THE MORNING DAWNED in a reverie. Soft, silky sheets which cradled her body felt suddenly all too warm. By instinct, she had woken up earlier than the other girls, with two thankful hours to herself to spend in last minute preparation of her O.W.L.s. It seemed almost sacrilegious that she should be enjoying this moment so much when her studies had been lagging so far behind, and when her saving grace had come in the form of utter trickery, granted to her by the headmaster of all people. It was strange, yet not one bit unexpected, that Luxanna hadn't paid any mind to the prospect of her future career, what with all the distractions from her studies and her own life in the past months. When Professor Snape discussed her opportunities with her, he had encouraged her to pursue Potions; it was clear that he, along with many other teachers, had entirely forgotten about her recent inadequacy in class, and so Luxanna eagerly grasped the opportunity by the throat and was now at work on the practical for Transfiguration she had decided to sit in on, ironically still tempted by Moody's offer to become an Auror.

His offer, or his threat? asked a voice of doubt. Luxanna dismissed it. Frost had been right when she suggested training Occlumency; the voices were slowly gaining on her.

She stepped out into the common room with a textbook in hand, only to realise that the room was occupied. Now, under normal circumstances, the word 'occupied' was reserved for crowds of more than one, but that morning, Alex's presence accounted for an entire proverbial audience, even with his gaze firmly averted. No, don't let him do this to you, her resolve said. She had not talked to him since, and had become rather adept at avoiding him in the corridors, even if it meant going to the other end of the school at the risk of being late, or staying back after classes until he passed by. After several weeks of this dodging business, her conscience was beginning to protest, but it wasn't enough to make her break her promise to herself to see her decision through until its bitter end. So Luxanna took the chair opposite him with eyes firmly fixed to her own textbook, and sunk into the unspoken silence of their situation.

Except that he kept glancing at her every now and again, as though waiting for her to acknowledge his presence, his eyes growing rounder each time, and her chest sinking lower and lower at every instance, so that the words on the page became blurred and illegible. Then finally, after several minutes of this excruciating back and forth, he spoke.

"Luxanna, can we talk?"

"I can't imagine what there is to say."

"Is this how it's going to be from now on?"

Luxanna didn't reply. She reread the same sentence for the fourth time, hands gripping at the binding.

"You're going to pretend that nothing happened?"

"I'm trying to study."

"Fine!" he concluded. A few moments passed before he spoke again. "No, actually, it's not fine." He had rehearsed this conversation, she could tell, and it wasn't going the way that he planned it. "Did you let me keep my memories just to torture me?"

Anger reared its head, and she wanted to say yes, she really wanted to say 'Yes,' but... "I'm going to leave if you don't start being quiet."

"Can we just talk for a moment? Can we just—"

Luxanna rose from her seat, still refusing to look at him. With her back turned to Alex, she heard him say quietly, "Dumbledore spoke to me." She had halted in her step. "He wanted to make sure I'd keep your secret." He paused. "He didn't have to. I was going to, either way."

"I know," she said before she left.

It had taken Luxanna a long time to discern where each person's memories of her concluded; Spinster had mentioned something about owing her a Charms essay, but Luxanna was unsure whether that memory of Spinster's had just been happy enough to merit remembering inside her own twisted world of deranged arrangements. Selwyn had simply turned her nose up at Luxanna in the hallway without saying a word. Her lack of scathing remarks reeked of the situation that took place after the Yule Ball, when Selwyn gave her the silent treatment after spying on her and Weasley from the bushes.

Speaking of the Weasleys... they were being strangely evasive recently, and if Christmas Eve was the general cutoff, it meant that their memories ended with the culmination of December's foul rumours. Everything else before Christmas still held firm, so that their lack of involvement with her could be only put down to exam anxiety. No, who was she kidding? The Weasleys didn't care about grades. No, this was probably to do with their mother coming to Hogwarts in regards to their suspension back then.

Two hours later, Luxanna stood before the exam table and took her wand between cold fingers, the tip trembling slightly as she cast a Vanishing spell at a canary before the steely examiner who scrutinised her over his spectacles, and succeeding only in making its wings flutter. She managed it on her fifth attempt, which was no doubt a bad omen for her score, and left the room with her head bowed and fists clenched, only to be met with the sight of Alex and Spinster, both of whom were waiting for her to pass out of view before speaking in low whispers behind their hands. Her stomach twisted like a rag being wrung dry.

"You did fine with the other spellss," Frost told her after lunch. "Your Lapiforsss was nearly perfect, and I'm sure they will appreciate you showing that you're able to do it nonverbally."

"I don't need your pity, Frost."

"Lighten up," said Frost, "our troublesss are nearly behind uss now."

"Nearly?"

Frost didn't reply.

"What do you mean, nearly?"

"There isss still the matter of the Triwizard Tournament. The third task, Luksss..."

Luxanna swallowed. "So? What do you want me to do? I've tried to warn Potter, you know that. It pains me to say this, but he's done inexplicably well in the other two tasks."

"What if that was the plan all along?"

"How do you mean?"

"Perhaps they wanted him to do well in the first two... played into his confidence, so that he would overestimate himself when the time comesss..."

"Frost, there's nothing that I can do," said Luxanna with a defeated sigh.

They were on the Grand Staircase, rising towards the second floor's landing when, from the opposite way, on a staircase parallel to Luxanna's, she spotted Potter and the Weasleys coming down; both of the twins, with what must have been their mother in tow, and a fifth, older Weasley, whose name Luxanna didn't know. The staircases had aligned in the middle of air, perfectly mirroring one another.

Luxanna jutted out her chin before addressing Mrs Weasley with the air of a superior inspecting her subjects. "Ah, Mrs Weasley," she said pointedly at the woman, whose cheeks were growing red at the sight of her. "Pleasure. I assume you're here to collect your sons."

"I'm sorry?" There was a note of hostility to her tone, hinting that Luxanna ought to mind her cheek in her presence. Mrs Weasley was correct in this, of course, but Luxanna was not about to back down from a woman who likely thought of her as some sort of harlot.

"You've not been informed about the suspension?"

"Suspension? What suspension?" Mrs Weasley turned on her boys.

"Nice one," the older one said to his brothers.

"No, there's no suspension!" one of the twins said.

"Wait, but when we talked to professor McGonagall, didn't she—" the other twin began to say, but was interrupted by a subtle shove of his brother's elbow. "Nevermind. My mind's a bit muddled lately."

"Fred, George, what's this about? Another suspension?" asked Mrs Weasley.

"What? Hey, no, this is our first!"

"Your mind really is muddled, Freddie. I don't know what she's talking about, Mum."

Odd, as if their individual memory spans conflicted with one another. And even more odd was the fact that Mrs Weasley didn't question this, as if despite it all, she was more glad to believe her two mischievous sons than the girl vouching for their wrongdoing. Why was Mrs Weasley at Hogwarts, if not for their suspension, anyway?

The day appeared to stretch on, the sundown reserved for the audience that evening, and by the time that evening finally arrived Frost had managed to convince Luxanna to join the crowd at the task. If she had already failed to help Potter, at least she shouldn't have been forced to watch him fail, injure himself in there, or worse…

The noise of the music, the cheering and the clapping threatened her composure as she followed behind the tight group of people entering the stands and settling into their seats. A thick, symmetrical alignment of hedges rose up to meet the stands at the Quidditch pitch, and beyond the stands the pitch itself was set against a dark sky, a horizon line cutting into the clouds through an orange sun as it sank.#

Two tournament officials flanked both exits respectively, and a team of security officers kept watch over the pitch behind where Luxanna was sitting. Their rigid postures and uniforms guided Luxanna's mind to the question of her father; somewhere far away from here, warmed under the candlelight, Cepheus sat in his study with his head craned over a pile of paperwork, the mark on his forearm concealed behind a long sleeve, obliviously unaware of all the turmoil that had befallen his daughter this year. She shivered. In front of her, one of the ministry employees, Ludo Bagman, brought his wand to his lips to an explosion of applause.

What if... just what if Potter lost his life inside that maze? Moody—or, Martin Mulciber, if that was his real name—his mission complete, would retire from his post at Hogwarts and walk free and, if You Know Who was truly back, he would be finally reunited with his master, severing his and Luxanna's promise to each other, but something in the back of Luxanna's mind told her that there was more to it; that as formal as his words of threat had been, there was an ulterior motive concealed beneath them; a sentiment of sympathy… of kinship. He would walk free, yes, and somehow she knew he would find his way back to her.

"Lukss," Frost whispered into her ear. "It's our only chance."

Moody stood resting his weight on his cane, hungry eyes glued to Potter at the edge of the maze.

Before Ludo Bagman could finish announcing the score, Luxanna rose from her seat and hurriedly walked onto the pitch. "I'm sorry, could I have the wand for a moment?" she asked. The music quietened, the cheer replaced by a wave of disappointed booing, and the well rehearsed, toothy grin on Bagman's face died into an awkward smile.

"Do you mind? The task is just about to begin..."

"It's important."

He forced out a laugh with an effort, his shoulders stooping with the strain. "More important than the Triwizard Tournament, young lady? I think not."

"I think yes."

At a loss for words, Bagman's eyes sought out the tournament's referees, and Luxanna used this distraction to seize the wand from his hand. "It'll only take a moment," she told him.

"Oh, come on!" yelled a boy with a Hufflepuff banner round his neck.

"Get off the pitch, Black!" called another.

"Please, just listen!" she said, then realised that she hadn't activated the spell. She touched the wand to her neck, and announced loudly and clearly, "Harry Potter's name never should have emerged from the goblet."

A wave of groans and protests rose from the stands and Bagman's eyes narrowed at her. "That's quite enough, now! Headmaster, I'm sure—"

But Professor Dumbledore, who was sitting in the front row, only waved him off, giving Luxanna the permission to continue.

"I know that many of you believe that Potter entered his own name into the tournament, but I can assure you with full conviction that he does not possess the capacity nor the intellect for such a feat…"

"Oh, shut up!" Potter's friend, Weasley, yelled at her.

"She's just jealous that she couldn't pull it off herself!"

"No," Luxanna said simply. "As deep as my dislike for Potter, I would not stoop so low as to let him die tonight." Over by the corner, Moody's eyes narrowed at her, and a look of understanding passed between them. "You see, the person who had hoodwinked the goblet did so deliberately… He knew that Potter would face dangers beyond his capacity in the tournament, that Potter was too unpractised, too untrained..." She paused to catch her breath, and to let Bagman, the other ministry officials, and the spectators have a moment to digest what she said. "He counted on it. His mission, from the beginning, had been the prospect of Potter's death, because he is acting on the orders of the Dark Lord himself—orders that He Who Must Not Be Named left unfulfilled when Potter vanquished him 13 years ago! The death of the Potters! And—and he stands among us!" She pointed over at Moody, and her words drew another gasp from the audience, who turned their heads to look, but the Death Eater was too intent on the stage, where his prey huddled, meanwhile trying to conceal his wand under his cloak... "And... I'd stake my life that the maze itself is rigged somehow, to target Potter!"

"Miss Black!" Snape was on his feet. "That's an extremely serious accusation! You should know better than to toy with—"

"Now, now, Serverus," Dumbledore interjected. "We cannot dismiss a claim out of hand simply because we are unwilling to accept the possibility of its truth..."

"I'm afraid that I must insist that Miss Black's words be investigated at once. If there's any risk whatsoever, Albus, then it's our duty as professors to look into it," Professor McGonagall said firmly, and Snape glared at her, then looked down at the floor, defeated by the sheer force of everyone else's will, all of which seemed to be directed against him, and he subsided back into his seat.

"Yes. I believe it wouldn't hurt to run another quick check of the field," Dumbledore offered to the committee over his shoulder, who exchanged a few wordless nods and approving commands.

"That's not all, Professor," Luxanna was now addressing him directly. "He bears the mark. On his left forearm, just look."

"Alastor..." Dumbledore said to Moody, but Moody didn't need to be told twice, or once for that matter, because before the request could even Dumbledore's lips, Moody took a swig from his hip flask and marched over to the centre of the pitch where Luxanna was standing.

"Don't worry, Albus. It's my fault, I'm the one always telling them to stay vigilant. Though perhaps some of the students might have taken the meaning a bit too literally," he said with a pointed look at her.

Was he actually going to do it?

Moody, again, tipped his head back and drank from the flask, then jutted his forearm out to the crowd and raised his sleeve in one swoop to reveal—Luxanna held her breath—absolutely nothing. Just clear white skin over blue veins, arm scarred in several places, likely from one of his old skirmishes. This wasn't right… She'd seen it right there, with her own eyes.

"Thank you, Alastor," Dumbledore said.

Moody grunted a sardonic "Pleasure," before pulling his sleeve back down, but at least he had the decency to look somewhat disgruntled.

"But…" Luxanna tried to say, but was interrupted by the crowd once more.

"Can we see the show already!" Travers had leant over the fence and admonished the scene with an impatient look.

"Bloody loon with her conspiracies," Rowle said loud enough for her to hear. Selwyn didn't comment.

"Go away, already!"

At the top of the stands, above where Potter's friends were sitting, the Weasley family were chiming in with their boo's, all except their mother and one of the twins who had leant in in a manner very similar to Travers's, but instead of Luxanna, his subject of interest was Moody. She spared a look of furrowed brows for him, and he mouthed a defensive, 'What?'

Luxanna rolled her eyes. The idiot. She relinquished the distraction and tumbled over her thoughts in search of an answer... How, just how had he tricked her? It had to be some kind of illusion, something subtle, something that could be so easily mistaken… she rewound back to the night of the World Cup, to the raging fire and the green sky and the rotten leaves on the ground where he had admired her, touched her like she were his property—upside down it all began to blur into a mirage of red flames and hollow eye sockets, and behind those eyes, under the mask, under the disguise...

Frost had arrived at the same conclusion. "Lux, his flask!" she whispered urgently.

That day when Luxanna followed him into the back of the classroom, Moody had been rummaging through his bag. The mark which she had seen on his arm had only been visible then because the effects of the disguise were wearing off. That's what Moody was doing—searching for another vial of Polyjuice Potion! Polyjuice, which he always had on hand. Polyjuice, which he had so gladly offered to her to use against the Weasleys. Polyjuice, which he had just drank moments ago, before he was forced to bare his forearm.

"No... No, wait! Wait! It's his flask—it's Polyjuice Potion!"

The crowd turned to look, waiting—Luxanna's pointed finger hanging in mid air, and then—

A flash of white. An awful ringing noise, penetrating her head through her ear canals and robbing her of her balance. She palmed at her surroundings, searching for something, anything solid to hold on to. Just as quickly as it came, the whiteness shrunk and subsided, rendering her vision foggy and her head nauseatingly light. She was on the ground, and all around people were shouting, screaming... In one of the blurry corners of her vision, she could barely make out the shape of Moody; he had seized Potter, slung him over his shoulder and was sprinting off into the maze.

Luxanna rose to all fours, still spinning—this can't be fucking happening. Moody was going to get away and she had just betrayed him in front of the entire school, in front of Dumbledore. He was getting away, and her father...

No, she wouldn't let him.

Luxanna gathered her legs beneath her and launched herself up, aiming for the maze and the path which Moody had taken Potter through. "Black!" somebody yelled after her, but Luxanna was already past them and charging into the darkness.

As she stepped over the threshold, the vines knitted themselves together behind her, plunging her into the overwhelming silence of the vast space, a tiny helpless figure amongst the masses of greenery. Her heart raced. She could not afford to let him get away. Already two paths presented itself to her—left or right?

She took the right turn, then made for the next corner, only to be met with a wall of thorny plants which had sprung up from the ground itself, blocking her path. "Diffindo," she muttered, pushing her wand into the leaves and splitting them apart like parchment with a quick flick of the wrist.

Another turn and another—the path was too narrow, there wasn't enough space to walk without brushing up against the foliage, so that it caught painfully on her clothes and scratched her skin, sending small beads of blood trickling down her arms and legs. Still, she pressed on, her legs trembling with each step forward, her breath coming out in shallow gasps as sweat dripped down her forehead.

"Harry! Harry!" A shout from further down the path, and Luxanna realised she was mistaken in thinking that she was alone. There were others here.

There was an unnatural tear within one of the walls of thorns, clearly wizard-made. Moody, she thought as she slipped past. Then there were footsteps, nearing closer and closer, and—somebody collided with her. Not too hard, but it startled her nonetheless and she stumbled into a nearby plant, cutting herself on its sharp, jagged edges.

"Ugh..." Luxanna moaned, prying a thorn out of her palm.

"Black!" Angelina Johnson's face was peering at her in the dark, wide eyed. "Are you alone? I've lost the others."

"The others?"

"Harry's friends were the first to go after you did, but I was with Fred, George and Lee."

Brilliant. Always the Weasleys.

"Let's keep moving," Luxanna said. Inside this thorn-brimming hell, school rivalry could go hang, and she ought to gladly accept this girl's presence if it helped locate Moody before it was too late.

"Over there!" Johnson pointed at a dim surge of light which had flickered and died within the reflection of the leaves.

They made the corner and came face to face with the source. Blast Ended Skrewts, with their stingers primed and ready to lurch. "No, no, no, let's go the other way," Johnson said, stepping backwards carefully, but one of the Skrewts had turned and pointed their behind at them, and before Luxanna knew it there were flames obscuring her vision and were it not for the Shield Charm she hastily flung up, they'd both have been burnt to a crisp. They didn't have time for this now, so she grabbed Johnson by the elbow and brushed right past the creature—they dodged and swerved past two more of the grotesque things while flames danced all about them—meanwhile maintaining the shield throughout the entire manoeuvre so that they somehow, miraculously, made it through unscathed.

"Shit! Good thinking," Johnson said as she came through, the last of the Skrewts' flame flickering out, leaving them once more in pitch blackness and silence apart from the sound of their heavy breathing. The fork before them presented them with two possible paths again, so with a glance back at Johnson, Luxanna stepped into what intuitively felt like the correct choice.

As she did so, she was met with a dead end once again. She turned, expecting to see Johnson behind her but, as bizarre as it was, Luxanna found herself staring into another dead end, a mirror of the one opposite her. Her pulse rose and her hands grew clammy. She turned, again met with the same sight; she wasn't prepared for this, she wasn't prepared for any of this!

Alright, alright, think... Focus.

"Frost, any ideas?"

"An illusion, perhapss."

"How—how do I dispel it? Frost, I haven't learnt about this yet, I don't know… I don't…" She was stuttering in her panic.

It was no use; Luxanna tried to part the hedges with a Severing Charm, then once again with her bare hands, with the leaves simply knitting over itself like skin over a wound every time she made contact with it. Minutes must have passed, and Potter might have been dead by now—she hated him, Merlin how she hated him, and yet she shuddered at the thought of him out there, alone and unconscious, lost to the labyrinthine madness which surrounded them, and forced to meet his end at the hands of that man.

"There! Over there!" There was a voice, faint but insistent beyond measure, that had become louder and more audible over the course of her frantic flailing around in the dark, and now she recognised it as belonging to Johnson.

"I'm in here!" Luxanna called out.

"I got it," said an unfamiliar voice. It was hard to tell where it had come from, but mere moments later, the wall of thorns began to dissolve in front of her like a cloud of mist evaporating in the sun, and revealed Johnson standing behind a red haired boy Luxanna had seen with the Weasleys earlier, one of the older sons.

"Watch your step," he warned sternly, but he was still carrying what might have been considered a smile under the circumstances.

Never in her life could she have imagined to one day be relieved to see a Weasley.

"Come on, I think we found a way through," Johnson said. Luxanna followed her lead and the three of them soon found themselves in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by dense fog and what seemed to be the beginning of a narrow path.

"I'm going in first," Weasley announced. Luxanna was not about to protest. "Keep your eyes open and stay close together."

They took a step after him, into the fog, when a loud, shrill cry erupted from somewhere within, followed by several shouts.

"Bill, that's them!" Johnson yelled. "That was Fred shouting just now!"

Bill Weasley parted the fog before them, and they took off at a run. In the distance, the sound of more screams continued unabated, but this time the screaming seemed less human and more like a combination of growls and roars; Bill had to be leading them in the right direction, whatever direction that happened to be in the pitch black and thick fog, and Luxanna hoped there was at least something left worth saving when they arrived.

"Stay close behind me, keep your wand pointed ahead of you, and keep that shield up," he shouted over his shoulder to them as they jumped over roots and dodged bushes that seemed intent upon tripping them up.

As they reached the end of the line, Bill took a look back to make sure they were following behind him, and Luxanna caught sight of something coming towards them from the other side of the path—a lion? A lion with a woman's head—a sphinx!

"Look out!" Luxanna yelled, but it was too late, and the creature lunged at Bill; it knocked him down with the force of its charge, but he rolled across the ground and sprang back to his feet just in time to dodge another attack.

Once her eyes could adjust to the scene, she also became aware of the group at the far end of the path. There was Krum, and Potter's friend, Granger, flanked on each side by the Weasley twins, who were sporting nasty cuts and scrapes along their forearms and thighs, visible underneath their uniforms which were torn to shreds.

The sphinx lunged again, this time at Johnson, only to be repelled by an invisible barrier that had appeared between the two of them—on the other side, Granger had her wand raised. "Lumos!" Luxanna yelled, for she could barely make anything out in the dark. It was enough to illuminate the area and reveal that Bill had managed to get in a few good spells of his own, though it appeared that he himself had already taken some nasty blows, judging by the blood that covered his robes and the dirt-stained hands clutching his injured ribs.

"Who's bloody idea was it to attack the sphinx?!" he yelled.

"George failed the riddle, I tried to tell him that it's—" Granger had begun to say, but was cut short by a shriek from one of the twins, who had disappeared behind a blinding surge of white light.

Luxanna could not see what happened next, but she knew that Moody was close. There was only the sound of overlapping voices, screams, and hurried footsteps, accompanied by the familiar dizzying blindness she had suffered earlier. Finally, it ended abruptly and she was standing on the other side of the path; the scene seemed to change suddenly, as if the whole world were in flux, and she found herself at a crossroads of sorts, with two paths on each side, and one, long trail winding straight ahead where something in the distance glowed almost as brightly as the moment before.

As her vision adapted, she made out the unmistakable shape of him; Moody, with Potter slung over his shoulder, making for the glowing light. Behind her, voices grew louder; Johnson was running toward her, followed by one of the twins and then Granger, whose wand was still smoking slightly at the tip from the red sparks she had just shot up into the air.

Luxanna couldn't spare another second; she lunged forwards, down the path after Moody, vaguely aware of the others behind her. Half way through, the ground beneath her appeared to tremble, and before she could contemplate her next step, it had torn itself open in half, and a vine lurched forth, latching on to Luxanna's leg—she kicked furiously, but the root only pulled harder, sending her skidding down the ground, where several more vines emerged from the hedges and coiled around her legs, constricting her so tightly that she could feel her pulse within her thighs. Luxanna writhed and struggled, but the vines held fast, pulling her further and further away from Moody. Her hand had caught on one of the roots, making the wand slip from her fingers.

"No!"

At her feet, the other three were in similar straits, each trapped by the grasping tendrils of the plant, and unable to move forward or back without being dragged down the path, away from Moody, who was running as fast as he could with Harry in his arms; if they lost sight of him, they would lose him forever. More cords split from the ground and wrapped around her torso, confining her to the ground, while others still slithered towards Luxanna's face, encircling her throat.

They were tightening around her neck with greed, inviting her into oblivion. Johnson's hand closed around her foot, both of them gasping for breath, and Luxanna's fingers grasped at the wand that was out of reach, and managed to close around its handle, barely... just barely. It would have been easier to give in, kinder even, but through her strangled throat, as Moody extended his hand into the light, Luxanna managed to utter the last word that came to mind.

"Accio."