A/N: Here we go! My first HP/LV story (though definitely not the first one I've read)! Also, as of now this story is un-betaed, so please excuse any errors. Comment if you'd like to beta! One last thing, this story will be almost a blend of the book and the movie universe, though it may be closer to the movie because I've watched it just this weekend and don't have time to reread the book. Ok, off we go! Enjoy(hopefully)!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If you recognize it, it's not mine.

Warnings: Slash, maybe slight violence

'Thoughts'

Chapter 1: The Fourth Champion

"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore called. He looked around the Great Hall, before his eyes finally settled on Harry. Harry sat gaping, looking like a fish out of water. The students from all three schools stared at him, their whispers telling of his deceit. He stood, but stayed still other than that.

Hermione gave him a nudge, urging him to go forward. He started towards the podium, looking behind him as if he expected the others to laugh at him for falling for some sort of prank. No one was laughing. All he saw was the contempt in Ron's eyes, and the disappointment in Hermione's. His friends, his roommates, and people he'd always been kind to, they all looked to him without any support or comfort. He faced the front again, unable to take their looks of scorn. He was not granted the freedom though, as he looked into Dumbledore's blue eyes. His eyes said one thing 'why would you do this?'

He took the slip of paper that Dumbledore thrust at him. There it was, clear as day. Harry Potter. He walked toward the side chamber that the other three champions had gone into.

'The real three champions...,' his mind supplied unnecessarily. They looked up as he entered.

"Do they want us back in the hall?" Fleur Delacour, the French champion, asked. Harry just stared at her as a flurry of witches and wizards rushed into the room.

"Harry! Did you or did you not put you name in the Goblet of Fire?" Dumbledore asked.

"No sir!" Harry responded quickly, he was being bombarded with questions from all angles, and accusations from the foreign wizards. The other champions looked on as the adults interrogated him for proof of the crime he did not commit. Only Professor Moody seemed to have enough sense to know that a fourteen year old wizard would not have the power or knowledge to overcome an object as old and complex as the Goblet of Fire.

Finally, he was dismissed to his dormitory, though his fears were not quelled much. He'd have to complete, and there was no way of getting out of it.

Ron glared at Harry from his bed as he walked into their dormitory as if he had committed the ultimate betrayal. Harry sat in his own bed, and he suffered the silence for only one short minute.

"I didn't put my name in that cup." Harry said.

"Oh really? We all know you're just out to get all the attention placed on you. Thought you might just want to let your best friend know, though."

"You clearly aren't any sort of best friend if you're willing to believe that rubbish. Now I see that you're just a jealous prick whose loyalty is fake." With that, Harry turned around. No matter how harshly he had said the words, he felt the pain of losing his first friend hit him hard.

'Not a real friend, if he turned his back on you that quickly. If your closest friend can't be trusted, then who can?' the darker side of his mind whispered, the part that he had always pushed behind him in an effort to be accepted. For the first time in his life, though, he found himself agreeing.

The next morning started out terribly. He was ignored by the majority of the students. Those who weren't ignoring him, however, called out names and taunts. Ron spent the breakfast shooting glares at Harry, while Hermione sat across from Ron, giving him disappointed looks every so often. He left breakfast early, to escape the whispers and avoid the guilt.

'Guilt for something you haven't done.' Harry tried to ignore the fact that his mind was starting to make more and more sense. He walked on to his first class of the day without many problems, despite the few students he ran into on his way that made snide remarks or asked him how he got past the age line.

The week rolled by in a similar manner and soon Harry found himself sitting by the lake on Saturday morning. He was starting to get used to the sudden loneliness caused by his friends' abandonment, though that did not mean he enjoyed it. He missed the conversations with Ron about Quidditch and he would even suffer through one of Hermione's study sessions without complaint right about now. But they had avoided him, so he avoided them. He would not be the one to admit that he had done anything wrong because he hadn't done anything wrong. Knowing Ron though, it would take a lot for the stubborn idiot to admit to his mistakes. The part that saddened him the most was that he expected Hermione to be smarter than this and to side with him. Instead, she sided with Ron. He sighed as he looked out across the water. He picked up a rock and stood, before chucking it as far as he could over the water, where it sank quickly into the black murky liquid.

"Sod off, Malfoy." Harry said as he pushed past the blonde boy in the hall. He was persistent though, determined to ruin Harry's day.

"Gryffindor's little golden boy has fallen from grace now, hasn't he?" Malfoy taunted. Harry tried his best to ignore him, and also tried his best to avoid shoving Malfoy into a wall and cursing him. Draco smirked, thinking that his silence meant that his jibe had stung him deeply, but he frowned when he realized that he had failed to get a rise out of him.

"Looks like the little golden boy has grown up a little. Maybe it's from the lack of the Weasel." Malfoy said.

"The sad thing is," Harry murmured, "that you might even be right about that." Draco tilted his head.

"Maybe you're not so bad anymore. Well at least not as long as you've progressed from hanging out with people like the Weasleys. How about we try to put the past behind us; try for…civility, between us. I can help you. We'd make good allies. " Harry had to wonder about it. 'What about my friends? Should I just let him trash Ron like that… then again, Ron has been trashing me without any remorse. And I doubt I can even consider them my friends anymore.' With that, Harry made up his mind. He reached out and shook Draco's hand, almost wondering about how different things would be if he had done this in his first year.

"I'm Rita Skeeter. I write for the Daily Prophet and I am here to get the scoop. My readers and I would like to know. Who's first?" Rita said loudly. Harry disliked her already. She seemed the type to slander and twist words.

"We'll start with the youngest!" she said.

"It makes more sense to start with the oldest," Harry pointed out, "After all, they were born first." Rita looked displeased, knowing that she couldn't actively disagree without seeming like she only wanted to interview Harry, but she dragged Krum away, instead. Krum looked uncomfortable, Harry noted, thinking that Krum would be used to the spotlight. Harry watched as he was pulled into a broom cupboard. He sat silently with the other contestants, until Cedric broke the silence.

"You've probably gotten this a lot," he said, "but why exactly did you enter?" Harry resisted the urge to sigh.

"I didn't enter." He said, his tone almost cold.

"I didn't really think that you did," Cedric said, "but I wanted to be sure." Harry was pleased when Fleur voiced her agreement, but he was then reminded of the people who didn't believe him.

"You may be among the only ones. Not even my friends can see the obvious truth. " Harry said bitterly. Cedric and Fleur voiced their sympathy.

"Eet doezn't even make any zense for you to 'ave entered." Fleur said.

"I agree. I just wish everyone else saw that."

"I thought that you of all people would know that I didn't enter, Hermione." Harry said as he approached her in the common room.

"I thought you of all people would understand the danger of entering in a tournament like this." She replied quietly, as if he were a child. He almost winced at her tone, before he turned and stalked out of the portrait hole. When he got to breakfast, ha sat alone towards the end of the table yet he was still ambushed by various Gryffindors.

"So how'd you do it?"

"It's so cool that we have our own champion!"

"Can I get your autograph?"

Before he knew it, he was up and walking away from the table, and towards the other side of the hall. He stopped when he was standing next to Draco Malfoy's seat.

"Mind if I join you?" The Slytherins stared at him as if he had lost his mind.

"Go right ahead." Draco replied, with a small smirk, earning him the disbelieving stares. Harry sat next to him, glad that he was facing away from the angry glares that were bound to be coming from the rest of the hall.

"Harry, this is Blaise, Pansy, Greg and Vince." They each gave a slight nod as Draco introduced them, having regained their pure-blood masks.

"Pleasure. I know you're all confused and I'd just like to say that Draco and I are on… better terms nowadays."

"Also," Draco added, "Harry is tired of the blind judgment from that Mudblood and the Weasel. You'd think that as 'perfect little Gryffindors' they would've stayed true to their friendship. Trust me, Potter. You can make much stronger ties here. " Harry prepared to squash the urge to defend Ron and Hermione, but was immensely surprised when it never even arrived.

'Maybe I've finally renounced them as completely as they have me.'

"Maybe I shouldn't have argued with the Sorting Hat so much." Harry said. The others raised eyebrows, silently asking him to elaborate.

"The Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin at first."

"Why did you argue?" Blaise asked.

"Well, Ron had already told me about how all things Slytherin were evil, and since he was my first friend, I was willing to do anything to please him. Plus, I had already met Draco, who seemed well… unfriendly." Harry explained.

"If I may ask, what do you mean by first friend?" Pansy asked.

"I mean exactly that. I never had a friend before that. The muggles made sure of that." Harry said darkly. The Slytherins nodded at him sympathetically. It was then that Harry realized the disgusted tone he had used.

'Well it makes sense. Why like the barbarians that treated you like vermin? Like dirt.' Harry reluctantly agreed with his mind's logic.

"So you really lived with muggles? What were they like? And you had no clue that you were a wizard?" Blaise asked. Harry frowned.

"They were terrible—are terrible. They think I'm some sort of freak. They-" Harry stopped when he realized that he was spilling all of his secrets to a bunch of people that he had just met and to all of the Slytherins that were eavesdropping, though subtly.

"I think that we've pried into Harry's life quite enough," Draco said, recognizing that he was no longer willing to talk, "And besides, we'll have to rush if we don't leave for Defense Against the Dark Arts soon." With that, Harry and the Slytherins left for class. Harry wondered the entire way how he had spent three years of his life thinking that these people were evil and dark simply because a talking hat had called out Slytherin instead of Gryffindor. After all, from what he'd seen so far, the Slytherins, while being a house with a hierarchy, was a house with ties that clearly surpassed those of Gryffindor house. Harry thought then about how his life would be different if he were a Slytherin instead of just a snake in lion's clothing.

A/N: Please review! Review or PM me if you're interested in Betaing this story! Hope you liked it.