Author's Note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I'm not JK Rowling and you know that because #transrights

10.

The Goblet of Fire Part II: Strong Enough To Do It Again

Dear Mum,

Flitwick gave me an EE on the charms paper we had to submit before the holidays, which is officially my highest charms grade ever! I thought I should tell you.

Hermione and Ron still aren't talking after that big fight they had at the Yule Ball. It's stupid, really. She's introduced me to Krum for real after, since we know they're friends now and all, and he's actually really nice. He mentioned that he had missed an annual Winter Solstice Quidditch game they have back in Bulgaria over the holidays, so we convinced Madam Hooch to lend us brooms from the school. Cedric and I went flying with him and it was actually really fun. He gave me a lot of good tips about my posture to help with balance.

The three of us sort of have an idea of what the next task is; mostly because Fleur gave Cedric a massive hint in exchange for his library card so she could do research about it. I don't want to tell you too much because I know you'll worry, but I think I need your help. I want to learn a few phrases of Mermish. I know you can speak it, and Remus mentioned that you learned it from the merfolk in the Black Lake when you were a student. I was wondering if we could talk through the fireplace. Remus said we could use the fireplace in his office so it's quiet. Let me know if you have time.

I love you lots,

Harry

"Would Mrs. Lily Evans-Potter like more coffee, ma'am?" Dobby asked helpfully when she yawned over her toast. He was sitting across from her at the kitchen table, perched on a pile of books on a stool so that he could read the copy of The Prophet spread on the table. Remus had been teaching him to read bit by bit, and Sirius had boosted the elf's confidence by assuring him that only half of The Prophet's content was worth reading anyways.

"Dobby can put another pot on since Dobby drank so much of the first," he offered.

"No thank you Dobby, I'm alright," Lily said.

"Mrs. Lily Evans-Potter hasn't been sleeping well again," Dobby noted, concerned. "Would Lily Evans-Potter like Dobby to go to Diagon Alley to fetch that sleeping elixir?"

"You're sweet," Lily said with a smile. "But no thank you, Dobby. I'll be fine."

Dobby didn't look convinced, but he went back to his reading, so Lily went back to the notebook in front of her. She was writing down the latest detail of the dream she'd had last night. It didn't make much sense; most of her dreams didn't. Still, the fragments that came to her came again and again. That felt important. In the absence of any kind of sense, writing down the tidbits she could remember when she woke up in cold sweat was soothing at least. Well, maybe not quite soothing, but it solidified the fact that Lily was doing everything she could.

Sirius swung into the kitchen wearing the leather trench coat dotted with pockets that signaled that he would be out of the house on a curse-breaking mission for a few days. He offered his fist to Dobby for a fist-bump on his way in.

"Dobby made something to keep Mr Sirius Black warm during his trip!" Dobby said.

"Oh, you didn't have to do that," Sirius said as he circled to the counter to make a fresh pot of coffee.

Dobby hopped down from his stool.

"Sirius Black must not leave before Dobby goes to fetch it!" the elf said before disappearing into the house.

As the coffee dripped, Sirius glided over and kissed the top of Lily's head before grabbing her mug. He took a sip from her cup while he waited for his own.

"You're all packed up?" Lily asked him.

"Probably," Sirius said. "Do you think I should bring a wand?"

"Ha ha," she said, deadpan.

"I'm a big boy, Evans. I've done this before," he reminded her. "Are you going to be alright while I'm gone? Like I said, I'll try to make it quick…"

"I'm a big girl too, Sirius," Lily reminded him. She took her mug back and took a sip. "I'll be alright for a few days on my own."

"I know you'll be alright, a meteor could hit the earth and you'd be alright," Sirius said. "But I've spent quite a bit of time making sure that you don't carry things alone just because you hypothetically could and I'm not about to stop now."

Before Lily could reply, Dobby burst into the kitchen again carrying a handknit pair of fingerless black gloves spotted with a white pawprint pattern.

"Oh, Dobby," Sirius said. "You shouldn't have!"

…

Lily, you would have been so proud of your son. He didn't even enter the lake like the other competitors; all he did was call to the merfolk with a song and offer them an exchange of favours. They brought Ron back to the surface for him and in exchange he sat on the platform and used various spells to collect all kinds of rubbish that had been dumped in the lake over the years. He didn't even stop once Ron was back at the surface and well again, actually. He kept going until the task was over and they called time. I have no idea what he actually told the merfolk since I speak absolutely no Mermish myself, but the judges were incredibly impressed. I also had no idea the lake was so polluted; I'll talk to Dumbledore about doing more to clean it up now that we know.

McGonagall is bemoaning the absolute chaos and celebration that will inevitably course through Gryffindor house for the next week or so, but she's proud too. I'm just happy Harry managed it. James would have been so proud to see him outsmart the competition like that. I told him so too.

I promise to write more later; I just wanted to send you the good news quickly.

Love,

Remus

Harry looked down at the new flame-like scar stretching out over his arm, gutted.

"I don't get it," he said. "I don't understand why the Goblet marked me again. I… I did the task. I just didn't… I just didn't put myself in danger."

Lily hesitated to answer, furious and saddened as she was. Part of her wished that Madam Pomfrey would swing by again with a disinfecting drought or a numbing cream of some sort to shift the conversation.

"The Goblet doesn't like to be outsmarted, boy," Mad-Eye spoke up. He was standing at the foot of Harry's infirmary bed, leaning on the rail. "It was enchanted to dispense eternal glory to its champion. It demands danger and risk."

"Well wasn't that what the dragon was for?" Harry said with the kind of sarcasm in his voice that only James could get away with giving Mad-Eye at Order meetings. Lily bit her lip.

"I'm not making up the rules, I'm just telling you how incredibly powerful and incredibly ancient magical artefacts operate," Mad-Eye said. "They always wind up screwy and flawed, isn't that right Mrs. Potter?"

"Yes," Lily said, somewhat surprised that Mad-Eye wasn't calling her by her first name as he usually did. He'd always had something of a sweet spot for her; he'd been the one to inform her, when she was in sixth year, that dark wizards had hunted down her parents. When he had made eye contact with her during her first Order meeting, he had nodded tersely in approval once.

She bit her lip and looked down at Harry's arm again, at the second flame licking its way from his wrist to his shoulder. It took up so much of his skin, it was clear that there wouldn't be room on Harry's arm for a third flame should another transgression take place.

Lily was about to turn to Mad-Eye again, but he'd already left, leaving her and Harry alone in the infirmary.

"He was the closest teacher, when the mark hit me," Harry explained. "Well, I don't know if he counts as a teacher since he's here for security—but Hermione got him for me."

"I'm sorry this happened," Lily said quietly. She squeezed Harry's good hand. "I thought that what you did was brilliant. Remus wrote as soon as the task was over."

"I thought so too," Harry said. "I didn't… I didn't want to do anything dangerous."

"I know," Lily said. She sat on the edge of Harry's bed and cupped his cheek. "I know, baby, but what Mad-Eye said about the cup… In theoretical charms, we would call that a fallacy of thought. Even when enchanted to do so, objects cannot be given human thought; they can be given parameters and rules, but they will never be able to balance and enforce and balance them properly."

"The cup might be mad?" Harry asked. "Like… actually mad?"

"I don't know," Lily said quietly.

"Do you think that's how my name ended up there in the first place?" Harry asked.

"I have no idea," Lily said. "I would have to… I would have to look at the cup to know, sweetheart."

Harry nodded and looked at his arm again.

"I'm going to have to be careful next time," he said.

"Yes, baby," Lily said quietly.

"I hate this," Harry said.

"I know," Lily said, gathering her in his arms. He stayed bundled up against her until they heard someone call his name. Lily looked up and saw Cedric Diggory, wearing jeans and a simple Hufflepuff sweater, his bronze curls still damp from the competition.

"Harry," Cedric said. He stopped when he saw Lily. "Oh, hi Mrs. Evans-Potter…"

Harry wriggled out of her arms in no time.

"Cedric," he said.

"Hey," he said. "Krum heard from Hermione that you'd been hurt again and he… I can come back later."

"No," Lily said, getting up. "No, you two catch up. I have to go speak to Professor Dumbledore. Congratulations on the Second Task, Cedric. Bubblehead charms are quite tricky."

"Thank you," Cedric said. She left them to it, but she only heard the boys start to talk when she was safely out of earshot. She smiled.

Thankfully, everybody came home for Easter. Lily wasn't sure how much longer she would have lasted, without all her people in one place at one time. Tonks turned up in time for supper with a chocolate Hippogriff big enough to feed all of them, and they sat in the living room after snacking on its wings. Harry retreated upstairs to go curl up and read with Medusa the snake, which gave Sirius the freedom to broach the lewder details of his latest curse-breaking expedition and get a little more vulgar in his descriptions. They were all in stitches.

"Mad-Eye used to warn us about the libido of bat-winged pixies all the time, I just had no idea he was right," Sirius said with a grin. "How is Mad-Eye anyways?"

"I have no idea," Remus said. "He barely speaks to me."

"Really?" Lily asked. Mad-Eye had always loved Remus' composed and cool temperament, his quick-thinking and reason, and of course his dueling skills and encyclopedic knowledge. He had broached the subject of Aurorhood with Remus quite a few times before they'd finally told him about Remus' condition to get him to stop.

"He doesn't speak to me much," Remus said. "I assumed… well, he's seen and done a lot in his life. I assumed that I was a reminder about the Order, an extra layer of loss he may not need or want to be reminded of."

"I don't think it's you," Tonks said from where she leaned against Remus, tucked under his arm. "He's barely spoken to me since taking the consultation position at the castle."

"Really?" Remus asked.

"I thought he trained you," Sirius said.

"He did," Tonks said. "He scouted me out while I was still at Hogwarts and took me in, mentored me throughout my training. When he retired, he promised that he would still take me out for a drink to celebrate ten years in the department, but he… well, he hasn't replied to any owls or anything either."

Remus kissed the top of her very pink head.

"It's a good thing I took you out then, isn't it?" Remus said.

"And that was probably a much different outing than if Mad-Eye had…"

"That's enough out of you, Sirius," Remus said. He tossed a chocolate Hippogriff claw at Sirius, but Lily snatched it out of the air first.

Hey Sirius,

School's really boring without Quidditch to break it up, but there's only a few months left so I'll be fine. We found out what the third task will be today: a maze with the cup hidden somewhere in it. There'll be all sorts of traps and magical creatures and things in there as well, apparently. Fleur pointed out that on the one hand it's annoying, because there isn't much we can do to prepare for it other than general dueling and Defense Against the Dark Arts skills which we've all been practicing anyways. Remus is letting us use his classroom and the dueling dummies in it after hours as long as we're all there—he doesn't want it to seem as if the Hogwarts champions are getting an advantage, which is probably for the best since the Goblet is a crazed metallic bastard.

Still, I thought I would write to you to find out about curse breaking. Walking into the unknown and having to defuse magical traps and fight whatever you find in there to get to a magical object is kind of what you do, after all. Ron's writing to Bill to see if we can find out more, but the more I know the better it will be, probably.

Also, thanks for your advice about the Ron and Hermione situation. I told Ron to knock it off and stop being a git, and I told Hermione to talk to him if she had a problem instead of waiting for him to figure it out since he never does or can. It's nice to be able to hang out with everyone again without Neville and I getting caught in their crossfire. Was this how exhausting it was to deal with my parents when they were at school?

Love,

Harry

PS — You can show this letter to Mum if you want to. I know she wants to know as much as she can about all this and while I hate worrying her, it's not like we know much either. Besides, they're literally growing the maze for the task over the Quidditch pitch. It's not really a secret. They better not damage the pitch so we can get it back for the next season though, or I'm going to be mad.

Sirius found her straightening up in front of the mirror; tugging her burgundy dress down and fidgeting with her jean jacket. He hugged her from behind and kissed her ear.

"You look nice," he promised. "As long as you wear those black shoes."

"With those heels on them?" Lily scoffed.

"You're a champion's mother, Evans. Wear the heels."

She still felt as if she was going to be sick as she looked at her reflection. She had left her hair loose since it tended to draw attention away from her scarred face. Quite frankly, Lily didn't need the attention today nor did she need to be seeing the lightning scars again—her face was numb and tingling enough as it was, but that was the least of her concerns at the moment.

"We're going to have a good day," Sirius said. "We're going to see Harry again, spend the day with him."

"Before he's sent into a maze designed to trap children or marked by a magical artefact for trying to avoid the danger," Lily said. She caught herself spiraling, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Deep breath, Evans, James would tell her all the time—even before they were friends and partners. Reassure yourself the same way you reassure and take care of everyone else around you.

"We're going to have a good day," she finally said.

Harry's sleeves were too long for him; the Hogwarts champion uniform was meant to be worn by a taller competitor, after all. She cuffed his sleeves for him, even if he tried to squirrel away, and then she took his face in her hands. Last year, when they'd taken him to the optometrist because Lily didn't quite trust wizard Healers to deal with her son's eyes, he had chosen rectangular glasses instead of round ones. He looked like James even more since then.

"I am so proud of you, no matter what happens in there," she told him. "If you win, I'll cheer for you. If you quietly walk the maze and stay out of trouble until the task is over, I'll cheer for you. If you slay another dragon, I'll cheer for you."

"I'll be okay," Harry promised.

"Okay," Lily said, finding it difficult not to trust her son but to trust the world. She pulled him against her, until a Ministry official came to tell them that all Champions were required to present themselves in the main tent. Cedric waited for Harry at the entrance and waved at Lily before going in with her son.

There were stars when Lily's eyes opened—stars and Sirius, and something soft padded underneath her head. She was laying on something hard, wood? Her mouth was dry, and her eyes were having trouble focusing. Sirius pinched her arm and she refocused some. She tried sitting up and there was Remus, trying to shush her and keep her down but Lily sat up anyways. The second she was upright, pain erupted all over her face and she screamed—startling Remus, but Sirius only held her closer.

"Lily, shh," he said. "Take it easy."

"Harry—where's Harry?" Lily said. She couldn't explain why she was asking but she needed to know with the same burning need that she'd had not to let go of her son, not to put down the baby clutched to her chest, on her last night in Godric's Hollow.

"He's," Sirius sounded nervous. "He's out of the maze, Dumbledore is handling it."

"Dumbledore's—why, what's wrong, what's wrong with him," Lily said. She turned to look down from the stands to the entrance of the labyrinth, not caring about the new wave of pain it brought on or the crowd that was looking at her.

"Lily, Harry's fine, but Cedric… Cedric Diggory is dead," Remus said quietly.

Lily's breath got stuck in her throat as she looked down and saw Amos and Gracie Diggory, bent over each other and something covered in a black shroud… Ministry officials were urging the crowd away.

The blood froze in her veins. She had been a mess when James had died, shattered from the inside and scrambling to pick up the broken shards and pieces without slicing herself open all over again. But she had done it, more or less—but she wouldn't have been able to if Harry had been the one she'd lost.

And Harry—what had happened? How much had he seen? Had he been there? Had he—

She saw him, guided away from the scene by Alastor Moody.

"Where is he going?" Lily asked. She got up shakily, using Remus as a support, and ignored the fresh wave of pain that shot across her face and chest. She was covered in sweat and she knew she was shaking with chills—why, she didn't know, but something was wrong. "Why didn't Dumbledore send him to us?"

"Lily, you've been out for the last fifteen minutes and we were too afraid to move you," Remus said. "It looked like a seizure and Madam Pomfrey was here until she got called to someone else, but you… you woke up when Harry came back."

"Back from where?" Lily asked. She couldn't take her eyes off of Mad-Eye, and the way he was gripping Harry's shoulder so tightly as they walked away…

"Something's wrong," Lily said. "Something's more wrong than it's been in years, in… Remus, where is Mad-Eye staying? While he's been in the castle? Where are his chambers?"

"In the South tower, I think, third floor," Remus said. "Lily, you sit with Sirius, I'll go with them…"

Remus gently pushed on her shoulder so that she sat. The second his guiding hand was off of her, she turned into her kite form and flew into the night, southwards.

She had done a flurry of research on this last summer, when she had first become an Animagus. Birds heard a smaller range of frequencies than humans, but their sound recognition skills were far superior. Similarly, it was normal that her sense of smell was far subtler, but her eyes caught smaller motions and smaller details far more accurately and quickly.

Lily couldn't quite hear what Mad-Eye was saying through the glass, but she saw Harry. His arm was cut, he was dirty, there were tear tracks down his cheeks... She wanted to tap on Mad-Eye's window right away, banking on the fact that Harry would recognize her and let her in so she could wrap him up in her arms and be his mother. But something was off in Mad-Eye's voice. It wasn't quite Mad-Eye's and his limp… his limp was changing. She caught the look of panic in Harry's eyes as he sensed that something was wrong too.

Lily flew away from the window and then straight into it. She turned herself back into a woman at the last possible moment to smash through the glass, tucking her limbs in so that she fell and rolled along the stone floor. She got up, wand drawn, and threw up a shield spell to protect against Mad-Eye's curse.

"Harry, out!" she shouted. He didn't have his wand, Mad-Eye had taken it from him, but he ran for the door. It was locked.

"Lily Evans Potter," Mad-Eye said. "The girl who lived."

"Alastor Moody never called me that," Lily said evenly, keeping the spell up. The first time she'd talked to him after The Prophet gave her that nickname, he'd been quite grumpy about it. You're not a girl, you're a woman, and you did much more than live.

"Who are you?" Lily demanded.

"You won't be around long enough for it to matter," he said. "Oh, how proud the Dark Lord will be of his most loyal servant, for finishing what went wrong at the graveyard and getting rid of the mother too…"

Lily's shock let the spell flicker for just a moment.

"What?" she croaked. "What did you say?"

Mad-Eye laughed and produced an all-too familiar blast of green light. Lily threw up another shield that sent the killing curse flying before it disintegrated, and all of a sudden Harry was at her side.

"Accio!" he cried. His wand flew to his hand in an impressive feat of wandless magic in time for him to create another shield.

"Don't touch my mother!" he roared. "Stupify!"

Mad-Eye laughed and countered the spell easily, and when he laughed Lily noticed what she'd first picked up on as a kite. He was changing into someone who wasn't Mad-Eye at all. There was something in his eyes she vaguely recognized too…

"Petrificus totalus!" she shouted. The spell hit him in the chest mid-laugh. Death Eaters had always been like this; they had always underestimated just how good of a dueler Lily really was. She had never fought Barty Crouch Jr, as far as she knew. At least not before tonight, that was.

She kept her eyes on him for a moment to make sure that the magical bonds would hold before turning to her son and wrapping her arms around him. He broke into tears and dropped his wand again—his sobs raw and hard.

"He's back," Harry said. "Voldemort's back, Mum, I saw him, I..."

He couldn't manage more and Lily's blood chilled. If she hadn't had a son to hold, she would have crumpled right there and then. Funny; that's how it had been when Voldemort had died too.

"Let it out, baby," Lily said. "Let it out, let it all out…"

The office door burst open as Sirius, Remus, McGonagall, and Dumbledore arrived. Lily held her son more tightly as she looked up at them.

"It's happened," she said. "It's happened, but we're not talking about it until Harry sees Madam Pomfrey and gets something warm to drink."

Harry's hands were shaking around the cup of Sleeping Draught that he was holding. A few beds down, Fleur Delacour was recovering from her own injuries and regrowing a few bones. Viktor Krum had yet to wake up again, which might be a kindness—Lily had heard that coming off the Imperium curse was absolutely nightmarish.

"Take your time," Lily said. "We're in no rush."

Harry nodded. He was in fresh pajamas and Madam Pomfrey had bandaged up the cut Pettigrew had left. Peter had cut across the flames that the goblet had printed on Harry's skin. Much like her own scar, Lily doubted that it would ever heal. She found room inside herself to rage about that—alongside her rage that Peter had dared touch her son, that a Death Eater had been within Hogwarts' walls for a full year, that Cornelius Fudge had dared to deny it all…

Lily took the cup from him when he was done and put it on his nightstand table. She brushed Harry's hair away from his face.

"Lie down," she said quietly. "Potions like these then to hit you out of nowhere."

Harry nodded and she tucked him in, as if he were a little boy. He was too tired to protest. She sat at his side and brushed his hair, another familiar motion from when he'd been little. She hoped it soothed him still.

"I met Dad, when the thing with our wands happened," Harry said quietly. Lily's stomach dropped. "There were these figures, made out of light, that came out of our wands from the people he'd killed."

Harry took a deep breath and his face constricted in pain. "Cedric… Ced… he told me to bring his body back and Dad… Dad told me that we were strong enough to do this again."

Lily's stomach sank, but she took Harry's hands.

"We are," Lily said. "You've proven just how strong you are tonight, sweetheart. But you don't have to think about all of that right now."

He fell asleep seconds later.

She found Dumbledore standing at the castle's parapet, looking over at the grounds. Lily stepped out to join him, letting the sound of her footsteps on the stone announce her arrival. She stood next to Dumbledore and looked at the grounds. They should have been familiar to her, even if she hadn't been a student here for many, many years, but it didn't feel real. Nothing felt real except for the pounding pain across her face and chest.

"Lily," he said. "I cannot imagine what you are going through."

"No," she agreed. "Does it mean that you'll be reconvening the Order of the Phoenix?"

"Yes," he said plainly.

"Good," she said.

WC: 4561