Sunday December 19
"I thought we weren't meeting until Easter break?" Blaise asked, his eyes continuously flicking towards the dormitory door. Probably late for a date, or a sleepover at any rate.
"That's for official gang business, this one's for just us." Harry stretched his legs out and snagged some of the candy from the pile that Neville brought with him. "Sue, what's on our list?"
Susan pulled out the 'inner gang's original gang' to-do list that the two of them update periodically and looked it over.
"Meet up over break, and free the— Hermione! Did you write on our list?"
Hermione blinked up innocently from her place by Theo's side. "No," she said with too much naivety in her tone to fool Harry or Susan. "Why would you accuse me of that?"
"Someone wrote 'free the house-elves' on our to-do list right above 'kill Dumbledore'," Susan said. "We didn't write that."
"Maybe you should have," Theo said. "Aren't you two always going on about equal rights for everyone who you don't hate?"
Fred, Ron, and Neville snickered at Harry and Susan's identical roll of their eyes.
"We aren't starting by forcing over a hundred elves from their home," Harry said firmly. "We're starting by getting Mavis a wand."
"But Mavis can do magic without one," Draco said slowly. "Why would he need a wand?"
"It's the principle of the matter," Susan sniffed. "Elves are magical beings and deserve to carry wands just as much as goblins, vampires, dwarves—"
"Not dwarves," Harry scoffed. "I fuckin hate dwarves."
"Why d'you hate dwarves??" Fred asked incredulously while Harry was glaring at his full-on laughing friends.
"It's Susan's fault," Luna said, being the only one who wasn't laughing at Harry. Because some people have a bit of loyalty in them. "She sent Harry a sweet valentine back in my first year and Harry's hated dwarves ever since."
"You sent Harry a singing valentine?" Fred asked, looking equal parts impressed and jealous. "Merlin's teeth Sue, you've got bollocks, don't you?"
"Don't call me Sue," Susan snapped. "And it was a joke," she said much more nicely to Harry. "You know you secretly liked it."
"Susan's the reason we have the rule that anyone who sends Harry a singing valentine gets crucio'd for seven and a half minutes," Ron explained to Fred.
"Right-o then."
Harry very much did not like the challenging glimmer in Fred's eyes, so he hastily turned back to more important matters. "'Kay, Mione, we're getting Mavis a wand this summer, so hold off on freeing the elves until we can find a plan to keep them from being homeless and sad, yeah? Susan, what was on the actual agenda for tonight?"
"We were going to discuss killing Bellatrix after Christmas, but before we come back on the fifth," Susan said.
"Why just Bellatrix?" Blaise asked. "Why not all the Death Eaters?"
"Bellatrix is personal," Neville said, a rare shadow of anger flashing in his eyes. "If she's free then I want her dead."
"That's the Harry spirit Neville," Fred raised his bottle of butterbeer to Neville in a mock-toast.
"How are we meant to find and kill Bellatrix in a matter of..." Theo counted quickly, "ten days?"
"Lue? Any ideas?" Harry turned hopefully to Luna, searching for some insight from the nargles.
Luna went quiet, her big silver eyes blinking owlishly and sightlessly up at the ceiling while everyone watched her for a very long minute.
"I— I don't think you're killing her before we come back," she said haltingly, knowing Harry and Neville would be disappointed with her words. "I don't know what's going on, but it's not Bellatrix Lestrange dying..." Luna trailed off and blinked quickly before abruptly turning her wide eyes to Ron.
"You're wrong," she said in an uncharacteristically harsh voice. "You can't let your emotions overtake your logic. You're wrong and there's no guarantee you can fix it. Some burnt bridges can never be repaired."
"What??" Ron was startled and looked around at the others, breaking the uncomfortable eye contact with Luna. "What am I wrong about? What bridge am I burning?"
Harry cocked his head to the side as he studied both Ron and Luna. Luna was blinking and seemed to shake her head, probably a sign that the nargles were speaking through her. Snape and Theo swore Luna was a seer, but Harry knew that Luna was just special. She didn't need an official title for him to appreciated the things she said; Luna was his friend and every word she said had always been important to him. 'Seer' or not.
"Dunno," he said. "But try not to mess things up any time soon, yeah? Let's kill Bellatrix, Timmy, and Dumbledore before you go fuckin things up."
"I'll do my best," Ron said, inching just slightly away from Luna.
Neville huffed, let down by Luna's proclamation that they wouldn't be killing Bellatrix before they returned to school. "Is she at least on the official to-do list?" he asked Susan. "I want her dead before she can be sent back to Azkaban."
"She is," Harry assured him, understanding Neville's need for revenge. "We can track her down and kill her this summer if we don't get a chance before then, yeah? If she gets sent back to Azkaban before summer then I'll just break her back out and then you can kill her."
For whatever reason, Neville didn't look very reassured by what Harry considered to be a very thoughtful offer. Neville's face paled, and he nodded in a bit of a noncommittal gesture.
Odd.
"Well if we aren't killing Bellatrix over Christmas break then what are we doing?" Susan pouted.
Sometimes Harry thought that Susan really seemed to want to kill people. Just go absolutely mad and singlehandedly kill all their enemies. Which was both wicked and a bit terrifying to imagine.
"We could just hang out?" Draco suggested. "We could stay at Harry's and all hang out for a few days?"
Nobody had any arguments against that. So they set up a block of days, starting on New Years Day, and Harry decided that was enough of an accomplishment for one day and ended the small meeting.
Blaise immediately took off for the door, telling the others not to wait for him to go to breakfast tomorrow.
"Blaise is a slag," Susan giggled.
"Really?" Neville grinned at Susan and waggled his eyebrows. "Because I've heard some interesting things from Lavender..."
Susan squealed and smacked Neville in the arm before linking her arm with his and demanding he 'tell her everything' as the two of them set off for their respective common rooms.
"Come on Luna, I'll walk you to your tower," Draco told Luna with a small smile.
"Bye guys," Luna said with a bright smile for the remaining group, which was returned by everyone except a still puzzled Ron.
"Want me to walk you back too Granger?" Fred offered Hermione. "I wouldn't want to be caught out of bed without a prefect to cover for me."
"Hermione's staying here," Theo said bluntly. "Walk yourself back."
"Or you could stay too?" Harry offered quietly. "If you wanted."
Fred looked surprised for a moment, probably because they hadn't slept in the same bed together since they broke up, but then he gave Harry a broad smile and agreed quickly.
Harry threw up a privacy shield the instant that Fred got in his bed.
"I just wanna sleep together," he blurted.
Fred raised his brows and looked down at his baggy tshirt with a hole in the neckline and sleep pants. "And here I am prepared to seduce you darling."
Harry's lips twitched up in a smile at Fred's obvious joke and scooted over to make room for him. "You're a prat."
"But I'm your prat," Fred grinned, stretching out on his back and taking up a lot more space than Harry did when he was sleeping alone.
"Suppose so." Harry laid next to Fred and glanced over at his peaceful expression. "When are we supposed to have that 'two way conversation'?"
"Let's do it tomorrow." Fred yawned. "Or over break. We'll just let it happen, sound good?"
"Yeah." Harry scooted closer until he was able to put his leg across Fred's. "Sounds good."
Fred smiled and closed his eyes, his face entirely relaxed in a way that sent an odd warmth through Harry's chest. He slowly reached out and ran his thumb lightly across Fred's eyelids.
"Goodnight," he whispered.
As Harry was closing his own eyes, he got a brief twinge of pain in his scar, one that was easily pushed away with his mental barriers.
Leave me alone you noseless git.
He let out a sigh of relief as his occlumency shields lessened the pressure that had been building in his head. He tentatively laid his head in the crook of Fred's arm and pulled the blanket Luna once made him over the two of them securely.
"Love you," Fred murmured sleepily.
"Goodnight," Harry repeated.
Harry went back and forth with himself until he fell asleep, did he love Fred? Should he say he loves him if he isn't entirely sure? He had been certain he loved Susan, but even that took him months to admit to her.
Could he tell Fred? Would it be weird? Would it change things?
Harry had fallen asleep before he came to a decision. He dreamt of soaring in blue skies, endless forests beneath his feet, his friends all flying alongside him...
He was jerked abruptly from his sleep in the early dawn hours— knife in hand before he registered what woke him. Someone was turning the lights on in the dorm. Harry jerked the curtain back on his bed and leapt to his feet, preparing to attack right up until he recognized the tall thin man beside Ron's bed.
"What's going on?" Harry asked Snape, irritated now by his sudden appearance.
Snape didn't ignore him, necessarily, but he focused on waking Ron, shaking his shoulder to rouse him from sleep.
"Mister Weasley, I need you to come with me," Snape said with a sense of urgency in his voice that put Harry on edge.
"What happened?" Harry repeated as Ron blearily sat up and yawned.
Snape turned to him now, and blanched as he saw Fred behind Harry lounging across his bed.
"Frederick, come along. I need you and your brother both," Snape said. The fact that he didn't seem disturbed by Fred being in Harry's dorm only increased Harry's worry.
"Quickly," Snape urged them.
"Whazz'goin' on?" Ron asked, slipping his boots on.
Snape looked exhausted, and miserable, when he answered. "There's been an attack."