Professor Dumbledore had granted fifth through seventh years the august privilege of a Diagon Alley weekend, and Harry reveled in being able to explore the old wizarding section of London without hunting for school supplies. He was seated on a long, low wall that ran alongside the better part of Diagon Alley, swinging his legs back and forth, a new text entitled Potions des Hierbas on his lap, another entitled Practical Defense for the Practical Wizard atop it; the sun was bright and warming, the wind was cool, and Diagon Alley was bustling with witches and wizards about on their business, calling out to one another and selling their wares on streetcorners. Every now and then, some small noise would emerge from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes off to their right, or the windows would flash with some sudden light; whenever this occurred, students invariably exited the shop mere moments later with bags chock full of joke items, departing in twos and threes, chattering excitedly at what they had seen. Ron was chatting up his brothers in the joke shop while Hermione lingered in Flourish and Blotts; Draco was getting new robes down at Madam Malkin’s, and Ginny was off with a group of friends, window shopping. Yolande was perched beside him, thumbing idly through a book with no title and a dark leather cover, content to be quiet with Harry while they awaited the rest of their party.

No matter that Harry had grown up in the Muggle world, he felt most at home in the magical, and probably had before he was properly conscious there was one; the sounds of explosions and flashes of light made him smile quietly, while he knew that his Aunt Petunia probably would have had an hysterical fit with each and every one. Thinking back on his irritation at the beginning of the school year, Harry could not help but feel he had learned a new skill: that of shutting out what needed ignoring, and paying attention to what demanded it. The bustle around him warmed him, but he was quite capable of reading the back cover of his new Defense book without feeling bothered.

Hermione finally emerged from Flourish and Blotts to their left, carrying, predictably, an inordinate number of books, half of which Yolande claimed from her just as they threatened to topple from her hands.

“Ack! Thanks much,” she muttered, setting the stack gingerly on the worn stones by Harry. “There’s just so much that’s new, I haven’t been all summer... just had to pick up the new History text by Carlisle... and there’s a brilliant treatise on how Muggle technology has arisen because of a foolish mistake Arglewyld made on a summoning spell during the Industrial Revolution I simply had to have.”

“Not to mention a few romance novels,” Yolande observed, precariously balancing her own stack beside the first.

“Never you mind,” Hermione advised, snatching the top three volumes and secreting them in some unknown space on her person.

Harry laughed and placed his own book down atop his first again. “Where’s Ron? He swore he’d be out in minutes.”

“Well, if there’s any interest more avid than Granger and her books, it’ll be Weasley and his toys,” a new voice sounded.

Harry looked up to note that Draco had arrived, his nose hitched into the air a fraction higher than usual, although if Harry were to be honest, the emotion reflected in Draco’s eyes was more like distress. “What’s the matter?” he inquired, making room for Draco to seat himself between he and Yolande.

“A bit of overwork,” Draco dismissed.

“From getting fitted?” Hermione inquired cheekily.

Draco opened his mouth angrily, as if to retort, then closed it with a snap; Hermione’s response was to color and frown in confusion.

“What say we drag Ronald out of there?” Yolande said, breaking the staring contest between the trio.

Hermione turned to Yolande gratefully. “Er... yes, I’ll go. Ron’ll want to play some sort of trick on me in any case, and if I sneak in – and possibly bribe the twins – I might be able to turn the tables on the boy. ‘Scuse.” She nodded at Draco somewhat hesitantly, then disappeared off into the joke shop.

“Well, this is going swimmingly,” Draco muttered.

“It’s the first five minutes,” Harry snapped. He frowned, passing a hand over his eyes. “Sorry. But can you try to be more patient?”

“And polite – sorry – nice. And less Muggle-hating. Oh, and perhaps, Malfoy, if you could turn yourself inside out? That’d be great,” Draco recited in an over-earnest voice that Harry feared sounded much like his.

Yolande snickered, subsiding with raised hands in the universal gesture of disavowal when Harry shot her an irritated glare.

“I don’t want you to–” Harry began. “I mean–”

“You do,” Draco countered, grey eyes flashing with challenge. “Simultaneously.”

“I think that what Harry means,” Yolande ventured with one dark blonde brow raised, “is that those things come naturally for most people. Sorry,” she added thoughtfully, “most Gryffindors I should say.”

Draco laughed, tossing his hair back. “I am neither most people nor most Gryffindors,” he replied with a smirk, and Harry realized with slow-dawning surprise that Draco was casting his charm on the blonde girl, and not in a precisely magical way. He wondered if he ought to mention that she was a lost cause.

“That’s for certain,” Yolande agreed – with Draco, although it took Harry a moment to realize that.

Harry perked up when he saw a mass of red hair working its way through the crowd in front of the joke shop – it meant someone normal to talk to. Or, well, sort of. “Ginny!” he called. “Ginny!”

“That your girlfriend?” Yolande asked as Ginny’s head perked up, searching for the owner of the voice that had been calling her.

“No, she’s – she’s Ron’s sister,” Harry explained hastily, not wanting to have to explain Ginny’s odd relationship with him, which, he suspected, was halfway between brother and betrothed. It was something like being engaged in the seventeenth century: he and Ginny had known one another since they were very small, but, although they hung around one another occasionally, it was always with a chaperone. Harry couldn’t remember a time he’d just sat and been with Ginny, as he did with Ron and Hermione. It was as though that tiny bit of tension just wriggled under their skin – and moments after Ginny had settled into a chair in the common room, Harry felt himself getting up, stretching, calling it a night; he’d seen her do the same, looking puzzled at her own actions. He didn’t dislike Ginny, but he didn’t like her either, at least not in that way – and given what was unconsciously expected of them both, that tended to make things a bit awkward in private. Ron in particular continued to make none-too-subtle hints that the two were simply destined for one another...

In company, though, Ginny was one of Harry’s best friends, smart and funny with a wicked streak a lot like that of the twins, and he would’ve given his right arm to have caught her attention – Draco and Yolande’s humor, he was finding, was the same, but it wasn’t his. Someone had to lighten these two up.

These three, he suddenly decided, lumping himself in with the two blondes after all. Slytherins have rot for humor.

Unfortunately, Ginny must’ve thought that Ron or Hermione had called her, because her face lit up with recognition and she disappeared into the shop.

“Her brother will drag her out,” Draco said when he saw Harry’s face.

Harry shrugged.

“You sure she’s not your girl?” Draco inquired dryly.

“Quite.”

Draco shrugged suddenly, as though his doubt had been wiped away. “You shouldn’t have a problem, then, if I flirt with her?”

Harry coughed.

“He does have a problem, Draco, be nice,” Yolande ordered with a smirk.

“I really don’t have a problem,” Harry admitted. “I was just picturing Ron’s face is all.” Harry wasn’t certain whether he had a problem or not, but this would be as good a way as any to find out. “Be careful, though,” he warned. “Ginny’s... Ginny’s not...”

Yolande cleared her throat.

Ginny Weasley was standing behind him on the other side of the low wall – she had to have gone through the shop and out the other end just to take him by surprise. “Harry James Potter,” she intoned, warning in her voice. “Just what am I not?”

“A pushover,” he replied immediately.

She swung over the fence and perched beside him. “Oh. Well, that’s all right, then.” She eyed the two Slytherins. “What are you doing with this lot? Captive?”

Draco’s features blanked, and Yolande sighed.

“Oh, wait – you’re Hermione’s friend, aren’t you?” Ginny exclaimed, bouncing off of the wall and pumping Yolande’s hand. “Unsorted – I’m sorry, but I thought you were... well, nevermind. I’m Ginny.”

“Yolande – Slytherin cum Unsorted,” Yolande replied wryly. “Watch out. It’s catching.”

Ginny blushed brightly and stammered another apology, then turned a scathing glance Draco’s way, sliding a step back. “Ugh,” she said, “now this is a Slytherin.”

Draco oozed over into her personal space with a wry, heartbreaking smile. “Now that’s not very nice, is it?” Harry suspected he was the only one of the three that heard Draco accent the word ‘nice’. “How should you like it if every time I saw you I shouted, ‘ugh! A Gryffindor!’ and ran away?”

“I should like it very well, I think,” she replied, perfectly straightfaced, “if it would mean I wouldn’t have to see your ugly mug again.”

Harry shot Draco a smug told-you-so look, but decided to rescue the Slytherin before he was further tramped into the mud. “Draco’s stuck here because he’s obeying me,” Harry said, and clued Ginny in on the details of the Imperio incident.

“Oh, I knew that – I would have just thought you’d have ordered him to go to the farthest reaches of the dungeons and lock him there until the week was over.”

Harry and Draco exchanged a befuddled glance.

“Well, then, you know, you shouldn’t have to deal with one another,” Ginny continued in a sort of isn’t-it-obvious sort of tone.

“We’re dealing just fine, I should think,” Draco grated.

Ginny eyed them and smiled, a slow secret smile that Harry supposed most boys would find attractive, but he found very, very frightening through familiarity. The redhead turned the smile on Draco who obviously didn’t know the danger; he twitched a grin back in return.

“I still haven’t paid you back for the diary,” she said conversationally.

The smile fell off of Draco’s features. “Pardon?”

“The diary,” she repeated. “You know. The one you gave me.”

Draco looked from Ginny to Harry and back again, comprehension dawning in his eyes. “That was my father,” he protested in an admirably even tone of voice.

“But you knew about it,” Ginny confirmed. “You were standing right there...”

“D’you think I would’ve gone about claiming I was the Heir of Slytherin if I’d known who really–” Draco stammered into silence, flushing brightly. “I didn’t know, all right? At least, not until it was mostly over.”

“Still,” Ginny replied thoughtfully, although Harry could tell that the danger was moving past, now, and he unconsciously relaxed the muscles in his shoulders. Hurricane Ginny would not decimate anyone – today. The redhead was pausing, and when she paused, she usually ran out of steam. “Oh, well,” she murmured, brightening predictably. “I can make your father pay through you in any case.”

Draco paled. “Just what are you–?”

“Harry,” Ginny wheedled, “just let me borrow him, for a little bit?”

“Borrow!” Draco muttered under his breath, just as Harry said, “what is it you want him for?”

Ginny considered. “I want to go shopping, and I think I’d like a busboy. You know, to carry my things, comment on which robe looks pretty...”

Harry thought that this sounded like rather appropriate punishment for Draco Malfoy, and far more kind than Ginny could be. “Well...” he temporized.

Draco grabbed him by the arm and moved him several feet away from the two girls. “You aren’t thinking of doing this,” he hissed.

“Look, you do owe Ginny,” Harry replied. “It’s because of your dad that she nearly died in the Department of –” He paused, puzzled. “I mean, in the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Well, she had you to save her from that, didn’t she?” Draco replied.

Harry shook his head. “It was a near thing,” he said in a low voice. “And I had help. If I hadn’t, Ginny wouldn’t be around for you to insult–”

“Who’s insulting whom, here?” Draco demanded, eyes narrowing. “If you expect me to obey the word of that redheaded chit–”

“I do,” Harry said, the words deciding him.

Draco went cold, his grey eyes going blank. Harry was beginning to realize that Draco’s blank face meant he was hurt or confused, both emotions that never presented as such. Maybe now he was both.

“Look, you remember when you said maybe my pride is something I ought to get over instead of work around?”

“You’re going to tell me that passing me off like a thing that you own will be good for me?”

Harry frowned. “No, not that in and of itself. But your thing with Muggles–”

“Ginevra Weasley is not a Muggle!”

“Fine, then, your thing with feeling elite,” Harry said flatly. “You don’t like the Weasleys because they’re poor, or Hermione because she’s a Muggle, or me because I’m a Gryffindor, or...”

“I don’t like the three of you because you’re all insufferable.”

“No,” Harry repeated firmly, “it’s because we don’t belong to your club. Because as long as there’s an outside, there’s an inside, isn’t there? And you feel you’re in it.”

Draco eyed him for a long moment, his gaze going deep enough to unsettle the other boy. Harry refused to look away, though, willing the truth to enter Draco, as though he could somehow pass it from himself to the Slytherin.

“Really,” Harry went on, keeping his gaze level, “it’s an awfully un-Slytherin thing to do. Not so good for advantage or sneakiness. I think it’s your aristocratic roots showing.”

“It’s excellent for both, actually,” Draco finally responded.

“If you were friendly with Hermione, the two of you could trade notes and things. You’d be far better off, although what her advantage would be I can’t possibly relate.”

Draco blinked at him and Harry realized he had somehow channeled the other boy – but maybe it was instinctive. If he wanted to get through to Draco, he had to speak Draco’s language.

“The Weasleys might not be wealthy, but they’re well-connected,” he went on dispassionately. “A friendship with Ron is probably impossible at this point, or near; but a friendship with the younger Miss Weasley would also be an advantage to you. You move in different, but equally important circles.”

“And you?” Draco prompted gravely.

Harry faltered. It was no good to be his friend, or even associated with him; he knew that. It took him a moment to scramble to find something, and when he did, he spoke with a sickness lodged in the back of his throat. “When I die,” he said, proud of the consistent timbre of his voice, “there will be a gap, a hole to fill. Probably a scramble for power. If I’ve defeated Voldemort in the process of dying, those who were my close friends will probably be best positioned for government in the wizarding world.”

“We aren’t having this discussion about Ron and Hermione again, are we?” Draco responded acerbically. “I thought we’d proven unequivocally that they weren’t all that interested in fame or power.”

Harry blinked. “’We’ proved?”

“In your staged argument. Come now, Potter,” Draco drawled with shades of his former haughtiness, “surely you noted that I had you calling Hermione a Mudblood and that I wrote in Vol- Voldemort as ‘the Dark Lord’? Certainly she caught on to all of that.”

“Yes, of course she did, and Ron too,” Harry replied. “So?”

“So I did it on purpose, you swot!” Draco barked impatiently. “That way you’d be able to say what was on your mind – which needed saying, by the way – but you wouldn’t get the blame. They hated me already...”

Harry twitched a smile. “I... see. I think. Er, thank you.”

Draco shrugged. “You were bothering me. More upset about them than about obeying me... sounding like Moaning Myrtle... besides,” he continued, an odd look stealing over his features. “I... I couldn’t see you throw it away.”

“Boys?” Ginny called. “A decision, please.”

Harry glanced over to note that Ron and Hermione had joined Ginny and Yolande; all four were chatting, glancing occasionally at the two of them.

“Look,” Harry said. “It’s a simple enough question. D’you trust me?”

“I’d have to be insane,” Draco scoffed.

“Yes,” Harry replied, “which doesn’t answer the question.”

“Trust you to do what?” the blond muttered, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “To water my plants while I’m away? To be around? To give your life for mine? Those are different sorts of trust, you know.”

Harry sighed. “I know. Just answer. The truth. It’s an order.”

“Yes,” Draco croaked, as though the word had been forced past his vocal chords with a punch to the gut. “Merlin help me, yes.”

Harry gripped his shoulder. “Good. I trust Ginny. Therefore, you trust Ginny. Come on.” He began to drag the Slytherin back to the rest of their party.

“Wait!” Draco exclaimed. “No! That doesn’t follow...”

“He’s all yours, Gin,” Harry said with an evil glare in Draco’s direction. “Draco, I order you to obey Ginny Weasley for the next...” He paused, eyeing the redhead. “...two hours. Except things you consider unreasonable–”

“Awwww!” Ginny exclaimed.

“And by that I mean things that endanger you or her or others,” Harry finished.

“Fair ‘nuff,” Ginny said. She turned to Hermione. “You might want to come along for the ride,” she advised tightly.

When Hermione nodded, looking grim, Harry wondered just what it was he had done. He caught Ginny by the shoulder as she turned away, Yolande, Hermione and Draco already ahead of her.

“You aren’t... you’re not really...” he began.

Her brown eyes softened. “Honestly, Harry, half the fun is making him think the worst. But you know you’ve got nothing to worry about from me. We’re going shopping. Shopping. We’ll meet you in the Leaky Cauldron at six for supper. All right?”

He nodded slowly in return.

Draco shot him a glare that started off filled with loathing as bad as it had ever been last year, but the glance altered somewhere along the way to pleading.

“Excellent,” Ron said feelingly. “Not only is he about to have a miserable time, we’re well shot of him.”