November 25th, 4:03 AM – Slytherin Sixth-Year Dormitory
The dream tore him out of sleep like a hex.
Small hands. His hands. Reaching.
Magic, too big for a child's body, surging up his spine and out through fingers that weren't ready for it.
A woman's laugh, warm and familiar, cutting off mid-breath.
Light. Not golden, not gentle. White-hot, uncontrolled, swallowing everything in front of him.
Then red. So much red.
Silence afterward. The kind that pressed down on his chest until he couldn't breathe. The kind that said: this is your fault. You did this. You killed her.
Theo woke choking on air that wasn't quite there, heart pounding so hard it hurt. The dormitory canopy loomed overhead, familiar and wrong in the half-dark. Sweat clung to his skin. His hands shook.
For a few seconds, he didn't know where he was. The taste of copper and ash lingered on his tongue. His chest felt too tight, like invisible hands were still pressing down.
Then the room resolved: Pucey snoring in the next bed. Montague mumbling in his sleep. Greenish light filtering in from somewhere underwater outside the Slytherin windows.
Hogwarts. Sixth year. Triwizard champion.
Not that night.
He sat up slowly, pressing his palms into his eyes until colors sparked behind his eyelids. The images were already fading, dissolving into the familiar fog his mind wrapped around them whenever they got too clear.
Just a nightmare, he told himself. The same one. Or close enough. His brain had been kind enough to blot out most of the details years ago, leaving behind only the emotional wreckage.
Guilt. Fear. Loss so vast it barely had a shape.
He wasn't getting back to sleep.
Theo swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, moving quietly so as not to wake anyone. His breaths were getting steadier, but the restless energy under his skin wasn't going anywhere.
There were only two things that ever helped when his mind got like this.
Work.
And music.
His gaze fell on the golden egg sitting on his desk, faintly gleaming even in the low light. He'd barely looked at it since the First Task. Survive dragon. Hermione's arms around him. Pomfrey's scolding. Slytherin roaring.
The egg could wait, he'd thought. But seeing the egg looking like it had been betrayed.
it seems to have decided otherwise.
He pulled on a warm jumper over his sleep shirt, took the egg, and slipped out of the dorm.
November 25th, 4:27 AM – Black Lake Shore
The cold hit him the moment he stepped out of the castle. Not the biting, cruel cold of punishment, but the clean kind that cut through the fog in his head. The kind that made things feel sharp and real.
He walked down to the Black Lake, boots crunching softly on frost-hardened ground. The sky was a deep indigo, the stars fading. The lake itself was a dark mirror, smooth and still.
Theo sat on a flat rock near the edge and set the golden egg down beside him. For a long moment, he just listened—to the soft lap of water against the shore, to his own breathing, to the faint echo of his heartbeat finally slowing.
Then he reached into his jumper pocket and pulled out a small wooden flute.
It was smooth from years of use, simple and unadorned. His father had pressed it into his hands when he was six. When your magic feels too big, he'd said, and your head feels too full, play. Give it somewhere else to go.
Theo lifted it to his lips.
The first notes were quiet, almost uncertain. Then the melody found him—or he found it. Something old and familiar, threaded with a lullaby his mother used to hum when she thought no one was listening.
The sound floated over the lake, soft and clear. The air seemed to lean in toward it. The tightness in his chest loosened with every exhale. His fingers moved without conscious thought, muscle memory doing what his mind couldn't.
Out here, at this hour, with the world half-asleep around him, it was easy to pretend there was nothing in his past but the music and the mist.
When he finally lowered the flute, the sky had lightened a fraction. His heartbeat felt like it belonged to him again.
The egg glowed quietly at his side.
"All right," he said to it. "Your turn."
He picked it up, turned it until he found the seam, and twisted.
The egg split open—
—and an inhuman screech ripped the quiet apart.
It wasn't just loud. It was wrong—a warped, underwater shrieking, like someone being tortured at the bottom of a well. The sound stabbed straight through his ears into his skull. His hands spasmed.
The egg slipped from his fingers.
He grabbed at it and missed.
Golden metal flashed once in the faint light, then splashed into the Black Lake and vanished.
"Brilliant," Theo muttered.
He yanked off his boots and jumper, shoved the flute safely into his pocket, and dove.
The water was cold enough to steal his breath. For a heartbeat his body tried to seize up; then habit and sheer stubbornness forced his arms and legs into motion. He swam down, eyes strained open, searching for any hint of gold in the murky dark.
There—a glimmer.
As he reached for it, the sound hit him again.
But this time, under the water, it wasn't a shriek.
It was a song.
Clear, eerie, threaded through the water itself. Words, distinct and deliberate, wrapped in a melody that made the hair on his arms stand up.
Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching, ponder this:
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour—the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
Theo's lungs were burning. He grabbed the egg, kicked hard, and broke the surface with a gasp.
The screech returned instantly, shredding the air.
He snapped the egg shut. Silence slammed down.
He floated for a second, panting, hair plastered to his forehead, clothes heavy with water. Then he dragged himself back to shore, egg tucked firmly under one arm.
On land, he set the egg down, dried his wand with a quick charm, and cast a simple recording spell in the air above it.
"Round two," he muttered.
He opened the egg just enough to dip it in the shallows, keeping his hand on it this time. The recording charm shimmered faintly as it captured the underwater song. When it finished, he shut the egg again and replayed the charm, listening this time from the safety of the shore.
Same words. Same melody. Same unmistakable implication.
He conjured parchment and a quill with a flick and wrote the riddle out exactly, word for word, without interpretation:
Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching, ponder this:
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour—the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
He stared at the lines for a while.
He recognized the language of it—the kind of riddle that didn't want to be solved all at once. The lake, obviously. Something—or someone—he would "sorely miss". An hour underwater. Consequences for failure.
He did not try to solve it right then. His brain felt wrung out enough between old nightmares and near-hypothermia.
He dried himself and his clothes with slow, careful wandwork until he stopped shivering.
Then, because the alternative was going back to the dorm and lying awake thinking about red and silence and his mother's laugh cutting off mid-breath, he picked up his flute again.
The second melody was different. Less mournful, more searching. Notes that ran in circles, doubling back on themselves, like thought loops in musical form.
By the time the sky began to lighten properly, the tightness in his chest had eased. His eyes felt heavy in a way that had nothing to do with nightmares.
Sleep wasn't coming back. But routine might.
November 25th, 6:01 AM – Black Lake Shore
Theo's clothes were transfigured now—sweats, a light shirt, trainers. He'd long ago decided that if his mind insisted on waking him before dawn, he might as well make his body useful.
Push-ups until his arms shook. Squats. Sprints along the edge of the lake. Sit-ups on the same flat rock where he'd been playing minutes earlier, facing the water, breath fogging in the cold air.
He was halfway through a set of sit-ups when footsteps crunched on the frosted ground behind him.
"You started without me."
Theo didn't need to turn to know who it was. "You were late."
Hermione came into his peripheral vision and dropped down onto the rock beside him, setting a Thermos and two metal cups between them. She was bundled in her thick coat, scarf wrapped tight, nose already pink from the cold.
"It's six in the morning," she said. "Most people aren't awake, let alone exercising."
He finished the set, exhaled, and flopped back onto the stone for a moment, staring up at the pale sky. "I'm not most people."
"I've noticed," Hermione said dryly. She glanced toward the lake, then back at him with narrowed eyes. "You didn't go swimming this morning, did you?"
"Define swimming," Theo said.
Her expression sharpened. "Theo."
"I dropped the egg in the lake," he admitted. "Had to retrieve it. That's not the same as recreational swimming."
"You dove into the Black Lake in November," she said flatly. "At four in the morning. In the dark."
"It was important," he said.
"That's not the defense you think it is," Hermione said, but she was already pouring tea into both cups with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd decided arguing was less effective than just being present. "This is exactly why I asked to join you. You have no concept of reasonable risk assessment."
"I fought a dragon," Theo pointed out, sitting up and accepting the tea she offered. "I think my risk assessment is fine."
"You were grinning at a dragon while it tried to kill you," Hermione corrected. "Your risk assessment is not fine."
He took a sip of tea—hot, sweet, perfect. "You know, most people would just say 'good morning' and move on."
"Most people aren't trying to keep you alive," she said. Her tone was light, but there was genuine worry underneath it.
Theo looked at her for a moment—windswept hair, determined expression, sitting on a freezing rock at dawn because she'd decided he needed supervision.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For being here."
Hermione's expression softened. "You're welcome," she said. Then, more firmly: "But if I catch you diving in again without a good reason, I'm telling McGonagall."
"Noted," Theo said, fighting a smile.
Her gaze slid to the golden egg sitting a little farther up the shore, safely away from the water this time. "So. You opened it?"
"Yes," Theo said. "And discovered it's much less threatening underwater than above it."
December 10th – Transfiguration Classroom
McGonagall stood at the front of the room, hands clasped behind her back, expression giving nothing away. That, in Theo's experience, was usually a sign of imminent institutional discomfort.
"The Yule Ball," she said, voice crisp enough to cut parchment, "is a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament. It will be held on Christmas Eve. Formal attire is required. Champions and their partners will open the dancing."
The ripple that went through the room this time was different from the ones that greeted dragons or homework announcements. A mix of excitement, dread, and something that sounded suspiciously like giggling.
Theo stared at his desk.
A ball. Dancing. Formal robes. Public visibility. Excellent.
McGonagall went on about curfew, appropriate behavior, and the definition of "festive" not including Weasley-brand fireworks. Theo only half-heard. His brain was stuck on one word.
Partners.
Who was he supposed to ask?
His mind helpfully replayed images: Hermione frowning at a particularly dense paragraph. Hermione pacing while trying to untangle theoretical spellwork. Hermione laughing at something he'd said without meaning to be funny. Hermione standing by the lake at dawn, handing him tea like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
The idea landed with the solid inevitability of a falling stone.
Hermione.
The thought itself felt… straightforward. The implications did not. Something fizzed under his ribs—anticipation wound tight with a thread of something else he wasn't ready to name.
McGonagall dismissed the class. Theo gathered his things on autopilot.
Ask her, he told himself as he walked toward the library that evening. Before someone else does.
The possibility that someone else might already have occurred to him made his jaw clench in a way he didn't examine too closely.
December 12th – Library, Evening
The library felt different in December. Same shelves, same tables, same Madam Pince lurking, but the air had a faint, distant hint of pine and smoke from the Great Hall decorations. Someone in Ravenclaw had charmed a string of tiny golden stars to drift lazily near the ceiling above their usual table until Pince nearly had an aneurysm and banned decorative magic in the stacks.
Theo and Hermione were surrounded by books on underwater magic: gillyweed, Bubble-Head Charms, old accounts of merpeople encounters, speculative essays on deep-water enchantments. Parchment lay between them, ideas half-scribbled, crossed out, rewritten.
Hermione was frowning at a passage in Advanced Magical Aquatics, quill poised, lips moving as she skimmed.
Theo wasn't reading at all.
He was watching her.
Not overtly. Not staring like an idiot. Just… noticing.
The way a stray curl had escaped and was tickling her cheek. The tiny ink smear on the side of her finger where she'd caught a spill without realizing. The way she chewed the inside of her lip when she was about to disagree with a book.
Hermione looked up suddenly. "What?"
"Nothing," Theo said, a beat too fast. "Just thinking."
"About what?" she asked.
"Underwater breathing," he said. "And social obligations."
Her eyebrows arched. "That's a very specific combination."
"It's a very specific month," he said.
She huffed, but there was a faint smile tugging at her mouth now.
He took a breath.
"Hermione," he said, keeping his tone casual by force. "Do you have a date to the Yule Ball yet?"
She blinked. "No," she said slowly. "I—haven't really thought about it. Why?"
It shouldn't have felt like walking into dragon fire. It did.
"I was wondering if you'd want to go," Theo said. "With me."
For a heartbeat, the world went very quiet.
Hermione stared at him, eyes wide. Her quill hovered over the parchment, ink gathering at the tip.
"With you," she repeated, like testing the words.
"Yes," Theo said. His pulse was ridiculous. "I have it on good authority that turning up alone as a champion is a social death sentence. And you're the only person I spend enough time with that it wouldn't feel like trying to make small talk with a stranger all night."
A corner of her mouth quirked. "That's a very unromantic way of asking."
"I can add flowers to the sentence if you like," he said. "Though they'd probably wilt from the shock."
She laughed—soft, delighted, surprised. The sound hit him harder than he liked.
"Do you want the honest answer?" she asked.
"Generally, yes," he said.
"I was hoping you would ask," Hermione said. Her cheeks had gone faintly pink.
Theo's brain did something that could only be described as short-circuiting. "You were."
"Yes." She looked down at her notes for a second, then back up at him. "I like spending time with you. Going to the Ball with anyone else would feel… wrong."
He felt something in his chest loosen, then settle in a new configuration entirely.
"Then it's settled," he said, trying for light and landing somewhere closer to sincere. "We'll go together."
"Good," Hermione said. Her smile was a little shy now, which was new and unexpectedly devastating. "Just—don't wait till the day before to think about your dress robes."
"I prefer to live dangerously," Theo said, because joking was easier than acknowledging the way his heart was trying to beat its way out of his ribs.
"You already fought a dragon," she reminded him. "That quota is filled for the year."
He rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll attempt to be responsible."
She shook her head but her eyes were bright. "This is going to be... nice," she said quietly, almost like she was afraid to jinx it.
He held her gaze for a heartbeat too long. "Yeah," he said. "It is."
They went back to their notes, but the air between them had shifted. Not dramatically. Not in a way anyone else would have noticed. Just a new awareness, a shared anticipation that threaded through the quiet rustle of pages and the scratch of quills.
Outside, the Black Lake lay still and dark, holding its secrets and its song.
Inside, Theodore Hale—dragon survivor, transfiguration prodigy, boy who smiled at death like it was fun—sat in the library and felt something gentler and more terrifying take root.
For the first time in a long time, the future didn't feel like a sentence to endure.
It felt like something he might actually want.