It was a magical night. Steven returned to his normal self, and he even played a couple of sets with the Weird Sisters as himself. He danced and sang and encouraged the people who were too shy to dance to get out on the dance floor and live just for once.

Harry found that he even enjoyed fast dancing, once he stopped worrying about how foolish he looked while doing it. Fast dancing meant getting closer to Cho than he otherwise would have thought about doing , and without having to memorize steps he could actually enjoy doing so.

It wasn't until the next morning that reality finally ensued.

Harry's first inkling was when Hermione threw a newspaper in front of him at breakfast. Her face was ashen.

"What's going on?" Harry asked slowly.

He glanced down at the headline, then froze.

The headline screamed, "Hogwarts Board of Governors calls for recall of Champion!"

For a moment he thought they were talking about him, and he felt a moment of relief. A couple of paragraphs later, however, he discovered that it wasn't him the board wanted to recall. It was Steven.

"A lot of parents complained," Hermione said. "They said what he was doing...what we were doing was unnatural and wrong. They threatened to pull their kids from the competition."

Harry looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. "It's not going to happen."

"They're talking about going to the Wizengamot and having Steven declared non-human. They'll break his wand and say he's a creature." Hermione's face was turning redder and redder, and it looked to Harry as though she was working herself up into a panic.

"They can't do anything until the end of the competition," Harry said calmly. "It's a magical contract. If they could pull anybody out, I'd be the first one in line."

It wasn't as though the other schools would be willing to allow last minute substitutions anyway.

"If something happens to him because of me," Hermione said. "I don't..."

"Stop," Harry said. "Nothing is going to happen. This is a lot of Slytherins blowing hot air. Steven's made too many friends and saved too many people for anything like that to go through."

He didn't actually know that, of course. He knew almost nothing about Wizarding politics. But Steven had once told him about the mayor of his old town who seemed to believe that looking like you knew what you were talking about was almost as good as actually knowing it.

Ron, sitting beside him nodded. "It's just a bunch of jealous snakes. They aren't gonna pull their kids from school. Where are they going to send them? Durmstrang?"

Harry nodded. It wasn't like a few less Slytherins would make the school any worse, especially the kind who would write their parents and get them to make this kind of fuss. They were better off without them.

"What's Steven going to think? They're saying he's unnatural...that we're..."

Harry said, "We're all unnatural. What's natural about waving a stick at things and levitating things or changing beetles into buttons or whatever?"

"And McGonagall turns into a cat," Ron said, remembering his conversation with Harry the night before. He shoved bacon into his mouth, looking pleased with himself.

"Whatever that was last night was totally natural for Steven; if it wasn't, you'd have seen the gems freaking out." Harry said.

Hermione seemed slightly reassured, although she kept staring at the paper, rereading the same article over and over.

Harry had hoped that Steven would appear for breakfast to reassure her, but he didn't. He wasn't to be seen all morning.

It wasn't until later that Harry learned that there had actually been a hearing.

Fortunately, the magical contract was indeed binding, and the Wizangamot didn't have the votes to remove Steven's personhood. It was closer than Harry would have liked to think, however.

Apparently the idea of fusion bothered a lot of wizards on a deep and fundamental level.

Harry couldn't understand it. He didn't see the appeal, really, but he also didn't see why Hermione couldn't participate in it if she wanted to. It wasn't like Steven had forced her into anything.

Steven reappeared that afternoon, acting as though nothing had happened. He brushed off any questions about it, and to all appearances seemed to be his usual self.

He calmed Hermione, and if Harry caught a strange, almost pensive look on his face whenever Steven thought Hermione wasn't, he didn't comment.

Two days after the hearing, another article came, and this time it was Hagrid who disappeared.

Apparently no one had realized that he was half-giant.

How anyone with eyes could have missed that connection Harry didn't know, but apparently it was true. There were reports from multiple Slytherins about how dangerous Hagrid's classes were. The reports were total fabrications.

Flobberworms couldn't even bite anyone; they didn't have teeth. Furthermore, with Steven's help, classes had actually been safe and informative throughout the semester.

It wasn't until Hermione said something that Harry realized that Steven's participation was exactly the point.

If they couldn't get to Steven, they'd attack his friends. Whoever was the most vulnerable would be the first to go.

It wasn't like anyone was saying anything to Hermione. Even Draco was smart enough not to say a thing to her, although he taunted Harry incessantly about Hagrid's absence.

The reasoning seemed to be that taunting Hermione might be the one thing that made Steven stop being a nice guy, and nobody wanted that.

After all, he'd been involved in the killing of a professor in the first year he'd been in Hogwarts, a fact which had been brought up repeatedly in the case for his rights to be removed.

In the middle of it all, Rita Skeeter was writing articles designed to elicit outrage. She made it sound as though Steven was going to try to fuse with every girl in Hogwarts, and with half the boys.

Both Amethyst and Pearl had taken to having perpetually angry expressions on their faces, but through it all, Steven pretended to be unaffected.

What astonished Harry was that only the Pure Bloods hadn't known Hagrid was a half-giant. It had been obvious to everyone else.

Hagrid was so upset that he didn't attend classes for an entire week, and Steven wasn't there to help the new teacher.

Hermione assured him that Steven and the gems and even Dumbledore were all trying to reassure Hagrid, but he didn't seem to want to talk to anyone.

Harry resolved that he and Ron would go add their voices in to the others who were trying to reassure Hagrid that he was loved and wanted.

"I'm sorry I got you into this," Steven's voice was obvious from Hagrid's door.

The door was open for once, and Harry glanced at Ron as they carefully stepped closer. The last thing either of them needed was to be knocked over by Hagrid's giant dog while trying to eavesdrop.

"Weren't your fault." Hagrid's voice sounded down.

"They wouldn't keep writing about you if it weren't for me," Steven said.

Harry stepped forward. "Hagrid...Steven?"

He stepped inside the darkened room. Hagrid was sitting on an oversized chair staring at the embers of a huge, dying fire.

"Everybody's missed you," Harry said. "Both of you."

Steven had been attending classes, but he'd cut his extracurricular activities to a bare minimum. Even Hermione rarely saw him, and although she understood on some level, Harry could see that it hurt her feelings as well.

"The Headmaster has a whole pile of letters from people wanting Hagrid to come back," Steven said. He nodded toward the table, which was covered with letters.

"An the paper has a whole lotta letters from people wanting me to go away," Hagrid said.

Ron spoke up from beside Harry. "Harry's got a lot of people wanting him to go away, but it never stopped him."

Harry glanced at his friend. It wasn't like he'd really had a choice. His life came down to living with the Dursleys or living a life of magic. In his mind there had never been an actual choice at all.

"Nobody has everybody like them," Harry said finally. "Not even Steven."

Hagrid looked as though he would protest, but after the recent newspaper articles he really couldn't. Steven was only popular with the people who actually knew him. The people who knew of him were much more leery.

"They're not half-giants either," Hagrid said.

"Steven's half-rock. Professor Flitwick is half-goblin. Professor McGonagall turns into a cat. Everybody at this whole school is weird," Harry said. "What matters isn't where you come from from. It's where you go."

Ron glanced at Harry. Unlike Harry, he still had some Pure-blood prejudices. Still, he was loyal to his friends. He spoke.

"Anybody who doesn't realize what a great guy you are is a dirty slimy snake."

"I know it's hard to believe it coming from me, or Amethyst," Steven said. "Given as we're all in the same boat, but Harry and Ron are full on human and they want you back."

"Was right nice of 'ermione to come by too," Hagrid said.

"The headmaster's the one who hired you," Harry said. "And he hasn't talked about kicking you out at all."

Hagrid nodded.

It took a while to fully convince him, but eventually Hagrid agreed to come back.

As they were leaving, Hagrid had some final words for them.

"Yer good boys, all of ye." He stared at them for a moment before saying, " Ye know what'd make me happy? If one of you won."

He chuckled. "Dumbledore always said we should let everybody in, not just the Purebloods. It'd be nice if one of ye were to win it, and show them ye don't have te be a pure-blood te be a winner."

Steven chuckled. "Actually, only Viktor Krum is a Pure-blood. Harry's a half-blood, and Fleur is a half-human like me."

Three in four chances that Purebloods weren't going to be champions. Somehow the idea didn't bother Harry at all.