Freddie stood blinking in the bright sunlight, feeling numb. She didn't know if it was from the Ice Potion or because she had realized she'd probably screwed up her last challenge...and that she most likely wasn't going to win the championship because of it.

"Freddie!" shouted Ada's voice and then she was immediately crushed in a hug by the smaller girl. She must have been waiting for her near the doors.

"Mon dieu your skin is like ice!" Ada said as she pulled away. "And- what on earth happened to your neck?!"

"Devil's Snare," she said with a grimace. She had almost forgotten about it, forgotten how bad her neck and wrist actually hurt because she had blocked the pain from her mind. She was starting to feel it now. "How bad does it look?"

"Um, well...honestly? It looks pretty awful. Your neck is black and blue, it looks like someone tried to strangle you!"

"Just a stupid vine," she said ruefully, rubbing her wrist. "It almost killed me. I really thought I was going to die there for a minute."

"What happened?" Ada asked, her eyes wide. "Wait, do not tell me yet. You need to go get healed first. Then we can talk."

"Yeah, okay," she agreed numbly. She wasn't looking forward to telling Ada about her challenges. The first one hadn't been so bad, but it had all gone downhill the moment the Devil's Snare caught her by surprise. She might have been able to redeem herself after that, but then she'd gone and messed up the last trial. She'd all but flaunted their riddle and found her own way through the challenge. There was no way she could come back from that. No way I can win, she thought miserably.

Freddie sat perfectly still while Madame Garnier tended to her wounds, healing the cut on her forehead with Essence of Dittany then putting something on her neck. Freddie was barely paying attention. She felt wretched about how her challenge had gone, but she kept her face impassive. She ignored the questions from Akinyi and even Dimitri was saying something but she didn't hear him. She was lost in her own negative thoughts. She was criticizing every move she'd made in the Enchanted Garden.

"Your wrist is fractured in two places, cherie," Madame Garnier said, intruding on her thoughts. "I am going to put a splint on it and give you a dose of Skele-Gro."

Freddie just nodded.

"The poultice I put on your neck is a combination of Bruisewort Balm and a strong Bruise-Healing Paste that I developed myself a number of years ago," the Healer said. "Even with that it might take a day or two for these bruises to fade completely. What on Earth happened to you in there?"

Freddie didn't answer, just shrugged as the woman proceeded to splint her wrist. She drank the Skele-Gro when Madame Garnier gave it to her and the potion burned her throat which was already raw from the Devil's Snare.

"Is your throat sore, cherie? I think I have something in here to help that," she said, digging through her case of medical supplies.

"It's fine," Freddie said, standing up from the table. She didn't want to sit still anymore. She didn't want to be fussed over.

"Merci Madame," Ada said quickly to the Healer before hurrying after Freddie.

"Well, you're definitely gonna be the one that wins," Freddie said once they were far enough away. She tried not to sound bitter about it. She wanted to be happy for her friend.

"What? Why do you say that?"

"I screwed up, Ada. Big time," she said with a sigh.

"It cannot have been that bad," Ada said bracingly. "...Tell me what happened."

And so she did. She started with the riddle of the last challenge, how she couldn't solve it the way they expected her to. Then she back-tracked to the beginning and told her about the first challenge in the maze. Then the Eyebright Potion and the dark tunnel she couldn't go down until she'd drank it. When she told her about the Devil's Snare, Freddie paced back and forth near the gate, unable to keep still. Ada's eyes were wide and she didn't say anything the whole time Freddie was talking.

"And that was it. Once the judges decided to let me continue, I went on to the next door that had the riddle and I totally tanked any chance I had of winning this thing," she finished, slumping down on the grass with her back against the wall.

"Wow," Ada said quietly and she sat down next to her. "Just...wow. I've never heard of anything like that last challenge. I don't think Icould have figured out that riddle either. Can you tell it to me again?"

Freddie recited the maddening puzzle and Ada screwed her face up in concentration, thinking it over for a minute.

"No," she said finally. "I definitely could not have solved that. And I do not have a book with Zygmunt Budge's soul in it, so I would still be standing there trying to figure it out. I would have to forfeit...or try one at random and hope for the best."

"I shouldn't have used Budge's book for that," she said, shaking her head. "It isn't what they wanted me to do. And I should have been more alert walking down that Dark tunnel. I should have had my wand out. I should never have gotten caught by that Devil's Snare. I'm such an idiot."

She thunked her head back against the stone wall and closed her eyes. She wanted to go crawl under a rock and die. She didn't want to face Snape when he finally came out.

"You are not an idiot, Freddie. You did your best," Ada said, putting a hand on her knee. "I still think you did really well. At least you did not make the poisoned woman choke on her vomit, like I did. I bet you will still win."

Freddie didn't answer. She couldn't. She knew Ada was wrong. The girl was just trying to make her feel better, but she didn't want to hear it. She couldn't be reassured right now.

They sat like that for a while, neither one of them speaking. Freddie was grateful that Ada didn't keep trying to reassure her but at the same time she thought that meant her friend knew she had messed up her challenge too badly.

"Do you want me to tell you a story?" Ada asked eventually.

"What?"

"A story," she repeated. "It might distract you for a bit or...I do not know, I always like it when my Maman reads me stories. I have a lot of books in my head, so I know plenty of stories."

"Okay," Freddie said with a weak chuckle. "Tell me a story."

"Hmm..." Ada said thoughtfully, closing her eyes like she did to think. "You probably know this one, since you grew up in a magic family, but it is one of my favorite Beedle stories."

"Beedle stories?"

"Yeah, the Tales of Beedle the Bard. I found them in the library my first day at Beauxbatons. They are like Muggle fairytales, stories for children. Your mother never read them to you when you were little? Or, sorry, you said you were raised by your aunt and uncle, right? They never read them to you?"

Freddie wracked her brain, trying to remember if anyone had ever read her a story. The thought of her mother reading her a fairytale was laughable. Her aunt had never read to her either. She was sure there had never been a book of stories for children in either house. She shook her head no and Ada looked sad.

"Merde, Freddie, what did you read when you were growing up?"

"Books of magic," she said with a shrug. "A lot of the books my aunt and uncle had were about the Dark Arts, though my aunt had some weird romance novels as well. I don't remember the library at my parents house, I was young when they...when I went to live with my aunt and uncle. Then when I got to Hogwarts I read textbooks, mostly Potions stuff."

"Jeez... Well then, I'm going to tell you my favorite story," she said, her face brightening. "It's called 'The Warlock's Hairy Heart' and it's definitely the weirdest of all the Beedle's stories."

Freddie sat silently, listening, as Ada relayed the story of a handsome and powerful warlock who never wanted to fall in love because he saw it as a weakness. He was skilled in the Dark Arts so he took measures to prevent himself from ever falling in love. He lived that way for years, believing himself to be envied by all for his 'perfect' solitude until he overheard his servants making fun of him for not having a wife. He set out to find a beautiful, magically-talented maiden to be his wife so that he would once again be the envy of all.

The warlock found the perfect woman and, although she was both fascinated and repelled by him, he convinced her to come to dinner. He attempted to woo the young woman with flattery and stolen poetry. The maiden told him that she would only believe his pretty words if she believed that he actually had a heart. So the warlock took her down to his dungeon and showed her an enchanted crystal casket, which contained his beating heart. But because his heart had been parted from his body for so long, it had become a shriveled, disgusting thing, covered in coarse black hair.

The maiden pleaded with him to put his heart back where it belongs and so he did. The maiden is pleased but the warlock's heart had been so corrupted with Dark Magic that it turned him into a savage beast, driving him to take a truly human heart to replace it. He cut the maiden's heart from her chest to replace his own, but his own heart was too strong and it stopped him from being able to use his magic. So he cut out his own heart with a knife, because he didn't want to be mastered by it, but before he can replace his own heart with the maiden's he died.

"And he falls across the maiden's dead body with one heart in each hand," Ada finished solemnly. "His own twisted, hairy heart and the maiden's perfect bloody red heart. The End."

"Wh- that's a children's story?" Freddie asked in disbelief.

"Yes," Ada said with a smile. "Isn't it great?"

"It's dark," she said, laughing. "That's your favorite story?"

"My favorite Beedle story, yeah. It fascinates me and the imagery of the story is so powerful – his withered hairy heart beating in that enchanted crystal chest. And when he dies and falls across her body, holding both hearts in his hands."

"It's weird – but I love it," Freddie said, grinning at her friend. "I like the message of it."

"Yes, it teaches young witches and wizards not to dabble in the Dark Arts."

"And not to 'lock their hearts away', literally and figuratively."

"Yes," Ada said with a nod. "You get it."

"Yeah. Will you tell me more Beedle stories?" Freddie asked, stretching out in the grass with her splinted wrist resting on her stomach. "I mean, if you want to that is. It's a good distraction."

"Yes, definitely!"