"Something I learned? Hoo, boy...well, I could tell you what I learned about fighting? You sure? Here goes; skill and power are important, but the truest weapon is your mind. Your mind will perceive the pattern in your opponents and when you do...you can destroy them. How did I learn that?

[laughs]

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"

The air around the pale blue jet of light crackled as it cut through the air towards him. He had only a split-second to decide whether to drop a shield – which he wasn't very good at – or get out of the way. The hex took his decision away when it hit him in the upper shoulder and sent him spinning to the ground with all his limbs locked rigid. As he had landed face down, he could only hear his tormentor approaching; the sound of boots on a stone floor.

"Gotcha." said Sirius.

They were in the Room of Requirement two days after he'd illegally become an entrant in the Tournament. Ostensibly they were here for his training, but he was starting to think that was just an excuse for Sirius to beat the stuffing out of him while Harry laughed. "Yeah, you did." he wiggled, the only movement his locked up body could perform. "Now can you let me go?"

"Yes," his godfather crouched next to him. "but only after you tell me how I got you."

"By being better than me?" Ben growled in frustration. Sirius chuckled.

"Maybe. But that's not all. What else?"

He tamped down on the bitter emotion inside him as best he could and thought. He went over everything he'd done in that last bout with a fine-toothed comb and tried to find where he'd gone wrong. Beside him, Sirius waited patiently for him to work it through. "I just let you hit me." he said. "I was so caught up in trying to figure out what to do that I didn't actually do anything."

"Exactly." His limbs loosened and he pushed himself to his feet, rubbing the ache on his chest where the Body-Bind had hit him.

"But...what's the lesson here? Am I thinking too much?"

"Never had a problem with that before." Harry muttered from the sidelines, 101 Spells and Incantations for Self-Defense on his lap.

"Shut up, Harry." Ben said, before turning back to his laughing godfather. "Really, though. What am I trying to learn here?"

"I can't teach you about self-preservation," Sirius said, slipping his wand back up his sleeve. "after three years at this madhouse I'd say you've plenty of experience in keeping yourself alive. What I'm trying to teach you is how to fight."

"But I've fought before."

"Yes," Sirius acknowledged, "but always against someone who underestimates you. That's not going to last forever, Ben. Sooner or later someone'll wise up and take you seriously. And that's why we're doing this. Because when they figure out that you are capable of so much more than they think, you're going to be ready for them."

"So my first lesson is...?" Ben prompted, heartened by his godfather's words but still very much confused.

"Do I have to put a name on it?" Sirius sighed. "Fine, call it...If You Don't Recognize the Spell, Get Out of the Damn Way. An Introduction. Now," he pulled his wand back out. "you ready?"

"I-"

"Reducto!"

Ben yelped and dove under the curse. With the breath on its way out from the impact he wheezed, "Impedimenta." and watched as Sirius twisted out of its way. He grinned at Ben before leveling his wand.

"Better," he said, "but you should have rolled. Stupefy."

I think Sirius might be enjoying this too much, thought Ben. Then the stunner hit him the face and everything went dark.

"Mr. Potter, you do realize that taking points for speaking their mind is not an acceptable use of your prefect status?"

"Perfectly, sir," Harry replied. "but I did what I thought was best."

It was a widely held belief by those who hadn't been inside that Professor Flitwick's office was constructed to fit the needs of the shorter man. There were two schools of thought on this subject. The first being that all the furniture was shrunk to fit him, and the second being that all the furniture was normal sized and had some sort of staircase for him to climb.

Having been inside it on multiple occasions, Harry was aware that neither was the case. Seemed to him that what the other two groups forgot was that Professor Flitwick was in fact the Charms expert of the school. 'Inconveniently-sized' was a phrase that just hadn't occurred to him. If he wanted to get at or into something, he would.

"Oh?" Flitwick raised an impressively hairy eyebrow. "Explain yourself."

"I based my decision on the events of Ben's second year. I'm sure you remember it. I'm equally sure you're well aware of the...I'm trying to find a way to not be crude in front of my Head of House...rumors that my brother was the Heir of Slytherin."

"I remember."

"What you don't remember is the pain, professor, the sheer amount of anguish those rumors caused him. We have an unpleasant home life, and we consider this place our reward for living it. Coming here, expecting sanctuary and receiving...that was more than a twelve year old could handle. Or a fifteen year old, for that matter."

"As reprehensible as the actions of the past were," Flitwick's voice had lost some of its squeak, a sure sign his patience was wearing thin. "it doesn't explain why I've had to officiate six detentions in the past two days."

"I'm coming to that," Harry replied. "those rumors persisted for months, professor, and not once did anyone at any point step in and say, 'that's enough'." he shrugged. "I wanted to save Ben from going through that again, sir. That's all."

A long silence fell, broken only by the professor's chair squawking as it leaned back. Flitwick steepled his fingers. Harry chewed his bottom lip and waited for the fallout. He'd been expecting it for more than a day, now. All that remained was to see what price he would pay.

"I understand your intent," Flitwick finally said, breaking the quiet. "and in more than one way I am sympathetic, but..the fact remains that you overstepped the bounds of the office of prefect, and that cannot go unpunished. If I were to allow it to do so I would set a dangerous precedent. One that I cannot, in good conscience, allow. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded. "I do."

"Then for the next six weeks you have lost the prefect's position. Please inform Mr. Davies of what has occurred and tell him that he is to serve as prefect in the interim. In addition, I am undoing the points you and Ms. Roberts took and canceling the detentions. Taking action of this sort again will result in the permanent loss of your badge. Am I understood?"

"You are."

"Good." Flitwick nodded. "You are excused, Mr. Potter. Wish your brother luck for me, would you?"

Well, that was fun. Harry scrubbed his palms through his hair as he left the office. His leg twinged, reminding him of another time when his actions had a consequence to himself. It should have been a lesson he remembered, but he'd lost his temper, and in the burning anger he'd forgotten everything except protecting Ben. He sighed and went to go find Roger. Had to give him the good news, after all.

"How was training?"

"Murg."

Hermione laughed and prodded his shoulder. Ben glared tiredly at her. "That well, huh?"

"My godfather's a sadist." Ben informed her. She composed herself for all of a moment before losing it and dissolving into laughter once more. Personally, he didn't see what was so funny about being killed by his guardian. Sirius said that it was for his own good, but Ben was onto him. This was punishment, ongoing punishment. Also his arms and legs felt like wet noodles.

"Sirius knows what he's doing." she still sounded entirely too amused about this whole thing. If he had any energy left – at all – he might have gotten annoyed. As it was he just sunk into the couch by the fire and tried to meld with it.

"So do I. He's training me to death."

"No, he's not and you know it," she said primly, before her look turned devious. "It could be worse, you know."

"How?" Ben closed his eyes and was on his way to a lovely nap on the couch. Naturally, Hermione had to ruin it.

"Moody could be training you."

Yeah, he wasn't tired anymore. Although he was suddenly very grateful for Sirius' lenient training methods. He was going easy, really. The bruises would fade in a few hours, anyway. "If Moody were training me," he said with finality. "then I would be dead. So thanks for giving this – " he waved a weak hand at his sweaty, exhausted body. "– a bright side."

Hermione grinned. "You have to keep things in perspective."

Ben was glad she didn't mention Ron. He was too tired to think about the whole catastrophe about his – recently demoted – best friend. That would have to keep until after the nap that was not-so-subtly sneaking up on him. He felt the couch shift and then felt something shaped suspiciously like Hermione press up against his side. "What're you doing?" he murmured.

"Nothing," she whispered. "Go to sleep, already."

So he did.

Fleur had been the Triwizard Champion of Beauxbatons for two days now, which was great, really, but...now that the thing she'd been preparing for and worrying about for months was done with she didn't really know what to do with herself. She could always prep for the first task, and she'd paged through some texts on magical creatures, but there was only so much research she could do without more information. Were they predators? Were they female? Cold-blooded or warm? Reptilian, mammalian, or amphibian?

There were too many animals that would gleefully chomp on her extremities for her to prepare for them all.

She could always go bug Emilie but the idea didn't hold much appeal. What she wanted to do, and was prevented from doing only by a lack of places to find him, was go talk to Harry. As confusing as the intensity of her attraction to the boy was, it dictated that she go find him and get to know him. In any way she could. She had more dignity – not to mention self-control – than that, but the idea did have its appeal.

And, as luck would have it, she bumped into someone who might be able to point her in the right direction. While she was leaving the Great Hall among the usual morass of students she managed to spot a familiar head of very red hair attached to a lanky, equally familiar body. What was his name? Rick? Robert? Ron, that was it! "Ron!" she called, sliding between a pair of statue-shaped boys.

Up ahead, Ron stopped and looked behind him, puzzlement clear until he spotted her. Then it changed briefly to recognition before becoming something more familiar but less welcome; a glassy eyed stare. As she approached he said, "You know, the Minister was just telling me about how important it was to have broomsticks that reach other planets."

"I'm sure he did," Fleur said, then bopped him in the middle of his forehead with her palm. He started, blinked, and his ears turned a similar shade of red to his hair. She contained her amused grin to a slight quirk of the mouth. Ron gave her an apologetic look.

"What did I say this time?"

Her barely contained grin broke free as she said, "Oh, you were telling me about the Ministry's position on interplanetary broomsticks."

"Oh." he scratched the back of his head. "That's er...good?"

"I suppose." she laughed before asking, "Listen, I was wondering if you knew where I could find Harry."

Ron's face turned inward and sour and Fleur blinked at the transformation from the amiable if embarrassed boy to the darkened angry one in front of her. "Oh, him." he growled. Her brows rose towards the ceiling.

"Has he...done something?" she ventured. Ron shook his head, his brows drawing together into a frown.

"No." Ron said curtly. "It's...I'd rather not talk about it. Er...last I saw Harry he was headed towards the library. I promised someone I'd meet them, so..."

"Oh!" Fleur wondered if there was something in the food that made talking with Englishmen so bewildering, or such rotten liars. "No, excuse me, I'll just...go to the library, I guess. Good evening."

Ron nodded and she left with the distinct impression that something was going on. She didn't know what but she was getting an idea, but she'd have to ask Harry before she gave it any weight. So, taking a moment to remember how to actually get to the library, she set off.

After two wrongs turns and an angry portrait, she was started to get annoyed with a building – which she hadn't even known was possible. She wasn't trying to belabor the fact that she preferred Beauxbatons, but right then she really missed the way it didn't try to get her lost on purpose. Or so it seemed, as she rounded a corner to see yet another dead end.

Fleur threw her hands up and sighed in disgust. "This place needs a map," she muttered.

"You aren't the first to think that." an unfamiliar male voice said from behind her. Despite having had several normal conversations with boys in recent days, one doesn't just forget years of wariness in a few weeks. Before she could even register her surprise she was three strides away. She turned on the third stride to face the speaker and her hand drifted to her wand.

She'd seen this boy before, sitting with Harry at meals sometimes. He had strong features and dark hair and eyes. His nose appeared to have been broken several times and he had the weather beaten look of a Quidditch player. At present his eyes were widened in surprised and his hands help up palms out. "Whoa! Uh, sorry, I guess. Didn't mean to scare you."

Fleur's heart was beating a little fast and she had a flash back to a particularly horrid instance when she was thirteen. A deep breath later and she was fine. "No," she said, relaxing her white-knuckle grip on her wand. "it's okay, I...I don't take being surprised very well."

The boy shook his head and lowered his hands. "Can't say's I blame you, really. Mind if I ask what you're looking for?"

"For Harry, actually." she said. Maybe she should close the distance she created...

No.

Her instincts, the same ones that told her the same action was acceptable with Harry informed her that no, this boy's control was good, but...not good enough. She maintained her distance and kept her guard up. She watched as the glaze entered his eyes and sighed. Then he shook his head like a wet dog and smiled ruefully at her.

"Stronger than firewhiskey, that." he held out his hand for her to shake, thought better of it, and settled for a wave. "I'm Roger Davies, by the way. Captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team." he blinked. "Why did I tell you that?"

Fleur laughed. She couldn't help it. Roger's reaction to her allure was one of the funniest she'd seen in a while. He shook his head again and sighed.

"Fine, fine. Laugh it up, lady. I'll just leave you to find him yourself, shall I?"

She gasped and put her hand to her heart. "Surely you would not be as cruel as that."

Roger drew out the silence for a half-minute before conceding, "Yeah, I'm not. He's in the library. Come on, I'll show you."

Fleur nodded her acquiescence. He led them back the way they'd come, the halls seeming familiar until he politely asked one of the statues to move. The metal figure clanked and squealed out of the way; revealing a narrow, rough-cut passage with dim lanterns sunk into the ceiling. She gaped. Was there a straight line between two places anywhere in this demented place?

Roger caught her look and chuckled. "Believe it or not, you do get used to it."

"To a castle trying to get you lost?"

"Well, yeah."

She raised a skeptic brow at him. "I don't believe you."

He shrugged and started down the passage. His voice reverberated weirdly in the empty stone hall. "We spend nine-ish months a year here for seven years. That much time, you get used to anything. Listen...it's none of my business, but – why are you looking for Harry?"

It was a very good question. One that, unfortunately, she didn't have the answer to. "I don't really know," she said quietly. The passage distorted her accent to the point of her being nearly unintelligible. "I just...want to."

Roger took a long time to respond. "Well, like I said, it's none of my business but –" another lengthy pause. She felt the awkward flowing off him."– Harry's guarded. It takes a lot for him to open up to someone. For whatever reason, he likes you. He trusts you, or he's starting to."

"What are you saying?"

"Be gentle with him, I guess. And don't, whatever you do, tell him I said that. He'll...hurt me."

Fleur smiled. "Your secret's safe with me." Her smile faded as her mind ran with ideas; thoughts and notions about what could make someone so – to borrow a term – guarded as Harry Potter. And what kind of person he was to inspire such loyalty in his friends. It leaped happily on top of her already confused feelings about him and left her not quite knowing which was up.

Be gentle with him, he'd said. Well, she could do that.

There were a number of tables of varying size in the library, each of which had its own expectations. The smaller tables were to have one or two people studying in tandem – three at the most. Those tables tended to be along walls or tucked into alcoves; out of sight of the general passerby.

The larger tables were situated with easy access, room enough for five or more to work with elbow room to spare. Due to their size the larger tables were towards the center of the library. Since it didn't have a door, any passing student with a wandering eye could look in and snoop at what was going on.

Were one such person to pass by and indulge their curiosity, they would see a tall, handsome Ravenclaw descending into madness. At least, that's how Harry felt. He'd taken over the biggest table he could find and peppered it with rolls of parchment, reference books, and copies of old newspapers. What he was doing was trying to find any hint what his little brother would have to face in that arena.

Which was what the old newspapers were for. Granted, it was something of a leap, but he'd figured that an even as important as a competition between the three schools in Europe would merit at least some mention in the Daily Prophet. And he was right...

Mostly.

Oh, it wasn't that they neglected the tournament, but there was a direct correlation between where the tournament was being held and the level of detail in each edition. Prejudiced? Yes. Predictable? Yes. Willfully unhelpful? Oh, yes. So far what he'd learned was that the editor between 1890 and 1922 had an enormous hate boner for the French and that Durmstrang's champion had nearly been beaten to death by an enraged demiguise.

"So," he tossed another paper aside and ran his hands through his hair in frustration. Not for the first time... "apart from nothing, what have we learned?"

Well...

He'd learned that in the last thousand years, there had been seven Triwizard Tournaments. In each one there was always one death, and at least one disfiguring injury. He'd learned that the events itself were almost unimportant despite their extreme danger. The intrigue, political maneuvering, and string of near international incidents that surrounded these events seemed to be far more...valued.

His original intent; to glean some kind of clue as to what creature Ben would be up against, was useless. The Committees changed the nature of tasks so often and so arbitrarily that it seemed that even they didn't know how a task was going to turn out until it started. Sometimes, like with the cockatrice in 1648, not even then.

Which, to sum up, meant that the last three hours he'd spent in this dark, musty, smelly, dust-filled depressing cave of a library had been almost completely useless. He growled and felt an overpowering urge to light something on fire. Which he resisted, because Madame Pince would have his eggs in a vice if he so much as looked wrong at her precious books. So he dropped his forehead to the table and groaned; a low, long sound. What he needed right now was a change of scene.

The proper thing to do at that point would be clean up after himself. But after three fruitless hours he could honestly care less. He cast around for his robe, finding it under the table, and was shrugging it on to leave when something changed his mind.

The Keeper of the Library.

The Watcher in the Stacks.

Madame Pince.

She came out of the shadows, hilariously unused feather duster in hand, and took in the scene before her. Harry's mind reverted to a guilty six year old and rendered him unable to do anything but shift his weight and stare at his feet. "I hope," Pince said in her deceptively kind voice, "that you weren't going to leave me to clean up this mess."

"Wasn't." he mumbled. Pince stared at him down the length of her nose before nodding and vanishing back into the depths of her lair. At which point his brain remembered that no, he wasn't six, he was actually seventeen, and he should probably clean up after himself.

Five minutes later he smacked himself in the forehead. Are you a wizard, or not, Harry? He was, so thirty seconds later the newspapers were stacked, the parchments vanished, and the table spotless. He grinned, redid his tie, and left. But he didn't get far before running into someone.

Used as a phrase, that isn't too bad. Lamentably, Harry's run-in was more literal and left him rubbing his forehead, peering through watery eyes to see whose head he'd collided with. When he blinked the tears away and saw who it was, he felt an immediate and urgent desire to go back into the library and never leave. Who he had run into had short, white-blonde hair and blue eyes.

Yeah. He'd just headbutted Fleur Delacour.

Smooth, buddy, a laughing inner voice said.

Shut up, he told it. To Fleur, he said, "Sorry," and hoped she'd think it was as funny as someone off to his right did. There was a brief, stomach-dropping pause and she was in his personal space, so close he could feel the warmth of her. He quite forgot about laughter at the next thing he felt; her fingers on his forehead, gently tracing the bruise that no doubt mirrored the one on her own.

The air felt thick, his face warm. His heart was doing interesting dances on his ribcage. He wasn't sure, Healer training wasn't in Hogwarts' curriculum, but the signs were there. Either their budding friendship had a bevy of other, stronger feelings attached he wasn't ready for or sure how to handle.

Or...

He had a concussion. The jury was still out.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Fleur asked. Somewhere in the possibly-concussed depths of his mind, he realized something was wrong.

"Shouldn't –" he squeaked. Come on! He cleared his throat. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

Fleur chuckled, a warm, entirely too appealing sound. She lowered her hand but made no move to step away. This close he could see that her blue eyes had flecks of a darker shade, and that she seemed more interested in his lips than his forehead. "If you like."

Now what did that mean? And why did he care? Furthermore, since when did three words have more than one meaning? He told himself to buck up, she was clearly okay with it, and lifted one of his own hands. Framed against her face it looked gigantic, rough, inelegant, when he knew for a fact they were none of those things.

Under the pads of his fingers her skin – as it had in the garden – felt like silk. The bruise on her forehead, surrounded by pale skin, stood out in a stark contrast. "Well?" he prompted, after the heavy silence had dragged on for far too long. "Are you?"

Her lips lifted at the corners. "I think I'll survive."

"Good." he scratched the back of his head, a nervous habit that he needed to lock down. "So...what were you doing before I concussed us?"

"Looking for you, actually."

Oh? "You were? What for?"

Pink tinged her cheeks. "I need a reason?"

"It'd be nice, yeah."

"Well..." she shrugged inelegantly. Somehow. "I wanted to see how you and Ben were handling things, but things have been a little crazy."

Harry nodded. "Preaching to the choir. Um – " he looked up the hall, then down over her shoulder. "I don't really want to talk about it here. Or at all, but... do you mind if we go somewhere else?"

"Anywhere in particular?" she asked quietly.

He lowered his voice to a whisper, "How about the garden?"

The last time he was there was when he'd met Fleur. He found himself wanting to go back for any number of reasons. He needed the peace it provided, true, but he also found himself wanting to share the garden with her. The reason why escaped him, but the desire remained. A desire that Fleur evidently shared, given her warm smile and dancing eyes.

"Sounds perfect." she looped her arm around his. "Lead the way."

As they left, an unnoticed Roger stood there, jaw wide open. It took him several moments to form a coherent thought or indeed any thought at all, and when he finally managed it, what came out was, "That's what she thinks gentle is?"

"Hey, Ron, can we talk?"

No response. Ben stood at his best friend's shoulder and watched him refuse to lift his head from the table. Maybe the common room wasn't the best place to do this, but Ben couldn't find him anywhere else.

"Ron." he tried again. "Please."

Ron looked up and he recoiled at the look of indifference in his eyes. "What could we have to talk about, Potter?"

Potter. That stung. No, it cut. Deeply. Anger swelled around the wound, soothing the pain his friend was causing him. He ground his teeth and dug his fingernails into his palm. "Is that how it's going to be?" he demanded. "You're just going to forget everything you know about me and believe the rumor, which has – to be generous – never gotten it right?"

Ron showed some emotion then. Oddly enough, it lifted Ben's spirits. Anything was better than that cold indifference. Anger, strong enough to mirror his own, flashed in Ron's eyes as he stood to tower over him. "What do you want me to believe, Ben?" he snarled. "That this just...happened to you?"

"Yes!" Ben shouted. "That's exactly what I want you to think, because that's what happened! I didn't want this, Ron!"

"You did!" Ron shouted. He recoiled at the sudden volume, the sudden hurt in Ron's eyes. "You always do! You say you don't want to be famous, or – or rich, but you are! You have everything, and now you have this too!"

Ben's heart went cold. Dimly he was aware of others; spectators in the stands going as quiet and pale as fallen snow. His anger turned, changing to quiet, vengeful thing. The air around him shimmered, and in the small, wounded corner of his heart he could feel the tears coursing down his face. "I have everything?" his voice was low and toneless. "Is that what you really think?" he laughed, a cold, flinch-inducing sound. "I have nothing, Ron. My fame is build on the bones of my family and the ashes of my home. I would give everything, down to my life, for that not to be true. I would die, gladly, to have even a tenth of what you have. The only things I have, all that keeps me sane, are you, Hermione, and Harry. I..."

He growled in his throat and saw through blurred eyes Ron's face. The anger had vanished and left behind a sickened realization of what he'd just said. What he'd just done. Ben looked at his former friend and thought about what he'd just lost. It was too much. So he left. He turned, snatched his cloak from the chair behind him, and left the common room. He stumbled blindly through the halls until he felt the cold bite of winter on his face. Then he scrubbed his eyes, tucked his cloak tighter around himself, and set off for the lake.

"How's Ben taking all of this?" Fleur asked. She still had her arm wrapped in his and the only thing keeping her from taking his hand was the absolute certainty that her hand was sweaty. Now, her relationship experience wasn't a lot, but she was pretty sure that Harry would think it was gross. Even if he didn't, she would. So she contented herself with holding onto his arm and enjoying the warmth of him on her side.

Harry took a moment to answer. "Not well." he rubbed the back of his ear with his free hand. "But he's dealing. This whole thing with Ron isn't helping."

So it wasn't just her. "I noticed some..."

"Hostility? Envy? Overt idiocy?"

"Resentment." she said, smiling at his last suggestion. "When I spoke to him earlier."

"You talked to Ron?" Harry's surprise registered in a misstep, leading to a wince that brought the question of his leg back to the forefront of her mind. "What for?"

"Hm? Oh, I was looking for you."

"Ah." Was it just her imagination, or were his ears red? They passed a sconce and no, she wasn't seeing things. Harry's ears were red and if she didn't know better, she'd say he was embarrassed. It was a cute look on him. Her opinion was as far from biased as it could get, but she had yet to find a look on him she didn't like. "I never said congratulations."

"What for?" her lips twitched at the subject change. They turned a corner onto a familiar corridor. She could see the garden's entrance about fifty feet down.

"Being your school's champion. I know it meant a lot to you."

It was her turn to go red. Unlike him, her blush wasn't limited to her ears. It started there and spread down through her cheeks to her neck. She caught him following its progress out of the corner of her eye and felt immensely – and irrationally – pleased. He looked away and she pretended not to have caught him. "Thank you," she said. "I'm looking forward to it."

They entered the garden. The last time she was there it was night, and as beautiful as it was in the moonlight, she couldn't really see the place. Now it was after noon, and the pale winter sun showed her that her first thought of the place, its beauty, was more than accurate. The flowers weren't in bloom, but she could easily imagine the place in spring. Rosebushes in the planters blooming red. Ivy climbing the iron arches.

She could see why Harry fell in love with this place. She was starting to as well.

Harry limped to the bench she'd occupied last time and sank onto it with a grateful sigh. She sat next to him, maybe closer than he was expecting, but she was sure he wouldn't say anything. For a few minutes silence reigned. She took comfort from it and Harry's being right next to her. For a brief, utterly insane moment, she wished it was night. It would be colder, and she'd have an excuse to cuddle up to him. "Can I ask you something?" she asked.

He chuckled next to her and oh so casually draped an arm over her shoulders. She hid her smile by ducking her head. Subtlety, thy name was not Harry. He didn't even pretend to yawn. "Feel free." he echoed her words from earlier.

"It's a personal question." she felt a weird obligation to warn. He went still for a long minute – she was pretty sure he didn't even breathe. She tensed, too, worrying that she'd ruined something or everything.

"Go ahead," he said quietly. She relaxed for a moment before noticing that he hadn't. This was a leap of faith on his part, she realized. Roger had been right, he either trusted her or was starting to and that meant...more than she knew how to express. She tucked her head into his shoulder and wrapped her arm around his waist.

"What happened to your leg?"

Harry sighed. He supposed it had only been a matter of time before she asked him that. To his surprise and confusion and a little bit of fear, he found himself strangely willing to tell her the story. He hadn't told anyone the story. Ben told Roger and Alexis...actually, he didn't know how Alexis found out. But Fleur...

Fleur he wanted to tell. He wanted her to know. He hugged her to him with the arm around her shoulders and felt hers around his waist tighten briefly. In the back of his mind he recognized that she knew exactly what she was asking him. So he took a deep breath and told her everything.

"It was Ben's first year here. He had made friends with Ron on the train up, and met Hermione there as well. The way Ben tells it, she was something of a bossy swot when they first met, and Ron had nothing against telling her that. Repeatedly, as it turned out, but I didn't know that at the time.

Hermione had thicker skin than the boys gave her credit for, and she didn't react to Ron until Halloween. I still don't know what exactly happened before dinner that day, and I honestly don't care, but Ron and Ben showed up for dinner, and Hermione didn't. Ben would later tell me that it wasn't unusual for her to miss meals because she was studying or something.

The Halloween feast was extravagant. I'm not kidding when I say that food was piled half a foot deep on platters. There were sweets I'd never heard of on the tables and Hagrid' pumpkins were the size of ponies. I remember Dumbledore wearing an enchanted jack o'lantern for a hat. The place was noisy, really noisy, and I was getting a headache. By the time I'd had enough and gotten up to leave, something weird happened.

Professor Quirrel – the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher – sprints into the hall, yells something about a troll, and passes out. Falls flat on his face. To say what would follow was mayhem would be an understatement. Kids went berserk. I remember the Hufflepuff first years trying to turn over their table for some reason. Malfoy, I think you met him, wet himself and hid under the table for two hours.

Next thing I know Ben's running up to me, Ron on his heels. 'Hermione doesn't know about the troll!' he yells, and suddenly we're running to the nearest girl's loo. You know, that's the last time I remember running? Anyway, we smelled the damn thing before we saw it. It was about fifteen foot tall, the color of a booger, and three times as ugly. Had a club I'm pretty was just a tree torn out of the ground.

Boy Genius and my brother lock it into the first room it goes into, which is the girl's bathroom. Yeah, the one with Hermione in it, because of course it was. So we charge in there; two first years and a fourth year. Between the three of us we know maybe four offensive spells. By itself the troll could kill us all.

So we break through the door and see Hermione cowering by the sinks. The troll's advancing on her and I yell at the boys to get its attention while I get her out of there. They start throwing stuff at it, pipes and bits of stalls it had destroyed, and I try to get her to do anything but sit there and scream.

Next thing I know I wake up in the hospital wing a week later. The troll had taken a swing at Hermione, and – I don't remember doing this – but I shoved her out of the way and taken the hit. I'd heard of Skele-gro. I knew wizards could grow bones back, but what I didn't know is that you can't make something from nothing. And nothing was what was left of my leg.

The troll had pulverised the bones, turned them to dust. Madame Pomfrey did her best, and the Healers from St. Mungo's managed to grow the bones back but...they weren't the same. Not as strong. So from the whole thing Ben got two new friends, and I got a busted leg and the hero worship of an eleven year old girl.

I used to get so angry when I collapsed. My leg took a long time to get strong enough for me to walk for any length of time on it. But after a while I just accepted it. It still hurts when its cold out and I can't run or turn very quickly, but...I saved someone's life. I'd have given a lot more than a leg to see that happen."

Harry's throat was dry when he finished talking. Beside him Fleur had not said a word the entire time. He had no idea what would happen now. Would she run? Would she laugh? Would she tell him he was an idiot and to leave her alone? His stomach churned. He'd known Fleur for all of a few weeks, but he didn't want that.

Soft lips on his cheek and warm breath in his ear, followed by quiet, tender words. "Thank you for telling me."

Sometime in the past minute or so it had started snowing. It fell onto his head and shoulders, aging him into a sad old man sitting on a rock. He didn't know why Ron's words were hurting him so much, he'd gone into that knowing what was likely to happen. He'd started from the knowledge that Ron honestly believed that he had entered himself into the Tournament. He'd known that, and it still hurt.

It was hope, he supposed, that kept from believing his best friend had turned his back on him. Hope that he'd seen what the three of them had gone through for the past three years and would know by now. Ben had hoped that Ron had known him better than to think he would do something like this. The truth was that now more than ever he needed his friends. And now it looked like he had one less.

Out in the snow he remembered his friendship with Ron and mourned its loss. Until she came and led him back to the castle, took him to the kitchens, and didn't say a word. In his heart, another chain holding his Secret broke and fell away.

Note: First chapter in the new year. W00t. Anyway, thanks to everyone who continues to read, review, and favorite this little project of mine. I insist that you continue to do so. Unless, of course, you have no soul. Soulless people can do whatever comes to mind. Even if its reading, reviewing, and favoriting this little project of mine.

And no, 'favoriting' isn't a word. I made it one.