firecracker ???

7-1

"I—I mean I don't even want the second badge," he said quickly. "It's so heavy. I hate power. You're the real boss. You always have been."

"Pathetic," Draco muttered.

Lyra sighed. "So weak."

Harry objected. "Hey! I am a man!"

"A loud, petty man," Lyra said blankly.

He beamed. "But your man."

She smacked his arm.

He grinned wider when he saw her smile too.

-

A day later, the broomsticks arrived in matching boxes—black wood, emerald and scarlet lining, one with the Malfoy crest, the other with the Potter stag engraved in silver.

Draco, still petty, scowled for a full twenty minutes.

Harry posed with his.

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Alright," he muttered. "If Lucius is playing sugar daddy for broomsticks, I'll do something too."

When things felt like they couldn't get more dramatic— he struck.

"I have a surprise," he declared at lunch the same day.

"Is it food?" Harry asked.

"Better."

"Nothing's better than food."

Sirius only grinned.

That afternoon, Viktor Krum landed on the Quidditch pitch.

Tall. Brooding. Still handsome in a brooding, polite, European sort of way.

Harry and Draco were, at first, ecstatic. They hadn't been able to fan three years earlier when Voldemort's return was budding. But now? International champion. Fastest Seeker in the world. Krum was here to train them? 

Then Krum spotted Lyra.

His eyes widened. "She is... how do you say... part Veela, yes?"

"No," Harry said immediately.

Krum smiled at Lyra. "You are beautiful like one."

"Thanks," Lyra replied.

Harry's eye twitched.

"I'm sorry, who wanted him here again?" Harry asked.

"You did," Sirius said, amused. "Twenty seconds ago you were bursting with joy."

"Well, I take it back."

Krum heard and winked at Lyra again jut to mess with him.

Draco audibly gagged.

"We're not doing this," he said. "We're not getting trained by a man who stares at my sister like she's a chocolate éclair."

"I mean, she's not not like a chocolate éclair—" Sirius began.

Harry shoved him.

For the first week, Krum was every bit the world-class coach he'd promised to be.

He drilled them in low-visibility flying. Made them run sprints up and down the garden with broomsticks over their shoulders. Forced Harry to redo his grip until he stopped flaring his elbow "like a show pony." Called Draco "too rigid." 

Lyra, bored with nothing to do, also joined their classes using Draco's old 2001.

Which is when Harry became insufferable.

"I'm just saying," he muttered to Draco one night, "did you see the way he handed her the water bottle?"

"He put a cooling charm on it," Draco replied grimly. "A cooling charm."

"I know."

Draco sighed. "He helped her dismount."

"He touched her elbow."

"She smiled."

"I saw."

"He's not even that handsome."

"Thank you."

There was a long silence.

"You think she finds him handsome? More handsome than my god-like face?"

"Shut up, Potter."

-

By the second week of August, Sirius had taken to calling their summer "The Prequel to Madness," and Narcissa had scheduled five owl deliveries' worth of new school robes.

Regulus created a literal seating chart for the Hogwarts Express, including backup plans in case "someone" (Harry) tried to start a singing competition again.

But things were calm. And beautiful.

For once, everyone was home. Everyone was alive. 

There were lazy afternoons in the garden.

Evenings spent flying under enchanted starlight.

Time seemed to fly with the comfort and ease that 12 Grimmauld Place brought. The night before the train, as the trunks were packed and brooms were polished with Sirius shouting about forgetting socks, Harry looked out the window of his bedroom and thought.

Everything was perfect.

And for a little while longer, it would stay that way. 

He couldn't be happier to have a shot at normalcy for once.