Hermione didn't think she'd ever been this...anxious, in her entire life. Not before the school talent show when she was in Year Three, not before she left for Hogwarts or the first time she'd used the Time Turner, not even when she'd held her nose and gulped down the Essence of Bulstrode's Cat or when she'd set Snape on fire first year or following Hagrid out into the Forbidden Forest for the stupidest detention in the history of detention — largely because, in that last case, she'd been too young and ignorant to realise how absurdly dangerous it was, and she hadn't even thought about what she was doing with Snape, but still.

They were about to go out in front of thousands of people — including all of her professors, several world-famous mages, representatives of two different muggle governments and three magical (including the bloody Queen), dozens of members of the press, and Hermione's mother — and start throwing around magic that could actually kill people...but that wasn't what had her feeling like she might be a little ill, or not the biggest thing.

No, that was because on top of the impending danger and the stress of performing in front of so many people and Lyra potentially being some sort of eldritch abomination nymph who might or might not have decided to casually maim a prefect because he annoyed Hermione (and if she hadn't, it still didn't say good things about their relationship that Hermione thought she might have) and Tienne being a bloody witch and no one bloody well telling her...Dad wasn't here.

Which, generally speaking, Hermione thought was probably a good thing — she certainly didn't want the added pressure of him watching, knowing that he wouldn't approve of the violence or the danger of certain tactics or the whole idea of a mock battle like this in the first place. But...

Mum was here. And Dad wasn't.

And, yes, Mum was here because she was part of the Wizengamot, but she had to have known that they would be staying for the Task — even if Lyra hadn't mentioned it, and the fact that Hermione would be on their team (which she had), Sirius would have. And she had been allowed to bring him along, Lyra had mentioned (after Andromeda finished lecturing her about the very inappropriate music she and Sirius had decided they needed as a backdrop for the near-riot which followed Síomha's rejection of the Order of Merlin and some bloody idiot's attempt to blow up Michael Cavan) that she'd invited both of them.

And Hermione knew that if Mum had mentioned it, Dad definitely would have made time to come. Unlike Ted Tonks (who was a Healer at St Mungo's Hospital, apparently), he wasn't on call, and he loved the idea of magic — thought it was bloody fascinating. He wouldn't pass up a chance to see Hogwarts for himself, even if he knew it meant sitting through the most boring awards presentation ceremony which had ever been conducted in the history of ever (Harry's words, though Hermione didn't disagree).

Which meant...Mum hadn't told him.

And while Hermione might be a little relieved about that, she also had a very, very bad feeling about it, because... Well, because Mum was hiding things from Dad. Which meant Hermione was also going to have to hide things from Dad, like the fact that Mum was here watching the Task, and yes, Hermione did...neglect to tell both of her parents quite a lot of things — or had, before Lyra waltzed into this timeline and brought her magical life and her muggle life crashing into one another — but this was... Mum and Dad weren't supposed to hide things from each other. And if Mum was...

It was almost like finding out Mum was cheating, she thought.

Because she didn't doubt that Mum had no intention of telling Dad about anything that happened today. If she hadn't invited him, when she knew he'd want to be here (even if Hermione didn't really want either of them here), it was just... It was worse than if they'd both come, because she didn't even want to think it, but she knew when Dad inevitably found out, and he would (Lyra would probably just blurt it out next time she saw him, if he didn't see something in the bloody Prophet), he would be crushed.

This might actually be worse than Mum having an affair — Dad might understand if she were, oh, Hermione didn't know, shagging Sirius, or something. He wouldn't like it, of course, and he wouldn't like that she'd hidden it from him, he'd be hurt, but he wouldn't envy her.

Sirius was very pretty, but Dad was very straight. Not that he had a problem with Hermione dating girls, he had hastened to assure her when she'd finally admitted that she was kind of sort of dating Lyra, and he'd just...stared at her for a good minute and a half and she'd started freaking out because he obviously didn't approve, and— It's not that you're dating girls, Maïa love, it's, well... Does it have to be that particular girl? Because sweetie...I know you like her, but Lyra's very clearly, well, unstable...

He definitely would envy Mum's relationship with the entire magical world, though.

And this was definitely not a thing that Hermione needed to be thinking about right now. She'd managed to hold it off for the last couple of hours, distracting herself with last-minute planning and revising of the plan and making absolutely certain that everyone knew what they were doing, and that Tori's aging potion would last at least until they were in the arena even though they'd been delayed — the Weasleys had had the idea that she ought to age herself up a few years for the meeting this morning, so no one would think it odd they had a little kid on their team and pay extra attention to her because of it — but they were just standing at the starting line now waiting for everyone to settle down in the stands, and her stomach wouldn't stop doing little flippy things, because she could see the writing on the wall, and I think my parents are going to get a divorce.

Er...Hermione? Harry turned to her, wide-eyed.

Fuck! She hadn't meant to think that out loud! Pretend you didn't hear that, Harry!

Harry definitely didn't pretend he hadn't heard that. She wasn't sure what he actually said, because he said it in Parseltongue, but it was pretty clear that he'd just asked Lyra to put a privacy spell around the three of them. She broke off bouncing excitedly on her toes and grinning unnervingly at the Beauxbatons team to do so, with an annoyed-sounding hiss.

"Are you okay, Maïa?" he asked, somewhat urgently. "What happened?"

"I said it's not important, Harry, forget about it!"

"No, you asked me to pretend I didn't hear it, which is not at all the same thing. Seriously, did Emma say something, or—"

"Drop it, Harry! We don't need to be thinking about this now! Focus on the Task, or whatever!"

"What is Harry not pretending he didn't hear?" Lyra asked, still obviously somewhat annoyed to be distracted from her fantasies about Arte bloody Cæciné by her actual girlfriend in actual distress. (It was possible Hermione had heard more than enough about Cæciné and her family over the past few days to be getting a bit jealous, actually, because– because reasons, it didn't entirely make sense even to herself, okay, it was just—)

"Maïa thought that her parents might be getting a divorce. Emma didn't mention anything to you, did she?"

Lyra shrugged. "No. But it wouldn't be any of my business, would it? I mean, Sirius is the Lord of the House now, and their marriage doesn't really count, anyway—"

"What?! Of course their marriage counts, Lyra!"

"Not really. I mean, it was performed before your House was established—" Oh, didn't count for obscure magical family law purposes. Hermione's growing fury lessened slightly as she realised that Lyra wasn't just saying their marriage didn't count because she didn't really like Dad, or whatever. (Though she didn't. Not nearly to the same degree that Dad didn't like her, she just thought he was boring, but.) "—and signed your vassalage agreement, which means they're both members of the House on their own merits. It's not like we just adopted Emma, and she brought Dan in. If she divorces him, he's still a member of the House of Granger and therefore a vassal of the House of Black, so their marriage isn't really a contract with an outsider, so Sirius wouldn't need to have a say in dissolving it, so it's not really his business, either. Which Emma knows, it's in the House laws I translated for her, so she probably wouldn't say anything to Siri. But what difference would it make, anyway? Even Arcturus wouldn't have made them live together if they didn't want to."

"Gah!"

"I guess if Dan didn't want to be a member of the House anymore, they could get a divorce on the muggle side and the House of Granger could disown him, which would involve the House of Black if he demanded a dowry forfeit, since all of their assets are communal property under the vassalage agreement, and might be a bit awkward since they didn't have a proper marriage contract to begin with, but that would still be Sirius's problem. Or, well, Meda's, probably. Not mine, anyway." She shrugged. Shrugged!

Hermione made another inarticulate noise of frustration.

"Ignore her, Maïa, Lyra doesn't understand the concept of marriage," Harry advised her.

Lyra glowered at him. "Yes, I do!"

Harry ignored this, because she very clearly didn't. "But, Maïa, did Emma actually say—"

"No, she didn't, but she's here and Dad's not, even though someone invited him without telling me—"

"You didn't tell me not to invite your parents, and Emma was already going to be here, anyway!" Lyra objected.

Hermione ignored that too, because she did kind of have a point but they weren't going to argue about it now. "—and that's not good, and— Even if it's not happening now, I think it's going to, and— I can't think about this now, Harry. Just let me focus on the Task. Please!"

Harry bit his lip indecisively, as though he wasn't sure he wanted to offer, "Are you sure you don't want me to—"

"No!"

Harry messing with her head and forcing her to relax seemed like the worst possible thing to do at the moment. Not because she didn't actually kind of want a calming potion — she felt like she was on the verge of a panic attack, or maybe about to throw up (or both) — but it wasn't as though he'd ever practised that sort of thing, what if he made her sleepy or confused and slow, or too relaxed? She'd turned down the potion because she didn't want to risk the side effects inhibiting her ability to pull off the runic casting that was absolutely essential to their strategy, just. No. No matter how well-intentioned the offer might be, or how concerned he very obviously was about her, no.

She broke Lyra's privacy charm with a sharp finite, underlining the fact that this conversation is over, Harry, kindly piss off!

He gave her a stern little frown. "Fine, but we are definitely talking about this after the Task..." he murmured, turning back to Cedric and Enyo and the conversation he had been involved in before her little thought-slip. Something about the all-school quidditch team they'd be putting together for whichever Task that was going to be.

Cedric gave her a concerned look over the others' shoulders, but Harry brushed off his question about the matter. "Just nerves. What were you saying, about keeper trials?"

"Ooh, what is taking so long?" she muttered under her breath, not really expecting an answer. Lyra had gone back to bouncing in place and watching the Beauxbatonnais, paying Hermione approximately zero attention. Was she hovering slightly, at the top of each bounce?! (No, not thinking about the fact that it's bloody obvious Lyra isn't as human as she claims...)

She actually jumped when Ash Ryan said, "Honestly, Granger? Performance jitters are one thing, but breathe. It's just a game. There's nothing at stake, really. You don't even have anything riding on making a good showing."

"Nothing at stake?! Did you miss the fact that this is a war game?! That we're supposed to be emulating an actual battle, with real danger and lethal force, and—"

Ryan snorted. "It's a children's game, Granger," he repeated, all smug and superior about it. (Ash Ryan, Hermione had discovered over the past two days, really rubbed her the wrong way.) "Yes, it's a game for violent little terrors like Prince and Rowle and your girlfriend there, but it's still a game. Just because they're allowed to use potentially lethal spells doesn't mean that anyone's actually going to be trying to kill each other."

Hermione glared at his cool, disinterested sneer. "I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it means!"

"Yes, well, as I've just finished informing Longbottom, you're wrong. There's a difference between throwing lethal spells around in a game, and literally trying to murder people. Even Black knows that."

"I'm not sure she does," Hermione snapped, at least partially because she was hoping that Lyra would overhear and chime in on the subject, assure Hermione that she was wrong, but she still clearly wasn't listening.

"Don't be thick, Granger. Even actual battles aren't just about killing people. There are objectives to be gained, ground to be taken, or whatever. Diversions to make, flags to steal. No one wants to accidentally kill someone, so even Black and Cæciné won't be throwing anything that kills instantaneously, and the elves aren't going to let anyone actually die. What's the worst that could happen? Even if we lose, as long as we put on a good showing, it's fine."

"What?"

The older boy smirked. "You heard me. Sure, it's better if we win, but those of us who are doing this for the exposure — me, Seran, Bell, Rowle — as long as we personally don't embarrass ourselves, losing isn't that big a deal. And it's just a game for the rest of you. So, relax."

That Lyra apparently decided was worthy of comment. "It's not just a game, Ryan. It's the best game, short of actually starting another riot — which past-me promised not to do because past-me was a bloody idiot — and we're playing against the very best available opponents, so even if there's no real stakes, it's still a big deal. He is right, though, that there's no shame in losing to a worthy adversary if you make the best possible showing you can. Sometimes other people are just better than you."

Hermione stared at her for a full five seconds, brain stuttering to a halt, because that sounded almost exactly like something out of Dumbledore's little good sportsmanship speech.

"Er...Maïa? You okay?" Lyra snapped her fingers in front of Hermione's nose, which was never not annoying.

"Are you okay? I was under the impression that you hated losing at anything. And pointing out that we're outmatched right before we start is terrible for morale!"

Her girlfriend rolled her eyes, fidgeting and drumming her fingers on her arms, the very picture of impatience. "I do hate losing. But you never get better if you only fight people who are weaker than you. Losing is incentive to improve. Besides, who said we're going to lose?" She cast another privacy paling around them with a few quick flicks of her wand, still talking. "We might be outmatched in terms of offence, but I'm pretty sure our defensive strategy is more than a match for their offence. Sure, Bell and Rowle are probably going to lose — not embarrassingly, but we're fielding two offensive players against probably at least seven — and I'm good, but I'm not going to say I'm definitely going to beat Cæciné. I got Flitwick to give me an illusion recap of her win at the I.C.W. student tournament final over the summer after Bell mentioned it, and I assume she's actually better than that when she doesn't have to follow their rules, so that could really go either way, it's going to be great!

"But the point isn't actually to win those fights, it's to steal their bloody flags and stop them stealing ours, so I'm still giving us at least seventy per cent odds to win, win. And that's including a generous range of error for the potential that one or both of the other teams have some trick we haven't anticipated. Which I kind of doubt they do. Between you, me, Harry, Mallory, the Weasleys, and Tori, we've covered a lot of angles."

That was true — they'd come up with their plan, then asked everyone on their team how they would beat it if they were the enemy, then countered those approaches, repeating the process until they'd run out of ideas.

"There's no shame in Beauxbatons and Durmstrang losing to Hogwarts, either. Especially since, I don't think you realise how good our plan is. Like, that fort could withstand an assault from the entire Auror Corp good. Granted, we'd have to pull in everyone to defend it, and we might have to use some Category Six tactics and reinforce the wards a bit against trained cursebreakers, but there are actual armies I'd give us even odds against. Well, we'd probably lose eventually, unless we got some kind of reinforcements they'd just besiege us and starve us out, but that's not really an option in this context. We'd definitely be able to hold them off effectively enough that a siege would be the most reasonable option for them, minimising casualties."

"...Are you fucking kidding me?" Because that was just– just ridiculous!

Lyra glared at her. "Why would I joke about this? The only way anyone's getting through the walls is if they manage to hold off your fire long enough to do a bloody cooperative vanishing ram or something, and that's not the sort of thing you can pull out in a game like this, because Ryan is right, they won't actually be trying to kill us." And she actually sounded disappointed about that. Jesus Christ... "So they'd have to go over, and I doubt that either of the other schools have anyone who's prepared to do a Hostile Takeover on the fly, so yeah. Not a problem.

"If you want a contingency plan, I'm sure you've never been stormchasing, but trust me, flying into a lightning storm is dangerous, even with avoidance amulets which they won't have, so if by some stroke of incredibly bad luck they do have someone who can organise and execute a Hostile Takeover, break the shield dome before they finish it so it can't be used against you, and you, Weasley, and Mal use that lightning net Mal was talking about that you thought was too dangerous to work into a ward to hold off aerial attackers while Theo, Neville, and Nick pick off the rest of them — if they don't get too close, they won't get zapped, so it's not really dangerous, or if it is it's their own bloody fault, because webs of bloody lightning aren't exactly subtle. But it really doesn't matter, because they won't get through the dome.

"I'm not really sure how it's escaped your notice over the past four-ish subjective years, but you're fucking scary, Maïa."

"I—"

"No, shut up, honestly, you're almost as bad as Harry, and I am completely out of patience, Hermione!" Hermione winced at the use of her full name — Lyra only ever used it when she was seriously annoyed. "I know what I'm talking about, and you are very good at magic, especially witchcraft, and when I say you're cleverer than I am, that's not me being self-deprecating — I don't do self-deprecation — or lying to inflate your non-existent ego, it's an objective fact. I'm only better at runic casting than you are because I know more about warding and enchanting in general, you're definitely going to catch up before next summer, and I would bet on you over practically anyone in a game that required some degree of planning and long-term strategy. Maybe not Dru. Or Lily Evans. But Dru's Dru, and Lily Evans was even more insane than I am. They don't count. But practically anyone else. I wouldn't be able to take our fort with fewer than a score of fighters. I don't think Bella could.

"Well, maybe if she waited until it was over and the walls were down and time-turned into the middle of it. Or drove fiendfire at you from multiple angles or some shite. Or deliberately fucked up a big geomantic spell to induce major fracturing and undermine your foundations— Fuck, I should've tried something like that... I mean, she can do freeform levitation, so just fucking up her ground wouldn't work, but I'm pretty sure she can't channel enough to levitate and deflect a Cruciatus, that would just be absurd..."

"What the hell are you talking about, Black?" Ash asked, his tone strongly implying that he thought Lyra had lost the plot. Which Hermione wasn't sure she hadn't — she was fairly certain that she was talking about the game she'd played with Bellatrix on the last day before term started, something about trying to force her terrifying alter-ego to step out of a small circle by any means necessary, which she hadn't managed to do.

Lyra blinked at him, as though just noticing that he'd been included in the privacy palings she'd cast around them before she'd started discussing their strategy so smoothly Hermione really wasn't sure whether she'd noticed she'd done it. She certainly hadn't used the incantations. Or the proper wand-movements. (Which was one of those things that made it difficult to imagine she was evaluating their relative abilities objectively.)

"Different game, it's not important. Okay, I guess I probably could take our fort if I really had to, but I'm confident that there's no way to take it within the constraints of the Task. No one would actually try to intentionally fuck up geomancy like that, it would be even more dangerous than the World Cup thing, and using a Class Six destructive spell like Fiendfire or a Vanishing Ram on a beseiged city is one of those so-called war crimes, and therefore against the rules. It's a good plan, Maïa. Nearly every scenario where we don't win stems from both Harry and myself being irretrievably incapacitated, and you'll probably still be able to force a draw. Neville would know how that works, with the negotiating concessions and shite. But it's not likely it will even come to that. And we don't have time to design an alternative strategy now, anyway, so you need to commit to following the one we have. Stop fucking doubting yourself, and, I don't know, do a bloody focusing exercise or something."

She dismissed her palings with a flick of her fingers, glaring at Hermione as though to say I dare you to continue not having as much confidence in your abilities as I have. Or possibly find some self-confidence or else.

Which was ridiculous, but oddly enough, did make Hermione feel a bit better about their chances of actually pulling this off. Possibly because she was just fully focused on the Task since...well, possibly the first time all day. She'd been worrying about where the hell Lyra was until breakfast, and then that she wouldn't be able to hold herself together through the Order of Merlin ceremony, and then whether she was some kind of eldritch abomination (people don't just bleed darkness, that was not right) and what the fuck she was supposed to do about that, and then Mum, and whether there was going to be a bloody riot in the wake of another attempted assassination of Michael Cavan, and then Mum and Dad, and...none of that was important right now. No, she categorically refused to be distracted by it all again, because Lyra was right, they had a bloody good plan, and the only way it was going to work was if Hermione did her part. So she would.

She took a deep breath, nodded.

"Good." Lyra spun back around to face the judges' table as Dumbledore stood to make some sort of speech, officially opening the Tournament as the Headteacher of the host school. "Oh, for fuck's sake! Moritūrī tē salūtāmus, Your Grace!" Hermione was fairly certain Dumbledore didn't hear her, which was probably for the best, because the 'salute' she gave him was a two-fingered one. At least some of the students from other schools had, though — Hermione caught a few giggles and sniggers from the groups on both sides of their own. "Let's go already!"

Lyra speaks for all of us — let's do this already!

The final scenes aren't quite finished up, but because there's a shitload of them, we're gonna start posting now. At least for the time being, we'll be going one POV snippet a day, but that might or might not change as we go along. Doing the math in my head, they should be an average of 3k or so, some shorter and some longer. If you want to wait for all of them, have fun with that, it's pretty stupid long to read all in one sitting xD

Wordy bitches, I swear. —Lysandra