"A moment of your time?" Hermione demanded as she hooked one hand into Harry's arm and tugged. The feast had dragged on and on, seeming much longer than any other year, though Hermione knew logically that it was the same amount of time as always. But when you wanted desperately to ask your best friend what the hell was going on but couldn't - even a feast seemed unbearably long. And the walk back to the tower had been even worse. An insidious illusion of privacy as the three of them trailed along behind the others, when in truth they had half of the house listening in. No one gossiped like Hogwarts students, and between that and the first years mooning after Harry, it was hard to even get a word in without someone listening.

It didn't help that that Sasuke Uchiha kept watching Harry like he planned on abducting him. Harry said they were related, but Hermione had a hard time believing that. Conversely, she unfortunately had no trouble believing someone was trying to take advantage of Harry.

So as soon as they were in the tower and everyone else's attention was diverted either to exploring their new home or settling back in, she grabbed him before he could slip away again. She wanted answers and she wanted them now. And they better come with a good explanation or she was going to the Headmaster himself. She didn't care what the boys thought of her for it. She wasn't going to risk Harry on something like this.

"Now?" Harry asked, making it sound like an unreasonable request. He was craning his neck to see over the crowd, no doubt looking for his new friend. "But we haven't even-"

"Harry Potter, if you don't-"

"Alright! I'm coming!"

Good. She wasn't sure what her threat was going to be but she would have come up with something he wouldn't have liked.

"Can I at least grab my cloak and the map?" Harry asked a bit testily. "If that's not going to be too much of a trouble."

"I don't know," she snapped back, "are you going to ignore us if you do? Yes, of course you can. But I'm warning you, I can get into the boy's dormitory and you will not like it if I have to come after you."

Harry rolled his eyes and it wasn't all in good humor. "You're kind of a terror," he told her curtly before slipping away.

She'd decided to give him exactly five minutes to grab what he needed and get back, but this time Harry returned promptly, a lumpy bag in one hand and a grumpy look on his face. Ron was close behind him looking even grumpier. This was going to be a fun conversation. They darted back out into the hallway when no one was looking and took a couple of turns to get away from the entrance before Harry plopped down on a window bench.

"Here's good," he said. "I don't want to go too far away. We've got the map to keep a watch with."

The three of them stared at each other. Or rather, Hermione and Ron stared at Harry waiting for him to say something.

"I don't know why you don't like them," Harry finally exploded. "They're really nice and cool and I wish you'd stop being so difficult about all of this."

Hermione could feel her whole face flush and had the desire to yell back at him just as churlishly – and judging by the look on Ron's face she wasn't the only one. But that kind of thing wasn't going to get them anywhere. And Hermione, damn it, could be the reasonable one here even if it killed her. "I don't dislike them," she clarified. "I don't trust them. Not at all. Cousins, Harry? Really? Don't you think we'd know by now if you had cousins? Don't you think someone in the Order would know?"

"Did you know my dad was adopted?" Harry shot back.

"Do you?" she countered. "Do you have any proof that anything they say is true?"

"I don't need proof!" Harry shouted and it had to be the most arsine thing she had ever heard come out of his mouth. She loved Harry, she really did, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that he wanted a family - any family - and it wouldn't take much of a leap from that to figure out the perfect trap for him. This was just like the mess with Sirius in third year all over again, and while he might not have meant Harry any ill will, that didn't mean that was the case here. Realistically speaking, it was more likely to be the complete opposite. But telling him he was an idiot wasn't going to fix anything. In fact, it was just as likely to make it worse since Harry could be the most stubborn person she knew. And that meant a lot when you took into account that that included in comparison to Ronald Weasley – and for that matter herself as well. She sighed.

"James Potter came from a very old wizarding bloodline. You would think it would be fairly well known if something like that had happened," she tried, doing her best to make it sound reasonable and conciliatory and not like she wanted to shake some sense into him.

Ron laughed. It wasn't his angry laugh, like when he was feeling mean spirited about something and wanted to rub it in. It also wasn't his more charming snorting laugh that he sometimes did when she managed to say something funny and unexpected. It was his nervous, forgot-something, bungled-something-up laugh. She knew that laugh well. She turned slowly to look at him.

"Ron?"

"About that adoption…"

"You knew?" Harry demanded. And he sounded so hurt that Hermione really, really hoped the answer would be no.

"Well, yes, sort of. I mean, everyone did. Or used to. Sort of. At one point it was public knowledge and everything. It was a big thing about the Potters, both that they couldn't have children of their own and that they adopted one." Ron was rambling by this point, a stream of words that didn't seem to have any logic or thought process behind them. Maybe he felt guilty. Harry still looked ready to fly apart at the seams, but he was distracted with all of the information coming at him. "It wasn't exactly normal behavior for a family like that, adopting, you know? But I kind of get the impression they told anyone who questioned them on it to go fuck themselves. Just, not in those words. Probably. I think it's part of why the Malfoys no longer rubbed shoulders with them and everything. From what our family heard from the gossip. Not really our social circle or anything, now is it, but you know, people talk. Old family gossip is the best kind of gossip or whatever. I think everyone eventually just kind of accepted it. Particularly since there wasn't any – you know – issues."

"Issues?" Hermione cut in sharply.

Ron flushed and waved one hand as if they could sweep that under the rug. "You know. Squib, issues," he muttered at the end. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed about it.

"Let me get this straight," Harry said, interrupting what should have been a long conversation about ableism and prejudice. "Everyone else in the wizarding world knew about this and no one thought to mention it?"

Ron shrugged. "Hell if I know. I guess it was just old news, you know? He must have come from another wizarding family. Rich families do that sort of thing sometimes when they can't manage their own and it's supposed to all be above the board and everything. So no one made much of a stink about it. Well, no one who mattered."

Harry laughed. And kept laughing.

"I don't think it's very funny," Hermione commented. These days nothing about family bloodlines seemed very funny since the only time she ever heard about them was when someone was either subtly or aggressively pointing out that she'd never be as good as everyone else since her parents were dentists.

"My dad wasn't from a wizarding family," Harry announced. "He was thrown out of his own family for being a squib by their standards."

"Impossible," Ron replied. "Your dad was a great wizard. He made Head Boy."

"They told everyone he was dead," Harry continued bitterly. "They hid the truth from everyone. Even Sasuke didn't find out until just this summer. And even he only found out because the person who killed his family apparently wants to kill me too, now that he knows I'm alive."

"Oh, Harry," Hermione said as she dropped down onto the bench beside him. Just like that, any annoyance with him just disappeared. It was a distressingly common occurrence with Harry. It was hard to stay frustrated with him, even when he was being difficult, whenever you were reminded about all of the awful things he had to put up with. What did it say about his life that of course he'd only found out about something like this because someone else wanted to kill him? She sort of wanted to wrap an arm around him, but he had that hunched shoulder look that suggested it wouldn't be very welcome right now. Ron moved to lean against the wall on Harry's other side. When she looked up at Ron, he had that panicked look on his face that meant he didn't know what to do with this and didn't understand why his life kept having such complicated emotions in it. Hermione didn't know what to do either.

"I can't seem to catch a break," Harry finally muttered.

Ron snorted. "Wouldn't be us if we did."

Harry managed a weak chuckle. "Yeah, I suppose. So that was my summer. My dad was thrown out of his real family, who are also all dead now except for Sasuke and the guy who murdered them also wants to kill me. Sasuke's the one good thing that's come out of it. How was yours?"

"Horrible," Ron quipped. "I had to spend half of it camping in the cold with Charlie. Who snores. Simply awful."

Harry laughed again.

"I – I had to visit my cousins on my mum's side," Hermione tried. She didn't normally talk about her family much. Most of the people here wouldn't understand a thing she said about the muggle world, and with Harry it was too much like walking through a minefield trying to talk about families and what a normal life should be like. Clearly, he hadn't had a lot of experience with that in either world - not the muggle or the wizarding one. "They like boy bands," she continued, warming up to the topic. "A lot. And I can't even talk to them about school, because I don't know anything about normal schools and I always look like an idiot when I try."

"Well," Ron announced. "I don't think it can get much worse than Hermione looking like an idiot in front of someone. Looks like she wins for worst summer."

They all laughed and Hermione was finally able to wrap her arm around Harry's and lean on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Me too," Ron added. "I mean, that sucks. You're still a jerk for not writing."

"Sorry," Harry muttered. "It was really hectic and I was struggling just to keep up with things."

Ron seemed willing to accept that, which was a blessing. Hermione loved her boys, but god help her when the two of them took it into their heads to be angry at each other. It usually took a life or death situation to fix things again and she was getting mighty tired of it.

She didn't want to say anything to spoil the moment, but she also couldn't just stand by and do nothing. "Harry, are you sure about this? If the adoption was common – if somewhat dated – knowledge within the wizarding world, then that still means someone could be trying to use it against you."

Harry snorted. "Well, if they are, it's one hell of an elaborate production. Look, if I tell you something, you can't tell anyone else. Not anyone, okay?"

Ron rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "It's us. When would we ever?"

"Unless we think your safety is at risk," Hermione caveated. Because she was smart enough not to agree blindly.

"It's not my safety I'm worried about," Harry told her, but he seemed to be more reassured than annoyed. He took a deep breath before whispering so quiet they could barely hear him, as if he was afraid the walls had ears. "They can't cast spells."

"What!"

Notes:

So since the topic has come up - I stopped replying to comments (good or bad) a few years ago because I found it too stressful and not conductive to my writing process. So if you don't like my writing, please stop demanding answers from me or leaving long comments listing all of the ways you think I've written something poorly. That's no fun for anyone and even with the best of intentions, it is not helpful in my case.

For everyone who finds this story mildly entertaining, thank you. It was a beast to write and the only reason I stuck it out was because of you. I assure you I read every comment carefully, even if I'm too much of a lurker to reply.