Disclaimer: Everything recogniseable belongs to J.K. Rowling... The rest is from my own imagination.

Muffin... To our punks, Zak and Nate, may they remain that way forever...

Harry sat on his bed, contemplating his first day of work. It had just been some tiresome paperwork and getting used to the place, really, but he was still shaken from his encounter with Malfoy in the lift. There was something about seeing him again that had niggled his memory, but he couldn't quite place what.

"Hey, look what I found!" Ron exclaimed from the living room.

Harry got up and poked his head around the doorframe to see what Ron was on about.

His roommate was sitting on the carpet, a photo album open in front of him, laughing at the pictures inside. Harry sat next to him and peered into the album; he dissolved into laughter to see a photograph of him, Ron and their friend, Zak Sacco, each playing an "air" musical instrument. Ron was on drums, Harry and Zak were on guitar, and they were singing along to "The Final Countdown" by Europe.

Harry was glad that the photographs could only depict their actions; he was certain their singing had been awful.

Zak Sacco was an American wizard who had joined the British faction of Aurors at the same time as Ron and Harry had. Zak was a Muggle-born and the only wizard in his family; he had learnt of his magical powers through his love of music.

Being the youngest of three boys meant that he was left out of many things his older brothers did. On the days that they locked him out of their room and played their music, Zak would sit in his own room and concentrate hard on hearing the music from the other side of the wall.

Eventually, he found he was able to hear the music as loudly and clearly as if it was in the same room. Only, so did the rest of the house.

Their mother had forcefully reprimanded his brothers for playing their music too loudly in the house, but they swore to her that they hadn't turned up the volume. She'd never believed them, of course, and they were punished rather unfairly, but there was no explanation for how the music had gotten so loud of its own accord.

Then, three weeks after Zak's eleventh birthday, the family got their answer.

"Haven't heard from our boy Sacco recently; I hope he's alright. He said he was going on some undercover operation," Harry said as they flipped through more pages.

"I'm sure he's fine. Oh, my God! It's that girl, Jennifer O'Malley! Remember? You were obsessed!" Ron said, and he pointed at a photograph of Harry with his arm around a girl with white-blond hair and grey eyes. Harry felt a jolt of recognition. He suddenly understood. Clapping his hands over his eyes, Harry groaned and fell back onto the carpet.

"Mate, you alright?" Ron asked from above him.

Harry uncovered his eyes and laughed helplessly.

When the British Auror Academy accepted Zak Sacco as part of their class, they accepted three other students from the United States. Jennifer O'Malley had been one of them. From the first day, she'd been smitten with Harry.

"There's something about a man in uniform who also has an accent," she used to say.

From the moment Harry glimpsed Jennifer, her fair colouring gave him a rather unsettled, but not unpleasant, feeling, as though she was someone he knew; but he couldn't place the feeling. All he could think of was how attractive she appeared to him and didn't bother to consider why.

His relationship with Ginny Weasley had ended disastrously, and he was quite ready to place his interests in another. Harry had succumbed to the obsessive trait his personality brought forth, and the object was Jennifer.

"Ron, look at that picture of her again; does she remind you of anyone? Someone we haven't seen in years that I had the fortune of running into in the lifts today," Harry said.

Ron looked closely at the picture.

"You mean Malfoy?" He shot Harry an exasperated look. "You've been worrying about him all day! Get over it."

"I've just realised why," Harry said. Ron looked at the picture again and then back at Harry.

"Harry, what the hell are you on about?"

"I'm so stupid; the reason I was so obsessed with Jennifer is because she reminded me of Malfoy!"

Ron still looked blank.

"But why would you be so besotted with her if she reminded you of someone you hated? And furthermore, wasn't she the one that planted the seed of doubt in your own sexual preference?"

It had taken the better part of their first year at school to figure this out.

Harry and Jennifer had stepped around each other for weeks, each feeling the other out. Harry was very intrigued by her and wanted to know more, his obsession leading him to believe that he wanted to be with her. He'd approached her one day in the school hallways and asked her out on a date so he could be with her alone. Their date had culminated in a kiss, and to Harry's dismay, she'd pulled away gently from him, cocked her head to one side and said:

"Harry, have you ever considered the possibility that you might be gay?"

He'd stared, dumbstruck, as she nodded.

On the walk back home, he'd considered every kiss he'd had. Ginny had been fun; but he couldn't ever remember actually wanting more. His kisses with Cho had been much the same. Then he thought of Ron and Hermione's descriptions of their respective kissing, etc. episodes, and they always involved one key thing that Harry was yet to experience with a girl: desire.

"Yes," Harry replied hotly, still faintly embarrassed. "But I didn't realise it was Malfoy she made me think of! It was like someone I'd known for a long time, but I couldn't quite put a finger on it, so to speak. But there wasn't anything negative about it… and," Harry blushed, "when I saw him today, he kind of made me feel, I dunno… aroused."

Ron covered his ears.

"Are you trying to tell me, your best friend ever, that you, Harry James Potter, are possibly interested in Draco Malfoy?" he said, wincing.

Harry could feel himself growing very hot.

"I think so." He looked up at Ron as his words came out in a very small voice.

"No, Harry."