In Her Eyes Lies Her Heart

Harry did not see Eve the next day. He and Hermione stayed in the library, skipping meals, searching for some way to fight his dragon. The work was futile and monotonous, and Harry would have given anything for Eve to be there, making snide comments about the twittering fan girls that kept approaching Victor Krum. He also would have given anything for her assistance in the search. With her experience, she was sure to have something to help him, sure to have some advice or spell that would help him survive the first task. He thought that maybe Eve was off doing her own research, and that she would show up later that night with all the answers.
However, as Sunday came to a close, he had not seen her once, not even in animagus form, and he realized that she would not be there to help him. He felt angry at her. He had gotten so used to her constant presence, her sarcastic heckling and unwanted advice, and now, when he really needed her, she was gone. He went to bed that night, but could not sleep. His mind’s eye kept seeing the Horntail; spewing fire, sweeping its long, lethal black tail, impaling him with its razor sharp spikes.
The next morning Eve was still absent, and Harry sat down to breakfast with a feeling of hopelessness. He shrugged off Hermione’s continued whispers of possibilities and worried questions, feeling tired. He glanced up to tell Hermione to leave it alone, but cut off when he saw Cedric leaving the Hufflepuff table. He was the only champion who didn’t know about the dragons.
“Listen, Hermione, go on to Herbology without me. Tell professor Sprout that I’ll be there in a bit,” Harry said, gathering up his bag. Hermione went to protest, but he was already halfway along the table, nearly jogging to catch up to Cedric.

“Harry, you’re not concentrating,” said Hermione for the hundredth time. Harry was holding his wand, staring down its length at a chalkboard eraser, trying to make it come to him.
“I’m trying,” said Harry through gritted teeth. They had been at it for hours, trying to fix Harry’s block with the Accio charm. When Harry had run from Professor Moody’s office, he felt a little less hopeless, knowing that all he needed was to summon his broom. If he had his broom, he would be in his element. He would have some semblance of control. Harry and Hermione skipped dinner and found an abandoned class room to practice in. They started with determination to master the spell for the task, but when the clock showed midnight, and Harry had not made any progress, he began to despair.
“Damn it!” he said, dropping his wand arm. The eraser still sat upon the floor, taunting him. He stormed up to the eraser and gave it a good sharp kick, sending it to the far side of the room.
“Harry, you have to keep trying. You just need to concentrate-“
“I’m trying, but how am I supposed to concentrate when I’m about to take on a bloody Dragon!” he shouted. He didn’t know why he was yelling at her. All he knew was that all the fear and helplessness and frustration he had felt the past few days was filling him up, turning to rage. “You aren’t about to go fight a fifty foot tall reptile-“
“Ah, I thought I heard you, Harry,” Eve was leaning casually in the doorway, dressed in sleek leather pants and her usual long sleeves and gloves. She pushed of from the wall and strode into the room. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, and the sound of shouting seemed the best direction. You know, you really have this terrible habit of yelling at girls that don’t deserve it.” Harry glared at her. “She’s right, you know, it’s your concentration.”
“What are you doing here?” He said, venomously. He was so sick of everyone telling him to concentrate.
“I’m here to help,” She said, raising an eyebrow at his tone.
“Why do you care? You haven’t been helping me the past two days, why start now?” Harry said, advancing on Eve. He didn’t care if his anger was irrational. He didn’t care that she was a thousand years more experienced than him. She was supposed to help him; Dumbledore told her to help him, and she abandoned him right when he needed her most. “You were supposed to watch me, you were supposed to look out for me. That’s the whole reason you’re here, isn’t it? Because Dumbledore asked you too?” He was so close to her now, he could smell the cinnamon and cloves and wine, heavy in his lungs. “But when I find out I’m going to be up against a Dragon, you leave me without a clue of what to do!”
“Look, Harry-“ Eve began, but Harry cut her off.
“I’m sick and tired of people abandoning me,” his hands curled into fists. “As soon as my name came out of that cup, everyone turned their back on me, thinking me a cheat!” He was breathing very heavily now. “The entire school jeers at me, Ron turned into the world’s biggest prat, and then you-“
“Will you just shut up for one fucking second?” Eve yelled. Her voice snapped with power, and the anger now bubbling inside her veins. Electricity seemed to be crackling around her, lifting her hair in an invisible lightning storm. “You, Harry James Potter, are the biggest idiot I have ever met. You are angry because I was not there to help you and now that I am trying to, you blow up on me!” She closed the gap between them. The fragrance that always followed her changed. It was no longer sweet and inviting, but spicier, sharper, and incredibly seductive. “Now hold still, and stop talking.” Harry could feel her power, feel the surge of energy that thousands of years had created; he was afraid. He tried to back away, but Eve’s hand shot out and held him by the hair, pulling him back to face her, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “I said don’t move…” She held him firmly in place; he could feel the hair on top of his head pulling from his scalp. He tried to fight her, but he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t move. Her scarlet eyes bore into his, mesmerizing. She moved closer, until they were chest to chest, her nose nearly brushing his, her mouth sending warm breath over his. Her eyes never moved, never wavered, only resolutely held him in place, and as he stared, he found himself lost in their depths. She had a fleck of gold in her left iris that he had never noticed before. It was beautiful. He focused on it, reveling the way it flashed and moved, like liquid metal, swirling around in his head. Her scent was like a blanket, surrounding him, protecting him. He could hear her, not with his ears, but in his mind. She was calling to him, chanting in some old forgotten language, a language of war and blood and magic. He felt his heart hammering in his chest, like the sound of a drum, beating the call to battle, and he had a sudden desire to go to her. To leave his body and join with hers, all he had to do was answer her. If he touched her, he would be free. He wanted to lean in, wanted to answer the wild singing that was rising in his head, but only if she told him to. Her voice echoed in his mind, Close your eyes. He did without any hesitation. Let go of your fear, she said, so softly, like a brush of a feather upon his consciousness. He gave himself to her will, laying everything he had at her feet. If she asked him to die he would do it, if she asked him to fly, he would soar.
Suddenly, as if a pressure valve had been released, all emotion drained out of him, leaving Harry feeling calm for the first time since his name had come out of the Goblet. He tried to look into her eyes again, tried to find that wonderful, blissful nothingness that her gaze contained. He could smell vanilla now, mellowing out the harsh tang of burnt cloves. Eve ran her fingers through his hair, tugging at the forelock that covered his scar. She pulled him again; not roughly this time, but as if pulling him from a dream, softly letting him know that it was time to wake.
“Better?” she said, voice low, husky, and a little breathless.
“Loads,” he said, blinking as the last vestiges of her mind melted away. He felt naked and raw, but at the same time, wonderful. “What did you do?”
“Refocused your mind, then took your emotions and your fears onto myself,” she said, abruptly letting him go and walking to the other side of the room. Harry wanted to follow her, to have her hands back in his hair, to look into those eyes that had once frightened him, but he forced himself to stay. “You must accept your obstacles, and let go of fear. Hermione was right that you must concentrate. But you were concentrating on the wrong part.” She held up the eraser in her hand. “You were concentrating on how you were going to use the spell in the future; thinking only about why you must learn it, and thus, you were concentrating on what you feared would happen should you fail. You must concentrate on what you are doing now, in this moment. Tomorrow doesn’t exist, dragons do not exist. I took your fear, so it does not exist. Concentrate on this action and this action only. You and I are the only things that exist. You, and I, and this.” She held the eraser aloft.
Harry felt surer than he had in his entire life. Before he spoke the word, he knew he would be successful, he knew he would triumph. “Accio,” Harry said, firmly, pointing his wand to the eraser. It soared from her hand and into the air, falling three feet short of him. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best progress he had seen so far.
“Excellent,” Eve said, indulging him with a quick smile before calling the eraser back to her. “Now… again!”