gr8rockstarrox- I know that it's been like forever since I last updated. My life has been going absolutely horrible lately, and things are just starting to calm down. It's been tough times, but now I'm hoping to get back into updates more often than every four or five months

vi38- thanks!

MadderThanAHatter2- Yes, things are certainly going to get very dramatic

A/N- I just hope that everyone can forgive me for taking so long. Like I said, there's been a lot of tough things going on in my life. I know this wasn't really worth the wait, but here it is anyways.

Harry looked up at his two best friends. "Can you believe that someone wants to kill me?"

Ron snorted. "Mate, there's been people trying to kill you since you were like a year old. What makes you think that this year would be any different?" He shook his head at Harry's tired look. "Sorry, that's not what I meant. I just meant that there's been kooky things happening for a while, and you're almost always at the center of it all."

"Well, not the chamber," Hermione interjected. "That one was Ginny's fault."

Ron frowned. "Hey wait a second, that's hardly fair. It's not her fault that that damned book was possessed."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ronald, I don't think you'll ever be able to win in an argument against me. I can always simply bring up the fact that you let a full grown man sit in your lap for years."

Ron's face flushed. "Okay, that totally doesn't count. Pettigrew-"

"Guys!" Both of them looked over at Harry. "You shouldn't be arguing about stupid stuff right now! We need to figure out a way for me to get through the tournament without winning and without dropping out like some kind of loser. At this point, it's got to be way too dangerous to even consider winning."

Hermione frowned. "Danni had mentioned that Crouch Jr has been taking polyjuice potion for a while. But for him to be able to manipulate everything for you to get in, it doesn't make sense that he'd be anyone too unimportant. He'd need to be able to get close to the goblet without seeming totally suspicious."

Harry nodded. "Yeah. About that, there's actually a reason that Professor Moody seems so insane sometimes. It's because he's actually a psychopathic Death Eater named Barty Crouch Jr."

Ron and Hermione both looked like they were going to be sick, which wasn't something Harry was particularly interested in seeing. Hermione was the one who was able to speak first. "So you mean that the man we've been learning from and looking up to all this time has been a Death Eater all along? If that's the case, then where's the real Mad-Eye? And did you mention all of this to Dumbledore when you went to talk to him about it?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, we mentioned it. But Dumbledore basically said that he couldn't really do anything about it because there was no proof to back us up. Maybe if we could convince Danni to go public with her ability, then people would have to believe her about Crouch Jr. But as long as she wants to remain anonymous, there isn't anything that can be done."

Hermione looked angry at that. "You mean she has to live with the thoughts of everyone around her, but she can't even do anything to help people when she hears thoughts that are bad? That's bloody ridiculous!"

Harry nodded again. "I know. I was honestly surprised that she even wanted to tell you guys what she can do. Before I came along, her brother and parents were the only ones who knew her secret. I don't know why she trusted me with it, but she did. Which means that I need to find a way to make her gift not totally meaningless. You guys will help me, right?"

"Of course, mate. If Danni being able to read minds is what'll save your life, then we'll do everything within our power to make sure that someone will listen to her. We're not going to just lose you after all this time because we didn't feel like trying to help."

Hermione sighed. "I really do feel bad about the things I was thinking when we first met her. I mean, I know that I already apologized, but that was before I realized that she could've heard my exact thoughts. They weren't very flattering. In my defense, I thought that she was just trying to use you, since you're the famous Harry Potter. But I suppose that that's not really much of a defense at all. Even if I'd feel more comfortable knowing that my thoughts are private, that doesn't mean that it should be okay for me to be judgemental, even if no one else is supposed to be able to hear it."

Ron gave Hermione a sympathetic look. "Well, I wasn't exactly thinking the nicest things during our first meeting, either. I don't really have anything to say in my defense. I guess we're both just going to have to be a little bit better, aren't we?"

Harry gave his best friend a bright smile. "See? She's already growing on you, and you've only known her biggest secret for a few hours."

Ron chuckled. "Mate, she's been growing on us a little bit at a time as soon as we noticed how happy she makes you. As long as she can continue to make you happy, then she's got to be alright in our books."

Harry frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I swear, I don't know how you manage to be so thick all the time. Ron's talking about the way that your eyes light up whenever you see her. The way that you always have that little smile on your face whenever you talk about her. There may not be something going on between you two, but you definitely wish that there was, don't you?"

Ron peered back at Hermione. "What happened to not butting in on someone else's relationship because it's their own business if they want to be a complete numbskull about everything?"

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe I was wrong," both of the boys looked at her with their mouths wide open, and she rolled her eyes. "It's not impossible for me to be wrong, you know. It's not like I know everything," both of their mouths dropped open even wider. Hermione just shook her head. "You guys are ridiculous. Anyways, we still need to come up with a way to make everybody aware that Crouch Jr is dangerous, and that Harry's life is in danger."

"Without outing Danni as a mind reader," Harry quickly added.

Ron sighed. "Man, and I thought that that essay Moody assigned us was going to be hard enough. Well, not the essay that Moody assigned us, but the essay that Crouch Jr assigned us while pretending to be Moody… anyways, you guys know what I'm talking about. I don't want to do any more homework for that creep for the rest of the year."

Hermione tsked. "No matter how much you like him, you can't just use this as an excuse to skip out on your responsibilities. You don't want him to know that you know about his real identity, do you? Because he seems like the type of guy who would literally kill you for something like that."

Harry nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Danni said that his mind is totally messed up. That there's not even any comprehensible thoughts in there, just a whole bunch of pictures and feelings. She said that it totally freaked her out to be inside his head for even a few minutes." Harry stood up, and stretched his arms over his head. "I'm just not sure what we can do, though. I mean, Crouch Jr thinks that no one's onto him, and he's got the reputation of Moody to back him up at the moment. And who's going to believe that someone read his mind when we can't even tell them who?"

Hermione stood up as well. "Not to mention the fact that the rest of Danni's theory comes from things she overheard while being held captive in a Death Eater camp. There's no way she can tell people that her aunt, a Death Eater, kidnapped her. Especially not when the official story already says that she's simply been trapped in the lake the entire time that she was missing. So none of the information Danni's managed to get, from any source, will be enough to lock up Crouch Jr for good."

The golden trio looked stumped. None of them knew what they could possibly do. Finally, Hermione turned to Harry. "Danni said that the first challenge was going to be stealing an egg from a dragon, right? And that you were going to be getting the hardest one to improve your reputation? Well, if there are dragons being kept around Hogwarts, it really shouldn't be too difficult to find them. And then maybe we can see what kinds they are, and start coming up with ways to get passed them."

Ron furrowed his eyebrows. "Seriously? Why would we want to help Harry? I mean, I know why we'd want to help him normally, but this seems like different circumstances. If we help Harry win, then we're only helping get him into the position you-know-who wants him to be in to kill him."

Hermione sighed. "Idiot. If we don't help him and he's killed off by a dragon in the very first challenge, then we haven't been able to accomplish anything at all. At least if we can figure out some way to keep him going, we'll be able to buy more time to figure out a more permanent solution that doesn't end with anyone dying."

After a few more minutes of silence, Harry started to head towards the door. "I think that I'm going to go track down Neville. Maybe he'll be able to help."

"Except you didn't let Danni tell him about the stuff you let her tell us about. Doesn't that mean that you don't really trust him enough to be asking for his help on this?"

Harry shook his head. "No, of course not. I didn't let Danni give him all of the information because it occurred to me just how dangerous all of this is going to get. I don't want to drag Neville into this anymore than I have to."

Ron sighed. "So you'll sacrifice your two best mates but not another bloke? Jeez, man, I thought that we were friends." Harry was going to say something in protest, and Ron just laughed. "I'm only joking. If you think that Neville can be of any help, then you should definitely go talk to him. Because we're going to need all of the help that we can possibly get."

Harry nodded, and left the dorm room. He figured that Neville would most likely be out in one of the greenhouses, since that seemed to be where he liked to spend most of his time. Harry turned out to be right, when he saw that Neville was standing in front of a table full of plants, talking to them in a gentle voice. Harry couldn't help laughing a bit at the sight.

Neville turned around, and his face flushed red. "Just so you know, it's perfectly reasonable to expect that talking to plants makes them grow faster. Don't be so immature about it."

Harry smiled. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just wanted to talk to you about something." He perched on the edge of one of the long tables. "I'd like to ask for your help on a matter of very sensitive topic. Let's just say, hypothetically, that there was a wizard who could read minds. And they read the mind of someone who was planning on murdering someone else. How would you deal with something like that? Hypothetically, of course."

Neville frowned, not entirely sure why Harry would be asking him this. It didn't seem like something that would be common knowledge to someone who was attempting to major in the care of magical plants. Finally, he sighed. "Well, I guess you'd have to get some more evidence that the person is actually planning a murder, otherwise it's just one person's word against another's. You could try casting a truth spell on them, or give them some kind of truth serum, in front of a lot of important people. Then you could just prod them a little bit, and they'd spill their secret in front of everyone. But there's other things too, I'm sure," he looked at Harry nervously. "Why are you asking me this, anyways?"

Harry shrugged. "No reason. It was just a random hypothetical question. Don't worry about it, it's something that muggles do all the time. It's no reason to be alarmed, and everything in the given scenario is totally false."

Neville gave Harry a strange look, but decided not to question his friend's weirdness. "Alright then. Do you know anything about when this hypothetical person is hypothetically planning on murdering someone?"

Harry shrugged. "Sort of. I mean, we know the general time, but there's no way of knowing exactly when. It'll have something to do with the conclusion of the tournament. Hypothetically. And we know where to find the hypothetical murderer at almost any given time. Is there some way to give him a truth serum or something like that without it being detectable?"

Neville walked over to a large purple plant, and plucked off a dark purple leaf. He handed it over to Harry. "If you mix this in with any basic potion, it makes the potion automatically undetectable. Finding away to slip some of the potion to your hypothetical murderer is on you." Harry started to leave before Neville shouted. "Oh! And make sure that you administer the serum half an hour before your guy will be in front of a lot of people. If it's any longer than that, he'll spill all of his secrets to an empty room."

Harry grinned. "Thanks Neville. You're a good friend."

Neville's face flushed. "Who wouldn't want to help a mate slip a hypothetical potion into a hypothetical man who needs to tell the truth in front of a large group of people?"

Then Harry hurried away, making sure that the leaf in his pocket wasn't rustled or crunched. He wouldn't want any of whatever made it work to spill out into his pocket instead of into the potion. Harry wondered for a moment what made him trust Danni so much that he was willing to drug a teacher just to find out the truth. He decided it wasn't worth it to try and figure it out just yet.

As Harry walked through the first floor, he found himself quickly approaching several professors, and knew that he wouldn't want them to catch him acting suspiciously. Which unfortunately meant he couldn't just turn around and stroll away whistling.

Harry walked past them, trying to act as normal as he could. He forced the muscles in his face to relax so that he wouldn't look quite so tense. He went around them, and began to head towards the grand staircase. Just when Harry thought that he was in the clear, he heard a voice call out to him. "Mr Potter! We were just looking to speak with you."

Harry turned to face the professors, and saw that McGonagall looked pleased to see him, while Snape looked just as sour as he always did. Snape cleared his throat. "We were just discussing how we think you're going to fail the first task and find yourself dropped out of the tournament."

Harry smiled awkwardly. "Well, we can all hope, can't we sir." Snape looked a bit surprised that Harry wasn't defending his skills, and saying that of course he'd be able to excel in the tournament. "I mean, if this tournament was intended for people seventeen and eighteen only, it's got to be pretty difficult. I'd rather drop out in the first round then stick it out just to be eaten by something in the last round. I'm sure you'd understand, right sir? Anyways, I should be heading back to my dorms. I want to be able to finish all my homework before the first task is announced."

McGonagall rolled her eyes. "We may be old, but we're not blind. We already know that everyone's been informed about the nature of the first task. When we find out who leaked the information, the proper punishment will be devised. Until then, it's only fair that we make the official announcement as soon as possible to avoid any unfairness between contestants. I don't think that you'll have time to finish all of your assignments before the announcement."

Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Mr Crouch will arrive soon, and the announcement will be made after dinner tonight. I hope to see you there, Mr Potter. You should be present when there's going to be something important that involves you."

Harry nodded, and glanced between the two professors, trying to see if there was anything else that they needed from him. They didn't seem like they were going to say anything else. "Well, I'll be sure to be there. I'll talk to you later professors." Then he turned and hurried up the stairs to the seventh floor. He was going to need Hermione's help to perfect the potion, of course, and he would have to figure out how exactly he was going to get Crouch Jr to drink it. But he knew that he'd be able to figure everything out as long as he had the help of his friends.