Rory felt better after talking to Harry at breakfast. She could tell there was more he wanted to say to her, but almost immediately, Matilda strode into the dining room. How she managed to wake up every morning looking well-rested and beautiful, Rory would never know.

Matilda smiled at them.

"Wow, you were left alone and neither of you is shouting at the other," Matilda said.

"You're five minutes too late for that," Rory replied, offering her friend a mug. Matilda took the mug and sat down on the other side of Rory and filled her cup with coffee, emptying the pot. She leaned past Rory and smiled at Harry.

"I guess you two are getting along now, then?" Matilda asked. "Or for now at least."

"It's going to be a long break if we don't," Rory said. She looked over to Harry.

Rory was ready to try to bury the proverbial hatchet and, at the very least, learn to be in the same room with Harry without it being supremely awkward.

"Yeah. Right," Harry said.

"Good," Rory said. She turned back to Matilda. "Can you try to be chill? We already have my dad and Sirius to contend with. I think they were so put off by last night they didn't get around to yelling at us for almost getting expelled and sending Dumbledore on the run."

"Truthfully, not really looking forward to the fallout from that," Harry admitted.

Rory couldn't help but agree.

"Thankfully my meltdown at dinner yesterday delayed that bit," Rory said. "Nothing like making everyone uncomfortable to deter unwanted conversations."

Ginny, Hermione, Ron, and Neville all walked into the kitchen.

"Good morning," Matilda said. "Coffee?"

"Actually," Rory said getting to her feet., "I had three cups already so it's empty now."

"How are you alive?" Neville asked.

"The caffeine keeps her body from shutting off," Ron said.

"Can't stop, won't stop," Rory said. "You get me, Ron. You get the first cup of coffee when I get back."

"Oh, I don't drink coffee," Ron said.

"Doesn't matter," Rory replied. She took the coffee pot and walked down to the kitchen where Mrs. Weasley was hard at work.

"Hello again, Aurora," Mrs. Weasley said making a point to avoid eye contact.

"Hello," Rory said. "Sorry if you had to hear my argument with Harry before. It's just weird."

"Not to worry," Mrs. Weasley said. "I'm sure everything is fine."

"It is now. And I'm sorry again," Rory said as she got to work on making more coffee. "But you know how boys are."

"Yes, of course," Molly said. "We all learn how to get along without them, don't we? Or maybe they eventually find someone they fit with."

Rory agreed and continued making the coffee in silence. Rory could feel that Mrs. Weasley was kind of pleased that she and Harry hadn't been getting along. And why wouldn't she be if meant her daughter now had a shot with Harry? Mrs. Weasley adored Harry.

When the coffee was made Rory walked back up to the dining room and sitting on the other side of Harry was Ginny. Rory had expected this but still felt put off by it. But she couldn't show it, because Sirius and her dad were up as well. Everyone else was awake in the house. She set the coffee pot on the table.

"Someone else has to make the next pot," Rory said.

Instead of sitting beside Harry, she went to sit beside her dad. She let her head drop against his shoulder.

"Are you alright?" Remus asked.

Rory looked across the table to Harry who was talking with Ginny. Her stomach twisted into a knot.

"Can I have a slumber party?" Rory asked. "With Mattie and Neville? At our flat?"

"A slumber party?" Remus asked.

"I've never had one. And that's where Neville's gran and Matilda's mum think they are anyway," Rory said. "And I thought it might be cool to spend a night or two away from my ex-boyfriend."

Remus let out a long deep breath. "I have to be honest, you were not exaggerating how well the two of you were getting along. Or rather, not getting along."

"We chatted again this morning," Rory said. But who knew how long it would last. Who knew how long it was before all her jealousy and bitterness slithered its way back up and left her spitting vitriol at Harry again.

They were fine, for right now. And she knew it wasn't his fault that Ginny was being super obvious about her intentions. And she knew Harry didn't care. But Rory still hated it and she didn't know what to do with those feelings.

"I understand," he said. "It requires a lot of eyes to not have you here or at Hogwarts. Especially with Dumbledore gone."

Rory sighed. She expected this would be the answer.

"However, you made everyone at dinner sufficiently uncomfortable enough that the rest of the Order might be willing to figure out the logistics of you spending a bit of time at home," he said.

Rory brightened. "Really?" Her dad nodded and Rory tossed her arms around him. "Thank you, Daddy."

Remus kissed the top of her head and she held him tighter.

"Do you think you'll tell me what exactly happened?" Remus asked.

Rory glanced over to Harry. She still felt a bunch of emotions bundled up into one when she looked at him. But she also looked around him, at how happy and comfortable he was. And he was only like that here, with the Weasleys, with Sirius. His family.

"Do you think you can still be nice to him if I tell you?" she asked.

"Aurora, do I need to remind you of what you said about Harry in the last letter you wrote to me?" Remus asked.

Rory recalled that it said something along the lines of "Harry Potter can go fuck himself" so perhaps getting her dad to be on Harry's side was kind of a reach.

"He's just an idiot boy," Rory said. "You still like Sirius."

"The fact that you're comparing him to Sirius has me even more concerned," Remus replied.

"Only because I'm you're daughter," she said.

"I'm allowed to let my inability to be objective get the better of me where you're concerned," he said. "You're my daughter. I love you more than anyone and anything."

The door to the dining room opened and Tonks walked.

"You'll notice I didn't set off the portrait," she said. "So, let's all-."

The rest of her words were lost as she suddenly disappeared from view and made a loud SMACK against the floor.

"You should help her," Rory said, ushering her dad away, even though Remus was already on his way to standing.

"You were saying?" Sirius teased.

"Shut it," Tonks, said, as Remus helped her to her feet.

Generally, Rory ignored all instances like, this and today was no exception. She missed her dad. She wanted his undivided attention.

But before she got a chance to speak, her dad was talking to Tonks. Rory felt herself deflate a little when he didn't come back to his seat beside her. She grabbed her empty mug and pulled it toward her.

She looked over to Harry and he was laughing with Ginny about something. She hung on his every word, looking beyond pleased. Harry didn't even notice that Rory watched him. And even though it shouldn't, even though it had nothing to do with her, it still made Rory's blood boil.

"Have you considered for even a moment that maybe I wouldn't have done it if you'd bothered to trust me instead of acting like a jealous crazy person?"

They weren't even together anymore and she couldn't stop her jealousy from trying to strangle her.


Despite the conversation he had with Rory that morning, she mostly avoided him the rest of the day. She mostly sat in her room with Neville and Matilda. At the very least she was friendly with him when they were in the same room. What was abundantly clear was that Rory was absolutely not a fan of Ginny anymore.

The last thing he wanted to do was give Ginny the impression that he liked her. But he also didn't want to hurt Ginny's feelings. And also Ginny hadn't explicitly said anything about liking him so he didn't want to just say something to her, because maybe he was reading everything wrong.

But even if he was right, he didn't like Ginny. It had to be obvious he didn't. So it made no sense that Rory was so upset about it. And that frustrated and confused him. Because he loved and missed her. But he did not miss this side of her, so it didn't make sense that he still felt this way about her. It didn't make sense that he was thinking about how he could fix things. It didn't make sense that her saying she loved him played on a loop in his head.

What he needed was advice. The trouble was that he almost always went to Sirius when he needed paternal advice, but it felt weird to ask Sirius' advice in this situation since Rory was his daughter.

But still, he was low on options.

He managed to find Sirius alone when he was feeding Buckbeak.

"How's it going?" Sirius asked. Then he paused. "Well, I guess things are going not very well, technically. So, how's it going in spite of school being miserable."

Harry shrugged. "I mean, also not great. But I'm here so, it could be worse I guess."

Sirius nodded as he closed the bedroom door. "I suspect it has something to do with Rory."

"Basically," Harry sighed. "I really screwed that up. Phenomenally. It's kind of impressive how badly I screwed up."

"I don't want to be nosey," Sirius started. Harry gave him a knowing look. "Okay, yes, I'm nosey, but it's mostly because I am concerned."

"Sure, sure," Harry laughed. "But you want to know why we broke up."

"Naturally, I've gathered that something happened on Valentine's Day," Sirius said.

"That's wildly understating it," Harry said. He gave Sirius the gist. Choir practice, lunch, the interview, Cho. Rory was gone when he got there.

"So she broke up with you?" Sirius asked.

Harry scoffed. "I wish. Because then I wouldn't have managed to make things worse." And maybe they could have fixed things, he thought,

"How?" Sirius asked.

"We didn't talk for days. It was so frustrating because I wanted to just talk to her or for her to put me out of my misery. It just-it didn't seem fair," Harry said.

"It's not," Sirius said.

Harry was about to continue, but he stumbled over his words.

"What?" Harry asked.

"It's not fair. You're right," Sirius repeated.

You... Agree with me?" Harry asked.

"Of course. She was upset, rightfully so, but you can't solve any problems without talking about them. Even if she wanted to break things off she should've come out and told you." Sirius said.

Harry didn't know what to say. Everyone told him he was a sucky boyfriend, and that he should've been nicer to Rory. That Rory not talking to him was reasonable. No one ever said that he was right.

"Oh. Okay," Harry said.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I just... Most people just kept telling me that I shouldn't have been such a crap boyfriend in the first place," Harry said.

"Well, that's also probably true," Sirius said.

"How can they both be true?" Harry asked.

"Because you're both 15 and therefore idiots,", Sirius said. "So just tell me why you did break up."

Sirius may've been understanding now, but there was nothing about Harry's behavior that he was going to be able to justify to Sirius. From the moment he saw Rory standing there in the Room of Requirement, tears in her eyes, Harry knew he'd messed up.

It was humiliating telling Sirius about the kiss. Even as he felt all the anger he'd felt that day bubbling up inside of him, he always thought back to Rory's face. He remembered her sobbing "I don't believe you" after he'd said "I love you."

He'd been exhausted from the fighting and the jealousy and being shut out. He couldn't even bring himself to believe Rory might want to be with him.

"The second I saw her I knew. I knew that I'd literally done the stupidest thing I'd ever done in my entire life," Harry said.

Sirius nodded. "So she broke up with you."

"Well, first she ran out of the room so I had to chase her all the way back to the tower. And then she at least waited until we were in her room to really scream at me," Harry said. And then he remembered something. "And then, because I decided to continue with my streak of being simultaneously the dumbest and worst person she's ever had the misfortune to encounter, I told her to 'calm down' and that she sounded 'hysterical.'"

"She saw you kiss another girl and you told her she was being hysterical?" Sirius asked.

"I said I was the dumbest and the worst," Harry said.

"I can't believe she didn't hex you," Sirius said.

"Honestly, same," Harry agreed, "Never underestimate all the ways I can make an ass of myself. Even before then, we were arguing all the time, about everything. About nothing. We weren't back at school for three days after Christmas before we got into an argument. And I can't believe we were able to talk like normal people this morning after how angry she was after we broke up when I made things even more of a mess."

"How?" Sirius asked.

"A week or so after we broke up, Cho found me and apologized," Harry said. "And we just started talking and kind of decided to... See what happened," Harry explained.

"You-You're dating her?" Sirius asked.

"Well, not anymore. I broke up with her before we left for break," Harry said.

"Yesterday? Sirius asked.

Harry nodded.

Sirius massaged the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut. Harry could almost see the migraine blooming in his godfather's head. Completely understandable, honestly.

"Dare I ask what happened or did you just decide that it wasn't working?" Sirius asked.

"To be honest, I thought it was impossible for someone to be more jealous than Rory, But Cho really took the cake. At least when Rory got upset with me, she directed it at me," Harry said. "Cho decided to handle it by antagonizing Rory."

"I'm sure she tolerated that very well," Sirius said.

"As she does," Harry said. "It's all been a really eye-opening, learning experience. For starters, I'm an idiot. Secondly, I... I miss Rory. Or the way things used to be. I still... I still love Rory. But she turns into a jealous monster and she shuts me out and I don't miss that. And it doesn't make sense that I still feel all these things for her."

"Love is complicated. You two have made things considerably more complicated than I think I ever did."

"But what am I supposed to do now? We go back and forth on how well we get along. At school people have stopped acting like I'm invisible since I did that interview," Harry said. "Before things were to the point where people would literally tell Rory that she was stupid for dating me and now it seems like everyone is waiting in the wings to replace her."

"Endless prospects then," Sirius said.

"Could have all the prospects in the world, but I just want her," Harry said. "And I don't even know if I should or not."

"If it makes you feel better, I was certainly as equally stupid as you when I was your age. Stupider even."

"Doubt it," Harry said.

"Oh, you think you can out stupid 15-year-old me?" Sirius asked.

"How have you possibly done worse than me?" Harry asked.

"Because, you had a moment of stupidity, whereas I was actively sneaking around on Theo," Sirius said.

This surprised Harry. "Really?"

"Yep. And the crazy part is it happened more than once and yet, she still took me back and now Aurora is here," Sirius said. "If i'm being honest, I think we only settled down because of Aurora."

It was strange for Harry to hear this. He was so used to hearing how in love his parents were. It was weird to think that Rory's parents didn't have that.

"Well, she's here and she hates me," Harry said. "Well, no. She said she doesn't hate me, but she wishes she did because it'd make her life easier."

"Well, you've got that going for you," Sirius said sounding rather optimistic.

"Why does it sound like you're encouraging me to get her back?" Harry asked.

"Because I am," Sirius said. "Maybe I'm just a romantic or holding onto a dream James and I had when you two were born, but I want you kids to work out."

"Even though I completely betrayed your daughter?" Harry asked.

Sirius gave Harry a weak smile and let out a sigh.

"Well, let's start with this. Aurora is not my daughter," Sirius said. "Maybe she is biologically, but in every other way, in every way that counts, Remus is her father. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Yes, I did want to raise her and I did have the chance to do that taken away from me against my will. But look how brilliant she is. I couldn't do that. Besides, this way I get to just like the cool, fun uncle or something. If everyone was busy looking after Aurora who would be looking after you to make sure you stayed out of trouble."

"If that's what you're doing, you're doing a terrible job of it," Harry joked.

"Speaking of trouble," Sirius chuckled, "where were you all having your meetings? Remus and I have been speculating but we can't for the life of us put it together."

"The Room of Requirement. We figured you guys never found it because it wasn't on your map," Harry said. "It's a room that only appears when you need it and you can only find it if you know where to look for it. Dobby the House Elf told us where to find it."

Sirius was slack-jawed. "I cannot believe I never knew of this room when we were in school there. What a perfect way to hide from the teachers."

"Well, you had a map of the school that told you where everyone in it was," Harry said.

"And now you have a map and a secret room. Doesn't seem fair," Sirius said with a wistful sigh. He thought for a moment. "Is that where you were when you saw what happened to Arthur?"

Harry nodded. "Rory said that she knew something bad was going to happen and that she didn't want to leave. So we just didn't."

"So you just slept on the floor?" Sirius asked.

"Oh, no. The Room of Requirement appears when you need it with everything in it that you need," Harry said. "We needed a place to learn and it gave us books and tables and dummies to practice on. Needed a place to sleep and we got pillows and pajamas and-."

"And a bed," Sirius said.

"Yep. To sleep in," Harry said. "Just sleep. Literally, sleep."

They'd had a great time snogging and fooling around on the cushions they'd been provided for the DA before they'd decided to go to bed and only sleep. Not that anyone needed to know that.

"I'll take your word for it," Sirius said. "I was not nearly as gentlemanly as you are. Although, part of me thinks you just want us all to think you're better behaved than you let on."

"Guess we'll never know," Harry said with a shrug, even though he absolutely knew and Sirius was definitely correct.