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Harry thought he was being kind of stupid to use the Invisibility Cloak just to follow Pucey around, but it was already three weeks into the term, and he hadn’t asked Harry to fly on the Quidditch pitch yet. Harry was pretty sure that Pucey wouldn’t care about the threat of Sirius Black and the warnings from the professors that Harry should stay in the castle.

So it had to be something else.

They got to almost the entrance of the Slytherin common room, and Pucey whipped around with his wand in his hand. “I don’t know who you are, but I can hear you just fine,” he snapped, his eyes going past Harry to scan the corridor. “So show yourself.”

Harry tugged down the hood. Pucey gaped at him.

Then he rolled his eyes and lowered his wand. “Potter. What are you doing?”

“I wanted to know why you didn’t want to practice this year.”

Pucey’s mouth turned into a slash on his face. Harry just waited. He didn’t think it was that intrusive a question, and it seemed weird that Pucey would want to practice for two years in a row and then just give up on the third.

“I didn’t make the Slytherin team.”

Harry stared at hm. “What?”

“Do you need your ears cleaned out, Potter? I said I didn’t make the team.”

“But you’re the best of the Chasers! I really paid attention whenever you played last year, and you’re the best.”

Pucey half-smiled at him. Then his face went sour again. “Tell that to Flint. He said that we needed more prominent families on the team.” His voice dipped into a deep growl that made Harry laugh in surprise; it was a good imitation of Flint’s voice. Pucey shook his head. “My family’s pureblood, but we don’t have much money, or the right politics.”

“Politics?”

“We hid during the war, Potter. We didn’t fight for the Dark Lord.”

“Well, that was the smart decision, right? Because I know the people who pretended to be under the Imperius Curse had to pay a lot of Galleons to the Ministry, and you couldn’t have done that if you didn’t have the money.”

“You have a—unique perspective.”

Pucey at least seemed like he was trying not to laugh, so that was better than how upset he’d been before. Harry smiled at him. “All right. But we can go on practicing, right? So you can get on the team next year and remind them why they never should have turned their backs on you.”

“You’re transparent, Potter.”

“And right!”

Pucey still looked uncertain, but after a few seconds of Harry staring pointedly at him, he nodded and lifted his hand. “Yes, all right. Our usual time on Monday?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Pucey looked around. “Now, you should get out of here. There are some Slytherins who would be all too happy to hex the Boy-Who-Lived just for being near the common room.”

“You could tell them that I’ve already been in it,” Harry remarked, and disappeared under his Cloak again as Pucey stared at him.

Harry was smiling as he went back to Gryffindor Tower. It felt like he had helped a friend.

Maybe they weren’t really friends. He didn’t talk to Pucey about anything except Quidditch and during the yearly visit to the hospital wing.

But Harry still felt good about it.

*

“You’re not going after Sirius Black, are you?”

Harry had just dodged a Bludger and grabbed the Snitch that Pucey was trying to block him from reaching, and he took a second too long to react to the question. Then he had to twist out of the way as the Bludger came at his head.

“Pucey!”

“Sorry. It would be much worse in a real game, you know that.”

“Yes, but you asked me a question that people keep asking me, and I’m not going after Sirius Black.”

“You do know that he’s your godfather, right?”

“Now you sound like Malfoy.”

Pucey looked hilariously offended. Harry smiled at him and guided the Firebolt off to the side so that he could get around the Bludger Pucey threw at him a second later. The Firebolt really did move like a dream.

“I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t have some stupid Gryffindor plan of getting revenge that would put you in danger.”

“That sounds more like a Slytherin plan than a Gryffindor one.”

“It does not!”

They dissolved into bickering, and Harry was happy enough to move on from the subject of Sirius Black. But when they flew back down to the pitch at the end of the practice, Pucey looked at him with a mutinous scowl.

“I mean it, Potter. No stupid heroics this year.”

“Not trying to, Pucey. Didn’t you hear Malfoy’s story of how I fainted on the train because the Dementors confronted me? Not exactly heroic.”

“Malfoy’s an idiot, and so are you if you keep bringing him up!”

Harry rolled his eyes as Pucey stormed off. He was probably sore about being reminded that Malfoy was on the team this year, and he wasn’t.

But no, Harry didn’t intend to rush off searching for Sirius Black. He had other things to think about, like making sure that Pucey could get on the team next year.

*

“Were you training with a Slytherin?”

Harry cursed under his breath. He’d been less careful about coming back from the pitch this time, just wanting a shower and to get inside, since it was late. And Oliver had caught him as he was coming out of the showers.

“Yeah. Adrian Pucey.”

Oliver, who had had his mouth open like he was about to yell in outrage, paused. “He’s not on the team.”

“No. He cares about winning fairly and beating the person who beat him out for Chaser next year when they have tryouts. I don’t think it’s a risk to train with him.”

Oliver blinked, as though it was a surprise to him that Harry could make his own decisions about this. Harry just stared at him and waited.

“Huh,” Oliver said at last, and hesitated. Then his suspicion seemed to win out over the confusion. “But you aren’t showing him any secret Gryffindor team moves, are you?”

Harry almost laughed. Anyone who wanted to see how the Gryffindor team played just had to come down to the pitch while they were practicing. Oliver made some attempt to vary the hours and have them practice early in the morning when fewer people would want to get up, but once they started, he was so completely focused that it wouldn’t take an Invisibility Cloak like Harry’s to escape his notice.

Then Harry shrugged away the notion. He supposed it was more natural for him to think that way than not, if he was spending time with a Slytherin, but he didn’t really want to think that way.

“No, Oliver. I promise.”

“Good. There’s a strategy I’ve been working out with Katie and Alicia, and it would a tragedy if the Slytherins got their hands on it before we’re ready to deploy it!”

Harry only half-followed the discussion of strategy, just nodding now and then to show he was listening. He was actually wondering how it would feel to play one more time against the Slytherin team with Pucey gone from it. He hadn’t really noticed in autumn, but…

This time, he would notice.

*

When they won the Quidditch Cup, Harry’s gaze went to the Slytherin part of the stands, and the one person clapping and screaming as if he had temporarily become a Gryffindor for the day.

Harry knew there was no way that Pucey could see him smile at that distance, but Harry did it for him anyway.

*

“I really am sick of you ending up in the hospital wing.”

Harry came around dazedly. He’d been deeply asleep this time. Apparently time travel could do that to you. Hermione had mentioned something about it in her rushed explanation of how the Time-Turner actually worked and how she’d been using it all year without telling them before she collapsed.

Pucey was leaning on the edge of the bed, scowling at him. Harry blinked. He had just seen Pucey a few days ago for their usual weekly practice. He shouldn’t have looked so tall.

“What happened this time?”

Harry swallowed. He wondered if he should really tell a Slytherin he didn’t know that well about the Time-Turner and Sirius’s innocence, but—well, they’d told the Minister Sirius was innocent and Pettigrew was alive. And Professor McGonagall had known about the Time-Turner.

Harry told it as quietly as he could. It felt like deep night, and Hermione was asleep in a bed a few meters away and Madam Pomfrey was probably asleep, but he still didn’t want to wake anyone up.

Pucey listened all the way through without asking questions, even though his eyes widened now and then and he shook his head more than once. When Harry reached the end, he spun around, punched the wall, and yelled, “Fuck!”

“Pucey!” Harry hissed, glancing over at Hermione. She was still asleep, but Harry thought she had twitched like she was about to roll over. “Keep it down.”

“No.”

“Well, you have to, or Hermione is going to wake up and—”

“I mean, no. You don’t get to call me Pucey.”

Harry closed his eyes. It felt like a Bludger had slammed into him and broken his arm again. “Okay,” he whispered.

“Oh, for the love of Merlin,” Pucey sighed, in such a normal tone that Harry’s eyes popped open again. Pucey was leaning towards him with a frown so deep that Harry wouldn’t be surprised if it cut slashes in his face. “I just meant, you get to call me Adrian. And I get to call you Harry.”

Harry laughed despite himself, for the first time since Sirius had dragged Ron underneath the tree. “Really?”

“Yes, really. That’s the way it is.”

Harry smiled at Pucey and ignored the way his stomach fluttered. It was a little like the way he’d felt when he’d made friends with Ron on the train, but not exactly the same. Probably because he didn’t have many friends and making them with Hermione had been so different.

For some reason, Pucey—Adrian—looked away and cleared his throat. Then he said, “I’m going to be on the team next year.”

“Yeah?”

“I pointed out to Flint how Slytherin obviously lost to you lot because I wasn’t one of the Chasers.”

“But Flint finally passed his exams, didn’t he?”

Adrian snorted and leaned on the wall again, more relaxed than Harry had ever seen him. “Well, we all hope so. But it doesn’t matter. The next Captain is going to be someone I can talk around.”

“Really?”

“If I can talk you around, Harry, I’ll be able to talk anyone around.”

Harry smiled at Adrian again, and Adrian stepped forwards and pressed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t die.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Adrian at least punched him in the shoulder, which was better than looking as devastated as he’d been looking, and turned and slipped out of the hospital wing. Harry leaned back with his arms folded behind his head and grinned at the ceiling.

He was still grinning when he fell asleep.