A/N: Snow days in here mean very, very good things for all of you, I had some time to write this week, and now I can update a day sooner than planned! Here's the next one! Enjoy, and please look at my A/N at the end :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is all property of the amazing JKR
Scores
"I em going to keel 'er w'en she wakez up."
"You might have to get in line there honey."
"If she can hear you now, she's probably wishing that either the dragon or the apparation without a wand got her first."
"Ouch! What was that for?"
"That was for you being stupid Louis! Your sister is lying there injured and you're making jokes!"
"You know her Cecilia! You know she'd rather be dead than have to face our parents' wrath."
Victoire was jolted awake by the argument that then ensued. At first, she thought the sounds she heard were just from her dream. Then she questioned herself why in the world she'd be dreaming about her mother and father wanting to kill her, or Louis having an argument with Cecilia Wood. That, coupled with the realization that Teddy's voice was nowhere near her (and he was always in her dreams, one way or another) she comprehended that she wasn't actually asleep anymore, and that the throbbing pain she felt in her back and lower right calf, were actually real.
She opened her eyes and saw that, although there was a crowd of people around her bed, none of them seemed to be paying attention to her, "Merlin you guys, you're fighting doesn't help the pounding headache I have."
"Victoire!" A loud voice screeched.
"Ally, I'm happy to see you too, but do you think you could use your indoor voice . . . wait, are we even inside?" Victoire asked as she quickly sat up (and regretted it the moment it happened because she felt a blistering trickle of pain travel down her spine) and took in her surroundings. She seemed to be in a tent like the one she waited in earlier before the task began. She also noticed that she was lying on some sort of hospital bed.
"So . . . what's wrong with me?" Victoire asked tentatively, she could see all of her friends and almost all of her family around her bed.
"We were actually hoping you could tell us Miss Weasley," Madame Pomfrey said as she squeezed in between Victoire's father and her Uncle Charlie to get closer to her patient. Her Aunt Angelina was close behind her.
"Well, my back is killing me," she looked down at her body to see if there was any glaring problem. She hadn't found one yet.
"Oh, what happened here? Did I splinch myself?" Victoire asked worriedly when she spotted a big splotch of red blood on the back of the black fabric covering her right calf.
"No," Madame Pomfrey said, her lips twitching.
"Then what was it?" Victoire asked.
Madame Pomfrey said nothing, and then looked away from Victoire's gaze. Causing Victoire's stare to change to Angelina. Her Aunt also wouldn't meet her eyes, but she did move her chin in the direction of Victoire's mother and father.
Victoire sighed. She was hoping to hold this conversation off until a little latter, "Okay, okay. Daddy, Mamma, I'm sorry all right. I didn't want to apparate without a wand, but it was the only choice! If I didn't I would probably be either a pile of ashes, a dead body filled with enough dragon venom to kill a giant, or, be a heap of severed limbs."
Fleur's eyes started to tear up. "Oh, Mamma I didn't mean-" she was cut-off by Fleur's sudden, bone-crushing, hug.
"I em juzt glad zat you're een one peece," Fleur said, still not relinquishing her hold on her eldest daughter. It took both Bill and Charlie's combined persuasion and strength to peel Fleur off Victoire.
After removing her wife, Bill gave his daughter a gentle hug, "The blood on your pants is from a slash you got from the dragon."
Victoire pulled up her pant leg to see a pale pink scar, about two and a half inches long, along her calf. The scar was healed and looked like it could be years old.
Madame Pomfrey noticed her inspection, "We're not sure if you got it from the scales of the dragon, or from one of the spikes on the tail . . . but it's fully healed."
"Yes, fully healed, from when you jumped onto a dragon's back," Bill said through his teeth.
Victoire nodded sheepishly, one parent's mad because I apparated without a wand and the other is angry because I jumped on a dragon's back; I guess I can't make anyone happy.
Bill noticed Victoire contrite expression and added, "I don't fully blame you though, I've already had a discussion with Harry, Ron, and, Hermione and about what stories they tell you kids."
Victoire rolled her eyes, but then went back to examining her leg. She poked the scar. It wasn't a good idea.
"Ouch!"
Madame Pomfrey looked remorseful, "We didn't know how much pain you'd be in, so we didn't give you a very strong pain-killing-potion. We needed to make sure that you would wake up, and giving you a stronger dose would have knocked you out for a while."
"Speaking of time restraints," Percy said apologetically as he glanced down at his watch, "Victoire needs to get out there as soon as possible."
Victoire's eyes widened, "Is everyone still out there?"
There was a collective nod throughout her audience. "You've only been out for about fifteen minute's honey. And they wanted to wait for you so everyone could get their scores together," her Aunt Ginny said as she reached foreword to brush some of Victoire's hair off her face.
Victoire sighed. "I guess I'd better get going then," she said as she jumped up out of the bed.
"Ugh! Godric Gryffindor that wasn't a good idea," Victoire moaned as she hunched over onto her bed and waited out the spasm of pain that shot through her back again.
Angelina smirked a little, "We were waiting for you to wake up so we could see if there was anything else wrong with you."
Victoire nodded, "Thanks Auntie Ange, it's my back."
Angelina came by and lifted Victoire's shirt up at the back, "Hmm," she mused as she poked her back gently. Victoire ended up wincing a grand total of twenty-six times before Angelina finished.
"I think you bruised your spine. You did fall onto your back a lot."
"Which part of my spine?" Victoire asked.
"All of it."
"Oh."
Angelina smiled before pulling out her wand and muttering a healing spell. Within seconds, the fiery pain gave way to a cooling numbness. Victoire straightened up and sighed happily when she was able to move without pain.
"Thank-you."
"No problem Vic. At least this won't leave a mark," Angelina answered quietly.
Victoire nodded her head. Angelina was referring to the pink scar on her calf. Because of the Veela magic in her blood, the scar wouldn't be able to disappear completely, as the normal healing spell for it would do. Victoire figured as much when she saw that Madame Pomfrey had fixed it, but hadn't vanished the mark completely.
"Don't worry Vic," Uncle Charlie said coming around to throw his arm around her shoulders, "you still have a long way to go if you want to beat my record for number of scars."
Victoire smiled, "Thanks Uncle Charlie."
Harry and Ron began to usher everybody out so that Victoire could make her big début. As people began to trickle out of her room, Victoire noticed what was off.
"Where's Kingsley?" she asked as she scanned the room for his presence, Kingsley was always there to wait by her bed when she was injured (not that it happened a lot of the time . . .).
Ron snickered, "He's out probably scaring the crap out of half of the department of Magical Sports and Games."
Victoire gave her Uncle Ron a confused look. Harry sighed and elaborated, "They were in charge of putting the force field up between you and the dragon, and as you can remember, it didn't end up working that well."
"They're lucky that they're not in my department, or all of those idiots would be fired."
Victoire looked to the door to see the man that she's just been thinking about.
"Kingsley!"
"Hi Princess," Kingsley chuckled as he caught Victoire. She'd shot herself at him for a hug as soon as he'd walked into the tent.
"Are you okay? Is everything patched up?" Kingsley asked worriedly when she moved out of his arms.
"I'm fine. Madame Pomfrey fixed a tiny scratch I had on my leg, and Aunt Angelina healed a little pain I had in my back," Victoire answered flippantly.
Kingsley narrowed his eyes at her, "So you've got a scar and had to have one mess of a pain-killing charm didn't you?" Victoire nodded, not even surprised that Kingsley read through her little white lies.
More people had left the tent until it was just Harry, Kingsley, and Victoire left.
Victoire knew that this was about to become awkward, but she was too interested in the answer to care. "Where's Teddy?" she asked Harry quietly, she was becoming worried because she'd seen absolutely everyone but him so far (she would have even gladly traded seeing Xavier when she woke up, for instance, to even catch a glimpse of Teddy's face).
Harry smiled softly, "He went with some of the other Aurors when they went to check out what went wrong with the force field and scope out the area."
"Oh, I thought he was off today . . ."
"I am, but somebody keeps losing her things and needs me to pick up after her," the currently blue-haired Auror said as he strutted into tent, a smirk a mile wide on his face.
"Teddy!" Victoire exclaimed as she ran to him.
"Hey Vic," he answered as he caught her in a hug. Her arms went around his neck and her legs around his waist as she embraced him. Both of Teddy's arms went around her back and waist as he squeezed her to him. He twirled them around in a circle for a minute; like he used to do when they were kids. Victoire giggled quietly, but stopped suddenly when she felt his hand on her upper thigh.
When Teddy stopped spinning them, she swiftly climbed off him. Victoire looked at him oddly; she could still feel his hand on her thigh, "Um Teddy . . . what are you doing?"
He smirked at her quickly heating cheeks, her Veela blood seemed to be betraying her today, "Just look down already Victoire."
Her faced turned as red as her sister's hair before she finally looked down to where Teddy's hand was; touching the handle of her wand that was in the holster on her thigh.
"My wand!" Victoire squealed, in an uncharacteristically girly voice, "But-how-it fell out of my hand during the task."
"Yes, and I went back to get it when everyone else was canvassing the area to see who and what went wrong, I handled the real problem. The fact that you were without a wand," Teddy said as he watched the joy on Victoire's face.
She grinned widely, "You knew that the biggest thing I would be worried about when I regained consciousness was that I didn't have my wand."
"Well, when you remembered that you didn't have it on you, yes."
Victoire hugged him again. "Thank-you so much," she whispered into his neck. She would have felt very awkward and, well naked, when she realized that she didn't have her wand on her.
She felt his sweet breath stir up the flyaway's that had escaped her ponytail as he chuckled into her ear. "No problem," he sighed before moving to give her a sweet kiss on her forehead.
"A-hem," Harry cleared his throat awkwardly from behind them. They broke apart and Victoire had to hold in her giggle when she saw both Harry and Kingsley looking everywhere around the room, except for at the couple.
"Victoire," her uncle continued when he realized that it was okay to watch them again, "you really need to get out there and get your scores."
"Okay," Victoire said to Harry. "Thanks again," she said turning to Teddy and giving him a, somewhat, chaste kiss on the cheek.
When she moved to go past him, she felt his arms grab her by the waist, he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Go get your scores, but don't even think that I've said all that I need to say."
Victoire left the tent as fast as she could after that. Crap. I knew he was going to take Dad and Mamma's side of this issue.
"Viktoree!" She sighed and tried to collect herself before turning around. She was really starting to feel tired. When she did turn around, she saw Konstantin hastily walking up to her.
"How do you fveel?" he asked his dark green eyes scanning her anxiously.
"I'm fine. All patched up now," Victoire answered, touched that he seemed so worried about her.
"Alvright, let's go gyet our scorvs then," Konstantin said with a smile gesturing for her to lead.
Victoire smiled at him and then took a about six steps forward before she felt the toe of her trainer come into contact with a patch of uneven ground. She was falling forward when she felt Konstantin grab her around the waist and pull her towards him. Because he'd been walking a few steps to her side, Victoire ended up in his arms, facing him, and with her own hands gripped to his biceps.
"Thank you," Victoire said as she pulled away from him, and rapidly moved her head from side to side to see if there was anyone around to the classic damsel in distress position she'd just been in with Konstantin. She didn't see anyone. She sighed in relief before they continued to make their way to the judges' platform. Victoire; paying close attention to where her feet were going this time.
It only took them a few minutes before they reached the platform. When they stepped onto it, there was a deafening applause. They quickly walked over to where Noëlle was standing by herself, in front of the row of judges.
Once they were in place, Flannery moved to the magical microphone again, "Well, here we are, back after a quick break. Now wasn't that an absolutely entertaining first task for a Tri-Wizard Tournament?"
There was a loud smattering of applause, "Okay now without further ado, we'll start with the scores. If Miss Varens would please step forward into the red ring . . ."
Noëlle did, not without looking down at the ring with disgust first and then shooting Victoire a scowl. Victoire looked closer at the ring and saw speckles of red near it, for some reason she didn't think that it was the same paint that was used to make the ring. No wonder everyone was so worried about me; that looks like a lot of blood loss right there. . .
"Now, if every judge would please hold up their score card, and then clearly say what score they are giving Miss Varens. We will start with the host of our Tournament, Headmistress McGonagall from Hogwarts."
McGonagall looked almost bored as she held up her card and read out the score, "Six."
Next to her was Headmaster Jaroslov, "Five."
Beside him was Madame Maxine, "Eight."
"Seven," Mr. Granville, the head of the department of Magical Sports and Games from the Ministry of Magic, announced.
"And lastly," Flannery said, "a seven from me. Which makes Miss Varens' score -the champion from Beauxbatons Academy- thirty-three for the First Task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament?"
Minister Flannery waited for the applause for Noëlle to die down before continuing, "Now if Mr. Krum would step into the circle . . ."
Noëlle and Konstantin changed places with one another and the scoring began again.
"Seven," McGonagall announced.
"Nine!" Jaroslov cried.
"Five," Madame Maxine said.
"Eight," Mr. Grenville declared.
"And it's an eight from me," Flannery stated, "All together Mr. Krum -champion from Durmstrang Institute- has a score of thirty-seven!"
Konstantin's face had started to turn red before the applause came down. "And now for Miss Weasley," Flannery said trying his hardest not to sound like he'd just eaten a particularly bad tasting Puking Pastille.
Victoire and Konstantin traded spots with nothing more than a nod of the head, and now it was time for what Victoire was dreading. The time when it would just be her in the spotlight. She kinda wished that she could just go back to the dragon's lair; she'd rather battle it again without a wand, than stand here in front of what seemed to be the entire population of the Wizarding World, while five people gave her scores on her (even though she'll deny it anytime her family asked) very near death experience.
Victoire looked to McGonagall, knowing that she was about to start the scoring. She gave Victoire a sly wink, "Eight."
Headmaster Jaroslov was next. He scrutinized Victoire minutely before saying grudgingly, "Seven."
Victoire's heart started to beat faster; she looked to the next judge. Madame Maxine was looking at her longingly for a minute before answering, "Eight."
She whipped her head to look at Mr. Granville, her scores were sounding pretty, well, not bad so far.
"Eight," he proclaimed.
Victoire looked to Minister Flannery; his score could either put her in the lead, or leave her behind.
Flannery smiled pompously at Victoire before lifting his microphone to his face, "And it's a four from me."
She froze; he did not just say he was giving me a four! She shook her head and looked back to Flannery he was frowning at something off to the side. It took Victoire a minute to realize that it was because more than half of the audience was booing him, and yelling some rather interesting things . . .
"ARE YOU NUTS!"
"WERE YOU WATCHING THE SAME TASK WE WERE WATCHING?"
After several more interesting-sounding things were yelled, Flannery asked everyone to be quiet, "Miss Weasley, while she may have exhibited one or two mediocre charms and spells, ended up breaking one of the cardinal rules of Wizarding magic. She attempted apparation without a wand. And whether she came out of it in one piece or not, it shows a gross oversight, and horrible planning on her part."
"Minister Flannery, Miss Weasley only apparated without a wand because hers was out of her possession and because she was in a life or death situation. If anything, her ability to make it through her apparation in one piece should be an example of how skilled she is with wandless magic," Professor McGonagall said trying to calm the tense atmosphere that had transpired.
"The situation Miss Weasley was in, and a small investigation will take place to see that nothing was tampered with, while sad, was nothing more than what she signed up for, or what her fellow champions had to work through. Heck, if she'd found her map faster, she wouldn't have still been there when the dragon came back."
Victoire had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from yelling something that would definitely cost her more points from Flannery.
Flannery smiled oily when the crowd had become quiet, "Now Miss Weasley's entire score is thirty-five. Next I would like the other champions to come up and join Miss Weasley, so we can see how they did with their additional task and give them their second scores."
Noëlle scowled at Victoire as she came to stand to the right of her. Konstantin, on the other hand, was much nicer and winked at her as he came to stand to her left.
Flannery came closer to them and stood next to Noëlle, "Were you able to get your map Miss Varens?"
Noëlle smiled widely and nodded as she pulled a many times folded over, yellowed piece of paper. She unfolded it and held it up for all to see.
Flannery nodded approvingly, "Very nice Miss Varens. Now for this part of the task, each of you will just get one score out of ten, and your points will be added up for a separate score. Each champion will have to show their map before we give each of you a score seeing as your scores will be decided in conjunction with another.
"Mr. Krum, you were the next champion to go, it's your turn. Did you retrieve your map?"
Konstantin nodded and unfolded a yellowed map that looked similar to Noëlle's.
"Good Mr. Krum," Flannery said, "Now for Miss Weasley."
Victoire grinned and reached down to her wand holster where she'd stashed her map before she disapperated earlier. She unfolded it and held it up proudly.
"Wat eez zat?" Noëlle asked haughtily as she looked at what Victoire was holding with an eyebrow cocked.
"Is not vat a Sleeverin Hovse bannver?" Konstantin asked confused as he looked at the ratty green and silver coloured piece of fabric Victoire was clutching.
"Yes, it's an old Slytherin banner, but it's also my map," Victoire answered confidently.
Noëlle laughed haughtily, "I zink zat you muzt 'ave 'it you 'ead dureeng your tazk. Zat eez not a map."
"It's more of a map than yours," Victoire shot back.
Noëlle bristled, "Reelly? And why would you zay zat?"
Victoire turned to Noëlle and pointed to the map she was holding, "That is not a map of Hogwarts. Yes, there's a lake and yes, there's a forest, but we don't have a garden of Mimbulus mimbletonia. And if you remember from fourth-year Herbology, the only place Mimbulus mimbletonia will grow naturally outside is it's native home of Assyria. So I don't know what this map is for, but unless there is a school in Assyria that has a Forbidden Forest, a Black Lake, and a garden of Mimbulus Mimbletonia, this map won't be very useful."
Noëlle's face turned red with either anger or embarrassment (Victoire couldn't tell) as she brought her map closer to her face for inspection. Her green eyes narrowed venomously at the paper, as if it was its fault that it was false.
"But 'ow deed you know zat ziz map waz wrong before you eeven looked at eet?" Noëlle asked once she took her eyes away from her map.
Victoire shot the yellowed paper a calm look, "Because it looks too much like a map. There's no way they'd make that part of the task that easy. Plus, it did move when I said accio map in the dragon's lair."
"But Konstanteen's map looks juzt like mine," Noëlle said, only slightly less venom in her voice.
Victoire looked at Konstantin and held out her hand. He nodded his head and handed it over to her. Both of her other champions came closer to her so they could see what she was seeing in the map.
"Hmm, this one's harder, the shape is very similar to the grounds at Hogwarts, but there are some mistakes that just won't work."
"Leek vat?" Konstantin asked intrigued. He hadn't noticed anything wrong when he grabbed it. Then again, he just did a cursorily glance.
Victoire pointed to the top right corner of the page, "The compass rose is off. The lake should be North-North-East of the Castle, as opposed to West-North-West. And that means everything else is wrong, including the fact that the orientation of the cliff to the Castle is completely inaccurate too. Plus some of these words are incorrect."
"Are vey not reweens?" Konstantin asked.
Victoire squinted at the writing before shaking her head slowly, "No, some of them are words written in Ancient runes, but a lot of these are either not real words or some of them are completely made up runes. Either way, it wouldn't be very helpful to direct you if it even showed you what you were looking for in the first place."
"Hmm, vell vat's not good," Konstantin mused.
Noëlle looked like she was about to scream, "Weell I highly doubt your choice waz aneey better. Zere ez no writeeng on your map at all."
Victoire rolled her eyes, looked at the old Slytherin banner, and waved her wand over it, "Revelio."
Konstantin's eyes widened and Noëlle's narrowed as the words appeared on the banner.
"Nice try Blondie, but how about you use the magic words next," Victoire read off from the banner.
Noëlle broke out into giggles, "Yez, zat ez abzolutely a mageecal map."
Konstantin shrugged his shoulder sympathetically, "It's okeey, neiver Noëlle or my maps vorked."
Victoire smirked, "Oh, I'm not done yet."
"Zen wat do you zink ze mageec wordz are?" Noëlle mocked.
"Hmm, well it is a Slytherin banner. And since it seems that I haven't been put through enough torture today, I'm guessing that the magic words are: Salazar Slytherin is the most talented and cunning Wizard in the entirety of Wizarding history," Victoire said confidently, even though she secretly wanted to throw up in her mouth for saying those traitorous words.
The banner glowed with bright white light before the green and silver fabric gave way to beige paper and black ink. Victoire scanned the paper greedily and was intrigued at what she saw. It seemed to be a half finished map of the entire boundaries of Hogwarts school grounds, only, it looks like it's from the underneath, Victoire thought as she noticed what looked like a drawing of roots and the underground tunnel near the words Whomping Willow, instead of a sketch of the tree like in a regular map. Hmm, interesting. I can't see exactly where it's going to lead, though, because it's not finished, but maybe after the next task . . .
"A-hem."
All three champions looked up to see Flannery glaring at them, or more specifically, Victoire. I guess he doesn't like it that the champions are getting along.
"Are you three finished?" Flannery asked, looking like his patience was about to run out.
They nodded mutely.
Flannery opened his mouth to speak, but Professor McGonagall stepped up and spoke out first, "Now that the champions have figured out who has a map and who doesn't, the scores for this part of the task seem pretty straight forward." McGonagall gave Flannery a specific look before gesturing to Mr. Grenville to announce the scores.
"It's a rather unanimous decision; Miss Varens will get four points for obtaining a map of similar appearance to that of the Hogwarts grounds. Mr. Krum will be given five points for finding a map of similar qualities to that of one of Hogwarts grounds. And Miss Weasley will be given a total of eight points, for finding, a correct map of Hogwarts grounds," Mr. Grenville broadcasted.
Noëlle, Konstantin, and Victoire stood as their audience applauded. When it started to die down Flannery called for everyone's attention, "And that concludes the first task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. The regular standings are as follows, Kr. Krum from Durmstrang Institute is in the lead with a thirty-seven, Miss Weasley from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is in second with thirty-five, and Miss Varens from Beauxbatons Academy is in last with thirty-three points. The standings for the special scores are as follows; Miss Weasley is in first with an eight, Mr. Krum in second with a six, and Miss Varens close behind him with a five."
Well there it is! I hoped you liked it!
A/N:
1.) Thank-you to everyone for their understanding, prayers, and good wishes for my friend and her family. They have gotten out of surgery and, well, they've got a lot of broken bones, but they're alive, and they will be able to recover from all the physical problems, so thanks again for the support. They aren't out of the woods yet, but they're much better than they were.
2.) This is the end of the First Task, but there's still a lot to go, the action will definitely be picking up from here on ;)
3.) I know the scoring system can sound a little confusing, but as you here more of it, you'll be able to get it, and undersatnd why I used it.
4.) Bad news: Exams are about to start in two weeks for me, which means I might not be able to update as soon as you'd like.
5.) Good news: After exams, the new symester starts, which means I've got a spare class, and I'll (hopefully) have more time to write, and get some chapters done ahead of time so I can update regularily.
6.) Next week, there's a littl less action, but some very invetive insults, and a lot of Teddy/Victoire fluff. Plus, some answers to some questions you guys might have had ;)
Reviewers! Thank-you so so so so much for reviewing it means a lot. And thnaks to everyone who's read, subscribed/favourited, or just enjoyed reading. I'd love to hear absolutely anything from all of you. Feedback helps me know what I'm doing right, and what I'm doing wrong ;)
An especially big thanks to:
Amara, mykk47, confusednikki24-7, and Just passing by.
xLauraElizabeth: Thanks so much. I'm sorry about the cliffhanger, but know you know what happened!
brilliant incandescence: I hope you liked it, I updated sooner than either of us thoguht! And wow, you said my writting's amazing, but after reading you're review it sounds more like I'm becoming predictable ;)
redwolf12: I'm glad that you liked how it mirrored Harry and Fleur's task, I was worried people would think that it was unoriginal, but I like giving JKR her props. Yes, Cecilia is a very interesting little girl, and she will become more interesting as time goes by . . . I love all the questions you asked, that's exactly what I wanted, and I hope I answered them to your satisfaction. Thank you, for your prayers, and don't worry, I am religious (a practicing Roman Catholic to be percise), but even if I wasn't I don't think showing that someone who is in need is in your thoughts is an insult. Even when the tricky topic of religion in concerned, saying that you'll pray to, whatever you choose to, shows that you fully support that person, in whatever way you can. I hope this chapter and the next continue to live up to (and maybe pass) your expectations :)
Yellowtomato: Wow, I'm so glad that you like my story. It's not Ron's scar . . . but Charlie has some cool ones too. ;)
SaphireRose17: I'm always glad to aid in the addiction of someone to literature in any form. 12 hours, wow, you're good, and again, wow, the best Teddy ever . . . well know I'm blushing, and probably going to get a big head, but thank-you for the ego-boost ;) And if you liked Teddy here, well just wait until the next chapter.