"What are you reading?" Hermione asked. They were sitting in front of the fire in the common room, and Harry, bored of his schoolwork, had pulled out The Muggleborn's Handbook. He carried it in his robes sometimes, like a talisman, mostly only in Gryffindor tower, where he trusted that it would not be damaged or stolen.

"Mmph," Harry shrugged, not paying her much attention. He was reading about owls and postal protocol; his mother had drawn in the margin a remarkably accurate picture of an owl with a letter in its claws.

"The Muggleborn's Handbook," Hermione read, tilting her head so she could make out the lettering on the spine. "That must be a different edition -- mine has the brown cover."

Harry looked up for a moment. "Oh, yeah, it's an older one. Guess they used to make them in black." He turned his attention back to the book.

"Why are you reading it again? I'd have thought you got through it in first year."

Harry shrugged again. He didn't particularly want to reveal to her the provenance of this particular volume. Lately, it seemed as though his friends -- or at least Hermione and Ron -- had become less involved in his life than ever before. He hadn't told them anything of Occlumency, or of Snape, in some weeks. He was rather hoping to preserve Hermione's impression that he had received the book with his Hogwarts letter; he didn't relish explaining that Snape was the one who gave it to him, nor that it had once belonged to his mother.

"Let him read what he wants," Ron sniped, "it's probably better than this Transfiguration stuff."

"It's not like you've ever read The Muggleborn's Handbook. It's first-year material, if even that. And," she added, turning back to Harry, "you still have six or seven inches left on this essay. It's due in two days, mind."

"Two days, 'Mione!" said Ron. "It's six inches! We've done ten inches in a night, remember?"

"I do remember. And I also remember that you got an A on that assignment. I spent three nights on it, and I got an O," said Hermione, just a bit smugly.

"Well, you probably would have gotten an O anyhow, so it's not like you needed to spend three nights on it," said Ron.

"You don't know that. If you had spent three nights, you might have gotten an O, too!"

Harry hunkered down in his armchair and tuned them out. It was something like a Muffliato, but applied on someone else's conversation, and in his own head. He had gotten uncommonly good at it -- probably out of sheer necessity, given that his two best friends were capable of hours-long spats -- though he couldn't help but think that at least part of his proficiency was a result of Occlumency. He was getting steadily better at that, too. Even Snape had noticed; he had, during one of their recent lessons, commented on Harry's improved shielding reflexes.

Harry turned the page and ran his finger over a blot of red wax that he found on the next one. It was, appropriately, next to a paragraph about sealing letters by imprinting one's family ring. It was customary, according to the book, for more formal letters to be sealed in wax, usually in the hereditary color of one's family, if the sender came from a magical family. Otherwise, it was acceptable to use one's House color, at least while still in school. The drop of wax in the book, unsurprisingly, was red.

It occurred to him, then, that he didn't actually know what the Potter family crest looked like, or even what his family's colors were. He had thought that only the particularly pretentious families, like the Malfoys and the Blacks, had coats of arms -- but apparently every Pureblooded family had one, but many nowadays regarded them as old-fashioned and didn't use them outside of very formal circumstances.

"Oy, Ron," said Harry, "what's your family crest look like?"

"Huh? Oh, blue with a weasel on it." He shrugged as if to say it was obvious -- at least the weasel part.

"You mean azure," said Hermione.

"Yeah, that," said Ron. "Wait, how do you know what my family crest is?"

"I looked it up, Ron. I looked up yours, too, a long time ago, if you don't already know what it is," she said to Harry.

"Oh. Um... what is it?"

"You don't know?" said Hermione incredulously. "I thought you --"

"Not everyone's like you, 'Mione, wanting to know everything all at once," said Ron. At least, Harry observed wrily, he sounded somewhat amused, rather than completely ticked.

"Considering it's his own family crest, I thought he'd be curious! Especially since, unlike you, he doesn't have parents around to tell him that sort of thing!"

Perhaps it was because no one (aside from Snape) had spoken to him of his parents for quite a while, or perhaps it was because he had just been reading his mother's book -- the way she had said it, just then, rankled Harry more than it might usually have, more than was reasonable. "I'm tired," he declared. "I'll see you guys later." He gathered up his things, collecting what he couldn't carry in a variation of the air-bowl spell Snape had used -- the man had taught it to him a while ago, after he noticed Harry's interest in it, and Harry found that it could be generalized with varying degrees of success to larger objects.

"Now look what you've done!" said Ron. "You just had to talk about them, didn't you?"

"It was relevant! Anyways, he's fine with it -- we've talked about his parents loads of times!" Hermione shot back, the sting of her tone somewhat lessened as she eyed Harry's spell with ill-concealed fascination.

Harry turned back to them, about to retort with something like, "I'm still here, guys," but held his tongue when he saw a flash of genuine contrition in Hermione's eyes. She hadn't meant it in any hurtful way, of course; she didn't quite deserve Harry's ire, but neither did he feel like lingering. "It's fine," he said. "Good night." He made his way up the stairs, his various books and papers floating behind him. A thought briefly occurred to him, pricking like a thorn in his side: he had just Legilimized Hermione. It made him feel... well, Slytherin.

He tried not to think of it, as he changed into his pyjamas. Snape had warned him that it was crucial to develop awareness along with skill in Occlumency and Legilimency. It would become all too easy for him to unwittingly Legilimize others; most people were not Occlumens, and therefore kept their thoughts fairly close to the surface. Snape had made some snide comment, at that point in their conversation, about how Gryffindors were more prone than others to loudly projecting their thoughts where they were unwanted. Harry, then, had loudly projected at him the thought of Thanks for the book, but Snape merely harrumphed, and did not answer.

Still, he had not expected it to happen, or at least not quite so soon thereafter. It was disconcerting, to say the least; Harry shuddered as he considered being privy to the thoughts Hermione and Ron were undoubtedly projecting at each other -- it really was a pity that neither was a Legilimens. At least, he thought, it means I'm getting better at Occlumency.

He went to brush his teeth, his mother's book tucked rather absurdly into the waistband of his pyjamas. He ran into Neville by the sink, and it occurred to him that he hadn't really talked to Neville, beyond the usual inane pleasantries, in quite a long time. "How've you been?" he asked around a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Me?" said Neville, even though the only other person in the bathroom was a first year whom neither of them knew particularly well. "Doing pretty well. NEWT research with Professor Sprout's going well, so there's that," he said with a smile. "How're you? Or for that matter, how're those two?"

"Okay, I guess. Doing... stuff for Dumbledore," Harry said, tapping his scar with a wet fingertip. He had almost said, "stuff with Snape" instead, but realized that Neville, and anyone who didn't already know about "Remedial Potions", would probably find it strange. As far as the rest of Hogwarts knew, he and Snape were still bitterly antagonistic; their day-to-day interactions were still somewhat hostile, a charade of ill will that he was sure Snape still found entertaining, more for the pretense than out of any genuine malice.

"Hope that's going well," said Neville, snapping Harry out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, pretty well."

"Noticed those two chased you out, eh?" Neville said with a bit of a conspiratorial wink.

Harry grinned. "They're something, I'll say."

"They should just kiss and make up. Honestly, the whole House is tired of watching them go at each other."

"But there's Lavender," said Harry in half-hearted protest.

Neville shoved his hands in his pockets. "He's just leading her on," he said quietly. "The whole House knows -- even Lavender knows, probably, but she's not going to admit it. There's a thing to be said for Gryffindor stubbornness."

"I don't know," said Harry, "I'm not sure there's much I can do."

"If there's anyone who can do anything, it's you, I figured, since you're his best friend."

"Ron's pretty stubborn himself," said Harry, half-shrugging a shoulder. "I'm not sure it'll do any good, even if I try. He's got to realize it himself, I think."

"You're probably right," said Neville, and then, "well, I'm heading off to bed. Good night, Harry."

"Good night," Harry replied, watching him walk out of the bathroom. Neville, too, had changed, and it bothered Harry that he hadn't noticed it happening.

He put his toiletries away and headed up to the bedroom. He made it halfway up the stairs before he noticed a strange, sloshing sound behind him; he turned around to find that he hadn't cancelled the air-bowl spell, after all, and now there was a quantity of slightly-sudsy water floating in the air behind him. Laughing a little at himself, Harry drew his wand and Banished the water, and then cancelled the spell. Then, suddenly anxious, he patted his waistband to make sure that his mother's book hadn't gotten wet. It hadn't, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. It wouldn't have been anything a Reparo couldn't handle, but the thought had frightened him all the same.

Harry tucked his mother's book under his pillow next to his wand, where he used to put the Invisibility Cloak, and then the Marauder's Map. He crawled under the covers and thought about the D.A. He wanted to have another D.A. session, right then, but with Dumbledore back, it really wasn't necessary. He wondered how Luna was doing -- he saw her in the corridors sometimes, or at meals, but he hadn't really talked to her in a long time. He hoped that the older Ravenclaws remembered that she was his friend. Things were better for her when they did. He chuckled darkly to himself, and thought, I supposed the fame, bloody annoying as it is, is good for something.

It occurred to him, as he drifted to sleep, that he never found out what the Potter family crest looked like.