Chapter 6 – Studying (Sort Of), Suspicions (Sort Of), and Sneaking (Sort of)

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If I did, there wouldn't be nearly so many fics up on this site. Be grateful that JK Rowling owns it instead, she's better at this than I'll ever be.

Harry was of the firm opinion that too much studying was bad for the soul. Unfortunately the one time he'd expressed this opinion, to an irate Professor McGonagall no less, he'd found himself on the receiving end of a lengthy lecture that had, for some reason, involved an aside about genetics and the wrong traits breeding true.

Of course, by that point Harry hadn't been paying attention for a good ten minutes or so and had missed a lot of context, and thus resorted to his usual response in these situations: nodding agreeably until he was dismissed. He received a sceptical look for his efforts but was allowed to go free, considering the whole endeavour to be a success.

The point being that Harry had long since gotten tired of the question of a portraits intelligence or lack thereof and was, not for the first time, cursing his own curiosity.

Granger, apparently, did not share Harry's entirely sensible aversion to excessive study. Having dragged him from one end of the castle to the other (sort of – Hogwarts was odd like that), she dropped him at a table in the library, raced off into the stacks, and shortly returned with more books than a girl her age had any right being able to carry. As far as he could tell, most of those books wouldn't hold any pertinent information anyway.

Unless Ancient Egyptian Necromantic Practices and You had a section on magical portrait creation, but Harry had serious doubts about that; and what was a book like that doing in a school library anyway?

That was clearly something best placed in the Restricted Section at the very least, not something that should be easily available to a thirteen year old girl, right? Harry didn't know who was in charge of the Restricted Section, be it Madam Pince or Professor Dumbledore or someone else entirely, but he'd had his doubts about that person's qualifications ever since finding a perfectly normal muggle cookbook in there during a midnight delve.

He had even risked a look to be sure that 101 Desserts to Die For really was as mundane as it appeared to be. Aside from a distressing lack of treacle tart, he'd found nothing untoward, and surely the author's poor taste couldn't be enough to consign such a book to the Restricted Section.

"Okay, so," Granger began, and Harry was suddenly beset by the mental image of a perpetual motion machine whirring to life for the first time.

"I've brought every book I can find that explicitly mentions portraits and how they're made," she went on, distressingly oblivious to Harry's growing horror as she separated three books from the others into their own tiny pile, "and a few others for reference and additional reading," she added with a beatific smile and a casual gesture towards the even two dozen books stacked precariously right on the edge of the desk, practically daring gravity to give it a go if it thought it was hard enough.

Throughout his relatively short life, Harry had been in any number of situations he'd wanted nothing more than to escape from: some he'd run from, some he'd talked his way out of for a given definition of 'talking', and sometimes he'd had to resort to killing giant death snakes. That last one may only have happened once but it featured rather prominently in his memory despite that and it was staying on the list because he still couldn't quite believe that he'd actually survived. Some people might say that having help from an immortal flame entity was cheating, but those people hadn't had to fight any giant death snakes, had they?

Plus, Fawkes' help was given grudgingly and not without demands for recompense. Harry blamed Hedwig for that.

So if there was anything Harry had learned over the past few years, even pre-Hogwarts, it was that there was a way out of anything if you just looked hard enough. Unfortunately, despite searching frantically, Harry's well honed 'get out of jail free' skills were failing him at this most critical juncture.

He couldn't just run away; that would be mortifying for reasons that he wasn't entirely ready to examine just now. He couldn't talk – read: lame excuse – his way out of this, it was talking that got him into his current situation in the first place and doing so again would probably just make things worse by encouraging Granger to bother him more. He couldn't kill her because she wasn't a giant death snake and people generally frowned on killing things that weren't giant death snakes.

All of which meant that he had no choice but to participate.

Two dozen extra books.

Why? Who did that? How many puppies did he kill in a previous life to deserve this?

Hundreds, he decided as Granger began drawing up a plan for partnered studying that went on into the next two months with provision for further study if necessary, chattering all the while.

It must have been hundreds.

Thankfully, perpetual motion machines didn't actually exist and no matter the mysterious power source, even the engine better known as Hermione Granger had to run out of steam and the study session from metaphorical hell had to end.

It was as they were packing up, or as Granger was packing up and he was attempting to erase the last few hours from his memory, that Harry realised something rather important. Important enough to make his head abruptly jerk up from where it had been resting on the table, an action that had Granger's eyes snap to his narrowing ones even as she continued to stuff books, writing utensils, andparchment into her bag.

Almost against his will, his mouth began forming words, "Granger, didn't you say that you'd already researched this?" he asked.

"Yes?" she replied with a growing frown, as though confused by his perfectly reasonable line of questioning. Harry felt his eye begin to twitch in response.

"Then why," he wondered aloud, the perfect picture of civility, "did you start again at the very beginning today?"

"Oh, that's simple," Granger said, features smoothing out, "You can't understand the complex things if you haven't covered the basics first."

"But you said you'd already-" Harry began before stopping abruptly, jaw dropping as another realisation hit him like that one time Hedwig actually saw him using a quill.

This had been Granger's plan all along! Annoy him with countless, pointless details to the point that he had to say something just to get it to stop; and to make things worse, it had worked! She had prattled on about things she already knew just to... To what? What was her goal here? He didn't get it. He didn't get her!

"Insidious," he growled at her, rising to his feet and throwing his bag over his shoulder. "You are insidious."

He ignored the visible hurt that flickered through her eyes. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared anyway, and maybe actively fostering dislike would make her bugger off at long last.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Granger demanded, eyes narrowed and hands planting themselves on her hips.

"It means," Harry seethed, "that I'm on to you, Granger! I may not know what you're scheming, but I do know that you're scheming!"

Granger was starting to look confused, but Harry wasn't going to let her act her way out of this. He was on a roll now!

"Scheming?" she asked, eyes looking oddly blank, like her attention was elsewhere.

"Yeah, and now that I know that you're scheming, I can stop whatever plans you have!" Harry crowed triumphantly. That was how these things always went. Sure he'd been wrong about Snape, and Quirrell of all people turning out to be evil was an unforseen twist; and no one had thought to even look at Ginny Weasley during the whole Heir of Slytherin Chamber of Secrets fiasco, and okay maybe the talking diary thing had been weird but no harm had ever been caused by a diary in the history of the world, right?

Right. No one would have had second thoughts about that.

"Harry, it was your idea to research the portraits," Granger said, completely unreasonably in Harry's opinion.

"No, all I did was wonder out loud. You just grabbed me out of the blue and dragged me here against my will."

"Against your will?! This was your ide-" Granger froze part way through her rant. At least Harry assumed it was gearing up to be a rant; she stopped before she could build up the appropriate steam.

Having been on the receiving end of some truly inspiring rants, courtesy of the Dursley adults, Harry considered himself something of an expert. He'd give Granger's effort a two out of ten; she barely got started and hadn't attained the required shade of purple in her face to get above a six or seven.

"You wanted me to do all the work, didn't you? And then, what, report to you when I was done?!" Granger hissed with narrowed eyes while her hands balled into fists at her side.

Harry looked away, stuffed his own hands into his pockets, and whistled innocently in that obnoxious way he'd heard Dudley use all too often.

"Harry James Potter!" Granger practically screeched, instantly putting Harry on edge, "I will not be your personal researcher! And if you think for one second that you can make me do your homework-"

"How did you know my middle name?!" Harry interrupted, a little worried that a complete stranger had such information on him. It wasn't like he went around introducing himself at all, never mind with his full name.

"You're famous!" she snapped in response, which, well...

"Oh yeah. Forgot about that." Harry said, folding his arms with a frown, "Wait, does that mean that everyone knows these thing about me?"

That was kind of a scary thought. Harry relied on being unseen and as unnoticed as his fame would allow him to be. If people knew things about him that he hadn't told anyone, like his middle name, what else might they know without his knowledge?

A hand slammed down on the desk between them, startling Harry out of his thoughts and making him jump back a step or two. Looking up, he met the stern gaze of Madam Pince, shuffling between both Harry and Granger.

"Out," she hissed.

Granger immediately looked contrite, "Madam Pince! I'm sorry, we were just-"

"Out!"

There were no more attempts at placating the angry librarian as both he and Granger bolted.

As the door to the library swung decisively shut behind them, Granger lifted her chin and, looking at the ceiling rather than at him, sniffed, "I can't believe you got us kicked out of the library. I've never been kicked out of the library!"

"Me?!" Harry asked, affronted, "Oh, I see how it is," he sniffed right back, pulling his Invisibility Cloak from his pocket and throwing it over himself before stalking off in a random direction.

"Yes, you! If you hadn't- Oh, that's just cheating!"

Harry smiled to himself as he went on his way. It was hardly his fault if Granger couldn't disappear almost at will, was it?

He wondered how long she'd spend looking for a hidden passage he could have gone down. The thought brightened the smile on his face.

Secret invisibility cloaks were amazing!

While Harry had been wasting his time in the library, Gryffindor had, apparently, been playing Hufflepuff at Quidditch.

Looking out at the still raging storm from the safety of Gryffindor Tower, Harry continued to question the collective sanity of wizard kind whilst ignoring the despondent Gryffindor team as they dripped all over the Common Room; too absorbed in their misery to bother with such petty things as cleaning up and drying off.

He noticed that they were not so depressed as to forget the chocolate they and the whole House had gotten their hands on somehow; though the circumstances of their early return made Harry grateful to be left out.

According to the grumbling, and there was a lot of grumbling, the match had been called off after Dementors had swarmed the stadium.

Harry knew a bit about Dementors, having looked them up shortly after Dumbledore's warning on them. Feeding off positive emotion and dragging out the worst memories a person possessed, Harry was glad his only encounter with Dementors had been when he was already in an exhausted slumber. His dreams had been unpleasant that time, but that wasn't exactly uncommon, all things considered.

That said, Harry was as of yet unconvinced that the Dementors were the reason behind the malaise infecting the Common Room. His fellow Gryffindors, he had found, made poor losers and the Hufflepuff Chasers has reportedly pulled ahead in points just moments after the Dementors had shown up and before anyone had realised what was happening. Whether the score at the time of cancellation would be upheld as the final result, or the match would be rescheduled was undecided; all that mattered to the Gryffindor team, and a good portion of the students, was that they had been behind at the end.

Harry himself wasn't all that concerned with the loss so much as the conditions surrounding it. Allowing the match to continue despite the extreme weather was suspicious enough, but the Dementor attack and Hufflepuff's last minute scoring seemed entirely too coincidental to him. The timing a little too perfect.

Harry refused to believe that anyone was capable of manipulating the weather on that kind of scale, but wizards had their own ways to predict the weather days or weeks in advance. The Daily Prophet even printed these forecasts for public perusal. How hard could it have possibly been for a shady Hufflepuff Quidditch maniac to take advantage of that storm with the cooperation of the hungered Dementors? A promise of a plethora of fresh souls in return for a Quidditch victory?

Looking around at the dejected Gryffindor team, Harry was unable to doubt the fanaticism of the other Houses in regards to Flying Deathball.

He already had his suspicions surrounding Hufflepuff as a whole. The group was seemingly harmless on the surface but so were many plants. Often it was lay underneath, the roots, that made those plants so dangerous.

Harry was beginning to think that Hufflepuff's harmless reputation was nothing more than a clever facade, a ruse meant to lure the unsuspecting to whatever defeat the nefarious House envisioned.

Looking back at the previous school year, hadn't he overheard a group of Hufflepuffs sharing thoughts and rumours about the Chamber of Secrets in the library? They hadn't exactly been discreet about it and the library was no private space.

Of course Harry knew now that the Hufflepuffs weren't responsible for that whole fiasco, but what if their goal wasn't to claim credit, but to fan the flames of fear and paranoia? The Chamber and the monster within were a ready made distraction after all; if everyone was so busy looking over their shoulders for the obvious, who was watching for the subtle?

Stilling his need to pace, he settled for turning away from the storm and was immediately met with the steely gaze of Hermione Granger. Sitting with her elbows on the table in front of her, her hands joined in front of her mouth, and with stacks of books framing her on either side, she was the very picture of sinister.

She made no effort to move once their eyes met, and no effort to hide that she'd been watching him.

Harry averted his gaze as his brain went into overdrive, and his heart stilled.

Ordinarily, Granger wouldn't let slip any opportunity to bother him with incessant chatter, and yet this time there was nothing. Not even an acknowledgement that he'd caught her watching.

Was she some sort of Hufflefuff plant? A spy sent to observe him? Did they know about what happened in the Chamber of Secrets? Did they consider him a threat, or just some curiosity?

Harry threw her another look and found that her head was lowered, and her hand racing across a piece of parchment he hadn't noticed before. Something in the sight calmed him.

No. No, he decided. The Hufflepuffs were subtle schemers, and Granger had been anything but subtle in all of their interactions. Whatever she was after, she was working alone; of that he felt unaccountably assured.

The vice around his heart loosened just a little.

That Granger and Hufflepuff were two separate entities was relieving, but that didn't mean that either were harmless. He'd have to keep an eye on both from now on.

Bloody Badgers.

Several weeks of mostly successfully avoiding Granger and Hufflepuffs in equal measure, though the latter wasn't exactly difficult since the Hufflepuffs weren't actively hunting him down, had left Harry feeling rather tired and in need of a break.

And so, when another Hogsmeade trip was announced for the last weekend of term, he decided to actually take advantage of the opportunity to get out of the castle. Of course, this would present a perfect opportunity for Granger to harass him some more, but only if she knew he was going. Unfortunately for her, Harry had an Invisibility Cloak and knowledge of one of the seven secret passages to lead outside of the castle, courtesy of Professor Dumbledore as a 'just in case'.

Incidentally, Granger had neither of those things.

Harry had, thankfully, never had reason to use the passage hidden inside the hump of a statue depicting a one eyed witch on the third floor; and while this may not be considered an emergency by conventional reasoning, he suspected that Dumbledore wouldn't mind him using it to get to and from Hogsmeade so long as he kept it to authorised weekends.

Opening the passage with a tap of his wand and a whispered 'Dissendium!', Harry hoisted himself up, swung his legs around into the thin opening left by the hump, and pushed himself down. Dumbledore had been scarce with the details of what the secret passage was like, saying only that it led to the cellar of a sweets shop called Honeydukes. It was, therefore, a bit of a surprise to find himself rapidly sliding downwards rather than alighting on a level surface.

Harry thought that Dumbledore might have been playing a little joke on him by withholding exact information regarding this tunnel, perhaps expecting a fun little slide to brighten Harry's day.

Considering that the last time Harry had opened a secret passage in Hogwarts to be confronted by a downward plunge, it had been followed by multiple near death experiences at the whim of a mad man and his giant death snake, he found himself distinctly unimpressed by Dumbledore's sense of humour this time. Of course, Dumbledore had initially told him about this passage before the whole Chamber of Secrets debacle, so he couldn't actually be blamed for the moment of near panic that gripped Harry as he slipped down and the passage closed behind him.

It made sense in hindsight, Harry thought as he landed uncomfortably on what felt like damp earth, that the passage would lead down initially. To reach Hogsmeade, the passage would have to go underground or it wouldn't be very much of a secret passage at all; and considering that the passage opened on the third floor of the castle, it would have to get underground somehow. Why not a slide?

Lighting his wand and looking back, Harry realised exactly why not.

It wasn't impossible to climb a slide. It was bloody annoying though. Harry foresaw a lot of effort in his near future.

Huffing a sigh, and climbing to his feet, Harry looked forward to inspect the passage beyond the slide, half expecting to meet a wall and a dead end sign. To his pleased surprise, the passage continued in a tunnel that was narrow and low, twisting and turning like it had been excavated by a burrowing animal rather than by the hand of man; which, for all Harry knew, it could very well have been. At the very least, the ceiling was high enough to let him walk upright.

Rolling his shoulders, and with just a little hesitation, Harry set off for Honeydukes.

One entirely too long journey later, consisting in part of an uphill climb followed by stairs carved out of the earth, Harry was crouched behind a closed crate in what could only be Honeydukes' cellar, already wrapped in his Invisibility Cloak.

There had been over two hundred steps in the tunnel before he'd come to a trap door leading up into Honeydukes. If sneaking into Hogsmeade was going to become a regular occurrence, Harry would need to either work on his fitness or find another way. He wasn't in bad shape, but two hundred was a big number and that had been before he got bored counting!

His legs were on fire!

Harry jumped as a door opened nearby, and the sounds of a busy shop were suddenly made very apparent.

"And get another box of Jelly Slugs, dear, they've nearly cleaned us out-" a distinctly female voice called as footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Harry hadn't actually thought about how to get out of the cellar unnoticed, so it was very considerate of the shop's owners to choose now to restock the shelves, leaving the door open in the process.

Harry waited with baited breath for 'dear' to pass him by and ran with soft, practiced steps to the stairs when he heard boxes shifting elsewhere in the cellar. He took extra care on the stairs themselves; stairs didn't creak spontaneously, after all.

The door atop the stairs led to behind the shop's counter. Taking a moment to check that he was in the clear – the woman behind the counter was too busily engaged with her current customer to accidentally walk into him – Harry peeked over the top.

And immediately ducked back down.

The place was bloody packed!

People, most of whom were Hogwarts students, jostled against each other all along the shelves, reaching and grabbing and generally being everywhere.

There was no way Harry was staying here with all those people running around, no way he would be able to stay incognito with all of them brushing up against each other. He had to get outside.

Of course, actually doing so was going to be a pain.

He took another look over the counter to plan a general route. The door leading outside was on the right wall and almost on the opposite side of the shop from Harry's spot, and the adjacent mullioned windows showed swirling snow outside. The space between the counter and the nearest shelf was, unsurprisingly, the most congested, followed closely by the outside wall that customers traversed to leave, and then next row of shelves.

A convenient little sign in the far corner of the shop, reading 'Unusual Tastes', however, pointed to an aisle of shelves that was almost totally deserted.

Perfect.

He'd have to be careful getting there, but it was almost a straight shot to the door from there and there were very few people to bump into until he reached the door itself; at which point all he needed to do was slip out behind someone else anyway.

Taking a deep, but silent, breath, Harry slipped out from behind the counter and scuttled to the nearest wall. Almost holding that breath, he slid into the crowd. Carefully, so very carefully, he navigated around the mobs of people, occasionally freezing as the flow abruptly altered or stalled.

There were a number of close calls, and he was certain that he felt his Cloak brush up against a few people and hoped they attributed it to the visible people around them, but Harry eventually made it to 'Unusual Tastes' none the worse for wear sans the dozen or so heart attacks he'd suffered on the way.

Now mostly in the clear, he allowed himself the curiosity to look around at what counted as unusual taste among wizard sweets. There was a tray of red lollipops labelled as 'blood flavoured', jars of Cockroach Cluster, and something white, lumpy, and unpleasant looking called Sugared Mildew.

Harry understood better now why this area was almost desolate of people. It was the 'almost' part that disturbed him most though.

Silently suppressing a shudder, Harry turned to examine the door once more. It was nearly constantly in motion, barely closing for more than a few seconds before swinging open again to admit new customers or to allow others to leave. It was used so often that the little bell above the door sounded strained, as though exhausted by all the work; and with everything that magic could do, Harry wouldn't place any bets against it being charmed for exactly that.

Since he wanted out, he'd have to closely follow someone who was leaving; close enough to avoid the door closing on him and anyone else using it, but not so close that he risked bumping into whoever he followed. It was a fine line to walk, but Harry had plenty of practice walking fine lines, some of which had more dire consequences than being discovered in a place he was allowed to be in anyway.

Picking a target was surprisingly easy, if he ignored all the obvious openings left by Hufflepuffs. An older Ravenclaw, too busy looking through their bag while walking to pay attention to anything else was chosen. Any accidental bumping could be written off as the Ravenclaw being too distracted by their rummaging to see whoever hit them, plus he seemed to be moving alone instead of travelling in a group like most others.

Seizing his chance, Harry cautiously closed the gap and slotted into place behind his new escape partner. Close but not too close. Hopefully.

It was all going according to plan until the Ravenclaw stopped in the open doorway, a vaguely irritated look on his face as he shoved things around in his bag. There was a several second long pause in both the moving crowd and Harry's breathing.

Harry almost almost jumped out of his skin as an hand reached over his shoulder to grab the Ravenclaw's arm. He barely suppressed the instinct to immediately duck, and instead slowly lowered himself to a near crouch, keeping a watchful eye on the arm connecting his partner and this new player. Harry didn't look to see who was behind him, afraid that any movement would give him away, invisible or not.

"Oi, mate," a male voice said, "You're blocking the door."

The Ravenclaw looked distractedly over his shoulder, blinking like he'd just roused himself from some deep place devoid of sunlight.

"Hm? Oh, sorry," he said, looking almost sleepy and going back to his bag. There was an annoyed click of the tongue from behind in answer.

The arm removed itself from the Ravenclaw's shoulder and instead went to hover behind his back.

"Mate, move!" the arm's owner growled, shoving the obstruction out the door. Harry moved quickly to close the sudden gap and found himself outside. Swiftly stepping to the side and out of the way, Harry turned to make sure he was clear.

Oliver Wood stepped out after him and sent an exasperated glare after the retreating back of Harry's Ravenclaw helper. Sarcastic applause and boisterous cheering erupted from inside and Wood turned back with a grin.

"Alright you clowns, let's get to the Broomsticks. It's freezing out here," he said. There was more cheering as the Quidditch team followed him out.

"You sure you don't just want to ogle Rosemerta, Oliver?" one of the girls, a Chaser Harry thought, called after the Captain, to yet more cheering and even a wolf whistle from one of the Weasley twins as the team set off.

"Shut it, Angelina, or you can be target practice for George next training session," Wood replied, the levity obvious in his voice despite the delivered threat.

"What do you take me for, Ollie?" one of the twins asked, "Fred's the one who needs target practice!"

"Brother mine, you wound me!"

The teams' laughter was lost to distance and the falling snow. Harry watched them go.

Taking a deep breath, Harry let a grin grow on his face and allowed a celebratory 'ha!' to escape him. He'd gotten outside completely undetected and could explore at will!

Looking around, Harry tried to decide where to go first and froze when he came face to invisible face with Hermione Granger.

She was wrapped in a cloak and chewing on a sugar quill, but her eyes were narrowed in suspicion, moving from the ground to the general area around his head. She'd probably heard him with how close she was and didn't seem the type to overlook it as a trick of the wind.

Harry very carefully did not gulp, and took two steps back. Granger's eyes made another circuit from the ground up, while Harry kept his resolutely on her.

He took another few steps back and, when she made no move to follow, he turned and walked away with feigned nonchalance and a stiff back.

He was invisible. He was fine. Granger was a pest at times but there was nothing that would allow her to see through his Cloak. Dumbledore always seemed to know where he was regardless of the Cloak, but Granger wasn't Dumbledore. He was fine.

Immersed in his totally calm thoughts, Harry had wandered a bit and found himself in front of a dilapidated shack. He reasoned that this must have been the Shrieking Shack, the most haunted building in Britain.

It was kind of quiet for a house renowned for its screaming, though he supposed the boarded windows, overgrown plant life, and general disrepair of the place made a very convincing case for authenticity.

The sound of breaking wood had him spinning around. Somehow he was almost unsurprised to see Granger again.

"Harry?" she asked, "What are you doing?"

Harry felt his jaw drop and heard himself splutter, because that was just... unfair!

"Okay!" he shouted, throwing his Cloak off his head, "How did you know I was here? How did you follow me? How did you know it was me at all?!" he demanded. Granger blinked at him.

"You're invisible, Harry," she said, pointing to the ground, "not weightless."

Harry followed her finger down and saw two distinct sets of footprints in the snow. His Cloak was promptly flipped back over his head.

"Oh for- Really?! And you knew it was me because...?" he asked sullenly. "I was still invisible. Mostly," he added, throwing a glare at the snow.

"Everyone knows you have an invisibility cloak, Harry," Granger replied, oblivious to Harry's invisible panic attack at that. "Everyone in Gryffindor, anyway. I don't think it's spread to the other Houses."

"How?" Harry wheezed in question.

"I suppose someone saw you put it on. Someone who told someone else, who told someone else," Granger said with a shrug. "You know how it is," she concluded carelessly.

Harry pulled his apparently utterly useless cloak off and threw it in the snow. Then he picked it up again and carefully stowed it in his pocket. He then proceeded to freak out because if people knew about his Invisibility Cloak, he was significantly less safe than he thought he was.

While Harry paced in front of the Shrieking Shack and frequently ran his hand through his hair in agitation, Granger calmly scooped up some snow and started shaping it into a ball with more care than the task really warranted.

"You know," she began, "I didn't really think you were so paranoid that you'd wear your cloak into Hogsmeade like this. Though I suppose it's not entirely insane with the Sirius Black situation. Do you think he'd attack you here if he couldn't get to you in Hogwarts?" she asked, carefully eyeing the ball of snow in her hands.

Harry continued to pace and decided not to tell her that he'd worn the cloak mostly to avoid her. Or that he'd forgotten about Black.

"Course he bloody would!" he said instead, "I'm Harry-Fucking-Potter, everyone and their insane dog is after-" he stopped short as something impacted the back of his head. Something cold, wet, and falling down the back of his shirt.

Harry slowly turned to stare at Granger, eyes wide and mouth open.

"Language," she sniffed.

This... This would not stand. Harry had not walked all the way to Hogsmeade underground, escaped from Honeydukes, and had his illusions of safety shattered only to be pelted with snowballs by Hermione Granger.

Granger was eyeing him warily, arms crossed. Harry dived for the nearest pile of snow.

Harry was used to having surreal moments in his life. Learning that magic was real had only been the start. So, spending a solid half hour in a snowball fight with Granger probably shouldn't have felt as odd as it did.

Leaning against a tree, soaking wet, shivering, and feeling lighter than he had in longer than he cared to remember, Harry was in the middle of a crisis of sorts. He'd set out to avoid Granger, and people in general, as much as possible. That was how he worked. If they couldn't get close, they couldn't ruin everything. Couldn't expose what shouldn't be known. And yet...

And yet, this had been fun. Harry couldn't really remember the last time he'd done something like that. The last time he'd let himself laugh with abandon and just enjoy the moment.

His crisis ended when another snowball struck him in the chest. He scowled at Granger.

"I win," she preened, and flopped down in the snow. Harry sighed and rolled his eyes, sliding down to sit at the base of the tree.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, feeling strangely exhausted. "You win," he conceded. It felt a little like letting something go. Something undefined, but heavy all the same.

Granger sat up with a groan and eyed him speculatively, "Do you want to try the Three Broomsticks? We should probably warm up and I hear the Butterbeer is good."

Harry bit his lip. That sounded suspiciously like an offer of something. And the Three Broomsticks, that was the inn, wasn't it? The one Wood and the Quidditch team were heading to earlier?

"Dunno," he said, hoping he looked as careless as he sounded, "it'll probably be mad in there."

"Probably," Granger hummed, "I looked inside earlier and it did seem pretty busy. Can't imagine it's changed that much since then."

Harry would very much have liked to get somewhere warm, but he hadn't navigated the crowd back at Honeydukes just to lose himself in another one somewhere else.

"No," he said, "crowds are... No, thanks." He immediately regretted opening his mouth as Granger froze in a less literal way than the climate intended. He pulled himself to his feet in preparation to leave.

"Wait a minute..." Granger breathed, following him up from her seated position. Harry decided that he didn't like the look in her eyes. "You're not standoffish at all, are you?" she asked.

"Yes I am" Harry contradicted her, reaching for his pocket. He really didn't like the look in her eyes.

"You're shy," she said, like it was some great revelation that she'd unexpectedly stumbled across when in search of something else entirely. Harry busied himself throwing the Invisibility Cloak around his body.

"Are you blushing?"

Harry flipped the Cloak over his head.

Granger, with reflexes he had not known she possessed, grabbed his invisible arm, "Oh no you don't!" she exclaimed, "We're going to the Three Broomsticks and you're taking that thing off because I am not dragging you through the village invisible."

Harry felt kind of like he had at the bottom of the pipe leading to the Chamber of Secrets. Like he was trapped with only one terrible way out.

It didn't feel as awful as he remembered it. Odd.

AN: And so it begins.

Also, not dead. Feel free to tell me how much I suck. Criticism is welcome, even if it's scathing. Especially if it's scathing.

Masochism? No, don't know that word.