Hi there! Here's a treat before I go to my home town to see my grandmother, I had planned to leave chapter 7 finished and in my beta's hands but since I had surgery on Tuesday I couldn't, plus my computer broke down for 3 days (Oh the horror!!). So bear with me a little.

Anyway, I hope you like this chapter because I really enjoyed writting it. I believe this is the best chapter so far...

Enough here's chapter six of Life Out of Balance

LoOB 6

"What time is it?" Harry was trying to get his watch to work but it seemed it had given up. He was having breakfast as usual with Hermione and Ron to his right and Neville to his left.

"7:30 ... why?" Ron asked, with a yawn interrupting his words.

"Ron, first, gross and second, I promised to take Snape's kids to Madam Pomfrey. He's busy with the Wolfsbane potion. And I better get going or I'll be late for Care of Magical Creatures."

"Ok, mate, see you then."

Breakfast continued with Ron eating as much as he could and Hermione helping Ginny with her homework.

As Harry was leaving, Anthony Goldstein, a fellow sixth year from Ravenclaw followed him outside and asked if he could walk with him for a while.

"I need to talk to you about something."

"Sure, Anthony, no problem, ask away." The other teen seemed a bit nervous, Harry had no idea why, maybe he was going to ask about the DA or something.

"Uhmm, Harry I was wondering if you're going to Hogsmeade this weekend?"

Ok, weird question. "I might be. Why?"

Anthony got even more nervous then, "It's just that there's a new book coming out on defense techniques and since I know that you like the subject maybe you would like to go with me and see it?"

"Yeah, sure Anthony."

The Ravenclaw was obviously relieved as he said, "Great! I'll meet you at the Entrance Hall at ten, ok?"

"Yeah, ok."

Goldstein gave him a huge smile and left, shouting, "Great, Harry, see ya then!"

That's all? What was Anthony so nervous about?

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"Potter, make yourself useful and help Evan get his shirt on while I finish dressing Julian."

Harry rolled his eyes as he watched the scene before him. The youngest Snape was running around the sitting room with his clothes on backwards, a different shoe on each foot and no socks, with Snape senior chasing after him.

Evan was having a serious fight with his shirt, which had decided it didn't want to be worn that day. Therefore, it had shrunk the head hole and trapped the boy half way in.

A chuckle left him, and Harry hurried to help Evan before Snape heard him. He convinced the shirt to be worn and finally Evan was ready.

Ten minutes later, one child was correctly attired and the other had at least most of his clothes on and they even kind of matched. Since Julian absolutely refused to wear socks and it was getting late, they left for the infirmary.

At five minutes to eight am, you could see Harry Potter running towards the infirmary with Julian on his back and Evan trailing along. It didn't matter, in the end; he was still late.

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"Harry, you're late!" Hermione scolded her friend with her hands on her hips and a frown on her face.

"Yeah mate, you're lucky it's Hagrid or you would be dead."

"I know, I know, but first Anthony Goldstein stopped me and then Snape didn't have the kids ready and he wouldn't even give me a pass, can you believe it! And then Evan wouldn't let me go, he wanted to play and I had to leave the poor kid with a promise of spending lunch with him. I'm beat!"

He threw himself on the grass besides Ron and gave Hagrid an apologetic smile.

The class continued, and he was glad they had it with Huflepuff. He was in no mood for Slytherins right now.

"So, what did Goldstein want?" Ron was chewing on a piece of grass, clearly bored out of his mind by the little creatures they were studying in Hagrid's class that day.

"Ron, pay attention, or at least don't disturb Harry, this is important you know?"

"How is a moke important? It's a lizard, Hermione, it shrinks and that's it. No more."

"Well, it could be important, you know, for our project."

"There's no way I'm...." The pair of hands on top of his mouth stopped him from continuing that phrase.

Changing the subject, Harry told them about his encounter with Goldstein.

"It's weird, you know, it's like he was nervous or something. I thought it was something important, but he didn't say any thing else, he just left."

Hermione gave him her I can't believe you can be so daft look. "Oh Harry, how can you be so oblivious?"

"Did I miss something?"

Ron gave a frustrated growl. "Mate, he was asking you out on a date for crying out loud, so I'd say yeah, you missed something because it looks as though you agreed."

"I did?"

Both friends answered with a hissed "YESSS!"

Harry was very confused. "But he's a boy?"

At this Ron slapped his hand to his face and muttered a hushed he is my best friend. I will not kill him. "Harry, pal, what's that got to do with anything?"

Now Harry was utterly lost. So Hermione came to the rescue. "Ron, remember that Harry was raised by muggles, and they are not as open about same sex couples as wizards are. Knowing the Dursleys, they are probably homophobic. "

Now Ron had a lost look on his face. "Homo- what?"

"They don't like gay people."

"You lost me."

"And I've been lost for a while, so could you please explain?"

"Ok, Ron, you wait. Harry, wizards don't believe in... divisions. They like who they like, be it the sex that they are or no. They are all, what muggles would call bisexuals, therefore it's just normal as to be asked out by a boy as a girl. It doesn't matter. Do you get it now?"

Harry scratched the back of his head and gave a slight troubled nod.

"So... I have a date on Saturday with Anthony Goldstein?"

"It appears so."

"What do I do? How do I know if it's really a date?"

"Oh, it's a date all right. I know Anthony and he's not that shy. If he was nervous about asking, and if he said it like you said he said it, then it's a date."

"Ron, you're not helping." Harry had his knees to his chest, with his elbows resting on them and his hands over his face. Ron was helping even less by snickering besides him.

"It's not so bad Harry; Anthony's a good guy and you know he at least won't be crying halfway through your date." Hermione's comment did it for Ron, and it was a blessing class was finally over, because he would have disrupted it again by his choked laughter.

They started walking back towards the castle and Hermione put an arm around Harry's shoulders. "You know, Harry, you don't have to go if you don't want to. You can just tell Anthony that you misunderstood him and that while he's a good guy, you're not interested."

"Yeah mate, and if you do go, just don't do anything you don't want to do and that's it."

Harry felt a bit better. But Hermione was not done.

"Personally, Harry, I think you should go. It would be good for you to go out and forget about the war and just enjoy yourself for a while. My mom says that you have to try things at least once before you say you don't like them. Answer me this, what do you think of Anthony?"

Harry gave it some thought. "He's nice, a good guy. Did ok in the DA."

"Ok, physically, what do you think of him?"

Harry turned bright red.

"I have no idea..."

Hermione looked at Ron for help, and for once in his life he got it.

"I think that he's good looking, not extremely handsome but pleasant to look at. He has freckles, which I don't like, but his eyes are nice."

Hermione was beaming at him; it gave Ron a warm feeling and a goofy grin on his face.

"Well, he is nice. Looking, I mean, and how bad could it go, right?"

"Right, so that crisis averted, I'll see you both after Arithmancy."

Hermione left them and Ron and Harry made their way towards the tower where they had Divination.

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes while Harry assimilated the recent information.

"You know, Ron, you should ask Hermione out."

Ron dropped his books and turned tomato red, which did not go well with his fiery red hair.

"What?"

"I'm not as dense as you all think I am. At least not when it comes to my two best friends."

Ron spluttered a little but Harry held up a hand before he could talk.

"Don't try to deny it Ron, you get all misty eyed when she says something nice to you and you watch her all the time, amongst other things. You should ask her out this Saturday. Use me as an excuse. You can say you want to keep an eye on me in case things with Anthony don't go well."

Ron gave him a hopeful half smile. "Do you think she'll fall for it?"

"Ron, the only person in the entire school that doesn't know you two like each other is you; everyone else knows it, and I think there's even a betting pool going on. Look, you're my best friend and she's probably the only girl I've ever loved, so I am going to say this: if you hurt her, if just one little bushy hair of her head gets hurt because you're being a git or something like it, I'll kill you, or at least hurt you very badly.

Because I can handle you being an insensitive prick with me, I can handle it if you are sometimes stupidly jealous of my so-called privileged life, but I cannot handle you hurting the one person I am completely sure loves me for me and not for being the savior or hero. For the record, I know you do, too, but it's different with Hermione. She's like my sister, and I swear that if you hurt her our friendship will suffer greatly. Don't worry, she'll probably get the same speech from me as you. I just wanted to make my opinion on this issue known and make sure that it's clearly understood before anything happens.

They had stopped under the stairs of the tower where Divination was held, and Ron was looking at him with wide-as-saucers eyes that said, who is this guy and what did he do with Harry? He then smiled and put an arm around his smaller friend's shoulders.

"Been practicing that speech, haven't you?"

"Little bit. Did I rush it? Felt like I rushed it."

"No, it was good, I liked it."

They were late for Divination and it seemed in revenge, Trelawney killed Harry eight more times than usual and incapacitated him twice just for good measure. Ron didn't escape either, as he got killed by a runaway lion, trampled by a herd of fire crabs, and drowned in the prefects' bathroom.

TBC...

Notes: A moke is a small lizard that can shrink at will. From: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander.

Find the quote, who said it, and where, and you'll get the next update first.

Don't worry, this is still HP/SS, but it's going to be a while since Severus just lost his wife. It wouldn't be right to throw him in with Harry while he's still in mourning.

For the fans of One Thing I have most of chapter 2 done and I think that'll be the last chapter I'm not sure. I can barely lift my arms so don't expect an update on either story for at least a week maybe more. I promise to be back soon!!

Thanks to Eireverde for being my beta. You are my salvation! And if I can give a little ramble here, I read today a fic that had a very original story, great character development but had horrid grammar and use of past tenses, and that made me close the link to the story, so I just want to say I really apreciate Eireverde's help since english is not my first language.

FINALLY: thanks to the following for reviewing LOoB chapter 5: dillydaddle2, Amanda Saitou, Twilight66, Abinikai, Kateri1, jmchau, kathy stgqvk, Lalawen, ShiTiger, Winnie2, Lee Lee Potter, ataraxis, catsncritters, ILuvSS, SiLvErFaTeD and Wolflady.

REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW PLEASE, I WELCOME CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM