"Harry Potter," Dumbledore read out, a mildly surprised expression on his face as he looked out over the student body, holding the fourth slip of paper to have been ejected from the goblet of fire.

"He's not here," Sprout said softly, though in the stunned silence of the hall from the previous announcement, everybody heard her.

"What?" Dumbledore asked, brows furrowed. "Why not?"
"He never attends the Halloween feast," the head of Hufflepuff explained. "Never yet has, and though I expect he shall congratulate Cedric when he gets back to the commons, Mr Potter isn't really interested in the Tri-Wizard Tournament enough to join people in their revelry tonight."

"The boy makes a spectacle of himself even in his absence," Snape grumbled, though he couldn't fault the boy's potions work at all, so some of the hate directed at James Potter's spawn had been given the chance to bleed off when faced with Harry Potter himself. Even if he had gone to the board about his point-taking. It had been something his mother would have done, rather than something his father would have.

Sprout stood from her chair with a heavy sigh. "I'll go find him and tell him what's happened," she said. "You have your own duties to the other champions. Dumbledore, may I have that piece of parchment?"

Dumbledore handed over the scrap with Harry Potter written on it, and the herbology professor left to find the absent student.

"This is most irregular Albus," Crouch said unhappily.

~oOo~

"Professor? Is something wrong?" Harry asked, his body blocking the view of his dorm room when he had opened it to knocking. Professor Sprout looked a bit stressed as she stood there.

"Mr Potter, you are aware of the process for entering the Tri-Wizard Tournament?" she asked.

Harry nodded. "When the headmaster announced the event I looked up the history and all the rules of the matter. Why?"

Sprout handed over the parchment. "Your name came out of the goblet."

"It's not valid," Harry said as he accepted the slip, before even looking at what was written there.

"Mr Potter?"

"It's not Professor," he assured her. "That isn't my handwriting, just to begin with. I didn't put it in the goblet myself, and it isn't even my full name. It isn't valid. That's in the rules, a precaution against students being entered against their will. The goblet has been known to eject a falsely entered name after pronouncing the three champions in order to warn students that someone has ill intentions or ridiculously high expectations of them."

The woman almost sagged in relief where she stood. "I'm glad to hear that you have been so diligent in your research Mr Potter. Do you have references for this, so that I can present it to the other officials? They're expecting you to participate as a fourth champion right now."

Harry snorted and turned back to his room, grumbling about people not properly familiarising themselves with the rules and natures of tournaments before deciding to hold them, returning to the door a moment later with a large book, held open on one arm while he flipped through the pages with the other.

"I'll come," he said. "This is from the Hogwarts library, and I don't want to risk Madam Pince's wrath by letting it out of my sight."

Sprout nodded and led Harry up to the great hall where all of the students were still sitting, waiting to find out what was going on, why a fourth name had come out of the goblet. Harry followed Sprout up to the elevated front of the hall and proceeded to read the section of the book that was relevant to the situation, which he had already summarised for Sprout at his bedroom door, and including a section that he had skipped over completely.

"The falsely entered shall then be provided with private tutors of the most exemplary level at their discretion and either returned to their home or given secure quarters away from all other persons who may or may not wish to make attempt upon their person. Tutors are to be given supplementary pay by the ministry of the country hosting the Tournament. So reads the book of rules, regulations, clauses and explanations for the Tri-Wizard Tournament," Harry intoned, closing the covers firmly, the sound echoing around the hall.

"Tutors!" demanded Crouch, just a touch outraged.

"Quarters?" Dumbledore queried nervously.

Harry surveyed the men calmly. "I am permitted to select tutors for all of the subjects that I have elected to study this year from all of the schools who are participating in the Tournament, as well as from outside sources if I do not believe that the teachers offered to me have my best interests – academically and those of my continued health – at heart. When I have returned the book to the library you are free to borrow it and read through it yourselves sirs. Now if you will please excuse me? I left my dinner half-eaten and an essay half-written in my room."

With that, Harry nodded his head politely and left the hall once more, book under one arm and a slightly worried expression on his face. After all, the goblet of fire had just announced that someone wished him enough ill or expected so much of him as to enter him into a potentially life-threatening tournament.

~oOo~

"That could have been us," Harry said after the first task, back in the room he shared with his brother, holding him tightly. "If the idiots in charge had decided we had to be a fourth champion, rather than actually abiding by the proper rules."

Harry nodded in agreement. They were still at Hogwarts, but he wasn't attending classes with the rest of the student population – though Umi, Luna and all his first- and second-year friends came by to visit now and then, the younger ones asking for homework help generally. Hermione came to visit sometimes as well, since after last year when she'd been on the way to burn-out using that time-turner and Harry had taken her aside and told her that she really needed to a) get more sleep and b) eat more food if she was going to practically live every day twice and he was concerned for her health... Well, they'd sort-of become friends.

The professors teaching the Harrys were mostly from the Hogwarts faculty, though divination and muggle studies had both been taken over by teachers that had accompanied the Beauxbaton delegation. Sirius and Remus had been brought in to teach him magical offence (no light and dark distinctions were made) and general defence respectively. A decision made based on the fact that Harry hadn't enjoyed getting yelled at by Moody about constant vigilance for the two months prior to his name coming out of the goblet. Among the Durmstrang delegation had been their own history teacher, who was far more interesting and comprehensive than Binns would ever be. The man taught almost every subject covered by the other professors, just briefly, so that Harry understood the history better.

Of course, none of these people knew that there were two of them. Not really. They just assumed use of the time turner so that Harry was able to be taught by all of them during the week in the times when they themselves were available. Even Sirius didn't know that there were two Harrys. They'd invited him to visit Privet Drive and meet Petunia, but he'd declined, saying he had a house to burn down and rebuild now that he was free. They almost couldn't wait to see his face when he fount out the truth.

At the moment though, both of them were a bit preoccupied with the fact that the first task had been retrieving a golden egg from a nesting dragon. It was madness! Still, the senior students had all come out of it alright enough, and actually they'd all approached him about that book he'd read on Halloween night, hoping that it might give them better clues about what to expect from the tournament.

The next event promised to be much safer, though only mildly less stressful: the Yule Ball. Harry wondered if they could get out of going, or if they could perhaps find a way to switch during the event so that neither one of them had to go through all of it... and if they should ask Umi or Luna... Oh right, Umi had hooked up with that Boot chap in her house. Harry had worked with him in Herbology once or twice. Luna it was then, and she knew that there were two of them, so switching on her wouldn't be too difficult a problem.

He'd ask her to go with him next time she came to visit him. She stopped by his new quarters every week – skipping her allotted history lesson to sit in on his – so that was practically taken care of all by itself.