For some mysterious reason – perhaps because of the date of the second task? - the next Hogsmeade weekend was in mid-January, when it was coldest and everyone still had too much stuff from the holidays to truly want to go shopping. For that reason, a lot of people were staying in the castle. But it went without saying Harry would go, because it was the first chance since the ball to have a proper date with Parvati.

He considered her interests and where she might like to go and offered the bookshop and then Madame Puddifoot's. She agreed enthusiastically to both.

"You don't mind the tearoom?" She asked as they walked down to Hogsmeade. "I know a lot of boys hate it..."

Harry shrugged. "It's not my favourite place, but I have to admit it's more quiet than the Three Broomsticks, so we can actually hear each other talk properly...and it's not like I especially mind."

"Thanks, then." She hesitated. "If you want, we cans top by in the Quidditch Shop?"

Harry laughed. "No, that's not necessary. I don't need anything, and I think I can make it one visit without seeing Quidditch supplies. Are we still on to meet the others at Three Broomsticks later?"

"Sure."

"Then that's fine. Let's go, I'm freezing," he added, and they finished they journey to the village at a near run, talking very little.

The bookshop visit was nice. They each browsed independently for a while and then shared their most interesting and irresistible discoveries. Parvati, it turned out, read a lot of novels, and when she found out Harry hardly ever did she started to recommend some he simply had to try, so he added a few to his pile, and in turn gave Parvati tips for history books she might enjoy. "Since, you know, Binns is useless."

She agreed wholeheartedly.

They spent about two hours in Madame Pudifoot's, and Harry had a good time there too, holding hands and talking about everything and nothing. Parvati mentioned her dad working with Alduin at one point, something Harry had no idea about, and so listened, interested, to what she could tell him about the Muggle Research Institute.

"Wait," he said, "isn't that where Ron's dad works? Apart from the Ministry, I mean?"

Parvati shrugged. "I guess? I don't exactly know who all works for dad there, I just know your cousin is involved because dad says it was really his idea in the first place, and he provides most of the funding."

It was Alduin's idea? He was funding the institute that was paying Ron's dad? That, in fact, allowed Ron to have nice things and to-

Harry groaned.

"What is it?" Parvati asked him, sounding worried.

Harry shook his head. "Never mind. I just connected some dots about what my cousins was doing, but it doesn't matter. The Institute is doing good work, right?"

Parvati was frowning at him. "Of course. Why, what is your cousin doing?"

Harry shrugged, uncomfortable and not feeling like he should be telling Parvati the truth – what if Ron found out? - and so he said, improvising, "I just realized that he mentioned making Lucius Malfoy angry and that maybe part of the reason he even came up with the idea was just to irritate the guy, you know."

Parvati kept frowning. "Well, he certainly managed that! I remember Mr. Malfoy basically storming to our house after the Institute was founded. I think he tried to threaten dad or something? I don't really know, but thankfully nothing came of it, so..."

That was a relief, though perhaps a little surprising that Mr. Malfoy gave up so easily. He didn't seem like the type. But surely Parvati would know if something had happened to her family-

And then Harry made the other leap of logic, and gritted his teeth to stop a much more enraged sound. Lucius Malfoy, he thought, you utter bastard.

And then, a much more alarming thought: had Alduin known and kept it from him?

He would need to write an extremely pointed letter home.

For now, he took a deep breath and tried to relax, since this was obviously something he also did not wish to discuss with Parvati. No one deserved to know they'd had a penpal friendship with Riddle at one point.

Instead, he said simply: "I'm glad he ended at threats, though it's still disgusting."

Parvati shrugged. "Dad said it was pretty much par for the course. I know you're friends with Draco, and I have nothing against the guy really, but his dad is clearly a piece of work."

Harry sighed. "Yeah," he agreed. "But then, my dad was apparently an arsehole too while at school, so really, I shouldn't judge people for their fathers."

Parvati seemed interested. "Why do you said that? I've never heard you mention your dad before..."

Harry shrugged. "I don't really have any memories of him, but I've talked to people," again, the Resurrection Stone probably better not be mentioned, "and it seems he was a bit of a bully when our age. Mum couldn't stand him. But at leats he grew out of it, which clearly Malfoy Senior had not managed."

Parvati sniggered. "Maybe Mrs. Malfoy didn't take him to task enough."

They turned the conversation to other topics, then, speculating about the Second Task and contemplating who would win. Parvati bet on Fleur, while Harry put Krum as his choice.

"It's not very loyal of us, is it?" Parvati said, amused.

"Well, I'll still be cheering for Cedric," Harry pointed out.

They left the tearoom soon afterwards, heading to the Three Broomsticks to meet up with the other Gryffindors. They found them in the middle of a heated discussion.

"If you think him being my brother would be enough to make him tell me, you haven't been paying attention the last three years," Ron was saying to Sophie.

"What have we missed?" Harry asked after they joined he table with butterbeers in hand.

"We're interrogating Ron about what his brother was doing at the ball instead of Crouch," Dean replied cheerfully. "So far, he hasn't been cooperating."

"I've tried all Christmas break to get it out of him!" Ron protested. "Fred and George even tested out some new thing they came up with – they call it Extendable Ears, and it lets you eavesdrop on people from a distance – to hear if he doesn't tell dad about it in private, but no! He'll just say that 'Mr. Crouch was feeling unwell,' but I heard Dad tell Mum that he'd have to be dead not to show up to something this important, and that he'd send Percy – the guy whose name he didn't even know in the summer! - is even weirder."

"Do you think he will come again in the second task?" Harry wondered.

"Never mind that," Sophie waved it aside, "I want to hear about those Extendable Ears. That sounds damn useful for eavesdropping on my own brothers. Do you think they'd lend me some for Easter Break?"

"They might," Ron said, considering. "They want to open their own jokeshop after they graduate, and they said they'll need people to test stuff for them. So maybe if you offer that?"

"Is that safe?" Parvati wondered.

"Eh," Sophie said with a shrug, "I'm willing to risk it."

-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-

One afternoon at the end of January found Alduin at the Prophet's office, trying to get someone to publish a piece more sympathetic towards Hagrid and half-giants in general to counter-balance the thing Skeeter had written. He'd Flooed his contacts about it, and was referred to someone working in the Opinions section, a woman called Melania Doge, whom he had probably gone to Hogwarts with but didn't remember – by his estimate, she was about four or five years younger, so no wonder, really. He knew for certain he hadn't met her since then. He would have remembered.

Melania Doge beautiful, for one, but many people were beautiful, his own wife among them. It might have been enough to make her memorable, but more importantly, she also seemed rather exceptionally competent.

He'd walked in with his usual smile of polite efficiency he always pulled out in situations like this. And she'd returned it with her own polite mask overlaid over impatience.

"What can I do for you, sir?" She asked pleasantly after they exchanged greetings.

"I'm here to discuss the possibility of the Prophet publishing something a little bit more nuanced on the matter of giants and half-giants than that...fascinating piece by Mrs. Skeeter."

He could see that he got her attention, and most of the impatience behind the mask disappeared. "Do you have any particular suggestions?" She asked.

He gave a shrug. "I am not a writer, nor am I an expert on the matter, but even with my relatively superficial knowledge I know that that article was one-sided."

"Do you have any experts in mind which we could consult, then? You have to understand, such an article can be research-heavy and is unlikely to bring us much sympathy with the readership, so..."

He waved his hand. "I'm willing to compensate anyone who writes that article fully," he said.

She gave him an intent look. "Are you trying to bribe us into writing what you want, Mr. Travers?"

He raised his eyebrows, surprised by anyone at the Prophet objecting to such a thing. "I would simply pay for the work that was done, that is all."

"And check that it said what you wanted it to say, presumably?" She asked him archly, still giving him that very intent look.

Alduin felt caught strangely off guard by it. "Well, naturally, I have no interest of simply funding another misinformed piece," he admitted slowly.

She shook her head. "I am truly not certain such an offer is acceptable for us. On ethical grounds, I fear I will have to refuse."

Alduin gave her a look, amused in spite of himself. "So according to you, while writing about half-giants as if they are feral beasts is wholly ethical, accepting payment for a more balanced article is not?"

To his satisfaction, her masked cracked a little and she made a small grimace. "I am not in charge of approving Ms. Skeeter's articles," she said. "However, whatever you thought about them, she wrote them on her own accord, motivated purely by...ah...journalistic interest. It is entirely beyond the pale to allow someone to pay for the content they wish to see in our newspaper and then present it as independent findings."

"Are you certain you are working for the right publication?" He asked her archly, unable to keep the question to himself.

She shrugged with a small smile, one that made her look even better. "Not entirely, and not always," she replied, "but then we all do what we can for the situation we find ourselves in, do we not?"

"What would be the ethical solution to this conundrum, then, according to you?" he asked her, intrigued.

She considered it, tapping her mouth with her quill, something that drew rather more of Alduin's attention to her lips than he wished to pay them in a professional situation. "I suppose," she said slowly, "that, offers of money notwithstanding, your visit might be seen as a concerned reader protesting against a biased content of our paper. In that situation, it would be entirely appropriate to try and correct it, if, upon evaluation, we concurred with the complaint."

Alduin tried to hide his amusement. "And do you?"

She gave him a sardonic look. "I am familiar with Mrs. Skeeter's work and have read the article, so yes, I do. The next step then would of course we to find someone willing to write a more balanced piece on our own." She gave a small, resigned sigh. "There goes my free evening," she said.

"You think you can manage it in an evening?" Alduin asked, sceptical.

"No," she replied simply, "but hopefully I can find someone willing to write this in that time."

That made sense, and reminded Alduin more of his own mode of working. "I am sorry for making more work for you," he said honestly. "If there is any way I can make up for it…?"

He received another arch look. "Are you trying bribery again, Mr. Travers?"

Honestly, Alduin didn't quite know himself what he was trying. "I merely feel guilty," he said, quite honestly.

She waved her hand. "This will at least be interesting work, hopefully."

"I would think matters dealt with in the Opinions section generally would be," Alduin replied musingly.

"You would, wouldn't oyu?" Was Ms. Doge's dry reply.

Alduin left not long afterwards, promising to stay in touch, at least, and returned to his more urgent matters of business.

However, irritatingly, he found the memory of Melania Doge's smile returning to him at various times thorough the rest of the day.

-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-

Over Christmas break, Harry had spent some of his scarce free time to briefly see Sirius, and he'd told him about the suspicious circumstances of his name being put into the Goblet. He'd done it mostly in self-defence – Sirius had tried to tease him about the 'prank' he pulled with putting his name in,a nd how Alduin had ruined his fun – and didn't really expect anything to come off it except for another exhausting attempt at convincing Sirius about something he did not wish to believe. But to his surprise, upon hearing that Harry had not put his own name in, really, Sirius had immediately grown perfectly, well, serious, and interrogated Harry about what safety precautions were being taken and what investigation was happening, and had demanded to speak to Alduin.

The tone of his letters to Harry had changed, too, becoming much graver.

The morning of the last Sunday of January, Harry received one such letter.

I've been sniffling around Knockturn Alley, it said, but it seems that whatever out ephemeral friend is planning, he's keeping it on the down low, because there's nothing particular I can catch. Everyone here seems to know he's coming, mind you – no one here is buying that 'prank' pretence that the Ministry seems to desperate to cling to – but everyone just has the frantic energy for gettign ready when it hits, there's nothing of focused preparation for something particular that I can find.

Harry wondered if that was good news or bad new.

In any case, it got him to thinking about spies and their role in trying to stop Riddle. Sirius, Harry knew from what little he'd hinted, was getting by half with his Animagus form, half playing on the strength of having been in Azkaban, depending on whether he wanted anonymity or not. Harry wondered if he cooperated with the people Kingsley must have in similar places, or if his experience with the Ministry left him unwilling to do that. Not that Harry would blame him if it did.

But still, it was easier to get a spy into a random dirty pub in Knockturn Alley, he expected – not that he'd even known that the place existed before Sirius told him- than getting one closer to Riddle.

They had Snape in the previous war, at least towards the end, but now that it was publicly known that he was a double-agent, Harry didn't suppose that Riddle would just accept him back.

The question of what would Snape do if Riddle returned, in fact, haunted him all the way to his lesson with the man that afternoon.

Which turned out not to be exactly ideal, because it was the day Snape had decided to try and teach him something new, and being distracted for that was never a good idea.

"You are quite adept at resisting the Imperius curse now," he told Harry, such high praise Harry had to fight for his mouth not to drop open in shock, "but there is one other aspect to it you have not trained yet – it is the most useful to pretend to be under its control while you are, in fact, not. That is a degree more difficult, however, because you have to do exactly what the curse tells you to do while at the same time resisting it. Do you think you are up for the challenge?"

Harry nodded immediately. He wasn't sure he was, but he wouldn't know until he tried, would he? "Yes," he said, "let's do it."

His first attempt was a complete disaster.

It was frustrating, because he felt like he suddenly went half a year back in his training, and he felt like throwing his wand to the ground.

Snape gave him a look.

"I told you this was hard," he said. "You need to keep your temper in check, Mr. Potter, otherwise any chance at subtlety is lost."

Harry bit down any possible reply, which, he thought, was a rather stellar case of him restraining his temper, and he tried again.