Title: Fall- back

Chapter eight: Finn's hero

Rating: T

Summary: After the war Harry moves to Lima, Ohio to try and live a normal life as just another invisible teenager. You know what they say about best laid plans, though. KH/HP

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise…. Isn't mine. Though I probably wish it is. Now I'm sad.

AN: Hi all!

So, this chapter was a bitch to get out. I've had two weeks of exams I couldn't really write during, and I completely blanked on my story line around 600 words. I then proceeded to break two of my fingers in a clumsy accident I'm extremely embarrassed of.

But, here it is. Later than I would have liked, but it's here.

Thanks you all once again for all your reviews, and the story alerts and favourite alerts that keep coming in every day! They mean the world to me, honestly.

Here's the chapter, enjoy^^

The next morning at school Harry was startled by a large arm that settled across his shoulder. Fighting of a feeling of deja- vu, he looked over at the tall boy standing next to him. He vaguely recalled having seen him before ('cause really, he didn't know a lot of people that tall without having some giant blood in them, so the tallness kind of struck out.), but couldn't place him.

"Dude, you're like my new hero," the near- giant hanging off of him said, looking at him in utter adoration. For a moment, Harry was scared that Lauren Zizes had spouted of the mouth about him being a wizard. Then, the scared feeling vanished and his rational side kicked in (no matter what Hermione said, he did have a rational side, thank you very much).

"Er, thanks?", he said, still trying to rationalise him being this guy's hero. Maybe he had been the last new kid and loved the fact that he wasn't anymore? Maybe with Harry here, he was no longer the worst student in French (though Harry couldn't really remember seeing him in French, but maybe he had sat in the back?).

"No, dude, seriously," the guy said, releasing Harry's shoulders to dig through his backpack for something. He pulled out a brown paper bag and reached in to grab a very familiar looking chocolate muffin. "You thought Kurt how to bake these, right? They're really good."

Ah, now Harry remembered who he was. Kurt had been talking about him over coffee the other day. This was Finn, Kurt's near- stepbrother. Kurt had told Harry he'd started naming him his stepbrother in his head, because an impending marriage between his dad and Finn's mum was inevitable.

"Yeah, I did," Harry answered, watching in awe as Finn nearly bit half of the muffin off in one go. Not even Ron could fit half a triple chocolate muffin in his mouth at once. He grinned a bit at the purple smudge of fondant on Finn's chin. Kurt had gone a little crazy after seeing the different colours of fondant Harry had stacked in the refrigerator.

Seriously though, if someone had only told him all it took to be a hero was bake muffins he would have sent Voldemort a ruddy gift basket full of them. Would have saved him a great deal of trouble.

"So," Finn said after swallowing the other half of the muffin and effectively stopping Harry's erratic thought pattern. "You and Kurt are, like, friends now, right?"

Were they? Harry figured they were. He and Kurt had clicked faster than he and Hermione had in any case. Not that he was wishing for a troll to come along and try to kill Kurt in the girls' bathroom or anything, but still. It was a good thing to measure friendships against.

"Yeah, I suppose we are," he said.

"Awesome," Finn said enthusiastically, giving Harry the sneaking suspicion that this was just his default setting. After a bit of Finn just standing there grinning at him, Harry started to wonder what he was still doing there, though.

"Was there anything you wanted, Finn?", he asked, closing the locker he had been rummaging through when Finn had surprised him.

The tall boy grinned a little sheepishly. "Er, yeah. I kinda need a favour."

"What is it?", Harry asked, not agreeing to anything yet.

"Did you talk to Kurt yesterday?" Finn asked.

Harry nodded. He had spoken to Kurt quite a lot after they had baked muffins together and had gone for coffee. They had exchanged phone numbers (Remus had stretched the importance of him being able to reach Harry in case anything happened, so Harry was now the owner of a cell phone he didn't really know how to operate) and Kurt had turned out to be quite the text-er. He would text at any given hour of the day, and had even called him last night to talk before going to bed. Harry wasn't sure this was normal phone behaviour, since he had never had a cell phone before, but he didn't mind. He was beginning to like having Kurt to talk to.

"So, did he, like, er, say something about me?" Finn asked, one hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Why would he have said anything about you?" Harry deflected, remembering Kurt ranting on about the boys in glee club over coffee. The boys hadn't exactly made a good impression on Kurt when they had told him to go spy on the all-boys choir.

Finn started to look around him, as if he wasn't sure he was allowed to say what he was about to say in public: "I don't know, man. He's been an Ice Queen or something for the past few days. He nearly threw those muffins at me this morning."

Harry repressed a snort. Passive aggressiveness, he might need to watch out for that.

"Did you maybe say something he could've taken offense to?" he asked Finn, knowing full well the boy had.

Finn shrugged. "I don't know, dude, that's why I'm asking you."

Not impressed by the boy's thinking prowess at all, Harry raised an eyebrow. "When was the last time he talked to you?"

"When we were discussing songs for the glee assignment, I think," Finn answered, looking just a little too thoughtful.

"Okay," Harry said, nodding to keep him on track, "Did something happen then?"

"Kurt kind of stormed out," Finn shrugged again. Harry was doing his very best to supress the urge to rattle him to see if his thought process would speed up. Now he knew how Hermione must've felt while trying to explain Potions to him and Ron all those years.

"And why did he storm out?", he asked instead.

"Because Puck said that- Oh. Oh. I screwed up."

Harry raised an eyebrow at him, the 'no shit, Sherlock' unsaid but clear on his face. "And why did you screw up?"

"Because I didn't do anything to stop Puck from being offensive or to stop him from walking out," Finn answered, his shoulders drooping.

"So, what should your next course of action be?" Harry asked, copying Hermione's methods of deduction near- perfectly.

"Apologise and promise to be a better friend in the future," Finn muttered, studying the toes of his shoes.

Harry nodded. "Yep. Might be best to throw in some grovelling as well."

Finn groaned, but looked back up at him with a thankful smile on his face.

"Thanks dude," he said. "You're, like, my new hero."

"I thought I already was," Harry said, indicating the bag of muffins still held in Finn's grasp. The boy chuckled.

"Right. Want one?"

"No, thank you."

The matter was resolved quickly after that. Finn had spoken to Kurt, who had relayed the conversation to Harry. Much grovelling and plying with expensive coffee had been involved.

It didn't really come as a surprise to Harry when less than two weeks later Kurt came bounding up to him in the hallway to gleefully tell him that his dad had proposed to Finn's mom. After congratulating him, listening to his plans for the wedding and patiently explaining to him why he didn't think feeding glitter to doves was the greatest idea Kurt had ever had, the wedding planner in question looked up at him with big, pleading, blue eyes.

"So, Harry…."Kurt started saying, drawing out the 'y' far longer than he should.

"Yes?" Harry replied, amused at the tone of his voice.

"I booked the glee club to perform at the wedding. But there's a problem," Kurt said.

"Finn can't dance?" Harry joked, referring to one of the many rants Kurt has had over the boy.

Kurt looked contemplative. "I hadn't even though of that. I'm going to have to teach him along with my dad. Anyway, that's not what I was talking about."

"Oh?"

"Puck drafted Lauren Zizes to be a member of the glee club." Kurt said. Harry nodded, not seeing a problem with that even though the girl had told him herself that she had no intention of joining the club.

"So," Kurt continued, "Now there's thirteen of us."

Harry took his word for it, not really remembering who all was a member of the club.

"Which means we're an uneven number and all of our dance routines will be completely off."

Harry had an idea where this was going and he wasn't sure he really liked it.

"Get to the point, Kurt," he said. Kurt looked at him with wide, gleaming eyes and Harry felt something weaken inside of him. His spine, most likely.

"How would you feel about joining glee club?"

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought about it?

Till next time!

-Robin.