Harry had never been so excited to wake up early in his life… well, except for the start of his third year, and the start of his second year…. and the start of his first year. The feeling of waking up, and realizing that magic was real and that he was at his real home, at Hogwarts… It was almost beyond description.

Of course, then there was the reminder that he was at Hogwarts, and even with magic, some things just don't compare with the real thing… such as hot showers, modern plumbing and clicky pens. The first two were replicated convincingly enough with magic, with their own merits, but the third… not so much. Having completed three years at Hogwarts so far, he still hadn't really got the hang of a quill.

Regardless, there was no place he'd rather be than Hogwarts. Harry and the other boys got ready for the day, unsure as of yet which classes they would actually have. That wasn't really on their minds though, as they were all still excited about the Tournament that had been announced the previous night.

The breakfast feast was nearly as good as the feast from the night before, and it was one of the few times where the entire school was there at the same time, regardless of schedule. Ron sat to his right, with Neville to his left, and Hermione joined them, sitting across the table. She already had her head in a book.

Turning to Ron, Harry said, "I was meaning to ask you Ron, but coming from a wizarding family, do you know much about the Tournament?"

Ron shook his head, quickly filling his plate up with food. His appetite had not been diminished from the massive feast the previous night. "Not really, no," Ron replied. "Like, if you're asking about stories of task that is still talked about hundreds of years afterwards, I don't know any. But I know I have an ancestor named Archibald who once competed, though he didn't win. Other families probably are the same way, keeping track of that sort of thing. Being the second Weasley to be a Champion would be something, huh?"

"Do you know if any of my family has ever competed?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Sorry mate, I don't think so," Ron replied. "There's a huge plaque with past competitors on it in the Trophy Room - you remember when I had to clean that place up for detention? Maybe you can look there."

Hermione took that time to huff. "Honestly, have neither of you ever read Hogwarts, a History?" she asked.

Ron and Harry turned their attention to their friend, though Ron couldn't help but comment. "It looks like you're eating again, huh?"

"I've decided there are better ways to protest House-Elf slavery," Hermione replied snidely.

"Yeah, and you're hungry," Ron replied with a grin.

"Anyways," said Hermione, ignoring Ron's jibe. "If you had read Hogwarts, A History, you would know all about the Tournament. Not the specifics of every task for all one hundred and forty seven Tournaments, but you'd know that we've had six future-headmasters who had won the Triwizard cup, and several other future professors aside who have also competed. And you'd know that the death rate in the early years averaged more than one per Tournament."

"Yeah, but Dumbledore says it's going to be way safer," Ron stated. "There's no way it would be back if it wasn't. I'm thinking about entering."

"I'm thinking about it as well," Harry said, butting in and surprising Ron. "I spent all night thinking about it, as I'm sure many others did."

"You're crazy, both of you," Hermione argued. "The Tournament is meant for sixth and seventh years, not those who've hadn't even had a fourth year class yet."

"Yeah, but we've got to try, right?" Ron retorted. "I mean, I'm the sixth of my family to come through this school in the last decade - there's nothing I can do that hasn't already been done by one of the others…"

"And I want to be known for my own merits, rather than for this stupid scar that was the result of nothing I personally did," said Harry.

Hermione looked back and forth between the two of them. "You're not going to get picked just solely on how much you desire to be Champion. The Tasks can be very complicated, and I don't think any of us have the skills involved for them."

"Well, that's why you're going to help us," said Ron, grinning. "You wouldn't be able to live with yourself if one of us got in and got killed because we were unprepared, especially if there was something you could have done to help yet chose not to..."

Hermione glared at Ron. "Fine. But, if you want to take this seriously, you will follow my plan to the letter. Plus, if one of you two somehow managed to get picked as the Champion, and even more incredulously somehow manage to win the whole thing, I want a third of the prize."

Ron's grin didn't falter as he turned to Harry. "What do you say, you want to split this thirdsies if one of us goes all the way?"

"Sure, fine by me," Harry replied. "As long as we all put the effort in."

Hermione was already digging into her bag for a piece of parchment and a quill, and once she had them she began writing ideas down. "There are some basic spells we are going to have to learn. I've looked ahead at some of our future curriculums, of course, and know of a few of the spells that are taught, but haven't actually researched them yet… shielding, stunning, summoning… from what I know they shouldn't be too difficult to learn, but are likely more complex than anything we've done yet..."

"I can cast a Patronus Charm," Harry said, reminding them all. "And you've done the Polyjuice."

"And I haven't done anything worth noting," Ron said, still displaying his grin. "But that can change."

"Uh-huh," Hermione sighed, unconvinced. "You'll have to start learning OWL level spells, and beyond. It won't be easy."

"Nothing worth doing ever is," Harry said. "We lack the discipline and skill, but we've got two months to make up for that."

"And we've got the smartest, most cleverest witch in the year helping us," Ron replied. Hermione took that moment to slap his arm, just as McGonagall arrived with their schedules. McGonagall gave them all a stern look, but said nothing as she continued down the table, handing out the rest of the schedules.

"Herbology first thing today, and Care afterwards," said Ron, looking over his schedule. "Double Divination after lunch. Bollocks, who has ever heard of double Divination?"

"At least we don't have Potions yet," replied Harry. "What about you, Hermione? You're not still taking a million classes, are you?"

"No, last year was a little too much, even for me," Hermione replied, glancing over her own. She was already using a color-changing quill to underline her various courses. "No Divination, of course, not after what happened last year, and I've decided against continuing Muggle studies, for obvious reasons. I've only got one more course than you two now."

Herbology was not what Harry would call an interesting subject. Truthfully, it wasn't even that difficult to do well in, since mostly it was just about paying attention and not accidentally killing whatever it was they were working on.

It was also the only class that Neville Longbottom seemed to be any good at, frequently doing the best in the hands-on projects and on the tests as well. It sort of boggled Harry's mind how Neville could be so good at Herbology, but suck so much at Potions. Harry understood that Snape was an awful human being, but Snape hated him and yet he still managed to get passing grades.

The first lesson of the year started out innocently enough. Professor Sprout, who had grown slightly wider and slightly grayer, went over the various types of plants they were going to work on during the year. Standard stuff.

It was dreadfully boring, truth be told, especially since the nasty storm from the previous night had blown itself away, leaving nearly everything damp and miserable. Still, there was no place he'd rather be than Hogwarts, even if that meant squeezing bubotuber pus into bottles for Professor Sprout to take to the hospital wing.

Herbology was replaced with Care for Magical Creatures an hour later, and the nasty smelling bubotubers were replaced with nasty looking… somethings.

Hagrid greeted the class outside his hut, holding his great hound Fang by the collar. Arrayed on the ground were several wooden crates, each containing a handful of creatures Harry had never seen before. They looked sort of like lobsters, or maybe scorpions, but they were definitely some sort of hybrid creature. They just didn't look natural, even by wizarding standards.

"Real beauts, ain't they?" Hagrid said, beaming at Harry, Ron and Hermione. "Just waiting for the Slytherins to arrive so I can tell you all about them."

"What, er, what exactly are they?" Harry asked curiously.

"Blast-Ended Skrewts," said Hagrid, still smiling widely. He was quite possibly the only person on the whole planet who would smile at the thought of those creatures.

The rest of the Gryffindors gathered around them, but not a second later, Lavender Brown shrieked. "Eugh!" she yelled, flinching back as one of the Skrewts hissed at her, shooting sparks in her direction. Her foot got caught on a stick, and she stumbled backwards, right into Harry.

Harry, for his part, caught her, but not without almost getting a handful of Lavender's lovelies. He blushed as he quickly took his hands off her.

"Sorry Harry," she replied with a small giggle. "Surprised me, is all."

Harry nodded his head, but he didn't trust his mouth to talk. Lavender had grown quite a bit over the summer, and in all the right spots. She was one of the early bloomers in their year, something he was sure all the guys in his dorm had noticed.

The Slytherins arrived in short order, with Draco Malfoy strutting around at the head of their group, with Goyle and Crabbe at his side. Pansy Parkinson was busy chatting with Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, while Millicent Bulstrode, Blaise Zabini, and Theodore Nott followed closely behind without a care in the world.

Harry didn't have an opinion about most of the Slytherins, as most of them were quiet and kept to themselves, but Malfoy was quite outspoken, and a bit of a dick, which put them all in a bad light. Harry completely ignored the blond-haired boy as his group started whispering about the contents of one of the crates. They were likely making fun of Hagrid, and Harry really didn't want to get into a fight on the first day back.

"Looks like everyone's 'ere," Hagrid called out loudly. "Right. Well, welcome back to Hogwarts. Today yer going to be working with these Blast-Ended Skrewts. They're called such, because… er, they're Skrewts that 'ave an exploding stinger... Yer going to be raising them throughout the year."

"Raising them?" Someone asked. Harry turned to see who it was, and was unsurprised that it was Malfoy. "What for?"

"To learn," Hagrid replied simply. "Now, today, we're just going to be feeding them. I've never had them before, so I'm not exactly sure what they eat. That's yer jobs, to figure that out. Bits of snake, frog livers, various eggs... stuff like that…. now break up into small groups, no more than a handful per crate. Wouldn't want to scare them."

"Wouldn't want to scare them?" Lavender muttered. "Damn things scared the hell out of me."

Harry chuckled and followed Ron and Hermione over to where the "food" was set up. One look at the frog livers was all it took to call his friendship with Hagrid into question. If he wasn't such a good friend, Harry may had passed on the whole experience altogether.

Then, a second problem become apparent. The Skrewts didn't seem to have mouths, at least none that Harry could see. Nevertheless, Harry dropped a bit of food into the crate to see what happened.

As it turns out, a whole lot happened. The ones in Harry's crate seemed to be shooting sparks out at people, while others were trying to sting the students' fingers. Malfoy started bemoaning how pointless the whole thing seemed to be, and Harry started to privately agree, since none of them seemed to be eating anything at all.

The end of the period couldn't come fast enough, and Harry was starving for lunch. Hermione apparently was too, since as soon as they sat down, she started shoveling food down her throat.

"Whoa, slow down there Hermione, wouldn't want to puke now, would you?" Ron said, staring at how fast Hermione was eating. The leveled looked she returned could be interpreted as "as if you're one to talk."

Instead, what she actually said was, "I need to get to the library as fast as possible."

"Really? We've only been back for a day - we haven't even gotten homework!"

"I know," she replied. "There's just something I need to do."

Hermione only ate for another two minutes before she wrapped up, grabbed her bag, and turned to leave. "See you two at dinner," she said abruptly.

After she left, Ron turned towards Harry. "What's gotten into her?"

"Well, she seems normal," Harry replied. "Going to the library is what she does. I think she only has one more class today anyways, while we have double Divination."

"Uhg, don't remind me. You don't think this has something to do with House Elf rights, do you?"

"I think that's exactly what it's about," replied Harry, sighing heavily.

"I don't think she understands that it's not about getting paid," Ron replied. "Or days off. They love working, that's what they do, and they could quite possibly die if they don't work."

"They are pretty strange creatures," Harry agreed, thinking about Dobby. "She has to remember that they're not human, just like goblins don't share the same rights as us, nor do centaurs."

"Yeah," said Ron. "I mean, the Goblin's gained control of Gringotts, not because a muggleborn lobbied for their rights, but through bloodshed and warfare. The difference is that House Elves want to be servants, and changing that would only make them mutinous."

Harry nodded his head. He could definitely see why Hermione had such an issue with House Elves, but Harry knew that the Wizarding World was so backwards at times that it would take massive and controversial changes in legislature to get anything accomplished. It was a battle that Harry didn't want to fight, but he was sympathetic.

Getting to the Divination classroom from the Great Hall had always been a chore. Lunch was at ground floor, while the Divination classroom was up half a dozen long flights of stairs, with none of the staircases actually being near each other, and then climbing up a rope ladder. Only at Hogwarts would that be considered normal, and that was without considering the staircases themselves liked to move around.

It was a pain, and it only took five minutes of being within the smoky, aromatic and dimly lit classroom for Harry to grow bored of the class. He had no real interest in Divination, and was really only taking the course because Ron was, and it was easy. But, he didn't think Ancient Runes or Arithmancy would have been any more interesting - at least Professor Trelawney routinely predicting his death was amusing.

Trelawney started talking about how to read the "signs" by looking at the stars and planets, and about how some omens could mean war, or lost love… It was all a bunch of rubbish in Harry's opinion. Clearly wizards had no idea that muggles had actually been to the moon, and that the Earth wasn't actually the center of the universe. Then again, his Aunt Petunia religiously followed her horoscope, so it wasn't just a magical thing.

The only interesting thing about the class was how interested all the girls seemed to be. It was the favorite class of both Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, and the only thing that stopped Harry from drifting off in boredom were the occasional glances over at Lavender whenever she shrieked in excitement over something Trelawney said.

Homework was the worst part of the class. There had been none for Herbology (there rarely was), and none from Hagrid as well, but Trelawney had hit them with a big one, asking the class to analyze the planetary movements for the upcoming month and cross-reference them with their own personal charts.

Ron complained about the assignment all the way to the Great Hall, where Hermione joined up with them and promptly told them that she had gotten no homework at all. As they queued up to enter the Great Hall, someone shouted, "Hey, Weasley!" from behind them.

To no one's surprise, Malfoy was approaching them, with Crabbe and Goyle, and he was clutching a newspaper. He looked quite pleased about something.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Ron grumbled.

"Look, your father's in here," said Malfoy, throwing the paper at Ron's face. Ron grabbed the paper and began to read it, his face darkening with each paragraph.

"You see? You're family is nothing - they couldn't even get your dad's name right. Arnold!" Malfoy began laughing uncontrollably.

"Big deal," Ron replied. "This is a load of rubbish. Yeah, my dad had to help Moody out, so what? Are you upset that my family actually has to work for a living, where yours gets to run around in cloaks and white masks and torture muggles?"

Malfoy merely sniggered while pointing at the picture in the article. "Tell me something, Weasley. Is your mum actually that fat, or is it just the picture? Could do to lose a few pounds, don't you think? And look at that thing behind them - is that your house? Can you even call that a house?"

Ron was clutching the paper tightly, and he was starting to turn red.

"Are you bragging about having a hot mother, Malfoy?" Harry asked. "That's sort of what it sounds like. You know, if she didn't look like she was constantly smelling the shit that you and your father constantly stepped in, I wouldn't say no to a date with her."

"Don't you dare talk about my mother like that," said Malfoy angrily, narrowing his eyes at Harry.

"Keep your mouth shut -"

Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and Harry dodged Malfoy's spell just as he was turning away from him. There were several shouts of alarm from the crowd, and Harry quickly reached for his wand. Before he could withdraw it, however, there was another shout from behind him, and another loud bang.

Where Malfoy had been standing, there was a white ferret on the ground, screeching in confusion and anger. And limping up from behind them, Mad-Eye Moody approached, wand in hand and a grim, yet satisfied, smile on his craggy face.

"He was going to curse you as you turned your back - a coward's move," Moody replied with a lopsided grin. "Did he get you?"

There was a stunned silence as Moody turned his attention to Harry. "No, I'm alright," replied Harry.

"LEAVE IT!" Moody suddenly shouted, alarming all of them.

"L-leave what?" Harry stuttered.

"Not you, "Moody said, spinning around with a speed that beleid his battered body. "Them. Don't. Touch. The. Ferret!"

Moody was pointing at Crabbe and Goyle, who had made to pick up the ferret - Draco. They paused when Moody yelled at them, and Moody, incensed, swished his wand and hit Draco with another spell, causing him to fly up in the air.

Astonished, Harry could only watch on wide-eyed as the professor hit him a few more times with the same spell. "Never - do - that - again," said Moody each time the ferret hit the stone floor.

"Alastor!" yelled a shocked voice. "Professor Moody!"

Professor McGonagall was coming down the main staircase, clutching an armful of books with an alarmed look on her face.

"Professor McGonagall," Moody greeted with a calm nod, bouncing the ferret one more time.

"What are you doing?" asked McGonagall.

"Teaching," Moody replied simply.

"Teaching - is that a student?" she suddenly gasped, getting a clear look at the ferret.

"Yup."

"NO!" she yelled. McGonagall put her books down, grabbed her wand, and with a swish, Malfoy reappeared, lying in a heap on the ground, clutching at his sides and looking quite dishevelled.

"We never use transfiguration as a punishment," admonished Professor McGonagall. "The Headmaster must have told you that!"

"Now that you mention it, I think I recall he may have said something to that effect, yeah," replied the grizzled professor, rubbing at his chin.

"We give detentions, or speak with their Head of House!"

"I'll make sure to do that then," replied Moody gruffly. "Me and ole' Snapey are overdue for a chat, I think…"

Moody grinned at the thought, picking Malfoy off of the ground. "He's an old "friend" of mine, you see," Moody continued. He took a hold of Malfoy's arm and began to lead him out of the Great Hall. McGonagall watched them leave anxiously as she gathered up her books.

Hermione turned to Ron to say something, but Ron quickly held up a hand to her face.

"Shh," said Ron. "Give me a minute. I want to burn this in my memory forever. Draco malfoy - the amazing bouncing ferret!"

They laughed for a minute, just as Ron's brothers joined them in queueing for the Great Hall.

"Moody!" said Fred jovially. "How cool is he?"

"Beyond cool," George agreed as he began to pile food onto his plate.

"Amazing," Lee Jordan, their friend, agreed.

Fred turned to Harry and explained. "We had him this afternoon. Easily the best lesson we've ever had."

"Really?" asked Harry eagerly. "What was it like?"

"It can't have been better than him turning Malfoy into a ferret," said Ron, grinning ear to ear.

"Trust us, dear brother, it was much better than that."

"He's seen stuff," Lee said, confiding in them.

"He know's what it's like," said Fred.

"What 'what's' like?" Ron asked.

"To be out there and doing it." said George, clearly awed by the lesson.

"Doing what?" asked Harry impatiently.

"Fighting Death Eaters," replied Fred.

"He's done it all," concurred George.

"He didn't get all those scar working a desk, that's for sure," Lee said excitedly. "Bloody amazing, is what he is."

Ron's eyes lit up as he reached into his bag for his schedule. "Damn, we don't have him until Thursday!" he said with disappointment.

Harry merely nodded his head, trying to hide his own excitement. Moody would be loads better than Trelawney, that's for sure.