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FOURTEEN BLOW 'EM AWAY!

(NO. 2)

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       WHEN HOLLY WAS littler, she always found herself with a place on her school's swimming team, or competing in the local swimming gala for her school, or the annual 'swimarathon' they'd hold for primary schools. She still remembers when she sarted having swimming lessons, how much she loved bolting through the water, her feet kicking off one edge, and setting off towards the other.

       She remembers on holidays, when she and her dad — and Eugene, after a short while — would spend a week or so in a pretty villa near the Mediterranean, and she'd spend hours in the swimming pool. She'd swim to the bottom, her chest grazing the small tiles on the floor as she slithered along. She remembers at Durmstrang, instantly signing up to be on the swimming team because she knows how much she loves it. And, okay, she admits, swimming in their lake wasn't terrible, because they all muttered the spell to keep warm before they went in the water, and after that, it was fine. It felt like she was in Spain, without the blue skies, and without her dad reading a book nearby.

       So Holly's looking forward to this. Holly knows that she's a fast swimmer, knows that she can maintain an air of cunningness underwater. If she performed well at the first task, then this one is going to be a walk in the park.

       She stands next to the other champions, her hair in a pretty plait she sorted out this morning, before she and her friends hurried down to breakfast. Holly keeps on glancing around, because Harry's yet to show up, and she's getting a little worried. Pansy disappeared last night, and she's overheard Fleur say how she hasn't seen her little sister since dinner yesterday, too. Maybe someone's started kidnapping people — she doesn't know why, exactly—

       Oh. The egg said something about taking something that they'll miss. This makes a little more sense, with Pansy and Fleur's sister vanishing. It still doesn't explain where Harry is, but then, when can anything explain him?

       Holly looks around into the crowd, past the judge's table, and spots her friends. She sees Harlow and Daphne looking at her, and they grin at her. Harlow gives her a thumbs-up, and behind him, she sees Crabbe and Goyle being made to hold up a sign, one that says SUPPORT HOLLY LIPPINCOTT, THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!

       "I'm... here...!"

       Holly spins around, and sees Harry skid to a stop. She feels a little relieved, actually, even if they haven't really spoken since The Three Broomsticks. It would make sense if someone kidnapped him, really. Voldemort would probably love to, if he was still alive.

       But the thing with that, how they haven't spoken for a couple weeks. She feels awkward, and naturally, when she knows something is going to be a little uncomfortable, she tends to avoid the situation altogether.

       She feels weird. Strange. Peculiar. He looked so disappointed when she explained how she would've said no, if he asked her to the Yule Ball. She supposes that he doesn't recognise how badly her friends would react, if they actually caught on and figured out that they were friends. Essentially she's befriended their rival, their enemy, especially when it comes to her cousin, and even Pansy to an extent, considering her weird thing with Hermione.

       But then, how would he know? Holly's friends, as wonderful as she thinks they are, are stubborn, and the sort that take disloyalty incredibly seriously. And yeah, maybe if she had been with them since the start, they would be a little more forgiving towards this, but she hasn't even been their friend for a year yet, and already, she's turned around and made friends with someone they all despise.

       The idea of that makes Holly wonder. She likes to think that she's always been ambitious, but has she always been cunning, or even resourceful? Sometimes she wonders if the reason the Sorting Hat barely touched her head was because she's been shaped by Durmstrang, she's like this because that's what it took to survive.

       All of this confuses her... And this is all because she made a friend.

       (How ridiculous!)

       "Where have you been?" asks the boy standing in for Crouch. Holly remembers him being there during the Yule Ball, too. "The task's about to start!"

       "Now, now, Percy!" says Bagman, grinning from ear-to-ear. Holly catches his glance for a second, and she figures he wants her to return a smile, but she does not. "Let him catch his breath!"

       Before Holly can ask Harry what took him so long, she's assured to the side of the bank. She holds onto her necklace, as she stands next to the lake. Thank God she's been swimming in the lake ever since she got put in this tournament, because she's been able to get her dad to send the swimsuits she once bought for Durmstrang's swimming team, the ones so streamlined they cut your fingers when first worn.

       "Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then," says Bagman. Holly grips onto her wand, and she hears Millicent, Daphne, and Tracey scream go Holly

       "One..."

      Holly looks at the lake.

      "...two..."

       Her eyes narrow a little. She's going to win this.

       "Three!"

       As Holly bolts into the water, she begins to mutter the warming charm learnt at Durmstrang, speeding up as it starts to work. She glances over her shoulder, realising she's metres ahead of the others, already.

       She can do this. She can do this.

       Right before she dives underwater, she says the Bubblehead Charm, and as the large, opaque bubble surrounds her nose and mouth, she cuts into the water's edge, diving underneath and swimming forwards.

       She knows that Viktor used to be on the swimming team, and that he's taken it back up recently, but she also remembers how she was always faster. There are few benefits to being short and small, but one of them is that she's naturally a little faster when swimming, compared to a big, muscular Quidditch player.

       Holly keeps on swimming, further into the lake. She knows that the mermaids live close enough to the dungeons that they see them swim past every day, but not so close that they can see their little kingdom, from the other side of the glass. So she swims on, speeding up when she sees the huge rock that she thinks looks like one of the stone heads from Easter Island, because she knows that you can see it, in the distance, outside of the window in the boys' dorm room.

       If anything, this task alone makes Holly pleased to be in Slytherin. Not only does she has an idea of the mermaids' whereabouts, but due to her house being so close to the dungeons, they've developed a tradition of giving gifts to the mermaids every so often, to stop them from crashing into the dungeons and spearing them with tridents, or something. But she hopes that this means that they'll be a little nicer, if they recognise her as a Slytherin.

       She hopes they do. She's been making an effort to sit near the windows the past couple weeks, so that the mermaids can see her, if they glance in.

       She makes sure to stay on top of the weeds, in case some creature manages to appear and claw at her. She feels a little vulnerable, swimming through the lake. Her wand's being held in her mouth, so she can still use her arms to swim properly, without having to hold onto a stick.

       Ahead, she hears faint singing.

       "An hour long you'll have to look,

       And to recover what we took..."

       Holly speeds up, bolting through the water towards the singing. She finds herself surrounded by stone structures, ones similar to houses, like the houses on The Flintstones. At one house, she sees a pet Grindylow, and she's reminded of Vivien.

       She keeps on swimming, as quick as she can, before any of the other champions — any of the other competitors, that's it, the people she's going to beat — can catch up to her. She hopes that they haven't been able to, what with the speed she got into the water, and how quickly she's been making her way through the lake.

       The structures spread out, to create something similar to a town square. A choir of merpeople sing in the centre of the square, in front of the mermaid statue. It reminds Holly of when she and her dad went to one of the art museums in London, where there were rooms filled with statues and ceramics, but when they got the camera film back, it was all blurry and worthy of the bin.

       Holly sees Pansy, along with the others. Ron, Hermione, a girl in a Ravenclaw uniform, and a little girl in a Beauxbatons uniform. They all seem to be in a strange sleep, like that potion Juliet drank at the end of the play.

       She advances hesitantly at first, in case the mermaids attempt to attack her, but thankfully, they don't. Holly can swim quickly but she doesn't think she can fend off countless spears and tritons.

       Holly looks at the weeds tying Pansy. She attempts to figure out how to un-do the knot, but the weeds are too slimy and dark for her to solve the puzzle. So, she takes her wand out from between her teeth, and she says, "Diffindo!"

      The ties slice into two. Holly puts an arm underneath Pansy's, holding onto her, and she kicks off from the bottom of the lake, swimming back up to the top.

       Pansy spits water out of her mouth as they reach the surface; the bubble that was around Holly's nose and mouth pops, and the remains fall into the lake. Holly glances towards the crowd, who erupt into cheers, as Pansy takes in a deep breath.

      "You can swim, right?" says Holly, suddenly remembering that she's never seen Pansy swim, despite the amount of times she's sat by the lake whilst she's swam along the shallow area.

       Pansy snorts, but the smile quickly fades. "No."

       "I'll keep my arm around you," says Holly. She looks over towards the edge of the lake, and it doesn't seem to be too far. It'll be fine. "Kick your legs, and we'll get over there together, yeah?"

      "Yeah," says Pansy, and very quickly, she adds, "Sorry."

       "It's not your fault," says Holly. "Come on, you'll catch a cold if we stay in the water any longer... Just kick, I'll help you along."

       The next couple minutes prove to be difficult. Holly knows that it isn't her best friend's fault that she can't swim, she supposes that it's a muggle thing, having swimming lessons when you're around six. She's gathered that most wizards don't really swim, or go on holidays abroad, so why would they be inconvenienced by not learning how to swim?

      Eventually they get to the edge of the lake, breaking away from the weird circle of merpeople that followed them along. They wade through the shallow area side by side, Holly's arm still tightly around Pansy.

       Holly's warming charm's worn off, and the water hitting her ankles feels like hundreds of needles. She can't imagine how cold it would've been for Pansy, the whole swim back to the bank.

       Pansy's eyes widen, as she turns to Holly. "Shit, Hol!" she lets out. "You're first!"

      Holly turns to her, a huge grin on her face. Before she can hug Pansy, or jump up and down with joy, blankets are shoved into both of their faces, and both hurry to get away from the water completely, so they can keep the blankets dry.

       The headmasters and other judges rise from the table, walking over to congratulate Holly, who's been tightly wrapped in a blanket by Madam Pomfrey, standing close to Pansy to keep warm. She sees Karkaroff stay sat down, but that's fine. He knows what he's going to do.

       "Under thirty minutes!" says Bagman, looking impressed. Holly smiles brightly, and in the stands she hears people cheering and chanting her name. Pansy keeps on looking over at her, grinning with chattering teeth. "Brilliant, Holly, you were really brilliant!"

       Pansy and Holly stand to the side, as they wait for the others. A couple minutes pass and Holly sits down, her legs exhausted. Part of her wishes they held this a little later in the day, because now she's got to trudge through until night-time to go to sleep.

      "You know, at the start, when you told us you wanted to swim and run to get ready for the tasks, I didn't think it would work," says Pansy, as they look out at the lake, along with the judges and the crowd. "Like, the way they said it, it made you think that you only needed to be good at charms, and magic — but shit, Holly, that 'agile body, agile mind' thing works!"

      "It's what my dad always says," says Holly. She sees Blaise and Theodore in the crowd, and she smiles at them. "He's obsessed with all sorts of sports, and he always says that, when the newspapers say how so-and-so lost miserably... But I mean, Durmstrang's swim team probably helped a little..."

       "That's fine, though!" says Pansy. "You did everything they wanted you to, right? Get through the lake, rescue me, get back! And you did it quickly, and with skill! What can they fault you on?"

      Susannah appears, floating above the water. "You didn't even need me," she says, moving further upwards. "Shit, Holly. I think you're talented."

       Holly snorts at Susannah's shock, which thankfully Pansy doesn't notice. They stay sitting down, waiting for the others to arrive. It gets to the thirty-four minute mark and Fleur reappears, but without her hostage. She clambers up to Madame Maxime, sobbing hysterically, and Holly moves to stand, to see if she can comfort her or something, but Pansy quietly says, "Maybe just give her space."

       "Yeah," says Holly, and she moves to sit back down.

       It's fifty-eight minutes in and Holly feels her stomach tying in knots. Where are the others? She's overheard Fleur cry about the Grindylows in the weeds, how they attacked her, and Holly worries that the same happened to the others, that they were dragged to the bottom of the lake, or they were bitten or clawed and the blood attracted the giant squid. Holly begins to realise the reason she got back first was because she avoided the weeds, whereas the others must've chosen to go straight through.

       A couple minutes pass and Cedric emerges. The Hufflepuffs students dotted around in the crowd let out cheers and screams, and Cedric swims back to the shore, next to Cho.

       "She can swim, look," says Pansy, grumpily.

       "Pans, it doesn't matter," says Holly.

       Viktor returns shortly after Cedric, Hermione by his side. Holly tries her best to smile at Hermione without Pansy noticing, but quickly, she returns to looking out at the water, feeling very cold and very sleepy.

       Harry's still in the water. Holly feels a little sick, and worries if he's gotten stuck in the weeds with the Grindylows, or the merpeople weren't as kind to the others. For a minute she wonders if she'll be allowed to swim back in, to see if he needs any help.

       But, as she stands up, about to ask Cedric or Viktor if they saw Harry before they got their hostage, the crowd erupts into more noise. In the distance, she can see Harry, along with Ron, and the little girl Holly saw earlier on.

       Pansy stands up, still close to Holly. "They'll find a way to make him first, that's what they always do," she says quietly, her brows knitted together. "It always happens. Every time, Gryffindor will be last, and Slytherin will be first, but they'll find a way to change it, to make Gryffindor win. I swear to Merlin, if they dare—"

       She's cut off by Fleur, who's been restrained by her headmistress. "Gabrielle! Gabrielle!" she cries out. "Is she alive? Is she hurt?"

       The three in the water get helped out by the judges. Holly and Pansy remain standing close together, and Holly figures that Pansy's wet hair is making the cold air even worse, too. Even with the warming potion Madam Pomfrey gave them after she wrapped the blankets around them, Holly still feels the chill of the winter air.

       Fleur rushes to thank Harry, and apparently also Ron, as the judges return to their table. Holly and Pansy keep on exchanging looks, smiling at each other, waiting in anticipation for the judges to give out points. There's a couple times where Holly glances over at Harry, who's evidently safe and well, and she looks back, passing off her smile as one of excitement, not relief.

       "Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision," says Bagman, and Pansy begins to bounce up and down, grinning. "Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows..."

       "Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by Grindylows as she approached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her twenty-five points."

       "That's generous," says Pansy. "If they dare make Potter win, I swear to—"

       "Cedric Diggory, who also used the Bubble-Head Charm was second to return with his hostage, though he returned one minute outside the time limit of an hour. We therefore award him forty-sven points."

       "Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration which was nevertheless effective, and was third to return with his hostage. We award him forty points."

       Holly frowns. "What's this order?" she says. "I was back first, why not me—?"

       "Best 'til last?" says Pansy, pulling a face of uncertainty.

      "Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect. He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mr Potter was second to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his own determination to return all hostages to safety, not merely his own."

       Holly looks over at Harry, and feels incredibly strange. She doesn't know why she got so worried about his whereabouts, of course they're not going to allow a champion to drown, or get killed in one of the tasks. And now — she feels like she wants to hug him, to say how wonderful that was of him to do. How thoughtful, how—

       "Most of the judges feel that this shows moral fiber and merits full marks..." says Bagman. Pansy looks like she's about to attack Harry. Holly breaks free of the tight blanket and puts her hand on her best friend's arm. "However..." Here we go. Holly looks over at Karkaroff, who glares back at her. "Mr Potter's score is forty-five points."

       "Holliday Lippincott was the first to return altogether, in the short time of twenty-nine minutes. She used the Bubble-Head Charm, too, to great effect, along with swift use of the Severing Charm whilst underwater to set her hostage free. Due to skill and the speed she returned with her hostage..." Bagman pauses. Holly goes still, as does Pansy, both of them holding onto each other, waiting. "We give her fifty points."

      The crowd breaks into cheering again, even louder than before. When it's first announced Holly lets out an excited squeal, completely losing the blanket the same second as Pansy does, both wrapping their arms around the other. Holly and Pansy jump up and down, and Holly can't stop smiling.

       "FULL MARKS!" says Pansy, as Holly sees the Slytherins in the crowd grinning and cheering. Holly won. Holliday Lippincott won!

      "The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June," says Bagman. Holly and Pansy pause their celebrations, in order to listen. "The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions."

       Pansy turns to Holly, grinning. "And you know what's gonna happen on the twenty-fourth?"

       Holly nods, bouncing up and down, unable to contain her excitement. "I'm going to win this whole tournament!" she lets out, and Pansy cheers, both of them laughing and hugging each other.

—✧—✧—✧—✧—

      "I'LL CATCH UP TO you in a minute," says Holly, as Pansy stands a couple metres ahead of her. Holly knows that the common room will be roaring with music and celebrations, but before that, she wants to see if she can pull Harry to the side and speak to him, considering it's been a while.

       "Are you sure?" says Pansy.

       Holly nods. "I'll be a couple minutes, tops," she says. "I need to breath for a minute."

       "That's fine," says Pansy. "'Course you need a little break, you won!"

       Holly giggles, and Pansy begins to walk down the hallway, towards the dungeons. She waits until she can't see her best friend anymore, and she turns back around, walking closer towards the hospital wing.

       "It was Karkaroff, you would've won if he hadn't been a git—"

       She turns the corner, and she finds Harry, Ron, and Hermione, about to turn into the hallway leading up towards their tower. Holly smiles politely at them, and Ron goes red in the cheeks, for what he had been saying. But then, it makes sense, and she's cool with it. She's still got full marks. Joint first is still first.

       "Um, hi," says Holly.

       "Hi," says Hermione, and she smiles. "You did really well!"

       "Yeah," says Ron, smiling a little awkwardly.

       "I've been told," says Holly. "Um, Harry, can I speak to you in private?"

      "Uh, okay," he says, and Hermione and Ron set back off in the way they were going, before Holly arrived and interrupted their bitching about Karkaroff. Their voices are almost out of earshot, and Harry frowns. "What did you—?"

       Holly breaks him off, hugging him. For a minute he's frozen, and she's about to pull back and apologise, but then she feels him hug her back.

       "I think that task messes with you," she says, as she steps backwards. "When I got out of the lake, I — um — got worried about you. But like, as if they'd let one of us die during a task. But the whole time, I was convinced. I thought you had gotten killed, or something."

       "Not yet," says Harry. He looks a little caught off-guard, probably a little surprised that she hugged him. Which makes complete sense. They haven't spoken since, what, January? "Um, you did really well, you were gone seconds after Bagman said three."

       "I like to swim," says Holly. "Did you go through the weeds? I stayed near the top, I thought they'd put some creature or something at the bottom...?"

       "I went through them," says Harry. Holly nods. "But it was fine, it was just at the end, with the hostages—"

       Holly steps forwards, and puts a hand on his arm. "But Harry, don't you get it? You staying behind to make sure that Fleur's sister was all right — that's amazing! Who cares if you got back last, we all thought that they were going to get killed, and you stopped to save her!" she says. "Gabrielle's life is a little more important than first-place."

       Harry frowns. "But you're first-place—"

       "I was first there, I didn't realise that Fleur wouldn't be able to get Gabrielle," says Holly. She takes her hand off of his arm. "I thought you were really brave..." Holly cheekily grins at him, and nudges his arm with hers. "I wish they gave you full marks, too."

      Harry rolls his eyes, but again, in the way that you'd roll your eyes at a friend, someone you're close to. You know they don't mean it, if they come off as any bit rude.

      "Honestly, though," says Holly, her grin fading. "I think you deserved it."

       "It's just the final task now," says Harry. "Maybe that'll be better."

       Holly nods. "We'll have to wait and see, I suppose," she says. She glances over at the big grandfather clock next to the wall, and she realises that her friends will probably be wondering where she's run off to, Pansy especially. "I've got to go, but I'll see you—"

       "Lippincott, Potter," says Moody. Holly and Harry look at each other, and Holly gives him a grimace, one that's directed towards the teacher. She turns to face him, stepping back so she's in-line with Harry. "You were both very good out there, today."

       "Thanks, sir," says Holly, and she hears Harry mutter something around the same lines, only without the sir. She can't help it. She's still used to Durmstrang.

       "Both of you are shaping out to be great wizards," says Moody. "Especially how you were both able to resist Imperius, that's excellent, not many adults can manage to do that..." before either of them can say thank you again, he turns to Holly. "Makes us wonder what they're teaching out at Durmstrang, if they're producing better wizards than us."

       Holly doesn't know how to reply to that, but, before she can even think of anything, Moody walks off again, his footsteps as loud as ever.

       "See you, Harry," says Holly, before she hurries off, in the direction of her common room. What was that about? Makes us wonder. Makes him wonder what? And the way he said it — he sounded so strange, like he was irritated... Why would he be irritated? What on earth?

       Susannah appears, crossing her arms. "Sounds like he wants to get you out of the picture," she remarks, and Holly rolls her eyes.

       Holly gets to the entrance to the common room, and she finds Pansy sitting around. "Well, it would be a little disappointing if the door opened and the Slytherin Champion wasn't there, wouldn't it?" says Pansy, getting to her feet. Holly shrugs, and smiles softly, both walking into the common room together.

       The common room bursts into cheering. Holly's hugged and greeted by countless people with green streaks on their cheeks, HOLLY or LIPPINCOTT written onto their foreheads in the same green colour.

       "You did it!" shouts Harlow, over the music and the cheering and the overall chatter. He hugs Holly, and she smiles. "You're bound to win!"

       "And we'll finally have victory!" says Daphne, her hand in a fist. "At long last!"

       Holly nods, grinning at Daphne as they hug for a second. She steps away and she sees Draco, who pushes past Pansy to speak to her. "A letter was sent to me by mistake, it's yours," he says. "I'll give it to you now, come on."

       "Why would it get sent to you?" says Holly, frowning.

       "Would you just come with me?" says Draco.

       Holly rolls her eyes. "You could say please."

       "Holly," he says.

       "I'm coming, whatever," she says. "Calm down."

       Holly follows Draco towards the boys' dorms, and he hands her an envelope. She looks up at him, and back down at the envelope, a suspicious look on her face. "Father says it'll incinerate after a couple minutes," he says.

       "Oh," says Holly. Although that doesn't explain any of her questions, she tears the envelope open, pulling out the letter.

       Dear Holliday,

       We have not met but I have been informed by your cousin Draco how well you are doing in the Tournament. It is a shame that Narcissa and I were unaware that you were moving from Durmstrng to Hogwarts, we obviously would have helped to make it as easy as possible for you, considering you're family.

       That is why I am writing to you. I am aware that you have never seen nor spoken to your mother, and I often make trips to Azkaban as a part of work, so if you ever want to speak to her, through letters, simply write me and we can arrange something. I cannot imagine how it must be to be there, and I would wish that either your mother or your step-father, my younger brother Atticus, would do the same if I was in that position.

       Your uncle,

       Lucius.

       Your uncle? Yeah, right.

       "Thanks," says Holly, as the parchment crumbles in her fingers, falling to the ground along with a couple flames, as it promptly turns into nothing but ash. "You might not, but — did you know my mother, at all?"

       Draco frowns. Holly wonders if he knows about the contents of the letter. "My parents spoke of her, but I don't remember her," he says. "A lot of what they said sounds like you."

        "In what way?"

        "Mother says how Aunt Margo would never be seen without a book, and you'd have to pry it out of her hands to get her attention on something else," he says. Holly remembers that exact scenario happening on Christmas Eve-Eve, when Holly was trying to read Dracula and panicked when Pansy tried to take it, so that she'd listen to them... In hindsight, she refused to let go because she didn't want them to realise it was a muggle book, but whatever. "And Mother always described her as metamorphic, saying how well she could manipulate others for her own game — and you're doing that, aren't you, befriending Potter to see if he knows anything about the tasks? Not that he will, the git's too stupid to figure it out..."

       Holly nods. "Yeah," she says. "Really stupid."

       Metamorphic. Holly doesn't know how to respond to that. That's what she's described herself for years, ever since she noticed how well she can slip in and out of different situations with different people, making herself fit in like a jigsaw puzzle. It's so bizarre, how the exact same word describes her mother — a woman she's never met, never had the opportunity to inherit a couple mannerisms from being raised by her, they're just similar, for some reason or another.

        But if she's like her mother, does that mean she'll end up with her? Will she get involved with the wrong people and get dragged down, her life ultimately being poisoned by a couple bad decisions made as a teenager, a child?

        She reminds herself quickly, that her dad's got the same quality, she must've learnt it from him. Why would she know it from her mother, anyway? She doesn't remember her. It makes no sense that she could inherit something like that. Her dad taught her how to fit in to any scenario, along with how to talk, how to walk.

        "I wish I could've known her," says Holly finally, after a couple minutes of looking to the side, frowning to herself. Susannah appears a little further down the hallway, idly looking at some of the paintings of old Slytherins. A lot include Merlin. "I've never known what she was actually like, I only knew how she's in Azkaban." And that was only discovered at age eleven.

        "I knew her husband, my uncle," says Draco. "He's... quiet."

       Draco moves, to go back to the celebrations, but Holly stops him, narrowing her eyes a little. "Hang on," she says. "How? He went the same time—"

       "There you are!" says Blaise, as he and Harlow walk down the corridor. Holly wishes they were a couple minutes afterwards, in case she could get something out of her cousin. But apparently not.

        Harlow smiles at Holly, as he says, "Montague got cake from the kitchens."

       "But we've got to let you choose the first slice, so," says Blaise. "It's only fair, what with you being the Slytherin Champion."

       "And soon to be the winner of the whole damned tournament!" says Harlow, as he goes to hug Holly. Holly smiles back at him. "Forget Gryffindor, it'll be us that win this time!"

       "They'll finally lose, like they deserve," says Draco, sneering.

       Holly reminds herself that, not too long ago, she hugged the person they all hate. And how she's friends with him, and how she felt sick to her stomach, worrying about him earlier.

        Margo Valen might've been metamorphic, been able to realise that certain situations call for different qualities of someone's personality. She might've known that sometimes it's best to agree with someone who wash their down with complaints, regardless of whether you agree or not.

       But Holly does too. She knows how to use different parts of her personality — how to be liked by the most wicked teachers at Durmstrang, how to play upon people's likes and dislikes to make them think of her positively. Or how to hide a friendship with someone she thinks she cares about, just a little, from the rest of her friends. She learnt everything from the best, not a criminal called Margo Valen, but a genius called Augustus "Gus" Lippincott.

        And Holly smiles.

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