Disclaimer:This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. The cards used are copyrighted by Lynn Gordon/ A Spark! production and published by Chronicle Books.

No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author's Note: When we were on one of our shopping spree's in Amsterdam, we ran into several card decks…. This story sprang forth from the '52 Ways to find your true love' card deck. The idea is that we each take a POV and write alternating chapters, as you will see when the story develops. – Veer and Nat –

Thank you to our betas Tip and Keikokin!

Chapter 6

Harry felt like he was on a sugar high. He was absolutely and completely flabbergasted. This morning had started out as normal as ever. He was one of the last boys in his dorm to wake up. So he had to run through the showers and make use of a drying spell to save time. After that he quickly put on the same clothes he had worn the day before and ran to the common room where Ron and Hermione waited for him as they had been doing from his first year on.

Together they walked to the Great Hall for breakfast. He ate the same things as he always did and then he watched the owls fly in with the mail. It still amazed him every time he saw them soar through the Great Hall. They all looked different. There were school owls, house owls and pet owls – like Hedwig, only nobody else had a snowy owl.

Much to Harry's surprise, he saw an unfamiliar owl approach him, carrying a black and gold envelope. At first he thought it had to be a joke played on him by the Weasley twins, but he quickly crossed out that possibility and still didn't know who had sent the letter. Harry cast a sneak-o-spell charm on the letter, something he always did to unfamiliar mail. The spell checked for curses, hexes, dangerous portkey destinations, booby traps, potions, poisons and …pranks. The prank detection was something he'd included in the spell after being surprised by Fred and George one time too many.

He was so preoccuppied with what he was doing that he didn't notice that his fellow Gryffindors, half the staff and some curious Slytherins, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were watching him examine the envelope.

When the spell didn't trace anything dangerous on the envelope, Harry opened it cautiously. As the post came open, music erupted from it. The song was nice; it was very, very nice. Inwardly he sighed and could feel himself blushing as he listened carefully to the lyrics. Who could have sent this to him? Not Remus, certainly. The song wasn't not appropriate for the relationship Harry had with his former DADA professor. He also couldn't imagine Ron, Hermione or any other member of Gryffindor House to be behind this Owl-O-Gram. Then suddenly, it hit him…

It had to be from Harry's owl-pal. There were several reasons that Harry could think of for why that must be the case:

1. His owl-pal was one of the only people who knew Harry was romantically interested in men,

2. His owl-pal had been writing that he was head over heels in love with Harry in the last several letters and

3. Perhaps most importantly, Harry couldn't think of anyone else who would possibly send him something so romantic.

Harry thought about it carefully. Although he liked the song and the gesture, he knew that he wasn't in love with his owl-pal. Maybe, Harry thought, he should send a letter immediately, telling him that whilst Harry liked it, he didn't want to be anything more than owl-pals. Should he also let his friend know that he was interested in someone else? No, that would just be mean. He realized he could always write that later.

Harry sat for a moment, perplexed but then noticed that the Owl-O-Gram was accompanied by a note. He picked up the parchment, thinking that it might include some clues as to who had sent him the lovely singing message. The note, however, didn't shed any light on the identity of the sender. But it could not be his owl-pal Harry realised, because his owl-pal didn't attend Hogwarts anymore. Who could his secret admirer be? Was it someone out-of-house? "Oh no!" Harry thought with a start, "Tell me it isn't Justin Fitch-Fletchley. Please oh please i don't /i let it be him." With some effort, Harry brought his panic attack under control and tried to think logically once more. "Ok, so that was Hufflepuff," Harry couldn't bring any other potential suitors in Hufflepuff to mind. "It i could /i be a Ravenclaw… Terry Boot is nice." Yes he would definitely be intrigued to explore something with Terry.

But now that he was thinking about it more thoroughly, it could also be a Slytherin. "Oh boy! Would I survive that?" Harry thought that although he wouldn't mind at all if it were someone interesting, he wasn't so sure about Ron, Hermione or any of his other fellow Gryffindors. "Now, who could it be if it was a Slytherin?" He couldn't think of anyone in that house because the Slytherins were such a close knitted group. They were so secretive that he hadn't heard of any rumours about Slytherin males who were gay or bi. Harry could think of someone he hoped to be the culprit but as he had never been lucky before with his wishes, he didn't dare to let his hopes rise too far.

Harry felt someone tap him on the shoulder, and looking up he saw Hermione. "Are you okay, Harry?" She asked him.

"I'm fine," He answered.

"Oh, Harry, I hope you don't mind my saying so, but you don't look fine to me." Hermione replied.

Harry sighed. He should have known, of course, that nothing would ever be missed by Hermione.

"I was just wondering who could have sent me this Owl-O-Gram."

"And …?" Hermione pushed on.

"And what?" Harry asked innocently.

"Well, do you have any idea who might have sent it to you?" She insisted.

"Actually, I have no idea," Harry answered. "There are lots of possibilities from all of the houses. The fact that the note came with a song said it's from an out-of-house admirer. So that leaves three Houses."

Hermione's POV

"Hmm," Hermione thought, "It has to be Draco; it couldn't be anyone else. That's why he asked for Harry's favourite song. From what I could see of Harry while the song was playing, he seemed to like it very much. Now what do I tell him without letting him know that I know who sent it to him?"

Hoping not to raise any suspicions, she asked Harry, "Do you have any thoughts about who you want to have sent that Owl-O-Gram?"

Reluctantly, Harry answered, "As matter of fact I do."

"And …?" once again Hermione pressed on.

"All I can say is that the person that I'm thinking of has blond hair."

Hermione hoped he was referring to Draco, but Harry hadn't admitted to either her or Ron that he was gay. So even if he'd admitted that to himself, something of which she was not so sure, he might not admit it to anyone else.

Breakfast was coming to an end and classes were about to start. Hermione couldn't ask any more questions. She was most dissapointed when it turned out that Harry was having an animated discussion with Ron about quidditch during lunch. She was even more dissapointed when Harry and Ron couldn't be persuaded to talk about anything else. Obviously she also couldn't talk to Harry about it during classes.

Hermione had set all her hopes on dinner. Little did she know that all the 7th year Gryffindor guys had made a deal and were eagerly discussing all sorts of sports related things. One of the topics was the similarity, or lack thereof, between quidditch and similar muggle sports. She sighed.

Needless to say that Harry did the dissapearing act once dinner was over and everybody retreated to the common room.

The next couple of days Hermione got more and more agitated when another possibility to speak with Harry did not work out. She did notice, however, that once in a while Harry would stare into the distance with a dreamy look on his face. And sometimes she saw that he was playing with the black and gold enveloppe in which the Owl-O-Gram had been delivered to him.

She had heard from Dean that Harry had been spotted sitting in the windowsill of the 7th year boys' dormitory and listening to the song over and over. It almost got to the point that all the other 7th year boys wanted to put a silencing spell on the Owl-O-Gram so that they wouldn't have to hear to the bloody song again.

That night at dinner she hoped that she would finally have a chance to speak with Harry, but she didn't give herself too much hope. She was right. Of course, Harry managed to settle himself between Seamus and Dean past Neville and Ron. The topic that evening was…quidditch. She should have known. She sighed with pure frustration.

At that moment Lavender came rushing over to the Gryffindor table. She was red in her face. Hermione couldn't tell whether that was from running or from excitement. 'Probably both,' she thought.

"I have just heard THE most incredible news; maybe the most incredible news of the i year /i . In the hallway today I overheard Pansy telling Millicent Bulstrode that Draco Malfoy is not into girls!"

"What!?" Hermione heard that coming from all directions. She also saw a look on Harry's face as though Christmas had come early this year. Lavender hadn't overheard anything more. When asked if she knew if Draco had acted on his interest in men, Lavender could not say as Pansy and Millicent hadn't said anything about that.

Harry's POV

That night Harry was lying awake, replaying everything that had happened earlier. He couldn't understand his luck. Draco was not into girls. That sentence kept repeating itself over and over in his head. All his dreams might come true at last.

'Well,' he thought 'that's a bit too optimistic. Draco doesn't know that I'm swinging the same way and I'm not brave enough to shout it from the Astronomy Tower either. So, it probably won't help me any.'

Meanwhile, that night, Hermione and Draco met each other in the kitchens. Hermione had smuggled a note to Draco during their Arithmancy lesson. As Ron and Harry didn't take that class she could keep it from them very easily. She really wanted to ask Draco about the song and everything.

Please Read & Review!

Feedback is appreciated, Flames are not. If you haven't got anything useful to say, please don't bother…

Thanks for reading! – Veer & Nat –