Disclaimer: this story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Chapter nine: Fair Play

Harry looked anxiously at Severus, hoping the man had bought his story. He'd known for a while now that Severus was not going to let things go for much longer, so he hadn't really been surprised by the man's ultimatum. But he also wanted to keep his time travelling a secret, so he hoped Severus didn't sense that he was still holding back some information.

"First of all, I am not happy at all that you choose to keep an object you knew was Dark, instead of handing it over to me," Severus said. "No matter how you got it. Did you honestly think I would get mad at you for that?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders. No, he didn't think Severus would've gotten mad at him, if that was what had really happened. But he'd had to come up with some reason for keeping the existence of the diary from Severus and that was the only thing he could think of on the top of his head.

"I wouldn't have," Severus said. "As for it going missing, you can stop worrying about that. I took it from your trunk."

"You what?" Harry blurted out surprised.

Severus nailed him to his seat with a glare.

"Do not take that tone with me, young man," he said. "You were acting strangely and I went through your things to find the cause. Clearly you were under the influence of the Dark artifact, which is why I removed it from your trunk. You had no business to even have it in your possession. And in case you've forgotten, I am still your guardian and responsible for your well being."

"Sorry, sir," Harry said, chastised by Severus' words and his real concern for Harry's well being.

In a way, this was the best news Harry had gotten since the diary had disappeared. Although how Severus had missed the locket in his search was anyone's guess. But at least the diary was safe for now in Severus' hands. It did pose the problem of having to somehow destroy it without telling Severus about the whole time travel thing, but Harry figured that was a problem of a later date. For now, it was safe and that was all Harry was concerned with.

He could've done without the detentions Severus was setting for him, though, but he would take what he could get. After Severus was through berating him for endangering himself, he pulled Harry into a hug.

"Don't ever make me worry like that again, brat," Severus said.

Harry wanted to promise that he wouldn't, but he knew what lay ahead. Severus would be plenty worried in years to come. But for now, it just felt good to have someone care for him enough to butt into his business like Severus had just done.

HPHPHPHPHPHP

Two weeks after Harry had learned that Severus had the diary, he finally had a detention-free evening. Since the danger of someone deliberately stealing Horcruxes from Harry had passed with the knowledge that it was Severus who had taken the diary, Harry thought it was time to retrieve Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem.

So today after dinner, he'd gone to the seventh floor. He walked three timed past the carpet with the trolls, thinking about the room where he'd hidden the Half-Blood Prince's book in the original timeline. It had been after that year that the whole Wizarding World had fallen under Voldemort's rule. Only Hogwarts and Hogsmeade had been resisting in the end, with Hogwarts being the head quarters of the resistance and Hogsmeade a place where refugees from all over Great Britain came. Because the refugees couldn't be distinguished from spies, they couldn't be let into the castle that served as the headquarters of the resistance, but they were relatively safe in the village. Or as safe as anyone not bowing before Voldemort had been in those days.

It had been after what should have been Harry's seventh year that Hermione had found a picture of Ravenclaw's diadem and Harry had recognized it as the tiara he'd placed on the bust of the ugly, old wizard to remember where he'd stashed the potions book. But when he'd gone to the Room of Requirement to retrieve it, it had been too late. Someone had already taken it and hidden it somewhere else. Voldemort had known back then that Harry and his friends were hunting for his Horcruxes and was retrieving them, hiding them again under new protections. It had been a losing battle.

But this time around, Harry knew he would be in time. He opened the room to find it the size of a large cathedral with high windows, just like the last time he'd seen it. The broken and damaged furniture had a deep layer of dust on it and nothing indicated it had been disturbed in recent years. Harry made his way through the stacks of books and other broken bits and pieces until he finally spotted the bust he'd used. Nearby lay the dusty old wig he'd placed on top of the bust. A bit of poking around in the vicinity turned up the tarnished tiara that was worth more to Harry than the greatest treasure.

With a sigh of relief, Harry placed it in his bag and left the room. Three down, three to go.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

It was on a balmy day in May that Slytherin had its final Quidditch game. They were neck on neck with Hufflepuff, who had an extremely strong team this year. Whichever team won this game was likely to win the Quidditch Cup. Not only was it an important game, it was also the first game where Slytherin was met with any real resistance. And it was probably that which gave rise to the all too familiar play Harry remembered from the original timeline.

There was no question about it, Slytherin was cheating. The number of fouls was stacking up high and it seemed to Harry that Madam Hooch had to whistle and give away a penalty shot to Hufflepuff every other minute. Unease about the play of his teammates made Harry's stomach tighten. He wanted to win just as bad as his teammates, but not like this. After another blagging by Pucey, and the subsequent penalty shot, Harry waved to Marcus Flint for a time-out.

"What's the matter, Harry?" Marcus asked as soon as the team was on the ground.

"You're cheating!" Harry accused.

Marcus gave him a long, dark look.

"So what?" he said.

"Stop doing it," Harry demanded.

'Or you'll what?" he said scathingly.

Harry narrowed his eyes, angry with the condescending tone Marcus gave him as well as with the blatant cheating he wasn't even sorry for.

"Or I'll quit," Harry said.

Just then, Madam Hooch waved at them that their time was up and the team took to the sky again. Harry took up his position above the general playing field again, looking for the Snitch with one eye and keeping the other on his teammates. He sent a glare in Marcus' direction after the first foul and an angry gesture after the second one. The third foul was too much for Harry and he angled his broom to the ground. Cedric followed him, probably unsure if Harry had seen the Snitch or not, but pulled out pretty fast when it became apparent that there was no golden ball Harry was going after.

When Harry reached the ground, he landed and started walking off the field, much to the consternation of the spectators and players. Harry heard Lee Jordan's comments, asking if there was something wrong with him, heard his teammates angry shouts, heard the roar of the crowd. But he didn't care.

Ignoring it all, he went to the Slytherin locker room and got changed. He could still hear the consternation outside, but it was muted. For a second, the noise grew as the door opened, then closed again. Harry didn't look up from tying his shoelaces.

"Harry, are you all right?" Severus asked, revealing who it was that had come in.

"I'm fine," Harry said shortly.

"If you were fine, you would be out there, playing," Severus said, sitting down on the bench next to him. "What happened?"

"They were cheating," Harry said, finally looking up. "I can't stand it and I told Marcus to cut it out, but he wouldn't."

"So you quit," Severus said.

"Yeah, so what?" Harry said defensively.

Severus merely smiled and squeezed Harry's shoulder.

"I think that was a very brave thing to do," Severus said. "Although I believe your housemates might not be so understanding."

Harry snorted.

"Yes, I kind of figured that," he said.

"Tell you what, why don't you go to my quarters, you know the password," Severus said. "I'll see how the game ends and try to calm them down afterwards."

Harry gave Severus a grateful smile. He'd known his teammates were angry, but he hadn't thought of the consequences of his actions, nor of what his housemates would think when he'd made the decision to stop playing. He'd only thought of that after he'd already done it and by then it was too late to take it back. Not that Harry wanted to. If his House was going to be angry at him, it might as well be for something he actually did. Still, he was glad for Severus' support. Harry didn't think he'd be able to stick to his guns if the man had been angry with him for it.

Severus left to go back to the game and Harry gathered up his things and went to Severus' quarters. He tried to occupy his time with reading, but his thoughts kept straying towards the Quidditch game. Sure, Draco would take his Seeker spot and Montague would get to fill in the Chaser spot, but he wasn't worked in at all and while Draco was a good Seeker, he wasn't as good as Harry. Cedric on the other hand was very good. In essence, Harry quitting the team like that had lost them the Cup.

When Severus finally came back, Harry anxiously looked up. The man looked grim, which wasn't boding well for Harry.

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"We lost," Severus said. "And the House is pretty angry with you right now, to say nothing of your teammates."

Harry groaned. Great, that was just what he needed. Severus sat down next to him on the couch.

"Do you regret your actions?" he asked.

"No, not really," Harry said with a sigh. "I wish the results were a bit better though," he added with a wry smile.

Severus smiled back.

"They'll come around," he said. "Just keep your head held high. You did what was right today and I couldn't have been more proud of you."

And that alone, Harry decided, made everything worth it.

Later that evening, though, Harry was beginning to doubt his earlier assessment. He'd spent the rest of the afternoon and dinner with Severus, delaying seeing his housemates, but eventually had to return to the common room before curfew.

The moment Harry walked into the common room, everyone stopped talking. They all looked at him, their faces varying from indifferent to downright angry, but nobody spoke a word. Harry fidgeted where he'd stopped to stand and that seemed to break whatever spell there'd been in the room. Almost as one, the House turned away from him and ignored him.

Harry decided that keeping his head down was really the best way to go about this, so he headed to his dorm. Unfortunately, Draco was there and unlike the rest of his housemates, who were content to just ignore Harry, his friend was spitting mad.

"What in Merlin's name did you think you were doing out there?" Draco screamed at him.

He didn't give Harry a chance to explain or even to say something. Instead he continued to shout, insults interspersed with biting comments about letting down the House, losing them the Quidditch Cup and most likely the House Cup as well. For the first time since traveling back in time, Harry saw the Draco he'd known in the original timeline. The Draco that had eventually become his enemy.

"Shut up, just shut up," Harry screamed back when he couldn't take it anymore. "You don't know anything!"

He retreated to his bed and pulled the curtains, spelling them shut so he could get some peace and quiet. It was the last he'd have for some time. In the weeks after the Quidditch game, Harry once again became intimately familiar with being ostracized. The majority of Slytherin House ignored him completely, but there were a few, like the Quidditch team, that went out of their way to insult him at every turn. Oh, outside of Slytherin House, when other houses were present, everyone was icily polite, but as soon as it was just Slytherins Harry was left no illusions as to how they felt about him.

Draco didn't repeat his diatribe of the first evening, nor did he join the ranks of those who insulted Harry on a daily basis, but he also rebuffed any attempts from Harry to talk. The only ally Harry still had in Slytherin House was Theo, who acted normal and sympathetic, but couldn't actually help him. Hermione was also sympathetic, not to mention outraged on his behalf at his housemates, but as a Gryffindor she was even less helpful than Theo.

They still worked together on the next S.I.M. project, and much to Harry's amazement Draco had kept showing up in their common room, but there was no communication whatsoever between the two. Until, that is, Hermione huffed in exasperation and threw her hands into the air. Evidently, after about two weeks of Draco and Harry not talking, Hermione had had enough.

"That's it! This is ridiculous," she said. "Theo, come on, we're leaving. And you two," she turned to them, hands in her side. "Work. This. Out."

She left then, Theo going with her. Harry guessed he was sick of this impasse between his friends as well. Harry sighed. He knew Draco. The blond would never make the first move. But Harry genuinely missed him, missed talking to him and just joking around.

"Draco, look, I'm sorry for just quitting the team like that," Harry said. "But I honestly couldn't do it, I couldn't play like that. You've got to understand that."

"You just left us there, abandoned us," Draco said.

"And for that, I'm sorry!" Harry said. "But are you really going to stay angry over a Quidditch game?"

"You have no idea what's at stake," Draco hissed at him.

Suddenly, Harry had the feeling there was a lot more going on that just them losing the Quidditch Cup to Hufflepuff.

"Draco?" he asked. "What's going on?"

"Do you know that my parents never expected me not to make the Seeker position?" Draco asked. "My mother, she…was not happy."

Harry swallowed heavily. He knew exactly what that meant. Just like he realized exactly what his actions would cost Draco.

"Merlin, Draco, I never…"

"Don't," Draco said. "It's not, not your fault. Not really."

Just like that, they were friends again, but Harry felt horrible. He hadn't thought his actions through and once again his impulsiveness would cost someone else dearly. He tried to talk to Draco about it, but was met with a terse "there's nothing you can do." In the end, he had to let it go.

HHPHPHPHPHPHP

Even after Draco and Harry had made up, there was still a nagging sense of guilt inside of Harry. He'd even talked about it with Severus, who could do nothing more than offer comfort. They'd talked about decisions sometimes having unexpected consequences and that feeling guilty about that was misplaced. Harry had almost laughed out loud at that, remembering all too well that Severus' whole career as a spy had come about because of the guilt he felt at the unintended consequence of Harry's mother being targeted by reporting part of the prophecy. Thankfully the man had been too engrossed in his own memories to notice Harry's reaction. It would have been hard to explain.

But, despite his conversation with Severus, Harry's guilt had not lessened. In fact, it had gotten worse as the days went by. The exams and after that the summer holidays came closer and closer, and Draco became more withdrawn. He still studied with them, still worked with them on their current S.I.M. project, but he wasn't as lively as he'd been before. Harry was certain his friend wasn't sleeping well either.

He was determined to do something, anything, to make up for losing Slytherin the Quidditch Cup. He couldn't turn back his decision, but he could at the very least make sure Narcissa would have nothing else to be angry about. So Harry set out to win Slytherin the House Cup. They were just behind Hufflepuff, but Harry felt confident he could earn enough points to overtake them.

In the two weeks before the exams started, Harry pounced on every question asked by the teachers, becoming almost as much a know-it-all as Hermione had been at the beginning of first year. He gathered points like never before, but unfortunately Hufflepuff was also still steadily gaining points. When the exams started, Hufflepuff was still ahead of Slytherin.

After the exams, there was one week left before the grades came out and the End of Year Feast. During this time period, Harry did everything he could to earn some more House points, from helping Madam Pomfrey with sorting the infirmary potions to see what needed to helping Professor Sprout out in the greenhouse. That last garnered him precious few points, but then she was the Head of Hufflepuff. He didn't seek out Professor Snape for an opportunity to earn house points, because he wanted to make sure neither one of them were accused of cheating to win the Cup.

Despite all of his hard work, Harry was aghast when it was time for the feast. Hufflepuff was still ahead of Slytherin, with a measly ten points, true, but in the end the amount didn't matter. They'd lost and Draco would have to face his mother with neither a Quidditch Cup nor a House Cup. It was a depressed Harry that sat with an equally depressed Draco and Theo in the Great Hall, decked out in the yellow banners of Hufflepuff.