firecracker ???

The morning Viktor Krum arrived at Hogwarts, the school practically combusted with gossip.

Not because he'd arrived as some international dignitary or famous Quidditch legend—but because Harry Potter, fresh off saving the wizarding world, had looked him dead in the eye and said:

"Still want to duel me?"

Lyra had choked on her tea. Sirius had immediately encouraged it. Regulus said he would physically remove Harry from the pitch if he tried anything. Krum, of course, was amused.

"You are worse than Sirius," Regulus muttered.

"He's worse than James," said Remus.

"I am James," Harry declared, leaning dramatically on Lyra's chair.

She didn't push him off.

She just said, "You're not going to duel Krum."

"We have history," Harry said seriously. "There's tension."

"The only tension is the fact that he once offered me his cloak and you've never emotionally recovered."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "He flirted with you at my Quidditch match. While I was dying."

"You were not dying."

"Dramatic near-death counts."

She gave him a long look, then tapped his chin with her spoon. "Fine. You get one match."

"Match?"

"Quidditch."

Harry lit up like a chandelier.

By midafternoon, the entire castle had been invited.

Even the suits of armor had RSVP'd.

The match was set on the main pitch, with Sirius announcing, Bellatrix refereeing as she insisted, and half the professors pretending this was a healthy post-war activity.

Harry stood at the edge of the pitch with his Firebolt in hand, chest puffed like a lion in mating season.

"You're flying against the world champion," Blaise said.

"And I'm the savior of wizardkind," Harry said without missing a beat. "Balance."

Draco groaned. "This is going to be insufferable."

Lyra didn't disagree.

But she was watching anyway.

Arms folded, expression unreadable, sitting beside Regulus and Narcissa as if none of them had lost ten years of their lives to worry two weeks ago.

"I think he's going to cry if he doesn't win," she murmured.

Regulus: "He's going to cry if he does."

Sirius's voice echoed across the pitch: "Welcome to Hogwarts' most unhinged international match-up since the Triwizard Tournament."

"Didn't someone die in that one?" Theo asked.

"Exactly," Sirius replied.

Bellatrix raised her wand.

"On my count!" she shrieked. "One! Two—!"

Harry was gone before she hit three.

Krum followed—less aggressive, more graceful. But it didn't matter. Harry was flying like the sky belonged to him.

Because in his mind?

It did.

Lyra thought the same.