It's come crashing down about our ears. I knew it would eventually.

Well, not knew, but you know what they say. The truth will out.

Harry's sitting all the way off at the end of the Gryffindor table, picking moodily at his breakfast. I want to go over there and knock some sense into him – how dare he leave Ron in that state! – I was up half the night healing him – but given yesterday's display, once was quite enough. He'll come round. I know he will. At least, I hope so. I mean, we weren't doing anything to hurt him – on the contrary, we wanted him not to suffer.

It's Ron who's suffered for the whole idea, anyway. Ron's moping about like a proper idiot, and I want to knock some sense into him, too, but I've already tried talking to him, and all he does is shrug me off. He won't listen to reason. That night, no matter how much I said that he wasn't doing anything wrong, and that he was really protecting Harry, and that Harry should at least have stopped and listened before flying off the handle like that, he just said we shouldn't have gone behind Harry's back. "He was already feeling left out that summer, remember?" he said. "He kept complaining about having to nick newspapers out of bins and that. So when we just decided to take things into our own hands, and not tell him anything…"

"Because he'd have stopped us, Ron!" I exploded. Boys can be so silly sometimes.

"Well, maybe he should have," Ron said doggedly.

"Oh, honestly! You were the one who was worried he'd lose the use of his hand, remember?"

This gave Ron pause. "Well, yeah, but…"

"But nothing! You were doing it to protect him! I can't believe you don't see that!"

"But that's just it, Hermione!" Ron shouted at me. "He's sick of being protected – shunted away, kept out of things, left out, you know, because of You-Know-Who and that. This summer he was so upset because nobody told him anything, and we were no better than them. We're his friends, we ought to have known he was feeling left out. So if we go all devious on him, who's he got left? We're the only ones he trusts – trusted," he said, a look of pain crossing his face. "If he can't depend on us to be honest with him, who can he depend on?"

I really hate it when I can't find a proper answer to Ron.

Hi, Sirius.

Hope you're doing all right. Things are OK here, though no-one will believe Voldemort's back, but I'm getting used to it.

I wanted to ask your advice about something. We've got a teacher who gives us detention all the time, she makes us scrub the floors and clean toilets and things, without magic. I had detention all this week and it was very inconvenient, because I had Quidditch practice at the same time. Last week a friend of mine, without my knowing, made up a cock-and-bull story about how my detentions were cancelled, then Polyjuiced into me and went and did all my detentions behind my back! I'm sick of being left out of things, and I'm sick of being treated like a child. I'm thinking of just never speaking to him again, but I do miss him. I don't know what to do. What do you think?

Love,

Harry

Hi, Harry,

Glad to know you're not letting the bastards grind you down.

To answer your question, well, I'm probably the best person to ask about something like this, if I do say so myself. Being cooped up in this house gives you plenty of time to think, and I was just thinking about friendships, and where friendship ends and family begins. I don't think I realized it when I was younger, but Prongs and Moony your father and Professor Lupin and yes, even Peter, were more family to me than the Most Noble House of Black ever was.

I suppose where I'm going with this is that we did a lot of things that brothers usually do and friends usually don't. We had some blazing rows sometimes. James and I were the worst, I think – Remus and Peter were never as hot-headed as we were. And we did things for each other that friends might not do – like the Shrieking Shack. It wasn't a matter of whether we'd help Remus, so much as how.

That's what I'm getting at: we never gave it a second thought, becoming Animagi for Remus – it's just something you do for your family. It's embarrassing to say things like this at your age, I know, but there are things you do for the ones you like, and then there are the lengths you go to for those you love. There are people – and I think you're lucky to have found friends like that, Harry – whom you can have blazing rows with and have it not matter in the end, who'll lie for you, even lie to you to protect you, and you may get angry with them for that and want to kill them, but you forgive them anyway because when all's said and done, you know they'd cheerfully lay down their lives and die for you. I'd tell you not to break off with your friend for trying to protect you, but I think you'll find that a friend who'd go to such lengths to spare you a bit of bother, who'd Polyjuice into you so that you can play Quidditch while he's scrubbing floors for you, is not going to be that easy to get rid of. I do see why you're angry with him, but really, Harry, taking your punishment is something you should be thanking him for, not telling him off, although you can't always see that at your age. Sorry to come off the heavy godfather, but I suppose living a bit longer does teach you a few things.

One other thing, Harry. I suspect that part of why you're so angry with your friends is something you share with your dad: you can't bear not being in the thick of things. That was something about Prongs: he didn't mind being the one to get punished because it meant he knew what was going on in the detention hall. It was far worse for him to be waiting outside the detention hall knowing that Remus or Peter or I were getting punished, and not knowing what was going on, than to be getting detention himself. He even once explained it a little: he said, "If it's happening to me, I know how bad it is. Even if it's awful, it's OK, because I know. But when it's happening to someone else, it's ten times worse just waiting and wondering."

I'll give you an example of what I mean. One year we had a Defense teacher we called the Dragon Lady. Can't even remember her real name. She was visiting from Romania or some such, where they had really barbaric customs, and she thought all the teachers were too soft on the students at Hogwarts. Before Pomfrey told Dumbledore and he put a stop to it, in detention she'd make students clean out cauldrons stained with caustic gum-thistle juice without magic, and no protective gloves. Anyway, James pulled a prank and I got blamed for it, and I got detention with her. James had been in a couple of times himself, and normally he just laughed it off. This time he was frantic. He told her that he was the one to blame. I think the old witch could tell from the way he was acting that punishing me would hurt him far more than anything she could ever do to him, and told him to get out. Then he blew up at me, and screamed and shouted the place down. He was pacing the floor outside that classroom, biting his nails like an expectant father. By the time I got out of detention, he was beside himself, and dragged me to the Hospital Wing, shouting at me the whole time that it was my fault for getting caught, for taking the blame, anything. I gave as good as I got, and we had a spectacular row. The point of this, Harry, is that I'm guessing it's the same for you: you couldn't stand your friend taking your punishment because although you knew how unpleasant it was for you, you could never know exactly how bad it would be for him. You were probably being a bit protective.

Professor Lupin is here, so I'd better go. He sends his love.

Sirius
Sitting on his bed in the Gryffindor dormitory, the mellow sunshine of late afternoon slanting through the windows, Harry lowered the letter, closing his eyes tightly. He couldn't remember ever having been so ashamed of himself.

He hadn't been feeling protective.

He hadn't even cared.

And he hadn't realized it until now.

When he'd seen Ron, for that awful instant when it had all made perfect sense, all he could think about was that Ron and Hermione had been lying to him like all the others, making a fool of him, betraying him.

He put a hand to his eyes, rubbing them under his glasses. Me, me, me. He hadn't spared a thought for Ron's well-being, hadn't even been bothered that he was hurt.

Only now did he realize it, and his own self-centredness made him sick. I didn't even… his hand was bleeding and I didn't ask him whether he was all right – I shouted at him and then I shoved him away!

It was doubly reprehensible in the face of what Ron had done for him – he could no longer ignore the selflessness of his friend's actions. There had been no earthly benefit that Ron could gain from that charade; he had done it for no other reason than to take some of Harry's suffering upon himself, to take his place and be hurt in his stead. That had been his only concern – to spare Harry.

And how had Harry repaid him? With harsh words and violence.

Suddenly, he remembered Ron's posture when he had left the Room – huddled on the floor, cradling his right hand. Oh, no. He must have landed on it when he fell – with mounting horror, Harry visualized the scene, Ron throwing his hands back to break his fall, landing on his sore hand, aggravating his injury, curling up on the floor in agony. Oh, Ron… That's my thanks for what he did.

Harry groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"You all right, Harry?" Neville walked into the dormitory, looking alarmed.

"Oh, yeah, thanks, Neville," Harry said quickly, feeling even more of a heel. Look at Neville. This is how normal people behave – people whose heads aren't so swelled with their own stupid pride and self-importance that they actually give a hoot about others! "Neville," he blurted before he could stop himself.

"Yes, Harry?"

He didn't know what to say, but he was dying of shame. "If you'd behaved really badly towards a friend, what would you do?"

Neville looked at him mildly. "I'd say I was sorry, and try to make amends, you know, make it up to him. Or her. Done it loads of times, I have – I'm always mucking up something or other."

"No you're not," Harry said, staring down at the comforter. "You're a decent fellow, Neville."

The round-faced boy turned pink and moved shyly closer to Harry's bed. "That's as may be, thanks anyway, Harry," he said, "but decent don't mean you can't make mistakes." He took a deep breath, looking at Harry. "Girl I knew back home – we've known each other since we were little – last summer, she got in with the wrong sort—but you probably don't want to hear this," he broke off diffidently.

"Yeah, I do," said Harry, his curiosity piqued. Besides, no time like the present for learning to give a damn about how others felt. He patted the bed. "Go on, Nev."

"Well. Um. She was going out with a chap who was a nasty piece of work." Harry nodded encouragingly. "Didn't think it was my place to warn her – we weren't related, it wasn't any of my business. But a week before start of term, she came to our house crying. He'd cast Imperius on her, and tried to—well—" Neville's innocent face darkened and he sat down on the bed. "Magical Law Enforcement got there before anything happened, but—"

Harry patted the plump shoulder. Neville sighed. "I told her I was sorry. I'd known he wasn't a good sort, and I didn't warn her. She was very nice about it, but that's what I mean, Harry. You can't help making mistakes sometimes."

Harry sighed. "Yeah, but what if a friend of yours – what if your best mate was hurt, and instead of helping, you shouted at him and then pushed him to the floor?"

Neville turned to him and gaped. "Why would I…I mean… I wouldn't know," he finished helplessly.

Harry flopped back onto the bed, hands behind his head, staring up at the canopy of the curtains. "No, Neville," he sighed, "I don't suppose you would, would you?"

He lay there a long time after Neville left, thinking about it. 'Mistake', that was the word Neville had used. Yeah, right. A mistake was not telling a friend that you didn't trust the boy she was going out with. A mistake could even be not knowing that your best mate would feel left out if you made plans to protect him behind his back. But laying into a friend, not caring whether or not he was hurt – no, knowing full well that he was suffering, but not caring – that was beyond a mistake. It was callous, inexcusable selfishness.

Harry got up, knowing that he couldn't fully make amends, knowing that he had to try.