By the time the judges finished tallying and announcing the scores for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, the spectators were eager to get back to the castle and the warm fireplaces of their common rooms.

Harry and his friends had paid little attention to the scores, still reeling from the near tragedy which the rest of the crowd seemed hardly aware of. The judges had chosen not to comment on it, perhaps hoping to avoid a panic.

Once inside, the four Gryffindor friends slipped away to the hidden room on the seventh floor. As soon as the door closed behind them, everyone turned to Hermione with expectant looks.

"Yes?" she asked. "Something on your minds?"

When no one dignified this with a response, she sighed and admitted, "Alright, I did it. Obviously. But I didn't just rush in. I had a plan. A lot of them, in fact."

"How did you have time–?" Ron started to ask. "Oh. Right. I thought you couldn't use that thing to make changes?"

"You can't. Not in the way you mean. But you can arrange for the best possible outcome which is consistent with all observations. That's why I didn't bring anyone else with me. The more people taking actions in the past, the greater the risk of a paradox."

"But you went back, after all those times warning us."

"Time travel is dangerous if misused, but these circumstances were as close to ideal as I could wish for. First, because I had the advantage of knowing well in advance how things were supposed to go, thanks to Cedric. But the setting itself also–"

"You've been planning this ever since then?" interrupted Ginny.

"Of course. Doing that much was only sensible, after the attempted sabotage of the first task."

Ron asked, "Why use the Time-Turner then, if you knew what would happen in advance? Seems like adding an extra risk."

"I didn't know precisely what would happen. I thought of as many scenarios as I could, and planned a response for each. But I still needed to watch long enough to determine which one was playing out."

"You could have told Dumbledore, and asked him to add extra security."

"He already knew the danger as well as we did, and would have already taken whatever precautions he thought necessary. I was afraid if he knew I was working on the problem, he'd take steps to prevent me from getting involved, for the sake of keeping me safe."

"Yeah, he's funny like that."

"I admit I was taking a risk, but as I started to say before, besides having plenty of time to prepare and knowing what circumstances to prepare for, the setting was close to ideal for a Time-Turner intervention. I can't imagine what the organizers were thinking when they designed an event the audience wouldn't be able to see, but it meant everything I did would also be hidden. The hostages were unconscious, so not observing anything, and I finished what I needed to do long before the champions got there. Or the saboteur. And I assume the merpeople were too busy tracking the champions."

Harry said, "Then someone else was in the lake, interfering."

"Well, yes. If things had gone smoothly, I wouldn't have needed to get involved."

"And you were down there alone with them," Ron said.

"I hid. I didn't confront them."

Harry said, "Alright, you're safe now, so put that aside for a minute. What happened down there?"

"For the story to make sense, I need to start a little earlier–well, earlier from my perspective at least. When Cedric returned with Cho, the organizers acted like they expected her to wake up right away, which suggested suspended animation charms set to expire as each hostage reached the surface. The simplest way to interfere would be to cancel the charms while they were still underwater. That wouldn't affect a potion, so I gave each of them Draught of Living Death. Then I hid and waited to confirm I was right."

"Isn't that potion supposed to be ridiculously hard to make?" Ron asked. "Even by 'brewed Polyjuice as a second-year' standards?"

"I didn't brew this one. I bought it. I've been stockpiling useful potions for a while now. I got the idea from Ginny giving Harry Draught of Peace to slip to his relatives. When I saw things start to go wrong today, I went back in time to give the hostages the potion, to keep them suspended even without the charms." She grimaced. "I would have preferred to give it to them on dry land, but I couldn't find an opportunity. Someone was always monitoring them–sensible, but inconvenient. I prepared for that too though."

"That was lucky," Harry said.

"It was nothing of the sort," Hermione replied, sounding offended. "With enough preparation, you don't have to rely on luck."

"Of course. My mistake. Please continue."

"I didn't fancy trying to get potions down the throats of unconscious people underwater, but it turns out you can administer most potions intravenously. People in the wizarding world don't do it that way because of squeamishness about needles."

"Intra-what now?" Ron asked.

"Intravenously. It means injected into a vein, using a syringe. It's quite routine in the Muggle world. Back when I was considering going into medicine someday, before I knew about magic, a friend of my parents let me practice on a plastic arm. I never expected to need to do it underwater, but I learned a variant of the Bubble-Head Charm well enough to create a small pocket of air over the injection site."

"Hold on," Ron objected. "You stuck needles in their veins?"

"Yes, exactly."

He shuddered. "Merlin. And I thought drilling people's teeth was bad. Muggle Healers sure sound like a rough bunch. Even when they want to help you, they're liable to come at you with something sharp and metal."

Hermione scowled, but before she could reply, Harry said, "Cedric and the others wanted me to be their backup. If only one of us could go, it should have been me."

"Why? Because you're the only one allowed to be the hero?" Hermione demanded.

"Allowed to? Do you think I want any of this?"

"I would hope not, but then I'm afraid I don't understand your objection to me stepping in to handle this one."

"Everything messed up about this Tournament started because of me somehow. That makes it my responsibility. You didn't even tell us you were going. I turned around and you were gone."

"The Time-Turner is my responsibility. And I don't remember you checking with me before jumping out a window to go flying after dragons. What was even the point of keeping your name out of the Goblet if you're going to pull stunts like that? At least this proves it's not always up to you."

"That's why you did this? To prove a point?"

"Of course not! I would never risk people's lives that way. How can you ask me that?"

"Sorry. You're right. I shouldn't have said that."

"No, you shouldn't have."

"You have to admit though, you did threaten to throw yourself into the second task to teach me a lesson."

"I said no such thing!"

"Yes, right after the dragons."

"If I said that, I was obviously being rhetorical. I didn't do this to prove a point. That's just a nice bonus."

"Yeah, some bonus. I can stay safe, as long as one of my friends steps in to take my place. Great. You got away with it this time, but what about when it comes time to face Riddle again? No matter how brilliant you are at planning and everything, I don't expect you'd have a better shot at beating him than I would. At least I have experience dealing with him."

"It's not about being the most brilliant, or the most powerful, or having the most experience. It's about finding the optimal match between a given problem and the person best suited to solve it. As far as Riddle goes, ideally none of us will ever have to face him alone again. Or face him at all, though that might be too much to hope for."

Ron said, "If we're fantasizing about what's ideal, it'd be great if we didn't have to take the next meeting with him as given."

"That's what I just said."

"I don't mean whether we have to face him or not. I mean controlling how it happens. Today's circumstances may have been close to perfect for you, but we can't count on always getting so lucky. In chess, you don't just sit and watch the pieces moving around and hope to spot an opportunity to go for checkmate. You work on getting the advantage in both material and position throughout the whole game."

"It's a good idea in principle, but I can't imagine how to put it into practice. I wish I had more computing power to explore the possibilities. Even with a constrained problem like I faced today, I was only able to carry out a first approximation."

Harry said, "Hold on. You risked people's lives, including your own, based on a first approximation?"

"As opposed to rushing in with no preparation at all? And just assuming you'll figure out how to handle the danger once you're already in the middle of it? You've managed to pull off some incredibly heroic things that way, but sometimes you need an actual plan."

"You still went off and did it on your own, which you always yell at me for."

"Yes, because I determined doing so gave the best chance of success."

"That doesn't explain why you kept your plans a secret this whole time."

"I needed to limit the number of variables, which meant not involving other people–not you guys, or Dumbledore, or anyone else."

Ron said, "We're no closer to figuring out what's going on though. Of course saving the hostages was the top priority, but whoever keeps putting people in danger is still out there. If we'd gone with you, we might have been able to catch them."

"Don't you think I felt tempted to do more? I couldn't, because we didn't see any evidence that anyone had. If there'd been a fight, even underwater, we would have seen signs. Cedric and the others would have acted differently when they got back, or the merpeople would have come to get help… something. I had plans for every scenario I could think of, and I knew I could stick to them."

"And we couldn't?"

"The fact we're even having this argument proves you still don't accept the rules for how the Time-Turner works."

"Did you see anything useful down there?" Ginny asked.

"Not really. Just four spells appearing out of nowhere and hitting the hostages. Whoever was down there must have a way of concealing themselves."

"Like the Invisibility Cloak Crouch used during the first task."

"Yes, it could have been." She looked around at her friends, taking in their unhappy looks. "Even setting aside the danger of paradoxes, I don't know what else I could have done. I suppose I could have cast back blindly, but if I missed, I wouldn't have been just putting myself in danger. Whoever was down there might have done something more drastic to the hostages, if he knew I stopped his first attempt. I'm sorry if you all think playing it safe wasn't good enough."

Harry said, "No, you're right. Saving them was the most important thing. Thanks for doing that. If someone got killed in this stupid Tournament because of me, I don't know what I'd do."

"You're welcome," she said, relaxing her defensive posture. "Though if that had happened, it wouldn't be because of you. It would be because of whatever maniac is doing all this."

"I guess."

Ginny said, "The hostages were still at risk though, even with all your planning. What if the attacker had started casting Killing Curses at them before you could react?"

Hermione nodded. "That's a fair point, but the dragon handlers were only stunned, not killed. Whoever did that wanted to disrupt the tournament, while making it look like any deaths were accidental. I believed they would act the same way today. You're right, though. That part was a risk. I just planned for as much I could."

"Alright," Ron said. "It's done now. Are you sure you saw four spells?"

"Yes, one for each hostage."

"If Crouch was the one doing it, that's bloody cold. Killing your own hostage."

Harry said, "He's always been merciless when it comes to Death Eaters. Pettigrew's mother was never formally accused of anything, but Crouch might have heard something while he was working at the DMLE. Something which never came up during the trials, because they didn't have enough evidence or whatever."

Ginny said, "There's a simpler explanation. If this was Crouch, it would look suspicious if his hostage was the only survivor. He might have been just maintaining his cover."

"That's even worse."

"Yeah, but if he was already planning to kill the other three, including a little girl…"

The four fell silent as they considered the possibility.

Harry told Hermione, "Sorry if it seems like we're ganging up on you. But even if this was the best option, you should have told us."

"I'm sorry. I was afraid if you found out, you wouldn't accept that it had to be this way. But it did. Time magic is too unstable. But if you haven't studied how it works, it's hard to accept the limitations. Even if you have studied it, it's still hard to accept."

Harry said, "Okay. It worked out. If you say no one could have done more, I believe you."

Ron said. "Yeah. Cutting us out wasn't cool, but I guess I get your reasons."

"What about you?" Hermione asked Ginny. "Do you forgive me?"

"It depends. Are you going to do it again when everything goes to hell at the third task?"

"I hope we can figure out how to prevent that."

"That's doesn't answer my question."

"I'll promise not to try to handle it alone, as long as Harry makes the same promise."

Harry said, "What if I don't get a choice? It's happened before. What if there's only enough potion for one person to pass through the black fire, or the ceiling caves in and separates us…"

Ginny said, "Last year when things went crazy out on the grounds, we were all together. That's how we're doing it from now on."

Hermione said, "Ginny is right. Whatever burden you've convinced yourself is yours to carry alone, it doesn't have to be that way. We can change it. I was so relieved when we kept your name out of the Goblet, though I started to have doubts when you wound up messing about with dragons anyway. But then today proved our choices do matter."

"I wasn't messing about."

"You know what I mean. We can't predict every possible emergency, but promise us that for the things we can, you'll let us help. If you can't agree to that, you have no cause to complain about what I did today."

Ron said, "Think she's got you there, mate."

Harry said, "I promise to try, if fate doesn't make the choice for me."

Hermione and Ginny made sounds of exasperation, but Ron said, "Tell you what. How about we settle it with a round of rooster, Basilisk, Acromantula?"

"You know how I feel about that game," objected Hermione. "I can see some value in it, if it helps you process the traumatic experiences from second year. But I still think it's in poor taste, and we certainly aren't letting chance decide something as important as this."

Ron said, "Letting chance decide is the beauty of it. If Harry is right, fate won't let me win, because if Harry wins, that'll help clear the path to his destiny. Which means if I win, we can settle this question right now."

Harry looked thoughtful. "If I win, you'll all start listening to me when I say there are some things I have to do on my own?"

Ron said, "You got it. But if I win, you always have to come to us for help first."

"Okay, agreed."

Hermione turned to Ginny. "Help me out here. This is absurd."

Ginny had been watching her brother as he worked on convincing Harry. She turned to Hermione to answer. "Sorry, but it sounds fair to me."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't agree, but I can see I'm outvoted."

"On three," Ron said.

He and Harry both counted aloud to three, then Ron put his hand out palm down, fingers and thumb hanging below to represent legs, while Harry pressed the tips of his thumb and index finger together to make a beak, the other three fingers raised to form a comb.

"Ha! Acromantula eats rooster," Ron declared.

Harry blinked in surprise. "Two out of three."

"Nope. We said one round." Ron folded his arms and grinned in satisfaction.

"Fine. I guess you win," Harry muttered, looking bewildered.

"Good. Now that we've settled that, let's get our stories straight about what we're going to tell people about what happened in the lake."

Hermione's eyes widened. "We can't tell anyone anything! I'm not supposed to use the Time-Turner for anything remotely like this."

"I get that, but if someone is still trying to interfere, then people are still in danger."

Hermione chewed her lip as she considered. She sighed and said, "You're right. I'll admit what I did. They'll take the Time-Turner away from me, and I'll probably be in big trouble with the Ministry, but Dumbledore needs to know."

"Hang on," said Ginny. "Dumbledore already knows someone is screwing with the Tournament. We told him what we did to the Goblet, and I can't see how that helped at all. It didn't stop the dragons from getting loose, and it didn't keep the hostages safe. How is talking to him again going to help any more this time?"

"The person doing this is escalating. People were in danger from the dragons, but that could have been just recklessness. This time, they actually tried to kill the hostages."

"Yes, but as a means to disrupt the Tournament. There's no reason to go after the hostages now that the second task is over."

"We can't know for sure."

"Maybe not, but either way, Dumbledore already knows someone messed with the second task, the same way you did, because the hostages didn't wake up right away. He just doesn't know the details."

"This shouldn't all be up to us."

"It shouldn't be, but it is. I know you see it too. It's why you didn't go to Dumbledore in the first place. It's why you agreed to help me rig the Goblet. Confession might be good for the soul, but it's bad strategy. We need to keep you out of trouble, and keep possession of the Time-Turner. We need every advantage we can get."

Harry asked, "You really think Hermione could get in serious trouble? We've broken the rules for a good cause before, and always got off easy. Sometimes we even get house points."

Ginny and Ron exchanged a look.

Ginny said, "Hermione acted on her own this time. Let's just say the rules might bend a little easier for the Boy Who Lived than they would for his Muggle-born friend. Dumbledore is one thing, but if the Ministry gets involved…"

Harry grimaced. "I'll just tell Dumbledore I did it."

"Won't work. Hermione is the one who has a Time-Turner, and the one who ran off in the middle of the task."

Harry turned to Ron. "Do you agree? Would the Ministry be that much tougher on Hermione than on me?"

"Hard to know for sure, but if we're voting, I say we take the secret of what happened today to our graves."

"Agreed," Ginny said, with Harry a second behind her.

"Thank you all for your concern," Hermione said, "but this is my responsibility, so my vote is the only one that counts."

Ginny said, "Look at it this way. Suppose you get expelled. When the time comes, will Harry be able to count on Dumbledore or the teachers the same way he could have counted on you?"

"Don't be absurd. I'm nowhere close to being in the same league as Dumbledore."

"That's not what I asked, and you know it."

Hermione frowned. "Alright, but we need to tell the champions–the three real champions, I mean–that something went wrong, even if we keep the part about the Time-Turner to ourselves. The hostages may not be in danger anymore, but the champions still could be."

Ron said, "They must know things didn't go as planned."

Ginny said, "We should probably still give them a heads-up, as long as they can keep it to themselves. The organizers may try to downplay what happened for publicity reasons, and Dumbledore tends to be vague and inscrutable at the best of times."

"I'll talk to Cedric first," Harry said. "He trusts me. Between us, we'll get the others to keep quiet about whatever we tell them."

Hermione said, "I suppose I can live with that."

"Are you sure?" Ginny asked. "You don't sound happy about it."

"Not because of that. It's everything. The four of us really are on our own in some ways, aren't we?"

"Yep," Ginny said, throwing her arm around Hermione. "Good thing we're so awesome."

Hermione shook her head and said nothing more.

~*~

Later, Hermione cornered Ron for a private conversation.

"I wish you wouldn't encourage Harry in this nonsense about the role he's fated to play," she told him. "He's gotten bad enough with that already."

"I'd say I discouraged the idea, by winning."

"But what if you'd lost? You always lose!"

"That was before I realized I was almost never playing Acromantula in the first round. I'm pretty sure Harry noticed a while ago, and started taking advantage."

"You just figured this out today?"

"Nah. I've been letting him win little things, setting him up for when we played for something important. Like you said, he's had this weird thing about fate for a while. It'll take a lot more than this to get him to let go of the idea, but if we can make him hesitate for even a moment before doing something stupid and noble and self-sacrificing… well, that's one moment we'll have to step in with a better option."

She blinked. "Oh."

"I figured I could jump in on what you started when you saved everyone all on your own. By the way, nice one there, in case I didn't say so before. I'm still a bit annoyed you cut us out, but credit where it's due. And like you said, as a bonus, you might give Harry something to ponder, by taking what he sees as his role. At least I hope so. That's why I picked today to finally play Acromantula in the first round. The one-two combo of you saving the day without him, followed by fate going against him in a game of chance, might help shake up his fatalism a little."

Hermione stared at him.

He shrugged. "You don't have to look so surprised. You know I like thinking about strategy. I'm pretty sure Ginny clocked I was up to something. I didn't expect you to buy my argument, but I hoped you'd catch on that I had a reason for making it, like she did. Aren't you supposed to be the smart one out of all of us?"

"Maybe I'm the honest one, and expect others to be the same."

"Too bad. Smart witch like you, I bet if you put your mind to it, you might even put one over on Riddle one day. Might be our best chance to beat him."

"That would be different of course."

"Of course. Fair play is for when you're playing for fun. When the stakes are life and death, anything goes."

"Are you talking about Riddle or Harry?"

"Both, I guess." He sighed. "Talking about one leads to talking about the other way too often."

"Yeah… Do you honestly believe we can beat Riddle with some sort of trick?"

"When you're this outmatched in raw power, what else can you do?"

"I'll give it some thought. I'll have to read a few books on deception."

"Books? You? Now I've heard everything."

She gave him a light shove. "Shut up. I acknowledged your point. You could at least be gracious about it."

He grinned. "I hereby graciously accept my victory."

Hermione rolled her eyes and let the matter drop, but walked away looking thoughtful.