Rory was used to spending almost every free moment with Harry, so it was kind of strange for him to be away from her doing a private lesson with Snape. But it gave Rory the idea that she should use the time away from him to also do something constructive. She had her board from Levi and her tarot cards from Sirius. Time to see if either of them spoke to her.

"I promised Sirius I would try to predict something with the cards before I tried the board," Rory said. She was sitting cross-legged on Neville's bed. Neville, Matilda, Ron, and Hermione joined her on the bed and various nearby surfaces.

"I appreciate not putting a human bone on my duvet, thank you," Neville said.

Rory rolled her eyes as she shuffled the cards.

"You should do something easy. Like, predict how my week is going to go or something," Matilda said.

Rory nodded. It was simple enough. Firenze would tell her to stay away from trivial wizard fortune-telling, he thought it was the lowest form of divination. But this would be a good test for the cards.

She laid the first card out in front of Matilda. "The lovers."

"Always a positive that one," Matilda said, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder. "Am I right?"

"There's no positive or negative really. Didn't you pay attention?" Rory asked.

"You pay enough attention for Harry, Ron, Neville, and I," Matilda said. Rory rolled her eyes. "Go on then."

"Making choices with your heart that one means." Rory laid out the next card. "The Empress reversed. Not so positive as you put it. A bit self-destructive perhaps." Matilda pouted and Rory laid out the third card. "And five of cups reversed. Unworried."

"Not worrying about being self-destructive while thinking with your heart?" Hermione asked.

And Rory could see something, a flicker of something in the cards. She looked up at Matilda.

"Who've you been writing to over break?" Rory asked.

Matilda gasped and her face went red. "No one! I haven't been writing to anyone, thank you very much." Rory narrowed her eyes on Matilda. "Okay, maybe I was talking to someone before the end of term and we wrote back and forth a few times over the holiday but that's it. We're only talking."

"That's what you said about Fred," Ron pointed out.

"Well, I'm certainly not communicating with your brother anymore if that's what you think. That bridge has been sufficiently burned," Matilda said.

"And yet," Rory said, tapping her fingers against the cards. "I haven't been wrong about anything so far."

Matilda rolled her eyes. "This was more fun before you decided to turn into one of those muggle lie investigators."

"You mean a detective?" Hermione asked.

"Whatever," Matilda said, waving a dismissive hand. She then brushed her fingers back through her hair. "Anyway, if you must know… I've just been chatting to Seamus."

"Seamus Finnigan?" Rory asked. "He's a-."

Matilda popped a hand over Rory's mouth. "I know, I know, I know. You would not approve."

"I think disapproval is unanimous in the room presently," Neville said. Ron nodded in agreement.

"Okay, but he's kind of cool sometimes. And I really think he's coming around about Harry not being crazy," Matilda said. She pulled her hand away from Rory's mouth. "I promise I'm not going to do anything stupid or self-destructive or toxic this time."

"I think Seamus counts as all three of those things," Ron said. Matilda turned and punched him in the arm. "It was a joke!"

"Wasn't very funny," Matilda said. She turned back to Rory. "Besides, as I said, we're just talking. Just friends. That's it."

Rory sighed and glanced over to Neville who looked a bit flat. She remembered the conversation they'd had when Matilda broke up with Fred. And now she was moving on to some other idiot. Rory wanted to scream and shake her friend. How did she not know? How could she not see? Then her gaze drifted to Ron and Hermione. Rory remembered that Matilda wasn't the only oblivious person in the room.

"I don't control you, Mattie. You can do what you like. Just be careful," Rory said. Matilda kissed Rory's cheek.

"Thank you, Sweets," Matilda said. "Just do me a favor and don't mention this to your boyfriend until I actually manage to get Seamus to come around. I have to be honest, I do feel kind of like I'm betraying him for entertaining this."

Rory pouted. "You're an entire handful."

"But you love me," Matilda said.

The bedroom door opened and Harry walked in, barely noticing them as dragged himself over to his bed.

"How'd it go?" Hermione asked.

"I feel like utter shit," Harry grumbled.

"So not well then," Matilda said.

"But, I know where that door goes. The one from my dream," Harry said.

"Door? Dream?" Neville asked.

"He's been having a recurring dream about a door," Rory said. "Where does the door go?"

"It's in the Department of Mysteries," he said. "That's where Mr. Weasley was attacked that day at the Ministry. Whatever Voldemort's after it must be in there."

Rory nodded. "That makes sense."

"The Department of Mysteries is a weird place. People who work there are called Unspeakables. Not allowed to tell anyone what goes on inside," Ron said. "Supposed to be filled with all kinds of strange artifacts and such."

"Well, that's where it is," Harry said. "Whatever it is." His hand came to rest on his forehead.

"You feel alright?" Rory asked as she collected her cards. "I mean, I know you said you don't feel great but-."

"It hurts," he said, finishing her thought. "I think I just need to rest."

"We'll get out of your way then," Matilda said as Rory made her way to sit beside Harry where he lay on his bed. His fingers intertwined with hers and squeezed tightly. Rory could feel something, his anxiety, his exhaustion, and something else behind it all, something not Harry.

"And go to bed before Rory can use her tarot cards to further intrude into my private life," Matilda continued.

"You asked her," Hermione pointed out as they left the room.

"Intruding into her private life?" Harry asked, his eyes were squeezed shut and sweat covered his brow beneath his hand which was cupped tightly on his scar. His voice was barely above a whisper.

"It's not important. You don't look well, Lovey," Rory said.

"I don't feel it either," he said. She kissed him. "I must truly be in a bad way. That usually helps."

"I could try again if you like," Rory said.

"No," Neville and Ron chimed in simultaneously.

Rory looked over and glared at them.

"It's fine. It'll pass," he said.

Rory didn't want to leave him. She felt anxious about how the lesson had left him, especially since she could feel something lurking just on the other side of Harry's mind. But she couldn't stay.

Rory frowned. "Get some sleep, Lovey."

"I'll try," he replied.

She kissed him again despite his roommates' irritation.

"Promise you'll be fine?" she asked.

"I promise," he said, even as he winced in pain, his fingers seeming to clutch even more at the scar on his forehead.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Ron said.

Rory was still reluctant, but she kissed Harry one last time and left him.


"You slapped him?" Rory asked.

"I didn't know what else to do!" Ron said defensively.

"I'm fine. I don't blame him," Harry assured Rory. After the girls left to their dorm, Harry found himself completely disoriented and overcome by some kind of jovial laughter, which he'd thought belonged to Voldemort, but realized instead was his own. Still, Harry knew it meant that Voldemort was excited about something.

His Occlumency lesson had not helped him and in fact seemed to be doing the very opposite of the thing it was supposed to do.

"What do you think he was so excited about anyway?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. "Probably find out after my next lesson the way it seems to be going."

"Sorry, Lovey," Rory said.

Harry kind of envied Rory. All year she'd been dealing with the annoying flashes of the future, feeling people's emotions and intentions involuntarily. But she had it mostly under control. And her inner eye wasn't making her act like a crazy person either.

He often thought she might be the only person who knew an ounce of what he was going through but did she really? Seeing the future and having to share your mind with someone else were two completely different things, after all.

The mail started to arrive and a few minutes later everyone in the hall was in a frenzy as copies of The Prophet were whipped open. There on the front page, it said that there had been a mass breakout from Azkaban. Ten Deatheaters and all of the dementors had gone.

"Holy shit," Rory said, as Neville made his copy available to him.

"Guess we know why he was excited now," Harry said. The others nodded in agreement.

"Looks like they're blaming Sirius Black for orchestrating the whole thing," Neville said.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Of course they are."

"Fudge can't exactly go back and say 'Sorry, I know Dumbledore warned me this would happen, I just decided not to listen,'" Hermione said. "He's spent the better part of six months convincing everyone that you and Dumbledore are liars."

"I'm sure Rory and her uncle calling him out in the hearing helped loads as well," Neville said.

"Oh, hell, look at this," Rory said pointing, "'Among the escaped Deatheaters, notorious murderer Pike Cerbus was also found to have been freed from his cell. It can only be assumed that he has joined the escapees and rallied around Black.'"

"Pike Cerbus. That's Matilda's dad?" Harry asked.

Rory nodded. "Would explain why she's not here right now. Probably wanted to warn her before the papers came in."

"What a nightmare," Hermione said.

Neville was staring hard at the paper. Bellatrix Lestrange was among the Deatheaters who'd been freed. She'd been the one to put Neville's parents in St. Mungo's. Harry couldn't imagine what must be going through his head. Nothing good, he assumed.

"I need to go post a letter," Hermione said.

"Right now?" Ron asked.

"Yes," she replied and then took off.

"I will never understand what's going on in her brain," Ron said.

"You're not the only one," Rory replied.

The breakout was all anyone could talk about that day. Harry didn't blame them. It was all he was thinking about as well. There were rumors flying around everywhere. Some people were even saying that the escaped Deatheaters were holed up at the Shrieking Shack waiting to launch an attack on Hogwarts.

Additionally, Matilda, Rory, and Harry were also receiving an extra bit of attention today. Pike Cerbus escaped and was on the loose somewhere traipsing around with Sirius Black probably waiting to murder a hundred more people as some people put it.

Everyone just wanted to know what Harry thought about the breakout. Interestingly, he felt a shift among his peers. Instead of thinking he was crazy, it was starting to seem like they were curious about Harry's version of events. That they might actually start to believe him.

Not that he was interested in sitting down with his classmates and having a chat with them after all the grief they'd been putting him through this year.

And he wasn't the only one getting grief. Hagrid, who had come back from his assignment looking battered and bruised, had continued to look worse and worse every time Harry saw him. He assumed over the winter holidays that Hagrid might finally get a reprieve from whatever was dealing with. But no. He looked just as banged up today as he had all year.

"Plus, Umbridge has put him on probation," he explained to Rory after classes were over. "Apparently she's going to be observing all of his classes from now on."

"Trelawney's too," Rory said. "Not sure how much longer she has left, honestly."

"What about Hagrid?" Harry asked.

Rory shrugged. "Trying to be optimistic and not look into him. Though it might help if he wasn't off doing whatever it is he's doing that's got him so banged up all the time."

Harry couldn't argue with that.

"Have you been alright today?" she asked him suddenly.

He shrugged. "Certainly more interesting than I was yesterday at the very least."

"It's a bit late to be jumping on the bandwagon in my opinion, but at least more people are starting to get wise," Rory said. "Stephen told me at the start of fall term that while he wasn't certain that Voldemort was alive, he understood why, after all the things that happened to you, it would make sense that at the very least something shifty was up and that it certainly would make a lot of sense if he were back. I think that's about where other people have finally gotten."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Stephen?"

"Cornfoot. Stephen Cornfoot. Ravenclaw. Blonde. He's in choir. And the DA," Rory said.

"Right," Harry said with a nod. He didn't know Stephen very well, but he was friends with Rory. It was a little strange to him sometimes that she had this whole life outside of the insanity. Other friends and such. If he was being honest, outside of Neville and Matilda, Harry didn't pay much attention to who Rory hung around with. Usually, she was with him anyway, alone or otherwise.

Rory would never know, but he did notice other people noticing her, and it irked him a bit. He never said anything or brought it up to her. Boys were overly friendly to her. More than once he'd heard some ask why she'd date a nutter like Harry Potter when she had better options. Rory was always quick to, literally, tell them to "fuck off." And the way she always looked at him, the way she kissed him and worried after him. The way she defended him when he wasn't there to see it. How could he ever doubt what she felt?

"Are you sure you're fine? You're a bit in your head today. Not still suffering from a Voldemort hangover are you?" she asked.

"I promise I'm fine," he said. "And you'd know if I was lying wouldn't you?"

Rory scoffed. "No. I don't read you like that."

"You don't?" Harry asked. "But you can tell-."

"Yes, but usually, I'm actively looking for answers to what people are telling me, but I don't do that to you. Why would I?" Rory asked. "You tell me everything, right? I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions, but the important stuff. Like if I'm worried about how you're handling a stressful situation you would tell me."

"Of course," he said.

"I trust you," she said. That was as good as saying "I love you" as far as Harry was concerned.

He gave her a quick kiss and she lit up with a smile that nearly overtook her whole face.

"I told Matilda I would help her with our charms assignment for a bit. Do you want to meet in the library in an hour or so to work on the curriculum for the DA before dinner? I needed to look up a few things," Rory said.

"That's fine. I'll just get a head start on our transfigurations reading," Harry said.

"You're so attractive when you talk about being studious," Rory teased.

"Really?" he said, putting an arm around Rory. "If you take long enough with Matilda I might even start on our history of magic reading."

"Oh, stop, I'm positively swooning right now," Rory said. She grinned as she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed him and kissed him again. He could practically taste her smile and wanted to live in the feeling that swam in his chest right then.

Maybe Rory didn't quite understand what he was currently dealing with, but at the very least she made it all easier to endure.

Harry went to the library to start on his homework, as he'd said. He was still feeling a bit mentally hungover from his lesson with Snape and subsequent visit to Voldemort's brain, but he managed to work his way through the text with no problem. He even managed to get started on history of magic.

Just when he was beginning to wonder where Rory was, someone walked up to his table. It was Cho. The last time they'd spoken he'd completely told her off and she'd left the Room of Requirement in tears. He had assumed Cho would avoid him completely after this, but here she was.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello," Harry said unsurely.

"Can I sit for a moment?" she asked, pulling out a chair, not bothering to wait for a response. Not that Harry was capable of giving one at the moment. "I just wanted to apologize. For what happened before Christmas."

"Oh," Harry said. This wasn't what he had expected.

"I was just feeling a bit emotional with everything. I shouldn't have said what I did about Rory. And you were right, I wasn't really being fair the way I treated her," Cho said. "I hope we can let this go and just… Go back to being friends."

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Of course, Cho." That was kind of a relief. He hadn't been worried that he'd hurt Cho's feelings really, but it did feel good to know that she harbored no bad feelings about it.

She beamed at him. "Excellent." She reached out across the table and gently laid her hand across his. "If you ever need anything, just let me know. I'm sure things are a bit crazy for you right now."

She absolutely did not know the half of it.

"Hey."

Harry looked up and Rory was standing there, her fingers were tightly gripped around the strap of her bag, and she had a sour expression on her face.

"Hi, Rory. We were just having a chat," Cho said, getting up from her seat. "Did you have a good holiday?"

"Yes," Rory replied tersely.

"I'll leave you two to your study date then," she replied. She gave a wave and walked off. Rory took the empty seat and set her bag on the table.

"Everything alright?" Harry asked.

"Super," Rory replied. She pulled her notebook out of her bag and sat it on the table.

"What did you want to look up?" Harry asked.

"What?" Rory asked.

"You wanted to meet in the library because you wanted to look something up," Harry reminded her.

"Oh, right. I forgot all of a sudden for some unknown reason. And I was with Matilda. She's in a mood," Rory said, still clearly irritated.

"She's not the only one apparently," Harry said. He knew immediately, as he had several times before lately, that this was the wrong thing to say, but the words were already out of his mouth. Rory was glaring at him. She shoved her notebook back into her bag.

"You know what. We can do this another time," she said. She stood from the chair and it loudly skid across the floor. She grabbed her bag and marched away.

Harry quickly gathered his things and followed after her. He caught up with her on the stairs.

"Rory, can you stop," he said, grabbing hold of her arm. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"

She scoffed. "You must be joking."

"I don't know why you're upset," he said. "And I can't do anything about it if you don't just tell me."

"I thought you said you told her off," Rory said.

"Cho?" Harry asked. Of course, this was about Cho. He was so sick of arguing about Cho. "I did tell her off. She was apologizing, actually. For everything that happened before the break and for ignoring you." Rory rolled her eyes. "Do you think I'm making it up or something?"

"No, I believe you, I just can't believe you actually believe she's only around trying to make nice with you," Rory said.

Harry wanted to pull his hair out. Cho had actually apologized and Rory was upset about it.

"She literally spoke to you just now. You said so yourself she hasn't done that all year," Harry said. "She said she just wanted everything to go back to normal and for us to be friends. She said she felt bad for ignoring you and for what she said about you when-"

"What she said about me?" Rory asked. "What did she say about me?"

Harry shook his head. "It was nothing, really. Something about her thinking you told me to stop talking to her and that she thought you weren't nice."

"Not nice?" Rory asked.

"To me specifically," Harry said, hoping that would clarify things, but no. Rory was clearly more irritated now. "I told her she was wrong, Fish. You never told me to stop talking to anyone. You're not that kind of person."

"I know," Rory said matter-of-factly. "I know exactly what kind of person I am. And I know you know too. But you don't appear to know what kind of person she is."

Harry was trying very hard not to be frustrated, but he was. "Rory, you are the only person I know who would get upset like this over an apology."

"An apology? Okay, so, she apologized for what exactly? Saying I was a shitty girlfriend?" Rory asked. "And what else did she apologize for?"

Harry went to answer, but now that he was thinking about it, that was all she'd apologized for. But what else did Cho need to apologize for? She hadn't done anything else wrong.

"That was it. And she just wanted us to be friends again and that she'd be around to talk with all this crazy stuff happening," Harry said.

Rory nodded. "Right, so she said, 'sorry I said your girlfriend sucks. I hope we can still be friends.' And then she held your hand like she was just the most innocent girl on the planet?"

"She wasn't holding my hand," Harry said.

"Then what was she doing reaching across the table literally holding onto your hand?" Rory asked.

"She said she knew things were crazy and if I ever needed to talk she was happy to listen," Harry said.

"Yes, I'm so sure she's happy to listen," Rory said with a roll of her eyes.

"What do you mean by that?" Harry asked. "I know you don't like her, but maybe she really is just being nice."

Rory paused for a moment. Harry thought she was going to start crying, but then she laughed. But there was no humor in her voice and he could see anger boiling behind her eyes.

"Harry, I love you," she said. "But you're a fucking idiot."


"She's right. You are an idiot," Hermione said after dinner.

After she called him a "fucking idiot," Rory stomped off to her room. He figured further drawing out their confrontation while they were both so upset would likely only make things worse, so he let her cool down. But then she didn't show up for dinner and Matilda was leering at him when she got to the Great Hall and she didn't speak a word to him.

They'd barely been back at school for three days and things were already going to shit. This was easily the worst argument they'd had, probably ever.

"You can't be friends with Cho," Hermione said. "Because Cho fancies you whether she admits to it or not. And Rory isn't ever going to get past that."

Harry frowned. "So I should just tell her I can't be her friend because she makes my girlfriend jealous?"

Hermione frowned at him. "Do you hear yourself right now? Rory's upstairs so angry she won't even speak to you and you're still worried about whether or not you're going to hurt Cho's feelings. You've already hurt Rory's feelings. Shouldn't that be more important?"

Harry slumped in his chair. He kind of hated that Ron was at Quidditch practice and not here to back him up a bit. "Well, when you put it that way."

"Go and talk to her. And next time you see Cho, tell her you can't be friends. That you appreciate the apology, but being friends is only going to cause trouble," Hermione said.

"Matilda's up there with her," Harry said. Most of the time Matilda was alright, but Matilda absolutely meant it when she said that if Harry ever hurt Rory she was going to show him no mercy. He was a bit afraid of her.

"Sounds like a personal problem," Hermione said. "I've got studying to do."

Harry groaned as he got up from his seat. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Hermione said. "And Harry." He looked over his shoulder at her. "You need to start figuring this out on your own. I can't coach you every time you and Rory have a fight. It's getting to be exhausting."

"Noted," Harry said. It was getting to be exhausting being in fights with Rory.