Harry sat back against the wall and watched Blaise test out the little contraption his newest step-father had gotten him as an early Christmas present. It looked more complicated than anything and Harry couldn't quite work out what it was meant to be doing.

Pansy rolled her eyes as she pilfered a brownie off of Harry's little dessert plate. They'd have to make a supply run to the main hall and the buffet table again soon.

Harry had been a bit surprised that Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy had let Harry and Draco sneak off with the other kids so easily, but the more he thought about the tensions his last public appearance had caused, the more he understood. Harry had made a mess of things, last time. He needed to learn when to roll with the punches and keep his big mouth shut, or his friends like Professor Snape would keep getting hurt. He was too famous to have a careless opinion.

Draco grabbed the contraption from Blaise and tried his own hand at figuring it out. Blaise huffed, but let the other boy give it a shot.

"I swear Leonard gives me broken presents just to shut me up and keep me occupied," he complained.

"Think he'll stick around long?" Pansy asked casually as she nibbled on her brownie.

Blaise shot her a dark look. "I hope so."

Harry frowned. Blaise's parental situation was always a sore spot. If Pansy was intentionally picking at it this early into the party, things could spiral out of control. Badly.

"How's your holiday been so far, Daphne?" Harry asked, knowing full well that everyone in the room knew what he was doing.

Daphne smirked at him, and stroked her little sister's golden hair. "It's been fun, so far. Astoria and I are looking forward to opening presents tomorrow, isn't that right Dove?"

Astoria nodded and batted away her sister's fingers. "I asked for a pony."

Daphne rolled her eyes. "Father isn't going to buy you a pony. He isn't that cliché."

Astoria pouted, but didn't argue.

"My father's going to buy me books, I just know it," Theo said glumly.

"Just get a house elf to read them to you," Draco said, giving up on Blaise's mystery present. "You know you like learning things when you don't have to put any effort into it."

"Tangly doesn't read," Theo replied flatly.

"You could probably order it to learn," Pansy said with a laugh.

"How does it cook if it can't read the recipes?" Greg asked, clearly concerned.

Theo sighed. "Father only lets the elves cook old family recipes. Tangly would have memorized them ages ago."

"That sounds boring," Pansy said, licking the last traces of brownie from her fingers and eyeing Harry's plate again.

Harry pulled it closer to his chest and scowled at her. She grinned back.

"It's 'traditional'," Theo said, his voice dripping with bitter sarcasm.

"I'm going to ask Dobby to learn how to make muggle pizza for us," Draco said, shooting Theo a smug look.

"I don't even know what that is," Theo snapped back at him.

"Oh, it's the best. Isn't that right, Harry?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't know, and neither would you. I only told you it smelled amazing when the Dursley's ordered in, over the summer."

"You told me more than that," Draco said, defensively. "Flatbread, tomato sauce, and loads of cheese, right? With all the other toppings you want. I want to try it."

"Maybe the Hogwarts elves will make it for us, if we win the Quidditch cup this year," Vince said.

"I want some, too," Astoria whined.

Daphne shushed her. "The house elves won't make us muggle food, Dove. Draco's just teasing us."

"I am not."

"Would you shut up about the muggle food?" Theo asked sharply, glaring down at his own hands.

"Are you okay, Theo?" Daphne asked, softly. "Is your father drinking again?"

"He never stopped. He bribed that reporter to claim he'd been to a mind healer, but he just stopped going out, instead."

"Sorry," Draco mumbled.

Theo sighed and tugged at his hair. "It's alright. You didn't know."

"Think he'd let you come back to visit for a few days?" Draco asked, snagging a coconut ball from Harry's plate.

Harry was surrounded by vultures.

Theo shrugged. "Depends on his mood. Depends on how your parents manage to spin today, too, I reckon."

"What does that mean?" Draco asked defensively.

"Seriously?" Pansy asked. "We kicked a pixie nest at the Ministry ball. Everyone is now suspicious of everyone who's been seen with our illustrious Boy Who Lived. Your family is simultaneously abandoning the Old Ways and trying to lure Harry to the dark side, I'm sorry to say."

Draco scoffed. "That's ridiculous. He's my friend."

"He's all our friend," Pansy said sweetly, "but no one else has him staying in their lair over the hols."

"I'm right here," Harry said, hating when people talked like he wasn't in the room, "and the Malfoys have been nothing but nice to me."

"We know, Harry," Theo said, softly. "You know it's complicated, though."

Harry grimaced. No one ever let him forget it.

"What am I supposed to do then? I can't keep letting my friends get hurt because of me."

"There's no pleasing everyone," Pansy said with a shrug. "You could double down on the light side rhetoric to convince Dumbledore's crowd that you haven't been corrupted, but that'll just upset the blood purists. Or, you could make a public statement that you've been learning about the philosophy behind the Olde traditions, but that'll scare the pants off of the Ministry and Dumbledore."

"So what? I should just stop being seen with anyone, to avoid offending anyone else?"

"Screw that," Daphne said, her hands firmly planted over Astoria's ears. "You're famous. You either saved the world, or killed the Dark Lord that was meant to save the world. Either way, you won. It's up to you to decide what you want to believe, and up to everyone else to either fall in line or stand against you. You don't owe the hand-wringers on either side a thing."

"But Professor Snape…"

"The professor's a Slytherin. We'd protect him, even if we weren't your friends, but we are. We know he's been protecting you. We know he's important to you. If Snape gets fired or arrested, we'll stage a walk-out. We'll go on a hunger strike. We'll do whatever it takes to see justice served."

There were nods around the room, even from Vince, who looked pale at the thought of a hunger strike, and Theo, who looked pale at the whole thing.

A knock at the door broke the odd moment of solidarity, and Harry hastily took the opportunity to blink back his tears. He and Daphne weren't that close. He didn't expect her to be so adamant in her defence of him and the Professor.

"There you guys are," Marcus Flint said amiably, as he poked his head into the room. "I was getting bored."

The rest of the quidditch team followed him into the room, prompting Daphne to groan. "There's going to be nothing but sports talk now, isn't there?"

"Better quidditch than politics," Theo muttered darkly.

"Politics again?" Adrian asked with a laugh. "You lot are the weirdest eleven-year-olds I know."

Pansy and Draco pointed at Harry, who blushed and hid behind his plate.

"Fair point," Adrian said.

"Have you and Draco been practicing on your brooms?" Cassius asked Harry.

Harry nodded.

"We've been flying for hours every day," Draco bragged. "Got Bagman lined up as a private coach, too."

Higgs chortled. "Only you, Malfoy."

Draco shrugged, completely unrepentant.

"I'm going to go grab more snacks," Pansy announced. "Anyone wanna come with?"

"I will," Daphne said. "Come on, little dove."

Astoria pouted. "I want to stay and talk about quidditch."

Daphne snorted. "You want to stay and ogle the quidditch players, you mean."

Blushing bright red, Astoria kicked at her sister's ankles as she rushed from the room.

"Well, she's going to be trouble, next year," Blaise said dryly.

"Daphne's going to be in permanent mama bear mode," Theo agreed, looking wistful.

The team settled into the room, with Cass sitting next to Harry, and Draco dragging Marcus over to sit next to him. Marcus quizzed the quidditch team and unofficial firstie alternates on their holiday practice routines, and ran through some new play ideas he'd had.

Harry listened attentively to his captain's plans, visualizing what he'd have to do if he was actually in the air with the team.

He knew that both he and Draco wanted to be seeker next year, and that one of them would have to settle as a chaser or beater, if they made it at all, but Harry could not help but picture himself as the seeker in each and every scenario Marcus brought up.

Harry liked being single-mindedly focused on a task. He liked coordinating with others and strategizing too, sure, but there was something about letting his brain settle into that relaxed, sharp focus that shut out the rest of the world that was uniquely satisfying to Harry. That feeling of lurching into slow motion, as his body became one with his instincts, and his mind was free to watch something magical unfold… it was something Harry had always craved.

In the past, he'd only gotten that feeling when he made an especially adept move while running away from Dudley's gang, but with quidditch, it would be associated with joy, not terror.

Harry couldn't wait.

Miles and Graham snickered quietly at each other, bringing Harry out of his revelry. Watching the two third year boys, with their rosy cheeks and wild gestures, Harry could not help but suspect that they had pilfered a drink or two from the adult party.

"Montague, Bletchley, knock it off," Terrence scolded, reflexively.

"We're not at school, head boy," Montague sneered, before bursting into a fit of giggles. Miles followed, doubling over as his body shook helplessly.

"Merlin," Cass drawled, "how much have you two had to drink?"

"What's it to you, Warrington?" Miles asked.

Cass rolled his eyes. "To me? Nothing. Your parents are going to kill you."

"Don't be a snitch, Cass," Graham said, with a ridiculously overblown pleading look. It sent both boys back over the edge of helpless laughter.

"They're as subtle as Gryffindors, aren't they?" Adrian asked dryly.

Marcus sighed. "Alright, I guess that's the strategy meeting over, then."

Fenwick and Burke grunted their approval and left the room without a word.

"What's with them?" Cass asked.

Terrence frowned. "They're off to make connections," he said, with a somber glance at Harry.

Harry shivered. He wasn't stupid. He knew there were people with family ties to Death Eaters at the party tonight. There might even be a few Death Eaters who had done what Mr. Malfoy was accused of doing, and had avoided a conviction.

Tonight wasn't the night to rekindle the blood-supremacy fight, though. It was Christmas Eve.

Adrian noticed Harry's discomfort, and scooted closer. "Don't worry about them," he muttered. "They're keen to impress their parents, and they haven't taken a breath since they started kissing Avery's arse last year, but they aren't hardliners. Not really."

"How can you be so sure?" Harry whispered. "Does it really matter why they join, if they're joining a cause that wants me dead?"

Adrian frowned. "We're not going to let anything happen to you, Harry. You're part of the team."

"This is so much bigger than quidditch, though."

Adrian chuckled. "Don't let Marcus hear you say that. Just remember that politics isn't black and white. There are ways to support the Olde traditions, and even straight up pureblood supremacy, without having to support the people that want you dead. Look at me. Just because I think muggleborns threaten to dilute our heritage doesn't mean I want them to die. And I don't want you to die either, for the record."

Harry smiled weakly at him. "I know that, Adrian. Sorry. I've been so on edge since I accidentally got Professor Snape in trouble with the Ministry. I feel like everyone's conspiring against me."

Adrian laughed. "The Ministry is good at making people feel that way. For what it's worth, no Slytherin, especially anyone who has experienced Professor Snape as their Head of House, is going to let him take the fall for this. He has allies, and so do you."

Looking at his empty dessert plate, Harry sighed. "Want to come test that theory, with me? I need more snacks."