Throughout Friday, Harry's thoughts were more scattered and skittery than they had been in years.

Things were certainly not helped by the fact that, being blind in Hogwarts, he couldn't indulge in the little daily routines that had begun to demarcate his day.

There was no tea-leaf reading after his breakfast tea, although he still drank it, and the small but significant absence that this led to had Harry off-balance to begin with. He couldn't palm a rune when he was worried about something: slipping a hand into his pocket and pulling runes out wasn't useful if he wasn't the one to read it, and showing others somehow seemed a little too invasive – or performative or revealing – to seem right.

He couldn't pad over to his mirror in his pyjamas to check if the Sleekeazy's was properly worked through his hair. He couldn't read the Prophet over breakfast. He couldn't use his Pensieve, and that thought amongst all of them had him dizzy with worry when he realised.

And, of course, there were the crowds.

On this Friday of all Fridays, the gossip and energy were obnoxious. Despite Crow's best efforts, and Hermione audibly setting her jaw to physically protect him from the surging masses – teeth grinding and everything – the crowds buffeted them. Harry was knocked and bumped, accidentally elbowed, had feet trodden on, and was generally at the mercy of the masses as they gossiped, babbling excitedly, while they surged through the corridors.

No one tried to feel him up, which was a blessing, probably because Crow had puffed his feathers up defensively, but that still left accidental encounters to manage.

Voices washed over him like waves, buffeting his face, surging in his ears.

Beauxbatons, people whispered. Did you hear that they teach the most enchanting witches there, literally?

I heard that their campus has the most romantic school grounds in Europe.

My aunt says they hold school dances. I bet they teach music there too?

Oh yes, they're very cultured.

Footsteps pattered and robes rustled.

The place is supposed to be hauntingly beautiful, an older girl's voice muttered three feet behind Harry and moving away fast.

Another voice, lower: My uncle says it contains the collections of the cursed royals, conserved after they all died off. Jewellery, art, rune arrays, all the great tapestries…the works.

Which cursed royals specifically?

Oh, all of them.

Harry walked into Hermione around that point: she'd been forced to a pause by the crush and his chin hit the back of her skull hard enough to bruise. He spat out a mouthful of her hair and mumbled an apology, but the whispers never paused.

Isn't Beauxbatons the true burial place of Nostradamus?

Nah – surely he just studied there?

Never mind all that, I was told the landscape itself is magical: streams that came from nowhere and flow up hills and ponds that charm unattended children into their depths. Sheltered cursed swans and unseasonably frozen ponds, bridge guardians, whimsical undines and all.

From the heavy, hot press of Hogwarts' bodies, there were similar murmurs about Durmstrang. It teaches the Dark Arts, the voice of a tall boy muttered as he passed the slow-moving Harry and his friends in the corridor. Which was true, Harry knew, but not outrageously so according to the textbooks he'd read.

But others wondered, loud enough for Harry to hear, Are the classes taken in German, do you think, or Russian? Maybe Bulgarian.

Maybe all of that and more, perhaps, they argued amongst themselves.

A lot of Duelling champions came from Durmstrang, three within the last decade alone.

Is it true what they're saying, that students hunt for their own furs in the forests?

And: Do they have forests? I thought it was all rocky mountains!

Did Rasputin really get trained there?

Harry heard Hermione's head snap around when someone muttered, Is the library really the largest collection of Grindelwald's books in the world, like people hint at?

And the landscapes, Harry heard described in voices that rushed a bit.

They keep it a great secret, of course, but one of the Slytherins claims he was told Durmstrang is surrounded by mountains that move in the nights! Stones that sing.

There are shadows in the forests that grow and ebb and flicker without regard for sunlight.

People whispered about: naked trees and whispering woods and pathways through mountains you shouldn't look backwards in. Alcohol like fire that seeps from rocks like blood. Places that echo the sound of voices long-since dead.

"They can't possibly all be true," Hermione hissed as she finally slowed her footsteps and tugged Harry into the History of Magic room. "Hogwarts is in one of the most magical sites of all of the Isles, and we don't have all that."

Harry cocked his head. It wasn't like Hogwarts rooms didn't move too, and colonies of endangered species hid in the Forbidden Forest, with ancient enchantments deep within the bowels of just Hogwart Castle – which were man-made, to say the least.

He suddenly wondered what else existed in the unexplored depths of Forbidden Forest to her as the thought occurred – worth looking into, actually; he'd come back to it later – but now was probably not the time to mention it to his muttering friend.

It had myriad mysteries and enchanting depths, Harry knew; there was a reason the students were to stay out, and it wasn't just because of the massive spiders.

Hermione muttered insults about the logic of wizards as they settled into their seats, the excited crowds drifting from their minds.

Harry in particular was very swift to forget the rumours, a surge of guilt and anxiety instead swirling in his mind.

He'd forgotten, the thought drummed through his brain like a mournful military.

He'd had a whole ruddy plan and forgotten.

Fortunately for Harry's tenuous mental balance, first-period, History of Magic, was a chance for his dicta-quill to do all the work. That gave Harry ample time to frantically brainstorm what else he'd forgotten.

Right. The Triwizard. Would it still go to plan?

Not-Moody was around, so, blind or not, Harry would still get entered into the Tournament

…probably.

Did it matter?

His blindfold felt uncomfortably tight and hot over his eyelids as Binn's voice droned on and on in the background. He shifted in his hard seat a little. Crow fluttered his wings.

Harry's mind raced.

If Harry wasn't entered in the Tournament, would Voldemort still resurrect? Would Harry still meet him in the graveyard?

Did that matter?

Only if Voldemort was embodied, could he be killed, Harry decided – and killing, he realised with a cold, clenching certainty, was definitely the goal this time. With his own hands or wand or whatever, he needed to snuff the life out of the dark wizard.

End it on purpose.

For the greater good, Harry knew he ha…

– "for the Greater Good," Dumbledore had sighed; "for the Greater Good," Grindelwald had claimed –

…He felt a sudden jolt of panic and self-loathing and empathy for Dumbledore's goals all at once.

His mind surged, his left knee jerked up to bang against the classroom room as the world spun around him. Binn's voice didn't even falter.

His stomach sank like a rock. It wasn't as if Harry was an innocent; it wasn't like he hadn't killed before – Death Eaters killed; Harry killed; were they different? – and who knew if Voldemort's cursed life even counted as 'alive' anymore anyway?

Guilt rose, roiled. The air chilled around him as cold sweat beaded on his brow; there was the sensation of vomit rising in Harry's throat as the sensation of remembrance rose up from within but Harry fought nausea down.

Quirrell was years ago; Quirrell had made his choice and Harry had made his – blood and fire on his hands – and now, what was one more death laid at his feet? Who would mourn for the shade of the Dark Lord Voldemort?

– unwanted bastard, unloved orphan; bullied, abused muggle-born; never had a chance –

He tore his thoughts away and tightened his occlumency control. Later, there'd be time for guilt later.

For now, the graveyard.

Harry's right hand reached out as if in search of a quill to take notes with, and clenched when, well, he couldn't. He tried to still his thoughts some more, settle down. Brainstorm.

First: Not-Moody was definitely at Hogwarts and on Voldemort's orders, presumably to enter Harry in the cup. The plan would most-likely still work…

…and if not?

Well, Harry thought, suddenly realising that he was chewing at his lower lip hard enough to draw blood…in that case, he didn't have to face the wraith, the homunculus in the graveyard. His plan could work round that. Any confrontation would work – Voldemort would most likely defeat him even without the element of surprise; Harry needed every advantage he could get – a full-page advertisement in the Daily Prophet, perhaps?

"Old Voldie! You. Me. Chamber of Secrets for a Life-or-Death duel! Meet me there Saturday!"

"Boy-Who-Went-Mad Lost the Plot!"

Harry could just see how well that would work out.

– if it's in your head is it even real? –

But without the graveyard confrontation, things would be different; Harry felt the realisation dawn.

He wouldn't have the blood-connection, Harry reasoned out, finally pinning a single thought down. He whispered a quiet episkey to stop his lip bleeding as he did so.

– hadn't helped Fred –

The taste of copper and salt lingered on his tongue but Harry hardly noticed through his whirlwind of thoughts.

Without the blood-connection, without the tie between them going both ways, the Dark Lord would kill Harry and he'd probably stay dead – gotta be killed to live; gotta live to be killed – someone else would have to take up the mantel – but Neville could do that, he was the reliable type – kill the snake, kill the Dark Lord – same old, same old, really.

Harry found the roughness of the robes beneath his legs very irritating all of a sudden, the dicta-quil scratched away at his unseen parchment recording some unusable history and over that sound, Binns said something about Bloodrod the Mad in the Goblin Uprising of 1612.

– know history so we don't repeat it –

Somehow, Harry's distracted mind jumped: oddly, he'd always assumed that he would live through this confrontation; he'd taken for granted that he was aiming to survive. Idly, his brain wondered if this was unreasonable…his plan could still cope after his death…It was about saving the wizarding world, wasn't it? That was why he'd come back?

Wasn't it?

Harry felt his right knee shake with no conscious control from his mind, and stilled it forcefully with a sudden frown.

His thoughts cycled: If Harry wasn't at the graveyard, if their destined confrontation was elsewhere, some other time, after…

Would some other poor child be there instead, then? Another Cedric Diggory, dying before his time?

– take my body back to my father –

Krum's contributions to quidditch cut short? Bill's wife never making it to him?

– I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! –

Would Harry have, this time, the blood of innocents on his hands?

His bloody, guilty hands, to be sure, but so far it had only been a death he couldn't help. A death he hadn't realised he was planning for. A death he'd never managed to imagine any other way…

– "Master," Quirrell had said; "It burns" –

So. He really, really needed to be in that graveyard.

His mind swallowed loudly.

Hands cold and shaking only a little bit, Harry reached out blindly to grasp the edge of the desk in front of him, grasping it tightly to ground him, to feel the solid wood between his fingers and the cold behind his back and cold stone beneath his feet.

Harry ran a dry tongue over dry lips and realised he was beginning to hyperventilate. Crow nestled against him, beak gently scraping against his left ear, as if to say, "I'm here. I'm with you."

"Thanks," Harry breathed, tilting his head a tad to nuzzle Crow back fondly. He fought to slow his breathing, bring back the Occlumency calm.

If he needed to make sure he was in that graveyard, then he needed to be in the tournament. Of course, there was the possibility he could just be kidnapped later, after all, but… He'd looked into it; a ritual run-of-the-gauntlet was better for the resurrection…

If he needed to be in the Tournament, Not-Moody needed to put him th—

Right now, and for the rest of the year, there was an innocent wizard locked in his own trunk, Harry suddenly remembered. His spine stiffened, Crow complained at the jolt. Harry ignored all of it.

Merlin. Thoughts whirled.

Should he rescue Moody? Was whatshisface-Crouch junior still needed after Harry's name came out of the goblet?

Moody had lived, Harry remembered with a flush of adrenaline, and barely noticed Hermione nudge him curiously from her nearby seat. But was leaving Moody to suffer in – it was probably sensory deprivation, Harry realised, alone in a cold, lightless trunk with no noise or connection to normal space – was leaving Moody to suffer ten months of torture forgivable, if it was for the Greater Good?

Was Harry obliged to rescue the Auror?

Did the elimination of Voldemort outweigh the comfort of one man?

– Moody had died for Harry, he suddenly remembered. He owed the wizard a life, if nothing else –

Would rescuing him ruin the plan? Would it be worth it?

There was a ringing in his ears.

– best-laid plans –

He remembered to breathe again. In. Out. In. Out. He could make the change; he could be the change.

Ensure the change; drive the change.

Crow was preening his hair again. The light weight on his left shoulder drew Harry back into his body. The smell of bird dander and the fresh air and cool winds in Crow's wings washed across Harry's face.

The other-Harry within him, the one he'd been working on finding, crowed defiantly. Feathers puffed, wings spread, throat hoarse from the scream. His heartbeat steadied in its rage against fate.

Harry forced his shoulders to relax.

"Hemione," Harry asked over lunch, his hands wrapped neatly around some kind of fancy sandwich made easy to eat.

"Yes, Harry?"

"If, just say theoretically speaking, if you were sitting a test, right?"

The chatter in the Great Hall continued unabated as if Harry wasn't desperately trying to get his life back on track; as if he wasn't planning on the future of all of Britain.

"What's all this about, Harry?"

He gestured with his sandwich. "Just, in theory, just for a minute. If you were sitting the most important test of your life. You'd only ever get one chance at this test, probably, and it was really, really important to do super well in it…" He paused to frown and think it over again.

"…Go on?"

"Would you cheat?"

He could hear Hermione's sudden intake of horrified breath, and Neville on his right choking on his mouthful. It was too easy to imagine Hermione's whole body stiffening in abject horror, her hair bushing in fury, her lips working to spit out every bit of scandalised shock that she could express. "Harry James Justus Ambr—"

"No, no, wait! I know, I know…but, hypothetically speaking. If you didn't do really well on this test, like, get an Outstanding, and if it was the hardest test of your life—"

"Harry, I thought you knew me bet—"

He forged on. "And if you didn't get that outstanding, I'd die…would you cheat?"

"You'd…what?"

"Just theoretically," Harry hastened to reassure her. "If it was against all your morals, all your ethics, but…it would guarantee something else really important…would you?" He barely noticed his voice trail off to a mumble. "Would you act against, I dunno, your conscience in order to…for the Greater Good, I mean?"

There was a thoughtful pause. A little gap of silence surrounded Harry's friends as they sat and pondered for an instant in the raucous sound of the Great Hall. Harry felt his heart rise with hope: Hermione was ethical…if she could do this, then he could…

"That's just too hypothetical to answer, Harry," his best friend sighed, and then seemingly dismissed the issue from her mind. "I don't mind arguing philosophy with the best of them, but theoreticals like this really aren't worth the time. More mustard, Neville?"

"Please."

Harry felt the disappointment sink into his stomach and abruptly realised that he had no more appetite.

He tried to subtly put his meal down, pushing the plate away from him quietly, but then Crow pecked him on the ear and scolded him in a harsh, clattering chatter.

"Alright, alright! I'll eat!"

He found himself picking up the thick bread again, and nibbled half-heartedly along its uppermost edge.

"Ah, Neville, mate?"

"Yeah?"

Mildly hopeful, Harry turned to where he knew his other best friend sat and pointed his unseeing eyes in Nev's general direction.

"Sorry if this is…but I really need to…If you don't mind?"

He could hear Neville swallow and take a long gulp of whatever drink he'd chosen for the meal.

"Go on, mate?"

Harry cringed a little on the inside. "If you had could wake up your parents – sorry; bear with me – bring them back to health, with no pain and no trauma…fix your family, take that burden off your grandmother…"

He paused, felt Neville flinch, but the boy didn't say anything yet. Harry hated himself just a little but forced the words to come anyway.

"…But to do so you'd have to kill someone, what would you do?"

"Oh."

"Sorry," Harry murmured again, and hoped that Neville could give him what he wanted.

"I think…" There was a clink as Neville put down his goblet or cup or whatever, and the wonderful boy thought seriously about what was frankly a rather hurtful question.

"I…I love my parents, Harry," Neville said, oddly clearly and confidently paced. "I want them back. But if it came at the cost of…well, if it hurt someone else like my Gran and I have been…I'd never do that to anyone else, Harry. I couldn't put them through that."

Harry nodded. "…Fair."

But was it the answer he'd wanted? Harry didn't think so.

Harry thought about it all through Potions, when he should have been with Snape again, and took himself out to the thestral herd to catch up on study and write Draco and Luna, of all people.

It was with relief that he stepped out of the main doors and stripped off his blindfold to the lazy afternoon light, the mage-sight blaze of Hogwarts Castle raging behind him.

It took only a moment to settle himself down on the same tree trunk as earlier and rifle around within his mokeskin pouch to get his stuff.

He scribbled his notes rapidly: Draco first, then to Luna, and gave the parchments to Crow to deliver them.

Ron, Draco and Luna were very different people, but he trusted them, after all.

And what would they do when faced with a decision like this? One great helpful act at the cost of one great harm?

Ron, he decided, even as one of the thestral fillies snuck up to Harry and nibbled on his hair with great relish, Ron would do the thing.

Ron would do what it took, Harry nodded to himself forcefully, whatever it took to do the right thing, and damn the consequences.

He lifted his eyes to the sweet little foal, scratched her on her silver-grey forehead and pushed her face back away from his face, just a tad.

"C'mon girl," he murmured fondly. "Not the hair, okay? It gets messy already without your help."

She nuzzled at his hand for a little, finding no bacon or fresh meat, before nosing towards his forehead again with a push.

"Oi!" Harry muttered, her strong, lithe body rocking him backwards as he sat. "Naughty girl, give a boy a break, won't you?"

But she forced him over fondly, and nosed at his face and his neck and puffed at him with warm breath that smelled slightly of old meat.

Harry gave up, and collapsed onto the damp grass and laughed. As she kept nudging his way, he reached up his hands to scratch her in all the good places.

"Go on then," he murmured. "Who's a good girl, hrm? What would your mum say if she saw you accosting boys like this, hey? Who's a cheeky thing?"

It was pleasant, having the thestral filly distract him from his moping, even at the cost of lying on the damp grass, letting the cold wet seep into his trousers, and getting mud stains on his back.

He took a moment to gaze at the filly's peaceful black eyes, glance beyond her to the grey and ever-changing clouds in the sky, and watch the clouds scamper across the heavens before eventually, the baby thestral decided he had no food and moved away for other amusement.

Harry hauled himself sitting, taking a long moment to take in the dark green trees of the Forbidden Forest, see its shadows and absorb its mage-sight light – very visible and bright and only a little bit painful in contrast to the blaze of glory that was Hogwarts Castle.

Then he sank back into his musings even as he grabbed out parchment to do his homework on, and scrap pieces to doodle the Forest landscape on – because he could see – and a To Do list he'd made up that really needed refining.

Ron, he'd decided, would do the thing…

He kept his quill-tip moving, and it was only half an hour later that Luna responded, Crow winging his way back to Harry looking simultaneously proud and displeased.

Dear Harry Potter, his little Ravenclaw friend had penned in purple sparkly ink; her script was loopy and extravagant, with her 'i's dotted with stars, or little dots with wings, or tiny diamonds.

I always thought that Babbity Rabbity did what was easy first, rather than what was right. "But she took her lumps," my Daddy always says.

I suppose it's a sad thing at times that Gryffindors tend to be brave. Don't you think so?

Your loving friend,

Luna Lovegood.

Harry raised his eyebrows, then furrowed them. What did that mean? Would she do the thing after all that?

He held the parchment in his hand and turned it over carefully. There were no more comments, so what did that mean? Would Luna free Moody or not? Would she risk the future or play it safe?

She didn't precisely say, so he swept his eyes back to her riddle-like words.

Babbity Rabbity? "Taking her lumps? Bravery?

He settled back on the ground again, just as the sunshine snuck through a gap in the clouds. This time, the tree stump pressed against his back as he gazed into the forest without seeing it.

Green, silver, blue and gold drifted into his eyes without notice as Harry turned Luna's works over in his mind.

Of course she wouldn't just come out and say it. But there was a message within her words, he was sure.

That was Luna alright.

It was a good while later, and the sun was definitely beginning to sink low on the horizon when Crow returned with a letter from Draco, who'd apologised for being in Potions class at the time of Harry's message.

I don't know what you're going on about, Harry," the blond had scribbled hurriedly.

But I'd do the thing and deal with the consequences later. Slytherins don't tend to be troubled by overactive trouble-borrowing habits. Now, I don't know where you are, but hurry it up and come back to the castle. We're welcoming the foreign schools in just a bit. Bet I can get some of them to sit with me over dinner. Just watch me.

Harry stifled a snort, and stood up to make his way back.

He should have expected the chaos to have ramped up, again.

"I can't believe you got your robes dirty," Hermione moaned when he clambered into the Gryffindor common room, his blindfold once more safely back on.

"I…oops?" he tried, but he heard her mutter scourgify before he could move, and the clean scent of bubbles appeared and disappeared from around him.

"Better," Hermione sniffed. "Not perfect, but it's all I can do with the little time you've left for me…Now let me straighten your clothes up and...Oh, Harry. What have you done to your hair?"

From the sounds around him, all of Gryffindor tower was rushing around in the traditional, last-minute-panic that there always was to get things done.

Lavender was definitely shouting something from the top of the girls' stairs, and Dean and Seamus were arguing over singe-marks in someone's best school robes. The seventh-yeara girls' prefect was telling someone off loudly and a trio of first-years over in the corner were practically vibrating with nerves.

Neville was obviously hovering over Hermione's shoulder, panicking about his…collar? Harry decided, but at Hermione's latest comment a number of people went quiet and clearly sent evaluating glances Harry's way.

"Blimey, kiddo!" Fred made Harry jump as he appeared from nowhere. "What have you done to yourself?"

"Did anyone ever say if the Potters had cursed hair?" someone muttered as they walked past.

"I…it's not that bad, is it?" Harry tried. He moved his hands up to smooth things down but didn't know if he was helping or not. Probably not, knowing his luck.

Fred ummed and ahhed, teaming up with Hermione to try a few spells Harry's way.

"Oooh, blimey! That didn't help at all! What about…Ooh. Oh dear. Ouch – I didn't think hair could be this bad, kiddo!"

"What do you normally do?" Alicia's voice interrupted with a tone of baffled confusion. "Wait, Weasley. At least let me get the grass out of his hair…just a tick." She sniffed. "There."

"I suppose that's a bit better," Hermione's voice broke in again, still seeming a bit frazzled. "Harry? What do you use to sort this out usually?"

"Loads of Sleekeazy's," Harry muttered, and was not surprised at all when one of the Weasley's promptly summoned some from the dorm rooms.

"What are you doing?!" A girl's voice shrieked from above them, and Harry realised with sudden clarity that he wasn't the only student in Gryffindor who used the stuff, and the twin had just stolen the wrong pottle.

"A minor emergency!" George called back. "A Potter problem! See for yourself!"

Harry was somewhat offended when the girl's voice in question grew closer and then exclaimed, "Circe but you weren't kidding! You need it more than me, Potter. Alright then boys, just this once."

Rough hands were promptly laid on his scalp, and Harry counted one, two, three people working the thick cream into all parts of his hair.

"Hang on a mo," George muttered, fiddling with Harry's parting.

"Oooh, that's better than I imagined," Hermione seemed to nod.

Then Harry's shoulders were grabbed, and he was promptly manhandled out of the common room and towards the Entrance Hall.

The buzz of the crowded hall was full of predictions about each school: where they'd be standing when they arrived, what the foreign students would look like, how long the evening would take.

Harry, meanwhile, forcibly had his hand tucked into the crook of Hermione's arm and was forced to wait obediently for the spectacle that he wouldn't be able to see.

The thought brought an ironic smirk to his lips and new meaning to the phrase blind patience.

It would be a very boring few hours until everyone finished arriving. Perhaps he could get Hermione to argue theory with him again?