Another Wednesday had come. It was time to go to the algorithm tutorial and act as if Draco was nothing but his tutor.

"Are you ashamed of being my apprentice?" Draco had asked on the drive to campus on Monday morning, mock hurt.

"I hate standing out," Harry had mumbled.

"No offense, but not having a single friend in that class kind of makes you stand out as it is," Draco had pointed out.

Harry had just glared at him.

He walked into the classroom through the front entrance. There were two entrances to every big lab room, one in the front where all the whiteboards were and one at the back where the technician of each lab sat to monitor the class and help out with any hardware problems if any arose. The front entrance was a straight line to the tutor's desk which was in front of Harry's favourite desk. His gaze swept over the class as he entered and he stopped short. One of the students - Theodore Nott?- had taken his seat. Of course, he could take the seat besides him as there were two computers to a desk, but Nott looked positively frightening despite his weedy frame.

The room was set up in a four by five square, with four desks sitting side by side in a row facing the whiteboards and five desks trailing behind each of them, but his prefered window seats were only the right-most column of desks, the first of which Nott had occupied.

He ignored the other desks to the left of Nott in the front row and grudgingly sat one row behind Nott and glared at the back of his head.

"What did you learn during the lecture this week?" Was Draco's first question after class started.

"Hash tables," answered Harry in his usual, and rather low, tone of voice.

Draco looked around questioningly, having not heard anything. For a few seconds the class was quiet. Harry bit his lip, feeling the embarrassment of having to repeat himself. He was always conscious of his low tone of voice; during presentations lecturers and tutors always said that he sounded as if he was talking to himself. It's the damn desire not to stand out, he thought furiously. As he was about to swallow his pride and repeat himself (and risk not being heard yet again,) another voice spoke up.

"Hash tables," repeated Nott, capturing Draco's eyes.

Harry glared at him harder. It wasn't enough that he'd stolen his seat, he had to steal his answers too? He breathed in, telling himself to calm down, that anyone would have known what they'd studied during the lecture as long as they'd attended it just as everyone had a right to answer Draco's questions. He got to monopolize Draco's attention during the weekends and their sessions together, but here Draco belonged to everyone.

"That's right. Can anyone tell me what's desirable about hash tables?" Continued Draco.

"Faster storage and retrieval of data," said Harry, trying to speak louder this time.

"Sorry, did someone say something?" Asked Draco. His eyes flickered in Harry's direction uncertainly.

"Faster storage and retrieval of data," Nott's smooth voice replied.

"Good. Your name was Theodore, yes?" Enquired Draco.

"Theodore Nott," Confirmed Nott. "You have a good memory, sir."

Draco smiled at him warmly. Harry frowned. He was greatly tempted to kick Nott's chair.

"Now, I want everyone to tell me their favourite hobby. I have an Excel sheet here and I will write down your hobbies one by one, unless they are repetitive. People who have the same hobby go on the same line. Who wants to go first?" Harry's hand shot up. "Harry?"

"Programming," answered Harry.

"Protracting? Is that what you said?" Asked Draco in astonishment.

"No, I said programming," replied Harry louder, his arms clutching the sides of his chair.

Draco nodded and started writing down 'protesting' on line number 1, and then Harry's name in front of it, saying "That's a strange hobby."

Harry went red. "I said programming," he muttered to himself, giving up.

"Okay, who wants to go next?" Nott leaned forward, easily capturing Draco's attention. "Yes, Theodore?"

"My hobby is programming, sir," said Nott pleasantly. His voice easily filled the whole room. Harry's envy reached new heights.

"Really? That's great. It's rare to love what you do, but it definitely warrants success in your future," Draco went on to write 'programming' next to line number 2, along with Draco's name in the next cell. "Next?"

Harry's hands clutched the seat harder. He bit his lip. Why was it so hard to speak up? He always subconsciously wanted to shrink and disappear; be invisible. Now when he wanted to speak up and answer Draco's questions - which by no means made him a teacher's pet- it was working against him. Sitting in the first row made it easier to get the lecturer or tutors' attention, and his lower volume of voice didn't matter as much, since they more or less could hear him or lip read. But even one row further was far enough to drown out his voice. Unlike Nott or Draco's voices that naturally carried, his voice only traveled to one desk in front which made it impossible for Draco to hear him, but for Nott to have perfect hearing range and the ability to snatch and use his answers.

Meanwhile, the class was carrying on. Dean Thomas's hobby turned out to be art, Parvati Patil and Lavender brown enjoyed fortune telling, Seamus Finnigan liked cooking, although he admitted that he burned most of what he cooked, Ernie Macmillan and Michael Corner enjoyed reading, Zacharias Smith's hobby was football, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were into competitive eating, and Pansy Parkinson had interests in fashion.

"Okay, that's good. Now I will read your names and numbers and you can stand in groups in the front of the class. The first group should stand at the leftmost near the front entrance while the last group should stand at the rightmost near where I'm standing at my desk. Okay?" Everyone nodded. "Group one, Harry. Group two, Theodore. Group three, Dean. Group four, Parvati and Lavender. Group five, Seamus. Group six, Ernie and Michael. Group seven, Zacharias. Group eight, Vincent and Gregory. Group nine, Pansy."

Harry dragged his feet towards the leftmost corner, staring at the projector on the board as if he could will the word 'protesting' out of existence.

"What a baby," Pansy breathed as he passed her. "A little wittle protesting baby."

Harry went red again, ignoring her. Draco caught his eye and smiled uncertainly. Harry looked away. This was not how he'd wanted this lesson to go. On the right side of him Nott stood in group two, smirking.

"Alright. I see everyone has their place. Now, what does this kind of sorting remind you of?" Asked Draco.

"Hash tables," they all replied.

"Good, yes," nodded Draco. "Can you all see how this helps with the fast storage and retrieval of data? If I wanted to know who likes reading, I could just go to group six, and then process first Ernie and then Michael. Similarly, if I wanted to add someone who liked reading, I would just as easily identify that they belonged in group six and put them there. Is there anyone who is confused by that?"

Vincent put his hand up.

"Okay, good, thanks for putting your hand up, Vincent. Who can help Vincent understand how hash tables work?" Asked Draco.

Harry put his hand up, but so did Nott, and although he was thinner than Harry, he was much taller. Harry being on the most left, Nott on his right, and Draco on the most right, Nott's hand easily blocked Harry's. The troubling part was that he wasn't sure any more about whether Draco would have picked him even if his hand had been visible.

"Thank you Theodore, go on."

"Well, it's like a pointer system really, isn't it, sir?"

"Face Vincent and explain it to him, Theodore, not me," Said Draco gently. Harry looked down at his feet.

"Okay, Vincent, just imagine those numbers we're grouped under as pointers. They point to the people under them and to the hobby. So if anyone wanted to know which people like a certain hobby, it would be easy to link the hobby to the group number and to the people. After they find the group, they can either find out who the people inside the group are or add someone to their list."

"Very good, Theodore. Does that help, Vincent?"

Vincent nodded. Harry clenched his teeth. He went through the rest of the class struggling and being overshadowed by Nott at every turn. He bottled it all up, from Wednesday through to Friday, when he finally got Draco all to himself.

"It's all that damn Nott's fault," growled Harry on the way to Draco's penthouse.

Draco slowed down to accommodate the car in front of him and smiled. "I rather liked him."

"You would," mumbled Harry.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that."

"Exactly!"

Draco looked at Harry from the corner of his eye. "Are you feeling alright?"

"He used all my answers just because you couldn't hear me," pouted Harry.

"Well, that's your own fault isn't it? Should have spoken up."

"I was only on the second row!"

Draco raised his eyebrows. "And you still should have spoken up. Sometimes it's like you're speaking to yourself, you know."

"No. You were intentionally ignoring me."

"Why on Earth would I do that?"

"Inverse favouritism so no one would think I was your apprentice," replied Harry quickly, with another pout.

"There is no such thing as inverse favouritism, Harry," Chuckled Draco. "And there's nothing wrong with people knowing that I've taken you in. It's a great compliment to your skills, in fact. I thought it was you that wanted to keep it a secret?"

"It's all that damn Nott's fault," Harry returned to his original argument.

"In what way?" Draco persisted.

"He took my seat," Harry sunk in his seat, crossing his arms, and pouted again.

Draco laughed. "You are being a petulant child. It's definitely true that protesting is your hobby."

"Programming, I said programming!"

"Did you now?" Teased Draco.

"Yes! And you didn't hear right! You should get your ears checked, you old man."

"Old man?" Repeated Draco. "Is that the best you could come up with? Oh, dear."

"Everyone made fun of my love to protest all week long," Harry went on, ignoring him. "Even some of the lecturers. It's the most embarrassing thing that could have happened to me."

"Maybe you should protest about that," said Draco, grin in place.

Harry let out a frustrated groan.

"What's so bad about standing out?" Asked Draco after a few minutes of silence when a more serious mood had settled over the car. "Doesn't everyone want to be unique and stand out?"

"Not when you've lived the life that I have," said Harry vaguely.

Draco looked at him from the corner of his eye. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Harry shook his head. Draco's concern was palpable.

"If we're going to be working together I need to know you as a person so that I can be a better mentor to you. You need to tell me about this eventually, Harry. Your contradictory desires to simultaneously not stand out and answer questions are strange to say the least."

"Bet you wished that Nott was your apprentice instead," said Harry, looking out the window.

"To be honest, no, I don't want someone who has exceptional hearing abilities, I want you, I want someone who has actual programming potential. Now, enough about Theodore."

The mood had sobered up quickly. Harry wondered why Draco had sounded so irritated when just a few minutes ago he was still teasing Harry about the protest issue. With Draco there were so many different personalities. There was the authoritative tutor figure, the playful friend figure, the concerned father figure, and then there was this. There was never a dull moment with him, he switched between personalities in a snap of a finger. Sometimes it felt like he was a research subject and Draco was testing him with all the programming questions as an over eager scientist would put a rat in the middle of more and more complicated mazes and time it till it found the exit. Other times it felt as if they were two friends, programming side by side, competing to see who could finish first with the most optimized code. Over the week when he was on his own over at Neville's it was impossible to carry on with the coding and timing himself. Neville interrupted him too often. He was a distraction just by breathing in the same room as Harry. So, the testing of his limits was going rather slow.

"Why don't we jump many levels higher today?" Started Harry when they'd reached the apartment. "Skip a few weeks tests that you'd prepared for me. Give me the toughest ones. Going step by step is so slow."

"Impatient, are we?" Asked Draco. "Okay, fine, I'll give you one from this week, one from next week, and so on, to four weeks in advance. Let's see how you do these five. But go in order, please."

Harry nodded his assent eagerly. He was also impressed that Draco had really prepared so many lessons and tests in advance. Being a tutor as well as a mentor must be taking its toll on him, judging by the lines on his tired face and the stiffness in his shoulders.

"Ice cream?" Asked Draco. It seemed that they both shared a passion for vanilla ice cream, something that Draco had a never-ending supply of in his house. Besides orange juice, of course.

"Sure. Can I have an actual spoon this time, though?" Harry called back. Last time it had been all fingers and they'd almost gotten it on the keyboard.

Harry took the huge ice cream container and tiny spoon from Draco and set out to work. When he coded he lost himself in his work. He forgot about his past and his worries. There was nothing besides the problem at hand and how to solve it. Even Princess, rubbing herself against his legs and meowing softly, hardly left an impression on him. The only thing he was conscious of was Draco sitting behind him on the sofa, eyes pasted on Harry's back. He could feel the intensity of that gaze, but he didn't know what it was for. Sometimes he caught Draco staring at him, lost in thought, with a strange expression on his face. Normally, Draco had an easy-going and friendly aura about him. But when they were alone, sometimes Harry glimpsed into his eyes and saw something hidden deep inside, something that Draco was hiding from the rest of the world but couldn't hide from Harry who knew what raw pain looked like. He'd seen that pain somewhere else. It had been in his own eyes; still sometimes reappeared there. It was the pain of having an abusive childhood and an unsupportive family.