Title: Marauder.
Author: Yeziel Moore
Fandom: Harry Potter.
Characters: Harry.
Pairings: None.
Rating: K.
Warnings: None.
Summary: "The contract said I had to compete, it didn't say I had to win"
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belong to JKR. This, however, is mine.
 Words: 486.

AN: I'm sure that this idea has been used at some point and by better writers but I couldn't resist myself. Harry's passive acceptance was something that always bothered me. So here's my take at Harry wheedling out of the tournament by doing what he was asked to do: compete. It turns out that Harry is a sneaky bastard.

"I forfeit," Harry said with a strong but contained voice that carried over the field, the tribunes and the stunned spectators.

The silence that followed was deafening. But it wouldn't last, Harry knew, so he did what any sensible person would've done in his place: he turned around and walked away, a barely visible smirk firmly planted on his face. He moved briskly through the expanse of Hogwart's grounds, not once bothering to look back and definitely not giving a damn about what everyone in the stands thought about him. People like those, who came to see teenage boys confront terrible odds in a battle for their lives, didn't even deserve his contempt much less his attention.

When his name had come out of the Goblet of Fire Harry had been understandably shocked, right alongside everyone else. But while everyone was confused about the events, the truth was clear to him: he hadn't put his name in the Goblet and he hadn't approached another student to do it for him, he was innocent of any wrongdoing, real or imagined. Yes, he had fantasized about it with Ron but he hadn't done anything else. He wasn't stupid or suicidal, after all. Then everyone, bar Hermione and Neville, had turned their backs on him. The betrayal had been like a punch to the stomach and a kick to the head combined. It had left him breathless and dizzy, grasping for a semblance of sense in a tornado of hateful whispers and tangible contempt.

He should've expected it, he had thought later. It was like that every single time. Something would always go wrong and he would be singled out just because of whom he was, he would be accused and hated for it until it was proven that he hadn't done it and, woops, we're really sorry Harry but everything's fine, right? And he would smile and nod like the good golden boy he was.

They were always expecting things from him and he was always bending backward for them. He was sick of it, all of it and all of them. So why not paid them back in kind? Why not shake things up a little? Live up to his father's legacy maybe? Yes, there was a thought worth pursuing.

And so, while the others champions were preparing for the first task, he had undertaken a secret project, a project to do with contracts and, more importantly, how to exploit the loopholes in them for all of their worth.

Hence it is with a far too wide smile full of white teeth and razor edges that Harry can stand in front of the enraged mob of vultures and say with his best I-didn't-do-it-so-why-are-you-glaring-at-me voice:

"The contract said I had to compete," the enunciation was precise and deliberate as if he was talking to a crowd of small and slow children, "it didn't say I had to win."

Uploaded: 06/05/2012