Harry Potter and the Watcher's Council

Chapter 12: What's My Line

"It's not cynical. I mean, it's realistic. Every guy from... Manimal down to Mr. I-Love-The-English-Patient has beast in him. And I don't care how sensitive they act. They're all still just in it for the chase." -Faith, Beauty and the Beasts

King's Cross practically crawled with people as Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny negotiated their way through the teeming crowds, guarded closely by Buffy, Willow, and Remus Lupin. People shoved along their trolleys, greeting family or saying good-bye to friends; among the throngs of Muggles the occasional wizard family stood out to the discerning eye, making their way surreptitiously through the crowd, parents inexpertly dressed as Muggles walking a pace behind their children, one hand tucked inside their shirt pockets grasping their wands as they gazed around the station nervously. Everyone was on edge, Harry thought as they made their way through the crush of holiday crowds returning from Christmas travels. After the attacks on Christmas Day, wizarding parents throughout the country were eager for their children to return to Hogwarts, widely considered the safest place in all of Britain. It was strange, Harry thought to himself as they approached the barrier between platforms nine and ten. He'd never actually taken the Hogwarts Express at any time other than the beginning or end of the school year.

"All right then," Lupin said, stepping forward to clap Harry on the shoulder, his other hand inside his jacket pocket, no doubt grasping his wand, "Harry, Ginny, and I will go through first. The rest of you follow as soon as possible without attracting too much notice."

Harry glanced up at the older man, whose graying hair and lined features were those of a man much older than Lupin's true years. Harry supposed being a werewolf did that; the stress of monthly transformations took their toll on Lupin's body, lending him the perpetual appearance of illness. Harry wondered not for the first time how awful it must be to suffer through those transformations. Lupin looked constantly tired, and often appeared as if one good gust of wind might just do him in. There had always been a sort of light in the man's eyes though, one that signified hope and humor and intelligence. That spark had dimmed since Sirius died. As they passed through the barrier, Harry wondered how he would feel, if he were in Lupin's place. If Ron and Hermione were both dead, and he the only one left to carry on fighting for the cause...

Platform 9 and 3/4 seemed to spring itself on him as it always did. Harry never failed to feel surprised and delighted by the sudden appearance of an entire magical platform that Muggles couldn't see, and the sight of the scarlet steam engine lifted his spirits somewhat. Harry waited with Lupin and Ginny only a few moments before Ron, Hermione, Buffy, and Willow all fell through the barrier, apparently having taken it at a bit of a run. Buffy turned to look back at the now solid wall of the barrier, shaking her head in amazement.

"Harry," Lupin said quietly, "come with me for a moment?"

Harry nodded and followed Lupin a few steps away. Lupin turned to him, his face serious and his eyes filled with concern.

"Listen Harry, I know I haven't always been there for you. After your parents were killed..." Lupin stared at the ground, taking a deep breath before raising his eyes once more to meet Harry's. "After your parents were killed, and Sirius was taken to Azkaban, I could barely take care of myself, much less a child. And then there was Dumbledore, telling me you'd be safer with the Dursleys. Oh, I knew what kind of people they were. I should never have let that happen but..." he trailed off. "There's no excuse for it really. And I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry."

"Don't," Harry said only. His throat felt strangely tight. He did not want to think about his parents or Sirius or what could have been--what should have been. "It's not important now. And anyway, it hasn't been so terrible, living with the Dursley's..."

"Don't lie, Harry," Lupin chided with a sad smile. "I just want you to know that it won't happen again. Now that Sirius is... gone, I'm responsible for you, and I intend to take that duty quite seriously."

"I miss him," Harry mumbled, staring at his feet. He wasn't sure why he was saying this now, in the middle of a crowded platform, when he could barely allow himself to think about Sirius when he was alone. "I didn't... there was never enough time, you know?"

"There never is," Lupin said gruffly. He pulled Harry into an awkward sort of one-armed hug and ruffled his hair, making it even messier than normal. Harry didn't mind.

They walked back to the rest of the group, already busy loading their trunks onto the train.

"Have you tried to read that diary I sent you?" Lupin asked as they approached the others. Harry shook his head.

"I forgot about it," he admitted. "What with the attacks, and Hermione being in hospital, and then that weird purple demon..." Lupin smiled kindly, his eyes glinting with just a touch of mischievousness.

"You won't be sorry, I promise. Go ahead and give it a go. You never know--it might help."

Lupin said his good-byes, shaking everyone's hand and clapping Harry on the shoulder once more.

"Be careful," he told Harry in an undertone as the others boarded the train. "Keep practicing your Defense, and your Occlumency." He grinned and ruffled Harry's hair once more, as if he couldn't quite help it. "And give old Snivellus a hard time just once, for me."

Harry boarded the train grinning, feeling better than he had all holiday, just in time to witness Ginny's reunion with none other than Draco Malfoy.

"Excuse me, Professors," Malfoy was saying to Buffy and Willow as they stood on either side of Ginny, a disgustingly charming smile flashing across his face. "Could I borrow Weasley for a moment?"

Harry felt such a strong a surge of anger at the sight of the other boy's pale pointed face that before he had made the decision to do it, he was pushing his way between Buffy and Ginny, coming face to face with Malfoy. Without so much as a word of warning, Harry shoved the other boy hard in the chest. He felt as if his rage radiated from him in long waves of heat; Malfoy stumbled back, tripping on the hem of his robes to fall in a graceless heap at Harry's feet. Harry heard Ginny yell in protest distantly from behind him, but he paid no mind to her. The only thing that existed for him at that moment was Malfoy, who stared up at him, his grey eyes devoid of emotion, coldly appraising. Harry's anger only intensified at the sight of that cool gaze--that Malfoy could appear so uncaring, so indifferent, when Colin and Terry were dead, when Hermione had nearly been killed...

With a snarl Harry launched himself on the fallen boy. He wanted to rip out those eyes, to stop them staring at him without so much as a trace of regret for the lives he'd ruined. If Malfoy had shown even the least bit of humanity, of understanding, then maybe... but no. The next few moments passed in a haze of red--the slick feeling of Malfoy's skin beneath his fingers, Harry's nails gauging deep trenches wherever they could find purchase, the distant pain of Malfoy struggling beneath him, the immense satisfaction of his hands slipping in sweat and blood, followed by Malfoy's desperate whimper... and then black.

Harry floated for a few precious moments in black, consciousness swept away by the all encompassing oppressiveness of darkness. And then the lights came back on and the world looked as if it had been dyed red once more. He reached out a hand hesitantly to touch the color, gasping in surprise at the feel of velvet against his fingertips. He blinked and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, trying to clear his vision. The red was some sort of curtain, in which he seemed to be hopelessly entangled.

"Help!" he called out. "I seem to be lost." The sea of red parted suddenly, revealing Hermione's bushy head. Harry had never felt so relieved to see her.

"There you are, Harry," she said. Harry grinned foolishly. It felt as if it had been years since he'd heard that practical, bossy voice reprimanding him. "We've been looking for you everywhere! The play is about to start."

She helped him up and through the slit in the curtain. He brushed himself off, looking around. The curtain concealed a stage, upon which several Hogwarts students stood, along with Professor Snape, who was handing out parts on sheets of parchment, his usual sneer replaced by a disturbingly nervous grin. Hermione tugged him forward toward the group of students.

Ron was there, dressed as a World War II era general, complete with a very realistic-looking gun and several stripes decorating his chest. Hermione wore a sparkling crown and a poofy evening dress, and carried what looked to be a scepter, as if she had just been made Queen of England. Colin Creevey was there, snapping pictures as usual, while Draco Malfoy lounged in a metal folding chair in full Nazi youth regalia, his expression a picture of abject boredom. Ginny stood close to Snape, wearing a costume of animal skins and tossing her knife from one hand to the other with casual skill.

Harry approached Snape cautiously and cleared his throat. "Er, excuse me, Professor Snape, sir. I haven't got a part."

"It's hardly my fault you've lost it," Snape snapped, looking harried and frazzled, eyeing the curtain nervously. "You'd better know your lines, Potter. We're all depending on you, here."

"My lines?" Harry squeaked. "But I haven't even got a costume. We haven't rehearsed!"

Malfoy snorted. "You missed rehearsal, didn't you? You great prat. Harry Potter thinks he's too good to practice like the rest of us. Well, this is what you get." His silver eyes flicked to Snape. "And you thought he would make a better lead than me. I can't believe we're forced to depend on this." He waved a hand dismissively at Harry.

"Places everyone!" Snape called out. "Curtain in thirty seconds!"

The group of students scattered. Harry hurried after Ron, finally managing to grab the other boy by the sleeve.

"What is it now, Harry?" Ron asked irritably. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

Harry glanced anxiously at the curtain. "I can't do this! I don't know my lines. I don't even have a costume!"

Ron's eyes flicked up and down Harry's body. "Don't be ridiculous. That is your costume."

Harry glanced down at himself. Instead of the robes that he normally wore, he found himself clad in his usual summer apparel: Dudley's old cast offs, baggy and worn thin with age and use, and his pair of old trainers, their uppers peeling away from the soles.

"But this isn't me anymore," Harry told his friend desperately. "I'm a wizard now. This is behind me." Ron let out a bark of laughter and clapped Harry on the shoulder affectionately.

"Good one, Harry. This is the real you. It always will be, no matter how famous you get or how many monsters you defeat." Ron gasped and backed away quickly. "It's curtain!" he said a loud whisper.

Harry turned just in time to see the red velvet glide smoothly to either side of the stage. On the other side, his primary school classroom appeared, filled with a mixture of Muggles and wizards alike: Piers Polkiss, Ginny, Dudley, Hermione, Ron, and even Pansy Parkinson were all there. Harry stared at them in shock, while they stared back expectantly.

"What's my line?" he asked, glancing around frantically for Snape or anyone else who might be able to help him.

The class burst into laughter. Hermione whispered something in Ron's ear, pointing at Harry, and Ron threw his head back and laughed in unrestrained mirth. The laughter seemed to go on and on. Harry had to shout to make himself heard over it.

"Stop!" he yelled. "This isn't me! I haven't got a part. It's not my fault!"

But the laughter continued to ring in his ears, so loud that he had to clap his hands over them to shut out the sound. Clenching his eyes shut, Harry sank to his knees, threw his head back, and screamed.

* * *

Harry awoke to the last person he ever wanted to have watching him in his sleep leaning over him and yelling in his ear.

"Sweet Merlin, Potter! Do stop screaming before I knock you unconscious again!"

"Malfoy?" Harry croaked, squinting to make out the outline of the other boy hovering somewhere above him. The room was dark, the only source of light a thin bar of white beneath the door. Harry sat up carefully, trying to make out where he was while giving Malfoy a deadly glare which was no doubt lost on the other boy due to the almost total darkness of the room. All Harry could really make out was that wherever they were, it was a rather small, enclosed sort of space, and not at all the kind of place he wanted to be in with Malfoy of all people. It seemed to be some kind of... Harry frowned.

"Why am I in a cupboard with you?" he asked suspiciously, searching his pockets frantically for his wand. This was undoubtedly some nefarious Death Eater trap to kidnap him and hand him over to Voldemort. That, or they'd gotten smart and finally decided to do him in when they got the chance...

"Don't bother searching for your wand," Malfoy said in a dull voice, sitting back against the door so that he faced Harry.

"Why?" Harry asked quickly. "What have you done with it, and do you have to be touching me?" Harry asked, trying to rearrange his legs in the confined area so that no part of him brushed against any part of Malfoy.

Harry could sense Malfoy's glare, even if the darkness prevented him from seeing it.

"I haven't done anything with your wand. Anyway, it was you that attacked me! And now, because of your typical Gryffindor foolishness, Buffy and Willow have taken away our wands and locked us in this closet in order to work things out. This is all your fault, you know," he continued bitterly. "If it isn't bad enough that I'm now forced to spend time with the Boy Who Lived To Be An Annoying Git, you've also bloodied my nose. If it doesn't set properly because certain professors neglected to allow me access to proper medical attention," at this point he paused to pound his fist against the door, "then believe me, there will be consequences. Dire, terrible consequences."

Harry stared at Malfoy incredulously. "They've locked us in here to what?" he asked. "Don't they understand that nearly six years of mutual hatred isn't just going to disappear if we chat about it for an hour? How thick can you get?"

Malfoy snorted. "That may be the first time we've ever agreed on something, Potter. Oh, well, I suppose I'm forgetting dear Ginny in that estimation."

Harry could make out Malfoy's smirk in the darkness. He fumed silently for a few minutes. He wanted to hit Malfoy again, to leap on him and wipe that stupid smirk off his face, but the space was so small that he'd probably end up damaging himself as much as he would Malfoy. His body ached from their previous tussle, and suddenly Harry was simply too exhausted to maintain his fury.

He sighed tiredly and let his head rest against the wall, shutting his eyes. Maybe he could use this time to rest, because there was no way he and Malfoy would ever actually work things out, whatever that meant. There was simply too much history between them, too much pent up hostility and downright hatred for that to happen, not to mention Ginny...

An idea came so suddenly to Harry that he gasped out loud, then coughed loudly to cover his gasp. Whatever secrets Ginny had been keeping from him... Malfoy probably knew them all. And perhaps, if he manipulated the conversation the right way, he could get Malfoy to reveal something.

As if no time had passed since Malfoy's last comment, Harry replied, "What is it between you and Ginny anyway? You can't honestly care for her."

"Isn't it obvious, Potter?" Malfoy said, his voice so self-satisfied that it made Harry grit his teeth in annoyance. "I would think that even you, with your entire lack of deductive reasoning skills, would have figured it out. Ginny is, well there's no way to say this that isn't going to sound crass... she's easy. She puts out. She's a regular lay, and although in theory I'm all for house loyalty and pride, she's a sight better looking than any of the girls in Slytherin." He shuddered delicately as if just imagining his housemates made him ill. "We're lovers, Potter."

"That's not true," Harry denied vehemently, although he had no proof of that.

"I've had her in ways you'll only ever be able to imagine, Potter, since I highly doubt any girl would willingly touch you with a ten-foot pole. And don't try to fool me. I've seen the way you look at her, the way your eyes get all glassy and your mouth forms into that dopey smile. It kills you that she'd rather be with me."

Harry's cheeks burned hotly, but he forced himself to stay calm. "She kissed me, did you know? On Christmas Day, right after she'd gotten your morbid knife thing. She's been in love with me for years. I saved her life--do you have any idea what that means? We're bonded, Ginny and I, for life--it's what happens when one wizard saves another's life. Only I don't suppose you'd know anything about that, considering that all you're interested in is killing."

"You're lying," Malfoy said, his voice low and dangerous. "She wouldn't...she'd never... you're just saying this to try to get to me."

Harry frowned. Malfoy sounded strangely vulnerable and--if it were possible for Malfoy to actually have feelings--as if he were hurt by the idea that Ginny had kissed him. Could it be possible that Malfoy actually did have feelings for Ginny, and that he wasn't simply using her for her connection to Harry?

Feeling more confused than ever, Harry shrugged. "Believe what you want. But what's between Ginny and me... you'll never be able to break that, Malfoy."

"How disgustingly sentimental," Malfoy sneered. Harry could see his lip curl even in the dimness of the closet. "Just remember this: you may have a bond with her, you may even have her love for all I know, but I have her, and I have her trust. Can you say the same?"

Harry swallowed painfully and shut his eyes against the sight of the boy sitting across from him. Malfoy was right. Maybe at one point Ginny had loved him, but he had gone and wasted that by treating her like a child, excluding her, ignoring her... and, he admitted to himself, alienating her by going after Cho last year. She didn't love him anymore--from the way she'd been acting since Halloween, Harry wasn't even certain she liked him anymore--and she certainly didn't trust him. Harry could spout off about sacred wizarding bonds to Malfoy all he liked, but he knew it didn't really mean anything. After all, he had a similar bond with Wormtail, and that had helped him not a bit in that graveyard his fourth year. No, whether he liked it or not, Malfoy was right--he had lost Ginny's trust, had lost Ginny altogether, and it had been his own fault.

Feeling more confused than ever, Harry sighed and clenched his fists at the onslaught of emotions he was feeling--rage, pain, grief, hatred. He wished desperately for the train to arrive in Hogsmeade so that he could escape the stare of Malfoy's strange silver eyes. Harry could feel the weight of Malfoy's gaze like a heavy shroud. He had never hated the other boy more than he did at that moment. They sat in silence for the rest of the train ride. Tension, thick and nearly unbearable, spun between them like a web, the only acknowledgment that one another existed.

***********

It was Hermione who finally let them out of the closet, wringing her hands and glancing warily from Malfoy to Harry and back again as they blinked owlishly at the sudden onslaught of brightness after hours spent in the dark. When the spots disappeared from his eyes, Harry saw that Ginny stood behind Hermione, her hands on her hips in a defiant stance. Harry got to his feet unsteadily, his muscles aching and sore from his cramped position in the closet. He glared at Ginny.

"This is all your fault, you know," he told her. "And honestly, I don't think much of your taste in boyfriends. But you know what, Ginny? If that, that slimy git is what you want, then fine. Fine! You want to be left alone to join Malfoy's little gang of baby Death Eaters? Well we can't stop you and I, for one, am sick of trying!" Harry paused, breathing hard, aware that Hermione and Malfoy were both watching him with expressions of curious shock on their faces. Harry took a step forward so that he was only an arm's length from Ginny. He stared into her face for a long moment. Her eyes shone with pain and anger, and she looked ready to slap him. Harry found himself almost wishing she would, so that he could retaliate in kind.

Instead he clenched his eyes shut for a moment before leaning in a bit closer to whisper in her ear so the others couldn't hear. "I thought we could be friends," he told her, his voice low and harsh. "I thought we could even be something more. But now..." He gave her a look of pure disgust. "Now I don't even know you, and what's more, I don't want to."

With that Harry pushed passed her, sending her stumbling into the wall of the train corridor. He strode quickly away from them, refusing to look back, refusing to acknowledge the terribly hurt, saddened look in Ginny's eyes as he'd whispered those last few words.

Hermione caught up with him as he was rummaging through the baggage compartment, searching for his trunk. "Harry," she gasped, having run the entire length of the train to catch him. "What did you say to Ginny? She looked like she was about to cry! And you can stop looking in there, they've already taken your trunk and Hedwig's cage out to the carriages. We'd better get out there ourselves if we don't want to end up walking through the village to get to Hogwarts."

Harry felt a twinge of guilt at Hermione's words but pushed it firmly aside. What did he care if Ginny was hurt? She hurt him everyday just by being this new Ginny; by going round with Malfoy and defending him and kissing him and yelling at Ron and Harry and anyone else who cared about her. And, Harry had to admit to himself as he followed Hermione onto the platform, Malfoy had been right about one thing, at least. The thing he was most upset about was the fact that Ginny would rather be with Malfoy, one of her worst enemies, than be with Harry. It didn't seem fair that now, just when Harry was coming to realize that he cared for Ginny as more than just a friend or Ron's sister, she'd decided to go completely round the bend and become, well, evil.

Harry fumed through the entire carriage ride back to the castle, ignoring Ron's and Hermione's sympathetic, questioning looks as he glared moodily out the window. Finally, Hermione broke the strained silence by clearing her throat nervously.

"I want to get started on the Vrai Vu potion immediately," she began cautiously. "That is, if you still want to do it."

"Of course we do!" Ron exclaimed, ignoring Harry's glare. "There's something wrong with Ginny, we can all see that there is. Maybe, if we know what kind of spell she's under, we can reverse it," he added hopefully.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. "It's entirely possible," she said, "but remember that Love Potions are nearly irreversible."

"She's not under any kind of spell," Harry said grimly, still staring out the window. "She just likes that disgusting, evil..." He trailed off, taking a deep breath. "She just likes Malfoy, is all. I think we should forget about the potion and just let her be."

"Harry, mate, what did Malfoy say to you in that closet?" Ron asked, his voice verging between anger and disbelief. "Ginny does not actually like him. It's genetically impossible! And I refuse to believe it!"

Harry just sighed, his anger having quickly turned to sadness and disappointment. He should've known that the moment he decided he cared for someone, they would leave him--they always did.

"Fine," he said finally. "Let's do the potion. Hermione, you'll have to be responsible for getting the blood, because neither of us can get into the girls' dormitory. I think we should do it while she's sleeping."

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "I can sneak in and Stun her while she's asleep. We'll only need a few drops of blood for the potion--a pin prick should do the trick. The Stunning spell should've worn off by morning, and she'll never know I was there."

"All right then. We can get started tomorrow. I want this done as quickly as possible," Ron said, a hard look in his eye. "The sooner Ginny is out from under this spell the better. And besides which," he added with a bit of a smile, "I don't fancy telling Mum why Ginny's suddenly gone Darth Vader on us."

*****

Harry had a shock that evening in the common room when, in the midst of attempting to finish the holiday homework he'd left until the last minute, he was approached by Katie, Seamus, and Natalie, all three of them looking extremely uncomfortable. They exchanged nervous glances before Katie cleared her throat and stared expectantly at Harry. Hermione and Ron, who were playing chess at the next table didn't bother to look up, but Harry knew that Hermione, at least, was listening.

"Er, have I got something on my face?" Harry asked, wondering why they were staring at him. And then it hit him. "Quidditch! Damn. I'd completely forgotten. I suppose you're wanting to know about practice."

Natalie nudged Katie and the older girl shifted uncomfortably before speaking. "Well, that's just it, Harry. The thing is... it's just that..." Katie stared at the table, seeming unable to form a coherent sentence. Seamus swallowed and tried to help out.

"We're a Beater short," he blurted out. "Now that Colin's..." His eyes shifted to the far side of the room, where Dennis Creevey sat with a few other third years playing a lackluster game of Exploding Snap.

Harry stared at them, his mouth gaping open. In all the excitement and tragedy of the holidays, he'd completely forgotten that Colin had been on the Quidditch team. Seamus was right, they were a Beater short, and Harry could hardly imagine where they'd find a replacement this late in the season. He stared helplessly at his teammates' faces, not knowing what to say.

"I... well, I hadn't thought about it, actually," he admitted. He had tried everything in his power not to think about it, truth be told. He didn't want to think about Colin and Terry and the rest that had died Christmas day. But now that he was back at school, he supposed the reprieve was over; every time he had a class with Ravenclaw, he'd feel like something was missing, and every time he saw Dennis without Colin, his world would feel simply, horrendously wrong. But Katie and Seamus were right--he needed to start thinking about it sooner rather than later, because the match with Ravenclaw was only a month away.

"I suppose we'll have to have another round of trials," Harry said finally, shaking his head. "I don't know what else we can do..."

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, abandoning all pretense of playing chess to interrupt the conversation. "You're not honestly considering continuing to play for the cup after what's happened?" Almost everyone in the room turned to stare at them--Hermione had been quite loud.

"Er, well... yeah. I mean, we've got the match against Ravenclaw coming up. What else can we do? We'll never win the House Championship without winning at Quidditch."

"Come on, Hermione," Ron said. "Don't be silly--of course we're going to play. It's Quidditch."

Hermione stood up, glaring at them all menacingly. "That's just it, don't you see? This is exactly what the Sorting Hat warned us about--things like Quidditch that divide the school against itself! Well I for one don't think Gryffindor should play at all. All the house teams have lost a player except Slytherin. It's just not right, to continue competing against each other in silly games when people--when our friends--are dying all around us!"

"Are you mad?!" Harry heard a first year call out, followed by several other grumbles and murmurs around him. Harry shook his head.

"Hermione, we can't just stop playing. It'll just mean we forfeit, and Slytherin will end up winning."

"Oh, who cares if Slytherin wins the bloody House Championship! It's not important, can't you see that? It doesn't mean anything!" Hermione cried out, her eyes filled with tears.

"Harry," a small voice said from the back of the room. The rest of the Gryffindors fell silent as Dennis Creevey pushed his way toward them. He paused in front of Harry and Hermione, looking sad and much smaller than Harry remembered. He stared from Hermione to Harry warily. "For what it's worth, I think Hermione is right. There's enough fighting and strife in the world already--can't we have this one place, this one time, to be at peace? I think..." he paused, biting his trembling lip as if to keep from crying, "I think it's what Colin would've wanted."

The common room erupted into a cacophony of sound, until Harry could no longer pick out one voice from another. Sighing, he stared from Hermione and Dennis to his teammates, who looked ready for mutiny if he said they'd forfeit the cup.

"I need time to think about this," he told them, packing up his things. "I just need to think..."

Harry lay in bed a few minutes later, the curtains drawn around him to block out the sounds of his fellow sixth years when they inevitably returned from the common room. He stared at the ceiling, thinking hard about what Hermione and Dennis had said. He wanted to honor Colin's memory, to show Gryffindor and the rest of the school that his and the other Muggle born students' deaths meant something, but he wasn't convinced that quitting Quidditch was the best way to go about it. At best it may help unify the school somewhat, but at worst, it would only give the Slytherins an all too easy climb to the top of the house standings. Harry's fists clenched involuntarily at the thought of Malfoy holding the Quidditch Cup in victory, of Dumbledore announcing that Slytherin had won the House Championship... despite Hermione's protestations to the contrary, Harry felt like the House Championship meant quite a bit, especially when it came to beating Slytherin. He could just imagine the look on Ginny's face if Slytherin won: she'd be sitting with Malfoy, and she'd cheer with the rest of them, and give him a kiss...

Harry frowned into the darkness. Was that what all this was about? Did he want to play Quidditch so badly because he didn't want Slytherin to win, or was it that he didn't want Malfoy to have that satisfaction, because he was... jealous? Harry rolled onto his side and pressed his face into his pillow, trying to escape the thought. But he couldn't--no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, his mind returned again and again to the idea that he couldn't see the rightness behind Hermione's words, couldn't make sense of them, because he was, quite simply, terribly jealous of Draco Malfoy. He couldn't bear the thought that Malfoy, who had already taken Ginny, would take the Quidditch Cup and the House Championship as well.

Sighing, Harry clenched his eyes shut and tried to force his mind into some semblance of peace. He would decide tomorrow, he thought to himself as he drifted to sleep. There was always tomorrow...

* * *

Harry's dreams were troubled and scattered that night. He tossed restlessly in his bed as visions of battles and monsters flashed through his unconscious mind, brief glimpses of things he could barely grasp, let alone understand, snatches of conversation that hardly made sense...

... Now that's everything, huh? No weapons... No friends... No hope. Take all that away... and what's left?...

...You think you can fight me? I'm not a demon, little girl. I am something that you can't even conceive. The First Evil. Beyond sin, beyond death. I am the thing the darkness fears. You'll never see me, but I am everywhere. Every being, every thought, every drop of hate...

...Angel, you have the power to do real good, to make amends. But if you die now, then all that you ever were was a monster...

...Dates are things normal girls have. Girls who have time to think about nail polish and facials. You know what I think about? Ambush tactics. Beheading. Not exactly the stuff dreams are made of....

...I lost a friend tonight. And I may lose more! The whole earth may be sucked into Hell, and you want my help 'cause your girlfriend's a big ho? Well, let me take this opportunity to not care...

...Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you. But this is the work that I have to do. Tell Giles ... tell Giles I figured it out. And, and I'm okay. And give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world ... is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me...

When Harry awoke the next morning his head was pounding and his scar itched uncomfortably. It was early yet. He could hear the sounds of the other sixth year boys that indicated they were still sleeping--the occasional snore or rustle of bed sheets as they tossed in their sleep. Harry stared at the ceiling, trying to remember the images from his dream. He had been in Buffy's dreams again, of that he was sure. There had been so much fighting and death and loss... he didn't understand how she had gone through all that and still managed to survive. If it had been him facing down apocalypse after apocalypse, having to watch his friends be injured or die or worse--turn on him... he didn't think he would have been able to handle it. Despite the headache the dream had caused, Harry was almost fiercely glad he'd had it. Seeing everything Buffy had been through reminded him of what was important in life: not Quidditch or winning the House Championship or beating Malfoy, but his friends and family, keeping them safe and doing as much as he could in the fight against Voldemort. Hermione was right, Harry thought grimly as he got out of bed and dressed hurriedly. Quidditch and house points--none of that mattered now. In fact, those were the very things that held him and everyone else back, creating false divisions in the school, creating enmity and discord in a time when everything would depend on strength in unity.

With that in mind Harry gathered his things and headed down to the common room. He wasn't surprised to find Hermione already there, sitting in her favorite chair by the fire waiting for him. The moment she saw him she seemed to know that he had come to a decision. She threw herself at him in a bone-crushing hug and sobbed against his neck.

"Oh Harry! I knew you'd make the right decision, I just knew it!" She pulled away from him and smiled sheepishly.

Harry shrugged, but felt secretly pleased by her reaction. "Look Hermione, just because I'm going to resign as captain doesn't mean McGonagall won't just go ahead and choose another one. It doesn't mean that the rest of the team or any of the other houses, for that matter, will follow my lead. But I do think you're right. I love Quidditch, but right now we've got more important things to be worrying about."

Hermione shook her head. "You're wrong, Harry. People will follow you, just because it's you. You're a leader Harry. People look to you before making their own decisions. What will you say? How will you address the school? Maybe we should talk to Professor Dumbledore, see if he'll let you make an announcement..."

Harry shook his head. An announcement? Address the school? He hadn't thought that far ahead, of letting the school know he was resigning in such a, well, very public way. He'd just planned to tell his team and McGonagall, maybe try to get the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw teams to pull out of the Quidditch Cup. He hadn't thought of giving some sort of speech in front of the entire school.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Hermione," Harry said finally, feeling a wave of panic wash over him.

"Well it's your decision, obviously," Hermione said, looking a bit put out, "but I really think you ought to make a big deal out of it, announce it to the whole school so that--"

"Announce what to the school?" Ron asked as he hopped the last few steps of the stair from the dormitory, looking mussed and still half-asleep.

"That he's resigning as team captain," Hermione said briskly. "And you should resign too, Ron. School unity is far more important than some silly game."

Harry suppressed the groan of frustration he felt at Hermione's words. Insulting Quidditch was the very last thing that would bring Ron to their way of thinking. Ron stared at them both incredulously, his mouth gaping open in a manner that would have been comic if the situation weren't quite so serious.

"You're resigning?" Ron sputtered. "Resigning?! That's just... it's ridiculous is what it is! Quitting Quidditch isn't going to bring Colin back, Harry! It's not going to do anything except let that git Malfoy get his slimy paws on the Quidditch Cup!"

"You're wrong, Ron," Harry said tiredly. "Look, can't we just go down to breakfast? We'll talk about it later."

Harry spent the better part of the meal trying to avoid the looks his friends were giving him, Ron's angry and Hermione's pleading. He'd talk to McGonagall after Transfiguration, he decided. They had it first thing Mondays, and he had a break directly afterward, so he'd be able to discuss his decision at length with her. Then he'd have to talk to Ron and the rest of the team, and try to convince them... for a moment Harry wondered if it was worth all the trouble, just to make a statement.

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by a low, drawling voice from behind him. "So, Mr. Potter," Snape said loudly, so that his voice carried across the hall. The chatter around him died down as Harry turned to face his professor. "It seems that you attacked one of my students unprovoked in a rather revolting display of Muggle dueling."

Harry narrowed his eyes at Snape and stood from the table. "I rather thought, sir," Harry said, trying to stay calm, "that his very existence was provocation enough."

Hermione gasped and Ron snorted, but the rest of the hall fell eerily silent at his words. Even Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore had paused in eating their breakfasts to watch the confrontation with concerned eyes. Snape's face turned a molted red-purple color and his lips thinned to near nonexistence, the corners of his mouth white with rage.

"Detention," he hissed, his black eyes snapping and fever bright, "for a month! And seventy-five points from Gryffindor!"

A collective gasp came from the Gryffindor table as they turned almost in unison to watch the rubies fly from the hourglass that marked their house points. Harry simply shrugged, an idea coming to him suddenly. Against his will, Snape had just provided Harry an excellent opportunity to make his point.

"Take the points, take them all for all I care," he told Snape in a quiet voice that nevertheless carried throughout the hall. "Do you really think it matters-- points, or who wins the Quidditch Cup, or the House Championship? Look around you, sir! We're at war. A few days ago two of my housemates died, and I'm supposed to care about points and petty house rivalries?" Harry looked around the room at the silent, shocked faces of his schoolmates. He raised his voice so that he could be sure his next words would be heard. "Well I don't care. None of these things matter. What matters is defending ourselves, doing whatever we can, whatever possible, to fight against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. And while we remain divided by these false separations of houses and points and competition, then we'll never be strong enough to fight."

"You're children," Snape hissed, looking very much as if he wanted to smack Harry. "The war is not your concern. It is ours to wage."

"You're waging the war," Harry replied, his own anger rising, "but we'll be the ones to fight in it! And how can we fight Voldemort when we're too busy fighting each other?" He looked around the room, trying to gauge whether or not his words were having any effect at all. Some of the students were nodding as if they agreed with him. Others--mostly Slytherins, but some people from other houses as well--were smiling in delight, probably wondering how many more months of detention Snape would give him for this. But most of them simply looked confused and uncertain and suddenly, Harry realized why. He had not given them a solution to the problem of division...

Harry took a deep breath and, with a nod of encouragement from Hermione, spoke again. "I quit," he announced simply. "I quit the Quidditch team, and I quit Gryffindor. I love my house, and maybe in different times, in better times, it would be all I needed. But these are not those times. A reckoning is coming, coming soon, and we all know it. And when it comes, bravery won't be enough to see me--to see any of us--through. What is courage without intelligence, without loyalty, without cleverness and drive? On the battlefield it will mean nothing. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw... these are meaningless categories that only distance us from each other. We all lost friends this Christmas, and we'll lose more if we continue to fight amongst ourselves. You can join me or not," he finished in a low, harsh voice, "but either way I refuse to recognize the divisions between us. We're all wizards in brotherhood and that," he said with a meaningful glare at Snape, "is what matters."

Without making a conscious decision to do so, Harry reached up and ripped the Gryffindor badge off his robes. He lit it on fire with a murmured word and a flick of his wand. The school watched in stunned silence as it burned. Harry strode from the Great Hall, too filled with emotion to look back.

* * *

"You burned your badge!" Hermione whispered in a voice that was both horrified and delighted when she caught up with him ten minutes later outside the Transfiguration classroom. "You burned your badge, and Snape's given you a month's worth of detention!" She rang her hands nervously before launching herself at Harry, giving him yet another bone-crushing hug. "Oh, Harry, you were wonderful! I wouldn't be surprised if everyone turns up without their house badges."

Hermione was only half-right. When the rest of the Gryffindors arrived for Transfiguration, followed quickly by McGonagall, who gave him a strangely closed look as she passed by his desk, many of them had, indeed, removed their Gryffindor badges. Neville, Dean, Parvati, and Lavender all arrived in class without badges, reminding Harry forcibly of first year, when they'd all arrived at Hogwarts un-Sorted, nervously waiting for an old hat to tell them were they belonged. Harry was stricken to see that both Ron and Seamus still wore their badges, and both of them seemed content to glare at Harry through the entirety of McGonagall's lesson on Conjuring spells. Harry tried to concentrate on the lesson, blocking out Seamus and Ron as best he could. As Conjuring spells proved to be extremely difficult, taking up all of his concentration, Harry found the task of ignoring his teammates much easier than he expected.

"Don't worry about Ron," Hermione whispered to him as he struggled to Conjure a tea cup. Hermione had already successfully Conjured an entire matched tea set and was attempting to help Harry. "He'll come around, once he realizes how important this is."

Harry nodded, brushing his hair out of his eyes and staring intently at the space in front of him. He waved his wand in the complicated manner McGonagall had shown them at the beginning of class, furiously imagining Trelawney's pink patterned tea cups as if he could make one appear by sheer force of will. He whispered the spell and to his great surprise and Hermione's delighted squeal of appreciation, a delicate cup and saucer materialized out of thin air on the desk in front of him.

"There you go, Potter," McGonagall said from behind him. Harry turned with a grin, feeling very pleased with himself that he'd managed such a tricky bit of magic. McGonagall raised her eyebrows at him. "Normally I'd give ten points to Gryffindor, but I suppose under the circumstances..." she trailed off with a thoughtful look, then, with a wave of her wand, produced a small, coin-like object out of thin air and handed it to Harry. "That's the ticket," she said. "Carry on."

As she turned to watch Parvati attempt to Conjure, Harry examined the object she had given him. It was indeed very coin-like, greatly resembling a sickle, but instead of the usual engravings on the face of the metal, a curvy bit of writing scrawled across it: Get out of detention free pass. On the back of the coin was McGonagall's distinctive signature, which Harry recognized from his Hogwart's letters. Hermione took the coin and examined it, finally handing it back to him with a snort of satisfaction.

"Excellent," she told him in an undertone as she Conjured a cup and saucer to match Harry's, complete with steaming tea, "now you can get out of detention with Snape tonight. I've got everything we need for the potion aside from the oleander. We need to start putting it together tonight, before the blood dries."

Harry looked around at Ron, who was sweating furiously as he waved his wand, trying to Conjure his own tea cup. "What about Ron? He's got the dagger, and he won't want to be around us now. Maybe we should just let him get on with it..."

Hermione shook her head. "I told you, Harry, he'll come around. And besides, this potion... it's been known to go terribly wrong in the past. The pictures in Most Potente Potions of wizards who've botched it aren't pretty. And Ron wouldn't be able to read it anyway--he wouldn't know an arithmantic equation if it walked up to him in Buffy's leather trousers. If we're going to do this, it'd better be me."

Harry watched Ron worriedly, wondering if Hermione was right. That time during his fourth year when Ron had refused to speak to him... Harry didn't know if he could take another term like that one. He turned back to his tea cups as Hermione took a sip from her own. She promptly spit out the liquid, her face scrunched up in distaste.

"Ugh. It's terrible! I'll have to work on that, I suppose. Dumbledore makes it look so easy..."

As Hermione went back to her own work, Harry could only hope that Ron would come to his senses soon. With a month's worth of detentions from Snape to deal with along with everything else, Harry knew he'd need all the support he could get in the coming months.

* * *

That night Harry made his way from the dungeons, where he'd given a disgruntled Snape his detention pass, to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, where Hermione was waiting for him, her cauldron already set up in the far right-hand stall. To his surprise, Ron was there as well, still wearing his Gryffindor badge, but looking resigned.

Harry stopped dead when he saw his friend, his eyes flicking back and forth between Ron and Hermione trying to assess the situation. After a few moments of silence, Ron finally spoke.

"Look mate," he said in a flat voice that sounded a bit as if he had memorized what he was saying, "I know you're only doing what you think is right. And just because we're friends doesn't mean we have to agree about everything, right? We've got more important things to worry about, right?"

"Exactly," Hermione said, although the subtlety seemed to be lost on Ron, who nodded gratefully. "Well," Hermione continued, looking around at the bags of ingredients on floor of the bathroom and consulting her book, "I think we've got everything we need. We have a week before the oleander will be ready to pick, but this way we can have everything ready to go when--"

She was interrupted by a voice from behind them that made Harry jump slightly at its close proximity to his ear.

"Hello, Harry," Moaning Myrtle said. Harry spun around to find the ghost almost directly behind him. With a start of surprise he took several steps backward. Myrtle pouted. "Making potions again, are we?" Myrtle asked slyly.

"Oh, hello Myrtle," Harry said, ignoring her question. "How've you been?"

"Lonely," Myrtle said petulantly. "No one ever comes to visit me anymore, except that nasty Slytherin and his girlfriend, but of course they're too busy to talk to poor, moaning Myrtle. Everyone's too busy to talk to me," she complained.

Ron's eyes narrowed as he stared at the ghost. "Myrtle," he said nonchalantly, "do you know which Slytherin it is that comes here?"

Myrtle's pearly face seemed to brighten a little in what Harry thought must be a ghostly blush. "I don't know his name, of course, because he would never notice someone like me," she said, her voice a little dreamy, "but he's got very pretty blond hair. His girlfriend seems to consider him quite the kisser, I can tell you that much."

Ron turned red and began muttering under his breath. Harry stared at Myrtle, confused.

"But Myrtle," he said, "why would anyone come to a bathroom to snog, when there are plenty of nice, unhaunted broom cupboards in the castle?"

Myrtle gazed at him, a shrewd look in her eye. "They don't just come here to kiss, Harry. They talk too. I've heard your name mentioned quite a number of times, actually."

Hermione gasped. "What do they say?" she asked quickly.

Myrtle folded her arms across her chest and floated up to the ceiling. "I don't think I'll tell you," she said, turning her back on them. "It's not polite to gossip about other people."

"You're the one eavesdropping on private conversations," Ron pointed out angrily, glaring at the ghost's back.

Myrtle let out a high pitched wail and turned back to face them. "Why don't you just go away and leave me alone?" she cried out. "You three are terrible--you only ever bother with me when you think I may know something! Well I'm not letting myself be used by you any longer!" And with that Myrtle swooped dramatically into her stall and disappeared down the toilet with a loud splash.

"That's odd," Harry said, staring after the ghost. "Ginny said almost the exact same thing to us over break. Remember, Ron?"

Ron shrugged dismissively. "Yeah. Let's just get going on this potion. The sooner this is all over, the better."

* * *

Harry received a shock when he walked into the Defense classroom the next afternoon, expecting to see the usual arraignment of stuffed dummies and assorted weapons, only to find himself on the moon swept lawn of a graveyard. Buffy sat perched on one of the headstones, casually sharpening a stake as she waited for the rest of the class to arrive. When the door finally shut behind the last person, Buffy hopped off the headstone and indicated that they should all gather around her.

"As you probably noticed, we're not exactly in Kansas anymore." Most of the students stared at her blankly. She shook her head sadly and continued on. "So, who can tell me what we're doing today?"

Padma Patil raised her hand. "Isn't it obvious? You're doing another demonstration of vampire fighting."

Buffy grinned. "Not so much. You're going to fight. I'm going to sit here and look pretty."

"Excuse me, Professor," Lavender asked hesitantly, "but do you mean we're going to fight actual vampires? Isn't that a bit, well, terribly dangerous?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Yes, the Headmaster has agreed to let me put you all in mortal danger, but strictly for educational purposes. You're a poster girl for courage, Lavender," she said sarcastically. "I'm the Slayer. I save people, I don't get them killed. My powers can only be used for good. And for intimidating people I don't like. And occasionally opening a really tight jar." Some of the class laughed, but most looked too nervous to do anything but smile weakly at Buffy's attempts at humor.

"As I was saying," Buffy continued, "Professor Dumbledore set this up so you guys can fight some actual vampires. It's sort of like one of those holo-whatsits from Star Trek..."

"Holodecks?" Hermione supplied. Harry gave her a surprised, laughing look--he hadn't know Hermione was a Star Trek fan. He'd only seen the program once or twice. Dudley didn't generally go in for science fiction unless it involved nudity of some kind.

"What?" Hermione whispered to him in a defensive tone. "Jean-Luc Picard is sexy!"

Harry coughed to cover his laughter. "He's bald!" he whispered back. Hermione flushed and shook her head at him, then began staring raptly at Buffy, as if intensely interested by what she was saying.

"Right, the holodeck. So everything will seem real here, but it's not. The vampires are illusions, that will act like vampires and die like them, but aren't really vampires, if that makes sense. So even if you get bitten, you won't get bitten. Okay, now I'm confusing myself," Buffy said with a little shake of her head. "Anyway, it won't come to that, because I'll be here to stop it. I just have to say the word, and the scenario will freeze. So, who wants to go first?"

To Harry's surprise, Ron volunteered immediately. In fact, he seemed almost excited at the prospect of facing a blood sucking creature of the night. Buffy tossed him the stake she had been sharpening when they came in and told everyone to stand back to give Ron some room.

"Now, normally I'd say using magic is cheating," Buffy told him, "but always remember the first rule of slaying: use everything in your arsenal. Whatever you happen to have on you--stake, bottle of holy water, bucket of shrimp--find a way to make it work for you."

"Er, bucket of shrimp?" Harry asked. "How could that possibly be useful against a vampire?"

"Hey, don't underestimate the power of shrimp. I'll have you know that many people are extremely allergic to our shellfish friends."

"Right," said Ron. "I'm ready. Let's go."

Buffy clapped her hands twice and the graveyard suddenly sprang to life, as if it had been a movie on pause and was now playing again. Wind rustled through the trees, a few nighttime birds chirped cheerfully, and at the foot of the freshly dug grave, the ground began to churn. When the vampire managed to crawl out of its grave a few moments later, Ron was ready for it. He aimed a well placed Incendio charm at it, but the creature dodged it easily in a graceful side roll--it was apparently a little too fast on its feet for Ron to dispose of it so easily. Muttering, Ron tucked his wand up his sleeve and rushed the vampire, engaging it in a rapid-fire series of kicks and punches. Ron had a slight advantage of being much taller than the vampire and having a much longer reach, but the vampire more than made up for it with its superior strength and speed. It wasn't long before the vampire had wrested Ron's stake away from him and knocked him to the ground, preparing for the kill.

Just as Ron was beginning to look truly panicked, Buffy paused the scenario by clapping her hands three times. "That wasn't bad for your first time," she told Ron, offering him a hand up. "You play Keeper, right?" she asked him. At his nod she told him thoughtfully, "You should use that. There was a moment at the beginning when you almost had him with that spell. You have to anticipate his moves--he was going to dodge the second he saw your wand. If you had aimed your spell for where you thought he might be heading instead of where he was, you could've smoked him. Okay, who's next?"

Buffy forced each one of them to take on the vampire, giving them pointers and suggestions after each failed attempt. No one managed to stake it or even land a successful spell on it. When they left the classroom, they were covered in bruises and physically exhausted, but Harry had earned another detention pass for which he was extremely grateful, as the professors were already piling on the homework only two days into the new term.

McGonagall's detention pass idea seemed to spread throughout the school like wildfire, so that by Thursday of their first week back, all of the professors were equipped with stacks of the silver coins which they began to give out rather than points. Harry had yet to serve a detention with Snape, and when the first Potions class of the term rolled around that morning, he approached the dungeon classroom with a feeling of trepidation and nervousness. His confrontation with Snape had been the talk of the school all week, and Harry had a shrewd idea that the Potions professor most likely wasn't dealing well with the attention it had garnered him.

Harry took his seat next to Hermione, pulling out some parchment and a quill from his bag in preparation for the ridiculous amount of notes Snape always made them take. All of the Slytherins, Harry noticed, still wore their house badges, although he hadn't really expected them to follow his lead. Most of the students from other houses had retained their badges, in fact, but the sight of the Slytherin snake on Malfoy's robes seemed to mock him now more than ever. Harry almost wished Malfoy would give him an excuse, any excuse, to have another go at him.

"All right class, settle down," Snape said idly from behind his desk as the front of the room. Malfoy, who'd been laughing at something Pansy Parkinson had said--or more likely, Harry thought, at Pansy herself--gave the girl a sly wink and turned to face the front. Harry glared at the other boy's back. If it had been Harry giggling like a loon at Hermione, Snape would've given him detention, not nodded indulgently. Why did Snape favor Malfoy so much anyway, now that his father's loyalties had been revealed? Everything seemed to lead back to Malfoy lately: Ginny's betrayal, the attacks on Christmas day... A sharp elbow jabbing into his ribs snapped Harry out of his reverie.

Pay attention! Hermione mouthed at him.

"Miraculous though it may seem," Snape told them with a disbelieving sneer, "you have all managed to pass Fall term. This winter we will be starting the Unknown Laboratory. Each of you will be given a sample of a potion. You will have class time to work out the ingredients in your sample and research the possible potions those ingredients could create." Snape's dark, beady eyes swept over the students' faces with a glare. "Use your samples wisely--you will receive one and only one vial. You will each be allowed three guesses as to what your potion is. Each incorrect guess will cost you a letter grade, and after three you will automatically fail. And for Merlin's sake, don't test them on yourselves unless you wish to die painful deaths, possibly covered in boils and fur! Now, who can tell me what one would add to a mixture to determine the presence of moonstone?"

They spent the rest of the class taking notes on the various ways to test for specific common potions ingredients. Harry was surprised to discover that such processes existed, although now that he thought about it, the idea made a lot of sense--how else could Healers discover antidotes? Some of the tests were surprisingly simple; to test for stinksap, for example, one simply boiled the sample down. If the sap was present, it would immediately begin to reek with its distinctively pungent smell.

At the end of class, Snape handed each of them a stoppered vial carefully labeled with their names in his own spidery scrawl. "And be warned," he told them darkly, "I've put Anti-Tamper Charms on these vials. No one but the person whose name appears on the vial can touch it. This means, Mr. Potter, that Miss Granger won't be able to do your work for you this term." With that Snape dismissed the class. Harry stowed his vial in the student cupboard with shaking hands and forcibly suppressed the urge to curse Snape right there. Hermione and Ron exchanged glances before each grabbing one of Harry's arms and leading him from the dungeon classroom.

Harry yanked his arms from their grasp the moment they escaped the room. "Why do you always do that?" he demanded angrily. "I'm not some first year who can't control his temper enough to take care of himself!"

Hermione looked stricken, as if he'd slapped her. Ron merely turned red and glared right back at him. "Harry," Hermione began, "we didn't mean--"

"No!" Harry cut her off. "You've got no idea--none!--what I go through. You've got no clue what it's like to have a constant death threat hanging over your head, to--"

"Oh no," Hermione interrupted, her eyes suddenly flashing in anger, "because no one's ever tried to kill me. No one's ever threatened my family or tried to do me in." Her voice was full of bitter sarcasm and tears. She shook her head. Harry felt frozen in place at her words. He didn't know how to respond. "Snape's right, Harry--you are arrogant. Not everything is about you." Her voice was calm now, but she enunciated each word very clearly. "Come on, Ron. We'll miss dinner."

Harry watched his friends disappear down the corridor, his thoughts jumbled and confused. Was Hermione right? Was he arrogant in thinking himself Voldemort's main target? But she didn't know about the prophecy, about his destiny, about any of the pressures he was under...

The sound of someone behind him clapping made Harry spin around in surprise. Malfoy leaned casually against the wall beside the classroom door, a delighted sneer on his face. Harry fought the urge to go for his wand, settling for pinning the other boy with a look of sheer hatred.

"Malfoy," he said, "is your own life so boring that you have to stick your pointy face in mine?"

The sneering smile slipped from Malfoy's face and he straightened. "Look, we've never been friends, which is good because absolutely loathe you. But you have on occasion saved the world, so I'm going to give you some advice. Lose the attitude. Whatever's causing it, whatever it is that's got your knickers in a twist, get over it. Because pretty soon you won't even have the loser friends you've got now."

Before Harry could respond Malfoy was gone, his robes whipping around the corner of the corridor that led to the Slytherin common room.

* * *

After several unproductive hours in the library during which Harry stared at his Charms text and failed to write a single word of his essay, he gave up trying to work and packed up his things. His anger was spent; all he'd been able to think about for the past two hours was the looks on his friends' faced when he'd blown up at them. Ron's entire face had burned red and Hermione--she's just looked resigned, as if she'd been expecting something like this all along, which she probably had. With a sigh Harry swung his bag onto his shoulder and left the library, determined to find his friends and apologize, make things right with them again.

By the time Harry reached the common room, he'd worked himself into a nervous mass of guilt and remorse. How could he have treated Ron and Hermione like that? They were his best friend--his only friends, really. If he was honest with himself, Harry had to admit that for once, Malfoy was right. He needed to fix things with his friends, or he'd lose them completely.

The common room was packed when he arrived. The fifth years were in a panic over the amount of homework they'd gotten in their first week back. Jack Sloper had taken over an entire table; Harry could just make out his shock of blond hair over the towering pile of books in front of him. Even Ginny, who hadn't been seen studying in the common room since the beginning of the term, was there looking frustrated and tired as she alternated between flipping through reference books and scribbling on a long roll of parchment. Seamus and Dean had taken over Hermione and Ron's usual place by the fire. Frowning, Harry made his way over to them.

"Have you seen Ron?" he asked them, watching with mild interest as Dean shuffled a deck of Muggle playing cards.

Seamus sent him an amused, shrewd sort of look. "He's in the dormitory, mate," he told Harry as Dean began to deal. "But I wouldn't go up there if I were you. I don't think he'd appreciate it, if you catch my meaning."

Harry shook his head. He knew Ron would still be upset with him, but surely he'd have calmed down by now. It had been hours since their fight.

"Pull up a chair, Harry. I'll deal you in," Dean offered with a sly wink at Seamus, who was suddenly blushing furiously.

"What are you playing?" Harry wanted to know.

"Strip poker," Dean said blandly.

"Er, maybe some other time," Harry said, knowing full well that he'd never do any such thing. "I've got to find Ron."

Harry was up the dormitory steps before Dean could say another word or worse, give him another sly wink. He pushed open the door to the sixth year boy's room, which at first glance appeared completely empty. Ron's curtains were drawn shut around his bed--he was probably sulking behind them. "Ron?" Harry said softly, not wanting to bother his friend if he was asleep. "Are you in there?"

No one answered, but Harry thought he saw the curtain ripple in the dim light of the room. Ron was awake then, but was obviously still upset and trying to avoid Harry by feigning sleep. Harry took a deep breath and reached for the curtain, preparing to pull it away. Ron would speak to him, and he would forgive him, even if Harry had to force him to. With that thought firmly in his mind, Harry grasped the hangings and flung them open.

The first thing he noticed was the sudden rush of sound--Ron must have placed some sort of silencing charm around his bed, which explained why he hadn't responded to Harry's voice. Then Harry's eyes widened when he saw where the sound was coming from and all he could do was stand there, mouth gaping open, staring in shock at the sight before him.

Ron had a girl on his bed, and he was kissing her as if his life depended on it; she was kissing him back with equal fervor, and both of them seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Harry was standing there in stunned silence. His eyes flicked back and forth from Ron to the girl before his brain could truly register what was going on. There was no mistaking that bushy hair spread across Ron's pillow. Harry felt slightly ill with anxiety as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Hermione?" Harry said. "What the hell is going on here?!"

At the sound of his voice, Ron and Hermione leapt apart. The momentum sent Ron tumbling off the opposite side of the bed in a fashion Harry might have found comic if he weren't feeling overwhelmingly upset and betrayed. Hermione rubbed frantically at her mouth as if she would wipe away Ron's kisses, her eyes wide with guilt. Ron got up from the floor and attempted to smooth his hair, which was sticking up at odd angles and looking nearly as messy as Harry's normally did.

"How long?" Harry asked, horrified to find that his voice was strangely weak and his eyes stung with tears. "How long have you two been..." he waved his hand toward the bed, "doing this? Why didn't you tell me? How could you not...?"

"Harry, mate," Ron said, sending a pleading look toward Hermione that begged for help, "we were going to tell you. We just... it's new, you know? And we haven't really--"

"Dean and Seamus knew," Harry interrupted. His throat clenched up and he had to swallow hard several times before he could continue. "They knew, and I didn't. I thought I was supposed to be your friend."

Hermione rolled her eyes and began straightening her robes. "Oh, stop feeling all betrayed," she said sharply. "If Dean and Seamus figured it out it's because they've got eyes and they pay attention, isn't it? It's hardly our fault that you're completely oblivious to things that don't directly involve you. And anyway, we were only kissing. It doesn't mean anything," she added, tossing her hair over her shoulder and glaring at Harry defiantly.

"It doesn't mean anything?" Ron echoed, looking flustered and slightly upset. "It doesn't mean anything?!"

Hermione stood up and faced Ron across the bed. "What did you expect Ron? That we'd snog and suddenly we'd have some deep, meaningful relationship?"

"Well... yeah, actually," Ron said indignantly. Harry was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable, but couldn't seem to stop watching them. It was like a Manticore attack--gruesome to watch but entertaining nonetheless.

Hermione snorted. "A relationship is a lot more than friends who share the occasional kiss, Ron," she told him patronizingly. "There have to be actual emotions involved--you know, those things called feelings that you're incapable of expressing?" Her voice was bitter as she glared at Ron.

"Did you learn that from Vikky?" Ron asked acidly.

Hermione tossed her head again and narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't call him that. And yes, Viktor understood the difference. He at least was capable of caring about something aside from a silly game!"

"Quidditch is not silly!" Ron yelled.

Harry shook his head and turned to leave--clearly this argument was deteriorating quickly and anyway, he'd had enough. His best friends, despite their current state of yelling their heads off at each other, were obviously going to start seeing each other. They'd start spending all their time together and wouldn't want Harry around anymore. He'd be left out again, the third wheel. On the up side, they seemed too distracted by each other to remember that they were supposed to be angry with him.

"Where are you going?" Hermione called out as Harry reached the door. "Harry--nothing's going to change."

He looked back at them, his two best friends in the world. If they managed to find happiness together before they ended up killing each other, then who was he to get in the way of that? They deserved this... they deserved each other.

"It already has," he said sadly. He gave them a small smile and shut the door behind him.

Back in the common room, Harry pulled up a chair to Dean and Seamus's table. "Deal me in," he told them. "But I am not taking off my clothes."