Chapter 6

It had been two weeks since Tracey's fight with Daphne and, having broken off their friendship for the time being, she had begun spending time with Harry more regularly. Several nights of just talking and getting to know each other had quickly drawn the two of them together in a close friendship. While Harry had never been accustomed to sharing, the constant reminder of how he felt after showing Tracey what had happened in the chamber of secrets had helped him to overcome that. Tracey herself had been a big factor as well, she never pushed and just let him share in his own time. He hadn't yet told her about Sirius's innocence or his life with the Dursleys but he'd shown her the incident with the troll, his fight with Quirrell, and, most recently, Cedric's death and Voldemort's resurrection. When Tracey had emerged from the last memory she'd held a look of angry determination, looked him dead in the eyes and swore she would help Harry end him.

On her end, Tracey had told Harry about her love of Ancient Runes along with her desire to work for Gringotts designing runic based ward schemes and enchantments. It also turned out she was a massive fan of quidditch and couldn't help but groan about the state of the Slytherin team, specifically Malfoy's move to buy his way onto the team with the Nimbus 2001s in their second year. Apparently, Tracey had wanted to try out for the seeker spot herself and Malfoy had rubbed her nose in it when she wasn't even allowed to try out telling her that a filthy half-blood would never be allowed to soil the Slytherin team. As it turned out, few things brought people together like mutual disdain for Draco Malfoy; following her story, the two had gone on hour long venting sessions about the arrogant prat bringing up everything from his excessive use of hair product to his constant habit of running to daddy to fix his problems.

Looking forward to another get together with her this evening, Harry headed towards the portrait hole.

"Harry, where are you going?" He heard Hermione call at him.

Harry grit his teeth, she'd been getting under his skin lately. She'd been snippy ever since he'd first informed her of Tracey joining the DA. He knew Ron would be an uphill battle but he'd figured Hermione would've come around by now but the situation had been the exact opposite of what he expected. While Ron still wasn't happy about it he was content to just forget about her existence outside DA meetings. Hermione though, could frequently be seen sending death glares at Tracey in both meetings and in classes they shared with Slytherin and had been short with Harry anytime he tried to converse with her. Not wanting to deal with her at this moment he made up a quick lie.

"Detention with Umbridge." He said quickly. Neither Hermione or Ron knew about his secret meetings with Tracey yet and he was hoping to avoid that argument for as long as possible. He figured this would be a believable enough lie where she wouldn't question it. Of course, his luck wasn't that good as Ron overheard his excuse.

"Mate, I thought you said last night was your last one?" Harry could've cursed his friend as soon as he saw Hermione's glare. They hadn't had DADA today and Umbridge hadn't approached them during any meal time.

"Well, Harry?" Hermione said, basically commanding him to explain.

"I'm going for a walk, I need to clear my head." He tried again. It was the best he could come up with in the spot after his first lie fell through but he knew his best wouldn't be good enough here.

"Harry, if you were just going for a walk you wouldn't have lied." She accused

Harry knew he was in a bind here but wasn't sure what to say as he glanced at his watch to see he was running late. Unfortunately, Hermione caught this through narrowed eyes.

"Who are you meeting?" Harry groaned internally, he really needed to get better at controlling gestures that revealed information. He knew he had no room to lie further, she would go to verify his story the next day with whomever he said in place of Tracey and at this point Ron was giving him a suspicious look too. Sighing, he could only hope she would forgive his tardiness.

"I'm going to meet with Tracey." He finally said.

"WHAT!!!!!" They both exclaimed.

Harry rolled his eyes as he noticed every other head in the common room looked in their direction.

"Very kind of you two to not attract attention." His voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Mate, are you mad? It's bad enough that she's in the DA but you can't trust her! She's…." Ron was cut off by Harry.

"Ron I swear if you say 'she's a Slytherin' I'll leave now and we won't speak again." His tone low and deadly serious.

Ron was about to follow that up with another comment but Harry cut him off again.

"Same goes for if you accuse her of using a curse or potion on me. You know I can throw off the imperious, you know that compulsion spells only work for a short period of time, and you know the symptoms of mind manipulating potions to look out for. If you take even a cursory glance it's obvious I'm exhibiting none of them." Ron closed his mouth at his words but his face was red with anger.

"Harry, that may all be true." She said obviously still planning to dispute his argument. "But don't you think she could be manipulating you for something? She must have a reason for wanting to see you." She said with concern.

"Of course she does Hermione, it's for the nefarious ulterior motive of wanting to be friends." He retorted

"You can't be serious Harry, it has to be some kind of trick. Why else would she want to befriend you?" Ron exclaimed and Hermione covered her face with her hand, realizing Ron's poor phrasing wasn't going to help them here.

With a cold tone Harry replied "I don't know Ron, perhaps you could tell me."

Hermione quickly jumped in to diffuse the situation before it got worse. "Harry, you know that's not what Ron meant in spite of his poor wording." She sent a glare at Ron forcing him to shut his mouth.

"Then what did he mean Hermione, please enlighten me." He said, the coldness in his voice not having lessened at all.

"Harry we're just worried, we don't know her…" Hermione tried to explain before being cut off.

"No, you don't know her, Hermione. This isn't our first meeting and, while I had my doubts at first, I trust her." Harry loved his friends, truly he did, but sometimes their stubbornness grated on him.

"Harry, think about this, you've barely known her a month. How could you possibly trust someone so quickly, least of all someone who is a close friend of Daphne Greengrass." And there it was, the real reason Hermione didn't like this. Not that Harry didn't understand, Daphne had said cruel things to all of them at points but she'd been particularly nasty to Hermione. Hermione didn't have all the details though and, unfortunately, they weren't Harry's to disclose.

"Because I've asked her about Daphne. It's not my place to say more but please trust me on this. Daphne isn't who we thought she was." Harry said vaguely.

"And you're just taking her at her word. Harry, how could you possibly…." Hermione's eyes widened in realization. "No, she couldn't have, her face would have…."

"What are you on about Hermione?" Ron cut in, not understanding.

"Greengrass knows about the DA Ron." She replied shortly.

Before Ron could yell, Harry cut back in.

"She does, she's known for weeks, and no Tracey didn't tell her, she discovered it on her own as I'm sure you could guess as Tracey didn't violate your hex. If Daphne was truly going to be an issue don't you think Umbridge would've had us all expelled by now?" He said, choosing to not mention the but about Daphne stunning him and threatening him.

"They could be biding their time Harry, building a case for us to not only be expelled but arrested and thrown in prison." Hermione argued.

"So you don't trust my judgment then, is that it?" Harry's anger was starting to rise and he was dangerously close to losing his temper.

"That's not what I'm saying….." but she was cut off by a new entrant to the conversation.

"Yes, Hermione, it is."

They all turned to see Ginny standing off to the side. Her arms were crossed and she was giving Ron and Hermione a look that meant 'how idiotic are you?'

"Both of you, for this whole conversation have been telling Harry nothing but reasons why his trust is misplaced but have never once considered the possibility that Harry thought about what you're saying, vetted her, and decided she was worth trusting. If you believed in his judgment you would be willing to accept it. He clearly knows something, likely private information or he'd have shared, that makes him believe in her motives, whatever they may be." Harry could've hugged her, he definitely owed her something from Honeydukes.

Ginny turned to Harry. "Go Harry, it's not polite to leave a lady waiting." She gave him a mischievous smirk "I'll deal with these two."

Harry smiled and nodded at her before exiting the portrait hole, relieved at Ginny's timely intervention.

A few minutes later he reached the room of requirement and entered to find Tracey standing in the middle of the room. She gave him a hard glare.

"I don't like to be left waiting, Potter." Harry cringed knowing the use of his last name was a bad sign.

"I'm sorry, Ron and Hermione caught me leaving the common room and I was forced to have a….. difficult conversation with them." Harry explained.

Tracey's look softened at this. "I take it they know now?" Harry nodded "Should I expect more aggressive glares moving forward?"

Harry shrugged. "For a while maybe but they'll come round if they want me to confide in them for anything ever again."

"You'd draw that line in the sand with them over me?" She asked softly.

"You did the same for me with Daphne, did you not?" He pointed out.

"I suppose I did." She said with a grin.

"Then I guess our friends will just have to get used to it since neither of us seems inclined to get rid of each other."

Tracey felt her heart flutter at that and replied "I guess not, as long as you're not late again."

Harry just laughed and they sat down together at the hearth the room had provided for them.

A/N: I am preemptively saying this for any who will notice that I explicitly said Tracey has seen Voldemort's resurrection but does not know about Sirius. Tracey, like most folks Harry's age, has no idea what Pettigrew looks like and Voldemort only ever refers to him as Wormtail. Since Harry has not yet shown Tracey the marauders map it is not a connection she would make hearing the name.