Disclaimer: All recognizable characters do not belong to me. Labyrinth characters belong to Jim Henson. Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling. Fiona Phillips belongs to the So Weird universe.

Author's Notes: Technically, this story is a sequel/companion fic to my "Between the Stars", which detailed the Jareth's trial for his deeds during the movie Labyrinth. In that story, I made several references to other fandoms, including to that of Harry Potter and Hogwarts.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Three days," Mark Evans declared ominously between walking from one class to another.

"I owled my Uncles, but still have no response," responded Darwin.

"Three days," Mark repeated. "Three days. Owl them again."

Toby ignored the feeling to pat Mark's shoulder. Even as he didn't entirely understand where the feeling had come from.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Toby Williams lingered after his Potions lesson. Professor Draco Malfoy ignored him for several seconds while he muttered several cleaning spells to tidy the room from the Gryffindor/Slytherin Double Potions lesson. Toby didn't move. He sat in the seat he had occupied throughout the duration of the lesson, and having already waved off his friends telling them he'd meet up with them later, he had nothing to but wait.

"Pro-Professor?" he asked.

"Yes?"

Toby opened his mouth to ask another questions, but lost his nerve, and he closed it again, shaking his head, whispering, "Nothing."

Draco cocked his head to one side. "Better get then. You are late for class. One minute more, I shall take points from your House for it."

"Yes, sir." And he hurried from the room.

Draco sighed; he fell into his desk chair. He leaned his elbows across the desk, his chin in his upturned palms. He still sat like that when Blaise Zabini knocked on his door several minutes later. "Toby just ran down the hall stammering about Points. Are you threatening students again, Draco?"

A half-smile crossed over Draco's lips. "No, just your brother."

"I see." Blaise stepped inside the room and sat in a front desk. "Sure you don't want to come with us to Hogsmede? Fiona and I both think it may do Harry some good to get outside these walls. Even if only for a few hours."

"His mind is made up. Try asking him though."

Blaise shrugged. He sat in silence for another minute before he asked, "What did Toby want? I didn't think he liked Potions."

"He doesn't."

Blaise nodded. He stood. "Well, let me know." He was gone. Draco could do nothing but nod.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alone in the Gryffindor Common Room, Toby Williams wondered just at what precise moment he had managed to fall into love with his best friend, if he was even certain that he was actually in love, and if was or not, if he was even supposed to say.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harry Potter sat in his office. An open letter from Remus Lupin rested atop his desk. It was only the very last lines that he really cared about.

I don't want you to think that you are under any obligation to visit me, Harry. From what you mentioned in your last letter it certainly sounds like you have plenty of friends at Hogwarts that keep looking out for you, and you certainly do not need any company from a aging lonely werewolf like myself, but—and it here that I sigh—I think we both know that we could do with some old comfort and even older memories of friendship. My house is always open to you, Harry. Let me know when and how you will be arriving.

He immediately wrote a response. He'd arrive late Friday evening after his last class but before dinner. He'd Floo. And he would have to be back Sunday night. He sealed the letter. When he heard the knock on his office door, he didn't speak, hoping that whoever it was, they'd leave him alone.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hermione too was in her quarters, but when she heard the knock on her door, she hurried to answer it. "You're late," she chided.

"Sorry," her visitor answered. "I had a student stay after class, one of yours actually. Blaise stopped in to discuss Harry. And I needed to run an errand to Severus' office."

"Still Snape's little golden boy, aren't you?" she whispered.

"Would you have it any other way?"

And she welcomed his mouth and his hands on hers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Draco and Hermione had been seeing one another for almost six months. Hermione referred to it as a twisted and adult form of dating. Draco called it sleeping together. Usually he used more vulgar terms. That was really the only call for arguement between Draco and Hermione these days, at least in the privacy of their own separate quarters, Hermione hated hearing Draco swearing in front of her young children, and continually told him so. Draco did his best not to, but even he, especially he, occassionally slipped.

Most nights they didn't bother to leave one or the other's living quarters, one or the other knocking on the other's door under the necessary cloak of darkness or invisibility, and leaving again in the very early dawn light. After six months and still no one knew about them; they wished to keep it that way. Even their closest friends, even their closest friends within Hogwarts walls—Blaise and Fiona and Harry—didn't know about them.

Certainly they had never meant for anything quite like this to happen. Certainly Hermione never expected to be attracted to anyone again after Ron's death, and certainly Draco never expected to to be attracted to anyone after Pansy's death. If he could really call what he and Pansy had had as true attraction, and not some twist of their own truth and lies and parents' games. But he supposed that this game he now played with Hermione was no worse than any scheme his and Pansy's collective parents had dreamed up while they were still young, in school, and fairly impressionable.

On the surface Draco and Hermione were still only barely tolerant of one another. All of their Hogwarts colleagues and most of those in the greater outside wizarding world believed that they only actually talked and acknowledged each other's prescence for Harry's sake. It was no secret that Harry and Hermione were best friends, that Hermione was argueably Harry's closest and certainly oldest friend, that their relationship was sometimes almost siblingly; nor was it no secret that Harry considered Draco to be one of his best friends. But Draco's and Hermione's own relationship was seen as oil and water: they continuously butted heads when it came down to what Harry needed or wanted, and usually if one heavy-heeded arguement didn't errupt between them at least once a week their friends thought something was wrong. Not that Draco and Hermione minded their roles. Often they found that feigned anger and yelling lead to much better sex.

It had been one of those shouting matches—this one very much real—six months earlier that had first led to their coupling together. It had been almost a year and a half after Ron had passed away, and Hermione had her hands full with Ron's and hers twins, teaching, and overseeing Gryyfindor as its Head of House. Draco had probably equally had his hands full as Potions instructor (now that Snape had been promoted to Headmaster), Deputy Headmaster under Snape, and Head of Slytherin. Not to mention dealing with own grief over Pansy's death. (Even as at the time of her death Draco and Pansy were no longer 'together', she had proven to be a loyal ally and even greater friend in those last years). At the time of their argument, Hermione was only just finally beginning to live again after Ron's death, still sometimes whispering in hushed tones with Harry about their mutual friend, and Draco had made the mistake of calling Ron 'the Weasel' in jest. Hermione had mistaken his jest for intent, shot back her own comment not in jest, and one thing lead to another to the point where they could no longer handle the built-up tension between them and Draco kissed Hermione. Hard. They had had sex that night in her room, where like every night they slept in her quarters, they moved and cried to the gentle rhythmic sounds of the heart monitors Hermione had set up next to her bed for each of her twins. Next to the picture of Ron. In Draco's quarters, when they slept there, he still had a picture of him and Pansy from happier times on his nightstand. Those pictures of old lovers and loves comforted them, and guided them, into these new uncharted waters of new beginnings and new relationships.

Neither was ready to use the word ;'love'. In their minds, that sentiment still belonged to the ones who had come before.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days before the Hogsmede excursion, Harry Potter found himself in the Headmaster Snape's office. He sat in the chair just on the other side of the towering wooden desk under Snape's own towering gaze, and Harry swallowed, but he held his own. "Any news from Tonks yet?" he asked brightly—a little too brightly—as way of conversation starter.

"Yes, she'd agreed to it," Snape answered in an almost apathetic tone.

"Will she be bringing Esme with her?"

Snape raised an eyebrow. "The whereabouts of my daughter, Potter, are none of your concern. Quidditch or no Quidditch."

"Yes, sir." Harry nodded smartly, almost jauntily, but the smile he had held on his face only seconds before deflated as suddenly as it had appeared leaving Harry's true expression: that of an utter bone-deep exhaustion no sleep or draught could cure, and an utter weariness that even after two years of life had still not left him; it was a heaviness that ran deep in his eyes, his mannerisms, and his very essence. "I want permission to request vacation from my duties this weekend."

"This weekend, Potter?"

"From manning the fort while the soldiers march to Hogsmede. Draco and Hermione have agreed to cover for me." That was a lie. Harry hadn't even told Hermione and Draco that he was planning to go anywhere other than the Hogwarts' halls for this weekend. But he was hoping on the fact that Snape wouldn't call him on his bluff. "I promised Remus I'd visit him."

"I see." Snape sat back further in his chair and crossed his arms at the elbows. "I know you're lying, Potter. Don't you think just because the rest of the wizarding world treats you like you're special means that you can shirk from your duties here. Understood?"

"Of course." Harry nodded again, and he rose from the chair. He cocked his head slightly in place of an actual spoken good-bye, and moved to the door.

"Harry?" Snape called. Harry half-turned from where he stood, his hand already on the doorknob. "Make sure Lupin doesn't corrupt you in any shape or form this weekend. I want Hogwarts' half-way decent Defense professor to come back a little better than he left."

A tiny smile graced Harry's lips. He cocked his head once more, and he was gone. Snape heard the echoing of his shoes half-way down the hall before the sound faded away.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Toby Williams had made the executive decision to skip the afternoon's Divination. He feigned illness to his friends, and he made off to see Pomfrey in the Infirmary. He ignored the Look that Mark Evans had shot him as he was walking away, a look that was both pinching and questioning, daring Toby to call his own bluff.

But Toby didn't. And he didn't go to the Infirmary. Instead he wound his way around towards the entrance of the Whomping Willow, and he sat between two roots. A shadowy figure detached herself from the tree and sat down next to him. Toby smiled shakily. "Thanks for coming," he spoke.

Sarah, formerly Sarah Williams,now Sarah, Queen of the Goblins and Co-Ruler of the Labyrinth smiled down at her baby brother, ruffled his hair, and asked, "What seems to be the problem?"

"When'd you know you fancied Jareth?"

Sarah fell back on her haunches to lean against the tree again. Her white dress gracefully flowed around her, skimming the tops of her silver slippers. "I think I always knew. I just had to realize it."

"When did you realize it?"

Another smile crossed Sarah's face. "About one minute too late past the thirteenth hour." Sarah cocked her head slowly. "Why the sudden interest?"

Toby shrugged. "I don't know."

"You're in love?"

"I am not…"

Sarah laughed not un-kindly. That sounded very much like a much younger Toby when he was still old enough to pout and get away with it. "It was only a guess, brother mine." She knelt down on her feet and bended knee to his eye level.

This time Toby did truly pout. "I hate being transparent."

"You're not transparent, Toby. You just have many people who care for you. Blaise, Fyre and myself all included. Now, tell me dear, who's the lucky girl, or guy?"

Toby swallowed, and he shook his head. "N-no one. I'm only asking."

Sarah smiled. She began to idly smoothe a crease in her dress. "You remember Tiana and Flynn, don't you?" Toby nodded; his eyes had grown wide. "Amazing how after almost three hundred and more years they're still together. They still pull their shows in court. Luckily, Perkins is very tolerant of their charades."

"Sarah?"

"Don't be ashamed when it comes to love, Toby. Only the best are lucky when it comes down to it, and we all deserve a little luck." She leaned in to ruffle his hair again. "Let me know how it goes, Tobes."

"Don't call me Tobes," he mumbled but Sarah had already disappeared. Only a trail of delicate silver glitter evidenced that she had even been there.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Mark Evans found Toby in the Gryffindor Common Room later, he rounded on the boy and cuffed his shoulder. Toby barely flinched. "Darwin got the coordinates from his uncles."

"Good."

Mark regarded Toby carefully. "Did you know that he and Kara had got together?"

"Yes."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was after dinner already when Harry had a minute to escape down to the Owlery. He had sent Hedwig with his last letter to Remus, and she had been down waiting for him when he got back from dinner. Remus' letter was only one line:

Look forward to it.

Harry now took some time to affectionally pet Hedwig's wings, while she affectionately reciprocated with a few gentle nips at his fingers. "Wish I could take you with me. Bet you'd love to see Remus again too, wouldn't you?"

Stepping into the night light again, Harry rounded the entrance back to Hogwarts. If it wasn't for the slight limp that had been bothering him more recently, he almost had a bounce in his step.