The water hit his skin.

The warm droplets formed steam as he stood there without moving at all, the voices banging in his head. They said the same thing, over and over again, how much clearer could it be? It's alright, Harry.

It wasn't. He was supposed to be a good seeker. His skin was burning from the mellow droplets morphing into sharp little blades of fire. He closed his eyes and the hot steam enveloped his body. As he washed the shampoo suds off him, he let his mind melt into a puddle of nothingness that hid no concerns and no fears.

He thought of Ron, who had avoided him as they practiced, and never directly talked to him. He let the thought escape him and didn't try to retreat it. He closed his eyes against the world and everything that troubled him. He opened his eyes to the bang of the door as the last person exited the shower.

No one risked staying alone with him in the showers anymore.

When he reached the Great Hall, the dinner had begun. Hermione wasn't pleased. "Your hair is wet. You're going to catch a cold." She casted a drying spell on him and went on about her day. At first, Harry had been satisfied to see her on the Gryffindor table, but now she was suddenly eager to have a detailed conversation about Valentine's Day and how Ron and Lavender were not being seen together in public lately. Harry was more than willing to listen and help, but he thought to himself that he felt rather uncomfortable discussing this and would happily avoid it.

Foregoing the possibility of the dungeons leaving a cynical mark on him, he smiled and reassured her concerns. As most of the students were beginning to finish up, smaller groups of people were being formed, not minding much if they were sitting at their house's tables or not. When most of the Ravenclaw students were gone, Luna sat next to him.

"You look as sad as a dog with no home," she told him, and Harry was taken aback by her blunt honesty.

"I'm just tired," he assured her. Luna's smile didn't fade.

"Have you told him?" she asked Hermione. Hermione frowned just as Harry turned to look at her.

"Tell me what?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "I don't even think it's even important anymore."

"Yes?" Harry asked impatiently.

"Do you remember Romilda Vane?"

Harry nodded.

"She used to have a crush on you. Actually, she and all her friends had a crush on you." No news here. He glanced at the high table and saw Snape and McGonagall getting up. "A few months ago I've heard them saying something about making you fall in love with them, you know. I think they dropped their plans when… well. They dropped them. I caught Romilda in the bathroom yesterday with another girl and she was saying that she might… that she still has plans."

Harry gave her a "you've-got-to-be-joking-me" look. What was so important about that? Romilda hadn't talked to him in months.

Hermione dropped the subject immediately as she spotted professor McGonagall leaving the Hall and she hurried behind her. "Professor!"

McGonagall looked at her through her square spectacles and smiled when Hermione reached her. Harry brushed his fingers against the table.

Confused, he turned to Luna. "What doesn't she tell me?"

"What'll make you sadder," she said casually.

Harry stared at her with a blank face. He didn't have to say go on.

"Remember the rumour that you've got a Hippogriff tattooed on your chest? The new rumour has it that you don't like girls. Romilda wants to prove that you just haven't met the right one yet," said Luna serenely.

He stared at her, unable to deny the rumours, unable to think of a lie, incapable of anything but clenching his toes.

"I think it's interesting, though," beamed Luna. "People never say anything for me, because they don't like me enough. A roommate of mine asked me my name the other day."

Harry nodded, lost in his thoughts. Luna peered at him and he sealed his mind defensively just like Snape was trying to teach him. Luna's large eyes had always had something strange in them; a glimmer that often made people feel uncomfortable around her. If she wasn't a mind reader, she was certainly clever. In her own way.

"This… rumour. How many people believe it?"

Luna touched his arm sympathetically. "A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on, Harry. Although the truth runs pretty fast too, Dad says."

Harry grunted in agreement but didn't respond. His mind was racing. Didn't this mean that he had messed everything up already? He knew what people thought of... this kind of men. He could recall what aunt Petunia thought of them. His classmates weren't reacting any better.

"I don't understand why they'd think that," Harry heard himself saying defensively. Luna shrugged lightly and for a moment Harry was sure that she knew everything.

"People that criticise us are the same people that don't know the price we paid," she informed him.

He looked down at his hands, which he clenched and unclenched nervously, his face deepening to the red he could feel spreading over his skin. After a moment, he looked up at her again, still unsure of what to say.

"I preferred the tattoo rumour, I think."

"Girls preferred it too," she pointed out. "Ginny is dating Dean again," she added.

If this was supposed to cause him jealousy, it didn't. His memories of kissing Ginny had been gracefully packed away from his mind and he did not plan on picking at them anytime soon. It wasn't the lack of any physical or emotional attraction that repulsed him so much as his own ingratitude towards her.

"That's nice. I mean, I'm glad she's okay," he said, which was not entirely a lie.

He needed Snape now. All this thing that was going on outside his chambers could only be described as Snape chose to name it: childish. Harry didn't feel like being with people his age anymore. Here, he was exposed to a life he didn't care to live. Not like that. Not in this kind of unfair secrecy.

"Hermione told me that she is indeed," she said happily. "It felt nice that Hermione told me that. It was like having a friend, even for a while."

Harry nodded nervously, trying not to look scared by the news. He felt embarrassment for the images inside his head. No matter how hard he had tried to dismiss them though, they were only growing stronger, and he was too weak to change or fight them. An aspect of his mind knew that he didn't really want to. How did he even know he was gay? Why was he so damn sure?

"You think my clothes are ugly?" asked Luna after a moment.

Harry blinked his panic away and looked at her. She was wearing her common Ravenclaw robes, but underneath there was a pink shirt with an "ALIENS KIDNAPPED ME" logo.

"I don't think they're ugly," he said carefully. "They're... interesting."

Luna smiled at him in surprise. "You don't think I should buy another shirt? I've been mocked a little for it today. Unfortunately though, nargles stole my wardrobe away last week. It's the only one I have left."

Harry shook his head disconcerted. "What? No, I – " what the heck were they talking about? All her wardrobe had similar or even weirder shirts than this one. "Luna, it wouldn't be you if you wore something else. It's nice."

She beamed as he had never seen her beaming before. "Well, thank you, Harry! I'll be proud of them then."

As she exited the Hall, Harry watched Dumbledore leaving from the back door and he furrowed his brows in confusion.

Then he smiled.

"They were the brightest students, Harry, the best of them!"

"Well, sir, I think you were inspiring to them too," Harry said. As they walked further and further away from the castle, the forest came alive with the layers of sounds echoing in the cold morning air. Little frogs croaked under large, broad leaves. The webs were stringed with delicate drops of morning dew, glistening in the first shards of sunlight. While the students' laughter and shouts were fading behind them, Slughorn and Harry enjoyed the nature.

"You're right, I was. You see, my students always liked my company. Like you, now. But only the best of them joined the Slug Club in the end. I treated well all of them, but I had to be picky," Slughorn said softly, looking over at a red singing bird. "The Club I created was an innovation, I dare say. Hogwarts rules were anachronistic, very old fashioned for my taste. Severus brought back the Ministry's old laws when I left. It was a pity."

"I think the members of the Club felt honoured for being special to you anyway," said Harry, reminding himself that he had to make Slughorn trust him. "Not all professors respect their students like you do. You see them for who they really are."

Harry's shoes were splotched as he accidentally stepped into a small puddle of mud.

"Be careful there," said Slughorn. "Your mother was one of my favourite students, of course I must've told you that already. Brilliant, she was. And a bit audacious too, if you ask me."

Harry smiled at the mental picture of his mother talking back to a professor. "She was in the Slug Club," he said at once.

"If she wasn't I'd close it down I think. Her talent in potions was unique. She and Severus were preoccupied, they'd always come up with extraordinary, unique ideas. Once, I thought I caught them cheating from each other. They told me they were just arguing over the name they'd give to their newest melting potion."

Harry's steps slowed. "I've heard she was friends with professor Snape."

"The best of friends," Slughorn said keenly. "When Lily left the Club, Severus was lost. He didn't know what to do with himself."

Harry kicked a stick and shoved his hands in his pockets. It was weird, how sunny could be such a cold day. "Why did she leave?"

Slughorn looked ahead and his shoulders squared a little. After a moment, he sighed. "The dark times were beginning just in time for my pension, but I did have time to witness the very start of it. Many thought that Slytherins were not to be trusted. Stupid rumours, they were."

Rumours, Harry thought. He remembered how his mother accused Snape of befriending Death Eaters in the memory he had seen last year. Perhaps she didn't want to even see him anymore. Had she left the Club because he was there?

"How come they were such close though? I mean, they did have a fight at some point, I've heard." He wondered if it was safe to ask Slughorn such questions. As much as a risk it might was, he couldn't hold himself back.

Taking a walk with him was boring enough already. He might as well make it useful. They set off a lowlier pace.

"I believe they knew each other before Hogwarts, were neighbors, family friends, something like that – but how could I remember? It's been years ago. Many years," he added to Harry's questioning look. It was as though an invisible hand had twisted Harry's intensities and held them tight.

"So, you think they were…" he trailed off, unable to finish his thought. He felt his cheeks reddening. Snape had told him that they had never been together, but he didn't know if he should believe him.

Slughorn laughed. "No, no, I don't think so. You see – back then, it was already too defiant for a Slytherin to befriend a Gryffindor. Besides, everybody knew that Lily was in love with James Potter."

In love, Harry thought. "I thought my father had fallen in love with her – actually that it took her some time to like him back."

Slughorn patted his back and Harry tried not to flinch. "I don't know the details, my boy. I'm sorry."

"You taught Tom Riddle too," Harry found the nerve to say at last.

Harry didn't know what normal love felt like. He loved Hogwarts, which was a castle, and he loved Hermione and Neville and Luna, because they were his friends. He loved Ron and Ginny although he didn't have the right to.

He didn't know how falling in love with a girl was like. This was something Ron would feel familiar with, especially when he kissed Lavender on the mouth and when he snogged her in the corridors. Hermione probably knew too well what falling in love felt like as well, because if it wasn't blunt jealousy what he felt for Ron's affair, Harry didn't know what it was.

What Harry felt, had nothing to do with all that. Snape had made him open up when he didn't want to let himself out. He had helped Harry to breathe when he was lost and confused and he had helped him see that it was possible to feel accepted again.

He shivered in anticipation for his next Occlumency lesson. It was still hard for him to accept these feelings as real, and when he was away from Snape he could easily convince himself that everything was merely in his imagination.

The way his heart was beating when he would eventually see Snape again always told him otherwise.

They returned to the castle just in time for Harry's next class. Harry could barely concentrate, and after giving Dumbledore a not-too-detailed report about what Slughorn had told him, Dumbledore showed him another memory of Voldemort's past. Harry spent his evening discussing with Dumbledore that memory, and digging deeper into the past of his parents' murderer.

"I'll find out," Harry promised. "I think he trusts me."

"He does." Dumbledore smiled at that. "I don't want you to forget your position either, though. Trust, is one thing. It is preferable though for students to maintain a respectful distance from their professors, as you know."

Harry opened his mouth but chose not to respond. He knew.