of the smaller cauldrons to take over to the storage shelves. As he climbed to his feet, however, his vision fogged over and he staggered a bit drunkenly, feeling suddenly weightless. He accidentally dropped one of the cauldrons with a loud clang, the sound startling him much more than it should have done, and he shook his head forcefully, trying to clear it.

“Problem, Potter?”

Snape’s voice was quiet. Dangerous. Harry raised his head, squinting, to find the man staring at him, his book closed and marked with a finger, virtually no expression upon his face apart from one quirked eyebrow.

Harry felt overwhelmingly hot all of a sudden, which seemed mildly absurd to him given how cold he’d got used to being lately, and he fought to steady himself as an empty nausea rolled through him. The cauldrons in his arms felt like they weighed a ton.

“No, sir,” said Harry, and he was relieved to hear that his voice sounded much more solid than he felt.

Snape stared steadily at him a moment longer, and then went back to his book without another word. Harry sucked in a ragged breath as silently as possible then bent down cautiously to retrieve the cauldron he’d dropped. He was just thinking, gratefully, that his head seemed to be clearing, when he straightened back up, heard a loud rushing in his ears, and promptly lost consciousness.

When Harry came to, he knew immediately he had only been out a few seconds, for the clatter of cauldrons bouncing and rolling across the floor was still echoing in his ears, and Snape’s chair was scraping back against the stones. Harry instinctively tried to sit up, but it seemed to him that he had lost the bones in his arms and legs. His head felt like Dudley had just used it for boxing practice.

Snape swam into view and knelt down, a big black mass looming ominously over Harry as his head gave a particularly nasty throb. Harry bit down on his lip to keep from moaning in pain.

“Potter. Can you hear me?” Snape demanded, his too-loud voice bouncing painfully around the inside of Harry’s skull.

Harry tried to nod, but discovered that was a bad idea. “Yes,” he mumbled.

“Don’t move,” said Snape shortly and pulled out his wand.

Harry couldn’t help but flinch as Snape pointed it at him. Snape waved his wand silently over Harry’s body, his expression unreadable. He paused as though focusing on something Harry could not see, and then stowed his wand again.

“You are not concussed,” he informed Harry without sympathy. “Though no doubt you will have a nasty headache.”

He seized Harry by the arms and hauled him to his feet where he stood, swaying, his head pounding, Snape’s thin fingers curled uncomfortably around his bicep. Harry could feel a knot forming at the back of his head where he’d hit the ground. There was silence for a moment during which Harry clutched his aching skull. He tried to pull away, but Snape did not let go.

He was staring at Harry, his eyes narrowed slightly, and after a beat he spoke again. “When was the last time you ate something, Potter?”

Harry’s head jerked up in surprise, the motion making the pounding double in intensity. He schooled his features into what he hoped was pure confusion, his insides squirming uncomfortably with nerves and something that felt very much like guilt.

He wracked his brains for something he’d eaten that day. “I dunno,” he muttered, a little resentfully. What did Snape care, anyway? “Lunch,” he lied.

Snape’s hand around his bicep tightened, and his black eyes bored into Harry’s.

Harry realised, suddenly, what Snape was doing, what he was going to do, but he seemed unable to look away, and panic crawled up into his throat as he attempted futilely to brace his mind against Snape’s invasion.

He thrust all thoughts of Sirius, and his recent discovery of his feelings for Ginny, and everything that had happened in the past few weeks away from the surface of his mind, shoving it all back where he hoped Snape wouldn’t see. Harry tried hastily to clear his mind, to think of nothing, but he had never been very good at that, and as Snape’s cold, narrowed eyes looked into his, an image of himself throwing away the crumpets Ron had given him swam before he eyes, followed swiftly by others.

Lying curled over in bed at night, his stomach constricting with hunger…Hermione scolding him for not cleaning his plate…her voice, just days ago, as she and Ron confronted him in the dormitory:

“You aren’t eating.”

Snape’s eyes narrowed even further, his grip on Harry’s arm painful now.

Silence stretched between them for what felt like ages. Then finally:

“You fool,” Snape said softly, his lip curling, and released Harry.

He looked at Harry a second more, then nodded curtly toward the remaining dirty cauldrons. “I believe you have a job to finish.”

And he turned away, striding back to his desk.

Harry stood rooted to the spot, alarm and astonishment racing around his brain, not daring to breathe. He felt exposed and vulnerable, like he’d just been ushered on stage without his clothes on. He knew with dreadful certainty what Snape had seen in his head, but he wasn’t sure what he had expected Snape to do with the information.

Call Dumbledore, or McGonagall? Tell Madam Pomfrey, send him to the hospital wing? Give him another detention for being mad, and difficult, and stupid?

But Snape was not doing any of that.

Harry watched numbly as the man settled himself in his chair and picked up his book once again. Snape was not paying him the least bit of attention. His body seemed to unfreeze. Snape did not seem at all shocked or disturbed by the dirty little secret he had just wrested from Harry’s mind….

The man hadn’t even shown enough concern to give Harry anything for the raging headache he’d got from passing out cold on a dungeon floor.

Of course he hadn’t.

Snape didn’t care if Harry had a little headache, and he didn’t care if Harry skipped a few meals now and then. What was it to him? Snape was glad to see Harry miserable. Harry’s breath returned to his chest as relief flooded through him, and he turned back to rest of the grimy cauldrons, grateful, for the first time in his life, that Severus Snape totally and utterly hated him.

“Orange juice?”

Ron held up the pitcher, gesturing questioningly at Harry’s cup.

Harry glanced up, chin resting in his hand, and shook his head. “Nah…thanks.”

Ron shrugged one shoulder and set the pitcher down, returning to his own breakfast.

Harry watched him for a moment, then looked over at Ginny, who, much to Harry’s chagrin, was sitting right beside him. She took a bite of toast before tucking her hair behind her ear and leaning over to add another set of letters to a crossword puzzle she was working on. She looked up abruptly, perhaps sensing his eyes on her, and gave him a small smile.

Ginny hadn’t asked him why he’d got so upset before he had left for detention on Thursday, but Harry could sense it was still bothering her.

Harry’s stomach turned a small somersault. He briefly returned her smile and looked away towards Hermione, who was now deep in a debate with Ron about whether ketchup counted as a vegetable (“Hermione – it literally is made of tomatoes.” "A tomato is a fruit, Ron."). Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny go back to her crossword.

Harry considered the three of them, frowning. They – Ron, Hermione, and Ginny – had all got into the strangely coincidental habit over the last few days of offering him something to drink at random opportunities, even when he was perfectly capable of getting it himself.

It was usually juice. Or tea. Sometimes water.

Never coffee.

And he was developing a niggling suspicion that they had all got together at some point, and that he, Harry, had been the subject of discussion.

Irritation flared in the pit of his stomach at the thought. He did not know why they would have abruptly and collectively decided to try and pump him full of fluids, but he was beginning to find it annoying and he wished he could find a way to tell them to cut it out without sounding slightly paranoid. Harry bitterly pushed his fried tomatoes around on his plate.

He’d started to absolutely dread meals in the Great Hall.

He knew he’d been skipping too many for Ron and Hermione’s comfort, and he was aware he was treading on dangerous ground, as evidenced by the little chat they’d seen fit to have with him, so he’d started showing up for more of them, and tried to eat enough to keep their anxiety over his dining habits under control.

Harry looked briefly up at the staff table where Snape was seated, a small burst of nerves exploding in his belly. But Snape, like the other night, was paying him absolutely no mind.

Harry’s stomach chose that moment to growl unhelpfully, and Hermione glanced at him before turning back to Ron. Harry stabbed one of the smaller bits of tomato and brought it to his mouth, chewing till it was nothing more than mush and swallowing reluctantly.

Harry didn’t know whether it was because he was so tired and irritated all the time now, or if the house elves in the kitchens had changed their recipes, but the Hogwarts food had acquired a strange taste, as if it was all made from the same substance. Like sawdust. Or cardboard. The texture of the meat made Harry’s stomach turn over. He seemed to have lost the taste for things he used to like. Sweets didn’t taste as sweet. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a piece of treacle tart.

Even though he’d gone off the food a bit, he found himself thinking more and more about it.

Harry knew he couldn’t eat whatever he wanted. That was just a plain, simple fact. His brain never shut up about it anymore. He knew if he ate what he used to eat, what Hermione and Ron and everyone else would say he was supposed to eat, he would feel ghastly, feel weak and angry and awful.

But that hadn’t stopped him from wanting everything he could get his hands on.

He’d started having random fantasies about Mrs. Weasley’s cooking (puddings, especially), which would surely taste far better than whatever the elves were producing these days. He had even woken up from a bizarrely delightful dream in which he’d managed to eat a full five helpings of roast beef and mashed potatoes covered in melted chocolate and marshmallows, the combination of which, of course, had made perfectly logical sense in his dream.

Harry thought with a pang of all those days and nights he had spent as a kid with a locked cupboard door standing between him and relief from his hunger. He wondered ruefully what his younger self would think to see Harry now, escaped from the cupboard, surrounded by enormous dishes of food, and still going hungry.

“Harry, will you please tell your friend that ketchup is a condiment!” Hermione burst out, pulling Harry from his brooding.

“Wha- ? Oh. Right,” he agreed vaguely, twisting his fork. “Yeah.”

Hermione rolled her eyes as Ron sniggered, but Harry’s gaze wandered to Hermione’s left, where he’d just noticed the unmistakable blond head of Draco Malfoy bent over whispering to Crabbe.

Malfoy’s eyes flicked up to meet Harry’s and he smirked. Harry looked stonily back at him, but then Malfoy glanced over at Ginny and leaned over to Crabbe again, laughing. Harry felt a hot flood of anger and a sudden, fierce flash of protectiveness. His fist clenched on his knee.

Malfoy’s gaze swept further down the Gryffindor table, and though Harry couldn’t be sure, he thought it rested upon Demelza Robins and Jimmy Peakes for a second before the Slytherin turned his attention back to his own housemates.

Harry continued to stare for a while, trying to decide what to make of this odd behaviour, but Malfoy did not look at him again, and it wasn’t until Ginny tapped him on the shoulder that he realised it was time to head down to the pitch for Quidditch practice.

Never in a million years would Harry have thought he’d be disappointed that Snape hadn’t assigned him an extra Saturday detention. But as he walked down to the Quidditch pitch between Ginny and Ron he couldn’t help but feel that he’d rather be anywhere else.

His arm kept brushing against Ginny’s, and though she seemed not to notice, it was taking every ounce of Harry’s willpower to keep walking calmly next to her instead of taking refuge on the other side of Ron like a spineless git.

Not that Ron’s presence, of course, was making things any easier.

Desperate for a distraction, Harry struck up a conversation with Ron about their Herbology essay, and nearly felt like sighing in relief when the entrance to the pitch loomed up ahead of them. The sun was still hanging low in the sky and the three of them had to shield their eyes as they made their way into the changing rooms where the rest of the team already sat waiting, lacing up boots and gloves and chatting amongst themselves.

To Harry’s mild surprise, Dean Thomas was also waiting, just inside the door, to greet Ginny before finding a seat in the stands to watch her practise. They exchanged a less-than-chaste kiss, and Harry turned away to his locker, wondering whether to feel vindicated in his decision to shut down his feelings for Ginny, or to tell Dean to go ahead and find somewhere else to wait next time.

Ron made a strangled sound beside him, and Harry glanced over to see a vague look of disgust on his face, his eyes trained determinedly on the Keeper’s gloves in his hands. Dean left, nodding to Harry and Ron on his way out, and Ginny came over, pulling on her own gloves.

“D’you have to do that in public?” Ron asked her brusquely, shutting his locker and settling down on a bench to pull on his pads.

“What, snog?” Ginny barely spared him a glance as she sat down next to him, facing the opposite direction. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to look,” she said coolly.

Ron pulled a face at her back as she turned away to talk to Demelza.

Harry shut his own locker and steadfastly avoided Ron’s eye as he addressed the group. “We’ll be doing position practice today, so just start out with the partners you had last week and we’ll switch halfway through, alright? Everyone ready? Let’s go.”

Harry watched his team file out ahead of him, then heaved a deep breath, seized his Firebolt, and followed them, closing the door behind him with a sharp snap.

He hadn’t walked ten steps onto the pitch before he knew something was very wrong.

Katie Bell was knelt down thirty feet away, examining the grass, the rest of the team huddled around her, their confusion palpable even from where Harry was standing. He took a step toward them, then stopped and looked down in bewilderment as the grass crunched noisily under his foot. Squinting against the still-blinding sun, Harry copied Katie and crouched down, running his hand over the ground. The grass was badly charred, the blades crumbling under his fingers. Frowning, Harry looked around quickly at the surrounding field. Most of the grass had been left untouched – the burnt section stretched away in a thick line on either side of him like a foot path, toward the team on the right and shooting off to the far goal posts on the left.

Harry straightened up, raising a hand to shield his eyes, and noticed that the line branched off about halfway down the pitch. Movement off the side caught his eye, and he looked over at the stands where Dean and several others who had come to watch the practice were gathered, murmuring and pointing at the blackened field.

Katie and Ginny jogged over to him, matching looks of worry on their faces.

“What do you think happened?” Katie asked, anxiously tightening her pony tail. “Somebody must have done it on purpose, it looks like a pattern.”

Ginny seemed to pale as she looked at Harry. “You don’t think it’s…cursed, or something?”

Harry stared back at her, his brain zooming into overdrive. Cursed.

He turned abruptly, his eyes darting back and forth, surveying the whole field, a sick dread climbing up his throat. “Wait here,” he told the girls, then mounted his broom and kicked off from the ground, hard.

The wind whipped across Harry’s face as he shot into the air, zooming toward the far end of the pitch and climbing higher and higher until he was even with the tops of the goal posts. He wheeled about sharply, his back to the sun, and felt the breath freeze in his lungs as he stared down at the grassy field in horror.

He could see the tiny forms of his teammates milling about the ruined ground, like insects. And surrounding them, burnt into the ground and filling nearly the entire breadth of the pitch, was the enormous, ugly image of a skull with a twisting snake spilling out of its mouth like a tongue.

The Dark Mark.

“D’you reckon someone’s really been, you know…killed?” Ron asked for the umpteenth time.

Harry wished he wouldn’t. “Doubt it,” he grunted, “we’d have heard about it by now, wouldn’t we?”

Ron’s only response was to kick impatiently at the ground again. Harry glanced back at the pitch entrance.

As soon as Harry had confirmed his suspicions about what had been carved into the Quidditch pitch, he had sent Jimmy up to the school to fetch Professor McGonagall. She had shown up with Dumbledore and Madam Hooch not five minutes later, her face grim, and ordered all students off the pitch and back up to the school immediately.

Harry had remained behind, however, determined to know what was going on, and Ron and Ginny, who seemed just as anxious to know as he was, had stayed with him. They had planted themselves just outside the arena and were now waiting anxiously for the teachers to finish up their examination of the field.

“Ron, will you sit down?” Ginny demanded, plopping down next to Harry on the grass. “You’re making me nervous.”

Ron ignored her and punted a small rock pointedly across the lawn.

Ginny rolled her eyes and snapped off a thick blade of grass, twisting it between her fingers. She propped her forearms on her knees in a reflection of Harry’s position and gently nudged his elbow with hers.

“How are your hands?” she asked him.

At the edge of his vision, Harry saw Ron still, as if listening for Harry’s answer.

“Better,” Harry said, tugging his sleeves down over his wrists self-consciously. He decided not to mention the fact that he’d accidentally scratched some of the wounds back open since she had healed them. “Thanks, again, for that.”

“No problem. Water?” She pulled a bottle out of her robes and offered it to him.

Harry looked at it, an automatic ‘no, thank you’ on the tip of his tongue, before his brain caught up to him. Water was safe. It usually helped, actually.

“Thanks,” he said again, taking the bottle from her. He lifted it to his lips and sniffed at it surreptitiously, though he knew he was being stupid. Ginny would never slip something into his drink. But he couldn’t help himself.

Harry took a couple of swigs and handed it back to her. She took a drink herself, and as she stowed the bottle back in her robes, she said, “Are you feeling alright?”

Harry looked at her for the first time. Her face was open, her bright brown eyes searching his. “Yeah,” Harry said, his mouth going dry. “Why?”

Ginny gave a little shrug, still looking at him. “You just seem tired, lately.”

For one suspended, frightening second, as they looked at each other, Harry found he wanted to admit to Ginny that yes, he was very tired. And hungry. And felt like he was going just a little bit mad, maybe. But then he glanced away, and it passed, and what he said was: “Nah, I’m fine. Just had a lot of homework.”

Harry thought he saw Ron make a sharp movement out of the corner of his eye.

Ginny, beside him, said nothing.

“‘Course you’d know about that by now,” Harry went on, determined to move away from the subject, “you’ve got O.W.L.s this year, has McGonagall given you her lecture yet?”

“Which one?” Ginny laughed as Ron finally settled down beside them, and the three of them spent the next few minutes arguing good-naturedly over whether the fifth or sixth years had it worse.

“Oi! What are you lot doin’ out here?”

Harry, Ron, and Ginny jumped and looked round at Hagrid, who was climbing towards them up the sloping lawn.

Harry clambered to his feet, grinning, as Hagrid reached them. “Hi, Hagrid,” he said happily, craning his neck to see the giant’s face as he dusted himself off.

“‘Hi’ yerself,” Hagrid said gruffly, clapping Harry on the back and nearly sending him tumbling back onto the grass. “Back at school a month, an’ yeh haven’t bin ter see me, eh?” But his beetle-black eyes were crinkled in a smile behind his bushy beard.

Harry shrugged a bit sheepishly, rubbing his smarting shoulder. “Sorry,” he said sincerely. “Been busy.”

“We were going to come visit after Quidditch tryouts, but – ” Ron broke off abruptly, shifting his weight, and glanced at Harry.

“But they went on forever, and then I had a detention with Snape,” Harry covered, grimacing for good measure. Liar, a voice whispered into his mind, and the scratches on his wrists gave an itchy throb. Ginny hummed vaguely behind him.

Hagrid seemed not to hear her, however. “Aren’ yeh supposed to be practisin’?” he asked, eyeing their brooms laying on the ground.

“We’re waiting for Dumbledore and McGonagall,” Harry explained, and he told Hagrid all about the skull burnt onto the pitch.

“A Dark Mark!” Hagrid burst out, his giant head swiveling to stare at the walls of the stadium in horror. “At Hogwarts! But no one’s bin killed, have they?”

“That’s what we were wondering, but I don’t think they have,” Ginny said calmly. “It wasn’t a real Dark Mark, not one of those green smoky things in the sky.”

“Still,” Hagrid insisted darkly. “Doesn’ bode well....”

At that moment, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall emerged from the pitch entrance. Harry’s stomach jumped instantly, and he snatched his Firebolt off the ground and hurried over to them, Ron, Ginny, and Hagrid trotting along in his wake.

“I believe I told you to return to the castle, Potter,” McGonagall said as Harry skidded to a stop, looking at him sternly over the tops of her square spectacles.

“Yes, sorry, Professor,” Harry said quickly. He glanced at Dumbledore. The headmaster said nothing, but his moustache twitched in the barest trace of a smile as he looked down at Harry. “I just wanted to know what happened.”

“Of course you did,” McGonagall replied dryly.

“No one’s hurt, are they?” Ron asked uneasily, and she looked around at the rest of the group.

“I don’t believe so, no,” she assured them, and they all relaxed a little. “There has been no such report from either the school or Hogsmeade village. The Mark itself does not appear to be cursed or jinxed in any way – it seems to be nothing more than a prank of some kind.”

“A prank?” echoed Harry incredulously.

“Someone drew You-Know-Who’s sign on Hogwarts grounds, Professor!” Ginny blurted, and Harry felt a rush of gratitude for her.

“Yes, a prank,” McGonagall said firmly. “A highly distasteful one, unquestionably, and we will certainly be looking for the person responsible.”

Hagrid turned to Dumbledore. “Are yeh sure, Professor? Everyone’s alrigh’?”

“Oh yes, quite sure, Hagrid,” Dumbledore said reassuringly, reaching up to pat the giant’s arm. “Our Madam Hooch is entirely confident she can restore the field to its former glory by tomorrow. At which time,” he added, turning to Harry, “you will be free to reschedule your practice.”

Harry nodded. He shifted his broom in his hands and bit his lip, debating.

“Yes, Harry?” Dumbledore was watching him closely.

“Sir, do you…do you think whoever did this was the same person who wrote all that stuff on the second floor?” Harry asked carefully.

The headmaster paused. “Yes, I believe that is a possibility.”

“Why?” asked McGonagall sharply. “Do you know something about this, Potter?”

Harry resisted the urge to glance at Ron. “…no, Professor.”

“Very well, then,” she said briskly. “It is nothing I would worry yourself about, any of you.” She gave one last firm look to Harry, Ron, and Ginny before nodding to Dumbledore. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve still some paperwork to finish.”

“Of course, Professor,” said Dumbledore, and McGonagall strode off across the lawn toward the castle.

Hagrid exchanged a few more words with Dumbledore and then ambled away in the direction of his hut, waving and calling over his shoulder to Harry and Ron. “See yeh soon!”

Ron and Ginny turned to make their way back to the school, and Harry started to follow them, but Dumbledore stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait a moment, please, Harry,” he said quietly, and Harry watched as the headmaster withdrew a tightly-furled scroll from his robes. “Our next lesson,” he explained upon seeing Harry’s questioning look. Harry’s heart leapt, and he took the scroll gratefully, stowing it away in his own robes.

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said. The burst of adrenaline and nerves he’d got from seeing that Mark spread out on the Quidditch field like a death omen still lingered in his system – he was practically itching to get back to their lessons, to be able to do something useful, and he hoped the date Dumbledore had set wasn’t too long from now.

Harry looked up to find Dumbledore watching him intently, those piercing blue eyes giving Harry that familiar sensation of being x-rayed, like Dumbledore could see straight inside him. Harry fought the impulse to squirm.

“Have you been looking after yourself, Harry?” Dumbledore asked evenly.

The hand on Harry’s shoulder tightened almost imperceptibly, and Harry was seized by a sudden paranoia that Dumbledore could feel all of his bones through his clothes –

“Yes, sir,” Harry said, very quietly, and forced himself not to look away.

Dumbledore was silent for a moment as he studied Harry over his glasses.

“That’s good to hear,” he finally said softly, then released Harry, patting him on the shoulder. “I think I shall go and assist Madam Hooch – your friends seem to be waiting for you.” He nodded at Ron and Ginny, who had stopped about twenty feet away.

“Yes, sir,” Harry said again, and walked away quickly without looking back.

“What was that about?” Ginny asked curiously when Harry had joined them.

Harry shrugged. “Nothing, really, he just asked how I was,” he lied.

He caught Ron’s eye, giving him a significant look that said ‘I’ll tell you later,’ and the three of them headed back to the castle, Harry feeling uncomfortably all the while as though his shoulder were burning beneath his robes.

“What?” Hermione practically shrieked, accidentally blotting her parchment with a few fat drops of ink.

As soon as they’d got back to the common room, Harry and Ron had wasted no time in telling Hermione all about what had happened at Quidditch practice.

“Is everyone alright?” she asked urgently, forgetting her homework. “What did McGonagall and Dumbledore say?”

“They said it some sort of prank.”

“Well of course it was a prank, if no one was hurt, but it’s still quite serious.”

“Oh so now it’s serious?” Harry questioned irritably. “Malfoy can write whatever he wants about Muggle-borns on the walls, but he has to actually put up a Dark Mark before anyone takes it seriously.”

“You don’t know it was him, Harry.”

“Yeah, I do,” he said flatly, thinking of the way Malfoy had laughed with Crabbe at breakfast.

“Merlin’s bollocks,” Ron muttered wearily under his breath as Harry and Hermione frowned at each other. “Harry!” he exclaimed in a fake-bright voice that was clearly meant to change the subject. “Didn’t Dumbledore tell you something you’d like to share with the class?”

“Oh, yeah!” Harry said quickly, forgetting about Malfoy for the moment and searching around in his robes for the scroll Dumbledore had given him. He pulled it out and undid the little ribbon. “He said it was about our next lesson.” He flattened out the parchment and scanned Dumbledore’s slanting handwriting eagerly, then felt his heart sink. “It’s not for two more weeks….”

“Well it’s not that far off,” Hermione encouraged him. “And anyway that gives you more time to focus on your schoolwork.”

“Yeah, I s’pose,” said Harry gloomily, shoving the note back in his pocket.

“And you’ll tell us what he teaches you this time?” Ron asked with a hint of exasperation.

But Harry did not get a chance to respond, for at that exact moment, a piercing screech resounded from the staircase leading up to the girls’ dormitories, followed by the sound of hurried, stomping footsteps, and then Romilda Vane emerged at the bottom of the stairs, a thunderous look on her face, which had been dyed a vivid, shimmering purple, her equally discolored hands planted on her hips as she glared around accusingly at the packed common room.

There was a deafening second of stunned silence as everyone stared at her, and then a great eruption of laughter as people rolled around in their seats, falling against each other in hysterics, tears of mirth streaming down their faces.

“WHO DID THIS?” Romilda shrieked, her eyes wild.

Harry gaped at her as all the students around him howled and roared.

He felt oddly frozen.

A triumphant laugh was threatening to bubble up into his throat, but he looked around in shock, wondering what reason someone else might possibly have for playing a practical joke on Romilda.

What if someone knew about…?

But no one was looking at him, or giving any hint that they’d had anything to do with Romilda’s new shiny purple skin, and Harry relaxed a bit, letting himself give into laughter for the first time in what felt like ages.

Hermione stood up, stifling her own giggle, and tried to call order. “Alright, alright, it’s not funny, now let’s have it, who’s responsible for this?” But no one was paying her any heed. She turned around and tugged at Ron’s arm. “Come on, you’re a Prefect too, we have to find out what happened.”

But Ron was bent over double, face buried in his arms, quaking with silent laughter, and Hermione gave him up as useless.

“Oh come on, Hermione,” Ginny laughed from the next table over. “Who cares? Everyone knows Romilda’s a rotten, spoiled harpy!”

Hermione crossed her arms, and frowned disapprovingly down at Ginny, Ron, and Harry.

But Harry couldn’t bring himself to feel the least bit badly as Romilda stamped her foot furiously, gave another wordless shriek of indignation, and stomped back up the stairs, her outraged friends jumping up out of their seats to accompany her.

That night, Harry climbed the stairs to bed feeling better than he had in weeks. Romilda was refusing to show her face in the common room until she was cured, the Gryffindor team had all confirmed they were free to practise next day, and he had his next lesson with Dumbledore to look forward to. He had even managed to get through some of his homework, finishing two of the essays that had been giving him trouble.

“Lucky for you,” Ron grumbled as he pushed open the door to their dormitory. “I still haven’t even thought of a topic for mine. Maybe I’ll ask Hermione tomorrow.”

“What am I, a troll?” Harry demanded, holding a hand to his chest in mock-offense.

“Yeah, maybe,” Ron chuckled as he tossed his wand on the bedside table. “I mean, if it looks like one.”

“Oi!” Harry exclaimed and he seized his pillow, whipping it at Ron.

Ron ducked and grinned, snatching up the pillow and chucking it straight back at Harry, who caught it effortlessly with one hand. Ron shook his head, still grinning, and delved into his trunk to fish out a pair of pyjamas.

Neville stumbled into the room, waving tiredly to Harry, and went straight for the bathroom.

Feeling pleasantly light, Harry pulled his wand and Cloak out of his pocket and tossed them at the head of the bed, plopping his pillow back on top of them before shedding his robes and lobbing them into the laundry in the corner. He tugged his t-shirt over his head and threw that in the laundry too, yawning, his mind already turning fuzzy with the anticipation of sleep –

Ron swore loudly behind him, and Harry wheeled around, startled, expecting to see a spider, or Ron nursing a stubbed toe.

But Ron wasn’t looking at a spider, or a toe.

He was staring at Harry.

His eyes were wide, his mouth open very slightly as he took in Harry’s bare torso, his gaze sweeping over Harry’s collarbones, his shoulders, his ribs.

Harry flinched away instinctively under the examination, his body angling to the side, his shoulders hunching unconsciously forward. He steadfastly avoided Ron’s eyes.

“You’re skinny.” There was an odd mix of astonishment and accusation in his voice.

Harry glanced down at himself.

He hadn’t lost that much. No more than he usually did over the summer, anyway. He gave a jerky shrug, crossing his arms over his chest. “You sound like your mum,” he tried with a tense chuckle, glancing at Ron’s face.

Ron did not smile.

“Shit, Harry. I…I didn’t know it was this bad.” he said faintly, almost as if he were talking to himself. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, hard.

“It's not bad,” Harry frowned, bristling. “I just haven’t been very hungry.”

A muted thump came from the direction of the bathroom and Harry and Ron both looked over to see Neville in the doorway, gathering up the towel he’d dropped. “Er - sorry,” he told them softly as he straightened back up. He was looking at Harry, too.

Flushing, Harry stalked around to his trunk, snatching up the first t-shirt he could find and pulling it roughly over his head. Realising he was still wearing his jeans, he grabbed a pair of pyjama bottoms and headed for the bathroom, walking around Neville without a word, and kicking the door closed.

When he came back, Neville and Ron were both sitting silently on their beds.

Ron opened his mouth to say something, but Harry cut him off.

“I’m fine, Ron, just go to bed.”

“Harry – ”

“I’m going to sleep,” Harry bit out, taking off his glasses and climbing into bed. He yanked his hangings closed against Ron and Neville’s worried expressions and punched his pillow into shape, rolling over to lie stiffly on his side as he listened to the other two settle into their own beds.

Harry stared into the darkness, running his fingers along his bony wrist, scratching lightly at one of the blisters, heart thumping heavily in his chest. Ron’s shocked expression swam before his eyes no matter how hard he tried to block it out. He thought of Dumbledore’s piercing, studious gaze, and Lupin’s letter.

If there’s anything, at all, you wish to talk about….

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, feeling suddenly as though all the air had been sucked out of the room, and tried to picture Romilda’s furious purple face. But after a while he had to admit that even that wasn’t enough to make him feel better, and he opened his eyes and drew his legs up to his chest, reluctantly resigning himself to another sleepless night as he swallowed down the burning lump in his throat.

Chapter Text

Goosebumps erupted all over Harry’s skin as he examined himself, shivering and half-naked, in the dim light of the bathroom mirror. Cold water dripped off his nose, his chin, streamed down his neck in little rivulets, and he swiped it from his eyes, not bothering to dry the rest of his face before slipping his glasses back on. He had been pulled from his bed, again, by that dream of screams and panic and red light...Harry sighed wearily, the searing images of blood-red flashes dissipating in the cool bathroom as reality slunk back in.

He had more pressing concerns at the moment than tired old meaningless nightmares.

Like what he was going to say to Ron when he woke up. Ron’s stricken expression burst before his eyes again, and Harry winced, the memory making his gut swoop. He’d been an absolute idiot, being so thoughtless.

But as he looked his bare torso up in down in the mirror, Harry had to admit he was not quite sure what Ron’s problem was. He tilted his head slightly, pinched the skin over his left hip bone, rolling it experimentally between his fingers. Frowning, he turned to the side and raised an arm, bringing his other hand up to trail over his ribs, his fingers slotting into the spaces between them, like puzzle pieces. Dropping his arms, Harry grasped the edges of the sink and leaned forward, his eyes sweeping over his face, the slight hollowness of his cheeks.

He supposed, as he continued to stare at himself, that he really had lost some weight. A few pounds, maybe.

Another shiver ran up his spine, this one having very little to do with the chill of the room, and a tiny, weak voice struggled to the surface of his mind: What the hell are you doing? This is madness….

But it wasn’t mad, not really, not when Harry thought about it. The weight loss was nothing, it was simply a side effect. Of what Harry had to do, what he needed to do, to keep everything…balanced; that thought alone instantly calmed him. And in any case it didn’t seem nearly as bad to him as Ron and Neville had made it out to be.

As for what he was going to tell Ron, he had a few hours yet to work that out.

Harry looked away from his reflection and swiped the last remaining droplets of water from his face as he slipped silently back into the bedroom. Careful not to make a sound, he gathered up his things and made his way to the door, stuffing his worn and faded running sweats into his bag as he went.

The moon shone brightly into the darkened, shadowy corridors as Harry crept his way down to the Entrance Hall, peering out of the windows as he passed. There was not yet even a hint of sunrise, and Harry was glad of it – he could take all the time he wanted this morning.

Pausing by a window, Harry pulled out the Marauder’s Map and gave it the cursory scan that was routine by now, but Malfoy’s tiny dot was installed in the Slytherin area of the dungeons, completely immobile. Harry had expected it; he’d got into the habit of checking the Map every time he woke in the middle of the night, always with the same result, but he couldn’t help but feel that little plunge of disappointment as he stowed the Map back in his bag. Harry sank onto the bench-sized windowsill and rubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses.

He was so tired.

He sat there for a moment in the silence of the castle, face pressed into his hands, and let himself indulge in the thought of going back to his soft, warm bed. But he knew all too well there would be no use in it. There never was. His nightmares decided when he would wake, and he did not get second chances.

Pushing his glasses back into place, Harry stood and hauled his bag back over his shoulder, concentrating instead on not dragging his feet as he continued on his way.

The Entrance Hall was darker than the floors above, and Harry was halfway down the grand marble staircase before he was brought up short by the sight of someone standing by the front doors. Harry froze with one foot hovering in the air over the next step, panic racing down to toes before remembering he was covered by his Invisibility Cloak. He tiptoed down a few more steps, squinting at the mysterious figure. With a small start, he realised it was Tonks.

Harry knew she’d been one of the Aurors stationed at the school as extra security this year, but he hadn’t seen her since the students had arrived in Hogsmeade at the start of term. Why was she here standing watch over the front entrance? There hadn’t been any guards for Harry to slip past on any of the other mornings he had sneaked out…then again, he’d never gone out quite this early before, either. As Harry watched, Tonks paced past the left door and bumped into a suit of armour, sending its spear clanging to the floor.

“Shhhh!” she whispered, flapping her hands frantically at the suit as though it could hear her and replacing the spear quickly in its hand as the clanking echo dissipated slowly into nothingness. A ghost in a waistcoat and a three-cornered hat glided through the west wall and passed over Tonks’ head without looking at her.

“My dear lady, do try and keep it down, the occupants of this noble castle are still as yet swathed in the supple bosom of sleep these small hours,” he droned in a morose sort of voice, “Ahhh blessed sleep, it has been over a century since last I….”

His voice trailed away, waxing poetic about his last corporeal nap as he disappeared through the wall opposite. Tonks pulled a face, sticking her tongue out at the wall through which the ghost had vanished, and muttered something about inappropriate use of the phrase ‘supple bosom.’ Harry bit back a grin as he pulled the Map out again. There was a secret passageway out of the castle a couple of floors up, Harry knew – Filch knew about it, too, but the caretaker’s dot, hounded closely by the one labeled ‘Mrs. Norris,’ was on the opposite side of the castle at the moment, patrolling a hallway on the sixth floor. Didn’t he ever sleep? Harry thought with annoyance. But the man was out of the way, at least, and Harry quietly retreated back up the staircase as Tonks started to pace back and forth again before the front doors.

Ten minutes, two staircases, and a dirty, steep slide down later, Harry emerged from behind a group of willow shrubs on the east side of the castle near the greenhouses. Glancing around quickly to make sure there were no more surprise guards lurking about, Harry set off around the castle towards the Quidditch pitch, wiping his grimy palms on his trousers as he went. A distant splash echoed over the grounds and Harry looked over at the lake to see one of the giant squid’s massive tentacles sloshing about in the shallows. The moonlight glinted brightly off the waves, and Harry, thinking of the extra hours he had before dawn, mulled over the thought of trying to get as far he could round the lake after his usual four laps around the pitch. Buoyed by the thought of the extra challenge, Harry squared his shoulders and quickened his pace towards the pitch.

Ice cold water beat down on Harry’s head, plastering his fringe to his face as he sat huddled on the floor of the changing room showers. Intense shivers wracked his body, making the side of his head bump jarringly against the shower wall, but he hardly noticed. His stomach cramped sickeningly again and he leaned quickly over to the side, retching. Nothing came up but a tiny stream of bile, and Harry curled up again, ducking his head between his knees and breathing heavily.

He had blacked out again.

Near the lake, right under the beech tree where his father and Sirius and Lupin had once sat relaxing as fifth years after their O.W.L. examinations. He had woken up, face pressed uncomfortably into the grass, the sky considerably lighter than it had been when he’d lost consciousness. It had been a dreadful, sickening feeling, waking up like that, forgetting utterly for a moment where he was, and then had come the realisation that anyone, anyone, could have found him lying there like that out in the open.

He had managed to drag himself back to the Quidditch pitch, staggering, half-blind with his heart threatening to burst behind his ribs, but it had been a very close thing, and he’d nearly collapsed again from the effort.

Harry’s stomach rolled again as he sat there in the shower, and he tucked his head down a bit further, grasping his forearms and digging his nails in as hard as he could to ground himself. Harry had been close to death more times than he wished to remember, and this did not truthfully feel much different from any of those times…the thought did nothing to comfort him as he crouched there, struggling to draw a proper breath.

After a few more minutes, the world around Harry seemed to stabilise, and he raised his head cautiously, releasing his grip on his arms. The cold water stung a little as it washed over his arms, and Harry peered myopically at them – his nails had left ragged bloody crescents where he’d dug them in, and he watched, blinking, as the water washed away the blood in little tiny rivers that swirled around the drain and then disappeared without a trace. Harry stared at the drain a moment longer, then reached up, bracing himself against the tiles, and climbed gingerly to his feet. He bumped the tap over to ‘hot,’ confident now that the heat and steam were not going to make him pass out again. His whole body jerked at the sudden change in temperature, and he stood there, hunching under the blistering stream, once more wishing miserably that he was back in his bed, worrying about nothing more than Quidditch and homework and Seamus talking in his sleep.

When he felt marginally more human, Harry stepped out of the stall, wrapped a towel around his waist, and groped about for his glasses before he headed back around to the lockers to change. As he rounded the corner, however, Harry stopped so suddenly that he almost slipped on the wet floor.

Ron was sitting there on one of the benches with his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped between them, gazing doggedly up at Harry. They looked at each other in silence for a long moment.

“You look like hell,” Ron said evenly.

Harry blinked slowly, contemplating the wooden legs of the bench on which Ron sat. Without a word, Harry walked around behind him, pulling his bag out of his locker. He glanced at Ron’s back, but he had not moved to turn around, so Harry slipped on his underwear and jeans and t-shirt before doing exactly what he knew Ron was expecting him to do and walking back around to sink down onto the bench opposite. The floor was icy under his bare feet, and he leaned over to dig through his bag, fishing out a pair of socks. As he pulled them on, he noticed his hands were still shaking, and he clasped them together, finally looking up at Ron.

“What are you doing up so early?” Harry asked him lightly.

Ron hesitated, ever so slightly, and Harry could tell it was one of those moments where Ron was gearing up to do something he found a bit awkward, but necessary. “Making sure you come to breakfast.”

Ron’s tone was firm, and resentment coiled in the pit of Harry’s stomach. He had suspected an attack like this, and he fought to keep his voice perfectly even. “I’m not a kid, Ron,” he said. “And I’m not – ”

“ – hungry, I know,” Ron finished for him, and Harry noticed that the tips of his ears were red. Ron’s hands jumped momentarily into the air, like a man at the end of his tether. “I don’t care, Harry, I don’t care anymore if you’re not hungry, you’ve got to eat something. I don’t care if it’s treacle tart or chips or, hell, a pile of chocolate frogs, just something.” He ran a hand frenetically through his hair. “I know you’re – you’re stressed, and you’ve got stuff to deal with and everything, I know that, but you’re gonna make yourself sick and – and I dunno.” He shrugged and shook his head slightly at the ground before looking back up at Harry, admitting very quietly, "I don't know what to do."

There was a gravity in Ron’s expression that was not usually there, and everything Harry had rehearsed in his head all morning, every possible answer he had been prepared to tell Ron fell away when faced with the reality of it, leaving Harry feeling uncomfortably disarmed. He wanted to say something, to offer some sound excuse, to fix the look on Ron’s face, and make everything better...easier.

Water dripped slowly from Harry’s hair onto the ground, making barely audible little splashing noises in the strained silence.

A thought occurred to Harry then, however, and his resentment returned. “Is that why you’ve all been trying to shove drinks down my throat? You and Hermione been talking about me to Ginny behind my back, have you?”

Ron looked slightly guilty at that, but his ears turned an even brighter shade of red, and he said sharply, “No, Ginny’s been talking to us about you, actually. It was her idea – she thought extra fluids might help a bit, and we all agreed – ”

All agreed.

Harry tried to be angry about that, but the thought of Ginny’s concern deflated him. The idea was more than a little embarrassing, but he could not help the feeling of warmth that spread through him as he considered the effort Ginny had put into trying to help him.

“Well, you all can cut that out, if you don’t mind,” Harry said, without any real heat. Ron looked as though he wanted to argue, but Harry went on quietly. “It’s not as bad as you think...I’ll get over it. I always do.” He tried to smile reassuringly, but was not quite sure he achieved the desired effect; Ron continued to stare at him with that relentless worry in his eyes.

“Maybe - I don’t know, maybe Madam Pomfrey can give you something to help? You know, like an appetite stimulant or something?” Ron suggested, so hopefully that it made something twist deep inside Harry’s chest.

Harry picked at a thread on the hem of the t-shirt that had once belonged to Dudley. He had been telling Ron and Hermione over and over again that this…not-eating thing of his was all about a lack of hunger, but the fact that they believed this to be true nevertheless left him feeling a maddening combination of enormous relief and a profound sense of loneliness that he couldn’t shake. Harry cleared his throat.

“Yeah,” he managed in a low voice. “Yeah, maybe.”

Ron grimaced in a sympathetic, encouraging sort of way and nodded slightly, as though it had all been decided. “Alright then, come on. Breakfast.” He got up, his usual, casual air returning. “I wonder if they’ve got that raspberry jam this morning, the kitchens haven’t sent that up in ages.”

Harry pulled on his shoes and jacket, moving a bit more slowly than he normally might have done.

“Yeah. Breakfast,” he repeated heavily, scratching uneasily at one of his ragged wrists as he followed Ron out of the changing rooms.

Hermione picked up on the slight air of tension as soon as Harry and Ron sat down beside her in the Great Hall, and kept throwing the pair of them questioning glances, but Harry did not feel remotely like explaining. He had decided, reluctantly, that the easiest way to get Ron off his back for the time being was to go ahead and try to eat breakfast like it was perfectly normal and not a highly difficult and complicated thing to do. Harry spooned a pile of food onto his plate, hardly noticing what it was, and focused all his concentration on mentally reciting the names of every professional Seeker he could think of while he mechanically brought forkful after forkful to his mouth and swallowed.

The feeling of the food filling up his stomach brought him back to himself more than once, and Harry forced his mind as hard as he possibly could away from what was happening. The conversations going on all around Harry dimmed to a vague ringing, his hands and feet slowly turning so cold they were practically numb, and when Ron and Hermione got up to leave the table, Harry followed them robotically, his fork clattering loudly against his plate as it slipped from his fingers, thinking in a far-off sort of way that maybe it hadn’t been the easiest way after all.

Harry looked at his watch again as he passed Flitwick’s office door for the third time, even though it had only been perhaps a minute since he’d last checked it. Ron and Hermione had left fifteen minutes ago for lunch after extracting a promise from Harry, who had claimed he’d had to go to the bathroom, that he would catch them up. Instead, Harry had been wandering the halls of the seventh floor, pacing up and down, knowing full well he couldn’t follow them and trying to think of a way out of whatever would happen when he didn’t show up.

Even the thought of taking a step down the stairs made Harry’s lungs contract with panic.

A suffocating sense that the walls were trying to close in on him had hounded Harry since breakfast that morning; he hadn’t eaten so much in what felt like months, and the fullness in his belly had been almost too much for him to stand. He’d even been struck by a brief madness and considered sneaking away to throw up everything he’d managed to get down, but Harry had immediately recoiled at the thought – he’d tried throwing up on purpose once, when Aunt Petunia had fed him leftovers that had seen better days, but it had not been an easy thing. And anyway, something about being sick on purpose felt vaguely to him like crossing some sort of unspoken line. So, he had endured the feeling as best he could, distracting himself as much as possible with pacing around his dormitory and, when Neville had asked him to play, a few vigorous rounds of Exploding Snap in the common room.

Harry did not know what he was going to say to Ron and Hermione when they inevitably tracked him down; he had come up with many an excuse in his day, but his brain felt tired and slow, strangled by nerves and pressure and lack of sleep. Not for the first time that day, Harry contemplated just sitting down to rest for a second, but the thought was only half-appealing. He had to keep moving, or he’d go insane.

His mind wandered to the Quidditch practice that had been rescheduled for that afternoon, and he busied himself with a mental rundown of all the drills he wanted to run with the team. He strolled past the gargoyle that marked the entrance to Dumbledore’s study…Demelza had been having some trouble with her Sloth Grip Roll, he’d have to demonstrate that one again…the plain, wooden door of a broom closet came into view, and Harry crossed to the other side of the corridor, walking a bit faster…Ritchie showed a tendency to beat the Bludgers with quite a lot of enthusiasm, which was admirable but compromised his aim a fair bit, and they’d definitely have to do some target practice.

“Made it out of the bathroom after all, I see.”

Harry stopped in his tracks and looked round. He had made it back to the portrait of the Fat Lady without his noticing – Hermione was coming towards him up the corridor.

“That’s a relief, we thought you’d fallen in," she said dryly as she reached him. "Less paperwork for Filch now I see you haven’t drowned in the toilets.”

“I’m touched,” Harry deadpanned.

He knew at once that Ron had told Hermione what had happened the night before; her expression was mild, but her eyes kept flicking down to his chest like she could see through his shirt, and she had brought him a plate from the Great Hall. There wasn’t much on it, he saw, but there were clear signs that she had tried to add extra calories. The roll was small but slathered in butter, there was a pile of ketchup over two sausages, and the mashed potatoes were absolutely swimming in gravy. Hermione handed it to him, and Harry took it reluctantly. It seemed to weigh a ton in his hand.

“Where’s Ron?”

Hermione rolled her eyes, but there was a certain fondness in them all the same. “I left my bag in the Hall and he wouldn’t let me go back and get it, he insisted on doing it himself,” she said, shaking her head slightly.

Harry snorted, raising an eyebrow at her. “Gallant of him.”

A flush crept up Hermione’s cheeks, but she sniffed and said briskly. “Idiotic, more like, I’m perfectly capable of fetching my own things.”

“Trust me,” Harry reassured her, “he knows you’re more than capable by now – we both do.”

Hermione’s expression softened as she looked at him. “You look like you’re about to fall over, Harry, come sit down…” she said quietly, and she took him by the elbow, steering them both over to the wall where they sank down onto the stone floor. Hermione’s leg pressed against his, and Harry shifted away as casually as he could so that there was an inch or two of space between them. He set the plate down gratefully beside him.

“You should really try to eat some of that,” Hermione coaxed, nudging his side gently.

Harry stared at the plate, watched the gravy drip heavily off the mashed potatoes…he knew Ron and Hermione were only trying to help, but it did not stop him wondering a bit ruefully when exactly they had become so interfering. Suddenly remembering something he had been wanting to ask, Harry turned sharply to Hermione.

“Did you write Lupin?”

Hermione looked slightly surprised at the change of subject, but hugged her knees and shrugged in a very so-what-if-I-did sort of way. “Yes.”

“About me?”

“Yes, I did, I thought you two might be able to talk about – ”

“Hermione,” Harry ground out. “He doesn’t need that, he’s...” He looked around quickly, lowering his voice. “He’s off doing something for Dumbledore, some sort of mission, and he doesn’t need you distracting him with stuff that doesn’t matter.”

“Harry, you’re not a distraction to him. And it does matter, and since you won’t talk to us – ”

“There is – nothing – wrong – I’ve told you that,” Harry huffed, running a hand through his hair. “Did you tell him about after tryouts?” he asked her accusingly.

“No…I didn’t!” she insisted when Harry fixed her with a look. “But I do think you should,” she added stubbornly, returning a bit of his glare.

Harry shook his head in disbelief and pushed himself off the floor, moving deliberately so that all the blood wouldn’t rush to his head too quickly.

“Where are you going?” Hermione demanded.

“The Owlery,” Harry said shortly, dusting himself off.

“You didn’t eat your lunch, you really need to – ” Hermione started, rising to her feet.

“I will. I will, okay?” Harry said again at her stern expression, holding his hands up in a placating gesture and taking a few backwards steps away from her down the corridor before turning around and throwing over his shoulder, “Got to reply to Lupin, haven’t I?”

“There had better be something of substance in that letter!” she called after him, and Harry heard the scrape of her picking his plate up off the ground as he ducked around the corner.

Whatever Hermione’s intentions, the idea of Lupin asking Harry if he needed to talk simply because she had asked the man to do so was possibly one of the most mortifying things Harry could imagine, and he sent Hedwig off with a note apologising on Hermione’s behalf and reassuring his old professor that there was, indeed, nothing to be concerned about.

Slumping down on the Owlery’s steps, taking care to avoid a group of tiny mouse skeletons, Harry sat with his chin in his hands, poking dejectedly at a pile of straw with the toe of his trainer. A light wind whistled through the tower’s glassless windows, and he huddled closer to the wall. He could not go back to Hermione and her ketchup-smeared-sausages, nor could he stay here and hide forever, as attractive as that option seemed to him. He’d been careless, far too careless, these past few weeks, and now Ron and Hermione (and apparently Ginny) were watching more closely than ever.

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to eat anything, exactly, it was just that Hogwarts fare was nothing but meat and butter and cream and sugar and fat, and Harry had developed a distaste for how…heavy it all was. He just couldn’t eat enough of it to keep his friends happy. Harry closed his eyes and rubbed at them. What he needed was a way to eat enough to pacify them, without feeling like he wanted to scratch himself to shreds and vomit everything back up.

Harry suddenly sat up very straight; he’d just been struck by a brilliant thought, so clear and so simple he marveled that he hadn’t thought of it before. Scrambling to his feet as quickly as he dared, he took the spiral stairs two at a time, careful not to slip in any owl droppings as he hurried down to the floor below.

Having just finished serving lunch, the house-elves of the Hogwarts kitchens were busy bustling about, stowing pots and pans and plates, magicking away spills and messes and unused ingredients with snaps of their little fingers. Harry jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a head-on collision with an elf carrying a teetering stack of large brass pots, and the tiny elf squeaked a hasty apology as he hurried on, nodding politely to Harry. Another elf passed by, and before Harry could put out a hand to stop her, she spotted him and stilled, looking up at him with an adoring, servile expression that made Harry distinctly uncomfortable.

“Is there anything I can be getting you, sir?”

“Er – yes, actually, sorry to bother you, but do you know where I can find Dobby?”

A look of mild disapproval crossed the elf’s face, but she pointed over to the large brick fireplace at the other end of the room. “Over there, sir, but there is other elves, other proper elves, if you is needing something done….”

“No, thanks, Dobby'll do just fine, he’s a friend, I wanted to ask him something.”

The elf shook her head in the direction of the fireplace, as though the idea of being considered anything but a servant by a wizard was cause for deepest embarrassment, but she smiled toothily as she looked back at Harry and gave him a low bow that brought her long nose almost to the floor. “If that is all you is needing, sir.” And she scurried away.

Harry made his way up between the long wooden tables that sat directly beneath their House-table counterparts in the Great Hall; Dobby came into view a moment later, wearing his tea cosy hat, a pair of bright blue shorts, and a couple of mismatched socks, and carrying an armful of freshly-washed teacups, which he promptly dropped with a magnificent crash as soon as he saw Harry.

“Harry Potter, sir!” Dobby squealed, hurtling towards him and hugging him around the waist as Harry let out a stifled “Oof!”

“It’s good to see you, too, Dobby,” Harry grinned, patting the elf on the back as he squeezed Harry once more and released him.

“Oh, Dobby has been hoping to see Harry Potter again, it has been too long, sir – Dobby has missed him very much!” Dobby squeaked, beaming up at Harry and wringing his hands excitedly. “Would Harry Potter like some tea? If he does not mind Dobby saying so, Harry Potter is looking a bit peaky.”

“No, it’s okay. Look – ”

“Dobby is making a mess!” cried one of the other elves in a high-pitched voice, pointing to the heap of shattered teacups.

“Here let me,” Harry said, taking out his wand, but Dobby stopped him, patting his hand graciously.

“Harry Potter is very kind, but Dobby can do it, sir!” he said happily. He snapped his fingers, and the pieces fitted themselves back together instantly, forming neat stacks of teacups in midair, and then zooming over to a shelf set against the wall where they settled gently without a scratch. Harry stared, impressed, and Dobby giggled delightedly.

Harry shook his head and said, “Listen, Dobby, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Anything, sir!”

“Are students allowed to make requests for meals? I mean, you know, their own individual meals?”

Dobby looked thoughtful for a moment. “Dobby thinks so, sir, there is no rules against it – only Corky tells Dobby about a student who came to Hogwarts ten years ago, from a pure-blood family, he was, and he made the kitchen serve him great steaks and fillets of fish and entire pheasants for every meal, and Corky says Professor Dumbledore put a stop to it straight away.”

“Oh, well that’s alright then, this is nothing like that,” Harry assured him, relieved and more than a little revolted. He dug around in his pocket for his spare quill. “Have you got any paper?” He'd used the last of his in his letter to Lupin.

Dobby disappeared instantly with a loud crack, then reappeared just as suddenly a second later, holding out a small roll of parchment.

“Here you are, Harry Potter!” Dobby shrilled proudly.

Harry thanked him and sat down at one of the long tables, Dobby scrambling up onto the bench opposite to watch him.

The summer two years ago when Dudley’s school had finally put him on a diet had been one of the most miserable times of Harry’s life, but he couldn’t help but be thankful for it now. Aunt Petunia had kept Dudley’s diet sheet taped to the fridge, listing all the low-fat, low-calorie foods he was allowed to have. The nurse had sent home pamphlets, too, that Aunt Petunia had half-heartedly perused – she kept insisting the entire time that the school was sadly mistaken, there was nothing wrong with her dear Diddykins – and Harry, bored to tears one afternoon, had looked through them as well. Before that summer, Harry'd had little cause to know or care what a calorie was, or how many of them were in which foods, but the information was proving useful now as he scribbled down everything from the list he could remember. When he had finished, he handed the paper to Dobby, who looked over it quickly.

“Oh, but this will be easy, sir,” Dobby exclaimed, practically jumping out of his seat in delight. “Hogwarts keeps all of these in its stores already.”

“Brilliant,” said Harry gratefully, pocketing his quill.

“Does Harry Potter want the elves to start tonight, sir?” Dobby asked, looking up at him eagerly.

“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks, Dobby.” Harry smiled at him, and Dobby beamed, tears of happiness shining in his round, tennis-ball-sized eyes.

“Which things would Harry Potter like us to send up for him, sir?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry shrugged. “'Long as it’s off that list.”

Dobby nodded emphatically so that his bat-like ears flapped against his cheeks, and he folded up Harry’s list and placed it carefully in his pocket, patting it reverently. “Of course, sir, anything for Harry Potter.”

A wizened old elf shuffled past the table behind Dobby, and Harry looked over, a bit surprised to see that it was Kreacher; Harry had nearly forgotten he’d sent him to come work at Hogwarts after inheriting him. Another thought occurred to him then, born of the reminder of the exceptional capabilities of house-elves, and Harry nearly called him over, but he glanced quickly at Dobby, unsure. Dobby liked Harry very much, but he had no master, and he was an employee of Dumbledore’s – Harry did not truly know how far Dobby’s loyalty stretched in either direction, and he did not know if Dobby might feel the need to report what Harry intended to ask of Kreacher.

Deciding to err on the side of caution, Harry thanked Dobby again, who scurried off to start gathering Harry’s requested foods, and left the kitchens. After the door had closed behind him, Harry glanced left and right, making sure he was quite alone, and then called into thin air, “Kreacher!”

With a loud crack exactly like Dobby’s, Kreacher materialised out of nowhere right in front of Harry. The house-elf gave a low bow, his filthy loin cloth slung across his hips, and looked up at Harry with an expression of pure hatred and disgust. “Master called for Kreacher?”

“Yeah, I’ve got some instructions for you,” Harry told him, crossing his arms over his chest.

Kreacher’s ugly little face twisted into a grimace. “What is it Master would like Kreacher to do?”

“First,” Harry said, “I might tell some people I’ve come to the kitchens for a meal every once in a while. If anyone asks, you’re to tell them I have, no matter if I haven’t, got it?”

Kreacher nodded, his beady eyes narrowing.

“And second…I need you to get something for me.”

It was a nice feeling, Harry thought, walking down to dinner with Ron and Hermione without a terrible sense of dread for once.

His friends had been at him at as soon as he’d got back from the kitchens, but he had waved off Hermione’s concerns about what he might have written to Lupin, and informed the both of them that he’d been down to see Dobby, who had offered him tea and biscuits. Which was, strictly speaking, true. This had seemed to soothe them, and the quiet unease that had lingered between Harry and Ron all morning had all but evaporated by the time they had made their way into the grounds for their afternoon Quidditch practice on a field now blessedly free of any Death Eater insignias.

A pleasant rumble of chatter filled the Great Hall and Harry, Ron, and Hermione moved along the Gryffindor table, looking for empty seats; they found three together and as Harry sat down, to his relief and delight, little dishes popped silently into existence around his plate, some filled with strawberries and slices of apple and grapefruit, others with steamed broccoli or carrots. There was a large bowl of salad, peppered with cherry tomatoes and bits of cucumber. Ron and Hermione gaped.

“How did you do that?” Ron demanded as Harry picked up his fork and started scooping broccoli onto his plate.

Harry shrugged easily, adding some carrots. “I asked Dobby to send some stuff up for me when I went down to see him,” he said, and was surprised how refreshing it felt that it wasn’t even a lie.

“That’s allowed?”

“Apparently.”

Ron raised his eyebrows, impressed, but Hermione looked highly affronted. “You mean you’re giving those house-elves extra work? They’ve already got enough to manage, and they’re not even paid – ”

“Please, they jump at the chance to do more work, they like it,” Ron told her in the patient tone of someone instructing a small child as he helped himself to a healthy portion of shepherd’s pie. “And they don’t want to be paid, they think it’s insulting – you would think you’d have got that by now considering you’re supposed to be the most brilliant student in this place…hey! I wonder if I could get them to send up puddings for every meal,” he added with a dreamy, far-off look in his eye.

Hermione had turned slightly pink, and she appeared to be torn between feeling offended, or pleased at Ron’s assertion of her brilliance.

“I don’t think you could,” Harry explained, saving Hermione from having to form a reply. “Dobby told me there was a student a while ago, some spoiled pure-blood prat who always wanted them to serve him pheasants and things – I reckon if you order something, it’s got to be just, you know, normal.”

Ron sighed disappointedly. “I suppose I could still ask for that raspberry jam, at least.”

Harry glanced up at the staff table as Ron trailed off, quite sure that someone had just been watching him, but none of the teachers were looking in his direction, and after a moment or two he returned his attention to the dishes in front of him.

Hermione was still frowning disapprovingly at their talk of giving the elves orders, but as she watched Harry tip some more strawberries onto his plate and begin to eat, her indignation seemed to melt away, and by the time dinner was over, though Harry pretended not to notice, both Ron and Hermione were beaming at his empty plate.

Upon their return to Gryffindor Tower, Hermione had her homework out and spread across two entire tables so quickly it might have qualified as a magic trick, and Ron shared an exasperated look with Harry before pulling up a chair beside her and digging out his own homework with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

“Where are you going?” Hermione asked in bewilderment, pausing in her search for extra rolls of parchment when Harry did not join them.

“I think I’m just going to – uh – go to bed,” he said, nodding his head toward the stairs.

“What, and miss all the fun?” said Ron, watching Hermione pull out a colour-coded revision sheet and eyeing it as though it had done him a great personal injustice. “If we’re lucky, we could be here till morning, eh?”

“As enjoyable as that sounds,” Harry said sarcastically as Hermione pursed her lips at Ron, “I’ll have to do it in the morning, I’m knackered – ”

“You won’t have time in the morning, we’ve got Transfiguration first thing, and you haven’t answered the questions about cross-species transformations, I know you haven’t,” Hermione insisted, gesturing at her own finished copy of the sheet McGonagall had given them.

This was, in fact, true, and Harry was keenly aware that indeed he probably would not have enough time next day, but he couldn’t bring himself to be too fussed about it, not with the alluring prospect of a real night’s sleep dangling before him, and he waved indifferently over his shoulder as he turned toward the stairs, Hermione muttering something about ‘reaping the consequences’ under her breath behind him.

Ginny sat cross-legged playing with Arnold on the rug by the fire and she looked up as he passed. “Good night, Harry,” she said pleasantly, herding Arnold around her legs away from the hearth.

“‘Night,” Harry mumbled, feigning a yawn to avoid looking at her properly, and sped up the boys' staircase.

Harry glanced about the room as he closed the door behind him, making sure it was empty, and made a beeline for his bed, slipping his hand underneath his pillow and feeling around. His hand closed around a small box, right where he’d told Kreacher to leave it, and he pulled out the container of sleeping tablets with a little thrill of victory. The package looked exactly as he remembered it; Aunt Petunia had once come back from the chemist’s with them when Harry and Dudley had been about six, though what she had to lose sleep over Harry could not have said, and they had lurked in the medicine cabinet half-used for years until they’d finally been thrown out.

Harry changed quickly and climbed onto his bed, pulling the hangings closed and putting up his usual Silencing charm before ripping the box open; a paper insert fell out onto his lap, and he unfolded it, scanning the tiny print. A small bubble of apprehension swelled in his gut as he read through the list of would-be side effects, but it did little to dissuade him; he had been operating on bursts of restless, interrupted sleep for months, and he was already far past the end of his rope. He had considered, once or twice, going to Madam Pomfrey out of sheer desperation, but that would have been impossible to do without it leading to questions that Harry did not particularly feel like answering. He might have easily instructed Kreacher to take any potions he needed from the hospital wing or the dungeon's stores, but that, too, would have led to suspicions, and with a house-elf’s rather useful ability to Apparate in and out of Hogwarts now at Harry’s disposal, this had all-around seemed the best option. A little niggle of guilt hovered at the back of his mind that he had not been able to pay the shop from which Kreacher had stolen the tablets, but the only money Harry had on hand was wizarding gold, and he didn’t expect a Muggle chemist would have much need for Galleons or Sickles.

Two full blister packs of tablets slid out as Harry upturned the box. He picked up the first one, popping a single tablet out of the plastic, and shoved the packs and the little paper back into the box before slipping the incriminating package under his pillow.

He stared down at the tablet in his hand – he marveled at how such a little thing could look so big – his heart hammering as though he was doing something much more treacherous than sitting in bed in his pyjamas. Thoughts of what his friends would say if they could see what he was doing attempted to break in, but he squashed them impatiently, and before he could change his mind, he popped the tablet into his mouth and tilted his head back, swallowing it dry.

He slid down under the covers and rolled over, dragging his blankets up to his neck. He tried his best to relax, to calm his mind, and his bone-deep exhaustion pulled at him like an anchor on a sinking boat, rolling black waves washing over him as he lay there…his eyes slowly closed and within minutes, he was asleep.

Chapter Text

Harry slept like the dead.

Though he’d gone to bed no later than half past seven in the evening, he did not wake until nearly the same time next morning, his body stiff and aching slightly, and he knew immediately he had not moved an inch all night. He sat up slowly. His limbs felt as though they were tied down with weights; he stared with heavy lids at the sunlight seeping in under his bed curtains. The light swirled hypnotically the longer he looked at it. His head felt stuffed with cotton, his thoughts as slow and dull as if he were drugged. Which, he supposed with a slightly loopy smirk, he probably still was. Harry might have sat there forever, entranced by the strip of light, but he gradually became aware that his throat was very, very dry; he swallowed uncomfortably and commanded his sluggish arms to pull back the curtains with difficulty.

He was met with the sight of Ron, sitting up and yawning widely, his arms stretched high over his head. “‘Morning,” he told Harry groggily.

Harry swung his cement-filled legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment, rubbing the sleep slowly out of his eyes. He let his arms drop heavily to his knees and stared at the pitcher of water on his bedside table, which appeared to be impossibly far away.

“You alright?” Ron asked as he, too, moved to perch on the edge of his own bed, scratching his head and yawning again. He watched, frowning slightly, as Harry struggled to pour himself a glass of water.

“Yeah,” Harry rasped after he’d taken a few sips, the water easing a cool trail all the way down to his stomach. “Think I slept too much,” he slurred, licking his lips. He snorted quietly in vague disbelief. He’d slept….

“Good,” Ron said with a resolute nod, and got up to search for his school robes.

Yes, thought Harry, and he squinted blurrily at his pillow as the other boys began to stir, it was good.

Harry followed Ron and Hermione down to breakfast, listening to them bicker about something he did not possess the concentration to follow properly; the sound of it bothered him less than usual, however, and he found himself perfectly content to walk behind them silently, staring about. Everything looked somewhat surreal, like a fuzzy, out-of-focus dream, and the constantly looming threat of dizziness he’d got used to lately hovered even closer, making it necessary for him to grasp firmly onto the railings every time they descended a flight of stairs.

As soon as Harry sat down next to Neville in the Great Hall, the same dishes he had requested the night before appeared in front of him, only the vegetables had been replaced with more fruit. Harry stared at them. A deep hunger surged to life in his belly, much stronger than his usual pangs, and his eyes wandered a bit guiltily to the other plates filled with bacon and eggs. Harry helped himself to a whole grapefruit, a handful of strawberries, several slices of apple, and, before he could talk himself out of it, a spoonful of scrambled eggs and a piece of bacon. He ate quietly, the sound of Ron and Hermione’s voices dulling to a drone in his ears, until Neville waved a hand in front of his eyes, asking anxiously if he was alright. Harry startled a bit, looking up to find the three of them watching him curiously.

“Fine,” he assured them, and went back to his plate, only to find that it was already empty, including the bacon and eggs. A squirming sense of shame spread all the way out to his fingers as his friends resumed their conversations; he hadn’t meant to cheat, really he hadn’t, but he was so hungry. He wondered distantly if it was the sleeping tablets making him feel so ravenous…he couldn’t remember if that had been listed as a side effect or not…he would have to check when he got back to his room.

Breakfast finished in a blur, Harry doing his best not to stare off into space again, and he heaved his heavier-than-normal bag over his shoulder and trailed listlessly after Ron and Hermione to the Transfiguration classroom for their first lesson.

Professor McGonagall strode up and down the rows of desks after they had all settled in, collecting homework. Harry sat silently when she came to him, having nothing to hand in, and as McGonagall stared down at him over the tops of her square spectacles, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, scrutinizing.

“No homework, Potter?”

Harry shook his head mutely, staring at a spot over her left shoulder, unable to meet her eyes. He wanted to apologise, but he did not know what to say, he had no excuse to offer – Harry braced for a reprimand, for points to be docked for his negligence, perhaps even for a detention…but McGonagall simply gave him one last look, the corners of her mouth turning downwards in the barest trace of a frown, and swept away to her desk. Harry and Ron stared after her in shocked disbelief. Never in living memory had Professor McGonagall neglected to punish someone for failing to complete her coursework.

Harry expected Hermione to fume at this inexplicable show of indulgence or leniency or whatever it was, but she was instead staring over at McGonagall with a thoughtful look on her face as she slowly pulled her copy of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration out of her schoolbag.

Transfiguration passed in much the same haze as the rest of the morning had done – Professor McGonagall paced slowly back and forth at the front of the classroom giving a complex lecture Harry could not even attempt to decipher, and his head drooped further into his hand as Hermione scribbled furious notes beside him. His lethargy lifted slightly towards the end of the hour, but that only made room for a low thrum of anxiety about his slip-up at breakfast to creep up under his skin, and he put his hands under the desk to scratch where Ron and Hermione would not see.

“What d’you reckon, McGonagall going soft in her old age?” said Ron as they left the classroom, elbowing Harry’s side as though congratulating him for winning some sort of contest.

“She’s not that old,” Hermione said automatically, but her voice lacked any real reproach. She still looked pensive and, Harry thought, a little relieved, though he might have been imagining it – his surroundings still did not seem fully real to him.

“I thought you’d be cross,” Harry told her. “She’s never let you off like that.”

“Yes, well, she’s never had the occasion, I’ve always handed in my homework, haven’t I?” Hermione said reprovingly, but her expression relaxed a bit as she looked at him. “Come on, we’ll be late for Potions if we don’t move.”

Hermione did not say anything further on the matter of Professor McGonagall’s behaviour, and Harry let the subject drop, reaching into his bag to pull out the Marauder’s Map instead. Hermione rolled her eyes at the sight of it, but Ron moved in closer to look over Harry’s shoulder, muttering, “What’s old ferret-face up to now?”

Since the whole Dark Mark fiasco, Ron had seemed a bit keener on keeping tabs on Malfoy, and Harry, glad to have company at last in his 'obsession,' as Hermione liked to call it, readily shifted the Map to give Ron a better view as he tapped the parchment with his wand and mumbled, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Harry and Ron bent over the Map as the little black lines and dots appeared, and it took each of them only a second to find Draco Malfoy. They looked up at each other at the same moment, then turned to see over their shoulders in unison. According to the Map, Malfoy was not thirty feet behind them, but it was impossible to see him among the sea of students thronging the corridors.

“He’s following us….” Harry murmured suspiciously.

“Of course, he’s following us,” said Hermione a little impatiently. “He’s going to Potions, isn’t he, we all are.”

But Harry could not accept this explanation: Malfoy had left the Transfiguration classroom well before they had, and as Harry continued to watch him on the Map, it seemed as though he was taking care to maintain that same thirty feet or so of distance behind him, Ron, and Hermione as they moved through the halls. Ron, like Harry, kept glancing back all the way to the dungeons. But Malfoy pretended to be searching through his bag every time they managed to catch him looking, and Harry tried to quell the disquiet that crept upon him as he warily considered any possible reason Malfoy could have for stalking the three of them through the castle like a slithering predator ready to spring.

Harry continued to keep an eye on Malfoy’s movements throughout the rest of the morning, and he spent so much time with his eyes boring into the back of that infuriating blond head of his in Potions that Hermione audibly sighed more than once and even Ron shot him a look of slight exasperation. But Harry continued to stare, as if he could somehow see through Malfoy’s thick skull to his brain, and see what it was he might be planning.

The weird, drugged-out state that Harry been stuck in since he’d woken up lifted almost completely by lunchtime. Regrettably, this only permitted him to feel even more uneasiness about Malfoy’s behaviour, not to mention a distinct resentful annoyance at Hermione’s refusal to take it seriously, and a keen awareness of the hunger pains that had not abated in the least since breakfast. He was in such a foul mood by midday that it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to stick to his planned food at lunch and refrain from snapping at Lavender Brown to shut up when she giggled shrilly at a joke Seamus told her.

Dinner was much the same. Only it was made about five times worse by the fact that Romilda sat down two seats away from Harry, the barest tinge of purple in her cheeks the only sign of what been done to her – “Madam Pomfrey got Professor Slughorn to brew something up, it was a potion in my shower gel that did it, it was an easy antidote in the end….” she could be heard telling her friends – and in spite of Harry’s intense hunger, he suddenly felt the nasty urge to refuse to eat a single thing. It was only the memory of Ron’s disturbed expression at the sight of Harry’s weight loss that kept him in his seat, and he shoveled some mushrooms and peppers onto his plate with great reluctance.

Harry went to bed early again, despite having been assigned another mountain of homework for the week. In the privacy of his four-poster he re-examined the packaging of the tablets Kreacher had got him...headache, dizziness, stomach pain, changes in appetite.

Harry frowned. That did explain it, then. He sat there for a moment, turning the box over idly in his hands, debating...was it really worth it? Bargaining a good night’s sleep for the risk of wanting to eat more than he should? But in the end the prospect of dreams full of screams and pain or, worse, dark broom closets, made the choice for him, and he quickly popped a second tablet out of its tray.

The following week fell into a pattern that Harry seemed to observe from the outside rather than participate in himself. Wake up. Slog through the morning. Rabbit food (Harry remembered wryly that that’s what Uncle Vernon had called it when Dudley had been sentenced to his diet). More rabbit food. Sometimes straying from that when his body managed to beat back his brain…guilt (desperate, awful guilt) when he did stray, and he scratched. Endless piles of homework, and he tried, he tried but he couldn’t focus. The days blurred together, and he needed sleep, and he took his tablets, and he was too tired. He was cold. He was frustrated and worried and hungry, so hungr –

“Will you please put that map away?”

Harry glanced up at Hermione in annoyance, though her tone when she badgered him about his preoccupation with Malfoy had shifted more towards pleading than disapproving the past few days.

“You never tell Ron to quit looking at it, do you, and he’s just as convinced as I am that Malfoy’s up to all this Junior Death Eater rubbish….” Harry pointed out, regretting that Ron was already down at dinner waiting for them; he could have used the backup. His eyes found the Slytherin’s dot again, which was positioned, predictably, not very far away from him and Hermione at the moment.

“No, I don’t,” Hermione said meaningfully, but she did not say anything else as they descended a narrow staircase.

Deciding not to even attempt to interpret that, Harry ignored her and kept his gaze trained on the Map – ever since Monday morning, Malfoy had been sticking to Harry, Ron, and Hermione like glue – well, this wasn’t exactly true. He’d been sticking to Hermione like glue. Harry had checked the Map as often as he could between classes and meals, and, almost every time, Malfoy had been there, lurking somewhere behind them – except for when it was only Harry and Ron. Malfoy seemed to lose interest then. Sometimes Harry caught sight of him on the Map, loitering outside the library or a bathroom, like he was waiting for Hermione to come out. Harry’s insides writhed and seethed furiously at the thought, a venomous hatred pulsing in his brain, and he glanced over his shoulder again, catching a glimpse of Malfoy’s pale, pointed face through the group of fourth year Ravenclaws that stood between them.

Making up his mind on the spot, Harry decided that the time for caution had long since passed and he hastily refolded the Marauder’s Map and stuffed it back into his pocket.

“Got to go to the bathroom – you go on, I’ll see you in a minute,” he told Hermione quickly as they came around a corner, already turning away from her.

“Hurry up!” she called after him, and she disappeared down another staircase.

Harry doubled back to the corner of the corridor and leaned against the wall, doing his best to appear casual and thoroughly innocuous as the cluster of Ravenclaws walked past. A couple of the girls giggled when they saw him, which did nothing to improve Harry’s frazzled nerves, and he just barely stopped himself fixing them with a withering glare. A minute later, they had also climbed down the stairs, and then there was only one more set of footsteps making their way up the hallway.

Harry waited silently, barely breathing as he drew his wand.

Malfoy came around the corner and Harry sprang forward, seizing the front of Malfoy’s robes, ignored the outraged “HEY!” that echoed furiously through the halls, and pulled him roughly around to slam him up against the wall.

In the split second that Malfoy was frozen in surprise, Harry brought his wand up, jabbing it threateningly into the side of his neck. Malfoy immediately began struggling, clutching at Harry’s wrists as though the touch of the wand at his throat had released him from his shock. Malfoy’s nails bit into Harry’s flesh, and Harry let a low growl, yanking Malfoy away from the wall and slamming him back again…blood was pounding in his brain, a blinding rage surging up inside him, rushing up his throat, making his face burn and his fist close even more tightly around his wand.

“Get off of me!” Malfoy snarled, stray strands of his blond hair flying around his face as he plunged a hand into his robes and pulled out his own wand, pushing it sharply up underneath Harry’s chin, right over his jugular. But Harry did not release him, and they both stood there, breathing heavily, with their wands pressed against each other’s throats, glaring at one other with unadulterated hatred and disgust.

“Why have you been following her?” Harry demanded through clenched teeth, twisting Malfoy’s robes viciously in his fist.

Something like astonishment flickered in Malfoy’s grey eyes, and Harry felt a savage burst of satisfaction; Malfoy had not been aware that Harry knew exactly what he was doing. But Malfoy’s face contorted into an ugly grimace as he spat, “Who?”

“You know exactly who I mean! Hermione, you slimy little – ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Potter. Why would I possibly want to follow that little Mudblood around?”

Harry’s vision nearly went blurry with rage as adrenaline coursed through his veins, his ability to keep from hexing Malfoy into oblivion hanging on by barely a thread. A sharp pain flared suddenly in Harry’s chest, and then his vision really did seem to be going blurry as a wave of dizziness overtook him.

“I know it was you, Malfoy, the graffiti, that Dark Mark,” Harry panted, trying desperately to hold himself together as another pain flared in the region of his heart. “You’re not going to get away with this, you’ll be chucked out for good…I know it was you,” he said again, pushing his neck even more firmly against Malfoy’s wand, half-wishing Malfoy would try something, would give Harry an excuse to fight him, to unleash all the anger and frustration and panic that had been simmering underneath the surface for so long.

But Malfoy shoved Harry away from him, and Harry’s grip broke easily as another swell of lightheadedness crashed over him. Malfoy straightened his robes with a few sharp tugs and ran a hand smoothly over his head, slicking his hair back into place as he smirked at Harry.

“Prove it,” he whispered.

Harry glared at him, his breath catching harshly, channeling the force of his outrage and loathing to keep himself on his feet. “You stay the hell away from Hermione, you understand me? You touch her and I swear I’ll – ”

“You'll what? It’s a free country,” said Malfoy, “And I don’t take orders from stinking half-bloods.” He looked Harry briefly up and down, his lip curling as he took in the sweat at Harry’s brow, his heaving chest, the hand shaking around his wand. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?” he sneered. “Golden Boy of Gryffindor losing his nerve?”

Malfoy gave a derisive snort and set off down the hall, bumping Harry’s shoulder forcefully as he went. Harry wanted to turn and go after him, to call out a retort, to do something to wipe that bloody smirk off his face, but it was all he could do to stagger unsteadily over to the wall as Malfoy disappeared around the corner.

Harry dropped more than sunk onto the floor, leaning heavily against the wall and gasping for breath, clutching at his chest, which was now bursting with pain. With sharp, jerky movements, Harry dug out the Invisibility Cloak and swung it over himself, cringing at the thought of anyone coming along to see Harry Potter sprawled out, sweating and trembling helplessly on the floor. The pain in his chest seemed to be suffocating him, and Harry wondered suddenly if he was having a heart attack. It was beating so fast in his ears…what if he died, right here in this hallway?

A hysterical thought popped wildly into his head, and he wondered if he shouldn’t take the Cloak off so no one would trip over his body.

But after a few minutes, the pain lessened, and then dissipated, and he could breathe again.

Harry pulled himself shakily to his feet, still trembling underneath his father's Invisibility Cloak. He stared at the spot of stone floor where he’d just been sitting, as though expecting some sort of dark apparition to rise up out of it and attack him.

Harry shook himself, rubbing his knuckles nervously against his hand, and set off quickly down the corridor, keenly aware that he was already very late for dinner, and that Ron and Hermione would be wondering where he was.

A cool, slight breeze ruffled Harry’s hair as he walked along, the vast blue sky silent above him. His footsteps were muffled and uneven, and he looked down, discovering with pleasant surprise that he was walking upon clouds as white and fluffy as fresh marshmallows…well, of course. Why shouldn’t he be walking on clouds? Everyone did.

Patterns swirled hypnotically up in the atmosphere, winding and curling like snakes, and Harry leapt gently off the surface of clouds and floated up to one of them with ease, thinking that it was really very pretty…he reached out his fingers, and touched it – the swirling thing broke open, and a murder of crows, each with six bulging eyes and four ravaged wings, burst out of it, flapping around him in a frenzy, attacking his face, his hands, pecking at his eyes, and Harry threw his arms over his face, curling into himself as the murder bore down upon him, driving him down through the clouds, and Harry was falling, falling fast.

The crows disappeared as suddenly as they’d come, and Harry looked around to find that he was standing in a dark cave, rosy pink firelight flickering sinisterly off the damp walls. He was naked. There were disembodied eyes, scarlet and slit-pupiled like a cat’s, staring at him from every dark corner, and he backed away, hitting a wall, out of which long, thorny vines grew in an instant, winding around his legs and arms, binding him against the clammy surface. Terror exploded in his stomach, and he opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out...a school bell rang, loud and sharp, echoing around the cave, whose floor kept shifting and changing like quicksand, and a girl appeared in a puff of purple smoke right next to the pink fire, roasting squares of chocolate over the flames as though she’d been sat beside it all along. She smiled at Harry as the chocolate dripped into the fire, each drop transforming into a tiny Snitch as it fell, and then flying away before Harry could catch it…he strained at the vines holding him to the cave wall.

The girl laughed, an ugly screeching sound, and suddenly she was standing right in front of Harry, her dark hair swirling around her. She caressed his face with a hand that felt like sandpaper, and Harry knew that if she wanted to she could score the flesh right off his skull.

The vines holding him down disintegrated to ash as she pressed her body to his, but still he could not move. She kissed him then, a thick, bubbling liquid pouring into his open mouth, choking him – the girl stepped back and looked at Harry sadly.

She spoke, and her voice echoed as though there were three of her speaking together. “I’m so glad you came to see me. I’ve been waiting. I’ve been eating rats to survive, you see.” She gestured over to a pile of little skeletons, and only their eyes remained, staring back at Harry blankly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Harry wanted to say, and he wasn’t sure whether he meant it for the rats or the girl, but he suddenly found that he had no mouth, only a smooth stretch of skin below his nose, and he looked down at his own body to find that he was a skeleton, too, as if all his flesh had been melted away.

“It’ll be okay,” the girl soothed. “You have me, now.” And Harry’s horrified gaze found her face, which was now grey and taut – she looked dead. Dead like the four corpses standing behind her with sunken expressions of accusation and hatred on their gaunt faces as they looked at Harry, blaming him, he knew, for what had become of them.

‘I’m sorry!’ Harry tried to tell them. ‘I’M SORRY!’ But he still did not have a mouth, and his body was fading away…the dark-haired girl stepped up to him again, whispering, “I can help you.” and moved into him, so that she became a part of him, and their bodies became one body, and Harry screamed, clawing at his bare bones –

With an almighty wrench, Harry dragged himself out of sleep and into wakefulness, still screaming so loudly he thought his throat might tear, the taste of iron on his tongue. His body attempted to thrash, to bolt up, but it was paralysed, stuck to the sweaty sheets as though a giant mass were sitting on top of him, pinning him to the bed. His scream cut off abruptly with a choked, desperate whimper – his lungs were frozen in his chest, his brain starved for oxygen, and with an enormous push of willpower, Harry forced his lungs to fill, to expand, and he sucked in the deepest breath he’d ever taken in his life. Sweat poured off of him, his heart hammering fit to burst, and a sharp pain in his tongue told him he had bitten it in his sleep.

Panic pounded through him, still unable to move, and he stared, wide-eyed, up at the canopy of his four-poster, trying to get his brain to communicate with his muscles. It felt like he was Petrified – terror slammed his heart against ribs, and he choked on a sob. Move, he snarled at his mind, move, move, move, move, MOVE!

His fingers twitched. His knees jerked. Slowly, the feeling returned, and he was able to drag himself up to rest against the headboard, panting heavily. He realised his face was wet with more than just sweat, and he thrust a hand jerkily back behind his pillow, seizing hold of his wand like a lifeline and clutching it to his chest.

“L-Lumos,” he whispered, his voice breaking. He coughed and tried again. “Lumos!”

His bed filled with light, and amongst the shadows cast by his rumpled bedspread, he saw a smear of blood on his sheets. Harry stared at it. He repositioned his wand and raised his trembling hands to his eyes. The outsides of his wrists were torn open again.

The damage was not nearly as bad as it could have been, and a small part of Harry was grateful that he had not been able to move properly in his sleep – he could not have asked Ginny to heal him again. The look in her eyes if he did was enough to make him want to crawl straight into a hole to shrivel up and die.

Harry clenched his hand into a fist, feeling the congealed blood underneath his fingernails, and he threw back his covers, forcing his wooden legs over the side of the bed. He doused his wand and pulled back his hangings. He had to make it to the bathroom. He had to clean himself up, but he didn’t know if he could even stand.

Harry rose slowly, clutching at his bedpost for support – he could hardly feel his feet under him – the bathroom seemed miles away, and he tamped down the urge to give into despair. He focused every last particle of his brain on putting one foot in front of the other. He stumbled unevenly, barely making it to the bathroom doorway before he collapsed. His knees gave out and hit the floor with a sickening flash of pain and he bit down on a grunt, determined not to wake the others. Harry half-crawled into the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a shaking hand. He stared up at the sink, yearning for a drink of water, for a splash on his flushed, sweaty face, but he did not even have the energy to prop himself up against the wall, and he crumpled weakly onto the freezing floor, rolling over to stare at the underside of the counter, his heart thumping madly again from exertion.

The desire to call out for Ron like a child in the night rushed up inside him, and he felt traitorous tears prick at the corner of his eyes again as he lay there, prone and miserable. Harry curled up, like he had in his dream, and he pressed his eyes shut at the phantom sensation of gruesome, six-eyed crows pecking him all over, stabbing, hurting him.

Ever since he had started taking the sleeping tablets, he had slept more solidly, but almost every day he had woken up with vague memories of strange, eerie dreams that left him slightly on edge all morning. But tonight…tonight had been something else entirely. His nightmare had been so…real. Vivid and disturbing and unnervingly psychedelic, he had never had a dream quite like it. The image of his skeletal body intruded sharply, and he opened his eyes, looking down at himself just to make sure he was still all there. His hand twitched up to his mouth, feeling for his lips.

Four corpses staring back at him through empty sockets….

Harry shuddered, forcing his eyes shut again. He lay there for what felt like hours until some modicum of strength returned; he carefully placed his trembling palms against the floor and pushed himself up. He rested briefly against the sink before grasping the edge of the counter and hauling his shaking, shivery body to its feet. Determinedly avoiding looking at his reflection, Harry turned on the tap and stuck his hands under the stream, rubbing lightly at the dried blood. He winced at the sting, but when he was done they looked much better. Or he thought they did, anyway. He had left his glasses beside his bed. Harry splashed some water on his face, washing away the salty remains of the sweat and tears, and gulped down a few mouthfuls, feeling marginally better.

Breathing as deep and even as possible, Harry hobbled to the door and opened it, startled nearly out of his skin to find Dean waiting beside the door, squinting and sleep-mussed, on the other side.

“Harry,” Dean whispered. “I was just about to knock, you’ve been in here for – are you okay?” he asked suddenly, taking in Harry’s appearance. Harry could not see Dean’s expression clearly without his glasses, but there was a slight note of concern in his voice, and Harry thought he saw his eyes flick down to Harry’s wrists, which Harry shoved hurriedly behind his back.

“Yeah,” Harry whispered back. “Sorry, all yours.” He let Dean past him; Dean cast him another fleeting look and closed the door.

Harry dragged himself back over to his bed and dropped onto it wearily, his brain teeming with uncomfortable, unwanted thoughts. Abruptly, he shoved a hand under his pillow, pulled out the package of sleeping tablets, and threw them into the drawer of his bedside table, closing it firmly.

Well, that was the end of that, Harry sighed to himself.

Tonight had been ten times worse than any of his normal nightmares, and if he was being honest with himself he was a little relieved to have an excuse to stop; the dreamlike numbness that had coloured his whole week had been, he had to admit, nice in a way. But it certainly wasn’t doing him any favours as far as his schoolwork situation went, which was now beyond desperate. He was certain he was in danger of failing about half his classes at this point. However, without a doubt the worst part had been all the extra food he had been unable to stop himself from consuming. Not to mention the fact that he’d felt so drowsy and slow that he hadn’t managed to drag himself out of bed once for a morning run…a restless hum of anxiety pulsated just underneath his skin….

Dean came out of the bathroom and got back into bed. Ron muttered something in his sleep that sounded like ‘can’t go to the dance, got to help take these flowers to the zoo, I’m the manager’ and Harry allowed himself a small grin. He turned over and stared at Ron’s raised silhouette, thinking.

He’d just have to be a bit stricter with himself.

That was the safe thing. And the only way to make up for this last week – no more options or choices or leeway, he just had to grit his teeth and do it. Something subsided in him at the thought, like a monstrous serpent being lulled back into a doze, and Harry reached eagerly over to his alarm clock, setting it early enough for his run. After a second’s thought, he pushed it back another half hour. He’d need time before breakfast to go down to the kitchens and tell the house-elves about the adjustments that needed to be made.

Harry buried his face in his pillow, thoroughly exhausted, and closed his eyes – the vivid, too-real images of his dream threatened to overwhelm him, and once or twice his eyes snapped open, expecting to see dozens of scarlet eyes staring at him from the shadows. Eventually, the sound of Ron’s quiet snores and the promise of much more manageable days on the horizon eased him to sleep.

A storm was raging outside the window when Harry’s alarm went off, testing his resolve to follow through with the plan he’d outlined for himself, and he momentarily let his eyes slip closed again, sinking back into his mattress, before he sat up with a jerk, jumping out of bed as suddenly as if he’d been poked with a cattle prod.

No choice, you’ve got to go, you said you’d go, Harry told himself firmly, and he shoved his glasses sleepily onto his face, taking comfort once again in the idea of a decisive, clear-cut routine, even as a flash of lightning cracked apart the sky outside the dormitory, followed by a low, ominous roll of thunder.

He had to stop by the kitchens first anyway, and the storm might have blown itself out by then. Gathering up his things, Harry left the dormitory, closing the door quietly behind him, and ran through his list of meals in his head, over and over again like a recitation, all the way down to the kitchens so that he wouldn’t forget.

Ron and Hermione were not happy with him.

At all.

Nor was Ginny, for that matter, who had taken to sitting right next to Harry at meals whenever Dean was not with her.

None of them had actually said anything outright, yet, but he did not know how long that was going to last – their pointed looks from his plate, to his set jaw, and back again spoke volumes. As did the way they kept pushing dishes of food towards him, though, true to his promise to himself, he had so far wordlessly refused to touch any of it.

He had to follow The Rules, and The Rules told him exactly what he was allowed to have:

Breakfast: half a bowl of cornflakes with milk, or one grapefruit.

Lunch: an apple, a salad with tomato, and broth.

Dinner: Tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots, one cup each.

No snacks. End of.

Water.

Tea. No sugar, no cream.

Any more than that, and it was an extra lap around the Quidditch pitch. Even though sneaking out was a bit trickier these days – there were now security trolls posted outside all the secret passages during the night in addition to the rotation of Aurors guarding the front doors.

But this had not stopped him in the end – Harry knew how to get by trolls, after all.

Perhaps Ron, Ginny, and Hermione sensed that attempting to reason Harry into eating more would be ineffective (which, Harry thought with a fierce twinge of self-satisfaction, it would be), or perhaps it was the fact that Harry had now secretly started wearing two jumpers under his robes that eased their worry enough for them to refrain from commenting on his stringent eating habits. Harry knew he had lost several more pounds, and something told him that unless he kept it from showing, he was not going to like the consequences.

The tension between all four of them was palpable. Harry, who had already been trying to avoid too much contact with Ginny, was now doing everything in his power to make sure they did not run into each other in the halls or the common room, made more than a little difficult by the fact that Ginny was having none of it. She made an effort to engage him in conversation, even when he did nothing but mumble lame responses at her, and she continued to wave or smile at him when they saw each other outside of meals, even if he pretended he did not see it. She insisted on treating him normally, even as he was trying his best to pull away from her, and it was truly, inexpressibly maddening.

Ron and Hermione were taking much the same tack.

Even though neither of them were directly trying to address Harry’s behaviour at mealtimes anymore, Hermione always seemed to attempt to bring the subject of food up organically. She would start conversations about the new line of sweets Honeydukes had come out with, or the best Christmas dinners they had ever had, or an interesting book of wizarding recipes she had found in the library. Harry largely ignored these attempts, partly because he knew exactly what she was trying to do, and partly because he had tried to warn her to watch out for Malfoy, that he was tailing her for some as yet unknown nefarious reason, and she had told him that he was being ridiculous, a transgression for which Harry had yet to forgive her.

Harry had told neither Hermione nor Ron about his confrontation with Malfoy, and he did not think it to be a wise idea at this point, for Ron, despite hating and suspecting Malfoy quite as much as Harry did, seemed to have taken it into this head to appoint himself Harry’s keeper.

Every time Harry tried to disappear to his bed hours early, or go to the library by himself, Ron provided some excuse for Harry to stay, or be accompanied, as if he was of the opinion that Harry was spending too much time alone. An opinion Harry might have shared, if only Ron were acting a bit more like himself. As it was, Ron had become almost…Hermione-ish, expressing the concern that Harry was putting off too many homework assignments, and teaming up with Hermione to make a weekly schedule for Harry to follow so he did not fall too far behind. Harry privately and grudgingly agreed that Ron perhaps had a point, but it did not stop him missing his best mate and how things had been only weeks ago, before everything had got so complicated.

Harry let out a low sigh, tapping his quill rhythmically against the side of the table.

He had decided to try to work out a response to Lupin – the man had sent another letter full of thinly-veiled worry, apparently having dismissed Harry’s claims that all was well – taking the opportunity to do it while Ron and Hermione had been called away to a Prefects’ meeting. But he could not think at all what to say. He stared dejectedly across the common room, watching a couple of third years have a riotous belching contest, empty Butterbeer bottles strewn about the floor around them…Harry wondered distantly if there was an acceptable way to say ‘I really don’t want to talk about Sirius, or anything else, thanks, but if you would keep sending letters anyway, that’d be great because it helps’ but somehow he didn’t think so.

The portrait hole opened and Ginny clambered through. Quickly averting his eyes, Harry focused on the letter before him and prayed that she would not stop to talk to him. As usual, however, the great cosmic forces of the universe did not see fit to take what he wanted into account, and Ginny came over, falling into the seat across from him and plunking down a plate of chicken and potatoes. “Hey. What’re you working on?” she asked him.

“Letter,” Harry grunted, still staring at the parchment.

“To whom?”

“Lupin.”

“Oh, I miss him,” Ginny said fondly, and Harry could hear the small smile in her voice. “I wish he could have stayed on as Defence teacher, he was a right sight better than Snape." She said Snape's name like a curse word, and Harry suffered a twinge of endearment. "Anyway, I brought you some dinner – roast chicken. Your fa-a-avourite!” She said in a sing-song voice, nudging the plate a bit closer to him.

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” he said quietly, his eyes flickering up ever-so-briefly to meet hers before looking back down quickly as though he’d been burned.

“You’re not, huh?” Her tone was neutral enough, but there was the faintest undercurrent of a challenge.

“I already ate my dinner.”

“You didn’t have dinner, Harry. Or lunch.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and Harry knew that if he were to look up he would see that hard, blazing look in her eye again.

“Just because I wasn’t in the Hall doesn’t mean I didn’t eat anything,” Harry said coolly, brushing the feathered tip of his quill across his fingers. “I went down to the kitchens.” He turned his head to watch the third years with the Butterbeer again to avoid the temptation to look at Ginny. He could feel her eyes boring into the side of his head.

They sat there together in silence for a moment.

“Damn it, Harry….” said Ginny, so quietly it was almost a whisper, and it sounded so unguarded that his heart twisted with guilt.

Just then Dean came down the boys’ stairs and spotted Ginny. “Ready to go?” he asked her when he had crossed over to them, and Harry had never thought he’d be so glad to have Dean interrupt them.

“Yeah, let’s go for a walk, we can go by the greenhouses. I’ve been dying to see Professor Sprout’s new Flame Flowers – Neville told me about them,” Ginny said, giving Harry one last glance. She stood and heaved her bag over her shoulder.

“Flame Flowers?” Dean asked curiously. “What do they do?”

“They don’t do anything,” Ginny explained. “They’re non-magical, they’re just nice to look at.”

“Well that’s a bit boring,” Dean complained, and Harry felt a stab of annoyance, his eyes trained on his paper again. Was it so difficult to just go see some stupid flowers with her?

The two of them turned to go, and Ginny added loudly, “Maybe we can stop by the kitchens on the way. I’m quite sure the poor house-elves haven’t had much company lately.” And she disappeared through the portrait hole hand-in-hand with Dean.

Harry tried to focus on the letter before him but had to give it up as a bad job. He twirled his quill in his hands and looked sideways at the plate of chicken. He supposed, really, that it wouldn’t be so bad to have some – in spite of what he’d told Ginny, he hadn’t had anything since his grapefruit that morning, which meant he had some calories to spare. He was a bit hungry…and Ginny had taken the trouble to bring it up for him.

So? said a nasty little voice in the back of his head. She left you to go off with Dean.

Besides, what was it to him if he didn’t get lunch or dinner – he had gone far longer with less at the Dursleys’, and he didn’t really like to eat meat anymore anyway. Rolling up the nearly-blank parchment with a few sharp movements, Harry snatched up his quill and headed for the staircase, but his foot had hardly touched the first step when someone called his name. He turned to see Ron and Hermione coming in through the portrait hole.

“How was the meeting?” Harry asked them after they’d fought their way through the sea of people returning from dinner.

“It was great – ”

“Yeah, a great big load of sh – ”

Hermione cut him off with a sound like an angry cat, nodding pointedly at the first years sitting within hearing distance, and Harry smirked.

Ron shook his head bitterly. “Why have we got to sit there for half an hour and talk about the Hallowe’en decorations the school’s going to put up? I mean, call me in two weeks’ time when they actually need putting up and until then.” He snapped his fingers as though a brilliant idea had just occurred to him. “You know, I bet they’re concerned we wouldn’t be able to take all the suspense,” he nodded sagely.

Hermione mouth twitched in a smile, and she turned back to Harry. “Listen, Ron and I were talking, let’s go down to Hagrid’s, we haven’t been in ages.”

“Tonight?” Harry blinked.

“Yes, why not, we have some time before curfew – I saw him at lunch and he threated to sic Fang on us if we didn't come down to see him soon,” she said, clucking her tongue. This was, after all, not much of a threat as Fang was about as harmless as a newborn bunny.

“It’s only just over an hour till I’ve got to be at Dumbledore’s office,” Harry reminded her with a stab of regret. As eager and anxious as he was to begin his second lesson with Dumbledore, the thought of seeing Hagrid loosened the ever-present knot in his chest ever so slightly.

Ron shrugged. “We don’t have to stay for long. C’mon, it’ll do us all some good.”

“Yeah, alright,” Harry conceded, and Ron and Hermione beamed.

They dashed upstairs to get their cloaks and ten minutes later they were striding down the sloping lawn in the crisp autumn air towards Hagrid’s hut, where they could already see lights in the windows as dusk faded to darkness around them. A gentle breeze blew up from across the lake, carrying the faint sound of crickets and the hoot of an owl. For a second, Harry felt almost completely at peace with the world, and some of the worries that had been wrapped around his heart like a straitjacket fell away.

Fang’s booming barks sounded from within Hagrid’s hut as they approached, and they heard Hagrid’s voice attempting to quiet him. Hermione made a nervous little noise behind Harry, and he looked round to see her staring warily at Buckbeak, who was secured to a post just outside the front door. Ron caught Harry’s eye and rolled his own, and Harry patted Hermione’s arm lightly, fighting back a grin as they climbed Hagrid’s front stairs. Harry raised his fist to knock, but before he could, the door swung open and Hagrid’s massive frame filled the threshold, Fang jumping at his back.

“Who’s tha’ – ? Oh, it’s you three,” he boomed cheerfully, smiling down at them, and he stood back to let them past. “Come in, come in – no, down, Fang – finally remembered me, have yeh?” He chuckled, but Harry glanced up at him, frowning, as they all removed their cloaks and sat down at the scrubbed wooden table, Fang bounding over at once to lay his head upon Harry’s knee – he thought he had seen Hagrid’s face fall for a split second after he’d opened the door.

“What have yeh lot bin up to, then?” Hagrid asked them, his back turned towards them as he rummaged about in the cupboards and started hot water going for tea.

“We’ve been terribly busy,” Hermione told him, looking slightly harassed. “There’s so much to learn this year, I don’t know how we’ll ever get through it all.”

“Agh, yeh’ll get through it jus’ fine, always do, don’ yeh? Brains like yers?” he said, bringing over a tray laden with three enormous mugs, a cup the size of a small bucket, a teapot, and plate of rock cakes. “All three o’ yeh,” he added gruffly, winking at Harry and Ron. Hagrid poured out the tea and passed a steaming mug to each of them. Harry wrapped his hands around his gratefully, soaking up the warmth.

“I’m sorry we didn’t carry on with Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid,” Harry blurted out, and he meant it. None of the other sixth years had signed up, either, and Harry couldn't help but feel guilty. “We wanted to. We really did, it’s just – ” He glanced at Ron and Hermione for help, but they merely grimaced. Hagrid, however, waved him off.

“Never mind, knew yeh probably wouldn’t be able ter, in the end,” Hagrid smiled, though a bit sadly. “‘Sides now I can spend a bit more time with Grawpy, he’s learnt nine more words – nine! An’ Dumbledore’s got ‘im all set up with a nice big cave in the mountains, now – good thing, too, he was always scarin’ the unicorns an’ the Thestrals right outta their wits on account of rippin’ up all those trees when he was livin’ in the Forest, poor things….”

“Well, that’s – er – good,” Hermione offered. “And you are being careful, Hagrid, aren’t you, I mean, you are being safe.”

“O’ course I’m safe, Grawpy wouldn’ hurt a fly, least not on purpose anyways, he’s too sweet,” said Hagrid, taking several big gulps from his massive cup.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione glanced at each other and looked away very quickly; ‘sweet’ was the very last thing any of them would have chosen to call Hagrid’s little brother, who had, on the last occasion Harry and Hermione had met him, terrorised an entire group of angry centaurs into fleeing for their very lives. Hermione coughed and changed the subject to the decorations going up for Hallowe’en (“I thought we’d decided it was too early to be talking about this,” Ron muttered to Harry out of the corner of his mouth) and Hagrid spent the next fifteen minutes proudly informing them on the status of the giant pumpkins he was growing for the Great Hall in the vegetable patch behind his house.

There was a blazing fire going in the hearth, and the heavy weight of Fang’s head on Harry’s knee was a soothing comfort – he sipped at his tea, the mug still warm under his fingers, and listened to Hagrid talk as he sank into a comfortable drowsiness.

“So, how’s yer Quidditch practice comin’?” asked Hagrid, and Harry sat up a bit straighter, blinking.

“Great,” said Ron, attempting to take a bite of rock cake then setting it gingerly back down on the table as he massaged his jaw. “The Cup’s got Gryffindor’s name on for sure, really good team this year, and Harry’s a brilliant captain – ”

“Of course he is,” Hermione said staunchly, and Harry could not help grinning at both of them.

“When’s yer first match?”

“Six weeks,” Harry told him. “Slytherin.”

“And yer up for it, are yeh?” Hagrid asked, eyeing Harry with the same troubled look in his eyes he’d had when he had first opened the door and clapped eyes on the three of them.

“Yeah,” said Harry, taken aback. “Why?”

“Dunno,” Hagrid said, turning his cup in hands, still surveying Harry’s face with a deep frown. “Yer lookin’ a bit pale, is all. Thinner, too, I reckon. Have yeh been ill or summat?”

“No,” said Harry, a bit defiantly, and he looked to Ron and Hermione to confirm this, but they were both staring back at him steadily with expressions that said quite plainly that they agreed with Hagrid. Hermione’s jaw wiggled slightly, as though debating whether or not to say what she was thinking, and a spill of hot anger tinged with betrayal seemed to fill him up all the way to his throat: Was this why they’d asked him to come? So they could recruit Hagrid to their campaign to make Harry do what they wanted?

Harry opened his mouth, but as soon as he did, Hermione seemed to come to a decision and she said, very quickly but deliberately:

“It’s because he won’t eat.”

Hagrid’s cup stilled in his hands. There was a heavy silence for a second, in which Harry fixed Hermione with his fiercest glare. Her lip trembled slightly, but she crossed her arms and did not look away. Fang whined at Harry’s knee.

“Whadda yeh mean he’s not eatin’?” Hagrid said in a low voice, narrowing his eyes at Ron and Hermione as though wondering if had understood correctly. But before either of them could answer, he rounded immediately on Harry, his expression ominous. “What do they mean yer not eatin’!”

Fang scuttled off to hide under Hagrid’s bed, and Harry couldn’t help but wince under the force of Hagrid’s indignation. He sat there with the three of them watching him, feeling mutinous, and stared at a barrel of giant grubs in the corner, grinding his teeth together. He wrenched his jaw open and said shortly, “I eat.”

Ron snorted forcefully. “Barely.”

“I do – ”

“You were. Well, sort of,” Hermione said, and though Harry was not looking at her, he could hear the threat of tears in her voice. “And I thought…but now it’s, it’s practically nothing, Harry.”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Harry ground out, his temper rising, and he tightened his hands around his mug in an effort to contain himself.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Hagrid growled. The cup in his hands groaned as he squeezed it, threatening to shatter, and he let go of it quickly. Hagrid sighed heavily, getting control of himself, and brushed one of his dustbin-lid-sized hands through his wild hair in agitation. “I know that yeh – yeh’ve had a hard time of it lately, but yeh can’t just - just give up, Harry. Yeh gotta take care o’ yerself.”

Harry stared so hard at the barrel of grubs that everything began to blur together. He felt like screaming at them all, he could feel himself shaking with suppressed anger. They were not being fair, they didn’t get it. He wasn’t giving up. He was trying. He was trying so hard…they could not know, any of them, how much it was costing him to keep himself together.

“I’ve got to go meet Dumbledore,” Harry said, fighting to keep his voice even, and stood automatically, refusing to look at Hagrid’s face – he did not want to see the worry there, or acknowledge that the guilt of disappointing Hagrid might even be enough to make him stay.

“That’s not for half an hour,” Ron insisted. “Mate, c’mon – ”

Harry grabbed his cloak and threw it around his shoulders. “Gives you lot more time to talk about me then, doesn't it?” he snapped, though his voice caught on the last word, rather ruining the effect. He turned around and strode towards the door.

“I'm tryin’ ter talk to yeh, if yeh’d just sit down fer a minute! Harry, come here - ” Hagrid called after him, his voice cutting off abruptly as Harry slammed the door behind him, breathing heavily. He took off towards the castle, shoving down a mixture of relief and hurt when Ron and Hermione did not follow him. Good, he thought viciously, stay there and fill him in, leave me alone. He could not believe the two of them, using Hagrid against him like that…and now Hagrid knew, and Harry had to avoid him, too, and he didn’t want to do that.

Harry fumed all the way back to the castle and up to the seventh floor, coming to a halt in front of the gargoyle that stood sentry outside Dumbledore’s study.

Ron had been right, of course; it was a while yet before he was supposed to present himself for his lesson, and he stood staring at the gargoyle, doing his best to master his temper and rubbing irritatedly at his wrists over his robes, trying not to scratch. After a few minutes, feeling jumpy and restless and desperately wanting something else to think about, Harry gave the gargoyle the password and stepped onto the spiral staircase that carried him up like an escalator to stand in front of the gleaming oak door of the headmaster’s office, hoping that Dumbledore would not object to him showing up a little early.

Harry knocked a bit harder than he meant to, and he heard Dumbledore’s voice from within call “Enter.”

Dumbledore was standing in front of one of his office’s many shelves, a very large book open in his hands, and he looked up, his silver eyebrows rising in faint surprise as Harry entered. “Harry! Gracious me, is it eight o’ clock already?”

“Er – no, I’m sorry, sir, I know I’m early. I can come back.” said Harry, unsure, his hand still on the doorknob.

“It is no matter, Harry, indeed a pleasant surprise, come in,” Dumbledore smiled kindly, and Harry stepped away from the door. As he moved further into the room, Dumbledore lowered his book, peering more closely at him. Harry supposed something of his anger and resentment must still be showing on his face, for a crease appeared between Dumbledore’s eyebrows, and he closed the book entirely and set it down on an empty corner of his desk.

“What has happened to you?”

“Nothing,” Harry said at once. His heart seemed to be beating somewhere in the region of his throat. He realised abruptly that he was trembling, and he crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

“What has upset you?”

“I’m not upset.”

“Harry.” Dumbledore chided gently, his expression stern.

Harry shook his head, averting his gaze from the headmaster’s penetrating scrutiny. “It’s…I had a row with Ron and Hermione, it was nothing.”

Dumbledore paused. Harry knew he was still watching him. “That is understandable,” he said softly. “I would imagine that their perception of things differs a great deal from yours, at the moment.”

Harry frowned. He looked back to Dumbledore in confusion, but before Harry could ask what he had meant by this, a voice issued from one of the portraits above their heads.

“I have just spoken with Lourdes,” said the painting of Sirius’s great-great-grandfather, Phineas Nigellus, as he sidled back into his frame. “Hanson would like you to know that he’s available on the – ”

“Yes, thank you, Phineas,” Dumbledore said repressively, cutting him off, and Phineas looked round in surprise.

“Ah,” he said, spotting Harry. “Yes, of course. We shall discuss the matter later, Headmaster.” And he settled into his painted armchair without another word, staring down his nose at Harry with unusual interest as though he were examining a strange new specimen.

Dumbledore circled his desk, sitting down, and gestured for Harry to do the same. “I am truly sorry to hear you have been arguing with your friends. It happens even in the closest of relationships, I’m afraid –  I find it usually works best, under such circumstances, to sincerely listen to each other’s concerns.” His chin lowered a fraction of an inch, and he studied Harry over the tops of his half-moon spectacles. “Have you been confiding in them?”

Harry fidgeted in his seat. “Sir?”

“You asked me, I believe, after our first lesson together if you would be allowed to tell Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger everything I had told you – have you discussed it with them?”

“I….” Harry recalled, dimly, the conversation in which Ron and Hermione had interrogated him about his time spent in Dumbledore’s study, and how he had balked at the thought of discussing Merope and Tom Riddle and the circumstances surrounding their union and the subsequent birth of their child. “Not really,” he said finally.

The Pensieve sat on the desk between them, throwing little specks of silvery light onto the surrounding portraits and ceiling. Harry stared at it, wishing that the headmaster would just get down to business and start their lesson so he could focus on something besides the uncomfortable buzz pricking under his skin. Dumbledore lowered his head another inch, trying to catch Harry’s eye, and Harry unwillingly met his gaze.

“As I said before, you need your friends, Harry. Keeping secrets from them will only make things more difficult for you, and for them,” said Dumbledore shrewdly, and Harry got the distinct impression that he was not only talking of passing on the matters of these lessons. He wondered, again, what Dumbledore had meant by Ron and Hermione’s perceptions differing from his own, but Dumbledore was already standing, indicating the Pensieve on the desk, and after a brief review of what they had covered previously and an introduction to where they were headed next, Harry was plunging face first into the cool surface of the contents of the Pensieve and falling down through darkness into Dumbledore’s memory of a boy Voldemort.

Quite a while later, after Harry and Dumbledore had emerged from their viewing of a shabby little London orphanage run by a Mrs. Cole and the calculating, disquieting version of a young Tom Riddle who had spent his childhood there tormenting the other children, they sat with the desk between them again and discussed the boy-Riddle’s tendency towards secrecy and domination, and his odd, magpie-like habit of trophy-collecting.

The sky outside the window had now grown dark and starless, and Fawkes was dozing softly behind the door with his head under his wing.

“And now, Harry,” said Dumbledore, “I think it is time for bed. But firstly, I would like to ask you something.”

Harry, who had made to stand up, sank back into his chair and waited, apprehensive.

Dumbledore considered him for a moment, and Harry rather thought that the usual twinkle in the piercing blue eyes looked just a bit dimmer. Dumbledore pressed the tips of his long fingers together. “I want to know,” he said gravely, “if there is anything you would like to tell me.”

Harry remembered Dumbledore asking him much the same thing in second year, when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, and people had been getting Petrified left, right, and centre, and Harry had been so worried that he might actually somehow be the heir of Slytherin.

Harry thought, now, about his growing dread about Malfoy and what he was doing following Hermione around. He thought about the broken skin on his wrists. About the empty ache in his belly, and the sleeping tablets in his bedside table. He thought about how he was just the tiniest bit nervous to leave Dumbledore’s office when they were done here, because last time there had been someone waiting for him…he thought about the extra layer of Mrs. Weasley’s jumpers he was wearing at that very moment, to protect himself from the cold, and from suspicion. He thought about how very, very tired he was.

“No, sir,” Harry said in a flat voice, looking into Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes. “I can’t think of anything.”

In the corner, Fawkes let out a low, soft, musical cry.

Chapter Text

“Oh, come on.”

Harry ignored this and continued slowly down the aisle of bookshelves, his fingers tracing lightly against the worn spines as he feigned interest in a title or two.

Hermione trailed behind him, undeterred.

“I’ve already told you, I'm sorry.” she said a little impatiently.

“Are you?” Harry asked, squatting down to peruse the bottom row. He slipped a volume from the shelf and frowned down at it. “That’s not what you said yesterday.”

“I’m sorry you’re upset,” she conceded. She stopped next to him, and Harry glanced at her shoes, her presence looming over him. “But I’m not sorry I said something to Hagrid, I won’t apologise for that.”

Harry shoved the book back onto its shelf and straightened up to look slightly downward at her. It still hadn’t stopped surprising him that he was taller than she was, now. “You didn’t just say it by accident,” he objected, “you two took me down there on purpose to…to ambush me, or something.”

“We didn’t!” she insisted, looking highly affronted. She fixed her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes. “We wanted to see him, and I thought you would too – Hagrid’s the one who brought it up, if you care to remember, and I wasn't going to just sit there and lie to him.”

Harry turned and stalked away from her, shaking his head, and Hermione followed mulishly, making a sound of displeasure behind him. She caught up and put a hand on his shoulder. Harry bristled and spun back around, leveling her with a scowl.

“Hermione, has it occurred to you that I came down here so you wouldn’t talk to me?” he snapped, a little too loudly, for Madam Pince the librarian appeared seemingly out of nowhere, her papery, vulture-like countenance peering between a gap in the books from the next aisle over. She shushed them fiercely before disappearing as she re-shelved a pile of old tomes into the gap where her face had been.

Hermione lowered her voice. “I’d worked that much out,” she muttered, heavy with sarcasm. “Some people say I’m rather brilliant, you know – but you’ve practically been avoiding us for two days, and I’m tired of it.”

“If you’re so tired of it, then why not stop following me?” Harry whispered, his temper rising.

She stamped her foot. “You’re impossible!” she hissed at him furiously.

“I do try,” Harry said, his lips quirking up in the farce of a smirk.

Hermione's brow furrowed in irritation. “Yes, my patience,” she shot back, swiping loose strands of her frizzy hair behind her ears.

The bell rang a second later, interrupting the beginnings of what was sure to have been a magnificent glowering match between the two of them, and Hermione huffed, crossing her arms.

“Transfiguration,” she said simply. She nodded her head towards the exit. “Are you coming or not?”

Not, Harry was sorely tempted to say. He couldn’t remember for the life of him if had completed his essay on the characteristics of Animagi. He supposed, however, that there were worse ways to die than by McGonagall’s wrath.

Not that he could think of any at the moment.

Sighing, Harry spared Hermione one last look of annoyance and strode past her, leading the way back out of the library.

He had not completed his essay, Harry remembered drearily as he dropped into the seat next to Ron. Professor McGonagall came by moments later, hand outstretched to accept their homework, and Harry handed in his half-finished paper with a slightly resigned sense of certain doom.

Ron nudged Harry’s elbow as McGonagall returned to the front of the classroom, but Harry pretended not to have noticed, opening his textbook and squinting up at the blackboard to see which chapter they were supposed to be covering.

“Oi,” Ron tried again. “You ever finish?”

Harry glanced at him, shaking his head curtly.

Ron grimaced. “Bad luck. You should’ve told me, I’d’ve let you copy mine – ”

He broke off as Hermione kicked the leg of his chair, and he swung towards her, throwing her a dirty look. The two of them immediately descended into a near-silent but energetic round of bickering, until Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and the class quieted while she reviewed the structure of their lesson for the day.

Ron tried again to get Harry’s attention, but Harry ignored him, watching instead as McGonagall took up her chalk and began to draw complex diagrams on the board for them to copy down – he didn’t know whether to believe Hermione’s claim that dragging him down to Hagrid’s hadn’t been some sort of plan between the two of them, but Ron had helped to try to corner him in the end, and Harry was not quite sure he was ready to let it go.

Ron whispered his name a few more times before McGonagall heard.

“Do you have a theory to add to the fifth law of human transfiguration, Mr. Weasley?” she asked in a clipped voice. “Or perhaps something more important to say?”

The tips of Ron’s ears went red as several students snickered.

“No, Professor,” he said quickly.

“I thought not.” She turned back to the diagrams.

Ron glanced up at her again and then hunched over the table, scribbling something onto a scrap of parchment. He slid it over to Harry’s side of the desk, and Harry looked down at it, grinning faintly in spite of himself.

Hangman.

They hadn’t played a round to pass the time in class since Umbridge – it felt like more than a lifetime ago.

He scrawled a guess and slid it back over.

They repeated this several more times, ignoring Hermione’s quiet sighs of exasperation, until half a stick figure was hanging from its noose and Ron pushed the paper back over to Harry.

‘Okay, 3 letters’

Harry jotted down three more guesses and Ron took it back, filling in the spaces and giving Harry the thumbs up.

When the paper returned, it read:

W H Y  A R E  Y O U  B E I N G  A  G I T ?

His shoulders slumping, Harry rolled his eyes and crumpled up the piece of paper, lobbing it back at Ron and hitting him square between the eyes. He pulled his textbook closer and bent over it, plopping his chin into his hand; Ron snorted quietly. Harry shot him a glare, but Ron just shrugged, barely trying to hide his grin as he trained his eyes on his own textbook.

Harry yawned his way through the next hour, writing down everything he could interpret from the lecture, pausing now and then to give himself a mental shake when he caught himself doodling in the blank spaces of his notes…he was already dreading the homework for that night.

Finally, McGonagall asked one of the Ravenclaws sitting near the front to pass out the sheet of essay questions due next lesson, and the bell rang through the halls, signaling the end of class. Harry began packing up along with everyone else, but when he heaved his bag over his shoulder and turned to go, McGonagall’s voice rang out from the front of the room.

“Wait a moment, Potter. I’d like to have a word with you, if you please.”

She stood next to her desk watching him expectantly.

Harry glanced automatically to Ron and Hermione, but when Hermione opened her mouth, he told them shortly, “You don’t have to wait, it’s fine.”

They gave him one last uneasy look and reluctantly stepped up behind Malfoy to join the last of the students leaving the classroom. Harry watched them go, slowly setting his bag back to the floor.

McGonagall waved her wand and the door closed, dampening the sounds of students chattering away happily on the way to their next period. She gestured for him to join her as she moved around to sit behind her desk, and Harry obeyed, trying valiantly to suppress the nerves twisting his stomach. He hovered anxiously for a second until she pointed to a chair in front of her desk.

“You may sit,” she told him dryly. “It won’t bite.”

Harry sat down, fidgeting, and blurted out. “I’m sorry I haven’t been handing in some of the homework, Professor.” He remembered with a pang how pleased she had been when he’d got an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on his O.W.L. “I’ll do better.”

She surveyed him for a moment, her hands clasped in front of her on the desk.

“I do not believe it will come as a surprise to you that you are not doing very well in my class at the moment,” she said.

“No, Professor….”

“Your other teachers have recently reported to me similar less-than-stellar marks in their subjects,” she continued, consulting a stack of papers next to her.

She looked up at him again over her square spectacles.

Harry nodded. “I know,” he said quietly. He rubbed absently at his hands. He didn’t know what to say.

“They have also reported other things, things I must confess I have noticed myself.”

Harry eyed her warily, waiting.

“In class, you are disengaged, to the point of apathy. The work you do manage to hand in is often jumbled and confused – it does not resemble anything like what I know you to be capable of accomplishing. You appear exhausted – that is, when you are not too highly strung to sit still – and from what I have seen, this is no different outside of class.”

She gazed at him seriously.

“You have clearly lost weight, Potter.”

Harry’s stomach dropped like a stone, and he stared at the ground, unable to look her in the eye. Time seemed almost suspended; it did not feel quite real, to be sitting across from strict Professor Minerva McGonagall while she said these things so plainly. He swallowed, his throat dry. He didn’t have an excuse. What on earth was he supposed to say?

“It’s fine,” he said finally, but it came out a quiet rasp. He cleared his throat. “I’m fine,” he insisted, and forced himself to meet her eyes. “I’ve just been tired. I’ll try harder.” He nodded, as if that would get her to agree, and scratched at his wrist. “I will.”

She continued to contemplate him, her expression grave, and Harry’s heart hammered in his chest.

“I hope you realise, Potter,” she said quietly, “that as your Head of House, I am always available should you need to talk to someone.”

Harry nodded mechanically, his eyes drifting to the floor again.

“Or perhaps someone else, with whom you would be more comfortable?”

He shook his head mutely.

Silence stretched between them. She was still staring at him.

“Harry….” she said, and the sharp voice she so skillfully used to reprimand her students had sunk into a much softer edge.

To his utter horror, Harry felt his throat tighten and burn.

He sat up straighter instantly, biting down hard on his lip as he raised his eyes to hers.

“I’m fine, Professor,” he said firmly, and steadily met her gaze, as if daring her to contradict him. He forced himself to stop scratching.

McGonagall looked at him for another long moment, her lips pressing together in that thin line. Her eyes raked him up and down, taking in his entire appearance. At last she said, “Very well. If you’re certain…you may go.”

Harry was so grateful he had practically leapt from the chair before she’d finished speaking.

“However, Potter,” she called after him as he gathered up his bag and headed for the door; her usual brusqueness had returned. Harry turned reluctantly back to face her. “It would do you well to remember that my door is always open, to any student – and rest assured that if I see no improvement, you will find yourself in my office again regardless, is that understood?”

Harry’s hand tightened around the strap of his bag. “Yes, Professor.”

She nodded, satisfied, and averted her eyes back to her desk, pulling out a pile of essays to begin marking.

Harry turned quickly and made straight for the door.

Once safely out in the empty hallway, Harry let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He leaned back gladly against the wall and attempted to quell the quaking in his arms, an unpleasant effect of the odd push-and-pull you got from a sudden burst of nerves.

McGonagall’s promise to summon him to her office again echoed in his ears like a death knell.

Harry closed his eyes, his head falling back against the wall.

Bollocks.

Bollocksbollocksbollocksbollocksbollocks.

A faint murmuring suddenly brought him out of his stupor of panicky self-implosion and he immediately opened his eyes, glancing about – Ron and Hermione were standing close together farther up the corridor, talking quietly, far enough away that they hadn’t heard him coming out of the classroom. They had waited for him after all. Groaning inwardly, Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak, throwing it quickly over his head.

The last thing he wanted to do was face their questions about why McGonagall had wanted to meet with him privately; they seemed far too prone nowadays to spout off their concerns about him to any listening ear, and this would only serve to encourage them.

Harry crept over to the wall opposite and started up the corridor. As he stepped silently closer to his friends, he heard Hermione laugh lightly, saying, “Ron, you’re hungry, just go – I’ll wait for him, we’ll catch you up.”

He saw Ron separate, waving to her as he set off up the hallway, and Hermione took a book out of her schoolbag, flipping it open to a page she’d marked. Harry hesitated as he drew even with her…he felt a faint prick of guilt, leaving her there to wait for him until after he was long gone. But surely she would catch on when McGonagall emerged alone, and the idea of her potential continued harassment of him was too much to take at the moment. He sneaked noiselessly by as she sat down against the wall and folded her legs up underneath her, settling down with her book.

Harry had almost caught up to Ron when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he spun around on his heel to scan the corridor.

There was someone else here, besides himself, and Ron, and Hermione.

He stood there, frozen, still invisible, straining his ears. His eyes flicked over the statues set into the walls, the suits of armour.

A tiny crumbling sound echoed quietly down the corridor, and Hermione looked up curiously from her book, glancing around; but Harry looked higher, at the ceiling above Hermione’s head, and felt his heart leap into his throat.

The stone was rapidly cracking apart, fissures splitting and spreading like a spider’s web, loosening huge chunks of rock, fit to crush, and Hermione hadn’t realised yet, she hadn’t moved.

“HERMIONE, RUN!” Harry bellowed, ripping off the Cloak without thought and casting it aside, already sprinting towards her in blind panic. He heard Ron’s shout of surprise behind him, saw Hermione look up and see the stones about to crash down upon her – she was scrambling to her feet, her book tumbling from her lap and skidding across the floor – Harry saw, as if in slow-motion, a great slab of rock start to break free from the ceiling, start to fall, directly over Hermione’s head – with a great burst of terror, he lunged over the last few feet of space between them, seized her by the waist and wrenched her out of the way.

The stone fell, missing Hermione’s head by an inch, but then there was a sickening crack and she was shrieking into Harry’s ear, a piercing cry of pain as the stone exploded into pieces on the floor…he dimly registered that her leg was sticking out at the wrong angle as he dragged her back, and blood was seeping out to soak her clothes – she gave a half-groan, half-scream, the sound strangling in her throat, and clutched desperately at Harry’s arm around her, her grip as tight as a vice, but he had to move her – the cracks in the ceiling were growing, spreading, and more stones were coming down, crashing down, the sound was deafening.

Harry did not know when Ron joined them, but one second he wasn’t there and the next he was, helping Harry to pull Hermione away from danger, to the end of the corridor where they all slumped against the wall, sweating and shaking. Doors slammed open all along the hall, curious faces appearing and exclaiming in shock at what was happening, and there was someone else, Harry saw, through the dust and debris and falling rock, on the other side, someone running, and he knew immediately who it was.

He looked quickly at his friends – at Hermione’s screwed-up, tear-stained face – at Ron, wide-eyed and pale, who had curled his long arms protectively around Hermione, cradling her against him – but they were out of the way, they were safe, and Harry released his hold on Hermione, clambering to his feet as he whipped his wand out of his robes.

“What are you doing?” Ron roared as he bolted away from them, back towards the collapsing passage.

Blood pounded in Harry’s ears as he raced past the first few fallen stones, vaulting easily over the largest of them, his wandless arm raised over his head to shield his face.

“POTTER, NO!” McGonagall screamed as he passed her door, and there were other voices shouting after him, calling him back, but he did not stop.

He ran flat-out, dodging great chunks of stone as they plunged toward him – a confused chorus of the blast and crunch of debris and the screech of panicked, echoing voices pressed on his ears – he could still barely see Malfoy up ahead on the other side of destruction, but the dust was thickening, and Harry sidestepped a pile of rubble only to stumble over another – he hit the floor hard on all fours. Something struck a glancing blow to his side, nearly knocking him to the ground, forcing air out of his lungs, but he shot back to his feet, the searing pain in his ribs barely even a thought, and sprinted relentlessly onward.

He ducked under several more plummeting rocks, and then he was on the other side - Malfoy’s robes were just whipping around the corner, and Harry followed, his fingers practically cramped around his wand for how tightly he was gripping it, a wild fury fueling every cell in his body as he ran, rounding the corner.

The next hallway came into view, but it was empty, Malfoy was nowhere to be seen, and Harry skidded to a stop, his gaze flashing in every direction, taking in everything, searching...he clutched at his side, his breath coming in agonizing gasps, dust sticking to his throat – he wracked his brains viciously, thinking of any possible way Malfoy could have gone, any secret passage he might have taken – there were no doors in this corridor, he could not have ducked into a room.

He turned in a circle, looking for some sign of him.

But there was nobody here.

He had lost him.

A leaching sense of disappointment crawled down Harry’s trembling limbs.

As his urgency started to fade, he once more became aware of his body and his left side gave a nasty throb. Wincing, he took a few steps forward, eyes still scanning the corridor, unwilling to give up his pursuit so easily –

A pair of hands seized Harry’s shoulders, spinning him around, and he was suddenly face to face with a livid Professor McGonagall.

He briefly wondered how he hadn’t heard her coming, then realised his ears were ringing slightly; the sounds of falling stone had ceased.

“Potter, what were you thinking?” she demanded, an unmistakable edge of panic in her voice. Her face was pale, nearly bloodless but for two high spots of color in her cheeks, and her emerald robes were thick with dust in several places. Her grip tightened on his shoulders and her chin trembled slightly as she looked him up and down, though whether this was from fear or anger it was impossible to say. “Are you hurt?”

Harry dropped his hand away from his side immediately, shaking his head. “No. But, Professor, listen, I think – ” he started, pointing back the way Malfoy must have disappeared, but she cut him off.

“Of all the foolhardy – senseless – reckless….” She seemed unable to collect herself. “Never in all my life – ”

Anger, then.

“ – might have been killed – ”

At these words, all thoughts of overtaking Malfoy faded from Harry’s mind, and his terror for Hermione came flooding back to him.

“Professor, Hermione – she’s hurt – I think her leg’s broken.” He told her quickly, already moving to step around her.

McGonagall’s eyes widened slightly, her hands dropping from his shoulders as she turned immediately to follow him, and they both hurried back towards the collapsed corridor.

They came around the corner, and to Harry’s eyes it was like a scene lifted straight from a war film; there was rubble and debris everywhere, tendrils of dust still floating in the air; students and professors were tentatively drawing out of their classrooms, inspecting the damage with awe. There were no holes showing through to the upper floor, a testament to Hogwarts’ imposing edifice, but half the ceiling was missing great chunks of stone, several feet thick in some places.

Harry scrambled over fallen rock, McGonagall picking her way swiftly through the wreckage behind him, moving great lumps of stones out of the way with deft waves of her wand.

Ron and Hermione were still sat hunched against the wall, huddled together, and Harry fell to his knees beside them the second he reached them. Hermione’s tears had dried. Her eyes looked oddly cloudy as they found Harry’s face – she let out a tiny whimper and reached out for him, grasping a fistful of his robes as her other hand tightened around Ron’s arm.

“I…I think she’s in shock,” Ron muttered helplessly, looking from Harry back to Hermione.

Against his will, Harry’s gaze dropped to her leg again, and he looked away quickly, feeling sick.

McGonagall crouched down beside them. “Try not to move,” she instructed Hermione and waved her wand in the same complicated motion Snape had done over Harry in the dungeons during his detention.

Hermione closed her eyes, her breath coming in shallow little gasps.

“It seems to be the only injury,” McGonagall announced when she had finished. “But we must get to the hospital wing at once.” She put her hand bracingly on Hermione’s arm, and Hermione’s eyes opened again, glassy with pain. “It will be…less painful for you if you are not awake. Will you permit me – ?”

Hermione nodded weakly, head turning into Ron’s chest.

McGonagall raised her wand again, flicking it wordlessly, and Hermione slumped, her hand falling away from Harry’s robes. McGonagall stood, conjuring a stretcher out of thin air which hovered several feet off the ground of its own accord.

“You may let go, now, Mr. Weasley.”

Ron looked down, apparently only just realising how tightly he’d been holding onto Hermione, and slowly unwound his arms from around her waist.

McGonagall pointed her wand at Hermione’s limp body and carefully levitated her, awkwardly-angled leg and all, onto the stretcher. Harry helped Ron to his feet, noticing as he did so that the freckled hand in his was trembling quite badly, and he patted Ron staunchly on the shoulder.

“She’ll be okay,” he said quietly, and Ron nodded, swallowing, his blue eyes trained on Hermione’s still form.

Harry spotted his Invisibility Cloak several feet away, thankfully lying exactly where he had left it; he’d nearly forgotten about it. Scooping it up quickly, he shoved it into his pocket and hurried off after the others.

They moved swiftly through the halls to the infirmary. Older students on their free periods stopped and stared as they passed, and McGonagall barked orders at a Slytherin boy to find a professor to fetch Dumbledore and inform him of the collapse. Harry watched him scurry off, half-wishing he could have gone instead, could go back to that corridor, find some shred of evidence…but he looked down at Hermione’s pale face and the thought drained instantly from his mind.

Madam Pomfrey came bustling out of her office as soon as they walked through the doors, as though she had known all along they would be coming.

“Set her here.” She pointed to one of the beds and withdrew her wand from her apron as McGonagall levitated Hermione gently onto the sheets. Harry and Ron stood back, watching anxiously as Madam Pomfrey examined her leg, nimbly moving aside the blood-stained clothes and weaving her wand over the wound. They both winced at the sounds of bone and tissue knitting themselves back together.

Her job done, McGonagall swept back over to them, drawing the boys aside, her expression severe.

“Do either of you know what happened? What caused this?”

“Yes,” Harry said at once, and she gave him a sharp look.

“And is that why you so foolishly chose to run head-first through an active cave-in?” she demanded, her tone biting. She and Ron stared at him.

Harry flushed resentfully. “I was going after who did it – he was going to get away – ”

“You saw who did this?”

Harry hesitated. “Sort of, I – I couldn’t see his face, but I saw him, I saw his robes – he made it around the corner before I could catch him.” He felt, again, an infuriating sense of letdown.

“You did not see clearly who it was?”

“I know who it was, it was Malfoy, he’s been following Hermione around for weeks, like he’s been waiting to get her alone,” he insisted angrily. “I’ve seen him at it, and so’s Ron.”

To his relief and unending gratitude, Ron nodded emphatically beside him. “It’s true, Professor, he’s been acting fishy all term – ”

“But you did not see him this time?”

“….no,” Harry admitted through tight lips.

“Then we cannot be sure – ”

“He’s not even going to get in any trouble?” Ron exploded. “He could have killed Hermione!”

“Professor – !” Harry started, outraged, but she held up a hand, forestalling them.

“Mr. Malfoy will be taken into consideration, but an inexact identification is not proof, and at Hogwarts we do not convict students for the crime of ‘acting fishy,’” she told them sternly.

Harry looked away, fuming, feeling mutinous; his jaw worked, grinding his teeth together, holding back the words he was longing to say. Madam Pomfrey pulled screens around Hermione’s bed and stepped away briefly, returning with a neatly folded pair of pyjamas and disappearing again around the partition.

“I assure you, Potter,” McGonagall said quietly, and he looked back to her; her expression was a little more understanding. Her lips seemed less thin, anyway. “We will look into it.”

Harry knew he could not convince her any further. He bit his lip, nodding curtly.

“Now. Once Madam Pomfrey is finished with Miss Granger, I would like her to take a look at you as well – ”

“No,” Harry said at once, shaking his head rapidly. “I’m not hurt, I don’t need an exam.”

She eyed him doubtfully, and he looked down at himself, noticing for the first time that the knuckles of the fingers still wrapped around his wand and the palm of his other hand had been scraped of a few layers of skin and were tinged with blood. He stowed his wand quickly, wiping his hands on his dusty robes.

“Just grazes,” he explained. “I fell - ”

“You sure?” Ron asked, frowning at him.

Harry’s side gave another duplicitous throb. He nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine, I promise.”

He was saved from their visual inspections by Madam Pomfrey drawing back the screens around Hermione’s bed. She was awake, leaning back against her pillows, looking a bit groggy but much better.

“Hermione!” Ron dashed to her side, Harry on his heels. “How do you feel?”

She smiled up at them tiredly, and lightly patted Ron’s hand. “I’m alright, it doesn’t even hurt.”

The glassy look had gone from her eyes, and something in Harry finally relaxed.

She bent her leg slightly at the knee, showing them, as they sat down in chairs on either side of her. “See? Just a little stiff.”

Ron blew out a breath, his hands fidgeting in his lap as if he wasn’t quite sure where to put them.

“The break is fully mended,” Madam Pomfrey explained, “but I’d like you to stay overnight and get some rest.” She eyed Harry and Ron meaningfully as though hoping to derail any plans they’d had to throw a wild party in the hospital wing that evening.

“I am very glad you are feeling better, Miss Granger,” McGonagall told her sincerely, and she bade goodbye to the three of them before exchanging a quick word with Madam Pomfrey and hurrying from the room to attend to the destruction outside her classroom.

Madam Pomfrey set down two bottles of potion on Hermione’s bedside table and left instructions for her to take them every two hours for the stiffness, and then she was gone as well, withdrawing to her office, leaving the three of them alone.

“Blimey, Hermione, don’t scare us like that,” Ron said, chuckling breathlessly.

Hermione grinned at him. “I’ll try not to in future,” she said wryly, looking at him with distinct fondness. She turned to Harry. “Thank you,” she whispered, her expression turning serious.

He nodded, trying to smile, but it felt more like a grimace.

“You were under your Cloak, weren’t you?” she asked knowingly.

Harry nodded again. “I’m sorry,” he told her, choking on the words. “I just – ”

“It’s okay, Harry,” she said earnestly.

But he shook his head, his eyes dropping to her blanket-clad lap. He could not look at either of them. “I shouldn’t have left you there.”

“You didn’t know what was going to happen,” Ron said, “you saved her life, this isn’t your fault, it’s Malfoy’s.”

“Malfoy?” Hermione questioned.

“Yeah, Harry saw him – he was right, the git’s been following you, and now we know he’s trying to add ‘killing Muggle-borns’ to his mini-Death Eater résumé,” said Ron darkly.

“I don’t know, do we really think he’s capable of murder?” she asked, twisting her bedsheets fretfully.

Ron erupted. “He just tried to drop a ceiling on you!”

“There is that,” she replied quietly, with the air of someone accepting a hard truth only as the last resort.

There was silence between them for a moment.

“Is that why you tried to get yourself squashed under rubble? You were going after Malfoy?” Hermione asked Harry. “You really shouldn’t have done that, you could have died.” She sounded tremulous.

Harry glanced up at her. She wasn’t crying, but she looked almost hurt that he had dared to do such a thing. He let his gaze fall back to her blanket, shrugging uncomfortably. “I didn’t.”

He stared at her newly-mended leg, hidden underneath the blankets. Bitter anger was pulsing to the surface of his thoughts again, anger at himself, at his failure…if he had caught Malfoy at something in the first place, when he had first started using the Map to watch him, this would not have happened. He had been lax, and a Dark Mark had appeared on the Quidditch field while he had remained completely oblivious, and he hadn't stopped Malfoy stalking Hermione through the halls like a tiger. If only he hadn’t tried to sneak around his friends today like a coward, and left Hermione in the hall alone, unprotected, vulnerable to Malfoy’s attack….

Malfoy, who was only doing all this because he had to prove himself, to his family, to the Death Eaters, to Voldemort, now that his father had failed, now that he was in prison.

And whose fault was it that Lucius Malfoy was in prison?

Harry’s skin was crawling – he stared without really seeing, the blankets covering Hermione nothing more than a white blur.

She could have died.

He felt itchy all over, it was creeping up his arms, under his skin.

He couldn’t stay here.

He lurched to his feet, sliding his chair back.

“Harry?”

“Where are you going?” Ron demanded.

“Gonna go wash up,” Harry mumbled, flexing his blood-spattered hands in explanation, avoiding their eyes. “I’ll come back later…I’m happy you’re alright, Hermione.”

And he left before they could call him back.

Harry dashed up to his dormitory, slamming the door closed behind him. The other boys were in class. Ron, of course, was in the hospital wing.

He went straight to his trunk and threw it open, snatching up the Marauder’s Map, which he had left laying on top. One of the few times he had forgotten to pack it in his bag, and that just fit, didn’t it?

He hastily unfolded it, rapped it with his wand, and searched relentlessly as the lines of the school painted themselves onto the page.

Where the hell are you, you bastard?

With a cry of fury, he tossed the Map to the floor and aimed a vicious kick at his trunk. Pain exploded in his toes, and he roared again, dropping to the floor to lean up against his bed. He put his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut.

Of course Malfoy had run straight back to the safety of his common room, the coward.

Harry’s fingers itched to draw his wand again, to hunt down Draco Malfoy and unleash a stream of curses until he was a pile of goo on the dungeon floor. Even if Dumbledore did look into the Slytherin’s involvement with what had happened to Hermione, it wouldn’t be enough…even if by some miracle he was expelled, it would not be justice, Malfoy deserved far worse, and Harry yearned to be the one to give it to him.

His foot throbbed, and the growing pain in his ribs that he had been trying to ignore was screaming for attention. He growled, hands fisting in his hair, wishing that the pain would disappear. That it all would disappear.

He sat there for several long minutes, breathing deeply, every breath sending another shooting pain up his side.

Eventually, he accepted that he would have to move sometime, and he let his hands fall from his hair. He had forgotten he’d scraped them up. His arms were still itchy, and he took a second to scratch, though he knew it wouldn’t really help. He raked up his forearms anyway, leaving long raised abrasions, and in some strange way he almost liked how it looked.

Shaking his head at himself in disgust, Harry climbed to his feet, grunting as he twisted and his ribs protested again. He dug through his trunk for a fresh set of robes. He really did need to wash up.

In the bathroom, he shed his robe and shirt and bit his lip, bracing himself before he looked up at his reflection.

He winced.

His left side was a mass of black and purple, curling around across several inches of his chest. He tried to turn to see his back, but it hurt too badly. He probed the area gently with his fingers, biting down a yelp of pain, and wondered if his ribs might be broken. If they were, they would have to heal on their own. He was not going to lift his shirt for anyone and let them see what was under it, not for Madam Pomfrey or, god forbid, for Ginny.

He thought briefly of trying ‘episkey’ on himself but wasn’t sure he was brave enough – spells could be temperamental, and he didn’t know if it would work as well on ribs as it did on noses.

He did know he needed to wash the dust from his hair and the blood from his hands, however, and he turned toward the shower, wondering miserably if perhaps this time it might finally work to burn away the guilt for all his sins.

By the time Harry convinced himself to go back to the infirmary, darkness had fallen outside the windows of the castle, and Hagrid and Ginny had joined Ron at Hermione’s bedside.

“There yeh are, was wonderin’ where yeh’d got to,” said Hagrid as Harry pulled a chair up next to Ginny’s.

“Yeah – er – had to get a shower, all the dust.”

“Professor McGonagall filled me in,” Hagrid said gravely, “Tha’s how I knew Hermione here had got hurt…look at yeh, lyin’ there.”

Hermione smiled at him indulgently. “I’m perfectly alright, Hagrid, you heard Madam Pomfrey.”

“Still,” Hagrid sniffed forlornly.

“I heard you did something self-sacrificing and stupid again,” Ginny told Harry conversationally, putting her feet up on Hermione’s bed.

Harry put his hands in his pockets, looking away as she eyed him. “It wasn’t that stupid,” he grunted.

“Well….” said Ron, in a tone that clearly stated that was debatable, squinting his eyes slightly as if thinking it over.

“Shut up,” Harry grumbled.

Ron shrugged, unaffected.

Hagrid shook his great shaggy head at them and climbed to his feet, his chair groaning underneath him. “I oughta be gettin’ on, Buckbe – er – Witherwings – needs feedin’. Now will you all try ter stay alive till the nex’ time I see yeh?” he said exasperatedly, looking around at them all. “Spent half my life in this hospital wing visitin’ you, I tell yeh….”

“No guarantees,” Ron said blithely.

Hagrid grunted. “Talkin’ of,” he said carefully, giving Harry a furtive once-over with one beady eye. “Would yeh mind comin’ down an’ seein’ me soon, Harry?”

“Oh. Erm…sure. Yeah, I’ll try,” Harry mumbled, shifting uncomfortably. He had a funny feeling he knew exactly why Hagrid would want to talk to him alone.

“Yeh got time tomorrow?”

“Maybe…I’ll send Hedwig down if I can’t make it,” he said, not quite meeting Hagrid’s eye.

Hagrid nodded rather knowingly, and Harry was sure he already looked disappointed.

“Alrigh’,” he agreed, his voice low. “I’ll look forward ter seein’ yeh, then.” He waved at them all and trudged off towards the exit, closing the doors carefully behind him.

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

Hermione ventured softly, “You should go see him tomorrow. He’s only worried about you.”

Anger started to bubble up inside of him again, like the flick of a switch, and he did not want to let it spill out at her, while she was lying in a hospital bed for a broken leg he was responsible for in the first place, but he couldn’t stop it.

“Yeah, him and Lupin and McGonagall and everyone else, and whose fault is that?” he snapped.

“Not Hermione’s,” Ron retorted, jumping to her defense. “Is that why McGonagall kept you after class?”

“Did she? Good,” Ginny said coolly, and Harry gawked at her, indignant. She stared back at him, completely unrepentant, and for the first time that he could remember, he felt a stab of irritation towards her.

“I haven’t said a word to her,” Hermione protested, her eyes narrowing at Harry. “She’s been concerned for a while, I could tell – so let’s see, that makes me, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna,” she started in a falsely light voice, ticking the names off on her fingers.

Neville and Luna?

“ – Hagrid, McGonagall, Lupin - ”

And Dumbledore, Harry’s brain supplied unhelpfully.

“It’s obvious. So when are you going to admit something’s going on?” she finished angrily, crinkling the bedsheets in her fists.

A flush filled Harry’s face, and he practically shook with suppressed anger and something a little more frantic; he did not want to do this again, especially in front of Ginny. He felt he could not go five minutes anymore without being ganged up on. “I’m fine,” he growled. “You’re the one in the hospital bed.”

“Yeah, and maybe we should book you one next to her,” Ron stormed. “I notice you never went to Madam Pomfrey like you said you would!”

“I never actually said I would go – ”

“Ginny, can you give us a minute?” Hermione asked purposefully as Harry and Ron glared at each other.

Ginny seemed as though she wanted to protest, but got up in the end, sighing. As she went, she touched Harry’s back ever-so-lightly, sending chills down his spine, and then she was gone.

Hermione’s expression was calm as she looked at Harry, but her body was tense, and he knew she was extremely upset. “Since you’re already angry at us, now seems a perfect time to discuss something,” she said evenly, and there was something almost perilous about her voice. She reached over to her bedside table and fished around in her bag, withdrawing a small package. She threw it to Harry, and it hit him in the middle of his chest with a small ‘thwack.’ He caught it automatically, and looked down at it.

It was his box of sleeping tablets.

“What are those?” she demanded.

Harry’s hand clenched around the package, something ugly and hateful twisting his gut, and he looked disbelievingly from her to Ron.

“You’re going through my things now?” he practically shouted, his body vibrating with fury and resentment. Madam Pomfrey stirred within her office at the sound, and Harry sprang to his feet, yanking the screens back around them and hastily putting up the same Silencing charm he put around his bed every night.

The last thing he needed was for the matron to come see what all the fuss was about – Ron and Hermione would probably be more than happy to help her throw him straight into a bed and tie him down, he thought furiously.

“Yeah, I am,” Ron challenged, leaning back in his chair. “I figured if you weren’t going to tell us anything, maybe your stuff would!”

“You don’t have a right – ”

“We have every right!” Hermione seethed, tears brimming in her eyes. “When you refuse to say a damn thing and choose to self-destruct instead, we have every bloody right to do whatever we have to do to make sure that doesn't happen! Where did you get those?”

“I just got them. What the hell does it matter anyway if I try to sleep through just one damn night?” Harry argued, his voice rising with every word.

“It matters because there’s no way you could have known how you’d react to them, which is why people get those kinds of things from doctors! You could stop breathing in your sleep, or have heart failure, or a million other horrible things! Do you understand that? Do you care?” she demanded. Her tears began to fall, sliding down her cheeks. She moved to get off the bed, but Ron pushed her back into it.

“Well you haven’t got to worry about any of that, I stopped taking them,” Harry snapped. “They just made everything worse anyway.”

“You shouldn’t have been taking them in the first place!”

“Mate, just ask Madam Pomfrey for some Dreamless Sleep if you need it.”

“No.”

“Why not? If it helps – ”

“I said no – ”

“Harry, come on, you could ask right now.”

“NO!” Harry bellowed. “JUST STOP!”

He ran a hand frenetically through his hair, his chest heaving as he looked into their startled faces.

Keeping secrets from them will only make things more difficult for you…and for them, Dumbledore had said, and the weight of what Harry could do, what he could say to them right now was crushing. But he could not bear the thought of how they would look at him, if they knew. If they knew what dreams it was he was trying to prise from his head.

“You have to stop…please,” he implored them, and he tried to sound angry, but it came out desperate instead. “Just, don’t. I need you to stop…asking me about all this. Please.”

They all looked at each other, and for a second the world seemed to shrink down to just the three of them, locked away in their own little universe of hurt and confusion and fear.

“No,” Ron said quietly, and Hermione shook her head, wiping her tears from her face. A united front against him.

Harry looked between them, betrayal seeping like poison through his veins. He squared his jaw.

“Fine,” he said coldly, and turned to go, cancelling his Silencing spell with a flick of his wand. There was the scrape of a chair driving back and Ron’s hand was on his arm, but Harry threw it off, whirling around so that they practically nose to nose. “Stay out of my stuff,” he said dangerously. “And if you two can’t stop digging into things that are none of your business, then you can stay the hell away from me too.”

And he stalked off around the screen and down the ward, trying to feel nothing, to be blank and cold and detached, and yet feeling for all the world as though his heart was ripping in two.

Chapter Text

He didn’t know where to go. It was getting late, and before too long Filch would be out patrolling the corridors, enforcing curfew. But he did not yet want to return to Gryffindor and withstand the inevitable demands to recount the story of what had happened in the corridor and why Hermione was in the hospital wing. The box of sleeping tablets crinkled in his fist and he peeked inside before stashing the box away in his pocket.

Hermione had emptied them.

Not that it mattered, of course, but the thought made him bristle. He let his feet carry him through the halls, still unsure where he was going. He passed the door to the trophy room and ducked inside on impulse.

The rows of cups and plaques gleamed in the dim light. Harry moved through the room, letting the names and dates and accomplishments of past students distract him from the memory of Ron and Hermione’s faces that seemed to want to plaster itself to his mind. A tall set of shelves caught his eye, and right in the middle of the third shelf, at eye level, was a pair of engraved golden shields, identical but for the names inscribed on them.

Harry Potter, Special Award for Services to the School

Ronald Weasley, Special Award for Services to the School

Harry swallowed, reminded of Basilisk fangs and ink-stained stone, and moved on. He passed a large display of silver medals and came to another case; behind the sheet of glass was a very long list of names documenting the Head Boys and Girls of each class at Hogwarts. Half-reluctant and half-eager, Harry scanned down the names until his eyes found two familiar ones near the bottom.

1977-78 | James Potter, Head Boy, Gryffindor | Lily Evans, Head Girl, Gryffindor

He stared at his parents’ names, a terrible and powerful grief sweeping over him without warning. He had rarely missed them so unbearably as he did at that moment, and the knowledge that they both had lived here at Hogwarts, had walked these halls, had spent their evenings in the same common room as he did, eaten their meals in the same Great Hall, hit him as it never had before. A yawning, empty chasm widened inside him, and the wish for them to be here beside him, to see his mother, to talk to his father, to feel their arms around him was almost a physical pain. He did not think he had ever felt so horribly, dreadfully alone.

Tearing his eyes away, Harry walked quickly back the way he had come, out of the room, back down the stairs, heading for the entrance hall. Getting out of the castle, breathing fresh air, was the only thought in his head, and he regretted that he did not have his broom with him.

By the time he made it out of the oak front doors, he was craving the cool evening air so badly he could have sighed when it finally touched his face. He instinctively broke into a jog, needing to move, to run, to get out of his head. He only made it a few paces, however, before a stabbing pain in his side reminded him viciously of his bruised ribs and he was forced to slow down. He limped down the sloping lawns towards the greenhouses, arm held gingerly away from his side, and hoped that by some miracle he’d feel better by morning. The prospect of not being able to take his usual run made his stomach tighten with anxiety and he fought not to break into panic at the thought. He would figure it out.

Harry edged his way around Greenhouse One, thinking of heading towards the lake, but his heart shot up into his throat as soon as he stepped foot onto the vegetable patch. There was a figure hunched over in the middle of the patch, examining the ground, and it was only when it straightened up that Harry realised who it was.

“Luna?”

He immediately relaxed his arm against his side in a more natural stance as she turned to look at him, depositing what looked like a handful of seeds into a small bag at her hip.

“Oh, hello, Harry! What are you doing out here?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he told her as she watched him pick his way over around a crop of carrots. “How d’you plan to get back inside?” The now-usual guard hadn’t been stationed at the doors on Harry’s way out, but the sun had now fully set and he was willing to bet they had been by now. He had his Invisibility Cloak and his secret passages, but he did not see how Luna expected to avoid being found out.

“I’m not worried,” she told him pleasantly, her gaze wandering over the ground again. “I come out here quite a lot at night. I do get caught sometimes, of course, but I don’t really mind the detentions. And Professor Flitwick only pretends to punish me when it’s up to him. He lets me have biscuits and cocoa in his office while we chat for a bit. It’s quite nice.”

Harry grinned. “Didn’t know Flitwick was such a soft touch.”

“Oh yes, he’s lovely, I’m very glad he’s Head of Ravenclaw. He’s always been kind to me.” She bent down, running her hand over the soil.

“What are you looking for?” asked Harry.

“Puffapod beans,” she explained. “Most of them bloom instantly when you drop them on the ground, you see, but a few of them don’t. Most people believe the ones that can’t bloom are hopeless – Professor Sprout uses them in the fertilizer for the school’s vegetables – but Neville says he thinks they might just grow differently. They might even grow bigger. I thought it might be a good Christmas present for him if I could get one to flower. Do you think so?”

“That sounds perfect,” Harry told her truthfully.

She looked up, pleased. “Would you like to help me?”

“Sure,” Harry offered and crouched down next to her, kneeling carefully so as not to jostle his ribs.

They searched in comfortable silence together for several long minutes. Clouds drifted across the sliver of moon hanging in the starless sky. Luna pulled out her wand, igniting it and sticking it behind her ear so that it illuminated the earth in front of them like a torch.

Harry’s fingers moved over the soil, plucking up the occasional shining bean and adding it to Luna’s pouch which she had set on the ground between them. The argument with Ron and Hermione felt fresh and raw like an open wound, and Harry couldn’t help but be grateful that he’d come across Luna after all. The deep sense of loneliness that had descended upon him at the sight of his parents’ names had lifted only slightly, and he looked at Luna thoughtfully as she carved out a little hole in the ground, hunting for more beans.

She had lost her mother, too, he reminded himself, and at an age old enough to remember it. It was a mystery to him how she managed to appear so upbeat all the time. She was unfailingly open and straightforward, often embarrassingly so, and Harry sometimes found it awkward. But she had never seemed to judge Harry for saying something stupid or acting like a prat – she never seemed to judge anyone much, as a matter of fact – and Harry suddenly found himself wondering what she would think….

“Hey,” he said, trying his utmost to sound strictly casual. “Luna, have you ever, er…have you ever…kissed anyone?”

Luna looked up at him, her arm buried almost to the elbow in the dirt.

“No. You have, though, haven’t you? Cho Chang.”

“Yeah.” Harry cleared his throat. “Yes, but I mean…really kissing, and…you know…other stuff.” He knew he should shut up, his brain was begging him to, but he wanted to know.

“Like having sex?” she asked baldly. She was still hunched over awkwardly, her arm hidden in the ground.

Harry coughed, and he looked away from her, pretending to scour the patch for more beans. “Er – well. Yeah. Yeah, I suppose.”

“No, I haven’t done that either,” Luna told him without a hint of embarrassment. She finally pulled her arm out of the soil and started digging another hole. “I don’t have much interest really,” she said serenely. “Right now, anyway. Are you asking if I’d like to with you?”

Harry blanched. “No! No, definitely not, I was only – I just meant – ”

But Luna nodded and tilted her head to the side. “That’s alright, I didn’t think you were. But I find it’s always best to straighten these things out right away,” she offered sagely.

“I didn’t mean - ” Harry went on, flustered. He sat back on his heels, staring at her. “It’s not like you’re not pretty or anything, you are, it’s.... Shite. I’m sorry.”

Luna giggled. “That’s the first time anyone’s called me pretty, besides my Dad anyway, and Mum before she died,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you.”

“I – you’re welcome,” he said, enormously relieved that she did not seem offended.

“Besides you already like someone else.” Luna added three more beans to her bag.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, frowning at her.

“Ginny Weasley.”

Harry felt like he’d just missed a step going down the stairs. “How d’you reckon?” he demanded, noting with dismay that his voice sounded slightly higher than it should have done.

“Firenze said so in our last Divination lesson,” she told him, like it should make perfect sense.

“Firenze?” Harry stared, completely nonplussed. “The centaur?”

“Yes. Well, I mean he didn’t call you by name, of course, but he was talking about how luminous Jupiter was the other night, and about how the Summer Triangle of Vega, Deneb, and Altair was shifting over the horizon, and obviously it all meant you and Ginny are destined to be together, if you put any stock in the centaurs as stargazers. Daddy never has, but I think they’re right about some things.” She opened her pouch and began counting out a handful of beans as she said all this, and Harry watched her, blinking hard, his head beginning to hurt a little. “Plus, there’s the way you look at her when you think she’s not looking,” she stated matter-of-factly, dumping the beans back into her bag.

“Oh. I – ” But Luna was gazing at him so fervently that the denial died on his lips. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “There’s that.”

Luna nodded as though pleased he had caught on so quickly.

Harry dug around in the soil for a moment. There was dirt under his fingernails now, but he didn’t care. “D’you reckon she knows?” he asked anxiously.

“I don’t think so. She would probably like to know, though.”

“She’s with Dean,” Harry pointed out as if it settled the matter.

“Yes,” agreed Luna. “But not forever, I would imagine. She likes him, but he frustrates her a bit, I think. He hovers.”

Harry grunted noncommittally but his hopes rose in spite of himself, an image of him and Ginny walking off the Quidditch pitch hand-in-hand after a spectacular win springing up in his mind. He shook his head, bringing himself back to earth with a bump. Even if she did break up with Dean, there were other, more complicated obstacles stopping them getting together.

“Anyway, you were asking if I’d ever had sex with anyone,” she continued brightly, and Harry nearly started. He had forgotten the beginning of their conversation already, the discussion of Ginny driving all else from his mind. “And I said I haven’t. Have you?”

Harry was quiet for such a long time he was sure Luna must have thought he was ignoring her. But she sat patiently without prompting him, dousing her wand and gazing up at the moon which was now visible through the clouds. Harry debated ferociously with himself as he watched her, his fist clenching in the dirt, but decided that it was not too dangerous. He didn’t have to say anything he didn’t want to.

“Sort of, I guess,” he said, very quietly, his insides squirming in discomfort, and she looked back from the moon to his face. “Yeah.”

The expression on her face was a mix between polite surprise and vague curiosity. “Was it nice?”

Harry was quiet for another long moment. “No,” he said, feeling as though the word had cost him more that it should have done. “It wasn’t.”

Luna frowned, her eyes becoming more earnest as she studied him. “Oh,” she said softly. She looked sad. “That’s not very good. It’s supposed to be nice.”

Harry nodded without really realising it. “Yeah,” he agreed, and he looked away over the grounds. “I reckon it is.” He swallowed. “Look, never mind. Forget I brought it up. It’s not important. I was just…wondering.”

He tried to smile at her, but she stared at him a second longer before returning it faintly. “Okay,” she said, and picked up her bag. “I think we’ve got enough beans to be going on with.” They both stood, brushing themselves off, Luna refastening her bag over her shoulder. “Thank you for helping me,” she told Harry warmly.

“Anytime.” Harry took out his wand and refilled the holes they had dug with the mounds of displaced dirt, making the vegetable patch smooth once more.

“You have friends, you know.”

Harry looked up at her, into the wide, silvery eyes focused so keenly upon him. He frowned. “I know that.” But a swoop of regret plunged through his gut, and he thought of how intensely he missed Ron and Hermione, even though they were just inside the castle.

She nodded, the moonlight reflecting off the top of her blonde head. “Okay,” she said again.

Harry awkwardly regarded a row of spring onions. He was more thankful than he could say that she had said no more than that. She had not asked him how he was or what he was thinking, or told him he didn’t look alright. Nor had she found it strange or distasteful that he had asked her a series of highly personal questions.

She’d just wanted him to look for beans with her.

He dug into his pocket, pulling out his Invisibility Cloak. “Want some help sneaking back in?” he asked her, holding it up in question.

“I don’t know why they always have to do this at breakfast,” Seamus grumbled, brushing several stray feathers from his plate and peering up at the owls swooping overhead.

Across from Seamus and Neville, Harry glanced up automatically for the telltale blur of white but wasn’t too surprised not to find Hedwig there. He did, however, notice the rather bulky form of two brown owls carrying a large square package between them, and he watched with mild interest as they swooped lower and lower. The owls dived low over the Gryffindor table, finally landing with a loud thunk several seats away in front of Hermione. Harry frowned as he watched her detach the package from the owls’ legs, wondering what she possibly could have ordered, but she looked up at him then, and he averted his eyes back to his half-eaten bowl of cornflakes.

It had been five days since his argument with Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing, and he had not spoken to either of them since. He had come close a couple of times, rather accidentally. Two days ago, Romilda Vane had gone to sit in an armchair near the fire in the common room and immediately leapt back out of it shrieking about a tarantula, which had then scurried over the side of her chair and onto the floor. Several people had jumped onto tables and chairs, including Ron, and Harry’s laughter had faltered as he remembered Ron’s terrible phobia of spiders. Harry had traded a knowing sympathetic look with Hermione and had opened his mouth to say something to Ron before remembering with a pang that he was no longer on speaking terms with them. In the end, someone had Vanished the spider and when the uproar had calmed, Harry had sunk miserably back into his Transfiguration homework alone.

Harry swirled his spoon through his cereal, scooping up some milk and watching it drip slowly back into the bowl.

He knew, deep down, that his little breakfast was not enough. That none of his meals were enough. That asking his friends to ignore everything he was doing was expecting too much – or perhaps too little – of them. But as much as he missed Ron and Hermione, he had meant what he had said. He was not going to answer their questions. He was not going to eat more, and he was not going to go to Madam Pomfrey to get something for sleep, or to help him focus, or to fix the pain in his side, because then she would make him eat more, and the thought alone was enough to make him want to vomit.

Dean dropped into the seat next to Harry and grumpily spooned some potatoes onto his plate; down the table, Ginny sat down between Hermione and Parvati, looking equally sour.

Harry wondered dully if they were having a row, but he could not bring himself to get too worked up about it this morning. He had tried to make a habit of reminding himself to keep his distance from those sorts of thoughts, and in any case, his jealousy of Dean seemed to fade a little more each day. He liked Dean a lot, and he supposed it was a little unfair to hope Ginny might break up with him just because Harry had figured out he fancied her.

Quite apart from that, Harry didn’t really have the energy for it most days. It was like the more weight he lost, the more insulated he felt. He still had dreams, still had nightmares, but some of them were hazy and obscure now, like his brain didn’t have the materials to think them up all the way. Part of him wondered what would happen if he kept on like this forever, if he lost so much weight that his dreams just stopped, and he could finally sleep.

The only price to pay for all that was hunger, and he had been forced to make friends with that particular empty ache a long, long time ago.

Harry took a deep breath, making his ribs twinge, and he cringed. The numbing spell was wearing off. He started to reach for his wand but stopped himself. He had to wait until he was alone to recast it, in case anyone happened to see.

The morning after he had helped Luna look for Puffapod beans in the vegetable patch, Harry had tried and failed spectacularly at taking his morning run. He had pressed himself as far as he could go, which had turned out to be a depressing quarter of the way around the Quidditch pitch, before admitting that it was just no good. And it wasn’t just exercise, either. His side hurt so bad he’d had trouble getting dressed, carrying his books, even brushing his teeth. He had spent the rest of that morning in a horridly agitated state manifesting in near-constant fidgeting and a brief episode of scratching that had landed him in the boys’ toilet to clean up the blood. In the end he had finally resorted to skipping double Charms to steal away to the library to research bone healing spells. He had found one that looked promising, but there had obviously been nothing to practise on first, and his first and only attempt had resulted in a nauseating crunching noise from his injured ribs that had only succeeded in putting him in even more pain than before.

So he had switched his focus to spells that might alleviate his discomfort and found a charm that had blessedly achieved a glorious numbing effect all the way down the left side of his torso. He had felt so grateful to take his first deep breath in twenty-four hours that he had spent a full minute stretching and twisting just because he could, put his books back exactly the way Madam Pince liked them, and bid good afternoon to her on the way, which, judging by her uncharacteristic speechlessness, no one had ever done before.

The only drawback to the charm was that he had to reapply it every few hours, which he was not always in the position to do without being seen, and which often meant that he woke up in the mornings feeling as though he’d been ferociously attacked by three Bludgers at once.

Still, it was better than nothing, and Harry thought he had almost mastered being able to cast the spell silently. Fortunately, this had translated to being able to perform several other charms without speaking, and Flitwick, who by all accounts should have given Harry detention for skiving off his double lesson, had awarded him several extra credit points for silently executing a successful Colour Change charm in their last class.

Harry amused himself momentarily with the thought of injuring the ribs on his other side if it meant McGonagall and Slughorn and Sprout might give him some extra credit points, too. That way he might actually pass his classes.

Harry polished off his glass of water, listening to Dean update Seamus on the West Ham football team’s progress in the season thus far, Seamus’s eyes slightly glazed as they were any time Dean tried to talk football with him.

“They’ve not had their best year,” Dean was saying, and now Neville was listening in as well, looking politely confused. “Fourteenth in the league at the moment, but they could still have a chance, they’ve just beaten – ”

But they did not get to find out who West Ham had just beaten, for at that moment a diversion happened again in the form of Romilda, whose schoolbag had split in two straight through the bottom as soon as she’d got up from the Gryffindor table, sending books and quills and bottles of ink spilling onto the floor in all directions. Romilda clenched her fists at her sides, making a noise like an angry cat, and stooped to collect up her things.

Several people made unfortunate ‘oohing’ sounds, and a few laughed, but Harry set his empty glass slowly back to the table, a tingling discomfort beginning to settle over him, somewhat akin to the feeling of being watched.

Despite the stab of vindictive pleasure he received every time some hapless incident had befallen Romilda, he was starting to worry about who was behind them. The first time with the purple shower gel might have been a funny coincidence, the second time with the tarantula might not have been meant for her at all, but this third time with her bag (which looked not only brand new but well-made) ripping apart in the middle of the Great Hall seemed to confirm a disquieting pattern that pointed to someone targeting Romilda on purpose, and he couldn’t help the slight paranoia that crept up on him as he watched her gather up her books.

“Rotten luck,” Neville commented with genuine sympathy, craning his head as Hermione and one of the fifth year prefects got up from the table to help her.

Hermione handed Romilda a bundle of ink-splattered parchment and Harry looked away, lurching to his feet. He swung his bag over his shoulder, barely noticing the growing ache in his ribs, and walked swiftly up the Gryffindor table towards the Entrance Hall. It was too early, really, to head to class but he didn’t care.

Just as he reached the doors, he heard Luna calling his name, and he turned.

“Harry!” She was jogging along the row of her fellow Ravenclaws and waving a hand wildly over her head to get his attention. Harry wished she wouldn’t - she was not hard to notice as they were the only two standing in the immediate vicinity and people were starting to stare.

“Harry,” Luna said again as she came to a stop next to him, slightly out of breath. “Are you going to Hogsmeade this weekend?”

Harry glanced past her down the hall at Ron and Hermione, who was still helping Romilda collect her things. This coming Saturday was the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year, and normally he would have been excited at the prospect of going into the village. But there were a lot of things he didn’t get very excited about anymore. “No. Probably not.”

Luna followed his gaze. “Yes, I thought so. It might be fun, though. And you need some. Would you like to go together?”

He wanted to say no, but as his only plans for Saturday were possibly to stay in bed all day while everyone else was out of the dormitory, and as Luna was looking at him so hopefully, he felt he didn’t have any real reason to refuse. He could use a break, he supposed. If nothing else, the expression on the faces of several of the Ravenclaw girls who were plainly listening in to their conversation made it clear exactly what they thought of Luna, and of the chances of Harry Potter saying yes to going on what he knew they believed was a date to Hogsmeade with her.

“Sure,” Harry said loudly. “I’d love to go with you.” And if the furious and scandalised looks on the Ravenclaws’ face weren’t enough, the way Luna’s huge eyes shone with delight definitely was.

“Great!” said Luna excitedly, clasping her hands together. “I’ll meet you in the Entrance Hall at ten!”

“Alright,” Harry agreed, grinning a little.

Several other students were starting to make their way out of the Hall now, including Neville, and Luna reached out to tug on his sleeve as he passed.

“Oh, Neville, you should come with us, too!”

“Where?” Neville blinked, taken aback.

“The village on Saturday.”

“Ah. Um,” he stammered, shifting from foot to foot, and Harry was surprised to see that he was blushing a little. “I – I can’t.  I’ve got some things to – er – do. I might be able to meet up with you? At some point?” he continued unsurely as Harry and Luna stared. He backed away slightly. “We could have a drink in the Three Broomsticks or, uh, that. Yeah. Well, I’ll – I’ll see you!” he said, smiling a little hysterically, and promptly tripped on his robes, falling over backwards.

Harry stuck out a hand to help him and hauled Neville back to his feet, peering incredulously into his red face. “Alright, Neville?”

“Yeah, thanks, Harry!” And Neville hurried away without glancing back.

Harry and Luna stared after him, then looked at each other, trading identical bemused looks.

“Wonder what’s got his wand in a knot?” said Harry.

By the time the weekend came, Harry did not think he had ever been so grateful to be done with a school week. Barring Umbridge’s tyrannical reign the previous year, he had never felt quite so resentful of Hogwarts castle. Professor Sprout had paired him with Ron to work together in class on Monday, which had accomplished a great deal more glaring and highly uncomfortable silences than it had progress in their herbological handiwork; Dobby had popped up out of nowhere late Wednesday night to meaningfully ask Harry with wide, fixed eyes if he would like the elves in the kitchen to make any changes to his current diet; not to mention Harry was quite convinced he had caught Hagrid, McGonagall, and Dumbledore each watching him at mealtimes from the High Table on several separate occasions; and Snape had docked him thirty points in Defence on Thursday for submitting an essay that was two-and-three-quarters feet in length instead of three.

The Saturday morning sky appeared sunny and clear through the castle windows, however, as Harry made his way down to the Entrance Hall and the thought of a day of freedom with Luna away from classes and scheduled meals – and waiting for Malfoy to be either expelled or left alone by Crabbe and Goyle and Nott and Parkinson long enough for Harry to hex him properly – raised his spirits considerably.

The Hall was crowded and noisy with excited chatter by the time Harry descended the marble staircase, and it took him a minute to locate Luna in the sea of black cloaks. He thought he saw a flash of Ron’s hair, but he did not pause to notice if he and Hermione were looking over at him or not. He spotted Luna about halfway up the giant queue to Filch’s security checkpoint and managed to fight his way over to her.

“Oh good!” Luna exclaimed when Harry had elbowed his way around a group of Ravenclaws and emerged beside her, and it was only then that he realised who was standing next to her. “Ginny’s coming along with us too, I hope you don’t mind?”

Ginny smiled easily at him, but though Luna’s expression was serene, Harry thought he saw a spark of mischief in her eyes. He would have narrowed his own in suspicion if Ginny hadn’t been looking.

“Nope,” Harry said instead. “‘Course I don’t mind, the more the merrier. Apparently,” he muttered to Luna out of the corner of his mouth so that Ginny couldn’t hear.

Luna stared up at the ceiling and continued to look serene.

“I thought you’d be going to Hogsmeade with Dean?” Harry directed to Ginny, hoping he sounded entirely casual as they shuffled closer to Filch and the Probity Probe he was using to scan all of the students exiting the castle.

Ginny shrugged. “Nah,” she said simply, twisting her hair into a braid. Harry watched her fingers work, a little fascinated, and only became aware that he was staring when Luna poked him in his thankfully numbed ribs. “Why, were you hoping to go with him instead?” Ginny asked Harry with a lewd wink.

“Definitely not,” he said, pulling a face.

Harry’s stomach hopped pleasantly as she laughed, tying off the end of her braid with a flick of her wrists, and he found himself thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad that she was going along with them after all.

The walk down the drive and into the village seemed to last an eternity and yet take no time at all. Luna mercifully did most of the talking, but she had positioned herself so that Ginny was in the middle, which meant that Harry had to look past her at Luna, and he kept noticing the way a few red strands had fallen out of her braid to tickle her face in the slight breeze. Several times, he felt the alarming urge to take her hand and find out what it felt like in his, and for once he was glad of the chill in the autumn air that kept bringing him back to his senses.

“Where to first? Honeydukes?” Harry asked the girls, pulling his cloak more tightly around himself as they stepped onto the main road. He didn’t really fancy sweets at the moment, but the wind had kicked up now that they had entered the village, the spaces between the buildings acting like amplifiers, and Harry was keen to find somewhere warm.

“I’m game,” said Ginny, shivering a little herself, and Luna nodded emphatically, the bright orange pumpkin earrings she had chosen to wear that day bobbing around her ears.

They set off down High Street together, Harry listening to Luna and Ginny chat about the holiday Luna’s father had planned for Christmas while he observed a group of third year boys running down the street, clearly excited for their first-ever trip to Hogsmeade, their arms already full to bursting with Zonko’s products. Harry fondly remembered sneaking into the sweet shop under his Invisibility Cloak and surprising Ron and Hermione on his own first-ever trip, but the thought made him miss them so much he stopped at once.

“The Alps? For Christmas? Why aren’t you two going someplace warm?” Ginny asked Luna incredulously, shivering again as gust of wind ruffled their cloaks.

“Oh I don’t mind, we’ve been before, I quite like it there,” Luna said dreamily. “I prefer a cold Christmas, you know, it seems much less silly to sit in front a fireplace drinking hot chocolate that way.”

“You’ve got a point there,” conceded Ginny, who, Harry knew, was a big believer in Christmas traditions. The tree at Grimmauld Place the previous year had been decorated almost exclusively by her, with a little help from Sirius, and Harry remembered with a burst of hope Mrs. Weasley saying she had fixed it with Dumbledore for Harry to spend Christmas at the Burrow this year.

“Well, enjoy your hypothermia,” Harry chuckled, momentarily light with the thought of Christmas with the Weasleys.

“That’s only happened to Daddy once, I’m sure he’ll be perfectly alright this year,” Luna insisted seriously, and Harry and Ginny caught each other’s eyes, looking away quickly.

Honeydukes came into view and the three of them hurried forward, Harry catching the door as a group of chattering students rushed out and holding it open for Ginny and Luna to enter. Ginny stepped inside quickly, but Luna took a few steps back.

“I’ve just remembered,” Luna smiled at them. “I’ve been needing some new stationery, I ran out weeks ago – I’ll just run up to Scrivenshaft’s and meet you after!”

Harry frowned at her. “We could go with you, if you want.”

“No, that’s okay,” she said, smiling ever more widely and backing up. “You two have fun!” And she turned and bounded away in a sort of half-skip that said quite plainly to Harry that she was rather pleased with herself.

His heart sinking, Harry turned slowly back to Ginny, who shrugged as though this behaviour from Luna was only to be expected and, when the shopkeeper hollered over that they were letting the cold in, grasped Harry’s wrist and tugged him inside the shop, letting the door swing shut behind them.

The walls surrounding them were as impressive as ever, whole shelves of different sorts of chocolate, mounds of Every-Flavour Beans, giant boxes of Cockroach Clusters and Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum and Pepper Imps, but Harry was most distracted by Ginny’s slim fingers still wrapped around his wrist, and when she finally let go after manoeuvring them through the dense crowd of customers near the door, Harry found he was only half-relieved.

“I swear it gets more crowded every year,” Ginny grumbled with slight irritation, loosening her cloak from around her shoulders and draping it over her arm.

“Yeah,” Harry muttered helpfully. “Can’t blame them though,” he said, watching another group of third years gush over the packets of exploding bonbons.

“Oh bless them,” Ginny sighed dramatically, following his gaze and pretending to wipe a tear from her eye. “Harry, do you remember what it was like to be young, and so damn short.”

Harry snorted. “At least some of us grew out of that.”

“Just because you grow about half a foot at a time doesn’t mean we all do,” Ginny countered, lowering her chin at him before turning to examine a display of licorice wands. “Besides, I am not short, I’m compact, and I could kick your arse any day of the week.”

Harry did not bother to argue with this, given the reputation of the strength of her Bat-Bogey Hex and the fact that he now frequently got winded walking up a flight of stairs.

Ginny picked up a package of black licorice, which she did not like but which she knew Harry did, and pressed it into his hand. “You going to get anything?” she asked, now looking directly at him.

He wanted to look away at once, but he was unwillingly engrossed in the pretty brown of her eyes. Vaguely, he wondered when his internal thoughts had started to sound a bit like the kind of tatty romance novel Gilderoy Lockhart’s biggest fans might have enjoyed. He cleared his throat, glancing over the licorice display. “Maybe,” he said, picking up a second package. Ginny smiled a bit at the sweets in his hand. And well if it was that easy, Harry thought, and picked up a third packet.

He didn’t have to eat them, he reminded himself. But buying them just to throw them out was worth it if it meant Ginny beaming at him like that.

As they moved deeper into the shop, inspecting rows of Chocolate Frogs, Harry tried to screw up his courage to ask the question that had been bursting to get out of him since they'd been waiting to exit the Entrance Hall. He waited until Ginny was focused on a particularly dented Chocolate Frog. “So…why didn’t you come with Dean, then?” he asked her, pretending to be engrossed in his own Frog.

“We broke up,” she confessed, tossing the Chocolate Frog back onto the shelf.

Harry promptly dropped the one he was holding and stooped hastily to pick it up, faint lights popping in his eyes as he straightened. “You did?” he blinked, setting the little box carefully back on the shelf. “Did he…?” he started awkwardly.

“No, I did,” Ginny sighed. “We’ve been arguing, and it just wasn’t fun anymore. Why are you so interested?” She tilted her head to the side in a way that reminded Harry uncomfortably of Luna when she was trying to get to the bottom of something.

“I’m not!” Harry insisted, a little too fervently, and Ginny raised her eyebrows. He went on more evenly, “I mean, I am, I just…wanted to make sure you were okay.”

She looked at him a moment before responding. “I am,” she smiled just a little sadly. “I mean, I’ll miss him. I really did like him, he just wasn’t my type in the end.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry told her sincerely, and for the first time he realised how close together they were standing.

“Me too,” said Ginny. They looked at each other silently for a minute before Harry forcibly wrangled his thoughts together and pointed out a case of pink coconut ice several rows down. Ginny followed him, accepting the two little shimmering squares of sweets he handed her without a word.

Harry had never thought he could spend so much time in a sweet shop, but he and Ginny took a long while looking over the shelves, coming up with increasingly unlikely ideas for their own line of magical confections and joking that they could sell the whole thing to Fred and George for a hefty profit. Hours later, they had joined the queue to pay and when they reached the register, Harry pushed his packages of licorice towards the girl running the till, then turned and lifted Ginny’s rather more substantial collection of sweets out of her arms and deposited it all on the counter along with his.

“Harry, you don’t have to do that!” Ginny protested, putting a hand over his as he pulled out his money bag.

“I know,” Harry agreed, gently disengaging his hand from hers, and passing over a handful coins to the cashier.

“Seriously,” said Ginny, pulling her cloak on and watching almost forlornly as the girl behind the counter bagged up the purchases. “Fred and George gave me about thirty Galleons for Hogsmeade trips now their shop’s doing so well, it’s really – ”

“Ginny, I know,” he said, handing her the bags and stuffing the licorice into his cloak. “It’s fine.”

They made their way out of the shop, Ginny staring at the bags in her arms, the skin between her eyebrows scrunched up a little, and when the door had shut behind them and they were once again at the mercy of the chilly wind, she punched him lightly on the arm. It was playful, but there was a bit of a serious set to her face. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Harry frowned. Ginny gestured to the bags she was carrying, and he blinked at her, his spirits sinking. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

She gazed at him, a thoughtful look on her face, and her expression softened. “No. No, I know you weren’t. You didn’t, really, it was nice of you.” She gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

Harry returned her smile, somewhat relieved, and the two of them set off up the road heading deeper into the village towards the mountains.

“Shall we go and see if we can track down Luna?” Ginny suggested with a touch of doting exasperation.

Harry agreed absently, continuing to watch Ginny as they walked, but she did not seem to be upset with him. He marveled that the tension that had existed between them for the past few weeks had seemed to have mostly dissolved, but maybe that was not surprising after all, Harry thought. He had been the one avoiding her, not the other way around, and now that they had spent more than two seconds together he had been reminded of how easy it was to get along with her. He remembered again their summer at the Burrow, teasing Ron and Hermione and playing Quidditch…laughing together about Fleur and Bill….As they strolled quietly up the street, he mused that Ginny might in fact be as effortless as Luna to be around if it weren’t for his gut tumbling unpredictably at odd moments.

Suddenly, Harry was not so sure he wanted to get to Scrivenshaft’s too quickly and, spotting Zonko’s joke shop on their left, nodded at the building. “D’you want to stop here first? ‘Fifty percent off all merchandise,’” Harry read from a neon pink sign posted in the window.

“Sort of lost a lot of its appeal, hasn’t it, now we’ve seen Fred and George’s place,” she said, staring up at the sign just below the roof spelling out ‘Zonko’s’ in giant letters. “They’re hard to compete with. Still…half-price Dungbombs, eh? Can’t beat that.”

As soon as they had entered the shop, it became quite apparent to Harry why everything must have been on sale. Half the shelves were empty and gathering dust and though this shop, too, was full of customers, it possessed the unmistakable air of a business that was somewhat past its heyday. Ginny began to look around while Harry edged his way over to the counter along the wall where the owner, a heavyset gentleman he guessed to be about Mr. Weasley’s age, was stacking several boxes.

“Excuse me. Are you closing up?” Harry asked him.

The owner straightened, mopping his shining forehead with a handkerchief, and jumped slightly upon seeing who had addressed him. “Dear me!” he said a little breathlessly, his eyes performing the flick up to the scar on Harry’s forehead. “Yes, I’m – I’m afraid we are,” he stammered. “Getting unpredictable out there, you know – well, of course you know, that is to say, you of all people – what I mean to say….” He seemed to gather himself a little, and continued uneasily. “Uncertain times. Me and the missus are going away for a while, not sure if we’ll be back, you see, not for a while at least.”

“Right,” said Harry, brushing his fringe irritatedly over his scar. “Well…thanks.” He moved away quickly. “They’re closing down the shop,” Harry told Ginny once he’d located her by the Dungbombs, and was surprised by how much of a pang he felt by the thought.

“I thought they might be,” Ginny nodded fairly, running her fingers over a dusty display. “I suppose people are bound to start getting worried. What’s the matter?” she asked, seeing the look on Harry’s face. “Fred and George have been talking about buying it anyway, it’ll be even better than it was before.”

Harry nodded, but it was only a tiny part of what was bothering him. Trelawney’s croaky, raspy voice seemed to echo through his skull, like it did every time he was confronted with the realities of the danger the magical world was really facing. 'And either must die at the hand of the other...’ He wondered for perhaps the millionth time when he would next find himself in Dumbledore’s office.

“Are you okay?” asked Ginny, watching him closely.

“Yeah,” said Harry easily. “Hope it ends up a branch of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, then. You getting any?” he nodded at the barrel of Dungbombs.

“Nah,” Ginny answered, and Harry thought she looked oddly guilty. “I’ve thought better of it.”

“Harry! Ginny!” They both turned to see Luna weaving her way towards them through the clusters of students.

“Find some stationery?” Harry asked her dryly when she had reached them.

“Yes, thank you!” she said brightly. “It’s got sunflowers in the corners, it’s very pretty.”

“I’m so glad.” Harry shook his head, and he could have sworn Luna shot him the barest ghost of a wink.

“You lot fancy a Butterbeer?” Ginny suggested.

“Oooh yes,” said Luna, clapping her hands together. “I’ve not had one in ages!”

“Do you mind if we stop by Dervish and Banges first?” asked Harry. “I want to see if they’ve got any owl treats for Hedwig.” He had run out nearly a month ago and felt a bit guilty.

Dervish and Banges, it turned out, did not have any owl treats. Ginny proposed trying the post office to see if they had any extra, which was lucky not only because Harry succeeded in procuring two packages of Hedwig's usual premium treats, but he also managed to take advantage of Ginny and Luna being distracted by a nest full of fluffy new barn owl chicks to surreptitiously renew the numbing spell on his ribs. By the time they emerged from the post office, the sun was hanging lower in the sky, the air even colder than when they had gone in, and it was with great relief that they finally stumbled into the warmth of The Three Broomsticks, red-faced and breathless.

“Wotcher, Harry!” cried a familiar voice as the three of them shrugged off their cloaks.

Tonks was coming towards them from the bar, holding a giant glass mug full of amber liquid, off the top of which rolled a wispy, fog-like substance.

“Hey,” said Harry, grinning.

“Hi, Tonks!” Ginny greeted her warmly. She nodded teasingly at the mug in her hands. “Drinking on the job?”

“Off duty,” Tonks told them with a wink, taking a large swig of her drink.

“Luna, this is Tonks,” Harry offered, remembering that they had never properly met. “Tonks, Luna.”

“You were one of Harry’s friends that came to help us at the Ministry, weren’t you?” Luna asked her. “You ended up in St. Mungo’s.”

“Yeah,” Tonks grimaced. “They couldn’t keep me down for long though. Do it again in a heartbeat.” She smiled affectionately at them all, but it slipped as she looked more closely at Harry. She gave him the brief once-over that was quickly becoming nearly as familiar to him as the double-take people did upon seeing his scar.

“Well, it was good seeing you,” Harry told her quickly. “We should probably go find a table.”

Tonks smiled again, though her brow remained a bit scrunched. “Good to see you, too. Ron and Hermione are over there if you’re looking for them,” she said, pointing to a table in the corner.

Harry followed her finger and sure enough the two of them were sat with hands wrapped around a couple of Butterbeers. Harry caught Ron’s eye and looked away quickly. “Thanks,” he said dully, not feeling remotely like explaining that he was emphatically not looking for either of them.

“Bye, then. I’ll tell your Mum and Dad you say hi!” she called to Ginny over her shoulder as she disappeared to the other side of the pub.

Harry led the way over to the corner opposite Ron and Hermione and the three of them were just about to sit down at an empty booth when they spotted Neville waving them over from a nearby table.

Harry dropped into the seat next to him, but before he could ask Neville what he had been up to that had made him stumble all over himself the other day, Neville got up and said, “Four Butterbeers?”

“No, I’m – ” Harry started, but Neville waved him off.

“It’s alright, Gran just sent me some extra pocket money, it’s no problem!” And he returned two minutes later with four foaming mugs, passing one out to each of them.

“Thanks, Neville.”

“Thank you!”

Harry muttered his own thanks and took his, rather wishing it had been the bottled kind and not the sort with all the extra foam on top, but he took a sip like everyone else to silence any questions and immediately felt like recoiling at the ultra-sweetness. Luna giggled at the foam moustache left on Harry’s lip, and he wiped it off quickly, rolling his eyes and pushing the rest of his drink to the side while Neville asked them what they had done all day.

Just as Ginny was explaining about Zonko’s the door to the pub opened and Dean and Seamus wandered in, pulling off gloves and stamping the mud from their feet. Seamus grabbed two drinks from the bar, and Harry was surprised to see them head straight for the table where the four of them, including Ginny, were seated.

“What’s the craic?” Seamus said cheerfully, plunking down the mugs.

Harry looked carefully between Ginny and Dean as the boys pulled up a couple of chairs, but when all that happened was the two of them nodding a bit stiffly to each other, and as they did not seem to be inclined to start glaring at one another over their drinks, he relaxed a little.

“I’m starved,” Luna announced happily, beginning to pull her new stationery, a quill, and ink out of her robes and set them on the table. She slipped a sheet free and started writing what looked like a letter. “Anyone else?”

Ginny upended one of her Honeydukes bags, sending sweets spilling over the tabletop, and popped open a Chocolate Frog, munching on it contentedly, but Dean, Seamus, and Neville all voiced their hearty agreement with Luna; Dean and Neville, who seemed quite keen to spend the money his grandmother had sent to him, volunteered to go to the bar to order and came back with five hot plates of food between them, Neville sliding a dish of shepherd’s pie in front of Harry as he and Dean sat back down.

Harry stared down at the plate, slightly taken aback, and tried to push it back towards Neville. “Er – that’s okay, I’m not – ”

But Neville pushed it back towards him, shrugging. “It didn’t cost that much. You like shepherd’s pie.”

“Yeah,” Harry conceded, idly pick up the fork and twisting it over and over in his hand. He smiled tightly. “Thanks, Neville.”

Neville nodded, digging into his jacket potato, and Harry busied himself with poking little holes in his crust while everyone else began eating.

Ginny took another sip of her beer and rose out of her chair. “I’m going to say hello to Hermione and Ron – what? I’m not fighting with them,” she added at the look on Harry’s face. “I’ll be right back.”

Harry watched her go, twirling his fork again. Hermione and Ron were now sitting with their heads bent close together talking, and he had absolutely no good feelings about what that meant.

Dean spoke up around a mouthful of beef. “What’s up with you two anyway?” he asked. He nodded in Ron’s direction. “Why aren’t you speaking?”

For a split second, Harry had thought Dean was asking what was up between him and Ginny, and he took a moment to let his heart slide back down into his chest before he responded, shrugging. “Just had a row, that’s all.”

He poked another hole in his pie crust.

“You lot have been doing that a lot recently.” Neville pushed his empty plate away and watched Harry pick at his food while he turned his Butterbeer mug in his hands. “You want something else?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Harry said, dropping his fork into the pie. “Here, let me pay you back.” He reached into his pocket for his money bag, but Neville stopped him.

“No, I just meant…if there’s something else you’d rather have?”

Neville, Dean, Seamus, and Luna all looked at him, and Harry wished that he was anywhere else. He shook his head. “I got some licorice from Honeydukes earlier, must’ve ruined my appetite,” he explained half-truthfully.

Harry was not sure he had convinced any of them, but Seamus and Dean went back to their food and Neville gazed down at his mug, picking at a spot of dried foam. Luna, however, was still staring at him with her wide silvery eyes, not dreamily or serenely, but sadly. His wish to disappear from the room intensified tenfold, and he cast about for something to say. Abruptly, he remembered what he had been about to ask Neville when they had first sat down.

“So what secret stuff were you doing earlier?” Harry wheedled him, and Neville froze, his mug halfway to his mouth. That same blush started to creep up Neville’s neck again, and Dean, Seamus, and Luna, thankfully, turned their full attention on him, curious.

“What ‘secret stuff’?” Seamus demanded.

“It’s not important,” Neville insisted weakly, setting his Butterbeer back on the table and sinking slightly lower in his chair.

“I don’t know,” Harry said, pretending to think it over. “I think it must have been pretty important for you to want to spend the day in Hogsmeade all by yourself instead of with us.”

“I….” Neville started, opening his mouth and closing it again. He seemed to be struggling with something. “I...I wasn’t by myself,” he said, and sank even further in his chair, the blush seeping onto his round cheeks.

“Who were you with?” Harry demanded, wondering what on earth would make Neville this thoroughly embarrassed.

“Hannah,” Neville squeaked, burying his face in his hands, and his next words came out a bit muffled. “I was with Hannah Abbott. We went to Madam Puddifoot’s, okay?”

Harry stared while Seamus sat up ramrod straight and Luna said, “Ooh I like her, she seems quite lovely.”

“Are you going out?” Seamus interrogated him.

“I dunno,” Neville said, peeking out over his hands. “I…I think so.”

Seamus laughed and banged his fist on the table victoriously. Dean wolf-whistled. Luna smiled and returned cheerfully to her letter, which appeared to be to the Daily Prophet about the endangered habitat of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Harry thumped Neville on the back, grinning widely. Neville looked more embarrassed than ever but enormously relieved, and he regained some height in his chair.

“You don’t think it’s stupid?”

Harry shook his head. “Not if you like her.” He paused, frowning. “You do like her, don’t you?” Neville nodded fervently, and Harry relaxed, clapping him on the shoulder again. “Good on you, then, though I hope you had a much better time at Madam Puddifoot’s than I did.” He shuddered internally, thinking of his disastrous date with Cho.

Neville filled them all in – Ginny, too, when she had rejoined them (“Oh, Neville, that’s brilliant!”) – and they had a good time teasing him about prospective locations for future dates, until Dean and Seamus stood, refastening their cloaks about their shoulders, and bid everyone goodbye, though not before Seamus had called to Madam Rosmerta for another round to celebrate Neville’s newly-minted status as ‘Gryffindor’s preeminent Casanova.’

Eventually, as if they had all agreed on the precise time to leave, Ginny swiped the remains of her uneaten candy back into her shopping bags, Luna rolled up her sunflower-covered letter to the Daily Prophet, and Neville finished off the last of the second Butterbeer Seamus had bought him. Harry couldn’t resist one last gulp of his own now that the foam had dissolved (his shepherd’s pie lay to the side forgotten), and then the four of them made their way out of the warm and smoky bar, back into the cool October air.

Twilight had fallen, the tall old-fashioned lamps blazing to life along the High Street. Ginny threw an arm around Luna’s shoulders, breathing the night air in deeply through her nose, her breath misting on the way out, and both girls starting giggling as they breathed out forcefully over and over, attempting to best the size of each other’s mists.

Harry grinned at them, laughter bubbling up into his throat, but then something caught his eye across the street that threatened to make him choke.

Draco Malfoy was leaning casually against the pole of one of the street lamps, twirling his wand idly in his pale hands, chatting to Goyle. Or rather chatting to himself as Goyle listened, as Goyle wasn’t exactly known for his useful additions to any conversation. Harry stared hatefully at the lamp light gleaming off of Malfoy’s blond head, feeling the wood of his wand underneath his fingers, wondering in the back of his mind when exactly he had pulled the wand out of his pocket...he could hear Hermione screaming in his ears as her leg shattered...he took an unconscious step forward, his head nearly pounding with the force of his loathing, and felt a hand on his wrist.

“Don’t,” Neville said quietly into his ear. “There are teachers here,” he warned, nodding back at the Three Broomsticks, to a table by the window where Flitwick and Sprout were enjoying drinks together, where they could easily see out to what was happening in the street.

But Harry did not care about teachers seeing. They so far had not bothered, any of them, to lift a finger to punish Malfoy. What did it matter if they saw him? He was past caring about detentions and losing House points. His blood boiled, heating him from the inside out, and he took several more steps into the road, Neville’s grip tightening desperately on his arm.

“Harry, no!” Ginny called out behind him, noticing what was going on.

Her cry caught Malfoy’s attention across the street and he stopped twirling his wand immediately; he stood up straighter, a mingled look of disgust and anticipation on his pointed face.

Another hand gripped Harry’s elbow tightly, a bigger hand, and Harry realised that Ron had come of out the pub behind them with Hermione.

“Stop it, mate, I want to beat him to a pulp just as much as you do, but you’re going to get in trouble, come on, don’t – ” Ron’s grip tightened even further, and he broke off.

Harry knew, somehow, that Ron was feeling the odd layers of jumpers under his cloak, and it was the fear of discovery as much as his rage that made him wrench his arm viciously out of Ron’s grasp and growl, “Get off!”

Across the road, Malfoy took a step towards them.

“Hey, Granger! Control your dogs, won’t you?” he called, and Goyle guffawed behind him. Hermione came up beside Ron, glaring at Malfoy across the road. But Malfoy seemed to notice the teachers through the window of the pub at that moment and think better of pursuing the matter; he gave Harry one last disparaging look and gestured for Goyle to follow him, slinking off down the lane back to Hogwarts.

Unwilling to give up so easily, Harry made to lunge after him, but then Ron and Neville had each seized him with both hands again, holding him back. His muscles bunched, gearing up to fight them off with everything he had, and he opened his mouth, ready to say something he would surely regret, until Ginny stepped in front of him, bringing him up short.

“What do you think you’re doing, are you mad? What are you going to do, fight Malfoy right here in the street like a maniac?” she demanded, her eyes blazing.

Harry stared at her, breathing heavily, his arms still held by Ron and Neville. He glanced up the street as Malfoy disappeared into the growing darkness, then back at Ginny who had her arms crossed over her chest.

Wordlessly, Harry jerked his arms, and Ron and Neville cautiously released their grip on him. He glared at the ground, pointedly shoving his wand back in his pocket.

“Thank you,” Ginny muttered.

Harry shook his head mutinously, not looking at anyone.

Neville spoke up anxiously. “Shall – shall we go back up to the castle, then?”

“You go,” Ginny told them, and when Harry made to follow everyone else, she poked a finger into his chest. “You can stay and cool off for second until Malfoy’s well clear.”

Harry threw her a dirty look, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from saying anything unkind, and she returned it without flinching. Ron hesitated, and so did Hermione, who appeared slightly shaken and not entirely sure about leaving Harry behind, but they seemed to decide that Ginny had the situation in hand, and finally turned and started up the road with Neville. Luna trailed after them, giving Harry an encouraging sort of smile.

Harry still itched to go after Malfoy, but he knew he would be disappointing Ginny if he did, and the thought kept him where he was as though his feet had been nailed to the ground.

“It’s not like I was going to kill him,” Harry mumbled grudgingly.

“Yeah?” Ginny challenged, her eyebrows raising. “The look on your face said differently.”

Harry scoffed. “Like the world would miss the tosser,” he said, rubbing his knuckles against his thigh.

Ginny uncrossed her arms, and took her gloves out of her pocket, pulling them on. “Just…stay away from him, alright? You’ve been in enough trouble lately.”

“He broke Hermione’s leg, Ginny!” he burst out.

“I know,” she said, watching him as he started to pace. “I know. I’ve heard Sprout talking to McGonagall – ”

“Yeah, talking,” he cut across her, kicking a stone into the road. “That’s all they ever do is talk, and take points like this is all a game, and expect us to just sit here like good little boys and girls – ”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Ginny said quietly. “And if you keep going after Malfoy like this, you’re going to get hurt.”

“You don’t think I could take him?” Harry wheeled to face her, offended.

“That’s not what I said,” she said, leveling him with a look. “But that’s not the point, the point is you’re going to make things worse for yourself if you can’t calm down.”

But Harry did not want to calm down. He felt like all he had been doing for months, for years, was trying to calm down, and it wasn’t working. Most days he felt ready to explode, and it had nowhere to go…but Malfoy made for a good target…after all, the git would deserve it.

He refrained from saying any of this, as he was quite sure it was not what Ginny wanted to hear. The door of the pub opened, letting out a group of seventh year students who passed Harry and Ginny, laughing and talking on their way back up to the school.

Ginny sighed, looking at Harry. “Come on, you nutter, let’s go.” She smiled with a certain reluctant fondness and gestured up the road, and they began the long walk back together in silence, the sound of the laughter of the other students up ahead resounding through the night around them.

Dinner was in full swing by the time Harry and Ginny climbed through the portrait hole into Gryffindor Tower, and the common room was nearly empty apart from the older students that had been allowed out late enough to have their supper in the village. Harry wanted nothing more than to sink into one of the big armchairs by the fire and let the warmth wash over him, but Ron and Hermione were already occupying two of them, a stash of sweets laid out on the side table next to them, and Harry reluctantly headed for the staircase that led to the dormitories, mumbling a goodnight to Ginny.

Hermione rose slightly from her chair as Harry passed as though she wanted to say something to him, and Harry glanced in her direction. He stopped cold in his tracks, an icy hand wrapping tightly around his intestines.

“Where did you get those?” Harry demanded sharply.

Hermione opened her mouth and closed it in confusion, before realising that Harry was not looking at her at all, but at Ron. There was a box of chocolates open in his lap, and Ron was holding one in his hand. He had frozen with the chocolate halfway to his mouth at Harry’s question.

“They were under my bed….” Ron said slowly, evidently surprised and a little suspicious that Harry was talking to him at all.

And Harry remembered. He remembered finding the box on his bed, and throwing it against the wall, and it had fallen behind his bedside table, and he had never thrown them away, he had forgotten all about them….

“Those aren’t yours,” Harry said tightly, staring at the box.

“How do you know?” countered Ron, his brow furrowing. “Mum probably sent them, or Fred and George – ”

“They didn’t. Don’t eat them, Ron, I’m serious – ”

“That’s what I’ve been telling him,” Hermione started dryly. “He’s already had enough chocolate today for the both of us.”

Harry ignored this, his eyes still fixed upon the box, and stalked towards the armchair where Ron was sitting, but Ron’s expression turned challenging as Harry approached him and he said, “What do you care, it’s not like you eat sweets anymore anyway.”

Harry lunged to swipe the box out of Ron’s hand, but Ron whipped them out of the way and pointedly popped the chocolate into his mouth.

“Ron, NO!”

But it was too late, and Harry watched in horror as Ron swallowed. He felt almost paralysed with terror as he stood there with his hand still outstretched. He was aware somewhere in the back of his mind that other people were paying attention now, surprised by his shout, and that Hermione and Ginny and Ron were all looking at him as though he had lost his mind. But then Ron dropped the package of chocolates and they fell to the ground with a thud; he suddenly looked as if he had been clubbed over the head. His jaw went slack and his eyes became distant, looking at something far away that nobody else could see. Then a delighted, blissful expression came over him, happiness shining in his wide blue eyes.

“Romilda,” Ron sighed dreamily.

Harry’s stomach seemed to fall straight through the floor.

Hermione stared at Ron incredulously. “Vane?”

She bent and peered into Ron’s eyes, made highly difficult by the fact that Ron was now looking desperately about, apparently hoping to catch some sign of Romilda. Hermione scooped up the box of chocolates from the floor, turning it over to read the back, her eyes flicking quickly back and forth in search of some explanation. Ginny was looking wide-eyed between Harry and Ron.

Harry’s mind was blank, wiped clean by dread and disbelief, but as he stood there immobile, Ron half-rose out of his chair, saying “Romilda?” again in such a terrible, hopeful voice, and it was like a stimulant to his brain; he moved forward purposefully, taking the package of chocolates from Hermione's hands and tossing it straight into the fire, which rose higher for a moment, turning the colour of deep magenta, then settled back to its normal size. Harry seized Ron under the elbows and hauled him out of the chair, knowing suddenly exactly what to do.

Ron struggled and tried to bat Harry’s hands away. “What are you doing, I’ve got to go find Romilda! She’s waiting for me, I know it, I just have to – ”

“I’m taking you to her,” Harry told him, hating himself for saying it, but Ron stopped struggling immediately.

“You are?” said Ron breathlessly, amazed, now clinging onto Harry’s arms.

“Yeah,” Harry told him, pushing him towards the portrait hole. “She’s downstairs, I’ll show you.”

“Brilliant, brilliant….” Ron muttered, reaching up to straighten his hair with both hands.

“Harry, what’s – ” Hermione began, but Harry was not going to explain it to her here, in front of Ginny and the other students who were still staring. He shook his head sharply and gestured for her to follow him and Ron out of the common room.

“He’ll be fine, Ginny,” Harry called, catching the worry on her face as he hurried to keep Ron from tripping over himself out of the portrait hole. “We’ll be back later, don’t worry.”

The Fat Lady swung shut behind them. Hermione was wringing her hands as she watched Ron hurry to walk ahead of them; she looked very white.

“He’ll be fine,” Harry repeated, and it was like the past ten days had never happened. Ron’s plight had driven everything else from his mind, and he could not muster the energy to be angry with Hermione over the sleeping tablets at the moment. “We’ve just got to get him to Slughorn.”

But Hermione didn’t quite seem to be listening. “It’s a love potion, isn’t it? It was inside those chocolates. They were…they were yours, weren’t they?”

Harry grimaced and nodded. “Romilda Vane gave them to me, I think she thought I might be stupid enough to try them. Forgot I hadn’t thrown them out,” he explained, trying to sound off-hand, even though his belly was a mass of bubbling nerves.

Ron was glancing about wildly again, looking for Romilda, and walked straight into a suit of armour, bouncing backwards with a loud clang. “She didn’t see that, did she?” he asked hastily, rubbing his forehead.

“No, Ron,” said Hermione a bit absently, taking Ron’s arm and guiding him back into the middle of the corridor. “She’s not here.”

If someone had asked Harry how Hermione would react to Ron accidentally being dosed with love potion and subsequently acting like a total idiot, he might have said she would have found it amusing, or at the very least annoying, but he would not have guessed at her going pale, and a bit distant like she was now, as though she were trying to figure out a particularly serious Arithmancy problem. It was making Harry even more uncomfortable, though he wasn’t entirely sure why it should.

Slughorn’s study was on the sixth floor, a relatively short trip from Gryffindor Tower, but Harry prayed the whole way down not to run into Romilda coming back from dinner, his mind cooking up every worst-case scenario. But they managed to make it to the door without incident and Harry knocked, hard.

“Won’t Slughorn be at dinner?” Hermione voiced, coming back to herself a little.

“No,” Harry told her while Ron checked his breath, blowing surreptitiously into his own palm. “He almost never eats with the rest of the staff on Saturdays.”

“What are we doing here?” Ron whined. “I thought we were going to see Romilda!”

“She’s in there, Slughorn invited her for supper tonight,” Harry invented, jabbing a thumb at the door.

“Oh,” said Ron, straightening his collar, “okay, yeah…yeah.”

Harry was about to knock again when the door was pulled open and Slughorn appeared, a napkin tucked into his shirtfront. He looked slightly put-out at being interrupted, but his eyes brightened upon seeing Harry and Hermione.

“Good heavens, Harry, my dear boy! Miss Granger,” he said, nodding genially. “I must say this is a surprise, I’m just having my supper, you see – ”

But Harry and Hermione quickly explained about the love potion, their story infinitely proven by Ron trying to push his way into the room, held back only by their hands on him, and Slughorn waved them into his lavishly decorated study. Chortling, he offered them to sit while he went to his potions cabinet and went about preparing the antidote.

“Where is she?” Ron demanded, peering behind a wardrobe.

“She’ll be here in a minute,” Hermione reassured him, patting his shoulder kindly.

Harry sat down on the edge of a sofa, and Hermione sank down next to him, her hands clasped tightly together as Ron paced about the room muttering to himself about keeping his cool.

The expression on Ron’s face was soppy and lovesick, and Harry couldn’t stop himself wondering if that was what he had looked like, that night in the broom cupboard. Just imagining it made him feel instantly mortified all over again. He wiped his palms on his thighs, listening to Slughorn clinking around behind them.

“Harry?” Hermione ventured cautiously. “You’re shaking.”

He glanced at her. She was watching him very seriously, and it threw him. He knew his voice would not come out right if he tried to say anything, so he shook his head. He felt his nails try to dig into his wrist and he got up, focusing instead on attempting to usher Ron into a chair to stop his pacing. He managed to get Ron to perch on the arm of a bergère just as Slughorn bustled back into view, a glass of clear liquid in his hand.

“Here you are, Roger – (“Ron,” Harry and Hermione both corrected him at once) – drink up, it’ll help calm the nerves,” instructed Slughorn, handing him the glass.

Ron took it from him eagerly and downed the whole thing in one. They all watched him. After a second, the infatuated expression slowly melted off of his freckled face, and his eyes went a bit wide, staring round at the three of them in horror.

“Blimey,” he croaked, handing the now-empty glass weakly to Harry.

Slughorn chuckled; but Harry knew something of what Ron was feeling, remembered coming back to himself after the enchantment had lifted, and he felt a bit like throwing up.

“There now, all better,” Slughorn said good-naturedly. “How about a drink after all that excitement, hm? I think I’ve got some wine here, or Butterbeer if you like.”

“Thank you, Professor,” said Hermione suddenly, shooting to her feet. “We really appreciate all your help, but I think we ought to be going actually, we’ll let you finish your supper.”

“Ah yes,” conceded Slughorn, looking torn between enjoying the company of two of his favourite students and the temptation of finishing his meal in peace. “Well, by all means! Lots of work to get to, I expect, no rest for N.E.W.T. levels, I daresay!”

“Yes,” agreed Hermione, smiling politely and smoothing her skirt. “Lots of work, come on, Ron…Harry….”

Ron moped towards the door, shaking his head like a dog trying to rid water from its ears. Harry thanked Slughorn again, who gave a gracious wave, and followed his friends out into the hall where Ron seemed to have fully recovered from the addling effects of the love potion.

“Close call, eh?” Ron said, blowing out a breath in disbelief. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and chuckled nervously, looking at Harry. “I suppose those chocolates were meant for you, then? Who knew everyone would be so desperate to get a chance to snog the Chosen One – ”

“That’s not funny,” Harry snapped, and Ron broke off.

“C’mon, mate, it was only a joke, it’s just lucky we didn’t run into Romilda, I guess.”

“It’s not a fucking joke, Ron – how would she even get a potion like that into the castle?” Harry rounded on Hermione, voicing something that had been nagging at him for weeks.

Ron stared, looking a bit offended. Hermione was looking at him, too, and she took a minute to answer.

“She probably ordered it from Fred and George’s shop,” she explained slowly. “They offer a service where they switch the bottles and labels so Hogwarts security can’t detect anything, they told me about it over the summer. I’m sure there are loads of students who have got things they shouldn’t.”

Harry felt sick. He had forgotten all about the fact that Fred and George sold love potions.

“What’s the big deal?” Ron asked, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s not like contraband at Hogwarts is a novelty, so what? Honestly half of Fred and George’s client base is probably students from here.”

“So what?” Harry repeated angrily. “What the hell are they thinking, letting just anyone buy this stuff?”

“Harry, calm down, it’s not as though any of the stuff they've got is Dark, or dangerous, they’re gags,” Ron explained, a little exasperated.

“Oh yeah? Just gags, are they?” Harry argued, his temper rising fast. “How d’you think you’d feel if someone gave you a love potion and this time no one had been around to stop it and – ” He stopped abruptly, mortified at what he was saying.

“And…what, Harry?” Hermione asked softly. She sounded almost scared.

Harry did not like the way she was looking at him. It was the look she usually got before she ran off to the library to confirm a theory. He stood rooted to the spot, his tongue leaden in his mouth. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t.

Ron looked between the two of them. He took his hands out of his pockets, a wary unease creasing his forehead.

“Okay. Come on,” Hermione said seriously, and there was an ominous note of finality as she grasped Harry’s hand in hers and began to pull him down the corridor, away from Slughorn’s office door and back toward Gryffindor Tower.

Harry wanted to stop, to pull his hand away, to again tell them both to leave him alone, but he could tell by the look on Hermione’s face that she already knew something of what Harry could not bring himself say to them. Exactly how much and how she had figured it out he wasn’t certain, but the thought that she might know anything was a horrifying, alarming, terrifying sort of relief. He felt as if he were sliding down a slick slope toward a kind death after years of suffering and part of him did not want to stop it at all.

So caught up was he in his own warring thoughts, Harry didn’t notice which doorway Hermione was pulling him through until they were already across the threshold. Ron followed them quickly into the room and made to shut the door when Harry finally looked up and balked. He took in the stacks of boxes, the crate of Madame Glossy’s Silver Polish, the innocuous bit of carpet rolled up in the corner. He could taste the sweet potion on his tongue, in his throat, and he glanced automatically to the floor, almost expecting to see the damning puddle of pink syrup he had spit out onto the floor.

Harry ripped his hand out of Hermione’s, stumbling backwards and wrenching open the door before Ron could close it.

“Harry, wait!” Hermione called.

Harry staggered along the corridor, one hand on the wall to support himself. He heard Ron and Hermione behind him, and he felt Ron seize his shoulder.

“You can’t just keep ignoring us, for Merlin’s sake,” Ron snarled.

“I…can’t be in there,” Harry tried to gasp, but he couldn’t make the words come out right.

It was clear Ron did not understand. Harry knew he thought he was trying to run from them again. Ron’s grip tightened on his arm and he practically hauled Harry down the hall and through another doorway into an unused classroom.

Hermione closed the door this time as Harry sagged against the wall, doing his best to catch his breath. He tried to pull his arm out of Ron’s grasp, but Ron’s tolerance seemed to have reached its limit, and Harry still could not find the words to explain. Ron grabbed hold of his other arm and pushed Harry none-too-gently against the wall.

“Ron!” Hermione protested, but Ron ignored her.

“You’re not going anywhere, not this time, I’m sick of this,” Ron said sharply.

The lingering smell of the broom cupboard seemed to cling to Harry's nose, and the squeeze of Ron’s vice-like grip around his arms made him feel trapped and cornered.

“I don’t – I don’t want – ” Harry managed, his breath hitching. He tried to prise Ron’s fingers open but he didn’t have the strength.

“Tough,” Ron snapped. “I want you to stop being a selfish bastard, but that hasn’t worked out either. I’ve had enough of you biting our heads off and acting like you can’t trust us! What the hell is your problem? I thought we were supposed to be best mates.”

Ron’s eyebrows knitted together as his grip shifted, and Harry knew, again, that Ron could feel the thick layer of jumpers he had taken to donning. Narrowing his eyes, Ron seized the hem at Harry’s waist and rucked up the fabric, revealing the total of three tops he was wearing and baring Harry’s now rather concave stomach to their disbelieving eyes. Hermione gasped over Ron’s shoulder.

Harry had just enough wits about him to be grateful Ron had not lifted the side of his shirt covering his bruised ribs.

Ron swore fiercely.

Harry felt the air whisper across his naked skin and saw in his mind the roll of carpet against the wall in the corner of that cupboard and he wanted to shove Ron away, wanted to get out of this room, but his lips were no more able to say “no” than they were that night and all he could do was turn his head away from his friends and the memory threatening to pull him apart and close his thin fingers over Ron’s wrist, a silent plea for Ron to let him go.

“Ron,” came Hermione’s quiet, urgent voice. “Stop.”

Ron released his hold instantly, letting Harry’s shirts fall back into place and stepping back slightly so that they were no longer touching.

Harry returned to himself just enough to be able to open his eyes and turn his face back to his friends, though he could do nothing more than remain frozen against the wall. The two of them were looking at him, wide-eyed and cautious.

“Harry?” ventured Ron, and his voice was insistent. Scared, Harry realised.

“You’re white as a sheet,” Hermione said quietly, her voice trembling. After a second, she swallowed and asked, “Why can’t you be in that cupboard, Harry? What happened?”

“Nothing,” said Harry, but it was automatic.

He knew that this time there was nowhere to run and the tiny part of him not currently devoted to refraining from vomiting or passing out knew he was about to do what he should have done weeks ago. If anything, it only made him feel worse.

“What happened?” Hermione repeated firmly.

“Nothing,” Harry whispered again, his voice cracking. One last desperate try. He swallowed, hard.

The truth of what was happening seemed to heighten his senses, and everything fell in upon him all at once – their eyes on him, the smell of chalk in the room, the certainty of what he was about to do. His legs felt unsteady, and Ron moved out of the way as he blindly staggered to a chair, sinking into it. They were not going to give up, he knew. And he was so tired. Tired of carrying the weight of these awful secrets alone. Ron and Hermione standing above him made him feel even more vulnerable if that was possible, but he was certain his knees would not support him through the things he needed to say. A blaze of heat suffused his face and he buried it in his hands, bracing his elbows on his knees.

“You can tell us,” Hermione said into the silence. Her voice was barely a whisper.

Harry knew he should answer, but his mouth felt closed up by a permanent sticking charm.

“It – it’s about Romilda Vane, isn’t it? And that love potion…she gave you some. Didn’t she?”

Harry felt a keen mix of relief that she was taking the lead in this conversation and embarrassment that she somehow seemed to already know exactly where to take it.

With agonizing slowness, he nodded into his hands.

“Did you two kiss?”

Just as slowly, he nodded again.

Hermione paused. “Did she – ? Was it…more…than that?”

Wishing his neck muscles would seize up and stop working of their own accord, Harry nodded again miserably.

There was a stretch of silence. Then a careful scraping sound as Hermione pulled out another chair and sat down quietly in front of him.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “Look at me.”

Reluctantly, so very reluctantly, Harry dragged his burning face from his hands and looked up at Hermione. Her face was tight and set. She was staring unflinchingly at him. It was like looking into a bright light.

“What did she do?”

Harry looked away. He wrapped his arms loosely around his stomach, feeling cold again. His mind felt like it was frozen and moving too fast at the same time, running circles around itself in an effort to suspend this moment in time, to stall the inevitable. An eternity seemed to pass, and perhaps it did, for Harry’s breath froze in his chest, his body as still as a statue. He felt the words crawling up his throat, aching to get out. Several times, he tried to move his mouth, until eternity came to an end and Harry finally couldn’t hold them back anymore.

“She...” he choked out. “She made me...have sex with her.”

Harry heard himself say it, and he was surprised the walls did not come crumbling down around him.

For a long moment, neither Ron nor Hermione moved or spoke.

“Okay,” Hermione said, sounding as though she were trying to keep herself – keep all three of them – together. “Okay.”

Harry glanced at her. She was staring at him, and he could almost see her thoughts tumbling together in her brain, assembling, triaging. Her gaze was intent, and Harry glanced to Ron, scared of what he might find but needing to know.

Ron’s eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open, and there was a pinched edge to his face that hinted only too clearly at his disgust. Harry looked away, the need to defend himself rearing up so forcefully it pushed the words out of him before he knew what he was saying.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s stupid. I don’t know why I’ve been so….” He tightened his arms around himself and searched around for words that might possibly describe what had been happening inside his head for the past two months. “I dunno. It shouldn’t be a big deal. You can laugh, if you want.”

He almost hoped they would. If they did, maybe he finally could too. For a second, he was quite sure they would be relieved that this was all that had been bothering him, and then they could all just forget any of it had ever happened.

But Hermione did not look relieved.

“Laugh,” she repeated, like she wasn’t sure she’d heard him properly. She was staring at him as if seeing him clearly for the first time. “Harry,” she said slowly. Carefully. “You were raped.”

There was a ringing silence as that damning sentence hung in the air like a putrid smell. Ron looked at Hermione, a deep frown forming, then back at Harry, the pinching in his face more pronounced.

The ugly thing under Harry’s skin gave a wild pulse. A dozen thoughts clambered to be examined in his brain, but the loudest and most important one – the one he seized upon and threw up like a shield – was that that word did not, and could not, apply to him. He felt held in place, the blood drawing out of his fingers and toes. The panic that had seized him so frequently the past months did not feel like it was fighting to get out of him, but rather like it was turning inward, locking his mind away safely, so that he did not feel quite like himself. It might have been another person sitting here talking to his best friends.

Harry heard himself make a sound halfway between a scoff and laugh. “No, I wasn’t,” he said as he stared in mild disbelief at Hermione. His lips felt numb. “She’s a girl.”

The concern in Hermione’s eyes had turned into something more alarming. “That doesn’t mean anything, Harry. She – she made you do something you didn’t want to do.”

“But I did,” Harry argued, and wondered why his breath wasn’t turning to mist before his eyes. “I did want to. She made me want to – she Stunned me, and made me take the potion. I didn’t fight her. I couldn’t,” he told her, his voice breaking. This seemed important to say. In his present state of odd detachment, Harry was finally able to admit to himself the real reason he had not told Ron and Hermione all this a long time ago.

He had not been able to stop her.

For all that he was supposed to be the Chosen One, for all the apparent talent at Defence everyone insisted he possessed, for all that he was a sixth year and she was a fourth year, Romilda had been able to Confund him, and trap him, and do whatever else she had wanted to him, and the shame was enough to burn Harry to smoldering ash from the inside out.

“That doesn’t make it better, Harry,” said Hermione gently. “In a lot of ways, it makes it worse.”

Harry could feel himself shaking his head slowly back and forth. He focused on a spot on the far wall.

“Oh God….” Hermione whispered, and the anguish in the way she said it threatened to tug Harry back into his body. Her hand came up, fluttering over his knee, but she did not touch him. She pulled her hand back into her lap.

“Romilda was at Quidditch tryouts,” Ron said abruptly, staring at Harry.

Harry nodded numbly, and he knew they were all thinking of the scene he had made in the locker room that day.

“So it’s been you, then? Playing all those tricks on her?” Hermione asked cautiously, her hands folded tightly on her thighs.

“No,” Harry said simply. He didn’t really want to think about that right now.

There was silence again, until Ron finally spoke up, his voice low. “Is that why you haven’t been hungry?”

Harry’s stomach did a little flip, and his whole being wanted to grasp desperately at the tail feathers of that particular little secret and pull it back and keep it inside him, but the part of his mind that knew his food problems were getting worse every day pushed the other part even further into nothingness.

Still staring helplessly, his fingers trembling, Harry heard his own flat voice say, “I am.”

Ron shifted on his feet. “You are, what?”

“I’m hungry,” Harry said. “I get hungry. All the time.”

Hermione closed her eyes at this, biting down on her bottom lip before opening them again.

Ron looked disturbed. “Then why,” he started, a pleading note in his voice, “won’t you eat?”

And even though he felt far away from the conversation, Harry still did not want to explain. He didn’t want to say all this. He did not want them to know how screwed up he was, but his mouth had taken on a mind of its own, and now that he had started talking he couldn’t seem to stop.

“I can’t,” said Harry. “It feels all wrong, now. It’s too much. I’m…I feel…heavy, all the time. It won’t go away. When I don’t – when I’m empty – it helps. It’s better. I feel like…like I can get her out of my head. Like I can get everything out of my head. I can breathe.”

Ron stared at him. His eyes flickered briefly to Hermione, and something passed between the two of them. “So…you’re doing it on purpose?” he asked in a tone that hinted that his worst suspicions were being confirmed.

Harry opened his mouth, wanting to say both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ at the same time. It didn’t feel like he was doing it on purpose, anymore. “Not really,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to stop. ‘M not sure if I can.”

Ron stared a moment longer, shaking his head slightly back in forth as though that might shuffle everything into place. He looked away, staring at the blackboard. Abruptly, he swore and aimed a vicious kick at the leg of a nearby desk.

Hermione jumped, and so did Harry, whose body and brain felt like they had been slammed jarringly back into one piece at the loud noise. They stared at Ron, who noticed them looking.

“Sorry,” he said shortly.

Harry suddenly felt highly aware of his surroundings again, of the way Ron was looking at him, the sheen of tears in Hermione’s eyes, the hardness of the chair underneath him. Everything he had just said replayed in head, and his stomach dropped. He felt flayed open and raw. He already wished he could take it all back – the realisation that he couldn’t was nearly incapacitating. He shouldn’t have said anything. How could he have been so stupid? Hermione and Ron knew now, they knew (they knew they knew they knew) and he imagined that this might be how it would feel if someone had ripped out his guts and put them on display under a spotlight.

Hermione reached out again, and this time she made contact, touching his arm. Harry pulled away and stood, backing away from her. He wanted to say I’m sorry or forget about it or I was joking, anything to stop them looking at him like they were, but there was nothing he could think of that could reverse what had just changed between them.

Hermione stood, too, moving towards him, and Harry forced himself to stand still, because not for nothing was he a Gryffindor.

She looked into his face, her eyes unbearably sad, then she whispered, “Come here,” and slowly, carefully put her arms around him, pulling him to her.

The warm weight of her body against his felt instantly dangerous, but it was also nice in a way Harry hadn’t experienced in what felt like ages. He stood stiffly in her embrace, but the frizzy hair tickling his cheek didn’t smell like roses or chocolates, and she was touching him so tenderly, and his arms went around her, gripping the back of her jumper. His head fell onto her shoulder as his body nearly sagged with the relief that someone else was finally carrying some of the weight.

Her arms tightened around him, holding him, and she said softly in his ear, “You’re going to be okay, Harry.” He screwed his eyes shut tight, his knuckles digging into her back, but she didn’t seem to mind. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Yes, it was, Harry wanted to say, how could it not have been?

She pulled back just enough to press a kiss into the hair at his temple and he almost couldn’t breathe past the lump forming in his throat. Then he was shaking, every fiber of his body concentrating on not crying, because he had felt more vulnerable in the last hour than he had in his entire life, and Ron was standing not five feet away watching.

Another arm came around Harry’s shoulders then, Ron’s arm, encircling both him and Hermione, and Harry’s first startled thought was how awkward it was. Hermione had hugged him before, sometimes – usually when he was recovering from nearly dying.

Ron did not. It just wasn’t something they did, and that was how it was.

It felt foreign, and slightly uncomfortable, and so completely fitting in an oddly intimate way that if Harry hadn’t already been struggling to breathe properly, the feeling of Ron’s arm across his back might have done it on its own. Overwhelming affection and a fierce sense of simultaneous yearning and belonging surged through him and threatened to tear him apart from the inside.

It took Harry a moment to realise he was feeling safe, standing here with Ron and Hermione’s arms around him. They weren’t reacting like he had feared they might, as though he, Harry, was disgusting, or stupid, or weak. They were just there. Beside him, just as they had always been.

The burning in his throat started to pool behind his eyes, and Harry bit down savagely on his lip until he tasted blood. With greater reluctance than he could admit, he forced himself to move, balking at the thought of making an even bigger fool of himself than he already had. He let go of his grip on Hermione’s jumper, shifting, and their arms fell away from him.

Harry’s face flamed, and a hot tear slid from the corner of his eye before he could stop it. He swiped it away quickly, pretending to readjust his glasses, and studied a globe of Neptune on a shelf to his left. He tried to think of something to say, but thank you didn’t quite seem to cover it.

“Well,” he croaked finally, braving a glance at them. “Now you know.”

Hermione’s face crumpled, and she scrubbed her face with her hands. Ron’s face was as red as Harry suspected his own was, but he didn’t look away. The skin around his eyes was tight with concern.

Hermione seemed to get a grip on herself, and she emerged from behind her hands, sniffling. “It can’t keep on like this,” she told Harry, sounding like she had a bad head cold. “You know that, don’t you? We’ve got to tell somebody.”

“I just told you two,” Harry said, as though it were obvious.

Hermione shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. I’m glad you told us, I’m so glad, Harry, I am, but…we – Ron and I – we’re not enough. You need help.” Her eyes hardened ominously as she added. “And Romilda Vane should be expelled. Dumbledore needs to know.”

Harry’s insides turned to ice, the idea was so unthinkable. “No,” he rasped. “You can’t tell him.”

“But he – ”

“You can’t tell him. Anything.” He stared at her. “He can’t ever know, Hermione. Please….”

“I won’t let her get away with this!” Hermione hissed so fiercely Harry thought she might have been channeling Crookshanks. “That vile – that evil – she sneaked that potion in! They’re banned at Hogwarts, and they should be everywhere else! She…she hurt you.” Her chin wobbled as she looked at him imploringly, and more tears threatened to spill over.

“She didn’t hurt me,” Harry corrected her quietly, feeling his face flush again.

Hermione’s eyes filled with something like pity at this; unable to stand it, he averted his eyes back to the globe of Neptune.

“It’s your choice, Harry,” Hermione said quietly. “But I don’t think she deserves your protection. Do you?”

“I’m not trying to protect her,” he said bitterly, his lip curling at the thought.

“I know that,” said Hermione softly. “But she broke the rules, and you’re the one paying for it. There’s nothing that can be done about what she did if you don’t say anything. Will you at least…think about it?”

Harry nodded tersely, more to get her to stop talking about it than anything else. He imagined the would-be expression on Dumbledore’s lined face, and he knew he could never allow it to happen.

Hermione bit her lip, and eyed him warily.

“But Harry - someone has to know about the food.”

Harry’s mouth went dry, and he shook his head, turning back to her. “I’ll figure it out, I just…I just need more time.”

“You said you didn’t think you could stop doing it,” Ron reminded him, frowning.

Harry’s stomach twisted. He felt sweat beginning to gather at the back of his neck. “I can. I can do it, if I have to,” he told them. He did not know if this was true, only that he would rather die than go to see Madam Pomfrey. He didn’t have a choice.

“It doesn’t always have to be all down to you, Harry, when are you going to accept that? This isn’t something you can fix with a spell or a potion, you’re not well, and there are people who can help – stop shaking your head – Dumbledore would want to know about this, I know he would, and McGonagall. Besides, they might already know.” 

“How would they?” Harry asked abruptly, his throat dry. Snape’s voice rose out of nowhere, echoing in his head. You fool….

“Well, Hagrid knows a bit now, doesn’t he? You should have heard him after you left that night, he was…well, he didn’t take it too well. For all we know, he might have said something already,” said Ron.

Hermione looked a bit guilty. “We should have done, I know we should have, ages ago. But…oh Harry, we didn’t want you to think you couldn’t trust us, or – or – but now look what’s happened!” Her eyes were trained on his midriff, and he knew she was thinking of what she’d seen when Ron had bared his stomach. “And anyway, Dumbledore’s not oblivious Harry, he’s quite clever, and sometimes lately I think he – ”

Harry cut her off, not desiring at all to hear the end of that sentence. “I’ll talk to Hagrid. Okay? I’ll calm him down, and – it’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. No one else needs to know about this, it’s just a weird phase or – or – I dunno, I can fix it, I swear….” He looked at her imploringly, and he could see her resolve wavering as he pleaded.

Her jaw tightened, however, and Harry was forcefully reminded of Mrs. Weasley. “No. No. Harry, you’ve got to let us – ”

“One week.”

Harry and Hermione both looked at Ron.

“Ron, you can’t be serious, this has gone on long enough, look at him!”

But Ron held up a hand. His face was set. “You’ve got one week, and if it doesn’t get any better, we’re taking you to the hospital wing. I don’t care if we have to drag you there.” And he looked like he really meant to do it.

“A week!” Harry sputtered. “That’s not enough – ”

“Look, I’m not stupid, I don’t mean five-course meals, or even normal ones, okay? Not yet. But Merlin’s balls, just more. Alright? You’ve got to eat more than you have been, and if you can’t do it…that’s a problem, Harry. That’s a big effing problem.” Ron’s face seemed to pinch again, like he was fighting down bile.

Harry’s attention seized on to the ‘not yet’ part of Ron’s statement and suddenly felt as though he were fighting down the same thing himself. He wondered how everything had got to this point, that a normal meal sounded like a death sentence, and that Ron was the one imposing procedures about Harry’s health.

“C’mon, Ron,” Harry beseeched him. “I need more time than that.”

“No,” Ron answered. “Time’s up, mate. Listen, you can hate us if you want, I don’t care. At least you’ll be alive to do it.”

There was silence for a whole minute in which Harry attempted to find some loophole, some possible way out of this arrangement. He knew he didn’t have a choice, but he did not like conceding so easily to the power Ron and Hermione now held over him, the power he had stupidly just handed to them, and he stretched the moment out before his compliance as long as he could.

“Fine,” he said shortly, looking away in defeat. “Happy?”

Ron snorted heavily. “Yeah. I’m absolutely thrilled you’re so miserable,” he said sarcastically. “Really chuffed that you have to be negotiated into eating more than three cornflakes for breakfast. The party’s on Thursday.”

Harry said nothing. His eyes bored into a spot on the chair beside Hermione until his vision seemed to go fuzzy around the edges.

“Anything else you haven’t told us?”

Harry thought about the ache that was now growing again in his ribs, but he was not sure he wanted to mention it. He’d had enough of spilling his secrets for one day.

“Yeah.”

Ron and Hermione both immediately looked like they were bracing for an impact.

“Neville’s dating Hannah Abbott.”

They stared at him, taken aback. Then Ron said, “You’re joking.” and Hermione lifted a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle, and before Harry knew it they were all three of them laughing, really laughing, high on nerves and fear and relief, and for a second Harry felt like they were all eleven years old again, when their biggest problem had been facing down a mountain troll in a girls’ bathroom.

They eventually managed to calm themselves down and stood for a moment, offering each other exhausted half-smiles as the events of the night hovered almost tangibly between them.

“Come on,” Hermione said tiredly, tugging at Ron’s arm. She looked at Harry. “Let’s get to bed, alright? We could all use some rest. Things will look better in the morning. It’ll be okay.”

Things were surely going to look far worse in the morning, Harry thought, his mind on the week ahead of him. But he did not bother to say this, or to think too deeply about what Ron and Hermione now knew about him and the furtive looks they continued to give him as he led the way silently out of the room.

Chapter Text

Ron turned over, kicking the tangled covers off his legs. He punched his pillow into a ball and tried closing his eyes again, only to open them seconds later with a huff. He couldn’t get comfortable. There was no position that could make his mind turn off. Slowly, he pulled back the edge of his bed curtains.

Harry’s hangings were shut.

Ron stared at what little he could see of them in the darkness, everything that had happened that night tumbling over and over in his head. His stomach gave a nervous swoop as Harry’s quiet, shaky words came back to him.

She made me.

Ron swallowed hard. It still didn’t feel real.

He had watched Harry close himself off, and stop wanting to eat. He had known something wasn’t right, but he had never expected…this. Odd moments of the night Harry had told them about kept filtering back into his head. He knew now, didn’t he, why Harry had come back so late from Dumbledore’s office, and why he had acted so strangely the day after. It hadn’t been because of anything Dumbledore had told him after all. He and Hermione had sat up in the common room waiting for Harry, until well past one in the morning, before finally admitting defeat and trudging off tiredly to their separate dormitories.

Ron blinked, squeezing a fistful of his pillow. While he had been sleeping comfortably in his own bed, Harry had been attacked and pulled into that closet, with no one around to help him. Raped, his mind supplied against his will. His stomach spasmed again, and he cringed. He did not even want to think that word, but it echoed over and over inside his head, in Hermione’s voice, and he couldn’t get it out. Nor did he think he would ever forget the look on Harry’s face when she had said it.

Harry, his best mate. And…that. He did not know how to connect the two. Ron felt a burning shame that he had found himself imagining what must have happened in that broom cupboard between Harry and Romilda, how it surely must have gone. He didn’t want to think about it, and yet the thought kept invading. She’s a girl, Harry had said, like it was obvious, and before now, Ron probably would have agreed. But just tonight he had experienced for himself what it was like to be under that love potion…to be so out of control. And still he hadn’t thought much of it, until Harry had presented him with what could have happened.

What had happened.

For just a moment, Ron imagined himself in Harry’s situation, and what it really, truly must have been like, the fear Harry must have felt, and the thought alone was enough to make him want to vomit.

He had never once questioned before the fact that his own brothers were selling love potions out of their shop…that his mother had mentioned a time or two about the potions she herself had made as a girl at school…that Slughorn was still teaching them how to make them.

Hell, just tonight he had told Harry…oh god, he had told Harry it was just a joke.

He had reacted precisely as Harry had expected him to.

You can laugh, if you want….

Ron shut his eyes. He could see how easy it would be for someone to say it was a bloke’s good luck for a girl to get him into her knickers, but he knew it wasn’t so simple. Not when he had already seen how much it had messed with Harry’s head.

And Harry had kept that secret inside him for two months, starving himself and lying to them and trying to self-medicate through the night, worried that he and Hermione would not understand. That they would think it was funny.

Ron threw his covers off entirely, swinging his long legs over the side of the bed, a need to check on Harry propelling him up. The floor was ice cold under his bare feet, but he paid it no mind as he crept across the space between their beds. Carefully, he pulled back Harry’s curtains a few inches. He just needed to make sure.

Ron didn’t dare ignite his wand, but the light from the window was just enough to see by. He stared down at Harry’s thin face, half-buried in his pillow. Harry had always slept curled up on his side, as long as Ron had known him – the only exceptions being when he had been dosed with Dreamless Sleep, or when he was fully unconscious, like those three god-awful days after the ordeal with the Stone in first year. Ron and Hermione had been terrified out of their minds that he would never wake up again.

He squinted at Harry’s shoulder in the darkness, looking for the tell-tale motion of regular breathing and watched for a moment or two, just to be certain.

Satisfied, Ron made his way quietly back to his own bed, leaving Harry’s curtains open an inch just in case, hoping Harry wouldn’t notice in the morning. He climbed back into his own bed and lay down, staring at the gap through which he could just glimpse the edge of Harry’s pillow, until his eyes drifted shut.

Ron woke with a jerk, staring up at the canopy of his bed. He lay still, sure that he had been pulled awake by some sort of sound. After a second, it came again: a quiet groan from his left. He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and looked over at Harry’s bed. There was movement beyond the gap he’d left in the curtains. Wondering if Harry was perhaps about to be ill, he threw back his blankets for the second time and stumbled across to Harry’s bed, moving the curtains aside.

Harry was still lying on his side, a sheen of sweat now dampening his hair, his shirt, a drop sliding down the line of his jaw. The hand that was visible was clenched in his pillow, white-knuckled and trembling. Harry groaned again, his face scrunching, and Ron reached out instinctively to wake him.

Harry’s eyes opened the second Ron’s hand touched his shoulder. He lurched up onto his elbow, wincing, and his other hand jerked halfway out from under his pillow. Ron saw that it was wrapped tightly around his wand. Harry’s breathing hitched and he sat all the way up, relinquishing his grip on his wand as he peered up upwards. Strands of hair stuck to his damp forehead, nearly covering his scar.

“Ron?” he croaked, his voice thick with sleep. “What are you doing?”

Ron swallowed. “You were having a dream.”

Harry’s brow furrowed. His fingers flexed on the bedspread, and he looked up at the curtains as if examining them for a flaw. “You weren’t supposed to hear.”

Ron frowned at that, and even without his glasses Harry must have been able to tell. He sighed, rubbing at the side of his sweaty face.

“I usually put up a charm,” Harry explained quietly. “Sorry if I woke you.”

Ron moved the curtains back farther and sat on the edge of the bed. Harry glanced at him, perhaps a little surprised, but did not object. Ron was tempted to fetch his wand and give them some light, but something told him it would be easier for Harry to answer in the dark.

If he was being honest, it would be easier for him ask.

“It happens a lot?” Ron questioned, shifting his knee up onto the bed.

Harry shrugged. He wiped most of the sweat from his face with his sleeve and looked at the bedspread. “Yeah.”

He looked younger, somehow, without his glasses.

“I knew you were getting up loads of times,” Ron said, wincing slightly in sympathy, though he didn’t think Harry could see. One of the other boys stirred, and he lowered his voice even further. “But I didn’t know….” He swallowed again. “That’s what you wanted those tablets for, then.”

Harry didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. He slumped forward and rested his forehead against his hand, the other lying limply in his lap.

Ron didn’t think he had ever seen Harry look so defeated.

On impulse he reached out and put a hand on Harry’s back. He half-expected Harry to flinch or to move away, but Ron was relieved when the only thing that happened was his back tensing up a little. After a few seconds, Harry’s breathing seemed to become slower, deeper, and, gradually, the muscles underneath Ron’s hand relaxed. Neither of them moved for a long minute.

Ron’s throat constricted painfully. He could feel the knobs of Harry’s spine jutting out sharply against his palm. Aside from his glimpse earlier, it was the first in a while Ron had truly seen Harry without his ridiculous layers of clothing, in just a t-shirt so thin and worn it could only have been one of his cousin’s hand-me-downs. The difference was startling.

Eventually, Harry shifted slightly and Ron’s hand fell back to his side.

“Thanks, Ron,” Harry said very quietly, and he sounded more like himself than he had in a long time. “You should get back to bed.”

Ron accepted this as the small victory it was and stood up, bumping Harry’s shoulder lightly with his knuckles. He heard Harry settling back down under the covers behind him and by the time he had wrapped his own blankets around himself again and looked over, he was surprised and a bit pleased to see that Harry had left his curtains open a few inches.

Scrawny git, he thought with an inward sigh.

Ron shut his eyes, listening to the sound of an owl hooting somewhere outside the window, and tried not to think too hard about what tomorrow was going to bring.

The phantom sensation of Ron’s comforting hand eased Harry back to sleep.

He dozed, seamlessly swept along into the feeling of Hermione holding him to her, his body relaxing into the bed as it relived the memory of warmth, and safety…the dream he had woken from receded, leaving room for a different one…and the feeling of another pair of hands holding onto him.

Her hands were gentle in his, their fingers intertwined, and the touch was like bright sunlight, warming him, filling up all the empty spaces….She laughed, and he had never heard anything better, it was his own happiness put to sound.

Her arms went around him, holding him…safe again, and it didn’t hurt.

She touched her lips to his, then, and they didn’t burn...

He kissed her back, holding onto her as tightly as he could, afraid to let her go, afraid the light would die when she was gone. It poured into him like liquid gold, and he had never felt so content….

Harry slowly opened his eyes, his chest full of the kind of unrestrained joy only found in dreams, the aching happiness so strong it was almost sorrow. The dream began to fade as soon as he realised he was awake, but the feeling lingered. He lay perfectly still, determined to preserve it as long as possible, until it inevitably faded, a faint, mournful longing taking its place.

He blinked, hard, and stared upwards. The feel of Ginny’s soft hand in his came to him again and the ache deep in his chest seemed to throb. It was only a dream, he told himself. The tantalising possibility that it could be real, however, of that happiness belonging to him seemed at once both maddeningly close and wholly unattainable.

His life had never been so easy as simply wanting.

Fully awake now, Harry remembered in a stomach-turning flash everything that had happened the night before, and dread came rushing in. He did not know how he was going to do this….Somewhere inside him, he knew he had done the right thing by telling Ron and Hermione all he had, but he could not prevent the massive surge of regret at what he was facing. A week, or they were going to find somebody to make him eat.

Knowing instinctively that the alarm was about to sound, Harry pulled his wand from beneath his pillow and refreshed the spell on his ribs before sitting up to switch it off. Quietly, he stepped out into the room, which had only barely started to lighten, and went about gathering his things. He had just sat back down on his bed, trainers in hand, when Ron stirred in his four-poster and sat up.

“Where you going?” Ron asked groggily, wiping his cheek.

Harry glanced at him, any remaining thoughts of Ginny dispersing, and rested his heel on the bed frame to do up his laces. “Down to the Quidditch pitch.”

This was nothing new. But Ron’s forehead wrinkled, as though something had just occurred to him. “I’m coming with you,” he murmured, and moved to get out of bed.

“You don’t have to do that,” said Harry with a burst of nerves. He had not expected to meet resistance quite so quickly.

“I don’t mind,” Ron assured him, already moving around to his trunk to dig out a change of clothes.

“Really, Ron,” Harry insisted as he stood. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“What, are you afraid I’ll run circles around you? Just want to see what all the fuss is about, besides I could do with a bit of exercise.”

Harry watched in dismay as Ron pulled a sweatshirt over his head. Try as he might, he could not think of a reason to refuse to let Ron accompany him. He knew it was no good.

“Suit yourself, then. Try to keep up,” Harry challenged with a lot more certainty than he felt, and he pulled the Cloak out of his bag as he headed for the door, Ron hopping one-footed into his own trainers right behind him.

“Since when did they start posting trolls around?” Ron grumbled, swiping the dirt off his clothes as he and Harry emerged from the passageway into the grounds.

It was easy enough for Harry to get around them with the Cloak, but it had been a close thing with both of them under it.

“A few weeks ago,” Harry supplied absently. He stuffed the Cloak back into his bag, his stomach tightening. He prayed to make it through the next hour without incident; mornings were rough anymore, and he did not want Ron to see him like that. Not after everything he, Harry, had already admitted to him. His face grew warm at the thought and he increased his step, reflexively putting a slight distance between them. He wished he were alone. For a brief moment he considered abandoning this morning’s run and suggesting they go straight back to the castle, but that would have only made him look more of an idiot.

Ron followed Harry into the changing room to drop their bags, and then there was nothing else for it.

The two of them set off at a jog, Harry opting for the first time to skirt the inside border of the pitch in mind of a slightly shorter, less taxing route. He immediately settled into the lead despite his breath already beginning to come up short – Harry had always been fast. Unbidden, one of his many memories of escaping Dudley’s gang at school sprang to mind, and he gave his head a small shake, dislodging it.

Ron’s footfalls sounded steadily just behind him. “It’s cold as bollocks out here,” he gasped, and Harry grinned in spite of himself. He wanted to tell Ron it wasn’t as bad the more you got going, but he didn’t have the air to spare.

They completed one lap, and Harry could already feel a stitch growing in his side. His breathing was coming quicker and quicker, and his head pounded as Ron gradually pulled up beside him, catching up. Ron glanced at him, and Harry straightened his shoulders, his body slipping automatically into better form. He stared at a point on the stadium wall, telling himself he only had to make it to that point, and then the next when he had passed first, and the next…pain was sharpening in every part of his body, his muscles cramping, and it all looked impossibly far away. He could not, however, stop for a break, for he knew he would not be able to start again. His stomach tightened, rolling. Ron kept glancing at him. Harry began to feel a little as though he were drowning, panicked and breathless, and there was no way to possibly hide it.

The last of Harry’s energy burned up, and his feet slowed to a near stop.

Ron slowed next to him. “Whoa,” he panted, reaching out to grip Harry’s arm as the usual blur began to cloud Harry’s vision.

Stumbling away from Ron, Harry put a hand to the wall and fell to his knees, hunching over as he retched onto the grass. Ron took a knee next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, supporting him as he vomited up nothing but bile.

As the cramps subsided, Harry closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. Ron said nothing, and when Harry finally opened his eyes again they looked at each other. Ron’s hand was still on his shoulder; he did not seem surprised, and Harry wondered if Ron had been expecting something like this from the moment he had offered to come with him.

“You’re not doing this anymore, Harry,” he said, his fingers pressing into Harry’s shoulder. “You’re not.”

Harry wiped his mouth on his sleeve and averted his eyes. A light gust of wind whistled across the pitch, and he shivered. “It helps.”

“It’s not helping,” Ron objected. “You don’t have the energy for this. C’mon….”

Still gripping Harry’s shoulder, Ron took his elbow and helped him to his feet. Feeling steadier, Harry turned in the direction of the changing rooms, but Ron held onto him for another moment, his grasp beginning to make Harry’s wrists itch again.

“No more. Yeah?” Ron’s eyebrows raised slightly, as if trying to remind Harry that they had a deal.

Stopping running had never, technically, been part of that deal, however, and Harry could not help his brain slithering off in all directions to attempt to come up with an alternative solution. Feeling too tired and trapped to argue, Harry nodded, still panting, and Ron released him.

He would have to consider it later, Harry thought as they made their way back across the field. He had agreed to try to eat because truthfully he’d had little choice in the matter, but he balked at the notion of doing nothing at all to balance that out.

Gloomily, Harry wished that he had somehow come up with an excuse, that he had not been stupid enough to allow Ron to come with him. He found he could not be wholly ungrateful, however, as they made their way back into the castle, up the steep slope of the secret passageway and what seemed like far too many staircases to Harry, for Ron helped to keep him upright more than once.

By the time they returned to the dormitory, Harry was quite happy to collapse back into his four-poster and sleep, eager to think of nothing until breakfast.

Ron woke him what felt like mere minutes later.

Harry fished around for a fresh change of clothes and waited for Seamus to finish up in the bathroom (he had started to wonder, at this rate, if he would be able to casually strip his clothes off in front of anybody ever again). Ron met him with a bracing sort of smile when he emerged, and Harry followed him down the spiral staircase.

Hermione was seated in a chair by the fire when they came down, petting Crookshanks absent-mindedly in her lap, and when she caught sight of them she seemed to jump a little and gently but hastily moved the cat out of the way, surging to her feet.

“Harry! Ron! Did you sleep alright?” She wrung her hands as she looked from Ron to Harry. Her face was slightly pale as if she herself had not slept, and Harry’s heart twisted with guilt.

Harry shrugged a shoulder, and Ron glanced from him to Hermione, making the face he always did when he was trying to wordlessly communicate information to her. Harry’s annoyance flared, but then died almost as quickly as it had come; in the last few weeks, they had borne the brunt of his temper more than he wanted to admit even to himself. They had shown him more patience than he had earned, and it was only fair he tried to return it.

“You didn’t either,” Harry pointed out to Ron. Ron opened his mouth to argue and then snapped it shut, half-shrugging.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Hermione said quietly, and her eyes wandered over Harry’s face.

Harry rubbed his wrist against his thigh and would have suggested heading down to the Great Hall if only to get her to stop looking at him like she was, but it was a very close call which scenario he found less appealing.

Perhaps sensing this, Ron cleared his throat. “Breakfast, then library. Wonderful suggestion, Hermione, took the words right out of my mouth,” he said airily, nudging her in the back.

Suppressing a smile, Hermione batted his hand away and took hold of Harry’s elbow as she turned toward the portrait hole. She let go very suddenly a second later as if she had just realised what she was doing and clasped her hands together again, the remains of her smile falling from her face.

The itch spread up Harry’s arms, and doubt about the wisdom of sharing what he had with them resurged. Butterflies were dancing in his gut at the prospect of the meals he would now be spending with them – he did not think he could bear for Ron and Hermione to tread around him so lightly on top of that. To think about Romilda every time they touched him, or looked at him.

They climbed out into the corridor, the portrait of the Fat Lady closing behind them, and before Harry could lose the courage he reached out a hand to stop them both. Ron and Hermione looked at him in slight surprise, and he glanced right and left, checking to make sure they were quite alone.

“Listen, I know what I said last night was” - disgusting - “weird. But you can put it out of your heads, alright? I told you, and it’s done. We don’t have to – I don’t want to talk about it again. You don’t have to worry.”

Ron shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, wincing slightly, but he nodded.

Hermione’s jaw worked back and forth, inspecting his face. Her fingers started twisting together again. She took a deep breath as though making up her mind. “Alright. We won’t talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Harry nodded gratefully, swallowing. Hermione smiled a bit tightly, and the three of them set off again without another word.

The entrance hall buzzed with voices, students flowing in and out of the Great Hall. Harry’s nerves redoubled as they descended the stairs, his mind still unable to fully consider the fact that he was about to be bloody supervised at breakfast because of his own big fat mouth. He spotted Ginny as they neared the doors and his heart pounded a little faster in his chest as it remembered the strange, indefinable happiness of the dream he had awoken from that morning. Ginny turned and her eyes fell almost immediately upon him as if his thoughts had been projecting themselves to the entire room.

“I was wondering if you lot were going to sleep all morning,” Ginny greeted them, and Harry’s gut squirmed with more than just nerves.

“You two go on,” he told Ron and Hermione, but they did not move, clearly unimpressed and possibly remembering the previous occasions in which Harry had eluded them at mealtimes. “I’ll be there in a minute,” he said firmly.

They relented, somewhat reluctantly, and Ron looked between Harry and Ginny curiously as Hermione pulled him away by the hand. Harry nodded Ginny over to a corner out of ear-shot of the students still milling about.

Harry knew she was expecting an explanation from him for the odd turn of events the night before. Her relief at Ron’s return to normality upon their arrival back in the common room had been short-lived after she had got a good look at the three of them, sober, silent, and exhausted. Harry in particular had felt none-too-talkative and done little more than assure her that her brother would be perfectly alright before heading straight to bed.

Ginny leaned against the wall now, hands crossed behind her back and simply waited for him to speak.

“Ron’s fine, Ginny,” Harry told her again. “Back to his usual self.”

“Still a git, then,” she pronounced sagely.

Harry fought not to smile, and even with her hands hidden it was very difficult not to think of taking one in his to see if it felt as warm as it had done in his dream. Her brown eyes were focused on him and it did nothing to help. “Slughorn brewed up an antidote straight away,” he explained.

Ginny nodded slowly, her gaze wandering over a group of students and then back to him. “A love potion, I assume?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Harry admitted unwillingly. “It was just a mix-up, that’s all.”

“You were pretty upset,” Ginny said quietly.

Harry put his hands in his pockets, shrugging. “I don’t like her very much. Romilda, I mean.” Ron had said her name enough times Harry knew it had been obvious who the chocolates were from.

Ginny’s lips pressed together, and she hummed in agreement. “I’ve heard her and her little friends talking about sneaking you some,” she revealed disdainfully, and the bottom fell out of Harry’s stomach. “But I didn’t think she was bold enough to actually do it.”

Harry swallowed, his fingers clenching in his pockets, and hoped his voice wouldn’t come out a croak. “You’ve heard her talking about it?”

Ginny shifted, bringing her hands back around and crossing her arms. Her nose wrinkled like she had smelled something foul. “Doesn’t really bother to keep her voice down much, does she?”

“No,” said Harry quietly, thinking of Romilda’s group giggling all the way off the Quidditch pitch after trials. “She doesn’t.”

Ginny sighed. “Well, I reckon it could have been worse.”

Harry brought his hands out of his pockets and scratched at his wrist, but said nothing.

“C’mon, we’d better get in there before Ron and Hermione think you’ve been kidnapped,” said Ginny, rolling her eyes and pushing away from the wall.

“You haven’t eaten yet?” Harry asked with a swell of hope as she turned to walk with him into the Hall.

“I may have,” Ginny admitted, “but if I ever say no to another bacon sandwich, please know it’s a Death Eater in disguise and you’ve got my permission to hex the wanker.”

Harry laughed, nearly surprising himself with the sound, and grinned at her back as she led the way through the doors.

Ron and Hermione had found seats at the far end of the Hall near the staff table. Trepidation heavy in his veins, Harry sank down onto the bench opposite, and the thread of nervous energy coursing through him turned sharply like a knife in his gut.

The same dishes full of fruit and plain cornflakes that had appeared at his place every day since he had made his request to the elves materialised in front of him, and Harry eyed them in longing disappointment. The knowledge that he would only make things more uncomfortable for himself if he refused to follow through with this new arrangement of Ron and Hermione’s was the only thing that kept him in his seat.

That, and the fact that Ginny’s elbow brushed his arm as she sat down. True to her word, she grabbed a bacon sandwich and pulled a sleeping Arnold from her pocket, placing him on the table dangerously close to Harry’s hand.

He could do this.

Harry knew without having to look that Ron and Hermione were watching him. He took a piece of toast from a half-empty platter and started in on it. The reminder that he had not made it the full distance on his run that morning pressed on him as he chewed, and the dry bread felt like sandpaper going down his throat. When that was gone, he poured himself a glass of water, drawing out the process as long as possible and took a swig while he watched Ginny gently prod Arnold awake to feed him a bit of bacon.

Ron cleared his throat, and Harry glanced up at him. Ron nodded significantly at the plates full of sausages and beans and eggs between them, raising his eyebrows. Nausea dipped low in Harry’s stomach at the notion, and he grabbed another piece of toast instead, clenching his jaw.

Hermione, it was clear, was attempting to appear as if she wasn’t paying attention to Harry at all and was failing miserably. She brought a cup of coffee to her lips and didn’t move it for three whole minutes while she watched him tear his piece of toast in half, and then tear that into even smaller pieces.

With a sigh, Hermione finally set down her cup. She grabbed herself a slice of toast, buttering it generously, and plopped three sausages, half of a tomato, and a fried egg onto her plate before reaching across the table to switch her plate with Harry's. Ginny looked up at this, briefly eyeing Hermione and then Harry and the food in front of him; Harry waited until she had looked away again to catch Hermione’s eye and shake his head once.

But Hermione nodded back at him and Ron kicked his foot under the table, and Harry looked down at the plate with chagrin. It was less than he would have eaten even two months ago, but it still seemed like far, far too much to him. Grudgingly, he picked up the toast and took a bite. The butter instantly squeezed out onto his tongue and he dropped the bread back to his plate, swallowing only because he knew he could not spit it out. How long had it been since he’d had butter? He picked up his fork and decided to work on the tomato instead.

Harry let his gaze wander over the other students at the table as he chewed, watching them eat. He wondered privately if any of them would have the self-control it required to do what he, Harry, had done to himself. What he was still burning to do. It took massive willpower, every minute you were awake, and Harry acknowledged with a bitter kind of pride that he was quite good at it. Hell, he’d practically been training for it since he was a kid, he thought.

He could feel that power he had held over his head, over his body, slipping with each bite he took, and the very strong sense came over him that if he finished he would be losing, somehow. Faltering at the idea, Harry set his fork down and nudged his plate away, knowing he was done. He took a deep breath, feeling instantly more at ease.

Ron and Hermione stared at the sausages, egg, and toast left on his plate in open disappointment. Ron tried to nudge Harry under the table a second time, but Harry looked instead at Arnold, the tiny little thing now quivering with delight as Ginny pretended to let him fall in the yoghurt dish before catching him at the last moment.

He had six more days to figure this out, if Ron and Hermione kept to their word – they were not going to report him for skipping one meal.

And he was going to take what he could get.

Unfortunately, as it was Sunday, there were no classes to distract Ron and Hermione’s attention away from Harry. Their dissatisfaction with his performance at breakfast was palpable all the way to the library, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at either of them until they had all settled together at a table near a large window.

The three of them dug out their books. Instead of laying out all of her own homework, however, Hermione produced a square scrap of parchment and a quill and slid it over to Harry.

“Let’s have it, then,” she insisted. “What have we got due this week you haven’t finished yet? Or started,” she added as an afterthought.

Harry stared at her. “Haven’t you got Flitwick’s essay left to do?” She had been fretting about it for two days.

“Yes, but I think I’ll be alright,” said Hermione dryly. “I’ve been averaging one hundred and four percent on most of the assignments – ”

Ron snorted. “Is that all?”

“ – it’s not my marks we’ve got to focus on right now, it’s yours if you’re going to pass this year.”

“Oi.”

Hermione barely spared him a glance, but it spoke volumes, and he conceded, pulling the parchment to him and scratching out a list of all his assignments that had been piling up. Hermione fished around in her bag while Harry wrote and by the time he was done she had pulled out a packet of pumpkin pasties, which she swapped Harry for, plucking the list out of his hands and tossing the small packet on top of Harry’s books.

Stiffening, Harry placed the pasties off to the side as he opened his Transfiguration book, but he had barely found the chapter he was looking for before Ron had picked up the pasties and set them firmly back down right on top of Harry’s text. Harry looked at the packet for a long moment, resisting the temptation to glare at both of them, but finally he picked it up, very slowly, and peeled back the wrapping. Ron watched him until he started to nibble at one of them, and then went to his own work.

Hermione scanned Harry’s list, marking things off and making notes. “Start on these ones, I’ll work on the rest,” she instructed, handing the paper back to him.

Curiously, Harry gathered up the designated assignments and gave them to her. He observed in disbelief as she began to go down the multiple choice questions Professor Sprout had set them, marking off the correct answers.

“I thought cheating was a cardinal sin.”

Hermione sniffed. “You’re clever enough to understand all of this, we’ve just got to get you caught up or you won’t regain any ground. We’ll go over it later,” she explained, her eyes moving rapidly over the page.

It was a sign of how badly Harry had fallen behind that Ron did not point out the gross unfairness of this compared to the myriad occasions Hermione had told them both to stuff it when they had asked for answers to the homework.

“Give a few here,” Ron said, holding his hand out for some of Harry’s assignments, and then he went to work as well.

Harry sat there looking at the both of them, his throat clogging unexpectedly with emotion. Feeling grateful and incredibly humbled that they were risking their own marks in favour of helping him, he steeled himself and finished off the first pumpkin pasty, returning to his Transfiguration reading with renewed determination. In the space of the next thirty minutes, Harry managed to get the second pasty down, aided both by the fact that Hermione had now moved on to outlining one of the essays he needed to write, and by the thought of a possible solution to Ron’s ban on his running he had been subconsciously brainstorming all morning.

The hours ticked by, punctuated only with the scratch of Hermione’s quill and Ron’s frequent longing looks out of the window onto the sunny grounds where some of the younger students were spending the remainder of their care-free weekend playing and laughing. Harry gradually became more and more uncomfortable, the food sitting uneasily in his stomach and the pain in his ribs returning after too long without attention; he tried to read the words on the page, to organise them into something coherent, but his frustration only grew until he slammed his book shut with a grunt.

“How do they expect us to remember all this? Abernathy’s six millionth principle of changing bats to marshmallows, or whatever the hell it is – ” Harry burst out, startling Madam Pince at the front of the room, who threatened in a hiss to toss them all out if they did not quiet down. “Be right back,” Harry muttered grumpily, rising from the table. “Got to check something.” He headed off across the library, aiming for the Transfiguration section to make it look convincing.

Once safely hidden behind a row of shelves, Harry brought out his wand and tapped it against his side. He sighed in instant relief. Pressing a hand against his stomach, he wished he could vanish the contents just as easily as he had his pain. The taste of sugar in his mouth was setting his teeth on edge…he scratched his arm and took a deep breath, composing himself before heading back.

Hermione and Ron looked at him warily when he returned, and he slumped into his seat, his arms still prickly. “Sorry.”

Hermione took pity on him. “Here, I’m nearly done, we can start going over the chapter.”

“I’ll finish it,” Ron offered quietly, taking Harry’s last assignment from her, and Hermione opened her own Transfiguration text and began to explain the concepts they were supposed to be covering in class, showing him her notes and highlighting useful tips.

Harry found it a little easier to concentrate, listening to her voice instead of trying to read, and it made him feel much better that she stumbled over an idea herself once or twice – clearly he was not the only one who did not understand it all.

By lunchtime, the three of them had collectively ploughed through nearly all of Harry’s workload, and they abandoned their books more than gratefully as they stood, stretching.

Harry followed Ron and Hermione down to the entrance hall, desperately attempting to turn his mind off, but instead of heading for the doors to the Great Hall, Hermione turned towards the basement stairs. Harry looked curiously at Ron, but Ron merely shrugged, nonplussed. It was obvious where they were headed, however, when Hermione stopped in front of the painting of a bowl of fruit.

Hermione reached out to tickle the pear and explained to Harry, a bit apologetically, “I thought it might be easier for you to – if there weren’t so many people around.”

Harry’s face heated, but he could not argue with this. Hermione and Ron watching him made it difficult enough; perhaps he would have better luck than he’d had at breakfast if he wasn’t surrounded by a dozen of his classmates. Bracing himself, he stepped silently into the kitchens after her, Ron trailing behind.

The cavernous room was as noisy and bustling as every other occasion Harry had visited, and it did not take long for a house-elf to pop into existence right before them, bowing low to the floor.

“What can I be doing for the wizards today?” the little elf squeaked enthusiastically, her wide eyes moving to each one of their faces and back again.

“We were wondering if it might be alright if we took our lunch here?” Hermione asked her kindly. “If it’s not a bother, I know you’ve all got a lot of work to do – ”

“Of course it is not being a bother, miss! This way.”

The elf led the way over to the table that would have been belonged to Hufflepuff had they been in the Great Hall, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione took three seats at the far end near the massive fireplace. Harry glanced around, wondering if Dobby was working in the kitchens that day, half-hoping he wasn’t, and as if this thought had been his cue to turn up, Dobby appeared suddenly at Hermione’s elbow. The other elf scurried away at once, as though afraid Dobby might be carrying a contagious infection.

“Harry Potter!” Dobby exclaimed, beaming. He scrambled up onto the bench next to Hermione so he could see them all properly. “And he has brought his friends!”

“Hullo, Dobby,” said Ron, grinning. “How’ve you been?”

“Wonderful, sir! Harry Potter has been to see Dobby three times this year,” he said happily, his eyes looking mysteriously wet. “And Dobby has wondered if he would be seeing Ron Wheezy and Miss Hermione….”

Ron and Hermione both turned to look at Harry at this mention of his previous trips to the kitchens. Harry shifted in his seat. “Dobby, we wanted to get some...some food. Who do we – ?”

“Oh Dobby can take care of that, Harry Potter, sir!”

“Surely we could get it ourselves,” Hermione protested, rising out of her seat. “There’s no reason you should have to wait on us.”

“Dobby can think of no greater honour, miss!” he squeaked, waving her back onto the bench. He scampered away eagerly and returned a minute later, balancing three plates on his spindly arms. He placed two identical ones, full to heaping with ham and chicken sandwiches, mashed potato, and roast beef and vegetables, in front of Ron and Hermione, and placed the third in front of Harry. Hermione took one look at the plate of tomatoes, mushrooms, and an apple and turned to Dobby.

“Harry’s going to be having the same as Ron and I today, Dobby, if you wouldn’t mind.”

The expression on Dobby’s shining face might have meant he had seen Christmas come early. “Of course! Dobby has been hoping Harry Potter would change his diet, Dobby does not think that – ”

“Thanks, Dobby,” said Harry quickly, cutting him off, and Dobby nodded emphatically, snapping his fingers, Vanishing Harry’s food, and running off to fetch another plate.

Ron coughed, starting in on a chicken sandwich. Dobby returned with Harry’s meal and very reluctantly excused himself to continue his kitchen duties. Harry stared sullenly down at the pile of food.

“Just do what you can,” Hermione encouraged, her eyes flicking briefly between him and his plate before turning back to her own.

She and Ron ate and talked, refraining from drawing Harry into the conversation, perhaps to give him the illusion of privacy, but they sat more stiffly than usual and it was several minutes before Harry could even bring himself to pick up his cutlery. The pumpkin pasties he had eaten seemed to have blocked up his throat, and he managed only two bites of vegetables before he made the mistake of trying the mashed potato. He set his fork and knife down again as his stomach rolled.

Harry closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He could feel Ron and Hermione’s gaze on him, even as they kept talking.

After several minutes in which Harry did not move, their conversation lulled to a stop, and Hermione said quietly, “Come on, Harry.”

No, came the nasty little voice inside Harry’s head, but he opened his eyes and retrieved his fork.

He made it precisely two more bites, his heel bouncing against the ground underneath the table, before sliding his plate off to the side. A house-elf came to take it away at once before either Ron or Hermione could say anything, and Hermione sighed as Harry looked away and watched a group of elves heave a giant cauldron onto a flame.

“We’ll try again at dinner.”

Harry’s hackles rose immediately at her tone, like he was a child refusing to eat his Brussels sprouts, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Ron’s fingers tighten around his knife, and he forcefully reminded himself that they were only worried.

Hermione ordered a glass of pumpkin juice from another passing elf and set it down in front of Harry. Knowing he had little choice, Harry sipped at it while they finished their lunch, and managed to get half of it down by the time they got up to bid Dobby goodbye.

For the rest of the afternoon, Harry laboured over his last three assignments, relieved that Ron and Hermione were able finally to move onto their own work, and the vague guilt he had felt all day on their behalf eased a little. The sun set outside the library window as Harry came to the concluding paragraph of his final essay, the light casting a pleasant orange glow over the table; he breathed in the dusty, leather-bound smell of the room and, for a moment, it was easy for Harry to pretend their lives were simple and unencumbered. It took only minutes for the sun to fall below the edge of the mountains in the distance, and then everything seemed colder again.

Harry put the finishing touches on his essay and rolled it up straight away, stuffing it into this bag, amazed and thankful he was finally done with homework for the first time in a month. His fingers ached and he flexed them gingerly, turning in his seat to lean gratefully against the wall.

Ron was snoring lightly, head resting in his hand, and Hermione nudged him. “Ron, it’s time for dinner.”

Ron grunted and didn’t open his eyes.

“The Cannons are rubbish and they were fools for not trading Gudgeon last season,” said Harry flatly.

Ron’s head fell out of his hand as he jerked and sat up. He pointed a finger at Harry sternly, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Gudgeon single-handedly pulled them through that match against Falmouth, and you know it.”

Harry smirked. “Every time,” he told Hermione.

Shaking her head, Hermione began gathering up her books, Ron following suit. Harry didn’t move, still massaging his spent fingers. Anxiety tumbled through his brain again, so familiar it was draining.

“I don’t suppose you’d believe it if I said I wasn’t hungry,” Harry remarked, his tone dry.

“Funnily enough, no,” said Ron lightly, standing up and stuffing his parchment away.

Harry dug his thumb even more firmly into his palm. “Didn’t think so.”

He sat where he was, fixed to the bench, until Ron and Hermione had both finished packing up and stood looking at him expectantly. Clenching his jaw, he forced himself to move.

They went down to the kitchens again.

Harry was tempted to suggest the Great Hall – he had not done any better at lunch than he had at breakfast, after all, and he admitted to himself that he had missed Ginny’s presence more than perhaps he should have. But the thought of the packed room was less than pleasing, and he kept his thoughts to himself.

Harry led them all to seats at the opposite end of the long table this time, slightly more out of the way of the buzz of activity. Dobby, of course, found them just as quickly as he had done earlier, his joy at seeing them twice in the same day bordering on catatonia.

“What can Dobby get for Harry Potter and his friends, sir?”

Harry wished he wouldn’t put it like that, but he couldn’t bring himself to correct the elf, not with so much open sincerity brimming in his eager eyes as he practically danced on the spot.

“Maybe,” Ron started, glancing at Harry, “you could pick something you like? Or, did like, anyway. I dunno, something you would have eaten – well, before?”

Ron and Hermione looked at him hopefully. Harry could not think of anything he could stomach that they would approve of, and he gestured for them to make their orders first. He tuned them out, wracking his brains in an odd kind of panic as if he were sitting an exam, and when Dobby’s too-big eyes fell on him again he still had come up with nothing.

“Er – shepherd’s pie, thanks,” Harry mumbled, seizing on the first thing that came to mind. Mashed potato and ground meat was not going to do him any favours, but the memory of Mrs. Weasley making it for their last meal before returning to school sprang up, and he thought, just maybe, that might help get him through. Dobby procured their plates and scurried away again. Harry felt a bit guilty as he watched him go, knowing he was probably itching to stay and talk to them.

As was the case so often now, Harry felt like an invisible hand was restraining his own from lifting the forkfuls of food to his mouth. The potato stuck at the back of his tongue, and though his stomach rumbled demandingly, every swallow was a battle.

One week. Time’s up mate.

Harry tried to remember what it had been like, sitting around the table at the Burrow with the Weasleys before the start of term. What it had been like to want to be full.

Harry thought of Ginny sitting next to him at breakfast as he watched her play with Arnold.

He could do this. He could.

He put bite after bite of beef and gravy into his mouth, his empty stomach delighted, his mind screaming at him that this was wrong. Before he knew it, he was halfway through, and he paused, scratching at the itch climbing up his arms.

“Oh, don’t scratch, Harry…please don’t.” Hermione pleaded anxiously. Her hand jerked on the table, as though she wanted to reach out and stop him.

Harry forced himself to stop with difficulty, clenching his hand into a fist on the tabletop, and picked up his fork again. He strong-armed himself into a few more bites. The slimy thing that felt like a parasite inside him squirmed beneath his skin.

When all was said and done and the elves had whisked his plate away once again, Harry had managed three-quarters of his meal. Though he hadn’t finished, Ron seemed to relax as though he had let go of a breath he had been holding, and Hermione gave him a radiant smile as she ordered him another pumpkin juice.

He wanted to refuse it, and after what he had just accomplished he felt he had the right, but the indisputable truth of how much they had both helped him that day compelled him to bring the glass to his lips and drink.

He reckoned he owed them far more than a sodding glass of pumpkin juice.

The following few days played into much the same pattern.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione continued to take their meals in the kitchens, and despite not being too keen on having the elf’s shining eyes on him while he was trying to eat, Harry invited Dobby more often than not to sit on the bench beside him, solaced by the fact that at least one of his friends was so very easy to please.

Harry struggled with his meals, but he managed to finish more than half his portion during most of them, and he continued, however reluctantly, to choke down whatever drinks he could stomach that Ron, Hermione, and Ginny handed to him. He was forced to acknowledge that, in some ways, he felt better. He did not become quite so exhausted after climbing a flight of stairs; his mind felt like a room stuffed full of cobwebs that was slowly being cleared; he followed one of McGonagall’s lectures without spacing out too terribly often (and perhaps he looked like he had a bit more energy too, for he could have sworn that Professor McGonagall had a slightly pleased look when he walked into her class on Wednesday, though he could not be too sure he hadn’t imagined it).

He missed his running. He missed getting out in the mornings, away from the school, away from Ron and Hermione, with a breath of fresh air and a temporary escape from his head. Harry had, however, at least come up with a different way to give himself some physical work to do.

As Ron now seemed to be hyperaware of Harry coming or going from the dormitory in the middle of the night, this left exercise he could do with only his body weight. Sit-ups had seemed the obvious, simplest choice, and he had attempted them in his four-poster the first night. The mattress had been a bit too soft for proper leverage, so Harry had instead sneaked out onto the floor underneath his Invisibility Cloak to a spot out of the way at the end of his bed and got to work. It was extraordinarily difficult, trying to keep quiet in the middle of it, particularly with all the blood rushing in his ears and making it almost impossible to gauge how loud his breathing was. Ron had stirred once or twice, and Harry had to pause each time until he settled.

Guilt rushed up inside Harry every time he thought about what Ron and Hermione would say about it. But they could not know how thoroughly impossible it would be for him to stick to their plan for him to eat without some way to siphon it off. Even with this new routine and his improved energy, the prickle under his skin, the sting and the weight and the cold in his blood, only worsened, paying him back for every single bite he swallowed.

Ginny was the only bright spot in his day.

Harry no longer got to see her at mealtimes, of course. The closest contact they had was during Quidditch practice on Tuesday, and he spent so much time watching her speeding up the field to put the Quaffle through the hoop that he had nearly taken a Bludger to the face and let the Snitch escape more than once. He had sat down beside her in the changing rooms after, while they removed their muddy boots, too tempted to pass up the chance to talk to her, and they had chatted about the Chasers’ performances for what had seemed far too short a time.

“Don’t forget to drink some water,” Ginny had said as she left, and patted him lightly on shoulder.

Harry had not been sure whether he was ashamed or glad to admit that her touch had lasted him the rest of the day, kindling another dream that night of her face, of her hands, displacing any others of dark broom cupboards and long hallways without end.

“Has Ginny seemed a bit down to you?” Harry asked Hermione.

The two of them sat perched on a low stone wall in the courtyard, wrapped in their cloaks. The cool autumn air felt good in Harry’s lungs, but he shivered as a chill swept through him. Hermione noticed and cast a warming charm. Grateful, Harry loosened his arms around his chest.

“A little,” Hermione mused. “I think she’s just concerned.” She gave Harry a pointed look.

Harry already knew this, and he was almost certain there was more to it than that. There must have been. Ginny seemed alright, really, for the most part. Stressed, of course, Harry thought, with all the preparation for her O.W.L.s, and she acted herself most days. But he had seen her the day before coming down from the girls’ dormitory and her eyes had looked a bit red around the edges. He wondered if she had been crying. His heart twisted at the thought.

Ginny almost never cried. She would not be doing it simply for him.

Perhaps she was not over her split with Dean, Harry thought.

“She’s been wondering where we’ve all got to since we haven’t been in the Great Hall,” Hermione went on conversationally.

“She hasn’t asked me,” said Harry.

“Probably scared you’d bite her head off,” Hermione countered, eyeing him reproachfully.

“No, she’s not,” answered Harry absently. Ginny had never been much intimidated by him. Well, his moods, at least. She had long outgrown being intimidated by his fame. It had been years now since she had sent him that awful singing Valentine.

“What?”

“What?” repeated Harry, a little startled. He realised he was grinning and straightened his face at once.

Hermione’s brow scrunched as she observed him, mild curiosity turning up the corners of her lips.

Hurriedly, Harry went on as if hadn’t just been caught daydreaming about his best friend’s sister. “I reckon she knows when not to push people,” he said a bit pointedly.

Hurt flashed across Hermione’s face, and Harry immediately felt like a prat. He ruffled his hair in agitation.

“I’m sorry, Hermione,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t know why I….” He tried to think of word unpleasant enough to describe himself and couldn’t. He waved a hand vaguely to encompass his whole being.

“It’s alright,” Hermione said quietly, glancing down and crossing her legs. She appeared as if she wanted to say something more but bit her lip.

Harry cleared his throat. “What did you, er, end up getting on your Charms essay?” he asked as a peace offering.

Hermione smiled against her will but gave in, as Harry had known she would, and said, “Ninety-nine percent.”

Harry winced. “Rotten luck, there.”

“Oh hush,” she laughed, and Harry knew he was forgiven.

Ron came trudging across the courtyard then, chilled and stone-faced.  “Let’s get back in the warm,” he grunted.

“Alright?” Harry asked, eyeing him as he and Hermione stood.

The three of them had passed Romilda on their way down from the sixth floor and by the time they had made it outside, Ron had marched off by himself, kicking rocks out of his path and muttering something about clearing his head. Hermione had appeared as though she would have liked to stomp off, too, only she hadn’t wanted to leave Harry alone. Harry was still slightly taken aback by their reactions.

Ron nodded curtly. The tips of his ears were still red.

Frowning, Harry went to lead the way back into the castle, then paused, turning back. “You get used to it,” he told them.

He had meant it to help, but the obvious disquiet in their eyes as they went back inside together told him he had probably only made it worse.

Harry awoke on Hallowe’en, drowsy and yawning. He rolled out of bed and moved quietly to the floor next to his trunk, hiding himself safely underneath his Invisibility Cloak, his body settling automatically into its new pattern. The tender skin of his back shifted uncomfortably against the floor again and again as he dragged his chest up to his knees and back down in a sit-up, over and over as the sun rose slowly outside.

The other boys were sleeping heavily, and he managed to make it the full hour he had set for himself without incident. Breathing as silently as he possibly could, muscles spent and shivering, Harry staggered to his feet and retrieved a fresh change of clothes. He pulled his jeans on, his mind still down on the floor, wondering if he should have tried to manage a few more repetitions. He tugged his belt closed and paused, frowning.

It was tighter than it had been yesterday.

Only by the tiniest fraction, but Harry could easily feel the difference. Panic started to rise, and he immediately found himself wondering how he could possibly get out of breakfast. This collided violently in his head with the keen awareness that it was only three days until the deadline Ron and Hermione had given him, and that if he screwed it up now, he could very well find himself at the mercy of Madam Pomfrey. The thought only made his panic spiral higher, and he cast about the room for a distraction before it could completely overtake him. Remembering the Marauder’s Map, he seized it from under his pillow and sat down heavily on his bed scanning the parchment, flicking his eyes from room to room, searching, as always, for Malfoy, and the evidence that would damn him.

They were supposed to eat in the Great Hall.

It had been Harry’s idea, to Ron and Hermione’s surprise, for he had gone down to Hagrid’s after classes the day before to speak to him. Ron’s theory that Hagrid might have passed on the information that Ron and Hermione had told him during their last visit had been tugging at his brain for days, stoking an uncomfortable paranoia. There were those odd moments, too, that Harry had rather thought some of the teachers had been watching him at dinner. He knew he had some damage control to perform, and quickly.

Harry was fairly convinced he had managed to ease Hagrid’s mind, explaining that he had only been feeling a bit off recently and that he thought it must be passing. He had even got down a whole serving of Hagrid’s apple crumble, something he thought he ought to have been congratulated on seeing as such a thing was a feat in and of itself under the best of circumstances.

It had seemed perfectly clear to Harry that the best way to seal the deal was to make sure he was in plain view of the staff table while he was supposed to be eating. The prospect normally would have had him heading for the hills, but after the past few days of relative success with Ron and Hermione, he had thought it was doable enough.

Now, however, descending the stairs with them, Harry was not so certain, and he wished fervently that he had just kept his mouth shut about abandoning their new habit of eating in the kitchens.

There was nothing for it now.

The Great Hall was festooned with the traditional floating candles and live bats that swooped around the enchanted ceiling. Orange streamers were strung from the sconces and the giant pumpkins Hagrid had grown for occasion sat at various places around the room, glowing from the inside.

Harry dropped into his seat across from Ron and Hermione, ducking as several bats swooped over his head. Dean, Parvati, and Lavender looked surprised to see them all there, but Harry ignored them. He glanced around hopefully for Ginny, his spirits punctured slightly when she was nowhere to be found. Sullenly, he scooped some food onto his plate. In spite of himself, he stole a peek at the staff table. Hagrid looked up at the same moment from a conversation with Professor Vector and gave Harry a little wave.

Harry waved back, irresistible guilt burning his insides as he turned to stare down at his plate. He had been managing this for days, there was no point in fumbling the momentum he’d got going. He attempted to shut out the feeling of his belt cinching around his waist, replaying against his skin in a never-ending loop…his knee jiggled up and down as his nerves screamed for an outlet. Parvati, sitting on his right, noticed, and Harry forced his leg to stop.

A great deal depended on him being able to choke down this meal. And the next one, and the next one, his brain supplied unhelpfully. He picked up his fork and speared a hard-boiled egg.

He had already given up so much of his own control to please Ron and Hermione, his brain started in on him. What was the point? Even if he made it a week without fucking up, then what? He would just have to keep going, and keep eating…he had already gained weight again, even with all the sit-ups, and it had only been four days, and there was no end in sight.

Hopelessness pulled hard at him…there was no winning, was there?

Harry tried to make his hand move, to bring the fork to his mouth. The relentless part of his mind that wanted nothing more than to starve the contamination inside of him raged at the thought, fighting harder than it had in days. He didn’t want to do this.

Harry slowly began cutting up his egg. He started Ron going on the finalist prospects for the Quidditch World Cup next summer, bringing his fork up every time he had something to say, as if the only thing preventing him from taking a bite was his pressing need to add to the conversation, hoping the illusion would suffice. He cut his pieces of egg into smaller pieces, and stirred them around his plate with intention.

Harry laughed with Ron and took the tiniest bites he possibly could. See? he thought. Don’t mind me.

Hermione eyed his plate as she spread jam on her toast, and when she looked away, Harry scraped everything together so that it took up less space, looked like some of it was gone…he grabbed a couple of scones and plopped them onto his plate, taking one and tearing it into bite-sized sections.

Nothing to see here, Hermione.

Time dragged, and Harry’s foot started bouncing again. Parvati shot him another look and slid closer to Lavender, but he paid her no mind.

Finally, the bell rang and Harry stood with relief, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “We’ll be late for Defence,” he told Ron and Hermione, hoping to hurry them along without question.

As he had feared, however, they both surveyed his plate as they got up and their expressions darkened. Harry made his way along the table as if he hadn’t noticed, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Ron grab some toast and wrap it in a napkin.

Due to the fact they would have been better off trying to scale Mount Everest stark naked than passing food in Snape’s class, Ron kept the toast safely tucked away in his bag all first period, until the bell rang again and half the class trudged off to head down to the greenhouses for Double Herbology.

The moment they were outside, Ron was on the offensive.

“Eat,” he growled at Harry, thrusting the parcel of toast at him. Harry did not take it. Huffing in frustration, Ron grabbed his wrist, forcing the bread into his hand, and pushed it back to Harry. “Eat.”

Hermione, walking solemnly next to Ron, said nothing.

Equal parts defiant and humiliated, Harry stuffed the bundle into his pocket without a word. He did not look at either of them. He attempted half-heartedly to console himself that he would do better at lunch, but he already knew in his heart that he would not, and the future seemed to close in upon him as if he were racing through a narrow tunnel to meet a brick wall.

Herbology was a tense blur. Professor Sprout set Neville to work with the three of them, and at one point he was forced to intervene when Ron attempted to beat back their Venomous Tentacula with such ferocity he nearly severed one of its spindly, sneaking limbs. Hermione carried on in Ron’s place, listening somewhat distractedly as Neville advised her how to properly bind the injured tentacle, Harry and Ron standing silently beside one another, holding back the rest of the belligerent plant with great difficulty.

An hour and a half later, Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally stepped out of the greenhouse, sweaty and irritated, into the mild wind that never seemed to die down now that they were nearly into November.

Harry marched up the sloping lawns beside them, highly, impossibly aware that it was time for lunch, weighing his limited options.

Hermione and Ron turned automatically toward the Great Hall as they entered the castle. The two of them stopped after a few steps and turned back, realising Harry was not with them, and he stood there for a moment, rooted to the spot.

“Come on,” said Ron firmly.

Harry did not move; he looked past them, at the groups of students milling about happily around the tables weighed down with jack-o’-lanterns full of sweets and goblets of coloured candies. His eyes found Ron and Hermione’s faces again. He shook his head, and started off in the opposite direction.

They followed him, as he knew they would, but Harry faced them again as they reached the first corridor off the stairs.

“I can’t,” said Harry flatly. “I know what you’re thinking. But I can’t.”

“You can, Harry, you’ve been making such progress,” Hermione begged him. “Please, just come down with us.”

Ron crossed his arms, his face set.

Harry knew in his gut that the choice before him, to simply walk downstairs and join them for lunch, was significant somehow, but in the end he did not truly feel as if he had one at all.

“I’m sorry,” Harry told them seriously. He really was. “I’ll see you in Charms.”

He started down the corridor, Hermione’s voice ringing out behind him, “Wait!” Without turning back, he pulled his Cloak out of his pocket, throwing it over his head so they could not follow him.

Harry wandered through the halls, sickening worry and self-reproach churning up his insides. He had expected to feel better, if only a little, not having to face another meal, but the pleasure of liberation did not come. They were going to be so disappointed in him.

He was sorely tempted to go back to the dormitory, grab his broom, and spend the afternoon flying. To skip his Charms lesson and all the revising he had to do and feel the wind on his face just for the hell of it. His troubles had always seemed that much less important when he was on a broom.

Harry carefully avoided bumping into the other students on their way to lunch and finally slipped the Cloak off when he was sure no one was looking. Sighing to himself, he acknowledged that skiving off again to go flying would only improve his mood for the moment, and that the better idea was to head to the library. If he was going to piss Ron and Hermione off by not eating, the least he could do was get some of his homework done.

As though his day could not have got any worse, Peeves came zooming out of a classroom just as Harry was stuffing his Cloak back into his pocket.

"There once was a wee little totty,
Who often did things that were naughty,
Is he Chosen or hollow?
Where he goes trouble follows,
Whether love him or hate him he’s POTTY!” Peeves chanted in an off-tune wail, and broke off cackling.

“Sod off,” Harry told him dully. “Heard the Bloody Baron’s been hanging around this part of the castle.”

“Nice try, Potty!” Peeves guffawed, turning over in mid-air to drift next to Harry upside down. “The Baron hasn’t left the dungeon in days, has he?”

Harry ignored him, but Peeves followed him down the next corridor, blowing raspberries. He seemed to grow bored of this after a few minutes and reached inside his jacket, taking out a small bag, untying the string, and upturning the bag right over Harry’s head, sending a cascade of marbles down upon him.

“OUCH!” Harry bellowed, the marbles bouncing painfully off of his skull and rolling away in all directions, the sound echoing off the walls. He whipped out his wand furiously, aimed it Peeves, and said, “Impedimenta!”

Peeves cackled again, barely dodging the spell as he shot up toward the ceiling. “No magic in the corridors, little Potty, you’re breaking the ruuuuules!” he said, and he swooped around at top speed, retrieving his marbles and pelting them at Harry one at a time.

To his credit as a Seeker, Harry caught all but two and Vanished them so they were out of Peeves’ reach. “Knock it off!”

Peeves stuck out his tongue, scooping up the last two marbles and lobbing them at Harry again half-heartedly, and Harry backed away towards the library doors, keeping a sharp eye on him.

“Oopsie!” cried Peeves, and a second later Harry found out why as he collided hard with someone behind him, a stack of books tumbling to the floor.

Regaining his balance, Harry rubbed his bruised elbow and knelt to help pick up some of the books. “Sorry – ” he began as he swiveled around on his heels, but the apology died on his lips as he saw who it was.

Malfoy stood there scowling, a hand pressed to his stomach in pain. Harry straightened up slowly, his anger at Peeves multiplying tenfold in a different direction. “What were you doing in there, Malfoy?”

“The library?” Malfoy scoffed. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them, Potter, but there are these useful things called books – ” He took out his wand with a flourish and waved it, sending the books on the floor sailing back into his arms.

Harry glanced quickly down at the one he was holding: Stealth and Subtlety: A Guide to Secrecy Spells. Malfoy snatched it out of his hands and shoved all of the volumes into his bag.

“I wouldn’t expect you’d understand, the only books you read have probably got pictures in them,” said Malfoy.

Harry barely heard him.

“You’re dead,” Harry told him, his voice as cold as ice, and Peeves, still bobbing up and down in the hallway, let out an obnoxious ‘ooohing’ sound behind them. “Daddy’s not here for you to go running to anymore, and you’re done, Malfoy. I swear, you’re done.”

Hatred thundered through Harry’s body, and in that moment he loathed Malfoy worse than Snape, worse even than Umbridge and Bellatrix, and his ribs throbbed with the memory of the corridor, and of Hermione’s mangled leg, and what had nearly happened to her.

What do you think you’re doing, are you mad?

And it was Ginny’s voice alone that kept him from raising the wand held too tightly in his hand.

Malfoy looked to be resisting the same thing. “Careful, Potter,” he uttered, his lip curling. “You had better enjoy being Dumbledore’s favourite boy again while you can. Your time will be over soon…then we’ll see which of us ends up dead.”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “We will.”

With enormous effort, he tore his gaze from Malfoy’s, knowing he had to leave now or risk losing power over himself, and stepped around Malfoy towards the library doors, stowing his wand.

“Surprised the big Chosen One’s got time to talk to Slytherins at all,” Malfoy called, getting in one last jab, “what with all the doting admirers I’m sure you’ve got lined up to bed.”

Harry froze in his tracks, his heart dropping into his stomach. He turned back around, very slowly. “What did you just say?”

Malfoy snorted, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “What, you expected the precious Boy Who Lived could shag one of his silly little fans and half the school wouldn’t hear about it? Not that I’m surprised, probably the only way you could get any – ”

Harry’s fist sank into Malfoy’s stomach, breaking off the words abruptly, the force of it knocking Malfoy to the ground in a crumpling heap. There was nothing but ugly red, and a molten, vicious rage, nothing but a loud rushing in Harry’s ears as he found himself next second on top of Malfoy, with no thought in his head but inflicting as much pain as he possibly could, and he punched, and punched, and punched –

“MURDER! MURDER IN THE FIRST-FLOOR CORRIDOR! MURDER!” The scream echoed off the walls as Peeves streaked off through the air down the corridor. Madam Pince came flying out of the library, shrieking at the sight before her.

Harry’s knuckles sank into Malfoy’s stomach over and over, cracked against Malfoy’s jaw, his nose – Harry’s fingers were soon slippery, covered in something wet, and still he did not stop – more screams filled the hallway, and Harry realised distantly that they were his own. Malfoy struggled, flailing, and caught Harry hard on the nose, but Harry was hardly aware of the pain, or the wetness on his chin. He pulled his arm back again –

The blast of a spell sent him flying backwards off of Malfoy, skidding across the floor and coming to a stop five feet away. Harry was on his feet again in an instant, his mind still soaked in hot, seething fury, his sights on Malfoy alone. Arms seized him from behind, holding him tightly, pinning his arms to his sides as he struggled for his freedom.

“Potter, you will stop this instant!” yelled a voice in his ear. “I will Stun you if I must!”

It was Snape.

This did nothing to calm Harry, but Snape did not let go, and after several moments Harry’s exhausted body had no choice but to give out, and he went slack, taking in great lungfuls of air. Malfoy was moaning on the ground, stirring feebly. Snape released Harry now that he had stopped struggling, shoving him roughly towards the wall as he moved quickly to Malfoy’s side and knelt.

“Fetch Pomfrey,” Snape commanded the librarian, who still stood clutching her chest in fright, and when she did not move: “Now!”

Madam Pince scurried off the way Peeves had gone. Snape took out his wand, waving it, and out of the tip came a silver blur that streaked down the hallway and out of sight.

Harry leaned against the wall, still panting, and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. His nose ached, but he did not care. He watched Snape’s back as he bent over Malfoy, his mind reeling.

Soon enough, Madam Pince came galloping back down the hallway, Madam Pomfrey on her heels, and the nurse gasped as she took in the scene. Her eyes flew from Malfoy on the floor to Harry, sitting silently against the wall, and back, and seemed to decide very quickly that Malfoy’s case was the more urgent of the two as she crouched beside Snape. Harry reckoned she was right, judging by the bloody mass that had been Malfoy’s face.

Next minute, two more people were striding quickly down the hall, and Snape stood.

Harry rose, too, dragging his body off the floor as Dumbledore and McGonagall reached the scene. Their gazes flicked to Harry where he stood bracing himself against the stone.

“I presumed you would like to witness for yourselves what he has done,” Snape seethed, gesturing to Malfoy, who was still moaning as Madam Pomfrey assessed the damage.

Dumbledore gravely took in the sight before, examining, and his blue eyes fell again upon Harry and did not leave. McGonagall’s shock was quickly dissolving into barely-controlled ire, and the look on her face made Harry want to sink straight into the wall. He looked away, glued to the spot in mortification.

“Potter was completely out of control, Headmaster!” Snape railed, his sallow face uglier for his anger. “I was forced to remove him from Mr. Malfoy myself, and still he sought to attack! If he were a member of my House he would be expelled on the spot, it is impossible to believe – ”

“Thank you, Severus,” said Dumbledore, and he remained as composed as ever, but his tone took on a sharp edge. “I think I shall be able to decide for myself what it is possible to believe. Professor McGonagall and I will take care of this matter. Thank you for alerting us. You have a student to look after.”

Madam Pomfrey conjured a stretcher and moved Malfoy onto it, enchanting it to float ahead of her towards the hospital wing. “Be sure to send him to me, Dumbledore, if he needs,” she instructed as she went, nodding to Harry.

Snape spared Harry one last nasty look and picked up Malfoy’s bag, following Pomfrey without another word, his robes fluttering behind him. Madam Pince retreated quickly back into the safety of her library, leaving Harry, Dumbledore, and McGonagall alone in the hall with nothing but blood-stained stone between them.

Harry stood there numbly. McGonagall and Dumbledore approached him, and he straightened fully, his hand dropping from the wall. He tried not to think of what he must look like, nose, chin, and the front of his robes splattered with his own blood, his hand covered in Malfoy’s. He looked down at his fingers for the first time and was startled to see how much there was. He felt sick, staring at it, but he couldn’t stop.

“Explain yourself,” McGonagall said shortly. Her voice strained with closely kept anger.

Harry stared at his hand, horror creeping in.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – ” he croaked.

“Didn’t mean to!” McGonagall fumed. “That boy was unrecognisable! I have never seen anything so disgraceful, so heinous – this was not an accident, Potter! Nor is this the first time you have resorted to such violence, if I might remind you of the last time you condescended to a similar appalling display of Muggle dueling against Mr. Malfoy at a Quidditch match! You will explain! Now.”

Her every word felt as though it were stabbing him in the chest. Dumbledore said nothing, his eyes still fixed upon Harry.

Harry attempted to unstick his throat with difficulty. “He…said something to me.” It sounded lame, overwhelmingly insufficient, even to him, but it was the truth.

“He said something to you,” McGonagall repeated in flat disbelief. “And what on earth could he have possibly have said to provoke you into something so – so – brutal?”

Harry did not answer. He could not tell them the truth.

“Twenty points from Gryffindor,” Professor McGonagall decreed sharply. “Potter, I am waiting.”

Harry had nothing to give her.

“Fifty.”

Harry stared at the far wall, digging his teeth into his lip, the seventy points he had already lost smarting like a dozen insect stings. The blood on his hand was beginning to dry, and he wanted nothing more than to wash it off. To escape McGonagall and Dumbledore’s disappointment and clean himself up.

“One hundred points,” snapped McGonagall as her patience failed.

Harry’s shoulders jerked involuntarily as though she had slapped him. “Please, Professor,” he beseeched her, sick at the thought of everyone finding out he had lost nearly two hundred points for Gryffindor on top of everything else. He finally met her eyes. “I’m sorry. I am. I – ” Blacked out. The truth, for the most part, but he knew she would not accept it.

“Minerva,” said Dumbledore quietly, and Harry’s eyes snapped to him before returning quickly to McGonagall, worried what he would find in the aged face if he looked too long.

Professor McGonagall glanced sharply at Dumbledore, too, her lips pressing together. After a beat she said to Harry, “Very well. If you will not answer, so be it; there is no excuse, in any case, for what you have done. You will serve a detention with me Monday next, and however many more I deem fit. I will leave it for the headmaster to decide whatever else is necessary," she concluded ominously.

“Yes, Professor,” Harry muttered, relieved, at least, that she did not seem inclined to dock Gryffindor anymore points.

“I am headed to the hospital wing if you have need of me, Dumbledore. I will supply you an update on Malfoy’s condition, provided he is still breathing,” added McGonagall, her tone full of reproach, and she left.

Harry felt about a hundred times more dreadful, standing there in the corridor with only Dumbledore. Reluctantly, he dragged his eyes up to the headmaster’s face. Another drop of blood escaped his nose, and he wiped it with the edge of his sleeve.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Harry said, and he was surprised his voice came out at all.

“Come,” said Dumbledore solemnly, gesturing to a door down the hall. At Harry’s look, he supplied, “You need to sit down. You are trembling.”

Harry hadn’t realised he was. He glanced down at his shaking hands before following Dumbledore into the empty classroom. Harry collapsed more than sank into the seat at the desk closest to the door as Dumbledore closed it. He felt another trickle at his nose and he pinched the bridge, leaning forward and breathing through his mouth, falling easily into the routine he’d had to perform so often as a kid.

Dumbledore remained standing by the door, and there was a tense stretch of silence as Harry nursed his bloody nose.

“You are quite determined to keep your reasons for these actions to yourself?” Dumbledore asked him gravely.

Harry shrugged a shoulder. “Didn’t have a reason,” he said thickly around his blocked nose.

Dumbledore paused. “As Professor McGonagall has pointed out to you, you have perhaps made mistakes in the past, like the rest of us, but you are not a violent young man, Harry. I do not believe for a moment you would have done Mr. Malfoy such personal damage if you did not have what you saw as a very good reason for doing so.”

Feeling cornered, Harry’s anger started to rise again, and without thinking he exploded, “How about the fact that he nearly killed Hermione in that corridor and no one’s done a thing about it?” He surged to his feet, pacing towards the opposite wall, away from Dumbledore. His hand fell from his face as his voice rose. “Or the fact that it’s been him putting Dark Marks all over the school, or that he’s gunning to be Voldemort’s new slimiest Death Eater, or that book he had with him just now about sneaking around – ”

“Stop,” commanded Dumbledore, and Harry broke off, pacing slowly back and forth down the row of desks like a caged animal. “You must stop this, you are losing control of yourself.”

“Malfoy – ”

“He is not your concern,” Dumbledore interrupted him again, and he sounded much sterner than usual. “Surprising as you may find it, I am well aware of a great many things that go on in this school, including the supposed activities of Draco Malfoy. Rest assured that he is being monitored closely. You, Harry, have more than enough else with which to occupy your mind.”

Harry stopped pacing, working the inside of his cheek with his teeth, fighting not to argue. He knew nothing he could say would convince Dumbledore. They stared at each other.

“I know this is difficult for you, Harry, but you must trust me.”

Swallowing his pride, Harry nodded curtly.

“If I find you have been brawling with him, or any other student, again, I will not be pleased. Do you understand me?”

Wanting to change the subject, Harry nodded again. Doing his best to keep his voice even, he asked, “When will our next lesson be, sir?”

Dumbledore hummed vaguely, surveying Harry. “That depends.”

“On what, sir?”

“Oh, on several things, I think.”

Harry’s dying anger gave a pulse of irritation. Did the man always have to talk in riddles?

Dumbledore must have known what Harry was thinking, for he smiled in understanding, and Harry could not help but feel a little better, despite his best efforts. The rage that had driven him to attack Malfoy had long gone, and Harry, once again, found himself nothing but very, very tired.

“Remus Lupin will be back in the country in a few weeks’ time,” said Dumbledore conversationally, and a pleasant sort of burst went off in Harry’s stomach. “Professor Snape provides him still with the potion for his transformations; ordinarily he collects his supply when the Order meet together, but he has requested to make a visit to the castle when he returns. He would like to see you.”

Harry’s delight at the prospect dwindled a bit, thinking warily of the way Tonks and Hagrid had looked him over, the way everyone seemed to look him over these days, as if he might shatter if touched too forcefully.

But Dumbledore was not looking at him that way, he realised. Perhaps Lupin wouldn’t either.

“Yeah, I’d – I’d like to see him, too.”

“Excellent,” said Dumbledore, satisfied. “I shall give him the message.”

The headmaster moved closer, weaving between the desks.

“Now. I am afraid Madam Pomfrey bests even me in the field of medicinal magic; though I am, as they say, ‘not too shabby’,” he said, and Harry almost felt like grinning. Dumbledore pulled his wand smoothly from his blue spangled robes and with his other hand reached up to touch Harry’s chin.

Harry flinched at the unexpected gesture, and Dumbledore paused.

“Will you allow me?” asked Dumbledore quietly.

Feeling slightly foolish, Harry nodded. Dumbledore’s hand returned and, very gently, supported Harry’s chin, tipping his head up a little. The touch was warmer than Harry had expected, and he felt instantly calmer as the bright blue eyes inspected the damage to his face. “Hold still,” uttered Dumbledore, and held the tip of his wand lightly to Harry’s nose. In an instant, the pain was gone.

Dumbledore released him and stepped back, leaving Harry feeling oddly bereft.

“Thank you,” Harry muttered, reaching up to feel his nose. His fingers were still covered in blood. Next second, however, Dumbledore had waved his wand again, and the blood had disappeared from his face, his robes, and his hands.

“Ah,” said Dumbledore, spotting a streak of red on his sleeve where he had touched Harry’s face.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Harry said automatically, but Dumbledore merely flicked his wand again and they were good as new.

“No matter.” Dumbledore stowed his wand. “It is not my robes I am concerned for.” He looked at Harry seriously for a moment, assessing him over his half-moon spectacles. “Have you any other injuries? Do you require the hospital wing?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well, if you are certain,” said Dumbledore. “Otherwise, Madam Pomfrey will have my head.”

Harry did grin then.

“Now,” Dumbledore continued, “if you are quite sure you do not need the hospital, I would at least like you to return to your dormitory and rest until dinner, please.” Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Dumbledore continued without pausing. “Ah, but, of course, that reminds me! You missed lunch. I shall send a house-elf up with something, if you would like? After all, you must keep up your strength for whatever delightful detention Professor McGonagall has in store for you on Monday.”

Dumbledore held out his arm, indicating Harry to precede him out of the classroom, and Harry recognised that it was the end of the conversation, his protests dying reluctantly in his throat as he headed for the door.

Harry was sitting on his bed when Ron and Hermione found him.

“We came straight up after Charms,” Hermione started breathlessly as soon as she and Ron had burst through the door. “Neville said that Justin heard you attacked Malfoy and he’s in the hospital wing! That’s not true?”

Harry looked at her, then back down at his hands, scowling, and shrugged.

“Oh, Harry, you didn’t,” she moaned, sinking onto the edge of Ron’s bed. She stared at him.

“Is it true you broke his jaw?” asked Ron. He seemed torn between admiration and displeasure, and Harry supposed Ron was still upset with him for ditching them at lunch.

“Dunno,” Harry grunted. “Felt like it.”

“Cool,” said Ron, crossing his arms and leaning against Harry’s bed post.

“It isn’t ‘cool,’ Hermione snapped, glaring at him and then Harry. “You could be expelled.”

“I wasn’t,” Harry told them. “McGonagall gave me detention. And took about two hundred points,” he admitted grudgingly.

“What are you talking about?” asked Hermione dismissively. “There were only twenty missing from our hourglass after lunch.”

Harry stared at her, shocked.

“What, she put them back?” asked Ron. “She really has gone soft, eh?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hermione went on impatiently. “Harry, you really shouldn’t have done that, what were you thinking?”

At last, the thing which Harry had been burning to ask them since he had been blasted off of Malfoy by Snape’s spell. “Does everyone know?” he asked very quietly.

“Know what?” Hermione’s eyebrows scrunched, confused.

“About…me. And Romilda.”

Harry looked slowly from Hermione, to Ron, and back again, not sure if we wanted to know the answer.

“Of course not,” Hermione assured him softly. “We promised, Harry. What does that have to do – ”

“Malfoy knew,” Harry choked. “He said half the school did, too.”

“What?” said Ron sharply. “That’s rubbish, how could they? We’re the only ones you’ve told. Aren’t – aren’t we?”

Harry nodded, rubbing his wrist.

There was a pause, and then in a small voice, Hermione said, “I did hear a rumour.”

“You did?” Ron demanded with a frown.

“What rumour?” Harry squeezed out past the knot in his throat.

Hermione’s expression was extremely apologetic. “I – oh, Harry, it was weeks ago, and it was only a few girls talking in the bathroom, I didn’t think anything of it! I knew it – it wasn’t true.” She broke off on the last word, looking very close to tears.

“Like I said, I never heard it, mate,” Ron told Harry quietly after a moment. “No one would think anything of it. Parkinson probably heard it somewhere and told it to Malfoy, and he used whatever he could think of to get you fired up, that’s all.”

Harry nodded slowly, hoping they were right. He wasn’t overjoyed at the thought of all of the school’s girls giggling in bathrooms together about that, but he supposed he had been stupid to think Romilda would keep her mouth shut completely.

Ginny had heard her talking, too, she had said.

Miserably, Harry slumped back onto his pillows, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. He was so tired.

They were all silent for a minute.

“Are you coming down to the library?” Hermione asked him hesitantly.

He kept his eyes closed. “No, you go. Dumbledore told me to stay up here.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice low, and he heard her get up. “We’ll let you rest for a while.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled vaguely, half-dozing already, and he heard their footsteps retreating steadily down the stairs.

Harry crept silently into the dark, empty common room, a blanket around his shoulders. The fire was still blazing in the hearth, and he sank onto the sofa in front of it, the warmth washing over him as if he were sinking into a hot bath. His shivers eased a little.

It was one of the bad nights.

None of them were great, to be perfectly fair. But this go round he had managed no more than twenty minutes’ sleep at a time, tossing and turning, constantly waking from dreams both old and new, of Petrified ghosts and Dudley’s gang, Cedric’s staring eyes and giant chessboards….

His brain turned and turned with a hundred thoughts, and he wished more than anything to throw a wrench into the gears, to stop the turning for a second. He thought longingly of his sleeping tablets, but this made him remember the weird, highly disturbing dream that had made him stop, and he drew the blanket more tightly around his shoulders.

Harry did not know how long he sat there, staring into the fire, before he heard a quiet noise and looked up to see Ginny standing by the staircase to the girls’ dormitory.

“Oh. Sorry,” she whispered, hesitating at the threshold. “I didn’t think anyone else would be up….”

“You don’t have to go,” Harry told her quickly, his voice soft, his stomach fluttering. “I don’t mind.”

Ginny smiled a little, pressing her lips together, and crossed the room. Harry’s heart stuttered into a quicker beat when she came to his sofa instead of one of the armchairs. “Budge over,” she demanded. “You got enough blanket for two?”

Harry slipped the blanket from his shoulders, weirdly and suddenly conscious of things like how messy his hair must look and what his elbows were doing, and threw it over both of their laps as she settled down next to him. Her hip brushed his, and a pleasant thrill raced up his spine.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Ginny asked softly. She was holding a vacuum flask, and she began to unscrew the top.

“Not really,” Harry admitted as he watched her. “What’s that?”

“Hot chocolate. Want some?” She carefully poured some out into the large lid.

Harry knew he should take it. He had had neither lunch nor dinner – he had sent Dumbledore’s house-elf away when it had visited him with a tray of sandwiches, and ignored Ron, pretending to be asleep, when he had tried to wake him for dinner. He had not had breakfast, either, and with mild surprise Harry realised he hadn’t eaten a single thing all day. Ginny would have scolded him, if she knew.

It almost made him want to tell her.

“Sure,” mumbled Harry, accepting the cup from her. He took a sip and, despite the sweetness, found his belly was so achingly, satisfyingly empty that he was actually able to enjoy it. “Thanks.”

“Any time,” said Ginny, drawing her socked feet onto the sofa and sipping slowly straight from the flask, blowing on it to cool the contents. “You skipped a pretty good Hallowe’en Feast this year. Dumbledore hired an undead theater group to do a skit, and it was awful,” she said happily.

“Sorry I missed that,” said Harry, his lips twitching.

He turned the cup slowly in his hands.

“So do you just happen to walk around with hot chocolate up your sleeve all day?” Harry asked. “Or are you running a cocoa distillery out of the girls’ dormitory?”

Ginny laughed, and the firelight dancing over her face made Harry stare. He shook himself and took another swig of his hot chocolate, burning his mouth.

“I’ve always got some when I go to sleep. Habit, I guess. Mum would always make it for me after I had – after first year,” she said, and her expression darkened as she looked into the fire, her laugh lines fading. “I had trouble sleeping for – well, for a while. Still do sometimes.”

Harry had a flash of her, much smaller and paler, lying still and cold in a puddle of ink.

“I’m sorry,” he told her earnestly.

“It’s okay,” Ginny said, glancing at him. “It was a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t important,” said Harry, and the words came out more strongly than he was expecting. “I’m sorry people forget, sometimes. I’m sorry I forget. You don’t deserve that.”

Ginny stared at him, surprised and, he thought, a little touched. “Thanks, Harry. That…that means a lot.”

He gave her a small smile, and she smiled back.

“Anyway, Dad gave me the flask,” she went on, glancing down at her lap and tucking a strand of hair quickly behind her ear, “and Hermione helped me with the Refilling Charm. We haven’t covered those yet, and I couldn’t get it quite right.”

“Nor have I,” Harry admitted dryly, and Ginny grinned.

“You’ll get there eventually,” she said in mock-comfort, patting his knee over the blanket.

Harry’s gut tumbled, and he was torn between wanting to get up off the couch and asking her to do it again. They were silent again for a moment while Harry sipped his hot chocolate, and Ginny picked at the neck of the flask with her thumbnail.

“I heard what you did to Malfoy today,” Ginny said, and her tone was even, but Harry could hear the admonishment in her voice.

Harry lowered his cup to his lap. “I already got enough of a lecture from Dumbledore. Besides, like you haven’t Bat-Bogeyed your fair share of people.”

“I’ve never put a wizard in the hospital with my bare hands,” Ginny countered. When Harry said nothing, she sighed. “Look, Harry, you don’t have to talk about it, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t be angry about the things that git’s done, I just…think the energy you’re pouring into this – obsession, or whatever, with him is the wrong sort. And, honestly, I don’t think you’re in a good state of mind to know when to stop. You might have done some real damage to him if Snape hadn’t stopped you.”

“Good,” said Harry bitterly.

“Really?” she challenged him. “Is that what you really think?”

Harry’s sense of unfairness at the whole situation urged him to say yes, but he remembered vividly the crack of his knuckles on Malfoy’s jaw, the blood spurting from his nose, the way his fist had sunk into Malfoy’s gut over and over and over –

The truth was, despite everything Malfoy had done, everything he was, Harry felt sickened with himself. His thoughts must have shown on his face, for Ginny went on without waiting for him to answer.

“I don’t think you would have got off with only a couple of detentions if you had managed more than you did. You could have been in real trouble.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry admitted quietly.

Ginny let that sink in for a minute. Then she said a little more lightly, “Still, good to know you can beat a man up. Hidden talent?”

“Hidden?” Harry said, smirking. “I beat him up last year, too.”

“Oh, right. You did,” Ginny said, shaking her head in disbelief. “And a life-long Quidditch ban did nothing to dissuade you from your life of crime, I see.”

“Nah, I guess not.” Harry grinned tiredly at her. “Besides, it wasn’t a lifetime ban, it was only while Umbridge was here.” He paused. “You told me that last year, that it wouldn’t be forever. It really helped.”

“I’m glad it did,” she said, gazing at him steadily.

The fire and the chocolate had made Harry warm and content, and with Ginny so close it felt almost as if he were floating. “Yeah,” he said quietly, staring back at her. “Me too.”

Their hands were sitting close together, almost touching, and all Harry had to do was move his an inch, and take her hand in his. He ached to do it, to find out if it would feel the same as his dream, if her skin was as smooth as the skin that had touched his face as he slept. The opportunity lay wide open before him, waiting for him to take it, but surely he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Harry closed the distance between their hands, wrapping his fingers around hers, and they slotted together perfectly. The warmth of her palm against his was a strange relief, like a fond memory he had long forgotten, and her skin was not as smooth as his dream but infinitely better because it was real, impossibly warm and imperfectly calloused in his.

Ginny’s eyes widened ever-so-slightly as she and Harry both looked up from their joined hands into each other’s faces. Her gaze shone with surprise and what looked, perhaps, like a bit of hope.

Ginny shifted the tiniest bit, her body leaning into his almost infinitesimally, and Harry’s eyes flitted down to her lips. He felt himself move towards her, too, and he was close enough that he could smell the warm chocolate on her breath. A lock of hair fell from her shoulder to frame her face, the tips of their noses inches apart. Her hair was so beautiful…her black silky hair…the fire crackled in the grate…the little fire in a jar…he didn’t want to think about it, not now, not with Ginny so close and perfect next to him, but Romilda’s hands held his against the floor, and his back burned against the carpet underneath him and –

Harry jerked, his hand slipping out of Ginny’s, the blanket falling off his lap as he shot to his feet. Lights popped in front of his eyes, and he backed away against an armchair. The hot chocolate soaked into the carpet where he had spilled it. He heard a familiar rushing in his ears – Ginny said something he couldn’t hear, and he collapsed into the armchair. His windpipe felt suddenly much smaller than it should have done, and he struggled to drag air into his lungs. The chocolate churned in his stomach…he shoved his sleeves of his sweatshirt up, feeling too hot.

Ginny settled onto the coffee table in front of him as his head fell into his hands. “Breathe, Harry, breathe….”

Harry listened to her voice, held onto it, and after several long minutes, he felt his heartrate return to normal. The two of them sat in the quiet for a while, Harry’s head still in his hands, the fire the only sound apart from his breathing.

Harry heard Ginny shift on the table. Very quietly, she asked, “Did I do something?”

Harry shook his head. “No. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry.”

Ginny didn’t say anything. Instead, she reached out, and Harry felt her fingers rest very lightly against one of his hands. Gently, she traced the tendons there and said, almost to herself, “You’re so thin….”

Harry’s heart twisted. He realised he did not have his extra layers on and, of course, the blanket had fallen off of him. There was nothing to protect her from seeing him.

You’re so thin.

She had not said it like ‘you’re ugly’ but simply as a statement, full of quiet heartbreak. He thought of the hot chocolate Ginny kept on hand to chase away her own nightmares, and he thought, maybe, that there was no one who could understand him better.

Harry looked up at her finally, lifting his head out of his hands, and her fingers fell away from him.

Now would be the perfect time to tell her. To explain why he could not bring himself to kiss her, even though sometimes it was nearly all he could think of. He was not sure he could do it, he was still too fresh, too raw from telling Ron and Hermione.

The thought of Ron sobered him.

Ginny’s eyes were full to the brim with concern, and the awareness of what they had almost just done hung thickly in the air between them. It took everything in Harry to finally speak.

“We should both probably get some sleep,” he muttered, pulling his sleeves back down around his wrists.

Ginny swallowed, her gaze falling to the floor. “Yeah,” she agreed, and she smiled very tightly when she looked back at him. “You’re probably right.”

They both stood, Harry pulling out his wand to clean up the mess he had made of the carpet. He picked up the lid to Ginny’s flask, and she gathered up his blanket, and they handed them back to each other, their fingers brushing.

“I hope you get some rest, Harry,” said Ginny sincerely.

“Thanks,” he said softly. “You too.”

Harry waited for her to pass him, but as she did, she reached up and placed one of her warm hands along his jaw, briefly pressing her lips to his other cheek, just in front of his ear. Then she turned away and made her way slowly up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory, trailing her hand distractedly along the wall, looking back for one last glance at him as she went.

Harry stared after her with his blanket draped over his arm, shivering, until she had gone.

Chapter Text

Despite his certainty that he wouldn’t sleep, Harry blinked open his eyes with effort to find grey light filtering into the room. His lids felt stuck together, his body a stone tucked in between the sheets.

He lay there heavy and numb.

Thumps and rustles around the room told him the other boys were getting themselves ready for class, but he already had a strange and detached knowledge that he was not going to go with them today.

Harry could not bring himself to feel much of anything about this.

His limbs might have belonged to someone else for all he could move them. He stared at his bed curtains, blinking slowly. Breathing. When Ron pulled them back to urge Harry out of bed and then to look down at him with worry, Harry flicked his eyes up only once before closing them. Even that seemed to drain him.

Ron’s reluctance to leave him like this was palpable, but in the end he mumbled something about coming up later. The curtains closed again, and Harry breathed. In and out. Slow and steady. He could lie here forever, he thought. He really, really could. Probably he should have felt alarmed at the state of himself. But the world outside his bed was a distant thing, and he was only grateful that his thoughts did not seem to want to form into anything more coherent than an odd, slow tumble.

He stayed there, all at once too heavy and too untethered, until he fell back into a light doze.

There was a glass of water sitting on his bedside table when he next awoke.

The curtains had been opened enough that he could see Ron in his bed, and Harry felt a dull jolt to realise it was night again. He must have slept the whole day. He blinked a few times and wondered at the fact that no one had tried to wake him.

Perhaps they had.

He shifted under the covers and winced, the movement pulling at his bruised ribs and bedsore muscles. He longed to get up, to make it to the now-familiar spot at the end of his bed and force his body into enough sit-ups to make his throat burn and his eyes stream.

But he did not have it in him, and the wave of anger at this failure almost overwhelmed him.

Harry’s hands fisted in the sheets as he choked back a growl of frustration. He became aware that he was holding his breath when his lungs began to burn, but a tempting dizziness rolled through him and he didn’t release it.

He did not want to be here. He did not want to be awake. He just wanted to sleep.

Harry held the breath frozen in his lungs until the black blessedly crawled around him once again.

Ron made him drink some water next morning.

Harry did not even bother to argue.

Ron sat there on Harry’s bed, staring down at his own fingers as he picked at his palm. Harry simply watched him tiredly from where he sat slumped against his pillows and tried not to let his hands shake too much around the glass.

“I wrote down the assignments you missed,” Ron ventured, tipping his chin at a roll of parchment on the side table. His face screwed up into an encouraging sort of half-grimace. “The teachers didn’t seem too pressed about you making it up later. Well – most of them…”

He didn’t have to say ‘Snape.’

Ron picked at his palm some more.

“Ginny’s downstairs,” he tried again, and Harry’s stomach turned with either nerves or dread. “She wants to come up for a minute. Is that…alright?”

Harry wasn’t sure one way or the other, really.

“Sure,” he croaked.

Ron’s eyes flicked up to his. “Alright,” he said and let his gaze drift to the bedspread. He seemed to be considering something, but he didn’t say anything else. “Okay.”

Ron left, and Harry set the half-full glass of water down on the table so it wouldn’t tremble right out of his hands.

The door opened a moment later and Ginny slipped through, closing it softly behind her – Harry reminded himself he’d once faced a Basilisk and a million other terrifying things and forced his eyes up to her face.

“Hey,” Ginny said brightly. She smiled a bit, and something loosened in Harry’s chest that she wasn’t behaving like she was entering some kind of sickroom. “Any chance I could get you to eat something?”

Harry looked away.

He’d never been that brave, anyway; he had always said that.

“Yeah,” Ginny agreed, and her voice dipped a little then. “I figured. Brought you some of this just in case.” She held up a container to show him, the one they had shared hot chocolate from two nights ago, and set it down gently next to his glass of water.

Ginny hesitated, then after a moment nodded at the edge of his bed and said, “You mind?”

Harry shook his head before he could think about it too much.

Ginny perched on his mattress near his knees, hitching a leg up on the bed so she was facing him. “We’ve got a Quidditch practice scheduled today,” she reminded him quietly.

Harry’s stomach sank like a stone. “Oh,” he mumbled. “Shit, yeah….”

But it didn’t sound as though she were reprimanding him. Ginny looked at him consideringly. “I’ll tell them you’re ill, yeah? We can reschedule. Or I can run the drills for the day – whatever you like.”

“Really?” Harry asked, and hated how pathetic he sounded.

Ginny gave him a small smile. “‘Course,” she said, then her smile slipped. “Let me know if you need anything. Please?”

Harry chewed on his lip. “I will.”

It was a lie, and Ginny knew it, but she smiled at him one last time as she got up. She pointed at the hot chocolate. “Drink some, doctor’s orders.”

Harry tilted his head, faintly amused by her phrasing. “Don’t you mean ‘healer’?”

“No,” she said solemnly. “Muggles started saying it first so it’s only fair to do it their way. Or so Dad says.”

Harry grinned in spite of himself.

Hermione came up to visit him with no announcement later in the evening.

She clutched a book close to her chest and shifted her weight from foot to foot as she bit her lip, debating.

“Just say it, Hermione,” Harry told her, all his edges worn too far down.

She released her lip, breath hitching, and in one jerky movement handed him the book without a word.

Harry took it from her cautiously, meeting her eyes before glancing down at the title.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Text Revision – DSM IV.

He stared at it, eyes catching on the word ‘Mental’ and sticking there like glue. “What is this?” he asked her, slow and careful. He didn’t look up.

“It’s…well, I’ve been reading through some of the sections and I – I marked a few that I think might be – relevant,” she finished quickly, sounding very much as if she were trying to stop herself going on to say more.

Harry flipped open the cover, fingers numb, and thumbed through the pages until he came to a blue tab Hermione had placed at one of the sections.

‘Disorder Class: Eating Disorders’ it read in bold print at the top of the page. Harry’s focus flitted over the words, taking in bits of phrases like ‘refusal to maintain bodyweight’ and ‘self-worth influenced by…’ before he closed the book suddenly with a snap. He stared at the cover again without seeing. Picked at a corner of it with his fingernail.

“You think I’m a nutter.”

“No – ”

“Yes, you do, that’s exactly what this says.” He waved the offending volume around and tossed it onto Ron’s bed so he didn’t have to look at it.

“It doesn’t.” Hermione took a step toward him and after a split second’s hesitation took a seat on his bed. “I’m trying to tell you – ” She made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “You’re not insane or – or being stupid or whatever it is you’ve been thinking about yourself. You’re – it’s a coping mechanism, Harry. Which isn’t surprising after everything you’ve – ” She broke off again, and when she started again she sounded tearful. Harry’s eyes stayed fixed on the bedspread. “But it’s an unhealthy one – a dangerous one – and it isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse.”

Harry wanted to argue, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Ron and I are with you,” said Hermione quietly. She placed her warm hand over his. “We always will be – but we’re not right for this. You need someone who knows what they’re doing, Harry, someone who can really help.”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden burning in them. He bit down on his lip, hard, wishing that this would all go away. His fingers closed around Hermione’s.

“Please,” he begged her. “Please, don’t.”

Hermione sniffled, then Harry felt her rest her forehead against his.

“I think – I hope – you know I wouldn’t, if I had a choice,” she whispered thickly. Harry felt her tears drip onto his wrist. “But I love you too much to let this keep happening.”

Harry’s breath hitched, and he wondered if it was odd that his brain was scrambling mostly to remember if anyone had ever said that to him before. He reckoned not, but any warmth it gave him was drained and replaced quickly with dread when Hermione released him with a soft kiss to his hairline and stood to leave the room.

Harry looked up at her, finally, pleading with her in silence.

Hermione tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her reddened eyes. “It’ll be alright, Harry,” she told him as her hand closed over the door knob. “I promise it will.”

The door clicking shut was like a final sentencing.

It was that feeling, again, of almost being outside his body. He could feel the mattress pressing into his side, but it felt like someone else was waiting there helpless, terrified and numb all at once with the knowledge that Hermione was telling someone about the trouble Harry was having. Or had told them. Or would tell them.

It occurred to him that he should have ensured Hermione didn’t mean to say anything about Romilda to anyone. The impossibility of processing that scenario forced him even further away from his own body.

Time passed. Or it probably did, anyway.

He could not have said whether the light changed in the room, only that eventually the voices from the common room faded and left a blessed silence.

Footsteps on the stairway set Harry’s heart thudding frantically against his ribs. Adrenaline flooded his system and ordered it to move, but he couldn’t make himself.

The door creaked open and Harry slammed his eyes shut.

This wasn’t happening. He wasn’t here.

“Potter?”

Professor McGonagall’s voice was uncharacteristically cautious – almost soft – and Harry would have sobbed under the crush of defeat if it had been possible.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t open his eyes.

The footsteps drew closer, and Harry realised Professor McGonagall wasn’t alone.

“Mr. Potter,” said Madam Pomfrey lowly. “Are you awake?”

A hand touched his shoulder, and Harry flinched so forcefully there were two sharp inhales above him. The hand retreated.

“Can you walk?” Madam Pomfrey’s voice asked again. “Minerva, he’s shaking, we ought to get him down to hospital…”

A spike of fear lanced through Harry’s heart. “No – ” he managed, his eyes flying open. McGonagall’s emerald robes blocked the view of the room. He couldn’t let this happen. He had to stop this. He couldn’t let them –

Harry’s body made an aborted half-motion as he tried to sit up, the pain in his ribs giving an almighty throb. He grunted and collapsed back onto the bed, curling in on himself and clutching at his side.

“Potter?”

“What is it?” Pomfrey demanded, brisk and all-business. “Where does it hurt?”

When he still didn’t answer, there was a quiet swish of robes and the strange sensation of one of the matron’s spells washing through him.

“Heavens,” Pomfrey whispered.

“What,” asked McGonagall urgently. “What is it?”

“Broken bones – his ribs – ”

Someone touched him again, pushing the bedsheet aside and lifting the hem of his shirt.

Harry’s breath caught in his throat. He tried to jerk away. “No …no – ”

Please.

“Potter, it’s alright – Harry, Madam Pomfrey only needs to see – ”

There was cotton in his ears, the words kept fading in and out. His shirt was tugged farther up his side. The world around him seemed to fade, too. McGonagall’s robes shifted and he could see Ron’s bed behind her. There was a wand tip at the skin of the injured ribs. The voices above him weren’t making any sense.

Please don’t.

He lost himself and came back again to find he was sitting up in bed. McGonagall was leaning over, speaking to him, but he didn’t understand.

Madam Pomfrey had a hand on his arm, guiding him steadily down the staircase.

Footsteps echoed through the corridor, McGonagall and Pomfrey were speaking to each other. Or perhaps to him. He didn’t know.

Either way, he could not answer.

He was sat on a bed again, and Pomfrey was holding a glass vial of potion to his lips. His heart skipped a beat and he turned his head away, refused to open his mouth.

“Harry…it’s alright…it will help – ”

The vial went away, but the fear did not follow it.

“…it…best…let him sleep…we can…morning…might be…”

He was settled against something soft.

The voices kept speaking.

There was that impression of magic washing through him again, then everything was gone.

Harry awoke to sunlight streaming through vast windows. He pried open heavy eyelids and watched dust motes swirl around in the beams of light before his sluggish brain was bowled over by the memory of the night before.

He sprang straight up in bed, wincing at a tightness around his middle.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

Harry jerked his head round to see Dumbledore seated at his bedside. He was gazing steadily at Harry, quite as calm as always, hands steepled over his lap.

Harry swallowed with great difficulty and looked away immediately. Hysteria wound quickly up his throat, threatening to choke him; he glanced down at himself to stave off the inevitable.

He was dressed in an unfamiliar set of pyjamas – hospital issued. He shoved away the thought of someone undressing him while he was asleep. His ribs seemed to be healed yet tender, and there was a band of cloth wrapped around his chest. He stuck his fingers in the space between the buttons on his top, testing the tightness. The backs of his hands were smooth and oddly soft as though someone had rubbed in an ointment to heal his scratch wounds.

The words ‘I must not tell lies’ were clearly visible now on his right hand, but the question if anyone had noticed and wondered about it did not seem a pressing concern at the moment.

“How do you feel?” Dumbledore asked him.

“Fine,” rasped Harry. He glanced around the otherwise empty hospital wing, steadfastly avoiding Dumbledore’s eye.

Dumbledore hummed. “Do you recall how you came to be here?”

Harry gave a slow shake of his head, then a half-shrug. “Not really.” He was trying not to think about that. His poor memory disturbed him. Flashes of Ron and Hermione’s faces came to him. Had they been in the Tower while Pomfrey and McGonagall led him away? Had anyone else seen? Did anyone know why he was here?

Harry’s gut churned, and he bit his lips against the nausea. What did Dumbledore know?

“That does not surprise me,” said Dumbledore. “Professor McGonagall tells me you did not appear entirely present.”

That seemed like such an innocuous way to describe trying to physically crawl out of one’s own brain.

Harry said nothing.

“Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger have been waiting most impatiently for you to wake. Would you like to see them?”

Harry shook his head, after a beat. He’d talk to them later. He was – well, he didn’t know what he was. The nerves were twisting more insistently through his body now the pleasantries had been exhausted.

“What – ” Harry began, then stopped and cleared his throat. “What did Hermione…?”

For once, Dumbledore cut straight to the point.

“Miss Granger visited Professor McGonagall’s office before dinner yesterday evening. She expressed concerns about your health – concerns, I must confess, several others including myself already shared – and informed your Head of House that you have been refusing to eat.”

The swooping terror in Harry’s stomach drowned out the small burst of hope that perhaps Hermione had not said anything about what Romilda had done.

“That’s not exactly…” Harry argued, glancing at Dumbledore’s face then looking away just as quickly.

“Is this untrue?” asked Dumbledore, still so calmly.

“Hermione’s not a liar,” Harry told him a little defensively, then made an attempt to rein himself back in. He twisted one fist in his blankets, feeling like a bomb being shaken right into detonation. “I haven’t been refusing, I just…is this really necessary?” he asked, indicating his pyjamas, the bed, the wing. “I’m fine.”

“That, I’m afraid,” said Dumbledore, “is a lie.”

Harry did look at him then, unable to help himself. He stared into the sharp blue that always gave off the impression of being able to see right through him. It was both mortifying and a terrible sort of relief that Dumbledore could know some of the things inside his head without Harry having to say a word.

“I haven’t been refusing,” Harry repeated, eyes falling back to his lap. “I…can’t. That’s all.”

“I suspected as much,” Dumbledore said, very quietly.

Harry winced, but he had just opened his mouth to ask when Madam Pomfrey’s office door swung open at the other end of the wing. She swept out of it, followed closely by Professor McGonagall, and Harry’s mouth went dry.

They stopped at the end of his bed. Harry felt like melting right through the floor under the weight of all of their combined gazes.

“How are you feeling?” asked Madam Pomfrey.

Harry bit back his automatic reply and offered her another shrug. “Alright,” he said finally, and it was even mostly true. The pain in his side had gone and he felt a degree clearer than he had in a while.

Madam Pomfrey tsked and went about scribbling something down on a piece of parchment that appeared before her out of thin air. “Are you aware that you were suffering from broken ribs? And from the look of it for quite some time?”

He’d thought as much but –

“It didn’t seem like an emergency.”

Pomfrey gave him a long, hard look, and Harry stared back at her defiantly, if only to avoid McGonagall and Dumbledore.

“Well you were quite incorrect, so you know, you very nearly could have experienced a punctured lung if it had gone on much longer.”

“Oh,” he mumbled.

She did not seem the least impressed by his lack of alarm at this information.

“How, exactly, did this happen, Potter?” asked McGonagall. “A Quidditch accident? Was it another student?”

“No,” Harry admitted. “It was, er…falling debris, I think.”

McGonagall’s lips thinned. “I see,” she said shortly, no doubt recalling precisely which incident to which he was referring.

“The bones are healed,” Pomfrey continued, “but you will likely find the area tender for the next day or so, and I must insist you don’t overtax yourself – which brings us to my primary concern.”

Harry’s stomach bottomed out. He willed her not to continue, but of course it made no difference at all.

“You have lost more than a stone since the beginning of term,” she said bluntly.

Harry finally broke and glanced away from them all towards the other end of the wing.

There was a gentle touch at his wrist, and he started badly. He looked round to find Dumbledore pulling his hand away to rest at his side; he had been scratching again.

Embarrassed, Harry dug his hands into the sheets.

“Your blood sugar values and blood pressure are worryingly low,” Pomfrey went on without mercy. “And you are severely lacking in most vitamins and nutrients, not to mention significantly dehydrated. I’d like to keep you one more night to get you started on some potions that will help, and until your health is stabilised I recommend temporary removal from the Quidditch t – ”

“What?” Harry’s head snapped up. “You can’t do that!”

“Mr. Potter, it would be utterly irresponsible of me to – ”

“Please,” begged Harry. “I’ll take the potions,” he promised even though the idea made him want to vomit. “And whatever else, just – please.” He turned to Professor McGonagall for the first time, depending on her irrepressible eagerness to keep possession of the Quidditch Cup to convince her to come down on his side.

McGonagall’s face settled into a grim expression as she surveyed him over her spectacles. “I am inclined to agree with Madam Pomfrey.”

“Professor!” Harry burst out.

But McGonagall held up her hand. “However – I will allow you to remain on the team – ”

“Minerva,” cautioned the nurse.

“ – provided your health shows improvement by the next game Gryffindor is to play, and that you report for another examination directly beforehand.”

Harry worked his jaw, chafing against the thought of submitting to these requirements. But he had to be able to play Quidditch, if he wasn’t allowed…he didn’t even want to think it. And Madam Pomfrey, while looking distinctly put out and slightly mutinous, did not object to this.

Harry nodded jerkily, not trusting himself to speak.

Madam Pomfrey went on to inform him about the four different supplemental potions he would be taking (no objections), the check-ups for which he was to present himself at the hospital wing biweekly (she did not pause long enough to hear his objections), and finished out this harrowing list with reiterating that he would be spending at least one more night under her care.

Harry felt Dumbledore’s gaze on him throughout her instruction, and he occupied himself with staring steadfastly at McGonagall’s clasped hands until she smoothed down the sides of her robes at Pomfrey’s conclusion and cleared her throat with a sharp sound.

“Rest well, Potter,” said McGonagall, “and don’t forget that you are due in my office on Monday for your detention.”

She nodded to them all, then swept off towards the hospital doors.

Harry thought he saw Madam Pomfrey look sidelong at this as though disapproving that the deputy headmistress was worried about keeping track of detentions at a time like this, but frankly he had never appreciated Professor McGonagall more.

After Pomfrey had forced Harry to drink his potions under threat of a week in hospital and had sufficiently fussed over his pillows, she summoned a tray of porridge and orange juice. She imparted strict instructions to eat as much of it as he could then she too departed, retreating to her office and leaving Harry quite alone with Professor Dumbledore.

Harry stirred his spoon around the bowl very slowly, mixing the sugar in just to watch it swirl.

“When Madam Pomfrey deems you fit to release tomorrow,” Dumbledore began, “I would like to you to come up to my office.”

Harry talked himself into keeping the bile in his stomach where it belonged. He pushed his bowl of porridge away. “Why’s that, sir?”

“There is someone I’d like you to meet.”

Harry’s brow scrunched in confusion; he did not think he kept the suspicion from his expression very well. “Who?”

“Someone I am hoping you will allow to help you,” said Dumbledore. His beard twitched at Harry’s narrowed eyes. But he merely explained, “I would only ask that you speak with each other.”

And left it at that.

Harry emphatically did not like the sound of that. He found himself wanting to blurt out ‘I’m sorry,’ but he didn’t think Dumbledore would accept it. He settled more heavily into the pillows. His side had begun to ache a little. Knots tied themselves tighter and tighter in his gut as he imagined who it might be that Dumbledore wanted him to meet.

He remembered, suddenly, Bill and Mrs. Weasley coming up the castle to support him in the Tournament.

“Surprise! Thought we’d come and watch you!”

Harry dug his teeth into the inside of his cheek.

Dumbledore was still watching him.

“You could do with a good deal more rest,” he said, smiling indulgently, “loath as I know you are to hear it. However, I would be most sincerely obliged if you were to have what you can of that first.” He nodded at Harry’s bowl of porridge.

Harry resisted a refusal with great difficulty and slowly, grudgingly pulled the tray closer. He managed only a few bites before let the spoon drop into the bowl, wary of sicking it all back up.

“Thank you,” Dumbledore said softly, as though Harry had achieved something momentous.

If anything, it only made Harry feel worse.

When Ron and Hermione were allowed in to see him, Harry briefly considered pretending to be asleep. It was a good thing he was already opening his eyes for it would not have worked anyway; Ron thumped him on the shoulder as he plopped down onto Harry’s bed.

“Ron,” scolded Hermione in a near-whisper.

“What? He’s in hospital, not on his deathbed.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” she moaned.

“Relax, Hermione, I’m not gonna break him.” Ron aimed an eye roll at Harry as he pulled himself up in bed. “Not that you need the help – what the hell is this about broken ribs?”

Harry winced. “They told you.”

“Yeah,” said Ron dryly. “Asked us how it happened and we had to say we had no idea.”

Harry glanced at Hermione, who had been uncharacteristically silent, eyes focused somewhere distant. He caught her eye and she smiled at him, though it was odd and brittle as though she had been pulled away from a disturbing train of thought.

“How did it happen?” she asked.

Harry cleared his throat. “That day in the corridor, when you were hurt.”

They stared at him.

“That was weeks ago,” protested Ron.

Harry shrugged, uncomfortable.

“You hid it,” said Hermione, though it did not seem to be a question.

Harry was struck by how strange it was that neither of them had said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

After several strained beats of silence Ron began, “So…so what did they say about – ?”

Harry studied his knees. “Pomfrey gave me some potions, nearly got me kicked off the Quidditch team…” Harry grimaced. “Dumbledore and McGonagall both know.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Hermione whispered.

He knew that underneath it she was asking his forgiveness.

“It’s not your fault,” he mumbled. And it wasn’t, no matter that he still wished – wished – she hadn’t gone to anyone.

This was all his fault, and he knew it.

Ron and Hermione had brought him his schoolwork, and he tried to work on some of the assignments after he’d feigned a yawn or two and convinced them they didn’t need to stay with him. But he couldn’t keep his focus, and after a while he abandoned his books.

He stared at the ceiling and tortured himself with the endless parade of possibilities he would face in Dumbledore’s office tomorrow, which ranged from a new Occlumency teacher to a Ministry official telling him he was expelled for being ridiculous and insane.

This parade continued into his dreams, dreams of living as an outlaw on the run from the Ministry, or in disgrace as the boy who couldn’t kill Voldemort or eat bowls of porridge.

He dreamed, too, of someone whispering kind words to him. Calming him. Comforting him.

But when he awoke no one was there.

Chapter Text

“One more now,” sniffed Madam Pomfrey.

Harry grimaced. His mouth watered unpleasantly at the prospect of forcing more potions into his stomach.

“You’ll have to get used to it, I’m afraid. At least for the next several weeks,” said Pomfrey. “Potter,” she urged again when he didn’t move.

Knowing that refusing would end even more disagreeably for him, Harry screwed his eyes shut, locked down his nausea, and tossed the fizzy green potion to the back of his throat.

“Thank you,” encouraged the matron, and promptly sneezed three times in a row. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said as she dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief. “This usually only happens around cats.” 

Pomfrey tucked her kerchief away and leveled Harry with a stern look.

“Now, remember to take these each and every morning. Your appointment for your next check-in is Thursday next; do not forget” – her expression became even sterner – “and do not pretend to forget. Am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Harry muttered. He pulled his robes over his shoulders and tugged them straight, grateful to be dressed in his own clothes again.

“I believe you are expected in the headmaster’s office?”

Harry jerked a nod and tried to ignore the gigantic drop in his gut.

“Well, you’d better be getting on then; it’s nearly lunchtime.”

She insisted on checking his pupils and foisting one last glass of water on him, and then he was being shepherded through the massive double doors of the hospital wing.

If it had been anyone else to whom he was supposed to report, Harry would have gone straight back to his dormitory and ignored anyone who tried to knock.

Albus Dumbledore was not so easy to escape.

Harry wandered down the hall and turned left at the end, allowing himself at least to take the long way round. He ran his fingers along the stone sill of a window, but the cold began to creep up his fingers and into his head so he stopped; that fog had settled over his mind again and he found that he didn’t really want it to leave anymore. 

Harry passed several other students along the way. It occurred to him this was the first time he had been out and about the castle properly since beating up Malfoy, but he couldn’t be bothered to care what they might be saying about him.

Before he knew it, he was staring at the gargoyle that guarded Dumbledore’s office; he might have lost time again because he did not remember climbing all the way to the seventh floor….The gargoyle twitched, its expression seeming to suggest it was waiting for something, and then Harry realized: he did not know the current password.

He was already stumbling back a step, half a plan forming in his mind to retreat to his dormitory anyway and blame his absence on ignorance, when the gargoyle’s ear perked as though listening to something in the distance. Then it sprang aside without Harry uttering a word to reveal the moving spiral staircase.

Harry stood frozen. Then, swallowing, he dropped his foot onto the first step.

When the door opened into Dumbledore’s office, Harry barely spared a glance for the headmaster seated in his usual position behind the desk; his focus flew straight to the person who was sat in one of the other two chairs.

The man was dressed in a long brown coat and trousers that Harry noted would not look out of place in either Hogwarts or the streets of a Muggle town. He looked to be about fifty, with short greying hair and the sort of darkened, weathered complexion that suggested he had spent quite a lot of time outside.

He appeared supremely at-ease, legs loosely crossed and posture relaxed – his eyes didn’t even perform the traditional flick up to Harry’s scar when he turned at the sound of the office door opening. He merely smiled warmly as though Harry were an old friend he hadn’t met in a while.

Harry’s hackles raised at once.

“Good morning, Harry,” said Professor Dumbledore. “I’m delighted you could join us.”

There was no obvious reproach in his tone, but Harry suspected he knew quite well that Harry had very nearly skived off this meeting.

“Please, sit,” Dumbledore told him, gesturing to the free chair in front of the desk.

Harry said nothing, his eyes flitting warily between the two men. Fawkes was perched on the arm of the proffered chair, and it was this that gave Harry the strength to make his legs move to it and sit. Fawkes bumped his beak briefly against Harry’s shoulder and gave a soft trill that slid warmly all the way through Harry’s veins.

His muscles instantly relaxed, breath stuttering into a deep inhale.

“Harry,” began Dumbledore. “I would like to introduce you to Doctor Ambrosius Hanson. Hanson – this is Harry Potter.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” smiled Hanson.

Harry gave him a long look. “Hello,” he muttered. His head was beginning to ache, and he’d had quite enough embarrassment in the past several days to last him a good long while. Lying under his covers and shutting out the world sounded much more appealing at the moment than sitting at a disadvantage in front of a perfect stranger Dumbledore had just addressed as ‘doctor.’ 

Harry had a very bad feeling about all this, but he was not going to give the satisfaction of asking. He sat there and waited for Dumbledore to speak again.

“Doctor Hanson specialises in providing support to those – like you – who are experiencing significant issues,” he explained, watching Harry closely.

Harry looked from him to Hanson. “You’re not a healer.” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Hanson answered anyway. “I treat both wizarding and non-magic patients; I grew up with both, and life’s challenges are not exclusive to either. I don’t believe in turning someone away who needs help.”

Harry would have liked him under different circumstances.

Hanson spoke with a hint of an accent, a slight lilting at the end of his words. Harry cocked his head, but Hanson must have been asked the question so often he did not need to hear it. The corner of his mouth quirked up.

“I was raised in Athens as a child. I attended Durmstrang for a while until my father moved us to Britain and finished at Hogwarts in the end. I’ve spent most of my life in London, if you’d believe it, but the accent’s a stubborn one. I blame my mother – she visits far too often.”

Harry resisted a smile and looked away. He stroked the soft feathers of Fawkes’ wing, considering. “You’re a head shrinker. Aren’t you?”

“Mm, you could call it that,” said Hanson, his voice light, unoffended. “I’m a psychiatrist.”

The word felt odd, out of place at Hogwarts. “You treat mental people.”

“I help people who are struggling,” Hanson corrected. “I give them tools to improve their quality of life, hopefully make things a bit easier.”

Make his life easier, Harry thought. That would be a neat trick.

“Doctor Hanson operates a facility in London which accepts those of your age – ”

Harry’s hand stilled on Fawkes’ wing. His head jerked up to meet Dumbledore’s eye. “You want to send me there?” He did not bother to keep the accusation out of his tone.

Dumbledore gave Harry a long, searching look. “No,” he said quietly. “I do not. I believe it would be much better for you to be able to stay at school, and I think you would agree. It is not my intention to send you anywhere.”

Harry’s shoulders slumped in relief.

“However,” Dumbledore continued, “it is gravely apparent that you are in need of the kind of support he can offer. I would like for you to meet with him here at Hogwarts once a week for the time being; only to talk, I assure you.”

Harry worked his jaw, and tried very hard to keep his voice even. “I don’t want to talk about anything. Sir.”

“I know this.” Dumbledore’s intertwined fingers tightened by the smallest fraction. “But it would be the greatest disservice to you to allow you to continue on your current path.” He paused. “Let us help you, Harry.”

Harry glued his gaze to the window and the grounds beyond. He said nothing. Anger lashed up inside him, frightening in its intensity. He let go of Fawkes as his fingers started to shake.

After a moment, Hanson ventured, “Might I speak with Harry alone for a minute?”

Dumbledore considered, then rose; Harry got the distinct impression he and Hanson shared a look between them before Dumbledore silently excused himself through the door behind his desk. The burning in Harry’s gut doubled.

“We aren’t, you know,” Harry ground out. Hanson would be stupid not to realise. “Alone. They’ll tell him everything we say.” He tipped his chin at the portraits lining the walls.

The doctor glanced around at them. “Yes, probably. But don’t worry – we won’t meet here for our appointments.”

“You can’t help me,” Harry said, turning to face him. “Talking won’t fix anything. It never does.”

Hanson hummed. “That’s true,” he said, to Harry’s surprise. “Well, sort of; often it does help simply to get thoughts out of one’s own brain. But talking also allows those around us to offer insights that can shift our perspective.”

“Yeah,” Harry deadpanned. “People only ever have positive things to say when you spill your guts.”

Hanson nodded, conceding. “It does depend on whom you trust with it.”

“I don’t trust you,” Harry said baldly. “I don’t know you.”

“No, you don’t.” Hanson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “But this is my job; I’m here to help you. I’m not here to judge or criticise or argue, just to listen. And I’m required by law to keep what you say between us.”

“So you’re paid to listen to all my problems, whether you want to or not,” Harry clarified. He crossed his arms tight to his chest. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Hanson nodded slowly, contemplating the carpet for a moment. “You’re allowed to feel that way.” He looked back up at Harry. “But I honestly do want to help you. Whatever way you’d like to think of it, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for now – I’ll be back at the castle on Wednesday for your first appointment.”

“I don’t have a lot of time, I have school…” Harry protested.

“Your professors have arranged for you to have the time.”

Harry smiled without humor and shook his head.

“They want to help you, too; not everyone has ulterior motives, Harry.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t say they did.”

Hanson merely nodded once more, and Harry hated him for it. The man was as bad as Dumbledore.

“I’m going to be clear with you, because I don’t want there to be any surprises. I’ll be in contact with Madam Pomfrey about your treatment. Together – and this includes you – we’ll come up with a plan to get you on track with getting enough to eat, but we can cover that a bit more on Wednesday. I just want to make sure you’re kept in the loop.”

“Why?” Harry challenged, nerves crawling along his skin. “You’re still going to do it. It’s not like it makes a difference what I think.”

“It does,” Hanson insisted. “It really does.”

Harry didn’t have the energy to argue. He scratched Fawkes around the neck and let the world around him fade without resisting.

It didn’t matter what Harry wanted, he’d learned that. This doctor, whomever he was, would figure that out soon enough.

McGonagall’s only free period on Mondays was directly after lunch.

Harry reckoned she had probably given him a time to report for his detention, but as he had no clear memory of this he’d decided to go with his best guess. He tapped his knuckles against her open classroom door as he entered.

McGonagall was in the middle of re-shelving several books; she looked up at him at once.

“Potter, come in.”

Harry shuffled his weight from foot to foot. “I didn’t know if I could, er, do my detention now or…”

“You may,” she said, peering at him over her spectacles. “Have a seat.”

Harry dropped into a chair at one of the study desks, hoping against hope that whatever she had in mind for him involved being stationary and seated for the duration. He thought longingly once more of his four-poster and the two doses of the Dreamless Sleep Pomfrey had allotted him.

Before he could ask, McGonagall shocked him by turning another chair round and taking a seat to face him across his desk. Her posture was straight, her hands laced primly together over her lap; nevertheless it felt strangely casual to have her seated so close to him. Studying him. Her gaze fell to his hand on the desktop, the one that bore ‘I must not tell lies.’

Harry’s fingers twitched, and he adjusted his sleeves covertly as he could.

“I questioned Weasley and Granger as to where you might have got such a mark,” she told him without preamble.

Harry’s eyes closed briefly. He studied his fingernails. “What did they say?”

“Dolores,” she said, dragging out the name as if it were the only way to show the sheer depth of her repugnance, “Umbridge.”

Harry worried his lip. He wasn’t certain why she was bringing this up now. “It’s over with.”

McGonagall continued to study him. “They told me about her methods, the hours you spent in her office,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Weasley told me they both encouraged you to speak to me or to Professor Dumbledore about what she was doing to you, yet you refused.”

Harry met her eye, wary and confused. “I’m sorry. But I don’t know what you want me to do about that now, Professor,” he told her honestly.

Her nostrils flared. “You broke bones and informed no one.”

Harry swallowed.

“Are you so determined to throw your life away, Potter?”

He gaped at her. “That’s not – ”

“Or perhaps you simply believe its worth is lacking? I, for one, refuse to accept that,” she said, severe and immovable. She stood, leaving Harry struck dumb, and strode to the front of the classroom. She snatched up a piece of chalk. “You will write each of these three hundred times,” she said as she began to write lines across the board.

The first was ‘I will not solve problems with violence.’

When she was finished, the second read: ‘I will tell someone when I am hurt.’

Harry licked his lips, half-tempted to think this was a joke. But McGonagall wasn’t laughing. She stared at him until he reluctantly pulled out a roll of parchment and ink.

In a burst of daring, he ventured, “Are you sure there aren’t any cauldrons that need scrubbing?”

McGonagall’s lips twitched ever-so-slightly. “Three hundred times, Potter – or I will add another hundred.”

“Yes, Professor,” Harry mumbled, and set to work with trembling fingers.

As he finished his fifth line, McGonagall made her way back to the bookshelf she had been organising. She gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze as she passed.

Harry knew he was imagining it, but it reminded him of the dream he’d had as he slept in the hospital wing.

Ginny fiddled with her necklace.

Her eyes kept popping up from her Charms reading to scan the hallway, but there wasn’t any sign of him yet. She tapped her fingers against the marble floor. Several of her friends passed by on their way through the portrait hole, but she spared only a middle finger for their raised eyebrows and knowing looks.

At half past two she finally spotted Harry ambling up the corridor.

Her heart clenched painfully. He looked so damn tired.

“Hi,” he mumbled when he reached her, eyebrows scrunching together in confusion. She stood, dusting off her robes, and frowned at him. His eyes were glassy – vacant. Two nights in the hospital wing had done very little for his pale complexion and severe thinness.

Ginny wondered if he was really aware of anything around him.

“Hey,” she said softly. She ached to reach out and touch him, but he was so easily spooked. Her hand twitched, almost thinking better of it. If she were Harry, she thought, she reckoned she could have done with a bit of grounding.

She brushed her fingers against his. He startled, then surprised her by turning his hand to hold onto hers.

Ginny swallowed. “Do you need to go to your room? There’s a load of people in there,” she said, jerking her head towards the common room door. “Ron and Hermione, too, I think. But I can head them off if you want?”

Harry’s grip tightened on her hand. He rubbed his temple as though soothing a headache. “Can…” he started and trailed off, fighting a private battle.

“C’mon,” she told him. “We’ll go somewhere else. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. His eyes squeezed shut in relief.

Ginny led them to one of the alcoves with benches and sat him down. She conjured a glass and tried at an Aguamenti spell. She had been struggling with that one, but after several attempts she succeeded.

“Drink,” she ordered, and he did so without a fight.

Ginny didn’t like that – the easy obedience.

It wasn’t Harry.

“What happened?” she asked.

Harry shrugged and didn’t say anything.

“What happens now, then?” she said.

Harry glanced at her sidelong; for all that he preferred getting straight to the point, he didn’t often seem to know how to handle someone actually doing it.

He chewed on his lip for a second. His mouth opened several times as though he couldn’t bear to force the words out. When he spoke, it was hoarse: “They’re going to make me – talk, and –  ”

Harry’s head dropped into his hands.

“ – and eat,” he finished, barely audible and wrapped tight in shame.

Profound relief surged through her at that, followed so closely by heartache is was dizzying.

Ginny watched Harry’s spine rise and fall with his breath and wondered (again and again and again) what on earth she could do to help him. She placed her hand tentatively on the centre of his back. His breath hitched; he turned his face away from her, still hidden behind one hand.

“It’s alright to be scared,” she told him softly.

“I’m not scared,” Harry mumbled.

There was enough defiance in it to ease the tiniest fraction of her worry. Ginny didn’t know everything that was going on, everything that might have been on Harry’s mind recently. But she knew enough – she suspected even more – and she thought she understood how helpless he must have been feeling.

Ginny sure as hell understood what that could do to a person.

“I’m right here,” she whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Harry turned to look at her then, knuckles pressing into his lips. Ginny’s hand slid up his spine to rest on his neck. She tried her damnedest to infuse as much comfort into it as she could.

Harry’s eyes met hers briefly – then fell to her lips.

Ginny’s heart fluttered in her chest, and she became keenly aware of how close together their faces were. Her stomach bottomed out, but there was no stopping the question bursting to get out of her.

“Are you thinking about kissing me?”

“Yes,” Harry told her. He leaned towards her, almost as though he were being tugged into the gravity of a black hole. But he stopped and licked his lips. “You – you’ve got no idea.”

He said it all in rush; she could practically hear the gears of his brain trying to put a stop to it.

Ginny felt like sobbing and laughing all at once, feeling dazed with the sense of her reality shifting and tipping over around her.

Harry wanted to kiss her, he wanted to kiss her, Harry wanted to –

“Why can’t you?” she breathed.

Harry let out a laugh that was so curt it disturbed her and ran a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know, I don’t…” He swallowed. “Shite. I’m sorry. You don’t deserve – this.” He waved his hand around vaguely as if that answered anything.

His posture – like it so often did – practically screamed ‘don’t touch me.’  The memory of how he had reacted that night they had shared hot cocoa in the common room sprang fresh to the front of Ginny’s mind. Wary, she pulled her hand back into her lap. A nauseating dread threatened to make her sick up. Suspicions that had plagued her for months raced through her mind, but she hoped – she bloody well hoped – she was wrong.

“Hey,” she started lowly. “We don’t have to do anything – we don’t even have to talk. We can just sit.”

Very cautiously, she took his hand again, giving him time to pull away. “Is this alright?”

Harry breathed, sharp inhales through his nose. He nodded once, glancing at her quickly, and squeezed her hand back.

“Yes,” he croaked.

They sat there, Harry clinging onto her like his life depended on it, and let the minutes pass.

Ron and Hermione were waiting for him by the fire.

Harry collapsed into one of the giant armchairs and braced himself for the inquiry into his meeting with Dumbledore, and his detention, and the general state of his delicate mind.

But Ron merely produced a chessboard from underneath the table and plunked it down as Crookshanks settled onto Harry’s lap.

“Fancy a game?”

The fog stayed with him.

Harry had grown used to it coiling and uncoiling around his senses, tuning him back into the world in turns, but now he simply floated unfeeling through the hours.

He floated through classes, and through people trying to speak to him, and through Ron placing cutlery in his hands and nudging him to bring food to his mouth in repetitive, mechanical motions.

Ginny came to him on Wednesday morning and handed him a scroll tied tightly with ribbon.

“Dumbledore stopped me at breakfast, he said to give you this.”

Harry nodded slowly and unrolled it. His eyes skipped over the lines several times before he registered that it was a note instructing him to meet Doctor Hanson in one of the study chambers near the library at five o’ clock that evening.

“Is it Scrimgeour telling you you’ve won a medal from the Ministry for existing?”

Harry looked at her, a pinprick of amusement piercing through his bubble of hazy static.

“Yeah,” he said. “Ceremony’s next week.”

“I’ll get a dress,” Ginny said matter-of-factly.

Harry did his best to smile.

He would love to see that.

Ginny glanced down at the scroll in Harry’s hands.

“Do you have to go – talk today?”

Harry dragged a nail over his knuckles and made himself nod.

She placed a hand on his arm, her touch cautious yet steadying, as it always was. “This could be a good thing, yeah? Maybe it’ll help.”

“Yeah,” Harry mumbled, not believing it for even a second. “Maybe.”

Hanson was seated on a sofa by the window when Harry entered the room. He stood, smiling just like the last time, and extended his hand to shake.

“Harry. Good to see you again.”

Harry took the offered hand because he was supposed to but let go extremely quickly. The unfamiliar touch made his skin crawl.

Hanson sat again and gestured to another sofa opposite him. “Please,” he said, warm and welcoming.

Harry forced his knees to bend and settled stiffly on the edge of the cushions. His gaze flickered to the closed door separating the two of them from the rest of the castle.

“I know this is probably strange to you,” Hanson began, relaxed and casual. “These initial meetings can be awkward and even nerve-wracking, so it’s normal to feel uncomfortable at first.”

At first. As if there was ever going to be a point where it wouldn’t be. As if Harry was going to have to sit through weeks or months of this.

Bloody hell.

“Like I said before, it’s important to me that you know what to expect. For now, the goal is to get to know one another a bit, hopefully make it a little less uncomfortable. I just want to ask you a few questions today, let you ask any questions you may have, that sort of thing. So before we really get started, is there anything you want to ask? It’s okay if there isn’t right now.”

Harry stared at him, struggling to determine if this was real.

“Do people actually do this? Do they actually sit here and tell you every thought in their head?” He sounded rude, probably, but he almost didn’t believe he was really sitting here and consequences were an abstract thing.

Hanson’s smile was indulgent enough that it set Harry’s teeth on edge.

“Not every thought, no. That’s not expected or required – in fact, I think it’s crucial that we’re all able to maintain some privacy in our lives.”

Harry thought of being tailed on Privet Drive and magically tracked by the Ministry, of being subjected against his will to Snape rummaging ruthlessly through his head. He snorted. “I’ve never really had that luxury.”

Hanson scribbled something down on a sheet of paper he held in his lap. It was lined – Muggle paper – and looked ridiculously out of place in a magical school. Harry watched him write, wariness sharpening.

“Just some notes,” Hanson explained, catching him looking. “It helps me sort through the things we talk about. But I don’t have to right now, if you’d rather I didn’t?”

“I would rather you didn’t,” Harry told him tonelessly, thinking of Rita Skeeter and the damage she could do with her Quick Quotes Quill.

“Alright,” Hanson agreed easily. He set his papers to the side and paused as though waiting to see if Harry was going to say anything else. When Harry didn’t, the doctor went on:

“How are you feeling about having to meet with me today?”

Absurd. A little insulted. “Fine.”

“Is there anything you want to know about me? Or anything you’d like me to know about you?”

How much is Dumbledore paying you to fix me? “No.”

Hanson nodded. He took a breath, like they had finally come to the juncture he had been aiming for all along.

“I know this might not be the easiest thing to discuss, but is there anything you can tell me about the issues you’ve been having with eating?”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Harry said flatly.

Hanson nodded. “That’s understandable. It’s beginning to affect your physical health quite seriously, though, and it’s important at this point that we find some solutions to what’s bothering you. We can start small – as small as you like – as long as we start somewhere.”

“We aren’t doing anything,” Harry protested. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’m not going to talk about that.”

Hanson nodded again.

Nod, nod, nod.

The doctor peered at him thoughtfully. He rolled his pen between his fingers. “I can’t force you to talk. I wouldn’t want to force you, even if I could. I just want to help you find some peace of mind. But that’s not all up to me – it’s up to you, too, and how much you participate in this.”

He paused again, giving Harry the space to comment.

After a minute, Hanson said, “Are you content to feel however you’ve been feeling lately? Or do you want that to change?”

I want not to feel like ripping my own organs out every second, Harry thought.

He said nothing.

They had forty-five minutes left in their allotted hour after Harry stopped speaking. One or two more failed attempts to coax Harry into conversation and Hanson seemed to accept that it wasn’t going to happen. The doctor relaxed back into his seat and set his papers aside, leaning into the growing silence.

The sun was setting outside the window, and Harry propped his head up in his hands, gazing out at the view. He might have dozed off eventually if it weren’t for the fact he was alone with a stranger.

He was fighting off a heavy bout of drowsiness when Hanson cleared his throat, forcing Harry’s eyes open.

“I’ll need to get going soon,” he said. “But before I do, I want to go over what the next few weeks are going to look like, so you’re prepared. I’ve given Madam Pomfrey a guideline of meals for you that should help improve your energy and how you’re feeling physically.”

Harry blanched.

“Don’t worry, huge changes aren’t going to be helpful for anyone at the moment. It’s simply to start things off in a different direction. But if there are any foods you’d particularly want to avoid, or you want to include, I’d like to know.”

Harry studied a table lamp.

“No? That’s alright, we can discuss that another time if something occurs to you later. Madam Pomfrey will continue to supply you with the potions you’ll be taking daily, and of course I’ll be back here next week at the same time. Other than that, it should be business as usual – you’ll still have your regular classes, activities – I hear you play Quidditch?”

Harry hesitated, then nodded.

“Brilliant – looking forward to the next match?”

“Sure,” Harry gave as a pittance of an offering. Then the clock was chiming six and he stood as quickly as he could.

“I’ll see you next Wednesday,” Doctor Hanson told him as Harry made straight for the door.

Harry was to eat his meals in the Great Hall again instead of the kitchens – so he could be supervised, he assumed.

The thought rankled, and he did not allow himself to glance up at the Head Table even once. Hermione and Ron were both by his side, as always, but he barely noticed. Food appeared on his plate: toast, fruit, and a bowl of tomato soup.

He ate none of it.

Two weeks raced by in a blur.

The castle grew colder, the sky bleaker, and even Harry’s best-fitting clothes grew baggier than made sense to him.

He sat in the Great Hall at mealtimes, while they all watched him, all of them. But not even Ginny nudging him to eat convinced him anymore. It tasted like sawdust, like ash, and if he swallowed it he was going to choke.

Hanson came each Wednesday like clockwork, and they sat in silence while the doctor stared and thought and inevitably tried to cover it all up with pleasantries and questions and offers for Harry to talk.

Harry didn’t. He couldn’t.

Couldn’t eat, couldn’t talk, and couldn’t stop himself pouring all those wretched potions down the drain every morning, even though the thought of what his friends and Dumbledore and everyone else would say smothered him with so much guilt he strained muscle and bone with countless hours of sit-ups every night and turned his showers as hot as he could stand.

Harry stood under the water beating down on his blistered skin, each time, and willed it to burn him away.

Hermione begged.

She begged him for a word, for a bite, for everything he couldn’t give. Ron swore when he thought Harry wasn’t listening, and the lines of worry on Ginny’s face deepened by the day.

Hagrid sent more notes. Harry ignored them.

He was frozen. He wanted – craved more than anything – to be able to move and breathe and go back to the way things used to be.

The way they had been – before.

But before was gone, and nothing Harry could do was ever going to make it come back.

Neville stood beside him, ever-so-carefully unearthing a juvenile asphodel plant to move into a larger pot. Harry watched him for a second before returning to sorting seeds on the tray before him, taking a bare measure of comfort in the repetitive work.

“Gran said Great-Uncle Algie’s not coming for Christmas,” Neville said cheerfully. “I didn’t tell her, but I’m a bit relieved. Hannah’s visiting Christmas Eve, and I don’t know what she’d think of him. He’s not very nice, sometimes.”

Harry let the words wash over him, only pausing in his sorting when Neville handed him a bottle of water without stopping his chatter. Harry drank out of habit, and because Neville was not staring at him, and was soothed again that Neville had invited him down.

He had taken to doing that every once in a while, asking Harry if he wanted to go to the greenhouses to help him with some arbitrary task, and Harry was unendingly grateful for the break.

Luna came too, sometimes, though she’d had to study today. Harry found he missed her presence terribly.

He felt himself relax a bit further as Neville carried on into a story about his grandfather.

“He used to take me and Gran to the seaside, sometimes, before he got ill. We’d look for shells out in – ” Neville broke off as a noise came from behind them, and both boys turned to look at once.

Remus Lupin was standing at the door to the greenhouse.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Lupin said with a hint of a smile, one hand coming to rest on the door frame. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Chapter Text

Harry stared, uncomprehending.

“Dumbledore told me I might find you here,” Lupin explained, stepping into the room. His eyes fixed on Harry. His face betrayed little, though his throat bobbed. The skin around his eyes grew tight. Lupin cleared his throat. “Hello, Harry. Neville,” he added, nodding.

“Hi, Professor!” Neville said, gardening spade forgotten beside him. There was an instant happiness and ease about him that Harry – he found with a pang – didn’t quite share.

“It’s good to see you again,” Lupin said, shaking Neville’s hand.

Harry offered his own belatedly, shock filling his head with white noise.

“You too,” Neville enthused. To his credit, only a hint of regret bled into his expression as he looked between Harry and Lupin. “I’ll, er – be getting on, then. Thanks for helping me, Harry.”

“Sure, Neville,” said Harry, though he wasn’t convinced he had helped that much at all.

There was a heavy moment of silence after Neville had gone.

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Lupin told Harry. “I was under the impression Dumbledore had told you I was coming.”

Right. The memory barely brushed the surface of Harry’s mind.

“I forgot,” said Harry stupidly.

“That’s alright,” Lupin assured him. He paused. “What do you say we sit?”

They settled at one of the potting tables. Lupin brushed away a layer of dirt and shriveled leaves and promptly pulled a bar of chocolate from his robes.

Lupin offered Harry both the chocolate and a small smile. “Old habits are hard to break.”

Harry took it and picked at the wrapper, casting around for something to say.

“Where did you go on your…favour to Dumbledore?” Harry asked, which seemed the safest question at this point, all things considered.

“I can fill you in on that later; perhaps when we have less of a chance of being overheard,” Lupin said mildly, and Harry supposed he had a point.

“You don’t look well, Harry.”

He said it so bluntly and with so much gravity that it took Harry slightly aback.

“I’m – ” he started, with no idea what he was going to say. He looked at Lupin, at the new lines on his face and the exhausted set to his shoulders. “You’re one to talk,” he said, before he could think about it.

Lupin merely gave him an indulgent smile. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m as well as can be expected. I’m here for you.”

Harry couldn’t meet his eye. He could try to assure Lupin, give the same non-answers on which he’d come to rely. But Dumbledore had certainly filled him in; to what extent, Harry couldn’t be sure, but it was clear that any assurances of sound mind and body were going to fall on deaf ears.

The silence stretched. Lupin seemed intent to wait on Harry.

Lupin had come all this way, Harry reckoned – he should probably at least throw the man a bone.

“I...haven’t been having an easy time,” he supplied. He couldn’t keep a note of disappointment out of his voice. “Is that why you wanted to come to see me?”

“That is part of it,” Lupin told him, guileless. “But in truth, I had already planned on visiting. You are a very easy person to miss, Harry.”

Harry felt his face heat. He flexed his fingers on the chocolate bar, determined not to scratch at his wrists. “What’s Dumbledore said?”

No sense beating around the bush.

Lupin hummed. He was quiet for a minute, as though deciding on what to say. “He is…extremely frightened, I don’t think he would mind my saying. He has told me a little of what’s happened – your difficulty eating, that you’ve been in the hospital wing. He said you’ve been speaking with someone.”

Frightened?

“He can’t be,” Harry corrected, skipping over the rest. The idea was absurd. “I’ve seen him go toe-to-toe with Voldemort. And I haven’t been speaking with anyone,” he added grudgingly. “He’s been speaking to me. I don’t like him.”

Lupin did not seem amused by this.

“This isn’t a game, Harry,” he insisted, tone pitched low. “You’re…”

His voice caught at the end in a way Harry had never heard before. Harry looked straight into the eyes which had always been so warm, and kind; he couldn’t help it. He wanted to turn and run.

He kept looking.

“You’re dying, Harry. Do you realise that?” He peered into Harry’s face, hands coming up to grip Harry’s biceps gently. His eyes narrowed, searching. “You don’t. Do you?”

Harry’s gaze fell to a loose thread at Lupin’s collar as he fought every instinct he had not to pull away. “I’m…” He swallowed thickly. “I’m working on it, alright?”

“You aren’t,” Lupin said quietly. “I understand that you are struggling with something, I’m certain you are, even if I don’t know what it is. But you are going to die if this doesn’t stop.”

Harry leaned away out of his grip, frustration beginning to pique. “What do you want me to do, Professor?” he said dully. He pulled at the corners of the chocolate wrapper just to have something to do with his hands.

“I’ve told you, I’m no longer your teacher – it’s alright if you call me ‘Remus.’”

Harry tilted his head, breaking the chocolate into squares.

“What can I do to help you, Harry?” Lupin pleaded.

Harry gnawed his inner lip between the points of his canines. “I don’t know. Nothing.” His knee jiggled up and down beneath the table. “I don’t know.”

“Harry,” said Lupin, “Look at me.”

Harry did – and it was like staring into a too-bright light, the stark pain on Lupin’s tired face nearly too much to bear.

“What’s happened? Please, I’m here to listen, if you’ll have it.”

The question was impossible, with far too many answers, chasing and devouring each other like a ball of snakes. There was no beginning at which to start, and all of it was so unpleasant that Harry was sure Lupin would not really want to hear it anyway.

But there was one thing that he did know.

“I’m not trying to – to die,” Harry burst out, stumbling over the word. It felt important, all of a sudden, that Lupin knew that. “You said…but I’m not, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

A foul, nasty shame crept through his veins at the notion that that was what Lupin thought of him.

Lupin didn’t respond right away. “Are you certain about that?” he said finally. Careful and soft – grief-stricken.

“Yes,” Harry insisted, hoping he didn’t sound as hurt and embarrassed as he felt. “I am.”

Lupin nodded, very slow. “Alright.”

The way he said it gave Harry the distinct impression that Lupin did not believe him. Lupin glanced at Harry’s fingers – the tremor running through them. Harry dug his knuckles into the wood of the potting table and didn’t bother to explain that was just what his hands did, now. Somehow he didn’t think Lupin would take that as the reassurance it was supposed to be.

Without thinking about it too much, Harry brought one of the squares to his mouth and chewed. The thought of refusing Lupin’s offering brought with it that same squirming feeling he’d got when he had lied to Hagrid about the egg during the Triwizard Tournament.

“I am not going to let this happen to you.”

Harry snorted, surprising himself a bit. “Aren’t you?”

It was cruel, and there was the briefest flash of hurt in Lupin’s expression.

“Sorry,” Harry grumbled. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Lupin cleared his throat. “No,” he said. “You’re right. I deserve that.”

“No, you don’t, I – ”

“I failed you,” Lupin cut in. He leant forward in his seat to catch Harry’s eye, hands nearly white on the edge of the table. “As so many of us have, and I am sorry.”

Harry’s mouth was dry as a bone. His throat convulsed like it was trying to swallow a lump of brick. He shook his head. “You haven’t,” he insisted.

Lupin’s smile was sad. Self-effacing. “Oh, we have, Harry. You have ever been so...incredibly independent. Private. Resilient to a fault.”

He paused, contemplating the tabletop with a far-off look.

“With James and Lily gone, especially after you’d found Sirius…” A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I suppose I can’t speak for Molly and Arthur, nor anyone else, though I suspect they have felt the same.” He caught Harry’s eye again. “I haven’t wanted to overstep. Pushing you has always been a sure way to make you retreat. Giving you space seemed to be the – practical option.” He gave another of those painful smiles. His next words seemed to cost him. “For myself, I have been – wary of my own failings touching your life. Convinced you would be better off without my presence, my influence.”

Lupin considered him. “And I’m afraid that’s meant you have been left alone far too often to pick yourself up when others should have been there to help you do it.”

Harry shifted in his chair, speechless and unsettled, bones digging uncomfortably into the wood. He shook his head again, but in denial of what he couldn’t say. In some dark corner of his mind he could admit to himself that he had thought some of those very same things, hadn’t he? Uncharitable and untrue though they were. But to hear Lupin say them…

“Why are you telling me this?” Harry asked.

“Because it’s become painfully clear to me that you need to be told how much you are cared for, Harry.”

“I know I am,” said Harry, his eyes starting to sting.

“Your self-governance is important,” Lupin went on without acknowledging this. “I want you to be able to have your privacy, to have choices. That’s important for anyone, but especially for you, I know that. I meant it, however, when I said that we are not going to allow this to end in your death, Harry. And I fear we are reaching an impasse that I do not want you to have to face. So I’m asking: what can we do to help you? Anything. I don’t care what it is.”

Months ago, Harry would have given all the money in his Gringotts account and a couple of limbs besides to hear all of this. As it was, he could only bring himself to feel – numb to it. It was a gift given too late, maybe, the relevance lost and forgotten.

There is no stopping it now, said that nasty little voice in the back of his head.

“Nothing,” Harry said again. “I don’t – I’ve tried everything, I’m trying – ”

“Alright,” said Lupin quickly, “Alright.” He lifted one of his hands in a placating gesture, and Harry realised his own breath had got short and sharp.

“Look, you don’t have to answer immediately. Take a little while and think, yes? I’ll be staying at the castle tonight; Professor Snape is finishing the latest batch of Wolfsbane for me,” he explained, suddenly looking very weary. “Gryffindor have a Quidditch match tomorrow, is that right?”

Harry nodded, brows furrowing.

“Are you still on the team?”

“Yes,” said Harry, a touch of defiance slipping into his tone. It was mostly true; he’d find out in the morning if he passed muster with Madam Pomfrey to keep his position.

Lupin merely nodded, taking that in. “Well. I’d at least like to stay for the match, if that’s alright with you.”

Lupin extended an invitation that evening for Harry – along with his friends – to join him for dinner in the rooms he had been given.

“Probably for the best I’m not seen in the Great Hall,” he had explained, citing potential problems with those parents who had called so adamantly for his resignation after the exposure of his lycanthropy.

Harry, cracked apart and raw after their conversation in the greenhouse, had ever-so-politely declined by secreting himself away to the owlery and not showing up. He sat huddled against the freezing stone wall, Hedwig burrowed in tightly to his side. She had stuck herself to him as soon as he had shown his face and refused to budge, an odd behaviour he had never seen from her. Harry petted her soft plumage, checking her over carefully for injuries or bent feathers.

“What’s got into you, eh?” he asked her softly.

Her only response was to try to claw her way into his lap.

“Ouch,” he grunted and offered Hedwig his wrist to latch onto instead, pulling her in. She ruffled her wings and tucked her head down against his chest. Harry sat with her, watching the sun set beyond the empty window frames.

“So what d’you reckon?” he asked after a while. He thought about reporting to the hospital wing next morning, stomach rebelling. “Pass? Or fail?”

Hedwig gave him a low trill, muffled against his shirt.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Me too.”

Harry rose early after long hours of staring up at his bed canopy. Ron stirred to wish him a hoarse ‘good luck,’ propped up on an elbow and rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“Thanks,” Harry muttered. He pulled on his clothes in the quiet and tried not to think about it.

Despite the early hour, Lupin was waiting for him outside the portrait hole.

“Thought you might want some company.”

Harry didn’t. This whole thing was humiliating enough; it was easier, however, to allow it than to argue.

“Did you get any rest?” Lupin asked as they walked.

Harry shrugged. Possible ways to fool Pomfrey’s tests had chased each other around his head all night, each more unlikely than the last; stones in his pockets, rudimentary masking charms he had never even attempted.

Madam Pomfrey would see through it all in a second.

He almost regretted tossing all his prescribed potions down the drain. Wondered if the difference would show in his blood. Harry traced the patterns of the cobbled floor with his eyes, losing himself to them, putting one heavy foot in front of the other.

Lupin didn’t ask him anything else, and soon they had come to the doors of the hospital wing. Harry swallowed, trying to work some moisture into his mouth.

“I can wait for you outside, if you’d rather.”

Harry’s previous examination sprang to his mind. “Yeah,” he said, voice scratchy. “Yes.”

Lupin nodded, and gave him a smile. “I’ll be here, then.”

Chilled from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, Harry pushed open the door.

He sat on the edge of the stiff starched bed, heart hammering as Madam Pomfrey drew a curtain round, enclosing them from the rest of the wing.

“Shirt off, please,” she ordered. Slight, apologetic smile in her expression, like the last time.

Harry pried his fingers from his knees and reached for the hem of his shirt and jumper. He focused on the clawed feet of the metal frame holding up the curtain. Pomfrey cleared her throat, and Harry realised he had frozen up, hands still twisted in his clothes.

“It won’t take long,” Madam Pomfrey promised, lips twisting in sympathy.

Harry removed his glasses and shucked his shirts over his head in one stilted motion, and waited. He stared at the blurry world in front of him as Pomfrey’s hands touched his back. She poked and prodded, feeling along his skin, his ribs.

“Magic is a great help,” she had explained to him a fortnight ago in this same position. “But oftentimes no replacement for one’s own intuition.”

Harry personally knew this to be quite true. It did not stop him from growing sick at the feeling of her hands on him, of her eyes seeing so much.

“I have a Calming Draught,” Pomfrey offered from behind him.

Harry shook his head emphatically. He eyed the bottle sitting on the bedside table as if it were something he had found on the bottom of his shoe.

The matron’s fingers probed along the deep bruises that ran the length of his spine. Harry hadn’t even known about these bruises until the first time she had looked him over; he had felt the ache, of course, but so much of him ached these days. After she had found them, she had followed up with a very uncomfortable enquiry into Harry’s physical exercise habits.

Madam Pomfrey clucked her tongue. Her hands left him, and Harry sucked in a stuttering breath. She circled back around and he watched her raise her wand, grateful that he could not see her properly.

There was a long silence as Pomfrey waved her wand about and consulted notes and numbers that appeared on rolls of parchment before her. At last she waved away her materials and sighed in a way that conveyed her unhappiness all too clearly.

“You haven’t been taking the potions,” she scolded.

“They make me ill,” said Harry as he pulled his clothes and glasses back on. It was only part of a lie.

“Then I can give one for the nausea as well,” Pomfrey said, not budging an inch. She tilted her chin down, stern. “I cannot stress enough the importance of building back up your body’s every possible defence. This is affecting your vital organs.”

She did not appear to be getting any closer to the most significant issue at hand.

“What about the Quidditch match today?”

The nurse blinked. She stared at him.

“Mr Potter, did you hear me? You are rapidly becoming gravely ill – there is no choice but to make urgent and immediate adjustments to your treatment if we are to reverse any of this.”

“You’re not going to let me stay on the team,” Harry translated for her.

Pomfrey stowed her wand in an apron pocket. Slow and deliberate. “No,” she said. “I am not.”

Blood pounded in Harry’s ears; he swore he could feel it all the way through the veins in his arms. “I’ll be careful! Our beaters are better than ever this year, I won’t even be hit, it’s just flying – ”

“Absolutely not.” She was looking at him strangely.

“Please, only this match and then – ”

“No, Mr Potter.”

“Madam Pomfrey, please, I need to play. I – ” Harry’s chest hitched. He squeezed his hands over his knees. “I have to.”

His words hung in the air, desperate and more than a little pathetic, but he didn’t care.

“I’m sorry,” said Pomfrey, and she did look it. “I will be informing the headmaster and Professor McGonagall that you are not fit to remain on the team, for now.”

Harry’s mind numbed out. Madam Pomfrey removed the curtain from around his bed, and he was aware of her saying something to him he didn’t comprehend. He made no move to rise, feeling like the bed on which he sat was moving downward through space. No Quidditch, he couldn’t play Quidditch, couldn’t even fly –

They might as well cut off one of his limbs.

Harry was up and moving as soon as Madam Pomfrey left his field of vision. He passed through the doors and was stopped by a hand on his arm. It was Lupin; Harry had forgot he was waiting.

Lupin frowned at him, but he didn’t ask what the verdict had been. The answer must have been plain enough on Harry’s face. Madam Pomfrey hurried up behind them in a huff, as though she hadn’t expected to turn and find Harry gone.

“Mr Potter, we still have some things to discuss.”

But Harry did not think he had it in him to sit there and listen to anything else she felt she needed to tell him.

More potions, more watchful eyes, more talking –

Harry slid his arm from Lupin’s grip and turned away, breath coming hard. “I have to go.”

As quickly as he could, he pulled his Invisibility Cloak from the pocket of his trousers and threw it over himself. Madam Pomfrey let out a small noise of surprise. Lupin called after him, too late to stop Harry disappearing down the hall.

Dozens of students strolled by him, unknowing. They seemed like ghosts. Harry crouched there under his cloak, tucked into a far corner of a corridor, and watched them pass. They would all be heading down to the Quidditch pitch soon for the match.

Harry’s thoughts crept glacially through the synapses in his brain. He was not going to play. He was no longer Captain. There was nothing now but eating and examinations and Hanson’s chats and everyone staring at him as if he had grown two heads.

There’s Voldemort. That’s what you’re supposed to do.

Harry’s head grew lighter and lighter until his body jerked, and he sucked in a giant lungful of air. The instinctual yearning of every molecule of his being to implode on the spot was sudden and severe.

He found himself on his feet, some dampened section of his brain screaming that forward movement was the only way – toward what, he couldn’t say. His fingers found the Marauder’s Map in his pocket without him telling them to do it. He opened it, and stared at the jumble of dots.

Harry stared until his vision swam, searching for nothing.

You did this, a voice in his head whispered. But so did she.

She had taken it all, hadn’t she?

He couldn’t feel his hands, or his feet underneath him.

There hardly seemed a single way that the tangled web of all this After could have produced a more shattered landscape. In one small moment everything had changed for him –

A block of ice slipped heavy and jagged into Harry’s stomach.

The thought plunked into his head out of nowhere, and he marveled that it had never occurred to him to wonder about it before now. He cast his mind back to that night on purpose for the first time since it had happened. He knew for a fact that there hadn’t been any physical form of protection; were there spells for that kind of thing? Potions? Harry had to admit he didn’t know. But surely if what they had done had resulted in a pregnancy, like it had with Voldemort’s mother…she would be showing by now. Wouldn’t she?

He tried to work out the maths, feeling like his brain was doing backflips through sludge, and realised – maybe she wouldn’t be.

The floor tilted, his breath stopped. With a Herculean effort Harry forced himself to focus on the map in his hands.

He needed to talk to Romilda Vane.

Harry caught her coming out of the girls’ lavatory; she was unaccompanied by the usual group of onlookers, and he took it as his chance.

Romilda, for once, seemed less than pleased to see him. “What’s this?” she scoffed, straightening her cardigan. “I didn’t think you would ever deign to talk to me again.”

Several exceedingly nasty things came to Harry’s mind to say, but voicing them would get him nowhere. He needed to know this one thing, he reminded himself, and that was all. He commanded his mouth and limbs to go through the motions.

“I need a quick word,” he told her, tone flat.

Romilda’s lips pursed. “About what?”

Harry cast about for the most private place to speak. He jerked his head toward a narrow side corridor. Romilda sighed with a distinct air of being highly inconvenienced but followed him without comment.

Harry stopped, whirled to face her, and opened his mouth to ask. Nothing came out. Romilda raised an eyebrow at him, waiting. Harry’s tongue felt like a foreign entity behind his teeth, but he tried again.

“When we…” Harry slid his fingers around his wand in the pocket of his robes. He did not intend to use it, but the warm tingle it sent up his arm was welcome. His body felt like someone else’s again. “Look, when we – that night” he said in a rush, “did you use anything to keep from getting – to keep from having a baby?”

There was a loud whooshing sound compressing his eardrums. Harry steadied himself, meeting her eye, but it wasn’t really him.

Remarkably, Romilda smiled. It held no humour.

“And what if I didn’t?” she said. “It wouldn’t be any business of yours.”

An electric jolt shot through Harry all the way down through the soles of his feet, bolting him to the floor. No business of his?

“Pardon?” Harry asked. It came out very, very quiet. Romilda faltered, and he thought perhaps she saw the warning he could sense in his own expression.

“Relax, Harry,” she said. “I’m not stupid – and I’m not pregnant.”

Every bone in Harry’s body liquefied into molten lead. His knees nearly gave out under the weight of the relief. “You could have just said so,” he told her, carving it out of steel.

Romilda’s face hardened. “You’ve been a right prick, avoiding me all this time. You can’t deny me having a bit of fun.”

Fun, Harry thought hysterically.

His gaze bore into the sharp angles of her face. For the first time he truly regretted that he had never allowed Ron or Hermione to go after her – with words or with ugly hexes, in that moment it made no difference to him.

“Stay away from me,” Harry advised her. He needed to leave; the rushing noise in his ears was growing louder until he could hardly hear. “Don’t ever come near me again. Do you understand?”

“You’re the one speaking to me,” said Romilda, but her face had now lost much of its colour.

“Trust me,” Harry said, vicious, “it won’t happen again.”

He turned and strode down the hallway, leaving her standing there alone.

Harry held it together all the way to the bare stretch of wall on the seventh floor which, he thought to himself, was honestly a bit of an impressive feat considering.

He stared up at the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his trained trolls. Strange black spots danced across his vision. His thoughts, however, sounded quite clear in his mind.

I need somewhere to hide, he thought, clutching his wand tightly to his front. I need somewhere to hide, I need somewhere to hide…

The door appeared in front of him and Harry grasped the handle at once.

He had expected the room to take much the same shape as it had for the Defence meetings he had taught to Dumbledore’s Army. Or perhaps a dim room with some squashy chairs and sofas and a blazing fire. As it was, Harry stood in the doorway and stared around at the scuffed walls of the room, the cobwebs in the corners. The little cot tucked against the wall.

He was standing in the middle of his cupboard.

Remus leapt from the moving spiral staircase before it had fully reached the top and thrust open the headmaster’s office door without waiting for permission.

“He’s run off,” Remus announced to the room, and pressed a hand to the stitch in his side. “Madam Pomfrey took him off the team, and he’s run off, I don’t know where.”

Dumbledore raised his head from his papers. He paused to take this in, then removed his half-moon spectacles and leaned back in his desk chair, rubbing his eyes.

Remus thought he looked very, very tired. He might have had more sympathy under normal circumstances.

“Ron and Hermione don’t know either, I’ve asked them.” He was still holding onto the doorknob, torn between entering and running off to search again. “I’m worried, Albus – in the state he’s in, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had heart failure. Poppy said that might be a possibility.” The idea made his belly twist and seize in fear. He licked his lips, sweeping hair from his face.

Dumbledore frowned. “He’s been given potions to help prevent that.” He replaced his glasses and rose from his chair, expression grave.

“He hasn’t been taking them! There was no sign of them having been in his system.”

“Come,” Dumbledore said, gesturing him back out of the circular office.

As Dumbledore followed Remus onto the staircase he said, “Do not worry, Remus. We will find him.”

Remus almost wanted to laugh. “I’m well past that, I’m afraid. How did this happen?”

“Oh, a great deal of the fault lies with me, I believe.” He said it lightly, but the fanciful mask of serenity Dumbledore projected so neatly had ceased to fool Remus a long time ago. The headmaster offered him the sort of knowing smile that revealed the thinnest crack in the illusion. “There will be more time to speak later.”

When they reached the bottom of the stairs and readied to step off, Dumbledore added quietly: “You know, Harry possesses the most irrepressible spirit I have ever had the honour of encountering.” A deep fondness shone in his troubled eyes. “But sometimes I rather wish he knew how to sit still.”

Having already confirmed with Ron that Harry had taken the Marauder’s Map with him – and having sent a fruitless Patronus off on a search of its own which resulted in nothing more than the silver wolf returning back to him in mild confusion - Remus was more than game to follow Dumbledore’s lead.

Harry was still in the castle, they knew that much. Dumbledore would have been alerted at once if he had left.

Remus’s shock at first seeing Harry in the greenhouse tore through him all over again. His stomach clenched, picturing Harry’s near-skeletal frame, his sunken cheeks and purpling eyes. For the very first time in his life he was just the slightest bit glad that James and Lily and Sirius were all gone; it was Remus, alone, who would suffer that image burned into his brain for the rest of time.

Remus swallowed and pushed it aside; he quickened his steps to keep pace with Dumbledore.

“You know where he is,” Remus realised. It was almost accusatory; Dumbledore seemed to be guiding him along with purpose, taking turns down each corridor without pause.

“I have a hunch,” said Dumbledore, almost to himself as though this were an inside joke. “But my hunches are usually correct.”

Remus hummed but couldn’t, after all, refute this. “Where are we going?”

“I wonder if you or any of your ‘Marauders’ ever stumbled across the, ah – Come and Go Room, when you were boys?” Dumbledore asked.

“No,” Remus answered, a little surprised. He hadn’t thought there was a single inch of Hogwarts they hadn’t documented together on the Map.

“Harry appears to have vanished quite completely out of the castle’s sight; it is the only possible place he might be,” said Dumbledore simply. “An exception being Slytherin’s Chamber, I suppose, but I rather doubt Harry would have a compelling reason for returning there on his own.”

“Let’s hope,” Remus muttered.

They soon came to a tapestry covered in trolls wearing tutus. Dumbledore began to pace back and forth, crossing the tapestry several times in deep concentration. After his third pass, a door appeared in the wall opposite. Remus’s eyebrows raised to his hairline, but the tiny spark of piqued interest was snuffed out as soon as Dumbledore swung open the door and the two of them stepped inside.

It looked like a sort of attic room, plaster and wood with a sloped ceiling – no, the underside of stairs for a ceiling. They were standing in a storage cupboard under a set of stairs. The tiny room expanded as they crossed the threshold, elongating, the stairs rising farther away from the floor to accommodate two extra bodies.

Harry was sitting on the floor with his head buried in his knees, arms locked right around himself. He seemed to notice neither their entrance nor the change in the room.

Remus inched forward and reached out a hand, unsure. It felt like trying to approach a cornered rabbit. A terrible, muffled choking noise came from where Harry’s face was pressed against his thighs. Remus’s throat convulsed again, head spinning.

“Harry?” he asked into the quiet.

Harry’s entire body jerked, elbow smacking the wall with a bang as he whipped his wand out in the space of half a second. His head snapped up to assess Remus with wide, swimming eyes. There was a hunted look in them that took Remus’s breath away, before it gave way to a semblance of recognition. Harry’s eyes slid past Remus to Dumbledore, then back again. After several overwrought seconds he lowered his wand. It clattered to the floor; Harry did not react to this either.

To Remus’s horror, he realised that Harry was not breathing.

Remus knelt, creaking knees hitting the floorboards with protests of pain. “Harry,” he whispered, reaching for him. Harry only stared, thin chest hitching strangely, until Remus touched him. Harry’s bony limbs banged against the wall again as he recoiled. His lips were beginning to take on a bluish hue, and Remus looked with desperation to Dumbledore, who was lowering himself to Harry’s other side.

“Shh,” Dumbledore soothed as he brought a hand up to the side of Harry’s head. “Shh, my boy, you are not in any danger.”

A faint silvery shimmer glowed around the tips of Dumbledore’s fingers where they rested at Harry’s temples. Dumbledore’s eyes slipped closed at the same moment Harry’s did. Harry’s face scrunched in something that seemed like confusion, or discomfort.

Legilimency?

Remus wondered if Dumbledore had suffused magic into the air as well, for a suggestion of calm slid over his own mind. Remus watched them both – then startled as Harry snapped his eyes open and gasped in a huge, sucking breath. Dumbledore removed his fingers.

Harry scrabbled clumsily for his wand, knees lowering and feet sliding on the floorboards as if the strength was going out of his legs. His eyes were half-lidded and glassy, staring at Dumbledore with what might have been a hint of betrayal.

“What did you see?” Harry mumbled.

“Nothing you would not wish me to,” Dumbledore assured him softly. “I only meant to calm you. You had stopped breathing, Harry.”

The corners of Harry’s lips turned down in a frown. His chest was moving all too quickly now in short, shallow breaths.

“I…had to make sure,” said Harry. His voice was thin, and slurred as if he were a bit drunk. “I didn’t…want to. She said – ”

Despite his muddled state, Harry snapped his mouth closed with an audible click of his teeth. His already pale face drained of colour so quickly Remus was afraid he would lose consciousness right in front of them. He drew in on himself, eyes suddenly brighter, a shade more alert. They flicked between Dumbledore and Remus.

There was fear there, Remus realised. Terror.

“Who, Harry?”

Harry gave his head a violent shake. “Never mind.” The wood of his wand creaked under his grip. He glanced around the room, taking in the sloped stair ceiling, the sagging cot in the corner. He seemed to shrink in upon himself another degree. “Can I go back to my dormitory, please?”

Remus grasped Harry’s arm, ignoring the way his fingers overlapped around the bones. They were close to something; Remus knew suddenly, instinctually, that the chance might not present itself again. He hated to do it, but he steeled himself.

“Harry, who is ‘she’?”

Harry shook his head once more. His inhales came in brittle wheezes. “No one,” he said, and to Remus he sounded very small.

His own lungs seized behind his ribs. This wasn’t right. None of this was.

“Please, Harry,” Remus implored him. “It’s alright. I want to know.”

Harry’s head was still moving back and forth in sluggish refusal. His gaze went distant, his brow scrunched, the entirety of his body tensed and tightened. If Remus knew anything about Harry Potter – and presumptuous as it may be he liked to think that he did – there was a significant battle raging inside that head of his.

All at once Harry’s muscles went slack, eyes glazed completely over.

Remus was instantly overcome with memories of Sirius doing the same, staring at him with that blank, empty look. ‘Going away,’ James had called it back then with a heavy sigh.

“Romilda,” said Harry. His voice was flat, hardly more than a whisper.

Remus had to strain his ears to hear it. He frowned and looked to Dumbledore, but the headmaster was focused on Harry.

“What about Romilda, Harry?” Dumbledore asked.

Harry’s lips formed a tight line as though he had already said too much. A strangled noise twisted out of his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said finally in that awful, dull voice. “I couldn’t stop her.”

Remus swallowed against the lump blocking his throat. “Stop her from what, Harry?”

Harry’s lifeless eyes filled with moisture. “She gave me a potion.” His body didn’t shake, his expression did not change, but the tears spilled over and tracked silently down his face as he stared past the two of them. “Amortentia. She made me...” He trailed off, and fell silent.

Remus’s mind fumbled with the pieces, completing a picture that he so desperately did not want to believe was true. He shivered; a chill had stolen over the little room. Dumbledore hadn’t moved – he was still peering down at Harry, his lined face the picture calm – but there was an unmistakable air of perilous, icy power emanating from the place where he knelt.

“Miss Vane dosed you with love potion,” Dumbledore clarified, “and forced you against your will.”

The tears fell from Harry’s chin onto the front of his shirt. His chin dipped in the bare likeness of a nod.

Silence rang in Remus’s ears; something like a bitten whimper broke it, and he realised after a second that it had in fact come from his own mouth. He moved his thumb over the bump of Harry’s wrist. He felt adrift, stumbling through a foreign land without a map.

Dumbledore moved at last, pulling his wand from his robes. His phoenix Patronus appeared and he said quietly to it: “For Professor McGonagall – please bring Miss Romilda Vane up to my office at once. I will meet you there shortly.”

It swept off in a swirl of silver light.

“I don’t think we should move him yet,” Remus said.

“No,” Dumbledore agreed, and rose to his feet. He appeared to have aged ten years in the space of the last five minutes. “Stay with him?” he asked. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

Remus cleared his throat. “Of course,” he said.

“Shall I send Madam Pomfrey to assist you?”

“No,” Remus said. It came out hoarse, grating past his throat. “No. I’ve got him.”

Dumbledore ghosted his fingers through the very top of Harry’s wild hair. After a long moment he turned, rested a hand briefly on Remus’s shoulder, and then he was gone.

Harry had not stirred beyond the rhythmic pull of air into his lungs, and Remus gripped him more tightly. “Harry?”

The faintest spark lit in his eyes; his gaze slid to Remus’s face, then away again. Fresh tears spilled down his cheeks. “’M sorry.”

Remus’s heart seized up and promptly split into pieces.

His eyes burned and he became aware that he, too, was weeping. “Harry…” He slid his hand up to Harry’s shoulder blade and drew him forward away from the wall. “Come here.”

Harry allowed Remus to draw him against his threadbare vest without a fight, automatically curling his head under Remus’s chin. Surprised and more than a little disturbed at this total lack of resistance, Remus dug his teeth into his lips and tucked Harry still closer to his chest. His chin rested on the crown of Harry’s head. “It’s going to be alright,” he whispered. “You haven’t done anything wrong.” He moved his palm over Harry’s knobby back in steadying circles.

Harry began to shake in his arms. It seemed he was crying properly at last. “I’m sorry,” he insisted thickly, over and over again, voice muffled. Remus could feel the vibrations of it against his thumping heart. Harry’s fingers curled into Remus’s shirtfront in a grip that punched of desperation.

“Shh,” Remus breathed. He sniffed, thinking of Lily’s kind face and praying for the right words. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You are not alone, Harry, I promise you.”

Harry’s wasted body convulsed with a sob.

“I’ve got you.”

Remus held Harry in that storage cupboard for a long, long while, letting him come apart and cry out his pain. It had taken vast stores of his self-control to push away thoughts of going right off to get to the bottom of this whole catastrophic mess. But he did not think anything in the world could have pulled him away from Harry at that moment. He never would have expected it: Harry, with the hard-won walls he used to keep others at arm’s length having fallen into utter shambles, clinging to him and accepting the comfort Remus offered him without question.

It had stirred something warm and fierce deep inside of him that he did not want to examine too closely at the moment.

Harry had eventually pulled away from him, wiping his face, eyes still too far away. He had regained enough awareness to refuse the hospital wing or even his dormitory, and they had landed on the compromise of retreating to Remus’s temporary quarters.

Harry had steadfastly avoided Remus’s eye even as Remus half-supported him through the halls.

Now, Remus sat with his knuckles pressed to his chin, glued to the edge of one of the armchairs and watching Harry’s chest move up and down as he lay on the sitting room sofa.

Madam Pomfrey had come earlier with a sleeping draught, and despite the light dosage Harry had slept deeply for several hours already. Ron and Hermione had dropped in, too, demanding to know how Harry was doing; the three of them chatted about the Quidditch match (Ginny had played Seeker, Gryffindor had won) but none of their hearts were truly in it. Remus had burned to ask them what they knew of Vane and how it might have led to all of this, but he knew it was best to wait for Harry to awaken. Remus balked at the idea of betraying the tenuous trust Harry had now placed in him. After a time he had sent Ron and Hermione off to attend their schoolwork; it would not help any of them to sit around while their nerves frayed to the seams.

Whether or not Remus followed his own advice was frankly nobody’s business.

A knock sounded at the door, reeling Remus in from his thoughts.

It was Dumbledore.

“What happened?” Remus asked quickly as he gestured the headmaster into an armchair.

Dumbledore gazed at Harry’s form tucked under the thick pile of quilts and throws. Harry slept on, curled up, spine to the back of the couch.

“Miss Vane has given her version of events,” said Dumbledore finally, turning back to Remus. His blue eyes were not twinkling behind his spectacles; they were filled with sorrow, and very troubled. “She insists that nothing untoward happened between her and Harry.”

Remus did not need to be a mind-reader to know that Dumbledore did not believe that any more than he did.

Remus let out a puff of air and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What happens now, then?”

“I’m afraid,” said Dumbledore heavily, “that Harry will have to give his account as well.”

Remus closed his eyes. Opened them again, heart heavy. “To whom? Using what methods?”

“To me, and to his Head of House, with sufficient other witnesses. As it is a contested claim, Harry will need to choose between a few options of supported testimony.”

Good Lord. Remus’s stomach performed several somersaults. He didn’t want to discuss that right now.

“He needs to be in hospital, Albus.”

Remus watched Harry’s soft breath stir the fringe over his scar.

“Yes…” said Dumbledore, still watching Harry. “His doctor agrees.”

A muted anger kept testing its claws up the lining of Remus’s throat. It felt malignant, and dangerous, and it didn’t know where to go. “How on earth did it come to this?”

Dumbledore did not answer right away.

“He has gone to great lengths to hide how much he was suffering,” Dumbledore said at last. “He was successful, to a point, if only at the beginning. His friends were the first to note something amiss, I am quite sure; Severus reported to me concerning information he had gleaned during a detention.” The tips of Dumbledore’s long fingers tapped slowly on the arms of his chair. “After a while it was quite easy to see it – the fatigue, the weight loss.”

Dumbledore stopped again; Remus barely restrained himself from snapping at him to continue.

"I became aware that he was sneaking out of the castle each morning, and I put extra security measures in place, though this did not dissuade him; Miss Granger has told Minerva that Harry used this time to run around the grounds, often to the point of making himself ill.”

Remus felt he was going to be ill himself. He rubbed his fingers over his lips, horrified.

“Minerva attempted to speak with him, as did I. He continued to decline, however. I contacted Hanson shortly after Severus’s report; his advice has been invaluable, though I confess that perhaps I did not heed as much of it as I should have done.” Dumbledore folded his hands over his lap. He looked up at Remus, moustache twitching in a wry, humourless smile. “I was…afraid of pushing Harry too far, too quickly. I feared what it might do to him. I held hope – too long, I admit – that he might come to me on his own, hoped it might have paved an easier path for him going forward...I see now how impossible that choice must have felt for him….”

And now look where we are, Remus thought bitterly, that living anger flexing. “He’s not taking the potions,” he said, voice sharp. “He’s not eating at all anymore, Albus; we are going to lose him.”

As quickly as his frustration had come, it fled, leaving him boneless and wearier than ever. He dropped his head into his hands and scrubbed at his face. He stole a bare thread of comfort seeing Harry was still breathing evenly on the couch, in and out in a steady rhythm. “I told him as much, you know. Yesterday. That we have all been afraid of pushing him.” Remus choked on a laugh, an ugly sound. “He’s sixteen. I know what he’s been through, the things he’s proven himself capable of…I think that has only made it easier for us to believe he is equipped to look after himself.”

The proof of the opposite was sitting right in front of them.

Dumbledore watched Harry for several more minutes. “It is a strange thing,” he said quietly, “that one single person can hold the power to cloud one’s judgement so entirely. Don’t you find?”

Yes, Remus thought, he did.

He was shocked, then, to see that there were tears glistening in Dumbledore’s beard.

“I wanted him to have Christmas.”

The words were so weighted with grief it seemed to draw a pall over the room.

Remus swallowed, thinking of the way Harry always came to life at any mention of the Weasleys or the Burrow. Perhaps spending Christmas there would help – if they could get him through until then, that was. Remus was not convinced it was possible.

“He’d like that,” Remus said anyway, and blinked away the fresh burning at the corners of his eyes.

Neither of them said anything more; plans and arrangements were for another evening. Remus and Dumbledore sat there in silence, and watched over Harry as he slept.

Chapter Text

Harry sat at the table, tracking Lupin’s progress as he moved around the tiny kitchen making breakfast.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Harry said for the third time. He tugged at the quilt around his shoulders, crossing his arms underneath until he was wrapped in a tight cocoon. His nose wrinkled at the smell of frying bacon.

“I know I don’t,” said Lupin patiently, rummaging through the cupboards until he found a stash of tea. “Indulge me?”

He put the kettle on and glanced over his shoulder at Harry with a small smile. He looked nearly as exhausted as Harry felt.

Harry stifled a yawn in his blanket-covered elbow and laid his head down on the smooth surface of the table, too tired to hold it up and too tired to care if Lupin might think him rude for it. He closed his eyes and listened to the water running in the sink, the clink of dishes…

After a while in which his head hummed with the ebb and flow of the soft noises, he sensed Lupin moving closer and opened his eyes just as he set a mug of tea by Harry’s head with a soft clunk.

“Chamomile,” said Lupin. “I added some cinnamon and ginger, too.”

“Thanks,” Harry mumbled, and dragged his head up.

Lupin brought over plates of bacon and honeyed toast and settled into the other chair, nursing his own cup of tea. He was scrutinizing Harry’s face in such a way that said plainly he was trying not to do so but failing miserably.

“Thanks for, uh, letting me stay last night,” said Harry, staring into his mug.

“Of course,” Lupin told him. He started on a piece of toast but didn’t say anything about Harry doing the same, and Harry was grateful for it.

He had startled awake on Lupin’s sofa in the middle of the night, wrapped in blankets, all the lights doused. He had experienced a few seconds of disoriented panic before he had clapped eyes on Lupin, still in full robes and fast asleep in one of the armchairs. Harry didn’t know if it was whatever potion with which he had been drugged still pumping through his system, or if it was the strangely comforting knowledge of Lupin close by, head lolling to the side and softly snoring, but Harry had slept much better than he had in a while and hadn’t stirred until close to noon.

Flashes of the cupboard the day before – his cupboard, dear God – kept springing to mind and heat suffused Harry's face. He rubbed his hand over his cheeks as though he could scrub away the pink, and screwed up his courage.

“What – ” Harry cleared his throat and tried again. “What did I – er – tell you, yesterday?”

Concern wrinkled Lupin’s brow. “What do you remember?”

Harry flicked his fingers absently against the side of his mug, watching the tea ripple.

Far too much.

“You,” Harry admitted, “and Dumbledore. He was in my head, I think. I was sitting in that, uh – room – and…”

That all-encompassing numbness, the feeling of being disconnected…he had just been so tired…

He had only wanted all this to be over,  and so he had said her name.

“Dumbledore talked to Romilda…didn’t he?” Harry asked, very quietly.

“Yes,” said Lupin. “It didn’t go as well as he had hoped.” He sipped his tea, then set his cup down slowly. He seemed to be debating whether to say something more. “He said that you’ll likely have to answer some more questions.”

Harry balked, feeling sick. “I’d rather just forget about it.”

A sadness shone in Lupin’s eyes. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, Harry,” he said gently.

“Why not?” Harry demanded, panic stirring again. “I’ll take it back. If she said it didn’t happen, or – or that it wasn’t – ” He sucked in a deep breath, the realisation crashing over him that he was talking about this with Lupin. “If it’s only my word against hers, I’ll drop it.”

Lupin took a moment to respond, contemplating the strips of bacon oozing grease onto his plate, tracing the handle of his cup with a fingertip. “You won’t be forced into anything,” he said, resting his eyes on Harry’s face. “That is not, I believe, Dumbledore’s intent in any case – but I would not allow it even if it were.”

The words were too earnest, Lupin’s gaze too sincere; it forced Harry to look away again.

Harry swallowed a mouthful of tea just for something else to focus on, and had to admit to himself that it tasted very good. The warmth spread from his stomach to the rest of his body, and he took another sip.

“What does he mean ‘more questions,’ anyway?” said Harry, courting the edge of hysteria despite the small comfort of the tea. “I already said what happened.”

Lupin’s face clouded, and suddenly Harry wasn’t sure he really wanted to know.

“You would be required to give evidence,” Lupin said slowly, “that is much less refutable than your word alone.”

“Like what?”

“Usually this would mean testimony given under the influence of Veritaserum, or supplying memories as proof.”

Harry swayed in his seat. Memories – other people viewing his memories of him and Romilda in that closet.

“No,” Harry croaked. “I’m not doing that.”

“You have options,” said Lupin in a tone clearly meant to soothe him, “Dumbledore wants to go over them with you later. You don’t have to decide anything right now. Alright?”

It was ten times worse than Ron and Hermione knowing; he wanted to unzip his skin and step right out of it. He tried to remember how Dumbledore had reacted to what Harry had said in the Room of Requirement…but he could not picture it. He only recalled the same flashes, over and again – curled tight and suffocating, Lupin talking to him, Dumbledore’s brief, careful presence in his mind.

Crying his bloody eyes out while Lupin hugged him.

Harry pulled at his blanket, feeling battered and bruised all the way through to his soul.

Lupin’s hand gripped his shoulder through the quilt, and Harry felt the colour of mortification creep up his neck again. He looked around the room, anywhere but Lupin’s face.

“I’m sorry that I – that you had to see all that,” Harry muttered.

Lupin gave a soft sigh. His hand tightened on Harry’s shoulder, then released him. “You keep apologising about things for which you oughtn’t.” When Harry didn’t respond, he said quietly, “I was very glad to be there for you, Harry. You don’t have any cause for embarrassment.”

Silence stretched on between them; Harry sipped at his tea and let himself unfasten from his surroundings.

“Your mother showed me that, you know,” Lupin said after several long minutes, pulling Harry’s attention back with a crack like a whip. “The cinnamon and ginger for the tea. I’ve never been able to go without it since.”

Harry looked up at him, that deep ache of longing he always felt at mentions of his mother flooding through him.

“She would be very proud of you, Harry.”

Lupin meant it, but Harry did not know if he had it within himself to believe it.

Lupin took him back to the hospital wing.

Harry was told that his trunk would be packed up and sent down to its new place at the end of his white, sterile bed where he would now be required to stay until his condition improved.

“D’you think they’ll let me play again,” Harry mumbled as Lupin helped him into bed, “if I do all this?”

Pomfrey had given him yet another draught that dulled his senses and pulled at his bones, encouraging him to sleep.

“I’m sure they will,” Lupin told him. He pulled the sheets up over Harry’s lap and fell into one of the hard chairs beside the bed. His eyes were bloodshot, face blotchy and pale as if fevered.

“The full moon’s tomorrow,” Harry realised, struggling to keep his eyes open. “You should have taken the potion…by now…”

“I have,” Lupin reassured him with an indulgent smile. “All week. Don’t worry, I’ll be perfectly alright.” He frowned. “I’m more concerned about you taking your potions…”

Harry grimaced and looked away, settling further into his pillows.

“Please don’t fight them, Harry. You can’t afford it any longer.”

Harry did not know what to say to this, so he let his eyes slip closed and pressed his cheek to the cool pillowcase. The world spun in a pleasant, fuzzy sort of way as the potion took a stronger hold.

Across the ward, Madam Pomfrey finished fussing over a second year with a bad head cold then bustled over to Harry’s bed.

“Remus,” Harry heard her say fondly, and he cracked his eyes open.

Pomfrey took Lupin’s stubbled face in her hands and peered critically into his eyes. “Taking care of yourself as always, I see,” she said, tone dry as a bone.

Harry watched curiously as Lupin covered one of her hands with his own and smiled up at her, indulgent. “I’m fine, Poppy.”

“Mm,” she tutted in a manner that reminded Harry strongly of Mrs Weasley. “Peaky – let me get you something for the pain before you leave, and I’ll be satisfied.”

“Whatever you like,” Lupin said, and gently released her.

Harry closed his eyes again, feeling as though he were witnessing something oddly private.

There was a lull as Harry skimmed the waves of a deeper doze.

“How is he?”

Madam Pomfrey’s voice sounded far away.

“Here,” said Lupin, just before Harry went under. “He’s still here.”

“…due to several unfortunate incidents involving Polyjuiced individuals infiltrating the British-Scandinavian Wizarding Trade Talks of 1804. The years following were marked by violent disputes, with widespread ill will aimed toward – ”

“Hermione, you’re putting him to sleep.”

Hermione glanced over the top of her History of Magic textbook and frowned at Harry, considering. “In my defence, that’s not very difficult to do at the moment.”

“Oi,” Harry protested without heat, dragging the covers up to his neck and curling up under his sheets. “He’s got a point, though. Have you got any other bedtime stories?”

Ron snorted and leaned back in his chair, balancing on its back legs. He swiped the orange from Harry’s dinner tray and tossed it into the air, catching and repeating.

“You coming to class tomorrow, mate?”

“Dunno,” said Harry, “Depends if Pomfrey lets me off her leash.”

The matron chose that uncanny moment to stick her head out of her office to check his progress with dinner. Sighing, Harry sat up and took a sip of his pumpkin juice; she retreated once again.

“First time she’s left me alone all day,” he grumbled. “Probably only because you two are here…”

Ron and Hermione winced in sympathy but said nothing; the three of them did not need to acknowledge to each other that they all knew this was just how things were going to be for a while.

Harry forced down his two nightly elixirs and half a bowl of oatmeal while Hermione finished her history reading. Before too long Pomfrey emerged to inform Harry that Dumbledore would be coming to see him within the hour.

Harry almost considered asking her for another potion to knock him unconscious.

Ron let the front legs of his chair settle back to the ground with a clack, disappointment drawing down the corners of his mouth. “Can we come back after?”

“Absolutely not, visiting hours will be long over,” said Madam Pomfrey. “You may have ten more minutes and then Mr Potter needs his rest.”

Harry bristled as she marched back down the ward; he was in for at least several weeks more of orders and being spoken about as if he were a child, and he couldn’t fathom how he was meant to endure it.

Hermione was watching him. “She’s only looking after you,” she said. “It’s her job.”

Harry averted his eyes but didn’t argue.

“What d’you think Dumbledore wants?” Ron asked, wincing. “You look like you’re expecting the firing squad.”

Right. Neither Lupin nor Dumbledore had mentioned anything to Ron and Hermione, then - Harry found his appreciation for the discretion reassured him more deeply than he would have expected. He steeled himself.

“I told him yesterday,” Harry whispered, “about Romilda. Him and Lupin.”

Ron’s head fell heavily into his hands. “Oh, thank Merlin’s right tit.”

“Ron!” Hermione chuckled nervously, but her shoulders were also sagging under the weight of her relief. “Harry - oh - you should be proud of yourself, I hope you are, I know that wasn’t an easy thing to do - ”

Harry shifted, uncomfortable. “I didn’t exactly do much. It sort of just - came out.”

He did not add that he wished he had never done it at all.

“It’s good though, mate,” Ron said, unmuffled now that his face wasn’t pressed into his palms. “Maybe they’ll snap her wand in half. We wouldn’t have to deal with her anymore.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, dropping his gaze from Ron’s dark expression, “Maybe.”

His stomach flipped thinking about the ‘options’ Lupin had told him about and decided it was best not to hold out too much hope.

“You did the right thing, Harry,” said Hermione quietly.

Harry twisted his lips and nodded without looking at her.

 Hermione collected up her bag and stood with a regretful sigh. “We’ll come see you again as soon as we can.”

Ron nodded fervently, jaw tight. Hermione dropped a kiss onto Harry’s hair, and then the two of them were heading for the doors before Pomfrey could come back to scold them for dawdling. Harry sat with his nails digging into his arm underneath the blankets to keep from calling them back.

Fawkes announced Dumbledore’s arrival.

The phoenix swept through the doors onto the ward and alighted on the sill next to the place where Harry stood against the window, watching the stars blink to life in the inky sky. Fearing that his own personal track record of having a conversation while standing solidly on his own two feet was on a depressingly steep decline, Harry had convinced Madam Pomfrey to let him pause his bedrest for Dumbledore’s visit.

He was also allowed his own clothes instead of the hospital standard; he might have been wearing nothing better than his loose sweatpants and one of Dudley’s old t-shirts, but somehow it made him feel at less of a disadvantage – if only very slightly.

“Good evening, Harry,” Dumbledore greeted him, and motioned toward the chair Ron had vacated. “May I?”

Harry turned around and leant back against the sill without a word. He nodded, gazing steadfastly at a swirling pattern on the shoulder of Dumbledore’s robes.

“He insisted on accompanying me,” Dumbledore explained with a nod to Fawkes, who was surveying Harry with interest. “I hope you do not mind.”

“It’s nice to see him,” Harry said softly. He held out a respectful hand to the bird, and Fawkes lowered his head, bumping it into Harry’s waiting palm.

“Remus prevailed upon me to convey his regrets at having to leave the castle so soon,” Dumbledore began. “His window of opportunity to settle himself before the full moon was closing, and he did not want to wake you.”

Harry felt his mind trying to go away again. He fought to stay inside himself, focusing on the sensation of Fawkes’s golden feathers under his fingers; he had embarrassed himself enough in front of Dumbledore – he did not need to keep adding to it.

“He would like to pay you another visit before the Christmas holidays, if you’ll allow him.”

“Yes, sir,” said Harry before he could convince himself otherwise.

Dumbledore nodded, pleased. He watched Harry petting Fawkes for a moment, then went on: “I realise this is a difficult thing to discuss, Harry, but you deserve to be kept up to speed regarding the situation with Miss Vane.”

Harry’s brain burst with white noise; it couldn’t be real, Dumbledore knowing about what had gone on in that broom closet…he did not want to look into those eyes and see the disappointment and disillusionment there…he ran his finger down the quill of one of Fawkes’s scarlet wing feathers before dropping his hand back to the cold stone windowsill.

Harry studied his own socked feet, then raised his head and said: “I’m not letting anyone inside my head, you can forget that.”

They did look at each other then; as it always had, Dumbledore’s gaze seemed to pierce right through Harry’s entire body.

“That is your choice to make,” Dumbledore told him softly, and Harry nearly sagged with relief. “Sit, Harry, come away from the window…”

Gooseflesh had risen on Harry’s bare arms, his teeth on the verge of chattering. He had not noticed until Dumbledore had said it; he limped the few steps to his bed on numbed feet and sank down onto the mattress.

“Romilda Vane is alleging that she has done nothing wrong – apart, of course, from importing banned substances into the school. Remus has mentioned this to you?”

“Yes,” said Harry. You can’t deny me having a bit of fun. His blood burned like bile in his veins.

“You are going to deplete Poppy’s stores of dittany salve, Harry.”

Harry blinked and looked up at Dumbledore.

“You are scratching,” he explained.

Harry glanced at the raised welts on his wrists in mild surprise. Fawkes trilled and fluttered down to land on the bed beside Harry; he tipped his head, allowing several pearly tears to fall onto Harry’s skin. The welts disappeared.

“Thanks,” Harry muttered. Fawkes simply shuffled his wings with a regal flourish and tucked them to his body.

“Legilimency, as you implied, would be an option if you choose to provide your own evidence – or the extraction of memories for use in the Pensieve. A truth potion might be administered to either you or Miss Vane – ideally both of you – ”

“Why can’t she just take it, then?” Harry demanded.

“Her parents have declined to allow this in her case,” said Dumbledore regretfully.

Well. Harry didn’t have to worry about that, did he? He supposed he should be thankful no one was trying to do the opposite and force him to take it.

“A school hearing is also a possibility – this would require several members of staff and at least one Ministry official to be present. This is assuming, of course, that we would be seeking Miss Vane’s expulsion from Hogwarts.”

“Couldn’t you expel her on your own, sir?” asked Harry, rankling. “They did it to Hagrid, and he was innocent.”

“Oh, I am terribly tempted,” said Dumbledore, and a chill traveled down Harry’s spine. “But that is precisely the point, I fear; I believe you, Harry. I believe that Miss Vane has harmed you terribly, and that her presence is no longer acceptable at this school. However, in my long experience, repeating the unjust patterns of the past only ever leads to further pain, unintended and unexpected as it may be.”

Harry let this sink in for a minute, and tried not to despair.

“So if I don’t do any of that…nothing happens to Romilda?”

Dumbledore reached out to stroke Fawkes, who was now sleeping with his head tucked under one wing, and thought for a moment. “I would like to pursue suspension of her residence at Hogwarts,” he said finally. “She would continue her education at home until such a time as you might consider pressing the issue of expulsion. I would need to make enquiries – to certain members of staff, to your friends – to deem the suspension appropriate. This can be done discreetly, of course; there would be no need to publicise the issue if you do not wish it.”

Harry rubbed his hands together slowly in an attempt to warm them, turning this over in his mind, slipping unavoidably down the hill into the waiting fog. Certain members of the staff…

Did he really want this going further than it already had? To have more people knowing about it, thinking about it?

“I think I’d like the whole thing to end here, sir,” Harry murmured. “It’s not as if it’ll fix anything.”

Dumbledore was quiet for a long time. Harry shivered but did not want to get into bed yet; without a word, Dumbledore handed him the jumper sitting on top of his trunk, and Harry pulled it on.

At last, Dumbledore said: “You are sharing your home and your school with the person who attacked you, Harry.”

Harry’s anger flared at once. “So’s Hermione.”

Something settled in Dumbledore’s face, resigned. “That will not be an issue for much longer.”

Harry sat up very straight.

“What do you mean?”

“I had told you, the day you injured Draco Malfoy, that it was not an affair with which I wanted you to concern yourself. You have had enough on your mind without the burden of attempting to police this school on your own, and I only sought to spare you the trouble.” Dumbledore sighed. “I might have known better, for I know you far better than this.”

Dumbledore ducked his head to catch Harry’s eye.

“I owe you an apology, Harry. I said much the same to you months ago, but I must say it again; in my desire to protect you, I have caused you further harm, and indeed have only succeeded in momentarily protecting myself from the heartache of having to watch you carry far too much.”

He paused; Harry could not look away from the penetrating gaze.

“Our investigation into the activities of Mr Malfoy – and several of his associates – began after you informed Professor McGonagall and I of your suspicions regarding the Mark scored into the Quidditch field, and continued in earnest after Miss Granger’s injury and the extensive damage caused to the Transfiguration corridor. We have been keeping an extremely close eye on his movements lest anyone else come to harm; I should have shared this information with you – perhaps it has seemed, from your perspective, that no attention has been paid to the matter.”

“It has,” Harry said stiffly.

That’s all they ever do is talk, and take points like this is all a game, and expect us to just sit here like good little boys and girls –

I don’t think that’s true, Ginny had told him. But he had not listened; he couldn’t.

“In my detention with Professor McGonagall,” Harry started, working his jaw, “she made me write lines – she was cross about my ribs being broken and told me to write, ‘I will tell someone when I am hurt.’”

Dumbledore was quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“Back in first year when Quirrell was after the Stone, I tried to tell her what was happening. She didn’t believe me and told me off.”

It felt a little like blasphemy telling this to Professor Dumbledore, but the injustice still stung. Emotion swelled up inside him, catching him off guard, and before he knew it he was saying: “I tried everything, you know, after Voldemort sent me that vision about Sirius – ”

His voice broke, and he tried to bite back the words but found himself at their mercy.

“ – but no one was around to help us. No one.”

He sucked in air through his teeth, a yawning, untapped well of hurt threatening to spring up and burst open before Harry shoved it violently down inside him again.

“So…I’m sorry if it usually seems I’ve got to do someone else’s job. Sir.”

Let Dumbledore get angry with him, he thought. Let him scold Harry for his impertinence and disrespect, it did not matter to him anymore.

“You are…quite correct.”

Harry stared at him, fingertips pressed into the cold metal of the bed frame. An errant tear slipped free down his own face and he swiped at it quickly, feeling stupid.

“I have always deeply admired your fortitude and determination, Harry; but it has been a great disfavor to you that you have had so often an occasion to have need of them. For every part that I have played in this – I am enormously sorry, my boy.”

Dumbledore’s detached façade had dissipated entirely; there was only pain, and open sincerity in the lines of his ancient face.

“If I could give you every happiness in this world, I would do so in the space of a heartbeat.”

Fawkes awoke and raised his head, letting out another long, melancholy trill. Harry averted his gaze to the starry window, a heady buzzing underneath his skin. It felt – wrong – somehow for Dumbledore to be apologising to him. Alien and discomfiting.

Once Harry was reasonably sure his voice wouldn’t shake, he said: “Thank you, sir.”

The words were wholly insufficient, but Harry suspected that Dumbledore understood him perfectly.

Glancing at Dumbledore and hoping to change the subject, Harry asked, “What’s to become of Malfoy, then?”

“That is up to him.”

At the look on Harry’s face, Dumbledore went on: “I mean to say, he has been given the choice between expulsion from this school, or accepting an offer of my protection in exchange for undertaking an...agreement…not to bring harm to anyone in this castle.”

Harry bristled immediately. “Protection?”

Dumbledore's expression turned grave, and a little more weary. “I have it on good authority that with Lucius in Azkaban, Voldemort has come to view Draco Malfoy and his mother as something of a liability. This has put them both in a rather precarious and vulnerable position; Mr Malfoy believed that attempts to prove his loyalty to Voldemort’s cause and his potential as a presumptive Death Eater might save himself and Narcissa.”

“That’s why he’s done all this? That’s why he tried to hurt Hermione?”

“Yes,” he said, “it is.”

“And you want to protect him? Let him stay at Hogwarts?”

“Harry.”

“Malfoy did a lot more to Hermione than Romilda ever did to me and you sit there and – ”

“Harry.”

Harry stopped, chest heaving, and glared at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore fixed him with a look. “Do you truly believe that Mr Malfoy should be thrown from this school and left to take his chances with Voldemort and his followers?”

Harry crossed his arms. “If I say yes, will it ruin your theory about love being my biggest strength?”

Dumbledore let out a chuckle, delightfully surprised. “I am afraid not.”

Harry grimaced and looked away.

“What kind of ‘agreement?’”

“Promises he would be unable to break,” Dumbledore explained.

“Like an Unbreakable Vow?”

“Not quite so severe, but in essence, yes.”

Harry mulled this over. He begrudgingly supposed there might be a certain poetic justice to it; Malfoy having to mope around the castle knowing he was only still at Hogwarts due to Dumbledore’s mercy, unable to come near Hermione, or any of them.

“He agreed to this?”

“Not as yet,” said Dumbledore. “But I suspect he will. For his mother, if not for himself.”

Harry did not want to think about that – it touched too closely on having to view Malfoy as someone capable of having feelings. He shut his eyes and pushed up his glasses, massaging the bridge of his nose. Madam Pomfrey would be out any minute to force a sleeping draught on him; he was required to take them now, he had been informed. Perhaps he could charm her into a dose of Dreamless Sleep tonight.

“I’ll leave you to rest, Harry,” said Dumbledore quietly, and made to stand. Fawkes rose with a flutter of his great wings and alighted on the headmaster’s shoulder. “Ah, one more thing – Doctor Hanson will be by in the morning to see you.”

Harry jerked his head up, staring at him with wide eyes. “You didn’t – ”

“I have told him nothing of what you shared, merely that you have had a particularly difficult time over the last two days. I cannot command you to tell him of your assault – once again, this is your choice. I do believe, however, that if he is to truly help you it would be wise to do so.”

Assault, Harry repeated in his head, leaving an awful taste in his mouth.

Dumbledore gave a small bow and began to retreat. He was halfway down the ward when Harry unstuck his tongue.

“Wait,” he called, and Dumbledore turned back to face him.

“You can – go ahead with those enquiries, sir.”

Harry was going to be sick, he knew it. His palms were sweating, his breath sticking in his lungs.

But the gleam of pride in Dumbledore’s eyes – almost – made it worth it.

Ron fidgeted, eyes flicking between McGonagall’s grave expression and Hermione wringing her hands in the seat next to him.

“There is no need to be nervous,” McGonagall told them both. “This will be brief; you are not in any trouble. We only have a few questions for you.”

The door opened and Dumbledore swept into McGonagall’s office.

“Ah, splendid,” he said, nodding to Ron and Hermione and greeting McGonagall with a flourish of his hand. “I beg your forgiveness for my lateness.”

“How long is Harry going to be staying in the hospital wing? Sir,” Ron added, remembering himself; the ever-present worry he had got used to carrying was twisted and tangled up even worse than usual.

Dumbledore merely smiled at him kindly, though Ron thought he looked uncharacteristically drawn.

“Harry will be staying there for the foreseeable future,” said Dumbledore, coming to stand next to Professor McGonagall and clasping his hands in front of him. “He may be able to attend classes with you, providing he strictly adheres to his treatment. If not, he will lamentably be confined to the wing until he is able to do so.”

Hermione’s eyes were wet, chin trembling.

Ron braced himself for the mess she would be after this meeting, although the thought didn’t bother him as much as it once might have done.

“Right,” said Ron, mouth dry as a bone. A strange sort of relief swept over him that someone qualified would be looking after Harry, but his stomach sank nonetheless. Ron had rarely slept in the dormitory without him; he didn’t like the thought of it.

Hermione sniffed and straightened her skirt, one of the many anxious habits Ron had learned to read over the years.

“What did you need to speak to us about, Professor?”

McGonagall frowned, choosing her words carefully. “Potter has confided in the headmaster some – alarming – news about another Gryffindor student.”

“Yes,” Hermione whispered, “I thought that might be it. Harry said you knew.”

“How long have the two of you known about this?” asked McGonagall.

Hermione deflated and seemed to grow smaller. “He told us last month. I’m sorry, Professor, I know we should have said something, I know, but Harry was so - I - we were worried about him. He didn’t want anyone to know, he only told us because we…we found out some things by accident…”

Hermione’s chin trembled.

“He’s felt very alone. We wanted to make sure he knew he could trust us with it.”

“I quite understand, Miss Granger,” said McGongall softly, “It’s alright. I do wish we had known about this sooner, for Mr Potter’s sake, but I cannot blame you for being loyal friends. As I said, you are not in any trouble.”

Hermione nodded, appearing rather ill and wringing her hands again.

Dumbledore continued: “Professor McGonagall and I have questioned Miss Vane; she denies any coercion on her part.”

“She what?” Ron burst out. He seized the arms of his chair; the tips of his ears flooded with heat. Hermione placed a restraining hand on his knee, but her face was clouded, eyes narrowed with black antipathy.

“She absolutely did!” Hermione cried. “Professor – ”

“Miss Granger – ”

“You can’t believe her, look what it’s done to him, we – ”

“Hermione,” said Dumbledore. He said her name gently, soothing, but it stopped her in the tracks of what Ron was sure would have been a breathtaking tirade. “I believe Harry.”

Hermione sat back in her chair, eyes wide and shining. “Oh,” she said, “well that’s – yes.”

Ron almost wanted to smile, but he sobered quickly.

“What do you need from us, sir?” Ron set his teeth, the opportunity to actually do something to help Harry mollifying some wound inside of him he had not been wholly aware was there until the chance was presented to him.

Dumbledore considered them both. “Harry is not…receptive to the idea of challenging Miss Vane’s claim at the moment; even if he were, I am admittedly quite reluctant to put him through such an ordeal in his current state.”

Relief collided oddly with outrage in Ron’s head.

“She’s not going to get in any trouble?”

“I did not say that,” Dumbledore corrected, calm and even. “A hearing of expulsion may not be possible without Harry’s view of events, but I do wonder – have either of you any information that would support grounds for Miss Vane’s suspension from Hogwarts?”

Ron hesitated; so did Hermione.

“I asked Harry about questioning you both, and he has given me his blessing to do so,” he assured them.

“Harry told us what she did,” said Ron quickly, as though this had been bursting to get out of him, “we’re – witnesses – aren’t we?”

“Not exactly,” Hermione said. “We weren’t there, we didn’t actually see what happened that night.”

“And when did this incident happen, precisely?”

“It was a…Saturday, after start of term,” said Ron, “The seventh? It was the night Harry had his first lesson with you, sir.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes briefly.

Ron swallowed. “She was waiting for him, after…”

“Good Lord,” said McGonagall. Her eyes narrowed. “This was planned on her part, then.”

Ron nodded. “She even tried to slip him some more, after - she left spiked chocolates for him, and I ate them accidentally. That’s when he told us. We had to go to Professor Slughorn for an antidote, and Harry – he got really upset about the whole thing.”

“Romilda Vane attempted to dose him again, after she had already assaulted him?” Dumbledore asked, exceptionally mild.

“Yeah,” Ron spat. “She wouldn’t leave him alone, she cornered him at Quidditch, too.”

“I see,” said Dumbledore.

Ron gulped. He glanced at Hermione, and her expression was exceedingly wary as she looked at the headmaster. There was an intensity behind his twinkling eyes that Ron found painful to observe.

He remembered with perfect clarity the magnificent, staggering strength of Dumbledore’s wrath last year at Grimmauld when Mundungus Fletcher had abandoned his watch over Harry and nearly let him get his soul sucked out by Dementors…a shudder went through Ron’s long limbs at the memory.

“Professor Slughorn was witness to this second dose?” asked McGonagall.

“Yes,” said Hermione. “Like Ron’s said, he’s the one who ended up taking it by accident, but he said Romilda’s name plenty of times while we were in Professor Slughorn’s office, I’m sure he must have heard it.”

“Thank you,” said McGonagall thoughtfully. “I shall speak with Horace.”

“Professor,” Ron started. He wasn’t certain how to ask. “Could you – it’s just that Harry won’t want everyone knowing about this…is it possible to keep all this between us?”

Ron didn’t know if he was imagining it, but he thought he saw approval in her expression.

“Rest assured, Mr Weasley, I will be tactful. Professor Slughorn will not be informed of specifics, and neither the headmaster nor I have any intention of allowing this to spread beyond those necessary.”

Ron’s shoulders relaxed and he nodded, grateful.

A thought occurred to him, then, hitting him with sickening dismay. Hermione had said Romilda ordered the love potion from Fred and George’s shop; they provided that service of swapping the packaging to avoid detection by Hogwarts security.

Ron licked his lips, debating. Would he be landing the twins in trouble?

But weren’t they partly to blame for what had happened to Harry? Ron thought, anger simmering. Perhaps not. If they had known what it would cause…but still. Ron had been too late to protect Harry from it, but if he could stop it happening to someone else…

“I would check with Fred and George, if you need proof,” Ron said finally, eyes downcast. A second-hand shame rose up in him and suffused his face with colour. “They might have records of her ordering Amortentia from their shop in Diagon.”

No one said anything for a long moment.

“Thank you, Mr Weasley,” said Professor McGonagall quietly, as though she knew what this had cost him. “I shall send an owl.”

Ron nodded at his shoes and swallowed. Hermione’s fingers found his arm; he glanced up at her, offering a tight smile and half a shrug.

“Is Harry going to be alright, Professor?” Hermione gazed up at Dumbledore, imploring.

“Indeed I hope so,” said Dumbledore quietly, offering her that kind smile again. “I believe that with the two of you as his closest friends, he has nothing less than an exceptional chance.”

Snow had begun piling up in earnest around the grounds now that they were moving into December. The lake had undertaken the beginnings of its yearly freeze, and the hospital wing was seeing higher traffic in the form of students stumbling in daily to make their nasally, sneeze-laiden requests for as much Pepper-Up Potion as they could get their hands on.

Hanson arrived red-cheeked and breathless, shaking clumps of snow from the fur lining of his brown coat.

“Morning, Harry! Christ, I hope they’ve been keeping you warm enough in here, yeah? Cheers, Poppy.”

Madam Pomfrey had swept over to him with a steaming cup of black coffee. She gave Harry her usual critical once-over and pulled the curtain around to give them their privacy. Harry muttered the incantation for the same Silencing enchantment he used to ward his bed in the dormitory, wanting to make doubly sure that they would not be overheard.

The doctor slumped into a seat and drew out his own wand to clear away the puddles of muddy water he had tracked all the way to Harry’s bed. He eyed Harry, impressed.

“Nice one. Never mastered that myself until after I left school.” He took a long sip of his coffee, and Harry wondered idly how he was managing not to burn his lips off. “Anyway – I’ve heard you’ve had a rough go of it?”

Harry shrugged, already weary of the conversation.

“I’m still breathing.”

“Mm.” Hanson twisted his lips. “I’ve heard that’s started to be a bigger problem for you as well.”

“You hear a lot of things.”

“I do – unfortunately you’ve only got so much leeway when you’re underage. It’s rotten, I know,” Hanson conceded. He set his coffee down and fixed his attention on Harry. “I can only do my best not to be too insufferable about it.”

Harry merely grunted and punched his pillows into shape until he was sitting a bit taller.

“So, the breathing thing? It sounds as if you almost passed out the other day.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Not passing out.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I meant you say it like it’s supposed to mean something.”

“Well – it could be a developing feature of the anxiety you’ve been experiencing; just a possibility I’d like to consider and try to figure out with you. Madam Pomfrey says there doesn’t appear to be any medical reason for it.”

Harry willed his face not to burn.

“I’m not anxious. You sound like Hermione.”

“Oh? And what does she say?”

“A lot.”

“No relation, then, I’m assuming.”

“Ha-ha,” Harry deadpanned.

Hanson smirked and took another swig of his coffee. “You do seem inclined to be more talkative today, anyway.”

“Yeah, well. You try lying in bed all day and see how bored you get. Don’t get used to it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Harry crossed his arms, ran his tongue along his back molars. He let his mind wander off to calculate the chances of Pomfrey actually letting him go outside later in the day.

Then again with all the snow perhaps not.

“How’s your new routine treating you?”

Harry supposed that by this he meant the routine of being watched one-on-one for every meal and ordered to drink every potion he was handed under threat of being given them intravenously. Harry was not certain whether this was a bluff or not; he hadn’t seen anything like it in St Mungo’s when Mr Weasley had been there, after all. But Pomfrey and Hanson were in league together now – the use of Muggle-ish medical practices suddenly seemed much less far-fetched than they had once done.

Nettled, Harry slouched into his pillows and closed his eyes.

Hanson let out a puff of air. “I suppose you did tell me not to get used to it.”

In hindsight Harry’s first day back at classes could have gone worse.

Not by much, he reckoned, but still worse.

Madam Pomfrey had watched him like a hawk through his morning potions and two-thirds of his porridge before releasing him to Slughorn’s class. There was a large amount of staring (which Harry figured might have, in fact, been going on far longer than that particular day – for better or worse the draughts he was taking did a good deal to clear his head), but Harry was nothing if not terribly used to stares and whispers.

He had found he could not keep his eyes off of Malfoy in Potions.

Malfoy looked paler than usual; he focused on his work and brewed a perfect Essence of Insanity by the end of class, but there was something subdued about him. He had caught Harry staring halfway through Slughorn’s lecture and sneered, however, lacking none of his usual venom.

Ron had glared at the back of Malfoy’s head the entire time with only slightly less malevolence than he usually displayed when speaking about Romilda; Harry had relayed to him and Hermione what Dumbledore had revealed about Malfoy and his two friends were taking quite the opposite tack. Harry had wondered all the way to the end of class if Ron was going to haul out and punch Malfoy when they were through, but when the bell rang it was Hermione who went up to him.

“As I understand it,” she started, low so that none of the other students would hear, “you’ve been de-fanged you horrid little snake. But let me make one thing clear either way: you come near me again and I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your life.”

And with that she had spun on her heel and left Malfoy standing there red-faced and fuming with Harry and Ron following behind her, grinning widely at each other, highly impressed and just a little bit more afraid of Hermione Granger.

By the time they had got to their first free period, Harry had to sit down at the top of a flight of stairs to catch his breath, all thoughts of Malfoy and Hermione’s wrath fleeing his mind. He had beaten back Ron and Hermione’s nagging at him to return to the hospital wing early until they had got through Charms, and then he’d finally had to admit that his body was simply having none of it. By the time he had reported to Madam Pomfrey for lunch, he was winded and nauseous and ready to spend the next week lying down.

Harry sat cross-legged on his white bed with his berries and oatmeal, scooping up spoonfuls and letting them slop back into the bowl. He had sent Ron and Hermione off to have lunch together downstairs; he did not like it when they were there to watch him eat.

“Harry,” Pomfrey prodded, and he brought the spoon to his mouth again, wishing he was anywhere else.

Ginny came to see him after lunch.

Curled up and sick with stomach cramps after his meal, Harry very nearly wished she hadn’t picked that exact time to show up; nevertheless he felt his heart lift at the sight of her. She plopped down on the end of the bed and let Arnold spill out of her hands into Harry’s lap.

“D’you want to hear something funny?” Ginny asked him at once.

Harry gave her a tired smile. “Always.”

“Snape tripped down the stairs today, and it took him a long time to do it, too.”

Harry burst out laughing, surprising himself with the sound, and watched Arnold run excitedly back and forth across his fingers like keys on a piano. “Wish I’d been there…”

“We can put together a reenactment later,” Ginny said solemnly.

“Sounds perfect,” Harry grinned.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I knew you were bound to be going stark raving mad in here, so I brought you these…”

She reached into her school bag and removed what looked to be several novels. Harry took them from her and examined the covers. One featured the silhouette of a dinosaur, another a picture of a giant hand and a green circle sticking out its tongue. The last one displayed a butterfly-esque robotic face with glowing eyes. Their edges were weathered, the spines cracked and lined.

“Er – where’d you get these?”

“I stole them from Dad’s collection before start of term – he doesn’t mind, he’s got loads. I’ve finished these and I thought it might give you something to do other than think up elaborate ways you might be able to escape out a window.”

Harry snorted, turning the books over in his hands. Arnold rolled back over to Ginny and wedged himself snugly underneath her calf.

“Thanks,” he said, stacking the books on his side table. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a book that wasn’t for school or about magic, but it seemed as good a solution to his boredom as any.

“Aaand these,” Ginny said, fishing in her bag again. She handed him a few floppy booklets that looked to be filled with puzzles and crosswords. “Hermione’s parents sent them.”

“Her parents?” Harry asked, half-confused and half-alarmed.

“I don’t think she’s told them much,” Ginny assured him. “But they know you’ve been in and out of the hospital wing and sent these along for you in Hermione’s last package from home.”

“Oh.”

It felt…very strange…to think there were people outside of Hogwarts whom Harry had never met but had thought of him just the same.

“I’ll have to tell her to thank them for me…”

Harry abruptly wondered if Hermione had got that book of mental disorders from home too; he pushed that thought away immediately, disquieted.

“I heard you played Seeker for me on Saturday,” he said, hoping to steer the conversation into safer waters.

A spark lit in Ginny’s eye and she spent the rest of her break taking Harry through a delightfully detailed play-by-play of the match against Slytherin.

Harry lay awake long into the night, gazing up at the vaulted ceiling and massaging his belly. Pomfrey and Hanson had him on a diet of bland foods that were supposed to be easier to digest, but now that he was forced to eat more than he liked at every meal his body was starting to rebel, and he had been plagued constantly by aching cramps.

He had convinced Madam Pomfrey to forgo the sleeping draught that night as his eyelids had been drooping heavily by eight o’ clock, but now he wished he had taken it. He absentmindedly tapped the spine of the book laying on his chest. He’d chosen the one with the T-Rex skeleton on it; it was interesting so far, but the words on the page kept swimming around…

Harry’s mind wandered to the little ‘library’ his primary school teacher in Year Three had set up for her students – two little shelves at the back of the classroom where they could sign out books to take home for a while. It had been the first time in Harry’s life he had been able to read just because he felt like it, and he had managed to read two whole books before Uncle Vernon had found out they were full of myths and dragons and witchcraft.

That had instantly and unquestionably been the end of any reading privileges.

Harry had nearly forgotten about that. His fingers tightened on the pages of the book Ginny had given him. He hadn’t known Mr Weasley kept an entire collection of science fiction novels – or perhaps he collected other genres too? Harry imagined Mr Weasley gathering a tiny Ginny into his lap and reading to her about cyborgs and spaceships, and smiled to himself.

Suddenly he missed the Burrow so intensely that his heart ached with it.

The cramps in his belly gave a particularly sharp twinge, and a thought seized him in their wake. Harry rolled over, tossed the book onto his nightstand, and propped himself up on an elbow, squinting into the darkness.

“Kreacher?” he whispered.

The house elf popped into existence with a crack. Harry whipped his head round to Pomfrey’s office, but the lights did not come on and he turned back to Kreacher.

“What is Master requiring?” Kreacher groused, disgust plain in every wrinkle of his expression.

“I need you to go to the post office in Hogsmeade for me and place an order for, uh, six Skiving Snackboxes from ninety-three Diagon Alley, hang on I’ve got Galleons for you…”

Harry went to his trunk and searched around for his money pouch, mind already racing to consider the best place to hide the boxes when they came.

He wasn’t allowed to go to classes anymore.

Harry could not bring himself to be too upset about this; it would be impossible to navigate so much of the castle in his present state of physical feebleness, and he had started to suspect he had been permitted to try in the first place purely to prove a point.

The professors sent work down for him, and Hermione and Ron brought their notes every evening when they visited him. He supposed he would have to make up the practical lessons at some point, but so far it had not been mentioned to him. Harry spent most of his time reading, or working on his homework, or playing card games with Ginny when she came, which was often. Neville and Luna had even stopped in a time or two, and he was more pleased than he wanted to admit that they had not forgotten him.

He was allowed the occasional trip to the library to retrieve books he might need for his studies, and this was where Harry sat now, ensconced alone in an out-of-the-way corner with several Transfiguration tomes spread out in front him, tapping his quill nervously against the tabletop.

Professor McGonagall had come to see him early in the morning to inform him that the meeting regarding Romilda’s suspension would be happening that day at two o’ clock. Evidently this consisted of the headmaster, McGonagall, and Romilda – along with her parents – in a room together, discussing what she had done.

Harry drew in a sharp breath, pushing down his nerves and nausea for the umpteenth time. His quill continued to beat a rhythm on the table as he glanced at his watch: 2:37.

He wondered if it would be over by now.

Deciding that he wasn’t about to get any more studying done with his nerves shot to pieces, Harry gathered up his books and supplies and made his way out of the library.

The library and hospital wing being situated on the same floor meant that the trip back was much too short for Harry’s liking; halfway back, he couldn’t resist ducking out of the doors which led to one of the smaller courtyards. It was deserted, he was glad to see, and he leant against the balustrade, breathing in the crisp winter air. It stung his nose and scratched his throat, but it was the best thing he had felt in days. He scuffed the toe of his shoe against the ground.

Harry longed for the end of term. He kept thinking of the Burrow, of sitting outside in the garden, snow-covered though it would be during the holiday. There would be no Madam Pomfrey or Hanson or McGonagall there to keep him from flying his broom around the orchard, no Romilda or Malfoy to drive him mad…

He had begun counting the days, thinking wryly of the times he had done the same before coming back to Hogwarts each year. Harry sighed and watched grey clouds swirl over the tops of the mountains in the distance.

Before too long he had to admit defeat in face of the cold creeping into every seam of his clothing and reluctantly slunk back inside the castle.

Harry hadn’t gone ten steps when a wordless shout echoed from behind him down the hall. He turned, curious, and stumbled backwards at once – a man he had never seen before was bearing down on him with purpose, face contorted with rage. Before Harry could react, he had been seized by the front of his robes, hauled around, and pushed roughly against the wall. Harry was fighting at once, clutching at the man’s wrists – another shout, a woman’s, sounded from the end of the corridor.

“Get off of me!” Harry snarled, head spinning to make sense of what was happening.

The man – black haired, with a familiar prominent chin – did not let go; he gathered more of Harry’s robes in his fists in an effort to hold him still and put his nose an inch away from Harry’s.

“You little bastard,” the man – who must have been Romilda Vane’s father, Harry realised in shuddering disbelief – growled into his face. “Don’t think for a minute you’re going to get away with this, I’ll have you chucked out of this place if it’s the last thing I do – ”

“Pelagius!”

A woman Harry presumed to be Romilda’s mother seized the man’s arm and did her level best to yank him away from Harry, but his grip merely doubled.

“You make up those disgusting lies about my Romilda – my daughter! – and you’re the one who gets to stay, you’d best expect this isn’t over, I’ll kill you for touching her – ”

“Dad, quit it!”

Romilda’s voice seemed to jolt Mr Vane from his tirade; he looked round at her just in time to be blasted off his feet by a spell to the solar plexus. He toppled to the ground, hard, and slid several feet along the floor.

Harry cast around wildly, sucking in lungfuls of air, and spotted Professor McGonagall standing there drawn up to her full height, wand raised, shaking with the force of her fury. Her eyes glittered, dark and lethal, as she tracked Mr Vane’s movements with the tip of her wand.

“You will leave this school at once,” said McGonagall, voice even, face hard and unforgiving as stone. “And trust you will be hearing from Headmaster Dumbledore about your despicable use of violence against one of our students.”

Harry swallowed. He pulled his robes straight with trembling fingers and watched Mr Vane heave himself to his feet; his wife moved to help him, but he glared at her and she stepped back at once.

Romilda spared Harry a glance, her expression inscrutable, and went to her father.

Mr Vane gathered his daughter close, wrapping a possessive arm around her shoulders, and slunk off with one last glare at Harry, Mrs Vane hurrying along behind them.

Harry stared down the end of the corridor, shaking,  for long seconds after the family had disappeared from sight. A gentle hand gripped his shoulder.

“Potter…”

Harry couldn’t look at her. There was a throbbing pain in both of his shoulder blades, and he focused on this to block out everything else.

“None of what he said to you was true – I hope you know this?”

Harry nodded, barely registering what she was saying, and allowed her to guide him toward the hospital wing, wrapped in silence as they walked.

Madam Pomfrey healed the new bruises on his back and gave him his dinner, sitting with him as always to make sure he finished it.

Harry ate mechanically, downed the potion she pressed into his hands without complaint, and waited for her to leave. He was flat again, uncaring and dulled, and felt no particular way about finally going to his trunk, taking out the old pair of socks into which he had already emptied the Skiving Snackboxes, and heading for the wing’s lavatory.

He sank down to his knees in front of the toilet and pulled out one of the Puking Pastilles.

You little bastard.

Mr Vane had said it, but his mind supplied it in Aunt Petunia’s hissing voice.

Harry bit off a chunk of the orange end of the pastille, and almost immediately felt his dinner coming back up. He vomited violently into the toilet, clutching his sides, body shaking and eyes streaming. His stomach emptied itself of his supper, and the potions, and when there was nothing left but bile he choked down the purple end of the pastille to make it stop.

Harry fell back on his haunches, wiping his mouth and breathing hard.

Ough. He licked his lips and let his head thump back against the wall.

He allowed his heart and lungs to settle before dragging himself up and grabbing his toothbrush, feeling wonderfully, blessedly lighter yet more exhausted than ever. He stared at himself in the little mirror over the sink while he brushed his teeth, but he couldn’t recognise the grey face staring back and he stopped.

When he went to flush the vomit away he noticed little swirls of blood and pulled the toilet handle sharply, a spike of unease shooting through him.

He sat on the edge of his bed for a while, letting his eyes focus on nothing…

“Kreacher,” he croaked, after the sun had set.

The elf appeared once more with his usual air of utter contempt.

“I need you to take me somewhere.”

Harry rapped his frozen knuckles on the door, pulling the scarf up around his ears, and waited.

Hagrid appeared in the doorway a second later with Fang at his heels.

“Harry!” he boomed, going still with shock. “What’re yeh doin’ here?”

He ushered Harry quickly inside and pressed him into the giant armchair by the fire. Hagrid frowned down at him, black eyes crinkled in concern. “Dumbledore’ll be down here in a flash, I reckon, yer not supposed to be out on the grounds.”

“I know…” Harry said. He wasn’t certain how to explain; he did not even truly know why he had decided to come here in the first place, after he had been trying so valiantly to avoid Hagrid as much as possible.

Hagrid sank down into a kitchen chair and looked at Harry the same way a child might look at a favourite stuffed bear that had been chewed up by the family dog.

“Can I just…sit here for a while?” Harry asked, his plea nearly a whisper.

Hagrid’s eyes were moist. His beard twitched. Harry’s hand lay on the armrest, and Hagrid touched it lightly with his large, calloused fingertips. “O’ course yeh can.”

Hagrid got up to send a message to Dumbledore; Harry rested his temple on the plush wing of the armchair and closed his eyes. Fang settled at his feet, heavy and warm, and Harry let himself drift to the sound of the crackling fire and the crickets chirping outside.

Harry did not know how long he stayed, but Hagrid let him be while he chopped vegetables and talked about Grawp, and that was enough for him.

Luna came to visit him next morning.

Harry still felt clouded from his draught-induced sleep and greeted her with a lazy wave from his pile of pillows as she scooted onto the mattress to sit next to his knees.

“Hey, Luna,” he said, eyelids heavy.

Luna gave him a radiant smile and patted his kneecap. “I’ve got something for you,” she told him without preamble.

She reached into the pocket of her striped trousers and brought out what appeared to be a thin cord of braided strands. She dropped it into his palm and beamed.

“I made the strings from a juniper tree, it’s meant to ward off Blabbering Humdingers – they’re cousins of the Blibbering kind, you know – and they’ve been known to sneak into your brain through your nose and make you think bad thoughts.”

Harry turned the bracelet over in his hand. The strands were a mix of braided brown and black, with tiny golden symbols woven inbetween. He ran his thumb over them, realising what they were.

A terrier, an otter, a horse, a hedgehog, and a hare.

Harry’s throat constricted. “Thank you…”

“I hope it works,” she said, picking at the hem of her jumper with a nervousness that was unlike her. “I don’t like to think of you having bad thoughts.”

A vice squeezed Harry’s heart.

“You’re a good friend, Luna.” He carefully slipped the bracelet over his wrist and tightened it to fit. He had to admit he rather liked the colours she’d chosen.

Luna offered him another of her luminous smiles. “I like being your friend.”

“Me, too.”

Luna moved to settle beside him on top of the covers.

“Is this alright?” she asked, unbothered.

“Er – yeah,” said Harry, and found the weight of her arm against his was quite nice.

Luna lay her head down on Harry’s shoulder, and he swallowed down an accompanying upwelling of emotion. She gazed dreamily out the window opposite, watching the snow build up on the sill outside. It only felt natural, after a while, for Harry to lay his head against hers and simply watch the snowfall with her.

December crawled by at a pace that drove Harry to the very brink of his sanity and patience.

The dreams about the red light had come back with a vengeance, fully suppressed only on the nights Madam Pomfrey let him have Dreamless Sleep.

“Dreams are needed,” she lectured when Harry chafed at this restriction. “Without them, human minds simply fall apart.”

Hermione agreed with this, and Harry might have done as well if he hadn’t already felt as though his mind was fracturing in slow motion. He ate because he was watched, and couldn’t exercise because he was watched, and though he despised taking the pastilles they were the one relief he had not been denied yet.

Madam Pomfrey clucked and tutted at his continuous lack of improvement, and it was his greatest fear that he would be discovered, that this one last thing might be taken away. He spelled his trunk so that he would know if it was searched. He kept his cloak and the map locked away, too, worried that they might be taken as well if he used them.

Hanson came again, as cheerful and vexing as ever, though afterwards he holed up in Pomfrey’s office talking with her for such a long while that it left Harry paranoid the man might have seen too much of the slight swelling of Harry’s jaw, the burst blood vessels in his cheeks. He managed to get himself so worked up about it later in the night that Madam Pomfrey came out to find him at three in the morning, breath caught in his lungs and hands all scratched to hell again. Next day he’d found it hard to understand what anyone was saying to him, or to say anything himself.

Ginny visited Harry every day.

She brought him more books (he had already got through the first three) and more hot chocolate, which sometimes he drank. Most of the time he didn’t. They played cards, and chatted about Quidditch, and on the days when Harry felt like his tongue was stuck and his jaw didn’t work she curled up next to him without a word and held his hand until he fell asleep.

Lupin made good on his promise to come back to the castle before Christmas.

Harry spent a quiet evening with Lupin in his quarters, playing chess and sipping ginger tea while Ron berated Harry over his game strategy and Hermione exchanged notes with Lupin on Arithmancy theory. It was a welcome break from the dismal monotony his days had become, and he soothed himself again with thoughts of the upcoming holiday with Lupin and the Weasleys.

Soon enough, prefects were traipsing in and out of the hospital wing to help Madam Pomfrey hang garland and baubles around the place to ring in the Christmas spirit.

When Ron came in to help with this he amused both himself and Harry by standing back to eye Ernie Macmillan’s work and tell him “No, a bit more to the right, no back to the left – no, too high now – ” until Ernie caught on and threatened to strangle Ron with the wreath they were supposed to be pinning to the wall.

On the Thursday before Christmas hols, Harry jerked awake from one of his odd dreams into darkness broken only by the moon shining in through the windows. He frowned, rubbing his eyes, and looked around bleary-eyed for what had woken him.

Draco Malfoy was lounging in a chair, feet propped up on the end rail of the bed next to Harry’s.

Harry scrambled for his glasses and wand and sat up ramrod straight, heart hammering.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Harry hissed.

Malfoy seemed thoroughly unimpressed. He eyed the wand pointing at his heart, the sheets covering Harry’s thin legs.

“Don’t you worry, Potter,” he jeered, “I expect the teachers have got every security spell around you they could possibly pull out of their collective arse.”

The moonlight made Malfoy appear even paler than he had in Potions class several weeks ago. Harry did not lower his wand.

“What do you want?”

Malfoy didn’t answer, simply continued sizing him up. He snorted, as if to himself, and kicked to his feet. “Some protection…” he muttered, twirling his wand in his slender fingers and turning to go. “Sleep tight, Potty. Have a Happy Christmas.”

Harry watched him leave, unsettled.

Adrenaline coursed in his veins, sending pangs through his chest, and it was a long time before he stowed his wand back underneath his pillow.

Harry stayed awake into the early hours of the morning, reading chapter after chapter about a long-buried alien ship driving the whole of a small town into the depths of insanity, and trying not to contemplate the disturbing notion of Draco Malfoy watching him sleep.

“Slughorn’s having a Christmas party.”

Harry snorted. “Yeah, he sent me an invitation.”

Ginny looked up from her notes and cocked her head, interested. She plucked a Bertie Bott’s bean from the bag by her ankle and popped it in her mouth. “Are you allowed to go?”

Harry shrugged. “I didn’t ask. I don’t think I’d really like to, honestly…”

Too many people and too many stares and too many times, probably, that he would have to sit down to catch his breath or turn down offers for slices of sponge cake. Ginny nodded in understanding, quill between her teeth. Harry wondered if he dared to ask, and decided that he did.

“Are you going?”

Ginny considered him. “No. You’re the only one I’d want to go with anyway.”

Their knees were nearly touching. Twin spots of colour brushed the tops of Ginny’s cheeks, but she met his eye, unabashed. Harry was seized by that nebulous, conflicting urge again – the urge to lean over and kiss her that was too tightly bound up with the desire to run away or hide under the bed until she forgot he was there.

He swallowed.

“You should go, if – if you want.”

Ginny smirked. “Thanks, Potter, but I’d rather be here Saturday night.”

“In the hospital wing?” Harry asked, deadpan.

“It’s the happening place,” she assured him, tossing another jelly bean in the air and catching it in her mouth. “Ugh – soap.”

“‘Happening’ – what are you, fifty?”

“Don’t knock fifty-year-olds, they’re the new forty-nine. And I’m telling Mum you said that.”

“She’s forty-seven.”

“Which is the new fifty – trust me, I know these things, you’ll understand when you’re older.”

Harry grinned and went back to his own homework, feeling the knot of tension inside of him ease just the slightest.

In the end, Madam Pomfrey forced him to sit through three separate lectures before she released him for Christmas.

“And one thing I need to discuss with you before I can approve your leaving the castle – you will be staying with Ronald Weasley’s family?”

“Yes,” Harry answered, wary.

“Now, I realise they are not your legal guardians, but as you will be living under their roof for the next fortnight it will be essential to share with them your diet requirements, potions schedule, and the general terms of your treatment. Can you agree to this?”

Harry ran a hand over his face, humiliated. No, he wanted to say, I most definitely don’t agree to this. But if he did not, his other choice was spending an ever-so-cheery Christmas in the hospital wing of an empty school with only silence and Kreacher for company. He shuddered at the thought.

“Yeah, fine, you can tell them,” Harry finally grumbled.

Ideas of a thoroughly peaceful holiday bled away as Pomfrey finished up with him. Harry guessed he should have been prepared for it, but for whatever reason – perhaps out of self-preservation – he had not put much thought into what it was really going to be like going back to the Burrow. He squashed a fresh surge of nerves and picked at his palm, suddenly questioning what Mr and Mrs Weasley and all the others were going to say when they saw him. He knew he was sick (there was no way of avoiding that truth, after everything, even in his own head) but he still could not bring himself to wholly believe that the lengths to which everyone had gone on his behalf weren’t a bit of an overreaction.

Harry fiddled with the bracelet on his wrist in an effort to calm himself, and to block out the sudden dread at the thought of what Mrs Weasley would be making for Christmas dinner.

His trunk and Hedwig would be sent along separately, so later that afternoon Harry made his way unencumbered up to Professor McGonagall’s office to meet Ginny, Ron, and Hermione.

“Oh, I’m going to miss you,” Hermione said, voice muffled in her own hair as she hugged him tightly. Her eyes were shining when she pulled away.

“Hermione, it’s only two weeks,” Harry said, self-conscious. He glanced at McGonagall, but she was busying herself collecting the Floo Powder and seemed not to be paying close attention to their exchange.

“I know, but…” Hermione sniffed. She straightened the collar of Harry’s jacket.

“We’ll be fine,” Ron assured her, and Harry was surprised by the gentleness of his tone.

Hermione nodded and hugged Harry once more, then Ron and Ginny, and took a pinch of the powder from the pot McGonagall offered her. “Stay in touch,” she begged them, “I’ll see you soon.” And then she was spinning in the grate, whisking off to her parents’.

Ron, Ginny, and Harry followed suit and lined up at the fireplace. When it was Harry’s turn at last, McGonagall gripped his arm briefly and surveyed him over her square spectacles. “Have a good Christmas, Potter. Take care of yourself, please.”

Harry nodded as best he could, took a pinch of powder, and stepped into the fire.

“The Burrow!” he shouted, and was swept away in a flash of green.