Harry knew he was screwed.

He didn't know how he knew that. It could be the faint sounds of the crowd, it could be the scent of something strange in the air, it could be that irritating whisper of something somewhere in the distance that he couldn't quite hear. It could be the bland sight of the faded canvas walls. It could be any number of things and he didn't know how he knew.

But he knew.

The moment that parchment had come out of that never to be sufficiently damned Goblet, he knew. There was no doubt whatever about that. When he saw the stricken face of his female best friend, he knew. When he saw the jealous look on his male best friend, he knew. When he heard the whispers about him start up yet again… he knew.

Harry knew he was screwed, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The whispers following him after that cursed night had done nothing to disabuse him of that judgment. The snarkiness and pure cheek of those stupid badges hadn't helped him think any other way either. The cold shoulders he was getting from certain others made him wonder if maybe there was a good reason for it. Whatever it happened to be, he was unsure if he wanted to know.

The night Hagrid had revealed the dragons to him was quite possibly one of the scariest of his life so far, and that was saying something. Seeing the rippling musculature of the dragons and the flames shot into the air, even from a distance and through the fabric of his invisibility cloak had chilled him to the bone. Hearing the stupendous roar of several pissed-off dragons hadn't eased his mind at all.

Hermione had immediately started working on the problem to help him, bless her sometimes frizzy hair. He had told himself at the time that she deserved some extraordinary thanks. So far, he'd come up with zilch on how to thank her.

The rough slapping sound of the tent's flap brought him up out of his deliberations and he looked up to see the heel of Viktor's boot swinging out. That meant that he had been left alone before it was time to go himself.

The other champions had already left to face their own dragons, but even with his own distracted thoughts Harry had seen the quiver in their steps, their lips, their fingers. Cedric had been almost the color of curdled milk, the tan that he carried thanks to the constant outside practice of a school Quidditch player the only reason he wasn't more pale. His steps had been steady and his breathing even, but it was evident that he was quite concerned at the situation now that it had arrived and was demanding attention.

Fleur had her own paleness to deal with. The shimmering blonde hair and fair skin was definitely contributing to the effect but the fear in her posture spoke clearly about the things that had to be going through her mind. The twitchiness that she displayed on the seat she'd taken was evident. No one spoke to her since they had their own thoughts but it was noticeable that her Veela Allure was as absent today as her calm.

Viktor was the picture of impassiveness, save for the fact that his pupils had dilated to a greater progression than usual even as his brow furrowed even more than everyone had seen on him. The professional Seeker said nothing and did nothing as he'd waited, but seemed to be concentrating on something. Harry envied his ability to be still and collected, but the same gift that allowed him to see the Snitch from far above the pitch now reported to him that the Durmstrang's student's right heel was lightly scraping the dirt floor of the tent back and forth. It didn't stop until he was called out to face his dragon, the younger person was sure.

He sat back, alone on a wobbly bench that had seen better days, and wondered what he was going to do. Sure, there had been countless minutes and hours of practice leading up to this day, but right now he didn't feel like it had happened at all. Harry could see the telltale signs of the stress in the other champions all too clearly before they left because he could see it in his own. He could feel it ripple through his body. Even the little model of the Horntail in his hand jiggled, although some of that was the movement charmed into the model of the thing.

"What the hell am I going to do?"

The plaintive query roiled the empty air around him and his jaw tightened. The question seemed reasonable to him but an answer was something he was not expecting.

"For starters, how about giving me a hug?"

Harry jumped, so startled by the sudden female voice while he was lost in thought that he went sprawling. Some of the air was driven out of his chest when he landed with much less grace than he otherwise might have. A muffled curse escaped his lips and took the rest of it as the skin of the side of his head by his scar was cut by a small protruding nail head on the side of the bench. The rustiness of the nail had him absently wondering if the magical world had to deal with tetanus.

"Harry!"

It took a moment to straighten his glasses, but when he did he saw that Hermione's head floated in mid-air. His invisibility cloak shimmered around her and parted down the middle to reveal her legs as she rushed to his side. She may have been wearing tights in deference to the November weather, but from his prone position the backdrop of the cloak's interior against the color gave him a glimpse of the beauty she was very rapidly becoming.

He hadn't noticed this whole time, but Hermione had been maturing in ways he'd never thought he would have seen in his female best friend.

She didn't notice the stunned look he was giving her as she rushed to his side. Hermione was too intent on the seeping blood that was trickling down the side of his head. He sat up quickly to be met by a small hand on his chest and a wand cleaving the air by his head.

"Oh, Harry. Hold still."

Considering his experiences, having a wand pointed at his head really wasn't the most comfortable thing, even if this was Hermione doing the pointing. So he did the smart thing and held still. He also hoped that Hermione hadn't had too much caffeine today.

A murmured Episkey sealed the wound and a similarly quiet Tergeo cleaned the blood from his face. He trusted her, so he sat still to let her work. The surprise came next, as he felt her lips lightly brush the area that had been healed and then over his scar.

He stared up at her, his mouth open in shock. Warmth blossomed where her lips lingered. Hermione smiled and pulled him up.

"I don't have much time. I sneaked away to get here."

So saying, she threw the invisibility cloak off and grabbed him in the tightest hug Harry had ever gotten from her. It made all the others seem like amateur league efforts in comparison. It seemed like she was molding herself to him to shield him from anything that would attack him.

Suddenly, it seemed to Harry as if all his worries, fears, and problems had been shoved to the side and told rather sternly to sit down and shut up. He could feel himself start to settle and it didn't take long for the tension that had been singing in his muscles to ebb away. Harry could fill his lungs with the relaxing scent of Hermione's shampoo and whatever soap she used. It felt like the closest thing that he could imagine to 'home.' The sudden realization spurred him into action.

Without another thought daring to interrupt, his arms came up to hold her closer to him and he never realized that his nose had dipped down into the side of her neck. Harry didn't know what was happening, but he figured that the world could be made to wait. They stood there in silence, clutching on to each other with desperate holds. Their hearts thrummed in their chest, and neither realized that after a moment or two had found a synchronization that bolstered both of them.

"Oh, Harry. Come back to me. Please," Hermione moaned in a broken voice barely there, not knowing that Harry heard her clearly. Buried in the frizzled volume of her hair, she couldn't see that his eyes had gotten wide at what he heard.

From outside, there was a scuffle and the tent's walls shook as someone tripped over the rope. A muttered curse warned them about someone approaching as they heard someone else chuckle and say, "You do know there's a rope right there, right?" It seemed that whoever said that didn't seem too concerned about the other person's balance or whether there was a messy and possibly painful fall in the future.

The answer sounded a bit irate, Harry supposed, but he was too busy getting the cloak around Hermione and watching her disappear to take time enough to hear any specifics. The voices approached quicker than they liked, chatting away about something that sounded a bit obscene and possibly questioning someone's ancestry. Harry got the cloak on her and positioned just in time to spin around to face the tent's doorway in case someone entered.

No one came through the flap, as expected. The voices receded from outside, and both realized that whoever it had been had simply been walking by. Hearing the voices fade out let them both relax a bit, shakily. The cloak's hood dropped to reveal her head again and he looked at her. They grinned slightly to each other, even they were calming down again from being startled by the intrusion.

There wasn't time to say anything else to one another when they both heard the whistle blow, sounding a rather terminal note or so Harry thought. He heard the cloak's hood rustle and looked back to see that she had completely disappeared again.

"Hermione…"

From the empty air, he heard her shush him and felt her grip his forearm before her arms hugged him from behind.

"Go, Harry. Do what needs to be done. Remember what I said."

He turned in her arms and held her invisible form tight. He whispered to her, knowing that she could hear him.

"I'll come back to you. I promise."

Another moment, and they released each other for him to walk out. After she was sure he was gone far enough, she sobbed and ran back to her seat in the stands. The tears in her eyes made it harder for her to see the way back than she had seen the way to him. Somehow, and Hermione never knew how either then or afterwards, she made it there without incident in time to see him step out into the arena with all the caution he'd ever possessed in his step.

The heightened roar of the crowd upon seeing him was lost on her. Her brain ignored the noise as her eyes focused on him. She tried to commit to memory everything she could sense of him since she had no idea what was going to happen next. All that was important to her in this moment was standing alone in the arena. A part of her mind whispered to her that she needed to remember that and be Gryffindor enough to tell him when he fulfilled his promise and came back to her.

The rest of her mind was praying, shouting, begging, and demanding that nothing happen to him. Unbidden, her fingertips found their shaking way up to her face as Harry raised his wand.