Nigel's footsteps clattering down the stairs broke into Sirius and Lupin's conversation.
"Sir!" He had completely lost his composure, eyes wide, calling to Lupin from the doorway. "You have to come — Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley have both fainted!"
"Where?" Lupin asked at once.
"In the workshop! I only glanced in and didn't dare go closer. The music sounded wrong somehow —" Nigel's face was flushed, his breath coming fast. "I'm not much use with this sort of thing."
"I'll go and look." Lupin's expression hardened, and he moved quickly toward the stairs with Nigel.
Sirius followed without hesitation, wanting to be of whatever help he could.
Lupin didn't stop him — in that moment, his concern for the Weasley twins outweighed everything else.
Sirius never came upstairs during his visits. This was the Weasleys' workshop; it was only right to respect their trade secrets and the privacy of those who worked there. But given the urgency, there was no room for such niceties.
Arthur Weasley's twins were always good for a laugh, and they reminded Sirius of the old mischievous days with James. More than that, they were Hogwarts students — and as a teacher, he had a duty to their safety.
The group hurried upstairs and found the two red-haired boys lying sprawled on the floor.
A music box sat open on the workbench, and a thin, unsettling melody drifted from it, filling the room with a heavy, drowsy fog.
Sirius understood immediately. "Close it!" he shouted to Lupin, who was nearest the table.
Lupin reacted instantly, pressing the lid down firmly. The creeping feeling of weakness and helplessness dissolved.
The Weasley twins were moved to a wicker bench and didn't come round groggily for a good quarter of an hour.
"What happened?" George asked, rubbing his eyes.
"What did you do?" Lupin asked, frowning.
"We just wound it up and listened to the music —" Fred said lazily.
"That music box is cursed." The voice came from behind Lupin — Sirius's voice. The Weasley twins, still dazed, didn't yet register what it meant for Sirius Black to be standing in their workshop.
"Makes perfect sense," George said, sounding entirely unbothered. "Where did that rascal get all this stuff from?"
"Frightened, are you?" Lupin said disapprovingly. "I've told you more than once that some of this stock is too dangerous. You have to be careful."
"Frightened? Of course not. It's interesting — isn't it?" Fred, already recovered, walked straight back to the workbench and began turning the music box over in his hands with cheerful curiosity, prodding at it with his wand.
He seemed entirely unconcerned by the terrifying experience of three minutes ago.
Sirius fell quiet.
He stared at the music box in Fred's hands. It was achingly familiar — familiar enough that for a moment he felt as if he were standing back in that filthy second-floor sitting room at number twelve, Grimmauld Place.
He had once crouched down to sort through a heavy bag and placed a suspicious music box that looked just like this one inside it.
Yes. He looked around, and there were all the same things he had seen at Grimmauld Place: rusty daggers on the walls, animal claws, coiled snakeskin.
He even spotted some dull, tarnished silver boxes in the corner of a glass cabinet, not to mention a cage of Doxies along one wall — goodness knows which generation descended from the original Grimmauld Place colony.
What had that cunning Slytherin boy said to him?
"Could you give it to me? I have a few friends who'd really enjoy making prank products."
Of course, of course — and who was connected to both Remus Lupin and the Weasley twins at Hogwarts — one of Snape's prize students — a potion-making prodigy with an excellent chance of brewing Wolfsbane — the extraordinarily wealthy future heir to the Malfoy fortune — his own rather distant nephew — Draco Malfoy!
It was almost beyond belief that Malfoy would invest in the Weasleys.
Perhaps that was why no one had guessed who the silent investor behind this shop really was.
Sirius looked at Remus. He was frowning and talking quietly to the Weasley twins, apparently suggesting they set aside the dark objects for now.
The unusually warm way Remus always spoke about Draco Malfoy suddenly made a great deal of sense.
Sirius shook his head, still struggling to accept it. He swallowed and said to his friend, who hadn't yet noticed anything amiss, "I need to be off — there's rather a lot on my plate at the moment."
Lupin gave him a casual wave. The Weasley twins nodded. Nigel, having gathered himself, began politely showing Sirius out, repeating apologies and thanks all the way down the stairs.
Sirius walked in a slight daze toward the sales floor, when he caught the sound of the blonde assistant behind the counter complaining to Nigel: "Where has everyone been? Am I the only one alive in this shop? Do you have any idea how much Owl Order post I've been handling? And the foot traffic lately..."
"I'm sorry, Verity — there was a problem in the workshop..." Nigel said quickly.
The anxious blonde, hands on her hips, went on without drawing breath: "Another emergency! There's one every few days. And why do you keep getting roped into it? What does any of it have to do with you?"
Nigel wiped the sweat from his forehead, trying to nod and smile at Sirius while being lectured, as if to say he was doing the best he could.
Sirius waved to him and started toward the door.
Then he noticed Verity drop her voice to a low, urgent murmur: "Don't say I didn't warn you — the gentleman was in the shop today. He took a girl up to the attic. You'd better be on your best behaviour; don't give him any reason to find fault with you."
Sirius couldn't help glancing back. At the words, Nigel immediately straightened his posture, became the model assistant, and turned his attention to the queue at the counter, giving the frazzled Verity a moment's relief.
So — "the gentleman" was presumably the owner behind this joke shop. Sirius had a quiet look around, and he was quite certain that neither Draco Malfoy nor Hermione Granger were anywhere to be seen on the floor.
He strolled out of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, but instead of leaving at once, he leaned against the wall beside the shop window and decided to wait.
The logic was simple enough.
If someone who had never been seen entering the shop through the front door came walking out of it with a brown-haired girl, then anyone could conclude they had been somewhere inside the building all along.
Not the kitchen below, not the second-floor workshop — which left the attic that Verity had mentioned.
And so, when a rather smug Draco Malfoy — having somehow managed to work through the entire bowl of cherries in the attic — emerged from the shop alongside a slightly dazed Hermione Granger, they walked straight into the ambush Sirius Black had been patiently laying.
"Well, well — I believe I've found something rather remarkable," Sirius said, looking the Slytherin boy up and down with idle curiosity. He glanced at the flustered Gryffindor girl behind him and chuckled. "The mysterious owner of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes — and his girlfriend!"
Their faces shifted immediately from rosy to pale.
After a stunned silence, Draco recovered himself, stepping sideways to shield Hermione behind him, and said expressionlessly, "Sirius Black. I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."
"Yes you do," Sirius chuckled. "Draco, I mean you no harm. It's just — Merlin's beard, this is something else."
He looked Draco over with fresh eyes, as though seeing his adopted nephew for the first time: "I must say — you're rather to my liking."
"I beg your pardon?" Draco looked entirely thrown.
He was doing his best to keep his face neutral, but a flicker of guilt had crossed his eyes.
"Carry on pretending. I'll keep quiet about it." Sirius chuckled again and strode off with great satisfaction.
From Draco's perspective, his posture was profoundly aggravating.
"He's worked it out, hasn't he," Hermione whispered beside him.
"It's all right. He doesn't have any real evidence — he was almost certainly bluffing." Draco frowned, watching Sirius's retreating figure with unease.
"He said he'd keep it a secret," she said, trying to reassure him. "Sirius always keeps his word, doesn't he? He's Harry's godfather and your ally. He wouldn't betray you."
"True. He's probably not bored enough to tell my parents anything." He put his arm around her and patted her shoulder. "Come on — let's go back and find out who let something slip."
"How can you possibly tell?" Hermione said. "Even if someone did talk, why would they ever admit to it?"
"They don't need to." His grey eyes cooled to something sharp. "I made a small modification to the magical contracts I have with them: if anyone reveals the secret, they'll get a face full of pustules."
"That's a very Hermione Granger sort of method," Draco said, with a dark little smile. He remembered Marietta Edgecombe's pockmarked face from his previous life — a face full of the word SNEAK in pustules — Hermione's work, entirely.
"Draco, sometimes I think —" Hermione looked at him strangely and shook her head with mixed feelings. "I don't know how to describe it. Your methods are clever, though not entirely scrupulous."
"It's rare to hear 'clever' from Hermione Granger," Draco said, his mood lifting slightly. "As for scrupulous — extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. A serious betrayal can cost lives. Don't forget what happened to Harry's parents."
"I understand," Hermione said quietly. "I don't like being betrayed, either."
"Besides, I guard against scoundrels, not decent people. This is already generous — it doesn't involve taking anyone's life," he said with composure.
The Draco of his previous life would have laced the contract with something far more vicious — something that left more than a mark on someone's face.
But Hermione, he knew, couldn't bring herself to be ruthless — even toward a traitor who might have cost her everything. Some brightness in her soul always held back the worst. He didn't know whether that made her entirely rational, but when the moment had come, he had found himself reaching for her approach — one that left room for consequence without permanently destroying the person.
"I agree with the 'no taking of lives' part," Hermione said, and shrugged. She turned back toward the shop, intending to find the so-called informer.
A quarter of an hour later, however, they came out empty-handed from the laughter-filled shop, having discovered precisely nothing: every person in the know had a smooth, unmarked face, as clear and unbroken as a peeled egg.
"That's extraordinary," Hermione said, baffled, as they walked back toward Hogwarts. "Did Sirius just figure it out on his own?"
"I think he was bluffing all along," Draco said darkly, vanishing into the cloudy evening with Hermione at his side. "I'll have to find a way to sound him out — figure out where exactly he slipped through."
Time moved on regardless, and the last week of May arrived.
At half past eight on Wednesday evening, Harry Potter crossed paths with Cedric Diggory in the entrance hall and walked out of Hogwarts with him to learn the details of the third task.
Harry said very little as they made their way across the dark lawn toward the Quidditch pitch. His feelings about the friendly Hufflepuff Champion were complicated.
They were both Hogwarts students, with shared history and a record of helping each other — yet they were rivals on several fronts: the Triwizard Tournament, Quidditch, and even the matter of a certain girl. Setting aside the first two, Harry was growing more resigned by the day that he was probably losing the last one.
Passing through the narrow gap between the stands and stepping into the stadium, Cedric stopped short. His friendly tone sharpened into something closer to indignation: "What in Merlin's name have they done here?"
Harry nearly walked into his back. Stepping out of the narrow path, he found himself staring at a pitch that was no longer flat and open, but covered in a maze of low walls and tall hedges, stretching outward in every direction in an intricate, winding tangle.
Harry's feelings briefly matched Cedric's exactly: this was outrageous. Nobody had the right to turn the sacred Quidditch pitch into something like this. Didn't they have any respect for the sport?
"Let's go and see," Harry said, climbing over one low wall after another with Cedric. "I can see Mr Bagman in the middle — he'll know what's happening."
Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum were already waiting at the centre. Fleur caught sight of Harry through the rustling hedges and gave him a warm smile: "Hi, Harry."
Harry smiled back. Sometime after Harry had rescued her sister from the Black Lake, Fleur's attitude toward him had changed entirely. She no longer looked down at him — now she watched him with a kind, almost rueful expression. Strange, he thought. What had brought about that shift?
"...In another month, Hagrid will have them twenty feet tall, don't you worry," Ludo Bagman was saying to a disgruntled Cedric. "Once the Championship's done, your pitch will be back to normal."
Cedric's expression softened, and Harry breathed a little easier. He turned his attention back to Bagman — the referee who had barely been seen in public of late — with a growing unease.
Percy had mentioned Bagman in a letter to Ron. He had complained that Bagman kept skipping work and failing to show up at the Ministry office, causing all manner of inconvenience. Yet here he was, making a rare appearance at this small briefing about task details.
He looked nothing like the cheerful, energetic Head of Magical Games and Sports that Harry had met at the Quidditch World Cup. Gone was the bright yellow Wimbourne Wasps jersey. He was unshaven, with a sallow complexion and hollow eyes.
"The third task is quite straightforward. The Triwizard Cup is placed at the centre of the maze. Whoever reaches it first wins full marks," Bagman said, his voice flat and joyless.
"We simply have to get through the maze?" Fleur asked. She gave Harry another friendly smile as she spoke.
"There will be obstacles — Hagrid's provided a fine range of creatures, some spells that will need breaking... that sort of thing... champions enter in order of their current standings..." Bagman said, listlessly. "Should be rather exciting, yes?"
The four champions gave polite nods.
Harry was fairly certain none of them meant it. He knew all too well what kinds of creatures Hagrid considered suitable for a special occasion — nothing that could be described as exciting in any reassuring sense.
"Very well... if there are no more questions, shall we head back to the castle? There's rather a chill." Bagman waved one hand, revealing a dark glove, and gave an awkward smile.
Harry blinked. Even accounting for the slight cool of late May, there was no real reason to be wearing gloves.
He filed away the detail with suspicion and resolved to keep his distance from the distracted referee. As he clambered back over the low walls with the others, he noticed Bagman deliberately slowing his pace, edging closer.
After the quiet, probing conversations Sirius and Draco had steered him through recently, Harry already had a clear enough picture of Bagman's game. The referee was almost certainly going to offer his help again, dressed up in talk of "taking a shine" to him.
Just as Harry was thinking how best to avoid him, Viktor Krum tapped him on the shoulder.
"May I speak with you?" he said, in his low, rumbling voice.
"Of course." Harry was mildly surprised. He hadn't expected this seemingly aloof international Quidditch star to seek him out.
"Would you come with me?" Krum lifted his chin toward the path that led alongside the Forbidden Forest.
"All right," Harry said, relieved. He glanced back and saw that Bagman had missed him and was trudging off in frustration.
Harry and Krum left the pitch together, passing Hagrid's hut and the brightly lit Beauxbatons carriage, heading toward a quiet clearing at the edge of the forest.
Among the sound of Beauxbatons' horses, Harry looked around. "Why come all the way out here?"
"I don't want anyone to hear," Krum said shortly, coming to a stop. Before Harry could ask anything else, Krum's expression turned serious. "I want to ask you about Hermione."
"Hermione?" Harry was entirely taken aback. He had assumed from Krum's brooding face that this was going to be something far more grave.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"You and her," Krum said, fixing him with a pointed look. "I've read the papers. They say —"
"She and I have always been friends. You don't actually believe anything that Rita Skeeter writes, do you?" Harry looked at Krum's considerable height and decided he ought to be direct.
Honestly, Krum should have come to Draco. Harry was very nearly the wrong person for this.
As if reading his mind, Krum asked in a flat tone, "Then — what about her and Malfoy?"
"They're together," Harry said. He watched Krum's face go rigid immediately.
Krum stared at him for a moment. "How long? Is there still a chance for me?"
Harry found it difficult to believe he was standing in the dark outside the Forbidden Forest having this conversation, that an eighteen-year-old international Quidditch star was looking to him for relationship advice and apparently treating him as a peer. It all felt faintly surreal.
But Krum had, in fact, come to the right person.
Across the whole of Hogwarts, very few people knew Hermione's feelings better than Harry did — she and Draco were practically inseparable.
Harry took a breath and, despite the risk of causing offence, decided to give Krum a straight answer.
"Krum, let it go. Stop thinking in terms of winning and losing." He mustered his courage. "There was no winner or loser in this from the start. They were always going to end up together."
"Nonsense. I had a chance before the Black Lake incident," Krum said, strained. "She was single before that. She even ignored Malfoy for a time after the Yule Ball. They only got together after the Black Lake task."
"You're oversimplifying." Harry shook his head. "It's like this: they were always close. From the very beginning, her behaviour around Draco was different."
"The beginning?" Krum's heavy brows drew together.
"They've been study partners since first year, haven't they? Setting aside Draco, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single other person that Hermione would happily work with like that." Harry said, almost amused. "In Hogwarts terms, a Gryffindor and a Slytherin as regular study partners is almost unheard of — yet somehow, there they are."
"Study partners doesn't mean attraction," Krum said gruffly.
Harry stared into the dark trees and said, "No — but I saw the attraction anyway. It was everywhere. She was always near him, and he was always near her. Like two satellites caught in each other's orbit; you never quite knew which one was pulling the other."
Krum snorted. "What's so remarkable about an arrogant, sharp-tongued boy?"
"He can be arrogant, yes, and his tongue can do real damage. Thankfully he's mostly quiet — which helps. He's just rather aloof most of the time." Harry's glasses caught a sliver of moonlight.
"Are you his friend or his rival?" Krum asked, suspicious. "That doesn't exactly sound like a glowing endorsement."
"Both, in a way. He's saved my life more than once." Harry's mouth curved slightly. "He's not a perfect friend — he'll lecture you given half the chance — but I don't doubt his character."
"That's all very well for you," Krum said, "but what does it have to do with Hermione?"
"He shows a rare sort of loyalty to his friends — but he reserves all his real warmth for Hermione." Harry struggled to find the right words for the permanently languid, platinum-haired boy. "He's normally quiet, doesn't smile much; but around Hermione, he talks, and he laughs —"
"Your bar for him is extremely low," Krum interrupted, unimpressed. "Chatty and cheerful — is that the whole of it?"
"No. I've seen a great deal of their time together. I can say with certainty that he's always treated her like she was precious." Harry searched his memory and said with quiet conviction: "He was always especially careful with her — careful, and patient, and unusually tolerant."
"He's very protective. Once, Ron and I threw snowballs at them just to startle them, and his first reaction wasn't amusement — he pulled his wand immediately, put himself between her and us, and looked ready for a fight. We were both stunned. Nobody takes a few snowballs that seriously. Only Draco." Harry almost laughed at the memory, but Krum's expression stopped him.
"That over-reaction doesn't prove he cares more about her than anyone else would," Krum said, watching Harry steadily. "He sounds like the kind of boy who plays with people's feelings. You should look more carefully at your friends, Harry Potter."
"He's not playing with anyone's feelings," Harry said. He glanced at the nearest tree and suddenly registered where they were standing — this was where Hagrid had made homes for his Bowtruckles. He could just make out a small green shape peering at them from behind the sharp hawthorn leaves.
"I don't see sincerity in anything you've described," Krum said flatly. "Shielding her from a snowball —"
"It wasn't just snowballs. He's put himself between her and things a thousand times more dangerous than snowballs." Harry said without hesitating.
Krum waited, staring.
"You have to promise not to tell anyone this. I'll only say it once." Harry held Krum's eyes until the other boy gave a slow, solemn nod. Then he dropped his voice. "Once, we encountered a werewolf. He stood in front of her. He was willing to die for her."
Something other than gloom crossed Krum's face for the first time. A look of genuine surprise.
"Yes, I know how it sounds." Harry noticed and half-smiled. "I believe it takes a certain kind of feeling to make someone stand in front of someone who might kill them."
Strangely, as Harry said it, his mind went briefly to Professor Snape — whom he deeply resented. Snape spent most of his time sneering at him, belittling him, setting traps for him.
And yet — why had Snape stepped in front of them that night? What had he been feeling when he did it?
And then there was the gillyweed. Harry had only heard about it from Draco after the task — Professor Snape had been the one to provide it. Harry couldn't make himself believe it. The same man who had publicly accused him of stealing potion ingredients — how could he have done something like that?
"Any decent person would protect someone in danger," Krum said tightly. "You proved that yourself at the Black Lake — you saved Fleur's sister."
"Speaking of the Black Lake — I've never seen him as far gone as he was that day." Harry looked at Krum and registered his increasingly hollow expression, but continued carefully. "I saw it all. He drew his wand on the Merpeople to get Hermione out, and they backed off. For a moment I thought he was prepared to do absolutely anything."
Krum pressed his lips together and said nothing.
"Jumping straight from the stands into the lake isn't something a cautious person does lightly. He never takes unnecessary risks — but he didn't stop to think at all. My dormmate Neville said he went in without a moment's pause." Harry scratched his chin thoughtfully. "And later I found out he had a fear of water at the time. I genuinely don't know how he made himself do it."
"That was — truly admirable," Krum said, looking thoroughly resentful of the fact.
"I think so too." Harry looked at Krum's wretched face with genuine sympathy. "One thing I'm quite certain of: he cares for her more than any of us ever could. Even as someone who just wants Hermione to be happy — I can't doubt how much he means it."
"But if I hadn't been attacked, I would have been the one to save her. She was supposed to be my treasure!" Krum slammed a fist against the willow in front of him — startling a Bowtruckle in the branches — and said furiously, "It's all Crouch's doing. I was robbed of my chance."
"No," Harry said gently. He looked at the tall, adult wizard throwing his frustration at a tree, and found that he wasn't frightened of him at all anymore. Because he realised that Viktor Krum — with all his accolades, all his fame — was, in this moment, just a boy who was confused about love. No different from Harry, in the end.
"You're wrong. And please stop taking it out on that tree," Harry said firmly. "Hermione was never yours to begin with. She wasn't anyone's — she belonged to herself. She chose Draco Malfoy. She chose to be with him, not anyone else. Do you understand?"
"I don't understand it," Krum said, staring at Harry with a troubled expression. "I should have been the one."
Harry shook his head. "I promise you — even if you'd rescued her, nothing would have changed. They might have had a tiff, but they'd have made up. She's been carrying something for him for a long time. I knew her feelings were different — special — even the summer before third year."
Krum searched Harry's face.
"I received a letter from Hermione that summer. Just a few paragraphs. She managed to mention Draco more than a dozen times. What does that tell you? When someone mentions another person that many times, it's either very deep attachment or very deep dislike." Harry shrugged. "She obviously doesn't dislike him."
"That just means she doesn't dislike him. It doesn't mean she actually cares," Krum insisted. "She was perfectly friendly to me in the library, too."
"But the Hermione you saw wasn't the real her," Harry said. "If I may ask — what do you think she's like?"
"Intelligent. Composed. Beautiful," Krum said honestly. "She's different from everyone else. I've never felt this way about another girl."
"I knew it," Harry said plainly. "You've only ever seen the surface of her. You have no idea what she's like when she lets her guard down."
"What is she like?" Krum pressed.
Harry had a brief, vivid flash of Hermione's most unreasonable qualities — the towering revision timetables she'd force on him and Ron, the times she'd seized them by the collar for missing assignments. If Krum knew what the girl he admired was really like in private, would he still feel the same? Harry thought diplomatically, deciding to spare Hermione's dignity. "Put it this way," he said. "She only shows her softer side to Draco. He's the only one she lets look after her. On the night the Dark Mark appeared at the Quidditch World Cup, she twisted her ankle. She would only let him carry her. Refused everyone else."
Krum's face went slightly pale at that.
Harry didn't notice. He continued with genuine enthusiasm: "It's come up more than once, actually. Hermione is proud and fiercely independent — she doesn't like relying on anyone. But she'll accept his help without hesitation. She trusts him completely. When she's with him, she relaxes. The tension just — goes."
"I think I understand what that means," Krum said softly, looking down.
"Sometimes when I see them together, I wonder if my parents were like that at Hogwarts. What they have is rather enviable." Harry smiled faintly, and then caught himself wondering why on earth he was rambling about this to someone he barely knew.
Perhaps because he recognised the expression on Krum's face.
Watching Cho Chang and Cedric walk hand in hand through the corridors lately had left Harry feeling no less wretched than Krum looked right now.
Harry found, surprisingly, that he and his Triwizard rival understood each other perfectly in this moment.
He'd honestly asked himself the same question Krum was wrestling with. In the deep quiet of late nights, he'd wondered: if he had rescued Cho from the lake instead of Ron, would things be different? Would it be him in Cedric's place?
But Harry had never doubted his own choice. He could never have left Ron. Even if he'd had a hundred chances and a hundred different outcomes, he would still have saved his best friend first.
He understood very well that others could get to Cho. No one else could have been there for Ron.
Perhaps Krum was right that who saves whom does matter. Harry felt the evening breeze stir through the Forbidden Forest, and in it, something sad and certain.
For a girl who has been rescued from the depths of a black lake, she will only ever truly look at the person who came for her.
Hermione. Cho. It was the same.
Harry sighed. And as he said the words meant to comfort Krum, something settled in his own mind too:
Perhaps his situation with Cho was the mirror of Krum's situation with Hermione. When someone's heart already belongs elsewhere, too much attention becomes a burden.
The kinder thing was to let go.
"Let it go," Harry urged Krum, and meant it for himself just as much. "They have their world, and we exist outside it. If you genuinely care for her, wish her well — and don't put her in a difficult position."
"I understand." Krum stared into the dark wood, his mouth turned down. "I'd been holding on to a thread of hope, even though I knew the answer in my heart. But I didn't want to lose without knowing why. So — thank you for telling me all this. I won't trouble them anymore."
"I'm glad," Harry said sincerely.
"One more thing: could you arrange for me to speak with Hermione briefly? I want to apologise properly for forfeiting at the Black Lake. I don't want her to think badly of me," Krum said with quiet earnestness.
"I can't promise she'll come — Draco definitely won't be thrilled." Harry gave him a sympathetic look. "But I'll try. That's the best I can do."
"That's enough." Krum gave a rueful smile and extended his hand. "Harry Potter. You're a good person. Good luck in the third task."
Harry shook hands with the poor man, recognising the ache of hopeless feeling, and hoped, as genuinely as he could, that things got easier for him.