At Madam Pomfrey's insistence, Harry and Ron had brought me upstairs to Gryffindor Tower. Ron mentioned later that Cedric hadn't wanted to let me go but had eventually, asking the boys to tell me that he would see me later. The boys had then handed me off to Hermione, who had brought me upstairs and forced me to eat and drink something. That part of the afternoon was very fuzzy. Hermione later told me that I had dozed off for about two hours. I had needed the extra sleep from my previous sleepless night.

When I woke up a few hours later I felt much better, though I did have a large bite mark on my ankle that would be there for at least a few days. Ron's bite hadn't gone away for weeks. It meant that I wasn't going to be wearing shorts for a while. Hermione insisted that I should go back to sleep for a few more hours once I'd woken up. I ended up sleeping for about another hour and decided to eat dinner upstairs. I could see everyone later. I knew that the people downstairs would only want to talk about the dragons.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I went up to the Owlery the evening of the First Task to find Pigwidgeon so that Harry and I could send Sirius a letter telling him that we had both managed to get past our dragons unscathed. On the way, Harry and I filled Ron in on everything Sirius had told us about Karkaroff. Though shocked at first to hear that Karkaroff had been a Death Eater, by the time we entered the Owlery Ron was saying that we ought to have suspected it all along.

"Fits, doesn't it? Remember what Malfoy said on the train, about his dad being friends with Karkaroff? Now we know where they knew each other. They were probably running around in masks together at the World Cup. I'll tell you two one thing, though, if it was Karkaroff who put your names in the goblet, he's going to be feeling really stupid now, isn't he? Didn't work, did it? You only got a scratch and Tara only got bitten!" Ron rambled excitedly, taking the parchment from Harry. "Come here - I'll do it."

"Honey, you're aware there are still two more tasks, right?" I reminded Ron gently.

"Tara, live in the moment!" Ron replied.

"Remember to tell me that the morning before the Second Task," I groaned.

All four of us chuckled as we wandered further into the Owlery. Harry had an arm wrapped around me to keep me from collapsing as I was still a little unsteady from the venom. Pigwidgeon was so overexcited at the idea of a delivery he was flying around and around Harry's head, hooting incessantly. I arched a brow, unsure if the small owl was up to the task of delivering a letter to Sirius. Ron snatched Pigwidgeon out of the air and held him still while Harry attached the letter to his leg.

"There's no way any of the other tasks are going to be that dangerous, how could they be?" Ron went on as he carried Pigwidgeon to the window.

"You're a moron!" I snapped, shoving him toward the window. "I'm sure this is going to be the easiest of the tasks."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"Wouldn't it make more sense for the tasks to start easy and get harder?" I pointed out.

"Battling a dragon is easy?" Harry deadpanned.

It likely would be compared to whatever else they would have us do. "No. I'm just saying. I'd figure the later tasks would be at least the same level of difficulty if not harder," I told him.

"We can worry about that once you figure out your clue," Hermione said.

"You know what? I reckon one of you could win this tournament, I'm serious," Ron said when he saw that Harry and I were shaking our heads in disbelief. "Tara, you're in first place! And Harry, you're only two points behind her."

Just because we were in first and second place didn't mean that we would stay there for the rest of the tournament. We had the early lead but it could have easily been overtaken by any of the other champions. Plus, I knew that Ron was only saying what he was to make up for his behavior from the last few weeks, but I appreciated it all the same. I glanced at Harry and sent him a wary smile. Ron believing us was relieving. Hermione, however, leaned against the Owlery wall, folded her arms, and frowned at Ron.

"Wishful thinking, but it's a sweet idea," I told Ron.

"Harry and Tara have a long way to go before they finish this tournament," Hermione said seriously. "If that was the First Task, I hate to think what's coming next."

"Right little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Ron asked. "You and Professor Trelawney should get together sometime."

The affronted look on Hermione's face sent me into a fit of giggles. Ron threw Pigwidgeon out of the window, ignoring Hermione's glare. For a moment, I thought the owl would fall to the ground below. Pigwidgeon plummeted twelve feet before managing to pull himself back up again; the letter attached to his leg was much longer and heavier than usual - Harry and I hadn't been able to resist giving Sirius a blow-by-blow account of exactly how we had swerved, circled, and dodged the Horntail and Ridgeback.

We watched Pigwidgeon disappear into the darkness, and then Ron said, "Well, we'd better get downstairs for your surprise party - Fred and George should have nicked enough food from the kitchens by now."

"Count me in!" I said happily.

It felt like it had been years since I had eaten a full meal and hadn't been anxious. The three of us laughed as we headed back toward Gryffindor Tower. Sure enough, when we entered the Gryffindor Common Room it exploded with cheers and yells again. I was fairly certain that my back would be bruised from the number of times people had slapped me jovially. I smiled as I wandered around the Common Room. It looked like Fred and George had had a good time in the kitchen.

There were mountains of cakes and flagons of pumpkin juice and Butterbeer on every surface; Lee Jordan had let off some Filibuster's Fireworks so that the air was thick with stars and sparks. Dean, who was very good at drawing, had put up some impressive new banners, most of which depicted Harry zooming around the Horntail's head on his Firebolt and me doing flips through the air avoiding the Ridgeback, though a couple showed Cedric with his head on fire. It gave most of the students a laugh.

"Oh, come on, Dean. You had to put his head on fire?" I asked.

"House rivalries, Tara," Dean said.

"But I like his face," I moped quietly.

Lavender was behind me and she laughed. "As much as you like the broom cupboards?" she asked.

Silly me for thinking that we had moved past those jokes. I scowled at my roommate. "Lavender?" I asked. She hummed in response. "You know how long that drop is out of Professor Trelawney's classroom? Do you think it would break someone's legs if they were shoved out of the trap door?"

Lavender gasped and stepped back from me as I grinned madly at her. My most irritating roommate walked off as I smiled, feeling happier than I had been in weeks. I smiled from ear-to-ear as I spotted Fred. Our overnight practice lessons were the only reason that I was able to beat the Ridgeback - and the mystery man, of course. I smiled and giggled dumbly as I ran up to Fred, who picked me up and swung me around. We laughed as I nearly went flying from his arms from the force.

"You're the reason I didn't get burned alive. You know that, right?" I asked as Fred set me down, keeping my arms looped around his neck.

"Duh. How else would you not make an idiot of yourself?" Fred replied.

My lips fell into a thin line. "Wow, you're so sweet," I snapped.

"You look like you're going to burst," Fred said as I began bouncing back-and-forth on my heels.

"Are you kidding? I just beat a dragon!" I said happily.

"You got bitten by the said dragon," Fred pointed out.

"I'd like to see you do better!" I barked.

"Are you joking? I would have charmed the dragon with my -"

"Stupidity?"

Fred scowled as he flipped his long hair over his shoulders. "Stunning good looks," Fred corrected.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," I huffed.

Fred grinned and offered me his hand. "How about a dance?"

"It would be my pleasure," I said happily.

Dancing was one way to let off some steam. I spent almost an hour dancing around like a fool with my friends. Fred and George were spinning me between them so much that I felt like I was going to puke; it felt a little bit like how I had felt after Norberta had bitten me. I giggled happily as I danced with Dean, who had two left feet, and Seamus, who was a surprisingly good dancer. Harry spent less than two minutes dancing with me before bowing out. He had never been a good dancer. Ron wouldn't get up to dance with me at all.

Throughout the night I had helped myself to all of the food that had been brought out; I had almost forgotten what it was like to feel properly hungry with all of the stress and anxiety I'd felt. Once I had gotten my dancing urge out and had eaten enough to stuff a horse, I sat down with Ron, Harry, and Hermione. I couldn't believe how happy I felt; I had Ron back on my side, I had gotten through the First Task mostly unscathed, and I wouldn't have to face the Second Task for three months.

"Blimey, this is heavy," Lee Jordan said, picking up Harry's golden egg, which Harry had left on a table, and weighing it in his hands.

Mine was being passed between some of the younger Gryffindor students. "It's solid gold, Lee. Of course, it's heavy," I commented.

"Open it, you two, go on! Let's just see what's inside it!" Lee goaded.

"They're supposed to work out the clue on their own," Hermione said swiftly. "It's in the tournament rules."

"Learn to have some fun," I told Hermione, who scowled at me. "I doubt it'll be a black-and-white clue anyway."

"We were supposed to work out how to get past the dragons on our own too," Harry muttered, so only Hermione and I could hear him, and Hermione grinned guiltily.

"Fair," I admitted.

"Yeah, go on, open it!" several people echoed.

"On three?" I asked Harry.

"On three," he agreed.

"One," I said.

"Two," Harry said.

"Three," we counted together.

Lee passed Harry his egg, Fred passed me my egg, and I dug my fingernails into the groove that ran around it and pried it open. The egg was hollow and empty - but the moment Harry and I opened our respective eggs, the most horrible noise, a loud and screechy wailing, filled the room. I nearly dropped the egg in surprise. The nearest thing to it I had ever heard was the ghost orchestra at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party, who had all been playing the musical saw.

"Shut it!" Fred bellowed, his hands over his ears.

"What was that?" Seamus asked, staring at the eggs as Harry and I slammed them shut again. "Sounded like a banshee."

"That was my first thought," I said.

"Maybe you've got to get past one of those next!" Seamus suggested.

Banshees were nothing compared to dragons and I was firmly convinced that the Second Task would be harder than the First Task. "I don't think so. Banshees are loud and annoying but they're not scary or particularly difficult to get past," I reasoned.

"It was someone being tortured!" Neville yelled; he had gone very white and spilled sausage rolls all over the floor. "You're going to have to fight the Cruciatus Curse!"

"Okay, not that bad," I said quietly.

"Don't be a prat, Neville, that's illegal," George pointed out. "They wouldn't use the Cruciatus Curse on the champions. I thought it sounded a bit like Percy singing. Maybe you've got to attack him while he's in the shower."

I spat out my water, laughing at the image. "I'll take the penalty for not competing," I said.

The crowd laughed at Percy's expense. Most of the people in the Common Room knew Percy. "Want a jam tart, Hermione?" Fred offered.

Hermione looked doubtfully at the plate he was offering her. Fred grinned. I didn't know what was in the jam tart but I knew it wouldn't go well if she ate it. "Do not eat that!" I said, snatching the tart from Fred.

"What did they do?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

"No idea, but they had to have done something," I admitted.

"It's all right. I haven't done anything to them. It's the custard creams you've got to watch," Fred told her. Neville, who had just bitten into a custard cream, choked and spat it out. Fred laughed. "Just my little joke, Neville."

"Freddie," I chided.

Hermione took a jam tart. Then she said, "Did you get all this from the kitchens, Fred?"

"Yep," Fred answered, grinning at her. He put on a high-pitched squeak and imitated a house-elf. "'Anything we can get you, sir, anything at all!' They're dead helpful, get me a roast ox if I said I was peckish."

"How do you get in there?" Hermione asked in an innocently casual sort of voice.

"Easy, concealed door behind a painting of a bowl of fruit," Fred told her. I scowled at him. Why would he tell her that? "Just tickle the pear, and it giggles and -" He stopped and looked suspiciously at her. "Why?"

"Nothing," Hermione said quickly.

"Why can't you ever let people have fun?" I asked her.

"I am fun!" Hermione snapped.

"Fun-sucker, more like it," I huffed.

"Tara!" Hermione huffed.

"Going to try and lead the house-elves out on strike now, are you? Going to give up all the leaflet stuff and try and stir them up into rebellion?" George asked Hermione, breaking our conversation.

Several people chortled. Hermione didn't answer. "Don't you go upsetting them and telling them they've got to take clothes and salaries. You'll put them off their cooking!" Fred said warningly.

Just then, Neville caused a slight diversion by turning into a large canary. "Neville!" I gasped.

"Oh - sorry, Neville!" Fred shouted over all the laughter. "I forgot - it was the custard creams we hexed."

"Boys!" I yelled at the twins.

Neville swooped around the Common Room for a few seconds, squawking loudly. I turned to the twins and smacked them both over the backs of their heads. They looked unaffected by Neville's current predicament. I was concerned with how long Neville would be stuck as a canary, but it wasn't as bad as I had expected. Within a minute, Neville had molted, and once his feathers had fallen off, he reappeared looking entirely normal. He even joined in laughing.

"Oh, come on. Even Neville's laughing," Fred told me.

"Shows his poor taste. If you ever do that to me, I'll kick your ass off the Astronomy Tower," I warned him.

"Oh. Promises, promises," Fred teased. I rolled my eyes. "Canary Creams!" Fred shouted to the excitable crowd. "George and I invented them - seven Sickles each, a bargain!"

It was nearly one in the morning when everyone finally went up to bed. I went upstairs at Hermione's badgering to get more sleep and changed into my pajamas. I set my tiny model of the Norwegian Ridgeback on the table next to my bed, where it yawned, curled up, and closed its eyes. Hagrid had a point. They were all right, dragons. I tried to lay down and close my eyes to go to sleep but even after half an hour, I couldn't fall asleep. I was too geared up from everything that had happened today.

After a few minutes, I decided to head downstairs to clean up for a while. We had left a huge mess. As soon as I went downstairs, though, someone called my name. "Tara." I glanced up to see that Fred was still downstairs. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I didn't think anyone was going to be down here," I said. "I figured I would clean up."

"It's your party. You don't have to clean," Fred said.

"Please. If I don't clean up, no one will," I reasoned.

"I'll help," Fred offered.

"Really?" I asked.

"Sure. We can play a game while we clean," Fred suggested.

I smiled. "Your kinds of games make me nervous."

"Don't be nervous. We can play Never Have I Ever."

"Isn't that a drinking game?"

It was something I remembered my Muggle friends talking about when I was in Florida. Fred gave me a teasing grin. I arched an eyebrow, knowing nothing good was coming. "That's why I saved the good stuff for later," Fred said.

The good stuff? We'd already had way too much Butterbeer. Fred smirked as he pulled out a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky. I barked out a mad laugh. Butterbeer had some alcohol in it but not much. Not nearly enough to cause any problems. Firewhisky, on the other hand, was made of pure alcohol. "That's the good stuff," I said happily.

"What do you say? Share it?" Fred offered.

"Victor gets the first sip," I said. Fred laughed as I took the bottle from him and drained a long slug. I had never drunk it before and wasn't expecting it to burn as much as it did going down. I coughed a bit as I recovered from the burning sensation. "Good stuff."

Fred laughed, taking the bottle back. "Can I start?" he asked.

"Go ahead," I said.

"Never have I ever had a broom cupboard story started about me," Fred began.

My jaw dropped as I threw a used paper plate at him. He chuckled as he ducked out of the way and I took another swig. "Low blow!" I snapped, making Fred laugh again. "Alright, smartass. Never have I ever failed a test."

"Nerd," Fred huffed. I laughed as Fred took a long slug from the bottle. "Never have I ever fainted."

"Jackass," I snapped, taking another sip. "Never have I ever been a Beater on a team."

"Never have I ever been an alternate," Fred shot back, taking his drink.

"You're going to get the shit slapped out of you," I growled, making Fred laugh as I stomached another drink. "Never have I ever been a twin."

"Never have I ever not been a twin."

"Never have I ever had siblings."

"Never have I ever lived in the United States."

We went back and forth, having a good time laughing with each other. Each of our comments was deliberately pointed at the other. We'd always loved laughing and making idiots out of ourselves. It was the most fun either of us had had in a long time. Fred and I laughed loud enough that I thought we would wake the rest of Gryffindor Tower. At that point, neither one of us cared. We wound up drinking about half of the bottle between us, ceasing cleaning after a while. We were mostly moving things around in our semi-drunk states.

It was nearly an hour when it rolled back around to my turn and I finally had a good one that I knew would catch him. "Never have I ever slept with anyone," I said pointedly.

"Never?" Fred asked pointedly. He was being an asshole reverting to the broom closet rumors. I laughed and whopped Fred as hard as I could with a pillow. Fred chuckled as he grabbed the pillow from me and threw it across the room, falling back onto the couch. I fell onto the opposite end with him, feeling my head spin as I did. I noticed that Fred didn't drink when he spoke again. "My turn."

"Wait for a second!" I yelled, stopping him from asking his question. I didn't believe that he had never slept with someone. "Never?" Fred shook his head. "Really? I don't believe that."

Fred placed a hand on my leg. "Never."

"Why not?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Fred said.

There was no way that he hadn't slept with someone. I refused to believe it. "We've known each other long enough to know that neither one of us conforms. We do what we want when we want to do it. If you've never done that, there has to be a reason. I know you've got a line waiting," I said, knowing that there were plenty of girls who liked Fred.

"You can take a number," Fred teased. I laughed, shoving his face away from me. "I don't know, honestly. There have been a few, but..."

"You're waiting for the right one?" I asked.

Fred shook his head. "Please, that's for suckers." I barked out a laugh. "But I do think there should be something."

That was an interesting revelation. "So, Fred Weasley has some standards," I teased. Fred laughed and I smiled as I leaned into him. "I don't buy that."

"No? Why not?" Fred asked. "I believed you."

I rolled my eyes. "Please. No one's that interested," I said.

"That's a lie," Fred said.

"No, it's not," I argued. There was only one person in Hogwarts who was moderately interested in doing something like that with me. "The only reason they think I'm interesting is that they thought Cedric and I had done something."

Fred laughed, shaking his head. "We all know how far off that is from the realm of possibility. Diggory's far too goody-goody for that. He probably wants to wait until marriage for that," Fred teased.

It would have been interesting to see how Fred reacted to my bathroom meetings with Cedric. I laughed, whacking Fred with a decorative pillow. "I'm not settling for that," I said huffily.

Fred grinned. "No?" I shook my head. "How long, then?"

How long was I willing to wait? I hadn't thought about it much, I just knew that I didn't want to wait until I was at the altar. I thought about my answer for a few moments. My head was spinning from the alcohol consumption but I could still think straight. I had an answer, though I was a little ashamed to tell Fred. "I don't know if I should say it," I muttered.

"You know I'm the last one to judge," Fred said comfortingly.

Fred and I laughed as we clinked our plastic cups together, taking another long drink of the liquor that seemed to have lost its taste a while ago. "I don't want to leave Hogwarts having never taken that step," I admitted.

"What if you never get that far?" Fred asked curiously.

"I'll be eighteen and a little ashamed of myself," I answered more honestly than I was expecting to. Thankfully, Fred laughed. I joined him a moment later. "I don't know. I don't think I need to be in love with the person I'm with but I do want to be connected to them."

Fred hummed thoughtfully. "So, if you had someone you trusted -"

"I would be okay," I interrupted.

"Say you don't want to leave Hogwarts without ever doing that with someone..." Fred said quietly, his voice trailing off at the end.

I smiled, knowing what he was hinting at. Fred had always been a playful asshole. "I'll be waiting for you after the graduation ceremony," I chirped, winking at him.

We raised our glasses, clinking the rims against each other's. "Deal," Fred said.

A slightly nervous laugh escaped me as I smiled, spending the rest of the night chattering away happily with Fred. Our conversations grew more and more nonsensical as we joked around and stumbled about the Common Room. I knew that I would have bruises up and down my legs and on my hips from the number of times I had smacked into a chair or table. Fred had gotten a particularly good laugh out of me tripping over a footstool and hitting the ground upside-down. I thought we would wake up half of Gryffindor Tower from our laughter.

The good thing was that most of the other students had done their fair share of drinking too. They were already deep in alcohol-induced slumbers. I sat on the couch near the fireplace, happier than I had thought I would be. Today couldn't have gone much better than it had. I had gotten my relationship with Cedric almost back to normal, I had survived the First Task and my encounter with Norberta mostly unscathed, and my friends were back on my side. When I passed out, drunk on the couch with Fred, I couldn't have been less concerned with how we looked.

The following morning, Hermione found us on the couch and woke us up, furious that Fred and I had drunk ourselves to sleep that night. I didn't care. I remembered that prior night and I'd had a good time with Fred. It had been one of my most entertaining days at Hogwarts. The rest of the students were downstairs too, but they had left us alone. They all knew that I'd been having a hard time lately. As I rose from my spot on the couch, I turned to Fred who looked no worse for wear. The alcohol had done nothing to him and that thought annoyed me.

"Freddie," I chirped in greeting.

"Good morning," Fred replied.

"Good night?" I asked.

A chipper grin split Fred's lips. "Oh, absolutely. I've got something to look forward to now."

The shit-eating grin on his face told me that he thought I didn't remember our discussion last night. I smiled at him as innocently as I could. "Yeah. Me too." I let Fred walk away for a moment before I called him back. "So, you'll meet me the night after my graduation, then?" I offered.

Fred's normally confident demeanor slipped for the briefest moment as he stumbled over his feet. He looked stunned that I remembered our conversation. "I'll have flowers at the ready," Fred offered, making me laugh madly.

The start of December brought wind and sleet to Hogwarts. My bitter mood began creeping back as we entered the early winter. Anyone who knew me knew that I hated winter at Hogwarts - save Christmastime. The castle was always drafty in winter. Wizards had to get behind central heating soon or else I was positive that I would freeze to death. Either way, I was glad of the castle's fires and thick walls every time I passed the Durmstrang ship on the lake, which was pitching in the high winds, its black sails billowing against the dark skies.

It must have been miserable living there. I thought the Beauxbatons caravan was likely to be pretty chilly too. I had noticed Hagrid was keeping Madame Maxime's horses well provided with their preferred drink of single-malt whiskey; the fumes wafting from the trough in the comer of their paddock was enough to make the entire Care of Magical Creatures class light-headed. It reminded me of my night with Fred. This time was unhelpful, as we were still tending the horrible skrewts and needed our wits about us.

"I'm not sure whether they hibernate or not," Hagrid told our shivering class in the windy pumpkin patch next lesson. "Thought we'd jus' try an see if they fancied a kip. We'll jus' settle 'em down in these boxes."

There were now only ten skrewts left; apparently, their desire to kill one another had not been exercised out of them. Each of them was now approaching six feet in length. Their thick gray armor; their powerful, scuttling legs; their fire-blasting ends; their stings and their suckers, combined to make the skrewts the most repulsive things I had ever seen. I didn't know what we were supposed to do with them now that they seemed to be adults. Our class looked dispiritedly at the enormous boxes Hagrid had brought out, all lined with pillows and fluffy blankets.

"We'll jus' lead 'em in here an' put the lids on, and we'll see what happens," Hagrid said.

"See what happens?" I repeated, whispering to Harry.

"It's always reassuring when Hagrid says that, isn't it?" Harry joked.

Having Hagrid tell us that he was going to see what happened didn't instill confidence in anyone. The skrewts, it transpired, did not hibernate, and did not appreciate being forced into pillow-lined boxes and nailed in. Hagrid was soon yelling, "Don panic, now, don' panic!"

But I was enjoying the panicking. The skrewts were rampaging around the pumpkin patch, now strewn with the smoldering wreckage of the boxes. Most of the class - Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in the lead - had fled into Hagrid's cabin through the back door and barricaded themselves in; Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I, however, were among those who remained outside trying to help Hagrid. Together we managed to restrain and tie up nine of the skrewts, though at the cost of numerous burns and cuts; finally, only one skrewt was left.

Considering I had just battled a fully-grown nesting dragon, the skrewts were more annoying than terrifying. "Don' frighten him, now!" Hagrid shouted as Ron and Harry used their wands to shoot jets of fiery sparks at the skrewt, which was advancing menacingly on them, its sting arched, quivering, over its back.

"I think they're in more danger of frightening us!" I shouted, trying to hit it with a harmless jinx.

"Jus' try an slip the rope 'round his sting, so he won hurt any o' the others!" Hagrid yelled.

"Yeah, we wouldn't want that!" Ron shouted angrily as he and Harry backed into the wall of Hagrid's cabin, still holding the skrewt off with their sparks.

"Well, well, well. This does look like fun."

The voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Rita Skeeter was leaning on Hagrid's garden fence, looking in at the mayhem. She was wearing a thick magenta cloak with a furry purple collar today, and her crocodile-skin handbag was over her arm. My spine stiffened as I walked toward Skeeter. Hagrid needed a moment to clean up his mess, anyway. Hagrid launched himself forward on top of the skrewt that was cornering Harry and Ron and flattened it; a blast of fire shot out of its end, withering the pumpkin plants nearby.

My teeth ground so tightly together that I thought they would crack under the pressure. I had thought we would be rid of Skeeter until the Second Task. "What the fuck do you think you're doing here?" I snarled, earning an exasperated sigh from Hermione. Skeeter turned to me, her eyes widening slightly. "Last I heard, you weren't allowed on Hogwarts grounds."

The nerves faded from Skeeter's eyes quickly; it was replaced with a hateful stare cold enough to rival mine. "What will a little girl like you do about it?" Skeeter replied.

I tilted my neck to the side, the bones audibly cracking. "Want to find out?" I offered.

"Who're you?" Hagrid asked Skeeter as he slipped a loop of rope around the skrewt's sting and tightened it.

His gaze turned nervously between us. He must have sensed the tension. It wasn't difficult. Someone could cut the tension in the room with a knife. "Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter," Skeeter replied, beaming at him. Her gold teeth glinted.

"And a raging bitch," I added under my breath.

Skeeter turned to me furiously but she was cut off. "Thought Dumbledore said you weren' allowed inside the school anymore," Hagrid said, frowning slightly as he got off the slightly squashed skrewt and started tugging it over to its fellows.

Hagrid looked between Skeeter and me for a few moments. He knew me well enough to know that I hated her. I hadn't made it any secret. Hermione gripped the back of my robes tightly and yanked me back into her. We both knew how much trouble I would get into if I was caught going after Skeeter again. Harry and Ron were at my sides; their stances were as stiff as mine was. Skeeter acted as though she hadn't heard what Hagrid had said.

"What are these fascinating creatures called?" Skeeter asked, beaming still more widely.

"Blast-Ended Skrewts," Hagrid grunted.

"Really?" Skeeter asked, apparently full of lively interest. "I've never heard of them before. Where do they come from?"

The tone of her voice set me on edge. Something was wrong. Skeeter couldn't have cared less about the skrewts. I was positive that she was looking to incriminate him. Hagrid opened his mouth to speak when I yelled over him. "Hagrid! You don't need to tell her anything," I said, turning back to Skeeter with a snarl on my lips. "She's got no business being here."

"I only wanted to see what you children are learning," Skeeter said innocently.

"Magic," I deadpanned. "Get lost."

Skeeter scowled at me as I turned and noticed a dull red flush rising out of Hagrid's wild black beard. The longer I stared at him, the more my heart sank. Where had Hagrid got the skrewts from? He wasn't known for being a law-abiding citizen. Hermione, who seemed to be thinking along those lines, said quickly, "They're very interesting, aren't they? Aren't they. Harry?"

"What? Oh yeah... ouch... interesting," Harry said as she stepped on his foot.

"Ah, you're here. Harry!" Skeeter chirped happily as she looked around. I rolled my eyes so far back into my head that I felt like I could see my brain. Of course, Harry was here. "So, you like Care of Magical Creatures, do you? One of your favorite lessons?"

"Yes," Harry said stoutly. Hagrid beamed at him.

"Lovely. Really lovely." Skeeter glanced around the students before looking back at me. "No Cedric?"

"Obviously not. If you had half a brain and were a real reporter you would know that he was in his Sixth Year. This is a Fourth Year class," I sneered. It didn't seem like enough. "Fucking idiot."

"Merlin, Tara..." Hermione groaned.

Skeeter was pathetic. I didn't know if she was that clueless that she didn't understand why Cedric wasn't with me right now or that she didn't care, but I hated being around her. I didn't understand what she was even doing here unless she was trying to dig up dirt on Hagrid. The only reason that would have made sense was if she was in turn trying to dig up dirt on Dumbledore. I scowled at Skeeter as she began slowly walking toward me. Hermione's hands tightened their grip on my robes.

"You should watch what you say, Miss Nox," Skeeter teased, her voice lowering slightly so that only I could hear her. "You would hate to see just how sharp my Quick Quotes Quill can be."

The acid-green quill shot out from Skeeter's bag and zipped in front of my face. It passed too quickly for me to grab it. "You would hate to see just how angry another article would make me," I shot back. If Skeeter wrote another article about me I was going to end up in Azkaban for murder. Maybe Mom and Dad would bail me out. "I'm pretty good with magic, but some people deserve a clock right across the jaw... and for them to keep on coming."

Hermione's grip on my robes was so tight that I felt the stitching begin to give way. "Tara, she's not worth it," Hermione whispered in my ear.

"We'll see," I growled through gritted teeth.

Skeeter may not have been worth going to prison for, but I was sick of her. I was going to give her exactly what she deserved and that was a permanent black eye. As I shot toward Skeeter, Hermione lost her grip on my robes but was able to grab the hood before I got too far. I was yanked backward from her grasp, the fabric pressing tightly into my throat. I gasped, stumbling back into Hermione's arms. She kept a tight grip on me, knowing that I would make another break for it if she loosened her grasp.

"No!" Hermione hissed, pulling me back with great effort.

While Hermione and I were struggling against each other, Skeeter turned her attention back to the skrewts. "Been teaching long?" Skeeter added to Hagrid.

There was a conniving tone in her voice. She wanted something that she wasn't willing to ask outright. I noticed her eyes travel over Dean (who had a nasty cut across one cheek), Lavender (whose robes were badly singed), Seamus (who was nursing several burnt fingers), and then to the cabin windows, where most of the class stood, their noses pressed against the glass waiting to see if the coast was clear. It may have been a standard Care of Magical Creatures class for us but it would look horrible to any Daily Prophet readers.

The scene of a cowering class with mutant animals would make it look like Hagrid was trying to kill us. "This is o'ny me second year," Hagrid answered.

"Lovely. I don't suppose you'd like to give an interview, would you? Share some of your experiences with magical creatures? The Prophet does a zoological column every Wednesday, as I'm sure you know. We could feature these - er - BangEnded Scoots," Skeeter said, not even bothering to try and pretend that she cared about the skrewts.

"Blast-Ended Skrewts," Hagrid said eagerly. "Er - yeah, why not?"

"No, Hagrid, don't," I said, stepping toward them.

"It's alright, Tara. I don' mind talkin' abou' the skrewts," Hagrid said dumbly.

Hagrid didn't realize that Skeeter was trying to catch him; I wasn't sure if she wanted to hurt Hagrid or Dumbledore. "But -" I started, moving into the pair.

"Mind your business, Miss Nox," Skeeter said, looking back at me with a smirk.

"I'll kill you," I growled.

There was no way that I was going to let Hagrid doom himself. Dumbledore wouldn't let Hagrid take the fall for the class but that didn't mean that I didn't want to help. I had a very bad feeling about the interview, but there was no way of communicating it to Hagrid without Skeeter seeing, so I had to stand and watch in silence as Hagrid and Skeeter made arrangements to meet in the Three Broomsticks for a good long interview later that week. Then the bell rang up at the castle, signaling the end of the lesson.

Before the end of the week, I would have to get a chance to say something to Hagrid about the interview. I couldn't let Hagrid make himself look like the worst teacher in Hogwarts just because Skeeter had a vendetta against us. As the class ended, I stared at Skeeter and Hagrid. I felt incredibly guilty watching them. Skeeter just wanted to make Dumbledore look like a fool but Hagrid thought that someone was interested in his skrewts. I almost felt bad for interrupting their interview.

"Well, goodbye, Harry!" Skeeter called merrily to him as he set off with Ron, Hermione, and I. She didn't bother saying anything to me. "Until Friday night, then, Hagrid!"

"She'll twist everything he says," Harry said under his breath.

"Of course, she will!" I snapped. There wasn't a chance in hell that Skeeter cared about Hagrid's skrewts. "That horrible -"

"No!" Hermione interrupted.

"You don't even know what I was going to say!" I shot back.

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and said, "Was it anything even moderately nice?"

"Fuck no," I snorted.

"Oh, Tara." Hermione rolled her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. I scowled at her as we started heading back toward the castle. "Just as long as he didn't import those skrewts illegally or anything," Hermione asked the boys desperately, switching back to our new problem. We all looked at one another - it was exactly the sort of thing Hagrid might do.

I'd never heard of a Blast-Ended Skrewt before. It was one of Hagrid's inventions; I was sure of it. "Hagrid's been in loads of trouble before, and Dumbledore's never sacked him," Ron told her consolingly. "Worst that can happen is Hagrid will have to get rid of the skrewts. Sorry... did I say worst? I meant best."

Harry, Hermione, and I laughed, and, feeling slightly more cheerful, went off to lunch. Maybe I didn't have to get involved. Ron was correct. What was the worst that would happen? I would enjoy being in Care of Magical Creatures without having to worry about getting my eyebrows singed off. Hagrid would be sad if he had to get rid of the skrewts but he would get over it. It wouldn't be like when he had nearly lost Buckbeak. We had made it a few steps back toward the castle when an idea dawned on me.

If I was a little more mature I would have brushed off Skeeter's comments and been the bigger person, going back to the castle without giving her a second thought. I wasn't there yet. "Hang on a minute," I told my friends.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked curiously.

I waved him off, pulling my wand from my robes and pointing it at the enclosure that held the skrewts. "Diffindo!" I hissed.

"Tara!" Hermione snapped.

The rope that was holding the skrewts back from attacking the students was suddenly severed. I was glad that Hagrid wasn't paying attention. The rest of the Gryffindor's who were walking at our sides began roaring with laughter as the remaining skrewts took off after their closest target; Rita Skeeter. She let out an ear-piercingly shrill scream as the skrewts began chasing her down the hill toward the Forbidden Forest, trying to light her on fire.

Hagrid didn't seem overly concerned with trying to get the skrewts back right away. He turned to me and sent me a fond wink as I laughed, watching Skeeter vanish over the hills. Her skirt was smoking as she sprinted away, her heels getting stuck in the grass. She lost one of them as she vanished from sight. Our class laughed ourselves hoarse at the sight of her. Harry and Ron both threw their arms over my shoulders, pleased with my actions. Hermione was rolling her eyes at me but even she had a slight grin on her lips.

Once I was satisfied that Skeeter had learned her lesson, I turned back to my friends, wiping my hands together as I slipped my wand back into my robes. "Now we can go," I said.

"She's going to write something terrible about the skrewts now, you know?" Hermione said.

"Shocking," Ron said.

"She was going to do that anyway," I replied.

At least I had gotten the brief satisfaction of seeing Skeeter run for her life. The skrewts wouldn't chase after her for long as it had begun snowing. If there was one thing we had learned about the skrewts it was that they didn't like the cold weather. "Zabini!" Malfoy's voice rang out over the yard. I glanced back curiously. "I think you owe me a Galleon, don't you?"

Zabini shook his head, digging through his robe pockets to pull out a Galleon. He pushed it roughly into Malfoy's hand. "Can't believe you were right," Zabini groaned.

That sounded interesting. I raised my eyebrows as I watched the two boys. I couldn't hear much of what they were saying but I did catch the phrases 'tournament' and 'Nox' which undoubtedly meant that they were talking about something to do with my performance in the Triwizard Tournament. The Galleon that Zabini was handing Malfoy made it look like they were betting. The two of them were walking just slightly behind where we were. I nodded at my friends; I was too nosey to let this one go.

I grabbed Harry's arm, stopping my friends for a moment. "I'll meet you guys in the Great Hall," I told them.

"All right," Ron said.

"You okay?" Harry asked curiously.

"Yeah. Go on, I'll catch up," I told them. Ron didn't seem to care as he wanted food. Harry and Hermione stared at me for a moment but chose to walk off as I slid back to fall in line with Malfoy. He met my eyes and immediately motioned his friends off. Parkinson didn't look happy about being shooed away but headed off with Zabini at Malfoy's insistence. I glanced at Malfoy and grinned playfully. "What was that about?"

"You're speaking to me again?" Malfoy asked curiously.

We hadn't spoken much since I had wound up in the Triwizard Tournament and he had been a complete asshole. "Curiosity is getting the best of me," I explained. Malfoy hummed. "You don't look too upset about it."

"Oh, I love hearing you talk," Malfoy teased.

"You just love it when a girl talks to you," I replied.

"Actually, I like them better when they're not talking," Malfoy corrected.

How I hadn't seen that one coming, I would never know. "You're disgusting," I snapped. Malfoy smirked at me as I motioned to the Galleon still in his fingers. "What was that about?"

"It was a bet on the First Task," Malfoy explained.

"What? Did you bet against me?" I huffed.

Malfoy had likely thought I would be incinerated by the dragon. "Notice that he was the one paying me," Malfoy pointed out.

My head snapped to him as I realized what had happened. Zabini had bet against me. Malfoy had bet on me. That was why Zabini had looked so shocked. "You bet on me," I commented dumbly.

"I did," Malfoy said.

"Why?" I asked curiously.

"I thought you were a good bet," Malfoy said.

There was no way. Malfoy had said plenty of times that he thought I didn't stand a chance. It made no sense why he would have bet on me. "Didn't I hear you saying that you didn't think Harry or I would make it more than ten minutes into the tournament?" I asked.

"What's your point?" Malfoy asked.

"You said that you didn't think we would make it," I said.

If he hadn't thought I would survive the tournament, why had he bet money that I would win? Malfoy chuckled as he smirked at me. "I still don't think Potter will make it," Malfoy said.

"As for me?" I asked slowly.

We stopped walking just long enough for us to meet eyes. Malfoy was smiling teasingly at me. "I've still got money on you, Nox. Don't waste it," Malfoy said slowly.

Malfoy's comment made a smile form over my lips. I couldn't see the logic behind his betting on me, but I would take it. "I still don't get why you're putting your money on me. Krum, Delacour, and Cedric are all trained more than I am," I pointed out. Malfoy didn't look impressed by my reasoning. "They've all got a better chance than I do."

"So, why are you in first place?" Malfoy asked.

"Maybe you need to be my new cheerleader," I teased.

It looked like Malfoy believed in me more than my friends. He thought that I would succeed in the First Task when even I hadn't. I had been convinced that the dragons would kill me. "What the hell is a cheerleader?" Malfoy asked, his gaze narrowing.

I barked out a laugh. Naturally, he wouldn't know anything about something that had to do with Muggles. "Look it up when you get home for the summer. It's a Muggle thing," I told him.

Malfoy made a face of disgust. "No, thank you."

Why couldn't he understand that Muggles weren't that bad? "You don't want to see girls cheering you on in short skirts and low-cut tops?" I asked slowly. Just as I had expected, Malfoy suddenly looked interested. I gently nudged his ankles, shimmying my shoulders slightly as I smiled at him. "You've got the legs for it."

Malfoy laughed, shoving me away from him. I stumbled a few steps backward but latched onto his arm to keep from falling. "Draco!" Parkinson shouted, likely annoyed that I was so close to her crush.

Parkinson was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at us. Malfoy glanced at her before looking back at me. I nodded toward where Parkinson was waiting. "Go on. Your cheerleader's calling you," I told him.

A small puff of air came from Malfoy's mouth as he walked past me with a vague smile written across his mouth. He stopped at my side just long enough to place his mouth against my ear. "I would much rather see you like that," Malfoy said quietly.

Not much time ever went by without Malfoy throwing a sleazy platitude toward me. I giggled under my breath and watched as Malfoy walked off. He fell into step with Parkinson and Zabini, who had been waiting for him near the entrance hall. Neither one looked thrilled that I was with him. Zabini thought that I was a blood-traitor and Parkinson hated that Malfoy showed me any bit of attention that wasn't negative. I could hear Parkinson complaining about me as she walked back to the castle.

It was always good to know that Parkinson still hated me. I walked back toward the castle with a scowl on my face. The momentary happiness I had gotten from my conversation with Malfoy had been eradicated because of the weather. The chill in the air had given way to heavy snowfall. My feet were getting stuck in the snow as I trudged through it and my hair was wet from the flakes melting in it. My body was trembling from the cold. I should have brought my coat with me to class.

December in Scotland was miserable. I didn't know how anyone lived here. Christmas was lovely and the castle had the most beautiful decorations, but it was freezing. The weather today was far colder than it had been in the last few weeks. I shook some snow out of my hair as I walked into the entrance hall, all chattering teeth and trembling legs. Maybe I could convince Hagrid to start having class inside. The icy air almost made me wish that Norberta was here with some of her fire.

The only good thing right now was that Cedric was standing at the other end of the entrance hall. I hadn't seen him much since the First Task. We were both constantly surrounded by our friends who were thrilled with our performances in the task. I didn't remember much of what had happened after the task, but Harry and Ron had confirmed that Cedric had taken care of me immediately afterward. The thought made my heart warm as I realized he would always care about my well-being.

Cedric walked up to me, smiling as he noticed I was rubbing my hands over my trembling body. "Cold?" Cedric asked knowingly.

It was only the beginning of winter and I already wanted it to be over. "That's nowhere near good enough to describe how I feel right now. Why the fuck does anyone willingly live in Scotland?" I hissed irritably. Cedric laughed as I wrapped my robes tighter around my chest. "This place is awful."

Anyone who knew me knew that winter was my least favorite season. I couldn't stand the icy cold we suffered in Scotland. I missed the warmth of Florida summers. Even our winters in Florida rarely dipped below sixty degrees. Cedric chuckled at the scowl on my face as he wrapped an arm over my shoulders, pulling me into him. "Yet you enjoyed your childhood home where it feels like you're walking on the surface of the sun," Cedric pointed out.

Better the surface of the sun than the arctic. I blew out a puff of air as I scowled at Cedric. "Florida is beautiful," I replied stubbornly.

"Maybe I'll have to go and see if one day," Cedric said.

My friends from Ilvermorny would love for me to bring Cedric back to Florida one summer so they could get to know him. "With me as your personal tour guide, I hope," I said half-teasingly and half-seriously.

Cedric nodded. "I wouldn't have it any other way," he said, placing his hand over mine for a moment.

A smile crept its way over my lips. I wanted to keep messing with him but something else occurred to me. I wanted to know if he had given the Second Task any thought or if his egg did the same thing Harry and I's did. "Did you take a look at your egg after the task?" I asked Cedric suddenly.

Cedric's face fell as he nodded. "Yes." He hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Does yours make that awful shrieking noise too?" Cedric asked, lowering his voice.

"Oh, good," I said, breathing a sigh of relief. I would have been furious if Harry and I were the only ones who had to figure out a riddle. "It's not just mine and Harry's that do that."

Cedric shook his head. "No. There was a party in the Hufflepuff Common Room after the First Task and we opened it together," Cedric explained. I smiled; it appeared that we weren't the only ones who had wanted to party to celebrate our success. "It started shrieking the moment I opened it."

"Have you opened it since?" I asked curiously.

Cedric nodded. "I tried the next morning but it was still making the same noise."

The only positive was that if Cedric, Harry, and I were all getting the shrieking noise from the golden egg it meant that Fleur and Krum would be getting the same thing. Now it was a race to figure out what it meant. "Any idea what it means?" I asked Cedric.

Cedric shrugged. "I've got nothing at the moment."

"Well, you're useless," I teased.

Cedric laughed, whacking my shoulder. "Don't be an ass."

"It's like you don't know me at all," I shot back.

It was nice to mess with Cedric the way I had for so long. It felt like we were back to normal. Cedric laughed as he flicked his fingers against my nose, pulling me into him. "I figured that I would give myself a little bit of a break from the tournament and start working on the clue after Christmas," he explained.

"That's what I was thinking," I said. I had been stressed out about the First Task for way too long. We all deserved a break. "Well, let me know if you need a hand. Two heads are always better than one."

"You just don't want to do your work," Cedric reasoned.

That may have been true but I wasn't going to admit it. I laughed again as I lunged after Cedric, whacking him over the head. "Hey now, I've got no problem doing my work," I said. That was true most of the time, at least. Unless it had something to do with Divination. "But it's always more fun working with someone else."

Cedric raised his eyebrows curiously as I wrapped an arm over the back of his neck. "Working?" Cedric asked slowly.

"Why do you always assume the worst in me?" I huffed, nudging him.

"I'm not assuming the worst, I just know you," Cedric pointed out.

"That's fair," I mumbled. He knew me well enough to know that if we were hanging out together, we weren't going to do any work. I noticed that Cedric was giving me a long stare with a look in his eyes I hadn't seen in a while. He glanced back over his shoulders briefly. I raised an eyebrow. "What's that face for?"

"Where are you off to?" Cedric asked curiously.

A smile worked its way over my features at his mischievous look. Taking the afternoon off sounded like a great plan to me. "Lunch and then Double Divination," I answered.

"Any chance that you'd like to spend your time doing something far more fascinating?" Cedric asked.

It wasn't hard to get me to skip Divination. "Like what? You?" I teased; it was an oddly bold statement from me.

Cedric's eyes widened at my words but I smirked, standing by them. He broke into a fit of laughter, tugging me into his side. "Would that be so bad?" Cedric asked, lowering his voice so that no one could hear what we were saying.

We both laughed again as I tried to think of something clever to say that wouldn't get me in even deeper trouble. I wanted to mess with him but I wasn't sure how far I could push it. Before I got the chance to say anything, a shout echoed across the hall. "Nox! Diggory!" Professor McGonagall yelled sternly. Cedric and I bounced apart, smiling guiltily at her. She had her arms folded sternly over her chest. "I believe you two have a meal and then classes you should be attending, don't you?"

"Correct, you are, Professor!" I said loudly, pushing Cedric away from me. I turned back to him with a playful scowl. "If you would stop bothering me while I'm trying to receive an education."

Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes at my antics as she turned around and headed back to her classroom. I turned back to Cedric and smiled at the affronted look on his face. It didn't matter. Professor McGonagall would blame me no matter what I said. I winked at him and turned back toward the Great Hall. I was almost through the doorway when I felt a sharp whack against my backside. I shrieked in surprise as I whipped around to face Cedric again. He was smirking at me, his hands knotted behind innocently.

Okay, I wasn't expecting that. "Did you just -?"

"Well, go on. Get your education," Cedric interrupted, grinning proudly at me. "Don't let me bother you."

"Asshole," I chuckled, walking to my table.

Cedric's laughter followed me into the Great Hall. We headed to our respective tables and dove into lunch. I was quick to get a cup of coffee and drain it. I had warmed up slightly from how I felt when I walked into the castle but I knew that I wouldn't be properly warm again until the start of spring. My conversation with Cedric had brightened my bitter mood slightly. I spent much of my lunch hour with my friends, chattering away and giggling as we all joked around.

Since I had passed the First Task, life at Hogwarts had become lighter than air. It would probably only be so long before things went sideways again, but I would enjoy it while I could. Life was much easier than it was a few days ago. I couldn't believe how much better things had gotten - all I had to do was get past a fire-breathing dragon. Now I just had to figure out the clue for the Second Task. I was sipping on my coffee (according to Hermione, I had a problem) as I scribbled some of the patterns that were engraved on the golden egg.

We had about ten minutes left of our lunch break when Fred reached out and took my coffee mug from my hands. He liked to take my food and drinks to bother me. "That's black coffee, you won't like it," I warned him as he raised the mug to his lips.

"We'll see," Fred said carelessly.

Fred tilted the mug back and took a long drink. He held it in his mouth for a moment, thinking about the taste, before spitting it back into the cup. "Freddie!" I shouted, snatching the mug back. I guess I was done with my coffee. "What the hell?"

"That's disgusting!" Fred gasped.

"Excuse you, it's great!" I huffed indignantly, staring into the cup. There was no way I was drinking what was left of it now. "At least, it was before you put your backwash in it!"

"That tastes like dirt," Fred countered.

What was it with English people and their distaste for coffee? It was way better than tea, which was incredibly overrated. I leaned into Fred and snatched the mug from his hands. I was about to refill the mug when I looked down and saw that the coffee pot was empty - my doing, of course. "Damn you. That was the last of the pot," I growled irritably.

"Good. No one else should have to try that," Fred said.

"Asshole," I growled.

George broke away from his conversation with Angelina and stared at the mug in his twin's hands. "What are you drinking the dirt water for?" George asked.

"See?" Fred asked me.

"It's not dirt water!" I yelled at the twins.

"Yes, it is," they replied together.

"Both of you owe me coffee," I told them.

"What did I do?" George asked.

"I'm not sure, but somehow this is your fault too," I told him. They grinned at each other as Fred handed me back my mug. I threw it back at his head, just barely missing. "Get me another cup of coffee, you morons!"

It wasn't shocking that I didn't end up getting a replacement for my coffee before the end of our lunch break. I wanted it, damn the twins, but I knew that I wasn't going to get it. The twins were nightmares but I wouldn't have given them up for the world, as much as I would have liked to sometimes. Lunch ended far too quickly for my liking. Since the First Task had ended I had found myself enjoying my lunchtime again. I was finally able to talk to people the way I had before the Triwizard Tournament.

One thing I hadn't realized during the early stages of the Triwizard Tournament was how starved I had been for human contact. I had missed being able to talk to my friends the way I'd used to without worrying about what the rest of the castle was thinking. I had missed being able to laugh freely and have people smile at my happiness without making snide comments toward me. The happiness I had felt over the last few days had made up for the last few weeks of misery at Hogwarts.

In an odd twist, I thoroughly enjoyed double Divination that afternoon; we were still doing star charts and predictions, but now that Harry and I were friends once more with Ron, the whole thing seemed very funny again. Professor Trelawney, who had been so pleased with the three of us when we had been predicting our horrific deaths, quickly became irritated as we sniggered through her explanation of the various ways in which Pluto could disrupt everyday life.

"I would think that some of us," Professor Trelawney stared very meaningfully at Harry and me, "might be a little less frivolous had they seen what I have seen during my crystal gazing last night," Professor Trelawney said, in a mystical whisper that did not conceal her obvious annoyance. "As I sat here, absorbed in my needlework, the urge to consult the orb overpowered me. I arose, I settled myself before it, and I gazed into its crystalline depths... and what do you think I saw gazing back at me?"

"The phone number for a psych ward?" I offered.

"An ugly old bat in outsize specs?" Ron muttered under his breath.

Ron and I exchanged a long smirk. Harry fought hard to keep his face straight. "Death, my dears," Professor Trelawney corrected.

Professor Trelawney hadn't realized that we were making fun of her. I rolled my eyes back into my head. It was idiotic. She was constantly predicting our deaths but never said when she thought we would die. Of course, everyone in the classroom - myself included - would eventually meet their ends. Why was the rest of the class always so shocked when she began predicting deaths? Parvati and Lavender both put their hands over their mouths, looking horrified.

They were the two students Professor Trelawney had that took everything she said as gospel. "Shocking. Human beings with limited life spans may eventually be faced with death," I muttered.

"Yes," Professor Trelawney said, nodding impressively. I wasn't sure if she hadn't heard me or just didn't care that I was making fun of her. "It comes, ever closer, it circles overhead like a vulture, ever lower... ever lower over the castle."

Professor Trelawney stared pointedly at Harry, who yawned very widely and obviously. I snorted to myself, glad that Professor Trelawney didn't say anything. It had been a long time since I had gotten detention and I wanted to keep it that way. I spent much of the rest of the class absentmindedly flipping through my textbooks to see if any magical civilizations' writing looked anything like the etching on the golden egg. Nothing matched the symbols or came close.

"It'd be a bit more impressive if she hadn't done it about eighty times before," Harry said as we finally regained the fresh air of the staircase beneath Professor Trelawney's room. I couldn't remember how many times Professor Trelawney had predicted one of our deaths. "But if I'd dropped dead every time she's told me I'm going to, I'd be a medical miracle."

"You'd be a sort of extra-concentrated ghost," Ron said, chortling, as we passed the Bloody Baron going in the opposite direction, his wide eyes staring sinisterly. I shrank against Harry a bit. I didn't trust that Parkinson hadn't told the Bloody Baron to play some cruel joke on me. "At least we didn't get homework. I hope Hermione got loads off Professor Vector, I love not working when she is."

"Excuse you!" I snapped at Ron, whacking him over the back of the head. "If Hermione gets a ton of homework, that means I get a ton of homework."

"Who cares?" Ron asked. I scowled at him. I cared. I didn't want to spend all afternoon working on homework. "Bat your eyelashes and your boyfriend will do it for you."

Not a bad idea. "Huh. That's a good idea," I muttered.

Was there a chance I could get Cedric to do my Divination work? He wasn't good at it - nor did he take it - but I didn't want to do my work. I was willing to work on almost any other subject. I glanced at Cedric as we walked into the Great Hall for dinner and debated on asking him if he wanted to help me study for Divination but he was surrounded by his Hufflepuff friends. Too many teachers were watching anyway, so I settled with sending a playful wink in his direction.

A few minutes into our meal I realized that Hermione wasn't at dinner, nor was she in the library when we went to look for her afterward. The only person in there was Viktor Krum. Ron hovered behind the bookshelves for a while, watching Krum, debating in whispers with Harry and I whether he should ask for an autograph - but then Ron realized that six or seven girls were lurking in the next row of books, debating the same thing, and he lost his enthusiasm for the idea.

Ron shot me a nasty profanity for suggesting he lead the girls' fan club. "Wonder where she's got to?" Ron asked as the three of us headed back to Gryffindor Tower.

"Maybe she's studying up in our dorm," I suggested.

"Maybe," Harry agreed. "Balderdash."

But the Fat Lady had barely begun to swing forward when the sound of racing feet behind us announced Hermione's arrival. I turned back and smiled at her. "Whoa," I said, surprised at how eager she looked. "There you are."

"Tara!" Hermione chirped, grabbing my arm.

"Hermione!" I replied just as excitedly. "This is a fun game."

"Harry!" Hermione continued, panting as she released me and skidded to a halt beside him. The Fat Lady was staring down at her, eyebrows raised. "Harry, you've got to come - you've got to come, the most amazing thing's happened - please."

"Breathe, woman," I told Hermione as she began tugging us away from the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room. "What's going on?"

"Come on!" Hermione chirped.

What the hell was going on with her? I had never seen Hermione as excited as she was currently. I glanced at Hermione but she wasn't looking back at us. Her gaze was focused on the other end of the hallway. Ron and Harry looked as confused as I was. Harry, Ron, and I exchanged a long look before Hermione seized Harry's arm and started to try to drag him back along the corridor. Harry reached out and took my arm and I grabbed Ron's, pulling him along.

"This seems important," I told Harry and Ron.

"It is!" Hermione yelled back.

"What do you think it is?" Ron asked, likely sensing that Hermione wouldn't answer him.

"She probably saw a book that needs a new binding," I replied.

Ron chuckled. "Shut up, Tara," Hermione snapped.

"What's the matter?" Harry asked her.

"I'll show you when we get there - oh come on, quick," Hermione said.

Something interesting had to be going on. Harry looked around at Ron and me; Ron looked back at Harry, intrigued, while I was focused on Hermione's intense look of concentration. "I'm not taking you to the hospital wing if you give yourself a stroke," I warned Hermione.

"Okay," Harry said, and three of us started back down the corridor with Hermione, all of us hurrying to keep up.

"Oh don't mind me!" the Fat Lady called irritably after us. "Don't apologize for bothering me! I'll just hang here, wide open, until you get back, shall I?"

"Yeah, thanks!" Ron shouted over his shoulder.

"Hermione, where are we going?" Harry asked, after she had led us down through six floors, and started down the marble staircase into the entrance hall.

"You'll see, you'll see in a minute!" Hermione said excitedly.

We were moving through the hallways so quickly that I nearly fell on my face ten times as we took sharp turns and jumped the stairs two at a time. Hermione turned left at the bottom of the entrance hall staircase and hurried toward the door through which Cedric had gone the night after the Goblet of Fire had regurgitated his, mine, and Harry's names. I raised an eyebrow. I had never been through here before but I knew that we were close to the Hufflepuff Common Room.

Cedric had told me a few months ago that the Hufflepuff Common Room was near the kitchens. Harry, Ron, and I followed Hermione down a flight of stone steps, but instead of ending up in a gloomy underground passage like the one that led to Snape's Potions dungeon, we found ourselves in a broad stone corridor, brightly lit with torches, and decorated with cheerful paintings that were mainly of food. What the hell were we doing down here?

"Are we going to the Hufflepuff Common Room?" I asked Hermione curiously.

"Is it down here?" Hermione replied.

"Not far," I answered.

"How do you know that?" Harry asked accusatorily.

Somehow I doubted that Cedric's friends wanted me in the Hufflepuff dorms as much as Harry and Ron would have wanted me there. "Relax, you moron. I've read Hogwarts: A History before and Cedric happens to be in Hufflepuff, in case you forgot," I snapped.

"Oh, hang on..." Harry said slowly, halfway down the corridor. "Wait a minute, Hermione."

"What?" Hermione asked, turning around to look at him, anticipation all over her face.

"I know what this is about," Harry said.

Harry nudged Ron and me and pointed to the painting just behind Hermione. It showed a gigantic silver fruit bowl. Now I understood what was going on. Hermione was trying to show us the house-elves in the kitchens. "Hermione!" Ron, yelled cottoning on. "You're trying to rope us into that spew stuff again!"

"No, no, I'm not!" Hermione said hastily.

It was too late and I had too much going on to listen to Hermione prattle on about house-elf rights. "I'm going to bed," I muttered, turning to head back to Gryffindor Tower.

"Get over here!" Hermione shouted, yanking me back.

"Absolutely not," I hissed, pulling out of Hermione's grip. "I have no part in this!"

"If we have to stay, so do you!" Harry snapped, taking me by the arm with an iron grasp.

"Oh, what the hell?" I moaned, stumbling after him.

"And it's not spew, Ron -"

"Changed the name, have you?" Ron interrupted, frowning at Hermione. "What are we now, then, the House-Elf Liberation Front? I'm not barging into that kitchen and trying to make them stop work, I'm not doing it -"

"I'm not asking you to!" Hermione said impatiently. "I came down here just now, to talk to them all, and I found - oh come on, Harry, I want to show you!"

It had damn well better be important. I had homework I needed to get done... or goof off and ignore it... Hermione seized Harry's arm again, pulled him in front of the picture of the giant fruit bowl, stretched out her forefinger, and tickled the huge green pear. It began to squirm, chuckling, and suddenly turned into a large green door handle. Hermione seized it, pulled the door open, and pushed Harry and me hard in the backs, forcing us inside.

I'd never been in the kitchens before. I had one brief glimpse of an enormous, high-ceilinged room, as large as the Great Hall above it, with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaped around the stone walls, and a great brick fireplace at the other end, when something small hurtled toward us from the middle of the room, squealing, "Harry Potter, sir! Harry Potter! Tara Nox!"

All I could see was a brief flash of a small beige creature. I didn't get a chance to wonder what it was because the next second all the wind had been knocked out of me. Harry had been hit by the small creature as well. I glanced down to see that a squealing elf was what had hit us hard in the midriffs, now hugging me so tightly that I thought my ribs would break. I looked down at the elf again and smiled when I realized what Hermione had been trying to show us.

"Dobby!" I chirped, pulling back from the house-elf.

"Tara Nox!" Dobby said happily. "Dobby is glad to see you, miss!"

His voice was muffled from being pressed against our stomachs. "I'm glad to see you too!" I told him.

"D-Dobby?" Harry gasped.

Idiot... "It is Dobby, sir, it is!" Dobby's voice squealed from somewhere around Harry's navel. "Dobby has been hoping and hoping to see Harry Potter, sir, and Harry Potter has come to see him, sir!"

"Well, I guess we needed a bit of a nudge," I said, smiling bashfully at Hermione over my shoulder.

Dobby let go and stepped back a few paces, beaming up at Harry and me, his enormous, green, tennis-ball-shaped eyes brimming with tears of happiness. He must have thought he would never see us again after Harry had freed him. Dobby looked almost exactly as I remembered him; the pencil-shaped nose, the bat-like ears, the long fingers, and feet - all except the clothes, which, to my pleasure, were very different.

When Dobby had worked for the Malfoy's, he had always worn typical house-elf clothes; Dobby had always worn the same filthy old pillowcase. Now, however, he was wearing the strangest assortment of garments I had ever seen; he had done an even worse job of dressing himself than the wizards at the World Cup. It may not have been the most attractive outfit in the world but it made me smile. At least he was finally getting the chance to choose clothing for himself.

Dobby was wearing a tea cozy for a hat, on which he had pinned several bright badges; a tie patterned with horseshoes over a bare chest, a pair of what looked like children's soccer shorts, and odd socks. One of those, I saw, was the black one Harry had removed from his foot and tricked Mr. Malfoy into giving Dobby, thereby setting Dobby free. Harry and I exchanged a smile though I did wonder if he had been wearing it since the day Harry had freed him. The other was covered in pink and orange stripes.

"You look good, Dobby," I told the house-elf seriously.

It was a strange assortment but I was glad that Dobby was getting the chance to express himself. The house-elf blushed. "Oh, thank you, miss!" Dobby said happily.

"Dobby, what're you doing here?" Harry asked in amazement.

"Dobby has come to work at Hogwarts, sir!" Dobby squealed excitedly. I smiled at the excitement in his voice. "Professor Dumbledore gave Dobby and Winky jobs, sir!"

"That's wonderful!" I exclaimed.

"Winky? She's here too?" Harry asked.

"Yes, sir, yes!" Dobby said, and he seized Harry's hand and pulled him off into the kitchen between the four long wooden tables that stood there.

Ron, Hermione, and I followed them. Each of the four tables, I noticed as we passed them, was positioned exactly beneath the four House tables above, in the Great Hall. This must have been how the food and drink arrived at the tables. At the moment, the tables above us were clear of food, dinner having finished, but I supposed that an hour ago they had been laden with dishes that were then sent up through the ceiling to their counterparts above.

At least a hundred little elves were standing around the kitchen, beaming, bowing, and curtsying as Dobby led us past them. I smiled at the elves. It was nice to see that there were house-elves that were treated kindly. I knew there was no way Dumbledore would tolerate treating them like slaves. The elves were all wearing the same uniform: a tea towel stamped with the Hogwarts crest, and tied, as Winky's had been, like a toga. Dobby stopped in front of the brick fireplace and pointed.

"Wow, this place is pretty cool," I said quietly.

"I'll say," Ron said wondrously.

I turned to him and noticed that he was eyeing up the leftover food. "You just ate dinner," I said.

"So? It's free food!" Ron exclaimed.

"All the food you eat here is free, you idiot," I pointed out.

"Winky, sir!" Dobby said, distracting us.

Winky was sitting on a stool by the fire. Unlike Dobby, she had not foraged for clothes. She was wearing a neat little skirt and blouse with a matching blue hat, which had holes in it for her large ears. However, while every one of Dobby's strange collection of garments was so clean and well cared for that it looked brand-new, Winky was plainly not taking care of other clothes at all. There were soup stains all down her blouse and a burn in her skirt.

Pathetic would have been too kind of a word to describe how Winky looked. "Hello, Winky," Harry greeted.

"Hi, Winky. Good to see you," I told her.

Any hope I'd had that the elf might have cheered up once we had greeted her vanished almost immediately. Winky's lip began quivering with the threat of hysterics. Then she burst into tears, which spilled out of her great brown eyes and splashed down her front, just as they had done at the Quidditch World Cup. Harry and I gasped nervously, backing away from her. I wasn't sure what we could say or do to calm her down. She was harder to deal with than a frightened Dobby.

"Or not..." I mumbled.

"Oh, dear," Hermione said nervously. She and Ron had followed Harry, Dobby, and I to the end of the kitchen. "Winky, don't cry, please don't."

"See what happens when you 'free' them?" I asked Hermione gently.

Hermione's face was flushed with embarrassment. I knew that she wanted to help the house-elves - and I did admire her for her ambition - but freeing them wasn't the way to go about it. House-elves existed to work and serve their masters. They weren't meant to be free. They didn't want independence. They needed direction in their lives. Dobby was an odd duck. Hermione was trying to comfort Winky but the house-elf cried harder than ever. Dobby, on the other hand, beamed up at Harry.

"Would Harry Potter like a cup of tea?" Dobby squeaked loudly, over Winky's sobs.

"Er - yeah, okay," Harry said.

"Coffee for Tara Nox?" Dobby offered, looking up at me.

"You read my mind, Dobby," I told him happily.

Instantly, about six house-elves came trotting up behind us, bearing a large silver tray laden with a teapot and coffee pot, cups for Harry, Ron, Hermione, and me, a milk jug, and a large plate of biscuits. I smiled at the elves and took a mug, pouring myself a cup almost to the brim. Hermione frowned at the nearly-instant service that we had been given. I nudged her slightly. If she didn't thank them, the elves would think they had failed at their only job.

"Good service!" Ron said in an impressed voice.

Hermione frowned at him the way she had at me, but the elves all looked delighted; they bowed very low and retreated. "Thank you, everyone," I told the group.

"How long have you been here, Dobby?" Harry asked as Dobby handed around the tea.

"Only a week. Harry Potter, sir!" Dobby said happily. "Dobby came to see Professor Dumbledore, sir. You see, sir, it is very difficult for a house-elf who has been dismissed to get a new position, sir, very difficult indeed."

At Dobby's comment, Winky howled even harder, her squashed-tomato of a nose dribbling all down her front, though she made no effort to stem the flow. It was gross, to say the least. "Dobby has traveled the country for two whole years, sir, trying to find work! But Dobby hasn't found work, sir, because Dobby wants paying now!" Dobby squeaked.

The house-elves all around the kitchen, who had been listening and watching with interest, all looked away at those words, as though Dobby had said something rude and embarrassing. I flushed a bit as I looked away from them. I didn't know what the solution was to the pay problem regarding house-elves. They didn't want pay but it didn't seem fair to have them work without it. No one else did, after all. We weren't slaves and they shouldn't have been either.

The awkward air didn't faze Hermione. She said, "Good for you, Dobby!"

"Thank you, miss!" Dobby said, grinning toothily at her.

The house-elves who were wandering around the kitchen looked up long enough to shake their heads disapprovingly at Dobby. "Mione…" I whispered, dropping my voice so that she was the only one who could hear me. "Pay doesn't go over well with house-elves. There's a reason their species is mostly considered slaves."

"That's not fair!" Hermione hissed.

"No one ever said it was fair," I said.

"But most wizards doesn't want a house-elf who wants paying, miss. 'That's not the point of a house-elf,' they says, and they slammed the door in Dobby's face! Dobby likes work, but he wants to wear clothes and he wants to be paid. Harry Potter... Dobby likes being free!" Dobby chirped.

"We're happy for you, Dobby," I said honestly.

If Dobby was happy working in the kitchens of Hogwarts, I was happy for him. He deserved to have some comfort after being beaten down by the Malfoy's for years. The Hogwarts house-elves had now started edging away from Dobby, as though he were carrying something contagious. I wondered if he realized how uncomfortable he made the house-elves. Judging by the look on his face, he didn't. Winky remained where she was, though there was a definite increase in the volume of her crying.

"And then, Harry Potter, Dobby goes to visit Winky, and finds out Winky has been freed too, sir!" Dobby said delightedly.

At that comment, Winky flung herself forward off her stool and lay face-down on the flagged stone floor, beating her tiny fists upon it and positively screaming with misery. I backed away slightly, unsure if I wanted to laugh or try and comfort the house-elf. I didn't think she wanted us near her. Hermione hastily dropped down to her knees beside her and tried to comfort her, but nothing she said made the slightest difference. Dobby continued with his story, shouting shrilly over Winky's screeches.

"And then Dobby had the idea. Harry Potter, sir! 'Why doesn't Dobby and Winky find work together?' Dobby says. 'Where is there enough work for two house elves?' says Winky. And Dobby thinks, and it comes to him, sir! Hogwarts! So Dobby and Winky came to see Professor Dumbledore, sir, and Professor Dumbledore took us on!"

Dobby beamed very brightly, and happy tears welled in his eyes again. I wondered if Winky had come to Hogwarts to ask for employment on her own free will or if Dobby had dragged her with him. I figured it was the latter. Winky didn't look happy to be at Hogwarts; it wasn't hard to see that she wanted to be back with Mr. Crouch. I was impressed that Dobby had been smart enough to get himself a job at Hogwarts and bring Winky along to at least give her some reason to keep living.

"And Professor Dumbledore says he will pay Dobby, sir, if Dobby wants paying! And so Dobby is a free elf, sir, and Dobby gets a Galleon a week and one day off a month!" Dobby continued excitedly.

"That's not very much!" Hermione shouted indignantly from the floor, over Winky's continued screaming and fist-beating.

"Hermione, shut up!" I hissed at her.

It was good enough that Dobby had accepted a paying position. "Professor Dumbledore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week, and weekends off, but Dobby beat him down, miss," Dobby said, suddenly giving a little shiver, as though the prospect of so much leisure and riches were frightening. I smiled at him. At least Dumbledore had tried to pay him fairly. "Dobby likes freedom, miss, but he isn't wanting too much, miss, he likes work better."

"That was very generous of him, Dobby. Professor Dumbledore is a good man," I said.

"Oh, he is the best, miss!" Dobby chirped.

"And how much is Professor Dumbledore paying you, Winky?" Hermione asked kindly.

Why the hell did Hermione think that would have been a good thing to ask? I turned to Hermione and whacked her over the back of the head. She hissed in pain and shot me a scowl, but she quickly realized why I had done it. If Hermione had thought that asking Winky about her pay would cheer her up, she was wildly mistaken. Winky did stop crying, but when she sat up she was glaring at Hermione through her massive brown eyes, her whole face sopping wet and suddenly furious.

"Winky is a disgraced elf, but Winky is not yet getting paid! Winky is not sunk so low as that! Winky is properly ashamed of being freed!" Winky squeaked furiously.

"Ashamed?" Hermione asked blankly. "But - Winky, come on! It's Mr. Crouch who should be ashamed, not you! You didn't do anything wrong, he was really horrible to you."

Why was she still talking about Mr. Crouch? I kicked Hermione's knee because, at those words, Winky clapped her hands over the holes in her hat, flattening her ears so that she couldn't hear a word, and screeched, "You is not insulting my master, miss! You is not insulting Mr. Crouch! Mr. Crouch is a good wizard, miss! Mr. Crouch is right to sack bad Winky!"

"Winky is having trouble adjusting, Harry Potter," Dobby squeaked confidentially. "Winky forgets she is not bound to Mr. Crouch anymore; she is allowed to speak her mind now, but she won't do it."

"Can't house-elves speak their minds about their masters, then?" Harry asked.

"Oh no, sir, no," Dobby said, looking suddenly serious. "'Tis part of the house-elf's enslavement, sir. We keeps their secrets and our silence, sir. We upholds the family's honor, and we never speaks ill of them - though Professor Dumbledore told Dobby he does not insist upon this. Professor Dumbledore said we is free to - to..."

Even once a house-elf's master was dead and gone I had never heard one speak ill of their prior family. They were fiercely loyal creatures. Even Dobby had kept his insults to the Malfoy family very quiet and even-tempered. I watched Dobby with mild interest. I loved hearing the way Dumbledore insulted people. Dobby looked suddenly nervous and beckoned Harry and me closer. We exchanged a quick look before we both bent forward.

Dobby whispered, "He said we is free to call him a - a barmy old codger if we likes, sir!"

Dobby gave a frightened sort of giggle. I spit a little bit of my hot coffee into my lap, covering my mouth as I tried to recover from my awkward moment. "Dumbledore's got a way with words," I said, choking as I tried to swallow.

"But Dobby is not wanting to, Harry Potter," Dobby said, talking normally again, and shaking his head so that his ears flapped. "Dobby likes Professor Dumbledore very much, sir, and is proud to keep his secrets and our silence for him."

"But you can say what you like about the Malfoy's now?" Harry asked him, grinning.

Harry gasped in pain as I stomped on his foot. Whatever Dobby may have wanted to say about the Malfoy's wasn't going to come out. Dobby may not have loved the Malfoy family - even when he had served them - but they had been his family for a long time. There was no way Dobby was going to speak poorly of them, except maybe a stray comment regarding his nonchalance toward them these days. Instead, a slightly fearful look came into Dobby's immense eyes.

"Dobby - Dobby could," the house-elf said doubtfully. He squared his small shoulders. "Dobby could tell Harry Potter that his old masters were - were - bad Dark wizards'."

"You don't have to keep going," I told Dobby, sensing his internal conflict.

Harry was still rubbing his foot as he scowled at me. I motioned as nonchalantly as I could to our friend. Dobby stood still for a moment, quivering all over, horror-struck by his daring then he rushed over to the nearest table and began banging his head on it very hard, squealing, "Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!"

"Nice going," I muttered to Harry.

Knowing he had to do something, Harry seized Dobby by the back of his tie and pulled him away from the table. "Thank you. Harry Potter, thank you," Dobby said breathlessly, rubbing his head.

"You just need a bit of practice," Harry said.

"Why? Why would you say that?" I groaned.

"Practice!" Winky squeaked furiously. I scowled at Harry. He had a knack for always making things worse. "You is ought to be ashamed of yourself, Dobby, talking that way about your masters!"

"They isn't my masters anymore, Winky!" Dobby said defiantly. "Dobby doesn't care what they think anymore!"

"Oh, you is a bad elf, Dobby!" Winky moaned, tears leaking down her face once more. "My poor Mr. Crouch, what is he doing without Winky? He is needing me, he is needing my help! I is looking after the Crouches all my life, and my mother is doing it before me, and my grandmother is doing it before her... oh, what is they saying if they knew Winky was freed? Oh the shame, the shame!"

Winky buried her face in her skirt again and bawled. I drove my palms into my eyes. House-elves could be extremely sweet but they were always a headache waiting to happen. "Winky, I'm quite sure Mr. Crouch is getting along perfectly well without you," Hermione said firmly. I shook my head again. That wasn't the right thing to say. "We've seen him, you know -"

"You is seeing my master?" Winky asked breathlessly, raising her tear-stained face out of her skirt once more and goggling at Hermione. Now she had made it worse. "You is seeing him here at Hogwarts?"

"Yes, he and Mr. Bagman are judges in the Triwizard Tournament," Hermione explained.

"Why would you have said that?" I groaned at her.

"Mr. Bagman comes too?" Winky squeaked, and to my great surprise (and Ron's, Harry's, and Hermione's too, by the looks on their faces), she looked angry again. "Mr. Bagman is a bad wizard! A very bad wizard! My master isn't liking him, oh no, not at all!"

Bagman could be a moron but he wasn't diabolical. "Bagman - bad?" Harry asked her.

"Oh, yes," Winky said, nodding her head furiously. "My master is telling Winky some things! But Winky is not saying... Winky - Winky keeps her master's secrets..."

"What kind of secrets do you think Mr. Crouch is keeping about Bagman?" I whispered to Harry.

"No idea," Harry admitted.

Winky dissolved yet again in tears; we could hear her sobbing into her skirt, "Poor master, poor master, no Winky to help him no more!"

All four of us stared at Winky awkwardly. I wasn't sure what we could do to cheer her up. The only thing she wanted was to work for Mr. Crouch again and he had made it clear that he didn't want her working for him anymore. We couldn't get another sensible word out of Winky after that. With no other choice, we left her to her crying and finished our tea and coffee while Dobby chatted happily about his life as a free elf and his plans for his wages.

"Dobby is going to buy a sweater next, Harry Potter!" Dobby said happily, pointing at his bare chest.

"You should get a green one. It'll go well with your eyes," I suggested sweetly.

I liked seeing that Dobby had plans for his future. It wasn't something I had ever seen before. Dobby's bulbous green eyes lit up. "Thank you, miss!" he squeaked happily.

"Tell you what, Dobby," Ron said, who seemed to have taken a great liking to the house-elf. "I'll give you the one my mum knits me this Christmas, I always get one from her. You don't mind maroon, do you?"

"What do you think, Tara Nox?" Dobby asked.

"Anything will look lovely on you," I told him.

Dobby was delighted. "We might have to shrink it a bit to fit you, but it'll go well with your tea cozy," Ron told him.

As we prepared to take our leave of the kitchen, many of the surrounding elves pressed in upon us, offering snacks to take back upstairs. I smiled at the elves but shook my heads - only asking that they keep some extra coffee around in case Fred and George decided to put their backwash in mine again. They agreed happily. Hermione refused the offers, with a pained look at the way the elves kept bowing and curtsying, but Harry and Ron loaded their pockets with cream cakes and pies.

"Thanks a lot!" Harry said to the elves, who had all clustered around the door to say good night. "See you, Dobby!"

"Harry Potter... can Dobby come and see you sometimes, sir?" Dobby asked tentatively.

"'Course you can," Harry said, and Dobby beamed.

"You know what?" Ron asked, once he, Hermione, Harry, and I had left the kitchens behind and were climbing the steps into the entrance hall again. "All these years I've been really impressed with Fred and George, nicking food from the kitchens well, it's not exactly difficult, is it? They can't wait to give it away!"

"I think this is the best thing that could have happened to those elves, you know," Hermione said, leading the way back up the marble staircase. "Dobby coming to work here, I mean. The other elves will see how happy he is, being free, and slowly it'll dawn on them that they want that too!"

"That's hopeful," I told her slowly.

"Let's hope they don't look too closely at Winky," Harry said.

"Oh, she'll cheer up," Hermione said, though she sounded a bit doubtful. "Once the shock's worn off, and she's got used to Hogwarts, she'll see how much better off she is without that Crouch man."

"I don't think Winky's ever going to see the light," I countered.

"She seems to love him," Ron said thickly (he had just started on a cream cake).

"Doesn't think much of Bagman, though, does she? Wonder what Crouch says at home about him?" Harry asked.

It didn't take a genius to see that Bagman and Mr. Crouch didn't get along. Mr. Crouch had always thought Bagman was a bit airheaded - and he wasn't wrong. "Probably says he's not a very good Head of Department, and let's face it... he's got a point, hasn't he?" Hermione replied.

"No one that isn't into Quidditch likes Bagman. He's a little airheaded," I pointed out.

"I'd still rather work for him than old Crouch. At least Bagman's got a sense of humor," Ron said.

"Don't let Percy hear you saying that," Hermione said, smiling slightly.

"Yeah, well, Percy wouldn't want to work for anyone with a sense of humor, would he?" Ron asked, now starting on a chocolate eclair. "Percy wouldn't recognize a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing Dobby's tea cozy."

"Ugh. I did not need that image," I groaned.

"Tara." I glanced at Harry and Ron as the voice had been distinctly male. They both shook their heads. I turned back and smiled when I realized that it was Cedric. He was walking up to us. "Hi, guys," Cedric said to the other three.

"Hi, Cedric," everyone replied.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione glanced at me, wondering what I was going to do. I'd kept them relatively in the dark on where my relationship with Cedric stood. I waved them off. "Go on. I'll meet you back at the Common Room," I told them.

"See you," Harry said.

Cedric smiled at my friends as they headed back to Gryffindor Tower. He waited until they were gone to speak again. "Get a little turned around on your way back to your house?" Cedric teased.

Cedric laughed as I rolled my eyes. "Hermione is trying to free the house-elves and I guess she went to the kitchen earlier to try and start a revolution -"

"And force the rest of us to starve?"

"Yeah, she didn't get that far in her plan," I explained, making Cedric chuckle. Hermione hadn't at all considered what would happen if none of the house-elves were around to cook for us. I wasn't a pleasant person to be around without my coffee. "Anyway, while she was there earlier she ran into an old friend of ours."

Cedric raised his eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Remember that house-elf that nearly got Harry and me expelled in our Second Year?" I asked.

Cedric stared at me for a moment before bursting out with laughter. My life was always strange but it seemed even crazier when I said it out loud. "You've got a unique taste in friends, Tara," Cedric said gently.

"Oh, you don't need to be nice and call them unique. They suck, we all know it," I said, waving Cedric off.

"Well, I understand having friends you'd like to kill sometimes," Cedric replied.

We exchanged a long stare as I swallowed awkwardly. I had every right to be furious with Cedric's friends but for some reason, I felt a little guilty about there being such a strain on their friendship. "How's that going?" I asked slowly.

"It's better," Cedric admitted. "I haven't forgiven them for what they did but..."

There was a guilty look in his eyes. "You miss them," I reasoned.

Cedric nodded. "I do."

It would have been impossible to not miss someone's best friends, no matter what they'd done. "I understand. They made a mistake but I guess they thought they were protecting you. My friends probably would have done the same thing in their position," I told him. Cedric smiled awkwardly. "Believe it or not, I'm glad that you have them."

"Even after what they said about you?" Cedric asked.

If I was being fair, I probably would have said something very similar had the roles been reversed. "We all have our friends and sometimes they get a little more protective than we'd like," I admitted.

"You would have every right to hate them forever," Cedric said.

"They're your friends, not mine. They were trying to protect you. We're good," I said honestly.

While I still wasn't thrilled with Cedric's friends and what they had said, and I didn't want to be anywhere near them for a while, I wasn't angry that Cedric missed them. They were his best friends. He deserved to have their friendship back. If I was being fair, what they had done to try and mess with me reminded me of something Harry or Ron would have done if the shoe had been on the other foot. We were all still teenagers and didn't often think about the repercussions of our actions.

Cedric looked surprised by my answer. "That's mature."

"You'd be surprised how mature I can be sometimes," I teased, making Cedric smiled. "I guess I've been so angry all the time for the last few weeks and I'm sick of it. It's exhausting. I just want things to go back to normal."

Being angry took far more energy than letting it go. "Unfortunately, I don't think things are going to go back to normal until we're done with the tournament," Cedric pointed out.

"Unfortunately, I think you're right about that."

"Until then?"

"It's like you've always said," I teased. Cedric arched his eyebrows, not following what I was talking about. I waggled my eyebrows playfully. "I'm a rule-breaker."

Cedric smiled. "Yes, you are. Are we planning on breaking the rules tonight?"

"I'm thinking about it."

Cedric laughed again as he threw his head back toward the kitchens. "Could you go for a cup of coffee?"

No matter what else was going on, I would always be in the mood for a cup of coffee. "For a start," I said, waltzing up so close to Cedric that I could feel his breath fanning over my face. "We'll see how lucky you get after that."

Cedric barked out a laugh. He gave a confident smirk as he walked up to me, standing mere inches away. "What are my chances?" he asked.

I looked him up and down exaggeratedly. "They're not bad."

We smiled at each other, though Cedric's became nervous after a few moments. "Tara..." Cedric trailed off.

I stepped into him so that we were almost pressed together. "Yeah?"

The silence that extended after I'd questioned him seemed to go on for years. "There's uh, there's something I've wanted to tell you for a while," Cedric said, stammering over his words. I nodded for him to continue. "There's something I've wanted to say to you, I just never knew how to go about it."

"I'm not sure I understand," I said dumbly.

"No, I'm not making sense," Cedric added.

For such a confident guy, Cedric could be one of the most awkward human beings I'd ever met. I laughed awkwardly, laying a hand comfortingly on Cedric's arm. "Don't worry about it making sense. I've mucked up plenty of speeches because I thought about what I wanted to say too much," I said, and I knew he understood what I meant.

"You know, I've always been so confident with everything, but there's always been one exception," Cedric said.

"That is?" I asked.

"You," Cedric answered.

"Me?" I asked disbelievingly. Cedric nodded. There was no way. I couldn't recall Cedric ever seeming that awkward while we were in the process of getting together. "I doubt that. You've always looked and sounded confident whenever we were talking."

A fond smile settled over Cedric's features. "Maybe it was because you were even more nervous than I was," Cedric pointed out. I laughed. That was a fair statement. I had been a chattering mess when my crush on him had grown and I hadn't known how he felt. "No, when we first met I was stunned at the confidence you had; it was more than I ever had in my First Year. As I grew closer to you and realized that I didn't look at you like a little sister I became a bumbling mess every time we were together."

Maybe he was right that it was just because I was more nervous than him because I had never realized he was nervous around me. "Trust me when I say that I never noticed. You always seem so confident," I told him.

"Even during our last few conversations?" Cedric asked.

Those were the only times I could remember Cedric looking or acting awkward and that was mostly because he was nervous with my volatile attitude. "Okay, maybe those were the exceptions," I admitted.

Cedric laughed. "I think it's because -"

"Nox. Diggory," Professor McGonagall's stern voice called. I groaned quietly as I looked up to meet her eyes. It wasn't curfew yet, so we weren't breaking the rules being together, but my Head of House likely knew what was going on. "It's getting close to curfew, is it not?"

The clock on the wall began chiming right on cue. "Oh, I suppose," I muttered.

Professor McGonagall's eyes softened slightly as she looked guiltily between us. "Say your 'good night's' you two," she ordered softly.

"Yes, ma'am," Cedric and I said together.

Professor McGonagall took a few steps backward but she didn't leave us alone. She remained standing at the top of the staircase, waiting for us to finish up. I lowered my voice as I spoke to Cedric again. "It's not meant to be said like this, is it?"

Cedric shook his head. "No."

"I would offer to sneak away tonight -"

"Miss Nox!" Professor McGonagall shouted from the top of the staircase.

"I wasn't done!" I shouted back. She had to know that I wasn't that stupid that I would try to sneak out tonight. I would wait at least two days before I did that again. Cedric laughed. "It doesn't look like we'll have the chance. Maybe another time."

"Soon, I hope," Cedric said.

My eyes twinkled slightly as I smiled at him. "That all depends on you," I teased.

Cedric smiled at me. We were standing facing off for a moment. "I'd kiss you if I could," Cedric said quietly.

"Duh," I teased confidently.

Cedric laughed loudly as I threw my long hair over my shoulders pompously, walking toward Professor McGonagall. I looked back long enough to see Cedric roll his eyes at me and walk back toward the Hufflepuff Common Room. As I headed upstairs, I felt my face start burning with a blush. Professor McGonagall was giving me a look that said even though she couldn't condone my relationship with Cedric, she wasn't as against it as she had to pretend to be.

A/N: Next time... Hogwarts learns of the Yule Ball and the frenzy to find a date begins as Tara has a hard time figuring out how to go about the dance; an old friend makes a reappearance. Okay, this took way too long. Sorry! I've been a lazy bum lately. I promise the next one will be faster! Thank you all for the follows and favorites! Please review! Until next time -A

Dove Salvatore 21051: Yes, they are! You know that I can't keep Tara and Cedric apart too long!

slyqueen: Thank you! I'm glad you liked the use of Protego. Getting to write my version of the First Task is one of the reasons I wanted Tara in the tournament in the first place. I can't wait for the Second Task! That's the one I'll probably end up winging the most, but I do some of my best writing that way. It's definitely going to be back-and-forth on the happiness for a while, but it'll work out! Oh yes, Tara will definitely be a pain in Hermione's neck getting her to go to the ball with Krum. I totally get wanting Tara to go with Cedric. That only seems fair, doesn't it? I'd love to explore a tense sort-of friendly dynamic between Tara and Snape. I think that would be fascinating. You as well! Hope you enjoyed this one!

Ghostie1701: You were correct! I couldn't write the Norberta scene without having Tara try to beg the dragon to remember her. I'm so glad you liked it! It was probably one of my favorite scenes to write. I love that the kids hate Divination so much but seem to always stay in it lol. I'm glad to hear that! Tara and Cedric are always fun to write and I do enjoy writing Snape. Yes, Marcus is back! We'll see him again soon. Honestly, I think Julia would sooner kill Skeeter than Dumbledore, though she'll probably have some choice words for him too. Yes, there's a lot to look forward to in the coming chapters!

Vincent FGS91: Absolutely! I love semi-drunk Tara so I'd like to bring that back at some point. They will be in use soon! Perhaps in the next chapter or the one after. I haven't figured it out yet. It would probably be Bulgarian, if I'm being honest lol. Yes! We'll get out of this eventually. Hope all is well with you!

aleyuma98: Thank you! It's a long story so getting caught up is always an impressive feat. I'm the first person to admit while the books are definitely better (as always) the movies added a lot to the stories, particularly in regards to the action scenes. That's totally fair criticism and I agree; I'll work on making that a little smoother. It absolutely is! Constructive criticism is always welcomed in my stories. I hope you liked this one!

Margot: That's fair! It would only be right to give them as much time together as they can get. I think most people want Tara and Cedric to go to the Yule Ball together (understandably). I hope you liked this one!

Guest: I don't mind people wanting Tara and Cedric to be together; I hope they will. That was the point of labeling them a pairing. I'm not sure where you're coming from.

Dorothy: Tara's flirting with Fred is completely innocent; I promise. She's a teenager and at that point in most kid's lives, they don't see the differences. Hell, even as an adult the line between being friendly and flirtatious can sometimes be blurred.

Guest: Thank you so much! Those are very kind words. I'm so glad you love the bond between Tara and Cedric - it's one of my favorite parts about the story. I can't say what's going to happen to Cedric but I totally understand how people will feel if I do follow the canon storyline. Wow, that's a long way to get in a week. Kudos to you! Again, thank you so much for the lovely review. I love reading the ones like yours. I hope you liked this one!

WiccanWoman00: That's very kind of you to say. I do care for all of my stories and take great efforts in writing them. Funny thing, I actually wondered how long it would take someone to begin assimilating to a culture when they are young. Obviously, I'm not an immigrant and have lived in the same area my entire life. This is the kind of constructive criticism I appreciate, when someone corrects me on a topic I'm not familiar with. It's something I'll definitely work to eradicate from the story in the future. Thank you for the review!