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When Hermione arrived at Grimmauld Place through the floo, she was met with the sight of her best friend Lila throwing a large handful of flour only a few feet away from her face. She, however, was not the target of the flour assault; no, the object of that particular attack was Sirius Black, whom Lila had moved in with only a couple of months before. 

The man in question was hardly recognizable as the same gaunt, sallow fellow they’d confronted in the garden that spring. His scraggly hair had been tamed into something shiny and respectable– and Hermione was a little tempted to ask him what product he’d used, because Lila could certainly do to try some, as could Hermione herself– and his skin was no longer stretched quite so tightly over his bones. The rags had been replaced by nice quality robes, and his wide grin as he dodged another handful of flour made him look for the first time as young as he really was, at only thirty-four, after all. Yes, Hermione had done her due diligence on the man.

“ Scourgify ,” she cast with a roll of her eyes and a flick of her wand. The flour found its way back to its proper package, the dishes strewn about the counters cleaned and righted themselves, and the chandelier which had apparently been hanging on by a single wire was once again secured. 

“Hermione, you’re here!” Lila exclaimed, her full attention, in a rare occurrence, suddenly taken up by something other than a plant. Her best friend was running at her before she could tell what was happening and threw her arms around her in an embrace, Hermione returning the gesture gladly.

“Oh, Lila, I’ve missed you so much,” she mumbled into the other girl’s hair. Lila had yet to hit any sort of growth spurt, and Hermione was starting to think she was just going to stay half a head shorter for the rest of their lives. “And hullo, Mr. Black, it’s good to see you again, and in better health.”

“Just Sirius!” he said cheerfully. “Mr. Black was… well, not my father, he never would have allowed such informality, but you get the idea. Lila’s got it in her head that we should bake her birthday cake on our own, rather than letting Kreacher do it like a normal family, so that’s in the oven now. Thank you for that cleaning charm there, and it’s lovely to see you again as well. Good summer so far?”

“Quite,” she agreed. “We went to France on holiday for a week– we were there over Christmas last year, and we were dying to go back– and it was just as gorgeous this time. And we got to see the catacombs! The magical half, I mean. We only saw the Muggle bit last time.”

And so she rambled on about the magical artefacts and landmarks she’d visited in France, and Lila rambled right over top of her about the garden she’d been putting together in the back plot of the townhouse, and Mr. Black just ate his way through a good half of the chocolate cake, inserting the occasional comment and keeping his eyes on Lila with a sort of desperation, as though she would disappear if he looked away.

“You two really are quite close, aren’t you?” was the first thing Mr. Black asked her later that night when they’d realised that Lila had fallen asleep on the couch half way through Sleeping Beauty , head in Hermione’s lap and arms wrapped possessively around her waist.

“She…” Hermione hesitated. “Did she tell you she makes her own teas?” she asked, and Mr. Black looked so disoriented at the sudden change in topic that she nearly laughed. “She’s really careful about it, too, dries all the leaves and flowers in her garden and crushes and sorts and bags them. She’s always making me tea, seems to think I don’t notice where it comes from when there’s suddenly a mug by my hand. Calming ones for when I’m all in my head about an exam, perking-up ones when I stayed up too late the night before. She hardly thinks about it.” She swallowed, suddenly overcome by affection for the copper-haired girl curled about her, and she tucked a loose lock behind the girl’s ear. “If you hurt her, what she did to Pettigrew will look like a blessing ,” she informed Black fiercely. “I know curses that could rip you limb from limb.”

He just laughed, a kind but hollow sound, and he held his hands up in surrender, but there was no mockery behind it. “I wondered where Lily’s fire went,” he said softly. “It appears it found itself in you.”

Sirius had gotten them tickets to the Quidditch World Cup that summer as well, which Lila didn’t particularly understand, as neither she nor Hermione cared or knew a thing about quidditch, but Hermione had dropped her head into her hands with a rather melodramatic sigh when she’d voiced the source of her confusion, so she tried to be a good sport after that. 

It seemed like everyone and their grandmother had jumped on the chance to see the World Cup– or at least, a boy Hermione told her was Neville, and his grandmother had. They passed the Weasleys and the Malfoys as well on their way to their seats, the two families at a stand off with enough furious tension between them to cut with a knife, though Ginny hovered in the back with the twins rather than get involved. Tom told Lila that this was quite clever of Ginny, as a Slytherin.

It was fun for the first bit, while Sirius narrated the game to them and explained the various players and positions and the historic rankings of the two teams. At one point, Hermione had lost her scarf to the wind, and one of the quidditch players had snatched it out of the air and returned it to her, which was extremely sweet and made Hermione quite happy, but the innocence of the event was short-lived. Soon enough, they were being apparated out of the stadium and reading about Death Eater attacks on the news. Hermione was horribly shaken by the whole thing, as it was muggles and muggleborns whom they’d been targeting, but Lila was just angry.

Why would they do that? she was asking Tom, enraged. It’s a bloody massive event– there’s no way they somehow only injured muggleborns, and now they’re trying to pin me with casting the Dark Mark. Me! I’m literally the one who killed you.

I think the fact that we’re having this conversation works to prove you failed on that count,” Tom replied loftily. Lila rolled her eyes. She was still pissed, but it would hopefully blow over soon.

Lila and Hermione continued their running tradition of reading right through the sorting, though they were both glad to see that the incoming class of Ravenclaws was unusually large. 

“And for one last announcement, if I could please have your undivided attention,” Headmaster Dumbledore called over the crowd. Hermione looked up immediately, and after receiving a sharp elbow to the side, Lila looked up as well with a sigh. “This year, Hogwarts will be hosting the Triwizard Tournament! Students from the academies of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and staying with us for the year. One champion from each school will be selected from each school by an impartial judge to compete in a serious of challenges to win honour and glory for themselves and their school. However, the competition has not been held in over a hundred years,” he said regretfully, “due to the death toll.”

“The death toll ?” Hermione repeated in horror.

The death toll? Lila asked Tom curiously.

Oh, yes, he agreed. I wanted more than anything for the Triwizard Tournament to be held while I was in school. The attention alone… the honour… He trailed off, clearly reminiscing about a time when he was not trapped in an entirely unambitious body.

“One last note regarding the Tournament,” Headmaster Dumbledore said finally, quelling the chatter that had built up over the entirety of his speech. “As one of the precautions established by the Departments of International Magical Cooperation, participation in the Tournament will only be open to witches and wizards exceeding the age of majority. Those under seventeen years of age upon October thirty-first will not be permitted to take part in the competition.”

Lila breathed a sigh of relief, grinning widely and squeezing Hermione’s hand. “D’you hear that?” she said. “Looks like this year there’s no way for me to be dragged into anybody else’s drama and danger.”

“A quiet year,” Hermione said wistfully. “I can hardly picture it. No, nevermind, I can. It’s beautiful.”

The delegations for Durmstrang and Beauxbatons arrived the day before Halloween to give all of the students a chance to enter their names into the Goblet of Fire, which actually was, to Lila’s surprise, a massive golden cup studded with gems which was perpetually on fire despite there being nothing in it to burn. She’d expected something a bit less literal. The massive warship that emerged from the Black Lake to transport the Durmstrang students was cool, but far cooler than that was the powder blue carriage pulled by a band of winged horses that carried the French delegation. Lila wondered if she could ask the Headmistress for permission to pet them. Hermione did not approve of this idea.

“The Champion for Durmstrang will be Viktor Krum!” Dumbledore exclaimed, and Lila saw a burly boy wrap the girl next to him into a bear hug before raising his fist in the air in triumph, much to the delight of his cheering classmates. “The Champion for Beauxbatons will be Fleur Delacour!” A sharp-eyed blonde witch a ways down the Ravenclaw table tossed her hollyhock hair behind her shoulder and kissed the cheek of a girl who looked like the miniature version of herself. “The Champion for Hogwarts will be Cedric Diggory!” A boy at the Hufflepuff table whom Lila didn’t recognise offered his housemates a wide grin and swung out of his seat to join the others. Lila clapped politely with the rest of the school and tried her best to pay attention to Hermione’s explanation of who Cedric was and why she should have already known.

Another slip of paper flew out of the goblet. “Lila Potter,” Dumbledore read out, his tone grave. 

Her head banged against the table.

One quiet year! she complained to Tom, after spending a good hour complaining to Hermione which was followed by another hour of Hermione’s ranting about irresponsible management and child endangerment laws, which Lila didn’t quite follow but did appreciate. I could die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want you to die!

I’m not letting either of us die, Tom replied patiently, entirely unamused. He was having trouble balancing his anger at Lila being stuck in the tournament by force with how fundamentally thrilled he was to take part and maybe, finally, convince Lila that fame and power were good things. Lila was of the opinion that she already had enough money to live comfortably, and anything else seemed unnecessary. 

Okay, but–

We’ll figure out the tasks, he told her, and if all goes wrong, I’ll take over.

It’s not the tasks I’m worried about, she muttered. Delacour looked like she wanted to take matters into her own hands and straight up murder me for being in the tournament at all, whether or not I want to be there.

“Pro-Professor Snape?” asked a terrified voice from the doorway. 

“What.”

“I was sent to get Lila Potter,” the boy squeaked. “All the, er, champions are needed–”

“Get out,” the potions master snapped. 

“But sir–”

“You can take our resident celebrity with you, if you must,” he interrupted. “Now I encourage you not to spend another minute distracting my class. They are brewing a highly specific potion, and I would hate for you to get caught in… the crossfire…”

Lila rolled her eyes. “I’ll be just a moment,” she told the little Hufflepuff. She stirred in a sprig of bluebells and ripped a corner of parchment off of her notes. She scribbled down a few instructions. “Add this in three minutes,” she told Hermione, pointing to her chopped robin hearts, “and you don’t need to stir it or anything. Three minutes after that, take it off the flame and bottle it.”

“That is so far from the instructions,” Hermione groaned, knowing it was in vain. She sighed and took the parchment, skimming it and setting it next to Lila’s cauldron. “Alright. I’ll get your potion in for you, and I’m sure Professor Snape will accept it, as long as you still write your essay. Now go, don’t get yourself into trouble. And don’t let that boy pass out from fright,” she added, shooting a vaguely concerned look at the student in the doorway.

“Do you know what they need me for?” she asked.

“Er, I think it’s something to do with your wand,” he said, more of a question than an answer. “And I just wanted to say, even though I’m supporting Cedric in the Tournament, I don’t think you put your name in. You looked really surprised when your name came out, and I heard you can’t even cast very many spells, so there’s no way you tricked the Goblet of Fire, and–” he broke off, sheepish. “A lot of us believe you, over in Hufflepuff, is all I wanted to say.”

What the hell, she thought to Tom, thoroughly confused.

Oh, just say something nice already, he told her, sounding disgusted at his own advice, but he’d always understood people much better than her, so she listened.

“I appreciate that,” she told the boy with a smile. “And I’m rooting for Cedric, too, just between us. I’m not all that interested in the danger and glory and all that. I’ll complete the tasks since I’m contractually bound to do so–” something Tom had explained meticulously on several occasions since her name had been called– “but I’m not playing to win. I’m not Hogwarts’ real champion, I’m just sort of… there.”

That was not something Tom had been pleased about, trying everything from pleading her to threatening her to have a tad of ambition and make a name for herself independently. There were a lot of matters she would take Tom’s advice on, but this wasn’t one of them, and eventually he’d dropped the subject, though she was certain it would return when the first task was closer upon them.

“Ah, thank you, Mr. Michaels,” Dumbledore was saying when she tuned back in. The Hufflepuff had been rambling for their entire walk, and hadn’t seemed to notice that her only response was the occasional hum. “Now that we have all of our champions, we may proceed! The Weighing of the Wands,” he announced, clapping his hands together. 

“Delilah,” Fleur greeted in a whisper, squeezing her hand. As it turned out, the French witch had warmed up to her considerably when she’d explained that she had no intention to properly compete or speak to a single measly reporter. “‘Ow are you doing? You must be ‘orribly anxious, non?”

“A bit,” she admitted. “But I’m not thinking too hard on it. How about you?”

“Not in ze least,” she dismissed, tossing her silvery hair over her shoulder. “But I am a bit worried for Gabrielle. She ‘as set 'er eyes on a few of ze students ‘ere.” An amused sparkle touched the older witch’s smile. “You laugh, but you are among ‘er chosen,” she said airily.

Lila turned bright red. “How about we compromise, and the two of you come to the Tower later so I can introduce her to one of the first years I know,” she giggled, thinking of Orla’s precious little sister Emmy who had just been sorted into Ravenclaw that year.

“Deal.”

The Headmaster cleared his throat. “Lila?”

“Yeah? Oh!” she exclaimed, realising Ollivander was facing her expectantly. “Hullo, Mr. Ollivander, it’s nice to see you again.”

“It may as well have been yesterday!” the old wizard said cheerfully. “Seven and three-quarters inches, was it not?”

“Spalted maple and unicorn hair,” Lila confirmed, holding out her wand for him to see. “You were right– it’s extremely picky. Hates almost everything I try.”

“But spectacular in those it loves, is it not?” He waved the wand, but nothing happened. “Ah, of course. A picky wand is a dedicated wand as well, even a jealous one at times. Would you mind giving it a wave for me? I don’t believe it would respond to any other witch or wizard. Oh- oh! How fascinating!”

Lila nodded, making a little circle with the wand, and a sprig of moonflowers sprang from the end. She passed them to Fleur, who cooed over them and pinned all but one into her silvery hair, which she tucked behind Lila’s ear. “It works really well,” she assured the wandmaker. “It just only seems to like plants. But that’s all I really need it for.”

“Fascinating,” he repeated, marvelling at her. “And you can tell when it likes and dislikes things?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, a bit confused. Couldn’t everyone? Though, she considered, thinking of Hermione’s nearly universal success with spells, maybe some people’s wands didn’t care much either way. “I don’t feel right casting spells it doesn’t want to cast, and I’m not sure what would happen if I really tried, so I don’t end up using it too much.”

“Quite attuned to your wand, then!” he said happily. “Have you ever considered becoming a wandmaker, Miss Potter?”

Her eyes blew wide. “Not until now, I haven’t,” she said fervently. “I read a book about wand woods, though, and it sounded fantastic. Do you really think I could do it?”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, giving her a curious sort of look. “I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you again soon, Miss Potter. I’ll make sure to have some good resources on me when I do. Now, Miss Delacour?” Fleur passed over her wand with a look of pride. “Nine and a half inches, quite strict, no give at all… and, dear me, is that…”

“An ‘air from ze ‘ead of a Veela,” Fleur declared, her voice clear and steady and her chin held high despite the strange looks she was suddenly receiving from a few of the others in the room. “One of my grandmother’s.”

“Oh, lovely, lovely,” Ollivander muttered. “A temperamental core– not one I work with myself– but if it works for you… splendid magic, certainly.” He waved the wand, and his robes caught fire with a puff of smoke. Fleur took the wand back from him calmly. 

“Very tem-per-a-men-tal,” she agreed, pronouncing the words carefully and giving the wizard a slightly critical look. She waved the wand with a flourish, and the flames extinguished. Even his robes seemed to mend themselves, as though the fire were never there at all. She waved it a second time, and a small fire appeared in her other hand, flickering rather tamely and not appearing to burn her a bit, and a smirk fell onto her lips. “Eet is in perfect condition, Mister Ollivander. Just requires ze right ‘andler.”

They each were given a tiny dragon before the first task. It hissed something in a vaguely adjacent language to Parseltongue, which Lila sort of got the general gist of, and so she tugged up her sleeve so that Apple– who had been promptly returned to her properly shrunk size after the events of the year before– could say hello. Apple obeyed Lila instinctively, as all snakes did to Parselmouths, but the little dragon felt no more obligation to listen to her than any other animal, and so despite her best efforts to calm it down, it continued to puff out tiny breaths of flames, burning her hand rather painfully. She didn’t want to set it down, however, as both the dragon and Apple were too small and too quiet to converse if they were not close together, and she certainly didn’t know any charms to act as a solution, so she ended up running to Fleur and offering up her best puppy-dog eyes to ask the other witch if she could do anything to help.

“You seemed to be good with fire?” she tried, pleading with the Veela girl while they waited in the tent for Viktor and Cedric to complete their tasks.

“Veela are immune, as zey are fire creatures,” Fleur explained. “I am only a quarter, and so I can be affected, but not by something as leetle and ‘armless as zis,” she said, cooing at the tiny blue-green dragon sleeping on the back of her hand, snoring quietly and puffing out little fireballs with each exhale, which licked over Fleur’s pale skin without leaving so much as a mark. “Let me see what I can do.” She pulled her wand, first waving it at the dragon, then running the tip of it over Lila’s hand. 

The little dragon spat fire again, and Lila felt a sudden warmth, but no pain. “You’ve done it!” she exclaimed.

“It is just your hand,” Fleur warned. “And it will not ‘elp with anything other than zis leetle beauty.”

“That’s all I needed,” Lila promised. “Thank you, thank you!” She tugged the older witch into a one-armed embrace, as they each had a hand occupied with their animals, and Fleur startled before returning the motion.

She’d finally managed disillusionment charms after several years of practice under Hermione’s careful guidance, and as soon as she stepped out into the arena, she cast one on herself. It wasn’t perfect, but she figured that might actually help her, so that the audience would still have an idea of where she was even if the dragon didn’t. They didn’t have particularly good eyesight, she’d been told by Hermione, and if Hermione said it then it must be true. They relied more on smell and sound than on sight, which reminded her a bit too much of the second year basilisk and gave her the shivers.

After that it was pretty simple. She tossed a rock as far as she could in a perpendicular direction to divert the dragon’s attention, then buried her hands in the Earth and directed the roots of a few nearby trees to steal the golden egg and pass it to her in a nice, wide circle so that the dragon wouldn’t catch any notice of it. When she got her hands on the egg, she dispelled the disillusionment charm, revealing herself holding her prize, and promptly turned on her heel and returned to the safety of the tent. Presumably, her performance was followed by the announcement of the champions’ scores, but she didn’t stick around to hear it. She was quite exhausted, and very much wanted a nap.

“Did you keep your little dragon?” she asked Fleur a few days after the first task, which the French witch had apparently won the highest score for. She was followed by Krum, who had cast some sort of spell at the dragon that hurt its eyes enough to distract it, and he’d quickly retrieved the egg, only losing points for the damage the dragon had done to one of its other eggs at the time, and then Lila herself– she’d lost quite a lot of points for how entirely boring her performance had been, but gained some for her control over the surrounding foliage. Diggory had come in last, having transfigured a rock into a dog for the dragon to target instead of him, which didn’t work as well as he’d hoped.

Fleur, on the other hand, had poured all of her power into her Allure, a Veela power which could put people– and dragons, apparently– into a sort of trance, and single-handedly kept the dragon under her control until she could take the egg peacefully and leave the arena.

Lila had come back to Fleur because the charm she’d placed on Lila and her miniature dragon, whom she’d named Cherry, had begun to wear off, and she’d ended up with a rather painful burn on her thumb that made it hard to hold a quill. It was Veela magic, Fleur had explained, rather than any sort of fireproofing charm, and so it wouldn’t hold particularly well on someone who had no Veela blood. She’d promised Lila she would write to her grandmother, however, to see if the full-blooded Veela had any insight on using their particular form of magic on average witches. 

Fleur healed the little burn without even using a wand, which amazed Lila. The only thing she could do without a wand was grow plants. Directing them, like she had with the roots in the first task, took quite a lot out of her, though smaller plants– and younger ones, she’d realised after extensive discussion with Professor Sprout– were easier to control. “I did not,” she told Lila regretfully. “I cannot speak to it like you can, though I can easily put it to sleep, and so I did not feel right keeping it when I cannot properly control it.”

That seemed sad. Lila had gotten a little bit better at understanding what the dragon was trying to say, though it was sort of like how talking to Tom had gone when she was little– technically the right language, but with loads of vocabulary she didn’t know, and unlike Tom, the dragon couldn’t explain it to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be,” Fleur dismissed. “I gave ‘er to one of ze dragon tamers, ze excitable red ‘aired one. ‘E was thrilled, and ‘ad loads of questions for me about 'ow my Allure worked on ze dragon before ‘e went off talking about ze future of dragon taming. And,” she said, sounding quite amused and more than a bit flattered, “‘e told me I ‘ave a job at ze dragon reserve whenever I want it. ‘Ere, you are safe from your leetle dragon for at least a week.” 

“I was hoping to talk to you, but, er, I could never seem to catch you alone,” a boy– Terry Boot, Ravenclaw, our year, why do I even try with you, he’s literally in all of our classes – was saying to Ginny.

“Girls come in pairs,” the young Slytherin said, not offering the boy so much as a glance as she gestured around the table at Lila and Hermione, Orla and Evelyn, Hestia and Flora Carrow, and herself and Luna. “Everyone knows that.”

The boy grew flustered. “Well, yea, but– erm–”

Ginny cleared her throat impatiently.

“I was wondering if you’d let me take you to the Yule Ball,” he said, his words slightly rushed but not uncertain. 

“No, thank you,” Ginny replied politely.

“But–”

“No,” she repeated, finally looking up and raising her eyebrows expectantly. “We’re busy, Boot.”

We’re really not all that busy, Lila said to Tom. I mean, Ginny’s the only one writing, and I know for a fact that’s a letter to her brother Bill, not an essay. Hermione had convinced the Carrow twins to teach her a NEWT level curse, Orla and Luna were playing chess– though Lila wasn’t sure if Luna had quite picked up on the rules because whatever they were doing definitely did not look like chess– Evelyn was attempting to cast a Lumos charm wandlessly, and Lila was reading about a plant in Ecuador with roots that cured blindness and leaves that caused it.

But he doesn’t know that, does he? Tom replied, sounding endlessly entertained. He was fond of Ginny, more fond of her than he was of most of Lila’s other friends, though whether it was out some sort of twisted guilt for what the diary had done or grudging pride at her ability to hold off even him for as long as she had was beyond Lila. Though, on second thought, it probably wasn’t the guilt thing. Look at him, Tom mocked, running away with his tail between his legs.

I thought you weren’t interested in teenagers’ love lives, she shot back.

Provide me with better amusement and I’ll gladly abandon this.

“You could have said yes,” Orla was telling Ginny. “Even just so you could go to the Ball. We would all support you agreeing and then ditching him the moment you were in the door.”

“I could have,” Ginny agreed. “But I already have a date.”

“You do ?” Lila couldn’t help but blurt out.

“Yeah. And it’ll be better than going with Terry Boot, ” she emphasised, as though that was the worst fate one could encounter. Lila wondered what on Earth sort of reputation the boy had to warrant that reaction. “Enough about me, though. Who are you all going with?”

“I’m going with Katie Bell,” Flora said, naming her fiercest rival in Quidditch, “and Hestia’s going with Felix Vaisey.”

“We haven’t gotten dates yet,” Orla said with a pout. 

“We thought we knew who would be asking us, but they appear to be embarrassingly behind schedule,” Evelyn added drily. “At this rate, we might as well just go with each other.”

Ginny looked at them consideringly and then ripped off a corner of her parchment, scrawling a few words on it that Lila couldn’t read from her angle. The younger girl tapped her wand to the parchment confidently. “ Volite .” It folded itself up into a paper aeroplane and flew off.

Fred and George arrived a few minutes later, claiming the empty seats on the end. “We’ve been informed–”

“By our dear, dear, slithering sister–”

“That we have slacked off in a most abhorrent–”

“Nay, blasphemous way, unforgivable, really–”

“Evelyn Chambers, would you do me the honour of accompanying me to the Yule Ball?”

The proper witch hid a smile. “I would be delighted.”

“And how about you?” George was saying. “Interested in knocking everyone’s socks off?”

“I guess so,” Orla agreed with a grin. 

Luna met Lila’s eyes. “Isn’t it lovely?” she asked with a dreamy smile. “To see everyone without the Nargles?”

“UNFORGIVABLES,” Moody barked, causing Lila and Hermione to flinch along with the rest of the class. “What can you tell me about them?”

Hermione’s hand shot up. “The Unforgivable Curses are given their name because they’re just that: unforgivable. The Unforgivable Curses are comprised of the three darkest curses ever invented, and the use of any of them can be grounds to send you to Azkaban.”

“Good. And what curses might those be?”

Lila nearly surprised herself by raising her hand. This was a topic she knew all too much about, though, in her defence, one could hardly spend the better part of a decade talking to Tom without picking a few things up. “The Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and the Killing Curse,” she recited.

“Exactly right,” he rasped, his eye and his magical eye both watching her intently. “There’s only ever been one known survivor of the Killing Curse, and she’s sitting right here in front of me.” He snapped back to the rest of the class suddenly, his magic eye staying on her. “Ten points to Ravenclaw for the two of you,” he demanded, back to his thunderous volume. “Today, we’re focusing on the first, the Imperius Curse. Now, the Ministry doesn’t want me showing you this, nor Dumbledore particularly neither though I convinced him eventually, but you’ve got to know what you’re up against if you want to defend yourselves.” He banged his fist on the desk in front of Hermione. “CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” 

“Sir?” Hermione asked in a sort of squeak. “Are you saying you’re going to be casting the Imperius Curse… on us? ”

“And you’ve just volunteered yourself to go first,” he growled, and Lila had her wand at his throat in a half-second. There wasn’t much she could do, certainly, but she could already hear Tom’s sly encouragement in the back of her mind, urging her on, offering his services. She got the sudden impression of his hands on her shoulders, his whisper in her ear. 

“Would you rather it be you, Miss Potter?” he asked, barely louder than a breath. She wished he’d just pick a volume and stick to it. 

“You’re welcome to try,” she bit out, hoping to channel that coldness of Tom’s that she’d never gotten the hang of. 

“ Imperio, ” Moody cast, quick as a switch, and a feeling of utter relaxation washed over her. She’d been so upset before, and she could hardly remember what she’d been upset about! It was much nicer not to think about such things. It was like every brick wall of worry in her mind had been grown over with a nice net of ivy, covering it for now and slowly wearing it down. She set down her wand. Why had she been holding it before? There was absolutely nothing she needed to do, no responsibilities or duties to fulfil, she just needed to…

Jump onto the desk, murmured a voice in her mind that didn’t sound anything like Tom, which made her frown slightly, her movements slow and groggy. The voice wasn’t asking much of her, and it was a lovely desk after all, but something seemed to nag at her mind. Just how many voices were meant to be in her head? One seemed perfectly satisfactory…

Jump onto the desk, the voice repeated, more insistent this time. 

I don’t think I want to… Lila told it uncertainly, because she did want to, but something seemed a little off. She tried to shake her head, hoping to dislodge the drowsy feeling that was beginning to come over her. Colours and shapes blurred together in her eyeline, the lovely walnut desk the only clear thing in sight. She scrunched up her face, forcing herself to turn away, and she was met with an equally lovely shade of walnut, but fluffy this time! Hair, she thought absently. Hermione’s hair…

Hermione! She’d been protecting Hermione! And if she was protecting her… she must have been worried! Worry…

The feeling of oppressive calmness began to fade– or rather, her brain was suddenly split into two: the half shrouded in blank peace, and the half consumed with thoughts of Hermione, forcing the soft dark cloud back. 

The first thing to return was her sight, the room apart from the desk coming back into focus. Next was sound, the white noise of her classmates’ discussion starting to divide into voices and conversations. Her fingers twitched.

She could smell again, next; not the lavender and sage of her prior daze, but the sharp, spicy scent of Hermione’s perfume. Cloves, nutmeg, oranges, juniper– Christmas, her mind supplied, and what a lovely thing it was, for her mind to once again supply its thoughts when she asked it to, thoughts of warm mugs of butterbeer and twine bows around books and a snowstorm of flurries overtaking the dark cloud. Hermione smells like Christmas.

She snatched her wand off of her desk as she bolted to her feet, nearly lunging at the professor with a sudden cry.

“Just like that,” was all he said, swallowing visibly and stepping back to avoid getting hit, his eyes still watching her curiously. “Potter’s got it, now. Just like that.”

“I’ve been asked to the Yule Ball,” Hermione announced, dropping a massive stack of books on the table Lila was sitting at, finishing up her Potions essay. They hadn’t been assigned one, but Snape had finally given in made a deal with her that he would allow her to alter her potions as she desired– a concession accompanied by a rather long bout of muttering about poor security and the insanity of letting a child into a Tournament of adults– so long as the finished products maintained a satisfactory quality, and she wrote a page on the changes she’d made and why, and she hadn’t missed one yet. 

“By who? Did Ron finally own up to the fact that he’s been nursing a crush on you for three years?”

“He’s been what?” Hermione asked, giving her a look of blatant befuddlement. “Anyway, no , it was not Ronald. We haven’t been talking much lately, as it is. He seems to be falling for the rumour that you cheated your way into the Tournament, which is ridiculous , though of course he doesn’t know you as well as I do. I’m sure he’ll get over it eventually, but for now… Ugh. But no, I’ve been asked by–” she glanced around the library and finished in a whisper– “Viktor Krum!”

“The Durmstrang champion?” she checked, wanting to make sure she had the right person in mind. He was rather nice looking, if you were into the burly, silent thing he had going on. He seemed very nice from the handful of interactions they’d had, and was pretty quiet overall, despite being chosen as the champion of his school.

“And an international Quidditch star,” Hermione confirmed. “We saw him at the World Cup, remember? He was the Bulgarian seeker who caught my scarf for me.”

Lila raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you cared about Quidditch,” she admitted. “Sorry, Hermione.”

“I don’t,” Hermione assured her, rolling her eyes affectionately. “But even I know he’s ridiculously famous. Haven’t you wondered why he’s always got a horde of girls following him around and fawning over him?”

“He does?”

“Lila, I love you, but you’re hopeless,” Hermione sighed, flopping into a chair with all the grace of an overgrown hyacinth. “Anyhow, he’s asked me– me!– to be his date. And I’ve, erm…” She turned poppy-flower red, but the expression on her face was much closer to pleased than embarrassed. “I’ve said yes.”

Lila smiled, pulling her best friend into a one-armed hug. “Then I’m happy for you,” she said simply. “And that means we’ll both be in the first group dancing!”

“Have you gotten a date?” Hermione asked, a frown overtaking her features. “I felt a little bad agreeing to go with Viktor because we’d talked about going together as friends, but I know people have been asking you.”

“Have they?” she asked a bit absently. When Hermione had turned the conversation back to her, Lila had lost interest somewhat and returned to thinking about the effects that thyme could have on a directional potion. “I haven’t noticed.”

“Lila, you have literally had people walk directly up to you while we’re walking to class and ask you,” the other girl chided, in a tone that made Lila feel like she was being reminded of something, but she certainly didn't remember that happening.

“Well, if we’re walking together, then I’m probably paying attention to you,” she reasoned. “And not to whoever’s walking by.” She shrugged. “Besides, I don’t really know many people, so I don’t think I’d want to go with anyone who has to shout at me in the halls. I’ll just ask somebody myself. Somebody cool.”

Luna Lovegood had radishes hanging from her ears, and this was the very first thing that Lila noticed when she met the other girl at the bottom of the stairs. Lila blinked. “Did you know that if you make tea with radishes, it has a mind-purifying effect?” she asked the other girl in greeting. “It’s recommended that you drink radish tea if you want to meditate or learn mind magic, and radishes won’t grow around witches who aren’t at peace with themselves.”

“Yes, they’re quite good at keeping away the Wrackspurts,” Luna agreed in her usual dreamy way. “You look very lovely today, Lila.”

“Thank you,” she said with a grin. She’d gotten Sirius to help her and Hermione get ahold of robes for the Yule Ball, and while Hermione had fallen in love with a set of silky periwinkle blue robes at the high-end shop Sirius had taken them to, Lila hadn’t liked any of the ones they had, and had let the witch working there design her brand new ones. They were a nice dark blue with embroidered vines all over them with little yellow-gold flowers. The vines were moving, as well, which was absolutely magical– and not just literally! It had worked out as a perfect coincidence, because Luna’s dress was the exact same shade of soft yellow as the flowers on her robes, and according to Cho, at least, they made a gorgeous pair.

Given that the other witch had literally imported the silk for her robes from a singular silkworm farm in China just for the occasion, she tended to trust her judgement on these sorts of things. 

Tom had sighed at her choice in date, because apparently this would have been a perfect opportunity for networking and she could have gone with that sixth year Avery boy, now there’s a respectable family to get in the good graces of or even Greengrass, as he’d groaned in exasperation at one point, because it’s fine to go with a witch, but why that one? and whatever else she’d been tuning out over the last few weeks. At least with Luna, she knew she’d have fun.

Fleur had ended up dragging Charlie, the dragon tamer, with her to the ball as her date, claiming there was no student at any of the three schools worthy of accompanying her. Charlie cleaned up quite nice, Lila figured, and the choice made Fleur look all the more captivating, as Charlie, despite the perpetual look of awe and admiration in his eyes, didn’t act at all like the boys at school, who followed after Fleur with dazed eyes and slack jaws, stammering through their words. 

Weak men are helpless to Veela Allure, Tom explained to her, a similar sentiment to one Fleur had expressed in confidence before, growling in frustration that every boy in the entire castle was little more than a drooling idiot. He seems entirely unaffected.

This must have been what Fleur liked about him, Lila reasoned, watching as the pair danced in the very centre of the Great Hall, drawing eyes from all around and conversing animatedly the entire time.

In one corner of the Hall, Lila saw Flora and Katie arguing so passionately she wondered if they were going to pull their wands and curse each other, before Flora leaned forward and kissed the other girl’s cheek, offering her hand, and a moment later they were twirling around the dance floor. Fred was doing a pretty good job of keeping up with Evelyn, but the girl far surpassed him in her formal dancing capabilities, and Tom pointed out with no small dose of amusement that she was the one leading the pair, but she seemed overjoyed, and Fred seemed properly besotted. George and Orla were doing something that Tom claimed was vaguely swing-adjacent, if you consider their abomination a dance, which involved a lot of silly moves combined with Orla spinning so much Lila had to wonder if she was dizzy, and George lifting her up above his head until she shrieked.

“Having fun?” Ginny asked.

“As much as I can,” Lila said. “You?”

Ginny shrugged. “I really am,” she assured the Raven. “But my standing in Slytherin is my main priority tonight.”

Lila was about to ask what she meant when Draco Malfoy appeared by Ginny’s side with two glasses and a cocky look on his face that covered what she was pretty sure was a genuine smile.

Oh, this is rich, Tom crowed. She’s got a point, though. If she can pull this off, she’ll be near untouchable. But imagine! A Malfoy dancing with a blood traitor? Oh, Abraxas must be turning over in his grave. His grave, Lila, I swear it.

“Your brother attempted to curse me at the punch table,” he informed his date. 

“And did you inform him that his behaviour is dreadfully uncouth?” Ginny drawled, winking at Lila.

“It was tempting,” Draco admitted. “But I would much rather dance with you. Potter,” he acknowledged, holding out a hand to Ginny, who drained her glass of punch before accepting. 

“We’ll talk later, Lila!” she promised. “Have fun! And dance with Luna again, she loves dancing. And did you see Hermione?” she called before she had properly disappeared into the crowd, a brow quirked. “Now that’s a quiet one I didn’t expect.”

Hermione Granger was sitting in the Headmaster’s office with Nina Rostova and Luna Lovegood, which was quite possibly the strangest combination of people she’d ever had in a room. 

“What I’m about to tell you is of the utmost confidentiality,” the Headmaster told them. “The second task next month, as I’m sure you may have heard from your friends, requires the champions to locate and recover that which is most dear to them. We have determined the person dearest to each of the champions. Miss Chang for Mr. Diggory, the younger Miss Delacour for her sister, but you, Miss Granger, have been determined to be the person dearest to both of our other champions. Miss Rostova, as Mr. Krum’s dear friend, and Miss Lovegood, as Miss Potter’s friend and date to the Yule Ball, the two of you have been assessed to be the best matches for our dear champions aside from Miss Granger. However, as it is not due to any magic that you have been selected, it did not seem fair to simply choose for you.”

“Vat exactly vould be expected of us?” Nina asked in a gruff, heavily accented voice.

“You will be charmed into an unconscious stasis and held at the bottom of the Black Lake,” Dumbledore explained, folding his hands on his desk. “You will be entirely safe, and should your champion be unable to recover you, the Merpeople will return you to the shore at the end of the task.”

The three girls stared at him. 

“I see I’ve struck you speechless!” the Headmaster exclaimed good-naturedly. “Now, any arrangement will be equally acceptable, as two of you could count as the dearest person for each champion. I will leave you to discuss amongst yourselves, and I can return in, say, sixteen and a half minutes? No,” he decided then, before any of them could speak, “I believe eighteen would be better.”

They stared at each other instead.

“That’s inhumane,” Hermione said finally. “I mean, that’s preposterous! We never agreed to be a part of the tournament.”

Nina shrugged, unaffected, in a frustratingly graceful motion. “I entered my name,” she grunted. “I will be Viktor’s hostage. The two of you may choose between yourselves.” With that, she sat back in her chair and turned her eyes to the window.

Hermione looked over at wide-eyed, thirteen-year-old Luna with a necklace of butterbeer corks and flowers in little bottles hanging from her ears and sighed. “I’ll be Lila’s,” she said, resigning herself to her fate. “I doubt it would even make the top three of the ridiculous things I’ve done for that girl.”

Nina looked intrigued by her claim, but didn’t press for details. Hermione wouldn’t have given them even if she had. That was Lila’s business as it was. 

Wait– she was that which Viktor would sorely miss?!

“Sirius is visiting!” Lila chirped, breezing into Hermione’s room. After the failed attempt at third year cohabitation, they’d settled on having their own bedrooms but having a door between them so that they wouldn’t have to go into the hall to see the other. “He’s coming up for the next Hogsmeade weekend, and then staying in town through the second task!”

“That’s wonderful, Lila!” Hermione said, pulling the excited witch into a hug. “I’m sure he’s missed you loads.”

“We write a lot,” she said with a shrug. “But it’ll be really nice to see him again. I’ve been keeping him updated on the Tournament and everything, but he keeps saying I don’t give him any details about the big parts.”

“That’s because you pay attention to the things you care about,” Hermione giggled. “I bet you told him all about Cherry and nothing about the actual Horntail, didn’t you?”

Lila flushed. “Maybe. But anyways, he’s going to be here for the next task, so he can’t complain about that one, and we’re going to go to Diagon Alley so he can get a proper wand, so I was wondering if you wanted to come, since I know the bookstores there are way bigger than the ones in Hogsmeade.”

“Oh, I’d love to!” Hermione grinned, but then her face fell and she looked quite distressed. “But, I’ve already agreed to go to Hogsmeade with Viktor that day.”

“Well, maybe you could come with me and Sirius in the morning, and then see Viktor in the afternoon,” Lila suggested, and Hermione brightened immediately. “How is it going with you two?”

“It’s lovely,” Hermione said, turning a bit pink. “He’s sort of quiet, though, and I’m not sure if that’s just him or if we just don’t know each other well enough yet. I don’t mind it, though. He sits with me while I study a lot, and he’s very sweet. He took me flying yesterday, too.”

“And how was that?” Lila asked eagerly. She didn’t fly very often because she didn’t have a broom of her own, as Ginny had the Firebolt Sirius had purchased, but also– and mainly– because Hermione didn’t care for flying at all.

The other witch shook her head. “Utterly terrifying,” she said. “But he’s really good, and it was lovely to see the castle from so high up.”

“Do you think maybe he’d want to fly with me sometime?” 

Hermione looked wildly relieved at that. “I’m sure he’d love to,” she said fervently. “Oh, that would be lovely. You two could fly, and I could come along nice and safe on the ground, bring a book…” She trailed off. “I’ll ask him.”

Lila wasn’t quite sure what possessed her to do so– Haha, get it, Tom? Since you’re already possessing me?– but when she and Sirius got into the shack that Ollivander called a shop, she dashed forward and hugged the old man tightly. “It’s good to see you again,” she said, a bit muffled. “I’ve been reading more about wands, you know, and my friends let me look at their wands to study them and compare them to, like, their personalities and skills and things, and I swear I’ve been really interested.”

“And what were your findings?” asked Mr. Ollivander, holding out a hand so she could pass over her own wand for him to check. 

“Well, like, Hermione’s wand is vine– which I could tell before she told me– and vines sort of always mean constancy and loyalty and growth, right? Like, when I put ivy or morning glory into a potion, it always extends the potion’s effect. And that’s Hermione all the way through. She’s good at literally everything, and she works really hard, and she’s stuck by my side since the very first day I met her, which is ridiculous because we’ve almost died, like, four separate times–”

Sirius choked when she said this, coughing so hard she worried he was going to hack up a lung.

“Hestia and Flora have both got Hawthorn wands, and Flora’s really good at curses but Hestia’s really good at healing charms and things– which is good, because my life seems to always get me injured somehow– but that seemed really strange, right? Because those should be opposites. But they’re not, because that’s what hawthorn is. I mean, if you use it right, you can cure all sorts of ailments, like I used it in a tea when Hermione had a sore throat, but you can also poison people with the berries.”

“Is that so?” he asked, delighted by her explanation. “And have you noticed anything about the cores?”

She nodded excitedly. “Evelyn and Luna have both got silver lime for their wands, so they didn’t tell me which was whose when I was trying to figure them out, but one had unicorn hair, and when I held it, it felt just like Evelyn’s magic. She’s very prim, you know? Really to the point and proper, and the wand felt just the same, like it was going to do precisely what you wanted as long as you did it right. Though I don’t think it would have done anything for me . Luna’s was phoenix feather, and it had that same sort of… I dunno. Beneath the sort of wishy-washy feeling, it was very principled.” 

He looked nearly as excited as she felt, and she grinned a bit goofily. “Tell me, what do you think for our dear Mr. Black here? I remember the first time you entered my shop, as just a child,” he told Sirius. “Ah, it’s always yesterday for me and a hundred years ago for you boys, isn’t it? What have you been using recently?”

“Er, it’s an old family wand,” Sirius admitted. “Elm and dragon heartstring.”

“Elm’s dependable,” Lila piped up, and Mr. Ollivander nodded.

“Quite so, my dear girl. Not prone to foolish errors, not prone to mistakes. A tricky wand to handle, but unlikely to do you wrong. A good choice, certainly. Does it serve you well?”

“It’s not bad,” he said with a shrug. “Does what I need it to, I suppose. Honestly, Garrick, it’s been so long since I’ve had my old wand– my proper one, you know– that I hardly remember what it’s supposed to feel like.”

“Why don’t you give it a try, Miss Potter?” he offered. “Have a look around, now. See what you think might work. You knew your own wand right away, remember. The boxes are labelled on the bottom as well, if you have a particular idea.”

“Do you mind, Sirius?” she checked, ideas already flying through her mind. Elm, too much elegance and sophisticated for Sirius’ comfort, not because he couldn’t pull it off, but because it wasn’t what he wanted. Perhaps a nice ebony… though, perhaps, the last thing Sirius needed was a wand asking him to be more of a reel these days. She knew he wanted to settle down. Perhaps dogwood? Something gentle and friendly.

He kissed the top of her head before she could bounce right out of his grasp, ruffling her short hair. “Go for it, pup.”

Aspen and dragon heartstring, walnut and unicorn hair, pine and phoenix feather, applewood and unicorn… She trailed her fingers over curling handles and thin branches, feeling for something, anything, which reminded her of Sirius. She felt something that pulled at her, from a few shelves up, and she beckoned her godfather over, tugging at his hand. “I can’t reach,” she said sheepishly. “No, a little to the left.”

“Do you feel anything?” Mr. Ollivander asked curiously, leaning in to watch him pull the wand from its case.

“It’s sort of warm,” he tried. “I’m not sure.”

Ollivander took a peek into the box. “Pear and phoenix feather!” he exclaimed. “I remember making this wand– an unusual combination. A resilient and reliable wand, always looks younger than it is, as well.” Sirius winked at her, and she giggled. “Very warm-hearted, this wand is, and with phoenix? Why, pear is usually with unicorn… a strange thing, certainly. Go on, give it a wave.”

Sirius carefully flicked the wand in a small circle, and from the tip flew golden sparks. “It’s not that it’s not nice,” he said reluctantly, “and it would serve me well, but…”

Lila nearly facepalmed. Of course it wouldn’t work– she had it all in reverse. The wand wood manifested the external drives, the choices, the future. It was the core that knew you from your soul. That was why it was confusing Sirius– it called to all the right parts of him in all the wrong ways. She snatched the wand back from Sirius and stuck the box back on the shelf, ignoring his protests and indignant gesturing. She muttered to herself while she checked the bottoms of the boxes, scurrying about the room while Mr. Ollivander looked on, nodding in understanding amusement. 

“This one,” she announced, holding a box out to Sirius proudly. “I know it.”

“What’s this one, pup?” he indulged her.

“Cedar and unicorn hair. I don’t know how long they are, but it’s longer than mine.” She flushed. “It felt like you.”

He waved it randomly in the direction of a broken table in the corner, and the table repaired itself immediately, the legs straightening into the same length and even the stacks of boxes on top of it righting themselves into neat piles. “You did it,” he said with a laugh. “This one’s it.”

“Oh, lovely, lovely,” Mr. Ollivander exclaimed. “Nine and three-quarter inches, not too much give in that wand either. It will serve you well, my boy.”

“What’s it all mean?” he asked, inspecting the wand like it would have a written explanation on it somewhere. “I’m not the one who reads books on wandlore for fun in this household.”

Lila beamed at the reference to their household, the little family they were starting to put together. Ollivander inclined his head toward her with a raised brow, letting her at least start off the explanation. “Phoenix feathers are too selective,” she said to start. “The last wand, I mean. Unicorn hair is more reliable as a core, something gentle and stabilising. It’s picky if it’s paired with a wood like mine, but with cedar it shouldn’t be too picky at all, right?” Ollivander nodded. “It’s not wildly powerful, but it’s really loyal, and it’s not going to suddenly up and decide it doesn’t want to work with you. Cedar, it, er…”

“Yeah?”

“Cedar’s protective,” she began. “It’s protective of you, it’s protective of anything and anyone you consider yours. It’s loyal, like unicorn, so it’s probably not going to obey anyone else.” She looked to Ollivander again.

“Quite so,” he confirmed. “Not to the extent of your own wand– oh, even I couldn’t pull anything from your wand once it had chosen you. But with how firm this wand is compared to a lot of other cedar wands, certainly it demonstrates your own strength of will.”

“And, um. Well, the Victorians, right? They would arrange different plants and assign them different meanings. You remember when I told you what the bouquets I put around the house meant, and why they made the atmosphere so much lighter?” Sirius nodded, encouraging her to continue. “Cedar… it meant ‘I live for thee’,” she told him, not quite meeting his eyes. It seemed a bit, er– presumptuous, Tom supplied– to claim she was his purpose for living, but the wand had felt just like him, like it was going to protect her, and he had survived twelve years in Azkaban for her.

Sirius just pulled her close to him again, not saying anything in particular, but continued to play around with his new wand, flicking it in various directions and shooting out sparks. “I wonder…” he said suddenly. “I haven’t been able to since Azkaban, of course, but if it hasn’t been my wand… Expecto Patronum !” From the tip of his wand leapt a massive silver dog, which ran to Lila immediately for attention. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, I’m not letting go of this.”

He paid the seven galleons, and Mr. Ollivander pulled Lila to the side while he counted out the coins. “Study materials, as promised,” he said with a knowing smile, and Lila leapt at the stack of books, thumbing through the pages already. “This one,” he said, pulling out a thick journal with a string of twine binding it shut, “has a sample of each wand wood I use here in my shop. Familiarise yourself with each. It’s not safe to handle materials you do not know.”

“Of course,” she agreed immediately, then frowned. “But, sir, when will I be handling any materials?”

“Ah, this brings me to my next request…”

When the second task came, Lila had brewed herself a potion with gillyweed, water lilies, mermaid hair, and lungwort. She grew a mermaid’s tail and gills the moment she was submerged in water, swam down to Hermione with the assistance of the seaweed, which offered her the needed directions, stole some Brittle Naiad that had been growing unattended, and left again, the tail and gills sinking back under her skin when her head broke the surface of the Lake. She wasn’t entirely certain what made that an interesting task for spectators. All they’d seen was that she disappeared into the water for twenty-seven and a half minutes, and then she was back. Hermione cast drying and warming charms on each of them and told Luna to pass Viktor her good will while the Ginny returned Lila’s wand, which she’d been holding onto while she was underwater. 

The rest of the crowd had given Sirius quite a wide berth, as they did wherever he went. He’d been declared innocent, of course, as he’d very awkwardly delivered Peter Pettigrew’s severed head to Dumbledore, which was enough to reopen his case, and then sworn under Veritaserum– the strongest truth potion in the world– that he had never served Voldemort, had not been the Potters’ secret keeper, and was not the one who killed Pettigrew or the muggles. This did little to quell the fear of the public, however, and so the strange group comprised of Sirius, Luna, Ginny, and Draco Malfoy sat practically separate from all the other onlookers. Fortunately, this made it quite easy to grab Sirius and slip out of the whole event before anyone could stop them.

“Did you all hear that Mr. Crouch has gone missing?” Flora Carrow asked one day while they were all studying in the library. She had finished her own work, and was instead flipping through that morning’s copy of the Daily Prophet.  

“No,” Orla gasped. “Where on Earth could he have gone? Has no one heard anything at all?”

“Not according to the paper , ” Flora said, shaking her head. 

“Percy says he’s been sending written instructions, but not coming into work,” added Ginny, who was writing her Astronomy essay while Luna doodled little planets in the corners of the parchment. “Percy’s Mr. Crouch’s personal assistant this year. How he didn’t end up in Slytherin is beyond me.”

“I haven’t been reading the Prophet , but I have been reading Witch Weekly,” Hestia Carrow spoke up. “Lila, they did a massive spread on you last weekend. Have you not seen it?” Lila shook her head. “Here, it should be in my bag still. There! You and Hermione, apparently. I guess they saw you two leaving both of the tasks early together, because they’ve got a sweet picture. It’s written by Skeeter, of course, so the whole thing is horribly rude and invasive, but they don’t know much about you, so it’s all speculation.”

Lila accepted the magazine and set it between herself and Hermione so they could both look it over. Lila Potter’s Enduring Love! the magazine declared, with a series of three pictures, the first being one of her being half tackled by Hermione’s embrace after the first task, followed by a picture of Hermione and Viktor at the Yule ball, and finally a picture of Lila, gills still intact, pulling Hermione above the surface of the Black Lake. 

“They think I’m… cheating on you with Viktor Krum?” Hermione asked, bewildered.

“No, they think you’ve broken Lila’s heart by leaving her for Viktor Krum, but Lila is staying strong through it all and loving you through her debilitating emotional pain,” Evelyn corrected, and they all stared at the straight-laced witch. “What?” she asked defensively. “I read the society pages.”

“Fascinating,” Hermione muttered. “I’ve no clue what to do with this information.”

“Well, the rest of the article just runs through Lila’s technique,” Hestia assured her. “It’s not a favourable analysis, but I’m quite sure you already know that no one approves of how boring you’re being.” She heard a thump , and the twins were glaring at each other from across the table. “I don’t mean we’re judging you,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But you’re not really performing, you’re doing the bare minimum. Everyone’s mad you didn’t take your wand with you for the second task.”

“That’s alright,” Lila said easily. “I like doing the bare minimum with most things.”

I hate you so much, Tom informed her, sending her a migraine. She pushed back a heap of silly, giddy, foolish emotions, and he sulked.

“So why is it that you’re doing this instead of Professor Flitwick?” Lila asked Professor McGonagall, following the stern witch into her office dutifully the very first day she got back from Easter break. She and Sirius had been working on redoing the dreary townhouse, now that Sirius had a wand that reacted better with his magic, and Hermione had come over for half of it to lend her assistance. It was a slow process, as the house held generations of dark, unhappy magic, but they’d gotten the living room back to something normal, and Lila’s bedroom, which had been Sirius’ younger brother’s, had been redone in a bright sky blue without the haze of dark magic that hung around the canopy of the four poster bed.

“Well, traditionally, students always meet with their Head of House,” the Gryffindor witch said, adjusting her spectacles and plucking a parchment from a stack on her desk, “but many of my Lions needed a bit of extra time, and many of you Ravens wanted the earliest appointments possible, so Filius and I have compromised.” She gave Lila a kind look. “I was quite glad to see that you were in my stack,” she said, “and Miss Granger as well.”

Lila fidgeted uncertainly. “Well, not to sound ungrateful or anything, but, erm…” She twisted her hands in her skirt. “I really can’t take your class again next year,” she said all in a rush. “If there’s anything the past four years have shown me, it’s that I’m entirely hopeless in Transfiguration. And you’ve been making exceptions for me on all the exams and everything, which has been really nice, Professor, but next year is OWLs, and I’d fail them horrifically.”

“I thought as much,” Professor McGonagall said, sounding quite sad but not the least bit surprised. “Many careers will need at least an OWL in Transfiguration, however, so you may not find yourself with many options left. What have you been thinking about?”

“Well,” Lila began, “when Mr. Ollivander was here for the Wand Weighing thing, he mentioned that I could think about learning wandmaking, and then when I went with Sirius a bit ago to get his new wand, he let me go through some of the materials and everything, and let me pick wands for Sirius to try, and I got his right on my second guess, so he offered me an apprenticeship.”

McGonagall’s brows had shot to her hairline. “Congratulations are in order, Miss Potter,” she said a bit faintly.

“Thanks,” she flushed, ducking her head. “I haven’t accepted yet or anything, since Sirius says those are seven years long, and that seems like a very long time. But he says I’ve got a lot of potential. And I, er…”

“Yes?”

“Well, I’m not very good at a lot of magic,” Lila said, deflating a bit and drumming her fingers on the desk. “And I’m alright with that, really, but it’s limiting, when so much relies on being able to do things I can’t do. And so if I’ve actually got potential in this, I think I’d be best to go after it. And it’s– well, it’s wood, you know? It’s trees, plants. I’m good with plants, I know plants. I think I could really do something.”

“Then you must!” McGonagall declared quite fiercely, covering Lila’s hand in her own. “Miss Potter, if you have found a branch of magic, one of the most important in our entire world, which has called to you, then nothing should stop you from calling right back.”

Lila couldn’t help but smile. Professor McGonagall was a lot like Hermione, she thought, with that same comforting confidence Lila loved so much in her friend.

“I think I will, then,” she agreed quietly. “And he said it could start next year, so I’d already have three years of the seven done when I left Hogwarts, and then that’s just four years, same as university, and I always assumed I’d go to university, before I knew about magic, I mean.”

Professor McGonagall’s eyes had grown rather glassy. “I will speak to the Headmaster about tailoring your schedule to accommodate your apprenticeship,” she promised. “Now, did Mr. Ollivander have any classes he is requiring you to take?”

“He didn’t mention any,” Lila denied with a frown. “But he seems to sort of… know things? Like what’s coming, I mean. He just said ‘you will choose well’ when Sirius asked about required NEWTs and things.”

“Then we will take his word for it. Have you thought about what you might want?”

“My best friend is Hermione,” she reminded the professor politely. “I had to pick my OWLs back at Christmas. And I’m going to drop Charms,” she admitted. “I can almost never do any, and the ones I can do are either the ones covered in Herbology, or entirely random.”

“Give an example?”

“Well…” Lila pulled out her wand. “ Expecto Patronum, ” she cast, her mind on her geraniums, and from her wand sprang a silver fawn, which jumped in circles and made a beeline for Professor McGonagall, brushing against her cheek before Lila dropped the spell. She shrugged. “But I still can’t levitate objects.”

“Spectacular,” the professor breathed. “Well, thirty points to Ravenclaw, to start, for an astounding example of an advanced charm. But I do see what you mean. No Charms, no Transfiguration–” she crossed these from the list of classes with a sharp flick of her quill. “Potions?”

“Absolutely. Same with Herbology.”

“Professor Sprout will be thrilled to hear it.”

Lila chewed on her lip. “Professor Snape will be disappointed.”

“Ah, he’s got little patience for rule-breakers,” she said, and wasn’t that putting it lightly. “But, and you mustn’t tell anyone I’ve told you, he has sung your praises several times in our staff meetings. Now, those praises must be pulled out from within his sullen rants, but they are praises all the same!”

So he did like her! She could never tell. “I want to stick with Ancient Runes as well,” she remembered, “since they're pretty important for wandmaking. And same with Arithmancy. I’m dropping Care of Magical Creatures, though. It’s interesting and everything, but I think after the Tournament, I’m going to want a break from terrifying creatures that want to kill me. And I haven’t got any sort of, erm–” predisposition, Tom filled in– “predisposition to animal handling.”

“Quite right, Miss Potter,” McGonagall agreed sharply. “You should never have had to compete in this horrid affair. You’re a girl, not a piece of meat! You’ve been doing just right so far, doing exactly what you must without endangering yourself for the excitement. A true Ravenclaw,” she praised warmly. “You’ve got four courses here now. Will you be taking Defence?”

“No,” Lila said, shrugging. “I can’t really cast any of the spells, though I got the Riddikulus spell back in third year, and I could overcome the Imperius curse when Professor Moody cast it on us.”

“He cast– oh, I will be having words with the Headmaster,” she said, nearly shaking with fury. “But that’s very impressive, Miss Potter, very impressive indeed. I have never known if I could overcome it, as it's never been cast on me."

Lila shrugged again. “He said he wanted us to know what it felt like, and he was going to cast it on Hermione, but I stopped him, so he cast it on me instead. It just makes you feel sort of calm, you know? Which was weird, because before he cast it, I was worried– about Hermione, that is. So I just had to remind myself of how I felt before, and then I was thinking about Hermione, and so I didn’t jump on the desk like I was supposed to. I sort of attacked Professor Moody actually, I guess. But that’s not enough to get an OWL, so I’m not going to take it again. Oh! I do want to keep taking Astronomy. Not History of Magic, though. I can’t sit through Professor Binns’ class again. Er, no offence.”

“Understandable. Well, alright,” Professor McGonagall said softly. “You seem to know what you want very well. I’ll make sure the school works everything out with Mr. Ollivander to balance your classes and your apprenticeship.”

“Thank you! And Professor?” she added before she left. “I think Hermione’s going to try and take every single class– can you tell her she doesn’t have to?”

“Of course, Miss Potter,” she said with a kind smile. “Now you ought to be off. You’ve got Herbology in ten minutes.”

Lila’s eyes flew wide as she sprinted for the door.

“I’ve been summoned to the Quidditch pitch,” Lila informed her friends, reading the note which had flown through the window of Hermione’s room and smacked her in the face. “It’s information about the third task, apparently. Either of you want to come?”

“I can, but I really need to finish my Transfiguration assignment,” Hermione said regretfully, biting her lip.

“I’ll come,” Ginny offered. “I ought to go flying for a bit anyway so I don’t get out of practice before the mock match this weekend, and Hermione taught me the summoning charm, so I can summon my broom once we’re done!”

Ginny followed her lead out of the Ravenclaw tower, as Lila and Hermione had gone over the Marauders’ map carefully to figure out all the fastest ways down the castle, while Ginny’s expertise lied in the dungeons. They went together out to the overcast grounds, meeting Cedric on the way, who offered Lila a hesitant smile. He wasn’t entirely pleased with sharing the Hogwarts Champion Status, but he’d shot far above Lila in points after the second task, and clearly felt very bad about the way his housemates had apparently been hounding Lila– according to Ginny, at least, as Lila had not noticed anything of the sort, and Cedric’s stumbled apologies had been thoroughly befuddling– and eventually he’d decided to take it all in stride.

“What do you think it’s going to be?” asked Ginny, making conversation. 

“I heard Fleur say something about tunnels, so maybe it’s underground?” suggested Cedric.

“That could make sense, I guess,” the Slytherin mused. “The first task was on the ground, or in the air if you’re a dragon and you know how to fly, and the second task was in the water.”

They cut under the scaffolding of the stands to get to the quidditch pitch, Cedric politely holding the thick, Gryffindor themed fabric up so that Lila and Ginny could duck under it, and when they’d all gotten onto the field, Ginny gasped in horror. 

“What have they done ?” she cried in horror.

Cedric looked no more pleased, growing rather green as he took in the scene before them. “Our pitch,” he said hoarsely. “What’s happened?”

“We’re never going to be able to have our match this weekend,” Ginny bemoaned, looking like she was caught between bursting into tears and cursing everyone in a hundred metre radius. 

“We can have it somewhere else,” Cedric said, sounding like he was reassuring himself as much as the younger witch. “There’s loads of space on the grounds… but none of it’s our pitch …”

They’d made a maze out of thick green hedges, much to the quidditch players’ horror, Viktor commiserating with them with out of pity. Lila had thought it was a very nice addition to the field, though she kept this to herself, the thicket of briars reaching up around as high as her and Ginny when she’d seen it the first time, but had shot up to around twice that by the time the day of the task arrived. 

Fleur was let in first, as she was furthest ahead in points due to battling nearly a horde of Grindylows single handedly to get to her little sister. Veela, she’d explained to Lila and a rapt Hermione who took notes on her explanation, were creatures of wind and fire. The fire bit was something Lila had already known, of course, but full-blooded Veela had wings, as well. Water, however, did not like them much at all, nor did the creatures living in it. The Merpeople had targeted her far worse than they had the other Champions, and when she saw a few circling Gabrielle, her emotions had gotten the better of her and a wave of fire had erupted from her wand so great that it burnt the three Merpeople down to their strange, fish-tailed skeletons. They’d wanted to take points off of her for it, but had to concede that they had knowingly sent two Veela into a den of creatures with a blood feud against them.

Cedric followed a few minutes after, slightly delayed by the parting kiss which Cho had insisted upon, and Viktor entered the maze next with a final hug and extremely aggressive looking pound on the back from Nina, leaving only Lila on the pitch.

Just survive, she was reciting in her mind. Just survive until someone else reaches the cup. 

Fortunately, if there was one thing on her side, it was the fact that she was quite literally in the middle of a massive plant. She flinched as she slipped her fingers into the sharp bramble, but the moment she made contact, she knew which way she needed to go to find safety.

She followed the maze through a winding path, letting her fingers brush against the leaves as she walked, finally reaching a small clearing and sitting down, folding her robes under her to protect her from the rough ground. She reached into the bramble again and winced, scrunching up her face in focus. She found a nice, large sized thorn, and she pushed the tip of her ring finger against it firmly. It was something she did with some of her plants at home when they’d responded well to her directions. Blood held the magic of the witch or wizard, Tom had explained once, though he’d never seen anyone use it as she did. It was a tiny sacrifice, letting the plant absorb a tiny little bit of her power as a thanks. She settled down in the narrow clearing and pulled out her book. It couldn’t be too long until someone won, she figured. Fleur was ruthless– whatever creatures they’d found to stick in the maze were no match for her.

It had been perhaps another half hour when she saw movement in the corner of her eye. “Professor Moody?” she asked in confusion when she realised who it was approaching. “Is the Tournament done?”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding unusually gruff– which was hard to do, as he was always quite gruff. “Come with me, Potter.”

“Alright,” she said with a frown, folding down the corner of her page and slipping the book back into her robes. He offered her a hand to help her up.

No– Tom had begun to say, but it was too late. The moment her hand made contact, it was as though she’d been sucked into a horrible whirlwind, and when she was spat back out, a single unhelpful thought crossed her mind before she fell unconscious.

Tom, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…

“And now,” the newly revived Voldemort said softly, “we will duel. Bow, Potter!”

Lila eyed him warily and did as she was told. The result of the weird ritual was that he was able to touch her again, apparently, which meant she couldn’t have a repeat of first year when she’d disintegrated Quirrell.  

“Yesss… Just like that,” he hissed. “Bow to death…”

“You’re going to kill me?” Lila blurted out, much to the amusement of the Death Eaters surrounding her. She couldn’t decipher Tom’s slurred warnings in her mind. When Voldemort had pressed a single finger to her scar, proof that she no longer was immune to his power, she’d experienced a single moment of blinding agony before it had disappeared, but Tom hadn’t been the same since. She knew he was trying to tell her something , probably cautioning her, if the past ten or so years was anything to go off of, so she switched over to Parseltongue, knowing none of the other people in the dark, creepy graveyard with their dark, creepy masks would understand. “If you do that, you’ll be killing yourself,” she told him slowly, dumbfounded by his choice but trying to stay polite. Her Tom would never do something that would endanger his life. “I’m literally housing part of your, like, essence, or whatever, in my head. Are you touched in the head or something?”

Not-Her-Tom froze.

Fleur, much as Lila expected, had been declared the Triwizard Champion, and held the Cup aloft with a sharp smile. Krum had been forced to surrender, and had shot up sparks to be taken out of the maze by the officials– which Lila had not known was an option, and she really wished she had so that she could have just left immediately and avoided all the other bullshit– and Cedric had made it all the way to the cup hardly a second after Fleur, who had stunned him and taken the prize.

Lila was apparated back into the maze by Apparently-Not-Moody, who was immediately captured by the very maze itself, disarmed and half shredded by thorns by the time they got back out to the crowd. Lila had sat on her folded up robes and let the maze carry her out of it, though she could feel the magical exhaustion setting in rapidly. Not-Actually-Moody was captured by the authorities, and Sirius had to be restrained by no less than six aurors in his attempts to strangle the man to death.

There was no hiding that she’d been kidnapped, but she wasn’t entirely sure how to explain anything that had just happened, so she just stammered out that she’d been in a graveyard and there had been Death Eaters there, just like the World Cup, and it was awful , and they’d accepted her vague statement as it was, probably due to the death glare her ex-convict godfather had pinned on anyone who got within five feet of her.

“You will write?” Viktor was asking Hermione hopefully. “And perhaps visit as well, this summer? Or at least by Yule?”

“I would love that,” Hermione replied with the softest smile Lila had ever seen on the clever witch, before she carefully rose up on her toes and kissed him, barely a brush of her lips against his, but he turned bright red on the spot and pulled her hands up to his mouth to press his lips to her knuckles.

Fleur was holding a tired Gabrielle on her hip while talking with Charlie and and what Lila could assume was yet another Weasley when she noticed Lila approaching, and quickly said her goodbyes to speak to her fellow competitor. Lila held out the box wordlessly, knowing if she tried to say anything now, she might just break down into tears.

“You ‘ave gotten me a gift?” Fleur checked, and Lila nodded. The Triwizard Champion kissed her cheeks and accepted the carefully wrapped package, tugging apart the bow and breaking open the paper with a sharp nail. From the box she pulled a small, flowering plant in a pale blue pot. “It is lovely, Lila,” she said. “But what is it?”

“It’s called Fraxinella,” Lila said with a sniffle, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “They’re known to spontaneously burst into flames.”

There was a slightly mad glimmer in Fleur’s eyes that made Lila smile. “I love it,” she proclaimed. “I will take ze very best care of it.” Her face fell. “I did not get you anything,” she admitted then. “But, I ‘ave ‘eard you are going to be trying wandmaking.”

“Yep,” Lila confirmed. “I’ll be working with Mr. Ollivander a few times a week for the rest of my years at Hogwarts, and then four years after that.”

“Zen I know exactly what I will give you,” Fleur declared, swishing her wand in a flourish and conjuring a small glass bottle. “I know Mr. Ollivander said ‘e does not use Veela ‘air as cores, but zey make for wonderful wands, and you should get to at least try if you are to learn. Besides,” she added conspiratorially, “Veela ‘air only contains ze right properties to be used in a wand if it is freely gifted. He may have simply never ‘ad any.” She plucked a few hairs from her head, slipped them into the bottle carefully, and replaced the cork.

“Will they still work if you’re not fully Veela?” Lila asked, and Fleur nodded.

“You are either born with Veela ‘air, or you are not,” she explained. “I was, Gabrielle was not. Ze properties and capabilities are exactly ze same.”

“Thank you,” Lila said, taking the bottle gingerly and feeling her eyes warm with tears. “I promise I’ll make something wonderful.” 

“I am certain you will do just zat."

“Oh, I’m going to miss you!” Lila cried, throwing her arms around the older witch. 

“I will miss you, too,” Fleur said gently, embracing Lila with one arm and resting her other hand on Lila’s cheek, wiping her tears. “But I might be back in Britain sooner than I ‘ave expected.”

Lila looked up at her hopefully. “Why’s that?”

She smiled secretively, leaning forward to whisper in Lila’s ear. “Did you see that other boy? Charlie ‘as introduced me to ‘is brother, Bill. And besides,” she added, tossing her hair back behind her shoulder haughtily, “Who else will keep your leetle dragon friend from burning you to ash?”