Heart racing, Harry woke up and quickly looked at his nightstand.

I cannot use Felix again. Not only had Felix betrayed his trust, but it made him manipulate Malfoy like the vampire Carmilla—sneaking into his bedroom, taking advantage of him under false pretenses. He wanted to get out of his skin, even more so for the part of him whispering that because time had reset it didn't matter what he'd done to Malfoy.

Taking a quavering breath, he drew his comforter over his head. He had learned very little, apart from the possibility that Malfoy had used the Imperius Curse and that Pansy had a close relationship with him, though not as intimate as he had expected.

First the memories Malfoy had given him after the Amortentia, and now this. He had seen into Malfoy's very being, the hard edges of him, the literal soft side of him, the good and the unfortunate and the loathsome.

Could he even call Malfoy by his surname anymore? Only after crossing it had he realized there was a line between Malfoy, the cruel, entitled prat, and Draco, the boy he had discovered crying in the bathroom, the boy who wanted to be held.

Maybe the unicorn books had gotten to him, making him see his former rival in metaphors: Malfoy was a Quidditch game in the middle of an autumn downpour. He was unpleasant from the stands, equal parts thrilling and terrible in the middle. Despite his better judgement pulling him to safety, Harry allowed the rain to wash over him, resisting its force as he pursued the Snitch.

Something approaching Draco was the far edge of the Great Lake, the bleeding dark and green of the trees, perpetually shifting between ferocity and beauty. When Harry visited the lake and looked across the glassy surface of the water to the horizon, he felt filled with wonder and simultaneously hollow-hearted from the scale of it all. The trees must look the same on the other side as they did on his, and yet he couldn't imagine how.

Draco was still a mystery.

Another voice in the back of his mind told Harry that calling Draco by his first name meant accepting a new version of him. Still, it would be foolish to continue pretending "Malfoy" was all he knew.

"Harry, are you feeling all right?"

Moving his duvet so Ron would hear him, Harry replied curtly, "No, I'm feeling a bit ill; no, the Hospital Wing won't be necessary; yes, I should feel better tomorrow."

"Er, right then. If you feel better by lunch, meet us in the Great Hall."

The past weeks lying in bed, reading, thinking—Harry may as well have been back in Number Four Privet Drive, holed up in his room or the cupboard under the stairs. There, he either didn't have any alternatives or wished to avoid the nastiness of his family. Now, it was the time loop trapped him instead of the Dursleys. For months, Harry had tried to come to terms with his situation, but it was exhausting. The lines he had heard dozens of times ricocheted in his head:

"Are you well?"

"Transfiguring the self requires concentration, a precise touch."

"This omelette is delicious."

"You've already said that."

"No one can help me."

"How do you know?"

"I've been living the same day over and over again."

"I'm so sorry, Harry."

"Have you read this book?"

Harry pressed his face into his pillow. Those pillows had smelled different, like someone else. Like Draco.

Rolling onto his back, Harry considered everything that had happened the other night. That intimacy was dangerous enough to unscrew something inside him, make him feel feverish, like the characters overwhelmed in the unicorn books. He was so disoriented that he was only dimly aware of getting out of bed, dressing, and walking to Professor Trelawney's classroom. Thinking back as he wavered at the foot of the ladder, he couldn't remember if he had passed anyone on the way, and wondered if he looked mad.

It was only after he was inside the classroom and knocked on her office door that he remembered what must have brought him here: Trelawney was the only professor he had yet to speak to about the time loop.

When he opened the door, she was standing just a few feet from him, eyes wide, staring forward into nothing. Harry swore, shocked out of his trance by her own open-mouthed expression.

She spoke quietly, though the words didn't align with the way her lips moved and her voice carried in layers, as though the same track was playing from multiple speakers. "Can't see. Can't see. Too much . . . how to see . . ."

Her state of mind and mannerisms seemed different than what he had witnessed in his third year. "Er, Professor?"

Without moving her head, her eyes shifted ever so slightly so that she looked directly at Harry. In a much lower tone, she said, "The estranged will survive and reunite at the passage . . . The one who restored time will expire as the loved ones return." The echoing voices returned, repeating, "Can't see, can't see, can't see clearly. Where? When?"

Harry cast about for a parchment and quill. On Trelawney's classroom desk, there was a quill and parchment but no visible inkwell. He left her standing in her office and dug through the mess of supplies to find ink, and when he did, quickly wrote what she had said to the best of his memory. With a final glance at her glassy-eyed stare, he went back down the staircase and headed to the dorm.

The estranged . . . who did he know that was estranged? Percy Weasley was the most likely, but maybe it was someone who would become estranged in the future. And did "the one who restored time" reassure him that time would be restored, that someone else would do it? Expire had to mean die—would he figure out who was going to die and be able to prevent it? This was all assuming Trelawney's words meant anything. Her eerie delivery didn't guarantee accuracy. Even if the prophecy was accurate, it was irrelevant to ending the time loop—his more immediate concern. He would have to memorize her words and hope they'd help him later.

At dinner that evening, Ginny approached him and asked if he was feeling alright, as she usually did when he pretended to be ill.

"I've been better." Harry looked past her to Draco, who was staring at him—as he usually did whenever he feigned illness. She was concerned, he was suspicious.

As exhausted and stressed as Draco was, the least he could do was make more of an effort to eat his dinner, of which he hardly ever ate much. Telling him to eat more didn't typically go over well, though in Harry's opinion his friends didn't push hard enough.

"Well, let me know if there's anything I can do."

"Er, yeah. I will. Thanks, Ginny." A ripple of humor passed through him, the same sensation that followed any streak of comedic inspiration in the loop. The best entertainment ensued when Harry didn't know what would happen. "Actually, could you go over and tell Draco he hasn't been eating enough? And that the roast beef is delicious. From me."

Ginny blinked. "Harry, what the hell d'you want me to do that for? How do you suppose he's going to react?"

"Poorly."

She crossed her arms. "What will you give me in return if I do it?"

"I'll do whatever you want for a day. Twenty-four hours."

Ginny was taken aback. "Are you sure?"

"Positive."

She sighed. "Merlin's sake. Okay. Just—take responsibility if this backfires."

Harry sat down at the Gryffindor table with Ron and Hermione, watching from the corner of his eye as she made her way over to Draco. The nearby Slytherins fell silent, watching. Zabini straightened, and even Pansy seemed to pull herself together.

He couldn't hear what she was saying, but before Draco could react, Dean Thomas was at her side, and she awkwardly left with him, shrugging a little when she met Harry's eyes.

Pansy was rubbing Draco's shoulder as he tried to burn a hole in the side of Harry's head. When they finally made eye contact, Harry ate a bite of his roast beef, chewed, swallowed, rubbed his stomach, and gave a thumbs up.

Moving faster than Harry expected, Draco got to his feet and strode over to where he was sitting. Ron and Hermione, oblivious to the whole drama, turned around.

"Mind your own bloody business, Potter," said Draco.

"Your business is my business, Draco." Oh, that's weird. Calling him Draco in front of other people. "It's not pleasant seeing your health decline this way. I miss the energy you used to have." A line from a couple of the books in Luna's library came to mind: "I miss us."

There was some reluctant laughter, probably confusion about whether Harry had been charmed. Regardless, Draco had ventured into enemy territory, and any hostility would be met with force.

"Don't send your blood-traitor girlfriend to bother me again, or you'll regret it."

Ron and a few other Gryffindors stood up. Ginny, who was sitting a few places down, said, "I'm right here, Malfoy. If you want to threaten me, do it to my face."

Draco shot her a fake smile, then left the Great Hall, his friends in tow.

"What was that about?" asked Hermione. "Did he say your girlfriend?" asked Ron at the same time.

"Ah, it doesn't matter." As an excuse for his behavior, Harry told them what he knew about Draco's plans. All the while, he kept thinking about the word "your girlfriend" in Draco's mouth, and how the assumption upset him.

Why was it upsetting? It had to be because he wished it was true, and Draco had reminded him it wasn't. Over the course of the loop, he had talked to Ginny every now and then, always platonically. Maybe it was the tone in Draco's voice, or the way Ginny had looked at him after defending herself that set him on a course to use the coming weeks to spend time with her.

So after the confrontation in the Great Hall, he dedicated a significant share of every day to Ginny. He tried to come up with plausible excuses for talking to her. Homework and Quidditch were the easiest topics, and his first instinct, so he started there.

"When did you get so good at Transfiguration all of a sudden?" asked Ginny, laughing after he turned her hair purple on their way to the Quidditch pitch.

"Oh, I've been holding back this whole time." "Have you, now? Have you been holding back on every subject?" He gaped at her in mock-disbelief. "I can't believe you."

She laughed. "So should I make the change permanently? Will you turn my freckles purple?"

"But I rather like your hair the way it was." While this was true, given such a dramatic change in her appearance, he couldn't stop looking at her.

The confidence she had faltered a bit, but she hid her reaction by dipping her head to tie her hair up. "I understand; I wouldn't be a Weasley if my hair were purple. You'll have to change all of us."

"Can you imagine Ron's reaction?"

"Yes!" She dropped her voice an octave and dropped her posture a bit. "Harry, don't you think Lavender will take this as a sign I want her back?"

"Oh God, I hadn't thought of that."

"Fred and George would love it, though. A hair color–changing potion would do well in their shop."

As he and Ginny passed a Quaffle back and forth, they continued to chat about the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. The next day, they raced each other to catch the Snitch. The days after that, they practiced diving and other moves he had read about but hadn't had a chance to attempt.

Quidditch quickly became repetitive, so Harry moved their conversations to wherever he could think of around the castle. These days began with a forward approach; he went up to her and asked if she wanted to hang out later. When he felt her eyes on him after, he knew she suspected his intentions may be romantic.

Both of them sensed that they should talk about more than homework and gossip and Quidditch. Harry knew he came across as more serious since the time loop. More than that, he had deeper insight into her and her family, and exhibited a directness that caught her off guard, but which she appreciated.

"What was it like, growing up in the Burrow?"

"Madness. Being the only girl, Mum paid me special attention. Dad, too. But it's only been really good the past couple years."

"What do you mean?"

"Being the youngest of the family, I was left out of a lot of things. Just got in the way, you know?"

"I suspect it's similar for Ron, so yeah." Ron wanted approval and attention if he could get it, but his ego tended to be fragile. If his arguments with Ron could be generalized in any way, it was that Ron felt smaller compared to his siblings. Fighting for attention and approval for years had affected both of the youngest Weasley siblings.

Harry would have traded the troubles of his home life in an instant for the troubles of the Burrow, though he'd never say it. Still, maybe their childhoods had impacted them in a similar way. Looking back, the shy, emotive Ginny he met at King's Cross reminded him of himself in his first year at school. "Your personality is so different from five years ago."

Ginny shrugged. "Same goes for most people. For me, it was a combination of things. No longer being at the bottom of the food chain at this school, the friends I've made, earning my brothers' respect."

"And you're not so nervous around me," said Harry quietly.

Ginny flushed at his change of tone and glanced at him. "The way you're looking at me now . . . it's making me nervous all over again."

Harry stopped walking. The sun, low in the sky, flared momentarily through the clouds, and every freckle on Ginny's face lit up. She reached out and touched Harry's cheek as he touched hers. They kissed, and when he threaded his fingers through her hair, it was warm with sunlight. She tasted faintly sweet; her chapstick had mostly worn off, her taste as light as the tip of her tongue.

They broke apart, both grinning. Harry was dazed. Suddenly anything was possible.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" asked Ginny, a bit breathless.

"Ah, nothing much. Only that I've fancied you for a year."

"That long, and you never said anything?"

Their conversation became tense and awkward after this exchange, despite their perfect kiss, so Harry rehearsed what he wanted to say for the next day.

"What does that mean, then?" asked Ginny after they had kissed for what she thought was the first time.

"That I think you're incredible, and beautiful, and I'm lucky to be your friend, but I'd be even luckier if you went out with me."

She chuckled and pushed him lightly on his chest. "And I suppose you practiced that? I had no idea you could be so charming. I rather like it when you're embarrassed and don't know what to say. I . . . like all sides of you, really." Ginny knew the effect she was having on him, stepping closer so their faces were inches apart. After she tilted her head up, a request, or permission, Harry kissed her.

If every day is like this, it wouldn't be so bad, thought Harry, the dragon in him purring, spooling warm smoke into his stomach.

Another time, they hugged before going back to the common room, her arms tight on his back, sighing as he stroked her hair.

On the sixth night, she pulled away when he leaned in, and they parted awkwardly. By the end of the second week, Harry had perfected their first kiss. He knew she liked it when it was soft, surprising them both, leaving her to stare at him like she was seeing him for the first time. Then, she threw her arms around him and they would kiss in earnest.

Dimly, he wondered if he was her rebound or if she had fancied him all along. When they parted once, she told him, "I could say I've had feelings for you this entire time. To be honest, my feelings have constantly changed. Some months, I could care less about you. Others, I was obsessed. I needed to have other relationships before I could know for certain if what I felt was real."

He couldn't say the same, he had far less experience, and when he searched for reasons why he'd chosen her, it simply felt like fate. It wasn't a choice. "Did you ever expect you would be snogging me back when you first fancied me?"

She chuckled. "Of course I expected it, I was convinced we were meant for each other."

To Harry's profound relief, his escapades with Ginny lessened any confusion Draco had caused. Finally, his brief attraction made sense, as did his interest in boys in general. He had been starved for affection, desperate enough to seek it in the same sex.

He shouldn't have assumed his frustration with the loop would be at bay forever. Enough first kisses and he wished she remembered, that she fancied him for another day so he could be sure it wasn't a fluke, so he could feel he wasn't taking advantage of her. And sure enough, doubt came wriggling back into his head again.

If Ginny were a boy but otherwise the same person, would he not be interested in her? No, that didn't make sense. She'd still feel like a girl in her mind. Did that mean he didn't care what she looked like physically? He was getting nowhere investigating this in his head, so he dropped the question. It no longer mattered.

Hormones, don't you remember? They can be managed. Tamp them down and your body will sort itself out eventually.

If the Dursleys had taught him anything, it was that ignoring a problem only allows its roots to grow deeper, until you're too preoccupied with trimming it to ever move on. So his desire to understand intensified.

"This may seem out of the blue, but have you ever been attracted to someone who was the same sex as you?"

After a pause, Ginny replied, "Yeah, most likely."

"Really? Are you sure? I mean, in that way?"

"Maybe not how you're thinking. It's different for girls, we can tell when other girls are pretty, and girls are much better-looking on average than boys."

"Even if that's true, men age better."

Ginny scoffed. "You're saying that as though it's fact, but it's clearly just your opinion. Your poorly-formed opinion. Men lose their hair, they get beer guts, they get creepy or senile or cruel."

"So we're having this debate? Women start to sag, they load up on makeup to hide their age, and they'll go on for ages about people you don't know and events that happened long before you were born."

"And men don't ever talk about the past? I think you're sexist, Harry Potter."

"What? But you—" Ginny smirked to tell him she was joking. Or partly joking. "Right. Let's just agree that we ought to enjoy being young."

"I can do that," she said, pulling him closer by the waist.

Feeling a bit of attraction to the same sex was normal. Why shouldn't Ginny like girls? Under their performances, under their politeness and their awareness of being seen, he saw an itching to be heard, to act, to change. To carve out the same rough edges boys were allowed to keep. By being trapped in the same day, he could perceive girls' deeper connection to time, their perception of behavior and the interrelatedness of consequences. Girls were more affected by unusual ripples over the course of the day, while boys passively observed, or acted without the same depth of thought.

Even as he wanted to believe this, he noticed the students who broke out of their gendered mold: Neville carried his trauma silently, his eyes sharp for the mistreatment of other students; Marietta Edgecombe was petitioning Dumbledore to let girls wear pants with their uniform; Daphne Greengrass' conversations about boys were just as crude as he had heard from some of the same boys she spoke about. And although Harry often thought he was becoming cold and detached, other days he held a knowledge of the strings holding everyone together and felt the weight of his decisions as he imagined girls did.

Girls were somewhat other, so generalizing about them was easier than generalizing about his own gender. What was it about boys that appealed to Ginny, then? He found it easier to be around boys and he appreciated the ease with which he could talk to them. To him, the Weasley twins encapsulated what was potentially appealing in boys: wit, confidence, a sense of humor, a desire to lift others up, rebelliousness . . . Even then, he could hardly apply those traits to every boy he knew. And they were perfectly normal things to appreciate in friends.

I'm still straight. Understanding doesn't mean knowing. Feeling.

Ginny had more masculine traits than other girls, but did that mean he was attracted to boys? He was driving himself up the wall, trying to pick apart what he wanted.

Eventually, he felt as though he knew Ginny very well. To start, she was very similar to Ron. They had the same cadence of speaking, the same Weasley features, the same expressions to emote. Some of her mannerisms she'd retained since childhood, so she moved like a frame in time, every shot of her past layered behind her as though she stood between two mirrors. Every iteration of her fascinated him: her toned arms as they gripped a broom, the small crinkle between her eyebrows when she tried not to laugh; the way she glared at people whenever they started to talk rudely about someone, the way she sat as though she was ready to spring into action.

He relished his ability to pinpoint everything he liked about her. After a particularly good day with her, he found it difficult to think of Draco in the same way. Everything he could have liked was sharp with an edge of annoyance. Every iteration of Draco annoyed Harry: the exceedingly careful way he gripped his wand, the shape of his mouth when he tried not to smile; the way he glared at people who interrupted him, the way he fidgeted as though a part of him were somewhere else. He sighed constantly, picked at the skin around his nails, always chose the same dessert no matter what day it was in the time loop, constantly itched his left arm, stared too much.

Some days, Harry felt it didn't matter if he was attracted to Draco as a person if he wasn't physically attracted to him, because what was the difference between that and friendship? There were plenty of people he wanted to be closer to platonically. Regardless, he could imagine that even if he wanted to get closer to Draco—to be friends, even—they would simply clash as they had for the last six years.

Other days he felt it didn't matter if he was attracted to Draco physically if he didn't want a relationship, because what did that amount to other than teenage hormones? There were plenty of people he could tell were attractive. Regardless, he could see being excited by the novelty of it—being with the same sex—only for it to fizzle out after his curiosity were satisfied. Nearly everything that attracted him to Draco in the first place he could find in Ginny, in a girl, in someone else, in anyone other than him.

Chapped lips.

Thin fingers.

Gray eyes.

He caught himself.

Freckles.

Red hair.

Hazel eyes.

Ginny was looking at him. He had just suggested practicing Quidditch.

"It's hard to practice with just two people."

"I figured it'd be more fun if it's just us."

Ginny looked at him in surprise. "Yeah. Why not?" In this light, with the setting sun casting a range of beautiful hues, the flames of her hair and her carefree smile impeded his ability to improvise some Quidditch exercises.

"Let's pass the Quaffle for a while," said Ginny, once they had retrieved their equipment. She cast some baubles of light to illuminate part of the path as the sun continued to dip below the horizon.

"I'm so glad Ron finally broke up with Lavender."

"Why?" Harry was too, but he didn't want to agree until she explained.

"She's annoying and all, but they were so wrong for each other."

"You're right, though to be fair, it's hard to know if you're with the right person when you're with them. And then something happens, and you can't see them the same way, and whatever was wrong becomes obvious."

"Is that how it was with Cho?"

She had brought up Cho a couple times before, and he knew it wasn't jealousy, more of a desire to understand why he had fancied her. Testing him to see if he understood himself. "Sort of. More like I realized that she ought to be with someone more compatible with her, more sensitive."

"Hm. Very noble of you."

"Alright, if you want me to relive the day it fell apart, she was crying—"

"What, so you're not the crying type?" "Not really. Despite what Rita Skeeter would want you to believe." He laughed off a vision of Vernon and Petunia's reaction when they had caught him crying—it was the last time he allowed them to see him that upset.

Eventually, they let the Quaffle drop, and Ginny flew closer to him. "Hey, have you tried this before?"

"Tried what?"

"Here, I have to hold on to your broom, and you hold on to mine."

They did so, and arms crossed, they kissed a hundred feet off the ground as wind whipped their hair.

The sun had sunk completely by the time they walked back to the castle, and Harry grew quiet.

"Knut for your thoughts?" asked Ginny eventually, smirking.

"You can't—it sounds wrong when you put it like that."

"What's the Muggle expression again?"

"Penny for your thoughts. Anyhow—I was thinking if I would still like you if you were a boy."

"Oh? Of course you would, I'd be a very cute boy."

"Yeah." He blushed and let go of her hand.

"Wow." Her eyebrows raised higher and higher. "You're serious about this."

"Not serious, no, I guess . . . curious? Forget I said anything."

"No, no, wait, do you really want to know?"

"Okay, sure. How do I . . . ?"

"Hook up with Ron."

Heat rose up to Harry's face as she laughed. "Very funny."

"I'm glad you agree."

After a few weeks of spending time with Ginny, Harry decided to tell her about the time loop. "There's something I want to tell you. Can we talk in private?"

"Er, sure, Harry. Is it serious?"

"Sort of, though I'm not sure how you'll react."

This only deepened Ginny's puzzlement. Whatever possibilities ran through her mind, it wasn't that Harry was trapped in a day.

"Do I seem different to you?"

She studied him carefully. "You've got a bit of stubble. Don't think I noticed that before."

He felt his face. "Yeah, I've had it for a while now."

"Are you going through changes?" She nudged him.

"Of a sort."

"Well?"

"I've been living out the same day over and over for nearly five months."

"Very funny."

"Honestly, I am!"

"On purpose?"

"No, Merlin, no."

"Can you prove it?"

"I could list off a number of things I would only know if I had spent too long in one day. Or I could take you to Dumbledore and have him explain it. If you trusted me, though, it's a lot simpler." Proving the time loop was easier earlier in the day, before the day's events had really diverged.

"So what've you been doing? Do you normally just run around naked, screaming at people?"

"Why would I—is that what you would do?"

"Maybe. I mean, you can do whatever you want."

"You and I have snogged a few times." He looked at her, unsurprised by the flush in her face. "This is the first I'm telling you about the loop, by the way, I never wanted you to think I was putting you on, like because we'd done it before, you'd want to again. I've never done anything you didn't want."

Ginny stopped walking. "Surely it's gotten boring. Frustrating, even. Don't you want things to change? Have you given up just so you can snog me?"

"I've run into dead ends, sure. You've made it all bearable."

She touched his face, found the part of his jawline he hadn't properly shaved. "I'm glad you're not putting the burden on yourself."

That night, she didn't kiss him.

The next day, he decided to just tell her outright how he felt. "Ginny, can we talk?"

"Sure, Harry."

As they walked to the courtyard, Ginny asked, "Is this about Quidditch?"

"Er, no, actually, I—the thing is, I like you." He paused next to a column to meet her gaze. "I fancy you, I mean."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you messing with me? I only broke up with Dean a few days ago—"

"No, I'm not." Harry was unsure of how best to convey his sincerity. "I've fancied you for a while now. I couldn't tell you at first, but since September—"

"That long? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know, there's Ron, you were in a relationship, I couldn't figure out how I felt . . ."

Ginny rested her hand on his shoulder. "Harry . . ." she began, tone similar to when Hermione said his name any time he completely missed the point. He couldn't figure out what her tone meant until she leaned in and kissed him.

Once she pulled away, she studied him. "Are you okay?"

"Fine. More than fine."

She ran a thumb over his face. "Since when have you had to shave?"

"The past year or so. You've never been this close."

"You're sure you don't seem older?"

He supposed he had begun looking a lot more like his father over the past several months. Maybe they wouldn't have passed as brothers, but certainly cousins.

What if the time loop trapped him for the rest of his life, and as soon as it ended, he died? How should he live, if death would take its time?

Lightning struck down from the swirling clouds as Harry dodged out of the way. Dudley and Draco controlled the sizzling bolts of fury from the ground below. When did Dudley get powers? And why were they all back in Little Whinging?

This is a dream, Harry realized, confidence rushing through him like he'd downed Felix Felicis. He had fallen asleep in the middle of his thoughts. Suddenly, he was riding a broom, swooping around the lightning that kept conveniently missing him.

Harry pointed his wand into the clouds and shouted, "Rain rain go away!" The clouds parted and he touched back down onto the ground without injury.

"Dudley, you're a Muggle."

"I'm a what?" he said.

Rather than respond, Harry flicked his wand and Dudley's trousers fell down, causing his cousin to burst into tears and run away, hands gripping his waistline to hike them up in his haste.

Draco rounded on Harry. "He's my friend, scarhead!" His form oscillated between a blond member of Dudley's gang and Draco, so that Harry didn't know which he was meant to be.

"What's your name?"

"What's my name."

Frustrated, Harry concentrated hard to force him into Draco, until the fogginess cleared up.

"You're Draco Malfoy."

Blinking away his confusion, Draco held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise."

Harry heard the whistle of a train in the distance. "Will you come with me?" he asked Draco, who nodded. He ran to Number Four Privet Drive, opened the front door, ran to the cupboard under the stairs, and inside—King's Cross. Harry searched for a familiar face among the people hurrying every which way, but their faces refused to focus. Suddenly, they were on the Hogwarts Express, which appeared more as a converted corridor of the castle than as a corridor of the train.

"Harry, sit with us!" said Luna, who may have just walked up to him but he couldn't remember. She led him into a room where a number of students sat on the floor. Harry glanced behind him—where was Draco? His own mind had forgotten, so Draco appeared again, as though nothing had happened.

Most of the Weasleys were present in the room, with the exception of Percy and Charlie. Pansy was there, as were Lucius Malfoy and Hermione—but there were too many to account for all at once, they shifted into his vision a few at a time.

"Let's talk to your father." Harry gestured for Draco to follow. "I want to quiz you, yeah?" He had Draco sit next to Lucius, then he looked between them, apprehensive. "How do you feel about Muggleborns?"

"They are lesser than Purebloods," they said in one voice. "We are superior."

"Do you use people?"

"Yes, we do."

Lucius grinned at him, his mouth too large to be real, and Draco's voice said, "I'd use you, Harry."

"No, thank you."

Lucius' mouth became normal again.

"Harry, you shouldn't talk to them," said the Weasley twins, bounding up to meet him. They spoke in unison, too. Merlin's sake, why does this dream have to be so creepy?

"I can take care of myself," replied Harry, looking back over to Lucius, who now sat alone. "Draco?"

He scanned the room, noticing vaguely that there were fewer people than before. He crossed the room to leave, but when he opened the door, rather than finding the corridor, he had entered a pub. It looked similar to Hog's Head, though everyone inside wore old-fashioned clothing. It was the early 1800s, Harry decided, although he was aware his rendition of the scene relied heavily on the period dramas his aunt liked to watch.

A woman approached him, carrying a tray of drinks. "What would you like, love?" She was taller than him, beautiful, her long blonde hair framing her pointed features. Apart from her unnatural black eyes, she looked as though she had been carved out of ice.

"Do you have butterbeer?"

She frowned. "I didn't take you for a child. Perhaps you are younger than you look . . ."

Harry hesitated, his perspective shifting outside of his body. More facial hair would help, maybe grow taller, you're not wearing glasses, are you? And then he was back in himself. "A pint, then." Time sped up, and they talked, she was laughing, he tried to imagine the effects of the alcohol—and they were in a room upstairs.

"There's something I have to tell you," she was saying, and suddenly Harry understood. This was Year at the Swansea Inn, which meant . . .

As he took off his dress, he stared at Harry with pale grey eyes.

Get out. This is not happening. He blinked and found himself somewhere else. A fortune-teller's room, as he had imagined it in On His Wings; it contained plush purple furniture adorned with gold trim, in addition to random objects plucked from Trelawney's classroom. And no sign of Draco.

"Are you my two o'clock?" a woman asked in a heavy Southern drawl, emerging through a beaded curtain. She had rings on every finger and her fingernails were painted like the insides of seashells.

"Yes. Er, Harry Potter."

"That's right. And you're aware you're dreaming?"

"Yes, I figured that out."

"Well have a seat, then. You're in charge, so whatever I tell you is directly from your unconscious. Consider me a medium of the mind. Shall I do a love reading for you, hun? Would that suit you?"

"Sure." Harry sat down across from her at the small table.

"Let me see your dominant hand."

Harry offered his right hand to her.

She held it in front of her, palm up. "Mhm . . . this is not so unusual for someone so important in the fates of thousands of people. We are all connected by invisible strings, but your life line is deep, crossed by many threads, so there can be no doubt you will be of great significance to the world . . ." She drew her wand and touched the tip to his palm. "But you care about love, don't you? Mirror mirror, who is the fairest?"

Two translucent figures burst up out of his hand and floated down to stand on the table. Ginny and Draco stared up at him, both no taller than his forearm.

"Your love line is forked like your life line, Harry."

"I'm sure they aren't in reality," he said, unsure who to make eye contact with. When he looked down at his hand, it was completely smooth, devoid of lines. "Tell me who to choose."

But she said nothing, and he knew he would have to make her say something if he wanted to move the dream along.

"Ginny," the woman said, and the real Draco appeared from behind the curtain, sneering.

Harry sat up in bed. He would have thought he was no longer sleeping, except he briefly saw himself from outside his body. Next to Ginny.

The palm reader was right, he thought, and he got out of bed to pee. Ah, so I probably have to go in real life. Once he'd finished, he heard a baby's cry in the other room. He knew where the room was somehow, and what to do with the crying baby. But suddenly it was the next day, and Ginny was holding their child in her arms. Harry paused to kiss her on the top of her head as he cleared away the dishes.

"She's coming home in three days, Harry."

"Who is?"

"Are you really insisting on keeping up this charade?"

"What do you mean, Ginny?"

"We've gone through so much together, and I've raised her child—you can at least call me Draco."

Harry flashed back to the previous night within his dream, the intimacies he had glossed over, horror gripping him not because of the revelation that he had taken Draco as though he were his wife, but because he didn't want Ginny to come home.

Harry woke up. He knew at once he was no longer dreaming, and tried to remember all that had occurred in his mind. He was in Little Whinging, then the Hogwarts Express, and the unicorn books . . .

I chose Ginny. The latter part of his dream came rushing back, and he groaned, pushing aside his covers so he could pace. No, you only wanted to choose Ginny. What does it matter? Wanting to choose Ginny is what counts.

Fancy Ginny. She fancies you back.

He doesn't.

He began his third week by kissing Ginny before dinner on a bench outside the Great Hall. They left the common room for dinner too early, and killed time by talking . . . and snogging. When they broke apart, smiling as they usually did after, Harry spotted, with a jolt of horror, Draco staring at them from further down the corridor.

"What . . . ?" Ginny turned. Her hands tightened on Harry's arms.

"So, Potter's snogging a Weasley." Draco shook his head, clucking his tongue. "Filth with filth—you deserve each other. I wish I could say I'm surprised, but Potter was always fond of charity cases."

"Piss off, Malfoy," said Ginny. "You're just bitter you're not getting any. It's making you whine like a baby Crup."

Malfoy's face went pink. "Watch your mouth, blood traitor." His hand floated vaguely toward his wand.

Harry thought of the memory he had seen in his fifth year. Ginny, face as red as her hair, looked suddenly like his mother, telling off James by the lake. Or was it more like she was telling off Snape?

Draco glanced around. There were students approaching for dinner. Not an opportune time for a fight.

"Why do you even care, Malfoy?" Harry pulled Draco's attention back. "My love life is the least of your concern at the moment."

He narrowed his eyes. "What are you suggesting, Potter?"

"Unless you're jealous, that is."

He laughed sharply. "Why the bloody hell would I be jealous of you? Are you that bigheaded that you think everyone has to be infatuated with Weasley, who is, by the way, too unappealing for words?"

Ginny made an indignant sound and was about to defend herself when Harry replied hotly, "You're jealous of her, then."

Draco no longer cared about the people around who had stopped to stare, and pulled out his wand, but Harry disarmed him before he could manage a curse.

"It's two against one, Draco. You must know how talented Ginny is with hexes, and it only makes me think I'm right when you rush into a fight without thinking."

"Harry, you can't be serious!" hissed Ginny, wand out but not raised. She told Draco, "Leave us be, yeah? And don't be a prick, or I'll have no choice but to hex you."

Harry tossed him his wand. They glared at each other until Draco swept around and left in a billow of black, green, and blond.

"You don't actually think he's jealous, do you?" asked Ginny, watching as Draco's furious frame rounded the corner.

"I wanted to get a rise out of him, is all." Harry's heart still raced from adrenaline.

"You succeeded."

At dinner, Draco sat close to Pansy as she fed him tiny forkfuls of food. He glanced every now and then at Harry and Ginny, looking pleased with himself.

Ginny nudged Harry under the table, so Ron and Hermione wouldn't see. "He's ridiculous! He's entirely convinced you care about his love life, if you can even call it that."

"I know. And it's so obvious he doesn't fancy Pansy."

"He's using her, don't you think? She seems not to mind, but she must know."

Harry waited for a crack in Draco's facade. There was something addictive about uncovering the truth, and Draco was shrouded in lies.

He tore his gaze away to look at Ginny. She made sense. She reflected the kind of person he wanted to be, she was right. When the time loop ended, if it ended, they would be the couple that everyone envied, and he would feel normal, fulfilled. They would be like how he imagined his parents—the boy with wild hair, loyal to his friends, excellent at Quidditch, with the red-headed girl who stood up for and appreciated the people others overlooked, whose magical talents earned her a spot in the Slug Club and marked her in the Death Eaters' eyes. The parallel wasn't perfect, but it dug its way deeper into his thoughts, until he wished Ginny wouldn't look at him so fondly, because she felt with a clarity he didn't share. Maybe this was supposed to start something that lasted their entire lives. Why did he so desperately want to recreate the love of his parents?

He left dinner in a cloud and that night lay in bed, mind furiously spinning.

I haven't been honest with myself. It's getting harder to ignore how I've gotten here. Harry could reinvent himself every day, decide the day's experiment, but he was ultimately alone, making it difficult to lie to himself. So had the past weeks with Ginny been about who he wanted, or about what he needed to cope?

Ginny was like his mother. This person, on the other hand, was someone he had never dreamt of ever caring for. You can hate someone, you can fancy someone, and you can hate that you fancy someone. Harry found himself feeling all three, he just didn't want to admit it to himself, not before he knew what it meant, not when he could take the easy route for once in his life.

He still fancied Ginny, to some extent. Those feelings wouldn't go away simply because he thought he understood why he had them.

Though, only one person had turned his world upside down, given him a reason to stay sane in the loop, jumpstarted his heart, driven him to the edge; one person who didn't make him comfortable, but sparked in him every emotion he could feel to the nth degree.

I fancy Draco Malfoy.

Well, shit.