"I've spoken to Dumbledore." Strength told Rock after lessons had ended for the day. "He says that there's nothing he can do for Black but he's going to try and get a retrial for Lupin, I couldn't understand all the details but he said something about Veritaserum. I don't know what that is."

Rock tilted her head, she had once heard Snape talk about that, it seemed to be able to force someone to speak the truth.

She grabbed Strength's hand and lead her through the castle to the dungeons.

"Miss Shooter, Miss Strength, I trust you have some reason for invading my privacy at this time?" Snape sneered, glancing up at them before concentrating on his own work.

"Yes Professor, we were wondering if you could tell us about something call Veritaserum?" Strength asked politely.

"I see, and what possible reason would you have to need to know about that?" Snape enquired.

"Professor Dumbledore, said something about it when he mentioned Remus Lupin's retrial." Strength said.

"Retrial? Why would he be bothering with that?" Snape asked looking up with genuine curiosity.

"When I was guarding Sirius Black he kept pleading his innocence, he kept talking about someone called Peter Pettigrew and how it was this man who betrayed James Potter." Strength explained.

"And you believed him." Snape stated sarcastically.

"Not his words no, our kind are instinctive and emotionless, we have to be otherwise we'd be overwhelmed. But we can still feel emotions from others, and Sirius strongly believes in what he was telling me." Strength said.

"But I have seen you laugh and be angry, you aren't emotionless." Snape pointed out.

Strength sighed. "My feelings were awakened by my companion, it's a long and personal story that I'm not telling you." She told him. "The point is, I'm different to the others. The only feelings they have, are extremely strong ones."

Rock placed a hand on her shoulder and the tanned girl relaxed her fists, she hadn't even realised she'd been clenching them.

"Very well then." Snape said, a barely detectable quiver in his voice. "Veritaserum is an extremely potent truth serum, three drops would be all it took for anyone to tell their deepest, darkest secrets."

"So it would prove Lupin's innocence?" Strength said excitedly.

"Well yes, but like most magic there are ways to counter it. Ways I'm sure a former teacher of Hogwarts would know. It's perfectly possible for the Wizengamot to disregard the testimony for this very reason." Snape said coldly.

"So we're back to square one." Strength said to Rock. "Because of us an innocent man is going to Azkaban."

Rock nodded slowly, the smallest hint of shame on her pale face.

The three schools of magic were sat in the Great Hall, the four long tables had been extended to make room for the additional bodies and everyone was chattering excitedly.

Even Strength was present, even through she normally prowled the grounds on her self imposed patrol route. Her theory was if any danger appeared then she would be able to deal with it quicker than the humans.

That theory was shaky at best now, as to her embarrassment, she had got lost when pursuing Alastor Moody.

Ginny had persuaded her to join the festivities and Strength found she couldn't resist the happy, smiling face of the freckled girl and agreed.

The noise in the Great Hall died down as the blue flames in the Goblet of Fire spluttered and turned red, seconds later it shot out a scorched section of parchment. Dumbledore snatched in from the air and read the name upon it.

"From the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, Fleur Delacour!" Dumbledore proudly exclaimed. Cheers exploded from the students and followed the tall, graceful blonde as she walked across the hall and into a side room.

The Goblet's flame turned red again and spat out another name.

"From Durmstrang, Viktor Krum!" Dumbledore called, just as sincerely.

A louder cheer filled the large hall as Viktor got up and followed the same path as Fleur.

Silence dropped almost instantly as the flame turned red again, the anticipation was thick in the room, every student on edge as the last name was disgorged from the scarlet flames.

"For Hogwarts, Cedric Diggory!" Dumbledore shouted, this time a broad grin across his bearded, kind face.

The hall almost burst from the applause the Cedric received as he made his way up the hall, blushing as he did so.

"That's it, we now have our three champ..." Dumbledore was cut off as the Goblet of Fire's flame turned red again, silence and confusion reigned as it spat out one more piece of parchment. With confusion, Dumbledore turned it over to read the name.

"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore bellowed.

Harry felt numb, as if all the blood had been drained from his body.

"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore yelled again.

Someone, Harry wasn't sure who, pushed him to his feet and he mindlessly moved, step by step towards the elderly wizard.

"This isn't good." Strength said.

Rock shook her head in agreement.

"What should we do?" The tanned Otherself asked.

"There's nothing you can do." Hermione answered. "I've been reading up on the Triwizards Tournament, if your name comes out of the Goblet, you have to compete. It's a binding magical contract." She explained.

"Yeah, but he could have told us how he put his name in there." Ron scowled.

"I don't think he did Ron." Hermione replied. "He would have told you if he did, and how he did it, you know that!"

"Ron, Harry hasn't been near the Goblet, except for when he was with you. Don't forget, Rock and I have been keeping an eye on him." Strength explained.

"Yeah but what about when you're asleep and he's in the boys' dorm?" Ron countered.

"We don't sleep." Strength said calmly. "Also we stay up on the astronomy tower at night, we can see right onto Harry's bed from there." She added.

"You can see us when we're asleep!" Ron cried out, a little too loudly. He drew a few odd looks.

"Not you, only Harry. What you do when you're sleeping is entirely your business, we can't see that from where we are." Strength reassured him.

"I doubt these two would want to see that anyway." Ginny added with a smirk.

Ron's face turned bright red and Strength giggled.

"So what happened?" Ron asked.

Harry had just returned to the Griffindor common room, when he had been pounced on by everyone. Rock and Strength had intervened and frightened everyone away, now the only people near Harry were Ron and Hermione, although Ginny was hanging around Strength she didn't try to go any closer.

"Well, Barty Crouch was there, as well as Madame Maxime and Igor Karkaroff. They were all accusing me of putting my name in the Goblet, only Dumbledore and Moody believed me." Harry said.

Strength and Rock looked at each other after Moody's name was mentioned.

"But I still have to take part, I don't have a choice." Harry sighed. "I was hoping for a quiet year this time." He muttered looking at the ceiling.

"Fat chance of that mate, you're a bigger magnet for trouble than Fred and George, and they look for it!" Ron smiled.

He had eventually come to trust in his best friend again, but only after Hermione had listed everything they had done for each other and Strength and Rock both confirmed that Harry hadn't sneaked out of bed.

"Yeah you're right, I just wish I knew who did it." Harry wondered.

"I think I know something about your first task mate." Ron said excitedly one morning.

"Yeah, what's that?" Harry asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

"It's something to do with dragons." Ron told him.

"I hardly think that's possible Ron, it would be far too dangerous." Hermione replied.

"We got a letter from Charlie, he says he's coming over from Romania to do a spot of work at Hogwarts for the Triwizards Tournament." Ron explained.

"And what's that got to do with dragons?" Harry asked, unable to see the link.

"He works with them, looks after them. He makes sure the dragon population over there is healthy and stable. If he's coming back and working then it could only mean the first task involves a dragon." Ron said.

Harry broke out in a cold sweat, as much as he wanted to deny it, Ron's logic made perfect sense, even Hermione struggled to find any major errors.

The next few weeks had become almost unbearable for Harry, most of Hogwarts had decided that he was trying to steal glory from Cedric Diggory. The students either would refuse to talk to him or would flat out insult him as they passed.

Rock was walking with Harry as they passed a grassy courtyard. Then a familiar voice came from behind them.

"Potter!" Draco said perched in a tree. He jumped down and carried on.

"My father and I have a bet going, you see I don't think you'll last ten minutes in this competition." Draco paused with a smirk on his face. "He disagrees, he thinks you won't last five!"

"Piss off Malfoy." Harry sighed turning to leave.

"Don't turn your back on me, Potter!" Draco cried pulling out his wand.

Rock was about to intervene when suddenly Draco turned in a pure white ferret, feeling very confused she looked around and saw Moody hobble towards the ferret with his own wand out and pointing it at the Draco ferret.

A wave of hatred passed over her, closely followed by a vague sense of satisfaction over Draco's fate.

Rock pulled Harry away and towards their next lesson, behind them they could hear McGonagall berate Moody over his choice of punishments.

"Any idea how to face a dragon?" Harry asked suddenly.

Rock looked at him curiously, he had been wondering that same question for a while now but this was the first time he had directly asked her. She nodded, looked around to see if there were any bystanders and summoned the Rock Cannon.

"That's great, but I'm only allowed a wand." Harry muttered. "And it's not like I can pull a cannon out of thin air anyway." He gave Rock a strange look, and then a smile crept across his face.

"Thank you, I've got an idea!" Harry grinned and ran off towards their next lesson to find Hermione.

"How come Snape doesn't hate you?" Ron asked Rock as they were doing Potions homework. "I mean, he's vile to all of us except you. What's the reason?"

Rock shrugged and shoot her head, it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that I do the work, I don't speak and I'm not an insufferable know-it-all. She thought, quoting Snape on the last part. That was Rock's idea of how Snape thought, she could have been wrong, but judging from his demeanour, that was the impression she got.

She tuned out Ron's ranting and focused on the work in front of her, it was pointless but for her to fit in and make her job of protecting Harry easier, she had to do it.

A/N

Life in the past week had gotten in the way of this story, hopefully everything should be back to normal now though.

None of these characters are mine.