Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Roy stared blankly at the man on his doorstep, trying to figure out who he was through the blaring pain of his hangover. He was sure he remembered the old man from his days learning alchemy under Master Hawkeye, but he couldn't quite come up with a name. The stranger was smiling, though, clearly remembering him. He was at ease in his outlandishly colored traveling robes, a wizard from abroad, and he had a bundle held in his arms like a baby. Roy was going to wait to deal with that until he couldn't get away with ignoring it any longer.

"I'm sorry," he said eventually, realizing that he was staring. "Would you like to come in, Mr...?"

"Headmaster Albus Dumbledore of Hogwarts," the man introduced himself cheerfully, stepping through the doorway and looking around the narrow hallway. "I was rather hoping you'd remember me; I was friends with your teacher and spoke with you a few times."

"Sorry," Roy said again, scratching at the top of his head. "I remembered your face, but your name escaped me."

"Probably the hangover," Albus Dumbledore said with twinkling eyes. Roy had to fight back an embarrassed flush. He'd been hoping the old man hadn't noticed. "I can wait a few minutes while you make yourself some tea if you'd like."

Tea? "Coffee," Roy corrected automatically. Who drank tea for a hangover? "Would you like a cup?"

"I haven't had a good cup of coffee in years!" The old man's cheerfulness was extremely irritating. "If you don't terribly mind making two cups, I'd be very grateful. It's quite the trip getting here from Scotland."

"Sure," Roy said agreeably, gesturing for Dumbledore to follow him to the kitchen. The man followed docilely enough, so Roy allowed himself to yawn as he spooned coffee grounds into the decanter and gathered the necessary utensils. There was blessed silence for almost a whole minute before a sound suspiciously like a fussy baby came from the bundle in Dumbledore's arms. The wizard made appropriate cooing noises to settle it down, but Roy just rubbed at his eyes tiredly.

"Dare I ask why you have a baby?" he said as the coffee finished and he poured out two full cups. Dumbledore waited until he was putting an obscene amount of sugar in his cup to reply.

"I wondered if you might do me something of a favor, actually," he said, and took a casual sip of his coffee.

"Depends on the favor," Roy responded drily as he sipped his own less diabetes-inducing beverage. This earned him a sharp look, but Roy had been in the army more than long enough to face it with a bland expression.

Dumbledore didn't respond immediately. Instead he took a moment to adjust the squirming baby in his arms, opening the blanket just enough for Roy to see its face, and beamed down at the kid fondly. Roy charitably pushed aside the cynical voice in his head that muttered how casual of a manipulation it all was. "This is Harry Potter," the wizard finally said, his cheerful tone finally disappearing to make room for one much grimmer. "His parents were murdered late last night, and I'm afraid he has no living relatives left to take care of him. I need somewhere safe to leave him, so I thought, well, what safer place but under the care of a formidable wizard and alchemist? I recalled you from my time with your teacher; you always seemed such a responsible young man—"

"So you thought you'd ask me," Roy finished with a sigh, rubbing at his eyes again. "Headmaster, I just got out of a war and I'm still recovering. I don't think I'm equipped to raise a child at this moment."

"Nonsense, my boy!" Oh god, the cheerfulness was back. Why him? "Why, having a child around at this time would be nothing but a blessing. I recall after Grindelwald's defeat—"

Thankfully, Roy was saved from whatever story the man had been rambling his way into by another knock at his door. With a hasty "excuse me," he stepped briskly to the door and flung it open. Maes stood on the doorstep with a bag of what Roy hoped was Gracia's home cooking, and his usual goofy smile. Roy had never been happier to see the man.

"Well, you're looking more bright-eyed than I expected to find you!" Maes said in a painfully chipper voice. He stepped passed Roy without an invitation and made sniffing noises at the air. "And with coffee brewing, even. I'm impressed! Pity you couldn't manage a shower too."

"I've already had a visitor this morning," Roy said through gritted teeth. Maes gave him a sharp look, instantly concerned, but Roy waved it off. "Not like that. He's from Scotland and he's crazy."

"Crazy?" Maes questioned with probably healthy skepticism. "Are you sure that's not just the hangover talking?"

"He's trying to give me a baby." Gratifyingly, Maes's eyes widened in surprise at this news, though of course the expression didn't last long. With a shake of his head, he walked into the kitchen and put his burden on the counter with a loud thump. Roy walked in just in time to see Maes take up his vacated seat and take a sip of his coffee. "Get your own!" Roy snatched the coffee from his friend's grip, pulling it protectively close to his chest. "Mr. Dumbledore, this is my friend Maes Hughes. Maes, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore of Hogwarts. And a baby."

"Please, call me Albus," Dumbledore said smoothly, nodding a sort of abbreviated bow to Maes. "And this is Harry. I've come looking for a safe home for him."

"Pleasure to meet you," Maes said, nodding back. "Why does he need a safe home? And if you don't mind me asking, what's happened to his forehead?" Roy blinked once in surprise, then peered more closely at Harry. Sure enough, there was a livid scar on his head, shaped like a lightning bolt. A curse mark?

"Ah, that's the reason he needs somewhere safe. As I was telling Roy earlier, Harry's parents were murdered last night by a dark wizard. Somehow, Harry survived."

"How were they killed?" Maes asked, light from the rising sun glinting off his glasses.

"The Killing Curse. But Harry here survived it." Silence. Roy and Maes shared a stunned look, then they both turned back to Dumbledore and his pleased expression. "The wizard who cast the curse has disappeared, but I'm afraid many of his followers remain undetected on English soil. I fear they may go after Harry for revenge, and would like to keep him as far out of their grip as possible."

"Are you certain Harry himself was hit by the Curse?" Roy asked faintly. At Dumbledore's serious nod, he groaned loudly and leaned on the counter. "Surely," he said a bit hopelessly, "surely there's someone else that would be willing to take him in?"

"I'm sure many wizarding families would be more than happy to raise him." Dumbledore's voice was mildly disapproving. "But Harry is already a celebrity, and I fear being raised by us would give him something of a swelled head. I can't leave him without protection in the Muggle world. Out of all the choices I can make, Mr. Mustang, you're truly my best option."

Roy rubbed at his face, then turned to Maes beseechingly. But Maes was frowning at Dumbledore's burden, a faint look of concern on his face. When he finally caught a look at Roy's expression, he hesitated visibly. "Maes," Roy said, voice just this side of pleading.

"You'd leave him in danger?" Maes asked softly, because he knew Roy was a sucker for people in trouble. Even babies, apparently. "You know Gracia and I would be happy to help. I've seen what you can do, Roy. I'd pity any wizard that tried to harm the kid on your watch."

"Fine," Roy snarled, barely resisting the urge to pull at his hair. Ignoring the beaming expressions on the others' faces, he added doggedly, "but I'll have to adopt him properly, you realize, and that means through Muggle authorities. And I'll need any records his parents had of him, and I sure hope you're not expecting me to suddenly pay for everything a baby needs on a major's salary."

"I'll be more than happy to provide everything you'll need to get started," Dumbledore said promptly. "I'm afraid I can't afford to send you money as he ages, but—"

"We can take care of everything after the initial cost," Maes hurried to assure the wizard. Roy shot him a dirty look; he'd been hoping to at least con yearly gifts out of the man. His friend gave him a severely unimpressed look in reply. "When can Roy expect your items?"

"I can get everything together as soon as I return home, so you should get a package tonight. In the meantime, might I suggest purchasing enough diapers and formula to get you through the day?" He seemed to notice Roy's alarmed twitch at the thought of diapers, because his grin gentled. "Here, why don't you hold him?"

This alarmed Roy even more, and he found himself looking to Maes for help instinctively. Unfortunately, his best friend was clearly amused by his nervousness, as he simply smiled and made carry on gestures at Roy. Gingerly, very uncertainly, he took Harry from the Headmaster. The baby was heavier and more solid than he expected, and he had to adjust his grip in order to hold him securely. On his part, Harry made a soft uncertain noise and opened bright eyes to stare curiously at his new guardian. Roy stared back at him, overwhelmed.

"Excellent, my boy!" Dumbledore said, startling Roy into a slight jump. His arms tightened instinctively on his burden. "I leave him in your capable arms, then." And just like that, he was striding out of the kitchen and gone.

Roy and Maes stared at each other for a long minute. "I have a baby," Roy finally said dumbly, and Maes, the little shit, laughed at him.

Chapter Text

Ten years later...

“Dad, it’s here!” Harry yelled, running into the kitchen with a pile of mail clutched in his hand. He jumped into his usual chair and dropped all but one of the envelopes onto the table; the last one he brandished in Roy’s direction. The envelope was thick and strangely textured, nothing at all like the smooth paper on the table, and it was addressed to "Mr. H. Potter, 2nd Floor Bedroom" of all things. Roy, busy at the stove, barely managed to send him a pleased smile.

"Well, go on and read it then," he said warmly as he flipped over one of the pancakes on his pan. Harry grinned widely before he slit the envelope open and started reading the letter within. He was frowning a little by the end of it, eyeing the list of materials uncertainly. He wondered where they might find the books asked for; he couldn't remember stumbling across any of them in any shop he'd been in.

"What kind of name for a school is Hogwarts?" Harry jumped at the sound of Ed's voice and turned a scowl on the approaching man. Ed ignored it and ruffled his hair before picking up the envelope discarded on the table. He made a face at the crest on the back, then peered inside and pulled out a smaller envelope Harry had failed to notice. "Huh, this one's for your dad."

"Could you open it up?" Roy asked. "I'm a little busy with breakfast, unless you want to take over."

"Not in the mood for burnt food today, thanks," Ed replied dismissively as he tore open the new envelope. His eyebrows rose as he read the short note and dumped something small and shiny into his palm. "Looks like the kid's parents left him some money in England. Something about waiting to give it to him until he'd need it at school. Sounds like bullshit to me."

"Do you have to curse in front of Harry?" Roy asked plaintively, finally turning from the stove with a plate high with pancakes in one hand. He couldn't have been that angry though, because he used the other hand to pull Ed in for a short kiss. Harry grimaced at them. It was still kind of weird, this thing between his dad and the former Fullmetal Alchemist; he faintly remembered a time when his dad would come home grumbling unhappily about Ed's latest mishap while on a mission. But whatever relationship the two had had while Ed was still in the military seemed irrelevant three years later. Ed made his dad smile more often than he had before, and that was worth putting up with how gross they were with each other.

"Like he doesn't know all the bad words already," Ed muttered back with a roll of his eyes, but there was no heat in his voice. They'd had this argument a hundred times before. Harry heaved a dramatic sigh to get their attention again.

"So where do we get all this stuff?" he asked, pointedly waving his acceptance letter at his dad. "I didn't even know people still used parchment and quills."

"Nor did I," Roy responded with a shake of his head. "Must be a wizarding thing outside of the country. They're very isolationist, and don't seem to appreciate Muggles much. We'll have to go to England to get everything. I'll check in with the Gringotts branch on the way in to work and see if the goblins know where to go."

"When're we going to find the time for you to go to England?" Ed asked. "You're already ditching for Harry's birthday. Don't think the generals will be pleased with you taking more time off."

"I'll just have to go in over the weekend." Roy sighed, clearly not liking the idea. Considering that Harry was banned from bothering them before eleven on weekend mornings, he wasn't surprised.

"Can we just go on my birthday?" Harry asked somewhat hopefully. "I know we aren't having a party this year, so I don't think anyone will miss us."

"I imagine they'll still want to wish you a happy birthday, Harry." Roy was looking at him thoughtfully, though. "Maybe if we go early enough in the morning we can be back for dinner."

"And then you won't have to go in on your day off before I leave," Harry added. Roy grinned at him, which Harry took as agreement and turned to Ed. "Will you come too, Ed?" he asked the blond man, automatically giving him a pitiful look. He'd learned quickly that it was the best way to get what he wanted out of him.

"Hell, I've nothing better to do," Ed agreed. "And don't give me that look, you're embarrassing yourself."

"You just don't want to admit he's got you wrapped around his little finger," Roy cut in teasingly.

"You're one to talk."

"I'm not ashamed. He is my son after all." Roy looked at his pocket watch and grimaced. "I'd better get going so Hawkeye won't have an excuse to shoot me. Harry, make sure you finish your chores before you try to go anywhere."

"Yes, dad," Harry sighed. He always hoped the man would forget to remind him; if he didn't say anything, Ed would usually let him get away with slacking.

"And you have a good day, darling," Roy said to Ed, and Harry quickly focused on his plate so he didn't have to see the two of them kissing again. Seriously, the pet names were gross enough without the reminder that his dad had a sex life. "I should be home around seven tonight; Grumman wants me to put in a couple extra hours so I don't leave any paperwork when I'm off Wednesday."

"You could try to stop procrastinating instead," Ed offered in an innocent voice. "Bring home some takeout? I've got some research to finish and I don't know if I'll be paying attention to the time."

"I wish Al hadn't moved out." Roy sighed. "Please eat lunch at least? Harry, check on him around one and make sure he ate."

"Why do I feel like I'm being babysat by a ten year old?" Ed growled, but Roy didn't seem inclined to respond. Harry looked up just in time to get his head rubbed again, because clearly his dad was evil, and then he was watching his dad's back disappear through the doorway. He and Ed looked back at each other at the same time, and Ed gave him a wry smile. "I think we're both too dependent for our own good."

"Speak for yourself," Harry replied loftily, but wasn't quick enough to dodge the piece of pancake thrown at him.

"This is the entryway into the wizarding world?" Ed asked sardonically a week later as they stared at the decrepit-looking building in front of them. "I think I can actually see it rotting."

"Maybe it's nicer on the inside," Roy suggested in a doubtful voice. He gestured Harry in front of him and ushered them into the building. Harry made a face, but didn't try to avoid the gentle pushing on his shoulders; he knew his dad was paranoid about something happening to him. Unfortunately, Ed had picked up that habit, evidenced by the way he stepped into the pub ahead of both of them, eyes scanning the interior. It didn't look any better than the outside.

"Ah, you must be Mustang!" the bartender called, shuffling out from behind the bar and reaching a hand out to Roy. Roy shook it over Harry's head, but his left hand stayed firmly on his son's shoulder. "Straight from Amestris, eh? And this must be your..." the old man trailed off as he turned his attention to Harry, eyes settled firmly on his forehead. "Goodness. Is that really Harry Potter?"

The sounds of the pub died almost instantly, and Harry felt himself shuffle nervously back into his dad's comforting solidity as every eye turned to him. The silence stretched for a long moment, Roy's hand tightening on his shoulder, and then life seemed to return to the place with the loud scraping of a handful of chairs. Harry was sure he was about to be mobbed, but Ed stepped smoothly in front of him. Whatever expression was on his face must have been terrifying, because everyone instantly halted to eye him suspiciously.

"Back the fuck off," he snarled in a voice Harry had never heard before. "Kid's just trying to get to the Alley for his school supplies, he don't need you jumping down his fucking throat."

"Thank you, Ed," Roy said, very calmly though his voice was cold. Harry might have grinned if he wasn't still trying to hide from the pub's attention. "Sir, could you perhaps point us toward the entrance? We have a lot to do today."

"I-I'll take you," a trembling voice said, calling Harry's attention to a pale man at the back of the group. "W-was just about t-to head in myself, g-got a book t-t-to pick up." Despite the stuttering and faint tremble in his hands, he pushed forward to stand before Ed, smiling benignly at all three of them. "P-p-professor Quirrell. I'll b-be one of your teachers, P-Potter."

"What do you teach, sir?" Harry asked politely, peering around Ed's stocky frame. He really didn't want to alienate one of his teachers before school even started.

"D-defense Against the D-d-dark Arts. N-not that you n-need it, eh?" He gave Harry a wide-eyed, almost fearful look, then half turned toward the back of the pub and waved them ahead of him. "After y-you."

"Thank you, Professor," Roy said smoothly, reaching towards Ed and giving him a poke. Harry stifled a laugh as Ed turned back to give Roy an exaggerated grimace before he followed Quirrell's lead. The professor took them into a tiny sort of courtyard, counted a few of the bricks, and sharply tapped one of them with his wand three times. The wall gradually transformed into a gigantic archway, through which Harry could see a long, winding street.

"Fancy," Ed muttered, though he didn't sound half as impressed as Harry felt. Granted, he could probably have done the same trick in half a second with his alchemy, but Harry had never had the opportunity to see it. All his impressive work happened outside of the house, which was disappointing. Except, perhaps, for the part where it meant their house had never accidentally been blown up, a possibility Roy sometimes muttered direly about.

"F-first time in London?" Quirrell asked quietly. "C-can't miss G-gr-gringotts, it's the b-biggest building on the st-street. I've g-got to get g-going. S-s-sorry."

"It's quite all right, Professor," Roy said, offering a hand that Quirrell shook weakly. "Thank you for your assistance this far." Quirrell gave him a trembling smile, grabbed Harry's hand in a brief shake, and strolled off into the depths of the street.

"Let's go," Ed said into the ensuing silence, though he was staring after the professor with a suspicious look. "Don't like that guy."

"He seemed perfectly nice," Roy said mildly as they began walking; Ed fell in by the older man's side rather than continue stomping along in front of them. Harry, twisting around to take in the entire street, saw their joined hands and smiled. Roy's thumb was rubbing soothing circles on the back of Ed's hand, a gesture Harry recognized from Roy's many attempts to soothe him when he was upset. "Did something about his manner set you off?"

"Not...really," Ed replied slowly. "Just got a bad feeling from him, I guess. Might just be paranoid."

"Hm," Roy responded noncommittally, but didn't share whatever he was thinking. Harry tilted his head back to get a good look at his face, but it was annoyingly blank. That was his plotting face, which not even Harry had learned to read. Harry made a mental note to keep his professor at arm's length, though. Their cautious responses gave him all the reasons he needed not to trust the man.

They walked in silence after that, taking in the busy street filled with all kinds of people wearing unflattering robes, and it wasn't long before they were drawing up to a large white building with a scarlet-clad goblin standing guard out front. They were bowed through a pair of bronze doors, then further through a pair of silver doors, and Harry saw the inside of a Gringotts bank for the first time in his life. Goblins were everywhere in the cavernous marble room, weighing gemstones and counting money and helping wizards with their accounts. They stepped up to a goblin at a long side counter who didn't seem to be busy.

"Good morning," Roy began politely, pulling a tiny key out of his pocket as he spoke. "We'd like to take some money out of Harry Potter's account please." The goblin took the proffered key and inspected it briefly.

"That looks to be in order," he said approvingly, though how he knew it was really Harry's key he didn't know. "I'll have someone take you to his vault. Griphook!"

Another goblin appeared by their sides quickly, and gestured for them to follow him through one of the back doors. Harry eyed the change in scenery with some excitement as Griphook whistled and a small mining cart sped up to them. The four of them clambered in somewhat awkwardly, and then they were off, racing through twisting passageways as quickly as if they were on a roller coaster. The goblin unlocked the vault door, waving a hand distastefully at the billowing green smoke, and when it cleared Harry felt his jaw drop. Ed let out a low, impressed whistle.

"Damn, kid, you're loaded," he said, stepping into the vault ahead of them and flicking at a heap of tiny bronze coins. "Roy's vault isn't even half as impressive."

"I don't come from a filthy rich family," Roy muttered, picking up a large gold coin and inspecting it. He then pulled an empty bag from his pocket and carefully began counting out some money. He explained the money system as he did so, then handed the bag full of money to Harry after checking to make sure he remembered it. "All yours," he finished warmly.

“Thanks...” Harry replied faintly, shaking the bag a little to hear the coins clinking in it. He eyed the piles of money left in the vault with uncertainty; the bagful Roy had handed him had hardly made a dent. “A-are you sure you don’t need—”

“I’m not going to take your money, Harry,” Roy responded gently, ushering him out of the vault. “I make more than enough to sustain us at home, especially now that I don’t have to worry about the cost of your schooling. As long as you’re responsible with your money, and I will be keeping records of your account, I can’t see any reason to take what doesn’t belong to me.”

“But you’re my dad,” Harry emphasized as they climbed back into the cart and Griphook whistled it on its way again. The goblin was clearly listening to them, but Harry couldn’t tell if the look on his face was a smile or a grimace. “I thought everything I owned belonged to you. Isn’t that the law?”

“The law and reality sometimes don’t mesh, kid,” Ed butt in. Harry made a face at him, then returned his attention to his dad, who was looking rather put-upon.

“Please don’t teach my son to be a criminal, darling,” Roy said, sighing heavily. “You’re such a terrible influence on him.”

“You act like such a fucking saint, Mustang, but you’re not fooling anyone.” Ed snorted. “Anyway, he hasn’t started cursing at you yet, has he? Despite my careful coaching.”

“I will never curse at dad,” Harry said hastily, giving his glowering parent a wide-eyed look. Of course, Roy was glowering at Ed and not him, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “Anyway, you haven’t actually been coaching me. I just can’t help but pick things up when you curse all the freaking time.”

“Don’t curse at Ed either,” Roy said sternly, but Harry could see the smile he was pushing back. “In fact, don’t curse at anyone. I won’t have people thinking I raised an uncouth little hellion, even if I am dating one.”

“Who the fuck are you calling little, bastard?” Ed snapped on cue. Harry rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help to notice that Ed hadn’t objected to being called either uncouth or a hellion. He wouldn’t be surprised if the man was proud of both descriptors.

“Oh, did I say little?” Roy asked, feigning surprise so well Harry almost believed it. “I’m sure I didn’t mean it. Miniature, maybe—”

“Dad,” Harry moaned in exasperation. Why Roy insisted on riling Ed up, he would never know. “Can you please stop arguing in public? You’re embarrassing.”

“God, you’re starting to sound like a teenager already,” was Roy’s fond response, to which Ed snorted and then glared at Roy as if mad at him for daring to be amusing. “I can’t believe how quickly you turned eleven.”

Thankfully, Harry was saved from coming up with anything resembling a response when the cart came to a halt. Ed was the first one out, eyes darting to the shadows in an automatic sweep. Roy was looking at him with fondness now, and Ed didn’t even object when the older man pulled him in close, though he did blush.

“And you,” Roy said, voice dropped low. Harry squirmed uncomfortably, and looked toward the door that Griphook was waiting impatiently at. “Nineteen already, and getting more beautiful by the day...”

“You’re such a fucking sap,” Ed muttered, looking almost as uncomfortable as Harry felt. He took a sharp step backwards, not quite breaking Roy’s loose grip on his hip, and tugged at the collar of Roy’s shirt to get him moving. “C’mon, no sense making the man wait so you can moon all over us.”

“Can I be blamed for taking the time to enjoy my lovely family?” Roy asked, but he rarely refused Ed what he wanted and followed him to the door. Harry stayed as far away from them as he thought he could get away with without triggering his dad’s paranoid senses. “Any man would envy me my gorgeous young lover and well-behaved son.”

“So embarrassing,” Harry groaned, which caused both his dad and Ed to laugh. At least that made them stop making eyes at each other, but it brought Roy’s attention to him again. The man reached out to tug him closer and wrap an arm around his shoulders. Harry sighed, perhaps a little too dramatically judging by Ed’s snicker, but knew better than to try to get Roy to let go. It would only make him cling harder.

“Where should we go first?” Roy asked as they stepped back out into the sunny street. “I wish we had a map of the stores to make this easier.”

“Well, why don’t we get his ridiculous uniform?” Ed asked, nodding at the storefront across the street. It announced, with a cheery, colorful font, that it sold ‘Robes for All Occasions’. “And I can take a quick round of the street while you’re waiting with him, it can’t be that difficult to memorize where the stores are.”

“Maybe not for you,” Roy said with a roll of his eyes. “Go on, then. Don’t take too long.”

Ed muttered something that may have been an agreement to the demand, then veered off down the street. Harry tugged Roy into the store before the blond had fully disappeared from their sight, and was rewarded with a wry smile as if his dad had been caught staring. Which he had probably been doing, staring at Ed being one of his favorite pastimes, but Harry chose not to think about it. Instead he all but dragged his dad into Madam Malkin’s, and did his best to copy Roy’s charming smile when a squat witch approached them.

“Hogwarts, dear?” Madam Malkin asked before either of them could start talking. Harry nodded dumbly. “Got the lot up here—another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.”

She led him to the back of the store, where a pale boy about Harry’s age was standing on a footstool as another witch pinned his robes. The boy gave Harry an assessing glance, but he must have passed muster, because he greeted Harry as he climbed onto the footstool next to him.

“Hello,” the boy said in a lazy voice that Harry was pretty sure his dad would envy. “Hogwarts, too?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied casually, not quite sure if his response required elaboration.

“My father’s next door buying my books and mother’s up the street looking at wands. Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don’t see why first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow. Have you got your own broom?”

“Unfortunately,” Harry grumbled. “My dad got me a Twigger for my tenth birthday. He thinks he’s funny.”

“A Twigger?” the boy asked with a derisive snort. Harry almost rolled his eyes at the boy’s rudeness; he reminded him of some of the generals' sons back home. “You mustn’t be very good at flying then.”

Harry scowled, but managed to bite his tongue on the angry retort he wanted to give. His dad, at least, had managed to teach him how to hold his anger. “I’m a perfectly fine flyer,” he said instead. “He lets me use his Comet when he doesn’t need it.” Not that Roy flew much, as he preferred driving.

“Do you play Quidditch, then?” the boy asked, sounding interested in Harry for the first time.

“No,” Harry replied. “It’s not really big in Amestris.”

“You’re from Amestris?” This time the boy was clearly interested; his eyes widened in surprise and he half-turned to face Harry before the witch tugged sharply on his robes. “What’re you going to Hogwarts for then? What’s your surname?”

His surname? “My birth parents are from England and I wanted to go to their school. And it’s Potter. Why?”

“You’re not—” The boy’s eyes flicked up to Harry’s messy bangs, behind which Harry knew his scar could be seen. “You are.” He looked briefly impressed, but smoothly cleared the expression away as Harry stared at him.

“I am what?” Harry asked, nettled.

“Harry Potter!”

“Oh, him.” With a shake of his head, he managed to give the other boy a small smile. “I mean, yes, I am. It wasn’t nearly as important back home as it seems to be here. Honestly, I don’t know what everyone’s so impressed about. I was a baby; it’s not like I even remember it.”

The boy was looking at him as if he’d said something monumentally stupid, which Harry admitted was entirely possible, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything before the witch working on his robes said cheerfully, “That’s you done, Mr. Malfoy!”

“Oh, thanks,” the boy said distractedly as he stepped down from the footstool. He turned back to Harry, though, as if he was magnetically attracted to him. “My name’s Draco Malfoy,” he introduced himself, raising a hand and then jerking it back down just as quickly. “I’d shake your hand, but Madam Malkin might stab you with a pin.” The witch in question snorted, but her mouth was too full of pins to talk.

“It’s okay,” Harry said, not having wanted to risk that very thing. “We bow in Amestris, but you don’t have to. I think that’d get me stabbed too.”

“Now why are we stabbing you?” Roy’s voice asked as he poked his head into the back room. He grinned at Draco Malfoy a little sharply, and the pale boy’s eyes widened only a little. Harry had seen grown men quail in the face of that grin, but either Draco was made of sterner stuff or he just didn’t have the sense to know it was a threat. “I feel I should note that, as an Amestrian citizen, you have full right to call in the military if you’re injured today.”

“Why would I need to call in the military?” Harry wondered aloud. “You’re right here to set people on fire for looking at me funny, aren’t you?” Ignoring both his dad’s increasingly sharp grin and Draco’s uncertain look, he nodded in Draco’s direction. “Dad, this is Draco Malfoy; he’s going to Hogwarts too. Nobody is actually stabbing me. Malfoy, this is my father, Roy Mustang.”

“It’s nice to meet you, sir,” Draco said with surprising politeness, holding out a hand for Roy to shake. Roy took it with a bemused look.

“Pleasure,” Roy responded automatically, then looked back to Harry and Madam Malkin. “Are you almost done in here? Ed’s back already, and getting restless. Please don’t let him get bored.”

“Your timing is quite lucky, Mr. Mustang,” Madam Malkin responded, giving Harry’s pinned robe a last tug. “You’re done, my dear.”

Harry hopped off the footstool gratefully, bowed his thanks to the witch, and then turned back to Draco to shake his hand. Draco’s grip was much firmer than Harry expected, but the shake was perfunctory.

“Draco, there you are,” a stern voice greeted them as they strolled back into the main store. Draco’s back stiffened abruptly, and he marched over to a tall man with long blond hair. “I wouldn’t have thought getting new robes would take nearly so long.”

“My apologies, father,” Draco replied in a lazy voice that didn’t sound sorry in the slightest. “I’m afraid I got caught up in a discussion with Potter, here.”

The older man looked sharply over at Roy and Harry, his eyes darting up to Harry’s fringe before he smiled politely. Harry was getting tired of everyone looking at his forehead as if it was the most important aspect of him.

“Potter, Mr. Mustang,” Draco continued calmly, “this is my father, Lucius Malfoy. Father, this is Harry Potter and his father Roy Mustang.”

“I’m afraid Harry failed to introduce me to your son completely,” Roy said with a smile as he moved to shake Lucius’s hand. “But then my full title is quite the mouthful. Brigadier General Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Malfoy.”

“The pleasure is mine, I’m sure,” Lucius replied without a hint that Roy’s title had surprised him, though his son’s expression more than made up for it. “Am I right in assuming you’re Amestrian, then? I don’t believe many nations include named alchemists in their militaries.”

“Amestris is the only one so far,” Roy replied pleasantly. His hands moved behind his back into the ‘at-ease’ position, which Harry frowned at. His dad didn’t usually stand like that unless he was talking to another military official. Harry’s frown deepened when he noticed Ed striding over with a scowl on his face, but Roy only smiled as Ed took up position on his left side. “Ah, and may I introduce my lover, Edward Elric?”

This time Lucius’s eyebrows did shoot up in surprise, a faint line appearing between his eyebrows as Ed held out his left hand to shake. The older blond took it a little slowly, but he shook Ed’s hand as professionally as he’d shaken Roy’s and his polite smile didn’t even falter.

“Nice to meet you,” Ed said, then turned to Roy and gave him an impatient look. “Can we get going or what? This one lady keeps giving me the stinkeye, like she thinks I’m going to set the fabric on fire or something.”

“I suppose we should go before you actually do that out of spite.” Roy sighed, but his posture relaxed as his left hand ran smoothly down Ed’s back. Ed seemed to relax at the touch as well, his scowl fading into a less terrifying frown. “It was lovely meeting you both, Misters Malfoy.”

“You as well,” Lucius said, stepping to the side when Ed brushed past him on his way out the door. His manners were terrible, but nobody seemed overtly annoyed by them so Harry sketched a bow to both of the Malfoys and followed after. But even as his dad caught up to him, ruffling his hair in a friendly manner, Harry was sure he could feel two pairs of eyes peering intently at his back.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: In Your Keeping

September first dawned bright and early. Maybe a little bit too early. As Harry ran around the house throwing last minute items into his trunk, his dad and Ed sat at the kitchen table blearily staring into their respective mugs of coffee. Harry briefly entertained the thought of taking one of the forbidden alchemy books off the shelf while they weren't paying attention, but had to dismiss the idea when he realized that Ed would notice even if his dad didn’t. Instead he quietly took one of the pictures off the mantle, the one with all of Roy’s team as well as the Elric brothers in it, and took it into the kitchen. Stopping at his dad’s side, he held it up without talking.

“Don’t you have one of these?” his dad asked, gently taking the picture from him.

“Not framed,” Harry explained quietly. “I wanted to put it on my nightstand at school.”

“I could make you a frame,” Ed muttered from the other side of the table, before yawning widely and staring back into his steaming cup.

“We can buy a new one,” Roy said back, eyeing Ed’s slumped posture with narrow eyes. “I don’t think you’re awake enough to make a toy horse, let alone anything else.”

“B’stard.”

Roy grinned at Ed’s weak retort, pulling the frame apart and sliding out his picture. Handing the frame to Harry, he said, “Go put this in your trunk and get dressed. We need to leave in a few minutes. Ed, are you actually going to drink your coffee or just stare at it?”

“Drinkin’ it’s too much work,” Ed muttered back, but finally took a long sip of his coffee. Just this seemed to perk him up, though Harry knew that the caffeine couldn’t have kicked in that fast. It had to be that placebo effect thing Al was telling him about the last time he was home. “Fuckin’ hate mornings.”

Roy hummed vaguely in agreement before knocking back the rest of his mug and giving Harry a pointed look. “You’re still here.”

“Oh, sorry!” Harry said, blushing, and scampered off for his bedroom. Behind him, he could hear Roy saying something about how absent-minded he was to Ed, and Harry had to make a face at nothing to keep himself from yelling back. He threw the frame his dad had given him into his open trunk, made one last round of his room in search of anything he’d forgotten, and then quickly finished getting ready. There was a knock on his door just as he was pulling on his shirt, and Ed walked in before he could yell out for him to wait a second. “What’s the point of knocking if you’re just going to enter anyway?”

“You should be happy you’re getting a warning,” Ed replied teasingly, and Harry quickly ducked out of reach before Ed could ruffle his hair. The blond just laughed at him before turning his attention to Harry’s packed trunk. “You ready to go then?”

“I think so,” Harry said, kicking his pajamas closer to his hamper. “I just have to get Hedwig into her cage.”

“Grab it and let’s go before Roy starts nagging then,” Ed said, pulling out his long black wand and tapping lightly at Harry’s trunk. Harry grabbed his owl’s cage as Ed effortlessly lifted the trunk in one hand and balanced it on his shoulder. They trooped loudly downstairs, where Roy greeted them with a smile and Harry’s owl.

“We’ll have to Floo to England in stages,” he said as Harry coaxed Hedwig, the snowy owl he'd gotten at Diagon Alley, into her cage. “We should come out at the Ministry of Magic, and then we’ll be able to make our way to the train station the Muggle way from there. Assuming we don’t get lost, we should make the train at least twenty minutes before it leaves.”

“Remind me to take the feather-light charm off when we get to the Ministry,” Ed said as he led the way into the den. “I still don’t get why they have to keep themselves hidden from everyone else. It’s been hundreds of years since anyone had real issues with Muggles, hasn’t it?”

“They’ve had a lot longer than us to learn paranoia,” Roy replied thoughtfully. “Not that I condone it; locking themselves away from Muggles propagates certain elitist attitudes that I find especially irritating when I have to deal with their government.”

“You’re the one who wanted a kid.” Ed grinned at Roy over his shoulder as he reached for the Floo powder, but Roy just rolled his eyes and gestured for Ed to get moving.

In the end, they made it to the station with barely fifteen minutes to spare, and they found themselves pushing almost frantically through the crowds. They were grateful when they reached the barrier between platforms nine and ten, and didn’t see anyone who looked like they were preparing to use it. Harry eyed it a little uncertainly, though; it looked awfully solid.

“Go through with me?” he asked nervously, giving both his dad and Ed a beseeching look.

“There’s unlikely to be any trouble on the platform,” Roy murmured to Ed, who was scowling back at Roy. “And you’ll only be a few steps behind us.” Ed sighed, but seemed to agree with Roy as he took a step back and began glaring around the station suspiciously. Roy smiled fondly at Ed, then put a hand on the trolley they’d found so Harry could push his things. “Don’t be nervous, Harry. It’s the same thing as the hidden passages at Headquarters.”

Harry nodded seriously and adjusted his grip on the handle. He was too embarrassed to explain to Roy that just having his dad beside him made walking into a wall significantly less daunting, so he didn’t say anything as they briskly walked toward the barrier. He held his breath as they approached it, strongly resisting the urge to close his eyes, and only let it out again when they were on the other side and looking at a bright red train. Roy ran a soothing hand over Harry’s head as they stepped to the side and waited for Ed to come through.

“Potter!” a voice called as they waited, and Harry turned automatically in its direction. He felt himself blush as he noticed that quite a few people in the vicinity had turned in the direction of the voice as well and were now looking at him with intense interest. Draco Malfoy was striding toward them with a smug-looking smirk on his face, two larger boys following a few steps behind him.

“Did you have to call me out like that?” Harry asked with a frown as he saw Ed come through the archway. Ed was still glaring around the platform, but he made his way unerringly towards them as he did so. “Now everyone’s looking at me!”

“Sorry,” Draco drawled, but he was still smirking so Harry figured he wasn’t actually sorry at all. “I don’t know how else I was supposed to get your attention, though.”

“I have a first name,” Harry hissed, looking up at his dad as Roy snorted. The man was clearly hiding a smile behind his hand, and Harry grimaced at him in an attempt to relay that he wanted help.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Mr. Malfoy,” Roy said obligingly, lowering his hand to shake Draco’s. “And who are your friends, then?”

“Oh, this is Vincent Crabbe and this is Gregory Goyle,” Draco introduced casually, waving at each boy as he said their names. “We’ve room left in our compartment if you’d like to join us, Harry.” When Harry rolled his eyes again he heard Ed laugh and saw his dad’s smile twitch wider. He had no idea what the two of them found so amusing; he just thought Draco was a prat. Still, it would be nice to sit with someone he’d already met for the long train ride, so he nodded agreeably. Draco’s smirk widened into a grin briefly before the boy seemed to tamp it down, and then he led all of them over to the train.

The compartment he showed them to had two other people waiting for them: a small pug-faced girl and a thin black boy. Predictably, both of them looked up at Harry’s bangs when he entered with Hedwig’s cage in his hand. The girl’s surprise was tangible, but the boy just snorted and looked at Harry through narrow eyes.

“Guess you weren’t exaggerating then,” he said in a disaffected voice, nodding at Harry personably. “Good to meet you, Potter. I’m Blaise Zabini, and that’s Pansy Parkinson.”

“It’s nice to meet you both,” Harry responded awkwardly, bowing automatically.

“Get out of the doorway, kid, would you?” Ed asked from behind him, giving Harry a hard poke in the back. “Your trunk’s damn heavy.”

“Sorry, Ed!” Harry replied, jumping to the side quickly. Ed strolled into the room, nodded vaguely at the kids, and slid the trunk in question under the table with a grunt. “Um, this is Edward Elric, my dad’s boyfriend,” he introduced Ed a little awkwardly, then turned slightly to where he was unsurprised to find his dad leaning against the doorway. “And this is my dad Brigadier General Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist. Please don’t ever make me say the whole thing again.”

“Lazy,” Roy chided gently, kneeling down and tugging Harry toward him. Harry sighed and stared at the far wall as his dad fixed his collar and rubbed lightly at his shoulders. “I know I’m embarrassing, but you’ll get over it.” He grinned at Harry’s snort, then reached up to fluff his hair affectionately.

“Dad!” Harry couldn’t help but whine, squirming out of his reach. Roy just laughed at him. Sometimes his dad was such a jerk.

“I don’t get why anyone thinks you have any fucking dignity,” Ed said companionably to Roy. He reached out a hand to Harry’s head as well, but thankfully seemed content to try to pat the hair down rather than make it even messier. “You’re a complete dork and it’s not even cute.”

“Well, at least I’ll always have you to keep my ego in check,” Roy sighed, shooting Ed a brief glare. “Am I even going to get a hug before you go?” he asked Harry.

“Are you going to mess with my hair again?” Harry asked warily, suspiciously eyed Roy’s responding grin, and sighed as he stepped forward. Roy wrapped his arms around Harry firmly, and Harry couldn’t resist the urge to lean into the embrace and bury his face in his dad’s shoulder.

“Owl me in a week and let me know how you’re settling in,” Roy said softly, rubbing at his back in soothing circles. “If you’re not comfortable, I can take you out and let you learn somewhat closer to home, okay?”

But, as much as Harry wished he could go to school somewhere close enough his dad could at least visit, he didn’t want to go to Central; it was, to put it the nicest way possible, just not a fun place to be any more. Harry had never been popular at his schools in Central, but after the last Führer had died, the friends he had seemed suddenly less interested in talking to him. From what Harry gathered, the rumor going around the upper brass was that his dad had been the one to kill Bradley, and so they'd told their children not to associate with Roy Mustang's son any longer. And when the popular generals' children had started to snub Harry, many of the other students started to follow their lead. Overall, he was glad to be going to a school in a different country, where he could start anew.

“I’ll be fine,” Harry assured his dad, though the cloth of Roy's uniform muffled his voice. He pulled away after that and rubbed at his eyes that definitely weren’t wet at all. “D’you think Aunt Gracia would let you send me a pie? I think I’m going to miss her cooking the most.”

“Man after my own heart,” Ed said teasingly, and Harry grinned up at him. Then, following a sudden urge, he pulled away from his dad and moved to wrap his arms around Ed’s waist. The blond man stiffened—Harry wasn’t sure he’d actually ever hugged Ed before—but after a tense moment, he gently wrapped his arms around Harry’s shoulders. “Is this your way of saying you’re going to miss me?”

“Why in the world would I miss you?” Harry asked, pulling away. He flushed at the fond smile his dad was giving them both, and quickly said, “Shouldn’t you two get off the train? I bet it’s gonna leave soon.”

“Trying to get rid of us, I see,” Roy said softly. He pulled Harry into another brief hug, kissing the top of his head and ignoring Harry’s aggrieved whine as he stood up. “If you need anything at all, let me know immediately, and I’ll get it to you, okay? I love you.”

“Love you too, dad,” Harry mumbled, not looking him in the eye. “See you, Ed.” He looked up when Roy patted his head one last time, and smiled a little when his dad wrapped an arm around Ed’s waist as they left the compartment. At least Roy had someone at home to distract him when he inevitably started sulking at Harry’s absence.

When he turned around to settle into whatever seat was left for him (predictably, next to Draco), he was met with three nearly-identical mocking smirks. “What?” he snarled defensively as he threw himself onto the bench, glaring.

“Figures you’d be so attached to someone not even related to you,” Draco replied mockingly. “Is he a Muggleborn? Why’s he in the military?”

“I don’t think he is,” Harry said uncertainly. “I think his aunt's a Squib maybe? I don’t know; it’s really not important in Amestris. And how should I know why he’s in the military? He never talks about it.”

“What’s the deal with the other guy?” Blaise asked, more curiously than meanly. “He looked a lot younger than your dad, and seemed rather...”

“Uncouth?” Harry suggested with a grin. “That’s what dad calls him all the time.” When Blaise nodded, Harry shrugged back and continued. “Ed’s, um...he’s Ed? He’s kind of hard to describe.” At least without going into his military service, which Harry wasn’t certain he was allowed to talk about. “Um. He teaches alchemy and physics at Central University. He’s kind of like a second dad, I guess. He’s been staying with us for like three years.”

“Older than he looks, then?” Blaise pushed, raising an eyebrow as Harry grimaced at him.

“Not really,” he mumbled, not wanting to get into his dad’s and Ed’s age difference. “He’ll be twenty soon, but he’s really mature, I guess? Dad really likes him anyway. They’re kind of gross about each other, actually.”

“And what’s his parentage?” Draco asked snidely. Harry stared at him with wide eyes, feeling uncomfortable with the question. What did it matter? Were wizards outside of Amestris really this petty?

“I don’t know,” Harry said flatly, crossing his arms defensively. “He doesn’t talk about his parents, and dad told me not to ask him. Why do you think it even matters? Ed’s a really powerful wizard and alchemist, he’s kind of a big deal back home. Youngest person to ever get tenured at Central, which is the best college in the nation.”

Draco shared a look with Blaise and Pansy, then turned back to Harry again and asked, “Is it true that Amestrian wizards don’t isolate themselves from the Muggles, then? I didn’t think it could be. The Muggles must be awful to you.”

“...No?” Harry said uncertainly, looking around at everyone in the compartment, utterly baffled. “Why would they be? The worst that happens is people go crazy over alchemists, because they can use alchemized products unlike the magic ones, but it’s just not a big deal. Some of dad’s team are Muggles and at least one Squib, and they’re some of the scariest people I know.” Well, Hawkeye was anyway. He loved the woman like an aunt, but anyone who could glare his dad into listening to them terrified him.

“You’re joking,” Pansy sneered, her expression echoed on the others’ faces. “Your wizards can’t be very good, then, can they?”

Harry scowled at her, but couldn’t really think of any response. He was just realizing that these kids had probably never even seen a Muggle before, let alone interacted with one, and must have been some of the wizard elitists that his dad had been talking about earlier in the day. Blindly insisting that Muggles weren’t inherently inferior to wizards wasn’t going to work, and obviously he couldn’t just present Hawkeye to them as proof. So, what would his dad say?

“Maybe you lot should come out to Amestris one day,” he said, voice shaking a little with his anger. “You could probably learn a lot from our wizards, especially about what Muggles are actually like. The majority of the military is composed of Muggles, you know, and my dad says we have one of the most feared militaries in the world.” Of course, he wasn’t going to tell them that was mostly due to the fear most people felt at facing a group of Amestrian alchemists.

“It’s not easy to visit Amestris,” Blaise said. “My mom’s been trying for years, but apparently if you don’t have somebody in the military speaking for you, they usually deny you entrance. Even for vacations.”

“Well, now you know someone from the military, don’t you?” Harry said brightly. “And dad’s a pretty distinctive figure, so I bet he wouldn’t have any trouble gaining your families entrance if I asked him to.”

“So you can teach us the error of our ways?” Draco asked snidely, with the air of someone quoting a person they didn’t like. Harry made himself smile at him.

“So you can experience Muggles in a new environment and make your own conclusions based on the information you gain,” Harry answered smoothly, because it’s what his dad would have said.

Thankfully, this seemed to be the conclusion of the conversation, at least for the time being. The others fell into a conversation about Quidditch instead. Harry didn't even pretend to follow it, as he’d never really taken an interest in any international sports. Instead he stared out the window passed the others, watching as the countryside flicked by. It was very like the more rural areas of Amestris, all green grass and farm animals grazing in the fields, and he was just getting bored of the scenery when a woman with a cart full of junk food slid open their compartment door to ask if they wanted anything.

Harry, who never got as much candy as he’d like (in more recent years because Ed tended to hoard it all), jumped from his seat with some excitement. Of course, like everything else in wizarding England, the sight he was met with was completely new, and in many ways completely absurd. He was just finishing reading the label on a Chocolate Frog package when Draco appeared at his side and lightly elbowed him out of the way.

“What, haven’t you ever seen candy before?” he asked.

“Well it’s completely different from the candy in Amestris, isn’t it?” Harry asked shortly, tossing the Frog up and down in one hand as Draco took his time choosing his own snacks. “Do they really enchant these things to hop?”

“Well, of course they do,” Draco replied, giving Harry a confused look. “Don’t you have enchanted candy in Amestris?”

“Only in specialty shops, so they’re usually a lot more expensive than regular candy.” Harry frowned at the Frog in his hand, wondering whether he felt like spending the money on it. “Muggles aren’t supposed to consume enchanted food. It usually makes them sick. So the stuff that caters specifically to magical people has to be separated from everything else and has all sorts of warning labels on it. Prevents lawsuits. And emergency room visits.”

“That’s so weird,” Draco muttered, handing some money to the witch. “We don’t have Muggle candy here, so if you want chocolate you better get some Frogs, and the Every Flavor Beans are always fun. But don’t bother with the Cauldron Cakes; a lot of witches make them a lot better at home.”

“Oh, thanks,” Harry said, surprised that Draco had decided to be helpful instead of just making fun of Amestris for catering to Muggles or something. With Draco’s suggestions in mind, he bought a couple of Pumpkin Pasties, a bag of Every Flavor Beans, and a handful of Chocolate Frogs to take back into the compartment with him. The others stared at him as he dropped his haul onto the seat next to him, but he ignored them in favor of opening a pasty while he inspected the bag of beans. “Why don’t these have a flavor list on them?”

“When they say ‘every flavor’ they really mean every flavor,” Blaise said warningly, leaning over to gesture for Harry to give him the bag. Harry handed it over without hesitation, watching as he carefully opened the bag and peered inside. Eventually he pulled out a red bean and wordlessly handed the bag over to Draco. With a smirk, Draco took out two beans without looking, which he tossed one at a time to the silent Crabbe and Goyle, before carefully choosing two others for himself and Pansy. When Harry was handed the bag again, everyone stared at him until he sighed and pulled a bean out for himself.

“Anyone want to make a guess?” Pansy asked, inspecting the bean in her hand. “This one looks like that grass-flavored one I had a few weeks ago.”

“Mine’s either cherry or blood,” Blaise said with confidence. “I’m kind of interested to find out which.”

“Freak,” Draco muttered, though he only received a smirk for the insult. He held up his own dark bean to the light, wrinkling his nose as he squinted at it. “I really don’t know, but it looks safe enough. It’s similar to the color of the blackberries mother purchases.”

The three of them turned expectantly to Harry. Apparently, Crabbe and Goyle weren’t expected to make intelligent guesses. Harry frowned at them, then looked down at the weird yellow bean in his hand.

“I really hope it’s lemon-flavored,” he said doubtfully. “Only I can’t think of anything else naturally this color.”

“Some tomatoes and peppers,” Pansy suggested helpfully.

“Maybe kiwi,” Blaise said. “Mum brought home some yellow kiwi from somewhere the other day. I don’t even like regular kiwi.”

“Well, we’ll find out in a second,” Draco smirked, then turned to Harry. “On three, everyone has to eat the whole bean. Anyone who spits theirs out has to try another one. Everyone ready?”

As everyone nodded, he began to count, and when he said “Three!” with some gusto, everyone popped their candy into their mouths. Harry could feel his face contorting almost immediately; his was definitely lemon, and a particularly sour one at that. Still, he couldn’t have gotten the worst bean of the lot. While Draco, Blaise, and Goyle were chewing relatively peacefully, Pansy had a look of abject disgust on her face and Crabbe looked like he was going to throw his up, though he never spit it out.

“It’s cabbage,” Pansy said with disgust. “I hate cabbage!”

“Dunno what this is,” Crabbe said in a low voice before swallowing painfully. “But it tastes awful. I hate this game.”

“Mushroom,” Goyle announced shortly, and didn’t say anything else.

“Well, it’s not blackberry, but it’s a fruit of some sort,” Draco announced thoughtfully. “It’s not bad, really. Blaise?”

“Blood,” Blaise said in a perfectly pleasant tone. “Definitely blood. And I don’t think we even need you to tell us what you got, Potter. Your face looks hilarious.”

“Thanks,” Harry said sourly.

They played the game a few more times as the train continued on seemingly endlessly, holding conversations in between rounds. Harry ended up learning a lot more about the wizarding culture than he’d expected to, particularly about Hogwarts. Apparently the student body was separated into four “Houses,” each characterized by different personality traits. Everyone else in the compartment already seemed certain that they were going to get into Slytherin house, mostly due to coming from long lines of former Slytherins. They also pressed him for an opinion on which house he might belong in, but after hearing what each house was known for, he honestly didn’t have much of one.

When the train finally began to slow down, Harry reluctantly switched his long jacket out for a set of robes. He was the only one that had to do so, the others probably having donned their robes before Harry had even gotten to the train station, and Harry had just sat back down again when a voice announced that they would be at the castle in five minutes. They exited onto the platform, shivering in the cold night air and looking uncertainly around at their surroundings. Harry was the first one to notice the lantern bobbing over their heads.

“Firs’ years!” a loud voice called over the milling crowd. “Firs’ years over here!” The man calling for them was the biggest person Harry had ever seen—it looked as if someone had combined Armstrong and Sig into a small giant, Harry thought—but when the first years finally approached him, Harry could see the man’s eyes were crinkled with a kind smile.

“That must be Hagrid,” Draco whispered to him, crowding his elbow. “He’s the gamekeeper. I hear he’s something of a savage. Can’t even do magic.”

“He looks nice,” Harry muttered back, frowning again. Draco probably had some sort of response to that, but at that moment they found themselves on the bank of a large lake. Across the lake, perched on a mountaintop, they could see Hogwarts sparkling against the starry sky. Draco pulled Harry into a boat with him when Hagrid directed them to, Crabbe and Goyle following at their heels like bodyguards, and the fleet of boats glided through the still water to what seemed to be an underground harbor beneath the castle. Hagrid led the way up a flight of stairs, knocked on the door, and handed them off to a stern-looking witch he called Professor McGonagall.

The professor greeted them with a speech detailing the House system, which Harry only half paid attention to, and then she disappeared into the hall. The first years huddled together silently, everyone looking anxious, except for one brown-haired girl who was whispering excitedly about all the magic she had already learned.

The near silence ended abruptly when several people at the back of the group screamed. Harry spun around and almost fell into one of the fighting stances Ed had started showing him, before he realized that the white stream that had appeared in the chamber was actually a group of ghosts. He could see Draco eyeing him curiously out of the corner of his eye, but ignored the pale boy to watch the ghosts instead. They were arguing passionately with each other, and only stopped when one of the ghosts finally seemed to notice the terrified children; this one spun in the air towards them to smile kindly and start a short one-sided conversation.

“Move along now,” a sharp voice interrupted a Hufflepuff ghost dressed like a friar. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

When the ghosts disappeared through the far wall, Professor McGonagall had the students form a line so they could neatly follow her out into the Great Hall. Harry twisted his head as much as he could to take it in. The golden plates and goblets on the tables glowed softly in the candlelight, and when Harry looked up, he noticed that the ceiling looked exactly like the starry sky outside.

Everyone stared as McGonagall brought out a stool and a dilapidated-looking hat, placing it in front of the line of first years. A tear near the brim opened wide, and the hat sang rather pleasantly about the Hogwarts Houses and what each one represented. Amid the applause that broke out at its conclusion, McGonagall stepped up next to the hat and unrolled a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she told them shortly. Harry tried not to twitch nervously as she called out the names alphabetically and the group of students he was standing with slowly dwindled, until finally only Blaise Zabini stood beside him, looking bored. Each of them had gotten into Slytherin, as they’d predicted.

“Potter, Harry!” she finally called, and whispers immediately hissed out through the Hall repeating his name in disbelief. He had only a second to see most of the Hall shifting to get a good look at him, and a frown tugged at his lips before the Sorting Hat fell over his eyes. Not sure what to expect, he tapped the edge of the stool nervously as he waited for something to happen.

“Hmm,” a tiny voice said. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes—and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting.... So where shall I put you?”

Harry shrugged, not really having an opinion, then, figuring the hat probably couldn’t see what he was doing, thought ‘Wherever you think is best, I guess.’

“Well, there’s no doubt which House will lead you to greatness, you know. Still no opinion? Then I’d better put you in SLYTHERIN!”

The Slytherin table broke into raucous applause, and when Harry walked over to it, Draco pulled him into a seat before anyone else could get a hold of him. Students up and down the table were leaning around each other to get a good look at him, and some of the students around him reached over to shake his hand enthusiastically.

“Good show, Potter,” Draco whispered to him, clapping a hand on his shoulder in a friendly manner. “Knew you had it in you.”

“Thanks?” Harry whispered back uncertainly, looking around the Hall with some confusion. Students at the other three tables were looking over at him, some with open hostility on their faces, and even Professor McGonagall seemed to have stopped calling students’ names as she stared at him in shock. Harry really didn’t understand what the big deal was—surely cunning and ambition weren’t bad traits to have?—so he straightened his shoulders and rearranged his expression into something less bewildered. Folding his hands neatly on the table, he leaned slightly in Draco’s direction and asked, “What’s their problem now?”

“Oh, everyone hates Slytherins,” Draco replied with a smirk Harry could barely see in his peripheral vision. "Dad says they think we’re all dishonest Dark wizards in training, and none of it’s helped by Salazar Slytherin’s own belief in the superiority of Purebloods.”

“We’re fucking eleven,” Harry snapped, the curse slipping out with his anger. Thanks, Ed. “My dad won’t even let me learn alchemy yet, and they expect me to be learning Dark magic?”

Draco snickered, but at that moment McGonagall cleared her throat and continued with the sorting. When Blaise was finally sorted and had settled himself across from Harry, the Hall slowly fell silent as McGonagall took the Sorting Hat and stool from the Great Hall. An old man with a ridiculously long beard stood from his seat at the staff table, beaming at the students with too much cheer.

“Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

“Thank you!”

He sat back down to scattered laughter and applause, and when Harry looked down, he saw that food was already weighing the table down. Putting the rest of the students out of his mind, Harry helped himself to as much of the food as he could fit onto his plate and fell into pleasant conversation with the rest of his peers. At least these Slytherins, whatever else might be said of them, didn’t seem to be automatically assuming he was going to turn Dark.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three: All Eyes On Me

Harry woke up the next morning to find that the window between his and Draco’s beds looked out onto a view of the lake, of all things. He would have liked to take it in for a while to see if he could spot any fish, but Draco chose that moment to throw a balled up sock at him.

“Get up!” he demanded. Harry glared at him before he slipped his glasses on and sat up in bed with a yawn. “You’re going to make us late for breakfast if you don’t get up now, you know.”

“Shut up,” Harry snapped, though he did finally get out of bed. Draco grimaced at him, probably unimpressed with his early morning rudeness, but Harry ignored it as he pulled on his uniform. He frowned at the silver and green tie that had appeared overnight, but since he couldn’t think of any way to get out of wearing it, he pulled it around his neck and halfheartedly tied it. Brushing by Draco, he stepped into the bathroom.

“Potter!” Draco called through the door a couple minutes later, making Harry sigh around his toothbrush. Hastily finishing with his morning ablutions, he darted back into the dormitory to snatch up his wand and throw his books into a bag.

“If you’re so worried about breakfast, you could go down without me,” Harry suggested irritably as Draco watched him with an amused smirk.

“But how else would I get such amusement in the morning?” Draco asked. “Your tie is crooked, by the way.”

“I’ll fix it at breakfast,” Harry said impatiently. “They give us tea, don’t they? I don’t know why, but I’m still exhausted.”

Draco shrugged, obviously not knowing since neither of them had had a breakfast at the castle yet, and led the way out of the room. Crabbe and Goyle were waiting for them in the common room, lounging on a comfortable-looking leather couch, and they fell into step behind Draco and Harry without speaking. It was kind of weird having someone follow at his shoulder who wasn’t his dad poking at him, but Harry didn’t make any complaints. He figured it was just part of being forced into being Draco Malfoy’s friend.

And once they found their way to the Great Hall, he even managed to find himself almost grateful for their presence. The whispers started up again as soon as they entered, students pointing at him from across the room as he found a spot at the end of the Slytherin table. When he glanced over at Draco, he noticed the blond boy was smirking smugly, probably enjoying the attention much more than Harry himself was. Harry just did his best to ignore it all, grabbing some food and a much-needed cup of tea with feigned casualness.

“You could at least pretend you’re trying to be my friend for a reason besides my fame,” he muttered to Draco under his breath. Draco managed to arrange his features into an innocent look, and Harry laughed a little. Who was he trying to fool?

Their schedules came down the table eventually, handed off by their sour-faced Head of House. Harry made a face at the timetable the first years were given; they had Transfiguration first thing that morning. What an awful class to start out Monday with. When Harry looked up from the parchment, his eyes scanned across the staff table automatically, and he was surprised to find Professor Snape glaring back at him. The man had glared at him through the whole feast last night as well, making Harry a little discomforted to find himself still stuck under that gaze. Fortunately, Snape looked away quickly to continue his conversation with Quirrell.

“What does Professor Snape have against me?” Harry wondered aloud as he started fixing his tie. “He keeps glaring at me.”

“I have no idea,” Draco replied casually. “C’mon, hurry up with your tie. I don’t want to get on McGonagall’s bad side on the first day of class.”

The whispers that had greeted him on entering the Great Hall only got worse through the day as he traveled the hallways at Draco’s side. He could hear many of the students speculating about his choice of friend (as if Draco had given him a choice), murmuring behind their hands about Lucius Malfoy’s previous time as a Death Eater and the entire family’s penchant for Dark magic and their belief in Pureblood supremacy, but he did his best to ignore them as he focused on memorizing the layout of the castle. Classes weren’t always much better, unfortunately; while McGonagall seemed no-nonsense enough to treat him like any other student, Professor Flitwick actually fell over in excitement when he came across Harry’s name while calling role.

Fortunately, the fervor seemed to die down a little as the week went by. Most of the teachers seemed to genuinely like him—even McGonagall, who had told Harry he was the quickest student to turn his match into a needle—and Harry kept his head down and worked hard so he wouldn’t have any confrontations with the other students. Some of the Gryffindors seemed to be going out of their way to be rude to him, though. Ron Weasley and Seamus Finnigan seemed particularly disgusted with the House he’d ended up in, and a couple of the older Gryffindors had cornered him one of the few times he’d managed to tear Draco away from him. Of course, they’d only learned the hard way that Roy Mustang’s son wasn’t someone to mess with. His dad had taught him several dueling spells and Ed had been coaching him in martial arts, so he’d only come out of that confrontation with a split lip and a detention courtesy of the Gryffindor prefect (who hadn’t believed he was just defending himself).

By the time Friday rolled around, he was fed up with the prejudice he was faced with and more than ready for the weekend to come. He was starting to draft a letter home to his dad and Ed when Blaise dropped into the seat across from him.

“Potions with the Gryffindorks this morning,” he said morosely, and Harry groaned. The last thing he wanted to deal with was Weasley's and Finnigan’s accusations first thing on a Friday morning, and on top of that, he still wasn’t certain what to make of Snape. The Potions professor had stopped glaring at him on a morning, but he still stared more than Harry would have liked. Still, there was no avoiding the class, so when the rest of the Slytherin first years got up to leave he followed without complaint.

Snape only paused briefly after calling Harry’s name for role, but once he finished with his welcoming speech, Harry’s respite seemed to be over.

“Potter!” he barked so suddenly that Harry had to grab the edge of the table to keep himself from jumping. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to recall the answer. “The—the Draught of Living Death, sir?” he supplied uncertainly.

“Good,” Snape said slowly. “And where would you look if I told you to find a bezoar?”

Biting his lip to keep himself from blurting ‘the Potions cupboard’, he scratched at the top of his head as he tried to remember the answer. “I don’t recall, sir, but I know what it’s used for.” When the professor raised a questioning eyebrow at him, he continued, “It’s an antidote to most poisons, and it’s used in antidote potions. Sir.”

Snape hummed thoughtfully and tapped his fingers against his desk. “Let’s try one more, then. What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

This one Harry actually didn’t even have to think about. “They’re the same plant, sir, and it’s also known as aconite.” He’d thought that the plant was rather pretty for a poison, which was probably why he remembered the strange names.

“Correct,” Snape said shortly, finally turning his gaze from Harry to address the rest of the class. “A bezoar, for everyone’s information, is a stone found in the stomach of a goat. Mr. Potter was correct about its uses, including its purpose as an ingredient in several powerful antidotes. Well? Why aren’t you copying that all down?”

Over the flurry of activity as the class pulled out parchment and quills, Snape glanced over at Harry one more time with a sour look on his face. “And three points to Slytherin House for the information Mr. Potter so kindly provided for us today.”

Snape put them into pairs to mix up a potion to cure boils and walked around the room criticizing almost everyone’s work. He seemed to like Draco enough to give compliments, but Harry, who was working with Draco, only received thin-lipped glares whenever the professor stopped by while he was dutifully following the book’s directions. When Snape directed the class’s attention to Draco’s apparently perfect work (blatantly ignoring Harry’s very presence as he did so), he was interrupted by clouds of green smoke. Harry looked around to find that Neville Longbottom had somehow managed to melt Finnigan’s cauldron, which Harry hadn’t thought would even be possible with such a simple potion, and was drenched in the incomplete potion. Snape swept over to them with a snarl on his face to berate Neville and tell Finnigan to take him up to the hospital wing as he quickly vanished the acid-like potion that was spreading across the floor.

Harry returned to his work as Finnigan gathered his and Neville’s things, determined to keep his and Draco’s potion perfect, and didn’t pay them much attention as they started to leave. He was carefully dropping porcupine quills into the cauldron when the pair passed him—and Finnigan, pretending to trip, bumped into Harry’s elbow. “Shit!” Harry snarled under his breath as the quills he was still holding slipped out of his grip and into the cauldron, and Draco snapped much louder, “Watch what you’re doing, Finnigan!”

Snape whirled on them, scowling at Harry and Draco glaring viciously at Finnigan’s slowly disappearing back. He took one look at their cauldron and seemed to deduce what had happened, as he shouted, “Five points from Gryffindor for interfering with another student’s potion, Finnigan!” The Gryffindor side of the room erupted in complaints, Weasley loudly proclaiming that Snape had no proof that Finnigan had done anything

“Are you telling me how to run my class, Weasley?” Snape asked in a furiously cold voice, looming menacingly over the tall redhead. Weasley quickly shook his head, eyes wide. “Good. Then all of you get back to work!”

@-`---

“Finnigan is a menace,” Harry said to Draco later that afternoon as they lounged in the common room avoiding their homework. He had his letter to his dad with him, but he wasn’t working on it yet; he was still debating whether he should complain about the bullying problems. “You’d think he’d have better things to do with his time than to mess with me, wouldn’t you?”

“The Gryffindors are always like that with Slytherins, I’ve heard,” Blaise said. He was leaning against the arm of the couch with his feet in Pansy’s lap, eyes closed as he soaked up the heat from the fire. Pansy, nose in a book, was studiously ignoring him. “Some of the upper years tried to hex Nott yesterday, did you hear? Apparently he was too close to the entrance to the Gryffindor common room for their comfort.”

“Is he okay?” Harry asked, mostly because he was the only one who would. Theodore was relatively quiet and never bothered anyone, which meant that nobody bothered with him either.

“He’s fine. Went to Pomfrey with a headache or something. The Gryffindors got the wrong end of his wand, though.”

“Is there a right end of someone else’s wand to get?” Pansy asked lazily, flinging her book onto the table in front of her with an annoyed grimace. “Merlin, I wish the History of Magic book wasn’t just as boring as Binns is. I’ve read that chapter twice and I still don’t have any idea what he was going on about with the goblins yesterday. Who cares about goblins, anyway?”

“People who keep their money at Gringotts, I reckon,” Harry replied smartly. “Which is, oh, only the entire wizarding community here?”

“Speaking of Gringotts,” Draco interrupted as Pansy glared at Harry. He waved a copy of the Daily Prophet in the air impatiently. “The goblins are saying nothing was taken during that break-in, can you believe it? Apparently the vault was emptied the same morning it occurred.”

“There was a break-in at Gringotts?” Harry asked curiously, snatching the paper from Draco; Draco kicked him, then pointed to the article in question. “Hey, that happened on my birthday!”

“Uh, yeah,” Blaise said slowly. “Where have you been, Potter?”

“In Amestris, where I wouldn’t have received the Prophet to find out about this,” Harry said pointedly, handing the newspaper back to Draco. “Maybe I should get a subscription. I probably don’t want to lose track of what’s going on in England whenever I go home.”

“Don’t trust us to keep you updated?” Draco asked sarcastically. Harry rolled his eyes at him but didn’t respond. “Anyway, I was going to ask, what do you think was in that vault? Couldn’t have been much or there’s no way they would have gotten away, Dark wizard or no.”

“Probably a really rare artifact,” Pansy said, leaning forward and using Blaise’s legs to prop her chin up on her hand. Blaise squirmed uncomfortably, but didn’t make any move to dislodge her. “Why are you taking such an interest in this, Draco? Going to catch the culprit yourself?”

“Hardly,” Draco snorted, throwing the newspaper on the floor. “Do I look like a Gryffindor to you? I just want to know what it was. Doesn’t anybody else think it’s weird that the third-floor corridor is out of bounds at the same time a supposedly-impossible break-in at Gringotts happens? Everybody says there was nothing wrong with it until this year.”

“You think Dumbledore’s keeping something Gringotts couldn’t keep safe in the school?” Harry asked doubtfully. “Doesn’t seem very sensible to me."

“Ah, but Dumbledore is supposed to be the only man You-Know-Who was ever scared of,” Blaise said loftily. “And he’s defeated plenty of Dark wizards before. The worst was Grindelwald back in the 40’s though—do you know about him?—and the headmaster’s getting old even for a wizard. Still, I wouldn't doubt that he buys into his own press."

"Powerful or not, he still sounds crazy," Harry said stubbornly, and finally pulled his letter to Roy a bit closer to him. This was something he knew he should tell him, if only so his dad could send him a sarcastic reply back. "Dad says overconfidence is the quickest path to defeat. If the headmaster is hiding something in Hogwarts, I bet it gets stolen before the year's out."

"We should go check out what's in there," Draco said, leaning over Harry's shoulder. "What're you writing? You've had that parchment out all day."

"It's a letter to my dad," Harry replied, elbowing Draco until the blond grumpily backed off. "You heard him tell me to write him in a week, didn't you?"

"Do you always do what your dad tells you to?" Blaise asked curiously, not actually looking in Harry's direction. "That's adorable."

"Shut up," Harry muttered with a blush. "If I don't write him, he'll get worried. And probably come up here with half the army behind him or, even worse, just a pissed off Ed and Major Hawkeye. I do not want Hawkeye glaring at me for worrying him."

"Is this Hawkeye part of your dad's scary team?" Pansy asked, voice only slightly mocking. "You sound terrified of him."

"She's the one I know is a Squib," Harry replied pointedly. "She helped dad out a lot when I was younger, but you don't know fear until you've seen that woman behind the trigger of a rifle pointed in your direction." Not that Hawkeye had been aiming at him, of course. He'd been kidnapped once (and notably only once) a few years back, before Ed and Al had moved in. Harry honestly didn't remember most of it himself; the only clear image he could bring up was Hawkeye with that rifle, coldly standing beside his uncharacteristically expressive dad, who was furiously demanding Harry's release if the kidnappers wanted to live. One of them laughed in Roy's face. None of them had survived. Harry had been in therapy for years after that.

"Was she going to shoot you?" Pansy asked with a terrified squeak.

"Oh, no, just the guys who were holding me hostage," Harry answered as casually as he could. "Hawkeye would never shoot me, dad would be way too upset. And she likes me anyway. ...I think."

"You think," Draco echoed sarcastically. "Your country is so weird."

"Says the man who was surprised I'd never eaten food that literally tries to run away from you," Harry retorted, smiling a little at the snort of amusement he received from Blaise. Then he finally turned back to his letter, deciding (with some reluctance) that he’d better tell Roy about the Gryffindors after all. His dad would be upset if he found out from someone other than Harry.

As he was writing, and repeatedly shoving Draco to keep him from poking his nose in Harry’s business, Crabbe and Goyle lumbered into the room from wherever in the castle they’d been. Goyle came right over to them, gingerly perching himself on the arm of the couch as if he was worried it would collapse under his weight, but Crabbe wandered over to check the notice board.

“Where have you two been?” Draco asked Goyle, not really sounding as if he cared about the answer.

“Looking for the kitchens,” Goyle replied with a sigh. “Couldn’t find ‘em.”

“Maybe next time,” Draco murmured.

“Flying Lessons this week,” Crabbe grumbled as he came up to them, glaring at Blaise and Pansy taking up an entire couch. Draco moved closer to Harry’s side of their couch (Harry quickly covered up his letter), and Crabbe settled down on the far end with a grunt. “Doubling with the Gryffindors starting Thursday.”

“Oh, lovely,” Harry said sarcastically. “You’d think once a week in the dungeons with them would be more than enough trouble for the teachers, wouldn’t you?”

Unfortunately, by that Thursday it was obvious that the teachers hadn’t figured out how bad of an idea the combined class was, because the notice about Flying Lessons remained unchanged that morning. Draco was especially put-out by this, as he’d had some trouble with Finnigan just the day before, so Harry supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when the pale boy snatched something out of Neville Longbottom’s hand on their way out of the Great Hall that morning.

Ron Weasley and Seamus Finnigan, who otherwise didn’t give Neville the time of day, instantly jumped to their feet for a fight. Harry just rolled his eyes and snatched the little glass orb from Draco’s hand.

“I was looking at that!” Draco protested.

“Most people ask for permission to look before taking things out of people’s hands, Draco,” Harry said with a sigh, tossing the ball back to Neville, who caught it with wide eyes. “C’mon, we’re going to be late to Herbology.”

“I hate Herbology,” Draco grumbled half-heartedly, but agreeably followed Harry out the door.

 @-`---

Later that afternoon found the Slytherins outside on the grounds, waiting for both the Gryffindors and Madame Hooch to show up for their lesson. They had already found the best brooms of the lot, at Harry’s insistence, and had rearranged them so the Gryffindors would get the worst ones, when the rest of the class showed up with Weasley in the lead. Weasley and Finnigan glared at them heatedly, probably not having forgiven Draco for trying to take Neville’s toy earlier in the day, but they didn’t get a chance to start anything before Hooch appeared and ordered them all to stand by the brooms.

“Stick out your right hand over your broom, and say ‘Up’!” she told them.

“Up!” the class dutifully repeated.

Harry’s broom leapt into his hand, and he grinned at Draco. Draco grinned back, smugly holding his own broom and eyeing the rest of the class with some amusement. A couple of the Gryffindors were also holding their brooms already, and Blaise managed to get his into his hand on the second try, but most of the class was still shouting at their brooms. Worst of all was Neville’s, which was clearly responding to the boy’s trembling voice and refusing to move at all.

When everyone was finally mounted on their brooms (and, oh, Harry was never going to let Draco hear the end of Hooch saying he’d been gripping it wrong), Madame Hooch told them to kick off lightly on her whistle, and immediately come back down. Harry and Draco grimaced at each other, neither appreciating the baby steps, but it quickly became obvious why they were necessary. Neville kicked off before Hooch even blew her whistle, and as he shot quickly into the air, seemed too terrified to bring the broom back down at their teacher’s order. Harry couldn’t help but wince sympathetically when Neville inevitably slid sideways off his broom and slammed into the ground.

“Broken wrist,” Hooch muttered as she leaned over Neville’s still-terrified form. “Come on, boy—it’s all right, up you get.” Her voice turned harsh again when she turned to the rest of the class to threaten them into staying on the ground. She walked off with her arm around Neville’s shoulders.

Beside Harry, Draco snorted with laughter. “Did you see his face, the great lump?” Then to Harry, who was scowling as the rest of the Slytherins joined in the laughter, “Come on, Harry, that was priceless. They should’ve known better than to let that walking disaster anywhere near a broom.”

“Shut up, Malfoy,” one of the Gryffindor girls snapped, her pretty face twisted in a vicious frown.

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” Pansy mocked back. “Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”

“Look!” Draco said, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him.”

Weasley looked like he was preparing to attack Draco, so Harry stepped forward himself and grabbed the little glass ball from his friend’s grip before he could get pummeled. He didn’t say anything as he slid it into his pocket, though, instead leveling Draco with a glare.

“Give that here, Potter!” Weasley yelled, looking a bit less ready to attack Harry. He’d probably heard what Harry was capable of from the older Gryffindors, and had enough sense to not want to start a fight.

“Oh, like you give a whit about Longbottom,” Harry said shortly, his anger finally getting the better of him. “Do you actually plan on giving it back to him, or are you just trying to look big by picking a fight with, what did you call me the other day? Oh, yes, the ‘blood traitor.’”

“You’re just another slimy Slytherin, Potter,” Finnigan piped up from behind Weasley’s back. “You can pretend to be noble all you want, but we know what you’re really like.”

“Yeah, so give the Remembrall back,” Weasley said smugly.

“I’ll hold on to it for now, thanks,” Harry said coldly, though his voice was shaking with fury at the Gryffindors’ thinly veiled insults. “I don’t trust you to actually give it back to him.”

“Yeah, I reckon you could get a few knuts for it if you decided to sell it instead,” Draco said snidely.

For whatever reason, this seemed to be the last straw for Weasley. He lunged at Draco with a snarl, not that it did him any good. Harry yanked his friend away from the redhead by the back of his collar, and was just about to retaliate when a voice rang out over the grounds.

“MR. WEASLEY!” Professor McGonagall yelled as she ran over to their loose group. “How dare you attack another student—“

“But Professor, he was provoked—“ Parvati Patil spoke up hurriedly.

“Be quiet, Miss Patil,” McGonagall said furiously.

“But Malfoy said—“

“That is enough, Mr. Finnigan! There’s no excuse for attacking another student! That’s twenty points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley, and a detention next week. Don’t argue, or that’ll be more points!”

Most of the Slytherins were still smirking when McGonagall told them all to go back to the Common Rooms. Harry even made sure to give Weasley and Finnigan an extra sweet smile, which got him a few irate glares before the two boys bent their heads together and started whispering hurriedly. They were probably trying to come up with some way to get Harry and Draco into trouble, but Harry found that he wasn’t too bothered. He was sure nothing would come of it.

“What are you going to do with Longbottom’s stupid toy?” Draco asked once the Gryffindors split away from them to head towards their tower. “That thing is useless.”

“Which explains why you were so keen to get a look at it,” Harry said somewhat coolly. He was upset by Draco’s cruelty earlier—broken bones were nothing to laugh about—and wasn’t feeling particularly friendly at the moment. “I’m going to head up to the hospital wing and give it back to Longbottom. He’ll want it back if it’s from his gran.”

“All the more reason to keep it, don’t you think?”

“Look,” Harry snapped, whirling around on Draco in a temper. Most of the Slytherin first years were arrayed out behind the other boy as if backing him up, and Harry shot them a brief glare before turning his attention back to his friend. “Maybe you don’t get it, maybe you haven’t lost any family members, but I do. You never know when somebody you love is going to die, and Neville’s gran’s got to be old—how do you think he would feel if this was the last thing she could give him and he lost it? So I’m not going to ask you to go with me, I’m not even going to ask you to care, but I am bringing this back to him because I know what it’s like.”

“Harry, wait!” Draco called after him as he stormed off, but Harry was so angry at the blond that he didn’t even want to look at him, so he ignored it. His bad mood took him all the way up to the hospital wing, and for once he was glad that being a Slytherin meant nobody wanted anything to do with him. He stepped into the wing somewhat hesitantly, though, wary of coming across any Gryffindors who may have opted to visit their injured housemate. Thankfully, the room was empty but for Neville and Madame Pomfrey, who were gingerly moving Neville’s arm.

“Something I can help you with, Mr. Potter?” Madame Pomfrey asked when she finally caught sight of Harry sidling in through the door. Blushing slightly, Harry stepped fully inside and closed the door behind him.

“No ma’am. I just wanted to see how he was doing,” Harry said with a nod to Neville, shifting nervously on his feet. “I wasn’t sure if—I thought he might want his Remembrall back.”

“Well, he’s all sorted out, so you can chat for a minute if you want,” Madame Pomfrey said briskly, stepping away from Neville’s bed.

Harry watched her go, then pulled the Remembrall out of his pocket. He held it out to Neville, but when the boy failed to take it from him, he dropped it on the bed instead.

“How’s your arm?” he asked awkwardly.

“It’s fine,” Neville replied warily. “Madame Pomfrey fixed it right up with a spell; it hardly even hurts now.” He kept an eye on Harry as he slowly picked up the Remembrall, inspecting it briefly before shoving it into one of his own pockets. “Why’d you return it?”

“Well it’s yours, isn’t it?” Harry asked, nonplussed. “I’m not going to take something your gran gave you, you never know—I mean, it probably means a lot to you. That she sent that and all, you know.”

Harry’s nervous babbling finally seemed to crack a smile out of Neville, whose eyes were starting to take on an amused glint.

“I figured you’d be as bad as Malfoy,” Neville said, his voice a lot more casual already. “You’re with him all the time.”

“Accident of fate,” Harry suggested with a wry grin. “I met him over the summer in Diagon Alley, and now I can’t get rid of him. He’s a bit of a prat and really nosy, but he kind of grows on you after a while. Anyway, I figure you’d might as well get along with the guys you sleep in the same room with, y’know?”

Neville just laughed and nodded in agreement, so Harry took that as his cue to leave. He said his goodbyes somewhat hastily, wanting to leave before he could say something to really embarrass himself, and darted out of the room.

But despite everything, Harry soon discovered that he’d made himself a new and loyal friend out of Neville. Draco seemed particularly unimpressed with this, since Harry started spending time away from the Slytherin Commons to hang out with Neville, but Harry himself was pleased. Neville Longbottom was the first friend he made on purpose in this new country, and Harry finally had someone to spend time with whenever one of his group of Slytherins said something ignorant.

Chapter Text

Harry was more than a little surprised when he realized that two months had passed without him even noticing. It had been years since he’d been away from his dad for so long, so he’d expected his own homesickness would drag the time out endlessly, but that didn’t happen. In fact, it was rare for him to become homesick at all, with how much mail he was getting from Amestris. His dad and Ed sent him a letter at least once a week, even though they rarely had anything interesting to say, and Aunt Chris and Uncle Maes sent him packages nearly as often. Those packages were usually full of food and candy from Amestris that his family thought he’d miss, but he’d never forget the one time Uncle Maes had sent along one of Aunt Gracia’s homemade apple pies. Harry had managed to keep the box from Draco for the entire day, which was no mean feat, until he finally uncovered it in the Common Room after dinner. They’d eaten the entire pie between the six of them (except one piece he'd conscientiously saved for Neville), and everyone was saying how good it was when he casually announced that Aunt Gracia was, in fact, a Muggle. He’d laughed a little meanly into the ensuing silence, thoroughly enjoying the disbelief on everyone’s faces, and eventually wrote a gushing letter home to let them know the results.

Draco was probably the only person who got more mail than Harry, though. He seemed to receive a box of sweets from his mother every other day, which he gloatingly shared around the table ("Well I can’t eat it all myself, can I?" he asked Harry wryly the first time he’d done this), so Harry was constantly introduced to new types of enchanted candies. None of the other Slytherins, first year or not, got half as much food in the mail as the two of them did, and they were always popular at the breakfast table as a result.

"Why’s everything smell like pumpkin?" Harry asked on a quiet morning where neither of them had received a package.

"Merlin, I keep forgetting you’re not from England," Draco replied with a mournful sigh, setting his silverware down to talk. "Obviously it’s a holiday. Today’s Halloween, and pumpkin-based food is a tradition. Don’t ask me why, though—it’s supposed to be a celebration of the dead."

Harry looked around the Great Hall skeptically, taking in the un-holidaylike mood and the lack of decorations. "And we don’t even get off from class?" he asked, disappointed. Draco just laughed at him.

"We’ll have a feast tonight," Pansy explained, seeming to take pity on Harry’s disgruntled expression. "The real celebration tends to be very personal—there’s some sort of ritual the older families do—so they probably expect us to go off on our own if we feel any need to do it."

Neville was the one who explained what the ritual was for, though. Harry had taken to tutoring Neville in Potions before dinner when it became increasingly obvious that the other boy wouldn’t pass the class without an intervention. Harry couldn’t say Potions was his best subject, of course, but just about anyone was better than Neville, who seemed preternaturally disposed towards ruining even the most basic of concoctions. In return, Neville told Harry about any aspect of wizarding culture Harry seemed interested in.

Neville was just getting into a description of the ritual itself as they approached the Great Hall when they were both distracted by a hushed conversation between a pair of the less offensive first years.

"Hermione’s locked herself into the bathroom," Parvati Patil was saying to her friend Lavender Brown. She didn’t sound as worried about this as Harry thought she might be. "Says she wants to be left alone. I don’t know what she’s doing crying like that for, it’s not like she didn’t know Ron—"

Harry and Neville shared a worried look as the conversation passed out of their hearing, but neither of them knew what to do. They’d noticed that Hermione was alone more often than not, nearly always studying, but Neville was leery of giving the Gryffindor boys another reason to dislike him, while Harry just didn’t know how to approach the girl, given the crowd he was usually with.

"Well, have a good meal, I s’pose," Neville said morosely as they entered the Great Hall and went their separate ways. Despite the now cheerfully decorated Hall, Harry could feel his mood plummet as he walked away from his friend and towards the Slytherin table. Draco, Pansy, and Blaise were caught up in an animated discussion about Quidditch when he took his seat next to Draco, so he didn’t pay them much attention until he was suddenly hit on the shoulder.

"What’s your problem, Potter?" Pansy asked while Draco pretended he hadn’t just hit Harry to get his attention. "It’s Halloween! Cheer up!"

Harry, who couldn’t really explain the mood he was in, gave her a dry look and said, "You know, my birth parents died today." Which effectively killed the mood, as he’d been aiming for, but he immediately felt bad for trying to ruin their holiday just because he was in an awful mood. "Sorry," he said hastily. "It’s just—October isn’t a good month, and I guess it’s getting to me."

"It’s fine," Draco said briskly, though there was an unfamiliarly soft look on his face as he spoke to Harry. "We’ll just have to celebrate enough for you too. I’ll eat your share of the pie."

Blaise snorted, and this seemed to defuse the tension that had fallen over their part of the table. Grateful for Draco’s cavalier attitude, he allowed himself to be drawn into the conversation.

Harry was just starting to feel his mood return to normal when Professor Quirrell came bursting into the hall, fear twisting his face as he tried to fix his turban as he ran. "Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know," he managed to gasp at Dumbledore before he fainted.

The entire room panicked, and it wasn’t until Dumbledore sent up several purple firecrackers that calm restored. He ordered the Prefects to take their Houses back to their dormitories, but Harry had only taken a few steps when something occurred to him.

"Granger!" he said aloud; his group of friends turned to him with bewildered looks. "I overheard the Gryffindors saying she’s crying in the bathroom. I have to tell—"

But when he looked around, he saw that all of the teachers had already disappeared. He briefly considered telling one of the Prefects, but quickly realized that the Slytherins were unlikely to care and the Gryffindors probably wouldn't even bother listening to him. Cursing slightly under his breath, he looked around to see if he could get to the girls' bathroom without being caught.

"What are you doing, Potter?" Pansy asked impatiently, tugging on his arm in the direction of the dungeons. "Move your feet!"

"Somebody has to warn Granger, she doesn't know there's a troll in the castle!" Harry said stubbornly, pulling his arm out of her grip.

"Oh, the Mudblood will be fine—" Draco started flippantly, but stopped short when Harry whirled on him with blazing eyes.

"Don't call her that!" he snarled. "You wouldn't call my mom that, would you? Just go on to the Commons, I'll be right there."

"You're mad, Potter," Pansy said, shaking her head. Blaise followed her as she darted after the rest of the Slytherins, but Draco stayed. His face was paler than normal as he stared at Harry.

"Well? Go on!" Harry said furiously, and ducked into a group of Ravenclaws rushing in the opposite direction. It took him a minute to realize that Draco had followed him, and when he did he just glared at the blond angrily.

"I'm sorry," Draco said, and the apology surprised Harry so much that he almost stopped walking. "I wasn't thinking—you're right, I wouldn't call your mum a Mud—that word, but only because she's your mum. Which isn't, it isn't fair, is it?"

"No, it isn't," Harry said shortly. "Why are you following me?"

"Obviously I'm trying to help," Draco replied snidely. Harry shot him a disbelieving look, but Draco's mouth thinned as he glared right back. "If the troll's in the dungeons, the last place I want to go is down there! I don't know what the headmaster's thinking. So I'm going with you."

"If you insult Granger, I'll smack you," Harry informed him, sliding around the corner of the corridor the bathroom was on. Draco laughed a little, but stopped when they heard footsteps. Sharing an alarmed look, they ducked behind a statue of a griffin and huddled silently together as Snape passed by.

"What's he doing?" Harry whispered as soon as the professor disappeared. "Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?"

"I've no idea," Draco whispered back. They crept silently after Snape's footsteps. "He's going to the third floor! Maybe he suspects someone let the troll in as a distraction; they're too stupid to get into the castle on their own."

Harry would have responded, but at that very moment an awful smell reached his nose. He made a face, turning to Draco, who looked back at him with his nose wrinkled in disgust. He was just about to ask what the smell was when they heard a low grunting and loud footsteps down a nearby corridor. They glanced down it briefly, then shared a look of horror and ducked back into the shadows. The troll was moving in their direction, dragging a huge club behind it. Eventually it stopped in a doorway, ears twitching in interest, and slowly made its way into the room.

"The key's in the lock," Harry said.

"But isn't that the girls' bathroom?" Draco asked. Harry gaped at him, then turned back to stare at the doorway the troll had entered. "We need to go find a teacher, no way we can—"

He was cut off by the sound of a long, terrified scream. Harry didn't even hesitate; he ran in the direction of the bathroom, ignoring Draco shouting for him to stop. He slid to a stop in the doorway, Draco running straight into his back, and took in the scene with some horror. Hermione Granger was on the far side of the room, trying to shrink herself into a corner, and the troll was knocking sinks off the wall as it made its way toward her.

"Distract it!" Harry snapped at Draco, ducking forward and grabbing a tap. He threw it against the wall, and was gratified to see the troll stop in its tracks, ears twitching again. It turned towards the sound of the noise, stared at Harry dully, and eventually decided to go for him instead. Harry hadn't counted on this. He stepped back towards the doorway, terrified.

"Hey, stupid!" Draco yelled, throwing a loose pipe at its head. The troll didn't seem to notice the pipe hitting it, but it must have heard Draco, because it turned around and started towards the blond instead. Harry shot Draco a grateful look as he darted around the troll and grabbed Hermione's arm.

"C'mon, run!" he said desperately, half an eye on Draco, who was looking like he might be regretting coming with Harry. Hermione seemed too scared to move, however, and just stared at the troll with her mouth open in horror.

"Gryffindors," Harry muttered in exasperation, took stock of his limited options, and then proceeded to do probably the stupidest thing he could. He took a running leap at the troll's back, wrapping his arms around its thick neck and holding on desperately. It didn't seem to notice him hanging from it, but he did hear it cry in pain as his wand was unfortunately jammed into a nostril. The troll twisted and flailed, trying to get him off its back, and Harry was just wondering what his dad was going to say when he found out his son had been killed by a troll at school when he heard Draco's voice.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Draco called in a desperate tone. Harry and the troll both looked up as the troll's club jumped high into the air, turned over, and fell with a loud clunk onto the troll's head. The troll remained standing dumbly for a few seconds, then collapsed with the sound of a falling tree.

Harry clambered to his feet shakily. Draco, wand still raised, stared back and forth between Harry and the troll.

"Is it—dead?" Hermione asked timidly, finally pushing herself away from the wall.

"I don't think so," Harry said uncertainly, reaching for his wand. "I think it's been knocked out." He pulled his wand free of the troll's nose and gave it a disgusted look.

"Ugh, that's revolting," Draco said as Harry wiped the troll's snot onto its trousers.

The sound of a slamming door and running footsteps made them look up quickly. Harry supposed they must've been making a racket trying to fight the troll, so some of the teachers must have heard them—too late to be of any help, of course. Sure enough, McGonagall came running into the room a second after he thought that, with Snape and Quirrell at her heels. Quirrell took one look at the troll and let out a faint whimper as he sank onto a toilet, clutching his heart. He looked like he was going to faint again.

Snape bent over the troll curiously, but McGonagall gave Draco and Harry such a furious look they found themselves nervously shuffling closer to each other.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" she asked, her cold voice shaking slightly. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

Snape shot Harry a piercing look, and Harry gulped nervously as he squared his shoulders and looked McGonagall in the eyes. "I'd heard Granger was crying in the bathroom and wouldn't know about the troll," he said, more calmly than he felt. "I couldn't find any teachers, so I thought I'd come to warn her. Draco followed me because—because—" he trailed off there, glancing at Draco out of the corner of his eye. Draco grimaced back at him, then raised his chin to finish Harry's sentence.

"Because I was trying to stop him, Professor," he said, more respectfully than he usually spoke to teachers. "I thought Granger would be fine since the troll was in the dungeon, but we were wrong and—" He quailed in the face of McGonagall's glare, giving Harry a beseeching look.

"We heard her scream and we had to help," Harry finished desperately. He tried not to notice Hermione staring at them both with wide eyes, looking utterly baffled by this sentence. Snape was looking between all three of them with furrowed brows.

"If—if you please, Professor," Hermione said very softly, "if they hadn't shown up when they did, I think I'd be dead by now."

Harry shot her a grateful look, and she gave him a little smile back.

"Well—in that case…" McGonagall started slowly, looking between the three of them uncertainly. "That was—a very noble thing you did, boys. Not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll and lived, even if it was due to sheer dumb luck. Five points to Slytherin for both of you, and Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. Now, if you're not hurt at all, you'd best be getting back to your dormitories. The students are finishing the feast in their rooms."

The three of them hurried out of the room, rushing down the corridor before any of the teachers could change their minds about letting them go. At the end of the hall, where they would have to split up, they lingered briefly to give each other uncertain looks. Draco was the first to look away, rocking back on his heels and staring in the direction of the dungeons.

"Thanks," Hermione finally said in a very embarrassed voice, giving Harry and Draco a shy look. "You really—you didn't have to do that."

"It was all Potter's idea," Draco said gruffly, not looking at her. Harry noticed the amused smile Hermione shot him, though.

"I really was just planning to warn you," Harry said a bit uncertainly, but cut himself off as the sound of footsteps started drifting down the corridor towards them. Draco grabbed his arm and pulled him away from Hermione. "See you!" Harry called, glancing behind him to see Hermione give them a cheerful little wave and rush off for her own Common Room.

"You and your bright ideas," Draco snapped at him as they entered the dungeons. "I'm never following you anywhere again!"

The weather abruptly turned cold as they entered November. If Harry looked out the corridor windows, he sometimes saw Hagrid down on the grounds, bundled up in furs as he attended his duties and defrosted broomsticks out on the Quidditch pitch. Most days found Harry in the library between classes, sitting at a table and quietly studying with Neville and Hermione, who had become his friend in the aftermath of the fight with the troll. All of the other Slytherin first years scoffed at him, not just because his two newest friends were Gryffindors, but Draco occasionally deigned to join them. He would sit as far away from the two Gryffindors as possible, especially Hermione, but was careful not to make any snide remarks. At least, not to the Gryffindors themselves.

"Granger's brilliant," Draco moaned the one time Harry confronted him on his strange behavior. "But you never heard me admit that! Father would kill me if he knew I was spending time with a Mud—a Muggleborn witch."

Harry grinned a little, trying not to be proud of Draco's attempts at civility. He still tended to talk down to Hermione and Neville, in the very rare instances when he spoke with them at all, but he genuinely seemed to be trying to get along with them for Harry's sake. Hermione wasn't very impressed with these attempts ("that snotty little blueblood!" she was known to snarl whenever she wanted to complain about him), and Neville seemed too timid to talk much, but Harry didn't really mind. It was enough for him that they didn't outright hate each other.

The four of them were studying at a rather secluded table the day before the first Quidditch match of the season (Gryffindor versus Slytherin, of course), but Draco was being unusually restless. He kept glancing out of the windows and sighing huffily, playing aimlessly with his quill instead of doing his homework or reading.

"If you don't want to be here, you're allowed to leave," Hermione said sarcastically, looking up from her book. Once she'd relaxed, Hermione had shown herself to be rather witty on top of her brilliance, with a mean streak none of them had expected. She didn't usually let the meanness out, of course, but Draco seemed to be especially irritating her today.

"I don't need your permission to go anywhere, Granger," Draco returned snidely, straightening in his seat and pulling one of his books closer to him. He slumped over it, chin propped up on his hand, but didn't seem to actually be reading it. Eventually he sighed again, but before Hermione could snap at him, he burst out, "I just don't get it!"

"Don't get what?" Hermione asked, because if Draco didn't understand something in their work she was usually the only one who could explain it for him. This didn't happen often, but that didn't seem to make Draco any happier when he had to listen to her lectures.

"It's not schoolwork," Draco said hastily, pointing out the window with his quill. "It's Quidditch. Brooms. Stupid rules that prevent first years from getting on the team! I could be down there preparing to beat your stupid Gryffindors to the Snitch, but instead I'm stuck up here studying!"

"You haven't studied all day," Neville said softly, not looking up from his book in case Draco took exception to his statement. Draco did shoot him a nasty glare, but refrained from saying anything back.

"That's not the point," Draco insisted. Hermione was now looking irritated again, glaring at Draco for interrupting with something she thought was petty nonsense, so Harry finally looked up from his own work to engage Draco himself.

"You know why that rule's there," Harry said patiently, with a short nod at Neville. Neville's ears reddened in embarrassment, but he didn't say anything; he wasn't going to argue that he should be on the Quidditch team himself. "Not everyone grew up riding racing brooms and playing Quidditch, and it wouldn't be fair to those of us who don't know anything about playing the game."

"You could learn, it's not hard," Draco said dismissively. "It's just a stupid rule pandering to—"

"If you say Muggleborns, I will kick you," Hermione said viciously. Harry and Neville snorted with laughter while Draco gave her an annoyed look. He didn't finish his sentence, though.

"Just suck it up and try out next year," Harry sighed, quietly returning to the essay he was writing for Flitwick. "And do your homework, would you? I don't want to listen to you whining while you do it at the last minute Sunday night again."

Draco did kick Harry, staring down at his book with a quiet grumble. Harry shared an exasperated look with Hermione, but at least it was quiet again.

At breakfast the next morning, though, Draco was apparently so excited he looked about ready to vibrate out of his seat. Harry didn't understand this at all, rolling his eyes at the blond as he sat down and grabbed some toast before Goyle could get all of it. Draco grimaced back at him, nibbling delicately on some sort of pastry.

"You could at least pretend to care about the match," Draco whined to him as they made their way down to the Quidditch pitch. He was glaring at the book and parchment Harry was carrying with him to keep himself entertained; he figured while he wasn't actually paying attention to the match, he could get a start on his letter back to his dad.

"I don't know enough about the game to care unless I'm playing it," Harry replied dismissively. "And you know I'll still be cheering for Slytherin, it is my House."

"It doesn't count as much if you're not even watching!" Draco protested.

"Oh, give it a rest, Draco," Pansy sighed through the scarf wrapped around her mouth. "Let the boy write his letter and get over yourself."

"Yeah, we don't want his dad coming up here because Harry was a day late responding," Blaise added teasingly, nudging Harry in the ribs. Harry glared at him silently, but didn't bother trying to defend himself. One day they'd understand his dad worried too much and was terrifying besides, and they'd stop teasing him. Hopefully.

They settled on a high bench in the stands, grappling with several older students to get the good seats, and Draco pulled a pair of binoculars out of a pocket and scanned the field. Pansy rolled her eyes and pulled out a book of her own, ignoring the betrayed looks Blaise and Draco shot her.

Blaise, boredly looking out across the stands, suddenly gave a snort of disgust. "Potter, your Gryffindorks are coming," he said. Harry looked up and saw that Hermione and Neville were indeed storming up the steps towards them. Neville, who was being pulled along by one arm, gave Harry a rather dismal-looking wave.

"Hi, Harry!" Hermione said brightly, primly seating herself on the bench next to him and pulling out a book of her own.

"Hey, Hermione, Neville," Harry replied, ignoring the Slytherins beside him grumbling to each other. "Excited for the match?"

"Not really," Hermione said, nodding briskly at a gaggle of Gryffindors settling in on the other side of the stands. "They don't need any more reason to try to hex me, though, so I figured I would come anyway. Neville thought we should sit with the Gryffindors, but I don't see why I shouldn't sit with people who are actually my friends if I want to. I'm certainly not going to be cheering for Slytherin, you realize, even if my House is full of prats."

"I think they'll get on our case about sitting over here anyway," Neville said morosely, staring grumpily into the field. He had a pair of binoculars as well, but wasn't using them yet. "But then I don't expect they'd have given us a break for showing up anyway, so I just…followed."

"Wise man," Harry said mock-seriously. He turned his attention out onto the field as well, just in time to see the teams come walking out. He noticed that there weren't any girls on the Slytherin team, and they were mostly larger and more sturdy-looking than the Gryffindors. From what little Harry knew of Quidditch, he wasn't sure that was a good strategy; the smaller girls on the Gryffindor team could probably move much faster than the Slytherins' hulking forms. He vaguely remembered a bit of a rant Ed had gone on about how brooms ignored the laws of physics only when they wanted to. Ed wasn't much of a fan of broomflight, or sometimes even magic in general.

Harry's attention wandered as the game moved on, and he eventually turned to his parchment and started writing to his dad about it. Hermione was already deep in her book and didn't look to be coming up for air any time soon, while Pansy was glancing between her book and the game every few minutes. Harry was lucky he managed to pay attention enough to cheer whenever the Slytherins made a goal, but across the field he could see some of the Gryffindors pointing out Hermione and talking to each other. Harry doubted it was anything good.

The only thing that really caught his attention, though, were the two times the Snitch was spotted. The first time, Flint fouled the Gryffindor Seeker, and Harry returned to his letter with a sigh. ('Some of the Slytherins are terrible cheaters, apparently,' he wrote to his dad. 'It's kind of annoying when they don't do it right.') The second time, the two Seekers were neck-and-neck, flying across the field so fast that Harry actually leaned forward over his letter to see better. Draco was standing beside him, bouncing on the balls of his feet and chanting "Go, go, go!" and Harry found himself wishing he had a pair of binoculars as well.

Finally, Neville and Hermione erupted into ecstatic cheers as the Gryffindor Seeker caught the Snitch and did loop-de-loops with it clenched in his fist. Draco cursed and sank back into his seat beside Harry, glaring at the field. Pansy patted him consolingly on the back.

"I bet I could have caught that," Draco muttered moodily. "Did you see that Gryffindor knock Higgs's hand out of the way at the last moment? I wouldn't have let that happen!"

"Sure you wouldn't," Harry said dryly. Draco gave him a dirty look.

"I'm going to get on the team next year," he said haughtily. "What d'you say, Potter? You with me? Bet you'd do better than the blokes out there too."

"You want me to play Quidditch on a Twigger?" Harry asked sardonically, shaking his head. "No way dad's going to get me a racing broom, and he won't let me bring the Comet with me. Sorry, Draco. You're on your own."

"My father would buy the entire team brooms if I got to play," Draco announced, a determined glint in his eyes. "Listen, let's grab some school brooms tomorrow and practice a bit, I want to see if you'd be any good. I can do either Chaser or Seeker, but if you have a preference you can pick it."

"How kind of you," Harry said. Then, staring at Draco's serious, hopeful face, he let out a loud sigh and nodded. When Draco gave him an uncharacteristically brilliant grin at his agreement, he couldn't even find it in himself to regret it.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five: The Good That Won't Come Out

"What's the best way to get ahold of your father?" Draco asked one morning in December, looking up from the letter in his hand and smirking as Harry jumped at the abrupt sound of his voice. Harry stared back at him blankly, wondering what in the world Draco would need to speak to Roy for. Draco sighed and waved his letter in the air as if that answered Harry's unvoiced question. "Father wants to invite you and your family to our annual Christmas Ball over break, but he's not sure how to send the invite. I figured an owl since you send Hedwig to Amestris all the time, but…."

"Oh, yeah, an owl would be best," Harry said. "But he'll have to send it to dad's office; the house is Charmed against strange animals. If he just puts 'Roy Mustang's Office, Central Headquarters' on the envelope, the owl should be able to find him." 

"All right, I'll let him know," Draco replied, scribbling in the margins of his dad's letter and returning to his breakfast.

"But, uh, what's this ball about then?" Harry asked.

Draco looked up from his plate again, this time to stare at him. In fact, Harry must've asked the question louder than he'd thought, because Draco wasn't the only one; half the table was now looking at him in disbelief.

"Christmas, Potter," Draco drawled. He only called Harry by his last name any more when Harry was being unusually stupid. "It's only the biggest holiday of the year. With the—the trees and the presents and the boring parties, you know."

"Not really," Harry said, thinking hard. Now that Draco was describing it, it did sound faintly familiar, but like something he'd read about in school. The presents bit did, anyway. "Some people celebrate the Solstices, but there's no presents or anything. Well, boring parties, yeah, but no presents."

"Weird," breathed one of the older students listening in on their conversation. He was elbowed in the side by one of his companions, and he coughed a little before pretending to return to his own meal.

"You live a boring, sad little life, Potter," Blaise said, shaking his head in mock pity. "Imagine having to put up with boring parties without getting the presents for your trouble. 

Harry shook his hair out of his eyes so he could better give Blaise a superior look. "Some of us don't require bribes to behave ourselves at formal functions," he said as snottily as he could manage. Then, "Anyway, I never really had to go to the parties much. Dad always leaves me with Aunt Chris when he has to go to them." And wasn't that always an interesting night.

"Is she the aunt you said is a Squib?" Pansy asked with a furrowed brow.

"I said I think she's a Squib," Harry corrected, though he was kind of impressed she'd remembered that. "I mean, I've never actually seen her do magic, but that doesn't really mean anything in Amestris. A lot of people just use Muggle tools instead."

"Amestris is really strange," Draco said. Harry just shrugged back; he supposed growing up surrounded by magic like Draco did, Amestris would seem weird.

When it finally came to be time for everyone to go home, Neville shyly invited Harry to sit with him and Hermione instead of the Slytherins. Harry was so pleased that Neville was asking for something that he agreed without thinking about. Neville had smiled brightly at him and ran off to tell Hermione, but Draco was less pleased.

"I still don't see why you'd want to sit with them," Draco was still whining as they dragged their trunks onto the train. "They're nobodies, they're not even interesting, you're going to get so bored—"

"Oh, stuff it," Harry said companionably, waving over Draco's shoulder as he saw Hermione's bushy hair approaching. Draco glowered at him, which only caused Harry to roll his eyes. "It's one train ride, Draco, and I'll see you for that Ball. I'm not going to see Hermione and Neville until we get back from break! It won't kill you to be without me for a few hours, though I know how dependent on me you are."

"Dependent!" Draco scoffed back, though he turned slightly pink and turned away from Harry as if he could hide it. "I don't need you for anything, I—"

"Hi, Harry!" Hermione said brightly, interrupting whatever Draco was about to say. She beamed happily at Harry, utterly ignoring the fuming blond at her side. "I'm so glad you agreed to sit with us, I've so many questions to ask, I was looking up Amestris in the library and—"

"We were having a conversation, Granger," Draco said snidely to her, his face pale again. "It's rude to interrupt people, though of course you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Muggles know what manners are too, Malfoy," she responded. "I just couldn't imagine you could possibly have anything of importance to say, Harry was looking all sarcastic again. But I guess I'll leave you to your conversation. Harry—" She turned back to Harry so quickly that Harry jumped, eyes wide as he became the center of her attention again. "—don't spend too long with him, I really want to ask you those questions, and anyway you said you'd sit with us!"

"I'll be right there, Hermione," Harry said, grinning a little helplessly. Sometimes he just didn't know what to do with Hermione; she had a tendency to roll right over people when she was excited about something. "You know how he gets cranky if I don't give him enough attention."

Hermione snorted, then grabbed hold of Neville's arm and ducked into the compartment next to the one Draco's friends had already staked out. Neville gave Harry a helpless sort of look, said "Hi, Harry!" while he had a chance to talk, and let her drag him away. Harry shook his head at both of them, then turned back to Draco.

"Are you sure you want to sit all day with Motormouth and the Human Disaster, there?" Draco asked sarcastically, sighing when Harry glared at him. "I'm just saying, you might actually be able to have something of a conversation with us."

"Hermione's just excited," Harry said calmly. "And she'll be asking questions, so obviously I'll have to answer her, won't I? That's a conversation."

"Your loss, Potter," Draco said haughtily, finally pulling his trunk into his compartment and slamming the door in Harry's face. Harry sighed good-naturedly. Draco didn't mean to be a prat, he was sure, but that didn't always make him any easier to deal with. At least Harry was in a good enough mood today that he could let it roll off his shoulders.

He dragged his trunk into the compartment Hermione and Neville had disappeared into, giving them both a grin as he shoved it into a corner and dropped into the seat across from them. Hermione waited until he was settled to start in on him.

"How does Amestris handle the magical and the non-magical people living together?" she asked excitedly, leaning forward in her seat. Neville rolled his eyes and opened his Herbology textbook. "Is the military really not separate from the government? That doesn't seem ideal to me. Do you know anything about the alchemy they practice? I read that Amestrian alchemy is terrifying, that you use it in wars, and they say Nicholas Flamel was from there, that's where he learned how to make—"

"Slow down, Hermione!" Harry said, laughing as she flushed in embarrassment. "You have to give me time to answer the questions. There's no way I can remember them all."

"Sorry," Hermione said in a quiet voice. "It's just, I’m so excited. Nobody really has much information about Amestris, you know, I've looked and looked and—well, here you are. It's really very overwhelming."

"I know what you mean," Harry sighed. "Everything in England is so new to me; I feel like I'll never be able to catch up with what everyone else is familiar with. You should've seen the looks the Slytherins gave me when they found out I didn't even know what Christmas was! Not that they've really told me much about it, all I got from Draco was something about trees and presents."

"No Christmas?" Hermione asked with wide eyes, then dove for her trunk a moment later. She came out with a quill and parchment and gave Harry an intense look. "Okay, let's start there. Tell me about your religion, you do have holidays right?"

Harry grinned at her and started a long, rambling description of what he could remember about the various religions of Amestris. Hermione took copious notes, even though he admitted he wasn't sure of much because he lived with two atheists, and Neville laughed when she reached the end of her first bit of parchment. Harry just waited for her to find a new piece, then continued talking. The witch with the cart came by at some point, and Harry paused to buy them all some snacks, tearing hungrily into a Pumpkin Pasty to give himself a break. Hermione pouted at him, but took the hint and started going through his pile of food as well.

As the train moved through the countryside, Harry found himself talking about an almost exhaustive list of Amestrian culture. Religious talk moved into the mingling of magical and non-magical people, which segued bafflingly into what little he knew of the government and what he could remember of the many wars Amestris had fought in, and finally, just as they were getting close to King's Cross, the conversation rolled around to alchemy.

"Well, I live with a couple of alchemists, but I don't know much," Harry told her warningly. "My dad won't let me learn yet. He's known as the Flame Alchemist, by the way—the military hires alchemists and gives them titles and dad's a brigadier general. So his specialty is fire, but he knows loads of other alchemy too; you should see the books he has! His boyfriend teaches alchemy at Central University, his name's Edward Elric—"

"The Fullmetal Alchemist?" Neville blurted, turning from the window and joining the conversation for perhaps the first time. Harry gaped at him, shocked that Neville had recognized Ed's name, and Neville blushed hotly. He didn't look away from Harry's eyes, though. "Gran's got friends in Amestris," he explained. "They owl each other about once a month. A few years back the Fullmetal Alchemist was kind of a big deal, you know, they said he was all over the news and everybody loved him. Gran was never a fan of the military—too war hungry—but she said she approved of Fullmetal because he was the only one of them with his head on straight. Do you really know him?"

"Uh, yeah," Harry said uncertainly, still blinking in shock at Neville. "I told you, he's my dad's boyfriend. He lives with us actually, for the past three years. I didn't think anybody outside of Amestris knew his name. I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to talk about his time in the military with anyone."

"Wow," Neville said with big eyes. "Gran's friends never said anything about him dating somebody else in the military. Isn't he really young? I think they thought he died in that revolution three years ago too."

"He's um, he's nineteen," Harry mumbled, hoping to avoid the inevitable rest of the conversation. "He was twelve when he joined the military, apparently, and he retired after the revolution. A lot of people thought he'd died, but he was—" Unconscious, Harry didn't say, swallowing the word down with some trouble. It was weird to think of Ed as being injured, really, weird to think that whatever he'd been doing during the revolution had landed him in a coma in the hospital for weeks. Right down the hallway from Uncle Maes.

"Sorry," Neville said sympathetically, giving Harry a little smile. "It must have been a hard time for you, with the fighting in your city and all. Did they ever catch the guy who killed the Führer?"

"No," Harry said, very softly. Hermione and Neville shared a worried look, so Harry gave them the best smile he could. "Sorry, I just don't like to talk about the revolution. Dad was caught up in it, you know, he was a colonel at the time, and he lost an eye somehow. Had to get a false one put in, but it's pretty neat; you can hardly tell it isn't real." Nothing at all like Ed's automail, Harry also didn't tell them. That was one thing he knew for sure he couldn't talk about; Ed hated when people pointed it out.

"I know a bloke with a false eye," Neville offered a little timidly. "But you can definitely tell it isn’t real; Gran had him over for tea once when I was really little and it scared me so much I cried."

Harry managed a light laugh, grateful to Neville for changing the topic. He didn't really want to talk about Amestris any more, though, and the two Gryffindors must have sensed this; Hermione rolled up her parchment to put it away, and they spent the rest of the ride talking about Christmas instead.

Still, Harry was grateful when the train finally came to a stop at King's Cross and he could avoid conversation with them for a little while. Once on the platform, Blaise, Pansy, and Draco crowded Harry to say their goodbyes, their parents easily spotted in the throng (Crabbe and Goyle lumbered after Draco).

"Oh, I hope they didn't get caught in traffic," Hermione said anxiously, bouncing slightly as she craned her neck looking for her own parents. Neville was much calmer, looking for what he assured Harry was the ugliest hat known to witches, and as such, Harry was the first to find who he was looking for. His dad and Ed were standing slightly away from the crowds, predictably tangled in each other. Ed had one hand curled in the front of his dad's uniform jacket, looking up at the older man with a smile Harry didn't like to admit he was familiar with, and his dad was saying something to him that Harry was sure he would never want to know the contents of.

"Do you want to meet my dad and Ed?" Harry asked, turning to his two friends. Hermione gave him an anxious look, still worried about her parents, but Neville grinned brightly at him. "Dad'll hang around until your parents show up," he assured Hermione. "And he likes meeting my friends, probably just to embarrass me."

Hermione finally agreed, so Harry led the way over with his trunk scraping loudly behind him. Ed and Roy looked up as they approached, both looking pleased to see him. Before he knew what was happening, his dad was kneeling in front of him and wrapping Harry in his arms. "Dad!" Harry whined, embarrassed. But he still hugged back.

"Good to see you, kid," Ed said, ruffling Harry's hair while he couldn't get away. "Maybe your dad will stop moping around the house now."

"I have not been moping," Roy said with injured dignity, pulling away from Harry and giving him a beaming grin. "You and Havoc have been imagining things. A general does not mope."

"I don't know about other generals, but you sure as hell do," Ed said. He gave Harry a wink, and Harry caught himself on a giggle. "Unless you're telling me you like all those cartoons Harry watches."

"You are a nasty liar," Roy said, finally getting back to his feet. "Now, who are your new friends, Harry?"

"This is Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom," Harry introduced, waving half-heartedly at both of them. "They're Gryffindors in my year, but they don't get on my case like the others do. Guys, this is my dad Brigadier General Roy Mustang, and his boyfriend Edward Elric."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," Hermione said politely.

"My gran's a big fan of yours," Neville said to Ed, who instantly turned pink and looked uncomfortable. Roy coughed into his hand to hide a smile, though he and Ed did share an inscrutable look. "She'd be right pleased to meet you; she thought you died in the revolution."

"Gees, is that rumor still going around?" Ed asked, rubbing at the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I thought that was laid to rest when I started teaching. It's not like I'm hard to find these days."

"Thankfully," Roy muttered.

"Oh, there's my parents!" Hermione said suddenly, waving at two ordinary-looking people walking towards them. "I'd better go. Keep in touch, Harry?"

"Sure," Harry said, waving a bit as she jogged off. How she could keep a hand on that trunk of hers, he didn't know. "You see your gran yet, Neville?"

"No," Neville replied, squinting out at the crowd, which was slowly dispersing. "It's really weird; she's usually early to everything. Oh, wait, there—!" He was on his toes in an instant, waving a hand somewhat frantically at a severe-looking witch wearing a hat with a stuffed vulture on it. Harry bit back a laugh at the sight of the hat—Neville hadn't been kidding when he'd said it was the ugliest hat ever—and put on a polite smile as the witch came striding up to him.

"There you are, Neville," she said with relief, staring around at all of them with a frown. Her eyes lingered particularly on Ed's waist, which Roy had wrapped an arm around. "Who are these people you're with?"

Neville gave Harry an embarrassed grimace before he addressed her. "This is Harry Potter, gran," he said, blandly ignoring the sharp look she shot at Harry. "And his dad Roy Mustang, and his dad's boyfriend Edward Elric."

"Elric, is it?" the witch asked, her eyes sliding right past Roy and landing on Ed, whose cheeks were starting to turn pink again. "Not the Fullmetal Alchemist?"

"That's me," Ed replied. "Not nearly as dead as the rumors would have it, I'm afraid."

"Well that's something of a relief, though I'm guessing you're not with the military anymore?" Now she finally gave Roy a sharp, assessing look, and seemed to be less than impressed with what she saw.

"He retired several years ago," Roy said. "Something for which I am extremely grateful, as you might imagine."

"I should certainly hope so," Neville's grandmother sniffed, glaring at Roy as she held out an imperious hand. "Augusta Longbottom. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"The pleasure is all mine, ma'am," Roy said with a charming smile, bending to kiss her hand. Mrs. Longbottom's lips twitched upwards, seemingly against her will. "And it was a delight meeting your grandson as well. I'm glad Harry's made such a nice friend."

"Well, I suppose Neville's not completely hopeless," Mrs. Longbottom said, now giving Neville a sharp look. He hung his head and cuffed at the ground shyly. "But we must be off; we have to get Neville new dress robes for the ball."

"The ball? But you never go!" Neville protested in a high squeak. He turned to Harry. "Gran gets an invite to the Malfoys every year, but she never goes because she has to look after me—"

"And now you're old enough to be dragged along and I no longer have an excuse," Mrs. Longbottom interrupted. "Come along."

"See you at Christmas, Harry!" Neville called as he was pulled away. The three remaining wizards watched them leave, Harry waving at his friend.

"Well, she was certainly something," Ed finally said, and Roy snorted in agreement. "She didn't like you at all."

"I don't think she likes the military," Harry said, quick to come to his dad's defense.

"You can't win them all," Roy sighed, and clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder. Ed took Harry's trunk from him. "Now, why don't you tell me about Hogwarts? I'm sure you've left some things out."

@-`---

Harry did his best not to gawk as he approached the Malfoys' mansion at his dad's side. The only building he'd ever been inside that was remotely as impressive as this one was Hogwarts castle, but as that was a school, he didn't think it really counted. Judging by Ed's wry expression, though, neither he nor his dad were surprised by the sprawling grounds. Of course, Roy had taken Ed to the Führer's ball last year, and they were both friendly with the Armstrongs, so he supposed this mansion wasn't anything spectacular for either of them.

"I always feel out of place in these places," Ed muttered to Roy as they entered the ballroom, not that he looked intimidated at all. He was even ignoring the curious and disdainful looks the rest of the crowd was shooting them, which was out of the ordinary for him; usually, he would glare back at them until the other person looked away. "Why can't aristocrats ever have nice, normal dances out on the lawn or something?"

"Not everyone grew up in the countryside, dear," Roy replied. "Besides, it's dark already; how could we possibly appreciate the extensive grounds if we can't even see them?"

"I hate show-offs," Ed grumbled half-heartedly, shooting Roy a glare when the older man grinned at him. "And don't you fucking start—"

"You're not exactly humble, Ed," Roy interrupted. "And do try to look a bit more pleased to be here, our hosts are approaching."

Ed didn't actually manage to look happy as the Malfoys approached, though he at least stopped glaring at Roy and put on a polite smile. Roy was in his element, of course. When Lucius introduced his wife, he gave her one of his more charming smiles and kissed the back of her hand. Ed rolled his eyes as Narcissa gave the man an intrigued smile.

"Don't mind him," Ed said dryly, looking towards an unamused Lucius. "I'm pretty sure flirting with attractive women is an unfortunate reflex of his at this point. He's long over his days of stealing women from their husbands."

"I never stole someone's wife," Roy said, though he didn't look particularly upset by Ed's criticism. "Even I had my limits. Anyway, even if I was ever prone to such a habit, I certainly wouldn't be going back to it. I value my life too much."

That made Ed grin, because he was always pleased when someone acknowledged that he was dangerous. Neither of the Malfoys looked as if they believed Roy, just giving the two of them faintly amused smiles.

"I thought I might introduce you to some of my associates, General Mustang," Lucius said without acknowledging the bantering. Then he turned to Harry with a raised eyebrow. "Draco and his friends were at the banquet table the last I saw him, if you'd like to join them. I imagine you'll find our discussions quite as boring as he does."

"May I?" Harry asked his dad hopefully, looking up at the man with wide eyes. Roy frowned slightly.

"Oh, go on," Ed said impatiently. "Even I'm going to get bored as soon as you start talking politics or whatever. No sense in making both of us miserable."

"I really do wish you had an interest in something besides academics sometimes," Roy sighed to Ed before turning back to Harry. "I don't want you leaving the room," he said. Harry wasn't surprised; he had already assumed his dad would want to keep him somewhere he could be seen. "I doubt anything will happen here, but I don't want to take any chances."

"I know, dad," Harry said seriously. "And if Draco wants to leave for any reason, I'll just come stay with you instead. You don't need to worry."

"You have fun, then," Roy said with a smile, squeezing Harry's shoulder. Harry grinned up at him briefly, then quickly walked away before his dad's paranoia got the better of him and he changed his mind.  He could feel his dad's eyes on him, even as Lucius was saying, "Now, let me introduce you to Mr. Crouch…."

As Harry walked rather aimlessly across the room, he was surprised to find many of the adults stopping him for short conversations. Harry responded to them politely, even though quite a few of them couldn't seem to stop staring at his forehead, and tried to get away from the small talk as quickly and inoffensively as possible. At the rate he was moving, he didn't think he'd ever get to the banquet table.

"Harry!" a voice called just as a short woman dressed all in pink was introducing herself to him. Harry hastily made his excuses to escape before she could start talking, turning to find Neville was making his way over. He looked decidedly out of place in his fancy red robe, a grin stretched across his round face. "I'm so glad you're here, gran and her friends are making me crazy!"

"I'm lucky I managed to escape my dad before Mr. Malfoy started introducing him to politicians," Harry said in commiseration, gesturing back the way he'd come. "I was trying to find the food, but I keep getting interrupted."

"That's what you get for being famous," Neville said, laughing as he hooked elbows with Harry. "C'mon, I haven't made it to the table yet either and I'm starving."

Now that he had someone with him, he was relieved to find that none of the adults were rude enough to interrupt their conversation. They made it across the room as quickly as they could, quietly discussing how impressive the mansion was. Neville was just describing the albino peacocks he'd seen outside when they approached the table, and Harry was happy to see that his group of Slytherin friends were still there. Crabbe and Goyle were further down the table sampling the food, but Draco, Pansy, and Blaise were in front of a pillar at one end of the table. Blaise, leaning against the pillar with an eye on the rest of the room, was the first to see Harry and Neville coming, and Harry could see him nodding at the other two in his direction before Draco and Pansy turned around. Pansy was looking quite nice in her pale orange robes, and Draco looked surprisingly stately in green robes so dark they were almost black. He wasn't half-slumped and casual like he usually appeared at Hogwarts, but seemed to be emulating his dad's easy elegance instead.

"Hey, guys," Harry said in greeting as he approached them with a now-grumbling Neville. Ignoring his Gryffindor friend, he drew up to the table beside Draco and looked over the fancy finger foods arrayed across it.

"Hello, Harry, Longbottom," Draco said coolly, giving Neville's robes an irritated look. It seemed that being at a formal occasion made the Slytherins nicer, though, because Pansy and Blaise echoed his polite greeting even though Harry knew neither of them could stand Neville. "Enjoying the party?"

"Depends on your definition of enjoy," Harry replied, finally picking up a small sandwich-looking thing that didn't appear as offensive as the rest of the food. "Apparently I'm not allowed to walk across the room without talking to every person on the floor. I was starting to think I'd never make it over here. Thank god for Neville."

"I saved him just as a witch dressed in obnoxiously pink robes was introducing herself to him," Neville clarified at the raised eyebrows Harry was given.

"She looked like a toad," Harry added with a grimace, reaching for another piece of food. Draco reached over and batted his hand away, pointing to the plate next to what Harry was about to eat. Harry obligingly grabbed that instead.

"Must be Madam Umbridge," Draco said thoughtfully. "She's Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, and the most revolting woman I've ever met. Father insists I be polite to her, though, so don't tell her I said that. Don't eat that either, Harry, you'll be trying to scrub the taste out for days."

"Party foods are awful," Blaise added casually. "Mum and I ate dinner before we came out here so we wouldn't have to eat anything. Better off sticking to the drinks."

"As long as they're non-alcoholic so dad doesn't fry me," Harry said darkly. "And I hope Ed doesn't get into any alcohol either, dad says he's a terror when he's uninhibited."

"We were actually just talking about your dad's boyfriend," Blaise said, nodding towards the other end of the banquet. Harry looked over and almost choked on his next bite of food; Ed was down by the desserts (not exactly surprising), but he seemed to be mostly ignoring the food in front of him in favor of a conversation with Professor Snape, of all people. Snape didn't even look as sour as he usually did, instead giving Ed something that was quite nearly a smile. "I didn't even know Snape was capable of having a civil conversation with someone who isn't a Slytherin."

"They're probably talking about Potions," Harry said. "Ed's got a Mastery in the subject, you know, along with everything else he's so good at. I don't know how he does it."

"He sounds more impressive every time you talk about him," Pansy said. "I was wondering why your dad took up with someone so much younger than him."

"I wasn't kidding when I said Ed was kind of a big deal back home," Harry said mildly. Neville snorted, but kept his mouth closed at a warning glance from Harry.

They ended up staying in that corner for most of the night, watching the adults mingle and, at least on the Slytherins' parts, making disparaging remarks about most of them. Draco and Neville also kept up a running commentary of who most of the people were, though they rarely agreed on their opinions, until Harry had to tell them to stop because his head was spinning with the unnecessary information. Not long after that, Neville was dragged away by his grandmother, who didn't seem very impressed with his current companions. Blaise and Pansy stuck around for a lot longer, taking up the commentary where Neville had left off, until Pansy heard a song that she seemed to like. She left for the dancefloor with Blaise in tow, telling Draco and Harry that she would be back in a threatening tone.

"That means she's going to make one of us dance with her next," Draco muttered to Harry. "Let's go somewhere else and hope she doesn't find us."

"My dad doesn't want me leaving the ballroom," Harry warned him, though he let Draco poke him in the direction of the staircase. Draco grimaced at him and just pulled him underneath the stairs, feet away from the large doors to the inner courtyard. It was a lot darker under there, the light from the torches not reaching into the shadows, and Harry anxiously looked over the crowd to find his dad to make sure the man could see him. He finally caught a glimpse of his dad's uniform out on the dancefloor, and he raised his eyebrows in surprise. Ed wasn't going to be happy with whoever his dad was dancing with.

Draco was smirking when Harry turned back to him, probably amused by Harry making sure his dad could find him. Harry chose to ignore this, and the two of them fell into a companionable silence instead. Harry watched the dancefloor, hoping to get a look at whoever his dad was dancing with, but he never came into view. Instead he found himself laughing at Blaise's long-suffering look as Pansy pulled him through several successive dances. Harry was glad he'd managed to avoid that fate.

He was just starting to get bored when he felt a heavy hand fall on his shoulder.

"Good evening, Mr. Potter," a dark voice murmured in his ear, and Harry started reaching for his wand as he turned around with the closest thing to a polite smile he could muster. Seconds before he would have pulled it out, a hand clapped over his mouth and he was lifted into the air.

"Harry—!" Draco shouted, but Harry didn't listen if there was anything else the blond had to say. He bit down hard on the hand over his mouth, but whoever had him was wearing gloves and all he managed to get his teeth around was thick cloth. He struggled in the tight grip his assailant had on him instead, and managed to get one arm loose, which he swung with as much force as he could manage into the man's face. The man cursed something awful, but didn't drop him, and another person grabbed his flailing arm.

Then there was a sharp cry as that arm was quickly released—and he was dropped a second later as the man carrying him fell to the floor with a grunt. Ed grabbed Harry by his collar and pulled him away from the men, backing swiftly towards a corner. Only then did he pull out his wand, pushing Harry into a small alcove Draco already seemed to be hiding in, and did something complicated with it that made a translucent shield pop into place around them.

"Stay here," Ed said tersely, turning away from them. The two men he'd attacked were already getting up, snarls on their faces as they pointed their wands at Ed. Draco gasped as three more people came rushing in from the courtyard.

Facing five enemies didn't seem to even faze Ed, though. Harry reckoned he must've been used to facing high odds from his time in the military, because the blond man was smoothly dodging most of the spells shot at him while silently returning with nasty-looking curses of his own. Two of the men were down in seconds, and didn't look like they were getting up again.

"Bloody hell," Draco said faintly, and Harry turned just far enough to catch a glimpse of his shocked expression. "I thought you said he was a teacher!"

Harry would have responded, but at that moment Ed was hit by a sickly-looking yellow light and collapsed to the ground; a second later, his dad broke through the panicking crowd, his face pale underneath his furious expression. His left eye was fixated on Ed's prone form even as he turned his head to take in the rest of the scene.

"Cover me!" one of the attacking wizards growled. He was grinning nastily at Harry but, though Harry was scared enough to try to back further into the corner, he wasn't really worried. Not with his dad raising his arm in the direction of the wizards aiming towards him, his thumb and fingers pressed together.

Harry usually associated Roy's alchemy with nice things, like the warmth of the fire in the middle of winter, though he'd always sort of known that it was incredibly dangerous. He still didn't expect what happened next. When Roy snapped his fingers, two of the men were almost immediately engulfed in flames, and Harry flinched back as their screaming echoed in the huge room. The last man spun away from Harry with wide eyes, raising his wand, but not quickly enough; Roy's left arm jerked up and he snapped again, and the man's wand burnt instantly as his hand was set on fire and his screaming was added to the noise.

Draco grabbed Harry's elbow when Roy dropped his arms and started striding towards them, and Harry could feel his friend's entire body shaking against his own. But Roy ignored them both for the moment, stopping in front of the man whose hand he'd burnt and pulling him back to his feet with a hand around his throat.

"What did you do to Ed?" Harry's dad snarled. The man gibbered something back, but it mustn't have been a good enough answer, because Roy threateningly raised his other hand with his fingers prepared to snap again. The man flinched away and started saying something else when he was cut off as the doors to the ballroom were blasted open and a handful of armed wizards stormed across the room with their wands pointed at Roy.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six: Paperthin Hymn

"Aurors," Draco explained in a hushed whisper when one of the newcomers yelled "Put him down!" in a commanding tone. Roy's face twisted in anger as he turned with the man still held in his hand. He was still for a long moment, clearly assessing the threat toward himself, until finally he threw his burden toward the Aurors. Once one of the new wizards grabbed him, Roy dismissively turned from them to address Harry instead. 

"Come here," he said in a tone that Harry didn't dare disobey, one hand held out as he moved towards Ed. Harry tried to break himself free of Draco's grip, but he wouldn't let go, so he just dragged his friend with him. He skirted nervously around Ed's body, trying not to look at the puddle of blood he was laying in, and came to an uncertain stop within his dad's reach. Roy pulled Harry in close as he knelt next to Ed and pulled off one of his gloves with his teeth. Draco, still shaking, never loosened his grip on Harry's arm.

"Is—is he—?" Harry asked timidly as his dad felt for a pulse in Ed's neck, but he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.

"He's alive," Roy answered after a tense moment, and finally looked up at Harry without even an attempt at a smile. "Are either of you hurt?"

"We're fine," Harry answered for both of them when he felt Draco shake his head wordlessly. "Is Ed going to be okay? Can you do anything?"

"He needs a Healer as soon as possible," Roy said in a grave voice, getting back to his feet and turning back towards the rest of the ballroom. The Aurors were holding everyone back, but they weren't successful when Draco's parents finally reached them.

"That is my son!" Narcissa snarled, shoving her way through the line of Aurors and rushing over with Lucius on her heels. She grabbed Draco roughly around the shoulders when she reached them, pulling her son to her so hard that Harry was nearly yanked away from his dad as well. Draco finally let go of Harry, though, trembling silently in his mother's embrace instead. Lucius was much calmer, putting a hand on his wife's shoulder as he surveyed the scene in front of him.

"Your partner—" he started to say to Roy, but cut himself off as one of the Aurors came storming over.

"What in the world is going on here?" the man asked, his wand pointed warningly at Roy as he looked them over. "Are these Muggles, Malfoy? What are they—" But he cut himself off as well, his eyes having fallen on Harry. Harry squirmed a little closer to his dad, scowling at him. "That can't be Harry Potter. Here?"

"Mr. Potter and his family are here as my guests, Auror Scrimgeour," Lucius said coldly, eyeing the other man with obvious distaste. He turned to Roy when the Auror didn't respond. "General Mustang, I was going to ask if you required any aid for your partner."

"He needs a Healer," Roy replied calmly, though his grip on Harry tightened to show his anxiety. "I would have hoped the Aurors would have the sense to bring one along with them."

"They rarely provide such services in a timely manner," Lucius said disparagingly. "However, I believe I have several Healers in attendance tonight. Excuse me."

"And while he's fetching the Healer, you can answer some questions—"

"I will answer your questions once I've ascertained that my lover will not die," Roy interrupted, giving the other man a narrow look. Scrimgeour drew himself up to his full height, clearly preparing to respond, but Roy turned away from him to frown down at Harry instead. Harry stared back at him silently, having no idea what to say.

"At least let us take Potter out of here," Scrimgeour said to Roy's back, and Roy turned slowly back towards him. "It's clearly not safe for him here."

"Harry will not be going anywhere," Roy said coldly. "I should hope I’m capable of taking care of my own son when he's right beside me."

"Who are you?" Scrimgeour asked with narrow eyes. "I wouldn't have expected a Muggle—"

"I'm not a Muggle," Roy snapped, anger seeping into his voice. "My name is Brigadier General Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist. We're here from Amestris by Lucius's invitation, as Harry is friends with his son. Is that enough information to assure you that we belong here?"

"That's right, I'd heard that Potter was sorted into Slytherin." Scrimgeour gave Harry a thoughtfully penetrating look that had Harry scowling again. Was this man making the same assumption so many of his classmates had? He'd thought it was just something the other students would believe, not the adults. England was so weird. "And you said he was your son? How would a general from Amestris come to take care of an English orphan?"

Roy heaved an irritated sigh, rubbing his fingers together. That was never a good sign, though without a glove on it didn't have the same effect as usual; the Auror gave Roy's hand a perplexed look, but didn't otherwise react to what would normally have been an obvious threat. Luckily for him, Lucius reappeared at that moment.

"Move aside, move aside," the Healer with him said, darting between Roy and Scrimgeour and ignoring the blood that soaked into her robes when she kneeled at Ed's side. She slowly ran her wand down the length of his body and back up, then gently pushed Ed onto his back. Roy frowned as she hurriedly started unbuttoning Ed's shirt, but didn't move to interfere. The wound she revealed made Harry gasp as his dad's fingers tightened uncomfortably on his shoulder—there was something that looked like a large burn on his stomach, and reaching out from it were several tendrils of blackened cuts that seemed to get larger as they watched. "I'll need someone to hold him down, please. This is not going to be a pleasant countercurse."

Roy let go of Harry without further prompting, kneeling by Ed's head and putting firm hands on his shoulders. Lucius and Scrimgeour shared an unpleasant look before the Auror finally moved to help, tucking his wand away as he obligingly knelt by Ed's feet. He hissed in surprise when his hand landed on Ed's left leg, and he gave Roy a penetrating stare that the general completely ignored.

"Hold tight," the Healer said warningly. With a harsh word Harry didn't catch, she jabbed her wand into the middle of the burn, giving it a sharp twist. Ed's back arched as his eyes shot open, and he screamed as the Healer slowly pulled her wand away from the wound. Harry flinched back at the sound, feeling nauseous as Ed's wounds closed and the black tendrils pulled reluctantly away from his skin. A hand fell lightly on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Narcissa watching the Healer with a cold gaze.

"Good lord," Scrimgeour said in a hushed voice.

Finally, Ed's screams ended on a choked sob as he fell back to the ground. Roy wiped away the remnants of tears that had leaked from the corner of his eyes, leaning over so that Ed could see his face.

"Harry?" Ed asked hoarsely, looking around at the people surrounding him as he started trying to get up. Roy pushed him back to the ground with firm hands, giving him a very small smile.

"He's fine, love," he said in a soft voice.

Ed sighed heavily in relief, knocking Roy's hands away as he threw his left arm across his eyes. "Fuck," he said feelingly. "Can't believe that shit hit me; I must be getting soft. What happened to the other three?"

There was a short silence as some indefinable emotion passed over Roy's face. Ed lowered his arm to give him a serious look, and Roy finally said in a flat voice, "I took care of it."

"Fuck," Ed said again, pushing himself up into a seated position despite the Healer trying to get him to stay down. He gave Scrimgeour a glare that made the Auror let go of his legs in surprise, and then he turned to wrap his right arm around Roy's neck and pulled himself closer to the general. Roy's arms fell around his waist in an automatic embrace. "Would've just used my alchemy if I'd known you were gonna have to do that. Sorry—"

"Don't," Roy said sharply, and Ed scowled at him. Roy just pulled him closer, one hand moving to cup Ed's face gently as he pressed their foreheads together. "I don't care. I thought you'd—I've never seen you collapse like that from a spell. I'm just glad you're alive."

"You know it takes more'n that to kill me, Mustang," Ed snorted, but the look on his face had softened considerably. "I've had worse."

Roy sighed, very softly, and tilted Ed's face up into his to kiss him. Harry looked away as his dad and Ed clung to each other, and his gaze fell on Scrimgeour. The Auror was looking between Harry and them with a shrewd expression that Harry didn’t like the look of. He pointedly sidled closer to his dad, glaring at the man until Roy finally pulled away from Ed with a relieved-looking smile. Ed looked over at Harry with worried eyes.

“You alright, kid?” he asked in an abnormally soft voice.

“I’m fine,” Harry assured him with a smile. “I’m glad you’re alright too.”

“Alright might be pushing it a bit,” Ed admitted with a grimace. Roy gave him a sharp frown that had Ed rolling his eyes even as he leaned forward to give Roy another soft, thankfully shorter, kiss. “C’mon, let’s get off the floor.”

Roy sighed a little, but obligingly started getting to his feet. He frowned when Ed slowly moved with him, gripping the older man’s arms tightly as he swayed halfway up.

“What’s wrong?” Roy asked with a worried frown when Ed didn’t let go of him even after they were standing again. Ed smiled reassuringly up at him.

“Just dizzy,” he replied. “Must’ve lost a lot of blood."

Roy made a little humming noise and closed the scant distance between their bodies, wrapping an arm around Ed’s waist as the shorter man sighed and leaned against his chest. He reached out to Harry with his other hand, and Harry allowed himself to be pulled into his dad's side even though he felt a little awkward about the three-way embrace. Then Roy finally turned to the Healer with a smile.

"Thank you for your help," he said in a stronger voice than he'd been using with Ed. "I'm afraid I haven't brought any money with me, but if you'll give me your name I'll see to it that you're compensated for your assistance when I get home."

"Don't trouble yourself, General," Lucius said before the Healer could respond. "I'll be happy to compensate Healer Julien myself, as it was the failure in my home defenses that lead to your partner's injury in the first place."

"Thank you, Mr. Malfoy," Roy said, before turning to regard Scrimgeour with a cold look. "Now, I believe you had some questions, Auror?"

"Oh, so you're answering them now, are you?" Scrimgeour asked. Roy just raised his eyebrows. "I'll need statements from each of you individually. If Malfoy would be kind enough to consent to the use of a few of his spare rooms, a couple of my men will take each of you aside—"

Roy's grip on Harry tightened uncomfortably, and Harry could tell from Ed's warning growl that the blond had suffered the same treatment. "Harry will not be going anywhere alone with anyone," Roy said authoritatively, eyes narrowing when Scrimgeour looked like he was going to protest. "He's eleven years old. Even in Amestris we don't allow children to be interviewed on their own, especially when their parents are readily available."

"Fine, fine," Scrimgeour said through gritted teeth. He turned sharply to his men, gesturing for several of them to come over. "Dawlish, Shacklebolt, I want you to take Potter and the general; Niedenthal, Hainer, take the blond boy. And I'll be talking to you myself, Malfoy."

"Boy?" Ed growled as he pushed himself away from Roy.

"Do try to hold your temper with them, darling," Roy said dryly, giving Ed a chaste kiss on the temple before he let go. "I don't even want to consider the paperwork I'd receive if you attacked a representative of a foreign government."

"Lazyass," Ed said fondly, and turned to Scrimgeour with an easy grin. Scrimgeour frowned back at him. "Well, let's get this over with. I've seriously got better places to be." Harry was pretty sure he'd added that last bit just to annoy the Aurors.

"We can use the guest bedrooms for this purpose," Lucius said smoothly, turning away from them all. "If you would please follow me? Draco, come."

Harry clung to his dad's hand as they all followed Lucius out of the ballroom. Draco fell into step beside him with a nervous glance at Roy, but didn't say anything even when Harry reached over and poked him in the arm. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that Draco was clearly terrified of what his dad had done, but he really wished his friend wouldn't be. He knew his dad would never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, especially someone Harry's own age.

Lucius led them down a hallway that was much darker than the ballroom, only a few of the torches on the walls lit to guide them. He stopped at the first door, opening it smoothly and nodding Ed and his two Aurors through the doorway. Ed left with a reassuring smile aimed at Roy, though Roy didn't smile back. The next room was offered to Roy and Harry, and Roy thanked the taller man as they stepped inside.

Harry only had a brief moment to eye the expensive furnishings with wide eyes before the slamming of the door behind them made him jump.

"Why don't you have a seat, Potter?" the bigger Auror asked, giving Harry a kind smile when he nervously turned to him. Harry looked up at his dad for permission, climbing into the only chair in the room when Roy nodded at him. "My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt, and this is John Dawlish. We'd like to get your accounts of the night separately to ensure that neither of your descriptions affect the other's. Would you allow me to place a spell on Mr. Potter to ensure he doesn't hear what you have to say?"

"That will be acceptable," Roy said, though the way he eyed Shacklebolt as the man moved over to Harry showed that he didn't really like it. The man leaned over Harry, giving him another kind smile as he slowly pulled out his wand and gently tapped one of Harry's ears. A loud rushing noise immediately filled his head and he winced at the sound of it, giving the Auror a disgruntled face.

"This is weird," he said, wrinkling his nose at the sound of his own voice loud in his ears. "Really weird."

Shacklebolt nodded seriously at him, but didn't speak. He just straightened up and smoothly turned to Roy, stepping slightly to the side so that Harry would be able to see his dad. Harry relaxed minutely, watching Roy's expressionless face as he spoke with the Aurors, but he got bored quickly. He couldn't stop himself from fidgeting and looking around the room again as he waited, hoping they would be done soon.

After what felt to him like hours, Shacklebolt came back over to him and tapped Harry's other ear. The rushing sound immediately went away and Harry sighed with relief; Shacklebolt didn't smile this time, but Harry thought he still looked sort of amused by his response.

"And now for your testimony, Mr. Potter," the large man said in an even voice. He slowly sat down on the floor, ignoring his partner's impatient noise, but Harry did feel better without the man looming over him. "All we need you to do is tell us what happened tonight in your own words. We may interrupt you if we need you to clarify anything, but otherwise we'll just be listening."

Harry shot his dad a nervous look, but quickly looked back at Shacklebolt and took a deep breath. He stumbled over his words a little at first, but as he kept talking without being interrupted, he felt more confident. Before he knew it, his story was over, and he gave Shacklebolt a shaky smile as the man thanked him.

"Is that all?" Harry asked nervously, his eyes flitting from Shacklebolt to Dawlish. The grey-haired wizard, who had been silent through Harry's entire monologue, snorted and eyed him with dislike.

"Not quite," he said. "I'd like to ask some questions about your relationship with your father."

"But what's that got to do with tonight?" Harry asked with a furrowed brow, looking between Roy and the Auror as Roy gave the other man a glare.

"Nothing," Shacklebolt said serenely, with a quelling glance at his partner. "John is just worried about your safety. Your father has admitted to killing two men tonight, and…."

"This is about his relationship with Ed, isn't it?" Harry asked bitterly. His dad and Ed did their best to keep him away from the reactions other people had to them, but this wasn't the first time somebody had directed their concerns at Harry. "Well, my relationship with dad is fine, and Ed's really great too. Dad would never do anything to hurt either of us."

Dawlish scoffed loudly in clear disbelief, but fell silent when both Shacklebolt and Roy glowered at him.

"Will that be all, then?" Roy asked coldly, walking over to Harry and taking up his hand. Harry obediently got to his feet. Shacklebolt gave an affirmative before Dawlish could say anything else, and they stepped out into the corridor where Lucius was already waiting for them. Scrimgeour was nowhere to be seen, but Draco was looking much calmer as he stood by his father's side. He even gave Harry an annoyed grimace, rolling his eyes at the Aurors.

"I believe your partner is still being interviewed," Lucius said to Roy as Shacklebolt and Dawlish quietly disappeared back towards the ballroom. "He sounds quite irate, so I thought it may be prudent to wait here instead of outside his door."

He had barely finished his sentence when the door in question flew open, hitting the wall with a resounding crack and bouncing off it. Ed stormed out of the room, his unbuttoned shirts flapping around him, and the two Aurors who were asked to question him followed on his heels. Lucius's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but Roy just grinned.

"Mr. Elric, please—" one of the Aurors said, and Ed whirled on him.

"I told you I won't answer any more of your fucking questions," he snarled. "I don't give a shit what you think about my relationship with Roy, but if you say one more fucking word about him and Harry—"

"Edward, please," Roy interrupted, though he was still smiling as he moved down the hallway. "These accusations are nothing we haven't heard before."

"And that's supposed to piss me off less?" Ed barked, whirling on Roy and scowling at the older man's amused face. "We're fucking leaving; I can't stand this country for another minute—"

"Of course, love," Roy said, turning to Lucius with a polite smile. "I must thank you again for your hospitality—"

"Now wait just a minute," one of the Aurors snapped. "You can't just leave—"

"I trust I'm not going to be arrested for protecting my family?" Roy interrupted calmly, giving the man a polite smile. "Then you have no excuse to keep any of us here. If you need anything further, tell your boss he may send an owl to my office, and I will of course accommodate him as best as I am able. Now, if you will excuse me?" With one last nod to Lucius, he swept passed the fuming Aurors with Harry and Ed in tow.

@-`---

Harry woke the next morning with a start, feeling unnerved by nightmares he couldn't really remember. He stared around his own bedroom with confusion until his eyes landed on the clock, and then he jumped out of bed. He'd wanted to see his dad off to work today, to show the man that he was fine so he wouldn't worry, but he'd woken up a lot later than he'd intended. If he hurried, he might just barely make it downstairs before his dad would be out the door.

He pulled on his house robe as he flew out of his room, stampeding down the stairs and sliding to a halt in the entryway. The door was still locked, so he went to the kitchen instead, but it was empty except for a tempting-looking pastry on the kitchen table. Harry hesitated only a moment before he grabbed it and walked back out to the hallway.

"Ed?" he called loudly, wondering where his dad could possibly be.

"In here!" Ed called back from the living room, so Harry made his way over curiously. His dad was in there as well, his feet up on the ottoman as he reclined in his armchair with Ed lounging on his lap. Harry made a face at them.

"What're you doing home?" he asked his dad as he polished off the pastry.

"I've decided to go in late," Roy replied. "I couldn't help but notice that a pile of presents appeared overnight and I wanted to see what your friends got you."

"Presents?" Harry asked excitedly, looking around the room. A few wrapped parcels were sitting at a corner of the fireplace, glittering cheerfully in the light of the fire, and Harry rushed over to them even though Ed and Roy were both laughing at him. He threw himself on the floor next to the biggest present and tore the paper off enthusiastically to find a box full of chocolates from Draco. Blaise and Pansy had gotten him candy as well, but Neville's gift was a box of homemade cauldron cakes and a knitted monstrosity that Neville assured him was meant to be a scarf from his grandmother. Hermione had gotten him a book called Quidditch Through the Ages with an accompanying note that said she was trying to save him from Draco's incessant Quidditch talk. Harry paged through it a little with interest, a Licorice Wand already hanging out of his mouth.

The last present didn't have a tag saying who it was from, and Harry turned it around in his hands with faint suspicion, not sure who else would have sent him a gift. Finally he shrugged and tore the paper off as well, gasping as a silvery cloak landed in his lap along with an unsigned note.

"Use it well," Harry read aloud, looking up at his dad and Ed, who were eyeing the cloak curiously. Harry stood up and shook it out, frowning at the size of it, but obligingly swung it around his shoulders.

"Who the fuck sent you an Invisibility Cloak?" Ed asked. Harry stared at him with an open mouth for a second, then looked down to see that his body had disappeared. Grinning, Harry pulled it over his head and silently walked over to the armchair.

"Harry," Roy said reprovingly, following Harry's progress with insulting ease. Harry pouted and pulled the cloak from his face. "I can see through those. Let me see it." Harry sighed and pulled the cloak off completely, handing it over to his dad and climbing up on the arm of the chair.

"No way this is made from Demiguise hair," Ed said with a frown, running his flesh hand over the smooth material. "This is a hell of a Christmas present."

"The note said it was my dad's," Harry said quietly. "Do you think it really—I've never had anything of his before. I thought it must've all been destroyed that night."

"I don't see any reason they would have to lie to you," Roy said. He handed the cloak over to Harry with a serious frown. "I'm not going to take this from you, even though I really don't think you should have one at school with you. I expect you to be responsible with it and not get in trouble."

"That means don't get caught," Ed said with a wink.

"I won't," Harry said solemnly. Roy sighed.

"The two of you are going to be the death of me," he said teasingly, which made Ed grin. "Now, in the spirit of the holiday, I've decided to give you a present of my own." Ed held a newspaper-wrapped object out to Harry. It was obviously a book, which wasn't really a surprise considering who he lived with, and it must have been wrapped in a rush; the date Harry could barely see on the paper was from that very day. With a shrug, he tore into it as enthusiastically as he'd opened any of his other presents, and couldn't hold back a gasp when he saw the title.

"Really?" Harry asked happily, opening the cover to look inside. Ed and Al had written their names on the title page, right above Basic Alchemy. Something else had been written on the inside cover, but it had been scratched out with a messy hand; Harry squinted at it in an attempt to read what it said, but didn't have any luck.

"Ed was kind enough to remind me that when he was your age he was already making plans to join the military," Roy said dryly, giving Ed a fondly exasperated look. "And I know you've been interested to learn for a while now. I was going to save this for your birthday, but we thought you might like to read it before you started learning this summer."

"Wow," Harry said in awe. He dropped himself into his dad's lap, ignoring the man's exaggerated "oof!" and threw his arms around Roy's neck. Roy wrapped him in a one-armed hug, his other arm probably holding onto Ed, and kissed the top of Harry's head.

"I expect you to finish all of your schoolwork before you read this," he said sternly. "If I hear your grades have been slipping, I'll take the book away and you'll only be able to look at it over breaks, do you understand me?

"Yes, sir!" Harry said cheerfully, grinning so widely his face was starting to hurt. Roy beamed back at him.

"Now get off my lap. I can't go in too late or Hawkeye will shoot me, advance warning or no." Harry pulled himself back onto the arm of the chair, his eyes already on his book again. Roy fluffed his hair fondly before he and Ed got up. "I'm going to take the two of you out to dinner tonight, so don't eat before I get home. Ed, I'll call you at lunch and let you know where we're going; Hawkeye's making the reservations for me. Could you make sure Harry is ready to go when I get in?"

"Yeah, sure," Ed said, not sounding too enthused by the prospect.

The two of them moved for the front door, but Harry didn't follow them. They were probably going to be gross again, so instead he went back to his bedroom. Reluctantly putting his new alchemy book to the side, he sat at his desk and opened up his Transfiguration book to bury himself in his homework.

He spent most of the day cooped up in his room, only taking a break when Ed called him down for lunch, and time passed slowly as he pushed his way through as much of his homework as possible. He was silently cursing himself for not having done it sooner, but of course he hadn't known that he was going to be getting an alchemy book for Christmas. Ed was in and out a couple of times, digging through Harry's closet in search of whatever clothes he was going to need for dinner that night. When Ed pulled him from his studying to make him get dressed, he grudgingly donned the fancy clothes waiting for him on his bed and went downstairs to wait for his dad.

"Aren't you two a sight?" Roy said affectionately when he came in to see Ed and Harry curled up on the couch together with Harry's new book in their laps.

"Are you ever going to stop being such a sap?" Ed asked as he and Harry got up. He rolled his eyes when Roy just grinned, but still kissed him on his way out of the room. "Guess I'm stuck with it then."

"Mmm, guess so," Roy said in a low voice, following Ed out the door. Ed half-turned to give the older man a bemused look, but smiled when Roy closed the distance between them and threw his arms over the blond's shoulders.

Dinner was relatively pleasant, though Harry couldn't help thinking that his dad was acting a little strange. Ed seemed to agree with him, giving Roy mildly concerned looks whenever the older man wasn't paying attention. Harry was sure his dad noticed their suspicion, because he noticed everything, but Roy didn't bother to acknowledge it.

Finally, after their dinner plates had been taken away and dessert had been ordered, Roy gave them both a weak smile.

"I'm sorry I've been out of sorts this evening," he said to both of them, though his gaze was fixed on Ed. "I've had something on my mind for a while now, but I've been…anxious about asking you, Ed."

Ed and Harry shared a disbelieving look when Roy admitted to being anxious about something, and then they both fixed the general with intense looks. "Go on," Ed said slowly.

"I honestly hadn't planned on doing this tonight," Roy said with a wry half-smile. "But after the events of last night, I knew I would never forgive myself if something happened to you before I did this. So."

Roy took a deep breath before getting up from his seat, only to kneel in front of Ed as he pulled a small box out of his pocket. Harry had to clap his hands over his mouth to keep himself from making an excited noise that would disturb him. People at nearby tables started to turn to look at them, most with smiles on their faces.

"I wish I could say I had a speech prepared, but I couldn't think of anything to say that you don't already know. So I'll just ask, Ed…will you marry me?"

Ed had been staring at Roy with a stunned look while he was talking, but after the question was asked, he sucked in a gasping breath. Harry could swear he saw tears in Ed's eyes, but if there were any Ed wasn't letting them fall.

"You crazy bastard," he said in a choked voice. "You realize that means you're stuck with me for the rest of your life?"

Roy grinned at him. "I can honestly say I can't think of anything that would make me happier."

Ed took a deep breath, but finally gave Roy a watery smile. "Well, then, how could I possibly say no?"

"You could try to sound more enthusiastic about it." Roy snorted, but still took off Ed's left glove so he could slide the ring onto his finger. Ed stared at it for another moment, a disbelieving grin on his face—and then, without any warning, grabbed Roy by the front of his suit jacket and pulled him into a kiss. There was scattered laughter and applause, with one or two disgruntled grumbles that could barely be heard over the rest of the noise, but if Roy and Ed noticed anything, they didn't show it.

Eventually, without looking away from Ed, Roy returned to his seat and grinned as Ed once again stared at the ring.

"Let me see it!" Harry said excitedly, putting his hands on the table to lean closer to Ed's hand. Roy didn't push him back into his seat for once, and Ed grinned at him as he obligingly held his hand out. The base of the ring was silver, but overlaid on the metal was a brilliant gold dragon with a diamond in its mouth. Harry had never seen a ring like it, but it was easy to see why Roy had gotten it for Ed. It was strangely elegant and beautiful, while still catering to Ed's questionable taste for things that looked 'badass'.

"Where the hell did you get this?" Ed asked curiously, his eyes on Roy again.

"A little specialty shop that Maes took me to," Roy replied casually. "It caters mostly to wizards, but I don't think there's any enchantments on it except to keep it from getting dirty or dented. Do you like it?"

"It's kind of perfect, actually," Ed said, shaking his head. He and Roy shared a goopy look that had Harry rolling his eyes, but thankfully they were interrupted as a couple waitresses came over with their desserts.

"Dessert and champagne is on the house," the first waitress said in a warm voice as she set the food in front of them, followed by three fancy glasses.

"Congratulations!" the second waitress said with more excitement, popping open the champagne bottle and pouring them each a glass. Harry pouted when she only filled his halfway, but the waitress just smiled kindly at him while Roy gave him a stern look. Then the waitresses disappeared, and Ed gave his champagne an uncertain scowl.

"Should we make a toast or something?" Ed asked.

"Of course," Roy said, picking up his glass. Harry awkwardly copied the way he was holding it, making a face at the shape. "To a long and happy marriage."

"Ergh!" Harry said once he was done drinking his half a glass, suddenly very happy that the waitress hadn't given him more. "That stuff is gross!"

Because I spent an hour looking for the perfect engagement ring for Ed, here's a picture of it:

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven: Illusion  

"Okay, so what is it you wanted to show us?" Draco asked impatiently. They'd all returned to school the day before the term would start up, and Harry had dragged his friends into the boys' dorm with some excitement. Pansy was still looking a little nervous, as if she expected a Prefect (or perhaps Snape) to show up and tell her off for being there, but Harry ignored her as he dug through his trunk. He managed to dig out the Invisibility Cloak, shaking it out as he spun around to show it to them.

"It's a cloak," Blaise said, giving Harry a dubious look. "The Gryffindorks are getting to you, Potter. New clothes really aren't that exciting, no matter how nice they are."

Harry sighed somewhat dramatically, but instead of explaining, he swung the cloak over his shoulders and twitched it into place. Everyone gasped gratifyingly.

"I don't have one of those!" Draco said, his voice a jealous whine as he reached out towards Harry's invisible body. "And I don't believe your dad gave you this."

"He didn't," Harry said, backing up towards his trunk again. Pansy looked unnerved by Harry's head floating in midair. "He and Ed gave me one of Ed's old alchemy books, I'm to finish it before the summer, but—"

"I thought your dad wasn't letting you learn alchemy yet," Blaise interrupted, looking almost as jealous as Draco.

"Can I read it?" Draco asked with bright eyes, Pansy nodding along beside him. Harry hesitated uncertainly.

"I don't know," he said slowly, frowning back when everyone scowled at him. "I'm not allowed to do any alchemy before dad teaches me, y'know, and obviously he can't teach any of you...."

"But it's your book now, isn't it?" Pansy wheedled in a sweet voice that Harry wasn't even remotely fooled by. "Shouldn't you be allowed to do whatever you want with it? Like, say, letting your very good friends and housemates borrow it?"

"I'll check with dad," Harry replied stubbornly. Uncharacteristically, Blaise didn't start teasing him about this response, and Harry raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"We all saw what your dad did at the party," Blaise said with a dramatic shiver. "That man is terrifying when he's angry; I honestly can't blame you any more for doing whatever he says."

"That's only the second time I've ever seen him like that," Harry said very quietly, looking between his three friends uncomfortably. "And this time was—worse. He thought they'd killed Ed and, and, well, it was really bad. But it convinced dad to propose, so—"

"What?" Pansy and Draco interrupted. Pansy had her hands clasped to her chest, her eyes starry in a way that made Harry uncomfortably aware that she was a girl, but Draco was just staring at Harry with a stunned expression. Blaise alone seemed unperturbed.

"I thought Ed looked like he was wearing a ring under his glove," he said thoughtfully, smirking when Draco and Pansy both turned to him with surprised looks. "Getting engaged makes sense, I guess. But didn't you say he was nineteen? Seems a bit young."

"He'll be twenty next month," Harry protested, then made a face at himself when he realized how ridiculous that sounded, especially knowing that his dad was thirty-three and had never been married before. In fact, Harry was pretty sure Ed was the longest relationship his dad had ever had, which was probably why Roy was marrying him. "Dad's always said Ed is really mature, okay? And Ed was really happy about it, I don't think he was expecting it at all—"

"When's the wedding?" Draco interrupted with a grin. "And can we come? Then we'd get to go to Amestris! They can't deny us if we're invited to a wedding, can they?"

"I—guess I can ask dad?" Harry said slowly, surprised that Draco would want to come. But all three of them were looking at Harry with bright, excited faces. "Don't get your hopes up. There's probably going to be loads of people already, between the military and all of Ed's friends and stuff."

"Father would want to come," Draco said enthusiastically. Blaise and Pansy both gave him disparaging looks; neither of their parents were friendly with Roy, though they'd probably met at the ball. "He and mother were impressed with his alchemy, and mother was intrigued by the way Ed fought. He doesn't act like a teacher."

Harry shifted uncomfortably, thinking of Ed's time in the military, but didn't say anything. He just took off his cloak, the movement catching Draco's attention again, and the blond's eyes lit up as something clearly occurred to him. He was just about to speak when the door opened, and Harry quickly shoved his cloak out of sight.

"What's with the party?" Theodore Nott asked as he stepped into the room, eyeing Pansy suspiciously. "Are you even allowed to be up here?"

Pansy blanched visibly, but she gave Nott a haughty look as she replied, "Of course I am, Nott, the boys invited me. But I should leave anyway, we've class in the morning."

"Ugh, don't remind me," Harry groaned, perhaps a little too dramatically. "I'm not looking forward to getting back to History of Magic."

Pansy made a face in agreement with Harry, then quickly said her goodbyes before sweeping out of the room. Harry and Blaise turned to their trunks once she was gone, Harry with vague thoughts of reading more of Basic Alchemy before he went to sleep, but Draco sidled furtively over.

"We should try out the Cloak," he said, so quietly even Harry almost didn't hear him. "Tonight. We could check out the third floor, see why it's closed off."

"You're still on about that?" Harry asked just as quietly, but he felt a thrill at Draco's words anyway. It would be his own little adventure, like the stories Ed and Al told him about what they used to get up to, and as long as he didn't get caught he could share it with his dad when he got home. Roy would probably give him an exasperated look, but Harry knew he would be impressed anyway. Finally, he smiled at the hungry gaze Draco was giving him and said, "Yeah, let's do it. Pretend to go to bed and wait for everyone else to fall asleep, though. I don't want Nott to know about this."

"What're you two whispering about then?" Blaise asked, stepping up to them with a suspicious gaze. Harry and Draco shared a look.

"Nothing," they chorused.

"You're going out with the Cloak, aren't you?" Blaise sighed. "No, don't tell me. You two are crazy, and I want no part in your certain deaths."

@-`---

"We should've invited Pansy," Harry whispered to Draco as they were leaving the dormitory later that night.

"No way she'd want to come," Draco protested with a shake of his head. "She doesn't have an adventurous bone in her body; she'd probably have just tried to make us stop."

"Don't tell me she'd be that worried about getting in trouble," Harry said disbelievingly.

"No, but she believed Dumbledore when he said we'd die if we went there," Draco said with a snort. "Like even the headmaster would be that careless."

"I don't know," Harry said slowly. Draco poked him when he didn't continue immediately, and Harry sighed. "Just, if he is keeping whatever was in Gringotts in the school, it makes sense that he'd have some sort of dangerous protection on it, wouldn't it?"

"Having second thoughts?" Draco asked archly, and Harry grinned even though his friend couldn't see it.

"Nah, it's not an adventure without danger. Even Al says that. Now be quiet; I don't want to get caught."

Draco made an annoyed sound, but otherwise kept his mouth shut as Harry had sort of ordered. They made rather halting progress through the hallways, both of them wary of crossing any of the teachers or, even worse, Filch. The castle was much more eerie at night, with the moonlight streaming in from the arrowslits and making shadows dance in their peripheral vision. They jumped at every little noise, and once, when the wind had screamed particularly loud outside, Draco had grabbed hold of the back of Harry's shirt, trembling.

"Do you want to go back?" Harry whispered, more concerned about his friend than an adventure.

"Not on your life," Draco said instantly. Harry pretended not to notice the shake in his voice. "We're almost there!"

Which was true enough, Harry supposed, so he continued shuffling along. Soon they were at the door to the third floor corridor, and they gave each other excited grins before Harry reached for the door. Which didn't open.

"Oh, come on!" Draco huffed in disappointment. "We came all the way out here for nothing?"

Harry hesitated, feeling as disappointed as he thought Draco did, and eventually said, "Dad taught me a spell to open locks." He wasn't supposed to use it except in emergencies (dad had muttered something about nosy busybodies when Harry asked why), so he kind of didn't want to use it to sneak into somewhere he knew he shouldn't be. But Draco had gotten him so excited about this adventure, and it really would be upsetting to return without a story....

"Well?" Draco interrupted his thoughts impatiently. "What are you waiting for? Use it!"

"It might not work," Harry warned him. But he took a deep breath anyway, then pointed his wand at the lock and said "Alohomora!"

Harry didn't get to celebrate his victory. As the door swung silently open, he felt something brush up against the back of his legs, followed by a soft meow.

"Mrs. Norris!" Draco gasped, and gave Harry a sharp shove. They pushed into the room with more haste than was probably wise, considering the warning they'd had about this floor, and once the door was closed again they both turned to push their ears up against it. Filch appeared with unsurprising speed, panting heavily as he spoke to his cat in a quiet tone they couldn't quite make out. Harry held his breath until the voice faded away, and then he let out a sigh and thunked his head on the door very softly.

"Thank Merlin he thinks this door is locked," Draco whispered as he turned around. "Now let's see—"

Harry felt Draco go stiff with horror, and he sighed unhappily before slowly turning around himself. He was expecting to see Snape, or maybe Dumbledore, and was preparing himself for punishment when he caught sight of what was actually there. His eyes fell first on what was clearly a trap door and the humongous paws standing over it, and his mouth dropped in horror as he followed the length of the leg until he found himself staring straight into the eyes of a massive, three-headed dog straight from Hades itself. He was never going to forgive himself for the high-pitched squeaking sound he made, but resolved to think about that later. For now he fumbled behind himself for the door handle, terrified as the dog bared its teeth and started growling at them.

"Harry!" Draco said tightly when the dog shifted its feet, a bare second before Harry's fingers found the latch and he shoved the door open. He grabbed the back of Draco's shirt as he fell backwards through the doorway, and then they'd slammed the door behind them with an unwisely loud noise and took off running in the opposite direction of the door. Filch would be better than getting eaten by that thing. Heck, he'd rather face down Hawkeye! (But only just.)

Eventually they ducked out of an unfamiliar secret passageway, and came to an unsteady halt next to a silent suit of armor. Draco had left the confines of the Invisibility Cloak at some point in their mad dash, and Harry was just pulling him back under it when they heard the voice.

"You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around at night, and somebody's been on the third floor," Flich's voice murmured quietly from the next corridor over.

And to their horror, the voice that answered was one they both knew very well: Professor Snape. "The forbidden corridor?" he asked in a tone Harry felt was more suspicious than was warranted. "Hurry, then, and maybe we can catch them before they get too far."

Draco managed to get himself under the cloak just before Filch and Snape turned the corner onto their corridor. Unfortunately, the hallway they were in was barely wide enough to let two people walk abreast, and Harry backed into Draco as he tried to flatten himself against the wall. He stood paralyzed for a brief moment, watching them come closer, until he noticed Draco was tugging urgently on his arm. He looked to his left, the direction Draco was pulling in, and noticed a door that stood slightly ajar. As silently and quickly as possible, he ducked into the room with Draco on his heels. They didn't take off the cloak as they listened to the two adults walk swiftly passed them, and it was almost a full minute before Harry felt like he could breathe normally again.

"Hey, what's that?" Draco asked, ducking out from underneath the cloak. Harry sighed and followed him over to what appeared to be an old mirror propped against the wall. Curiosity piqued, he admired the ornate golden frame.

"What does that mean?" he asked eventually, pointing at an inscription at the top of the frame. Draco's brow furrowed as he stared at it and slowly mouthed the words to himself. He eventually shrugged at Harry, clearly at as much of a loss as he was.

"Hey, are we invisible in mirrors too?" Draco asked instead, getting back under the cloak and dragging Harry over. They positioned themselves in front of the mirror with some jostling as Draco tried to get in front of Harry, then finally looked up at the mirror. Harry fully expected not to see anything except the shadows of the room, or maybe Draco's head peering over his shoulder if the mirror could see through the cloak, and gasped aloud when he saw something else entirely. Draco was nowhere to be found, but arrayed behind Harry in two distinct groups were a surprising amount of people. The only reason he didn't look behind him was that he immediately recognized Roy and Ed standing at his left shoulder at the front of his diverse family from Amestris. He didn't recognize the people on his right.

"Who are they?" Harry asked in wonder, taking a step closer to the mirror.

"Who are who?" Draco asked, and there was a distinct tone of displeasure in his voice. Harry turned to him curiously and took in his friend's sneer, then turned back to the mirror in confusion. His view hadn't changed. "All I see is myself. A bit older, but I look like…"

"Like who?" Harry asked vaguely as he peered up into a red-haired woman's eyes. It took him a moment to realize that they were the same shade as his own, and he forgot all about Draco as he realized— "Mom?"

"What?" Draco asked sharply. Harry felt him tugging at his elbow again, but waved him off as he turned his attention to the tall man with his arm around the woman's shoulder. His messy hair looked as untamable as Harry's own, and he knew that this must be his father. His real father. Not that Roy wasn't his dad, of course, but there was something captivating about finally being able to see the people who had given him birth. "Harry, we should go."

Draco's urgent voice brought him back to his senses, and he tore his gaze from the mirror and nodded jerkily at him, but Draco still had to pull him out of the room.

@-`---

"Don't go back again," Draco said darkly the next morning, stabbing at his breakfast viciously. Harry, who had only been poking at his own as he gazed off into space, jumped in his seat before turning to his friend with a confused frown. "I'm serious. I've got a bad feeling about that thing."

Harry stared at him incredulously for a long moment. "You want me not to go because you have a bad feeling?" he asked. Draco scowled at him and nodded. "You're just sore because you didn't like what you saw in it."

"I am not!" Draco snapped. Harry snorted and turned back to his breakfast, so Draco continued sourly, "Fine, do what you want. I hope Snape catches you."

Harry was distracted through all of his classes that day, lost in thoughts of the family he'd never known. Wouldn't it be great if he could have both of his families mingling together, maybe even living in one large mansion like the one the Malfoys owned? He could go to the English Christmas parties while his dad was at the Führer's solstice ball, and whenever his dad had to send Harry away for his own safety, he could return to England instead. Or maybe his parents could've been convinced to move to Amestris.

Of course, that could never happen; he was old enough to know that he wouldn't have Roy if his parents were still alive. But he'd never even so much as seen pictures of his parents before, so that night he waited until everyone else in the dorm had gone to sleep before he slid out of his own bed and made his way back to the mirror room.

"Back again, Harry?" a voice asked some time after he'd sat contently on the floor in front of the mirror. Something heavy landed in Harry's stomach, and he turned to see the headmaster himself sitting on one of the unused desks in the room. Had Harry actually been so lost in thought he'd walked straight by the man?

"I—I didn't see you, sir," Harry stammered, getting to his feet.

"Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you," Dumbledore said with a smile. Wasn't he mad about Harry breaking rules? "So you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised."

Was that what it was called? It seemed like a strange name, but he remembered the inscription on the mirror and figured that nobody else had been able to decipher it either.

"I expect you've realized what it does?" Dumbledore asked.

"I—well, it showed me my family…" Harry responded uncertainly, trailing off as he considered the implications. He still didn't know exactly what Draco had seen in the mirror to make him so displeased with it, but he knew what it must show for him. "It shows us what we want—or the results of getting what we want."

Dumbledore's eyebrows raised in surprise at Harry's answer, but the headmaster didn't say what about it had been strange. Instead, he said in a quiet voice, "Yes and no. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your real family, see them standing around you. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible."

"But it obviously can't be possible," Harry said, turning slightly to look at his mom again. "My family's dead and—" He stopped abruptly, realizing suddenly that Dumbledore hadn't mentioned the Amestrians. He'd said Harry saw his 'real family', obviously referring to his blood family, so maybe he couldn't see what was in the mirror for Harry as he'd thought. Biting his lip, he didn't finish the rest of his sentence as he and Dumbledore stared at each other for a brief moment until the headmaster started talking again.

"The mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it again, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?"

Harry hesitated a brief moment, wondering what Dumbledore saw in the mirror, but decided not to ask. If Draco wouldn't even tell him what he'd seen, why would the headmaster answer that question? So Harry just gave the old man a shaky smile before he swung the cloak back around his shoulders and quietly made his way back to the Slytherin dorms.

@-`---

Time at the school seemed to slow down considerably after that. Harry spent long hours in the library with Hermione and Neville, unhappily studying as the teachers piled more and more work on them. The spring holidays weren't very fun at all; most everyone stayed in the castle for them, probably in an attempt to remind themselves to keep up with their work.

On a particularly nice day over break, Harry walked into the library later than usual with Draco trailing behind him, only to find Hermione and Neville huddled together and whispering to each other. Neither of them were actually paying attention to their books, which was practically unheard of for the studious Gryffindor girl, so Harry sauntered over to them as quietly as possible.

"So, what's the secret?" he asked, and Hermione gave an awful little screech as she spun around to stare at him. Neville jumped and nearly fell off his chair, staring up at Harry with a hand over his heart. Harry grinned at them.

"Harry, don't scare us like that!" Hermione said shrilly. She must've received a glare from Madam Pince at the pitch of her voice, because she winced and continued in a softer tone. "There's no secret. Why would you think there is?"

"Granger, the only way you could've been more suspicious is if you were wearing hooded cloaks and slinking around in a dark corner," Draco drawled in his most annoying voice, smirking when Hermione turned a glare at him. "You might as well as tell us what's going on."

Hermione turned back to Neville and the two of them shared a long look. Harry only had a moment to wonder when the two of them had become such close friends that they could communicate without talking when Hermione turned back to Harry with a huff.

"You should come meet Hagrid with us," she said in a bright, excited voice, though she was ignoring Draco entirely. "I know you'll like him."

"Isn't he the gamekeeper?" Harry asked, confused. Hermione blushed lightly and gave Harry an awkward shrug; Harry figured she must have met him some time before Halloween. "I mean, sure, I'll go along if you want."

"Really, Potter?" Draco asked in disbelief as Hermione beamed at him.

"You don't have to come, Malfoy," Hermione said snidely, arching a brow at the blond. It only proved that she didn't know Draco at all.

"Of course I'm going to come," Draco said, acting surprised that Hermione thought he wouldn't. Harry snorted and rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't miss this for anything."

Hermione made an unhappy noise, but seemed to decide that there was nothing she could do about Draco coming along, as she gave one last look to Neville before turning back to the table. Draco rolled his eyes before he moved to his customary chair at the other end of the table, and silence fell over the group as they all began studying.

They met up at the front doors an hour later, and Hermione filled them in on what Hagrid was like as they walked across the grounds. Apparently he was really nice, and had befriended Hermione long before anyone else when he realized that she was always alone. Hermione visited him whenever she wanted advice or a shoulder to cry on, and Hagrid in turn told her about all kinds of vicious beasts he'd taken care of at some point or another in his life.

"Do you think he knows that dog?" Draco asked Harry in a carrying whisper. Hermione shot him a curious look, but apparently thought better of asking about it, and Harry just shrugged.

"We can ask him," Harry said much more discretely. "But if he likes horrible animals as much as Hermione is saying, I wouldn't be surprised."

As they approached the cabin on the edge of the grounds, Harry was surprised to see that all of the curtains were closed. He wondered if maybe the man wasn't home, but Hermione knocked on the door and a suspicious voice asked "Who is it?"

"It's Hermione and Neville!" Hermione called back, looking confused. "And I've brought a couple more friends to meet you!"

The door opened a crack, and a large face peered out at them. He looked surprised to see Harry and Draco, and hesitated for a long minute before he finally let them all in and quickly shut the door behind him. Harry wrinkled his nose at the heat inside the little hut, eyeing the fire unhappily. He wouldn't have minded it so much, even on this warm of a day, but Hagrid also had all of his windows shut and no cooling air was moving inside the tiny room.

"So, who've you brought with you this time?" Hagrid asked, ushering them over to the table and offering them tea and stoat sandwiches. He didn't seem upset when nobody accepted a sandwich.

"This is Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy," Hermione said cheerfully, and didn't seem to notice Hagrid's surprised look.

"You'd be Lucius's son, then?" Hagrid asked Draco, frowning a bit when Draco nodded at him. He didn't say anything further, though, possibly because he had nothing good to say; instead he turned to Harry and smiled. "And I know you o' course. Spent half me life chasing your dad away from the Forbidden Forest."

Harry almost dropped his teacup. "You knew my parents?"

"Sure did," Hagrid replied kindly. "Your dad and his friends were right troublemakers, but brilliant wizards. And your mum was a great witch herself too."

"Could you tell me about them some time?" Harry asked shyly. "I've never met anybody who knew them before."

"'Course I can," Hagrid replied, his eyes crinkled in a sympathetic smile. "Just send me an owl when you want to meet and I'll let you know if I can."

"Thanks!"

"So, did you want to ask me something?" Hagrid asked, turning back to Hermione. Hermione and Neville shared another long look, but eventually they both shook their heads.

"I have a question," Draco spoke up, putting his own teacup down with a loud clink. "Granger says you're really interested in dangerous animals; I was wondering if you know anything about that three-headed dog in the locked corridor?"

"How do you know about Fluffy?" Hagrid asked in astonishment, nearly breaking his own teacup.

"Fluffy?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, he's mine," Hagrid replied hesitantly. "Bought him off a Greek chappie in a pub last year, lent him to Dumbledore to guard the—"

"Guard the what?" Harry asked eagerly, leaning forward.

"Never you mind," Hagrid finished gruffly. "That's dangerous business, and it's best left between Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel—"

"Who's Nicholas Flamel?" Neville asked curiously, but Hagrid, looking furious with himself, didn't answer.

Harry sighed unhappily into the ensuing silence, then finally asked, "Do you think we could open a window? It's boiling in here."

"Can't, Harry, sorry," Hagrid replied with a nervous glance at the fire. Harry followed his gaze, and all thoughts of the third floor corridor vanished from his mind. Sitting in the middle of the fire was a huge, black egg that Harry was sure he'd seen in a textbook before.

"Is that a dragon egg?" Draco asked, his eyes gleaming with interest as he walked over to it and kneeled in front of the fire. "How in the world did you get it? These cost a fortune!"

"Won it," Hagrid said. "Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest."

"But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched?" Hermione asked.

"Well, I've bin doin' some reading," Hagrid replied, showing them a large book he pulled out from underneath his pillow. "Got this outta the library—Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit—it's a bit outta date o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on 'em, see, an' when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An' see here—how to recognize different eggs—what I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them."

He looked very pleased with himself, though Hermione didn't. "Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," she said.

But Hagrid clearly wasn't listening. He was humming quite cheerfully as he stoked the fire, with Draco hovering over his shoulder.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight: Lasting Impressions

They all received notes from Hagrid at breakfast the morning Norbert hatched. Harry met Hermione and Neville's eyes across the Great Hall, but Hermione just shook her head at him. She obviously wasn’t going to skip her morning class, even for something as rare as getting to see a dragon hatching.

Draco, of course, had no such qualms. Harry had barely finished chewing when his friend had dragged him away from the table, telling Blaise and Pansy to take really good notes in History of Magic (as if any of them were ever awake long enough to take any) because they were going to be busy all morning. The others knew better than to ask what Draco and Harry were up to, especially when Draco impatiently shooed Crabbe and Goyle off to class instead of allowing the two larger boys to accompany them as he usually did.

Hagrid let them into his hut with a tremulous grin, clearly too nervous to realize that the two of them must be skipping class, and asked where Hermione and Neville were. He didn't seem to think much of it when Harry said the other two would be down later, as he just ushered the two Slytherins over to the table the large black egg was sitting on. It had a large crack running down it, and they could hear the dragon moving inside of it.

"Is it going to get out on its own?" Draco asked anxiously, leaning so close to the egg that Hagrid pulled him back by his collar. "How long does it take?"

"It might be hours yet," Hagrid said gruffly, belatedly poking at the fire and offering them tea. "If he's not out by lunch, I'm to give him a bit of a hand. Their mothers crack them open if they can't do it themselves, but I don't think he'll have a problem."

Harry and Draco nodded, absent-mindedly accepting the teacups Hagrid handed them. Harry was so focused on the widening cracks in the egg that it took him several minutes to realize that Hagrid had forgotten to put tea leaves in the cups; Draco still hadn't noticed, and was peacefully sipping at the hot water with his eyes glued to the table. Hagrid was no better, fitfully wringing his beard and looking like a father expecting his first baby. With a heavy sigh, Harry got up from his seat and started poking around the cupboards. He had to climb on the counter to get out the tea, but he successfully managed to make himself a proper cup. Draco swatted him away when he tried to take his friend's cup, so he just sighed and let the other boy drink the hot water.

Waiting for a dragon to hatch was extremely boring. While his friends seemed perfectly happy to stare at the egg and discuss the miniscule cracks that appeared as the baby dragon tried to get out, Harry quickly lost interest and found himself grateful that he had his schoolbag with him. He dug out some homework that he'd planned on finishing up during History of Magic and worked on it until a knock at the door interrupted Draco and Hagrid's hushed conversation.

"It's nearly out!" Hagrid said in excitement as he let Neville and Hermione in, and Harry was crowded as the two Gryffindors dropped their bags and joined them at the table. He inspected the egg as he put his homework away; the cracks were much deeper, and the clicking noises of the dragon hammering at the inside were much louder than before. He was surprised he hadn't noticed sooner.

A few minutes after the two Gryffindors joined them, the egg finally shattered. The baby dragon flopped out onto the table, looking rather like a crumpled umbrella. Its spiny wings were at least twice the size of its skinny body, and it had stubby little horns and bulging orange eyes. When it sneezed, a couple of sparks flew out of its snout.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid murmured raptly, reaching out a hand to stroke it. The dragon snapped at him with tiny, sharp fangs.

"Bless him, look, he knows his mommy!" Hagrid said.

"Hagrid," Hermione said, "how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?"

@-`---

It turned out that Norwegian Ridgebacks grew at alarming speeds. Within a week, the dragon (which Hagrid had decided to call Norbert) was three times the size he'd been when he'd hatched, and he was getting more vicious by the day.

Neither Hagrid nor Draco seemed to notice this, though. Hagrid cooed over the dragon as if it was an adorable human baby, telling it bedtime stories and singing it lullabies. Draco wasn't quite that bad, but he did manage to procure a faded red dragon plushie from somewhere that he solemnly gave to Norbert one day after making Harry swear he wouldn't tell anybody. (Draco would later admit that this plushie was a holdover from his childhood, when he'd had a roomful of the things. Strangely enough, it was named Flame, and had no relation whatsoever to the Flame Alchemist. Harry was still going to tell his dad he'd had a toy dragon named after him.)

Hermione and Neville didn't fare nearly as well with the creature. They were both extremely cautious with Norbert, wary of his sharp fangs and his habit of accidentally snorting fire when he was excited, but that didn't keep them from a few near misses. Harry strongly suspected Norbert, like most animals, could smell their fear, and had rightfully put them into the category of "prey." It wouldn't have been so bad, but Neville attracted disasters like nobody Harry had ever seen; by the end of the week, the boy was visiting the Hospital Wing with a nasty-looking bite on his arm that looked like it had a touch of venom to it.

"I don't know why Malfoy likes it so much!" Neville complained, and he and Hermione frowned at Harry as if he had anything to do with Draco's strange taste in animals. "That thing is vicious!"

"We need to convince Hagrid to get rid of him," Hermione said fretfully, giving Harry a wide-eyed look. Harry wasn't sure what she wanted from him; they'd already tried to talk Hagrid into giving Norbert up, but the man had argued that the baby was too little to be let lose. Which wasn't wrong, of course, but Harry was starting to worry that they were going to get caught and Hagrid would get sent to jail.

"I don't know why Hagrid thinks a dragon has any predators in Scotland," Neville said grumpily, though he had to know one as young as Norbert would be snapped up by something in the Forbidden Forest in a second. "We can't keep doing this!"

"Did somebody say dragon?" a voice interrupted as a pair of identical faces peered around the privacy curtain that separated Neville's bed from the rest of the wing. Hermione and Neville paled dramatically, but Harry jumped to his feet with his wand in his hand, narrowing his eyes.

"We didn't know Hagrid had a dragon," the other twin said with a pout. "And after all the time we've spent together—"

"—the hours in detention—"

"—the evenings being chased away from the Forest—"

"You're Ron Weasley's brothers, aren't you?" Harry interrupted, steadily pointing his wand at them. "What do you want?"

"Well, we couldn't help to overhear your dilemma—" twin number one started.

"—You really need to learn to be more discreet—" twin number two continued with a wink.

"—and we thought we would offer our services," the first twin concluded with a bow. "Or, well, more accurately, our older brother's services. He's studying dragons, see, and I bet he would love to get a Ridgeback at the Sanctuary."

"And what do you get in return?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"Suspicious little thing, aren't you?" the second twin asked, and didn't seem impressed by Harry's responding scowl. "Oh, come on, how often do you think even we get to see real dragons? Let us help you get rid of the thing and we'll call it even. Anyway, it can't hurt to say we're friends with Harry Potter, can it?"

"Besides, you don't seem too bad for a Slytherin," the first twin added thoughtfully. "And we don't have a contact in that House yet, so maybe we'll ask you for a favor someday, yeah?"

"I've heard of you two," Harry said warily. "Fred and George, right? The pranksters. Everyone's warned me to stay away from you two and Lee Jordan; I don't like the thought of being in your debt."

"You really are delightfully suspicious," twin number two said in an amused voice. "I'm Fred and he's George. I promise we don't bite unless you ask us to."

"I'm way too young to worry about biting," Harry informed them without really thinking about it, mentally filing away Fred and George's distinguishing characteristics. It wasn't easy, since the two were nearly identical, but George's ears were a little bit bigger, and Fred had a strangely distinct pattern of freckles under his left eye.

George grinned at him, a little too wide to be pleasant, and Harry blushed as he realized what he'd just said. He really, really needed to stop channeling his dad. "And feisty too," George cooed, laughing when Harry glared at him. "It's okay, I promise we're harmless."

"Mostly harmless," Fred amended with a smirk. "So, what d'you say? Want a hand?"

Harry turned the offer over in his head. Fred and George seemed sincere enough, for all the jokes and inappropriate flirting, and Harry didn't have any other ideas. He really didn't like the idea of owing them a favor though.

"Okay," he said eventually. "But no favors! Or at least nothing I can't deny. I don't want to be implicated in any of your tricks, my dad'll kill me if I get in too much trouble."

"Deal," George said quickly, as if he was worried Harry would change his mind.

"We'll send Charlie an owl tonight. Ta!" And the Weasley twins skipped off arm in arm.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Harry?" Hermione asked timidly, and Harry tucked his wand away as he turned back to his friends. They were both giving him worried looks, Neville also having the grace to look apologetic. "What if they tell the teachers on us?"

"I don't think they will," Harry said, more confidently than he felt. "I think they're too excited about seeing a real dragon. Anyway, I guess we'll know soon enough, won't we?" Hermione and Neville shared a frown, but Harry just shook his head and their concerns off. "I have to tell Draco. Could you talk to Hagrid, Hermione?"

He waited for Hermione to give her reluctant agreement before he left, making a beeline for the dungeons to let Draco know what was happening.

He found his friend sprawled on one of the couches in front of the fire, holding court with his friends. Blaise looked bored, because Blaise always looked bored, but when Pansy saw him coming her eyes widened in relief. She mouthed something that looked suspiciously like 'save us' at Harry. Grinning, Harry approached his friends to catch Draco on the tail-end of a story about saving his house elf from a pack of superstitious Muggles (as if elves needed saving).

"Did you know it's illegal for Muggles to burn people at the stake now?" Harry interrupted, giving the back of Draco's head a sharp poke. His friend turned a sulky glare on him. "And they probably would have assumed your elf had a medical condition and left him alone. This is the twentieth century, you know."

"What do you want?" Draco sneered, utterly ignoring every word Harry had said.

"Oh, I needed to tell you something," Harry replied casually, pulling some imaginary lint off the sleeve of his robe. "But, please, finish your wildly inaccurate story first. I'm sure it can wait."

“There’s no point in finishing it now,” Draco grumbled. “Do I have to get up for this?”

“Yup,” Harry said without an ounce of guilt. “Is anyone in the dorm?”

“No, I think Nott’s in the library or something,” Draco said, waving his hand vaguely as he got up from the couch. He followed Harry up to the dorm silently, throwing himself on his bed as soon as he reached it and giving Harry an impatient look. Harry climbed up onto his bed as well, sitting cross-legged at Draco's knees, but hesitated to tell him the news.

"I think we've found a way to get Norbert somewhere safe," he eventually said, pretending not to notice the way his friend's face fell. "I was talking to Neville and Hermione in the Hospital Wing and, er, Fred and George Weasley overheard us—"

"You accepted help from them?" Draco yelped, sitting up and giving Harry's leg a sharp smack. "You can't trust them, our families have been at odds for years!"

"You're so dramatic," Harry grumbled, rubbing his sore leg. "One of their brothers works with dragons or something, okay? They're sending him a letter. They just seem to think knowing a real dragon is cool."

"Or they've discovered an easy way to get a pair of Slytherins in serious trouble and they're taking it," Draco countered, but Harry just shook his head.

"Hagrid would be in more trouble than any of us, and they seem to like him," he said. "Anyway, they already know, so there's nothing we can do about it now. We'll have to wait and see what happens."

@-`---

What happened was that Harry received an owl from the twins a week later letting him know that their older brother Charlie had agreed to take Norbert. Draco made a dismayed sound after reading their request to be allowed to help carry the dragon up to the top of the astronomy tower, but Harry pointed out that it would be heavy work for a pair of first years. Norbert was still a baby, but he seemed to be getting bigger by the day, and more wild too; Harry worried what might happen if the dragon took a sudden dislike to the crate while they were at the top of a staircase. At least the Weasley twins were Beaters on their House team, and presumably had some muscle built up that Harry and Draco were lacking.

Saturday night, Harry and Draco met Hermione at the front door of the school and the three of them went down to Hagrid's together. Hagrid already had Norbert crated up for his trip when they got there, and the giant man gave them a watery smile that made them all uncomfortable.

"I've packed his teddy bears in case he gets lonely," he assured them tearfully, either not noticing or ignoring the distinct sounds of a stuffed animal being torn apart coming from inside the crate. Draco glared at the box and grumbled something about the dragon he'd given Norbert that had Harry stifling a grin.

Harry shifted impatiently as Hagrid cried over the crate saying goodbye to Norbert, his eyes glued to his watch. They still had to meet up with the twins by the entrance hall, not that Hagrid knew they were involved tonight.

Finally, Draco and Harry managed to get themselves and the crate covered beneath the Cloak, and they left behind an anxious Hermione as they made their way back to the school. It was exhausting work, carrying a live animal while trying to make sure that none of their body parts or the crate escaped the confines of the Cloak, and it took them longer than Harry would have liked to sneak their way back inside.

"—So keep Filch busy in the dungeons tonight for us, yeah?" Fred (or was it George?) was asking someone as they pushed their way back into the castle. Harry almost dropped his half of the crate when he saw Peeves the Poltergeist bobbing upside down in the air in front of the twins, smiling at them like he'd recently gotten away with murder. Fortunately, it seemed as if Peeves must be fond of the twins, because he just gave the two of them an eager nod before zooming off singing a rude song.

"That you, Harry?" George asked a second later, turning in their direction. His gaze fell a distinct half a foot to Harry's left, and Harry grinned widely when the older boy jumped as he pulled the Cloak down from his face.

"Is that an Invisibility Cloak?" Fred asked with bright eyes, stepping around his twin and patting at the air by Harry's shoulder.

"Were you really planning on taking the dragon up the tower under that?" George continued, crowding Harry's other shoulder. Harry made a face at both of them and leaned back, trying to regain some personal space.

"Well, do you have a better plan?" he asked grumpily, adjusting his grip on the crate's handle, which was starting to slip in his sweaty grip. "It'd be hard not to notice us."

"Well there's spells to help," George said.

"And we've the map," Fred added.

"Hey, why don't you let us actually carry him?" George added. "You look beat already."

"Can we just get a move on?" Draco asked from the other side of the crate. "I prefer feeding the beast to lugging it around this forsaken castle, and I'd like to get some sleep tonight."

"Oi, that's not Hermione!" Fred said, sounding genuinely surprised.

Harry sighed as Draco abruptly put his side of the crate down and tore the Cloak over his own head to glare at the twins. "No, I'm bloody well not!" he snarled. "She couldn't fit under the cloak with us and the crate, okay? Are we going to get this done, or should I just call up Professor Snape myself and get us all detentions?"

"He's got a point, Fred, check the map," George said, pulling out his wand. His twin grumbled, but pulled out a ratty-looking piece of parchment and made a show of looking it over. "Here, Harry, let me and Fred carry your dragon, we can get it up there faster. No offense, but you two are kind of scrawny."

"But how are you going to hide yourselves?" Harry asked worriedly, even as he swiftly uncovered the crate. George just winked at him in reply, then bent over the crate to give it a sharp rap that echoed in the hall. As Harry watched, the box quickly disappeared from view as if its surroundings were melting over it.

"That's a NEWT-level spell!" Draco said, sounding impressed despite himself.

"Worked it out the beginning of this year," Fred said proudly, strolling over and thrusting the parchment he'd been looking at before into Harry's hand. To Harry's surprise, a detailed map of Hogwarts was spread out across it. Four tiny pairs of feet were crowded in the entrance hall, each one labeled with its name. Harry gawked.

"The Marauders Map," George said warmly, pointing to a pair of feet some distance off. "Looks like Filch is headed in this direction."

"You two get under the cloak and take the Map," Fred said. "Keep an eye out for danger, okay?"

"Okay," Harry said vaguely, eagerly tracking his eyes over the map as Draco got back under the cloak on his own. Fred and George hit each other on their heads with their wands, and Harry hoped it was only because he knew they were there that he didn't have any trouble tracking their movements. Either way, he slipped the Cloak back over his own head and lead the way out of the hall, hoping to keep ahead of Filch.

With Fred and George now shouldering the awkward weight of the dragon, the trip up the tallest tower didn't take as much time as it may have otherwise. With the map to assure them that nobody was around to get them in trouble, it wasn't even as stressful as it might have been, so they were all in good spirits while they waited for Charlie's friends to show up. Harry tried to ask the twins about the map, but was sorely disappointed to discover that they didn't know much about it or the people who made it; apparently they'd dug it out of one of Filch's cabinets that year and had been using it to great effect since, but that was all they knew about it.

Charlie's friends showing up took Harry's mind almost entirely off the Map. They were quite cheerful, especially given the time of night, and showed them all the harness they'd made to suspend Norbert between them as they flew. They were even quite tolerant of Draco's incessant questions, never seeming to run out of patience despite the blond's less-than-humble attitude.

But finally they had to leave, and Draco gave the crate one last fond pat to say goodbye to Norbert before they were watching the figures dwindling off into the night sky.

"Guess that's that then," Draco said sadly, rubbing at his eyes like they itched.

"A real dragon, though," Fred said wistfully.

"Charlie always did have all the luck," George said ruefully.

Harry handed the Map back over to Fred and they started back down the stairwell without any further commentary. They'd only just gotten to the foot of the first flight, when a soft light and the sound of a stern voice had them shuffling hastily back into the shadows, Harry pulling the Cloak tighter around himself and Draco instinctively.

"But you don't understand, Professor!" Ron Weasley was saying as he was being dragged down the hallway by the ear by Professor McGonagall. "I overheard my brothers talking—Potter and Malfoy have a dragon—"

"A dragon!" Professor McGonagall scoffed. "What utter rubbish! I'd expect you of all people to know better than to believe a word that comes out of your brothers' mouths—"

She kept ranting at Ron as she pulled him down the hallway, but thankfully her voice soon faded into the darkness. Harry and Draco shared a grin; there was no way Ron had avoided a detention for this!

"And to think that's our own baby brother," Fred said with a mournful shake of his head. "What kind of Weasley sneaks off instead of confronting his family, eh?"

"We'd better go before old McGoogles comes looking for us, though," George said. "Lovely working with you, boys."

"Don't be strangers!"

Fred and George took off silently, and even without the Disillusionment Charms they disappeared into the shadows between one blink and the next.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine: Wild Thing

As the school year started coming to an end, Harry found himself alone in the library with Hermione more and more often. Draco had never gone with him much to begin with, but Neville just didn’t seem to have either the interest or the patience to put in the long hours of studying that Harry had become accustomed to. Harry couldn’t blame him, though; if he wasn’t so concerned about what his dad would think of his grades, he’d probably be studying a lot less too. Hermione, of course, was thrilled to have somebody to study with at all hours of the day, even if Harry was less than enthusiastic about the work.

It was while he was walking back to his dormitory after one of his study sessions with Hermione that he heard Professor Quirrell being threatened. Or rather, he heard Quirrell's response to being threatened; no matter how hard Harry listened, he couldn't hear the second voice. The professor was clearly intimidated, though, and finally agreed to whatever demands the other person was making of him.

Harry waited until he heard Quirrell run out of the room before he peeked in through the open door himself, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever had been there with him, but the room was empty. A door at the far side stood ajar, and Harry briefly considered crossing over to investigate further before realizing that whoever had been threatening enough to scare the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher would surely be too much for an eleven year old to handle. Instead, he turned away and  ran towards the Gryffindor tower, hoping to catch Hermione before she climbed into her common room. The Gryffindors would probably be more interested in what he'd overheard than Draco would, and anyway he could tell Draco any time he wanted.

To his surprise, he found both Hermione and Neville outside of the common room facing off against Ron Weasley and Seamus Finnigan, all of them clearly upset about something. Harry slowed down uncertainly, not wanting to interrupt House business, but it didn't take him long to realize that the two unfriendly Gryffindors were getting on Hermione's case about studying with Harry all of the time. It seemed they were upset about the studious girl "helping" Harry to get good grades when she apparently couldn't be bothered to help any of her housemates, who probably needed it more anyway. Harry wasn't surprised that the two boys were conveniently ignoring the fact that most of the House treated Hermione terribly. What did surprise him, though, was that the person most vociferously arguing with Ron and Seamus was Neville, not Hermione herself. Hermione didn't need anybody to protect her, of course, but it warmed Harry's heart to see Neville being so assertive for a change.

The good feeling didn't last long. As Harry approached, Ron's temper got the better of him, and he started flinging spells at Neville. Most of them either didn't hit or weren't successfully cast, but Harry didn't really like the odds when Seamus, who was known to catch things on fire by accident, starting backing Ron up. He was grateful, not for the first time, for his dad's and Ed's insistence on teaching him how to defend himself, because his own spellcasting was effortless and he knocked back the two Gryffindor boys with almost insulting ease.

"What is going on here?" Professor McGonagall's voice came as Ron was painfully picking himself back up off the floor, and all five of them froze as the woman stormed down the hallway toward them. "You know fighting is forbidden. Explain yourselves!"

The five of them gave each other uncertain looks, but nobody actually said anything. The professor's nostrils flared as she stared angrily down at all of them, before finally she seemed to lose her patience entirely.

"Well, if nobody is going to defend themselves, than that's ten points off for each of you—yes, each of you, be silent, Finnigan—and a detention apiece. Potter, don't you have your own common room to be in?"

"Yes, Professor," Harry replied, unable to keep the dissatisfaction from his voice, and obediently turned to return to the Slytherin dormitories. He'd have to talk to Hermione and Neville later.

@-`---

"What do you have detention for?" Draco asked the next morning, peering nosily over Harry's shoulder as he opened his mail at the table.

"Got into a fight with the Gryffindors," Harry sighed back. "Weasley and Finnigan attacked Hermione and Neville and, well, what was I supposed to do?

"So now you've got a detention with all four of them?" Draco asked, shaking his head. "Sounds like you're in for a fun night."

"Thanks," Harry said sourly, and resolved to put it out of his mind for the rest of the day.

But at eleven o'clock that night, he was down in the entrance hall and unable to ignore his upcoming detention any longer. The Gryffindors were standing in two awkward groups on either side of Filch, glaring at each other. Neville was the only one who looked around as Harry approached, and he gave Harry a small, nervous smile in greeting.

Filch berated them as they all trooped across the grounds, and Harry found himself become increasingly nervous at the undisguised delight in the caretaker's voice. What were they being sent to do, exactly? He'd assumed they'd be writing lines or an essay on why fighting wasn't an appropriate way to handle disputes, like any sensible school in Amestris would be doing, but they couldn't do that outside.

Even though he'd become close friends with the Hagrid, Harry couldn't help his nerves from only getting worse when his hut came into view. Hermione and Neville didn't seem to share his consternation; they brightened visibly at the thought of the man, prompting Filch to scowl and nastily inform them of just where their detention was taking them.

"The Forest?" Ron repeated nervously, and for once Harry found himself in complete agreement. He'd heard about the things that lived in the forest, and he wasn't keen on interacting with any of them. "But—but what about the creatures that live in there? I heard there's werewolves!"

"Should've thought of that before you broke the rules, shouldn't you?" Filch chortled gleefully.

"About time," Hagrid said, striding towards them with a crossbow in his hands and Fang at his heels. "I bin waitin' fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Hermione, Neville?"

"I shouldn't be too friendly with them, Hagrid," Filch said coldly. "They're here to be punished, after all."

"That's why yer late, is it?" Hagrid frowned back. "Bin lecturin' them, eh? 'Snot your place ter do that. Yeh've done yer bit, I'll take over from here."

"I'll be back at dawn," Filch said nastily, "for what's left of them." He turned and strode back toward the castle, and Harry wasn't sorry to see him go.

"Are we really going into the Forest?" Ron asked, turning to Hagrid with wide eyes. When Hagrid frowned at him and nodded, he visibly straightened his back, though the distraught expression failed to fade from his face.

"Now, listen carefully," Hagrid said, "'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight, an' I don't want no one takin' risks. Follow me over here a moment."

He led them to the forest's edge. Holding his lamp up high, he pointed down a narrow track that disappeared into the blackness of the trees.

"Look there. See that stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery."

"And what are we supposed to do if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" asked Seamus nervously. "I don't think a bunch of students should be going up against something that can catch unicorns!"

"There's nothin' that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang," Hagrid replied, though he seemed pleased by Seamus's caution. "An' keep ter the path. Right, now, we're gonna split inter two parties an' follow the trail in diff'rent directions. There's blood all over the place, it must've bin staggerin' around since last night at least."

"I want Fang," Seamus said, his eyes focused on the dog's long teeth.

"All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward," said Hagrid, making Seamus flinch. "So me, Hermione, and Neville will go one way, and Harry, Seamus, Ron, and Fang will go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now—that's it—an' if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll come an' find yeh—so, be careful—let's go."

The Forest was black and much quieter than Harry expected it to be. When they reached a fork in the path, Hagrid sent Harry and his company down the right path while he took Neville and Hermione down the left. Harry and the two Gryffindors walked in silence for a long time, their eyes on the ground so they could follow the sporadic trail of blood on the fallen leaves. They'd been walking for the better part of an hour when Harry finally saw the clearing ahead of them, and he stopped Seamus and Ron with his arm.

"Look," he said simply, nodding at a bright white spot on the ground ahead of them. As they inched closer, the form became clearer until Harry knew for certain that it was the unicorn. It was clearly dead, its legs splayed out at odd angles where it had fallen on the ground. A terrible sadness tugged at Harry's heart as they gazed on it, and he found himself rubbing absent-mindedly at the corner of one eye.

"We need to send up the sparks," Ron eventually suggested in a hushed whisper, but before Harry could get out his wand, a terrible slithering noise froze him in place. A moment later, a figure came crawling across the ground like a great, stalking beast. All four of them stood frozen, transfixed by the sight before them, until the cloaked figure finally reached the unicorn and began to drink its blood.

Ron and Seamus both let out terrible screams, and Seamus and Fang bolted. Harry didn't know whether Ron stayed out of bravery or fear, but as the figure got to its feet and moved towards them, he realized it didn't matter. A pain like he'd never felt before pierced his head; it felt as if his scar were on fire. Half blinded, he staggered backward into Ron, who grabbed his elbow and started stumbling backwards himself. Then there was the sound of hooves behind them, and something jumped clean over them both, charging the figure.

It took a long minute for the pain in his head to pass. When he finally looked up, the figure had gone, and a pale-haired centaur was standing over him and Ron instead. Ron was still clinging awkwardly to his elbow, half holding him up, but Harry was too distracted by the beast in front of him to remember to thank him.

"Are you all right?" the centaur asked.

"Yes—thank you—what was that?"

If the centaur had an answer to the question, he didn't provide it. His startlingly blue eyes were focused on Harry's scar instead, and he frowned thoughtfully at them.

"You are the Potter boy," he said. "You had better get back to Hagrid. The forest is not safe at this time—especially for you. Can you ride? It will be easier this way.

"My name is Firenze," he added, as he lowered himself onto his front legs. Harry clambered awkwardly onto his back, and Ron hesitated a moment before climbing up after him.

More galloping announced the arrival of two more centaurs, one red-haired and bearded, and the other black-haired and wild-looking.

"Firenze!" the black-haired one thundered. "What are you doing? You have a human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?"

"Do you realize who this is?" Firenze asked. "This is the Potter boy. The quicker he leaves this forest, the better."

"What have you been telling him?" growled the other centaur. "Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?"

The redhaired centaur pawed nervously at the ground, and said in a gloomy voice, "I'm sure Firenze thought he was acting for the best."

"For the best! What is that to do with us? Centaurs are concerned with what has been foretold! It is not our business to run around like donkeys after stray humans in our forest!"

Firenze suddenly reared on his hind legs in anger, and Harry felt Ron grab him around the waist in panic as he himself gripped desperately to the centaur's shoulders so they wouldn't fall off.

"Do you not see that unicorn?" Firenze bellowed. "Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets not let you in on that secret? I set myself against what is lurking in this forest, Bane, yes, with humans alongside me if I must."

And without another word, Firenze whisked around and plunged back into the dark forest.

"Why's that guy so angry?" Harry asked. "What was that thing you saved us from?"

Firenze slowed to a walk, but didn't answer Harry's question. He remained silent for so long that Harry figured Firenze didn't want to talk to them any longer, and he settled gloomily into a more comfortable position. The silence stretched on for another long moment, until Firenze suddenly stopped as they were passing through a particularly dense patch of trees.

"Do you know what unicorn blood is used for?" the centaur asked suddenly.

"No," said Harry, startled, and turned to face Ron, who stared blankly back at him. Clearly he didn't know either. "We've only used the horn and tail hair in Potions."

"That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn. Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips."

Harry stared at the back of Firenze's head in disbelief, while Ron gawked behind him.

"But who'd be that desperate?" Harry wondered aloud. "If you're going to be cursed forever, death's better, isn't it?"

"It is," Firenze agreed, "unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else—something that will bring you back to full strength and power—something that will mean you can never die. Mr. Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?"

"No," Harry said in puzzlement, but couldn't keep himself from feeling excited. Was he finally going to find out what Fluffy was guarding?

"Your Headmaster has sought to keep safe a certain object created by his alchemy partner, Nicholas Flamel," Firenze said, and Harry gawked at him in surprise. The Headmaster knew alchemy? It wasn't widely practiced outside of Amestris and Xing, for various reasons, and he hadn't expected Dumbledore to practice the art. "Can you think of nobody who would desire what the Philosopher's Stone would have to offer them?"

"You mean—" Ron started in surprise as Harry felt a cold dread settle itself into the pit of his stomach. "that was You-Know-Who?"

"Harry!" Hermione's voice called before Firenze could answer. She was running toward them down the path, Hagrid and Neville huffing noisily along behind her. "Harry, are you all right?"

"We're fine," Harry said, ignoring Ron's disgusted snort. "The unicorn's dead, Hagrid, it's in that clearing back there."

"This is where I leave you," Firenze murmured as Hagrid hurried off to examine the unicorn. "You are safe now."

Harry and Ron awkwardly slid off his back.

"Good luck, Harry Potter," Firenze said. "The planets have been read wrongly before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times."

Harry felt himself shivering as the centaur bounded back into the forest, but it wasn't from the cold.

When Harry got back to the dormitories, he shook Draco awake and dragged him, grumbling, down into the common room. He was silent as Harry told him about the events of the forest, staring wide-eyed and fearful at Harry as he paced.

"He must have inside help," Draco said, tapping soundlessly at his own knee. "Everyone says Dumbledore's the only person the Dark Lord was afraid of; if he's as weak as Firenze is suggesting, then he'll need somebody else to get him inside."

"But who can it be?" Harry asked desperately. "All of the teachers are loyal to Dumbledore, aren't they? Even Snape—don't look at me like that, Draco, you know he hates me—even he has to respect the Headmaster, right? But if we don't figure it out, Voldemort could get the Stone at any moment…I should owl dad."

"No!" Draco said, so vehemently that Harry stopped in his tracks. Draco blushed lightly, but continued in a calmer voice, "The centaurs could be wrong; Firenze said so himself, didn't he? What if your dad took you out of Hogwarts for your own safety, and You-Know-Who never showed up? Don't you want to stay here?"

Harry bit at his lip uncertainly, but Draco had a point. Roy would take him out of Hogwarts in a heartbeat if he thought his son was in any real danger, and Harry really didn't want to go back to school in Amestris when he was just settling into England. And what if Firenze was wrong? This was all just conjecture, really, they had no proof, and there could be any number of people wanting something as impossible as immortality…

"Okay," he said heavily, sinking into the chair beside Draco and staring into the dying fire. "I won't tell him."

But he couldn't help feeling as if he was making a mistake.

@-`--- 

Thankfully, as the days went by and Fluffy remained growling behind the locked door to the third floor corridor, Harry found himself thinking it increasingly unlikely that Voldemort was going to show up after all. There was an unusually sharp pain in his head, right behind his scar, which started bothering him after the night in the forest and hadn't stopped since, but Harry reluctantly chalked it up to a headache brought on by studying for their exams.

Finally the exams were over, and Harry found himself lounging on the grounds with the other Slytherins in his year. It was too hot to do much of anything, so instead they watched from a safe distance as the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan tickled the giant squid's tentacles.

"Maybe you should go to Madam Pomfrey," Pansy suggested eventually as Harry rubbed uncomfortably at his prickling scar for the hundredth time that week.

"I'm not ill," Harry said crossly, as he'd done every time someone had suggested similar. "I just wish I knew what was causing it…"

"Relax, Harry, the Stone's as safe as it's going to get," Draco drawled lazily, though his concerned gaze never left his friend's face. "I don't imagine much of anyone is going to get past Fluffy without Hagrid telling them how to, and he seems stupidly loyal to Dumbledore, doesn't he?"

Which was true enough, Harry supposed. Hagrid was a good man, and wouldn't sell out to someone like Voldemort easily. Of course, every person had their weaknesses; take Draco and Hagrid's strange obsession with dragons, for instance—

Harry found himself jumping to his feet almost before he realized he was doing so, but only Draco seemed interested in what he was up to.

"We've got to go see Hagrid," Harry announced urgently, making Blaise and Pansy grimace in distaste. Draco frowned as well, but got to his feet and dusted his clothes off as he hurried after Harry, who had already turned and started running across the grounds. "Don’t you think it's a bit odd that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it's against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don't you think? Why didn't I see it before?"

"You think Hagrid did tell someone, then?" Draco asked in horror, but Harry didn't respond.

Hagrid was sitting in an armchair outside his house, shelling peas into a bowl as he chatted amicably with Hermione and Neville.

"Hullo," he said with a smile, as Neville and Hermione waved at Harry. "Finished yer exams too? Got time fer a drink?"

"No, we're in a hurry," Harry replied impatiently. "Hagrid, I've got to ask you something. You know that night you won Norbert? What did the stranger you were playing cards with look like?"

"Dunno," said Hagrid nonchalantly, "he wouldn' take his cloak off."

Harry and Draco shared a dismayed look, and Hagrid raised his eyebrows at them.

"It's not that unusual, yeh get a lot o' funny folk in the Hog's Head—that's the pub down in the village. MIghta bin a dragon dealer, mightn' he? I never saw his face, he kept his hood up."

Harry sank dismally down next to the bowl of peas, hoping he was wrong.

"What did you talk to him about? Did you mention Hogwarts at all?"

"Mighta come up," Hagrid said, frowning in concentration. "Yeah, he asked what I did, an' I told him I was gamekeeper here…. He asked a bit about the sorta creatures I look after…so I told him…an' I said what I'd always really wanted was a dragon… I can' remember too well, 'cause he kept buyin' me drinks…then he said he had an egg an' we could play cards fer it if I wanted, but he wanted ter be sure I could handle it. So I told him, after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy…."

"And did he seem interested in Fluffy?" Harry asked calmly as now Hermione and Neville stared at Hagrid in horror.

"Well—yeah—how many three-headed dogs d'yeh meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how to calm him down, jus' play him a bit o' music an' he'll go straight off ter sleep—"

Hagrid suddenly look horrified, but Harry wasn't paying attention. He and Draco had already taken off back towards the castle, and Hermione and Neville joined them. None of them spoke until they finally found themselves in the dim entrance hall.

"We've got to go to Dumbledore," Harry said. "Hagrid told that stranger how to get past Fluffy, and it must've been whoever's helping Voldemort under that cloak. I hope the headmaster believes us. Maybe Firenze will back us up if Bane doesn't stop him. Where's Dumbledore's office?"

They looked around desperately, as if they thought Dumbledore's office would just appear before them when they needed it. They'd never been sent to the headmaster, and none of them knew anybody who had—except maybe the Weasley twins, but they'd be too interested in why they all wanted to see Dumbledore to be of any use.

"What are you four doing inside?" McGonagall's voice rang across the hall, and they all spun around to see her approaching them with a large stack of books.

"We want to see Professor Dumbledore," Hermione piped up into the nervous silence that ensued.

"See Professor Dumbledore?" McGonagall repeated suspiciously. "Why?"

"It's sort of—a secret," Harry said nervously, and immediately wished he'd thought of something better as their professor's nostrils flared in anger.

"Professor Dumbledore left ten minutes ago," she said coldly. "He received an urgent owl from the Ministry of Magic and flew off for London at once."

"He's gone?" Harry asked in horror.

"Professor Dumbledore is a very great wizard, Potter, he has many demands on his time—"

"But this is important!" Harry protested desperately.

"Something you have to say is more important than the Ministry of Magic, Potter?"

Well, normally, no, but… "It's about the Philospher's Stone," Harry blurted incautiously.

Professor McGonagall clearly hadn't been expecting that as an answer; the books she was carrying tumbled out of her arms as she stared at them all in astonishment.

"How do you know—?" she spluttered.

"Professor, someone's going to try and steal the Stone. I've got to talk to the headmaster."

"Professor Dumbledore will be back tomorrow," McGonagall eventually said in a very final tone. "I don't know how you found out about the Stone, but rest assured, no one can possibly steal it, it's too well protected."

"But Professor—"

"Potter, I know what I’m talking about," she said shortly, her patience clearly having run thin as she bent down and gathered her books. "I suggest you all go back outside and enjoy the sunshine."

Reluctantly, and very slowly, they trickled out the front doors.

"It's tonight," Harry said decisively once their Transifguration professor was definitely out of earshot. "Whoever's helping Voldemort must have sent that note, I bet the Ministry of Magic will get a real shock when Dumbledore turns up."

"But what can we do?" Hermione asked.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Draco asked, pale face flushed in excitement and his eyes glittering. "If none of the teachers will do anything, we've got to keep the Stone safe ourselves."

"I'm going to try to get to the Stone first," Harry agreed. "I'm not letting Voldemort get that stone, and dad's too far away to get here in time, even if I sent Hedwig to him right now. I've got the Invisibility Cloak, it shouldn't be much of an issue getting to the corridor."

"But will it cover all four of us?" Neville asked timidly.

"All—all four of us?"

"Well, we're not letting you go alone," Hermione said briskly, and Harry was stunned to see Draco nodding in agreement with her. "I can go look through my books, there could be something useful…."

"You don't have to come," Harry said blankly, looking around at all of them. "It'll be dangerous, if we don't make it in time—"

"It won't be much better if the Dark Lord does come back," Draco said gloomily. "And this is too much for one eleven-year old to handle. You need all the help you can get. We're coming."

And that was that.

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten: Kick It In

Late that night, after the Slytherin common room had finally cleared out, Harry and Draco snuck out of the dungeons and up to the Gryffindor dormitories, of which Hermione had told them the location. When Harry tapped loudly on the portrait's frame, Hermione and Neville tumbled out almost immediately, both of them looking very nervous.

"Harry?" Hermione whispered shakily, her hand gripping Neville's arm so hard her knuckles were white.

"Quick, under here!" Harry whispered back, pulling them both under the cloak. It was a tight fit with the four of them, and they were forced to walk slowly for fear that one of their feet would be seen while they weren't paying attention.

"This is ridiculous," Draco muttered in Harry's ear. "I'm hounding those Weasleys until they teach me that Disillusionment Charm."

Harry snickered, but shushed him as he heard someone around the corner to the stairs to the third floor. They stepped around it uncertainly, only to find Peeves floating above the stairs and crooning some nonsense song to himself. As they watched, the poltergeist finished loosening the carpet, nodding to himself in satisfaction, and floated contently off.

"We dodged a bullet there," Harry said once the spirit was gone, and they silently climbed the stairs. Just as Harry was opening the door, though, Hermione reached forward from the behind Draco to tug urgently at Harry's shoulder.

"Did anybody bring an instrument?" she asked quietly, and Harry froze. Of course he'd forgotten.

"I can't play anything," Neville said unhappily, and looked at Draco hopefully. Draco sighed at him, but nodded.

"I don't play, but I can sing it a lullaby or something," he said with an unhappy look. "And if it doesn't like my singing, just run, I guess."

"It'll have to do," Harry said, and they stepped silently through the doorway.

They were met with growls as the dog's three heads sniffed wildly in their direction, though the monster clearly couldn't see them. Before it could start barking, Harry elbowed Draco once and gave him an expectant glare.

"Don't you dare say anything," Draco said warningly, and reluctantly started singing.

"Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night. Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night."

Fluffy's ears began to droop almost the moment Draco started singing. His voice was surprisingly pleasant, but the soft sounds of the lullaby really didn't help to make the night seem less eerie as the four of them quietly approached the three slumbering heads. Skirting the dog's legs nervously, Neville approached the trap door and lifted it, then peered down into its dark depths.

"What do you see?" Hermione asked.

"Nothing," Neville replied. "I think we'll have to drop down; there doesn't seem to be anything to climb."

"I'll go first," Harry said. "Draco will have to come last so he can keep singing to Fluffy. Wait to make sure nothing happens to me before you come down, though; if I don't call back that it's okay, send Hedwig to my dad."

"Good luck," Neville said.          

Taking a deep breath, Harry slowly lowered himself into the trapdoor, until he was just barely hanging on to the floor by the tips of his fingers. With one last look out at his friends' worried faces, he finally let go. The fall seemed to go on forever, but finally he landed with a thwump on something soft and plant-like.

"It's okay!" he called up to the tiny square of light above him, hoping the others could hear him. "It's a soft landing, you can jump!"

A few moments later, Hermione fell to the ground next to him, and then Neville landed in an undignified sprawl between them. Harry distantly heard Draco's last line of "Earthly dust from of thee shaken" cut off, and then the other Slytherin had landed, more dignified than either Gryffindor, on the plant as well.

"Did they put this here to catch us?" Draco asked suspiciously.

"I doubt it," Neville replied sadly, the tone of his voice making Harry turn to him—or at least try to. He was caught up in thin tendrils that had snuck up on him, and couldn't shift himself at all. "I'm pretty sure this is Devil's Snare. It's really strong."

"Oh, well, that's helpful," Harry muttered. Neville glared at him.

"It lives in dark, damp places," he said coldly. "So the best way to get rid of it is to light a fire, but I don't know any spells."

"I do, but I can't reach my wand!" Hermione said shrilly, a note of panic to her voice. Harry couldn't actually reach his wand either, but that was the least of his problems. A particularly vicious tendril had wrapped itself around his throat, and he was having trouble breathing as he tried to pull the strands away.

"Here, try mine," Draco said hurriedly, stretching himself out to hand Hermione his wand. Hermione gave him a wide-eyed look of surprise, but took it from him anyway. With an unintelligible mutter, bright blue flames streamed out of the wand and onto the plant. Within seconds, the plant was loosening its grip and they were all able to wiggle free.

"I really wish dad would have already taught me his alchemy," Harry said hoarsely, rubbing at his throat. "If I had his gloves, I could've just—" He snapped his fingers demonstratively.

"I don't think you could pull off the look of nonchalant terror, though," Neville said with a nervous smile. Hermione gave them a curious look as she handed Draco's wand back to him, but Draco just shook his head and pointed down a dark passageway.

"Looks like this is the only way out," he said, and lead the way down the corridor. The silence and darkness pressed in on them as they all followed him, jumping at the sound of their own feet as the trail sloped steeply downwards. Neville was practically on top of Harry, tripping over Harry's heels and apologizing softly.

"Do you hear something?" Draco asked eventually, making Harry's insides jump unpleasantly. Ignoring Neville's most recent apology, he cocked his head as he listened for whatever had made Draco speak up. Faint rustling and clinking noises drifted into his hearing, and he furrowed his brow as he tried to figure out what was up ahead.

"It sounds like wings," he said. "But what's the clinking noise?"

"Only one way to find out," Hermione said, and pushed ahead of them all. A few more minutes' walk saw them coming out into a brightly lit chamber with a remarkably high ceiling. It was full of oddly bright birds fluttering around near the ceiling in strange movements.

"Birds?" Neville eventually said in wonder. "D'you think they'll attack us?"

"Those are not birds," Draco replied flatly, squinting up at them with suspicion. "Unless you lot know of a type of tiny bird made out of metal. Can't make out what they are, though."

"They still might attack us," Harry said dubiously. "You guys stay here a minute, and I'll run across."

Covering his head with his arms as a precaution, Harry took a deep breath and bolted across the room as fast as he could. None of the winged creatures above them swooped down for an attack, so when he reached the door on the other side of the room, he waved his friends across before he tried to open the door. It didn't budge even when he tried the Alohomora spell on it, and he turned to the others with a confused frown.

"Well, the flying things can't be here for decoration," Hermione said thoughtfully after her own casting of the spell failed. "Maybe there's some kind of puzzle to solve?"

"I think we have to catch one," Neville replied, pointing at a trio of nearby school brooms. "Maybe they do something magical."

"No, I think they're just keys," Harry said, peering at the creatures above them himself. They were so high up it was difficult to make out their shapes, but it was the only thing that really made any sense.

"So we need a big, old-fashioned one," Draco said, inspecting the keyhole on the door. "Hopefully silver like the door handle, but don't count on it."

"I'll stay on the ground," Neville volunteered nervously as Harry and Draco automatically moved to mount brooms. Given his previous experience on a broomstick, Harry couldn't say he blamed the boy, so he just wordlessly handed the third broom off to Hermione. She took it with an unenthusiastic look, but kicked off after them.

They winged keys didn't attack them, but there were so many of them it was hard to maneuver, let alone see anything. Still, after a minute's random flight, Harry spotted a large silver key with a bent blue wing. He pointed it out to the others. Draco immediately shot after it, but the key was much faster than it looked; he nearly collided with the ceiling before he was able to bring his broom back under control.

"How are we supposed to catch it with these stupid things?" Draco yelled at them in frustration, and Harry felt an unwanted grin cross his face.

"Bet you I can get it," he teased, and Draco snorted at him. "Hermione, stay under the key so it won't fly down, okay?"

"That's cheating!" Draco protested, but Harry wasn't listening to him any longer. Not taking his eyes off the crumpled wings, he darted after the key himself. The broom really was as bad as Draco had suggested, but he leaned forward as far as he could. It wobbled under him alarmingly as he picked up more speed than he should have, and his heart lurched sideways even as he reached out one hand to snatch the key out of the air. Hermione and Neville cheered enthusiastically, but Draco just shot him a thoughtful and jealous look as they landed safely on the floor.

"You should try out for Seeker next year," he said, snatching the key from Harry's grip and running over to the door. He unlocked the door easily and let go of the key, which floated back up towards the ceiling to join its mates.

The next room was pitch black until they stepped into it, at which point light flooded the room to illuminate a giant chess board. The huge stone playing pieces were taller than any of them, and the white side's blank faces stared at them from the other side of the room.

"Do we have to play our way across?" Draco wondered aloud.

"Oh, I wish Ron were here," Hermione fretted in response. "Are any of you good at chess? I'm hopeless at it."

"Dad taught me to play, but he said I take after Ed in strategy," Harry admitted reluctantly. "Which pretty much means I never have one."

"I play with Gran sometimes," Neville offered. "And she says I'm pretty good, but I'm not sure she's not saying that just to be nice."

"I can play pretty well," Draco said with significantly more confidence. "Mother taught me years ago, and we play all the time."

"Why don't you two work together?" Hermione suggested. Neville and Draco both gave her disbelieving looks, Draco slightly disdainful. "We don't know how good either of you are by yourselves, and I think getting passed the game is more important than your pride!"

"She's right," Neville said softly while Draco grimaced in distaste. But the two of them did put their heads together, talking softly for a long minute. When they looked back at Harry and Hermione, Draco's expression had changed to one of grudging approval.

Draco confidently directed them to take over for a bishop and castle, while he and Neville climbed onto the horses of either of the knights. The game went slowly at first, while Draco and Neville argued over every move they made, but eventually they fell into a sort of rhythm. Neville moved around the board the most, taking as many pieces as they lost to the aggressive white ones, but Draco hung back and kept an eye out for their safety. More than once, he had to shout out a sudden move that pulled one of them out of danger, and Neville sent him a thankful smile every time he did.

"This isn't good," Neville said shakily when the board was nearly cleared. "Draco, can you see a way out of this?"

"Nothing that will keep us in the game," Draco replied grimly. "But if you let it take you—"

"No!" Harry and Hermione protested instantly.

"It's okay," Neville assured them. "If it takes me, you three should be able to get by safely. A good game of chess always has a sacrifice."

Squaring his shoulders, he stepped into his next space; the opposing knight wasted no time knocking him to the ground and dragging him off into the corner with the rest of their pieces. Hermione had her hands clapped tightly over her mouth, not quite holding in a horrified scream, and even Draco looked shaken up by the violence against their friend.

In a few more moves, Harry managed to checkmate the white king, which threw its crown down at him in defeat. All three of them immediately rushed over to Neville, hoping to rouse him, but he was clearly out cold.

"C'mon, we've got to go," Harry eventually said with some reluctance, and they dashed quickly off to the next room.

When they opened the next door, they were greeted with an eye-watering stench that Harry immediately recognized. Pulling his shirt up over his nose in hope of drowning out the smell, he stepped gingerly into the room and almost sighed in relief; the troll inside was knocked out cold on the floor.

"Oh, Merlin," Draco said faintly, turning pale. "Imagine if we had to fight that one!"

"I'm glad we didn't," Harry said fervently as they skirted the body. "I can barely breathe, let alone deal with a troll!"

They gave each other nervous looks as they rushed up to the last door, worried about what might be on the other side, but thankfully it was nearly empty. A table stood in the middle of the room, seven vials and a short roll of parchment the only things on top of it.

"Professor Snape's," Harry said, but not with any relief—his Head of House was notoriously evil-minded. Harry still jumped when black flames sprouted up to block the door on the other side of the room, and he scowled at the purple ones that had appeared at their backs. He stepped briskly over to the table and took up the parchment, reading the riddle out loud for Hermione and Draco.

"Brilliant," Hermione said with a pleased smile. "This isn't magic—it's logic—a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever."

"Hey!" Draco said, unsurprisingly offended.

"Oh, don't be like that; you know it's true," Hermione said impatiently. "Do you want to try to solve this?"

"Well—no." Draco admitted. "I'm not crazy enough to think I can solve a riddle that Professor Snape made."

"I'm sure we can sort it out," Hermione said gamely, taking the parchment from Harry. She read through it several times, then wandered up and down the table muttering to herself. Draco and Harry watched her silently, and started when she clapped her hands excitedly.

"That one gets you through to the next room," Hermione announced, pointing to the tiniest bottle on the table.

"That'll only work for one of us," Draco said.

"Which one gets you back out?" Harry asked, and Hermione unhesitatingly pointed to a round bottle at the end of the line. "Okay, listen, you two drink that and go find Professor Snape and owl Dumbledore. I don't know who's on the other side, but I don't think I'll hold out long."

"But—but what if You-Know-Who's in there?" Hermione asked.

"Well, I got lucky once," Harry replied, pointing to his scar with a rueful smile. "Maybe I'll get lucky again."

For a second, Hermione looked like she was going to cry—but then she leapt forward and threw her arms around him. Harry patted at her back uncertainly, giving Draco a confused look.

"Be careful!" Hermione said urgently, pulling away from him and rubbing at her eyes.

"Yes, don't die before you have a chance to play for Slytherin," Draco agreed, but the smirk he gave Harry was weaker than usual. Hermione still smacked his arm in annoyance, and Harry found himself grinning at them.

"You two drink first," he said.

Hermione picked up the round bottle and took a sip, giving a little shudder that had both Draco and Harry looking at her anxiously. She shook her head at them and pressed the bottle into Draco's hands; he hesitated for a second then, eyes on Harry, he took a sip from the bottle himself.

"Good luck," Hermione said in a choked voice. "Take care—"

"Go before it wears off," Harry said quickly, and his two friends walked shoulder to shoulder as they move straight through the purple fire.

Harry took a deep breath to settle his nerves, then grabbed his own tiny bottle. "Cheers," he muttered to himself, and drained it in one gulp. Hermione's shudder was instantly explained—it felt like his all of his insides had turned to ice. He stepped forward through black fire, his view obscured by the dark flames, and then he was in the final chamber at last, face to face with—

"Professor Quirrell?" Harry gasped.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher gave him a calm smile that didn't show even a hint of his usual nervous demeanor.

"Me," he said. "I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here, Potter."

"But—but—" Harry stuttered, sounding much like the act Quirrell had been putting on all year, but fell silent when he realized he had nothing to say. He was shocked to see his teacher in this chamber, but the feeling was quickly fading as he remembered Ed's discomfort with the man that past summer. This explained why Ed hadn't liked him; he must've known somehow that the man was up to no good.

Quirrell laughed at his confusion, a sharp sound that was the complete opposite of his normal nervous giggle. "Surprised? I wonder who you expected it to be, hm? Not that it matters. Who would possibly suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?"

He gave a little sigh, but snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang up out of nowhere, wrapping themselves around Harry and anchoring him in place.

"You're too nosy to live, Potter. Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that, for all I knew you'd seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone."

"You let the troll in?"

"Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls—you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off—and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, the three-headed dog didn't even manage to bite Snape's leg off properly."

Harry gasped in surprise, and Quirrell gave him an impatient look.

"Wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror."

Harry bit his lip to head off another gasp as he finally shifted his attention from the man in front of him to look at what was behind him. The Mirror of Erised was standing in the middle of the chamber, sparkling in the firelight.

"The mirror is the key to finding the Stone," Quirrell murmured to himself as he tapped at the frame. "Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this…but he's in London…I'll be far away by the time he gets back…."

Harry didn't know what to do. Quirrell was staring intently at the mirror, focused on it to the exclusion of all else, and Harry couldn't even move far enough to dig his wand out again. Not for the first time, he wished he knew his dad's alchemy. This could be solved easily with a snap of his fingers.

"I see the Stone…I'm presenting it to my master…but where is it?"

Running out of options, Harry blurted the first thing that came to mind. "I heard you sobbing a few days ago. Who was threatening you?"

Quirrell's calm demeanor broke for a second as fear flashed across his face.

"Sometimes," he said with a slight tremble, "I find it hard to follow my master's instructions—he is a great wizard and I am weak."

"You mean he was there in the room with you?" Harry asked in confusion.

"He is with me wherever I go," Quirrell said, and quietly explained how he'd met his 'master'. Harry remembered seeing the man at Diagon Alley on his birthday, but he'd never have imagined this. While Harry was lost in his thoughts, Quirrell had turned back to the mirror and was ignoring him again.

"I don't understand…is the stone inside the mirror? Should I break it?"

Harry tried to edge around his teacher, hoping to look into the mirror without him noticing, but the ropes were tied too tight for effective movement—he tripped and fell over. Quirrell, still talking quietly to himself, didn't seem to notice.

"What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!"

And to Harry's horror, the cold voice that answered seemed to come from Quirrell himself. "Use the boy…" it said, and Quirrell spun around.

"Yes—Potter—come here." With a clap of his hands, the ropes around Harry fell off. He slowly climbed to his feet, resisting the urge to pull out his wand for fear that he would be attacked.

"Come here," Quirrell repeated. "Look in the mirror and tell me what you see."

There was nothing for it. Harry walked over to the mirror, trying to ignore the man at his back, and looked into it. His reflection peered back out at him, for a moment as scared as he was, but then it smiled at him. It put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a stone, then winked and put it back in—and Harry nearly jumped as something heavy landed in his own pocket. It didn't make any sense, but somehow he'd gotten the stone!

"Well?" Quirrell said impatiently. "What do you see?"

Desperately, Harry invented a lie that he hoped would be believed.

"I see myself shaking hands with Dumbledore," he said quickly. "I've won the House Cup for Slytherin."

With a sharp curse, Quirrell shoved Harry away and moved back in front of the mirror himself. Harry pulled out his wand and backed toward the door, hoping he could get away, but a high voice stopped him in his tracks.

"He lies…. He lies…."

"Potter, come back here!" Quirrell shouted, whirling on him again. "Tell me the truth! What did you just see?"

The voice spoke again. "Let me speak to him…face-to-face."

"Master, you are not strong enough!"

"I have strength enough…for this."

Harry felt rooted to the spot as Quirrell reached up and unwrapped his turban. When it fell away, he turned slowly around. A terrible choked sound came from Harry's throat. The back of Quirrell's head had been replaced with a terrible white face.

"Harry Potter," it whispered. "See what I have become? Mere shadow and vapor…I have form only when I can share another's body…but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds. Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks…you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the forest…and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own…. Now, why don't you give me that Stone?"

How did he know Harry had it? Harry stumbled backward on shaky legs, but didn't get far.

"Don't be a fool," Voldemort snarled. "Better save your own life and join me…or you'll meet the same end as your parents…. They died begging me for mercy…."

A startling rage filled Harry. "LIAR!" he shouted, raising his wand as Quirrell backed steadily towards him.

"How touching," Voldemort hissed. "I always value bravery…. Yes, boy, your parents were brave…. I killed your father first, and he but up a courageous fight…but your mother needn't have died…she was trying to protect you. Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain."

"Never!" Harry snarled and, stealing up his courage, shouted the strongest curse he knew.

Not looking to see if it hit, he leapt for the door just as he heard Voldemort shout "Seize him!" Quirrell's hand closed on his wrist almost instantly, and a terrible pain seared through his head as if something was trying to split it apart. Quirrell let go of him, leaving him gasping in pain as he tried to both scramble away and figure out where Quirrell had gone. He was a bare handful of steps away, staring in horror at his own blistering fingers.

But Voldemort just screamed for Quirrell to seize him again, and the man seemed to forget his pain for a moment as he leapt at Harry and knocked him off his feet. He wrapped spindly fingers around Harry's neck, holding on long enough for the pain to settle in before he again let go.

"Master, I cannot hold him!" he cried in despair.

"Then kill him, fool, and be done!" Voldemort cried back. Quirrell immediately lifted his hands for a curse, but Harry wasn't going to give him the chance. He leapt for the man himself, grabbing hold of his face—he didn't know where his wand had gone—and held on grimly as the man screamed and thrashed as his face blistered beneath Harry's hands. The pain in Harry's head grew so strong that his vision blacked out and the sound of Voldemort's voice calling for Harry's death distorted and mingled with the sound of voices that could only be in his head—

And then Quirrell's arm was wrenched from his grasp, and blackness overtook him as he realized that he'd failed.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven: Man In the Long Black Coat

Harry blinked awake reluctantly, and stared with some bemusement at a pair of glasses that filled his vision. It took a few seconds for his eyesight to clear enough to make out the blurry vision of his headmaster smiling at him.

"Good afternoon, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said. 

Harry stared at him for a long moment, his thoughts sluggish. Then he remembered, and gasped, "Sir! The Stone! It was Quirrell! He's got it! Sir, quick—"

"Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times," Dumbledore said. "Quirrell does not have the Stone."

"Then who does? Sir, I—"

"Harry, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out."

Harry blinked at him again, then swallowed painfully and looked around him. He was clearly in the hospital wing, and the large pile of sweets on the side table told him he'd probably been there for a while.

"Tokens from your friends and admirers," Dumbledore said with a bright smile. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows. I believe Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a quite lifelike rendition of a dragon. Madam Pomfrey thought it might prove dangerous while you were still unconscious, and confiscated it."

"How long have I been here?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"Three days. Your friends will be most pleased that you've woken, though I must confess I'd begun to hope you might stay asleep a little longer. I can't remember the last time I saw such a cooperative group of mixed Slytherins and Gryffindors."

"But, Sir, the Stone," Harry said urgently.

"I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Professor Quirrell did not manage to take it from you. I arrived in time to prevent that, although you were doing very well on your own, I must say. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you—"

"It was you."

"I feared I might be too late."

"You nearly were; I couldn't have kept him from the Stone much longer—"

"Not the Stone, boy, you—the effort involved nearly killed you." Harry gaped at him. "For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had. As for the Stone, it has been destroyed."

"Destroyed?" Harry echoed, not sure how to feel about that. "But surely—whoever created it—"

"Ah, well, I have had a little chat with Nicholas, and we've agreed that it's all for the best."

"But, the Elixir of Life—is he just going to die?"

"They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die." Dumbledore smiled benignly at Harry's dismayed face. "Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel are over six hundred years old, Harry. I'm sure it seems amazing to you, but for them it will come as something of a relief. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all—the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."

Harry had no idea how to respond to this pronouncement.

"Sir, I've been thinking," he said eventually, "Even if the Stone's gone, Vol—I mean, You-Know-Who—"

"Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

"Yes, sir," Harry agreed quickly. "He's going to find other ways to come back, isn't he?"

"Yes, Harry, he will. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share…not being truly alive, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; he shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies. Nevertheless, Harry, while you may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time—and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power."

Harry started to nod, but the movement made him realize that his head still hurt rather badly. Rubbing at his temples, he said, "There are some other things I'd like to know, if you can tell me."

"I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie."

Why in the world would he think he had to assure Harry of that? "Well, Voldemort said that he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him from killing me. But why would he want to kill me in the first place?"

Professor Dumbledore sighed deeply.

"Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day. Put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older—I know you hate to hear this—when you are ready, you will know."

Harry sighed himself, but knew better than to argue.

"Okay. Why couldn't Quirrell touch me?"

"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign…to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good."

That sounded too cheesy for real life, but somehow Harry didn't doubt that it was true. Rubbing at his wet eyes, he continued, "The Invisibility Cloak. Do you know who sent it to me?"

"Ah—your father happened to leave it in my possession, and I thought you might like it." Dumbledore gave Harry a disturbingly mischievous look. "Useful things, Invisibility Cloaks. Your father used it mainly for sneaking off to the kitchens to steal food when he was here."

If Crabbe and Goyle ever figured out where the kitchens were, Harry was definitely doing that. "And, sir, there's one more thing…how did I get the Stone out of the mirror?"

"Ah, now, I'm glad you asked me that. It was one of my more brilliant ideas, and between you and me, that's saying something. You see, only one who wanted to find the Stone—find it, but not use it—would be able to get it, otherwise they'd just see themselves making gold or drinking Elixir of Life. My brain surprises even me sometimes…. Now, enough questions. I suggest you make a start on these sweets. Ah! Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them—but I think I'll be safe with a nice toffee, don't you?"

He smiled and popped a bean into his mouth. Then he choked and said. "Alas! Ear wax!" and Harry's bemused laughter made his head hurt again.

@-`---

It took a fair bit of wheedling, but Harry managed to talk Madam Pomfrey into letting his friends visit him. She seemed to think Harry needed to be literally doing nothing in order to relax, but he knew better; without some company or books, he was going to get restless quickly.

Still, when he saw the tense group of people walk over to his bed, he began to think she might have a point. Fred and George had tagged along with Hermione and Neville, and all of the Slytherins but Draco were giving the older boys suspicious glances. If the twins noticed the looks, they weren't paying them any mind; Fred came over to pat Harry on the back more roughly than Harry would've liked, while George pulled over a chair on the far side of the bed and propped himself up on the mattress by Harry's legs.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione said with a sigh, pulling over a chair of her own and sinking down into it. "We were so worried—Dumbledore was so worried—are you all right?"

"I'm okay," Harry assured her with a smile. "Did you three make it out okay?"

"Well it took us a distressingly long time to rouse Neville—those game pieces are vicious!—but we didn't have any issues getting out on the brooms. But we didn't even have to send out Hedwig. Dumbledore was in the Owlery when we got there, and he barely even paused to talk to us before he'd run off."

"He moves awfully fast for a wizard his age," Draco said.

"But never mind them," Fred said excitedly.

"What happened with you and Quirrell?" George asked.

Harry grinned at them, and obligingly started in on the story. They insisted he start with Fluffy, though Harry was certain at least Draco would have already gone through it all. He'd never had such a good audience when he spoke. The twins seemed most impressed with the chess game, but Blaise and Pansy were fascinated by Snape's riddle. He was just starting to describe what was beneath Quirrell's turban, and Pansy had a hand over her mouth to keep in a scream that would have been similar to the own Hermione hadn't been able to keep in, when a nearby commotion made Harry trail off.

The door to the hospital wing banged open loudly, and they could hear several unhappy voices from somewhere outside their small, curtained-off area. Harry thought he heard his dad's voice, which was impossible—at this time of day, he'd be at work. He was just about to dismiss it as his imagination and continue the story when another angry voice spoke up, and this time Ed's voice couldn't be mistaken.

"Three fucking days!" Ed yelled at whoever was unfortunate enough to be escorting them. "How do you wait three days to let someone know their kid is unconscious? Are you people fucking—"

"Ed, please," Roy interrupted, in the slightly-too-loud tone he used whenever he needed to be heard over Ed. The voices went faint again, and then there was the distinct sound of something being kicked with an automail foot, and a few seconds later the curtain was being swished open with unnecessary force. Ed was silhouetted in the light of the room for a brief moment as he scowled around at the small gathering, and then he was stomping over to the bed. Harry tried not to flinch.

"Sit the fuck down," Ed snapped, not quite pointing his wand at George, who had started getting up in alarm. Then he actually did point his wand at Harry, and said, "You little idiot!"

"Hey!" Harry said, affronted.

"Dunno what the hell you were thinking," Ed continued as if Harry hadn't said anything. "You couldn't have sent Hedwig to tell us you were doing something stupid? I thought Roy was going to pass the fuck out when he got the owl at lunch—almost gave me a heart attack—did you even stop to think for a second?"

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but his jaw just hung uselessly as he realized he didn't know what to say. He really hadn't given much thought to what his dad would think, and he felt guilt start to claw at his stomach as he clearly imagined how Roy would have reacted to hearing that Harry wouldn't wake up.

"Is—is he mad?" Harry asked quietly.

"Of course he's fucking mad," Ed replied. "Dunno if he's more pissed at you or the headmaster, though; guess we'll find out soon enough. How do you feel?"

"My head hurts pretty bad," Harry admitted reluctantly, knowing it was no use to lie. "And I've been kind of dizzy and weak, but it's not that bad."

"Sure it isn't," Ed said. "Hold still. I'm gonna run a diagnostic on you so your dad will have one less thing to worry about. Don't think he trusts anyone here right now."

Harry nodded, but otherwise didn't move as Ed slowly ran his wand over Harry's body much like the Healer had done to him over Christmas. He frowned when he was done, then did it again.

"It's just your head that hurts?" he asked, and despite his anger, his hand was gentle when he ran it over Harry's hair. When Harry nodded, his frown deepened into a scowl, and he said, "I'll be right back."

He turned around and left as quickly as he'd come in, leaving the curtains open behind him. Harry could see his dad now, looking somewhat out of place in his full uniform as he spoke to Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall. They all watched in silence as Ed approached the general and leaned up to talk in his ear. Roy turned sharply to Ed, his face terrifyingly blank, and then looked over towards Harry. When their eyes caught, Roy scowled and came striding over, leaving Madam Pomfrey sputtering behind him.

"I expect you have a very good explanation for what happened," Roy said in the voice that meant Harry was in Big Trouble. He sat down on the edge of Harry's bed and, though his scowl was nearly as terrifying as Ed's, he ran gentle fingers through Harry's hair. "Ed said you're unwell?"

"I'm fine," Harry said quickly, hoping to allay some of his dad's worrying. But Roy just raised an eyebrow at him, clearly disbelieving, and Harry sighed. "Really," he insisted, "I'm just tired and my head hurts, but it's not that bad. I already feel better than I did when I first woke up."

"I suppose at least the Healer is competent, then," Roy muttered, unimpressed. He stared silently at Harry for an uncomfortably long moment, and then asked, very quietly, "Why didn't you contact us?"

Harry wasn't certain what the expression on his dad's face meant, but it was making him uncomfortable. He ducked his head to look at his blanket instead. "I didn't think you would make it here fast enough if I sent Hedwig," he said and then, unbidden, started telling him everything that had happened. It was a very long story, starting with him and Draco stumbling on Fluffy after the winter break, but Roy listened attentively until Harry mentioned what Firenze had told him during his detention.

Ed, who had sat on the bed next to Roy to lean on him, jerked so harshly he nearly fell off. "The what?" he and Roy asked in sync. The horror on Ed's face was unmistakable, and Harry paused his story to stare uncertainly at both of them.

"He kept that thing in the school?" Ed asked.

"In—in the dungeons," Harry clarified slowly. "There were all kinds of protections on it that the teachers put in place. I wouldn't have gotten through them if Draco and Hermione and Neville hadn't come along with me."

"They weren't that impressive if a bunch of eleven year-olds could get passed them," Ed said flatly.

"You would've done it," Harry said, frowning. "I remember the story of what you did on the train when you—when you first came to Central."

"Then you remember the part where Hughes had to catch me when I got knocked off the top of a moving train," Ed said shortly, not even blinking at the startled exclamations of Harry's friends. "Or when Roy still had to fry the asshole when we got to Central."

"But you have all kinds of stories like that!" Harry insisted. "And you were only a year older than I am when you—" He stopped himself from mentioning the military just in time, remembering that they had an audience, and settled for glowering defiantly at both of them.

Ed seemed to be at a loss for words, looking to Roy with a frustrated expression, and Roy sighed. He looked tired, suddenly, and much older than he actually was.

"Ed's situation then was…unique," Roy said carefully. "As I explained to you last year, when you asked if you could stop going to school because, and I quote, 'Ed didn't have to go.' He has always had to be older than he had any right to be, and I wouldn't wish that on any child."

"Before the revolution, when you left me with Aunt Chris, you said—you said that you had to do something scary because you were the only one who would." Harry swallowed painfully and looked hesitantly up at his dad. "I tried to tell an adult, but Professor McGonagall didn't believe me, and the headmaster was already gone, and you were so far away, and I just—I just wanted to do what was right."

Harry looked back down at his sheets when Roy didn't answer right away, and nearly jumped out of his skin when his dad pulled him into a tight hug. He looked a lot more understanding when he pulled away, though his lips were still pulled down in an unhappy frown.

"Whatever else is going on, Harry, I need you to remember that Ed and I are here to keep you safe," Roy said, more kindly than Harry had expected. "If anything like this happens again, I expect you to contact at least one of us immediately. I promise we won't be mad at you for something beyond your control, but I would be highly upset if something happened to you. Especially if it was something we could have prevented."

Harry remembered perfectly well what his dad meant by 'highly upset' from when Ed and Al had been unconscious right after the revolution. His dad may be determined to keep Harry safe, but Harry himself was just as determined to keep his dad from ever having to feel that way again. "Okay," he said in a small voice. "I'll send you Hedwig next time."

"Promise."

"I promise I'll send you Hedwig if I need help," Harry repeated dutifully. Then, hopefully, "Am I still in trouble?"

"I'm thinking about grounding you until you're out of school," Roy assured him. Harry made a face at him. "But we'll discuss that when we get home, after I've had some time to stop being so angry with you. Now, why don't you tell me the rest of the story?"

Harry began to do just that, but he'd barely gotten started when the door opened again. This time it was the Headmaster entering the hospital wing, looking very somber as he strolled over to them. Roy stood up again as he noticed Dumbledore, his face hardening back into an expressionless mask. Harry looked up at him nervously, then glanced over to Ed; the younger man looked just as unhappy, but remained seated on the bed.

"Hello, Roy," Dumbledore began in a soft voice. He gave Ed a questioning glance, but otherwise ignored him. "I must admit that I wasn't expecting you to come all the way out here today."

"As you might imagine, I was rather alarmed when I received news that Harry had been unconscious for three days," Roy returned evenly. "I felt it might be best if I came out to see how he was doing for myself."

"I did assure you that he was recovering well—"

"But I can't help to notice that you didn't see it necessary to inform me that he'd nearly died," Roy interrupted in a flat voice that gave Harry chills. Dumbledore looked like he had something else to say, but Roy just narrowed his eyes at the old man and continued in a slightly louder voice. "Nor did you say what, precisely, Harry had injured himself attempting to accomplish. Why you had the Philosopher's Stone where children could get to it to begin with…."

"I had several protections set to prevent them from reaching it," Dumbledore informed him. "Harry and his friends proved that they were not sufficient, of course, and the Stone has since been destroyed."

"I will be speaking to your friend myself to ensure that it has. That thing—" Roy actually cut himself off, taking a deep breath. Dumbledore gave him a curious look, clearly wondering why an alchemist disliked the Stone so much. Harry was curious himself, and turned to quietly ask Ed about it—but Ed was looking unusually grim himself, and the words died in his throat. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're unaware of how it's created."

The curiosity on Dumbledore's face only strengthened, but he seemed to realize that it would do him no good to ask questions, as he remained stoically silent.

"But I didn't come all the way out to England just to discuss the Stone," Roy continued. "I came to find out why you didn't see fit to inform me of my son's condition until you could no longer avoid telling me, and to ensure that you will not do the same if he is hurt again while he's under your care."

"You would do well to remember that Harry is not truly your son," Dumbledore said softly.

Harry's jaw dropped in surprise, but Ed actually jumped to his feet, fists clenched as he took a step forward. Roy turned in an automatic movement, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Watch yourself, old man," Ed snarled despite Roy's quelling glare. Dumbledore mustn't have known who Ed was, because he only looked astonished at being threatened by the significantly younger man.

"There's no danger, Edward." Roy's voice was soft despite the fury lacing it. He waited until Ed rocked back on his heels, then turned his much colder gaze back on the headmaster.

"I have adopted Harry in accordance with three separate government's laws, Headmaster," Roy said in his most authoritative voice. "Harry might not be of my blood, but I'm the only father he's ever going to know. As such, I fully expect to be informed when he has been injured, no matter how minor you may believe the injury to be. I'm not certain what you expected when you showed up on my doorstep with a baby ten years ago—perhaps that a traumatized young soldier would be incapable of caring for a child—but I can assure you that I do love him and will do anything necessary to keep him safe. Further, Headmaster, I am no longer the idealistic major you recall; I am a general, and I will be listened to."

A heavy silence fell as Roy finished talking. Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey, standing at the headmaster's back, were looking appalled at the way Roy was speaking to Dumbledore, but Harry was biting his lip against a smile. He had seen his dad stun people who had underestimated him before, but it had rarely ever been in his defense, and it had never been to someone as highly-regarded as the headmaster.

Dumbledore himself looked significantly less pleased. He was glaring back at Roy fiercely, and Harry fully expected him to argue—but after a long moment, his shoulders fell and he dipped his head in something like a sketchy half-bow.

"I understand entirely, General," he said. "And I apologize for the oversight. Hopefully Harry will not be injured again and I will have no need to owl you in the future. In the meantime, I believe Madam Pomfrey would prefer that Harry not travel, and you must be exhausted from getting here so quickly. I can have the elves set up rooms for you, if you'd care to stay the night?"

Harry's heart fell as his dad frowned at the offer and turned questioningly to Ed, though he should have known Roy would want to take him home as soon as possible.

"It might be a good idea for Harry to avoid any sort of magical travel for a couple days," Ed said reluctantly, giving the headmaster a glare of his own. "I mean, he'll make it, but it'll be really fucking uncomfortable. There's a reason I always rode the stupid trains."

Roy sighed. "We'll accept a room, if it's not too much trouble," he said, with an emphasis on the word 'a' that had Dumbledore looking between Roy and Ed with his eyebrows raised. "We can take the train back with the students in two days."

The headmaster stayed long enough to describe the castle to Roy and Ed and assure them he'd send them a guide when their room was ready, and then he finally left. Roy sat back down on Harry's bed with a sigh that Ed echoed.

"That was terrifying, sir," Fred said into the silence, which made Neville snort.

"If you thought that was scary, you should've seen him at the Malfoy Christmas party," the Gryffindor boy said. Ed grinned unpleasantly.

"Oh, don't worry," he said cheerfully. "He gets worse."

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve: Conclusion  

To Harry's surprise, his dad and Ed didn't come to see him the next morning. He supposed Roy must've wanted to speak with Flamel that day instead of having to return to England over the summer, but Harry wished he would have waited. It wasn't that he didn't understand how important the talk was—Roy wouldn't have insisted on it if it weren't a priority—but being forced to sit alone in the hospital wing with nothing but his presents to entertain him made him restless.

"Can't I do anything?" Harry asked Madam Pomfrey desperately when she came by to straighten his candy boxes. "My head hardly hurts any more; I'm sure I could at least read something."

"Professor Dumbledore insists that you be allowed to go to the feast," the witch said in a disapproving voice. "So I'd like for you to rest as much as possible until then. But you do have another visitor."

"Oh good," Harry said with a relieved sigh. "Who is it?"

He needn't have asked. Hagrid sidled through the door as he spoke, his hair looking even wilder than usual, as if he'd forgotten to brush it down. He gingerly sat himself in a tiny chair next to Harry, looked over at him, and promptly burst into tears.

"It's all my ruddy fault!" he sobbed, his face in his hands. "I told the evil git how ter get past Fluffy! I told him! It was the only thing he didn't know, an' I told him! Yeh could've died! All fer a dragon egg! I'll never drink again! I should be chucked out an' made ter live as a Muggle!"

"Hagrid!" Harry said with some alarm, uncomfortable with seeing the huge man crying. "It wasn't your fault, really—I shouldn't have gone down there myself! And this is Voldemort we're talking about; he'd have found another way past Fluffy if you hadn't told him."

"Yeh could've died!" Hagrid sobbed again, and Harry wasn't sure if the man had listened to him at all until he added, "An' don' say the name!"

"Voldemort!" Harry repeated firmly, a little loudly to be heard over his friend's crying, and Hagrid gave a terrible gasp through his tears before he looked up at him in astonishment. "I've met him and I'm calling him by name. Please cheer up, Hagrid, the Stone's gone so he can't use it anyway. Here, have a Chocolate Frog; I've got loads…."

Hagrid wiped his nose on the back of his hand, chuckling weakly when Harry gave him a disgusted look, then said, "That reminds me. I've got yeh a present."

Harry looked up at him anxiously, hoping it wasn't food. Hagrid wasn't the best cook.

"Dumbledore gave me the day off yesterday ter fix it," Hagrid said. "'Course he shoulda sacked me instead—anyway, got yeh this…"

Harry took the leather-bound book from Hagrid curiously, admiring the cover even as he noted that there was no title on it. When he flipped it open, he couldn't hold back a gasp; smiling and waving at him from the page were his birth parents. The book was full of wizarding photographs of them, sometimes by themselves, sometimes with other people arrayed around them. Harry's eyes filled with tears.

"Sent owls off ter all yer parents' old school friends, askin' fer photos," Hagrid explained. "Knew yeh didn't have any…d'yeh like it?"

Harry nodded speechlessly, unable to look away from the pictures. He wanted to thank the man for his thoughtfulness, but the words got stuck behind a lump in his throat that he couldn't clear. Luckily, Hagrid understood, and left him with a fond pat on the back that almost knocked him off the bed.

@-`--- 

Roy and Ed returned later that afternoon, neither of them looking very happy. Harry looked between them curiously, but Ed's lips thinned and he knew he wasn't ever going to find out what they'd said to Flamel. With a soft sigh, he pushed it out of his mind, and held up his photo album.

"What's this?" Roy asked curiously, sitting next to him and pulling the book into his own lap. His eyes widened in surprise as he flipped through a few pages, which prompted Ed to lean over his shoulder and look as well.

"Your parents?" Ed eventually asked quietly.

"Hagrid—he's the gamekeeper—made it for me," Harry explained softly, reaching over to rest his finger against a particularly nice shot of his mom. "He knew my parents when they were at Hogwarts, so he said he owled all of their old friends to get these for me."

Roy was quiet for a suspiciously long moment before he wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders. Harry leaned against him, looking up into his pensive face with a frown.

"I'm sorry I didn't think to do something like this myself," Roy said with a sad smile.

"It's okay," Harry assured him. "It's not like you'd have known who to contact anyway, right? And I don't think I realized how much I wanted to know them until I saw them in that mirror I was telling you about. It's nice knowing what they looked like, and that they were happy."

"You look almost exactly like your dad," Ed observed, grinning a bit when Roy frowned. "Oh, come on, it's not like anyone ever mistook Harry for being your natural son. And at least this way you know he's never going to be as good-looking as you."

"I suppose that is some small consolation," Roy agreed.

"You two are awful," Harry informed them with a grimace, and wasn't surprised when they both just gave him amused looks. He took the album from his dad's lap, giving it one last longing look before closing it again and looking back up at Roy. "I wish I could remember them. I mean, I'm really happy you're my dad, but…"

He shrugged, not really knowing how to finish the sentence, but it seemed he didn't need to anyway. Roy and Ed gave him eerily similar sad smiles, but it was clear that they understood what he meant.

The moment was interrupted when Madam Pomfrey came bustling over, wand out and giving Roy and Ed an unfriendly look.

"The feast is going to start soon," she informed them briskly. "And I'd like to do one last checkup on Harry before he goes down. Could you two step outside until I'm done?"

"Certainly, Madam," Roy replied, giving Ed a gentle shove when the younger man stayed glaring at the nurse for too long. He gave Harry a quick kiss on the forehead before they left, and Madam Pomfrey's face softened a little. She fussed over Harry rather longer than he'd expected, and he was grateful to escape when she finally shooed him off.

They made it to the Great Hall in almost no time, and Harry found himself frowning a bit at the blue and bronze that decorated the room. Apparently Ravenclaw had won the Cup this year, breaking Slytherin's six-year winning streak. He wondered what had happened while he was unconscious, because Slytherin had been winning by almost fifty points the day he'd gone down into the dungeons.

Silence fell over the hall when Harry entered the room with his dad at his back, then everyone started talking at once. Roy fluffed Harry's hair before he and Ed moved for the teacher's table, and Harry had to hold back a smile as he noticed many of the students staring after them. The ones that weren't interested in the alchemists were craning their heads to get a good look at Harry, though, so he hurried over to the Slytherin table and sank into a seat between Draco and Crabbe.

"What happened to our points?" he asked Draco curiously, trying to ignore everyone trying to get a good look at him.

"We got into a fight with Finnigan," Draco muttered back with a grimace. "Apparently he thought we'd gone into the dungeons for a publicity stunt or something, and he was saying you were only pretending to be injured. Professor McGonagall caught me mid-jinx—I thought she was going to have kittens, she was so angry."

Harry snorted, but kept his mouth shut when Dumbledore entered the hall. He frowned at the headmaster uncertainly, not really sure how to feel about the man; he still couldn't believe that Dumbledore didn't really consider Roy to be his dad. The talking around them died away as people noticed his presence, and Harry was relieved as people started looking at the front of the hall instead of him.

"Another year gone!" Dumbledore said cheerfully. "And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were…you have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts….

"Now, as I understand it, the House Cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: In fourth place, Hufflepuff, with three hundred  and fifty-two points; in third place, Slytherin, with four hundred and twelve; in second place, Gryffindor, with four hundred and twenty-two; and in first place, Ravenclaw, with four hundred and forty-nine."

The Ravenclaw table broke out into ecstatic applause, the whole house united in their excitement to have beaten Slytherin. Harry clapped rather unenthusiastically, not that he was really upset that Ravenclaw had won. He was just upset that Slytherin hadn't.

"Yes, well done, Ravenclaw," Dumbledore said, smile broadening. "However, recent events must be taken into account."

A tense silence fell across the room, and Harry found himself looking up at the headmaster in disbelief. Roy gave him a sharp look, as if he knew what the man had planned.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and continued, "I have a few last-minute points to dish out. Let me see. Yes…

"First—to Misters Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy…"

Harry saw Neville look up in surprise, his face reddening in embarrassment as his housemates turned to give him stunned looks.

"…for putting aside their differences and working together to beat the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award both Gryffindor and Slytherin Houses thirty points."

The Gryffindor's cheers easily outstripped those of Slytherin; with those thirty points they had passed by Ravenclaw into the winning spot. Harry clapped politely himself, grinning at Draco, who was smirking rather smugly at the praise from the Headmaster.

Eventually silence fall again, and Dumbledore's smile widened a bit.

"Second—to Miss Hermione Granger…for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor House thirty points."

The Gryffindor table broke out into even louder applause as Hermione buried her face in her arms; up and down the table, students who had never given either Hermione or Neville a second glance were leaning over get a look at the two first years and congratulate them.

"Third—to Mr. Harry Potter…" Dumbledore continued loudly over the noise, and the room fell silent again. "…for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Slytherin House sixty points."

Harry flinched at the noise that erupted from his housemates, but smiled gamely as the people around him clapped him excitedly on the back and congratulated him on putting them into first place. He couldn't stop the grimace that crossed his face when he looked back up at the teachers' table again. Though Ed had his face in his hand as if he was holding in laughter, Roy was giving Dumbledore a sour look as if he wasn't impressed with the headmaster's decision to reward Harry's dangerous stunt. The look he eventually gave Harry from across the room promised that he was still in trouble, though.

"Which means," Dumbledore called across the noise, blatantly ignoring the look Roy was giving him, "we need a little change of decoration."

He clapped his hands, and the blue and bronze hangings instantly changed to green and silver. Professors Snape and Flitwick were shaking hands, Snape's smile notably smug in comparison to Flitwick's own friendly grin. Harry strongly suspected that his Head of House hadn't warmed up to him at all, but it didn't really bother him. He was too excited about having been the reason the Slytherins won the cup again to worry about his professor's strangeness.

@-`--- 

Harry was caught off-guard when they received their exam results in the morning, having completely forgotten about them, but was pleased to find that he'd come in a distant third place behind Hermione and Draco. Roy pretended to be displeased by this, but Harry could tell that he was actually proud of all the hard work Harry had put in over the year, especially with the alchemy book to distract him.

Finally they were making their way back to the Hogwarts Express, Roy and Ed looking distinctly out of place among the mass of students in long robes and pointy hats. Because Roy wouldn't let Harry out of his sight, they ended up sharing a compartment with Neville and Hermione again; Fred and George followed them onto the train, trailing after them and whispering to themselves. Ed looked back and snorted.

"Roy Mustang strikes again," he muttered; Roy looked at him in askance, then back at the twins at Ed's gesture. A smirk appeared on his face as the two boys straightened out of their habitual slouches, staring back at the general with wide eyes. "Can I fucking take you anywhere without you acquiring a gaggle of new admirers?"

Roy threw his head back and laughed, but when they entered their compartment, he pulled Ed down into the seat next to him. "You know you're the only one for me, darling," he said softly, lifting Ed's right hand and kissing the back of it.

"Gross," Harry announced.

Roy just grinned back at him unapologetically, not even bothering to remove his arm from around Ed's waist. Harry frowned at them, then chose his own seat on the other bench as far away from them as he could get. The last thing he wanted was to watch them for the entire ride home; he'd have to deal with it enough for the rest of the summer as it was.

"We'll, uh, we'll head out then," Fred said, sounding distinctly uncomfortable.

"Lee's probably wondering where we are," George added, and the two of them disappeared down the corridor. Harry watched them go curiously, not sure what had come over them.

The ride home was relatively quiet, Hermione and Neville both obviously nervous about having the two adults in the room with them. On their part, Roy and Ed seemed content to curl up with each other and a newspaper until Ed inevitably fell asleep. Harry couldn't see how he could sleep with everyone talking around him and kids running up and down the hallway outside their door, but Roy clearly wasn't surprised. He just shifted a little to make sure Ed was comfortable and turned his gaze to the window.

Near the end of the train ride, Draco came to bother Harry. He drew up short when he noticed Ed was asleep, smirking even as he spoke to Harry in a respectfully soft voice.

“Did you ask him if we can come by this summer?” he asked excitedly, and Harry grimaced. He'd completely forgotten they'd ever talked about that, and now he was hesitant to ask since he was already in trouble. He still turned toward his dad hopefully.

“You're grounded,” Roy said, looking back with a raised eyebrow.

“All summer?” Harry asked despondently. “Can't they come by near the end at least?”

“Not this year,” Roy said firmly, which meant Harry would be in even more trouble if he asked again. “Though I did tell Lucius Draco would be welcome to come to the wedding as well, if he wanted.”

“Really?” Draco said brightly, giving Roy an excited grin. “Is Harry really going to be learning alchemy this summer? Can you teach me too?”

“There won't be enough time to teach you anything useful,” Roy said, smiling a little when Draco’s face fell. “Alchemy can be difficult to learn, even for those of us who've been studying it our entire lives. It's not a forgiving art; the smallest mistake can cost you your life, or worse. And it can be particularly difficult for wizards to learn, since the rules you need to follow don't apply to magic at all. Even if you were to stay with us the entire summer, I'd be hesitant to begin teaching you when it would be so long until you'd be back.”

“Oh,” Draco said a little sulkily. “But Harry has to take the time off too.”

“I trust Harry to do exactly as I tell him, because he's been around alchemists all of his life and knows how dangerous it is,” Roy said gently. “I can't expect the same from you, and I won't risk you injuring yourself because you thought you could treat an alchemical circle like a magic spell."

Draco sighed noisily, clearly unafraid to let even Roy see his annoyance, but dropped the subject. Instead he left the compartment again, saying he needed to let the others know that they wouldn't be invited that year, but the slump in his shoulders told Harry that his friend just wanted to sulk about his plans being thwarted.

Finally, they pulled into King's Cross and started the long process of leaving the wizard's platform to get to the Muggle world again. Harry exited with his dad and Ed behind the Weasley twins, and flushed when their little sister pointed excitedly at him.

"There he is, Mom, there he is, look!" she squealed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Harry Potter! Look, Mom, I can see—"

"Be quiet, Ginny, and it's rude to point," Mrs. Weasley said sternly, but the smile she gave Harry over the twins' shoulders was friendly. "I hope Fred and George haven't gotten you into trouble, dear," she said to Harry. "They had nice things to say about you in their owls—much nicer than Ron's, at least."

"All the trouble I got into was my own," Harry assured her with a cheeky grin. "But I'm sure they'll make up for that next year."

"Not if they know what's good for them," Roy said, giving the two boys his most serious look.

"No, sir!" the twins chorused, but Harry had a feeling they didn't mean it. Roy's long-suffering sigh said he thought the same, but he dropped the subject and held a hand out in greeting to their mother anyway.

"You must be Mrs. Weasley," he said warmly, then smiled and bent to kiss the back of Mrs. Weasley's hand. The witch blushed, tittering like a schoolgirl behind her free hand. The twins and their younger sister stared at her in horror. "I'm Harry's father, Brigadier General Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist. And this is my fiancé, Edward Elric."

Ed gave the woman a groggy smile, having only recently been woken up by Roy, and held out his left hand to shake.

"It's lovely to meet you, dears," Mrs. Weasley said, though her lips thinned a little as she took in Ed's appearance. Harry couldn't tell if she was disapproving of his age or his rumpled clothes, but she was too nice for him to be upset about it. "I hope you all have a lovely summer. I'd best go gather the rest of my children."

"Bye, Harry!" Fred and George called as they followed their mother over to where Ron was standing with his Gryffindor friends and glaring at them. Harry watched until Mrs. Weasley started fussing over him, then his attention was distracted by his Slytherin friends approaching.

"Keep in touch, Potter," Blaise said, shaking his hand firmly. Pansy echoed him, but hugged Harry instead. They left with their parents, and then Harry was left with Draco as the Malfoys slowly approached them. Draco was giving him a slightly awkward look, as if he wanted to hug Harry too, but felt doing so was beneath his dignity. Harry took the decision away by holding his hand out to shake.

"I'll see you at the wedding, then?" Harry asked, smiling at his friend's vaguely disappointed look.

"Of course," Draco replied. "And you'll tell me about what you've learned this summer, won't you? I know I won't be allowed to do any alchemy, but I'd still like to hear about it."

"If dad says I can," Harry said, which made Draco sigh and roll his eyes.

"Come, Draco," Lucius said, turning from Roy and gesturing his son over to him. "You'll have time to talk over the summer. Right now, we have to discuss your grades…."

Harry shook his head as he watched the Malfoys walk off, feeling bad for his friend. Draco had come in second to Hermione in every class, even Potions, and Harry was willing to bet he was being told off for it. At least his dad was a lot more reasonable about Muggle-borns.

"Let's get going," Roy said, taking Harry's hand and walking off. Ed, dragging Harry's trunk with no visible effort, followed slowly behind them. "And we need to discuss just what you'll be doing this summer as punishment."

Harry groaned dramatically, but couldn't stop himself from smiling anyway. Whatever he was stuck doing would be worth it, just as long as he finally got to start learning alchemy.

END BOOK 1

OMAKE

"Albus," Minerva said flatly, giving the older man her most serious expression. The headmaster grinned at her brightly, and her lips thinned further. "Have you no shame?"

"Whatever are you referring to, my dear?" Albus asked back in his most deceptively innocent voice. His false look of curiosity didn't even falter when Minerva's already-thin lips turned sharply into a disapproving scowl.

"General Mustang was clearly worried about his son," she explained sharply, even though she knew Albus was aware of what he was being lectured for. "I sincerely doubt your admiration for his looks made the situation any better for him."

Albus's shoulders slumped, as if he had been caught cheating on a test by his favorite teacher. Looking at Minerva with wide, hurt eyes, he said, "The general and his fiancé are really quite lovely young men. Why, if I was about eighty years younger…."

Minerva, unimpressed, gave her friend the worst glare in her arsenal. Albus was unaffected, and smiled mischievously back at her.

"Besides," he said airily. "I noticed you were interested in him yourself."

Minerva gave a very haughty sniff, lengthening her stride to pass by him.

"That," she said as seriously as she could over her shoulder, "is entirely besides the point."