HENRY:

The second I arrived in the Great Hall, someone filled the seat across the table and slammed a book down.

"I hear you're great at Transfiguration," Hermione Granger said loudly. "Would you mind helping me?"

"Er, no, not at all," I replied.

"I can't quite make sense of this sentence, right here." She pointed to something in the book that certainly didn't belong in a Transfiguration textbook.

If Harry and Lucy led a club of sorts to teach people Defense Against the Dark Arts, would you join?

I glanced up at Granger. Her eyes were bright, expectant.

She lowered her voice. "We're not learning anything of use. With You-Know-Who out there, we've agreed it would be wise to be as prepared as possible. Just a group of trustworthy people who want to learn what Umbridge isn't teaching us."

"Good old PVT herself," I remarked, remembering George's hilarious nickname of Pink Venomous Tentacula. "I'm in." I glanced at the note again. "If Lucy wants her brother's notes from the Tournament, I remember packing them in his trunk when I... well, they're in his trunk. I'm sure I could get my parents to go to her house and send them our way."

"That would be great! Harry's good, of course, but I reckon Cedric was far better prepared, being two years older and all."

I nodded, offering her a small smile. "Cedric was always prepared. That's — well, that's part of why it's still so hard to believe sometimes."

"We won't have any more losses like Cedric," she said firmly. "Not if we can do anything about it."

"Hear, hear," I replied with a tip of my pumpkin juice.

"If you know any other trustworthy people who would be interested, would you mind asking if they'd join too? I'll be talking to as many people as I can, myself, but I think you would reach different people than I would."

I nodded. "Sure thing, Hermione. Perfect timing, really, a group of us have a free period this morning."

"Perfect! Thank you! Oh, wait, there are the Weasley twins! I need to talk to them, too! Bye, Henry!"

"Bye," I called after her, but she was already hurtling toward the twins, book wedged under her arm.

🩵💛❤️

GEORGE:

Hermione rushed over to where we were sitting, looking awfully glad to see us for some reason.

My first thought was of Lucy, since Hermione was alone.

"What's the rush, Granger?" Fred asked with a teasing grin. "Got a burning desire to try one of our products?"

"Is Lucy alright?" I asked, far more seriously.

"Yes, yes, she's fine, she was still asleep when I left the dorm," she replied. "Listen, if Lucy and Harry taught a group of us Defense Against the Dark Arts, would you join in?"

We snorted in unison.

"Obviously," Fred retorted.

She cracked a grin. "I was hoping I could count on you. Would you mind telling a couple of other trustworthy people about it? Angelina and Alicia and Lee, maybe? Anyone else in your classes who might be interested?"

"Your wish is our command, Prefect Granger," I said with so much formality her small grin gave way to a real giggle.

🩵💛❤️

LUCY:

When I opened my eyes, it felt as if I hadn't slept. As if I had been fighting all night. As if I had actually fallen into the deepest, darkest water, as if I had been struggling against the tide for the past several hours, as if every moment of sleep had been lost to something else.

I felt heavy.

I felt horrible.

I let my eyes sink shut again and pulled the blankets tighter around my chin even though I could see sunlight filtering through one of the cracks in the curtains around my bed. I waited for sleep to take me away again, hopefully somewhere more restful, but the curtains parted first.

"Sorry, Lucy, but you should probably get up now," Parvati said softly.

I pulled a blanket over my head and nodded. "Okay. Thanks."

"Are you alright?" Lavender asked as her weight settled toward the end of my bed.

I nodded again. "I'm alright. Go on without me, I'll be down at breakfast in a minute."

"If you're sure," Parvati said slowly.

I lowered my blanket from my face and nodded, still not opening my eyes. "I'm getting up."

Apparently convinced, they left and I was alone. I shielded my eyes against the morning sun as I pushed myself to my feet.

My head was spinning.

What do I need to do?

I closed my eyes again and managed a small sigh. Opening my eyes required no small amount of effort, and I moved as if through molasses through some semblance of my morning routine. Slipping my nightgown over my head. Socks, one foot at a time. Skirt. Shirt, leaving a couple of buttons undone at the bottom because my robes covered them anyway. I draped my tie around my neck and pulled my hair up into a ponytail in the same motion. I managed to run a brush through it a couple of times before the brush grew too heavy. I dropped my nightgown on my bed and grabbed my bookbag and shoved my feet into my shoes and sighed again before making my way down the stairs.

🩵💛❤️

HARRY:

I was just about to run up the stairs and check on Lucy myself when she appeared.

What happened to her?

I noticed her eyes first. Gone was the light of the night before. Gone was the light, period.

She lifted her chin a bit in greeting.

"Well, there you are," Ron said with a rather forced smile when he saw Lucy. "We were afraid something was wrong."

Lucy shook her head and shrugged. I noticed her tie second, hanging limply around her neck.

Ron and I all exchanged a brief panicked look, but if Lucy saw it, she didn't say anything.

Ginny bounded down the stairs, screeching to a breathless halt behind Lucy. She grinned. "Are we all running late today? Excellent! I thought I would be the only Gryffindor left in the tower. I'm starving. Let's go!"

She walked toward the portrait hole, and the rest of us followed suit. I hung back a bit to walk with Lucy, who still hadn't spoken. I wasn't quite sure what to say myself. Aside from her eyes and her tie, nothing seemed amiss. I didn't think anything had happened the night before that had made her like this; I had just spoken with Neville about how much better she seemed.

I was baffled.

I couldn't do anything about the light in her eyes, but her tie I could fix. Just before we got to the Great Hall, I reached for her shoulder and spun her around a bit to face me and ducked into a quiet hallway. I managed a bit of a grin, a weak attempt to mask my concern.

"Forget about your tie?" I said as teasingly as I could.

I expected her to blush, but she didn't. She glanced down and nodded a bit, reaching up to tie it.

I noticed her hands weren't shaking.

I grinned for real. "Hey, look at that!"

She blinked and glanced up at me, slowly twisting the fabric in her hands. "Hm?"

"Your hands," I said. "They're not shaking."

Lucy's brow furrowed, and she glanced down. "Huh. You're right."

"That's a good sign, isn't it?"

I expected another nod, but she bit her lip, staring at her still hands tangled in her tie.

"Lu?"

"I..." She lowered her hands, tie still undone. "I'm not sure."

I couldn't find a reply for that.

After a couple of seconds, she met my eyes again. "I think Neville said it was supposed to slowly get better, not get worse then stop entirely."

"It's better this way, though, isn't it? Having it just stop?"

"Maybe," she replied, her voice strained. "Best hope Umbridge doesn't find out, yeah?"

I swore under my breath.

Lucy shrugged. "'S not the end of the world if she does."

I narrowed my eyes at Lucy. "Don't say something like that." I reached forward and tied her tie myself, taking a silent deep breath. "Just because you don't seem to care if she finds out doesn't mean the rest of us don't. Just keep up the shaking in her class, and it should be fine."

"Alright." Lucy tucked her tie into the front of her robes. "Thanks. I think I left my brain in my room this morning."

"Want me to head up with you to get it?" I asked with a laugh.

She shook her head. "Not worth it. I'll be alright."

"Are you sure?"

It was a far more loaded question than she probably realized. I knew whatever was going on was much more than her being forgetful.

I knew she would be alright. She had to be. Eventually. I had known that ever since the last night of summer when she finally let herself cry and she fell asleep in my arms. Professor Lupin's words, from the first day of summer we had gotten to spend together, rang in my ears.

"I just worry that in the coming weeks, as she begins to process what her life will look like now, with everything that's happened, she could... begin to lose sight of the fact that there IS still a life of her that still has hope."

I knew she would be alright, she had to be, eventually, I had known that for as long as I'd known Lucy, but I needed to know that she knew that too.

Finally, she nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure," she said. But that's not what I heard.

It was her eyes that betrayed her. It was as if her eyes were like shattered glass, as if the sky had fallen overnight.

I understood what she said. But I heard exactly the opposite.

🩵💛❤️

HENRY:

The free period as right after breakfast, but I needed a moment to collect myself, so I could do what I needed to do in the best way possible.

I wasn't cut out to be prefect. Cedric was. He was naturally observant, always spotting the silent sighs and the shaking hands and the frustrated twitches, and that coupled with how deeply he cared about everything and everyone meant that he was a brilliant leader, though he was never comfortable in the spotlight.

But then I thought maybe leadership wasn't about the spotlight, or the badge, or the title. Maybe a leader was someone who did what needed to be done in order to make sure everyone felt important. Cedric certainly did that. I cared, too. I was trying, trying desperately to hold together a sinking ship, a ship that had been torn in two by the cannonball that was the loss of Cedric.

We couldn't lose anyone else.

I made my way to the common room, where I knew a number of seventh-years would be studying together. It was quiet when I entered, so everyone's heads turned toward me. I counted quickly.

Perfect. We're all here.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "I, er, have something to ask you all."

Without looking at anyone, I walked in front of the fireplace.

"Hermione Granger asked me something during breakfast this morning, she's a fifth-year Gryffindor prefect." I crossed my arms and stared at my feet as I paced, one foot in front of the other. "She had an idea for a club, a small club of trustworthy people who want to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts since Umbridge isn't teaching us any."

"Are we supposed to run it since we're the oldest?" Isabella asked.

I shook my head. "No, Lucy and Harry Potter will."

"What do they know about anything? They're fifth-years."

"Harry learned a lot preparing for..." I couldn't bring myself to say it. I released the rest of my breath through my nose before continuing. "And Lucy can acquire Cedric's notes from when he was preparing for... yeah. Not to mention, their mum was an Auror. Lucy probably knows more than we would expect."

I took another breath and glanced around the room. I couldn't tell how everyone was feeling. Everyone's expressions were shuddered, shut off, hidden away behind the grief that they tried to hide away too.

"Look, I..." I swallowed hard. "I miss him too. This... this is just one way we can try to make sure that, well, what happened to Cedric doesn't happen to any of us, too."

"But he was so much better than any of us," Alex said slowly, glancing up from his hands. "How are we supposed to — if he couldn't — we — "

I bit my lip, scrambling for a response. I didn't have a good answer, or even a logical one. I just had a feeling in my gut that this was the right thing to do, and I wanted to trust that.

All faith is blind in the darkness.

"I don't have a good answer," I admitted finally. "I just have hope. I think this is a good idea, and I think you all agree."

A couple of reluctant nods.

"We can help make the club as strong as possible, too, since we're seventh-years," I went on. "We can leave behind something of a legacy so that it'll be alright, even after we graduate. I-I'm sorry, I know we've all heard this too many times, but... I think this is what Cedric would want."

It was true. We had heard that phrase so many times it felt like an empty offering of hope and a slap across the face simultaneously. But I had never meant it more than I did in that moment.

I stopped pacing and leaned up against the wall, closing my eyes and releasing everything I felt into a long sigh. "I know everything feels hard right now, even the ordinary day-to-day parts of life, but I think that of everything we've been doing this year, this is our first real chance to do something worth more than just... just getting by. Getting by is... exhausting right now, but maybe this is what we need. We need to do something FOR Cedric, because I mean it when I say I'm convinced this is what he would want for us. He wouldn't want any of us to... to..."

"You're right."

I opened my eyes to see Emily rising to her feet and turning to the others.

"Henry's right. Cedric never missed a chance to do the right thing, and I think we all know this is the right thing. They're not asking too much of us. Just a club to better protect ourselves, our housemates. Cedric did that, too."

"He was the best at it," Alex agreed. "I mean, we were all picked up off the ground by Cedric at least once. Most of us, it was a lot more than once." He looked up at me. "I'm in."

🩵💛❤️

GEORGE:

Fred and I were on a recruitment mission during the free period. Angelina and Lee were easy to convince. We spotted Alicia reading by herself in the courtyard.

Fred pushed me forward. "You take care of this one, mate, I'll go find Kenneth."

I turned around to protest, but he was gone.

Git.

I strode forward and greeted Alicia with a gentle tug of her ponytail. "Morning, sunshine! Lovely day, isn't it?"

"What do you want?" she asked with a resigned smile.

"What do I — " I narrowed my eyes at her. "I am offended. Who says I want anything? Can't a bloke greet a lady without the lady assuming an ulterior motive for such a delightful greeting?"

She blinked at me, her smile not budging.

"Fine." I sighed as I laid on the cobblestone using my bookbag as a pillow. "How would you feel if I offered you an invitation to a top-secret club of elite Hogwarts students with a goal of defeating Voldemort?"

She huffed a laugh. "Well, that's not what I was expecting."

I sat up quickly and searched my bag for a scrap of parchment. I pretended to read it frantically (it was blank) and declared, "Oh bloody hell, I'll have to resort to a different vocabulary to persuade you! Let's see, what does my script recommend? Oh, perhaps this: I, your name here — oh, I mean George Weasley, would like to ask you, Alicia Spinnet, if you would be interested in a subtle resistance group focused on learning the defensive magic that Dolores Umbridge will not be teaching us this year?" I looked up at her and plastered a smile on my face. "What would you say to that one?"

"I would say yes, of course." She shut her book with a snap. "Tell me more."

"Harry and Lucy would lead it, since Harry had experience preparing for the Tournament and Lucy is Cedric's sister and their mum was an Auror. We're not too sure of the details yet, seeing as Prefect Granger informed me of this idea just this morning, but Freddie and I were tasked with recruitment so recruitment we shall attempt."

Alicia nodded slowly. "So it's like a Defense Against the Dark Arts club?"

"Precisely! But I prefer the more dramatic terms, myself, it fills me with quite the sense of importance."

"You say that as if you don't already have enough confidence to fill the Quidditch World Cup stadium," she retorted.

I pressed a hand to my chest as if mortally wounded. "Only the Quidditch World Cup stadium? Darling, I would say I have enough confidence for at least two Quidditch World Cup stadiums and possibly a third."

She laughed. "Alright. Whatever you say."

I grinned. Truthfully, confidence was Fred's thing and not mine, but I would sooner kiss a dementor than admit my insecurities, so two Quidditch World Cup stadiums it was. I opted for a quick topic change. "What book are you reading?"

"Charms textbook," she muttered, opening the book again. "Dreadfully boring, of course."

"Would it be less boring if I read it for you?"

Alicia cocked an eyebrow at me. "You can read?" She giggled as I made a face at her and wrenched the book out of her hands.

"I can read!" I insisted, lying on my back and holding it over my head. Upside down. On purpose, of course. I squinted at the page. "Merlin's beard, woman, no wonder it's boring! You've got yourself a book of nonsense!"

"It's upside down, you prat," she said with a giggle.

"I'm not stupid, darling, I would know if the book — " I flipped it around so it was in fact readable, and started reading aloud. Fred looked rather smug when he found the two of us still there twenty minutes later, but I elected to ignore it. Alicia was just a friend. I would have done that for anybody.

🩵💛❤️

HARRY:

"Hey Neville, we have a question for you," I said once we were left to our own devices in Charms. Our conversation would surely be drowned out by the chorus of bullfrogs. We were working on the silencing charm in class.

Neville's eyes immediately went to Lucy's hands, and for half a second, he looked thrilled. Then his expression gave way to one of concern, just like I had seen on Lucy's face. "That's not normal."

"I was afraid of that," Lucy whispered, reaching forward and catching her frog before it leaped off the desk.

"What happened?" Neville asked.

"Nothing."

"No, Lucy, that's not nothing," he pressed, his voice gentle but not yielding. "It wouldn't just... do that. What happened? Did you take a different potion? Did you hit your head?"

She shook her head. "I didn't do anything different."

"They were still shaking at the party, right?" I asked. "I didn't miss anything?"

Lucy glanced at me for a second before shaking her head again. "You didn't miss anything," she said with an emotion I couldn't quite identify. She pointed her wand at the bullfrog. "Silencio!"

I had seen Lucy do that charm as a second-year, I had seen her silence the entire Slytherin Quidditch team after they laughed at Ron's wand backfiring, she was brilliant at that charm.

When the frog croaked audibly again, I knew something was seriously wrong.

I blinked, panic ripping through me. Lucy seemed unfazed.

"Silencio!"

The frog croaked again.

"Silencio!"

The frog croaked again.

I waited. I waited for the flash of fury in Lucy's eyes, the frustrated fighting fire. I waited for her anger to spark to life, waited for something to spark to life, but no such thing happened.

🩵💛❤️

LUCY:

I sighed. Neville and Harry both looked somewhat horrified, though I couldn't understand why. I wasn't surprised in the slightest. I wondered if this was just... part of the deal.

I glanced at Neville with a silent question.

He answered out loud. "I don't think this is..."

When he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, I nodded and tried again. And again. And again.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

I kept trying for the rest of class. And still, nothing. The croaks didn't even get a tiny bit quieter. Nothing happened. It was as if I were just pointing a stick at the frog and muttering gibberish.

It was just as well, really. I would have hated for something to go wrong. I might have hurt the frog by accident if that had happened.

I had the same luck in Transfiguration. Whereas I had been close to vanishing my mouse almost entirely, nothing happened in that class either. The fur didn't fade, the tail didn't shrink, the whiskers didn't disappear. The mouse stayed on my desk. I could feel Professor McGonagall's concerned eyes boring into the top of my head even though I couldn't bring myself to meet her gaze.

It was just as well, really. I would have hated for something to go wrong. I might have hurt the mouse by accident if that had happened.

🩵💛❤️

HENRY:

Two weeks later, all of the seventh-years in Hufflepuff had agreed, along with a number of fifth- and sixth-years. The meeting was to be held in the Hog's Head in the morning, and there was an air of nervous anticipation in the common room. Secretive glances back and forth, an unspoken excitement of sorts. We were finally doing something, and we were doing it for Cedric so that nobody would have to die the way he did.

🩵💛❤️

GEORGE:

Two weeks later, all of the seventh-years in Gryffindor had agreed, along with almost all of the fifth- and sixth-years. The meeting was to be held in the Hog's Head in the morning, and everyone in the common room who was in on it was excited. Secretive whispers back and forth, a thirst for revenge or glory or something in between. We were finally doing something, and we were doing it for ourselves so that nobody would have to go through what Lucy did.

🩵💛❤️

HARRY:

Two weeks later, Lucy still hadn't cast a single successful spell in class. She was doing well, of course, in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures and Potions and History of Magic and Ancient Runes, keeping up with her verbal essays because her fingers were still clumsy and unpracticed at writing even though her hands had stopped shaking, but Charms and Transfiguration was a different story. Her frog was still the loudest. Her mouse was still completely visible. Something was wrong with her magic, but more concerning, something was wrong with her. Most concerning of all was the fact that she either didn't notice something was wrong, or didn't care.

But the meeting was coming. I hoped against hope that she would feel better then.

🩵💛❤️

LUCY:

Two weeks later, I still couldn't produce any magic in any of my classes. I did successfully heal up Ron's hand when he tried to swat a Bludger in practice and was too embarrassed to go to Madam Pomfrey, and I healed it without second thought, but aside from that... I was utterly useless. I thought of the Everlins a fair amount. While Harry and Ron were at practice and Hermione was working on homework and the twins were testing their products, I often sought solitude. I never told anyone where I was going, but I would go to the Room of Requirement or wander in the Forbidden Forest, depending on my mood. The Room of Requirement when I wanted to be alone with the past. The Forbidden Forest when I wanted to be alone with the darkness.

But the meeting was coming. I would have to confront both the past and the darkness then.