Especially compared to Christmas, New Year's Eve was fairly uneventful. Harry was too sleepy to stay up until midnight, and anyway, there was no countdown on TV to watch. Every year with the Dursleys, they watched a New Year's Eve celebration on TV, and Harry always thought it must be so exciting to be there. But at Black Manor, there was no TV, although, as Sirius cheekily pointed out, Regulus and Holly had found other ways to entertain themselves.
Holly seemed to have forgotten about her flat in Hogsmeade; she spent the rest of Winter Break at #12, Grimmauld Place with her new fiancé. They spent suspiciously long amounts of time in his bedroom on the seventh floor, and they went to bed early every night, New Year's Eve excepted. Obviously, any qualms Regulus ever had about getting intimate with her had evaporated.
"It is great to see him so happy," Sirius said to Harry as they sat on the nice couch in the drawing room, watching Regulus and Holly snuggling up to each other, half-past nine on New Year's Eve. "I mean, you'd never have guessed it of him, would you?"
"No, especially considering he said he didn't have time for a wife, and she all but gave up on men," Harry replied.
"They just needed to meet the right person," Sirius said.
"Yeah," said Harry, yawning and stretching so that one of his hands accidentally knocked Sirius's head. "Oops, sorry, Sirius."
"Don't be," Sirius said with a grin. "I guess you might as well be getting off to bed."
"I know," Harry said sleepily, standing up and heading for the staircase. "G'night, Sirius."
"Goodnight," Sirius said back, settling back onto the couch with a champagne class filled with grape juice.
…
Going back to school was not the best thing for Harry, of course. Over Winter Break, he had worked with Regulus, and it seemed that he was getting better in controlling when he spoke Parseltongue, although as of yet he hadn't been able to speak it without looking at a real snake; he supposed that would come later. At least, he hoped so.
The good news was that he got to get back to Sirius's Defense classes. Most of the students had been begging him to teach the moves he'd used when dueling Snape. Today they were learning Oppogno, the spell that influenced objects to attack.
"Everyone take one, and try to use it to attack your enemy," Sirius said, holding up a bag of cotton balls. "Not that they'll hurt anyone, but these are for practice."
Defense was Harry's best subject, and he practiced on Hermione. Both of them ended up getting pelted by cotton balls, and they laughed.
Less enjoyable was resuming Holly's Our Changing Bodies class. The first class back was the most uncomfortable one yet, because this was the one in which Holly taught them that "period" didn't always refer to punctuation. All the boys knew virtually zilch about this, and most of them didn't see why they needed to know. They didn't dare cry out in disgust, though, because Holly would probably murder them if they did.
"You need to know," said Holly matter-of-factly, "because someday you might have a girlfriend, and she'll want you to be sympathetic to her."
"Sympathetic?" someone repeated in confusion.
"Well, for many girls, a period can be a painful nightmare," Holly replied. "So the least you can do is understand."
Nobody said what everyone was thinking: how could a boy understand such a female thing?
"You should just do whatever your girlfriend or wife wants you to do," Holly continued. "If she's a good person, she'll appreciate it—and you. And if she's angry, don't tell her it's because of her period, unless you want your lights knocked out."
It was kind of hard to imagine bleeding for days on end, but then, for most of that day the classroom was as quiet as the grave. Holly had them all study a week-by-week breakdown of the process, and…well, it didn't really clear things up as much as she'd hoped. It made the frontier of growing up look that much scarier, even if they weren't the ones who had to deal with it. What else was there to learn about? What other questions hadn't been answered? If this was what girls had to go through, what horrors were waiting to shock the boys, as they moved on through their teenage years and beyond?
Nobody said much after class, and when Harry, Ron and Neville got back to the Gryffindor common room, Barbara was waiting for them there with Phoebe. Sirius wasn't there. Harry wanted to ask where he was, but he was having problems speaking.
"Are you guys okay?" Barbara asked. "You look like you haven't got an ounce of blood in your body."
All three boys just glanced at each other, not at all pleased she'd put it that way.
"What did you learn today?" Barbara continued. "What, are you guys studying the sex unit already?"
Neville groaned and fell back against the couch. Ron shook his head grimly.
"Seriously, what's wrong?" Barbara asked. "What did she do?"
"We just learned about…well, uh…" Harry was searching for the right words to say. "What, um…happens to you—every month…"
"Oh, that," said Barbara with a laugh. "Look, I know it makes a lot of guys uncomfortable, but think of it this way: a girl getting her period is just another bodily function. Like going to the bathroom. It's just human waste."
"Well, Holly said it really hurts," Harry continued, reluctantly. Maybe it was because he'd been living with her for so long, but Barbara was easier to talk to than Holly. And, of course, he had never imagined Barbara in a slinky black nightgown with a slit up the side.
"For some girls, it does hurt," Barbara agreed. "But for others, it doesn't. I mean, one girl might have a period that lasts for three days, can be predicted down to the hour, and doesn't give her any pain at all…while another girl might have seven days' worth of utter hell every month. It just depends on your genetics—and your luck.
"I don't know why you're so worried, anyway," she continued, looking at them. "I mean, it doesn't happen to boys."
"It's just kind of weird," Ron said finally, and the other two nodded.
"Weird, yes…" Barbara nodded, then grinned. "Also, it caused one of the most embarrassing moments of my entire life."
"What happened?" Harry asked, in spite of himself.
"Well, when it first happened to me, I was only ten and I hadn't taken my sex ed class yet," Barbara explained. "I had no idea what was going on, so I panicked and called the paramedics. They tried to explain it to me, but it wasn't really working. Then when my mother came home, they told the story to her, and she reached out and grabbed me like this—" (Barbara squeezed Harry so tight he could barely breathe) "and shrieked, 'Baby!' at the top of her lungs. She started crying, gave me a speech on how great it was that I had become a woman, and called up every single person she knew and told them. I just about died."
That seemed just like the sort of thing that would happen to Barbara, so by the time she finished the story, all three of the boys were laughing. Several minutes later, the second-year Gryffindor girls filed in, but they weren't talking and giggling amongst each other as usual. Even when Harry waved to her, Hermione blushed slightly before she waved back. Harry was shocked; he had actually made Hermione blush.
"How's it going, Hermione?" Barbara asked.
Hermione plunked her books onto the table. "Fine."
"How was sex ed?" Barbara continued airily.
"It was enlightening," said Hermione, but she didn't offer any more.
"Need help filling out a male anatomy diagram?" Barbara said, her eyes laughing.
"No, I don't, thank you very much," Hermione answered, glaring at her.
Obviously, the girls had started their unit on the male anatomy. It was pretty awkward to have to study equipment that you, personally, weren't born with, so no wonder they were acting a little…off. But now the girls had some idea of what the boys had under their robes, which was almost too embarrassing to even think about.
Hermione had taken out her Astronomy book and was flipping through it when Sirius finally walked in.
"Hi, Sirius," said Harry, giving him a smile. "Where were you?"
"Grading some papers," Sirius replied with a sigh. "I think I like Care of Magical Creatures better than I like Defense, to be honest." Looking tired, he slowly sunk into a chair next to Barbara. "So what have you all been up to?"
"They've been learning about the anatomy of the opposite sex," Barbara told him. "That's why they're so quiet. I was just telling them about what happened with me and my mother and the paramedics. I told you that story, didn't I?"
"You did." Sirius laughed. "That was simply horrible."
"That's just how Mum is," Barbara replied. "She was so emotional about her little girl growing up that she just had to share it with everyone."
Barbara's experience did indeed sound horrible, even if it was just a funny anecdote to her now. Harry remembered that time at Black Manor last summer when he woke up with the sheets wet and sticky, and Sirius took the time to explain why, just so Harry wouldn't feel ashamed or embarrassed or awkward or confused. What if Sirius had called up everyone he knew and blabbed about it? Granted, that didn't seem like something Sirius would do—but it was completely believable of Gwen.
…
Days later in January, Regulus contacted Sirius by Floo to let him know that Dylan had been captured by the Pizza Mafia, and Papa Pepe said they would only let him go if they received the secret deep-dish formula. But it seemed they changed their minds, because they gave Dylan back the very next day.
"Papa Pepe says keep him," one of the representatives had said. "He's a fate worse than death."
The good news, though, was that Dylan had been wearing a wire, and caught some important information on Papa Pepe and his associates.
"Why was Dylan wearing a wire?" Harry asked, as Regulus gave him and Sirius the update through the beautiful stone Gryffindor fireplace.
"He said Ashley told him to," said Regulus.
"Why would she do that?" Sirius asked. "Does she have any reason to spy on you at all?"
"I asked her, and she said she suspected something like this would happen," said Regulus with a shrug. "I know she's not the most trustworthy person ever, but like you said, there's nothing she could gain from spying on me. But anyway—I decided to give Dylan an extension."
"What?" said Harry.
"I'm keeping him on," Regulus said with a shrug. "I know, I know he's quite a few Sickles short of a Galleon, but we're understaffed, and he means well, anyway. It's better than nothing."
"Well, then, you should at least make him stop bothering me," said Sirius, and left it at that.
