A/N: Bloody hell, I didn't realise the length of the preamble of this story until going over it and editing the chapters. I apologise for what might seem like somewhat extensive preliminaries. I promise what is essentially the 'meat' of the story is just around the corner. Please stick with me till then!

Chapter 3

Two years later
(September 2002)

"To the left, take it a little... yes, that's good."

Harry turned, stilled, but didn't freeze. He knew better than to become rigid.

"And looking… yes, right, to me, yes."

He blinked slowly, almost lazily, at the lens as though it were a real eye, seeing it, seeing through it, and could make out the blink and flicker of the shutter snapping within.

"And taking another turn… if you could, with the shirt just…"

He didn't need to be told. Not really. He simply acted and what came, what felt right, suited. He turned. He twisted in a manner that had his open shirt fanning just slightly. He hooked a thumb into the front pocket of his jeans, a pocket that was so shallow it was barely a pocket at all.

The camera flicked. The lights beamed. The photographer made a gesture, and he responded.

Harry was in his element. Before the camera, before the photographer, being directed and conducted and yet making those directions and conduct his own. It was almost easy. As the photographer made another shot, the director ordering another tip of his head, he did so, but Harry made it his and he knew…

He did well. This was something that Harry knew he could do.

"That's a wrap!"

Like a switch abruptly flipped, noise erupted where there had been muted quiet. Throughout the studio, voices rung to the accompaniment of clattering equipment suddenly adjusted, the crew flowing into action. Stands were folded, bodies swept throughout with terse efficiency, cables were kicked out of the way, and more than one person was on their phone almost before the director had spoken.

Straightening, Harry raked a hand through his hair. Only to have it smacked away by the sharp slap of a hand.

"Don't do that. You're messing it all up."

Glancing over his shoulder towards where Von had appeared behind him, Harry smiled. "The shoot's over, Von. It doesn't matter if –"

"You should take more pride in my styling." Frowning, Von stepped around him and began skillfully rearranging the disruption Harry had apparently made of his hair. He was a tall man, and with the accompaniment of a frequent, disapproving frown when focused on his work, Von had a tendency to loom. "You're killing me, bub."

"You're just jealous because you don't have any hair to fuss over yourself," Harry replied with a pointedly glance towards Von's bald head. Von ignored him, continuing to plick and fix, and Harry him to do as he so desired. It was easier to simply let him have his way when it came to such details.

Von had been Harry's personal stylist for nearly three whole years. Though often demanding and even more often unwaveringly blunt, Harry liked him. His no-nonsense attitude was affable in its own way. The commands of his early days – "don't tug on your shirt like that or you'll crease it" and "when you pull a face like that, no amount of make-up can compensate" – had in many ways been as useful as those of Harry's agent, or of his tutor that had long since deemed him 'graduated'.

"I'm not even going anywhere after this, you know," Harry said, eyeing the crew as they swept around him in their post-shoot mania. He'd always watched curiously; as a world parallel to but distinctly apart from his own, it never failed to interest him. The flashing lights, the snapping cameras, the intent expressions and focused gazes - so often Harry had been at the mercy of masters of their trades, and that each worker had their own distinct approach to their respective roles was a curious study.

"You don't have to be going anywhere," Von said distractedly, stepping forwards slightly to avoid a passer-by carrying a giant of a case in her arms. "I have a standard to uphold, even when just stepping outside."

"You have a standard? As far as I'm concerned, I'm the one who –"

"Harry."

Harry's smile widened. For all of Von's looming, the downward flicker of his glance was a mixture of fondness, ridicule, and exasperation. "Alright, alright," Harry said. "Work your magic, then."

At his words, Von did just that. Hooking his arm around Harry's shoulders in a one-armed embrace that was more directional than affectionate, he steered them from the studio. It wasn't necessarily typical for stylists to be so hands-on at the scene, but Von was different. He wouldn't allow anyone else to touch his work, and that work extended to his models in their entirety. Or model, as it was, given that he didn't really work on anyone but Harry these days.

"I've got a change-out for you," Von said as they strode down the narrow hallway, skirting past and dodging around the crew members that darted about like scurrying ants. "Dot will probably want to see you before you head off to wherever you're going afterwards, but I'll make sure there's a car waiting for when you're ready."

"Remind me again why you're not my manager?" Harry asked, dodging a crewman himself as they passed into the even narrower hallway leading towards the back rooms.

Von pulled a face. "What, and deprive Dot of her meticulous planning?"

"True. She'd never forgive you if you usurped her."

"She's the definitive dragon-lady."

"She says she has to be, you know." Harry paused alongside the door that had been allocated for him as Von jimmied the lock and led the way inside. "Apparently it's a cutthroat business."

"It is," Von said, holding the door open for him as Harry followed his lead. "If you're only just realising that now then she's clearly shielded you from the worst of it over the years."

That was true. Dot – or Dorothea, which she stoically insisted upon being called – was a force to be reckoned with. Harry's sole agent, because to share supervisors would be a sin and an injustice in her eyes, she was as fiercely protective as a swam of her cygnets with a bite just as sharp. After Gertrude had scouted Harry years before, Dot had swept onto the scene and all but abducted him from the woman's claw-like clutches.

Harry was grateful for that, and not only because he'd seen Gertrude's predatory nature on several occasions in the years since. Dot had saved him in more ways than one, and he could never thank her enough.

She'd found his tutor. She'd culled through his options as if she hadn't considered them all for countless other models in the past, and she was merciless. She presided over the lessons that Harry undertook, directing as often as his tutor had to the point that Harry had often wondered why she didn't simply teach him the arts of the industry himself. Though she didn't model herself, Dot knew how to hold herself. She knew poise, how to pose, how to draw the eye of a camera even when it wasn't trained upon her. More than that, however, she knew how to speak. She knew how to demand, how to work the room, how to appear professionally friendly before swooping in with her provisions and thus inevitably getting her way every single time.

Harry had never modelled before. Before Gertrude had found him, he hadn't even considered it for himself. Why should he care about what he wore? Why should he care what he looked like, how he was viewed by others, how his picture was depicted in a magazine? He'd been subjected to interviews and he hated them, even if he did agree to them. But even then, it hadn't been without a degree of derision. What was the point, after all, in the wake of a war that had killed and irreparably damaged so many? There were more important things than hearing Harry talk.

How Gertrude had swept him into her clutches at all was a situation that Harry still wasn't quite sure he knew the nature of. In one moment, he'd been deliberately withdrawing from her and the offer she'd presented, but in the next, it was as though the world had been tipped on its head. He was joining her in her car. He was travelling alongside her to an unremarkable building in upper-middle class London that she only called Estella en Ascenso. He was following her unchallenged past a receptionist and down a hallway towards and unmarked office door. Only when he was sitting before a rail-thin, flat-faced woman who regarded him with all the shrewdness of a hawk did he even begin to grasp where he was.

"A model?" Harry asked, glancing towards Gertrude where she regarded him expectantly from the seat alongside him, her too-wide lips drawn into a complacent smile. "What do you -?"

"What do you think?" Gertrude interrupted him, and though she stared at Harry, she clearly spoke to the woman across the desk from him.

The woman remained silent and calculating for a long moment. When she finally settled back into her seat, still focused and unblinking, her reply ignored Gertrude entirely. "Harry Potter. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," Harry said blankly. "Though I have no idea why I'm here."

"Don't you?"

Harry shook his head, glancing briefly towards Gertrude with her incessant smile and then back to the severe woman. "I'm not modelling material. I've never had any experience in doing something like that. What Gertrude said before was…"

Harry caught his lip in his bottom teeth to stem the flow of words. When he considered it, Gertrude hadn't really said all that much of anything. Rather, she'd uttered the words 'potential', offered direction like a lighthouse beaming illumination upon a darkened shore, and Harry hadn't considered all that much beyond it. He felt almost ashamed for how readily he'd leapt at the opportunity.

But then, no one else had seen. No one else had noticed that he was sinking, caught in a web when he should have been freed from every shackle that had bound him his entire life. Gertrude, for all of her disconcerting manner, had seen and she'd acted. Harry had been helpless to her offer.

But now? In an unfamiliar room with a woman who looked like she chewed nails for breakfast and enjoyed it? Now he was second guessing. Honestly, modelling? Such a pointless, superficial, and utterly talentless pursuit? How could he glean meaning from something he had no interest in, let alone any particular experience?

"You've got the face," the woman across the table told him, as though commenting upon the weather. "And you've got the publicity already. That's a step in the right direction that we can use."

"I thought as much," Gertrude said a little smugly.

Once more, she was ignored. "But you're not in shape for it, clearly. And you're completely raw. I've seen your interviews, you know. You've learnt what to say but you've no finesse in how you say it. Not to mention that you haven't the foggiest understanding of how to best present yourself."

Harry should have been offended. A part of him even was a little, though that part was lost before the bland, forward manner of the woman seated across from him as she raised a hand and adjusted the wire frames of her thin, rectangular glasses. "I, um…" He began, then shrugged awkwardly. "Well, I can't say I exactly have much interest in it. I don't ask for the interviews, and the photographers just seem to find me, so…"

"They find him," Gertrude emphasised, as though that meant something. "What do you think?"

The woman tapped one finger rhythmically upon her desk. She regarded Harry with that same hawk-like stare that was different to Gertrude's but no less disconcerting. She pursed her lips slightly before replying. "It could work. It certainly could. But you've got to put in the hard yards, Mr. Potter. Just because you already possess fame doesn't mean that this industry will embrace you with open arms." Her finger gave a particularly forceful tap. "Just be aware of that. If you are – then yes, I believe we can work with this."

Harry didn't really know what to say to that. He didn't know whether he was supposed to agree or dissent to the offer she didn't quite hand him. But he shook her hand. Then Gertrude left. Then room fell silent. And, all of a sudden, Harry found himself in the unyielding hands of Dorothea Picard.

She was ruthless. She was intelligent. She had the sense of humour of a doorknob, but that didn't matter because Dot's skills lay in other, far more impressive areas. To say that Harry's tutor – the woman who taught him when to lift his head as often as to lower it, how to speak with his eyes rather than his voice, how to wear confidence before a camera like a comfortable coat even if he didn't feel it – had made him into the model he became would be an oversight of Dot's sheer, pervasive presence.

Dot taught Harry. She was the one who ultimately taught him everything, despite the tutors and directors, the photographers and co-models that showered him with dismissive, condescending suggestions that became begrudging compliments over time. But most importantly, she taught him that modelling wasn't pointless or trivial because people held superficial appreciation for the pictures they saw. She taught him that those very people were influenced by them even without realising. She taught that, far from being a talentless pursuit, it required far more subtlety and skill than anything Harry had ever deliberately undertaken. He had no 'natural talent' in standing before a camera and making it more than simply standing. Harry had his unwanted fame, but otherwise?

It was a challenge, and one unlike any he had faced before.

Modelling might not have been what Harry had in mind for himself. It might not have been what he'd seen himself pursuing, might not have even been considered a possibility, but he had become what Dot had wanted him to be. She'd never expressly commanded it of him, never instructed him in just what it was that she specifically wanted, but he became it nonetheless.

It was Dot who had, in spite of protocol, somehow managed to have Harry allocated his own room. Such privacy wasn't always afforded to models, nor even often, and he appreciated it. It was small, square, and mostly consumed by a vanity and mirror that took up half of one wall, but it was enough. It was away from prying eyes.

Harry appreciated that privacy even more so when, as soon as he stepped inside the room, Von drew his wand from his pocket and locked the door with a brief flick. He felt himself relax just a little more as he did so.

"Thanks," Harry said, and Von only nodded in acknowledgement of his gratitude. He crossed the small room and, without pause to flick through the articles of clothing, drew a shirt and jeans from the rack just alongside the vanity. He held them towards Harry with an indicative tilt of his head.

Harry accepted the offer and wordlessly stripped himself of the skin-tight shirt and slacks he'd worn for the shoot. Naturally, Von stepped forward to assist him – he could never help himself from becoming involved in the simple routine, even when it was unnecessary – and Harry didn't mind. Whatever modesty he'd once possessed was by and large abandoned years before.

"Sit," Von said after he slipped the casual shirt over Harry's shoulders as though he were a child who couldn't do it himself. Harry didn't really care about that so much anymore, either. "You're not stepping out of this room until I'm done with you."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Harry said, folding the sleeves up to his elbows. "Is it cold out?"

"It's autumn," Von said by way of an explanation.

"Can I have a jacket?"

"Preferably not. There's none that quite suits."

Harry could have objected, but he didn't. He'd learnt just how much Von's stylistic choices meant to him. It was usually better to simply suck up any discomfort of being cold than risk inducing the physical twitch of discomfort Von couldn't quite manage to hide. Just as it was easier to sit and allow Von to work on his hair again than to protest.

"Do you want me to take the charm off your scar?" Von said, standing before him and all but blocking out the glaring brightness of the vanity lights.

Harry shook his head. He rarely took the charm off nowadays, though Von never failed to ask him. "No, it's fine."

"And your eyes?"

Instinctively, Harry rubbed his eyes. They always became a little dry after most of a day beneath the clarifying effects of an Optics Charm. He didn't mind, but a reprieve was always appreciated. "If you could."

"No problem."

The distant murmur of voices beyond the door were all that interrupted the silence as Von worked – for work he did. Harry said in dutiful muteness as his face was wiped clean with cool cleansers and gentle scrubs that Von used as he claimed that 'the delicacy of a real human touch' would always be superior to magic in such cases. He didn't protest when Von proceeded to apply a thinner layer of make-up over immediately after, because there was a standard to uphold even outside of the studio, just as Harry maintained in his Von-appointed clothes. Harry rarely had the opportunity to do it himself; he was capable enough, but Von was better. Von knew it, too.

"I think," Von murmured, for the first time in his ministrations breaking his silence, "that I'll drop by Finlay's tomorrow and pick up some more supplies."

Harry watched as he flicked through his spread of creams, eyeliners, and eyelash curlers. "How come?"

Von pursed his lips as he twirled an pencil between his fingers, frowning. "They're putting out their April catalogue in a couple of days, and I don't like the colour palette I've got on hand for what I saw in the draft that Dot got a hold of for me."

"You don't have to go tomorrow," Harry said, closing his eyes as Von turned towards him and pointedly raised the eyeliner before. "I don't have anything booked for a whole half a week after today."

"I like to be prepared," Von said, his voice a vague murmur with his focus.

"Can't Finlay just send you a batch?"

"Probably, but I like to be the one to do the pick-up."

"Yes, I have noticed that about you. Have you ever thought that -?" He paused at the feeling of glasses sliding onto his nose. "Von. I can put on my own glasses."

"I know you can."

Harry blinked up at him. Von wasn't quite smiling, but there was a touch of amused dimples edging his lips that was impossible to miss. Harry eyed him pointedly and Von shrugged. "Don't look at me like that. Let me coddle you."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Too right," Von said with a chuckle. "At least if I'm not going to drop you home today then –"

He cut himself of at a sharp knock on the door. Harry settled himself back into his seat as Von immediately skirted around him and made his way towards it, drawing his wand and wordlessly to unlock it. There was no need to ask who stood on the other side; Dot was the only one who hammered with such fiercely precise entitlement.

Running an absent hand through his fringe, Harry regarded himself briefly in the mirror. Von always did a good job; he had a hand for making his artwork appear natural that few others Harry had happened across could quite managed. It was no wonder Dot liked him. Besides that, he actually had stylistic taste that aligned somewhat with Harry's; despite that Harry never knew what he might find himself outfitted in on any given day, Von knew what suited him and enforced that knowledge to the overwhelming disregard of the other stylists at every shoot.

"Dorothea," Von said from the door, stepping aside like a porter and dutifully closing it behind her as she swept inside.

Typically, Dot didn't acknowledge Von. Instead, she immediately planted herself at Harry's side and, without ceremony, handed him a sheaf of papers. "Read this by Thursday," she said. "I trust I don't need to put a pen in your hand to have you sign it."

Harry wordlessly accepted the parcel without glancing at it. Instead, he watched Dot in the mirror as she flicked through her remaining papers and waited. He knew her well enough to realise when a simple delivery wasn't the whole of it.

Dot was a short woman. Short, thin and spindly like a cricket, yet emanating ferocity. The lines upon her face demanded respect and recognition rather than skepticism for her age, and the grey touching her hair was more a regal crown than a symbol of deterioration. Dot was, in short, a force to be reckoned with, and every aspect of her, from her severe bun to the fitted suit she always wore, emphasised just that.

Harry waited. And waited. And waited. Next to the door, Von settled against the wall, folded his arms, and similarly stood in silent wait. As the pause extended with only the sound of riffled papers for disruption, Dot maintained her silence. That in itself was almost concerning; she was rarely silent without reason.

"Is something wrong?" he asked. Then, "Did I do something?"

"No," Dot said immediately. She folded the papers together and clasped them firmly between both hands. "No, you did well today."

"Thank you?"

"Don't sound so surprised. You know you did."

Harry shrugged. What he knew didn't matter. What was surprising was that Dot had actually complimented him. She was realistic enough to do so when it was true, but occasional enough that it still held an element of unexpectedness. "What's happened?"

Only the slight tightening around her eyes signified something close to anger. "The photographer was duly pleased. He's got a foot in the door with a handful of company's so that will do you good. Even better, I overheard that Tyler Olsen approved of you too. He's a designer we want on our side."

"But?" Harry asked when Dot didn't offer it herself.

Her lips thinned infinitesimally. "But we were intruded upon. Again."

Harry frowned. At the door, Von cursed under his breath. "Again?"

"Again," Dot repeated.

"By who?" Harry asked.

Dot's grasp upon her papers radiated creases from the points her fingers grasped. "I don't suppose you've read much of the Daily Prophet recently?" she asked.

Harry shook his head. "I try not to," he said. The Wizarding world… Harry was still a part of it. The fame of his name, his status, his role as the Saviour of their lifestyle and defeater of Voldemort, was still an attachment that clung to his name regardless of the position he now assumed. If anything, being a model and character of magazines and billboards seemed to enhance it, just as Gertrude had once speculated that it would.

But by and large, Harry found he actually preferred working in the Muggle world. Here, he wasn't a Saviour. Here, he wasn't hailed as a hero as he had been from before he could remember. Here, whatever skills he possessed and performance he played was solely of his own making.

Once, Harry hadn't believed there was such a thing as talent involved in modelling. How wrong he'd been, and how ardently he now embraced dissolution of that belief.

"That's probably for the best," Dot said. "There's a new face in town. Jackdawson, or so he calls himself. He's got his nose out of joint about you."

Harry's frown deepened. "About me?"

"About your immersion in the Muggle world. And your rising fame and notoriety. And," Dot paused, clicked her tongue, and her eyes tightened further. "About me."

Harry immediately felt his hackles rise. Some upstart of a reporter – because it was a reporter, was always a Wizarding gossip-monger that invaded the sanctity of their space – was spouting noise about Dot. It would always be the same in that regard too: Harry should be the figurehead of the Wizarding world, not a figure in the Muggle one. He should be working for the ministry, or he should be an Auror, or he was supposed to be reserving his public appearances and professional time for Wizarding magazines and papers.

And, often loudest of those outcries: he should be managed by a witch or wizard.

Harry hated that most of all. Anyone who could belittle Dot, could think less of her simply because she was a squib, wasn't worthy of any of their time. The derision towards squibs was an aspect of the Wizarding world that Harry had never and would never abide.

"What's his name?" Von asked from across the room as he pushed himself off the wall. His looming returned.

"Should I talk to him?" Harry asked quietly.

"Nose down, both of you," Dot snapped with more force than necessary. "If I'd wanted a show made of his intrusion then I would have done it myself."

"We don't doubt your capabilities, Dot," Von said, stepping to her side. "We're only supporting them to –"

"It doesn't matter," Dot interrupted him as though he hadn't been speaking at all. She didn't spare him a glance as she fixed her gaze upon Harry. "I'm only telling you so you don't find out from someone else and act irrationally."

"Irrationally?" Harry asked.

Both Dot's and Von's flat stares said they weren't fooled by his show of innocent naivety. "I won't tolerate another outburst like last time," Dot said, tight-lipped. "It's not good for your public image."

Harry didn't protest. Once, he might have done, might have proclaimed how public image was nothing and that he could do whatever the hell he wanted. Time and experience had taught him that such wasn't true. It was far from the truth, in fact.

Pursing his lips, Harry sunk into his seat. "Fine. Whatever."

"Don't be petulant."

"I'm not being –"

"You've had a good day today. Don't spoil it."

Harry sunk further into his seat. "Fine," he muttered once more.

A moment of silence followed in the wake of Dot's words. The dampening effect upon what had been a good shoot, a comfortable follow up, the ease of privacy that Harry was rarely afforded these days, was starkly apparent. Dot's return to flicking through her pages was jarringly obvious in its attempt at distraction.

Nonetheless, when she spoke it was with steel emphasis and no room for argument. "We're leaving shortly," she said. "Harry, I know you said you were meeting up with friends this evening but –"

"I know," Harry said. "It's okay. I won't head into the Wizarding world."

"Best not," Von muttered.

"We'll slip out before this Jackdawson can get a clear shot at you," Dot continued. "Complaints?"

"You know I don't have any," Harry said quietly. "Whatever you say, Dorothea."

Dot nodded sharply. Without further comment, she turned and strode towards the door, only to plant herself before it as though waiting for it to open itself. Harry rose to his feet and, with Von at his side, followed after her. Von drew his wand as they did so and, with a murmured Disillusionment Charm, they were slipping from the room and diving into the madness that was post-shoot procedures while bypassing unseeing eyes. It wasn't standard protocol to all but disappear directly after the shoot, but necessity dictated action. Besides, Harry would be seeing the designer the next day for a follow-up. It wasn't like it was necessarily disastrous conduct.

Harry's life was different – different to how it had once been, how he had imagined it would be, how the world expected it should be. It was different because he'd stepped into a role that none but Gertrude had seen him capable of and, rather than sinking, he'd somehow learnt to swim. It was different because with each shot, each captured picture, each advertisement that played on the Muggle television that he acted in, he edged further and further from the Wizarding world.

It was different because he had an agent who wasn't just a manager but a squib, a menace in the modelling industry, a businesswoman of her own right, and the hand that effectively held Harry's assumed reins.

It was different because he had a stylist who wasn't just a stylist but also a bodyguard, a caretaker, a friend of sorts who saw himself as so much more than that and infinitely more entitled.

Harry hadn't foreseen such a life for himself, but then no one else had, either. Surprisingly, yet only surprising for how much he knew that his younger self would have been utterly shocked, he found that he didn't mind it so much. Harry wasn't in charge of his own life, didn't control every aspect of it as his teenage self had so longed for -

But he wasn't lost. He had a direction, a purpose, and even if many might think it menial, or underwhelming, or unsuited for him, Harry knew it was something other. Something more. That something was, really, just enough for him.

The doorbell rang.

Craning his neck, Harry twisted to glance at the closed door of his apartment. As open-plan as it was, there was barely a corner of the wall-less living area that couldn't see every inch of its entirety. Drawing his wand from his pocket, Harry flung a spell at the door.

"It's open," he called, sinking back into the couch and raising the magazine he'd flopped against his chest once more.

The door clattered. As soon as it opened, the sound that had been muffled by magic shattered alongside it in an explosive introduction of his invaders.

"- can't tell me it's the same bloke. No way."

"I can and I will. Would you like photographic evidence?"

"I might just."

"Right on hand for you, you prat. I've got it here."

Ron and Ginny's arguing wasn't unfamiliar. If anything, that they stepped into Harry's flat in the throes of one such argument was typical of them these days. Harry didn't spare them a glance as they continued with their verbal battle.

Hermione, removed from the argument as she almost always was, crossed the room directly towards him and, without waiting for him to move his legs from the couch, flopped down on top of them. Harry grunted but didn't otherwise protest.

"Hey, Harry," she said, absently prodding his knee. "How've you been?"

"Since my house-arrest, you mean?" Harry asked blankly, dropping his magazine onto his chest once more.

Hermione smiled. She was nestling herself into her cushion with the casual entitlement of one who practically owned the place, house and couch included – which she sort of did. In skirt and tights, a scarf looped loosely around her neck, and in the process of kicking her shoes off, she appeared entirely comfortable, entirely subdued, and not at all like the face of activism and equal rights that she'd become in so short a time.

"I think that's a little extreme, don't you?" Hermione said, wriggling into her seat until Harry withdrew his feet just slightly. "You're allowed out, aren't you?"

"Under magical concealment," Harry reminded her.

"What, because you're so bad at them?"

"Just because I've gotten good at bollocks illusions doesn't mean I like using them." Harry pursed his lips and, frowning, absently raised his magazine before him once more. "Bloody Jackdawson. Who'd have thought he'd be such a pain in the arse?"

"He's a real piece of work, isn't he?" Ginny said, her argument with Ron abandoned as she appeared behind the couch. She slung herself over the back, leaning until she was suspended above Harry. Her feet must have been off the ground for how far she hung. "Did you read the article he got published last week?"

"You know I did. You sent me a text as soon as you read it yourself."

"Right," Ginny said, but it was with definite distraction. Even then she was scrolling through the flip phone cupped in her hand, eyes glued to the screen. It was, after all, her latest love child with technology. Harry would never have picked any of the Weasley children to take after Arthur in his love of all things Muggle and mechanical, but there she was. While Arthur still fumbled and blundered blindly, however, Ginny navigated like an expert.

"Is that a new phone?" Harry asked, nodding to Ron as he rounded the couch and took up his usual seat in the single armchair to Harry's right. He glared at Ginny even as he nodded a reply greeting, evidently not as distracted from their argument as she had become.

Ginny grinned down at him, sparing him the courtesy of a brief glance. "It is," she said, flashing the phone towards him. "It's got a camera, you know."

"Does it really?" Harry cocked his head, raising his eyebrows. "That's kind of cool."

"I know, right? This one – it's called a Sprint – it's practically the best on the market at the moment."

"Does it take a good shot?"

"Good enough." Ginny tapped on the phone's keys for a second before turning the screen towards him once more. The image was small, but Harry could make out the lines of the quidditch pitch she'd photographed. "What do you think?"

"Very cool," Harry said, smiling obligingly. "I should get one."

"I could get you one for Christmas," Ginny said, straightening from her overhang. Turning, she took herself to Harry's kitchen with the same presumptuousness that all of his friends adopted. She had her head in his fridge a moment later. "You still haven't told me what you'd like."

"I don't really want anything," Harry called after her. Then he turned his attention back towards Ron. "Hey, mate. How've you been?"

"Hating my sister," Ron said with less heat than the statement warranted. "She's a bullshit artist, and I can't stand her."

"You should have heard them in the car on the way over," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. She tucked a leg up onto the couch, somehow managing to wriggle her toes beneath Harry's own leg so they made an odd yet comfortable tangle together. "I could hardly hear the radio."

"It wouldn't have killed you to miss the news once in a while," Ron said with a heartfelt sigh.

"Maybe for you," Hermione retorted. "I have important things to listen out for."

"Important how?"

"Well, if you listened sometimes, maybe you'd realise what's actually going on. I have to keep an ear out, if only to hear if Alan Duncan is…"

Harry tuned them out, once more raising his magazine before him. His friends visited frequently, and whenever they did they entered his flat in a storm of noise, excitement, argumentativeness, and the comfortable companionship of long-term friends. Harry didn't care that his carefully protected privacy was intruded upon; by Hermione, Ron, and Ginny, it wasn't all that much of an intrusion.

He hadn't seen them in a week. A whole week following the shoot at which some tosser named Erik Jackdawson had gotten his wand in a knot over what Ron termed 'the Harry Potter Debacle'. It was spoken of with many an eyeroll between them, many a sigh and a shaken head, but neither Harry nor his friends denied the truth of Ron's formalisation. It wasn't the first time a wizard-reporter had climbed up on his high horse in what they deemed to be a 'preservation of what was purely of the Wizarding world and not for Muggle usurping'.

Hermione objected because she stood for Muggles, for women, for every other minority group she had a toe dipped in the politics of, and loudly expressed her frustration for such foolishness. Ron objected because he was Harry's mate and, to his credit, even when he really didn't listen to or read the news, he loudly proclaimed his ridicule of anyone who thought they could control Harry or his life.

"You're Harry bloody Potter," he always grumbled. "They're a bunch of hypocrites, they are. One minute they're saying how you're the bee's knees for what you've done for the world and all, and how that gives you the right to do whatever the bloody hell you want, while in the next breath they're saying how you should be for witches and wizards only or – or how you shouldn't be so familiar with Muggles, or – I don't know, some bullshit about it 'not being right'…"

Ron had a long list that he often ran through in Harry's defense. It had become almost funny, and most of the time Ginny mouthed his words in perfect synchrony behind him.

For herself, Ginny was just as vocal. But then, Ginny was vocal about many things, not the least of which being Harry's supposed right to do 'whatever the bloody hell he wanted'. She stood alongside Hermione when Hermione joined her political marches. She was the first to leap to the defense of the underdog should she happen to behold an injustice in the streets. She, unlike Harry, had used the fame that her position in the Holyhead Harpies had afforded her and made her opinions known.

Harry had no doubt that Ginny had said something public about the Jackdawson situation. She usually did.

"… think he's doing a remarkable job, all things considered," Hermione was saying. "I'd like to meet the man."

"So why don't you?" Ron asked. "Surely it's not so hard to get a meeting with an MP."

Hermione sighed with fond exasperation. "You really have no clue of what I do in my job, do you?" she said, her tone making it apparent that she spoke rhetorically.

"Hey, Harry," Ginny called from the kitchen. "Are you eating this beef-salad thing?"

Harry glanced up from his magazine, turning glancing over the back of the couch to where Ginny inspected the sparse collection of containers on the kitchen counter. "The one in the take-out box? It's Thai. I was going to have it for dinner but didn't feel like it when it got here."

"It's still good, then? Did you put a charm over it?"

"No. I forgot."

Ginny regarded it for a moment before shrugging and scooping it up. "Still good," she said with a short nod.

"You're going to die from eating something gone rotten someday," Ron said, shooting her another frown.

"Oh, so you don't want any, then?"

"I didn't say that."

"Okay, then I'll give you some. So long as you admit I'm right about the picture."

Ron was on his feet and stalking towards the kitchen. "Oi, you can't just make those rules –"

"What's that about, then?" Harry asked, returning to his magazine and the supposedly 'stunning' story of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's wedding plans. It was unremarkable drivel, but he read it anyway, as much for the pictures as the article. J-Lo always had decent fashion sense.

"Oh, spare me," Hermione said, drawing a book from God only knew where and flipping it open.

Harry tipped his head to read the slanting title A Room of One's Own on the cover. "Virginia Woolf? Good choice."

"Thanks," Hermione said, flipping the book to glance at the cover. "I thought so." Then she tossed a glance to where Ron and Ginny were engaged in a fierce debate over which portion of the leftovers was bigger. "They've been insufferable since yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Harry frowned, scratching his memory to recall what she was referring to. His mind conjured a text Ginny had sent him days before. "Wasn't Gin doing a shoot for the end of the season?"

Hermione nodded. Ginny was determinedly open about her exploits; she made a point of keeping Harry updated of when she was having a photoshoot, explaining that she deemed it 'relevant' to him because of his own job. "Yeah," Hermione said. "She burst into my house yesterday afternoon and it was all, 'Hermione, listen to what happened' for nearly an hour before I could actually get the whole story out of her. Unfortunately, Ron was over at the time, so…"

Harry drew himself upright in his seat so that he both extracted his legs from Hermione's weight and sat nearly straight. He tucked his magazine into the cushion behind him. "Visiting for dinner?"

Hermione pulled a face. "You could call it that. I tend to think of it more as helping to diffuse the tension between my parents and I."

Harry offered a sympathetic smile. "It's still bad?"

Hermione shrugged. "More that it hasn't changed. They still won't abide by supposed 'choice', you know?" She sighed. "You know, Harry, I don't envy your situation or anything, but it would almost be nice not to have to…"

"Come out to my conservative Muggle parents?" Harry nodded. He could only commiserate with Hermione; she'd been dragged through the ringer ever since her parents had been retrieved from their brainwashed life in Australia, and it had only grown worse when she'd broken up with Ron who they both seemed to like so much. Worse still when she'd admitted it was largely because she'd realised she had more interest in Ron's sister than she did her ex-boyfriend.

Hermione sighed again. Then she shook her head firmly and visibly shrugged the thought aside. "Anyway. So. The tension was so thick you could carve it, and then Ginny comes charging in waving that fangled new phone around and shoving pictures in my face."

"Pictures plural?"

"She had so many pictures," Hermione said with an emphatic nod. "So many. You'd think the prince of England had shown up at her shoot to see her specifically for how excited she was."

"So…?" Harry trailed off suggestively. "What was it?"

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, a ping sounded from Harry's microwave and seemingly in the same second Ginny was draping herself over the back of the couch once more, cradling her steaming bowl in hand. She grinned wolfishly again as she stuck her fork into the salad. "You'll never guess, Harry."

"Guess what?" Harry asked, glancing between Ginny and Hermione.

"I reckon it's not him," Ron said, appearing at Ginny's side and propping his arse against the back of the couch. He eyed Ginny derisively. "You can't convince me."

"It totally is," Ginny said.

"Blond isn't a determining factor."

"No, but a name is."

"You even said you didn't speak to him directly –"

"I have ears, Ron. I can hear when someone else calls him by name."

Harry glanced between them, raising an eyebrow. "What...?"

"I still don't believe you," Ron interrupted him. "You've 'boy-who-cried-dire-wolf'-ed me too many times."

Ginny glared through a mouthful of beef. "What, that thing with Parkinson?" she managed, her words mangled. "I told you, that was definitely her who did that interview."

"So you say, but I wouldn't believe it of her to become a reporter or something."

"Alright, then. How about that time I went down to that vineyard in Italy and saw evidence of Zabini?"

"That wasn't actual evidence."

"Ron, the name 'Zabini' was written on the bloody label of the wine bottle."

"That's pretty valid evidence," Hermione reasoned.

"Exactly." Ginny stabbed her fork towards Ron. "And thus, with this precedent, my current story should be equally valid."

"Which it kind of is," Hermione said just as reasonably as before.

Ron jabbed a finger at Hermione. "Alright, you, just because you want to get into Ginny's good graces –"

"I do not."

"She does not, Ron. I'm just right."

"I'm still not convinced that –"

"Alright, shut the hell up. It's my house, so I get right of speech. Either spit it out or be quiet."

A momentary bout of silence met Harry's words. Hermione tilted her head towards him. Ron shuffled in his lean against the couch. Ginny eyed him sidelong. Then they all communally snorted and dissolved into snickers.

Harry rolled his eyes before sinking back into his seat. Their behaviour wasn't surprising; if anything, over the years, he thought his small friendship group had deteriorated into far less maturity then they'd had in times of crisis. More often than not, that immaturity manifested as blatant teasing, jibing, and picking a target to be pecked at like ravens upon a corpse. That day it appeared that he was the unfortunate cadaver.

Dragging his magazine from behind his cushion, Harry pointedly flipped it open and lowered his gaze. "Well, what did you all expect me to do?" he muttered. "You can't just dangle a carrot like that and not come to the party with it, Gin."

"Is that curiosity I hear?" Ginny teased, still snickering. "Curiosity from – what was it that magazine called you the other day? The 'aloof and mysteriously distant' Harry Potter?"

"I hate you," he said without sparing her a glance. "You're horrible."

"Aw, come on, Harry," Ron said between snorts of his own laughter. "You're the favourite face of the Muggle and Wizarding world. You know it's our job to make sure you don't get a big head."

"I'm not the favourite face –"

"Harry couldn't get a big head if he tried," Hermione said over him, though she still grinned widely.

Harry frowned at the page propped in his lap and deafened himself to their jibes. They wasn't true, despite the pictures and the articles. Harry was just… Harry. He'd only managed as much as he had because his agent was Dorothea, but he didn't care for fame. He didn't care for the generous wage he earned as well, most of which he funnelled down other channels than into his own bank account, and he didn't care that Von often bemoaned how he found it quite distressing to have to modify his make-up style for 'so many different clients'. It wasn't that many, anyway.

The only thing Harry really cared about was that he was content. Unexpectedly content – or unexpectedly to some Wizarding interviewers that still shook their heads as they called him a 'darling Saviour'. Fashion, photographs, his name in gossip magazines more often than tagged to news headlines… It wasn't necessarily what he'd wanted, but Harry was busying himself and that was satisfying enough.

"It's not like I even care," he muttered mostly to himself as he flipped a page, glancing briefly at J-Lo's smiling face.

"Ah, it's no fun when you give up so easily, Harry," Ginny said with a long-suffering sigh, though she still chuckled as she stabbed at the contents of her bowl. "I'll tell you, I'll –" She paused as the microwave pinged from the kitchen again. "Ron, if you don't want to eat that then I will."

Ron was already striding to the kitchen. "Like hell. It's mine. I'm starving."

"You're getting fat, Ron. You should give it to me instead."

"You're fat."

"This is really good, Harry," Ginny said, swiping a finger into her bowl instead of her fork. She grinned as she stuck it in her mouth, a childlike mannerism that she'd have never been caught dead doing when she was actually a child. "Where did you get it from?"

Harry licked his thumb before turning another page. "I don't know. Dot had someone send it to me."

"Dot's feeding you now?" At Harry's shrug, Gin pursed her lips. Then she reached forwards and plucked at the knee of his slacks. "I thought you must have gone out and gotten it yourself since you're dressed up and all."

"Dressed up?" Harry spared a glance towards his unremarkably clothes. "How do you figure?"

"The fact that you don't even think it's dressed up..."

"Alright, you two," Hermione said as Ron returned to his armchair, bowl in hand. "Even I'm getting sick of it now, and your antics aren't even for my sake."

"Really?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows at her.

She shot Harry as smirk as if to say 'you're the victim this week'. He withdrew his socked toes from where he'd wedged them under her thigh as punishment. She barely seemed to notice, instead turning back to Ginny. "Would you do the honours?"

Ginny still wore a shit-eating grin, but there was definite excitement underlying it now. Even Ron seemed provoked into putting aside their disagreement, hopping to his feet and resuming his lean on the back of Harry's couch. He and Hermione both leant towards Ginny as she flipped her phone open one more, clicked at it a few times, before exclaiming in triumph. "Here. This is definitely the best one I got of him."

She twisted the phone around to him, presenting the bright screen. Harry accepted it. He stared at it for a moment. He cocked his head. He considered it for a moment longer. "Oh. That's…"

"It's not, right?" Ron said, paused mid-bite.

Harry eyed Ginny sidelong. "Why was he there?"

"Hey, Harry –"

"He was one of the photographers," Ginny replied.

"What do you think, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"One of the photographers, or with one of them?" Harry asked, glancing once more towards the phone. "Yeah, that's definitely him. Sorry, Ron."

"What?" Ron all but yelped as he jerked straight from leaning against the couch. A globule of what looked like beef landed on the couch just before Harry's toes, and he absently edged his feet away from it. "That's not –"

"I'm afraid so," Hermione said with a sigh that seemed more delighted than regretful. "If Harry says it's him, then that's definitely Draco Malfoy."

Ron spluttered again. Hermione smiled at Ginny. Ginny flashed her a wink back. And Harry – he ignored them all.

Snapping Ginny's phone shut, he turned his attention back to his magazine. He recognised the model who consumed the majority of spread as he flipped the page, posing with hands clasping the lapels of his jacket. Troy Steele was a bit of an asshole, but he was certainly nice enough to look at.

"So," Ginny asked as Ron still spluttered about 'betrayals' and 'can't believe's, "what do you think?"

"About what?" Harry said, tipping his head slightly as he regarded Troy. He had a good posture. He held the camera well, too. Considering him, when Harry really thought about it, he supposed that maybe Troy's attitude hadn't even been that bad.

"About Malfoy," Hermione prompted. "Being a photographer."

"You still can't convince me," Ron said, as though any of them even cared for his objections anymore. "It's even less likely he'd be a photographer than that Parkinson lower herself to being a rag-mag journalist, or – or Zabini would own a winery, or –"

"Pipe down, Ron," Ginny said, waving a silencing hand at him. "We have a matter of national proportions at stake."

"Did you by any chance bet on my reaction?" Harry asked, turning to the next page. Yes, he abruptly decided, Troy didn't seem so bad after all. He was quite tall, Harry recalled. And he had good cheekbones.

A pause met Harry's question and, when he glanced up at his friends, they were all eyeing one another not quite sheepishly. He didn't call them out any further. After all, what did he care that they bet so immaturely upon just about anything these days? This was one area of their communal teasing that always seemed to be at Harry's expense rather than including him, but he didn't mind. Not really. When they actually had the money to do so, why not? None of them had really had the opportunity to live properly as children in their teenage years.

For Hermione, her investment in betting was a matter of asserting her knowledge and opinion on a subject and proving it with her winnings. For Ginny it was all a bit of fun; she had a piggy-bank sitting in her kitchen expressly reserved for her own triumphs, and she channelled those minimal galleons into her makeshift Quidditch For Tots club. And Ron – he'd never been able to pass up the chance of making money, regardless of his current steady income.

Harry didn't care. He'd never had much care for money, despite never any himself when he lived with his aunt and uncle. Not when he'd had mountains of gold in his Gringotts safe, or his own growing income, either. He simply didn't care. What was the point of having money when he had nothing he wanted or needed to buy? Betting without any other motivator alongside the winnings – it wasn't quite so much fun for him as it was for the rest of them, he didn't think.

What was a little bit fun, however, was denying his friends' expectation of his reaction. It wasn't entirely the reason that he did so, but…

Harry shrugged. "So what? Malfoy's a photographer now. Good for him that he's branching out."

Ron groaned. He raised a hand to his brow as though it pained him, shaking his head, before turning his melancholic attention back to his appropriated dinner.

"Boring," Ginny said, but her grin widened even further. She'd likely won the bet.

Hermione sighed, though she too didn't appear particularly disappointed. "I should know better than to bet against you when it comes to Harry," she said, propping an elbow on the back of the couch and raising an eyebrow at Ginny. "You do know him best."

"I do," Ginny said complacently.

"How did you know he wouldn't kick up a stink about Malfoy?" Ron asked. "Even if he has turned into a bit of a bore –"

"I'm right here, thank you," Harry muttered.

"- after what happened in school between them, I would have thought that at least would have pissed him off a little. I mean, it's Malfoy. The fact that he exists at all is objectionable, let alone that he was a photographer at your bloody shoot."

"He's too indignant to hear you," Hermione said, smirking at Harry. She did drop her hand to rest atop his socked feet in a somewhat affectionate manner, however.

"Yeah, I got that impression," Harry replied, allowing the contact. "Am I really a bore?"

"I don't think you're –"

"I don't think it's that surprising," Ginny said almost in time with her, though she too ignored Harry and Hermione both. "That he's a photographer. It's less surprising than you up and deciding to work in a computer shop when you used to know jack-shit about computers."

"Hey, I grew up with Dad –"

"Which is more evidence that you know jack-shit." Ginny grinned as Ron subsided into grumbles, picking once more at his dinner. Then she glanced at Harry. "Besides, we know that Harry can be distracted from being obsessed with Malfoy. If there's something more interesting, for example. Like when he thought he was actually into me and we started dating –"

"Again, I am right here," Harry said. Hermione patted his feet sympathetically.

"Oh, I know," Ginny said. "I'm just never going to let you forget that you used me as a beard."

"I didn't use you as a beard."

"Harry," Hermione said with another pat that felt somehow more condescending. "Just because you dated doesn't detract from the fact that you're… well, you're very –"

"Very," Ron said with an emphatic stab of his fork.

"Gay," Ginny finished. She reached a hand for his hair to ruffle affectionate, and Harry instinctively swatted at her with his magazine.

"I think you need to revise your understanding of what 'a beard' means," he said. Then he pointed his magazine at Ron. "You should stop supporting them. Shouldn't you be happy that I never actually shagged your sister?"

"Oh, I am," Ron said through an overflowing mouthful. "Cheers for that, mate. I owe you one. Never would have been able to look at you the same if you'd actually up and fucked –"

"Ew, Ron, that's disgusting," Hermione said as, with a violent, underhanded jab from Ginny, most of his mouthful spurted onto the couch. "Close your mouth when you're eating."

"It's her fault!" Ron spluttered.

"You've made a mess of my couch," Harry said with a frown, once more tucking his feet away from the mess. "If that stains…"

"Don't worry, Mr. Neat-Freak," Ginny said, patting his head affectionately again. She didn't miss the swat of his magazine this time. "We'll keep your place spick and span. That's what magic's for."

"Regardless. Ron, go and sit at the counter."

"Yes, Mum," Ron grumbled.

"Hey, I'm your mother in this relationship," Hermione said, already drawing her wand to clean up the splatter.

"That's disturbing on a number of levels," Ginny said before pushing herself up from the couch and starting towards the kitchen. "Harry, I'm raiding your pantry."

"If you find anything, you're sharing," Ron said.

"Finish what you've got first, you pig."

"Hey!"

"Oh, can you put the kettle on for me, Gin?" Hermione asked, raising her voice. "I'll have a peppermint tea, if you would."

As always happened, the conversation hopped, jumped, and flowed easily and naturally onto another subject entirely. Ron obligingly took himself to the counter and perched himself on a bar stool. Ginny riffled through the pantry to the sound of the kettle boiling. Hermione climbed from her seat alongside Harry when she'd cleaned up Ron's mess and drifted idly into the kitchen herself.

And Harry sat. He sat quietly in the comfortable presence of his friends, the company that him every other night more often than not, and returned his attention to his magazine. He liked the laughter, the voices, the half-questions flung towards him without really expecting a reply, but he didn't necessarily feel the need to participate. He loved his friends, but sometimes…

Ron called him a bore because he didn't like to make an event out of anything anymore. Because he didn't like the idea of getting into trouble, or putting a toe out of line, or starting an argument as he once had. There were consequences these days, and not just for Harry but for Dot, and for Von, and for any possible jobs they might both have laid on the table for him. He and Ron were still best mates, but it was a distance that had grown between them that Harry wasn't sure he could erase. He wasn't even sure he wanted to.

Ginny fawned over him like a lovable sister in a way that made him infinitely happy that they'd never actually consummated their relationship. If anything, since he'd come out they seemed to have grown only closer, if in a different way. Closer – but they were still markedly different.

Hermione, too. They'd always been leagues apart in personality, with Hermione headstrong and verbally explosive when it came to her opinions and embodying that even more completely as she dove onto the political scene. It didn't matter that they shared a commonality in their realised sexualities; they were too different for there to be much other common ground between them, and with her not-quite-hidden ambivalence for the modelling industry in spite of her open support of Harry…

He loved his friends' company. He truly did. They were the family he'd never had, and he was never more comfortable than when they were with him, making a mess of his flat and chewing through his pantry with indignant questions of "Why is everything organic?" and "Where's the junk food, you tosser?" They were his most comfortable moments, and yet, somehow, it wasn't entirely…

I guess everyone changes in unexpected ways, Harry thought to himself.

He turned the page of the magazine and scanned the printed writing, barely attending to what he read. It didn't surprise him to hear that Malfoy was a photographer, or that Parkinson was a journalist, or that Zabini owned a winery three countries away. Maybe four years ago, in the midst of a war and their pain, and hatred, and grief, but now?

Harry hadn't predicted he would become a model. He hadn't foreseen Ron to take to IT with a fervour and passion that rivalled his father's father's love of anything Muggle. He might have suspected that Hermione would become an activist, but that she would be leading a feminist wave as an out-and-proud lesbian? Certainly not.

People changed. It really wasn't so surprising at all.