Harry placed his head above the bowl and inhaled the satisfying aroma of pie dough with his eyes closed.

"It's official, mate. The Prophet’s right. You've gone absolutely mental," noted Ron from the couch. Certainly, the redhead couldn’t imagine a reality in which he would enjoy baking with his mother. A thump echoed in Grimmauld Place, followed by Ron's weak protest. 

Hermione sighed, clearly frustrated. “Merlin, Ron, sometimes I wonder how you manage to have an emotional range even less than a teaspoon.”

Harry couldn’t stop himself from looking at his friend, though he chose to do it in the metallic side of his bowl. Ron was trying, unsuccessfully, to keep hold of his sour expression, but his amusement was shining through. 

"Stop complaining, Ronald. There is no need to be jealous of Harry's success in the kitchen. He is simply a natural with pastries, aren't you, Harry?" Mrs. Weasley gave Harry a warm smile, before muttering under her breath, "If only one of my children were so eager to learn the art of cooking. Bill was, until that wild, ridiculous hair grew out, and took all the respect for his mother out with it…” 

Harry smiled at her in return, chukling at her fussy critique of her oldest son’s manners, and his heart felt the lightest it had since Cedric had died, just two months ago.

The first week at the Dursley's was the worst, since Harry woke up each night covered with cold sweat and tangled in his sheets, a shout barely muffled on his lips. Unfortunately, as Dudley reminded him constantly, he wasn't always able to stop himself from talking in his sleep. Maybe that was the reason for his seemingly endless list of chores, beginning with weeding the garden and ending with doing the dirty laundry (some of the underwear wouldn't shame a whale, he noted).

However, Petunia decided, for whatever reason, to keep him from cooking. To his grand surprise, Harry discovered that he missed it. Which was why, after he settled in Grimmauld Place and was found innocent at his trial, Harry began helping Mrs. Weasley with cooking for the household.

Sirius was happy when he found out, telling them that Kreacher had been grumbling about not being able to poison the meals of the current and final heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black (as he was often heard mumbling). ‘Look on the bright side,’ Sirius had mocked the elf, ‘now you have more time to worship my dead brother. You aren’t needed, you aren’t wanted, so you may as well get lost.’ It was the only time that Sirius had mentioned his family, excluding rants about the shrieking portrait of his mother.

Despite Sirius’ mocking, Kreacher’s lips had quirked into his own facsimile of a sly smile (Hermione stubbornly insisted that he did smile) and he popped out of the room. 

 After that, the creature had hardly shown his ugly face at all, much to most of the inhabitant’s relief. Of course, Harry would never mention the relief to Hermione's face. Even Sirius seemed to tone down his hatred of Kreacher near her.

After he finished making the base of the pie, Mrs. Weasley took command of the kitchen and the three of them retreated to their room. On the beds awaited the piles of books for the following year, and next to Ron’s pile was a cursive P, the pin shining in the dim light from the window. It drew Harry’s eye, as much as he tried to ignore it. He felt he must have screwed up with Dumbledore, and he wasn’t sure where, or how to fix it.

Ron noticed Harry’s glance, mumbling something about using the loo and fleeing quickly, leaving Hermione and Harry alone. The dark haired wizard gathered he probably wasn’t as successful as he hoped in concealing the envy which had grown inside his stomach.

"Are you okay, Harry?" she asked gently, and he nodded. "Oh, shut it. You're not okay. You deserved to be a Prefect, but… You know Dumbledore has his reasons, he can’t have meant it as a punishment. Maybe he thinks you’ll be the Captain of the Quidditch team next year and will need the extra time then, or…” She was clearly looking for another sensible reason, and coming short.

Harry forced a smile on his lips. "Yeah, maybe." He agreed in a hollow voice. Two arms wrapped him and he looked at her, surprised. "It's not that ba– "

“I know, it’s not that bad,” she interrupted his platitudes with a sincere tone. “You can probably manage the year without the additional weight on your shoulders anyway. And I’m proud of you. Despite your feelings, you still take care of Rons.” She smiled at him. “It was a really nice gesture for you to let Mrs Weasley buy used books too, even though you could have afforded them new.”

Harry's smile became more tentative than forced. "I didn't want Mrs. Weasley out at risk shopping for me any longer than necessary. Besides, there was a time when I couldn't have."

"Actually, Harry, about the Dursleys… I couldn’t help but notice that you are always the one to get second-hand clothes, never your cousin… Are they - " Hermione began to say something, but two pops in the room disrupted the fragile line of conversation. Harry was never more grateful to the twins.

"Harry-kins!"

"Your pie – "

"Is ready, so you should – "

"Go and grab a piece – "

"Before our new Prefect – " George turned up his nose. Or was that Fred?

"Declares onslaught on the pie – "

"With no survivors." Fred fainted dramatically, and both Harry and Hermione clapped at the dramatic display. "Go ahead, guys, I'll catch up in a second." Harry ushered them out with a wave goodbye, and tried not to feel guilty at the sight of Hermione being led as a captive to the kitchen, to be traded away to the newly crowned emperor for a slice.

Harry walked to his pile of books and pulled the Potions' book out, his heart beating hard in his chest. He anxiously flipped to the front cover, reading over and over the words he’d seen when Mrs. Weasley had first handed him his own stack of hand-me-downs. It wasn’t his imagination, it was still there, in small and spidery letters –

'This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince'.

And under it, in a cursive (yet bigger) handwriting, the ink a little bit darker –

'And of Lily Evans, who refuses to take part in her best friend's ridiculous pseudonym phase.'

Somehow, somewhere, his mother had held this book. His mother had written in this book. His mother had laughed with her best friend, whoever it was, while writing notes to each other in the very same book. And for the first time in his life, Harry could imagine his mother as another person, no more the shadow of her personality which was demonstrated in his only memory of her. 

Lily Evans Potter was once a teenager, like him; she and her best friend explored the corridors and the towers. She lost her way due to the moving staircases, startled when she met ghosts for the first time, and commanded her broom to go ‘UP!’.

 Those memories had seemed doomed to be gone, forgotten. But yet, he had somehow managed, by some odd coincidence, to find innocuously in the pile with the rest of his school books, and now happens to be holding her book in his own two hands. A treasure of splints and shatters of her personality, childhood, friends.

As he peered down at the writing, a resolution solidified in his brain; he will read every word in this book. And when he is finished, he will find the Half Blood Prince, and he will interrogate Lily’s best friend until he learns everything there is to know about his mother.

Oh, if only it were that simple.

Through the travel on Hogwarts Express, Harry finished updating Ron and Hermione about the book. He’d only had half a day to read it, but he had already reached the second chapter and found an interesting spell, which sounded familiar – Waddiwasi, though he couldn't remember when he had heard it. Hermione, of course, solved the mystery, reminding them that Lupin had used this spell on Peeves in their third year. “... He had shot a chewing gum into Peeves’ nostril.”

This fact caused Ron to fall in love with the Prince, eager to learn more spells, and he pressed Harry to read further.

While Hermione supported the idea of reading the subjects and the books before the classes, she declined any experiment with the spells, especially not on Malfoy, despite Ron’s protests. "It might be dangerous! How can you trust this Prince when you don't know who he or she is!"

This saying lit an argument between the three of them, both Ron and he insisting on the fact that the Prince was a boy. This fight was abruptly interrupted by the arrival of Neville, Ginny, and her yearmate Luna.

As the conversation turned into more peaceful subjects, perhaps due to the packed homemade apple pie pieces that Ginny (sneaky girl) retrieved from her bag, Harry made up his mind – he wouldn’t tell anybody about his findings from the book. After he finished reading it, maybe he would ask Sirius or Lupin about who could have been his mother’s best friend.

The new year was going to be good, Harry felt it.