Disclaimer: It's all JKR's.

Chapter Five—Letters and Conversations

Harry's first week at The Burrow passed quickly, and he woke one morning and realised that school would be starting in exactly one week. He wasn't sure how he felt about that fact; part of him couldn't wait to be back at Hogwarts, but another part of him really didn't want to leave The Burrow. The past week had been wonderful, and he had felt so safe here.

He silently chastised himself for being foolish; Hogwarts was safer than The Burrow could ever be, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would be safer after he, Harry, was gone from their house. "So quit brooding," he told himself. "You'll be perfectly safe."

He gave himself a little shake and put his worries away for now. Then he tossed his pillow at Ron's sleeping form.

"Whazza?" Ron muttered sleepily, not bothering to emerge from his flaming orange comforter.

"Breakfast time," Harry said. When Ron didn't move, he added, "Food. Bacon. Eggs. Toast." He paused. Still no movement from Ron. "And, if you don't get a move on, Fred and George will eat it all."

Ron sat bolt-upright as if Harry had suddenly thrown cold water on him. He tossed aside his comforter and sprang out of bed. "What are we waiting for?" he asked, and he raced for the door. Harry followed close on his heels, marveling at Ron's ability to go from "totally unconscious" to "wide awake" in the blink of an eye.

As the boys bolted down the stairs, they noticed a raucous din coming from the kitchen. Ron stopped short in the kitchen door, nearly causing Harry to run into him. Harry managed to stop, then peeked around Ron to see what was causing the commotion.

The kitchen looked like it had been converted into an owlry. Hedwig, Pig, Errol, Hermes, and no fewer than six Hogwarts owls fluttered about, vying for attention. Fred and George kept getting between the owls and the people to whom the owls were trying to deliver their letters. The twins thought this was hilarious; the owls didn't. When Pig saw Ron in the doorway, he gave a happy shriek and rocketed toward his owner. He flew straight into Ron's chest, bounced off, and hit the floor with a "floomp."

"If he had the sense to run away, you could use him for Snitch practise," Ron muttered, picking up his slightly dazed pet. "Silly little git, this letter's not even for me. Hermione's the one who sent you to her parents, remember?" He carried the owl, who was still clutching a letter in his tiny talons, over to Hermione.

Harry followed Ron into the kitchen, and the boys sat down at the table, ducking the owls. Mrs. Weasley, who had been outside gathering eggs, came into the kitchen. She quickly sized up the situation and ordered, in her steeliest tone, "Fred. George. Sit. Now." Grumbling, the twins sat, allowing the owls to make their deliveries, and everyone was immediately accosted by at least one owl. Hedwig hooted angrily as Harry took his school letter; apparently, she thought that he should have taken her letter first. "Sorry, girl," he apologised. "I was just saving the best for last." He fed her the rind of his bacon, which made her look somewhat mollified. "What?" he asked his Hogwarts owl. Instead of flying away, the bird seemed to be waiting for a reply. Fred's, George's, and Ginny's owls had left immediately, but Ron's and Hermione's seemed to be waiting, too. "Okay, okay, I'll read it," Harry said, opening his school letter. He couldn't imagine what might need a reply. It seemed like the standard school letter, though perhaps a bit thicker than usual. He flipped through the sheets. Welcome letter announcing the starting date, list of books and supplies—the usual. But there was an extra sheet. What was this? Harry read it curiously:

Dear Mr. Potter,

It is my pleasure to inform you that you are invited to be a Prefect this year. This is a very great honour and one which requires particular maturity and responsibility. Prefects are expected to set good examples for their fellow students. Please think carefully before you accept the position. We await your reply by return owl. Again, congratulations.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Prefect. He was invited to be a Prefect. Harry's head swam. Yes, it was a big honour, but it also required being in the spotlight a bit more than he liked. What should he do?

He looked up from his letter. Ron and Hermione were staring at their letters with slightly dazed expressions. In tandem, they looked up at Harry. None of the three said anything for a moment. Finally, Harry broke their silence. "They want me to be a Prefect."

"Me, too," said Ron, sounding flummoxed.

"And me," Hermione breathed.

There was a beat, and then the three of them burst into laughter. Fred and George groaned. "Oh, no! Another Prefect in the family. How can we show our faces?" George asked rhetorically.

"How can we stand the shame?" Fred replied

"The infamy!"

"The disgrace!"

"The-"

"Dears, that's wonderful!" Mrs. Weasley interrupted. She added, "Oh, Ron, I'm so proud of you." She grew misty-eyed.

"Our ickle Ronnie-kins, all grown up," George said, feigning wistfulness.

"All grown up into a right little rule-monger," Fred added, equally pseudo-wistful. "Just like Perfect Prefect Perc-"

"That's quite enough," Mrs. Weasley said. Fred immediately fell silent, but he and George exchanged unrepentant smirks.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were still trying to get their collective fit of giggles under control; for some reason, the thought of being Prefects together seemed to them one of the funniest things they had heard in years. Harry took a deep, steadying breath; then he noticed the corners of Ron's mouth twitching, and they both promptly lost control again.

Hermione was the first to regain her composure. "I suppose we should reply, then."

"Reckon so," Harry said, suddenly turning serious. "Should we do it, do you think?"

"Oh, you must! All of you! You wouldn't even consider turning down such an honour, would you?" Mrs. Weasley sounded absolutely scandalised.

"Not normally, no," Harry answered, "But right now … It might be dangerous. I mean …" He trailed off, not quite sure how to say what he meant.

Hermione was nodding gravely. "I know. Prefects get a lot of attention, and now might not be the best time for some of us to be drawing attention to ourselves. Harry's, well, Harry. So any extra attention is probably dangerous for him. And I'm Muggle-born; it might be hazardous to my health to have to hand out detentions to the Slytherins."

"And Dad's a well-known supporter of Dumbledore, so I guess there's a danger for me, too," Ron said.

They all fell silent. Hermione was looking glum, and Harry felt a stab of sympathy mixed with anger. He knew how much the chance to be a Prefect meant to her, and it wasn't fair for that chance to be taken away by outside events. Surely they could do it. But should they?

Ginny's voice broke the pall that had fallen on the trio. "Look at it this way, though," she said. "If you don't do it, some other Gryffindors from your year will have to. Dean's Muggle-born. Seamus is a halfblood, and his mom sided with Dumbledore before. Neville …" She paused and shook her head. Harry had to agree with the head-shake; the idea of Neville as a Prefect was too absurd to contemplate.

Ron laughed. "No. Just no. And, really, Hermione, you're the only fifth-year girl with a brain at all. Can you honestly see Parvati restoring order in a crisis?"

"Restoring order to her hairdo, maybe," Hermione answered. Harry, Ron, Ginny, and the twins promptly burst into laughter. Hermione blushed. "Sorry, that wasn't very nice, was it?"

"But true," Harry said. "I guess we'd better do it, then." He was still worried about the limelight, but it seemed that everything worried him these days. Best to try to have a normal life, to the extent that he could, rather than to let the worry take over.

"Good," Mrs. Weasley said. "I think you'll all be wonderful, and I'd hate to see you let things that might or might not happen interfere with your lives too much."

"And I'd hate to miss the chance to razz you about being a Perfect Prefect," said Fred, lightening the mood.

They all chuckled. Harry, Ron, and Hermione filled out the enclosed forms. They each checked the box that said, "I accept the invitation to become a Prefect," signed their names, and sent the school owls back with their replies. The rest of the meal passed uneventfully—at least, as uneventfully as a meal with the twins could be expected to pass—and the group dispersed.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione headed up to Ron's room to work on their O.W.L.s revision. Ron had tried to argue that Quidditch practise should come right after breakfast "before the day gets too warm," but Hermione had countered with the claim that "your food needs time to settle" and had added that the heat would be good for them because "you need to get practise playing in less-than-ideal conditions." This logic had left Ron without a reply, so the two hours just after breakfast had become study time. Since students were not supposed to use magic during the summer, the trio had been forced to put some of the practical lessons off until they were back at school, but they were moving quite steadily through the theoretical lessons. Today, they were studying the effects that various ingredients had in different potions—armadillo bile, scarab beetles, and ginger root. Harry bit his lip when he saw the list. All of those ingredients had been in the potion that they had made on the day when Snape had been so awful to them in class. Harry snorted aloud.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Just laughing at myself. I actually had the thought, 'All these ingredients were in the potion that we were making when Snape was so awful to us.' And then I realised how silly that was; it's not like 'the time when Snape was so awful to us' narrows things down at all."

Hermione and Ron both laughed. "No, it doesn't narrow things down, does it," Ron agreed. Then he paused, looking thoughtful. "Wonder if he'll treat us any better now that …. well, with what's happening."

"Doubt it," Harry replied darkly. "I don't think he'll ever treat me any better, and you guys are my friends, so he probably won't ever be any less awful to you, either." He sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring out the window and trying to avoid the thoughts that kept sneaking into his head.

"S'matter, mate?" Ron said. When Harry didn't respond, he added, "No use getting worked up over Snape yet; we've still got a week before we have to look at his ugly mug."

Harry allowed himself a brief grin before he lapsed back into gravity. Still staring out the window, he answered, "It's not Snape. It's me. It's because of me that he's so awful to you two. It's because of me that you're both in extra danger from Voldemort. I didn't mean to, you know, get you into scrapes when I got to be friends with you." He shrugged. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…."

"Harry, you know it's not your fault." That might have been a question, but the way Hermione said it made it sound like a statement of fact.

Harry thought about that. Did he know that it wasn't his fault? He didn't want it to be his fault, and, in his more rational moments, he knew that it wasn't, but there was a little part of him that kept quietly insisting that if he were a little smarter, or a little nicer, or a little, well, just better, then things wouldn't be so bad. He shrugged again. Realising that Hermione and Ron expected more in the way of a reply, he said, "Most of the time I know it's not my fault. But it doesn't really even matter whose fault it is; the fact is, you guys are in danger because you're my friends."

Ron and Hermione exchanged worried glances. They didn't even try to disagree, for they knew that Harry was right; they both would have been safer if they weren't so close to him. Finally, Ron spoke. "Yeah, we are in more danger. But it's like we said at breakfast: We'd both be in danger anyway. It's not just because of you." He looked at Hermione as if willing her to step in.

"And, Harry, we're really happier being friends with you than we would be otherwise. I can't image what my time in the wizarding world would have been like without you. Without both of you," she added, glancing at Ron.

Ron flushed, but he nodded in agreement. "She's right, mate. I mean, Dean and Seamus and Neville are nice guys and all, but…." He trailed off, turning redder. The only thing harder for Ron than accepting a compliment was giving one, so Harry knew that even this mild degree of "let's share our feelings" was hard for him.

"You guys really don't … you know … hold it against me, then?" Harry asked.

"No way!"

"Absolutely not!"

Harry grinned at his friends, suddenly feeling as if a great weight had been lifted. "Good. Sorry to be such a wet blanket; I've just been really worried. And then the Prefect letters came, and they made me realise how much being friends with me affects you two, and…" He paused. "Anyway, thanks for cheering me up."

"Speaking of cheering up," Hermione piped up, pointing to the O.W.L.s book, "Next is Cheering Potions."

"I didn't even know there were Cheering Potions," Ron said.

Harry snorted. "Of course you didn't. Do you think Snape would have taught us anything that might have made us happy?"

He and Ron cracked up. Hermione tried to look disapproving, but she couldn't keep her mouth from quirking at the corners. When Harry and Ron finished snickering, she said, "We haven't actually done these yet; they're in the fifth-year course. But they contain a lot of the ingredients that we've been looking at, so they're a good example to help us see how those ingredients work together."

Harry and Ron exchanged resigned looks. Hermione was in Lecture Mode, and there was no opposing Hermione in Lecture Mode. Grinning to himself, Harry picked up his quill, preparing to take notes until Professor Granger released him.

*

Eventually, Hermione did release the boys, and they collected Ginny and the twins and hurried out to the Quidditch pitch. The twins had decided that they needed to give Harry "a proper Seeker work-out," and they had been developing a new product to do just that. Weasley's Seeker's Scourge was truly diabolical. It looked like a Muggle firework, and it was activated much like one, too, by lighting the end of it. When lit, it flew about fifty feet into the air and exploded. But, instead of producing sparks when it exploded, it produced about twenty small, glittering, Snitch-shaped balls. They couldn't change direction or disappear like the Snitch could, but the explosion scattered them far enough that catching all twenty before they hit the ground would have been a hard task for a professional-level Seeker. The Seeker's Scourge was certainly more taxing than the golf balls that Oliver Wood had used when he was first training Harry.

The twins' faces were wreathed in gleeful grins as they explained the Seeker's Scourge to Harry. "We have ten of them, mate, and we need to save a few to show to Mr. Zonko, but at least seven are for you to use today," Fred informed him.

"This is just a first prototype; we eventually want to make them reusable, so that the little Snitch-balls will re-collect themselves into the launcher. That way you can use the same one over and over," George added. "The reusable model will be more expensive, of course, but we're thinking we might have a market at schools and for professional leagues. We might have to put more balls into the ones made for the pros …"

"… But we won't know that until we see how you do with the first ones." Lapsing into his Percy imitation, Fred continued, "So hop on that Firebolt, young Potter, and let's see if you have the necessary skills for the task at hand."

"The rest of us will just play like it's a match, and you stay out of the fray like in a regular match, and, when you least expect it, Fred or I will fire off one of these. Let's go!"

After half an hour spent chasing the little balls, Harry was exhausted. On the seventh and final Scourge, Harry managed to catch eighteen of the twenty balls. Though he'd like to have caught them all, he was still pretty pleased, especially since he'd barely caught ten on the first try. Once the Seeker's Scourges were gone, Harry played Chaser so that there would be another player for Ron to guard against. By the time Mrs. Weasley called them in for lunch, Harry was ready to fall off his broom. Feeling spent, but glad for the workout, he followed the others into the house.

*

The day continued much like the other days at the Burrow had—lunch, some more studying, a chess game with Ron, dinner, more Quidditch until it got too dark to play. Fred and George had made a few more Seeker's Scourges that afternoon, and, that evening, Harry finally managed to catch all twenty balls. Deciding to quit while he was ahead, he begged off the rest of the game, claiming that he needed to go over his school list to figure out what he needed to buy on tomorrow's trip to Diagon Alley. Ginny, Ron, and the twins continued their game, and Hermione stayed to watch, so Harry went into the house by himself. He made his way through the kitchen toward the stairs up to Ron's room, but voices in the living room caught his attention. It sounded like Mr. Weasley was home before dark, for once. Harry started to go in to say hello, but something in Mrs. Weasley's voice stopped him. He stood beside the doorway, just out of their line of sight, and listened, waiting to see if their conversation sounded like one that it would be okay to interrupt.

"Why wouldn't they take the positions?" Mr. Weasley was asking.

"Oh, they decided to take them, but they debated a bit before deciding. They thought that being Prefects might put them in more danger."

Mr. Weasley sighed. "They could hardly be in more danger," he said.

"I think that's basically what they decided. But, oh, Arthur, it was so awful to listen to them talking about it. They're just children! They're too young to have to think that way."

"I know, dear. I know." They fell silent. Harry peeked around the doorframe to see what was happening. Mrs. Weasley had her head on her husband's shoulder, and his face was resting on top of her head. Harry thought of his own parents, wondering if they had ever had a chance to sit together like that, just holding one another, each taking quiet comfort from the other's presence. He hoped that they had.

Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, he made his way quietly back down the hall and up the stairs. He felt like he needed to be alone for a little while.

--

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay on this chapter. I'm home, and my parents' computer is as slow as Christmas, which, considering the season, seems appropriate. Also, I apologise for any formatting weirdnesses; the conversion from my version of Microsoft Word to Mom and Dad's version is a little dodgy. The next chapter won't be ready until I get back to school (as it's on the school computer), so don't expect to see me until about the second week of January. Thanks to all my wonderful reviewers, and happy holidays to everyone!

TSS