The representatives of the other schools were due to arrive just before dinner, and the entire school was lined up on the lawns, waiting. Pansy told Harry that one of her cousins had gone to Beauxbatons, though he already graduated. Draco told several nearby Slytherins that his father wanted to send him to Durmstrang in first year, only Harry didn't hear him, because he was ignoring Draco.
"Victor Krum goes to Durmstrang," Blaise said, so that they didn't have to stand there in silence and listen to a conversation that didn't include them.
"The Seeker?" Harry asked, grateful. He knew Pansy and Blaise could be over there with Draco, chatting with the older years, and it was good of them to stay with him instead.
"Yeah, he caught the Snitch at the Quidditch World Cup, remember?" They discussed this for a few minutes while Pansy talked to Tracy Davis, until the professors hushed everyone and the Beauxbatons carriage arrived, drawn by giant flying horses. It was impressive, Harry could admit, and he listened while Pansy whispered that they were Abraxan horses.
He didn't listen when Draco told the other Slytherins that his great-grandfather used to breed that type of winged horse.
It didn't take much longer for the Durmstrang contingent to arrive, in a ship of all things, out on the lake and reminding Harry of nothing more than a toy boat bobbing on water that was swirling up a drain instead of down. It was strange to watch.
In the Great Hall, the Beauxbaton students sat with the Ravenclaws, and Harry could hear them sneering over everything from the windows to the cutlery. He was glad to be sitting far away, at the Slytherin table, and would have felt sorry for Anthony and Luna if he thought they'd actually pay a bit of attention to the new arrivals.
The Durmstrang students sat at the Slytherin table, and Harry was very happy to have them, not just because they were more awed than disdainful of the Hall. Victor Krum was among them, the Seeker Harry and Blaise had just been talking about, and he sat only a few seats down from Harry's place. Draco had somehow managed to sit next to him and was ostensibly telling him all about Hogwarts.
Harry decided he would talk to Krum later, and tucked into his food instead. One of the other Durmstrang boys found a place next to Harry, and was watching him rather blatantly.
"How are you liking Hogwarts so far?" Harry asked, setting his fork down. The boy gave him a smile and looked around the Hall. His eyes and hair were both dark, and he had a smudge of food on his chin, though they hadn't begun eating yet.
"It is very wonderful," he decided, and his voice was tinged with an accent similar to what Harry could hear of the other Durmstrang students. "My name is Desislav Poliakoff."
"Harry Potter," Harry offered. Poliakoff nodded eagerly.
"I have heard of you," he said. "Who hasn't? The Boy-Who-Lived, who defeated the Dark Lord."
Harry blinked. "Er, yes. These are my friends, Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson."
Poliakoff eyed Blaise and Pansy with a thoughtful expression, and extended his hand across the table, where Pansy accepted it graciously.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," Blaise said, and shook his hand when it was offered.
"Thank you," Poliakoff said with a nervous smile. "I am hopeful that I will learn much this year, and be chosen for the title of Champion." As Poliakoff sat back, he knocked his elbow into his goblet, tipping it over and spilling pumpkin juice everywhere. The stain spread slowly across the table linens, and Harry winced as it began dripping down the side, nearly in his lap.
"Oh, forgive me!" Poliakoff cried, grabbing Harry's napkin and blotting up most of the mess. "I am sometimes clumsy, I apologise."
"It's fine, don't worry," Harry said, stealing Pansy's napkin and helping with the mess.
They had caught the attention of the surrounding students, Slytherin and Durmstrang alike. A few of the Durmstrang students rolled their eyes and went back to their food while Harry and Poliakoff attempted to clean up the mess. Pansy sighed and cast a cleaning charm, stopping them both in their tracks.
"Why didn't you think of that, Harry?" Blaise asked, sharing an amused glance with Pansy. Harry shrugged, feeling somewhat stupid.
Pansy raised her eyebrow. "My napkin?"
Harry handed it back to her, and looked around for his own. Poliakoff was tucking it into his collar. "Er," Harry said, and gave it up for lost as Poliakoff dripped some sauce onto it. "Right."
"What is Hogwarts like?" Poliakoff asked, and dropped his own unused napkin next to Harry's plate. Harry suddenly liked the boy a lot better, and was happy to ignore the sound of Draco's voice as he and the older Slytherins monopolized Victor Krum's attention.
The next morning brought a flurry of activity as the Slytherins left the dungeons. The Goblet of Fire had been placed in the Entrance Hall, and Harry, Blaise and Pansy not only had to walk around the ridiculously large Age Line surrounding the Goblet to get to breakfast, they also had to dodge the flying, bearded students who thought they could get across.
"Oblivious Hufflepuff at two o'clock," Blaise said, and Harry and Pansy instinctively ducked. The Hufflepuff went flying past their heads, and landed near the front doors sporting a white beard.
There were the students trying to sneak across the Line, and then there were the students
like that Hufflepuff, who just weren't paying attention to where they were walking. Blaise claimed that they all deserved the same punishment, as they were each guilty of stupidity in their own way. Harry was hard-pressed to disagree with him, and just wanted to get inside the Great Hall.
"I don't know why anyone would want to try it now, with everyone watching," Harry said. "I would have done it last night, or during classes today."
"Have some privacy if you lose all your dignity and grow a beard," Pansy said, and laughed. "I would have too."
The Durmstrang contingent arrived at the front doors before the three of them managed to get out of the Entrance Hall, and they stopped and watched as each of the Durmstrang students put their names into the Goblet. It swallowed each slip of paper in a gust of flame, and the Headmaster of Durmstrang congratulated them all, or, to be more specific, he congratulated Krum. It was clear who he wanted in the Tournament.
Poliakoff split off from his group and hurried over to Harry and his friends. His tie was done up wrong.
"Hello, Harry!" he said with enthusiasm. "I am so hopeful that I will become a Champion."
"Er, good luck then," Harry said. Poliakoff smiled and followed when they went into the Great Hall. He sat down right next to Harry again, where Draco used to sit, and began to fill his plate while chattering away about the Tournament.
He sat with them at lunch, too, and at dinner. He became more and more animated as the meal drew to a close and the Goblet of Fire was brought out. Everyone grew tense with anticipation, and when the first charred paper was spit out of the Goblet, Dumbledore held it in his hands and examined it in silence for a moment.
"The Champion for Durmstrang will be...Victor Krum."
Harry looked at Poliakoff, expecting disappointment, but Poliakoff was clapping right along with the rest of the Hall as Krum rose and strode through a door behind the Staff Table.
"The Champion for Beauxbatons will be...Fleur Delacour."
The Champion for Beauxbatons was very pretty, and swept up the aisle as though she had never doubted her victory, ignoring her sobbing classmates.
"And the Champion for Hogwarts will be...Cedric Diggory."
"A Hufflepuff?" Pansy said sceptically as said table exploded with riotous cheers. "He has got to be joking."
Blaise grinned. "At least it wasn't a Gryffindor, right?"
"Wouldn't a brave Gryffindor stand more of a chance of winning?" Harry asked, aware that he was violating House pride. "I mean, they're all about slaying dragons and winning the prize. Look at Sir Cadagon."
"They're also much more likely to do something stupid and get eaten by the dragon," Pansy replied, watching narrowly as Diggory worked his way toward the door behind the Staff Table, stopping every few feet to be hugged or slapped on the back by his fellow Hufflepuffs. "Though admittedly, a Hufflepuff isn't much better."
Dumbledore twinkled down at the school as Diggory disappeared through the door and began a speech about how each school should be supportive of their Champion. Harry ignored him, and turned to Poliakoff.
He'd intended to ask Poliakoff's opinion on Krum, but the boy was staring abstractedly at the table and seemed lost in thought.
"I thought you were okay with Krum becoming Champion," Harry said, and Poliakoff jumped at the sound of his voice. "You certainly took it well at first."
"I am okay," he said, though he sounded upset. "He deserves the honour. But I am disappointed in myself, because I did not deserve it more."
"Potter, have you been keeping your thoughts clean as I instructed?"
Harry stared at Snape, trying to work out what his professor meant. Harry's thoughts generally quailed from anything profane or dirty when Snape was around. The combination was not desirable.
"Keeping my thoughts clean?" Harry asked in English. Parseltongue was finicky at the best of times, never mind with a non-native speaker. Snape raised an eyebrow.
"Clearing your mind," he corrected. Harry nodded in comprehension, thought about how to best rephrase Snape's question, and hissed it slowly.
Snape repeated it and waited for an answer.
"Most nights," Harry admitted. "You never explained how it's supposed to help."
Snape narrowed his eyes. "That is no reason for you to...to neglect your duties," he finished in English. Snape was having quite a bit more trouble than Anthony with Parseltongue, though Anthony had assured Harry that this was normal, Parseltongue only being Snape's second language. Apparently Anthony was fluent in several magical languages, and had been learning new ones regularly from a young age, which meant he picked them up faster for some reason.
Harry didn't bother mentioning it to Snape. He probably wouldn't have bought it anyway.
"There is no use in trying to learn a skill without practicing," Snape hissed, and switched back to English again. "Nonverbal spells are useless if your opponent can read your intentions in your thoughts. Your mind is an open book at the moment." Harry suddenly began to worry about what Snape might have picked up from his thoughts during lessons. He became doubly glad that he didn't think about anything questionable around Snape, and watched with a mild sense of horror as Snape's mouth turned up with amusement. "Clearing your mind every night before you sleep is the first step in closing it to intruders."
Harry resolved to clear his mind twice a night from now on, and his resolve only firmed when he realised Snape's expression was nearing a smirk. The git was laughing at him!
Twice a night and every morning, then.
Poliakoff was becoming a regular tagalong. He sat next to Harry at every meal, and when they weren't in classes or the Slytherin common room, he managed to find Harry, Blaise and Pansy, and join them in whatever they were doing. He didn't seem to have discovered the library and Harry's Gryffindor friends yet, for which Harry was somewhat relieved.
Poliakoff wasn't a bad guy. He was just a very persistent sort, and somehow always there.
"Hello Harry," Poliakoff said, and proved Harry's point about his constant presence by appearing in the courtyard one morning where Harry and his friends were talking. "There is a Hogsmede weekend soon."
"This weekend, right," Harry agreed. Draco was across the courtyard with several of the older Slytherins, and Harry could tell by the twist of his mouth that he was saying something cruel. One of the older boys glanced in Harry's direction and he looked away, instead focussing on Poliakoff's ever eager gaze.
"Have you been to Hogsmede yet?" Pansy asked, always courteous. Blaise and Pansy considered Poliakoff to be something of a nuisance, and blamed Harry for his existence entirely. Whenever he appeared, they were unfailingly polite, but it was clear they wanted nothing to do with him.
"I have not," Poliakoff said eagerly, looking around at them all. "I would enjoy the sights, I think."
Blaise nodded. "Great. So I didn't understand problem four," he told Pansy, and they went back to talking about their Arithmancy homework. Harry felt this was terminally unfair, and tried to avoid Poliakoff's hopeful gaze.
"Er, I'm actually not going to Hogsmede this weekend," he said truthfully. He had moved his Filch day to Sundays this year, and Saturdays were reserved for relaxing and meetings in the library. He knew Draco was going on Saturday, which was the tipping point. Harry went last Hogsmede weekend, anyway.
Poliakoff's face fell. "Oh, okay," he said, and Harry felt an inexplicable guilt well up in him.
"Maybe next time?" he asked, and then cursed himself mentally. Poliakoff's eyes brightened, and he nodded.
"Next time," he said, and nodded again. Harry nodded back, and Poliakoff wandered off, satisfied.
"I don't like him," Pansy said once he was out of earshot. "He's seventeen years old, but he attaches himself to us. Do you know what that says to me?"
"That he can't make friends his own age?" Blaise asked. "Not surprising."
"I don't know," Harry said, and backtracked quickly at the looks the two of them were giving him. "I mean, I do agree that he's odd, and probably doesn't have many friends, but he's not half bad."
"He's attaching himself to you because you're the Boy-Who-Lived," Pansy pointed out. "He probably thinks you'll make him look cool or something. Merlin knows he needs the help."
Harry tilted his head back to stare at the sky. "You're probably right," he said. "But I don't know how to get rid of him, now."
"Harry," Blaise said, enunciating carefully. "You. Are. A. Slytherin. Act like it."
"He's not a dotty Ravenclaw who, at worst, gets picked on by other, slightly less dotty Ravenclaws," Pansy said, somewhat sharply. "He gets rejected on what appears to be a fairly regular basis by people who go to Durmstrang. He can take whatever you can throw at him."
Pansy was probably right. But Harry didn't like rejecting people, especially when they were used to it. It seemed cruel, when he could just be nice and somewhat distant instead. He had always preferred it when people were polite about not wanting to be his friend, instead of rubbing it in his face and probably making fun of him behind his back.
A burst of laughter from across the courtyard made Harry hunch his shoulders and turn his attention resolutely to the conversation Pansy and Blaise were having about Arithmancy.
"Well honestly, Harry, I hate to say this, but maybe you're better off."
Harry glared at Hermione. There were sitting in the library, and Harry had been complaining about Draco. This was not the response he had expected or desired.
"What do you mean, I'm better off?" he asked. "Draco is being an absolute prick. How does that make me better off?"
Neville added his opinion from behind his Transfiguration book. "I don't know if you noticed, Harry, but he's pretty much always like that at the start of term."
Harry sighed. "I know. Last time we fought about it he said it was his father putting pressure on him."
"I don't mean to... get in the middle of things," Hermione said, chewing her lip. "But do you know much about his father?"
"Not much," Harry admitted. "Nothing good, anyway. I know he doesn't like Muggleborns and that he might have been one of the people levitating those Muggles at the Cup."
"You heard the fight in the forest, then," Neville said. "I thought maybe. You looked way too cheerful."
Harry nodded, grimacing.
"I just wonder if you and Draco both might be happier this way, in the end." Hermione continued. "He distances himself from you when he's trying to please his father."
Harry's eyebrows drew together. "You think Draco's dad doesn't want Draco being my friend?"
"I think it's possible. Ron thinks Draco's father was a Death Eater."
Harry sat back, stunned. "What?" he said dumbly. "Do you think so?"
"He said he was a victim after You-Know-Who fell," Neville said. "I heard about it from my Gram. She said he was put on trial for helping You-Know-Who, and got off because he was under Imperius."
"Right," Harry said faintly. "Do you think he was telling the truth?"
Hermione shrugged. "I don't have a clue. I don't really know anything about him. But if he is putting pressure on Draco to avoid you, then Draco's going to have to choose between the two of you eventually."
"You think he already has," Harry said, slumping. "You think he's chosen his father."
Hermione shook her head. "I don't know," she repeated. "Just think about it."
Harry nodded, and stood up. "I will," he said. "I'm going to go say hello to Anthony and Luna, then I'm going back to Slytherin," he said. Hermione and Neville said their goodbyes and bent their heads together as Harry walked over to Anthony's table.
"Hullo," Harry said. Luna glanced up at him from the parchment she was writing on and waved her quill at him. Harry looked at the lines on the page and realised she was actually drawing. "What's that?" he asked.
"That torch bracket," she said, showing the drawing to him. It was indeed a torch bracket. She pointed at the far wall, and Harry saw one hanging there.
"It's really good," he said, wondering why she was drawing it from such a distance. It was detailed enough that Harry began to wonder exactly how bad his eyesight was. He would have had to stand right in front of it to see everything she'd drawn.
"Thank you," Luna said, and went back to drawing. Harry watched. She and Anthony made quite a pair, outwardly frozen and blank as they focused on their inner thoughts. It was almost disturbing how infrequently Anthony actually moved, as he had recently discovered a spell that would turn pages for him.
Harry had seen Anthony active before, and knew it was possible. He had forced that Ravenclaw onto a broom and had been astonished at how quick Anthony could be. It made watching him frozen in the library all the more eerie.
Harry supposed Anthony's thoughts must have been moving so quickly that his body had to slow down to balance out the velocity. Or something like that. He'd seen Hermione freeze up when she got a really brilliant idea before, so he figured the theory had merit.
His thoughts turned to his mind clearing exercises. If he was right, then large amounts of exercise should make his brain slow down. But then why would Snape want him to clear his mind right before he went to sleep, when he should be relaxed?
He caught Anthony's attention and repeated these thoughts. Anthony actually put his book down to consider it, which made Harry feel somewhat proud. He had said something that was more interesting than a book. Then he realised that he had just felt smug for being better than a book and tried to forget.
"It's an idea, Harry," Anthony said. "But I think you have it wrong. Jumping up and down and running in circles isn't really going to clear your mind. It'll just make you ignore it for a while."
"If quick thinking makes you slow down, then slow thinking should make you speed up," Luna said, still doodling.
"Which means that people should do stupid things quickly," Anthony agreed, the corners of his mouth lifting. "That sounds about right."
"It does make sense," Luna said. "Wrackspurts make the brain fuzzy, and people with Wrackspurt infestations tend to become reckless and quick to anger."
"Right," Harry said, feeling confused. Then he saw Anthony scribbling on a scrap of parchment. Anthony only wrote down what Luna said when he also had no idea what she was talking about. It was somewhat reassuring. "So if exercise isn't going to help, how am I supposed to clear my mind?" Harry asked, getting back on topic.
"You need to focus, but not think." Luna paused in her drawing and actually looked at him as she spoke.
Harry stared back. His face was apparently as blank with incomprehension as his mind was, because Anthony snickered and said, "Yes, just like that."
Harry smiled despite himself. "Honestly though, any ideas? I don't have a clue what I'm doing. Snape keeps telling me I'm doing it wrong. He's terrible at explaining things. He just keeps saying, 'Clear your mind! Then: You're doing it wrong!' over and over and over."
Luna set her quill down and unclasped one of her necklaces. It was a long, fine chain with several bottle caps strung on it. She began to twist the chain and wrap it around and through and over itself until it was hopelessly tangled. Then she handed it to Harry.
"Untangle that," she instructed. "But bring it back, eventually."
Anthony spared Luna an incomprehensible glance, and looked expectantly at Harry.
"If you keep it in your pocket, it'll get worse," he said. "You'll never get it untangled."
Harry frowned at him. "I wasn't going to put it in my pocket."
"I meant that you should," Anthony told him, and went back to his book.