Author's Note:

Hey guys, sorry for the slow (very, very slow) update. Part of it's personal, I just moved and that's been a whole thing, but a lot of it has been the story. I know where I want it to go, I've just been having some trouble getting it there.

That being said, here's (finally!) Chapter 6, read and review! Feedback and ideas just make the next chapter that much better! I have a feeling some people won't love this chapter, but it's pretty different from just about anything I can remember reading. I own nothing, because if I did, I would be publishing it, not posting it on free websites.


"I'm going to kill him. He said he would see me at breakfast, where is he?" Daphne muttered stabbing at the sausages on her plate.

"Daphne, calm down. If it were any other boy, I'd agree he's probably toying with you by taking his sweet time coming down, but it's Harry Potter. Knowing him he probably either passed Umbridge in the hallway and got detention for sneezing too loudly -"

Daphne snickered slightly at that

"- or else decided to go for an early morning walk and ended up fighting off a horde of Death Eaters." Tracy finished.

Daphne paled, before looking up and seeing Granger - no, Hermione, she corrected herself - walking into the Great Hall. At that, she got excited and began looking around for Harry, but Hermione's eyes met hers and she gave a slight shake of the head before mouthing 'He's not here.' Daphne's heart sank.

"Were you expecting any mail today?" Tracy interrupted her brooding.

"No, why?"

"This owl doesn't seem like she's going to leave until you take this letter."

Daphne looked down at the owl, unsure of why it looked so familiar, but she saw the letter was addressed to her and took it from the bird.

Daphne,

I am so incredibly sorry not to be joining you for breakfast this morning, but I'm staying with the Weasleys over Christmas and we had a family emergency - their dad is in St. Mungos. I hope we can talk about last night more when we return from Christmas, and until then, I hope we can at least write each other.

Apologetically yours,

Harry

"Okay, so maybe I don't have to kill him..." Daphne muttered.

"No, then you wouldn't have anyone to sneak off to broom cupboard with," Tracy replied as she stood up, walking away from her best friend slightly more quickly than she might have otherwise, smirking the entire time.


The previous night at 12 Grimmauld Place had been a rather tense affair. Aside from the terror of waiting to hear whether or not Mr. Weasley was going to pull through after his encounter with Voldemort's snake, every interaction between Harry and Ron made evident that things were not okay between them. When it became evident that they would neither be sleeping that night, nor returning to Hogwarts before the start of the holidays, Harry asked Sirius for some parchment to write Daphne. Clearly, that was more than Ron could bear.

"Glad to see you're so calm about all of this that you can take time to write to your slut of a girlfriend!" he spat. Harry decided that, all things considered, Ron was just stressed about his Dad and probably didn't mean it. He would let the comment slide this once. But Ron had other ideas.

"Oh, I see, she's manipulated you so much you don't even care about us - you know, your ONLY FRIENDS" Harry opened his mouth to retort, but before he could say anything he was cut off by Ginny.

"What girlfriend?" she asked, barely concealing the tears in her eyes.

"I don't actually have a girlfriend Ginny," Harry said, trying to fend off the meltdown he knew was coming.

"Oh, so you just snogged the snake and walked off, did you Potter?" Ron interjected

Harry was in the process of shouting him down when Ron called him Potter. That was his last straw. "Look Ron, I honestly don't give a damn what you think about me and Daphne. I'm going to go find Hedwig to send this to her and explain that I disappeared because of a FAMILY emergency - because as far as I'm concerned, you guys are my family. Please don't ruin that, not right now." He turned and stormed up the stairs, more dejected than angry, as tears rolled off of his face at the thought of being truly abandoned by the closest thing to a brother he had ever known.


A few minutes later, Harry heard a knock at his door.

"Can I come in?" Ginny asked through the door.

"Why not?" Harry said, not stirring from his pillow.

"So, you and Daphne?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah. I mean, I hope so. I mean - "

"I'm over you you know." Ginny interrupted his incoherent ramblings.

"Huh?" was Harry's very eloquent response.

"The crush I had on you? I'm over it. Actually, I'm really happy for you and Daphne."

"I'm glad to hear that. I'd kinda thought you were getting over it, what with speaking to me the past couple of years and dating Michael, but... why did it look like you were about to cry when Ron mentioned her downstairs if you're so over me?" Harry asked.

"To be honest, I think you're right about Ron. I'm not sure he'll get over this. And while I am over my crush, I do like having you around. You wouldn't think I'd like having a 7th older brother, but... Well, I just don't want you to think that Ron being mad at you means you can't still think of all of us as your family. I guess I can't speak for everyone, but as far as I'm concerned, you've got a Weasley sweater, and while we might not always agree - just look at what a prat Percy is being - we are all family."

Harry's eyes started filling with tears again - this time from happiness. "Thanks Gin. For what it's worth, I've viewed you all as my real family since Fred and George pulled the bars off of my window before my second year. I just wish I knew what Ron's problem was so that I could fix it."

"Well... Do you think he might be jealous? That's always been the biggest issue with you two before." Ginny said.

Harry thought about that. Ron did tend to get jealous pretty easily, the fiasco with the Goblet of Fire last year had made that clear. And he was pretty sure that Ron didn't have any girls lining up to kiss him. "Well, short of him magically coming to his senses sometime soon, what can we do about that?" Harry wondered out loud. Ginny smirked back at him,

"Actually, I do have an idea about that..."