Author's Note: This is the second chapter of this story. Hope everyone likes it.
The next day, the residents of the Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardary were treated to an unusual sight. The boy who lived, Harry James Potter who had been sulky and brooding for days ever since his name came out of the Goblet of fire was looking unnaturally cheerful and happy, with a definite noticeable bounce in his step. He gave a mocking salute to some senior Gryffindors who were wearing the "Potter Stinks" badges, which made the bullies and slanderers feel quite confused.
Soon, he had breakfast in the great hall and was about to leave for the library when he was interrupted by Malfoy and his cronies in the school corridor.
"Look who is here? Poor potty, who has no more friends. Such a pity that the mudblood and the blood traitor have left your company. See Potty, my father and I had a bet. I believe that you wouldn't last for 10 minutes in the first task. But, he disagrees. He says that you wouldn't last for even 5 minutes" taunted Draco Malfoy.
The Slytherins who were standing around laughed cruelly. Harry felt a spike of anger and was about to lash out, but then suddenly he saw Snape looming around the corridor as if he was just waiting for an excuse to punish Harry. Standing 3 feet away from Snape was Zarina, who seemed to be the only Slytherin that didn't laugh along with the others at Harry's expense. When he looked deeply into her face, he could see that she was glaring at Malfoy and was itching to lash out at him.
Wanting to spare her the trouble of fighting with her own housemates, Harry took a deep breath and calmed himself down by remembering the glorious and fun-filled yesterday night. Giving Malfoy a smile of his own, he cheekily replied, "Aww Draco, I didn't know that you were so concerned about my life. In fact, from the 1st year, you seem to be following me like a lost puppy wherever I go. Sometimes, I feel that you have some sort of secret crush of me, with the way you keep stalking me around. Is insulting and taunting me a unique way of expressing your deep love for me? If that is so, I am so touched Malfoy" said Harry in a mocking tone.
Now, it was Malfoy's tone to get laughed at. His face grew redder and redder with embarrassment as the surrounding students from other houses laughed at him. Harry could see Zarina who was trying her level best to control her own laughter. But before Malfoy could retort, Snape came between them in his typical dungeon bat style with his robes flapping dramatically behind him. He was brimming with anger because, Potter's mocking tone reminded him a lot about his arch-enemy James Potter.
"Potter you arrogant, insolent brat. 20 points from Gryffindor for insulting Malfoy and a detention with me tonight at 8 pm" said Snape sneering at him.
Looking at Snape in the eye, he replied "Sorry Professor, I won't be doing this detention with you. It was Malfoy's fault and he is the one who deserves to do the detention" said Harry defiantly.
"Potter, 50 points from Gryffindor for your disobedience. If you don't agree to do the detention, I will take you to the headmaster and convince him to have you expelled for this" threatened Snape.
"I don't care Professor. You can take as many points as you want from Gryffindor. I no longer consider the Gryffindor house as my own, not after the people whom I trusted beyond anything have betrayed me. And, you can go to Dumbledore and complain how much ever you want. Because, I have been selected by the Goblet of fire to compete in the tournament, the headmaster won't expel me atleast till the end of this year. After all, I have done plenty of rule-breaking over the past 3 years and the headmaster has still not expelled me. So, what makes you think he will expel me for something as minor as an unfair detention with a biased, sarcastic, unfair professor as yourself?" asked Harry.
The students who were standing nearby gasped on seeing Harry's blatant disrespect of Professor Snape. Harry gave a discrete look to Zarina, whose face was shining with admiration. That somehow gave him the much needed courage to stare back at Snape, who looked about to explode, since his face was reddening with anger and hatred.
"Why you insolent brat…"snarled Snape as he raised his wand to hex Harry, but before he could do so, his wand was wrenched from his hand by Mad-eye moody who had just arrived at the scene.
"Now you are resorting to hexing students Snape. I will have to report to Dumbledore about this" growled Moody staring intently at Snape.
"But Moody, this insolent brat is refusing to do detention with me. He needs to be taught his place" snarled Snape with spittle flying from his mouth.
"Just go back to your office Snape. I will deal with Potter" said Moody.
Not wanting to embarrass himself further by arguing with Moody, Snape left dramatically, his robes billowing behind him in that typical unique-snape fashion.
After Snape left, Moody dispersed the students and then turned to Harry.
"Potter, please come to my office. I have a few things to discuss with you" said Moody.
Harry silently followed Moody to his office, wondering what on earth Moody wanted to discuss with him.
As soon as Harry entered Moody's office, he was amazed at the unique instruments kept in Moody's office. Moody who noticed his gaze said, "Dark Detectors Potter. These objects help me detect whether enemies or untrustworthy persons are lurking near. There is a sneakoscope there" said Moody pointing to an object at the corner. "It makes a whizzing sound when untrustworthy persons are around. But not so much useful here, considering that students regularly lie about something or the other" said Moody.
Saying this, Moody sat behind his desk, took a swig from his hip flask and asked Harry to take a seat.
"So Potter, how is your preparation for the tri-wizard tournament going?" asked Moody casually.
"I don't know what is going to be there in the first task Professor. After all, Mr Crouch had said that this will be a test to determine the champion's mettle to face the unknown danger" replied Harry.
"That's bullshit Potter. I had already mentioned to you before that cheating has already been a traditional part of the tri-wizard tournament. I am willing to bet that Karkaroff and Maxime might have told their champions about the first task by now. So, don't you want to know what the first task is going to be?" asked Moody.
"Of course I want to know sir" replied Harry while internally wondering why Moody was so eager to help Harry.
"Good, there is nothing dangerous as such. All that you have to do is get past a mother dragon and snatch a golden egg amongst its other eggs before it roasts you" said Moody smirking evilly.
"What? Dragons? And that too Mother Dragons?" squeaked out Harry in panic.
"Don't worry Potter. All you need to do is to play to your strengths. You can easily surpass this task. So, what are your strengths?" asked Moody.
"I am good at Quidditch. But I don't think I am allowed a broom to the task sir" said Harry in confusion.
"Use your brains Potter. You can't carry a broom with you to the task. But the rules don't say that you can't summon anything when you enter the fray. And summoning spells are taught in your fourth year. I hope you got what I mean" pointed out Moody.
Harry nodded.
"Good, so I want you to perform well in the task. No excuses. You are dismissed"said Moody waving Harry out.
Harry walked towards the library pondering Moody's words. Moody had given him an easy solution. But the difficulty was that, he didn't know about how to do a summoning charm. He would have to somehow learn that. For that he needed someone's help.
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Next morning, Harry woke up early at around 5:30 AM, finished his morning duties within 20 minutes, put on his invisibility cloak and walked towards the classroom close to the astronomy tower. When he reached the classroom, he saw that Zarina was already present.
She gave him a winning smile which made his insides flutter with pleasure.
"Good morning Harry" she said smiling brightly.
"Good morning Zarina" replied Harry smiling back.
"Harry, I have to say that your handling of Snape and Malfoy yesterday was just brilliant. I was about to hex the blond poncy git had you not delivered him a verbal blow" said Zarina with a mischievious grin.
"I am so glad that you liked it" said Harry smiling at her.
"So Harry, I promised you that day that I will help you in whatever way I can. So, I brought with me some books from the library which are all about the triwizard tournaments which happened in the past. You can get a decent guess about what your first task is likely to be, from these books" said Zarina.
"Yeah Zarina, thanks for helping me anyway, but Professor Moody mentioned to me yesterday that I will have to get past a mother dragon and obtain a golden egg without getting roasted" said Harry casually.
Zarina was shocked.
"Dragons? And that too mother dragons? What the hell were the organizers were thinking when they decided to organize the first task. Not to mention the extreme amount of cruelty involved in putting the real eggs of the mother dragon in danger and giving her a lot of pain and agony. Those selfish, heartless organizers have got no amount of shame or decency. First, they make such foolish iron-clad contracts that don't allow unwilling competitors to back out and now this. Have they gone insane?" she ranted fiercely.
"I know Zarina. I agree with you. But now, I have to somehow survive this task. If I don't compete, I will lose my magic. Moody says that I have summon my firebolt from the stadium and somehow outfly the dragon. But I don't know how to do a summoning charm. So, that's why, I need your help in learning how to do it" said Harry.
"I will surely help you Harry. It is not that tough to learn. We can practice now for an hour before we leave. But what strikes me as odd is that, why is Professor Moody so willing to help you out? That seems a bit dodgy to me. Did he give help to Cedric also?" asked Zarina.
"I don't know Zarina. I didn't ask him about that. But it sounds fishy to me too. After all, no other professor has offered me help other than him" said Harry.
"We can find out that later Harry. Now, our first priority is to make sure that you somehow get through the first task in one piece" said Zarina bossily.
"Yes ma'am" Harry gave her a cheeky, mocking salute.
"Shut up, you messy-haired prat" snapped Zarina irritated, but there was a hint of a fond smile on her face.
The next hour was spent on learning the summoning charm. Zarina very patiently and soundly explained and summoning charm to Harry. Harry initially had a lot of difficulty in casting the charm, but slowly with her guidance, his casting improved. Finally, after an hour, he was able to summon small objects to him.
"That is absolutely brilliant Harry" praised Zarina, after Harry easily summoned her hairpin to him. "You are a quick learner. It is only a matter of time before attain perfection in this" remarked Zarina with a brilliant smile.
Harry's heart glowed with happiness on hearing her praise him like that.
"Thanks Zarina, but it is because I have such a brilliant teacher, who is completely unbiased, unlike a certain greasy-haired potions master" said Harry with a straight face.
Zarina laughed without reservation. Harry liked the melodious sound of her laughter. He couldn't stop the grin that escaped his face.
"Actually I am quite surprised that you are not defending Snape. I thought that he was every Slytherin's favourite teacher" remarked Harry.
"Bah, that greasy git? Our favourite teacher? Definitely not, at least not in my case. His biased attitude, favouritism towards certain house members like Malfoy and his unpleasant, sarcastic nature has given a very bad name to the Slytherin house. Whenever a Slytherin does some mistake, instead of correcting or punishing them, he encourages them even further. I don't care about his unfairly awarded house points. I feel quite ashamed in receiving undeserved housepoints simply because I am in Slytherin. So, he is definitely not my favourite teacher and never will be" ranted Zarina fiercely.
Harry who was smiling good naturedly at Zarina throughout her rant just gave her a thumbs up in response.
"Say Harry, I saw you conjuring a stag patronus during your match with Ravenclaw last year. Can you please teach me?"asked Zarina with hopeful eyes.
"Ahh Zarina, I would love to teach you, but It is very difficult to learn. I had undergone a tremendous amount of mental pain last year in trying to learn this charm" said Harry, hoping that his honest words didn't disappoint her.
"Harry," she gave him a tender look that was very enticing to him "I am willing to admit that it might have been very difficult for you to learn the patronus charm, but I am not worried at all Harry because I am confident that you will teach it to me very nicely. I really felt very vulnerable last year when those soul sucking monsters were roaming around the castle and I definitely don't want to feel like that ever again. So, will you please teach me Harry? Please, Please ?" asked Zarina giving him her best puppy dog expression, on seeing which Harry found it very very difficult to say no to her.
Harry simply nodded at her with a smile.
"Yesssss " whooped Zarina happily and quickly hugged him, which shocked him to the core. Yet he didn't complain, because it felt so nice.
"Okay Harry, got to go for breakfast now. See you tomorrow then at the same time and same place. Bye Harry" waved Zarina happily before going out.
Harry smiled and waved back at her before continuing on his way to the Gryffindor tower, his grin firmly fixed in place. He couldn't stop smiling when he thought about how warm and comfortable he felt while she hugged him. Now, he had nearly learnt the summoning charm and there was still a week to go before the first task. For the first time, since his name had come out of the Goblet, he felt confident that he will be able to do extremely well in the tournament. With a grin, he strode to his dorms, picked up his bag and walked towards the great hall for breakfast, ready to face any difficulty head-on, that fate might place in front of him today.