August to October 1995, summer before and 5th year

It took, of course, more than convincing to be returned home, because everyone at Grimmauld Place – the adults, anyway – was convinced that Harry was in grave danger and couldn't be left to his own devices and he needed someone to keep an eye on him and protect him and – Harry stopped listening after a while. If they were so worried about his safety, then how had no one noticed his absence from Privet Drive? In any case, Harry had to use his Gift to nudge them in the right direction. Just to be safe, he also suggested that there really was no need to keep an eye on him. He would be perfectly fine on his own.

Harry and Theodore spent the better part of August going through the various books and items Harry had brought from Grimmauld Place. Most of the books were added to the Notts' library, after the two of them had read them, and the items were investigated, taken apart and often discarded, because Harry tended to damage them irreparably in the process.

Mr Nott, for his part, did indeed relay information about Harry to his master. He was very open about that and, in return, Harry was very open about not caring at all. Although Harry did sometimes wonder what the Dark Lord might think about him. Not that it mattered, in the end. Harry did not encounter the Dark Lord during the holidays, nor did the Dark Lord establish any kind of contact or do … anything, really. For all Harry knew, except for Mr Nott telling him that he was keeping the Dark Lord updated, the Dark Lord could have not been back, after all. Maybe he just did not care for some fifteen-year-old teenager that had, supposedly, defeated him as an infant. Seemed reasonable enough.

Their booklists finally arrived on the very last day of the holidays, which was very unfortunate, because it meant everyone would be shopping in Diagon Alley that day. Mr Nott looked at them derisively, when they brought it up, and then ordered one of the house-elves to take care of their shopping list.

Harry was just glad he didn't have to do it. And that he hadn't waited for the letter to arrive, this year. That would have been disastrous.

o

Harry was watching. Harry was always watching. Theodore had certainly noticed, because Theodore was always watching him back. But Susan still seemed oblivious. Harry had noticed it before, Harry had always noticed, even if he hadn't acknowledged it. But seeing them like this, in stark contrast to the last two months that Harry and Theodore had spent almost entirely alone, just the two of them – it was so obvious. Harry found it fascinating.

"Are you alright?" Susan had asked the moment they had been alone, just the three of them, in one of the train compartments. She had been looking at Theodore specifically, her gaze full of sympathy.

"Yes," Theodore's short answer had been.

Susan's gaze had softened even further and she had reached out to squeeze his shoulder affectionately.

Harry had only watched the interaction curiously.

"A Ministry-appointed teacher," Theodore was currently saying, "sounds, in theory, like a step into the right direction. Dumbledore has certainly not done us any favours with the teachers he chose so far. But this could have never worked, because our Ministry is by no means competent enough to choose someone with the right qualifications for the position."

"So you believe Madam Umbridge will not be an improvement to our previous teachers?" Susan asked.

"Was the old man incapable of finding another teacher this year?" Harry interjected.

"It would seem so," Susan said. "And the newest Educational Decree passed just in time to allow the Ministry to step in."

Harry tilted his head. "You are telling me that Albus Dumbledore couldn't find anyone to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts for a year? That man has connections all over the world and surely more than enough favours owed to him to just pick someone at random."

Susan gave him a helpless look. "I don't understand it, either."

"Perhaps," Harry said slowly, "this is part of a bigger scheme."

"Dumbledore planned this," Theodore said. "But for what purpose?"

Harry shrugged. "That remains to be seen. Perhaps it will become obvious as time goes on. Perhaps it will reveal itself slowly, over time. Perhaps we will never know at all. Perhaps it wasn't part of a scheme in the first place."

"Not a puzzle you intend to solve?" Susan asked curiously. "It might keep you occupied for a bit."

"Oh, I've already found something to keep me occupied," Harry answered, never taking his eyes off of Theodore. He wasn't sure, though, whether it would be enough to last him through the school year.

There was a knock on the door to their compartment and a girl with long, blonde hair poked her head in.

"Hey, Hannah," Susan greeted the girl with a warm smile.

"Hi, Susan," the girl said. "Just making rounds. I noticed something odd about this compartment and just wanted to make sure everything's alright."

Interesting, Harry thought. She must have somehow, probably subconsciously, picked up on the privacy charms Harry had cast earlier.

"And that no rules are being broken," a boy said from behind her.

The blonde girl grinned. "That as well."

Susan glanced at Harry, who was watching impassively, and Theodore, who was giving the two intruders dark looks, before turning back to the other girl. "Everything's fine, here. We were just talking about our new teacher."

"Could go either way, this year," the boy from the corridor said. "The assigned book's utter rubbish, but who knows why they assigned it."

"Let's just hope for the best," the girl said. "It was nice seeing you, Susan. You as well," she nodded at Harry and Theodore. "Come on, Ernie, we better get going or we will never be done with our round."

"Prefects?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yes," Susan said, "each year, two fifth-year students per house get assigned as prefects and they will hold that position until they graduate. Did Professor Snape not ask you whether anyone wanted to become prefect?"

"Not that I remember," Harry said.

"Professor Snape told us that the headmaster ultimately makes the decision, so asking for volunteers would be useless," Theodore said.

Susan blinked. "But Headmaster Dumbledore listened to our Head of House."

"Because you are Hufflepuffs," Theodore said.

"Do you know any of the other prefects from our year?" Harry asked.

"I do," Theodore said. "But you wouldn't recognize anyone except, perhaps, Draco Malfoy and Ronald Weasley."

Harry titled his head. "The blonde boy and one of the red-heads?"

Theodore nodded. "Draco will not cause you any problems and Pansy can be reasonable when she wants to be, but I am not so sure about the Gryffindors."

"I think the Weasleys all find me creepy," Harry said, remembering his stay at Grimmauld Place. "Or at least very weird. Was that the Weasley I had to share a room with? He definitely finds me creepy, then."

"What did you do?" Susan asked apprehensively.

Harry shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, I mostly kept to myself."

"For some reason, I find that very hard to believe."

"Your faith in my ability to behave is astonishing, my dear," Harry said in a sweet tone.

o

The headmaster's office hadn't changed at all. Maybe Harry should do something about that. He could try to take some of those twinkling objects he only ever saw in this office, for one. Or maybe take a few of the books from the shelf behind the desk. They looked quite promising with the amount of protective magic surrounding them. Harry was sure he could find a way around the nosy portraits that were watching him and the old man, pretending to be asleep. Stealing from the headmaster without being detected sounded like a nice challenge. Maybe he could nick the wand, too, while he was at it – though that was only wishful thinking as Harry doubted Dumbledore would leave the Elder Wand of all things lying around in his office.

"My dear boy," the old man said in a heavy voice, interrupting Harry's thoughts. "I was hoping to speak with you, but when I arrived at Grimmauld Place, you were nowhere to be found. Imagine my surprise when your godfather told me he had brought you back to your aunt and uncle. I was even more surprised when I could not find you with your aunt and uncle. I was very worried, you must know. What if something had happened to you? The people I had asked to watch over you had neglected their duties, thinking there was no need. I was afraid Lord Voldemort's followers had managed to manipulate them somehow."

Harry blinked innocently. "But I was staying with my family all summer. I only went out a few times to meet with my friends. You must have just missed me, sir."

"Your aunt told me the very same thing," the old man said, his gaze piercing.

"May I ask what you wanted to talk to me about, sir?"

"Oh, yes. My dear boy, I was hoping you could help me with a small, but urgent matter. You must be aware of the Ministry's refusal to acknowledge Lord Voldemort's return. I believe they might be much more inclined to listen to you, the Boy-Who-Lived, than some old headmaster like me."

Harry widened his eyes. "But, sir, I know nothing about his return."

The old man looked at him with heavy disappointment. "Lying is a very bad habit to have, Harry."

"I am not lying, sir."

"Were you not present in that graveyard? Where you not there when Lord Voldemort regained his body?"

"No," Harry said truthfully, "I wasn't." After all, he had already been long gone by the time the Dark Lord had regained his body.

"Harry …"

"Sir."

Harry looked around the office – not with his eyes, but with every of his other senses, the magical one in particular. He let the headmaster's voice wash over him as the old man spoke of making people face reality and having responsibilities and offering reassurances that there was hope.

By the time the old man was finally finished and waiting for his response, Harry had almost managed to memorise the layout of the most intriguing objects and certainly the most important points of interest in the entire office. One day, he thought, he would walk in here and take everything. One day. Maybe after the current headmaster had died of old age and a new one was yet to be appointed. Maybe before that. Perhaps Harry would be part of the old man's untimely demise, perhaps that way he would get his hands on the last Deathly Hallow. Or, maybe, Harry would never set foot in this office again. Judging from the look in the old man's eyes when Harry declined his request, he might be back sooner rather than later for another pointless conversation, forced to listen to the old man's endless preaching.

It took longer than that to get out of there, of course, but by the time Harry reached the bottom of the spiral staircase, where Theodore was patiently waiting for him, Harry had already put most of the conversation out of his mind. Well – most of it, not all of it. The frustration, for one, lingered.

Harry looked at his friend in silence for a moment and then took his hand, dragged him out of the corridor, out of sight of unwanted eyes, and into one of the secret passageways. Then he let out the frustrated groan he had been holding back for a while now and buried his face in Theodore's shoulder, breathing in deeply. Theodore smelled of honey and thyme and the tea he liked to drink with every meal. Harry had never really thought about that, but he found that he enjoyed it quite a bit.

Theodore, for his part, stiffened at first – like always – and was unable to formulate a full sentence for the first few minutes before he managed to get himself under control and quietly asked whether Harry was alright.

"I'm perfectly alright," Harry replied, his voice muffled by the fabric of Theodore's robes. "The old man can just be increasingly frustrating and boring – oh, it was so boring, Theo!"

Harry just stayed like that for a while, cataloguing how Theodore reacted to the ghost of Harry's breath against his neck and how the magic around them reacted, how Theodore's magic reacted. By the time Harry pulled back, Theodore's usual mask of cold indifference was already back in place – although Harry thought his ears looked reddened, but it was hard to tell in the dim light of the passageway. Very intruiging.

o

The new Defence Professor was … useless. But that was nothing new when it came to Defence Professors. She did not treat Harry any differently compared to the other Slytherins and as far as Harry was concerned, the woman's presence was entirely of no consequence to him. She instructed them to quietly read the book she had assigned during her classes and do nothing else. She didn't even test them about the material they had to read. Harry wouldn't look a gift horse like this in the mouth and merely disguised some more interesting books for him and Theodore to read instead. Ironic, how they were reading the very same things this class was supposed to teach you against.

Harry did offer to do the same for Susan – for books of her choosing, of course, as he was fairly sure she would entirely disapprove of his and Theodore's reading material – but the Hufflepuff was determined to be a good student and do what the teacher said. Harry was sure she wouldn't last more than a few months, before giving in.

"Ah, well," Susan said, somewhat distracted, "if I do get bored, there are always other things to occupy myself with that do not go directly against Professor Umbridge's instructions."

Theodore snorted and it was such an unusual thing for him to do that Harry found himself almost missing what he said next. "Like daydreaming about Diggory?"

Susan blushed beautifully.

"Who or what is a Diggory?" Harry asked.

His friends both turned to him with incredulous looks.

"Honestly, Harry!" Susan huffed.

"The Hufflepuff champion," Theodore said.

"Ah," Harry said, barely remembering said boy from the previous school year. "That one." He tilted his head, eyeing Susan. "Do you have a crush on him?"

Susan's blush deepened. "Maybe," she hedged. "Who doesn't? But Cedric is already dating Cho Chang."

"Cho … Chang?"

"Her name is actually" And here Theodore made two sounds that Harry wouldn't have been able to enunciate, even if Theodore repeated them at a much slower pace. "– Zhāng Qiū. But there are barely any people here who can pronounce that and she has never complained about it as far as I am aware."

When Harry continued to look at him blankly, Theodore added, "The Ravenclaw Seeker."

"Uh-huh," Harry said, still having no idea who he was talking about, and turned back to Susan. "Tell me about your crush."

"Oh, I – I couldn't," Susan stammered. "That's – Really, Harry, you aren't even interested, why are you asking me that?"

The next time they came across Cedric Diggory, Harry watched as a moonstruck look overcame Susan. It was partly fascinating and partly horrifying, though Harry couldn't figure out why he thought that way. So he furrowed his brows at Susan's expression, then looked at Theodore and felt his frown deepen. He didn't understand this. At all.

Either way, Susan never actually came to Harry to have him disguise some books for her. The pink toad, meanwhile – some students had taken to calling their Defence Professor that behind her back and Harry had gleefully chosen to take over the nickname for himself – was officially promoted to High Inquisitor, which basically meant that she gave herself more work than should have been possibly to handle on top of teaching several dozen classes each week. The pink toad's inspections included some of Harry's classes and as Harry never really paid attention to his lessons anyway, he instead watched her take notes and ask pointed questions and still found himself bored at the end of it all.

Harry was bored, so bored – yes, the teachers were all assigning so much more homework because of the upcoming O.W.L.s, but there was nothing new or interesting to be found there and it wasn't like Harry needed all that stupid theory anyway, he could just – wave his hand and do magic.

"I thought you had already found something to occupy your mind this year," Theodore said, not turning around from his desk, where he was working on his potions essay.

Harry had finished that one during Charms and for Charms their homework was just practice this time and it wasn't like Harry needed any practice. Ever. But Theodore still needed to complete his homework.

They were alone in their dorm – their dormmates knew better than to disturb them at this time of the day. So Harry was just lounging on Theodore's bed, playing with the Resurrection Stone and complaining about his boredom – shoes kicked off, tie loosened, and the first few buttons of his shirt undone, exposing his collarbones. Harry knew exactly what he looked like.

Harry sighed. "I did. I do. But it's not enough."

"What is your current project any–" Theodore began, turning around, and then his breath hitched, "–way …"

Harry slowly raised his eyes to meet Theodore's and remained silent.

Theodore averted his eyes, then deliberately turned around again, his back to Harry. "Whatever it may be, you clearly need something more demanding."

"Maybe," Harry allowed, still watching his friend's back. "Any suggestions?"

"How about becoming a Dark Lord?" Theodore said lightly.

Harry snorted. "Still too much effort."

"It would certainly keep you occupied."

"I would be so busy, yet grow so incredibly bored after the first year or so." Harry pouted. "It doesn't sound very appealing, anyway. I can practice the Dark Arts without being a Dark Lord. I have no need for followers, nor do I wish to restrict myself to Dark Magic."

"It is not like you are practicing Light Magic, either way," Theodore remarked.

Harry shrugged – not that Theodore could see the motion.

"I practice magic," Harry said evenly. "And magic is just that – magic."

He rolled off the bed and stood up, pocketing the Resurrection Stone and slowly making his way over to Theodore's side, who looked up at him and promptly seemed to forget how to breathe.

Harry leaned closer, noting how Theodore's breath hitched, again. "You of all people should know that I am right when I say that magic is so much more nuanced than 'Dark' and 'Light' and 'somewhere in-between'. There is more to the world than a monochrome of black and white and shades of grey – it's full of vibrant colours and sounds and smells and tastes and feels and magics."

Theodore was still staring up at him, his eyes glittering with awe, and Harry couldn't help but to lean down. His lips tasted like honey.

AN

AN

Finally? Finally!
Don't be overly excited just yet. Just – you will see. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Btw, I actually copied the Chang, Cho = Zhāng Qiū bit almost word for word from my other fanfic, Blue of Blood (which I haven't gotten around to posting here, yet, but it's on AO3) - I liked it too much and it's not like Cho will ever come up again, so there's not going to be another chance to get into her name.