"So let me get this right," Padma said the next morning in the dormitory, as Calla was filling them in on the details of the conversation with Sirius and Remus when they wouldn't be interrupted or overheard, "you think Karkaroff and Snape are Death Eaters?"

"No," Calla replied, "I think Karkaroff is, or was, and the thing he was showing Snape in Harry's class was the Dark Mark. Whether Snape is, or was, or not, I don't know." She glanced at Daphne, who appeared to be deep in thought. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," she said, frowning, "I mean, it's not like I've been taught their register or something."

"No, but... Well, your parents do know Snape, don't they?"

"Only in passing," Daphne said uncomfortably. "They're... they're not really good friends, I guess. But he is in the same circle and, well, some people in those circles are people I wouldn't be surprised... if they did support You-Know-Who." She shook her head. "But that's like saying my parents are Death Eaters, and they most certainly are not. They don't believe in all that stuff, and they're Sacred Twenty-Eight: Snape's a half blood, isn't he? What would he get out of being a Death Eater?"

"Suppose," Padma said. "I'm still suspicious, though. I'm sure my mum said something about Karkaroff, how he was basically found guilty but got let out for giving names." She looked at Calla. "You said Harry thought Snape put your names in the Goblet of Fire... You don't think it might have been Karkaroff, do you?"

"I don't know," Calla said. "He looked furious enough that I wouldn't suspect him, but maybe that's the point. And come to think of it, he seemed bitter about how well Harry and I did in the tasks. I bet he hoped Harry'd drown at the bottom of that lake."

"I don't see how Karkaroff could be a Death Eater, though," said Padma. "I mean, he went to Durmstrang. Most of the people thought to be Death Eaters went to Hogwarts; that's how they got brought into it."

"Durmstrang is known for the Dark Arts, though," Calla pointed out.

"And Draco's father's friends with Karkaroff," Daphne admitted, looking down. "And he... Well. He's not exactly a Muggleborn rights activist, is he?"

"Hmm." Calla frowned. "I think it's all quite suspicious, and maybe there is something in it, but we've no evidence, and Harry... I guess he sees what he wants to see sometimes when it comes to Snape. But Snape didn't need to help me through the Second Task, and he did, and he tried to stop Quirrel in first year and he's not exactly my favourite person, especially after what he did to Remus but... I don't know. Dumbledore trusts him and I just don't think he could be a Death Eater."

"Even so," Padma said, as the door opened and Sue and Isobel came in, making her lower her voice, "you should be on your guard. No more taking ages to pack your bag in Potions, we're staying with you."

Calla smiled fondly. "Thanks."

"The boys are waiting," Isobel said, grabbing a pile of textbooks, "in the classroom." Calla stared at her. "Hello? You know, for studying. Lisa's stressed already apparently."

Truth be told, Calla had entirely forgotten about their promise to tutor each other. "We'll be there in a minute," Padma told Isobel, who shrugged and hurried back out of the room with Sue. "Let's talk about it later, come on. I need all the help you guys can give me."

That first study session was actually quite alright, to Calla's relief, though it did go on a bit; Daphne and Isobel got bored halfway through and started trying to make origami cats walk around, turning them different colours. Lisa had decided to take charge of the venture and treated it like a business meeting, setting out their goals - 'Get Potter through the Tournament without snuffing it, and also get the best grades possible in our exams.' - their deadlines and a timetable of events. "Don't you think you're going a bit overboard?" Michael asked her at one point, but she just glared and threw a pillow at him.

"I'm taking our education seriously," Lisa said, "as any decent Ravenclaw should. Who are we to represent our house if we all fail? We've at least not got Potter to drag our average down this year-" she shot Calla a nasty look and Calla huffed, throwing her hands up "-but you, Michael, are currently running at Poor marks for both Herbology and Transfiguration!"

Michael gaped at her. "How'd you know that?"

"So, I've put together a series of lesson plans that will tackle our objectives, combining tutors' strengths with tutees' weaknesses."

"She's worse than Hermione," Daphne whispered to Calla and Padma, who both grinned. At least with Hermione they didn't commit to following her study plans, and she'd never really expected them to past their first year.

"And you, Daphne, are barely scraping an Acceptable in Transfiguration."

"I am not!" Daphne protested. "You can't say that!"

"Isobel, you're doing Dreadful in Potions."

"Yeah, 'cause Snape's an absolute-"

"Padma, you're quite alright, but your Divination marks could do with some improvement."

"How do you even get this information?" Padma asked, staring at her.

Lisa just tapped her forehead and smiled. "Terry, you have to focus more on Care of Magical Creatures."

"I am trying," Terry muttered, "it's not my fault that unicorn hated me."

"Calla, your practical work in general leaves a lot to be desired, but we don't have to worry about most of your classes for now, just general spellwork, which will admittedly be very difficult."

"Charming," she muttered, exchanging exasperated glances with Padma.

"Lise," Mandy spoke up, eyebrows raised, "calm down on the whole pointing out everyone's weaknesses, would you?"

"Mandy, you're going to fail Arithmancy."

"For Merlin's sake." Mandy huffed and sulked against the back of her chair.

"Anthony, you're the same as Padma, you're terrible at Divination."

"It isn't my fault I have a lazy Inner Eye."

Calla snorted as Lisa pressed on. "Sue, you have to work on Arithmancy, too. Obviously, we can see that all our weaknesses are different and diverse, as are our strengths. I'm not particularly great at Care of Magical Creatures-"

"Because nothing likes her-"

"But I am good at Arithmancy, so I'll be in charge of tutoring for that"

"Should we really be using the word tutoring?" Terry wondered aloud. "I mean, it sounds quite formal, and I thought this was more like a study group."

"Well, what other word would you have me use, Terry?" Lisa snapped, and when Terry shrugged, she seemed to take this as her cue to continue dictating. Calla all of a sudden could see her working in the Ministry, barking orders at some poor employees. "Mandy, you're in charge of Potions, Sue I've given you Transfiguration control. Padma, you're Herbology, Daphne takes Muggle Studies but Isobel and Terry are your co-tutors because they know more but don't take the class. Isobel, you do Care of Magical Creatures, Terry is History, Anthony, you're on Astronomy, Michael will be in charge of Ancient Runes and Calla will teach Divination."

"You can't really teach Divination," Calla said. "It kind of just... It happens or it doesn't."

Lisa looked at her coldly for disrupting her plans. "Would you rather try to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Calla shook her head, flushing. "I didn't think so. Now, to come back to that point, we don't have anyone who is particularly good at Defense Against the Dark Arts or Charms."

"I'm pretty decent," Isobel said, and they all looked at her. "Moody said I would do well in a duel."

"Izzy, that's because you're good at setting stuff on fire. Fire wins everything."

"And then that's all you need to know."

"So, we'll all work together on that. It will be good to pool knowledge and also because Defense is such a hands on subject this year, it'll give us more practical opportunities if we all do and all do it together. In terms of Charms, I'd say we're all relatively good at that, so again we can pool our knowledge and run that more like a group study rather than a tutoring session." Lisa grinned like she'd just finished a pitch. "Any questions?"

"Do we have to?"

"Yes, Isobel," Lisa snapped. "You all agreed."

"Yes, but we can't do this every day," Terry said gently.

"Well, obviously," Lisa said, rolling her eyes. "You don't have to do it everyday but you do have to contribute at least once a week."

"Sound," said Isobel, getting to her feet. "I'm going to locate a Blast-Ended Skrewt."

"Absolutely not," said Lisa, dragging her back down. "You will focus on taking a theoretical approach to your subject."

"I am in charge of my subject," Isobel said stubbornly. Calla laid her head on the desk tiredly as they bickered for another ten minutes before the group split.

She had Padma, Terry, Isobel and Anthony all crowded around her little desk with Calla's crystal ball. "This is third year stuff," Anthony said, frowning at his cup. "But I still can't do it."

"I think... You have to open your mind to it," Calla told them. "Trelawney dresses it all up to be very mystical and obscure and I guess in some ways it is but I don't think that really allows for people to consider it in their own way. Sort of... Right, this is going to sound daft. But if you clear your mind..."

"Clear our minds?" Padma stared at her. "How are we to do that?"

"I don't know, just... Shut your eyes and... Try." She huffed. "This is why I said you can't really teach Divination. You can just oversee it. There's no specific method or anything, you just have to think you can do it and let it happen."

She knew it sounded silly, but even so, all of them did as she told them to, eyes fluttering shut. Isobel's face screwed up in concentration, like she was trying very hard to force her thoughts out of her head. "Relax," Calla told her softly. "You have to lean into it."

She supposed that was something she should be working on, too. Dumbledore kept telling her to reach out to her visions, but what if she was just meant to slowly drift towards them? You couldn't force it. Terry was the first to open his eyes and look at the crystal ball, eyes wide as he considered it. "Well, there's some sort of... foggy... book."

Isobel snorted. "A book." She opened her eyes, so Calla glared at her scoldingly.

"That's good, Terry," she said encouragingly. "A book could mean a lot of things. Wisdom, or new discoveries, or maybe you're going on an unexpected journey."

"Or he's going to read The Hobbit again."

"Izzy!"

"Am I disrupting the clairvoyant vibrations?"

"I will kick you out of my class, you know. And then you'll have to answer to Lisa and her Arithmancy class."

Isobel's eyes widened. "Jesus, no, she'd eat me. I'm sticking with you."

As Terry had desired, this 'study group' was far from formal - despite Lisa's attempts to create a schedule - but Calla rather liked it that way. Each of them brought something different that they were not only good at but passionate about, and hearing Transfiguration advice from Sue, who was as mild as McGonagall was intimidating, made it a lot easier to take in and concentrate on. She still didn't know what she had to do for the Third Task, but that was okay for the time being: her friends helped her get a handle on some more Defensive magic that they thought might be needed, and in some ways it was good to have a bit of relief.

The thing that worried her was her visions. They were becoming more frequent, yet less clear, and always brought some form of pain or exhaustion with them. She couldn't figure out why, and though she was sure Dumbledore had an idea, he wasn't revealing anything. It was infuriating, and Remus seemed concerned by the development. Harry's scar had been hurting more and more often, too. Even if she tried to comfort herself, she knew something was coming, and she knew it was coming soon. There had still been no sign of Pettigrew, and she was beginning to think it might have been deliberate. After all, she knew some of the old suspected Death Eaters were close to the Ministry. Someone was helping him, someone powerful.

At least she wasn't the only one worried. There had been calls for greater security around the Third Task at the tournament. Dumbledore said that Hogwarts was well protected enough, but Calla couldn't help but worry that it wasn't. Sometimes she thought Dumbledore didn't know what he was talking about; other times she thought he knew exactly what he was talking about, and simply chose to withhold it.

It was nearing the end of March when she was cornered by Zach after Ancient Runes, Daphne and Padma having gone one to lunch already. "Look," he said quickly, tugging her around a corner. "Are we really play?"

She stared at him. "What do you think, Zach?"

He winced. "Okay, I'm guessing that means no." He didn't meet her eyes. "I just thought you'd be over it by now."

"Over what?"

"I don't know, whatever it was you were so upset about!" She scoffed. "You can't really hold a grudge this long."

"I'm not holding a grudge."

"Well then why haven't you spoken to me since January?"

"Why haven't you?" She tried to keep her voice even, remembering what Remus had told her. Sometimes, people just had to talk. "Zach, you're my friend. You're... just my friend."

"And that's fine," he insisted, "but you're not even acting like I'm your friend!"

"I - I'm sorry," she said, not knowing what else to say. "I just don't know what to do. But I guess I forgive you."

"You don't sound very convinced."

Not knowing what the hell he wanted her to do, Calla just looked at him. "You just really hurt me with how you reacted at the ball, and then all that stuff with Rita Skeeter-"

"That was months ago-"

"I know," she said desperately, feeling awful at the look on his face, like she'd somehow betrayed him. "I'm sorry, but I just - you haven't exactly made an effort with me either! We're friends, right? So we can just... Relax. Be normal."

But she didn't know how it could go back to normal. She didn't understand what relationships were meant to be like, she didn't know how she was meant to fix something that was still on such rocky ground. She knew she didn't feel anything romantic for him anymore, but she didn't know how he felt, and it was all so complicated. "Fine then," Zach said, even though he didn't look like it was fine. "Have fun being normal."

He walked away, but his words lingered in an oddly insulting way. Calla stared, watching him go, and let out a sigh of frustration. It was an absolute mess and even though Zach had said they were friends, simply saying it didn't make it feel true.

Harry came along the corridor then, and Calla latched onto him and Ron and Hermione for a distraction. She was sure her brother could tell something was wrong, but had learned from her lecturing that she would not appreciate him interfering with whatever had just gone on. Ron had no such tact, but he did have Hermione to shush him, which Calla found herself grateful for.

She didn't really speak to Zach even after their awkward conversation - the details of which she had revealed to Padma and Daphne in a confused rant later that evening - but they did share the odd smile and friendly greeting when they saw each other in class and in the corridors. It wasn't normal by any means, but it was better than not speaking at all.

It helped that Cedric and Fleur seemed to have taken to her more recently too, often stopping for a chat, and Fleur and Calla were starting to make a habit of sitting near one another at meals. It made Calla happy in a way she didn't know quite how to describe except that it also made her feel that giddy, light feeling she had felt with Zach for a while. She just wasn't entirely sure how she could feel that same sort of emotion towards both. For someone to feel that towards either a boy or a girl was relatively normal, she supposed, but she didn't know how to handle both. She'd never heard of someone to have feelings for both boys and girls. It was rare enough for the Dursleys to even mention a girl having feelings for a girl. And Padma, after all, was clear on the fact that she only fancied girls. Calla didn't know how both was meant to work, so she pretended the issue didn't exist. And besides, she kept having to tell herself whenever she did try to confront the possibility of both, regardless of whatever mixed up and confusing emotions were going on in her head, Fleur Delacour was four years older and gorgeous and while Padma having romantic feelings for Daphne made sense, it was ridiculous for Calla to entertain the thought of romance with Fleur. She kept telling herself she was just thinking about it too much and confusing herself, but also couldn't ignore her feelings.

But even so, for all she was confused over who she was and what she felt and how anything feelings related worked, Calla had a sense that things, however dire they may soon become, were finding their balance again for a while. She determinedly continued her studies with her friends, and found it worked better for her than a lot of her actual classes did. The classwork was one thing, but with the free time from not having exams and a newfound appreciation for utilising such free time, she also found herself increasingly drawn to Runes. She'd been collecting and collating notes on the subject of practical rune usage since third year, but as days and weeks went by without her map - as Moody had rudely declined to return it, saying it was safest in his hands for the time being and that Dumbledore would surely agree - Calla decided it was high time to get on with it herself. If she didn't have a map, she could at least try and make one of her own. Of course, this was easier said than done, as Calla knew it would be, but turning her research to a specific project massively helped improve her focus. It was fun to have something to work on, too, while everyone else occupied themselves with exams. She wasn't getting very far, but she and Harry were to be spending the Easter holidays with Remus and Sirius, and she was certain they'd have some insight for her.

As for Divination, well, she felt her little group of students were making a lot more progress than she was. She didn't connect with Astrology at all, and her interpretations never quite sat right. Reading tea leaves and tarot were much easier and yielded better results, but her visions scared her sometimes now. Everything felt closer and more real. She saw a graveyard and green light, high hedges and a claustrophobic darkness; rows and rows of pale blue light that crashed and burned along the floor; and a pair of bright red, snake-like eyes. Those eyes haunted her nightmares for weeks, and when she woke in the silence of her dormitory, she could rarely get back to sleep. Most days she was tired, but she was also scared to try and sleep too, because of her nightmares. And no matter what Dumbledore told her to do to open and close and navigate her mind, it didn't help. It just made her feel worse.

She kept trying to focus on positives, though. During their study sessions, Calla had actually managed to nudge both Terry and Padma towards seeing somewhat reliably in crystal balls and gotten them all to understand that basis for astrological interpretation better. Trelawney had noted her delight at their progress in class, and Terry had gotten Calla a whole box of Honeydukes sugar quills to say thank you. She'd told him he really didn't need to, but he told her to count it as an early Easter present and she was honestly rather touched that he'd thought to give her some of her favourite sweets.

"You are pretty brilliant at this stuff," he told her when they descended the stairs after their last class of term. "I'm serious, Calla, you could totally give Trelawney a run for her money."

She giggled. "Well, I wouldn't like to just yet. I'm still learning too. Plus I'm not sure I'd do well teaching people who weren't my friends, I already get annoyed enough at Isobel for talking over me."

Terry laughed at that. "We all get annoyed at Isobel talking over us. She doesn't have much attention for the Goblin Rebellions, but I think they're fascinating. It's just a shame most of them might bite your head off if you tried to ask them about it."

"Yeah," Calla said quickly, laughing, "somehow I don't think trying to interrogate a goblin would end well."

With everything going on, Calla couldn't wait until the Easter holidays. Two weeks away from Hogwarts with Harry, Remus and Sirius would give her a much-needed relief. It seemed most of her peers had thought the same - Padma, Sue and Lisa were the only ones from their dormitory staying at school. "Most people's parents want to hear about the Tournament, I suspect," Padma said as she helped Calla with the last of her packing.

"The Dursleys would be horrified about the Tournament," Calla told her. "And more horrified that we've survived so far."

"Not so far," Padma said, "that you're going to survive." Calla smiled at the correction. "And you know, I really don't like the sound of these Dursleys. I think my mum would like to meet them."

"I'm not sure they'd like that," Calla said, thinking of all the run-ins they'd had with wizards the past summer. "Didn't I tell you about how they met the Greengrasses and the Weasleys?"

Ron and Hermione were both also staying behind for Easter, which Harry seemed to feel a little guilty about. "It's not like they aren't friends without you," Daphne told him rather flatly as the three of them sat on the train.

"Yeah, but I thought Hermione'd want to go home to her parents."

"I think Hermione's capable of making her own decisions, Harry," Calla laughed in response. "And I bet if Hermione did go home, you'd be feeling bad about Ron being on his own, but you know Remus is worried enough with all the Tournament going on. You'll see them in two weeks anyway."

The relief at seeing her godfather again was a strange thing, but Calla felt more relaxed than she had in weeks when he hugged her and Harry tightly and helped them out of the station. When they got home, Sirius was already in the kitchen at Collie Hill, making a big show out of his attempt to cook a roast for dinner. The chicken was slightly burnt and the Yorkshire puddings too soggy for Calla's preference, but the effort made her smile.

"Heard anything about the Third Task yet?" Remus asked them after dinner as they all burrowed into spots in the living room.

"I wish," Harry muttered. "Even Bagman hasn't tried to give me any hints."

"Shame," Calla murmured sarcastically, casting her eyes over to him.

"Well, I'm sure you'll find out soon," Sirius said, but he looked troubled. "You'll both breeze through."

Calla was not convinced by that. She didn't say anything, but she was sure Remus noticed the anxious twist of her mouth and her frown as she tried to concentrate on her Ancient Runes textbook.

They were just a few days into the holidays when she approached Remus and Sirius about her attempts to recreate a version of the map's enchantments by way of Runes. For a moment she was afraid she had somehow managed to offend them, but then Remus broke into a broad smile. "Calla, that sounds brilliant. Have you gotten far?"

"Not really," she admitted, "but I have a few ideas of how I might go about it, it's just that it'll have to be more trial and error than a proper, methodical sort of process. I've got lists of runes and methods of binding that I think could work, but they haven't really been tested, but I know it's not, like, dangerous or anything and Professor Babbling said this sort of stuff is possible and there's more focus on it next year and at N.E.W.T. level, so it's doable, I think, I just don't know if I can do it but I wanted to try so..." She trailed off, cheeks warming as she realised how she'd been rambling. But both Remus and Sirius seemed pleased.

"Well, we never used Runes," Sirius said, "mainly 'cause your dad never studied it and hadn't a clue how to make them work. But it's a pretty smart idea." He grinned. "Let's see what you've got then."

Half an hour later, Remus and Sirius had explained most of the enchantments that had made the original map work, and helped Calla figure out what Runes might cause the same effects. She didn't want to start with a map at first, mainly because drawing out the whole of Hogwarts without her reference would be too time consuming while she was still working out what Runes to use, but starting with something that could track movements and gradually reveal different illustrative elements felt like a good idea. Harry came in just as she was deliberating on whether Elder or Younger Futhark systems would work best for attaching to bind Runes, looking surprised to see the four of them in such a close conversation.

"Potions essay still giving you grief?" Remus asked him, while Sirius glanced over Calla's binding notes.

Harry launched into a whole rant about how little he cared about the properties of moonstone, but Calla was surprised to find that Sirius was paying her more attention than Harry. Maybe he just didn't enjoy hearing about Snape. "Elder Futhark generally grants you more combinations," Sirius was saying, "but Younger Futhark's limited variety could also make it easier to work along a bind staff. Then again, you could mix the two-"

"-But the structural and magical cultural differences between the systems could lead to them cancelling one another out."

Sirius nodded, grinning. "Exactly. You'd need to be careful with that, but like you said, if your method is just trial and error, then you might as well give it a shot."

Calla smiled back at him for that, starting to map out a way of connecting runes between parchment and person. Maybe she could start small, tracing an artefact on the parchment and work her way up.

That Easter morning was the first Easter morning Calla could remember ever having spent outside of Hogwarts or the Dursleys' house. It also happened to be the best she'd ever had. Along with their hamper of sweets from Remus and Sirius (which Calla and Harry were instructed to share evenly, which Calla didn't think was going to end up happening), both twins had gotten boxes of Easter eggs from Mrs Weasley and from the Greengrasses. But more than the sweets and chocolate which they feasted on for breakfast, they all spent the day together, not doing much except enjoying one another's company. Remus had located a nice ice cream parlour near by which happened to still be open and sell some of the best ice cream Calla had ever had. And it occurred to her as the day started winding to a close and they finished the last of their dessert around the dinner table, that this little, weird Muggle flat with a hippogriff in the garden and a self-knitting scarf in the living room, felt like home. This felt like a family.

"We're hoping we'll be able to have you over for most of the Summer," Remus said before they went to bed that night. "Dumbledore says you ought to have a fortnight at the Dursleys' - and yes, I know what you're thinking, but I'm sure they'll be quite happy to let you come with us."

"They'd be happy never to see us again," Harry said flatly. Sirius frowned.

"I say sod it to what Dumbledore thinks, personally," he told them. "But I promise, if not before, we'll see you after a couple of weeks and try and visit in between."

That was really all Calla felt she wanted in that moment. She could handle two weeks with the Dursleys if it meant six with Remus and Sirius - and besides, she did want to see Mairi, too. Hopefully they'd get to see her and Harry at the Third Task anyway, if they came to watch, and it couldn't be far away. Soon enough, she'd see them again. In that, she was confident.

Xx

With the Ravenclaw Tower swinging deep into its usual pre-exam mess - half the house insisting that 'organised chaos' was the method for revision and the other screaming that they needed peace, quiet, solitude and for not a single other person to move even one muscle or they would hex them to oblivion - Calla found herself strangely alone. She didn't have any exams to study for, only the Tournament, and despite having some minor success at coercing her visions - one of Buckbeak in an unfamiliar room, and one in Daphne sitting on Isobel's shoulders in the common room and promptly falling off - she didn't know yet what the task would be. So she brushed up on jinxes, hexes, shields, counter spells and healing spells, as well as her knowledge of Magical creatures, and promised herself that once they were told what their task was, she would do a more focused study.

Instead, she found her mind wandering in lessons - mainly History of Magic, because Terry turned out to be a far better lecturer than Binns - and turning to her Runes project. She'd managed to figure out what Runes to use to animate images, and had successfully tried it on a couple of sketches of her friends, then managed to make dots move around on the parchment. The trouble was linking their magical animation to the natural and physical animation of another object or person. In her troubling over this issue of the link, she had also briefly turned to trying to work out how Remus, Sirius, her dad and Pettigrew had managed to enchant the parchment to respond to someone who couldn't open it. Had they left a part of them in it, like Tom Riddle had with his diary, just for much less sinister purposes? Had there been a particular spell? She'd considered asking Dumbledore about how he thought Riddle had made the diary, but decided that wasn't a very appropriate question to ask anyone, and he might be rather alarmed. She scribbled a note to herself to ask Remus, but knew she had to focus.

This project consumed her for most of May, much to Lisa's frustration. "You're more of a mess than Isobel," she snapped, gesturing to the scattering of scrap parchment and books and notes that littered Calla's bed.

But Calla ignored her. She had long given up on caring what Lisa Turpin said about her, especially since she wasn't sure she meant it as much any more. Though that was perhaps wishful thinking.

She had gone through almost a dozen attempts on ill-fated pieces of parchment - three burst into flame, four dissolved, two curled up on themselves and refuse to move, and three became completely covered in ink - before she managed to get something that linked inked Runes and markings to another human being. During their 'study sessions' she had picked up on Lisa talking about how numbers in Arithmancy could amplify magical power, specifically the numbers three and seven. That gave her an idea to give the Runes appropriate power; she used three different Runes along a bindrune staff, and each pattern was replicated replicated six times to make seven. They were then drawn around by the activation Rune which would be later acted upon by incantation.

The Runes were done in purple ink on one side of the parchment. This was one advantage parchment had over paper, that ink didn't tend to leak through the other side. On the other side, the spots where the Runes had been clustered were able to connect to the seven small dots she put on. Animating those together was harder, and so her eventual decision on the bindrunes was to use one Rune to symbolise a name or initial, one animation Rune in the middle, and a name to represent the person spiritually. Daphne and Padma, to Calla's gratitude, both volunteered for this experimental phase, and had their respective bindrunes inked onto the palm of their hands. "I'm not sure if this Rune will need activating or not," Calla admitted, "or if I only need to do it on the parchment. It's not like you two need animating." Deciding that it would be easier to add to the Runes than take away, Calla very carefully traced the tip of her wand around the circle of Daphne's bindrune on the parchment, and said quietly, "Fascine." Feeling suddenly nervous, she repeated the same for Padma, and nodded at her friends.

Both stood at opposite ends of the dormitory as their Runes were placed at opposite ends of the parchment, but when they moved to pass each other, the dots mirrored the movements, which made Calla scream in delight.

"Did it really work?" Daphne asked, hurrying over to watch. "Padma, spin around!"

"I'm not going to spin," Padma said. "It's a dot, it wouldn't make a difference."

Calla grinned. It wasn't the map, but it was beginning to take a form of its own. She was just glad she'd done something, that her ridiculous experiment had actually worked and that however outdated and unpracticed this form was, she had put her efforts into doing something magical and it had paid off. She didn't know how this could be replicated within a wider setting or for the same purposes of the map, but somehow that part didn't matter so much now. This was her project, her idea, and her work. And she had to admit she was pretty damn proud of it, whatever it turned out to be. "I can't believe it actually worked," she said, hardly daring to speak. Her excitement made her somewhat breathless. "Right, now we need to match all the dots."

The other girls in the dorm took to this challenge with varying degreees of certainty. Isobel thought the opportunity for a tattoo was brilliant, and seemed rather fascinated by what Calla had done. Mandy and Sue were curious but wary, and Lisa dismissed it straight out. "You should be putting this energy into the Tournament," she told Calla. "Or class work. Not some silly little experiment. That's not even similar to the assignment Babbling set us."

"It's cool, though," Isobel told her, grinning.

"I just wanted to know if it could be done," Calla said with a shrug. "Don't you want to know?"

"I don't care."

"I couldn't have done it without your Arithmancy knowledge."

"Fine," Lisa huffed, looking reluctantly pleased by the compliment, which had been Calla's intention. "Ink me up, Potter. But don't blame me when you flake in the Tournament because of lack of preparation."

"I don't even know what I have to do yet," Calla told her, as she steadily started to draw three copies of the Rune she'd picked out for Isobel - isa for her first initial. "I'll prepare when I'm able but until then I might as well do something interesting."

In the last week of May, though, Flitwick came hurrying over to Calla at the end of dinner. "You are to go down to the Quidditch Pitch at nine o'clock tonight, Miss Potter," he squeaked excitedly.

"Why?" Calla asked, frowning, though she supposed it must be Tournament business.

Flitwick grinned at her. "Mr Bagman will be telling you all about what we have in store for the Third Task!"

So at half past eight she packed up her notes in the dormitory, to Lisa's gratitude - they hadn't quite managed to get the ink off of everyone's hands yet, and she was going to have to refine the tracking element - and made her way down to the Quidditch Pitch. She came across her brother on the staircase that connected their two towers, and hurried to catch up with him. "Hey," she said, grinning. "You alright?"

"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "I'm quite glad we've not got exams, Hermione's in the middle of giving Ron a lecture about Cheering Charms."

Calla grinned. "Any idea what we might have to do?"

"None. Hermione's got a bunch of ideas based on previous tournaments, but I reckon they'll do something completely new."

"At least we're all on an even footing now," Calla said with a bitter cheerfulness she hadn't even known was going to come out of her.

Her brother looked at her and at least looked somewhat abashed. "Yeah..." He trailed off for a second before asking, "Did you ever get your Patronus?"

She stopped suddenly on the stairs, staring at him. "Huh?"

"You - I just thought, because you hadn't mentioned it... I know you were working on it last year..."

She sighed, rubbing her eyes. "No," she said. "I've been working on it, but no. I've not got my Patronus, Harry." Then she added in a mutter, "I would have told you if I had."

"I just thought I'd ask," Harry said defensively. She didn't say anything else. "I was just trying to be nice, Calla!"

"Oh, yeah, I know," she said bitterly. "It's fine."

She didn't even know why she was annoyed, except she was tired and all of a sudden it seemed easy to take it out on her brother. She knew it wasn't fair, but it didn't stop her. "Not like you know you got it a year ago and I'm still behind you."

"To be fair," Harry said, "I had more practice than you."

"Oh, I know that!" she said shrilly, stomping down the stairs. "I think we established that detail pretty well last year, actually!"

"What's wrong with you?" Harry asked, frowning. "You're a bit..." She raised her eyebrows. "On edge?"

"I am," she snapped in reply, and hurried onwards. Then she sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I just haven't been sleeping well recently. It's just..."

"Nightmares?" Harry asked, and when she looked at him, she knew from his eyes that he understood.

"Yeah," she said, scuffing the ground. "You could say that."

"It'll be alright," Harry saidz

"You can't know that."

"And you can't know that it won't be." He smiled, knocking her shoulder. "But I would appreciate if you stopped taking it out on me." She glared at him and he said quickly, "Let's go, we'll be late."

"You're right," Calla sighed grudgingly. "You know, Fleur said the other day she thinks they might make us look for some sort of treasure."

"Nifflers would be handy, then," Harry said cheerfully, though it felt rather forced.

When they got to the Quidditch Pitch, although it was very dark, Calla could see the shadows of hedges poking into the sky and hiding the stars. She tried not to smile. "No way."

"What have they done to it?" Harry demanded indignantly, looking quite appalled. "They're hedges!"

"Hello there!" called a cheery voice; Calla looked over to see Fleur, Cedric and Krum already standing with him just ahead of them. Fleur beamed at the two of them as they approached and Calla felt a familiar but still uncertain flip of the stomach that she often got when Fleur was around. She felt her cheeks heat up as she nodded back, stumbling over herself in a haste to join Fleur's side. If the older girl noticed, she did not say so, merely smiled serenely down at her.

"Well, what d'you think?" Bagman asked. "Growing nicely, aren't they? Give them a month and Hagrid'll have them twenty feet high. Don't worry, you'll have your Quidditch Pitch back soon enough. Now, can you guess what we're making here?"

No one spoke. Calla stared at the hedges, the strange pattern and spaces between them. "Is it a maze?" she asked curiously, and Bagman beamed at her.

"Right you are, my girl! A maze. The Third Task is very straightforward. The Triwizard Cup will be placed in the centre of the maze. The first champion to touch it will receive full marks.

"Wait," said Fleur, not looking satisfied, "we simply have to get through the maze?"

"There will be obstacles," Bagman said cheerfully, "I believe Hagrid has procured a few for us... then there will be spells that must be broken... all that sort of thing, you know. Now, the champions who are leading on points will get a head start into the maze," he said, nodding to Harry and Cedric, "then Mister Krum will enter, then Miss Potter, and finally Miss Delacour. But you'll all be in with a fighting chance based on how you get past the obstacles. Should be fun."

Calla did have to wonder what sort of creatures Hagrid would have 'procured' for them. She really hoped there weren't any Blast-Ended-Skrewts. Still, breaking spells could either be very difficult or a lot easier than fighting off an Acromantula. She'd have to see, but she made a note to brush up on counter spells and on her knowledge of dangerous and questionably legal magical creatures.

"Very well, then," Bagman said with a smile, "if no one has any questions, then we should all head back up to the castle, it is getting a bit chilly."

Bagman hurried out of the maze and fell curiously into step with Harry. Calla rolled her eyes, falling back to walk with Fleur and Cedric. "A maze, eh?" Cedric said. "Sounds interesting, but I suppose I'd better brush up on my orienteering skills."

Calla smiled. "Yeah, I'm not sure it'll be quite so easy as just walking around until we find it." She'd have to try and think of a strategy.

"Your brother gets along well with Bagman?" Fleur noted, nodding.

Calla huffed. "More like Bagman gets along well with him. Everyone tries to get along with Harry." She shook her head, shrugging. "Suppose it's just inevitable."

"It is interesting," Fleur said, frowning. "Does your brother not like Bagman?"

She shrugged. "Dunno. I think he thinks he's a bit... Over-friendly." She chose her words carefully; much as it annoyed her, she didn't exactly want to let slip about how Bagman kept trying to help Harry.

But a second later, Harry had broken off from Bagman, instead going off to the side with Krum. Calla frowned at him, but he just waved his hand dismissively and nodded even as they headed further away. "That's weird," she murmured, though only Cedric heard her. "I don't think Harry and Krum have spoken before."

"Mm." Cedric and Fleur exchanged glances.

"What?" Calla asked, knowing what that look meant.

"Nothing," Cedric said, "Krum's nice, he's just a bit..."

"He is rather, how do you say it, stand off?"

"Stand offish." Cedric nodded. "Yeah, that's it. Don't know what he wants with Harry, he doesn't talk to me all that much. Fleur talks to him, though."

"Yes," Fleur said, "though it took some time. I think he is like me, he is used to people looking at him and seeing one thing, but he only wants them to stop looking." She ran her hands through her silvery hair. "I ought to get back to Madam Maxime, she will want to know what I have been told." She nodded politely to Calla and Cedric. "Good night."

Calla and Cedric continued in silence for a moment as they went up the stairs. "Are you nervous?" he asked her, and she nodded, laughing lightly.

"Just a bit."

"Yeah." Cedric smiled. "It feels so surreal that it's almost done though, know what I mean? Everything we've been working for, to bring glory to our school - to our houses." He glanced at Calla and she blushed.

"You really want this, don't you?" Calla said, and he nodded.

"My dad'd be so proud if I won. And so would all of Hufflepuff... I mean, everyone talks like we're a load of duffers. And it is always Gryffindor and Slytherin who get the glory, and you lot in Ravenclaw, everyone says you're all brilliant..."

"We're all a bit of a mess," Calla chuckled, "but I get it. I guess both our houses kind of get swept under the rug a bit, just because we're not as..."

"Loud?" Cedric laughed. "Yeah." He looked down. "Listen, Potter. You... Look after yourself."

"Everyone keeps telling me that," she said, huffing a little. She looked at him. "But thanks. You know that, if I don't win, Harry would be my second choice, since he's my brother and everything, but a Hogwarts victory's a Hogwarts victory, isn't it?" She grinned as they reached the stairs that would take Calla up to the first floor. "So good luck, I guess."

"You too, Potter," Cedric said, grinning. Calla could all of a sudden see why so many girls fancied him; she couldn't stop herself from smiling as she went up the staircase, headed along the corridor and up the stairs to Ravenclaw Tower on the other side of the castle. She could feel a bit of a pressure at her head, but she was getting better at relaxing, at keeping her visions at bay - if she did that, then she figured she would soon be able to work her way up to reaching the visions themselves. It had taken her long enough already.

Though she felt a great foreboding as she stepped into Ravenclaw Tower, that wasn't entirely out of the ordinary. She hurried into the dormitory to tell the girls what Bagman had told her, and Isobel was quick to theorise on the sorts of creatures Hagrid might put in the maze for them. They spoke until they were all too tired to continue - and Lisa threw a pillow at Daphne, who retorted by sending a Monster Book of Monsters towards her, which Lisa only narrowly avoided.

"We'll come up with a plan afternoon," Padma yawned as they all settled into bed. "But you look exhausted, Calla."

"Don't I always?"