If someone had asked Frank when he first stared Hogwarts that he would someday marry rich and have the money and encouragement to pursue a magical mastery, he would have laughed like an idiot and say dreams don't grow on trees. His parents and grandparents had sat him down the day he had gotten his Hogwarts letter and reiterated what they had been telling him all his life. If he wanted to get anywhere, he better be prepared to pull himself up by his bootstraps because the wizarding world did not look kindly on poor halfbloods. He also remembered his grandfather, his mother's dad to be precise, stating clearly that he best keep his dreams realistic, that not much had changed in the wizarding world since his generation, and that Frank would be lucky to get any kind of apprenticeship in the wizarding world.

That had been the reality Frank had entered Hogwarts under. He was a halfblood. A third-generation wizard. His maternal grandparents were Muggleborns who met at Hogwarts, and his paternal grandmother had been a Muggleborn who had married her Muggle childhood sweetheart. All three of those grandparents had left the wizarding world after graduation, having graduated during World War II and Grindelwald's rise to power. His paternal grandparents had settled in Cornwall where the Treworgy family had been settled for generations, and his maternal grandparents had moved to Porthallow be closer to their Hogwarts friend. His two grandfathers had bought a boat and begun a fishing business together (helped along with a little bit of magic) and their wives had kept a storefront selling their catch to Muggles.

His parents had grown up together. They had entered Hogwarts two years apart. His mother to Hufflepuff and his father to Ravenclaw. They had managed to graduate near top of the class, but they had come of age during the rise of Lord Voldemort and so had quickly returned to their Muggle life in Porthallow, eventually opening up a fishmonger business in the magical quarter of Truro.

There was full expectation that Frank's journey at Hogwarts would be no different from theirs. He would have to keep his head down, graduate decently, and hope for some kind of decent honest job afterwards. There had been some shock when he had been sorted into Slytherin, as neither his parents nor grandparents had any good stories about any of their Slytherin classmates. His grandparents told him horror stories about people like Abraxas Malfoy and Darius Nott, the late older brother of the current Lord Nott.

Teddy had made his time at Hogwarts and in Slytherin easier. At first, he gravitated towards Teddy because he was the only one in their dorm that didn't have it out for him being a poor halfblood. Teddy had not seemed to mind being his protector, even though he was clearly the leader of their year. As they went through Hogwarts, he and Teddy's relationship morphed into genuine friendship and in their seventh year, a relationship. That had taken Frank by surprise. He had not realized that Teddy likes wizards, and while he had known since he was thirteen that he liked blokes, he was not about to advertise it especially since his parents and grandparents were still very Muggle in terms of how they viewed homosexuality.

Even now, though they had come to terms with his sexuality and his choice of partner, there was still some awkwardness.

Dinner had just finished, and he and Teddy were settling down for their post-dinner drink in front of a roaring fire when a late owl came pecking at the window. Teddy, being closes, opened the window to let the pour bird in from the cold night. Their house-elf popped in with owl treats and their after-dinner coffee and tea before disappearing back to the kitchen.

"It's for you," Teddy says, holding the envelope out, his other hand petting the owl who eager pushes its head against Teddy's hand. "It's Aria."

"Our little Muggleborn?" Frank questioned, summoning the envelope. "How can you tell?"

"Her handwriting. It pays to be a part of her lawyer team."

"You help facilitate her Flamel holdings. Hardly her lawyer team." Frank still opened the letter, unsure why Aria would write to him of all people. If she needed something, it should be Teddy she was writing to.

"What does she want?" Teddy asked after a minute, leaning over Frank's shoulders to read the letter.

"She wants help in figuring out what runes to use with what metals for her lycanthropy cure," Frank said. Teddy pressed a kiss to his head. "I thought Skeeter was exaggerating whatever Bourne said when she said she was going to find a cure for lycanthropy."

"She's all grown up," Teddy said with an exaggerated sniff, wiping away nonexistent tears. "And to think we're friends with such a witch!"

"Of all the people to reach out to though . . ."

"Frank, she can't just up and write a letter to any Runes Masters. If she wants to do her research above board, she will need letters of introduction. She could get that from Professor Babbling, but Professor Babbling thought you were a better resource."

"Letters of introduction," Frank muttered. "Like the bloody Regency era." He still rose from his chair and meandered over to the bookshelf, perusing the vast number of books the two of them had collected over the years. He pulled off one of the books, an introduction to medicinal runes.

"I'll send this to her," Frank stated. "And I'll talk to Master Cuthbert about who he thinks would be most helpful for Aria."

Teddy wrapped his arms around Frank's waist.

"I love it when you talk runes," he said, pressing a kiss to Frank's neck. "Very sexy."

Frank snorted, putting the book and letter down on a side table and turning in Teddy's arms.

"Something tells me you don't want an after-dinner drink in front of the fire," he murmured, beginning to back up toward the hallway which led to their bedroom.

"You know me so well."

Two days later Aria received a reply from Frank. He gave her a book on runes in medicinal potions which he thought might help her and stated that he would talk to his Runes Master and see about getting her connected with other masters in the field to help her. She made a note to send a thank you letter to him and began flipping through the book.

Another owl came swooping down towards the Slytherin table, interrupting the breakfast by dropping an envelope in Aria's oatmeal before flying off, clearly not wanting a reply. A quick flick of her wand cleaned the envelope, and a quick perusal of the handwriting immediately told Aria that she did not know the sender. There was also no return address. Not the first of suspicious mail this year. She had received quite a few after the article of the First Task where a great number of women decided to send her jealous letters (which was horrifying because Aria was sure of the letters were written by adult women), and again after the article about Abraxas Malfoy. A lot of the new mail had been from people showing their support for Aria and she had been sure to send a short thank you note to those people, and a few had contained letters of such vitriol that Hermione had burned them before Aria could even finish reading them.

Surprisingly, though, nothing had come yet regarding the articles about the Yule Ball. There had been quite a bit of press about the Champions and their dates, especially Viktor and Hermione, but there had been a sizeable amount of coverage regarding her and Nikola.

"Another anonymous letter?" Theo asked. Aria nodded, taking the letter up to Snape who, use to the request by now, lazily ran his wand over the envelope without missing a sip of his tea. The letter glowed white which meant that there were no harmful hexes, jinxes, curses, or items in the envelope. With a quick "thank you" Aria made her way back to her seat. Nikola and Viktor had arrived in the interim and were serving themselves breakfast.

Inside the envelope was one piece of newspaper, clearly cut from an English-Russian newspaper. The headline read: PRINCE NIKOLA OF BULGARIA STUNS EUROPE WITH MUGGLEBORN DATE! Underneath the headline was a large picture of her and Nikola entering the Great Hall. Aria thought the picture of her was quite stunning and made her appear more confident and elegant than she was; and it would have been the perfect picture for her mementos box if it weren't the large symbol painted over the picture in dripping red paint dark enough to resemble blood.

"What's that?" Harry asked. Nikola looked over and immediately spat up his morning coffee, coughing as some made it down the wrong pipe. The Durmstrang students looked at him with concern, even Viktor appeared alarmed.

Nikola said something in Bulgarian that Aria was sure was a swear. He reached for the newspaper clipping and she held it out of reach.

"No!" she snapped. "You can't have it unless you tell me what it means."

"What means what?" Theo asked. Aria turned the newspaper to show him. To her alarm, she watched Theo's face pale and his fork fell from his hand. Viktor's face twisted into an angry scowl. Nikola finally managed to grab the newspaper clipping from Aria's hands, surging to his feet, and shaking it at his fellow Durmstrang students who were also at breakfast. He began shouting in rapid Bulgarian . . . or Russian . . . Aria wasn't sure at this point, shaking the newspaper clipping at them. Even they all looked stunned at her mail.

"Prince Nikola, cease the shouting," one of the Durmstrang professors ordered, coming over from the Head Table. Aria was certain this particular professor was actually a Royal Guard. Snape, Dumbledore, Moody, and the other Heads of House were now hurrying over while Karkaroff had yet to show his face in the Great Hall. Madam Maxime glanced over from her place next to Hagrid but did not rise to see what was happening.

"This is a vile threat against Aria," Nikola yelled, shaking the newspaper. The professor took a look at the newspaper clipping, a disturbed look coming over his features.

"It is vile," the man agreed, handing the newspaper clipping across to Snape. Snape scowled at the paper while Dumbledore remained as unbothered as always. McGonagall, Sprout, and Flitwick had equally horrified looks on their faces.

"We ought to contact Amelia," McGonagall told Dumbledore.

"Do you think it's as serious as that?" Dumbledore questioned. Aria looked at Harry. It must be very serious then, whatever that symbol meant.

"Albus," McGonagall hissed. "It could be vicious prank for all we know, but I will not risk a student's safety when that is what is painted over her face!"

"What is it?" Aria demanded. "Could someone please tell me so that I too can be properly horrified?"

Snape handed the newspaper clipping back to her so that she could get a look at the symbol again. The outer edge of the symbol was made of a triangle, and within the triangle was a circle that touched all three sides. The symbol was cut in half by a single straight line that went from the tip of the triangle to the bottom, easily slicing the triangle and circle both in half.

"It's called the Sign of the Deathly Hallows," Snape told Aria. "It has its origins with a fairy tale about three brothers who are given gifts by Death. Nowadays it's also known as the Sign of Grindelwald. He as obsessed with the idea that three gifts, called the Deathly Hallows, were real and he used that symbol as his calling card."

Aria dropped the newspaper clipping like it were a hot potato.

"So, it's like the magical version of the swastika?" she asked. Snape nodded. Nausea made Aria push her breakfast away. Snape picked up the newspaper clipping again.

"As McGonagall said, it could just be a vicious prank meant to scare you," he said. "At worst it's a warning and a threat."

"Best send it to Amelia," Moody muttered, his sharp gaze on the Durmstrang students. "Just to be on the safe side."

Harry slipped his arm around Aria's shoulders.

By now the entire Great Hall knew what was happening. Anyone who didn't understand what was happening was quickly filled in. Horrified gasps could be heard intermittently as Dumbledore, Moody, and the Heads of House left the Great Hall to contact Madam Bones.

Aria put her head on the table, narrowly missing her oatmeal bowl.

A Durmstrang student said something in Russian. It was clearly an audacious thing as multiple Durmstrang students hissed and snapped angry retorts at him.

"Durmstrang even found Grindelvald too extreme," Viktor said in response to whatever was said. "And expelled him! Think about that before you say such things again."

"Snape's gonna tell my dad," Aria moaned. "He'll pull me out of Hogwarts for sure!"

"Remus won't let him do that," Harry assured her, patting her head.

"You could just transfer to Beauxbatons," Fleur suggested, appearing suddenly behind Theo who had yet to properly recover from his initial shock. "I am certain Madam Maxime would allow it."

"I'd look terrible in silk," Aria moaned. "And I don't know French!"

"Aria, you could wear a paper sack and still look like a goddess!" Fleur cried, settling beside Theo whose face was now going from pale to pink. "Mr. Nott, would you please pass the eggs?"

"I von't let anything happen to you," Nikola assured Aria.

"Why couldn't we just have a normal year?" Aria asked Harry.

"Normal year? At Hogwarts? Doesn't exist," Harry answered. "Come on. Let's detour back to the dorms for some chocolate before we go to class. That'll make you feel better."

The only thing that made Aria feel better over the next few days was the Rita Skeeter article that exposed what had happened. Regardless of the uncomfortable idea of how Skeeter was getting access to Hogwarts, which, even Professor Snape admitted was a worrisome topic when asked, it was good to see that in the days after Skeeter's article, Aria received letters of encouragement from people like Percy, Prudence, Tracey, and Penelope (and Oliver too but his was a little note on the bottom of Percy's letter). Those made her feel better. She even received letters from Teddy and Axel Lawrence, though Axel's was professional on behalf of Sirius and Teddy's may or may not have been an offer to exploit the legal system should she find out who send the newspaper clipping to her.

Kenneth, of course, had been very upset and his letter to Aria had indicated that if she wanted to come home or transfer somewhere else he would not argue with her while Remus' letter assured her that she did not have to do anything she did not want to do and that he would take care of Kenneth.

Then, of course, there were the many opinion articles that came in The Daily Prophet after Skeeter's article was published as well as the articles in the foreign papers. There was always at least one person who wrote that Aria brought the whole thing on herself for not keeping her head down and knowing her place as a Muggleborn. What was crazy was that The Daily Prophet generally did not print the names of the people who wrote those types of opinions while the Bulgarian papers had no qualms about doing so.

"At least the people in Eastern Europe are willing to be public about their opinions," Aria muttered to Harry several days after the incident. "If you're going to have an opinion, no matter how awful, you should own it and not hide behind an "anonymous" tag."

"Unless they think they'll get hexed for it," Harry pointed out.

Thankfully, Aria was distracted by it all with the arrival of the gillyweed. It had been decided to order more than what was needed for the second task, so that Harry could practice consuming the gillyweed and swimming. Of course, they started out in the prefects' bathroom where they were more subtle with their illicit fourth year pool parties so that Harry wouldn't freeze to death before the second task. The gillyweed was slimy and of the freshwater variety, which according to the supplier, was best if swimming in fresh water. The three times Harry tested the gillyweed, he lasted 65 minutes so they were all certain the remaining batches would also last 65 minutes.

The night before the Second Task, Harry went to bed early with a Sleeping Draught supplied by Professor Snape. Harry was as prepared as he could be, though neither he nor any of the other champions had figured out what they were meant to find in the Black Lake. Aria decided to take the opportunity to talk to Madam Pince about other resources to go along with the medicinal runes book Frank had sent her. She spent two hours working on the runes for lycanthropy before finishing up a Transfiguration essay she had been putting off but was due in three days.

At the ringing of the library bell, signally to occupants that they had fifteen minutes before curfew, Aria put the last touch on the Transfiguration essay and slammed one of the library books shut. She really had taken on a lot this year, what with helping Harry with the tournament, her lycanthropy research, and her ambition to remain at the top of the class if not the top which would mean displacing Hermione.

For a moment she wondered what life would have been like if she were not friends with Harry or had been sorted into another house. Ravenclaw perhaps? She would probably be in the Ravenclaw Tower with Lisa Turpin and Padma Patil keeping her head down and not getting involved with pureblood politics and Bulgarian princes. And she probably would not be involved with Draco Malfoy.

"Ah, Miss Bourne, just the young lady I wished to see!"

Aria nearly toppled over in her chair. Dumbledore smiled indulgently as she scrambled to right herself.

"Headmaster!" she cried. "Sorry, you startled me."

"Ah, I apologize. I would like to speak to you in my office."

Damn it. That didn't sound good. Did he want to discuss the newspaper clipping? It was a bit after the fact for that. Madam Bones had not been pleased.

"I didn't do it," Aria said, still feeling the need to defend herself. Dumbledore chuckled.

"You aren't in trouble, Miss Bourne. There is just something I need to discuss with you and a few other students. They are already making their way to my office, but I needed to stretch these old bones and thought a walk to the library would do me good."

"How'd you know I was in the library?" Aria asked, gathering her things, and following after the man.

"I deduced that you would be here. It is, after all, the place one normally finds you."

That was fair, Aria thought.

"So . . . what do you need to talk to me about?" Aria asked.

"It has to do with the Second Task tomorrow. I and the other organizers need some help ensuring everything goes off without a hitch and

thought we would ask some of the more . . . responsible students to help."

Intriguing.

"I'm honored to be thought of as a responsible student," Aria said. "I would've thought you might not want to put any more of a spotlight on me."

"It is not as if you choose the spotlight, Miss Bourne," Dumbledore said. "I must say, though, that your ambition to cure lycanthropy is commendable. I can see why the Sorting Hat put you in Slytherin, even though I did have reservations at the beginning. There has never been a Muggleborn in Slytherin. They tend to want to blend in and learn about their new world instead of utilizing ambition and cunningness."

"Suppose someone had to be the first," Aria replied.

"If you ever wish to bounce ideas off someone, I will happily listen to you," Dumbledore added as they approached the familiar gargoyle. "My masteries are transfiguration and alchemy, but there is some overlap between the latter and potions."

Alchemy. Aria had not even thought about the possibility of combing that into the potions.

"Do you use runes in alchemy?" Aria asked. "I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with the subject beyond the idea of turning things into gold and the Philosopher's Stone." She thought of the stone hiding out in her vaults.

"On occasion," Dumbledore said. "Ginger snap." The gargoyle moved to the side revealing the staircase. "I can lend you a few books."

They entered Dumbledore's office. Immediately several heads swiveled to look at them. Nikola grinned, waving her to a seat close to him. It appeared that he, Cho, and a little girl that Aria recognized at Gabrielle were being served tea by a Hogwarts house elf. Gabrielle, she knew, had been given permission to stay with the Beauxbatons students until at least the end of the Second Task and was Fleur's sister. According to Fleur, their father was the Deputy Minister of Magic in France whish Aria thought was quite impressive and the short interactions with him that she had had had shown him to be a much more competent minister than Fudge. Though what had she expected of a man with the last name of a piece of candy?

"Have some tea and then we'll get right down to business," Dumbledore said, settling down in his own chair. Aria took the cup that had been poured for her, immediately adding a dash of cream and one sugar before taking a healthy mouthful.