'Getting off' with someone else was, as it turned out, quite a different experience than doing so on your own.

Harry had spent the rest of the day giddy, and a day later, when the Gryffindors – or rather, Lavender, Sophie, Neville and Ron, as Seamus and Dean had stopped coming as the summer progressed and Parvati was in Mumbai – had come over for duelling practice, it was all he could do to control himself and wait until it was over to drag Neville aside to tell him he'd taken the step.

Neville, seeing his embarrassed excitement, gave him a wide grin. "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," he said. "I mean, please don't tell me any details, but you look like you had a great time."

Harry laughed. "It was amazing," he agreed.

And it had been – enough so that he asked Draco over again just a day later, in fact. He had not found the courage to reciprocate on that first try, and he wanted to see how that felt, too.

He was nervous at first, and not quite sure what to do – It was different doing it to someone else and to himself, as it turned out – but Draco proved to be surprisingly good at guiding him, and seemed happy enough with the result, so. Harry supposed it was good enough for a first try.

He was extremely interested in many more tries.

He had plenty enough desire for it on his own, but added to that, some extra motivation in really wishing for a distraction appeared when, only a few days later, Alduin came to him with a final verdict regarding his dream about the Department of Mysteries corridor.

"I've consulted with Daniel Goldstein," he said, "and we both think it might be that connection you have to Riddle that's causing these dreams, just like the ones you've had in the past."

Harry's hand went to his scar, and he scowled.

"Yes, it's not great," Alduin agreed drily. "To have it activate so often...I'm nearly certain Riddle doesn't know about the connection now, but with this frequency, he's likely to find out, and he could try to use it against you."

Harry's scowl deepened. "What does that mean exactly?"

Alduin shrugged. "He could try to cause you pain over the link, or try to send you different visions, ones of his choosing, or maybe even false ones. You need to protect yourself."

"Protect myself how?"

Alduin sighed. "I'm afraid that the only way is through Occlumency."

Another thing Harry was going to have in common with Draco, then, it seemed. That made the idea of even less free time a bit more bearable.

"All right," Harry said with a sigh. "I guess that's another thing for me to learn."

Alduin grimaced. "And I'm afraid this one is likely to come much harder to you than duelling, though I do not wish to underestimate you. But it is a difficult art. I'll give you some books to read on it and teach you the basics, but I certainly can't teach you more than that, and it won't be enough."

Harry had a bad feeling about that. "Who will teach me, then?" He somehow doubted it'd be Draco's mum.

"Professor Snape, much like with duelling," Alduin replied. "We are lucky he is an expert in the area, and he has already agreed."

And here it was. It wasn't that Harry didn't trust Snape – he let him use the Imperius on him, after all – but much as any other practive included failing over and over again, Harry ventured to guess it would be the case with Occlumency as well, and that implied… "Does that mean I'll have him in my head every time I fail?" Harry asked, hoping against hope that he was wrong. At this point, he wasn't too thrilled even about letting Alduin there – he wasn't sure how exactly it worked, but given how much his thoughts were occupied with Draco lately...what if Alduin saw their time together? The idea didn't bear thinking about, and when Harry imagined Snape in that position, his stomach actually rolled.

"It's not a pleasant experience," Alduin agreed. "I was older than you when I learned, and I still absolutely despised it. But I'll lend you one of my pensieves, and you will be able to put any memories you want in there to keep them safe for the duration of the practice, to make certain your teacher doesn't see them."

Harry exhaled in relief. "Even at home?" He assured himself.

"Yes, even at home. I want to help you, Harry, I have no intention of invading your privacy any more than necessary."

Harry knew that, really. For all he might be angry eith his cousin, he did still trust him – for anything apart from fidelity to his spouse, he supposed.

The following weeks of Harry's life seemed to be filled with two things only: Occlumency practice, which was exhausting and seemed to lead nowhere except to Alduin's incursions into his thoughts, and time with Draco. In that respect, Harry felt like he was discovering an entirely new world. If someone had asked him before, he'd have said that a hand is a hand, and that there couldn't be that much of a difference between his own and someone else's...but boy had he been wrong.

He'd have also thought that if he ever found himself in a situation when he was about to touch another boy, he'd feel incredibly awkward about it, and that was closer to the truth – his first try had been incredibly clumsy in retrospect, and he suspected not that great for Draco, but he hoped he'd improved with time.

They usually spent time together in that one secluded place in the gardens, but one day in mid- August, it rained heavily when Draco came, way too much for the trees and their water-repelling cloaks to handle, and so Harry asked Draco up to his room instead.

This was another thing he didn't expect would make so much of a difference, but to his astonishment, it did.

There was just something about being in a bed together...they soon found themselves pressing their foreheads together, breathing the same air, and then as Harry arched a little their mouth brushed- and then they were kissing and both coming together.

Harry was even more flushed than normal, after, and muttered: "Sorry if that was too much."

"No, no," Draco said quickly, breathlessly, and then he slowly inhaled and said: "It's fine, I don't mind."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

Tentatively, Harry kissed him again, and by the response he got, he supposed Draco really didn't.

-hp-hp-hp-

Abdullah and Isobel came over on a rainy August afternoon, bringing Gamila and Abdulaziz to keep Harry company. The boy had been a bit lonely this summer, Alduin knew, with the reduced number and shortened times of visits. Even as he knew the danger Draco Malfoy so frequently there presented, Alduin was grateful to him for keeping Harry company. And he was grateful, too, that the Shafiqs came now, so that Harry had someone else to talk to for a change.

They sat all together for a time, discussing Gamila's upcoming Hogwarts career. They still haven't got the Hogwarts letter, which put everyone a little on edge, but Gamila, unsurprisingly, most of all. Alduin tried to explain it was simply because Dumbledore still hadn't found a Defence teacher, but she still somehow worried she wouldn't get a place at the school, in spite of her scores of accidental magic.

After a while, though, the children – as much as one could still call them that – took themselves to Harry's room, and Alduin was left with Abdullah and Isobel. They drank their tea in silence for a while, then Alduin asked: "Do you have the safe house ready, then?"

Isobel nodded heavily. "I really am sorry-" she began.

Alduin stopped her, shaking his head. "I understand completely," he said. "I'd have done the same in your place. You did your part, more crucial than most people who will fight will do, with helping me before. No one should feel obligated to step into the line of fire."

Isobel gave a grim smile. "I'm sure many of your Gryffindor acquaintances would disagree...and I know you yourself feel you have a debt because of your uncle. If that is enough to form a debt, then I-"

Alduin stopped her again. "That is not why I fight," he said. "That was why my parents fought, in the first war, and perhaps why I did back then, too, but not any more. Now I fight because they died, and because Harry is my ward." And because it was the right thing to do, of course, but that was neither here nor there. Isobel knew it was the right thing to do just as well. Many people did, and most of them didn't fight. You needed something to overwhelm your sense of self-preservation. Some people barely had any, of course. Most people, though, needed some rather large incentive.

Isabel only nodded. "If you need help again, with Arithmancy, please don't hesitate to let us know. We can do equations from a safe house just as well as from the Shafiq Manor."

"Thank you," Alduin said, thinking of how much he owed them for giving them the crucial piece of information about the number of Horcruxes once again. "When will you go?"

"We don't know yet," Abdullah replied. "With Riddle being all covert, it's hard to judge the right time, you know? Obviously not before the children leave for Hogwarts, but after that…"

"You might do it like Alexandra did," Alduin suggested. "Go, but come back occasionally."

"We plan to," Isobel confirmed. "Especially since we don't have the convenient excuse she does."

"What do you plan to tell people after her confinement passes?" Abdullah wondered.

"Frankly, we're mostly..well, hoping ins a bad word, but thinking Riddle will do something a bit more obvious before then, and so give us a more proper excuse. If he doesn't, well, the garden party season will be over, in any case. Formal dinners are less people. We can handle them more easily. The morning calls...I don't know."

They were the biggest problem, of course. Unless you were out visiting, you were expected to be at home, available for visitors, every morning, but that inevitably made one a bit of a sitting duck. The wards should hold anyone with a nefarious intention at bay, but someone who was an unwitting accomplice, well...that was more complicated. It was one thing to risk it for one party for Harry's birthday, but every morning..."We will think of something," Alduin said, hoping he was right.

-hp-hp-hp-

A few days later, Alduin came home from the meeting of a Board of Governors in a foul mood, and as Harry gave him a questioning look, he muttered: "Someone really should get rid of Fudge. That man is a moron, but he could actually be dangerous."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. Could the actual Minister be in league with Riddle? That would certainly be a problem.

"He decided that he should have more control over Hogwarts, now that Dumbledore's saying things he doesn't like," Alduin replied, "so he sent his Undersecretary there as the new Defence teacher."

Harry blinked. "He can do that?"

Alduin scoffed. "Now he can, since he issued himself a new decree. I could try questioning it in Wizengamot, but frankly we have bigger fish to fry." He sighed and shook his head. "At any rate, the part that's relevant for you, Harry: given that woman is Fudge's right hand, and probably whispers all of his worst ideas into his ear...be wary of her. I have met her in person, and she is repulsive."

Harry scowled at that. "I thought the whole idea of not saying all out truth about Riddle was that the Ministry wouldn't go after me?"

"Yes, and I don't think she will," Alduin conceded, "but she will be watching you carefully. So don't give her a reason, all right?"

Harry only nodded. He supposed that, as long she wasn't directly in league with Riddle like his last Defence teacher, it would still be an improvement.

And at least it meant that he finally got his Hogwarts letter the following day, meaning he met all the Gryffindors in Diagon Alley for shopping, as was tradition, though this year they were accompanied by Alduin and Mrs. Weasley as well, very clearly for security purposes, as they stayed far away enough that the teenagers could talk freely at least. Given how late the letter arrived this year, the shopping street was crowded, almost everyone having the idea of going to buy their things immediately. They had to push through throngs of people as they discussed the new prefects: Parvati, who was returning to Hogwarts after all, and Neville.

Harry had expected the two of them when he hadn't seen the badge in his own letter. It was a great choice, he knew. Neville, with his experience with leading the Herbology club, was really better suited to it than he was. He had had more practice with that sort of work.

Neville, on the other hand, did not seem to agree. "It should have been you," he was saying, "it obviously should have been you."

"Maybe Dumbledore thinks Harry will be too busy with, you know, all the other stuff he has going on?" Ron pointed out, looking around at who could be listening.

"Maybe," Neville conceded, "but that doesn't seem fair."

"Neville, mate, I really don't mind," Harry reassured him for the umpteenth time. Frankly, being a prefect was not something he particularly cared about, though he decided not to say that out loud – it seemed like it would diminish Neville's achievement somehow.

"Your grandmother must have been proud, right?" He added.

"She was," Neville admitted. "She offered to go plant shopping with me tomorrow to pick a gift, so I really hope I'll find something great. I need something awesome to add to my collection!"

Whatever made Neville happy, Harry supposed.

The very same evening, Draco came over once again, with a prefect badge of his own to show off, so Harry gave him as good a reward as he could and then they lounged in bed together, only occasionally kissing.

At one point, Draco pulled away a little and asked: "So, do you want to continue this once at Hogwarts?"

Harry considered that. He certainly didn't wish to stop, but...he frowned. "The logistics would be kinda complicated, wouldn't they?"

Draco tilted his head. "Why? You've dated across houses before, haven't you?"

"Well, yeah, but we barely did anything with Cho."

Draco arched an eyebrow at him in that damnably irresistible way. "Even with Parvati, did you make out in the common room?"

Harry had to concede the point. "All right, then," he said, "though I will miss the bed."

Draco laughed. "Maybe we can learn to transfigure something?" He suggested.

Harry snorted. "We should find a room no one uses and turn it into a permanent hidey hole," he said.

"I doubt we would be the first to have that idea...I wonder how many fuck-rooms there are over Hogwarts."

Harry choked on his wording. "We are not fucking!" He pointed out, bright red and stuttering at the word a little. At least his voice had finished breaking, otherwise he was pretty sure it would have chosen this moment to do so.

Draco smirked. "No, but others sure as hell are."

Harry kissed him to shut him up.

After a moment, Draco interrupted the kiss again, this time to say a little awkwardly – and it was a wonder, because he'd managed to keep all this as unawkward as was humanly possible until now - "I, uh, also probably shouldn't be seen with you. I'm not ashamed of it or anything, but if it got to Father's circles..."

Harry grimaced, and nodded in understanding. "I don't want to make things worse for you."

"It's also that they could try to pressure me into attacking you for them, and..."

"Yeah. Much better to avoid that." He smiled. "Hey, at least I'll get a proper use out of my invisibility cloak once again!"

Draco got a contemplative look on his face. "Have you ever made out under it?"

Harry groaned.

-hp-hp-hp-

Alexandra came over with the boys the last day of August to bid Harry a proper goodbye. Harry gave a very melancholy look to her belly, which was huge by now. "I'm sorry I won't see Rowan until Christmas," he said. It would be the longest time he'd have to go without seeing his new cousin – even Wynn, he saw after only a month.

"At least she'll be more fun when you finally do see her," Alexandra pointed out. "And you'll see her over the mirror sometimes."

Harry nodded, and muttered a goodbye to the unborn baby before he turned to his little cousins.

It was really alarming how much bigger they were getting. It seemed like no time at all since Edric had been born, but now he was running around with Wynn playing chase, and Harry had to bodily pick him up to get to say his farewells.

"Be good to your mother," he muttered, "and nice to your baby sister when she's born."

"Baby," Edric repeated decisively.

"Mummy says we can't play with her," Wynn complained from the ground, and Harry put Edric down and crouched to him.

"Not right when she's born," he said. "Only once she grows up a little, all right?"

"All right," Wynn muttered reluctantly, then frowned at Harry. "Why do you have to leave?"

Harry sighed. "I have to go to school, to learn new things to be a proper wizard and to know as many things as your mummy and daddy. But I'll come back for Christmas, all right?"

Wynn didn't look satisfied, but he nodded and Harry kissed him before Alexandra took them away. This was the part of returning to Hogwarts he hated the most.

It was only Alduin who accompanied Harry to King's Cross the next day, helping him put things into the traditional compartment at the front of the train and waiting for others to come. When they returned to the platform, he took out a small bag and handed it to Harry.

"This," he said, "is a Portkey that will take you back to the manor. If anything happens during the train ride, take your friends and go. You'll be safe once at the castle, but the train, while protected, is naturally not quite as well so as the school."

Harry nodded. "How come you didn't give this to me sooner?" He asked then.

"They're complicated to make, and only last up to twenty-four hours. If you ever need to leave school grounds again, I'll send you another one, for Hogsmeade trips and such, but they don't work as a permanent solution, unfortunately."

Harry nodded again.

"In fact," Alduin continued, "I'd considered just Apparating you to Hogwarts gates, since that would be safest, but I didn't want to rob you off the train ride and this was the second best option. Riddle's not very active so far, so it should be fine. And Harry, I know you have plenty of other things to worry about, but...this is your OWL year. Don't ruin your future by ignoring school completely, all right?"

"I'll try," Harry promised, not even grudging. He was honestly astonished – this was the first time Alduin even devoted any attention to his regular schoolwork this year, instead of war preparation. Harry certainly agreed that the war was more important, but it was still kind of surprising to see that anything could take Alduin's attention away from Harry's studies.

Any further warnings and admonitions were interrupted when Draco with his parents joined them, and soon Harry was surrounded by his friends and taking his place on the train.