A/N: Sometimes, I spend all week thinking about my author's note, then forget what I wanted to write when the time comes to post.

Although nobody mentioned it, a portion of Tracey's background is drawn from "The Dunwich Horror," by H.P Lovecraft. Since Lovecraft is a muggle, he got some of the details wrong—for example, Lavinia Whateley and her sons were not the last of the Whateley line, obviously, or else Tracey wouldn't be around—but he managed to get the gist of things.

The next morning, neither Tracey nor Daphne were at breakfast. Or, rather, they were at breakfast, but they had eaten and left before more than a handful of other students had arrived. They passed Harry on their way out of the hall, and neither girl spoke to him. Tracey was sporting a black eye, and Daphne had a large bruise on her collar bone.

Harry asked Draco if he knew how Tracey and Daphne had been injured, but Draco did not. Pansy, however, was a notorious gossip, and was happy to tell Harry all about it. Apparently, a group of seventh year Gryffindor girls had been teasing Tracey in the halls about Skeeter's article, and Daphne had intervened. Teasing turned into a fistfight turned into a duel, resulting detentions all around. It sounded likely enough to Harry; it would certainly explain the bruises on Daphne and Tracey. Even Madam Pomfrey's liberal application of Bruno's Best Bruise Balm took a couple of days to fully erase the evidence of good right hook. Harry had learned this firsthand from bludger-based quidditch injuries.

Even though Tracey had said, explicitly, that she wanted to be left alone, and even though Harry had resolved to ignore Tracey until she was in a better mood, Harry couldn't manage to let things lie. Some relentless urge was driving him to speak with Tracey. Harry tried to catch her throughout the day, before and after their shared classes, but Tracey managed to make herself surprisingly elusive. It reminded Harry of the early days of their almost-friendship, when Tracey would disappear from their conversations in a rush of embarrassment.

During Arithmancy, one of the few classes that Harry did not share with Tracey, Harry overheard a group of Ravenclaws talking about Skeeter's article. Michael Corner, he thought the one was named, and Terry Boot was another. Harry tried to ignore them, but they just wouldn't stop. Their comments got nastier and nastier, and the horrible assumptions they were making about Tracey got worse and worse. It was altogether too much like the conversation he had overheard in the library during his second year, when a group of Hufflepuffs had become convinced that Harry was the Heir of Slytherin. Harry remembered that Tracey had supported him and believed in him, and he couldn't allow these Ravenclaws to badmouth her with impunity.

After class, Harry waited in the hallway for the Ravenclaws to exit the room. Hermione gave him an odd look, but Harry waved her away. He didn't want her to be around to see this, and Harry knew that she had to be across the castle for History of Magic. Hermione gave Harry a shrug and left him to his business. Harry leaned against the wall and began to twirl his wand through his fingers, doing his best to look casually intimidating. He let a scowl settle on his face and narrowed his eyes. If he wound up dueling, then fine.

At least, that's what Harry hoped his posture conveyed.

As the Ravenclaws left the room, Harry drew in breath to snap off a nasty comment. Harry had considered a few different options, but he had settled on something to the effect of, "Why don't you try getting a life of your own, instead of sticking your beaks into other people's business?" It sounded pretty good in his head, and he could imagine Draco saying it, in a different context. But before Harry could speak, Theo Nott approached the Ravenclaws from behind and pushed Terry Boot from behind. The Ravenclaw boy stumbled forward into his friends, causing them all to briefly lose their balance.

"Shut up about Tracey. You don't know her," said Theo, red-cheeked with anger. Theo was fair skinned, with short, curly blonde hair, and his flushed cheeks stood out sharply from the rest of his face.

"We don't need to know her," Terry Boot said nastily. "It's obvious what kind of wizard she is, coming from a family like that." The group of Ravenclaws began to close menacingly around Theo.

Harry spoke up. "I know she's a better wizard than you, Boot, because Tracey isn't a narrow-minded arsehole."

Boot turned around, surprised to be confronted from another direction. "What did you say, Potter?"

"You're a Ravenclaw," Harry said. "You're smart enough to understand me. Now shut your mouth about my friend."

The group of Ravenclaws began to draw their wands. Nott pushed the rest of the way through them and stood next to Harry, drawing his wand as well. The odds weren't good; there were four Ravenclaws compared to the two Slytherins. But then again, Harry had been prepared to duel them four against one, so his chances of escaping the duel without critical injury had actually improved.

"Why don't you make us," said Corner.

Harry tightened his grip on his wand and tried to think of a good jinx or hex, but the only thing that came to mind was the disarming charm. If he could disarm one or two of them, then maybe he and Nott would stand a chance against the rest.

There was a shout from down the hall, and the bright light of a charm struck Boot square in the chest. "Petrificus totalus!" Harry recognized the voice as Draco's.

As Boot toppled to the ground, the two Ravenclaws that Harry didn't recognize turned to face their unexpected attacker. Harry and Nott fired their own spells, each striking one of the distracted Ravenclaws. Harry's disarming charm knocked away the wand of one of the Ravenclaws, while Nott froze the other in place with a full-body bind. As his housemates fell prey to the Slytherin assault, Corner responded by striking Harry with a jelly-legs jinx.

Harry collapsed to the ground and his legs flopped around helplessly, no longer able to support the weight of his body. Harry watched from the floor as Draco froze Corner with a full-body bind, and Nott did the same with the Ravenclaw that Harry had disarmed. The duel was over almost as quickly as it had begun, and Harry was the only Slytherin who had even been struck with a spell.

Draco walked over to Boot and lightly tapped the Ravenclaw boy's head with the toe of his shoe. "For all the brains in that Ravenclaw head of yours, Boot, you have no common sense." Draco leaned down, until he was eye to eye with the petrified Ravenclaw, looming dangerously over his face. "Back off Davis. Don't talk to her. Don't talk about her. Don't think about her. She's off limits."

Nott helped Harry climb to his feet. "All right, Harry?"

"All right," Harry said, wobbling slightly. The jelly-legs jinx was wearing off, but the assistance was welcome.

"Come on, let's go," Draco said, appearing at Harry's other side. Harry threw an arm over Draco's shoulder, and finally was able to get his feet properly underneath him. "We need to get moving," Draco said quietly. "Those full-body binds will wear off quickly, and I'd rather not be around when they do."

"Back to the common room, then?" Nott said.

"I don't care, as long as I can sit down," Harry replied.

Once the boys were safe in the common room, Harry began interrogating Draco. "Where did you come from?"

"I was just passing by," Draco said. "I knew you had Arithmancy, so I thought I'd try to catch you after class."

"And you just started blasting?"

"Someone was going to start slinging spells," Draco said. "I thought it might as well be me. Element of surprise, and all that."

"Well, thanks," said Nott.

"I didn't expect you to defend Tracey so enthusiastically," Harry said, still suspicious.

"I wasn't about to let a couple of my mates get annihilated," Draco said. "I protect my own."

A throat cleared behind the three boys. Harry turned slowly. Looming behind him was Severus Snape.

"I understand that the three of you are responsible for freezing a handful of Ravenclaws outside the Aritmancy classroom?"

"Yes, sir," Draco said. At times like this, honesty was the only option.

"Detention. Tomorrow night. My office. Eight in the evening. Do not be late."

All three boys nodded. When Snape left, they disbanded in silence. Moments earlier, Harry had been prepared to recount their duel against the Ravenclaws in excruciating detail, recalling every beautiful moment of the ambush. Now, however, he had no interest; Snape's appearance, as it so frequently did, had put a damper on the mood.

When Harry, Nott and Draco arrived outside Snape's office the next evening, they were surprised to find that Tracey and Daphne were waiting there, as well. Their bruises had mostly faded after diligent application of Bruno's Best Bruise Balm, and the rest was almost completely concealed by the judicious application of makeup.

Nott gave Tracey a little wave, and she smiled shyly back. Daphne was more assertive.

"What are you lot doing here?" Daphne asked crisply.

"Detention," said Draco. "Rather obviously."

"A bunch of Ravenclaws were bad-mouthing Tracey," Harry said. "They wound up strewn across the second-floor corridor, mysteriously hexed. Snape seems to think it was us." Harry cocked his head to one side. "That's probably because it was us, and he heard us talking about it in the common room."

"All three of you?" Tracey asked.

"Well, it was me and Nott, at first, and then Draco showed up partway through," Harry said.

"And it's a good thing I did," Draco said haughtily. "Even with my help, you still wound up jinxed."

"We would have done fine on our own," Harry said.

"We wouldn't have won," Nott said.

"Then why were you even dueling?" asked Tracey.

"Couldn't let them say things about you like that," Nott said. He looked down and awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"Thank you… all of you," Tracey said. "I didn't expect any of this…"

"I seem to remember a short, blonde Slytherin girl nearly drowning a Hufflepuff in the hallway during our second year," Harry said teasingly. "Words were screamed, something to the effect of, 'Nobody touches Harry Potter.' Was that, or was that not, you?"

Tracey grinned. "Yeah, that was me."

"Then I needed to do this."

"And I wanted to do it," Draco said. "We needed to send a message to back off. Too many people talk badly about Slytherin, and it needs to stop."

"Our heroes," Daphne said sarcastically, with a dramatic roll of her eyes. Something about the tone of Daphne's voice, though, made Harry think that a part of her actually meant it.

The door to the office opened, and Snape stormed outward. "All of you, follow me."

Harry and his friends dutifully followed. Snape led them to a first year potions classroom. Some manner of accident had taken place earlier in the day, and half the tables were covered in burnt-on filth. It reminded Harry of a picture he had seen of a troll hovel.

"Clean this classroom. When you finish, you are released. Do not disappoint me with the quality of your work." Snape swooped away, leaving the students in the classroom.

Harry began to roll up his sleeves. "Let's get to it," he said.

"Scourgify!" Nott had his wand out, and was blasting the crud from the top of the nearest desk.

"Nott, don't!" Harry yelled. "Snape will be furious!"

"What?" Nott seemed confused. "He didn't say anything about 'no wands.' He just said 'clean.'"

Oh. Right.

"Alright then," Harry said. "Scourgify!" Harry incanted, aiming at another table.

Tracey joined Nott at his table, and together they chipped away at the dried ichor. Daphne and Draco were cleaning another table, and Daphne was standing more closely to Draco than was strictly necessary. Draco, meanwhile, was putting more than a few extra flourishes into his castings of the scouring charm.

Harry raised his eyebrows in sudden surprise. He hadn't realized it, but both Draco and Theo were here with their dates to Yule Ball, and they seemed to be having as pleasant a time as one could have in detention. And even though he was in a room with his friends, and even though everybody seemed happy, Harry somehow felt very, very alone.

Harry turned back to his table, and once again began to blast it with a scouring charm, putting as much power into his magic as possible. At the end of the evening, even though the rest of his friends were working in pairs, Harry's tables were the cleanest of them all.

*!*!*

After their shared detention with Snape, things mostly went back to normal with Harry and Tracey. Tracey began to sit next to Harry at meals once again, which was the most obvious signal that things were okay between the two of them. Harry also noticed that Theo Nott was almost always sitting across from Tracey, or next to Tracey on her other side. Harry hadn't realized that Nott fancied Tracey so much, but it seemed obvious now.

Tracey also seemed to trust Draco more than she had previously, based on his part in the duel. Harry was fairly certain that Draco had joined as a way of impressing Daphne prior to the Yule Ball, but he wasn't going to mention that to Tracey. There was no reason to start a fight among his friends, and the peacefulness that currently ruled the Slytherin fourth year students was almost unprecedented.

Hogwarts was not comprised entirely of Slytherin fourth years, however. The rest of the students in Slytherin were obviously distancing themselves from Tracey even more than they had previously, which was a feat that Harry would not have thought possible. There was neither outright aggression nor subtle antagonism against Tracey from her housemates; Harry's aura of popularity protected Tracey at least that much, and the support of a Malfoy, a Nott and a Greengrass didn't hurt, either. Besides, almost everybody in their house had some family member, either immediate or extended, who had been implicated as a Death Eater in the last war. They understood the desire to move away from a dark past.

Unfortunately for Tracey, the power of Harry's popularity ended at the door to the Slytherin common room. Nobody tried to pick any fights, not after news about Terry Boot and his friends got around, but there was a vast distance between "not dueling" and "having a pleasant day." The devious bullying that Harry had been subjected to during his second year, and again after he was selected as a champion this year, was now directed at Tracey. Harry, Daphne and Theo did their best to stay near to Tracey, but it simply wasn't possible to escort her everywhere in the school. Tracey began wearing her "Potter Stinks" badge more frequently, reminding her antagonists that their hostility might result in a disproportionate and devastating response, but Harry wasn't sure that the badge had any real effect.

The constant adverse attention left Tracey feeling extraordinarily nervous, so much so that she desperately tried to beg out of the next tournament planning session, simply because of Hermione's presence.

"She likes rules too much," Tracey said to Harry, as they walked through the halls toward the library. "Her friends in Gryffindor won't like her hanging around me."

"I think you're underestimating Hermione," Harry replied. "The Gryffindors already think it's weird that she spends so much time with a bunch of Slytherins. What's another scandal, more or less?"

Tracey made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat. "Your social sense stinks, Harry. Which of us knows more about popularity and social interaction?"

"You do," Harry admitted.

"Right. And I think she's going to hate me."

"And I think Hermione is brave enough to stand by her friends, no matter what public opinion might be," Harry insisted. "You'll be fine."

As Harry and Tracey entered the library, Madam Pince glared at the two of them. Harry waved and smiled, hoping that a bit of cheer would prevent him from being immediately kicked out. Most of the furor over Harry's selection as a champion had died down, and it was time to test the waters and see if Harry could return to the library on a full-time basis.

Hermione was at a table in the back of the library, hunched over a large book. She looked up as Harry and Tracey approached, and, before they could do anything, Hermione was out of her seat and had enveloped Tracey in a hug.

"Tracey, are you okay? I can't believe what that Skeeter woman said. She's so awful, I don't know why anybody reads a word that she writes."

"Uh…" Tracey glanced at Harry over Hermione's shoulder. She had not expected this.

Told you so, Harry silently mouthed.

Words were continuing to pour out of Hermione. "I don't care about your past. You've worked so hard to help Harry this year that it's obvious to me that you're a good wizard and a nice person, and I think we should judge people based on who they are and not some stupid thing from a hundred years ago."

Tracey blinked several times in quick succession. Harry suspected that she was trying not to cry. "Thank you," Tracey said. "This is so… unexpected."

"You're my friend," Hermione said, giving Tracey another squeeze of a hug. "I wanted you to know that there are reasonable people in the world who get their facts from sources more reliable than a gossip rag."

Tracey looked at Harry, still confused. Harry smiled knowingly—Tracey was never willing to believe that a person was her friend, unless that person explicitly said so. Even then, Tracey would doubt it.

Hermione finally released Tracey from the hug. "Stupid Rita Skeeter. It just burns me that she can print those horrible things. If I ever got my hands on her… I'd just crush her like a bug!"

"That's not very nice," Harry said. "Shouldn't you leave that to us Slytherins?"

Hermione shook her head and mashed her palms together. "No," she said simply.

Tracey stepped forward and embraced Hermione. "Thanks for being my friend," she said.

Harry glanced around. Other students in the library had begun to stare. "Hey, you two," he said. "Unless you're trying to start awkward rumors, we should bring the hug-fest to a close."

Hermione and Tracey quickly stepped apart. "Right," Hermione said, smoothing the front of her robes. "We have work to do."

The three students sat down at the table, and Hermione immediately asked Harry about his progress with the golden egg. After the first task, Ludo Bagman had told the Champions that a clue for their next task was hidden inside the golden egg, an instruction that Harry had dutifully passed along to his friends.

"Have you gotten the egg back from Dumbledore?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. "I can't seem like I'm voluntarily re-joining the tournament," Harry said. "Not this quickly, at least. I'll lose all my hard-earned social capital, if I do."

"You should be thinking about survival," Hermione said, "not Machiavellian delusions of grandeur."

"We have plenty of time," Harry said placatingly, amused that Hermione's advice was precisely the opposite of Snape's.

"Fine," Hermione said. "We'll just have to work with the limited information available to us. I've been focusing my research on magical creatures that hatch from eggs, and cross-referencing that list with creatures that are associated with gold…"