I have to spend more time with Draco. Using the phrase "have to" makes it seem overly reluctant. Although I enjoy being alone, I've never been averse to doing homework or reading books with him. However, just as being friends with Hermione means being friends with the trio of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, I also have to face the people around Draco from time to time. To be honest, most Slytherins have always been rather polite to me (naturally because of my father), but getting along with them can hardly be called pleasant.

"Hey." I had just climbed into the Gryffindor common room on Saturday night when Harry's head popped out from a soft high - backed armchair. "You got a minute?"

"I'll go change my clothes." I saw the three of them and Hermione sitting in front of the fireplace, seemingly reading letters. Thinking about what was said about Mr. Crouch in the Charms class before, I nodded at him. "Just a moment."

This Saturday, Draco and I didn't go to Hogsmeade. Instead, we were practicing Occlumency in that hidden place we accidentally discovered while trying to avoid Rita Skeeter last time. More precisely, I was helping him test the results of his practice - we invented a little game. Roughly speaking, we would pick a short segment from the memories we shared from our childhood. He had to try to hide it or modify it into another version, and I had to try to distinguish the false image he created in his mind and find the real memory. I have to admit that his talent in this regard is terrifyingly high. Several times I thought I had it in the bag, only to find myself lost in the memory maze he created.

"As expected. Mom told me not to pry into so many adult matters." Taurus pursed his lips, picked up the letter signed by Amelia Black in his hand, and said, "She wrote two pages, spending one and a half pages praising Harry for doing a good job in the Triwizard Tournament... Avoiding the crucial points, just like her."

"What about Percy?" I sat down and asked. "Did he reply?"

Ron shook his head. "I guess he's been pretty busy lately. The Daily Prophet reported a few days ago that Mr. Crouch hasn't been seen in the Ministry of Magic for a long time. Even if he replied, I don't think his tone would be any good. Maybe he'd think we're trying to pry into his boss's whereabouts like those journalists."

"We are indeed trying to find out Mr. Crouch's whereabouts." Hermione corrected him, folding her arms. "So we got nothing?"

Taurus laughed lazily and snapped his fingers. "Since I was a kid, I've known that when it comes to getting information, I can count on Dad. He's willing to tell us everything he knows — so I wrote another letter to Dad later."

We huddled together and carefully read the letter sent by Mr. Black. His letter allowed us to review the stories that happened during the heyday of You - Know - Who from a perspective other than the library books, about Mr. Barty Crouch, who carried the concept of 'iron - blooded' to the extreme and became cold - blooded, and the son he sent to Azkaban with his own hands.

"So, after being disgraced because of his son, he's still obsessed with catching Dark wizards... Does he think that catching one more Dark wizard will win back public support?" Hermione asked, folding her arms.

"But what does this have to do with him breaking into my dad's office?" I narrowed my eyes. "Does he think my dad has the Dark Mark on his arm? I can testify that he doesn't."

"No offense, Iris." Taurus looked at the dancing flames in the fireplace and said, "My dad mentioned that Snape got close to many people who later became Death Eaters when he was at school."

"What are you implying?" I retorted sharply. "My parents have repelled You - Know - Who three times head - on. They fought side by side with your parents!"

"I said I didn't mean to offend you," Taurus said impatiently. "I'm just putting forward a hypothesis. Snape has maintained a good relationship with those Slytherins after the war. You can't refute that, can you? Among those pure - blood - supremacist families who served You - Know - Who before, and then claimed to be deceived and under the Imperius Curse, there must be Crouch's targets."

"Lucius Malfoy!" Ron stood up, clenching his fists. "He ran into us during the Quidditch World Cup, remember? He even greeted Neville, and then Neville's wand went missing — it must have been him who set off the Dark Mark, and then Crouch suspected him and wanted to investigate..."

"That's quite a stretch. To get something on Mr. Malfoy, he goes to investigate the office of his son's Head of House." Although I retorted like this, I remembered that on the night of the Quidditch World Cup, the Aurors really couldn't find Mr. Malfoy. My stomach churned uneasily. "Would Malfoy Manor really turn away the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation at the Ministry of Magic?"

"They've never been very welcoming to Aurors." Harry yawned. "My dad was really annoyed by their attitude, but they really didn't find anything."

"His son died in Azkaban, and he didn't even go to claim the body." Hermione looked down at the letter in her hand. "I don't understand... I mean, if he had shown his son a bit more care, maybe everything would have been different. Doesn't he feel guilty?"

"My mom has never liked Mr. Crouch much." I said softly, looking at my fingernails. "She always thought that what Mr. Crouch desired was too obvious... so obvious that he seemed heartless."

"But he never got what he desired in the end." Harry grabbed a handful of candies from the large bag Mrs. Black had sent with the letter, then let them slowly trickle through his fingers. "His family fell apart, he ended up with nothing, and he never reached the peak of power even for a moment."

We were silent for a while. At that time, we were still young. As the first batch of children growing up in peacetime after You - Know - Who's downfall, we could only try to understand that terrifying era through various books and the adults' vague memories. Those books crudely divided wizards into simple good and bad. This was probably the first time we tried to understand the insatiable desires in people's hearts that lay beyond good and evil, and the madness and paranoia after everything crumbled into sand.

"Tsk, I think I have to be on guard against Percy — he's crazy about worshipping Crouch." Ron muttered in the end. "What if one day we get in his way..."

"Your brother would never abandon his family to the Dementors." Hermione said sternly. She had always had a relatively good relationship with Percy. "Don't say that about him."

"You never know. I know him well." Ron shook his head. "He's ambitious and doesn't even bother to hide the fact that he thinks Dad's lack of ambition is holding him back. You all know that."

It was already very late. Hermione and I said good night to the boys and then turned to walk up the steps to the girls' dormitory. That night, I couldn't fall asleep immediately. I thought back to Mr. Malfoy, who had gone missing on the night of the Quidditch World Cup, and Mrs. Malfoy, who had said her husband had gone home but was pacing restlessly. Finally, I thought about the fact that my dad's private potions cabinet had been ransacked when I took Harry to get Gillyweed. Could Mr. Crouch have thought there were some Dark magic items hidden in there? I kept thinking and felt that something was off, but I didn't know where this feeling came from. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

On Sunday, Draco and I continued to practice Occlumency. When I came back in the evening, I found that Hermione and Ron had had another big argument. Harry told me that they had sneaked into the Hogwarts kitchens today and found that Winky, the house - elf Mr. Crouch had dismissed, was working there.

"You know, Hermione is deeply convinced of her theory about liberating house - elves." Harry said to me while working on his Potions homework. "The house - elves kicked us out. Ron thought Hermione shouldn't have brought up those things when we were trying to get information, and Hermione said Ron only wanted to get more cakes and cookies from the kitchen."

"I think Ron shouldn't have quarreled with Hermione right now." He scratched his head with a dripping quill, looking glumly at his Potions homework full of scribbles.

"Because when Hermione gets angry, she won't let you refer to her Potions homework." I glanced at his homework. Just from that one page, I was sure my dad would give him a failing grade. "Has Taurus not finished either?"

"I don't know." He mumbled, blackening another string of words. "He went to the Owlery to reply to his parents — he's been gone for too long."

"Not finished." Taurus popped up from behind. "I know how to do it, but I don't want to write it — I thought I could copy yours!"

"Don't copy it all, or my dad will see it at once." I hesitated for a moment, then took out my homework and threw it to them. "Give it back to me tomorrow morning."

"We're good friends now." Taurus shook my hand affectionately, and I smelled a sweet fragrance on him that I felt I should have smelled somewhere before.

It was the new perfume that Greengrass was wearing. I didn't remember until I saw the painting by my bedside after returning to the dormitory. After lunch during the day, when Draco and I were going to the eighth floor, we met her. She even let me have a whiff of it, asking if this fragrance could cover up the various potion scents lingering on her body, and also worried that the fragrance itself might be too strong.

Hermione was still angry. She pulled down the bed curtain and hid inside to read. Ginny, who was chatting with other third - year girls beside her, turned around and smiled at me, indicating that I shouldn't disturb Hermione.

The following period of time seemed ordinary, yet it seemed that everyone was having a hard time. Hermione kept receiving threatening and harassing letters from Krum's fans. One of the letters even spurted undiluted Bubotuber pus, causing her to miss the Care of Magical Creatures class where Hagrid led us to look for gold coins with Bowtruckles. She gritted her teeth, vowing to make Rita Skeeter pay the price. I thought Bowtruckles were cute, but Draco was convinced that they wanted to bite off his fingers (in fact, they were just attracted to the snake - shaped ring he was wearing). After Easter, there was more and more homework, making many people envy Harry, as he, being a champion, didn't have to take the final exams.

After being informed of the content of the third task, Harry also got busy. His task this time was to go through a maze. It seemed more pleasant than dealing with the Hungarian Horntail and rescuing people from the bottom of the lake. At least this time, he didn't have to worry about breathing. But as Hermione said, no one knew what was in the maze. What if there were more than twenty Fire - breathing Dragons that had been shrunk with the Shrinking Charm, plus more than thirty miniature swamps that he had to wade through? For several days in a row, when I returned to the common room, I saw the four of them busy making a long list of defensive and poisonous spells that might be useful.

That day, I climbed into the common room with a heavy schoolbag. To my surprise, I didn't see Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the others summarizing the day's progress. Instead, I saw Longbottom sitting alone in a corner of the common room, lost in thought. I hadn't finished reviewing my History of Magic notes, so I stayed in the common room until very late. He seemed to have been sitting there all the time, like a statue.

"Longbottom? Are you okay?" I packed my schoolbag. Now there were only the two of us left in the common room.

He seemed to wake up suddenly from his thoughts. His round face was covered in cold sweat. "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking... thinking about things."

I remembered that during class in the afternoon, I seemed to hear Patil and Brown discussing that Longbottom had suddenly started shouting and rolling on the ground, covering his scar during Divination class and left before the class was over.

"I saw... the people who tortured my parents." I thought he didn't want to talk, because Longbottom had always been a bit afraid of me because of my father. But just as I turned around to pick up my schoolbag and go back to the dormitory, he said in a very soft voice, "I saw them..."

"You saw?" I didn't catch on at first. I sat down in the armchair beside him and asked, "Is that why you felt unwell in Divination class? Did you go to Madam Pomfrey?"

"No." He shook his head, looking distracted. "I actually wanted to tell Harry and the others, but Harry hasn't come back yet—"

"He's been preparing for the third task recently." I tilted my head towards him. "If you want someone to talk to, I'm here. I can pass the message to Hermione... If you're scared of my face, I can cover it with a pillow."

Longbottom hesitated for a long time. "You won't tell Malfoy?"

I was stunned for a moment, then replied, "No, I promise."

He seemed so eager to talk to someone that my simple verbal promise made him relax. And in the following time, he told me, in fits and starts, about the nightmare he had about You - Know - Who in Divination class, the argument he heard about Bertha Jorkins being sighted when he went to Professor Dumbledore, and the several trials he accidentally saw in the Pensieve. When he mentioned Bellatrix Lestrange, his eyes widened, and his hands unconsciously clenched into tight fists. But a few seconds later, he spread them out feebly and covered his face.

"It's all in the past," I said, feeling rather at a loss. I could only pick out a few words randomly to comfort him. "Nightmares are just nightmares. Those people have all been punished. Barty Crouch's son is dead, and the rest of them are all in Azkaban... It's all over."

"I think I'm a waste." He said, his voice trembling. "My parents, my grandmother... they all... because of me. What they saved is nothing. People say I defeated You - Know - Who, but look at me. I'm not even proficient in basic Transfiguration yet. How could I possibly have the power to defeat him... I even suspect that I'm actually a Squib... I've been disappointing everyone. If You - Know - Who really gets stronger... I'm not afraid of dying, but how many more people will make meaningless sacrifices for me..."

"That's not the case." I crouched down, pried his hands apart, and looked into his red - rimmed eyes. "You're truly remarkable, really. Last semester, my mom went missing. It was for less than half a month, yet I felt as if my heart was shattering. I couldn't even bring myself to think about what I'd do if she were to leave one day. I didn't dare to even contemplate it. But you've been constantly losing almost since you came into this world... You're not a failure, nor are you a born hero. You're just an ordinary person. It was the Dark Lord who killed so many people and destroyed your home. You're an innocent victim — no one should be expected to endure all this pain and these expectations."

"You're right. I'm not a lousy savior," he mumbled. "I'm just a student who doesn't study very well at the moment."

"A student who doesn't study very well for the time being," I corrected. "I used to be awful at Transfiguration, remember? Professor McGonagall even gave me detention."

He gave a weak smile. "But at least you're never afraid of Professor Snape."

"Does Professor Dumbledore think the dream you had was real?" I asked cautiously, noticing he seemed a bit better. "You saw the Dark Lord using the Cruciatus Curse on someone... Does Dumbledore also think the Dark Lord is growing stronger?"

"I didn't see him. I couldn't make anything out clearly, nor did I know who he was angry with. I just had this feeling that he was behind that chair." Neville touched the scar on his forehead. "But how could he hold a wand... He's dead... Professor Dumbledore just said the dream was likely to be real, but he wasn't certain."

"You're safe by Professor Dumbledore's side, and you're safe at Hogwarts," I comforted him. "Everyone says Professor Dumbledore is the only one the Dark Lord fears."

We stared at the crackling flames in the fireplace and fell silent until Harry and the others returned to the common room, their faces bruised. Clearly, practicing Dark spells wasn't easy. They were quite surprised to see me with Neville. In fact, they've always had a good relationship with Neville. I think it's just that Harry has had so many troubles this semester that he's been swamped dealing with his own issues.

What truly made Hermione determined to figure out how Rita Skeeter eavesdropped was the next day's fresh front - page of the Daily Prophet. This time, the headline featured a long - winded account by Rita Skeeter of how Neville had complained of his scar hurting during Divination class and rushed out of the classroom. She also spent a great deal of space, in an exaggerated tone, claiming that he could speak Parseltongue.

"Contradictory and nonsensical," Hermione folded the newspaper, saying in disgust. "On one hand, she speculates that Neville is a Dark wizard, and on the other, she quotes an interview with Slytherins saying he's a useless person who knows nothing about magic — she was sorted into Ravenclaw by the Sorting Hat. I'm really ashamed of her."

"I don't get it. Why is she targeting Neville?" Harry's face was extremely grim. "It's us who had a run - in with her."

"She doesn't care about us. In her eyes, we're all just insignificant kids," Hermione said through clenched teeth. "She just wants to attract attention. What could be more attention - grabbing than the Boy Who Lived? I'm going to catch her and make her pay for ruining other people's lives!"

Fortunately, the final exams came upon everyone like a tide. Even the gloating Slytherins, after intense revision, lost the energy to mock Neville. Draco nonchalantly told me he hadn't been interviewed by Rita Skeeter. After all, he hates that woman for constantly portraying me as Harry's childhood friend.

"Now it's a piece of cake for you to hide things from me," I shrugged. "As long as you're set on it, I can't read anything from your mind with Legilimency."

"That's because you're not good at using Legilimency," he said, as usual, belittling my Legilimency skills as insufficient to test his Occlumency. "I can only keep exploring on my own now... Luckily, I still have your dad's notes."