Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
The Triwizard Tournament. What a ridiculous idea. So it was absolutely gut-wrenching to hear Dumbledore call out his name.
In the room with the other champions, he felt cornered. They couldn't believe that he, only a thirteen year old, had been picked. He hadn't even considered putting his name in! It violated the rules-he was underage and, in addition, there could only be one champion per school. He hid in a corner of the room he had been directed to until the headmasters and headmistress walked in. They were arguing, both Madam Maxime and Headmaster Karkaroff were convinced that Dumbledore wanted the upper edge in the tournament.
"Um...excuse me? I know this may be hard to believe, but I truly don't want to be involved with this." Everyone burst into exclamations of fraud and cheating and no one quieted down until Mr. Crouch blasted sparks into the air.
"I'm afraid the rules state he has to participate. The age restriction was put on after the cup was originally enchanted. Harry Potter will be the fourth champion." Harry felt his eyes burning and did his best to push down his fear for now. His heart felt like it had just fallen through his feet and into the dungeons below, but he struggled to keep ahold of himself. He could collapse later.
"Mr. Crouch?" He practically had to shout to get the ministry employee's attention. "May I have a copy of the rule book? I didn't get one earlier when they were out in the great hall because I didn't think I'd need one." Mr. Crouch nodded curtly and handed him a copy before Harry turned and snuck out of the chaotic room.
He turned a corner to get out into the main hall and practically ran right into Professor Snape. He wasn't at all surprised to see the man sneering with his arms folded across his chest.
"Potter. My office. Now." Harry went willingly, glad to have an excuse for being late to the common room. With any luck, Snape would give him a late detention scrubbing cauldrons and everyone else would be asleep by then. He could use some manual labor to work out the fear and frustration he felt at the entire situation anyway.
Professor Snape didn't say a word as they made their way to his office.
"Sit." Snape got himself a glass of amber liquid and a cup of tea for Harry. "Now, tell me the truth. Did you enter your name into the goblet?"
"No sir, I didn't. And I didn't ask anyone else to either, I want nothing to do with it! I'm terrified…" He trailed off in a quiet voice, suddenly overcome with how much he feared having to participate.
"I trust you have the rule book?" Harry nodded and held up the thin book that Mr. Crouch had given him. Snape tutted, much to Harry's shock.
"That will never do. The full rule book is much larger." Snape summoned a large tome from the bookshelf behind him. It smacked the table with a rather loud sound and a small amount of dust spiraled around them. Flipping through the pages, Snape continued talking.
"It says here that each champion may select only one person to assist them through the tournament. It cannot be the headmaster or headmistress, nor can it be someone on the judging panel. But other than that, you have free reign on who can help you through this."
"But sir, why are you telling me this?"
"I shall assist you." At the look Harry had given him, Snape snapped the book shut, spewing more dust around. "Not a word of this conversation leaves this room from here on out. The headmaster trusts me, does he not?" Harry nodded. "And you trust me, do you not?" He nodded again. Against all odds, he did trust Professor Snape. Especially after the basilisk incident.
"Good. I'm asking that you simply trust me on this. I've got a fairly good idea what the tasks will be and I've only got so much time in which to prepare you for them. Now, be back here at five in the morning tomorrow. I expect to see you in clothing that you can move around in."
Perplexed, Harry agreed and left. An incredible amount of noise was still coming from the great hall, telling Harry that the students still haven't left from dinner. Instead of reentering the hall, he went straight to the Gryffindor Common room, practically flying through to the dormitories and spelled his curtains shut with a locking charm. It wasn't enough to truly keep out the other four boys, but he hoped that it would deter them from trying to talk to him.
He woke up the next morning surprised to see that his locking charm had worked and turned off the alarm on his wand. He dressed quickly, being sure to not move outside of the curtains until he absolutely had to. The last thing he needed now was someone waking up before he was out the door.
The entire castle was quiet this early in the morning. Birds outside the castle walls chirped happily, but there were no footfalls from other corridors. Even teachers weren't up at this ungodly hour.
Professor Snape then spent the next three hours teaching Harry how to duel under duress. It didn't follow the traditional dueling rules, it didn't have any rhyme or reason to it. It was simply blocking spells and casting offensive spells. And although he never once got close to catching Snape off guard with one of his offensive skills, Snape did tell him that his defensive strategies were impressive for someone in only their third year.
Harry took that as a massive compliment.
From then on, Harry spent every possible moment he could find reading defence books, learning new spells and even surpassing Hermione in the amount of information he crammed in his head. Ron, who was incredibly mad with him for somehow getting into the tournament, still hadn't come around but Harry spent so much time studying that he didn't really notice.
He did notice that Hermione spent a lot of time yelling at Ron on his behalf, though.
She was positively incensed that Ron would let something like this come between him and his best friend, especially when his best friend didn't want to be in the bloody tournament in the first place. It was the first time any of them had heard Hermione curse and it had frightened them both. Ron apologized not too long after that and Harry gracefully accepted. He did make sure to emphasize to Ron that good friends don't let things like that get in the way of their friendship and Ron had agreed to try to deal with his issues in a better way should something upset him like that again.
The first task was insanity. His plan after hearing what the task was in the tent was to summon his broom and swoop in to get the egg and that worked well until the dragon broke free of its chains and started chasing after him. He'd never flown so hard in his life and somehow managed to pull off a dive so dangerous that Ron declared it would have its own name by the following day's sports periodicals released.
Snape had been furious. He was seen shouting at Mr. Crouch at how such a dangerous beast-four of them, no less-had been authorized to be used without proper precautions. At the very least the entire crowd and the village of Hogsmeade had been put into extreme danger due to his negligence. And when Snape had rounded on Charlie and his team, Charlie didn't back down to Snape and instead rounded on Mr. Crouch as well. Apparently Charlie and his team had recommended several more security measures to ensure the crowd's safety and Mr. Crouch had gone and undermined all of those extra security measures in the name of the game being difficult.
Needless to say, onlookers were furious as well.
And when Snape had told him to open the egg in his office later that night, the most horrific screeching noise met their ears. Snape snapped the egg shut and simply told him he should research the merpeople of the lake and conveniently gave him a slip of parchment with the titles of two books in which he could start. Apparently they were fascinating creatures.
Sure enough, Harry had learned enough to stick the egg underwater with his head and wrote the whole song down. He'd puzzled out that he needed to spend an hour in the lake because something precious to him had been taken and was nervous that whatever it was wouldn't be returned unless he found it within that hour.
He wasn't sure what would be taken, it could even be his wand. Nothing in the book explicitly prohibited the champions from being forced into not using their wands.
Snape had been his saviour when he figured that out. He had gone to him and asked if there were any books on potions that might allow someone to breath underwater for extended periods of time and Snape's only response was to hand over a book that had been sitting on a low bookshelf with only a warning that the book had better return within a week in the same condition it was in currently.
Doing Snape one better, Harry duplicated the book with a complicated spell he had learned with Hermione in preparation for the first task. Snape had only raised one eyebrow and sent him on his way.
The time for the Yule ball drew nearer when Malfoy had taunted Harry about not having a date to the ball yet when it was only a fortnight away. He had brought it up to Snape that night before they started training and Snape, much to his surprise, started cursing.
"Does your bloody head of house tell you nothing? Incompetent, the lot of them. In celebration of the tournament, there's to be a Yule ball this year. All of the champions are required to escort a date and will open the ball with a dance." Harry blanched at that. "Oh come now, you can't honestly make me believe that the all-great Harry Potter can't get a date." Harry swallowed nervously.
"Er...I, uh...that is to say I don't really like any of the girls that way and...well, I'm afraid they'd get the wrong idea." Truth be told, he hadn't really thought of anyone that way, but he definitely knew that the girls he'd met and seen around the school weren't it for him.
"So take a guy then, but you have to have a date to that ball and you have to learn how to dance a classical waltz before then." Snape swished his wand and a small table morphed into a humanesque figure that floated to him. "Now then, you put this arm here and that arm there…"
The Yule ball was a right disaster. Not only had Ron gone and pissed off Hermione but Harry's date had such a difficult time keeping up with him on the dance floor that she had stormed off in a huff. Harry only stayed at the ball long enough to chat with a few classmates and then ducked out to the grounds.
Rows of rose bushes had been put in just for the occasion, with Snape clearly blasting snogging couples out of hiding, spitting enough vitriol to give a basilisk a heart attack.
He picked out a rather nice white swing and sat down under the twinkling fairy lights while he rocked back and forth, contemplating his fate with the next task.
He was worried about what would be taken-extremely worried. He didn't want to be forced into the Black Lake with no magic to help him, but he had a strong suspicion that that's what would be happening. Snape snarling and turning the corner jerked him out of his near-spiral. Apparently the last thing Snape had expected to see was Harry sitting on the swing by himself as he'd stopped in his tracks with his wand pointed at the bush next to the swing as if he was about to set it on fire.
Knowing Snape, he had intended to do just that.
"Mr. Potter, is there any reason you're out here instead of in the castle?"
"Sorry professor, I'll be going to the common room."
"No need. Head straight to my office and no dillydallying." Harry didn't need to be told twice and hastened to the dungeons. He suspected that Snape would be hot on his heels in a few minutes, just as soon as he blasted another bush or two to the heavens.
The amount of training that Snape had put him through that night was, in Harry's opinion, the most grueling training that anyone could ever endure, ever. Every single muscle-including those he was unaware of-were screaming with pain anytime he moved by the end of the night. They'd gone over Harry's concerns over not being able to use his wand to which he was told he must refrain from using any wandless magic whatsoever. According to him, it was a highly sought after ability; so much so, that Dumbledore had decided to keep the fact that he could do wandless magic to himself.
Harry left Snape's office sore, tired, sweaty and much more confident in his abilities to defend himself without magic. The only tricky part would be defending himself underwater, but at least he wasn't defenseless anymore.
He returned so late to the common room that no one was awake anymore. The sun was just barely peeking up over the horizon as Harry dashed to the showers. The only good part about being the only one awake this early in the morning was the lack of other people in the bathroom.