Hey guys - sorry this chapter is so long, it just ran away from me and I couldn't find a good place to split it up, so you've got a 4,000 word chapter. Sorry. Please review and tell me what you think!

"Harry Potter."

"No…no, no, no," I whimper – all around me, it was as if the world had tilted on its axis. The Great Hall had gone completely silent, and every eye in the room was focused directly on Harry. I only had eyes for Dumbledore himself, silently pleading for there to have been some mistake – maybe he'd read the name wrong. Or maybe this was all a dream, and I'd be waking up any moment.

But five seconds go by, and nothing happens.

Ten seconds.

Thirty.

I wasn't waking up, which meant this was really happening.

"No," I repeat, turning the word into an internal mantra as my stomach churns dangerous. "No, this isn't happening. It can't be happening."

"Ori," a voice says calmly, "you need to let go of Harry. He needs to join the other champions."

"No, I – this can't – he can't-" I stutter quietly, panting frantically – it felt like my lungs couldn't pull in enough oxygen, despite the fact that my necktie was fairly loose around my neck.

"Orissa," the voice from before – Rosie, I think – repeats, a little sterner this time. "Let go."

I look down to find that I had grabbed Harry's arm in a white-knuckle grip, and I couldn't bring myself to release him – not when letting go felt like resigning him to the Triwizard Tournament, even though the rational side of my brain knew there was nothing I could do about that right at this moment.

After I don't reply, Rosie reaches around and pries my fingers off and pulls me away with what I'll later label as 'strength that didn't seem possible.' Right now, none of it seemed to register; it was like I was trying to view the world through a thick fog.

I distantly register Dumbledore ushering Harry away and dismissing everyone else from the Hall. Rosie, upon seeing that I wasn't moving, comes around to kneel in front of me.

I wince at the feeling of her hand on her forehead – why was it so hot? The hall was freezing! – as her eyes meet mine. "Ori, look at me. Are you alright? Can you stand?"

I nod numbly, forcing myself up – which turned out to be a bad idea, given how the room suddenly started to spin.

"Okay, so no more standing," Rosie decides, stepping forward to wrap one of my arms around her shoulders and wrap an arm around my torso. "I got you. Come on, up you go."

The next few minutes are a bit of a blur, and the next thing I know, I'm situated in front of the Gryffindor Common Room fireplace, wrapped in a red and gold quilt.

I blink and shake my head to clear the cobwebs, looking around until I spot Rosie, perched on an armchair and occasionally glancing at me over the book she was reading.

"Good morning," she greets upon seeing me watching her. "Glad to see you're with me."

"What happened?"

"You went into shock," she explains, putting the book down and coming over to sit by my side and check my temperature again – her hand didn't feel as hot this time. "Do you remember what happened?"

I pause before nodding. "I was hoping that wasn't real," I admit glumly.

"It was," she confirms gently, an apologetic look on her face. "Harry's name was the fourth name pulled from the Goblet. He's with Dumbledore now, trying to figure out what happened and if he's still part of that contract that Dumbledore mentioned a few weeks ago."

"You mean the one that was binding, and couldn't be backed out of? That one?" I ask sardonically. "Rosie, Harry can't compete. The Tournament…I don't know what it is, but even Hagrid described it as dangerous. It got canceled because of a death toll. With Harry's luck, he'll find the thing that was responsible for killing people and get himself killed."

"You don't know that," the other girl argues. "He could be fine."

"Yeah, and you aren't the one that's followed him for the past three years," I fire back, shrugging the blanket off my shoulders – between it and the fireplace, I was beginning to go from 'pleasantly warm' to 'sweltering'. "He'd better be able to pull out, or I'll march down to Dumbledore's office and start raising hell."

"And I'll be right next to you, if it comes to that," Rosie promises, bringing a grin to my face. "But just wait until Harry comes back before you go storming off. Things might be okay."

I scoff derisively but drop the subject, stretching as I stand up and make my way over to the couch, plopping down on the armchair where Rosie had been sitting and pick up her book. "'The Practical Joker's Handbook: Volume One,'" I read, glancing up and grinning. "Something you want to tell me?"

"I don't know what you mean," she replies innocently, giving me a faux-confused look.

"Right," I snort. "You know, between this and the jab you gave Malfoy earlier, I'm beginning to think-" I'm cut off by the familiar creak of the portrait swinging open, and I look over to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione climb through.

My nearly-forgotten anxiety returns in full force as I leap out of my chair and hurry over to the three, checking Harry for any obvious injuries. "So? What did they say?!"

"It's not good," Harry confesses quietly, enduring my quick physical check before I look back up at him.

"And…that means…"

"It means I'm stuck," Harry bit out, storming over to the couch and sitting down with more force than necessary. "I can't back out. Dumbledore said something about my name being in the Goblet, whether I like it or not, and I can't back out."

"He said that?" Rosie asks incredulously.

"Something along those lines, yeah," Harry grumbles. "Fleur, Krum, Maxime, and Karkaroff all want my head. They accused Dumbledore of favoring his school."

"I would, if I were him," I grumble. "Did they find out how your name got put in the Goblet in the first place?"

Harry shakes his head, and a thought occurs to me and I move so that I'm facing Harry straight-on. "Harry, you…you didn't put your name in, right?"

"No, of course not," he scowls darkly. "I'm not a bloody idiot, Ori. I wouldn't have been able to get past the Age Line."

"Alright, I just had to ask," I assure him calmly before looking over at Rosie, who had moved off to the side. "I think I'm gonna take you up on that offer you made earlier."

"Of course," she nods, a wicked grin spreading across Rosie's face as she straightens her tie and smooths her robes.

"What are you up to now?" Hermione asks exasperatedly. "Please don't go cause trouble, that's the last thing we need right now."

"I'm not," I promise over my shoulder as I approach the portrait hole, holding it open for Rosie to climb through before waving to Hermione and following her through.

"Come on," I whisper in the empty corridor. "We need to be quick, I'd rather get to Dumbledore before he makes any big decisions regarding the Tournament."

"Ditto, but I'm not sure how we're going to do that," Rosie replies in the same tone.

"I do. I think there's a passage here…" I stop in front of a tapestry depicting a crowd of drunk monks and tap it with my wand in a predetermined pattern – tap, tap, pause, tap – and the tapestry suddenly rolls up to reveal a small-ish hole in the castle wall.

"Whoa," Rosie breaths. "That's brilliant. Where'd you learn how to do that?"

"My dad and his friends were known for sneaking around in their Hogwarts days," I explain as I duck through the low hole and light the tip of my wand to illuminate the darkness. "Over summer, he showed me a few of his old tricks."

"Isn't your father on the run somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere right now?" Rosie asks suspiciously as she too lights her wand, coughing at the dust we've stirred up.

"Officially, yes." I side-eye her. "Botswana, actually. You must've misheard me."

"Of course, my mistake," she replies sarcastically, peering down the narrow corridor, which held nothing but darkness. "Are you sure this is the way?"

"It should get us close enough to the Headmaster's office, yes. Probably, anyway."

"Probably?!"

"Aw, come on," I tease, gently jabbing her in the ribs. "Are you scared?"

Rosie looks at me for a moment, the wandlight casting strange shadows on her face, before she huffs. "No," she declares with absolute certainty. "Let's go."

I nod and slip into the lead, brushing aside some cobwebs as I went.

The passageway does end up depositing us just down the hallway from Dumbledore's gargoyle, although we were covered in more dust and cobwebs than it was worth. After quickly Scourgifying each other, Rosie and I approach the gargoyle with caution.

"I don't suppose you know the password?" she asks hopefully.

I shake my head but narrow my eyes at the statue in consideration. "It's usually a sweet, so…Chocolate Frogs."

Nothing happens.

"Fizzing Whisbees?" Rosie tries, with no success. "Fudge Flies, Ice Mice, uh, Jelly Slugs…"

"Pixie Puffs, Sugar Quill, Lemon Drops-"

The gargoyle swings open, and I mutter a swear word under my breath. "I should've known it'd be those."

Rosie doesn't respond, marching past me and straight up the staircase to the door to the office, behind which a voice calmly calls out, "Enter."

I step into Dumbledore's office to find the man himself sitting at his desk, motioning for Rosie and I to take a seat. "Miss Black, Miss McKinnon. To what do I owe your unexpected visit?"

"I think you know, sir," I sigh, sinking into my seat. "About the Tournament…"

"There's nothing that can be done, I'm afraid. Harry's place in the competition has been sealed."

"He's fourteen!" I argue shrilly. "Delacour, Krum, and Diggory are all at least seventeen-"

"Delacour turned seventeen last December," Rosie injects calmly.

"-yes, Rosie, thank you. And Harry's fourteen! It's unfair and it's not safe," I bite out.

"Harry is a student at Hogwarts," Rosie adds. "Ergo, your student. He's your responsibility and you're putting him in great danger, sir."

"Ladies, I understand your distress, but-"

"But then again," I continue, speaking over the headmaster, "you'd know all about that, wouldn't you, sir? I mean, first year it was a possessed teacher, then a goddamn Basilisk second year, and then you've got last year where a presumed mass-murderer was able to break into the school…what, three times? He threated a student with a knife."

"When I said I wanted an explanation, that's not what I meant!" Rosie hisses, barely audible.

"And now someone's gotten Harry into a deadly competition," I continue, quieter. "I'm not blaming you, sir – not for that, anyway, although I do intend to find out who is responsible and make sure they don't live to do so again," I vow, a deadly serious tone to my voice.

"And I'll help her," Rosie adds in the same tone, meeting Dumbledore's eyes – for a split second, I think something flashes between them, but it's gone before I can be sure.

"However," I continue, "I don't like the position that this puts me in as Harry's friend. Harry is stuck in a situation where he could very likely die, and I can't save him if that were to happen. So, I tried to put faith in the adults, and all you give me is 'there is nothing that can be done,'" I mock brutally. "And then you wonder why I have trust issues."

"She's got a point, sir," Rosie points out. "How are we supposed to trust you to help Harry if you – a very powerful wizard, arguably the most powerful in England – can't find a way to undo magic done by a cup, flaming or otherwise. I don't care how old the magic may be, there's always a way to undo it."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken, Ms. McKinnon," Dumbledore replies sadly but with a stern edge. "Do not mistake my inactivity for inability. If there was a way to release Mr. Potter from his contract, I assure you that it would have been found as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, I give you my word that I will continue to search for any clauses in the contract that may repair our situation."

"As will we," I challenge. "This isn't going to be swept under the rug, sir, I hope you know that."

"We are not going to forget this," Rosie promises, placing special emphasis on the fact that we were standing together on the matter. "But…thank you, sir. I'm sorry we were so harsh."

"I'm not."

"It's quite alright," Dumbledore says dismissively, ignoring me completely. "Your words were born of fear, not anger, which happens to the best of us," I roll my eyes, but Dumbledore ignores me once again. "Now, I trust you two will find your way back to Gryffindor tower without any trouble? It is getting quite close to curfew, I'm afraid."

"Yes, sir," I nod, face stony even as my stomach sinks – this meeting had achieved absolutely nothing, and Harry was still stuck in the Tournament. I push myself out of my chair, giving Dumbledore a curt nod before heading for the door.

Only at the base of the staircase do I finally let the tension leak out of my frame, anger flooding in on its tail. I whirl around a kick the base of the wall as hard as I could, yelping at the burst of pain that rockets up my shin.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," Rosie admonishes gently. "What were you expecting, exactly? For Dumbledore to just magically fix everything?"

"Was that a pun? That was a pun," I realize gleefully before sobering again with a sigh. "I don't know, I just thought he'd have some sort of solution. We – I – will either have to get Harry out before the competition starts or, barring that, find a way to get him out alive."

"We," Rosie corrects. "I'm helping."

"Are you sure?" I ask uneasily as we start back down the corridor. "You don't have to. I'd understand if you didn't want to, I mean…"

"You can't get rid of me," she interrupts with a small smile. "Ori, you're possibly the best friend I've ever had, so I'm not going to turn tail because one of your friends happens to be in a sticky spot. I'm going to help."

I watch her for a long moment before nodding silently, because I didn't think I could find the words to reply.

Our trek back to the Common Room is fairly silent from there, both of us content to leave the other to her own thoughts, no matter how troubling they may be. Just as I climb through the portrait hole, the silence is disrupted by the sound of shouting, and I look up to see a scene of chaos.

In the middle of the Common Room, Harry and Ron – who had been suspiciously absent – were locked in a shouting match, their faces red as the latter's hair as they screamed, pointing fingers and gesturing wildly. Hermione was trying her best to step between them, but she had to raise her voice just to be heard, which wasn't helping the noise levels at all.

Thankfully, the rest of the room was nearly empty; everyone else must've sensed the oncoming storm and fled like rats on a sinking ship.

"I leave them alone for five minutes and the world falls apart," I complain to no one in particular. "Guys! Shut up for a second!"

My words have no effect; if anything, the boys only get angrier – Ron moves like he's about to lunge at Harry, and I decide enough is enough, stepping between Harry and Ron and grabbing a fistful of their shirts, pushing them apart as hard as I could.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" I demand. "What has gotten into the two of you?"

"Ron thinks I put my name in," Harry spits out, glaring over my head. "Tell him to stop being a bloody prick."

"Harry is a selfish prat," Ron returns, spitting fire. "I know you put your name in, Potter, why won't you just admit it? But then again, why would you tell me – after all, I'm just Harry Potter's dumb sidekick, the guy you use to make yourself look better."

"Ron!" I protest vehemently. "That's not how it is and you know it. Just calm down for a second-"

"And you!" the angry redhead continues, focusing on me this time. "You're just as bad! You're practically his attack dog and not much else! You think you're so high-and-mighty just 'cause your dad's got money-"

"Back off," I snap, planting my hands on his chest and shoving him backward. "Harry didn't put his name in the Goblet and you damn well know that."

"Do you really believe that?" Ron challenges. "It wouldn't be that unrealistic, you know; terrific Potter has to have all the glory for himself. Your parents would be proud."

The room goes silent for a moment, no one daring to do so much as move, until-

THWACK.

My fist slammed into Ron Weasley's jaw hard enough to knock him off his feet.

"How dare you," I snarl, standing over his prone figure as he clutches his jaw. "How dare you, Ronald Weasley?! I don't know what's gotten into you, but the Ron Weasley I knew would have never said that." I take a step back, glaring at him. "Stay the hell away from me."

I turn on my heel and stalk back over to where Rosie had dragged Harry, physically restraining him from attacking Ron while Hermione watched everything nervously, looking horribly torn between her two friends.

I run a hand over my face as I look at my godbrother. "You okay?" I ask lowly.

Harry just turns to stare at me. I suppose that question required no answer; I wouldn't be okay either.

Sighing, I look over at the old grandfather clock in the corner of the Common Room. "It's nearly ten o'clock, you should get to bed, Harry. I think you'll need your wits tomorrow."

"What about you?" he asks concernedly. "Ori, after the day you've had-"

"I'll be fine," I murmur dismissively, accompanying the sentiment with a wave of my hand. "Can I borrow your Invisibility Cloak, though?"

Harry nods and quickly leaves the room, returning not a minute later with the familiar bundle of shimmery fabric in hand. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"Fine," I promise, stepping forward to wrap him in a brief hug before turning to poke Rosie in the arm. "You should get some rest too."

"But I didn't-" she begins to protest, but the words are cut off by a large yawn.

I give a triumphant smirk. "Yeah, see. Go on, you need your beauty sleep," I tease, nudging her towards the staircase.

Rosie grumbles with no real heat and trudging off to the dorms, Harry doing the same not long after.

With the Common Room finally empty, I turn and make my way out of the portrait hole, emerging into a dark, quiet corridor.

Wrapping the Cloak securely around my shoulders, I silently wonder where to go – everyone was either asleep or in their Common Room, so the entire castle was essentially mine to explore if I so wished. However, given the events that had taken place tonight, I wasn't feeling particularly adventurous; I was tired, both mentally and physically, and all I wanted was food and – embarrassingly enough – my dad.

I stop dead in my tracks as a thought bubbles to the surface of my mind: Dad didn't know about Harry's name being pulled from the Goblet – unless Harry himself had written him, that is, but it had barely been two hours since the ceremony and Harry had been occupied the entire time, so the possibility of him getting a chance to write a letter was slim.

Mind made up on what I had to do, I duck back into the Common Room to grab a few items and make sure the Cloak was secure before taking off in the direction of the owlery.

The small tower on the northern side of the castle was as quiet as the rest of the castle, the only noise being the soft rustling of feathers and the crunching of rodent skeletons under my feet.

Lighting my wand but holding it down so as to disrupt as few owls as possible, I scan the roosts for my owl. I eventually find the familiar black and grey plumage in a cubby just above my head, sleepy amber eyes blinking open to investigate what the disturbance was.

"Hello, girl," I murmur quietly. "Sorry to disturb you, but I could use your help." I stick my hand in my pocket and pick out an owl treat, holding it up as both an incentive and a peace offering. "Please?"

With the soft fluttering of wings, Tyche comes down to perch on my arm, nabbing the treat and gobbling it down in seconds.

"You're going to get fat if you keep eating like that," I admonish gently, carrying the owl over to one of the large, arched windows the owlrey sported. There wasn't any glass for safety reasons, but I take a seat on the windowsill anyways, leaning back against the side and sprawling one leg out in front of me, the other just brushing the floor.

Tyche happily perches on my foot, making an impatient popping noise with her beak.

"Just give me a moment," I mutter, pulling the shrunken parchment and quill I'd brought with me from my pocket and quickly restoring both to full size and beginning to write.

Padfoot, I begin,

Something's gone wrong at Hogwarts. Harry is in danger – again.

I don't know how much attention you've been paying to the calendar, but tonight was the ceremony to choose the Triwizard Champions from the Goblet of Fire. At first, it went well – Viktor Krum (yes, the Viktor Krum, he's still in school) got chosen for Durmstrang, and a girl named Fleur Delacour – I don't like her very much – got chosen for Beauxbatons, and then a Hufflepuff named Cedric Diggory got chosen for Hogwarts.

And then Harry's name came out of the Goblet. I don't know how – Harry swears up and down that he didn't put his name in or have someone do it for him, but so far, Dumbledore hasn't found any other way for his name to have been entered yet. And speaking of Dumbledore, he says that the magical contract binding Harry to the competition is final – he has to compete, whether he likes it or not.

To be honest, I'm scared. There's a reason the Tournament was banned before, and even Hagrid thinks it's dangerous. Please tell me you can help in some way.

Really wishing you were here,

Pup.

I finish writing and lift my quill, checking the letter over before nodding and grabbing my wand and casting two spells – a drying spell on the parchment, and a shrinking spell on the quill, sticking the latter my pocket before I roll up the parchment and beckon Tyche closer.

I quickly tie the parchment with a length of twine, making sure it was securely attached to the owl's foot before giving her the go-ahead.

Tyche takes off with a soft coo, and I watch her disappear into the starless night before turning to leave the owlrey and go back to Gryffindor tower, where I would hopefully get a little sleep tonight.

I had the feeling I'd need it over the next few days.