The next day, at breakfast, Harry took his usual seat between Draco and Tracey. After mail was delivered, Harry noticed that he was on the receiving end of an extraordinary amount of strange looks.

"Why is everybody staring at me?" Harry asked Draco. "Taking Ginny Weasley to the Yule Ball isn't that big of a deal."

"Yes, it is," Draco said. He and Harry had talked through the subject at length the previous evening. Draco was lobbying for Harry to un-invite Ginny and ask somebody else, like Padma Patil from Ravenclaw, instead. Harry rejected all of Draco's arguments; if Harry did something that horrible to Ginny, it would strain his business with the twins, threaten his friendship with Hermione and destroy his cheerful acquaintance with Ron. The die had been cast, and Harry couldn't change it.

"Don't start," Harry said automatically. "Anyway, shouldn't they be staring at Ginny, too? Everybody's looking over here, even the Gryffindors."

"That's because they're not staring at you," Draco said simply. Draco was reading a copy of The Daily Prophet, and he barely turned his attention away from the page to speak with Harry.

"This isn't my imagination," Harry said. "I'm used to being stared at. If I think that people are looking at me more than usual, then they're looking at me more than usual."

"They're not staring at YOU," Draco said. "They're staring at Davis."

"What?" Tracey's name caught her attention. "Why are people staring at me?"

"Here," Draco said. He placed his copy of The Daily Prophet on the table in front of Harry. "It's all in this article."

The article was written by Rita Skeeter, and appeared to be about the Tri-Wizard tournament. Harry was perplexed—she had never owled Harry to schedule an interview, and yet she had nevertheless written an article.

Draco was pointing to the body of the article. "It starts bad, and gets worse." Harry leaned forward to read it.

Potter has enlisted the help of several of his fellow students. The first, Draco Malfoy, is Potter's closest friend. Draco is the scion of one of wizarding England's oldest pureblood families. Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father, was implicated in Death Eater activities during You-Know-Who's rise to power, but was never convicted.

"Never convicted!" Draco interrupted. "More like, 'exonerated based on overwhelming evidence of innocence!'" Draco slapped the page with the back of his hand. "She completely ignored all the assistance my father provided to the Ministry at the Death Eater trials! Who does she think she is?"

Harry shushed his friend. "I can't read if you keep moving the paper."

The second member of Potter's cadre is Hermione Granger. Granger is a muggleborn witch who is well known among the staff of Hogwarts for having the highest marks in her year—some might say suspiciously high. Notably, Ms. Granger voluntarily removed herself from Divination classes, a course of study which is well-known for frequently exposing frauds.

"What a piece of garbage," Harry grumbled. Skeeter's statement about divination was absurd—the reason that divination produced so many frauds was because of the discipline's lack of rigor. While any wizard could see if a pincushion was improperly transfigured into a hedgehog, even the most specific prophecies remained frustratingly vague.

"I agree," said Draco. When Harry gave him a surprised look, Draco shrugged. "What? Granger's earned everything she's got. I don't like where she came from, but I wouldn't want to duel her, either."

Harry shook his head and looked back to the article.

Last but not least, Potter has recruited Tracey Davis, a half-blood witch from London. While Davis's name is not particularly notable in either the wizarding or muggle world, this reporter has discovered that there is more to Ms. Davis than meets the eye. Through tireless investigative reporting, it has been determined that Tracey Davis is the daughter of Wiona Davis nee Whateley, of the notorious Dunwich Whateleys.

Harry looked up. Tracey had turned as white as a sheet.

"Is it true?" Draco asked Tracey.

Tracey shook her head rapidly. She wasn't answering Draco's question—she was refusing to answer. "I have to go," Tracey said quietly. She stood and ran from the Great Hall. Dozens of pairs of eyes followed her as left, and the hall burst into whispers as soon as she was gone.

Harry turned back to Draco. "Are you going to tell me what a Dunwich Whateley is, or are you going to leave me to wallow in my muggle-raised ignorance?"

"It's… not good," Draco said. "The Whateley name does not have a good reputation in the wizarding world. Not any more, at least. It's been years since they've shown themselves in Britain. I assumed that the line had died out…" Draco frowned.

"Okay, so it's some old scandal? So what?" Harry asked.

"It's not just a scandal," Draco said. "It's far worse. A few hundred years ago, the Whateleys were a highly respected family. Purebloods, of course, and highly influential in the wizarding world. A Whateley was even a signatory of the original International Statute of Secrecy. But in the 1600s, Waller Whateley, the patriarch of the family, made a series of poor business decisions. Disastrous, actually—my father uses them as examples of 'what not to do' whenever he starts ranting about our investments."

"Tracey didn't run out of here because of a bad business decision," Harry said.

"The collapse of the business started a downward spiral for the Whateleys. The family was forced to move to the colonies in one last, desperate attempt to reclaim their fortune. Upon their arrival, they were… less than discrete. They riled up some muggles and there was a witch hunt."

"Wait. I know about this. Salem, Massachusetts?"

Draco nodded. "The Whatleys were flagrantly violating the Statute of Secrecy, using magic to intimidate muggles. Waller Whateley was attempting to set up his own little kingdom in America. You could call him a dark lord, except for the fact that the colonies had nothing other than muggles for him to lord over. The backlash from the muggles led to the witch trials in Salem. Ultimately, a few dozen aurors crossed the pond and took care of things."

"Can you get to the point?" Harry asked. Draco never told the two-minute version of a story, not when the ten-minute version would do. On most days it wasn't an annoyance, but Harry was worried about Tracey. "What about Dunwich?"

"Fine fine," Draco said. "After Waller Whateley was killed by aurors, the rest of the family was given a stern warning. Or a death threat, depending on how you look at it. No more trouble. And that was enough, until about 1920, in Dunwich." Draco paused. "I'm really not sure I should be telling you this. Waller Whateley is history—you can look him up in any textbook. But Dunwich is rather… recent."

"So?" Harry was annoyed. He knew that Draco was playing this up for drama.

"Pureblood families don't reveal other purebloods' dirty laundry. Sure, we constantly spy on one another, and any time a pureblood family suffers a public humiliation the rest of us try to capitalize upon it… but if you discover some private humiliation, you keep it quiet."

"Until the time comes for blackmail," Harry said.

"Of course." Draco rolled his eyes. "Why can't you ever leave anything unsaid?"

"Lack of subtlety. Gryffindor parents and all that," Harry said. "And don't change the subject. Plenty of wizards who were alive in the twenties are still around. Dumbledore, for one. Everybody's acting like they know about Dunwich, so don't pretend that this is some long-buried secret."

"Fine, but you didn't hear it from me." Draco lowered his voice. "Apparently, the Whateley family never stopped trying to regain their influence. But muggles rose to power too quickly in the colonies. With the Statute of Secrecy in place, wizards couldn't establish themselves at the same pace, and they got crowded out. Most wizarding families returned to Britain, where our community was already firmly entrenched. Those that stayed in the colonies, like the Whateleys… well… Let me put it this way. Britain's pureblood families are heavily intermarried, because that's the only way they could stay pureblooded. The Whateley family was the only pureblood family in the States, and over the next three hundred years they managed to stay a pureblooded family… if you get my meaning."

Harry made a face.

"Exactly. And then came the Dunwich Horror." Draco paused.

Harry struggled to hold back an exasperated sigh. Clearly, the only way he was going to get the story out of Draco was by playing along. "Dunwich Horror?" Harry said. "That sounds ominous."

Draco nodded. "So the story goes like this: the youngest daughter of the Whateley line made an unsavory bargain with some sort of magical being. It was supposed to bring immense magical power back into the Whateley family. She had two sons. One was notorious for strange behavior, and he was killed by a dog…"

"That's rather mundane."

"…while attempting to steal an ancient dark magic spellbook made of human skin. His body melted into ichor less than an hour after his death."

"Oh," Harry said. That was less mundane.

"The other brother stormed through the countryside in an angry rage," Draco said. "He destroyed half of Dunwich before he was killed by some local half-blood wizards. His footprints were ten feet wide and five feet deep, and his face was half-covered in squid tentacles. Of the two brothers, he was the one who looked more like their father."

Harry's eyes had gone wide. He knew that the magical world was strange and bizarre, but he had never imagined something as horrific as fathering children with some sort of demon…

"How do you know all this?" Harry asked.

"You think I don't know my pureblood history?"

"Not about the family," Harry said. "About what happened with the Whateley brothers."

Draco shrugged. "You hear things."

Harry could not restrain his exasperated sigh. "So you don't know. This is all speculation and rumor. What if it didn't happen? Or what if Skeeter is wrong about Tracey's mother?"

"Harry, it doesn't matter! Everybody thinks it's true!" Draco shook his head. "We should probably stop speaking with Tracey. Even sitting next to her at breakfast might have been a mistake."

"Draco. She's our friend."

"Correction: she's your friend. And after today's article, she shouldn't be. Not any longer." Draco took a drink of his pumpkin juice. "I never was sure why you adopted her, anyway. It's a good thing that Hogwarts doesn't have a problem with stray cats, or you'd have our common room entirely overrun."

"Tracey is not a stray cat."

"No, she's far more damaging to your reputation. This is why you shouldn't be friends with unpopular people. They're usually unpopular for a reason."

Draco abruptly stopped speaking as Daphne Greengrass sat down in the empty seat next to Harry.

"Have you seen Tracey?" Daphne asked. Daphne seemed flustered, which was unusual. Actually, Harry couldn't think of a time that he had ever seen Daphne upset.

"She ran out a few minutes ago, after Draco showed us this article in the Prophet," Harry said.

"Oh, shite," Daphne said.

Harry's eyebrows shot up. Seeing Daphne agitated was unusual, but hearing Daphne curse was, well, unheard of. "You saw the article, then?"

"Yes, I saw it," Daphne snapped. "I was hoping that Tracey hadn't."

Something was strange about Daphne's behavior, beyond her agitation. It took Harry a moment, but he finally realized what it was: Daphne didn't seem surprised. She wasn't acting indignant, either.

"You knew," Harry said. "It's true, and you knew."

"What of it?" Daphne glared at Harry.

"Nothing," Harry said. "Tracey never told me." Harry felt surprisingly hurt. He felt close enough to Tracey that he shared his secrets with her, and he had thought that she felt the same way.

"It's not the sort of thing you go spouting off about," Daphne said.

"So how did you know, then?" Harry asked.

Daphne sighed. "Tracey and I grew up together. Her mother was my governess."

Draco leaned forward, so that he could be seen past Harry. "Your mother hired a Whateley? Was she stupid, or just negligent?" It was as if Draco had completely forgotten his intent to take Daphne to the Yule Ball.

"Unlike your mother, mine had better things to do than sit at home and coddle me," Daphne said. "She hired Mrs. Davis to make sure that Astoria and I knew how to behave in polite company. Clearly, you could have used some lessons on the subject."

"Still, a Whateley?" Draco wouldn't stop saying the name.

"Where else do you propose to find a society-raised pureblood witch willing to work as a governess?"

The question brought Draco up short. "That's rather clever, actually."

Daphne raised her nose and looked back to Harry. "My family hired Mrs. Davis after Astoria was born. Mrs. Davis was by far the most qualified candidate to be our governess. Tracey came along to her mother's interview; since we would be spending so much time around one another, it was important to see how she and I would get on. We were best friends before our mothers finished introducing us." Daphne smiled. "Or, at least, that's how my mother tells the story to me."

"Then why didn't I ever see Tracey with you and Astoria?" Draco asked. "When Tracey was sorted, I had no idea who she was. Neither did Pansy. But I knew you and Astoria from a dozen galas and celebrations."

"It's Tracey's mother," Daphne said, somewhat bitterly. "She treated Astoria and I better than her own child. She wouldn't let Tracey out of the house, because she was afraid that Tracey would reveal their secrets." Daphne shook her head. "Besides, an unknown halfblood named Davis isn't news at Hogwarts, but a halfblood named Davis who is suddenly circulating among the pureblood elite? That raises questions. Mrs. Davis couldn't afford to have anybody digging into her past."

"You said secrets, plural," Harry said. "What secret do you mean, other than the Whateley thing?"

"Tracey's a half-blood," Daphne said. "Her father is a muggle. Mrs. Davis is almost as ashamed of the name Davis as she is ashamed of the name Whateley."

"So, Tracey got shut in whenever you and Astoria were let out," Harry said. "Even if her mother didn't say it out loud, Tracey started to think that there was something wrong with her. Something she needed to be ashamed of." Harry knew that feeling, intimately. Tracey might not have been literally locked in a cupboard, but it was the next-worst thing. "She never made any friends except for you and Astoria. And so she arrived at Hogwarts with a fantastic knowledge of how to behave socially, but a horrific lack of experience in actual social interactions."

Daphne nodded. "I tried to help her make friends, but she didn't want to be helped. I actually had to trick her into helping you order your dress robes for Pansy's party at the end of first year."

Harry smiled. That was a fond memory. He had come a long way, since then. There were still some things that he didn't understand about wizards, but at least he could dress himself.

"I'm going to go find Tracey," Harry said. "She probably needs cheering up."

Daphne shook her head. "Whenever Tracey gets upset, she gets quiet and runs out of the room. You are somehow interpreting that as a signal that she wants to be around you and talk about her problems?"

"I just…"

"Tracey's liable to come at you like a crazed kneazle." Daphne said. "I know this from experience. There's nothing we can do right now. Finish your breakfast and talk to Tracey later. Give the girl a few minutes to get her composure."

Harry took a few more bites of his pancakes, but they tasted like ashes. He needed to find Tracey. Even if she would be angry at him, she deserved to know that he supported her.

"I can't wait," Harry said as he stood from the table. "I have to go find her."

Daphne rolled her eyes. "You'll just make it worse."

"Worse on yourself," said Draco.

Harry shook his head. He was getting the same advice for different reasons, but it went against his instincts. Normally, he'd ask Tracey for advice when he didn't know what to do, but since this involved Tracey, Harry was forced to muddle through it as best he could. Harry's instincts said that he should reassure his friend, so that's what he was going to do.

Harry walked briskly out of the Great Hall. Harry waited until he was in an empty hallway before he activated the Marauder's Map. Because the majority of students were collected in the Great Hall, it took only a few seconds of searching before he located the dot representing Tracey. She was tucked away in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom; always a good place for a cry, and misery loved company.

When Harry entered the bathroom, Tracey was nowhere to be seen. The bathroom was perfectly silent. Almost. Harry paused in mid-step—there was a soft sniffling sound, coming from one of the stalls.

Harry ducked down and looked under the stalls, but there were no feet on the floor. Harry glanced at the map again and saw that Tracey was definitely in the bathroom. Probably holding her feet off the ground so that she wouldn't be seen.

Harry approached quietly, watching as his dot on the Marauder's Map moved closer and closer to Tracey's. When their dots were next to one another, Harry knocked on the nearest stall door.

"Tracey, are you okay?"

"AAAAH!"

Harry jumped, surprised by Tracey's scream. He had forgotten that he had been sneaking around the bathroom, a girl's bathroom, and Tracey had no idea that he was there. "Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you. It's Harry." There was no response from inside the stall. "Are you okay?"

"Of course not. Go away," said Tracey. Her voice was thick.

"Come out here and talk," said Harry.

"No."

"Let me in?"

"NO! I want to be alone."

Harry sighed. "Come on, Tracey. Rita Skeeter's column doesn't matter. It's just gossip."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not being stupid," Harry said. "Everybody will forget this story in a few weeks."

"No they won't."

"Yes, they will," Harry said, sighing. "It's happened to me a dozen times. I get accused of something I didn't do, everybody hates me for two weeks, then they forget about it."

"They won't forget about this."

"Yes they-"

"THEY WON'T FORGET ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!" Tracey screamed. Her shrill voice echoed painfully off the tile walls of the bathroom. Harry could hear the hitches in Tracey's breathing as she struggled to hold back tears.

"So what if it's true?" Harry said. "Who cares what your mother's maiden name was, or what your family did seventy years ago?" As soon as Harry said it, he knew exactly how stupid he sounded. Of course blood mattered.

Tracey recognized this, as well, based on her mirthless laughter. "My life is ruined forever."

Harry rolled his eyes, thankful that Tracey couldn't see him. "This won't ruin your life forever. It'll blow over. Two years ago, people were climbing over one another to accuse me of going dark because I'm a parselmouth. Today, those same people are cheering for me during the Tri-Wizard tournament."

"It's different for you."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is," Tracey insisted. "It's different because you're Harry Potter, Golden Child of the Wizarding World." Harry could hear the capitalization in Tracey's voice. "You get free passes for everything. Do you realize what it would take in order for the wizarding world to actually believe you've gone dark? You'd have to murder Dumbledore in front of a dozen ministry employees. But me? Some no-name half-blood girl?" Tracey made a sound, and Harry wasn't sure if she was laughing or crying.

"I spent years distancing myself from my family's past," Tracey said. "I've been building up this image if a quiet girl who works hard and has two important friends. And in one day, that's all gone to shit. Now, the only thing that anybody will see is a reclusive dark wizard who schemed and manipulated herself into high circles before she was found out."

"It isn't all shit," Harry said. "You still have your friends."

"Not for long. Draco's told you all about my family, I'm sure. If he hadn't, you wouldn't be here, trying to cheer me up."

Harry had been prepared to deny that, but Tracey had already sorted it through. "Right. So, he did."

"And if he told you about my family, he probably told you to drop me as a friend."

"That's ridiculous." And Draco's suggestion had been just that: ridiculous.

"Did you ever wonder why I only had one friend?" Tracey asked.

Harry was thrown by the non-sequitur. "I think you mean two friends," Harry said. "Don't forget me." His joke sounded lame, even to himself.

"This isn't funny."

"Sorry. Really… I thought you were just shy," Harry said weakly.

"Merlin. Did you ever wonder why I was shy?"

"Er…"

"What are my parent's names?"

"They're… um…" That was an excellent question. Harry had no idea. The article had mentioned the name of Tracey's mother, but Harry had already forgotten.

"Did you ever wonder why I never talk about my parents? Why they never drop me off or meet me at King's Cross? Did you ever wonder why I don't go on vacation with my family? Why I don't show off pictures of mummy and daddy on their last safari? Why I don't talk about aunts or uncles or cousins or anybody?"

"No," Harry said softly. He was a horrible friend.

"OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T!" Harry heard Tracey step down from the toilet. She tore open the door, and before Harry could say anything, Tracey marched forward and poked her finger into his chest. Tears were running down her face, but her voice was pure anger. "You didn't think about me, or my family, or anything, because you're a self-consumed, arrogant prat! 'Oh, I'm Harry Potter, my parents are dead and it's the worst thing in the world, it's impossible that anybody else has ever suffered a tragedy as great as mine, but look at me, I'm so amazing that I can rise above the adversity and become a brilliant young wizard and everybody should hug me because I'm just so great that I fart rainbows and everybody is lucky to smell them!'"

"Don't get mad at me," Harry said indignantly. "I'm trying to help!"

"THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO! There's nothing you can do and you don't GET IT because you never have to DEAL WITH THIS. You have no idea what this is like," Tracey said. "My father is a muggle, because no wizard would touch somebody with the Whateley last name. And I really mean that—my mother wasn't picky. She wasn't asking anybody to marry her. She just wanted a child. And she had to settle for seducing a muggle!"

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but Tracey kept going.

"I couldn't play with other wizards when I was little, because 'wizards ask too many questions and somebody might recognize mummy.'" Tracey took a mocking tone and tipped her head back and forth as she affected her mother's voice. "I couldn't play with muggle children, because 'muggles are worthless little rotters, but that's our little secret and we'll never tell daddy.'" Tracey scowled. "Not that my mother actually gives a damn about his feelings. She's obliviated my father so many times that he's gone off in the head and he stumbles around the flat like an idiot. I'm fairly certain that I was conceived under the influence of a love potion."

"Tracey, I had no idea…"

"I know you didn't. That's the problem." Tracey scowled. "Just leave me alone." She stormed out of the bathroom, leaving Harry stunned in her wake.

Harry heard the nearby chiming of a clock. He walked quickly into the hallway and discovered that he was late for class. Tracey was nowhere to be seen.

Harry shook his head. Fine. Whatever. If Tracey wanted to be left alone, Harry would leave her alone. He had other things to do.

A/N: Most of the reviews from last chapter expressed similar sentiments: (1) Harry is thick as a brick, and (2) He should be with Tracey! I think Tracey would agree with you. Unfortunately, one of the things that didn't change when Harry was sorted into Slytherin is that Harry is completely clueless when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex.