CH 61

Sirius' letter was carefully folded under the edge of his plate. His godfather had not been able to contact him until recently, but the moment he had Harry had received a letter as long as his forearm.

Most of it was no longer relevant, but a few snippets were very enlightening. His father's invisibility cloak was apparently a very old family heirloom and the Marauders had discovered it resisted summoning charms, the revealing spell and many other spells besides. Sirius thought it possible that it might have been able to hide him from the age line.

If that was true it would explain why Dumbledore had genuinely seemed to be disappointed with him when it had seemed impossible for Harry to enter.

In addition to his knowledge of the invisibility cloak came a warning to be wary of Igor Karkaroff, a former Death Eater, Alastor Moody, whose descent into paranoia and madness was well known, and Snape, because his godfather still hated the man.

Harry had followed their actions on the map, but had seen nothing untoward in their actions. Neither had strayed from their normal routines and Harry had been forced to conclude that they were not responsible.

His suspects were Lucius Malfoy, who had planted the diary in this second year, and Peter Pettigrew. He had seen the latter on the Marauders' Map from time to time, lurking by the quidditch pitch.

Most importantly to Harry was Sirius' choice of words. At no point in the letter did he even imply that Harry had entered himself. His godfather had known he had not without a word from Harry himself.

His reply has been brief, but honest. A thank you for not asking whether he had entered and a short relation of events up until this point. He has only excluded the Chamber of Secrets and Salazar from his recounting. Sirius would understand that he had to grow stronger and would know that Harry wasn't going to misuse any of what he learned, supposedly dark, or not.

'Harrikins.' The twins slid themselves on to the bench across from him. The Great Hall was the only place anyone had been able to find him; it was also somewhere he couldn't avoid.

'We should probably stop calling him that, Fred.' Harry tucked the letter out of sight while they were distracted.

'I suppose,' the other, possibly George, agreed. 'He did survive the dragon.'

'Shouldn't the two of you be over there?' Harry asked, nodding in the direction of Angelina, Alicia and Katie.

'No,' they announced together.

'They're coming over here,' George told him cheerfully. 'We told you this wouldn't last long if we could help it.' 'Although it was Katie that did most of the persuading,' Fred added.

Harry watched the three Gryffindor girls approach with mixed emotions. On one hand he wanted to play seeker next year, but on the other was the fact that both Angelina and Alicia had turned their backs on him.

'Angelina, Alicia, Katie,' he greeted them coolly, his tone only thawing when he addressed Katie who squirmed a little upon getting a more favourable introduction.

'I was assured that you would hear me out, despite the rumours that you wouldn't accept apologies from anyone in Gryffindor.'

'I promised somebody that I would at least listen to you,' Harry responded. 'I keep my promises.' 'Then I shall apologise for acting as I have,' Angelina said quietly, but confidently. 'You have represented both Gryffindor and Hogwarts as well as I could have, regardless of whether you used an invisibility cloak to put your name into the goblet.'

'So you do not believe me, but have moved past your jealousy at not being chosen yourself,' Harry summarised bluntly. He assumed Ron or Hermione was to blame for the rumour about his cloak, but he doubted his cloak would have let him bypass the line, family heirloom or not. The age line had been made by Albus Dumbledore, the greatest living wizard.

There was a long silence in which everyone turned to look at Angelina.

'I suppose that is a fair description,' the quidditch captain admitted. 'Then I will tell you what I told the few others who have come to speak to me. I don't forgive you and I won't forget what you did, but I do understand why you did it well enough not to hold a grudge and perpetuate this affair. We are no longer friends, Angelina, Alicia, from the next time we met it will be as if we had never met before.'

Harry watched the reactions of each of the sixth years. The twins seemed to accept it, Harry suspected they had already guessed what he was going to say from speaking with Ginny, and Angelina and Alicia seemed resigned, even a little relieved, by his decision. Hermione's rumour mongering, intentional, misguided, or otherwise, had clearly spread far. Katie was smiling. It was a wide, bright, beaming grin that brought a twitch of a smile to Harry's own lips. She was a glitter of white teeth between pale, pink lips, with mahogany eyes glimmering with the same swell of joy and framed by messy hair that scattered past her ears in loose strands. Katie always wore her emotions in her eyes and on her face in an endearing, earnest manner.

'Thank you,' Angelina said. ' I assume you excluded Katie because she spent so much time trying to convince us we were wrong?'

'She was the one who convinced me to listen to you,' Harry replied simply.

'I'm not very surprised that Katie didn't go along with the attempt to ostracise you,' Alicia smirked, eliciting a faint blush from her fellow chaser.

The four departed leaving Harry with a nervous looking Katie. 'Thank you for listening to them,' she said, tugging anxiously at her little finger.

'I said I would,' Harry responded, scrunching his toes within his shoes. Katie's nervousness was beginning to put him on edge. She had never acted like this around him before, it reminded him faintly of how Ginny had been, but he had no idea what she wanted.

'Do you want to go to Hogsmeade at the weekend?' She blurted suddenly, then bit her lip in embarrassment.

'Who's going?' Harry asked, oblivious to the rising blush on Katie's cheeks.

'Me,' Katie said in a very small voice.

It took Harry a second to realise what had just happened. A date with Katie.

He had no idea how he was supposed to reply, or even if he wanted go on a date. Harry would have been happy to wander round Hogsmeade with her, but she'd asked too officially for it to be anything but a date. Katie was nice, he supposed, Harry could be himself around her, they had shared interests and she was hardly unattractive. In fact, as she stared up at him with wide, anxious eyes, it was rather hard to miss just how cute she really was and Harry couldn't see why he had never seen it before.

'If you don't want to go it's ok,' she told him, just as quietly, looking down at the floor.

'What time?' Harry asked. He'd made up his mind. There were really no reasons for him not to go once he ignored his own nervousness and inexperience of what exactly a date was meant to be.

Katie burst into the same bright smile as before, only this time it was accentuated by a full rosy blush. 'Eleven,' she decided. 'I'm not much of a planner. We can figure out what to do when we get there.'

'That sounds perfect.' Harry flashed her a smile of his own to cover his growing anxiety. Katie's blush bypassed all the remaining intermediate shades of red and skipped straight to crimson. Glancing to either side of her she released a small squeak of joy and jumped forward to hug him tightly.

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