Harry's holiday at the Malfoys' was as interesting as it was boring. Lucius Malfoy never lost his scrutinizing, speculative looks whenever he was in a room with Harry, and had made several subtle attempts to prod him into sharing information, especially as it was obvious that his son was dying to tell him something important, but unable to do so because of his secrecy contract with Harry and their dorm mates. Harry never did tell Lucius anything about Voldemort being back, of course. They did have a few interesting conversations however, including one where Lucius asked Harry why he had been interested in that old booklet on the Knights of Walpurgis.

This had actually led to Harry telling Lucius about his books and giving him a copy of the one where he had used the booklet as a reference for some of his points against the excessive banning of certain branches of magic. To say that Lucius Malfoy was surprised by the book would be an understatement. In the end, he was also very impressed by it and Harry could tell the man was having trouble believing that he'd been the one to write it, so Harry showed him a few of his works in progress and some of his notes for some of the others. They actually had some very interesting discussions over his writings and Lucius had some interesting first-had accounts to share with Harry.

Upon learning that Harry was actually considering getting some of his shorter essays published over the next year, Lucius had offered to put Harry in contact with a man he was friends with who was the editor of the leading British wizarding sociopolitical magazine, which usually had a very strict approval process.

Despite spending quite a few evenings having such discussions with Lucius Malfoy, the majority of Harry's holiday was not spent with the man, but with Draco. They also went shopping several times, and floo'd over to some of their classmates homes for day-visits. Lucius Malfoy had even gotten them tickets to a Falmouth Falcon's game two days before New Years, and Harry had reluctantly enjoyed it, quite a bit.

During a few of their evening meals, when Narcissa would go on about socialite gossip with her mostly disinterested husband, Harry had slipped in a few questions about the wizard named Marcus Verus, that he had seen at the ball. Lucius had actually perked up at this, and offered a few tidbits he found interesting from the Ministry grapevine. He was clearly intrigued by the mysterious man who had appeared out of no where and started throwing money around like it was paper, and Harry wondered if Lucius had any suspicions about the man's identity.

He also wondered where the hell Voldemort had come by so much money. Best he could figure, the man must have had some huge war fund built up and hidden away somewhere, all these years.

Draco had, of course, given an exasperated sort of huff and asked Harry why he was so interested in the man, but Harry had just given him his infuriating smile that told Draco he wouldn't be getting any answers.

The holiday drew to a close and the two young teens returned to Hogwarts and classes. During his freetime, Harry did finally chose and prep a couple papers that he thought would make good introductory candidates for his first bit of published work and sent them off to Mr. Malfoy's friend at that magazine. The man in question was apparently impressed, but seriously questioning whether or not a thirteen year old (let alone Harry Potter) could write something like that. Lucius had apparently had to convince the man that Harry wasn't plagiarizing someone else's work before the man finally agreed to print either of them, but once he was sure, he was quite enthusiastic, and looking forward to what sort of response they would get from debuting the famous Harry Potter's writings.

Hermione was beyond thrilled to hear that Harry was finally making moves towards getting his writings published, and the girl was almost unbearable in her excitement level leading up to the printing of the issue Harry's first essay would be in.

It was a Tuesday morning at breakfast, when the issue came out. Hermione had already ordered a copy ahead of time, and it was delivered by owl along with the regular morning post, Daily Prophet, and Witch Weekly magazines. Harry could hear Hermione's squeal from all the way across the hall at the Slytherin table, and glanced up from his plate of scrambled eggs and bacon to see her stand and race around the table and across the hall with the magazine clutched in her hands. Harry's brows slowly rose into his hairline as she rushed right over to the Slytherin table and sat herself down next to him, totally ignoring the glares she was getting from quite a few of the surrounding Slytherin students – Pansy Parkinson, especially, although she didn't dare say a word by this point.

"You're on the cover!" Hermione squealed and shook the magazine in front of his face.

"Wait, what?" Harry said, blinking somewhat dazedly as he tried to focus on the fast moving blur, waving in his face.

"On the cover of what?" Daphne Greengrass, who was sitting across the table from the pair of them, asked with obvious interest. Several others seemed to have perked up with curiosity as well by this point, and Draco, sitting on Harry's other side was leaning around glaring cautiously at Hermione.

"What is she on about?" Draco asked Harry, frowning.

"The cover, Harry! They made your story the headline!" Hermione exclaimed, finally laying the magazine down flat on the table beside Harry's plate.

"Is that MP Magazine?" someone a few seats down asked.

"Potter's on the cover of MP?" someone else exclaimed.

Harry stared down with only mild surprise at the February issue of Magical Policy Magazine that featured, quite prominently and in large bold text, the cover story 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: State of Affairs in Wizarding Britain's Politics and what we could be doing better. By Harry Potter'.

Beneath that were the names of two other stories also in the issue, but 'Owned by the Aurors: Has the Minister lost control of his Hit Wizards? By Marshal Pickets' and 'Gold Faithful: Goblins profiting from paranoia with precious metals. By Thomas Frank' were not displayed nearly as prominently.

"Whoa! He is!" a forth year who was now standing and looking over Harry's shoulder exclaimed with awe in his tone. "My father swears by MP Magazine!"

"Everyone's father's swear by it, Matthews," someone else drawled.

"I doubt Crabbe's father's would even understand the cartoons," someone snickered, and an indignant "Oi!" could be heard from Crabbe further down the table.

"Whoa, wait! Potter did you really write this?" a sixth year who had a copy of his own and was now holding the magazine up, folded open to Harry's article and pointing at it questioningly.

Harry glanced up at him and nodded while making an affirmative sort of humming sound.

"No way! He's only a third-year!" a seventh year Slytherin exclaimed incredulously.

"Yeah, but he's Potter!"

"So it's just his name? Does it suck, then?"

"No way! It's brill, Travis. You've gotta read this," the sixth year who had been holding up the magazine said tossing it across the table. A large group gathered around it to read and Hermione looked down at Harry with a big smug grin on her face.

"I didn't know you were getting an article published," Draco's indignant voice drew Harry's attention to the now blatantly pouting blond sitting beside him. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Harry frowned slightly. "Didn't I?"

"No! You didn't!"

"It was your father that put me in contact with the editor. This is mostly what he and I were talking about at your home over the holiday. You were in the room with us a couple times when we were talking about it."

"I wasn't paying attention to that!" Draco said, indignantly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Well, it hardly matters anyway, Draco. It's not that big of a deal."

"Not a big deal?" the blond exclaimed.

"Not a big deal!" Hermione echoed in horror. "Harry, this most certainly is a big deal! This is an internationally distributed magazine! Magical Policy Magazine is the most well respected political publication in Britain! They're extremely exclusive!"

"Yes! Granger's right!" Draco exclaimed before suddenly grimacing horribly, looking as if he'd just sullied himself.

Harry snorted in amusement before rolling his eyes and going back to his breakfast.

"Aren't you going to look at it?" Hermione asked, pointing to the magazine.

"I wrote the thing, I already know what it says."

Hermione gave him a very exasperated glare. "Don't you want to make sure they didn't mess something up?"

Harry shrugged. "I'll look at it after Breakfast."

"Urgh! You are utterly hopeless!"

Harry just chuckled and put a forkful of scrambled eggs in his mouth, smiling up at her innocently.

– –

Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see, but only a few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are, and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.

Niccolo Machiavelli

– –

That evening as Harry was preparing for bed, he noticed the faint glow that only he could see, coming off of one of the journals in his rucksack. He ensconced himself behind his bed hangings and opened the book, flipping through the book to the most recent entry. It had been about a week since he'd last written in the thing, and it had been since before the holiday since the owner of the other copy had written anything back.

But there, on the first available blank page in the journal, written in the familiar, long narrow letters Harry had come to associate with Voldemort, was a message.

'Read your article. Are you planning to do more of these?'

And that was it. Short and simple, as nearly all of Voldemort's messages back to him were. Harry reached out towards his rucksack sitting on the floor beside his bed and summoned his favorite quill with a wiggle of his fingers. He had charmed the thing himself to have a never ending ink well, and an ever-sharp tip. It would eventually wear down and he'd have to charm himself a new one, but it would last longer than a store-bought one would.

He put quill to the parchment and wrote back a quick response. 'I've got a stack of them waiting in the wings. If the response is good, MP's editor is eager for more. So yes. I suppose I am planning on printing more.'

Harry set his quill down and made to shut the book, as he certainly wasn't expecting to get a reply anytime soon, but was caught short when text began to appear below his own a second later.

'I would like to read them.'

Harry blinked at this for a moment before shrugging and picking his quill back up. 'I could post you copies of some of them. An owl to Marcus Verus would get to you, right?'

'Yes.'

Harry hesitated for a moment on what to write next. He'd never before this point caught Voldemort during a real-time conversation with the protean-charmed book, so it was a somewhat odd experience at first. He also wasn't sure if the man would really care enough about what he was considering offering next, but shrugged to himself and pressed on.

'Would you want to see any of my books as well? I'm only prepping the shorter articles for MP.'

'Books?'

A small grin curved Harry's lips as he could practically feel the intrigue rolling off the carefully scripted writing. Or perhaps he was getting a subtle impression across their link? He kept the thing fairly closed off for each of their privacies sake, but some things still leaked through from time to time.

'I've written a number of books so far. Only a handful are really publishing material at the moment, but if you're interested, I could make you copies of them.'

There was a brief pause after that, and Harry started going over in his mind which articles he would pull together to send to Voldemort first when the response finally came.

'Send me copies of all of them.'

Harry snorted at the commanding tone he could feel oozing off the letters.

'Yes, your greatness. Right away.' Harry wrote back while pulling back the mental barrier he kept up between their link and pushing sarcasm forcefully across it.

'Brat.'

Harry cackled to himself, grinning down at the page as he felt the other man's annoyance leaking back along the link.

The whole experience was still new and fascinating for him. Even after all these life times that he'd lived so far, this was the first time he had truly indulged in intentionally communicating across the link they shared. He was honestly a bit surprised with himself at not having considered doing it before, but he knew that in most of his previous lives he'd been focused on getting the 'Voldemort problem' out of the way as quickly and cleanly as possible, so he could tackle other theories as to why he was stuck in an endless loop. But this route was proving to be much more interesting so far, so he really was feeling pretty glad he'd decided to try this.

Voldemort apparently picked up on his good mood, judging by what he wrote a moment later. 'I hardly see what you could find so amusing, in this.'

'Well, first off – I'm older than you, so you calling me a brat, is honestly rather amusing. But mostly I'm just a bit thrilled with myself right now. Just had one of those moments I get every few years or decades or so, where I'm suddenly pleased with the direction I'm taking. I don't really get them all that often, so I'm quite happy when I do.'

'What do you mean by the 'direction your taking'?' Voldemort wrote back and Harry could feel the man's slightly bothered confusion.

'Siding with you. I'm just pleased with it. That's all.'

'You are very odd, Harry Potter.'

Harry barked out a laugh.

'Just send me those books,' Voldemort wrote a moment later, and Harry could feel the man's exasperation with his own amusement.

'Will do.'

– – –

Harry did send copies of several of his books and a batch of essay articles to 'Marcus Verus' after that, and they were a regular source of conversation for the two, via the protean-charmed book. It became scheduled bi-monthly thing for them, in fact. To the point where they designated time so that they could have real-time conversations more often. Whenever they did this, Harry let the barrier on the link go down, and it added another level of depth to their otherwise flatly written conversations.

Harry had also continued to submit articles to MP magazine, and basically became a regular contributor. Public response had been immediate after that first issue, and it was obvious that the public was excited for more. There were two sides to the interest – on one side, there were those who were legitimately interested in the content of the articles, but on the other side were those who were fascinated by the idea of this thirteen-year-old prodigy, Harry Potter, who could write insightful and intelligent political and social commentary, and gain the respect of wizards many years his senior.

Witch Weekly and the Prophet both wanted to run articles on him a mere two months after his first article was published in MP, and Harry even agreed to do in-person interviews for both papers. He wasn't the least bit surprised when Rita Skeeter showed up during the Hogsmeade visit where he had arranged to meet with the reporter from Witch Weekly.

He also wasn't surprised when she quickly tried to steer the interview down more personal and juicy paths than the boring, dry, world of socio-political economics. As soon as Rita's Quick Quotes Quill began scribbling out rubbish, Harry twitched his fingers while glaring at the thing and it burst into flames.

Rita shrieked in surprised shock and quick grabbed the thing out of the air, tossed it onto the table and began putting the flames out with a handkerchief from her purse. She gaped at the charred, smoldering green feather quill for a moment before trying to mask her shock and gave him a pandering smile.

Harry just smiled innocently back.

"Rita, tell me something," Harry started then and she sat up a bit straighter, brushing the charred quill aside without even looking at it. "What are your feelings about the stance the Ministry takes with tracking witches and wizards with more – unique, skillsets?"

Rita frowned slightly. "I'm not quite sure I know what you mean," she said, looking confused but now trying to hide it behind a fake smile.

"Oh, you know – like when the Ministry forces people to register certain abilities, so that they can better keep track of them. Like an Animagus, for example," he said, tipping his head down and looking up at her through his fringe with a knowing sort of smirk.

The smile slid off her face and she went deathly blank for a moment before the mask was pulled back up. "Well, I haven't really got much of an opinion on the matter. It seems like a reasonable precaution for the Ministry to take – insisting that wizards with such specialized skills be registered," she said, once again giving him that pandering smile.

Harry hummed. "Yes, I suppose so. After all, if a person could say – turn themselves into a little bug, they could pose quite the security risk. The things that they could listen in on without anyone even knowing it... quite a threat to personal privacy, not to mention Ministry secrets, should that person chose to misuse her ability... I suppose there is a reason that keeping such an ability secret and not registering it is punishable by a hefty fine, and if there's sufficient evidence that the ability has been used in unlawfully gaining information, a sentence in Azkaban for as long as a year... quite harsh, but I suppose that there is reasonable cause for concern."

Rita was practically twitching in her seat as she valiantly maintained her mask of indifferent interest. "Hmm, yes. Are you going somewhere with this, Mr. Potter?"

"Oh? I don't know, I suppose not. Just a thought that flitted through my head," Harry said, smiling innocently at her. However there was a glint of a threat in his eyes, and she swallowed thickly.

"What do you want?" she asked defensively.

"I don't want to be misquoted or misrepresented," Harry said, the innocent smile gone to be replaced with a coldness that was certainly not there a moment before. "Certainly not an unreasonable request."

Rita was back to that pandering smile again, although it was obvious that her nerves were still there, just carefully concealed. "Not unreasonable at all," she said, reaching into her purse, digging around a bit and finally finding a normal quill.

Harry gave her a small approving nod as she picked up her notepad and gave him a questioning sort of look.

"Shall we continue, then?" she asked, her voice coming out with a slight quiver to it.

"Be my guest," he said motioning with his hand for her to start with her questions.

– –

It is impossible to explain one's self properly when in doubt and indecision as to what is to be done; but once resolved and decided, it is easy to find suitable words.

Niccoló Machiavelli

– –

Pansy looked up from her copy of Witch Weekly with a slight quiver in her lower lip before looking over at Harry to whimper. "Is this true, Harry?" she asked, and as Harry looked up from his breakfast to find her starting at him in a way that he couldn't help but wonder if she were about to cry.

"Is what true?"

"Are you really gay?"

"Oh, that. Yeah, mostly," Harry said with a shrug of one shoulder before going back to his meal.

Draco choked and sputtered on whatever he'd been eating. Finally, he apparently cleared his windpipe and looked over at Harry in absolute shock.

"What?!" Draco exclaimed, looking over at Pansy, obviously demanding to know why she'd just asked that. His eyes fell down onto the issue of Witch Weekly, clutched in her white-knuckled hands. Her lower lip was sticking out comically and quivering with her apparent misery. But then a flicker of hope seemed to appear in her eyes.

"Mostly?" she said, locking onto the one glimmer of hope in his response.

"Well, I can certainly appreciate a lovely lady, but I can't really get off on them," Harry said with a shrug. Someone a few seats down guffawed loudly.

"Potter, you've got bullocks of steel! I can't believe you came out in Witch Weekly!" Zabini said, laughing.

Harry just rolled his eyes. "It would come out eventually, and I see no point in hiding it. I'm not ashamed, and I have no parents expecting grandchildren, or putting pressure on me to continue the family line. It's my life and I'll do as I see fit with it. May as well get it out there now and deal with the public backlash while I'm still young so people can get over it and move on.

"It was also obvious that Witch Weekly wanted to turn my image into some sort of teen idol to appease their young girl audience. They weren't the least bit interested in talking about my academic achievements or my writings for MP. They just wanted gossip to get their readers frothing at the mouths. I gave them that, but I also cut off the hopes of all these potential future fangirls before it could gain momentum. I also had complete control over the delivery of the message, which is what I wanted."

"You're gay?" Draco squeaked and Harry turned his attention to the blond who was gaping at him it utter astonishment.

"Yup," Harry said simply with a nod and then went back to his food, ignoring the discussion around him for the next few minutes.

– –

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

Niccolo Machiavelli

– –

The school's reaction as a whole was about what Harry had expected. Of course, there were the offensive slurs thrown his way, mostly from the same crowd that had accused him of being a Dark evil git after his parselmouth ability first came out. This actually landed Ron and Seamus Finnigan in detention with McGonagall when she happened to be within earshot during one encounter between Harry and the two Gryffindors in an otherwise empty corridor.

Harry didn't pay any of them any mind and let the childish insults slide right off his back. It most certainly wasn't anything he hadn't heard or experienced before, and he felt rather desensitized to it by this point.

Draco had been acting strange for the first few days following the revelation; keeping a small distance from Harry, and constantly shooting him confused and speculative glances. And then, one morning, Draco was back to his old self, acting as if nothing had happened at all, and the subject wasn't brought up between the two of them again. Harry shrugged it off and was more than happy to not pay the subject any mind, because, honestly? It really wasn't all that important.

Slytherin house as a whole seemed a bit uncertain how to react. It was where the largest amount of hang-ups on that sort of relationship still remained since many of them were purebloods, and the purebloods were the ones that put the most emphasis on the importance of breeding (good breeding) and growing the wizarding population. Despite this, that did not mean that purebloods were specifically bigoted against homosexuals – it was more that it was part of their culture to keep such a thing a tightly concealed secret.

People would marry and produce an heir or two like they were supposed to, and then, as long as they could come to an agreement with their spouse that wouldn't result in public scandal, they would have a secret lover on the side. So long as no illegitimate children came of any side affairs, the family turned a blind eye. But it was always a dirty little secret. You were supposed to just follow the rules. You get married, you have children, you gain power and money, and you keep anything else a secret so that no one can use it against you. It wasn't something that you just came out and told people about.

On the other side of the issue, the Slytherins were still very proud of Harry and weren't about to shun him for something like this. Harry's academic performance was well known at this point, even among the older students, and of course, no one had forgotten about his ability to talk to snakes and whatever implications one might come up with from that. And his consistent publications in MP magazine had gotten him quite an increase in respect, especially among the older students. There was no doubt among the Slytherins that Harry Potter was going to be a powerful political player someday, and being on his good side was clearly a good idea.

Hermione had, of course, been outrageously proud of Harry after his 'coming out', going on about how he was setting a precedent of acceptance and blazing the trail for other young witches and wizards living their lives 'in the closet' for fear or public or familial persecution. Harry had just chuckled fondly at her and ignored the subject all together.

The only thing that actually surprised him was when Voldemort actually brought it up during their bi-monthly scheduled 'chat' nearly two weeks later.

'Didn't you say you'd been married to a woman?' Voldemort had written at one point when their other conversations had lulled from the article Harry had recently sent Voldemort that had been selected to go into the next issue of MP.

Harry blinked down at the page, because it really was quite a shift in the conversation, and rather unexpectedly too. But quickly he put quill to paper and wrote back.

'In my first life – yes. Married her when I was 19, and was still married to her when I died. We had three kids; loads of grandkids.'

Harry could feel the frustration, impatience, and curiosity curling in the other man's mind, and found it rather amusing that Voldemort seemed reluctant to just ask when he clearly wanted to know more.

'Our sex life was abysmal,' Harry went on, deciding to cut the other man a break and save him from having to actually ask. 'But I did love her. I think it became more of the love one has for their best friend. We did eventually talk about the problems we had, but I think we wasted a lot of years pretending that nothing was wrong. By my late 30's we were sleeping in separate beds, and she took a few lovers over the years. We stayed together for the kids, but also because we never stopped caring about each other. Just the same... I know that she went through bouts of bitterness over the whole thing. I suppose that's why I never made a big deal about the other men.'

'So when did you realize where your true preference lie?' Voldemort wrote back a moment later.

'I suppose I convinced myself that I was asexual for a while there, but by my 50's I'd come to terms with the fact that I fancied men. It wasn't until my second life that I finally let myself explore that aspect of myself and discovered that I actually love sex, I was just doing it with the wrong gender before.'

After that Voldemort took the subject back onto some political topic that was apparently a big deal among the wizards of the Wizengamot at the moment, and Harry's sexuality wasn't brought up again between the two of them.

– –

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.

Niccolo Machiavelli

– –

It was May, and the term was slowly wrapping up. Hermione was deeply embroiled in her end-of-year revision insanity, and Harry was looking forward to the coming holiday and making plans for traveling abroad for a holiday in southern France. It was once again morning and the Great Hall was filled with the sound of chatting students and the scents of breakfast.

Harry was only peripherally aware when the morning post owls began to swoop down into the hall, delivering morning packages, letters, and the newspaper. Witch Weekly came out on Mondays, and it was Friday, and it was mid-month so this months issue of MP had come out nearly two weeks earlier. Harry wasn't expecting anything at all, so he rarely paid the morning post much attention. The only thing that could possibly attract his attention would be something noteworthy in the Prophet, but he wasn't expecting anything there either.

Of course, he was wrong.

A sharp gasp from a few seats down, followed by a few more similar sounds, and the notable increase in the din of excited chatter finally drew his attention away from his eggs and he looked up just as Draco snatched the Prophet away from Zabini on his other side and stared in shock at the huge boldfaced headline beneath a photo of a surprisingly clean Sirius Black standing next to Amelia Bones.

MINISTRY COVER-UP! CORRUPTION, LIES, AND UNLAWFUL IMPRISIONMENT!

Sirius Black wrongfully imprisoned, denied trial for a decade, ordered Kiss on Sight to cover-up Ministry Blunder!

About half-way down the paper was another large headline and another picture – this picture featuring Peter Pettigrew, cowering behind bars. REAL KILLER CAUGHT! PETER PETTIGREW NOT DEAD. POTTER'S TRUE BETRAYER UNCOVERED!

"Huh," Harry said with slight surprise coloring his tone as he leaned over Draco's shoulder and skimmed the article. "Looks like he didn't kill the rat after all."

Harry made another humming sort of sound before turning his attention back on his breakfast and ignoring the many cautious and curious stares coming his way from just about everyone in the school. Harry did glance up long enough to notice Lupin was missing from the head table. His eyes slid from Lupin's empty seat to McGonagall who was looking utterly stunned as she stared down at the paper. Well, apparently she hadn't been included in the loop.

Dumbledore was missing too.

Harry's table mates cautiously prodded him for a response, but Harry just gave them flat, uninterested looks and they eventually gave up, knowing better than to prod him when he clearly wasn't in the mood to offer up any information. It was an amused squawk from Draco that actually drew Harry's attention away from his plate and over at the blond who was reading the paper.

Draco attempted valiantly to refrain from laughing, so instead his shoulders shook and he snickered under his breath. This was a rather uncharacteristic show of amusement for Draco, so Harry couldn't help but be curious.

"It says in here that Pettigrew was hiding in his rat animagus form, in a large, wizarding family's home all these years, masquerading as a pet," Draco explained, smirking over at Harry. "It's blatantly obvious to anyone who's ever known Weasley that they're talking about his pet rat. Weasley would have to be an idiot to not realize the truth. That he spent years with that disgusting man as his pet. I just hope I'll be there to see the look on his face when he realizes it."

"I don't know, Draco. Denial can go a long way and Ron Weasley is rather thick," Harry said, sounding vaguely bored as he went back to is meal again. He wasn't sure how he felt about Ron realizing the whole story with his rat because then he would wonder about Harry's involvement in the whole thing. "Do either of the articles mention me?" Harry asked as he finished off the last bit of his toast and pushed his plate aside.

"Only in so much as they explain the whole fidelius betrayal thing again. How many times are they going to rehash that same story?"

"As many times as they can, I'm sure," Harry said with a resigned sigh.

"It also mentions that Black is your godfather. It's the first time I've seen the paper come out and say that – I guess they were afraid to say it before now," Draco mused, skimming through the paper again.

Harry grimaced, suddenly aware that this could generate some annoying complications for his summer plans if Black decided to try and seek guardianship. At the very least, it would result in people looking closer than he wanted, into where he stayed during the holidays.

"You met him that one time, right?" Draco asked, trying to sound like he was just asking about the weather, and not something actually significant.

Harry hummed in response and several people were now watching the two of them with carefully, but poorly, concealed curiosity.

"Do you think you'll go to the trial? He's finally getting one, apparently. Pettigrew's is first though. This whole thing has apparently been in the works a while, but they were keeping it quiet until the last minute, so Pettigrew's trial is tomorrow. Black's is next week."

"I don't really see any reason to," Harry said with a dismissive shrug as he reached across the table and grabbed the paper out from underneath Goyle's plate, since it was obvious the boy was done with it.

"I can't help but notice, Potter, that you don't seem all that surprised by all this," fourth year Malcolm Baddock mused from Goyle's left.

"I knew," Harry said simply as he smoothed the paper out before him and started reading the article for himself. "Didn't know if anything was being done about it, but I knew about Pettigrew, and I knew that Black didn't do it, or get a trial."

This surplus of information – as Harry rarely gave out even a sentence that long at the breakfast table – drew in everyone's immediate attention. They leaned forward in their chairs, looking at him expectantly for several seconds before the frustration and resignation crossed their faces as it became obvious that Harry was done talking.

Breakfast finally drew to a close and Harry and his classmates made their way to Defense. Harry wasn't surprised when ten minutes into class it was obvious that no teacher was coming. It was Professor Sinistra who finally showed up to tell them all that they could take the block as a free period and didn't have to remain in the classroom, before she hurried off to do something else.

The students muttered curiously, exchanging some theories about Lupin's absence, but not much since the man did tend to miss a few classes every month. It's just that Snape usually subbed for the man during these days. This was the first time they'd apparently been unprepared for it. Draco, of course, kept giving Harry knowing smirks.

It was an hour later, just after class had gotten out and the rest of the school filled the halls and the courtyards as students made their ways to their next classes. Harry, Draco, Zabini, Crabbe and Goyle were gathered in one of the courtyards in various positions around a stone bench and an old moss-covered statue, when a group of Gryffindors came through, apparently coming up from the greenhouses. Weasley came to a halt as he passed the group, scowling down at the group and holding his hands tightly balled into fists.

Draco stood up straighter and Harry could see a hopeful light filling his pale gray eyes as Ron slowly turned and pinned Harry with his eyes.

"Potter," Ron called out and Harry remained seated but raised a single eyebrow in response. "Can we talk?" Ron finally bit out, huffing in embarrassed frustration as the gathered Slytherins each stood there glaring at him.

Harry paused for a moment before giving a curt nod back, standing up, and walking over towards him. Draco instantly followed, sticking to Harry's side. Ron glared at Draco in obvious annoyance. "I didn't ask you to –"

"I'm not going anywhere," Draco said imperiously as he tipped his chin up into the air.

"What do you want, Weasley?" Harry asked in a bored tone before the two could start up a row.

Ron gave one last glare at Draco before looking back at Harry and seeming to twitch uncomfortably and grimace with nerves. "Was... was Scabbers... I mean... he –"

"Yes," Harry said with an annoyed sort of impatient tone.

Ron's face went slack and his eyes widened comically.

Draco snickered.

"No, but I mean – h-he, he wasn't really – he was just a rat, right?" Ron stuttered out, shaking his head as if he had been hoping for an easy denial. Anything but this.

"No, Weasley. Scabbers was an animagus. I was casting detection charms in a corridor once, to see if I could do it, and your rat lit up like a glowing bulb in my vision."

"But – but why didn't you tell me!?" Ron squawked in horror.

"Didn't think you'd believe me. You'd just think it was a trick or a prank or something. What business was it of mine, if your pet was really an animagus, anyway? At first I was just going to mind my own business and forget about it, but in the end, I couldn't let you keep some weirdo, hiding out, pretending to be a pe ratt, could I? Even if you are a git and a close-minded bigot."

"WHUT!? I am not a bigot!"

"I mean, who knows what sort of person would pretend to be a young boy's pet? He could have been some sort of pedophile or something," Harry went on, ignoring Ron's outburst, and cutting him off – turning him quite green, in fact, with the insinuation. "I just hope you weren't sleeping with the rat on your pillow or something. Please tell me you had a cage that you put the thing in at night?"

Ron definitely looked sick now.

"Anyway, I knew if I just asked for him, you'd never hand him over to me, but I figured if I offered to buy him for enough gold, you'd be willing to part with him. So I took the rat and turned him in. At some point they realized who he really was and I guess the rest just spiraled from that," Harry finished with a shrug.

Ron was grimacing deeply, but did manage to muster up enough strength to nod his head rather numbly before turning and walking away.

Draco snorted as soon as Weasley was gone. "How rude. Didn't even say thank you," he drawled, before his haughty expression shifted into one of utter glee and amusement. "Oh Merlin, Harry! That was brilliant! Did you see his face? Oh, oh! And when you suggested that Pettigrew might have been a pedophile! I thought he was going to lose his lunch, right here in front of us! That was absolutely the most enjoyable thing I've witnessed all month." Draco let out a contented sigh after that – the sort one would heave after eating an especially satisfying meal.

Harry just chuckled at Draco's obvious enjoyment of Ron's discomfort and the two returned to the other Slytherins and started making their way towards Charms.

– –

Lupin did reappear the following day, and he was watching Harry more closely than before, but didn't approach him. Harry could tell the man wanted to, though. It was as if he wanted to talk to Harry about Sirius and Pettigrew but couldn't quite work up the courage to do it. Harry had never really made himself very accessible to Lupin, so it was no wonder the man wasn't sure how to go to him if he had something of a non-school nature to discuss.

The Prophet was filled with news of Sirius, corruption, Pettigrew, Fudge, Crouch, and the other prisoners in Azkaban who had also been apprehended during the state of Martial Law. They would all be receiving proper trials now – or rather, the ones that were still alive would be. Most of them were already dead, though, and now any surviving relatives were demanding reparations from the Ministry. It was quite a circus, and Fudge was basically cowering in terror from the monumental political backlash.

Voldemort thought the whole thing was rather hilarious, when he and Harry wrote to each other that weekend – which Harry, in turn, found amusing, since he had never yet experienced such a state of mirth from the other man over their link. Voldemort wrote saying the whole scandal was a lovely distraction from certain things he had in the works at the moment, while also drawing attention to the incompetence of the current administration – and the last administration as well, for that matter, since the initial injustice had actually occurred under Minister Bagnold's term.

Harry said that he would like to claim it was all some brilliant plan, but admitted it was really just the convenient outcome of his own inability to leave well enough alone.

Despite this, Harry could tell that Voldemort was still quite pleased, and found himself enjoying the sensation coming across the link. Their talks were usually about politics, economics, and occasionally they actually talked about obscure magics. These were not topics that usually inspired giddiness – in fact the politics and economics tended to inspire irritation and frustration. The few times they'd talked about magics, Harry had picked up on intrigue and legitimate interest, but certainly not giddiness.

It was interesting to literally feel that the Dark Wizard really was perfectly capable emotions outside of rage, annoyance, and pride. Outside of their bi-monthly talks, the link was kept firmly closed, so if Voldemort was experiencing other such potentially 'positive' emotions while they weren't real-time writing to each other, Harry obviously wasn't picking that up.

After that, it seemed like term came to an end in a flurry of revision, exams, excited rumors, and a continued stream of newspaper articles on Ministry blunders.

Pettigrew was found guilty at his trial, and Sirius was found innocent at his. He was declared free and clear, and given hefty reparations from the Ministry as apology. Understandably, few really felt like that was sufficient for such a heinous misdeed. Trials were also scheduled for the other wizards who had been apprehended and imprisoned during the weeks following the Dark Lord's downfall and the temporary marshal law establishment. It wasn't looking like any of them were actually innocent, so far, but there was really no telling, and it looked like a few of them had probably served more than sufficient sentences for the crimes they were accused of. They probably would have been released by now if they'd been properly charged and had a proper trial, but since they hadn't been, they'd basically been lost in the system with an assumed life sentence.

Harry peripherally paid attention to all of this, while looking outwardly disinterested. He refused to respond to any questions on the subjects, even when Hermione questioned him on it. Fortunately, she was distracted enough by revision and the end of term to leave the matter be fairly quickly, and Draco understood enough about what had happened, and Harry's involvement in it, as well as knowing Harry well enough, to know better than to question him.

So before anyone knew it, exams were over and term came to an end. Harry couldn't help but wonder, as he boarded the Hogwarts Express, bound for London, that Lupin's lycanthropy had never been outed, and the man had never been gravely injured, or done an especially bad job to warrant being fired.

Granted, Lockhart hadn't ever done anything, aside from being an incompetent moron, and hadn't been injured or openly fired, the year prior. But he hadn't been interested in coming back for another year, and thus, Lupin had been hired. But this was different, and Harry wondered if the man might actually be reprising his post the following year.

It made Harry wonder suddenly, about the 'curse' on the post.

Was it still in place?

With that thought in mind, Harry pulled out his protean-charmed journal and scribbled the question on the first available page along with a reminder that he'd be unavailable for a while, before closing it and putting it back into his rucksack.

Upon arriving in London, Harry made his way to Diagon Alley and directly to Gringott's. A trip to his vault was all that was necessary for him to ditch what he didn't need on his vacation, and pack up exactly what he did want to take with him – he'd packed his two trunks in preparation, so mostly he was able to just drop off one of his trunks and shrink the other to stow away in his rucksack over his shoulder.

After that, he downed one of his aging potions and donned a hooded cloak before Flooing to the Ministry to pick up the international portkey to France he'd arranged ahead of time. By the end of the day he was already comfortably ensconced in his hotel on the beach, in southern France, listening to the waves from beyond his open balcony doors and comfortably falling asleep.