Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe. I am, in fact, simply playing here for a while.
Large portions of this chapter are lifted directly from the book by J.K., due to lack of divergence at this point. Further chapters will diverge more, please don't sue me!
- I -
"Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision," said Dumbledore. "I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now, when the champions' names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber" — he indicated the door behind the staff table — "where they will be receiving their first instructions."
Harry sat back in his chair, excitedly looking around the Great Hall. The Hogwarts students seemed to be doing much the same as he was, craning their necks to attempt to spot their favoured champion candidate, or simply to ogle the ethereal girl from Beauxbatons. Those students were sat upright and alert, their eyes the only thing that betrayed their nervousness as they flickered around the room. The delegation from Durmstrang by contrast lounged comfortably, gazing at the flickering flames visible beyond the rim of the Goblet Of Fire.
His gaze came to rest on Hermione who was sat next to him, and unlike everyone else, was staring morosely at her lap. He nudged her, gently, with his elbow.
"What's wrong Hermione?" he asked, trying to keep his voice low in the near silence of the Hall.
"The last tournament, the one that got it banned..." She hefted a book out from under the table and placed it in front of him, pointing to a particular passage,
"...The Tournament With No Second Task. People die in these things Harry. I don't think I can watch someone I know go through ...that" she finished, pointing at an animated illustration of a graveyard. Harry watched with interest as the image reset, starting the three champions through the graveyard full of Ghouls again. It was over, mercifully, within thirty seconds and the Ghouls dragged their feast off the edge of the image. Harry suddenly wished he'd eaten a slightly lighter dinner.
He was distracted from responding when the light of the goblet changed to a bloody red. A second later, a tongue of flame leapt into the air, carrying with in a single piece of charred parchment.
Dumbledore caught the piece of parchment and held it at arm's length, so that he could read it by the light of the flames, which had turned back to blue-white.
"The champion for Durmstrang," he read, in a strong, clear voice, "will be Viktor Krum."
Ron yelled something, but Harry was distracted yet again by Hermione, who had started shaking. He turned back to her. "What? I'm sure there'll be better safety this time Hermione. All three ministries were working together, weren't they?" he said in what he thought was a reassuring manner. She flipped through the book with practised ease and pointed out a passage on the last few pages, before reading aloud in a quavering voice.
"Although each tournament was cited to have better security and safety measures than the last, almost every task could be guaranteed to go wrong in some manner. It has been theorised that the Goblet itself is somehow sentient in much the same way as the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts or the Left Wing of the Flammel Mansion, and uses its own brand of magic to make the tournament as exciting as possible for the spectators. This has manifested as the restraints for dangerous beasts snapping, magical safety equipment failing with no warning, or even seemingly unrelated outside sources."
Harry looked at the wooden Goblet sat on it's plinth for a few seconds, but all that came to mind was "Huh."
As through it had been waiting for his attention, which was not a pleasant thought after what he had just read, the Goblet immediately turned blood red once more and threw another piece of parchment into the air.
"The champion for Beauxbatons," said Dumbledore, "is Fleur Delacour!"
The girl who so resembled a veela - "Delacour" got gracefully to her feet, shook back her sheet of silvery blonde hair, and gracefully glided up between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables.
Whispers erupted amongst the Hogwarts students. Them next. Harry was started to get worried. If what the book was saying was true, the champion would be in danger no matter what the ministry had decided. Unless each task revolved around Puffskeins. He turned back to Hermione, ignoring Ron as he gaped stupidly at the door that the French champion had vanished through.
"What else does the book say?"
Hermione flipped to the middle of the book, where there was a miniature index of the past tournaments, and showed him. He started reading about halfway down the list.
The Tournament With A Default Winner
The Tournament With No Champion
The Tournament With No Audience
The Tournament Of Souls
The Tournament That Started A War
The Tournament That-
His eyes widened as they skimmed down the names and dates. It seemed like EVERY tournament ended in disaster and the schools promising never to do it again, until a century or so later where they reinstated it. He started flipping through the book, stopping at random sections to read a sentence or two.
...only one survivor, so the cup was awarded ... large number of fatalities at the stands collapsed onto the Manticore ... Dementors managed to Kiss each champion and ten of … invaded by the Dark Lady Couronne D'Argent at the end of the second … Poisoning in an attempt to cheat … fatal stabbing by a deranged House Elf … mixing of Gillyweed and Muggle Weed caused the champion to drown … Muggle firearm discharged by a local revolutionary … devoured by a Ghoul Pack.
He looked up at Hermione in horror as the light flicked to red again. In the harsh light, he could see she was struggling to hold in tears. "Every time?" he gaped. She nodded.
As Dumbledore snatched the parchment out of the air, Harry looked around at the Griffindor hopefuls. Please, not someone I know.
"And the champion for Hogwarts... Is Cedric Diggory."
The table next to them exploded into cheers. Harry frowned. Cedric was courteous, polite. A paragon of Huffelpuff virtues. Harry grimaced, before looking back at the Goblet with, like everyone else in the hall, confusion.
The flames were getting agitated, tinting red, sending sparks into the air as though it was battling with itself. Harry felt a cold hand grip his stomach.
With a hiss, the Goblet erupted, sending a single spike of fire high, high into the air as crimson sparks cascaded to the floor. When the flames receded, there was a lone, badly burned scrap of parchment floating there. It seemed to float for a second, before beginning its slow decent. Dumbledore snatched it out of the air, almost automatically, and glanced at it, before doing a double take. He stared at it for several long seconds as the icy grip on Harry's stomach twisted painfully.
"Harry Potter."
Hermione let out a strangled sob and dropped the book, which landed with a thunk on the table, her hand still resting on a passage. Harry looked down and read a sentence that burned its way into his brain
In all three cases where a champion cheated their way into the tournament, they died before the final task.
Harry looked up. The teachers were staring at him. The students all had looks of confusion on their faces, slowly changing to anger as they realised what had happened.
Dumbledore turned to stare at him as Professor McGonagall whispered urgently into his ear. He nodded slowly.
"Harry Potter! Harry! Up here, if you please"
Hermione looked terrified. She was so pale she could have passed for one of Hogwarts' many ghosts, and she was shaking his head at him while Ron, on his other side, was staring blankly at him as though unable to process what had happened.
He looked up at Dumbledore again and slowly stood up. Dumbledore wouldn't let anything happen, right? He made his way carefully down the aisle, ignoring the whispers that sprang up as he passed. He paused for a second by Dumbledore, but the old wizard simply motioned him towards the door at the end of the staff table. Harry ducked his head and walked through.
The three champions were gathered around the fireplace. They looked over curiously as he entered. Fleur Delacour flicked her hair over her shoulder and smiled at him.
"What is it?" she said. "Do zey want us back in ze Hall?"
Harry shook his head numbly, looking at the three of them again. Cedric Diggory cut an imposing figure, straight backed, and well defined in the firelight. Viktor Krum was a professional athlete, competing on a worldwide level and it showed. Fleur Delacour was looking down at him with confusion on her face as he still didn't speak. They all looked down at him. They were all much taller than him, even with Krum's slouched posture.
There was the sound of scurrying feet behind him, and Ludo Bagman entered the room. He took Harry by the arm and led him forwards, muttering to himself, stopping next to the three champions.
"Extraordinary! Absolutely extraordinary! Gentlemen . . . lady, may I introduce — incredible though it may seem — the fourth Triwizard champion?"
Viktor Krum straitened up, frowning. Cedric looked nonplussed, looking between them. Fleur Delacour began to smile, as though at a joke, but Harry jerked his arm out of Bagman's grip.
"What? No! I'm not competing!"
It was Bagman's turn to look confused. "Harry, your name just came out of the Goblet of Fire. It's not a joke."
Harry's response was drowned by noise from both directions. Fleur Delacour started protesting, and the door to the room burst open once again, admitting Dumbledore, followed closely by Mr. Crouch, Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape. Both foreign headteachers were vocally expressing their confusion and misgivings to Dumbledore. Harry tried to shrink into the background as it didn't seem the shouting match would end any time soon. He frowned at Fleur's comment. 'Little boy' seemed a little harsh. He had killed a basilisk just two years ago, after all, even if it wasn't common knowledge.
The argument continued for several more minutes until Harry felt the need to interrupt.
"Excuse me... Hello... HEY!" when no one seemed to notice, he pulled out his wand and cast a basic noisemaker, "Magna Voce!".
He may have pushed a small amount of his frustration into the spell. The issuing BANG caused dust to rain from the ceiling, but did succeed in getting everyone's attention. They were now all glaring at him, rather than each other.
"I have the solution right here. I have no intention of competing in this tournament! Something has gone wrong with literally every single year this thing has gone ahead. From what I was told just before my name came out of the Goblet, more people have died in this tournament than there have been tournaments! Hell, more audience members have died in this thing than there have been tournaments!"
There were a few moments of shocked silence before everyone started trying to speak at once. Dumbledore was closest, and loudest.
"Harry, are you attempting to withdraw your entry?" The headmaster seemed about to continue, but Harry got there first.
"Yes," Harry had meant to go on to argue that he had never put his name in in the first place, that he had never seriously wanted to enter the tournament, that after what he had just read, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to watch the tournament. Instead, after his one word answer the wand that was still held loosely in his hand flashed and Harry's world dissolved into pain, flashing lights, and the sounds of screaming. In the brief moments of clarity that plagued him while the pain racked his body, he wondered if the screams were his own.
- I -
In muggle TV, when someone wakes up in a hospital, the first thing that happens in the heart monitor starts beeping. Then they groggily open their eyes at see the white ceiling and walls, look around at all the machines, and then pull out the IV drip while grimacing because they are manly men who don't need no healthcare.
Harry, on the other hand, woke with a start to a steady beeping, but after focusing his eyes he saw that the noise was being made by a glum looking witch two beds over. His head felt like it was stuffed with very heavy wool. He tried to move only to discover it really wasn't worth the effort. His neck was painfully stiff and his right hand felt like it was in an itchy glove, or wrapped in string. There were lines of stiffness and itches stretched up to almost his elbow. He tried to roll his head over to get a look, but he just succeeded in making himself feel ill so gave up and licked his lips instead.
"Where... where am I?" His voice was scratchy and dry. He knew he wasn't in the hospital wing, although wherever he was did have a similar aesthetic of cleanliness and the slight smell of healing potions.
A boisterous but friendly sounding voice sounded from the way Harry wasn't looking. He whipped his head around but regretted it almost immediately as the sudden movement made a wave of nausea roll over him.
"You're in St. Mungo's, my boy. Artefact Accidents ward. I tell you, there was some worry about whether you should be here or up on the fourth floor! Now that you're awake, let me give you a little check up. Drink this. And this. Whoops, not this. Drink this. Now lie still for a minute." The large body attached to the voice handed his four potions, snatching one back after a second. Harry felt his headache clear and his dry throat moisten and looked up.
The man, now Harry was looking at him, started casting all sorts of spells on him and making non-committal or pleased noises at the various flashes of light, coloured puffs of smoke or strange noises that emitted from his wand. After one final spell which let out a white flash with the noise of a cannon blast and released some dark green smoke that curled lazily in the air while giggling like an exceptionally small house elf, the man put his wand away and smiled down at Harry's prone form.
"Excellent, that all looks well within accepted boundaries, considering that this has never happened before! I'm sure you have some questions, so fire away, I have a few minutes."
Harry looked around again, trying to get his brain in gear. His thoughts seemed very sluggish.
"OK..." Harry took a deep breath and then got out "Where am I, why am I here, how long have I been here, who are you, why are you here, where are my glasses, why can I see you perfectly without my glasses and how did I get here?" in one long stream, before adding as an afterthought "And where is my wand?"
The man grinned at him, reassuringly.
"Well then, sport, I'll answer those in a slightly different order if you don't mind.
"As I said, you're in St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, on the ground floor, Artefact Accidents, in the Gervaise Ward. I am your healer, or if you are more comfortable with the term, your doctor, healer Darrin. You've been here three days because of a rather unique magical backlash you were at the centre of. We really have no idea what caused it, or the effect it could be having on you right now! Your glasses are on the table, just here. As for why you can see without them, well magic is a strange and wonderful thing. It may be that you slowly start to need glasses again over the next week, it may be that you never need to pick up another pair!"
In Harry's opinion, the 'healer' was far too excited for not actually having any idea what was happening. Harry took his glasses and experimentally put them on. He blinked, still able to see just fine. He took them off and could read the writing on the headboard of the bed opposite from him. He filled this away for later and put his glasses back down. The healer continued with a broad, excited smile that showed very white teeth.
"We've contacted your school healer, and you should be back in her familiar care by the end of the day! I just hope that she'll accredit me in any research paper she publishes off of this, it would do worlds for my career!"
The healer then stood and walked briskly from the room without a backwards glance, leaving Harry gaping at his back.
"Hey, my wand! Where's my wand?"
Harry flopped back onto his pillow and scratched his nose. He froze, staring at his right arm. From the tips of his fingerers down to his elbow stretched a network of silvery scar tissue. Each scar seemed to lie over a vein, and was smooth as he ran unbelieving fingers over them. They itched, gently, persistently. It was uncomfortable. Harry tried to clench his fist, but the scars stretched and cramped painfully, the itching jumping up a notch to tiny needles digging into him. He rolled his wrist, and felt the skin all down his arm being pulled by the network of inflexible tissue. He could feel his pulse under the pulled taut scars as the skin around them twitched.
Harry stayed, staring at his scars, for what seemed like hours, until a familiar mediwitch arrived to cart him back through the floo to Hogwarts.
- I -
End notes
So, here's something that bubbled from my head one night. Like all my stuff, I'll work on it when I feel like it, so chapters may take a long time to come out, or may (As highly unlikely as it may be) be out within a week.
I will put a second chapter of this out, if for the very least to explain what happened, and where Harry's wand has gone.
If you liked it, a review telling me what you liked is always appreciated. If you didn't, taking a moment to help me improve will be good for your everlasting soul.
Had to remove the link to the reference image of the veins in an arm as it wouldn't display,
And after a very, very long time, I've gone through this with some minor edits for ease of reading.