Ron Weasley was having a horrible term.

First his best friend had betrayed him by leaving him out of the scheming to get their names into the Goblet of Fire and then said best friend had gone and gotten himself picked - as if Harry needed more attention and glory brought to him, considering everything - and then Hermione had gone and taken Harry's side.

"I'm not choosing sides, Ronald," she had argued when Ron accused her of choosing Harry's side over his side. "Harry just really needs a friend right now, he's going through so much and, honestly, at least you have your brothers - Harry hasn't got anybody!"

"Hasn't got anybody!?" Ron scoffed, "Harry's got the whole bloody school! The entire wizarding world!"

The worst was when the article about Harry had come out in the Daily Prophet and Ron saw what a simpering act Harry had put on for the press - bringing up his dead mum and dad for sympathy and all! - and how even Rita Skeeter had seen that Hermione clearly had chosen Harry over Ron. It really irked Ron for some reason that Skeeter had written in the paper that Hermione was Harry's girlfriend and that the whole school now thought so, too. He hated it even more than he hated that Harry had neglected to let him in on the fun of getting his own name into the running in that Goblet.

If he'd only done, he, Ron, might've been chosen by the Goblet of Fire - who's to say he wouldn't of? And then everyone would be writing articles about him instead and it would be him who Fred and George were singing made-up songs about.

"Harry's the Champion we're  going on about, Harry our Champ indee-ee-eeed... Potter's the Champion to write home about, Potter's the only Champion that we nee-ee-ee-eeeed!" Fred and George bellowed loudly at a crowd of second year Slytherins wearing the Support Cedric Diggory badges as they threw about confetti shaped like Harry's head and danced merrily, arms hooked at the elbow and knees kicking high.

"C'mon guys, lay off it," Ron groaned, shoving Fred out of the way and messing up their little jig.

"Don't be sour Ronnie," George said, grinning and ruffling his little brother's hair.

"Yeah, don't be sour," Fred echoed and he threw a whole handful of Harry confetti right into Ron's face so that several pieces went up his nose and he had to blow them back out.

As the First Task drew ever nearer, too, it seemed it only got worse and worse, with people constantly talking about the event and asking what everyone else thought the task would be. "Something very tough, I reckon," said Seamus knowingly, leaning in so his voice wouldn't carry to the end of the table, where Harry and Hermione sat, bent over their meals and ignoring everyone else in the room, it seemed. "I read they always go for a big wow-factor for the first task."

"I read that, too," Neville said, looking up from a book he was reading that Mad-Eye Moody had given him about plants, of all things.

"Statistically the first task is always the hardest," Lee Jordan nodded. "There was one Tournament centuries ago where all three Champions died in the first task and they had to get three new Champions and start over."

"Madness," whispered Dean. "Why would anyone have a go again after that?" He glanced down the end of the table. "Harry's mental."

"You can say that again," Ron murmured darkly.

But there was a part of him that wondered at whether he ought to be more worried about Harry - they'd said this tournament wouldn't be as bad as the previous ones, but still. What if -- No, Dumbledore had things under control, Ron told himself, and honestly if something did happen, it would serve Harry right for breaking the rules. Still, Ron did wonder how he'd done it and why?

He was sitting in the common room one evening, Harry and Hermione gone to the library, about a week before the first task, and reading a book when Seamus came in, buzzing with excitement. "I think I've figured out what the first task may be!"

"What's that?" asked Dean, sitting up. He had a football magazine open on the floor in front of him, reading up on all the latest information on his favorite club, West Ham.

Seamus threw himself into the seat closest to the fire and put his legs up over the arm of the chair. "Werewolves."

"Werewolves?" Ron lowered his book. "Why on earth would it be werewolves?"

"Because, I've just seen ol' Professor Lupin leaving Dumbledore's office!" Seamus said triumphantly.

Neville's eyes widened and he glanced between Dean, Ron, and Seamus with an anxious expression.

"You might be onto something!" Dean said.

"You're not," Ron answered, rolling his eyes and looking back down at his book again.

"How do you know?" Seamus snapped.

"Because the full moon is nearly a full week before the first task. It's on the eighteenth, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Neville asked.

"So?" Seamus pressed.

"So, genius, they wouldn't be werewolves if it isn't a full moon!" Dean said, rolling his eyes.

Seamus looked disappointed, his face falling, "Oh."

Ron sighed, "Do we ALWAYS have to be talking about the stupid Tournament?"

"It's just killin' me not knowing what they're up against," Seamus said, leaning back in the chair and kicking his legs as he stared up at the ceiling. "I cannot imagine what the Champions themselves are feeling about it, if it's driving ME this crazy and it isn't even my task to be worrying on. What's Harry said about it?" he asked, looking over at Ron.

"He doesn't know," Dean said, "Him and Harry are still fightin' - aren't you, Ronnie?"

"Don't call me that," muttered Ron.

Neville frowned and turned back to his book again.

The Fat Lady opened then and Hermione and Harry came through it. Ron shoved his nose deep into his book quickly to avoid making eye contact with Harry, who said a quiet good night to Hermione and trudged up the steps to the boy's dormitory without saying anything to anyone else in the room. Ron peered over the top edge of the book, watching Harry climb the steps.

Suddenly Hermione was leaning over the couch at Ron's shoulder and he jumped, startled by how quickly she'd arrived there. "'mione, geez! You could kill a man sneakin' up like that!"

"You need to talk to Harry," she said, unapologetically.

"Why? Is he ready to apologize?" Ron asked hopefully.

"Apologize for what? He didn't do anything to you. It's you who ought to be apologizing to him," she said, "And you ought to do it now. Right now."

"No way, Hermione."

"You're being foolish," she said, "This entire fight is absolute tosh. Ron, he's your best friend and you have no idea what he's going through."

"It's so hard being loved by everyone," Ron muttered.

Hermione scowled. "How are you so ignorant?"

Ron shrugged and turned back to his book.

Hermione took the book out of his hands and he looked at her, "Dont' do that, 'mione, you're always on me to read more and here I am reading and you've got to go and take my book away?"

"Listen," she said, "Tomorrow is Hogsmeade. What if you, me, and Harry had a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks 'round lunch time?"

"Only if he's willing to apologize."

"If I can talk him into it, will you meet us up there?" she begged.

"Sure," Ron said.

Hermione handed him back his book. "Alright then," she said, and she turned and rushed away, heading up the steps into the girls dormitory.

Neville said quietly, "It'll be nice to have all of us talking to one another again."

Ron stared into his book without seeing it.

Upstairs, Harry had thrown himself into his bed, exhausted in that way that one becomes after they've spent an afternoon trying not to cry. His head was still throbbing and although he'd appreciated Hermione's hug, but he'd only allowed her to hold onto him for a few minutes before he pulled away and insisted they go down to the library. After all, what good would crying about things do? Harry thought, no good at all, except to make him lose what little shreds of nerve he had left. None of the other Champions were crying.

It was harder to hold onto those shreds when he was alone in his bed, though, staring up at the ceiling. He drank a glass of water the house elves had left him and sank into his bed, pulling the covers up and propping his head up with his arms.

He wished he could talk to Sirius about everything. As nice as it would've been if Professor Lupin had stuck around to teach him a thing or two that he might've been able to apply in someway somehow to the task, whatever it was, it would be worlds better to be able to really talk to someone who truly understood things. Sirius had lost James and Lily Potter, just like Harry had, Sirius knew what it was like to be trapped in a situation - Azkaban - just like Harry was in the tournament. Sirius cared. Sirius loved him. Sirius would be the one to save him from the Dursleys and surely Sirius would know just exactly the right things to say to save Harry from all the anxiety and stress he was feeling.

Maybe Sirius had dreams about his Dad, too.

"Every night," he imagined Sirius saying. "It's perfectly normal!"

Harry sighed and brought his arms down to his sides, biting his lip.

His eyes were burning, threatening those tears again.

He reached over and took his wand from the nightstand, closing the curtains 'round his four poster. Soon, Ron and the other boys would come up stairs, one-by-one, and Harry didn't want to see any of them. He put the wand back down and lay his glasses next to it, pulling the curtain the last foot to close himself all the way off from the rest of the world. He rolled over, punched his pillow a good many times, then fell into it, exhausted, and curled up, hugging his knees.

Then he let himself cry at last.

Maybe he would die at the first task, he thought bitterly. Then they'd all be sorry. Ron would be sorry for being so nasty to Harry, and Dumbledore would be sorry he hadn't helped better. Professor Lupin would wish he'd come to the library after all. And Crouch, Bagman and all the other Ministry people who had insisted he compete even though he didn't want to wild be sorry they forced him to. And meanwhile, while they were all busy being guilty and ashamed of themselves, he, Harry, would be free. Free from all the pain and the stupid, horrible things he had been through. Free and reunited with his Mum and Dad at last, in more than just a dream.

The dream started the same way it always did.

The weight on the edge of the mattress to indicate his father's arrival.

"Alright, Harry?"

He shook his head. "I'm not. You know I'm not. That's why you're here, isn't it? Because I'm going mad. I'm going mad and I'm going to die and it'll be better that way. It'll be better if whatever the first task just does it clean and quick and it's all over with, good and clean, and at least I won't have to go back to the Dursleys ever, yeah? At least I'll finally be with you and - and Mum."

"Oh Harry, that's not the answer," James Potter's voice was gentle. His palm ran along Harry's back, soothing and just heavy enough to comfort him.

One of the nights, James had whispered that back runs and motor car rides were the only things that quieted Harry when he was a baby.

Harry felt like a baby now.

"Giving up is never the answer, little man," James said. "Whatever would have happened if I'd given up all the times I wanted to? Well. We wouldn't have you, would we? And what a terrible loss for the world it would be not to have my Harry in it!"

"Not that much of one," muttered Harry.

"No, that's not true. You have no idea, Harry, how much light and love and hope you brought to the world. You came into my life at a time when me and everyone around me needed something to believe in, something to remind us what love was worth. You were hope wrapped in a blanket to us. And it isn't just us you were that sort of hope for... Millions of others have found hope because of the story of you."

Harry shook his head.

"I love you, Harry."

Harry's face crumpled against the fabric of the pillow. "I just wish you were really here and not just in my head," he murmured.

James just kept rubbing his back in that perfectly weighted way, his fingers stroking along Harry's spine, up and down, pausing to massage the thick knot between his shoulders.

"I wish you didn't have to go away," Harry whispered.

"I'm never far from you," James said.

Harry's breathing was becoming more even the longer the dream went on, and the feeling of anxiety and fear and doom eased slowly. The idea of a great looming black shadow that seemed to be the end of his life and the end of the week was dissolving.

Finally, Harry was able to fall asleep in the dream and the dream of James ended as he fell into another.

But James stayed rubbing Harry's back long after he was asleep, murmuring, "You're so brave, son... You're so very brave," until he felt Lily's love pulling him back.