LUCY:

The portrait hole swung open late Tuesday night to reveal Harry and Ron, back from Quidditch practice.

Harry grinned at me. "Ready?"

I nodded as bravely as I could and held up Cedric's journal. Harry offered a sympathetic look in response and joined me in the corner of the common room.

"I don't know where to start," I admitted. "Everything feels so important, but at the same time, nothing in here was enough to save him in the end."

"All we need right now is a place to start, right?"

I nodded. "R-Right. We can do that."

Harry leaned back against the wall and drummed his fingers against his knees. "Okay, brilliant. Well, if we only had this one meeting, what would you want everyone to know?"

"I don't know," I replied. I flipped through the pages, going from bookmark to bookmark with so much speed the words seemed to blur on the page. "There are so many good spells in here, ones that would be really useful in a pinch. I used stupefy and reducto, when I was in my pinch, but those are difficult to master and I would want everyone to leave with a useful spell that they've mastered and could use the very next day if need be. A couple of the spells in here are less challenging but less universally applicable, like the ebublio jinx that traps the target in a bubble that can't be popped with any physical force or the sea urchin jinx that makes painful spikes grow out of whatever body part the jinx hits. Oh, I don't know," I said again, burying my face in my hands.

"Um, Lucy." Harry reached forward and pulled my arms down. "It's alright. We can figure it out together. That's why I'm here, right?"

I nodded. "Right. Sorry. I didn't mean to try to sound like it was entirely my call-"

"Lu, relax, it's okay," he chuckled. "I asked you what you thought, remember? You're not stepping on anyone's toes, except maybe your own. Just take a breath."

I did so and released it with a shaky sigh. "Okay. So what do you think we should do?"

"Well, everything you said is great."

"But...?"

"Who said anything about a 'but?' I mean it, everything you said is great." I narrowed my eyes at him, and he grinned. "I never get anything past you, do I?"

I shook my head. "No. Spit it out, Potter, what is it? What are you thinking?"

"I was thinking expelliarmus might be a good place to start. It's gotten me out of a number of pinches before, even in the graveyard when-" His grin faded and he swore. "Sorry, I didn't mean-"

"It's alright, I know what you mean," I said, waving him off as I reached for a piece of parchment. "If we keep dancing around the truth of what happened, we'll never..." I shook my head. Where was I trying to go with that? "Anyway, you're brilliant, that's a perfect place to start. You're right, it helped us with Lockhart second year, and didn't you use it in the Shrieking Shack against Snape?"

"And I would do it again," he muttered. "Git."

"Git indeed," I agreed as I wrote Expelliarmus (for first meeting) across the top of the page.

"Hey, wait, Lucy."

I glanced up. "Mhm?"

"Speaking of Snape and the Shrieking Shack hat were you doing that night?"

"Oh. That." I set the parchment down and leaned back against the wall. I glanced around the room to see who else was around. The room was empty except Ron, the twins, and Ginny, who were too occupied by their Exploding Snap game to pay us any notice. I could talk freely. "Let's see. Well, after I got back to the castle, I headed down to Hagrid's to get wolfsbane, and-"

"Wait, wolfsbane? Doesn't that have dittany in it?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it does. I still take it sometimes, though."

"Why?"

I froze. I had done it to try to protect him. After seeing Sirius in the Forbidden Forest on Halloween, I had wanted to have my wits about me so I could stop him if he appeared again. But... Harry couldn't know that. So I shrugged. "I just do sometimes. It's nice to remember who I am on occasion. Less dangerous that way, for everyone. I did it first year, too, to try to help figure out why everything was going on with the unicorns. Anyway," I said, shifting a bit, "I rushed down to Hagrid's to get the wolfsbane before you all showed up, then I went to the forest and was waiting for sunset when I inexplicably heard you and Hermione there in the forest with me."

He laughed. "Oh Merlin, you were there?"

"I was! I was so confused, Harry, you have no idea. When you went to get Buckbeak, I was able to talk to Hermione a little bit so I had the faintest idea of what was going on."

"Wait a second, were you the one who did the whistle that helped keep Buckbeak from running off?"

I nodded sheepishly.

"I knew it wasn't a bird in the forest!" His eyes lit up. "Wait, Lucy, does this mean you saw my patronus?"

I nodded again. "I did. It was incredible, Harry, it killed me not being able to tell you I had seen it."

"I mean, you could have," he said with a shrug. "I did see you that night. I just didn't realize it was you."

"You did? Oh," I muttered. "Right. Snape stunned me away from you three. Git."

"Git indeed."

Harry looked at me with an odd expression on his face. I was tempted for half a second to ask what was on his mind, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I had somehow forgotten that he had seen me in wolf form. I had somehow forgotten that he might have heard me transforming, too. I hoped that he had been too distracted by Professor Lupin's transformation and the chaos that ensued to pay much attention to the sounds in the forest behind him, but I had no way of knowing for sure unless I asked. And I wasn't about to ask.

"When do you think we should teach everyone the Patronus Charm?" I asked instead. "It's important, but I think we're more likely to come across Death Eaters than dementors in the near future, so maybe we should focus on spells to use against human threats first."

He blinked hard and nodded. "Right. Er, maybe we could focus on jinxes for the first couple of meetings, then move onto hexes, then work on protective charms after holiday? Like patronuses and shields?"

"That sounds perfect to me," I said, quill flying across the parchment as I divided the page into three sections and titled each accordingly. I slid Cedric's journal over to Harry with my foot. "I marked the spells I thought would be most useful, but I wasn't entirely sure of the order we should do. All else fails, we could work alphabetically, but I'm sure we could come up with a more logical order than that."

"Are any of your joke spells in here?" he asked. "We could teach those in conjunction with the jinxes."

"Er, no, Cedric didn't use any of those, they're ridiculous," I replied, not looking up from the parchment. "They'd be a waste of time."

"It's possible you wouldn't be here without those 'ridiculous' spells."

My quill screeched to a halt. I didn't look up from the word I had just written. Patronus.

"They wouldn't be a waste of time, seeing as we might have lost you if you hadn't known those."

"Yeah, well, I was desperate. The goal of this whole group is to make sure no one else is in a situation like that in the first place. Proper defensive magic could prevent that."

"Since when do any of us care about 'proper?' It saved you, so it's good enough for the rest of us. Besides, didn't Cedric give you that book?"

I managed a nod, still not looking up. Patronus. "He did."

"Would you consider using it, since I know you're doing a lot of this for him?"

"I'll think about it." I wrote Charm next to Patronus. My hand was shaking. "Did I tell you that I taught Cedric the Patronus Charm before the third task?"

"I thought I was remembering that correctly," he replied after a moment.

"He asked me to, after the full moon that month," I said, writing Shield Charm beneath Patronus Charm. "I went to the History of Magic classroom with him. Seemed fitting, you know?"

Harry nodded. I didn't look up from the parchment, but I could still feel his eyes on me. Watching me carefully. Maybe a little surprised by how willingly I was talking about Cedric.

"It took him quite a few tries, more than I was expecting. I always thought my brother was the happiest person in the world, and maybe he was, but he still had to put a fair amount of effort into, well, turning that happiness into something like a Patronus. He did, though."

"An osprey, yeah?"

I nodded, surprised he had remembered that. "Mhm. An osprey." I cleared my throat. The last thing I needed was to cry in front of Harry while we were working on something so important.

Harry snorted. "I like the Reductor Curse. Your brother copied the Miranda Goshawk definition word for word. 'With this powerful curse, skilled wizards can easily reduce obstacles to pieces. For obvious reasons great care must be exercised when learning and practising this spell, lest you find yourself sweeping up in detention for it is all too easy to bring your classroom ceiling crashing down, or to reduce your teacher's desk to a fine mist.' Reckon that could work against that bloody quill?"

I snorted. "Worth a shot. Or we could use the Oppugno Jinx to send that quill right in between her eyes."

Harry flipped through a couple of pages before laughing. "Yeah. Brilliant."

Over the course of the next two nights, the piece of parchment filled with spells. Once that piece was full, I brought down Uggla Uzely's Guide to Utterly Useless Spells, and the two of us went through every single page, and filled a whole second sheet of parchment with various spells we thought could be worthwhile in addition to the more traditional protective spells.

The week full of late nights had little to no effect on me. I hadn't been sleeping much at all for a while at that point. If anything, it was nice to have such nice company while being awake so late. But Harry wasn't accustomed to that little sleep, so on our fifth late night in a row, I was just about to ask his opinion on a modified form of the the ebublio jinx that used the oppugno jinx to send a steady stream of bubbles into the opponent's face when I realized Uggla Uzely's Guide to Utterly Useless Spells had fallen from his hands and his glasses were slipping down his nose.

"Accio pillow!" I hissed, only narrowly managing to shove it under his head before he toppled over the rest of the way. I swore under my breath and glanced at his watch, poking out from his sleeve. It was a quarter to three; no wonder he was so exhausted.

I reckoned there was no point going on with plans without Harry, so I stacked the books and parchment neatly before sliding it all into my bookbag. I hoped that maybe the soft rustling sound would wake him up so I could recommend he go to bed, but his eyes remained shut, his breathing deep and even.

As much as I had fallen asleep around Harry, I couldn't recall a time I had seen him asleep, aside from maybe a time or two when he was in the Hospital Wing — and, even then, we were there together more often than not. He looked younger in sleep than he did when he was awake. More peaceful, too. I was glad that, at least for that night, the nightmares were staying away.

I can't just leave him down here alone. But I'd rather not wake him up either.

Before I could come up with a good solution, Dobby appeared with a loud crack that jolted Harry awake.

Dobby's eyes widened at the scene.

I grinned. "Hi there, Dobby. Nice nap, Harry?"

Harry pushed himself up. "Er, how long was I-"

"Not long," I said, giggling as he tried to rub his eyes but got fingerprints all over his glasses instead. "I was just debating whether or not to wake you or join you when Dobby arrived."

"Why was Harry Potter asleep on the floor?" Dobby asked, wringing his hands with concern.

"Because Harry Potter didn't tell me he was ready to go to bed," I answered with a stern glance Harry's direction. "Harry Potter should at the very least give Lucy a little warning, I only barely summoned the pillow in time."

Harry grinned ruefully. "Well, it appears that Lucy Dolores is wide awake since she's teasing Harry Potter so mercilessly."

"Harry Potter is an insufferable git for calling Lucy Everlin Diggory 'Lucy Dolores' of all things."

"Lucy Delilah is an insomniac prat who should be going to bed, too," Harry said, smacking me with the pillow before tossing it onto the couch.

"Insufferable git."

"Insomniac prat."

"I hate you."

"I love you too."

Harry pushed himself to his feet and offered me a hand up, which I accepted. I turned to Dobby as I slung my bag over my shoulder. He looked a little confused, but he was smiling.

"Is that a new hat, Dobby?" Harry asked.

Dobby nodded so excitedly the orange cap on top of the tower nearly slid off. "Harry Potter noticed Dobby's new hat!"

"It looks great," he said.

"Do you have a favorite color, Dobby?" I asked.

The elf considered this very seriously.

When several seconds passed in silence and I heard Harry stifle a yawn, I said, "How about you think about it for a while, then let me know once you think of your favorite color? Would that work?"

Dobby looked relieved as he nodded. "That works! Good night, Lucy and Harry Potter!"

"'Night, Dobby," we said in unison.

Harry turned to me just before opening the door that led to the boys dormitories. "Prat."

"Git." I grinned. "Good night. Or have a bad night, if you want," I replied. "What's left of it."

"You too," he retorted with a roll of his eyes as he disappeared up the stairs.

I followed suit and headed up to my dormitory, still smiling to myself. Harry James Potter, the insufferable git, was truly my best friend in the world.

After taking a night off to recover, we reckoned we should brush up on our own spellwork, just to make sure we would be able to teach our peers well enough. So, after dinner, we headed to the Room of Requirement. Surely enough, there was a door there. Hogwarts knew us both.

I gestured toward the door with my chin. "You first. I've been in here a couple more times than you have."

"That's remarkable, considering I've been in it exactly zero times."

"Just open the bloody door, you insufferable git."

"You know you love me, you insomniac prat."

"That's not fair, it's only eight o'clock. Nobody's asleep yet, insomniac prat or otherwise."

"Does that truly matter?" He raised his eyebrows at me, the most obnoxious smirk dancing across his lips.

"I hate you," I muttered as I stepped forward and opened the door for myself. "Oh Merlin, this is perfect."

The room was a DADA club's paradise. There were about a dozen bookshelves against two walls with training dummies and mirrors along the other two, and cushions lining the floor, and multiple shelves were littered with various Dark detectors from Sneakoscopes to Foe Glasses to Secrecy Sensors.

I flicked my wand to test the walls. "Brilliant, they've been soundproofed already," I said.

"Hermione will love the sight of this many books," Harry commented. "Depending on quickly everyone learns, we might need to expand the curriculum."

"You're right." I walked up to one of the training dummies and drew my wand. "Expelliarmus!"

The stick in its metal hand flew through the air directly into mine. I couldn't help but smile. This was brilliant.

Harry stepped up beside me and sent a stunning spell directly into the dummy's chest, leaving a massive dent in the metal that fixed itself after a couple of seconds.

"Get your own dummy," I said as I tossed the stick back to the dummy and its hand shot out to catch it.

"I thought I was an insufferable git, not a dummy."

I rolled my eyes. "I hate you."

"Right."

I shoved him until he was in front of the dummy to my right. "There. Now we each have our own." I slashed my wand through the air. "Incendio!"

An arc of fire shot through the air and encircled my dummy, leaving black scorch marks that faded after a second.

Harry snorted. "Show-off. Incendio! Flipendo!"

A similar arc of fire wrapped around his dummy just as it was blasted about a foot backward.

"You want me to be the show-off? Fine. I'll be the show-off. Flipendo maxima!"

My dummy was knocked about five feet backward and stayed there for a couple of seconds before rolling back to its starting point.

Harry and I went back and forth, trying to outdo each other. Spells flew through the air rapidly, and the dummies returning to their original states every time for only a couple of seconds before being bombarded with another spell. Real Death Eaters wouldn't have stood a chance against either of us. Voldemort himself would have had a hard time if Harry and I were to combine forces.

After about half an hour, Harry turned to me, grinning and a bit breathless. "That was fun."

I grinned back. "Yeah, it was. Should we call it a night?"

"How about a duel first?"

"A duel?" I repeated, feeling my exhilaration beginning to give way to dread.

Harry didn't seem to notice. His eyes were still bright with excitement. "Yeah, a duel. There are some spells we can't use against dummies, like langlock. That one would be bloody useful against anyone who doesn't know nonverbal magic yet, which is probably a fair amount of people."

"Right," I said. My voice sounded far away to my own ears. "A duel. Human spells."

"Exactly!" Harry summoned a cushion and passed it to me. "Just in case, you know."

I smiled uneasily, trying to cling to the playful and enthusiastic feeling that had been there only a moment ago. "I'm insulted, Harry James. I would worry more about having your own cushion."

"I would never stun a woman without a proper cushion behind her, Lucy Olivia," he quipped with that stupid grin of his as he walked ten paces away from me, "but if it would make you feel better, I suppose I should have a precautionary cushion for myself as well."

I nodded and took a deep breath as I tossed the cushion behind me.

"Ready, Lu?"

"Are you?"

"Flipendo!" he shouted in response.

"Protego! Incendio!"

My shield went up, but no fire shot out of my wand. Harry's brow furrowed in confusion, but he sent a jinx my way, which I deflected with another shield.

"Flipendo!" I fired back.

"Protego! Bombarda!"

"Protego! Langlock!"

"Protego! Melofors!"

"Protego! Expelliarmus!"

"Stupefy!"

"Protego maxima!"

"Impedimentia!"

"Protego! Flipendo!"

This time, Harry didn't try to shield himself. And yet, he wasn't at all affected by my knockback jinx.

His brow furrowed with confusion. "Flipendo!"

I didn't shield myself either, and I was nearly knocked off my feet. I managed to hold my ground and fire back. "Depulso!"

But the book I tried to launch at him halted in midair and fell to the ground beside me.

Harry lowered his wand. "What's wrong?"

"I-I don't know," I stammered, staring at the book.

"Try again, Lu."

I shook my head. "No, I-I shouldn't."

"Are you afraid of hurting me? Is that it?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't answer.

"Lucy-"

"I said no, I shouldn't!" Before I knew what I was doing, my wand slashed through the air in the direction of the nearest training dummy. I didn't say anything out loud, but I didn't need to. The severing charm hit its mark, cleaving straight down the center of the dummy, metal screeching for a couple of seconds before repairing itself. Fear wrapped its icy hands around my throat. I couldn't breathe.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, waiting. Waiting for Harry to realize I was a monster after all. Waiting for Harry to leave because he was scared of me. Waiting for something that didn't happen.

Harry's reflection joined mine in the mirror. I glanced down at my feet, unable to hold his gaze.

"You don't have to be afraid of hurting me, if that's what it is," he said after a moment. No fear. No anger. Just calm, maddening calm, as if I hadn't just gone ballistic in front of him for no reason at all.

"Well, I am," I snapped.

"You shouldn't be."

I whirled to face him. I was finally tall enough to see eye-to-eye with him. "And why not?"

I expected him to wither under my glare, but he didn't. He met my fire with fire of his own. "Because I'm not afraid of you hurting me, and it's my skin, isn't it, not yours? Why would you try to protect me from something I don't fear in the first place?"

"Because maybe you should fear it, maybe you should fear me, and maybe I'm the only one who can see the danger, and that's fine because at least someone does."

Harry held his hands out in front of him, gesturing wildly in my direction. "Listen to yourself, this is insanity, this isn't- this isn't you."

"This isn't me?" I snapped back, trying to ignore the way my voice was shaking. "Go on, tell me about myself, I'd love to hear it."

Surely now he'll crumple. Surely now he'll realize I'm not worth it, that this was all a terrible idea, that it would be best for him just to leave and never look back-

"Alright, I will," he said with a shrug. "What do you want to hear about first, the way you don't seem to realize exactly how much you mean to everyone just as you are, or the way you worry far too much about things you can't and quite frankly don't even need to control?"

I blinked. "Harry, I-"

"Or maybe the way you care more about other people than anyone else I've ever known? Or, if you don't want to hear about yourself, maybe I should tell you about the way everyone wouldn't mind if you cared less about them if it meant caring even just a little bit more about yourself. Just last night even, Hermione said-"

"Harry-"

"Look, anyway, I'm not afraid of my best friend hurting me," he said, stubbornly pushing forward. "Bloody hell, Lucy, please just get out of your own head for a moment and try to see yourself the way everyone else does."

"There are a lot of people in the world who wouldn't hesitate to call me a monster," I mumbled.

"To hell with those people!" he shouted, slapping a hand to his forehead.

I tried not to flinch, really I did, but I couldn't help it. It was reflex. The loud shouting. The hand flying so close to me.

Harry's eyes immediately widened in recognition. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to- oh, bloody hell, I-"

"It's alright," I replied. I stumbled back a couple of steps. "I shouldn't have pushed you, I shouldn't have- shouldn't have said that, I just-"

"No, no," he said, practically tripping over his words as he squeezed his eyes shut. "No, Lucy, I'm glad you said that, I can try to convince you it's not true now that I know what exactly the problem is, it's my fault for blowing up, I'm sorry." He sighed and opened his eyes again, dropping his hand from his forehead and tucking both hands into the pockets of his robes. "C-Can I come a step closer again?"

I nodded, and we stepped closer to each other at the same time.

Harry didn't meet my eyes, this time staring down at his shoes. "Look... I mean what I said, to hell with those people. I just wish... I just wish you would try to see yourself the way I see you. I don't want you feeling like a monster because of what you've been taught to believe about yourself, because a lot of it just isn't true and never will be." His green eyes found mine. Like gravity had pulled our eyes together. "I get it, Lucy, you transform once a month and forget who you are and tear your nose up and you burn up beforehand and you practically freeze to death afterward, I get it. I wish I could help with that, I do, but I know I can't yet. But Lu, that's just one night. Just a couple of hours at a time, compared to every other hour of your existence."

"But it still defines me," I whispered.

He shook his head. "It's only a part of you, nothing more than that. It doesn't define you in the slightest. You're so much more than... than..."

"Lucy the Lycanthrope?" I asked with a small smile.

He grinned resignedly, a weak laugh escaping him. "Sure. Lucy the Lycanthrope. That's only a fraction of you, and a tiny fraction at that. I could have Hermione do the math for you, if you'd like additional evidence of that."

"I'm good," I said. "I understand."

His grin grew a bit more real. "You do?"

I nodded. "I think so. I'll need time to think and, well... work on it, I suppose, but... I think I understand what you're trying to say."

"Good."

He held his arms out, and I accepted the unspoken invitation, burying my head against his neck as we just held each other for a moment.

"Insufferable git," he muttered, "I thought I was going to have to start drawing diagrams on the wall just to get it through your thick skull."

I punched his shoulder as I pulled away. "You're the insufferable git, remember? I'm the insomniac prat."

"Yeah, well, I can be an insomniac prat too," he said with a shrug. "Depends on the day, I guess."

"I guess," I agreed. I twisted my ponytail a couple of times and stuck my wand through the mess of hair. "Maybe I should stick to training dummies for now. Until I'm ready."

Harry nodded. "I call dibs on being your first duel when you are."

"You're going to lose, Harry James, mark my words."

"I'm counting on it, Lucy Penelope," he replied, grinning from ear to ear. "Losing to you would be an honor. Winning felt wrong."

I snorted. "Stop being nice to me, git."

"Prat."

"That's better."