Hey everyone, latest chapter here. A bit of a shorter one, as its a bit of an interlude chapter setting up for future chapters but I hope you all still enjoy it Thanks so much for reading!

As always I do not own Harry Potter

Chapter 13

Christmas was approaching and Neville roamed the halls of Hogwarts, enjoying the festive atmosphere that had permeated the castle. He often found himself on his own nowadays or with Luna, his best friend. They had grown especially close over the last few months and Neville was thankful for the clever Ravenclaws presence in his life, even if she was a little unusual sometimes. As he walked Neville once more found his thoughts wandering to Harry. He hadn't seen or heard anything from his friend in months and the Gryffindor could admit, despite Dumbledore's reassurances, that he was worried about the other teen. Neville knew that Harry had been feeling down at the end of the last school year and honestly, he didn't blame him, what with everything that happened with the Triwizard Tournament and Cedric and then the aftermath, it was no wonder Harry hadn't been happy. Neville felt terrible, he knew that Harry hadn't been coping but had failed to do anything to help his friend. Believing that someone else, Ron or Hermione, even Dumbledore would do it, he could see now that that faith had been a mistake. He knew something was going on, something that both Ron and Hermione were aware of, and he was determined to find out what it was. So, he ambled along the corridor looking out windows at the snow falling beyond, while at the same time watching Ron and Hermione, who were walking in front of him, out of the corner of his eye. The pair were walking along, heads together while they whispered furiously. The two were so involved in their conversation they didn't notice as Neville gradually made his way closer.

"The Order will be here soon; they will be able to tell us if they have discovered anything new." Hermione said quietly, a pleading tone to her voice.

"That's even if they decide to tell us, it's been months Hermione, do you really think that they haven't discovered anything about where Harry is in that time. I think they know where he is but are refusing to tell us!" Ron argued back petulantly.

Hermione sighed like this was an argument she had heard before; she muttered the password to the stone gargoyle before they disappeared up the winding staircase to Dumbledore's office.

Neville paused as his fellow Gryffindors vanished from sight, processing what he had just heard. Harry was missing… Harry was missing.

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Ron and Hermione entered Dumbledore's office to find it full of Order members. Remus and Sirius sat in chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk, but Ron ignored them in favour of hurrying over to his parents who were standing in front of the fireplace with Bill.

Dumbledore stood, his long white beard trailing over his desk, a particularly grave expression on his face.

"There has still been no word from nor sign of Harry" Dumbledore said heavily.

Ron made a derisive noise at this statement.

"Sirius is now working with the Aurors and has been using their resources to track known death eaters."

At this Sirius stood and addressed the room. "The Aurors have been tracking several known death eaters, we've made a few arrests but so far there has been no sign of Harry with any of them. I've interviewed them and none of them admitted having taken Harry or knowing someone who had. Honestly they all looked confused when I asked about Harry's whereabouts." Sirius said all this in a detached sort of voice, his face looked haggard and dark circles hung under his eyes. "I think it's time that we look at the possibility that Harry was not taken by death eaters." Sirius cast a glance at Snape, Snape had done his own digging into known death eaters and had been saying for months that they had nothing to do with Harry's disappearance. But Sirius wouldn't believe him, convinced that Snape was deliberately trying to mislead them. Months wasted.

"If death eaters didn't take him, then what's happened to him? Where is Harry?" Hermione asked, her brown eyes travelling around the room looking at all the adults assembled.

"Where indeed" muttered Snape.

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As winter rolled in and the days got shorter Harry was thankful for whatever magic kept the castle relatively warm even as the weather outside turned frigid.

Harry lay sprawled on a lounge in the Concinne common room, he was curled into Roman's side reading through his transfiguration book. Tomorrow was the day they were going to start working on the animagus transformations. Only one transfiguration lesson, a week was dedicated to their animagus transformation, up until now it had been used to read their textbook or to concentrate on perfecting their meditation techniques. But, tomorrow, they were going to take their first steps to transforming. Harry had spoken to Blake and Martin and they had explained not to expect anything straight away, these things take time if they happen at all. After all, not everyone can do the transformation, but Harry was still excited to try.

Roman rolled over slightly, moving his leg so that it rested over Harry's own. It was funny how comfortable he had gotten with his friends over the last few months. It also seemed that snuggling with friends was a more common occurrence here than it had been at Hogwarts. Perhaps cause of the cold weather, Harry mused. He wasn't complaining though, after going nearly his whole life with little to no affection it felt nice to have people willingly touching him. Maybe his friends had picked up on that because it wasn't unusual for one of them to pull him into their arms or against their sides at varying times of the day.

Harry looked around the common room and saw Annika sitting by herself studying. It had been over a week since the potion's catastrophe, but Annika was still being ostracised by the whole house because of her actions. Sabotaging another student's potion was just not done, especially someone from your own house, the fact that he had ended up injured as well just made everything worse. Harry let out a small sigh, he was going to have to do something about that. He obviously wasn't Annika's biggest fan, but she had promised not to do anything like it again and had even apologised to both Harry and Anders. Anders had glared daggers at her the whole time, but still she had done it. Harry had too much experience being ostracised himself not to feel for her.

Harry pushed the thought out of his mind for the moment, preferring to concentrate on his work for transfiguration for tomorrow. He was so engrossed that he didn't notice he had gained an audience until a voice called out, "visitors for you, Harry."

Harry looked up surprised to see Anders and Axel walking into the room. A bright smile broke over his face as it always did when he saw Anders. The other teen didn't look to happy though, eyes narrowed as he looked at Harry. Harry wasn't sure what the problem was but quickly disentangled himself from Roman as he stood from the lounge to greet his friends.

He walked around the lounge stretching as he went, trying to put some feeling back into his limbs after laying immobile for so long.

"Hey Anders, Axel, what brings you here?" Harry asked happily, seemingly oblivious to Anders dark mood.

Axel cast Anders a sharp look when he didn't reply, before replying himself. "We were just preparing for transfiguration tomorrow and thought we would come and see how you lot were getting along?"

Harry nodded in understanding, "we've just been reading over our books as well. I'm so excited, I wonder what kind of animal I'll be?"

"Could be anything" Axel responded, "it's usually an animal that represents you or that you have some kind of affinity for. But I wouldn't expect a transformation any time soon, it took my brother until the last week of the school year to finally transform" Axel laughed.

"Viktor said the same thing, I have a bet with him that I will be able to do it quicker than he did."

Axel laughed, "even more motivation to learn, hey."

Harry nodded, leading them over to the lounges he and his friends were sitting on. "Come sit down, we can all study together."

Harry somehow found himself on his previous lounge sandwiched between Anders and Axel, Roman having moved over next to his brother. Harry quickly made himself comfortable, burrowing into Anders side and putting his feet in Axel's lap. He missed the surprised look the pair sent each other. Lukas started laughing at the sight.

"You will have to excuse Harry; he is very affectionate and doesn't believe in personal space."

Harry pouted at this, "hey, you try going your whole life without a friendly touch, of course I'm not going to knock back cuddles when they come my way."

The group froze at his words, it took Harry a moment to realise what he had said before he gasped, his hand flying up to cover his mouth.

"What do you mean by that Harry?" Anders asked quietly.

"Didn't the Krum's hug you when you were little?" asked Blake.

"What? Of - of course, they did, I was just joking." Harry said, trying to pass for nonchalant but it was hard to miss the way his eyes darted around the room and the nervous tremor of his hands.

The group shared a look, they weren't stupid, Krum had been at the school for years with no mention of a brother so there were obviously secrets surrounding Harrys past. They all decided not to push it though, Harry would tell them when he was ready.

Harry started to shift uncomfortably, "look if you don't like me being so close, I can move, no big deal." He said as he made to start standing up, but Anders large arm wrapped securely around Harry's waist and pulled him back down firmly, settling Harry onto the lounge beside him and pulling him into his side.

"I never said I didn't like you being this close" Anders said quietly, and Harry stopped his squirming to look up into startlingly blue eyes. "If you like cuddles, I am more than happy to provide them" this he said with a slight smirk before opening up his own transfiguration book and starting to read.

Harry sat frozen for a moment, struggling to process what had just happened. He cursed himself for letting something like that slip, but gradually relaxed and went back to his own reading. Letting the heat radiating off Anders warm and comfort him.

None of them noticed that across the room Annika was watching Harry closely.

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It seemed that after that night Anders took every opportunity presented to touch Harry, warm hands on his back guiding him through the halls as they walked to class, a strong arm wrapped around his shoulders as they sat together in the library studying, he had even gone so far as to hold Harry's hand firmly within his own as they walked across the lawns to Care of Magical Creatures. It was very comforting and sweet but slowly driving Harry insane. He knew that Anders was only being a good friend, trying to give Harry what he thinks Harry needs, but Harry couldn't help but hope that the touches could mean as much to Anders as they had come to mean to Harry. Because, Harry could no longer deny to himself that what he felt for Anders went far beyond friendship. He thought about Anders all the time and felt happier when the other was around. He would do anything to see Anders smile and the thought of any harm coming to the other teen put Harry in a mood so dark the only one who could draw him out of it was Anders himself. He knew he was being ridiculous, that there was no way that Anders could feel the same way about him, but that didn't stop the longing that was building up inside of him. Sometimes when Anders wrapped his arm around him it was all Harry could do not to climb into his lap and see if those lips were really as soft as they looked.

He shook himself out of that particular daydream and refocused on the conversation going on around him. With only two weeks to go, all talk had turned to Christmas.

All students at Durmstrang stayed at school over Christmas and there was no Hogsmeade to go shopping in but there was plenty of owl order catalogues laying around to order presents from. There were no classes for 10 days over Christmas and New Years and Harry was looking forward to the break and the chance to relax with his friends.

Harry flicked through the catalogue in front of him as he listened to Roman and Lukas argue over a present for their mother. He knew he would have to start ordering soon if he wanted everything to be delivered before Christmas. He had already booked a holiday to Sweden for two weeks over the summer for his family, that just left presents for his friends and for Anders.

He spent the next few hours pouring through catalogues until he was satisfied with what he had ordered. It was mostly quidditch supplies or books for his friends, but he knew they would appreciate it. Anders had been a lot harder; he had finally come to a decision, but he just wasn't sure if Anders would like it. He chewed his lip nervously then pushed the thought away determined not to overthink it, well try not to anyway. He gave Hedwig one last pat before she took off with his orders before making his way over to Annika. He sat down beside her, ignoring the look of surprise that flashed across her face.

"Harry?"

"Hey, how's the Christmas shopping going?" Harry asked pleasantly ignoring the eyes of nearly everyone in the common room watching them.

"Ah, good thanks. Just tyring to find something for my little sister, she is 10 and a bit of a nutter," Annika said fondly, and Harry smiled softly at the tone.

"How about I help you look then?" Harry asked before picking up a catalogue and starting to flick through it. His plan wasn't anything brilliant, he just figured if everyone saw that he had forgiven Annika and was talking to her again maybe they would as well. He was surprised when he actually spent a pleasant 20 minutes helping Annika pick a present, before they decided on The Encyclopedia of Ugly Animals. It contained images and information about the ugliest animals in the world both magical and non-magical, Annika said her sister would love it.

"What was that about?" Timur asked curiously, frowning as Harry walked back over to his friends.

"Just figured she'd been punished enough" Harry said with a slight shrug, ignoring the raised eyebrows aimed at him.

Harry was pleased to see that his plan was working though, he had spent some more time with Annika and over the next week and noticed that people were starting to talk to and sit with her again, he let out a sigh of relief that things were getting back to normal.