Taking Charge #1 (Patreon)

The campsite was bigger than Harry had expected. Tents ran off in every direction, some of them plain canvas and others with chimneys, flagpoles, and in one case a small garden with a fountain. Wizards from all over the world had shown up, and every one of them seemed to be shouting, singing, or trying to sell something.

“Look at that one,” Ron said, pointing at a tent with two live peacocks tied up outside. “Who brings peacocks to a Quidditch match?”

“Someone with money and no sense,” Hermione said. “Those poor things look miserable.”

Harry shook his head as he shifted the strap of his bag on his shoulder.

Green and red were everywhere. Ireland's supporters wore shamrocks and waved flags that shouted rude things at the Bulgarians, and the Bulgarians answered with scarlet scarves and posters of Viktor Krum glowering from every second tent pole. Ron had already bought a tiny Krum figure that walked up and down his palm scowling at nothing, and he looked ridiculously pleased with it.

“You're supporting Ireland,” Hermione said for the third time. “And you bought the Bulgarian Seeker.”

“He's the best player in the world,” Ron said. “It's not the same thing.”

They stopped at a stall stacked with brass binoculars covered in dials and knobs. A sign said OMNIOCULARS, and underneath it, in smaller letters, that they could replay, slow down, and even give a play-by-play of the action. Harry picked one up, turned a dial, and watched a wizard across the path replay his own sneeze in slow motion.

“Ten Galleons each,” the stallholder said.

“I'll take three,” Harry said.

Ron's head snapped around. “Three? Harry, that's thirty Galleons.”

“I know how much it is.” Harry counted out the coins with a small shrug. “One for me, one for you, one for Hermione. You'd both end up squinting at the pitch otherwise, and I'd never hear the end of it.”

“You don't have to,” Hermione said, though she was already taking hers with a pleased smile.

“I know I don't have to.” He handed Ron his pair. “It's only money, and I've got plenty of it. It's a lot more fun when I can spend it on something.”

Ron opened his mouth to argue but he looked at the Omnioculars and closed it again. “Thanks, mate.”

They kept going. Harry bought a program, three green rosettes that squealed the names of the Irish players when you poked them, and a bag of Every Flavor Beans the three of them finished before they reached the end of the row. Hermione made a speech about how he was spending too much but then bought herself a pot of Bulgarian rose jam from the next stall and ate half of it with her finger.

“Not a word,” she said when she caught Harry grinning at her.

“I didn't say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was thinking it looked good.”

She huffed and turned red, and Ron muttered something about how nobody ever bought him jam.

They passed a group of Irish wizards singing something very rude about the Bulgarian Beaters, and a group of Bulgarians answering with something much ruder. A little farther on, a man was selling wands that supposedly cast the Dark Mark, and Hermione marched him straight to a Ministry wizard, who confiscated the lot. Ron watched with wide eyes. Harry kept the program open in one hand and read through the team lineups as they walked. He felt more relaxed than he had in weeks.

They were passing a stall of dancing shamrocks when a voice rang out behind them.

“C'est Harry Potter! Fleur, regarde, c'est Harry Potter!”

Harry didn't need Hermione to translate his own name. He stopped walking and turned around with a sigh, ready for another round of staring and whispering.

What he found was a little girl of about seven, with silvery blonde hair down to her waist, pointing straight at him and bouncing on her toes. Her eyes were huge, and she looked ready to burst. A young woman stood behind her with both hands on her shoulders, holding her back as gently as she could. She was looking at Harry with an apologetic grimace.

She was also, without any doubt, the most beautiful woman Harry had ever seen. Her hair was the same silver as the girl's, falling past her shoulders, and her skin seemed to catch the light. Harry thanked the stars that he had enough willpower not to stare.

“Oh, how sweet,” Hermione said beside him with a grin. “You should say hello, Harry.”

“Hermione.”

“She looks like she's going to explode if you don't.”

“You know I don't like the whole…” He waved a hand vaguely at his forehead, “thing.”

“She's a child.”

Harry looked at the girl again. She hadn't stopped bouncing, and her hands were clasped under her chin now as though she was holding in a scream. He sighed, but a small smile crept in anyway.

“Fine. Just this once.”

“Wonderful,” Hermione said as she started walking.

Ron had said nothing for the last minute and a half. When Harry glanced back, he saw him walking after them mechanically, with his mouth hanging slightly open and the Krum figure still scowling away on his palm. Harry frowned a bit at him, his brows furrowing slightly, before he shook it off and went on.

The woman let go of her sister's shoulders when they got close. The girl didn't run. She stood absolutely still, as if she thought he might disappear if she moved. Harry crouched down so they were eye to eye.

“Hi,” he said. “What's your name?”

The girl stared at him for a few seconds with her mouth open, before she turned around and quickly said something to the woman, breathless and so fast that Harry couldn't pick out a single word even if he understood the language. She turned back to him halfway through, turned around again, waved both hands, and finished with a squeal.

Hermione was smiling as she listened. “She says you're really him. The one with the scar, who beat You-Know-Who. She says she told everyone at home that she'd see you someday and nobody believed her, and now she's going to write to all of them.” She paused as the girl kept going. “She also says your hair is messier than she thought it would be.”

“That's fair,” Harry said with a chuckle. Hermione translated it, and the girl giggled.

“Je m'appelle Gabrielle Delacour,” she said, one hand pressed to her chest.

“Gabrielle Delacour,” Hermione said. “That's her name.”

“Harry Potter,” Harry told her with a smile, holding out a hand. “Though I think you already knew that.”

Hermione translated with a smile, and Gabrielle shook his hand very seriously, with both of hers. “It's a really nice name, Gabrielle,” Harry said. “And I'm glad to meet you. You're a lot braver than most people I meet, shouting across a whole campsite like that.”

Hermione had barely finished translating before Gabrielle's face lit up so much that Harry nearly laughed. She said something else, more quietly this time, and glanced at the woman with her.

Hermione giggled. “She wants to know if she can have a hug.”

The woman rubbed two fingers between her eyebrows with a look of long suffering and said nothing. Harry looked at Gabrielle, who was holding her breath, before he smiled and nodded.

That was all the invitation she needed. Gabrielle flew into him and wrapped both arms around his neck, squeezing hard enough that Harry rocked back on his heels. He chuckled and patted her back with one hand to steady them both. She held on like she wasn't planning to let go, and it reminded him a lot of how Dobby hugged his legs whenever he got too excited.

“Gabrielle,” the woman said, bending down to ease the little girl back by the shoulders. “Assez, ma chérie.”

Gabrielle let go with a reluctant groan, though she was still grinning. The woman straightened up and looked at Harry, a little flushed. “I am so sorry. She has talked of nothing else for weeks. My name is Fleur Delacour. I am her older sister.”

“Harry,” he said, standing and shaking her hand. “And it's fine. She's got a good grip, I'll give her that.”

Fleur laughed softly, and her accent made the words flow differently. “She gets it from our mother.”

He asked her where they'd come from, and she told him they'd taken a Portkey from Paris the day before. She asked if he was enjoying the campsite. He said it was a lot louder than he'd expected, and she said she'd noticed the same thing, and they traded a joke about the peacocks. It was an easy conversation. Harry felt relaxed and at home in it, and he never thought about it any harder than that.

Fleur, meanwhile, noticed something. Her eyes rested on him with a faint crease between her brows, and then she looked past him, at Ron, and back again.

“You are not affected at all,” she said slowly.

“By what?” Harry asked.

“By me.” She smiled, a little crookedly. “My sister and I are part veela.”

Hermione's eyes went wide. She looked at Fleur, then at Gabrielle, and then, with dawning horror, at Ron. Fleur tilted her head toward him. He was standing just behind Harry's shoulder, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed, and he hadn't blinked in what must have been like a full minute.

“Honestly, Ronald,” Hermione hissed, and drove her elbow into his ribs.

Ron's mouth snapped shut with an audible click, and he doubled over with a wince. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Behave yourself,” Hermione said, in the voice she used on first years. “You're staring.”

The glaze cleared out of his eyes and his ears went red all the way down his neck. He looked at Fleur but couldn’t keep at it and looked down at his shoes, mumbling, “Sorry. Didn't mean to.”

Fleur waved it off with a small smile. “It is not exactly your fault. You are not the first, and you will not be the last. I am used to it.” She turned back to Harry, and her smile became more honest. “It is refreshing, to meet a man who is immune to the allure.”

“The allure?”

“Veela have a kind of magic,” Hermione said. “It affects men. They get dazed and stupid and they'll do just about anything to get a veela's attention, whether they want to or not. It's what you saw with Ron.”

“Hey,” Ron muttered.

“Huh,” Harry said. He looked at Fleur and shrugged. “Sorry. I haven't felt anything. Is that bad?”

“Non, it is wonderful,” she said, and let out a tinkling laugh.

She told them she was here with the Beauxbatons contingent, and pointed out a pale blue tent with silver trim a few rows away. They had all expected France to make the final, she said, but France had lost in the semifinals, and the tickets had been booked and paid for already, so they might as well enjoy themselves.

“Not like France had much of a chance,” Ron muttered. “They had less chance of making the final than England did.”

Fleur ignored him, and Hermione shot him a very sharp glare.

“What?” Ron said. “I didn't say anything wrong.”

Fleur turned to Harry and her voice softened. “I wish to thank you, also. For what you did. When you were a baby, you know. Gabrielle grew up with that story, and she sleeps easier because of it. So do I.” She smiled, more seriously this time. “I have always been a fan of yours. I hope that is not too strange to say.”

Harry shifted his weight and scratched the back of his neck. He had heard something like it from a hundred strangers, and it never got easier. It felt wrong to take credit for something he'd been too young to remember. Fleur's eyes didn't miss it, and a small, knowing smile curled the corner of her mouth.

“It was no big deal,” Harry said. “Honestly.” He crouched again for a moment and smiled at Gabrielle. “It was great to meet you. Don’t trouble your sister, all right? Well, maybe a little bit. But not too much.”

Fleur rolled her eyes as Hermione translated, and Gabrielle nodded with a grin. Harry straightened up. “We should get back now. The others are probably waiting.”

“Of course,” Fleur said, nodding. “Au revoir, Harry.”

Harry turned around with Ron and Hermione, and they left.

Fleur watched him go for a moment with a small smile on her face. Gabrielle tugged on her sleeve, still talking a mile a minute in French about how he'd smiled at her, how he'd said her name was nice, how he'd let her hug him, and how she'd never wash her face again. Fleur listened with amusement and murmured the right answers in the right places.

“Un sorcier complètement immunisé,” she said at last, mostly to herself. A fully immune wizard. It was very rare.

“Qu'est-ce que tu dis?” Gabrielle asked. (What are you saying?)

“Rien, ma chère. Viens, nous devrions rejoindre les autres.” (Nothing, my dear. Come, we should go join the others.)

xXx

“I think Fleur liked you,” Hermione said once they were a good distance down the row.

Harry blinked at her. “What? She was just being friendly. I didn't see anything like that.”

Hermione shook her head with a smile she didn't try to hide. “Of course you didn't.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Was she really that pretty?” Ron asked in a dazed voice, looking at nothing. Hermione and Harry looked at him for a second, then at each other, and decided not to answer.

They had almost reached the row of tents where the Weasleys had camped when somebody stepped out from between two of them and blocked the path.

She was tall, with pale blonde hair pulled back neatly from a sharp, pale face, and gray eyes that were already looking at Harry as if she'd been waiting for him. She wore dark green robes that fit her too well to be anything but expensive, and she carried herself with a calm, polished air that made the rest of the campsite look sloppy by comparison.

“Potter,” she said calmly.

“Malfoy,” Harry said with a small grimace.

“Where's your shadow?” Ron asked. “Lost your two gorillas?”

“I'm not in the habit of bringing them everywhere, Weasley.” Her eyes flicked over him, taking in the shamrock hat, the Krum figure, and the glazed tint still lingering in his face. “What happened to you? You look like someone hit you with a Bludger.”

“Veela,” Hermione said shortly.

“Ah.” Dracaena's mouth twitched. “That explains it. I'd say it was an improvement, but I'd rather not start the day by lying.”

Ron went red, and Harry rolled his eyes. This was exactly what he'd expected from her. She'd said these sorts of things for years, in the same smooth voice, as if she was only reading them out of a book.

“Are we done?” he asked. “We're expected back.”

“No.” She stepped closer. The cool tone slipped a little, and she spoke quietly, with a glance over her shoulder at the tents. “Listen to me, Potter. After the match tonight, I want you to go straight back to your tent. All of you. Stay inside, keep your wands on you, and don't go wandering around the campsite. I mean it.”

“Why?” Hermione said, frowning.

“I can't say. I only know that you'll want to be in your tent. If you're not too busy being brave, that is.” Her mouth tightened. “Look, I'm not saying this to—”

“No,” Harry said, his voice flat and hard, and it stopped her in the middle of her sentence. Her lips parted a little.

“I don't want to hear anything you've got to say, Malfoy,” Harry said, quietly, and it was worse than if he'd shouted. “Not one more word. Whatever this is, I'm not interested. Stay the hell away from me and my friends.”

Dracaena stared at him. Her face went blank, and for a second she looked like she'd been slapped. “I was only—”

“I said I'm done.”

He stepped around her, and Hermione and Ron followed. Ron couldn't keep the grin off his face. Harry kept his eyes forward. He could feel her standing there behind them, not moving, until they rounded a tent and he couldn't feel it anymore.

“Harry,” Hermione said carefully, after a while. “Maybe you were a bit harsh on her.”

“Harsh?” Ron said at once. “She's a Malfoy, Hermione. The whole family's been a pack of slimy Slytherins since forever. If she's telling us to stay in our tents, she's up to something, and I'd bet my wand on it.”

“I'm not saying she isn't. I'm only saying she looked—”

“Both of you, give it a rest,” Harry said. He ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath. His jaw was still tight. “I'm in no mood to talk about it. Please.”

Hermione gave him a long look before she nodded. Ron glanced at the two of them and, to his credit, let it go. They walked the rest of the way in silence.

The Weasleys' tents came into view a minute later. Fred and George were sitting out front with Ginny, arguing about odds, and Mr. Weasley was tending a kettle that wouldn't boil no matter how hard he stared at it. Bill and Charlie were playing cards on a crate, and Percy was reading something with a very serious face.

“There you are,” Mr. Weasley said. “Right on time. Tea?”

“Please,” Harry said, taking a seat on an upturned crate. Someone pressed a mug into his hands. Fred said something about Ireland and the money he'd wagered with Ludo Bagman while George started dreaming about what they’d do with the gold when they won. Soon, the two of them started arguing about whose idea it had been. Within ten minutes, Harry was laughing along with the rest of them, and the knot in his stomach mostly loosened.

xXx

The top box was high enough above the stadium that the players looked like toy figures even through Omnioculars. It was also full of important people. Cornelius Fudge was talking to someone in a stiff velvet coat, and he turned around with a huge smile the instant he saw Harry.

“Harry! Harry Potter! Come in, my dear boy, come in.” He grabbed Harry's hand and shook it with both of his. “I was just telling the Bulgarian Minister all about you. This is the Boy Who Lived, you see. Saved us all. A remarkable young man.”

The Bulgarian Minister frowned politely and said nothing. He understood no English, as far as Harry could tell, and Fudge was shouting at him as if volume would help. Harry smiled and nodded through the introductions with as much calmness as he could muster, shaking hands with a long list of officials he'd never remember. He didn't love it. He still felt slightly awkward with the attention, as he always did, but he'd learned to stand through it with a straight back and let it pass.

The Malfoys were in the box, too. Lucius Malfoy stood near the back with his cane, looking like a man at a funeral he was enjoying, which was a rather odd look on his face. His wife, Narcissa, sat beside him, cool and composed, and gave Harry a polite nod when their eyes met. Dracaena was next to her mother, and she looked at Harry with an unreadable face.

Harry looked at the pitch instead. He didn't give her so much as a glance, and he kept it that way for the rest of the introductions.

When the Veela came out to dance for Bulgaria, the whole stadium seemed to lose its head. Ron lurched to his feet and had one leg over the rail before Hermione grabbed his belt and hauled him back down with a furious look. Wizards down below were shouting and tearing off their rosettes. Harry sat in his seat with his arms folded and watched the dance with a calm, empty expression.

He felt eyes on him. When he glanced sideways, Dracaena was watching, seated very straight, her eyes narrowed a little in thought. She saw him notice and turned back to the pitch at once. Harry ignored her.

The match itself was one of the best Harry had ever seen. The Irish Chasers moved as if they were one person, and Krum was ridiculous, diving at the Snitch in a way that made even Hermione groan with pleasure. He caught it in the end, but the Bulgarians lost anyway, one hundred seventy to one hundred sixty. Ireland won, and the noise nearly knocked Harry out of his chair.

He saw Fred and George a few rows down, hugging each other and whooping, with Ludo Bagman's gold falling out of their pockets in handfuls. The twins looked so happy and so stupid that Harry felt the rest of the day's weight come off his shoulders, and he laughed out loud for the first time in hours.

xXx

The laughs evaporated soon enough.

Harry stood in the middle of what used to be the campsite, and he couldn't remember how he'd got there.

Everything was burning. Tents lay in flattened heaps, canvas smoldering, poles snapped in half, and flames licked up from half a dozen places at once. The air stank of smoke and scorched cloth. Somewhere to his left, people were screaming, and a long way off to his right something was exploding every few seconds. He had a smear of soot on his face and a cut on his hand, and he didn't remember how he got either of them.

He couldn't see the Weasleys. He couldn't see Ron or Hermione.

His heart was pounding. He turned in a circle, wand in hand, searching the smoke. Where were they? Were they together? Had Mr. Weasley managed to get the younger ones out? He'd been separated from the group in the crowd, and he'd lost the others in the dark when everything had started going wrong. He told himself they were fine. They had to be fine. They were smart, and they were together, and Mr. Weasley knew what he was doing.

It didn't stop his stomach from turning over. Far above the trees, a few shapes hung in the smoky air, and he made himself not look at them too long.

Another explosion rocked the ground behind him, close enough that he felt the heat on the back of his neck. Harry ducked, tightened his grip on his wand, and ran for the tree line. The woods would give him cover while he worked out what was going on.

Dracaena's voice came to him as he ran. If you're not too busy being brave, that is. He gritted his teeth. It had sounded like mockery then, and it sounded like mockery even now. She'd known. She'd stood right in front of him that afternoon and told him to stay in his tent, as if she was already enjoying what was coming. Her whole family must have known.

A scream cut through the trees.

It was a young woman's scream, high and sharp, from somewhere ahead and to the left. Harry didn't think. He turned toward it and ran, his eyes wide and his heart hammering against his ribs, dodging low branches and jumping roots.

He stopped behind a thick oak at the edge of a small clearing, and what he saw shocked him to his core.

A man stood in the middle of the clearing, black-robed, with a white skull mask over his face. Wizards and witches like him had been seen in the campsite all night. Death Eaters. Harry had expected that. What he hadn't expected was the person standing in front of him on the ground, scrambled up against a fallen log with her legs drawn in.

Dracaena Malfoy.

Her wand was lying a few feet away, out of reach. There was blood on her temple and her robes were torn at the shoulder. She was shaking so hard that Harry could see it from where he was. She was scared. There was no other word for it.

“Do you know who I am?” she said, and her voice shook, but she forced it up anyway. “I'm Dracaena Malfoy. My father is Lucius Malfoy. You can't touch me.”

The Death Eater laughed mockingly, and it made Harry's skin crawl. “Oh, I know exactly who you are, girl.”

“Then you know—”

“Your father didn't say who we could and couldn't have,” the man said. “He said to make some noise tonight and have some fun. That's all. Have fun with whoever we find out here. No one said you were off limits, girl.” He took a step closer, and she pressed back against the log. “I've been watching you and your mother for a long time. Years, in fact. But I could never do anything. Too many eyes. Too many guards. And tonight there's nobody in these woods but me and you, and I'd be an idiot to waste it.”

Her face went white. For a moment she said nothing, her throat bobbing as she gulped. As if mustering all her courage, she lifted her chin and gritted out with a glare, “When my father finds out about this, you'll wish you'd never been born.”

“Will I?” He sounded amused. “You'd be surprised how little your father can do to me. I'm dead before winter, girl. A curse went into me last year, and no healer in Britain can lift it. I'm walking around on borrowed days. So you can see why I don't scare easily anymore.” He tilted his head. “And if I'm going out, I might as well go out having had a taste of the Malfoy heiress.”

Behind the oak, Harry's blood went hot. He pressed himself against the bark, with his wand raised and his jaw clenched so hard it hurt. He could have stepped out then. He wanted to. But there was one wand and one shot, and the man was only a few yards from her. He needed the right moment. He needed her not to be in the way.

The Death Eater raised his wand. “Imperio.”

Dracaena's whole body jerked. Her eyes went wide, and then they went empty, glazing over. Every trace of fear drained out of her face as if someone had wiped it off. She sat very still on the ground.

“On your feet,” the man ordered, and she stood up at once. “Come over here. But slowly. I want a show.”

She started walking. Her hips swayed slowly with every step, and her mouth curved into a lazy smile that didn't belong on her face at all.

“You're going to be a good little girl for me,” he said filthily as he ran a hand lazily down the front of his robes, cupping his manhood. His voice dropped further as he eyed her. “Come here and make yourself useful, like a cheap Knockturn Alley whore.”

Harry had seen enough.

He stepped out from behind the oak and the stunner left his wand before the man could turn around. It hit him square in the back, and he dropped at once, face down in the leaves.

Dracaena didn't even blink. She kept walking toward the fallen man, still smiling, and when she reached him she knelt beside his body and reached for the front of his robes.

“Stop,” Harry said, hurrying over. He caught her wrists and pulled her hands away. “Malfoy. Stop. He can't hear you.”

She turned her head and looked at him without seeing him. “He told me to,” she said, in a flat voice. “He told me to.”

“I know. It's not you. Listen to me.” He took her by the shoulders and made her face him. “It's Potter. Look at me. That man's gone, and he can't tell you to do anything. You hear that voice in your head, telling you what to do? That's not yours. It's not you.”

Her eyes flickered. She tried to lean toward the man again, and Harry held her where she was.

“Ask it why,” he said. “Ask why you have to. You don't want to do it. You never wanted to. Ask it why, and don't let it answer.”

He had no idea if it would work. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. But he kept talking, his voice steady and quiet, and kept his hands where they were, on her shoulders. He told her to push back, to say no, to not let it win. He said her name again and again.

Slowly, her face began to change. A line formed between her eyebrows. Her breath started coming faster, her lips pressed together, and her fingers curled into fists. She shook her head once, like she was trying to throw something off. Sweat ran down her cheek.

“That's it,” Harry said. “You can do it. Keep going.”

She made a small, ragged sound. Her whole body shuddered once, hard, and then she sagged, all at once, forward into him. He caught her and held her up. She was shaking in his arms, and her breath came in gulps.

“I've got you,” he said. “It's gone. You're all right.”

He stayed there for a moment before he took out his wand with the hand that wasn't holding her.

“Stupefy. Incarcerous.”

Ropes snaked out of the air and wound tight around the stunned Death Eater's wrists and ankles. Harry picked the man's wand up and put it into his pocket before he turned back to Dracaena.

She lifted her head slowly. Her eyes were clear now, and she looked at the man on the ground. She looked at where she had been kneeling. Harry watched understanding dawn on her face a piece at a time, and all color drained from her face until she was whiter than before.

“He…” she said. “I was going to—”

“You weren't,” Harry said firmly. “You didn't.”

She looked up at him, her eyes unblinking, and then, without a word, she threw herself at him.

Her arms went around his neck, and she clutched him so tightly that it hurt. She buried her face in his shoulder.

Harry froze. His arms stayed at his sides for a long moment, completely stiff and unsure of what they were supposed to do. Then, slowly, he lifted them and held her, one hand against her back, and let her shake in his arms.

She stayed that way for a while, shaking and quivering, and when she finally seemed to realize what she was doing, her whole body went rigid at once. She drew back slightly, but she still didn’t let go of him entirely. Her eyes were red, and she looked up at him with her lips pressed together.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why did you save me?”

“Because no one deserves that,” Harry said without looking away from her. “Not you, not anyone. It doesn't matter who you are.”

She stared at him and felt a tightness in her chest. Her expression came apart once again, and she reached out, catching the front of his robes again, as if she needed to hold onto something solid. Her hand was trembling where it held the fabric.

Harry glanced around. The woods were quiet for now, but the glow of the burning campsite was still visible through the trees, and another explosion rumbled in the distance. He put a hand over hers and gently moved it away.

“We need to go,” he said. “It's still not safe here.”

“P-Potter…”

“Even for you,” he said, a bit more quietly, keeping his eyes on the trees all the while. “Even though your father's the one who's behind all of this.” He paused, his jaw tight. “And you knew. You knew what was going to happen tonight.”

Dracaena didn't deny it. Her lips pressed tightly, and she took a deep breath before she answered. “Of course I knew. Why do you think I warned you?”

Harry let out a short, humorless breath as he shook his head. “Right.”

“It's the truth.”

“It's convenient, is what it is.” He turned to look at her fully. “You people are rotten. All of you. You don't care who gets hurt as long as you get what you want. You couldn't even keep your own people out of it. That man was one of yours, and look what he was about to do to you.”

Her eyes flashed. She pushed away from him in one jerky movement, her chin high, and she glared at him with all the force she had left. “I'm not an ally of monsters like that, Potter.”

Harry turned around and looked at her with a flat stare. “You do realize you just called your own father a monster, right? He’s the mastermind behind this little outing of his and he invited his pathetic friends too.”

She went still.

“Some father he is,” Harry continued with a sneer. “Isn't he who you go running to every time things don't go your way? Wonder what you’ll do this time.”

Her lips parted. She tried to say something and nothing came out. After a second she looked down at the leaves, and when she spoke her voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Yes. He's my father.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “He is. The man who set all of this up and didn't care that his own daughter would be in the middle of it.”

Dracaena didn't answer. Her hands curled slowly into fists at her sides. After a moment she turned her face away, and Harry could see her struggling to keep it all together.

He looked at her for a moment longer before shaking his head and sighed. He picked her wand up out of the leaves, held it out to her, and waited until she took it.

“Keep up,” he said. “And stay close.”

He cast a Lumos and started walking, his wand held out in front of him to light the path, his eyes moving across the trees. Behind him, after a moment, he heard her follow. She stayed a few steps back at first, then closer, and when he glanced over his shoulder, she was watching him with an expression he couldn't read.

He turned his face forward again and kept going.