Hermione arrived with a large huff, all but slamming her bookbag onto the table. Several pieces of parchment ruffled, and a few pages of the open books turned over.

"Someone's in a right mood," Tracey muttered as she turned the book pages back to where she had been reading.

"It's that Ronald Weasley!" Hermione cried, earning a "sh!" from Madam Pince who happened to be walking by at that moment.

"He is getting on my last nerve!" Hermione continued in a whispered hiss.

"What's he done now?" Aria asked.

"He's being an idiot," Hermione answered. "He's straight up told me that he thinks Harry put his name into the Goblet of Fire and he's upset that Harry didn't tell him so that he could put his name in too!"

"Are you serious?" Susan cried.

"On top of that," Hermione continued, clearly ready to release everything she had been bottling up, "he thinks Harry's gone and done it for the eternal glory! Does he know our friend at all, or has he been willfully blind these last four years? I thought Ron smarter than this. It's vastly disappointing. And because of this, he's stopped studying with me in the common room and skivvies off with Seamus and Dean to go flying!"

Hannah reached over and patted Hermione's hand.

"He'll come around," Hannah said.

"It might take Harry's death to do it!" Hermione insisted.

"Don't say that," Aria chided, "Harry's not going to die. Not if I've got anything to say about it."

"And what're you going to do if he does die?" Daphne asked. "Who're you taking it up with? Lady Magic? Death himself?"

"Both," Aria retorted. "Harry didn't survive You-Know-Who just to be taken away by some stupid tournament."

"I'm sure whatever deity waiting on the other side will take that into consideration," Tracey said.

"They'd better if they know what's good for them."

"If anyone else said that I wouldn't believe them," Susan said. "But forget Ron Weasley for a moment, we've more important things. Like ensuring Aria doesn't have to go toe-to-toe with Death by keeping Harry from dying in the first place."

"Well . . ." the girls looked down at their notes and the books in front of them, Tracey the one elongating the word. "I found a paragraph about how it's hypothesized Dragonspeakers and Parselmouths were one in the same and then as suspicion for Parseltongue rose in the British Isles, the less people went about doing it and so Dragonspeakers eventually disappeared."

"So, Harry could try to just . . . what . . . talk to the dragon?" Hermione questioned. "'Oh please, Madam Dragon, can you please surrender to me so that I can win this dumb tournament?'"

"Yes, just like that," Aria laughed, earning a glare and shush from Madam Pince. She goes back to her own notes.

"The rules of the tournament say that Harry can't bring anything except his wand," Daphne stated after a moment. "However . . . it doesn't say anything about him being given something once he's doing whatever he's supposed to be doing."

"So, we just . . . throw him something from the spectator stands?" Tracey asked.

"Or he Summons something," Daphne said.

"We haven't learning the Summoning Charm yet," Hannah pointed out. "That's next year."

"Well, he might just have to learn it now," Daphne retorted. "Unless he wants to be eaten by a dragon."

"What would he summon though?" Aria asked. Daphne shrugged. The girls went back to thinking.

"I've got it!" Susan cried. The girls shushed her hurriedly. Thankfully, Madam Pince did not show up to glare at them. "He could summon his Firebolt. Dragons fly, which means there's a chance the dragon might fly at him, so if he has his broom he could outfly it or something."

"That's brilliant!" Aria cried. "Susan, you're amazing!"

"I know," Susan agreed with a flip of her copper-colored hair. "I'm glad someone recognizes it."

Aria knew that Harry had magical power and was good at practical magic, being able to produce a Patronus at thirteen did not happen to average thirteen-year-olds. However, it did amaze her at how quickly Harry took to the Summoning Charm. He started with quills and books and moved onto cushions in the Slytherin common room, to finally summoning things out of people's hands. When that annoys their housemates too much, Harry and Aria head out into the school to try summoning things from greater distances. They are still debating whether or not Aria should bring the Firebolt to the spectator stands or if they should hide the broom somewhere close by, when they come across the three older champions in an abandoned classroom pouring over their own books and notes.

"Come up with anything good?" Aria asked as she and Harry poked their heads in. She grins seeing Nikola with them. "Or is Harry gonna crush all of you?"

"Very funny," Cedric said, pointing a threatening finger at them. "You can make fun all you like, Aria. You're not the one going to be eaten by a dragon!"

"Thankfully I don't have to worry about that," Harry teased. "I am, after all, the Boy-Who-Lived. I can't die."

"Are you going to really test that?" Cedric asked.

"No . . . but Aria said she'd fight Death for me if I did die, so I doubt I'm going anywhere anytime soon."

The champions nodded their heads like this was the most natural thing in the world and Aria preened at their confidence in her ability to get what she wanted.

Nikola tossed his quill down with a huff.

"I think I've got to take a break," he said. "All this talk of dragons makes my head spin." He waved Aria and Harry closer. "Tell me, Aria, how goes your potions research?"

"I've discovered an unknown writer from the 1200s who was looking for a cure to lycanthropy," Aria answered. "He seems to believe that lycanthropy is the magical version of a Muggle disease he calls "fear of water" or "bite of madness" but I haven't been able to figure out what that disease might be. Hermione's written to her parents. They're dentists and have access to medical texts, so maybe if I can figure out what the Muggle equivalent is, and if the Muggles have created a solution, maybe I can somehow piggy-back off that."

"I think I only understood half of those words," Cedric teased.

"Vhat is a dentist?" Viktor asked.

"It's a healer for your teeth," Harry answered. "They mostly clean your teeth, but sometimes, they have to carve out cavities or put braces on to straighten out your teeth."

"Braces?" Fleur cried. "Sounds 'orrid!"

"Anges Witherspoon had braces," Harry said, "a girl I went to primary school with. She even had to wear some kind of harness over her head when she first got them. They're metal and wire and force your teeth to move to where they're supposed to be."

The wixen looked properly horrified.

"Dad likes to tell the story how I tried to bite Dr. Gideon when I was seven," Aria piped up, remembering with no fondness that particular dentist.

"Sounds like a terrifying occupation," Cedric said.

"It pays well, so I suppose it makes up for it," Aria answered.

Fleur shook herself, as if dispelling her mind of the horrors of Muggle dentistry.

"I've looked at the dragons again," she told them. "I think I've managed to identify the breeds. There is a Common Welsh Green, a Swedish Shortsnout, a Chinese Fireball, and a Hungarian Horntail. They're also all nesting mothers."

"Like . . . they've got eggs?" Aria cried. Fleur nodded.

"We assume we're going to have to get something out of a nest," Cedric told them. "Nesting mothers . . . what're they thinking? How did that even get approved? Dragons are endangered!"

Aria recalled suddenly that Cedric's dad worked for the ministry department that had relocated Norbert.

"Hagrid had a dragon egg back in first year," Harry said.

"I'm beginning to vorry for the safety of the students here," Nikola muttered.

"Yeah . . ." Aria drawled. "Me too. But at least you're only here for a year."

"Maybe I'll take you home and have you attend Durmstrang."

"Durmstrang still doesn't admit Muggleborns," Aria said with a snide smirk. "I saw the article in The Daily Prophet this morning. ICW's still fining the school. And Karkaroff looked unmoved by it."

"I swear Karkaroff is one of the vorst things to happen to Durmstrang," Nikola muttered rebelliously.

"You can't have Aria," Cedric argued. "Half the alumni would come after you and we'd never find your body—,"

"Okay, that's ridiculous," Aria said.

"—she's everyone's favorite little Muggleborn—,"

"Again, with the little!"

"—and Professor Snape would never let you take her since she's going to be his crowning achievement in his potions career."

"What's the fuck?" Aria cried, ready to hex Cedric who ducked behind Fleur.

"I mean, she's going to find the cure for lycanthropy, and he's not about that to be someone else's legacy."

"I vouldn't vant to go against Master Snape," Nikola admitted. "He's more frightening that Karkaroff."

"And you never met Prudence Attlebury," Cedric added for good measure. "Or Teddy Lawrence."

"And they are?"

"No one!" Aria cried, slamming a hand over Cedric's mouth. The boy laughed, picking her up effortlessly to set her beside Harry who was laughing so hard he was nearly doubled over. She felt her mouth twitch traitorously and she hurried to school her face to look more serious than she felt.

"Her bodyguards," Cedric said with a wink. "Her lead advisors when she takes over the world."

"You're ridiculous!" Aria grabbed Harry's hand. "Let's leave these losers, Harry. They can get eaten for all I care."