"- so I think Ludo Bagman entered me into the Triwizard Tournament with some goblins in order to make back his debt to them." Harry has been talking for five minutes straight, and Snape has not yet looked up from the essays he is marking on his desk. "Are you listening?"

"Of course," Snape says dryly. Marking an essay with a red-inked P, he sets it aside and begins to read through the next. His posture is perfect except for the slight crane of his neck, allowing his black eyes to flit over each line of untidy, scrawled text. "Are you quite finished?"

"Yes, sir," Harry says, a bit more irritably than he'd intended, and Snape arches a dark eyebrow at him. "Aren't you going to do anything?"

"What is it, Potter, that you recommend I do?" Snape asks cleanly. His quill dips into the pot and spatters criticisms like blood across the parchment; not a single drop of the stuff ever dares to drip onto his white sleeves.

"Well- well, get me out of the Tournament!"

"The Tournament's contract is magically binding. It does not care if Ludo Bagman entered you."

"Arrest Bagman!"

"Of course. Bring me my Auror's uniform and my training papers."

"Kick Bagman out of the Ministry!"

"Am I to be appointed Minister for Magic, or ought I merely use the authority of Harry Potter to remove him from his position?" Snape spits out Harry's name like it's written in venom, and Harry glares at him, his arms crossed over his chest. Finally, Snape glances up from the essays he is marking, and he meets Harry's gaze, his lips a thin, pale line. "Potter, if you wish to open an official line of enquiry, contact the Auror office and make a statement. If you wish for Mr Bagman to lose his position, make a complaint. If you wish to exit the binds of the Tournament..." Snape trails off, thoughtfully. "I suppose one might approach an artful suicide."

"This the most you've ever spoken to me in one go, and it's to tell me to kill myself," Harry says, and for some reason, he finds it funny. Snape stares at him so icily that Harry's mouth freezes mid-chuckle. "I wish you'd do something."

"Such as?"

"I don't know, care that people keep trying to murder me?"

"If Mr Bagman has wagered money on you, Potter, he is doing the opposite of trying to murder you. Call the Aurors and-"

"If I call the Aurors and goblins get arrested, then won't the rest of them try to actually kill me?" Snape glances up from the essays he's marking, seeming pleasantly surprised. His mouth is quirked into something that is almost a smile.

"Very good, Potter. You're thinking!" Snape gives a singular, sarcastic clap of his sallow hands. Harry sighs, leaning against the doorframe and pressing his forehead against the cool, dark wood. After a short pause, his eyes closed, he hears the quiet scratch of Snape's quill on parchment.

"So I don't call the Aurors. And I don't lodge a complaint. Not yet. But once the Tournament is over and the goblins don't need him...?" The only response to what he says in an overwhelming silence; Harry opens one eye, and looks at Snape. The other man isn't so much as glancing at him. "Okay. So I win the Tournament." He looks at Snape.

Snape is staring at him, locking eyes with Harry, and Harry stares back. Harry frowns, furrowing his brow slightly, and then he realizes. "Except that he might be betting on something other than me. He-" Harry takes in a small breath. "Bagman owes the Weasley twins money - they bet at the Quidditch World Cup that Ireland would win but that Krum would catch the Snitch. What if Bagman bet that Hogwarts would win, but that one of us would die?"

Snape's expression doesn't change. He doesn't even twitch.

"What if it's me?" Harry feels his blood run cold, and asks in a whisper, more to himself than to Snape, "What if he's bet on Cedric dying?"

"It would seem you have a lot to think about," Snape says delicately. The "Get out!" is silent, but Harry hears it, and he goes.

---

"Did he give you any advice?" Hermione asks. "Professor Snape?"

"He never does," Harry mutters, and he presses himself as far into the beanbag George had retrieved from somewhere or other and placed in the office of WWW, safely ensconced in the ground floor of the Astronomy tower. More comfortable furniture and an old, thick rug had been brought back with the twins after they'd gone home for a weekend in the holidays, and there's no longer the problem of pervading chilliness as Hermione does the accounts. "What do you think I should do?"

"I don't know," Hermione says. She leans back in a battered armchair, a book of accounts held loosely in her lap, and she watches him. "But if he's betting on one of you dying, how do you know it's not for this task? How do you know how he's going to do it, or when? And- Harry, I don't mean to make light of it, but how is Bagman going to kill you if the actual tasks fail to? How would he be able to kill you, or kill Cedric, without it being obvious?"

"I don't know," Harry says. There's a long, drawn-out pause between them, and Harry asks, "Will you help me look at creatures for the castle, the maze?" Hermione nods her head in assent, blinking her brown eyes slowly.

"Harry," she murmurs, "Let's start with something else. Let's-" She grins at him, puts her resized, straight teeth on show. "Let's do riddles."

"Riddles?"

"You don't think there'll be at least one sphinx in there?" Harry grins, and then he nods his head, leaning forwards and meeting Hermione's gaze. They go through riddles for a while, and when Hermione goes to study in the library, Harry lingers in the safety and comfort of their little office, and he naps for a time.

That is, of course, until Fred and George come in.

---

"Yes, Alastor. Yes, sir. Yes, thanks. No, I don't want you to- Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Thank you, Alastor. This is really good of you and Tonks. No, sir, I won't. Uh- Okay... Yeah. Um, no, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Alastor, bye." Harry pulls away from the Floo where he'd been kneeling, and he tosses his head, shaking the soot out of his hair.

"What was that last bit?" George asks. He and Fred had managed to convince Arthur to hook the Floo up for the night and had given him the powder as soon as they'd come in. Harry pulls a face and shakes his head slightly.

"He said that Ludo had an old injury on his thigh, and that worst case scenario, I should- I should "pinch and twist"." Harry wrinkles his nose as he says it, and he hears George make a small, gagging noise.

"That sounds like Moody," Fred says, with some affection. Fred isn't any more comfortable with Mad-Eye Moody than Harry is, but he seems to genuinely like the terrifying old freak. "That's just the right combination of well-meaning care and horrific violence. But he and Tonks are going to keep an eye on him?"

"Yeah," Harry says with a nod of his head. "I mean, I'm hoping it's mostly Kingsley and Tonks, to be honest. I'd rather Moody not kill Bagman or get him eaten by a bin or something before I know exactly what he wants to do."

"Bastard," George says, curling his lip. He reaches out, patting Harry on the shoulder, and then he pulls Harry into a half hug, ruffling his hair. "You're going to be fine."

"People keep telling me that," Harry says. "It's not all that comforting." Fred reaches out, grasping Harry's right hand between two of his own and clutching it a few inches away from his own chin.

"Harry," Fred says in a tender whisper. "You are almost definitely going to die."