IN THE END, Harrywoke up. That was one of the many bouts of good news.

The bad news was that he had woken up just after Quidditch season had ended.

"The loss!" Wood had mourned, "The trophy that was sure to be ours this year! Gone!"

"Yes, gone, but at least, you know, Harry's alive." Will had said with a raise of an eyebrow, "So at least the trophy was the only loss."

All the Quidditch players took a moment to study him.

"He's not a fan, I'm guessing?" Wood noted, looking around.

"No. He's not a fan of anything remotely fun," Freya replied, shaking her head with a tsk as Harry's lips twitched upwards even as he gave her a disapproving frown.

Will glared, "Annoying, much?"

Freya raised her eyebrows, splaying her hands out in a 'what can you do a gesture. "See? Not a fan of anything fun."

Will opened his mouth to retort but Harry hastily cut in, holding his hands out to either side of them in the universal gesture of 'please, I beg of you, stop.' "Come on guys, we're celebrating remember? We're alive, we're almost second years, and, most importantly, we took the house cup from Slytherin yesterday-didn't we?"

"Yes, we did. Thanks to Neville over here!" Freya said happily as she reached over to pat Neville's head as he blushed, half choking on his drink from the sudden attention. "Once again, sorry that William jinxed you like that. It's the smart ones you have to look out for, always doing crazy things…"

Will rolled his eyes as Harry laughed, just as the bell sounded for the end of breakfast signaling for them to grab their trunks under the table.

They followed the bustle of students out to where the carriages were, the trip that should have been quick feeling long with one student after another wanting to come to see the trio, wanting to ask how their adventure was, others wanting to come to say goodbye, and the avoiding of all Slytherins alike who seemed to have made a point to be in every carriage they went into to hiss at them and kick them out. Luckily for them, The Weasley Twins and Lee Jordan were just as nasty when it came to kicking out Slytherins they disliked so the three of them found a place with them.

It wasn't until everything was calm again and the three of them had made it into a compartment on the train that Harry began to feel the familiar rising of dread and sadness in his stomach as he heard the last of the students getting on the train.

Back to the Dursleys, I guess.

The train whistle blew, and he bit his lip, looking out the window as he stared out to look at Hogwarts in the distance, the home he'd gotten so used to already feeling so far away.

"Hey, Incredibly Famous One?" He blinked and looked back to see Freya and Will looking at him Freya had a slight smile on her face as she kicked his foot lightly from the other side of the booth and Will tilted his head from beside him.

"Yeah…" Harry thought about it before smiling to himself, "Notoriously Infamous One?"

"Wow, so clever," Freya said with a huff of laughter before shaking her head, her expression turning serious again. "Mate, we're coming back here, you know. All three of us have six more years together. That is unless I get a better offer to be a hair model in the wizarding world or I win the lottery-"

"Which according to statistics you have a 0.0002 percent chance of succeeding to do," Will interjected.

"Shut up, William, I'm having a moment," Freya said tsking as Harry gave another huff of laughter. "Now where was I?"

"You were saying something about six more years?" Harry offered.

"Ah, yes. We have six more years at this school and summers not that long and also, I'm going to ask my mum and dad if we can have you over during the summer and of course, they'll say yes-"

"They would?" Harry asked, wide-eyed with surprise at both her certainty and the idea that he could come to visit during the summer as the thought hadn't occurred to him.

"Well, duh, you're incredibly famous, my best friend, and also I'm the youngest only girl of the family, and who can say no to this face?" Freya questioned as she tilted her head and widened her eyes innocently.

"I could say no to it," Will replied after a moment, frowning thoughtfully. "A million times over in fact."

"William," Freya said cheerfully as she closed her eyes, willing patience as she raised a hand towards the door, "get out of this compartment."

Will rolled his eyes, his lips tugging upwards slightly before he turned in his seat to look at Harry earnestly. "Look, we've stopped being first years and we'll soon be second years,and wedo have to go on summer vacation in order to become that. So, we can spend our time listening to Freya's monologue that had something to do with her being the spoiled one in her family and how we have to spend six more years with her, getting more depressed by the second-"

"Will," Harry chastised, failing to hold on to his disapproving frown as Freya was now staring at Will, mouth agape.

"-Or we can enjoy the time we have right now by playing some board game that I know Freya has in her bag and we can at least be happy with the knowledge that we'll see each other again whether we like it or not."

Harry nodded, "The latter seems nice to me."

"Boys." Freya said darkly as she got up with a huff, "See if I try to be emotional and caring ever again! Lesson learned you hear me?"

"At least you're learning something," both Will and Harry replied, almost on impulse as they grinned at one another.

Freya frowned at them for a moment before grinning herself, shaking her head. "Hilarious. I'm going to go find Lavender and Pavarti quick to say goodbye. You guys set up the game or whatever you want to do before I get back as I steam over the idiocy of boys after I walk out of here with indignant dramatic flair."

She tossed her hair back and they watched as she walked out of the compartment.

Dramatically.

Harry huffed a laugh as Will shook his head, reaching under his seat to find the game and Harry leaned back, looking out into the open fields they were passing thoughtfully for a second. "I'd...I'd like it."

"Like what?" Will asked as he rummaged through the bags.

"You said that we'd be back to see each other again, weather we liked it or not." Harry shrugged looking down at Will as Will looked up at him, eyebrows raised. "Well, I'd like it."

Will blinked before smiling, looking down.

"Yeah, Harry. I'm going to like it too.

SORCERERS STONE END