Ginny found him there the next morning, curled up on the floor beside the cot. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept so well. He didn't mind the floor, it was easier than his bed, which was far too soft after years sleeping on stone. He didn't even lash out when Ginny shook him gently awake, but opened his eyes slowly to look up at her.

"Morning," she said, smiling faintly.

"Hm?" he sat up and rubbed the back of his head. Memories of the previous night started flooding in, each one a new embarrassment. "Er…"

"You don't have to explain," Ginny said, giving him a hand to help him to his feet. "I knew you'd crack eventually." The smile she gave him was so much more genuine than anything she had offered him so far that he couldn't help but smile back. She turned away from him and leant over the cot. Sirius had woken up and was making gurgling noises. "You had a good sleep, didn't you?" she said, picking him up. "I couldn't believe my luck when I woke up and it was daylight." She gave Harry a knowing look. "Told you he'd feel better if you were around."

"He's a baby," Harry said. "He doesn't know who I am."

"And you're the expert on babies, are you?" Ginny said, raising an imperious eyebrow. "You want to feed him?"

Harry blinked. "What?"

She rolled her eyes. "You hold him and give him a bottle. It's not hard."

Harry let himself be ushered into a chair and a cushion arranged on his lap. When Ginny lowered the baby into his arms he almost panicked, but managed to keep his act together. You owe him this, he thought. You owe him at least this much. Ginny showed him how to hold the bottle, and he watched in fascination as the little creature seemed to chug down almost the entire thing without taking a breath.

"You're a natural," Ginny said, and though Harry wasn't quite sure whether or not she was sincere, it made him feel slightly better.

"Do you have… children?" he asked her.

She looked surprised. "No. A few younger cousins."

"Have I met them?"

She frowned at him. "I don't think so."

"Oh." He shifted his arm slightly where it was going numb. For something small enough to be cradled in one arm, the child was unexpectedly heavy after a while. "When did you join the Order?"

"About three months ago," Ginny said dryly. "When they said they needed someone to look after a baby. Mum can't stay here forever, and I wasn't really getting much done at the Prophet."

"You worked for the paper?" Harry grimaced. He might not remember everything, but he remembered hating the Prophet and all it stood for.

"I had an idea about taking it down from the inside," Ginny sighed. "There are You-Know-Who supporters all over the Ministry now, even if they're not exactly Death Eaters. Me and Colin fancied ourselves a journalist crime-fighting team."

"Oh, so you and Colin -"

"No," Ginny sighed. "There was never any 'me and Colin'. Though he might try and tell you there was. Well, we lived together but it was just because it was close to work and -"

"I was just going to say," Harry interrupted. "You and Colin worked together."

Ginny flushed. For a moment Harry had a vision of her, looking younger with her hair long, blushing red in that same adorable way. Then it was gone, as soon as it had come. "Oh. Well, yeah. I wasn't really officially Order then, but I guess I am now." She wrinkled her nose, and Harry suddenly became aware of an earthy smell in the air. "I better change him," she said, scooping Sirius up out of Harry's arms. "I won't subject you to that just yet. You might try to run away."

"I won't," Harry said. "I swear."

Ginny smiled. "I was joking, Harry, but that's good to know."

The Order had a meeting about a week after that. Harry wasn't invited, and he didn't much care. Draco was inclined to make a fuss, however.

"You're more important than all of them put together," the ghost sneered, pacing restlessly an inch above the floor of the nursery. Harry was on baby-watch while Ginny and the others were shut up in the living room. He was trying to read, but more than a few minutes at a time made his head ache. He wondered if it was the new glasses.

"I wouldn't be any help, anyway," he said, putting the book to one side. "What do I know about fighting Voldemort? They've all been doing it while I've been…"

"That's not the point," Draco muttered, ignoring the uncomfortable non-end to that sentence. "You know this means they still don't trust you."

"Why should they? I lied to them. Maybe I should have just told them who I was from the start."

"Like I told you to, you mean."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Okay, you were right. Will you stop pacing, you're making my head spin."

Draco sneered and floated up to sit on the edge of the cot. Sirius laughed and clapped his hands clumsily. "I don't like it," Draco muttered.

"Yeah, I know. Enough already."

"Not that. It's too quiet. No visions, nothing?"

"Nothing. My scar twinges a bit, but it always does that."

"See? It's too damn quiet. They're planning something."

"The Order?"

"No, you idiot. His lot."

There was a silence for a while. On this subject they didn't really need to speak.

"Let them," Harry decided eventually. "We're safe now."

Draco gave him an incongruous look.

"You know what I mean. Why are you so keen for something to happen, anyway? You've got all the time in the world."

"That's the point, I…"

Harry frowned and squinted at him. "Draco? Is something -"

Just then there was a noise from downstairs, the silencing spell being taken down as the Order meeting broke up. Harry was about to ask again, but Draco shook his head and shot out through the wall.

Harry shook his head and picked up the baby. He was getting good at it now - at least, he was no longer terrified of dropping him. "Let's go meet my friends," he said, propping the boy up against his chest with one arm as he opened the door with the other. The Order was congregating in the kitchen and in the hall, some carrying on private conversations. He didn't recognise all of them. The Order had grown considerably in four years, and he hoped that was all it was. He would hate to find out that he forgotten more important people.

Ginny came hurrying over as he reached the foot of the stairs. "Is he all right?" she asked anxiously. "Did he cry? Does he need changing?"

"He's fine," Harry said, resisting Ginny's attempts to whisk his son out of his arms. "No need to fuss over us."

"I wasn't," Ginny said defensively, a slight redness in her cheeks as she pulled her hand back.

"Oh Harry," Hermione said, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. "He looks just -"

"Yeah, I know," Harry sighed. Sirius' bright green eyes still gave him the shivers on occasion. It wasn't the boy's fault, of course, and neither was the shock of dark hair that just seemed to keep growing, but he couldn't help seeing flashes of his old, innocent self in them that made his stomach twist with anxiety. "I guess genes win out over physical changes brought on by… well, dying."

"Harry," Hermione scolded, without much feeling. "Can I hold him?"

Harry gave his son over with reluctance. Somehow, he had gone from wishing the child out of existence to not wanting him out of his sight. Over Hermione's shoulder he could see Snape looking at them with a blank, unreadable expression. He was about to go over there, but Ginny shook her head. "I wouldn't," she said warningly.

"What? Why?" Harry asked.

"Zabini's missing," said Ron, coming up behind him. "Presumed captured."

"Ron!" Hermione hissed.

"What?"

"I think you just told me an Order secret," Harry said, absent-mindedly, frowning. Zabini gone? He was one of Snape's few remaining spies, he knew.

"Oh come on Hermione, Harry deserves to know."

"Did he know where we are?" Harry asked flatly.

They all looked at him nervously.

"Did he know?" Harry demanded.

After another brief moment of hesitation, Hermione sighed. "We're… not sure," she said. "He was helping take care of the prisoners we got out of Ynys Addoed. I don't think he could have known about Grimmauld Place, but…"

"But what?" Harry was fighting back the urge to snatch Sirius back and run for the hills.

"He might have known that you and Sirius were together," Hermione said.

"Well I'm not leaving him!"

"We know," Ginny said softly, putting a hand on his arm. He flinched, and she pulled away, looking disappointed. "We know you won't. We aren't asking you to."

"Then what are you -"

"Harry, this is Order business," Hermione said firmly. "I promise we're doing everything we can, but the less you know, the safer you are."

"The safer you are, you mean," Harry growled. "Draco was right. It's too quiet. He thinks they're planning something, and maybe it has something to do with Blaise."

"I should have known the three of you would be incapable of keeping your mouths shut."

Harry did not flinch this time. He was quite proud of that. "Snape."

"Potter. Glad to see you on your feet."

Harry turned to look up into the sour, beak-nosed face. He hadn't spoken to the man since he had been masquerading as Mr Jenson. Awkward.

Snape frowned at him, glaring searchingly into Harry's eyes. Harry wondered what he was looking for. "Is it true?" Harry asked. "They got Zabini?"

There wasn't even so much as a flicker in Snape's eyes, but the edge of his lip twitched just slightly. "You would do best to keep your nose out of -"

"Draco's gonna be pissed," Harry shot in. This time there was a flicker. "They were friends. You keep losing people like this you're not going to have any spies left."

Snape's face contorted with anger. When he was twelve that probably would have terrified Harry, but he had lived through much scarier things than Severus Snape since then. "How dare you," the man snarled. "You know nothing of the danger - the skill required, the risk -"

"I know nothing of the danger?" Harry growled back. "I think I'm pretty well versed in danger by now, don't you?"

"Harry!" Hermione hissed warningly, and Sirius began to cry in her arms.

"You have other things to occupy your mind than my work," Snape muttered. "I suggest you stay out of the way." He turned on his heel and stormed out with a dramatic twirl of his cloak.

"Great, now you've set him off," Ron muttered as Ginny took Sirius from a suddenly very relieved Hermione and took him quickly into the dining room. "He was just starting to get bearable, too."

"Snape? Bearable?" Harry snorted. "You have changed."

"He grew up, which is more than I can say for some people," Hermione muttered.

Harry didn't think that was worth dignifying with a response, so he merely glared.

"Leave him alone, Hermione," Ron said. "Its not his fault."

Harry couldn't help but give Ron a confused look. Four years really was a long time. Still, he felt better for a fight with Snape. It made him feel like at least some things were right with the world.