Oliver Kent stood at the window of the room at the Hogsmeade Inn, watching the bustle of the street below. Halloween night had come and gone and 1 November had dawned like any other day.

Behind him, Wally was talking, moving about the room, packing up his things. He was headed back to London for the week, but Oliver was staying in Hogsmeade. Wally had a job, he worked at some sort of muggle medical clinic (he hadn't really detailed what he did exactly to Oliver yet, they hadn't done much talking, honestly), and he was to have his daughter Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before returning to Hogsmeade the next weekend. Oliver got the feeling Wally didn't really want him getting to know Olivia, or having any contact with Geri. He understood, but wondered how long things would be like that.

"Ollie?"

He turned 'round. "Sorry, what?"

Wally paused in the middle of folding a jumper into a suitcase. "You alright, love?"

"Yeah," Oliver replied absently.

Wally took a deep breath. He knew it was a lie. They'd all known James and the other Marauders, of course, but Oliver had been closest to them, especially after he'd been adopted by Jasper Odair. Wally reckoned that Oliver projected the pain of losing his parents into the loss of the Potters, too, and he knew Oliver identified with Harry a lot. All those years of collecting paper clippings... Oliver didn't process things well, he held them in his bones and muscles and broke apart slowly, one little bit at a time, repressing all he could until it had impacted too much and become an explosive.

The question was when and how the pressure would blow.

But Wally didn't have a choice except to get back to real life. Oliver lived a dream life of luxury and freedom that few people were able to replicate, and Wally liked his work, so he'd never dream of letting it go.

Oliver was still staring out the window as Wally magicked shut the suitcase and stood it up near by the door. He walked over to Oliver and pressed a kiss to the back of Oliver's neck. "I'm going to miss you," Wally told him.

"I'll miss you as well," Oliver said quietly.

"I think those boys were very excited to work with you," Wally said. "You're doing a good thing for them. I get the idea Cedric is a lot like you. Kind of hard on himself for no good reason. Build him up."

Oliver nodded, "And Herbert is his Wally."

"Poor sack," Wally joked.

"Cedric's lucky to have him."

"Lucky to have each other," Wally corrected. He paused, then, "Anything I can do for you before I go?"

"Besides don't?"

"Besides don't," Wally nodded.

"Nah, nothin' else," Oliver said.

Wally kissed Oliver's neck again and murmured, "I know it's funny but I've always loved the way your skin smells right here."

Oliver breathed a faint laugh.

"I think it's your cologne faded but lingering... and your own smell, your you-ness. And your hair."

Oliver turned around and hugged Wally into him, pressing their lips together.

When Wally pulled back, Oliver turned away again. He heard Wally say goodbye and he stood, staring out at the road until he saw him out there, leaving, and he sighed, closed his eyes, and drew the blind, plunging the room into darkness.

Hermione Granger could barely sleep. 

She tossed and turned all night, unable to stop worrying about Harry. He had looked so lost and confused when Dumbledore had called out his name in the Great Hall, and when he had stumbled over his robe, she'd had all she could do not to leap to her feet and walk with him to the top of the Hall. McGonagall's livid face as she came 'round the staff table at top speed to alight on Dumbledore had been all that had held her back. Then Ron - oooh Ronald! Hermione knew Ron was really hurt by what he thought was a betrayal on Harry's part. She had walked with him up to Gryffindor Tower when Dumbledore had dismissed the Great Hall at large before going in to speak to the Triwizard Champions. Snape had chased Hermione and Ron off, telling them to go to their dormitory in a most sour tone when they had tried to loiter about to wait for Harry, and then he, McGonagall, and Dumbledore had gone into the small room off the Hall and Filch and the prefects of the houses were left to herd all the students off to bed.

"He could've at least clued me in," Ron whined all the way up the stairs. "I know I wouldn't have won or whatever, of course not, not even a bloody cup would pick me as a champion..." He scowled and shook his head. "I mean obviously it would choose Harry over me, right?" Ron looked at Hermione.

Hermione had shrugged, "Well, Harry is a bit practiced, I mean, only because of all the rubbish You Know Who has put him through," she said nervously, unable to get Harry's nervous expression out of her mind. "I mean, I can see why if his name was in the Goblet it might choose Harry. He's very brave and he's rather strong, isn't he?"

"Strong?" Ron scowled.

Hermione shrugged.

Ron had only gotten worse and worse - and by the time Fred and George had appeared in the Common Room with bottles of Butterbeer and gobs of snacks from the kitchens, Ron was saying his head ached and he had to go upstairs to bed.

"You ought to take an elixir for your headache," Hermione said, "I'm sure if we went to Pomfrey she would --"

"I think I'm strong enough to handle a headache, 'Mione!" Ron had snapped and tromped up the steps to the boys' dorm.

"Really," she'd huffed, scowling.

Harry had taken such a good deal of time to get upstairs that the party was loud and in full swing and he didn't look much in the mood to talk about any of it, fighting off Lee Jordan who was trying to tie a Gryffindor banner about Harry's neck, and hurrying upstairs away from the party. Hermione hoped that he and Ron talked it out a bit before morning.

However, they hadn't.

Next morning, when Hermione got up and Ron came down from the dorms alone to go to breakfast, where he complained about Harry's infidelity to anyone who would listen - which, granted, wasn't many at the Gryffindor table. There was far more enthusiasm about Harry's getting to be a champion than there were people willing to commiserate with Ron on the subject of having been supposedly betrayed by Harry's name being in the cup. 

"You're being stupid," Hermione said.

Ron's face went flush. "Of course I am. Stupid Ron; everything I do is stupid, innit?"

Hermione had sighed. "If you cared about your friend for a second you'd see this isn't about you, Ronald."

"It never is," he'd answered bitterly.

And that was when she'd decided she'd had enough of his attitude, collected a large stack of toast, and muttered, "I'll talk to you when you're willing to see more reason!" to which he had snorted and watched her leave without much care about it. 

Hermione was just reaching the portrait hole in Gryffindor Tower when Harry came out of the common room, looking miserable.

"Hello," Hermione greeted him. "I brought you this." She held up the toast. "Want to go for a walk?"

"Good idea," said Harry.

Outside, it was chilly and there was a slight frost on the grass that made everything sparkle a bit. The Durmstrang ship sat quiet on the water of the lake, and Hermione listened as Harry described what had happened after he left the Great Hall the night before. Harry's tone was so morose and sad, Hermione couldn't help but. believe him.

"Well of course I know you hadn't entered yourself," she said, "The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because Moody's right, Harry, I don't think any student could have done it... they'd never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore's ---"

"Have you seen Ron?" Harry interrupted.

Hermione sighed. "Yes.... he was at breakfast."

"And does he still think I entered myself?"

Hermione frowned. "Well... no, I don't think so, I mean - not really."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh Harry, isn't it obvious, he's jealous?" Hermione asked, frustrated. "It's always you who gets all the attention, you know it is. I know it's not your fault," she added quickly when Harry's face looked ready to object, "I know you don't ask for it... but - well - you know, Ron's got all those brothers to compete against at home and you're his best friend, and you're really famous - he's always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it." She bit her lip. This was something she'd been thinking about for some time.

It was one of the things that made her like Ron quite a lot actually.

He'd always been so patient with all the attention Harry got.

He'd always supported Harry.

It broke her heart that he wasn't now.

She sighed, "I suppose this is just noe time too many."

"Great. Really great. Tell him from me I'll swap any time he wants. Tell him from me the's welcome to it... People gawping at my forehead everywhere I go..."

"I'm not an owl!" Hermione protested, shaking her head, "Tell him yourself. It's the only way to sort this out."

"I'm not running around after him trying to make him grow up!" Harry argued. "Maybe he'll believe I'm not enjoying myself once I've got my neck broken or ---"

"Oh that's not funny, Harry!" Hermione interrupted, looking rather horrified. "That's not funny at all." She was looking extremely anxious and Harry felt a little bad for making her worry so much. Hermione said, then, "Harry, I've been thinking and you know what you need to do, don't you? Straight away when we get back up to the castle?"

"Yeah," Harry muttered, "Give Ron a good kick up the arse."

Hermione scowled and gave Harry a warning Look. "Write to Sirius," she said, not dignifying Harry's answer with a reaction. "You've got to tell Sirius what's happened. He asked you to keep him posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts... It's almost as if he expected something like this to happen. I brought some parchment and a quill with me -- hang on --" she dug about in her pocket.

Harry shook his head, "He came back to the country just because my scar twinged, Hermione! Knowing Sirius, he'll come bursting right into the castle if I tell him someone's entered me into the Triwizard Tournament and then what?"

"He'd want you to tell him!" Hermione argued.

"I don't want him to freak out," Harry said.

"He's going to find out anyway and he'll be all the more worried if you're not the one who tells him!"

"How is he going to find out?"

"Harry, this isn't going to be kept quiet! Of course it isn't. The Daily Prophet's going to be making a huge deal about it. Just like they've always made a large deal of anything that you do."

"They do?"

"Harry, haven't you ever looked at archived papers to see what they've said about you? There's loads about you in the Prophet's back issues! They're part of why you're so famous. And now, you've been chosen... This tournament's famous and you're famous. I'll be really surprised if the Daily Prophet hasn't already got the story running about you competing... and Sirius would rather hear it from you, Harry. I know he would."

Harry sighed and threw the last of the toast into the lake and watched as the giant squid's tentacle came up and grabbed hold of the toast. They were walking back toward the castle, then, and Harry murmured, "Whose owl am I going to use? He gold me not to use Hedwig again."

"Ask Ron if you can borrow Errol."

"i'm not asking Ron for anything," Harry snapped.

"Well fine, use one of the school owls, then, anyone can use them," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. She shoved the parchment into Harry's hand and followed Hermione to the library, where he spent some time writing out the letter to Sirius while Hermione gathered books from the stacks. She came back to the table where she'd left Harry with a stack of books she'd located about the history of the Triwizard Tournament. 

"Finished," Harry declared. "I'll go send it."

"Very good," Hermione answered.

"What's all that?" Harry asked.

"If you're going to have to compete, I think we ought to research about the past Tournaments a bit and get an idea of the sort of things that you'll be up against so we can attempt to prepare you to compete. The other champions are so much older and they've done so much more studying... You'll need every advantage we can come up with!"

"Yeah, I suppose," Harry said. He thought he'd rather just not think about the Tournament at all instead. He was glad to have an excuse to leave Hermione to it and not have to look at the books she'd dug up, and he scurried off to go to the owlry, leaving Hermione behind in the library.

The books were not helping Hernione's anxiety at all, in fact they were making her more and more enervous as she looked over the previous competitions and saw some pretty gory images and horrible descriptions of the previous competitors deaths. She'd been hoping that everyone had been exaggerating the deadliness of the Tournaments past, but she was finding quickly that it was very common for there to be at least one champion dead by the end of the tournament and she worried desperately about Harry more and more the longer she read.

She got up at one point to return to the rows of books, keen to get another title that had been mentioned in one book that might provide a strategy for preparing for near to anything and she was standing in the aisle, running her fingers across the spines of books when she heard the lilting French accent of Fleur Delacor.

"Ve must do sometheeng about zis 'Arry Potter being in ze tournament," she said lowly, her voice hushed.

"What do you mean?" Cedric Diggory's voice was quiet, too.

"Sometheeng to disqualify 'Arry from competing, of course!" Fleur said, nervously.

Hermione's eyes widened and she froze in the aisle, her heart catching in her chest.

"And jeopardize our own performances? My father would kill me if I threw this opportunity for any reason," said Viktor.

"It would be a lot easier to determine how we could take care of Harry if we knew what we were up against," Cedric said.

"A lot of things about this would be easier if we knew what we were up against," Viktor said darkly. Suddenly he stepped 'round the end of the book shelf and he was staring at her. Hemione flushed, backing up and bumping into the shelf  behind her as Viktor stared at her with a mild look of surprise. Hermhione hurried out of the aisle.