Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

So I have decided to emulate canon in the regard that I'm time-skipping through to the third task in just a few chapters instead of building in loads of filler. My reason for announcing this is that I'm a little concerned it will make some interactions look like random jumps rather than proper progression, so if it does go crazy in the review section and I'll rewrite and stretch it out over the filler chapters. This chapter should be a good indication of whether it's bearable or not.

An open question to the floor, should I add angst to the genre? I ran out of characters for the summary, so unless I rewrite it, which would be troublesome, it can't go there. I didn't think it was all that dramatic overall. Both characters have little to no experience of what they're going through, so I personally wouldn't expect them to have any idea of what to do. Is it used as an overall statement of genre for the whole fic, or a sort of genre list of anything included? The story will hopefully go from here to the very end and as the angst will only conceivably last as long as I'm keeping Harry and Fleur apart I don't know if I should add it or not. I had the same debate with myself at the beginning, actually.

Chapter 32

'Harry.' He smiled in resignation. The game, it seemed, was up.

She finally cornered me.

It had taken Katie the best part of a month to manage to trap him somewhere he couldn't slip away from. Harry had known it was coming, he had to speak to her eventually, but he had been afraid of what she might ask, and more afraid of how he might respond.

'I've got you,' she beamed. Katie had chosen her moment perfectly, stepping onto the staircases just as they moved, leaving the two of them stranded together for a few minutes.

'I suppose you have.' There was no use in denying it.

'I, er, I have a lot of things to say,' she began. Her smile vanished immediately, the nervousness peaking out past her bedraggled hair. 'I probably won't be able to say all of it before the stairs come back,' she joked weakly.

'I guess I'll have to wait for them to pass again,' Harry responded, taking pity on her. It wasn't like this conversation was going to disappear, they would have to have it eventually.

'Thank you,' she murmured.

'I guess I should start with the tournament.' Katie bit her lip cutely, but the urge Harry had always had when she did something he found cute before had changed. He no longer wanted to kiss her for it; it just made him smile.

'Professor McGonagall came and asked me if I could be your hostage,' Katie explained. 'She said that the hostage was someone that you'd be most determined to save, someone you'd sorely miss. I, well, you're still important to me, Harry, I miss talking with you, our date was fun, but you're not really important to me in that way, not now.'

Harry did a silent double take as Katie launched into justifications. He'd been expecting another suggestion of a date.

'It's not that I don't like you anymore, I do, we weren't all that close before, but I realised when we were almost together that I really wanted to be close with you. Then things sort of went wrong, and I missed the closeness, and tried to just carry on without it. I have Angelina and Alicia, but they've got Fred and George and sometimes I'm on my own and it's, it's not so great. When we stopped talking they tried to drag me around with them, but it felt so forced, and, well, I guess I kind of wanted to be able to sit around in Hogsmeade like we did on our date. I, I don't think I like you the same way as I thought I did, but I still want to be able to talk with you and spend time with you. It's nice to have a close friend other than Angelina and Alicia, they're both a year older than me, after all.'

The stairs swung back to them and Harry stepped onto the lower set. Katie stared at him incredulously, so he firmly reached out and pulled her down onto the step next to him before they swung away and she misunderstood.

'Let's go wander towards the quidditch pitch,' Harry suggested. It was always quiet out towards the pitches, especially this year with no practices or matches. Katie nodded, clearly relieved he hadn't been about to just walk away from her, but anxious that he had not said anything in response.

They had reached the doors of the Great Hall before either of them spoke again.

'Harry,' she prompted, very tentatively.

'Yes?'

'Aren't you going to say anything? I know you said that we wouldn't be able to keep on dating and I was… I was very upset for a while, but I came to believe that maybe we would be better as friends and then I was chosen as the person you would miss most…' she trailed off, biting her lip again.

Harry laughed. 'Professor McGonagall did not tell you that she asked others and they refused to risk themselves for me, did she?'

'No,' Katie shook her head, 'she mentioned that you'd have to have the average score of the other champions if a hostage couldn't be found, but I knew you'd save me, so I didn't need to worry.'

'She told me that I would have failed the task completely if you had not accepted,' Harry remarked, amused that his head of house had given in to her temper so easily.

'You're not upset, then, that I don't want to be with you in the same way?' Her question came a little more confidently.

'No,' Harry smiled, very glad that it was the case. 'I don't have many friends, Katie, they all proved… fickle. I enjoyed being with you, even if I'm not sure that I ever wanted to be your boyfriend,' his tongue stumbled slightly on the unfamiliar word and Katie giggled.

They stepped out into the spring cool, picking their way across the grass and dodging the protruding tips of the spring flowers that were beginning to push their way out of the soil.

'We'll be friends again?' she asked him, her smile was threatening to spill across her face. 'You'll forgive me, for going with Roger Davies and being so stupid.'

'No,' Harry told her bluntly. 'I won't forgive you for overreacting so inexplicably,' he squeezed her shoulder when her face fell, 'but you were not entirely to blame. Davies wanted to revenge himself on me for getting Fleur Delacour's attention when he could not, and she,' he grit his teeth at the thought of the beautiful french witch who had all but driven him from the Room of Requirement, 'she couldn't stand the idea of anyone being as good as her, or resisting her charm, or something complicated.' Harry wasn't all too sure what went through the mind of Fleur Delacour. They were similar, but so different. He'd very much like to know what she was thinking, it would make everything easier, but he couldn't just walk up and ask her.

'So we'll be friends?' Katie didn't move away, but something in her manner faltered and Harry saw in the reflection of her eyes how cold his face had become.

'I think we'll be good friends.' He pushed all thoughts of Fleur from his mind and the ice melted from his expression. 'You never did turn your back on me, I saw you watching, even after the Yule Ball.'

'You looked very lonely,' she admitted. 'I wanted to go and speak with you, but Angelina and Alicia thought it was a bad idea.'

'They were right,' Harry admitted. 'If you hadn't agreed to help me with the task I would have never let you catch me for this conversation.'

'Really?' Katie seemed upset by that.

'Sorry,' Harry shrugged. 'I can't just keep forgiving people for choosing all the other things in their lives over me when they proclaim to be my friends.' He stopped speaking and tried to think of the reason why, but nothing came to him, he just couldn't bring himself to be like that again. 'I've changed,' he finished.

'I won't choose anything over you,' Katie declared.

'You will,' Harry told her gently. 'The difference is that I now expect some things to be chosen above me, everyone has goals, dreams and people more dear to them than others. As long I know where I stand on your scale and think it's fair, then I'll never be disappointed or hurt by your decisions.'

Katie beamed, leaping up the steps into the stands and taking a seat in the Gryffindor section. After a moment of bemused smiling at her occasionally childish nature, Harry followed her.

'I don't have long,' he told her, squishing into the next seat. 'I promised that I'd help Neville.'

'You did?' Katie looked thoughtful, then frowned. 'Neville's been sort of forgotten in the middle of everything else, we see him in the greenhouses with Professor Sprout quite a bit, but he's never around the tower anymore and I've not seen him speaking to anyone in your year in a long time either.'

'He's sick of being called a squib,' Harry remembered. 'He hates being looked down, being a disappointment and being clumsy. He thought that because I've grown so much better I could help him.'

'I'm sure you can, Harry,' Katie agreed, 'but I think you should be gentle with him. He seems fragile now. I heard that when he met Mr Crouch, the tournament judge, in the hallways, he accidentally set fire to every tapestry within ten feet of him.'

'Neville?' Harry asked disbelievingly. 'He did violent, accidental magic at our age?'

What could have pushed him so far?

Harry realised within a few short seconds of the thought that he really didn't know all that much about Neville and felt rather guilty for it. The shy boy had always just hovered on the fringes of the Gryffindor group.

'I heard it from Alicia who said she heard Malfoy and Ron arguing over it,' Katie embellished. 'Apparently Malfoy was going on about how he heard Neville couldn't even perform accidental magic as a child. There's some story about Neville's family trying to provoke him into doing some when he was a baby and Malfoy was bandying it about. Ron had to be dragged away by Seamus and Dean.'

'When was this?' Harry demanded.

'A week ago,' Katie guessed. 'I can't believe you didn't hear about it. The whole school was talking about it for days.'

'How has Neville been?' Harry had long since stopped listening to the rumours that drifted through the school.

'I haven't really seen him,' Katie admitted. 'I don't think anyone has. Ron defended him, but it was more because he hates Malfoy than anything to with Neville.'

'I can't imagine Neville doing something like that,' Harry said, still slightly reluctant to believe the story.

'It's true,' Katie insisted. 'I've seen the walls on the fourth floor where the tapestries used to be. I don't know why it happened, but please be kind to Neville when you help him.'

'I was going to be,' Harry assured her. 'He needs someone to believe in him, to give some confidence and tell him that he's going to be strong.' Katie nodded, her dark hair scattering across her face in tangled disarray. 'I have to go meet him,' Harry told her.

'When will I next be able to corner you?' Katie asked, when he stood up.

Harry grinned. 'You won't be able to,' he replied lightly. 'I'll meet you whenever I can, Katie, you know where I turn up by now.'

'You can't hide from me,' she beamed.

He couldn't resist. It had been so long since anyone had been truly impressed with him or something he had done himself. Salazar didn't really count; he was a portrait, and family.

'Can't I,' he smiled, fading from view as he cast the disillusionment charm with his wand still inside his sleeve.

Katie laughed brightly. 'That explains a lot,' she called after him, as he began to make his way towards the seventh floor. She seemed suitably awed and for the first time he felt a surge of genuine, true pride. He'd performed and mastered this charm. It hadn't happened because of some magic cast over him at birth, with the assistance of others, or because he knew that he had already done it in the future. It was his accomplishment, his alone, and Katie's pride in him was his too.

It felt beyond good, and Harry half-wished he did not have to go find Neville so he could stay with her and just spend time with his rediscovered friend. It wasn't in him to abandon anyone he still considered a friend, even a slightly distant one like Neville, so he set off, ending his disillusionment.

Neville was leaning against the tapestry opposite the Room of Requirement when Harry reached the second floor.

There's an item of furnishing Hogwarts won't miss if he feels like setting fire to something else.

'We're using the room?' Neville nodded at the blank wall across from him with surprising confidence.

'Yes,' Harry informed him.

'I found it over the last year,' Neville answered Harry's unspoken question. 'I often come to wander the school away from anyone, and not many people come up here. One time I just wanted somewhere to be one my own and the room appeared. How did you find it?'

'I knew it was here,' Harry said honestly. 'I came looking for it, and eventually I found it.'

'Shall we, er,' the stutter almost returned, 'shall we go in.'

'After you,' Harry smiled, 'you know how to use it and what you need better than I do.'

His decision was not wholly based on the reasons he had given Neville, but as long as he concentrated on helping his friend Neville would be none the wiser.

The door grew into place on the stonework and, once the handle had appeared, he followed Neville inside.

The room was empty.

'I guess I don't really know what I want,' Neville admitted, hanging his head. Harry watched the walls nervously, aware that the room was his if Neville's will was lacking. He didn't need to be shown that he wanted most, but the room wasn't about to change how it worked for him and it would only be a matter of time.

It took only a few moments for it to start, just as it had every time he'd entered the room since the Yule Ball.

'Let's try again.' He ushered Neville out the door and slammed it shut, sparing only a single glance for the newly formed gallery of photos, that surrounded a holly log fire.

A thousand faces of Fleur Delacour.

'You're disappointed in me too now, aren't you,' Neville said miserably.

'No,' Harry told him firmly.

'You're just saying that,' the boy mumbled. 'Everyone knows I'm not much of a wizard.'

Harry decided then that he knew exactly what Neville needed.

'Would not much of a wizard be able to set an entire corridor alight without using his wand?' Harry demanded. Neville looked more guilty than anything and didn't reply. 'I don't think they could,' Harry answered his own question. 'You even rid the school of some terrible tapestries,' he grinned. 'If you'd got that one,' he jerked his thumb in the direction of the tap-dancing trolls, 'you'd have your own award for special services to the school!'

Neville smiled slightly despite himself.

'You're strong,' Harry insisted, 'you just need to stop listening to the people who try to tell you otherwise. If you expect and visualise your spells failing, they will.'

'I'm not like you, Harry,' Neville burst out. 'I can't just be strong. I can't stand up to You-Know-Who, or basilisks, or anything like you've done.'

'You're just like me, Neville,' Harry told him quietly. 'I never did any of those things by myself. Luck and the assistance of everyone else has kept me alive, nothing else, not until now. You have to want to be strong, and then you have to do whatever you need to get there.'

Harry certainly had. He'd killed to be free, to be strong in his own right, and he wasn't about to turn back, or look back.

'What if you can't do it?' Neville asked quietly.

'How would you know until you've tried as hard as you're sure you can?' Harry countered.

'I-I-'

'You don't,' Harry told him before he could spend too long thinking about it. 'There's nothing to be gained from giving up, Neville. You're stronger and braver than half of the Gryffindors I've seen, and to prove it you're going to call Voldemort by his real name.'

'I can't do that,' Neville shook his head, 'even Gran doesn't say his name.'

'You will,' Harry insisted. 'Repeat after me, Tom, Marvolo, Riddle.'

Neville looked flummoxed, but repeated the name, clearly enunciating every syllable. 'Tom Marvolo Riddle.'

'See,' Harry said triumphantly. 'You, Neville Longbottom, just said Voldemort's real, original name. One he hates, one he would probably try and kill you for saying if he knew. What happened when you said it, Neville?'

'Nothing,' the boy mumbled, still perplexed.

'And nothing will happen next time you say it, or if you say Voldemort,' Harry continued, 'go on.'

'Voldemort,' Neville repeated. He nearly stuttered, the first syllable warbled on his lips, but the rest of the name came smoothly and he never flinched.

'You're braver than your Gran,' Harry grinned.

'But-' he began.

'There are not buts, Neville,' Harry caught him before he overthought things and the point was wasted. 'You said the name, you were brave. If you can be brave when you thought you couldn't be, then you can be strong too.'

'But my magic always fails,' he said miserably, 'I know it will.'

'You knew that you couldn't say Voldemort a moment ago,' Harry disagreed. 'Forget what happened last time. Magic is about intent. If you want it to happen, if you focus, and understand what you're trying to achieve, then you'll make it happen.'

'I always want it to happen,' Neville argued.

'I'd bet you never believe it will, though.' Neville had nothing to say to that. 'So believe it, Nev,' Harry told him gently. 'If you can set fire to a corridor without a wand, you can do a few spells at school.'

'It's not the same,' Neville disagreed. 'I was so angry when I saw him. It was like he thought he was better than the rest of us, striding down the corridor, with nothing but disdain for everyone else. He judges everyone but himself.' Neville's face twisted in fury, it was a truly frightening expression on a face that Harry had never seen anything so violent on. 'He has no right to, not when his son was a monster.'

Barty Crouch Junior had come to quite a specific end. He disliked the madman's hypocritical father almost as much as Neville seemed to; it didn't help that Harry knew it had been Crouch who sent Sirius to Azkaban without a trial, or that his son had tried to kill Harry. The man's principles were wrong, and he had the arrogance to look down on others because of them. Nobody should deduct points from anyone for trying to save a girl's life. His rules were not as important as the life of Gabrielle, they were not even close. The mad apple had not fallen too far from the amoral tree, and Barty Crouch Junior was better off dead where the Death Eater couldn't ruin anymore lives. Harry would kill him himself, were he still alive. The magic rushed eagerly to do his bidding at the flicker of intent, and a faint, green light emanated from his right sleeve.

Harry suppressed the thought immediately. If even being willing to kill was enough to give off such a glow when he was touching his wand, then he'd have to be careful of his thoughts. The connection with his wand had grown much stronger since he first used it.

'His son is dead, isn't he?' Harry asked carefully.

'Not dead enough,' Neville hissed. 'Not after what he did.' Harry had enough tact not to ask, but Neville gave him a faintly apologetic look and began to explain. 'My parents were aurors in the war. A group of Voldemort's followers,' the name came out without the slightest tremor, 'tortured them with the Cruciatus Curse for hours. They don't even recognise me,' he finished with a bitter smile. 'I wanted to make them proud, I use my father's wand, but they'll never be proud of a stranger, why would they?'

Harry stared at him for a long moment. He would have never for a second guessed what lay in Neville's past. He had assumed he was an orphan for a far less tragic reason. A more manipulative, cunning part of himself noted that if he ever told Neville just who was responsible for the end of Barty Crouch Junior he would have a loyal follower for life, but he ignored it. He was not Tom Riddle. Harry was here to help his friend, not himself, though it was not going to be as easy as he'd thought.

'What can I do about that, Harry?' Neville demanded.

'Nothing,' Harry told him.

Neville flinched.

'Just like there's nothing I can do to bring my parents back. You should be strong for yourself, your own reasons and your own goals. I'd be proud of you for that and I'm sure your parents would be proud of you for doing so, your gran too, and if they aren't, then they should be.'

'They'd be so disappointed if they could recognise me now,' Neville said hollowly, 'sometimes I'm glad they can't, just so they don't have to be let down by me like my Gran is. I'll never be as good as either of them.'

Harry was beginning to lose patience with Neville's pessimism. He'd seen enough to know Neville could be a strong wizard if he just believed he could.

'You won't be as good as them if you give up,' Harry agreed, abandoning subtlety completely, 'but if you believe in yourself, why can't you be better? That anger you have, it used your magic and burnt every shred of cloth off the walls for ten feet, use it to make yourself stronger. I know you can!'

Harry wracked his brain for a way to prove it to him.

'I want you to open that door, Neville, and I want to see what you think you need.'

Neville walked up and down the corridor, his face twisted somewhere between determination and doubt.

The door appeared.

'What will I find?' Harry asked.

Neville smiled slightly nervously, but the anxiety faded away almost immediately. 'Nothing,' he said calmly. 'What I need, who I need, is already outside with me.' Something warm flooded across Harry's chest. 'If you believe I can do it, then I must be able to, because when you believe something can happen, even if it's against the odds, it always happens. I'll trust you.'

'Then you'll make yourself strong,' Harry told him, 'and just to prove it to yourself beyond all doubt.' He moved to open the door of the Room of Requirement, knowing the moment he did so what he would have to face, to display, to help his friend. It seemed his most recent moment of brainless Godric-like nobility had come.

Neville isn't the only who needs to be brave, he reminded himself when his fingers paused on the handle. There was no way he would be able to help Neville if he was acting so hypocritically.

A hundred different reflections of Fleur Delacour looked down at him, smiling warmly and leaning forward, only a memory away from kissing him.

'Harry?' Neville asked uncertainly from behind him, gazing up at Beauxbatons' champion.

He turned to smile a little ruefully at his friend, knowing that in this moment Neville would see far more of Harry than he really wanted anyone to. 'Something you should know about the Room of Requirement, Nev. If there's more than one person within it and they want different things, whichever is wanted most appears.' He gestured around the room at the images of the beautiful french witch. 'Now show me how much you want to be strong.'

The bright blue eyes and silver hair of Fleur Delacour faded from the walls of the room to be replaced by shelves of spell books. Harry watched them go with some relief, listening to his anger and keeping his distance from the girl wasn't changing anything in the slightest. She still only seemed to speak to him when she needed him, and, despite the occasional moment in which he manage to delude himself that she might actually care, he feared she never would.

'Well done, Nev,' he congratulated his friend, burying his thoughts about the attractive french witch.

Neville gaped about him at the walls of the room, realising in that moment that his will to get what he wanted most must be at least as strong as Harry's if the room had come under his control.

Harry flashed him a smile to hide his guilt. He had lied to Neville. The room was still under his control to an extent. He'd spent longer here, mastering how to use it, than Neville could have, and he knew that if he wanted to help Neville as much or more than Neville wanted to be strong, then his friend would not be able to tell the difference in the resulting appearance of the room.

Now he'll believe that he can be strong, let's just hope he doesn't ask any questions about the room's initial appearance.

Harry didn't need to talk about Fleur Delacour. He was already anticipating having to answer Katie's questions next time they met.

'I did it,' Neville gasped.

'Here's a test,' Harry suggested. 'The Blasting Curse, the incantation is reducto,' he demonstrated the wand motion with his hand. He conjured a statue of Barty Crouch, then tucked his wand away. 'Destroy it.'

Neville's eyes burnt hot with hate. 'Reducto,' he spat, sweeping his wand sharply and violently. The spell hissed across the room and blew the upper half of the statue into dust.

'Not bad for a first try,' Harry smiled. 'Your wand motion was over exaggerated, though.'

'Reducto,' Neville cried again. The remaining half of the statue exploded into shining grey dust and Neville grinned triumphantly.

'Well done,' Harry told him. 'It's no worse than my first few attempts. When you have a better grasp of the spell you'll be able to control the power put into it, and cast it silently.'

He drew two sharp, horizontal fees in the air with his wand, silently unleashing two Blasting Curses at one of the empty walls. The first sparked out quite pathetically, he had put as little power as possible into it, but the second rippled across the wall and they both felt the wave of hot air the curse's detonation reflected back at them.

'I should practice,' Neville decided, looking at Harry with open admiration.

'Practice everything you think you need to,' Harry told him, 'but don't forget how successful you were here when you're doing it on your own.'

'I won't,' Neville stared furiously at the dust that had once been the statue of Barty Crouch Senior. 'I only wish that I could have shown Barty Crouch he wasn't anything more than the father of a monster.' His friend looked up at him in furious regret. 'He's disappeared. I heard Professor Sprout talking to Professor McGonagall about it this morning by the greenhouses.'

'Has he,' Harry murmured, a small, cold smile spreading over his lips. 'What a shame.'

AN: Please read and review, thanks to everyone who does. It's time for Harry to start reconnecting a little with the world. This fic would end up being very boring if he spent the next three books worth in the chamber with a slightly senile painting.

P.S. A second question for the floor. Does anyone feel like recommending any good stories with a well done Daphne/Harry? Or any other interesting pairings that aren't Harry/Hermione or Harry/Ginny for that matter.