AN: Okay so this is LOOOOOOOOONG overdue and I'm sorry about that... BUT! Here's the next chapter! (There's definitely going to be more that six lol as this is Chapter 4 and the First Task still hasn't happened oof)

Charlie slipped out of her Godfather's embrace. "Remus!" She repeated.

"Charlotte," he replied with a sad smile. "I'm so sorry."

"I—I'm okay. I'll be okay." She watched Dumbledore shut the door as he left, leaving the two alone. "How is your girlfriend?"

"She's fine. She says she wishes she could be here but she has to look after Nyx and James."

"Nyx… Like my mom?" Charlie asked.

"Sirius told you?" When Charlie shook her head, Remus sighed. "Of course not. Who did then?"

"Professor Snape. I was ranting to him and mentioned that I never learned my mother's name and he said her name was Phoenyx Zegwater. The Zegwaters were Purebloods right?"

"Yes. Nyx's mother was a Pureblooded witch and her father was a Muggle. Her older brother died before he could make it to Hogwarts, and her little brother… Well, I'd rather not discuss it."

"But—" Seeing the look Remus gave her, Charlie changed her words mid-sentence. "Have you seen Harry?"

"No, and I'd rather you didn't tell him I was here. He has enough to worry about with the Tournament going on." Remus gave her a stern look. "I mean it, don't say anything."

"I don't understand why it's such a big deal if he knows you're here or not."

"Promise me you won't tell him."

Charlie paused and looked into her Godfather's eyes. There was something he wasn't telling her, but she couldn't tell what. "Alright… I promise."

She decided to skip dinner after her talk with Remus. Partially because she knew he was hiding something from her, and partially because she wasn't hungry anyway. She wandered the halls, slightly in a daze, and found herself at Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She sighed sadly looking at the door, but knew she needed to go in. It'd only been a week since Alix's death, but she had to be strong.

She slowly pushed open the door and slipped in, her eyes closed tightly so she couldn't see anything. "M-Myrtle?"

"Charlie?" The ghost gasped. She sounded upset and tired. "W-what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here so soon after… I mean, you shouldn't be here during dinner!"

Charlie opened her eyes then, at the sound of Myrtle's voice. She saw her huddled in the corner, arms tightly circling her knees, face turned towards the door.

"I-I came to check up on you. And to force myself to come to this place. We may need it in future and I had to force myself…"

"You came to check up on me? Charlie, if I knew how to get out of this bathroom, I'd have checked up on you!"

"I know it couldn't have been easy having another death happen in this bathroom… I wanted to see if you're alright." She sighed and sat on the tiled floor, her back leaning against the wall next to the door. "And I didn't want to lose another friend by not coming here."

"Y-you consider me a friend?" Myrtle blubbered. She was crying again. "If Alix shows up here… She hasn't yet, which makes me think she won't, but if she does… I'll take care of her, okay?"

Charlie hummed quietly and nodded. "I don't know which I'd prefer… But thank you."

The door next to Charlie opened suddenly. "Charlie?"

She looked up and saw Draco Malfoy looking around, confused and… slightly concerned?

"I — Draco? What are you doing here?" She managed, her throat still sore from trying not to cry.

He looked down at the sound of her voice and his eyes immediately softened. "I saw you weren't at dinners so I left early and saw you walk into the bathroom. Then, when you didn't come out, I thought something had happened."

"BOY! NO BOYS IN THE BATHROOM!" Myrtle screeched, seemingly feeling much better.

"Oh, bugger off ghost." He snarled, grabbing Charlie's hand.

"BOY — "

"It's alright Myrtle." Charlie soothed. "We're going. I'll come back sometime this week, okay?"

"Take care, Charlie."

They walked out of the bathroom.

Draco gave her an incredulous look. "What were you doing in there again? You could've been hurt! You could've — "

"I know." Charlie looked at her shoes. "I'm perfectly aware of what could've happened."

She took her hand out of Draco's and began walking down the hall.

"I — You knew? And you still went? Bloody hell, you're more stupid than I thought!" He quickly caught up to her.

"Oh shove off M- Draco. I'm going to dinner."

He sighed and stopped walking but Charlie continued down the hall. "There are only fifteen minutes left."

"Better than none."

"Where were you, Charlie?" Hermione whispered.

She didn't want to concern her by mentioning Myrtle, and knew she couldn't say anything of Remus, so she opted for the safer, less pleasant option. "I was with Draco."

"You were with who?" Ron choked on the chicken wing he'd just bitten into.

"Malfoy, Ronald." Hermione supplied. "Honestly, use your ears."

"Why the hell were you with him?" Harry asked, but he seemed a bit quieter than noticed Ron scooted a bit further down the bench when he spoke. "He hasn't… brainwashed you has he?"

"Of course not, Harry." Charlotte grabbed his hand across the table and gave it a comforting squeeze. "We're just… friends."

Needless to say that entire section of the Gryffindor table erupted in protests. Charlie just calmly dished some fettuccine alfredo onto her plate, ignoring the chaos around her. She quickly gave Professor Snape a glance where the Professors were eating and saw his chair was empty. She looked back down at her plate. "Nyx Zegwater…"

"What was that?" Hermione asked, after trying to silence the boys without much success.

"Nothing, 'Mione." Charlie smiled. "Don't worry about it."

The first task was approaching and Harry and Ron still weren't speaking to each other. It was quite painful, if Charlie was being honest, because she couldn't hang out with both of them at the same time. She didn't want to pick favorites, even if Harry was her brother, so she opted for spending time with Hermione instead. That's when they had the idea.

"I don't know about this…" Hermione sighed at Charlie's uncertainty.

"Look, you said it yourself Malfoy and you need to look like friends, yes?" Charlie nodded so she continued, "wel… What better way of getting Ron and Harry to act normal again than to buddy up with Malfoy? This way, you get two birds with one stone."

"I'm still not sure. Draco doesn't even want to be friends. He just wants his dad to lay off."

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose, slightly annoyed. "Be that as it may, though I'm sure that's not entirely true, you saw how the boys reacted last week when you said you were friends with him! They both absolutely despise Malfoy… This may help bring them together!"

Charlie nodded reluctantly, "alright 'Mione… If you say so."

"Good." She said simply, before checking the time. "Now don't you have a tutoring lesson after lunch? You might want to get your things together."

Charlie nodded and grabbed her studying materials before moving to leave the library. Before walking out, however, she checked out a book on pureblood family histories. Hermione just raised an eyebrow at her selection, but didn't say a word.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked politely, and stuck her tongue out at the girl when Draco pushed her off him.

"Sure…?" Draco made room for her to sit between him and Pansy, and gave her a questioning look. After settling in and grabbing herself a chicken caesar wrap for lunch, she looked at Draco out of the corner of her eye.

He slowly leaned in and whispered in her ear, "what are you doing here, Charlie?"

"Sitting by my friend, Draco. You don't mind, do you?" Charlie turned to face him, and realized too late how close that put their faces.

He flushed slightly and turned away. "No. All good."

"Great." She cleared her throat and went back to eating. She risked a quick glance at the Gryffindor table and saw Hermione motioning for her to talk more. 'Fine' she mouthed back.

Before she could speak, Draco cut in, "so what is this really about? Because I know for a fact we never discussed eating lunch together…"

"Surely you've noticed how… off, Harry and Ron have been?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Hermione thought it'd be a good idea for me to sit over here, because they both hate you and might start talking again. Plus, I figured, since we're friends and all now… I thought, um…"

"You wanted to eat lunch with me, then?" He smirked and scooted even closer to her. She gave him a confused look. He whispered to her again, "don't look directly, but Weasley and Potter are both looking over here and most likely want to murder me."

She grinned at him and scoot even closer, deciding to whisper in his ear for good measure. "So it's working then? Do you like me even more now, as a friend? I may be more Slytherin than you thought."

"I must say," he whispered, and she could hear the smirk in his voice. "I'm quite surprised. But it's a good kind of surprise."

"Good," she said at normal volume, trying not to laugh. She felt a hand on her shoulder and temporarily leaned away from Draco, whose cheeks were slightly tinged with pink. She turned to see Pansy giving her the evil eye and quickly shrugged the girl's hand off her shoulder. "Can I help you?"

Before the girl could respond, she heard a quiet groan from pain on the other side of her and quickly looked to see Draco's nose was crooked and bleeding. "Episkey!" she said before it could bleed more.

She sighed and looked at the Gryffindor table, but couldn't see her brother or Ron. Neither of them knew advanced enough spells to break a bone without detection, so she could guess it happened with the help of the invisibility cloak. She watched as the doors to the Great Hall slowly closed and the two walked out, high-fiving each other.

She turned back to Draco who was rubbing his nose appreciatively. "Sorry, Draco. I didn't know they'd cast a spell at you to break your nose."

"Did it work at least?" He groaned again, but gave her a small, pained smile.

She remember the sight of them leaving the Great Hall and nodded. "I think it did."

It hadn't worked, not completely anyway. The two boys still weren't talking to each other, but Ron seemed to be less annoyed at the world and Harry certainly moped less. In addition, Ron helped warn Harry about the first task, which Charlie had been told later that night by Harry, involved dragons. It was her idea to tell Cedric and the others, but Harry really only seemed to care if the Hogwarts champions knew, so she figured she'd tell Viktor herself.

If she ever saw him in time, that is. The first task was in two days, and she hadn't seen the Quidditch player anywhere. That's when she decided to walk down towards the Quidditch Pitch with Draco so he could teach her how to play. Harry wanted her to try out for next year's team, but she'd never bothered learning how to play. As they reached the pitch, a figure could be seen flying through the air at lightning speed.

"Is that… Krum?" Draco asked beside her. "He's bloody fast."

"Is it?" She squinted into the sky but couldn't tell. "Shouldn't he be practicing for the first task?"

"Maybe he's done? Or will practice later?" Draco adjusted the strap of Charlie's bookbag on his shoulder. "Can we go sit down? You've got like eight million books in here."

"You're the one that offered to carry it, you wimp. But sure, we can sit." She grinned as Draco quickly walked higher into the stands.

There was a small rush of air behind her before she could follow him and a deep voice called out, "Shar-lee."

She turned, a smile on her face, and saw exactly who she expected. "Viktor!"

"I just vinished practissing vor zie virz task."

"Oh! That's what I wanted to tell you! It's — "

"Dragons." They said at the same time.

She laughed. "You already knew?"

"Da. Zedric let me know. I knew yezterday."

"Ah. I'm glad! I've been trying to find you for the past couple days now, but you'd vanished! I suppose you were busy." She smiled at him. "Well, I hate to cut things short, but Draco and I were about to practice, so I'll have to talk to you later."

"Razbira se. (Of course.)"