Choas Babe: The story isn't Luna/Jen/Viktor, exactly, but Jen/Luna with a side order of Jen/Viktor. Trust me, that little subplot was so not my original plan!

Shikyo no Kyoufu: There are other intelligent species running around, the fae at the very least, but I currently have no intention for them to show up in this story.

IveGotNoIdea: The early books were written for children; the later ones… not so much. I do agree that the moral system is simple, but there's simple and then there's too simple. The problem with thinking that three schools is enough is that Hogwarts is filled solely by British students, so saying that the rest of Europe can be split in half like that is a little absurd, especially since if that were the case, the seventh year and partial sixth year classes from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang in canon wouldn't have been able to fit so easily into the Great Hall without several more tables being added.

smeehee: The clues were more of hints for what the obstacles were going to be. It was only after going back and rereading that scene that I realized that they made sense purely because I already knew what was coming : (

Disclaimer: Was only one of the three Triwizard Tournament Tasks spectator-friendly? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

Chapter 28
Flawed Assumptions

Jen tilted her head in confusion and felt the needle of the compass again. Sure enough, it still pointed at the inert hostage. Frowning, she walked around the room, double-checking that she was in the right place and that her path did not lay behind the captive. "Bugger me on Legba's crutch, whose arse do I need to break my foot off in for this cock-up?"

"Why, why did I get handed Potter's compass? Can Bagman not read or something?" she growled, rolling the dysfunctional device between her palms. The magical core in the room with her did not belong to her friend. Irritated at the situation, the stupidity of the Tournament organizers, and her self-imposed restriction to avoid showcasing her wandless abilities, she pointed her wand in the general direction of the compass. She called to mind memories of Kenneth: the feel of his core, the sound of his voice, the smell of his cologne, the taste of his favorite foods. Reaching out with her magic, she wrested control of the locator spell on the nickel needle and replaced its target with her own. It jumped and shivered for a moment before swinging to point at the exact opposite side of the glass cube she was in. "All right, Jen, over half your time's gone, and it took you that long to get here. Bugger the indirect route." She stomped out of the room, her fury palpable.

Ron Weasley remained chained to his post, snoring faintly.

Stepping onto the narrow catwalk, she clenched her teeth as winged daggers again raced at her. This time, however, she did not simply ward them off; twirling her blank wand in her fingers like a slim baton, she whipped it around her head and reduced the knives to slag. A smirk made its way to her lips when she reached the end of the walkway, the needle of the compass still pointing away and down. Her slow, deliberate movements masked as hesitance, she slipped the wand and compass into her pockets before, focusing on exactly what she wanted, she conjured yet another prop under the left sleeve of her duster.

A swift tug with her other hand revealed to her remote audience a polished pyrite vambrace studded with chunks of quartz. She felt the texture of the stones, verifying from the very slight quaver of impurities within that that were indeed the blue variety she had imagined. After pushing her sleeve the rest of the way to her elbow, she held it up as if she were visually examining it. "A little ostentatious for my tastes still, but better than nothing. Let's see if it works as advertised." A sharp gesture, a push of her will, and the stone spikes underneath the catwalk exploded. That's what I'm talking about, she thought as she dropped the five feet to the ground, her heeled boots slipping a tad on the loose rubble. 'Wandless' magic is supposed to be too advanced for me, but a secondary focus makes it perfectly explainable.

The compass, now resting in her right hand, indicated that she had to move down a little more and through the wall in front of her to reach her goal. Grinning – it had been a long time since she had enjoyed a bit of wanton destruction – she turned her head away from the partition to protect her face and flicked her fingers. A loud, brittle crack accompanied the glass shattering to leave a hole almost wide enough for her to lie down in it. Switching the compass between her hands to draw her fake wand again, she cast a softening charm on the floor below her and fell into another smooth hallway running sideways; the needle pointed to the wall in front of her. She weighed her options for a moment, then blew another hole through this barrier as well.

She had tried to play this the judges' way. If only they had not wasted her time with their incompetence…

The second opening led her into a corner, with two paths running to her left and straight ahead. She walked along the route, analyzing the costs and benefits of continuing her charade. This is really starting to be a larger hassle than I want to put up with. I need to find out when it wouldn't be strange for a powerful witch to start doing a few things without the aid of a wand; Flitwick would likely know, or at least have an idea. Then again, what if it takes decades? I've been in Hogwarts for just over six months, and already I'm sick and tired of having to pretend I need this useless prop. Will I be willing to keep up this act for the next three years?

No, no I won't. The damn thing is like a set of shackles binding me to an illusion of normality. 'Normal' doesn't cut it with me; why be mediocre when I can be, when I am, exceptional? She rolled the fir stick in her pocket under her thumb, desiring nothing more than to toss it away and openly practice the casting method she had been using ever since she sacrificed her magical core when she was seven. Unfortunately, things can never be that simple. There is a thin line between 'prodigy' and 'government research subject'; I'd much rather not end up in that second group. I love being in the House of Black, but life was so much simpler when it was just me and Elsie.

Paying more attention to her thoughts rather than her surroundings, she did not notice the attack coming until it was almost too late.

She whipped her left arm over her head, blasting away by reflex the furry creature that had tried to, quite literally, get the drop on her. It hit the ground and bounced before collecting its eight legs underneath it. The spider, which to her disgust was slightly larger than a well-grown dog, rushed at her again. Jen sent another explosive curse at the young Acromantula, but this succeeded no more than the last one had, though it did give her a few feet more space.

All right, if that's how you want to play it. She drew her blank wand; of all the spells Flitwick had taught her in preparation for the Gryffindor Task, she had found that this one in particular actually worked better if she used the wandtip to make up for her abysmal pitching skills. Braiding jagged strands of magic together and twisting the ends into drills, she flicked her wrist and let the Destruction Lance fly. The spider met her curse head-on and was instantly liquified, painting the walls with its remains.

Somehow, using that spell against granite columns just doesn't deliver the same visceral impact as turning a monster to mush. She frowned as she recalled the description of the highly-dangerous arachnids she had read before learning that the beast in the first Task was a dragon. For all their resemblance to normal spiders, the creatures had near-human intelligence and a fairly developed social structure. No Acromantula this small would be picking fights if it was truly alone, preferring instead to run and hide. Much like a bully, this degree of aggressiveness meant it had a stronger ally nearby.

Either there was an older cousin lurking around, or – Jen shuddered – she was about to run into a whole lot more of these things.

Why did I put my name in the Goblet of Fire again?

Cedric had been asking himself that question off and on ever since Jen had told him that they were going to have to steal golden eggs from mother dragons. Seeing a chunk of rock hurtling at his chest at roughly the speed of a professional-grade Bludger from being punched of all things had made him consider it even more seriously. After traipsing through this funhouse of traps and horrors, freeing his hostage, and then being forced to get back to the entrance along a second pathway that he had not been able to clear out, he had known that asking to be chosen as a Triwizard Champion was, without a doubt, one of the stupidest things he had ever done, and though the penalty of losing his magic meant he hadn't been willing to give up just yet, that option had certainly returned to the forefront of his mind.

Another Incendio, the gouts of flame growing ever weaker, pushed the swarm of dark-haired spiders back again. Spinning in place and doing his best not to lose his grip on the unconscious Katie Bell, he deterred the second group of relatively small Acromantulas from trying to flank him. Being a Muggle can't be that bad, can it? I mean, there are more of them than there are wizards, and they don't have a problem from day to day. Chris is a Muggleborn; surely he'd be willing to show me the ins and outs of living without magic.

But no dream of being far, far away from the Tournament will mean a thing if I don't survive this. Any help would be appreciated; another champion, one of the judges… bloody hell, I'd take You-Know-Who coming back from the dead if it got me out of here in one piece!

In his desperation for escape, he had been too slow to turn around again, and the front edge of the massed Class-5 fiends surged at him…

…only to drown in a river of fire.

Cedric looked up and spotted his fellow Hogwarts champion striding towards him, golden armor wrapped around one forearm and a never-ending torrent of flames rushing from her wand. The blaze, slowing down not a whit, split in two to sweep around him and his captive before crashing into the other pack of monsters. A chorus of loud pops, the spiders' shells bursting from the heat, cheered him up immensely.

After several seconds, the sounds stopped, and the conflagration instantly died. Unfortunately, this allowed him to find out exactly what overcooked spider guts smelled like, and he had to force himself not to retch.

"Oh, Baron protect me, but does that reek!"

Well, at least it's not just me.

He giggled giddily, drunk off the idea that he was, somehow, someway, still alive. "Your first name is Jennifer, right? Not Virginia or Genevieve or something?"

Jen cocked her head to one side, much as he expected a real raven would when confronted with something new and shiny. "Yes, it is, but how could that possibly be important right now?"

"Because I'm naming my firstborn after you, and I want to make sure I get it right."

She laughed and shook her head. "Then I hope, for both your child's sake and your own once your eventual wife finds out, that your firstborn is a daughter. If you named your son Jennifer, I do believe he would hate you until his dying breath." She looked – or at least he thought she did; that long fringe made it difficult to tell sometimes – at the girl slung over his shoulder. "So Bell was your hostage?"

"Yeah, she was. I would have thought you'd have yours already, what with the compasses Bagman was handing out."

"Someone, either Bagman or whoever labeled the things, fouled up and switched mine and Potter's. I modified the charm to locate Kenneth—"

"Wait, Kenneth?" he asked in surprise. So far as he knew – partly because a friendship bridging houses and years like that was rare – there was exactly one person by that name she was close to. "Kenneth Towler, Gryffindor sixth year prefect? Why would you be looking for him?"

"He is the only one of my close friends I didn't notice at lunch today, so it is logical that the judges chose him as my hostage," she answered.

"You didn't see him because all the prefects were having a meeting at the time. The Head Boy kicked me out right from the beginning because it dealt with the Tournament, probably about keeping all the other students under control while they watched us, but I know I spotted him there."

Frowning, Jen pulled a small jar from her pocket; it took him a moment to realize that it had previously been the compass the jovial judge had given her. "Damn it. You're right, the needle's pointing at the castle. Fan-bloody-tastic."

"Sorry," he replied with a wince. If he had wasted all this time looking for the wrong person, he'd be a mite upset, too. "Who did that point to in the beginning?"

"Ronald Weasley."

He blinked in surprise. "Yeah, you're right. Someone did screw up. That would have to have been Potter's hostage." Those two were constantly at each other's sides; before the boy hero brought the redhead's sister to the Yule Ball, quite a few people had begun wondering if they were poofters considering how neither of them had shown any interest in girls to that point. Jury was still out on the Weasley boy considering how much he ignored his date. "Any idea who else your hostage could be?"

A sigh accompanied her dropping the altered compass back into the pocket of her white coat. "Not a clue, and even if I did, I don't think I have enough time to find him or her, anyway. Bugger! And I was in first place before today, too." She clutched her head and rubbed her temples with the heels of her hands.

"You may not want to, but…" he began tentatively. She cocked her head again, so he continued, "You're more than welcome to walk with me to get back to the entrance. Mine, at least. I saw Eberhardt a few minutes after we started, so maybe we'll come across Potter and you two can tell each other where your hostages are? It's worth a shot."

"Not to mention, you'll have another wand by your side in case you get mobbed by freakish spiders again," she dryly added. Cedric was sure his cheeks were going to burn off from the blush at being caught. "May as well; it's not like running around like a doxy with its head cut off will do me any good."

"Why did I agree to this again?!"

"Less screaming, more casting!"

Jen growled and launched yet another explosive curse from her left hand, following it with a flurry of conjured titanium daggers. The trio of transfigured wolves racing towards her went down, crumbling into dirt as the spell ended. If I find out McGonagall had anything to do with making these things, she growled in her mind as she flicked her wand behind her and bifurcated a canine attempting to catch her off-guard, I'm going to shove them so far up her arse that her Animagus form will bark!

Cedric's route was far more dangerous than hers had ever dreamt of being. Acromantulas, illusions, hallways set to flatten anyone who stepped foot inside, and now these attack dogs; what was even worse was that when she made a comment about it, he told her that having her along made this easy compared to the way he had gone to reach Bell in the first place. A third fighter would have taken even more of the burden off, but no matter what the two of them had tried, the comatose girl remained insensate.

One final pair of curses from both her hands eliminated the last of the wolves. "Thank the Baron that's over with," she sighed with relish. A run of her wandtip over the worst of her wounds disguised the lacerations' regeneration. "What's next?"

"Looks like another inter—"

A hook stuck itself through her navel and yanked; the scene her sonar presented shattered, leaving her with only the sound of rushing wind. Four worried gasps later, she was flung unforgivingly into the floor of the Great Hall.

"Well done, champions, well done!" The congregated student body cheered loudly and longly, and Bagman eventually had to recreate the sound of a cannon blast to restore some element of order. In that time, Jen felt around her and found that all of the champions minus Leroux were present, though where he and the hostages were she had not a guess. "It seems that most of you were able to retrieve your hostages successfully, so let's get to the important part: your scores!

"In first place is Ingrid Eberhardt! Eberhardt got to her hostage and back in just over forty minutes and received minimal injuries while showing a good grasp of advanced transfiguration by sending decoys around corners. For this, we award her 45 points.

"Second place… also goes to Durmstrang!" He had to wait again for the Durmstrang students to calm down before he continued, "Viktor Krum receives 42 points, as though he suffered no injuries whatsoever, he took several minutes longer than Eberhardt.

"Danny Potter is in third place with 40 points." This time it was the Hogwarts students, specifically those at the Gryffindor table, who held up the proceedings. "Potter demonstrated a knowledge of charms beyond what he could reasonably be expected to know, in particular the bubble-head charm. Unfortunately, he did not make it to the finish in time. He receives additional points for assisting Delacour with reclaiming her hostage.

"With 38 points is Cedric Diggory. Reaching his hostage in thirty minutes, he was only two corridors away from the exit when his hour ran out. His display of a bevy of offensive spells makes up for that delay.

"In fifth place is Fleur Delacour, who receives 30 points. She reached her hostage, but only after being saved by Potter. That need for help, as well as not reaching the exit, cost her significantly."

Bagman turned to Jen, radiating glee even as his voice projected disappointment. "Jennifer Black and Philippe Leroux were the only two who failed to retrieve their hostages. This is especially bad for Black, who abandoned her captive after finding him. She is awarded 15 points, mostly for helping her fellow Hogwarts champion in his time of need."

"This is ludicrous!" she snarled, catching the former Quidditch star off-guard. "You yourself told us that our hostage was someone we were close to; the only connection I have with Weasley is that we are in the same year! Yet you are seriously going to stand there and penalize me for your mistake in picking my hostage?! How in the world is that appropriate, let alone fair?!" She already knew she was going to lose her first-place ranking, but to fall to fourth?

Madame Maxime stood from her chair. "Meess Black, you were given a compass zat led you deerectly to your 'ostage. Eet is not ze judges' fault zat you failed to follow deerections."

"'Failed to follow directions'? Perhaps if you had used any form of intelligence when picking out hostages, I wouldn't have had to ignore your little trinket! Considering that Weasley is well known to be Potter's best friend, everyone with even a hint of sense would have assumed the compass was wrong!"

"Our deceesion ees final!" the enormous woman thundered. "Be glad we 'ave already determined your score, Meess Black, or I would be asking zat you receive a zero for your rudeness! You 'ave much to learn about respecting your betters."

She seethed at the French headmistress's dismissive attitude, and only Cissy's training in proper decorum stilled her tongue. Be glad that you're in Britain as a guest, Maxime, or your mouth opening at the wrong time could see your half-giant head parted from your shoulders. My better? Only in your tiny brain. You are my superior purely by dint of your position, but no one who is so incapable of comprehending what is directly in front of her face can claim to be better than anyone, let alone me.

"Er, okay," Bagman muttered, switching his gaze between the two irate females a few times. "Philippe Leroux was knocked out early, but we are still awarding him ten points for his progress. This means that, despite not winning a single event, it is Krum who has taken first place overall."

"Now, I'm sure you're all curious about the Hufflepuff Task. It will be on the twenty-ninth of April and consists of one round of 'Capture the Crup', with each school being a team. For those of you who might never have played this game, each team is going to receive a token of their school and then has to protect it from the other teams, who are all trying to steal it, while going after the other tokens themselves. The game ends when one team has all the tokens, even if a member of the other team is still conscious. Just as with the duels, potentially lethal attacks will be severely frowned upon." Everyone present knew that he was referring specifically to Leroux.

Oh, thank you, Bagman, Jen thought, a wicked grin making its way onto her face even as rage continued to roil in her belly. Between Delacour's general haughtiness and Maxime's little diatribe just now, I think I know who I'll be going after first. There's a lot that can be done that isn't considered 'potentially lethal'.

"All right, I think that's everything. Champions, leave your pendants in the basket in front of the staff table. Everyone else, please clear the room so we can take the mirrors down before the house-elves get mad at us for delaying dinner!"

Still fuming, she ripped the necklace, which she supposed was the Portkey that had returned them to the Great Hall, from her neck and threw it into its receptacle. She was about to storm off when one of the last people she wanted to talk to right now approached.

"Miss Black, I would like to have a quick word with you if that's all right," Dumbledore asked genially.

Due to the rain and the limited capacity of the Great Hall, the non-student spectators were forced to watch the progress of the Tasks from another room, though an eighth mirror focused on Bagman allowed them to hear what scores the champions received.

As well as Jen's little blow-up, Cissy thought with exasperation tinged by not a little sympathy. Maxime was right that she still has much to learn about comporting herself in public and using displays of anger only where they will be most effective, but I completely understand why she was so upset. What kind of fool would select one of Potter's friends as her hostage and then penalize her when she left him to look for the person she had reason to believe was her true goal?

She had to wait a few minutes for the throngs of teenagers to move past the doorway; though she kept a lookout, she failed to see the distinctive white dragonhide coat. Odd. Where in the world would she be? She laid her wand flat in her palm. "Point Me Jen." The cedar focus spun swiftly before pointing back in the direction of the Great Hall. Spotting Sirius still caught up in a discussion, though perhaps more properly termed a polite argument, with another spectator on the scores awarded, she shrugged and made her way across and a few doors down the corridor.

"For the last time, Headmaster, no."

The iron and heat in her niece's voice forced Narcissa to walk even faster. Slipping through the partially closed doors, she found Jen and Dumbledore in a standoff. "What is going on here?"

"Ah, Mrs. Malfoy, what a surprise. This is nothing you need to concern yourself with—"

"I will be the judge of that, Dumbledore." She looked at Jen and, her voice considerably softer, asked, "What was the headmaster requesting of you?"

"He is insisting that I give up my vambrace. I've already told him repeatedly that I won't, especially considering how he has yet to return my gloves, but he refuses to take no as an answer."

You might have a Snake's heart, my darling niece, but it seems you do not know how to exploit every option available to you. That will be an essential skill when you eventually become Lady Black, but don't worry about it overmuch. We still have plenty of time to work on that. "The elemental gloves? Under what authority have you claimed artifacts belonging to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, Professor Dumbledore?"

She had to withhold a grin as his lauded mind stopped in its tracks; it could not be denied that she greatly enjoyed derailing his plots. Some people just needed to be reminded repeatedly that they were not as all-powerful as they liked to think they were, and the old goat was certainly one of the worst of them. Finally recovering, he explained, "There were questions raised about the safety of her secondary focus, and as the headmaster of this school, I was well within my purview to confiscate them for my investigation."

"The previous Task was seven weeks ago. Surely a competent wizard would have been able to verify that they were perfectly safe and then return them by this point in time." He bristled despite – or perhaps because of – her bland tone, but before he could interject, she continued, "Regardless, they are the property of our House, and as an adult representative of said House, I am well within my purview to request you return them. Immediately."

"I cannot," replied Dumbledore simply. "As I was going to say had you allowed me the chance, in the course of my investigation I determined that they were a hazard to Miss Black's safety. Therefore, it is my duty to keep them in my possession and away from where they may cause her harm."

Narcissa smirked. "Don't try to pull that nonsense with me; any rights or responsibilities you have over Jen in loco parentis vanished the instant Sirius and I stepped foot inside these wards. Beyond that, those gloves belong, as I have said, to the House as a whole, and I would expect the Chief Warlock to know that he cannot confiscate a House's property without an appropriate warrant. Even if they were hers alone, we allowed her to use that focus, and familial permission will always trump your authority." She smiled brightly at his narrowed eyes and held out her hand. "Now, I am certain that you were simply overzealous in your effort to protect my niece, so I am willing to keep this between us and not bring the DMLE in for what could be construed as theft so long as you relinquish them to me."

"Very well." The old man had not risen to his various positions without knowing when to capitulate, but she was under no illusions that this was over. A wave of the knobby wand he wielded summoned a pair of red faux-leather gloves to his hand.

A harsh inhalation drew their attention. Jen's teeth were clenched, and she ground out, "What did you with the gems?"

Oh, good girl. That is the way you play the game. The young woman certainly sounded angry, though her chin was not jutting out as it would were she in actuality. Similarly, the family had discovered thanks to Sirius's ill-conceived werewolf prank that ire lent a certain harshness to her normally melodious voice that was likewise absent. Keeping a cool head while projecting the emotion that you want your audience to think you are feeling. We'll make a proper politician out of you yet.

Of course, no matter how well she was doing at the moment, Jen was still too green to go up against someone of Dumbledore's experience. "She asks a very good question. What exactly did you do to our artifact while you were clearly bumbling about with it?"

"This is why I said this was too dangerous to stay in her possession. When subjected to standard analysis spells, it violently discharged, scorching my desk and burning me. If she was able to replace the jewels, there is no telling what would happen if that incident occurred again while she was wearing the gloves."

"So, what you are telling me is that due to your ignorance and egotism, you ruined a unique secondary focus that has been in our family for generations, then refused to return it in order to hide the evidence of your malfeasance?" she asked seriously, and he grimaced. "This cannot be ignored, but the Lord Black currently has no reason to wish your reputation sullied. Therefore, as a recognized representative of our House, I am willing to offer you the chance to settle this matter out of court." They could probably get more compensation if the situation was presented to a judiciary committee, but it was better that he take her offer. Forging documentation to back up their claim would be a hassle and had no guarantee of success, not that Dumbledore was aware of this.

He sighed, though she knew he knew keeping this private was in his best interests as well. "Very well, I shall authorize the goblins to send reparations to your family's vault. How much was it worth?"

"600 galleons."

I wonder if I should have asked for more just to give him a heart attack, she thought as she watched Dumbledore choke. She had pulled a number out of thin air, knowing full well that Jen had bought the gloves in a Muggle store for just a few sickles.

"You are surely joking. That much is highway robbery!"

You have no idea. "Headmaster, I must remind you that your foolishness destroyed a centuries-old, one-of-a-kind, multi-elemental secondary focus. If anything, I am underestimating its value. Would you prefer we bring this matter to Madam Bones's attention?" He paled minutely, and she knew she had him exactly where she wanted him. Amelia Bones had a reputation of incorruptibility and a well-known dislike for Dumbledore's occasional extralegal methods. Combined with the comments Jen had made about her friendship with Bones's niece, the old battle-axe would be relentless once she got her teeth into him.

"No, no, I'll pay it. The DMLE has too many other issues to waste their time on something this minor."

"I thought you would see it my way. Just so we can avoid this situation in the future, my niece has our full permission to use any secondary focus she believes will be of use to her. Now, useless though they now are, I will still be taking those back with me. It is clear you cannot be trusted with the belongings of House Black."

He held the gloves out to her but did not let go once she had hold of them. Leaning in, he whispered, "Possessions of your family or not, we both know that she did not have the permission of her true guardians to use them. She may be a member of the House of Black on parchment, but only on parchment. I am more than willing to bring this to the Wizengamot's attention if I need to."

"Oh? If you are so sure of your facts, why have you yet to do so?" she asked, her voice equally low.

"The Potters have enough to worry about right now with their son being entered into this Tournament against his will; going through a custody battle at the same time is a greater burden than they can reasonably be asked to bear. That said, unless you want her removed from under your influence entirely, I expect her to spend at least some of the summer with her real family."

Narcissa stepped back, taking the gloves from his now-slack hands. "She is with her real family, Dumbledore, and any steps you take to fight that will do nothing but bring you trouble you would much rather avoid. I expect the gold to be transferred by this time next week. Come along, Jen."

The pair walked out of the Great Hall and down a few hallways until they entered a room chosen at random. Narcissa waved her wand in an intricate pattern as she layered privacy spell after privacy spell on the walls and door; beside her, Jen's fingers danced as if they were spiders spinning an elaborate web in mid-air. When they had finally secured the room to their satisfaction, the girl remarked, "So he knows about my connection to the Potters. That I was not expecting."

"Nor was I, though in retrospect I'm not terribly surprised. They have always been fairly close to the old coot; if I had to guess one person other than Sirius or Lupin who would know about Lily giving birth to twins, it would be him. Still, whether he knows doesn't matter in the long term." The woman fiddled with the white streaks in her otherwise dark hair for a moment, a nervous habit she had never been able to rid herself of fully, then asked, "You haven't been having any unexplained pain recently, have you?"

"No, Auntie, nor severe headaches, vomiting, muscle weakness, or trouble breathing. I think we are long past the point when there is any possibility of rejection. The procedure worked just fine."

"I know, I know, but that doesn't stop me from worrying, especially with Dumbledore now making threats. He only engages when he's sure he holds all the cards. What plans have you made for the summer?"

Jen cocked her head at the sudden non sequitur. "I expected to use that time learning the magical theory from third year classes, but the last half of second year abruptly becomes much more practical. If that continues to be the case in third as it has been this year, I should be able to get through almost all of it by the time I come home. Besides that, it would just be adjusting to being able to see again and possibly getting started on a project for next summer."

"Good. In that case, you're going to spend quite a bit of your break in the library. If Dumbledore is getting ready to make a move, you need to know as much of the law as Ted, Andi and I can force inside that pretty little head of yours. From here on out, we're playing for keeps."

Jen found all seven of her closest friends waiting for her at a table in the far back of the library. "So you immediately thought of me when you heard you had a hostage inside, huh?" Kenneth said with a laugh.

"Not at all," she replied dryly. "I had simply already spoken with everyone else here over lunch. Trust me when I say that yours was the last name to go through my mind."

Padma huffed. "And instead you got Ron Weasley. Please, in what messed up world does that make sense? That decision came as a surprise to everyone as far as I could tell. I don't know that you've exchanged five words with him this year."

She pushed down the surge of fury at the reminder of the judges' utter incompetence, though with how the day had gone so far, it took much more effort than was normal. "I don't think so, either. Between his table manners, overall public behavior, and general disdain towards intelligence, I have never felt the need to. Out of curiosity, who were the other hostages?"

"Besides you and Delacour, they were all their champions' Yule Ball dates," answered Luna. "Someone said that Delacour's was her little sister."

"At the very least, it was a pint-sized Veela," Tracey cut in. "Both her and Potter's hostage were underwater, so we didn't get a detailed enough picture to tell anything for sure other than that they shared hair color. We have no idea who Leroux's hostage was; a large rock fell out of the ceiling on his head twenty minutes into the Task, so he was Portkeyed to the hospital wing along with the hostages.

"I have to say, though, that watching him get knocked out wasn't the best part. You definitely provided the biggest laughs."

Jen cocked her head. "I did? How?"

"Come on, your boggart?" Her ire rose again. "I mean, seriously, you do know that continuing your family line means you're eventually going to have to pop out a sprog or two."

"Tracey, enough. This is not something you want to joke about right now."

"I beg to differ; this is priceless. You make yourself out to be all big and bad, but on the inside, you're afraid of dealing with a little girl who's skinned her knee! Tell me how that isn't funny."

Jen's temper – already frayed from running around on a wild goose chase for an hour, fighting swarms of Acromantulas, receiving an unjustifiably low score, and having her family threatened by the Light bastard who had authority over her for ten months out of the year – finally snapped. Shooting to her feet, her hand shot out and grabbed Tracey's collar. She pulled the girl across the table so they were nose to nose and hissed, "Tracey Davis, for all that you're my best friend, you're also a stupid, senseless bitch, you know that? Do you ever engage your brain before you run your bloody mouth? You had better learn to curb your tongue before you finally brass off someone enough that they cut the damn thing out." She shoved the shocked Slytherin back into her seat. "And for your edification, that girl was not crying because she suffered some minor injury. She had just been thrown out of the only house she knew and was soon to be split in half by four angry trolls."

Tracey's face grew cold as Jen's message sunk in. She lowered herself to her chair, knowing exactly where her words would take her friends' thoughts. All of them had been present when she spilled the secret of her little misadventure in the London alleyways, though they did not know that that had happened a full year after Vernon Dursley abandoned her on an empty sidewalk. They may have cornered her a few months ago and forced her to tell them the broad strokes of her life, but there was still a great deal of her history they were in the dark about.

Besides, being treated like a house-elf by a family of Muggles was not something that fit the doctored backstory she had given them.

"Jen, I'm sorry," the ashamed girl whispered. "You're right, I didn't stop and think. That that might have been you when you were little never even crossed my mind."

"That was obvious."

Tracey winced. After a moment, she sighed. "Did you know that my boggart is a dead baby fox?"

"No, I did not." For some reason, only Kenneth and Luna shared her surprise. "The rest of you knew?"

"Yeah, Professor Lupin had us all face a boggart in his first class last year. She was… kind of a laughingstock for a while after that got out," Morag explained.

"No one bothered to ask about the story behind it. When I was little, my mum bought me a rabbit for a pet. I absolutely adored playing with Bunnikens – I was four!" she snarled as the group tried and mostly succeeded in holding back their snickers. "Anyway, I spent every moment when I wasn't in lessons out on the lawn with him. I was late coming back inside one day, so my tutor summoned me inside the house and refused to let me go back out to get him until we were done. That particular arse generally taught for three hours at a time, but he pushed it up to five that day to 'teach me to follow my schedule'.

"By the time I got back out to look for him, he was gone. I finally found him right at sundown." Her sneer at her tutor's behavior dropped, and she sniffed so softly that it was only thanks to Jen's superior hearing that she noticed it at all. "A family of foxes had made a den on our property, and the mother killed him to feed her kits. I walked up on them while they were eating, my bunny's guts spilled out and big chunks bitten off of him. I was so mad, mad and sad and hurt. That is the first I can remember doing accidental magic; the whole den just kind of blew up like a poorly-cast Confringo. Doing that just made everything worse. Bunnikens was still dead, but now there were burnt and broken fox babies around him, too. My grandfather was the first to find me and, being the bastard that he is, said that I obviously couldn't be trusted to take care of an animal. That's why I'm one of the only people in our year not to have a pet; my family always says that 'half-bloods don't deserve any spending money', so I haven't been able to buy one on my own, either.

"That scene was burned in my head, and I think I woke up every night for a couple of months screaming from a nightmare where those dead foxes snuck into my room and started eating me. Mum finally took me to a Mind Healer after not even Calming Draughts or an Obliviate got rid of it; he said I was so deeply traumatized that it had actually become a permanent part of my subconscious and that the best we could hope for was pushing it far enough down that it wouldn't affect my normal life. I had to have daily counseling with him for six months and then weekly for another three years before he deemed me 'sufficiently stable as to no longer require ongoing therapy'. He couldn't say I was cured because… well, boggart. I can't cast any explosive spells, either; my magic just refuses to do it."

A sigh escaped the Slytherin as she looked up and reached across the table for Jen's hands. "That was the reason I found your boggart so funny. 'Here's one that is even more laughable than mine', I thought. I never considered that you might have just as good of a reason as I do for it. Merlin, Jen, I am so sorry."

Jen gave their joined hands a squeeze. "It's all right. I want to apologize as well; the reason I snapped at you so hard is that I can't punch Maxime or Dumbledore like I want to." A thought crossed her mind, and the corners of her mouth curled. "You're just a couple of weeks younger than me, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You can't buy a pet on your own, but if you got one as a birthday present from the heiress of the House of Black, your grandfather wouldn't be able to refuse it, not without being rude in the extreme."

Tracey snickered. "Oh, Jen, you are an evil, evil witch."

"Plots aside," Susan interrupted, "why do you want to hit Dumbledore?"

Wait, didn't she say her aunt was the head of the DMLE? Holding off a smirk, she answered, "He confiscated the focus I used in the wandless duels and refused to return it until Aunt Narcissa threatened to sic your aunt on him, even though it has belonged to our House for generations."

"He WHAT?!"

Since I had some comments about this last chapter, this is NOT a cliffhanger. The scene stops here.

I want to take a moment to thank four reviewers specifically. The suggestions I received from bissek, del-Cormic, garsdal, and smeehee really helped flesh out the Cissy vs Dumbledore scene. Also, please recall that both my stories use a monetary exchange of 1 galleon to 25 pounds (or 50 dollars if you're an uncouth American like me). Cissy just swindled the old man out of £15,000 / $30,000 for a $20 pair of gloves!

Oh, and speaking of Narcissa. While it is not impossible that a family known for children with black or dark brown hair would produce a blonde girl, it is highly unlikely, especially since both her sisters have dark hair. Somehow, I don't see her being willing to bleach her hair to look the same as her husband and son. The movie portrayal of Narcissa with those piebald streaks seems much more realistic to me.

What is it with me and traumatizing my female leads? Looking at all my stories, I've done it to six main characters, eight if you count piling additional shit on Luna twice.

Silently Watches out.