Boxing Day dawned and since Winona hadn't slept at all the night before, she watched the sun as it rose over the mountains in the distance. The girls were all asleep in their beds, and when it grew closer to when they would wake she retreated back into her bed and securely shut the curtains, sealing her inside.

Pulling out her watercolours, she silently painted, and painted and painted, until her hand was cramped and her neck hurt from craning over the paper. It was the only way she knew to calm herself, to keep from drowning in her own swirling thoughts.

Her dorm mates began to wake, but Winona didn't make a sound, just dabbing the end of her brush against her sketchbook, layering colour over colour, the artwork an outpouring of her inner turmoil.

Angelina and Alicia were talking to one another in low voices, but Winona didn't care to listen in. She focused all of her attention on her piece, blocking them out as she worked. She wondered, at one point, whether they might try and wake her. But then she heard the door creak shut as they left for lunch in the Great Hall.

Once she was sure she was alone, Winona called for Dobby, then asked him to bring her some food. She ate quickly, purely so she wouldn't feel faint, then turned her full attention back to her sketchbook.

Nobody came looking for her, for which she had to admit she was grateful. She needed time alone, space to clear the fog in her brain. There was so much going on up in her head, it was like a brass band was playing on a loop.

She didn't know what to do – did she confront Fred about his supposed 'feelings'? Did she make a move and hope for the best? Was 'the best' even something she wanted? And what about Angelina? How would she play into this whole thing? Would their friendship be ruined forever?

There were so many uncertainties, so many possibilities that her head was swimming with them. She wished, abruptly, that she could see the future, if only to know what she should do next.

It took her an embarrassingly long amount of time to realise that was probably the one thing she actually could do. Slapping herself lightly on the face, she hurried to set her herbal candles burning, opening her sketchbook to a brand new page and pulling out a simple stick of charcoal.

Then she shut her eyes and began to search.

Like a gushing river made up of endless possibility, the future was a dangerous thing. Go in too deep and you could get caught in the current of the water, never to come out again.

But Winona had been practising. She'd been learning and listening and testing the waters on her own. She wasn't an expert by any stretch of the word, but she knew how to navigate the current of time well enough to know she wouldn't drown.

But just because she was good at it now, that didn't mean her Inner Eye was eager to comply. She dipped her feet into the river, but nothing came. She could see flickers, faraway snippets of possibilities that teased her with their blurriness, but nothing concrete slipped by.

Coming out of her trance, Winona blinked down at the blank page in front of her, disappointment like a brick in her gut. Why was it that, when it mattered most, she couldn't make herself See anything?

"Maybe because your motives are selfish, this time…" an unwelcome little voice whispered inside of her head, one that sounded strangely like Dumbledore, and she exhaled in a sharp puff, slamming her sketchbook shut and collapsing back into her pillows.

She wasted away the hours with her paints, and by the time dinner rolled around, she was ready to call for an elf to bring her something to eat – just so she wouldn't have to go down to the Great Hall and face Fred – when the door to the sixth years' dorm burst open.

Winona yelped in fright, and she didn't even have time to ask who it was before someone was ripping her curtains open. Light streamed in and Winona found herself staring into the eyes of an utterly unimpressed Ginny Weasley.

"Gin?" Winona asked in surprise, relaxing from where she'd been clutching her sketchbook to her chest in shock.

"What're you hiding up here for?" Ginny asked without preamble. But that was Ginny for you; always straight to the heart of the matter.

"I'm not hiding," Winona lied, already beginning to put away the various pencils and brushes she had scattered around herself like some kind of sad, artistic confetti.

"Then what are you doing?"

"…Sketching," she said, waving her sketchbook in the air like it was proof. Ginny hardly looked convinced. "Last night was draining. I wanted a day to myself. Is that a crime?"

Ginny rolled her eyes as though she were being awfully tiresome. "You think I don't know this is about Fred?"

Winona's hackles rose at the words. "What? How? Did George say something?" she demanded, but quickly realised her mistake as Ginny's expression melted from curiosity into something smug and victorious.

"Stab in the dark, actually," she said proudly. "But I'd say that just about tells me everything I need to know." Winona ground her teeth together in irritation, but Ginny's grin never wavered. "I saw you two dancing last night – did something happen?" she pressed stubbornly. Winona winced. "Something did happen?" she gasped. "Oh Merlin, did you snog him?" she asked in a horrified sort of a voice.

"No," Winona wanted to roll her eyes in exasperation, but kept from doing so in fear of igniting the little firecracker further. "It's nothing like that. Nothing happened – really," she insisted when Ginny's expression flattened in disbelief.

"Well, it certainly looked like you wanted something to happen, while you were dancing with him," Ginny argued.

Winona winced again, uncomfortable under Ginny's watchful, knowing eyes. "What do you want, Ginny?"

To Winona's surprise, Ginny's cheeks turned a soft pink. "Harry asked me to check on you," she revealed. "I think he's worried because you weren't at lunch. I told him you were probably just hungover, but…" she said quietly, a meek sort of look to her eyes.

"What's going on there?" Winona asked coyly.

Ginny flushed an even darker red. "Leave it, Win."

"I'll leave you alone about my cousin, if you leave me alone about your brother," Winona bargained.

"That sounds an awful lot like extortion," Ginny grumbled.

"Hardly," Winona smiled, large and wolfish. "This is simply an agreement between friends."

Ginny hardly looked pleased, but she wasn't about to argue the truce Winona had just struck. "All right," she muttered with a sigh, before the expression abruptly turned into an impish sort of grin. "But the truce is over when I get to make my speech at the wedding," she said brightly.

"Are you looking to get hexed?"

Ginny grinned with all the brilliance of the sun. "Come on, Winnie," she said, reaching for her arm to forcefully tug her from her bed. "At the very least, put on some proper trousers and come eat something with the rest of us."

Winona grumbled back unintelligibly as she disappeared into the bathroom, brushing her teeth and hair, and washing her face before changing into an old pair of jeans and a blue, holey sweater.

"Lovely," Ginny smiled at the sight of her. "You look much more human now."

"What did I look like before?" Winona asked begrudgingly.

"Cross between a goblin and the giant squid."

"Great," she muttered, threading her ever-present bag over her shoulder and reluctantly trudging down from the dorm after Ginny. The common room was mostly empty, but Winona spied Harry, Ron and Hermione all standing by the fire, warming their hands with the flames.

"Found her," Ginny announced as they appeared. "But let me tell you, it wasn't easy getting her out of bed."

The trio broke away from their conversation to look at the two girls with varying degrees of interest. Winona cast the room a quick glance, relieved to find neither the twins, nor Lee or the girls, in the common room. They were probably already down at dinner, and Winona felt her shoulders slump with relief.

"You feeling all right, Winnie?" Harry asked her worriedly.

"Fine, Boy-Wonder," she replied, singing an arm around his shoulders and already beginning to drag him towards the doors. Now that she thought about it, she was getting rather hungry. "How was your night at the ball?" she asked conversationally as the group of them made their way down to the Great Hall, the others chatting lowly from behind them.

Harry grimaced like the last thing he wanted to think about was the ball from the night before. "More trouble than it was worth, really," he muttered, and Winona laughed at his honesty.

"You didn't dance with anyone interesting?" she pressed impishly.

Harry's grimace only deepened. "Hardly," he said, and she wholeheartedly believed him. "What about you?" he added, hoping to get the focus off himself. "You seemed to be having a good time early in the night. Lost track of you halfway through, though."

"You know me," she waved her hand as if swatting the question away. "So many dances, so little time," she said flippantly, although the feeling in her gut was anything but carefree. A sort of looming dread hung low in her stomach, making it feel like gravity was working extra hard to pull her down through the earth. She probably wouldn't complain if the ground offered to open up and swallow her whole. It would be a nice break from the rest of humanity, at least.

"We need to visit the library in the morning," Hermione was saying to Ron from behind them, her voice laced with authority. "The research alone for that essay in History of Magic is going to take the better part of a day to complete."

"Christmas was only yesterday, 'Mione," Ron argued back stubbornly. "Cut us some slack."

"OWLs are next year, Ron," she reminded him tartly. "We can't afford to slack off now. These exams aren't going to be easy. Just ask Winnie," she said, and Winona winced at being dragged into their usual bickering. It was irritating enough to witness, let alone be a part of. "Right?" she pressed when the sixth-year said nothing. "OWLs aren't exactly a walk in the park, are they?"

Winona glanced over at her cousin, who shot her a smirk at her forced involvement in the discussion. "They're really not," she sighed. "Hardest exams I've ever done. But then, to be fair, I barely did any study leading up to it. Just crammed like hell in the nights before," she admitted.

"And you still got four OWLs," said Ron as though he'd just won the whole argument.

"Only four OWLs is nothing to brag about, Ronald," sniped Hermione sharply, then winced as she realised what she'd said. "Er, sorry, Winona," she said awkwardly.

Winona waved a hand indifferently. "If I got upset every time someone insulted my intelligence, I'd be a wreck," she replied. "Being blonde is as much a curse as it is a blessing, y'know?" she added with a flip of her pale hair. "You've no idea how many jokes I have to suffer through every day. Mainly from Lee."

The Great Hall was almost completely full by now, but the food had yet to appear. Winona walked up the aisle, following close to Harry's side and intending to sit with him and his friends, before she suddenly spied a familiar head of fiery red hair enthusiastically waving her over.

Harry saw George too, and he paused in his journey to the empty spots up at the other end of the table. "Are you still feeling sick?" he asked, noticing her hesitation.

"Nah," Winona said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Like I said, I'm fine."

She considered ignoring George and just following Harry to his place, but by now Lee and Alicia had spotted her as well, and they too were frantically waving her over, still half laughing from some joke they'd made. She knew she couldn't pretend she hadn't seen them, and choked back a sigh as she nudged Harry along.

"Enjoy dinner. I'll see you later?" she checked. Harry nodded his head, casting her a final, concerned sort of a look before following his friends further up the table.

Winona grit her teeth, took a deep, relaxing breath then pasted the most convincing smile she had onto her face and slid into the open seat between Alicia and Angelina. She'd only just barely sat down when the food magically appeared on the table, but not even that was enough to put a stopper in her friends' questions.

"Where've you been all day?" asked Lee, heaping more than his fair share of carrots onto a plate.

"I thought I heard you up early this morning, but then you were asleep when we woke up," added Alicia.

Not true, but Winona wasn't going to tell her that. She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "Too much to drink last night," she said flippantly as she chose pork chops from the pile, then heaped the steamed broccoli onto her plate. She hadn't been planning to look up at Fred, but like they were magnetised, she glanced at him in the same moment he glanced at her.

She was expecting it to be full of awkward tension – which was ridiculous, really, because nothing had even happened between them – but instead he cracked a smile, small and tentative, testing the waters. Relief shot through her veins like the effects of a potion, and she smiled back, pointedly ignoring the way her heart raced in her chest.

George was doing a terrible job of trying not to look satisfied with the brief, subtle exchange, and Winona kicked him in the shin in reprimand. He grunted into his carrots and she gave a satisfied smirk of her own.

Dinner went by easily, Alicia, George and Lee carrying most of the conversation – something about whether or not McGonagall and Dumbledore were ever a thing.

"Impossible," Winona murmured to Fred across the table.

"Why?" he asked back, mostly focused on the debate their friends were having.

"Let's just say that Dumbledore beats for the other team," she muttered. Fred promptly choked on his pumpkin juice.

From her left, Angelina was strangely silent. She didn't even engage in their friends' lively discussion about their Headmaster's love life, which Winona thought was odd. But she didn't know how to bring it up, so contented herself with chuckling at their friends' debate and struggling to ignore the tingle of awareness she felt at Fred's close proximity.

Dinner ended and they all moved with the flow of the students making their way back up to Gryffindor Tower.

"Okay, but you've gotta admit, Dumbledore has no game," Lee was arguing stubbornly.

"Like you'd know anything about game," scoffed Alicia.

Winona laughed, winding arms with the quick-witted girl and grinning at a pouting Lee.

"What do you mean? I have game. I ooze game!"

"Not something you want to shout in a busy corridor, Lee," Winona told him with a large grin of amusement.

"You're just bitter 'cause you're single," he sniped back quickly.

"And you're not?" she countered.

"Please," scoffed Alicia. "If Lee had ever actually managed to pull, he'd be shouting it from the Astronomy Tower."

Winona laughed along with the others, the sound growing when Lee pouted again. They climbed through the portrait hole into the semi-crowded common room. "Anyone up for an Exploding Snap tournament?" Lee asked them eagerly, pulling a small bundle of cards from his pocket.

There was agreements all around – except for Angelina, who declined with a quiet, "I think I'm just gonna head up to bed."

"Oh, come on, Ange," bemoaned Katie. "Play a few rounds with us!"

"No, thanks. Too tired," said Angelina shortly, before turning and padding up the stairs towards the dormitories. The others stared after her, all left with a feeling of discontent at the abrupt exit.

"What's that about?" Alicia demanded, turning to narrow her eyes at Fred in accusation. "What did you do?"

"What?" Fred squawked. "Me? I didn't do anything."

"Of course you did something," scoffed Katie. "She was wearing her 'Fred Did Something' face."

"No, she wasn't," he argued petulantly. "And there isn't a face for that."

Katie, Lee and Alicia exchanged slightly sympathetic looks, as if poor Fred was just beyond help in such matters. Winona rolled her eyes, taking a seat on the edge of the couch as the others all climbed various places to begin their tournament.

They forgot about Angelina rather quickly, caught up in the game and the merriment of the evening. All except Winona and Fred, who couldn't help but shoot the stairs worried, uncomfortable glances every other minute, both stuck with the horrible, sinking feeling that they'd each done something neither knew how to fix.


If Winona had thought that the events of the Yule Ball would change anything, she was mistaken. The next week passed without issue or drama of any sort, and before she knew it they were all back in their regular classes.

Things were much the same between them all, apart from Fred and Angelina, who – while still considered a couple – were tense and awkward whenever they were together. Nobody brought attention to it, too afraid to make the waves that would capsize their boat, but everybody could see it.

It was rather like a train wreck one couldn't look away from, Winona mused. She knew it was only going to end in disaster. And she didn't feel happy about it in the slightest.

She wasn't eagerly waiting for Fred and Angelina to be over so she could swoop in and take him for herself. In fact, even if her two friends hadn't still been together, she doubted anything would have changed between her and Fred. She supposed they were both too stubborn for their own good.

Or maybe they were just afraid.

Tension lingered between Winona and Fred, like something simmering under the surface of their skin whenever they were in the same room. It went utterly unspoken, and Winona did her best not to spend any more time than strictly necessary meeting Fred's cornflower stare. She was exceptionally careful, taking care not to brush his skin or laugh too hard at his jokes.

So things were business as usual; except really, really not.

The weeks passed, and soon it was the middle of January. It was a particularly frosty day when Winona, Lee and the twins all wandered down the hill towards Hagrid's hut, where their usual Care of Magical Creatures class was held.

Only it wasn't Hagrid who greeted them, but rather a vaguely familiar figure with gnarled joints and a prominent chin. "Professor Grubbly-Plank?" asked George, recognising the teacher as the previous Care of Magical Creatures professor, who had left two years previously to enjoy retirement.

"Where's Hagrid?" Winona asked immediately, feeling her skin prickle in that way it sometimes did when something was wrong, but she didn't quite know what.

"Indisposed," grunted Grubbly-Plank tersely.

"Indisposed how?" Winona pressed stubbornly.

Grubbly-Plank's eyes narrowed into slits and Winona tilted her chin up, meeting the older witch's stare without fear. Unfortunately, Grubbly-Plank didn't seem to feel like going toe to toe with a student today, so she turned away with a small grunt of disinterest.

"If you'll all follow me," she called to the class once she was sure they were all present and accounted for, "our lesson today will take place down at the paddocks."

They began walking, but Winona kept pace with the Lee and Fred, unable to let it go. "I feel like something bad's happened to Hagrid," she whispered to them, concern thick in her chest.

"Didn't you read the paper this morning?" asked Lee. He turned his body, walking backwards as he told them what had happened. "Skeeter outed Hagrid as being a half-giant," he revealed with a grimace. "I always just thought he had big bones – I never thought Dumbledore would hire an actual half-giant."

Winona was confused by the animosity in her friend's voice, until she remembered the year before in History of Magic when Binns had lectured about the Giant Wars for five weeks straight. It had been on the exam. She'd gotten a Poor.

"Lee," she began, sharp and reproachful, "you can't actually think Hagrid's dangerous just because he's half-giant. You've known the guy six years. He wouldn't hurt a fly."

Lee frowned, and Winona grew angry with his attitude. "He's been lying about what he is for years, Winnie," he argued. "Innocent people don't hide that sort of thing."

Anger surged through her, taking offence to his callous words. "I lied about what I was, too," she reminded him tartly. Lee blinked in surprise, suddenly seeing her point. "If you want to hold that against him, you sure as hell had better hold it against me, as well."

He didn't seem to know how to reply, and for once Fred said nothing, knowing better than to get in the middle of that, lest Winona bite his head off, too. "All right," Lee reluctantly conceded, "you might have a point."

"You're damn right I do," she muttered.

A ripple of gasps filtered through their class, and Winona turned to see they were now standing at the edge of the school's paddocks. First she saw the Beauxbatons' horses, large and imposing as they chewed on the nearby tufts of green grass, but she realised quickly that they weren't the reason they were there.

In the far paddock was a perfect, pristine unicorn tied to a post, its pure white mane sparkling in the daylight. Winona's hands came up to cover her mouth in surprise, staring at the living, breathing picture of innocence stood before her.

"I know you covered unicorns in this class two years ago," Grubbly-Plank began, "but seeing as we now have a live specimen to observe, I thought you'd appreciate the look." As one, everybody inched forwards. "Girls only, I'm afraid," said their substitute professor. "Unicorns prefer a woman's touch."

The boys wilted, disappointed. "Why do girls get to have all the fun?" whined Fred, and Winona snickered as she followed the rest of the girls in the class inside the paddock.

The unicorn had its head bowed, its magical horn seeming to glow in the rare beams of Scottish sunlight. It looked up as they approached but otherwise didn't move, watching the girls approach with wide, patient eyes.

"One at a time," Grubbly-Plank told them sternly.

Anita Charleston, a rather stout Slytherin girl with green extensions in her hair, walked up to it first. The unicorn whinnied quietly but allowed Anita to place her hand on its pristine coat.

Winona hung back, keeping close to the fence and watching as one by one the girls in her class moved over to the unicorn, taking their turn patting it and giggling amongst one another at its beauty.

"Andrews," said Grubbly-Plank, nudging her forwards to the magical beast.

Winona cautiously held up a hand, slowly approaching the unicorn, hoping to prove she wasn't a threat. The unicorn whinnied again, but after a moment she dropped her snout into Winona's hand.

Her coat was smoother and softer than anything Winona had ever felt before, and the kind of warm that made her want to curl up and sleep.

"Hey girl," she whispered, running her hand along her strong jaw. The unicorn gave a soft snort, bumping her snout into Winona's face. Winona laughed lightly, taking in the strange way her magic seemed to tingle within her, like it sensed the pure magic of the unicorn and had begun to sing in reply. "You're gorgeous," she added quietly, resting her head against the place between the creature's eyes, closing her own and breathing in her sweet, beautiful scent.

She wanted to stay there forever, basking in the unicorn's unadulterated magic, but fate had other plans. There was a surge of power, like her magic had suddenly intertwined with the unicorn's, amplifying it by a thousand.

The vision hit her suddenly, sweeping her up under the current of time like a wave at the beach. She couldn't keep her head above water, couldn't fight the flow of possibilities. All she could do was ride the current, struggling to take in everything around her. And this time the water analogy was more accurate than ever.

She couldn't breathe at all; water and pressure pressing in on her from all sides. Despite this there was peace, the kind that settled in your bones, like a deep, dreamless sleep. Harry was there. She couldn't see him but she could sense him, smooth hands brushing her face. She couldn't see anything. She couldn't open her eyes, but at the same time she didn't want to. She was utterly at ease, but Harry wasn't, his concern mounting into panic.

She came out of the vision with a gasp, blinking at the sudden glare of sunshine in her eyes.

Sound came back last, and almost immediately she was surrounded by the gossipy, judgemental whispers of her peers. She closed her eyes briefly, praying to Merlin that she might open them and find herself waking up in her bed, this whole thing just a terrible dream.

But no dice.

She opened them to see her entire Care of Magical Creatures class standing a few metres away behind the safety of the fencing lining the paddock. Some were openly gawking, fascinated at seeing a real Seer in action. Others were laughing scornfully, snickering to one another as they shot her the kind of looks one might shoot something they saw behind the glass at a zoo.

"Win?" Fred's voice was beside her, and she turned her head, surprised to find him crouched in the mud beside her, expression tight with concern.

Above her there was a soft whinny, and Winona realised the unicorn was still there, standing strongly above her as if keeping guard against any that might wish to harm her.

"Win?" Fred asked again, gentle and patient, a far cry from the way he would act in any other situation.

"Yeah," she said quietly, instinctively holding her newest prediction to her chest, away from the prying eyes of her classmates.

Fred held out a hand that she didn't hesitate to take, letting him pull her up from the dirt below, dusting her robes off robotically. The rest of the class continued to openly stare at her – as if she were nothing more than an act in a travelling freak show.

She shifted closer to Fred, who was glowering at their classmates warningly. "How long?" she whispered, dreading the answer.

"Five minutes or so," he whispered back, turning away from the tittering class to fix her with his warm blue stare – like the clear sky on a summer day. "Are you okay?"

She remembered the uncanny feeling of being submerged deep underwater. Whatever it was, it was going to happen soon. And it was going to happen to her. Despite the knowledge sitting like rocks in her gut, she nodded her head with a small, thready smile. Fred didn't look convinced, but she hadn't really expected him to.

"Feeling better, Miss Andrews?" came Grubbly-Plank's rough voice. Winona looked over to see her standing by the head of the unicorn, feeding her a carrot with patience in her eyes.

"Sorry, Professor," she said awkwardly.

To her surprise, Grubbly-Plank waved away her apology. "Can anyone tell me one of the most common uses of powdered unicorn horn?" she asked the class at large. Winona wasn't sure how to react, and the class seemed to feel the same. Nobody so much as raised a hand. Grubbly-Plank seemed to almost smile. "It is most commonly used by Seers and would-be Seers to trigger their visions. It's often mixed into the melted wax of candles, then burned along with incense to open the Inner Eye. Today you got to witness firsthand the effect a unicorn's horn can have on a true Seer. You should feel lucky."

Nobody had anything to say about that, but some of the class looked a little embarrassed about their callous reaction to Winona's vision.

Winona herself just wanted to go back to bed and burrow under her covers as if the world and its problems no longer existed. It would be nice to pretend, if only for a little while, that reality was nothing more than a terrible dream.

Grubbly-Plank told them a bit more about unicorns (nothing they didn't already know, having already completed their unicorn unit several years previous) before giving the girls another chance to approach the unicorn.

Nobody wanted to move, casting Winona cautious side-eyes that made her feel in some way dirty – as if being a freak was contagious.

Fred and Lee said nothing the rest of the lesson, but Winona was grateful. She didn't feel like talking, the vision having taken a lot out of her. They did, however, stand around her as a sort of protective guard, as if to keep her safe from the scorn and ire of her peers.

Finally released from the lesson, they began the trek back up towards the castle. It was silently agreed to let the rest of the class head up first, then they trailed after them in an attempt to avoid any confrontation.

Unfortunately they weren't so lucky.

They'd just met up with Alicia and George in the entrance hall when they ran into a group of burly, sneering Slytherins. At the front of the pack were Malfoy and the younger Nott, and to Winona's horror, close behind him was Jeremiah, a distant but cruel look to his eyes. Winona's heart began to race.

"If it isn't Hogwarts' Truest Seer and her little servant boys," sneered Malfoy as if it were the cleverest line he'd ever thought of.

"Hey Andrews," piped a girl in Harry's year, Pansy something-or-other, "wanna tell me my future? It'll be easy to see, because it's brighter than yours."

Winona didn't so much as flinch. "Actually, you flunk your NEWTs and end up working as a rather unpopular prostitute down Knockturn Alley," she said without batting an eye.

Pansy gasped sharply, eyes alight with fury. Theodore Nott stepped in between them as if to protect Pansy from her – probably smart, because Winona wouldn't hesitate to curse her tits off if she pushed any harder.

"You harlot," Pansy snarled like it was meant to hurt. "Talk about prostituting – everyone knows you're screwing those twins of yours every chance you get. Tell me, which one's better in the sack?"

Fred twitched, wand held out in threat, but Lee caught his arm and wrenched it back down before he could do any damage. Winona took a step closer to Pansy, ignoring the way the youngest Nott shifted in front of her protectively.

"You don't know shit," she said, the words sharp and deliberate. "So how about you keep your ugly lips shut before someone curses them off?"

Somebody stepped into her field of vision. She looked up, expecting to see Theodore, only to freeze when she realised it was his brother – the one Slytherin who had the ability to actually hurt her.

"I don't think you should be cursing somebody else's lips when we all know what you do with your own, Andrews," said Jeremiah, his eyes as cold as ice. Her breath caught in her throat and words failed her. "Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you're a great shag, but I don't imagine it's anything to write home about, if you know what I mean."

The insult seemed stock-standard to most people listening, but those who knew the truth about the true nature of their relationship knew exactly how cutting the words were. Winona grit her teeth, hands balled into tight fists, nails biting into her palms.

This time neither hell nor high water could stop Fred from intervening. "Say that again, Nott," he snarled, ripping himself out of George's grip and lurching forwards until he stood nose to nose with Jeremiah. "See what happens."

"Why so snappy, Weasley?" he purred, inching closer and lowering his voice so only Fred and Winona could hear. "I'd think you'd be in a better mood, what with this little firecracker warming your bed every night." Fred's hands curled into fists, and Winona's heart was beating so hard she was sure everyone could hear it. "Tell me – with you, does she do that brilliant thing with her tongue-?"

Fred's fist cut clean across Jeremiah's jaw and the Slytherin stumbled backwards. His lip had split, a drop of blood dripping down towards his chin. "Fred!" Winona shouted, leaping forwards and gripping his arm, wrenching him back. Luckily George and Lee were there to help, dragging him away from the smug Slytherin before he could do any serious damage. "Fuck off, Nott," Winona snarled at the boy she'd once been sure she wanted to love. Now he was just repulsive. "Speak to any of us again, and I'll curse you until you scream."

Jeremiah smirked cockily. "If you wanna make me scream, all you've gotta do is ask, Lion."

Patience snapping in two, Winona whipped out her wand lightning fast, shooting a hex directly at Jeremiah's mouth. With the precision of a seamstress, little threads appeared from nowhere, criss-crossing over his lips and sealing them shut.

Alarmed, Jeremiah lifted his hands to his mouth, shouting as loud as he could from behind the hex. Winona didn't wait to give any of the Slytherins time to retaliate. She turned on her heel and pushed her friends away. The four of them made a beeline up the main staircase, glad the Slytherins were too busy trying to vanish her sewing work to bother rushing after them.

"Blimey," said Lee, uncomfortable as they made their way towards the common room. "What was all that about?"

Winona didn't know how she could reply without giving something of her secret away. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Helpless, she looked to Fred. "Forget it," said Fred shortly.

Lee frowned. "But-"

"Seriously, Lee," Fred snapped, and Lee was so stunned he fell silent the whole way back up to the Tower.

The common room was busy, what with the air outside so cold, everyone rugged up by the fire. Lee spied Alicia and Katie in the corner, and with a final wary look at Fred he made his way over to them, probably to relay everything that had just gone down.

"Fred-" George tried not say.

"Not now, George," snapped Fred in a rare move. It took a lot for them to lose patience with one another. Winona and George stared, watching as Fred stormed off towards the dorms without looking back at either of them. Left alone, they glanced at one another, unsure.

"I'll just-" George began, taking a step after his twin.

"No," Winona said before she'd realised she'd spoken. She cleared her throat, awkward. "I think I'd better do it."

Wary, George eyed her a long moment before finally nodding his head. "Be gentle?"

Winona smiled wanly. "Always."

The sixth-year's door was open a crack, and Winona knocked on it quietly. There was no answer from within, but she pushed the door open anyway.

"Fred?" she called into the empty room. A door creaked on the opposite end of the room and Fred appeared in the doorway to the bathroom, looking about as stricken as she felt. He was cradling his hand close to his chest, and she tutted quietly as she moved deeper into the room. "Sit down," she ordered him, and as if unable to do anything but obey, Fred took a seat on the edge of his bed.

She paused when she reached him, unsure. But he looked up at her, eyes so big and lost, and she quickly sat down next to him.

"Let me see," she said softly, reaching for his hand. He held out his arm and she took his hand in her own. His knuckles were swollen and bruised from the punch, and she gently ran her fingertips over the blooms of colour marring his pale skin like painted roses. "Here," she said, pulling free her wand and tapping it gently against the injury.

With a whispered spell, the bruising began to disappear, melting away like concrete chalk in the rain. They were still a little swollen and sore, but it was leagues better than before, and Fred could move his hand without wincing.

"Thanks," he said, voice rough, but Winona didn't look up from his hand. Tucking her wand safely away, she held his sore hand in both of hers, tracing her fingertips over the smooth expanse of his palm.

"You didn't need to hit him," she finally whispered, eyes on his hand instead of his eyes. It was easier that way.

Fred snorted. "After what he said? As if I wouldn't."

She smiled at his hand, tracing nonsensical patterns into his skin. "My hero," she said, but the words were without their usual teasing edge. She was just sad.

She heard Fred swallow, and slowly his fingers began to curl shut until her hand was trapped in his. The simple action stole the air from her lungs. His free hand came up to brush back a lock of her hair, then lingered against her cheek, and she shut her eyes tight.

"Fred," she breathed, pain blooming within her. Fred didn't answer her, he just held her tighter, his touch like lightning and soothing water all at once. He was everything. Something touched her forehead, and she realised it was his own.

She kept her eyes shut, their breath intermingling between them. He smelt so perfectly of fresh soil and gun powder, breath just the slightest bit minty, and she couldn't help but wet her lips, heart stammering in her chest.

And in that moment she could have kissed him. It would have been so easy – all she'd have had to do was lean in, and it would have come as naturally as the magic in their veins. But then Angelina's face flashed before her eyes and it was like a slap to the face.

Inhaling sharply, it took everything she had to wrench herself away from Fred, eyes still shut, still gripping his hand hard, struggling to let go.

"Ange," she said, opening her eyes to frown a the floorboards beneath them.

Fred exhaled sharply, still gripping her hand. "Yeah."

And that was that. Winona stood to her feet and left, but as she reached the door, she was helpless but to glance back. He was already staring after her, such want in his eyes that it nearly stopped her heart in her chest. Smiling weakly, she left properly, making her way to her own dorm.

She was still so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't even realise Angelina was there, sitting on her bed, painstakingly braiding her curly hair. "Oh, hey, Win," Angelina greeted her, and Winona looked up with a gasp of surprise.

"Ange," she said, cheeks flaming. Did she somehow know where she'd been? What exactly she'd been about to do?

"You all right?" Angelina asked, looking up from under her lashes as she struggled braiding the back section of her hair. "You look a little peaky."

Winona cleared her throat. "Fine," she said, feeling like utter shit as she did. "Need a shower before dinner."

And with that she escaped into the bathroom, hopping underneath the scalding spray of the shower and taking several deep breaths, doing her best to try and stop liking Fred. She went over and over it, trying to convince herself to stop. Trying to convince herself it was nothing. A passing attraction, barely even a crush. It was Fred.

But then she remembered how he'd looked at her like – God, like she were his everything – and it was impossible to deny the way her heart sang in reply. She liked him far, far more than she should. Far more than she'd ever liked anyone. And that was the most dangerous thing.

She stayed under the spray for a small eternity, but the water never got cold and Hogwarts, and soon enough she had to leave the shower and face herself in the mirror.

"You'll be fine," she whispered, staring into her own stormy grey eyes, trying to convince herself it was true. "Everything will work out."

And if she tried really, really hard, she could almost even believe it.


A few days later Winona had just sat down in the Great Hall for lunch when Harry dropped onto the bench beside her. "Hey Winnie?" he asked, because it was less of a greeting and more of a question.

"All right, Boy-Wonder?" she replied, busy searching the plates of sandwiches for one without any lettuce. She wasn't in a salad kind of mood.

"Can we talk?"

Winona heard the seriousness in his voice, and looking up, she found the emotion mirrored on his face. "I assume you mean talk without anyone eavesdropping," she said, and he nodded, a tiny bit sheepish.

Without further question she gathered a small pile of sandwiches onto a napkin, then stood to her feet. "All right. Let's go for a walk."

"OI! Where're you going?!" called George from a few seats down.

"I'm being summoned," she replied without missing a beat. Fred was sat beside Angelina, and Winona unintentionally met his eyes across the table. He looked curious, and she shrugged in reply, but before he could silently press for more, Angelina forcefully regained his attention.

Ducking her head, Winona quickly led Harry out of the Great Hall.

It was cold, still in the dead of winter, but Winona had a thick scarf wrapped around her neck and the sun was shining, so she led Harry out onto the grounds.

They wandered nowhere in particular, sharing her sandwiches as they talked. Harry told her all about seeing Barty Crouch on the Map, and getting stuck and nearly caught by Snape and Filch, then how Moody had found and saved him, borrowing the Map in the process.

"Don't let the twins know that part," Winona warned him. "The thought of the Map in any teacher's hands is enough to give them a stroke."

"But what d'you suppose Crouch was doing in Snape's stores? And why is he pretending to be so ill when he's clearly well enough to come out to Hogwarts in the middle of the night? And what did Moody mean, about Snape being on his second chance?" Harry asked, desperate for answers.

"I wish I knew," she said quietly as a pair of seventh-year Ravenclaws wandered past, shooting Harry looks of disdain. Winona threw a rude hand gesture in their direction and they scurried off with gossipy whispers. "I really have no idea. I've had no visions about any of this. I don't know anything."

Harry sighed, kicking at a small pile of snow with his shoe. "I just thought, I guess, 'cause you meet with Dumbledore so often…"

Winona chuckled, a tiny bit bitter. "Our conversations are more one-way," she told him. "I rarely get answers myself. It's…frustrating."

"Yeah," Harry sighed.

"If I have any visions, Harry, I swear I won't keep them from you," she promised him.

Harry hesitated. "Not even if Dumbledore tells you to?"

Winona scoffed. "Definitely not if Dumbledore tells me to. Anything you deserve to know, you'll know."

She could tell Harry was relieved. "I'm so used to people keeping things from me…" he whispered.

"Me too, kid," she smiled wryly.

That afternoon they had DADA, and when she walked into the classroom she saw the seat beside Fred open. Hesitating in the doorway, she left it too long, and Angelina waltzed in, taking the seat and glancing up at Winona as she did it.

Seeing Winona was looking back, Angelina dragged Fred's head towards hers, placing a possessive kiss to his unwitting lips. He let out a muffled sound of surprise that she swallowed, and Winona grit her teeth, tilted up her chin and walked to an empty desk a few places in front of them.

George took the seat on the other side when he arrived, and she squeezed his hand in hello, trying not to think too hard about Angelina. Winona hadn't known Angelina could act this way, and it was almost disturbing; her possessive, domineering attitude. But could she maybe see there was something between her and Fred? But then why not just give up and break things off – and, in that same vein, why hadn't Fred broken things off yet?

She felt a flash of unexpected bitterness. How could any of this be real, or even worth anything to Fred, if he wouldn't end things with Angelina? She didn't want to make him choose…except that she actually kind of did. And she wanted him to choose her.

Moody swept into the room, commanding silence with nothing but the uneven clanking of his footsteps.

The sound of it seemed to echo in Winona's head. Like it worked as some sort of hypnosis, her consciousness began to drain away. She fell into the current of time once more, but this time it was for a long while.

She came back to the present just as the bell rang, and she realised she'd missed the entire class. Moody was standing over her desk, and she hurried to pull her sketch close to her chest where he couldn't see it.

Most of the class was already making their way towards the door, but George hung back, standing beside her, watchful.

"Might I have a glance at what kept you so occupied this whole lesson, Miss Black?" Moody demanded.

She grit her teeth. "It's Andrews," she corrected him, not for the first time.

Moody just clicked his fingers impatiently, holding out his hand, expecting her to put the sketchbook into it. Winona bristled. She knew Dumbledore wouldn't want her giving over her sketch, not even to someone he trusted as much as Moody, but what could she do? He was glaring down at her, gouged face severe, eyes glinting with danger.

Swallowing thickly, she lifted the sketchbook to get a look at it first. It was someone she'd never seen before, a young, relatively handsome man with wild hair and narrow features. The man was simply staring off into the distance, a hint of his tongue peeking out from between his teeth. It seemed harmless enough, so reluctantly Winona put the book into his outstretched hand.

Moody's eyes went wide upon seeing the sketch, and with his free hand he hurried to dig out his ever-present flask and take a large swig of the liquid inside. Winona watched as both his normal eye and his magical one scanned the sketch, and she wondered whether she were imagining the alarm she saw on his horrific face.

"Who might this be, Miss Black?" he finally wondered in a rasping voice.

Gritting her teeth at the name, Winona lifted her shoulders. "I don't know, sir."

Moody didn't look convinced. "You've no idea?"

"None."

"Are you sure about that?" he thundered, like he didn't believe her. He turned the full weight of his stare onto her, gnarled lips twisted into something vaguely resembling a snarl, and Winona flinched back under the force of it.

"She said she doesn't know," said George, stepping closer to her and pressing a hand to her shoulder. "Sir," he added begrudgingly when Moody's laser-like eyes darted to him.

What was left of Moody's nose flared, but with a small huff of air he thrust the sketchbook back into Winona's hands. "Dismissed," he said tersely. Winona didn't need to be told twice. She gathered her bag and left with George.

Angelina and Fred were hovering in the doorway, concern shared on both their faces. For one shining moment, all was normal again. Winona shook her head, telling them she was fine, and to leave it. They all left the Defence classroom, and Winona breathed a sigh of relief once she felt the sun shining through the windows on their way to the common room.

"What the bloody hell was that all about?" asked Fred, sounding about as alarmed as she felt.

"The guy's just creepy," said Winona shortly.

"Mental, more like it," muttered George.

Winona managed half a laugh, but then the silence in the hall became crushing as reality reasserted itself around them. Things weren't as they always were, things were so, so different now, and they couldn't pretend they weren't. Everything unspoken now inched over them like an oppressive weight, and Winona thought she might suffocate from the force of it.

"I'd better get this sketch to Dumbledore," she said before the awkwardness could swallow her whole. She abruptly changed directions, heading towards the Headmaster's office. "I'll see you later."

"I'll come with you," said George, slapping Fred on the shoulder in farewell.

He and Winona turned a corner, and this time Winona didn't look back. They walked a few moments in silence, making their way up a few floors to their destination.

"Okay, what in Merlin's name is actually going on?" George finally demanded, the words bursting out of him like they had a mind of their own.

"You said it yourself, Moody's mental-"

"I mean with you, Fred and Ange," George said firmly, and Winona fell silent. "I thought things were going to get better, not worse," he complained.

"I don't know what to tell you, George," she replied, just a little bit cold. "He's still with Ange. What do you expect me to do?"

"Ask him to leave her!" he cried, like it were the most obvious thing in the world.

She scowled at her feet. "Why should I have to? Why can't he leave her on his own?"

George fell silent, but not from a lack of knowing what to say. Instead, when she glanced at him, he just looked disappointed.

"What?" she demanded, half dreading his response.

"Win, how is he s'posed to know you want him to leave Ange, if you don't tell him?" he asked her slowly, like he were talking to a child.

"He shouldn't be with her at all if he doesn't want to be," Winona argued.

"You're right," George agreed without hesitation. "Of course you are. But he's scared. He doesn't want to lose you both. So he's clinging on the only way he knows how."

Winona scowled some more. "It's wrong."

"Yeah," George agreed. "But don't tell me you wouldn't do the same."

Winona wasn't sure she would, but she wasn't certain she wouldn't, either. She tried to put herself in Fred's shoes. His options were leaving Angelina for a girl he wasn't even sure wanted him, and risk screwing up two relationships, or stay with Angelina – the safe option – and try to salvage what was left to be salvaged between them.

But the thing is, Angelina deserved better than that, and they all knew it.

Confused, Winona let out a heavy sigh. "I dunno what to do, Georgie," she said, sounding every bit like a terrified little girl.

George smiled, sympathetic and understanding. "You'll figure it out, Win," he assured her. "It's you and Fred – you're endgame."

She laughed, a tiny bit hysterical. They reached the Headmaster's office and Winona said the password to let her up. The gargoyle leapt aside and she turned to George, bringing him into a quick embrace. "See you up in the common room," she told him, pulling away and squeezing his arm in farewell.

"See you," he said with a smile, watched as she disappeared up the staircase.

Upon seeing her prediction, Dumbledore's brow furrowed, but beyond that he had no reaction.

"Do you know who this is?" he asked her severely.

"No idea," she told him.

"And the sense you get from it?"

She hesitated, peering down at the image from her seat on the opposite side of his desk, a teacup held in a slightly trembling hand. "Darkness. Evil. Desperation," she said. "Whoever this man might be, he isn't good."

Dumbledore hummed like he were mildly intrigued, but otherwise didn't respond. Winona thought he knew exactly who this man was, but perhaps not quite how he fit into things – yet. She watched as he made a copy of the sketch, and then she made her escape, heading for her dorm and the shower waiting for her.

Harry came to her a few days later in the common room before breakfast, looking a little bit sheepish. She offered to walk with him down to the Great Hall, giving him an opportunity to speak to her alone.

"So, when I told you all about Crouch and Snape and Moody, I forgot to mention something kind of important," he confessed as they leisurely made their way down the stairs.

"Spill," she said lightly.

"I figured out the egg."

Winona blinked. In amongst all the drama in her personal life, she'd almost completely forgotten there was even a tournament going on. And she felt guilt for it, wincing apologetically even though Harry didn't notice. "That's great," she told him supportively. "What is it?"

He relayed the hint he'd gotten from the egg, then what he knew it to mean. Winona's eyes went wide in surprise.

"Survive underwater for an hour?" she asked, dismayed.

"Do you know of anything that can do it?" he asked hopefully. "A spell, or charm, or potion?"

Winona winced again. "Nothing I know of." She suddenly wished she'd paid more attention in her lessons. Maybe at some point a way to breathe underwater had been mentioned. She'd probably been too distracted sketching in the margins of her work, or by the twins' playful notes, to listen at the time. "I'm sorry, Harry. I've no idea."

Harry deflated, hope sucked out like air from a balloon. "It was a long shot," he murmured.

"Have you checked the library?"

"For days now," he nodded. "We can't find anything. Not even Hermione, and she knows that place like the back of her hand."

"The restricted section?"

"Yeah. Got permission from McGonagall. Nothing."

"Dammit," she cursed. They'd reached the Great Hall, the room within a cavern of mindless chatter. Winona turned to Harry. "Let me help you look. I don't believe there isn't anything in the whole library that can't help."

"You don't have to-"

"Really, Harry," she insisted. "The more eyes the better, right?"

That was how she found herself in the library with he, Hermione and Ron a week later, the very night before the task. They seemed to have looked through every single book in the library, but still, nothing.

Ron had had the rather last-ditch idea of Winona attempting to bring forth a vision that would magically hold all the answers they desired. So that was how she wound up cross-legged on the floor, doing her best to meditate and induce an impossible vision.

"Still nothing?" Ron asked for the fifth time in as many minutes.

"If you keep talking, it's never going to happen," she snapped without opening her eyes. Ron mumbled something unsavoury that she ignored, rolling her shoulders to try and rid them of tension, struggling to bring on a vision.

Five minutes later she needed a break, standing to her feet and stretching out her spine until it popped. "What, you're giving up?" Ron asked, disappointed.

"I'm a Seer, Ron," she reminded him. "That means I see the future. Not the answers to inconvenient riddles. It's useless."

Harry let out a groan, dropping his face into his book in defeat. Now Winona felt guilty for snapping.

"I'm sure there's something in a book, Harry," she said as optimistically as she could. "There's got to be."

"What if it just can't be done?" Ron asked, rocking backwards on the back two legs of his chair, the wood creaking under the assault. "There's nothing. Nothing. Closest was that thing to dry up puddles and ponds, that Drought Charm, but that was nowhere near powerful enough to drain the lake."

"There must be something," Hermione muttered. "They'd never have set a task that was undoable."

"I dunno," argued Winona. "It sounds to me just like the kind of sadistic bullshit the Ministry would pull."

"Language, Winnie," tutted Hermione without taking her eyes off the page she was scanning.

"Harry, just go down to the lake tomorrow, right, stick your head in, yell at the merpeople to give back whatever they've nicked, and see if they chuck it out," said Ron decisively. "Best you can do, mate."

"There's a way of doing it!" Hermione insisted. "There just has to be!"

"I know what I should have done," bemoaned Harry. "I should've learned to be an Animagus like Sirius."

"Yeah, you could've turned into a goldfish any time you wanted!" said Ron.

"Or a frog," yawned Harry.

Hermione tutted, so tired she was taking his words literally, beginning to tell them exactly why that wasn't going to work.

"Hermione, I was joking," said Harry, weary and exasperated. "I know I haven't got a chance of turning into a frog by tomorrow morning…"

"Oh this is no use," Hermione ground out, snapping shut the book she was working at. "Who on earth wants to make their nose hair grow into ringlets?"

"I wouldn't mind," came a familiar voice. Winona sat up ramrod straight at the sound of it. Fred stepped around the shelves first, George not far behind. "Be a talking point, wouldn't it?" he asked, crossing his arms as he smirked at them all widely.

"What're you two doing here?" Ron asked, less than thrilled by their appearance.

"I didn't forget plans, did I?" Winona wondered, brow furrowed as she struggled to think about what it might have been. She'd been so focused on helping Harry this last week – and perhaps avoiding facing the reality of her pathetic excuse for a love life – that everything else had virtually faded into background noise.

"Nah, not this time," George said lightly. "But we were looking for you. McGonagall wants you. And you, Hermione."

Winona blinked in surprise. "Me and Hermione?" she asked, thinking it to be an odd combination.

"Why?" asked Hermione in confusion, seeming as stunned as Winona.

"Dunno," Fred shrugged, and it didn't escape Winona's notice that he'd yet to meet her eyes, "she was looking a bit grim, though."

"We're supposed to take you down to her office," George added.

Harry looked stricken, probably worried they were going to get into trouble for helping him, but there was nothing they could do about that now. "We'll meet you both back in the common room," Hermione told he and Ron. "Bring as many of these books as you can, okay?"

"Right," said Harry uneasily.

"Chin up, Boy-Wonder," Winona said, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "Everything will work out."

Harry hardly looked convinced, but he attempted a smile to show he appreciated the effort.

"We'll be back," Hermione promised him. "Keep working."

With one last look at a helpless Harry, Winona followed Fred and George out of the library and into the corridor. The four of them walked in silence for a few moments, before it was broken by George.

"What're you looking for in the library?" he asked Hermione conversationally.

"Something for the task tomorrow," Hermione told him evasively.

"Well, dunno why you've roped Winnie into it," he said, casting a teasing glance at Winona. "She couldn't even find the contents page if you asked her to." Winona scoffed but otherwise didn't reply. George's gaze darted between her and his silent brother, and she watched as an idea lit in his eyes. "Say Hermione, I was wondering if you had any Potion book recommendations."

"Potion book recommendations?" Hermione echoed dubiously. It was clearly the last thing she'd expected him to ask.

"I'm really interested in the theory behind healing potions, so I want to read up on them some more," he told her, and Winona smirked at Hermione's surprise. "I figured you'd be the person to ask."

"Oh," said Hermione, a tiny bit flustered. "Well, off the top of my head, I can think of a few you might enjoy…" she began to list books, and George wasn't at all subtle as he sped up, forcing a babbling Hermione to keep up with him and succeeding in putting enough space between them that Winona and Fred had the illusion of privacy to talk.

Winona didn't know what she could say. What was there to say? Please break up with one of my best friends, because I want you so bad it hurts and watching you with her is like a knife to the heart?

"Are you worried about the task tomorrow?" Fred spoke up first, taking Winona by surprise. She glanced over at him, taking in his hunched shoulders and the way he had his hands stuffed deep into his pockets, like he wasn't sure what to do with them otherwise.

"Not really," she told him with a shrug. "Harry can handle it."

He perked up at that. "You know what it is?"

She crossed her arms over her chest to try to keep from fidgeting. "I may or may not have some idea."

She felt Fred sigh beside her, but didn't look up from her feet. "You haven't been around the last few weeks," he said, voice mild and small. It was so unlike him, she felt bad for being the cause of it.

"Harry needed me," she told him, and while it wasn't a lie, it also wasn't the entire truth.

Fred paused. "That's it?"

Winona looked up, a sudden fire in her eyes. "What do you want me to say, Fred?" He didn't reply, a frown marring his face, and Winona's heart burned hot. "Clearly you want me to say something, so what is it? What do you need to hear?"

When he looked back at her, there was a matching flame in his blue eyes, making them glow like molten crystal. "Anything, Win, so long as it's the truth."

"You think I'd lie?" she asked, affronted.

Fred laughed, but there was none of his usual joy in the sound. Instead this one was bitter, layered with exhaustion and frustration. "That's what you do," he said it like it were a simple fact of life, and it cut her deeper than he'd probably expected it to. She flinched back like the words were a blow, and she curled in on herself, teeth grit against unwelcome emotion. "Win…" he trailed off, wanting to fix it but not knowing how. He couldn't just take the words back. They were out there now. They were real.

"You think it's easy, Fred?" she said without looking up at him. "Seeing you with Ange? This whole thing, it's killing me."

"Then why don't you do something about it?"

She stopped walking, whirling around on him, skin buzzing with anger. "Why don't you do something about it?" she hissed. This wasn't all on her. This was as much his doing as it was hers. It took two, didn't it?

Glaring across the corridor at Fred, she found a matching anger in his eyes. Electricity crackled between them like static on a windy day, and Winona could barely breathe, caught up in him. They stared, then stared some more. Winona thought idly that there wasn't anything that could break them apart in that moment, caught in one another's orbit like planets.

But, as it turned out, there was something that could break them apart, after all.

"Miss Andrews, Mr Weasley," came a stern, Scottish voice, and the pair were so surprised by its appearance that they whipped around, cheeks hot with embarrassment. McGonagall was stood in the doorway to her office, black eyes narrowed at them, awfully unimpressed. "As important as I'm sure this discussion is, can it wait until a later date? I have some business to conduct with Miss Andrews," she said smoothly, thin lips pursed, "if it isn't too much trouble."

"Not at all, professor," Winona hurried to say. She cast Fred a final look – fire in his eyes still burning, hot and alive and making her heart skip a beat – then turned and escaped into McGonagall's office.

Hermione was already inside, along with a young girl from Beauxbatons and a Ravenclaw girl in Harry's year that Winona identified as Cho Chang.

"Off to bed, you two," said McGonagall to the twins, who remained hovering outside the office. "Miss Andrews will be along soon enough."

Winona didn't turn back to look, but she knew the twins obeyed, slinking off reluctantly back to the common room. Winona took up a spot on Hermione's right, at the end of the line of girls. She wasn't quite sure what all four of them had in common, but it began to make sense rather quickly as from the back door a trio of wizards wandered in.

First was Dumbledore, followed closely by Ludo Bagman and Igor Karkaroff. Winona belatedly realised that Madame Maxime was already in the room, sat in the corner, an elegant staff laid at her side.

"Good evening," Bagman greeted them, skin rosy as a ripe apple, a shifty look in his blue eyes. "I'm sure you're wondering what you four are doing here, tonight."

"It has something to do with the tournament, doesn't it?" Hermione spoke up, and Winona raised her eyebrows in surprise at the sheer fact she hadn't raised her hand before speaking. Bagman smiled, and Winona supposed he might have once been charming, in his youth. Now he just looked seedy. "We're what the champions have to recover from the lake."

Bagman blinked in surprise, and Winona saw a small smirk of McGonagall's lips that not even she could hide. "My, aren't you a clever one?" Bagman said keenly.

Dumbledore stepped forwards, and Winona was relieved when he took over the explanation. "You've each been identified as the person our champions will miss most," he told them calmly. "The young Miss Delacour for Fleur Delacour, Miss Chang for Cedric Diggory, Miss Granger for Viktor Krum, and Miss Andrews for Harry Potter."

Winona blinked in surprise. She'd never have expected herself to be chosen as the person Harry would miss most of all. It made her heart swell with emotion for her cousin, and she looked away as she reined in her reaction.

"You will each be carefully bewitched, put in a sort of stasis, under which you will be able to survive beneath the surface of the water for the duration of the task," Dumbledore told them steadily. "I assure you that it is perfectly safe, and no harm will come to any of you as a result of this enchantment."

The young girl from Beauxbatons looked especially nervous, as did Cho, but Winona and Hermione were unperturbed by the news. Winona remembered the vision she'd had some weeks before, the subsequent sketch being an image of the bottom of the lake floor. At the time she'd been confused, but now she understood with perfect clarity.

"I want to make something perfectly clear," Dumbledore continued on. "If any of you wish not to undergo this bewitchment, you're welcome to say so now and somebody else will be procured for the task."

Bagman looked vaguely like he'd swallowed a lemon, eyes narrowed at all four of them, daring them to speak up. Clearly he didn't want any of them screwing with his careful planning, and although Winona crinkled her nose at him in distaste, she didn't say anything. She trusted Dumbledore to do this, and she trusted Harry to get them all to safety. It was a no-brainer.

After a few moments of uneasy silence, Dumbledore smiled. "Very well," he said bracingly, clapping his hands together once. "I will be putting you under one at a time, beginning with Miss Delacour. If you'll follow me, dear?"

McGonagall flicked her wand at the nearest row of desks, and they immediately transfigured into a small cot. Dumbledore and Maxime began to lay the girl down, murmuring to her softly, and Winona turned to Hermione while they waited. The frizzy-haired fourth year looked stricken.

"I was hoping to have more time to help Harry," she whispered to Winona, hands twisting together anxiously. "What if he can't find anything in time?"

"Dumbledore would never let anything happen to us," Winona reassured her, even though there was a tiny hint of doubt in her chest. She knew Dumbledore wouldn't let anything happen to her, anyway, but that was more to do with her usefulness to him than it was with his sense of honour.

"It couldn't have been anyone else, you know?" Hermione said suddenly, and Winona realised she'd been staring off into the corner of the room, lost in thought.

"Hm?" she hummed, confused.

"The person Harry would miss most," Hermione told her sweetly. "He loves Ron and I – we're his best friends – but we're not family in the same way the two of you are. There's nobody he'd miss more than you."

Winona smiled, warm again but this time not from anger or tension or frustration. This time she was warm with love for her cousin, and she realised that she was the same. She'd be lost without the twins, her best friends in the world, but it was Harry leaving that would destroy her the most.

The youngest Delacour was suddenly floating, and they watched as Maxime levitated her gently from the room. "Miss Chang," said Dumbledore with a gesture at the transfigured cot. "If you would?"

Cho warily laid down, listening to what the teachers above her were saying, nodding her head slowly.

"Oh, Harry and Ron are going to be worried sick," Hermione murmured, still twisting her fingers together, anxiety coming off her like a stench.

"Forget Harry and Ron," Winona snorted. "The twins are going to tear this place apart looking for me."

Hermione's brow pinched. "Even now, with everything between you and…?" she trailed off awkwardly, but it didn't need saying.

Winona felt a sharp lurch in her stomach at the innocent question. Apparently their melodrama hadn't been particularly subtle. "Doesn't matter what happens between us, we'll always care," she said, and knew in her heart it was true. "We'll always be best friends."

Hermione smiled sadly. "I wish I could be so sure."

"It's the same with Harry and Ron," she assured her. "They'd never let anything get in the way of your friendship." Hermione wasn't convinced, but there wasn't much Winona could do about that now.

"Miss Granger?" said the Headmaster, and they turned to see McGonagall levitating a slumbering Cho from the room, leaving the cot open for Hermione.

Winona reach out, gripping the younger girl's hand tight. "See you on the other side," she whispered confidently. Hermione attempted a smile and squeezed back once. Laid down on the cot, she listened as Dumbledore spoke in tones too low for Winona to hear.

McGonagall reappeared, coming to a stop beside Winona, a crease in her brow as she watched Dumbledore slowly begin to bewitch Hermione. "I'm sorry for this, Andrews," McGonagall said suddenly, taking Winona by surprise.

"It isn't your fault, Professor," Winona replied with a blink. "Besides, nobody's going to get hurt."

"I was against this tournament from the start," McGonagall confessed, but Winona got the sense she was saying it to herself more than to her. "Putting students in such blatant danger, it just isn't right."

"We'll be okay, Professor," she said, but she couldn't help but feel like the words were without spine. They were words meant for comfort, not reality. She wasn't so sure it was true, either. This tournament had already taken so much, and it wasn't even halfway done. What more would be taken from them by the time this whole thing was over and done with?

McGonagall looked at her with a tight-lipped smile that was hardly convincing. Winona gave her one in kind.

"Miss Andrews?" came Dumbledore's rumbling voice, and Winona turned to see the cot empty, Bagman levitating Hermione away. "Are you ready?" he asked gently. Winona could only nod her head once.

Laying down on the cot, she stared up at the arched ceiling of the room, breathing in slowly through her nose and out through her mouth, relishing in the ability to breathe before it would be taken from her for the night.

"How do you feel?" Dumbledore asked, leaning over her face and blocking out her view of the detailed ceiling above.

"Fine, sir," she told him quietly.

Dumbledore didn't look convinced, but he hardly ever did. "It's going to feel just like going to sleep. You may feel a bit cold, but other than that you'll have no awareness of what's happening to your body," he told her, and she couldn't help but feel anything but comforted.

"Okay."

"No harm will come to you, Winona," Dumbledore said softly, as if she might have been uncertain.

She nodded her head once. "I know, sir."

With a tight-lipped smile, Dumbledore raised his wand. "We'll see you soon," he said in parting, then a veil of cold fell over Winona's body, and she knew no more.


A/N: Hope you all enjoyed; today's spotlight review is – Piennn: thanks so so much for your review. It made me ridiculously happy, and your kind words about my writing style and character development made my day. I hope you enjoyed this one!

It's my birthday tomorrow, so I look forwards to waking up in the morning to read all your wonderful reviews! And also, a tiny hint about the next chapter: it's in Fred's POV, and it's going to make you all very happy indeed.