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After finishing the meal, they made their way up to their tower, only for Harry to be surprised at the sight of a large brown barn owl sitting on his pillow, when he opened his curtains.

Confirming that the room was empty, with the exception of Ron, Harry immediately removed the letter, realizing it was from Sirius.

Harry –

Don't want to go into detail in this letter … especially due to my currently location. But I have arrived to where I had said I was planning on arriving. I'll need to spend a couple days making sure everything around here is safe and secure … but it would be nice to talk face to face.

I'm wondering, if you had any … weekends coming up that'd make it convenient, come to the place Prongs, Moony, and Padfoot used to play, and I will find you.

Until then, you better take care.

Sirius

Harry looked up, immediately smiling at Ron who was looking at his with a raised eyebrow.

"He made it!" Harry said excitedly, letting out a sign of relief. "It's from Sirius … he made it safely … he's around Hogsmeade somewhere."

After a second, Ron's face broke into a matching smile, almost as large as Harry's, as he walked over to see the letter, clapping Harry on the shoulder. "Of course he did, Harry. I didn't doubt it for a second …" he paused before nodding at Harry, "… but I'm glad to hear it nonetheless. So … are you off to see him tonight."

Harry's expression faltered for a second before he smiled and laughed, "Honestly mate there's nothing I'd rather be doing right now … it's been … it's been a long time …" he said wistfully, before taking a deep breath to hide the emotion creeping into his voice. "… it's been a real long time since I've seen him, and we have so much to talk about. But he said to give him at least a couple days, before suggesting visiting on the Hogsmeade's weekend. I'm guessing he wants to recover and make sure he wasn't followed or anything. I think he might be worried about what might happen if he was spotted somewhere and someone started following him, and what would happen to me if I get spotted with him."

He paused and looked out the window of the room, in the direction of the little wizarding village of Hogsmeade, before shrugging and looking back to Ron. "I guess I've waited this long, I suppose I can wait a couple more days …" he paused before glancing back out the window and then back to Ron, chuckling, " … or at least I can try."

Ron laughed before heading off to get ready for bed, leaving Harry alone, holding the letter from Sirius grasped tightly in his hand as he looked out the window, once more looking towards the distant lights of Hogsmeade. Before he turned to get ready for bed himself, he whispered, quiet enough that not even Ron would have heard if he had been paying attention. "See you soon Sirius … see you soon."

The next morning when Harry woke up, he was surprised that Ron was already awake and his bed was empty, having found out that more often than not, especially this year, he had to give Ron a little nudge to get him up and moving on the weekdays.

"Ron? Everything ok … just a little surprised to see you awake already mate." He asked once he found his friend sitting in the common room, having wordlessly and expectantly watched Harry come down the stairs.

The redhead laughed, "It's all good. Been up for a little while, woke up … about an hour ago and had trouble falling back asleep."

Harry raised an eyebrow looking at his friend, "Oh? You sure you are good? What's up?"

Ron nodded slowly, "It's not me. Just was worried about Hermione. Lav … ender had said we shouldn't visit her last night and she might have been released. But I woke up worried. And then I was down here already when one of the fifth-year prefects came down to get an early start on her morning rounds. It took a little convincing, but eventually managed to convince her to check and see if Hermione was back yet, but after I explained that she was cursed, and I just wanted to know if she had made it back to the dormitory she had gone up to check. She had actually just come back down a couple minutes ago and let me know Hermione's bunk was still empty …" Ron paused before looking to Harry, " … and well I was assuming you were planning to visit her before classes so I thought I'd just wait here for you."

Harry stared at Ron in shock, mildly surprised by his friend.

"So how about it Harry, want to visit Hermione before class, just to make sure she is ok."

Simply nodding, Harry closed the distance and patted Ron on the back. "Of course. Let's head out. I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed Ron."

He looked to Harry as he stood and walked around the couch he had been sitting on, joining Harry with a raised eyebrow. "Why? It's not like this is the first time one of us has ended up in the infirmary and the others visited … Merlin knows that Madam Pomfrey spends about half the school year dealing with you."

Laughing, Harry nodded, as they approached the portrait exit which guarded the entrance to the common rom, turning back to Ron as they got into the hallway, heading for the infirmary. "Aye … that sure feels like the truth, but usually you just come along for the visit … this seems different … more selfless of you … I'm not sure, just different." He said shrugging as he looked towards Ron.

His friend paused in the hallway, causing Harry to come to a stop and look back, seeing the contemplative face on his friend, "I know … things just seem … different this year. Obviously, everything that happened with you getting chosen as a champion, having to make that Unbreakable Oath, and then everything since then has been pretty big but …" he paused for a second, before looking back to Harry. "But its more than that I think … pretty much since the World Cup … things have felt a little different. And obviously you've always been my best mate, Harry. But I'm feeling more … more comfortable in who I am and while I know that I'm not perfect, I guess I want to be a better friend for you … and Hermione as well … I guess sometimes I … I don't know … I take our friendship and I take her for granted. You are my friends and I want to be there for the two of you, whatever that means."

Harry stared at Ron, who had looked out the window once he had finished talking, for several seconds, impressed by his friend's speech, before nodding and concealing the look of surprise from his face. "Wow, thanks Ron, I really mean it, but I'm lucky to have you as a friend … Hermione is as well … you're alright mate, you're definitely alright."

This caused the mood to break as Ron looked back to Harry, laughing as he pushed him slightly before they both started back in the direction of the infirmary, one of them thinking on just how impressed he was with the emotional growth of his friend in the short time since the World Cup.

As soon as they entered the infirmary, they were instantly greeted by a familiar voice off to the side of the room.

"And just what do the two of you think you are doing here this morning?" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed as she hurried over to them from the direction of her office. "You don't need to visit the infirmary already? Do you? Or are you here trying to visit your friend? Merlin knows that you spend enough time here, especially you Mr. Potter, that you should be well acquainted with our visiting hours, my policy towards visits that occur outside of those hours, and you should be more respectful of the needs of my patients to sleep. Besides I seem to recall Ms. Granger specifically telling Ms. Brown yesterday to not have the two of you come visit, as she … didn't want any visitors."

Ron stood, mouth agape, before shaking his head. "Lavender made us promise not to visit yesterday and we followed that. We just wanted to check in on Hermione and make sure she's alright."

"Mr. Weasley … what part of visiting hours are not currently being held do you not completely understand, besides Ms. Granger still needs a little rest, the medication she had yesterday didn't allow her a good night's sleep, and she didn't mention to me that she was up to having …"

A small cough from behind the nurse caused her to pause and turn around, revealing Hermione still in a comfortable looking and flowing periwinkle blue night shirt that Harry stared at for several seconds, unable to shake the image of her coming down the stairs wearing a similarly colored dress at the Yule Ball.

Shaking his head to help distract him from the image he looked up and saw Hermione smiling shyly at him before looking back to the nurse. "It's ok, Madam Pomfrey. I've been up for a little while. If its ok with you I could chat with them for a little bit. I promise we will be quick and then I'll head right back to bed until you say I can leave."

Madam Pomfrey looked back and forth between where Harry and Ron were standing and where Hermione had just appeared from before reluctantly nodding her head and shrugging her shoulders. "Fine … you have ten minutes …" she said looking at Hermione, before turning to face Harry and Ron, "… ten minutes and so help me if you wake anyone else up."

With that she turned and briskly headed back to her office.

Harry and Ron both smiled as they ran over to Hermione, hugging her, before following her to the chairs seated around her bed as she climbed under the covers of the propped-up bed.

Harry immediately noticed that once again Hermione had let Madam Pomfrey fix her teeth, however it took Ron almost a full couple of minutes into their discussion about what had happened the previous day with Nott, before Harry saw his friend raise his eyebrow and look back and forth between Harry and Hermione, before his gaze stopped on her.

"Ummm … Hermione?" He began, cutting Hermione off midsentence. "Did you do something … you look a little different …"

Hermione looked guiltily out the window before looking back to Ron, "Well the hex Nott hit me with … it made my front teeth grow ridiculously large. Apparently, its some stupid curse that the Slytherins have taken to using recently as a prank. Madam Pomfrey said I was the sixth student to come in over the past two weeks. But while it was a simple enough counter curse to shrink them … I may have let Madam Pomfrey shrink my teeth a little more than past where they had been before … there isn't anything really, I could have done about them in the muggle world, and I had always been a little … well self conscious about them … so I just let her keep going till they looked like I wanted them to look." She paused as a small look of fear popped onto her expression as her hand shot up to her face, covering her mouth. "It's not too much, is it? I don't look weird, do I? I didn't do anything wrong … did I?" She asked looking between the both of them, although Harry felt most of her attention was on him.

Ron shook his head and shrugged. "No, I think they look fine Hermione. It's small and wasn't actually sure what it was that was different until you mentioned it. But a lot of wizards and witches use spells like that, although mum says that the spells are more effective if used to fix things when we are younger. I think she said that when older people do the spells they usually find them more temporary and find the effects wear off. Not sure why though … although the twins were experimenting with a hair color changing spray which turned mums' hair a brilliant shade of purple, so she got a little distracted."

"Thanks, Ron." Hermione nodded at him before she turned back to Harry, finally slowly lowering her hand from her mouth. "What about you Harry? What do you think? It's not too much is it?"

He shook his head and smiled. "Not at all … you look great …" he froze before quickly glancing out the same window Hermione had just been looking out before he looked back to her, his cheeks feeling a little warm, "I mean they look good. But you looked good before as well …"

This time he shook his head as he looked away. "What I mean to say is that I'm happy that you are happy with them now." He finally finished, unable to look back and meet her eyes, until she let out a small chuckle. Looking back to her, he was greeted by a full smile.

"Thanks so much, Harry." She said simply.

After that brief discussion, at her insistence, Harry proceeded to tell her all about his experience at the Weighing of the Wands. This time going into detail regarding Rita Skeeter's interview attempt and the compromise they reached.

"Well done, Harry." Hermione immediately said, congratulating him once he finished recounting the events, smiling as she looked at him with an impressed look on her face. "With Rita Skeeter that is, its not really appropriate to interview a student one-on-one without an adult there. Beyond that, I think I've seen a couple of her articles and even if she is published by the Daily Prophet, she is … well … more of a gossip writer … her articles seem a little … more like sensationalized tabloid pieces. I had actually seen a piece she had done on Professor Dumbledore …" she trailed off shaking her head, before glancing in the direction Madam Pomfrey's office in response to a small noise, " … sorry, that's not important. But having either Professor Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall there would be a good idea." She finished and Harry saw Ron nodding beside her.

Harry opened his mouth prepared to tell her about Sirius when he paused and reconsidered. Looking around he made sure no one was near, and he leaned forward closing the gap between himself and the others. "And on an …unrelated not. Keep an eye out for an iridescent green beetle hanging around, especially if we are going to … our room. Or talking about anything we are doing or have talked about there."

The two of them looked at him in surprise, but while Ron eventually shrugged and mumbled, 'Sure, Harry,' Hermione's eyes widened significantly, almost disappearing into her hairline as her mouth dropped open even more. "Oh … really … ok." She said as she nervously looked around the room.

Harry nodded towards her, before leaning to check back and see if Madam Pomfrey had exited her office yet. Seeing that she was not visible anywhere on the floor he leaned back towards Hermione. "The only other thing that happened since yesterday was that Sirius sent a letter that he's … arrived in Hogsmeade safely … at least he thinks so. He wants to try and get situated as well as he can and make sure he's safe, but I think he suggested I pop by on our upcoming Hogsmeade weekend."

Unable to stop himself, he chuckled as Hermione gasped and her mouth dropped open at least as far as it had when he had mentioned the beetle. However, her shock quickly faded and was immediately replaced by a look of irritation.

"Harry James Potter," she scolded attempting, but failing, to keep her voice down, "that's terrific news. How could you lead with the other stuff … what if …"

However, the remainder of her statement was cut off as Madam Pomfrey, as if summoned, exited her office immediately making her way to them.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, I gave you a couple extra minutes as you were being quiet but now you are visibly and audibly agitating Ms. Granger here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave now."

Opening his mouth, Harry tried to respond but quickly shut it under the withering glare from the nurse. "No excuses and there is no need to worry. Ms. Granger will be released by lunch time. Sooner if I'm not pestered by students visiting when there aren't visiting hours."

Seeing the futility in arguing, Harry stood, joining Ron, and looked back to Hermione who appeared to be struggling to mask a look of frustration on her face. A look that Harry suspected originated from his delay in mentioning Sirius until right before Madam Pomfrey came to kick them out and the fact that it was her own response to the statement that had drawn the nurses towards them."

Waving goodbye, he let her know he would take extra good notes for their morning classes for her, and they were looking forward to seeing her as soon as she was released. Before turning to leave with a smile on his face, knowing that he was likely to get at least a little bit of a good-natured earful later.

- HP - HP - HP - HP - HP -

Even though Harry knew he was going to physically see Sirius in under two weeks and he had mentally promised himself not to sneak off to find him until then, the wait was incredibly difficult. It seemed as if everyday he found himself staring out the windows of the castle in the direction of the village, itching to head over. Thinking to himself he was sure that if not for everything else going on within Hogwarts he was confident he would have snuck off within two days to try and track down his godfather.

But as it was, Hermione, shortly after being discharged from the infirmary, and after the expected talking to, remembered that the first task was coming up quickly in just under two weeks, and as such focused herself along with the two others on practicing spells that she felt could easily and creatively be used to get around a variety of magical creatures, which she had informed him was likely to be the first obstacle he needed to overcome in the tournament, based on her review of the past tournaments.

Not yet having come up with a way to explain how he knew what the first task was, he went along with Hermione's training regimen, finding it to be good practice on a variety of spells that he wasn't extremely confident with, especially as he was pretty sure he could find a way to incorporate them into fights, especially if he did end up fighting werewolves, which he felt might be a very strong possibility as he personally planned to hunt down Fenrir Greyback, even if he never got to join Voldemort, if only for what he had done to Remus.

The next thing of note that happened to Harry was actually in the form of a note. Once he had finished his classes for the day, on the day Hermione had been released from the infirmary and the three of them had returned to their dormitories for the night after the first of Hermione's training sessions within the Room of Requirement, Harry had found a note sitting on his pillowcase.

Neither Seamus nor Dean had any idea how it had gotten there and were pretty sure the pillow had been empty when they had come in about an hour earlier. But after reading the note (and then quickly looking around the room) he decided that a little beetle infestation might have been responsible for dropping off the note.

When Ron finished washing up and joined him, Harry quietly explained that he had gotten a note from Rita Skeeter accepting Harry's terms, proposing that they meet in one of the empty classrooms on the first floor in the morning of the Sunday before the tournament. He let Ron know that she had ended it by saying that she would not coddle him and if he wanted a real interview, she would be tough but at least she would try to be fair.

Deciding this was probably the best outcome for an interaction with her, he decided to agree, especially as this would probably prevent her from snooping around or trying to follow him the day before when he was in Hogsmeade trying to meet up with Sirius.

Decision made, he wrote his reply on the bottom part of the note as he was instructed, smiling when the note began folding in on itself, resulting in an origami beetle which looked at him and appeared to nod before jumping off his hand and flying out the window, no doubt heading off to wherever Rita was staying for the night. A turn of events that caused Harry to pause and stare in the direction the beetle had disappeared wondering what would have happened if instead he had written 'no.'

The next morning, likely having been conversing with Rita either the previous night or first thing that morning, Harry bumped into Ludo Bagman on his way to breakfast in what the ex-Quidditch player tried to portray as completely accidental coincidence.

Coming around the corner, Harry was laughing at something Ron had just said before managing to come to a complete stop, narrowly avoiding the figure that had appeared to just be standing right around the corner. Looking up, he watched as Ron was not able to react quick enough and ran right into Ludo Bagman, who for the most part ignored the collision, instead just smiling at Harry.

"Nice reflexes, Harry. Clearly Seeker reflexes." He said loudly.

"Oh … hey Mr. Bagman. It's good to see you this morning … I guess. What brings you to the castle? We don't have an event related to the tournament, do we?"

Shaking his head, the head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports laughed as he took a step backwards. "Not at all … or at least not exactly. I had gotten permission to host a promotional event with the four champions. I was going to suggest it was held between the first and second event, but I had just heard Rita … Skeeter was going to interview you on Sunday before the task … so I thought it might be a good idea to have the event that afternoon. That way Rita could write a secondary piece on it tying them together. And the pieces would be able to be sent out in time for the Monday morning papers."

He looked down to Harry and smiled, "Although, honestly, I'm not sure how much more promotion we need, in between this being the revival of the event after about two hundred years and the whole controversy with you being entered …" he paused and forced himself to stop smiling "… sorry about that by he way." He said, although Harry was sure that even Ron was able to pick up on the man's insincerity. "Well between those factors the event has almost as much hype as the World Cup did and the betting will be fierce … not that that matters of course."

"Thanks … I think …" Harry replied, nodding slowly. "What event were you thinking of?"

This caused Ludo's face to break into an even larger smile. "We're going to host a match of Nitch Seeker." He said confidently.

"Oh … wicked!" Ron said quietly off to the side.

Harry looked at Ludo with a raised eyebrow. "Snitch Seeker? Sorry, I'm not sure what that is. I don't think it is one of the training exercises our captain had us do. What is it?"

Bagman looked at Harry in surprise. "Really? Hmmm … well it doesn't really matter. It's a fun training activity that professional teams use sometimes when deciding between potential Seekers. Normally its help on a slightly smaller enclosed field – in order to help preventing the event from taking forever but I think that since there are four of you, we should be alright with running it outside on your pitch. It's a good thing we haven't started …" he trailed off shaking his head.

"Oops can't say that just yet. But its enough to say you will be in for a surprise at the end of the year. But the event itself will have obstacles on the course itself that move and reorient themselves. If you successfully complete one of the obstacles the Snitch will light up for a fraction of a second in a light only noticeable to the goggles of the Seeker who completed that obstacle. This helps speed up the event … and also has the added benefit of making the entire thing more exciting for the audience …but of course the obstacles and Snitch lighting up don't always help determine the winner. Sometimes the Snitch is just completely out of the line of sight, or your opponent is just that much of a better flier. But in general, I think the event itself will work out rather well for the four of you." He paused to clear his throat, before looking guiltily back to Harry. "Of course, just between the three of us, and no offense to your skills of course, but I'd wager that Mr. Krum has a … slight advantage. But it's not like we could penalize him for being a World Cup worthy professional Quidditch phenom … besides I recon he'd be just as capable on a Cleansweep 3 as he is on that Firebolt of his."

With a laugh he turned leaving Harry and Ron to continue heading down to their breakfast, Ron excitedly talking about the upcoming events.

Deciding it was unlikely he'd be able to get out of the event and generally speaking it sounded relatively safe, he accepted it and settled into the final week before he'd have the opportunity to see Sirius.

In fact, it wasn't until an unknown owl landed on the Gryffindor table the Saturday morning, they were heading off to Hogsmeade, landing right in front of a surprised Ron, accidentally knocking over a plate of breakfast that Harry had been unable to eat due to his nerves, that he realized just how quickly the time had flown.

Looking back and forth between Harry and Hermione, Ron eventually shrugged his shoulders before reaching down and untying the letter, while Harry picked up a piece of the bacon that had been knocked onto the table and began feeding the owl.

Finishing feeding her the piece of bacon, Harry looked up in time to see Ron look up from the letter, his eyes open in mild surprise. "Huh …" he said simply.

Leaning across the table Hermione attempted to grab the letter from Ron who had looked back down at it without elaborating. "What is it?"

Finally passing the letter to Hermione, Ron looked back up to Harry. "Apparently Charlie is in Hogsmeade and wants me to pop by today."

Kind Regards,

FavoriteAuthor

If you like this content do not hesitate to smash that like button and subscribe. Haha but seriously if you do enjoy the story - do favorite it, other than messaging me or leaving a comment it's the only way I know if you are enjoying the stories and chapters.

Story Note 1 – I'm not sure if Ron in the books would have missed such an obvious mention as the beetle. Although he was shown on several occasions as being shown to have missed obvious things – Hermione's affection for him. And chose to write it this way as it didn't add anything whether he realized or not and it gives Hermione and Harry a moment.

Story Note 2 – Will be hosting a poll over who you expect/want to see win the Snitch Seeker event. Have written the four different outcomes and will only share the one that I get the most feedback on in the form of the poll, reviews, and messages. Be sure to let me know!

Thanks to those of you out to those of you who enjoy my stories, I promise to keep updating the stories as long as you enjoy them, and a special thanks to those of you who have taken the time to leave feedback or reach out to me directly.

Author Note 1 – All feedback is welcome (hopefully constructive!) Looking forward to what you think! Once again, thanks for all the reviews and feedback on this story, I'm pumped it has been well received. Obviously, I love people telling me they enjoy the chapters (keep it up if you do) but I really enjoy the constructive criticism as well. One of the earliest pieces of feedback I got was that Fred/George dialogue was rough – so as a result I changed it and really like the way it is coming across now (a sentiment that seems to be universally shared by everyone's' reviews as well). Also please continue to share ideas or requests as to things you wish to occur in the stories. I love the suggestions. And try to incorporate what I can.

Author Note 2 – I have started posting polls, having been getting really helpful feedback from some readers and thought I would make it easier for anyone to provide feedback on the stories they are liking without having to reach out directly. Thanks in advance for anyone who follows up.

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Antex-The Legendary Zoroark - Thanks so much! I enjoyed writing that interaction and was pretty pleased with how it turned out. Definitely I think Harry is more interesting when he thinks through interactions. Haha glad it worked. I definitely think with the whole wand lore being relatively unexplained I think there is a huge potential for characters being able to sense stuff that others might not especially ifg they are exposed to that magic all the time.

Guest - Thanks so much!

EP - You are most welcome!

zega606 - I thought it turned out pretty well! And definitely Luna (and to a much small extent lavender) will definitely pop up. Thanks!

Yaw613 - Well here is the next chapter!

Evergone the Great - I'm glad you liked it. And thats totally fair. I just wanted Rita to suspect maybe Harry new her secret which would have made her even more cautious around him as she wouldn't want to tip him off if he didnt actually know.