Tracey lowered her eyes to Theodore's sleeping form. He was lying calmly for the first time in days. True, he still had a fever, but he was infinitely better than when Tracey had first brought him to her house. It had been a little over a week. She was tired and annoyed and infuriated with him, but she still refused to leave his bedside while she was at home. She was determined that he would be well again. Determined ambition, she thought with a sigh, exactly the qualities that had put her in Theo's school house in the first place.

Theodore shifted, attracting her momentary attention. Tracey didn't know what he had been doing during the last seven or eight months since he had been released from Azkaban, but she felt she could make a pretty good guess. In truth, though, she wasn't sure she wanted to find out. It was something better left unsaid, something she didn't want to deal with.

Stretching, her eyes wandered to a photograph beside the bed. It had been taken during their fifth year at school. It was everyone in their house and year, all smiling, blithely unconcerned for the future. It was hard to look at. Crabbe and Goyle were off to the side, both in Azkaban for life. Millicent, on the opposite side, also in Azkaban. Draco, standing in front, dead, killed by aurors. Pansy, center, held in Draco's arms, dead, killed by the Dark Lord for some failure. Blaise, in the back, also dead, killed himself without leaving an explanation. Daphne, left center, disappeared three years ago, presumed dead.

Tracey hadn't been best friends with all of them, of course. In fact, she had detested Crabbe and Goyle, and had thought that Millicent was a complete idiot and Pansy a catty bitch. But it hurt to know that she was the only one left. Her, and Theodore lying partially delirious on the bed.

"You better be okay, Nott," she said suddenly in a cold voice, "because I can't handle being the only one left in that picture. If you aren't okay, I'll find a way to make you pay for leaving me alone. Do you understand that?" Then, knowing that he couldn't hear her, she walked briskly from the room, away from the naive and smiling kids in the photograph.