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Hermione sat near the fire, legs curled beneath her, one hand stroking the binding of a thick black-leather tome she wasn't reading. Her other hand held a quill hovering above her parchment, unmoving. She hadn't written a single sentence in twenty minutes.
Her eyes, however, read everything: every movement, every whisper, every flicker of emotion bleeding across faces too naive to know they were being watched.
The Gryffindor common room stank of sweat, wool, and rising smoke — the kind that lingers after fireworks, or just before something explodes.
No one was studying. No one even pretended to. Clusters of students whispered furiously near the fireplace or the windows, their words half-swallowed by the low roar of the conversation.
Someone — Seamus maybe — had said something stupid. Something about Harry. Something about the Goblet. She hadn't heard the words. She didn't need to. The tone was enough.
"...Ravenclaw's saying Dumbledore's grooming Harry to be the next Minister of Magic."
That one came from Lavender, who wasn't even bothering to lower her voice.
Across the room, Seamus said to Dean. "Ten thousand galleons, mate. Imagine what I could do with that. A firebolt, a flat in Diagon Alley and then some to keep in the bank. Maybe a new wand for me mam. She'd be so proud."
Dean chuckled. "You can't even hold your wand straight without blowing up something during Charms. You'd get flattened by the First Task."
"As if you'd do any better," Seamus scoffed. "Hey, I know, maybe Neville will be Champion."
Poor Neville, who was drinking something, instantly threw up, spitting it at Katie Bell sitting right opposite him.
"Yakk!" She screamed, as Alicia hurried forward to cast a Scourgify.
"No, no thanks, I'll just let Harry put his name in," the poor boy mumbled.
"I heard the Hufflepuffs will be submitting a petition to Dumbledore," said Lavender Brown, who was plugged into the Hogwarts gossip vine. Whenever, whenever, if something was happening at Hogwarts, then Lavender knew about it. Rumour was that she had used her family gold to finance an inter-house tabloid, and was looking for potential columnists.
"They want Harry to not participate in the tournament," said Lavender. "Diggory is convinced that the tournament is a sham, and the organisers are using the Goblet of Fire as an excuse to choose Harry as the real Hogwarts Champion without appearing to choose favorites."
Hermione's claws itched beneath her skin.
She thought she had it bad when Harry had confided in her about what happened in his prior timeline, about how the moment his name came out of the Goblet of Fire, his world turned on him. His friends, classmates. Even Ron. They didn't stand with him. They didn't believe him. Instead, he was left to walk into death traps alone while the people he cared about whispered behind their hands.
And now, they were doing it again.
Granted, things were different this time around. In fact, one could almost call the circumstances opposite. The last time, Harry hadn't put his name, since no one below the age of seventeen could get past Dumbledore's Age Line. This time, the organisers had intentionally lowered the age limit, allowing Harry, alongside every fourth year and above, to try their luck.
The last time, Harry had been just a fourth-year, with barely enough skill to cast a Protego without Hermione teaching him. He had been little more than a spectator, and knew as much about the tournament as any other muggleborn. This time, he was a predator, a powerful incubus lord whose skill at magic often left her floundering in self-doubt, one who was one of the most charismatic men she had ever interacted with, and one that was literally playing against the entire Wizengamot in a game of shadows. He had all but defeated his greatest enemy, and was now at school to further his agendas. The little ego-games of school children barely registered on his radar, much less spared any thought.
And yet, there they were, rising up in rebellion against the idea that Harry might be selected as Hogwarts Champion. As if by doing the same thing, they weren't showcasing their own insecurities and limitations.
Honestly, Hermione couldn't be bothered with giving a fuck about them. Cedric Diggory was, in her eyes, a dead man walking. In the original timeline, he had been killed by Peter Pettigrew right before Voldemort returned to life. She already had a hard time classifying him as anything more than 'future corpse'. But the fact that this little sonofabitch was throwing a temper tantrum and provoking all of Hufflepuff, when Harry had practically lived with the guilt of seeing him die and being powerless to stop it in his original timeline made the beast inside her snarl.
The werewolf had no patience for nuance, for half-truths dressed up as opinions. It didn't want to listen to Lavender Brown simpering about 'real champions', or Romilda Vane's oily charm. It didn't want to hear Ginny Weasley, soft-mouthed and sharp-eyed, weaving silken suggestions that smelled like treason.
They were turning the castle against him.
Again.
And Hermione could taste the blood in the air.
"Oh please," Parvati Patil was saying. "Bar Harry Potter from putting his name in? Has Diggory gone barking mad? The press will have a field day. I can already see the headlines. The newspapers will paint him as a loser and a fool, afraid of losing to Potter. They'll claim he's panicking, afraid that his single victory against Harry in Quidditch was a fluke."
"Assuming the Headmaster even entertains that proposal," snorted Fred. "It'd be bloody ridiculous!"
"Right'o. Ten thousand galleons, mate," said Seamus. "You'd be a fool not to want to get that."
"Harry doesn't need ten thousand galleons," said Alicia. She paused, and then looked around, expecting rebuttal. When nobody objected, she continued. "I mean, he just came into his family fortune, didn't he? And from what the newspapers claim, he'll be making several hundred times that amount from the basilisk sales alone."
Hermione, who did have an idea of exactly how much gold Harry had at his disposal, couldn't help but snort at that. Yes, her lover was filthy rich, and he wouldn't be getting richer or prosperous by ignoring potential opportunities like the Triwizard tournament. Even ignoring the prize money, the sheer amount of international exposure that he could garner would be incalculable.
Especially with every single newspaper — international and domestic, eyeing on the Goblet, expecting to see his name come out.
The fools from Hufflepuff could cry foul all they wanted, but the truth was that Harry Potter's name sold the papers, not their demands born out of their insecurities over falling under Harry's shadow. Not that they'd ever really understand that.
As if to prove her point, Exhibit A just entered into evidence.
"Well, I don't know what Diggory is up to, but I'm putting my name in."
She didn't look up. Didn't even need to.
Ron Weasley scribbled furiously on a crumpled scrap of parchment. His brow was furrowed, lips tight, as if the act of writing his name was a battle with destiny.
Her lips curled — just slightly.
"Really, Ron?" she said, soft and sharp.
He was standing near the center rug, puffed up and pink-faced, quill still in his hand. He didn't look at her directly.
"Why shouldn't I? Everyone's acting like it's just for the older kids, but the rules changed. Anyone can win now."
Hermione smiled slowly, like a wolf baring its fangs in sleep.
"Anyone?" she repeated. "Is that what you're telling yourself?"
He bristled. "I've got just as much chance as Cedric or Roger—"
"Or pigs flying out of the Astronomy Tower," she said, her voice a blade dipped in honey. "This isn't chess, Ronald. People have died in this tournament."
A few chuckles. Someone snorted behind him.
Ron flushed deeper. "I'm not a joke. And I'll make you see that for yourself."
Hermione stood up. A sudden wintry draft spread across the room.
This…. This was just like how Harry had described. In the future-that-was, Ron had chosen to walk away from them when they needed him most. Left him in the tent, left her in the tent, and made his choice — again and again and again.
And now?
He was doing it all over again.
Hermione clenched her teeth and growled in her throat.
It wasn't just rage.
It was something deeper. Bone-deep. Pack-deep.
A memory wrapped in fur and blood and moonlight.
She turned away from the bastard, the scar on her right arm itching, burning — the one she'd gotten fighting beside Harry when no one else could stand.
She had chosen him then.
And she would choose him now.
Ron Weasley could choke on his jealousy.
Let him try to win a tournament he had no business entering. Let him think that his stupidity and brawn was enough to outmatch skill. Let him parade himself in front of her like a stag in rut, imagining for even a second that she could be his.
He'd left.
He'd betrayed them.
And now he wanted her?
Now that Harry stood taller, richer, brighter than all of them?
Now that Hermione had grown claws to protect the one person in this damned castle that had never turned away from her, not even once?
She bared her teeth. The wolf in her didn't forgive. Didn't forget.
And neither did she.
She stepped forward slowly, barefoot against the rug, each step smooth and silent. Her presence pressed down like gravity.
"See what?" she said, circling him like he was meat left too long on the butcher's table. "That this is your moment? That if you enter, and by some miracle—some fluke of fate—you're chosen, I'll suddenly forget every pathetic little whimper you've ever made. That I'll fall to my knees and worship the brave, bold boy who finally stood tall."
Ron flinched, jaw clenching.
She leaned closer, her breath feeling like heat against his cheek.
"Is that what you want, Ron? My approval? My attention?" Her tone was sickeningly sweet. "Or is it my body you're after?"
Gasps rippled through the room. Lavender's hand clamped over her mouth. Seamus stood frozen mid-stretch, one arm half-raised like he'd forgotten what it was for.
Ron's lips parted, then shut.
"Oh don't be shy now," Hermione said. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? All eyes on you. You've spent years biting your tongue every time someone praises your best mate. Now's your shot. Be a man. Show us you're worth the parchment your name's scrawled on."
She reached out and snatched the crumpled entry from his trembling hand. She didn't tear it — just looked at it, lips curled, then let it fall into the fireplace.
It hissed and burned.
Ron's breath hitched.
"Ten thousand galleons," she murmured, turning her back to him. "That's a lot of money. Might've bought you a better spine."
She stepped away, brushing imaginary dust off her arm.
"Here's some advice, Weasley," she said, loud enough for all of Gryffindor to hear. "You want to be a champion? Start by not tripping over your own need to be seen."
The silence was a scream.
And then she was gone, vanishing up the stairs like smoke rising from the coals.
Behind her, the common room sat hollow and stunned — the ghost of her words clawing at the walls long after her footsteps faded.
The silence in the common room was still thick when Ginny slipped away from the crowd. Ron was standing near the fire like a boy freshly gutted, his face blank, the charred edge of his Triwizard entry curling in the flames. No one approached him.
No one approached Hermione either.
She was already gone — swept up the stairs, barefoot, silent, and untouchable. She left behind only the memory of heat and humiliation, as if she were the fire itself.
Ginny sat on the window ledge, arms wrapped around one knee. She didn't speak.
She didn't need to. After all, she had just watched it all unfold — not with shock, not even with sympathy, but with a cold thrum in her chest.
Hermione Granger, the golden girl, the werewolf, the one with claws behind her books, had torn Ron to pieces in front of half the House.
And the shocking bit? Ginny loved it.
Oh, she hated that she loved it, but she loved it all the same.
Hermione was most beautiful when she was cruel — radiant, powerful, inhuman in the way only something touched by magic and blood and ancient things could be. She had Harry's attention. His respect. His heat. His everything.
Ginny had been in Harry's bed. She'd felt his mouth on her throat, heard the way he said her name — but it had never been her name alone. She was borrowed warmth. He never needed her.
Not like he needed Hermione.
Or that Jones woman for that matter.
And Ginny was done being the girl he smiled at absently between rituals and runes.
"Well, that was something."
She turned to find Romilda, smelling of perfume and bitterness, her hair tossed over one shoulder, as she slid onto the bench beside her.
"You saw that?" Romilda asked.
"What's to see?"
Obviously that was a rhetorical question, for Romilda continued, ignoring her response.
"I should've kept him. I had him. End of last year, before the term ended. If I'd known what he'd turn into... Merlin, the power on him now is just…."
She trailed off.
A tiny smirk played on Ginny's lips. "You thought he was just a notch for your bedpost."
Romilda shrugged. "Didn't know he'd become a castle."
"Yeah, and we're not the only ones that missed it," she said, gesturing at Lavender who sauntered in their direction, twirling her curls around her finger, eyes flicking around the room.
"Can you believe it?" She whispered. "Hermione just declared war."
"What are you talking about?" asked Romilda, frowning.
Ginny exhaled. For all her exuberance, Romilda missed the more subtle powerplays. She, still supposed she couldn't really blame her, given how subtlety barely had any need to exist inside the Gryffindor common room.
"In one shot, she practically yelled that Harry was the Alpha in the tower, and that she was his feral queen. She might've used Ron to make a point, but it was a challenge to every guy out there."
"Isn't that… you know, going to get matters worse?" asked Romilda, confused.
"For the old Harry, perhaps," said Lavender. "Last term, he was the silent, brooding type. Choosing to hide away in obscurity. Hermione challenging the status quo would've made things tough for that guy."
"Harry doesn't hide in obscurity anymore," said Ginny. "He shines in audacity."
"Exactly," said Lavender. "Hermione didn't try to quell the tension. She elevated it to the degree that all focus is going to be on Harry, like it should."
Ginny looked between the two of them. She knew them — ambitious, pretty, calculating. And shallow like hell.
Neither of them could be trusted. But she didn't need trust right now. She needed tools.
"What are you suggesting?" she asked, voice low.
Lavender smiled. "Why, we take the game back."
"By doing what?"
"Well, if Harry Potter is going to get all the male attention, we'll give him the female one," offered Romilda.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but Harry Potter isn't exactly starving for attention right now," Ginny scoffed. "Especially the female kind."
She remembered his birthday party. At the people invited.
And something told her that Hestia Jones wasn't the only older woman interested in her.
"You think you're going to seduce your way past a werewolf?" Ginny asked, eyes sharp.
"A werewolf that's practically screaming to be left alone?" whispered Lavender. "Already she's living in separate quarters. Think that's going to change any time soon?"
"Makes no difference,' said Ginny bitterly. "Only gives Harry more incentive to skip being here and fuck her all he wants."
"So we give him a bigger, better incentive," said Romilda, her voice conspiratorial. "While Hermione's burning bridges with her brother, making enemies in every corner, and scaring off the weaklings — we're going to become the face of reason. Of comfort. Of stability."
"Haven't you heard? Susie Bones is playing the same exact thing. She went against all of Hufflepuff and Cedric and voiced her support for Potter. Think she's not angling for something fierce? What if the three of us join arms, and seduce Harry together?"
But even as the idea settled, Ginny felt the iron sting of resentment deep in her throat.
She didn't want equal footing.
She wanted to win.
And if the other two thought she'd share whatever throne came of this, they were dumber than she looked.
The two dunces thought they were playing checkers with Harry. Maybe they even thought that with Hermione isolating herself from the rest of the house, they'd be able to get more of Harry's time with impunity.
Fools!
But even fools had their uses. The two would serve as a proper distraction against Hermione who practically went all Dark-Queen on everyone else. And while the two poles were busy negating each other, Ginny would squeeze in and have Harry for herself.
Like she deserved.
Still, she smiled. "Alright," she said. "Let's begin."
Across the Tower, Angelina Johnson watched from the stairs.
Her arms were folded, and her face was unreadable, but her jaw was tight.
She'd heard the rumors too — how Harry had walked away from the Ministry richer than a Gringotts vault, how he'd handed a betting slip to Fred and George last summer and made them thousandaires overnight.
They worshipped him now. Called him "boss" in private. Even Lee Jordan had started echoing their praise.
And Angelina?
She'd been left behind.
She'd flown harder, trained longer, led the team through brutal losses and near-misses — and still, he was the name everyone spoke. Not her. Never her.
Angelina didn't speak to the girls gathered in the window.
She didn't need to.
She had her own game to play.
But in that moment, watching Ginny Weasley smile like a blade being sheathed, she realized this year wasn't about Triwizard champions.
It was about queens.
And some of them were ready to kill to rule.
The Slytherin common room flickered green and gold in the hearthlight, casting the walls in a slow, rippling glow. Water dripped somewhere far behind the stone — rhythmic, pulsing, like a slow heartbeat echoing beneath the dungeons. This was a world of shadows, stone and teeth.
But Daphne Greengrass didn't sit in the shadows. She wore them.
She lounged across the emerald chaise like a bored queen, bare feet tucked beneath her, head resting against one pale arm. The silver in her hair clip caught the firelight. As did her eyes, which were fixed at Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini, who were arguing over a game of wizard chess like it mattered.
It didn't.
None of it did.
Except for him.
Harry Potter.
The anomaly in the system. The spanner in every pan. The one piece not made of wood or glass or simple, predictable ambition.
He was the storm.
Everyone else was just playing tag in the rain.
Daphne inhaled slowly. From across the room, a pair of third-years whispered something about Hermione Granger's outburst and Ron Weasley's disgrace. Daphne tasted the words on the air like perfume. Bitter. Embarrassed. Salted with secondhand humiliation.
Delicious.
She closed her eyes and let it pour into her — that hot, messy emotional runoff. Confusion. Insecurity. The tangled lust that Brown wore like lip gloss. Ginny Weasley's coiled jealousy. Vane's quiet, predatory hunger.
It was a buffet.
And none of them knew they were feeding her.
Blaise finally noticed she hadn't spoken all evening. "You're quiet, Greengrass," he said, smirking slightly, idly tapping a bishop against the tabletop. "Planning something?"
"Planning is for the predictable," she said. "I'm just watching."
Blaise raised an eyebrow. "You've been 'just watching' for days straight. Ever since the Goblet rumors started."
She opened her eyes.
"I'm savoring the moment," she replied. She stood, stretching in a lazy coil, like a cat sensing birds on the edge of the garden. "And no, not the goblet. The response."
Theo raised a brow. "Of what? Granger losing it in front of her House?"
Daphne tilted her head. "Granger? No, no. That was nothing. A little territorial posturing. Necessary, even."
Blaise frowned. "So what are you savoring, then?"
She stretched languidly, like a cat waking in silk. "The way they're all scrambling. Flinching. Reacting. They think this is about the Tournament. About age rules. Or favoritism. Or Merlin help them, romance."
She chuckled — a dark, low sound that made Theo glance over warily.
"They think they're playing chess," she continued. "But they're all playing Clue. Blundering through hallways, trying to find out who killed the social order."
"And you?" Theo asked. "What game are you playing?"
Daphne smiled. "I'm watching the castle turn into a stage. And I'm the only one not clapping."
The fire popped behind her.
Blaise leaned forward slightly, cautious. "You think someone's deliberately engineered this?"
"I know," she said. "The ripples are too clean. Too elegant. A little whisper here, a silence there. And now look — Gryffindor's eating itself. Ravenclaw's in a logic spiral. Hufflepuff unity is gone. And we —" she gestured around the room, "—are sitting here, pretending we're not fascinated."
And the funniest bit? Harry Potter himself hadn't even said a word. But every House was bleeding because of him anyway.
She paced slowly in front of the hearth. She could feel it — in the way people walked faster past certain portraits now, in the way the staircases turned more eagerly toward whispered corridors. Hogwarts itself knew something was coiling in the dark.
Something bigger than a tournament.
And maybe it was Potter.
Maybe not.
But he was always near the center when the pattern frayed.
Theo crossed his arms. "You're obsessed."
Daphne's lips parted in a grin. "Of course I am. You can't smell the storm and pretend you're indifferent. I still don't know who or what is behind this, but I'll find out."
Daphne turned slowly, one finger trailing across the stone shelf. They didn't understand. They couldn't. They didn't feel what she felt — the tight, radiant crackling of emotion rising across the school. Like heat under the floorboards. Like breath before a scream.
She was feeding constantly now. Ginny's jealousy. Romilda's growing desperation. Ron's seething shame. The fear of ordinary students realizing they were extras in someone else's story.
It was intoxicating.
But even that paled beside the low, electric hum that vibrated along her skin whenever she passed him in the corridor.
She never spoke to him. Never reached. Never touched.
But she felt it — the weight of something just behind his smile.
Daphne didn't know what it was.
And that, finally, finally, made her curious.
Not afraid.
Not cautious.
Just hungry.
"And what happens when you find out?"
"Why darling," she said, voice like velvet wrapped around razor wire, "that's when the real game begins."
The dungeons had gone quiet.
The heavy lake-water hush settled thick against the stones, muting the usual creaks and hisses. Moonlight filtered in through the enchanted windows, pale and blurred like the skin of a drowned pearl. The other girls were asleep — breathing slow, rhythmic, forgettable.
Daphne lay still in her bed, eyes open in the dark.
She wasn't dreaming.
She was listening.
The sheets were cool against her bare legs. Her breathing, shallow. Her thoughts low and curled in on themselves like smoke.
She'd been feeding all week. Sipping from fear in the corridors. Gorging on whispered insecurities. Letting jealousy from Gryffindor girls melt on her tongue like sugared fire.
And yet, something tonight was… wrong.
Not sour. Not spoiled.
Resistant.
Somewhere in the undercurrent — in the unseen river of feelings that flowed through the castle like veins under skin — there was a pulse that didn't belong to her.
It didn't fear her.
It didn't recoil or collapse.
It was tasting her back.
Daphne's lips parted. She inhaled slowly, not breath but feeling.
Desire.
But not romantic. Not even adolescence.
Predatory.
And beneath it, a calm so profound it made her stomach tighten — like stepping into a lake and realizing too late there's no bottom.
She turned her head slowly on the pillow.
The dormitory was the same. Drapes swaying gently. The others murmuring in sleep.
But something — someone — was brushing against her through the atmosphere of the school. Not touching her physically. Not even mentally.
Emotionally.
It felt like someone else had reached their hand into the sea she swam in... and was now trailing their fingers along the current.
A ripple.
Not hers.
Not summoned.
Not fed.
Aware.
Daphne closed her eyes and sank deeper — into herself, into the river of whispers that wasn't made of words but of tension and warmth and that subtle ache that passed from student to student in sleepless beds.
There.
She found it again.
It was... smooth. Cool. Intentional. Like silk sliding over steel.
It pressed against her senses with no introduction, no threat, no signature.
It simply said - I see you.
She exhaled, her pulse quickening — not in fear, not even in thrill.
In recognition.
Whoever it was didn't want to frighten her. Didn't want to break her mind or bend her will. They weren't a dementor, and they weren't clumsy.
They were… curious.
And that, more than anything, made her mouth curl into a slow, delighted grin.
Someone was inside the current.
Someone was responding.
She didn't know if it was a dream. She didn't care.
She licked her lips and whispered to the dark, a breath barely audible. "Come find me, then."
The ripple paused — and she felt it pause, like a held breath.
Then it was gone.
Withdrawn.
Silent.
But it had heard her.
And that was enough.