“Harry, are you okay?” asked Ron as they headed out into the yard.  “You look like you found out You-Know-Who was your dad.”

Harry gave his friend an odd look then began to laugh.

“Oh, I assure you, if that were true, I’d have killed myself!  Merlin, that’s a horrid thought.”

Ron snorted and said, “Most people would think Snape being their father would be a horrid thought.”

“I,” said Harry with a wry grin, “am the exception.”

“That’s because you don’t have to think about it,” said Bill from behind them.  “It’s true.”

All of the Weasley’s had now been informed of Harry’s real parentage, which made the teen slightly nervous, though he didn’t acknowledge it.  The fact that more and more people were finding out was making him slightly nervous.

Especially with Voldemort back in power.

“World to Harry.  World to Harry, come in Harry.”

“Eh?”

Ginny frowned up at him and said, “You okay?”

Harry gave a little shake and nodded.

“Yeah.  I’m good, Gin.  C’mon, let’s play.”

Bill took charge very quickly after that.

“Okay…I suppose I’ll be captain of one team and – Harry, you want to give it a go?”

Harry looked surprised at the offer then shrugged.

“Sure, why not?”

“That’s settled then!  I pick Fred.”

“Ginny.”

“Ron.”

“George.”

“Right.”  Bill drew his wand and waved it around the yard.  Two trees at either end became goalposts and acorns off the ground became the Snitch, Quaffle, and Bludger.  He ducked the Bludger as it swooped past him then hefted the Quaffle in his left hand.  “Okay, Fred and George will be the Beaters, Ron and…”

“Ginny can be Seekers and you and me can be Chasers,” finished Harry.

All of them looked at him in surprise and he scowled at them, snapping, “What?”

“Nothing,” chorused everyone else.

Harry narrowed his eyes at them then shook his head and said, “Let’s play.  Bill, we need a scoreboard.  And Keepers.”

Bill flicked his wand at another tree, which transfigured into a scoreboard complete with floating chalk ready to take down score.  He said, “You and me can double for Keepers.”

Ginny whooped and yelled, “Let’s play!”

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

After five different games, Harry’s team had won three of the five games, making them the all over winners.  As they headed back inside after Bill had transfigured everything back to normal, Fred clapped Harry on the shoulder and said, “Maybe you should try out for Chaser instead of Seeker, Harry.  You could kill a Keeper with those throws.”

“Thanks, Fred,” said Harry, “but everyone in Serpens would kill me if I didn’t play Seeker.”

“You mean they’d try,” said Ginny with a grin.

“Yeah,” echoed Ron.  “They’d have a hard time getting past Niamh.”

“Or me!”

“Or Mika,” finished George.

“Well, there’s that,” said Fred.

Harry laughed as they entered the kitchen and Mrs. Weasley ordered them all to dinner.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/

That night, Harry twisted and turned in the cot that had been set up in Ron’s room for him.  Sweat beads broke out on his forehead, plastering his bangs to his head.  His nimble fingers grasped the blanket and clenched it as he twisted again in the throes of the dream.

Across the room, Ron did not stir.

But on the floor, a little black ball lying on a spare pillow uncurled, lifting a head and blinking black eyes at the bed above her.  Hedwig flicked out her gray tongue and blinked again when she tasted the sweat and fear on the air.

And it was coming from the boy who had very swiftly become her master – which was how she thought of him.

“Harry,” she hissed to the cot far above her head.  When there was no response, she hissed louder.  “Harry.”

“Harry!”

That didn’t work.  Harry was still trapped within the dream.  Hedwig hissed a curse she’d heard her master use then looked around the room.  Her eyes focused on the cot’s legs and she moved forward, sliding off the pillow onto the floor.  She slithered towards the cot legs and began to slowly, but assuredly, wind her way up one very carefully.

Once she reached the top, she poked her head over. Harry’s face turned towards her and she saw his eyes were clenched tightly and his teeth were bared.  By now his pillow and blanket were soaked in sweat and his short hair was plastered to his head.  The snake flicked her tongue out again then pushed herself up onto the cot.  She carefully crawled closer to the tossing teen, not ready to be crushed so early in her life.

“Harry,” she hissed.

No response, only a hiss of breath let out through clenched teeth.

“Harry!”

Still nothing.

Hedwig, angry now, cast aside all fear of being crushed and moved forward so that she was right below Harry’s ear.

“HARRY!”

“NO!” screamed the teen, sitting up so fast that Hedwig slithered back.  She hadn’t expected that bad of a response!

“Harry,” she hissed, looking up at him, hearing his gasps.  “Are you okay?”

The teen’s body jerked, muscles going taught, and he turned wide green eyes to look at her.  He then relaxed and fell back onto the bed, eyes closing as his head hit the pillow.

“Oh, gods, Hed.  Its you.”

“Only me.  What happened?”

“A dream,” said Harry back to the snake.  He then frowned and corrected, “No.  A nightmare.”

“About what?”

“You remember that day in London last year?”

Hedwig seemed to frown then said, “Yes.”

“That’s what.”

“A day in London does not cause dreams like that.”

“Hed, can we not talk about it?”

The garden snake fixed him with a glare that Harry swore was his father’s and hissed, “You will tell me or I’ll bite you.  Poisonous or not, I AM dangerous.”

Harry couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I have no doubt, Hed.  No doubt at all.  But…”

“But what?”

“Its not something I want to talk about.”

“I see.  Who knows of this incident?  Or should I say, the entirety of this incident that I know nothing about and you seem unwilling to tell?”

“Where in Slytherin’s name do you learn such words?”

“Places.  Now talk.”

Harry sighed.

“Niamh knows.  Well, she knows part of it.  And Da.  He knows…he’s the one that found me.”

“Found you?”

“After,” Harry paused, “after it happened.”

“What?” pressed Hedwig.

“AFTER I KILLED ARGIL!  HAPPY NOW?  ARE YOU HAPPY NOW THAT YOU KNOW?  I’M A MURDERER, HED!  I’M AS FUCKING EVIL AS VOLDEMORT!”

Hedwig looked a little taken aback by this.  Harry just glared at the ceiling after this outburst, one arm thrown up onto the pillow.

“You killed someone.”

“Yes.  God, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he killed my BEST FRIEND, DAMMIT!  My best friend.  He was the only other child Argil took in who was friendly to me.”  A sad look came into Harry’s eyes as he continued, “There was Lyra too.  But she’s long dead.”

“Dead?”

“Car crash.  I never knew what happened exactly.  Her and Ethan – they were the oldest – were out one night.  It was…hell, I can’t remember exactly when it was.  But they were dead before the sun rose.  The car was going too fast from what I heard.  I always thought…I always thought I’d been lied to, that they were still out there somewhere.  I was nine before I realized they were never coming back.”

“How old were you then?”

“Six.  I think.  Ethan was eighteen, Lyra seventeen.  She was the one who took care of me when they found me.  She told me once that Argil would have left me to die.  She saved my life that night.”

“You sound like you loved her.”

Harry closed his eyes and nodded, an image of a girl with white-blond hair turned dark blond by years on the streets and gray eyes that despite all could never be rid of their laughter or light flashing in his mind.

“I did.  I cried for days after she died.  She…she was the only – the only real – mother – I ever had.”

Hedwig looked sympathetically at her master and curled up by his neck.  Harry smiled slightly and picked her up, placing her on his chest, which was – as usual – bare except for the basilisk pendant Ginny had given him and his scars.  He left his hand there and Hedwig curled about it, her coils reassuring.

“I’ll never leave you.”

Harry frowned down at the snake for a moment then turned his head to look out the window at the stars.

“Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, Hed.  Lyra told me that once.  Look what happened to her.”

Hedwig blinked for a few moments then said, “Then I won’t promise.  But I’ll try.”

“Trying is good, Hed.  Its doing that’s hard.”

“I shall remember that.”

“Hmm,” said Harry.

A long moment passed before either of them said anything else.

“Harry?”

“Yes?”

“You’re not like Voldemort.”

Harry smiled bitterly and stroked the snake’s head with his thumb.

“I know, Hed.  I know.”