Something was bothering him. 

What?

His lessons were going well enough. Better, even, than before. With the pressure of the O.W.L.s reserved for the fifth-years and the N.E.W.T.s for the seventh-years, the sixth-years had a comparatively easy time of it. Less homework, too. 

Life in Gryffindor tower wasn't exactly peaceful, but then it never had been. The gap left by Fred and George Weasley had not yet been filled by any new tricksters, so there were far fewer practical jokes, explosions, or testing of products on unsuspecting younger students. At the same time, though, there were going to be far fewer parties with butterbeer and pastries, because no one else who knew how to approach the house-elves in the kitchen would dare do so with Hermione on the S.P.E.W. warpath. 

Lavender and Parvati had made up, though their friendship seemed more strained than it had been. Harry, who had been at odds with Seamus, Hermione, and Ron at various points over the years, could sympathize but expected they would get over it eventually. 

The D.A. was off to a good start, too. Gwenna Golden had told her Defense Against the Dark Arts classes about it, and recommended it for likely students third year and up. Of course, no Slytherins bothered to attend the first meeting, which was held on Friday evening, but so many others did that it had to be moved from Professor Golden's classroom to the Great Hall. Harry hadn't wanted to just blithely give out the location of the Room of Requirement. 

He had been a little nervous when addressing a couple of dozen people in the Hog's Head, but had gotten used to it fairly quickly. Walking in and seeing over a hundred interested students waiting for him, on the other hand, had left him so nervous he'd almost lost his nerve.

The house tables had been replaced with rows of cushioned chairs, and the first two rows were taken up by a solid block of former D.A. members. Even Cho was there, to Harry's amazement. Her friend Marietta remained absent, and there was a rather chilly distance between Cho and Hermione, who had wrought the seemingly unbreakable jinx in the first place. 

Harry stood before them, hoping his voice wouldn't fail him. Professor Golden was present, too, but had taken a seat off to the sidelines and nodded at him as if to say that this was wholly his show. 

"Um, hi," he said into the expectant stillness. "I thought that maybe I could start off by telling you all how the D.A. came about, and what it is that we do. And how nice it is to be able to do this openly for a change!"

Most of them laughed, but some of them, remembering Umbridge all too well, shivered with revulsion. 

He told them how Hermione had been the one to come up with the idea of forming a student group to practice defense spells. "It's none of our fault," he said, "but let's face it … we've had a bumpy run. Good teachers, bad teachers, good teachers who turned out to be bad, bad teachers who turned out to be worse. And as I hope everybody knows by now, it's really important that we learn these spells most of all. We might need them."

An entire summer of reading about Voldemort's return, instead of reading about how Harry was a lunatic, brought murmurs of agreement from all around the room. 

After giving an abridged version of last year's D.A. activities – glossing over the bit about Marietta for Cho's sake – he described some of the spells that they had practiced, then called upon people to demonstrate. When they saw Neville perform a flawless Shielding Charm, they cheered, and Ginny's griffin-shaped Patronus drew cries of admiration. 

He wrapped up with telling them that if they wanted to join, they only had to sign up, and that meetings would take place every other Friday at this same time.

"There's no spell on this paper, is there?" asked a Ravenclaw third year dubiously. 

"No," Hermione said. "There's no need, because this year we're allowed to meet openly and don't have to worry about anyone … ah … no. There's no spell." She turned pink and looked over at Cho, but Cho was maintaining an expression so neutral that she could have been a statue. 

"I don't suppose you want to come down to Hagrid's with me?" Ron asked without much hope, as a crush of students went for the sign-up sheets. 

"Why?" Harry asked carefully. 

Ron had survived his trip to Aragog's lair, though he had come back to the dormitory very late that night, ashen-faced, and smelling suspiciously like Hagrid had given him a large helping of liquid courage. He had toppled across his bed, face-down and snoring almost as soon as he hit the mattress, still in his muddy shoes with twigs and leaves clinging to his clothes and hair. He'd been fifteen minutes late for class the next morning and hungover until well past lunch.

"Wanted to talk to you about tomorrow's Quidditch tryouts," Ron said. 

"You're not quitting on me again, are you?"

"No," Ron said. 

"What, then? Does Hagrid want you to do something that's going to get you mauled before our first game?"

"No," he said again, with a strained smile. "It's the other way 'round … I'm hoping I get knocked off my broom so that I can skip helping Hagrid."

Harry didn't think he was joking. And though he had a lot else to do and didn't particularly want to see these spider eggs before he absolutely had to in Care of Magical Creatures, he went with Ron down to Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. 

The night was warm and still, moonlight painting a silver track across the lake, and in the absence of a breeze the forest still whispered and rustled with its own secret breath. Hagrid's windows were a welcome orange glow, but Ron's shoulders sagged more and more with each step. 

"Is it that bad?" Harry asked. "The spiders?"

"Wasn't even thinking about that," Ron said. "I try not to think about it. Only way I can get through this without screaming, if you want to know the truth."

"Have you talked to Hagrid? Do you want me to?"

"It won't do any good," Ron said dolefully. "Harry, what am I going to do? Mum wrote and said she was so proud I'd been picked, but I could tell she wasn't really. Apprentice to the gamekeeper. It's like Malfoy's wish come true."

"It's only for this year," Harry said. "Or you could talk to Dumbledore."

Ron laughed a little. "Funny hearing you say that. After all the times Hermione and I have suggested you talk to Dumbledore, and you brush it off."

"Mmm," Harry said. He didn't really have a good comeback to that, because of course Ron was absolutely right. 

"And it isn't just that," Ron said. "It's what I said on the train, do you remember? About Hogsmeade?"

"What about it?"

"First weekend is coming up in the beginning of October," Ron said. "And, if you remember, I went and opened my big fat mouth and said I'd ask a girl to go with me."

"Ah," Harry said. "You did say that."

Ron stopped and turned to him. They were close enough now that the light from Hagrid's windows let him see his friend's face clearly, and he realized that Ron was not looking at all well. It wasn't just Hagrid and his spiders, either. A rash of pimples had cropped up among Ron's freckles, and dark puffy smudges were under each eye. 

"Ron, are you all right? You look bloody awful."

"You've got to help me, Harry."

"I'm afraid you've come to the wrong person if you're wanting advice on girls," Harry said. "You saw how well everything worked out with me and Cho last year. I understand girls about as much as I understood Divination. But look, Ron … nobody's really going to hold you to that."

"But they'll know. They'll laugh."

"Who, Ginny?"

"And Hermione."

"If you want advice on girls," Harry said in sudden inspiration but without pausing to think about what he was saying, "you should ask Hermione. She was dead on with everything about Cho, and –"

"I can't do that!" Ron cried, clearly horror-stricken. 

"Ginny, then," Harry said. "Though I'm not too sure about her … she either thinks Luna fancies you, or that you and Hermione are going to end up together."

"Forget it," Ron said, his face now as red as his hair and the blemishes a dark, alarming maroon. He went on toward Hagrid's, and Harry had to trot to keep up with his long-legged strides. 

Realizing that he had unwittingly struck a nerve, Harry almost asked Ron which girl he was interested in – Luna or Hermione. Both seemed on the surface to be ludicrous choices. Luna was, for all she had a well-meaning nature, something of a dingbat. And Hermione and Ron had been bickering nonstop for as long as Harry had known them.

Hagrid opened the door, his large body blotting out the firelight. His bearded face broke into a wide grin. "So yeh've brought Harry along, have yeh, Ron? Come in, come in, both o' yeh. I'm jest sortin' 'em, one fer ever'body."

Steeling himself like a man mounting the steps to the guillotine, Ron entered the cabin and Harry followed. Fang, the boarhound, slobbered a greeting. The warm, smoky single-room interior was sized to suit Hagrid, which meant that their feet didn't touch the floor when they sat at the large butcher-block table and the mugs of steaming tea were almost as capacious as the cauldrons they used in Potions class. 

The surface of the table was covered with many small wooden cups, shaped like thimbles that would have fit Hagrid's big fingers. Their lids, little caps, made them resemble oddly-shaped acorns. Each had a label affixed to the side, with students' names printed on them in Ron's handwriting. A disgusting, rotted smell arose from the cups. 

"Yeh're jest in time," Hagrid said happily. "I've got it all set up."

Apprehensive, Harry found a cup marked 'Potter' and lifted the lid gingerly, ready to slam it shut in a hurry if anything looked likely to jump out. Nothing did, but the rotten smell intensified. 

"I've already loaded 'em up with a bit o' raw meat," Hagrid explained, "an' let it ripen up fer a couple days. If yeh look closer, Harry, yeh'll see how it's gone nice and putrid. Now we jest have ter put the eggs in."

He brought the egg sac to the table, carrying it on a large serving tray like the world's worst meal. The sac was an oblong puffy cocoon of thick spiderweb strands, grimy grey instead of white, with leaves and twigs caught in the sticky strings. 

"You'll want these," Ron said, passing Harry a pair of gloves that were not merely the dragonhide they wore to protect their skin from corrosive ingredients in Snape's classroom, but a double thickness of dragonhide covered with a fine mesh of goblin-wrought chainmail. 

"Do I want to know why?" he asked, putting them on. 

"Once we start the cuttin', yeh'll know," Hagrid said, going to the hearth. 

The handles of his gardening shears poked out of the fire, and when he picked them up, the long blades were red-hot. He took out two pairs of metal tongs which had been heating as well, and gave these to Harry and Ron. 

Hagrid bent over the egg sac. He was usually so coarse and thundering in his movements that it was a surprise to see the delicacy with which he slid one of the shear-blades into the stringy webbing. He snipped, and the strands popped apart. Something blackish-green dribbled out, smoking when it hit the table. 

"Acidic venom," Hagrid said, sounding as proud as a new parent. "The mama spider secretes it, see. It don't hurt the spiders none, but it keeps any predators from tryin' t' get at the eggs. Now, go on an' reach inside."

"With my hands?" Gloves or no gloves, Harry wasn't about to stick his fingers into acidic venom of any sort. 

"With the tongs," Hagrid said. "Fish in there, real gentle-like. Eggs're about the size o' marbles. Fetch one out, an' put it in a cup."

While Hagrid held the sides of the slit in the egg sac open, Harry carefully poked the tongs down into the murky swamp of venom. Sure enough, there were objects rolling around in there, roundish ones about the size of marbles. 

"Don' go pinchin' too hard, now," Hagrid cautioned. 

Harry brought out the tongs, holding a spider egg. Ron took the lid off a cup and Harry deposited the egg inside. 

"Good job," Hagrid said. "That's one down already."

There were a lot of cups on the table, one for every student who was taking Care of Magical Creatures. And into each of them went a spider egg. Hagrid explained that even if the eggs hatched before the designated class, the spiderlings would be trapped inside and able to survive perfectly well on the scraps of rotted meat. 

"And what do we do with them after they hatch?" Harry asked. "Send them back to Aragog?"

"These lot are fer the castle," Hagrid said. "We'll train 'em up good an' turn 'em loose. Unless anybody's wantin' ter keep one fer a pet, mind. That'd be fine, too. Yeh've got yer cats, rats, toads, an' owls … why not a spider or two?"

"Why not?" echoed Ron hollowly. 

"Hagrid," Harry said, "are you sure it's all right? Letting them loose in the castle, I mean?"

"Sure! It's Dumbledore's own idear, ain't it?"

"It is?"

"Fer shame, Harry … yeh of all people should remember. Spiders, they have a way o' knowin' things. Sensin' things. Like if another basilisk turns up."

"What do you mean, another basilisk?" Harry's arm throbbed. The tears of a phoenix had healed the deadly wound, but he would never forget how it had felt to have the basilisk's fang plunge into his flesh. 

"It's because of You-Know-Who," Ron said.

"Been hearin' strange news," Hagrid said. "Yeh know a basilisk's no ordinary snake. Has ter come from a rooster's egg what's been brooded on by a toad, or summat. That's why they can't bear all the crowin'."

Hagrid went on about basilisks for some time, while Harry listened with half an ear and focused most of his concentration on transferring spider eggs into the individual wooden cups. He couldn't imagine that any of the third, fourth, fifth or sixth years would be overjoyed when they were given the cups with their names on. 

Nor did he particularly think they'd need a flock of skittering giant spiders roaming the Hogwarts halls. The basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets was dead, and even if Voldemort managed to get hold of another one, there was no way he could sneak it into Hogwarts. 

After, with their hands feeling hot and blistery despite the protective gloves, Harry and Ron helped Hagrid drain the rest of the venom into special flasks to be delivered to Professor Snape. 

"How's Grawp doing these days, Hagrid?" Harry asked, not wanting to think about the many uses Snape might have for spider venom.

Hagrid beamed. "Grawpy's fine, Harry, jest fine! He's got him a nice cave down deep in the Forest, settin' it up all homey with a bed o' rushes. There's not much that'll be givin' him any trouble."

"Even the centaurs?" Ron asked. 

"Er, well, yeh do know that the centaurs … well … they were none too pleased with ever'thing that happened las' year. Firs' Firenze up and leaves 'em, an' then there was that whole mess with yeh, Harry, an' Hermione, an' that Umbridge woman."

"What did happen?" Harry leaned forward. "Do you know? The last Hermione and I saw, the centaurs had carried Umbridge away and then Grawp charged in and started knocking them around. He didn't kill any, did he?"

"And Dumbledore went into the forest," Ron said. "He came back with Umbridge, but nobody ever said how he rescued her."

Hagrid scratched his vast beard. "Dunno how he managed that, myself. As fer the centaurs, after Grawpy walloped 'em around a bit, them as could run did run, as far an' as fast as they could. Them as couldn't run, well, a few of 'em still live nearby but they're wantin' nothing t' do with the likes o' us."

"Did … did Grawp …" Harry couldn't quite bring himself to ask if Hagrid's 'little' brother had killed any of the centaurs.

"Nah," Hagrid said. "Tol' yeh, didn't I, that Grawpy was getting' civilized?"

Harry and Ron left the hut a short time later, and headed for the castle. They didn't speak much, each lost in his own thoughts.

Saturday, the day of the scheduled team tryouts, dawned clear and gorgeous. It was a perfect September day for flying. Harry got up early, ate before anyone else, and went out to the Quidditch pitch. The six goal posts rose against a flawless blue sky. 

Taking advantage of a few free moments, Harry mounted his Firebolt and kicked off into the sky. It felt wonderful, the wind whipping past him, and he whooped aloud at the glorious sense of freedom. Except for that one brief ride with Tonks, the night she and Moody had burst in on him and Jane, he hadn't been on a broom in ages. His Firebolt had spent much of last year chained in Umbridge's office. 

He zoomed, he sped, he soared. Eventually, he saw that other people were arriving, and reluctantly descended to meet them. 

Several hopefuls had come to try out for the team, and all the veteran players were there. It gave Harry a strange feeling to see that everyone who'd been on the team when he had first become Seeker was now gone. The inexorable marching progress of time and graduation had seen to that.

Most of Gryffindor turned up to watch. Professors McGonagall and Golden were there, as was Madame Hooch. A handful of spectators from other Houses came as well, including Luna Lovegood from Ravenclaw and Tiberius Flint from Slytherin. 

Tiberius' older brother Marcus had been Slytherin captain. Harry remembered him all too well. Marcus had looked like a troll; Tiberius was lean and quick and looked more like a snake. 

Harry got the old team up in the air to fly a few practice moves before starting the tryouts. He was glad to see that Ron was not nearly as stiff and awkward as he had been the previous year. Harry hadn't ever had much of a chance to watch Ginny perform before, and he saw that while she'd been a decent Seeker, she really did have the competitive edge better suited to a Chaser. 

When the tryouts began, it was immediately apparent that Gryffindor second-year Gawain Gresham was the stand-out pick of the litter. His nickname, Flash, was well-deserved. He flew fast and well, and Madame Hooch informed Harry that not only did Gresham's father work for the Department of Magical Games and Sports, but that his mother was a columnist for Which Broomstick magazine. 

"Not to influence your decision, Potter," she added with a devilish twinkle in her eye, "but I'm told that if young Flash there makes the team, his parents have promised him a Nimbus Maximus, the new prototype that won't even be up for sale until just before the Christmas rush. It helps having connections."

McGonagall, who was near enough to overhear, shook her head in admiring delight. "A Firebolt and a Nimbus Maximus on the same team? I'd like to see any of the other Houses top that."

Harry put Flash through his paces and found that the younger boy – short, stocky, with a tuft of straw-blond hair and a wind-chapped face from a childhood spent almost as much on a broomstick as on his own two feet – was as natural a flyer as Harry himself. Flash lacked the patience to be a Seeker or Keeper, and was too good a sport to bat a Bludger at the head of an opposing player, but put a Quaffle in his hands and he was unstoppable. 

Next up was Dennis Creevey, Colin's younger brother. Dennis, like Colin, had come to Hogwarts a small, skinny kid. But unlike Colin, Dennis had undergone a growth spurt of Hagrid-esque proportions and put on thirty pounds of muscle, and probably could have passed for a sixteen-year-old in dim light. Dennis retained all of his usual devil-may-care enthusiasm, belting Bludgers with such vigor that he almost unseated Ginny and forced Harry into a spinning dive to avoid having his nose smashed. 

By the time tryouts were done, the sun was noontime-high and more of a crowd had gathered. Harry spotted a familiar dark ponytail in a cluster of Slytherins that had formed around Tiberius Flint. He barely caught himself in time to not wave to Jane Kirkallen. 

He landed, congratulated his new and improved team, then climbed into the stands to watch the Slytherin tryouts. He ached pleasantly from the exercise and his stomach was a growling beast, and when he saw the large picnic hamper that Neville had brought, he tore into a roast beef sandwich like he hadn't eaten in weeks. 

But his appetite began to fade as his earlier sense of disquiet returned. And it was more than a bothersome tickle at the back of his mind this time. It was like a phantom itch that he couldn't even locate, let alone scratch. 

"They're not flying very well at all, are they?" Hermione observed, peeling an orange into neat wedges with a spell Professor Flitwick had taught them on Thursday. 

"They never do," Harry said.

"No, she's right, they're worse than usual," Neville said. 

And if even Neville and Hermione, both of whom hated to fly, could tell … 

Harry took a closer look. Just as the Gryffindors had done, the veteran Slytherin players were flying a few practice goals and formations before beginning the tryouts. 

None of them had ever exactly been graceful in the air, except for Malfoy. Malfoy – it galled, but Harry did have to hand it to him – could fly almost as well as Flash Gresham. The others – even the two new girls on the Slytherin team – all tended to be beefy brutes who were more interested in midair collisions and committing physical fouls on the opposing players than they were in the skill of the game. 

Today, though, even Malfoy was off. He was easy to spot in the green-clad blurs, being smaller than the rest and having that white-blond hair. 

"Something's been bothering me all week," Harry said, watching as Goyle took a lackadaisical swing at a Bludger and missed. "I couldn't put my finger on it, but something's been missing. Do you know, Malfoy hasn't taunted me once since we got here?"

Hermione looked at him as if this should have been obvious to the thickest of people. Neville, though, bobbed his head with enlightenment dawning on his round face. 

"Ron, either," Harry continued. "And that should have been inevitable. You know he can't resist having a go at Ron, but here Ron's been Student Apprentice to Hagrid all this time and Malfoy hasn't said a word."

"He did lose two of his friends," Hermione said. "On the same day, no less."

"So?" The hard tone coming from Neville made both Hermione and Harry blink in surprise. "Does that mean we're supposed to feel sorry for him? For Draco Malfoy?"

"Well …" Hermione began, nonplussed. 

"I'm not saying I feel sorry for him," Harry said, though he was amazed to discover that he did, a little anyway. Sorrier, perhaps, for Goyle than for Malfoy.

"There's nothing wrong with it," Hermione said. "Crabbe and Nott may have been Slytherin, and we may not have liked them, but they were still human beings."

"Barely," Neville grumbled.

She poked him in the ribcage, and he winced. "They were boys," she said. "Boys our own age, and now they're dead. They aren't expelled, they aren't away on holiday. They are dead, and they're never coming back."

"Good thing, too." Ron walked up at that moment and helped himself to a chicken salad sandwich. "Can you imagine if they did come back? Crabbe, haunting the prefects' bathroom, naked and poached like an egg?"

"Ronald Weasley!" Hermione cried. "How can you say something like that? Have you no respect for the dead?"

"No respect for Slytherins, dead or alive," he said, unconcerned in the face of her ire. "Look at them up there. They fly like wounded elephants. And to think, I was worried I was no good."

"No, Hermione is right," Harry said heavily. "We should feel bad for them."

"Did they feel bad for you when your godfather died?" Neville replied, sticking his chin out. His normally mild eyes sparked with ire. "Malfoy's father was there and he would have killed us if he could. So pardon me if I refuse to feel bad on his behalf."

He got up and stalked off. Ron, eyes bulging with astonishment and cheeks bulging with chicken salad, mumbled something incoherent. 

"For goodness' sake, Ron!" Hermione lifted her gaze to the skies.

Ron chewed, swallowed, belched. "Sorry. I asked what you'd been talking about when I came up."

"Malfoy," Harry said. "Have you noticed, he hasn't had a go at either of us in ages?"

"Noticed? I've been thanking my lucky stars," Ron said. "I can do without his remarks."

"It feels wrong, though."

"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed. "Of course it does. You're used to having Malfoy as an adversary. You … you thrive on it."

"Gee, thanks a lot, Hermione. I happen to despise him."

"Exactly! And part of you enjoys despising him. It's no fun if you don't have anyone to struggle against."

"Excuse me?" He goggled at her. "I've got Voldemort to struggle against!"

"You're both impossible," she said, crumpling up the waxed paper that had wrapped her sandwich.

"Well, that's a lot of help," Ron said, brushing crumbs from his chin. In the bright sunshine, his pimples looked worse than ever. "What, you think we're so shallow that we can't feel good about ourselves unless we're getting the better of Malfoy? That Harry here can't enjoy his hero complex if he doesn't have a villain?"

"I've got a villain!" Harry exclaimed, flinging his hands in the air. "Didn't I just say so?"

"Pardon us, Hermione, if we think we can do bloody well without Malfoy," Ron said. "I had enough choruses of his version of 'Weasley is Our King' to last me a lifetime, thank you very much, and enough of his digs about my father's job and my family's house. If he's down in the dumps over Crabbe, that's a right shame and all, but it would suit me fine if he never came out of it. After all Harry and I have put up with, you don't hardly know what it's like –"

"I'm the one he calls a Mudblood!" Hermione shouted, then clapped her hand over her mouth as everyone nearby turned to stare, incredulous, in her direction. Quieter, she said, "So I think I have an idea what it's like, all right?"

"Hermione, Ron didn't mean –"

"Just forget it," she said, getting up in a flinging whirl of bushy brown hair. "You're hopelessly thick, both of you, thick as concrete."

"Hermione!" Ron called after her as she stormed off, but it was no use. She didn't look back. "I swear … girls!"

As if this had been a summons, Luna Lovegood drifted over and sank dreamily onto a bench. She poked through the picnic hamper, selected a bunch of grapes and popped one off the stem. "Do you know what I heard?" she asked in her vague, distant voice. 

"Everything, I reckon," Ron said. "None of that was what I'd call subtle."

"I heard that Professor Snape got the headmaster's permission for some of his students to form their own study group," Luna said, as if Ron hadn't spoken. "On the grounds that they don't think they would be welcome in ours."

"Oh, yeah?" Harry asked, not shocked in the least.

Ron, though, had just taken another big bite of chicken salad sandwich, and sputtered chunks of it down the front of his Quidditch robes. "What? Snape? A study group for Slytherins?"

"Well," Harry said, "can you see any of them coming to a D.A. meeting?"

"Not unless they wanted a helping of Bat Bogey Jinx," Ron said, glowering. "But you know a group like that wouldn't be studying defense spells! It'll be a damned Dark Arts group! And Dumbledore allowed it?"

Luna nodded. "You flew very well today," she said to Ron. "I was watching."

"I … uh …" he stammered, and swiped his sleeve across his face. "Thanks."

"I know it's disloyal to my own House," she said, twirling a strand of her dishwater-blond hair idly around her fingers, "but I think Gryffindor will win again this year."

"Thanks," Ron said again, and looked desperately at Harry for help. 

Harry rummaged in the hamper, pretending to sort through the sandwiches and really keeping an eye on Ron and Luna. She was gazing at him with what Harry thought a poet might describe as starry eyes, and never mind the pimples standing out in harsh relief in the bright sunshine, never mind the gobbets of chicken salad slopped all down the front of his robes. 

As the pause got longer and longer, it was on the tip of Harry's tongue to say something about the Hogsmeade weekend next month. But if he did that, there was a very good chance Ron might never speak to him again. 
Instead, when the silence became unbearable, he asked Luna what else she knew about this Slytherin study group.

"They're meeting Sunday evenings," she said. "I overheard Devona Stormdark and Jane Kirkallen talking about it in the bathroom."

Harry was sure that this was not at all coincidental. He risked a glance over at the Slytherins who sat watching a would-be Beater flailing madly at a Bludger, missing, and getting bowled over backwards as the Bludger plowed into his stomach. Luckily for him, he had only been five feet off the ground at the time, but he still landed hard. 
Jane was among the watchers, not the hopefuls. She sat near Pansy Parkinson, who screamed encouragement as Malfoy mounted his Nimbus Two Thousand and One, and Nadine Zellis. Jane's dark eyes met Harry's for just a moment, and then she looked away. But it was enough. He knew he was right. She'd let Luna overhear that discussion on purpose, confident that Luna would mention it to Harry.

Most of the rest of the weekend, he devoted to homework and lesson plans for the first D.A. meeting. Hermione was still exasperated with him, but she might have been less so if she knew how much time he spent staring blankly at his Transfiguration textbook while really mulling over what she'd said. 

Was that it? Did he … unbelievable as it sounded … did he miss Malfoy? Their constant enmity, verbal barbs thrown back and forth, even the occasional jinx when they thought they could get away with it … did he miss that? 

He did. He missed Draco-bloody-Malfoy, didn't feel the same edgy rush now around the pale, watchful stranger that had replaced his old enemy. 

Harry wasn't sure what that said about him. Did he need to define himself by contrast? Did he need, as Ron had suggested even though Ron had meant it sarcastically, a villain to be foil to his hero? 

Was he as bad as his father? It used to please him, the thought of being so like James. He still did want to, in part anyway. The good side of James was what Harry wanted to emulate. Not the posturing show-offy side. 

On Sunday, he turned down Ron's offer of a game of wizard chess after dinner, turned down Ginny and Dean's invitation to play Exploding Snap. Claiming to have a headache, he went up to his dormitory room and pulled the curtains of his four-poster.

The mirror was wrapped in cloth in the drawer of his bedside table, keeping company with a Quidditch play book, a glasses case that he always forgot to use, some loose change, a bent quill, a bar of Honeydukes chocolate, the photo album with the pictures of his parents, and a few Chocolate Frog cards – including Circe, because Circe was blonde and shapely and shown wearing a very sheer and skimpy toga-robe. 

He took it out, unwrapped it, touched the smooth dark glass, and said Jane's name. 

His reflection wavered, but all he found himself looking at was the inside of another drawer, with thin ribbons of light coming in through the cracks. He thought he could make out the shape of the box Jane had been carrying that night at the Leaky Cauldron, the one with which she'd cracked Kreacher over the head. The lid was ajar, and from the odd angle of the mirror he could just glimpse the feathery tuft of what might have been a quill, and something with the smooth sheen of glass.

But he did not see Jane. 

**

Continued in Chapter Fifteen -- Voices in the Silence.