Lord Harry Potter and the Whispers of Lady Polixenes - Chapter 20 - lily_winterwood - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter Text

Lady Polixenes’ Hogwarts Secrets:
An Account of the Goings-On at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Issue 9

Dearest Students,

Let’s lighten the mood, shall we?

Numerous readers have expressed their curiosity regarding my whereabouts during the recent winter holiday. Some, I think, would even endeavour to use such information to unmask me. Of course, I am already aware of several theories, many of which are laughably incorrect. You do not know me, but I certainly know you.

So let’s start with the recent Yule Ball. A certain creative couple appear to have escalated their courtship into the zone of exclusivity. Attendees of the ball report that they were “inseparable” and “enamoured” with one another, and both families spent the evening in deep conversation whilst the happy couple shared no less than three dances. The young woman in question must be making her namesake proud, as she now appears to be sporting a new golden bangle on her wrist—another courtship gift, and quite possibly one of serious commitment. This author wishes them all the best.

In similar happy news, this Yule Ball was a “Fiesta” for two young men who had previously said “Sayonara” to one another after one of their mothers attempted to set her son up with “A Nice Pureblood Gal”. But that poor boy just couldn’t seem to drink his previous beau off his mind, because at this past Yule Ball, they publicly declared that “This Is the Night” and that they would “Love [each other] ’Till the End”. “Magic Works”, I suppose, because now they are reported to be “Do[ing] the Hippogriff” up in their dormitory rather regularly, to the dismay of all the other inhabitants.

But not all developments this past winter have been happy. A young man who chose the Muggleborn community over a Courtship Date is now facing strained relationships not only with his former girlfriend and her family but also with his own Sponsor family. As it turns out, they had been pushing for him to form this alliance out of a desire to access her family’s gemstone mines. (Whether said mines are actually located in reality or in the celestial dimension of Avalon remains to be seen.) This match, they reportedly told him, would be advantageous for him as a descendant of a Squib who broke their covenant with Mother Magic. His scepticism held out, however, because what advantage is there in having in-laws so dense that they think a man who had been seven during the worst attacks of the Knights of Camelot is now their shadowy, evil leader?

The Black-and-Silver Ball also carried its fair share of news: the absence of a certain evergreen, plant-loving heir was noted, alongside those of the New Bloods that he was Sponsoring. This connection is already bearing fruit, however, as sources in Hufflepuff say that a young Rose of an Attributed House has recently received a small bouquet of lilacs, white rosebuds, and meadowsweet from the elder brother. This would be considerably more romantic if it were not for the fact that the girl in question is a first-year, and the presence of the meadowsweet in said bouquet suggests that the brother is willing to wait four years for her to reach Bonding age before he swoops in to claim her.

Perhaps this new New Blood is simply following a time-honoured Pureblood tradition, given that this is the same Circle that continues to harbour predators like Lord Avery. But if he had to pick a girl the same age as his brother, then surely he could do better: his Rose by any other name would still smell as odious, given how she’s alleged to be one of the ‘anonymous concerns’ that led to Madam Inquisitor’s ham-fisted attempt to dictate what toilets we could use back in November.

In any case, the biggest surprise of the Black-and-Silver Ball was not the absence of the twinkle-toed valiant heir, or the presence of international Quidditch stars—it was a development in the ongoing saga of the vigilant silver dragon-knight’s quest for true love. Contrary to previous issues of this paper, said knight is not being courted by an old lady who believes that vultures are the height of hair fashion, nor by a potioneering heir from snowy Scandinavia. (And it’s Sweden, not Norway, and definitely not ‘Norwegia’, whatever that means.) In fact, up until the publication of the last issue of this humble leaflet, the knight was being courted in secret by a certain honourable lord-bishop. The two were spotted doing three dances at the Black-and-Silver Ball, and the silver-and-opal hair clip that the knight had been wearing throughout January was reportedly a present from his beloved bishop. Unfortunately for our star-crossed lovers, however, certain recent political revelations have driven the dragon-knight back to his lair with his tail between his legs, abandoning his bishop to the care of a discerning young widow looking for some love to fill the void inside her.

It’s a dismaying development, to be sure, but worse things—like the dismissal of our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for failing to disclose his Bonds—have happened last month. I, personally, cannot fault the bishop for tiring of the knight’s persnickety adherence to traditions that have only ever harmed him, or of the frankly draconian safeguards on the knight’s chastity that his parents have foisted upon him. If the bishop had persisted, he would have inevitably found himself as the substitute in a Bonding contract that would add him to the dragon’s hoard—a commitment that he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not serious about.

On a final note: our last issue appears to have caused some controversy outside the mill-pond of Hogwarts gossip. This is not a retraction, because what I wrote had been the truth when I wrote it, and is still the truth even now. It was even confirmed recently in the Prophet. So if you’re inclined to believe a paper that was recently sued for libel instead of me, then by all means, be my guest.

In the meantime, I remain,

Yours Truly,
Lady Polixenes

Harry woke up to the feeling of someone else in bed with him.

This wasn’t the first time he’d spent the night out of Gryffindor Tower, but most times that this happened, he would wake up alone. Qiu was a light sleeper; she rose with the sun and would be up and out of the Room of Requirement before he even got his glasses on.

But today was one of those rare mornings, it seemed. Harry kept his eyes closed, shifting himself closer to her warmth. When he was pressed against her back with his nose in her hair, he could almost pretend he was holding someone else.

She, too, seemed to be thinking similarly. “What time is it, Ced?” she muttered, her voice thick with sleep. Harry hummed but said nothing else as he continued to press kisses to her shoulder. She let him carry on for a couple minutes, before reaching out and groping for something underneath her pillow.

“What are you doing?” grumbled Harry as he moved his hand below the covers to settle on her hips.

“Looking for my wand.” Qiu shifted a little bit out of his reach, detangling their legs as she went. “Daft old thing must’ve sprouted legs and wandered off.”

Harry snorted. “Does it do that often?”

Qiu ignored him, now slipping out of bed to search underneath it. With a groan, Harry rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and grabbed his own wand from the bedside table.

“Accio wand,” he said, and Qiu’s wand came zooming out from the space behind the headboard into his hands.

He could feel Qiu smiling against his lips when she surged in to kiss him. “Thank you,” she breathed into the space between, before clambering back on top of him for a proper snog. In the morning light, she was a blur of long black hair and ivory-pale skin; Harry rarely ever got a good look at her during these trysts because she’d take his glasses off at the first possible moment.

That was fine. He was getting good at pretending, and so was she.

“Hold on,” whispered Qiu after a couple more kisses. “I did actually want to check the time.”

Harry stilled his hand, still keeping his eyes closed. He only opened them when she gave a quiet curse and tried to shift off of him.

“It’s breakfast time,” she protested, when he tried to reel her back in. “I don’t want to be late—my roommates will ask where I was, Marietta—”

“Can wait,” finished Harry, reaching out to tuck a bit of her hair behind her ear. She ducked her head, crossing her arms over her chest in some last-ditch effort to preserve her modesty. “Please? It’s not Monday until we leave this room.”

Qiu laughed, a sound which quickly turned breathless as Harry toppled her back onto the duvet. “Cedric wouldn’t have made me late for breakfast,” she rebuked, in between heated kisses.

And Draco would’ve skived off breakfast altogether, Harry didn’t say, as he closed his eyes again and fell back into pretending.

Like always, Qiu was the first to leave afterwards, rehearsing her usual excuse about homework under her breath as she kissed Harry goodbye. Harry, in turn, took his time getting back into his robes, grimacing as he rolled back on his socks from yesterday. This was the worst part of the morning after: putting on old clothes and old faces and heading back out into the fray. Only the possibility of another encounter—another evening free from the prying, judgemental eyes of the rest of Hogwarts—could push him down to the Great Hall for breakfast…

“Since when were you in Ravenclaw, mate?” asked Ron, nearly causing Harry to spill pumpkin juice down his front. He looked down and saw, much to his dismay, that he and Qiu must have grabbed each other’s scarves by mistake.

The Ravenclaw blue-and-bronze was a lot more stark in the light of the Great Hall, after all.

“Dunno, must’ve nicked it by mistake.” Harry shrugged as he unwound the scarf and stuffed it into his bag. Ron raised a disbelieving eyebrow at that. “What? It’s probably Luna’s; I’ll just give it—”

Ron jerked a thumb across the hall towards the Ravenclaw table, where enough space had been left around Qiu Zhang to make the Gryffindor scarf around her neck plainly obvious.

“There’s been a new Lady P,” he added, with a glance down the Gryffindor table at the fortress of books surrounding Hermione. Harry’s heart gave a protesting twinge at that—even after weeks of silence and sniping, Hermione’s betrayal of the Malfoys and Regulus still smarted like a freshly-opened wound.

“I don’t read Lady P anymore,” he muttered, sullenly splashing milk into his cereal bowl. “So if she thinks she can shame me, then she’s being just as daft as the Circle of—”

Smack. The leaflet hit his chest and toppled into his hands. Annoyed, Harry took the parchment and skimmed through it, his stomach turning when he saw what had been written:

In fact, up until the publication of the last issue of this humble leaflet, the knight was being courted in secret by a certain honourable lord-bishop.

If he ever needed proof that Hermione was Lady Polixenes, this would have been it. The leaflet went on to mention things only people very close to the two of them could have known about: their ‘three dances at the Black-and-Silver Ball’, the ‘silver-and-opal hair clip’ that he had given Draco, and how ‘certain recent political revelations’ had caused Draco to flee ‘back to his lair with his tail between his legs’. He glanced over at the Slytherin table, wondering if Draco had read this issue as well, but all he could get was a glimpse of silver-blond before Crabbe moved into his line of sight and cracked his knuckles pointedly at him.

“A discerning young widow, is it?” wondered Ron as he helped himself to some more tea. “Did you manage to fill her void with your love, Harry?”

Harry glanced away from the Slytherins, feeling like he was going to be sick. “She didn’t have to put it like that,” he grumbled, glowering down the table at Hermione’s fortress of books. “We just meet up sometimes. It’s not that serious for either of us.”

“Not that serious—” Ron cut off, dragging his hands down his face in disbelief. “Merlin, Harry. You’ve been spending the night. You could’ve Bonded—”

“She’s not in my head, Ron; we’ve been using Muggle protection—”

“But if you’ve snogged her already, you might not be able to have a Maiden’s Kiss with anyone else—”

“Great! I don’t want to have a Maiden’s Kiss with anyone!” snapped Harry, crumpling the leaflet in his hands. “I’ve got this whole thing under control, Ron, so can you please stop acting like a git from the Circle and just leave us alone?!”

Ron groaned. “Mate, I’m trying to stop you from putting your foot in it more than you already have. What happened to not being able to get Malfoy out of your head? Or the Astronomy Tower meeting, or—or having his—”

Harry shoved a hand over Ron’s mouth before he could say anything about Draco’s hair. “All of that happened before Hermione threw Reg and the Malfoys to the wolves,” he pointed out. “You took her side on that, so don’t be so surprised that things didn’t work out. He wants nothing to do with us anymore.”

“But how long has that—” Ron jerked his head back to the Ravenclaw table, where Qiu and Marietta now appeared to be having a row. “How long have you two been…”

Harry wrinkled his nose. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, actually—”

“You started lingering after the DA meetings a long time ago.” Ron’s brows furrowed, as he assembled his mental timeline. “You were sneaking into bed at five in the morning even before Bonnefoy got sacked! I knew you’d moved on even before this—” he gestured to the leaflet crumpled in Harry’s hand, “but don’t you think it happened a bit too fast?”

“Too fast?” Harry was dimly aware of some of the others at the Gryffindor table sending odd looks at him. It made him feel hot under his collar, and not in a good way. “So, what, you’d rather I be miserable? Mope around the castle like the Bloody Baron’s apprentice?”

Ron heaved a sigh, taking a bite of toast to buy himself some more time to respond. In turn, Harry snuck another glance at the Slytherin table. Draco was now stumbling to his feet, his expression clearly grey with shock even from across the hall.

Apparently a month apart hadn’t rid Harry of his ability to read Draco Malfoy like a book. The part of him that liked to pretend—the part of his heart that still fluttered whenever Draco accidentally glanced his way in class—hoped that he would never lose it.

“Do you even see yourself, Harry?” Ron’s voice now sounded oddly distant, as Harry watched Draco walk to the Great Hall doors. “You still look miserable, even with one of the best-looking girls in school willing to—to invite you into her secret boudoir—”

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the pounding of Harry’s heartbeat in his ears. Before he knew it, he was rising to his feet, just as Draco caught his gaze over at the doors. A hush swept through the rest of the hall, as people put down their leaflets to see what Lady Polixenes’ words had wrought.

The length of the Great Hall had never felt like an ocean before. Just a month ago, Harry would have crossed it in an instant; the choice then had been as easy as breathing, as clear as daylight. But now Draco wanted nothing to do with him, and it was that knowledge that carried Harry’s legs in the completely wrong direction.

He returned Qiu’s scarf to her, and the loud slam of the Great Hall doors as Draco left was all the confirmation that the rest of the school needed. Once again, Lady Polixenes had spoken the truth.

The hall broke out into whispers almost immediately.

This time last year, Harry had been snowed in almost every morning with vitriolic abuse from Daily Prophet readers who didn’t like the idea that he had once gone out with a Muggle. An equal—if not greater—amount of hatred had been sent to Hermione, because in that same Prophet article, Madam Skeeter had accused Hermione of stepping out on a Bonding contract with him in order to pursue Viktor Krum, and of having used love potions to secure them both.

How ironic was it that Hermione, once a victim of Madam Skeeter’s poison pen, would be the one to turn the pen on Harry?

“Well, it was inevitable that you’d get hit with the Stinksap, after handling your mimbletonia the way you did,” remarked Neville dryly during Herbology a couple days later, as they were collecting Flutterby pollen for Potions. Ron and Hermione had left Harry for Ernie and Hannah, so Neville had taken pity on Harry and brought him over to work with two Hufflepuff boys Harry didn’t recognise.

Not that it would have mattered, since they—and all the other Hufflepuffs—kept looking at him like he’d murdered their mothers or something.

Harry grimaced as he held up the stasis pouch to another Flutterby bud. “You don’t have to say it like that.”

Neville’s response was to cut off the bud, causing Harry to be hit in the face with the sweet scent of bergamot and baked apple. For a moment he breathed in deep, before catching himself and dissipating the smell with a wave of his hand.

“What?” he demanded, when Neville raised an eyebrow at him. “It didn’t—it smelled like—” What did Qiu even smell like, anyway? “Powdered sugar and… perfume!”

Neville snorted disbelievingly. “Well, at least Heiress Zhang is pretty,” he conceded, as he reached into the pouch and shook out the rest of the pollen from the bud. “And she’s not related to anyone who likes to torture people for fun.”

“It’s not Draco’s fault that half his family should be sectioned,” scoffed Harry. “And he’s just as pretty as—” he caught himself with a wary glance at the two Hufflepuff boys at their workstation, “I mean, he’s practically drowning in courtship offers now!”

Neville raised an eyebrow. “How many has he got already?”

Harry hadn’t been paying that much attention to Draco’s growing list of admirers, but: “Somewhere around ten bouquets of intent, a box of truffles, and seventeen letters that he got Pansy to read before she burned them for him.”

“And that’s with his dad accused of being a Knight of Camelot, too.” Neville shook his head, gesturing for Harry to ready the stasis pouch under another Flutterby bud. “Whatever happened to standards?”

Harry pouted. “Hey.”

“Sorry,” replied Neville, unrepentant, and then snipped the bud to spew more apple tart and Grey Lady tea into Harry’s face.

“The Hufflepuffs think you moved in too fast after Qiu left her mourning period,” said Hermione matter-of-factly after Runes that afternoon, after both Draco and Justin Finch-Fletchley had spent the whole class using her as a go-between for them and Harry. “I think they think you’re leading her astray.”

Harry nearly crashed into the circular birdcage as he boggled at her. “What? How? You make it sound like I was lying in wait to ambush her—”

“It’s just what they think.” Hermione shrugged, clearly unsympathetic. “I mean, no one knows what the two of you talked about when you were meeting her in private during her mourning period…”

“Cedric,” snapped Harry. “She did nothing but talk about Cedric. And I didn’t really want to be there; I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time—”

“Three times, Harry,” Hermione reminded him. “You were spotted in her company at least three times. There were the walks, and the meeting at Hagrid’s, and that other meeting in December with the hug—”

“What was I supposed to do about it, kick her out of the Order?” demanded Harry.

“Of course not!” Hermione sounded scandalised. “I’m just trying to explain why the Hufflepuffs are mad about it! I think they just wish you hadn’t jumped into bed—into a courtship with her so quickly!”

“We’re not court—” Harry cut off, feeling like he’d had enough of this kind of conversation to last him a lifetime. “Actually, you know what, we’re not talking about this anymore. You’re just going to put it into another one of your leaflets and air it out to the rest of the school.”

A look of absolute misery flashed across Hermione’s face. “I’m sorry, Harry. Umbridge was onto me about writing those things; I had to—”

“Throw her off the scent by censoring yourself, so you threw me under the bus and offered her my run-over corpse instead,” retorted Harry hotly, picking up the pace so that he didn’t have to hear any more of her excuses. “You know, for someone who hates Lavender’s gossiping, you were really quick to copy her with that leaflet of yours—”

Hermione’s jaw dropped in affront. “But I write about the truth, Harry!”

“And I don’t care, because you took an already sh*tty situation of your own making and kicked it right in the—”

“Harry, that’s enough!”

Harry flinched from her placating hand and shouldered his bag. “Stay away from me.”

Previous fights with his friends had him sitting with other friends during meals, but this time things felt different. He couldn’t sit with Hermione after what she had done, but he couldn’t sit with Ron, either, because Ron kept rubbing lemon juice into the Draco-shaped wound in his heart. Neville wasn’t much better than Ron, Ginny seemed to be dealing with her own problems, and even glancing towards the Hufflepuffs felt like wandering too close to a hornet’s nest.

So that left him with Luna, who was sitting with Astoria in her usual no-man’s-land portion of the Ravenclaw table. Qiu was also there with them tonight, ignoring the suspicious and pitying looks from her friends further down the table. As Harry sat down beside her, he could hear them turning to whisper amongst each other.

“Oh, here he is,” trilled Luna, beaming at Harry. “The other half of the Vanishing Cabinet courtship.”

Astoria snorted. Harry, however, must have looked very confused, because Luna had to explain further:

“An object in a Vanishing Cabinet is neither here nor there, until you’ve opened the cabinet to check.”

Astoria collapsed into even more giggles. Harry didn’t think the joke was terribly funny, though, given how the last time a Vanishing Cabinet had been involved in one of his courtships, someone had almost died.

“How’ve you been?” he asked instead, as he helped himself to some soup.

Qiu gave him a smile and a shrug, but Luna piped up with, “Some Nargles left her rude messages in the changing room after Quidditch practice.”

“Luna,” protested Qiu, ducking behind her straight black fringe. “Harry doesn’t want to hear about that—”

“If he’s Bonded with you, then your safety is his responsibility,” cut in Astoria firmly, narrowing her eyes at Harry.

“We haven’t Bonded,” said Harry, frowning back at her.

Astoria blinked. “Not… Bonded? But people keep saying—”

“Harry had to move to the Muggle world when he was a baby; maybe he’s not anointed,” suggested Luna.

“I don’t think Mother Magic would recognise him as Lord Potter if he wasn’t anointed,” countered Astoria, before shaking her head at Harry. “I just don’t understand why you want to do things in the Muggle fashion, Lord Potter. If you compromise your virtue, then you’ll never be able to—”

“Good.”

Harry would have expected himself to say that, not Qiu. And yet there she was, fixing Astoria with a watery but dark glare.

“You don’t know what it’s like to have your Bonded ripped from you,” continued Qiu, in a voice still thick with her widowed grief. “No one who’s still at Hogwarts should ever have to go through what I went through—or run that risk just because they’re trying to figure out love for the very first time.”

Astoria pursed her lips. “But magic as powerful as the Bonding act can’t just be done for fun,” she insisted. “There are consequences—the creation of new life, the mingling of magic—which can’t be left up to chance or irresponsibility!”

“So you think we’re being irresponsible?” demanded Qiu. Harry looked between the two girls, alarmed, before reaching out to take Qiu’s hand. She flashed him a quick half-smile before fixing her glare back on Astoria. “Well, queue up then, Lady Astoria—everyone else here seems to think the same.”

Astoria winced. “Heiress Zhang, I didn’t mean—”

“Someone sent me this in Charms today,” said Qiu flatly, producing a parchment square and slamming it down on the table. Harry only got a glimpse of a crude drawing of Qiu with dog ears and a collar before Astoria was snatching it up and folding it away, her expression scandalised.

“Nargles can be so rude,” said Luna, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t let them get to you, Heiress Zhang.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Qiu through her teeth. Her hand trembled in Harry’s. He made a mental note to keep an eye on her incoming mail for Bubotuber pus from now on.

There was, however, a difference between receiving hate from outside the castle, and receiving hate from inside it. A couple mornings later, the Ravenclaw table was vandalised with words like ‘HARLOT’, ‘HUSSY’, ‘TROLLOP’ and ‘TEMPTRESS’. This was followed the next morning by the policy wall in the entrance hall being defaced with ‘THE FALL OF AVALON BEGAN WITH A SELFISH HIGH QUEEN’. And even though Umbridge and Filch were already trying to get rid of the messages by the time Harry and Qiu made it downstairs, the damage had already been done.

The school was out to ruin another girl’s life because of Harry, and this time, he actually had compromised her.

“I can’t believe you’re actually making a bouquet of intent,” fretted Ron as he followed Harry through the greenhouse. “Who are you, and what have you done with Harry Potter?”

Harry ignored him, consulting the scrap of parchment in his hands. “Neville said the Eternal Plum was three rows to the left of the Giant Maple, between the Hairy Ficus and the Exploding Grapetree…”

“Don’t like the sound of that,” said Ron, as he reached out to touch an odd black pustule-like thing growing out of the tree they had just passed. Before he could, however, it exploded in his face, causing him to curse loudly.

“Looks like we’ve found the Exploding Grapetree,” observed Harry, earning himself a rude gesture. Sure enough, the tree right next to this one was laden with vibrant pink blossoms instead of large black pustules.

The Eternal Plum, which according to Neville bloomed year-round but only produced fruit once a century, looked a lot less sturdy than its name might suggest, so Harry had Ron cast Mobilicorpus on him so that he could get a better look. “What happened to not wanting someone in your head, Harry?” wondered Ron as Harry started casting around for the most blossom-laden branch he could find. “Or not wanting to have a Maiden’s Kiss? You used to hate the word ‘courtship’, but now…”

“I started this mess, but people are punishing Qiu for it,” said Harry, as he snipped a small cutting of the Eternal Plum with his wand. “So I’ve got to get her out.”

Ron made an incredulous noise. “It’s always about getting someone out of a bad situation with you, isn’t it?”

Harry rolled his eyes, even though he knew Ron couldn’t see. “I never asked Hermione to tell the whole school about me and Qiu,” he pointed out. “That part’s on her.”

There was a contemplative pause. “Well, I suppose it’s good that you’re taking responsibility for this.”

Harry gestured downwards with his free hand, and Ron started lowering him down from the boughs. “You suppose?” he questioned.

Ron grimaced. “Bill went through a string of girlfriends in his last year at Hogwarts,” he explained. “Bunch of girls wanted to rebel by going on Courtship Dates with a blood traitor’s heir, and it completely messed with his head. I’m just worried that that’s what’s happening here.”

He cancelled the spell a little too soon, causing Harry to stumble as his feet slammed into the ground. The plum blossoms gave a shudder, and a couple petals fell out.

Harry quickly immobilised the rest of the cutting to try and give it a better chance of surviving the trek back to the castle. “Qiu’s an heiress in her own right, though,” he pointed out. “She doesn’t need to become Lady Potter.”

What an odd idea, having a Lady Potter at all. Just thinking about it made Harry’s skin crawl.

Ron hummed. “But if this gets serious, she’ll still end up becoming Lady Potter.”

“Neither of us want it to be serious,” said Harry. At least that was something he and Qiu could agree on, whenever they did get a chance to talk during their trysts. Most of the time, they were both busy playing pretend. “We’re not in a rush to Bond. She’s had enough of that.”

“So you’re completely over Malfoy, then?” asked Ron, causing Harry to groan and start heading for the greenhouse exit. “What? It’s a simple question, Harry—last week you were still making kicked-cruppy eyes at him from across the Great Hall!”

“Yeah, that was before the whole school decided to call Qiu names,” snapped Harry. To his grim satisfaction, Ron didn’t have anything to say to that.

They joined the crowds coming back from the Quidditch pitch for lunch. People were dressed in either Slytherin or Ravenclaw colours, and the Slytherin supporters looked a great deal happier than the Ravenclaw ones. “Sounds like the dream team struck again,” remarked Ron as they passed by some green-and-silver supporters gleefully re-enacting the final dive for the Snitch. “Maybe you could cheer Qiu up with your bouquet!”

A pair of Slytherin seventh-years walked by at that moment, gloating about how Pansy had ‘thrashed that selfish Ravenclaw chit’. It took Ron’s warning hand on Harry’s arm for him to realise he was gripping the plum cuttings tight enough to make the blossoms tremble.

Crookshanks came wandering over to them at the doors to the Great Hall, and took the flowers from Harry’s hand. However, much to Harry’s chagrin, the useless old furball immediately turned tail for the dungeons.

“No, this way!” hissed Harry, prodding Crookshanks towards the Great Hall instead.

Crookshanks sent him a disdainful look, and then tried to head for the Slytherin table. Harry groaned and scooped him up, carrying him over to where the Ravenclaw Quidditch team were commiserating over sandwiches and soup.

A hush fell over everyone in the vicinity the moment he showed up. The moment Crookshanks saw Qiu, he promptly dropped the plum blossoms right into her lap, before wriggling himself out of Harry’s arms and stalking off to the High Table to pester Severina. That left Harry to chuckle nervously and rub at the back of his head, especially as Qiu picked up the cutting and examined it critically.

“Is this from the Eternal Plum?” she asked after a moment.

Harry had the sudden feeling that maybe he shouldn’t have cut off some flowers from a tree called ‘eternal’ anything. “Yeah,” he admitted.

One of the Ravenclaw Beaters wolf-whistled, causing Qiu to send him a sharp look. “I’m sorry about him,” she told Harry, before turning her attention back to the immobilised pink blossoms. “This is really sweet. Thank you.”

Harry felt like his tongue was tying itself into knots. “You’re—you’re welcome.” And, before he lost the nerve: “Wannagohogsmeadewime?”

This was ridiculous. He’d seen her starkers, for god’s sake!

Qiu’s brows furrowed as she tried to parse his babbling. “I’m sorry, did you say you wanted to go to—”

“Hogsmeade,” confirmed Harry, his cheeks already blazing from the eyes of the rest of the Great Hall. “With me.”

“As a Courtship Date?”

Harry nodded numbly.

Qiu looked down at the blossoms, and then around at their little audience. Her fellow teammates were giving her the thumbs-up. Luna was beaming encouragingly at them both. Marietta was looking put-out, her arms crossed and her expression disdainful. The Slytherins at the next table had also frozen with disbelief, though Harry didn’t want to look too hard at them.

(He didn’t want to see Draco’s reaction to this.)

After a moment, Qiu sighed and buried her nose into the flowers, and gave a small nod. “I accept,” she said quietly, looking up at Harry through her dark lashes.

Harry coughed. “Great. So that’s settled, then.” He paused. “Was I supposed to say some prissy Pureblood thing like ‘I hope it finds favour in your eyes’ or something?”

The plum blossoms trembled as Qiu hid her giggles in them. “I think that was supposed to come before you asking me on a Courtship Date to Hogsmeade, Harry.”

“Oh.” Harry’s face was practically on fire by this point. To stave off more embarrassment, he quickly swooped in and pecked her on the cheek. Thankfully, the applause nearby told him he hadn’t co*cked it up too badly.

And so the March thaw was mirrored by a similar thawing inside the castle. The Hufflepuffs started talking to Harry again, and the Ravenclaws seemed a bit more forthcoming as well. Neville and Ron also laid off needling him about Draco, which was well and fine, because every time Harry looked over at the Slytherin table during mealtimes, he would lose his appetite.

Pretty soon, he wasn’t looking over there at all.

“Congratulations on your courtship, Lord Potter,” remarked Professor Liu a couple nights before the Hogsmeade Courtship Date. The two of them were sitting on cushions in the Customs and Etiquette classroom, with soothing music coming out of a nearby gramophone.

Harry took a deep breath. “Who told you about that, Professor?” he wondered, even as he finished tidying up and storing away some thoughts from earlier this evening. They had been very nice ones involving Qiu and a quiet, secluded spot under the stands of the Quidditch pitch, and a promise to meet again tomorrow night.

Liu raised an eyebrow at him. “It was one of your first thoughts,” he pointed out. “Practically on your mind’s welcome mat. If that’s not where you want it to be…”

“Put it away,” agreed Harry, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to visualise this. Drag the courtship away from the front door, toss it into his room and shove it into the trunk…

“Are you ready?” asked Liu. Harry slammed the trunk lid closed on the thought and nodded. “Open your eyes, then. Legilimens.”

Harry barely had time to inhale before the pressure of Professor Liu’s presence came slamming into him. The trunk is closed, he repeated to himself. The trunk is closed; don’t look into the trunk—

The trunk is filled with the memories of Qiu’s lips on his and her hands on his skin and her moans in his ear as she tugged his hair in pleasure—

“You drew my attention to the trunk almost immediately,” reminded Liu’s voice, so much more patiently than Severina’s ever was. “Think of something else. Close the door.”

Harry took a deep breath. The trunk began to overflow with plum blossoms and Qiu’s laughter as she accepted his Courtship Date and the clenching in his stomach whenever he got a glimpse of pale blond hair and Slytherin green-and-silver—

“You still look miserable,” said Ron, as Harry ran the blue-and-bronze Ravenclaw scarf through his fingers. “Even with one of the best-looking girls in school on your arm, you’d rather pine after—”

“Your stupid mimbletonia—” chipped in Neville’s voice over Ron’s moving mouth, as Harry shuffled like a zombie across the Great Hall towards Qiu…

“—Draco sodding Malfoy!” Ginny’s voice pitched in. “You’re pathetic!”

The pressure eased with a sigh from Professor Liu. “You are distracted tonight, Lord Potter,” he observed. “The more you think about the secrets that you don’t want me to see, the more prominent those secrets become.”

“Sorry, Professor, I’ll put them away,” muttered Harry, his hands clenched tight against his knees.

“Take a deep breath, Harry.” Liu leaned back on his cushion, folding his hands in his lap. “Relax your hands. Feel the weight of yourself on the cushion, and the way your breath moves in and out of you.”

Harry tried. The opal hair clip kept shattering as Draco walked away, while Harry himself was rooted to the ground, unable to pick up the pieces because it would mean bending the knee…

“I can’t,” he admitted after a moment. His stomach was tying itself into knots. He clenched and unclenched his hands, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Would you like me to walk it through with you?” Liu asked gently. Harry nodded. “Then open your eyes. Walls down; open the trunk. Are you ready? Legilimens.”

Harry gasped. The sound of the Corrs began to fill the sixth-floor corridor as Draco nodded along to Harry’s Walkman. In his fantasies, Harry had replayed this night a thousand times, with wildly different outcomes each time. Right now, all he could do was let it happen in its original form, for the sake of Professor Liu.

They reached their parting point for the night. “Have you got plans for Hogsmeade, then?” Harry asked, his heartbeat echoing in his ears.

Draco’s foot paused atop the first step. “I thought you told Heiress Zhang that it was too early to plan for Hogsmeade,” he remarked, turning around with a hopeful expression.

“You’re not Heiress Zhang,” was Harry’s simple response as he took Draco’s hands, and the way those storm-grey eyes lit up made his insides as warm and bright as summer…

“And now you’re going to Hogsmeade with Heiress Zhang.” Liu’s voice jolted Harry back out of his memory-self. The Customs and Etiquette professor was standing a couple steps down on the staircase, with the faintest hint of a smile. “This heartstring tug-of-war of yours has been your biggest obstacle to successfully defending yourself from mental attack, Lord Potter.”

Harry looked up at his memory-self and Draco. “He thinks I betrayed him. What more can I do?”

“Shall we see?” Liu took his arm, and suddenly they were back in the Room of Hidden Things.

“I’ve been a fool this whole time,” Draco was snarling, his voice now as piercing as winter sleet. “I vouched for you, Potter; I thought you accepted me for who I was.”

“I did,” pleaded Harry, lurching away from his memory-self in the wild hope of catching the clip before it hit the ground this time. The clip still fell right through his hand, like he was a ghost. “Draco, I’m sorry, please—we can talk about this—”

In his fantasies, this could have ended differently. But this was the memory, and the memory continued to play like a film, leaving Harry to look down at the shattered hair clip at his feet and try to swallow back his tears.

The trunk was open, bursting with plum blossoms that smelt like blood, like Boggart-Draco bleeding out on the grass which became the very real Cedric, became Qiu weeping in his arms as he held her in the Room of Requirement, became Draco sobbing in that very same place as he screamed out why—

Why did it have to be you?

Why did we have to become friends, if this is what comes of it?

“Harry,” said Liu, and Harry looked up to find himself sitting on the grass in the Triwizard hedge maze, the stars wheeling bright within their green-trimmed frames. “What do you feel underneath you?”

“I feel the grass,” said Harry, frowning as his hands reached out and touched the cushion instead. “No, I feel a cushion, and a carpet, and stone…”

“You’re not in the maze,” agreed Liu. “The maze is a memory, like all the other memories we’ve seen.”

“Roll it up and put it away,” said Harry, willing himself back to his feet. He grabbed the hedges and began to roll them up just like his other memories, like the clothes on the floor of his room. Into the trunk it went, along with the plum blossoms, the kisses, the plait of glowing silver-blond hair…

Put your thoughts in boxes. There went the feeling of Draco’s arms around him, and the smell of bergamot and blackberry. There went the look of betrayal, the half-asleep smile, the tear-streaked confession…

The swooping in Harry’s stomach as he waltzed through the garden of Grimmauld Place with Draco in his arms…

“Keep going,” said Liu’s voice again, and now they were in Harry’s room in his mind, where the walls were covered in Gryffindor hangings, and a large trunk bursting with memories was sitting on the floor between them. “All of these older memories had been there, but you had no trouble keeping them down until now. Why do you think that is?”

“I’ve got no choice; I have to move on,” said Harry, leaning hard on the lid of the trunk so that he could bolt it shut.

Liu tilted his head. “Why do you believe that?”

Harry winced. “It’s too late to fix it. His family’s back on Gaunt’s side; there’s no way they’ll support Regulus again after Her—Lady Polixenes burnt them so badly. Maybe we’ll talk again, someday, but…”

He sighed and hugged the trunk closer to himself, resting his chin on the lid.

“We’re never going to get back to the way we were, because now I’m courting Qiu. I’m taking responsibility because it’s the right thing to do, even though neither of us actually want it.” A pause. “But Draco probably thinks that I think he’s not good enough to take responsibility for, or something…”

“Why would he want you to take responsibility?”

Harry shook his head. “Because the whole school somehow knew about us before I even knew about us. Everyone was just telling me to get a move on, to not break his heart—or else this family curse would kick in, or I’d be some heartless monster abandoning already-damaged goods…”

“So is that why you chose Heiress Zhang?” asked Liu.

Harry sighed. “It’s easier to be with her,” he admitted. “I don’t have to worry about Bonding and all of that. She doesn’t want to re-Bond before she leaves Hogwarts, so I think she’s agreeing to let her parents do the matchmaker compatibility stuff with us that she and Cedric skipped over the first time around.” He paused. “So that’s what we’re doing this Hogsmeade weekend.”

“Ah, yes, matchmaking teas.” Professor Liu smiled and pulled back from Harry’s mind, and Harry found himself back on the cushion in the Customs and Etiquette classroom again, with a tea-tray in between them instead of a trunk full of memories. He reached out for one of the delicate shell-like cups, inhaling the warm steam with a sigh.

Aunt Sevvy would do this, too, during happier, simpler times. Harry sipped the tea. It tasted bittersweet.

“Did you ever have to do one of those?” he asked as he set down the cup.

“My aunt and I had agreed to hold off on matchmaking teas until I had sat my N.E.W.Ts,” replied Liu as he refilled Harry’s teacup with a wave of his hand. “The agreement was made moot, though, when my situation with Lady Jenni occurred during our sixth year.”

Harry frowned. “Situation, sir?”

“Let’s just say that I am well-acquainted with Heiress Zhang’s desire not to have the calculations of a matchmaker interfere with my own plans.” Liu’s eyes were dark and enigmatic over the rim of his own teacup. “So you’ll be meeting her parents this weekend?”

Harry grimaced and downed his second cup, which the teapot refilled almost immediately. “Yes. Qiu suggested I bring my mother and the Potter courting combs, too.”

Professor Liu raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite a step. Are you going to do it?”

Harry’s head began to nod before the rest of him could catch up. “I’m courting her,” he added, more like a mantra to reassure himself than an answer. “I have to do it right this time. Make it clear what my intentions are.”

But later that night, as he lay awake with Crookshanks curled up in the crook of his arm, all he could think about was the shattered hair clip, and what could have gone differently if he had given the Potter combs to Draco for Christmas instead.

On the morning of the Hogsmeade visit, Harry got dressed in the constipated penguin robes that he had worn to his Wizengamot hearing. He even stole a dollop of Dean’s Sleekeazy to try and neaten his hair a little, to limited success.

“Let me get the cravat for you,” suggested Neville as Harry examined the Potter-Crimson neckcloth with great scepticism. “You look lordly,” he added, as he began to tie on the cravat. “Heiress Zhang will appreciate it, no doubt.”

“You look like a gentleman in possession of a good fortune who is now in want of a wife,” taunted Fred when Harry got down to the common room. He, George, and Ron were all in their Quidditch kits, and Harry was seized by an intense longing to be wearing his set, too. “Lucky you, you get to spend the day with a pretty girl while the rest of us have all-day Quidditch training—”

“You interested in trading places, then?” Harry shot back as they were joined by Ginny on the way out of the common room. “Because I’d love to be the one playing Quidditch all day.”

“Are you taking Qiu to Madam Puddifoot’s?” asked Ginny brightly. “Michael Corner tried taking me there back in December, but he got attacked by some biting mistletoe on the way and had to go to the Hospital Wing.”

“Biting mistletoe?” Harry looked at her, and then at the twins, whose looks of innocence seemed a little too well-rehearsed to be genuine.

Ginny beamed. “Yeah, watch out for those when you’re with Heiress Zhang today,” she teased, before swinging her broomstick—the latest Cleansweep—onto her shoulders.

Harry frowned at that. “I thought you were planning to get her the Comet Two-Ninety,” he remarked to Fred and George as they exited the portrait hole.

“Someone else got there first,” said Fred, shaking his head.

“Pansy Parkinson,” added George, making a face. “Didn’t even know she knew our sister. She’s a bit too prissy Pureblood for our tastes.”

“I tried to send it back,” said Ginny defensively. “But the owl kept coming back with it, and why waste a perfectly good broom, anyway?”

Harry frowned. “Is it some sort of courting thing? Or is it her Act of Contrition?”

Ginny shrugged. “If it’s a courting thing, then it’s a pretty vague courting thing, isn’t it?”

Harry made a face, as memories of the shattered opal hair clip floated back into his mind.

Qiu met him after breakfast, wearing a pretty coat-dress about the same colour as a cloudless sky. Her dark hair had been put up into a plaited updo, and she was tugging on a pair of pearl-white gloves with a matching parasol dangling from her arm. “Shall we, Lord Potter?” she asked, holding out her hand.

Harry offered her his arm, throwing up a rude gesture at Fred and George with his free hand when they started wolf-whistling. Ginny rolled her eyes and prodded the twins away with the handle of her broom, while Ron goggled at Qiu for a couple more seconds before rushing out after his siblings.

The fresh air outside the castle was cold and crisp, and Harry revelled in it as they made their way down the path to Hogsmeade. “Perfect day for Quidditch, isn’t it?” wondered Qiu as they walked past the pitch, where blurs of Gryffindor red were already beginning to take to the sky.

“Yeah.” Harry let her take his hand. The warmth of her skin through her thin muslin gloves made him feel like he’d just eaten a brick of Ton-Tongue Toffee. “I’d give anything to be up there right now, too—I mean, it’s also a good day to go to Hogsmeade, I’m definitely looking forward to—where are we going, exactly?”

Qiu snorted. “We’re meeting with the matchmaker, remember?”

“Yeah, but are they coming up here to Madam Puddifoot’s, or…?”

“No, my parents booked a tea service at Higashiyama Tea House in Esplumoir,” said Qiu. “If you told your mamá to meet us here…”

“It’s fine,” said Harry quickly. “I’ll just tell her there’s been a change in plans.”

Mum met them in the rose garden of Esplumoir Park, as a Portkey attendant took an old brass key from them to be sent back to Hogsmeade for the next set of students. “Heiress Zhang, how lovely it is to meet you at last,” she declared, as she folded Qiu into a warm, tight hug. “Are your parents meeting us at the tea-house?”

“Yes.” Qiu looked a little shell-shocked by the familiarity. “They said they’re already at our table with Madam Yue.”

“The Madam Yue of Moonlight Matchmaking?” Mum sounded impressed. “She planned the Bonding between Professor Liu and Lady Jenni,” she added, for Harry’s benefit. “Sweet Morgana, I can’t believe she’s still around…”

They made their way out of the garden and around the lake, where the usual courting couples in rowboats were now competing for territory with brooding pairs of swans. For a moment, Harry thought he saw a flash of silver-blond in one of the boats, but then Mum was leading him and Qiu up to the charming Japanese tea house floating above a thicket of green-brown dormant lily pads, and there was no longer any way to know for sure.

Higashiyama Tea House had been decorated for spring with an explosion of pink, from the cushions to the curtains to the downpour of cherry blossom petals falling gently from the ceiling. Miniature cherry trees were positioned at every table, while even more courting couples were making eyes at each other from over cups of vibrant green tea and little pink desserts. The only table that didn’t seem to be full of twitterpated nonsense was full of Ravenclaw students playing Go. Harry recognised Sue Li and Padma Patil amongst them, but neither of them seemed to notice Harry or Qiu as they were led to a partly-screened-off table with a view of the lake.

Lord and Lady Zhang were waiting for them there, alongside an old, frail-looking woman clad in peach-coloured robes and a wide-brimmed, white-veiled hat. “Lord Potter, Dowager Lady Potter!” exclaimed Lord Zhang as he and his wife sprang up to greet them. Harry clasped his hand briefly with a nod, and then let himself be guided to a cushion opposite the table from the old woman. He sat down cross-legged, hoping that his horrible posture wasn’t going to cost him compatibility points with Qiu’s family or something.

“So lovely to have you both here for this momentous day,” trilled Lady Zhang, now shaking Mum’s hand. Qiu snuck into the spot next to Harry’s, offering a tight smile and wave to the old woman as she sat. “I’m glad to see you’re in good health, Dowager Lady Potter.”

“Lily, please.” Mum smiled. “We’re apparently in negotiations to become a family now, aren’t we?”

“It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” Lady Zhang’s eyes twinkled. “Call me Mengwen, then. And this is my lord-husband Jianlang—though you can also call him Jacob…”

“Pleasure to meet you,” said Mum, with a slight curtsey to Lord Zhang. He took her hand and bowed to kiss it.

“And this,” continued Lady Zhang, gesturing towards the old woman, “is Madam Yue. Madam Yue, Lord Potter and his mother, the Dowager Lady Potter.”

“Is young Lord Potter to be matched with Lady Qiuyue?” wondered Madam Yue, pulling back her veil to frown at the two of them. Harry couldn’t help the hitch in his breath when he saw the vibrant red scar slashed across her right eye, and the milky whiteness of the eye itself.

“That’s what we’re hoping for,” said Lady Zhang, with a bracing smile at Harry. “Come, Lily, let’s go select the tea for the tea service.”

The two mothers left, leaving Lord Zhang to resume his seat at the table, his smile a little sharper than before as he looked at Harry. Harry felt Qiu take his hand under the table. He squeezed back.

“So,” said Lord Zhang after a moment, “what do you plan to do after Hogwarts, Lord Potter?”

“Ba,” groaned Qiu, sending her father a quelling look. “Shouldn’t stuff like this wait for when Ma and Dowager Lady Potter get back?”

“Madam Yue is the one who’s going to take this information and calculate your compatibility,” replied Lord Zhang. “And you never know. Lord Potter could want to do something he doesn’t want to say in front of his mum, right?”

“I honestly haven’t thought that much about it,” admitted Harry. “I guess I’m pretty decent at Quidditch—”

“One of the best in the school,” added Qiu.

“But other than that I’m not really sure.”

“Harry’s also an excellent Defence teacher,” said Qiu.

“Harry can also talk about himself without your help, Qiuqiu,” Lord Zhang gently rebuked. “So… what do you mean, you’re not really sure about what you want to do, Lord Potter?”

“That’s the thing.” Harry tugged a little at the collar of his robes. “I wasn’t really raised in all of this, so I’m not really cut out for being on the Wizengamot or… managing an estate, or whatever it is that Pureblood Lords do. I just want to help people as much as I can.”

“Is there a specific part of magic that interests you, maybe?” suggested Lord Zhang. “A subject you’re good at at Hogwarts? Qiuqiu seems to think you’re good at Defence, and I do remember you saying you had a corporeal Patronus during your hearing this past summer…”

“Yeah.” Harry pursed his lips.

“And you were a real contender for the Triwizard Tournament there, before the Third Task,” continued Lord Zhang, as Qiu’s hand trembled a little in Harry’s grip. “Even with all the horrible accidents dogging you at each Task, you made a good showing despite being younger than all the other champions…”

Harry could feel Qiu shifting uncomfortably beside him. He, too, turned to look out the window of the tea-house, his gaze alighting on the familiar gleam of silver-blond hair out on the lake. Sure enough, Draco was sitting in one of the boats, accompanied by some bloke with shaggy, wavy dark hair who was doing all the rowing.

“Beginning a courtship before you reach sixteen is a serious decision, Lord Potter.” Madam Yue’s voice was low and gravelly, but still stern enough to cause him to tear his gaze away from Draco out on the lake. “Most people in New Avalon who make such a decision have had their heart set on someone for a long time and wish to be Bonded as soon as both parties are of age. How long have you had your heart set on Lady Qiuyue?”

Harry swallowed. “I—” He broke off, looking sidelong at Qiu. “I’m not hoping to be Bonded as soon as I turn sixteen, Madam You-eh—” he winced at how much his tongue refused to form her name, “I just wanted to protect Qiu’s reputation from everyone at school.”

“What did you do, then, to cast Lady Qiuyue’s reputation into doubt?” wondered Madam Yue.

Harry winced again. “Breathe in her general direction?”

“The Slytherins are the ones doing most of the rude messages,” Qiu added vehemently. “They’re in denial that Harry’s moved on from one of their own.”

“Yeah.” Harry nodded, squeezing her hand as if to make that statement true. “Totally moved on.”

Madam Yue’s silence was disbelieving, but before she could ask any more questions, Mum and Lady Zhang had returned, along with a ghostly-looking child in a pink kimono carrying a tea-tray. The child floated over to their table and set down the tray, and began to lay out the implements for their tea ceremony.

“This isn’t going to be one of those hours-long ceremonies, right?” Harry asked Lady Zhang as she and Mum took their seats to watch the child pour out some tea leaves onto a small bamboo dish for them to smell.

“No, we ordered sencha.” Lady Zhang smiled. “A bit closer to what we normally drink ourselves, and a lot less whisking. Leaves us more time to get to know each other, right?”

Harry glanced over at the child, who was now scalding their cups with hot water. “What do you want to know, then, Lady Zhang?”

Lady Zhang hummed. “Everything, mostly,” she said, with a significant look at Madam Yue. “Madam Yue here has been compiling our daughter’s file for a future match ever since her previous husband died, in the hopes that we might be able to find someone who would, you know, look past that bit of bad luck with her. Take a look through it, and see what you can offer in return.”

Madam Yue held out a rather ordinary-looking file, much to Harry’s disappointment.

“Wait, that’s it?” he demanded. “There’s no, what, magical test of worthiness or something that I have to do?”

Lady Zhang raised her eyebrows. “Test of worthiness?”

Harry could feel his ears heating as he watched Mum flip through the file. “I dunno,” he muttered. “I mean, Professor Liu said the matchmaker would calculate something, and Qiu asked me to bring the Potter combs, so I guess I thought Madam You-eh would take the combs and see if they were worthy or something…”

Madam Yue snorted derisively at that. “You must be thinking of the methods of Annelida Spungen-Spinks, then,” she said, shaking her head. “That ungrateful girl apprenticed under me for two years before starting The Red String, and now acts like she invented the Red String of Fate.”

Mum raised an eyebrow from over the top of the file. “But I thought Miss Spungen-Spinks claims to see red strings tying people to their soulmates.”

“You really think Yue Xia Lao Ren would bless some stuck-up English girl with His abilities?” scoffed Madam Yue. “She’s a good matchmaker, but that’s just because she’s got some Legilimency skills and knows the right people. Everything else she does is for show.”

“So what do you do, then?” wondered Harry.

“I compare everything about you to everything about Lady Qiuyue,” was Madam Yue’s no-nonsense response. “I ask you questions that I demand full honesty about, and ask you to listen to the advice I give with an open mind. So when I asked you what you did to Lady Qiuyue to cast her reputation into doubt…”

“He didn’t do anything that I didn’t want him to do,” said Qiu, indignant.

“But you have been doing something?” pressed Lady Zhang.

“What’s it matter to you, Ma?” demanded Qiu. “He’s courting me now; shouldn’t that be enough?”

There was a brief silence at that, punctuated by the ghostly child leaving a cup of green tea with each of them, and then vanishing into thin air.

Madam Yue was the first to sip at her tea. “What drew you two to one another?” she wondered.

“He was there for me when I was mourning Ced,” sniffed Qiu.

“She was there for me after…” Harry pursed his lips and looked out the window again, looking for that sliver of silver-blond. “After some stuff happened.”

He glanced over at Mum, who flashed him a commiserating smile as she pushed the folder back. “Do I really need to give you Harry’s birth chart down to the time and circ*mstances of his birth?” she asked Madam Yue.

“For the most accurate calculations, yes,” was the matchmaker’s reply.

Mum wrinkled her nose. “And how detailed do you need the circ*mstances to be? It’s not like I was giving birth to Harry with an eye to what direction I was facing, you know.”

“Some people insist on certain directions for good luck.” Madam Yue shrugged. “If you do not know, then you do not know.”

Mum pursed her lips, but took out a memorandum book from the folds of her robes and jotted down her responses. Harry craned his head to see words like ‘Godric’s Hollow cottage’ and ‘midwife unable to stop magic drain’ before Mum folded it all up and handed it over to Madam Yue.

The old matchmaker hummed as she conjured a magnifier to help her read the paper. “Interesting,” she said, in a tone of voice that sounded more ominous than anything else. “A Monkey with a Horse… it’s not ideal in the long-term, but it can work with enough effort and sensitivity. What does Lord Potter stand to inherit, once he comes of age?”

Mum flipped through her memorandum book. “Full control over the wardstone and grounds of Godric’s Hollow, the Potter ancestral seat,” she read. “A portion of the village rent goes to him as well, collected by the council—”

“What sort of village?” asked Lord Zhang.

“Mixed Muggle-Magical. The council is composed of both Mages and Muggles,” answered Mum.

“How much control will he have over the family’s potions business?” wondered Lord Zhang.

“How much control will your daughter have over your family’s wandmaking business?” countered Mum.

At that, Lord Zhang chuckled dryly. “It would be much easier to determine that if Qiuqiu expressed any sort of interest in the field,” he admitted.

“I’m applying to the Ollivander internship, Ba,” groaned Qiu, in the exact tone Ron would take whenever Hermione nagged him about his homework.

“That sounds like you’re just doing it to make me happy,” scolded Lord Zhang. “You have to want this for yourself, or else you’re never going to learn anything.”

Qiu’s face turned bright red at that, and she promptly started fiddling with her teacup instead. Harry, in turn, glared at Lord Zhang as he refilled Qiu’s teacup for her.

Mum cleared her throat. “Well, ownership of the Eternal Hart Company and the remaining shares in Premier Potions are all being held in trust for Harry until he turns seventeen,” she told Madam Yue. “We also receive remuneration from the sales of all potions brewed according to our family’s master recipes, including Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion, Skele-Gro, and Pepper-Up Potion.”

“Is the Eternal Hart Company the one in India?” asked Harry, frowning.

“Yes.” Mum smiled a little. “It was run by Lord Charlus when he was alive, and he willed it to a blood relative, so I couldn’t sell it off to try and support us when we were in hiding. It’s the only bit left from your great-great-grandma’s estate; the rest got taken by a bunch of her cousins after her death.”

“India.” Madam Yue turned a sceptical eye on Lord Zhang. “And you’re fine with that, Jianlang? I seem to recall you and Mengwen asking me to find eligible young wizards from Singapore and Hong Kong…”

Lord Zhang turned red at that. “Why wouldn’t I be fine with it, ma’am?” he demanded, flapping his hands impatiently. “Eternal Hart is where we get our Zhuque feathers from! And Qiuqiu could do much worse than someone with ties to several erstwhile Indian princely houses, you know.”

“We were perfectly happy to accept the Diggorys, and now we’re perfectly happy to accept you as well, Lord Potter,” cut in Lady Zhang, as she directed the teapot to refill Harry’s cup. “As long as you’re able to provide for our daughter and make her happy, we’ll be happy too.”

Harry nodded, unable to shake the feeling that, had his inheritance been less impressive, the Zhangs wouldn’t even be giving him the time of day. Was this also something that Lord Malfoy would have considered, if the negotiations with Regulus had succeeded? Was he always going to be viewed through the legacy of Lord Potter instead of just Harry?

Madam Yue was speaking again. “Well, the final part of my calculations involves an examination of the couple’s wands,” she declared, as she set down her teacup and laid out a scarlet handkerchief on the table in front of them. Harry and Qiu placed their wands onto it, and Madam Yue took Qiu’s first, closing both eyes as she ran her fingers along its ridges.

“Willow, thirty-nine centimetres, with a core of Qilin whisker hair,” said Lord Zhang. “Made it myself.”

“Springy, but bitter,” mused Madam Yue. “And a meaning of farewell, of parting. Thirty-nine, too… Jianlang, if I’d known you sooner I would’ve told you never to give your daughter such an inauspicious wand.”

“It chose her when she was wandering through my workshop, ma’am,” protested Lord Zhang.

“The closer you guard her, the stronger her impulse to leave will become.” Madam Yue shook her head and handed the wand back to Qiu, before taking Harry’s and examining it as well. “Is this holly?”

“And phoenix feather,” added Mum. “Eleven inches, right, love?”

“Yeah.” Harry turned back to the window, catching a glimpse of Draco as he leaned over the edge of the boat to feed the swans. Only Qiu’s tug at his hand could bring him back into the tea-house, though he found it hard to concentrate on what Madam Yue was saying about his wand. It was unbelievable—if Hermione hadn’t co*cked up his and Regulus’ chances at a proper negotiation with the Malfoys, then he could’ve been in that shaggy-haired bloke’s place right now, rowing Draco around the lake!

“—I have seen pairings of holly and willow work out, just as I have seen pairings of Monkeys and Horses work out,” Madam Yue was saying as she pressed Harry’s wand back into his hand. “But the impetuousness of the holly may drive away the ever-wandering willow, especially if there is still an obstacle between them that neither wishes to acknowledge.”

“And by ‘obstacle’, do you mean our daughter’s previous Bond?” wondered Lord Zhang, frowning.

Madam Yue opened her mouth to explain, but at that moment a shout of “Unhand me, Belby!” rang out from across the lake. Harry flew back to the window, fingers scrabbling to pull the frail wood-and-paper shutters wider open as Draco, out on the lake, struggled to push the shaggy-haired bloke away from him. There was a flash of light and a yelp from Belby, and then the rowboat they were in promptly tilted the two of them into the water.

Harry was out on the tea-house’s patio before he knew it, throwing off the stuffy black robe and the tight waistcoat and the Potter-Crimson cravat without a second thought. The world blurred the moment he dropped his glasses, and blurred even further once he dove into the lake. It wasn’t as cold as Hogwarts’ lake during the Second Task last year, and only a fraction of the depth, which meant that angry swans were the only thing he had to watch out for on his way to the capsized rowboat.

An angry swan of a different sort greeted him when he got to the boat. “What in Mordred’s name do you think you’re doing, you brute?!” screeched Draco as Harry started tugging him out of his waterlogged robes. “Haven’t you taken enough liberties with me? Get off me at once!”

Harry bristled. “Draco, it’s me!” he shouted, paddling around to try and get Draco to look at him. The Slytherin’s response was to jab a fist at him, causing Harry to flinch back with a curse. “I’m not going to hurt you, I swear!”

“Have you taken leave of your senses, Belby?” snarled Draco. “We’re in public!”

“It’s Harry!” Harry spluttered as he dodged another fist. “I’m trying to get you out of your robes so you can swim to shore, you git!”

At that, Draco’s nose wrinkled, and he let Harry tug his robes off. “Where did you even come from, Potter?” he demanded, as the two of them started paddling for the shore. “I thought you were on a Courtship Date in Hogsmeade.”

The disdain was obvious in his voice. Harry’s heart twinged at it.

“Well, change of plans,” he said, letting himself drift closer to Draco so that he could examine him. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Marcus Belby, that’s what,” spat Draco, kicking and splashing furiously in an effort to keep his head above the water. “My Aunt Lida set me up—thought he’d know about potions because of his uncle—turns out he’s just a boor—”

He gasped for breath suddenly, like he was drowning. Alarmed, Harry moved closer, only for Draco to cling onto him and pull them both under. It took Harry a couple minutes of blind flailing before he could surface for air again, holding Draco out at arms’ length.

“I thought you knew how to swim?” he demanded, as Draco continued to kick ferociously at the water.

“You try falling out of a boat with boots on,” wheezed Draco.

With a sigh, Harry rolled Draco onto his back and looped an arm around his chest. “Just lie there and try not to take my head off,” he warned, before resuming his paddling for the shore. Draco, thankfully, had immediately gone quiet the moment Harry touched him, and he remained soft and pliant all the way to the shallows. Even there, once Harry pointed out that they could both stand up, Draco’s response was to cling onto him instead.

“Don’t go just yet,” he whispered against the shell of Harry’s ear, as the heat of his body burned against Harry’s own skin. “Please, Harry…”

Harry pulled back just enough to look at him, which was a terrible mistake. Even without his glasses, he could see sparkling drops of water gathering on Draco’s silvery lashes… the flush of pale pink skin through his now very see-through white shirt…

“Draco!” shrilled the voice of Lady Malfoy from the shore, startling Harry out of his less-than-pure thoughts about the waterlogged Slytherin currently in his arms. Sheepishly, he hauled himself and Draco onto dry land, where Lady Malfoy was waiting for her son with a slew of Drying and Warming Charms. Other people in the park had also rushed to the shoreline, pointing and whispering under parasols and fans. Under their gaze, Harry felt like he didn’t need a Warming Charm on his face at all.

Lady Malfoy was now insistently checking Draco over. “Oh my poor little dragon, I’m so sorry—I was simply off shopping for treats for you, and now—are you hurt? Was Lord Potter acting presumptuously with you?”

She flashed a look at Harry that made his insides freeze. Of course. She hadn’t been there to see why the boat had capsized… for all she knew, Harry was the one overstepping by rescuing Draco from the lake…

Draco scoffed and grabbed the Maison Grisane bag on the park bench beside his mother. “It was Belby, Mother. He’s the one who tried to act presumptuously with me, so my protection ring made short work of him at the cost of my own dignity. If it hadn’t been for Harry, I’d be at the bottom of the lake right now.”

Lady Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be ridiculous, Draco. Esplumoir Lake isn’t that deep.”

“So where were you, then, Mother? Perhaps Harry wouldn’t have had to intercede if you had been there instead of… picking up pastries!”

Lady Malfoy immediately dove into another round of fretting and platitudes, while Harry awkwardly stood there shivering in the early spring chill, feeling a bit stupid about everything he’d just done. The lake hadn’t been that deep, and Draco would’ve figured out some spell to stop his waterlogged robes and boots from dragging him down. What had seemed like justification for mind-numbing panic earlier now felt like a mountain being made out of a molehill.

Hoping to get back to the tea-house in time to do damage control, Harry quickly Summoned Draco’s robes out of the lake and handed them over. “Are you feeling better?” he asked, as Draco surfaced from the Maison Grisane bag with half a biscuit in his mouth, his hair now soft and fluffy from the Drying Charms.

“Mm, I definitely could be worse.” Draco held out the bag for Harry. “Have one of these pipe biscuits; they’re Maison Grisane’s specialty.”

Harry took the olive branch for what it was. Out on the lake, Belby had now managed to crawl atop the overturned rowboat, eyeing the circling swans like a marooned wretch in shark-infested waters. Harry thought he had it coming.

“I’m going to have to tell Auntie Lida about Mr Belby’s disgraceful behaviour,” Lady Malfoy was saying now, as she directed her next set of Drying and Warming Charms at Harry himself. “I don’t know how she’s conducting her pre-screening interviews, but she’s got to take your safety much more seriously. The behaviour of young men of Hogwarts these days is truly going to the dogs…”

“Worse than dogs,” amended Draco, drying out his robes with absolute disdain. “He was attempting to steal my Maiden’s Kiss.”

Lady Malfoy’s expression darkened noticeably. “If it were not for the fact that we are in public right now…” she muttered, trailing off in a way that had Harry wincing. “But no matter. Your father will take care of the Belbys.”

Harry had a feeling ‘care’ in this case would not include pipe biscuits and Warming Charms.

“In any case, it’s plain to see that Hogwarts schoolboys are too puerile for you, my little dragon,” continued Lady Malfoy. “Perhaps you’ll be better-suited to someone a bit older and more mature, who honours Mother Magic and follows the Old Ways…”

Draco made a face. “If everyone else on Auntie Lida’s list is like Belby, then perhaps you’ve got a point,” he sniffed.

“Then I’ll have a word with your father about it,” declared Lady Malfoy, patting her son’s cheek. “My little dragon deserves only the best.”

Harry was feeling much colder now, and not just because the Warming Charm had finally faded. “I’d better be going,” he told the Malfoys, nodding towards the tea-house, where a red-haired blur—probably Mum—was waving at him from the window. He waved back, ignoring the sharp little inhale from Draco as he did so.

“Then a thank-you must be in order, for the service you rendered unto my son,” replied Lady Malfoy, her voice now more polite and distant than it had been at Christmas. It made Harry feel like some servant who had just cleaned Draco’s room or something.

“Yeah, anytime,” he said, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his head. “I’ll see you at Hogwarts, then?” he added to Draco, whose cheeks had flushed pink for some reason.

“Yes, of course,” was the slightly flustered answer. It made the guilt bubble back into Harry’s throat as he scampered off back to the tea-house.

“Now, who on earth could possibly be important enough to interrupt a Courtship Date for, Lord Potter?” demanded Lord Zhang the moment Harry was back on his cushion, staring down at his tiny cup of green tea and its matching tiny pink jelly. He ate his pipe biscuit first, however, in an attempt to buy himself more time to answer.

“Lay off him, Ba,” scolded Qiu, as she handed him back his glasses. “Cedric would have done the same.”

Lord Zhang made a disbelieving noise. “Cedric would have abandoned you mid-date to save some other girl from a shallow pond?”

Harry nearly coughed out the biscuit in indignant surprise. Hadn’t they heard Draco shouting for Belby to unhand him? Qiu, thankfully, thumped him on the back and said, defensively, “Cedric was a gentleman; he would’ve gone to the help of anyone in distress.”

“Distress? Qiuqiu, wasn’t that the boy Lord Potter rescued from the Merpeople last year? Didn’t he manage to swim out of the lake by himself, without Lord Potter carrying him to shore?”

“Yes, wasn’t he the one Lord Potter would supposedly miss the most?” agreed Lady Zhang, frowning. “You’re not at all concerned about that, my dear?”

“He’s moved on from all that,” said Qiu vehemently. “This was just him being concerned for a friend’s well-being. Like Cedric would’ve been.”

“Cedric made sure to put you first,” Lady Zhang pointed out.

“And Harry could have left me to the mercy of the Slytherins, but he offered me a courtship instead,” Qiu shot back, now gripping Harry’s hand under the table so tightly that he was starting to lose the circulation to his fingers. “He’s back here, instead of out there with the Malfoys. He’s made his decision.”

“I don’t know, Qiuqiu.” Lord Zhang nodded pointedly at Madam Yue, as if expecting her to leap in and nip this whole match in the bud. “The matchmaker lady doesn’t seem to find this a very auspicious sign for us.”

“Auspicious,” scoffed Qiu. “I thought you wanted closer ties to the Potters’ companies, Ba. So why’s Harry’s kindness putting you off now?”

Lord and Lady Zhang exchanged a look. It was all Harry could do not to squirm as he waited for the verdict. Qiu had every right to be offended, and yet here she was, defending him.

After a long, tense silence, Lord Zhang finally turned to Madam Yue. “If we decide to proceed with this match, ma’am, then what should we do next?”

Madam Yue squinted at Harry and Qiu. “Where is the Potter courtship gift?”

“Here.” Mum pulled out a rosewood box emblazoned with the family crest, inside which was nestled a pair of ruby-encrusted golden combs. She took out one of them, holding it up for the matchmaker to inspect.

Madam Yue took the comb and held it up to her magnifier. “There are six traditional rites for a Hundred Generation Bonding,” she explained, as she turned the comb over in her hand. “The first is the betrothal gift. Lord Potter, if you will…”

She held out the comb. Harry took a deep breath as he took it from her. Qiu bowed her head just slightly, letting Harry carefully slip the rubies into her plaited updo.

(He couldn’t help but remember the way his hands had trembled holding the opal hair clip as he put it into Draco’s hair.)

“The next rite,” said Madam Yue, “is for House Potter to ask House Zhang for the name of their daughter, and the eight characters of her birth.” She paused, and tapped the folder right in front of her. “Which we have functionally done, in this file here.”

“We’re sort of doing it the other way around,” remarked Lady Zhang, frowning.

“This is the problem when you court outside the Hundred Generations,” replied Madam Yue sternly. “Luckily for you, the Avalonians are considerably less strict about this aspect of courting—which brings us to the third rite, where I assess the information that has been given to me and calculate the couple’s compatibility.”

“And you told us it wouldn’t work, but we said we wanted to proceed anyway,” said Qiu.

“I said the signs were not auspicious,” corrected the matchmaker. “I have not made a full calculation yet. That will come during our next matchmaking tea.”

“Another meeting!” exclaimed Mum.

“And several more after, if this is the path you wish to tread,” replied Madam Yue. “If the results are good, and the couple still wishes to proceed, then the bride price will be negotiated—”

“Paying someone to Bond with me,” muttered Harry to Qiu, causing her to laugh.

“And when the price is paid, the dates of the wedding ceremony will be set,” continued Madam Yue. “Then there is the betrothal ceremony, the sharing and returning of gifts, the offering of a dowry, the preparation of the marital bed, the hair combing ceremony…”

“I can see why you and Cedric eloped,” muttered Harry to Qiu again.

Lord Zhang cleared his throat disapprovingly at the two of them. “Perhaps those dates should be arranged later, for after Harry has left Hogwarts,” he suggested.

“Will the process be at all affected by the lack of a Maiden’s Kiss?” asked Mum.

“A traditional Chinese Bonding ceremony is invocation-led,” replied Madam Yue, looking between Harry and Qiu. “The three bows performed by the couple on that day serve to invoke and seal the magic that will later be consummated into a Matrimonial Bond. And I should hope, after all of the calculations that go into determining the compatibility and longevity of the match, that bond-enhancing potions will not be needed on that day.”

Lord and Lady Zhang had to leave soon after that, citing other engagements they had to make. Madam Yue, too, had other families to meet, and had somehow managed to get the bill covered before Mum or the Zhangs even thought to take out their purses. Once they had all left, Qiu also slipped away to go talk to her fellow Ravenclaws, who were now playing some sort of explosive poetry card game.

That left Harry and Mum at the table, with Harry sipping at his tea whilst sorely tempted to dive right back into the lake. He didn’t want to be pinned down by the shrewd look on Mum’s face—the one that suggested that she knew a lot more than what she was letting on.

And sure enough: “So that’s why you pushed Mr McLaggen into the Vanishing Cabinet,” said Mum as she poured herself another cup of tea.

Harry winced. “I thought you knew.”

“I’d suspected.” Mum scrutinised him from over the edge of her teacup. “You told me how torn you were about snubbing him in the minuet at the Black-and-Silver Ball, remember?”

“Was that when you realised…?” wondered Harry weakly.

At that, Mum chuckled, setting down the teacup so that she could steal a slice of Harry’s cherry blossom jelly. “Love, only you would know exactly when your feelings towards Heir Malfoy changed. But I will admit, it is a little strange to be diving into a lake for him whilst also trying to court Heiress Zhang ‘the proper way’.”

“He was in trouble,” muttered Harry, sullen. “He got set up on a Courtship Date with someone who tried to trespass on his honour—”

“Harry, I know you care a lot about the safety of your friends,” sighed Mum, “but why are you so focused on defending Draco’s honour? Especially if you aren’t the one courting him… don’t you think he’s a big boy who can take care of himself?”

“I know that, but—”

“Your dad was like this, too, when we were at school.” Mum refilled both of their cups again, before taking her cup over to the window, looking out at the lake. “It was a big part of why he hated your Aunt Sevvy so much. He thought that Aunt Sevvy had less-than-honourable intentions towards me, because we were so close…”

“I’ve seen some of the stuff he did to her,” said Harry, as he joined her at the window. “In Occlumency class, and—and when your own shields were down,” he added, when Mum raised an eyebrow at him. “He was… he was such a bullying prick! How could you let him have your Maiden’s Kiss?”

Mum smiled wryly, before looking back out at the lake. The swans were still circling Belby in his overturned boat, making it difficult for the groundskeepers to rescue him.

“Those memories were of your dad at his worst, love,” said Mum after a moment. “He changed after that, and he proved it. He apologised to your Aunt Sevvy—even if she never really accepted it—and… when he and I were Head Boy and Head Girl together, he didn’t use it as an excuse to be a prat like he would’ve when he was younger. And when Mary was—and when something bad happened to my friend Mary, he was there to take care of her.”

I don’t understand how you can forgive Potter so quickly for what he did to me, but I guess it’s a lot easier when you’re the one he adores beyond all reason.

You want to talk about choices, Severina? Because from where I’m standing, I think I made the right one.

Harry pulled his knees closer to himself. “But… you and Aunt Sev…”

“I wasn’t the one who said no,” sighed Mum, stroking a fond hand through his hair. “I can’t change Aunt Sevvy’s mind for her, but I also can’t regret the choices I made after she pushed me away. Even though the Maiden’s Kiss…” she shook her head, and tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear. “Can I ask you something, Harry? I promise I won’t get cross with you, whatever you say.”

Harry looked back at her, nodding mutely.

“Have you been protecting yourself during your encounters with Heiress Zhang?”

Harry nearly choked on air. “What—what do you mean?”

“Intercourse, love,” said Mum seriously. “Widows can’t give Maiden’s Kisses, but they can still Bond, if you’re exchanging sexual fluids with enough intent—”

“Mum!” Harry’s entire face was on fire. He looked wildly about them, now incredibly grateful for the screens that shielded their table from the rest of the tea-house. “Oh my god, Mum, you can’t just—yes, we’re using protection! I haven’t even brushed her hair!”

“Good.” Mum ruffled his hair. “Make sure it’s all-Muggle, by the way—anything with a magical component won’t protect you against the Bond.”

Harry nodded numbly, still unable to wrap his head around the fact that he was talking about this stuff with Mum, of all people. But she seemed supremely unconcerned with the possibility of having scarred him for life—in fact, now she was turning back to the table to set down her now-empty teacup.

“Oh, all the cherry blossoms in our little tree have fallen! I think that means it’s time to go.”

“Yeah, all right.” Harry allowed himself to be folded back into his waistcoat and robes, and for Mum to tie his cravat back onto his collar.

“If something happens,” she said, once she’d smoothed out his lapels, “and you find yourself in a Bond, you let me know as soon as you can, all right? I’ll send you some Un-Ceinte and we can figure out where to go from there.”

“D’you think that could really happen to me?” wondered Harry weakly, with a glance towards the table of bickering Ravenclaws. Qiu appeared to be winning this round of exploding poetry cards, given the glee in her dark eyes as she claimed the card from right under Padma Patil’s nose. The ruby courting comb Harry had given her was sparkling in her hair.

“A Bond is a choice, love,” said Mum, squeezing his hand. “Just as much as dampening and Severing are choices, too. Lady Jenni and I didn’t create Un-Ceinte because we’re a bunch of light-skirted hussies who like to cause trouble—we created it because we wanted a way to counteract the overwhelming compulsions of the Matrimonial Bond, and the bond-enhancing potions that force us to submit to those compulsions. I don’t want you walking into any of that without knowing exactly what you’re getting into. That way, if you ever do Bond with someone, you’ll be making that decision with your eyes wide open.”

Harry looked at Qiu, and thought about the matchmaking tea, about the rites and rituals that lay ahead, and bowing three times to her. For some reason, he couldn’t quite picture himself doing any of that, especially not if it meant having her in his head… digging through his trunk of Draco memories…

“You’re old enough to be making your own decisions now,” continued Mum, as she began to lead him over to the Ravenclaws. “All I hope is that, if you Bond, you’ll Bond with someone you love. Someone you can commit to without any reservations. That’s who I want you to choose.”

Qiu wearing the Potter courting combs led to another week of whispering, but this time the castle’s mood seemed more congratulatory than judgemental. Harry found himself fielding well-wishes from people in Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw alike. Neville begged to be the one to make the flower arrangements for their Bonding ceremony, while Luna gave them both a matching pair of wrackspurt-repelling pins that she claimed were ‘good for marital fortune’.

The Slytherins, however, maintained their collective cold shoulder so perfectly that all of Harry’s classes with them felt like he was still stuck in the dead of winter. It would be impressive if it wasn’t also incredibly disheartening—and more than a little bit hurtful, too, especially once it became clear why they were still doing it.

“Justin,” said Draco during Runes class a week later, as the class was putting the finishing touches on one massive warded circle that took up the centre of the classroom, “could you tell Potter that he drew his rune wrong?”

Justin paused his wand and looked over at Harry from Draco’s other side. “Harry, did you know—”

“Yeah, I heard you, Draco; you’re right next to me,” said Harry, viciously scribbling out his rune and starting over.

“Well, I simply thought you’d changed your mind for wanting to talk at Hogwarts, after all,” sniped Draco as he finished up his own rune.

“What has that got to do with—” spluttered Harry, but Draco was turning to Justin again.

“Justin, please remind Potter that it’s the height of cruelty to lead someone on regarding one’s intentions towards them.”

Harry’s jaw dropped mid-drawing. “Justin, tell this git that I’ve got absolutely no clue what he’s even referring to, and that if he won’t explain himself then he’s the one being cruel.”

Justin looked between the two of them like they’d both lost their minds. “Can’t the two of you just put your wands on the ward like the rest of the class?”

“I’m not doing anything until Draco explains exactly what the hell he’s banging on about!” snapped Harry, flinging down his wand. “Is this about my courtship with Qiu? If so, why pick a fight with me about my runes instead of just talking to me about it any-bloody-time this past week?”

The flame they had been containing with the warded circle suddenly lashed out like a snake, causing several other students to jump. Startled, Harry picked his wand back up and finished up his rune, barely able to hear Professor Babbling’s gentle lecture about the importance of synchronicity in major warded circles over his own racing heartbeat.

“He’s treating you like he’s treating Astoria,” said Hermione waspishly after class, as they headed out to the sixth-floor landing. “You’ve betrayed him, so now you’re not even worthy of a decent confrontation.”

“How have I betrayed him?” snapped Harry. “I’m not the one who threw his family to the wolves and then picked on him for trying to defend himself!”

“Why do you keep making excuses for him?” demanded Hermione, exasperated. “He pitted the entirety of Slytherin House against you and Qiu!”

“It’s not like he told them to!” protested Harry. “They’re just overdefensive!”

Hermione made a scathing noise at that. “This is the same boy who convinced the Slytherins to dress up as Dementors in our third year, and then made a fortune peddling Potter Stinks badges just last year—”

“He made badges for all the Champions—”

“You can’t keep turning a blind eye to what he’s done—what he’s doing to your girlfriend—just because you’re not over him!”

The accusation stung. “I am over him,” insisted Harry.

“So why’d you interrupt your own Courtship Date to dive into Esplumoir Lake after him, then?” needled Hermione.

“How’d you even—” began Harry—he certainly hadn’t told her anything, after all—but then he remembered Lady Polixenes. “Hermione, I swear to god, if you write about that—”

“Oh, do write about it, Lady Polixenes,” drawled Draco’s voice from right behind them, nearly causing Hermione to trip down a couple steps in surprise. “I’d love to hear what Lord Tosspot’s soon-to-be-Bonded thinks of our little moment in the lake.”

Harry whirled around to glare at him. “Finally deigning to explain yourself, then?”

“Finally realising how cruel it was of you to lie to me about your change of plans for your courtship, then?” Draco shot back.

“I never said it was for the—I thought we were going to Hogsmeade, and it turned out to be Esplumoir! How did you manage to make it all about you—”

“Because he thought you’d come to your senses,” Hermione chipped in sarcastically.

“My senses!” Harry scoffed, looking between the two of them. “You’re one to talk about coming to your senses, Draco, what with you supposedly cosying up with Umbridge—”

“Yeah? And so what if I am?” sneered Draco, as he shoved into Harry on his way down the stairs. “I’d pay a closer eye on your little debate club, if I were you. She’s closer than you think.”

The roiling anger in Harry’s gut was still there at dinnertime, and no amount of steak-and-kidney pie could assuage it. Still, his foul mood went largely unnoticed amongst the rest of the Gryffindors that night, given that the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff was the next weekend, and Ron still seemed to be flying abysmally in practice.

“I’m just hoping to get to the Snitch fast enough that we don’t have to suffer too much,” admitted Ginny the morning of the match in question, when Harry went to wish the team well at breakfast. It was odd not to be in Quidditch kit—he’d never had to watch a Gryffindor match from the stands before. “Have you got any last-minute tips, Seeker to Seeker?”

Harry could feel Umbridge watching them from the High Table, which—now that Draco had threatened to expose the DA—made his skin crawl. So he clapped Ginny on the shoulder and shook his head.

“Just keep an eye on the other bloke. And feel free to get in the way of a Chaser or two heading in Ron’s direction if you can make it look like you’re trying to get to the Snitch.”

In the end, the only good thing Harry could say about the game was that at least it was short: the Chasers and Beaters were good as ever, but even they couldn’t stop Ron from fumbling over fourteen goals, or make up for the Hufflepuffs joining in on the refrains of “Weasley, Leave the Team”. Ginny snatching the Snitch from right under the Hufflepuff Seeker’s nose did manage to wipe the smug smirk off captain Zacharias Smith’s face, but even then, Gryffindor still lost by ten points.

Which was a miracle, but still cold comfort in the face of Slytherin now being the favourites to win the Quidditch Cup.

“It’s a bit upsetting that his own House doesn’t seem to support him,” lamented Qiu as she and Harry left the stands with the rest of the crowd. The Gryffindors were a sombre procession of red-and-gold, their sullenness only broken in parts by complaints about Ron’s various fumbles. “At this point, I can’t help but wonder if it might just be kinder to let him resign.”

“And then who would replace him?” wondered Harry, with a glare at Cormac McLaggen’s friends singing “Weasley, Leave the Team” up ahead.

“Well, if you’re so determined to keep him playing, then maybe you need to support him more,” said Qiu, tangling their fingers together. The Potter rubies sparkled brightly in her hair, and Harry couldn’t help but think her dark hair suited the crimson gemstones so much better than pale blond would have. The Gryffindor scarf around her neck only served to accentuate how nice the whole ensemble looked. “We could write a better song, or a louder chant…”

“Or we get him a nice pair of earplugs so he doesn’t have to hear anyone,” joked Harry.

Qiu giggled at that, and bumped his shoulder with hers. “Just two matches left,” she remarked after a moment, “and the last one’s Ravenclaw versus Gryffindor. D’you think I could beat Ginny Weasley?”

Harry laughed. “She’s good, but she could’ve ended this match much earlier,” he admitted. “That Snitch wasn’t very fast, and it was hovering around Summerby’s ankles at one point early on in the game.”

Qiu pulled back to look at him, clearly impressed. “You managed to spot that from the stands?” she asked. “Maybe you should consider going pro after Hogwarts. I could see you in Tornado blue…”

Harry snorted. “You don’t think I could pull off Cannon orange?”

Qiu pouted at him. “Well, you’d fly circles around Gudgeon, that’s for sure,” she conceded, and then waved at Ron as he emerged from the changing rooms, looking miserable. He saw the two of them, scowled harder, and picked up the pace.

Undeterred, Qiu pulled Harry by the hand over to where Ron was practically trying to jog back to the castle without making it look like he was avoiding them. “Seems like it was a rough game for you, Ron,” said Qiu soothingly as she fell in step with him, Harry trotting along a little bit further behind. “At least it’s over now, right?”

Ron’s ears turned red. “Oh, don’t you start,” he snapped at her, causing her to blink at him in confusion.

“I—I didn’t mean to—” she flustered, but the flush in Ron’s ears was already flooding his cheeks, alongside angry tears already pooling in the corners of his eyes.

“I don’t need either of you to rub it in, all right?!” he shouted. “I played a sh*t game! Just leave me alone!”

“You didn’t need to take it out on Qiu, mate,” Harry told Ron later that evening, during that week’s DA meeting. There was a certain awkwardness between the Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs tonight, but the spellcast for the Great Debate was more than enough distraction for them. Qiu was watching the wireless projection from next to Marietta, who was wearing a scarf over half of her face and jiggling her leg hard enough to send Pumpkin Fizz everywhere.

Ron, too, looked over at her with a faint hint of pink in his cheeks. “I know,” he said, quietly despondent. “It was out of order. I just couldn’t stand knowing that she’d seen me blunder every single goal.”

“It wasn’t every—” began Harry, but cut off at the pointed look from Ron. “Right. Sorry.”

“Angelina won’t let me quit.” Ron hunched forward on the sofa they were sharing, rubbing at his temples. “She says she knows I’ve got it in me, but if I don’t know what I’ve got, how can I get any better?”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say to that. From where he was standing, Ron’s biggest problem was that all of his Quidditch skills fell out the window the moment the points were real. Unlike with chess, he kept on second-guessing himself, and that was a hard habit to break even without Cormac McLaggen heckling him at every match.

He was spared, however, from having to say much more, because the Wizarding Wireless Network fanfare suddenly burst out from the spellcast, causing a hush to fall over all the gathered students.

“Good evening, everyone!” chirped the newsreader, holding up a golden microphone at the plinth of the massive Merlin and Morgana statue in the Ministry Atrium. “Welcome to the 41st Minister for Magic Candidacy Debate! We are here with a live audience at the Ministry of Magic of New Avalon, and I, Mr Howard Bagnold of the Wizarding Wireless Network News, will be your host and moderator for the evening!”

A round of applause rang out from the audience, which the spellcast briefly panned across before returning to the newsreader introducing the remaining three Ministerial candidates and then stating the rules of the debate.

“There will be three main segments with opening questions that each candidate will have two minutes to respond to,” said Mr Bagnold. “After each opening statement, the candidates are then free to engage with each other on the topics. At the end of the third section, we will have an open floor for the audience to ask questions to each candidate. Until then, the audience is requested to keep their questions to themselves.”

“If only there’s some way for viewers not in the Atrium to send in questions,” lamented Hannah Abbott. “I’m sure there’s people out there dying to be heard.”

Harry looked over at Hermione, who was watching the debate with a stony expression. She looked about as unwell as Regulus, who was standing at his podium with visible shadows under his eyes. In contrast, Miss Silverstream was waving congenially to the Atrium audience, while Gaunt smirked and stroked at the dark stone on his signet ring.

Mr Bagnold cleared his throat. “Now, without further ado, the first question. One key issue in this election has been concerning the Ministry’s renewal scheme for Knockturn Alley, which so far have only resulted in numerous raids upon the Alley’s infamous pawn shops and cabarets—policies that have garnered a lot of criticism for current Acting Minister Scrimgeour. What are your plans for Knockturn Alley, then, and how would you carry these plans to fruition? Miss Silverstream, you may speak first.”

Miss Silverstream flashed a winning smile at the audience. “Thank you, Mr Bagnold. As I have stated numerous times during the course of this campaign, the key to revitalising neighbourhoods of deprivation such as Knockturn Alley is to invest in its future, and the key to investing in its future is to ensure that people of quality are willing to spend time there. In the words of Lord Septimus Malfoy, developer of Sweeting Square: ‘places are only as good as the people who inhabit them’. We must therefore change the entire character of Knockturn by changing the people who live and work there, which, if we support New Blood investment in the area, would be a way for the New Blood community to prove their devotion to the Blessed Mother…”

“I am all for revitalisation,” said Regulus, when it was his turn to speak, “but only in tandem with the original inhabitants of Knockturn Alley. The creation of the Esplumoir District—notably Esplumoir Park—came at the displacement of numerous poorer magical families, viewed as rabble not much better than Muggles simply because they could not pay the new rents. Knockturn Alley, too, is home to numerous historical buildings and centuries-old family-owned shops, many of which are still in business solely because rent in Knockturn is far lower than in Diagon or Allegoric. Any revitalisation effort done on Knockturn should be done with them in mind, and I also do not think it kind to send New Blood shop-owners into Knockturn Alley as the front-line toad testers of a Ministry scheme to drive out the ‘undesirables’...”

“Only the leader of the Knights of Camelot would think of shielding businesses implicated in shady deals with his terrorist organisation,” sneered Gaunt when it was his turn. “My plan for Knockturn Alley is for the Ministry to get rid of the vagrants and criminals that make it such a dangerous, noxious place that no Pureblood maiden would dare to approach. Only once it is safe can we consider rebuilding and revitalising, and while Miss Silverstream’s idea of investing in the area does have its merits, her discrimination against other mages in favour of New Bloods only shows that she will not serve the entirety of New Avalon—only those who will owe her and her mother for their leg-up in society. Why should we be granting New Bloods the privilege of such a Ministry scheme and allowing them sole enjoyment of the benefits of developing Knockturn Alley? Wouldn’t you say that it’s reverse discrimination against Purebloods?”

“How would you determine who receives the assistance from the Ministry in opening new business in Knockturn, then, Lord Gaunt?” pressed Miss Silverstream.

“I do not believe it to be the Ministry’s business to pick and choose who gets to invest,” retorted Lord Gaunt. “Those with the money to open a shop there, should. Those without, shouldn’t. It’s as simple as that.”

“And then you will simply have more of the same—Pureblood landlords reaping the most benefits for their portfolio, while pricing out smaller shopkeepers and business owners,” Regulus pointed out.

“Would those ‘small’ family-owned businesses that you’re so keen on preserving happen to include the criminal fronts for your friends from the Ambitious and Most Ancient House of Burke?” taunted Gaunt.

He then continued to badger Regulus about his confession, but Harry quickly found himself distracted away by Qiu, who had come to sit in his lap. “I thought you were sitting with Marietta tonight,” he remarked, as she leaned in and tucked her head against his shoulder. The Potter courting comb sparkled in the glow from the spellcast projection.

“You seemed like you were going to fall asleep,” teased Qiu, pressing a kiss just under his ear. Her hand came up to cup his cheek, tilting his head towards hers. Harry went as if on autopilot, sighing a little against her lips…

“Seriously?” cut in Ron’s voice from next to him. “I’m right here, you know.”

Qiu pulled back, hiding her flushed cheeks behind her hand. “Sorry,” she giggled. “I got bored with the talk about Knockturn Alley.”

“Why? You’re actually old enough to vote this year, unlike the rest of us!” exclaimed Ron. That earned him a couple shushing noises from the other DA members, while Harry tried to focus his attention on the current talk about the recent Azkaban escape, and whether or not the usage of Dementor guards was at all justifiable in the modern wizarding world.

“Had we not just seen a massive break-out due to Dementor disobedience, I would’ve agreed with you on their durability as Azkaban guards,” Silverstream was saying, “but it’s clear now that they do respond to something other than the presence of prey—there is clearly someone other than the Ministry who is now controlling the Dementors—”

“The Dementors left their post because they were spurred by the Hand of Chaos,” interrupted Gaunt. “They, too, are not the soulless, mindless creatures that we assume them to be; they, too, can recognise when they are being exploited for their labour in guarding the so-called enemies of New Avalon, many of whom are solely there because of political persecution. Take, for example, the Betrayer Sirius Black—”

“The magical signature test placed Peter Pettigrew as the one to cast the Blasting Curse with my brother’s wand,” snapped Regulus.

“How interesting, then, that you deny your brother’s presence in the same organisation that you run,” taunted Gaunt. “Is it not a family affair, then?”

“It isn’t, and you know it, Lord Gaunt,” Regulus shot back. “Why else would the Knights of Camelot be so keen on calling you High Lord Slytherin? For someone so eager to distance yourself from them, you certainly hold an exalted position in their regard.”

“I was going to vote for Lord Black,” admitted Qiu, gesturing towards the spellcast, “but with him now turning out to be a Knight of Camelot, I’m no longer sure if I like anyone enough to vote for them…”

“I’m not sure if that’s a strategy we can afford, considering how Thicknesse’s supporters are now planning to vote for Gaunt,” Ron pointed out. “If Gaunt gets a relative majority of the votes in June, he’s going to be Minister for Magic. Don’t you think you owe it to Cedric not to let that happen?”

Qiu stared at him, her eyes welling with tears, before jumping out of Harry’s lap and fleeing for the contraband stacks. Harry gaped at Ron in disbelief.

“What happened to apologising for being a prick to her?”

“You’re expecting me to go after her right now?” hissed Ron, to more shushing from the other students.

Harry glared at them all. “You might as well apologise for both things.”

Ron did eventually leave to find Qiu, grumbling all the while. Harry focused back on the debate, where the three candidates were now arguing over whether or not the Knights who had broken out of Azkaban were even Knights of Camelot at all.

“Their innocence was clear to Mother Magic, and so She paved the way to their freedom by granting them passage through the Dementors,” Gaunt was saying now. “How is it not a miracle that these people were saved? That their cases can be reopened so that justice can prevail? How can you say the Dementor is soulless when it can clearly tell right from wrong?”

“It couldn’t,” snapped Regulus, “because it responds to power, not morality. If Dementors knew right from wrong, then they wouldn’t be attacking children in Muggle London!”

“And if house-elves knew right from wrong, then they wouldn’t be putting their own health at stake by disobeying their masters—or inciting other elves to rebellion,” countered Silverstream. “If Dementors are just following orders, then so are house-elves—”

Regulus scoffed. “The existence of freed elves is proof they are capable of existence separate from their original family’s magic! Whereas a Dementor deprived of its usual sustenance of souls—”

“If a house-elf has got a soul, then so does a Dementor!” interrupted Gaunt. “If we are to honour the Blessed Mother’s hand in creating all of our magical brethren, then I for one, would prefer to give precedence to those creatures who are willing to swear fealty to New Avalon, rather than tear this land apart…”

“Budge up a bit, mate,” said Ron gruffly, nudging Harry’s knee with his leg. Harry did, and Qiu sat down in between him and Ron, leaning her head on his shoulder. Harry was suddenly vividly reminded of the lightness he’d felt as he watched the Soapbox Speech with his chin on Draco’s shoulder…

No. Why was his traitorous brain still thinking about that git? As if to distance himself from the memory, Harry put an arm around Qiu and pulled her closer. He glanced over at Ron, who shrugged, crossed his arms and his legs, and turned back to the debate.

“You say you’re so supportive of these rebels, and yet what exactly are your house-elf policies going to be as Minister for Magic?” Gaunt was demanding now. “Tell me, Lord Black, how do you plan to reward your allies once you have won the leadership of New Avalon?”

“Anyone can tell from a mile off that you’re planning to pardon your wife,” Regulus shot back. “A wife who, I might add, is currently in violation of her exile as part of the agreement struck with Chief Warlock Dumbledore regarding her conviction of the torture of the previous Heir and Heiress Longbottom—”

“As I have said for years now, my lady-wife has been the target of a smear campaign by Albus Dumbledore, in conjunction with the Lying Longbottoms who also framed me for your own crimes, Lord Black,” sneered Gaunt. “You profess to hate Ministry corruption like the rest of us, and yet your master Albus Dumbledore was most corrupt in undermining my tenure as Chief Warlock, whilst ushering in the downfall of the Old Ways.”

“Old Ways which have only ever led to suffering and bigotry,” snapped Regulus. “Especially when taken to the extremes—”

“How ungrateful you sound, Lord Black, standing there condemning your own family’s centuries of unwavering devotion to the Blessed Mother!” cut in Miss Silverstream with scandalised tones. “She has blessed your family for so long, given you the Noble attribute out of Her infinite wisdom and love, and yet you insist on turning Her words into hatred and division! The most faithful followers of the Blessed Mother are peaceful and loving—we cannot forget that when we hear the deeds of a few evil men!”

“Yes, you’ve let Dumbledore brainwash you into viewing extremism only in terms of evil,” agreed Gaunt with a sneer. “Your hatred blinds you to the extreme capacity for love within our Tome: the love inherent in Bonding, and the Maiden’s Kiss, and how the Blessed Mother has chosen our soulmates for us. Perhaps you would not be so eager to destroy that which has raised you, Lord Black, if you were to find your fated helpmeet…”

“And how would extremism help with that?” demanded Regulus scornfully, as Harry held Qiu closer and tried not to think about how he’d almost conceded to the stupid Pureblood game for Draco’s sake. “Are you planning to mandate anointings for all births? Act as matchmaker to all the young people of Avalon?” He paused, eyes narrowing. “Are you planning to resurrect the Bonding Hunts?”

“Careful, Lord Black; there’s no need to fearmonger,” was Gaunt’s dismissive reply as he leaned towards Regulus with dark, narrowed eyes. Even in the spellcast they seemed to flicker red. “I have lived long enough to experience the full brunt of Albus Dumbledore’s machinations. To see him plant the seed of corruption that now rots the very heart of the Ministry of Magic, and nurture it with the ambitions that he once shared with the Dark Lord Grindelwald. Don’t you find it odd how readily Dumbledore chose you to be his man, in spite of your connections with the Knights of Camelot?”

“I thought he was accusing Master Dumbledore of being the true leader of the Knights of Camelot just a couple minutes ago?” wondered Miss Silverstream to Regulus in a carrying whisper.

Gaunt ignored them both. “Albus Dumbledore claims he doesn’t want power, and yet he is Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and Headmaster of Hogwarts—the last position being, possibly, the most powerful of them all, considering how he has been shaping the future of New Avalon since he was appointed to the position more than thirty years ago. Since his rise to power, he and his cronies have systematically villainised the Circle of Avalon and the Old Ways, calling them ‘outdated’ and ‘barbaric’ and seeking to supplant our culture and tradition with crude, degenerate Muggle filth. His personal cult, the Order of the Phoenix, preys on Pureblood guilt for the crimes of the Knights of Camelot—crimes that he himself has had a hand in orchestrating!

“When will New Avalon finally open its eyes to his show of smoke and mirrors? When will New Avalon finally stand up and say they’ve had enough of his manipulations? When will the parents of New Avalon take a look at how the Order has brainwashed their children into hating their own heritage, and demand to put Hogwarts Castle back in order—”

CRACK. Several people jumped in alarm, looking around them to see who had Apparated in spite of the castle’s anti-Apparition wards. Harry, however, was the first to see the tell-tale tennis-ball eyes, and the skirt with the colourful jumpers, and the large bat-like ears trembling with fear through the holes in Hermione’s knitted hat…

“Dobby?” he breathed, as Dobby scampered into the midst of the Debate Association meeting, trembling like a leaf.

“Dobby is here to warn Harry Potter that he is in grave danger!” he squeaked, before swaying slightly on his feet. Hermione quickly leapt to his assistance, propping him up slightly.

“What is it, Dobby?” she asked, exchanging a worried glance with Harry. The debate continued to play, with the moderator now desperately trying to wrangle Gaunt back into responding to the final segment.

Dobby wavered. “Dobby was ordered to—to tell Harry Potter—they are coming!”

“They?” demanded Harry, just as the sound of an explosion jolted through the Room of Hidden Things. Several of the second-years screamed. Everyone leapt to their feet, wands out.

Dobby, however, shook his head. “Dobby is sworn to secrecy… for his own safety, Dobby shan’t say…”

“What is that, Dobby?” Harry ground out, as the sound of another explosion rocked the room and its inhabitants again. It was like a troll knocking at the doors of the tomb in Moria… drums, drums in the deep… “Is that… is that Umbridge?”

Dobby nodded mutely.

Harry looked at Hermione frantically. Hermione, too, seemed to be thinking along the same lines as him. If that was Umbridge trying to blow down the door to the Room of Hidden Things, then they were trapped, like rats in a cage, like the Fellowship in Moria, like—

“This is a big room,” Ron’s voice cut through Harry’s momentary panic, as he gestured out at the stacks. “Our chances of getting out are higher if the Inquisitorial Squad doesn’t even know which way to hex.”

Harry had never felt more grateful towards his best friend than in that moment. “You heard Ron,” he told the rest of the fearful-looking DA. “The moment they get in, make them scatter. Get to the door once the coast is clear, and hex anyone on your tail. Head for crowds—the library, or the Owlery—use what we’ve learnt in previous meetings—and don’t let them catch you.”

The twins and Ginny nodded. Neville and the Creeveys looked determined. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws clutched onto their wands as if ready to duel. Marietta looked like she would faint, while Qiu reached out and took his hand.

There was another explosion.

“There’s no time to lose!” bellowed Harry. “Run!”