1st September 1994, King's Cross Station, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, 10:47 AM
The platform was its usual September chaos—the scarlet engine of the Hogwarts Express hissing steam into the cold air, owl cages stacked on trolleys, cats in baskets making opinions known, parents and children pressed together in the particular farewell density that occurred at exactly this point each year. Harry stood beside Ethan with his trunk beside him, his satchel across his chest, and Jasper concealed in the modified inner pocket of his school jumper—the Snidget making small contented sounds against his collarbone.
Then Harry saw her.
Luna emerged from the crowd with that distinctive drifting quality she had, as though she walked through her own slightly different version of the world and the rest of the platform was merely passing through it. Her dirty-blonde hair was longer than it had been at the end of last term, falling past her shoulders in a way that Harry registered with the careful inattention of a boy who had decided not to register such things and had failed. The radish earrings were new—a slightly larger pair than usual—and the Blue Moon necklace Ethan had given her on her tenth birthday rested at her collarbone.
Her silvery grey eyes found Harry across the steam, and her face did the thing it did when she saw him: the soft, slow brightening of someone confirming that a planet had returned to the proper place in its orbit.
"Hah-ree."
She closed the distance in a half-run that was somehow still graceful, and Harry caught her properly this time—both arms, full hug, his face briefly pressed into her hair which smelled of lavender and the particular herbal tea Xenophilius brewed at home. Luna's arms were around his ribs and she held on for several seconds longer than the social register strictly permitted, which was fine because Harry was doing the same.
"I missed you," Harry said, into her hair.
"I know," Luna said, into his shoulder. "I missed you also. Daddy and I went to the bog cypress forests in Norway. The moon there has a different colour. I have so much to tell you."
They separated reluctantly. Harry's hand found hers as a matter of course—the gesture was habitual and they turned to where the two fathers were exchanging their own form of greeting.
Xenophilius Lovegood was wearing robes of a yellow that the human eye could not quite forgive, his white hair somehow even more gravity-defiant than Harry remembered. He was also, Harry noted, considerably more composed than he had been on previous occasions—the haggard quality that had clung to him in earlier years had receded, replaced by something approaching contented eccentricity.
"Mr Esther." Xenophilius shook Ethan's hand with both of his. "A pleasure. As always."
"Mr Lovegood," Ethan returned, with the warmth he reserved for the small list of people he genuinely respected. "Your last issue—the piece on the Wrackspurt migration patterns. Very thorough."
Xenophilius brightened considerably. "You read it!"
"I read every issue."
"Most don't."
"Their loss," Ethan said, with perfect sincerity. "And Luna—you've grown."
"I think I've grown three centimetres," Luna confirmed seriously. "Daddy measured against the doorframe."
Harry, watching this, understood again what he had understood the first time he had met Xenophilius properly: that here was a man who loved his daughter the way a man loves something he has nearly lost and now holds with the desperate care of someone who knows how thin the membrane is between presence and absence.
Xenophilius's gaze moved between Luna and Harry with the alert attention of a parent who was processing developments.
"Right." Xenophilius cleared his throat. "Right. Off you go, the both of you. Luna, write to me—"
"I always do, Daddy."
"—and Harry. Look after her."
"Always, sir," Harry said.
The whistle blew. Luna hugged her father once more, accepted the small parcel of food he pressed into her hands with the practised resignation of someone who had been receiving such parcels at every parting since infancy, and then she and Harry were on the train—Ethan's hand briefly on Harry's shoulder, a nod, the doors closing.
Through the window, Harry saw Xenophilius standing very still on the platform. The man's expression had completed a brief journey from cheerful farewell to something more considered, and Harry watched him say something to Ethan that he could not hear.
Ethan replied. Whatever Ethan said made Xenophilius's eyebrows rise and then settle, and the man laughed slightly and nodded.
The train began to move.
... Moments before the train departed
"Mr Esther," Xenophilius said, with the cautious deliberation of a man broaching something that had only just occurred to him, "Harry is fourteen. Luna is thirteen. They're... rather close."
Ethan had watched the train pull away. "They are."
"Physically close, I mean."
"Yes."
"And." Xenophilius scratched the back of his neck. "Well. I find I shouldn't mind. About Harry, specifically. Should it come to that. Eventually. In some years."
Ethan had given him the very slight, slightly wry smile he gave when something had been correctly identified before its time. "They're still children, Mr Lovegood. Best friends. There's no need to plan weddings."
"No, no, of course not."
"Though," Ethan had added, with the dry candour that emerged only with the very few people he genuinely respected, "I should be honest with you. What's between them is already considerably deeper than friendship. They simply haven't named it yet. Whether they ever do will be their decision."
Xenophilius had absorbed this, then nodded. "Good. That's. Well. Good."
"Good day, Mr Lovegood."
"Good day, Mr Esther."
...
The train had been moving for perhaps ten minutes when Harry and Luna found Draco.
He had a compartment to himself near the middle of the second carriage—his trunk overhead, a Healing journal open on his lap, his pale hair perfectly arranged, his expression the carefully composed neutrality he wore at the start of term until it became clear who was in his social vicinity. When the door slid open and Harry and Luna appeared, the neutrality dissolved into actual pleasure.
"Finally," Draco said. "I was beginning to think I'd have to share with first-years."
"The horror," Harry said, settling Luna into the window seat and taking the one beside her.
The compartment door was still open when, from somewhere in the corridor, came the unmistakable sound of Ron and Hermione conducting one of their habitual disagreements at travelling volume.
"—is not the same thing as endorsing, Ronald, I'm simply observing—"
"You said you'd put a Galleon on it, Hermione, that's literally the definition of—"
"It was a figure of speech!"
"It was a bet!"
They arrived at the compartment door slightly out of breath and continued the argument seamlessly through the entrance. Hermione's hair had achieved, in the brief span of the journey from the platform to here, the particular wild volume it acquired when she was simultaneously excited and exasperated.
"Draco," she said, pivoting smoothly. "Tell Ron that observing the statistical likelihood of an event is not the same as wagering on its outcome."
"Tell Hermione," Ron countered, "that 'I'd put a Galleon on it' is a bet by every definition that's ever existed."
Draco looked between them with the expression of a man who had realised many years ago that he was not paid enough to mediate. "I think," he said diplomatically, "that we should sit down and discuss the World Cup, which I've been trying to ask Harry about for three minutes."
They sat.
Ron and Hermione—Harry noted with quiet pleasure and took the bench opposite, Ron close enough to Hermione that the space between them had become more theoretical than practical.
The conversation went where it always went for the first hour of any Hogwarts return: details. Harry recounted the World Cup with the camera photos passed around, Luna received them first, as a matter of course, and went through them with the careful attention she gave to all things Harry handed her.
Draco filled in the gaps from his perspective.
Ron contributed details about Krum's flying that no one had asked for but everyone enjoyed.
Hermione made notes about the international wizarding schools they had glimpsed in the campsite—Beauxbatons robes seen here, Durmstrang fur cloaks there, an entire delegation from somewhere whose flag none of them had recognised.
"Speaking of schools," Draco said, when the World Cup material had been exhausted, "have any of you heard about the Hogwarts event?"
Three heads turned to him.
"I've heard," Draco continued, "from approximately four separate sources, that something significant is being planned for this year. None of the sources could agree on what it was. But all of them used words like international and historic."
"Mum and Bill and Charlie were talking about it at the Burrow," Ron offered. "I caught maybe half of it before they noticed me. Bill said something about glory. Charlie said something about money. Mum told them both to stop discussing classified Ministry business in front of Ron, which is when I left the room with great dignity."
"With great dignity?" Hermione asked.
"With my ear pressed to the door," Ron amended. "But I didn't catch any more before Mum opened it suddenly and gave me a Look."
"Glory and money," Luna said thoughtfully, examining one of the World Cup photographs. "That sounds like a competition."
"That's what I thought," Draco agreed.
The compartment door slid open with the brisk efficiency of someone who had decided where she was going.
Astoria Greengrass entered first, followed by Daphne. Astoria had grown again over the summer, the angular Greengrass features sharpening further, her fair hair pulled back in the precise style that had become her signature. Her grey eyes did the catalogue they always did when she entered a room—Draco, registered; Ron, registered with a flicker of the old aristocratic disdain that she had not entirely shed even now; Hermione, acknowledged with a brief nod that was warmer than it had been a year ago... and then they found Luna.
Astoria's entire face changed.
The thorny composure dissolved into something approaching ordinary delight, and she crossed the compartment in two steps to settle herself with elegant decisiveness in the seat between Harry and Luna.
The seat between Harry and Luna.
Harry, who had been pleasantly half-leaning against Luna with the unconscious territorial ease of someone occupying his rightful position, found himself displaced by approximately fourteen inches of pure-blood pre-teen who had, he realised with a flicker of genuine annoyance, performed this manoeuvre with full awareness of what she was doing.
Astoria's grey eyes flicked to him sidelong. They were entirely innocent, in the manner of grey eyes that knew exactly what they had just done and intended to repeat it.
"Hello, Harry," Astoria said sweetly. "I trust your summer was pleasant."
"It was eventful," Harry said, with the precise neutrality he had spent years cultivating.
"How wonderful for you."
Daphne, who had taken the remaining seat beside Hermione, watched her sister with the slight resigned expression of an older sibling who had long since accepted the inevitability of her sibling's chosen entertainments. "She's been planning that," Daphne murmured, just loud enough for Hermione to hear. "She's been excited about it for the last twenty minutes."
"I gathered," Hermione murmured back.
Luna, who had observed the entire transaction with her customary serene attention, tilted her head at Astoria. "Hello, Astoria. You sat there on purpose."
"I sat where there was a seat," Astoria said, without conviction.
"Mm," Luna said, smiling slightly.
The conversation resumed. Astoria was an excellent companion when she chose to be, and she chose to be now—her observations sharp, her questions about the Quidditch World Cup engaged, her ability to extract information from Draco about Healing journal articles considerable. Luna, on Astoria's other side, contributed Norwegian moonbeam reports and an extended description of what Wrackspurts did during long rail journeys.
But Astoria, every now and again, let her shoulder press infinitesimally against Harry's. Harry, every time, did not move.
He also, every now and again, caught Luna's eye past Astoria's profile, and Luna's expression said with the entire vocabulary of small smiles she had developed over four years of knowing him precisely—I see what is happening, and I am amused, and you are doing well.
"So," Astoria said, after the Triwizard speculation had run its full course, "we're suggesting that the year ahead will involve international competition, potential Ministry oversight, secret events, and possibly some form of glory and prize money. That's quite an exciting collection of possibilities."
"Hopefully," Harry said dryly, "the exciting this year will be considerably less dramatic than what I usually mean by exciting."
There was a brief silence, which was followed by Ron's open laughter, which was followed by Hermione's and Draco's slightly more restrained versions of the same. Even Daphne smiled.
"Harry," Hermione said, "in three years at Hogwarts, you have faced down Quirrell and Voldemort, the basilisk, and four older students in formal duel. The probability that this year's exciting will be quiet is, statistically, very low."
"A man can hope," Harry said.
1st September 1994, Hogwarts Castle, Entrance Hall, 7:02 PM
The walk from the boats to the castle had been damp and beautiful. Hogwarts in the September dusk was the colour of warm gold against the dark mountains, the windows lit, the lake reflecting the lit windows back at itself, the whole impossibly beloved skyline that Harry had come to think of as a particular form of home. They had come up through the main doors and were halfway across the Entrance Hall when something cold and wet exploded directly above their heads.
"PEEVES!"
The poltergeist cackled from somewhere in the rafters, having just emptied what appeared to be a bucket of stagnant lake water across approximately twenty new arrivals. Hermione made a sound of pure outrage. Ron's hair had gone from ginger to dark-bronze in seconds.
"Peeves," McGonagall's voice cut across the hall with the particular Scottish edge that meant retribution was both promised and imminent. "Down. Now."
Harry, who had moved instinctively at the splash—a half-step that put Luna behind his shoulder and out of the line of secondary water, straightened with a quick Scourgify that dried himself, then her, then Hermione. Ron, looking betrayed, received the same a half-second later.
"Show off," Ron muttered.
"You're welcome," Harry said.
They pressed on into the Great Hall.
The Sorting was its familiar magic—the candles floating above, the enchanted ceiling showing a deep autumn sky pricked with stars, the Hat singing its annual song with its annual mixture of caution and welcome. The first-years were sorted in their familiar parade. When CREEVEY, DENNIS! was called, a small, soaking-wet boy who looked startlingly like a smaller Colin clambered onto the stool with bright eyes and an air of barely contained ecstasy.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The Gryffindor table cheered. Dennis bounded down with his older brother's exact bouncing gait, and Colin, seated three places down from Harry, greeted him with the proud delight of a fellow disciple welcoming a new initiate. Colin's eyes found Harry's. Both Creevey faces, side by side, blazed with the same identical light of adoration.
Harry made a small sound and shifted, by approximately four inches, so that Hermione's shoulder partially obscured the line of sight.
"Not a word," he muttered.
"Wasn't going to," Hermione said, with a smile that contradicted her entirely.
Ron was openly grinning. "There's two of them now, mate."
"I am aware, Ronald."
The feast appeared. Conversation rose. Nearly Headless Nick floated past the Gryffindor table and in response to a question from Hermione about the quantity of food that was now appearing daily, mentioned that Peeves had been "raising particular havoc in the kitchen" and that the house-elves had been driven nearly to despair.
Hermione's fork paused. "House-elves. In the kitchen."
"Of course, my dear. A hundred or so of them. They prepare every meal."
"They're—paid? Are they paid?"
"They are not paid, no," Nick said, with the gentle apology of a ghost who had observed centuries of this particular oversight. "But they are very devoted. Very. They consider the work an honour."
Hermione's expression had gone from polite interest to something more focused. Harry, who had watched her track the Atid Stella house-elf hiring practices closely over the past two summers, recognised the look.
"I'd quite like to see the kitchens," Hermione said. "The conditions. The work."
"The kitchen?" Ron, who had been listening peripherally whilst constructing a sandwich of architectural ambition, looked up with sudden alertness. "Where's the kitchen, exactly? Useful information, that. Strictly for academic purposes."
"Ronald."
"For supper, Hermione. A growing boy."
The look Hermione gave him was eloquent on the subject of growing boys and their priorities. Ron grinned back, unrepentant.
The plates had cleared themselves when Dumbledore rose.
The Hall settled into the particular attentive quiet that the Headmaster commanded simply by standing. He spoke briefly about the Forbidden Forest, the corridor restrictions, the usual notices. Then his expression shifted into the slightly amused gravity that meant something significant was approaching.
"It is my painful duty to inform you," he said, "that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."
The Hall erupted.
Fred and George, three places down from Harry, produced sounds of such pure existential horror that several first-years looked alarmed. The Slytherin table was equally vocal. Oliver Wood was no longer at Hogwarts and could not register his protest in person, but Harry had no doubt the protest would be registered by owl post within the hour.
"This is, however," Dumbledore continued, raising both hands to quiet the storm, "because Hogwarts will be hosting an event of considerably greater magnitude this year. An event that—"
The doors at the far end of the Hall opened.
The man who entered did so against the wind and rain that had begun outside, and he brought some of both with him into the Hall. He was tall, scarred, walking with a heavy uneven stride, his mismatched wooden leg striking the flagstones with a clunk on every other step. His face was a roadmap of damage—old wounds badly healed, a chunk missing from his nose, his mouth a thin diagonal slash. And his eye—
His left eye was normal: pale, watery, ordinary. His right eye was electric blue, brilliantly large, magically mobile, swivelling independently in its socket as he made his way up the centre aisle.
"May I introduce," Dumbledore said warmly, "your new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Professor Moody."
Harry's hand had gone still around his goblet.
'oh, so he's safe...' The thought arrived with relief.
The relief lasted approximately four seconds.
Moody's magical eye, swivelling its way across the Gryffindor table, paused on Harry. It paused for a fraction of a second longer than it had paused on any other face. And in that fraction of a second, Harry felt something.
It was not large. It was not obvious. It was a quality in the air that carried the texture of focused, specific, interested attention. The attention of a predator that has located a target and is filing the target's coordinates.
It was not the friendly attention of a teacher meeting a student.
The eye moved on. Moody's expression did not change. He took his seat at the staff table and produced from his robe a small hipflask, from which he drank with the practical air of a man who had been drinking from precisely that flask for years.
Harry's heartbeat had increased by perhaps twelve per cent.
'Paranoia,' he told himself. 'You've been on edge since the World Cup. You're reading hostility into a man whose entire face is hostile because that's what war did to it. He's an ex-Auror— Uncle Sam knows him... respects him. Stop it.'
His instincts, however, did not stop. They merely went quiet.
He filed the moment carefully in the place Ethan had taught him to file such things, and turned his attention back to Dumbledore.
"This castle," Dumbledore continued, "will be your home this year for the Triwizard Tournament."
The Hall went still in a different way.
Dumbledore explained—the three schools, Hogwarts and Beauxbatons and Durmstrang; the three champions; the three tasks; the thousand-Galleon prize; the Tournament's long history and the particular reason it had not been held in over a century, which involved a fatality rate that the Ministry had eventually found difficult to defend in writing. He explained that Mr Crouch's department and Mr Bagman's department had together negotiated a return of the Tournament under enhanced safety protocols. He explained that the Goblet of Fire would select the champions on Hallowe'en. He explained, with the quiet emphasis of a man who knew his audience extremely well, that under the new rules, no student under the age of seventeen would be permitted to submit their name.
A wave of outrage swept the Hall, primarily from sixteen-year-olds and below, with the loudest contributions from the Weasley twins.
"Seventeen?"
"Why?"
"Outrageous!"
"There will be," Dumbledore said calmly, "an Age Line. Submitted by myself. It will not be circumvented."
The twins exchanged the precise look that meant we'll see about that.
The Hall emptied. The first-years were chivvied off by Prefects. Harry, walking with Ron and Hermione toward Gryffindor Tower, watched the twins ahead of them already deep in animated planning.
"—Aging Potion's the obvious approach—"
"—or a Confundus on the Line itself—"
"Won't work," Hermione said brightly, drawing level with them. "Dumbledore drew it himself. You'll fail. I'll wager you a Galleon."
Ron stopped walking. "Hermione Granger is making a wager."
"It's a figure of speech."
"It's a bet."
"It's a confident statement of probability—"
"It's a bet and I'm a witness."
Harry, walking slightly behind them, exchanged a wry look with no one in particular and shook his head. Hermione punched Ron on the shoulder—gently enough, by Hermione standards, which was to say firmly enough that Ron made an ow sound of personal injury.
Harry's mind, however, was elsewhere.
'A Tournament. Three tasks. A prize. And an Age Line that's supposed to keep anyone under seventeen out of it.'
He thought about the magic that would have to underlie such a Line. He thought about how Ethan had taught him to look at large-scale charms—as systems of conditions, requirements, exceptions. He thought about Moody's eye and its fractional pause. He thought about the strange shape of a year that began with his scar aching and a Death Eater attack and a Dark Mark and an ex-Auror's kidnapping and a Tournament.
He found, walking up the stairs with his two best friends bickering ahead of him about the precise definition of the word bet, that he was not afraid.
He was interested.
And somewhere in him, distant but distinct, something said this is going to be quite a year.
He hoped, for once, that something wouldn't be wrong.