Night settled well into the wood as the coaches streamed through, following a dirt path lit by tall, iron lamps; its dull glow split into several floating orbs of varying sizes that wandered, though never far from its peak.

In one carriage, sitting quietly in the corner, Cedric watched the light of the moon bounce off dark-skinned hides; the creatures leisurely pulling them through the trees. Water sprang when their hooves hit the babbling brook and the leather coil jerked as they bounded forward, loosening pebbles; the wings that sprouted from each wither—vast, black and leathery as though they ought to belong to giant bats.

If he had had to give them a name, Cedric supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too; they were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and staring. When they had stood still and quiet in the gloom, the creatures seemed eerie and sinister, and yet they were easy to shy away—and safe enough, at least in Dumbledore's eyes, to escort students. Cedric felt puzzled that the coaches were pulled by these strange creatures when in the past, they were capable of moving along by themselves. Could Hogwarts have run out of money after last year's incident in the tournament? And more than that, why could he and Luna even see them in the first place? Why them but no one else? And why could Harry see, only sometimes?

As darkness claimed more of the forest, Cedric lost to his thoughts, eyes flickering to each lantern as he grew more and more unsettled by the questions that lay restless on his skin. Beside him, Harry—who also kept his eyes trained out the window—perked up, glimpsing the silhouettes moving beyond the trees. But as quickly as their outlines glinted in the reflection of his glasses, he slumped down again, realizing that nothing was there and that the coaches were as horseless as usual.
Occupying the seat in front of him and watching with mounted concern, Ron reached forward and touched Harry's shoulder.

"I don't think Hagrid'll be running alongside the coaches," he said, peering out as well.

"I'm not looking for him," Harry protested, though the reminder of their friend's absence did sour his mood further.

"Did everyone see that Grubbly-Plank woman?" asked Ginny, "What's she doing back here? Hagrid can't have left, can he?"

"I'll be quite glad if he has," said Luna, "He isn't a very good teacher, is he?"

"Yes, he is!" said Harry, Ron, and Ginny angrily. Harry glared at Hermione, who cleared her throat and quickly said, "Erm… yes… he's very good."

"Well, we think he's a bit of a joke in Ravenclaw," said Luna, unfazed.

"You've got a rubbish sense of humor then," Ron snapped, as the wheels below seemingly bumped on the road. Luna did not seem perturbed by Ron's rudeness; on the contrary, she simply watched him for a while as though he were a mildly interesting television program.

Feeling slightly awkward, Cedric turned to them and cleared his throat, "Well, lots of us at Hufflepuff think he's rather nice," he said. "He's the only one that the elves will let help in the kitchen… and he always slips the first-years extra biscuits afterwards, when he passes through the commons."

"Really?" said Harry, piqued at once. Ron also looked to him with incredulous eyes.

"Your common room is by the kitchen?!"

"Never mind that!" burst Hermione, suddenly excited, "The elves let him help?"

"Not when they can help it but," Cedric shrugged, "Every now and then? Yeah. He's the groundskeeper so they know him quite well."

"That's true—oh! Maybe he can help me with S.P.E.W!"

"You're still on about that?" moaned Ron. Hermione shot him a vexed look.

"As a club member, Ronald, you ought to be 'on about it' too!" she said, and before he could retort back, Ginny interjected by shooting out her hand.

"Er, what's… spew?" she asked, curiously.

"No, no, don't—!" Ron cried but Hermione's eyes had already begun to shine in a painfully familiar way, as she whisked out a newly painted donation tin and a box of handmade badges from under her uniform.

"How does she even keep it under there?!" Ron mumbled to Harry, though he could only shrug and watch as Hermione soon handed Cedric, Luna and Ginny shakily-drawn pamphlets from a stack of a dozen others that she had hidden up her sleeve.

"It's S-P-E-W," she corrected and ignoring Ron, "It stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

"Oh, I didn't know that the elves wanted to be free," said Luna, reading through her pamphlet carefully.

"Of course they do!" Hermione cried, "It's ridiculous how people can't seem to see that!"

The memory of Dobby briefly resurfaced in Harry's mind but he did not want to make the mistake of spurring Hermione on again without a safety net; it was possible that Ron would shoot him more daggers with his eyes than he did Ginny.

"I've only started it recently, so we don't have a lot of members yet," Hermione said, "but if any of you have spare Sickles and would like to…" she looked hopefully toward Cedric, who could only smile in an apologetic sort-of way.

"I'm sorry, Hermione, I'm still hoping to be on the Quidditch team this year."

"Oh," she said, turning pink, "That's right!"

A thick silence followed as Hermione fumbled to put her boxes away, and Luna put her pamphlet down on her lap—

"I'll join if you'd like," she said, raising her hand.

Surprised, Hermione whipped around, "R-Really?", the thick ends of her hair whacking Ron right in the mouth.

"Ow!"

"Shush!"

"Your pamphlet's very good. And it feels like a sound cause," Luna said, she took out two Sickles from a purse that looked very much like a boiled frog, (which caused Neville to immediately cradle the pocket with Trevor inside) and Hermione's face lit up with a genuine smile.

"I-.. It is a sound cause! Thank you, Luna!" she said, happily handing over one of the many badges from the box. Luna looped it along the many bottle-caps that crowded her necklace.

"I'll join too," said Ginny, taking out her own two Sickles.

"Wait, you have money?" Ron said, stunned.

"Yeah, Fred and George randomly gave me some the other day," she replied. Ron mouthed a puzzled "What?!" while Harry tried not to look too guilty. Suddenly, from the window, Cedric caught sight of rain-washed stone.

"We're nearly there!" he said, looking out the window, just as the carriage passed the two tall stone pillars that gated the school grounds. Leaning out of his own window, Harry attempted to discern whether any of the lights lit the interior of Hagrid's hut by the Forbidden Forest. However as they crossed the bridge, he was disappointed to see that the grounds below lay in complete darkness.

"He's not home!" Harry said, groaning slightly to himself as the longer he stared, the more uneasy he felt about the sight of a truly dark woodland; as if for a moment it truly was the Forbidden Forest simply because Hagrid's hut was not casting off light or its regular plumes of smoke. Sullen, Harry turned to relay the bad news when suddenly two dark and bony horses swerved into his line of sight and hurtling toward him.

The blood within his arms run cold, the same panic and stiffness that he had felt the first time he had seen the creatures, seeped into his body; shaking him. Before he could force himself inside, the coach jolted, hitting another bump below and violently, Harry lurched forward—keeling over the window like a rag doll.

"Dragon balls!" swore Ron, whipping upward. He struggled to move forward, staggering in the coach while in the same moment, a wide-eyed Hermione who had reached over to their dangling friend, flung backward as well.

"Harry!" she shrieked, muffled by the sound of Neville, Luna and Ginny were thrown and jostled over their seats.

Oblivious, Harry gaped at the horses, quickly able to make out their disconcerting skeletal faces as they thundered closer and louder. Winded and drooped over the window, he could no longer tell whether the voice that shrieked all manners of intermingling wizard and Muggle swear words was even inside his head before—"WOAH!"

Suddenly pulled from behind, he fell back into the carriage and landed roughly against Cedric who stared, bewildered, from above.

"Are you alright?!" said Neville, from under Ginny's limbs.

"Y-yes!" Harry panted. He watched as his friends untangled themselves before Hermione whipped to him in disbelief.

"What were you doing?!" she exclaimed.

"Looking at Hagrid's house! The horses just, er—!" Harry glanced between her and Cedric— "the coach just sped up,"

"Oh, they always do that! The road's wider now, see?" said Luna, straightening. All of them looked outside the window where another line of coaches had seemingly split from the initial one, filling in the dirt road that slowly stretched into cobblestone,

"Right," Harry said breathlessly, "Right."

As the others began to reorganize themselves—jumping, when the carriage behind hit the same bump on the road—Cedric steadied and helped Harry upright and watched as briefly he looked out once more, his startled eyes following the (what did Luna call them?) Thestrals, as they galloped past.

What was the condition? Why could Harry only see them sometimes?

It felt like if he could answer that question, maybe he could answer the others but for now; it would have to be left as another temporary mystery—Hogwart's castle looming ever closer; a towering mass of turrets, jet-black against the dark sky, here and there a window blazing fiery bright above them.

"We're back!" said Neville excitedly, sticking his head out the window. The others crowded behind Neville and stared in awe, while many more did the exact same inside their own coaches.

Harry stared at the castle, feeling slightly winded as though the edge of the coach's window still pressed against him.

"We're home," he whispered quietly. And as if it heard him, the castle's gigantic wooden gate creaked open, and the lines of carriages rolled through—Harry counting the beat of the Thestrals' hooves against the courtyard's stone floor.

The entrance hall was ablaze with torches and echoing footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to the Great Hall and the start-of-term feast.

From the front door, Harry could see that the four long House tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly to one another, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other Houses, eyeing tone another's new haircuts and robes. As they walked forward, Harry noticed people putting their heads together to whisper as he passed and he gritted his teeth, trying to act as though he neither noticed nor cared. But with more people swarming around the full light of the castle's torches, Harry could see more clearly that he was not the only object of scrutiny.

"Cedric—" he said, quickly. He made an attempt to grab the boy's arm but then hesitated, and instead waited for Cedic to turn before he lead him toward the edge of the Great Hall's doors. Already, there were many people leaning over the Hufflepuff table, trying to get a look at him, before he swiftly disappeared from the doorway.

"What's wrong?" he said, "Are you alright?"

"I ought to ask you that," said Harry, glancing past his shoulder.

Cedric frowned, "Five minutes ago, you nearly chucked yourself out the coach because you saw a Thestral—"

"—And you're seeing them all the time!"

"That's alright. I think if Luna's seeing them as well, it shouldn't be too out of the ordinary,"

"I don't think she's a good way to measure that…" murmured Harry quietly. He made a very pointed glare at a few peeking people behind them who scurried inside.

"Eyes up here, Harry," Cedric said half-joking, half-serious.

"Shush," said Harry distractedly. He let some ghosts, who eyed them with a cocked brow, pass overhead before he was satisfied to speak again.

"Look, I didn't get to follow up about your dreams… or about—" he paused— "... other things."

The hand that clenched his sleeves, grew sweaty. Though he deeply wanted to know, it was probably better not to directly mention Cho.

"We're talking now though," Cedric said.

"I meant in private—" Harry gestured behind them. Immediately more of the faces that walked by, looked to them as if on cue.

"When we settle in," Cedric promised, "We'll have plenty of time tomorrow."

Harry bit the inside of his cheek, almost not wanting to bring it up and yet it seemed vital in the moment, "You really think spending more time together is a good idea?" he asked, nervously. Cedric only looked at him as if he said something silly.

"It'd be stranger if the Boys Who Lied avoided each other, don't you think?"

"True," Harry said. He sighed but felt a little lighter on his feet, as the crowd of students filling into the Great Hall slowed to a trickle and the light inside gleamed bright, reaching far to the entrance hall's front steps.

"Thank you, by the way… pulling me in and er—earlier with Malfoy," Harry said, eyeing the door, though he didn't pay as much attention to the onlookers as before.

"Of course," Cedric replied. He looked at Harry a while, carefully considering his words. "Just—just don't be a stranger, eh?" Harry looked to him in mild surprise.

"And the same to you," he said.

"I won't," said Cedric, meeting his eyes.

Harry ignored the urge to grin widely; suddenly embarrassed like this was the first time he had ever talked to him.

"Alright then. Er… good," he said, blinking rather rapidly.

"Good." Cedric repeated. He began to smile in a way that Harry was almost certain he had never seen before.

"W-Well, it's time to go… I'll see you then—" he stammered, beginning to hurriedly push past, but Cedric quickly caught and grabbed him by the arm.

"No, no, no! Let's do this properly, c'mon—"

Pulling Harry forward, Cedric fearlessly walked with him inside the Great Hall, just as the doors closed behind.

Harry didn't know what he precisely had in mind in doing this but it seemed that no one else had the grace to play subtle any longer, as heads from as far as the opposite walls, turned and watched them staunchly walk in together. Fortunately, no one seemed to be holding their breath as the Great Hall echoed with the same level of noise and chatter it always did, but Harry could feel a rather prominent pounding inside his head; it pulsed so loudly that even his own attention was taken away from everyone around him, and focused only on Cedric's back as he followed him down the rows. When they had reached a gap between the tables, Cedric finally let go and patted Harry on the arm.

"Tomorrow," he mouthed, winking and then he walked off; leaving a trail of people trading looks and an oddly relieved yet sheepish Harry behind.

"Did you see that?" said someone, though he couldn't tell who or from where.

"Yeah, seems like they're still friends—"

"You don't really think Diggory would fraternize with him if he wasn't crazy himself, right?" said someone else.

"Well, from what I'm seeing, it looks like they've both gone binty—"

"Shhh!"

Yes, please shut up, Harry thought, practically running down the aisle. He ignored Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, who gave airy, overly friendly greetings that made him quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second before and slipped in between Ron and Hermione, covering his red ears and feeling every bit as mortified while also—and at the same time—bathing in something that strangely felt a lot like pleasure; as he dared to not look back at Cedric's figure across the tables.

"What the hell was that?" said Ron, quizzically.

"I don't know, he just—he wanted to make a statement or something, I think, and—"

Ron turned around as if he had barely noticed that Harry just arrived, "Huh?"

"Oh, er—what were you talking about?"

"Over there!" Ron said, pointing toward the front. Harry followed his finger and looked over the students' heads to the staff table, that ran along the top wall of the Hall.

"D'you mean Grubbly-Plank sitting in Hagrid's seat?" he asked, with unease.

"What?" Ron looked over in shock, "Blimey! Well… that's important too, but look at Dumbledore…"

Professor Dumbledore sat in his high-backed golden chair at the center of the long staff table, wearing deep-purple robes scattered with silvery stars and a matching hat. Dumbledore's head was inclined toward the woman sitting next to him, who was talking into his ear. She looked, Harry thought, like somebody's maiden aunt: squat, with short, curly, mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan she wore over her robes. Then she turned her face slightly to take a sip from her goblet and he saw, with a shock of recognition, a pallid, toadlike face and a pair of prominent, pouchy eyes.

"It's that Umbridge woman!" Harry said, wide-eyed.

"Who?" said Hermione.

"She was at my hearing—she… she works for Fudge!"

"What's she doing here then?" wondered Ron, aloud.

"She must be that new staff member" Hermione murmured anxiously, "The one that barred Cedric from being Prefect,"

"Oh—dragon balls!" Harry said, having learning that particular swear from Ron before. Suddenly the doors flew open and McGonagall's black hat poked behind the rows of heads, leading a group of terrified first-year's down the aisle. As she made her way forward, the chatter and wild laughter dwindled to an almost instant silence, attributed to the fact that McGonagall's lips were pursed in a thinner line than Harry had ever seen before, and that her brow had slanted so sharply, she looked more like a hawk.

"She's looking right at that Umbridge woman, d'you see?" Ron said in a low voice.

"Yeah," Harry said, a little bit glad that he was not the only one that disliked her too.

"By the way, where were you?" Hermione whispered.

"Later," he said.

Throughout the evening, Harry didn't take his eyes off Umbridge's pink frame, and despite the lightheadedness that he felt before; he couldn't get over the very bad feeling that persisted in the pit of his stomach.

Climbing through a portrait shortcut and dejected that Ron and Hermione gone to lead the first-years through the stairs, Harry felt perhaps the most tired than he had ever been.

"What do you think that new teacher was talking about?" said Neville, behind him. Inadvertently, Harry shuddered. In his head, "Progress for progress's sake must be discouraged," tinkled in that high-pitched, breathy, and little-girlish voice and again, Harry felt a powerful rush of dislike that he could not explain to himself; all he knew was that he loathed everything about her, from her stupid voice to her fluffy pink cardigan.

"It made as much sense as the Sorting Hat's new song, I suppose," he said, trying to shake down the tremors inside his stomach.

"Oh! Well I liked that much better than her speech," Neville said, "And never since the founders four, were whittled down to three, have the Houses been united, as they once were meant to be—… it was rather nice," he said after singing.

"You have a really nice voice, Neville," said Harry, mindlessly and from behind, he could feel his friend positively radiate with energy.

"Thanks Harry!"

They walked through the mostly empty hallways—save for the few students who also knew how to navigate the castle—and Harry climbed into the Fat Lady's entrance, with Neville singing more of the Sorting Hat's verses under his breath. The Gryffindor common room was welcoming as ever, a cozy circular tower room full of dilapidated squashy armchairs and rickety old tables. A small fire crackled merrily in the grate and a few people were warming their hands before going up to their dormitories, and on the other side of the room, Fred and George Weasley were pinning something on the notice board.

Harry waved good-night to them and headed straight for the door to the boys' dormitories, feeling unavailable for talking at the moment. As he and Neville approached the dormitory, they realized that the others had reached their room first, and were in the process of covering the walls beside their beds with posters and photographs.

"Oh, good!" Harry breathed, excited to see Dean but more specifically Seamus's figure.

Here's my chance, he thought, to apologize. But before Harry could push the half-open door further, he watched as Dean placed his hand on Seamus's slumped shoulders, and immediately froze—causing Neville to bump into him.

"What's going o—"

"—Shh!" Harry pointed through the crack of the door. Neville's face dropped.

"Oh no! Is he crying? Seamus—!" Neville pushed past and swung the door wide open, much to Harry's horror. "Are you O.K?"

"Oh, Neville, Harry!" Dean turned around, surprised. Seamus's back snapped straight immediately. "He isn't—Seamus's just sulking, he's had a rubbish holiday..."

"Why, what happened?" Neville asked as he placed his Mimbulus mimbletonia tenderly on his bedside cabinet. Harry gingerly walked inside the room, embarrassed that he misinterpreted the situation.
As he began to unpack on his bed, he noticed that Seamus did not answer immediately; rather he stood up and made a meal of ensuring that his poster of the Kenmare Kestrels Quidditch team was quite straight. Then he said, with his back still turned to Harry, "Me mam didn't want me to come back."

"What?" said Harry, pausing in the act of pulling off his robes.

"She didn't want me to come back to Hogwarts," Seamus turned away from his poster and pulled his own pajamas out of his trunk, still not looking at Harry.

"But—why?" said Harry, astonished. He knew that Seamus's mother was a witch and could not understand, therefore, why she had become so Dursley-ish.

Seamus did not answer until he had finished buttoning his pajamas.

"Well," he said in a measured voice, "I suppose… because of you an' Diggory."

"What d'you mean?" said Harry quickly. His heart was beating rather fast. It felt vaguely as though something was closing in on him.

"Well," said Seamus again, still avoiding Harry's eyes, "she… er… well, it's not just you two, it's Dumbledore too…"

"She believes the Daily Prophet?" said Harry, realizing, "She thinks we're liars and Dumbledore's an old fool?"

Seamus looked up at him. "Yeah, something like that."

Harry said nothing. He threw his wand down onto his bedside table, pulled off his robes, stuffed them angrily into his trunk, and pulled on his pajamas.

He was sick of it; sick of the people stared at and talked all the time as if they were pointing and looking at some dumb, caged animals. If any of them knew—if any of them had the faintest idea what it felt like to be the one all these things had happened to…!

Harry felt something stab inside him, the image of Cedric's body curled up in that dark corner, his thinned frame, the fleeting hollowness that lingered in those eyes each morning…

Mrs. Finnigan had no idea, no idea at all—the stupid woman, he thought savagely.

He got into bed and made to pull the hangings closed around him, but before he could do so, Seamus said, "Look… what did happen that night when… you know, when… with Cedric and all?"

"Don't say his name if you're rubbing it in the dirt!" Harry snapped, suddenly flaring when Seamus sounded nervous and eager at the same time. Dean, who had been bending over his trunk, trying to retrieve a slipper, went oddly still and Harry knew he was listening hard.

"And what are you asking me for?" Harry continued, unable to stop himself, "Just read the Daily Prophet like your mother, why don't you? That'll tell you all you need to know!"

"Don't you have a go at my mother," barked Seamus.

"I'll have a go at anyone who calls hi—me a liar," Harry said.

"Don't talk to me like that!"

"I'll talk to you how I want," said Harry, his temper rising so fast he snatched his wand back from his bedside table. "If you've got a problem sharing a dormitory with me, go and ask McGonagall if you can be moved! That'll stop your mummy worrying—"

"Leave my mother out of this, Potter!"

"What's going on?"

Ron appeared in the doorway. His wide eyes traveled from Harry—who was kneeling on his bed with his wand pointed out—to Seamus, who was standing there with his fists raised.

"He's having a go at my mother!" he yelled.

"What?" said Ron, "Harry wouldn't do that—we met your mother, we liked her…"

"That's before she started believing every word the stinking Daily Prophet writes about me!" said Harry at the top of his voice.

"Oh," said Ron, comprehension dawning across his freckled face. "Oh… right."

"You know what?" said Seamus heatedly, casting Harry a venomous look. "He's right, I don't want to share a dormitory with him anymore. He's a madman!"

"That's out of order, Seamus," said Ron whose ears—unlike Harry—were always a danger sign when they started to glow red.

"Out of order, am I?" shouted Seamus, who in contrast with Ron was turning paler. "You believe all the rubbish he an' Diggory have come out about You-Know-Who then, do you? You reckon they're telling the truth?"

"Yeah, I do!" said Ron angrily.

"Then you're mad too," said Seamus in disgust.

"Yeah? Well unfortunately for you, pal, I'm also a prefect!" said Ron, almost spitting as he jabbed himself in the chest with a finger. "So unless you want detention, watch your mouth!"

For a few seconds, Seamus glowered as though detention would be a reasonable price to pay to say what was going through his mind; but with a noise of contempt he turned on his heel, vaulted into bed, and pulled the hangings shut with such violence that they were ripped from the bed and fell in a dusty pile to the floor.

Ron glared at Seamus, then looked at Dean and Neville.

"Anyone else's parents got a problem with Harry?" he said aggressively.

"My parents are Muggles, mate," said Dean, cautiously. "They don't know nothing about no deaths at Hogwarts, because I'm not stupid enough to tell them."

"You don't know my mother, she'll weasel anything out of anyone!" Seamus grumbled. "Anyway, your parents don't get the Daily Prophet, they don't know our headmaster's been sacked from the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards because he's losing his marbles—"

"Shut it, Seamus!" Harry scoffed.

"What? You're protecting Dumbledore too?!"

"Merlin, just go to bed! The both of you!" Ron cried out, exasperated.

Without hesitation, Seamus got out his wand, repaired the bed hangings, and vanished behind them. Dean got into bed and rolled over, before he too fell silent, while Neville—who up until now had been extremely focused at his moonlit cactus—slipped into his blankets as well, pulling the covers right up to his chin.

Harry sat back on his bed while Ron bustled around the next one, putting his things away. He caught his friend's arm and then surprised himself, when he whispered a very small and unsteady, "Thank you, Ron."

Harry couldn't look him in the eye.

It felt damning to have Seamus look and argue with him like that, especially when Harry had always liked him very much.

But how many more people were going to suggest that he was lying or unhinged? Had Dumbledore suffered like this all summer, as the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards had thrown him from their ranks? Was it anger at Harry, perhaps, that had stopped Dumbledore getting in touch with him for months?

And what about Cedric?
Already, he had been hurt in ways that couldn't compare to simple demotions but Harry knew that having his status as Quidditch Captain and Prefect taken away had cut deep. The two of them were in this together, with Dumbledore being the one who had believed them, and announced their version of events to the whole school and then to the wider Wizarding community and yet; it was their reputations, not Harry's, that had been damaged the most. It was their lives that had seemingly taken a horrible turn because anyone who thought Harry was a liar had to think that both Cedric and Dumbledore were too, or else that they had been hoodwinked—it was all his fault.

Swiftly, and as if this all had been spelt out on his face, Harry felt something lightly swat the back of his head before a hand pulled him into a hug.

"Don't mind it," Ron mumbled to him gently, and then in a louder voice, he said, "Good night, Harry."

"Good night, Ron," Harry said, weakly. He climbed into his bed and Ron extinguished the last lit candle, dousing the dormitory in both silence and darkness.

Though he desperately wanted to sleep, Harry's eyes stayed open as one by one he heard Seamus, Ron and Dean breathe in that slow and deep way, still somewhat comforting despite all that happened. One hour ticked by, and then another before suddenly, Harry's ears pricked, the bed next to his creaking as someone shifted slightly.

"Harry," Neville whispered, as he turned to face him, "My gran thinks it's all rubbish. She says it's the Daily Prophet that's going downhill, not Dumbledore so she's canceled our subscription. We believe Harry,"

"...Thank you, Neville," Harry whispered back, and though he couldn't see it in the dim moonlight, he could picture Neville smiling back and felt a sudden rush of gratitude.

They'll know we're right in the end, he thought, firmly. It was only a matter of time. But how many attacks like Seamus's, would he and Cedric have to endure before that time came?

Harry didn't know. He could only hope that Cedric fared better tonight.

And so, feeling slightly less miserable, Harry let himself fall into deep slumber.