Snape took Harry and his bag of holiday clothes to the orphanage Friday morning at nine, and while Harry and the other kids were waiting to portkey to the large vacation home they had rented in Flushing, Harry and Justin enthused with the other kids about the potential of seeing Falmouth practices from the beach.

"I even have a pair of Muggle goggles," one boy said.

"They're called binoculars," Harry told him, and the third year Ravenclaw grinned, turning the binoculars over in his hands.

"I use them at school to watch Quidditch all the time!" he said.

At nine thirty Snape brought a tea kettle to Harry's group, which was all older boys and girls, and told them all to touch it. Miss Ava was with a group of younger kids holding out a story book, and Mrs. Ginger had a group of kids and was telling them all to touch the red trainer with broken shoelaces she held out.

"They will activate at nine thirty two," Snape said. "Everyone hold tightly to your portkey."

A few moments later, Harry felt a jerk behind his naval and was sucked into a hole in space. It felt like he couldn't breathe and would never do so again, but only a moment later he had reappeared with his group in a bedroom of the holiday rental home.

"This one's my bed!" Justin called, and threw himself and his bag down on a bed. The other boy's scrambled to do the same, and Harry was left with the last remaining bed, a bottom bunk near the door.

Snape left them there to make sure the others had all arrived and Harry tried not to feel out of place with this group of boys who all knew each other and had been living together for years.

Once everyone was accounted for and had a bed in one of the five big rooms, Miss Ava and Mrs. Ginger made sandwiches for lunch with the help of several of the kids, and Snape laid down ground rules for the weekend holiday. The house had a little pathway to the beach, and Snape told everyone that no one was allowed in the water unless a floation charm had been placed on them. Kids under 11 couldn't be in the water without an adult present, and they were to stay in the holiday house or on the beach directly behind the house. Snape, Miss Ava and Mrs. Ginger were going to place themselves across the property and down at the beach so the kids could be supervised and come and go in those areas as they pleased, though no one was to be at the beach after dark without an adult, and all kids were to be in bed by ten. Kids younger than 11 had to be in bed by eight.

Harry and Justin went to the beach with some other boys after lunch and after the floation charm and anti-sunburn charm had been placed on them by Mrs. Ginger, they got into the water. Harry had fun putting his face under trying to see if there were fish below.

They were all disappointed to find that they couldn't even spot the Falcon's pitch from the beach, though that didn't stop them from splashing each other in the water and playing with a beat up old Quaffle one of the seventh year boys had brought.

Snape cooked Shephard's pie for dinner and Miss Ava stayed in the kitchen to make a strawberry cake with lavender iced tea for dessert. Stomach full, Harry lounged on the beach with Justin and was glad when the younger kids where sheparded off to bed. That left only about ten of the older kids, and many of them had gone inside to play board games they'd brought with them from the orphanage.

"This was a good idea," Justin said.

"Yeah," Harry told him, content as he watched the sun going down over several sail boats coming in for the evening.

"We should have a bonfire."

"Wonder if it's allowed," Harry said.

"It's your holiday, you make the rules."

"Yeah right," Harry said. "The adults planned it all. I don't get a say in anything."

"Only, ‘here's some money go on holiday,'" Justin teased. "You have more say than you think. Mrs. Ginger and Miss Ava are always praising you and are pleased to do whatever you say. What other thirteen year old gets to decide to re-build an orphanage or waltz up and own Diagonalley like you do?"

"I didn't-" Harry faltered, "I don't-" is that how they saw him? Strutting around like he was the boss of everyone?

"Calm down," Justin said. "I was only playing."

"No one has to do anything I say," Harry said. "I don't get a say in anything involving me. Not ever."

Justin knew he was referring to the trial and how poorly that had gone for him, and decided to keep his mouth shut.

"Hasn't turned out half bad though has it?" he asked a few minutes later.

"I dunno," Harry said. The Headmaster had been good to him, and Snape had been taking him to the alleys and had gotten him new glasses, but Harry still thought he might be better out on his own. That way he wouldn't be a burden on anyone. His mind flashed to how good he had had it with Sirius by his side, but he pushed the thought away. He couldn't get a response from Sirius to his owls, so there was no hope of seeing the man again let alone living with him or running away with him. Harry pretended that thought had not just crossed his mind to run away with a convicted felon.

"I'm going to go see if we can have a fire," Justin said, and ran up to the house to find Miss Ava.

Twenty minutes later, Miss Ava came out with the older kids again and with Snape, and they set a small fire on the beach, spread evenly around it. Miss Ava had a big bar of chocolate she broke up and gave everyone, including Snape a piece.

At nine some of the kids grew bored and went back inside, and at nine thirty Justin got up to go play games for half an hour before bed. It was just Harry, Snape and Miss Ava left. Ava wasn't sitting next to Snape as the man stared into the dying flames of the fire with his black eyes. Harry thought the man looked relaxed in a way he never had before, and it unsettled Harry for some reason. Maybe it was only because Harry knew the peace couldn't last, and it was only the calm before the storm of Snape snapping at him or putting him down, or finding anything at all to berate him over.

"Are you enjoying your first holiday Harry?" Ava asked after several minutes of silence.

"Yes," he said, looking up at her from the flames.

"Is it everything you hoped for?"

He smiled at her. "More."

"I'm glad then. Some of the kids have been on holiday before, before they came to the orphanage. I haven't seen them so happy in a long time... like a weight has been lifted from them they didn't realize was there."

After several moments of silence Harry said quietly, "My family used to go on holiday. I had to stay with Mrs. Figg down the street. She was nice, so it was a holiday for me too."

"Where did your family go?" Snape asked, startling him, and Harry looked up at the man awkwardly for a moment. Snape was still staring into the flames though.

"Majorca," Harry said. "I think it's a resort in Spain. Once to Galway, and a few times to Cornwall and Newquay to see the aquarium. They went to Rame Head for a vacation with Uncle Vernon's company, and another time to a golf resort in Mere with his drill company, and they went to an inn on a lake somewhere with a client he was trying to impress, but I don't know where it was. I think they were going to Rome this summer."

Harry didn't realize that Snape's black eyes had come up to survey him at some point while he had listed off holidays he had not been allowed to be a part of.

"But you liked it with the person you stayed with while they were away?" Ava asked.

He looked up at her and nodded. "She was really friendly. I slept in a spare room. I think she liked it when I came over because then I would eat all her stale biscuits and she'd have an excuse to get new ones. And I'd listen to all the stories she had about her cats. I think she didn't have anyone else to tell about them." Looking at Ava he said earnestly, "We should have invited her to come. I bet she would like to chaperone your next holiday. She'd have lots of kids to tell about her cats."

"Who would watch the cats?" Ava asked.

"She's a squib, but I swear her cats are magic. I think she gets tired of them anyway. Last year she tripped over one and broke her leg."

"Oh my," Ava said, and she and Harry laughed together.

At ten o'clock on the dot, Snape rose and put the fire out with his boot and a pail of water he'd brought out from the house and told Harry it was time to go to bed. Harry left the pair on the beach and went inside, where the older kids in his room were reading in bed already, waiting for lights out.

"You don't like him, do you," Ava said to Snape.

He looked at her and said, "I never said that."

"I can tell," she said. "Thank you for bringing him anyway. He needed this as much as the other kids. I've never seen him smile like this."

Then she left Snape and went inside to make sure everyone was in bed and to help Mrs. Ginger prepare some food items for the next day. It was some time later before Snape brought himself up to the house, and when he did, everyone was in bed. He relished the quiet, but he couldn't deny he was happy the orphanage kids had the opportunity to spend some happy time away from Knocturn Alley. As much as he hated listening to the two women praise Potter endlessly for his help orchestrating the holiday, he had to admit it was a good idea. He would have given anything as a teenager living at the orphanage to go on holiday even just once. It seemed Potter had just been waiting for his chance to go on holiday as well.

* * *

Saturday started with Snape waking up several of the older children, finger to his lips to make them stay quiet. Harry woke groggily to Snape shaking his arm, and was surprised he had slept through the night without waking everyone with his nightmares. For the first time in forever he couldn't remember having any nightmares.

"Get dressed and be quick about it," Snape told him. "Wear shorts."

Harry looked around the dark room to find Justin and the other older boys looking just as perplexed as he was, dressing quickly.

After a few minutes they went into the hall and found several of the older girls looking bewildered.

"Did Professor Snape sneak into your room to wake you up for an extra early detention?" a seventh year girl named Jamie asked. She was in Slytherin and Harry almost laughed out loud to know she assumed the worst like any other house might.

"Definitely," a seventh year Hufflepuff boy named Adin said.

The group went downstairs together and found Mrs. Ginger in the kitchen making bagged lunches. There were twelve kids awake and fourteen lunch sacks in a row on the counter.

"Everyone take a ham and egg sandwich and eat quickly," she said. "If you don't hurry you'll miss the boats."

"We get to go on a boat?" an eleven year old asked excitedly.

"Just hurry," she said.

They ate and she told each of them to take a lunch sack and meet Professor Snape and Miss Ava on the porch.

Outside the sun was just beginning to rise and the two adults worked to put floatation charms and anti-sunburn charms on them all.

"This way," Ava said.

"Where are we going?" Justin asked. "Why are we leaving the younger kids behind?"

"You'll see," she told him.

There were four boats waiting for them on the beach. They split up into equal groups and Harry found himself in charge of one of the boats and the two eleven year olds, a girl and a boy who were on board with him.

"Follow me," Snape told them, and they began rowing, though Harry suspected a charm had been added to the boats as they rowed across the foggy water after Snape, because they practically sped out into the bay. After five minutes, a blue light appeared over the water, and as they passed it, the fog suddenly cleared and Harry spotted nearly a hundred other boats in a huge ring around an open water Quidditch Pitch.

"Are we going to a Quidditch game?!" the girl in Harry's boat shouted excitedly, and it was all Harry could do not to shout with glee as well. He'd already been to the Quidditch expo earlier in the summer with the Headmaster, and now this?

"Pull up next to each other," Snape told them, and Harry did his best to pull up even with Snape's rowboat, which Justin was on. Snape hooked his boat to Harry's, and on Harry's other side Miss Ava hooked her boat to his and then to the boat on the other side of hers. They were linked together, and Snape cast a spell to stabilize the boats and keep them in that one spot at the edge of the pitch. Harry was amazed how the fog was held back, and obscured the sight of the pitch from land.

"Amazing," Justin said. "So this is how they keep the Muggles from seeing."

"This and a dozen anti-Muggle charms," Adin said. "I read about it in ‘A History Of The Falcons'. They have a mage on staff who controls the weather on game and practice days. Games are always early in the morning when it's likely to be foggy. Fifty years and Muggles have never gotten wise."

After half an hour a man wearing a Falcon staff shirt and baseball cap came around by boat and asked for tickets. Snape held out fourteen tickets, which the man tore in half and then gave back to Snape.

"Snack boat will be by in a minute," he said, and then used his wand to propel his boat forward to the next group of spectators to collect their tickets.

Ten minutes later a wide flat boat came by with all manner of crisps, fizzy drinks, candies and breakfast items. Snape didn't have any money with him, but Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out the pouch of coins the Headmaster had given him in Diagonalley. He hadn't even put a dent in it buying lunch and ice cream the other day.

"What can I get for seventeen sickles?" Harry asked excitedly.

The man on the snack boat counted how many people were in their group and brought over fourteen bags of mixed candies and handed them to Harry, and then took fifteen sickles from him. "Wait," Harry said, "can you give me the rest of the seventeen sickles worth?"

The man smiled and handed over several more bags of candy and then moved on to the next group who was twenty feet away. Harry passed bags of candy to everybody and left the last three bags under his seat. He'd take them back for Mrs. Ginger and the other kids later.

A third boat came by with shirts, hats, signed posters and blue and silver Quaffles, but they had no more money, so it passed them for the next group. It was seven thirty by the time the players came out and Harry started babbling to Justin about the Falcon's star Chaser.

"Their Seeker is better," Adin said, and Jamie agreed, but Harry shook his head. "No, Crombie has a slower broom than Taylor, but he makes his broom work for him. He twists so fast with the Quaffle the Chasers from other teams are confused about where the ball even went and don't realize he still has it."

The Falcon's were playing the Harpies that morning, and Harry whooped when Crombie leapt off his broom to take the Quaffle off a passing Harpy. He couldn't find his broom again and fell into the sea, but not before he had passed the Quaffle to a fellow Chaser, who then scored a goal. Crombie whooped from the water and then swam to where his broom hovered over the waves twenty feet away. Harry wondered if he would be able to hold on when he was drenched, but the Chaser pulled out his wand and sent a spell at his clothes that caused steam to come off him and raced off after the Quaffle again.

Several Harpies fell into the sea, and one had to be fished out by a referee during a time-out. It was a close game, but in the end the Falcon's won by just one goal, ten points. Harry imagined it had been that spectacular move by Crombie that had won the game. Playing above the water like that meant the players could make much more daring moves then when they were hundreds of feet in the air above solid earth.

At nine thirty the fog began to lift and the boats dispersed, but not before several memorabilia boats came back around with Falcons and Harpies gear. When they made the beach by the holiday house again, all the kids were enthusing about the match.

Inside Harry gave the last three bags of candy to Mrs. Ginger and divided the candy amongst the other kids, who crowded around him like he was Santa Claus. Snape snorted at the thought, and wondered again if this is why Potter had given so much to the orphanage. The child liked the attention. He liked being the ‘Santa' to the poor orphans. Severus pursed his lips though. The boy reminded him of Dumbledore and the way he bought things for Harry and he didn't like the taste that left in his mouth. Harry had little (if you didn't count the millions of galleons in his accounts), and had always had little. It was something the Headmaster wanted to remedy in a way Potter seemed to want to remedy for these children. Perhaps Severus had nothing to say about it after all. If Potter wanted to spoil these kids, let him. The kids would be better off for it.

They played on the beach again that afternoon, and had another fire that evening, this time with hot chocolate. Mrs. Ginger spent the day outside while Miss Ava watched the kids who wanted to stay inside, and Snape noted that Harry stuck by Mrs. Ginger's side. Was he so starved for the attention the motherly woman gave him? The other children didn't stay by her at all, but then again, they lived with her year round.

That night Harry did have nightmares, and woke himself and took himself down to the kitchen so he wouldn't wake the other boys in his room. He fell asleep on the couch in the living room, which is where Snape found him the next morning, though he made no comment because he had heard Harry waking from a nightmare the night before.

It was Sunday, and everyone ate breakfast and packed their bags. Every child had to spend five minutes in every room sweeping, mopping, picking up trash and cleaning walls and windows, even if the room they were in had already been cleaned. At nine thirty, they took their three portkeys back to the orphanage on Knockturn Alley, a smile on every child's face, including Harry's.