Geeze, you people are soooooo impatient! I might as well post up the next 50 chapters right now and see what you like of them! I have to think about these things, you know! I don't have all the story written out in my brain! I have to figure out the plot so it can be good!

To one of my *cough* most impatient reviewers, you will find out what happened to James and the rest of them, but you must be PATIENT!!!!

Chapter Fifteen: Arguments

The air had certainly been much easier since Harry's return to The Burrow. Harry had a feeling that everyone in the Weasley household was being exceptionally positive for his own sake, so he worked to make sure that their efforts weren't made for nothing. His spirits were higher than they had been and Harry was sure that going back to Hogwarts wouldn't be nearly as bad as he had thought.

* * *

"Alright, I've had enough!" Hermione yelled at Harry and Ron, who were standing in front of a pile of charred exploding snap cards that had just exploded--rather loudly--both of them looking shocked either at the sudden explosion or at the seething expression on Hermione's face, "You two have been playing around all afternoon, making so much noise that I can't keep my head on strait much less work! I don't know about you two, but I want to pass my N.E.W.T.s so either get to work or get out!!"

They stared, dumbfounded, at her for a moment before Ron said, "We don't have N.E.W.T.s until next year, Hermione, and if you want to work why don't you get moving down to the library." Then he turned back to his cards and began shuffling them into a pile.

Hermione huffed twice then poured her books into her bag and stomped out of the common room.

Ron looked at Harry once she'd gone.

"See what I mean? She loves me, she hates me. I'm the love of her life, then she turns around telling me she'd rather be dating a jackass. How am I supposed to ask the girl to marry me if every time I get up the nerve she says she doesn't want to deal with me and runs off to the library?" He pulled the ring that he'd been carrying with him for weeks out of his pocket, letting the light from the fire shine onto the gold band and its three inset diamonds.

Harry looked at the ring in his best friend's hand and swallowed his real thoughts on the situation, instead saying, "I don't know. Maybe she just keeps having bad days."

"Yeah. The Gods are trying to send me a sign by making every day I decide to ask one of those days when I've turned into an ogre to my sweet love. Ha." And he groaned and put his head into his hands, rubbing his eyes. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

As he headed toward the boys' staircase he turned back with a smile, "We're going to win this quidditch season for sure, with you back on the team, Potter!"

Harry managed to smile back and Ron headed up toward the dormitory, yawning.

Harry looked at his bag which was stationed expectantly by a table and decided against doing his homework tonight, because his mind wasn't really on the goblin riot that Professor Binns had been lecturing to the class about that day (his mind hadn't been on the goblin riot during the lecture either), and instead plopped into a chair in front of the fire, staring into it with a raw intensity that someone had muttered behind him on a bus one day was scary. Harry didn't really doubt that, because the sort of unhappy, unhealthy, untidy look and aura that he gave off never really appealed to anyone. It was too alien. Especially the unhappiness.

It was not the type of unhappiness that came when one was disappointed or gloomy. It did not come and go as regular sadness did. It was always there. Intense and painful, showing from his quiet melancholy face even if he did not know so. A person, a stranger, looking at this dark, quiet boy knew, or felt--whichever--instantly that there was a miserable agony that ate at him day and night and Harry, though he did not wish for it, knew that what these people felt was pity.

But Harry knew that he shouldn't feel unhappy. So many people were working to make him happy. And now nobody believed him crazy, now he was once again "The Boy Who Lived", he still had his friends and Severus Snape had decided to ignore him rather than actually express his hatred of the boy. Sitting there, Harry let his mind wander away from his own self pity which could be so horrible towards Ron's problem at hand.

He'd decided to marry Hermione. Harry had never even knew that the two were dating. But anyway, he ultimately still thought it was ridiculous. They were only sixteen, and Ron, with not a galleon to call his own (Harry had no clue where he'd gotten the money for the ring), wanted to ask Hermione to marry him?

The two bickered day and night. Any marriage that they had would be a ferocious battle from wedding day until death. Ron seemed to think otherwise. That or he didn't mind the arguments.

And every time Ron brought up the subject with Harry everything that he had had on the tip of his tongue since got ready to come out, but he forced himself to smile, nod, and agree with whatever it was his freckle-faced friend had to say. He wasn't sure how long he could keep his real opinions on the issue quiet.

There was a flicker in the fire and an oddly shaped log was illuminated, dragging the memory of Sirius up to the front of Harry's mind. Harry remembered discussing small little problems with Sirius, who would often come to talk to him through the fire, problems that disappeared and were forgotten as easily as they had come. Sirius had been disappointed when he'd come to the conclusion that Harry wasn't as much like his best friend as he had thought, and he had said so. Harry remembered racking his brain thinking about that. But he didn't care much anymore. He wasn't much like his father, and now he thought that to be a good thing. He didn't like the thought that everyone imagined him to be some mirror imagine of James Potter, because after seeing what the man was really like the notion seemed impossible as well as ugly.

* * *

It was twenty minutes later, while Harry was walking down around the dungeons, kicking at the caked dust on the floor, that he noticed a light.

It was coming from under a door, a small, flickering light that most people wouldn't even notice unless they were paying attention. Harry thought it looked like candle-light. Most likely someone had been in there earlier and just forgotten to put out the light. Harry didn't really care if that wasn't so.

At least he didn't care before he heard voices.

Pulling his invisibility cloak more tightly around him, Harry edged closer to the door to hear the voices better. They seemed to be arguing...

"...not staying, Potter! This has to do with me too--" Yelled a girl's muffled voice.

"It's not my fault you came along! You're staying here." Replied a slightly familiar boy's voice.

"We have to deal with him first." Another boy's voice cut in.

There was silence for a moment, before Harry heard a door opening and closing, and saw the Potions Master come out of his office next to the door where Harry was standing. He was arguing in much louder tones than the ones from the room at hand with the caretaker, Mr. Filch, while Mrs. Norris slinked around their legs.

Mrs. Norris stopped for a moment and her lamp like eyes swerved in Harry's direction, and Harry, having had experience with matters having to do with Filch's cat, hurried away down the other end of the corridor. He didn't remember the arguing voices until early the next morning, and when he went to the room it was empty and the candle was gone.

(author's note: I know that somebody's going to ask about this so I'll just tell you now. Yes, the Snape that Harry saw was the older one, so nobody ask!)