Early in the morning, after he'd eaten a hurried breakfast in the common room, he went to look for Maude in the Great Hall. On the way there he was intercepted by Professor Slughorn.

"I say, Barty! Have a moment to do your old professor a favor?"

Barty did not reply at once, and Slughorn apparently took this as agreement. "Wonderful! As it so happens, my supply of aconite is running low. Usually Hagrid collects it for me, but he's busy with the Christmas decorations today, so it'd be lovely if you'd get some for me instead. It grows around the edges of the Forest. You can leave it in my office after you've gathered a good quantity."

Barty nodded and then continued down the hall. He supposed he'd have to speak to Maude later. As he thought this, however, the Hufflepuff girl appeared from a corridor on the left.

"Hello," she said, smiling. He stood staring at her and trying to force himself to say something. Her expression changed to one of slight puzzlement. "Are you quite alright? You look funny."

"Yes," he replied jerkily. Then he abruptly added, "Professor Slughorn asked me to go and collect aconite near the Forbidden Forest, would you like to come along?"

Maude looked suddenly unhappy. "Oh. No, don't think I ought to."

"That's fine," Barty stammered, quite mortified with himself. "I shouldn't have asked. It was a stupid idea, anyway, who wants to go looking for aconite?" He laughed rather hysterically.

"No, no, it's not that. It's not you. Just… you probably shouldn't get to know me too well."

Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it wasn't that. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing. I'm sorry, Barty." She looked close to tears. He was completely bewildered.

"Maude, I don't – I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. What's wrong?"

"Don't apologize," she sniffed. "Said it wasn't you. Guess I can't keep this up. We shouldn't study together anymore. Barty, I'm going to die."

"What?"

"I'm ill," she explained, looking down at her hands, which were clasped in front of her. "It's genetic, I've had it my whole life, and it's terminal. That's why I don't want to get to know you better, because then you'll be sad when I… you know. Kick it."

Barty didn't know what to say. He felt awful about unintentionally reminding Maude of her impending demise. Eventually, though, he asked, "Is that why you don't spend time with the other Hufflepuffs?"

"Yeah. Not sure how long I've got left, but it's probably not much more than a year. Maybe less."

"But then why are you here at Hogwarts? I mean, wouldn't it be better to be with your family, or something?"

"No. They're nice enough, but we're not… close. Sometimes I think they can't stand it to look at me. Don't want to get any closer than they have to, right?"

"I'm sorry." Barty considered that Maude's situation was even worse than his, in a way. His father didn't care about him at all, and never had, but her parents were intentionally rejecting their daughter every time they saw her.

"We don't have to stop studying together." He didn't consider what he'd said until he'd already said it. It made sense, though; Maude seemed to be a nice person and didn't deserve to spend her last year or months alive by herself, and he needed a friend, any friend, even one who was going to die shortly. He smiled at her. She looked hesitant.

"No, you don't want to put yourself through that. Probably never lost a friend before; I have, I can tell you it's not fun. Not at all."

"I haven't. I haven't had one to lose. My family and I don't get along either, you know. I think I disappoint them." He felt moderately horrified that he was telling her this, but he couldn't seem to stop himself. With some shock, he realized that in the last few minutes he'd spoken more words than in the past several months, and more consecutive words than in… he couldn't even remember when he'd talked for this long. "Please come and look for aconite with me. We can act like you never said any of this if you like."

She stared at him, uncertain. "Are you sure…?"

"Yes, positive. Come on, let's go." Maude hesitated a few seconds longer, then slowly walked over to him. They proceeded side by side out of the castle.

Over the rest of Christmas break, Maude and Barty spent a lot of time together. They played wizard chess and discussed the various classes, and on occasion visited Hogsmeade. On Christmas morning, Maude appeared outside the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room carrying all her presents, and Barty, surprised but happy to see her, let her in immediately.

After they'd opened the presents and had a small breakfast of eggs and streaky bacon, they sat next to one another on a couch and watched the fire that crackled merrily in the common room's large marble fireplace. Barty thought vaguely that the fire had no right to be so happy. He was slightly depressed by the bland Christmas card his parents had sent along with their present of a sizable book on politics, although his mood was not too bad due to the presence of his friend. Maude picked up the book in question and tossed it back and forth lazily.

"D'you like this stuff?" she inquired after a while.

"What, that? No. I'll probably never read it; it's just that my father would like me to have a Ministry career, like he does, and my mother goes along with what he says." Barty sighed, slumping a little on the couch. "I work so hard in all my classes, just so I won't disappoint him, and then when I get perfect grades he doesn't react. He just expects it, he figures I'm clever and so naturally I should be doing this well."

"Well, you are clever," Maude pointer out. "You're an effing genius. If you don't want to have a Ministry career, though, why do you even bother working that hard? I mean, for most jobs you only need a few specific O.W.L.s."

"I don't know. I'm afraid to see what my father would say if I failed an exam, or even got a bad grade on an assignment."

"What – you've never failed a test before?"

"No. Never. I don't know why. They always expected me to succeed at everything remotely academic, and I can't force myself to disappoint them. Sometimes I want to tell them they're killing me here, just sort of scream at them until they understand. Most likely I'd end up with a sore throat, though, as I doubt they'd actually get what I was talking about."

Maude sniggered.

"What?"

"Sort of funny phrasing, that's all. You're so literal, Barty."

"Sorry."

"I don't mind, for goodness sake. I said I thought it was funny. I know what you mean, though. Like to do the same thing to my family, sometimes. Anyway, let's forget about that. Have a lovely day. It's Christmas."

"Alright," he agreed, and for the next few hours they talked, played exploding snap, and went on a stroll through the snow-covered grounds. By the time they decided to head back to the castle for lunch, Barty was in a cheerful mood, and had nearly managed to forget about being upset earlier. Maude seemed to be in similarly high spirits, and was telling her friend about a time in her second year when she'd walked in on Madame Pomfrey snogging Professor Flitwick in a deserted classroom, when she suddenly fell silent. Barty turned around to see the Hufflepuff girl standing hunched over, clutching her chest with both hands. Her skin was very pale.

She was swaying slightly, and he grabbed her shoulders as she seemed about to fall over.

"Maude, come on, we're going to the hospital wing," he told her, trying to keep his voice steady. She nodded, wincing slightly, and leaned quite heavily on him as they slowly proceeded to the castle doors and down a selection of corridors. Barty had some trouble supporting his friend; although she was quite a lot shorter than he was, she was rather plump, and currently seemed almost completely unable to hold herself up.

They reached the hospital wing, and Barty deposited Maude on a bed. He called Madame Pomfrey over, and was subsequently banished from the room by the clearly concerned witch. He paced back and forth outside the doors, counting the cracks in the stone floor, for what seemed to him like forever but was in fact about two and a half hours. He had completely forgotten about lunch. Finally, Madame Pomfrey opened the doors of the hospital wing.

"Oh, you're still here," she said, apparently somewhat surprised by his presence. "She's fine for now, you can come and talk to her if you'd like."

He nodded and walked very quickly through the doors and over to the bed where Maude sat up, propped against some pillows. She was still pale, but apart from that she appeared to have recovered.

"Sorry about that," she said, grinning wryly at him. "Chest pains. They're gone now. Nothing to worry about, happens all the time."

He was not reassured. "I've never seen you act like that before."

"Yeah, well, before they've always shown up while I was in my dormitory, so…"

"Will you be alright? I mean, has Madame Pomfrey fixed whatever was wrong?"

Maude didn't answer, and she wouldn't look him in the eye.

"Maude. What is it?"

She sighed. "It's the illness I told you about before. Didn't used to have attacks like this as much. It's getting worse."

"What's the illness called?"

"Tredwick's syndrome, it's a wizarding illness, muggles don't get it… But if you're thinking of trying to find a cure, there isn't one, people have been studying it for ages and I even went to St. Mungo's. No one can do anything."

Barty nodded, but didn't speak.

"I mean it, Barty. Don't waste your time trying to come up with a cure. I'd rather pretend I don't need one for as long as I can."

"Okay," he said softly. He pulled a chair over to the side of Maude's bed, and arranged it so that it was facing at an exact right angle to the bed frame. "So – you were telling me about Professor Flitwick."

For the remainder of Christmas break, Barty didn't mention illness or death at all while in Maude's presence. When he was alone, however, he spent almost all his time researching the syndrome afflicting his friend. He lost several nights of sleep sneaking down to the dungeons and creating experimental potions. None of them worked when he tested them on conjured mice, and he was forced to admit that despite his best efforts to discover a cure, he had not gotten anything even approaching a positive result.

Term resumed, and the rest of the students returned to Hogwarts. Barty's grades dropped from virtually perfect to merely exceptional as he tried with mediocre success to fit study with Maude, vast amounts of homework, and research and experiments on Tredwick's syndrome into his already hectic schedule. He spent most days in a half-doze, and went from speaking only rarely, to not speaking at all to anyone besides Maude. His friend was not oblivious to the situation.

"What's going on with you, Barty?" she asked him one night as they gathered up their completed homework. It took him a second to realize she'd spoken, and then another to process what she'd said.

"Nothing," he replied. "I'm just tired. Lots of homework and all…"

"Yeah, sure. Don't think that's it. I've noticed you're not talking (not that you were ever really communicative) and you've lost weight (not that you weren't scrawny to begin with) and both Slughorn and McGonagall have been looking oddly at you in class (not that they didn't always think you were odd). You've even stopped going to Quidditch matches, which is alarming, because I've never seen you miss even one before now. Is this because of my… thing? Said it wasn't a good idea for you to become friends with me. If you want to stop now I don't mind."

"Maude, there's no problem. We're still friends as long as you want to be."

"Okay, fine. Just don't want you getting hurt on my account – you might not want to spend time with me anymore but you wouldn't say it because you don't want to upset me." She sounded slightly choked up.

"I won't do that. I promise, I'd tell you if spending time with you was bothering me." She still appeared distressed, and he wondered if he should pat her on the shoulder or something, or whether that would be too forward. He compromised by patting her wrist. She looked askance at him.

"What the hell, Barty?"

"Sorry."

"For what, exactly? I mean, what was that anyway?"

"Never mind," he muttered, regretting that he hadn't just gone with his initial idea of patting her shoulder. It would have been less weird. He and Maude left the dungeon classroom and returned to their respective dormitories.