The Great Hall was awash with noise as students sat down for dinner on a rather inconspicuous Tuesday night. But as was the way with inconspicuous Tuesday nights, they were only inconspicuous until something interesting happened. And around Harry Potter, something interesting was always bound to happen.
The boy in question was sitting alone at the end of the Gryffindor table as had been the case since his name had popped out of the Goblet of Fire. Harry's 'I'd rather just take this year off from near death experiences, thank! Gets a bit dull after 3!' fell on deaf ears and Harry found himself once again shunned and/or mocked (some of his fellow classmates could be quite passive aggressive it would seem) by his peers.
Like any self-respecting teen, Harry sulked around Hogwarts for the better part of two weeks feeling very sorry for himself indeed. 'No one will ever love me! I doubt anyone will even notice if I just laid down and died. Woe is me, etc.' Well, Snape would probably notice, and it would be marked by the first time the man had ever. Harry shuddered at the thought, definitely better not to think of such things.
Post angst, Harry sat down and really thought about why everyone was so mad at him, because frankly, he couldn't make heads or tails of it. It didn't make any sense at all. Complete nonsensical behavior from everyone involved. Harry briefly considered the possibility that this was Voldemort's next plan to take over the Wizarding World. No not the Goblet nonsense, that was blindingly obvious his work to everyone. Even blind people. But that didn't stop his friends and peers from apparently missing the unmissable.
No, Harry thought that Voldemort may have been doing something to the students to make them more willing do believe even the most incredibly stupid things. Na, the wizarding world believed that Hagrid had been responsible for releasing the beast in the Chamber of Secrets, the Minister of Magic refused to listen to anyone that didn't have him firmly in their pockets, and even the Headmaster continued to hire Defense teachers that consistently attempted to kill him every year. Harry briefly pondered how Moody would attempt to kill him this year, and then shrugged. Could be anything, really, no sense getting worked up over it.
Back to the problem at hand, clearly it wasn't just Hogwarts' students that were seeing things. Wizards, Harry decided, all wizards are just stupid. Harry paused, and backtracked a bit thinking about the Dursley's and just about every muggle he'd ever met. People were stupid. Especially in large groups. Harry nodded, pleased with his deduction.
He was pulled out of his thoughts when a body moved into his field of vision and refused to move on. Harry blinked and looked up to the delightful view of Malfoy's sneering face. Not that there was anything particularly delightful about said view, in fact, it was quite the opposite. That was sarcasm dear readers or deer readers, if you prefer. Harry himself wondered if Malfoy realized that he looked quite constipated at the moment.
Based on the look on Malfoy's face and the snickering from further down the table, he'd wondered that last bit aloud.
"What did you say to me Potter?" Malfoy was rather red.
Harry thought that repeating himself was probably unnecessary but obliged the gelled-up ferret. "I said, Malfoy, that while I imagine that you think you look very intimidating with that stupid look on your face, you actually just look constipated." Harry spoke very slowly, to make sure that Malfoy understood this time, his listening comprehension obviously wasn't great.
Malfoy had gone very red at this point and looked like he might pop if you poked him the right way. Not that Harry wanted to be the one to make physical contact with him, there's no telling what he could contract.
Malfoy sputtered for a bit, before seeming to realize that he had probably not in fact come to the Gryffindor table to be insulted. But who knew what kind of twisted thoughts rattled around his likely mostly empty head. His sneer was making a return, and I considered pointing it out to him, but refrained.
"I see you're sitting all alone, Potter, even your friends don't want to be near you." His two trained gorillas bellowed as if he'd said something obscenely clever.
Harry felt a spike of annoyance at that but ignored it and looked down in poorly feigned dismay. "You're absolutely right Malfoy! Why, if I paid mine as much as you paid yours, no doubt they would have never left!"
Malfoy had gone rather red again. He opened his mouth to respond but showed the most sense that I'd ever seen out of a Malfoy and managed to shut it. His mouth that is. He took a deep breath and tried again.
"Have you seen the newest trend Potter?" He held out one of the 'Support Cedric Diggory' pins that Harry had seen around the last couple of days. Malfoy wasn't quite done it would seem, however and tapped his wand to it and it changed to read 'Potter Stinks.'
"I realized that our very own Hogwarts champion didn't have his own pin and thought I'd help you out with that." Merlin, the complete lack of sincerity was almost impressive, and certainly wasn't helped by the ridiculous grin that he was currently sporting.
Harry looked around the room and judged that Malfoy had rather effectively gained the attention of said room, perhaps the one thing he was actually competent at. Harry could see a lot of the same dark looks that he'd been receiving since Halloween and was actually a little frightened by the looks of sadistic glee that were being aimed at him by the more, er, enthusiastic members of Hufflepuff.
Harry nodded, judging that the time was right. He quickly stood up and climbed onto the Gryffindor table, not particularly concerned that it was currently full of food.
Harry cast a quick Sonorus on himself and addressed the surprised hall. "Ladies and Gentlemen – "
"What do you think you're doing Potter!?"
Harry glanced at staff table to see Snape giving him a look much like the ones that the enthusiastic Hufflepuffs had been giving him earlier. Only uglier. Harry just smiled condescendingly. "Don't you worry about it Professor, this will only take a moment!"
Snape may have tried to talk again, but Harry was ignoring him at this point, and his voice was quite a bit louder, cause, you know, magic. "It has come to my attention that you lot are angry at me because you believe that I entered the Triwizard Tournament against the rules for reasons that I can't get my head around, but that you lot seem to believe."
Harry cleared his throat. "You seem to believe that I entered to get fame or glory or something to that effect. While most of you dimwitted prats may think that this would be all great, us more intelligent, and in this case famous, people would disagree. After all, if we're being frank here, I'm more famous and interesting than any of you will ever be without even trying."
There was a fair amount of angry muttering at that, all of which Harry dutifully ignored. "Some of you also seem to believe that I'm in it for the money. Which again, no. I'm pretty loaded, actually."
More angry muttering. "Now, more specifically to the houses. Hufflepuffs: you seem to think that I entered the competition to take away from your house's achievement. Leaving aside the fact that I would have had no idea who the Hogwarts's champion was going to be when I allegedly entered my name into the Goblet of Fire and fiddled with the complex rune scheme that is no doubt hundreds of years old, this is still a dumb, dumb thing to believe. You don't need my help to take away from your house's achievements, you do that all on your own!" Harry had to raise his voice to be heard over the angry yelling from the Hufflepuffs. "And your lack of thought in this case certainly does not help your reputation."
"To the Slytherins: well, honestly, you've treated me pretty much the same, so good on you for consistency I guess."
"To my fellow Gryffindors and envious Ravenclaws who seem to be mad at me because I entered the Tournament without telling any of you how to do it as well or because I figured out how to enter the tournament and none of you did, respectively. Frankly, you lot are being as stupid as the Hufflepuffs." Harry thought that his ability to ignore loud and angry yelling was frankly impressive at this point.
"All of your assumptions are based on the notion that I was somehow able to outsmart our very own Headmaster, perhaps the most studied and powerful wizard currently alive. At 14. Or perhaps you think that I may have overpowered his magic somehow?" Harry paused for a moment, allowing his gaze to wander a mostly quiet hall. You could see their unused brains striving to somehow comprehend this new information. I think Crabbe and Goyle may have had steam coming out of their ears from the effort.
"I am not Merlin. Because that apparently needs to be said. I am a fourth year Hogwarts student. I don't know what amazes me more, the fact that you all think so highly of me to think that I could outperform Albus frickin Dumbledore, or the fact that you seem to all be stupid enough to think that I could beat Albus frickin Dumbledore."
Everyone seemed to be vaguely embarrassed at this point and most were looking anywhere but at him. "So, in conclusion, I'm more famous than any of you will ever be, I have more money than I know what to do with, I am not, in fact, Merlin, and Hufflepuffs are sheep. Fuck you all very much."
With that, Harry allowed his wand to drop from his throat and hopped off the table, snagging a pin from a slack-jawed Malfoy as he passed him.
Harry's voice could be heard as he left the Great Hall, "'Potter Stinks!', "he laughed, "Clearly you've never lived with Ron before…"
AN: Hey gois! Kinda just wrote this to have a bit of fun. R&R!