"We can still cheer them on!"
When Ginny began venting her frustration about the Ministry of Magic, Cho Chang smiled and smoothly steered the conversation to safer ground.
She glanced at Harry, her voice was soft and warm. "It's still a way to be part of it, at least they'll know we're behind them, rooting for them every step of the way."
"I suppose you're right," Ron muttered, his tone was still heavy. He was clearly still brooding over the fact that they wouldn't be able to watch the maze portion of the competition with their own eyes.
"Don't worry about it—when we bring home the Triwizard Cup, I'll give you a full play-by-play of everything that happened in there!"
Cedric clapped Ron on the shoulder, his expression brimming with confidence. "Every single detail. I'll even tell you how many stones were on the ground."
"You'd better!" Ron said, perking up slightly.
"You have my word."
While their group buzzed with lively discussion, Sherlock, Hermione, Gemma, and Luna had gathered in a quiet corner of the common room, deep in a conversation that had nothing to do with the Triwizard Tournament at all.
"Any plans for the summer? Are you going back to Hawaii?" Gemma asked, her curiosity plain on her face.
"Not this year." Sherlock shook his head.
"What a shame, I was actually hoping we could holiday there together," Gemma said openly, without a hint of embarrassment. "I've heard the beaches and sunsets are absolutely stunning."
"That's exactly what I've heard too."
Hermione gave a small, delicate cough, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. When the others turned to look at her, she added quickly, "I meant, same as Gemma. I've just heard the scenery there is beautiful."
"Is Hawaii really that fun?"
Luna tilted her head to one side, curiosity lighting up her face in her characteristic way. "I heard there are lots of waves and sandy beaches and shells that sing?"
"I'm afraid I can't speak to that," Sherlock said with a slight shrug. "I spent most of my time practicing Bartitsu. There wasn't much sightseeing involved."
"Ah, I see..."
Luna gave a soft, dreamy hum and drifted back into her usual faraway state, her gaze going unfocused, her thoughts wandering somewhere no one else could follow.
"Speaking of which," Gemma pressed on, pulling the thread of conversation back, "do you think Bartitsu will actually come in handy in the maze?"
"Probably not against whatever creatures Hagrid's set up," Sherlock replied with a quiet laugh, his tone lightly amused.
All three girls broke into giggles at that.
It was true, Hagrid's creatures were notoriously thick-skinned. A human fist was unlikely to make much of an impression.
"But you're implying," Gemma added, connecting the dots, "that if you end up facing the other schools' champions, it would be very handy indeed."
"Self-evident, my friend."
"You're not actually planning to punch them in the maze, are you?!"
Hermione burst out laughing. "I don't think any of them could survive a single hit from you."
Luna touched the tip of her own nose with a thoughtful, perfectly serious expression. "If you punched someone, it would hurt a great deal. They might get a nosebleed. They might even cry and go find a teacher."
A brief, stunned silence fell over the group.
No one had quite expected Luna to think it through in such specific, clinical detail.
"Oh and exams end on the same day the third task begins," Gemma reminded everyone as they filed out of the Room of Requirement. "So, the rest of you really should be revising. Don't let all this extra training cost you your marks."
She looked around the group pointedly. "The three champions are exempt, but the rest of you aren't. Failing would be a serious problem."
Everyone nodded in earnest agreement.
They were all seasoned Hogwarts students by now, they knew very well what failing exams could mean.
Not that Hermione or Cho Chang had anything to worry about. Even with all the time they'd sacrificed helping their friends train, the most they risked was a slight dip in their rankings. Actually failing? Out of the question.
Luna was much the same. Eccentric as she might be, her academic record had always been quietly impressive.
As for the Weasley siblings even they, who looked faintly alarmed at Gemma's reminder had consistently placed in the upper tier of their year. They'd be fine.
And so, exam week arrived.
With their friends all occupied with revision, there was no one left to help the champions train. On Gemma's advice, the three of them agreed to suspend their intensive sessions for the time being.
Her reasoning was sound: balance and rest, she argued, were more valuable than relentless physical drilling. A clear head and a calm state of mind mattered more than brute preparation.
All three champions agreed she had a point.
Harry, however, couldn't fully let go.
After each exam, he would slip into the back row of an empty classroom and settle quietly with his spell books and notes, pencil moving methodically across the page circling, underlining, annotating.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts exam was no different.
Professor Lupin had designed it with the same flair he'd shown the previous year engaging, practical, and genuinely enjoyable. The format was a two-versus-two dueling tournament.
After all, most young witches and wizards much preferred a good PVP match to any kind of written test.
As the exam drew to a close, Professor Lupin wandered over to Harry and glanced at the open book in his hands. Understanding settled over his features at once.
He looked around the room briefly. "Where's Sherlock?"
"The Quidditch pitch, I think," Harry said, hesitating slightly. "He borrowed the Marauder's Map a couple of days ago and said he wanted to have a look around."
"Reconnaissance. With the Marauder's Map." Professor Lupin gave a wry, helpless shake of his head. As one of the Map's original creators, he knew better than anyone what it could and couldn't do. "The Map won't show him the magical traps or hidden dangers inside the maze..."
He paused, then let it go with a small exhale. "Though I'm sure he has his reasons."
His expression shifted then, something softer and more troubled coming into his eyes.
"By the way, your scar. How has it been? Has the pain come back recently?"
The truth was, Lupin had carried a quiet, persistent guilt about Harry for years.
Harry was the son of his closest friend. When James and Lily had been so cruelly murdered by Voldemort, when Sirius had been dragged off to Azkaban on false charges, Lupin had desperately wanted to step in, to take responsibility, to be there for Harry in some way.
But his condition had made even his own survival precarious. A werewolf in the wizarding world had precious little room to care for anyone else.
Beyond that, he'd learned through Dumbledore that placing Harry with the Dursleys far away from the magical world had been a deliberate choice, meant to let the boy grow up shielded from everything he was destined to carry.
And so, held back by one thing after another, Lupin had gone more than a decade without any real contact with Harry.
Last year had finally brought a turning point. He'd secured his position at Hogwarts, the Defense Against the Dark Arts post which had solved the problem of making ends meet.
With Professor Snape's help, he'd gained access to the Wolfsbane Potion at no cost, freeing him from years of suffering. And most importantly, Sirius had been exonerated, his innocence at last restored, and was now hailed as something of a hero in the wizarding world.
It should have been everything. They'd come so close to seeing Wormtail receive his due.
And yet here Lupin was, bound by his role as a teacher, forced to watch from the sidelines as Harry walked into a dangerous tournament. He could offer so little, really.
He'd bent the rules quietly during the first task, dropping hints in the most oblique way he could manage. But it hadn't felt like enough. It had never felt like enough.
And now the scar was causing pain again. The guilt gnawed at him, deeper than ever.
"It's alright, Professor."
Harry smiled, easy and uncomplicated, as if he genuinely meant it. "Dumbledore said he'd tell me as soon as there's a solution. He's asked me to keep my focus on the third task for now and not to worry too much about the scar."
"Yes, he told me the same," Lupin said quietly, then hesitated. "And the third task itself, how are you feeling about it? Prepared? Confident?"
"Very," Harry said, and the word came out with a steadiness that had nothing performative about it. His eyes were clear and certain. "We will win. We'll bring the Cup home."
Professor Lupin blinked.
He realized, not for the first time, that he hadn't been paying close enough attention.
Before the first task, Harry had been visibly anxious, uncertain, struggling to hold himself together. By the second, the edge of the anxiety had softened, though the tension had still been there if you looked for it.
But now? Now he looked like a different person entirely.
"You sound very sure of that," Lupin said, unable to help himself. "What's changed?"
"We've put in the work," Harry said simply, a real smile on his face. "Not just me, Sherlock and Cedric too. We've got a proper plan. We've trained for it. We're ready."
Something loosened in Lupin's chest.
"Good," he said softly. "That's good."
He stood there a moment, weighing a thought. Should he try again, find some quiet, sideways way to help Harry further, like he had before? Just the other day, Sirius had written to him, accusing him in typically colorful terms of being hopelessly rigid and telling him that there was a time to follow the rules and a time to know better.
Before he could decide, Hermione came hurrying over, flushed pink from exertion, a fine sheen of perspiration on her forehead.
Lupin set the thought aside for now and turned to her with a warm smile. "Well done, Hermione, your spell work was exceptionally fluid, and your tactical instincts were very sharp."
Hermione had been paired with her roommate Parvati. Under Hermione's precise direction and formidable offensive output, the two of them had dispatched Seamus and Dean's partnership with considerable ease.
"Thank you, Professor."
Hermione accepted the praise politely, though her gaze drifted almost immediately to the window and the distant shape of the Quidditch pitch beyond it, something unspoken and searching in her eyes.
Her attention was clearly not entirely on the compliment.
"Has Sherlock come back yet?" She turned to Harry, the question coming out a little more urgently than she'd probably intended.
"No," Harry said, shaking his head.
A flicker of disappointment crossed her face.
Ron and Neville arrived a moment later, both slightly out of breath. Ron's face was nearly as red as his hair, his forehead damp. He dragged a hand across his brow and said, "What were you two nattering about?"
He and Neville had been paired together, and their match had been a genuine struggle. In the end, the hard work of the past weeks had just barely seen them through, they'd won, but the effort showed in every inch of them.
"Honestly, it's a good thing we've been putting in all that training to help Harry," Ron continued, sounding a mix of proud and exhausted. "My spell work has improved so much. My reflexes too. Without all that drilling, today would've gone very differently."
He'd grown so used to coasting in Harry and Hermione's slipstream that he'd never really thought about standing on his own two feet in a duel.
Strange thing was for all the effort it had cost him, there was something undeniably satisfying about winning through your own merit.
"Ron, your progress has been remarkable," Professor Lupin said, genuine warmth in his voice. "Your precision has improved enormously, and you've shown real adaptability under pressure."
As more students finished their exams and the room grew noisier, Lupin found himself quietly setting aside the thought of bending the rules again for Harry.
Until, that is, the room had emptied and the last student had filed out and then Lupin called after him.
"Harry. A moment, if you don't mind. There's something I'd like to say to you."
He had made up his mind. He was going to break the rules, just slightly.
Hermione and Ron, being the friends they were, stayed behind without being asked, curious to see what Professor Lupin had in mind.
"Let's see what you've all been working on," he said, meeting the eyes of each of them in turn, his tone lightly businesslike. "Hermione, Ron, you both performed well today. I'm giving you the chance to earn some extra credit." He looked at Harry. "And you, you're going to be my assistant. Help me run the assessment."
All three of them understood at once. A knowing smile passed between them.
This had nothing to do with extra credit.
This was Professor Lupin finding an excuse to run a private session with Harry. Extra coaching. A back channel. Playing slightly fast and loose with the rules.
Good for him.
What followed was a thorough, full-spirited demonstration of everything the three of them had been building toward in their training sessions. Lupin observed with quiet, careful attention, occasionally cutting in to point out a weakness or an area for refinement, and stepping in personally to demonstrate the correct technique or the more effective application of a spell.
Hermione noticed, without surprise, that the bulk of Lupin's focus landed on Harry.
Harry's performance was objectively stronger than either hers or Ron's and yet Lupin held him to a higher standard, his corrections more exacting, his guidance more layered and precise.
That was the difference between a brilliant student and a brilliant teacher.
Gemma's abilities were genuinely impressive. As a talented recent graduate, the coaching she'd provided the Hogwarts trio over these past weeks had made a significant difference, even Cedric, a prefect and natural high achiever, had come away from their sessions with noticeably sharper skills.
But set alongside the teaching of a true professional like Lupin, the gap became apparent.
Lupin's guidance had a precision and a system to it that Gemma's, for all its quality, didn't quite match. He knew exactly what each student needed to hear, exactly where to press, exactly how to demonstrate and the results showed it.
The session's impact was immediate and unmistakable.
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