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Chapter Forty-Eight—The End

Harry sighs as Draco turns away from him yet again. He's making as much of an effort as he can with everyone else making demands on his time, but he doesn't know what's wrong with Draco, and he can't go after him as he strides out of the common room.

He has other things to contend with.

"I don't really see why I should go watch the Third Task, though," he says as pleasantly as possible to Lorna Blackstaff, who seems to be the leader of the older Slytherins who want him to be their lord. Right now, Blackstaff keeps advising him on "diplomatic" moves he can make regarding the Tournament. "I won't be competing, and it seems stupid to me to be encouraging the ones who are."

"Why, though?" demands Marius Selwyn. He likes to demand things. So far, it hasn't worked out well for him, what with demanding that Harry exclude certain people from the study group and that Harry show some "Slytherin pride" by trying out for the Quidditch team and that Harry stop speaking his mind so he won't get any more detentions. "They chose to compete."

"So at least you believe that I didn't put my name in the Goblet."

Selwyn flushes, although it's kind of hard to notice when his complexion is already ruddy. "I—yes, I believe that," he says in a rush. "But you should go and cheer for Hogwarts against Beauxbatons and Durmstrang."

"Why?" Harry asks. He looks around the common room. He's in the middle of it, near the fire, and people all around have stopped paying attention to their homework and books—or pretending to pay attention to them—and are focused on him. Harry sighs and reaches down to run his fingers up Chaos's neck. "What have the other schools done to us? Is the rivalry really that bad? I hadn't even heard of them before they came here."

"They're in other countries, Potter. That should be all you need."

Harry shrugs. He's listened to some of the conversations the older Slytherins have when they think they're alone, and sent Lion to listen to some of the others. "I know that most of you have a sibling in one of them. More Beauxbatons than Durmstrang, but I assume that's because of the last war and the reputation that some of your families have for practicing the Dark Arts."

Blackstaff groans aloud. "Potter, you can't just say things like that."

"Why not? People are honest about their feelings for me all the time here. I thought honesty was a Hogwarts tradition."

Blackstaff doesn't manage to conceal a smile. "Anyway, there are people who will think badly of you if you're not there to witness the Third Task."

"Second, really, it should be, since they never held the one in the lake after I interfered."

"Right. But you know that it would make people more comfortable, and that's a small thing. Why not come down and at least watch?"

"Because I have no interest in making people comfortable, not when they'd think I'm comfortable watching their farce of a Tournament that killed so many people in the past."

Blackstaff rubs her face for a second, as if she's tired. Harry wonders if he's the only one who can see her fighting furiously not to let her twitching mouth be seen. "All right. Fine. And you're going to keep on being honest?"

"Of course I am." Harry shrugs and faces the fire again, reaching out a hand to tickle the back of Chaos's neck as she lies down next to him. "I wouldn't know how to be anything else."


Draco paces around the lake, now and then glancing towards the Quidditch pitch and the high walls of the hedge maze that have been built around it. He knows that only three Champions will enter it tomorrow evening, and that he really shouldn't be all that concerned around it. After all, he's going to tell Harry tomorrow about the thing that Karkaroff gave Edgecombe.

Well, if not Harry, then Professor Snape. Surely.

Draco closes his eyes and takes a deep breath of warm midsummer air. He—he just can't stand that Professor Snape thinks he's weak and can't handle pain. If that's the real reason that he didn't pick Draco to guard Harry's mind and not just Theo's speculation, then Draco wants to wait to tell him. To show the professor that he is strong, and he can stand back and coolly consider the implications of danger and overcome people's distrust in him and forgive them for it.

He stops and kicks a small pebble into the water. It creates ripples, and for a second, Draco thinks he hears indignant twittering from the merfolk beneath the water.

It doesn't matter, though. Not much matters, except the fact that he's tried as hard as he can and shown strength and he doesn't even know if he's going home this summer, and everyone acts as though he's weak and contemptible anyway. Harry keeps asking him what's wrong, but he hasn't made the connection on his own that Draco's father hates him and wants to kidnap him.

Why is Draco the only one who remembers that?

"Look, Potter, I know that you don't have any reason to like or trust me."

Harry would be amused by the way that all his friends stop walking with him and turn to glare at Edgecombe, but it also means that she's hidden behind a wall of people and he can't see the expression on her face or judge if she's sincere. "Just a minute, Edgecombe," he says, and steps past Hermione, who lets him go with a loud sigh, and Ron, who's frowning.

Theo refuses to move out of the way. Cursing the Dursleys in his head for not feeding him properly, Harry tries to stand on his toes to see over his friend's shoulder. That doesn't work. Theo is too bloody tall. Harry lowers his voice. "Move out of the way, Theo."

"Why should I? She just stopped us to tell you a truth that you knew already."

"I do want to talk to Potter," Edgecombe says. "But I'm not going to do it in front of you, Nott. You frighten me."

Harry sighs and steps to the side. Theo steps with him. By now, Chaos is rumbling in her throat, but Harry honestly can't tell if it's at Theo or Edgecombe. "Theo. Am I, or am I not, what—you called me that night in the corridor?"

He hates using this as a weapon against Theo, especially since Harry never intends to claim the status of lord. From Theo's half-betrayed stare, he thinks the same. But he nods and steps aside.

That leaves Harry in front of Edgecombe, although he's not "alone" in any sense of the word. Chaos rears up on her haunches, her tail swishing from side to side. Edgecombe turns pale at the sight of her.

"What did you want to say?" Harry asks.

Edgecombe shudders a little and looks back at him, her eyes so blank that Harry wonders if she's going to run away. But then she shakes her head and manages to steady herself. "I want to know if you're ever going to forgive me and let me into the study group."

"Why do you want to be there?"

Edgecombe blinks, obviously not prepared to answer that question. Then she says, "Well, all my friends in Ravenclaw are. And they say they're learning important things. Dangerous things. Things that are hard, but they might let them survive the war."

Harry studies her. That's true as far as it goes, and he thinks Edgecombe is telling the truth about her reasons, too. "What do you think of Luna Lovegood?"

For a moment, Edgecombe's jaw trembles. Harry doesn't know what she's thinking. Then she straightens and tosses her head a little. "I don't know anyone named that. If you mean Loony Lovegood, then I could tell you what I think of her, and what I think of you for running around with her."

Harry narrows his eyes. For a second, Edgecombe seems to be at the end of a dark tunnel filled with flashing lightning bolts, which he doesn't understand. She shrinks back from him with a small cry, and he comes back to himself to realize that there really is lightning around him, and her hand is smoking.

Harry subdues his magic as carefully as he can. He didn't mean to do that, and that makes him shake. He has to do only what he does, or he could hurt people.

"Edgecombe…"

She turns and runs. Harry sighs as he goes back to his friends. At least that means that she probably won't approach him again.

Theo walks beside him all the down to the Great Hall and sits next to him and casts detection charms on his food. Harry is so busy rolling his eyes at him that he realizes, later, he didn't notice the moment when Draco disappeared again.

"You'd better make sure that you've made the right decision, Draco."

Draco feels himself tense with the urge to jump, but then he ignores Theo and stands up from the couch. "I'm going to go and talk to Professor Snape."

"Make sure you talk about the right things."

Draco spins on his heel. The common room is almost deserted; nearly all the Slytherins have gone with Harry, who said that he might "wander down" towards the Quidditch pitch and make loud comments about how useless the Tournament is. Certainly he and Theo are the only ones in this quiet, dark corner. But Draco keeps his voice to a low hiss anyway. "I want to know what you're talking about."

Theo pauses a moment, one finger resting on his Transfiguration essay as if he was actually working on it and is sorry to be interrupted. Then he turns to face Draco.

Draco stumbles back, clawing at the wall. His breath comes short and harsh, and for a second, he isn't sure that he'll live to cross the corridor to Professor Snape. The shadows in Theo's eyes are more feral than the ones in those of Harry's dragon.

"I know that you're smarting because you don't think Harry has paid enough attention to your little homelessness problem," Theo whispers. His voice has echoes that are nearly as frightening as the shadows in his eyes. "I know that you think no one cares about you and you've been having a fine sulk because of that. But I haven't troubled Harry with it because he thinks, for some absurd reason, that it would be better if you came to him and told him about it yourself. He doesn't want to take your freedom away."

"And what do you think?" Draco manages to stop his shaking and stand up straight. He's rewarded with a slight quirk of Theo's right brow.

"Me?" Theo tilts his head and leans back in his chair. "I think you've made some stupid decisions, because I believe you're hiding something other than your resentment." He blows out his breath. "But Harry doesn't want me to try and find that out, either. And his wishes are more important than my own."

"You—you looked at me as if you hated me."

"Did I?" Theo asks pleasantly. "I don't hate you, Draco."

"Then why did you look—"

"I wanted to show you what you'll be dealing with if your sulk hurts Harry in any way," Theo says softly, and looks back down at his essay. A minute later, he writes another line in a way that feels more dismissive than any time a professor has told Draco to leave detention.

Breathless, furious, and hurt, Draco runs from the common room. He will go to Professor Snape, he reassures himself as he pounds up the nearest corridor and towards the entrance to the school. Of course he will. He doesn't want to get Harry in trouble, and it's obvious that's what Karkaroff and Edgecombe are trying to do.

But he has to lose the impulse to weep first.

Chaos hisses as someone—Fleur, it sounds like—screams from the center of the hedge maze. Harry sighs and touches her back to make her sit down. She's more and more restless, and Charlie is getting more and more concerned about her refusal to fly. According to him, she should have been soaring by now, hunting her own food, and preparing for an independent existence. Either that, or she should be smaller and more dependent.

But the large, earthbound dragon she is is unnatural. Charlie glances at Harry every now and then, and Harry can see the suspicion in his eyes, that Harry may have hurt Chaos without meaning to because it's unnatural for a human to raise a dragonet.

Harry shakes his head. He would give almost anything to keep that from being true. If it is, though, he doesn't know what he can do about it. So far, Chaos shows no inclination to leave him or to stop accepting food from him.

Edgecombe walks towards him and then stops. Chaos's gut rumbles with what Harry knows could be a blast of devastating fire if she looses it. Harry presses down firmly and shakes his head. "What do you want, Edgecombe? I thought we had nothing more to say to each other after the way you insulted Luna."

Edgecombe closes her eyes. When she speaks, her voice is very small. "I just—did you know that I have almost no friends in Ravenclaw now?"

"Cho said that people have trouble getting along with you. She attributed it to your blood." Harry works very hard to keep the disbelief out of his voice. He's never been inside Ravenclaw Tower, and the only one of them he knows well, despite the presence of several of them in his study group, is Luna. Maybe Edgecombe really is having trouble because of being a half-blood, he thinks as he takes his hand off Chaos's head. He can't be sure.

Even if he also can't be sure that there aren't invisible pink unicorns dancing around the moon right now.

Edgecombe nods. "And I said that most of them are in your study group now. That includes Cho." She shakes for a second, her hands clenched, but turns to Harry. "I hate you for that."

"Okay," Harry says, holding up a hand that makes the shifting feet and wands behind him calm down. "Then you can say it, and after that, we can go our separate ways. I really don't want to stand here and hear from you about how much you hate me."

Edgecombe opens her eyes. Harry's a little horrified to see the sheen of tears in them. He's never been good with crying girls, unless he could do something like curse the people who were hurting them. He clears his throat, and Blackstaff makes a sound like a snort behind him.

"I hate you," Edgecombe repeats in a whisper, "but I didn't know what to do about it. Attacking you through that article didn't do any good. My friends being in your study group means they aren't really my friends anymore, and I can't get them back if I hurt you."

"Then just walk away," Harry says with a shrug, hiding his triumph that he guessed right about that article. "We don't have to interact. I'll try to make sure that no one I'm studying with bullies you, as long as you don't bully Luna again."

Edgecombe nods slowly. Then she abruptly lashes out with one hand. Harry stares at her incredulously. Is she really trying to attack him like a Muggle? She's too far away to punch him, anyway, and Harry wonders if she didn't know that because she's never done this before.

But then he understands, as the chain of a piece of jewelry hits him, and the world around him dissolves into the colors that he knows mean a Portkey.

The last thing he hears before he disappears is Chaos's angry roar.

The first thing he hears as he lands is a thick, blood-choked chuckle.

Severus sighs and sits back, rubbing his hand on his forehead. "Yes, I understand some of the reasons that you felt betrayed and abandoned, Draco." So far he has heard a great deal about that and not much about the reason that Draco sought him out in the first place, or the "important" news he has. "What else did you want to tell me?"

"I'm strong. I can handle pain."

"It is my judgment that you cannot," Severus says shortly. "Not physical pain, but also not emotional pain, because until these last eighteen months, you've not encountered much of it. And your resources must go to dealing with the uncertainty that your father has inflicted on you." He turns to a stack of essays in front of him. "Now, if that is all you came to tell me—"

"Karkaroff and Edgecombe are planning something to do with Harry."

Severus turns, and sees Draco flinch. "What do you mean?"

Draco takes a deep breath and tells Severus about the conversation he witnessed. Severus feels the chill settle deep in his stomach. He does believe that Igor Karkaroff sincerely turned his back on Voldemort, if only to save his own skin, but he retains contacts among Britain's Dark wizards, and he is desperate to prove that Viktor Krum, the boy he has invested considerable training time in, can win the Tournament. He would perhaps accept a weapon from someone without considering the source, as long as they had promised him that it would force Harry to enter the Tournament.

Or a Portkey.

The moment he thinks of that, Severus is running, pounding towards the Quidditch pitch where he knows Harry intended to wander to irritate the Tournament judges. Draco is coming behind him, shouting, but Severus ignores him. If he is too late because Draco wanted to wait and sulk…

Severus is not sure he can forgive that.