It had been a week since the task, and though Skye seemed to be recovering well from what had happened in the dungeons, Jemma would be able to tell that she wasn't quite all back yet. The night after she had slept in the attic with Jemma, Skye tried to sleep in her own bed only to be kicked out in the middle of the night by her roommates who couldn't sleep while she was screaming and mumbling to herself in her own. She had been sleeping alone in the attic for the past week, but it was obvious that a week of restless sleep was taking its toll.

Skye didn't look quite as bad as she had the night she emerged from the task, but she also didn't look great either. Of course Jemma had enough to worry about with trying to help her open the black box to discover a clue about the next task and to try and teach her more spells. Skye couldn't burden her with the fact that she was having nightmares every night of Jemma under the cruciatus curse or the fact that her father was once again haunting her dreams. She needed to stay strong, and prepare herself for the next task so that she did better and wouldn't let the entire school down again. Jemma had said she was proud of her, and Skye appreciated that. Jemma didn't want her to win, Jemma just wanted her to survive...but everyone else wanted both.

It was breakfast time on Tuesday before Skye had to go to Herbology. At least her apparitions class was after that and a lot more fun. They were spending it in the Great Hall looking through a stack of books Jemma had brought from the library while snacking on the various assortments of breakfast items. Trip had brought a stack of his own for Skye to look over.

"Guys, seriously, youre going to overload my brain before I even get to start my day," Skye sighed as she shut her third book and pushed it back towards Jemma. The small black box was in the center of the table and none of them had any idea how to open it. They had been in the library every free period for the past week reading every book. Jemma and Fitz had even analyzed it themselves, tried to charm it. So far nothing had opened it. Skye wasn't too worried, they still had plenty of time to figure it out. It was only November. They had three months to figure it out.

Jemma let out a sigh of her own and took the book away from Skye. They'd been reading relentlessly to open the box, but they were all stumped. Skye deserved a break, at least a couple days. She definitely looked like she needed it. Jemma didn't say anything because she knew Skye wouldn't talk about it yet, but she knew that her girlfriend was having trouble sleeping. It was sort of like she and Skye had suddenly switched appearances, this time it was the taller brunette that needed a good night's rest.

"Hey, look." Jemma nudged Skye's side and pointed towards the ceiling. Strigi, Jemma's red barn owl, was helping Archi, Skye's tiny pygmy owl. The two birds were never apart, they were just as attached to each other as Skye and Jemma were.

With one taloned foot, Strigi was holding onto a red envelope that Archi was supposed to be delivering. It was hard for Skye's owl to actually deliver anything because of his size, so Strigi often helped out. It didn't discourage Archi any, he still flapped his tiny little wings and carried the envelope, all puffy and proud that he was delivering Skye's mail.

Jemma had never gotten one before, but she recognized the distinct red envelope that marked the letter as a howler. Skye had gotten one before soon after she released a snitch in History of Magic last year.

"This can't be good." Jemma sighed as the two birds landed on the table in front of them instead of dropping the letter like other owls did. Strigi finally let go of the envelope and Archi stumbled a few inches across the table before giving up and releasing Skye's mail.

Skye wanted to laugh at the tiny pygmy owl that she had picked out when she was eight, and she would have, but for the letter that he was desperately trying to get to her. She grimaced. The owl looked so proud of himself that she quickly had to smile instead, despite she knew what was probably going to come out of that howler.

"What a good boy, Archimedes. Yes you are. Such a strong owl, delivering all my mail," Skye smiled and reached out and scratched the bird lightly on the top of his head. His normally wide eyes shut tight as he let out happy little sounds before she took the letter from him. The bird quickly scurried back to the larger barn owl and protectively nestled itself under one of its much larger wings.

"I don't...I really don't want to open this," Skye turned the letter over in her hands.

"Shit girl, you best go ahead and get that over with," Trip shook his head and nodded towards the letter. When Skye looked at him her jaw dropped that he had already scooted over several seats and was prepared for the shouting that was to follow.

Skye didn't even get to open the letter because before she turned her attention back to it, it was floating up in the air and moulding itself into a mouth.

"AH! No, NO you don't!" Skye went to grab for it, almost falling into a bowl of gravy during the process, but the magical envelope easily evaded her grasp.

"DAISY SKYE JOHNSON!"

It was her mother's voice.

"Oh god…" Skye covered her reddening face with her hands. She wanted to hide under a rock.

"YOU ARE A FOOL. A YOUNG FOOLISH GIRL! HOW DARE YOU ENTER THAT TOURNAMENT AND NOT INFORM ME! I AM YOUR MOTHER! I HAD TO FIND OUT FROM THE PAPER! THE PEOPLE AT THE LOCAL APOTHECARY WERE TALKING ABOUT IT BEFORE I EVEN KNEW! WAS THIS THAT 'TRIP' BOY'S IDEA?! Hello Trip, it's a pleasure as usual," The letter stopped yelling long enough to turn and smile at the Gryffindor boy who was quickly getting up and running from the table to avoid the collateral damage.

"YOU DO NOT WRITE, YOU DO NOT COME HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. YOU SPEND ALL YOUR TIME WITH JEMMA! I KNOW SHE KNOWS BETTER THAN TO LET YOU COMPETE IN THIS. SHE IS A SMART GIRL! I love you dear, how have you been? You two should visit over Winter Holiday. You're always a pleasure to have in the house, Jemma."

Skye looked over to Jemma, her own face still red from all the shouting. She hoped it stopped soon. People were starting to stop and stare at them and it made her tired brain want to implode.

After the red letter's pleasantries with Jemma it quickly turned back on Skye. "I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU! I RAISED YOU TO MAKE SMARTER DECISIONS THAN THIS! THAT BEING SAID, I am also very proud of you. I hope you win, please write more and tell me about your tasks. Love, Mom."

Suddenly the letter burst into flames and fell onto the table, burning up till not a shred of the howler was left. Skye's hands were still over her face and she sighed heavily as she slowly lowered them. Her face was about as red as the letter and she eyed Jemma in desperation. The people that had stopped to stare and listen quickly moved on before they could be retaliated against.

"God that was embarrassing…"

Jemma wished she could feel sympathetic for her girlfriend, but all she could do was let out a small laugh that had been trapped in her throat the whole time the howler had been yelling at Skye. The brunette's cheeks were still red and it was a rare sight for Jemma, so she enjoyed every moment of it.

"Your mother really is something," She chuckled, waving at Trip to let him know it was over and he could return safely. Jemma actually enjoyed spending time with Skye's mother very much. They traded off vacations, sometimes Skye would come home with Jemma and sometimes Jemma would go home with Skye. Just the thought of staying at Skye's home for break, away from all the Triwizard Tournament madness, sounded like heaven on Earth. She couldn't wait until Christmas, when she could snuggle up on the couch in Skye's living room and watch all their favorite muggle holiday films. It was a tradition they'd started a few years back.

"So...Christmas at your house this time, Jems?" Skye asked, trying to shake off her embarrassment as she ran a hand through her hair. The blush on her cheeks was still visible, but it was starting to fade and by the time Trip came to sit back down it was gone.

"Girl, if you don't die in the tournament your mom is going to kill you when you get home," He laughed and shook his head, taking a muffin from a plate piled high with them and eating it.

"Yeah, I sort of got that from the message…" Skye sighed and turned back to look at the two birds. "Thanks for that Archi. The one letter you actually manage to carry," the brunette sighed and propped her face up in her hands, elbows on the table.

Jemma snapped the book shut and plopped down onto the ratty old attic couch next to Skye. They'd done enough studying and they should be able to enjoy a free period to themselves every now and then. She laid the book down on the ground and pulled her feet up onto the couch, crossing her legs and facing her girlfriend. Again, she felt the reversal since after the first task. Skye looked like she was slowly dozing off, her head was leaning against the back of the couch and her eyes were half closed. She hadn't thought that the brunette would want to talk about the task before, but it'd been awhile since it had happened, so maybe she was ready to talk about it. Clearly whatever had happened was still causing her to lose sleep, so it was worth asking about.

"What's bothering you?" She asked. She nudged Skye's shoulder to wake her back up completely and waited patiently for an answer.

Skye jumped a little at the nudge, her eyes blinking a few times before they fully opened. She looked like she was about to panic for a moment before she saw and remembered where they were. She thought she might have fallen asleep in class again. That would not have been good. She was already behind in Defense Against the Dark Arts and she doubted Professor May was going to let her catch any more sleep in her class.

"Hm? What? Nothing…" Skye shook her head, frowning. It was obviously a lie, but she didn't want to burden Jemma with anything, especially what had happened during the trial with the boggart of her father. A smile soon replaced it and she leaned her head over onto Jemma's shoulder and curled up. Her libido from the previous week was running on empty and all she really wanted to do was enjoy her hour and a half break with a nap and some cuddles. The only night she had gotten any sleep was the first night after the trial when Jemma had stayed all night with her.

Jemma welcomed Skye's touch and wrapped her arms around the girl, but she knew that Skye was lying and there was definitely something going on. Something big had happened in the dungeon.

"We both know that's not true," She said quietly before pressing a light kiss to the top of Skye's head. "After that boggart turned into your father and Headmaster Coulson led us out, something happened, didn't it?" She asked. Whatever had happened during the hour Jemma had been forced to wait in the Great Hall had been enough to have Skye come out looking hardly alive and enough to keep her from sleeping at night. She hoped that Skye would open up about it, because it would probably help for someone else to know what she was going through.

"Oh yeah, we had a lovely talk and sat down to dinner…" Skye bit her lip, another tell, but that was laced with enough sarcasm for Jemma to know she was obviously trying to avoid the subject. "It's fine really. I'm just tired…" Her jaw clenched when she thought back on it. She had managed to tune out Jemma's screams during the day, but they kept her awake at night, but now they were back. The brunette gently shrugged her girlfriend's arm off and looked across the room.

"It's not...you don't need to worry about it. It's my boggart, my trials, my tournament."

Jemma felt something tug on her heart as Skye moved away. If whatever Skye wasn't telling her was bad enough to make her act like this, then she definitely wanted to know.

"You're tired because you're not sleeping, because you're clearly upset." Jemma pointed out. She knew Skye was just being stubborn and slightly reclusive about her feelings, but she also knew she'd be able to get what she wanted out of the other girl eventually. "I'm just trying to help…" She added. She reached for one of Skye's hands and held it between her own, hoping it would keep Skye from withdrawing even further.

Skye should have known by now that trying to keep a wall up around Jemma was not going to work. Keeping secrets and lying wasn't the way to go in a relationship and Skye knew that, but...if she told Jemma the truth, she didn't know what the girl would think of her. Would she still be proud? She doubted it.

The brunette squeezed Jemma's hand and inhaled loudly, trying to find the words. She might as well. "I...I didn't beat the third boggart," She admitted, lowering her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at Jemma's disappointed face. "I wanted to but I just...I couldn't so…" She forced a laugh and rolled her eyes, "Some champion, huh?"

"Hey, don't say that." Jemma squeezed Skye's hand even tighter and tried to comfort her. She had guessed that something like that had happened just by Skye's score, but she still didn't know what was really bothering her. Getting extra points added to her score surely wasn't what was keeping her from sleep. She remained quiet for a few moments, hoping Skye would continue explaining what had happened.

"Oh yeah! You didn't see me!" Skye laughed again, although this time she was more laughing at herself then trying to get Jemma to think she was happy. She had let go of Jemma's hand and was up off the couch, running both her hands through her hair, holding onto her head. She shook it in disbelief at herself.

"I couldn't defeat it! I couldn't...I just...I ran away. I ran away, Jemma! I left him in there with yo-" Skye cut herself off quickly and shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants. Her lips were pursed into a thin line and she wouldn't look at her girlfriend. "It just wasn't good...ok?"

"With me?" Jemma asked. She stayed on the couch, partially because of shock and partially because she knew getting up and chasing Skye around would only make the other girl more anxious.

Jemma remembered how both the first and second boggarts had been of her, so she didn't really understand why she hadn't thought of this earlier. What would she and Skye's father be doing in the same nightmare, though?

"I don't know what happened, but I can tell you for sure that it's ok that you ran away. Those things were designed to scare you, you shouldn't be ashamed for feeling fear. It's ok." Jemma assured her. She was still curious about what she had been doing with Skye's father, but she didn't want to push her girlfriend off an emotional cliff when she already seemed so dangerously close to the edge.

"It's not ok!" Skye shouted, her hands coming out of her pockets and gripping the sides of her sweater. "It's not...It's not," The brunette just kept shaking her head until she managed to come back to reality. She knelt down in front of Jemma on the couch and took her hand to hold, trying to breathe and steady herself.

"I wasn't just afraid...I was angry too. It was so believable...I forgot it wasn't real. But that is why it's so scary, Jems...it could really happen. I used the wrong spell I…" Skye looked down at her feet, "I didn't even remember it was a boggart. My first reaction wasn't even to use the right spell. I...I tried to kill him. I wanted to kill him…"

Jemma swallowed a lump in her throat. Just by the way Skye was looking at her, she was starting to get a little bit of an idea about what had happened. She knew that both herself and Skye's father were there, and that Skye wanted to kill him. This clearly meant that her father, who wasn't such a stand up guy, being a death eater and all, had probably done something to the boggart version of her.

"It's perfectly normal to feel like that in such a bad situation, you did what you had to do to-"

"In no way was that situation even remotely normal, Jemma!" The Slytherin girl shouted and stood up again. Her hands kept returning to her head like she was trying to keep what little bit of sanity she had left inside. "Nothing about it was normal! Normal people's dads don't show up in their nightmares setting their girlfriends under the cruciatus curse because normal people's fathers aren't Death Eaters! I wanted to kill him, I tried to kill him! Trip and I had been studying dark spells he found in the restricted section so I thought I should learn some. It wouldn't hurt, except it did! He just laughed. He just laughed at me! He said I was exactly like him...and I am!"

Skye fell to her knees on the floor and all her frustration she had been keeping in came rupturing out like a volcano. She had been too exhausted to cry that night but now she made up for it. Her fists were clenched on the floor and her shoulders were shaking so violently it was like a tiny earthquake inside her body.

It was a lot of information for Jemma to take in at once. First, she was horrified to find out that Skye had to watch her suffer under an unforgivable curse, and second, she was worried and a little bit angry with Trip for encouraging the use of dark magic. But lastly, she was absolutely devastated that Skye could even think for just a second that she was anything like her father.

"No, that's not true." Jemma said insistently. She flew off the couch in an instant and kneeled next to Skye, grabbing her arms and trying to get the girl to look up at her. "You're nothing like him." Jemma removed one of her hands from Skye's arm, but only to tilt her chin upwards so they were looking into each others eyes.

"You're not." She repeated herself. "You're kind, and you're caring. You're loving and compassionate and a million other things that your father is not." Jemma tried to convince Skye, but she could tell her words weren't having much effect on the distraught girl. "Even though you did use dark magic, you didn't do it anything like your father would. He does what he does because he's sadistic, he's terrible. You did what you did because you love me, you were trying to protect me from those evils." Jemma explained. She hoped at least some of her words were getting through.

"It wasn't real. None of it was real. Nothing is ever going to happen to me." She assured Skye.

Skye had stopped shaking, and less and less tears were streaming down her cheeks, but her breath was still out of sync. She had used dark magic like her father, it was true, but she had used it to try and save Jemma. Even though she had tried to kill her father, and her father killed people, she was doing it to save Jemma. But she still had left. She had abandoned her and left her to that torture. Skye kept the last part to herself. Crucio was enough. Jemma didn't need to know she had heard the killing curse too. She had abandoned the person she loved...just like her father had abandoned her and her mother to continue being a Death Eater. She had his blood running through her veins. Skye was not convinced that she wasn't like him in some way, but she was drained, and too tired to argue with Jemma anymore. If Jemma thought she wasn't like him, then perhaps she wasn't.

Skye threw her arms around her girlfriend once the majority of her sobbing had stopped and she held her tightly. Nothing was going to happen to her. The way she said it, looking into her eyes, assuring her it hadn't been real, Skye believed it.