Goyle and Crabbe played like they never played a game before - slow, and steady. They got better at it, and as they did, they wagered more. They weren't marks, not exactly - not that Harry'd expected to find any of those. But they were certainly far from the dunderheads he'd expected from his Gryffindor observations. They might be hammer-fisted lunks (they were big, and Harry knew that meant they had their place in a fist fight - or a wanded one for that matter), but they were still Slytherins. Still ambitious. Harry smiled, and tossed another ten buttons into the pot. Goyle could have the whole of the buttons, for all Harry cared. And it might do the doughty bugger some good.

They kept playing for a few hours, and the buttons changed hands a few times - Malfoy even managed to sucker Crabbe out of half of his buttons. "I can see why you like this game," Malfoy chortled. Minds weren't changed by one card game - but adolescent minds ran on girls and rebellion. Malfoy was a little young for either, mind.

Still, it was a good start - and they were his roommates. It didn't pay to not know anything about them.

The next morning, early as the sun was up, Harry was awake and down in the Common Room. The quiddich players weren't awake yet... but Pansy was. "Potter," she said, waving lazily at him. It was as much a command as anything - an "invitation" to have a discussion, of some sort. Harry approached with some wariness. She hadn't been the nicest person in his last life, after all (he'd cheerfully forgiven her for being willing to sacrifice him in order to "not die" - because he'd gone off to sacrifice himself for the exact same reason. One life balanced against many. As an Auror, that was his sworn duty - it wasn't for a natty seventeen year old, but neither was it his duty to cower and watch as everyone he loved was murdered to get to him.)

"Parkinson," He responded, trying for genial and failing badly. It came across as stiff.

"Haven't you forgotten about something?" Pansy snapped back, starting to look cross (this meant she'd been cross from the start, obviously).

"Not that I know of," Harry said, with a soft smile.

"You didn't think you'd just introduce yourself to the boys of your year, did you?" Pansy said, "We can do cards after lunch if you like." It was couched as a request, but Harry knew it wasn't. It was the sort of request that bent, and only bent, for detention. In his past life, "I said I'd visit Hagrid" would not have cut the mustard.

"My game?" Harry responded, despite the prickle on the back of his neck. The girls had a network of informants, otherwise they wouldn't have known what he was up to that quickly. None of the boys of his year went to the Common Room after cards.

"Sure," Pansy said with a satisfied smile. "Let's do that."

Harry thought, through breakfast and then the impromptu Quiddich practice that occurred before lunch (he sat outside with the wind in his hair, doing History homework. Not as much fun as flying, but at least he got to breathe fresh air). It was a good thing to get some intelligence on the girls, he supposed - although too strong of relationships with girls might get him labeled as a girly-boy, and that was an extremely bad idea when you were as short and slight as he was (looking vulnerable was worse than being vulnerable. He might have to put a kid in the ground. Once again, he thanked the stars that Malfoy was interested in him, and didn't see him as a mortal enemy - his aunt was in prison, and though she might be crazy, there was still a bond of family there - either Goyle or Crabbe could put the kibosh on him in his sleep, for goodness sakes). He didn't know how if there were boys who swung for the other team around, but those were a danger too.

After a calm lunch, where he sat with the boys, Harry Potter walked into the girls' dorm, unable to escape the frisson of "I'm not supposed to be here..." Harry asked an older girl, "Aren't there wards on the girls' dorm?" She smiled waspishly back, "Same as the boys' dorm, anyone who means to be aggressive may not enter rooms or bathrooms. Look out for yourself in the hallways, babe in the woods." She cackled as she trotted deeper into the girls' dormitory.

[a/n: Pansy and the girls demanded an equivalent amount of screentime.]