I am so incredibly sorry that it's taken me this long to update. I guess I just had to take a bit of a break from writing for awhile. I wish I could say that I'll be updating a bit more regularly, but I don't know if I'll be able to.
Again, I'm so sorry, but I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 9: Going Home

While Harry had been sitting in the common room with Ron and Hermione, he'd seen Neville walk past and up the stairs. He muttered something to the others and quickly followed.

As Harry walked up the steps to the dorm he shared with the other first-year Gryffindor boys, he thought about what Professor McGonagall had said about talking to Neville. Harry thought that now was as good a time as any, especially after their conversation earlier.

"Hey, Neville," he said as he came through the door at the top of the stairs that led to their room. "Can I, ah, talk to you?"

"Oh, hi Harry. Sure."

Harry walked over to where Neville was perched on the edge of his bed and sat down next to him.

"Umm, I don't want to sound intrusive or anything, but I wanted to talk to you about your parents." Harry looked up at the boy sitting by him.

Neville was looking at his shoes with an odd intensity. He said nothing for a while; then, "What do you want to know, Harry?"

"Well, I don't really want to know anything, I guess. I—I'm assuming you know what happened to my mum. You also might know that I never talk to anyone about her. I guess I just thought it might be a good idea if we talked about our parents. I don't know. Just—just forget it." Harry stood up and started for the door.

"Wait," said Neville. "I think it's a great idea. I never talk to anyone about my parents, either. Come back and sit down, Harry." Harry did so. "I don't really know how to start, but I guess I'll just say that you might be interested to know that my dad is making a huge recovery in St. Mungo's. My Grandma sent me an owl about a week ago saying that recently, he has been getting a lot better. I'm going to visit him over Christmas."

"Neville, that's great news!" said Harry.

Neville just gave a small smile. "So, did you want to talk about your mum?"

Harry paused. "Yeah, I just don't know where to begin."

Neville knew exactly how he felt. "Why don't you just tell me about her?"

"Well, when she came to Hogwarts, she was in Gryffindor, like us." Harry paused. He realised he didn't really know that much about his mother. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, Neville was looking at him, waiting patiently. "Umm…actually, I don't really know that much about her. My dad finds it really hard to talk about her. All I have is a few photographs of her."

"Oh…would you mind if I take a look?"

"Of course not." Harry got up and walked over to his trunk to get the scrapbook. When he returned, Neville carefully took it and opened it slowly, like it would break if it was moved to harshly.

He flicked through it gently for a few minutes. "Wow," was all he said.

Draco Malfoy stood in the Slytherin common room. He had just brought his trunk down from the dorm and was about to make his way up to the Entrance Hall. He was nervous about going home and seeing his father. He would probably be questioned on how he was going on gaining Harry's trust, and he had no clue as to how he would respond. Harry basically trusted him already, but Father couldn't know that because he would then want to know how Draco had gained it so quickly.

His mind was desperately searching for answers, but none came.

"Draco!" A girl's voice interrupted his thoughts. He turned to see Pansy Parkinson smiling and walking towards him. "Are you ready to go?" she asked.

"Hey, Pansy," said Draco, sighing. "Sure. Let's go."

The two first-year Slytherins left the dungeons, one much more enthusiastically than the other.

The vast majority of the Hogwarts student body congregated in the Entrance Hall as they prepared to go home for the Christmas holidays. Harry stood with Ron and Hermione in the corner as people began to file outside where the wintery cold awaited them. He didn't know why, but he was slightly nervous about going home and seeing his father.

"Come on, Harry! You don't want to be left behind, do you?" Hermione was calling to him as her and Ron started to leave the Hall with the rest of the school.

Harry ran to catch up with them. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

"Yeah," said Ron, "we figured."

Hermione looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and worry. "Are you okay, Harry?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's just that, for some reason, I'm nervous about seeing my father."

"Why would you nervous about that? He's your father," said Ron.

"That's what I don't know," said Harry. He had a suspicion, though, that it might be because he would have to tell his father what Draco had told him, but he couldn't say that to Ron and Hermione.

The trio continued to the Hogsmeade train station where the Hogwarts Express was waiting. As they clambered aboard, Harry had an odd sense that he was being watched. He turned around just in time to see a blond head dashing into another carriage of the train. He walked down the aisle with his best friends and knew that he was going to have to tell them about what was going on with Malfoy. The only problem was, he didn't actually know what was going on with Malfoy. Harry resolved to tell when term resumed, and after he had the chance to get a grasp on the situation with Draco Malfoy.

Severus was early to arrive at Platform 9 ¾ on the day that the Hogwarts students would be coming home for the Christmas holidays. He was extremely excited to see his son that he hadn't known what do to with himself all morning.

He'd been sitting around just waiting, so he eventually decided he might as well wait at the train station.

He'd only been there for about 5 minutes when other parents started arriving; so he wasn't the only eager one, then.

"Severus!"

He heard a familiar voice call out to him and turned to face the direction it came from. "Ah, Arthur. Here to pick up your boys, are you?"

"Indeed I am," replied Arthur Weasley. "Have you heard much from Harry over the term?"

"A little bit. It sounds like they have a lot to do, so he doesn't have much time to write. I get the odd letter though. How about you? Any of your boys let you know how they're going?"

"I never hear from Fred and George, but then again I don't expect to. Percy let me know fairly early on in the term how his Prefect duties were going, but nothing since. Ron didn't write for weeks so Molly sent him an owl. He replied saying everything was fine and that he figured we would've assumed that, so he didn't bother writing."

"I bet Molly wasn't too pleased about that."

"No, she wasn't. But what can you do, eh?"

"Exactly."

Just then, the Hogwarts Express pulled up to the platform in a hiss of whistles and a cloud of smoke. It wasn't long before the doors opened and students started getting out and finding their parents.

Severus waited patiently till Harry jumped off. At the sight of his son, a smile crept over his face.

"Dad!" Harry ran over to his waiting father.

"Hello son. How are you?" said Severus as he embraced his boy.

"I'm good. Hogwarts is so amazing. I love it there, Dad!"

"I knew you would," said Severus as he began to lead his son away from the platform. "Oh, goodbye Arthur," he said over his shoulder.

Arthur looked up from where he was chastising his sons. "Goodbye Severus. Great to see you again."

"So," said Severus, turning back to Harry. "How were your classes? Do you like your teachers?"

"Classes are great and most of the teachers are pretty cool, too."

"That's good to hear. What about the other students? Do you get along with them?"

"Yeah, the ones I've met anyway." Harry didn't want to mention the Slytherins. He really hoped his father wouldn't bring up Draco.

"Very good."

The father and son continued the small talk all the way home. Sometimes, the conversation would veer extremely close to the Malfoys, but Harry managed to dance around actually saying anything about Draco.

He wasn't planning on telling his father anything until he had sorted out what was happening.