Harry slipped into Severus's rooms and bolted for his own bedroom as soon as the door clicked closed. He got James's letter from the wardrobe, then kicked off his shoes and shivered under the covers for a moment. Sometimes talking makes things better, he thought, and sometimes it makes things worse. He pulled the bedcovers more tightly around himself. We were both upset. Next time will be better.

He looked at the red parchment and remembered how Remus had sniffed at it, with that heartbreaking look of longing on his face. Harry had offered to give him the original and keep the copy, but Remus had refused, saying he spent too much time with ghosts, already.

Carefully, Harry opened the first letter.

My dear son,

First, let me tell you that I love you very much. I hope this is unnecessary sentimentality, and that I lived long enough for you to know that, heart and soul, but the assurance arm of Gringotts has doubtless made clear to you the propensity of Potters to die in messy glory at a young age.

Harry had forgotten the intensity of it, balanced by the little smiley face with messy hair. He continued reading, and the letter continued as it had begun, with intensity lightened by continuous humor. It made him think of a more secure Sirius, or a more adult Fred and George. There were details he had forgotten, like the strained peas, that gave him a sense of Lily and James as a young couple, with separate and largely complimentary opinions and styles of interaction, trying to raise a baby in some normal way, while knowing they might die at any time.

There was a great deal of pain in it, which he supposed was to be expected from a document written to tell a secret after the writer's likely death.

...if I died when you were young -- and it doesn't look unlikely -- I want to put as much of myself and her, and even him, into this as possible.

This was his goodbye, Harry thought. To a child he suspected would not remember him. And I don't. I have stories that seem to be of different people, and I have this.

... your father ... and our complicated and often painful relationships with him.

There's pain there, too -- guilt and remorse, and not a little fear, and the expectation I would never know Severus, either.

After that came the little section on Death Eaters, a term he optimistically hoped Harry would not know, and the explanation of Herem, with its implication James had already had sex at fifteen.

My deepest misgiving was that I knew they still loved each other -- they do even now -- and while I knew she loved me as deeply, I was afraid to increase her sadness at the losses of her past.

That, Harry thought, was quite a statement. James must have both loved and trusted Harry's mother very much. He wondered, belatedly, what Severus thought when he read that. Was it affirming, or patronizing, or just a reminder of how it was by his choice that he didn't have her?

Next came the story of the miscarriages, full of implicit longing for a child, and of Harry's conception, and of Severus's French lover. James's reaction was a twisting balance of revulsion and admiration. Harry thought he was, in this manner, far more like James than Severus. He could not imagine sacrificing anyone. He supposed it was a skill painfully acquired.

Next came the casting of the Paternity Charm. When James related the increasing distance between the couple and Severus, Harry wondered if that was really all due to changes in Severus, as James depicted, or if some of it might have stemmed from James and Lily's guilt and their fear of revealing their secret. As James, in the letter, "rambled" about having what Severus could not, with part of that being the child Severus had not known he had fathered, Harry felt increasingly certain that their guilt had contributed to Severus's estrangement from them.

So many parts of this are such a waste. If I could go back to first year and be kind to him.... Don't indulge yourself in the joy of retaliation. It's not worth it. There -- that's my fatherly advice for you.

That, Harry thought, had stuck with him the most strongly, perhaps because it was explicitly advice, or perhaps because everything in the Marauder's document came from that bitter kernel of regret. The letter reverted to practical matters, before returning again to sentiment:

I wish I could say everything I want to say. The longer I work on this, the more certain I am I will die, and soon. I want you to know me. I want you to know I love you. I want you to know how I walked with you and sang to you when you could not sleep. I want you to be mine, but it hurts me to have stolen you from him. My stolen child. Be his, as well, if you can.

Your loving home-father,

James Potter

This time, the tears had no trouble coming.

Harry left his room at the last possible minute, but stopped at the kitchens long enough to grab food -- some sort of meat pasty -- before racing out to the pitch. When he got there, he was surprised to see two people flying. One was definitely Draco. He didn't recognize the other boy.

The stranger called over to Draco and pointed down. Draco gestured for him to follow, then dove down at Harry. Harry refused to duck, and Draco's robes brushed his shoulder before the Slytherin landed a few feet past him. The stranger landed more cautiously, a few feet away.

"Hello!" Draco said cheerily. "I was wondering if you'd forgotten." He gestured to the stranger.

"Harry, this is Adrian Lawson, the new Slytherin Chaser. Lawson, this is Harry Potter."

Harry felt a bit angry. He had left Severus early to watch Draco coach? He managed a bored sigh. "Really Draco -- you can't expect me to train your team for you."

"Oh, but you should! You could teach him all the stupidest moves."

"Not with you watching."

Draco laughed. "I don't expect you to teach him anything, Harry. He just wanted to get in some flying time, so I told him he could come out with me."

Harry shrugged. He was dismayed to realize he felt slighted. Certainly, he couldn't expect mindless play with him to be more important to Draco than training a new team member.

"Here's an exercise for you, Lawson," Draco said. "Try to keep up." He winked at Harry. "Far middle hoop!" he shouted. Harry kicked off.

Lawson was left far behind. He got faster as his confidence increased, and was coming in only a few lengths behind them ten minutes later. Draco then tagged Harry.

"It!" he yelled, and took off.

The game of tag completely lost Lawson. Not only could he not turn quickly enough to follow, he also nearly fell off his broom trying to duck when Draco buzzed him. Harry decided he was being used for training, and he disliked it. In a fit of annoyance, he stopped chasing Draco and flew up to hover high above the pitch.

Draco seemed to have been waiting for this. "Figure eights," he called to Lawson. "Ten times. I want to watch." A moment later, he was hovering beside Harry, high above the goal hoops. Harry ignored him.

"You realize, of course, that I am using you for political leverage, far more than for Quidditch training."

"Oh." Harry's annoyance was completely derailed by this confession. He struggled with the idea of association with him being anything other than a political liability to a Malfoy.

"You are welcome to reciprocity, of course," Draco offered. He sounded quite serious. "Should you wish to enhance your status among the pureblood students, that is."

"Thank you, I suppose, but --" Involuntarily, Harry imagined being introduced to a lot of sneering Slytherins. What would he be to them? A half-blood, and one who messed up Voldemort's plans, at that. He waved his hands in a gesture of frustration. "I'm a half-blood, Draco, remember? Doesn't that rather limit things with the pureblood students? The ones who care about that, I mean, which seems your lot."

Draco shrugged. The motion was small and graceful. He was watching his teammate, now. "As I told you once, some wizarding families are better than others. You're half-blood, but that half is Potter, quite respectable, and, apart from that, you are rich, famous, and magically powerful. You'd be limited to modernist families for a pureblood wife, but many of the traditionalists might consider you as an associate, if properly presented."

He looked away from Lawson to meet Harry's eyes. Harry tried not to reveal his tension under that steady gaze. He had never considered his potential status among Slytherin purebloods -- they were the enemy. Now, under his increasing confusion, he couldn't help realizing that he wasn't a Potter, in the sense that mattered to Draco.

"Flint was a half-blood, you know," Draco offered. "It didn't damage his authority as Quidditch Captain."

"A half-blood, and he let you say that to Hermione!"

Draco shrugged. His pale eyes went back to watching his new Chaser, who was just finishing his circuit. "His mother threw his father out a bit after he was born -- with reason, by all accounts. She denounces the affair as hormonal insanity. Flint has no affection for Muggles."

"Oh." Harry took a deep breath. "So, is this Chaser of yours a ... er ... modernist?"

Draco snorted. "Oblivious, more like. But he admires you as a Quidditch player -- an enemy, but a fine Quidditch player. When he goes back to the Slytherin common room, he'll burble about how Harry Potter flew with us, and what Potter said, and what Potter did, until people from our year threaten to strangle him."

"Oh -- and for anyone who hasn't noticed, Malfoy's now hanging out with Harry Potter?" Harry said, amused.

"Exactly."

Harry laughed. "All right -- I don't mind. Let's go and critique his flying, then."

Harry came into Gryffindor tower tired, happy, ravenously hungry, and with only a minute to change into less sweaty clothes before dinner. He ran up to his room, changed, ran down, and was surprised to find Ron waiting, arms crossed and a look of fury on his face, at the bottom of the stairs.

"Dinner?" Harry tried.

"Helping coach the Slytherins, now, Harry?" Ron spat. The few remaining students in the room fell silent.

"We were just flying," Harry said. He tried to step around Ron. Ron moved to block him.

"Going to ask for re-sorting?" Ron taunted. "Oh, but you couldn't do that, of course. You wouldn't want to cost Draco his Seekers position. That might hurt his feelings."

"If it came to that, he'd probably poison me," Harry joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

"What the hell are you DOING?"

"Flying with a friend," Harry said. "And he brought someone along for me to meet. Now get out of my way. I want dinner!"

The incident did not help matters with Ron, at all. Harry thought Ron might also be passing along a bit of the moral superiority being shoveled down on him by Ginny, who never missed a chance to look at him with contempt. Harry would have hated her for it if he hadn't seen how hurt she seemed when her brother was looking elsewhere. She had taken it personally, he suspected. She was in love with Dean, and Ron had as good as said to her that she could expect no better than to be killed. He wondered if Hermione had explained that to Ron, yet.

By Monday night, Harry was harboring fantasies of sneaking off and murdering Voldemort by any means, fair or foul, thus reducing the complications in his life by at least two thirds. He supposed it wouldn't resolve the pureblood/mixed-blood/Muggle-born conflict, but it would probably bring down the level of hysteria. At least people would be acting on their own beliefs, rather than out of fear of the Dark Lord. That would be some sort of improvement.

At Monday dinner, he sat with Ginny and Hermione and watched Ron glower.

"I feel awful," Hermione said. Harry looked questioningly at her, and she ducked her head. "When I'm with you, I feel like I'm betraying him, and when I'm with him, I feel like I'm betraying you."

Harry shrugged. "He's where he chooses to be."

"And he says the same about you, you know."

Harry tensed. "It's not the same."

Hermione opened her mouth, but before she could reply, the headmaster had stood and tapped on his glass for silence. The murmuring of the assembled students stopped. Harry felt his heart clench, and he checked again to see that his father was present, although he had looked up to see him not a minute earlier.

"Good evening, everyone. You can relax -- no disasters, tonight. I have a small, and I hope welcome, announcement for you. On Halloween, in the tradition of banishing malicious spirits and encouraging friendly ones, we shall have our usual feast. Afterwards, for fourth-years and up, we will hold a ball. Either formal or fancy dress will be acceptable. I ask only that no one be unidentifiable -- an unfortunate, but I feel necessary, precaution. To add to your enjoyment, Friday morning classes will be canceled -- Friday, the first of November, that is."

Dumbledore gestured beneficently out at them. "That is all. You may eat."

And with those words, the food appeared.

Harry poked at his food. This was it -- Hermione had said to ask her when the dance was announced. Now it had been. He glanced at her, and was relieved that she was looking elsewhere. Did he still want to ask her? He found he wasn't certain. Perhaps his impulse the other night had just been gratitude for her understanding. On the other hand, there was no one else he wanted to ask. He glanced down the table at Zoë. Perhaps he would enjoy going with her, but he was hesitant to add substance what he now decided was his first pleasant flirtation.

He did not mention the ball to Hermione when they walked up to Gryffindor, while they did their homework, or when he said goodnight to her. He readied himself for bed, ignoring Ron's glares, and fell asleep within a minute of lying down.

At breakfast on Tuesday, Harry was still undecided about approaching Hermione. She seemed to be looking at him frequently. He couldn't decide if that was a good sign or a bad one. While he was fretting about it, an unfamiliar barn owl dropped a letter in front of Harry. It hit the rim of his porridge bowl and bounced in the right direction to stay dry. Harry picked it up and unrolled it.

Harry,

Mate, you're like a second little brother to us. (Except that we haven't beat you up much.) Or broken your stuff. (Or harassed you nearly enough.)

We'll bring you what you want, but that quantity is ridiculous. One pack and a good way to hide it, and if you want more, fly us a note.

Oh, with the Arrows game delayed and all, we'll be spending the weekend. Warn Ron for us, will you? And don't warn Filch.

-- F (& G)

Charms was horrible. They were going back over what they had learned in the last three weeks, so there was no hope that anything interesting would be introduced. Hermione was sitting with Ron, and Harry, who had arrived early, had nobody sit with him. It was probably just that the others had entered in pairs, but he couldn't help imagining that they were siding with Ron. He gave up on taking notes and composed a reply to Fred and George:

Hi twins!

Ron's not speaking to me -- perhaps you better write to him yourselves. If you could coax him into a room with me when you get here, that might help. Hermione and I are on better terms, again, at least. The dance has finally been announced, and I'm thinking of inviting her, but I'm not certain, anymore. I wouldn't mind a couple of older brothers, but could we skip the beating up part?

-- Harry

After classes, he went back up to the Gryffindor common room. Hermione walked towards him as if she had been waiting for him. Her usually overstuffed school bag seemed almost empty.

"Hi Harry."

"Hello."

"Could we talk?" Hermione prompted. "Um... in the old place?"

"'Course."

They left together. Hermione did not say anything while they walked down to the Room of Requirement. A faint scent -- something Harry knew he should recognize -- tickled in the air about her. She let him call up the room, and he made it his usual one for talks. She looked at it with a wry smile as she entered.

"What's up?" Harry asked, as he sat down on one of the low couches.

She sat with one knee pulled up, her body twisted on the couch to face him. "With the dance announced," she said, "I realized I still had something of yours."

It wasn't books she had in her bag, at all. It was the leather trousers. Harry took them eagerly, then raised them to his face and inhaled the scent of them.

"You have no idea how much that was bothering me."

"That I had them?"

"That scent. All the way down here. I couldn't place it." Harry stood up and held the trousers in front of him. "Damn! They'll be far too short."

"It's leather!" Hermione rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You can stretch any natural material with charms." She held out her wand, then hesitated. "You should put them on first."

"Er...."

Hermione closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. "I won't peek."

As Harry changed, he realized that the robes made this hardly necessary. It was only during the final squirm and zip that any of him might have been visible. Still, he let her stay that way until he was ready, and then took off the robes.

"Okay," he said.

Hermione giggled. "You're not wearing them with that jumper!"

Harry looked impatiently at her. "We are adjusting the fit," he reminded her, "not modeling."

"Hm... Too short to extend it all at the ankle."

"Oh?"

"It will thin too much. But if I do it in a few places...." Hermione pointed her wand and cast a quick spell. The leather slithered like an encompassing snake down Harry's thighs, and the trousers were a bit longer. Then she did it just below his knees, then, finally at his ankles.

"Perfect," she said, with obvious satisfaction. "Turn."

Harry turned his back to her. "Checking?"

"Just your arse."

He whipped around. "Hermione!"

"Well, that is the point of these, isn't it?" she asked. "Remember to walk away from people you like, now. Frequently."

Harry laughed, and sat down again. The leather felt smooth and warm. He thought it would be stiff, but it stretched nicely at his seat and knees.

"Thank you for the advice."

"And the spells?"

"Of course." Hermione took a deep breath. "So, how are things with, er, Professor Snape?"

"Not so great." Harry sighed. "Oh -- I need you and Ginny with me, if I want to talk to Remus."

"What?"

"It's the latest rule. 'Granger and Weasley,' he said. At least that leaves me with options."

Hermione managed a slight smile. "I suppose. You agreed?"

"Yes. It could be worse. Don't ask," Harry added hastily. He slouched, but that made the pants uncomfortably tight at the waist. He straightened again. "I'm not used to fighting with him, anymore. That's all we did, on Sunday."

"All about Remus?"

"No. Part of it was about Draco."

Hermione's eyes hardened. "Is he pushing you to take Draco as a friend?'

"What?" Harry stared at her. "God, no. He hates it. I'm not to associate with dangerous, untrustworthy, Death Eater brats. Draco's just leading me on to kill me, and all that." Harry made a disgusted face. "He sounds like Ron."

Hermione choked. "Don't say that in front of him!"

"Either 'him.'"

The giggled companionably. Hermione turned to lean back against Harry, and he gave a very different sort of sigh as he settled an arm around her.

"What's with you and Draco, anyway?" she asked casually. Harry could feel her quick heartbeat under his forearm.

"Damned if I know!" Harry shrugged, enjoying the way it shifted his chest against her back. "He's being friendly."

"Since you drove Ron off?"

"Since the Kerner Dark Detector. Actually friendly, not just 'oh, be my little social trophy' like he was our first year."

"But you decided to be friendly back."

"It's an experiment." Harry frowned. "I -- it has a lot to do with James," he confessed.

"James, your -- Potter?"

"You can say, 'your dad.' He basically adopted me, right? Ritually, if not legally. Anyway, yeah. He sent me two long letters along with the Paternity Charm information. One was entirely about this whole feud between him and Severus, and between Sirius and Severus, and what a waste it all was. I thought maybe I could end this thing with Draco before we had children to drag into it."

"Oh." Hermione shifted and curled up a little. "But Draco is a nasty, malicious bigot."

"And Severus was a vengeful, unsocialized swot, and James a rich, spoiled bully, by his own account. I'm violent, self-righteous, and moody, to be honest. Someone's got to stop at some point, and say 'I'm not going to retaliate.'"

"Don't expect too much."

"I've already got much more than I expected."

To Harry's surprise, Hermione turned and kissed him on the cheek.

"You're a good person, Harry."

"Thanks." Harry grinned. "So ... Come to the Halloween Ball with me?"

She laughed. Her voice was a bit higher than usual. "I'd love to. But ...."

"You've got a partner, already."

"Not for the dance! If you don't mind ... I said I'd go to Hogsmeade with Ron, this weekend. Not that way, you know, just ... to be with him."

"And he wouldn't like me along."

"Probably not. I'll try to talk him into it, though."

Harry shrugged. "Whatever. I get more time with Fred and George, then."

"Am I still invited to the dance?"

Harry frowned at her. "You remember what I said about controlling your friends, don't you? At Florean's?"

"Yes."

"So, yes, of course you are still invited. I'd be friends with Ron myself, if he would, and I can't be angry with you for trying to hold things together. Even if I hated him, though, you could be his friend and still go out with me."

"Good." Hermione gave him a nervous smile. "I suppose I can't object to Draco, then."

"No. You can't."

Hermione's brow creased. Sighing, Harry drew her close again. "Are we done negotiating?" he asked softly. When she did not answer, he nuzzled under her bushy hair and kissed the side of her neck. Her body shivered against his own as she leaned back into his touch, and he felt a pleasant flush of power.

"I'll take that as a yes," he whispered. He moved up to kiss her cheek, then her ear, but she twisted and put her lips to his, and pressed him back into the couch. They spent a long time kissing and touching in mostly safe areas, and Harry wondered, occasionally, if it was Hermione or age that made this so much easier than kissing Cho had been.