TGIF, folks!

I loved writing this one. There's a lot happening, but we're already 58% of the way through GOF. Can you believe that? This entire ride has been utterly wild.

Gi-L-Ha: Thank you for reviewing! The last portion was so fun for me to write. I just love the two of them so much. I debated for so long who would say the words first, but Nessa makes the most sense in that moment. Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter Thirty One

Everybody got up late on Boxing Day. The Gryffindor common room was much quieter than it had been lately, many yawns punctuating the lazy conversations.

Nessa laid with George on the couch in front of the fire, letting him explain to her the ways to add memories to her bracelet. She'd kept the one he'd added and watched it at least ten times before she'd gone to bed, letting the giddy feeling she felt at being with him send her off to sleep.

They'd ended the night on the same level of giddiness that it had begun despite the rocky middle of the evening. By the time they'd left the garden outside, it had been nearly 11:30, so he'd forced her inside for one last dance before sending her off to bed with a kiss and a murmured 'I love you.' She was entirely certain that the stupid grin on his face had been returned by her, and she'd gone to bed with a smile on her face and with makeup still all over her face.

She'd had to clean her pillow this morning and scrub her face for what felt like an eternity to get the smears off, but she didn't care a single bit. Not seeing as that giddy feeling was still coursing through her veins and she was cuddling with George on the couch, her back to his front and her legs tangled with his as he walked her through the process of working her bracelet.

They must look ridiculously sappy, but she didn't care. She wanted to bask in the feeling of being with him for as long as she could before reality hit her again.

And they weren't the only couple within the room to seem particularly cozy the next morning.

Fred and Tori were occupying the same armchair again, something they hadn't done for months. Tori was reading some book about the Holyhead Harpies that Nessa had never seen, and Fred was nodding off next to her, waking up occasionally to grin at her stupidly and then hide his head back in her curls, which he'd been far too pleased about returning. He'd been tugging on them all morning, driving Tori half mad.

There was something happening there that she hadn't been filled in on yet, she was sure, but when she'd asked what had happened to them the night before — neither one of them had been in the Great Hall when she and George had come back — they'd merely said they'd left the ball early. Tori had had a poor night with her date, and Fred had decided — miraculously and suddenly mid-evening — that he and Angelina worked better as friends, and had told her goodnight and gone to bed. He'd left her with Lee, whose own date had been a disaster, and the two of them seemed to be getting along well at breakfast to all of their surprise.

Still, it was odd that the two of them had called it a night so early and she knew George felt the same, but he'd stopped pressing when they'd sat in the same armchair. There had been an overwhelming flicker of relief on his face, and he'd dropped the subject entirely, seeming perfectly content with their return to normal.

Nessa had loads of questions that she was sure neither one of them wanted to answer, but she didn't want to ask them in front of George. She'd already ruined things with Ginny — who had seen Tori and Fred together, grinned and then pretended to gag, and walked off. Tori pretended she didn't notice.

It was nearing lunchtime by the time that Ron, Harry, and Hermione approached them, yawning sleepily. Harry offered Hermione the only remaining armchair and took a seat on the ground on the other side of the coffee table to face them.

Nessa made to sit up to allow Ron a seat at the end of the couch, but George tightened his hold on her waist and made a noise of protest. Ron rolled his eyes.

"What? You need the whole couch to yourself?" he said impatiently.

"We were here first," George said, kicking him toward Harry rudely. "It won't kill you to sit on the floor."

Ron glared at him, and Nessa smacked George on the shoulder in reproach.

"Be nice," she murmured.

"He started it," he said, pulling her back toward him and humming in approval when she came willingly. "If he doesn't like it, he can sit over there in the corner. Give us a break from looking at his ugly mug —"

"George, be nice!" Nessa said firmly. George grinned into her hair at the tone and squeezed her side in retaliation. "Don't make me go sit over there —"

"You're free to if you can manage to get free, love," he said cheekily, tightening his hold on her before she could take him up on the challenge.

"If you two are quite finished flirting, I've got something to tell you," Harry said, rolling his eyes at them. Fred, who was clearly only pretending to sleep at this point, scoffed into Tori's hair and mumbled something that Nessa couldn't hear, but made Tori laugh.

"What was that, Fred?" Nessa said loudly.

Fred lifted his head with a grin in her direction.

"Oh, nothing , munchkin," he said. "I was just saying how delightful I find you when you're so lovestruck by my less attractive twin there."

"I find it disgusting," Ron said before George could quip back.

Nessa gave him a dry look and nodded at the table in the furthest corner of the common room.

"Go sit over there."

George's body shook with a silent laugh behind her at the look of incredulity on Ron's face. Hermione was smirking smugly behind her Charms textbook, clearly starting diligently on her homework now that Christmas had passed. Her hair was bushy again, and she and Ron seemed to be politely ignoring each other. Nessa assumed from the row they'd had about Krum the night before.

"I'm just going to talk before this devolves into madness," Harry said blandly before anyone could respond. "We've got two things, see — Hagrid's half-giant."

Harry said this as if he were expecting them to shout hysterically at the news, but the four of them merely stared at him expectantly. When he didn't say anything, Fred made a face of disbelief.

"What, that's it?" he exclaimed as if someone had promised him a present and he'd gotten socks instead. "I can't stand the three of you — I'm going back to bed."

Tori snorted when he slouched back in the armchair with his arms crossed and grumbled to himself.

"What do you mean that's it?" Ron said to his brother.

"Bit obvious, innit?" George said with a pointed eyebrow raise. "How else would he be that size?"

"Told you," Hermione said smugly.

Ron gave her a dark look.

"I don't know!" Ron said defensively. "Maybe he got hit with an Engorgement Charm —"

"You're an idiot," Tori scoffed. Ron glared at her. "What was the other thing, Harry?"

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but Ron spoke first, as if he wanted to make his side of the story entirely clear before they moved on.

"We can't just skip past the giant thing —"

"What difference does it make if he's half-giant, Ron?" Hermione said in irritation. "There's nothing wrong with him!"

Based on the look Ron gave her, he clearly assumed that she was admitting ignorance about the ways of the Wizarding World. Though, truthfully, Nessa didn't see what the big deal was either. She'd not have wanted to pal around with a giant, but she didn't see what the big deal was that Hagrid was related to one. She'd never had a problem with Hagrid personally.

"Well, no one who knows him would care 'cos they'll know he's not dangerous," Ron said as if he were explaining how to use a spoon to a toddler. "But…they're just vicious, giants. They just like killing…it's in their natures. Like trolls, see. If anyone finds out…"

Nessa eyed him in distaste.

"Well, I suppose the three of you shouldn't go about telling people then should you?" she said pointedly. "It's not as if Hagrid's giant father is going to come and tell everyone —"

"It was his mother," Harry said for no reason at all. "His dad was human. She didn't stick around apparently."

Tori lowered her book thoughtfully.

"How do you suppose that works?" When they all turned to look at her in question, she said, "I mean, they're like twenty feet tall. Hagrid's dad could have been — what? — six feet at most? I mean, how did they —"

"Oh, bloody hell," Ron said, his ears turning red. "I don't want to think about —"

"Probably use a Shrinking Charm," Fred replied as if his brother had not said anything, his eyes closed and his arms still crossed.

"No, I know that," Tori said with an eye roll. "But it still doesn't make sense. Do you shrink the whole giant or just the one part?"

The question sent Hermione's face into a bright scarlet and she giggled awkwardly. Nessa merely gaped at Tori — why were they always having the weirdest conversations?

Fred smirked widely, opening one eye to look at her. She stared back at him with raised eyebrows as if he were supposed to have the answer to the ridiculous question. It was George who answered though.

"Don't think you can shrink the whole giant," George said as Nessa groaned in front of him. "They're resistant to magic, aren't they? So it'd have to be —"

"For Merlin's sake, can we stop talking about this and get back to Hagrid?" Ron said, scrubbing a hand down his face. "I don't need pointers in shagging a giant —"

"Not until you can manage to talk to a girl without pissing her off anyway," Tori snorted. "Besides, what's there to talk about? He's half-giant, who cares? No one else heard him say it, did they?"

"Well, he was asking Madame Maxime which side she got it on, but other than that I didn't see anyone else around," Harry said. "Unless you count this beetle I was staring at to avoid listening to Hagrid crooning at Maxime like George does with Nessa —"

Fred burst into laughter at the words and then laughed harder when George chucked a pillow at Harry so hard that he nearly went flying backward into the fire. Nessa huffed at him, but Harry was grinning when he sat up.

"Anyway, she told him she had 'big bones'," Harry said with a look that clearly conveyed he thought this was utter nonsense. "Clearly, she doesn't want people to know she's half-giant —"

"Well, can you blame her?" Hermione said with a huff, closing her book with a snap. "All this hysteria about giants. They can't all be horrible…it's the same sort of prejudice that people have toward werewolves…it's just bigotry, isn't it?"

Ron looked like he wanted to reply scathingly, but perhaps he didn't want another row with her, because he contented himself with shaking his head disbelievingly when she wasn't looking at him. Tori rolled her eyes and grabbed her book again.

"Since I'm assuming that this next bit is going to be just as ridiculous, I'm going to get back to my reading —"

Harry rolled his eyes and interrupted her pointedly.

"Can you get information on Snape?" he said bluntly.

Tori shut her book immediately to sit forward with a curious expression. Fred and George raised an eyebrow, but it was Nessa Harry had been talking to; He was looking at her expectantly, with the sort of look he got when he was convinced he knew something that everyone else didn't.

"I'm sorry?" Nessa said, bewildered. "What does Snape have to do with anything?"

"Him and Karkaroff are mates apparently," Ron said as if this were something scandalous. "We heard them talking in the garden last night when he was looking for snogging couples."

"First name basis mates apparently," Harry said, looking suspicious.

"You're asking me to snoop on a professor because they know each other by name?" Nessa said incredulously. "They're both in academia for God's sake! There's a hundred reasons they could know each other by name. Doesn't mean Snape's a Death Eater."

"They were talking about something though," Harry said, still sounding confused. "Except I can't figure out what it was that Karkaroff was so worried about. He kept saying something about Snape pretending that something wasn't happening. 'It's been getting clearer and clearer for months,' he said, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Ron said, frowning to himself. "'Cept he never said what it was. Snape told him to flee if he was so scared though."

"Flee?" Nessa said, confused. "Flee from what?"

"No idea," Harry said with a shrug. "Snape said he'd make excuses for him, but he was staying at Hogwarts. Then they saw us so we didn't catch anything else."

Hermione looked at Nessa with a long-suffering look.

"Well, what do you think, Nessa?"

Nessa blinked at her.

"What do I think?" She said dubiously. "There's nothing to think. Nothing happened! You've got to give me more than that to go on if you want me to be snooping around his things —"

Hermione looked smug again, and Harry did not appear to appreciate this.

"You're in there all the time anyway," Harry huffed with an eye roll.

"Forget it!" she said. "You've always been looking for a reason to blame Snape —"

"That is not true!"

"Oh, please," Nessa scoffed. "You thought he was the one trying to get the Sorcerer's Stone in your first year —"

"There were questionable circumstances!"

"These are dodgy circumstances at best!" she said with annoyance. "You're basing this entire argument off of eight words that could have meant anything! He could have been telling Snape his hair is getting clearer of grease every month for shite's sake!"

The twins and Tori, who were merely watching the argument in amusement, their heads moving back and forth like it was a tennis match, started sniggering at this.

"Doubtful," Tori snorted. "Doesn't look like he's showered in at least a year —"

Harry huffed.

"Do the three of you take anything seriously?" he said looking at Tori and the twins with irritation.

"As a rule, no," Tori said as if this were the least of her concerns.

Harry gave up on talking to them and turned to his sister again.

"Look, Nessa —"

"No, Harry," she interrupted. "I'm not risking getting caught by Snape for some ridiculous, flimsy idea you have. I can't risk being force fed Shrinking Solution — I'm short enough as it is."

George coughed behind her, and she elbowed him in retaliation. Ron gave Harry a look that clearly conveyed pity on his sister's behalf.

"Reckon she's got a point there, mate," he said seriously.

Harry sighed heavily.

"I just feel like something's off," he said, almost as if to himself.

Nessa eyed him for a long moment, wishing she could have told him that he was overreacting, but she wasn't any closer to believing that herself. She hadn't heard from Remus in months and that was sincerely unlike him. Something had to be happening that she didn't know about.

Unless maybe he was with Sirius for some reason, though she'd no idea why he'd want to be in hiding for.

"This isn't a mystery that needs solving, Harry," she said firmly. "Just work on that egg — we need to focus on what we can handle, and right now that's the second task."

Harry looked slightly nervous at the reminder and she didn't blame him. February the twenty-fourth looked a lot closer from this side of Christmas, and he hadn't said anything about having been working on his egg.

Personally, she'd have much rather solved the thing herself for the sort of peace of mind that she needed, but she was attempting — once again — to trust him with this process. He'd done well with the dragons, and she wanted to believe that he could do well with this too.

So, she fought against her neurotic nature as best she could and left him to try to figure out the egg. She worked on the homework she'd put off over break instead, throwing herself into O.W.L.s like a person with no life might have. She was starting to feel a bit like Hermione, except she wasn't nearly as overwhelmed as she had been about them before. She spent a great deal of her time working on essays and star charts and Arithmancy tables and Rune translations, but seeing as her brother could have died several weeks ago, stressing out about an exam felt a tad ridiculous.

Not to mention she had Madam Pomfrey's lessons every Wednesday night, resulting in an intense amount of quizzing and hands-on experience. She appeared to believe that Nessa was capable of doing minor Healing spells now, and often let her take the lead on things such as minor cuts and scrapes or the occasional vomiting student.

It was where Nessa was Wednesday evening when she heard rustling around in the cabinet outside. It was a slow evening and Pomfrey had left to grab more Draught of Peace from Snape — they were simply going through them too quickly with O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s coming closer and closer — and told her to keep studying counterjinxes.

There was a loud swearing as bottles rattled together and it sounded distinctly like someone was going through the medicine cabinet outside.

She stood, grabbing her wand, and moving to the office door to see who would have come into the Hospital Wing and not asked to see Madame Pomfrey for help.

And hadn't she spelled that cabinet to lock?

She expected to pop her head out and see Fred and George going through the cabinets for some ridiculous potion they needed because they'd blown each other up again trying to make a candy that would blow their heads up like a balloon.

She was surprised by who she saw instead.

"Professor Moody?"

The man whirled as if he hadn't expected to see her there, though she didn't know how that was possible when his eye could see through walls. Or at least she assumed it could. It could see through desks, so she didn't see how a wall would be much different.

"Miss Potter," he growled, his magical eye whirring to face her. "Out a bit late, aren't you?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. She hardly thought her being out after curfew was the most important thing to be thinking about, considering he was holding a jar of dead leeches as if they were near and dear to him.

"I'm waiting for Madam Pomfrey to get back," she said before looking at him pointedly. "I shadow with her Wednesday evenings. Can I help you with something?"

His eye was whirring, and he seemed a bit tense and edgy, his tongue coming out to flick at the corner of his lip rather rapidly.

She didn't particularly know what to make of him at the current moment. He'd always been a bit odd, but he seemed rather agitated at the moment.

"No, I didn't want to bother Poppy," he growled, placing some of the jars he had in his arm back on the cabinet shelves. "I saw her leaving — I've got a bit of swelling in my leg, happens with this damn wooden foot. Got so many damn papers to grade, I didn't want to wait for her to get back — this teaching stuff isn't really for me — I prefer to be in the thick of it, not sitting at a damned desk all day."

She didn't know why, but there were alarm bells in her head going off, her stomach swooping with anxiety as she watched him. She didn't know why, but he made her uncomfortable. He was always watching very intensely, that magical eye of his whirring rapidly as if he were expecting to be attacked at any moment and needed to keep a 360 view of his surroundings at all times. Tonight was much worse, what with the incessant tongue flicking that she hadn't seen him exhibit before.

She shook off the feeling, and came up to him, grabbing the jar of dead leeches and placing them back in the cabinet.

"Sit down, and I can look at your leg," she said, closing the cabinet and locking it back up with several whispered enchantments. Pomfrey was very particular about the locking spells for the potion and ingredient cabinet. "Those leeches aren't going to work for swelling, seeing as their dead. Snape keeps the live ones downstairs and gives us what he doesn't need for healing potions."

Not to mention odd that he'd be attempting to use live leeches for swelling. They worked, of course — Muggles used them quite often in reducing swelling, particularly after attachment surgeries, but she hadn't known wizards to be the same. Pomfrey used a spell if the swelling was too severe to help constrict the blood vessels, and a potion if the swelling didn't need immediate relief, but she'd never once seen her recommend leeches. They'd only talked about it in passing, as her childhood best friend had a mother who had been a Muggle nurse, so she was familiar with some of the medicine techniques of Muggles.

It wasn't widely accepted for use in the Wizarding World as far as she knew. And it hardly explained why he'd been holding the dead ones as if he were not keen to give them up.

Moody didn't offer up any explanation. He grunted, taking a seat on the bed nearest her and watched her carefully as she approached him. She hesitated.

"Do you want me to take it off or would you prefer to?"

"Go ahead, Potter," he growled, still seeming very tense.

The moment she removed the prosthetic she understood why — the skin that came into contact with the prosthetic was red and swollen, and considering the scratch marks she was sure it must be itching him horribly. It looked like it was infected somehow.

She looked up at him sternly.

"You're wearing this too tight," she said. "You've got an infection — probably yeast from sweat that normally gathers between the prosthetic and the skin. You should be cleaning the top of the prosthetic and your leg before putting it back on every morning."

She waved her wand and muttered the spell Pomfrey used to diagnose external infections, and was a little more than proud that she was correct in her guess.

"Been too damned exhausted teaching classes to keep up much on the upkeep —"

"It's no excuse not to take care of yourself," she said sharply, going back to the cabinet, unlocking it, and digging around it for the potion she needed before turning back to face him. "The infection isn't likely helping you feel more energetic and it takes two seconds to use a cleaning charm. Have you had a fever? Vomiting? Chills?"

He laughed as if she were amusing him somehow and she found that very annoying.

"No," he said, taking his flask out of his pocket and taking a swig. She grabbed it from him and set it on the nightstand next to him.

"You shouldn't be drinking with this level of swelling and you can't drink on this potion. Understood?"

He was eyeing the flask on his nightstand as if it were his only means of surviving and she stepped in front of it to get his attention. His tongue flicked out again, but she ignored it, despite the way it made her want to cringe. It was a very odd physical tick, even if it was somehow soothing him from whatever pain he was in.

"You've got excellent bedside manner, Potter," he said with a distorted grin. "I can tell you've been paying very good attention to Poppy. I almost couldn't spot the difference."

She huffed, holding the potion out to him.

"Take it with food," she said. "Half tonight before bed and half tomorrow night. Clean the prosthetic before you put it on tomorrow morning or this will just happen again. And don't wear it so tight — if it doesn't fit properly then you need to have Pomfrey check it over and correct it. It's normal to need them adjusted regularly."

"Are you done fussing over me like I'm a young babe, Potter?" He growled in irritation. "I'll be fine. I've survived much worse than an infection as I'm sure you've noticed," he swiped the flask from his table, but merely stuffed it into his robes when she gave him an irritated look. "How's your brother doing on that egg?"

She was startled by the question, and she blinked at him a moment before answering.

"He's working on it," she said, moving back to the cabinet and performing the spells again, triple checking that she'd performed them all before turning to face him. "Last I checked, he said he was close."

"Good, good," he said, that magical eye starting to whir again. "Dumbledore's a bit worried about him, I can tell you. You seem like you've got quite a handle on him, don't you?"

There was something odd about the tone in his voice. It was thoughtful, but almost in a threatening sort of way. And she didn't like that both of his eyes were focused so closely on her now.

"He's my brother," she said, crossing her arms across her chest to comfort herself against the foreboding feeling she had. "It's my job to protect him."

"You've got good instincts, Potter," Another tongue flick as he stared at her. God, she wished he'd stop with that. "You get a good read on people. I can see it in the way you duel in class — half of the job is predicting what your opponent will do next, what direction they'll move, which side is most vulnerable, if they have any physical weaknesses. You've got to be quick — even one second could be the difference between life and death. You've got that, alright. You're quick on the uptake, always watching. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

She jumped a mile in the air as the words left his mouth.

Jesus, this felt like a nightmare somehow, and she sincerely wished there was someone else in the room with them.

He was watching her so closely she almost couldn't tell if he were breathing, and the words felt more ominous than complimentary. Maybe it was the tone he was using or the way his eyes weren't moving, were barely even blinking. Maybe it was the resonating silence in the room.

She really didn't know, but whatever it was, it made her want to be sick.

"Thank you," she whispered, clearing her throat when the words came out weaker than she'd have preferred.

He grunted as he stood, carefully putting weight on the prosthetic he'd reattached.

"Thank you, Potter," he said, turning to leave. "Keep an eye on that brother of yours — he might need it."

The words stuck with her for hours after, even when she'd been sent off to the common room by Madame Pomfrey after she'd told her to check on Moody tomorrow morning to make sure she hadn't given him anything wrong. It'd be her luck if she poisoned him by mistake.

Keep an eye on that brother of yours — he might need it.

Why did it sound so much like a warning?

By the time the end of the week rolled around, Nessa was grateful for the upcoming weekend. It would be a nice reprieve from her course load, and she wouldn't have to see Moody until Thursday morning.

She'd been avoiding him as best she could, not quite being able to shake the odd feeling he'd left her with when they'd been alone in the Hospital Wing. The twins had told her she was reading into things — he was probably just worried about Harry in the tournament as much as she was (most of the teachers were these days). Remus and Sirius had been telling her the same thing.

Which was true, but she knew them. And it was hard to explain to them that it was more the air in the room when he'd said it. It was more the tone as much as the words. Saying that out loud only made her look crazy though, and she hadn't quite managed to figure out how to explain it in words.

Even Tori seemed to have some doubts that it was a threat — he just was odd in general and she'd gotten so used to being tense, waiting for the next boogeyman to pop out that she was reading into things.

She'd have been irritated with their disbelief, but she was too busy hoping they were right to care.

By the time that she'd finished with DADA on Friday — a particularly difficult class as Moody seemed more and more inclined to test her dueling abilities — she was exhausted by the time they made their way down to lunch.

Tori seemed equally exhausted, making her way over toward Ron, Hermione, and Harry without a single word to each other. Harry was looking at Hermione furiously, and she sounded hasty when they caught the end of her sentence.

" — but I do want Hagrid back, of course I do!"

Harry didn't look like he believed her, but he didnt get a chance to answer before Tori was asking, "Where's Hagrid gone?"

The question sounded more casually curious than concerned, and she immediately followed the question up by downing an entire glass of water, as though she hadn't had any for days.

Harry gave them a dark look, tossing the Daily Prophet across the table at them. Nessa placed it in between them and leaned in to read. It was an article that was topped with a picture of Hagrid looking particularly shifty.

DUMBLEDORE'S GIANT MISTAKE

Albus Dumbledore, eccentric headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has never been afraid to make controversial staff appointments, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. In September of this year, he hired Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, the notoriously jinx-happy ex-Auror, to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, a decision that caused many raised eyebrows at the Ministry of Magic, given Moody's well-known habit of attacking anybody who makes a sudden movement in his presence. Mad-Eye Moody, however, looks responsible and kindly when set beside the part-human Dumbledore employs to teach Care of Magical Creatures.

Rubeus Hagrid, who admits to being expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, has enjoyed the position of gamekeeper at the school ever since, a job secured for him by Dumbledore. Last year, however, Hagrid used his mysterious influence over the headmaster to secure the additional post of Care of Magical Creatures teacher, over the heads of many better-qualified candidates.

An alarmingly large and ferocious-looking man, Hagrid has been using his newfound authority to terrify the students in his care with a succession of horrific creatures. While Dumbledore turns a blind eye, Hagrid has maimed several pupils during a series of lessons that many admit to being "very frightening."

"I was attacked by a Hippogriff and my friend, Vincent Crabbe, got a bad bite off a flobberworm," says Draco Malfoy, a fourth-year student. "We all hate Hagrid, but we're just too scared to say anything."

Hagrid has no intention of ceasing his campaign of intimidation, however. In conversation with a Daily Prophet reporter last month, he admitted breeding creatures he has dubbed "Blast-Ended Skrewts," highly dangerous crosses between manticores and fire-crabs. The creation of new breeds of magical creature is, of course, an activity usually closely observed by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Hagrid, however, considers himself to be above such petty restrictions.

"I was just having some fun," he says, before hastily changing the subject.

As if this were not enough, the Daily Prophet has now unearthed evidence that Hagrid is not — as he has always pretended — a pureblood wizard. He is not, in fact, even pure human. His mother, we can exclusively reveal, is none other than the giantess, Fridwulfa, whose whereabouts are currently unknown.

Bloodthirsty and brutal, the giants brought themselves to the point of extinction by warring amongst themselves during the last century. The handful that remained joined the ranks of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and were responsible for some of the worst mass Muggle killings of his reign of terror.

While many of the giants who served He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were killed by Aurors working against the Dark Side, Fridwulfa was not among them. It is possible she escaped to one of the giant communities still existing in foreign mountain ranges. If his antics during Care of Magical Creatures lessons are any guide, however, Fridwulfa's son appears to have inherited her brutal nature.

In a bizarre twist, Hagrid is reputed to have developed a close friendship with the boy who brought around You-Know-Who's fall from power — thereby driving Hagrid's own mother, like the rest of You-Know-Who's supporters, into hiding. Perhaps Harry Potter is unaware of the unpleasant truth about his large friend — but Albus Dumbledore surely has a duty to ensure that Harry Potter, along with his fellow students, is warned about the dangers of associating with part-giants.

Nessa was so surprised by the article that it took her several seconds before she could manage to find the words to speak, as Tori gaped next to her.

"How in the hell did she find out?" Nessa said eventually, looking up at the trio across from her. "I thought you said there was no one else in the garden with you."

"There wasn't!" Harry said vehemently. "We would have seen them. Besides, she's been banned from the grounds, hasn't she?"

That was true. She'd been banned from the grounds for quite some time now, and Nessa had sort of hoped that she wouldn't need to deal with any more ridiculous articles written by the woman. It made this one all the less appealing, even if she wasn't as close with Hagrid as her brother was.

"This entire article is ridiculous," Tori said, tossing it back at Harry with an eye roll. "Anyone with half a brain can see that. Flobberworms don't have teeth for one thing. That throws out all of Malfoy's testimony —"

"The Hippogriff story is true though," Nessa said. "And he wouldn't shut up about it last year, so the entire school knows it happened, even if they don't take classes with Hagrid. And the Blast-Ended Skrewt thing doesn't make him look too good —"

"Yeah, well, if anybody's got right to complain about those, it's us," Ron grumbled. "I've got burn scars all up my arms from the blasted things —"

"Blasted," Tori said, laughing lightly and hitting Nessa on the arm. "Get it?"

Ron rolled his eyes at Harry.

"Can you two take this seriously?" Harry said peevishly. "Hagrid wasn't in class today —"

"So go and see him tonight, Harry, what do you want us to do about it?" Nessa said. "It's not our fault Skeeter wrote the article."

Harry huffed at them in irritation, but obliged, and disappeared with Ron and Hermione after dinner that evening to go and talk sense into Hagrid and tell him to come back to teaching.

Nessa had mixed sentiments on this particular topic. On the one hand, she'd like to go to Care of Magical Creatures without wondering if she was going to come out of it with one less arm. On the other, she didn't think Hagrid should let some ridiculously vapid woman with questionable morals send him into hiding. Not that she'd have voiced these thoughts to her brother, who was known for having a loyalty to his friends that was as strong as her own. And as far as Harry was concerned, Hagrid was his friend as much as Ron and Hermione. Saying she'd like a normal Care of Magical Creatures class for once would surely send her brother over the edge, and she had enough problems at the moment.

She could tell by the time that he returned to the common room with Ron and Hermione that he wasn't pleased with the result of whatever conversation he'd had with Hagrid. Ron and Hermione waved at her sadly before taking a seat in the corner of the room as Harry made his way toward her. She closed her Herbology textbook with a sigh, expecting that this would be a less than happy conversation based on the frown on his face.

Fred and Tori had since gone upstairs to play a round of Gobstones, as Nessa had told them that if they so much as made a squeak while she was trying to focus, she'd shove them out the window. The twins were working on some sort of Gobstones set that were horrid magenta and orange colors, and made massive explosion noises that made her ears ring, and she had no desire to listen to that. If it weren't for the Silencing Charm one of them had placed on the dorm, she was sure she'd have already stormed upstairs to throw the things away.

George had disappeared off with Lee for some sort of product testing. She hadn't asked, but it left her alone in the corner of the common room to focus, so she could get some work done. As was typically the case with her life, this came to an abrupt halt when her brother took a seat next to her.

"Didn't go well then?" she said without preamble. She startled when he rested his head on her shoulder with a sigh. He was not typically the type to seek physical comfort — on the contrary, she normally had to smother him with it while he squirmed in her hold. "What happened?"

"We banged on the door for ten minutes straight, Ron even tried banging on the window," he said gloomily. "He wouldn't come out to see us. He can't possibly think that we care, could he?"

Nessa sighed. Sometimes her brother was so emotionally dense that she couldn't imagine how he'd gotten through life so far.

"Of course he does, Harry," she said. "You saw how Ron reacted when he found out, and he knows him. Hagrid keeps it a secret for a reason."

Harry removed his glasses and rubbed a hand over his face.

"I don't understand what difference it makes –"

"Because you're not close-minded," she said pointedly. "Prejudices run deep, Harry. You've seen the way Malfoy sneers at Hermione, and the way Remus acts about being a werewolf. Hagrid probably learned at a young age to pretend to be something he wasn't. And it was his secret to tell, and that was taken from him and splashed all over the front page of the paper for the entire world to see. It's violating."

"I know what it's like to be on the front page of the Prophet," he said with a snort.

"Not like this," she said. "In comparison, I think your article was quite complimentary —"

"She said I cried!" Harry said indignantly, lifting his head to look at her.

She pursed her lips to keep from laughing at the indignation on his face. He was really never going to let that go, was he?

"Which is mildly embarrassing, but something that people have already forgotten about," she reminded. "Do you think they'll be so forgiving with Hagrid?" He grumbled darkly to himself, crossing his arms across his chest. "Look, Harry, I'm not saying that it's not stupid of him to know that it would bother you. Strictly speaking, I think if you can forgive him for nearly getting us killed by Acromantulas and making you deal with Blast-Ended Skrewts twice a week, then his being half-giant is really not even worth mentioning." Harry snorted. "All I'm saying is that you should try to think about what this must feel like for him. Give him some space and time to think — he deserves that."

Harry didn't seem to like the idea much, but he nodded anyway. She was sure that if he didn't see Hagrid by the end of next week that he'd be right back to banging on that door, but at least he wasn't pouting anymore. Instead, he just sighed heavily.

"Do you ever think about how messed up the Wizarding World is?" he said.

She gave him a very pointed look.

"Harry, sometimes I hardly think of anything else," she said and he rolled his eyes with a grin. "Some people are just bad people — that doesn't change with magic."

"Seems to make things worse, if you ask me," he muttered before changing the subject. "Have you talked to Cedric recently?"

She cleared her throat awkwardly, turning away from him to open her Herbology textbook again, flipping to the page that she'd been using before.

"No, why?"

She looked up when he didn't answer her immediately. He was looking at her oddly, his eyes narrowed on her curiously and his brow furrowed in confusion.

"What are you being so twitchy for?" he said.

"I am not being twitchy!" she said indignantly.

"You're being twitchy," he smirked. "Like that time I caught you going through the trash —"

"Don't say it like that!" she hissed. "I was looking for the picture you drew me that Petunia threw out, I wasn't scrounging around in it like a raccoon."

"That picture has my head the size of a blimp —"

"Pretty well drawn if you ask me," she said, smirking when he gave her a flat look.

"Will you quit being weird, and answer the question?" he said.

Nessa rolled her eyes, and turned back to her essay before she answered.

"No, I haven't," she said bluntly. "We're not on the best of terms at the moment."

Which was likely the nicest way of putting it. They didn't even look in each other's direction at mealtimes or if they passed each other in the corridor. The pang she felt every time she saw him was getting very annoying.

"What? Why not?" Harry said.

She sighed heavily. She'd not once told Harry about the complexities of her and Cedric's relationship and she'd sort of been hoping that she wouldn't have to. It was a real shame that he was so annoying about finding things out for himself.

"He fancies me."

Harry's brow furrowed again.

"But you're dating George," he said dumbly. She looked at him with a pointed expression, and he cleared his throat. "Oh. Oh, well, that's a bit awkward, isn't it?"

She snorted.

"Did you have a reason for bringing this up?"

"Right," he said, clearing his throat again and taking the hint. "He told me to — he told me to take a bath with the egg."

She blinked at him.

"Sorry, what?"

He snorted and crossed his arms.

"Yeah, exactly," he said. "Said something about taking the egg to the bath and mull things over for a bit, whatever that means."

She sincerely didn't know how to respond to that. It was very odd advice.

"Well, have you?"

He gave her a long suffering look.

"No, I haven't. It sounds ridiculous. What am I supposed to do with an egg in the water?"

"Well, what else have you tried?" she said.

"Threw it across the room the other day," he said, running his hand down his face. She gave him a look that clearly conveyed how stupid she found this idea. "Don't look at me like that — I didn't actually expect it to work. The bloody thing just keeps screaming at me."

"And the reason you're avoiding doing what Cedric told you," she said, raising an eyebrow. "That would have nothing to do with the fact that he's dating Cho."

She'd seen them together in the halls, laughing and holding hands. It upset her brother a great deal, but she was a bit relieved. It gave her some hope that he could move on and they could pretend like the entire awkward phase of their friendship had never happened. Pick up where things left off.

"No," Harry said vehemently. He sighed heavily when she stared at him. "Maybe. You know, I was sort of hoping you could tell me that he's being ridiculous and that it sounds stupid —"

"Cedric has a sense of fairness, Harry," she said. "You told him about the dragons, so he's telling you about the task —"

"Yeah, exactly. I told him about the dragons," Harry snorted. "I didn't tell him to take a walk out in the woods until he found something with wings. I'd hardly call this an even exchange."

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"Just take a bloody bath with the thing, would you?" she said. "It couldn't hurt anything. Use the prefects' bath if you're so worried about being embarrassed somehow. The password's —"

"Pinefresh, I know," he said. "He told me."

"Well, there you go," she said. "But don't tell Fred and George that, please. They've been very annoying about it —"

"That's sweet, love," George said from behind her, taking a seat next to her with a kiss on the cheek in greeting. Lee sat across from them. "What aren't you telling us Harry?"

"Er —" Harry said, looking nervous.

"The password to the prefects' bath," Nessa said bluntly to spare her brother the time.

"Pinefresh, innit?" Lee said, looking to George who nodded with a grin.

Nessa snapped her head to look over at him.

"How do you know that?"

"Bullied some fifth-year prefect into telling us," he said, flicking her affectionately on the nose.

"George!" She exclaimed. "I — you —""

"I hope there are words at the ends of these sentences," he grinned. Harry and Lee looked away from each other before they started laughing.

She pointed at George dangerously.

"Ten points from Gryffindor each, you insufferable prat," she said. "You can't just go about bullying younger students!"

"Ah, love, he's just fine," George said, clearly unconcerned by his punishment, though Lee looked affronted. "We got rid of the horns before we sent him on his way —"

"Tell me you're joking," she said sharply.

"Well, it's clear the two of you have problems," Harry said, standing with an amused expression. "Seeing as I've already got two people to listen to bicker, I think I'll be off. Good luck, George."

George snorted and waved him off, clearly unconcerned with the fact that his girlfriend was irritated with his behavior. He turned back to her with a grin.

"C'mon, love, we're going to play some Exploding Snap upstairs and you've been working since lunch ended," he said. "You could use a break."

"I could use those twenty points back, is what I could use," she griped, closing her book.

"Can always give them back," Lee said hopefully.

She gave him a deadpan expression that made George chuckle.

"Much as I enjoy that prefect tone, it's raising your blood pressure, and we're trying to go the other direction, so let's forget about the hornless fifth-year and go upstairs before you get Lee worked up."

Nessa rolled her eyes, but followed George up the stairs to their dorm with Lee behind her.

"I am not getting worked up," Lee snorted. "I'm merely suggesting that perhaps there should be a benefit to being friends with a prefect. Or, you know, in your case, snogging one — bloody hell, woman!"

George laughed when Lee went careening into the wall when Nessa shoved him at the remark. She pointed at him in warning.

"You already get plenty of benefits, Lee Jordan," she said warningly. "Bullying students is not one of them, so I suggest you shut your trap. Unless you'd like me to confiscate that Fanged Frisbee that's supposed to be banned by Filch."

Lee grinned at her.

"You know, it's probably fine," he said conversationally, sending George a wide eyed look. Nessa rolled her eyes at him. Ridiculous, all of them. He was as bad as Fred and George most days. "Can we go now? I think I need to ice my shoulder."

George chuckled at the eye roll that Nessa gave him, but grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in front of him before she could tell Lee off some more.

"Let's just keep the two of you far away from each other and then —"

The three of them stopped in the middle of the doorway to the sixth year boys' dormitory, and George stopped talking immediately, seemingly having gone stiff with surprise. Nessa couldn't blame him, really. She had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep herself from gasping in surprise, and Lee was gaping behind her.

Because Fred and Tori had apparently given up on their game of Gobstones, the orange and magenta pieces entirely forgotten on the floor, and they were trapped in a heated embrace with no indication that they'd heard any of them coming at all. That was until George's voice interrupted them and sent them careening apart.

"What the bloody hell is this?"