Disclaimer: Rita Skeeter maybe sloppy enough to report that I own Harry Potter, but I'm not. All rights go to JK Rowling.

Parts of this chapter are quoted from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

A/N: On magical contracts: Many reviewers were correct in saying that it would be possible to bind someone into any contract with the Goblet of Fire or some other powerful artifact with liberal use of Confundus Charms. However, there are two qualifiers to this. First, the more you bend the "normal" rules of contract law, the more powerful the Confundus has to be, so not just anyone can do it.

More importantly, we don't know what the consequences are of breaking a binding magical contract, but the world that JK Rowling built makes no sense if they include death (which should be the exclusive province of the Unbreakable Vow) or loss of magic (which is implied to be physically impossible). Therefore, the consequences must be less severe, like Hermione's D.A. Contract Jinx, and therefore, getting out of the contract is merely a matter of being willing to accept those consequences. All that will probably not be important in this story, which is why I'm mentioning it here.

(Accordingly, I have a real problem with fics that invoke "marriage contracts", and no one so much as asks whether it's possible to get out of them. That's the trope I was really trying to undermine in the last chapter, and I apologise if my explanation was incomplete.)

Thanks to bexis1 for the smoke detector idea.

Chapter 69

Ron may have felt shut out by his friends, but Hermione was feeling pretty useless herself. She had won Harry some more allies who believed him with her rant against Gryffindor, but there weren't many besides the group that had overrun the library. She could start thinking about new hexes that might help Harry in the Tournament, but without knowing what the Tasks were, she really had no direction. She tried anyway, but she didn't get very far. Worse yet, that night Fleur confronted her sternly about the whole thing.

"I heard you're going to be helping Potter in the Tournament, 'Ermione," the older girl said in the carriage that night. Fleur herself seemed to be interested in Hermione's response, but the rest of the Beauxbatons contingent didn't wait and expressed their disapproval at once.

"You are helping the enemy!" one of the boys said loudly.

Hermione sighed. She had noticed that that particular boy seemed to be especially affected by Fleur's allure. "Enemy?" she said. "What enemy? This Tournament is supposed to be about international cooperation."

"It's still not right for you not to support your school just because we are facing your old one," one of the girls said.

"I'm not supporting Hogwarts," Hermione protested. "Harry wasn't selected for Hogwarts—although I would help Cedric if he asked, but that's because I'm his friend. And Fleur, I'll help you if you want because, too, I'd like to consider you a friend. But I will be helping Harry because he's been my closest friend for three years."

"You're still competing against our Champion," the first boy protested.

"I'm really not. I'm not trying to help Harry win. I'm trying to help him survive. He's very good for a fourth year, but I don't believe he could really compete with the other champions. He'll need all the help he can get just to get through it."

"But—"

"I think 'Ermione has made her point," Fleur cut them off, using her haughty voice. "I do not believe Potter is a threat. He is only fourteen, after all. 'Ermione, I might ask for your help later on, but I think I will be ready."

"Thank you, Fleur," she said.

The high point of Harry's week came on Wednesday morning, when he received a magic mirror that allowed him to talk to Sirius face to face, along with a photo of his family and a letter from his mother. Hermione (along with Ginny and every other girl who saw it) thought the photo was adorable.

"I see where you got your flying skills, Harry," Ginny giggled.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said.

Hermione was more interested in the letter, however. Bathilda Bagshot claimed Headmaster Dumbledore knew the dark lord Grindelwald in his youth? That was something to investigate more closely if she ever had the time.

Harry had a nice, long talk with Sirius and Remus through the mirror, which he enjoyed, but it wasn't very productive. They both agreed that Harry couldn't get out of the Tournament safely and that it was probably an attempt to hurt or kill him. Naturally, they were very worried, but they said they trusted Dumbledore and Professor Moody to keep him safe.

Hermione borrowed the mirror for a private conversation with Sirius and Remus while Harry went to class. She evaded telling him what it was for. She didn't want to get his hopes up until she was sure it would work. She was holed up in the Room of Requirement for a lot of Wednesday and Thursday, although she made one exception. She took Harry along on Thursday to ask Professor Moody to try the Imperius Curse on her again.

"Again?" he said incredulously. "I never met a lass who so eager about it." He shot her an exaggerated lascivious grin to make sure she got the point.

"I didn't say I liked it," Hermione protested. Her stomach turn, and she would have walked out if he hadn't proved himself trustworthy last time. "I just think it's important to learn to fight it to the best of my abilities—especially with the Death Eaters showing their faces again."

"Careful, Miss Granger, you might start to sound like me." He laughed mockingly. "Anyway, I didn't give any of the Hogwarts students extra classes."

"You also said most of them were hopeless," she observed. "You kept testing Harry until he could throw it off completely."

"Huh—Well, you've got me there," Moody said. He tested her a couple more times. Hermione mustered up all her determination—that feeling last spring when she decided to take control of her life, her unwavering command of numbers and figures, her resistance to getting them wrong last time—and practically threw it at Moody. It was still almost impossible for her to break the curse, but she could fight it hard enough to noticeably hinder Moody in making her carry out his commands. With luck, that would be enough to alert others that she was being controlled, that was still a big advantage.

"Well, I doubt you'll be able to do much more beyond that," Moody told her. "This is one of those things you either have or you don't. But still, you did better than most—a lot better."

Hermione accepted that and went back to her work. On Friday morning, her hard work had paid off. She barely had enough time to catch Harry before her Portkey was to leave, and Madame Maxime was keeping her on a much shorter leash this time, but she really needed to talk to him, so she made it.

"Harry, good. There you are," she said, running up to him before breakfast. "Listen, I only have a few minutes. You know how I've been talking to Sirius?"

"Uh, yeah," Harry said.

"Well, he's arranged for me to get a Portkey back to Hogwarts for the First Task, so I'll be able to come see it."

"Oh. That's good, I guess."

"Well, there's more to it than that," she said. "Unless something comes up, I'll be coming in on the morning of the First Task. I really don't think I'll be much good to you without knowing what the Task is. But Sirius is arranging for me to get a touch-activated Portkey instead of a timed one so I can come early if I need to. They don't normally do that across international borders, but you know how Sirius is right now. I mean, I told him I was uncomfortable with him spending that much money on me, but he wouldn't hear of it. He says you need all the help you can get. Anyway, if you find out what the First Task is, you can contact me, and I'll come to help you prepare."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"Well…thanks. That means a lot."

"I couldn't let you face this alone, Harry. Especially with Ron…" They both turned and looked at Ron, who scowled at them from a distance. Hermione was getting worried about him. He had been a stubborn prat before, but he had never been like this…Well he'd come close over "Scabbers" last spring. "But I have something for you," she turned back to Harry. "Take this, and don't lose it."

He looked at the thing she had pressed into his hand: "A galleon?"

She shook her head. "It's not a real galleon," she said. "You feel how much lighter it is than usual? It's made of brass, and you can see at the top it says COPY—I didn't want to make the goblins mad. It's a way for you to contact me immediately, in case it would take too long for Hedwig to get to the Pyrenees. I put a Protean Charm on it—which wasn't easy, let me tell you. It's N.E.W.T. standard. I had to have Remus help me. Anyway, look along the rim."

Harry did and read off the letters there: "NO MESSAGE."

"You can send a message by tapping you wand to it four times. Write it letter by letter on the coin face using your wand tip like a quill, and tap four times to end the message. It'll hold up to forty characters, including spaces and punctuation. I have my own coin, and it'll heat up to alert me and show me the message. Then, I can come right away if I need to."

"Wow, you didn't need to do all that."

"Honestly, I don't think it's that much compared with facing a horde of dementors. I'm just doing what I can. Good luck Harry." Hermione hugged him, paused for a moment, and left. She strongly considered kissing him on the cheek, but she decided that doing that in public would be a very bad idea. It wouldn't take much for people to misconstrue that.

And so, after an exhausting week, she was on her way back to Beauxbatons, where they didn't have messes like this. And yet, she would much rather have been by her best friend's side.

Dear Hermione,

We—reluctantly—understand about the Portkey. That was still very careless of you, though. It's terrible that Harry's being put in more danger, and we've decided that we will allow you to attend these "Tasks", so long as you don't make that kind of mistake again.

We're shipping you the things you asked for. It sounds like a very interesting project. But we're not sending you any uranium. Even if we knew where to get some, that's just asking for trouble.

Love from,

Mum and Dad

Deaer Mum and Dad,

Thank you for the supplies. Could you maybe send me a smoke detector instead? It's not important that it's electronic. It's because it'll have a little piece of americium in it. I won't try to tamper with it with magic. I just need an element that's all radioactive as a control for my tests.

Love from,

Hermione

Hermione's next week was a flurry of activity. The other Beauxbatons students wanted to know all about Hogwarts, what she did there all week, the Champion selection, and especially Harry. Many of them weren't happy that Hogwarts got an extra Champion or that he had upstaged Fleur, but Hermione answered all of their questions as far as she was able (and was comfortable) and she tried to emphasise that Harry was competing against his will and that she was really worried about him. Unfortunately, just like at Hogwarts, few people seemed to believe her.

Hermione's main distraction for the next week was catching up on her schoolwork. Her teachers had not been happy with her missing three extra days of class, even though she still got stellar grades. There was also her maths independent study, her arithmancy papers, and inventing hexes for Harry to worry about. If she played her cards right, a lot of that could overlap with her Arithmancy class, but it was clear she was going to be taking a different direction in that class this year from what she'd expected.

Another task that she had set for herself was mapping Beauxbatons Castle. She had decided to set aside one hour per week to work on her map, which she hoped to eventually turn into something like the Marauder's Map. By now, she had already mapped out all of the corridors, and she had recruited one of the house elves to show her and Dobby all the secret passages. Sadly, Beauxbatons didn't seem to have anything like the Room of Requirement—an oversight that she wanted to investigate a bit closer—but there were other rooms she could reasonbly use for spell testing if she didn't go overboard.

It was on Saturday morning, a week after she got back, when she noticed something strange was going on—well, stranger than usual: an awful lot of people were pointing at her and whispering. A number of girls giggled or cooed when they saw her, but a greater number of boys and girls were scowling at her or giving her the cold shoulder. It was so unusual that she stopped and checked her appearance in the Mirror Gallery to make sure there was nothing wrong with her, but nothing looked out of place. She couldn't think of anything that would cause this kind of shift in opinion. Finally, she met up with Hildegard and Adèle at breakfast and said, "Okay, what is going on? Everyone's looking at me like I'm an animal in a zoo."

"What? Don't you know?" Hidegard replied with an irritated tone.

"Not until you tell me."

"Here, see for yourself," Adèle said, and handed her a newspaper. To Hermione's surprise, it was the Daily Prophet. Even more to her surprise, there was an article in it about Harry—or, nominally, an article about the four Triwizard Champions, but the article was pretty much all about Harry—and that mostly about his life story, not the Tournament itself.

Watchers of the revived Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts received a shock last week when Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was selected as a fourth Triwizard Champion. Despite Harry's suspect entry into the contest, the judges ruled that he was bound by contract and was to compete for Hogwarts.

"No, he isn't," Hermione said, though no one was really listening. "He was entered under a fourth school. Cedric is the Hogwarts Champion."

Unfortunately, the rest of the article—and it was a long article—went downhill from there. The reporter had allegedly got an exclusive interview with Harry, but the article's description of Harry himself was purple, at best.

An ugly scar, souvenir of a tragic past, disfigures the otherwise charming face of Harry Potter, whose eyes—

"Who says it's ugly? He told me once he liked how his scar looked before he knew what it meant." But that wasn't the worst, from the description, the article went into the interview itself, and the transcript of the interview made her wonder if it wasn't invented from whole cloth.

Tears fill those startling green eyes as our conversation turns to the parents he can barely remember…"I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they'd be very proud of me if they could see me now…Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I'm not ashamed to admit it…I know nothing will hurt me during the Tournament because they're watching over me…"

"No way!" Hermione said. "There's no way he said that. Even Harry isn't that foolhardy. His parents wouldn't be proud. They'd be scared out of their wits. Even Sirius is worried, and he's way more reckless than Harry is. And…he still cries about his parents…? That doesn't sound like him. I don't think I've ever seen him actually cry when he talks about his parents…although I guess I've slept in the same room with him…"

It took her a minute to collect herself after reading that rubbish. The rest of the article was filled with yet more ups and downs. The part about Sirius was surprisingly accurate:

Harry lived with muggle relatives until this summer, when his godfather, Sirius Black, was exonerated of the crimes for which he was sent to Azkaban. Black took Harry in this summer, despite still recovering from his ordeal. Questions have been raised about Black's competence, given his long-term dementor exposure and his long-term association with a known werewolf, Remus Lupin. Harry, however, said he enjoyed his new accommodations.

"Sirius is wonderful. He's not perfect, but he tries so hard. My relatives and I could never understand each other, them not having magic, and all. It's a lot better living in the magical world. I've only known Sirius for a few months, but I already love him like a second father. He's going help me train to win the Tournament."

That actually wasn't far off the mark, except for the winning part, Hermione thought, but that still wasn't how Harry talked.

"Did you get to the part about you, yet?" Hildegard asked.

"There's a part about me?"

Hildegard and Adèle smirked at her. Hermione scanned down until she saw her name, and she then understood why she kept getting funny looks.

Harry was modest about his romantic life, but according to his classmates, it is as fraught and complicated as the rest. Harry found love early at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that he was rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl with a growing list of accomplishments to her own name. Harry's sweetheart began an accelerated course in Arithmancy in her first year, has published several scholarly papers, and began marketing a small line of potions kits in apothecaries this summer.

"His sweetheart?" Hermione cried, lapsing into English. "That's ridiculous! We're just friends!"

"Right. Just 'friends'," her roommates said.

"I mean it! Their source is wrong. Colin Creevey isn't Harry's close friend. He's a fan-boy who's always trying to take his photo. Honestly, can you imagine me dating Harry? I'm already a nervous wreck without being in love with him. And besides, he and Ginny are more interested in each other. Anyone who pays attention knows—" She trailed off when she remembered that, apparently, no one did pay attention to Harry—not with the way he was constantly disbelieved. Why did she even bother? She shut her mouth and kept reading:

Sadly, tragedy struck the young couple this year, when Hermione's parents forced her to transfer to Beauxbatons after she was involved in several dangerous incidents at Hogwarts. But they seem to be making their long-distance relationship work, and Hermione even visited Hogwarts in order to see her boyfriend's entry into the Tournament and will return to watch Harry compete in each of the tasks.

Harry, of course, had only good things to say about his girlfriend, lavishing praise on her especially for her spellcrafting skills.

"She's brilliant. Definitely the best in the school. She's helping me train, too. She's inventing all kinds of new hexes I can use."

This was an insult to responsible journalism. Harry might think that, but there's no way he would say it—not like that, and Hermione said so.

"That's not the worst," Adèle said. "See what it says about Fleur."

The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang Champions in the Triwizard Tournament are Fleur Delacoeur and Victor Krum, respectively.

"What?!" Hermione said. "They don't even mention Cedric! And they misspelled the other names. Who wrote this thing?" She looked at the byline: Rita Skeeter. She groaned. It was the same woman who had attacked Mr. Weasley and other Ministry officials over the World Cup fiasco. She supposed she count her blessings that Skeeter had at least listed Harry as the "fourth Champion" so that people who were paying attention would know there was another one. But no, she couldn't tolerate this kind of hack job. Something would need to be done.

She remembered something from last spring. She ran back to her room after breakfast and removed an acid-green quill from her trunk that she had found in the Room of Requirement, but never really done anything with. Setting it up on a parchment, she tried to imitate how she thought Colin Creevey would describe her: "You used to see Harry and Hermione Granger together all the time. She's brilliant, she is, but her parents made her transfer to Beauxbatons."

The quill, however, wrote its own version of her words:

Harry was rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl with a growing list of accomplishments to her own name. Sadly, tragedy struck the young couple this year, when Hermione's parents forced her to transfer to Beauxbatons.

Well, that was how Rita Skeeter had done it. She must have a quill just like this one, apparently designed to write fictionalised and purple prose. What she could do with that information, though, she didn't know yet.

There wasn't anything she could do now, she admitted. She tried to put it from her minds and relax with one of her other side projects, but it was difficult. In addition to mapping the castle, she had set aside an hour a week to try to reverse engineer her omnioculars from the Quidditch World Cup. Her primary goal was to figure out how to transfer their video recordings onto a more watchable medium to make them into a real video camera. She had bought a cheap magical camera for comparison, too. So far, she had figured out how the recordings were stored in the instrument; it seemed to be some kind of crystal—two crystals, rather, one for each lens. That gave her interesting ideas about 3D displays, but that was much further down the road. She thought maybe she had a simple way to transfer it onto ordinary magical film, but only in ten-second increments, like a regular magical photo, and she wasn't sure. Maybe when she visited Hogwarts next, she could ask for help from…Oh, dear: Colin Creevey.

Molly Weasley was a little more credulous than Hermione Granger as she read Rita Skeeter's interview. Her emotions shifted rapidly as she waded through it. She was furious all over again that Harry had been allowed to enter the Tournament. Whether it had been deliberate or not, they had still let him get in way over his head. And, she was sad to say, her youngest son was no help. From her other childrens' letters, Ron had been sulky and jealous ever since Halloween. That was no way to treat a friend. Thank Merlin for Ginny, she thought, and she'd never thought she'd say this, but thank Merlin for Fred and George, too. At least they were still supporting him.

Later on, the part about Harry's family had Molly in tears. "He still cries about his parents!" she said. "Oh bless him, I never knew!" But a few paragraphs after that, she was in for a shock.

Harry and Hermione? Molly had honestly not seen that coming. And really, she should have, knowing how devoted Hermione was to Harry. She could even admit that they would make a lovely couple. But it had to be hard on Ginny. She hoped her daughter wasn't taking it too badly. Harry and Ginny seemed to have grown close from what she wrote in her letters and from Harry's visits this past summer. Molly was thrown for a loop when she read that things had gone in a different direction. And she had no idea where Ron stood on this, especially after this dreadful falling out. Hermione had been a surprisingly good influence on him until this mess. She had thought that maybe in spite of how different they were…

Of course, it was far too early to be seriously thinking about such things, but Molly couldn't help imagining sometimes that it would just be so perfect if Ginny and Harry got together, and Ron and Hermione got together, too. Molly wasn't a manipulative woman, by any means—opinionated, very much so—but not manipulative. Her chief failing in this matter was that she was a hopeless romantic, and it was a real let-down to see that her vision wasn't coming true.

She hoped Ginny would be more practical, but something told her her daughter would be taking this at least as badly as she was. After all, Ginny was the one who (admittedly, like most little girls) had wanted to marry the Boy-Who-Lived since she was six. Molly thought she'd better write her a letter to comfort her.

It was several days before Molly heard back from Ginny, and when she did, it was perhaps a bigger shock than the article itself.

Dear Mum,

I was as surprised as you were when I saw that interview. I talked to Harry and wrote to Hermione just to be sure, and they confirmed that they aren't together and never were. They're just friends. That's what I had thought, too. I've never seen anything between them. It turns out Colin was just mixed up because they and Ron were always together before I started hanging out with them. Don't worry. I set him straight.

Actually, Hermione spent a lot of last year helping me get past my shyness and get close to Harry. I've been trying to support him more because she's not here this year.

Harry and Hermione said that most of the stuff in that interview was wrong. Harry didn't enter himself, and everyone who believes him is really worried about him. Hermione and Mr. Black are trying to help him, though.

Love,

Ginny

So Rita Skeeter had been wrong, Molly thought. That was a surprise. Everyone thought so highly of her. But no, Harry was no more than good friends with Hermione. And what was more, it looked like there might be a little something between Ginny and Harry after all. Oh, she knew they would look so adorable together. She was still very concerned about Harry being stuck in the Tournament and the fact that Ron still wasn't speaking to him, but at least that was one less thing to worry about.

Hermione was awakened from a deep sleep by a sharp, burning pain on her chest. She hissed through her teeth and sat bolt upright, fumbling with the small chain so she could see her Protean-charmed fake galleon. Hermione had taken to wearing the galleon as a necklace all the times so that Harry could contact her any time day or night in an emergency. As she pulled the necklace off, she also fumbled for her watch on the bedside table. It was half past one in the morning, and there were two and a half days until the First Task. This must be really bad.

She got hold of her wand and cast Lumos so that she could read Harry's message. Her response woke her roommates, and she strenuously claimed they had been dreaming when they questioned her on her exact words.

The coin read: FIRST TASK IS DRAGONS! HELP!

Hermione deliberated for a few minutes about what to do. She didn't think she'd get any more sleep with that news—not until she did something constructive, anyway. She knew it was no good leaving now; she wasn't ready. But she was useless here. She needed to get the full story as soon as possible. Deciding on a course of action, she stepped out of her bedroom and whispered, "Dobby."

The Pop! didn't come right away. Dobby must be sleeping. Sure enough, half a minute later, the elf appeared in his nightclothes, wobbling and rubbing his eyes. An elf in footie pyjamas was one of the stranger sights in her life.

"Miss Hermione?" he said blearily. "What is being happening?"

"Harry found out what the First Task is. It's dragons."

"WHAT?!" Dobby was wide awake, now.

"Shh! Don't panic. We're going to help him as soon as we can. Come back and wake me up again at six, then help me pack for a three-day trip. At six-thirty, I can leave the dorm, and I'll start tracking down my teachers to get my homework. Once I have all of it, we'll use the Portkey Sirius sent me to get to Hogsmeade. I'll see what I can do for Harry then. Okay?"

"Yes, miss. I understands."

Hermione tried to get a few more uneasy hours of sleep, but her mind was already racing, trying to figure out how she could possibly be useful to Harry if he had to fight a dragon. She already felt worn out when Dobby woke her again, but she forced herself to move.

Harry was very surprised when, near the end of breakfast, Hermione came running into the Great Hall, harried and out of breath, but unobstructed. He hadn't expected her until after classes today at the earliest, and he didn't know how she might be able to help him, but he was glad she was there.

"Harry!" she said when she reached the table. "I got your message. You'll have to tell me everything. I can't believe they're making you fight a—"

"Shh!" Harry said. "Not here," he whispered. "I'm not supposed to know about it. We have History first class. I can skip and talk then."

"Skip class—? Oh, very well," she said. It was History, after all. "Is there any tea left? I didn't sleep well."

Hermione got her cuppa and left with the rest of the Gryffindors. Madame Maxime gave her a questioning look and frowned at her. She could probably work out that if Hermione was here, then Harry knew what the First Task was. Fortunately, her Headmistress didn't confront her. After all, Harry really needed the help, and it wasn't like Hermione's help would make him a serious threat to Fleur, right?

Speaking of which: "Harry, do the other Champions know about the task?" Hermione asked.

"Fleur and Krum do," he said. "Maxime and Karkaroff were there last night…I should probably tell Cedric so it's fair."

"Good idea. Ron, are you coming?" She motioned in the direction Harry and she were going.

"Why?" the redhead said.

She leaned close to him and whispered, "Because the First Task involves dragons. This is something you can actually help with. Remember how you helped us with Hagrid's dragon in first year?"

"Harry already asked me last night," he protested. "I told him I didn't have any better ideas than what Sirius and Remus came up with."

"It's called a brainstorming session, Ron—"

"A what?"

"Brainstorming. It means with more people, we might be able to get some better ideas."

"I doubt it."

"Fine. Be that way. Fred! George! Ginny! Can any of you get away with skipping class? I'm trying to help Harry get ready for the First Task."

"Oh, sorry, Hermione," Ginny said. "Arithmancy."

Hermione nodded. She was right not to risk Septima's wrath.

Fred shook his head, too: "Transfiguration."

"I'm free," George said. "It's great having only three classes. I'll give you a full report, Fred."

"Excellent. Harry, go get your mirror. We should get Sirius and Remus in on this, too."

A few minutes later, Harry, Hermione, and George were ensconced in an unused classroom with Sirius and Remus on the mirror.

"By the way, Harry, when did half the school start wearing badges that say POTTER STINKS?" Hermione asked.

"Saturday. It was Malfoy's idea."

"Figures. So tell me about the Task. What did you find out?"

"Okay, so yesterday in class, Hagrid told me to meet him at midnight at his cabin with my invisibility cloak. I went out there, and he was taking Madame Maxime for a walk in the Forbidden Forest. I think he was trying to make a date out of it. His French is terrible, by the way."

Hermione giggled at the thought of Hagrid trying to charm Madame Maxime. Talk about opposites attracting. "How did she like it?"

"I think she was more interested in the dragons. There were four of them—one for each of us—and a bunch of handlers, too. Charlie was there, George."

"Charlie? How's he doing?"

"He seemed okay. I was more worried about the dragons, though. With my luck, I'll probably get the Hungarian Horntail. It looks twice as bad as the others."

"So it's true, then?" Hermione said. "You have to fight a dragon in two days?"

Harry shook his head: "Charlie said we only have to get past them. They're nesting mothers, so I think we only have to steal an egg from them, or something."

"ONLY?!" Hermione shrieked. "Harry, that's even worse! Don't you know anything about animals?"

"Sorry, Hermione, I didn't get to watch many nature programs growing up," he said, backing off from her anger.

"Oh, Harry," she groaned. "Look, if you were…if you were a dark wizard—just hear me out—would you rather fight Bill Weasley, the brilliant cursebreaker, on his own, or would you rather try to kidnap Ginny from under Mrs. Weasley's nose?"

The colour drained from Harry's face, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Oh God, oh God, oh God, I'm gonna die!" he said.

"Bloody hell, Harry, you are in trouble, aren't you?" said George, who had gone pale himself. "What're you gonna do?"

"That's what we're here to figure out," Hermione said. "Sirius, Remus, Harry said you had an idea. What is it?"

"Dragons are extremely magic-resistant," Remus began to lecture. "It takes a very strong spell to get through their hides. The other Champions probably have a few options to choose from, but unfortunately, Harry doesn't. Their fire is magical, too, so the Flame-Freezing Charm is iffy, at best, and you still have the teeth and claws to worry about. However, they do have weak points. The most important one is the eyes. There's an O.W.L.-level spell called the Conjunctivitis Curse that irritates the eyes and blinds the victim. It'll take a lot of power to blind a dragon, but I think he'll be able to pull it off."

"I hope so," Harry said. "I don't know if I can do it. I mean, I tried it a couple times this morning, and I can kind of cast it, but I don't know if I can aim it that well."

Hermione imagined the scenario—missing multiple times with that spell. It didn't look promising, and aiming wasn't all. "The dragon could dodge, too," she observed. "I don't know how smart they are."

"Well, if you two have any other ideas, we're open to them," Sirius said.

"Hmm…George, what other weaknesses do dragons have?" she asked.

"Erm, ears, I guess. And nose and mouth. A Sleeping Draught would do it, but you'd need a strong one, and a lot of it. Not a whole lot else, though. Their skin's pretty tough, and there's no specialised spell for them or anything."

"What about wings and tails?" she asked. "Those have got to be more vulnerable than the rest of them, and they need them to fly."

Harry and George both stared at her. "You haven't seen the Quidditch pitch yet, have you?" George said.

They trekked over to the other side of the castle on the seventh floor to get a good view from the windows. In the middle of the Quidditch pitch, the organisers had built a large, clear geodesic dome, two hundred feet wide and a hundred high. Few dragons grew larger than a bull elephant, so it would be a moderately confined space, presumably one that would protect the spectators, while still retaining enough room to manoeuvre, but not fly. The grass was gone inside the dome and replaced with jagged rocks and rocky soil in an odd, ring-shaped pattern of trenches.

"That's not good," she said. "No use clipping its wings, then—or out-flying it, if you could summon a broom. In fact, it would make it pretty hard to summon anything…What we need is a better way to exploit the dragon's weaknesses—something easier than hitting it directly in the eyes. I don't know, George. Do you have any ideas?"

"Not right now, but Fred and I will try to think of something. I'm sorry, Hermione. This is a little out of our league. I think I'm glad we didn't try to enter, now."

Hermione sighed: "Alright, if no one else has any ideas, I'll head to the library and see if I can dig up anything else and then try my hand at inventing something. I'll let you know if I think of anything, Harry."

Oddly enough, Harry felt a lot more assured of Hermione's plan to use Arithmancy that she did.