average human’s Reviews > Avada Kedavra > Status Update

The Dark Lord worked towards similar aims at the beginning of the last war, the more ministry officials he could take out, the more he could replace with others who would be more willing to follow his lead.

Amelia would have never followed the Dark Lord, and thus, she had fallen.

The Minister of Magic would be next, Severus was certain.

Unless it’s Harry.

Unless it is Harry.

And, as Severus had essays to grade, teenage girls mental health to worry over, recently orphaned teenage girls to worry over, and his own teenaged child to worry about his mental health—

He would rather not consider the likelihood of Harry outliving Cornelius Fudge at the moment.

Severus worked quickly to grade the remainder of the essays he had to complete, keeping an eye on the clock as he worked. Once he completed his duties as a professor, he hesitated for a moment with his quill above a fresh piece of parchment.

Should he? Should he not?

It is better to at least ask now, then speak to Harry and Susan, he decided.

Ministry of Magic,
Dept. of Child Welfare:
I am uncertain if Miss Amelia Bones left a will regarding the living arrangements for her niece, Susan Bones. However, if not, I would appreciate you considering myself for placement as I am the current legal guardian of Susan’s close friend and distant cousin, Harry Potter.
Please contact me at Hogwarts if this would be an option for Miss Susan Bones.
-Severus T. Snape

Severus had no more than rolled the parchment and sealed it, before his floo flared to life at nearly five o’clock.

“‘M back,” Harry called dully before sprawling on the sofa.

Clearly, his visit had gone well.

Severus moved slowly to the sitting room and chose a chair across from Harry, hoping to prompt him in to talking.

“How is Susan?” Severus asked evenly.

“Sad. Miserable. Pissed.”

“Pissed?” Severus repeated. “At you?”

“Yup.”

Severus breathed slowly, counting to ten as he did.

It had been remiss of him to send Harry to visit Miss Bones alone, apparently. Harry, while maturing and empathizing in ways Severus once believed him to be incapable of, still had a terrible bedside manner.

“Why is Susan angry with you?”

Harry chewed on his lip as he blinked up at the ceiling. Severus waited patiently, as he oftentimes had to do to give Harry time to organize his thoughts.

“This,” Harry said. He held his arms up, flashing the bare forearms covered in scars.

It took Severus a moment to understand his line of thought.

“You... you discussed your past history with Susan?” Severus worked hard to keep the shock from his voice. That would be a nearly unprecedented first for Harry, to willingly expose a part of his own vulnerable history in a show of actual true empathy.

Harry would choose now to grow and mature in leaps and bounds. He would begin to show the man he should someday become when Severus knew it was a man he would be unable to truly grow in to.

Severus summoned a bottle of bourbon as his thoughts steadily spiraled.

“Can I have a drink?” Harry asked, rolling his head to the side and watching Severus pour himself a healthy measure.

Why not?

“Why not?” Severus murmured. He summoned another tumbler and filled it partly full for Harry. “Tell me about your conversation with Susan and you may have one glass if you agree to stay here tonight.”

“Deal.” Harry summoned the glass straight from Severus’ hand and threw it back with more ease than a teenage boy should have. “I told Susan she wasn’t allowed to fuckin leave me, didn’t I? And she said I didn’t understand, and I bloody well do, don’t I? So I told her that. And then she had the fuckin audacity to get pissed at me! Said ‘how dare I try leaving her’, as if she didn’t do the same damn thing!”

That... was quite hypocritical of the girl. Although, in her defense, her aunt had just died and she clearly did not have a good handle of her emotions.

“So you fought,” Severus said.

“We had a bit of a row, then fuckin Lupin came running in, and I changed my mind, he’s a prat, isn’t he? And so then Lupin had the fuckin audacity to turn our row in to a ‘counseling session’. Don’t you dare pay him for it, Sev,” Harry sat up and pointed threateningly at Severus. “I told him to piss off, but Susan,” Harry sneered her name for the first time in Severus’ memory, “decided we were going to ‘talk about it’.”

Severus raised an interested brow, “And did you?”

“I’m supposed to tell Sue no when Amelia just died?” Harry scoffed. “She’s a manipulative twit.”

Susan may be manipulative, but Severus found himself feeling quite fond towards the girl who quite literally twisted Harry’s arm in to discussing his own suicide attempt.

“How did that go?” Severus asked neutrally.

“Susan cried,” Harry scowled. “I think Lupin was going to cry too, so I told Susan I’d pop by tomorrow and left before he did. I’ll deal with Susan crying, I’m not gonna see bloody Lupin do it, am I? It makes me itch Sev.”

“Understandable,” Severus smirked. He levitated the bottle of bourbon to Harry and had it tap on his glass until Harry quickly held his glass up and accepted the small measure Severus gave him.

“Cheers, Sev,” Harry said, raising his glass. “At least someone understands me.”

“Which says quite a bit about my own descent in to madness,” Severus smirked, raising his cup.

***

Harry began a queer routine over the next couple of days. On Monday and Tuesday, he ate breakfast with Severus in his quarters, then dashed off to his absurdly short morning classes. He ate lunch in the Great Hall with his misfits, then floo’d to Moon Lodge to attend ‘platonics couples counseling’ (as Harry so eloquently called it) and discussed suicide, grief, and depression with Lupin and Bones.

He floo’d back to Severus’ quarters in time for dinner, which he ate in the dining room while complaining loudly about Lupin and Bones both.

“Susan’s a hypocrite!” Harry howled Monday night. “‘You didn’t tell me!’ Oh, what? She jumped up to tell me?! Before I was supposed to find her dead body in the fuckin loo? I was sleeping in alleys, wasn’t I? She doesn’t have a real good excuse.”

Severus hummed in neither agreement, nor disagreement.

They were both monsters, truly.



Severus adored them.



Tuesday night, Harry complained about Lupin as he stabbed aggressively at his potatoes. “He wants me to talk about sex with Fred, suicide with Sue, what’s next Sev? My dead parents with you?”

“We could,” Severus offered calmly.

“You’re a dick,” Harry sneered.



Harry also slept in Severus’ quarters Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night. Severus frowned when he realized what a restless sleeper Harry was, and when he heard him crying out his mother’s name in his sleep again.

It was pitiful.

’She would hate me.’

And nothing Severus said could convince the child otherwise, so Severus began working on a new form of dreamless sleep. Harry could hardly take it every night, as it was both addictive and created a terribly physical dependency on it over time, but he began working on a new formula in the hours he had free.



Until Wednesday.



Wednesday was as truly terrible as Severus suspected it would be.

“No,” Severus told Harry at breakfast.

“No what?” Harry murmured, his eyes flicking to the liquor cabinet.

“You will not sully Amelia’s memory by attending her services inebriated,” Severus said firmly.

“Sirius is,” Harry said sullenly.

“I will kill him if so,” Severus swore.

Harry blinked at him, “You’d sully Amelia’s memory by committing murder at her funeral?”

“Fuck off, Harry,” Severus sighed.

Harry smirked, but it lasted only until they were dressed in their dress robes and waited on the rest of his misfits to join them. Albus, true to his word, had cancelled classes for the day and arranged for any student who wanted to attend to be transported to and from the funeral.

Severus was unsurprised that the majority of Hufflepuff house went. He was rather shocked that the entirety of Slytherin, aside from two exceptions, also went.

Apparently, the right hand of the ‘Heir of Slytherin’ and burgeoning war general, earned a show of support from the Slytherin students.

It truly was heartening to witness such an unprecedented showing from the house Severus led with such pride.

“I hate funerals,” Harry complained as they waited for the others. He pulled on the collar of his dress shirt and looked horribly uncomfortable. “Everyone cries.”

“That is the natural reaction to a sad event,” Severus said. He was not unsympathetic, he too disliked funerals. “If you do not know what to say, it is best to remain quiet.”

Harry gave him a juvenile roll of his eyes and an annoyed ‘I’m not an idiot’ sort of look.

This was how Severus wanted to remember Harry.

One day, when it was Harry’s funeral Severus would be attending, this is how Severus will remember him. Irritable and cheeky and himself.

For as long as Harry’s funeral lasted anyway, because Severus would follow him after ensuring his child was buried with all the accolades the chaotic demon deserved.



They made a solemn group as they floo’d to the Ministry together. Harry’s friends were dressed nicely and were as pale faced and teary eyed as the other mourners were in the atrium.

Severus watched as Susan flew straight from the floo to Harry’s arms. He also watched with a sense of bitter pride as Harry remained by Susan’s side throughout the entirety of the service, despite Frederick’s attendance, and despite Harry’s blatant discomfort at the many, many, mourners who approached Susan and sobbed over the pair of them.

“They look like adults,” Black said morosely as he stood with Severus, Lupin, and Nymphadora and watched Susan gracefully accept well-wishers with a brave face and Harry on her arm.

“It’s not fair, they have to grow up so quickly,” Nymphadora said. Her hair, which seemed to reflect her emotions at times, was a dark brown and pulled back in a sensible bun.

Severus sorely missed the pink bob she typically wore.

“We’ll finish this war then and hope their kids don’t have to,” Lupin said with an air of optimism that stabbed Severus in the heart.

If they finished this war, Harry would never grow to have kids.

If they allowed Harry to grow to adulthood, this war would never be finished.

“No matter what happens, I lose him,” Severus breathed in Nymphadora’s ear as they took their seat. “Either this is the first of hundreds of funerals, or—”

“Or the next one is Harry’s.” Nymphadora grabbed Severus’ hand and squeezed it tightly. “We can’t let that happen. Look at him, look how far he’s come. It wouldn’t be fair.”



Life rarely was.



Severus listened as many officials, including the Minister himself, spoke about Amelia that day.

They spoke of her passion for justice.

Her love of her niece.

Her bravery.

Her loyalty.

Her spirit and her joy.

Her wit and her intelligence.

“Amelia was one of the greatest witches I have ever had the pleasure of knowing,” Kingsley Shacklebolt said to a crowd of over three hundred attendants. “I believe she is watching us now, watching to see what choices we make in her memory. And I choose to act with as much spirit, integrity, and bravery as Amelia Bones did.” Shacklebolt raised his wand, and lit the tip with a lumos as the atrium lights were dimmed, “To Amelia!”

“To Amelia!” the crowd cried with their own lit wands.

Severus was glad for the dark. For only in the dark could he allow a single tear to fall in memory of one of his truest friends. A single tear in remembrance of one of the kindest witches he had ever known, and a single tear as he considered whose funeral he would attending next.

“To Amelia,” he whispered.

41%

Chapter 20: Girls, guns, and gangs: Harry Potter problems.

Chapter Notes

Thank you all for your consistent support, sleuthing skills as you try and solve the plots, and just your overall brilliance for following along!

I’m exhausted, training new EMT’s is a lot of work lol so I’m going to bed early tonight, thus providing you with an early chapter.

Enjoyy!

See the end of the chapter for more notes
Friday, December 12

“You swear?” Harry whispered in the mirror.

“Solemnly,” Fred grinned.

“How many?” Susan asked over Harry’s shoulder.

“Two dozen.”

“Oh my God, how?” Susan breathed, a real spark of excitement in her voice.

Fred turned his head left and right, looking around to ensure his privacy before leaning towards the mirror like a dramatic prat. “Magic,” he whispered.

“Dump him,” Susan said flatly, throwing herself back on Harry’s headboard. “What an arse.”

“He’s an arse with two dozen guns,” Harry reminded her.

“Fine.” Susan flipped her hand in the air. “You shouldn’t marry him though, I’ve changed my mind, you and I should get married.”

“The Vice Minister cannot be the Minister’s wife!” Fred yelled.

“Sorry,” Harry smirked in the mirror, “Susan was here first—”

“And I’m here now while you’re out fucking around,” Sudan chimed in.

Fred made big blue puppy eyes at Harry, who blinked at him, unimpressed.

“Fine,” Fred said. “I suppose I’ll see what Verity is doing for the rest of her life...”

“I hate you,” Harry scowled. He hated that witch with her long pretty blonde hair, her soft laughter, and her long legs that worked with Fred every day while Harry was trapped in Hogwarts. “It’s going to be your fault when I snap and kill her one day.”

“He’s gay Harry,” Susan sighed. She shook her head at Harry and nearly smiled. “You jealous thing.”

Harry shrugged then gave Fred a sheepish grin. “See you tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Fred winked. “Bye Suzie-Q! See you tomorrow, my love.”

“He’s ridiculous,” Susan said after Harry hung up. “How do you put up with him?”

“The same way I do you, I suppose,” Harry shrugged. He checked his wristwatch and grimaced. “Are we doing this?”

Susan sighed heavily and nodded. “I guess so.”

Since Susan sighed, Harry briefly considered asking if they could skip it tonight, but then he remembered what Lupin said and he sighed as well.

’It would be helpful for Susan.’

Harry didn’t care what the Sorting Hat said, Lupin was as manipulative and cunning as any Slytherin.

Harry doubled their privacy charms before turning to face Susan on the bed. “Five minutes, go.”

“Today was terrible,” Susan said immediately. “Professor Sprout still looks like she’s going to cry every time she sees me. I’m sick of our classmates acting like I’m some tragic orphan. And it’s bloody daft I have to go to a meeting this week about having a guardian when I’m going to be seventeen before school gets out this summer and everyone knows I’m moving in with you. I’m so horribly sad, all the time, but this morning I laughed at Luna and then felt guilty for laughing because I should be sad forever even though I think Auntie would hate that.”

“Forty five seconds,” Harry told her.

“I’m lonely,” Susan said. “I want a Fred or Draco or Hermione for myself. Even Ron is practically in a relationship now and I want someone to myself as well. Or am I just sad and think a relationship would fill this hole in my heart?”

“Time,” Harry said when the second hand passed the 12. He carefully considered everything Susan said in her five minutes. “I don’t think you should feel bad for laughing, I think Amelia would be happy if you laughed. She liked to see you laugh, and I do too. You can just tell them at that meeting that you want Snape to be your guardian too, I’m sure he won’t mind. If anyone looks at you pitifully then you should hiss at them, that’s what I do. And if you want to date someone, ask them out, I guess. Who would say no to you? You’re perfect.”

Susan gave Harry a half-hearted smile and held her hand out for his watch. “Your turn.”

Harry ground his teeth as he undid his watch and handed it over. He didn’t mind listening to Susan’s problems, but he hated sharing his own.

Susan politely didn’t look at him, she tilted her face down to the watch, letting her curtain of red curls hide her face. “And, go.”

Harry pulled at the yarn on the blanket they were sitting on, feeling the cord stretch and release between his fingers. “I hate when it’s cold outside,” he said, talking slowly to try and stretch out his five minutes. “I think it reminds me of the dementors. I still think this is stupid, but I want you to be happy again, so I’m doing it.”

“Your feelings, Harry,” Susan hummed. “Or I reset the clock.”

“Fine,” Harry grit out. “I feel cold, I feel bored, and I feel like- like either everyone’s going to hate me or die, and I hate that, don’t I? I was hoping Snape would be too busy to remember my potion on Wednesday so I didn’t have to fucking take it so I could fly for a while, but he remembered and I couldn’t just not take it in front of him. I hate how bloody depressing the castle is right now, and I can’t wait for Christmas break so we can all go home for a bit.”

“One minute left,” Susan said.

“I feel like nothing is going good lately and if I get one more fucking bit of bad news that I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Time.”

Harry huffed out an enormous sigh and threw himself back on the headboard beside Susan. Susan made it look easy, but talking about your ‘feelings’ for five minutes a day was bloody exhausting.

“My turn to comment,” Sudan said quietly, nestling in to Harry’s side. “I think you’re drowning, I think it’s just not as bad as it used to be, so you don’t think you’re drowning, but you are. None of us could ever hate you. And maybe- maybe we just have to find our own happiness?” Susan grinned, and it wasn’t as bright as her old grin, but Harry knew she was doing it just for him. “Do I sound like Lupin?” she asked. She stuck her nose in the air haughtily. “Your feelings are valid, Harry. No emotion you feel is wrong.”

Harry forced a short laugh to pay her back for trying to smile for him. “Everyone needs support,” he quoted back to her. “I think you two would be excellent support for one another.”

“Of course we are,” Susan said primly. She scooted to Harry’s side and laid her head on his shoulder. “You’re my best friend, stupid.”

“Are we done?” Harry asked, a bit desperately. “Can we go to sleep now?”

“God yes,” Susan said. She pulled the rainbow blanket that Luna made Harry down so they could slip beneath it. Harry flipped over on his stomach, his face turned away from Susan because he was sick of getting her hair in his mouth while he slept, and he reached out hesitantly to grab her hand.

“I love you,” Susan said quietly. “I couldn’t do this without you, you know.”

“Do what?” Harry asked, his voice just as quiet as hers.

“Any of it,” she said seriously. “I just couldn’t bear any of this without you.”

“Same,” Harry admitted. It was easier like this, when it was dark and they didn’t have to see each other. It made it seem more like they could pretend they didn’t say these horribly vulnerable and weak things in the morning. “Don’t ever try and leave me again, please. I’d probably die without you.”

“You definitely would,” Susan whispered, “because you’re an idiot.”

Harry snorted, glad the moment was over. “Go to sleep, you twit.”



Harry and Susan were jolted awake by Trent throwing open the bed curtains with a huge slightly bucktoothed smile and a hasty, nearly corporeal, shield.

“Is today the day?” Trent asked.

“Kill him,” Susan mumbled in her pillow. “Just kill him and let’s go back to sleep.”

“Trent, leave Susan alone,” Hermione said bossily from Theo’s bed. “She’s tired. It’s Saturday. Let her sleep in.”

Ever since Susan came back to school, Hermione’s been as glued to Susan’s side as Susan had been Harry’s.

Which was actually a little annoying because Hermione had a lot of strong opinions on Harry’s activities.

And Harry didn’t care if Theo was a great brother or not, if his girlfriend called Harry ‘unmotivated’ one more time, then Harry would curse her.

He wasn’t sure how smuggling two dozen guns and a crate of ammo from the States clear to Hogwarts was ‘unmotivated’. Or how killing Timmy and Dumbledore was ‘unmotivated’. But he was beginning to think Hermione needed to sort out her priorities.

Except Susan was thrilled with spending more time with Hermione, for some ungodly reason. Apparently Hermione ‘saved her life’, as if Harry wouldn’t have saved her...

...if he had woken up to use the loo when Hermione did.

Harry did owe her something for saving Susan’s life, but he hadn’t cursed her so far, so he had hoped that would count.

“Susan, I’m going to my dorm to get dressed, do you want to come?” Hermione asked kindly.

“No, I’m wearing Harry’s clothes,” Susan said simply. She yawned and stretched on the bed, kicking Harry as she did. Harry got up and scowled down half-heartedly at her. She was already in his tshirt. Harry had no idea when she’d formed an emotional attachment to his clothes, but it was annoying seeing her snag his favorite shirts or jackets right before he did.

“PJ is also wearing Harry’s clothes,” Blaise said, smirking at the jumper of Harry’s that he outgrew and gave to Trent. “And,” Blaise sent a pointed look at Harry and Theo, “what happened to no shagging in our dorm? Hmm?”

“Did you have sex in here?” Harry quickly glowered at Theo in true irritation. “We fuckin agreed.”

“No, we didn’t agree, you told us,” Ron muttered with a roll of his eyes.

Harry ignored him.

“We did not have sex in here, we just- just cuddled,” Theo said, his face bright red as Blaise and Trent snickered.

“Theo’s girlfriend isn’t the one half dressed,” Draco said, glancing where one of Susan’s bare legs was pointing out from beneath Harry’s quilt.

“Susan isn’t my girlfriend,” Harry said flatly. “You know that. Grow up, guys.”

“You’re right,” Ron said, “She just sleeps in your bed... Half dressed... Wears your clothes...”

“Says she loves you...” Blaise said.

“Makes you plates at meals...” Theo grinned.

“And you two do everything together,” Trent added, glancing at the other boys with a grin that stretched when Draco winked approvingly at him.

“I’m sorry you boys never had a best friend, but Harry and I are not dating,” Susan said firmly, finally rolling around and sitting up. “I am in fact single, tell your friends. I think I’d like to try dating.”

“Go out with Neville,” Blaise suggested quickly. “He’s handsome, funny, smart, and very nice. He’d make a great boyfriend.”

“Susan doesn’t want someone ‘so nice’,” Hermione said matter-of-factly. “She wants someone kind, but a bit rough around the edges.”

Harry ignored the others as they teased Susan and tried to make her smile. He chewed on his lower lip and watched Theo closely through hooded eyes. There had to be something he could offer him...

“Theo,” Harry interrupted the others abruptly after coming up with a brill idea, “You can shag Mione in our dorm if you won’t throw—”

“I will absolutely throw a fit. Don’t you dare,” Theo scowled. “I would rather be intimate with my girlfriend in the bloody Great Hall with all the Gryffindors watching and writing essays critiquing my form and stamina than have you bring a crate of guns in to our dorm.”

Harry blinked in surprise.

Hermione blushed bright red and sputtered a protest.

Blaise, Ron, and Draco all imagined that scenario with grimaces of various levels of distaste.

Trent scrunched his nose up, obviously a bit confused, as usual.

Then, the best noise Harry had heard in weeks, filled the room with a practically musical sound.

“I’m sorry, you would rather fucking what?” Susan gasped. She rolled on her side on Harry’s bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, suddenly laughing as loudly and earnestly as she used to.

For the first time since the night they were told Amelia died.

Harry felt his lips curl up in a smile, watching Susan’s infectious laughter cause the others to laugh, and he carefully stepped closer to Theo.

“That’s the only reason I’m not bringing them in our dorm,” Harry murmured quietly, nodding his head at his giggling best friend. “Otherwise I would.”

Theo looked over his shoulder where Hermione was now giggling next to Susan, and his eyes softened as he watched the two girls for a moment.

“Happy to be of service,” he said sarcastically. “No bloody guns in our dorm.”

“No more guns in our dorm,” Harry said with a sharp smile and a friendly wink.



A couple of hours later, everyone was bundled up and standing in the entrance hall, planning on walking to Hogsmeade together.

Harry felt a bit smothered as he had Susan, Hermione, and Theo chatting about runes on one side of him. Luna and Draco on his other side, cuddled to each other’s side and whispering back and forth with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. Ron, Neville, Blaise, and Daphne were in front of him, arguing lightly over some bit of defensive magic they’d been learning in class. Trent and Sapphire right behind him, loudly talking about gobstones. Harry liked being around his friends, but he would be relieved when they reached Hogsmeade and inevitably split up and Harry could meet up with Fred and enjoy a bit of quiet.

He missed Fred, much more than he expected he had been able to miss another person.

Harry looked around subtly at his friends. How had he become so dependent on these people? Harry always knew it, from the time he was young and saw kids dying on the streets, but Amelia’s death just drove home the reminder that no matter how fond of anyone Harry might be, they could die.

At least a few of them would probably die before Harry did, even if they all outlived Dumbledore himself.

And then what would he do?

Harry sighed and buried his hands a little deeper in his pockets, his thoughts swirling effortlessly towards a dark vision of a world without his gang, his friends, where he was alone. He was brilliant, powerful and strong, but he was pathetic and weak without his friends. And he had no idea how that had happened.

It was this vision, of Harry alone and trying to stumble over his obstacles without anyone beside him, that carried him in to Hogsmeade.

“What’s the plan, Harry?” Susan asked him.

Harry peeked towards the Hogs Head, where he knew Fred would be waiting. “I’m going to meet Fred, d’you wanna come with? We’re moving that stuff today.”

“Can we come?” Trent asked, Sapphire looking at them curiously.

“No,” Harry said. “You’re not sneaky at fuckin all and I’m not getting expelled because you’re too damn loud.”

“Hey!” Trent yelled, loudly, proving Harry’s point. “I am too sneaky!”

Harry raised an unimpressed brow at him.

“I am!” Trent protested. “I stole your scarf today and you didn’t even notice.”

“I did notice,” Harry drawled, narrowing his eyes at the green Slytherin scarf Snape bought him. It had been one of Harry’s first ever gifts, and if Trent ruined it then Harry would hex the hell out of him. “And I’m still pissed, aren’t I? More reason for you to go do something else for a bit. Take your girlfriend to get chocolate, or something.”

“You have a girlfriend?” Sapphire asked Trent with a crease between her brows as Trent turned a furious red color and scowled at Harry before grabbing Sapphire’s hand and storming away.

“That’s him taken care of then,” Harry huffed out a laugh. “Sue, what’s your plans?”

Susan kicked a pile of snow, sending flakes up in the air around them all, and shrugged. “I was going to go to the bookstore with Hermione, but I can come with you instead.”

Oh thank God.

Harry loved Susan, perhaps more than any other person in the world, but between the long days of counseling together at Moon Lodge, the long nights talking in Harry’s bed every night, and the way she kept ripping his chest open and causing him to expose the weak and raw parts of himself that he would rather keep hidden—

Harry desperately needed a short little break from Susan.

Harry caught Hermione’s eyes, and Hermione looked up to the sky, then down to her shiny shoes.

She would keep Susan safe for a few hours.

“Nope, no problem,” Harry said, trying to sound casual and breezy as opposed to hasty and relieved. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he needed a chance to fucking breath too. “You lot have fun,” he said, already backing away quickly, “See you later.”

Harry didn’t run, but it was a near thing.

When he burst through the door of the Hogs Head a few minutes later, his eyes immediately skipped over Abeforth, skipped over the skulking and dark robed customers hidden in the corner by the bar, and landed on Fred.

“Fucking thank God,” Harry sighed. He threw himself immediately in the booth beside Fred and tried to soak up his... his... his something that made him so damn simple to be around.

“Miss me?” Fred asked quietly, throwing his arm over Harry’s shoulder and waving his wand in his other hand, giving them a hazy shield for privacy.

Harry hummed noncommittally, unwilling to mention just yet that he actually had missed him. Instead, he busied himself with removing his jacket and trying to be as close to Fred as he could without seeming like he was being clingy.

It was odd, as only fifteen minutes ago he’d thought he wanted space from people, but now he found he’d rather be jammed by Fred’s side than anywhere else.

“Everyone’s driving me mad,” Harry said glumly once he felt he probably couldn’t be any closer to Fred without climbing in his lap.

Which he absolutely would not be doing.

In public.

“What are they doing?” Fred asked, his tone even and his arm steady as it wrapped around Harry’s shoulders.

“Breathing,” Harry quipped, then immediately winced. “Not that,” he said hastily, drawing a pattern on the table with his thumb. “It’s just... just... Trent keeps stealing my clothes! And Ron and Blaise want to talk all the time. And Draco walks around looking like he’s the happiest bloke in the entire world, even though his dad is in fuckin prison. Theo and Hermione are always either reading, or studying, or just- being in love, I guess. Susan is so damn sad, and I can’t fix it, and we keep talking about ‘feelings’ which drives me mad, but I want her to stop crying herself to sleep at night. Luna can’t help with Susan, because when Susan cries, Luna cries, and I can’t handle them both crying at the same time. Snape’s got all this stupid secret shit he’s doing, and I’m the one who can’t breathe! They’re suffocating me, Fred!”

Fred, to his never ending credit, didn’t laugh at Harry’s heated and selfish rant. He just listened patiently as Harry complained about the only people in the world that gave a damn about him, and waited until Harry was silently glowering at the table for his turn to talk.

“You are so stressed out,” Fred said quietly. He put his hand on Harry’s, ending his ability to rub the tabletop with his thumb. “You’re shouldering all of Susan’s pain, worrying over Snape’s secrets, and trying to be there for everyone and you can’t do it all. You need a break.”

“I can’t take a break!” Harry yelled, distraught and frustrated. He was also very idly glad for the privacy Fred gave them, ensuring Harry wasn’t making a crazy scene in the middle of the pub. “I have to make sure nobody runs off and kills themselves! I have to make sure Timmy can’t take any more of my people! I have to find out what fucking Dumbledore is up to! I CAN’T TAKE A BREAK!”

Harry folded his arms on the table and collapsed his head on them, burying his face and breathing deeply, trying to calm the inappropriate rage that was boiling beneath his skin.

It was all true.

All of this shit was all Harry’s problem.

And he hadn’t even known until a few weeks ago that he needed to worry about his friends killing themselves off on top of worrying about Timmy and his followers trying to do it.

He didn’t want to wake up one morning and find out Trent slit his wrists open. Or that Neville sacrificed himself and ‘died a hero’.

He want to go to sleep, and wake up, every day with his people alive. Was that really too much to ask for?

Was it too much to ask that they kept themselves safe when Harry was fucking sleeping?

It was no wonder he slept like shit lately.

“Darlin.” Fred was running his fingers through Harry’s hair, scratching his scalp lightly and melting a small amount of the tension in Harry’s shoulders. “They aren’t possessions, they aren’t things you have to look after.”

Harry let his head thunk on the edge of the table as he pulled his arms down and wrapped them around himself. “I know they aren’t possessions,” he sneered to his lap. “But they’re my friends, my people, and I’ve got to fuckin make sure they live, don’t I?”

It had been a rhetorical question. More of a statement really. So Harry hadn’t expected Fred’s gentle, but firm, negative response.

“‘No’?” Harry repeated, lifting his head and fixing Fred with a derisive stare. “That’s barmy, Fred, and you know it. You’re all fuckin targets because of me, Timmy said so himself. ‘Join me or I’ll kill them all’, d’you not remember that?”

“Oh I get threatened by Dark Lords all the time,” Fred said serenely. “It’s a bit hard to keep track of them at this point.”

Harry raised his brows a little, but didn’t relent in the face of Fred’s joke.

“Darlin, come on, most of us would have been targets even without you,” Fred said, dropping the joke in favor of speaking earnestly. “Ron, Neville, Susan, Luna and I are all ‘blood traitors’. Hermione and Trent are muggleborns. Theo and Draco had fathers in the death eaters, they probably would have been forced to join by now. Blaise is- well... okay, maybe Blaise is only a target because he’s your friend, but he’s the only one.”

Harry sat all the way up, dropping his arms from his stomach and letting them fall on his lap. “I didn’t mean to say all that,” he said flatly. “I’m done talking about it.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Fred said. He seemed to know that Harry needed a change of subject though, because he wiggled his eyebrows at him and smiled Harry’s favorite smile. “Wanna see a cool magic trick?”

“Alright then.”

Harry watched as Fred ducked beneath the table, popping out and dispelling his privacy shield to strut confidently over to the bar top. Fred propped himself against the counter, leaning casually against it with his ankles crossed as he chatted up Abeforth for a few minutes.

...had Fred always looked so fit?

While Harry was subtly eyeing Fred’s toned arms and his long legs, Fred was enacting some type of deal with Abeforth that involved a lot of laughter, cheery smiles, and eventually he traded a small stack of coins for a key with a leather keychain attached to it.

“I’ll just grab this...” Fred grinned and flicked his wand at the bench across from where Harry was seated.

Harry cocked his head at Fred when nothing happened.

“Three crates, all charmed to be invisible,” Fred murmured. “C’mon, I’ve got us a room upstairs.”

Harry’s excitement at the prospect of opening the crates crashed almost immediately in to a brick wall of nerves.

“For- for why?” he asked, tripping over his words and his feet as he followed behind Fred to a set of stairs in the back of the pub. Fred turned and looked at Harry with his brows furrowed down for a moment before he squished his eyes shut and reopened them.

“Just to hang out,” he said quietly. “Nothing else, I swear.”

“‘Kay.” Harry shrugged, attempting to look bored and casual as they walked down a short corridor with a giant hole in the floor on one end. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend some time alone with Fred, it was just... he didn’t really want to do it here. He jammed his hands as far in his jean pockets as they would go when Fred unlocked the door with a gold 2 on the front and nudged it open. Harry stepped backwards, letting Fred wave his wand and move the crates in first, not really wanting to be knocked back down the rickety stairs by a crate full of guns. He waited for Fred to step in, before following more warily.

“What the fuck?” Harry barked out a sharp laugh as he stepped inside the room. It wasn’t a bedroom at all, it was a bloody office. There was a small meeting table on one side of the room, an empty bookcase on the other, two faded chairs with the stuffing poking out of them in front of an unlit fireplace directly across from the door. There was another door, next to the bookcase, that Harry presumed led to a loo.

“What? You thought I got us a romantic room at the Hogs Head to seduce you?” Fred laughed. Harry heard a muted thud and suddenly, with a tap of Fred’s wand, three large brown wooden crates popped in to existence on the meeting table.

“Kind of,” Harry murmured, adequately distracted by the crates. “Can I see?”

“Hmm. No.”

“What?” Harry snapped his head up from the crates and squinted at Fred. “They’re mine,” he said. “Why can’t I see them?”

“They’re ours,” Fred stressed with a grin that made Harry think he was just being teased. “And I’m sorry, love, the crates don’t open without a sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice,” Harry repeated, a grin now trying to work its way to his lips, “what kind of sacrifice, Sweetheart?”

Fred sat in one of the worn chairs next to the table and sighed with such genuine sounding distress that Harry almost fell for it. “It’s a weird one,” Fred said. He put his chin in his hand and propped his elbow on the table, making the most pathetic puppy eyes at Harry. “The crates won’t open unless I get a kiss from my one true love, but, unfortunately, Verity is at work today...”

Harry’s features twisted in irritation at the mention of Fred’s assistant and he impulsively launched himself at Fred, working his way on to his lap, just as he had wanted to do downstairs.

“You keep fucking around and I’m going to end up killing her,” Harry whispered on Fred’s neck, smirking in satisfaction as he watched goosebumps erupt beneath his breath. Harry chewed his lip for a moment, debating with himself, before dipping his head and kissing slowly on Fred’s neck.

“But you’re so cute when you’re jealous,” Fred said, somehow grinning through just his words. “And you’re, aah, you’re bloody perfect when you do that.”

Harry smiled to himself when he pulled his mouth away from Fred’s neck and saw the red mark that would be dark by the time Fred made it to work in the morning.

“Don’t vanish that,” Harry said sternly.

He knew he was a bit possessive and very jealous. He just didn’t care right then because Verity was gorgeous and Fred was his.

Fred put his hands on Harry’s face and smiled adoringly at him. “Harry, I am so bloody gay that I’ve kissed one girl my entire life, and was traumatized by the experience. I just like to tease you about Verity.”

“Who’d you kiss?” Harry asked curiously.

“Alicia Spinnet.”

“Lee’s girlfriend?”

“Before they were dating,” Fred laughed. He gently pulled Harry’s face to his and kissed him. “You’re the only one I want to kiss now.”

Harry got a bit caught up in snogging Fred. As much as he felt smothered earlier, he found himself desperate to feel Fred closer, have him hold Harry tighter, kiss him harder.

“You’re killing me,” Fred said, pushing Harry back after a while. His lips were red, swollen, and his blue eyes were hazy looking. “Let’s look in the crates before I apparate you back to your place,” he grinned.

“Let’s do that,” Harry said quickly. “Let’s just go home.”

“Love.” Fred traced Harry’s scar with his thumb, frowning a bit before Harry closed his eyes and leaned in to the contact. “You don’t want that,” he said softly. “You’re just stressed and feeling down, I think. One more week of classes then we have two weeks off. I’m going to close the shop on the 23rd, and leave it closed until term starts back on the 5th. We can spend every day together, but I can’t just steal you away today.”

Harry clenched his jaw tightly to keep from begging. “It’s cold,” he said instead. “The castle, I mean. It’s freezing.”

“Well....” Fred gently plucked Harry off his lap and stood him up, moving to stand beside him immediately. “These might warm you up.”

Harry’s curiosity fought with his inner chill as he stepped up to the table and watched as Fred opened the first crate.

“Holy hell,” he breathed, his curiosity winning immediately. Harry reached in the crate and pulled out the slick black hand gun, cradling it lovingly. “Have I told you you’re brilliant and I love you?”

“Not recently,” Fred smirked, leaning against the crate and watching Harry. “I do like hearing it though...”

Harry stroked the cool metal and his lips curled up in a true smile as he considered how much safer his people would be once they all learned how to aim decently.

“You’re brilliant, I love you,” Harry told him, his eyes bright with glee. “Let’s go hide some guns in the castle, yeah?”



“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” Harry intoned, his hand on the parchment. His eyes flicked over the map quickly, noting bitterly that Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore were both, once more, absent from the school.

“Filch is out by Hagrid’s hut,” Harry told Fred, cataloging any possible hindrances to their procession. “McGonagall is in Sirius’ office, with Sirius and Lupin. And... Flitwick is in the Hospital Wing with Benjamin Yarrito and Madame Pomfrey. I swear to god, if Yarrito got stabbed, I’m shooting whoever did it.”

“They still haven’t caught your secret admirer?” Fred asked.

Fred, and half of Harry’s friends, decided that whoever stabbed Ginny and Finnigan likely did it to garner favor with Harry. The other half thought it seemed like someone was setting Harry up to get in trouble.

Theo still thought it was Crabbe and Goyle.

“It’s second year all over again,” Susan had grimaced when they discussed it.

“Except it isn’t Ginny this time,” Neville said thoughtfully. “I don’t think she could actually obliviate herself.”

“She definitely wouldn’t do it if it meant missing a quidditch match anyway,” Ron said decisively, putting an end to that line of thought.

Harry wasn’t sure who attacked the two Gryffindors, but he didn’t think it was someone who fancied him.

“I can actually alibi you this time, if so,” Fred said, pulling Harry’s thoughts back to their current plot. “Are we moving to the dungeons? Because look,” he pointed at a cluster of first years moving quickly around in the corridor, playing some sort of game it seemed like, “We might get stopped.”

“Can’t put them in the dorm, I promised Theo,” Harry said. He looked around the dark passageway they were in now, just beneath the statue of the humpbacked witch. “You think we could just leave them here?”

Fred swiped his hand along the wall, showing Harry the damp dirt that stuck to his hand. “I suppose we could put up some shields, but you lot coming down here to train might be a bit of a dead giveaway, love.”

“Damn.” Harry tilted his head back, tapping it light against the stone wall as he thought. “I really can’t put them in the dorm, unless I kept it top secret...” Harry considered if Theo would forgive him if Harry did it anyway, and grimaced to think about lying to Theo about such a thing. Harry hated lying to his friends, about something so big anyway, but...

“Slytherin’s Chamber!” Harry cried just as Fred blurted “The Room of Secrets!”

Harry and Fred blinked at each other in surprise.

“Nobody can get in Slytherin’s Chamber, except me,” Harry said.

“And Timmy,” Fred argued. “Plus, isn’t there a dead body rotting down there?”

“Yeah,” Harry smiled, a bit wistfully at the memory. “Lockhart’s probably starting to smell by now.”

“The Room of Secrets is a smashing idea,” Fred said, rolling his eyes at Harry’s obvious nostalgia. “What if you aren’t around and Suzie-Q or Ronnie needs one? They can’t count on Mavis popping them down to the chamber.”

Harry gnawed on his lip and tilted his head in concession. “Alright,” he agreed. “Room of Secrets it is. Here,” he tossed Fred his invisibility cloak, “I’m going to take the lead, you levitate the crates behind me, and stay behind them. Whistle if someone comes up behind you or something.”

“You love this,” Fred accused him before pecking Harry’s cheek and throwing the cloak over himself.

“I really do,” Harry admitted with a sheepish grin. This was really the most fun he’d had in ages, and it wasn’t really surprising that it was Fred who brought it on. Fred had a knack for saving Harry from the waves that wanted to pull him under on occasion. He was like Harry’s own personal life raft.

No, more than that.

Harry mused on a proper analogy as they quietly and carefully exited the hidden passageway and made their way to the sixth floor through the back staircases.

Fred wasn’t a life raft, leaving Harry floating safely in the freezing and dark waves that he drowns in. Fred was like a switching spell or something. Harry could be partially submerged in the water, struggling to breathe, and Fred could just swap the black waves out for peaceful blue ones. Harry would be struggling to stay afloat, and then suddenly he was sitting on a sandy beach, his legs in peaceful blue water, and the sun shining on him.

The point was, Fred was magical.

“What should I ask for?” Harry whispered when they made it to the corridor with the troll ballerina painting on the wall.

“Somewhere to hide twenty five guns?” Fred suggested with a quiet laugh.

Harry rolled his eyes at the unnecessary sarcasm, but did just that. He kept his hands on the wall as Luna did when they used the room before, and concentrated on what he wanted as he walked back and forth.

I need a place to hide something. I need a room to hide something. I need to hide something, I want to keep it a secret.

After he passed by the wall the third time, a door silently popped in to appearance.

“Wicked!” Fred cheered when they entered the room and found it to be bigger that the Great Hall and filled wall to wall with various treasures. “I wonder what all’s in here!”

“It’s not wicked,” Harry scowled. “Who all knows about this room?”

Fred walked over to a desk near them and snagged a book off the top of it. He flipped the cover open, sending up a small puff of dust. “Jodie Rogers’ Journal, first date of entry was 1961, I think we’re safe, darlin.”

“Brill.” Harry moved to where he heard the thud of the crates land and aimed a small bit of magic towards them, ordering it to reveal the crates. “I’m going to have everyone practice after classes on days I don’t have quidditch, but here.” Harry grabbed one of the guns and quickly made sure it was unloaded before throwing it to Fred. “Want one for George?”

“Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind,” Fred said, tucking the gun in his trouser waistband and easily catching the second one Harry tossed him and tucking it in as well. “Wanna explore a bit?”

Harry looked around the packed room and tossed Fred a cheeky grin over his shoulder.

“I’ve got a better idea,” he said, tensing his muscles and preparing to run, “Catch me if you can.”

Fred let out a startled laugh as Harry took off through the aisles, quickly assessing the best places to hide as he idly catalogued various trinkets he saw. There seemed to be a bit of everything hidden in there; all things that previous students at some point wanted hidden.

Loads of books, potions in dusty vials, large pieces of furniture, including a bed for some ungodly reason.

Who needed to hide a bed?

After putting quite a bit of distance between them, Harry ducked behind a large brown wardrobe, nearly knocking over a table with an ugly bust of a warlock with a silver tiara on its head, when he heard Fred approaching. Harry peeked out one side of the wardrobe, looking to see if it was safe to take off, when he was suddenly lifted off his feet by a warm pair of arms.

“How’d you find me?” Harry asked indignantly, wrapping his legs around Fred’s waist and glaring playfully at him.

Fred smiled earnestly up at him, his face radiating with honest affection. “I can always find you, darlin.”



That night, when Harry was once more in his bed and Susan started the timer on his five minutes, Harry thought about Fred.

“I love him,” Harry said quietly, somber with the realization that he pinned quite a bit of his happiness on one single, very killable, person. “I’m mad about him, Sue. I’m cold when he’s gone.”

***

The final week of classes, Harry was distracted and irritated once more.

Harry cast flawlessly in defense as he slumped in his desk. He brewed without any of the flair or enthusiasm that he once had. He flatly agreed to attend Slughorn’s Christmas party, unable to muster up any of the charm he tried to display in his class. He struggled to stay awake during McGonagall’s lectures. And he sighed at Flitwick’s compliments during his lessons.

The only thing that Harry enjoyed during that week, was taking his gang to the Room of Secrets after classes and teaching them to shoot at a further distance than they practiced over the summer.

The Room of Secrets was brilliant, Harry only had to have everyone hold on to the crates as he asked the room for a place to shoot and it obliged him immediately. He always felt a bit dizzy after it morphed itself around them, but it really was amazing magic.

Hermione claimed that Rowena Ravenclaw must have designed the room.

“Like this,” Harry said one afternoon. He eyed Trent’s stance and hesitated, “Can I move you, a bit?” he asked.

Trent gave him a peculiar look, and shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t care.”

Harry carefully grabbed Trent’s hips and turned him just so. “Inhale as you aim, squeeze the trigger on your exhale.”

Harry stepped back and watched as Trent followed his instructions to the letter, and saw the green spark over thirty feet away when Trent’s bullet hit the target.

“I did it!” Trent crowed triumphantly.

That had been a good day.

Everything else had just been events to be endured though.



“Life is dull,” Harry proclaimed during dinner on Thursday, his classes finally over for two and half weeks. He poked moodily at his vegetables, unable to even bring them to his mouth. Chewing seemed to take a lot of energy.

Susan nodded at his side, her spoon swirling pointlessly in her bowl of soup. “I picked a guardian today,” she told the others quietly, a hush falling over them as she brought up the topic they all wanted to know about without anyone wanting to prod. “There were a few people who offered, and-” she glanced up at Harry, her eyes tight with some sort of worry, “I didn’t choose Snape.”

“Who did you choose?” Luna asked, reaching out and trailing her fingers reassuringly over Susan’s arm.

“Tonks,” Susan said, a small grin at the corner of her mouth. “She asked for me right after it- it happened. She told me today that we have a bond now, since she cut my arm off and feels a bit responsible for me.”

“That’s...” Draco’s brows shot up his forehead, “That sounds like just the sort of mad thing that Tonks would say.”

“So you’re going to live with her this summer?” Harry demanded, his feelings hurt by Susan’s rejection. “I thought..?”

He thought they had plans.

“Of course not,” Susan sniffed, looking a bit like her old self for a moment. “I’m staying with her over Christmas break, we’re... we’re clearing out the cottage... and then I’ll be staying with you this summer.”

“Tonks too?” Neville asked, his blue eyes quickly flicking towards Snape at the head table.

“She didn’t say that, specifically, but I think so,” Susan grinned.

“They’re such a cute couple,” Hermione sighed. “They’re true opposites, like Harry and Fred. It’s so romantic.”

“They aren’t dating,” Harry said, unsure how he and Fred were ‘true opposites’. They were a bit different, personality wise, but they had loads in common. “Tonks wants to date, I think, but Snape’s playing hard to get.”

“Maybe Snape isn’t interested?” Blaise suggested.

“He is,” Harry said certainly. “He just doesn’t want to admit it. He blushes when you talk about her, it’s hilarious.”

“Then maybe Tonks needs to get lucky,” Ron laughed. “Just drink some Felix Felicis and show up at Snape’s quarters.”

The other boys laughed at Ron’s innuendo and waggling brows, but Harry stared at him as an idea began to click in his mind.



He didn’t bring it up in front of everyone though, he didn’t mention it at all until him and Susan were in his bed that night, talking about nothing while they stared up at the ceiling.

“I had a brill idea,” Harry whispered, carelessly taking the credit for Ron’s idea. “Slughorn said he took Felix Felicis three times and had three perfect days...”

“And?” Susan rolled on her side and looked at Harry curiously.

Harry summoned the golden potion from his trunk, holding it up as if it held the answer to all his problems.

“Susan Elaina Bones, how would you like to get lucky?”

Susan’s eyes seemed to grow brighter as she looked at the bottle. “Yes,” she whispered, “Oh my God, Harry, let’s do it.”

“Tomorrow,” Harry said. “We’ll take it at breakfast and have a perfect last day before break, yeah?”

Susan squealed quietly and squeezed Harry in a tight hug. “A perfect day,” she agreed. “I love it.”

Harry loved it too. He hoped that Slughorn hadn’t been full of shit, and that the potion would actually finally chase away the creeping cold he could feel inside him. Harry carefully put the vial in his nightstand drawer and pulled out two vials of the Dreamless Sleep that Snape made just for him.

“Here’s to a perfect day tomorrow,” Harry grinned, handing one of the vials to Susan.

“A perfect day,” Susan agreed.

They clinked their bottles and threw them back. Harry quickly tossed his leg over Susan’s, a bit of a guarantee he’ll wake up if she gets up in the middle of the night, and both of them quickly fell in to a peaceful sleep before they woke up and had a perfect day.

What a perfect day would be, Harry had no idea. But he knew he wanted it badly.

Chapter End Notes

Up Next:
✨Felix Felicis✨

44%

Friday, December 19

“What are you doing?” Hermione asked as she saw Harry and Susan duck their heads beneath the table.

“Living our best lives,” Susan’s voice said simply before Hermione heard a small pop of a cork being unsealed.

Hermione shared a wide eyed look with Theo. Anything that involved Susan and Harry ‘living their best lives’ was sure to be dangerous at best, outright criminal at worst.

“What, specifically, are you doing though?” Theo asked tightly.

Harry’s head popped back up and he brandished an empty potions vial. “We, my beloved brother, are getting lucky.”

It took a second to click in Hermione’s mind what they meant, and when it did, she felt real fear unfurl in her stomach and her hair stood up on the back of her neck.

Under no circumstances, ever, should Harry ‘Chaos’ Potter be allowed to wander the castle alone under the influence of such a strong potion.

“Felix Felicis,” she told the others in a horrified croak.

“Wicked,” Ron laughed.

Blaise and Draco shared a quick look and both shrugged almost simultaneously.

“So Timmy and Dumbledore will be dead by nightfall?” Neville said casually. “Brilliant.”

Hermione did not think it would be brilliant at all.

Hermione was terrified.

***

“Severus, what is your son doing?” Minerva asked from Severus’ right hand side.

Severus watched curiously as Harry and Susan popped up from beneath the Slytherin table, identical looks of mischief on their faces.

“Something horrifying, I’m sure,” Severus said. He tapped his wand on his thigh, silently intoning his marlios spell to overhear the conversation at Harry’s part of the table.

“We, my beloved brother, are getting lucky,” Harry said brightly.

Severus choked on his coffee.

“What is it?” Black asked curiously.

“Felix Felicis,” Severus sighed after Granger said it, offering a perfect rational explanation for Harry’s crass statement. “Horace gave Harry a bottle in his first class with him.”

“Dear God,” Minerva said. She rubbed her forehead, undoubtedly imagining the same vision Severus was. “We should cancel classes, bunker down in the dungeons.”

“The dungeons will hardly be safe,” Severus said drily. His look did soften as he heard Harry let out a peal of uncharacteristic laughter though.

Who cared what chaos Harry dumped on them all today? If anyone deserved a day of the beautiful sort of manic joy that Felix Felicis gave the drinker, it was Harry and Susan.

***

“Well, I’m high,” Susan giggled. “This is much better than the trash Johnny smokes.”

“It’s a shame you don’t have a broken mind,” Harry said airily. “This is what flying feels like, except I don’t want to transfigure into an owl.”

“What do you want to do?” Draco asked, peering at Harry and Susan as if they were some sort of experiment.

Harry considered it for a moment, trying to let the liquid luck flowing through his veins make a decision for him. “I’m waiting for the post,” he said confidently. “And there it is!” he cried with an unexpected burst of joy. “Sevvie! Over here buddy!”

The other students stared at Harry, nervous whispers breaking out about what could be in the parcel Sevvie carried that would cause Potter to be so excited.

Harry had no idea what was in the parcel, but he knew he it would definitely be something brill.

“Oh.” Harry curled his nose at the parcel, immediately recognizing Rita Skeeter’s loopy handwriting on the outside. “Nevermind then,” he said. He stroked Sevvie’s wings affectionately. “I’ll just give this to Snape.”

“Don’t you want to read it first?” Neville asked.

“Nope.” Harry smiled charmingly at his friends, affection bubbling up in him as he saw their faces. “I love you all.”

“I love you too,” Trent said immediately with a broad smile.

“What is in that potion?” Blaise laughed.

“I’m scared,” Draco whispered to Luna.

Luna squeezed his leg beneath the table and giggled. “We all love you Harry,” she said. “What does Felix say you’ll be doing next?”

“Hmm...” Harry inhaled, then shrugged. “I have to go give this to Snape, then I’m not sure. I guess I’ll just figure it out as I go.”

“I’m going to go send a letter,” Susan said. She jumped to her feet with a huge smile. “I won’t be in class today, could you let the professors know that I’m quite busy, Hermione?”

Hermione seemed ready to lecture Susan on skipping classes, but then Susan turned her thousand watt smile on her and Hermione relented.

“I’ll tell them,” she said. “Could we, perhaps, please, prevent a war from breaking out today?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Harry laughed, “There’s already a war, isn’t there?”

Hermione’s face paled a bit, but Harry ignored it. He got to his feet and shared a wicked smile with Susan.

“I feel like I’ll see you soon,” he said. “Good luck with your letter.”

“I don’t need luck,” Susan sniffed, “I already have it.”

***

Susan danced out of the Great Hall on the balls of her feet, humming a little as she let the magic inside her lead her to her destination.

For the first time in almost a month exactly, Susan felt happy.

She didn’t care if it was manufactured happiness, it was still joy that filled her for now. And it gave her a brilliant idea to try and find some lasting happiness as well.

Susan waltzed in the Hufflepuff common room, smiling cheerily at the students lingering around on the plush sofas.

“Good morning,” she sang. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

A few of the younger kids looked startled at her chirpy tone, but they smiled back easily enough and waved to her.

Hufflepuff was such a lovely house to be a part of.

“What are you up to?” Justin asked her.

“I’ve got an important letter to write,” Susan said confidently. What the content of that letter would be, she had no idea. What she would do next, she had no idea.

But Felix knew.

“Are you busy later?” Justin asked, his smile nervous, but cute in a boyish way. “I was thinking—”

“Can’t,” Susan said, interrupting what she was sure would be another invite to hang out together. “I’ll be honest with you, Justin, you just aren’t my type.”

Justin blinked, his smile slowly sliding off his face. “Is it because I’m not Harry?” he asked, attempting to sound haughty instead of hurt.

Susan giggled and patted his arm consolingly. It was absurd how Fred graduated and suddenly everyone believed Susan and Harry were an item. Susan loved Harry, Harry was her absolute best friend in the world, but she wouldn’t date Harry for all the galleons in the world. “Nobody is Harry, except for Harry,” she told Justin. She had a sudden stroke of brilliance that she later accredited to Felix. “I think Parvati is single though, you should ask her out.”

Justin shook his head in bemusement, but Susan was sure that it was the right thing to tell him. She gave him one more smile then made her way through the back corridor to her rarely used dorm.

She managed to summon her parchment, quill, and ink nonverbally and flopped down on her bed with a huge smile. She nibbled on the end of her quill for a moment, trying to decide what to write, when she felt a wash of the potion clear her mind, assuring her that she was overthinking it and to just let the words flow naturally.

Charlie,
How are you? Wonderful, I hope. I’ve thought a lot about what you said back in June and decided to compromise with you. My birthday is February 7, and it happens to fall on a Hogsmeade weekend. Would you like to have dinner with me? We could have dinner and possibly go back to your place afterwards (or rent a room in Hogsmeade, whichever you prefer). I do think you’re quite fit; charming and brave as well. If you’d be interested, let me know, because I’ve thought about you quite a lot these last few months and I think I could be persuaded to try out this ‘love’ that you feel so strongly about.
Write to me?
XO,
Susan Bones.

Susan smiled at the letter, certain that it would bring her as much luck as the potion currently was.

***

“Seeeeeeev!”

Severus stiffened and turned as Harry called out to him, a thick parcel wrapped in brown paper in his hands.

“Yes?” Severus asked, ignoring the irksome way Harry sang his name.

“This is for you, apparently,” Harry said. He tossed the parcel to Severus, drastically overestimating his abilities to catch it.

“C’mon, Sev,” Harry laughed as the parcel landed on the ground beside him. “You gotta be quicker than that!”

Severus snagged the package off the ground and shook his head at Harry. “How much did you drink?” he asked.

“How do you know me so well?” Harry asked, his smile wide and his eyes sparkling brightly. “Half the vial, didn’t I?”

Severus considered the vial that he saw Harry brandishing this morning and was torn between amusement and annoyance.

“I suppose Horace neglected to tell you that a single mouthful would last all day?” he asked.

Harry scrunched his face up, looking like a confused puppy, before laughing and shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t remember,” he said. “Why? Does this mean I’ll be lucky for two days?”

“No,” Severus sighed and smiled fondly at his impulsive and idiotic son. Felix Felicis had a rather set timer on its effects, though the potency would be dramatically increased if Harry and Susan had more than a single mouthful each. “It means that you are going to be incredibly annoying for the next twelve to sixteen hours and I would prefer you not burn the castle down.”

“I’ll consider it,” Harry said with an impudent wink. “That’s from Rita,” he said, nodding at the parcel in Severus’ hands. “No idea why, but I know you’re meant to have it.”

“Delightful.” Severus rolled his eyes. “I’ll just go read your fan mail while you go terrify the students with your cheer, shall I?”

“What a lovely idea!” Harry cried. “Ta, Sev! I hope you get lucky today as well! Love you!”

Severus rolled his eyes once more even as he felt his lips curling up in a pleased smile as Harry bounced away down the corridor.

He pitied anyone who crossed paths with the child today. Apparently, Felix Felicis had a rather affectionate side effect when mixed with Harry’s Lithium potion. An interesting thing to note.

The package Harry gave him was curious though. Felix Felicis rarely explained why it led someone to make the decisions that they did, though there must be some explanation for Harry handing over a package from Rita Skeeter to Severus.

Severus poured over the package in the privacy of his office, his mouth wide open as he read all that Rita had discovered from Bathilda Bagshot.

Albus certainly had quite the colorful past.

Severus hesitated when he read a letter that Albus wrote to Gellert Grindewald, where he outright agreed with the subjugation of muggles. Something was tugging at his mind as he traced Albus’ odd signature.

Instead of an A, Albus signed the beginning of his name with a curious symbol. A triangle with a circle inside of it, and a line drew through the center.

Severus was certain he had seen the symbol before, and he continued tracing it as he thought it over.

***

Susan had been skipping through the castle, debating on what she wanted to use all her luck on, when she ran face first in to her best friend.

“Harry!” she cried happily, pulling him in for a hug. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know!” Harry cried back, his voice a little high pitched with his excitement. “What are we doing?”

“We are...” Susan scrunched her face up as she thought it over for a moment. “Going to find Peeves!” she said happily. “Let’s go!”

“Alright!”

Harry linked arms with Susan and skipped alongside her, causing her to laugh since Harry had no idea how to skip.

“Like this,” Susan said patiently, showing Harry the proper skipping position as they moved through the corridors.

***

Dean Thomas grabbed Ginny’s arm and backed against the wall of the corridor as Susan Bones and Harry bloody Potter went skipping down the corridor.

“What are they doing?” Ginny asked, scoffing derisively as Potter laughed at something Bones said.

“Something terrifying, I’m sure,” Dean said quietly.

Nothing that made Potter and Bones laugh and skip could be good at all.

***

“Did you send your letter?” Harry asked after Susan taught him how to skip properly.

“I did,” Susan said. “Luckily for me, Sevvie was already back in the owlery!”

“Lucky you,” Harry laughed. “Who was it for?”

“Charlie Weasley,” Susan said with a soppy smile. “He’s so fit, Harry. I might be aiming quite out of my league.”

“Ugh,” Harry curled his nose up at Susan’s terrible taste. “Fred is way more attractive than Charlie. Charlie’s all muscles, Sue. He could squish you like a bug.”

“I know,” Susan grinned at Harry, “It’s sexy, isn’t it?”

“No.” Harry laughed as he almost fell on top of a suit of armor. “Fred is sexy, Charlie is... I dunno, rough, maybe?”

“Stop,” Susan laughed, “You’re making me want him even more!”

Harry did finally trip over his feet, landing in a sprawl on the stone floor, blinking in surprise. “How come I fell?” he demanded of no one. “I’m supposed to be lucky!”

Susan tripped too, landing right next to Harry, and turned to point out the window they were next to. “Look,” she whispered, “Dumbledore’s leaving.”

“That also isn’t lucky,” Harry said with a petulant pout. “I wanted to make him miserable.”

Susan clicked her tongue at Harry and tilted her head next to his. “It means we have the whole grounds to ourselves,” she whispered.

Oh.

Oh.

“That is lucky,” Harry grinned.

***

“Should we go find Harry and Susan?” Draco asked Ron and Neville after their Herbology class.

“Uh...” Ron raised his brows at him in an incredulous look. “Why would we do that?”

“And why would we bother?” Neville sighed. “Look.”

Draco turned towards where Neville was pointing and his eyes widened to see Harry and Susan holding hands and walking straight towards the forbidden forest.

“Do we... do we stop them?” Draco asked.

“Fuck. No.” Ron said decisively. “We go to the library and pretend we never even saw that.”

Draco and Neville agreed and they quickly scampered off to the library to meet up with their friends who were relatively sane.

***

“Threstrals have an innate mapping system built in,” Harry explained to Susan when they were partially in the forest and began looking for the black winged horse-like creatures. “Plus, they’re super friendly and dead useful.”

“Are we going somewhere?” Susan asked as she helped Harry seek out the creatures she couldn’t even see.

“I dunno,” Harry said seriously. He had a feeling they were in the place they were supposed to be, but he didn’t feel like they were going to be flying away on a threstral. Harry looked around the forest curiously, wondering what was inside it that Felix wanted him to find. “Let’s just walk around and see what happens, yeah?”

“Perfect.” Susan grabbed Harry’s hand and strolled between the large trees, as careless of the ominous darkness as Harry was. “This way,” she said, suddenly jerking on Harry’s arm to turn him and unintentionally causing him to lose his footing.

“Again?!” Harry cried when he stumbled and barely caught himself on a tree trunk. “Why am I- wait, what the fuck?”

The tree trunk that Harry grabbed on to made a quiet groaning sound. Harry and Susan watched with wide eyes as the base of it slid open slowly.

“Holy hell,” Susan breathed, her eyes lit up joyously. “What is this?!”

“Someone’s secret stash,” Harry laughed happily. He grabbed the scarf off Susan’s neck and wrapped his hand in it, caution striking him as he went to grab a glowing opal necklack in the hollowed out nook. Harry lifted it curiously and tilted his head side to side as he studied it. “Definitely evil,” he said certainly before dropping it on the ground and sending it to his trunk with a wave of his hand and small burst of magic.

“This isn’t,” Susan whispered, grabbing a sharp dagger and holding it up for Harry to inspect.

“And this is,” Harry said, scooping out a black vial from the cache and squinting at it. “Draught of Living Death?”

“Looks like it,” Susan agreed.

They rifled through the trunk for a few more minutes, finding a few small bottles of firewhisky and another knife.

“Is this... I didn’t buy these,” Harry said slowly.

“I think it’s from your secret admirer,” Susan laughed. “Must be a bloke.”

“Hmm.” Harry hummed thoughtfully as he eyed all the illicit items hidden. “Tada!” he laughed, sending them all to his trunk. “No more stabbing people and me getting blamed for it!”

“Tada!” Susan agreed with a giggle. “C’mon, let’s go back inside. It’s chilly out here.”

Harry and Susan were midway through the grounds when Harry saw a cloud shaped like a smattering of freckles on Fred’s shoulder and he had another stroke of inspiration.

“I think I’ll go see Fred,” Harry said decisively. He turned to Susan and smiled nervously at her, “Tell me everything you know about sex.”

***

Minerva walked slowly from the Great Hall towards her classroom after lunch, enjoying the view of the snowy grounds from the windows.

Truly, there was no place in the world that could rival the beauty of Hogwarts in the winters.

The grounds were beautiful, the castle filled to the brim with decorations and Yuletide cheer, the candles felt warmer, the giggles were—

Giggles?

Minerva peered in an empty classroom as she passed, quirking her brow at Harry’s messy black hair leaned close to Susan’s gleaming red curls.

The two of them were plotting something, undoubtedly something chaotic and sinister, but they were also giggling, which gave Minerva a terrible feeling in her stomach.

They have no reason to bother you, she reminded herself as she backed away from the classroom. Leave them to destroy the castle in peace, and perhaps you will live to see eighty.

***

“How are you going to get there?” Susan whispered to Harry when they were secluded in a classroom, plotting Harry’s escape together.

“Apparation,” Harry said simply. “Duh.”

“Duh,” Susan laughed. She eyed Harry’s school uniform slowly, grimacing at it. “You have to change though.”

Harry, adorable idiot that he was, looked down at his shirt, tie, and robes, and shrugged. “Why? I’m getting naked when I get there, aren’t I?”

Susan snorted. “Yes, but you have to make him want to undress you,” she said with another giggle that kept bubbling up inside her. “C’mon, let’s go play dress up!”

Harry was terribly cute, in his own way, but Harry wore baggy jumpers and jeans and Susan preferred him in dressier clothes. It really was Susan’s lucky day, because she’d wanted to dress Harry up in Blaise and Draco’s clothes for forever, but Harry usually glowered at her when she tried, but now he just followed along like an excited puppy.

Susan’s heart was so full of affection for him. She pulled him close and kissed his cheek impulsively. “I love you,” she said.

Harry smiled at her, and Susan adored his smile when he was truly happy. “I love you,” he said earnestly.



Aaaaand, when they got to the boys’ dorm, not only was it completely empty, but Draco forgot to ward his wardrobe against thieves this morning.

“It’s our luuuuucky day,” Susan sang. She threw Draco’s wardrobe open and eyed Harry carefully. “Strip,” she said. “Let’s see what I’m working with.”

***

“Come on,” Theo whispered, pulling Hermione behind him. “Harry and Susan are off killing their enemies or kidnapping newborn muggleborns, we have the dorm to ourselves.”

Hermione laughed and tried protesting weakly. “We should be studying,” she said.

“We’ll study after,” Theo grinned. “Plus, don’t we need to know anatomy? This counts, right?”

Hermione blushed in the way that Theo loved to see and ducked her head. “Quickly then,” she said, laughing lightly as Theo led her through the empty common room.

“Quick?” Theo smirked at Hermione and leaned close to kiss the little sensitive spot beneath her ear. “Never,” he breathed.

Hermione’s sharp little inhale was cut off by a sound that Theo knew meant trouble.

Laughter.

From inside their dorm.

Which meant...

Theo slowly and silently cracked the door open just enough that he could peek inside and confirm what he already knew.

Harry and Susan.

“What are they doing?” Hermione whispered behind Theo, her hand tickling his back beneath his shirt.

Theo pulled the door back shut and shook his head, his fleeting impulse to spend his two hour break in bed with his girlfriend now gone entirely.

“Something that involved destroying our dorm with clothes,” Theo sighed. “Apparently Felix Felicis told them to start a bloody war tonight.”

Theo personally didn’t care if Harry tossed his clothes around. Harry was his brother, he could wear his clothes or dig through his wardrobe all he wanted.

But Draco would throw a hissy fit of epic proportions once he saw the mess Harry and Susan had made.

“I wonder what they’re up to,” Hermione mused thoughtfully as they stomped back downstairs.

“Knowing Harry? It probably involves weapons and blood. A lot of blood.”

***

Harry held his arms out to his sides, spinning slowly so Susan could inspect his outfit.

“Ugh! You’re so handsome I’m going to...” Susan’s golden hand flew to her forehead and she fell backwards on Ron’s bed in a pretend faint.

“Shut up,” Harry laughed. He looked down at Draco’s silky dark purple top, coupled with Blaise’s black trousers that made Harry look at least three inches taller than he actually was, then inspected his hair carefully in the mirror.

“Fred’s going to die,” Susan said happily, propping her chin on Harry’s shoulder now to watch him mess with his untamable hair.

“I don’t want him to die,” Harry laughed. “Just... just shag me.”

Susan let out a loud laugh, her cheeks pink and her eyes bright. “Fred would shag you if you showed up in my mini skirt,” she said. “Which you should have worn, in my opinion.”

“He might not,” Harry said, a small burst of nerves attacking him suddenly. “I- I really freaked out last time, Sue. He might not want to anymore.”

Susan turned Harry away from the mirror and stared at him sternly. “Do you feel like he won’t want to?” she asked.

Harry considered it for a small moment before the luck in his veins wiped his worries away with a whisper of reassurance.

“Nah,” he grinned. “I feel lucky.”

***

Trent walked down the dungeon corridor quickly, wanting to grab his cards before dinner began.

“You’ll love poker,” he told Sapphire genuinely. “Harry taught me, and it’s loads of fun. Ron said I can borrow his chips if I promise to bring them all back.”

“Brill,” Sapphire grinned, her white teeth sparkling in the candlelit corridor. “Is it hard?”

“Not at all,” Trent assured her, tripping over his words as he got distracted by her smile. “It’s—”

Trent’s assurances that poker would be easy to learn were cut off as they passed an alcove and heard a lot of giggling.

“Har—”

Trent slapped his hand over Sapphire’s mouth, keeping her from drawing Harry and Susan’s attention to them. He grabbed her arm with his other hand and drug her quickly in the opposite direction, his cards and Ron’s poker chips forgotten.

“What was that for?” Sapphire hissed once Trent released her.

Trent shook his head at her. He knew Gryffindors were brash and impulsive, but Sapphire surely knew better by now.

“They’re giggling,” he said. “Do you ever see Harry giggle?”

“Well...” Sapphire pursed her lips as she thought it over. “No,” she finally said. “I suppose I don’t.”

“Exactly,” Trent told her. “Which means they’re plotting something positively insane. I’m not ready to die today, are you?”

“Oh my God, you’re right,” Sapphire agreed quickly. “Let’s just stay far, faaaaar, away.”

Which was one of the first sensible things Sapphire ever suggested really.

***

“Listen, Harry, I don’t like to say I’m a pro, but I’ve never had a complaint before,” Susan giggled in the alcove they were temporarily hidden in on their way to help Harry sneak out of the castle. “Ask me anything.”

“Alright... does it matter who’s on top and who’s on bottom? D’you think Fred’ll like it if I’m on top?”Harry blurted.

“Ask me anything that isn’t specifically gay,” Susan laughed, causing Harry to laugh as well.

Well.

Perhaps it was more of a giggle.

But nobody saw them, and Susan wouldn’t tell anyone that Harry was giggling.

“He’s handsome, isn’t he?” Harry said dreamily. “Funny, fit, and I have no idea why he loves me, but he does.”

“You’re very loveable,” Susan said. “Fred’s a troll, but he makes you happy.”

“Fred is not a troll!” Harry gasped, shocked by her audacity. “He’s brill, Sue. I’m going to marry him, you know.”

“I know,” Susan laughed. “I can’t wait for the wedding.”

“Me either,” Harry sighed. “Except... except then we’ll be married, and married people...”

“Have sex,” Susan said simply when Harry trailed off. “Do you really want to have sex with Fred?”

“So much,” Harry grinned.

“Then listen up, and I’ll give you all my best ideas.”

Harry propped his chin on his knees and listened with eager ears and wide eyes as Susan talked.

Susan was a genius, in Harry’s personal opinion.

***

Tonks was strolling through the dungeons. Technically, she was working, but truthfully she had been hoping to run in to Severus.

Casually, of course.

She’d embarrassed herself quite a bit a few weeks ago and it curbed her enthusiasm for making an arse of herself for a while.

She hadn’t seen Severus yet, but she did nearly get knocked over by Harry and Susan when she turned a corner.

“This isn’t lucky at all!” Harry cried before laughing. “We can’t be bumping in to cops today! What is this bullshit?”

“Tonks!” Susan yelled happily, ignoring Harry’s complaints. She threw her arms around her and caught Tonks by surprise with a tight hug.

Were you supposed to hug teenage girls you were the guardian of? She’d need to ask her mum...

“Wotcher,” Tonks said warmly, awkwardly patting Susan on the head. “What are you two up to?”

“World domination,” Harry quipped before breaking out in to a fit of giggles. When Susan let go of Tonks and began giggling as well, Tonks narrowed her eyes at the pair of them.

“Are you guys drunk?” she asked curiously.

“Higher than Harry can fly, actually,” Susan said chipperly, apparently not worried at all at saying such a thing to Tonks.

Which was fine.

Tonks wasn’t Susan’s parent, she was aiming for more of a big sister type of role in her life. If Susan wanted to start their new relationship off with absolute honesty, then all the better for Tonks.

“High and planning world domination?” Tonks grinned, raising one brow at the pair of them. They did look like they were up to no good. Except, Harry always looked like he was up to no good honestly, but it was amplified quite a bit right now.

“Harry’s joking,” Susan said with a bright smile and an easy toss of her golden arm over Harry’s shoulders. “We are quite busy at the moment with our plans though, what are you doing?”

“Patrolling,” Tonks shrugged. “Want some help with your mad schemes?”

“No,” Harry said hastily, confirming Tonks’ guess that they must be absolutely insane or incredibly illegal.

Or both.

Probably both.

“Why don’t you go bother Sev?” Harry suggested with a sly look in his eyes. “He likes you, you know.”

“He’ll never admit it if so,” Tonks said sheepishly, a little embarrassed that her feelings were so obvious that everyone apparently knew about them. “I think he must be a bit too good at hiding his emotions.”

“Trust me,” Harry said in a conspiratorial whisper, “He blushes, Tonks, blushes. You just have to be upfront or he’ll talk in Slytherin riddles forever and you’ll never get anywhere, yeah?”

“Be blunt,” Susan nodded sagely at Harry’s side. “Say ‘hey Professor Snape, you’re incredibly sexy and I would like to be your girlfriend.’”

Tonks laughed, shaking her head at the odd advice from the two obviously inebriated teenagers. “If I feel like looking like I prat, that’ll be the first thing I tell him,” she said with a playful smile.

Harry shrugged and picked a small piece of lint off his shirt. “Don’t say you think he’s sexy, he’ll think you’re taking the mickey out of him,” he said. “But just argue with him for a bit, that’s what I do when we have a problem. And when you’re done, you could just say ‘can I kiss you?’ That’s what Fred said to me and now-” Harry held his left hand out with a flourish and a proud smile, “we’re getting married, aren’t we?”

“Yeah...” Tonks eyed Harry’s ungodly expensive ring and felt her chest tighten for a moment. She knew she told Sev that they’d find a way to save him, but it was beginning to feel impossible. And here Harry was, beaming and acting like a normal teenager doing dumb shit, bragging about his fiancé and tossing out unsolicited relationship advice. It was probably one of the saddest things Tonks had ever witnessed.

“Go,” Susan squealed, pushing Tonks towards Sev’s door. “Go get your man, Tonks!”

Tonks tripped from Susan’s push and gave her a half-hearted glare for it. “And what are you two going to be doing?”

“I told you, world domination,” Harry rolled his eyes.

Susan giggled and smacked Harry’s arm lightly. “Harry’s going to get shagged and I’m going to go find our friends.”

Tonks looked from Harry to Susan a few times before shaking her head. Judging from the impish lights in their eyes, and the cheeky grins they both sported, Tonks was certain that Harry’s words were closer to the truth than Susan’s were.

“Don’t get arrested,” Tonks quipped with another careless shrug. “Have fun.”

Tonks was hesitating outside Sev’s door when she heard Susan whisper to Harry, “She’s great; isn’t she?” And it was heartening enough to hear that Tonks grinned and rapped her knuckles lightly on Sev’s door before letting herself in.

***

Susan walked to the passageway to Hogsmeade with Harry, both of them strolling carelessly, confident they wouldn’t be stopped.

“You’re going to love it,” Susan told Harry when they approached the statue of the humpbacked witch. “Just focus on Fred’s face, play some music you like, and keep your mind in the moment. Okay?”

“Okay,” Harry said. He took a deep breath and gave Susan a crooked smile. “How do I look?”

“Dashing,” Susan said. She smoothed Harry’s hair down and beamed at him. “Go get him.”

Harry gave her a wink over his shoulder before dropping down in the passageway and heading to the destination Felix was clearing the path for.

***

Fred was turning the key in the lock on the shop, closing up for the evening, when a whistled tune caught his attention. He turned and glanced down the alley, only to let out a startled laugh.

Harry was strolling down the alley, his hands in his pockets, whistling a merry tune as he walked straight towards Fred.

“Hello, my love,” Harry called, waving his hand dramatically. “I was hoping to find you!”

“What are you doing here?” Fred laughed happily, running over to scoop Harry in his arms and spin him around. “I thought you couldn’t leave until tomorrow?”

“I’ve left early,” Harry said, laughing as he tilted his face towards Fred’s, his lips seeking Fred’s out immediately. They kissed for a moment, passion and excitement burning through Fred’s veins.

“Is George in your flat?” Harry whispered against Fred’s lips.

“Nope, he’s out for the weekend,” Fred said, attempting to recapture Harry’s lips in his own. “Why? Do you wanna go upstairs?”

“Yes,” Harry said, another laugh bursting from his mouth. He kicked his legs, making Fred laugh and softly set him back on his feet. “Lead the way, my brilliant fiancé.”

Fred was bemused by this sudden uncharacteristic display of affection and happiness pouring from Harry, but who was he to complain about it?

Harry was moody, maybe he’d finally just swung upwards to find a bit of happiness.

He led Harry upstairs to the flat the George and Angie shared, offering a drink that Harry turned down. Harry pushed Fred backwards, obviously wanting him on the sofa, and he quickly straddled his lap and began tugging at Fred’s shirt.

“Off, please,” Harry said plainly.

Fred chuckled lowly, “Your wish, my command.” He pulled the shirt off and tossed it carelessly on the floor. He rolled his head back when Harry immediately began lining his collarbone with his mouth- a kiss there, a bite there, and Fred was putty in his hands.

“Now these,” Harry whispered, pulling at the waistband of Fred’s trousers.

Fred, who had been lazily running his hands up and down Harry’s back, scratching lightly and avoiding the scars, causing Harry to moan while he kissed Fred’s chest, froze.

“What?” he asked dumbly.

“I’d like to shag you,” Harry said with a blinding smile that warmed Fred’s heart while his words warmed...

Something else.

“And it’s difficult with these-” Harry tugged on Fred’s trousers again, “-in the way.”

“But...” Fred was struggling to come up with the question he needed to ask as Harry lightly, almost curiously, palmed him through his trousers. “But why?” he blurted, resisting the urge to thrust in the contact. “I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to.”

He also desperately didn’t want to have another row. Nor did he want to see Harry break so terribly under the weight of all the things in his past that he barely discusses.

“Oh, I want to,” Harry winked with a very becoming smirk. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, would I?”

That had been a pretty good argument, really.

Fred’s resolve to discuss this first began to wane as Harry slowly shed his own shirt, grinning self-consciously.

“Do you want me?” Harry whispered.

“Fuck, so much,” Fred breathed. He considered his options quickly and decided that the spare room that was meant to be his would be their best bet. “Come on.”

Fred tucked Harry’s legs around his waist securely, standing up and causing Harry to laugh as he was holding Fred’s neck with his legs still wrapped around him.

“We’re supposed to keep the lights on, play music, and maybe I should be on top,” Harry said thoughtfully as Fred carried him to his room and dropped him on the bed. “Can- can I?” he asked, his voice nervous now as Fred climbed over him and began kissing his neck and running his hand wondrously down Harry’s bare side.

“Anything you want,” Fred said truthfully. He’d done it either way before, he didn’t really have a preference. “Would it be easier if you could see my face during it?” He’d read that in a book that Remus casually gave him. It had a lot of good advice in it, even though Fred had flinched when he read the title. ’No More: a Guide to Reclaiming Intimacy after Sexual Assault.’

It had been hard to read, probably the hardest book Fred had ever, or would ever, read, but Fred worked on it diligently. If Harry could slowly open up about his past to Fred, then Fred could do that for him.

For them.

Harry pushed Fred back, his nose adorably scrunched up in confusion. “How would that work?” he asked. “I- I don’t get it.”

Fred shook his head at Harry, working to keep his tone light even with the anger and grief that struck him in the chest. Harry only knew one position, one way to have sex. Harry didn’t know how to make love, or how to be romanced during it, he only knew one bloody position. “Love, there’s more than one way to do it,” he said softly.

Harry still looked confused, but he smiled too. “Teach me?” he whispered. His green eyes were wide, perfectly earnest and his hand clutched Fred’s shoulder, pulling him closer.

Dear God. Fred loved him so much. If he didn’t already have a ring on Harry’s hand, he would be booking it to go buy him one right then and there.

“I love you,” Fred said. He sat back on his haunches, unbuttoning his trousers slowly. He watched Harry, surreptitiously glancing at his hands since they were the first parts of Harry’s body that would betray his stress, but Harry’s hands were steady and his eyes were filled with lust while he watched Fred. Harry bit his lip as Fred slid his trousers down, exposing the top of his pants, and Fred thought he might be done for then and there.

For someone with very little experience with romantic seduction, Harry had a real knack for it.

“Are you sure?” Fred asked huskily as he kicked off his trousers and leaned back over Harry’s body.

“If I wasn’t, then Felix was,” Harry smirked.

Fred, who had been in the process of slowly unbuttoning Harry’s trousers, paused. “Felix?”

“Liquid luck,” Harry said, wriggling and trying to get Fred to continue undressing him.

One... two... three...

Fred slowly counted to ten before he sat back and sighed down at Harry. “Are you high?”

***

Harry laughed, “Very,” he said. “Kiss me?”

Fred shook his head, his red hair flopping across his forehead, making Harry want to run his fingers through it.

“I’ll kiss you, but I’m not having sex with you,” he said flatly.

“What?” Harry sat up and blinked at Fred.

That wasn’t very lucky.

“Why?” Harry demanded, clamping down on the niggling thought that maybe Fred didn’t find him attractive, or... or maybe Fred didn’t want to have sex with him because he freaked out last time, or...

“Harry, I love you,” Fred said softly, putting his hands on Harry’s cheeks. “I love you, I respect you, and I want the best for you, always. And we will not be having sex while you’re high on liquid luck.”

“But...” Harry pressed his lower lip out in a pout. “But I really want to?”

Fred huffed out a quiet laugh and poked Harry’s lip back to a normal position.

“No,” he said firmly. “I’m saying no.”

“You don’t understand,” Harry said earnestly, “you’re my sunny beach.”

“I...” Fred trailed off and cocked his head at Harry in a very Harry-like way that made Harry laugh. “I don’t know what that means.”

***

Fred thought his love for Harry had reached its capacity, truly he did.

He thought that the day he proposed to him, slid that ring on his finger, he never could have loved Harry any more than he did.

But, this was Harry fucking Potter, Master of the Impossible, and as Harry explained his odd statement, Fred fell in love so hard that he truly worried his heart would cease beating.

“My sunny beach,” Harry repeated. He grabbed Fred’s hand and smiled so freely, so beautifully, that Fred wondered how he had wound up with such an amazing person. “I thought you were my life raft, saving me from drowning in depression, but I was wrong,” Harry said. “You don’t keep me in the dark waves, you change them completely. You take an ocean trying to drag me under and drown me and transform it in to something calm, warm, welcoming. You make me feel safe.” Harry lifted Fred’s hand and kissed his palm, his green eyes smoldering as he held Fred’s eyes. “My sunny beach. My happy place,” he whispered.

“I love you,” Fred said, knowing the words would never adequately portray the depth of emotion he felt. “I love you so incredibly much.”

“Brill,” Harry said, a bright smile back on his face, “so, can we have sex?”

Fred laughed and shook his head. “No.”

***

“Where’s Harry at?” Ron asked Susan as she sat down for dinner.

“Somewhere doing something wicked I’m sure,” Susan winked.

“Is it...” Draco gulped and leaned closer to Susan, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Is it grenade guns again?”

Susan’s laughter filled the hall and echoed off the walls, causing all of her friends, except Luna, to lose a few shades of color from their faces.

Luna just bit her lip and tried to stifle her own quiet giggles.

“No,” she told Draco once she got control of her laughter. “It’s not grenade guns again.”

No one looked very reassured, but, as Harry would say, that wasn’t really her problem.

Susan eagerly pulled the platter of steak and kidney pie towards her. “This is my favorite,” she told Hermione happily. “Is that luck or a coincidence?”

“Both,” Hermione nodded.

“I think that owl is lucky though,” Luna hummed, drawing Susan’s attention to a pretty amber colored owl flying right towards her.

“Oh!” Susan’s smile was so wide that it began hurting her face as the owl landed on her shoulder and offered her a scroll. “He wrote back quick!”

“Who did?” Theo asked.

Susan flipped her hand at him, ignoring his question as she quickly unrolled the scroll.

Susan,
While your letter was both flattering and charming, I will firmly be turning down your offer to ‘go back to my place’. However, if you would like, I would very much enjoy taking you to dinner and getting to know you better.
Every bit of gold I’ve seen since this summer reminds me of your strength and your beauty.
I hope to see you soon,
-Charlie

”She’s turning red,” Neville murmured to Ron. “That’s bad, right?”

“Can’t imagine it’s anything good,” Ron said back to him before cleaning his throat. “Whatcha got there, Susan?”

Susan’s brows furrowed as she reread Charlie’s rejection of half of her offer.

That wasn’t very lucky at all.

Although... she absently grinned as she reread his last sentence.

“Nothing,” she told Ron airily, tucking the letter in her pocket for safe keeping. “I’ve got a date.”

Blaise chuckled. “Sure you do,” he winked. “Really though, what nonsense have you gotten into now?”

“Lucky nonsense,” Susan winked back. “Truly Blaise, perhaps I’ve finally found love.”

***

Sirius looked around the Great Hall and frowned.

Harry was gone.

Sirius leaned forward so he could look up and down the Head Table. Snape was gone too.

Which was fine.

It probably meant Harry and Snape were having dinner together.

“Looking for your godson?” Minnie asked him.

“He’s probably with Snape,” Sirius said, unconcerned now that he solved the puzzle.

“Hmm.” Minnie hummed quietly, her lips flattened as it looked like she struggled to contain a laugh. “I doubt that Harry is with Severus.”

Sirius put his fork and knife beside his plate and looked at Minnie curiously. “Why do you doubt that? They spend most weekends together.”

“No,” Minnie said slowly, giving Sirius a pitying sort of look. “Severus spends every Sunday with Harry, Friday and Saturday he saves for Nymphadora.”

“Fuck,” Sirius swore under his breath, his eyes flicking more carefully through the hall again. He ignored that bit about Tonks, choosing to focus on Harry instead. He couldn’t help it if Tonks’ portion of the Black Madness led her to striking up a relationship with Snape of all people. Sirius couldn’t imagine what she saw in him, but Tonks was a grown witch who could make crazy decisions if she wanted.

Sirius couldn’t wait to tell Andy about it though.

“Then where the hell is Harry?” he murmured.

“As I have yet to see Albus today, perhaps Harry snapped and killed him,” Minnie said with a blasé tone. As if it were a joke, and not precisely what Sirius had been worrying about. “Ah, no, I am wrong,” she said. She nodded towards Harry’s group of friends at the Slytherin table, “Harry would hardly commit a capital crime without Susan or Theodore.”

That...

That was a good point.

“So probably nothing too crazy then,” Sirius said hopefully.

Minnie laughed quietly and shook her head at Sirius. “Of course it’s something crazy, Harry is a madman. We simply won’t know what insane plot he is executing until he’s ready for us to know.”

Another good point.

***

Harry woke up, wrapped up snuggly in someone’s arms. It took less than a second to recognize them as Fred’s arms. Harry shifted backwards a little, feeling something rather hard poking in to his backside as the memories of yesterday washed over him.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he groaned, embarrassed by his behavior.

“Good morning to you too,” Fred laughed, kissing the back of Harry’s neck lightly before nuzzling in to his hair. “Sober now, are you?”

“I’m going to die,” Harry moaned. “I can never go back to Hogwarts, Fred. I told everyone I loved them, everyone, Fred. I can’t even look at you.”

“Aww, am I not your sunny beach anymore, love?” Fred said, his breath sending chills down Harry’s spine. “You’re so bloody romantic when you’re high as a kite. I think that was the best night of my life.”

“There’s nothing funny about this,” Harry said, trying to sound firm as Fred’s hands creeped around Harry’s torso, trailing his fingernails lightly across his collarbone. “It’s not- aah, quit distracting me.”

“Mm, quit distracting you or quit touching you?” Fred asked, his hand hovering above Harry’s chest and his hips angled away from Harry’s now.

Harry puzzled over the distinction between the two and flipped over to study Fred’s face. “You said no?” he said uncertainly. “You didn’t want me?”

“Harry,” Fred’s eyes were soft as he carefully didn’t touch Harry, but still managed to make him feel as if he were being hugged with just the single word. “I said no because you were high. I don’t want us to have sex if you’re just floating along and not really consenting clearly.”

Harry gnawed his lip for a moment, nervous to speak now when everything spilled so easily last night. “I’m not high now,” he whispered with what felt like every bit of bravery in his body.

“No, you’re not,” Fred agreed. “But we also don’t have to do anything because you thought you wanted to last night. It’s not a race, love, we can do things on your time.”

Harry already used up all his bravery for speaking, so he instead just pressed forward, bringing his body flush against Fred’s. “I want to,” he breathed while kissing Fred. “Do you want me?”

“You have no idea,” Fred laughed.



By the time Harry returned to Hogwarts, having apparated to the grounds and then having to wait for someone to come let him through the gates, Harry was swaggering with the understanding of precisely how much Fred wanted him.

Also, holy hell, Susan had been right, Harry hadn’t known a thing about sex before this morning.

It had actually been a little awkward, and Harry had only lasted an embarrassingly short amount of time, but he wouldn’t be telling anyone that, would he? What he would be telling Susan, at least, was that he hadn’t even panicked.

Well.

He had only panicked a little, but they ‘took a timeout’, and Harry collected himself and dove back in. And once they were done, Harry had felt pretty smug about the happy look on Fred’s face. He had been decidedly less smug when George came home while Harry was shirtless in his kitchen, but he supposed it was solid proof that his luck really had run out.

Which didn’t really matter, because Harry planned on either brewing a batch himself, or stealing some from Slughorn.

The manic euphoria of flying all day had been brilliant, and Harry couldn’t wait to do it again.

“Good morning,” Harry said cheerfully as he spotted Sirius stomping across the snowy grounds, his arms crossed and his face rather peeved.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Sirius demanded as he let Harry in the gates. “It’s nearly lunch!”

“Shagging Fred,” Harry said flippantly. “It was brill, really.”

So was seeing Sirius trip in his shock and land face first in a pile of snow.

The week of detentions Harry would be serving after Christmas break were not so brill.

But it had been a small price to pay for the luckiest morning of Harry’s life.

Chapter End Notes

Up Next:
A short Tonks POV before Christmas break. 👀

48%

Tuesday, December 23

“No,” Snape said sternly. “I will not.”

Harry blinked at him.

“Do not pout, it is unbecoming and juvenile,” Snape said, pointing his fork threateningly at Harry. “I will not do it.”

Harry sighed. “You’d make me go by myself?”

“Do not try and lie to me, Potter,” Snape said curtly.

Harry was pretty sure he was calling him Potter as a joke though, which meant he’d probably cave if Harry kept pestering him.

“You will have every member of your motley band of misfits with you, you do not need me as well.”

“Three choices,” Harry said, smiling charmingly. Not that Snape was usually charmed by Harry’s smiles, even if they worked on literally every other professor at Hogwarts, but it was worth a shot. “Option one, you go with us tomorrow and it’s not horrible. Option two, you go with us on the 26th. Or option three, you do neither and I lock you out of our office for the rest of our break.”

Mavis, who had been bringing in a fresh pot of coffee, chuckled quietly. “Master Harry is tricky and sneaky, and Mister Snoop has no one to blame but himself.”

“He’s right, this is your own fault,” Harry shrugged. “Thanks, Mavis.”

Snape sighed dramatically and looked up to the ceiling. “I believe I would prefer to take my chances with Horace on the 26th than I would Molly on the 24th.”

“Wrong answer,” Harry said with a grin. He slid the letter Fred’s mum sent him across the table to Snape and pointed out the specific line where he had been invited. “‘And please bring Severus, it’s well past time I get to know him better, isn’t it?’ Sooo... either you have to go, or you’ve got to tell your future something-in-law that you don’t care about her feelings. And—” this time Harry pointed his fork threateningly at Snape, “—Molly Weasley is a crier.”

“Terrific,” Snape scowled, shoving the letter away from his plate of kippers and toast. “What time are we expected to be there tomorrow?”

“Eleven,” Harry grinned. He knew Snape would cave. “It’s not so bad, Sev, Tonks will be there, won’t she?”

That didn’t seem to reassure Snape at all. In fact, he looked like he was rapidly losing all the color in his face. “Harry,” he said slowly, “who all, precisely, will be at the Weasley residence tomorrow?”

“Everyone,” Harry said simply. “Molly invited everyone, Sev.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Yep.” Harry grimaced in understanding. Snape liked people about as much as Harry did, which wasn’t much really. Yeah, most of the people there would be Harry’s friends and Harry’s people, but there would also be Ginny Weasley, her current boyfriend, Dean Thomas, a few ‘Order members’, and Neville’s gran. “See why I need you to go?”

“We could both skip,” Snape offered quickly. “We will tell them we are too ill to attend. We wait until everyone else leaves, and I will let you drink bourbon, or even the firewhiskey you like, with me instead.”

“Can’t,” Harry shrugged, poking at his eggs a bit moodily now. That sounded way more fun honestly. “Susan wants to go. Let’s do that next year though. Plus, I promised Fred I’d be there. It’s- it’s the first holiday without his dad, which is why his mum went mad inviting people over. He said she wants a full house so she can be ‘properly distracted’.”

“We are being guilted by a grieving widow,” Snape groaned. “Fantastic.”

“We are,” Harry agreed. “It’s just one day though, we’ve dealt with way worse before, yeah?”

Snape curled his lip up, but he didn’t really look too pissed so Harry wasn’t worried about it. Honestly, as much as Harry had needed a break from Hogwarts, it seemed like Snape had too. Ever since they returned to Invisibility Way on Saturday, Snape had been almost happy, cheerful really. Which was a bit of an odd flip from his previous consistent doom and gloom.

Susan said it was probably because of Tonks, who she swore was now officially ‘with’ Snape.

Harry didn’t think so though. He knew Snape fancied Tonks, but Snape had been downtrodden since summer started, and Harry doubted it was over Tonks. It was more like there had been a heavy weight on Snape’s shoulders that he recently shed off.

Snape didn’t answer him when Harry asked about his quick shift in moods when they first returned home from Hogwarts, but maybe Harry wasn’t the only one who had been feeling a bit depressed lately. And it didn’t matter what had been bothering him if it had apparently been resolved now.

Now Harry could be the only thing bothering him.

Which is the way he preferred it really.



“This was a fucking mistake,” Harry muttered darkly the next morning when almost everyone who was spending the holidays at Invisibility Way were gathered on the front yard to apparate to the Burrow.

Theo looked like he agreed with him.

Draco, Luna, and Hermione did not.

“Ron’s family is great,” Draco said haughtily. “You’re going to be a Weasley one day, you might as well get used to being around them all.”

“There’s a difference between being with just the Weasleys, and being around a million people,” Theo scowled, tugging at his shirt collar nervously all the while.

“And Fred’s going to change his last name, not me,” Harry corrected Draco.

“Harry Weasley sounds ridiculous,” Luna agreed serenely.

“Either way, you should get used to his family,” said Hermione with a roll of her eyes. “And give his family a chance to get to know yours.”

Harry squinted at Hermione and tilted his head slightly. “I’m an orphan, Mione. I don’t really have any family.”

“Hell of a thing to say in front of your brother,” Theo said with his brows raised high.

“And your cousin,” Draco sniffed.

“And your future sister-in-law,” Hermione added with a shy smile towards Theo.

“We aren’t related, but I wish we were,” Luna said sweetly.

All fair points, Harry supposed.

“Can we just go?” Harry said, sick to death of waiting for Cissa to get ready and really wanting to get the day over with.

“Some of us,” Hermione gave Harry a pointed look, “can’t apparate until we learn how.”

“I’ll teach you,” Harry offered immediately.

“I think we should wait for the Ministry official to do it,” Theo said hastily. “Classes start next month.”

“Suit yourself,” Harry shrugged. He didn’t really get the fuss all the other sixth years were making over apparation classes. Harry offered to teach them all how to do it, then they could just take the test on their seventeenth birthday, but nobody aside from Trent and Susan took him up on his offer.

“Finally,” Draco sighed when his mum and Snape exited the house and made their way towards them. “What took so long?”

“Perfection,” Cissa said with a small smile. She did look great, truthfully, but Cissa always looked great and she always took forever to get ready to go.

“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” Snape said with his own scowl. He offered his arm to Theo, but Theo hesitated.

“I’ll go with Harry, Hermione can go with you, sir,” he said.

“Nobody is going with Harry,” Snape said sharply. “Harry will be going with Draco and Narcissa and not flaunting his disdain for the laws when there will be aurors present at Molly Weasley’s house.”

Harry nodded seriously.

Then grabbed Theo’s hand, quickly turned on the spot and disapparated to the Burrow.



“You bloody prat!” Theo howled as soon as they landed in Fred’s mum’s front yard. “You could have killed me!”

“How?” Harry asked curiously. He didn’t think you could kill someone with surprise apparation, but if it was possible, Harry would give it a shot.

“You- I...” Theo faltered as he hooked his thumbs in his trouser pockets and tapped his fingers on his thighs. “Splinching, Harry,” he said, trying to sound stern, “I could have been splinched.”

So, no. Harry could not kill Timmy with surprise apparation.

“Riiiight,” Harry drawled irritatingly with a smug smile. “You keep telling yourself that.”

“I will,” Theo muttered as two loud cracks signaled the arrival of the others.

“You idiot,” Snape scowled at Harry as he steadied Hermione’s clumsy landing with a hand on her elbow. Luna winked at Harry from Snape’s other side. “You will end up arrested for your antics one day.”

“Apparation without a license carries a maximum penalty of 1,000 galleons for a first offense,” Hermione said factually. “Harry wouldn’t be facing a prison sentence until his third charge.”

“Ta,” Harry grinned at her.

“Can we go or are we arguing?” Draco asked, inching eagerly away from the group towards the cockeyed house that Harry had been to a couple of times.

“I’d rather argue,” Harry murmured to Snape as they began following him. “Why are you so fuckin excited, anyway?” Harry asked Draco. “We see Ron all the time.”

Draco looked over his shoulder and gave Harry a wicked smile. “Daphne is coming,” he said. “Which means that Ron is going to be an absolute idiot and I want to witness it for myself.”

“Brilliant,” Theo snickered. “Come on, love, let’s hurry.”

Hermione huffed, but she joined Harry, Luna, and Theo in jogging to catch up with Draco as he approached the door.

Harry barely raised his fist to knock before the door was thrown open by George.

“Darlin!” George cried happily. “You came!”

Harry cocked his head curiously at George and took a small step backwards. “Er... yeah?” he said uncertainly, unsure why George would call him that. He really only liked Fred to do it and hoped George didn’t think they were friends just because he saw Harry shirtless once. “I told Fred I would, and I’m not much of a liar, am I?”

“I’m Fred,” George said with a crooked smile. “Surely a few days apart hasn’t made you mix me up with George?”

Harry snorted, catching on to the joke now. “It hasn’t been a few days, it’s been a couple hours,” Harry smirked. “Fred was in my bed this morning. Not you.”

“I bloody well hope not,” Fred laughed, shoving George aside with his shoulder. “Quit being a git and let them in,” he told his brother. “C’mon in,” Fred said more politely to Harry’s little group. “We’re eating in the backyard though, mum invited too many people to fit in the house.”

“But it’s freezing out?” Hermione said as they stepped in the house. Theo waited and held the door open for Snape and Cissa.

“We’re literally magic, Mione,” Harry laughed.

“Oh. Of course.”

Harry shook his head at her as Fred led them through the house.

“Adults are in there,” Fred grinned at Snape and Cissa, jerking his thumb to the kitchen entrance. “I think it’s just Mum, Fleur, Tonks, Shacklebolt, and Sirius so far.”

“How many more are you expecting?” Snape sighed, eying the door distastefully.

“Remus, and Neville’s gran,” Fred said cheerily, probably picking up on Snape’s ‘I would rather be anywhere except here’ mood. “Bit of a full house, really.”

“Come, Severus,” Cissa said brightly. “Let’s go mingle with the ‘adults’.”

Snape glared at Harry one last time before he let Cissa lead him in to the kitchen while Fred led the rest of them to the backyard.

“Harry!” Trent yelled, waving Harry over to a cluster of picnic tables. “Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas,” Harry told him, nodding at Trent as he took stock of everyone else in the yard.

Blaise and Trent were seated together with cards scattered in front of them. Susan, Bill, and Charlie were at another table, chatting together easily. Then Ginny and Dean Thomas were at another table, and Ginny didn’t look very pleased at Harry’s appearance so he smiled brightly at her and added a wink just to see Thomas scowl a bit.

“Try not to start a fight,” Theo murmured to Harry with a smirk as they made their way towards the big gap between Susan’s group and Trent’s.

“But it’s Christmas,” Harry grinned. “Live a little, Theo.”

Fred heard their quiet discussion and laughed as he slung his arm over Harry’s shoulder. He clearly didn’t mind if Harry started a fight or not. Harry glanced up at him and thought Fred looked much less sad than he had before he left Harry’s earlier that morning. He’d been sad since the anniversary of his dad’s death, and he’d been miserable when he told Harry that they used to all always be together on Christmas Eve and now they couldn’t be anymore, but he looked a little better now, thankfully.

Fred did a showy bow as Harry went to sit down, unfortunately having to sit beside Charlie so he could be across from Susan, and the others filed in randomly around them.

“Merry Christmas,” Susan said with a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

And since that was a stupid thing for Susan to say when she was obviously pretty unhappy about it, Harry didn’t say it back. He nudged her foot under the table and twisted his leg around hers. Susan gave him a little smile as she hooked her foot on his ankle.

“Where’s Ron?” Harry asked, not really speaking to anyone in particular. He looked around the yard again, but didn’t see him anywhere. And usually if there were cards out, Ron would be in the middle of it.

Ron was a genius at cards and he knew it too.

“Cleaning,” Bill snorted.

“What?” Harry squinted at him, unsure if he was joking or not. He glanced at Fred, who sat beside him, and raised a brow.

“He’s serious,” Fred said with a grin. “Ronnie’s been cleaning since he got home.”

“For Daaaaaphne,” Charlie sang. “Nothing can have a speck of dust or else Daaaaaaphne might understand that Ron’s a total prat.”

“Ron is not a fuckin prat,” Harry scowled.

He had no idea what Susan saw in Charlie. First off, Charlie was probably as strong as Susan’s one arm was. He also had a few tattoo’s and scars that made Harry naturally wary of him. And... just in general, Charlie wasn’t nearly as fun as Fred or Ron were. Not that Harry knew much about him, besides the little bits Fred shared, but he couldn’t imagine that someone who had ‘terrible depression’ and looked like a murderer could really be that fun to hang around.

Even Bill would have been a better choice.

If he weren’t marrying Fleur.

“You’re right,” Charlie agreed, shockingly. He looked over and gave Harry a friendly smile, almost as if he could guess that Harry didn’t like him and wanted to change his mind. “He is nervous for Daphne to meet all of us though.”

“And, as his brothers, it is our duty to make it a hundred times worse,” Bill said solemnly.

Harry scoffed. “I didn’t make it worse on Theo when he brought Mione over for the first time, did I? I don’t think there’s a rule that says you have to make him miserable.”

“No, there is,” George said seriously from Fred’s other side. “Right, Freddie?”

Fred glanced down at Harry then shrugged. “I mean, I think Ron’s just excited.”

“Traitor!” George howled, startling everyone else up and down the benches. “You’re turning your back on us for Harry!”

“I’ve been saying that for years.”

Harry leaned forward and raised his brows in interest at Ginny’s little comment. For someone who thought he stabbed her and wiped her memory afterwards, Ginny really liked picking fights with him.

Harry opened his mouth to wheedle her a bit, kind of hoping he could provoke her in to an actual duel, but before he could, Trent stood up and glared at her.

“Watch yourself,” Trent said harshly. “George was joking.”

“You watch yourself,” Ginny said hotly, getting to her feet as well while flicking her hair over her shoulder. Thomas hovered awkwardly, as if he didn’t know if he should stand up as well, and mostly just looked a little confused. “You keep running around with Harry and next thing you know, you’ll be waking up in the Hospital Wing with a bloody stab wound and no memory.”

“Don’t threaten Trent,” Harry warned her, narrowing his eyes and leaning around Charlie to be sure she saw him. “He didn’t do a damn thing to you.”

“You don’t talk to me,” Ginny said, sounding like a child. “I will never understand what Fred sees in you.”

“Oi, that’s enough,” Bill said firmly as Harry jumped to his feet as well now. “Gin, don’t start a fight. You’ll break mum’s heart. Harry, knock it off. Trent, shush.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” Ginny told Dean, snatching his hand and storming away towards the quidditch field the Weasley’s used.

Every single time Harry had to interact with Ron and Fred’s sister, he wished he had just killed her and left her in Slytherin’s Chamber when he had the chance. Now, he was going to be stuck dealing with her all the fuckin time.

Fred was lucky he was one of the best people Harry had ever known, otherwise it might not be worth it.

“She’s having a hard time,” Charlie told Harry quietly as they all resumed their seats and watched Ginny and Thomas leave. “Ignore her, mate.”

“Whatever,” Harry said flippantly. “I don’t care what she says about me, but she better not go after Trent again.”

“You’re embarrassing,” Trent called down to him, causing Fred and Blaise to snicker. “I can handle myself.”

“Awe, but why would you?” Blaise smirked. “When your big brother is there to fight your fights for you, little PJ.”

“Quit,” Harry snapped at him, unintentionally proving Blaise’s point.

It was a little awkward for a moment until Luna started giggling quietly.

“Daphne’s here,” she said. “Harry, want to go support Ron with me?”

“Fuck yes,” Harry breathed, jumping to his feet eagerly to escape the tense mood that he was pretty sure he caused. “I’ll be back,” he told Fred.

Fred puckered his lips out so Harry rolled his eyes and kissed him quickly, much to the amusement of his brothers who started hooting and hollering, then quickly sloped off towards the house with Luna.

“Thanks, Lue,” he murmured. “I’m fucking this up, aren’t I?”

“You’re surprisingly bad at dealing with family for someone so naturally charismatic,” Luna said thoughtfully. She linked her arm with Harry’s and gave him a warm smile. “I think my parents would have liked you though.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yes,” Luna said. “Daddy was quite mad, so he would have loved you. I know my mother would have liked you. Except, I suppose my mother was rather mad too, which is probably why I’m mad.”

“You aren’t mad,” Harry said with a frown. “You’re perfect, Lue.”

Harry might be fucking things up with Fred’s family, but the smile Luna gave him reassured him just a little.

They let themselves in to the Burrow, taking the kitchen entrance at Luna’s insistence and got to step in just in time to hear Ron shouting that Daphne had arrived.

“Go let her in then!” Fred’s mum, Molly, shouted from her position at the stove. She turned and smiled at Harry and Luna. “Harry, dear, I’m so glad you came! And Luna, how are you honey?”

“I’m adequate,” Luna said, “would you like some help?”

“Oh, that would be wonderful, thank you dear,” Molly said. She scooted over so Luna could join her at the stove and began explaining the sauce she had been working on.

Harry glanced around the room, taking note of the others at the overloaded dining table before Fleur stood up and quickly wrapped Harry in a hug.

“‘Arry!” she cried happily. “I ‘ave missed you! You do not write enough!”

“I write you... sometimes,” Harry grinned as Fleur let go of him. He spotted the ring on her hand and waggled his brows. “Did you guys pick a date yet?”

“This summer,” Molly said with a warm smile. “I expect you and Fred will want to wait a few years, at least until after you graduate?” she asked Harry with a bit of a pointed look.

Harry glanced at Snape, who was smirking at him in his spot beside Tonks.

“We haven’t really talked about it much,” Harry lied politely. “We can’t do anything until after August 1st, anyway.”

“Zat is when Bill and I are getting married!” Fleur said. “We should make eet a double wedding, non?”

“Er...” Fred had actually mentioned wanting to get married right after Harry’s birthday, which had been fine with Harry. But Harry very much did not want a ‘double wedding’ with Fleur and Bill, as much as he might like Fleur. Harry glanced at Sirius for help this time, since Snape obviously wasn’t going to help him, but Sirius just grinned and shook his head.

Bloody useless.

“Mum!”

Oh thank God.

Ron burst in the kitchen, a wide smile on his face and...

And what looked like Draco’s dress robes on. Despite the fact everyone else in Ron’s family that Harry had seen were all wearing Weasley sweaters.

Even Harry and Draco had their Weasley sweaters on.

Luna darted back to Harry’s side, watching as Ron tripped in the room, his ears bright red, and held the door open for Daphne. Daphne gave Ron a peculiar look before stepping gracefully into the kitchen and smiling sweetly at Molly.

“Hello,” she said, turning her head a little to address the rest of the room. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Of course!” Molly said, her smile growing as she took in Daphne’s neat appearance and polite manners. “Any friend of Ron’s is always welcome here!”

Daphne scrunched her brows for a moment before giving Ron a pointed look.

“Er...” Ron’s ears turned so red that Harry was beginning to worry about his general health. He stepped up beside Daphne and grabbed her hand. “Girlfriend, mum. Daphne is my girlfriend, not just my friend.”

“Oh.” Molly glanced at Cissa for a moment as she wiped her hands off on her apron. “I thought Draco and Ron were dating?” she asked her.

Cissa, and pretty much everyone else in the room aside from Ron, laughed.

“Oh, no,” Cissa said with an airy wave of her hand and a fond look towards Luna. “Draco and Luna are courting, I’m afraid he’s quite spoken for.”

“Quite,” Luna agreed.

“I’m so sorry,” Molly told Daphne, ignoring Ron’s look of horror. “Well, it’s lovely to meet you, dear! Are you in Slytherin as well?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Daphne said politely. “May I help you with anything? You look terribly busy and woefully under-assisted. I thought Ron said he had five brothers?”

Harry wished he could do that. With just a few little sentences, Molly looked like she wholeheartedly approved of Daphne and she quickly ushered her and Luna to the stove to help her cook.

“That was easy,” Ron murmured to Harry as they made their way to the table with the other adults sitting there.

“Way fuckin easier than dealing with your siblings,” Harry agreed quietly.

“Bill loves you,” Fleur tsk’d at Harry. “‘E ’as said so ‘imself.”

“They’re just...” Harry glanced towards the back door and lowered his voice so only Fleur could hear him. “They’re always picking on each other, and... I dunno. Families are weird, Fleur.”

“Zey are,” Fleur agreed. She plucked up a biscuit off the table that had been decorated with an icing flower and handed it to Harry. “And every one eez different, my ‘Arry. Bill’s family eez ze oddest one I have met.”

“Cheers then,” Harry grinned. He nibbled on the biscuit as he listened to Fleur talk about wedding stuff for a while. They eventually moved back outside while they were going back and forth on the ‘ideal wedding dinner’ after Shacklebolt arrived and Harry felt like it was a little crammed in the kitchen. Snape and Tonks followed them out, and Tonks jumped in occasionally as Fleur described weddings she’d been to in the past.

“Whatcha talkin’ about darlin?” Fred asked when they joined the ever growing group at the picnic tables. Harry nodded over at Neville, who must have shown up with his Gran at some point.

Neville’s Gran was thankfully wrapped up in a loud argument with Lupin, who also joined the group at some point, about creature rights within the Wizengamot, so Harry didn’t have to speak to her.

“I was telling ‘Arry zat we should ‘ave a double wedding,” Fleur told Fred. “Bill and I ‘ave already paid for most of our costs, so eet would be simple to add you two and your guests.”

“Are you two getting married then?” Neville’s Gran called over to them, looking between Fred and Harry curiously. “Two men? Bah!"

“Zat eez an ignorant zing to say!” Fleur scowled, still looking rather pretty while she did so. She wrapped her arm around Harry’s shoulders and stared the older witch down. “Love eez love. Who cares what eez inside zeir pants? Eet eez no ones business but zeirs!”

“Hear, hear,” Fred laughed.

Neville looked momentarily embarrassed, until he glanced over and saw that Harry looked much more embarrassed, then he cleared his throat and grabbed Blaise’s hand beside him.

“I’m gay,” Neville said baldly.

Which was news to Harry. He glanced at Neville and Blaise’s entwined hands and felt a bit guilty for not spending more time with them before now. He had no idea that Neville and Blaise were together. He glanced at Susan, who usually filled him in on things like that, but she just covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head.

“You told me you were dating that little Hufflepuff girl,” his gran said, glaring a bit at Blaise who pulled Neville closer to his side and propped his chin on his shoulder.

“We broke up,” Neville said. “Blaise and I are dating now. I love him.”

His gran seemed momentarily caught off-guard, but she either gave up her views quickly, which would be pathetic, or realized she was outnumbered as nobody seemed inclined to agree with her, which was also pathetic.

“Well you’re a long ways away from marriage,” she said stiffly.

“I suppose I’ll save my ring for another time,” Blaise sighed with a forlorn look at Neville.

Susan was apparently quite a bit behind on gossip if Blaise already had a ring for Neville.

Draco cleared his throat and lazily began shuffling cards. “Anyone care for a game while we wait to eat?”

Harry happily joined in as most of them started up a complex game of poker that involved fourteen players, two decks of cards, and more rules than Harry could really track.

They had to clear the game away not much later when Sirius and Molly began levitating out platters and Daphne and Luna followed with stacks of plates that Harry quickly helped them carry.

“Well, this is lovely,” Molly said with a quivering smile as everyone finally made it to their seats.

Harry accidentally caught Shacklebolt’s eye and grimaced to himself.

He didn’t think it was very lovely, but he wasn’t going to say that aloud.

“Thank you all for coming,” Molly went on. “I know Arthur would have been- well- he would have loved this.”

And then, in a twist that even Harry saw coming from a mile away, Molly started crying and excused herself after telling everyone else to ‘eat up’. Bill and Ginny excused themselves as well, quickly following their mum in the house.

“One day, I will get even,” Snape whispered to Harry under the stilted and awkward conversations everyone else began as they passed around plates and serving utensils.

Harry nodded a little. “That seems fair,” he whispered back. “This is terrible.”

“Intolerable,” Snape agreed.

“Horrifying.”

“An atrocity.”

“Er... completely barbaric?”

Snape snorted and gave Harry a small smile. “Next year, we will play sick.”

“Deal,” Harry grinned.



It wasn’t too bad, after a while. Molly, Bill, and Ginny came back out, all three of them sporting red rimmed eyes, and the mood lightened a bit. Harry got drug in to a conversation about quidditch with Charlie, who supposedly had an offer to go pro after graduation, and Daphne, who Ron kept staring at with a soppy smile.

Harry was actually just deciding that maybe it wasn’t too terrible spending the day with Fred’s family, when a silver phoenix patronus flew through the yard to Shacklebolt and interrupted the desserts and killed all the conversation.

“Cornelius is dead,” Dumbledore’s voice came through the patronus. “I need you to hurry back to the ministry.”

Harry’s jaw dropped and he shared a horrified look with Susan.

“Son of a bitch,” Tonks swore. She jumped to her feet as quickly as Kingsley did and frowned down at Susan. “Can you stay with Harry and Snape tonight?”

“Of course,” Susan said.

Harry made to jump up too, wanting to find out first hand what happened, but Bill, who was seated next to Harry, kept him in his seat.

“Don’t fuckin touch me,” Harry snarled, ripping his shoulder out of his grip. “Tonks, can I come?”

“No,” Tonks said shortly. “Stay with Susan. I’ll update you when I get back.”

The mood was pretty much shot after Tonks and Kingsley quickly apparated away.

On the one hand, Harry was shocked that Fudge had been killed. It was a real blow for more than just political reasons. Fudge was a terrible minister, but a decent bloke and Harry had come to like him just a bit.

Politically, unless Fudge was replaced with someone who liked using Harry’s fame just as much as he had, it meant Harry no longer had a say in Ministry decisions.

On the other hand, Harry was minutely relieved that he hadn’t been the one to completely ruin Christmas with Fred’s family.

“Molly, I apologize, I should take them home,” Snape said, his eyes flicking towards Harry with a bit of worry in them. “Until we know what happened, I would prefer to not be out in the open.”

“Of course,” Molly said quickly. She glanced around at her own kids and swallowed harshly. “I should... I should get this lot somewhere else.”

“Absolutely,” Snape agreed. “Harry, Theodore, Hermione, Luna, Susan, say your goodbyes quickly.”

“Grimmauld Place,” Bill whispered to Harry. “That’s where Mum will want to take everyone.”

“Brill,” Harry said, nodding in quick understanding.

It made sense— if there had been an attack, or it was an ongoing fight, then Grimmauld Place was almost as secure as Invisibility Way. The difference was, Invisibility Way had Snape as a secret keeper and Grimmauld Place only had Dumbledore. But Harry figured they would all be safe enough there anyway.

“Percy!” Molly suddenly cried, startling everyone who had been quickly gathering their bags and cloaks. “Bill! Percy might be at the ministry!”

“Damn,” Bill swore. “C’mon then.”



And Harry was suddenly the one being apparated away with absolutely no notice.



“If you ever do that again, I’ll fuckin kill you,” Harry told Bill as the two of them landed outside the telephone booth entrance to the Ministry and Bill let go of Harry’s elbow.

“Sorry, mate,” Bill said with an apologetic look. “If I’m charging through the ministry on a rescue mission though, I’d rather have you than Fleur or Charlie.”

“Of course you would,” Harry shrugged as they jogged up to the telephone booth. “I’m powerful and important and Charlie is...” Harry scrunched his nose as he tried to remember the compliment Luna once gave him. “An expert in his field?”

“You’re humility is my favorite thing about you,” Bill chuckled. He squished himself in the corner of the booth so Harry could enter and picked up the phone.

“Bill Weasley, Harry Potter, rescue mission,” Bill quipped to the magical voice that came through the receiver with a wink towards Harry.

“Oh.” Harry had a sudden thought and grinned up at Bill as he handed him a badge that Harry carelessly dropped on the ground. He didn’t think he really needed a badge for everyone in the ministry to know who he was. “Snape’s going to be so pissed.”

“Damn,” Bill swore again. “He’s going to kill me, isn’t he?”

“Probably,” Harry shrugged. “Not my problem though. Oh! Hey, if Snape kills you, d’you mind if Fred and I use your wedding stuff? I didn’t wanna tell your mum, but we were actually planning on getting married this summer, so you ruined it, a bit.”

“And my death wouldn’t ruin it more?” Bill asked as the lift slowed to a stop.

“I mean... maybe?” Harry said, mostly lying. As long as Fred and Harry were alive, he didn’t really think anyone else’s death would ‘ruin’ anything.

Bill laughed loudly and clapped Harry on the shoulder. “I like you, let’s go find Percy, alright?”

Harry grabbed his knife out of his trouser pocket as the doors slid open, unsure what sort of madness they were about to step in to.

“This is anticlimactic,” Bill murmured as they stepped out in to an empty atrium.

“It’s usually packed,” Harry said quietly, his eyes constantly roaming around for possible death eaters. The fact that the atrium was deserted didn’t bode well, in Harry’s opinion. “Where does Percy work?”

“Level one,” Bill said. He pulled his wand out and gave Harry an approving nod at his knife. “C’mon, follow me.”

“Stairs,” Harry hissed at Bill as he approached the lifts. “D’you want to announce our presence with a fuckin loud ding?”

“You’re right,” Bill said, swerving towards the doorway marked ‘emergency stairs’. “See? Charlie wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Harry scoffed quietly as they entered the staircase. He didn’t need Bill to tell him that Harry was more useful in a battle situation than Charlie was, Harry was already well aware.

The two of them creeped up the stairs quickly, but quietly, and Bill held his finger to his lips as he slowly opened the door for level one. Bill poked his head out, his ponytail whipping side to side as he looked down the corridor.

“It’s empty,” he whispered. “Let’s find Percy and get the hell out of here.”

Technically that was only part of Harry’s plan. The main part involved finding out what happened to Fudge. The other part involved killing some death eaters.

But after that? Sure. He’d help find Percy.

“This way,” Bill said, taking the lead since he knew where Percy’s office was. Conveniently, it was also in the direction of the minister’s office, so Harry didn’t need to ditch Bill just yet.

Harry followed Bill’s footsteps on light feet as they made their way through the eerily quiet corridor. Harry knew it was a holiday, but the utter silence of the ministry still put Harry on edge. The two of them made to turn a corner, making steady progress towards the minister’s office, when—

“FREEZE!”

Harry barely got a shield up around the two of them before it was hit with an onslaught of red curses.

“OI! THAT’S HARRY POTTER YOU’RE STUNNING!” Bill yelled, like a fucking idiot. Harry couldn’t see through what he assumed were stunning spells to tell if it was a group of ministry workers or death eaters.

If they were ministry workers, yeah, maybe announcing Harry’s name would work.

If they were death eaters, then Harry hoped Bill was ready to fight like hell.

“God damnit, quit!” someone, Tonks, Harry was pretty sure, yelled. Harry didn’t drop the shield, but he did squint through it to see who exactly had surrounded them.

It took a second of looking over the unfamiliar and grim faces before Harry landed on Johnny, then Tonks a few people over.

Not death eaters then. Or, at least not all death eaters. Tonks said that imperio was a constant threat in the aurors department, and without Draco’s dad to report, Harry couldn’t be certain who all was or wasn’t working for Timmy.

Except for his people, obviously.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tonks demanded, glaring at Harry through the shield that he certainly wouldn’t be dropping when surrounded by cops.

“Finding my brother,” Bill said, speaking just as firmly as Tonks had. “Percy Weasley, is he here?”

“I think he’s in his office, Bill,” a witch with a pointed blue hat on said. “We told everyone to stay in their offices while we did a floor by floor sweep.”

“Why?” Harry asked quickly. “Was the attack here?”

“No,” Tonks said shortly. “Go home, Harry.”

“Nah, I’ve gotta find Percy first,” Harry said. He glanced quickly at Johnny before thoughtfully adding, “Maybe we could get someone to escort us to his office? So you don’t try and fucking stun me again?”

“I’ll do it,” Johnny offered after a beat. “I don’t mind.”

Tonks narrowed her eyes at Harry, her hair flashed a dark red for a moment, before she sighed and her hair went back to pink. “Abbott, escort Harry and Bill to Percy’s office then escort all three of them out of the ministry,” she said with a stern look that Harry rolled his eyes at.

Honestly, Tonks was much more fun when she wasn’t working. Tonks who irritated Snape with Harry was alright. Tonks who was a fuckin cop was annoying.

“Brill,” Harry said smugly. He dispelled his shield and gave Johnny a small smirk. “Lead the way then, mate.”

Johnny smirked back and turned so that Harry and Bill could step in front of him. Harry had barely taken three steps away from the group of the other DMLE staff before he heard someone whisper:

“That’s Harry Potter? Bit of a dick, isn’t he?”

“Don’t,” Johnny murmured, correctly guessing at Harry’s intentions as he clenched his hand tightly. “Not worth it under the new Head. He’s very pro ‘Azkaban first, questions second’.”

“What happened?” Harry asked him quietly as they slowly made their way to Percy’s office.

“The Minister is dead,” Johnny said bluntly.

“We know that,” said Bill. “What exactly happened?”

“Not sure of all the details yet, but it looked like an attack at his house. Wife and kids are dead too.”

Harry paused in the middle of the corridor and blinked at Johnny. “Fudge had kids?!” he hissed.

How had Harry spent so much time with Fudge and never known he had a whole family? There had been a picture of Fudge and a group of people that could possibly have been his family on his desk, but he had a picture of him and Harry on his desk too, so how was he supposed to know the other photo was his family?

“Three of them,” Johnny said with a frown. “Little granddaughter too. All dead.”

“That’s terrible,” Bill said, sounding truly mournful.

“That’s... terrible,” Harry echoed Bill after a moment. “Fuck.”

“Dark mark over the house, then?” Bill asked.

“Yep. Two dead families in the muggle town a few miles from him too. We’ve got half our people over there dealing with that, the other half here doing a sweep.”

“Why the sweep here?” Harry asked curiously.

“Thicknesse,” Johnny said with a scowl that explained what he thought of his new boss. “He said it could be a ‘ruse to divert our attention, leaving the ministry open for an attack’.”

“That makes sense,” Bill said while Harry nodded in agreement.

Johnny glanced around and pulled Bill and Harry in to a doorway before casting a few nonverbal muffling and privacy charms.

“I meant to try and get a message to you sooner, but I think Thicknesse works for Timmy,” Johnny whispered quickly to Harry. “Could be imperio, could be his own free will. I don’t have any proof, but something stinks about him.”

Bill looked skeptical, but Harry trusted Johnny’s instinct. If he thought Thicknesse wasn’t to be trusted, then he probably had a good reason for it.

“Keep an eye out, and watch your back,” Harry murmured. “Quit if it gets too hot, yeah? I’ll find a different job for you, don’t worry about money.”

Harry could afford to pay Johnny for some private work of some sort. He couldn’t afford to lose a member of the gang.

“Cheers, mate,” Johnny winked. “Come on then, let’s find your future brother in law and get you out of here before I actually get fired.”

Johnny dispelled his charms and seemed to pick up the pace a little as they made their way towards Percy’s office.

“How’s Susan doing?” he asked casually. “I wrote her, after Madame Bones died, but I haven’t heard back from her.”

“Bit sad,” Harry said. “Still Susan though, ya know?”

“Tell her I miss her, will you?” Johnny asked him with a grin. “Maybe I’ll pop by next Hogsmeade weekend.”

“Maybe you won’t,” Bill said with a smile that didn’t seem very friendly. “Susan’s seeing someone, isn’t she, Harry? Big bloke, powerful, jealous.”

“Is she?” Harry asked, shocked. He thought Susan fancied Charlie.

Jesus Christ. He really needed to pay more attention to his friends’ lives apparently.

First Neville and Blaise, now Susan and some powerful bloke.

Bill rolled his eyes at Harry, but didn’t say anything more as they approached Percy’s door.

“I’ll just wait out here,” Johnny drawled with a sideways glance towards the posh little plaque on Percy’s door. “Holler if you need me.”

Harry snorted and threw Percy’s door open, hoping to scare him a bit. Which he did. Percy jumped from a dark wooden chair behind a large polished desk and screamed as Harry and Bill stepped in his office.

“Bill?” Percy pushed his glasses on his nose then turned his bewildered gaze on Harry. “And Harry?”

“Hey, Perky,” Harry said with a cold smile. “Your mum sent us.”

“My Mum? Why?” Percy asked.

“No idea,” Harry shrugged.

Bill stepped forward hastily and gave his brother a friendly smile. “She was worried about you, why don’t you come to the Burrow with me so she can see you’re alright?”

“I...” Percy glanced down at the paperwork on his desk then back up to his brother. “I can’t, I have a lot to do...”

“Is it more important than your family?” Bill asked softly. “It’s Christmas Eve, Percy, Mum misses you. She’s terrified now. Please?”

Percy looked torn as he glanced between his desk and Bill. Harry rolled his eyes, Percy was such a bloody swot.

“Your mum made you a fuckin sweater,” Harry told him. “You’re really going to ignore it? Fudge’s entire family died today. Susan’s aunt died last month. Your dad last year. You wanna spend Christmas at your desk or with the family you’ve got left?”

“Uh, not my desk,” Percy said quietly. He quickly stuffed a bunch of parchments in a briefcase and nodded towards Bill. “Of course I’ll come, if mum wants me there.”

“She does,” Bill said. He beamed at Harry and clapped his shoulder again. “Alright, let’s get out here, eh?”



Harry, Bill, and Percy let Johnny lead them through the ministry back to the lift that would take them to the phone booth and Harry spent the time watching Percy cower and cringe around every corner with nothing short of amusement written all over his face.

“How did you make it to Gryffindor?” Harry asked once the three of them were in the lift together. “You’re not very brave, or chivalrous.”

“That is none of your business,” Percy said pompously with his nose in the air.

“So you asked for Gryffindor?” Harry guessed with a grin. “Let me guess, the hat suggested Ravenclaw?”

Percy didn’t answer, but his red cheeks were basically an answer anyway.

Bill chuckled and eyed Harry speculatively once they spilled out of the phone booth on to the street. “Am I taking you home?” he asked.

“Nah,” Harry shrugged and pocketed his knife. “I’ll get home. Ta, Bill. Later, Perky.”

Percy was muttering the correct pronunciation of his name as Harry spun on the spot and went home.



When Harry landed back on his own front yard, Theo stood on the stairs to the porch and grinned wryly at Harry.

“Did you ask Bill to take you?” he asked.

“Nope. Lucky break, I guess.”

“Good luck convincing Snape of that,” Theo told him, glancing over his shoulder towards the house. “He’s mad as hell.”

Harry glanced towards the same direction Theo was a bit uneasily now. “Er... how mad?”

“He’s definitely going to scream, and he might throw something,” Theo said. “Probably not at you, but he’s going to throw things.”

“Fuck.” Harry stuck his hand in his pocket and gripped his pocketknife tightly.

Theo gave him a sympathetic look. “I’ll go with you,” he offered.

“It’ll be fine,” Harry sighed. Theo stepped up beside him as he entered the house anyway, which Harry was only a little grateful for.



All in all, it could have been worse.

Snape threw a book, but he threw it at the wall opposite Harry. He did yell quite a bit, but Bill did Harry a real favor when he sent a patronus midway through Snape’s tirade apologizing for ‘stealing Harry’. Snape looked skeptical, as if Harry also orchestrated that, but it did take a bit of the sting from his tone.



“Today was rough,” Theo murmured when the two of them finally were able to leave the sitting room and head up to their bedroom.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Harry disagreed. “I nearly got in to a duel with about a dozen aurors, that would have been brill, yeah?”

“No,” Theo sighed, shaking his head. “That would have been not ‘brill’ at all. Idiot.”

Theo was wrong.

Nearly getting in to a full on fight with the aurors at the ministry had been the only highlight in Harry’s shitty day. Well, also that Snape thought he was punishing Harry by refusing to allow him to go to Slughorn’s posh little Christmas party on the 26th.

Harry pretended to be put out about it, but honestly he was relieved.

“He probably did that on purpose, to apologize for yelling at you,” Fred murmured when he finally came home that night and Harry filled him in on their change of plans.

Harry hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he conceded. “Hey, Bill stole our wedding date, I thought you were going to tell them we wanted August first?”

“I forgot,” Fred admitted. “You probably don’t want a double thing with Bill and Fleur, do you?”

“Not really.”

Fred sighed dramatically and looked up to the ceiling. “Good, good. Yeah, mum’s going to love this.”

Harry smirked and moved closer to Fred, dropping his head on his chest. “That’s your problem,” he said unsympathetically. He thought about his chaotic day and suddenly remembered something. “Oh, hey, did you know Susan’s got a boyfriend?”

Harry had no idea why Fred found the story Harry told him, explaining how the topic of Susan’s boyfriend came up on a rescue mission at the ministry, so funny, but he just laughed and kissed Harry on the top of the head.

“I love you,” he said warmly. “Merry Christmas, darlin.”



The rest of Christmas break passed by quietly, and much less eventfully than the 24th had anyway.

Harry and the other inhabitants of his house had a simple meal together on Christmas night. They spent New Years at Harry’s place with Tonks and Susan, all of them staying up well past midnight as they played cards and relaxed.

Snape even pretended not to notice Harry, Susan, and Draco sneaking drinks of a bottle of some sort of liquor that the Contessa sent Harry for Christmas in their goblets.

By the time they were ready to return to Hogwarts, despite the bad luck in losing the Minister and the subsequent appointment of a bloke named Rufus Scrimgeour that used to be Head Auror, Harry actually felt loads more relaxed than he had before the break. Not so cold, not so weighed down by everything anymore.



“I’ve got a good feeling about the rest of the year,” he told Luna cheerfully before they floo’d back to Snape’s office at Hogwarts together.

Luna hummed and fluttered her hand a bit at her side as she stared in the green flames. “I don’t,” she said quietly. “I don’t feel good about it at all.”

Which dashed Harry’s optimism pretty quickly.

Chapter End Notes

Up Next: A hunt for hallows.