It's been a rough couple of weeks, soooo I'm late again. So sorry, you guys!
Gi-L-Ha: I apologize for the wait again! You keep me honest at this point! Thank you for reviewing and for enjoying the story so much! I appreciate you!
Chapter Nineteen
There were mixed emotions from them all at the prospect of speaking with Sirius. Nessa and Tori were of the staunch belief that nothing good could come of the conversation — he couldn't possibly have any positive things to tell them if risking his freedom was a willing sacrifice, and they had much bigger things to be worried about with the first task coming closer and closer. Not that they had any idea what he was up against, which, in turn, meant none of them knew how to prepare Harry for the task at all.
A point made by not just the twins and Harry, but also by Hermione. It didn't help Vanessa's anxiety any to hear it said out loud by so many of them, and she was forced to concede for the time being.
As far as the others were concerned, speaking to Sirius was exciting and they believed he was sophisticated enough to keep himself from being caught. Harry, in particular, seemed to be sustained over the next fortnight only by the prospect of speaking with Sirius. And it wasn't as if Nessa didn't want to speak with him, but the risk seemed far too large. It was difficult for her to tell if this was Tori's concern as well, or if she was merely afraid to be face-to-face with her father once again. Likely both, but Nessa refrained from asking her.
The shock of finding out that Harry was school champion was beginning to wear off slightly now, and the fear of what he was facing was beginning to sink in. She'd thought her anxiety could not get much worse, but she was only barely able to hold herself together as the task came closer and closer. She'd been relying on the twins' positivity to get her through the majority of her days, and she wasn't the only person who this was difficult for. She spent less time with her brother, who she was sure was also afraid of what was to come, and the twins were having a particularly difficult time selling their products when a prefect was following them around, though neither of them had had the heart to tell her to busy herself elsewhere.
Whether this was because they understood her anxieties, pitied her, or because of her relationship with George, she couldn't quite be sure, but she was well aware that she was on her way to becoming clingy and neurotic.
Admittedly, she had no idea how Sirius would be able to make either her or her brother feel better about the monster that was barring their path ahead. Not even Remus, who asked her to keep him within the loop and promised her that he and Sirius were communicating regularly in an attempt to keep ahead of whatever was on the horizon, could calm her fraying nerves. Not made easier by the fact that he also was of the belief that someone was having a go at killing her brother. His honesty, while appreciated, really only made her feel worse.
Perhaps if she were able to see him, she would feel much more comforted…
It was odd how quickly she had come to rely on her godfather.
Several days after Harry's interview with Skeeter, Nessa was sitting at the Gryffindor table, forcing herself to eat cereal despite the fact that it tasted like cardboard and felt like lead in her stomach. George had threatened to take her to see Madame Pomfrey if she didn't eat, however, and she had no desire to see the woman more than she already did. The night before she'd been shadowing Pomfrey, and the matron had become so irritated by her distraction that she'd sent her back to the common room early.
Nessa didn't entirely blame her either, truth be told.
As it was, George was next to her, eyeing her carefully as if she might purposely tip over her cereal bowl in order to avoid eating it. She was not proud to admit that she had considered it briefly.
Tori and Fred sat across from them, Fred having a conversation with Lee and George about their Canary Creams, which they had finally managed to perfect. Tori was frowning and swirling her oatmeal around, deep in thought. Nessa did not need to ask to know that it was about her father, although each passing day made it more and more difficult to restrain herself from forcing her best friend to confess what was going on with their relationship.
Before she could work up the nerve in this case, there was a loud whoosh above them as the morning owls made to fly in. Nessa didn't bother looking — she hadn't written Remus back yet because she had no idea what else to say at this point.
"Oh, shite," Tori said suddenly.
Nessa looked up at her curiously and could only see the back of her copy of the Daily Prophet. Tori's eyes were moving rapidly from side to side as she read the front page, her mouth gaping wide open. Fred leaned over her shoulder to look at what she was seeing and froze, grimacing immediately.
"What's going on?" Nessa said, gaze going back and forth between the two of them cautiously.
Was it Sirius? Had he been caught? Was it Voldemort? Had he regained power and been spotted somewhere?
Fred and Tori didn't answer, their gazes meeting briefly to convey their unease before Tori looked up at her with a false smile, and Fred met George's eye instead.
"Nothing, no, it's nothing," Tori said, her voice carefully light. She began to roll the paper back up quickly. "Just a bit of daily news, you know. Something or other about cauldron bottom thickness — someone lost their big toe."
Nessa was not stupid, so she didn't need to feel George straightening next to her in order to realize that this was a ridiculous falsehood. By the time she turned to look at Fred and George curiously, they had plastered fake smiles onto their faces for her benefit. The weird twin telepathy situation the two of them had going on irked her to no end sometimes.
Rolling her eyes, she snatched the rolled up paper from Tori's grasp before she could shove it into her bag.
"How do the three of you get away with anything in this school —"
She paused, gaping, at the picture on the first page of the Prophet. Much of the front page had been given over to a large photo of her brother, who looked distinctly uncomfortable as he smiled into the camera.
The Triwizard Tournament: "Barbaric" Tournament Allows Youngest Champion in Centuries
The Ministry's astonishing decision to reinstate the Triwizard Tournament was met with a mix of excitement and concern from the parents of students returning to Hogwarts. As the Wizarding World will recall, the Triwizard Tournament is a dangerous competition held between the three largest schools of Europe: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, and Durmstrang Institute. This tournament was very popular among the Wizarding World until the Ministry discontinued it in 1792 due to concerns of the rising death toll.
It is no surprise, then, that many parents were concerned for the safety of their returning children. The Ministry has advised the implementation of several regulations that would provide champions with more safety than was previously seen in this grueling, deadly competition. One such safety measure was only allowing those students who are legally of age, 17, to enter the tournament and compete.
Since the tournament's announcement in September, the wizarding public has been eagerly awaiting the news of who would be selected as champions. The champions were selected on Halloween night, and, to possibly no one's surprise, the Ministry has made another potentially fatal blunder.
Despite the age restriction put in place by the Ministry and, supposedly upheld by Albus Dumbledore, current Headmaster of Hogwarts, a young boy managed to enter himself into the competition. Young Harry Potter is only fourteen, but has somehow managed to become a Hogwarts champion. As many will recall, Harry Potter brought an end to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's reign of terror across Europe, though the circumstances of such a feat are unknown.
I had the personal opportunity of interviewing young Harry about his feelings about the tournament (you can find this interview on pages six and eight), but this is yet another oversight of the Ministry within recent weeks (Alastor Moody's attack and the Quidditch World Cup being among these mistakes). When asked how Harry Potter could have entered the competition without anyone knowing, the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, merely replied that it is "entirely unknown how the Goblet had been tricked" and that Harry Potter is "bound to compete in the tournament."
This, of course, raises the question: Will young Harry manage to survive this tournament? He is three years younger than his other competitors, and plagued by a tragic past that could come back to haunt him. Why would such a young boy willingly place his name within the Goblet of Fire?
I had the privilege of speaking with several students within the castle in an attempt to find out the answer to this very question. Many, such as Draco Malfoy and Adelaide Murton, believe that he is simply looking for glory and fame, with no regard to the danger of the tournament. A dangerous assumption to be sure, but others have argued that Harry may not be the one pulling the strings. Several students conveyed concerns that Harry's older sister, Vanessa Potter, may have helped him into the tournament. There have long been concerns about the relationship between the two siblings, according to several students.
A Hufflepuff student conveyed that Vanessa Potter has quite the temper, recalling an incident with which she "lost her head" at Fred and George Weasley, twin sons to Ministry official Arthur Weasley, over her brother being hit with a Bludger during a Quidditch match, a quite normal occurrence for any Quidditch player. A Ravenclaw student, Grace Murton, states that Vanessa is quite the loner.
"She hasn't got many friends, you know," she said quietly, her eyes full of pity for the older Gryffindor girl. "I think she might be hoping that Harry being champion will get her some attention."
If true, Harry is certainly being manipulated by his much older sister. One can only hope that both of them have considered the danger that may befall him, or we may end up with yet another Triwizard fatality.
Harry is not lost on supporters, however; it appears that he has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl, who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school. Hopefully, Miss Granger is able to provide the support that Harry needs during the grueling nature of the competition.
The first task is set to take place on November 24th at Hogwarts. Harry will be joined by the Champions of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, Victor Krum and Flur Delacor, respectively.
Nessa gaped at the article in front of her in disbelief. It was the longest she'd ever seen written in the Daily Prophet, although she supposed that this was a much more juicy story than any other Rita Skeeter had gotten her hands on.
It was a gossip article, at best — there was absolutely no truth to anything in the article, except maybe the fact that Hermione was top in the school, and there was nothing informative about the article either. Cedric had not even been mentioned once, and she'd spelled the other champions' names wrong. Truthfully, the entire article was such utter nonsense that she had no idea how anyone had agreed to publish it.
She hardly even wanted to know what the "interview" looked like, but she rapidly changed the pages anyway to skim over the material anyway.
An ugly scar, souvenir of a tragic past, disfigures the otherwise charming face of Harry Potter, whose eyes are a striking, vibrant green.
Tears fill those startlingly 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…
She almost didn't even know how to respond to the sheer ridiculousness of the information in front of her. She couldn't be entirely sure, of course, but she was almost certain that her brother would not have admitted to crying at night over their parents' deaths. She was also almost entirely certain that he didn't think their parents would be proud of him because rational thought would likely say that they'd be more concerned than proud, although what the hell did she know?
Nevermind the fact that Skeeter had said her brother might die at least three times in the entire article, and it was not at all reassuring. Even if it was entirely ridiculous in the grand scheme of things, she didn't need the question being posed by everyone in the world.
"Who is this Hufflepuff student?" George said, reading the article over her shoulder and breaking her out of her shocked reverie. "They're clearly a tosser — 'a quite normal occurrence for any Quidditch player.' Nice way of leaving out the fact that the Bludger was fixed, innit?"
Nessa didn't even need to guess at who the Hufflepuff student was — Devin had used the incident against her once in an attempt to get Cedric to believe that she was the Heir of Slytherin, and she didn't imagine he'd be reluctant to repeat it.
She wasn't stupid enough to mention this suspicion to George, however. In case he and Fred cooked up some ridiculous scheme to antagonize the man. It was the least of her concerns anyway.
"This entire article is nonsense," she said, throwing it away from her in disgust. "And entirely unhelpful. She didn't even mention Cedric at all."
Lee, who was the only one who had yet to read it, grabbed it from the table and scanned the article quickly.
"Won't go over with the Hufflepuffs that she didn't either," he said, rolling his eyes. "They already think we're stealing Diggory's glory, don't they?"
Nessa huffed in irritation. The Hufflepuffs hadn't lightened up in their treatment of the Gryffindors, giving them all the cold shoulder, and all of them wearing those ridiculous badges that Malfoy had made, but at least they'd cooled enough to stop insulting her brother at every turn.
Having the behavior start up again was not high on her list of priorities.
"Who is this Grace Murton?" Fred said, snatching the paper back from Lee and pointing at Grace's statement and looking at Tori with indignation. "I've never heard of her."
"Me neither," Tori said, frowning. "She sounds like a right bit—"
"Victoria!" Nessa snapped before she could finish the insult. Rolling her eyes, she said, "She's Adelaide's cousin. She doesn't like me because I made her stop bullying a student in the corridors last year —"
"By made, do you mean hexed?" Lee said with a grin, raising his eyebrow.
Nessa ignored him entirely. The girl was much younger than she was and it wasn't a moment she was entirely proud of, truth be told.
"None of this is beneficial at all," she continued, ignoring the knowing grins her friends shared at her lack of response. "It helps us with preparing Harry in no way, and we all know I had nothing to do with him being selected as champion. I don't know why she bothered mentioning me at all — I'm hardly half as exciting as Harry."
Tori rolled her eyes.
"You know, it's almost as if all that time in the library has sucked out your common sense," she said with an eye roll. "Of course, you're as exciting as Harry. You're a Potter, aren't you? You're exciting by association. Besides, Rita is always looking for trouble — Arthur has complained about her for his entire career. She's entirely useless at keeping the public accurately informed."
"Yes, well, he's a minor," Nessa said indignantly. "Aren't there laws in the Wizarding World that prevent her from publishing information about him without parental consent?"
The twins, Lee, and Tori all blinked at her.
"What?" Lee said eventually, as if the idea were entirely ludicrous.
"Unbelievable," Nessa said with a huff, standing and grabbing her bag from the floor, throwing it over her shoulder. "This world is entirely ridiculous. I have to find Harry before this gets around."
Already there were students whispering behind their own newspapers and giving her disapproving looks. But at least they only thought she was the reason her brother had managed to enter the tournament; she had no desire to know how they would react to knowing that Harry cried about their parents at night. As far as she was concerned, she got the better part of the deal.
"Good, we might actually be able to sell something today then," George muttered to Fred, who looked relieved.
Nessa raised an eyebrow at him and put her hands on her hips.
"What was that?"
Tori and Lee smothered their laughs behind the newspaper as George schooled his features into polite interest.
"What? Nothing, love," he said casually, spearing one of his sausages and smiling at her innocently. "Nothing to concern yourself with at all. You just worry about Harry."
They stared at each other for a long moment, but George was well equipped at maintaining his innocence under pressure. His mother had long since given up on looking at him disapprovingly in an attempt to get him to confess his sins.
He smothered a grin when Nessa rolled her eyes to the ceiling before giving him an exasperated look.
"I hope those Canary Creams blow up once they're eaten —"
""There's an idea," Fred said to George happily.
"And wipe that look off your face, George," Nessa said, referring to his fruitless attempts at looking innocent. "It looks ridiculous."
George grinned and sighed dreamily, resting his chin on his hand and looking at Fred.
"And they say romance is dead," he said wistfully.
Fred laughed at his brother, matching his movements with his own and preparing to make another witty remark, she was sure. Nessa huffed before he could and made to turn away from them, muttering to herself darkly about how she hated the whole lot of them. She paused when a hand around her wrist prevented her from walking away and turned to give George a long-suffering look.
He grinned at her, shoving a piece of toast in her hand. She opened her mouth to protest, but when he gave her a pointed look, she rolled her eyes again and took a pointed bite of the offending food.
"Off you go, love," he said, kissing the inside of her wrist and making her stomach lurch.
She turned hastily away before he could tell how much the action had affected her. Based on the chuckle she heard from behind her, she assumed she hadn't been entirely successful, but she had bigger things to be worried about at the moment. Although she sincerely wished that her life were so mundane that fancying her own boyfriend was the biggest of her problems.
There were a number of students she passed in the hall that pointed and stared at her, some attempting to trip her as she passed, but she largely ignored them. She'd gotten far used to this behavior in the last few weeks, particularly from the Hufflepuffs. Skeeter's article couldn't possibly do much worse, except confirm what the other students already suspected of her to begin with.
She rolled her eyes as she dodged another attempt to trip her when she entered the library and looked around for her brother.
He wasn't particularly hard to find these days — with Ron not speaking to him, he had to spend the majority of his time with either her or Hermione. Which was all well and good except for the fact that Ron was more likely to be around his twin brothers (much to Nessa's chagrin), so he mostly spent time with Hermione, who happened to spend the majority of her time in the library. Harry had been having a particularly difficult time with Summoning Charms lately, and Hermione was insisting that he just needed to learn the theory to master it. Nessa's opinion differed greatly on this subject, but if it kept her brother from spiraling about the tournament, she certainly wasn't going to complain.
She found the two of them working silently next to each other in a corner of the library, as far away from the only other people in the library — Viktor Krum and his group of giggling fangirls. Some of them were more subtle about their attentions, watching him from behind bookshelves, although whispering and giggling so loudly that it was hardly surreptitious. Others had simply sat at his table and eyed him over their books, giggling every time his gaze lifted to look at them.
"He's not even good-looking!" Hermione was muttering angrily as Nessa approached. She glared in the direction of Krum's sharp profile. "They only like him because he's famous! They wouldn't look twice at him if he couldn't do that Wonky-Faint thing —"
"Wronski Feint," Harry said through gritted teeth.
Nessa sighed to herself, finally coming to a stop in front of them, simultaneously distracting her brother and blocking Hermione's view of Krum behind her.
"Oh!" Hermione said, startled, her irritation with Krum having distracted her enough that she hadn't seen the older girl approach. "Hi, Nessa! Are you coming to help with S.P.E.W. research? Because I —"
"Not particularly, Hermione," she said guiltily. She'd joined the group because she believed in it, of course, but she hadn't spent any time helping Hermione with the finer points. The idea of speaking with other students about the whole thing made her want to throw up from anxiety, and she spent the rest of her time worrying about her brother. So either way, really, she was going to throw up. "I wanted to speak with Harry. Do you mind?"
Harry, who, for his part, tried to mask his relief that he wouldn't have to listen to Hermione complain about Krum, raised an eyebrow at Nessa and eyed her warily. It was certainly not usually good news for him when his sister came to speak with him about something and requested his friends give them privacy to do so; she'd long since given up on trying to get him to have discretion with his friends.
"Oh, sure," Hermione said, looking disappointed, although Nessa couldn't really tell if she was disappointed about her not being there for S.P.E.W. or having to leave the table entirely. "I need to find a text anyway, but I've been waiting for those girls to stop giggling and leave. It doesn't appear very likely, does it?"
The question had been rhetorical, but Nessa still looked over at the group of them and pursed her lips to keep from laughing. One of them had purposely knocked off a quill so that she could bend over to pick it up. Krum merely continued reading as if he didn't notice.
Harry gave her a long-suffering look as she sat down and Hermione bustled off, muttering to herself.
"She's been going on about them for days now," he said. "Frankly, I don't see how she's much different. She talks about him just as much, except she's just complaining instead."
Nessa couldn't really say much herself; she'd done the same thing with the girls that had giggled around Cedric in the library. And that was before he'd become champion because it had been much tamer then.
She hadn't spoken with him since their argument in the courtyard, but every time she'd seen him in the halls, he was surrounded by giggling girls. Annoying as it was, she sincerely hoped one of them would grab his attention so that she could stop worrying that he still fancied her.
"You don't think it's annoying?" she said instead, trying to steer the conversation away from Hermione's irritation entirely.
"I don't give it much thought," he said pointedly. "I've got bigger things to be worrying about at the moment. Like what he's reading and if it'll help with the first task."
Nessa blew out a large breath in an attempt to keep her anxiety at bay. The task was coming up on them faster than she'd have preferred. It was almost as if time had sped up in the face of her dread. It was racing past her, each hour of the clock sounding more and more like a death knell.
She tried not to think of it entirely because they still didn't know what the task was going to be, and she had no idea what to teach her brother to help in the situation when she had no idea what she was up against. Of course, ignoring her problems only got her so far — which was nowhere — but the panic was like an ever-present cloud above her. She didn't know how to control that feeling from showing on her face when she was around her brother.
"How are you feeling?" she said stupidly. Because what else could she say? It all felt like the worst nightmare she'd ever had, and she didn't even have to do anything.
Harry looked particularly green at the question, and she was very sure that she wasn't imagining the sudden shaking of his hands. He was much better at controlling and hiding his anxiety, but she wasn't stupid. Something as imminent and massive as this would give even grown men a great deal of anxiety, and she didn't see how her brother could be any different.
"Oh, great," he said sarcastically, glaring at the book in front of him. "Never better, actually. I can't wait to have my arm chewed off or my neck broken —"
"Don't say that," she snapped, the image flashing behind her eyes suddenly and making her want to vomit. "You can't think like that —"
Harry's anxiety quickly turned to anger at the words. He couldn't help but think about it, and he was almost certain his sister was thinking the same. She hadn't been around much lately, making horrible excuses that got more and more pathetic the closer the task became. She avoided her problems, and at the moment he was a problem because he was just another reminder that the thing she feared most might actually come to exist.
He told himself it didn't bother him — it wasn't like he went out of his way to talk about the tournament with anyone, including Hermione, because it made him want to panic — but she was his sister, and coping without her was much harder than coping with her.
"Why not?" Harry said angrily. "Everyone else is! You are."
She was, but that felt stupid to admit out loud when she was trying to get him to go into the task as confident as possible.
"Harry, I am not —"
"Don't lie to me," he scoffed, pushing one of the texts he'd been looking at away from him violently and making her swear under her breath. "That's why you don't hang around anymore. I'm not stupid, you know. You look at me and think I'm going to die, so you —"
"Will you quit saying it out loud, for fuck's sake?" she snapped vehemently.
He ignored her completely, suddenly incredibly angry about the entire thing, and she didn't think she entirely blamed him. She had been horribly absent this year — wrapped up in Cedric's nonsense, and the twins entering the tournament, and then avoiding her brother or any talk about the tournament with him because the thought of it made her want to be sick. Truthfully, the most she'd said about him all year was when she'd snapped at the teachers who hadn't taken her brother's side the night his name had come out of the goblet.
She was being a horrible, selfish human being about the entire thing, despite knowing that her brother needed her support more now than he ever had.
"How do I feel, she says," he snorted angrily. "If you'd been around at all, you wouldn't have to ask that, now would you?"
She flinched as if he'd slapped her, and took in a slow, stuttering breath to keep herself from crying.
He was picking a fight. She knew that.
He'd always had a horrible tendency of letting his fear and anger fester until it exploded out of him, oftentimes directed at people who didn't deserve it. She couldn't say that she wasn't exactly the same herself, and she often wondered if this reaction was due to them being so readily ignored in their own home, their feelings and emotions so stifled there that they assumed no one would care if they voiced them anyway until they had no other choice.
In this case, however, the fight was warranted, even though he paled in shock after the words had left his mouth. As far as she was concerned, she did deserve it because it was the truth, and ignoring it wasn't really helping heer or him.
Or the twins. Or Tori.
She was driving them all insane at this point, but it didn't mean that she had to enjoy hearing it. Especially coming out of the mouth of her brother, who, for his part, rarely directed his anger at her. They'd always known exactly which buttons to push to irritate each other — they were siblings after all, and irritation with each other was just a weekly occurrence — but arguing outright wasn't particularly Harry's style. She was usually the one that instigated their fights and having him be the one to do so now was both unsurprising and upsetting.
"Nessa, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that —"
"Yes, you did."
She looked away from him to keep him from seeing the tears in her eyes because she could never quite convince herself to cry in front of him when she was supposed to be the older, more rational, put together of the two of them. Her voice had been firm and unwavering, however, although maybe a bit choked and watery.
"Nessa, it's —"
"Harry, don't apologize," she said, finally managing to breathe in enough that the tears subsided so that she could look at him. There was a pang in her chest at the guilt on his face, and an overwhelming sadness in her gut at the sight of him. "You're allowed to be upset with me."
He looked at her warily for a moment, and she avoided his gaze by picking at her cuticles.
She didn't know what to say anymore. There was so much happening at once — the tournament, the looming fear of Voldemort, her O.W.L.s, her mentorship with Pomfrey, her argument with Cedric, her relationship with George, her prefect studies, the school's gossiping, Sirius, Tori's issues with Sirius. Each of them had their own mix of emotions, and all of them occurred all at once so that she was nearly drowning in the stress of it all.
Adding in her complex feelings for her brother at the moment was painful enough to steal her breath.
She shouldn't have been avoiding him — he was the one that was being subjected to the entire thing, and although she knew she had every right to be anxious and miserable about the entire thing, she wasn't stupid enough to think that she had the tougher hand.
Then there was coming to terms with the fact that she had been avoiding him. Her, the person who was so proud of her ability to compartmentalize on behalf of her brother. Her, the person who had wrapped everything she was into caring for her brother. It was guilt and anger and sadness that she wasn't strong enough to do that now. It was cowardly, and she had no excuse that was enough to mask any of it because avoiding her anxiety was hardly reason enough to abandon her family in favor of her own sanity.
"You're right," she said eventually, still refusing to look at him as if her cuticles were of a great deal of importance to her. "I didn't mean for it to — I shouldn't have been avoiding you, and I am worried about the tournament. You're the one that has to compete though, aren't you? So I suppose that's selfish of me —"
"Not entirely," he interrupted. "You have to watch me compete. It's not as if it's going to be a walk in the park for you either."
No, it certainly wouldn't be, but it still was no excuse for her behavior as a whole.
"Yes, well, it's not an excuse," she said, sighing heavily. "All I'm saying is I'm sorry. You shouldn't be worried about me and how I'm feeling when you've got to be prepared for next week, and I — I should have been more supportive."
He looked at her for a long moment before clearing his throat awkwardly.
"Right, well, I — it's fine," he said. "It's been kind of nice not having to think about the entire thing, but now it's…"
Close.
It was days away. Twelve days, to be exact.
She understood completely why he looked so green, and she had to work very hard to maintain her composure enough not to burst into tears outright.
"I don't want you going into the task thinking that something horrible is going to happen," she said instead, finally lifting her gaze to look at him. "You're a good wizard, Harry, and going in expecting to die or be injured is just going to distract you. It's already going to be hard enough without you second-guessing yourself."
There was a long moment of silence from him as he considered the words before he nodded resolutely.
"Do you think I'll —"
"I think you'll be fine," she said hastily before he could finish the question. "I refuse to believe otherwise."
He snorted.
"So long as I don't need a Summoning Charm, maybe."
She relaxed slightly at the change in tone, grateful at least that he was feeling okay enough to make jokes at his own expense.
"You'll get the hang of it, Harry," she said assuredly. "You're in your head too much."
Ironic, that she was saying so now when George and Cedric had always told her the same thing about Transfiguration.
But Summoning Charms were relatively simple, and though her brother struggled in any class that wasn't DADA, she knew he didn't usually struggle to this extent. He was sharp, and a fairly quick learner, but he had so much on his plate right now that she didn't blame him for not being able to focus enough on his schoolwork to get his books to come to him from his school bag.
Her brother merely gave her an annoyed look.
"The only other person in class who got assigned extra homework was Neville, Nessa," he said, his voice so entirely deadpan that she had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. "Even Ron knows how to do the stupid spell."
This was said darkly and she didn't need to ask her brother if he had spoken with Ron lately. The two of them were supposed to serve their detention with Snape tonight, and she'd overheard the greasy professor saying he needed to pickle rat brains — she had no doubt who he would assign to do such a disgusting job, but maybe the two hours they had to spend in the dungeons together would mend whatever was broken between them.
It would serve the purpose of ending her brother's clear misery and prevent her from having to grit her teeth and smile at the stupid prat every time he was around her own group of friends. It was particularly difficult to refrain from shoving his head up his own arse, and respect that he was George's brother all at once. Particularly when he had such an affinity for putting his foot in his mouth.
At any rate, she didn't think that it was likely to end anytime soon. Ron was careful not to voice his opinion on her brother's predicament to her, but Fred and George had gone up to bed one evening looking as though they'd like to have ripped their hair out after a particularly brutal conversation with him about it.
And while she found his view of the entire incident entirely ridiculous, she was almost certain that Rita Skeeter's article wouldn't make things much better.
Sighing heavily, she said, "Speaking of Ron…have you seen the Prophet today?"
Harry glared at his bookbag and took a particularly vicious stab at it with his wand.
"No, why?" he groused. "Did he give some interview about how he thinks I've entered the tournament just to spite him? Because the rest of the school would just love to read that."
"Not exactly," she hedged, pulling the newspaper in question from her bag and handing it over to him cautiously.
The moment he caught sight of his picture, he dropped his wand on the table and yanked the paper from her hands, eyes rapidly scanning the page as he read. She grimaced when he got to the interview of himself, and started mouthing the words soundlessly in shock.
"I — what — WHAT?"
It was comical, really. She'd never quite seen a person's eyes get so wide with horror, and her brother had always been a man of few words, but watching him flounder ridiculously made her want to start giggling.
Nevermind the fact that nothing about the entire situation was funny at all.
"I don't cry about our parents!"
She couldn't help it then — the laugh burst out of her before she could stop it. The indignance in his face and tone had been clear, but it was so ridiculous that they were even having this discussion at all.
"I'm sorry," she gasped through her laughter as he glared at her harshly. "I'm sorry, but it's just — I knew you would think that was the worst thing she wrote."
"Well, isn't it?" he said indignantly. "It says I'm not ashamed to admit it…what kind of person —"
"There's nothing wrong with crying, Harry —"
"Yeah, well you would know —"
"You're such a stupid prat, Harry," she said, rolling her eyes and snatching the paper back from him. "If you cry about them, it's okay. I won't tell Fred and George —"
"I'm regretting that I said we were fine earlier," he said, glaring at her. She snorted indelicately. "You know I don't cry about them."
"Yes, well, she said you were going to die about five times. I'm thinking that takes precedence here."
He snorted and rolled his eyes.
"We'll agree to disagree. The school already thinks that's going to happen. I don't need to die with them thinking that I cry myself to sleep at night."
She rolled her eyes, but refrained from saying that it was the least of their worries. Even she had to admit that she wouldn't want the entire school believing that she cried every night about her parents. She'd either be ridiculed mercilessly — because kids were mean — or they'd look at her with pity. Neither option sounded particularly appealing.
So instead she just sighed and took the newspaper back, rolling it up, and tucking it back into her bag. She'd have to return it to Tori, and there were more people entering the library now, running the risk that they'd catch sight of it. It wouldn't take long for the entire school to know, but there was no point in her speeding the process along.
"Maybe this entire thing will be over before we know it," her brother said wistfully, tapping his foot anxiously on the chair leg in front of him. "Maybe this is — this is just some sick joke and the tournament isn't as bad as we're making it out to be."
She didn't believe that — not for even half of a moment. Every horrible thing that existed in the wizarding world, every horrible creature, every horrible death was flashing through her mind like the pictured reels in a View Master, so quick that she could only catch the worst of the images before it flickered to the next.
But she couldn't tell him that. Not when he looked so hopeful. Not when the first task was twelve days away. Not when she'd promised him minutes before that she wouldn't let those images keep her away from him, from giving him the support he so desperately needed.
So instead, she blinked several times to clear them from behind her eyes and reached forward to squeeze his hand.
"We'll get through this, Harry," she said quietly. "We always do."
She might have made fun of her brother for caring so much about the crying portion of the news article, but she'd known that it wouldn't bode well for him.
Nessa had been correct in her assumption that it wouldn't change the school's opinion about her — they'd already thought she'd helped her brother into the tournament anyway — although they now had a tendency of asking her if she was feeling lonely or needed a friend at every available opportunity.
She didn't think she'd given hexing Grace Murton enough consideration — clearly it was a requirement to be a maniacal bitch to be a Murton, cousin or otherwise, and maybe that was reason enough.
But Harry was certainly the one who, understandably and unsurprisingly, received the brunt of the school's ire and mockery. From the moment the article had appeared ten days ago, Harry had had to endure people — Slytherins, mainly — quoting it at him as he passed and making sneering comments.
He couldn't turn a corner without someone asking him if he needed a hanky in case he started crying or asking him when he had become one of the top students in the school. Harry had gotten so used to this, in fact, that when Cho Chang had tried to return a quill he'd dropped, he'd assumed she'd been there to make a snide comment as well and had snapped that he was just off to go have a cry in the loo before he realized who he was talking to. Nessa had watched in amused horror as her brother realized that it had been Cho and blushed the color of a tomato, and it took a great deal of restraint on her part not to say anything after the Ravenclaw had run off.
She'd promised not to tell the twins or Tori about the incident, but every time she saw Cho in History of Magic she started sniggering and there was no way Tori hadn't noticed it. But she wasn't stupid enough to say anything to them — they wouldn't be able to help themselves from taking the mickey and Harry was only barely keeping it together as it was.
The Saturday before the first task was a Hogsmeade weekend and she and Hermione had managed to convince him to get out of the castle to clear his head. He needed time away from everything, and though Nessa had nearly convinced herself not to go, being away from the castle might be good for both of them.
Plus her friends had told her that if she didn't go to Hogsmeade, they'd hang her undergarments from the ceiling of the Great Hall. She didn't believe them — well, not true. She didn't believe George, but Fred and Tori actually might do it just to prove a point, and it just was not something she was willing to risk.
So, here she was, walking down the stupid path to the Hogwarts gates and into Hogsmeade while Fred and Tori bickered about which one of them had painted Ron with dragon dung when they'd been younger. Ron, who had joined them because he had no one else to go with when Hermione was going with Harry, looked somewhere between revolted and insulted; not made better by the fact that Lee was giving him a wide berth as if the younger Gryffindor were currently covered in dung.
Geroge was grinning, walking beside her with his arm around her shoulder, and making unhelpful comments about the entire thing to make things worse for Ron.
"Which one of us covered him in toilet paper we'd stuck in the toilet?"
It had been all of them, although apparently George's idea to begin with. When Nessa had raised an eyebrow at him, he'd merely grinned and said, "I wanted to play Mummies." She'd snorted and refrained from asking him why he'd had to stick the paper into the toilet before putting it on his younger brother because she was sure that the response would be equally ridiculous.
"Remember when he used to eat sand?"
Tori had shaken her head and waved the comment away entirely.
"He didn't eat sand," she said, giving George a pointed look. "You shoved it in his mouth because he'd told Molly that you tried to convince him to stick his hand in the fireplace."
Ron made an indignant noise and Fred doubled over with laughter at the memory.
"Oh, right," George said as if it were merely coming back to him now in great detail. Nessa rolled her eyes with a smile at the grin on his face. "It's amazing how it all comes back, isn't it?"
Ron gaped at him, pointing a finger between the twins and Tori.
"You were trying to kill me, you were —"
"Don't be so dramatic, Ronnie," Fred said, rolling his eyes. "We only wanted to see how badly it burned. It was for science."
"For science," Ron repeated dubiously. "Why didn't one of you tossers do it then?"
"Why bother when we have such willing participants?" Tori said frankly.
Nessa snorted, but decided that listening to the three of them bickering was low on her list of priorities. While amusing, she couldn't quite find it within herself to care about Ron's predicament — both because she couldn't stand the sight of him at the moment when her brother was so miserable and because the first task was only two days away at this point.
Each passing day was harder and harder for her to focus on anything else but the impending doom. Madame Pomfrey had already told her that she couldn't help with healing until the task had ended — "I have no time to coddle you when you're like this," had been her actual word choice, but Nessa was pretending that she wasn't such a mess at this point that even the matron couldn't stand to be near her.
She'd been cleared to help with any injuries after the fact should Madame Pomfrey need help, but she wouldn't be able to think clearly enough to help before she knew her brother was capable of competing. She hadn't bothered arguing.
As they finally made their way outside of the Hogwarts gates surrounded by other students, one of which had grinned maliciously at her and said, "Hey, Potter! Looks like you found some friends —"
Before he'd had the opportunity to finish the remark, Tori had grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and tugged him toward her, pulled his winter cap down over his nose, and then shoved him away from her so roughly that he fell on his bottom into a puddle of mud that had melted from the last snow.
Fred had looked in the opposite direction to hide his grin, but Lee had rolled his eyes to the sky and dragged Tori away from the boy before he could decide to stand up and retaliate.
"Don't look at me like that," Tori said angrily to Nessa's disapproving gaze, ripping her arm away from Lee and straightening herself back out.
Nessa didn't bother arguing or saying anything else — Tori was in a particularly vicious mood today, and it had been apparent from the moment she'd gotten up for the day. They were supposed to meet Sirius that evening and it was clearly taking some sort of toll on her, the prospect of seeing her father again. Particularly when none of them knew what to expect.
And besides, she didn't really —
Nessa came to a grounding halt as they rounded the corner into the village, nearly tripping George in the process. He swore in surprise, catching himself just before he went toppling into Tori in front of him. Straightening, he opened his mouth to ask what was wrong when his gaze followed hers and he broke into a wide grin.
He hadn't been sure the older man would show, but he was standing in the middle of the path into the village, nodding in greeting at several students that passed and waved at him happily.
"Professor Lupin!"
"Hi, Professor Lupin!"
"Look! It's Professor Lupin! Maybe he's coming back!"
Nessa hardly even heard them before she was taking off at a run. Her godfather only had time to brace himself before she had thrown herself at him in a hug. He grunted, trying to mask his surprise at her open show of affection, and she squeezed him impossibly tight as if she didn't quite believe he were really there.
"Remus," she gasped happily, hardly able to believe that he was actually standing directly in front of her. The full moon had only just passed and it typically took him a few days to recover, The thought had her pulling away from him to look at him in concern. "Are you alright? I didn't hurt you, did I?"
Remus chuckled at her and raised an eyebrow.
"I'm fine, Vanessa," he said, his voice just as light and calm as she remembered and the sound of it made her want to cry. She distracted herself by dragging her gaze over him clinically. "I am not made of glass, as you might know. Although it is good to know that you're taking your sessions with Madame Pomfrey seriously."
He certainly did look exactly as she had remembered. The same pale face, same shabby robes, same graying hair despite his young age. He still smelled like parchment and ink and the random spattering of self-inflicted scars that cut across his face were exactly as she remembered. It was obvious that a full moon had been close as he looked slightly weaker than usual, but the color was already returning to his cheeks.
He was a tall man, a perfect foot taller than her, and she had to crane her neck to grin up at him.
"How did you know we had a Hogsmeade visit this weekend?"
"George wrote to me," he said, nodding behind her at her friends, whom she'd left in the dust in her excitement. "He seemed to think that you might need someone to talk to."
She gaped at him in surprise as the twins and Tori appeared beside her grinning. George hadn't said anything to her about it, although it now made sense why he'd been so adamant that she leave the castle.
Her boyfriend winked at her when she turned her surprised expression toward him, and rested his hand on her waist. She was still thinking of what to say to either him or Remus — because her heart was swelling again, and her stomach was filling with a warm, giddy feeling — but Fred saved her the trouble by speaking next.
"Moony," Fred said, grinning widely and bouncing on the balls of his feet excitedly.
Tori snorted and rolled her eyes, smacking him upside the head.
"You can't just call him that, Fred —"
"Why not?" he said indignantly, rubbing the side of his head with one hand, and using his other to tug on her ponytail enough that she had to bend backward slightly.
"Because you're not a Marauder —"
"I could have been!"
"Oh, please —"
Fred turned to Remus, still fending off Tori's attempts to retaliate for pulling on her hair, and looked at his old professor with an imploring grin.
"I would have been, wouldn't I have?" he said excitedly. "George and I would have been perfect —"
"Yes as Thing One and Thing Two," Nessa deadpanned, sending Tori into peals of laughter and making Fred straighten indignantly.
Nessa gasped when George moved his hand to tickle her sides, and squirmed away from him with a glare. Remus chuckled, eyeing his three former students in amusement.
"It's nice to see that the two of you haven't changed," he said to Tori and Fred, who were still working very hard to irritate one another. "I quite worried you might have grown out of your bickering."
Tori scoffed as if the thought were ludicrous and reached both hands up to tug the strings of Fred's hoodie so that the hood closed around his face. He swore in irritation, ignoring Nessa's admonishment because Tori was grinning at him proudly when he finally managed to free himself.
"Professor," George said, rolling his eyes at his brother and best friend, tugging Tori away from Fred before his twin could retaliate. The last thing he needed was for the two of them to be rolling around in the snow like they did when they were toddlers. It might have been cute when they'd been kids, but at sixteen, it was just embarrassing.
"George," Remus said, accepting the younger man's extended hand.
It was the tone of his voice that made Nessa pause. It was oddly…pointed, serious. Fatherly, even. She looked between the two of them awkwardly, but George was merely holding the man's gaze as if he hadn't a care in the world. Remus was giving him a hard look, and it took Nessa several moments to realize that it was because of her.
Fred and Tori stopped glaring at each other to look between the two men, evil grins spreading across their faces as the realization came to them too. Tori shared a look with Fred, and before Nessa could stop her from saying something embarrassing, she said, "Ooooh are you going to give them the talk," she said, ducking away from the arm George tried to use to cover her mouth. "You really should, you know. They snog a lot —"
"Alright, well, we'll be off then," George said with fake brightness, taking a step away from the werewolf and dragging Tori forcefully away with an arm around her neck. Fred was cackling, but George shoved him toward Lee and Ron before he could say anything that might make the situation worse. "We'll see you back at the castle, love!"
Tori finally managed to free herself from George's grip, laughing melodically and waving back at her best friend with a grin. Nessa stared after them with a gaping expression as Tori took a leap onto George's back, wrapping her arms around his neck and forcing him to give her a piggyback ride. Whatever George said as he disappeared with her sent her cackling and Nessa sincerely considered what it might be like to suffocate the girl in her sleep.
Remus was looking at her nervously, and there was a long, full silence between them as she avoided his gaze.
"Your aunt has talked to you about that, right?"
Nessa choked. She was going to kill Victoria, she really was.
"Yes," she lied hastily.
Her aunt was definitely not going to have that conversation with her, and Nessa would rather light herself on fire than have this conversation with anyone, let alone Remus Lupin.
She and Remus talked about a great many things — her worries, her school activities, themselves in general. Her relationship with George had of course come up, but he'd not seen them together, and she had zero interest in having to sit through an awkward encounter with her godfather. Because of all of the things they talked about, she had absolutely no doubt in her mind that any conversation like that would be very awkward, and very, very mortifying.
Based on the green tinge to his skin, she assumed he felt the same.
"Good, good," he said, breathing out a long breath of relief. "I think I need a drink after that."
Yeah, she did too.
I considered if I wanted to end here or continue with her entire meeting with Remus, but the chapter is so long already that I think this is just a good place to stop.
If, by chance, you are wondering to yourself "why has it been November in this fanfic for what feels like 16 years now?" I truly do not blame you. I am trying my very best to keep pace with JK's chapters and she has them in November for a very long amount of time. She said the article came out 10 days before the Hogsmeade visit, but that's logistically impossible, considering. We're looking past that for now.
Also, writing Rita Skeeter is difficult! I like hearing gossip, but as far as spreading it goes, I don't know how to do that. So I apologize if that portion was ridiculous.
Lastly, thank you for sticking by me despite the infrequent updates lately! Each and every one of you mean so much to me, and I promise that I am not ignoring this story. I've just got a lot going on personally at the moment that's made it difficult to write. It will pass.
Sirius will be next chapter! I'll see you soon, lovelies!