The front door of the hut exploded, “Hum, that was easy wasn’t it?” she said looking at the four startled teenagers. Leo bit his lips to stifle a laugh. She stepped over the debris and entered the hut. “Very cozy. Nice place you have here Hagrid,” she said looking around.

Hagrid had disappeared since Rita Skeeter published an article about his giant heritage. Immediately after learning about the article, Chris, Ron and Hermione had stormed to Hagrid’s hut trying to talk to the half-giant and had taken Wyatt with them. They had been hammering on the door for a long time when Piper and Leo, who had gone towards the very same hut because they wanted to talk to Hagrid about the possibility of showing unicorns to the Magic School students, spotted them. Dumbledore had already alerted them that Hagrid was hiding from the world but Piper had not taken him seriously. When seeing the begging teenagers and hearing their explanation she had just flicked her wrist.

“Me door!” the half giant spluttered. Pipe looked at it.

“Well, you wouldn’t open it. Don’t worry. I’ll get one of the kids to fix-oh, for crying out loud will you four come in!” she ordered the still gaping teenagers.

“Maybe I didn’ want visitors, eh?”

Piper just stared at Hagrid and chuckled waving him off.

“Privacy is a concept that completely bypassed my mother,” Wyatt tapped Hagrid’s arm sympathetically. “You’re just unlucky there are anti-orbing wards here, or we’d just have orbed in.”

A little flustered Hagrid served tea to his visitors while Hermione fixed the door. Soon enough everyone was declaring that they couldn’t care less who Hagrid was related to and that he ought to come back to teach.

“That’s what Dumbledore’s saying but that’s not what the parents will think,” Hagrid shrugged.

 “You can’t let other people’s opinion stop you. I wouldn’t have done anything if I cared what other people think,” Piper said firmly.

“Er- Halloween 2005,” Leo said weakly.

“What- don’t bring that up! Why did you bring that up?” Piper glared at him and turned to Hagrid, “He was popular in school,” she said as if that explained everything.

“Caution is a concept that has completely eluded dad,” Wyatt said. “You’d think he’d know by now,” he finished shaking his head and ignoring Leo’s glare.

“But she’s right!” Chris cried. “Who cares what they think! That’s the same Remus did last year, resigning before anyone complained. Let them come and we’ll deal with them! We already lost one great teacher because of bigotry we can’t lose more!”

“Oh, Chris, yeh thin I’m a great teacher?” Hagrid cried emotionally.

“Er-“ Chris looked at the others. He loved Hagrid but his teaching methods left a lot to be desired. “We think you’re great Hagrid,” he nodded and Hagrid never realized Chris didn’t add ‘teacher’.

“We don’t care who your mother is,” Ron said firmly. “It’s you we care about- I mean look at who Chris has for relatives!” he said as if that proved a point. Hagrid was nodding with him, having met the Dursleys, but the other five were gawking at Ron who realized his mistake even though Hagrid didn’t know, he added. “The Dursleys are nothing like Chris!”

“Oh, yeah!” Chris nodded. “And you liked me even though you met them. And you don’t think any less of mom for being Aunt Petunia’s sister do you?”

“’Course not. Lily was the sweetest person ever-“ Hagrid said indignantly. “Yer right-me dad would be ashamed of me if he saw me. He always said, ‘Hagrid, keep your head up. Never be ashamed. There’s some who’ll hold it against you, but they’re not worth botherin’ with.”

‘’Cause they’re idiots,” Wyatt nodded. “Thinking we’re less than them just because we have mixed blood.”

Hagrid looked at him questioningly and Wyatt shrugged, “Stupid Elders look at us like we’re filth because we’re what they call ‘half-breeds’,” he made quotation marks. “There was this really stuck up one who told my cousin once, when he was waiting to talk with my Aunt Paige, that we should have never existed because a Whitelighter having children is an abomination.”

“Yeah,” Piper growled. “Believe me that Elder never came back down to give us messages again,” she crossed her arms angrily.

Hagrid sniffed, “Yeah know what Chris? When I firs’ met you, you reminded me o’ me a bit, mum and dad gone, an’ you was feeling like yeh wouldn’ fit in at Hogwarts, remember?” Chris nodded awkwardly since his mum and dad were actually sitting there listening. “Not really sure you’d fit… An’ look at you now Chris! School champion!” Hagrid looked at Chris for a moment and then said seriously “Yeh know what I’d love Chris, fer yeh ter win this. Show ‘em all…that yeh don’t have ter be a pureblood ter do it. Yeh don’ have ter be ashamed of what yeh are. It’d show ‘em Dumbledore’s the one who got it right letting anyone in as long as they can do magic,” he nodded firmly and then as if realizing who he had as guests he added. “No offense ter your champion Professor.”

Leo smiled, “None taken, besides, I think if Olivia won she’d be sending the same message. Her mother is a witch but her father is a Mor- I mean, what you call Muggle.”

“Good fer her!” Hagrid smiled widely.

They left Hagrid’s hut with promises of seeing him in the next class and Chris decided to take Cedric’s offer up. Cedric had pulled him aside after the ball and told Chris to take the egg for a bath and gave him the Prefects’ bathroom password. He’d do it that same night. Take the egg to the Prefect’s bathroom and see what happened.

---

“So you’ll have to go into the lake? We need to know how you could breathe underwater for an hour,” Hermione frowned. The next morning Chris had filled Ron, Wyatt and Hermione on what he had found out the previous night. As Cedric had told him, he had gone and taken the egg with him to the Prefects’ bathtub. And after some embarrassing help from Moaning Mirtle, which had Chris wondering if he should find out about privacy wards to put around his dorm’s bathroom, he was finally able to hear the clue that the egg contained and surmise that he would have to retrieve something he cared for at the bottom of the lake and have an hour to do it. He wondered what they’d take. His most prized possessions were the gifts he had from his friends and family and the heirlooms he had from his adoptive father, not to mention his photo album, which now also contained photos that had been taken with the Halliwells during Christmas and that Piper had given him. He shuddered at the thought of someone ruffling through his things, or would he have to present them? He didn’t think so, given a choice he would give them some of Dudley’s old socks instead of risking any of the things that mattered to him because of who gave them to him. He chuckled at the thought of presenting Dumbledore with a pair of old socks and smiling innocently:

“One can never have too many socks Headmaster.”

“Scuba diving gear,” Wyatt said smiling and bringing Chris back to reality. “We just have to buy some,” at the looks he got he whined. “What? This time they didn’t say he couldn’t take anything beyond his wand with him!”

“No, but are you a scuba dive expert?” Hermione asked slowly.

“Er-no.”

“Do you know one that can come to Hogwarts before the task and teach Chris?”

“Uh-no.”

“I guess that settles it. Let’s stick to magic,” she said flatly.

“What’s scuba diving?” Ron asked Chris in a whisper. Ron had decided he would completely ignore the fact that Hermione and Wyatt seemed to be dating. Not only had they gone to the Ball together but they were seen holding hands from time to time and disappeared every now and then. Chris knew Ron was jealous. Every time Wyatt or Hermione even looked at each other Chris felt the jealousy coming from Ron, but Chris was surprised and quite thankful at how incredibly mature Ron was being. He had been worried he would have to choose between his brother and best friend.

They started looking for books and throwing ideas around, which were summarily shot one after the other.

“Transfiguration, he could turn into a fish.”

“That’s sixth year curriculum.’

“He could summon whatever they took.”

“They probably thought of that and warded whatever it is.”

They finally caught a break when Neville passed by them and heard them talking. He then enlightened them on the many uses of Gillyweed and Chris decided to buy some the next Hogsmead weekend. Chris was surprised to find out that Neville had learned it from the book Moody had given him in the beginning of the year and had frowned. After Neville had left Wyatt had leaned closer and asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, s’ just Moody seems to be everywhere.”

“How so?”

Chris shrugged, “Before the First Task he cornered me to know if I had it covered. I said I had. Now this. And sometimes I feel like he’s watching me.”

“Dumbledore probably asked him to,” Wyatt said not worried and Chris nodded, then bit his lips looking at Wyatt. He looked over Wyatt’s shoulder and saw Hermione and Ron where busy while Hermione lectured Ron about his homework. “Can you swim?” he asked quietly.

“Of course,” Wyatt gave a half-chuckle half-snort which turned serious when he noticed his brother’s embarrassed expression. “Room of Requirement, tomorrow after classes,” he said firmly and cursed the Dursleys as he walked away. Morons! He bet Dudley knew how to swim!

---

Time seemed to fly, Chris was now completely capable of orbing wherever he wanted, and just to prove that, on the Hogsmead visit before the Second Task he had quickly orbed Hermione Wyatt and Ron to the Grangers, who had been ecstatic at being able to see Hermione, and back to Hogsmead just in time for Hermione to have a row with Rita Skeeter. Nothing good could come from that.

Though he had yet to show any other powers he might have gotten from his father Chris had mastered his telekinesis and was starting to make some progress in his empathy training and was now able to calm his emotions enough so that Phoebe had a hard time reading him. Though after a lot of prodding she was able to. But an inexperienced Empath like Olivia, for instance, wouldn’t have been able to. Wyatt didn’t like that one bit though, as he confessed to his father that when Chris blocked himself out to Phoebe he dimmed Wyatt too. Though he could still feel his brother it wasn’t as clear as when Chris wasn’t blocking himself. Leo mused that that must have been why future Chris learned to block his emotions out, to keep evil Wyatt out.

Chris was also quite happy at his progress in his swimming lessons. All in all things were looking quite up when Leo was called to Dumbledore’s office a couple of days before the second task.

“I’ve called you here Leo because we have faced a problem during the selection of the hostages,” Dumbledore said calmly.

“Decided to take something else instead,” Leo asked hopefully. He was not a fan of having five people in the bottom of the lake for an hour. In enchanted stasis or not.

“No,” Dumbledore chuckled.

“So, what’s the problem? I’ve already alerted my student’s parents and they have agreed.”

“Oh, no. We have no problems with your student’s hostage. As you know, each Headmaster or Headmistress withdrew their own champion’s hostage from the goblet. Now, when it was my turn to withdraw Harry’s I was extremely surprised to have, again, two names come up,” he finished leaning over his desk and handing Leo a slip of paper. “When were you intending to share with me that our Harry is your Christopher?”

Leo cursed internally as he read Wyatt’s name right next to Ron Weasley’s. He looked up and met the Headmaster’s blue eyes.

“Probably when you intended to share with us that my son was turned into a Horcrux.”