The bustle of the pub folded around them, and Harry didn't quite know what to do with his hands. The scene was just familiar enough that he felt relaxed, and yet strange enough that he kept casting glances over the other side of the table, where Draco sat awkwardly, and pinching himself.

Or, more accurately, he was waiting for Draco's friends to arrive and pinch him, cruelly, with malicious intent.

But instead, everybody was just playing nice.

"And what do you think, Draco?" Hermione asked, sliding the menu across the table to him. "Have you decided what you'll have?"

Draco slowly lifted his eyes from the table to Hermione's face, and Harry gritted his teeth, waiting for the insult. For the 'Well, the menu only has one edible option, and I've picked it'. Or the 'It doesn't take a genius to work out what's on a pub menu, thank you, Granger, I can order without that monstrosity masquerading as a menu'. Or, well... for anything, really.

But instead, Draco smiled politely and said, "I'm having the fish."

"Oh, fish?" Hermione said, eyebrows lifting, like she'd somehow forgotten the most common meal available at a pub. "Maybe I should have the fish."

Ridiculous as it was, Harry felt a surge of warmth that she was trying so hard. She could have left Malfoy out in the cold, and then Harry would have to do that awkward dance of being in the middle, since he wanted to be loyal to his friends, but he was here with Malfoy, so—

Well, not here with him, but—

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and took a breath.

Right, so he just had some adjusting to do, to work out exactly what it meant to have lunch with Draco Malfoy and his friends, but he'd get there. He'd done stranger things.

"Ron, do you think I should go with the fish or the steak?" Hermione asked, leaning over to Ron, who threw Harry a very bewildered 'please come and save me' look over the top of her head.

"Well," he said slowly, "you always get the steak, so—"

"Yes, but maybe I could try something different," Hermione said, a note of something forceful entering her voice that was discreet to absolutely nobody at the table.

"Something different, you reckon," Ron said with a slow exhalation. "Right, yeah, why not? Could do with some of that."

When Hermione turned away, he shot Harry another one of those looks, slightly more desperate this time. Draco cleared his throat, folding his arms crisply before him and leaning on the table.

"So." He paused. "Ron, how's work?"

Ron's eyes bugged out of his head. "Uh," he stammered, "yeah, work's good. Work's, you know, work. Training's a bit rough this week, but..." He pulled up his sleeves, showing a bruise just above his elbow and grinning with what was unmistakably his most bashful smile. Harry blinked in surprise. "I think I'm getting stronger."

Draco's eyes flicked down to Ron's bicep and he gave an agreeable eyebrow raise. "Looks like it," he drawled.

A flicker of something hot and unfamiliar surged in Harry's gut. He frowned. But then Draco lifted his eyes to Harry and Harry realised abruptly, with no warning, that Draco was nervous.

He'd seen him unsettled the other day, when they'd found the constellation. He'd seen him vulnerable then, remembering what it had been like at school with the world collapsing around them. Everybody just clinging on for dear life, and Draco and Harry caught up in the worst of the storm in their own ways. But this was different.

This was something Harry had never seen before.

Some of his own nerves left him a little at the realisation. But before he could say anything, the awkwardness was broken by a loud, shrill, "Hellooo!"

Harry looked up to see Pansy and Blaise descending upon the table. Pansy's arms were spread wide, and her nose was wrinkled into something that he thought was meant to be a smile but looked more like a frightened grimace.

"How is everyone?" she finished as they settled themselves on the other side of the table with Draco.

Harry took a moment to appreciate how fucking ludicrous the entire situation was.

When Draco had owled him two days after the Globe, they'd both agreed they needed to get Hermione's opinion on things. And it would obviously be better if they were all there for the discussion, to save them both the trouble of Harry filtering things he didn't entirely understand back to Malfoy. And Malfoy refused to meet anywhere that wasn't neutral ground, and then he refused to meet without his friends as backup, which... really... Harry couldn't blame him.

So here they were, ordering the fish apparently.

The other two settled in and the conversation rolled over Harry. It was remarkably pleasant, engaging even. Blaise was an Unspeakable and so could make passing small talk with Ron quite easily about work and different things in the Ministry that only the two of them understood. And Hermione and Pansy, although hesitant at first, did fall into an unexpected conversation about the history of the pub they were in. Pansy, it seemed, knew the owner and Hermione had an interest in anything, well, interesting.

Which left Draco and Harry. And with the arrival of his friends, Draco, Harry found, had changed yet again. He sat a little taller in his seat, his fingers tapping a distracted rhythm on the table as he eyed the two of them sharply and appeared to drink in the scene.

It wasn't quite how it had been in Hogwarts. He wasn't ruling the conversation or demanding all the attention. And yet, there was an undeniable familiarity that made Harry think of those times all the same.

And when Pansy began telling a story about the owner's latest scandal—getting caught with his trousers down in the middle of some square—Draco took over with delight.

"You should have seen the amount of gold it took to squash that one before it hit the papers," he said gleefully, leaning across the table to speak directly to Hermione. "He swaggered into the paper's office, I heard—Waterston is an intern there now, you see—head high, cheeks completely aflame." Draco sat himself higher in his chair, adopting what was assumed to be the owner's sheepish and yet blustering voice.

The mimicry was spot on.

Pansy howled with laughter and even Hermione's mouth twitched, despite the frown itching itself between her brows.

"But that isn't right," she said after the laughter died down. "He shouldn't have to pay off some company to keep his private life private."

"It's the way of the world, Granger," Pansy said, reaching across to pat Hermione's hand gently. "And besides, you haven't heard the best bit. It was the head of the Prophet's daughter that he was caught with."

Hermione gasped.

Harry blinked, his attention darting from Pansy to Hermione and back again. He'd never seen Hermione as engaged in any conversation he and Ron were having, and he remembered again how she'd never quite fit in at Hogwarts. Never quite had this sort of female friendship that she undoubtedly wanted.

She loved him and Ron, he knew that. But one person couldn't be expected to fulfil all of someone's needs.

His eyes caught Draco's, only to find Draco already watching him. They each pulled a face, something that Harry read as falling partway between amusement and an almost shared camaraderie, both of them appreciating how easily their friends got on, even as they were shocked by it.

His thoughts drifted to the strangeness of the two of them getting along at all. And from there, on to how he didn't mind Draco seeing him in Sirius's clothes. How he was—oddly—completely fine with Draco seeing parts of him that he wouldn't even show his friends.

Abruptly, he realised why.

It was because Draco knew him. Sure, Harry shared more, statistically speaking, with his friends... but Draco knew him. Had always known him.

He might not know the facts, but he knew him.

"Harry," Hermione said in a tone that was far too deceptively casual to mean anything good.

Harry looked up. "Mmm?"

"We tried to drop in on Tuesday and you didn't seem to be home."

Tuesday. He was at The Hive, listening to some band he couldn't even remember. Wearing ripped jeans and eyeliner, and trying not to watch two men grind against each other in a shadowed corner.

"Oh, yeah," he said, clearing his throat when it came out faintly high pitched. "I think I might've gone to bed early that night. Sorry. Were you waiting long?"

He felt more than saw Draco turn towards him. Sensed the lifted eyebrow. The knowing gaze.

Draco had seen him on Tuesday. He'd known Harry was going out.

"We rang the bell for five full minutes!" Hermione protested. "Your Floo was closed. You don't usually close it when you're asleep."

"Might've forgot?" Harry suggested, resolutely not looking at Draco.

He waited for Draco to out him. To lean across the table and smirk and say he'd seen Harry dressed in ripped jeans and a band shirt that night—and maybe Hermione should ask him about his wardrobe, if she wanted answers.

But Draco didn't say anything. Soon, their food arrived and the moment was forgotten.

"Well," Draco said after a lull in the conversation, leaning forward on the table, "do we talk shop now or after food?"

"Oh, do it now," Hermione said immediately, the words tumbling out and falling over each other in her haste. Harry wondered how she'd held in this long. "Go on, do you have the maps with you? Can you explain them to me?"

Draco did.

He pulled the star maps out and spread them over the table. Even Pansy and Blaise seemed intrigued as they went through the specifics of Harry's quest. Blaise had been through a number of them himself, with his mother's ex-husbands and their unfortunate demises. And Pansy was familiar enough to follow along.

When their food came out, they swept the maps to the side, casting spells to have them hover out of reach of the food, so they could keep talking. And by the end of the night, Harry actually felt he almost understood what he was doing.

By naming their children after the stars, the Black family had imbued an ancient magic within their bloodline, similar to astronomy, but with a touch of Muggle astrology in it as well. It was all very mystical—an odd sort of fortune telling combined with a bit of what could be a very good omen or a very bad one, depending on how one interacted with the bits and pieces of the starlight that was captured on Earth.

Which was where those little mirrors came in.

The magic was stored there, and usually, it would be regained and restored with each new inheritance. But with the rise of Voldemort and all the chaos tracing all the way back to Grindelwald, the family had become negligent. Now, there was far more magic stored within the family's earth bound constellations than there should have been, which meant Harry had his work cut out for him.

"Is that why it was so..." He made an explosive gesture with his hands. "Angry?"

Draco nodded. "Undoubtedly," he drawled. "Wouldn't you be if you'd been locked up for decades?"

But Hermione shook her head. "I don't know about that," she said, nose wrinkled. She drew one of the star charts toward her. "If this magic is part of the Black bloodline, then the bloodline is part of the magic as well. That's why it's going on about needing to prove yourself, yes?"

Draco pulled a face that was vaguely encouraging.

"So I don't think it's that the magic is just annoyed in general." She waved her nearly empty wine glass around dangerously over the map. Draco subtly pulled it back with one finger. "I think it's that the magic doesn't trust you."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Yes, that's what we were just saying."

"No," she shook her head. "I mean you two, specifically. It doesn't trust you because you don't trust each other."

Harry gaped at her. When he glanced at Draco, he saw he wasn't alone.

"Well, we do, though," he said, although it came out more as a question.

Draco, again, made that vaguely agreeable gesture with his face. Hermione snorted, while Pansy barked out another one of those shrill laughs.

"Oh yes, we're really convinced," Pansy said, sharing a bright grin with Hermione. "How many arguments have you had now?"

"Well," Harry trailed off. Honestly, it wasn't like they were bloody counting.

"Six," Draco drawled, tapping his fingers in irritation on the table. He pulled a face. "And a half."

"What was the half?" Harry snapped.

"When you burnt my crumpet," Draco retorted.

"Oh, come off it." Harry rolled his eyes. "You can't ask for a brown crumpet and expect it to not get a little burnt around the edges. Crumpets just don't brown."

"That," Draco said, pointing a finger at Harry's face, "is number seven."

Despite the levity in each of their tones, Harry could feel something lingering below the surface. An underlying tension that had appeared in their argument on the way to the Globe, and hadn't quite managed to go away, no matter that they had each apologised and agreed to move forward.

What did Harry expect? It was Draco after all. A singular apology was never going to erase years of history.

"This is what I mean," Hermione insisted, more seriously than before. "You either need to sort out your trust issues or..." She shrugged. "You need to Occlude. The magic senses how much you mistrust each other. And why would it possibly trust you if you're so very untrustworthy that even the people you're working with don't trust you?"

"If I hear the word 'trust' one more time," Harry said lightly, "I'm going to flip the table."

Blaise leered at him. "Reckon you could, Potter?" His eyes flicked down to Harry's biceps, visible beneath his plain black Henley—not one of Sirius's this time.

A flush rose along Harry's neck, the warmth oddly pleasant.

Draco sneered before he could respond. "Anyway, when we're all done ogling each other. How are we possibly meant to Occlude? Potter's useless at it."

Harry thought about making it argument number eight, but Draco wasn't wrong. He was useless at it.

"Well then you'll need to teach him," Hermione said.

Draco opened his mouth indignantly but then paused. He cast a glance at Harry across the table and the two of them shared a reluctant grimace. If it was what they had to do, then it was what they had to do.

"So the one thing I don't get," Pansy said, leaning across the table between them, "is what's in it for you, Draco? A fifteen percent cut at least, I should hope."

Draco shushed her, clapping his hand over her mouth and shoving her backward. "Oh, cut it out. Who's up for dessert?"

The table launched into agreement, but Harry found himself staying silent. It was a thought that hadn't occurred to him as often as it should, but with the shifty way that Draco was avoiding his eyes right now, he had to wonder... what the hell was in it for Draco?

And should Harry be offering him something in return? Payment, or... He didn't know—anything.

The thought weighed on him for the rest of the evening.

Later that night, Harry flicked through the photo albums on the shelf. It was long past midnight, and he should have been asleep, but the memory of Pansy's question—and Draco's quick dismissal—wouldn't leave him. He didn't know what to do, and the uncertainty was making his stomach churn.

So, he figured he may as well put his insomnia to use and hunt through more of the Black Family possessions, to see if there was anything more he could piece together about Sirius. Anything that might help him get the magic to trust him.

But all he'd found were photo albums, mostly of the Order, and mostly ones he'd already seen a dozen times over. This wasn't the first late night he'd spent flicking through the past, even if he did have a purpose for it now.

He turned another page, but this one was stuck to the next. Barely paying attention, he levered two fingers between the pages, pried them apart with a satisfying tearing sound, and turned it.

Then paused.

He tilted his head to the side. The page hadn't been stuck; it had been sealed, and it now opened for the first time. He'd never seen these photos before. They hadn't even been set out on display in the page. They were stacked behind each other—three Polaroids shoved haphazardly into one of the pockets.

It was almost like someone had been hiding them.

He nearly hesitated at that thought, wondering if they should stay hidden, but his curiosity was too strong.

Harry slid the three Polaroids out and flipped the first one over. He stared at it for a few seconds, frown deepening. It was just like any other shot of the Order, except that it was taken on Muggle film, he supposed. Someone had clearly gotten their hands on a roll of it and had some fun.

The photo itself was just of Sirius and Bill, leaning back on the couch together and laughing about something. Beneath it was Sirius's writing, saying 'Philosophical Debates of '95. Bill tells me Muggle-borns reckon our magical core is our soul. I reckon they should meet my mother—she doesn't have a bloody soul'.

Harry frowned. What was so special about this photo that it needed to stay hidden?

He flipped the next one over. It was basically the same shot, except—he peered closer—Sirius and Bill were sitting closer together.

Something strange stirred in the pit of his stomach. Something that sparked and burned. Slowly, he turned the final photo over. When he saw what it was, he forgot everything about magical cores and souls—and everything he thought he knew about his godfather.

The last photo was blurred, the photographer obviously hurrying to get out before he was spotted. And because it was Muggle, the blur obscured the shot. But even still, it was clear to see what Sirius and Bill were doing.

They were kissing.

There was laughter on both their faces, bright and wild, and they looked—alive. It must have been before Bill got together with Fleur, judging by the length of his hair, and the slightly less haunted expression on Sirius's face.

Harry stared at the photo for a long time. Something electric was racing through him, but he couldn't figure out if it was good or bad.

He'd thought...

Actually, he hadn't thought...

He didn't know...

Harry hadn't thought about anything to do with Sirius and love, but if he had—if he'd had the time to think about it—he realised this made sense. It made sense in the way that Sirius's tattoos, and his ripped jeans, and his punk records made sense. It made sense like Bill's fang earring, and his long hair.

Harry looked down slowly, thumb and forefinger tugging at his own ear as he looked at the ripped jeans he was wearing. At the Misfits logo emblazoned on his singlet.

It made sense.

His heart beat so fast, he couldn't think. He tucked the photos into their pocket, shoved the book back in the bookshelf, and walked away.