Friendly Advice (Eliza)

[Harry James Potter]

Harry paced around the Room of Requirement.  He was worried.  Oh boy, he was worried.  He was going to take up a Snape position (he didn't trust Snape, but that was alright, for now), as a spy against Voldemort.  He couldn't do it in his time, but this was before he was born.  Voldemort wouldn't know.  The only problem he would have is if a Death Eater came back in time and told Voldemort about him.  He had already cleared it with Dumbledore what he would do in that case.  Plus, why would Voldemort believe them?  He had been supplying them with information for years on Hogwarts, and the Order, and coming from an Order-centric family, it would make sense he would know some of what was going on in the Order.  Originally, Peter was going to take this position, and his Order information would have been accepted because of his friends.  Harry didn't even know that he had gained some inkling of trust before he even arrived here, due to Dumbledore looking ahead, and preparing this position for years, making the information evolve from a kid's point of view of important information to an adult's. 

However, he couldn't really tell anyone.  Ginny was coming with him, and he was going to tell Eliza.  No one else.  Even telling Eliza was a little far, but she had experience as a spy, on the other side of things, and he wanted to ask for any advice she could offer.  It could mean the difference between life and death, defeating Voldemort, and losing to Voldemort.  So, he sent a note with one of the school's owls to Eliza with a brief message that said to meet him here, soon, in somewhat cryptic language. 

A place that is secret.  ~H

He was pretty sure she was smart enough to know what he meant, and waited in a chair in the Room of Requirement, hoping she would come.  He had to ask this year, it was her last year, after all.  Even if Ginny convinced him to wait until he could master Occlumency. 

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

Harry was lucky that Eliza knew him so well, otherwise she would have refused to even acknowledge the note he'd sent her. As it was, the whole situation with their ages was just...odd. Eliza and Harry were supposed to be the same age, but he'd been younger when he got thrown back in time. It was similar to the situation she found herself in with the younger versions of her older sister and Gabe that were gallivanting about the school; if nothing else, this jaunt in the past had taught her that she hated time paradoxes with an undying passion. Life was simpler when everything. remained. linear.

She had sent a note back to Harry with a simple sentence in German that he ought to have known by that point for how often she said or wrote it. Honestly, it seemed to have become her catch-phrase since meeting him, which shouldn't have been shocking when his tendency to get into trouble by breathing was taken into account.

Was haben Sie in jetzt bekommen?
-E

She headed off to the Room of Requirements as soon as the coast was clear, hoping that she didn't wind up a) dueling for her life (again), b) hijacking someone's broom to save his ass (again), or c) doing anything that involved fences. These were all frequent and unfortunate side-effects of her long-running friendship with Harry James Potter that she was most decidedly NOT FOND OF.

He was sitting in a chair waiting for her when she arrived in the Room of Requirements; at least he'd remembered to not be late. She hated tardiness.

"Sometimes, I wonder if I should be concerned whenever you send me a note, mein freund," she remarked. "But then I remember I should be concerned when you make the conscious decision to breathe."

((Eliza's note said: What have you gotten into now?))

[Harry James Potter]

Harry chuckled after he had received her reply.  He had heard that reply from her many times, and was some of the little bits of german he knew from her.  It wasn't like he tried to get into trouble... trouble just knocked on his door, and he would simply answer his door and not be able to stop the trouble from breaking in all the way.  But this time.  It was different this time.  He invited trouble into his home this time.  Invited it in, served it tea and sat down and talked with it.  Which was probably better than it breaking in, though it was still extremely dangerous if someone found him out. 

Eliza came in and Harry quickly stood up with a small smile, though a worried look on his face.  He trusted Eliza, quite a bit, actually.  Not more than Ron or Hermione... or even Ginny, but that was because he was just that close to those three right now.  He knew that he could tell her, and she would be able to keep the secret.  And perhaps she could give him good advice on the whole matter. 

"Well... this time it doesn't have anything to do with fences," Harry noted with a small amused smile, "And actually... it's something I'm willingly doing."

[Elizabeta Anne Beilschmidt]

It had once been said of some American President that he was a "victim of using water as a beverage." The same could be said of Harry Potter. Normal, innocuous things that everyone else did seemed to devolve into situations that were life-threatening the second he tried them. Eliza hadn't even been personally involved in most of the collection of mishaps known as his life, and she'd still found herself at death's doorstep a few more times than she'd like because she was his friend. The only conclusion she could reach about herself based on that was that she was stubborn and made bad life choices. Not necessarily being friends with him, but being friends with him and agreeing to help him out if he asked.

And she still regretted nothing.

She offered him a dry smile in response to his quip about her fear of fences. He'd made it before, she was sure, and it wasn't funny that time, either. It was just part of their friendship by that point. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been her friends at Hogwarts when nobody else was willing to be; they taught her English and how to cope with her ridiculously complicated relationship with one Viktor Krum. To that day, she still wasn't entirely sure why Harry and Ron were so shocked to find out about that. Oh, well. Back to the point, she would do just about anything to help the three of them. Unfortunately, they were aware of that.

"That's an improvement," she scoffed. "In comparison to your usual tendency to fall into your little misadventures ass-backwards. How can I help you out?"

[Harry James Potter]

Harry knew that sometimes his friends weren't the happiest of people when they came to help him out, but they were still his friends regardless, and he really appreciated that.  Especially with his half-brained plans and nearly dying every single time he was in trouble (though once Voldemort was gone, he hoped that the trouble would not be quite so dangerous, or at least not be so prevalent).  Harry wasn't one to ask for help normally, as it seemed to get others caught up in trouble, but he was worried about his whole spy mission, and needed someone besides Ginny, who was going with him, to help him out, given his lack of experience in secrets and subtlety. 

However, Harry doubted for a moment, hesitated in telling Eliza what was wrong, playing it off as a joke.  She could get in trouble if she knew, or if something happened and someone got it out of her, who he really was, then... it wouldn't be good for either of them.  Especially him.... and Ginny.  At least since he hadn't really been going to classes until after the spying job had been decided, people that were from any time other than his, did not know who he was, or that he even existed.  And he was going to change his appearance some so that he didn't appear just as he had before.  No more scar, no more glasses, but his eyes would be the same color.  But all of that was going to change in a few weeks, and he looked like a normal Harry for now. 

"I'm... planning on infiltrating Voldemort's circle," Harry quickly said, having decided that he did indeed want to tell Eliza what he was going to do, "I've already been set up by Dumbledore in a nice position, where he believes that I've been giving him information on Hogwarts for several years, and now that I'm finally graduating, I'm going to join up with him in a full position."