"Everyone makes a big fuss about the Goblet of Fire. I've seen it. It's a big cup with fire in it. It also tried to kill me."

Tonight was the night. In an hour's time, the Goblet would spit out three names and hers would be one of them. Fleur had to believe that. She had to think that there was no other option than her being selected as champion of Beauxbatons. If she didn't, then no force on earth could get her out of bed.

It would be over soon. Her worry and anxiety, the sharp ball of thorns in her chest, would soon be cut away. The cuts their sharp edges left behind would heal, and she could face whatever came after with fresh determination. She couldn't think about what being a champion would mean; the dangers she would face and the pressures she would feel. Letting herself think about that now would drive her insane and despite Harry's words, insanity could not be nurturing.

Harry. He was another thing she couldn't let herself think about tonight. He was too distracting, with those damned eyes and his unguarded laugh that she loved to hear. She would have to take all those warm, blanketing feelings he roused in her – feelings that confused, amazed, and terrified her – and put them in a cage. The strongest cage she could muster until this was done. She had to be cold for this. If her control slipped even a little, she'd end up breaking down in a girl's bathroom.

Fleur rebuilt the walls she had been slowly demolishing over the past week. The callouses that had developed by necessity over the years had softened but never faded. They had been her salvation when her nature had overwhelmed the people around her. Tonight, they would do so again. She promised herself to tear them down again the moment it was done. Having tasted just a mouthful of what her life was like without them, these next few hours promised to be a special kind of agony.

Knock-knock went her door and pulled her from her thoughts. "Who is it?"

"Land shark." the voice muffled and clearly choking back laughter. Fleur felt the beginnings of a smile. Her parents didn't have a muggle television or access to American programs, but there just so happened to be a friend of hers that had both.

"Emmy, I know it's you," she called. Emilie huffed in annoyance and thumped the door open, following through with a scowl on her face. She flopped – somewhat melodramatically, Fleur thought – onto her bed and pouted at the ceiling.

"You never let me have any fun." she said, sounding as if Fleur had told her that she could never do anything of that sort ever again. Such a thing was impossible, of course. Stopping Emilie from doing what she wanted was futile, maybe even crazy. Fleur poked her still-pouting friend in the ribs. "Hey!" she yelped and shied away from the offending digit. "What'd you do that for?"

"You were pouting." Fleur explained. The other girl made a 'so what' motion with her eyebrows. "If there's going to be any pouting done tonight, it's going to be by me."

Emilie frowned, sitting up and drawing her legs underneath her. "What do you mean? What's so special about tonight?"

Her brain stalled. She couldn't be serious. Could she? There was a period of time, maybe six seconds, where Fleur thought she might be. Then, as the seconds ticked into a minute and her brain still refused to make words come out of her mouth, she saw something. An upwards tick of Emilie's mouth. Then, a smile, followed by a gut-busting laugh. She slapped Emilie on the shoulder, and shouted, "Do not mess with me tonight! I'm already at my last nerve!"

"Oh, come on." a scoff was all her friend could muster in the face of her anxiety. "You're going to be fine, the Tournament will be fun, and you'll be the best champion Beauxbatons has ever seen. Now, stop worrying and come to dinner. All this fuss will be for nothing if you miss the Selection."

Fleur checked her watch and felt her heart skip a beat, like an electric shock had been applied to her nervous system. "It's in half an hour? How long have I been in here?"

Emilie shrugged. "An hour? Maybe two."

"Why didn't you come and get me sooner?"

"Didn't want to bother you. 'Sides, it being your big night, I thought you'd appreciate me giving teasing you a rest."

Oh God, would she ever. "Is that likely to happen?"

Emilie grinned evilly, her eyes dancing in a way that made Fleur apprehensive about something other than the upcoming Selection of Champions. "Definitely not."

She sighed. "Wonderful."

Tonight was the night, and Ben didn't know how he felt. On the one hand, he could feel the beginnings of relief cooling the hot tension he'd been feeling since he busted Malfoy's jaw. The idea that for once, he would be left alone was so appealing that frankly, he was considering getting entirely too ahead of himself and thinking that he might have a chance to be normal this year.

And on the other hand was fourteen years of evidence that no, his luck was nowhere near that good and so odds were that if something bad happened, it would invariably happen to him.

That, and Hermione was looking mournfully at Ron, who was ogling Fleur, who was...no way. Ben blinked, but it didn't help. He rubbed his eyes, looked away, and even pinched himself. The only thing he got from this was a sore spot on his arm, fresh eyes, and the knowledge that he wasn't dreaming. That Fleur was looking at his brother, at Harry, in much the same way Hermione evidently hoped Ron would look at her.

"Hermione," he said eventually, once his brain had processed that fact. "d'you think we should do something before Ron does something stupid?"

There was a tiny, vindictive corner of him. The part that broke out and made him attack Malfoy whispered bad ideas to him. Why not let him?, it asked, If she sees how much of a tool he is, surely she'll turn to you.

Shut up, he told it. Secrets aside, Ron was his friend. Ron had risked life, limb, and sanity alongside him for three years. That was not thrown away lightly. Or at all, if Ben had anything to say about it. So he reached out and flicked Ron's ear, hard,when it looked like Hermione was waffling about what exactly constituted doing something.

"Ow!" Ron touched his ear, blinked several times, and turned an interesting shade of violet. "Again? Seriously? She's like a hundred feet away!"

"Maybe you're just really susceptible." Hermione offered, looking much happier now that he wasn't staring. Ben rubbed his chin.

"Are there levels of resistance?" he wondered aloud. Ron huffed; a short, annoyed sound.

"Why doesn't anyone know anything about Veela?" he demanded. "I mean, everyone knows they exist, but no one knows about them! Why is that?"

Ben shrugged. Ron had hit on something percolating in the back of his mind ever since he'd talked to Fleur a week ago. There was so much he didn't know about her people. Etienne hadn't been interested in explaining things to two boys and honestly, he wouldn't have asked. She was sort of what he thought a female, French Sirius would be like and that was enough to doubt most of what she said.

Hermione had a look in her eye that he'd become intimately familiar with. It was the look of her realizing there was a piece of errant knowledge in the world she hadn't assimilated into her mainframe-like mind. It was the sort of look that led to the three of them staying up until the wee hours of the morning, poring over books in the Common Room. "I don't know." she said, sounding offending at the notion. "Yet."

"Well, that's that, then." Ron said in the manner of one considering the manner closed. He then filled his plate and began eating, effectively ending the conversation. So Ben started a new one. He directed a vaguely distrustful look at the Goblet sitting innocently up by the staff table, and wondered.

"Who do you think'll get picked?" he asked no one in particular. And since he asked no one in particular, he got around six different answers.

"A Gryffindor, obviously," Ron opined around a mouthful of food. "probably Oliver."

Ben had to disagree. First, he wasn't sure Oliver had entered his name. Second, being obsessed with Quidditch wasn't exactly Triwizard Champion material.

"Someone who encompasses the qualities of all four houses," Hermione said decisively, enough so that Neville, next to her, nodded in agreement. She was probably right, but that didn't stop Seamus from disagreeing.

"No way the Goblet'll choose a Slytherin," he sneezed, the last vestiges of his yearly cold clinging on tight. "Can't think of a single reason why it would, anyway."

"Because they're clever, sneaky, and generally hard to predict? And bless you." Ben offered, bringing the conversation to a screeching halt. Ron's mouth opened in a manner similar to a fish, Neville nodded again – this time thoughtfully, and Seamus just stared. Hermione smiled proudly at him, which did all sorts of funny things to his insides.

"But –"

Whatever a thoroughly scandalized Ron was about to say was cut off by Dumbledore taking his podium, smile and mischievous look firmly in place. "Well," he said, "after enough anticipation and rumoring to fill several castles, the night we have all been waiting for has arrived. In no more than five minute's time, the Goblet will have made its decisions and each school will have its champion!"

Muted, excited conversation broke out, filling the hall with a quiet thunder that was easily stifled at the Headmaster's next words.

"All we are waiting for is the sign the Goblet will give to indicate that it is ready. It will sound – "

The Goblet's fire flared, almost too bright to look at, going from a merry orange to a brilliant white before simmering back to a vibrant blue. A sound like a cracked whip, magnified by ten, filled the Hall. Ben flinched at the volume and blinked the spots out of his eyes.

"remarkably like that." Dumbledore finished.

A mix of emotion burbled in Harry's gut. He wasn't immune to the excitement permeating the Hall. He found himself sitting forward in his seat with eyes zeroed on the innocent looking Goblet. Twined with that was anticipation; Roger had told him the day before that he had entered his name, and he wanted his friend to be chosen. But running underneath all of that, even under his ever-present worry about his brother, was a deep-seated foreboding that something, something was going to go wrong.

They knotted him up, bunched his shoulders until it ached. When the Goblet snapped a tongue of flame up to lick tongues of flame at the enchanted ceiling, he jumped and felt his heart skip a beat. He was half a second from sprinting from the Hall before he got himself back under control. To his left, Roger was looking at him worriedly, with good reason. Harry knew he'd never shown this kind of emotion before.

"Harry?" Roger said, hand twitching towards him, "Mate? You okay?"

"Yes." He didn't take his eyes of the Goblet, which still sat pretty as you please full of fire and bad portents. "No. I – I...ah, I don't know. I just feel like something bad's going to happen."

Roger had either been party to his misadventures or peripheral to them too many times to disregard his friend's instincts. He alternated looking at Harry with clear worry and looking at the Goblet with even clearer suspicion. "What are you going to do? No, wait, what are we going to do?"

Harry shook his head as Dumbledore approached the Goblet, within which the flames were growing higher – spilling over the lip and curling down towards the stone pedestal it rested on. "I believe the first champion is about to be revealed!" the old wizard called, and sure enough a scrap of scorched parchment was carried on a tongue of flame into the air. With more agility than Harry would have given an old man for, Dumbledore caught the parchment and announced to a silent Great Hall, "The champion for Beauxbatons," he read, "is Fleur Delacour!"

Harry should have been proud. He should have been smiling and clapping like all the other people around her. Every single delegate from her school was on their feet; the girl closest to Fleur, her friend Emilie, if he remembered, was in tears. When she looked to him, and she did look right at him, the smile he mustered was probably closer to a grimace. He should have been able to be happy for her, should have been smiling, but he couldn't. Because he knew...

Something would happen. He knew it would.

Another tongue of fire, another scrap of parchment. "The champion for Durmstrang," Dumbledore read, "is Viktor Krum!"

The Durmstrang students set to pounding out a wild beat, drumming their fists on the table and stomping on the floor as the dour Krum stood and entered the small chamber without looking back. The Goblet's fire danced, and Harry felt the hairs on his neck rise. This was it. There was only one school left. If anything was going to happen, if anything...bad was going to go down, it would be now, carried to Dumbledore's hands on a garland of fire.

The last parchment was snatched out of the air and opened. Harry's breath – and his heart – stopped. "The Hogwarts champion," Dumbledore intoned, "is Cedric Diggory!"

And just like that, it was over. That little hope, the one that he might have a good last year, raised its head and sniffed the air. He'd thought it was dead, but apparently hopes were tougher to kill than he'd given them credit for. The tension, forged in cold flames by that sense of foreboding, left his body, relaxing his shoulders and letting his heart beat again.

It was all of it too soon.

The Goblet flared again, a tendril of ash and flame carrying a fourth scrap to a bewildered Dumbledore's outstretched hand. The disbelief that turned Harry's gut was echoed clearly on the old wizard's wrinkled face.

"Benjamin Potter."

Fuck.

Fleur was certain that if someone were to listen to her heart beating right then, they would only hear a continuous hum. It was astonishing that she was able to sit still in the chair she'd claimed in the corner of the room. Across from her, leaning on the wall with his arms folded and frowning deeply was her Durmstrang competitor; Viktor Krum. Apart from his status as an international Seeker legend, she didn't know anything about him or his capabilities.

The same could be said of her Hogwarts counterpart – Cedric Diggory. He was a genial enough looking young man with kind eyes and tousled brown hair. He didn't look like the sort of person who'd dare to compete in a potentially lethal tournament. She would have to watch them both very, very carefully.

Now that she'd been chosen, she – and the other two – had only one question: What happens now?

The antechamber's wooden door, with its iron bands bolted into the timber, muffled the sounds coming from the Great Hall enough that it became a sort of drone in the back of her mind that she barely noticed. She did notice when it suddenly stopped. She looked towards the silence, her brows drawing into the beginning of a frown.

The door opened.

Ben Potter walked into the Champion's Antechamber, looking like he'd just seen a ghost. "Ben?" he snapped his gaze to her, emotions flying across them too fast for her to see. Worry started twining around her heart once again, jabbing thorns into barely healed wounds. "Is everything okay?"

He let out a shaky breath and ran a even shakier hand through his hair. "N-not really."

"What's – ?" she began to ask, but was interrupted by the door slamming open again, having swung closed in the interim. In stormed several people, all of whom looked no more together than Ben. Which was comforting. The sight of all three Headmasters with the same shocked look dropped her heart into her stomach. She dug her fingers into the thick armrests of her chair and watched as mayhem unfolded right in front of her.

Madame Maxime was quiet, which Fleur found comforting, with an expression of mixed shock and worry on her features, which she did not. Her Headmistress kept to the back, towering over the other men in silence, letting Karkaroff do most of the talking. He was happy to do so.

"– it makes perfect sense!" the incensed man spat, pale eyes flashing in anger and wounded pride. "Potter entered himself to give Hogwarts a better chance at victory!"

"I find that unlikely," Madame Maxime said levelly, "given that monsieur Potter is underage. How could he have found a way past the Age Line?"

"The Line was flawed!" Karkaroff snarled. Fleur watched the man pace back and forth, saw Krum looking at his Headmaster with something approaching disapproval. "Dumbledore must have made a mistake when he drew it!"

"It is possible," Dumbledore allowed. Beside him the normally stern-faced Professor McGonagall snorted derisively.

"Please, Headmaster," she said, "you could no more have made a mistake than an underage wizard could have fooled the Goblet!"

She had a point, Fleur thought. Even if Ben had managed to get past the Age Line, which all statements about his magical ability or intelligence aside, was incredibly unlikely, he'd still have to find a way to trick a centuries old magical object into accepting his name.

"All of that aside," a tall, thin, mustachioed man in a muggle suit – the fashion choice looking remarkably odd among all the...wizardry – spoke from the back of the room. "the Goblet has gone out and cannot be relit until the next Tournament."

"In which Durmstrang will not be competing!" Karkaroff drew himself up; a man delivering an ultimatum. "I see this Tournament for the sham it is. Come, Viktor. We are leaving."

Viktor, moving for the first time since the hubbub began, pushed himself off the wall and stalked across the room to a still pale Ben. Fleur felt her heart skip a beat. For a wild moment she thought the older boy would curse him. Then she remembered that Viktor, all rumors about his school aside, wasn't evil just because he went to Durmstrang.

"I do not know," his voice was the sound of stones colliding. "how you ended up here, but know this; I do not believe you entered yourself. I will tell my fellows the same, and – "

"Viktor!" Karkaroff snapped. "We are leaving!"

"I will help you if I can." Viktor finished, ignoring his headmaster. Then he brushed past the bewildered looking man and left the antechamber, leaving Karkaroff to follow speechlessly in his wake.

"So will I," Fleur found herself promising. Ben smiled weakly at her, and over his head Madame Maxime nodded proudly at her.

"Same." Cedric declared, nodding to follow his promise before turning to the two remaining Headmasters. "We done?"

"Not quite," the thin man said. "there is still the matter of the first task." he stepped to the forefront and clasped his hands. "It is designed to test your courage in the face of the unknown and originally, the plan was to not reveal anything about it...but circumstances have changed. In light of this, the Committee has decided to reveal the nature of the task: you three – four now – will face a magical creature in an arena. Your goal is to collect an object. In the spirit of the task, the nature of neither the animal nor the object will not be revealed, but I will say this." he made eye contact with every champion still in the room. "The animal would not have been chosen would it not test you. Prepare for the worst, and you will succeed."

And with that, the thin man nodded once to Dumbledore and left the room. The old wizard clapped his hands together before saying, "Well, I believe that's enough excitement for one evening. Mr. Potter? If you would be so kind as to join me in my office? Sirius and your brother are waiting for us." He held out a long fingered hand, which Ben seized gratefully and let himself be led out.

Cedric nodded to Fleur and followed, leaving her alone with Madame Maxime. "Madame," Fleur asked, "What just happened?"

The tall, elegant woman shook her head slowly, "I have no idea."

Harry imagined that Dumbledore would retreat to his office whenever the stress of managing Hogwarts got to be too much, when throwing himself headlong into his two other jobs seemed like a viable alternative to managing a school full of rambunctious, hormonal children with magical powers. He hoped he never, ever, found himself in the position where that choice made sense.

The position he was in now, with a furious godfather pacing the room and a shell-shocked brother sitting numbly in a chintzy armchair, was only that much more palatable by comparison. Harry sat in the chair next to Ben's, scooting closer to squeeze his brother's shoulder in a silent show of support. He got an appreciative look and an almost-smile in reply. It would have to do.

"How could you have let this happen?" Sirius spat, spinning sharply on his heel. The hard sole of his shoe bunched a circle of carpet every time he did this. There were a number of circles on each side of the room. "How could you let my fourteen year old godson be entered into a tournament that regularly kills seventeen year old wizards?"

Harry found that a little unfair, a view that Dumbledore seemed to share. Even though the old wizard's eyes and general manner remained amiable, there was a faint trace of steel in his tone. "As much credit as you give me – which I thank you for – I am neither all seeing nor all knowing. Things do happen that are beyond my ability to see."

Sirius was out for blood; the man's dark, almost black eyes almost burned with anger. "My godsons are under your care, Albus! Whatever happens to them is on your head!"

The kindly, grandfather look disappeared from Dumbledore's face in a heartbeat. "Do you think me unaware of this? Do you think that I am not, right now, berating myself for letting something like this happen to one of my students? For as much Mr. Potter's relief as yours, I have every acknowledged expert who owes me a favor looking into the matter."

"What I want to know," Harry interjected before Sirius could make Dumbledore any angrier, which he wanted to avoid because frankly, the old wizard was scaring him a little right now and he wasn't even yelling. "is who could have done this?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Ben spoke for the first time, his voice was hoarse and he stared at the front of the desk in front of him. "It's who it's always been. This is just his yearly attempt at killing me." He looked Dumbledore in the eye. "Why does this keep happening? Why can't you stop him?"

"If I could, I would, Mr. Potter, you know this." Dumbledore's voice was reassuring, calming, but his face seemed more lined and wrinkled than ever. "You should take heart, though."

"Why?" Sirius, Ben, and Harry asked at once, then all looked at each other. Harry looked back to Dumbledore in time to see the old wizard suppress a smile before steepling his fingers and leaning forward.

"Because whoever did this has an exceptional amount of talent, and an equally exceptional lack of ingenuity."

Sirius put his hands on Ben's shoulders and squeezed reassuringly. "How does that help us?" he asked. Dumbledore took a long minute before answering.

"It tells us a few things about our mystery person. First, this person is acting under orders. A person with that amount of power could have found an easier way to strike at Mr. Potter, but instead they went to a tremendous effort to not tip their hand? Why? Why go through all this trouble?"

Harry took the lead the old wizard offered. "This person was acting under orders. They were told to enter Ben into the tournament."

"Exactly, Mr. Potter! Exactly!" Dumbledore looked every inch the proud professor he must have at one time been. "This person, whoever they are, follows their orders, and does so in an untraceable way, leading me to believe two things about them: first, as young Mr. Potter has already surmised, they are in some way a follower of Voldemort. Second, that they are involved in the Tournament, possibly even a member of the Committee."

From the way his face twisted, Sirius found the news as palatable as Harry. "There are literally hundreds of people involved," he said. "and, according to you, any one of them could be our assassin. So what do we do?"

"I am in contact with Rufus Scrimgeour," Dumbledore said, "the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He is launching a surreptitious investigation into what's happened. In the meantime, or until they strike again, all we can do is wait."

Harry didn't want to wait. He found the idea as palatable as six raw lemons. "Is that all?" he asked, leaning forward. "I mean, are we just going to wander about the school, pretending nothing's wrong?"

"That's exactly what we're going to do." Sirius answered, causing Harry to jerk around to stare incredulously at him. "Don't look at me like that. I want this guy found just as much as you do, Harry, but we have no idea who we're looking for! We can't just blunder around hexing everyone we think looks out of place!"

"I know that!" he snapped back, digging his fingers into the armrests. "I know they'll bugger off if they know we're onto them, but I hate that we can't do anything!"

"Actually," Dumbledore mused, "that's not entirely true. There may be something."

"What?" Ben latched onto the thought like a drowning man and a life preserver. Harry felt a pang at the look of desperation on his brother's face. Desperation that had no right to be there and he wanted to get rid of in any way that he could.

"Professors are forbidden from offering any sort of help to the champions." the Headmaster said. He stalled an outburst from Sirius with an upraised hand. "However, the rules say nothing about older brothers or godfathers."

"Then that's what we do," Sirius said, with the finality of a man making an executive decision. "We help Ben stay alive, and you find the son of a bitch who made all of this necessary."

Dumbledore's eyes gleamed like lanterns in the dark, bright with intent and ferocious purpose. "Rest assured, Sirius, Ben, Harry, they will be found."

Dumbledore's promise bounced around Ben's mind as he left the office. Knowing the impressive old wizard was on his side didn't really help him feel any better. He didn't know what to feel at all, actually. The last emotion he could remember with any certainty was shock when his name came out of the Goblet. After that he'd just drifted, letting himself be dragged about without giving any kind of input until now.

"Ben!"

He turned to see Harry come up to him and felt a surge of gratitude break through his fugue. He could feel the incoming storm inside him, the beginnings of a true emotional breakdown stirring in his heart. Tropical Storm Ben was gaining speed and sprinting headlong towards land. He bottled it up, burying it deep and saying, "Hey."

Harry studied him with their mother's eyes and asked, "You gonna be okay?"

For a moment Ben wanted to yell that he'd been hearing that question all evening and was sick of it. Then something occurred to him, something that made the emotional storm inside him gain strength; not one person had asked him that. Between the Hall and the Champion's room, and the room and Dumbledore's office he'd had exactly nobody ask him if he was going to be all right.

He bit his lip and shook his head. "I've no idea. I just...I don't know what to feel right now."

Harry nodded, clapping him on the shoulder in the closest thing his brother could get to a public display of emotion. "You will soon," he told Ben, "it'll all hit you at once and then...just remember we're here for you; Sirius and me and Hermione and Ron."

Ben was nowhere near secure enough to admit that Harry's words almost made him cry. He was secure enough to dart forward and try to hug him to death. He was held just as tightly, and it occurred to him that maybe he wasn't the only one on the verge of losing it. "Thank you," he whispered into his brother's robes.

Opening the portrait hole into Gryffindor tower, Ben didn't know what to expect. It wouldn't be surprising to be subjected to covert stares and whispered conversations behind his back. His second year had taught him that given a choice between thinking through a situation based on what they knew of him and making crap up based on wild speculation, they'd happily speculate until their ears fell off.

What was surprising was the silence that fell when he entered. Looking around he could see the Weasley twins, unusually somber at the round table by the window. A red-nosed Seamus was sitting next to Dean Thomas, both of whom looking at Ben as if they didn't know what to think. And everyone else? Well, they just stared. That he could deal with.

Hermione rose from her chair by the fire and headed towards him. Her eyes were red and her fingernails bore signs of being chewed. She was worried. Again. Because of him. Again. The storm in him gained a category and picked up speed. He couldn't hold it together for much longer. She stopped in front of him and for a second just stared at him, searching his eyes for...something before throwing her arms around him and trying to squeeze the air from his lungs.

Her sudden movement seemed to startle the rest of the room into action, people either making their way towards him, words of empathy or belief on their lips or turned away either to condemn him or make up their minds.

"No way you'd pull something this big without us." Fred and George said, managing to clap Ben on either shoulder despite Hermione being wrapped around him. He nodded his thanks, being unable to speak for fear of melting down completely. The twins went back to their table, heads tilted together, to be replaced by Seamus.

"I dunno how your name ended up there, mate." Seamus sniffed, before saying, "But I'm sure you had nothing to do with it." Behind him, Dean nodded his agreement.

"Thanks, guys." Ben forced out, and if his words were a little more clipped than usual the didn't hold it against him. He blinked when he realized who hadn't come forth or really been there at all. "Where's Ron?"

His gut filled with lead when he saw Seamus wince, a motion he copied when Hermione squeezed tighter at the mention of their friend's name. "Eh, mate..." Dean rubbed the back of his head and laughed nervously. "Ron, well...he didn't take it well."

"Understatement if there ever was one." Neville, who had managed to sneak up on him, agreed.

Oh, great. Just what he needed. Hermione mumbled something into his shoulder. Something which, from the tone, was less than complimentary towards Ron. "Can't hear you," he murmured, and she grumbled before leaning back to give him a visual idea of her displeasure.

"I said," she ground the words out, "that the great prat believes you entered yourself on purpose!"

After being completely nonplussed for several seconds, Ben asked, "Why the bloody hell would he think that?" to no one in particular. He felt her shrug before she stepped back. Reluctantly, he let his arms fall back to his side.

"You'll have to ask him," Hermione told him, "I have no idea."

Tropical Storm Ben made landfall. Batten down the hatches and duct tape the windows, because everything that he had bottled up – all that fear and anger and worry and anxiety, all of his horror and dread and lingering disappointment that no one saw this coming – broke free and surged. In the hearth, the fire flared, tendrils curling out and licking char into the carpet. The window rattled once before exploding out in a fan of bright, glowing sand before reversing the entire process.

Ben took a deep breath, and it all stopped. The few people that been ignoring him sure as hell weren't now.

"Ben," Hermione's voice reached through the haze his emotions had draped over him. "are...are you okay?"

"Not really." he rasped. She took his elbow, leading him to a seat by the same fire he'd just unwittingly affected just moments ago. He sank into it, pulling his legs up to wrap his arms around and wishing it wasn't past curfew so he could go out to his hiding place. Hermione sat on the arm of his chair, he looked up in time to see her nodding and mouthing, 'go', to someone behind him.

She saw his look and said, "They boys are going to go talk to Ron, okay? Um...is there anything I can do to help?"

Ben laughed hollowly. "Unless you know how to get out a binding magical contract with a centuries old artifact, you can't help me."

"Maybe I can't," she murmured. "but I can do something else."

"Like what?"

"Like this." she wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into her side, using her free hand to run her fingers through his hair. The storm that raged inside of him and ragged the edges of his self control calmed, content to burn itself out at a slower, less devastating pace. He kept his eyes on the fire in front of him. If he looked at Hermione right now,he'd either kiss her or burst into tears. Or both.

Ben swallowed thickly. "It's not fair."

"What isn't?"

"All of it."

"I know... We're with you, Ben. Me, and Harry, and Sirius, and Ron – even though he's being an idiot right now – we're all here, and we're not going anywhere."

"Trust me," he smiled slightly. "that's pretty well the only thing keeping me sane right now."

Hermione giggled. "Happy to help."

In the Ravenclaw Common Room, things weren't going as well as Harry had hoped they would. There was a vocal group of students, led by Bertram, who believed that not only did Ben somehow enter himself into the Tournament but also did it as a snub to them, personally.

"The fact that Cedric is the actual Hogwarts champion hasn't occurred to yet, has it?" Harry asked scathingly. "I would think, Bertram, that someone sorted into the house of the wise would use their brains before letting their ego get the better of them!"

Bertram's face fell, but he had the eyes of a half dozen of his peers at his back. So he rallied under the pressure. "Maybe you were in on it!" he shouted. "Maybe...the two of you cooked up some scheme to bring the glory back to your family!"

It was a weak argument. Harry knew it, and from the look in his eyes, so did Bertram. The people behind him were shooting furtive glances at their unofficial mouthpiece and edging away from him. "Bring the glory back to my family? Are you insane? My family is dead, its house ashes, and the only two members left are me and Ben and neither of us give a fuck about this...idiotic TOURNAMENT!"

Harry took several long, deep breaths and the red curtain over his gaze lifted. He met the eyes of every person who stood behind a shamefaced Bertram. Only then he became aware of someone's hand on his shoulder, a warning not to go too far. Too late, he thought. "My brother did not enter himself. He did not want to be a part of this. Professor Dumbledore thinks someone is trying to murder him...So here's what we're going to do. If what just happened here was any indication, there's going to be a lot of angry, misinformed people in the castle."

"What do you want us to do?" Bertram murmured, studying his shoes. Harry took it for the public apology it was.

"Damage control." He answered. "Lex – are you here? Oh, there you are – if you catch any Ravenclaw giving any credence to the rumor that Ben Potter is in the Tournament of his own free will; take five points. If they do it again, ten. If they do it a third time, send 'em to Flitwick. Let him sort them out. The rest of you are going to tell people what I just told you. Someone is trying to kill my brother. That's why his name came out. Not for glory."

Bertram winced.

"We'll do it, Harry." Roger said, squeezing his shoulder in support. "By the time we're done, no one in the school'll believe it. Except the Slytherins, but you know, they hate you, so..." he made a rude hand gesture.

The tension broke, and people began to drift away. They went back to their star charts or historical cross-reference lists or Potions recipes. Bertram stayed, taking two hesitant steps towards him before lifting his head. Harry felt a stab of guilt at the shine in his housemate's eyes. "I didn't know, Harry," he said. "Honest. I just...I put my name in, you know? And – and it was bad enough that Cedric got picked instead of me, but then Ben's name comes out? It felt like an insult, and..." he sighed. "I don't know, man. I just...I'm sorry, mate. I really am."

Harry tilted his head one way, then the other. Bertram wasn't an idiot, despite what he'd said about Ben. The worst thing that could be said about him was that he was passionate. Every emotion was felt deeply, and Harry knew from experience that sometimes even the purported rationalists of Ravenclaw let their emotions get the better of them.

He extended his hand. Bertram took it. "We're square." he said. "Just...keep an eye on Ben, yeah? Only a matter of time 'fore something goes down. I want to be there when it does."

Bertram nodded. "Okay. Okay, I will. Thanks, Harry." Then he left, going up the stairs to the room the seventh year boys shared. Harry felt the evening crash down on his shoulders and sank into a thick armchair by an arched window with a view of the lake. He leaned his head against the cool glass and closed his eyes. Across from him he heard someone sink into his chair's twin.

"Hell of a day, huh?" Roger asked, and he snorted, breath misting on the glass.

"Biggest understatement I ever heard."

Roger grunted. "Dumbledore really think someone's trying to kill Ben?"

"Yep."

"So what do we do?"

Harry opened his eyes. "Keep him alive."

Note: Loving the support, guys, keep it coming. Thanks to all who answered my question. Sharks all around! Now all I have to do is remember why I asked it...

Troubling.

See you next time.