Thursday passed in a haze. Harry noticed Ernie watching him indignantly in Charms, but avoided any direct interaction. He glimpsed an apologetic look from Hannah Abbot during lunch, but he avoided her, too.

On the way back to Gryffindor, after the end of classes, he was finally caught, but not by someone who wanted to talk about Draco. Professor McGonagall hailed him in the third floor corridor.

"Mr. Potter? A moment, please."

The words were polite, but the tone commanding. Harry turned as quickly as if he were in combat, and nearly hit Hermione with his school bag. With only a quick mumble of "sorry," he strode back to McGonagall.

"Yes, Professor?"

"The headmaster would like to see you, Potter. As soon as possible, he said."

Harry nodded, and trotted off around the corner.

"Ah, there you are, Harry! Come in, come in. Have a seat. Sherbet Lemon?"

"Er ... no, thank you." Harry sat in the comfortable chair, wondering how large he would need to be before he stopped sinking too far back to feel dignified or self-controlled.

"I wanted to inform you -- I received an owl from the Minister for Magic, this afternoon. He intends to visit you on Saturday. He will be arriving shortly after breakfast, and leaving after dinner."

"There's a match!" Harry winced at the sound of his indignant outburst, then decided it was appropriate after all. Quidditch was much more important than some sort of fake visit from Fudge, really.

Dumbledore looked amused. "Perhaps you can convince him to attend it with you. I did mention that you had certainly intended to go."

Harry sighed. "All right. That's between him and me. What do I need to do?"

"I want you to come here first thing in the morning, before anyone sees you, if possible, to receive your mask. Be prepared to eat breakfast carefully, and, whatever happens, stay out of any fights. I suggest that you be politely deferential to the Minister, but your conduct is, at the end, your decision."

"I've started planning that out, sir. I do intend to behave."

"You usually do, I think."

Harry wondered if that meant that he usually behaved or usually intended to behave. He was afraid the second meaning was more likely.

"While I have you here, Harry, do you suppose we could discuss Professor Lupin for a minute?"

Harry tensed. "What about him, sir?"

"Is there some trouble between the two of you?"

Harry squashed down the desire to jump out of the chair and start throwing things. He looked steadily at headmaster. "No, sir."

Dumbledore sighed. "Which means "yes, but I don't want to talk about it."

Harry slid down in the chair. "It's not really your business."

"If you truly thought so, you should not have mentioned it to your father."

"Oh."

"As I am certain you are well aware."

Harry gave in. "I don't know what to think about Remus! I want to trust him, but he's told me not to. I want to -- Remus is one of the very few adults in my life that have ever seemed to care about me, but what should I think when he says that? He needs it to be inconvenient to betray me? And then there's ... my father, as you say, saying he'll kill Lupin if I'm alone with him, and Lupin, who's told me not to be alone with him suddenly wants me to be, and what am I supposed to think?" His words ran out. Harry found himself staring angrily at Professor Dumbledore. His throat felt tight, and he still wanted to break something.

"Harry -- if you would, I need you to clarify a few things for me."

Harry looked down, but nodded.

"First, Professor Lupin has told you not to trust him?"

"Yes." Harry's answer was a bare whisper, but clear.

"Second, you saw Lupin with a werewolf whom Professor Snape believes to be with the Wolven Freedom Union?"

"Looking damn near besotted."

"I see. And third, your father has threatened Professor Lupin?"

"Yes, sir." Harry sunk further in the chair. "He said he had better control over Professor Lupin than over me."

"I see." Professor Dumbledore did not say anything further. After a long silence, Harry looked up and saw the headmaster was petting Fawkes and staring absently off into the distance.

"Have you any advice, sir?" The question bordered on sarcastic. Harry was amazed he had managed to say it at all.

"Hm? Oh, about Professor Lupin?"

"Yes, sir. Specifically, should I trust him or not?"

"I would keep in mind, Harry, that instincts are often better than reason, in these cases. Too much of the latter will leave you chasing your own shadow." He stood. "Thank you for speaking to me, Harry, but I'm afraid I have another guest arriving. You know you can always talk to me, don't you?"

Except now, Harry thought, but he nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Let me show you out." The old wizard opened the door, and Harry found himself face to face with Hermione, who had her hand raised, as if about to knock. From the trepidation on Hermione's face, Harry guessed she had been summoned and did not know why. He felt a sudden stab of guilt for having told his father about the ferret. Severus had seemed more intrigued than angry, by the time Harry had finished explaining it, and Harry had hoped he wouldn't get Hermione in trouble over it. Not that it mattered. I needed to know the risks to her. He looked again at Hermione, but she was greeting Professor Dumbledore now. When they disappeared into the office, Harry didn't even try to eavesdrop. He left.

Harry scarcely noticed the walk back to Gryffindor. He deliberately drove Lupin and Hermione out of his mind by concentrating on plans for Saturday. I need to buy time -- to look like I'm adapting nicely here, and moving me would be disruptive. And I need to seem biddable -- not one of my strengths. Ultimately, I need to be more valuable to him here than elsewhere, but how do I do that? Imply that I'll spy on Dumbledore?

In the Gryffindor common room, he found a seat near the fire and sat staring at the twisting flames. Now that he considered it, he wasn't sure if he could wear the dressy outfit when Fudge was there -- he couldn't well wear it under his school robes, and being out of uniform would hardly promote his image as a docile, well-behaved young man.

The cushions shifted as someone sat down beside him.

"Earth to Harry!" sang a cheery voice.

Harry looked over at Zoë. "Now there's a Muggle expression."

"Mm. M'Da's a Muggle."

"Really? You seem like a wizard-raised girl."

Zoë shrugged. "I was mostly brought up in wizarding culture. Dad doesn't have many ties in the Muggle world, though that's where he makes his money."

"Doing what?"

"He's a writer -- fantasy." Zoë giggled. "Now and then, the Ministry comes down on him for some leak of wizarding secrets to Muggles, and he needs to produce a half-dozen other books that say whatever it is about unicorns or levitation spells, or what have you."

"And he makes money?"

"A bit. Enough that Mum managed to get everyone by on that and savings when my brother and I were at home. She works again now, though -- safety research in the Department of Magical Transportation, and we're much more comfortable. I think I'd only had two new robes in my life before that."

Harry vaguely remembered that Zoë had a younger brother in Ravenclaw.

"You seem preoccupied," she prompted.

"Just trying to work out my weekend."

"Watch the match. Lounge around." Zoë shrugged. "What is there to work out?"

"Mine's a little more complicated."

"Well, mine looks out and out boring." She shot him a questioning look. "Have any of those magicked cigs left?"

Harry stared at her. "What?"

"They sounded rather like fun. I was hoping I could beg one off you."

"If you want that sort of fun, you can damn well get it from something less--!" Harry winced at the startled look on her face. "Look, here," he said, more softly, "I've no excuse to be doing that myself. It was a substitute for food, originally, but now it's just me being stupid." He smiled coaxingly. "I have some Mood Wings left, and I think a few of the Plumage Puddings -- the ones that turn some of your hair into multicolored feathers."

"That's not like floating."

Harry pulled out his wand, whispered a Leviosa, and sent her shooting up towards the ceiling. "There," he called mockingly. "All set."

"Let me down!"

"Oh no. You need to stay up there for five minutes."

"Harry, please! I won't bother you again."

Harry scowled, then relented. He let her down. Her face was red, and she scooped up her bag quickly. "I'll go."

Harry caught at her arm. "You weren't bothering me." Her hair had been disarrayed by her brief flight. He brushed it back, and focused on her suddenly wide eyes. "If you started smoking because of me, that would bother me."

"Oh." Zoë looked embarrassed. "I was mostly just thinking of it as a magic thing."

"Still." Harry covered his discomfort by looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "You know, I wonder if the mood wings would be strong enough to steer with, if someone else was levitating you. Want to try?"

When Hermione returned, Zoë, Ron, Ginny, and a fifth-year boy were flying awkwardly around the common room. Harry tried to watch her approach as much as possible without losing his eye-line to the girls; Ginny was scraping the rafters. Harry saw Hermione's gaze rest a moment on a half-detached tapestry -- Ron had pulled down part of it earlier in an off-balance grab -- then she sighed, scanned the room, and focused directly on him.

He wasn't surprised. He and Dean were standing with their wands out, obviously assisting the fliers. Hermione marched conspicuously up to them, her vigor ensuring that they would not be startled by her approach.

"Have you been officially deputized by the twins, now?" she asked pointedly.

Harry laughed. "Just alleviating house boredom. Is there a rule against flying in the common room?

In answer, she scowled. "Could you at least keep them lower? Actually, could you leave this, for now? I want to talk to you ... privately."

They went to the Room of Requirement. Harry thought that it was starting to seem like his personal parlor. Hermione set the wards, this time. Harry added another of his own.

"What's that do?"

"Block scent. My father taught it to me. Useful near werewolves and animagi."

"Oh." Hermione frowned. "Harry -- why were you levitating people in the common room?"

"Zoë asked me for cigarettes." Harry looked down. "I was providing alternative entertainment."

"You're red," Hermione observed tartly.

"It upset me -- to have her ask, I mean. If Teresa did that, I'd die."

"Teresa will. She adores you."

Harry leaned back into the cushions. He closed his eyes tightly. "Bugger this. I don't need something else to worry about."

"You know my opinion."

"Yes." Harry forced his eyes open. "But this wasn't the point of talking, now was it? Was did Dumbledore want?"

Hermione glared at him. "You told on me."

Harry covered his guilt with a smirk. "Tit for tat, dear."

"I'm just worried about you--"

"And you think I'm not worried about you?" Abruptly, Harry found himself shivering. "I kept my questions theoretical until I'd heard enough frightening stuff to need to be specific." He looked guiltily away. "Are they taking him?"

"Actually, no." At the pride that crept into Hermione's annoyed tone, Harry looked back. She was smiling. "Apparently, I did unusually well. Professor Dumbledore wants me to continue the experiment -- under supervision, though he hasn't said whose -- first with Shadow, then with wild animals -- possibly weasels, or even birds, if I can handle that."

"Why?"

"He wants me to spy for the Order."

Harry blinked. A reflexive mental shout of No! It's too dangerous! had to be caught and pushed down. It's not dangerous. She won't be there.

"Um ... congratulations. I mean, that's great. Thank you."

"Thank you?"

"Severus feels so guilty about ... he won't be able to spy anymore when Voldemort finds out about me, and he's afraid of not being useful enough, but also that it just won't get done. If you can get us good information, that might help."

"Wouldn't he feel guilty about abandoning you to Fudge?"

"Mm. Well, yes." Harry shrugged. "I think he's usually screwed, whatever he does."

Hermione's brief look of sympathy changed quickly to disapproval. "Well, if he hadn't been a Death Eater, he wouldn't have these problems."

Harry hid a flash of anger enough behind a cool nod, but his voice was harsh when he replied. "Amazing how you can fuck up the rest of your life at seventeen, isn't it?"

"Seventeen?" Hermione's voice caught in astonishment and her eyes widened. Harry expected she having trouble imagining a seventeen year old Professor Snape. He'd had the advantage of the pensieve with its pictures of a lone, skinny teenager, all study and fear and hate.

"I'd assume so. I know he took the Mark first term of his seventh year." He hesitated. "He said he made his first kill before term started, though. He might have been sixteen."

Harry pulled his knees up and huddled down over them. Hermione reached out and gently stroked his back.

"It's not your problem, Harry."

Harry laid his head down on his knees. "Don't you understand? This isn't something we're too young to worry about, anymore. Last time ... it was kids our age, or just a little older, a lot of it. Draco's old enough to do it --" a slight, dry laugh escaped him -- "put his arm and his wand where his mouth's been for years." I wonder if he's as scared of that as I am? "You're being recruited, by our side." He shivered. "My father is demanding that I stay out of it until I leave school. I like it that he cares, but I don't see that it helps. I can only be kept from voluntary participation, and if I don't go to the fight, it will come to me." He looked up. Hermione's scorn had changed fully to horror. He met it with a cold smile. "If I don't kill Voldemort first, we will certainly be in lessons with Death Eaters, in our seventh year."

"That's...." Hermione's voice failed.

"Yeah, isn't it?"

"Will he? Malfoy, I mean?"

Harry shrugged. "He seems to have lost interest. Voldemort could probably still have him -- but he'd need to make the effort. I doubt Draco is worth that to him, at the moment."

"So you are sitting in lessons with someone who might become a Death Eater."

"I make it less likely." Harry thought for a moment. "I suppose he's worth it to me, if you like." He laughed, remembering his demands of Draco the night before. "Why should I let Lord Tom have him without a fight?"

"Because he's a nasty little bigot!"

"Ideological purity will not win us the war."

"He hates me. Does that mean anything to you?"

"Yes." Harry looked at her steadily. "It means he has a lot to learn about people. And his old friends won't teach it to him."

She looked down, but not before he caught the glint of tears.

"Hermione...."

"I'm sorry. It's just that ... when he whispers and you turn red and laugh, I can't help feeling you don't care. I know the sorts of things Malfoy says."

Harry fumbled for her hand. He held it tight while he thought. "You know the sort of thing he yells in the corridors," he said finally, "or used to. It's not the same; I told you that. And you both know what happens when he insults my friends."

"Do I?"

"When I told him I was taking you to the Ball? Remember? And we fought in Defense? He had to come to me to make up." Harry felt a sharp edge of satisfaction just from the memory. "He doesn't like having to say he was wrong. It's beneath him. He's more careful, now."

"But he still wants to--"

"So you presume." Harry hesitated. "It's not like I'm a pureblood, either, you know."

Hermione shrugged, a little movement of her shoulders that left her hunched over. "Reading any more?"

"Yeah. Um, the latest one's a play. There's this witch, and she's supposed to marry her cousin, who's well-born and all, but she doesn't want to. She has a Muggle lover that she smuggles into the castle with polyjuice, and one of her children is actually his. And she favors the bastard son, but he is sneaking out and leading a group of bandits. I suspect they're going to do something horrible soon."

"And the pureblood son is good and virtuous?"

"And put upon." Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't get too offended. It's Elizabethan."

"So that makes it okay?"

Harry frowned. "Prejudice four hundred years ago doesn't bother me. I've got enough to worry about now."

"But people are still reading this!"

"It's a good play! It's intense and stirring and beautifully written with believable characters and just enough witty lines to keep the tragedy from driving you to despair, and yes, it's still widely read, and it deserves to be." Harry flopped back into the cushions. "If you want, you can think of the boys as 'the spoiled one' and 'the disciplined one' rather than 'the half-blood' and 'the pureblood' or 'the bastard' and 'the true heir.' They all work. It even has some irony to it, because the favored son does believe he is legitimate and a pureblood. In one scene, he has a Muggle whipped for touching him. Actually, I'm betting he and his band are going to kill his real father, and then his mother will confess, and he'll kill himself."

"Lovely." Hermione caught herself in mid scowl and straightened. "Well, very Elizabethan, actually," she admitted, with a little smile.

"Is it?"

"Yes."

Harry came back to the Room of Requirement after dinner to wait for Draco. He ended up with his usual lounge, except it now had a reading lamp and a side table by one of the couches. He finished the play, and found the end even gorier than he expected. The illegitimate son, in the course of his banditry, did indeed kill his father and also raped his Muggle half-sister. When told the truth by his mother, he killed her, then her husband, who found him with the body, then himself. The Muggle half-sister came to make complaint, and the legitimate son led her to his mother's chamber, where the two of them found the bodies. She recognized her father's mistress, and they figured out the situation in two alternating sestets. He said she would be provided for, but must leave the country, and she agreed and left to tell her mother and brothers. The legitimate son, standing among the bodies, had a short monologue on the destruction brought about by untempered desires, and the play ended.

Harry put the book down. He felt utterly drained. "Something simpler next time, I think."

After eight inches of a Charms essay, he had stopped mourning the characters, but he was no less tense. He jumped when he heard a knock at the door, then forced himself to settle down in a casual pose.

"Alohamora."

The door swung open. Draco, standing with his hand upraised, stumbled forward and turned in a slow circle, staring.

"Where's the ... the stuff? The books? The Kerner? The mats?" He glared at Harry. "This isn't even the same room!"

"I didn't think we needed that one." Harry stood up and beckoned him over. "You didn't want to duel, did you?"

"No, of course not. If I had planned a duel, I would have told you to bring a second."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Of course. Have a seat, then."

Draco sat on the couch across from him, his arms and legs spread aggressively wide and his mouth curved into a mocking smile. "Is this your private study, Harry?"

"Tonight it is." Harry set aside his quill and cast the wards against sound, sight, and scent. "So. You've had time to think. Do you have an answer? A counter offer?"

"I have considered what you said about how your request went well with my intent ..."

Harry noted the use of "request", but let it pass. He nodded.

"... and you have a point. However, it is not in my nature to remain ignorant of my friends' actions and alliances. I prefer to be informed."

"As I prefer privacy. Your suggestion?"

"I don't like it, and I wish that known. However, I am willing to agree, provided the arrangement is mutual." Draco stared at him in challenge. "You, also, cannot pursue a question I have rejected, nor report me Dumbledore for aberrations in behavior that I have told you to ignore."

Harry considered. "Any actions against my friends--"

"You will counter, of course. But you may not act on suspicion. If I say 'drop it,' you drop it. If you say 'drop it,' I drop it. Fair?"

After another minute's thought. Harry nodded. "Fair."

"Let's shake on it, then."

They stood and shook hands quite formally. It reminded Harry of the day in the grove. Afterwards, Draco seemed more relaxed. He sprawled back on the low futon and looked at the colored fairy lights.

"Quite the odd little place here, Harry. Doesn't seem like the best spot to study."

"It's not, really. I was just waiting for you. Two hours of waiting for a two-minute conversation." Harry turned down the wick on the reading lamp until it went out. The circle of bright light disappeared, dimming the room, but removing the dichotomy of light and shadow. The space was lit almost evenly, now. "It usually looks like this -- more of a place to talk." Impulsively, Harry tugged on the cord around his neck to pull out the glass sphere, unscrewed the top, and blew a cluster of little bubbles. "I come here with friends, sometimes." Deliberately, he moved a hand under the bubbles. A little burst of cheer made it through with each one. By the third, he felt almost normal. At the fifth, he caught his tongue between his teeth not to laugh.

"Harry?"

Harry grinned at Draco. "Want some? No hangover."

Draco looked warily at him. "It's bubble soap. It's not even very good bubble soap. The kind I had as a child had little pictures in each bubble."

"This is different. Hold still."

Draco set his head down stubbornly, but before he could say anything, Harry leaned forward and blew bubbles in his face. Draco giggled, then twisted away abruptly. For a moment he looked like he would jump to his feet. "Harry...." He settled down again. A frighteningly relaxed smile spread across his face. It made him seem unfamiliar. "You meant it."

"Meant what?"

"No hangover."

"Oh, yes!"

"Where did you get it?"

"Can't say."

"Can't?"

"Won't. Want more?"

After several rounds of the bubble stuff, Harry stopped bothering to blow more. He had resumed thinking about his upcoming meeting with Fudge, and as his head cleared, his earlier ideas came back to him and began lazily to expand and alter. A peripheral awareness of movement gave him the sense that Draco had sat up, but he continued to look at the ceiling. His heart sped up with the possibility of danger, and he smiled.

"Harry?"

"Hm?"

"I think it's time to go. I don't know about you, but I have work to do."

"Well, first -- you remember how you offered me -- what did you call it? To reciprocate?"

Draco laughed. "'Reciprocity.' It's a diplomatic term -- I was being grandiose."

"Ah. Well, I want to take you up on that."

"You want to be seen with me? Yesterday wasn't enough for you?"

"Yes." Harry rolled onto his side. Draco was sitting on the facing couch, elbows on his knees, watching Harry intently.

"Fudge is going to visit. He says he wants to 'evaluate my educational situation.' I think he wants to move me and is looking for reasons."

"So?"

"So I want to show that I'm making valuable social contacts here." Harry grinned. "You."

"You do remember that my father is in prison, don't you?"

"I don't believe it matters. Fudge respects the old pureblood families."

Draco's face tightened into the sharp lines that Harry thought he had outgrown. "One would not know it from the things he said about Father."

"Draco! He was in the man's pocket for years! He needed to distance himself, and fast." Harry sat up. "But you didn't do anything." Harry focused on the colored lights then let them blur as he considered Fudge's probable opinion of Draco. "Actually, this would probably benefit you, too. I mean, if you're friendly with me, that disassociates you from your father's activities...."

"And if you're with me, you're not a completely lost cause."

"Exactly!" Harry looked at Draco again, and ducked his head at the sight of Draco's superior smirk. "Well, yes. If I do something socially awkward, you should tell me -- just lightly, as if you always do."

"May I tell him I'm civilizing you?"

"Perfect."

Draco leaned back, spreading an arm out along the back of the sofa. "Oh, I am going to enjoy this."

"No insulting my friends."

"Not more than usual."

Harry sighed. "I suppose that's as much as I can expect."

Draco shook his head. Slowly the smirk faded from his face until he was frowning at the wall past Harry's head. "I've worked out why people don't like me," he said conversationally.

Harry tried not to roll his eyes. He could just imagine Draco saying "it's envy," or "they don't like the way I speak."

"Yes?" he managed.

"Because I'm an arsehole, really."

Harry looked at him incredulously for a moment, then laughed. "Top marks, Mr. Malfoy."

"Oh, thanks," Draco muttered.

"I'm not going to disagree with that!" Harry sent him a conciliatory look. "You've been much better to me, recently, but--" He stopped. "What led you to this revelation?"

"The other day in Snape's rooms -- when you were in his bedroom -- I was just listening to him go on -- he was talking about how to control you, and how Granger wouldn't matter to you, later -- and thinking I must sound just like that. I like him, you know, but he's a cold bastard, and -- well."

"You get much of it from the same master, I expect."

"Potter!" Draco's eyes focused as his teeth bared in a brief snarl. "I have no contact with the Dark Lord."

Harry had a moment of alarm that Draco would give away so much about Severus before recalling that his father was known to have been a Death Eater in the seventies. "I didn't mean Voldemort; I meant your father."

Draco's brow furrowed at that, but Harry continued. "What I noticed in Snape's rooms was how you stepped on my hand."

"You were invisible!"

"Yes, but you guessed that you'd stepped on someone invisible, didn't you? Then you came back and did it again -- entirely to cause pain."

"But you were invisible! It made sense to assume you were an enemy."

"And your instinct was to torture, not capture." Harry kept any anger from his voice. He wanted to make Draco understand this, not to scold him for it. "If you'd put your foot on me and pulled your wand, that would be different."

Pale lashes dipped down over Draco's eyes. His voice was cool and distant. "I see."

Harry sighed and starting packing his bag. Draco stood. "Pity about the Kerner."

"The what?"

"You had a Kerner Dark Detector in the room yesterday." He looked at Harry's surprise and shrugged. "I was hoping we could play."

Harry's breath caught. He remembered the exhilarating, exhausting union of music and emotion, and struggled to speak normally through a suddenly dry mouth. "Next time, perhaps."

Harry spent most of Friday morning preoccupied with plans for Fudge. On Friday afternoon, while walking beside Hermione on the way to Care of Magical Creatures, he realized that she had not spoken to him since asking him to pass the potatoes at lunch.

"Hermione?"

"Hm?"

"You're not upset with me, are you?"

Hermione shrugged diffidently. "No." Despite the denial, she did not look at him. Harry cast about for something to say.

"I'm reading a new book -- something you'll like better."

"Really."

"Yes. It's set in the first Voldemort era. This girl's family has fled Iran -- there was a revolution there -- and has settled near London. There was some scary stuff, but they're through it now, and they're safe -- except to the wizarding reader it's clear she got them through it with accidental magic. Now she's here, and strange, bad things are happening. Voldemort is in power, and she's a witch -- a Muggle-born, foreign witch -- and she needs to figure that out and learn to use her power so she can protect her family."

"That sounds promising."

"I'm enjoying it, in a way, though it's also disturbing -- I think the news events the author included might all be real. There was a riot that sounds like one..." he took a deep breath -- "one Sirius told me about -- a Muggle race riot that Voldemort used to whip up fears of Muggle instability -- -- and an IRA bomb attack that I know was really a wizard battle with a lot of Muggle casualties."

"A wizard battle was explained as an IRA attack?"

"Right. Seamus was explaining to Dean that the Muggle Irish paramilitary groups -- both sides -- only did about half of what they took credit for in the seventies, and he mentioned this one -- the same day as Lord Mountbatten, which really was the IRA. The riot was even stranger. Our crowd was pretty sure it had actually been triggered by outside agents, Death Eaters, perhaps, or someone in the Muggle government with similar goals. Possibly both." Harry frowned. "Reading this is ... being there. It was scary for the Muggles, too -- and just ordinary wizards who hadn't thought they were involved. I think about the wizards who were actively involved, like Sirius and Remus and my parents -- all three of them -- while I'm reading about these things and wonder -- were any of them in that one? That one? Did any of their friends die, then?"

He shivered. "There's so much I wish I could ask Sirius."

Hermione bit her lip. "You can still talk to Lupin."

Harry's sorrow fled in a flash of annoyance. "I wish!" He forced a shrug, willing his shoulders to stay down, afterwards. "So... want to borrow it when I'm done?"

Hermione looked cautiously at him, but then smiled. "I'd like that, Harry -- thank you."