Disclaimer: The usual
"Are you going to coach, Ginny?" Harry asked.
"I don't think Dumbledore will allow it. That's the captain's job. I might be able to help every once in a while, but not often. I can't give Gryffindor an unfair advantage, no matter how badly I want to." Ginny and Harry started to rise from their seats and walk towards Dumbledore's office. "Honestly, I wouldn't mind being in the kitchen. Maybe the house elves can teach me how to cook." Ginny smiled sheepishly. "I know my cooking isn't fabulous Harry, don't try to tell me otherwise."
"I would eat anything you cooked, Ginny dear." Harry said, but he half regretted it as soon as it came out of his mouth. She had attempted fish and chips once but had burned them so badly you would easily mistake the lumps of black for coal.
Ginny smiled half-heartedly at him.
"It's wonderful to be in Hogwarts, though, isn't it? But this time we don't have to worry about stupid classes. Fizzing Whizbee." The statue of the eagle jumped out of the way as the staircase began to spiral out of the floor.
"I wonder what Dumbledore wants us to do." Harry was partially excited. Maybe there were things he could do that would help himself in the future.
Once they reached his office, Dumbledore was not yet there. To pass the time, Ginny sat stroking Fawkes's feathers, and Harry had struck up a conversation with the sorting hat, who was very confused about who Harry was.
"You've already been sorted, but I cannot remember sorting you!" He groaned. "What house are you in, Slytherin or Gryffindor?"
"Which do you think I am?" Harry was becoming quite amused.
"You could be either! That is the problem. You have a dark trace upon you, a thirst to prove yourself, and boundless care for those you love. I shall think on it a while."
"I believe the Sorting Hat will be thinking on you, Harry, until you are sorted in fifteen year's time. By then, it will surely know what house you belong in." Dumbledore stood behind Harry, with a twinkle gleaming behind his glasses. "I am sure you came here to discuss what you shall be doing until your parents depart from the school, Harry. Well, I have a few ideas." He sat down behind his desk, and the pair sat down in front of it.
"I'd like to be in the kitchen learning from the house elves, Professor." Ginny spat out before Dumbledore had spoken a word.
"Splendid, that can easily be arranged." Dumbledore then turned a gleaming look to Harry. "If you don't mind, Mr. Potter, I would very much like your help on a few things here in Hogwarts, and maybe a few outside of Hogwarts."
"Anything, sir." Harry beamed.
"You know I am a busy man, and there are some issues that need attended, mysteries that need solved, and questions answered."
"Lily, why are you even speaking to me? Clearly, calling you a 'Mudblood' had offended you slightly." Severus Snape was on his way to Care of Magical Creatures while Lily was heading towards Herbology.
"Sev, honestly, I have to tell you this. I need my friend, and I can look over that nasty name for a while." Lily held to his arm, and her eyes were pleading. Snape just looked away. After two years and countless apologizes, she just now decided to forgive him when she needed a friend? He couldn't look her way, for fear of looking into her mystical green eyes. He knew that seeing them would lose the battle, and he would fall in love all over again.
"What could be so important that your grudge would loosen and you would feel like speaking to me again, Lily? Or are you just so sick of being alone? Lily, no one likes a know-it-all." Severus growled.
"Fine! I won't tell you anything. I forgot how rude you could be, Severus Snape. I don't know why I even tried to speak with you." Lily stormed off to Herbology, and Snape mentally kicked himself for being so unbelievably stupid.
"Sirius, I don't understand why you are so terribly upset. Every month at the full moon when you two and Peter transform to be around me, you're risking your lives. I would think that one of us dying in the future would be a normal thought for you." Remus and James were sitting on two chairs in the Room of Requirement, while Sirius was nowhere to be found. So, both of them were shouting at the top of their voices was hidden somewhere between lost objects from students over the centuries.
"Mate, besides, one of us will have to live without the other eventually. It doesn't matter if we were old and gray or if one of us died today, we would be separated at some point." James shouted into the mass of things.
"How long?" Sirius's voice called from a distance.
Remus and James looked at each other and stood silently. "How long what, mate?" James shouted back to him.
"Until you and Lily die, fool!" Sirius shouted again. Remus and James continued to walk toward his voice.
"Four years, Sirius." James said, not as loud as usual.
Remus stopped in his tracks.
"Four years?" he stared.
Sirius appeared about twenty feet away from behind a stack of books.
"Four years?" his eyes filled with tears.
"Would you have rather heard now or four years from now when I am killed? This just means to enjoy me more!" James said with a half-smile.
"Enjoy you more my ass, James!" Sirius made a bee-line for his friend. "I already enjoy every minute with you! So does Remus and Peter! Everyone does, James! How can you take this so lightheartedly when you know that when you die a path of heartbreak lies with you? Remus is... Remus and he's so brilliant he'll figure out a way to go on without you, but me, James? I'm the brother you never had, and Regulus is literally an imaginary demon down the hall. I'm not losing my best friend, I'm losing my brother, and if you can take that so lightheartedly than I'm not sure we ever were!" Sirius picked up the nearest object and flung it in a random direction.
"Sirius, I have to be lighthearted. I knew you would miss me, I know Remus will miss me, and if you all are down in the dumps who are you going to look to to brighten your day? Lads, I've accepted it. Not to make you angry or to be 'lighthearted' about it, Sirius, or Remus, but because no matter what, it is going to happen. Do you want to know how I die? It's facing You-Know-Who, protecting my son and my to-be wife. Sirius, I know you already love the boy. I know you love Lily because I love her. I cannot think of a more honorable way to die than protecting my family and countless other Muggles, Muggle-borns, Half-bloods, and Blood-traitors. You-Know-Who dies when he tries to kill my son. My boy, my son Harry, wins the war. Sirius, he will need his godfather. I will need my brother until that day. For this one moment, please just be rational." James and Sirius stood for a moment just staring at one another, waiting for the other to speak.
"Well, I would rather not get a detention because you two decided to gawk at each other for an hour. We're supposed to be in Herbology. Professor Sprout is kind, but I doubt a good half an hour late to her class will make her grin." Remus grabbed the arms of both of his awe-struck friend and towed them towards the door of the Room of Requirement and towards the greenhouses, without a minute to spare.