A/N: The focus of this chapter is a little different to my others so far. Let me know what you think :-) Thanks for my awesome readers at the end of the chapter :-D

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"Oh my God, Angelina!"

Most of the seventh year Gryffindors had been sitting in the house common room. Seamus and Dean had just been threatening to begin another game of strip poker (since their game the previous night had been interrupted when Hermione had quietly but firmly threatened them with detention for disturbing other studying Gryffindors) with Ginny egging them on and Ron sitting quietly in an armchair in the corner and turning steadily more pink with each passing minute – when all of a sudden Hermione had shrieked and dashed across the common room.

Sure enough, Angelina – and beside her a pretty, sort-of hippy-punk Asian girl whom Harry didn't know – was standing in front of the portrait entrance to the common room.

"Hi everyone! Miss me?" Angelina grinned as various Gryffindors started swarming around her. In the background, Dean and Seamus pouted at the sudden lack of attention being paid to them.

There was an immediate chorus of yeses, and Ginny Weasley – who had finally managed to muscle her way through the crowd with a combination of elbows and one well-placed jinx – threw her arms around Angelina and gave her a hug.

"But Angelina, who's this?" asked Ginny, looking winsomely at the other, older girl.

Angelina seemed to be suffering from some sort of inner conflict for a moment, but then the other girl stepped forward to take Angelina's hand and Angelina seemed to come to a decision. Still grasping the other girl's hand, she said, "Everyone, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend, Mie."

Harry looked blankly at them for a second. Girlfriend? As in…lover? Around him, the rest of the Gryffindor common room had lapsed into shocked silence.

Ginny was the first to break the tension. With a shriek to rival Hermione's she threw herself at Mie and enveloped her in a big hug. Mie looked taken aback for a moment, and then grinned (revealing a small diamond glued to one of her front teeth – "Oh my God, how cool is that?" whispered Lavender to Parvati.) Angelina smiled too, all nervousness forgotten.

"Oh my goodness! This is so cool! When did you guys meet?" Ginny asked Mie.

Mie smiled. "Why don't we all sit down and get comfortable? I rather like the story of our meeting, and I want to make sure I do it justice."

Without further ado, she conjured up a dozen burgundy beanbags and a table laden with butterbeer, chocolate, tea and cupcakes, and many bowlfuls of assorted Honeydukes sweets. As the students settled themselves down, Harry couldn't help but admire the effortless way in which she'd managed to put everyone at their ease. Harry Accioed a beanbag (hitting a very surprised Hermione on the head as it came through) and wandered over to Ron, who sat down beside him. Once most of the Gryffindors were seated, Mie began.

It seemed that Angelina's pet owl, Mercury, had been under the weather but (in the manner of tertiary students in both the muggle and magical worlds) Angelina had been rather short of Galleons, and so had taken Mercury to the practice at the Animal Healer's Training College.

"Let me guess!" said Parvati. "You're an apprentice Healer there, right, Mie?"

Mie smiled. "Right. Mercury was actually my first ever patient – luckily for me, we had just studied his ailment the previous week, so I was able to heal him without much fuss at all."

"But you know," continued Angelina, "our relationship probably would have ended there, with me taking Mercury home, if we hadn't met up the very next night at the local pub."

"You see," said Mie, "it was my friend's twenty-first birthday, and she'd persuaded me to come along to her dress-up party at the Dragon's Den pub in London…"

"…and I'd just dropped into the Dragon's Den on my way home from work to drown my sorrows," giggled Angelina. "You should have seen Mie's costume! There I was, sitting at the bar when this girl in leopard-skin – "

"Fake leopard-skin!"

" – right – fake leopard-skin, with about a dozen piercings, runs up to me and shouts "So how's Mercury?" I was so surprised that I spat my drink all over the poor guy sitting next to me!"

"Well, I'm sorry I scared you," said Mie, sounding very unapologetic, ("Not as sorry as the guy next to me," grinned Angelina) "but I was dressed up as Scary Spice, don'tchaknow?"

("'Scary Spice?'" whispered Dean. "It's the name of a famous Muggle singer," replied Hermione.)

"Anyway," said Angelina, "we got to talking…"

"I wasn't really missed by my other friends," said Mie. "The Butterbeer was plentiful, you see."

"And since the music was way too loud to talk over, I suggested we go to my favourite teahouse – " said Angelina.

" – and we stayed there all night just drinking green tea and talking – "

" – until they evicted us at 3am," said Angelina, "and since Mie lives so far out of London – "

" – and since Apparition when you're tired can lead to some very nasty accidents – "

" – I said that she could stay at my place for the night."

In the brief silence, Seamus wolf-whistled from the back of the room. Angelina blushed, Mie grinned, Ron looked like he was about to choke, and Ginny hit Seamus upside the head and said, matter-of-factly, "Oh, grow up!"

"Nothing happened!" said Angelina, still blushing furiously, "but for the next few weeks, Mie and I kept meeting up at the teahouse in the afternoons, and Mie kept staying over, until she was spending more time at my house than hers – "

" – and so when Angelina offered to let me stay permanently in the second bedroom of her flat, I said yes."

"And we started going out just a few weeks later," said Angelina. "And, you know, it's been almost six months now, so I wanted to introduce Mie to all of you guys. And, also, since Madam Hooch wants to move to part-time work only, she's looking for an assistant..."

"So you're thinking of working at Hogwarts?" asked Harry. "That's great, Angelina! I hope you get the job!"

All the other Gryffindors joined in giving Angelina their best wishes. A lot of the girls then gathered around Mie to get to know her a bit better, and most of the boys gravitated to the other side of the common room, where Seamus was challenging Ron to a game of "dare" chess. ("But I am not taking my shirt off!" Ron was saying.)

Angelina was just sitting back in her own beanbag, seemingly content to just relax by herself for a while, when Harry remembered the strange events of the past two days – the strange tension between himself and Malfoy… his inexplicable reactions to Draco's appearance…Draco's reactions to Harry…

Making up his mind, he sat down in the empty beanbag next to Angelina.

"Hi, Harry, what's up?" asked Angelina. "I heard you got Quidditch captain for Gryffindor. Congratulations!"

"Thanks, Angelina," said Harry. "Hey… Angelina… I wanted to ask you something…but I don't really want the others to overhear. Um…"

Angelina glanced about, and then waved her wand in a slanted figure-of-eight, and a translucent shimmery blue bubble popped up around them. "There we go. No-one should be able to eavesdrop on us now."

"Oh, okay, cool. Thanks Angelina. Um…" Harry trailed off into silence. How should he put this?

Angelina smiled. "I'm guessing you don't want to talk about Quidditch, then, hey?"

Harry laughed. "No. Er…" Harry sighed. Why did this have to be so difficult? "Um… Angelina… when did you first realise you were gay?"

Angelina looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then replied. "You know… I'm not so sure I am. I mean… I've had boyfriends in the past, and Mie is the first girl I've loved, but it's not like I'd never date a guy again, if Mie and I ever broke up. So…maybe that makes me bisexual, I guess.

"But I know Mie is gay. She told me quite early on that her father doesn't talk to her now because of it, although she keeps in contact with her mother and sisters. I must say that my parents were a little unhappy when I first told them about Mie, and I have had friends who have gotten all awkward when I told them I was going out with a girl.

"When friends react like that, I feel really sad. I mean – we're all human, aren't we? Is being with a girl so different to being with a guy? Well… obviously there are physical differences, but gender is just one part of a person."

Harry sat silently for a moment, taking everything in.

Angelina looked at him searchingly. "Harry… I don't know exactly what prompted you to ask me that question just now… but let me give you some advice. You don't have to shy away from your feelings, and you shouldn't be ashamed of them. Other people may react badly, but that is their problem. If you're attracted to someone, and they like you back, then just go for it, and forget everyone else. And whatever happens, at least some of your friends will stand by you. Ginny will, I'm sure!" Angelina added with a grin, looking over at Ginny, who was talking animatedly to Mie.

"Thanks again, Angelina," said Harry. "Let us know how you go with getting that position with Madam Hooch!"

"No worries, Harry – I'll owl you as soon as I know!" replied Angelina. "And if I do get it, perhaps we can all go down to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate!"

"Sounds awesome!" said Harry. "G'night Angelina – I think I might head off to bed."

And with that, Harry made his way across the common room, past Ron and Seamus ("No, Seamus, I will not take my pants off either!" insisted Ron) and up the stairs to the dormitory.

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A/N: "Mie" is a Japanese name. The 'i' in Mie makes the same sound as 'e' in 'me,' and the 'e' in Mie is the same as the 'e' in 'met.' So Mie is like "Mee-eh." I imagine Mie as having hair down to her chin, with a nose ring and heaps of earrings. She'd be wearing something like a pentagram necklace and a strappy midriff top and she'd have a bellybutton ring as well, and a long cotton skirt, perhaps done in tie-dye. And obviously she loves animals since she's training to be a magical vet :-)

Thanks again to old and new readers alike! Thanks especially to:

SwarmOfFanGirls – for your exuberant review :-D it really made me smile.

Konflickted – thank you for always taking the time to review! I really really appreciate it. (I hope your mailbox recovers .) I can't wait to read chapters 2 and 3 of 'A Little Something New'!

Paramour Conspiracy – it's lovely to hear from you! Merci bien for your compliments! It's all good – I know that my time for reading fan fics is usually 2am in the morning, and I usually find it very hard to concentrate enough to review other peoples' stories. I shall work on the length of the chapters :-)

suki53 – yep, chapter 3 was pretty hormonal. I thought that it would be good for Draco to respect poster models as women – I just feel really bad when I see people thinking of those women with scorn and disrespect.

kawanale – another very thoughtful review. I know I've arrived at university, really sweaty because I'm running late, but I never seem to have strong enough deodorant and I feel so bad for the people who have to sit next to me :-S Alas, though Harry manages to look ruggedly handsome in that sort of state, I just look dishevelled and smell worse…

Thanks to LycanthaRose (what a pretty name!) and everyone else who has taken the time out to read Silver Eyes.

And thanks to my darling Sparrowhawk, who continues to give me wonderful advice, not just on story writing.