-Story Disclaimer is at the beginning of Chapter One-
Author's Note: Please remember this is a semi-Alternate Universe.
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:Chapter Two: Outing Harry
As the Gryffindor common room filled the following Sunday morning, many of the girls were squealing and chatting about the newest paper on the bulletin board.
"Quill-Pal, that sounds fabulous!" Lavender Brown exclaimed as all of the other girls cheered in agreement with her.
Many of the boys curiously walked over to the bulletin board and read the announcement. Most of them acted as if they weren't interested, but some gladly looked around the room trying to find the forms to fill out.
Already most of the girls were filling out their forms.
Hermione walked up to Harry and Ron and said, "Hey, don't tell anyone this was my idea. I'm afraid that if some of the other Houses hear I came up with it, they might be disrespectful and won't bother filling out the forms properly."
"Yeah, sure." Harry agreed and Ron nodded his head, his entire mind focused on breakfast.
Both boys walked out of the Common Room without even reading the posting or grabbing a paper to fill out. Hermione just glared at them.
-o-O-o-
On the way to the Great Hall, Ron looked at Harry questioningly.
"Do you plan on filling the forms out, Harry?" Ron wondered.
"Um, I think it is a good idea for people to make friends outside their Houses… but I'm not sure if I will."
"Yeah me either. " Ron said while looking doubtful. A moment later he asked, "Do you think it's possible for me to be paired up with that pretty girl from Hufflepuff, Hannah Abbott?"
"Anything's possible, Ron." Grinned Harry.
-o-O-o-
When they entered the Great Hall, they noticed it was emptier than it normally would have been.
"Everyone is probably still in their Common Rooms filling out forms." Ron thought out loud.
They quickly sat down at their usual spots at the Gryffindor table and proceeded to load their plates with food.
After a while, the Great Hall started to flow with more and more students. They were all pretty excited about the Quill-Pal program it seemed. Everyone was wearing smiles and suddenly taking notice of people from other Houses. Apparently in the hopes of finding someone they wished to be paired up with.
Harry looked up and unconsciously noticed Draco Malfoy had been sitting at the table by himself until the burst of students came flooding in and his friends sat down beside him.
'I guess Malfoy's too full of himself to ever be caught filling out those forms.' Harry thought to himself.
Just then, Hermione, Ginny, Dean, Seamus, Neville, and the rest of the Gryffindor crew sat down and started to pile up their plates.
"Who's up for an afternoon game of Quidditch?" Seamus said.
When most of them had chorused in with, "I am," they all started to eat faster so they could take over the Quidditch field before any other House.
Just then, the morning mail came in. Hedwig dropped a small parcel off to Harry. His friends all looked at him questioningly – but he didn't seem shocked at all. He took his parcel and quickly opened it, and started reading the letter. His friends looked around to each other, all thinking the same thing. Harry rarely ever received mail. And when he did during third year (letters from Sirius, but only Hermione and Ron knew that), he had only received letters and not packages. Come to think of it, he had only received packages a few times during the entire seven years he had gone to Hogwarts.
Harry was smiling as he read his letter, which perplexed his friends even more. Curiously, Ron was trying to look over his shoulder to see whom it was from. Harry kept moving, trying to keep the letter to himself.
Then Ron noticed the opened package and picked up what was inside. He was studying the contraption but couldn't even guess what it was.
"It's an mp3 player, Ron." Hermione informed him.
"An Empee Three what?"
"It is a muggle device used to listen to music."
"Um, okay." He said as he placed the Empee Three plaything back down on the table when something else caught his eye. He picked up an envelope that wasn't sealed shut and noticed it had a large stack of photos inside. Gingerly, he pulled them out and began to brief through them, unknowingly to Harry.
"WHAT THE HELL!" Ron shouted maybe a little bit too loudly because it basically drew everyone in the room's attention to the Gryffindor table.
Harry glanced over and saw the stack of photos. As he was grabbing them out of Ron's hand, you could hear Professor McGonagall clearly telling Ron from the Head Table to watch his mouth before he had House Points deducted, leaving Gryffindor with a negative amount before the official school year even started.
The rest of the Gryffindor crew (and some other House members), tried to lean over to see what had clearly discomforted Ron, but Harry shoved the photos back into the envelope and quickly stowed it into his jacket pocket. Blushing, he turned to Ron, who was clearly looking at Harry as if he had produced a third eye on his forehead. Harry leaned over and promised to explain himself when no one else was around. Ron nodded and turned forward to stare at his now-empty breakfast plate.
Some of the people in the hall had gone back to their conversations and meals. But not all, as some of them were still very curious about this package that Harry received – which was not only an odd thing in itself, but had clearly traumatized his best friend. And a few girls were silently pouting, wondering if Harry would even bother filling out the Quill-Pal form since he obviously had a girlfriend that was mailing him stuff.
Even though Harry was still blushing brightly and trying to ignore concerned looks from Hermione, he picked up his mp3 player, put the earplugs in his ears and turned the power on. When no noise came from it he made a face. Hermione guessed what was wrong and swished her wand and cast a spell on it. He couldn't hear the spell she used, but he gave her a thumbs-up when the music started. She smiled at him and nodded her head.
With that done, Harry picked up the rest of his package and said, "See you guys on the field," and walked briskly out of the Great Hall.
-o-O-o-
Harry stopped at his dorm room and grabbed his Firebolt. Everyone was still at breakfast, so he sat on his bed and pulled out the stack of photos. As soon as he saw the first photo, he knew why Ron had gotten so upset. All the photos were muggle and non-moving, first off. Second, the top photo was a close up of a boy kissing Harry on his cheek - right near his mouth, while Harry was laughing and definitely enjoying it.
Brent.
Harry smiled and continued flipping through the photos. He could always fawn over them later. Most of the photos had him and Brent in them. You could tell some of them were taken by a third party and showed him and Brent together, one showed Harry getting a piggy back ride from Brent somewhere in downtown London, quite a few of Harry dancing in a very crowded club, a few of Brent and Harry sharing a crepe, a couple photos that Harry himself took of Brent being goofy, a handful of Brent and Harry kissing each other without reserve, and even some pictures of them with a bunch of Brent's friends at a house party they had attended. Harry wondered how many photos Ron had looked through before he got to the cheek kissing one because there were a few photos that were much raunchier than the one Ron had stopped on.
Harry put the photos back in the envelope, turned off the music, and then picked up the letter to finish reading where he left off when Ron had interrupted him. A couple minutes later, he stood up and put the letter and photos into his trunk and locked it.
-o-O-o-
A couple of weeks ago, Harry had owled Dumbledore to ask him about keeping in touch with his new muggle friend. Dumbledore wrote back saying that he would set up a Wizarding Post Office Box address for the muggle friend to mail to, and then that mail would be forwarded to Hogwarts through owls. And Harry could send Hedwig with the replies, back to the same Wizarding Post Office, who would then forward all mail into the regular muggle system.
Harry was glad he thought to keep in touch with Brent because he had only been at school for a few days and already he was receiving mail. He loved the mp3 player that he received. Brent was nice enough to load it up with thousands of songs and even a bunch of the music from local bands that they both went to see through out the summer.
Harry turned the music back on, grabbed his Quidditch gear and Firebolt, and left his dorm room.
As he went to leave the common room he ran into some of his housemates that were on their way up to grab their Quidditch gear. He noticed Ron looking out of sorts, so he went back through the Fat Lady portrait, and sat down on a couch to wait for him.
A few minutes later, some of them appeared. Harry stood up and walked over to Ron.
"Can I have a word with you?" Harry asked. Ron nodded.
They walked out of the portrait and many minutes later were outside of the castle. Neither had spoken a word yet. Harry nudged Ron's arm with his elbow and pointed to a series of benches that weren't being used. Ron followed him.
"So… you seem upset. I guess I should explain the photos." Harry started.
"I'm not mad Harry…just a little confused. You never told me you liked boys."
Harry let out a breath in relief. "Good, I am glad you aren't mad. And I never knew I liked guys either until I met Brent. But I don't think I am gay. I guess if I am drawn to someone, then I don't really care if they are male or female."
"Yeah, that makes sense. Besides, the guy in the photo was pretty damn cute." Ron heard himself admitting, blushing.
Harry grinned very wide and nodded his head.
"So, is he your boyfriend?" Ron wondered.
"No, we were pretty exclusive this summer, but we both agreed right when we met that we would not get too attached since I was leaving for Boarding School. We are only friends now, but I do miss him."
There was silence for a few moments with both boys looking off into the distance. Then Ron said quietly, "Truthfully, I am kind of sad that you didn't tell me about it." Ron lowered his eyes, "I mean, I thought you could tell me anything."
"Well it wasn't like I was trying to keep it a secret from you. I was just waiting for the right time to mention it, I guess."
At that point, they both looked over at Hermione who was walking towards them from the Broom Shed carrying one of the school's old and worn brooms. She had never bothered to buy equipment since she never really took Quidditch seriously. Plus, the only time she ever played was during the Gryffindor scrimmages where any of the official Quidditch team members were not allowed to play their actual positions. Harry enjoyed playing the other spots to see what it was like, but none of them could ever compare to the love he had for playing Seeker.
Hermione stopped when she was a bit away from them, trying to read the situation between Ron and Harry. Harry waved her over and she trotted to them with a curious grin. Harry quickly explained to her that the package was from his ex-boyfriend that he had met over the summer and that Ron had seen some incriminating photos of them together. Hermione assured Harry that she would be happy for him no matter who he decided to date and by the end of their conversation they were getting yelled at by the other House members to, 'Hurry up and come play already.' Harry promised to let both of them look through the photos at some point.
As they were jogging to the Quidditch field, Harry asked them to keep it quiet that he dated a boy over the summer. He wasn't embarrassed, but he didn't see the point of getting the entire Wizarding World riled up when he wasn't exactly gay, and who knew – he might develop a crush on a girl this year. Right before they took their brooms to the air, he told them that he was okay with the fact that some day he would probably end up being called The Boy who Bends, in the Daily Prophet, but just not yet. All three were still smiling as they greeted the rest of the scrimmage team.
-o-O-o-
The rest of the day, many Gryffindors were harassing poor Harry and Ron into telling them who the package was from. They also wanted to know why Ron got so upset. Even though they were not given any answers, they continued picking on them.
In the common room, all the girls were still chatting about the Quill-Pal program and guessing whom they would be matched with. Quite a few of the girls had their eye on Harry since he had shown up for seventh year with even more unruly hair, beautiful green eyes that were not hiding behind glasses, and wearing form fitting clothing that showed off his amazing Quidditch trained body. One of the girls was overheard saying, 'Sure Harry has always been cute – but if I had known he could look this handsome, I would have grabbed him up years ago!'
That night as Harry's roommates were going to bed in preparation for their first classes taking place the following morning, they were still picking on Harry and demanding to know whom the package was from. Once he even had to push Seamus away from his trunk and put a couple of much stronger, silent lock charms on it that he had learned from Dumbledore.
-end of chapter-
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Author's Note One: A quick thank you to Fuelled by Ramen for suggesting that Hermione make it possible for the mp3 player to work with magic. I was assuming batteries worked at Hogwarts, but they probably don't.
Author's Note Two: Also, Fuelled by Ramen pointed out that Harry's seventh year takes place in 1997. I already knew that, but then my mind forgot to relay it to my fingers as they were typing. But I think I will keep it the mp3 player. I love music and that's probably why I included it, however, one day I might consider changing the gift if it bothers everyone too much. Hopefully you are fine with me leaving it for the time being, if not, let me know. But please, don't let this stop you from bringing other things to my attention in the future!
