Greetings to all of you at the ICPO. I am L. No, not really, I just obsess over Death Note. Anyway, as I previously stated at some point, I steadfastly refuse to abandon this story though my chapter updates may be sporadic and the spelling and grammer horribly off. Hope you enjoy, and i promise that the next one will be all Snape and Harry interaction.

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Harry opened his mouth, threw back his head, and let out another violently happy combination of screaming and laughter. He was standing on his favorite rooftop at the top of the east wing of the castle surrounded by a self-cast sound barrier. He couldn't remember the last time he had been so happy and he could barely contain it. Living with people he loved and who loved him; a basic necessity that so many fail to appreciate and something Harry had been robbed of his entire life. All at once, everything seemed to be falling into place, which meant it was only a matter of time before Harry fucked it up. But that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy it while it lasted. Now, if only Bjork was here to celebrate with him.

"Harry! What are you doing?" Speak of the devil.

He turned to see his fellow rooftop dweller walking towards him, guitar and all. Today, she was clad in a butchered purple dress, fishnet stockings with a black trench coat and moon boots. Where did she get all these awesome cloths? "I just received some wonderful news!"

She continued to stare at him in confusion. "I can't hear you at all," she said, tugging at her ear to emphasize the statement. Harry laughed at his own forgetfulness and lowered the sound barrier. "I said 'I have just received some wonderful news' and I feel great! I might spend the entire day running around giving strangers great big hugs; that's how happy I am right now."

Bjork raised an eyebrow and shot him a skeptical look. "So you're going to run up and hug Slytherins at random?"

Harry shook his head and laughed. "I said 'strangers,' not 'people I know for a fact would love to kill me.' Trust me, there is a world of difference."

Bjork smirked and shook her head as she sat down and began to tune her guitar. "So what be this amazing news?"

Harry sat across from her and pulled his knees up to his chest. His face cracked into a wide grin again, "Sirius Black, my godfather, he is being cleared of all charges. He was falsely accused of all sorts of things by the ministry and has had to stay in hiding for years. I'm going to be able to live with him after winter break."

Now Bjork was smiling with him. "That's amazing. I'm so happy for you. But won't your current relatives be upset at your departure. They have been raising you all this time."

Harry's face darkened and he instinctively pulled his knees closer to his chest. Bjork knew that she had crossed the line into dangerous territory. "I'm sorry, should I not have brought up the topic of your family?"

He shook his head. "It's alright. Trust me, the only reason they might keep me around is so my fat bastard cousin will have something to punch around when he has a tantrum. They took me in, but it was out of obligation, not out of the goodness of their hearts. As long as I was alive to keep the Wizarding world off their backs, they didn't care what happened to me or if I got hurt."

"Did you tell this to any of the professors?" Her voice laced with concern.

Harry shook his head violently. "Of course not. It word got out, the media would have gone crazy and they're practically stalking me as it is. Besides, there was nothing that could be done. The spell my mother cast on me to keep me safe would only continue to work so long as I was with blood-relatives. The Dursley's are my only living blood relatives and I couldn't stay with my godfather for previously stated reasons."

Bjork shrugged her shoulders. "I sort of understand. Because of his work, my mother and I could not live safely with my father. We could only see him during the summer and occasionally during winter break. The rest of the time, we just talked on the phone or through letters. After my mom died, my brother and I went back and forth from living in foster care to living with distant relatives. Most of them were nice, but didn't bother to get involved since I would only be with them for a year at the most. They sort of just let me do what I wanted. Other foster family's were far less than friendly." That was all she said, but Harry knew that was much more to the story then she let on.

"Oh, how did- when did your mother die?" He asked tentatively. Bjork picked at her fingernails, smiling and shaking her head.

"It's okay, I can talk about it. She died about four months before my tenth birthday."

"Was it… Voldemort?" She shook her head again and actually laughed a little. "Voldemort, we all feared him but he had nothing to do with my mother's death. What happened was, we mostly lived in America or with my mom's family in Iceland. My mom, she was a very selfless person. She always put everyone else before herself, so every time she was having a problem, she would always put it off so as to not inconvenience anyone else, even when she started to feel sick all the time. She had this really bad cough and these chest pains, and she started getting tired all the time and lost like twenty pounds in less then a month. But she still didn't say anything or go see a doctor because my aunt Nora was going through a divorce and my grandfather was already in and out of hospitals with his diabetes and she wanted to spend as much time as possible with my brother and me. She figured it was just a bad cold and let it go."

"Wait, so you have a brother?"

"Yeah, my older brother. He's in college right now in America studying to become a marine biologist and an environmental lawyer. Although he did study psychology and medicine for a few years." Harry scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion. "Uhm, I don't know what any of that means, but you should probably finish telling me about your mother anyway."

Bjork snickered, "Yeah. Not to brag but my brothers a bit of a genius. Anyway, like, nearly three months went by and she still had the same cough, chest pains, and fatigue and she lost even more weight. My dad knew something was wrong when he heard her always coughing and breathing funny over the phone but she didn't agree to go to a doctor until after she started to cough up blood." Bjork stopped speaking and looked at the ground in an attempt to blink back the droplets of water welling up in the ducts of her eyes. "When she got there, they took an x-ray of her chest and found this massive tumor that covered nearly half of her right lung. It grew so fast in such a short amount of time that the doctors said that, even with chemotherapy, she only had a short amount of time to live, a year or two at the most. So she refused the medicine so that she could devote all of her time to my brother and me and my father. She got really sick really fast and after a while, she had to get wheeled around everywhere outside of the house. She died in her sleep right before dad returned to Hogwarts after Christmas break."

She fell silent and resumed tuning her guitar in another attempt to distract herself from crying. Harry looked at the ground, unsure of what to say or how to react to hearing a painfully honest memory. "I'm sorry to hear that. It sounds like you really loved her, like you all loved each other very much."

"Yeah we did. We still do, my brother and father and me and my mom's family. Which isn't very big, it's just my aunt and my cousins. My father doesn't have contact with any of his relatives as far as I know. But we still have each other and I like to believe that my mother is still with me, in spirit at least."

"How come your father has no contact with his family?" She shrugged her shoulders, clearly uninterested in answering the question. Rather then press the subject, he decided to try another tactic. "What's your worst memory?" She glanced up at him for a moment then returned to tuning, "I'll show you my scars if you show me yours first."

"Fair enough, but it's been such a good day and I'd rather not spoil it with sad thoughts."

Bjork laughed and plucked a few random strings. "That's understandable. " Harry watched her fingers dance over the instrument and listened to the music that had been constantly recoursing through his mind since the day he first heard her play outside the Astronomy tower. "What kind of music do you like to play? Is it all folk?"

"Hmm," she shrugged her shoulders, not appearing overly interested in the topic. "Well, I listen to all genre's of music except for country western and mainstream rap. It all depends on how the sounds feel to me. As for the music I write, it can range anywhere from folk to alternative to rock or electronica. It depends on the song or how I felt when I was making it. But these days, anything that's played acoustically seems to get grouped into the 'folk music' category so that's what I usually go by."

Harry continued to stare out at the night sky. What the hell was he supposed to say to that. "I wouldn't really know. Music doesn't seem to be a big part of the Wizarding culture and my cousin's never taken an interest in it. I get whatever he throws away."

Bjork stopped playing and covered her mouth in a failing attempt to stifle her laughter. Harry narrowed his eyes in irritation, "Okay, what's so funny?"

"Nothing. It's just…" She managed to stop laughing but still had a huge smirk on her face. "It sounds like your cousin and my old foster brother should get together sometime. He's one of the reasons I'm so good at pick pocketing."

"You learned how to pick-pocket from your cousin? Bloody hell! That's exactly how I learned how to steal."

"Yeah, he's such a spoiled pig and if I ever wanted anything, I would have to steal it from him, even food."

"Nuh uh."

"Yeah"

"You know Hagrid?"

"Yeah."

"He tried to turn my cousin into a pig back when we first met. But he only managed to make him sprout a tail since my cousin is so pig like to begin with."

"Nuh uh!"

"Yeah!"

The conversation must have gone on like that for hours. Harry and Bjork must have swapped at least a million and one stories; some funny, some sad, some flat out disturbing, all off which were laugh provoking. Eventually, they ran out of stories but the laughter still vibrated in the air.

Then, out of nowhere, they started singing. The words didn't rhyme and they certainly didn't match up the music coming from Bjork's guitar, but something about it was more magical then a patronis. All to soon, the sun rose and they were forced to go their separate ways, but something about that night stayed constant. Harry knew that, decades from now, he would still look back on it as one of the best nights of his life.

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The tension in the air was more than palpable and yet anyone unaware of the trio's current predicament seemed to remain oblivious. Harry looked up and met eyes with Neville, who then looked over towards Luna and Hermione, who were both looking at Ron. Ron, however, remained unaware for he was far too busy alternating back and fourth between sending looks of worry and compassion towards Ginny and looks of malice and disdain towards Cho.

The Ravenclaw girl could be seen whispering and giggling with an older boy from her house at the next table. Her fingers were tangled in his hair, massaging his scalp and toying with his dark locks. Every time Cho smiled at him or touched him with those delicate fingers, it sent noticeable waves of discomfort and pain through Ginny's body despite her best efforts to appear engrossed in a history textbook alone at the other end of the Gryphendor table.

When asked, Ginny replied that nothing was wrong. That she was just feeling a bit under the weather but anyone with eyes could see that the statement was far from true. Ginny never smiled anymore, not even with her friends. Her skin had become sickly pale except for under her eyes, which were now rimmed by dark gray and purple circles. She hadn't been sleeping. Harry knew this for a fact since he had seen it firsthand while walking to and from the rooftops.

She was falling apart because of what Cho was doing to her and the worst part was that Cho was only treating her this way because Ginny was letting her do it. They all knew it, all except for Ron that was. His overprotective big-brother complex set in the minute he heard his baby sister was in a relationship with the illustrious dating girl known as Cho Chang and had only got more defensive over time. If beating up girls weren't such a frowned upon practice, Ron would have taken Cho out into the Forbidden Forest and ripped her a new one by now. Unfortunately, he had to settle with sending her death-glares from across the hall. "Stupid little bitch!"

"Ron!" hissed Hermione, "Stop calling her names. It's immature and it's not going to change anything."

"Oh, so now I'm immature? Is that right?" Everyone glared at Ron as he rethought the statement. "Okay, so maybe I am immature, but I still have many a good reason to be bloody pissed right now. It's not like the Prefects would launch a school wide investigation if Cho all the sudden decided to stop going through boyfriends the same way she goes through clothing."

A new perspective on the situation found its way into Harry's train of thought. "Well, maybe if…" Alas, when all eyes fell upon him, Harry found that he had lost his conviction to speak. He looked down at plate and mumbled, "She's… Ginny knew she was like that, but Cho should know that she's not okay with it anyway…"

"Harry, what?" Hermione was sending him the same quixotic looks she used to send Luna every time the nargle-obsessed girl opened her mouth.

"I think what Harry is trying to say here is that everyone knows how Cho is when it comes to dating so it's not like Ginny didn't know what she was getting into. At the same time, Ginny is clearly uncomfortable and is suffering because of what Cho is doing and, if Cho really cared about her, she would see this and would change her ways despite the risk of damaging her reputation." Did Neville just say that? Since when did freaking Neville become the word of the wise?

"Ron, Neville's right. You can't blame this entirely on Cho." Hermione sighed in defeat when she realized that neither her nor her friend's words of comfort were doing anything to alleviate her Ron's frustration. "Look, I know that Ginny coming out of the closet was certainly not expected and…"

"That's not it. I have no problem with Ginny's preferences. That's great if she likes girls. I can completely understand that, I like them too; they're much more attractive then other men. What I have a problem with is her horrible excuse for a girlfriend. Ginny's better then that. She doesn't deserve to be trapped in a closeted relationship period, let alone with some bitch who's going to shamelessly flirt with others right in front of her."

"Ron!" hissed Hermione. "I'm not going to say it again; stop calling Cho a bitch."

"Well she is! Ginny told me she didn't want to be in the closet and if Cho cared about her or respected her at all, then she wouldn't be forcing her to stay there out of her own fear of social exclusion." Wow, Ron just said something…logical. Although most of it had been arrived from Neville's previous comment, it was still impressive.

"He does have a point there." Commented Neville through a bite of baked potato. "If you're too scared or too ashamed to be seen with someone, then you have no business being in a relationship with them in the first place."

Harry looked up at the once notoriously clumsy maladroit known as Neville Longbottoms who had, as of recent, become a highly valued member of the trio. He supposed it wouldn't really be considered a trio if it was the four of them. Actually, it was much more then four. There was Dean who often came to their group studies and Seamus who hung around whenever he wasn't out trying to pike up girls. Luna was with them so often that no one even paid mind to her strange habits anymore and Nigel, despite his young age, could often be seen casually chatting with any one of them in the hallways between classes or in the common room. There was even a small portion of students from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw whose company and opinions had become highly valued amongst the group.

In fact, the only way their rag-tag family of former revolutionist could get any stranger would be if some Slytherin's decided to join. Although to be honest, Harry didn't see that happening anytime soon. The Slytherin's had just been rudely awakened from their false delusions of superior race, a notion they had practically been nursed on by their mother's since infancy. Many of the Death Eater's, many of their mother's and father's, had either been killed or committed some sick form of ritual suicide right after the death of the Dark Lord. Those who survived were in Azkaban, awaiting trial and would either be sentenced to death or life without parole and a Dementor's Kiss.

No one, not even Harry, thought about what would happen to all of these kids whose parents were sure to go down with the Dark Lord. Quite a few of them followed their parent's suit and killed themselves. Another large portion disappeared from the Wizarding world entirely and the remaining Slytherin's always appeared to be lost or simply trapped inside their own heads. They dared not speak or even make eye contact with anyone in or outside of their house.

No one thought about what would happen when their parents had been killed and their home lives completely destroyed. When they had all been labeled worthless, powerless scum and the Wizarding world turned their backs and looked the other way. The minister clearly stated after the war that he had no intentions of giving the children and relatives of Death Eaters any form of psychological or financial aid and wouldn't assist them in finding new homes. No one thought about what would happen to the Slytherin's once the war was over and, for the most part, no one seemed to care.

All the sudden, Harry felt himself being snapped back to reality, "…and you know what else Ron? It doesn't matter what you think because this is Ginny's choice and Ginny's problem to solve. She got herself into this and she has to be the one to get herself out."

The exasperation was clear in Hermione's voice and in the irritated glares she was shooting her more often then not clue-less boyfriend. However, his anger was still far from assuaged. "Well, you know what Hermione? That's real easy for you to say, you're just her friend."

Hermione's eyes widened and then narrowed dangerously, "Excuse me Ronald?" Harry and Neville shot each other a look from across the table. If Hermione was calling Ron by his full name, it meant that he had done something wrong and crossed into dangerous territory. Harry had clearly missed an important chunk of the conversation that led from Hermione trying to reassure Ron to them having a full out battle of who was more righteous.

"Well it's the truth, alright Hermione." Ron's eyes were quickly becoming as fiery as his hair. "I can't just be her friend. I'm her older brother and the only one that's around right now. I have an obligation to protect her from being hurt or taken advantage of. It's my responsibility because she's my little sister and I love her and I want to do what's best for her!"

Up until now, Ron and Hermione had somehow managed to keep their heated debate at a dull roar, but now as their voices were slowly rising, more and more students began to take notice. After all, Ron was well known for his great lacking in common sense and common knowledge whereas Hermione was known for the exact opposite, yet they both seemed to be holding their own very well in this verbal battle.

"Dammit Ron! She's not just your little sister anymore. She is her own person who wants to grow and learn and experience things for herself and she can't do that if you're constantly trying to smother her or tell her what she should and shouldn't do. Why can't you understand that?"

Neville cleared his throat in an attempt to interject on their increasingly audible conflict. "Uhm, perhaps you could ask Ginny herself for some input since she can probably hear you right now." Both Ron and Hermione glared daggers at him but seemed to take the point. They resumed eating their dinner, silently fuming and stabbing their forks into the roasted chicken as an alternative way to dispose of their anger.

Harry heard Hermione clear her throat and looked up, "Harry, are you still going to need help finishing that essay tonight?"

"Uhm, no. Thank you though. I have to meet with Professor Snape right after dinner."

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows, "Why are you meeting with Professor Snape?"

"Private tutoring lessons to raise my grade in Potions Class." Harry lied quickly. It was sad that he was such a nervous wreck when it came to trying to give his friends advice and yet he could lie to them so easily.

Neville and Dean, who had just joined them, both snickered while Ron full out laughed, "Oy mate, sucks to be you!"

"Yeah, especially since I just got the new Tran Siberian Orchestra album. I thought we could listen to it at tonight's study group." Dean reached over to scoop some more peas onto his plate, "I thought it would help get everyone into the Christmas spirit."

Ron furrowed his eyebrows, "What's the Tran Siberian Orchestra?"

"It's this music group that takes traditional Christmas music and plays them in a non traditional way with strong rock-metal influence. They're really quite amazing." Ron, if anything, looked even more confused. Hermione reached over and patted the top of his hand in comfort. "It's okay if you don't understand Ron. It's a muggle thing."

Everyone laughed and continued to light-heartedly poke fun at each other as the tension from the previous conversation slowly diminished. Harry found himself laughing with them and even chiming in on occasion with comments or stories of his own. This was strange; Usually every time things started to look good for Harry, they would quickly turn sour and he would be left even worse of then before. But everything had stayed good for almost a month. Every obstacle Harry was confronted with was easily evaded or even solved and he found himself becoming more and more well adjusted to his friends. Perhaps this time, the fruit of life would not spoil so soon, but only time and tonight's visit with his potion's Professor would tell.

As always, reviews, positive or otherwise, are appreciated.