disclaimer: i don't own harry&co.

The rest of the day passed somewhat quickly, most of it consisting of Jen and Harry sitting in the tree and talking. "I'm hungry," she said, interrupting the silence that had been held for about ten minutes. It wasn't that the two teenagers didn't enjoy speaking to each other, it was just that they both needed some quiet in their day, just a little time to think.

"And?" Harry responded lazily, he was leaning up against the tree trunk and staring up. Jen had been very happy when she first noticed that he was starting to get comfortable around her. Now it was normal for one of the two to come up with jokingly sarcastic comments when the other said something that was hard to respond to.

"Let's go back to my house; I can fix us something."

"Sure your parents won't mind you getting the kitchen all dirty?"

"For one thing: my parents aren't going to be home until at least nine, probably later. For another thing: I usually do a pretty good job with cleaning the kitchen once I'm done with it." Harry already knew both of these things, he just enjoyed picking at Jen for the messes she tended to make while cooking. "Hey, you know what would be fun?" she asked.

"Do I want to?" he responded with mock concern. He also enjoyed picking at her for all of the strange things she considered fun. It wasn't that others didn't consider them fun as well, it was just that they were spread over a wide spectrum of activities. For example: cooking and fighting, arguing and reading, and tree climbing and sword fighting.

"We should bake cookies," Jen said.

"And the fun part is…?"

"We can eat them afterwards," she suggested.

Harry pretended to be in deep concentration before replying, "Sure, why not?"

"Hey, you know what would be fun?" Jen asked excitedly.

"Do I want to?" Harry asked back, pretending to be worried. He and Jen would playfully pick on each other a lot of the time. He wasn't sure exactly when it had started, but he thought it had something to do when she had brought up that he seemed scrawny. He had been angered and shot back that she had a serious attitude and violence problem. Instead of the anger he had expected, she had only laughed and replied that she did indeed and that he was still scrawny. Their mock arguments helped in a lot of ways: he was becoming less uncomfortable around Jen, it was a great way to vent anger without actually angering anyone else (although he still shot off at Dudley plenty), and it gave him something to concentrate on besides the looming thought of death. He still mourned the loss of his godfather, Sirius, who was the closest thing to a father Harry ever had. The thought that the only person who had ever seemed to care for him so had been cruelly taken away always angered him greatly.

Still, even when he showed up completely ready to blow because of how unfair life seemed, Jen would be there. It seemed odd: the girl would go off and give him a run for his money as the person with the biggest anger problem, but then she would listen calmly to him rant about random things. Whenever he complained about how terrible something was, she would look at him with knowing eyes and listen. It was the only time she wouldn't interrupt him. When he was done, she would give him a small, oddly reassuring smile, and then point out something that would distract him from his other, his real, life.

The two agreed to go back to her house to bake cookies, something that Harry himself had never done. He was about to climb down when he saw Jen jump right from the branch. His eyes widened, expecting her to sprain her ankle from the fall. She seemed to glide through the air as she fell. Once she hit the ground, she started going forward while she went up onto the tips of her toes. He realized that she had used the momentum from the fall up by both going forward and raising herself up instead of tumbling to the ground.

Jen jumped down from the branch with practiced skill, hardly touching the ground before she put her energy into pushing back off of it. It took long enough, but after a while she had gotten used to timing bending her knees so that her legs wouldn't get hurt in the sudden change of direction. Jen looked up into the branches, just barely able to make out Harry's face. He seemed impressed.

Harry decided to use the safer, and therefore wiser, way of climbing down the tree as the two of them normally did. Jen shot him a quick smile and the two teenagers walked over to Jen's house. The two were almost there when something pushed Jen down…

A/N: thanks for reading, please review!