Harry

Something felt off about going back to Hogwarts. Harry couldn't quite place what it was, even as he packed his truck to prepare for the trip to King's Cross station. It was slow going, hampered by his inability to use magic.

Well, inability was the wrong term. He could have easily done it with magic. Part of him wanted to. Even if Mrs. Weasley and the other adults at the house would flip on him. Sure, it was a petulant thought not worthy of a young adult, but it would have amused him.

The only reason he didn't was that he highly doubted he'd be able to claim innocence or necessity in another hearing about his expulsion from Hogwarts. Certainly he couldn't claim it was in defense as there was, as far as he could tell, no dementor in the room he shared with Ron.

Then again, there was a boggart making a fuss downstairs, perhaps enough of the adults would lie for him in order to get him off the hook again. There would be lectures, he was sure, but he expected they would do so.

Of course, he could always just be truthful. Well, I'm sorry, Madame Bones, but I had to banish the sock into my trunk. I hadn't washed it all summer and I sure wasn't going to touch it with my hands. Can you even imagine?

He chuckled to himself as he balled two unmatched socks and tossed them into his trunk. Next up were his shirts. He folded about half of them before he grew bored with the exercise and started shoving them into his trunk.

Part of him couldn't help but wish that the hearing had gone differently. It was stupid, he knew that, but the thought still lingered in the back of his head. It wasn't like they could make him go back to the Dursley's home. Well, they could try, but he'd run away before and he could easily run away again.

And this time Sirius would help him, as opposed to hiding in the bushes like a crazed maniac. Or a rabid dog. He figured a rabid dog made the more accurate analogy. The two of them could run away and hide together. They could pick some ridiculously named city that no one would ever think to check, like say, Saskatoon, and vanish.

Dumbledore would hate it. Ron and Hermione would hate it. But Dumbledore hadn't even looked at him during the entire time he'd acted as his defense at his hearing, much less even bothered to say a single word to him. And his friends hadn't bothered to send him, oh, you know, any god damned thing the entire summer.

He threw another balled up shirt at his trunk and watched as it bounced off the side and fell back down to the floor.

He couldn't help but frown at that. He'd missed sinking the shirt into the wide open trunk. From all of about three feet. Talk about pathetic. He let out a long sigh. Once that was done he closed his eyes to inhale for just as long before exhaling it all again. Only then did he decide it was worth it to walk over to the fallen shirt and toss it into his trunk.

His accuracy from one foot remained perfect.

Part of him wondered how he'd managed to get so much of his clothing into such random spots in the bedroom. He hadn't even been there that long. But it didn't matter. He'd done it. And now he had to deal with the ramifications of his actions.

The same, he thought wryly, could be said of Hermione and Ron.

Sure, they'd been 'ordered' to not send him anything, to not tell him anything, to not share any of their fun little summer with him. They'd wanted to. Oh how they'd wanted to. But, you know, they'd been told not to. And what else could they possibly do after that?

Oh I don't know. Maybe fucking ignore it like any sensible person did whenever they were told to do something so astronomically stupid that it nearly caused an aneurysm by merely being a single stray thought? Would that have been so fucking hard?

He missed the trunk again.

"Chaser must not be your forte," a man's voice said from his door. Harry spun on his heel, ready to unleash the full force of his vitriol on the intruder. The words died in his throat as his eyes rested on his godfather's smirking face.

Sirius had done nothing to deserve his anger.

Well, that wasn't true. Sirius had done plenty to warrant his anger. Had he, you know, waited a few bloody minutes and actually had a conversation with people like say, Albus Dumbledore, then Harry's childhood would have been a drastically different affair.

But, in Sirius's defense, he was trying to make up for it. And he'd gotten pretty systematically screwed with not even getting a trail. And, really, how many people were you ever going to find in your life that would willingly live in a cave and subsist off of rodents just so they could possibly be around to help you, if need be.

"My shot definitely leaves something to be desired," Harry agreed. It was a lie, more or less. He wasn't as good as Angelina, Katie, or Alicia, the three Chasers on the Gryffindor Quidditch team with him, but when they needed an extra Chaser for drills, he was the best option. All three had been known to say they were glad he preferred Seeking to Chasing as the competition would have been closer than they cared to admit.

Alicia, though, was the only one he thought he could have out chased if need be. But he had little interest in the Quaffle or the attack patterns. Sure, flying straight at the keeper, one on one, was quite exhilarating. But so much else went into Chasing and his heart had never been in it like it was Seeking.

"Seekers get more glory anyway," Sirius said. "Chasers merely wish they were that important. I used to tweak your dad with that at school. Especially when he went on one of his 'abolish the Snitch' rants."

"Did you seek?" Harry asked.

"Nah. Didn't play."

"Any reason?"

"Sucked."

"That will do it," Harry couldn't help but laugh as Sirius shrugged his shoulders as if he'd long since come to terms with his Quidditch ineptitude.

"Had to let your father think he was better than me at something," Sirius teased with a smirk. It faltered when Harry looked away. He wasn't in much of a mood to be reminded of the loss of his parents.

Sirius, for his part, seemed to realize it was the wrong thing to say. He stuttered for a moment, then closed his mouth. He paused and stepped over toward a few of the books Harry had discarded. "Sorry."

"It's alright," Harry said. The books were from his third year. Sirius moved them to the desk in the room, setting them down on the corner of it.

"I shouldn't have," Sirius started as he turned back to Harry.

"It's alright," Harry said again, more forcefully. "It's not like we can change it."

"Still if it's upsetting," Sirius said.

"It's fine," Harry said.

"And if you wanted to talk to someone about it," Sirius said. Harry raised his brows and took his attention away from his packing and turned to Sirius. The older man shrugged. "I mean, not me, like a professional. Or, well, me too, but, you know."

"I'm fine," Harry said. It must have come out more defensive than he intended because Sirius raised his hands, palm up, in front of him.

"Okay," he said. He leaned forward and picked up a couple of shirts, folding them with surprising precision, and tucked them into Harry's trunk.

"Does Mrs. Weasley want us to leave yet?" Harry asked as he continued to pack as slowly as humanly possible. Sirius didn't do a whole lot to help with the pace, choosing to only grab one item here or there.

"No idea," Sirius said. "Not that it matters. We can get you to King's Cross in under a minute if we have to."

"Fair enough," Harry said. He picked up a single sock and looked around the room for the second one. When he couldn't find it he tossed the sock into the trunk. Sirius summoned it out.

"Really, Harry?"

"What? The second one might already be in there," Harry shrugged. Sirius rolled his eyes at him.

"And I'm sure you'll fix the heel-sized hole in it as soon as you get to Hogwarts?" Sirius teased.

"I might," Harry shrugged. Sirius smirked and shook his head. He picked up a discarded shirt and held it up.

"For some reason I doubt you're a double X," he said, peering at the shirt then at Harry. Harry shrugged his shoulders and bit back any sort of response. Sirius shrunk the shirt down, folded it, and levitated it into his trunk.

"Might grow into it," Harry shrugged again, going quiet as he spoke. Sirius nodded and levitated a set of robes up. Those, mercifully, were his size.

"Remus told me that most of your Muggle clothing doesn't fit," Sirius said. Again, Harry could think of very little to do than shrug his shoulders. They continued to pack his trunk for a few moments before Sirius spoke again.

"If you'd like I can take you shopping for Muggle clothing over the winter holiday," Sirius said.

"I'm sure Dumbledore will be thrilled with that," Harry snorted.

"He won't mind," Sirius said.

"And if someone sees you? I'm not going to have you go back to Azkaban just so I can have some shirts that fit," Harry said.

"He promised me some Polyjuice potion," Sirius said. "And as long as I use it, and we stay in Muggle London, I can't imagine there would be any issue. Dumbledore knows I'm going to go batty with nothing to look forward to. I could probably get the same results with some good Transfiguration, anyway. Although that runs the risk of someone sensing the magic."

"You think he'd let you do that?" Harry asked, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

"Well, the transfiguration may take some convincing. And I'm sure he'd keep tabs on us if it comes to that. But he is the one who came up with the Polyjuice idea. It's a shame the first batch failed or I'd be heading to the station to see you off," Sirius said.

"Oh. What happened?" Harry frowned down at his trunk. Feeling even emptier than he had a few minutes ago. Having Sirius see him off to school would have been a welcome change. Even if it made him feel a bit childish to think of it.

"I don't know. Snape messed something up," Sirius shrugged his shoulders and continued to be far more efficient at packing than Harry was.

"Of course," he scoffed. Sirius shook his head.

"Not everything is malicious, Harry," Sirius said.

"With Snape it is," Harry retorted, his mind quickly drawn back to every little snide comment and arrogant look the Potions Professor had ever spared him. Even back to openly insulting him in his first class. A great way to ingratiate yourself to a new student. He huffed at the memory, wishing he'd have been more intelligent, or more powerful, and able to squash the man like the bug he was in that moment.

"Even I doubt that, Harry," Sirius said.

"He hates me," Harry countered, knowing he was being far too petulant but in that moment he didn't care. The fact that Snape had a chance to do one kind thing and he'd messed it up. Of course he was petty enough to do that. Why couldn't anyone else see it?

"I'm not sure how that has any bearing on his Polyjuice potion," Sirius said with an annoying calm tone of voice. He'd finished the last of Harry's packing and closed the trunk. A wave of his wand sent it out of the room and downstairs wherever it joined all of the other luggage.

"He knew I'd benefit from it so he intentionally screwed it up," Harry said, as if it was obvious what had happened. Frankly, he was having a hard time with everyone being so open about Snape. The man was a Death Eater! He didn't think that label was something so easily shed. He didn't care what Dumbledore or Sirius said. He was never going to consider him an ally. And he thought they were fools for letting him into their inner circle.

"He had no idea any of it was for me," Sirius said.

"Sure he didn't," Harry snorted. It was Snape, of course he knew.

"I only spoke about it briefly with Dumbledore. And I made sure we were the only two Order members at Headquarters at the time. Unless Dumbledore told Snape, which I find doubtful, he had no idea. It was a bit of a gamble anyway," Sirius explained. Harry rolled his eyes. He was positive that Snape found out somehow. It was what Snape did. How? Harry had no idea. But you didn't keep secrets from him. Especially if they were excuses for why you hadn't bothered with his four parchment roll essay. Ron learned that the hard way.

"Well what happened then?" Harry said. He didn't make any attempt to not sound like he was accusing Snape of sabotage long before he had a clue what the situation was.

"You know Polyjuice takes about a month to brew, right?" Sirius asked. Harry managed to resist the urge to make a snide comment about how he'd already brewed some in his second year before he remembered that aside from vague mentions of the potion, he hadn't been taught any of the specifics about it.

"Yeah, I'd heard that," Harry admitted, trying to sound as sheepish as he could without blurting out the fact that he'd used the potion in his second year.

"Well, Dumbledore's plan only started about two weeks ago. Snape is brewing two batches of the potion. One he's brewing in the normal way, that takes about a month. The second he was trying a new experimental recipe he came up with that he thought could reduce the time to around two weeks," Sirius explained. Harry felt a momentary pang of guilt in his chest, but it was easily squashed by the mere reminder that he hated Snape.

"I see," he said. It was obvious where the story was going but Sirius continued anyway, clearly oblivious to the fact that Harry did not want to hear it.

"His experimental batch curdled last night, so it's useless," Sirius said. He frowned and looked thoughtful for a moment. Harry turned his attention back toward where his trunk should have been, remembered that he'd finished packing and turned back to Sirius.

"Well, that sucks," he said. The words sounded as empty as they felt but he figured it was better to say something. And probably best to not claim that Snape had intentionally screwed it up.

"Indeed. It's funny, actually," Sirius said, the briefest traces of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"How's that?" Harry didn't see any humor in the situation. Not that he cared to.

"I spent a good portion of my life tormenting Snape. Nothing I did to him ever made him as angry as admitting he screwed up the potion. He was beyond livid with himself," Sirius said. "I've never seen him that upset."

"He was probably faking it," Harry said.

"Maybe….still," Sirius shrugged, figuring he should be the adult in the room and not give in to rampant speculation.

"Still what?"

"It's hard to fake something like that. I don't know if you're old enough…" Sirius started.

"That excuse again?" Harry snorted. He'd heard it his entire stay at Grimmauld place. He wasn't old enough to know what was going on. He wasn't old enough to join the Order of the Phoenix. He wasn't old enough to help out with whatever they needed, even if he was more than willing. Even if he'd have to, someday. No, for now he was just a stupid, useless, child.

No one seemed to care that he was, apparently, old enough to stand trial in front of the Minister of Magic and the entire Wizangamot. Old enough to be railroaded by people who'd rather bury their heads in the sand and scream that he was a liar. But not old enough to do anything productive.

But Sirius hadn't been in the 'hide everything from him' camp. No, for the most part his Godfather had been open and honest about everything he could be. That only made it more of a gutpunch.

"Well, yes, but different intentions this time," Sirius said.

"Oh I can't wait to hear this one," Harry scoffed as petulantly as he could.

"At some point in your life you're going to have an absolutely brilliant idea that may change the course of, well, possibly the world. You're going to throw your everything into it, it's going to be absolutely brilliant, transcendent, and you'll know you'll go down in history as one of the greatest contributions to whatever field," Sirius said.

"What does this matter?" Harry asked.

"Then," Sirius continued silencing him with a wave of his hand. "You're going to fuck it up."

"What's your point?" Harry asked.

"You'll never be more angry than you are at that moment. And the only person you'll be angry with is yourself. And it'll be a different kind of anger. A deeper, far more personal anger than anything you'll have ever felt," Sirius said. "And it very well may be the worst feeling of your life."

"I don't see what the point of this is," Harry said.

"That's the anger I saw in Snape," Sirius said. "And he's going to brood about it for a while. Whatever malicious intent you think he had, well, in this case, he did not."

"Sure," Harry agreed suddenly feeling rather childish about the entire thing.

"Trust me, Harry. No one is a jackass all the time. It's far too much effort. While I'm sure Snape has done more than enough to earn your ire, you can't assume everything he does is intentionally designed to be detrimental toward you. If you start to think like that you'll end up driving yourself insane," Sirius said.

"And you've had a situation like this?" Harry asked. Sirius nodded at him. The older man pressed his lips together. Harry could tell he was debating if he should say something more. But the words weren't coming. Which was for the best as the last thing Harry wanted was to listen to some long-winded lecture on something he didn't care about in the least.

"Of course. Wormtail. Both times," Sirius said. That was all that he needed to say for Harry to understand what he'd meant. And to make it worse, his godfather spent years and years doing nothing but stewing on it.

"Sorry," Harry muttered.

"Well," Sirius said. Harry felt rather relieved when Sirius changed the subject. "It's got to be about time to get you to school. I hate to think of how obnoxious Molly will be if we keep them waiting any longer than necessary."

"She has seemed a bit antsy," Harry responded.

"More than a bit," Sirius said. "But given that Voldemort is back I think some of that is to be expected."

"He hasn't done anything," Harry scoffed.

"Sent Dementors after you," Sirius countered.

"Maybe," Harry shrugged.

"You don't think it was him?" Sirius asked.

"I mean it makes the most sense, I guess. But I'm not sure, really. Not that anyone bothered to ask," Harry said.

"I'm asking," Sirius said.

"It's probably dumb," Harry said.

"Lots of things are. Only one way to really decide it," Sirius said.

"Not a ringing endorsement."

"Tell me," Sirius said.

"It just doesn't feel right."

"Why not?"

"I don't have anything to base it on. It just feels wrong when I think about it. Maybe I expected better from someone called Lord Voldemort," Harry said.

"What gives you that idea?" Sirius asked as he opened the door and the two of them stepped out of the room and into the hall.

"Nothing more than a hunch I guess. It's just, well, have the Dementors done anything else that could be considered strange?" Harry asked. "I tried checking through the Prophet but it's hard to tell what's true and what's made up in there of late."

"Nothing," Sirius said. "Aside from not identifying which specific ones actually went to Privet drive. But communicating with Dementors is harder than most people realize. I don't think the Ministry wants to let out how loose their control over the creatures actually is."

"Yes, they think it was rogue Dementors, not ones that were stationed at Azkaban. Do rogue Dementors even exist?"

"In theory, no. But there are probably some of them out there that aren't being tracked. I mean, I'd call it unlikely, but if they feed purely on Muggles and keep to themselves? Well, it's possible," Sirius explained. He paused for a moment before adding. "And it may make a wandering Wizard seem like a fantastic target if they were hungry."

"So it does make sense," Harry said.

"Some," Sirius shrugged. "What about it is bothering you?"

"Well, it just seems stupid," Harry said.

"How do you reckon?"

"If you're Voldemort, and you suddenly had access to Dementors, why would you send a pair of them after me rather than like, a hundred?" Harry asked.

"Well, you know he sees you escaping him at the graveyard as a massive failure on his part. He needs to kill you to prove to his followers that you were nothing but a fluke," Sirius said.

"That's sort of my point. He thought two Dementors would do that? They're not even known for killing, at least in the technical sense," Harry said.

"I doubt he'd care that much about the distinction," Sirius said. "Or you for that matter, if push came to shove."

"It just seems like a dumb decision the more I think about it. Everyone claims Voldemort is intelligent and I can't think of a good reason as to why he would have thought it a good idea," Harry said.

"It makes their stray dementor theory sound more likely," Sirius admitted.

"Maybe," Harry shrugged. They started down the stairs. They could hear Mrs. Weasley yelling at the twins so they ducked into the entryway and waited.

"What are you getting at?"

"Well, a woman at the hearing made a big deal of how only a high ranking ministry official could order the Dementors around. Made it seem like I was trying to slander Fudge, or someone at the ministry," Harry said.

"Yes, Dolores Umbridge. She's one of the undersecretaries. Dumbledore mentioned that was their excuse," Sirius said.

"Well, it got me thinking. And something's been bouncing around in my head ever since. What if she's right?"

"Well, as far as I'm aware, you're not trying to slander Fudge," Sirius said.

"No, about the ministry. If she's right, then what does that say? We're jumping at a phantom when we should be able to easily figure out who had that authority and go from there."

"Interesting," Sirius said.

"The ministry is calling me a liar. And throwing out a theory even though it is unlikely. But had the attack succeeded, it would have solved their problems and all they'd have to do is wring their hands a bit. I'm sure someone already thought of it," Harry responded. He didn't know why he suddenly felt sheepish about the entire thing. Like he'd just voiced one of the dumbest ideas he could possibly have.

"Well, Dumbledore is looking at anyone at the ministry who could be even remotely suspected of having anything to do with Voldemort. So far it doesn't seem likely that anyone at the ministry would have been able to do it without it being obvious. It's by design. There's three separate approval forms for anything related to the Dementors, all of which have to be signed by different people. And on top of that, all of the forms are magically tracked. Only five of them exist at any given time. And all five of them are accounted for," Sirius explained.

"That sounds like a lot of effort," Harry said. Although he found the concepts behind all of it to be strangely fascinating. He suspected this was the type of thing that they debated during the actual meetings of the Order of the Phoenix. Deep down he knew that he couldn't add much of use to any of those conversations. But it would have stopped some of his late night wonderings. Maybe he'd have been able to put his mind toward something more useful.

"It is a lot of effort. By design. Many would argue that it should be even more difficult. Dementors are vile creatures. And they should be treated with as much caution and as much documentation as we can manage," Sirius said.

"Yeah, I suppose that's a lot better than knowing someone has access to them without any overhead," Harry said. "I suppose my idea was really dumb."

"I wouldn't go that far," Sirius said. "It's a logical step and you didn't know the specifics behind what it would take. It's good deductive thinking."

"Thanks," Harry said, his chest swelling at the compliment. Sirius nodded at him. Harry peered at his godfather, wondering if the man was going to say more. But he looked lost in thought and Harry couldn't help but wonder if perhaps he'd come up with a better idea than he'd realized. Still, it seemed unlikely at best. And he'd often heard that the simplest solution was usually the correct one.

He paused to wonder how true that held in the magical world. Where simple had a far different meaning than in the Muggle world. Afterall, so many things were rendered completely simple with nothing more than a flick of the wrist and a wave of a wand.

That, he thought, could open up far more possibilities than he cared to think of. And he knew that no matter how hard he tried to come up with the correct one, there would always be two or three more lingering in the corner of his mind. He thought he had a bead on another stray theory in his mind when yelling brought him back to reality.

"Five minutes! We are leaving in five minutes!" Molly Weasley screamed as she stormed through the entryway. The portrait of Sirius's mother started to shriek along with her but Sirius silenced it with a flick of his own wand.

Molly Weasley nodded at Sirius and Harry, clearly noticing Harry's truck already there as they waited, and stormed her way up the stairs, heading in the direction of Ginny and Hermione's room.

Harry and Sirius leaned against a wall and waited. The lapsed into silence as the hustle and bustle of getting the kids ready for school joined with the general daily activities. When Harry turned to look at Sirius he thought he looked rather lost in thought. Still, he didn't see much of a reason to not interrupt him.

"Can I ask you something?" Harry asked. It was a stupid question. He knew that. But it was a way to break the silence. He wondered how many questions were prefaced by that very same question. He guessed it was far too many.

"What?" Sirius answered. Although as far as Harry could tell it was more that he hadn't heard him than he was asking about Harry's question. Either way he figured the best option was to ask. Still, his question died in his throat. He frowned and looked away from his godfather.

It was a dumb question to ask. One that didn't have much of a bearing on his own life, really. And one that might hurt Sirius's feelings if he asked it. So perhaps rather than alienating his Godfather, he should just let it die.

"Nothing," he said quietly.

"Something's bothering you," Sirius said.

"Well, not really bothering," Harry frowned as he tried to think of the right word. Nothing came to mind. Which made him feel oddly inept. He spent a moment fuming at himself before it dawned on him that he had no reason to be as irrationally angry at this as he was.

"What's going on?" Sirius asked, growing more alert with each passing moment.

"Do you remember at the end of my third year when you said I could move in with you?" Harry asked.

"Of course," Sirius said.

"Was this where you were thinking?" Harry asked, looking around the house.

"Well, honestly, no," Sirius said. He frowned at his own words and looked hurt. Harry felt bad for asking so he looked toward the ground.

"Ah," he said, hoping that the conversation would die.

"I hate this place," Sirius said after he realized Harry wasn't going to say anything else. "In my mind I was already a free man with full access to funds and everything. I was planning on getting a place near or in the alley instead of coming back here. It makes for a convenient headquarters and prison, but it's a terrible living space filled with bad memories. And I wanted far more windows after Azkaban."

"Oh. That sounds nice," Harry said.

"I thought so," Sirius scoffed. "Counting eggs before they hatched though. Stupid of me. I take it you don't like this house."

"It's fine. I don't want to sound…you know. But I hate the chores. That's all the Dursleys did to keep me busy. And not being able to do magic for them seems counter-intuitive," Harry said.

"That was Molly's idea, not mine," Sirius snorted. "And an absolute waste of time. But I made the snide comment that if the Order cared about the amount of dust on the furniture then they could take care of it themselves."

"So I get to take care of it," Harry joked. Sirius gave him an apologetic smile.

"Apparently. If I were you I'd have just, you know, not done it," Sirius said.

"I'm sure that would have gone over well," Harry said.

"What are they going to do, kick you out?" Sirius retorted. Harry opened his mouth to argue then paused as he thought about it more.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Probably a lot of yelling."

"And sending you to your room as punishment meaning you don't have to do the chores," Sirius laughed. Harry smiled but didn't add anything more. Somehow without realizing it Sirius had broached the subject he'd been lingering on.

"Can I have my own room?" Harry blurted out without thinking. He wasn't sure why sharing with Ron bothered him so much. Honestly, he wasn't even sure it bothered him. Something about it just sat wrong. At the Burrow he guessed it made sense but at what might have been his home with his godfather…well, it felt wrong.

"What?" Sirius asked. Harry felt the blood rush to his cheeks.

"Sorry, it's stupid," Harry muttered.

"Molly thought you'd be more comfortable sharing," Sirius said, running a hand through his hair. "And I didn't really have any information that suggested otherwise. Aside from not liking the thought myself."

"Well, I mean, it's fine," Harry said to the ground. "It's just…"

"That you'd like a place of your own," Sirius said.

"Yeah," Harry nodded.

"I think you should have your own room," Sirius said. "I was actually working on cleaning out Reg's before you arrived since I'm in mine and Buckbeak has the Master. But then Molly insisted you'd be willing to stay with Ron and I sort of stopped."

"We should have done it together," Harry said. "Would have been better than dealing with Doxies in curtains."

"That's a very low bar to clear," Sirius countered. Harry shrugged his shoulders.

"Fair point."

"Setting up a room for you will be a way for me to kill some time while I'm stuck here anyway. I'll get it sorted out by Christmas. Alana Moonbright or Chloe Selpie?"

"What?"

"Alana Moonbright or Chloe Selpie?" Sirius asked again.

"Alana Moonbright I guess, why?"

"Just had to figure out whose pinup to hang on the wall," Sirius teased. "So blondes, eh?"

"I'm pretty indifferent on hair color. Alana Moonbright is just gorgeous," Harry admitted. Granted, Chloe Selpie was too. So maybe he did like blondes. Molly Weasley took that moment to come rushing down the stairs with Ginny and Hermione as Ron emerged from the kitchens. He offered Harry a biscuit as the chaos of getting off to Hogwarts commenced in earnest.

He hugged Sirius once before they left Grimmauld place and moved rather like a procession to the train station. It all seemed to take longer than Harry thought it should. But they eventually arrived and made the quick journey to Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

Harry was the second to last to go through the pillar. He weaved around a few milling Ravenclaw students and their parents, wondering what possessed people to stop the moment they went through a doorway, and looked around for his friends.

He saw Ron and Hermione, both of whom had the Prefects badges on display, and hauled his trunk over toward them. He caught the tail end of two blonde Slytherin girls arguing with their parents about whether or not they were allowed to date. The younger one rolled her eyes and stormed off, leading Harry to believe she wasn't happy with the conclusion of the argument.

It took Harry a few moments to recognize the older one as Daphne Greengrass. She was in his year and in the few core classes they shared with Slytherin. He knew almost nothing about her aside from that she was typically quiet in class and on the rare occasion where they were assigned group work, almost always in Transfiguration, she was efficient. Apparently, judging from the conversation he'd just witnessed, she also had a younger sister.

She hugged her parents and walked with a dark haired boy that also looked vaguely familiar to Harry but he couldn't place the name and the two of them stepped onto the Hogwarts Express.

By the time he weaved through the crowd and over toward Hermione and Ron he noticed they were meeting with the other Prefects. He frowned but figured it was best to not interrupt. He weaved around a few confused looking first years and looked for Ginny. She wasn't anywhere to be seen either so he decided his best course of action was to get on the train and find a compartment.

There weren't any empty ones. Or, at least, there weren't any empty ones in the first few cars he went through. And he sure didn't feel like walking down the entire length of the train. Instead he found Neville in one of the middle compartments. His nose was buried in a glossy book with more pictures than Harry would have thought normal. He had a stack of similar manuals next to him. Harry opened the door of the compartment.

"You mind?" he asked. Neville nearly jolted upright as he spoke. But when he saw it was Harry he nodded.

"Go ahead," he said. Harry lifted his trunk into the overhead compartment and sat across from Neville. They shared the typical end-of-summer pleasantries, inquiring about things neither really cared about, before lapsing into silence. Neville went back to paging through the book, seeming completely absorbed by the content. It wasn't until the train started moving that Harry caved.

"What is that?" he asked, nodding toward the book. Which Neville couldn't see, given that he had his face buried in said book.

"It's the game guide for Conjurations and Catacombs," Neville said. Harry had a vague idea of what that was, but aside from a magical dice game, that was about all he could say.

"Neat," Harry said, having no idea what else to say.

"My gran got them for me for my birthday," Neville said his excitement of having someone to talk to about it clearly evident. "Apparently my parents met playing it."

"Really?" Harry asked. He wondered for a moment just how his parents had met. Obviously sometime at school, as they were housemates. But, well, he was housemates with Lavender Brown and he'd hardly argue that he knew her.

"Yeah. They had a set group and everything. My grandmother told me all about it when she got me the books. I was thinking of trying to get a group going this year. Would you be interested?" Neville asked, his eyes flashing up from the book to focus on Harry.

"I don't know anything about it," Harry admitted.

"It's all pretty straight forward," Neville said. He bookmarked the one book and grabbed the second one from the pile and handed it to Harry. "This shows you some of the basics. Like races and classes you can create and what you can do. You can be a human or an elf or a beastkin, or a Volkar, or a score of other things."

"Interesting," Harry said. He opened the book to a random page where a mostly humanoid woman in miniscule amounts of clothing appeared to growl at him. There was a blurb about the racial bonuses for the Beastkin along with an odd artist rendering of humanoids with animal ears and tails, and all sorts of other sentences and numbers that made very little sense to him as his eyes slid over the words.

"I've spent the last month putting together what I think is an interesting campaign but I don't have any experience with it. I think it would be really fun to try," Neville said. He spoke faster and faster and Harry suspected that it would have gone on forever except that Draco Malfoy took that moment to poke his head in for his yearly taunting.

"What garbage are you reading, Potter?" he sneered. "I knew you were stupid but I didn't think you'd need picture books.

"Fuck off, Malfoy," Harry said.

"Language Potter, I am a Prefect," Malfoy said. "I notice you aren't."

"Yet you're not at the meeting. Are we sure that badge is even real or did mommy buy it for you during your last tantrum?" Harry countered. Malfoy narrowed his eyes and flared his nostrils. Harry wondered how he could be so easy to rile up. Especially after he showed up to taunt.

"My God, does that girl have a tail?" Malfoy taunted, looking at the open photo on the book in Harry's lap. "I didn't think you were into that, Potter. Perhaps another Polyjuice accident in your future?"

It was Harry's turn to narrow his eyes. How could Malfoy have even known about that from their second year. And why would he choose now to bring it up? It was Neville, to Harry's surprise, who commented.

"She's a Beastkin. They all have animal traits and features," Neville said. He tried to sound like he was insulting Malfoy but it only served to make him laugh. Neville flushed and looked away from the sound.

"Well, if you need a fantasy girlfriend that looks like an animal," Draco started.

"You're the one with the pug fetish," Harry retorted.

"And you couldn't handle a Kin, anyway," a girl said from behind him. "They're ferocious and known to bite. Not for someone who milked a magically healed injury for a month."

"I was mauled-" Draco started, spinning around to see the new intruder. Harry peered around him and saw Padma Patil standing there, already in her Ravenclaw robes with her new Prefect's badge shining on her chest. It stopped Draco in his tracks.

"Sure. You also skipped the Prefect's meeting. Grouse was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you either didn't read your letter, or had no clue it existed. But if you don't find him in oh," she shook out her arm and peered at her wrist, "five minutes. Then he's going to have your badge."

"He wouldn't dare," Malfoy said.

"Go to Flitwick and Dumbledore about you skipping out on your literal first duty? Oh he would. This might shock you, Draco, but the seventh year Ravenclaw Head Boy doesn't give a shit about you. And when you make his life harder by not doing your job, he'll make sure to deal with the problem promptly," Padma said. Draco turned a surprisingly deep shade of red, made some sort of snide comment that he only half enunciated, and rushed off down the train car.

"Thanks," Harry said, peering at Padma. He knew very little about her, aside from the fact that her twin sister was his housemate. And honestly, he found her sister to be a bit annoying. Although with how the Yule Ball went, he supposed he deserved anything Parvati Patil would throw his way. Still, Padma merely smiled at him.

"Honestly surprised it was Ron rather than either of you," Padma said. Neville bushed and stuttered something that sounded like 'thank you' but Harry turned his attention toward the window.

"I break too many rules," he said, using the same excuse he'd used with Ron. "Neville would have been the better choice."

"Probaby," Padma agreed. Harry's eyes flashed to Neville, who looked like a perfectly ripe tomato. She peered down at the books. "What's with the C&C books?"

"Do you play?" Neville asked.

"Some of my cousins do. I've been dragged into a game on occasion," she said. "At least when Priya couldn't get me out of it."

"Ah," Neville frowned. "I was thinking of starting up a group."

"Might be fun," Padma said. Neville's eyes lit up but she continued before he could interject more. "But I should finish my rounds."

"Thanks for the assist," Harry said. Padma smiled at him, looking momentarily flustered before she walked away. Harry watched her backside as she left, letting his eyes linger for longer than necessary. He'd never noticed it before. He wondered how similar it was to her sisters. He figured he'd need to spend more time gathering data before he could make a definitive judgment.

He turned his attention back to the book before him. Ron joined them a few minutes later, clearly less interested in his patrols than Padma. Hermione found them about a half hour after. The conversation was rather minimal, at least until Neville asked Hermione if she'd be interested in Conjurations and Catacombs.

She'd snorted at him. Her eyes focused too much on the book Harry was paging through to notice how hurt Neville looked by the derision.

"With exams this year and Prefect duties? I am not going to have the time to play some silly dice game," she scoffed.

"I think it sounds fun," Harry said. He wasn't sure he meant it. But he could feel how crushed Neville seemed. And he knew he'd be an awful friend, to both of them, if he didn't try to remove Hermione's foot from her mouth.

"Fred and George talked about it but the joke shop took more of their interest," Ron admitted, looking down at the page Harry was reading. "I can imagine that Artificer class interested them."

"I can see that," Harry said. Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the both of them. But rather than comment any further she took out the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5. Harry noticed she was already halfway through it. Part of him was surprised she hadn't started year six yet.

He and Ron started paging through the classes, sharing some thoughts on each of them as they paged through. Neville joined them, once again growing more and more excited with each passing moment.

By the time the Hogwarts Express rolled into Hogsmeade he had visions of brawlers, thieves, paladins, and everything in between flashing through his head. He didn't think any of them were very likely. And honestly, as he handed the player's guide back to Neville, he figured it was the last time he'd even see the book.

But still, it was an entertaining way to kill a train ride to school. Enough that he and Ron were still exchanging comments on it at the feast, and even as they retired to the Gryffindor common room to start their fifth year at Hogwarts.

---

Author's Note: Thanks for reading. I do appreciate it. If you with to support me further I am available on PAT RE ON at TE7writes. There are nine additional chapters of this story already active there as well as the next couple of my other work in progress fanfic Cleansing the Sins of the Past

Thanks again for reading, I do appreciate all of the support I receive!