December 24th. Black Lake. Early afternoon.
The castle had exhaled.
Most students had gone home for Christmas, and the ones who remained had retreated to the warmth of the common rooms and the Great Hall, where Dumbledore had arranged a modest holiday feast. The grounds were empty. The sky was the flat, featureless white of a world that had run out of ideas.
Arthur sat at the lake's edge on a flat rock, elbows on his knees, watching the water.
The Giant Squid was close to the surface today. It did that sometimes in winter — drifted up from the deep cold into the slightly less cold, its enormous reddish-brown tentacles breaking the surface in slow, languorous arcs. Arthur had been watching it for twenty minutes.
"How do you think a spell is created," he said, not loudly. Just into the air above the water.
A tentacle rose, curled, and slapped back down.
Don't know. Don't care.
The meaning arrived not in words but in sensation — a wet, bored heaviness, like something very old being asked a very small question.
Arthur huffed once. Almost a laugh.
He looked down at his hands. The gold rings in his eyes caught the flat winter light, reflecting nothing interesting back.
Spells had to start somewhere. Someone, at some point, had pointed a stick at the world and decided it should be different, and the world had agreed. That was the part that didn't make sense. The agreement. Magic obeying intent before anyone had codified what intent even meant in spellwork.
He was still turning that over when he heard the footsteps.
Unhurried. Slightly uneven — the gait of someone who'd been walking without a destination and ended up here by accident. Or something close to accident.
Arthur didn't turn around.
Harry Potter sat down on the rock beside him. Not close enough to crowd, not far enough to be pointed about it. He looked out at the lake, shoved his hands into his pockets, and said nothing.
The Giant Squid drifted past.
"It's Christmas Eve," Harry said eventually.
"I'm aware."
"Everyone else is inside."
"Also aware."
Harry nodded slowly, like Arthur had said something worth considering. He watched a tentacle break the surface and slide back under. "Does it actually understand you?"
"Loosely," Arthur said. "It finds most things beneath its attention."
"What were you asking it?"
Arthur was quiet for a moment. "How spells are invented."
Harry looked at him then — a sideways glance, brief, measuring. "What did it say?"
"It doesn't know. It doesn't care."
Harry almost smiled. "Helpful."
"Remarkably."
The water moved in slow, dark rolls. Somewhere above them a crow cut across the white sky and disappeared. Neither of them spoke for long enough that the silence stopped being uncomfortable and became something else.
"The egg's still giving me nothing," Harry said. It wasn't a complaint. Just a fact, delivered to the middle distance.
Arthur said nothing.
"I know I'm running out of time," Harry continued, quieter now. "I know I should be — Hermione keeps saying I should be worried. I am worried. I just can't seem to—" He stopped. Exhaled. "I don't know."
Arthur looked at the water.
"You're waiting for it to feel real," Arthur said.
Harry turned to look at him properly.
"You survived the first task," Arthur continued, his voice level. "Your mind is still catching up to the fact that you're alive. It hasn't finished being surprised yet. So everything after feels abstract." He paused. "It'll feel real soon enough. Whether you're ready or not."
Harry was quiet for a moment. "That's not very comforting."
"No."
Another silence. The squid surfaced briefly, one eye the size of a dinner plate regarding them both with absolute indifference before sinking again.
"Arthur," Harry said.
Something in his tone made Arthur still.
"Are you alright?"
The question was simple. Honest in the way Harry was always honest. He wasn't asking about the tournament. He was just asking.
Arthur opened his mouth.
Closed it.
The gold in his eyes flickered once, briefly, before settling.
"I'm functional," he said.
Harry looked at him for a long moment. Long enough that Arthur felt the edge of it.
"Right," Harry said finally. Quietly.
He didn't push. He just turned back to the lake, shoulders settling slightly, like he'd expected that answer and had decided to stay anyway.
They sat there for another while — the two of them, the water, the indifferent squid — while the castle behind them glowed with firelight and the distant sound of people who had somewhere warm to be.
Arthur didn't leave.
Neither did Harry.
---
December 24th. Slytherin Common Room. Evening.
The common room was nearly empty.
A few fifth years were camped near the fireplace with their textbooks, the kind of students who treated Christmas break as a personal failing. Otherwise the room belonged to the green-lit quiet and the slow drift of shadows across the stone.
Draco was already in Arthur's usual chair when Arthur came in from outside. Not sitting in it to claim it — just sitting in it because it was closest to the fire and Draco had always been pragmatic about warmth. He had a book open on his knee that he wasn't reading.
He looked up when Arthur entered.
"You smell like lake," Draco said.
"Hello to you too."
Arthur dropped into the chair opposite, unwinding his scarf. His hair was damp at the ends. His cheeks were still faintly red from the cold.
Draco looked at him the way he always did — assessing, but without the performance of it. Just taking stock.
"You were outside this whole time?"
"Most of it."
"It's December."
"I noticed."
Draco closed the book. "Potter find you?"
Arthur glanced at him. "What makes you think—"
"Because he went outside looking for someone and came back looking less like a disaster than usual," Draco said simply. "Process of elimination."
Arthur said nothing. Which was, with Draco, the same as confirming it.
Draco stretched his legs out toward the fire. "How's he holding up?"
"He'll manage."
"That's not what I asked."
Arthur looked at him. Draco met the look without blinking.
"He's scared," Arthur said. "He's hiding it under stubbornness. It's working well enough."
Draco nodded, satisfied with the honesty if not the news. He was quiet for a moment, watching the fire. "My father asked about you in his last letter."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "About me specifically."
"He heard you came back from Ilvermorny looking—" Draco paused, choosing the word carefully, "—changed. He wanted to know if you'd aligned yourself with anyone."
"And what did you tell him?"
"That you were the same insufferable person you'd always been and he should mind his own business." Draco's mouth curved faintly. "In more diplomatic language."
Arthur huffed. "Did he believe you?"
"Probably not. He never believes anything that doesn't confirm what he already thinks." Draco shrugged, something practiced in the looseness of it. "He means well. In his way."
Arthur looked at the fire. "Does he."
"He does," Draco said, and there was something in his voice that wasn't quite defensiveness — more like a very old tiredness. "He just expresses it in ways that are aggressively difficult to appreciate."
A log shifted in the grate, sending a brief shower of sparks upward.
"Pansy asked me who I was taking to the Yule Ball," Draco said, the subject change seamless enough that Arthur almost missed it.
"And?"
"I told her I hadn't decided yet." He glanced sideways. "She made a face like I'd insulted her ancestors."
"You probably had," Arthur said. "Indirectly."
"Everything with Pansy is indirect," Draco muttered. He tilted his head. "What about you."
"What about me."
"The Ball, Arthur."
Arthur looked at him flatly. "I wasn't planning on going."
Draco stared at him. "It's mandatory."
"Things that are mandatory and things I do are not always the same list."
"Dumbledore will—"
"Draco."
"Fine." Draco sighed with the weight of a man twice his age. "But for the record, standing in a corner looking menacing for three hours is not an acceptable substitute for actually attending."
"I've done it before."
"I know. It was deeply antisocial."
"Thank you."
Draco shook his head, but the corner of his mouth was doing something against his will. He looked back at the fire. "My mother sent me a package. Robes for the Ball. They're green."
"Naturally."
"She also sent shortbread. The good kind." He reached down beside the chair and produced a tin, which he dropped onto the small table between them. "She always sends too much. I don't know why she still does it. Old habit, probably."
Arthur looked at the tin.
Something about the image — the firelight, the green-lit room, the tin of shortbread sitting between them like it was the most normal thing in the world — sat in his chest differently than he expected.
He opened the tin. Took a piece.
They sat in silence for a while, eating Narcissa Malfoy's shortbread, listening to the fire, while the fifth years across the room quietly argued about Transfiguration theory and someone's cat knocked a textbook off a table with immense satisfaction.
"Blaise has been writing to that girl from Beauxbatons," Draco said eventually. "The one with the red ribbon."
"She's out of his league."
"Astronomically. He doesn't care." A pause. "I respect that, actually."
"You would."
"What's that supposed to mean."
"Nothing. It's a compliment."
Draco looked unconvinced but let it go. He reached for another piece of shortbread. "Theo's convinced he's going to ask Daphne."
"He's been convinced of that since second year."
"This time he wrote it in his planner. Apparently that makes it official."
Arthur shook his head slowly. "He's going to lose his nerve at the last possible moment."
"Obviously. But the planner was a nice touch." Draco paused. "She'd probably say yes, you know. Daphne. If he actually asked."
"I know."
"Theo doesn't."
"I know that too."
Draco looked at him sideways. "You know everything, apparently."
"I know enough," Arthur said. "Not everything."
The fire crackled. Outside, the wind had picked up, pressing against the castle walls with a low, sustained moan that was almost musical. The lake would be choppy tonight, the Giant Squid descended back into the deep cold.
Arthur ate his shortbread.
The world was — not fine, exactly. That wasn't the right word and he didn't reach for it. But it was present. The fire was warm, the shortbread was good, and Draco was sitting across from him talking about Theo's planner with the comfortable irritation of someone who'd known him too long to pretend otherwise.
Arthur leaned back in his chair.
For the first time in longer than he could accurately measure, nothing was asking anything of him.
It was a small thing.
He held it anyway.
---
December 24th. Gryffindor Common Room. Night.
The fire had burned down to embers.
Most of Gryffindor tower had gone quiet — students either asleep or in the Great Hall finishing the last of the Christmas Eve food. The common room held only three people and the specific tension that existed between people who cared about each other and were currently failing to show it well.
Hermione sat cross-legged on the hearthrug, the golden egg open in her lap, a stack of notes beside her that she'd clearly been adding to for weeks. Her quill was moving even as she talked, the way it always did when she was agitated — like her hand needed something to do while her mouth worked.
"You have to actually engage with it, Harry," she said, for what was evidently not the first time tonight. "It's been a month. The second task is in February. That's—"
"Ten weeks," Harry said, from the sofa. He was staring at the ceiling. "I know."
"Then why aren't you—"
"Because I survived the first one," Harry said, not unkindly. "And my brain keeps stopping there."
Hermione's quill paused. "That's not a strategy."
"I know."
"Knowing isn't the same as—"
"Hermione." Ron looked up from the chess board he'd been dismantling and reassembling out of boredom. "There's still time."
"There is not still time, there are ten weeks and the clue is literally sitting in his lap making noise—"
"It's not making noise right now—"
"Because it's closed, Ron, if he opens it—"
"Then we'd all go deaf, we've established that—"
"The point," Hermione said, with the controlled precision of someone who had been having this argument in various forms for several days, "is that he needs to work it out. And he's not working it out. And I don't understand why."
Ron opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at Harry.
Harry was still staring at the ceiling, one arm draped over his eyes. He looked less like someone ignoring the problem and more like someone who had looked directly at it and come back slightly hollowed out.
Ron's expression shifted. Something quieter moving across his face.
"He'll figure it out," Ron said, but softer this time. Not dismissive. Almost careful.
Hermione looked at Ron, then at Harry, then back at Ron.
"Something happened to him," she said. Not accusatory. Just — saying it. Like she'd been turning it over for a while and had finally decided to put it down somewhere.
Ron frowned. "What do you mean."
"After the first task." Hermione set the quill down properly this time. "He came back different. Not just — shaken, everyone was shaken. Something else. Like something shifted."
Harry lifted his arm from his eyes and looked at her.
"I'm right here," he said mildly.
"I know," Hermione said. "I'm talking to Ron."
Harry considered that, apparently decided it was fair, and put his arm back.
"You think it was the dragon?" Ron asked.
"I think it was before the dragon," Hermione said quietly. "I think something happened that we don't know about. And I think—" She stopped.
Ron waited.
"I think Arthur knows what it was," she finished.
The fire popped softly in the grate.
Ron was quiet for a moment, turning a chess piece over in his fingers. A knight, missing one ear from an old argument with a rook. "Arthur's been—" He paused. Started again. "Have you noticed he doesn't eat in the Great Hall anymore. Like, ever."
Hermione frowned. "He eats."
"Does he?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
"He was at the lake today," Harry said, from under his arm. "Most of the afternoon."
Both of them looked at him.
"I went out there," Harry continued, his voice even, directed at the ceiling. "We talked. It was fine."
"Fine how," Hermione said carefully.
Harry was quiet for a moment.
"He said he was functional," Harry said.
The word landed in the room and sat there.
Ron put the chess piece down.
Hermione looked at the golden egg in her lap, then at the fire, then at nothing in particular. Her expression had the quality of someone doing arithmetic that kept coming out wrong.
"Functional," she repeated.
"Yeah."
Nobody said anything for a while.
Then Ron shifted, pulling his knees up, his expression doing the thing it did when he was about to say something he'd been avoiding. "Right. Different topic before this gets too depressing." He looked at Harry. "The Ball's tomorrow."
Harry groaned.
"I know," Ron said, with feeling. "Believe me."
"Please tell me you've sorted your date situation," Hermione said, grateful for the redirect even if she'd never admit it.
Ron's ears went pink. "I asked someone."
Hermione looked up. "Who?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Ron."
"She said no," Ron said, with the flat resignation of a man who had fully processed this and moved on through sheer force of denial. "It's fine. I'm going with Padma Patil."
"That's—" Hermione paused. "How does Padma feel about that."
"Probably fine," Ron said, in a way that suggested he had not asked Padma how she felt about that.
Hermione pressed her lips together.
Harry lowered his arm from his eyes. "I asked Cho."
"And?" Hermione said.
"She's going with Cedric."
The fire crackled.
"Right," Ron said.
"Yeah," Harry agreed.
"So who are you going with?" Hermione asked.
"Parvati Patil."
Hermione blinked. "You and Ron are going with the Patil twins."
"We are."
"Did you coordinate that?"
"No," both of them said simultaneously, which somehow made it worse.
Hermione rubbed her temple. "This is going to be a disaster."
"It'll be fine," Ron said.
"You said that about the egg."
"The egg situation is different—"
"Ron."
"Hermione." Ron looked at her properly then, something shifting in his expression. Half exasperated, half something more careful. "Are you going with anyone?"
Hermione's quill went very still.
"Yes," she said.
Ron stared at her. "Who."
"Someone."
"Someone who?"
"Someone who asked," Hermione said, with the precise, deliberate composure of someone who had been waiting several weeks to deploy that sentence.
Ron opened his mouth. Closed it. The chess knight in his hand got turned over twice in quick succession.
Harry looked between them with the expression of someone watching a Quidditch match from directly below — technically present but entirely unable to see what was happening.
"Good," Ron said finally. Stiffly.
"Yes," Hermione agreed. Pleasantly.
Another silence.
"I think Arthur's going," Harry said, mostly to fill the space.
Both of them looked at him.
"He said he wasn't planning on it," Harry continued. "But I think Malfoy would tell him how mandatory it is."
Ron snorted despite himself. "Bet that would go well."
"I think Malfoy would win eventually. By attrition."
Hermione's expression shifted — something between amusement and that same quiet arithmetic from before. "Who would he go with?"
Harry shrugged. "Can't say."
"I can't imagine Arthur Reeves at a Ball," Ron said. "Like — physically. I can't picture it."
"He'll probably stand in a corner," Hermione said.
"Looking menacing," Harry agreed.
"For three hours," Hermione finished.
They looked at each other.
Ron laughed first — a short, surprised sound. Harry followed. Even Hermione's mouth curved despite herself, the tension in the room releasing by several degrees into something warmer and more manageable.
"Someone should warn whoever he goes with," Ron said.
"He's probably going alone," Harry said.
"Obviously," Hermione said.
But she said it fondly. And that was different from how she'd said his name an hour ago, when it had carried the weight of something unresolved.
The fire burned lower. Outside, the wind pressed against the glass, carrying the particular silence of Christmas Eve — the whole world paused and waiting for something.
"We should sleep," Hermione said eventually, closing her notebook. "It's late. And tomorrow's going to be—"
"A disaster," Ron and Harry said together.
Hermione stood, gathering her notes. "I was going to say long." She looked at them both — at Ron with his pink ears and his chess knight, at Harry with his arm back over his eyes and the golden egg sitting forgotten on the cushion beside him.
Something moved across her face that she didn't put into words.
"Goodnight," she said.
"Night," they said.
She climbed the stairs.
Ron looked at Harry.
Harry looked at the ceiling.
"We're going to be terrible dates," Ron said.
"Absolutely," Harry agreed.
"The Patil twins deserve better."
"Without question."
Ron picked up the chess knight again. Put it down. "He really said functional?"
Harry nodded, once.
Ron was quiet for a moment. Then: "That's a bit grim, isn't it."
"Yeah," Harry said. "It is."
The embers shifted, a small collapse of orange light brightening briefly before fading. Outside the tower windows the grounds were dark and empty below, the lake sitting cold and still under a Christmas sky, keeping whatever it knew entirely to itself.
Neither of them said anything else.