I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own Harry Potter.

Harry Potter was not generally a happy person. He had more things than most to be angry about, and had never learned to deal with that anger other than by lashing out. What he had learned is that people didn't tend to appreciate it when someone else takes their anger out on them.

And so it was that he stormed out of the open doors of Hogwarts castle one fine fall evening, stomping over to the lake. He sat down heavily on its bank, staring into its depths without truly seeing them. He had just come from a particularly frustrating Defense class, wherein Umbridge, the so-called teacher, had spent almost two hours baiting him.

McGonagall's worthless advice echoed in his head: "keep your head down. Don't antagonise her. Don't give her any excuses to punish you." A fat lot of good that did when she openly antagonised him either way.

If any other teacher had said the things she had . . . well knowing Dumbledore, he would have let it slide. Bloody Snape. Even so, the toad crossed the line today. She had all but outright accused Harry of murdering Cedric.

Harry looked down at his right hand, which was stinging. Staring at it in disbelief, Harry absentmindedly pulled a blade of grass from the ground next to him and transfigured it into a long white ribbon, which he wrapped around his hand three times before tying it off.

It had been two whole weeks since his last detention with the toad, how in the hell did the scars on his hand open up again? As Harry watched, the ribbon slowly but surely turned red. Eventually, Harry stopped wondering how they opened and started thinking about how odd it was that such small cuts bled so much, so fast.

"What happened to your hand?" asked a female sounding voice from behind him.

"Acromantula bite," he replied without thinking. It took a moment of silent reflection for Harry to realise that most people wouldn't consider that a plausible excuse.

"I didn't know that there were acromantula at Hogwarts," replied whoever Harry was speaking with.

"Well, they all live really deep in forest." This was perfectly true, although the person, whom Harry felt sit next to him, had no way of knowing it.

"And I suppose one snuck out of the forest and into the school just to bite your hand?"

Actually, Harry thought to himself, I wouldn't put that past them. He said nothing aloud, though, preferring to let the person sitting next to him do the work if she wanted an answer.

They sat in silence for a moment before the girl suddenly grabbed his hand and pulled it to her face. Harry spun to face her as he wrenched his hand away from her grasp.

"Sorry," she said quietly. She looked as though she meant it, which was the only reason Harry didn't either leave or try to curse her.

"Why do want to know, anyway?" He asked, completely thrown by her behavior. He immediately recognised her as a Slytherin in his year, Lilith Moon. The two of them had never spoken beyond exchanging pleasantries before that year, although Lilith had spent an awful lot of time around Hermione (and, as a consequence, Harry) since the start of the year. Despite being a Slytherin, Harry had found her company remarkably tolerable.

"Because you lied. I wanna know what happened that you wanna cover up."

"And what makes you think I'll actually tell you?"

"Nothing, but it was worth a shot." The two of them sat in silence for a moment before: "so what happened to your hand?"

"Reductor curse."

They examined each other for a minute, Harry's emerald eyes narrowed in suspicion while Lilith's dark blue ones were widened in mock innocence.

"Why does Umbridge hate you so much?" she tried instead.

"You know why," Harry replied bitterly.

"Then why won't Fudge believe you about He Who-"

"Voldemort. His name's Voldemort," Harry snapped, cutting her off. Lilith, however, ignored him.

"-Must Not Be Named?"

Harry sighed as his anger left him. He fell back so that he was lying down with his legs dangling over the edge of the riverbank, only a few inches from the surface of the water. "He's a coward," Harry replied eventually. "He doesn't want it to be true, so he pretends that it isn't."

"Even though it is?"

"Yeah."

They were quiet for another moment before Lilith spoke up. "That's pretty dumb. If he's so scared, he should be getting ready for a war, not pretending there won't be one."

"That's what Dumbledore said after the third task," Harry sighed. "But Fudge was never known for being smart, was he?"

There was another brief silence before Lilith drastically changed the subject. "Are you gay? Or are you just not affected by veela?"

"Excuse me," Harry asked. He wasn't as affronted as he knew he did have been, but he was very confused and not a little annoyed with the question.

"Last year, you were the only boy who never drooled over Delacour. Either you're immune to veela, it you aren't inserted in women in general."

Harry considered this for a moment before replying. "Which do you think it is?"

"I know which one I hope it is," she said. Or at least, that's what Harry thought she said. Must've misheard, he hastened to convince himself.

"I don't suppose it's either. I'm not gay, and the veela at the World Cup last summer had an affect on me until I saw them lose it. Since then, I've been immune to their allure. I even had Fleur test me by using hers on me intentionally."

Lilith seemed to consider this for moment before once again following up with another non sequitur. "Is it true you escaped a basilisk in second year?"

"Dunno if 'escape's' the right word, but yeah, more or less," he said indifferently.

Lilith scooted closer to him, looking at him intently. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I fought it, but I wouldn't say I escaped it."

Lilith leaned forward slightly so that her long black hair tickled Harry's face. "Are you saying that you killed a basilisk in second year?"

Harry couldn't quite help himself from asking what Sirius would do in his place, lying down with a very pretty girl leaning over him and staring at him as though he were the most interesting thing in the world. The only answer he could come up with didn't seem too bad, either, which was rare for advice that came from his godfather.

Deciding to go more subtle than simply grabbing her face and pulling her into a kiss (which he rather doubted that she would appreciate), he settled for simply whispering to her, "that a problem, love?"

According to Sirius, his dad had always called his mum "love," and it driven her mad for years. The way Harry saw it, there was no better time embrace Snape's claims that he was nothing but the second coming of his father, and he was beginning to rather like this girl.

Lilith shifted her body so that their faces lined up with each other's and placed a hand next to each of his shoulders. Leaning down further still, she had whispered, "I'm a Slytherin, Harry. That might be off putting for a Ravenclaw, but for me . . ." She trailed off for a moment before asking, once again, "what happened to your hand?"

"Umbridge makes me cut it open for detentions," Harry replied, figuring that it was probably about as farfetched as his earlier claim of a rogue acromantula, even if it was the truth.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have really pretty eyes?" Harry asked. He winced internally at how stupid that must have sounded. Sirius had been giving him flirting lessons over the summer (despite the protests of nearly everyone but Sirius, Harry included), but they didn't seem to have done much good. Harry supposed, this being the first time he had actually tried to apply the lessons, that wasn't very surprising.

Maybe it came off as sweet? Or cute. I'd settle for cute. "You don't flirt much, do you, Harry?" Damn it. She sounded kind of amused, though. Maybe it was cute?

"Should I start now?" he asked, hoping desperately to win back some of the points his eye comment must have lost him.

"I might get jealous," Lilith replied, smirking down at him. He couldn't quite help but notice that she had rather full lips.

"What's to be jealous of, love?" Harry asked in what he hoped was a seductive voice. Judging by her snort, he hadn't pulled it off as well as he might have hoped.

"Do I really have to spell this out for you?" she asked, clearly exasperated.

"It might help if you did," Harry replied cheekily.

"Oh, poor me," Lilith muttered as she leaned down to kiss him. Harry deepened the kiss as his hands, seemingly of their own volition, jumped to the small of her back and pulled her closer to him.

After a few minutes, Lilith reluctantly broke away for air. Harry, who had spent more of his life than he probably should have building up endurance for all the wrong reasons, started trailing kisses along her neck. Lilith repositioned herself so that she was sitting up and straddling Harry, whom she pulled up by his shirt.

Having caught her breath, Lilith grabbed Harry's head with both hands and moved it to her face to kiss him again. He pulled her closer still as she started running her hands through his hair, messing it up even beyond its normal, untamed state.

It wasn't until they were interrupted by a familiar "Hem! Hem!" that the two separated.

When, a week later, a new Educational Decree (number twenty-six) forbade two people of opposite genders from being within six inches of each other, Harry didn't believe for a second that it was a coincidence. He also didn't pay it the slightest mind, not that Lilith would have let him.

AN: Just a little plot bunny I had floating around my google drive for a while (I have a separate email address and google docs account for fanfiction). I decided I'd finally clean it up and post it, since it's just been sitting around not doing anything the past few weeks. Some stuff I couldn't really incorporate without it being really unnatural: Lilith had a crush on Harry since the middle of their fourth year, and started hanging around Hermione (under the pretext of working on their studies. As if.) to get to know him a little. Evidently she liked what she saw. The whole "Educational Decree number twenty-six" thing is something from the movies. I'm not the biggest fan of the films, particularly the last four (I say, and will always maintain, that David Yates made some very serious missteps with them, as did Steve Kloves), but they really nailed most everything to do with Umbridge in Phoenix. I mean that one moment where Harry knocks on her office door and she very slightly adjusts a single pen on her desk? Genius. And I know that probably sounds really sarcastic, given that most of what I write is sarcastic, but it wasn't. Where was I?

Oh yeah. Fanfiction. Anyways, I initially had no intention of continuing this story since I figured that it would just be me rewriting Order of the Phoenix verbatim, only taking out the Cho subplot and adding a more stable relationship between Harry and Lilith. Not really much point. Do I expect that, in that little world, it'd be her in the "nineteen years later" epilogue? Not necessarily, but that's not to say it would't be, either. That said, I later realised that having someone like Lilith in Harry's life kind of changes everything for him, so I figured I'd continue with the story and see where it went.

But yeah. Ehem. Tell me what you guys think, since this is my first one-shot (or rather, the first thing I meant to write as a one-shot), and I'm not particularly good with them. I've tried to write a ton, and each time I do, I really struggle with the pacing: I'm just never sure how much information to add, or how much I can add. And that ending. Ugh. It's just so . . . abrupt. I dunno, man. But that's why I post this stuff, so that you guys can explain to me all the ways in which I've screwed it up. And on that note, thanks for reading! Duke Out!