but in time all the flowers turn to face the sun

by The Crownless Queen

An act of kindness can change a lot. :: In which Harry is a girl and wants to become a Healer, but neither of these really matter as much as the family she builds around herself.

So… I've wanted to write a fem!Harry healer!au for ages now, and when I started writing it just felt more natural to have her be trans? And since I really just wanted something soft and happy for once I decided that everyone in the magical world would just accept her because what is gender when you can take a potion and turn into someone else anyway?

Didn't realize it also worked as a big fuck you to JK's latest bs, but I think that's actually a point in this story's favor.

Harry's also got Indian origins, because you can pry this headcanon from my cold, dead hands.

I've tried to be as respectful of all those themes as I could. Hope you guys enjoy this story!

Word count: 23771

---

but in time all the flowers turn to face the sun

It starts like this:

The gloves Uncle Vernon shoved into Harry's hands are too big and rub her fingers so badly they make her skin burn, so she takes them off, but then she still has to prune Aunt Petunia's roses, and the thorns dig into her skin and tear it open.

She bleeds all over the lawn but even at eight years old, Harry knows better to complain or come back before she's done with her chores, so she works in silence and fails at trying not to cry.

Her hands stop bleeding after a while, but the wounds still hurt. She rinces them carefully with the garden hose before she waters the plants, and when later she has to cook dinner she has to be slower than usual in order to avoid reopening her scabs and dripping blood into the food.

Aunt Petunia scowls at her anyway, and she's sent to her cupboard without dinner.

But that's fine, because Harry has school the next day, and she always gets a lunch at school.

Of course, she has art the next day, her first period of the day, and her fingers are stiff and pained around her paintbrush. When she tries to draw the cat's curves the way her teacher wants, she hisses in pain and drops the brush.

It falls to the ground with a loud clatter and a splash of dark blue paint, but more concerning is the sharp pain around her knuckles, where her scabs got ripped open.

There's already blood on her painting too, and it's ruined now. Harry wants to cry.

She's sent to the infirmary, of course, and Harry's stomach roils with every stop. She doesn't want to be a bother.

"Of course you're not a bother," a kind voice says, and that's how Harry meets Miss James, the school's nurse.

"Come here," Miss James says, and she keeps smiling as she dabs antiseptic on Harry's wounds, keeping a soft but steady stream of conversation as she rinses off the blood and bandages Harry's wounds.

"How did you get there?" she asks, and she's so kind that Harry doesn't think to lie.

"I was pruning the roses," she says.

Miss James frowns. "Oh," she says, pausing in her treatment. Harry's heart twists in panic — she's said something wrong, she knows it. "Roses can be dangerous — are you up to date on all of your shots?"

This one, Harry knows the answer to. "Yes," she replies, even though she cannot remember the Dursleys ever taking her to the doctor.

But it's the right answer, because Miss James' face clears up and she smiles again. "That's really good," she says. "You must be a really brave little boy."

"I'm not a boy," Harry corrects, because even if the Dursleys think her freaky for it, this is something she knows they are wrong about.

Besides, the Dursleys think she is freaky for a lot of reasons.

"Oh," Miss James says again. "I see." And then, wonder of wonders, she keeps smiling. "Well, then you must be a brave little girl."

Speechless, and moved to tears, Harry can only nod.

To give her a moment, Miss James busies herself putting the cotton balls and antiseptic away, and she returns with a box of colorful bandaids.

She lets Harry pick the color, and Harry gets the pink ones, even if they really clash against her brown skin.

They're kind of pretty though, and Miss James tells her they'll help keep her from reopening them all the time.

They sadly can't really cover the crisscrossed wounds on her knuckles, because Miss James says they'll heal better if they're out in the open, but Harry already has bandaids on almost every single finger, and that's probably enough.

She almost floats through the rest of her day — even when Aunt Petunia makes her wash the dishes and the soap makes her wounds burn and her bandaids soggy — and when she falls asleep, the last thing she wonders is,

How do I become a nurse?

(Or maybe it started much earlier, when a boy whose three friends made their own mischief realized that he needed to make sure his friends kept all their fingers when they played with knives while trying to make new Potions, and taught himself to heal.

Like father, like daughter, they will say.)

.

Of course, when Harry is eleven, she gets a letter.

From a magical school named Hogwarts.

It's carried in by Hagrid, who is the tallest kind person Harry's ever met, and who only blinks once when Harry tells him she's a girl.

(Then again, the letter did mention a Miss. Harry J. Potter, so maybe it's not too much of a surprise.)

His only question is if she still wants to be called Harry, and Harry says yes.

Of course she does. Her name is the only thing she got from her parents.

But she waits until they're on the boat, speeding towards the shore, to ask him what her parents would have thought of her.

"They'd have been so proud of you," Hagrid replies instantly, like it was never a question, and when Harry starts to cry, just a little, he lets her pretend that the seawater got into her eyes.

Diagon Alley is a whirlwind of colors and sounds and people, and Harry wants to stay there forever; she wants to never have to return to the Dursleys.

She gets so many things, too — new clothes that actually fit her, a wand (to do magic with! because Harry is magical!), books and ingredients she doesn't want to look too closely at, and an actual birthday gift.

A snowy white owl she'll later call Hedwig, but right now all Harry knows is that this bird is hers, and that she loves it.

"Thank you," she breathes, and she must sound too earnest because Hagrid shifts uncomfortably.

"'T'was nothin'," he mumbles, his cheeks red behind his bushy beard.

Harry would push — it isn't nothing, it's everything — but Hagrid was kind enough to let her keep her dignity earlier, so she'll do the same for him.

(She learns that her parents were murdered too, that they were targeted by an evil wizard nobody dares to speak the name of.

Voldemort, she mouthes to herself, and shrugs. It doesn't sound that scary, really.)

It's such a busy day that Harry forgets to ask Hagrid about nursing, and how that would work in the magical world. She can't imagine they don't have any doctors, that wouldn't make sense, but she's seen miraculous things already, and she can't help but wonder about what more magic can do when it comes to healing.

She forgets to ask him about the train station, too — because her ticket mentions platform 9 ¾ and she's pretty sure that's not an actual thing — but well.

Harry's always been good at handling herself, and she's reasonably sure she can find someone to ask once she's there.

.

Ron won't stop staring at her forehead, or rather at the stark white scar that mars it.

It makes Harry want to scowl, or maybe hide, because she knows now that it's not a remnant of her parents' nonexistent car-crash but rather proof that someone murdered them but failed to kill her, and it's honestly rather uncomfortable.

She'd never really cared much about that scar before either — Aunt Petunia always made sure Harry's bangs mostly covered it, saying it was unseemly — but then again, she's never really cared about any of her scars.

Not the ones on her knees and elbows, from getting pushed to the ground too often by Dudley and his friends, and not the ones on her hands either, from the thorns on her aunt's roses. The skin is always lighter there, and Harry kind of hates how obvious they are, but also…

They're unique. They make her feel special. They were proof, too, that she could handle her relatives.

Her lightning scar doesn't make her feel special, and Harry shifts her bangs to cover it more.

"Do you remember it?" Ron blurts out when she does, and Harry freezes. "That night, I mean."

They both freeze, now, and Ron kind of looks like he'd wish the ground would open up beneath his feet and swallow him.

"No," Harry replies, even though she thinks she might have had nightmares about it. "I don't."

"Oh," Ron replies, and they stare at each other in awkward silence before Ron's stomach grumbles loudly and breaks through the silence.

They laugh and play Exploding Snap until the trolley lady comes in, and Harry buys two of everything to share with her new friend.

She even eats his corned beef sandwiches.

Ron's right — they're a little dry, but they're also delicious, so Harry deems it a fair trade-off.

They pull into Hogsmeade station after nightfall, and after a day in a train Harry half-expects to be tired, but she's too busy gaping at everything to even consider being tired.

She's so busy that she doesn't notice Ron flagging one of his brothers — the older, pompous one — and whisper something to him, to which his brother nods solemnly back, giving Ron a proud smile that makes him flush red.

Hagrid leads them to little boats that take them to their new school, proving once again that he is the best, and then he hands them off to a stern-looking lady who tells them they're about to be Sorted into their Houses.

Into their new homes.

Harry's heart beats so fast it feels like it's trying to race its way out of her chest, and she's so focused on not letting it that she almost misses her cue to start walking into the Great Hall.

Professor McGonagall goes to stand next to a hat, and then the hat starts to sing.

Harry gets Sorted into Gryffindor (even though the Hat tries to push for Slytherin, but Slytherin has Malfoy and he was a git to Ron), and she cheers so loudly when Ron joins her later that she thinks she might have broken her voice.

She's so busy trying to get a taste of everything — there is so much food to try! — and listen to everyone that she doesn't see the time go.

She doesn't bother thinking about the fact that they're sleeping in dorms before the desserts vanish back to wherever they came from, but she doesn't even have time to panic as their prefects come to direct them, because Professor McGonagall joins them and beckons Harry closer.

She looks softer than earlier. Kinder. She reminds Harry a little of Miss James, actually, if Miss James was thirty years older.

They have the same gentle smile when they look at Harry, though, and that makes Harry trust her.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, and Harry replies, "Good."

Professor McGonagall nods, satisfied. "Well, don't hesitate to come to me if you need anything."

And then she asks if Harry wants to room with the other girls.

Harry blinks, her throat a little tight. "I can?"

The professor's eyes soften. "Of course you can. The house-elves have already brought your things to the girls' dormitories, but I wanted to make sure that was okay with you."

Harry nods eagerly. "That's fine. Better than… I mean, thank you."

Professor McGonagall's lips twitch into an amused smile. "You're very welcome. Now hurry along if you want to catch up to your yearmates."

They're slowly trickling out of the Great Hall, a single-line file following a red and gold-wearing prefect, but Ron's waited for her, and he waves her over.

.

Harry's dormmates are a little weird. They're all nice, of course, but Lavender and Parvati spend their first night lamenting over the state of Harry's hair — a sad mess, she already knows — while Hermione tries to insist they should all go to bed early to have energy tomorrow.

When nobody really listens to her, she huffs loudly and yanks her curtains close, saying, "You'll regret this tomorrow when you can't get out of bed. Don't say I didn't warn you."

She's right, of course, but Harry will never admit it.

She has Ron, anyway. He's her best friend already, and while she'd like being friends with more girls — the ones at her old primary school had never really liked her, but then again Dudley had probably scared them off the same way he'd scared everyone else off — she's happy enough with him.

And then, of course, she gets Hermione as a friend anyway, because she and Ron rescue her from a troll and she lies for them.

That night, Harry sneaks into her bed after Parvati and Lavender close their curtains, and she sits cross-legged across from a bleary-eyed Hermione, the tip of her wand shining a dim white light.

"Why'd you lie?" she asks in a whisper.

"I…" Hermione yawns as she sits up, and then looks away sheepishly. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Harry replies, smiling and waving it away. "But really, why? You could have told the truth — Ron was…" She clears her throat, because Ron is her best friend but he's not perfect, and Harry doesn't want to be the type of person who ignores her loved ones' faults.

"He wasn't very nice to you," she finishes, looking down.

She feels Hermione shrug. "He still saved me, though. I think that probably makes up for it," she adds, and when Harry looks up, Hermione's lips are curled into a teasing smirk.

"It'd have been rather unfair of me to get the two of you in trouble after that," Hermione continues.

She still sounds all prim and proper, but Harry's just witnessed her shamelessly lying to her favorite teacher, so she knows there's more to her new friend than that.

There'll be time, she knows, to discover how deep Hermione's newly discovered rebellious streak runs, so Harry thanks her with a smile, and asks if Hermione's okay.

You could have been killed! the teachers had said, but apart from some troll's boogers on her wand, Harry had really escaped unscathed. Ron had stayed at a distance too, but Hermione had been locked in with the troll, and she'd been shaking when they'd saved.

She's not now, but she had been.

Hermione looks surprised at the question. "Oh, yes, I'm fine. Not even a scratch," she replies with a shaking laugh.

Harry exhales in relief. "That's good."

"Yeah," Hermione says, nodding.

They sit, staring at each other awkwardly, for a while before Hermione clears her throat. "We should, erm, go to bed?" Her voice rises at the end, and Harry's cheeks heat up.

"Ah, yes," she replies, and she shuffles off her friend's bed quickly, bidding her goodnight and shuffling back to her own bed.

.

It's hard to believe Harry was ever anxious about flying, or that she ever didn't know about Quidditch.

Of course, Harry isn't as much into the game as she is into flying, period, but the team is a lot of fun, even if Oliver is definitely insane.

Their first match goes off the rails insanely quickly — Harry doesn't know why she expected otherwise, not when the second feast they had at Hogwarts got interrupted by a troll attack and the first one ended with Dumbledore warning them off a corridor under pain of death — but they still win, so that's good.

Hermione sets a teacher on fire for her, and Harry really wants to congratulate her for how awesome that is (it was Snape too, who hates Harry for reasons Harry can't really discern, and that really only makes it better), except that she swallowed the Snitch and Professor McGonagall insist she go to the Hospital Wing to check for damage.

She has to argue against Oliver for it, who just wants to show off his star Seeker, but luckily one long, hard glare has him folding like wet paper and he excuses himself to prepare the party Harry will return to to "celebrate their victory".

"I feel fine, though," Harry protests, even though her throat feels a little sore.

And then Professor McGonagall's words really register, and she says, "Wait, you said Hospital Wing?"

There's a Hospital Wing? she doesn't add, but it must still show on her face because the professor huffs out a laugh.

"Yes, Miss Potter." She puts a hand in between Harry's shoulder blades and gently pushes her away from the field. "And it is where we will be going. Now."

Her tone leaves no room for arguing, but Harry's kind of lost her will to argue anyway.

Between her classes and Quidditch and her friends, she hasn't really had the time to look up how wizards deal with medicine and healing, and it's somehow never really occurred to her to ask about Hogwarts' infirmary or its equivalent.

.

Madam Pomfrey, the Matron in the Hospital Wing, has a much harsher approach to dealing with injuries than Miss James had. Her hands as she fusses over Harry's throat, gripping her jaw and bending her head slowly, are however just as soft.

She fusses a lot more, though, but Harry quickly gets the impression that it's more an issue with Madam Pomfrey herself than with anything Harry did.

She grumbles six times about Quidditch being a dangerous sport that shouldn't be played by children, and by the third Harry has to hide her smiles.

Professor McGonagall catches her, of course, but she smiles back at Harry and looks at Madam Pomfrey very fondly as the Matron waves her wand over Harry, frowns at whatever results she gets, and shoves a potion vial into Harry's hands.

"Err… Thanks?" Harry replies, her fingers curling around the cool vial.

Madam Pomfrey rolls her eyes and tuts. "Well, drink it now, girl," she says. "It'll help with your throat."

"Oh," Harry replies, and she uncorks the vial slowly, sniffing at its content dubiously.

It doesn't really smell like anything, but it doesn't look great, so she grimaces as she swallows it. It slithers down her throat like wet, cold mud — but slimier — and the less Harry thinks about the taste, the better, but it does help.

"Thanks," she says, surprised, as she hands back Madam Pomfrey the vial.

Professor McGonagall pats her on the shoulder, and Harry gets up.

It's clear she's meant to leave, but… Miss James had let Harry help, sometimes, and spending time in her old school's infirmary had been much more interesting than running away from her cousin during recess.

She lingers.

"Madam Pomfrey," she starts, and then pauses, licking her lips. "I was wondering… Could you teach me how to do that?"

Madam Pomfrey blinks, the empty vial still suspended between her fingers. "The potion?" she asks with a confused frown. She looks at Professor McGonagall for an instant and then back at Harry. "I think you'll learn how to make it in your Potions class later this year, but Severus would know better than me."

Severus, Harry deduces with a grimace, must be Snape. It suits him.

"No," she hastens to reply out loud. "Well, yes," because she does want to learn how to make whatever Madam Pomfrey just gave her, "but I meant that I'd like you to teach me. I want to… help," she finishes lamely.

Because Miss James had been the first (and before Hagrid, the only) person to help her, really help her, and Harry wants to be the kind of person who does that.

Madam Pomfrey leans back in surprise. "I see," she says, and she exchanges another look Harry can't quite understand with Professor McGonagall, who huffs out a laugh. "I should have known."

Harry frowns, rocking back on her heels. It's not the first time she's heard this sentence, but it's not usually this positive — Snape usually says it to indicate she's in trouble, and so did her relatives.

"What do you mean?" Harry asks, and she's not ready for the answer she receives.

She doesn't think she could ever have been ready.

Madam Pomfrey's eyes soften. "I mean that your father, too, was on his way to become a phenomenal Healer, and if you have this type of motivation now, I'm sure you'll do him proud."

Harry doesn't cry at that. She just gets something stuck in her eyes.

.

Shadowing Madam Pomfrey becomes a weekly thing. Every Sunday morning, after Quidditch practice when she has it, Harry wanders into the Hospital Wing and watches Madam Pomfrey work.

A lot of it is boring work — shelving potions, making the beds, checking the stores… — but some of it is not. Sometimes, they get a student who tried a spell above their level, or mixed a Potion the wrong way (Ron's brothers come by often, and Harry is not sure whether she should be more fascinated or disturbed by some of their results), and Harry gets to watch Madam Pomfrey do real healing.

It makes Harry's fingers itch for her wand every time — she wants to learn how to do that.

She tells her friends — of course she does. Ron thinks her mad for getting up so early for what is essentially studying, but he's still happy for her, and he knows a bit about Healers and St Mungo's, the magical hospital, that he's more than happy to tell her all about.

Hermione's just proud of Harry for taking her studies seriously — which is not exactly the case, but Healing is different. She tags along once in a while, but she confesses to Harry that she's more interested in learning about everything right now, and she doesn't want to specialize in one particular field quite yet.

She says it like she's worried about Harry's reaction, and yes, Harry doesn't get it — at all — but if it works for Hermione, then that's really all that matters.

Hermione hugs her so tight when Harry tells her this that Harry would swear she felt her ribs crack, and she gets a mouthful of her friend's bushy hair she tries to breathe around.

"Sorry," Hermione says when she pulls back, her cheeks darkened in embarrassment.

"No worries," Harry replies, laughing it off easily. She knows messy hair well, after all.

.

Hermione goes home for Christmas, and so do Lavender and Parvati. Harry has the girls' dorm to herself for two weeks, and it is so painfully lonely that she 'accidentally' ends up sleeping in front of the fireplace in the common room more than once.

Luckily, Ron stays over too — his parents are visiting his brother Charlie who lives in Romania with dragons (Ron's family clearly wins at life) — and they stay up together most evenings. Ron tries to teach her chess but declares her hopeless pretty quickly in — but in a fun, friendly way, and he never actually stops playing against her, even if the chess pieces protest that decision a lot.

The lack of lessons and Quidditch practices does finally give them the time to research Nicholas Flamel and whatever Fluffy, the three-headed-dog they almost got eaten by after Malfoy dared them to a bogus midnight duel, is guarding.

And Harry, armed with a brand new old invisibility cloak that belonged to her father, goes looking for clues.

She doesn't find anything regarding Flamel, except maybe that some of the books in the restricted section really hate getting checked out without a permission slip, but she finds something better than that.

She finds her parents.

.

They're not really her parents, of course, because what she finds is a mirror that lets her see them, but it's more than she's ever had before.

She looks like her father, Harry realizes as she stares at a smiling James Potter, who stands beside her reflection and has a hand on her shoulder.

(When she spins around, heart racing in her chest, there is nobody there.

Of course there isn't.)

He looks like a proud father, and Harry drinks in every feature they share, from the messy dark hair to the dark skin to the slight dimple when they smile.

She's got her mother's eyes though, and Lily's bright emerald green eyes shine proudly as Harry cries and raises her trembling hand to her reflection.

She desperately wants, for one impossibly long moment, to step into that mirror and never leave it.

She wants to share this with Ron too — Ron, who mentioned her to his mother in his letters and whose mother sent her a knitted family sweater — because he deserves to meet her family too, and for the first time, Harry has family to show off.

Of course, it doesn't work out that way — Ron doesn't see her family, he sees himself getting everything he ever wanted, and oh, Harry gets it now.

She still comes back every night — at least, until Dumbledore catches her and warns her the mirror will be moved.

.

And then, the Stone.

And then, Quirrell, and Voldemort, and Harry burns her teacher's skin off with her bare fingers while her blood boils inside her veins while he tries to strangle her, and

the world

goes

dark.

She wakes up in the Hospital Wing, its high white vaulted ceilings familiar to her after a year.

Dumbledore is there, and he tells her that her mother's legacy is so much more than just her eyes. It's love, and the ability to repel the monster who killed her parents — a monster who isn't dead yet, and will return, but a monster Harry's vanquished twice now.

(He tells her other things, too. About her friends, who were far braver than Harry herself, and about the Flamel, who have agreed to destroy the Stone and with it, the easy promise of immortality.)

He's shooed off rather quickly by Madam Pomfrey who scolds him for tiring her, and Harry doesn't bother hiding her grin, even if it makes Madam Pomfrey glare at her more.

"When I said you could come around here, Miss Potter, I didn't mean for you to take up residence in one of our beds," Madam Pomfrey grouses.

"Sorry." Harry curls in on herself and looks away, but Madam Pomfrey sighs heavily and she looks back.

"You have to take better care of yourself," Madam Pomfrey states, her face serious. Her lips quirk up into a small, secretive smile as she adds, "Can't take care of your patients if you're one of them yourself, can you?"

"Yes," Harry replies, her cheeks warm. She feels thoroughly scolded, but…

"This was more important," she says, her fists clenched around her sheets. She looks straight into Madam Pomfrey's eyes. "Voldemort was going to get the Stone, and nobody else was going to stop him — we had to do something."

"I know," Madam Pomfrey replies. She looks even more tired now, and Harry's heart twists. "But you have to make sure you come back too, alright?"

"Alright," Harry replies. It's not quite a lie, she doesn't think, but well…

Some things really are more important.

.

Harry's summer only really starts when familiar faces appear on the other side of her window in the middle of the night.

Ron and his twin brothers are in a flying car and they tear off the bars Uncle Vernon installed on her window after the Dobby Incident, and when Harry kicks herself free from her uncle's grip, she truly feels like she's leaving a fairytale, one of those where the princess gets to escape her evil stepmother and be finally happy.

Of course, the Dursleys aren't her stepparents, and she's not really a princess, but the feeling remains.

"How did you know to come and get me?" Harry exclaims, ecstatic and breathless as she stumbles inside the car that zooms away from the Dursleys, and Ron laughs back even as he stares at her in worry.

"You weren't answering our letters," he tells her. "We thought —"

"Ronniekins thought," the twin that might be Fred interjects, grinning teasingly at a rapidly blushing Ron.

"Hermione and I thought," Ron continues as though he hasn't heard the interruption, "that your Muggles might have done something to you, and we wanted to check on you. Dad's been tinkering with this car, see," he gestures as the night sky, "and the twins know how to drive it, so they tagged along."

"Like hell we were letting our little Ronniekins take the car out on a joyride without us," the twin who is probably George explains, cooing mockingly at his brother and grinning at his twin.

"It's not a joyride," Ron mumbles, except that, well, it kind of is.

Harry isn't quite sure what the plan is once they get to Ron's house — do his parents even know she's coming? — but it doesn't really matter, because they get caught as soon as they arrive.

Mrs. Weasley, Harry decides five minutes upon meeting her, is terrifying.

She yells at her sons for worrying her and stealing their father's car, but then she turns around and tugs Harry into a tight hug and shepherds her towards their breakfast table, where she proceeds to pile enough food on Harry's plate that Harry starts to worry if it'll all fit.

(It does, but just barely.)

"It's so nice to meet you, dear," she says, fretting over Harry with a smile, offering more eggs and pumpkin juice.

Ron and the twins snicker at this treatment, and when Percy wanders in, bleary-eyed and hair still mussed from sleep, he barely blinks at the sight of her.

Ginny, the sister Harry's only met once, squeaks loudly upon seeing Harry and puts her elbow right in the butter plate, and she almost falls off her chair when Harry offers to help her.

Harry stares back at her in confused horror and edges her chair closer to Ron, who rolls her eyes at his sister and tells Harry not to worry, "Ginny's been like this ever since we told her you'd be coming."

Harry quietly resolves to stay away from the other girl — it seems kinder, somehow, if this is how Ginny reacts from sitting next to her — and digs back into her food, which is almost as delicious as the feasts at Hogwarts.

Once she's done, Harry tries to volunteer to help out but Mrs. Weasley won't have it. She doesn't really need the help either, since a few waves of her wand have the dishes piling up and floating to the sink by themselves.

Harry gapes and her stomach twists a little painfully — this would be so helpful at the Dursleys, if she could use magic to do all the chores her relatives shove onto her.

Of course, the twins try to sneak off while Harry gapes, but Mrs. Weasley calls them back to order with a sharp, angry voice, and order them (and Ron) to degnome the garden.

"Not you, Harry dear," she says, turning to Harry with a soft, worried smile that makes Harry's heart ache and her eyes sting for some reason. "You must be tired after the night you've had, you should go rest. We can put a bed for you in Ginny's room, you'll be just fine there."

Ginny squeaks once again, loudly, but Mrs. Weasley ignores it to start fretting over what they'll need — a mattress, which they can get from Bill's room, and fresh sheets (lucky she's just washed some yesterday).

"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley," Harry replies, "but I'm really not tired now, and erm, I've actually never degnomed a garden before?"

Mrs. Weasley praises her for being so willing to work, tossing pointed looks to her children who only roll their eyes back, and off they go to degnome the garden.

It's a lot weirder than Harry had expected, but the twins turn it into a competition, and that also makes it pretty fun.

She's not really sure about tossing gnomes around in the air, of course, but they always get back up, loopy but spitting back naughtier curses than Harry's ever heard, even in the Quidditch Pitch.

That night, she's so exhausted she falls asleep the instant her head hits her pillow, and she doesn't even have the time to mind the awkwardness that is Ginny lying awake and perfectly still a few feet away.

She does notice it the next night, though, and the next — and after the fourth, she finally relents and asks Mrs. Weasley if she could sleep over in Ron's room instead.

Mrs. Weasley eyes her daughter first, her eyes narrowed, before she turns to her son.

"No funny business," she warns, and both Harry and Ron flush red.

"Of course not!" Ron blurts out, his voice breaking over the words. "I mean, Harry's great but she's my best friend, and that'd be weird. Also, we're twelve, Mum, what the heck?"

"Language," Mrs. Weasley retorts. "And you never know. This way at least you're warned."

Later that night, once Harry's settled in her bed, Ron whispers, "You awake?"

"Yeah," Harry replies, biting back a yawn.

"Sorry about earlier today," he says. "Mum can be a bit… weird, sometimes."

"'s fine," Harry says.

"You know you're like, my sister, right? It's not that I don't…" He waves a hand through the air. "But really, you're like my sister. Except less annoying than Ginny, of course."

Harry grins into her pillow, letting it muffle her laughter.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Ron grumbles, but she can hear the grin in his voice too. "See if I ever make myself vulnerable again."

"Sorry," Harry replies, even though she's not really sorry. "And, erm, thanks. You're kinda like what I think having a brother would be like."

It kind of ruins the mood, because Ron has six siblings and Harry doesn't even have parents, but Harry thinks he gets what she meant anyway.

.

Harry should probably have known this year at Hogwarts wouldn't be any easier than the last.

At least this year's Defense teacher doesn't seem possessed, just stupid. Criminally so, because he vanishes Harry's bones and makes her answer all of his fanmail, and she's still not sure which of the two was worse.

Luckily, Harry has her friends. They stick with her even though the whole school seems to believe her the Heir of Slytherin after she accidentally speaks to a snake — which is stupid, because Salazar Slytherin lived a thousand years ago, surely he's got more than one descendant by now.

She's got Quidditch, too, but more importantly, she's got Madam Pomfrey and her weekly sessions to help her in the Hospital Wing.

It's harder this year, though, because the beds slowly fill with the heir's petrified victims, and all they can really do is wait for the Mandrakes to mature and be ready.

But once, shortly after the Snake Incident, Harry goes to Madam Pomfrey's office and asks her, "Do you really think I should be here?"

Madam Pomfrey frowns and lays down the papers she'd been looking at, piercing Harry with a knowing look. "What do you mean?"

"You've heard the rumors," Harry replies, swallowing past her tight throat. She would hate to lose this (it means so much to her), but not telling Madam Pomfrey feels too much like lying. "About me being the Heir. Are you sure… Are you sure it's safe to let me work in here?"

Madam Pomfrey sighs. "Are these your concerns or someone else's?"

Harry stays silent, biting her lip and lowering her eyes, but she doesn't need to answer — they both know already.

"Did you know," Madam Pomfrey asks, her voice taking on the teacher-y quality she gets when demonstrating a particularly tricky spell to Harry, "that the first-ever recorded Parseltongue speaker in the western world was Asklepios?"

Harry blinks. "Who was he?"

"Muggles saw him as a god of medicine," Madam Pomfrey replies, "but wizarding communities generally agree he was a wizard who came from the east, where such gifts were much more common."

And there she stares at Harry, whose eyes fall to her hands. Dark hands.

Her father's family came from India. She knows that much, even if she only knows it because the Dursleys used it to try and demean her.

"Oh," she says, her voice small.

Madam Pomfrey's hand falls on her shoulder, warm and steadying. "Britain has had some bad experiences with Parselmouths," she explains, "but that doesn't mean that every Parseltmouth was bad."

Her throat tight, Harry nods. "So I can still help around here, then?"

Madam Pomfrey smiles. "Of course. You're my best assistant yet."

.

They do find the real Heir, in the end. It's Voldemort, using a diary from his school days to possess Ginny and sick a Basilisk on the students he deems unfit to live.

For a moment, staring at Ginny's pale and unmoving body while Tom Riddle gloats above her, Harry's certain Ginny's already dead, and in that moment, she's never hated anyone more in her entire life.

But Ginny isn't dead, and Tom isn't alive, and armed with a sword, a Hat and Dumbledore's phoenix, Harry slays the monster and saves the girl.

She gets bit, too, but Fawkes heals her, and Harry knows she will wonder at his tears for a long time.

She doesn't really need to go to the Hospital Wing after that, but Ginny does. They go together, along with Ginny's parents — well, once Harry's realized Lucius Malfoy was behind all of this and used him to free Dobby, the house-elf who tried to warn her — and Madam Pomfrey lets her administer the Calming Draught that changes Ginny's deep sobs into softer weeping.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley won't stop thanking her — for saving Ginny and helping her now — and Harry's really grateful when Madam Pomfrey lets her duck out of sight and into her office until they all leave.

"They're taking her home?" Harry asks.

Madam Pomfrey nods, her lips pursed thin. "The school year is almost over, and the exams have been suspended anyway. She hasn't been physically harmed, and she'll recover better at home with her family."

Harry nods back. "That's good." She twists her fingers in the hem of her robes. "What about the petrified students?" she asks.

What about Hermione? she doesn't say, because even if Hermione eventually helped them solve this entire mystery, she's also been stuck here for a long time, and her empty bed in the girls' dorm feels like an open wound that refuses to heal every time Harry looks at it.

"They'll be fine," Madam Pomfrey replies softly, even though Harry already knows this. "The Mandrakes are nearly ready, and then Severus will brew the restorative, and they'll be back on their feet in no time."

.

She is right. Harry is there when they administer the restorative draughts, even if Snape's scornful gaze makes her want to crawl out of her skin, and as soon as Hermione wakes up, she pulls her friend into a hug.

It's the first one she's ever initiated, she belatedly realizes as Hermione freezes in her hold, and she's about to pull back and apologize when Hermione finally returns the hug.

Harry has to interrupt Hermione's immediate rambling about the monster being a Basilisk and using a mirror to avoid its gaze, to tell her they know, they've figured it out.

"We found the page in your hand," she says, and Hermione starts sobbing into her chest.

Harry rocks back, surprised, but she starts patting Hermione on the back softly until her friends' sobs turn into sniffles that turn into chuckles.

"You're really bad at this, you know," Hermione mumbles, blowing her nose in a tissue Harry gave her.

Harry's cheeks burn. "I know," she mumbles back. "Do you want me to…" She starts leaning away, but Hermione squeezes her tighter.

"Don't you dare," she says in a hiss, blowing her nose again. "I was so worried about you and Ron, I'm so glad you're safe."

"I'm so glad you're safe," Harry retorts. "Ron will be glad to see you too."

Hermione sniffles one last time and wipes her eyes. "Thanks."

"Duh," Harry replies, and she shoves her gently just to her Hermione laugh again.

Of course, that laughter doesn't last — not once Hermione learns they've canceled the exams — but it's nice while it does.

.

This year, Madam Pomfrey actually gives Harry what amounts to summer homework. It's a lot of memorizing, which she isn't the best at, but it still beats everything else at the Dursleys'. Quizzing herself on parts of the human body makes the chores go faster, and if she sometimes slips and mentions something out loud, her relatives' creeped-out looks are more than reward enough for the headaches.

And then her birthday comes, and with it the permission slip for Hogsmeade she's got to get signed.

Her stomach twist — she already knows it'll never happen.

Still, she tries — doubly so once she hears Aunt Marge is coming for a visit. She tricks her uncle into agreeing to sign if Marge leaves happy, and she tries to convince herself it'll all be worth it once she can go out into the village she's heard so much about from students she's helped in the Hospital Wing with her friends.

And then, of course, Aunt Marge insults her mother and Harry blows her up like a balloon, sending her up and away into the night sky.

She's trembling with fear and fury as she shoves everything back into her trunk and hauls that out of the house, her eyes stinging with tears of bitter fury.

She's not really sure what she's planning on doing — she didn't exactly have any thought further than leave — since she has no idea where Hermione lives or if she's even there, and Ron and the Weasleys are still in Egypt visiting Bill, but Harry had her broom in her bag, and her Invisibility Cloak.

She can probably figure out a way to London using those, even if her last invisibly flying adventures didn't exactly end well.

Luckily, she doesn't have to — a huge black dog scares her into tripping over her trunk, and the next thing Harry knows, she's nearly been run over by the Knight Bus.

It's the weirdest method of transportation Harry's ever seen wizards use yet, and that's saying something since so far she's used Floo powder, brooms, and a flying invisible car. She's almost scared to know what else there is.

The Minister of Magic greeting her when she leaves the bus with shaky legs doesn't help make it feel more normal either, but at least she's not in trouble for blowing up her aunt Marge.

Spending the rest of the summer in Diagon Alley, sleeping at the Leaky Cauldron, turns out to be a close second-best to staying over with the Weasleys', and it only gets better when Ron and Hermione joins them.

Even if it means Harry learns that Sirius Black, the crazed murdered both Muggle and wizarding polices are looking for, escaped from Azkaban to kill her in Voldemort's name.

So much for a normal year, really.

.

Harry faints on the train to Hogwarts. Creatures in black tattered robes — floating specters spreading frost and misery everywhere they go — barge into their compartment, stopping the train in its tracks, and Harry

hears

a

voice.

Harry!

She wakes up to her friends' concerned faces, and their compartment's last occupant offers her a square of chocolate with a kind smile, before leaving to have a word with the train's conductor.

"What happened?" Harry asks her friends once he's left, feeling drained and confused. The chocolate helps — it chases away the cold the Dementors left behind — but it doesn't erase the voice ringing in her ears, screaming her name.

Ron, his skin so pale it looks almost green, tells her. "They were looking for Sirius Black, we think," he says, tossing a look toward Hermione, who takes over.

"But Professor Lupin," because he has got to be a new teacher, "warned them off and when they refused to leave, he cast something and they had to flee."

"It was awesome," Ron adds, and Harry lets out a short huff of laughter that makes her friends beam at her.

Lupin doesn't come back before the train pulls into Hogsmeade station, and Harry kinda regrets it. She'd have liked to thank him, now that most of the Dementors' fog has been cleared from her mind.

Madam Pomfrey whisks her away and to the Hospital Wing almost as soon as she steps foot inside the castle, and she shoves more chocolate into Harry's hands.

"Finally, a Defense teacher who knows their remedies," she says when Harry tells her she's already had some, and they get so distracted by discussing other natural remedies to magical ailments that they miss the beginning of the feast.

Of course, Hermione's missed some of that too, even if she refuses to tell them what McGonagall wanted with her beyond 'a conflict in my schedule this year'.

In a show of concern worthy of his mother, Ron shoves more food Harry's way — "I told Mum I'd help fatten you up, she still thinks you're too thin" — while Harry tries to spy on the teachers' table.

Snape, for once, isn't glaring daggers at Harry, but seems to have found a new focus for his ire in the person of Lupin.

Lupin, oddly enough, seems to be staring at Harry — intermittently, of course, but often enough that Harry notices. Then again, she's very good at knowing when adults are paying her any sort of attention.

He looks away when their eyes cross, and Harry feels oddly disappointed. But not too much, because she's missed Hogwarts' food, and there is plenty in front of her right now.

Later, in their dorms, and while Parvati and Lavender are off getting changed, she'll ask Hermione what she thinks Lupin's deal is.

Ron, Harry thinks, would probably make a joke about Lupin being there to kill her, which, judging from their luck in Defense teachers so far, probably isn't as unlikely as they'd all like.

"I don't know," Hermione replies, her brow furrowed in thought. "He seems like a better teacher than Quirrell and Lockhart so far, though, so I'm hoping we'll finally get some good Defense education."

Harry snorts, but yeah, she thinks fondly, of course Hermione's concerned by the quality of their education.

.

Professor Lupin, as it turns out, is leagues above the other teachers they've had in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Granted, Harry's only known two (one possessed and the other a fraud), but Ron's siblings tell them he's the best they've had too.

The twins also start running an underground betting ring on why Lupin will leave at the end of the year. Egged on by Ron, Harry's placed a Sickle on 'alive and well', because Quirrell died and Lockhart lost his mind, and she wants to put this energy out there.

The twins pout back — they prefer the more outlandish options, like Ron's bet of 'carried off into the Forbidden Forest by centaurs' which had earned him a rare nod of approval — and Hermione threatens to report them.

Business as usual, really, in Gryffindor Tower.

But Lupin's quickly turning out to be Harry's favorite professor (and everyone else's, really). He's funny and knowledgeable, and yes, he does dress like he got his clothes from the unsold leftover of a secondhand shop, but he also never demeans anyone.

He's hiding something, but it seems to have more to do with his mysterious monthly absences than any deadly plot on Harry's life. She tries asking Madam Pomfrey, of course, but the woman purses her lips and tells her she's taking care of it.

And Harry trusts her, so she lets it go.

.

Sirius Black breaks into the school on Halloween night. He slashes the Fat Lady portrait to ribbons, sending her hiding out into the mass of portraits around the castle. Everyone has to sleep in the Great Hall while the teachers look around the castle.

Nobody sees hide nor hair of him, nor can they figure out how he might have gotten in and past the Dementors, but Harry does learn one thing.

Professor Lupin and Black used to know each other.

But Dumbledore trusts him, and Snape's never been a reliable judge of character in Harry's books (yes, maybe she misjudged him during the Quirrell fiasco, but he's still the worst) anyway. So what if they used to know each other?

From what Harry's seen, the wizarding world isn't that big, lots of people probably knew Sirius Black, especially if he was as charismatic as the rumors say he was.

(She wonders, once, if that means Professor Lupin knew her parents too. Snape did, after all, even if he hates her father now for saving his life once.

But no, he probably would have said if he did. Madam Pomfrey had, and sometimes she'd regal Harry about stories of the times her father came into the Hospital Wing if they were having a particularly slow day.

If Professor Lupin knew her parents, he'd have said something.)

.

After the Dementors attack the Quidditch field, causing Harry to fall off her broom and Gryffindor to lose the match, he even agrees to teach her the spell he used to repel the Dementors back on the train.

The hope of being able to defend herself from them one day helps her sleep better at night, even if that woman's voice, screaming her name, still haunts her dreams more often than not.

(It doesn't really help soothe the aching wound of losing her broom to the Whomping Willow, but that loss is sharper for being more defined.

At least, though, her broken broom doesn't haunt her nightmares. Small victories, she guesses.)

"It won't be right now, though," Lupin tells her apologetically, explaining that between his schedule and hers he won't have time before the end of the year.

He looks tired, but kind too, and more than anyone she's met at Hogwarts so far, he reminds Harry of Miss James — she hasn't seen the woman in years now, but she still misses her now.

Professor Lupin, somehow, kind of feels like that. Like someone kind she used to know but hasn't seen in a while — and he clearly feels it too. It's in the way he moves, sometimes, like he thinks they're closer than they actually are. It's odd, and a little sad, but not scary or anything like that, so Harry lets it go.

For now.

.

Remus' first impression of his best friends' child after over a decade is that Harry isn't what he was expecting.

(Not that, Remus berates himself, he has the right to expect anything anymore when it comes to Harry. He knows what James and Lily would say of him abandoning their daughter for so long, and it wouldn't be kind.)

In truth, Remus doesn't really know what he was even expecting.

A boy, maybe, but that's his own fault for not checking up on her earlier. He'd have known, then.

She looks like James, though, but she has Lily's fire too. Remus sees it every time she stands with her friends, and in the Quidditch matches, too. She is fearless in the air, and yes, some of it is James, but that fearlessness… That fearlessness is Lily's.

But she is her own person too. A sadder person, he thinks, than she would have been growing up with James and Lily, and the knowledge breaks his heart all over again.

(Sirius, why? he wants to scream, but his mind still shies away from the very thought twelve years later.)

More than all that, however, she is a stranger to him. Through no fault of her own — it's all his, of course — but it still hurts. He'd held her hours after her birth, and now she doesn't know who he is to her, and Remus doesn't know how to tell her without getting into their whole sad story, and without mentioning his own shameful secret.

He's still a coward when it comes to his own nature, it seems.

But because of all this, Remus doesn't expect her to walk into the part of the Hospital Wing Poppy has kindly put aside for him to recover from the full moon.

It's like watching a trainwreck. She walks inside the room, calling out to Poppy, and stalls out when she sees him.

Remus hasn't seen himself yet today, but he's had plenty of experience. He knows what he looks like on a morning after a full moon, especially now that he has to spend them alone. Severus' potion helps, but with Sirius lurking around, Remus is restless, and so is the wolf.

It doesn't translate well for his full moon nights.

Harry's face pales in horror and Remus tries to scramble up into a position that is slightly less pitiful than just lying down. It's a reflex more than anything, to hide how bad it is from anyone who might see.

(Remus hasn't had anyone to hide from in quite some time — at least not anyone who matters enough to try to hide from.)

"What happened to you?" Harry asks in one short horrified breath, and Remus' brain shorts out in panic.

"I…"

"Harry! There you are!" Poppy bustles into the room, interrupting him, and Remus exhales in relief.

"Sorry, Madam Pomfrey," Harry replies, her cheeks regaining color as she turns toward the matron sheepishly. "I got here a little late today, and I thought you might be in here."

Poppy huffs, but Remus can see, wonder of wonders, that she isn't mad. "You should have tried my office," she says, before turning to offer Remus an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you. Harry shadows me every weekend, and I forgot to tell her she shouldn't come into this room today."

There is a sharp glint in her eyes that tells Remus it probably wasn't as much of a mistake as she claims it to be. Poppy, after all, remembers who Remus was friends with, and if she's close enough to Harry to allow her to assist in the Hospital Wing, then Remus knows who her loyalty rests with between the two of them, and it isn't Remus.

"It's fine," Remus replies with a tight smile. He turns his focus to Harry, and reassures her that he doesn't mind her presence.

"Just… Keep this between us, alright?" he asks, gesturing with his less sore left arm to try and encompass the whole situation.

Voiceless, Harry nods — but not before, he notices, looking to Poppy for approval.

When Remus looks back toward Poppy, the woman is, terrifyingly enough, smiling.

"Harry," she says, "come here." She gestures Harry closer, and the two of them settle beside Remus' bed. "Remus — Professor Lupin here has a very particular health condition," she says, quelling Remus' half-panicked protest with a hard look before he can even voice it. "I think it'd benefit your training to help me treat him."

Remus sees Harry's emerald-green eyes grow wide with excitement, and the color is wrong but that spark, that damned spark is so familiar it takes his breath away.

"What is it?" Harry asks him worriedly, pausing with her wand held aloft in the air where she'd been about to cast the same diagnosis spell Poppy had moments before.

Remus closes his eyes. "You just… remind me of someone."

Harry perks up. "Who?"

Again, Remus' breath catches in his chest. He doesn't want to answer.

(It's the only thing he wants.)

"I…"

He could lie, is the thing. Say it's nobody she'd know, just an old friend of his.

(James. It's James.)

But the truth would come out eventually. There are too many ways for it to, too many ways for Harry to learn who exactly Remus was friends with.

If Harry hates him for it, Remus doesn't think he could stand it.

So he tells the truth.

"Your father."

.

James Potter, Remus says, had never wanted to become a Healer.

"Not at first, anyway," Remus says, huffing out a fond laugh. "But we would get into such trouble — the way kids do — and sometimes we'd hurt ourselves in stupid ways we didn't want getting reported to our teachers, so we'd try to heal ourselves."

"That can't have gone well," Harry replies, his voice heavy with disbelief and so raw around that.

Remus smiles. "It really didn't," he agrees. "I've guess you've seen some things, working here, huh?"

Harry nods eagerly. "Yes," she says. "Last year, there was this Ravenclaw sixth-year who burned themselves smoking, but when they tried to heal that burn they turned their entire skin orange. And —" she cuts herself off, leaning back. "But you were saying, about my… father?"

Her eyes are so hungry for knowledge that Remus' stomach roils.

It hurts him to remember, but for Harry…

For Harry, he'll do it anyway. It's the least she deserves from him.

"Yes," he says. "We all tried to learn — myself included, though I was never really good at it —"

"Better than most, still," Poppy interjects dryly.

"Anyhow," Remus continues, wishing he wasn't so pale so his embarrassment wouldn't show quite so easily, "James taught himself some basic spells to help, and at first it was enough, but…"

"But?" Harry asks, her eyes fever-bright.

"But then when th— he found out about my… condition," Remus answers, his voice tight around the memories he will always hold dear, "he decided to learn more to help me." His smiles humorlessly, gesturing at himself and smoothing down the sheets over his legs. "As you can see, it isn't kind to my health, but James decided he wanted to help, and he really was the best person for it, so he learned.

"And he grew to love it, I think. He really did — he was planning on becoming a proper Healer at St. Mungo's when…" Remus' voice breaks, and Harry finishes his sentence for him.

"When Voldemort killed him."

"Yes." Remus nods.

The conversation dies there, but Remus gets to watch Harry scrupulously following Poppy's instructions to check his bandages and take care of his wounds, and that is as bittersweet as it is heartwarming.

Maybe that's why, when Harry tentatively asks him if he has more stories about her father he could share, he says yes.

"I have a few," he tells her kindly. "Maybe you can come over to my office for tea on the next Hogsmeade weekend, and I can share them with you? I know that, erm, you didn't get your permission slip signed, so…" He trails off, suddenly awkward — he probably shouldn't have mentioned the Hogsmeade thing.

He shouldn't have worried.

"Yes," Harry blurts out almost before Remus has finished his sentence, and despite the seriousness of the situation, Remus finds himself smiling.

"Please. I mean, yes, I'd like that, if you still want…" Harry trails off, ducking her head down in embarrassment.

Remus' smile softens. "I would love to, Harry."

.

Ron's disappointed Harry won't be using the map to come to Hogsmeade anymore, but Hermione doesn't hide her relief that Harry will stay safe inside the castle, where she's supposed to be.

(Even though, as they've argued before, Hogwarts can't be that safe if Sirius Black can manage to come in and leave no trace of his passage even months later.)

They both go quiet, however, when Harry tells them the reason why — that Professor Lupin has offered to share some stories about her father with her.

"Did you know he wanted to be a Healer?" she tells them, heart fluttering in her chest. "Just like I do." She breathes the words out reverently, and Hermione gently takes her hands in hers.

"Tell us about it?" she asks, and she moves them toward their favorite couch in the Gryffindors' Common Room.

Too thankful for words, Harry nods. "Okay," she says.

And then she tells them everything she's just learned.

.

The first Hogsmeade weekend Harry purposefully misses takes place just before Christmas. She supposes it's to help everyone buy the last-minute gifts they still need, as well as take one last break with your friends before going home for the holidays — for those who do go home.

She doesn't really care. Sure, she'll miss it — it had been a lot of fun the last time she'd gone, and the Map the twins gave her is probably the most amazing thing she's ever seen — but she's looking forward to Professor Lupin's stories more.

Harry isn't really sure what to expect when she walks into Professor Lupin's office, but he welcomes her with a kind smile and offers her tea — from tea bags, mercifully, and he even jokes about the tea leaves incident (apparently, every teacher's heard about Trelawney predicting her death in Divination now).

"Thanks," she says, and there is a moment of awkward silence as they both sip their tea.

Finally, though, they're done with that, and Professor Lupin sighs as he sets his teacup down. It clinks softly against its dish, and Harry's heart jumps in anticipation.

"So," he says, "what did you want to know?"

Everything, Harry wants to say, but that's too vague and too open, and she doesn't want the Professor to spook and never agree to do this again.

"How did you meet my father?" she asks instead.

Professor Lupin's eyes turn fond, and he leans back in his seat. "Well, we were all eleven and had just gotten Sorted into the same house, and as you know, this meant we had to share a dorm.

"No, we don't really get to pick our beds, but I'd gotten the one by the window and James really wanted it — he whined a lot, if you can believe," he says, his lips curling into a soft grin that makes his eyes sad. "I think I agreed to swap with him mostly so he'd stop, really, but he kind of decided this meant we were meant to be friends."

Harry smiles back. "That's nice."

"He was nice," Professor Lupin agrees, and the past tense makes Harry's stomach twist.

He tells her a bit more about their dorm arrangement — how James couldn't stand sleeping in so he'd always be the first one to wake, how he'd open that window in the middle of winter for some 'fresh breeze' even though it was below freezing outside, and slowly, one story becomes two, and then three, and Harry hoards them like the precious jewels they are.

Eventually, the clocktower rings one, though, and Harry's stomach protests loudly at going so long with only a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits.

She flushes. "Sorry."

Professor Lupin chuckles. "No, it's my bad. I got a little carried away, I guess," he says, almost sounding surprised by it. "We should grab lunch, though."

Harry nods reluctantly. She doesn't really want to leave, and Professor Lupin must see it, because he smiles at her knowingly.

"I know you don't have a Hogsmeade weekend until after the holidays, but I'll be staying over this winter, and I might be able to find some time to do this again. And we should probably start your Patronus lessons soon too, shouldn't we?" he adds, his lips quirking up into a grin.

.

Here's the thing: Harry knows Professor Lupin was friends with Sirius Black, and if he was as close as he says with her father, then that also means her father must have been friends with Sirius Black.

Once Harry's had that thought, she can't unthink it. She starts to notice things about Professor Lupin's stories too, moments where he'll start saying 'we' and then try to correct himself to say it was only himself or her father, names he bites off and blanches around, stories that seem to dance around something bigger…

She doesn't know how to tell him that she knows, but in the end, she doesn't have to.

He's telling her about a Potion they were trying to develop to prank other students — "Not that you should take this as an example of what to do," he had hasted to add, a funny look of panic on his face as though he'd only just realized he was supposed to be a teacher and role model for children now — when he lets it slip.

"And then Sirius —" Professor Lupin cuts himself off, his face suddenly a sickly green color, and Harry's heart lurches in her chest.

"I know," she hastens to say, before Professor Lupin can try to backpedal around this revelation. "I know you were friends with him — I don't know what happened," she confesses around a tight throat, "and obviously I know that you aren't friends now, but it's okay if you were, before."

She sees Professor Lupin swallow thickly as he stares at her, and Harry starts to fidget in her chair.

"It's complicated," he finally says. He looks so tired Harry almost wants to husher him to the Hospital Wing — a Pepper Up potion might do him some good anyway, she thinks — and he looks down at his desk.

"We were… There were four of us," Professor Lupin explains. His lips twist into a bittersweet grin, but his eyes are fond. "We called ourselves the Marauders," he says, and Harry only barely manages to cancel her jolt of recognition (this is the name on her Map!). "We thought it was clever, but really, we were just young and pretty stupid."

Harry huffs out a laugh as Professor Lupin shakes his head.

"Sirius was one of them, yes," he says. "And our fourth member was Peter." Professor Lupin looks faraway now. "He was always the shiest of us, and our teacher never suspected him of anything — which worked best, since he was also the worst liar of the group and never did well outright defying authority."

Mentally, Harry likens him to Neville, and her heart twists as her mind registers the past tense.

"What happened?" She hesitates to ask, really, because Professor Lupin still looks so sad and tired — and beneath it, hopelessly angry — but she needs to know.

Again, Professor Lupin sighs. "I don't… I don't know. The war… You should know, it got really bad in the end — we weren't really sure we were going to win. I wasn't there for a lot of it, but I know that James and Lily had to go into hiding, and they trusted Sirius to know where they were."

He shrugs, his lips twisting downward into a bitter smile. "Peter went after him, after James and Lily… After. Or perhaps Sirius did, I don't know. But Peter… Peter asked him why, why he would tell Voldemort where to find them, and Sirius just… killed him too."

His hands shake as he tries to pick up his teacup, and he sets it back down quickly, spilling some over his desk. "Sorry, sorry. It's a… difficult subject."

Harry's eyes sting and her stomach burns. "I understand." She clenches her fists over her thighs.

Because she doesn't understand, not really. Betraying your friends? Sending them to their deaths, killing others? What could be worth doing any of that?

Harry tries to picture it — tries to place herself in a situation where Ron or Hermione or herself would do something like that, but it's unthinkable.

It doesn't make sense.

"Why did he do it?" she asks, the words falling flatly from her lips.

Professor Lupin's jaw hardens once before he lets out another sigh, long and pointed. "If you figure it out, let me know. I know I haven't."

.

The Patronus lessons are harder than anything Harry's ever tried, but she's determined to get the spell to work. So far, she's only managed to get some silvery mist dripping from her wand, but after a few sessions (and much brainstorming on what she can use as her happiest memory) she manages to get a bigger shape, something that is almost defined.

She pants as it forces the Boggart back into its box, and almost collapses to her knees when she lets the spell end.

"That was very good, Harry," Professor Lupin tells her, impressed, as he hands her a piece of chocolate.

Harry frowns down at her knees while she absently eats it. "It still isn't corporeal, though."

Professor Lupin chuckles. "Don't beat yourself up too badly, I know plenty of adult wizards who can't get to the results you're having right now. Give it a little more time."

But Harry doesn't want to give it more time — she has a Quidditch match in two weeks, and now that she has her Firebolt, she isn't intent on letting that be destroyed as well if Dementors attack again.

"I want to try again," she says suddenly.

"What? No, Harry, it can wait."

"I want to try again," Harry repeats. "I have a new memory I want to use," she says, and she only realizes how true that is as the words cross her lips.

It's not really a memory, really, only for how it kind of is.

She remembers the Mirror of Erised, back in her first year, how she'd seen her parents there and they'd smiled at her, proud and happy to see her and she pictures them now, still proud, still smiling.

She thinks about her friends, and how they've constantly been there for her — misguided, sometimes, like when Hermione told Professor McGonagall about the Firebolt she got for Christmas — and how they're really her family now.

And she thinks about Professor Lupin, who's been telling her stories about her father for weeks now, but who also remembers exactly how she likes her tea and what her favorite biscuits are, and always makes sure to have both on hand.

This time, when Professor Lupin lets the Boggart out, Harry is ready, and her Patronus

is

a

stag.

"Prongs," Professor Lupin breathes, letting out a strangled sound that is half-sob half-laughter, and the majestic stag bows.

And it doesn't make sense, because Prongs is a name on the Map — one of the Maraudeurs, probably her father now — but this Prongs is just a stag.

It can't be her father.

Except it can, apparently, because her father, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew taught themselves to become Animagi, and her father used to turn into a stag that looked exactly like her Patronus.

Harry stares at her Patronus and it stares back, and she feels faint.

"Okay," she says. "Okay. Well, erm, thanks, Dad, I guess?" She lets out a nervous chuckle, and the stag bows its head once before vanishing back into silvery mist.

Harry's as glad to see it go as she is disappointed.

"Why didn't you become an Animagus too?" she asks Professor Lupin, turning back to him.

He freezes. "I… couldn't make the spell work," he says, shrugging self-deprecatingly, but his eyes are lying.

It's the first time, Harry thinks, that he's ever done that. It hurts, and she hadn't realized how much she'd come to trust him that such a small lie would hurt.

.

And then…

And then, one time, the Boggart slips out of its trunk before Harry's ready, and she trips to try and get away, her mind blanking on anything happy as the now familiar white fog of despair dampens her thoughts.

She hears the voice again, and then another — a male one — and suddenly, just like that, she knows who they are.

Part of her thinks maybe she's always known.

She doesn't register herself falling down but she sees Professor Lupin rushing over and stepping in front of the Boggart, its form slowly shifting into a bright silvery orb, as though it doesn't want to let its Dementor form go.

The cold vanishes as soon as the Boggart is done, though, and the Professor turns the misty full moon into a sagging balloon without even using the incantation, sending the Boggart back into its trunk.

"Are you alright, Harry?" he asks, gently grabbing her arm to pull her up.

Harry absently wants to ask him why he's so afraid of the moon, but she remembers Madam Pomfrey telling her he has a medical condition that required monthly treatments but is incurable (and there aren't many of those, Harry's checked).

She remembers Snape's assignment, that one time he had to cover for Professor Lupin, and how Hermione had spent nights with her head buried in books about werewolves and had told her to be careful around Professor Lupin, Harry, just in case.

"Oh," she finds herself saying, "you're a werewolf."

Professor Lupin lets go of her arm like it burned him, and Harry sways back on her feet.

Her mind is still foggy — she remembers her parents' last moments, she knows their voices… Her favorite teacher is a werewolf.

There have been weirder things.

Professor Lupin laughs faintly when she tells him that. He doesn't sound like he believes her, but then Harry tells him lycanthropy really sounds more like an illness — and is, judging from the number of times she's had to help him in the Hospital Wing — and he shakes his head.

"I should have known," he mutters, voice still tinged with disbelief — but now, it also rings faintly of hope.

Because, he tells her, her parents had also accepted him readily.

"'Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter'," Harry quotes. It's what Hermione had told her last year when most of the school thought she was running around petrifying muggleborns, but she thinks it fits here too.

Remus huffs out a disbelieving laugh. "I guess so."

(At least this explains his earlier lie — of course Remus wouldn't become and Animagus if he was a werewolf and everyone became an Animagus to spend the full moon with him.

Idly, Harry wonders what it would take to become one herself. She's doing better and better healing Professor Lupin after the full moons, but if he says having company calms the wolf, that might be even better…)

.

On one cold spring morning, Hermione's cat Crookshanks kills Ron's rat Scabbers. Or at least that's what everyone assumes happened, since Crookshanks has had it for Scabbers ever since he'd first seen him and all that was left behind on Ron's bed was some blood and fur.

Ron's furious with Crookshanks but more furious with Hermione who defends her cat, and Hermione is devastated that Ron would so easily shun her over something not her fault.

And Harry's stuck in the middle, desperately trying not to take sides and hoping this'll blow over.

It's hard to wait, though, when she can hear Hermione sobbing at nights, but she doesn't really know what to do.

Even Madam Pomfrey, when Harry asks her, tells her that all she can really do is be there for her friends — both of them — and hope for the best.

.

And then, one day, Harry comes back from one of her memory sharing sessions with Professor Lupin to find her two best friends staring at her shakily, their faces filled with dread.

Harry stops, and they usher her back out of the tower and into an abandoned classroom Hermione makes sure twice is empty.

"What is it?" Harry asks, wiping sweaty palms on her robes and staring anxiously at her friends.

And Ron and Hermione tell her about what they've overheard at the Three Broomsticks earlier — how Black betrayed Harry's parents and hunted down Peter Pettigrew, blowing him and the street they were in up and leaving only a finger behind.

"They said he was laughing when the Aurors arrived," Ron confesses in horror just before Hermione tries to shush him.

And Harry's horrified too, of course she is, but not for the reasons her friends think she is.

She's horrified, and sick to her stomach, because Ron said all they found of Pettigrew was a finger, and Remus told her Peter could turn into a rat, and that he could never understand why Sirius would join Voldemort and betray her parents, and…

Ron had a rat, who had been in his family for over a decade.

A rat missing a single finger on his paw.

A rat, who's been looking sicker and sicker since the summer — since Sirius Black escaped Azkaban.

It shouldn't make sense. Harry doesn't want it to — the implications alone make her feel dizzy.

She needs to sit down.

No, she needs to talk with Professor Lupin, who will surely be able to tell her if she's gone mad or not.

(Please let her have gone mad.)

.

Harry's uses the map to get back to Lupin's office. She needs it to check he's still there, for one, but also she doesn't want to run into anyone else right now.

She's halfway there — ducking behind a tapestry to hide from two first-year Ravenclaws walking back to their tower — when she sees it.

Small footsteps, on the map, walking towards her.

And above them, an impossible name.

Peter Pettigrew.

She swallows back a scream and clenches the Map to her chest, willing her heart to stop pounding.

She waits for the name to arrive next to hers — the first years long gone now — and she bursts out of the tapestry, but

there

is

nobody

there.

She laughs nervously and looks back at the Map, but no, Peter's name is still there, walking away from her.

And yet, there is still no one in this corridor but her.

No one human, anyway, she thinks half-hysterically. A rat would have gone unnoticed.

.

Harry has never seen anyone go as pale as Professor Lupin does when Harry tells him everything.

"Oh, Merlin, what have we done?" he whispers, knuckles white against the edge of his desk as he grips it to remain steady.

He gestures for the Map and Harry hands it over reluctantly. "Will I get it back?"

Professor Lupin looks up at her, startled. "I probably shouldn't," he mumbles, "but… Yes. Once I no longer need it, I'll give it back to you." He traces the Marauders' names on the parchment with a bittersweet smile. "It's yours, now."

They look over the Map together, but there is no trace of Peter Pettigrew anywhere.

Professor Lupin's face darkens.

"Is there… Could it have been wrong?" Harry asks, because someone has to.

"The Map never lies," Professor Lupin replies, shaking his head. "If it says Peter is here…" He swallows thickly, looking faint. "Then Peter is here."

"What does it mean?"

"It means," Remus answers, his jaw tight, "that I need to talk to Albus."

.

Harry has been to the Headmaster's office a few times now, but it never feels to impress her with how grand it feels.

Today's atmosphere is much somber than the last time Harry was here, though. She is not bringing back a girl everyone thought lost, she is accompanying Professor Lupin as he comes to reveal a grievous mistake.

Harry has never seen anyone age as quickly as Professor Dumbledore does when Professor Lupin tells him the news.

"You're sure of this, Remus?" he asks, his piercing blue eyes peering over his half-moon glasses.

Professor Lupin nods. "I am."

"I see," Professor Dumbledore says gravely. "This does change a few things." He sighs and rubs his temples. "Cornelius, sadly won't be willing to listen now — he's put too much effort into this — but maybe…"

"Madam Bones has always judged fairly," Professor Lupin points out, and Professor Dumbledore nods.

"She would definitely be more open to listening to reason than Cornelius," Professor Dumbledore replies with a humorless huff of laughter. "I'll contact her — and if you run into Peter, Remus, for Merlin's sake, don't do anything rash."

His piercing gaze focuses on Harry, who startles. "That goes for both of you. If Peter has done what we believe he has, he is far more dangerous than you should have to handle on your own."

Harry bristles at that. She's handled Quirrell before, and that young Voldemort who even had a Basilisk.

(But she almost died both times.)

Professor Dumbledore keeps staring at her until Harry nods. "I won't go looking for him," she mumbles, and the Professor nods, seemingly satisfied.

He arches an eyebrow at Professor Lupin. "Remus?"

Professor Lupin startles too. "We need him alive," is what he eventually says. His eyes glide over to Harry. "He owes us some answers, at the very least."

Professor Dumbledore hums in agreement, and he bids them a good evening.

It doesn't feel like they did enough, somehow — nothing's changed — and yet, Harry does feel lighter.

"Do you think it'll work?" she asks in a whisper as the stairs outside the Headmaster's office spiral back down.

Professor Lupin's lips are pursed as he replies, "I hope so."

.

(A scene not featured:

A werewolf walks along a forest late at night, and stops suddenly.

"There you are," he says, and out of the cover of the trees comes out a large black dog. It is huge, but so emaciated you can see his ribs, and its fur is matted with dirt and what is probably blood. It hesitates and whines, but the werewolf just smiles and promises, "I swear, I just want to talk."

And the dog turns into a man. The man doesn't look to be in a much better shape than the dog.

"Talk, huh?" the man says. "Sure you're not here to hand me over to the Dementors?" His lips twist into a maddened grin. "I hear they're pretty eager to kiss me, these days."

The werewolf jerks back as though hurt. He shakes his head. "Sirius… I know you're innocent."

Sirius Black freezes. "Remus?" he says, his voice trembling with a fragile hope. He takes half a step forward, aborts it, falls back and whines again.

And Remus jerks forward, yanking Sirius into a hug and hiding his sobs and apologies in his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," he repeats, a litany he doesn't think he'll ever have the heart to stop.

Sirius' arms come up too late around him, and they feel so much weaker than when Sirius last held him that Remus only cries harder. "Oh Merlin, Remus, I'm so sorry," Sirius sobs back. "James and Lily…

"I know, I know. But you're okay, you're here. You'll be fine," Remus mumbles back, and he prays the universe won't make a liar out of him this time.)

.

The news comes on the last day of the year — officially, that is, because Professor Lupin had told her an Auror had come to the school, disguised herself to look like a student, found Pettigrew using the Map and brought him in to the Ministry.

Sirius Black innocent? the Daily Prophet proclaims. Peter Pettigrew the true culprit?

And rather than showing that crazed Azkaban portrait, they're using a picture Harry's seen before, in her photo album. It's her parents' wedding, and Sirius is laughing, an arm tossed around Harry's father's shoulders.

He looks young and happy, and the article seems to portray him as a tragic lost youth betrayed by the system — a system, the Prophet is quick to point out, that current Minister Fudge had nothing to do with and is very proud to denounce today.

Harry can't fight off her grin as Hermione and Ron gape at the headlines, and when she raises her head, she can see that Professor Lupin is grinning too. When he sees her looking his way, he winks and mouths, We won.

Harry grins back and refocuses on her friends, who stare at her in disbelief.

"Was this what you were hiding?" they ask.

Harry deflates a little. "I… Yes, sorry. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to tell you, and the fewer people knew this was happening, the best the chances were of apprehending Pettigrew, and — I wanted to tell you, I really did, but Professor Dumbledore said it would be best if we waited, so I did. I'm sorry."

Hermione pulls her into a sideways hug. "Oh, Harry," she says. "It's really fine, we were just worried about you because we could see you were worried too, and you wouldn't tell us why."

Ron nods, and Harry belatedly realizes that her two friends have made up while she was trying not to go crazy thinking about Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew.

She smiles. We can stay up tonight — I'll tell you everything."

.

On July second, Sirius Black's trial is held. Peter Pettigrew's is right after.

Sirius Black is found innocent on all charges. Peter Pettigrew isn't.

On July second, at eleven minutes past five in the afternoon, a Dementor glides into the courtroom. Peter begs and whimpers but the Dementor doesn't care.

When it leaves the room again, Sirius Black is free.

Peter Pettigrew has lost his soul.

.

Harry's fourteenth birthday is her best one yet. Not only was she able to scare the Dursleys into leaving her alone by mentioning her ex-convict godfather (she may have forgotten to warn them about the 'ex' part of that sentence), but she spent most of July exchanging letters with Sirius, who asked her if she'd like to come live with him.

(As if she'd say no.)

And today, on her birthday, Sirius is coming to pick her up.

Today is her last day at number 4, Privet Drive, and Harry will not miss it when she leaves.

Sirius shows up at exactly seven am ('too early by far, but for you, Prongslet, it's late', he'd written in his last letter).

He looks much better than he had when Harry had last seen him — a very short meeting, supervised by Professor Lupin once they'd been sure Sirius really was innocent — and when he opens his arms for a hug, Harry doesn't hesitate.

Here is an adult who loves her — who wants her. The knowledge is exhilarating, and Harry has been walking on clouds since she's learned about it.

"Hey, there, Prongslet. Happy birthday," Sirius says, ruffling her hair. "You ready to go?"

"Hi, Sirius," Harry replies. She nods toward the packed trunk next to the door, topped by the empty owl cage — she'd sent Hedwig out to Ron's last night, since Sirius has consistently refused to tell her where they would be going next. "All packed up and ready to go!"

Sirius frowns as he looks inside the house. "Not going to say goodbye to your aunt and uncle?"

Harry swallows nervously and shifts on her feet. "I… We already have," she replies, which isn't quite a lit.

She'd announced she'd be leaving last night, and Uncle Vernon had mumbled back a "Good riddance" and warned her she wouldn't be welcomed back.

Sirius' grey eyes darken and he almost steps inside, but Harry pushes him back, almost flinching back at her own audacity.

"I… Please," she says. "I just want to leave this place." She's told Sirius some of it, how she hated it here, but she thinks he gathered most of it from how eager she was to accept his offer to stay with him instead.

Sirius grins back at her easily, and bends down to grab her trunk. "Let's go, then," he says, and together, they leave Privet Drive behind.

.

Apparition, Harry decides, has got to be the worst way to travel wizards have ever invented. She almost throws up all over the side of the dirt road Sirius Apparated them too, and not even Sirius apologetically rubbing her back makes her feel better.

"Sorry," he says sheepishly. "Side-along is always worse than normal Apparition, but it does get better with practice."

Harry hums in agreement and shows him a thumbs up. She stays head bent over her knees until the nausea passes, and Sirius, impossibly, waits beside her.

"Where are we?" she finally asks, slowly straightening up.

Sirius scratches his head and nudges her forward. "I thought it might be good to get out of the city. I grew up in a house in London, and…" he trails off, grimacing. "It wasn't great. James' parents brought us out here one summer, though — not exactly here," he corrects with a smile Harry's way, "but close enough. I remember it felt like it could be a nice place to live."

The house comes into view rather quickly. It's not particularly big, but it's not small either. It's surrounded by a huge yard, though, and beyond it, so obvious Harry doesn't know she didn't notice it before…

Is the sea.

"Oh," she says, suddenly stopping.

It's so much bigger than she'd thought — not at all like the Black Lake either, which is how Harry had kind of been picturing it so far.

It's noisy, and the air carries a weirdly pungent smell, and it stretches much farther than the eye can see.

"Wow," she breathes, and Sirius laughs.

"I take it you like it?" he asks, and Harry spins around on her feet, nodding.

"I've never seen the sea before," she says.

"Well, now you have it in your backyard," Sirius replies with a conniving wink, and Harry belatedly realizes he must have been worried about what she'd think.

"Thanks," Harry replies, her throat tight.

Sirius smiles back gently. "No problem. Now, come on, let's see the house — I've got a surprise waiting for you inside." He winks again, and Harry smiles back excitedly.

She feels… young. She thinks the proper expression would be 'like a kid', except she never really felt this free and happy as a child. Before Hogwarts, she had rarely been happy at all.

Sirius' surprise, as it turns out, is Professor Lupin, who greets Harry with a sheepish grin and Sirius with a worried look.

"Are you sure I should —" he starts to say, nervously glancing between Harry and Sirius, but in the blink of an eye, Sirius has crossed the room and put his arm around Professor Lupin, who, weirdly enough, kind of sags in Sirius' hold.

"You're staying," Sirius states. "We've talked about this, and I need your wise ways to ensure I don't screw up our little Prongslet over there too much on my own."

"Sirius…" Professor Lupin starts to protest — but one pointed look has him huffing out in defeat. "Fine."

Now that the drama seems over, Harry dares to wander over and greet Professor Lupin properly.

She's missed him. Snape, that asshole, didn't take the news of Sirius' innocence too well and reveal he was a werewolf to the entire school on the last day of the school year — causing Professor Lupin to promptly resign.

Harry still insists, if only to herself, that it wouldn't have mattered since he was everyone's favorite DADA teacher, but she's long been since overruled.

At her greeting, though, Sirius lets out an incredulous bark of laughter. "She still calls you Professor Lupin? What the hell, Moony?"

"I was her teacher," Professor Lupin protests. "It was appropriate!"

He looks younger like this — fending off a friend's teasing. Or rather, Harry thinks sadly, he probably simply looks his age.

"You're not her teacher anymore!" Sirius shoots back, and Professor Lupin growls.

"Fine," he bites out. He mellows out as he turns toward Harry, and his golden-brown eyes shine kindly as he tells her to call him Remus instead.

"Or Moony," Sirius interjects with a laugh.

"Or Moony," Remus repeats, his tone the tone of a person resigned to their friends and family's shenanigans.

(Harry would know, she's caused Hermione her fair share of it.)

In the afternoon, they surprise her with her friends, and Harry gets her first-ever birthday party.

Well, first one she remembers, anyway, since Remus confesses with sad, angry eyes that James and Lily had had one for her first birthday.

"Sirius got you a toy broom," he says with a fond smile, "and James and Lily sent us pictures of you zooming around the house on it. I'm pretty sure Lily hated it and wanted to wring Sirius' neck for it, but James was convinced this meant you were going to be a Quidditch player."

"And I did," Harry replies, her throat tight.

"And you did," Remus confirms. His eyes are kind, and he doesn't say anything when Harry has to wipe her cheeks.

He does, however, pull her into a hug. It's hesitant and awkward at first, but then Sirius jumps them to join in, and it's great, it's amazing, it's…

Hers.

.

As part of Minister Fudge's constant need to be seen apologizing for all the suffering Sirius' endured in Azkaban, Fudge offered him three seats at the Quidditch World Cup's finals in the top box.

It would have been two, Sirius confesses, but he'd insisted until he got three, because they weren't leaving Remus behind for this.

"He might try to hide it, but he's just as much of a Quidditch nerd as the rest of us," he tells her, and Harry laughs.

Ron's overjoyed when he hears about it, of course, but he pouts because they too have gotten tickets for the top box, and they'd been planning on giving their extra tickets to Harry and Hermione.

"Hermione can still come, obviously," Ron had written, "but now instead of you Ginny's bringing her weird Ravenclaw friend."

Sirius, upon learning about this, insists on synchronizing resources with the Weasleys to makes sure he can set up their tent next to theirs.

"We can do s'mores at the campfire after the match!" Sirius exclaims, exuberant, while Remus shakes his head fondly.

"You'd set the place on fire."

Sirius pouts. "But that's why you're here — to supervise!" He looks at Harry, seems to realize he's supposed to be some kind of role model, and grimaces. "I mean, I wouldn't set the place on fire."

Dryly, Remus says, "I'll believe that when I see it."

Harry, who's only lived with them for a couple of weeks but who's already seen Sirius accidentally start a small fire while trying to cook, silently agrees.

"My genius is unappreciated," Sirius whines back with a dramatic sigh, but luckily for their still very flat and very much not installed tent, the Weasleys arrive then, and Harry takes advantage of Ron and Hermione's arrival to duck out of sight and catch up with her friends properly.

Well, that and get water.

"You look better," Hermione tells her after she releases her from her hug, and Harry grins back with a chuckle.

"I feel better too," she agrees, and they grin together while Ron slaps her gently on the back in support.

"No more Dursleys, huh?" Ron asks knowingly, and Harry laughs happily.

"No more Dursleys," she confirms.

The Quidditch match after that is the best she's ever seen, and was Harry not so enamored with healing and helping people, she might have considered it as a career.

She still does, if only as a nice daydream, when the match ends with Ireland victorious even though Krum objectively gave the better performance and caught the Snitch.

They do have s'mores that night too, cheerfully rehashing all the best parts of the play while snacking on delicious warm sugary treats, and when Harry eventually stumbles into bed, exhausted but happy, she falls asleep with a grin.

She's wakened up much too early by Remus, who shakes her shoulders gently to tell her they have to go — the plot needs to be vacated before noon.

"Where's Sirius?" she asks in a yawn, and Remus laughs as he shakes his head.

"Still asleep," he tells her. "He's much harder to wake than you once he's out.

Harry pouts. More sleep sounds so good right now.

Remus sends her a mischievous look. "Wanna help me wake him up?" he asks, twirling his wand in his hand, and Harry feels much more awake now.

"Can we use water?" It would be the perfect revenge for the way Sirius had woken her up yesterday, when they had to get up so early it was still dark outside to get the campsite on time.

(Portkeys, she'd decided, are even worse than Apparition. Somehow.)

Remus laughs. "We can use water."

.

On the first weekend back, when Harry shows up for her weekly lessons with Madam Pomfrey, the matron takes one look at her, frowns, walks back into her office and comes back carrying a potion vial.

The potion it holds shimmers with green and yellow sparks, and when Harry drinks it, it tastes, oddly enough, of sunflower seeds and grass.

It will, Madam Pomfrey kindly tells her, ensure her body stays on track with what Harry's mind tells it to be. She'll need to take it once every three months for as long as she wants — or until she turns seventeen and can go to St. Mungo's for a more permanent solution.

"Thank you," Harry croaks through a tight throat, her fingers curling around the empty vial.

Madam Pomfrey's eyes shine warmly as she says back, "You're welcome, dear girl."

.

Riding the carriages to Hogsmeade along with Hermione else feels very different from sneaking through Honeydukes under her Invisibility Cloak, Harry realizes.

Now that she's got her permission slip signed, she gets to spend the ride to the village with her friends, wondering about where they'll be going and what they'll be buying.

"We can show you the Three Broomsticks!" Ron exclaims enthusiastically, cutting off Hermione who'd been listing all of the historical sights they'd be able to visit in the village now that they didn't have to sneak around.

Harry shoots him a grateful look while Hermione glares at him, but Ron's subsequent sentence successfully changes the subject.

"If you can join us, right? Since you have that meeting with…" He lowers his voice. "You-Know-Who."

His face breaks with horror as he realizes what he's said, and Harry laughs as he tries to correct himself. "I mean, not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but…" He lowers his voice again. "Sirius."

"You know he just wants to do the whole secret meeting thing to be dramatic, right?" Hermione replies, arching a pointed eyebrow. "And we're the only ones here anyway, nobody'll overhear you."

Ron pouts — clearly, Sirius isn't the only one enamored with the secrecy.

Harry shakes her head at them fondly and replies, "I don't know. He told me to meet them at the Hog's Head, and that he'd be wearing a disguise."

It's not the first time Harry's told them that, but it somehow sounds more ridiculous every time.

And as it turns out, it's even more ridiculous to look upon.

The Hog's Head is the polar opposite of the Three Broomsticks — at least, that's what Harry's gathered from the little she saw of the place on her way here and from her friends' stories last year.

It is dark where the Three Broomsticks is light, cold where it is warm — Harry's only been here five minutes but it seems like there's a draft, blowing through the place — and much less better maintained and frequented.

It only takes Harry two point three seconds to recognize the tall, scarf-wearing figure as her godfather — mostly because Remus is sitting next to him, nursing a glass of Firewhiskey and looking like he wishes he'd rather be anywhere but here.

Sirius, Harry notes incredulously as she walks up to them, is also wearing the biggest and ugliest sunglasses she's ever seen.

They both lit up when they see her, though, and Harry's heart can help but give a painful pang at the sight.

They've been writing again, and Harry knows they love her, but sometimes she still wakes up in the middle of the night persuaded it was all a dream and that next summer she'll be headed back to the Dursleys for one more miserable summer.

"Hi," Harry says, sitting down on a wooden bench that looks to have seen better days. She doesn't really dare to touch the table, which appears to be covered in some kind of sticky residue, and crosses her hands over her lap to hide her fingers' nervous twitching.

"Hello, Harry," Remus replies, smiling gently. "How have you been?" He grimaces and sends a glare toward Sirius. "Sorry about this, I tried to tell Sirius we'd be fine at the Three Broomsticks, but once he gets an idea in his head… There's no helping him."

Remus' lips curl into a smirk as Sirius protests loudly, and Harry can't help but let out a huge burst of surprised laughter.

Because in addition to his 'disguise', Sirius seems to have adopted the most ridiculous and obviously fake accent Harry's ever heard. It sounds like a mix of Cockney, Irish and French, with perhaps a dash of Scottish.

Remus looks pained. "I know," he says. "I'm sorry."

That only makes Harry's laughter redouble, though, which in turn makes Sirius join in. His laughter, loud barks like a dog's, echoes around the room, but none of the other patrons (few as they are) seem to care.

Finally, they calm down though, and Sirius grins widely at Harry. "Hello, Prongslet," he says, still in that ridiculous accent that threatens to make the whole thing start up again. "How have you been doing? Pranked anyone good lately?" He wiggles his eyebrows, the gesture only half visible behind his sunglasses.

Harry shakes her head. "I'm… good," she says, and is almost surprised to find it true. "I don't think anyone's trying to kill me this year," she jokes.

Neither Remus nor Sirius seem to find it very funny though, because they both grimace and Sirius actually apologizes.

As though Harry doesn't know now that he'd never been trying to kill her.

She clears her throat. "Anyway, erm, why are you here? Did something happen?" Her heart starts racing, but both adults shake their heads.

"Nothing happened," Sirius replies. He mercifully seems to have forgotten about his accent in his offense, which somehow makes it even funnier.

"Well, unless you count Sirius almost burning down the kitchen again," Remus mumbles dryly, sending Harry a knowing look.

"It was fine," Sirius hastens to reassure Harry. "Remus' just a worrywart. There was only a tiny bit of flames, and they got put out almost immediately. The food was even salvageable!"

"Barely," Remus whispers to Harry, who laughs.

Sirius pouts. "See if I ever try to make you breakfast again."

"I'd really rather you didn't try to make it yourself, no," Remus retorts with an easy grin.

Harry smiles and relaxes in her seat. This, she knows, is what she's been missing. Hogwarts is great, and she'll always love it, but she has a home outside of it too now, and Harry's missed it.

It's a very novel feeling.

"Anyway," Sirius says, loudly changing the subject before Remus can start listing all of Sirius' mishaps while cooking (of which there are many), "we just wanted to see you. That's why we're here. Thought we would try not to embarrass you in front of everyone by having you hang out with your old teacher, though," he adds with a wink and a nudge at Remus, who sighs exasperatedly.

"And Sirius wanted to avoid the press — they'll be around because the Tournament, but I doubt they'll resist interviewing him again if they get the chance," Remus explains with pursed lips.

Harry feels a surge of protective anger at the thought of Sirius getting prodded more about what had happened to him when she knows Sirius hates it and just wants to put it behind him.

She nods sternly. "Well, somehow I don't think the press will find you here," she says dryly, and Sirius lets out another bark of laughter.

"That was the idea, yes," Remus agrees.

The conversation flows easily from there — questions about Hogwarts, about what she thinks of the Tournament happening this year (which she's now doubly not allowed to enter in), about her friends and how they're doing, and news from home, where Sirius apparently spent two whole weeks deciding her wanted to re-teach himself how to surf before giving up from the cold.

"Couldn't you use warming spells?" Harry blurts out, because Hermione's ranted about those and how they should be allowed in Quidditch to keep the players from freezing in winter enough times that Harry can't forget their existence.

She only realizes she might have misstepped when Sirius perks up and Remus lets out a loud groan.

"I was hoping he wouldn't remember those," Remus says in a moan, and Sirius laughs as he pulls him closer, his arm around Remus' neck.

"No such luck now, Moony. You can bet I'll be getting back out there as soon as we're home."

He tells her more about it, too, promising to teach Harry over the summer if she wants, and Harry hangs onto every word, very carefully not thinking about the way the minutes tick by and soon she'll have to go back to Hogwarts and they'll have to leave.

It must be well into the afternoon now — a wizened old man had brought them plates of some meat dish that had no rights of tasting as good as it did when it looked so bad for lunch hours ago, and Remus has switched her from Butterbeer to water a few glasses ago.

And she's right. It feels like no time at all before Ron and Hermione stumble in to come fetch her, their noses red from the cold outside and their arms laden with bags.

They greet Remus and Sirius warmly — Hermione still calls Remus 'Professor Lupin', which makes Sirius crack up and Remus sigh.

They don't have time to stay any longer, but Remus and Sirius both hug her before she leaves. Sirius waves her off very dramatically, waving the scarf he'd used to wear around his head like a wife seeing their husband off to war, and Remus buries his head in his right hand, using the other to try and keep Sirius' scarf from hitting him in the face.

And even though Harry's heart ache at leaving, their shenanigans make her smile.

("Looks like you had fun?" Hermione asks as they walk to the carriages, concern shining in her eyes.

Harry grins back and nods. "I did, yeah." She pauses and licks her lips. "Thanks for pushing back your plans to show me the sights."

Hermione huffs out a laugh and Ron knocks their shoulders together.

"No problem," they say, and despite the cold air outside, Harry feels warm.)

.

This year, Professor Dumbledore had announced at the beginning of the year feast, Hogwarts would host the Triwizard Tournament.

This means that, just before Halloween, students from both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrive at Hogwarts, the first in a flying carriage and the second through a boat that surfaces in the Black Lake.

This also means that on Halloween, Harry is watching the Goblet of Fire with excitement while everyone at the Gryffindor table quietly tries to bet on who'll get chosen.

It turns out to be Cedric Diggory, and Harry grins widely. Cedric's a nice guy, who always tries to play fair — he'd tried to get his victory canceled last year when Harry had fallen off her broom because of the Dementors, and he'd apologized to her when she'd failed.

He'll do Hogwarts proud.

Durmstrang's Champion is Viktor Krum, and Beauxbaton's is a preternaturally pretty girl named Fleur Delacour.

They vanish into the antechamber behind the teacher's table, and the Goblet goes dark.

.

It's a little odd, Harry realizes, to have a year go without her feeling like she's in mortal danger.

Hermione stares at her pityingly when she confesses this to her, but before Harry can bristle, she's pulled into a hug.

"Oh, Harry," she says softly, "that's just how things are supposed to be."

It's a lot more fun to cheer from the sidelines, Harry discovers, even if whoever planned those tasks must be insane. The first one involves the Champions having to get past a nesting dragon, which Ron informs them his brother Charlie told him is dangerous even for trained professionals.

But the Champions aren't the best of their schools for nothing, because they all get the egg they were sent after and escape mostly unscathed.

Nothing Harry can't heal under Madam Pomfrey's supervision, anyway, because wounds from magical creatures are always trickier to deal with than normal ones, and it's a rare opportunity to practice on the theory Madam Pomfrey has had her read on.

Of course, Hogwarts wouldn't be Hogwarts without some drama, and Harry discovers with horror that there is a ball planned for Yule.

"It's a tradition of the Triwizard Tournament," Professor McGonagall tells them, right before she announces they'll need to get dates and that she's offering dancing lessons.

"I thought I'd be going home for Christmas this year," Harry moans to her friends later that night, and she's half-elated half-astonished to even be saying that.

She has a home she wants to go back to now, with people there she misses and who miss her, who send her letters and care packages every week.

Granted, they're mostly prank materials she hands over to the Weasley twins — which has greatly endeared them to her — but Remus always includes some chocolate for her to share with her friends.

And she can go to Hogsmeade properly this year, even if she misses sitting down with Remus to hear stories about her parents.

"There's always next year," Ron offers tactlessly, and Harry and Hermione exchange an exasperated look.

"Yeah, I guess," Harry mumbles, looking away and smiling as Hermione elbows Ron and hisses at him to 'think before you speak, for once in your life, Ronald, please!'.

She clears her throat and changes the subject. "Anyway, do you have any idea who you'll be going with, Ron?"

Ron stares at her like a deer in headlights. "Nope. But we still have plenty of time to figure it out."

"That's true," Harry replies, nodding. It does reassure her a little though, to see that Ron seems to feel as lost about this as she does.

Hermione, of course, seems to despair at the two of them — but then again, she often does.

"Just don't wait too long, you two."

They promise not to, laughing, and the conversation switches over to Snape's latest evil assignment and if Hermione could please help them write it.

.

They wait too long.

Suddenly, they only have one week left, and neither Harry nor Ron have dates.

Oh, some people have asked her — not many, but enough, including one Cormac McLaggen (Hermione had taken one look at the situation, refused for her and taken her away from the situation) — but she's always said no.

It doesn't feel right, somehow, how she can never be sure they're asking because of her, Harry, or if they're asking because she's the Girl-Who-Lived and famous.

(Ron, in a fit of dementia they've all agreed not to mention again, has asked Fleur Delacour — though 'asked' isn't really the right word for what Ron did when struck dumb by her allure.)

Hermione, of course, has a date, even if she's refusing to tell anyone.

Parvati and Lavender have taken to trying to guess it, landing more and more outlandish guesses every time — their latest had been Professor McGonagall, actually, which Hermione has shot down with tears of laughter in her eyes.

"Who are you two going with?" Harry asks them, suddenly curious. "Do you have dates already?"

Lavender perks up almost immediately — she's going with Seamus and Dean, apparently — but one look to Parvati has her deflating.

"I'm sorry," she says, taking her friend's hands in hers. "Maybe we can…?"

But Parvati shakes her head, sighing fondly. "I'll be fine," she says. "We both want to dance, and you know neither you nor I will be leading for more than one dance, so this makes sense. I just need to find someone to go with."

"You could always come with us, I'm sure Seamus and Dean wouldn't mind."

Parvati grimaces. "And get between those two?" She shakes her head. "You might be willing to add to that madness, but I'm really not. Not even if they were the best dancers in the world."

Nonplussed, Harry looks at their exchange before shooting a confused look toward Hermione, who stares back incredulously at her.

What's going on? Harry mouthes.

You don't know? Hermione replies in the same way.

Harry shakes her head no vigorously, and Hermione rolls her eyes back.

They're dating, Hermione explains, with copious hand gestures to help her point across.

Startled, Harry looks back to their two dormmates. They are still, she notes, holding hands.

They're dating, she mouths back to Hermione, her eyes wide.

Hermione laughs.

Harry looks back to Parvati and Lavender, and an idea hits her. She clears her throat.

"Erm, Parvati… If all you want is to dance with someone who can lead, I'm not going with anyone yet?" Harry feels her cheeks burn — this is probably the worst way to ask someone to the Ball.

But Parvati sits up and doesn't reject her idea immediately, so Harry tries out a smile. "I mean, I'm not super good at it, but we're friends," she thinks, because even if they haven't really hung out together the girls have always welcomed her, and they have shared a dorm for almost four years now, "and I think it could be fun."

Parvati eyes her for a long moment before nodding. "You know what, Potter, I think you'll do," she says, her lips curled up into a teasing grin.

Harry lets out a huge breath of relief. "Great. I mean, thanks." Hermione pats her on the back, and Harry doesn't have to look back at her to know she's grinning widely.

"Shut up," Harry mutters, and Hermione chuckles.

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to," she mumbles.

.

The thing is, girls are very pretty. Boys are too, of course, which makes Harry's crush on both Cho Chang and Cedric Diggory widely unpractical, considering they are dating each other.

So yes, she's noticed that her dormmates are cute, but it's like, in an absent sort of way. Kind of the same way she thinks Hermione's face has nice curves, or that Ron's eyes are the prettiest blue.

It doesn't really mean anything — especially if Parvati and Lavender are already dating each other.

Still, when Harry comes to get Parvati for the Ball and finds her decked in the finest clothes she's ever seen — of a style she's never seen outside of some Bollywood films Aunt Petunia had always almost instantly changed the channel on — it takes her breath away a little bit.

"You look great," she says, and Parvati smiles at her.

"Thanks," she says. "You don't look so bad yourself." She nods toward Harry's black and green dress robes — to go with her eyes, the shopkeeper had said — with approval. "You clean up nice, Potter."

Harry laughs. "Thanks," she echoes, more thankful than ever that her embarrassment doesn't show as easily as Ron's.

The Ball is a lot of fun — Ron and Hermione's drama excluded. Parvati jokes that she isn't sure if Ron's supposed to be more jealous of Krum for having Hermione on his arm (Hermione, who looks resplendent and almost entirely unrecognizable with her straightened hair) or of Hermione for having Krum on hers.

"Both, I think," Harry replies after a pause, because she has never been a fan of anything the way Ron is a fan of Krum, but also Hermione, who he seems to have only just now realized is a girl-girl.

"You're probably right," Parvati replies with a hum.

They dance for a little while longer after that, before they wander back to their table for a break and drinks.

"I like your dress," Harry finds herself pointing out rather awkwardly. "Where did you find it? I never saw anything like it in Diagon Alley this summer."

Parvati snorts loudly. "You wouldn't," she replies with an eyeroll. "British Wizarding fashion is severely lacking — no, we went back to India over the summer and mother bought our outfits there."

She eyes Harry pensively. "You know, I wouldn't have thought you interested in this," she says. "You never exactly seemed like you were interested in learning about your own origins, but I think my parents actually knew yours."

Harry gapes. "Really?"

Parvati nods before sipping her drink. "Yeah. He used to come over for our Diwali celebrations after his parents died, I think."

Harry feels her heart twist. She doesn't dare mention that she doesn't even know what Diwali is, but Parvati must read it on her face anyway.

"The relatives I grew up about never told me anything about my family," she blurts out. "I… don't think they liked the color of my skin," she adds with a grimace, as though that was the least of the defaults the Dursleys found in her.

Parvati's expression turns pitying — no, commiserating.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," she says softly. "But it's better now, isn't it?"

She looks ready to fight Sirius hand to hand if Harry tells her that it isn't, and Harry laughs tearfully. "Yeah, it's better."

She'll ask Sirius if he knows more, she thinks. He's told her he ran away from his parents at sixteen and was taken in by her grandparents, after all, so he probably knows some things.

She blinks herself out of her musings and smiles at Parvati. "Thanks for telling me about this."

Parvati shrugs, smiling awkwardly. "You're welcome." She shifts on her feet for a few moments before blurting out, "I would have told you about it before, but I thought you didn't care." Her cheeks darken and her smile turns self-deprecating. "Pretty stupid of me, I think."

Harry shakes her head. "You couldn't have known." She shrugs. "It's fine."

It isn't, not really, but there isn't anything either of them can do about it.

Luckily, they're saved from figuring out how to extract themselves from this awkward situation by the music, which suddenly changes from the soothing valse-like tunes Harry's gotten used to to a much faster and louder type of thing.

Parvati recognizes it instantly, a gleeful grin splitting her face, and her eyes go to find Lavender's across the room.

"It's the Weird Sisters!" she shouts. She turns back to Harry. "Come on, let's go dance!"

Harry eyes the various pairs who've already gathered back on the dancefloor dubiously. It doesn't look like any dancing she knows, and a quick look around the room also confirms something she's suspected — that both Ron and Hermione seem to have run off.

She swallows and grimaces at Parvati. "I should go check on my friends," she says apologetically.

For a moment, Parvati just stares at her and Harry starts to believe she might actually get mad, but then Parvati huffs and shakes her head. "I should have known," she says, and she doesn't sound mad.

Not really disappointed, either — maybe kind of amused, actually.

"I had a nice time," she adds. "Thanks for asking me."

"Thanks for saying yes," Harry replies, her cheeks burning. "It was fun."

Her eyes must dart toward the door again, because Parvati laughs. "Just go, Harry. Go find your 'friends'."

"I… will?" Harry watches her leave for a confused moment before shaking her head and walking toward the doors.

.

Harry finds Hermione, fuming, outside, alternating between kicking a tree and letting out wordless shouts of rage.

"Are you okay?" she asks, cautiously approaching.

"Do I look okay?" Hermione snarls back, before deflating. "Oh, it's you," she says. "I thought you might be…"

"Ron?"

Hermione scowls and crosses her arms. Her eyes are puffy and shiny, but if she cried before, she's not crying now.

"He was a jerk!"

Harry nods. "He can be a bit insensitive," she agrees, even if it might be a bit hypocritical of her to say this when she doesn't get other people's emotions a lot of the time.

"He had no right!" Hermione fumes. "I was having a nice night, why did he have to come along and ruin it?" She looks at Harry and sags forward. "Oh, Harry, I'm sorry. You should go back inside, I'm afraid I won't be very good company now, and you should enjoy your evening."

"It's fine," Harry replies with a gentle smile. "I think I'm right where I want to be."

Hermione gives a wet laugh. "Thanks."

"Mmh-mh." Harry lets the silence settle over them for a bit, before she adds, quietly, "You know, Ron left the ball pretty much as soon as you did. I think he probably ruined his own night as well as yours, if that's any comfort?"

Hermione shakes her head, and lips twitching into a small smile. She wipes her cheeks. "It's not, but thanks for trying."

"You're welcome," Harry replies awkwardly.

They stand there for a while longer before Hermione gives a long sigh and rolls her shoulders. "I guess we should go back in, now. Might as well go back to the dorms rather than stay out here in the cold."

The area has been layered with enough warming charms that it feels more like a warm spring's afternoon than a cold winter's night, but Harry nods along anyway.

She fingers her wand anxiously, looking at Hermione's puffy eyes, and asks, "Do you want me to, erm, fix that? I can make it so you don't have a headache tomorrow."

(Harry knows from experience how badly it can hurt to have cried yourself to sleep.)

Hermione startles. "Oh," she says. "Would you? That'd be nice."

Harry, cheered at the perspective of finally being able to help, nods. "It's not a hard spell, but it's a bit finicky. I can teach you later, though, if you'd like?" she asks, even though she knows Hermione will say yes.

"These lessons with Madam Pomfrey are really paying off, huh?" Hermione asks while Harry raises her wand to her face.

"Yeah," she replies, her lips stretching into an easy grin. "Now, stay still, this'll feel cold for a bit."

Even warned, Hermione shivers, but a moment later the cold blue light of the spell fades and Hermione no longer looks like she's just spent the past hour sobbing.

She blinks, surprised, and then raises her hands to her face. "Thanks," she says, her eyebrows rising almost all the way up her forehead. "That really does feel better."

"Good," Harry replies.

They walk back all the way back to the moving staircase before Hermione stops her.

"You want to look for Ron, don't you?" Hermione asks her flatly.

"I…" Harry considers lying, but decides on the truth. "He's our friend, and I think he knows he made a mistake. I just want to make sure he's okay."

Hermione heaves a sigh and shakes her head. "Fine," she says. "Go make sure he's okay. But I'm still mad at him."

Harry shrugs. "That's fine," she says, even though she hates it when her friends are fighting. "Hey," she adds with a smile, "maybe I can get him to apologize?"

Hermione snorts and shakes her head. "That'd be the day." Stepping away from Harry, she puts her foot down on the first step of the staircase, and it trembles, signaling its intention to move.

Hermione climbs on it fully, and bids Harry goodnight.

.

Ron cried too, Harry can tell when she finds him, but he didn't find a tree to kick in anger. Instead, he appears to be brooding, sat down on the floor next to a suit of armor.

"Hermione's mad at you," Harry says, sitting down next to him.

Ron's face falls and he moans. "I know. Merlin, I was so dumb!"

Harry shrugs, because she can't deny it, but also, Ron is her friend and friends don't let friends insult themselves. "You made a mistake," she corrects him. "It happens." She lets her lips quirk up as she knocks their shoulders together. "But yeah, it was a dumb mistake."

Ron buries his face into his knees with a groan. He looks smaller like this. Defeated. "I wish I could go back in time and punch myself in the face," he says, his voice muffled by his robes.

Harry snorts. "Well, Hermione doesn't use a time turner anymore, so I think you're out of luck on that one. You could always try apologizing, though, I hear those usually help with things," she adds dryly.

Ron shakes his head. "What if she never wants to speak to me again?"

Inwardly, Harry rolls her eyes. "She's still your friend, you know. She's mad right now, but you can fix it. You fixed it last year, didn't you?"

"I…" Ron's shoulders rise then fall. "You're right."

"I know." She dusts her knees and pushes herself up, before offering Ron a hand. "Now come on, we should head back to the Common Room. Doesn't do us any good to sit down on the floor like this."

Ron sighs and takes her hand, and she pulls him up with a grunt.

They walk back to the tower in silence.

.

Compared to the first task, the second one is boring. All they really do is watch the Champions jump into the Black Lake, and then they spend one hour waiting while Ludo Bagman tries to predict who might win the task and explains all the different challenges the Champions are facing underwater.

Hermione, Harry notices with a heavy heart, isn't there. As if on cue, Bagman loudly reveals that the Champions have to free a hostage, and Harry can guess that Hermione is Krum's.

She spends the entire hour anxiously scrutinizing the surface of the water, and when finally, Krum, half-shark, half-man, pulls her out of the lake, Harry jumps to her feet and drags Ron along with her to the healing tent Madam Pomfrey made up.

Madam Pomfrey lets her in with a fond eyeroll, and puts her to work handing out towels and Pepper-Ups to both Champions and hostages to ward off the cold from the lake's water.

She finds Hermione still dripping water, and shivering. Harry scowls as she hands a towel, and she doesn't realize she's started fretting over her friend until she'd halfway through a rant on the stupidity of having this task in winter in Scotland and underwater.

(It may or may not be rather identical to Madam Pomfrey's — or so Hermione laughs at her later that night.)

After that disaster, Harry isn't sure why she's expecting the third task to go any better, but at least it doesn't involve any of her friends being held hostage underwater by merpeople.

Really, it can only go up from there.

As it turns out, the third task is only slightly less boring as the second one was to watch. The organizers have clearly tried to make it easier to spectate, but it quickly becomes obvious that it hasn't quite worked.

They turned the Quidditch Pitch into a huge, living maze, and set off an obstacle course with the Cup at the end, the prize that will signal the end of the Tournament.

(Harry's pretty glad Wood's already left Hogwarts, because no Quidditch this year would have killed him, but for this atrocity, he might have risen from his grave to murder everyone else.)

Since the seats for Quidditch are pretty high up, it does mean they've got a view of the maze from above, and they can see the Champions as they run through the different obstacles.

Sadly, they're rather far away, and that makes it difficult to discern… well, anything, really. Harry's taken out her Omniculars again to try to help, but that means she can only ever focus on one Champion at a time and might miss what another one is doing.

Which is how she almost ends up missing Cedric blasting his way past an Acromantula to catch the cup.

(Look, Fleur had some really nice pyrotechnic work going on there, and Harry got a little distracted.)

Hogwarts erupts in cheers as Cedric Portkeys back to the front of the maze, looking stunned and a little worse for the wear, and Fudge comes to shake his hand and congratulate him before the rest of the masses descends upon him.

Out in the maze, Harry spies Krum and Fleur realize that they've lost as the walls of the maze open up to let them out.

They shake hands with Cedric, who grins back shakily, the Cup still hanging from his other hand, before finally, Madam Pomfrey descends upon him like a vulture on its prey.

Harry laughs to see it, and for once, rather than go out to help, she turns back to her friends and celebrates.

.

It felt odd, leaving Hogwarts and being eager for the Hogwarts Express to pull into King's Cross station. For the last few years, Harry had been counting the days until school started and she could be with her friends again, but this one she's excited to go home.

She has one of those now.

Sirius and Remus wait for her at the station. They're chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, running interference to protect Hermione's parents from Mr. Weasley's increasingly odd line of questioning, and Sirius pulls her into a tight, suffocating hug as soon as she steps within reach.

It still feels weird to be able to accept the affection so easily.

"Hi," she says, grinning.

"Hi, Prongslet," Sirius replies, a grin of his own splitting his face. He looks even better than he had when Harry saw him last, and better still compared to last year, when he had been little more than a very skeletal ghost.

"Hi, Harry," Remus echoes, pulling her in for a quick hug of his own.

He, too, looks much better — the shadows in his eyes are lessened, and he looks… quieter. More settled.

It makes Harry smile.

It's going to be a great summer, she can already tell.

.

Summer with Sirius is nothing like summer at the Dursleys'. She'd gotten a taste of it last year, but it's only confirmed this year.

Magic means there's no cleaning for her to do — even if Sirius' cleaning charms failed more often than they succeed, to Remus' and Harry's great amusement — and Remus takes over as designated cook more often than not.

The Weasleys are just a Floo call away, and Harry grows used to the aftertaste of soot in her mouth as she wanders between the two houses at will.

Mrs. Weasley is always happy to see him, and she thinks Sirius and Remus are both too thin — she's more than happy to feed them too.

Sirius makes good on his promise to teach her how to surf — first just her, and then the Weasley kids who're interested.

Which is all of them. Percy resists the longest, but the heat and the laughter get the better of him about halfway through July, and he joins in.

To his siblings' horror, he turns out to be much better than all of them, and Sirius jokingly crowns him assistant teacher, a position Percy takes to with great pride and dedication, the same way he takes to everything in life, it seems.

He can really only be there on the weekends, now that he works at the Ministry during the week, but it's still fun to see him lose some of his seriousness to have water fights with his siblings.

And then...

And then, one day, they're talking about visiting Hermione in London next, and Sirius mentions that he has a house in London.

"My family used to anyway," he says with the dark look on his face he always gets when he thinks about them. he grimaces. "Place's probably cursed to hell and back, too."

Remus squeezes his hand reassuringly, and Sirius sighs. "You know what? I should get rid of it. Sell it. It's mine now, I should be able to get rid of that house of horrors." He wiggles his eyebrows, smirking at Remus. "What do you say, wanna make it a date? You and me and —"

"You house of horrors?" Remus finishes dryly. His eyes sparkle with fond amusement, and Harry looks away from secondhand embarrassment.

(She's glad they have each other, she really is, but do they have to be so… mushy all the time?)

Sirius shrugs. "Hey, you're the Defense teacher. Of course, if you don't think you can handle it…"

"I know what you're doing," Remus replies, a smile in his voice.

"Is it working?" Sirius quips back, wiggling his eyebrows again. He smirks. "I can beg, if you'd rather."

Remus flushed red. "Sirius!"

"Kidding, kidding." Sirius lets out a loud bark of laughter. "But seriously," he adds, sobering up, "I don't think I want to go back there alone, and Harry definitely shouldn't set foot in that place."

Remus heaves a sigh. "Fine. We can make it a date," he says.

Sirius barks out another laugh. "Don't say I never get you anything."

They go out the next day, and Harry stays over at the Weasleys' for a mock-up match of Quidditch with Ron and his siblings.

Ginny, as it turns out, is a fury on a broom, and Harry spends so much time staring after her that she loses the Quaffle more than once, putting her firmly at the bottom of their friendly rankings.

But even with flying to help clear her mind, Harry worries.

She was probably right to, as it turns out, because when Sirius and Remus return, they look very pale, and Sirius hugs her for a long, long time.

.

"I had a little brother," he tells her later, his eyes sad and mad. "He was so young, and so stupid… never questioned anything our parents told him. Or…" His voice chokes around a sob.

"That's what I thought, anyway. But he was brace, in the end. He was brave, and he was my little brother, and I left him behind."

Harry doesn't really know what to do, but later, with Remus, they put a picture of a scowling boy about the fireplace. The boy has dark hair and the same aristocratic features as Sirius, but he is young.

And when they set down his picture, Harry would swear she sees his scowl turn into a smile, just for a moment.

.

The summer flies back too fast, but as it turns out, Sirius and Remus have one last surprise for her.

They're going back to Hogwarts with her.

"I'm your new DADA teacher," Sirius boasts with a wink. "And Remus is my lovely assistant."

"Officially," Remus corrects him with an eyeroll. "We've talked with Albus, and he agrees that the position is probably cursed. It seems to be weakening, though, and he thinks he has a way to break it for good soon, but in the meantime, officially Sirius will be the new DADA teacher, and I'll only be there to assist."

Which means that, unofficially, they're getting Remus back as their teacher.

For their OWLs year, too — Hermione is going to be ecstatic.

.

"This is weird," Harry says two weeks into the year.

"What is?" Hermione asks absently, her head buried inside an Arithmancy volume that makes Harry's head hurt just by looking at it.

"I'm bored," she says, feeling faintly incredulous. "There's no evil plot this year, and no international life-threatening tournament."

"That's good," Hermione replies. "Maybe you can work on your Potions' essay without needing to copy it off me for once, then." She smiles sharply — not that Hermione would ever truly refuse to help them, of course — and nudges Harry's unopened Potions book toward her.

"But Snape," Harry whines.

Merciless, Hermione hands her a quill.

Well, Harry thinks as she reluctantly accepts it, she does need a NEWT in Potions to get into the Healer program, and Snape only accepts O students.

She should probably get to studying it she wants to make the cut.

.

Having Sirius and Remus there at Hogwarts with her is a blessing and a curse.

A blessing, because it means that they can reinstate her unofficial meetings with Remus to discuss her parents, and they can have Sirius join in on them too.

Lately, Harry's been wanting to hear more about her mother and how she and her father got together.

"He grew up," Remus had told her the first time she'd asked. He'd told her all about how his mother had refused to give her father the time of day for so long that she'd started to wonder how they'd even happened.

But Harry wants more. She wants the quiet moments, the love story behind them. She wants to know what her father called her mother — Lily-flower when he was in the wrong and begging forgiveness, dear when he wasn't, and love because sometimes it just slipped out — and what her father called him — James mostly, Jim, sometimes, as a joke, and never Prongs because she found it stupid.

("In her defense," Sirius says with a bark of laughter, "it was a stupid name — but we weren't even fifteen then, so I think we should get a pass.")

She wants to know everything.

But it's also a curse, because she now has to remember to call them Professor whenever she's in class, and Malfoy and his clique make fun of her every time she slips and calls them by name instead.

Not that he has anything to talk about, really, when he mentions his father every two sentences he speaks, but resisting the urge to strangle his smug little face is growing harder to resist.

("Punching him was very cathartic," Hermione tells her when Harry confesses to her about it, and Ron cheers at the suggestion.

Sometimes, Harry forgets are friends are the worst.)

.

On Halloween, Hermione learns about there are house-elves at Hogwarts, and she goes on a hunger strike in protest.

Harry, who remembers the pangs of hunger and how much they hurt too well, heads her off with the promise of research, and she shoves her Sirius' way by telling her that Sirius' family had apparently owned and elf and so he might know more about them.

"Make sure Remus is around when you ask, though," she cautions. "He doesn't like talking about his past."

Hermione nods, and three days later, they're venturing into the kitchens to talk to some elves. Remus, as Harry had hoped, had tempered Sirius enough to suggest asking the elves for what they wanted and needed first.

Their initial meeting, of course, gets derailed when Harry realizes that Dobby is there, but at least they get an elf willing to talk to them about everything.

Even if it's the crazy house-elf who once spent a year almost murdering Harry.

He's too happy to sit down every week with Hermione, Sirius and Remus to tell them everything he knows and how he thinks house-elves should be treated — better than he was is the consensus, and Harry catches Sirius looking ill more than enough to know he isn't particularly innocent of that particular crime.

It makes her feel…

She doesn't know how she feels about it, but in the end, she guesses he's nice to Dobby — he's doing better now. He's changed, and he's learning, and if Hermione (and Harry, who's growing more and more attached to this cause too, and incensed at how casually Dobby still mentions the abuse he knows was wrong) wants permanent change, this is what they'll have to deal with.

Spending more time with Dobby comes with the benefits of the Come and Go Room, which Sirius and Remus gape at, both having thought a different room existed there, and they'd never thought to question it.

Remus, of course, immediately claims it for the Duelling Club Lockhart could only ever have dreamed of, securing his status of favorite teacher probably forever.

(The room becomes common knowledge, and one night, Albus Dumbledore, who had realized only three years ago the depths to which Tom Riddle had fallen to in his quest for immortality, paces three times in front of the door and asks it where hidden things go.

He finds many things he had thought lost there, but mainly, he finds a diadem. This one, he destroys himself.

Like a very singular locket some months ago, it dies screaming.)

.

On April 1st, the Daily Prophet's front page announces the death of infamous Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange, who succumbed to Dementor exposure in Azkaban, where she'd been jailed since the end of the war for torturing the Longbottoms into insanity.

Neville cries when he reads it, while at the head table, Sirius stares at the paper for a long, incredulous moment before dissolving into fits of hysterical laughter.

He stops laughing, however, when an official Gringotts' owl lands in front of him, inviting him to his cousin's will reading, where he will learn that as current head of the Black family, all of Bellatrix's assets belong to him.

(Among those, of course, is a golden cup nobody can touch, but this is not a story about that.)

.

And then, one day, just before her first OWLs, Harry wakes up feeling lighter.

It's like a weight she'd never been aware she'd been carrying had been lifted off her shoulders while she slept, and she finds herself grinning stupidly at nothing, her feet hanging off her bed.

She's happy.

---

Written for Hogwarts' Survival Studies Assignment: Task #4: Stocked First Aid Kit: Write about trying to heal another person.

Also for the Writing Club: Actor Appreciation - 16. Mad Hatter (Tarrant Hightopp) - Alice in Wonderland - write about a loyal friend, Record Collection - 9. Lego House: Character: Ron Weasley, Bingo - [3.d] Action: Hugging someone,

The Fabulous World of Comics - 12: (action) flirting, Book Club - Christina: (genre) friendship, (trait) blunt, (emotion) jealousy, (action) reading someone's body language,

Amber's Attic - 3: Discord: Write about a group (3 or more people) coming together over a common interest, Elizabeth's Empire - 2: Eloquence - (character) Hermione Granger, Liza's Loves - 3: D&D - Write about a group of at least three people,

Lizzy's Loft - 11: Lasagna - (family) Weasleys, Angel's Archives - 12. Dark Pink Rose - (theme) gratitude, Scamander's Case - 1: (character) Ron Weasley, Film Festival - 8: (relationship) friends, Marvel Appreciation - Trope: Found Family, Lyric Alley - 23: Our whole lives laid out right in front of us.

Also for Summer Challenges: Days of the Year & Religious Events - 4th July - Independence Day: Write about someone leaving a bad situation, National Anti-Boredom Month: 15. Make a collage: Write about reminiscing over something,

Unlucky Month for Weddings: 20. (word) Solemnly, National Ice-Cream Month: 2. Bubblegum: Cheerful, Romance Awareness Month: Wolfstar, Friendship Week: Harry&Ron&Hermione,

National Indoor Plant Month: 11. Aloe: (occupation) Healer, Colours: 3. Golden Brown, Locations: 11. King's Cross Station, Crystals & Gemstones: 14. Malachite: (scenario) Protecting a child, Tarot Reading: 9. Ten of Cups (reversed): Write about someone who fears an unhappy home life,

Gryffindor Characters: 25. Harry Potter, Gryffindor OTPs: 20. Sirius/Remus (Ray), Gryffindor Challenge: Build-a-Fairytale by Elizabeth: Stage 1 - 4: The map is wrong: (object) the Marauder's Map.

Also Pinata: Hard - Setting: The Hog's Head, Wizard's Chess: 8: (setting) the Hog's Head.