Sean wolfed down his lunch at top speed on the first day of the new term. He was determined to spend a few solid minutes in the library preparing for the second task. He and Evelyn had spent the remainder of break pouring through books again, searching for any spell that might be useful, any tidbit that could save his life, or at least spare him a few seconds of panic. The dread had not truly begun to sink in until that morning, however. He had written the date for the first time since break had begun a few weeks previously, scratching it down in neat numerals on the top of his notes in that morning's lesson: 12 January. The month was near half gone already.

And the task was the first weekend of February.

Worst of all was that Quidditch practices started again the next week, and he knew Marlowe would not let him skip out.

In under five minutes, Sean was slinging his bag over his shoulder again. "Are you coming, Ev?" he asked, clambering over the bench.

She looked up startled. She'd only just finished cutting her chicken. "I-"

"Never mind," he said. "It's fine. I'll see you later." He strode off, checking his watch. He could get a good twenty minutes in if he walked fast. The library was not far from his next lesson. He had just finished rereading Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and was hoping to peruse a few volumes with more in depth information of the native creatures of each school's area of Europe. This had been Evelyn's brilliant idea, apparently based on something she had overheard Mr. Fenwick let slip at the ball about "national representation" and "recognizing our differences as our strengths."

---

Back at the Ravenclaw table, Caiti watched Sean go, her brow creased and her chin tucked back. She picked up the salt shaker and sprinkled some on her green beans. "You know, you don't have to help him all the time. He's the one who was an idiot and entered the tournament in the first place," she said to Evelyn.

"Hey!" said Marlowe, shoving her playfully. Caiti ignored him.

"I mean it. You're his best friend and you're his girlfriend, but you are not his tutor."

"I know, I know," Evelyn sighed, stabbing her chicken. "I just want to support him."

"And you do. And he knows that. Just don't forget you have things to do of your own. He may not have to take exams at the end of the year, but you do." Caiti snatched a crisp of Marlowe's plate. (She felt better pretending she wasn't eating them. If they were not actually on her plate, it didn't count.)

He swatted her hand away and said, "Get your own."

"He's taking them anyway," Evelyn said to Caiti. "He thinks N.E.W.T.'s are too important to skip. And it makes sense. I mean, eventually, employers will care more what subjects he passed than whether or not he was a Triwizard Champion, though that's certainly a good boost for his resume."

"You overachievers wear me out," said Caiti. She stole another crisp. "I'm just trying to be decent at one thing."

"Decent," snorted Marlowe. This time, he scooped up some of the crisps and put them on Caiti's plate.

"But anyway, back to the point," she said. She picked up the crisps and put them back on Marlowe's plate. She took one back and popped it in her mouth. Marlowe looked exasperated. "Don't feel like you have to do it for him. If you want to go to bed or write your own essay or eat your lunch at a healthy pace, you do it. And if he gets mad about it, I'll be having a word with him. You're doing too much already and he'd better appreciate you."

"He does," said Evelyn quietly.

"Well you let me know if he's an idiot, alright?"

One side of Evelyn's lips quirked up. "Will do," she said.

---

When classes ended that day, Sean took Evelyn's hand outside their classroom and rounded the corner heading, not towards Ravenclaw tower, but the library. Their professors had evidently decided to pretend there had never been a break at all. Evelyn had already been assigned a complicated rune translation, a three foot essay for transfiguration, and six chapters of divination reading on horoscopes and tarot cards.

Remembering Caiti's conversation with her at lunch, Evelyn almost hesitated. But Sean glanced at her and said, "So I thought maybe you could look for some good defensive spells while I finish up about the magical creatures. What do you think?"

Evelyn could not help herself. She could not say no to him. After all, he needed the help and the support. This tournament was bigger than her homework.

"Yeah," she said, forcing a smile. "Yeah, that sounds good." She would just have to stay up late when they were finished and do her homework. She knew there wouldn't be time to do it tomorrow; Sean would need her help again. She could not put her own work off.

In the library, they dropped their bags at a large dark wood table where they could spread everything out, and then set off to find a stack of books each to peruse. Evelyn entered the row on defensive magic, a few paces down from where Sean was looking. She crossed her arms and walked up and down the aisle, scanning the titles. A few looked promising including At Wit's End: Defensive Magic for The Last Second by Jessica Fastbender and The Brave Wizard's Guide to Self-Defense by Terrence Armstrong.

She beat Sean back to the table. He came over a minute later with so many books in his arms that he could not see over the pile. He let them fall onto the table, making a considerable amount of noise. The librarian hurried to shush them.

"You can't possibly make it through all those tonight," Evelyn whispered.

"Well if I don't, I'll just bring them back to the common room," Sean said, already opening the first.

"Sean," said Evelyn, putting a hand on the book so he could not read. He looked at her. Careful to keep her voice hushed, she continued, "I'm not saying you shouldn't take this seriously, but we have three weeks. There's plenty of time."

"Three weeks," Sean repeated. "Three weeks to prepare for what could be a life-threatening task that I know next to nothing about."

Evelyn tipped her head to the right with a gentle frown. "But you haven't had three weeks," she insisted. "You've had six and a half years." He started to protest, but she shook her head, "Stop, stop. Listen to me. You've had six and a half years of learning how to do magic. You're a great student, a great wizard. The Goblet of Fire knew that already or it wouldn't have picked you. If you couldn't do this, even without preparation, you wouldn't have been chosen."

"Well the judges keep saying we should be preparing ourselves-"

"And I'm not saying you shouldn't, I'm just saying," she dropped her voice even lower because the Madam Page was looking their way again, "that you shouldn't let yourself think three weeks is all you've got. Don't forget about everything you already know. That isn't useless and it isn't not preparing either. I think you're more stressed than you need to be."

Sean sucked his cheeks in, chewing on them. Evelyn knew he did this when he was thinking. His brown eyes locked on hers. He let his cheeks back out again and looked at his watch. "We're wasting time," he said.

Evelyn couldn't help letting out a moody sigh. She slumped over, chin on her elbow, and opened one of the books she had pulled out. Sean had always been stubborn. She should have realized there would be no reasoning with him.

---

"I'm sure you're all aware, at this point, of what's happened in the Daily Prophet," said Professor Mason at the start of class that Wednesday. He was sitting on the edge of his desk with his hands pressed down and shoulders up by his ears. Evelyn felt her stomach turn over. She did not know what had happened. For once, she had not been keeping up with her nightly patrol of the paper, searching for any reported incidents relevant to the other small articles she had discovered. She had been so busy helping Sean as often as possible, and then staying up late to finish all the homework she had been assigned that her Prophets had been relegated to an ever-growing pile on her bedside table with the intention of catching up later.

"I wanted to take a minute away from what the ministry thinks you ought to learn for your N.E.W.T.'s because this, what's happening, is real Defense Against the Dark Arts, happening right in front of you. This is why we learn this stuff." He punctuated his words, looking around at them all. His eyes were hard and serious. It struck Evelyn that the fact that she noticed this meant something in itself. Professor Mason was, after all, always serious.

Everyone had begun whispering to their neighbors and giving each other meaningful looks. Evelyn glanced at Sean, and was relieved that he did not seem to know what was happening either. Neither did Marlowe, on Sean's other side, though this did not surprise her. Marlowe took very little interest in the news.

"I'm not sure how many of you read the papers regularly. And even those who do have to know you can't always trust them. But you also have to know when you can. Miss O'Sullivan, I know you've picked up on the pattern."

Evelyn felt like her face was on fire at being called out. She hoped he did not ask her to contribute anything on the latest - whatever it was - because she did not want him to know that she had been less watchful recently. She tried to smile a little, but let her eyes flicker down to the desk quickly.

"Now, just in case you haven't heard," he continued, "A recent issue of the Daily Prophet was sent out as usual, the employees unaware that the front page had been, for lack of a better term, hijacked. A group which we now know for sure has aligned themselves with historical terrorist group, the Death Eaters, released their manifesto on the front page, hidden, of course, behind the text of the original front page article. Easy enough to miss, unless someone was sitting across from you when you opened the paper to the next page and suddenly saw the words and images change before their eyes.

"In brief, their goal is to overthrow the International Statute of Secrecy. They do not wish to hide their magic any longer, or to, as they put it, allow wizards to be 'relegated to small areas while muggles are allowed the world.' They believe that magical ability gives them the right to rule. This is, of course, a ridiculous idea. Muggle technology is its own kind of magic. Neither of us is more powerful than the other. We are simply different."

He paused here, looking around as though daring someone to challenge him. Evelyn's cheeks were still hot with embarrassment, but the rest of her had gone icy. She felt Sean's fingers brush her forearm under the desk.

Someone behind her must have raised their hand in the silence, because Professor Mason nodded and a girl's voice spoke up saying, "Why do they want to liberate all those magical creatures? What's that going to do for them?"

Professor Mason sighed before he answered. "They don't realize," he began, slowly, "what 'liberation' as they call it will not do for them. First of all, they've neglected to understand that centaurs and goblins... they don't want to be recognized members of wizard society. They don't consider themselves lesser, or downtrodden. They are separate. If anything, goblins think themselves a higher species. Centaurs are naturally distant from wizards. They are not animals, nor are they humans. They live outside our laws and ways of life, and they have very little interest in becoming more in tune with us. They do not see our magic as anything to gain from, although Goblins would certainly like to possess wands themselves. They don't want to be our dependents. Both would see being rescued, so to speak, by wizards, as demeaning. You can see, still, why these particular wizards would want them on their side. Extremely intelligent, powerful abilities. If, indeed, they were interested, their increased communication with wizards would certainly reap benefits. But it is unlikely to ever happen.

"Then you have giants who have been all but tramped out by wizards forcing them into hiding. They've got a grievance with us that won't be easily given up. Of course all these people see is giant power, strength, terror - it's tempting, if you're looking for world domination, to have the giants on your side. But giants have, once before, been allowed a certain amount of free reign, by none other than the original death eaters and their leader, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. When he was vanquished, the giants were naturally driven right back into hiding, and they will not be likely to trust us again.

"And then there are werewolves, the most like us, because they are of course, wizards first. Dangerous beyond their own control. The laws that regulate them were written with werewolf contribution, based on their own fears. They isolated themselves previously due to their own fear of themselves. This proved not to be the best method. It bred jealousy and hatred, and led many to embrace their own danger instead of hiding from it. We're finally making strides towards reintegrating werewolves into wizarding society, and a removal of the laws, which these new death eaters claim 'limit' werewolves, would uproot everything. There is a certain inconvenience undoubtedly, to having to register oneself, to make oneself known to others, but those who wrote the laws, both infected with lycanthropy and not, believe it is the best way to ensure the safety of others without banishing the werewolf community.

"I don't believe the new death eaters have looked into what the future would really be like with these powerful and dangerous creatures given so much freedom and prestige. I think they see them as valuable tools in their plan to overthrow the system as it stands, but they haven't realized that reigning them all in again, teaching them who they're allowed to hurt and terrorize and who they are not, won't be easy, if even possible. For as I'm sure you've gathered, what they want is not, as they are claiming at this stage, equal opportunity for all magical creatures - not limited to those we've discussed, I don't doubt you've gathered that merpeople, and possibly others would be included in those they seek to gain allegiance with. What they want, really, is for wizards to rule everyone. Muggles are the start of their plan."

Evelyn was surprised to see Sean's hand go up next to her, tentative and only part way, but somehow it was comforting to know that he took this seriously too, that he cared.

"Mr. O'Connell," said Professor Mason with a nod.

"I just wondered.. Sir... what the ministry, the aurors plan to do about this? And are they concerned that... that what these people want could really happen?"

"I can only guess. My contacts at the ministry aren't keen on giving out much information at the moment, for obvious reasons. We haven't identified any of the members of this organization, you see? Hard to know who to trust. What I do know is that, while they are taking the matter very seriously, it is very unlikely that their plan, as they imagine it playing out, will be successful. 

"This is not the first time ideas like these, of wizard supremacy, have come up in a major way. It will likely not be the last either. I think one of the pitfalls of magic, of having a wand is that it is so easy to see yourself as invincible, unbreakable, unstoppable. You think you're capable of anything. And that's dangerous. 

"So though I would be very surprised if anything became of this long term, I do not see it as a matter to take lightly. The danger is still very real, very prevalent. It's going to cause a lot of trouble, especially until we're able to track some of the members down and start whittling away at their numbers. I think, in answer to your question, that that's the first priority. Find them."

---

Though Sean felt sure he would regret it later, he knew how important the muggle baitings and the pattern of incidents was to Evelyn, how much it upset her every time she read something new. So he sat himself on a sofa in the common room, waited for Evelyn to return with her papers, and tried not to think about the list of spells they had been compiling for him to practice and perfect before the second task.

She tromped downstairs with a dozen or so papers in her arms and dropped them next to him. "Alright, I'm going to open them, you look to see if the front page changes alright?"

"Got it," said Sean. Evelyn lifted the first paper in front of her and opened to page two.

"Anything?" she asked.

"Nope," said Sean. She threw the paper on the floor and picked up the next, and the next, and the next. It was not until the eighth paper that they found it. "There!" said Sean. The paper had gone inky black with white text and all kinds of intricate woven designs, among them, various magical creatures connected in a gruesome manner by vines that seemed to be growing from their limbs. A masked wizard stood at the top of the page, above the text, his wand held aloft, a figure of power, a conqueror. Beneath the wizard, the other creatures looked to be placed in a strategic order of power, a sort of food chain. "Woah," said Sean. He had not read a single word and already he felt sick to his stomach.

"What?!" asked Evelyn. She tried to turn it around but as soon as she began to close the paper it disappeared. She flipped it around so that it was lying open with the front page up, but still the headline read "Owl Post Under Severe Delays Due to Extreme Cold Temps."

"Here I'll hold it up for you to read," said Sean. "Must be the only way. And then you can hold it for me." He unfolded it again and did not read the articles inside while Evelyn looked over the Manifesto. She took barely a minute before she took the paper from him and turned it around. In the short glimpse he had of her face before she was hidden behind the Prophet again, he noticed her face looked rather greener than usual. He did not bother reading thoroughly because Professor Mason had done a good job of summing it up and covering all the major points. Still, to see it listed there, in the words of whoever had written it, it was sickening.

He put his hand on the top of the paper to cue her to lower it. She folded it back up and hid it underneath all the others.

"Awful," said Sean, because he did not know what else to say.

"What I want to know," said Evelyn. She sat very rigid, perched on the edge of the couch with her hands clasped in her lap. "Is how the minsitry's going to protect the muggles. They have no idea."

Sean reached over and put his hand over both of hers. "I don't know Ev," he said. "I don't know."

Then she surprised him. "Come on," she said. "We've got to practice some of those jinxes tonight." He couldn't pretend he wasn't relieved. He was not keen on spending the evening talking about the situation, not because it wasn't important, but because he did not know what to tell her. He did not know how he could possibly make anything better by talking about it. And anyway, the word might have been in crisis, but that did not mean his personal crisis had disappeared.

"Yeah," he said. "If you're up to it..."

"Come on," she said again. She picked up her bag, stuffed the newspapers into it, and stood. Sean followed her out the door and into the corridor.

A little ways down the staircase to the floor below, he wrapped his arm around Evelyn and said, "Nothing's going to happen to your family, Ev. They'll be alright." She did not say anything, but he saw her blink a few times, quickly, and then squeeze her eyes shut for just a second. He brushed his fingers up and down on her arm and opened his mouth to say something else, but she beat him.

"Don't promise," she said. He shut his mouth. She had known what he was about to say. "You don't know."

---

As a second-semester seventh year, Marlowe was sure going back to school after the holidays would have been plenty hard anyway. But with all that had (finally) happened with Caiti, it was next to impossible. He had just re-read the same sentence at least a dozen times without ever grasping what it said. He had memorized, however, the crooked way that Caiti was biting her lower lip, and the way her eyes scanned slowly across the page and then flicked back to the other side quickly, and the way she traced each line of text with her pinky finger as she read.

He accidentally looked at her when she was looking at him. Their eyes met and Caiti gave him a mischievous smile. "Why aren't you working?"

"I am working!" Marlowe said defensively.

"You haven't turned a page in like... ten minutes." Caiti raised her eyebrows at him and laid her quill underneath the line she had been reading so she would not lose her place.

"Well I tried to focus, but I can't. I'm ready to graduate," he said, leaning back into the sofa cushions. He folded his hands behind his head and shut his eyes.

"You've got six months," Caiti said, poking him in the knee. "Try again."

Marlowe opened his eyes again and considered her. "Come sit by me," he said. "You can bring your book." She was sat on the floor, surrounded, as was traditional, by a semicircle of books, rolls of parchment, quills, ink bottles, and notes.

"I don't know why I'm encouraging this," Caiti said as she stood up. Marlowe had just closed his book. There was no point in trying anymore. No motivation would be better than a good old-fashioned time crunch. Caiti rested her shin on the couch before she sat down, leaning onto one hip, and tucking her other leg up next to the first. Her shoulder pressed into his. She laid her book open on her lap. Marlowe wrapped his arm over her shoulders and dragged two fingers down either side of her dutch braid, starting at the crown of her head. Caiti shivered.

"Can I take it out?" he asked, tugging on the end of her braid.

She glanced at him, sucking in her cheeks, and nodded. He slid off the elastic so he could comb his fingers through her hair, glossy and golden as always, but a little fluffy and kinky where it had been braided. It was only a minute or two, before Caiti shut her book too. She adjusted her position so that her right foot was no longer underneath her and let both knees fall sideways, resting partway into Marlowe's lap. "You're putting me to sleep," she said, settling into him more.

He laughed. "It's all a part of my plan."

"What plan?" she asked, turning her head to look at him. His fingers, still entangled in her hair, got pulled with her head.

Marlowe considered this. He had not, after all, really had a plan. "To make it impossible," he said finally "for you to refuse helping me brew a potion without a recipe. We have to be able to invent something with only the ingredients on hand."

"Easy," said Caiti.

"Says the potions master."

"No, really. It'd be much more difficult if you weren't given select ingredients. If you can choose from anything in the world... well, you'd better have a specific idea in mind, and a lot of time to research the properties of potential ingredients and how they might react together... and.... oh-"

"So you'll help?" he said.

But Caiti had just sat bolt upright. "What time is it?" she asked.

He pulled his hand out of her hair to check his watch. "Quarter to seven, why?"

"Crap!" shouted Caiti. "Crap, crap, crap!" She jumped up and started shoving everything back into her black tote. "You just reminded me.. I've got to go, sorry!" She snagged her hair tie from the coffee table where Marlowe had put it and threw her hair into a sloppy ponytail that Marlowe loved.

"Need to go where?" he asked.

Caiti leaned down, put one hand on his shoulder and kissed him, short and dry. "Bye," she said. "Sorry." And then she was hurrying towards the door.

"Come on!" he said, half laughing. "You can do better than that!" Caiti turned over her shoulder to grin at him and wave with wiggling fingers. "Where are you going?!" he called, but she was already out the door.

"God!" said Marlowe loudly. "What a tease."

A couple of third year girls sitting nearby began giggling and tittering madly. Marlowe felt rather pleased with himself.