A/N: Well, this one is much shorter than the previous one. But I am putting it up before October, but only because I more or less finished Ch. 8 last night. There's still a couple things I want to tack on to the end of it. Hopefully, in Ch. 9 we'll get back to Hogwarts and introduce Ron.

Harry and Draco had Apparated to the courtyard behind the Leaky Cauldron, and while Draco had moved to open the gateway to the Alley, Harry had moved to enter the pub.

"I don't consider a pub to be an acceptable dating venue, Potter," Draco said, grabbing Harry's arm.

"I'm not planning on staying in the pub," Harry said. "You took Hermione to a wizarding restaurant, I'm taking you Muggle."

Draco spluttered in protest.

"Besides, after this afternoon, I'm not keen on being accosted by every tosspot who bought a copy of the Evening Prophet. Now come on," Harry said, tugging Draco into the pub. They somehow managed to make it to the front door without incident.

"Now, we need to do something about our clothes," Harry said, leaning against his staff in thought. "Got it."

With a murmured word, he turned Draco's black robes into tight-fitting black denim jeans and a black silk button-down shirt with thin silver stripes running vertically across it, and his own (grey once again) robes into blue jeans, a grey t-shirt and a blue-and-white checkered shirt, which he left open. His staff shrunk to look like a (fairly) normal cane (though it did still have the silver metal bands running up and down it, as well as the emeralds at the top). Harry grinned and affected a limp as he opened the door and led Draco into Muggle London.

"Stop freaking out," he muttered to the blond as they walked down Charing Cross Road.

"You've gone completely mad," Draco muttered back as he looked wildly around at all the Muggles. "They'll catch us and burn us for sure!"

"You daft tosser, they're not looking for us. They're all trying to get home to their families for dinner, just like us. Now, what do you want to eat?"

"Dragon liver," Draco replied. "With mandrake-leaf salad and pumpkin juice."

"Well you're not going to find any of that here," Harry said. "I don't suppose you've ever had pizza?"

"Sounds foreign," Draco said with a haughty sniff.

"It is and it isn't," Harry said. "It's also delightfully plebeian."

"I don't suppose I have a say in the matter anymore, do I?" Draco asked resignedly.

"Nope," Harry agreed cheerfully. "Pizza place will be much easier to find here, though," he said. "My other option was Apparating us to Portsmouth to see if that wonderful fish and chip shop the Dursleys ate at while they were trying to keep my Hogwarts letter away from me is still in business."

"What was that?" Draco asked as Harry began walking with purpose towards a glowing sign he saw in the distance.

"What was what?" Harry asked, limping along.

"Those vile Muggles tried to keep your letter from you?" Draco asked.

"Oh, that," Harry said, not slowing up in the slightest. "Yes. It was kind of funny, really."

"I fail to find the humor," Draco replied, trying not to show how displeased he was by being constantly run-in-to by Muggles trying to keep up with Potter, who was moving surprisingly fast for someone who was limping.

"Well, it wasn't at the time, but now that I've got five years of hindsight on it, it's positively hilarious," Harry said as he pulled open the door to what looked to Draco like the embodiment of Muggle kitsch. Everything was either plastic or covered in plastic, even the "flowers", and the "artwork" was disturbingly common.

Draco surveyed the place with a look of unease and disdain on his face while Harry arranged for them to be seated in a quieter area of the raucous restaurant. Draco could see (and hear) several small children, one particularly large group of them wearing oddly-colored paper hats and singing "Happy Birthday" terribly out of tune. He absently followed Harry and the overly-peppy waitress to a small table near the back with a harsh electric light overhead, and only began paying attention once again when a plastic menu was shoved into his hands by Harry.

"Drink selection is on the back page," he said. "If you want alcohol, I'll have to Confund the waitress, mind."

"I don't suppose you could give me a recommendation?"

"Alcohol," said Harry. "Not that they have any worth drinking here. But Coke goes well with pizza too, particularly the kind I plan on ordering."

"I suppose I'll have that then," Draco said. "Now what are you going to be forcing in my mouth?"

Harry burst out laughing.

"Oh shut up, you know it's the other way round," Draco said. "What I was asking was what the make-up of this so-called 'food' is?"

"Well, there's a crust, which is the foundation of the whole thing, so that's kind of like bread, and then they put tomato sauce with a few spices added in on top of that, and then put shredded mozzarella cheese on top of that, along with whatever meat you've chosen. I picked sausage, because I'm fond of it, but there's a whole load of other options," Harry said.

"I'm not sure I'm going to like this," Draco said. "Spicy foods don't agree with my palate."

"On a scale of oatmeal to curry, this is far closer to oatmeal than it is to curry," Harry said. The waitress came back and Harry ordered two Cokes and a large sausage pizza. The plastic menus were taken away and Harry informed Draco as the drinks were brought over that they would have approximately a twenty minute wait for the food.

"So what did you and Hermione get up to on your date?" Harry asked.

"We talked, mainly," Draco said. "I decided I needed to know more than what I knew superficially about her, given our arrangements. She suggested it would be equally beneficial for me to do the same for you, despite my insistence that I already knew far too much about you."

"Well, this should be interesting," Harry said. "What do you know about me, Draco?"

"Short, scrawny, Grey, powerful, mischievous green eyes, permanently scruffy black hair, stupid scar on your forehead, orphan, nice tight arse, spoiled brat," Draco rattled off.

"Well, you're right on all but the last count," Harry said. "And the way you go to town on me, my arse won't be tight much longer."

"You're not a spoiled brat?"

"Contrary to what Snape believes, my home life was absolute rubbish. The muggles Dumbledore left me with kept me in a cupboard under the stairs until I turned 11," Harry said. Draco blanched.

"It gets worse," Harry said, holding up his hand. "I was a house-elf, for all intents and purposes, with the notable exception that I couldn't use magic to get everything they wanted me to do done."

"How could they treat you like a house-elf?" Draco asked. "Don't they know what you did?"

"They might, but since Voldemort never killed anyone they cared about, my vanquishing him mattered about as much to them as someone in Lancashire vanquishing a spider in their bath," Harry said. Draco was smart enough to pick up the implication that the Dursleys had not cared about Harry's parents.

"And you haven't cursed them all into oblivion why?"

"You know, the first time I visited Flourish and Blotts I was looking at a book on jinxes and curses that I intended to use on my cousin," Harry said. "And, I suppose, on his parents, though he was the worst to me. But Hagrid wouldn't let me buy it and then I found out I wasn't allowed to do magic over the summer, so it's been put on the wait-list."

"Bloody hell," Draco said. "So them trying to keep your letter from you?"

"Fits in perfectly with the model of them trying to keep me miserable and completely ignorant of my proper place. Also, they didn't want to have to part with their slave labor," Harry said with a scowl. "As it was, I could swear they did the minimum housework necessary to keep it from falling into complete disrepair while I was away just so I would have to do it all over the summer."

"Well, at least you can earn your keep around the house then," Draco said with a sniff and a grin. Harry swatted him with the paper napkin holding a knife and fork that the waitress had placed in front of each of them.

"Git. If you call me because you've broken the bathroom mirror because of your incessant preening rather than use a Reparo on it, I'll make you regret it," Harry threatened.

"Please, Potter, you're terrible at threats."

"Maybe, but I'm not terrible at following through on them," Harry said. Draco decided to change the subject.

"How did they try to keep it from you?"

"Burned it, the first day," Harry said. "Then, when three came the next day, they got burned as well. Then shredded, and then when nearly a hundred came down the chimney, they just tossed me out of the room and shut the door. Ten minutes later we were off, since Uncle Vernon thought leaving the house would mean the letters wouldn't follow. But the next morning in Cokeworth, there were another hundred letters waiting for us at the inn. So Vernon, somehow having got it into his head that wizards couldn't cross water, took us to Portsmouth and rented this miserable shack on a rock in the middle of the sea. Thankfully, that was the night McGonagall or Dumbledore finally decided it was time to have someone deliver my letter in person, and sent Hagrid with it. The next day, I was in Diagon Alley, where I met this most priggish blond git in Madam Malkin's," he said, with a bemused glance at Draco with the end bit.

"I nearly kicked myself on the train when I saw that it was you that I'd met that day," Draco said. "Can you imagine what might have happened if we'd befriended each other that day? Or even if you'd taken my hand on the train?"

"I can," Harry said. "And I'm sure Dumbledore did as well, since no doubt Hagrid would have told him about our encounter. I probably would have ended up in Slytherin, been branded the new Dark Lord in the next day's Prophet, and if I somehow survived the first night in a house full of people whose families want me dead, I would have had to deal with a man as my Head of House who firmly believes that the sins of the father should be paid for by the son, and who would have contrived endless schemes to get me removed from his House at least, the school and my life at worst."

"Does Severus really hate you that much?" Draco asked.

"That much and more," Harry said. "Because he had it bad for my Mum, and sees me as an embodiment of everything he might have had, if he hadn't cocked it up with her at the end of their fifth year."

"Really? What'd he do?"

"Called her 'mudblood'," Harry said. "Undoubtedly something he picked up hanging out with the Death Eater crowd that had already infested Slytherin by the time he and my parents were attending school. There was only so much Mum could do to moderate their influence when she only could spend time with him openly during holidays. They lived near each other."

"Then he also knew your Aunt?"

"Undoubtedly," Harry said.

"Well then why would he think you were such a pampered, spoiled prince when he might have had at least an inkling as to how she would have reacted to being forced to take you in and raise you?" Draco asked, confused at his godfather/mentor/Head of House's take on Harry's formative years.

"Because he didn't want be to be anything other than James Potter redux," Harry said. "Brash, arrogant, causing mayhem on purpose and hexing anyone I didn't like. So he constructed a mental narrative about how my life would have been at the Dursleys to fit that image, and he's too prideful to consider that he was wrong about it, despite having seen glimpses of my actual existence there several times during our 'Remedial Potions' lessons last term."

"How would he have done that?"

"They were a cover for lessons in Occlumency," Harry said. "Rubbish, though, I didn't learn a thing except not to allow myself to be Legilimenced in the first place because it gives a terrible headache."

"You don't know Occlumency?" Draco asked.

"No," Harry said. "I doubt I could learn it, either. I'm much too hot-headed to calm myself enough to erect any sort of barrier around my mind."

"There's more than one way to skin a Kneazle," Draco said. At Harry's confused look, he elaborated. "There's more than one way to protect your mind. Severus was trying to get you to build barriers, and though that works for him, because he's a pensive, calculating man, you're right, you're much too temperamental for that method to work for you. But that's not to say that another method wouldn't. Diversion, for instance. It's what I use."

"Hold that thought," Harry said, as he saw the waitress approaching with the pizza out of the corner of his eye. It wouldn't do to have her overhearing any part of a Wizarding conversation, after all. She quickly came and deposited the pizza and two small plates in front of Harry and Draco before they assured her all was well, allowing her to flounce off to check on her other tables. A surreptitious movement of Harry's staff established a ward around the table that would result in Muggles being able to see Harry and Draco's actions at the table, but hear only perfectly normal things, like discussions about football and complaints about schoolwork.

"Now, you were saying?" Harry asked as he took the serving tool that had been slid underneath one of the slices and lifted it, pulling a slice of hot cheesy goodness free from the pizza and severing the stubborn strands of cheese with the dull knife he'd pulled from its paper holster before depositing it on his plate. He did the same for Draco before snatching a small dispenser of powdered parmesan cheese from next to the napkin dispenser at the other end of the table and shaking it all over his slice.

"Erm, I was talking about my own Occlumency method," Draco said, skeptically eyeing the still-steaming pizza slice.

"Right. Diversion. Tell me about it," Harry said, before taking a large bite from his slice of pizza and letting out a small pleasured moan, which made Draco even more uncomfortable, because he'd only heard Potter moan like that in bed, and was slightly put-off at the thought that food could bring the Gryffindor as much pleasure as he could.

"Well, erm, when I'm being Legilimenced, I let them find a bunch of useless memories," Draco said. "Like History of Magic classes, and while they rifle through those, I build up a counter-attack and throw them out of my mind."

"Interesting," Harry said. "Do you think you could teach me, so that I don't have to go with my current plan of cutting runes into my head to ward it against Legilimency probes?"

"I could try," Draco offered. "I'm sure Hermione could find a book with some other options too."

"Well, she struck out last year, but there might be some in the Restricted Section or the Black house," Harry said. "Eat your pizza."

Draco cautiously took the slice on his plate in hand and nibbled off the tip. It wasn't orgasmic, as Harry seemed to think, and it certainly wasn't dragon liver with mandrake-leaf salad, but it was alright.

HEY LOOK A LINEBREAK

"Now," Harry said, once the pair had finished the pizza. "We still have two weeks before Hogwarts term starts, and I want to do one last thing before then that will be sure to piss Dumbledore off royally."

"What would that be, then?" Draco asked.

"Exonerate Sirius Black," Harry said, completely serious.

"Why?" Draco asked.

"Because he was innocent and Dumbledore did nothing to help him prove it while he was still alive," Harry said.

"Do you have a how, yet?" Draco asked.

"Oh yes. A full public inquiry," Harry said. "I'll lead it, and the two lovely people I sat next to earlier have agreed to fill out the panel. I'll haul Fudge, Dumbledore, Millie Bagnold before the inquiry to explain how Sirius ended up in Azkaban in the first place, and then bring in Hermione and Remus Lupin to give evidence of what we discovered at the end of my third year."

"Well, receiving a subpoena to give evidence will no doubt distress him a great deal," Draco said. "Not as much as actually giving it probably will, especially if you ask the right questions."

"The same with Fudge, I imagine," Harry said. "Bagnold, well…I'm not sure how much she actually had to do with it, but since Barty Crouch is dead and she was Minister at the time, she bears at least some responsibility."

"True," Draco said. "So when do you plan on holding this inquiry?"

"Monday," Harry said simply. "The owls will go out tomorrow. Now, let's go home and see what Hermione managed to get up to while we were out."

"And let's get up to some things ourselves, eh?" Draco asked as Harry tossed some Muggle money on the table.

ANOTHER LINEBREAK

Albus Dumbledore wasn't completely unused to receiving owls from the Wizengamot Administrative Service on a Friday morning. But opening this one, he spat his tea over the collected parchments on his desk.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,

You are being notified that you are required to appear to give evidence to the Inquiry into the Sirius Black case. The Inquiry will begin Monday at 0830, in Courtroom Six at the Ministry of Magic, London. Please make every effort to arrive 30 minutes prior. You may bring legal counsel if you wish.

Sincerely,

H. J. Potter

Presiding Judge

So much for Potter staying out of trouble for the rest of the break. The brat had convened an Inquiry into his Godfather's case? What he hoped to accomplish with it, Dumbledore couldn't fathom, as Black was thankfully dead now. Perhaps there was a complication with the Black accounts as a result of the Ministry believing him a criminal.

He also wondered who else had been subpoenaed. He and Barty Crouch had been the ones responsible for confining Black to Azkaban with his cousins in the first place, and now Crouch was dead at the hands of his Death Eater son (who was also conveniently dead). Perhaps Lupin, the youngest Weasley boy and Granger?

At least Potter had no means to force him to tell the truth about how Black had ended up in Azkaban in 1981. That was a story best never told, and he fully intended never to tell it. It would require a great deal of lying, but he felt confident he would be able to dump most of the blame for Black's incarceration on Crouch who, being dead, would be unable to give contradicting evidence. Hopefully, Potter would chalk Black's 12 years in Azkaban to an unfortunate misunderstanding and drop the matter after formally clearing him of any wrongdoing in the Manchester explosion.

A/N: Ch. 8 will, of course, focus on the Inquiry itself. Not being a Brit, my knowledge of the process is gleaned entirely from Wikipedia and might not be entirely accurate as a result. Expect it sometime around Halloween.

Until then, please review and let me know what you think!

-Phoenix II