The remaining days of the Christmas Holiday passed simply enough. Hermione remained moody, Moody was still nowhere to be seen, Neville was rarely seen without one or the other of his mother's books and the majority of those who had stayed for the Yule Ball went home for a few days with their families. Pansy stayed.

They met at breakfast on the twenty-seventh of December – early like Pansy preferred – and were for almost ten minutes, the only people in the Great Hall.

"It's nice, isn't it?" She said, leaning back on her bench, her legs hooked underneath her so she could stare straight up at the ceiling.

"Mmm?" Harry asked around a bite of fried tomato.

"The quiet. It's a different kind of quiet than out by the lake, or down in the dungeons. The last week has been so crazy, it's like… being underwater, like the world's been muted."

Harry stared at her, reclining back almost horizontal, her eyes closed, hair hanging down in a black cascade.

"This is how I like the castle best," he said, "it's kind of like a living thing, you know?" He tried to lean back like her and managed to get to the horizontal, but his core muscles were screaming at him within seconds and he had to pull himself up.

She was smiling, a tiny, knowing smirk. "It's just practice – you need a strong core for dancing." Opening her eyes, she drew herself up gracefully until upright again. "So, what do you mean 'living thing'?"

He shrugged, unsure. "It's like… the place knows what is going on here, in a way. Like the founders, the students, the… everything – I guess – never really leaves in a way. I've felt it a few times, always in the quiet, or at night when I'm wandering around in the cloak."

"Cloak?" She asked with that interrogative raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, my dad had a magic cloak, an invisibility cloak. Dumbledore gave it to me for Christmas my first year here." He remembered the glee he had felt opening the parcel four years earlier at the discovery of something that had belonged to his father; he still felt the same thrill every time he threw the cloak over his shoulders.

"A cloak of invisibility?" She asked, eyes widening, "You'll have to show me that, but after all these years I guess it's a big patchy."

"Nope, it's-"

Harry was interrupted by a small tawny owl, black and white and sleek, landing on the table between them.

Pansy blinked in surprise, "Gwaihir?" She asked, eyeing the little bird who bobbed its beautiful head and offered a leg to which was attached a tightly wound scroll. "This is unexpected." She said to no one in particular as she removed the parchment.

"Gwaihir?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow. "From Lord of the Rings?" He had read the classic over the previous summer, during his weeks of imprisonment at Privet Drive.

"Yeah, my dad loves it," Pansy said with a grin, "give him some bacon, will you? He's come a long way.

"Hi Windlord," Harry said, smoking the bird's sleek head and proffering the remains of Ron's lunch, "from your parents?" He asked Pansy as Gwaihir devoured his offering eagerly before taking wing to the owlery.

Pansy nodded, reading. "They only sent this yesterday, he must be trying to show up Landroval and Meneldor, they're mine and Adela – my little sister's - birds." She added at his raised eyebrow, explaining.

Harry nodded back, "Everything okay?"

She smiled, putting the parchment into her pocket, "Great, actually. They want to say that you looked very handsome, and they're glad to have met you, and that I'm clearly a better dance-teacher than my father is. You're also invited over to our house at Easter if you'd like to come?"

Harry blinked in surprise at the last. "Really?"

She nodded, "Absolutely. My mum is a bit of a feeder and dad likes to entertain, so there's always someone around. They also said we can go into Diagon Alley – Adela needs to get her school things and they probably want to avoid the rush at the end of summer – and we'll take the train back up here too, I guess."

Harry took a moment to process the idea of spending time at a wizarding house that wasn't the Burrow and found it hard to imagine. "Sure, why not, sounds great." He said, a little sheepishly.

"Are you sure? You look… weird."

No, I'm not sure because I've never been abroad, never been anywhere really, never done anything of note, never imagined meeting a girl's parents or going to their hour, I can't speak Italian so your Nonna will hate me, what if…

He coughed, which managed to stall his mind from running away with him. "Yeah, it's just a surprise you know?"

Her hand found his. "It's okay, whatever is going on in your head, let me know when it comes out the other side?"

He nodded. They'd discussed her family many times and he knew she had a reasonable grasp of how uncomfortable and naïve he was about wizarding society. But now… he was bought to mind of the first time an owl had bought him an invitation and how it had changed everything.

She eyed him for a few seconds, just taking him in. She squeezed his hand, "On a separate note, tell me about the egg – everyone keeps banging on about it."

He came back to the present, immensely grateful to her for changing the subject. He lifted her hand in his and kissed her fingers. "Well, you know the eggs from the dragon challenge?"

She nodded, turning his hand over and rubbing at the tension there.

"Well it's a clue, according to Crouch – about the second task - but when I open it, it makes this bloody awful screaming sound." He explained, a little lamely, "But because I helped him – by telling him about the dragons – Diggory might have helped me out with this one. Or he's taking the piss and trying to get me in trouble by using a prefect bathroom."

"Are you naturally so suspicious, Potter?" She asked, frowning with the familiar vertical crease appearing between her eyebrows.

He raised an eyebrow in question.

"I guess you've been through enough to be, but look…" she paused, gathering her thoughts, "everyone knows Cedric Diggory is a complete angel – he's got it all: looks, talent, breeding – and he's known for being a good sport, I mean he tried to revoke his win over you in that quidditch game last year."

Harry nodded reluctantly.

"So what reason do you actually have to doubt him?"

He had no answer to this.

"Sounds like it's worth giving it a try at least? You do know about the prefect bathrooms, right?"

He had no idea – he knew a few of the Gryffindor prefects, most of them were much easier-going than Percy Weasley had been, and he'd been given enough trouble by the various Slytherin prefects over the years. "Honestly, I didn't even know they had a special bathroom – seems a bit weird, really?"

"Yeah, I always thought so too, how you have to get all your stuff, go there, bathe then go back to your dorms. Must be something special."

"And what if there are others there when you get there? Do you think it's more like a swimming pool? I can't imagine all the prefects just getting naked together." The idea of Percy made him wince, but the mental image of Fiona Longshanks – a Hufflepuff seventh-year and the current Head Girl – lounging in too-shallow bubbly water was a very different thought indeed.

That thought naturally led to clouds of steam and a distinct lack of crisp white blouses. He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it.

Pansy smiled, looking down. "Well, are you going to give it a try – what Cedric said?"

"I guess, will you come with me?" He asked.

She looked up at him through her eyelashes. "To the bath… room?" She flushed with colour and smiled awkwardly.

He realised what he had asked and he was suddenly paralysed between the thought that it was the most right thing in the world and that it was too soon – risking destroying everything.

"If you want, you don't have to… I… " He said quickly, coming to a stammering halt and feeling heat creep up his neck.

They lapsed into a tense, excited silence. They'd gone beyond kissing of course, but not much. They'd seen more of each other in the mirrors, but not much. This was a big step and the thought of him and her, together in the steam filled him with an inferno of excitement. The thought of her seeing him, gangling and ridiculously skinny was terrifying.

She touched his face. "Actually Harry, if you don't mind, I don't think I'm really there yet, you know? I just want to be honest." She looked scared, suddenly as nervous as he was.

A wave of relief crashed over him, cut with a definite edge of disappointment. He blew out a breath then put his arms around her. "Me too. I'm sorry, I just don't want to rush things, you know?"

She hugged him back, pressing their bodies together and the images of steam and lack of shirts came back, but he was glad she had said what they had both been feeling.

As they drew back, she must have seen something odd in his eyes.

"You're really in your own head this morning, aren't you? Are you still thinking about that article?"

He made a lame, affirmative kind of noise. There had been a number of reports about the Yule Ball in all of the newspapers and magazines that students and staff received, all of which had been passed around. Most of the reports and stories revolved around Harry and Pansy or Cedric and Cho, with the majority banging on at length about how dashing he – Harry – had been and how Pansy had wowed the crowds and stolen the hearts of everyone present.

But one magazine in particular, a Yule Ball special edition of Witch Weekly had gone into exhaustive detail in comparing Krum, Cedric and Harry, pointing out every handsome wave of Diggory's hair as somehow contrasting Harry's awkward smiles. Where Krum had been stoic and gentlemanly, Harry had apparently been awkward and graceless.

"Harry, ignore them. I told you the jealous cows that write for that magazine are just petty. They just want to sell more and more copies and the best way to do that is to make up some salacious crap. You remember what they wrote after your first task – all that noise about you and Hermione."

He nodded. "That what drew the chipmunk remark, wasn't it?"

She flushed a little. "Don't change the subject. Just you wait, when you win this tournament – don't pull that face – when you win this thing, they will all be banging on about how the mighty Potter was destined to win the tournament like his great-grandfather and all that shite. They'll be begging to get an interview from you, wait and see."

Harry shrugged. He knew she was correct, but for the first time in his life, he found himself caring about what others thought about him. "I'll be okay," he said lamely, "let's figure out this bath thing."