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You did what!

"Did you just ask me on a date?" Ginny looked completely flabbergasted.

Knowing that he couldn't deny it, Harry nodded.

Ginny took a while, but, finally, she got her voice back. "I'd love to Harry. Absolutely love to."

A sudden thought hit Harry. "What about Todd?"

Harry felt even more shocked when Ginny blushed. "I might have made him up to make you jealous."

"You did what?" Harry couldn't believe it. Or ignore the voice in the back of his head that said but it worked.

"Well I couldn't let you have all the fun. Besides, there was no one in my year, your year or the year below called Todd. And I'd never date anyone younger."

Harry felt like an idiot. He had known that.

"You still want to go out with me, don't you?" Ginny looked worried, but Harry rushed to reassure her.

"Of course. I … I … love you." Harry didn't think he had ever said THOSE words in his life. Ginny blinked at him. Something told him that wasn't a good sign.

"Did you just say you loved me?" Seeing no way to back out of it (I mean what could he have said? He gloved her?) Harry nodded silently and closed his eyes as though awaiting a rather nasty curse. Therefore he wasn't expecting Ms Weasley to leap at him and smother him with kisses. "Oh Merlin, you actually love me! I love you too."

Harry grinned and returned her embrace.

And then heard the audience behind going "Ahhhhhhh, how sweet."

If that wasn't enough, Harry was sure he heard Molly talking about weddings and proposals. Turning round, Harry saw everyone was there. Cat was shaking her head and grinning, Charlie was smiling, the twins were smirking and Ron and Hermione looked like they expected it to have happened sooner. Mrs Weasley was definitely talking about weddings, but Arthur was quite evidently trying to distract her. Of course, he wasn't very successful. Molly could be very stubborn when she wanted to be.

Ginny had run over to Hermione and they, along with Cat, were gushing about it as they hurried to the house. Molly was practically dragging Arthur inside as she had to call Bill and Fleur. Leaving Harry alone with a bunch of over-protective Weasley boys who had just been informed that he loved their only baby sister. And he didn't like the look in their eyes.

"Just so you know," George said, casually.

"If you hurt her," Ron continued, obviously having rehearsed this speech.

"We will be forced to kill you." Charlie finished, before they all dived on him in a hug. And he was sure he heard Fred say "Welcome to the family…again!"

It was only later that day that he finally got Cat alone to ask her about Sirius. Since his death, Harry rarely thought about the man who'd been as close to a father figure as he'd ever had. It was just too painful.

But when he ran into Cat alone by the lake, he knew that he had to, if only to help his forever on the edge sanity.

"Hey," she enthused when she noticed him there. "Congrats to you and Ginny."

He smiled, though he was sure he was probably blushing due to the memories of the past hour they'd spent alone.

"Look, can I talk to you about Sirius." The mood instantly changed, and Cat's face tensed up considerably.

"Of course," Cat finally said, her words contrasting with the doubt in her tone. "You want to know about him, why wouldn't you? He was practically your step-father, and you were very close and…"

"I got him killed," Harry interjected.

Cat sat up fully and stared at him. Her eyes seemed to weigh him up and find him wanting. "You did not kill Sirius." She was practically growling now. "Look, don't take this the wrong way but loads of people are responsible for his death. Bellatrix Lestrange, obviously, 'cause she cast the curse; Voldemort, 'cause he sent her; Remus and everyone else who went 'cause they let Sirius go and fight Death Eaters even though he was drunk; Sirius, because not only did he go and fight Death Eaters drunk, he taunted on; Snape because he took so long giving the message; Malfoy senior cause he organised it; Kreacher cause he tricked you; and yeah, you are partially responsible for his death, but so is everyone who was involved. Don't you dare go and blame this all on yourself!

"Sirius was the one who went, fully knowing it would put his life on the line. Sirius was the one who tried to find happiness at the bottom of a bottle. Sirius was the one who didn't think enough about the fucking consequences." She was crying now, big droplets from a screwed up face, and Harry had no idea what to do.

Part of him wanted to walk away from the woman who had insulted the memory of the closest thing he'd ever had to a father, yet part of him wanted to hug her because he'd brought up the topic and nothing she'd said had been a lie. One of the reasons he'd looked for anyone to blame just after Sirius' death was so that he wouldn't have to blame Sirius himself. He wasn't naïve enough to believe that Sirius wasn't an alcoholic, he'd usually been able to smell it on the man's breath.

So he did what came naturally and pulled her closer. Though not normally comfortable with physical contact, it seemed natural, like it always had with Ginny. However, it was in a different way to Ginny. With Ginny he wanted to kiss her and hug her and keep her close, with Catherine he wanted to hug her like a sister.

When he looked up he blinked. Her hair was red. He was sure it was. He blinked again and the hair was back to black. But he was so sure it had been red a few minutes ago…

"Sorry for getting all soppy on you," Cat filled in as she wiped her eyes, unconscious of the strange look he was giving her. "It's just a hard topic to talk about. I don't want you thinking that I didn't love Sirius, I did … I do. But sometimes I wish he hadn't been such a berk!" Harry couldn't help it. He snorted. She was obviously trying to be serious but the way she'd said berk.

"Look, is there anything else we can talk about, preferably something that's a bit less depressing."

Harry suddenly remembered something he'd been meaning to ask her since his talk with Ginny the day before. It felt like it had been so much more than a day since he'd returned from hospital. So much had happened.

"What do you know about parseltongue?"

Sorry it took so long to get uploaded, I distract myself easily and wanted to get up to date on my other account. I hope to update sooner as I've got the next chapter pretty much planned out

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