"So, Cedric's in, and we asked Enyo Seran, too," Harry announced, falling into a chair beside the girls' warded table in the Gryffindor Common Room. His wind-tousled hair and relaxed grin suggested that he and the other two fliers had spent some time in the air together after they'd been recruited, already working out tactics, perhaps.

"We got Ryan to help with communications and the Twins for intelligence, and Theo volunteered to play defence. I recruited Bell and Rowle for offence."

"Er... Wasn't Rowle one of the...you know...?" Harry asked.

"Yes, and? All the more reason to recruit him to get his arse whipped by a bunch of Durmstrangers," Lyra said lightly, ignoring her girlfriend's suspicious, sidelong glance.

"Uh-huh." Skepticism practically rolled off the boy, eyes narrowed in similar suspicion. "And he just...agreed to be cannon-fodder for you?"

"I wouldn't say cannon-fodder, but, yeah? Harry, this is the Triwizard Tournament. Even if he does think it's suspicious as hell I picked him, he's not going to say no. And he is a good fighter. I mean, best case scenario, we're going to be engaging a dozen other mages in direct combat, and one of them's a Cæciné. I wouldn't have suggested him if I didn't think he could at least keep a handful of them busy."

Hermione worried at her lower lip for a moment. "Do you want Theo for offence? Mallory and I weren't really sure what his strengths are, so we didn't assign him a particular role in our provisional strategy, and—"

"No." Lyra shrugged. "Theo's too reactive for offence. Besides, you'll need him if some of the other teams' fighters get past us. Which, they probably will. I mean, I'm good, but I don't think I can keep all however many of them occupied, even with help. At least a few will probably withdraw and go on to attack you while the others keep us busy. Speaking of which, did you finish filling out the roster?"

Hermione sighed, but let the topic go. "Blaise said the only person worth asking on your list was Nick, but he's in. And Violet Moreau — I didn't realise she's still a student, I thought she was one of Madam Pomfrey's trainees, but she's actually a seventh-year— Did you..." she trailed off, obviously thinking better of whatever question she'd been about to ask.

"Did I what?" Lyra asked, nothing in her tone or posture suggesting that she might think there was something significant in the half-asked question sparked by Hermione's visit to the Hospital Wing.

"Never mind, we can talk about it later," the other girl decided, after another brief hesitation. "I also asked Mallory — Mallory Prince, the Ravenclaw prefect. The twins suggested her, she's apparently very good at laying traps and things like that. She said she already had some ideas, we went out to scout the site and got a bit distracted discussing what we might be able to do with runic casting—"

"It's always the quiet ones," Harry muttered. "So...that's it, then?"

"No, we still need one more."

"Did you forget to count Astoria? Damn, she is good..." Harry joked, smirking at her.

"No, we're only going to have one of the twins in the arena. The other one's going to watch from the stands and use their weird twin telepathy to keep us up to date on what they're showing on the screens."

"That is...positively devious." He sounded almost admiring of that, and more than a little surprised.

Lyra rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but probably not much of an advantage. I hear Durmstrang's got a wind-watcher and a weather witch to make sure the wind goes where they need it. So piggy-backing on the elves' surveillance is pretty much just going to ensure we're not at a massive disadvantage. Anyway, we need one more person to help hold down the fort."

"Well, don't look at me, I don't know anyone's hidden talents or hobbies, or whatever," Hermione said defensively. "Mallory suggested someone with an elemental specialty, but I don't know..."

"Yeah, well, you already eliminated all of my suggestions, so."

"What about Neville?" Harry suggested, heading off the incipient bickering.

"Neville?" Lyra echoed. "Neville Longbottom?"

"Uh, yeah? How many Nevilles do you know?"

"Er...none I'd think would be particularly good at war games," Hermione noted.

"I dunno, I just thought...he's getting really good at that plant magic stuff Cassie told him to look into, and we are going to be out in the Forest, can't hurt having someone around who can like...do plant-y things."

Lyra snorted at plant-y things, but nodded. "...Good point. Plus, he is a fucking Longbottom. And Aggie's pretty traditional. I bet he's been taught plenty about history and strategy, even if he's a shite fighter. Could be a good second-in-command for you, Maïa."

She shrugged. "I suppose I don't have any better ideas. Do you want to ask him, Harry, or should I?"

፠

Neville was alone in the boys' dorm room when Harry returned, working on a Charms essay for Miss Parr, who had quickly become his favourite professor after Professor Sprout and Miss Lovegood. (He tried to remember to call her Cassie to her face, because she'd asked them to, but it was hard because, well, she was Castalia Lovegood, anyone who didn't have an enormous degree of respect for her and the service she did for the world, going around fighting Dark Lords like she did, had to have something wrong with their head.)

Professor Sprout had always been kind and patient with him, and it didn't hurt at all that her subject was his favourite, and Miss Lovegood had identified him as an earth-speaker and put him in touch with Quinn — which might be the best thing that had ever happened to him, not only because Quinn had been teaching him how to talk to plants, but also because being an earth-speaker was much more respectable in Gran's eyes than simply being shite at both wizardry and witchcraft. He was pretty good at Charms, but Quinn had pointed out that there were a lot of similarities between earth-speaking and basic physical charm effects, asking light or gravity or whatever to act differently than it was naturally inclined to do, which was a bloody brilliant way to think about it.

Professor Flitwick was fine, Neville didn't dislike him, but he could be a bit distractible when he was explaining things. Miss Parr was, he thought, the best actual teacher he'd ever had, in terms of the actual teaching part. She was patient and thorough like Professor Sprout, and would explain things multiple times in different ways to make sure everyone understood how and why each spell worked the way it did, and her instructions were always clear and easy to follow, and she came up with fun activities to demonstrate basic principles, like the day they'd all gotten to make a flying carpet using different charms to take care of the actual flying part and compared how well they worked and the little differences between them and stuff.

Almost everyone loved her — the exceptions in their class being Lyra, who thought she went too slowly and oversimplified the theory stuff too much, and Zach Smith, because he'd been such an obnoxious arse she'd demonstrated anti-gravity charms on all of his things, and he hadn't managed to get his inkwell back without spilling it all over himself. And then she'd made him write an essay on why he'd spilled ink all over everything. Twice, because the first time he'd written a scathing tirade about her being an abusive, shite professor and clearly it hadn't been his fault she'd levitated his things, and stuck copies up all over the school, and Professor Sprout had given him detention for a month for disrespecting a teacher, which was great, because Zach Smith was a jerk and a bully, and disrespected all of the teachers all the time (except maybe Snape, because who would dare?) and he always got away with it because he never actually hexed anyone or anything like that, he was just generally awful. (Neville might actually dislike him more than Draco Malfoy, which was saying a lot.)

And, well...she was pretty and nice and smart (without being a condescending jerk about it) and not even that much older than them, since she'd only been out of school a few years, and so what if Neville might have a bit of a crush on her, he definitely wasn't the only one.

There were a lot more fanciable teachers around, now — the youngest witch on staff before the apprentices had come in this year had been Professor Sinistra, and she was kind of pretty in a vaguely intimidating way, but she'd been a Slytherin in school, and rumour had it she'd helped Snape poison students he didn't like. Miss Lovegood obviously had a fair few admirers — there were rumours she ran around the forest naked hunting acromantulae, Neville knew at least half a dozen boys had been caught out of bounds trying to catch her at it — and Miss McGowan, Professor Vector's apprentice, who was obviously completely oblivious to the number of blokes who'd tried to transfer into Arithmancy just to watch her lecture about esoteric maths in her "scandalously revealing" muggle blouses. (They were perfectly normal blouses in the muggle world, according to Harry.) A few blokes even spent most of their lessons staring at Miss Stacey, even if they wouldn't admit it because she was a vampire.

But Neville thought Miss Parr was the prettiest. And definitely the nicest. He might admire Miss Lovegood, but he certainly wasn't fantasising about snogging her. (And everyone knew she didn't fancy blokes, anyway. She was dating Miss Stacey, and she'd told them all about her affair with Lily Evans when they were in school — Harry had been so red.) So, if he happened to spend an extra hour on his Charms essays now and then, in the hopes that she'd notice him and maybe give him one of those proud little smiles and use one of his points as an example in class, well. Could anyone blame him?

(No. They could not. Seamus and Dean had tried to transfer into Arithmancy, so they could take all their teasing and shove it.)

"Hey, Nev, got a minute?"

"Ah, sure?" he answered, rather surprised. Not that Harry was talking to him, they actually talked a lot more now that Mrs. Weasley had pulled Ron out of school — that had been as much a surprise to Neville as anyone, he hadn't realised— Well, he had realised that Ron was doing terribly in their lessons, but he didn't think it was that bad. There was just something weird about his tone. Slightly apprehensive, like he had a question and he wasn't sure what Neville would say, or even what he would think about being asked. Not unlike Dean asking Gin Weasley to go to Hogsmeade with him over Samhain.

(She'd turned him down flat, with no explanation or excuse or anything, which was just...harsh. Dean seemed to think she'd been horribly unfair to him, but Neville didn't know what else he could possibly have expected from Gin. Most of the third-year girls would've said yes, just because he was a fourth-year, and older men were cool, but Gin was all hard and sharp and serious and there had never been any chance that she would've said yes, or even let him down easy.)

"You know about the first task this Saturday, right?"

"Er...yes? Harry, I think everyone knows about the Triwizard Tournament."

"Well, yeah, but. You know it's like this war game thing, out in the Forest? We have to put together a team and it's going to be like a capture the flag thing?"

"O...kay?" He hadn't known, no, but he had no idea what it might have to do with him. Or why Harry was being so bloody weird at the moment.

Either he'd thought that loudly enough that Harry had overheard it, or he just realised how ridiculous he was being, because he gave a little huff. "Do you want to be on the Team, Neville?"

What? Neville's brain stuttered to a halt. No, seriously, what?

Was he like, dreaming, or something? Harry hadn't really just asked him to be on his team for a bloody war game, out of everyone in the entire school he could possibly have asked...

But he had. And he was still talking. "I know it's kind of last minute, but—"

"Are you, I don't know, messing with me, or something?" Except that didn't really seem like the sort of thing Harry would do. Maybe, like, one of the Weasley twins disguised as Harry, or—

"Um, no? I mean, I just thought maybe you'd want to, and, you know, it's out in the Forest, and you've been doing that whole plant magic thing, right? So I thought maybe you'd be able to help with like, fort...stuff."

Except, it had to be the real Harry, because that was just the most Harry Potter answer. There was no way a polyjuiced Weasley would have been able to say that straight-faced.

(Honestly, fort...stuff?)

Harry was almost as awkward as Neville. It was actually kind of hard to say which of them was more awkward, because Harry didn't know nearly as much about their world as Neville, but he was actually good at magic — magic other people had actually heard of — and— Actually, Neville wouldn't be surprised if Harry was only asking him because he didn't know anyone, and just wanted a few people around he actually did know, and trusted to have his back, no matter how useless they were almost certain to be in a bloody war game. Neville wasn't any kind of fighter, "plant magic" or no. That had to be it.

"Look, Harry... Did you talk to Lyra about this?" There was no way Lyra Black had agreed that he should—

"Yes. She okayed it. Said, and I quote, 'He is a fucking Longbottom. And Aggie's pretty traditional. I bet he's been taught plenty about history and strategy, even if he's a shite fighter.' Suggested you could help Maïa command the fort or base camp or whatever."

Well— That was just— Yes, he was a Longbottom, and yes, Gran had made sure he had a traditional education, complete with loads of useless lessons on military strategy and magical battles won and lost over the centuries, but— "Never mind, I forgot, Lyra's insane. It doesn't matter if I know everything there is to know about commanding a fort — which I don't — have you ever seen a war game, Harry?"

"Um...no?"

Of course he hadn't. "Look. You can't just– just ask people to be in this because we're your friends, and you think Lyra should be able to handle the offence single-handedly, or whatever— The other teams are going to take this deadly seriously— Arte Cæciné is one of the Beauxbatons champions! I know she looks like just another cute little French girl—" Seamus's entirely superficial impression of her — he didn't follow duelling at all. "—but she's scary. Like, Lyra-scary."

"I'm aware of that, actually," Harry inserted, vaguely amused.

Which meant he wasn't taking this seriously. Neville pressed on. "And magical battles can be intense, even your worst people need to be able to hold their own in a fight if— They won't be able to use illegal spells, or hopefully anything potentially lethal, but have you ever seen mages actually fight?"

"I was at the World Cup, Nev."

"A riot is not a battle, Harry. Not unless you were still in the thick of it when the Aurors started closing in and the Death Eaters had to start fighting for their lives, which, you're still alive, so I'm guessing you weren't. Riots are a bunch of untrained, usually drunk wizards blowing off steam by cursing people indiscriminately. Battles are trained mages attacking each other intelligently, strategically, with the intent to kill, or at least disable, any enemy in their way. Magical battles are terrifying and devastating, and the kind of people the other teams are going to field — people like Lyra and Cæciné — are going to treat this like a real battle, because, and I cannot possibly overstate this— that's what a war game is! Practising for a real battle, as realistically as possible! Do you have any idea the kind of damage mages can do to each other, when we're really trying to hurt each other?"

Harry gave him an annoyed little frown. "Do you? It's not like I've never seen Lyra and Sirius spar before, and if you think either of them are going to avoid throwing around lethal spells when that's what makes it fun, you've clearly never met either of them." Well...okay, that was a point, maybe. He wouldn't actually expect anything else from the House of Black, but that was all the more reason Harry should know Neville would just be a liability in a real fight. "And I'm not asking you because you're my friend, I'm asking because we know we're out-classed in a head-on fight. We're going heavy on defence, which means fortifying the hell out of our base, and booby-trapping everything we possibly can, and oh, hey, I know a guy who might be able to ask vines to tie people up, or grow a defensive thorn-hedge, or, I don't know, summon a bunch of triffids to attack the enemies from behind, or something."

"...Oh."

"Yeah, oh. I can't guarantee that they won't try to send veela fire-walking in, or something, but we've got a healer, and a couple of older students and Theo Nott to handle any actual curse-casting. Your job would be to help Maïa and Mallory Prince stop anyone else getting anywhere near our flag."

Well...Neville might actually be able to do that. Not summoning triffids, and they probably wouldn't have time to grow an entire hedge, but he could definitely help make trip-lines and grow briars on conjured walls and that sort of thing. Maybe urge a few sleep-poppies to bloom out of season, spread their soporific pollen around the other teams' camps, or something? If he wanted to risk actually killing someone, like everyone else probably would be, he could pull a couple of Strangling Kudzu out of the canopy to rout the enemies' defensive positions... (Obviously he wouldn't do something like that unless he really had to, but.) And Quinn might have some ideas, too.

"So, do you want to be on the Team?" Harry asked again. "Or not?"

A nervous, excited grin sneaked its way onto his face, despite his reservations. "Yeah, I think I do."

"Brill."

So, that's everyone, then. Next chapter is written, but we're going to try to build up a bit of a buffer so we don't end up having to put a massive pause in the middle of the action of the task, so it'll probably be a couple of weeks. In the meantime, have fun wondering exactly what's going to happen (I know I am). —Leigha