'No. Not again' thought, in some conscious recess of his mind, Adrian Grau. His subconscious had put him in a Nimbus 1000, the latest on broomsticks about fifteen years ago. Dusk settled in the Tutshill Tornados' stadium, in the same fashion he remembered. A Tornado chaser had the quaffle and Adrian flew to get it. The rival chaser passed the quaffle. The public screamed. Five hundred tickets sold. Five hundred wands at the stadium. The Tarapotos Tree-Skimmers team didn't want to complete his European tour due fear of the terrorist campaign ravaging Wales. The reserve squad jumped at the opportunity of showing against one of the best British teams and one of them made a stupid comment about Lord Voldemort to the British press. They were young, idiots and were believed to be immortal. What could possibly happen to them?

In a hotel room in the Black Forest in Germany, sweat ran through Adrian Grau's once athletic back. His arms, once used to drop quaffles, were immobile. His face, less sunburnt than in the time of his dream and with a short beard and a baldness which weren't there in his player years, twisted in the way only someone suffering nightmares could. Dreaming, his mind revived that match. Martin had passed him the quaffle. Showing off, Adrian flew close to the stands. He didn't need to, but it was fun and prevented the rival beaters from aiming bludgers at him. Flying at the top speed his Nimbus could deliver, he approached the Tornados' goal posts. When he raised his hands to throw, he saw them sweaty. It wasn't from the match, it was the actual sweat his body had outside the nightmare. He didn't want to throw the quaffle, but memories commanded in his nightmares. The sun shone right behind the Tornandos' central goal post. He threw. And behind the goal post, mounted on brooms, two dozen terrorists apparated.

In the actual match, what followed lasted just a few seconds. With sadistic pleasure, his subcouncious stretched it. The death eaters cursed every player, be them Tornados or Tarapots. Adrian dodged a curse at the last moment, but his friends weren't as lucky. As if in slow motion, they died. In their brooms, crashing into the ground, or in midair. From the five hundred wands in the stands, 495 had either vanished or ran to get out of there. Three teenagers tried to attack the death eaters. He hadn't actually noticed them at that time, but he knew the story and the dream obliged. Still flying, he looked them at the eyes for a moment. From the three of them, only one would survive the war. Another one would die years later. The third would win a life sentence to Azkaban. He saw an eldery couple taking them out of the stadium by side-along apparition. A death eater approached him.

'Master, listen'. That was new. Voldemort didn't show up that afternoon. He focused in the death eater's mask. He had left his wand at the locker rooms. He threw the death eater from the brom and looked as the masked man, or woman, fall sixty feet and crashed into the ground just as the Quidditch players he had come to kill. He dove to check the body and take his wand. 'Master'. Again. It made no sense. He kept diving. With adrenalin and hatred pulsing in his veins, he took the dead death eater's wand. He wanted revenge. Yet, as he took the wand, the death eaters dissaparated. He walked a few steps in the pitch, until he saw two of his friend's dead bodies. He kneeled, the killing in the last few minutes sinking in his mind. British aurors would arrive anytime now, including a twenty years apprentice with short blonde hear and beautiful green eyes. He wished to see her.

Instead, he heard 'MASTER!' and an explosion. He was sitting in the German hotel's bed, sweaty and wand in hand. He had just destroyed the wall in front of him. Next to the bed, a house elf looked at him, worried. He didn't have such a nightmare in years. He through what his old muggle shrink would say if he told him. He'll put him back in treatment for sure. Still, he wished it would be the shrink and not Albus Dumbledore the one to be right about the return of his nightmares. He took a deep breath and tried to focus in oclumency exercises, which were useless. The elf had repaired the wall and looked at him next to the bed. The elf knew Adrian would realize where he was before killing him, but was still sad and scared. Adrian was still taking deep breaths. 'I'm in Germany. In a hotel' he thought 'It's June 1995. We are not at war. Nobody is going to kill me. My sons are at Hogwarts, watching the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Nobody is going to kill us.'

He managed to relax himself and addressed the elf next to him – "Ralkey, what happened? Why did you wake me up?"

The elf, however, was still terrified. He didn't see his master this way in years, far before little Alex, who graduated this year, went to Hogwarts. – "Master, could you leave your wand for a moment?"

Adrian became terrified. – "What happened?" – as the elf was still not responding, he left his wand among the sheets.

"Mister Lupin appeared in the fire tonight" - answered the elf, honing his old self-preservation orders – "He told me professor Dumbledore asked him to call the Order. V-Voldemort is back and killed Cedric Diggory."

"Victory" – whispered Graham Montague when he arrived at the entrance of the Slytherin's common room. A long line of teenagers followed him inside restless, uneasy and, even though they didn't want to show it, scared, and sat across the common room. Nobody had told them to return to their common room, nobody had told the students to assemble in the Great Hall. A sullen Flitwick had ordered the house elves to serve them dinner and, once that was finished, nobody had ordered them back to their rooms.

Then again, nobody had told them anything about Diggory either, thought Fabian Grau. Thirteen years old, he had his father's dark hair and skin, but her mother's slimmer body instead of the more athletic one from his father' side. At least, he had inherited his mothers' green eyes, although he had yet to learn how to take advantage of them. Of course, Slytherin's common room was bursting with rumors. As far as they knew, Potter had cuts in the his arms and legs, yet Diggory was intact. Dead, but intact. And some Hufflepuff claimed, back at Great Hall, that a Beauxbatons heard Potter saying Voldemort was back before Mad-Eye took him to the hospital wing. Had anyone else said that, the Slytherins would be terrified. However, Lying Potter had said it. Of course, that presented other issues. If Potter had lied, thought Fabian, did Potter kill Diggory? And, if Potter had indeed killed Diggory, what would the Hufflepuff do about it tomorrow?

Near the fireplace, Carol Pritchard, Graham's twin sister, asked if it was possible for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to be back. Every gaze fell in the fourth year students. Uneasy, Malfoy ended up answering he didn't know. Nobody stopped looking at them anyway.

"So, did Potter kill Diggory then?" – asked Astoria, curled up against the fire

"Potter had a bleeding leg and was hit. They may have fought and Potter tried to pull an ace from the sleeve, and pulled the killing curse" – answered her older sister. Malfoy, however, claimed that, being a very powerful curse, it required a very powerful wizard.

"No" – interrupted Fabian – "Nobody is so stupid to cast an unforgivable and appear, wand in hand, in front of the Ministry of Magic. Not even Potter" – Due the curious look from the younger Slytherins, he simply explained – "Prior Incantato" – and left them find out the meaning of it. He then distracted himself looking through the window. A mermaid was standing at the bottom of the lake and was watching the common room from there. 'Too bad mermaids aren't as muggle think they are' thought Fabian. Trying to figure out what had happened was a bit stupid. Tomorrow morning, his older brother would be writing their mother and they'll know, firsthand, what Potter was telling the aurors under the influence of veritaserum. He felt someone grabbing his shoulder.

"I say, why don't you ask your mother what she knows?" – asked the Russian Gregory Vaisey.

"I'll bring floo powder" – he heard Helena Runcorn saying as she climbed to her room. Fabian, somewhat annoyed, looked at her classmate leaving. He didn't want to get his parents involved. His older brother did that all the time. But, with every student waiting for him to bring answers, he couldn't quite refuse. He'll get even with Gregory for his suggestion later on. Helena came out of the girls room and threw the powder into the fireplace. In a bad mood, Fabian stuck his head in there – "Grau Home" – he said, wondering when their parents would finally change its name to 'Grau Manor'. After all, few houses had a full Quidditch pitch in the 'back garden'. He saw his house elf at the other side of the fire and asked him what he knew.

"So?" – he was asked as he pulled his head out of the fire

"My parents aren't home, but the elf have already heard the official version. Or at least, Potter's official version… Voldemort killed Cedric Diggory.

All Slytherins flinched at hearing the name and Peter Harper asked if naming him was actually needed before storming into the bedrooms. The rest of the Common Room burst in comments once again and Fabian managed to distinctly hear Goyle joyful about 'The hour of the mudbloods have come'. Someone wondered if it wasn't a lie and Potter had actually used a basilisk. As it looked like there was a long time of stupidities ahead, Fabian also went to his bedroom.

Harper had just barely finished turning off the light and was getting into bed when Fabian entered the bedroom. While, as far as Fabian knew, Slytherin's bedrooms were just like the rest of the houses, turning the lights at night meant they were completely dark: like the Common Room, the bedrooms were under the lake. At night, that meant no light could enter through the windows. Fabian casted a few light spheres from his wand to illuminate the place. Peter Harper was the only other person in the bedroom, which meant Edgar was taking advantage of the professors being distracted and would be in some empty classroom with Nat Bucannan.

Fabian started to get into bed when he saw Peter's dark hand waving a wand to turn off the lights which, casually, Fabian had thrown at his face. – "Worse of all" – said Peter – " is, it could have been anyone of us. Anything could be a portkey"

"Or the window's glass could break and the lake would flood us when we sleep" – answered Gregory Vaisey from the bedroom's door – "Or the food could be poisoned. Or, even worse, we could graduate without ever playing in Slytherin's Quidditch team."

Peter, who was first alarmed with the window's comment, laid down again when he heard the blond chaser speak of Quidditch. Fabian couldn't stop him from laughing. – " Grisha, it's serious. We could die tomorrow" – he answered, as Vaisey made his way into the room – "I'd say we need to convince the two free girls in our class to make the most of what little time we have remaining"

"And what makes you think we'll do it with you?" – teased a girly voice from the doorframe. Both Vanessa McLaggen and Helena Runcorn were standing in the threshold dressed in nightgowns. Against the light, they were a strange sight. Vanessa, unlike her older brother, was rather petite while Helena was one of Slytherin's tallest girls. On top, McLaggen had her family's trademark blonde hair and she used it short, while Runcorn had it dark and long. Both friends looked like opposites standing that way against the threshold. Grisha, who was about to undress himself, jumped inside his bed. Laughing, the girls entered and sat in Edgar Urquhart's empty bed.

"I was thinking about what Goyle said, and there is something wrong" – started Helena while getting herself comfortable in the bed. Facing the curious look from the boys, she continued –"Think what we saw today: the final of Europe's most important juvenile tournament. And who can go as far as that? Durmstrang has a pureblood director, but one who was a dead eater. And their champion is actually muggleborn. Then we have Beauxbatons. A half giant director and a half human champion."

"What?" – asked Vaisey

"Grisha, Fleur is part Veela" – answered Fabian – "But, what's your point, Helena?"

"Fleur is… well, let's say she is pretty, but thanks to a zoophilic grandfather. Howgwarts, instead, has a director who seems to be excellent and gets a pureblood champion who, on top, comes from one of Britain's older and more traditional families.

"So?" – Fabain, whose father was muggleborn and his mother half-blood, was beggining to be upset.

"You don't get it" – tried to explain Peter –"You're half English and half Inca and Grisha is a Russian immigrant. It's not a matter of blood, it's a matter of tradition. The Triwizard tournament ended up as a competition between part-humans, muggleborns who were told they were wizards at eleven years old and a single decent wizard!

Fabian interrupted him – "The world is changing"

"Yes, yes, Helena's father probably says that every day. But I still don't get it" – said Vanessa McLaggen.

Helena Runcorn grabbed one of the cushions the boys had left in the floor and curled up with it –"The Goble of Fire chooses a single pure blood, traditionalist, wizard. And, just as it does, someone manages to get Harry Potter into the tournament."

"Well, that someone is Cheating Potter" said Grisha, as if explaining the obvious.

However, Vanessa shook her head - "He couldn't have. Someone else had to do it" – she explained, causing even more confusion.

"Then why did you tease him the whole year?" – asked, unconvinced, Peter Harper.

Vanessa was about to answer, but Fabian interrupted her – "It's obvious. He's a Gryffindor. They're chivalrous, brave, stupid and get teased by Slytherins. We, instead, are smart, cunning, ambitious and they tease us. The sorting hat says that every year."

"Err… I think it doesn't quite say that" – answered Grisha, fooling around with the balls of light illuminating the bedroom.

Fabian was about to answer that, but Helena hit him with one of the cushions –"What if Dumbledore put him in so Cedric didn't win? Think about it" – said the girl – "Cedric wins and it's a victory for centuries of tradition. And it looks like he won, because both Potter and Cedric appeared holding the cup together. However, he managed to make as only Potter won. And it was probably Dumbledore the one who made the Prophet ignore Cedric. Plus, while Potter is a half-blood, he lived in the muggle world all his life. And, when the times come to accuse someone, Dumbledore accuses You-Know-Who, which makes everyone to fear a muggleborn massacre. But, in reality, the only dead is a Diggory."

"The Chamber of Secrets" – whispered Fabian – "It's the same, right? Petrified students are all muggleborn, the accusation is against Slytherin's monster and pure-blood wizards are supposed to be safe. But the student taken to the Chamber was Ginny Weasley. And Harry Potter also seems to have been involved in that."

"So?" – asked Vanessa.

"I think someone, thinking it's acting in Great Britain's best interests, wants to accelerate our country's mugglization. And they're willing to kill for it. Accusing, in the meantime, the same people they want to remove." –concluded Helena.

Peter Harper looked like he was trying to distract himself looking at the bottom of the lake through the window – "That's weirder than all Lovegood's conspiracies together" – he ended up saying.

Fabian laid down thoughtful. Yes, it looked like a Quibbler's article. Yet, Potter was in the thick of it, again. Between that and Voldemort's rumors, the whole school would be looking down on Slytherins again. And Peter was right: anything could be a portkey. He barely noticed the two girls asking permission to stay to sleep there. He helped his classmates to group all the mattresses and set up a large one in the floor and lied down again. A few hours ago, he dreamt of becoming Hogwarts Champion in the next tournament. Right now, he thought if he would make it alive to the tournament's next edition, by the time he'll be in seventh year.

That night, in that room, five Slytherins slept thinking the same thing.