"...You're in luck. Bertha Jorkins worked for the Daily Prophet for a stretch some years back...I went to some trouble tracking down her old revoked press identification...Thank you for the tip—I'll make excellent use of it.
Sincerely,
Rita Skeeter"
Along with the letter, a lanyard with a laminated work ID slipped out of the envelope.
"Well?" Draco smirked as he passed the card to Hermione. "My particular connections have their uses after all."
"I suppose they do." Hermione stared at the ID. In the small photograph at the centre was a stout, unhappy-looking woman. The name printed beneath it read: Bertha Jorkins.
She exhaled slowly, looked up at the clock tower silhouetted against the deepening sky, and realised that the hands had crept past seven o'clock without her noticing.
"Draco, we have to find Harry now." She was already gathering up the leftover food wrappers. "We're running out of time."
"Right." He fell into step beside her as she turned toward the Quidditch pitch—where the maze now loomed—and soon they were caught up in the rushing tide of the crowd.
Above the maze, the sky had deepened to a clear, velvet blue. Stars were beginning to appear.
---
Ginny Weasley leaned over the railing of the stands and peered down.
Below, she could see streams of spectators—plain black robes, bright red rosettes, the powder-blue of Beauxbatons—briefly converging at the stadium entrance before dispersing and flowing through different channels into the vast, encircling stands.
"Good seats, aren't they?" George said, leaning on the railing beside her with a grin. "Brilliant view."
"Wait—is that why you disappeared straight after lunch?" Ginny said, eyes widening. "You were suspiciously quick about it. I thought you'd gone to the boys' bathroom to blow up a toilet seat for Bill."
"Toilet seats? That's so last year," Fred said, materialising on her other side with a look of exaggerated disdain. "If we're blowing anything up, it ought to be something with a bit more spectacle. A dragon, perhaps—"
"Fred!" came their mother's voice sharply from behind. "Today is an important day for Harry. Behave yourselves." A lower, more dangerous tone: "You both know exactly what I think of your recent activities."
Fred turned to Ginny with a finger pressed to his lips, then spun to face his mother with a dazzling smile. "Calm down, Mum, it was only a joke—"
"We absolutely did not attempt to blow anything up today," George confirmed.
"And Fred did not duel Zacharias Smith over this row of seats—" Fred added helpfully.
"And George most certainly did not cast a Stinging Hex to turn Cormac McLaggen's face into a large, indignant plum—"
"George Weasley, if you have done any such thing—!"
"Mum! We're fine! Settle down!"
Ginny laughed quietly and looked away, leaving her brothers to their negotiations with her mother, and scanned the crowd below.
She was looking for a dark-haired boy. She looked until her eyes ached, but couldn't find him.
The stadium was filling fast. The air buzzed with noise—excited voices, the clatter of footsteps on the wooden stairs, the rustle of programmes. Several Hogwarts students were making their noisy way up the main staircase.
"I'm being absolutely crushed!" a Ravenclaw girl with reddish-gold curls announced to her companion with considerable feeling.
Ginny glanced over. The girl was patting at her hair anxiously. "Cho, look—is it completely ruined?"
Cho Chang gave the hair a quick assessment. "Just a little flat," she said. The girl let out a small sound of despair.
Ginny's gaze followed Cho's, almost without meaning to.
Cho was waving across the crowd—down toward the field, where the champions were gathered. Cedric Diggory found her from a distance, put his hands to his lips, then threw his arms wide in an exuberant wave that very nearly knocked him sideways. He was smiling at Cho with an enthusiasm that could, in certain lights, be described as overwhelmingly earnest.
Standing right beside Cedric was Harry, staring at him with an expression of pure bafflement—apparently stunned that the composed Hufflepuff champion was capable of something quite so unrestrained.
Ginny pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She watched Harry's bewildered face for a good while before the champions were led away toward the maze entrance. Only then did she settle back into her seat, satisfied, while her mother began attempting to tidy Bill's hair behind her.
Ginny watched the crowd still filing in.
The exuberant Gryffindors. The cool, unhurried Slytherins. The Hufflepuffs, vibrating with excitement. The Ravenclaws, who always seemed to arrive somewhere and immediately forget they'd meant to be paying attention.
Among the students funnelling toward the stands, she spotted a familiar face.
Hermione Granger—brown hair perfectly in place despite the crush—being steered through the crowd by a Slytherin boy with the expression of someone clearing a path through hostile terrain. People stepped aside; people shot resentful looks; neither of the two appeared to notice or care.
She looks radiant. Ginny watched them navigate the crowd and had to concede that the hellhound had certain practical applications.
"Hermione!" Ginny rose from her seat, waving. "Over here!"
Hermione spotted the Weasley family immediately—hard to miss, given the collective quantity of red hair visible from several sections over. She grabbed Draco's hand and waded toward them through the crowd.
"Hermione, where have you been all afternoon?" Ginny asked. "I looked for you everywhere!"
"It's a long story—" Hermione was already scanning the area, urgent. "Ginny—do you know where Harry is? Ron, have you seen him?"
"He went to join the other champions as soon as he arrived," Ron said, with a vague wave toward the field. "Went straight down. Didn't come up to the stands."
"Where exactly?"
"Somewhere down there." Ron looked puzzled. "Why don't you just sit down? The match is starting soon—we've got two empty seats here—"
Mrs. Weasley coughed pointedly. Her gaze moved over the intertwined arms with the controlled expression of someone who had prepared herself to say nothing and was finding it a great deal of effort.
Bill, standing beside her, blinked twice and recovered. He glanced at Draco with a complicated look, then gave Hermione a somewhat strained smile. "Yes—do sit down if you like, Hermione."
Fred, to one side, gave Draco a cheerful nod. George, to the other, winked at him. Draco raised an eyebrow marginally but said nothing.
Hermione had no attention to spare for any of it. At this moment, nothing in the vicinity mattered except finding Harry.
"We can't sit down, Ron. We have to find him right now and confirm something—"
"What? Is it important?" Ron asked doubtfully. "Can't it wait until after?"
Hermione shook her head, already turning to pull Draco back toward the crowd.
"Hermione—wait." Ginny had been sitting with her lip caught between her teeth for a moment too long. She stood up. "I know where he is."
She pointed to a section of the field below, visible through the stands. "Right there. I spotted him just a minute ago. You can cut through on my side—there's a passage."
"You're wonderful, Ginny, thank you." Hermione's smile was so warm and grateful that Ginny felt an unexpected, private glow.
"What's going on?" Ron called after them. But Hermione had already taken Draco's hand and was moving at speed along the row, past the entirety of assembled Weasleys, in the direction Ginny had pointed.
"Hermione!" Ron tried again.
No answer. They were already too far away.
The Weasleys remaining in the row were variously preoccupied: watching the running figures with complicated expressions, feeling quietly disillusioned, being moderately intrigued, or simply trying not to laugh.
Ron turned to Ginny, aggrieved. "I genuinely think they operate on a completely separate schedule. They've gone off and left me again."
"Maybe," Ginny said, sitting back down with a small smile, "you should find yourself a girlfriend. Then you'd understand the appeal of having a separate schedule."
"What has that got to do with anything?" Ron said, baffled. "That's not even the point."
---
Hermione held Draco's hand as they moved at a near-run through the long passage beneath the stands, aiming for the side door to the field—and nearly pitched headlong over a rotten plank.
"Oh—!" She caught herself and stumbled sideways.
She never quite hit the ground. In the same instant, an arm came around her from behind, steadying her, pulling her back firmly.
Draco held her still for a moment, his hands tight around her waist.
He knew that plank.
In his previous life, Hermione had seen Cedric Diggory's body from the stands and screamed. He had turned at the sound of her voice, and watched her fight through the crowd toward the arena in a frenzy—and at that exact spot, she had caught the same rotten plank, the same stumble, the same soft "oh"—and he had been standing close enough to catch her. He had held her briefly, and felt something he couldn't name, and panicked, and let her go, and said something cold and wrong.
He had been an idiot. Possibly the biggest idiot in the world.
Some memories felt like a lifetime ago. Some felt like yesterday. Some felt like both at once.
In this life, Draco Malfoy caught Hermione Granger again.
He held her carefully—tightly—with the full knowledge of what he was holding and why it mattered.
"Watch where you're going," he said, quietly, into her hair. Almost the same words as before. Nothing else was the same. "Reckless girl."
Hermione came back to herself slowly. The warm scent of cedarwood surrounded her. She looked up and caught, just for a moment, the depth of something in his expression before it settled back into its usual composed line.
She didn't have time to examine it—she could hear the startled sounds of people nearby who had witnessed the whole thing.
"Draco—people are staring," she said, flustered. "Your Slytherin classmates—"
"I know," he said, and didn't let go. He fixed the surrounding onlookers with a look that made several of them suddenly find the ceiling extremely interesting. Then he pressed his lips briefly to her hair. "I don't want to let you go. I don't think I ever want to let you go."
"I love that you mean that," Hermione said, going pink, and hiding her face briefly against his shoulder. Then, with great reluctance: "But Harry—"
"Right." He helped her find her footing, released her waist, and took her hand again. "We still have time. Don't panic."
She nodded and stopped rushing. Matching his pace, she felt the frantic momentum in her chest begin to steady itself, the surrounding chaos losing its power to sweep her away.
Ahead, Minister Cornelius Fudge was blocking the side door entirely, haranguing a cluster of aides. "Where is Bagman? The match needs him to announce the start—"
The name caught Hermione's attention at once. She listened.
"He always insists I say a few words and blow the whistle," Fudge continued, with the air of a man protesting too little. "Ever since I received the Order of Merlin, humility has been my guiding principle. I always say—" he cleared his throat, "I need to speak to him beforehand and reduce all this ceremony—"
"Minister—Bagman's over there," an Auror said, squinting toward the maze entrance.
"Is he? Right, then." Fudge changed course and called out across the stands, "Bagman! Where have you been?"
"Just taking a walk, Minister—looking at the maze." Bagman strolled over from the direction of the entrance, waving cheerfully. "Magnificent thing, isn't it?"
Hermione studied him.
He looked well tonight—bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, nothing like the haggard and listless figure Harry had described. He was not wearing black gloves. His hands moved freely and without stiffness.
How strange. She frowned as she followed Draco down the stairs between the stands and the field. Could she have been wrong? Could Bagman's earlier strange behaviour simply have been debt-induced anxiety, with no darker purpose behind it?
If the woman in the photograph wasn't Bertha Jorkins—if the whole theory was wrong—they would have to abandon this line of thinking entirely and start again from nothing.
"Harry's over there," Draco said, pointing to a corner of the field.
Harry was in conversation with someone: a smallish figure clutching an enormous camera, bouncing excitedly on the spot and taking photographs at irregular intervals. Colin Creevey.
Hermione felt the shape of the work ID through her pocket and said, "Good. Come on—let's do this before the match starts."
---
Harry Potter had been ambushed by Colin Creevey and was not sure how to escape.
"Harry! I got them all—you have to look at these!" Colin was waving a thick sheaf of parchment and making it rustle enthusiastically. He thrust it at Harry. "All three! Just like you said!"
"What is this?" Harry asked, not yet daring to take it, in case this was one of Colin's more elaborate setups.
"Interviews—from the other three champions! You said you'd agree to do mine if I got all three—remember?" Colin pushed the parchment into his hands anyway. "Have a look! Can we schedule a time?"
Harry stared. He had assumed that three champions of varying degrees of pride and irritability would never agree to be interviewed by Colin Creevey. But the parchment in his hands was full of detailed, vivid, apparently genuine responses—including some surprisingly personal answers that didn't read like fabrications.
"See? I even rescheduled a feature I had planned to focus entirely on this 'Four Champions Special Edition,'" Colin said, rubbing his hands together with gleeful anticipation. "It really wasn't easy."
"I—" Harry fumbled for the right words. He was about to try to wiggle out of it when he spotted Hermione and Draco cutting through the crowd toward him, waving with clear urgency.
"Perfect timing," he said, and felt genuine relief for the first time all afternoon. He raised his arm to wave back. "Colin—could we talk about this after the match? My friends need to speak with me right now—"
"Of course, Harry! No problem at all! You're very busy, I completely understand!" Colin said, beaming. He appeared entirely unaware of the politely desperate look on Harry's face. He seized Harry's hand and pumped it twice. "Thank you so much for agreeing to this! I'll find you tomorrow to confirm the time—I've been preparing questions for weeks—"
"Wait—" Harry said.
"Just a few more photos! Hold still!" Colin had already raised the camera and fired off three shots in quick succession, the flash strobing across Harry's expression of mild horror. He glanced at the photos approvingly. "Excellent. 'Focused on the eve of battle'—very good for the article—"
"I haven't actually agreed—" Harry started.
But Colin was already moving backward, camera clutched to his chest, casting a wary glance over his shoulder at Draco approaching. "I have to run—his face is absolutely terrifying!" He waved vigorously and vanished into the crowd before Harry could finish his sentence.
Harry stood there for a moment, holding a thick sheaf of interviews and not entirely sure how it had happened.
He didn't have long to wonder. Hermione was already in front of him, pulling something from her pocket and holding it up before he'd fully registered that they'd arrived.
"Harry. Have you seen this woman before?"
She held up a laminated card. In the firelight from the torches beside the field, Harry looked—
—and felt the air leave his lungs.
A plump, sullen-faced woman stared back at him from the photograph. Fear closed around his chest like a cold hand.
"That's—that's her," he said, his voice not quite steady. "That's the woman. The one Voldemort killed. Where did you get this?"
"Through some channels," Hermione said quietly. Beside her, Draco gave a brief nod.
In the shadows below the torch's reach, their hands had found each other—and now tightened.
"Who is she?" Harry asked, his voice still unsteady, the terrible familiarity of the image pulling at something in his memory.
"I'm sorry to tell you this now—but I think you need to know," Hermione said, her expression careful. "Her name is Bertha Jorkins. She's the missing Ministry employee Mrs. Weasley mentioned at lunch."
Harry's eyes widened. "She worked for Bagman?"
"That's right." Draco's voice was level and serious. "Watch those two tonight—Bagman and Karkaroff both. Keep your distance from them. Don't be alone with either of them. Don't let them stand behind you."
"I understand," Harry said, his voice quieter now.
He could hear from the certainty in their voices that this wasn't guesswork.
"They haven't come near me all day," he said, after a moment. "Karkaroff's barely looked at me. And Bagman hasn't tried to speak to me at all." He frowned. "Should I be worried about what's inside the maze itself?"
"Harry—don't panic," Hermione said, making her voice as steady as she could. "Professor Dumbledore took personal care of the Goblet of Fire. He placed it in the maze himself and cast protection Charms on it directly. He wouldn't let anything happen to you."
"And stop trying to be noble in there," Draco added, with a dryness that only barely concealed his actual concern. "The other champions are all fully intending to win. Stay alert and don't assume any of them will pull their punches."
Harry looked faintly mutinous but nodded.
From the direction of the stands came Ludo Bagman's amplified voice, startlingly close: "Champions—please assemble at the south side of the stands! We are about to begin!"
No time. Harry gave both of them a pale, quick smile and turned toward the sound, not noticing how their expressions changed the moment his back was turned.
"It's Bagman," Hermione said, watching Harry go. "It has to be. Karkaroff has no obvious connection to Bertha Jorkins. Bagman was her direct supervisor."
"Perhaps," Draco said, a slight furrow in his brow. Deep down, it still didn't entirely fit. No matter how he arranged the pieces, he couldn't quite make himself believe Bagman had gone so far as to serve the Dark Lord. But Hermione's logic was sound.
"I still don't understand why he didn't try to approach Harry today," he said.
"I don't either." Hermione glanced at him. "Come on—Professor McGonagall will have our heads if she catches us down here. Let's get back to the stands and split up to watch them."
They walked back along the edge of the field toward the side entrance. As they reached it, they found the champions already assembled and being escorted to the maze—Professor McGonagall, Professor Moody, Hagrid, and Sirius Black all standing in a line beside them.
Professor Moody was, unmistakably, himself: sallow complexion, heavy movements, but his enchanted eye still spinning with that restless, searching energy. Even as they passed, he poked the eye out of its socket, breathed on it, polished it on his sleeve, and muttered to Hagrid, "—it's never worked properly since that madman was wearing it—keeps jamming—"
Hagrid caught Hermione's eye and winked. His moleskin vest, she noticed, sported a large glittering red star on the back—the patrol insignia.
As they passed Sirius, he looked at Draco. Draco rolled his eyes. Sirius smiled his infuriating, lazy smile—the one that consistently produced small commotions among the girls near the side door.
Professor McGonagall had her back to them, speaking to the champions in a clipped, carrying voice: "We will be patrolling outside the maze throughout. If you need assistance at any point, send up red sparks and a member of staff will come to you immediately. Is that understood?"
The four champions nodded, faces set.
Hermione and Draco slipped back through the side door while McGonagall's attention was occupied. Several prefects on crowd duty were not impressed.
"Who gave you permission to be on the field? Get back to the stands—the match is starting—"
Draco looked at them. "We're back, aren't we?" he said.
"Sorry, sorry," Hermione said hastily, steering Draco through the door ahead of another incident. "Sorry. We're going. Come on," she added under her breath to him, "you promised—"
Ludo Bagman's voice rang out across the arena, reading the rules of the Tournament in his clear, carrying MC's tone. According to the standings, Cedric and Harry would enter the maze first, then Krum, and finally Fleur—each after a short interval.
The reading concluded. Despite Bagman's apparently sincere protests, Minister Fudge was handed the whistle with every expression of humble willingness. Bagman cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Minister—I need to step away briefly. Bit of a stomach complaint tonight—"
"Oh? I know an excellent remedy," Fudge said cheerfully, fiddling with the whistle. "I'll tell you when you're back."
"Very kind," Bagman said, and descended from the referee's stand. He moved through the stands, weaving through the crowded rows—and was promptly intercepted by two strikingly similar-looking young men with red hair.
"Mr. Bagman," said the one on the left pleasantly, "about our outstanding business—"
"We've been patient long enough," said the one on the right. "We'd like to settle things."
Bagman's face went cold. He shoved past them without a word and continued down the stairs.
The twins watched him go.
"He just pretended not to know us," Fred said, disgusted. "Walked straight past. Bare-faced."
"He did the same thing at the stadium earlier," George said, resigned. "Said he needed to check the Goblet of Fire and that we could discuss it later. He's just running away from us."
Hermione and Draco, making their way back up through the stands, arrived in earshot at precisely this moment.
Hermione stopped dead.
"Say that again," she said. "Bagman went to check the Goblet of Fire? Before the match?"
"Told us he had to go check on it—said we'd sort out our money afterward," Fred confirmed.
"We knew he was brushing us off," George said. "Forget it, Fred—we're not getting that money back."
Draco had gone very still.
Hermione turned to him. His expression had changed—and she recognised the look on his face, because she had worn it herself often enough.
The look of something clicking into place.
"Draco. I need the map," she said. Her voice had gone very quiet. "Right now."
"Why?" he asked, already reaching into his bag.
"Is it possible—" She spoke quickly, working through it as she spoke. "Is it possible that's not the real Bagman at all? He doesn't recognise the twins. His behaviour is completely different from a month ago. He hasn't gone anywhere near Harry all day." Her eyes were bright and urgent. "Someone could be in disguise, impersonating him. We've seen it before—think about Moody."
Draco pulled out the Marauder's Map and gripped her hand. "Let's check."
The back rows of the stands were empty—every spectator had pushed toward the front for a last look at the champions before they entered the maze. Hermione lit the tip of her wand, shielding the light with her hand, and they bent their heads together over the parchment.
On the field, near the maze entrance, one name moved at the edge of the arena.
"Walton McNeil," Hermione said, frowning. "Who is that?"
Draco's face went dark. "A former Death Eater," he said quietly. "He works for the Ministry now—Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Magical Creatures. He's the one who carries out the executions."
He remembered McNeil from his previous life—the axe that had never actually fallen on Buckbeak, and McNeil's return to the Dark Lord's side the moment Voldemort had a body again.
"He's working for Voldemort," Hermione said, staring at the moving name.
"Obviously. Why else would he be here tonight?"
"But why hasn't he gone near Harry? If Voldemort wants Harry, surely—"
"He can't Apparate with him. The Hogwarts grounds prevent it. And Dumbledore placed the Goblet in the maze himself with protective Charms—no one should be able to tamper with it—" Draco stopped.
Hermione was already ahead of him.
"Fred said he went to check the Goblet of Fire," she said. Her voice was very quiet. "Before the match. What if he tampered with something when he was there?"
The sentence landed between them like a stone into still water.
Merlin.
"Harry." Draco's face changed entirely. He seized the map and her hand in one movement. "We have to stop him getting in."
He ran.
He never ran. Not like this—not with this particular flavour of desperation, not with the composure he'd spent years cultivating abandoned entirely in favour of something raw and frantic. Hermione ran beside him, and they were the same: two people who had spent all afternoon being careful and measured and strategic, and who were now throwing all of it aside and simply running.
Down through the stands, over the steps, past the prefects who shouted after them, ignoring the professors who called out—two figures cutting across the open ground toward the maze entrance, moving as fast as they could.
The distance was nothing. In an unobstructed field, less than a minute.
But the crowd was not unobstructed, and before they were halfway there, the whistle sounded—one sharp, clear note—and Harry and Cedric, side by side, stepped forward.
"Harry!" Hermione and Draco shouted together.
The noise from the stands swallowed them whole. Hundreds of voices calling the same name—Harry's name—for entirely different reasons. Their shouts were lost in it, individual threads in a roar.
Harry did not hear them.
He did not look back.
He walked with Cedric Diggory into the dark entrance of the maze, straight-backed and unhesitating, carrying everything and knowing none of it, as the enormous hedges swung slowly, silently shut behind him.
Outside the maze, at the end of their frantic run, the two of them stopped.
Hermione pressed her hand against the hedge. It didn't move.
"Harry," she said, quietly, to the wall of green.
The hedge said nothing. It stood there, dense and implacable, and didn't care.
Draco stood beside her, the Marauder's Map still clenched in his hand, and said nothing either.
The crowd behind them was still cheering.