It occurs to Harry later that he's forgotten the Marauder's Map in his room. For one thing, he's already endured that, oh gosh I've dropped it and it's not in my pocket and I'll never find it again panic, backtracked, and found nothing. For another, Hermione drops down beside him thirty minutes later as he's sat himself on an overlook beside a rather opinionated gargoyle and hands him the lost item.

"You are really handy, you know." He shoots her a grin that doesn't seem to wipe the exasperated look off her face and unfolds the paper. "You love me and you know it," he mutters over her sigh.

"Yes, constantly picking up after you and Ronald is the highlight of my day, you know."

"I know how you especially enjoy inspecting our homework for us and making sure we dress properly," he only says because it's true. Hermione has about as much mothering in her as Mrs. Weasley, she just hides it a great deal better with shrill words and well-timed sighs. He spares a glance back down at the map stretched out over his legs and spots Seamus' dot heading towards the courtyard.

Hermione spreads her skirt out over her knees and leans in and does a very good impression of not trying to sneak a peek at the map. Harry doesn't know why she's bothering to act uninterested, it's Hermione.

"So." Harry frowns and momentarily wonders about his natural tendency to let Hermione work out his troubles. For one thing, he's been working on this problem for what feels like ten thousand hours and he knows he wants the satisfaction of doing the job himself. For another, he doesn't know whether Seamus would want Hermione to know who he's having butterflies over. What if it's someone horrible? Hermione isn't exactly a gossip, but she has this judgemental stare...

"I'm not sure who Seamus has a crush on," he confirms. Because it's the truth, and because it's easy to give her the information she so clearly wants when there's nothing informative about it.

"Work on it like a word problem," she offers sagely.

"Like in math?"

"Like in life, Harry. Take what you know and make it apply to the circumstances until you've worked out a word problem."

Right. Okay. Harry knows he can do this, he used to do this in grade school before he came to Hogwarts.

If someone gives you one Seamus... and a hundred butterflies...

He bites down on his lip and sighs. This is going to be harder than he thought.

OOO

Every now and then, Harry slows down and takes a real long look at something, and promptly feels like an idiot for previously missing such key facts. Like, okay, Hermione wasn't meaning a mathematical word problem, and when he starts to look at the issue in a different light, he realises what he's been missing. Seamus has butterflies in the classes there are Slytherins in. Right. So, his crush is a Slytherin. But, he has butterflies sometimes when he's watching the Slytherin Quidditch team as well. So it's someone on the team.

So it's a boy on the Quidditch team in their year, and..

"Oh, fuck's sake," he mutters.

"Oy, language, Harry," Ginny mutters from her perch on the edge of the couch, not bothering to look from the sketchbook balanced on her knee.

"I'll have you know my language is entirely appropriate for this situation," Harry snips back, pushing himself from the couch. He strides towards the portrait and snags Seamus by the collar on the way.

"Harry, wha'?-"

The portrait swings open and he pulls the boy outside behind him, turning around to face him with both hands on his hips. It's more intimidating that way, he thinks.

"Since when do you fancy Malfoy?"

And okay, Harry doesn't really intend to blurt it out like that, but thankfully there's no one hanging around outside the portrait hole to overhear this stunning bit of news and float it all over the castle. The last thing Harry wanted to do was out Seamus before he was ready and have the whole school talking about him.

"Er. Wha'? I don' fancy Malfoy, he's a prick."

"But he's the one you're making butterflies over," Harry says slowly.

And then Seamus gives him that look, the unhelpful log-like look, and runs a hand through his hair.

"Harry."

"What?" Harry frowns and crosses his arms because his hips can only stay sassy for so much time before he pulls something. "It is him, Seamus, I did the research."

"Stalkin'!"

"Research!" Harry starts to fish in his bag for his fucking chart, because that thing has all his proof, but Seamus' palm curls around his wrist before he gets the chance and he's being stared at by large brown eyes.

"Harry. I don' fancy Malfoy, I don' fancy boys. Me mum would kill me." Seamus' voice breaks.

And oh.

Oh.

He opens his mouth, but at this point he doesn't know what to say and he can feel his face starting to heat up. He'd spent so much time pratting around and getting into Seamus' business and feeling so smug when he came to his conclusion that he sort of didn't realise how delicate of a situation it was. Of course Seamus can't like Malfoy.

He watches Seamus swallow and shrug, and doesn't say anything.

But.

But he's going to fix this.