February soon melted into March and before Harry knew it, it was summer. Since his first few weeks at Hogwarts, a comfortable routine had been established, and whenever monotony threatened to settle in and drive Harry mad with boredom, some amusing human interaction would save him. Like the letter he'd received from Andy in late-March, describing the ill-fated road trip to New Orleans, and the arrest of the whole of Manic for public drunkenness and indecent exposure. A nice little Polaroid accompanied the sordid tale and Harry couldn't keep himself from running out to the closest Muggle town to post a return letter and buy a few postcards for the rest of the group of friends he'd left behind.

Harry's initial friendship with Remus Lupin and Wynn had only deepened after that conversation that silently revealed that Harry was in the company of family. The three of them occasionally recruited some seventh-year Quidditch players for a pickup game on warm evenings, and at nights they still met at Hagrid's Hut, though Harry had given up his occasional drink at Minerva's suggestion. He'd been visiting the elderly witch in between her morning classes, sometimes talking about the philosophy involved behind transfiguring objects into animals, sometimes talking about Quidditch, of which the Professor was inordinately fond of, and sometimes just…talking. About Bulfinch, Muggle literature, growing up with the Dursleys. Everything that Harry had never really talked about before. There was something very comforting about chatting with the woman, twenty minutes here, forty there. He had a feeling that it might be something like talking to a mother, but he had to admit to himself that he had no idea how that really felt.

His relationship with Snape, however, had nothing maternal about it. Under the master's tutelage, Harry was becoming quite proficient in brewing potions and, once Dumbledore had calmed the man's fears about trusting Harry so blindly, Snape had also taken to explaining the history of the war, excerpting from the Life and Times of Voldemort in sporadic intervals while the two brewed potions and prepared ingredients. Occasionally, they would drop the formality and speak about something personal. But unlike the light-hearted banter he shared with Remus and Wynn, and unlike the friendly histories he shared with Minerva, Snape and Harry dispensed with the David Copperfield bullshit. When they were personal with each other, they were personal. They gave each other the why. Why Snape had become a Death Eater in the first place. Why he had come back to Dumbledore one winter. Why he hadn't begged for mercy, and why he had begged to be killed. Why he wasn't married. Why he treated his students the way he did. Why he loved potions. And Harry would explain why he hadn't chosen Hogwarts. Why he left England. Why he had so many one-night stands. Why he didn't follow that Death Eater. Why he pulled pranks that even he knew were childish and immature. Why he studied magic on his own. Why he felt he needed to learn everything he could, and do everything he could, on his own. Why he was willing to spy on Voldemort, if he was needed. And after all these things were said, there was never a need for Snape to say, "None of this leaves the dungeons," or for Harry to say, "You tell anyone I said that and I'll let Wynn blab to the whole school that you don't wear underwear." The two men weren't beyond humor, and they did often laugh, even when they were talking about such things, but the fact that they'd never dare tell anyone, even Dumbledore, about what they spoke of…well, it was understood. Neither could explain why either felt comfortable about disclosing things they barely dared to write in journals, late at night, hidden under bed sheets, but they'd long since accepted that it was a necessary part of their friendship.

As for the rest of Harry's day, it was simple enough. He'd wake around nine, something he was rather proud of, and either go for a jog around the lake or take a quick flight on the Firebolt he'd ordered in April. After a quick conversation with Minerva, he'd have lunch on his own in the kitchens, having taken to the house elves that knocked themselves out to serve him until he's insisted that they pay him no mind. After lunch, he usually attended Care of Magical Creatures, depending on what the given subject matter was. Then he'd walk out to the greenhouses, having decided sometime in March that attending Potions class was pointless, given his private tutorials. At the greenhouse, he'd help Professor Sprout with some of the more strenuous tasks that were either too dangerous for seventh-years or too menial for first-years. After an hour of that, he'd return to the graduate dorm for a quick shower and then he'd head to the library, having long ago stopped groaning to himself that he'd transformed into a bookish wizard with virtually no social life and a lamentable streak of celibacy. Soon, dinner time would role around and he'd eat in the Great Hall with the rest of the castle's inhabitants. Then there was his hour with Snape…Severus…and then the customary call by Lupin. Harry would come back to his dorm sometime around ten or eleven, lounge in his boxers in front of one of the fireplaces or do some free reading, and then go to sleep. Yes, he was a party animal.

It was a week into June when this routine was threatened by the encroachment of a bushy-haired, buck-toothed young woman. It was quite late, nearly one in the morning, and Harry was lying on his favorite sofa, reading a rather ridiculous book about alectromancy and the many uses of roosters, when the door burst open and the aforementioned girl came in, cheeks red from trying to hold onto a decidedly squirmy ball of orange fluff that she held under her arms. Harry, in a state of undress, would have had the grace to blush if he hadn't been so shocked. He'd completely forgotten that his purpose for being there was for an auror training program that would inevitably included fellow trainees. Dumbledore might have warned me, he thought to himself, before being distracted once the girl opened her mouth.

"There, Crookshanks! You'd think I was trying to feed you to a Ridgeback!" the girl shouted, practically dropping the cat in her frustration, but smiling fondly enough at the creature to let Harry know that she wasn't really mad. Harry stood up, debating on whether he should use his book to cover his boxer shorts, or to just let the matter go. He decided on the latter and began to introduce himself. "Hi, I'm-" but that was as far as he got.

"Gods! You scared me," the girl started, only just noticing Harry standing there. "Of course, I'd hoped I'd be the first one here, since lessons don't begin until next week, but I knew you'd be here. You're Harry Potter, of course. It was in the Daily Prophet that you'd returned to England. Did you really go to an American university? I visited Harvard after I graduated Hogwarts and took a few courses before coming back to the English magical community and I found it quite enjoyable. How are the rooms here? Are they singles? House dorms for students usually have about five beds in each of them, did you know? And boys and girls are kept separate. But I suppose we're old enough now for that to be a non-issue. I'm Hermione Granger, by the way," she concluded, taking a deep breath and extending her hand to Harry.

Harry just stood there and stared at her, wondering where to begin. "Are you always so high strung?" Seemed like a nice enough jumping-off point.

Luckily, Hermione thought so as well, since she immediately started laughing, dropping her flustered manner as she dropped onto the couch. "Others well say yes, but I've gotten better since seventh-year," she smiled. "Sorry about that, I'm just incredibly nervous about this whole thing."

"About living near boys?" Harry asked, wondering if he was trying to flirt or if he was just being friendly. Hermione didn't immediately strike him as his type, but then, he had so many types and he sorely missed them.

"About being an auror actually," Hermione answered in a decidedly just-friendly manner. "I'll have you know I lived with a boy for a whole year."

"Your brother?"

"Nooo. Granted, he was gay, but still, he had a penis," she grinned. Oh, I like her, Harry thought to himself. He was just about to make a comment about his own…equipment, when the door was thrown open yet again and a rather tall young man came stumbling in, cursing under his breath when his foot caught on the rug, and cursing rather audibly and creatively when he saw who was already in the room.

"Oh flying fuck, what are you doing here?" asked the man. Harry assumed from the level of hostility in the man's voice that the question wasn't directed at him. In fact, he was almost positive that, as far as the man was concerned, Harry wasn't even in the room.

"What's it look like?" Hermione snapped. "I got my invitation back in January."

"You do realize that, to be an Auror, you can't just throw a book at a Death Eater's head, don't you? It will involve using magic, not reading about it. In fact, shouldn't you be in a library somewhere?" the young man challenged, using a sneering tone that Harry did not care for, even if he's only known Hermione for a few minutes.

"Last time I checked, Ronald, I was a Gryffindor just the same as you," Hermione snapped in retort. "And shouldn't you be running errands for one of your more successful brothers?"

Harry, feeling rather uncomfortable and even more embarrassed by his lacking wardrobe, decided to intervene. "Is this a love/hate thing?" he asked.

"No!" they both shouted, Hermione flopping back down onto the couch and the young man storming off down the hall to find choose a room. Clearly, Harry hadn't said the diplomatic thing. But he didn't let that bother him.

After a few silent moments, Hermione seemed to realize that Harry was still standing there and she flashed him an apologetic smile. "You know, that wasn't entirely true about the love/hate thing," she confessed. "Ron and I were in the same year and house and we dated for a while, all of sixth-year actually."

"I take it that it didn't end well?" Harry asked, sitting in the chair closer to the fireplace and tossing his book onto the coffee table. He noticed Hermione noticing the title and heard a soft snort. "Hey, it's not like a believe in this crap, but it couldn't hurt to read about it," Harry answered, not defensively.

"Oh, I think you and I will get along swimmingly. Can't say the same for Ron and I, though you'll probably like him. And no, it didn't end well. It ended terribly. And he's probably so pissed about it because it can't be blamed on either of this. And Ron hates losing control of any situation."

Harry wanted to ask whose fault it was, but it was getting late and, really, he hardly knew this girl. So instead, he threw out the standard, "Do you want to talk about it?" and counted on the answer being no. And it was.

"Maybe later, if only to give you my side before he becomes your best friend," she answered, smiling at the look of doubt on Harry's face. "Hey, he's not always like that. If he was, I wouldn't have dated him for so long. And he's probably just upset that he was surprised about me being here. I am too. I would never have thought that we'd end up practical strangers, after…well, it's not important. I don't want him to be an auror and he doesn't want me to be an auror, and that's how it is. And if you and I become friends, I suspect I'll be upset about you wanting to be an auror too. But I suppose you don't have much of a choice, do you?"

That surprised Harry. Even though he felt like he had made a choice, he had already accepted the fact that, in all honesty, there was no question that Harry was destined for this particular fight. And he'd accepted the fact that his Hogwarts friends, Lupin and Wynn and the rest, knew this as well. But no one had admitted to this other than Snape and the fact that it was obvious to this virtual stranger kind of sucked the wind out of his sails. And he wanted to deny it, but decided it wouldn't do any good. "No, I suppose I don't. But let's keep that between the two of us." With that, the two parted ways and Harry returned to his room.

Harry woke up around eight the next morning, the dull pounding at his door nearly letting him dream that he was back in Massachusetts. "Yeah?" Harry called, though the word might have been lost as he cleared his throat and groaned about the light at the same time. Hermione poked her head in the room, her eyes going wide as saucers and her face going red as…red things, and quickly shut the door again, opening it a moment later and shrilly suggesting that Harry cover himself up.

"I thought you lived with a boy for a year? I thought you dated that Ron guy for a year too?" Harry chuckled while he pulled on some shorts and opened the door to let her back in.

"Well, maybe I gave the wrong impression about my gay flatmate. He didn't actually walk around the living room, waving his…and anyway, Ron and I were only sixteen," she answered, sitting herself down on the floor in front of Harry's bookshelf, practically drooling over his library.

"No midnight rendezvous at the Astronomy tower then?" Harry smirked, while he hunted through his drawers for a shirt.

"Highly over-rated," Hermione sniffed. "We preferred empty classrooms. I can't believe you have this book!" she laughed, holding out a battered copy of Charm Your Own Cheese.

"It was in the bargain bin and it's come in very handy I'll have you know," Harry smirked. "Anyway, what are you doing in here? Hiding?"

"Hiding? Hardly," Hermione muttered. "Well, ok, I might be. I ran into him out in the hall and he's still put out by the whole thing."

"The break up or you being here?"

"I honestly don't know. He never was this bad our seventh year, but we probably avoided each other so well that he didn't have a chance to act like a bloody wanker." Harry had to laugh at that. She sounded like Dee when his old friend tried to do her Brit imitation and only ended up sounding like a caricature of Absolutely Fabulous. It wasn't pretty.

"So, now you want to talk about it? I was going for a jog around the lake, but you're welcome to come."

Twenty minutes later they were walking around the lake, Harry being polite enough and tired enough to slow things down and hear Hermione out.

"See, Ron and I started dating at the end of our fifth year. I think everyone was really surprised, because I wasn't all that popular in our classes. Probably because I raised my hand so much. But you'd probably understand. I'm Muggle-born, and no matter how open minded the kids in my house were, I still felt I had something to prove. But that's beside the point. Ron's best friend until fifth year was a boy named Dean Thomas, and the summer before fifth year, he and his family were killed in a Death Eater attack. And when Ron came back to school…I don't know if he just needed someone to take his mind off it or if he really liked me, but we became friends and then right before the summer we started dating. And by the time we were in our sixth year, it was real enough that Dean had nothing to do with it."

"Sounds great," Harry entered, relieved that he wasn't bored stiff yet.

"It was, until the summer after that year. My house was attacked. Thank god my parents lived, that Aurors came in time to scare the bastards off, but…I was raped. And after that, Ron couldn't look at me the same way and I couldn't be with him the same way."

"You mean that bastard tossed you aside because you couldn't…after?!"

"No!" Hermione answered fiercely. "No, it wasn't anything like that! He just refused to leave my side. He became so protective of me that it started feeling like I was turning helpless, just so he'd have someone to help. And I couldn't stand being with him because I felt like I put him at danger. And because I was afraid that one day, they'd kill him, and that if I could make myself not care about him anymore, it wouldn't hurt so bad when that day came. Or comes. It was idiotic, of course it was idiotic. But we were 16 bloody years old and we were scared that one of us would day, and one of us would be left behind. So we left each other behind."

"Yeah, that is idiotic," Harry answered. After a few minutes, they were back at the castle, giving up on actually running anywhere. "So, what happened, is that why you want to be an Auror?"

"Yes. Not revenge, though. Just to make sure that it doesn't happen to anyone again."

Harry left Hermione at the entrance to the dorm and went out in search of Minerva, whom he eventually found in the staff room.

"Hey Min," Harry greeted, sitting down at the table and pouring himself a glass of pumpkin juice, which he had quickly gotten addicted to.

"How many time do I have to tell you not to call me that, Harold?" Minerva answered.

"Is my name Harold?" Harry asked. Casually, like he was asking the time.

"You don't know?" Minerva asked in return.

"I suppose I don't. Everyone always called me Harry, and when I found out about my parents and the virtually non-existent relationship between them and my Aunt, I figured that my aunt wouldn't know who I was named after or whether or not 'Harry' is short for anything. They had to have all my paper work and what not redone when I was a baby."

"Well, it is short for Harold. After you father's great uncle I believe. But you don't seem bothered about not knowing."

"I'm more bothered about not knowing my parents to care much about a name," Harry shrugged. "Moving on to more cheerful topics, I ran into some new friends last night and thanks very much for telling me they were coming. Practically starkers when Hermione walked in."

Harry patiently waited while Minerva finished choking on her tea. "In all honesty, I'd given up on them coming yesterday. What time did they get in?"

"One I think, but the point is that you knew they were supposed to come and you didn't say anything."

"You didn't ask. Now, let's go over that principle of solipsism that we started talking about last week."

Twenty minutes later, Harry was making his way down to the kitchens for lunch, stomach growling as he was detained by several ghosts on the way. He was getting ready to kill them again when he was saved by an intervening hand.

"Hi. I'm Ron Weasley. We almost met last night but…I was a little distracted," greeted the tall red-head. Ron looked a lot different this day, wearing a grin that seemed miles away last night.

"Harry Potter," Harry answered, taking the proffered hand. "Boy, have I heard a lot about you."

It was an interesting effect, seeing Ron's face pale and his ears go bright pink. "Not all bad though, right?"

"No, 'course not. I'm on my way to the kitchens for lunch. Want to come?"

"But the Great Hall is-"

"Too crowded and loud for my tastes," Harry finished. "Besides, you get better food in the kitchens. The house elves really try to outdo themselves if someone's watching."

The pair of them continued down to the kitchen, practically talking each other's ears off, much to Harry's surprise. Despite the praises Hermione had sung for her ex, Harry had naturally assumed that he'd have to pick a side and Hermione had won because she had gotten there first. And she was cute. But Ron really was a nice guy and reminded Harry of Andy, only less Manic. The two talked about Quidditch, about Hogwarts teachers (Harry choosing to ignore Ron's near hatred of Snape for the time being), about the good pubs in Hogsmeade, about Ron's brief and agonizing internship at the Ministry of magic, and, finally, about Hermione.

"Look, let's get this out of the way before I get sick of both of you," Harry said the moment Ron had mentioned the girl's name. By now they were well into lunch. "I like Hermione a lot already and I think it's important for everyone in this training program to be friends if we can. Because one day we'll probably need to save each other's lives and I want people I trust and respect and care about to be behind me. And it's shaping up like Hermione will be one of those people. Now, she told me about you guys, the five-minute history. And she told me about the break up. But I want to know if whatever happened last night is going to last all year, because really, Ron, you seem like a nice guy, but I swear-"

Ron stopped him right there. "Don't worry about it Harry. I was just surprised, is all. And she probably explained why, so no need to get into that. But I'm planning on being friends with her. I'd already die for her, so I might as well get something good out of it, right?" he smiled.

"You still love her then?" Harry asked, not too sure what he wanted the answer to be. Maybe it would be good either way it went.

"In a way. But I've got a fiancé back in London, so you have a crack at her if you want, with the understanding that I'll have to kill you, or at least severely maim you, if you mess her about."

"Well, maybe I'll just wait and see," Harry smiled. He had a feeling that he'd just signed a contract with these two people, and that his whole routine was just about fucked. But that might not be a bad thing.