"I had to use stitches, Albus! Muggle stitches! It's absolutely barbaric!" Madam Pomfrey was whisper-yelling.
"Miss Granger said she mentioned Wormtail right after she woke up, did she say anything else about her dream?"
"How is that what you care about right now?" Pomfrey scolded him. "Are you not bothered by the fact that the wound wouldn't close?"
"It's closed now, isn't it?" he asked, putting on his grandfatherly façade.
"That is not the point!" she said.
Hari winced in pain as she tried moving her head to hear better and the whispers died down immediately.
"Hari, dear, how are you feeling?" Madam Pomfrey asked, rushing to the girls side.
"Tired," Hari said without opening her eyes; one of which was covered by the bandage Pomfrey had placed over her reopened scar. Her face felt swollen and inflamed and all she wanted to do was go back to sleep.
"I know, dear, I know," she was patting Hari's hand and speaking quietly.
"Can you tell me what your dream was about, Hari?" Dumbledore asked, coming to her other side.
"Albus!" The mediwitch scolded.
"S'okay," Hari said, opening her uncovered eye and sitting up in bed. It was dark out, so she assumed it was the middle of the night. "It was Wormtail and a snake – a really big snake – in this old, dusty manor house. Wormtail messed something up and he… he was being tortured for it."
"Tortured by whom, Hari?"
"I didn't see him, but it sounded like Tom. His voice was raspy. He said that Wormtail's mistake didn't ruin everything after all."
"Anything else?" the headmaster questioned.
"No, sir," Hari said, shaking her head.
"Alright, dear. I'll let you get back to sleep now. Please inform me if you can think of anything else."
"Yes, sir," she replied as the Hospital wings door opened.
"Good evening, Mr. Diggory," Dumbledore said merrily. He then turned and winked at Hari before waltzing out the door.
"Evening, Headmaster," Cedric said while fighting a blush.
"It's past curfew, Mr. Diggory," Madam Pomfrey scolded, but made no move to tell him to leave.
He walked up to Hari's bed and conjured a chair for himself, taking her hand as he sat down.
"Hi," she said meekly.
"Hi," Cedric whispered.
"I need to redress the wound, and then I'd like for you to eat something. Mr. Diggory can stay until then," she said softly as she unwound the bandages.
"Did I hear you say that you used stitches?" she asked, and Cedric gasped as the final bandages came off. "Is it that bad?" she asked him, though she couldn't open her eye so she supposed it must be a little bad.
"I'm afraid the wound has grown," Pomfrey answered for him. "Traditional magical methods didn't do anything for it. Even Professor Snape couldn't figure it out. Stitches seemed to have done the trick, though. You aren't bleeding anymore."
"How much did it grow?" Hari asked.
"It's not bad," Cedric reassured her. "You've got some jagged lines that go down your temple, one that goes up past your hairline, and one that cuts across your eyebrow."
"That sounds bad," she deadpanned.
"They aren't that thick," he said, "The only place that needed stitches was the existing scar. And you're still beautiful." He whispered the last bit, but Hari could see Madam Pomfrey smiling out of the corner of her good eye.
"Does the cut go over my eye?" she asked.
"No, dear," Pomfrey said, "You've just got some swelling, that's why you can't open that eye." She wrapped Hari's head up again in bandages and went off to leave the pair alone, telling Cedric that she trusted him to leave at an appropriate time.
"What happened?" Cedric asked quietly.
"I had a nightmare," she said. "It was about Tom."
"Tom?" Cedric asked.
"Voldemort," she clarified and Cedric flinched. "His given name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. He was torturing Peter Pettigrew. Said he messed something up."
Dobby popped in with a meal tray, and Hari took ate slowly as Cedric processed what she'd told him.
"You talk about him in present tense," Cedric said quietly when Hari had finished her meal. "He isn't gone, is he?"
"No," she confirmed. "He's getting stronger, and when he's back he's going to come after me."
Cedric let out an empty laugh and looked away, not really staring at anything in particular.
Hari watched him and chewed on her bottom lip. "Ced?" she asked carefully.
"Hm?" he replied, finally looking her in the eye again.
"Can you tell me what you're thinking?"
"It's just…" he ran a and through his hair and let out a sigh, "It's a lot."
"I know."
"How long, though?" he asked, standing up to start pacing next to her bed, "How long have you been carrying around the knowledge that… that that monster is still out there and is going to come after you?" he shook his head and looked away.
"Since the end of first year," she supplied.
Cedric stopped in his tracks, then motioned for her to scooch over as he sat on the bed next to her and pulled her into his arms. Hari hadn't been prepared for that, and it took her a second for her to relax into him as her brain caught up. She'd been expecting him to leave, to never speak to her again. Because he knew now. He knew exactly how dangerous it was to be around her.
They sat there together for a while in silence. Hari rested her head in Cedric's chest and listened to his heart beat. It had been rather fast for a good long while, and Cedric didn't speak until it slowed to a normal pace.
"I won't let you do this alone," he whispered.
Hari, shocked by his words, leaned back a bit to look into his eyes. "You're not… afraid?"
"I'm bloody terrified," he laughed. "But I know you are too, so I'm in good company." He kissed her forehead and drew her into him again before speaking. "You should take the potion Pomfrey left for you. I'll stay until you fall asleep."
Hari nodded and took to potion, cuddling into Cedric's arms while sleep washed over her.
With the second task fast approaching and a slowly healing head wound, it was a full week before Pomfrey okayed her to get in the water so Cedric could finally teach her how to swim.
The arrived at the lake shore in the early morning hours on Saturday, and Cedric immediately stripped his cloak off, revealing his toned body covered only by swim trunks. Hari blushed furiously and looked away to take off her own cloak. She'd owl-ordered a full body swim suit that covered her arms and legs. The whole world knew about the abuse, but there was no need for them to see her scars.
Cedric took her hands in his and led her into the water slowly. He'd placed a few warming charms on himself and had done the same to Hari, even though she didn't need it. She'd gotten pretty good at elemental fire magic, and could regulate her body temperature so well that she could forgo an outer cloak in the middle of Scotland's winter with no discomfort. But Cedric didn't know that, so she let him cover her in protective charms until he was satisfied. It turned out to not be as hard as she thought it would be, but it still took a lot of coaxing for Cedric to get her into deeper water. After about an hour, they were joined by Krum.
"Figured the egg out, have you?" Cedric called while wearing a large smile and holding Hari's hands.
"Yes," he replied shortly and walked towards them.
"Potter here didn't know how to swim," Cedric laughed again.
"Hey!" she punched him lightly. "Don't go spilling my secrets!"
Cedric just laughed it off, and even Krum let out a chuckle.
After Hari was comfortable with her ability to not drown, the trio of champions explored the lake together. Cedric was able to hold the bubblehead charm for about forty minutes, and Hari got hers to last up to twenty by the time they left the lake. Krum hadn't attempted the bubblehead charm at all, seemingly able to hold his breath for up to ten minutes at a time. They spotted the mer-village from afar, but were not allowed to approach.
"That'll be it, then," Hari said when they surfaced.
"Yeah, I'd imagine so. You think Fleur knows?" Cedric asked.
"Not our problem," Krum said.
Cedric looked a little shocked, but Hari agreed with a shrug. "She'd bound to figure it out when word gets out about the three of us gallivanting in the shallows," she reassured the Hufflepuff.
With only three weeks until the second task, Hari fell back into her old routine with the Ilvermorny crowd. Charms with Odo on Sunday and Monday, defense with Sam and Saltivas on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, dueling on Thursdays with Emily. Since receiving the dragon's gifts, Hari had also been running each morning. All of that, coupled with the nutrient potions and appetite enhancers, led to a minor growth spurt. Hari grew two whole inches and was putting on weight and muscle at an almost alarming rate. She had defined muscles and could spend hours running in the mornings without breaking a sweat. The transformation was amazing. She'd never felt so alive, but it was getting harder and harder to hide. It was also getting harder to not think about the dragon's prophecy, but she'd promised herself that she'd analyze it after the second task.
Odo was loud. It was one American stereotype that Hari was starting to believe. Out of the four visiting Americans, three of them were naturally loud, but Odo was the loudest. His voice carried on the wind, and Hari was sure that the crowd they'd gathered were hanging onto his every word. Odo seemed to like that, though. He always played things up for the crowd, which made Hari roll her eyes.
Throwing things at her seemed to be Odo's favorite pastime. He had a large pile of stones that he'd throw at her, either with physical or magical force, and her task was eliminate the projectile. The kicker was that she could only use a spell once. He throws a stone, and she shoots it above and over her using the same spell that Lockheart had demonstrated two years prior. He throws another and she slows it to a stop. Her throws again and she banishes it, then vanishes the next. He throws a larger stone, and she explodes it in midair. That one earned her a reprimand since debris can be used against you later. They did this over and over again until Hari was out of spells, then he taught her a few more.
Sam was a lot nicer than Odo. It wasn't that Odo was mean, but he was brutal. Sam gave her lots of breaks. She told stories of how she'd heard of spells being used. Her favorite way to use a spell was whatever way it wasn't supposed to be used. She once defeated another student in a duel by making her opponents fingernails grow so long that he dropped his wand and couldn't pick it back up.
Hari and Sam talked a lot about dark magic too, which Hari found fascinating. America was a very light country, but Sam had family in Russia, so she knew more about the subject than most. And Sam didn't shame Hari for her interest. She explained the difference between things that are deemed evil, and things that are actually evil. Hari couldn't wait to get her hands on the Black library.
They'd worked through most of her fourth year defense curriculum during the preparation for the first task, on top of , and completed the rest of fourth year in her first few days training for the second. By the time the second task came around, she'd worked through the fifth year curriculum, and had started sixth year spells. Sam had even brought all the books that Ilvermorny used for defense, plus a few others that were popular in the states.
Dueling was a lot more fun this time around. Lockheart's club had been a joke, but Emily meant business. And there was a prize if Hari could defeat her: a thin journal full of spells Emily had created over the years. She'd given Hari a sneak peak, and made the younger girl determined to beat her before they went back to the states.