"Okay, so Astoria's going to be sneaking around collecting flags, but we'll need a few more obvious people going after them too, so it doesn't look suspicious."

"Yep. Offensive squad. Dibs."

Harry let out a little scoff. "Not like I wanted to be on the front lines. I'd probably get myself stunned in about a minute. Though, actually, did Mira ever tell you if we could use brooms?"

"Harry, you're a fucking genius! Aerial support!"

The boy gave his fellow Champion an embarrassed shrug. "Yeah, well, I'm just thinking, if we can use a broom, I bet Krum's going to be in the air..."

"And I bet Ingrid is going to be leading a ground squad, and...probably Cæciné, for Beauxbatons."

"Really? You don't think they'd have Fleur...?" Hermione suggested. "I mean, she's older, and a veela, she's probably a stronger witch, right?"

"Ah, no. Unless the Cæcinés are drastically different from my home universe, which seems unlikely, given that I just met her mother and she's clearly a light battlemage, it's safe to assume Artèmisia is just as capable and qualified to be a Champion as I am."

"And Arte's a legilimens," Harry volunteered. "A pretty strong one, I think. So she'd have an advantage on the ground, be able to feel out where people are and what they're planning and stuff."

"So we need to make sure everyone on our side can do at least basic occlumency? Is that going to be a problem for Astoria?"

"Doubt it. I'm sure she knows occlumency, and I doubt they're going to leave an asset like a bloody Cæciné guarding their base, so she won't exactly be in a position to feel her lurking. And if I were Fleur... Strike team."

Hermione nodded. "Firewalk straight into the other teams' bases, end it before anyone has a chance to get at them? Then they probably wouldn't need much of a defensive side at all."

Lyra smirked. "That would be consistent with the intelligence I've gathered."

"So then, we go heavy on defence?" Harry asked, though he immediately continued working through the problem for himself. "I mean, we'd have to, if we're assuming they're going to flame in — massed spellfire is probably the only reasonable way to take her out before she gets our flag."

Hermione nodded, biting at her lip as she considered Harry's suggestion. "Right, so I'm thinking maybe Harry and two others in the air; Lyra, you and two others being very loud and obvious on offence; Astoria actually grabbing the flags; that leaves me and seven others for defence. Harry, you'd know who would be the best fliers..."

"Well I'd like to have Angelina and Alicia, they've been flying together forever, but neither of them are very good at occlumency. The Weasley twins?"

Lyra grimaced. "I actually have an idea about them, but it's going to require one of them on the ground with Maïa, so no."

Harry gave her a suspicious, side-long glance. "Ah... Maybe Diggory? I've never really flown with Gin — or against her, for that matter — but she might be good, too."

"No, all the tactics she's been practising with Theo and Sirius are ground-based. Diggory's a pretty conventional flier, right?"

Harry nodded. "But I know he's got some experience casting in the air. Captains have to do monitoring charms and timers and stuff in practice."

"Okay, so ask him first and see if he has any suggestions, since you two will both have to coordinate with whoever else," Hermione ordered. "Lyra, what exactly were you planning with the twins?"

፠

The fact that they weren't doing Quidditch this year didn't mean that the Hufflepuff quidditch team weren't practising. They were Hufflepuffs, Diggory had said when Angie asked him about it, as though that should explain everything. Which, it kind of did, Harry guessed. They didn't want to get out of practice, so they were just going to...keep practising.

Smart, Harry thought, and he was sure Oliver would've he'd graduated last year, McGonagall hadn't actually chosen a new Captain yet, none of the girls seemed to care much about running keeper trials, the twins were actually really pleased they had all those hours free now to work on their joke products — they were really serious about starting a shop right out of school — and Harry was the most junior member of the team. He couldn't exactly get a whole practice team together by himself. And he didn't really have a lot of free time now anyway, what with getting dragged into this stupid tournament, but they hadn't known that the whole two months of September and October, so that was beside the point, as far as he was concerned.

He'd been really upset at first, when they'd been told that there wasn't going to be inter-House Quidditch this year — he loved flying, it really, really sucked not to have an excuse to spend fifteen hours a week in the air (and he couldn't really justify spending that much time flying just for fun) — but after he'd had a while to think about it, he'd decided that it was a good thing for Gryffindor. Or, it would be, if any of his teammates actually wanted to practise. Keeper was an important position! It could be great to have a whole extra year to train a new one! But no one seemed to care what Harry thought about it. Bloody stupid. The Slytherins were still practising too, because they didn't want to lose their first match next year. At this rate, Gryffindor were going to have to try to pull together a half-decent showing after a whole year of not doing shite, and a new keeper on top...

Anyway, the Hufflepuffs weren't all too busy with their own shite to find time to practise, so it wasn't entirely surprising, when he asked Justin if he'd seen the overly-ernest sixth-year prefect around, that he was apparently out on the Pitch. Which was fine with Harry, he could use some fresh air and time away from the Castle. He floated up to the top tier of the stands just as the Puffs were wrapping up for the afternoon. Perfect timing.

And Diggory wasn't a seeker for nothing. He was a solid flier, bigger than most seekers, but from what Harry had seen, flying against him and watching Hufflepuff's matches against Slytherin and Ravenclaw, he had great reflexes, and they tended to fly a similar style. It shouldn't be too difficult to work together. And he was observant, that was probably more important than anything else — one of the things that had become clear very early on when he started messing around with Justin's 'study group' was that a good sense of timing and awareness for where your opponents' spells were was probably even more important to winning a fight than actually being able to hit your own targets. After all, being entirely unable to aim did give one the advantage of unpredictability (Justin).

Diggory noticed Harry land even as the rest of them were heading to the ground. Instead of following them he came up to say hello without Harry even having to wave, because Hufflepuff. "Potter. How's it going?"

"Diggory. You lot are looking good. Wish I'd been able to get my team out here."

"Tough luck. Maybe you can put together a pick-up team? Warrington was talking about maybe holding unofficial matches, Saturday afternoons."

"Really?" Harry felt himself perk up at the prospect. All the shite going on right now, he could really use some time to just unwind, focus on something as un-stressful as Quidditch. "Yeah, I'll ask around, let you know. That's not really why I'm here, though."

"Oh? I figured you were just waiting until we were done to run drills or something."

"Ah, no, I actually wanted to talk to you about something."

Diggory snorted. "If this is about the Yule Ball..."

"What?!" He meant, Diggory was a good-looking bloke, but...

"Sorry, kidding, I had three different conversations that started that way already today. Like people don't know Cho and I are together, or something." If they didn't, Harry thought this was perfectly fair — he hadn't known the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw seekers were dating, and Blaise did keep him informed about that sort of gossipy nonsense, so. "Never mind. What is it?"

"Er... You know about the first task? For the Tournament?"

"As much as most people, I guess. Some kind of war game out in the Forest, right?"

He nodded. "We're getting our team together, and I figure Krum's definitely going to be on a broom, so we should have some aerial support of our own, right? So—"

"Yes!"

Harry blinked, slightly taken aback.

Diggory looked almost as taken aback by his reaction. "Er. You were going to ask whether I wanted to be on your team, right?"

"Um, yeah..."

"Oh, good!" He sounded rather relieved. "Would've been embarrassing if you weren't, wouldn't it? I mean, it's kind of short notice, but yes, of course I'm in. It's the bloody Triwizard Tournament, Potter! You can't have possibly thought I would say no." Well, no, he hadn't, really. "Who else is with us?"

"Well, we figured the best strategy for us is a strong defence — Lyra heard the other teams are going heavy on offence, and they're planning to team up and knock us out, first. So we're going to have three people in the air, and she'll be taking two others on offence to tie up their best duelists. And nine on the ground guarding our base."

The Hufflepuff captain nodded, slightly sobered by the idea that it was just going to be the two of them and one other person against Krum — combat transfiguration sounded rather intimidating, on top of the whole flying against Victor bloody Krum part — and however many people he had, and Beauxbatons. If they weren't completely stupid, they'd have at least a few people in the air too. "So, who else is going to be in the air?"

"Ah, well, about that..." Harry began, running his fingers through his hair, just for something to do with his hands. "I don't know, yet." Diggory gave him a look. A rather reproachful look. "Yes, I know it's last minute, Hermione already told us off for that — she'll be leading the ground defence, by the way. Blame Lyra, it's what I do. Anyway. We still need to find a third person to fly with us. So, any ideas?"

፠

"Are you sure they're here?" Maïa asked, giving the mirror Lyra had led her to a rather dubious look.

"No, but Peeves said this is their main work-space. Come on, you have to make faces, or it won't let you in."

"I feel like a bloody idiot, Lyra," she complained, but crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue anyway.

Lyra twisted her own face into a bug-eyed parody of ecstasy, followed by her best impression of Cissy's spawn being terrified of her, or riots, or Professor Nyberg (who had apparently turned him into a ferret, which was hilarious). After a moment of biting its lip trying not to laugh, Maïa's 'reflection' broke into helpless giggles. Her own just kind of smirked at her like, is that the best you can do?

She pouted at it like five-year-old Meda denied a second biscuit, wobbly lower lip and all. "I'm fucking hilarious, and you know it." The image in the mirror rolled 'her' eyes, but it did step aside and let them pass.

From the opposite side, the 'mirror' was an empty frame, looking out on the corridor with no obstruction to speak of, which was really very useful if one was trying to sneak back into the school after an illicit trip off the grounds, but also meant the Twins weren't the least bit surprised to see her turn up in their little hideaway.

"Boys," she said casually, taking in their setup — a warded set of shelves full of potions ingredients, a couple of tables covered with notes, maybe a dozen various cupboards and trunks which Lyra presumed contained finished or in-progress projects, and a surprisingly comprehensive collection of brewing implements arrayed across a pair of workbenches obviously stolen from one of the old Potions labs that no one used anymore. (If she'd had to guess, she'd say that was where most of their equipment came from too — it wasn't out of the question Sirius had given them enough investment capital to buy all this shite, but none of it looked new.) These were enclosed in a simple but well-executed protective circle, to keep any external magic from interfering with their brewing and any noxious fumes or minor explosions in. The real potions labs had those enchantments worked into the structural wards, but since no one made any effort not to bring spelled shite in, or dismiss their glamours and hairstyling charms and shite before they came in, and Sev avoided giving them any assignments that even Neville could turn into a poison-bomb, they barely mattered.

There was a much more heavily warded space a bit further into the tunnel, presumably intended to test anything that might, say, cause major structural damage if it went wrong, presumably enchanted after whatever accident had resulted in the tunnel collapsing about twenty metres beyond the boundary of the enchantments that protected the Castle itself from idiot students trying to blow it up. (Sirius had been very annoyed to discover that his favourite passage to Hogsmeade had been ruined. And even more annoyed that no one had bothered to fix it.)

"Lyra," "Maïa." "What brings you two to our humble workshop?" "And how did you find us?"

"Peeves told me. Though I guess Snape probably could've done, too," she noted, pointedly raising an eyebrow at the circle surrounding their little makeshift laboratory set-up.

"Snape doesn't know about this lab," "we just don't want him to kill us if he finds out about it." "If we take proper precautions," "he can't really complain about us brewing unsupervised."

"Like that would stop him?"

"What're you working on?" Maïa asked, drifting toward one of the note-covered tables.

"Sorry, Granger," one of the boys said firmly, as the other banished the loose pages and scrolls into a nearby trunk with a flourish. "That's proprietary information." "Besides, we asked first:" "what are you doing here?"

Maïa gave a small huff. "We're here to recruit you for the war game event on Saturday."

The boys grinned at each other. "Decoy detonators!" "Disillusionment hats!" "Canary landmines!" "Engorgement grenades!" "We're in!" "We're so in!"

"No, unfortunately," Lyra said firmly. "Not to rain all over your pratfall parade, but I'm pretty sure we can only bring in our primary and secondary foci. No enchantments or potions prepared ahead of time."

Their twin grins collapsed. "Oh." "Well." "Why're you asking us then?" "We mean, we're not bad casters," "but openly hexing people" "isn't really our game."

"Honestly, I don't know," Maïa admitted, fixing a rather annoyed glare on Lyra. "Lyra wanted it to be a surprise."

She grinned, almost too delighted with this idea to get the words out without breaking into maniacal cackling. "So, one of the major problems with a war game like this is a lack of intelligence on the movements of other groups, right?"

"Yes...?" "And...?"

"But we're going to have a small army of house elves out there with omnioculars, linked enchantments projecting the action for spectators, in real time."

"Well, yes, but that doesn't help us," Maïa said, frowning sharply. "Does it?"

"Ah, well, that depends. What's the range on that weird twin telepathy thing you two do all the time?" she asked.

As their delighted grins returned, she lost that battle against the maniacal cackling.