"No way!"

"Um, 'way'?"

"No way!"

"Would you please stop saying that?"

"How can you not have had a butterbeer?! You're British for crying out loud! Isn't it like your national drink or something? Don't they like make you drink that after you're born instead of breast milk?"

Harry looks over at Blaine with an amused smile on his face. The past half-hour was completely new to him. Blaine had no preconceptions about him and no expectations either. He wondered if this is what being a normal teenager felt like. Well normal in the sense that he and Blaine were in a corner table in a smoky pub with no electricity surrounded by what could be extras in the Lord of the Rings drinking a rather good drink that tastes like cream soda and butterscotch.

Blaine's incredulous expression—with Hedwig on his right shoulder and Bandit on his left and both pets unintentionally mimicking Blaine's expression of wide-eyed surprise—was rather comical. He manages to suppress a chuckle but can't help but grin widely at Blaine and the two animals.

"I'm pretty sure that last bit was racist, mate," he says and he grins wider when Blaine scoffs at him. Harry continues with a shrug, "I was Muggle-raised, didn't know about butterbeer until I got to Hogwarts."

"True, but you've been in Hogwarts for two years now—"

"But," Harry says, interrupting Blaine, "they don't allow Hogsmeade visits until the third year and they don't serve butterbeer in the school."

"Well that's a crime against humanity," Blaine grouses and this time Harry does let out a chuckle. The two have talked for a bit after arriving at the Leaky Cauldron, they got as far as learning that Harry was coming into his third year and that Blaine will be too—if he ends up enrolling there—before Blaine learned that Harry never had butterbeer.

"Well," Blaine says straightening up and continues in a terrible British accent, "I am most pleased to 'ave been of service to you, sah, by expahnding your knowl'dge of hower national beverage."

Harry blinks. "What was that?"

Blaine looks nonplussed for a minute then blushes and grins. "Hey!" Blaine flicks some of his butterbeer froth at Harry. "I've been told that my British accent is quite good!"

"Let me guess, other Americans said that, right?"

Blaine opens his mouth then closes it. He pouts but Harry can see the grin trying to break free. "So not the point!" Harry laughs Blaine sulks for a bit but finally gives in and chuckles. He looks up at Harry and with an embarrassed half-smile asks, "Is it really that bad?"

"As long as you don't try to infiltrate the government, I guess you should be okay."

Blaine rolls his eyes, "Thanks."

"Or ask for help."

Blaine raises an eyebrow and Harry can't resist teasing him further.

"Or talk to any Brit. At all. Just don't say a word."

"Shut up!"

"Exactly."

Blaine laughs. "Jerk!"

"So how come you know about this, then?" Harry asked, holding up his mug. "Is it quite popular back in the States?"

"Yes it is," Blaine nods. "Also because it's so hard to get. There's only one store that sells it and it's not in Arkham. It's sold in a store in Greenwich Village in New York and the owner doesn't take orders, it's first come, first served."

Arkham, Harry remembered Blaine telling him, was the magical town that housed Blaine's old school, Miskatonic University. It's slightly larger than Hogsmeade and was located near Salem in Massachusetts.

"I got introduced to it by my brother Cooper," Blaine says. "He had a friend who lived in the Village and would buy cases of the stuff as soon as it got in and then he either drove up to Miskatonic or Coop would drive down to New York to pick it up. I remember when they scored two huge barrels once and that lasted them for almost two terms. Would have lasted for far longer if they didn't have a party pretty much every weekend." Harry notices Blaine's expression shift a bit. The smile and the open expression is still there but there is something else there, something he can't read. "Cooper has always been popular but after that year, he was the University god."

"Is your brother here with you?"

"Nah," Blaine answers but then Harry sees that while his smile stays in place, it loses its brilliance. "Coop's ten years older than me. He graduated years ago. He's a junior partner at his grandfather's firm."

"Wait, 'his grandfather'?"

"Coop's my half-brother. We have different moms. His mom died when he was four. He was six when our dad met my mom, nine when they got married and ten when I was born.

"I get that it was hard for him," Blaine looks down into his own mug. He continues speaking but his voice gets soft, as though that he's forgotten that he's there with Harry and it seems as if he's talking to himself. "He thought that his mom was being replaced; and then when I was born, he thought that he was being replaced. It didn't help that dad was away so much for work." Blaine sighed, "He's a great brother..."

Harry wasn't sure who Blaine was trying to convince with that last statement.

Blaine is still lost in thought, still looking into his mug when Bandit chitters at him and brings him back to the present. Harry can see in his eyes that he realized that he spaced-out and probably rambled again. He can see the blush starting to blossom and he decides to help his new friend out and changes the subject.

"I can't believe how quickly Hedwig took to you. And she's still right there on your shoulder."

To Harry's relief, Blaine's face lights up at the change of subject, moody thoughts forgotten as he turns to face Hedwig. "What can I say? Hedwig here is a brilliant bird and she knows quality when she sees it, don't you girl?" Blaine strokes Hedwig's breast feathers and she nips his fingers affectionately.

Blaine then turns to Harry shrugging without jostling either pet, "Animals like me. We understand one another."

"You can talk to animals?" Harry asked, remembering how he clucked at Hedwig earlier.

"No! Nothing like that," Blaine says chuckling. "I wish! No, it's just...," Blaine pauses, gathering his thoughts, "I seem to get what they want to say. It also depends on the animal. Now Bandit here," he say as he raises his right hand near his shoulder, allowing the sugar glider to jump on his hand, "he's my familiar so we understand each other very well. We don't, like, share thoughts or anything but I can understand what he wants, usually. Hedwig's really smart and she's your familiar so I can understand her for the most part, too."

"She's my what?" Harry asked, surprised.

Blaine, who was playing with Bandit, letting him jump from one hand to another, looks up at Harry with a similar expression of surprise on his face. He tilts his head to the side as he answers, "She's your familiar. Didn't you know?"

"Well," Harry starts to say but stops. He's a bit dumbfounded and looks over at Hedwig who has an amused but exasperated expression on her face—a neat trick considering that she doesn't exactly have facial muscles. He continues, "She was a present. A friend bought her for me my first year at Hogwarts."

"That doesn't mean anything, you two obviously bonded. I can tell," Blaine looks sharply at Harry. "You can tell what she means to say, can't you? She understands you, she comes to you when you need her even though you haven't called her...does any of this sound familiar?" Realizing what he just said, Blaine rolls his eyes and quickly adds, "No pun intended."

"Yes."

"It doesn't matter how she got to you Harry, you two bonded. She's your familiar."

"What does that mean? Having a familiar, I mean."

"Don't you have a class for magical creatures? This is usually covered then."

"Third year elective. I'm taking it actually."

"Oh, well, the short version is that sometimes a wizard will bond with an animal, usually a magical one but not necessarily, and the animal becomes his familiar. Most magical animals are intelligent but the bond increases that intelligence whether the familiar is magical or not, plus a kind of empathy forms. The best bit is it also allows you to cast certain spells that can only be cast if you have a familiar."

"What kind of spells?"

"Familiar Spells, you know," Blaine answers looking puzzled, "the common ones are some scrying spells like where you can look out of your familiar's eyes or letting the familiar substitute for you on spells that need you to be present or having the familiar deliver the spell or tapping into their magic to boost your spells. Stuff like that."

This was all news to Harry. Granted he wasn't the most diligent student in Hogwarts, or even in his dorm but shouldn't he have learned a little about this? "How come no one's brought this up before? I mean, I know that Care of Magical Creatures is a third year elective but shouldn't there be an introduction to different kinds of magic or something?"

Blaine frowns as he answers Harry. "I've read the letter Hogwarts sent my parents about what to expect in my third year and I did see a History of Magic class. That should be covered there."

Harry rolls his eyes. "Well that explains it. Binns pretty much only covers the Goblin Rebellions and, sometimes, the Giant Wars."

"What? Why would he do that?"

"He's a ghost. The joke in the castle is that he's haunting the subject," Harry says with a grin. His grin falters slightly when he notices Blaine's furrowed brow. "Blaine? It really isn't that bad..."

Blaine's face clears up and he smiles reassuringly at Harry. "No, it isn't that. I think every school has their share of...eccentric...teachers. Miskatonic has Dr. Derleth, he teaches Runes and he has three personalities and the personalities hate each other. It's a good thing each one is a Rune Master in their own right. And I heard that Salem has Mistress Ecsed, they say she's a thousand-year old vampire who teaches Astronomy and apparently to pass her class all the female students have to give blood so she can bathe in it at the end of the year."

"Please tell me you're kidding!"

"Not about Dr. Derleth. He was one of my teachers. Mistress Ecsed? Well the Salem students just look mysterious and change the subject, I think they like the notoriety she lends the place. Although she can't be completely human because she has been teaching in Salem for about two hundred years now."

"And I thought Hogwarts had faculty problems!" Harry exclaims. Blaine just grins at him. Harry then asks Blaine, "So what was bothering you when I mentioned Binns?"

"Nothing really," Blaine scowls. "I read a lot of books early this year. I was bedridden you see so all I did was read. And I read something about ghosts...ack! It's gone! Forget it, if it's important it'll come back."

"Why were you bedridden?"

Harry sees Blaine's face become reserved suddenly. He's about to tell him that it isn't important, that he doesn't have to say anything when Blaine starts to speak.

"I was attacked last year. My date and I, I mean. We were at the Winter Formal," Blaine's voice is hollow and his eyes are blank. Harry instinctively reaches forward and grabs Blaine's hand. Blaine looks surprised but then releases a breath, looks gratefully at Harry and grips his hand tightly. "We had a lot of fun at the dance. Then when we went out to the garden to catch our breath," Blaine pauses for a while and Harry wonders if he's done when Blaine sighs and continues. "Next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital. I was unconscious for a week, that's how long it took them to repair the damage, and even after that I had to stay in the hospital for two more months before I was taken out of of constant monitoring."

"Merlin...!" Harry breathes. He couldn't believe what he just heard. He squeezed Blaine's hand to try and convey his, what, support? Understanding? He wasn't sure what he wanted to say but Blaine gave him a shaky smile anyway. Harry couldn't help but smile back, although his was just as shaky as Blaine's.

"What happened?"

Blaine looks down at their clasped hands and studies it intently, like he's seeing it for the first time. He answers Harry but doesn't take his eyes off their hands.

"I don't know, really. We obviously got attacked and I got hit by a really nasty curse, three different kinds actually."

Blaine looks up at Harry suddenly, something undefinable in his eyes.

"It's what kept me alive, strangely enough. The three curses were interfering with each other. The effects were terrible but it kept me alive long enough for help to arrive," Blaine says and then looks down again. "My date wasn't so lucky."

A silence descends on the table. Harry tries to wrap that incident around his head and he can barely imagine how bad those curses must have been. Harry is no stranger to curses himself and he's a bit of a legend in Hogwarts for the amount of times he's been to Madam Pomfrey's lair but precisely because of that he knows how quickly magic can heal even the worst damage. For Blaine to have been in the hospital for two mon—no wait, he said he was on constant monitoring for two months, not that he was discharged after two months. Whatever it was it must have been really bad.

This whole time Blaine was looking at their hands when he suddenly blinks, as if snapping out of a reverie. He starts to blush again and quickly withdraws his hand from Harry's. At the back of his mind, Harry realizes he misses the warmth.

"Ah, sorry about that," Blaine stammers out, "that's a bit of a buzz-kill, isn't it? I don't know where that came from! Sorry for dumping on you like that, I swear I'm usually not that...not like that."

"Don't worry about it," Harry smiles at Blaine encouragingly. "It's nice to be at the other end for once."

Blaine grins up at him. "You always seem to know what to say, Harry."

Now this time it's Harry who feels the blush coming on. He doesn't know why but he's very pleased that Blaine said so, and embarrassed as well. He quickly looks down, hoping to hide his blush yet knowing there's no way that Blaine didn't notice. His eyes look up to see Blaine still grinning at him and he can't help but answer that smile with one of his own.

Blaine's grin seems to freeze and his eyes widen—he really has huge eyes—and he lets out a breath like he's been holding it in for a while. Before Harry could ask Blaine if anything was the matter he hears Mrs. Anderson.

"Blaine!"

Mrs. Anderson was accompanied by a tall, lanky man in a Muggle suit, a very expensive-looking suit. The man has dark hair peppered with gray and the same hazel eyes as Blaine. He could see that Mr. Anderson was much older than his wife but seemed to contain an energy, a presence of a much younger man. Harry can't help but feel a little apprehensive, until Mr. Anderson face breaks out into an easy smile and Harry starts to relax.

Blaine gets up when his parents arrive and Harry dimly remembers Aunt Petunia telling Dudley to get up when they had a female visitors and thinking it better to err on the side of caution, Harry gets up as well.

Mrs. Anderson reaches them and smiles at them. She accepts a kiss from her son and she turns to Harry and says, "Harry, this is my husband, Dean Anderson. Dean, this nice young man is Harry."

"Pleased to meet you sir," Harry says sticking out his hand. He winces internally at how shaky his voice sounds.

"Pleased to meet you Harry," Mr. Anderson replies, firmly shaking Harry's hand.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Mrs. Anderson suggests they go to a restaurant on the Muggle side of London. Apparently the Leaky Cauldron is not to her taste. The Andersons insisted that Harry join them. They were considering enrolling Blaine in Hogwarts and wanted to pick his brain about the school. Mrs. Anderson insisted that buying him lunch was the least they could do.

For a second Harry wondered how smart it was to go with relative strangers into London. Hedwig seemed to sense his hesitation and she quickly flew from Blaine's shoulder to his, nipping his ear. Harry relaxed immediately, knowing somehow that Hedwig approved of the Andersons. It seems that now that it was brought to his attention, Harry can feel Hedwig.

Blaine's parents were talking, discussing which restaurant to go to and did not see Harry's momentary hesitation but Blaine did and he also saw him communing with Hedwig. He smiles at Harry steps a bit closer and whispers, "what did I tell you? She's your familiar."

Harry smiles up at Hedwig just as the Andersons decided on where to go. As they leave the Leaky Cauldron, Harry feels something odd. He then realizes what it is. He's happy. He's not ecstatic or giddy, but there's no pressure to perform well, no crisis to avert, no problem to solve, no expectations to maintain...he's just a boy having lunch with a friend and his family who happen to be good company. He allows himself to express his feelings for once and steps brightly out of the door into London proper.

He's completely unaware, however, the impact of this one act has. Harry has always been guarded. He was abused by his relatives and just recently learned the fickleness of the mob. He was lauded and feted when he first came back to the wizarding world but this past year, when people suspected him of being the Heir of Slytherin, he saw how quickly that adoration had turned to fear, loathing and, in some cases, even hate. This has only put him more on his guard and he hardly ever really relaxed enough to let his face reflect his feelings.

But here, among people who were unaware of his status, he could be himself and allowed himself to let his guard down. Harry has always been a good-looking boy, especially now that he's eating well and not having to deal with the worry of avoiding his relatives. But when he steps out of the Leaky Cauldron with a light heart, the late morning sun makes his green eyes flash and he actually becomes rather beautiful. Beautiful at least to the boy who follows behind him. The boy with a sugar glider on his shoulder who, when seeing that smile and the sun in those brilliant eyes, loses not only his breath but his heart.