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The explanation with Ron had been… fun, to say the least. Well, the few seconds of it had been, he supposed. Ron left after but a few words, but thankfully, he hadn't said or done anything else. He simply left, and Harry supposed that would work for a time; it was better than it could have been. He only wished Lacerta and her friends would have been a bit more subtle rather than blunt as they'd been — he would have figured that'd be their more ideal way of doing things too.

"Have fun?"

Lacerta grinned at him, a smugness that wasn't unfamiliar present on her face, only sans the typically negative connotations he'd long associated it with. "Could you blame me?" she asked. "I just can't help myself when it comes to messing with a Weasley. It's familial, you see?"

He sighed and shook his head, but he wouldn't blame her. He recognised it was simply in her nature. "Just give him a bit of a break, yeah? Please?"

Lacerta pouted, and after a moment, she rolled her eyes and nodded, a more proper posture and visage made. "Fine. I'll be polite to him just as I'll be polite to the Groundskeeper. Consider yourself fortunate that I'm fond of you."

Harry furrowed his brow upon hearing those words, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Daphne did so. Her tone was calm and measured as always, but he supposed it lacked the iciness it typically had.

"You're just repeating the words your mother oft says to your father."

I could see Narcissa saying that to Lucius. The guy's a complete and utter twat, as Dudley would say.

"Thank you, Daphne, for your contribution to my conversation with Harry. It's greatly appreciated," Lacerta said… right before she took hold of his hand and yanked him away, off in the direction of an opening where no other peers of theirs seemed to linger. It would seem he'd been taken for a more private conversation. "So, Harry, gotten into any trouble yet? I've not heard any whispers, but one can never be too certain when it comes to you."

"Mean, and no, I haven't gotten into any trouble," — he pointed at her then — "And when I did get in trouble, it was usually you that made it happen."

"Getting you into trouble is just too much fun sometimes. You can't blame me, can you?"

He narrowed his eyes at her and extended a hand, pinching her side ever so slightly. "I can. I know that look you give your mum won't work on me."

Lacerta swatted at his hand and her pout grew larger and more innocent-looking, but he knew better. There wasn't an ounce of innocence in Lacerta. All cunning and intelligence, she is.

"You're incredibly boring today, aren't you?" Lacerta asked as she folded her arms and huffed at him, the girl going so far as to lean against him rather than a tree; when he gave her a look, she spoke again. "Hard as it might be to believe, you are cleaner than the tree is to lean against. At the very least, you're not covered in insects and muck."

"Was that supposed to be a compliment?" he asked in disbelief, her look continuing as she looked up at him.

"Not in the slightest, simply an observation that I find true. Now, when d— ah, there's the Groundskeeper," Lacerta wrinkled her nose, the expression prettier than Harry remembered. "He's pulling along some sort of beast as well. I do hope it doesn't smell."

Harry broke his gaze from being solely on Lacerta and turned so as to look at Hagrid and the 'beast' she'd taken with him. Sure enough, there was Hagrid, and beyond him was a creature Harry hadn't a clue as to what it might be. It was winged and large, feathered and with a vicious-looking beak, and it was unlike any creature Harry could ever recall.

It almost looked like a dinosaur in one of the many television shows Dudley would watch; Harry would sneak glances and what have you, but he wasn't exactly allowed to just sit and watch the tele all day.

"Any idea what it is?" he couldn't help but ask Lacerta as she pulled away from him with a quick jerk as if she'd only then recognised what she'd been doing.

"I would think it might be a Hippogriff. Manticore are far less visually appealing than the beast before us, and most others are without wings, obviously," Lacerta replied. When she took notice of the look he was sending her, she spoke again, a brow raised. "My mother insists that I learn as much as I can, whenever I can, and so we oft meet throughout the day to study. It's thanks to her that I'm oft in the highest marks of any class we have."

"Professor Snape helps a bit too."

Lacerta stood up straighter and smiled at him. "It does so help to have friends that make life easier. I could, I suppose, have Mother send word to Uncle Severus so that he might be more lenient with you," There was a pause where neither spoke and then Lacerta did so again. "There'd be a price, of course."

Of course, there'd be a price. I wonder what she wants… reckon there's not much I could give her that her parents can't.

"Well?" he asked when she didn't speak. "What's the price?"

Lacerta looked around as if she was surveying something, and when she seemed content with the results, she leaned in, whispering into his ear as Hagrid called for everybody to gather around him.

"I'd like a kiss on the cheek from you. That's my price."

He blinked at her. Surely Lacerta was kidding. That wasn't like her. Not remotely.

Then again… she had been very nice recently, and since he'd saved her. Maybe the price was serious.

Lacerta started laughing and danced away from him, her laughter stopping as she reached the halfway point between her and the other Slytherins, Daphne and Blaise included; the two had gone back to their friends when Lacerta had pulled him away.

Harry watched as Lacerta danced away from him, and after a few moments of watching her, he shrugged and walked back over to where Ron was standing. Upon reaching his longtime friend, he gave a nod, and after what seemed like minutes but was only seconds, the other boy returned the gesture. Harry felt a bit at ease upon seeing him do so.

Ron's animosity towards Slytherins was something that was widely known, and it was the greatest fear that Harry had when it came to the newfound relationship he possessed with the Slytherins. Especially Lacerta and those that were closest to her, since it was they who had been the worst to Harry's group of friends; Lacerta, most of all, had been especially horrible early in their 'relationship.'

But she'd changed, and Harry had gotten to witness that first-hand. Sure, it took him saving her life for her to be a bit less problematic, but he supposed it didn't matter all that much. So long as she changed, the reason for doing so was secondary.

"Gotten close to her, have you, mate?"

Harry was shaken from his thoughts when Ron spoke to him, the other boy's words a bit sharper than was normal. He wanted to sigh and run his hands through the wilderness that was the hair atop his head, but he withheld from doing so. Ron didn't hate them beyond reason, he was just conflicted, and Harry understood exactly why.

"Not as close as you think, but Lacerta's not horrible. I've gotten to know her a bit, and I can tell you she's not as bad as we thought — it just took a bit of… a lot of work. That's all."

Ron snorted and nodded, "Right," he said, "Forgive me if I don't quite believe that she's changed. Lacerta's been a horrible bird ever since we've known each other. I don't reckon that'll change for good no matter what happens."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but Ron shook his head, a bit of red colouring his face. That was a good way to gauge if a storm was coming.

"Save it, mate. It doesn't much matter to me what you do with her so long as you're careful," Ron patted him on the shoulder and then looked at Hagrid. It was obvious how he felt, but he wasn't taking it as poorly as he'd thought.

That was good. It was workable for sure. Harry just had to hope Ron wouldn't snap. Lacerta and her lot just had to stay polite… surely they could manage that.


He shouldn't have thought like that. It was Lacerta and the Slytherins. Of course, they'd start something. It was what they did and no matter what he said, there'd always be one idiot in their lot.

This time, it was Goyle, trying to impress Lacerta so as to 'date' her. That was a common theme, one of those two goons trying to do something to impress Lacerta, who, in turn, would never be impressed by displays of idiocy so as to prove how 'tough' they were. Harry supposed that was why she kept them around as nought but muscle. It wasn't like Crabbe and Goyle had a thought between them.

"How idiotic," Lacerta said with complete and utter contempt. "I could have ridden atop a Hippogriff, but instead, the opportunity's gone. I'll be sure to let Goyle know exactly what I thought of his attempt today."

Good. He's an idiot.

Harry blinked. Where had that thought come from? He'd never been that annoyed by Crabb or Goyle, so why now had he suddenly got so annoyed by the latter's action? Merlin, he'd even felt a sense of joy at Lacerta's words.

"Well," Harry said, garnering Lacerta's attention as the two walked, slowly, back to the castle; Hagrid had cancelled the class and had Goyle ushered to the medical wing for 'treatment'. In truth, he'd suffered more of a wound to his ego than anything else. "I suppose it got you out of class earlier than we would've otherwise been, yeah?"

Lacerta didn't respond with words. She pinched him, and it wasn't as hard as it could be, but he'd not describe the pinch as painless. When he regarded her, he saw a smirk and her straightened, well-practised posture that seemed the embodiment of snobbiness with nary a word.

He supposed the term 'Pureblood Princess' existed for a reason when girls like her were walking around; Daphne, Pansy, and Lacerta herself all acted much the same… although with varying degrees of success on account of some being prettier than others. He wouldn't name names or anything — Lacerta — but, well, the success spoke for itself oft enough.

"Aren't you two comfortable?"

Lacerta and Harry both turned to look at who had come to join them and upon seeing the trio approach, the two looked back at one another. Neither had expected to see Daphne and Blaise approaching with Hermione of all people at their backs. Maybe he wasn't the only one who'd begun to make friends outside of Gryffindor.

"You're welcome to join us so long as you're not a bore," Lacerta responded to Daphne, twirling on her heels and returning to her walk; one look was sent Harry's way to urge him to follow her.

For once, he did as Lacerta bid him to without a thought in the world.

I wonder how close we'd be had I accepted her invitation back in our first year?

He smirked at the ground, careful in ensuring Lacerta didn't see it as a thought reached his mind; she'd been a right bratty, mean bird back then.

"Me? A bore?" Daphne scoffed as she, Blaise and Hermione hurried up until the trio were only just behind Harry and Lacerta. "You must be confusing me with Pansy, difficult as such a mistake is to make."

Lacerta scoffed quietly, the expression and sound going unnoticed by Daphne as the group of five continued on to Hogwarts.

Harry, meanwhile, listened to the conversation the others were having whilst he walked beside Lacerta in silence. Her mood seemed a bit down now that they weren't alone any longer, but he supposed she may just feel more conservative when in the presence of others; Hermione especially. She hadn't even insulted her, much less sent a look of displeasure Hermione's way.

She's definitely changed.

"He'll be fine. He's just a simpleton."

"Crabbe and Goyle both are," Blaise added to Daphne's words. "Neither has ever been very bright. My mother's said they're practically at troll-level intelligence, and from what I've seen, it's quite believable."

Lacerta pulled an amused expression, and upon seeing that, Harry elbowed her ever-so-softly. Not enough to cause so much as an ounce of pain, but enough to garner her attention.

She turned to look at him and upon seeing the expression he wore, she nodded stoicly.

"It's true."

Harry laughed.


"I'd quite like never to experience the a Bogart again."

Blaise's words found hold in Harry's heart too. While Harry's Bogart might not have been as visceral or gorey as Blaise's had been — that being a mutilated hand — the fact that a Dementor had come out, one that needed to be stopped by Professor Lupin, gave him pause enough in handling such creatures. Merlin, even the Professor had seemed surprised, and Harry, in truth, had frozen to a degree; the creatures, he'd heard of them and felt their cold before, but he'd never known just how horrible it felt to be within but a few feet of them.

And to think the Bogart was weaker than a real Dementor. That was a sobering thought the likes of which Harry wasn't all too interested in thinking about for much longer.

"I do feel a sliver of luck that neither Daphne nor I had to handle them," Lacerta said from her spot beside Harry. "It does so pay to stay in the far back of the class where one can go unnoticed."

Daphne scoffed. "You sit back there because you've read ahead the same as I. It doesn't help that most classes are just reading from textbooks," Daphne looked over at Harry then. "For a change, this Professor's more hands-on. Wouldn't you say, Potter?"

They hadn't had that much time with him yet, but he shrugged. "He's better than most, I'd say. But we've not really been lucky with DADA Professors."

"Granger agreed with that when we spoke of them," Blaise said; he'd been going on about her whenever Harry spoke to him since the two had finally gotten to meet sans the presence of others attitudes.

Daphne and Lacerta seemed to recognise that too by the way they acted; Lacerta rolled her eyes and Daphne sighed. Neither disliked Hermione all that much, or so they claimed, but Harry felt that wasn't necessarily true. Lacerta had always been especially nasty to Hermione, as had Pansy.

"Why don't we discuss something more interesting — the Dementors, for example, or the escape of Sirius Black, the reason for their presence," Daphne said, steering the conversation away from class and Granger, and to something that interested her far more.

"What's there to discuss?" Lacerta questioned. "Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban, the minimalistic Auror presence and the larger presence of the Dementors is a result of that. It's quite cut and dry, Daphne."

"Gran—"

Harry spoke before Blaise could, likely saving the other boy from nasty looks. "They'd have to have reason to suspect he'd come here, and I suppose the reason is pretty well-known. But this is Hogwarts, and with everything between us and him, I think we'll be just fine."

Blaise, who Harry had interrupted, nodded in agreement. "I doubt anybody here expects an escaped lunatic, murderer, to make it past all the wards, Dementors, Staff and Aurors."

He heard a scoff whilst he'd been turned around looking at the other boy, but he couldn't quite tell who it'd come from. He thought it might have been Lacerta, but he couldn't be certain.

"Enlightening," Daphne said, the group turning a corner and finally coming within sight of the Great Hall's entrance. "The walk feels shorter every year."

"No, you were just especially short in our first two years. At least you've started to grow, finally."

Those words hadn't come from Lacerta or Blaise, and they'd certainly not been something that Harry said. No, they came from a girl with hair that was wavy, but not bushy, and as dark brown as he'd ever seen. Unlike the others who oft wore the Slytherin robes too, she didn't seem to wear a frown or expressionless mask, she was smiling and skipping over to the girl she'd just insulted.

Daphne sighed again, her shoulders sagging.

"Good evening, Tracey," she said.

Blaise and Lacerta echoed the greeting, and Harry did too after a few moments more. It was Tracey… Davidson? Davis? Something like that. He knew her first name easily enough, but her last eluded him, especially since they'd not so much as exchanged pleasantries a few times in their first two years of Hogwarts.

Slytherin-Gryffindor relationships had vastly improved since. In a way, that was all thanks to him, Ron and Hermione, even if the lattermost had been paralyzed during the final happening.

"I thought we weren't supposed to spend time with the Gryffindorks. What's changed?" Tracey nodded at Harry's presence, speaking just after he'd finished doing so himself. "Hey! Why're you both standing so close to him too? I thought we had a distance rule since Lacerta had that plan back in first year she never went through with? The one where sh—"

And like that, Tracey's voice stopped working. He saw Daphne and Lacerta both looking away innocently, their hands shifting by their sides. When he looked back at Tracey, the new arrival, she was pouting with her arms crossed and one foot tapping incessantly at the ground.

It didn't take a genius to figure out this wasn't the first time she'd almost said too much and lost her ability to speak as a result… he'd be lying if he wasn't the least bit curious to hear what she had to say.

Maybe one day he'd be able to. But that wouldn't be today, not as the group walked into the Great Hall and sought out their respective tables. Who knew, maybe there would soon be a day that they'd sit with one another regardless of what the table was typically used for; that being the feeding of one house.

Dumbledore would probably have Harry's back, he reckoned, if he tried to shake up the natural way of things. It'd all be in the sake of house unity, after all.


For a change, Harry wasn't with Lacerta or any Slytherins. He was walking with Neville, Hermione and Fay Dunbar; the lattermost had only recently gotten to be a little closer with him. Ron, on the other hand, wasn't quite as oft in his company as he'd once been. Not since Harry had alerted the other boy to the friendship he had with their Slytherin peers. Harry had hoped Ron could see past that as he'd started to do, especially upon meeting Lacerta's mother… maybe he could too, maybe it'd just take some time.

He could hope.

"You better not go easy on the pitch this year just because of your new friends, Harry," Fay said, the girl elbowing his side in a rough-housing sort of manner. "I'm not going to lose because you're soft on some Slytherin birds."

"Fay," Hermione said, exasperated. "Birds isn't very polite."

"It's not rude either," Fay countered.

Neville simply looked at Harry, an expression of complete neutrality on his face. At such a sight, Harry couldn't help but snicker, the other boy was all too often neutral when it came to arguments. It was a bit strange for a Gryffindor, and whilst others might think Neville a coward, Harry knew the other boy had guts when it came time to ante up.

Merlin, he still remembered the first year when he'd stood up against him, Ron and Hermione. There weren't many people that would have done so.

Harry tuned out the little banter-filled argument the two girls were having and looked past them, in the direction of the animated staircases. There would, occasionally, be instances in which the queue would be especially large, but the one before him was ridiculously so. He started to go a little bit faster, forcing the others to do so if they wished to keep up with him, and it was then that he heard a loud scream so terrifying that it sent a rush of adrenaline flowing through him.

It'd almost sounded like a person had been killed, and the thought urged him forward at great speed, disregarding the calls he heard of his name behind him.

Harry ran at speed, reaching the base of the stairs where the crowd had gathered in ten seconds if even that. There were a dozen or two people, and all of them were gathered and babbling unintelligibly. Harry looked between them all for nought but a moment, and then, he ran up the stairs. It took Harry a few seconds, if that, for him to recognise what had happened; somebody had slashed a portrait. The claw marks were massive, and the painting that had once existed was horribly damaged.

The fat lady, she was completely gone. Harry looked around, gauging whether or not he could find her, and initially, he failed to locate where she was. For a few seconds, he thought that she'd died as a person might, but then he realised that wasn't the case once his eyes found the fat lady hiding behind a rock some distance away, but within range of the Gryffindor entrance.

He waited for the stairs to move — something that took seconds — and then he was off, racing toward the portrait. Somebody had to figure out what had happened, if Sirius had made it inside, and the sooner that happened, the sooner he and the rest of his peers would be safe.

"Ma'am?" he asked respectfully, as he'd been taught. "Ma'am, it's safe. Can you tell me who attack—"

Harry heard the rushing of steps behind him, and in an instant, he was pushed aside for Professors and Prefects; no students sans those wearing the badge would be allowed near. He stepped away then, realising he'd have to investigate on his own, away from the eyes of the Professors.

Sirius Black was here, that was all he reckoned he knew based on the solemn faces. Now, he just had to fi—

Harry couldn't slip away from the crowd before he found himself being ushered away by a horde of Professors and Prefects. He was only vaguely listening to the crowd as they spoke, stuck in his mind as he was, but from what he could tell, the Professors had decided to move everybody to the Great Hall for the evening. It was the only way they could make sure all of the students were safe and accounted for… but it wasn't so bad.

At least this way, Harry could spend a bit more time with Lacerta. They saw one another nearly every day, but, it wasn't like they had the chance to speak all that often… at least, not as often as either wished to speak with one another.

Maybe, Harry thought, Maybe it'll be fun. Hermione doesn't seem to mind them lot all that much, and Ron, maybe if we're all together, he'll come around. I reckon he'd quite like Blaise.

"Finally!"

That reached Harry's ears as soon as he felt a hand on his shoulder. Fay.

"You gave us a right run, you did," Ron said, his face red with exertion.

Hermione huffed and narrowed her eyes at Harry whilst Ron and Fay exaggerated their breathlessness.

"You scared us, prat."