Harry awoke slowly to morning sunlight filtering through the curtains around his bed–a pleasant surprise. He'd gone to sleep expecting horrible nightmares and shooting pains in his forehead. There was a slight throbbing coming from his scar, but he'd felt far worse. Either Riddle wasn't as angry this time, or Harry had developed enough passive mental defense to give him some protection even in his sleep.

Maybe he could do even better, now that he was awake. He shifted his mind into one of the Occlumency exercises Ginny had taught him. The dull ache from his scar wasn't bad enough to be too distracting. To the contrary, it gave him something to focus on, and when it began to fade, a measure of how well he was doing.

He did get distracted then though, by warm thoughts of Ginny, and all the ways she looked out for him. He couldn't imagine how he ever would have picked up Occlumency on his own. Without her, he would have remained at the mercy of his scar, and the dark emotions and agony which could come blasting through it at any moment.

The unpleasant thought brought his attention back to his practice. With a start, he realized the pain had disappeared. Odd. Maybe he was better at Occlumency than he thought, if he could do it even while daydreaming about Ginny. That'd be handy, considering how often he found his mind drawn to thoughts of her.

Either way, there was no question Occlumency practice was beginning to pay off. Now, if he could just convince Hermione he was making progress, it might get him back in her good graces. His scar hurting at all was probably a bad sign, but maybe she'd give him partial credit?

Before heading down for breakfast, he used his communication mirror to contact Sirius, to update him and Remus.

When Sirius answered, he was regretful about how he'd behaved the night before. He apologized, and promised to do a better job of making sure Harry never had cause to think he shouldn't reach out because of the reaction he might get.

In truth, Harry hadn't been that bothered. He'd grown up seeing his uncle lose his temper on a regular basis, often with Harry as the target. At least when Sirius got angry, he did so on Harry's behalf. Explaining that seemed like a bad idea though. It would only lead to Sirius getting mad at his uncle, and maybe doing something about it this time, something which might get him in trouble.

He settled for telling Sirius not to worry, it wasn't a big deal. After all, here he was, calling back the very next morning.

Having settled that, Harry got on with what he'd called for. After Sirius heard what he had to say, he agreed that Harry feeling anything from his scar wasn't great news, but the lack of nightmares, the lesser amount of pain, and Harry's success at pushing even that away all seemed like good signs.

When he finished talking to Sirius and emerged from his bed curtains, he found Ron was awake, but hadn't gotten out of bed yet.

Ron yawned, stretched, and asked how Harry slept, with a glance at his scar.

"Good."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Wait until we meet up with the girls though, so I don't have to go over it twice."

"Alright."

The two of them went down to the Great Hall for breakfast, where they found Hermione and Ginny already seated at the Gryffindor table. After the previous evening's excitement, none of them had felt like spending their usual extra day in the practice rooms, so this was the first time Harry had seen Hermione since she'd stormed off the night before. She offered him a terse good morning, and said nothing more.

Other students sat nearby, so Harry paused to consider how to phrase what he wanted to say without revealing any secrets.

He turned to Ginny. "Thanks again for teaching me that relaxation exercise. It helped a lot this morning."

She gave him a puzzled look, but then caught on. "You're welcome. Another headache?"

"Yeah, but nothing compared to the ones I get when I have trouble sleeping. And that thing you taught me took care of it quick."

"Glad to hear it. You slept alright then?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah."

Harry could see that Hermione was dying to jump in, but she held her tongue.

When they'd all finished eating, by unspoken agreement they made their way to the seventh floor. When they slipped through the secret door and closed it behind them, Hermione made Harry explain plainly what he'd said in code at breakfast.

"That's great," she told him. "I hope your success inspires you to work even harder. It would be a mistake to get too comfortable, and stop at the level you're at."

"I'll keep practicing. But don't you think we should address the elephant in the room? Or rather the dragon?"

"Four dragons," added Ron helpfully, earning him annoyed looks from both Harry and Hermione.

Hermione turned back to Harry. "I wasn't mad at you. Or at least, not just at you. You should have checked to see if anyone had any better ideas before taking off like you did, but that wasn't the worst part. Or not the only worst part."

"Okay. What was the other worst part?"

"This year was supposed to be different. We were all supposed to stay out of trouble. But instead of facing one dragon in the Tournament, you wound up facing four, with no handlers standing ready to step in. If anything we do only makes things worse, then what's the point? But I can't stand by and do nothing, so I don't know what I'm meant to do."

"Last night, Remus pointed out we probably shouldn't have expected whoever messed with the Goblet to give up so easy. At least this way, I had a choice. Not having a magical contract hanging over me is a big win, no matter what. Bad things can still happen, but I have more choice in how to respond."

Ginny elbowed him in the side.

"Uh, we have more choice in how to respond," he amended.

Hermione said, "We didn't have much choice last night, when you went out the window before we had any idea what you were doing."

"That's fair. For the next two tasks, I promise to get your advice on the best way to handle my own personal enhanced versions."

"Not funny."

He shrugged. "With all the absurd things I keep getting pulled into, I might as well try to laugh about it, because what else am I going to do?"

"It's not just you. Because we changed things, you were in greater danger, but so were lots of other people, like Ginny, and–"

"That was my choice," Ginny cut in.

"None of us should have to face choices like that! And everyone acts like it's all so normal. Because things worked out, everyone treats it like one more exciting story for the common room. No one wants to think about how easily things could have gone wrong. Not just for you two, but for anyone else who happened to be out there, or who went out to try and help. But I think about it, and I don't think I'm the one who had an inappropriate reaction."

Harry said, "I'm sorry you were worried, and I know it's because you care, but it's not wrong to stop worrying and feel relief once the danger is over."

"It's never over. That's the problem. You know, I have half a mind to jump into the middle of the next task myself, to see how you like it."

"Nah, don't sell yourself short. You've got more like a mind-and-a-half, which makes you far too smart and careful to pull a stunt like that."

She scowled, but let the matter drop.

~*~

Hermione wasn't the only one with strong opinions about the previous night's events.

Harry and Ginny received house points for their bravery in coming to the aid of others, but they also had to serve a detention with Professor McGonagall. She had them fill the time with the sort of assignment Hermione might have come up with: writing essays on all the ways they could have gotten hurt, doing what they'd done.

McGonagall also told Harry that from now on, he had to store his Firebolt with the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team brooms, rather than in his room. He wasn't happy about this, but counted himself lucky that at least she hadn't forbidden him from having such a powerful broom at school at all. (And if he suspected her passion for Quidditch had anything to do with her decision, he was wise enough not to mention it.)

The Daily Prophet weighed in on the incident two days later. The article harshly criticized the event organizers for allowing such dangerous creatures to escape, while also taking the opportunity to remind readers of the debacle surrounding the selection of the champions.

Rita Skeeter had kept to her agreement with Ginny, and sent Harry a draft of the article for review. Her description of events was surprisingly accurate. Skeeter hadn't revealed her sources, but Harry supposed plenty of people had watched the spectacle.

The article closed by suggesting the actual Tournament task would inevitably be a disappointment, since each champion would be facing a single dragon, instead of the four the Boy Who Lived had taken on. Harry wasn't happy about that last bit of editorializing, though strictly speaking, it didn't violate the terms Skeeter had agreed to. He worried how the champions would react, but they all shrugged it off. They already had a low opinion of Rita Skeeter, and had little regard for anything she had to say. It helped that Harry was on good terms with them, and they all had some understanding of how little he liked being the center of attention.

The Tournament organizers didn't care for the article at all. Between the latest piece and Skeeter's earlier reporting, they decided they'd had enough of her insinuation and innuendo, and banned her from Hogwarts.

Harry and his friends debated who might have stunned the dragon handlers. Crouch seemed like the one with the most to gain from derailing a Tournament he'd never wanted to enter, but the Daily Prophet reported that on the night in question, he was attending a Ministry dinner event. This was considered newsworthy in part due to sources at the event describing him as looking unwell. The Prophet attributed this to the stress of having made a fool of himself by entering a Tournament intended for students.

The first task was delayed for one week to allow the dragons to recover from their injuries, and guards were posted around their cages to prevent the possibility of further sabotage.

~*~

The last day in November, Hermione returned from a visit to the kitchens with the news that Dobby and Winky had begun working at Hogwarts. She'd been worrying about the two elves, and was glad to see them wind up somewhere safe, if not quite free. She was less pleased to learn that of the two, only Dobby was receiving wages–and not nearly enough of them, in her opinion. Dobby appeared thrilled with the deal he had negotiated though, and was in much higher spirits than Winky, who was having trouble adjusting to her new circumstances.

Harry went to see Dobby to welcome him to Hogwarts, and to introduce him to Ron and Ginny. Dobby greeted Ron with cheerful enthusiasm, but upon meeting Ginny, he launched into a stream of apologies as profuse and heartfelt as only a house-elf could deliver, for not having done more to stop the plans of his former bad master.

Ginny was caught off-guard by this display, but Hermione rushed to reassure the distraught elf that they knew he'd done the best he could, given the restrictions he'd been under.

Dobby looked to Ginny, who nodded her agreement and offered him an uncomfortable smile.

This spurred Dobby to praise the kindness of the great Harry Potter's friends with the same fervor he'd poured into his apologies. They managed to calm him down, but there didn't seem to be anything they could do to cheer up Winky.

Before they departed, Hermione asked Dobby to come speak to her club. She wanted him to explain his duties at Hogwarts, so at least the role played by the house-elves in keeping the school running would be less invisible to the students who depended on their efforts.

Dobby agreed to come talk about his wonderful new life and responsibilities, but was still reluctant to speak ill of his former masters, or the abuse he had suffered at their hands–or at his own, under their orders.

~*~

The next day, the students and staff of Hogwarts gathered to witness the rescheduled first task of the Triwizard Tournament, in the arena built specially for the event. As Harry and his friends looked for four empty seats together, other Gryffindors they passed jokingly wondered whether Harry would be joining in the fun, or asked whether he'd forgotten to bring his broom.

"You don't think I'm going to get pulled into this, do you?" Harry asked his friends as they sat down.

"Of course not," replied Hermione. "If I see you stand up, I'm hitting you with a Body-Bind Curse."

"If something kicks off–"

"If it does, the dragon handlers are here to handle it."

"Yeah," added Ron. "It's right there in the job title."

"Exactly," agreed Hermione. "It's one thing to go rushing off to be all heroic when no one else is doing anything to help, but that won't be an issue today."

Ginny said, "She's got a point. Why does it always have to be you?"

Harry shook his head. "I wish I knew. It just works out that way."

"Relax and enjoy the show, mate," Ron advised him.

"You guys sound like Tonks. She sent me a letter saying I'm not allowed anywhere near a dragon ever again. And that I'm lucky she didn't make the letter a Howler."

"Well, there you go," Hermione said, evidently considering the matter closed. "You have written orders from an actual Auror."

Harry was pretty sure Tonks was invoking her authority as his godcousin rather than as a newly-minted Auror, but decided Hermione wouldn't find the distinction relevant.

Fleur was the first champion to face a dragon, which she enchanted to sleep. Cedric was up next, and Transfigured a rock into a dog to distract his dragon. Both champions completed the task with nothing worse than minor burns. The magic they displayed was competent, though not dramatic, and the crowd applauded politely for each performance.

When Viktor Krum began his turn by summoning a broom, an excited murmur went through the crowd.

"Now we're talking," said Ron.

Hermione turned to Harry. "See what you've started?"

"Viktor did ask me what flying with them was like," Harry admitted. "I thought he just wanted to hear the story, like everybody else. Being able to summon a broom like that sure could come in handy though."

She gave him a suspicious look. "Krum probably had it waiting somewhere nearby, out in the open. You would need tremendous concentration and focus to summon yours all the way from the equipment sheds, locked away out of sight… if you're considering doing that for any reason."

"Nah. I was thinking if you got knocked off one in midair, you might be able to summon it and get back on before you hit the ground."

Hermione looked horrified at the notion.

"I'm not planning on needing to do that," he told her. "You're the one who is always saying it's good to have options prepared, just in case."

"Oh. Yes. You should definitely practice the Summoning Charm more."

Viktor mounted his broom and took to the air, then proceeded to lure the dragon away from its nest, as far as the chain binding it allowed. He cast a spell at the dragon's eyes, which sent it into a frenzy.

The dragon began stomping around blindly, roaring and swinging its head to breathe fire in random directions.

Hermione gasped. "He blinded the poor thing! That's barbaric!"

"I don't think so," Harry said. "Sirius mentioned the Conjunctivitis Charm as one of the few ways of dealing with dragons. It'll wear off with no permanent harm done."

"It's still cruel."

"At least he lured her away from her eggs first," Ron noted. "She would have crushed 'em for sure. You have to give him credit for that."

"I suppose."

Viktor swooped past the temporarily-blinded dragon, grabbed the golden egg, and flew to the exit to complete the task. His performance received the most enthusiastic response from the crowd so far.

The mood of the audience cooled when Barty Crouch stepped forward to take his turn. There were even scattered boos and hisses.

Ignoring this reception, Crouch entered the arena, and ducked down behind a large rock. The dragon he faced was the Swedish Short-Snout. Once hidden from its sight, his first casting was a summoning spell like Krum's, though instead of a broom, Crouch summoned a cloak.

"Looks like an Invisibility Cloak," remarked Harry.

Rather than donning the garment, Crouch stuffed it in a pouch he must have sewn into his robes for that purpose, then pointed his wand at himself. He cast a complex series of spells, and his form shifted to that of a much smaller blue dragon, a juvenile version of the one he was facing.

Impressed murmurs passed through the crowd. Crouch, now in his altered form, ignored this as well. He slid out from behind the rock, back into view of the larger dragon. She locked her attention on him, but didn't attack.

"Crouch is a dragon Animagus?" Harry asked. "Is this another one of those things we really should know, but no one bothered to mention?"

"No," said Hermione, sounding awed. "That was a nearly complete human-to-animal Transfiguration. That's quite advanced magic, even for an adult wizard."

"Nearly complete?"

"If you saw him up close, you'd be able to pick out small details of appearance that look more human than dragon. Though maybe not. He used several other spells, I assume to smooth out the differences. I'm pretty sure I spotted a Color Change Charm in there, along with others I didn't recognize."

"Why wouldn't he Transfigure himself all the way?"

"It would leave him with the mind of a dragon. That's why people go to all the trouble of learning to do a proper Animagus Transfiguration; it doesn't have that drawback. Doing it this way takes a lot of skill, but less time to master. He's also taking a big risk."

"Well, yeah. I imagine the real dragon will be rather miffed if she spots the differences and figures out something isn't up to code."

"Yes, but that's not what I was referring to. A Transfiguration that close to complete is unstable, and can easily tip over all the way to completion. Then one of the judges or teachers would have to change him back. It must be affecting his mind terribly already, to be so close." She shuddered. "I can't imagine being willing to subject yourself to such a loss of identity, even if it's temporary. Especially during an ordeal like this, when you most need your wits about you."

"So he's out to get me, awesome at magic, and willing to use it to do messed-up stuff even to himself. That's just great."

"Look on the bright side," Ron told him. "Maybe he'll get himself cooked, and solve the problem for you."

Harry didn't reply, and they all fell silent as they watched Crouch continue to creep closer to the massive beast.

The mother dragon held her gaze steady on Crouch as he made his way towards her. She fluttered her wings and shifted restlessly in her nest, tilting her head back and forth and flaring her nostrils as she studied him. When loud roars erupted from the other end of the arena, she spun around to seek their source.

"Wordless, wandless sound projection," Hermione noted. "That's not so easy either, even if it's not as impressive as the way he transformed himself."

While the dragon was looking the other way, Crouch shifted back into human form, ran forward and grabbed the golden egg, then threw his Invisibility Cloak over himself and disappeared. Less than a minute later, he reappeared outside the arena as he removed the Cloak.

The roars from the other side of the arena fell silent, and were soon replaced by applause from the crowd. Crouch's performance seemed to have gained him a measure of grudging respect.

Harry said, "I don't get why he didn't use the Cloak the whole way. That's what Sirius said would have been my best bet, if I'd wound up down there."

"Politics," Ginny said. "Dad says Crouch isn't too popular at the Ministry these days, with people even giving him a hard time about access to records and such. When you and Sirius were tossing ideas back and forth, he would have been focusing on the best way to keep you safe. Crouch couldn't play it safe. He had to put on a show."

The judges gave Crouch far lower scores than they would have given a student for the same performance, with only Percy giving him a high score.

"Typical," muttered Ginny.

Ron said, "I hope Charlie doesn't develop a crush on him too, after seeing him turn into a dragon. Can you imagine having to sit at the dinner table at home and listen to Percy and Charlie both go on about how amazing the guy is?"

"No. Don't even joke."

When the scores were tallied, Viktor Krum earned the highest, with Cedric and Fleur close behind. Crouch was in fourth place. Despite having put on the most impressive show, this wasn't enough to overcome every judge but Percy scoring him as an adult in a student competition.

As everyone made their way out of the arena, Harry nudged Hermione. "Nothing to say to me?"

"Like what?"

"Like good work not getting anywhere near those dragons?"

"You expect me to praise you for using common sense?"

"Seems fair," Ron said. "You would have given him an earful if he had gone down there."

Hermione gritted her teeth. "Harry, I'm so, so proud of you for refraining from throwing yourself into the middle of a dangerous situation–for once in your life."

"Thank you for saying so," Harry replied. "Was that so hard?"

She glared at him, but he held up his hands and stepped away, laughing. "Okay, okay. I admit it felt nice to just be a face in the crowd for once."

"Yes, I would hope so," said Hermione. "Try to start making a habit of it."