HARRY:

My imagination was incredibly overactive after the way our fireplace conversation had transpired. My hands still shook a bit as I pulled my glasses off my face and crawled into bed. I tossed and turned quite a bit before dropping off to sleep, but eventually, I did. And with the sleep came the nightmares, one after the other after the other after the other. All of the nightmares I'd had about Lucy since Cedric died, back to back to back to back.

The dragon's spiky tail slammed directly into where she was sitting in the stands.

I reached the bottom of the Black Lake to find her lifeless with her eyes frozen open in terror.

The green light of the Killing Curse sent her flying backward across the graveyard.

I watched as black smoke snaked around her body and obscured her from view.

The full moon appeared in the sky overhead, and just like that, she was gone.

I listened to soul-splitting screams in complete blackness, I knew it was the caves.

The best way to describe Lucy's face after a dementor encounter was haunted, and I finally understood why.

I tried to yank Umbridge's quill from Lucy's grasp, but I must not tell lies was carved into her skin over and over and over.

The floor gave way, and we fell.

I felt as if the world had stopped when Lucy's name was pulled from the Goblet of Fire.

When I opened my eyes, the sun was beginning to rise. I let my eyes sink shut again, exhaustion pulling down on every part of me, but flashes of my nightmares appeared again so I pushed myself out of bed.

Just nightmares. Nothing you haven't experienced before. Just a little while longer, then she'll be back. Sirius said she'd be back today, and the initial letter said she'd be back beofre dinner, assuming no complications arose.

No complications? Since when has THAT ever worked out for us?

I sighed to myself as I made my way down the stairs to the common room. To my surprise, it wasn't empty.

"Ginny?"

She whirled around. "Oh, hi Harry. What're you doing up so early?"

"I could ask you the same question," I replied, heading over to the rug in front of the fire where she was sitting. "Is everything alright?"

"Could be worse," she said dismissively. She shrugged. "Nightmares. I just like coming to sit by the fire down here when it happens. I... well, Lucy is down here nearly every time I come down, and I was half-asleep and I thought she might be down here this morning before I remembered she wouldn't be."

"Well, I, er, I was heading down to Hagrid's to feed Tuck and Fang since she's not here. Do you want to come with me?"

"Yeah, actually, that sounds better than staring into the fire wishing the world wasn't falling apart."

I grinned. "You can wish that while petting one or both dogs. C'mon, let's go."

Ginny and I made our way through the morning mist to Hagrid's hut. I was expecting the sound of claws scraping against the floor and excited barking, but instead, the first sound I heard when the door opened was Ginny's high-pitched squeak.

Lucy whirled around just in time to intercept Ginny's hug. She glanced up at me, a small amused smile on her face despite the still-haunted look in her eyes. "You out here recruiting help, Potter? Are both dogs too much for you to handle on your own?"

"Hardly. They love me," I retorted, crossing the room to get my own hug from Lucy. She seemed to melt into me, but whether it was from exhaustion or relief or something else I couldn't tell. "What are you doing back here so early?"

"It's been a long night," she explained with a yawn as she flopped onto Hagrid's sofa sideways and rested her head against the back of it.

"How did you get back?" Ginny asked, perching herself on the arm of the couch and beginning to braid Lucy's ponytail. "Does the train run all night?"

"I'm not sure about the train, but the Knight Bus does. After we, er, talked about it," Lucy said, looking at me meaningfully, "we figured the best course of action would be to sneak me in. We were going to just take the train back this morning so I'd be back toward the end of classes today, but with Umbridge taking more control by the day, Snuffles seemed to think the element of surprise would be the best way to go, seeing as she can't exactly stop me from coming back now that I'm already here."

I grinned, sitting on the armchair across the way. "Can't argue with that. How's everyone doing, Snuffles and the others? And you, how are you?"

"That's a lot of questions, Harry, I'm tired," she complained with another small smile to show she wasn't really complaining. "Everyone's been busy. I didn't see too much of anyone, but they all seem to be more or less alright. Communication in and out will be rather difficult, though, they thought it might be best for us to hold off until Christmas. Though," she added as her grin widened, "I found out that Snuffles has a birthday on the third of November, so I think we should all send him boxes of dog treats."

Ginny threw her head back laughing. "You are BRILLIANT, Lucy, truly."

"I'm sure everyone else would love to help," I chuckled. "That's great."

"Maybe I could convince the twins to make him dog toys or something," Lucy mused. "That would be- oof."

At the mention of toys, Tuck had decided his food could wait, and he launched himself onto Lucy's stomach with an excited leap.

"Miss me?" she remarked sarcastically, scratching behind his ears right where he liked it.

"Of course we did," I replied.

"Oh, I-" Lucy bit back a giggle. "I was asking Tuck."

I felt my face flame. "Oh. Right. Well, we did too."

"You missed a question," Ginny cut in before I could say anything else, undoing the braid she's completed and starting again. "How are you? What all happened? Did they figure out what was wrong? Can they fix it?"

A shadow crossed Lucy's face, all of the amusement of the morning gone in an instant. She didn't tease Ginny for bombarding her with questions. She weighed her words carefully before speaking again, not lifting her eyes from Tuck, still curled up on her stomach. "Nothing definitive. No one knows what it is, they just narrowed down what it isn't."

"You're not dying, are you?" Ginny asked in the lightest tone she could muster.

"Nope."

"Well, that's good! You're not allowed to die yet, you still have to teach us all the Patronus Charm."

"Harry could do that, he'd be better," she muttered. "He's used it on actual dementors, twice."

"You did it first," I protested.

She glanced up for half a second, opened her mouth, then thought better of it and changed the topic. "Anyway, they don't know for sure why I can't do magic consistently. They thought Dark magic might be interfering with mine, but that wasn't it, they thought it might be my wand, but that wasn't it."

"Consistently?" I asked, interested in the word choice.

"Yeah." Lucy maneuvered around Tuck to draw her wand. She pointed it at a jar on the dusty counter. "Engorgio." The jar automatically swelled to twice its size. "Reducio." It returned to its normal size.

I looked back at Lucy. "You just... you..."

"Did magic? Yeah. But I bet that I won't be able to do anything in class."

"Not with that attitude, you won't," Ginny muttered, finishing the braid and tossing it over Lucy's shoulder without tying it off. She rested her cheek against the top of Lucy's head. "Just don't give up, alright?"

Lucy nodded, and Ginny pursed her lips but didn't comment further. She rose to her feet and kissed Tuck on the head.

"I should probably go change into my robes for the day," she said, gesturing at her pajamas, "but I'll see you two later. Do you want me to tell anyone else you're here, Lucy, or would you rather surprise everyone at breakfast?"

"Either way," Lucy replied with a shrug. "I'll see everyone sooner than later."

"You two catch up first. They can wait." With that, Ginny smiled and slipped out the front door into the cool morning air.

"Yeah, after the close call last night, we figured I should get back as soon as possible before Umbridge stopped all flow in and out of the school or something," Lucy muttered. "Professor Lupin took me home for about an hour so I could grab a couple of things, including..." Lucy grabbed her backpack off the ground and pulled out a small leather-bound journal. She stared at it for a moment before handing it over to me.

I opened to the first page.

Triwizard Tournament Notes - Cedric Diggory

"I think we have everything we need in there," she said softly. "I haven't looked through it at all, but... I will. It was in his trunk, just like Henry said."

I nodded slowly and passed the book back to her. Tuck turned around and sniffed it, his ears perking up as he leaned closer.

Lucy's eyes filled with tears. "Yeah, Tuck, that's... that's Ced you're smelling."

Tuck pressed his nose to the book, inhaling sharply before exhaling equally sharply just to inhale again.

"I guess it's good I left his scarf in my backpack," Lucy commented, her voice shaking.

"The one from the train first year?" I asked in the gentlest voice possible.

She nodded. "I-I didn't want to take with me a physical reminder of him when I went back in August, because he was everywhere in that house where I had been for the better part of a month, but here, I... I miss him more. S-Somehow, if that even makes sense."

"It makes sense," I assured her. "And even if it didn't, well, that would be okay too. What you feel isn't invalid just because it's illogical."

"I just wish something made sense right now, anything, because it feels like nothing does."

"Your magic situation is a puzzle," I admitted, "but fortunately, we have a knack for solving puzzles."

"I suppose you're right," she mumbled, her eyes sinking shut as she slipped the journal back into her bag and Tuck nuzzled his nose against her neck. "What did you tell everyone about our little DADA club, by the way? With the new Umbridge restriction?"

"I told everyone we'd do it anyway. Is that alright with you?"

Lucy smiled without opening her eyes. "I was hoping you'd say that."

Even though she was smiling more than she had been before she left, I could see something was bothering her. Something new was bothering her. Before I got the chance to ask, though, she set Tuck on the ground and pushed herself to her feet, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. Her smile was gone. Only an empty sort of sadness remained in her eyes.

"I know what you and Ginny said, but do you really think I'll be able to produce a patronus again?" she asked softly. She didn't wait for an answer before slipping out into the morning.

I hesitated for half a second. She said they narrowed down what her magic problem wasn't. It wasn't Dark magic, it wasn't her wand. But it wasn't her, either. It couldn't be.

I knew Lucy. She had magic. She was magic.

I shook my head, patted the dogs one last time, and followed after her.