Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Twice a week?" Ron said, horrified.

Harry shrugged. "It wasn't so bad over the holiday. Snape's actually working at teaching me, now that he's decided I'm an ally."

"I think that's wonderful!" Hermione exclaimed. She sent a little warning frown at Ron, and then returned to smiling at Harry. "I'm proud of both of you. Mrs. Weasley is too, despite...." A tiny shrug filled in the mess with Bill. "Did you reply to Bill? I know you don't like writing letters, but he's going to worry ...."

With that conversational taboo gone, and most of Harry's absences explicable, January passed almost peacefully. The three of them fell back into something that closely resembled their previous three-armed friendship, and worked nearly as well. That Ron and Hermione had settled into a different sort of relationship bothered Harry less than he might have expected. He sometimes thought it would be perfect if he could tell them that he had a lover, too, but then the matter of whom, and what sort of things they did, would intrude. Somehow he couldn't imagine Severus joining them at anything without completely destroying their balance. Ron would never socialize with Severus, and Severus, Harry admitted, didn't seem to know how to socialize. If he ever relaxed, a few seconds of his play with Harry would have Hermione up in arms.

No, Harry decided, as he looked across the library table at the top of Hermione's bent head and caught Ron's hand stroking her arm. Even if Severus wouldn't be fired, and even if he had been willing to tell Ron about his less than conventional sexuality, he still would keep it secret while they were so frequently together. After leaving school, he could tell them, but it still shouldn't be something they ever saw.

While he was still feeling uneasy about this plan, Professor McGonagall swept up to them.

"There you are, Mr. Potter. The headmaster wishes to speak to you."

Dumbledore had seemed like an enduring constant when Harry was younger. Now, the aging that Harry had first noticed two years ago was accelerating. Every time Harry saw him, he looked more frail and more tired. Where once he would have bounced up to greet Harry, he now remained seated, only straightening his bowed shoulders and belatedly summoning animation into his worn features.

"Harry. Thank you for coming promptly."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, no, nothing. I've merely come across a new source on curse scars, with elements that may be relevant to your case, and wished to ask you a few questions."

For the next few minutes, that was what he did. Did the scar ever feel stiffer at some times than at others? Did Harry ever have unexplained muscle aches? Did he like custard? Marmite? Dumbledore handed him two lengths of fur and asked how he felt stroking each, and Harry, sure he intended Legilimency, increased his occlusion, holding the feeling of the fur blandly in the front of his mind. The one he liked better turned out to be rabbit, and the other ermine, but he wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, other than that he had pedestrian tastes.

"How are the lessons with Professor Snape progressing?"

From the keen interest in Dumbledore's eyes, Harry was certain the question was not social or irrelevant. The old wizard had probably detected his occlusion.

"Quite well, sir. I'm making progress in my defenses again indirect combat hexes, and my occlusion has become quite good."

"But you don't need to use that with me, do you Harry?"

Harry stared back at him for a moment, showing that he was not afraid to meet Dumbledore's gaze, but his voice was mild when he answered. "If you feel the need to ask, sir, then yes, I do."

"I would hope you wouldn't have secrets from me, Harry."

"Of course I have secrets!" Harry exclaimed. "I'm seventeen. Do you think I want you to know what I get up to?"

As he had hoped, that lightened the matter, but again, Harry doubted it was coincidence that he was asked to touch Fawkes and repeat the oath he had made to the Order.

"Very good, Harry." Dumbledore seemed reassured, or that was what Harry gathered from the newly bright tone of his voice, but when he turned, Dumbledore, who seldom wielded a wand, was holding one mere inches from his face.

"Sir?"

The wand tip touched his scar. The sensation was of a tight pinch. Harry saw the old wizard's lips move, but could not make out the incantation.

"Sir?" he repeated, alarmed, but Dumbledore was stumbling back and sinking into his chair.

"Now, now, Harry," he said, holding up his hand to forestall questions. "You have your secrets, and I have mine. What I just did may not protect you, but it will do you no harm. I'm afraid I cannot explain beyond that, just at this moment. We will speak before the next meeting of the Order. Now I believe Professor McGonagall --"

As if she had been waiting outside the door for her cue, McGonagall suddenly entered, and Harry found himself being cheerily bustled out of the room.

Dumbledore wasn't at breakfast the next day. A few people asked Harry about it, but he knew no more than any of them. It was irritating to have so many people assume he was in Dumbledore's confidence, when he was so keenly aware that he was anything but. He spent the morning in sullen gloom, moving from lesson to lesson with his head down, speaking to no one. Hermione always seemed to be at his elbow, just in case, he supposed, that he wanted to open up. On his way to Transfiguration, he took an unusual, longer path, in hopes of avoiding her for a few extra minutes.

Just before the corner, a sweep of cloth brushed across the side of his leg, and he stopped barely in time to avoid colliding with Severus, who had cut into his path.

"Going somewhere, Potter?"

Harry summoned a glare from memory, although he actually felt cheerful for the first time that day.

"My Transfiguration lesson, sir."

"What an interesting route you have chosen," Professor Snape sneered. He leaned close. "Be waiting in my room after lessons -- naked, in bed, with cuffs on."

"A bit hungry?"

"Yes."

Harry looked up and down the empty corridor.

"No, Potter. Get to your lesson before I take points."

With a genuine laugh, Harry headed off to Transfiguration.

Severus sat up in the bed, his back against the headboard, and drank in the sight of his young lover. Harry was draped back in the bed, in a boneless, post-orgasmic sprawl. He cracked his eyes open, the right slightly more than the left, as if more was too much to contemplate.

"Mmm. Will you still be interested in me when I'm not one of your students?"

His eyes closed again, fortunately. Severus did not think Harry saw his momentary surprise. He hadn't expected what he thought of Harry then to be relevant. In fact, he was fairly sure it would not be.

"Does it matter? You won't be here."

Harry's eyes did open fully at that. "But we'll see each other, won't we?" He sounded almost anxious. "I mean, what about the business? And if I kill Voldemort, you can visit."

"If you kill Voldemort, I will be glad to have any sort of affair that you wish." Severus could feel himself grinding his teeth. He forced that to stop. "However, I expect you will find yourself inundated with admirers. Some are sure to be more suitable."

Harry smiled at that, but shrugged. "I don't know. I suspect I'm a bit messed up. Maybe they'll all be too normal for me."

"And I am sufficiently odd."

Harry grinned at him insouciantly. "You know you are. Wherever would I find another such agreeable old pervert?"

"You might be surprised," Severus returned dryly.

"Oh, all right. Probably that would be easy enough." Harry continued to smile, but it didn't reach his eyes, anymore. "Not one I respect though."

"I..." Severus had not been expecting that turn. Thank you stuck in his throat, so he merely nodded while he collected himself. "A point." Tired of sitting, he stretched out on the bed beside Harry, who obligingly turned onto his side to face him.

"So, how much does it matter that I'm your student?"

"This is not a habit of mine."

"I understand. But is it what you want? I mean, we do it in your office, in the classroom...."

"We have fetishized to some extent, have we not? But I'm sure we could find other sports."

"Good." Harry, apparently satisfied with that, rolled onto his back again. For a moment, they were both quiet. Severus was just telling himself that he must not sleep for longer than thirty minutes, when Harry came back up on his side.

"Could you ... Does my scar look different?"

Nothing good could trigger such a question. Severus sat again, pulling Harry up also, and raised the lights. His scar didn't, at all. "No. It's not even especially red. Are you feeling Him?"

"No, nothing." Harry scowled. "Dumbledore did something to it last night, and wouldn't explain what."

"Tell me everything."

At the end of the story, Severus scowled. "The old fool is too fond of his secrets. He should have learned better with you."

"One would expect. Unless the point is to have me worry about it, so Voldemort sees."

"He did this after complimenting you on your Occlumency, however."

"I'm not sure complimenting is the right word. Observing. Objecting, almost."

"You think that he wanted something out of your head that he was unwilling to ask for?"

Harry snorted. "He more or less admitted it."

Severus hesitated, wondering how much to say to Harry. He stood up, reaching for the worn dressing gown that lay across the foot of the bed. "Let's discuss this in the sitting room; I left my cigarettes there anyway, and falling asleep would be risky."

Snape customarily sat in the armchair, but he was not yet ready to stop touching Harry. It wasn't a desire to cuddle, he told himself, just that the correct point of satiation had not yet been reached. He sat on the couch and patted his thigh. "Lie down."

Harry flopped onto the couch and settled his head on Severus's lap with an unnecessary amount of rubbing his cheek against Severus's crotch, and then smiled innocently up at him. "Like this, sir?"

"With, perhaps, a bit more support of the possibility of strategizing."

"Can I really get you hard again so soon?"

"Penile erection is not a necessary component of being sexually distracted," Severus observed dryly. He lit a cigarette and passed it to Harry. "Here. If you must have something in your mouth between words."

Harry laughed, pleased, and blew smoke up at him while he lit another. "See? Where would I find someone else who could say that with a straight face?"

"That you have an oral fixation?"

"No, the 'penile erection' bit." Harry sniggered.

"Oh, dear god. Do try not to act your age -- I'm accustomed to you seeming rather older, when you're not gagged."

Then, of course, he had to wait for Harry's hilarity to subside, the delay made tolerable by how entertaining Harry seemed to find him. Very few people appreciated -- or, in fact, noticed -- the humor of such comments. Although that was sufficient reason why Harry was an enjoyable toy, it was also, he decided, part of why he was a valuable ally. While they had been settling in, he had decided that there was nothing that he would tell anyone that he would not tell Harry, and a significant category of non-sexual things that he would tell Harry, but no one else. Harry had become, somehow, his closest comrade. Severus smirked slightly as he looked down at the boy, whose breaths were now growing more even. If one had to have a single trustworthy ally in the war, one could scarcely do better than Harry Potter, with his power rising and his reflexes at their peak. He could not take on Voldemort yet, but outside of Hogwarts, he was becoming a close second to the declining Albus Dumbledore.

The thought reminded him why they had come out here.

"Allow me to summarize," he said, pausing to blow tendrils of smoke out over the candles, and to flick his wand at the fire, compelling it to rise. "Dumbledore asked you a bizarre series of questions, noted your Occlusion, did something to your scar, and then made you repeat your oath to the Order of the Phoenix.

"Mm, no. Not quite." Harry sucked on the cigarette and then tossed his head, again rubbing against interested portions of Severus's anatomy, but this time seemingly without intent. "No, Dumbledore asked me a bizarre series of questions, noted my Occlusion, and then made me repeat my oath to the Order of the Phoenix. After that, he did something to my scar."

"Ah. So it was important that he be sure of your loyalties first."

"Apparently." Harry grimaced. "As if they could be in question."

"If the Dark Lord entrenched himself deeply enough, they might be."

"He doesn't have control of me."

"I know." Severus smirked. "But you do not always occlude when with me." He stroked Harry's fringe from his forehead. The scar looked like it usually did, when his own Mark was not burning. "How did it feel?"

"Like a pinch."

"Might you be more specific?"

"Like -- like someone pinching my nipples." Harry scowled at Severus's smirk. "Not ... not that it was arousing, quite. But sensitive."

"Ah." Severus managed to keep a straight face as he slipped a hand up inside Harry's gaping dressing gown. "Like this?" He pinched one nipple between the pads or forefinger and thumb. "Or like this?" Rolling his fingers slightly, he put the slightest bit of nail into the pinch. Harry arched, the movement parting his dressing gown further and revealing that it had been long enough for the recuperative powers of a seventeen year old.

"Ah! Like that, but not good. Please...."

"In a moment." Severus backed off to a lighter, more teasing, pressure. "My conjecture," he said, "is that Dumbledore overextended himself. You noticed that he wasn't at lunch, today?"

"Or breakfast." Harry rubbed his face against Severus, again deliberately. His breath was warm.

"The staff was told he was too ill." Severus was annoyed at how his voice tightened. "Can you not focus on strategy?"

"Not until you fuck me again. Or whatever. Depending on what you're up to."

"If you continue with that rubbing, what I'm up to will be the least of your worries."

When Harry returned to Gryffindor tower, Ron immediately spotted him. With Hermione, he hurried over, and they seized his arms and pulled him into a window alcove.

"Where were you?"

"Just walking. I lost track of time."

"You missed dinner."

"I'm aware of that, Ron, okay? I picked something up from the kitchen. It seemed better than walking in after everyone else was sitting down."

"Harry, really," Hermione said, managing to capture an almost professorial level of I'm terribly disappointed in you. "We were supposed to be studying for the Charms NEWT from three-thirty to five, and the Transfiguration NEWT from five until six...."

Behind her, Ron made a face, and Harry knew he would stop pushing.

"I don't think I need that much revi--"

"But you do!" Hermione got that frantic look that frequently came over her, these days. "Are you pre-applying anywhere? I've applied to the Ministry, for the Committee for Experimental Charms and the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and if they accept me, it will be conditional, and if I don't have a Charms EE--"

"Hermione," Harry interrupted. "You'll have an O."

"What about you? Have you thought about a job?"

"It's barely March."

"That's late, Harry! Hufflepuff had an application tutorial in January, and started sending out applications a month ago!"

"Well, yeah, they'd have to, wouldn't they?" Ron said easily. "Give it a rest, Hermione. Harry can take a walk if he wants to."

On the way to the library, he leaned close. "Might join you next time, mate."

What with Hermione's fretting and Ron's unspoken worry, Harry knew he should not attempt to even speak to Severus again before his Thursday evening combat lesson. Although that had been their plan in January, the limited schedule had come to be supplemented by glances and comments that conveyed private meaning beneath a veneer of normality. Now he was taking more care. By dinner on Thursday, he found himself waiting anxiously for contact.

The moment after the puddings appeared, his scar twinged. Could it could be some delayed side-effect from what Dumbledore had done to him? Harry looked up at the head table, desperate to see that nothing was happening, but that thin hope was immediately dashed -- Severus was already rising from his seat. He wasn't holding his arm stiffly, and the summons felt mild. Harry pushed down the temptation to seek along his link to Voldemort; it was too dangerous, not for him, but for Severus.

"Brilliant," Ron said, with evident satisfaction.

"What?"

"You're out of this evening's lesson. We can work on that Charms project."

Harry scowled. "I'd rather have the lesson."

"With Snape?" Ron asked incredulously. "Harry -- you can't mean it!"

"What? He's a damn good fighter, and he's actually interested in teaching me, for once."

"Bet he's still horrible."

There was no way to answer this, so Harry looked down at his tart, instead. After a moment, he pushed it at Ron. "I can't eat this."

A soft gasp made him look up. Hermione was staring at the head table. Following her gaze, Harry saw that Dumbledore had also come to his feet, but he was less than steady. Professor McGonagall rose and offered him her arm, and they left the hall together.

"What's that about, Harry?" Seamus asked, past Ginny.

"I don't know! I told you, he doesn't tell me anything."

"But everyone knows you're his favorite."

"I am not."

Lavender tossed her hair. "Really, Seamus. That was last year."

Ron leaned close. "You've gone out of fashion," he whispered.

It should have been funny, but it wasn't. Harry made his excuses and ducked out of the great hall. A few other people were leaving, so he wasn't entirely alone, but he didn't look back. If Ron or Hermione was following him, he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction.

He paused in the dormitory only long enough to get his cigarettes out of his trunk, and he left by the window. As he paused to cast a charm up the side of the tower, he saw the door open, but he didn't wait to see who had entered.

Harry was feeling more relaxed -- or at least, less anxious -- by the time Ron appeared over the roofline. He quickly spotted Harry and shot over, hovering with his feet an inch off the rooftop. Harry kept his hand down on the old slates, though he knew this didn't make the cigarette he was holding much less obvious.

"You could fall off, you know," Ron said angrily. "You shouldn't be up here alone."

"I use an Anchoring charm." Harry smirked at him. "You're turning into a real prefect, aren't you?"

Ron ignored him, though even in the moonlight, Harry could see his cheeks darkening. "Never heard of it."

"Snape taught it to me." At Ron's puzzled expression, Harry shrugged. "Good for collecting things that grow on cliffs."

"I thought he was teaching you combat!"

"Ron. He's used it for spying. And escaping. Not everything he's teaching me is about attack. Some of it is about getting away afterwards."

Ron rubbed the back of his neck, but he seemed to accept the sense of this. "So those vines you used to get up here from the window...?"

"Scaling charm, yeah." Harry gave up waiting and took a drag on the cigarette, then exhaled a trail of smoke. "Look, either fly back or land. If you land and hold on to that spire-thing for a moment, I'll cast an anchoring charm for you."

"And my broom, yeah?"

"Of course your broom! Think I want my Keeper on some school broom?"

With a grateful smile, Ron landed. The slates were smooth, and there was a certain amount of scrabbling as he belatedly caught at the decorative finial, but then Harry cast the anchoring charm, and he sat, letting out a long breath. After he was settled, he looked sidelong at Harry and laughed. "You're mad, you know. Come up here just to smoke?"

"And be alone," Harry retorted, but then he shrugged. "Since you're here, though...."

"I didn't even bring a schoolbook."

"I noticed."

"Mum would box your ears if she saw you doing that, you know, seventeen or not." Ron hesitated. "That can't be what you disappear for -- not all that time."

It took Harry a moment to figure out what Ron meant. "No," he said, agreeing. "If I smoked that much I wouldn't be able to make it through lessons."

"Sometimes you look like you can't," Ron observed, but he didn't argue. Apparently comfortable with the Anchoring charm now, he lay back on the slate tiles, but gave the stars only a cursory glance before his attention returned to Harry.

"So, Harry...." He took an audible breath. "You have a girlfriend, yeah?"

Harry tensed. "No."

"Come on, Harry! What else could take up so much time?"

"I don't." Harry glared at Ron. "I mean it, Ron. I do not have a girlfriend."

"What, just a girl you play with? Or two?"

"No. Ron, drop it. That's not why I go away sometimes."

"Then why?"

"You know how I said I came up here to be alone?" Harry retorted. "I didn't mean just to get away from study plans."

Ron sighed and sat up again. He looked out over the darkness. Only the lake reflected enough moonlight to be visible in the night.

"Are we ever going to be like we were?"

Harry shrugged. It seemed unlikely, but he didn't know how to say that without it sounding like a rejection, and that wouldn't be what he meant.

"Well?"

"I don't know." He sighed. "Probably not, but it's not your fault. We're just older, you know?" He gave Ron a forced smile. "We'll still be friends." Maybe. If you don't hate me once you find out what I've got instead of a girlfriend.

"Hey." Ron twisted towards him. "You know, I've been thinking. We should get a place together. After school."

"No!" The word came out quickly, projected out by panic.

"Why not? Look, I know we fight sometimes, but--"

"It's not that!" Harry flailed for an explanation that would make sense. "Look, I want to live alone, okay? I never have."

"I'm not sure--"

Ron's objection stopped in mid-breath as a change in the sky captured his attention and Harry's at once. Together, they twisted to look. In the distance, they could make out the flickering green stain of the Dark Mark.

"That's Hogsmeade."

Ron nodded dumbly and reached for his broom.

"Take me?"

"We need to tell Dumbledore."

Harry didn't want to. He wanted to head straight towards the heart of the trouble and see who was still there to be fought or saved. Ron was right, though. It was more important to alert the Order.

They made it in the window and down the stairs and out the portrait hole, but on the stairway, a broom came speeding up towards them. Harry had just identified McGonagall, sitting in an incongruously proper straight-backed sidesaddle, when she stopped in a vibrating hover beside them.

"Professor! Hogsmeade--"

"Attacked. I know. Back to Gryffindor, now, boys! Quickly!" She flew on more slowly, so they could follow.

Harry and Ron ran back up the stairs, catching up in time to hear Professor McGonagall tell the Fat Lady that no one but herself was to leave until she gave the word. The Gryffindors were called down to be counted and the prefects to be given instructions, and then McGonagall departed. Harry considered leaving by the window, but when he poked his head out, Nearly-Headless Nick shooed him back inside.

The night was spent in strained whispers and very little sleep. Ron left early in the night, but Neville and Seamus continued to keep Harry awake. The windows were squares of light by the time sleep overtook him.

When Harry awoke, he was still exhausted, but he felt a need to get up, as if continuing to sleep would make the world more dangerous. Ron's bed, when he looked, was empty. He dragged himself out from under the covers and discovered he was still in half of his clothes. After he changed them, he pulled on yesterday's robe, which had not been taken by the house elves overnight, and then headed down to the common room.

When he got there, it was clear where Ron had spent the night. He was fast asleep on one of the couches, with Hermione sitting across from him on another one. Harry didn't think they'd had any fun together; a first year was sleeping on the couch by Hermione, his head in her lap, and a third year was curled up over the arm on the other side. Harry recognized the two as siblings, and from Hogsmeade.

Hermione raised her finger to her lips in warning. While Harry stood quietly, she levitated over a cushion and with slow caution slid out from under the child's blond curls and moved the substitute pillow into her place. He squirmed, but settled, and she walked across the room to the portrait hole, which swung open.

"Guess we're not confined anymore," Harry remarked, once it had closed behind them.

"No, dearie," the Fat Lady murmured. "Over an hour ago. Oh, I wish I could sleep! My nerves!"

"Do try," Hermione said kindly. The Fat Lady did look exhausted, her eyes swollen and dark underneath.

Harry nodded. "We may need you alert later." He realized this was a mistake when the Fat Lady let out a little cry and Hermione swatted him. "Sorry," he muttered. "Didn't get much sleep myself."

They walked down to breakfast, or at least Harry supposed it was time for breakfast. The sky outside was overcast -- the sort of all-over cover that can presage rain in a minute or in a day -- and it could have been later or earlier than he thought. The half-light added to the unreal quality of the two of them walking down the wide stairway alone.

"Should we have woken Ron?"

Hermione shook her head. "It was getting light outside when he finally got to sleep." She looked as if she hadn't slept at all, herself. "It's strange, how the corridors are so quiet."

"Yeah. I feel like I'm dreaming." It wasn't a good dream, either. He shifted closer to Hermione.

Entering the Great Hall did not make him feel any better. The scattered other students at the house tables looked as pale and rumpled as Hermione, and the few staff members up at the high table were all wearing black robes, even Professor Sprout. Dumbledore's throne-like seat was empty. Harry sent an anxious look at Severus, but the man did not appear to notice him. Harry sat beside Hermione and stared at his plate. As if she had been waiting for him, McGonagall got to her feet.

"I apologize to those of you who will hear this more than once, but it seems impractical to wait for a more formal meal. I must sadly inform you that Professor Dumbledore died last night. We will miss him...." Her voice caught, and though she seemed to have intended to say more, she sat. Professor Sprout put an arm around her shoulders.

The announcement with met with fewer words than noises. Harry realized that one strained keening sound was coming from himself, and tried to choke it back. At least Hermione didn't seem to have heard. She was wide-eyed and whispering "no" repeatedly. At a flurry of sound from above, Harry realized that McGonagall had not been waiting for him; she had timed the announcement to beat the arrival of the morning post, with all its newspapers.

He hadn't touched the food, but he knew he wasn't going to. He stumbled to his feet and left the hall, alone.

The door opened behind him. Harry ignored it, continuing to stare at tendrils of grey smoke vanishing into a grey sky.

"New vice?"

Hermione's voice was kind. Her hands settled on his arm, holding on gently and possessively. Harry laughed harshly.

"No. I just can't be arsed to be discreet, right now."

"Oh."

Harry expected her to yell, but she just leaned her head against his shoulder. That was bad, he thought. He turned to take her in his arms and she collapsed against him. She shuddered, but silently. There were no tears.

"He hadn't been well." Harry dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, freeing his hand to stroke her hair. "You know he hadn't." Not since he did whatever it was to my scar.

"But ... but dead? You've seen him fight You-Know-Who! And he was killed by Death Eaters?" She sagged, resting her head back against his shoulder. "And they killed two families to call him out. Right in Hogsmeade."

"Anyone...?" Harry wished he knew the names of the kids who had been on the couch with her.

"It seemed completely random. Purebloods -- one couple and one old man. The building right next to the Hogshead, so they weren't even influential."

She stepped away, wiping at her eyes, which were finally catching up with her anguish, and pulling the Daily Prophet from her schoolbag. She handed it to him, and he sat on the damp stone steps to unfold it.

Dumbledore Dead!

changed to

Attack on Hogsmeade kills 6

and back again. He lit another cigarette and began to force himself to search for the facts behind the hyperbole.

"Harry?" Hermione asked. She picked up the half-empty pack and grimaced at it. "Is this part of why you disappear?"

Harry shrugged. "Some." Who were the other two people killed?

"I don't believe it's all practice, you know. If you were doing that much combat magic, you'd want a partner, some of the time."

"Could you just let it go?" Annoyed, he brought the paper down on his leg, sharply enough to crackle.

She made a face, ending it with a weak smile. "I worry about you having other vices."

Upset as he was, Harry still couldn't keep his mouth from quirking at that. He was sure she didn't want to know. "Look -- I really can't tell you. Sorry."

"That's the problem," she said, twisting her hands in the straps of her bag. "I can't think of anything you couldn't tell me that wouldn't be you being stupid."

"It's not-- It's--" He stopped to breathe and to think. No one was near. The thick oak door to the entrance hall was fully shut behind them. "Look, it's a person, okay. I have a ... a lover. And no one can know."

She stared at him. "So you lied to Ron?"

"What?"

"That was our first guess. We've been talking about it since Christmas. Last night, Ron said he'd asked if you had a lover, and you swore you didn't."

Harry laughed slightly, little huffs of still-smoky air. "That wasn't what he asked."

"Oh really?" She had her arms crossed over her chest, now, and was looking fiercely angry. "He told me that he'd asked you straight out--"

"If I had a girlfriend. I don't."

She frowned. "Or a-- Oh!" Rolling her eyes, she sighed. "It's a boyfriend, then?"

"Something like that, yeah, but don't--"

"And since when are you that precise? I can't believe you didn't tell him that, rather than denying it and making us both worry!"

"Don't tell him. Don't you dare."

"What?" The incredulity on her face was mirrored in her voice. "Harry! You can't-- Why not?"

"I'm not going to tell him that." Harry huffed in a pale imitation of a laugh. "Hermione, I share a bedroom with him! I'm bloody well not going to tell him that I like men as well as girls." She was silent, and he bit his lip. "Better, maybe."

"You can't think he'd care!"

"Of course he'd care!" Harry realized that he was shouting and exhaled quickly. "Hermione, trust me. It's a boy thing, okay? He'd care."

"And this is why you won't share a place with him," she said sharply. "But you won't tell him."

"Right." The sharpness in his voice said the verdict was not debatable.

"Harry. He thinks you're dropping him."

"It's not the only reason I can't share with him, okay? And I'll visit lots and try to reassure him. But please don't tell. I trusted you."

"But you should trust him," Hermione insisted.

"Boy thing," Harry repeated, and she rolled her eyes.

"You can't never tell him. Not and stay friends."

"Once I'm not in a room with him," Harry promised. "After we leave school. I'll have both of you over, and I'll tell him, all right?"

She let out a little annoyed huff. "You have two weeks after we leave school, Harry. Two weeks."

"Agreed."

He held out his hand. She still looked annoyed as she shook it.

It occurred to him that he'd gone two minutes without thinking about Professor Dumbledore.