Second Chances, new story and… mostly done already. There's a bit of a mystery, but I'll be frank, I'm about as blunt as a sledgehammer about it.
Tags and summary are kept minimal to not entirely give the game away.

Nothing in this story should be triggering, although it isn't exactly kind to Ron, this was his time of being the biggest git possible.

Many thanks to my beta readers, TyrannicPuppy and StruggleMuggle, for making this less of a mess.

"Harry Potter."

The words were not spoken loudly, they were not shouted out, but they echoed across the Great Hall nonetheless. Harry felt like there had to be a mistake. Something had to have gone wrong. Or that he hadn't heard correctly.

The entire hall was staring at him, and right by his side Hermione gasped loudly. He turned to look at her, her eyes wide and mouth open as she stared at him too. "I didn't put my name in." Harry said, his voice sounding dead even to his own ears, "You know I didn't." Ron, just beyond her, also stared – except his look was blank, devoid of all expression as his eyes bored into Harry.

Tears welled up in Hermione's eyes and she launched into him, wrapped him up in her arms to engulf him in a hug. "Of course you didn't – I know you better than to believe you did." She pulled away, her arms lingered on his own for a moment before she pushed him gently. "Go on, before they call you again."

Harry turned back to Dumbledore, who nodded to McGonagall. "Harry Potter!" he called out, "Harry! Up here, if you please."

Hermione gave Harry another light push, and he stood. He marched up toward the head table feeling as if the entire world was watching him. Judging him. The hall buzzed ever louder as he neared the top table, though it felt like the walk across the hall took an eternity to complete.

"Well… through the door, Harry." Dumbledore said, his face was grim when Harry finally arrived next to him.

It was Halloween. He should've known something was going to go wrong.

-oOoOo-

Harry woke the next day feeling awful. Dumbledore believed that he hadn't put his name in, that it was someone trying to kill him, but only after he'd accused him in front of the other champions. Except for Moody it didn't seem like anyone else believed him either.

To make it worse, of all people, Ron hadn't believed him. Harry ripped back the curtains of his four-poster bed, intending to talk to Ron, to make his first friend understand – only to find Ron's bed was empty. He must've gone down to breakfast.

Harry quickly got dressed to chase after his missing friend, and tried to avoid the many people acting like he was some sort of hero in the common room before he made it to the portrait hole. Immediately outside he found Hermione leaning against the wall, staring at him.

There was a look in her eye he hadn't seen before. She glanced all over, from his feet to the top of his head. After a moment a wide smile appeared on her face. "Hello, you feel like avoiding the eyes in the great hall?"

"I'd like breakfast…" he muttered, realising just how bad it would be with everyone staring at him.

She merely rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm. "I already thought of that, Harry. This way!"

She ignored his protests and dragged him down corridors he barely knew existed, all the while recounting the reactions of various people to his name coming out of the goblet. When he interrupted to ask what she thought she stopped for a moment. "I told you already. I know you better than that. You might've talked about entering as if it were a laugh, but you'd never go through with it. You don't like the attention. Someone is trying to kill you." She didn't even turn around once, and began dragging him off once more. "Again. Someone is trying to kill you again. You're four out of four on people trying to kill you each year, Harry."

"Sirius wasn't trying to kill me,"

"No, but the minister was, with those bloody dementors." She spat out angrily. Her grip on his arm tightened painfully for a moment before she relaxed. "Almost there; there's another person who believes in you absolutely waiting there too."

Harry brightened for a moment, thinking Ron had changed his mind – although why would be waiting in a disused part of the castle he had no idea – but then the door opened and he saw the one Hermione was talking about.

"Harry Potter, Sir! Dobby is very glad to be seeing you!" The little elf looked ready to cry even as he bounced enthusiastically and his ears flopped up and down. "Miss Granger be telling Dobby that Harry Potter Sir be wanting to avoid all the people staring at him! Dobby understands not wanting to be seen. Dobby has gotten breakfast and a table for Harry Potter Sir and his friend!"

"Thank you Dobby. Will you be joining us?" Hermione knelt down next to Dobby to look him in the eye.

Abruptly Dobby burst into tears, and Hermione reached out to take his hand. "Dobby already be eating, Miss Granger. Dobby couldn't be eating with Miss Granger and Harry Potter." He looked up at Harry, even as he clung onto Hermione's hand with both arms, causing her smile to twitch slightly. "Dobby needs to be going, too. Hogwarts elves let Dobby do this for Harry Potter Sir, but only if Dobby help around castle!"

"Er, thank you, Dobby." Harry glanced at Hermione who pointed at Dobby then a table laden with food while she fixed him with a stare. "Maybe you can take the time to eat with us another day?"

Dobby wailed louder for a moment, his cries incoherent beyond how great Harry was. It took more than a minute for the excitable elf to quiet down. "Thank you, sir, Dobby will remember this offer. Dobby is still a free elf, and proud, but Dobby must get back to work now." With a snap of his spindly fingers he was gone.

Hermione stood up and dusted herself off before taking a seat and preparing a plate for herself. "See Harry, I told you I'd thought of it. Now, tell me what happened to you yesterday?"

Harry went over meeting with the other champions, Madame Maxine and Headmaster Karkaroff's disapproval, along with Moody and Dumbledore's belief that someone was trying to kill him. She even pushed him to tell her about Snape's accusations and Ron's inability to believe him.

"Well, I agree with the Headmaster and… Professor Moody. Someone is trying to kill you." She paused to spear and bite into a turnip with a terrible crunch. "Again. But that's nothing new. Nor is Snape singling you out; just think, he was petty enough to try and get Sirius killed last year just because he didn't want to believe us…" She closed her eyes and frowned. A few moments later she sighed.

"Aren't you always telling me to respect him?"

"I have, haven't I? But I can be wrong too, Harry." She grinned. "Despite appearances, I am not infallible."

Harry stared at her for a moment then burst out laughing, and Hermione followed along with him. "You seem different." He said once they finished laughing, "What happened?"

She froze, then slowly reached out to clasp his hand with hers. "Books and cleverness, there are more important things…"

"Like friendship and bravery?" What she had told him before he faced Quirrel and Voldemort had stuck in his mind.

"Yes, of course. But Loyalty and Trust too. I trust you Harry, and I'm not going to abandon you so easily." She squeezed his hand and smiled. "Nothing is more important to me than you are." She blinked, her face turning pink. "Our friendship, I mean. Nothing is more important than our friendship to me!"

Harry smiled, but soon remembered Ron and it fell away. "Wish Ron felt the same."

"This isn't the first time he's done this."

Harry's eyes snapped up, but Hermione was staring at her food, pushing it around on her plate.

"I told him off for calling you a cheat in the common room this morning. But it's not that much different from last year, just you instead of me. And he has less reason this time."

"Scabbers might not've been dead, but honestly, I thought Crookshanks had eaten him too…"

She shook her head, about to say something but stopped to take a breath. She nibbled away slowly at her food for a minute before saying anything. "No, no… I know that. Ron had reason to be mad. For a week or two, like you were over the Firebolt. Not… not months. Not making me unwelcome in the common room. He chased me out every time he saw me; I spent all my free time in the library, visiting Hagrid, or in my dorm because of him.

"But this time he doesn't even have his stupid rat to be angry about. He's just jealous of your fame, like he always has been, and thinks you're trying to get more."

"But I'm not!"

Hermione looked up at Harry and rolled her eyes slowly. "Of course you're not; but Ron's never been the most rational person. He doesn't stop to think until after he does something. Anyway, that's enough about the prat." She pushed her plate away, and feeling done with eating himself, Harry did the same.

Harry was too busying thinking about Ron, and all the things Ron had that he didn't — a mother, a father, brothers, a sister, a house with his own bedroom since he was a child, no bars on his window — that he didn't notice Hermione stand up and move next to him. He was once again wrapped up in a hug, her hair draping across his face as she leaned over him and pressed her head against his.

"Ron's not your only friend, Harry. I know you're close but don't forget I'm here too." She tightened the hug briefly, his ribs straining under her arms, before sighing. "Now, what would you like to do?"

Harry was rarely the one to initiate anything in either of his friendships. With Ron the red-head was always dragging him off to play chess, or starting a conversation about Quidditch, or just mucking about and Harry following along to enjoy himself. With Hermione she always made sure his homework was done, helped him when he needed it, and occasionally pointed out good books to read.

He hadn't done much reading at all since making friends with Ron; not like he used to. The school library had been one of the few places Dudley wouldn't chase him and something the Dursleys couldn't take away from him.

He spent several minutes searching for a better idea before giving up. "Chess?" he said with a shrug; chess was kind of fun, although he always lost to Ron.

Hermione snorted "Alright, chess it is. It's not like I have any of my dad's boardgames for us to play." As she got up to find a chess set she called out over her shoulder. "Oh, and write a letter to Sirius! He'll find out anyway; it'll be in the papers before the end of the week and he'll want to hear from you."

Harry wanted to argue, but she had already left. After thinking about it he couldn't say she was wrong; there was no way something this big would stay hidden, and Sirius had asked Harry to keep him posted. He sighed and rummaged in Hermione's bag for quill and parchment, wondering what exactly he would tell his godfather.

-oOoOo-

"Hah! I'm going to win this time!" Hermione crowed, as she placed Harry's king into check. She wasn't any better at chess than Harry was, but compared to losing to Ron the more even matches were turning out to be a good bit of fun. He'd won the first two, but blundered his queen into a trap which resulted in this victory for Hermione.

He smiled as the last two moves played out and he lost. He'd never actually played a game against Hermione before; with her it'd always been studying. "Yeah, you did."

Rather than start another game Hermione quickly packed everything away into a corner of their little hideout — Hermione'd explained she had used this same classroom the previous year with her time-turner since it was unused and so out of the way — and dragged him off to the Owlery before Transfiguration to send his letter. Even if she was being a bit more fun, and a little odd all of a sudden, she was still the same studious Hermione she had always been.

At least, it had seemed that way until he took a glance at her in class. She looked thoroughly bored listening to McGonagall, and while she was taking notes they didn't have anything to do with the lesson. Not that her unusual inattention stopped her changing her rabbit into a chicken perfectly on the first try.

Harry was so distracted by the stares sent his way by other students, and how Ron had sat as far away from him as possible, that even with Hermione's help his attempt had been rather dismal; an awkward creature with floppy wings instead of front legs, but otherwise still a rabbit.

-oOoOo-

Even after a week had passed, nothing seemed to get much better. Hermione was still dragging him away, eating meals with him in private, and filling the gap Ron had left by discussing Quidditch and playing chess, but it wasn't the same. She didn't have Ron's enthusiasm.

Harry couldn't help feeling angry at Ron, and it manifested horribly in charms class. Hermione had gotten bored again and started juggling a pillow with mixed summoning and banish charms, much to Professor Flitwick's delight, while he had been given extra homework due by the end of the month on the charm. Harry was the only one who needed it except Neville who was bottom of the class.

Hermione's advice had helped a little. "It's about wanting the item to come to you. Or wanting it to just – well – go away for banishing. It gets a lot easier with practice, after a while you don't even need to concentrate anymore."

His pillow had twitched, but a burst of laughter from Ron from where he was sitting with Seamus had broken his concentration. He knew Seamus had been saying Harry must've cheated to get in, and he was probably making jokes about it. Even wondering where Hermione had the chance to practice a spell they'd only just been introduced to only distracted him from the thoughts whirling in his head for a moment.

All he could do was say he was having a hard time concentrating and wave off Hermione's help until later. At least she was refusing to abandon him, even if some people were whispering that she must've cheated to help him enter himself with how she'd acted in the Great Hall on Halloween.

After Charms was Potions, and unlike the jovial Flitwick, Snape seemed to enjoy Harry's misery like it was a fine wine. Snape was constantly going on about how a champion should behave, how lucky they were to have a champion in their midst that Harry felt like he was going to scream.

Hermione had stayed next to him, whispering to him to ignore it, to not let them win by reacting. He honestly didn't know what he would've done if she hadn't believed him, but it wouldn't have been pretty. She was much more knowledgeable about Quidditch than he expected too, although her explanation had made sense.

"After so many years as your friend, how do you think I can remain ignorant about your sport? Honestly, it's pretty much all you ever talk about. Other than when we're off on another daring adventure, of course." She had even gone so far as to have Madam Hooch let him chase a Snitch around the Quidditch pitch one evening, just to blow off some steam, while she sat in the stands with a book on past tournaments. She'd found out about a wand weighing ceremony and given him her wand care kit to make sure his was in perfect condition for whenever it showed up. Not wanting to be embarrassed, he'd made use of it that very night.

The next day looked to be even worse than the preceding ones. They didn't even wait until class started before the mockery began, Malfoy and his Slytherin cronies were all lined up and wearing large badges, sneering at the Gryffindors as they arrived outside the classroom.

Each and every badge proclaimed in bright luminous red letters; 'Support Cedric Diggory — The Real Hogwarts Champion!'

"Like them, Potter?" Malfoy said loudly as they approached. Hermione sighed, drawing Harry's attention, and slipped her wand out and making a series of quick, complicated gestures while muttering — but never once raising her arm or pointing her wand away from the floor.

Malfoy sneered and ignored Hermione entirely to fixate on Harry. "And this isn't all they do — look!" He pressed his badge into his chest and the message upon it vanished to be replaced by another one, one which glowed bright pink.

'Wait Until Draco's Father Hears About This!' It proclaimed brightly, illuminating the corridor in a soft pink glow.

Slowly the corridor filled with sniggering, first on the Gryffindor side, then it spread amongst the Slytherins. A few of whom pressed their own badges, only to be greeted by the same bright pink message.

"Oh, how sweet. You must love your father a lot, Malfoy."

Draco, who somehow hadn't noticed what had gone wrong, kept his sneer on his face. "Of course, my father is an influential man; not that you would know anything about influence, Granger."

Which only caused the sniggering to turn into outright laughter, and many of the Slytherins to quickly take off their badges and pocket them. It wasn't until Pansy tapped Draco on his shoulder that he turned and saw what was wrong, his face suddenly flushed redder than Ron's hair — who laughed uproariously — and whipped out his wand.

Harry could only stare dumbfounded at Hermione. He knew she had done this, but not how. He was about to ask when Draco screamed out "Densaugeo!" and a jet of light shot out from his wand — only to splash into a shimmering barrier emanating from Hermione's wand.

A sharp snap behind them heralded the arrival of Snape, and before Harry could even turn around Hermione's wand was gone from her hand and she was beaming up at the professor.

"What is going on here?" He glowered. His eyes raked across the assembled students, but focused plainly upon the Gryffindors after glancing at the badges.

"Oh, we were just hearing how much Draco loves his father; why else would he make such supportive badges for him?" Hermione said, a wry smile twitching softly across her face.

Her comment caused another wave of tittering laughter to spread amongst the students, but it was far more subdued due to Snape's presence.

Snape, however, was not amused. He stared Hermione in the eye for several moments before he flinched back abruptly. "Five points from Gryffindor for delaying the start of class." He snapped. No one protested, but neither did anyone move toward that classroom. "Well, get in! Now!" Snape roared, an even worse scowl than normal plastered across his face.

Harry moved in lockstep with Hermione into the room, staring at her, feeling a little bit of awe. She had turned all the mockery back on Draco in a way that Fred and George would be proud of.

Ron bustled up to her just as they stepped in the doorway. "Good one Hermione, you really put Draco in his place!"

"Five points from Gryffindor for insulting another student, Weasley!" Came Snape's predictable response.

"Shut up Ron." Hermione glared at him before she took Harry's arm and dragged him to an empty table.

Snape was just saying they were going to be brewing antidotes and needed someone to test them on when Colin Creevey burst into the room and beamed at Harry before he walked up to the front desk and Snape.

Harry escaped the impending doom of Snape trying to poison him — although he had little doubt Hermione would brew a perfect antidote — and making his way to a small classroom with Colin to participate in the Weighing of the Wands. Hermione grabbed him and whispered in his ear as he left, "Harry! Don't let any reporters treat you like Lockhart did; it'll only make everything worse around the castle."

Remembering how Lockhart had acted as though Harry was trying to make use of his fame — and the incident in Flourish and Blotts — Harry recognised that Hermione had a point. But there was no way a reporter could be that bad, surely.

-oOoOo-

Harry was completely, totally, and utterly wrong. Rita Skeeter was worse than Lockhart had been. At least Ollivander hadn't mentioned the curious thing about his wand. That would've truly been the icing on the cake. He hadn't shared that information with anyone, nor did he intend to. Ever.

He made his way into the Great Hall for dinner for once, where there were a number of badges calling out their support for Cedric Diggory, but a noticeable absence of them around the Slytherin table. When he sat down next to Hermione she looked quite pleased with herself as Dean retold the story of what happened outside the Potions classroom.

"How'd it go, Harry?" She asked

"I should've listened — that Skeeter woman's worse than Lockhart. " He scowled, thinking about the nonsense the quill had put down on her parchment. "She's going to just make things up, isn't she?"

"Well, at least you realised as much. She's the worst kind of tabloid writer; you should do your best to avoid her, Harry." Hermione said as she grabbed his hand. She was doing that a lot lately. "Now, how did the Wand Weighing go, not just the skeezy reporter?"

Harry sighed. "Could've been worse. Thank you for the kit, I'll give it back to you tomorrow?"

"Sure."

They returned to their dinner, and for the first time in several weeks Harry didn't feel like the centre of attention. That privilege seemed to have been temporarily foisted onto the increasingly incensed Draco Malfoy, who stared daggers at Harry. Having just one person glare at him was far better than the hundreds it had been.

-oOoOo-

After dinner they returned to the Gryffindor Tower, only to be greeted by stares from Ron, Seamus, and Dean. Harry stood still, wondering if Ron would say anything, but after a minute he turned back to a game of chess he seemed to be coaching the other two boys through and ignored them.

"Don't pay him any attention Harry, it's not your fault he's jealous." Hermione nudged him gently. "I'm tired — see you in the morning?"

"Sure." Harry wanted to believe Hermione, and he resented Ron's behaviour, but he still just wanted the separation to end. That, or to give Ron a good smack. "Good night, Hermione."

"Night, Harry." She waved lightly and headed up into the girl's dorms, leaving Harry to make his way past the rest of the Gryffindors — including an overly excited and inquisitive Colin — to his own dormitory.

As he went to lie down he spotted a small brown owl with a letter tied to its leg. It was the same owl he'd sent his letter to Sirius with.

He strode up to the owl, quickly untied the letter, and started reading.

Harry —

I can't say everything I would like to in a letter, it's too risky in case the owl is intercepted — we need to talk face-to-face. Can you ensure that you are alone by the fire in Gryffindor Tower at one o'clock in the morning on the 22nd of November?

I know better than anyone that you can look after yourself, and while you're around Dumbledore and Moody I don't think anyone will be able to hurt you. However, someone seems to be having a good try. Entering you in that tournament would have been very risky, especially right under Dumbledore's nose.

Be on the watch, Harry. I still want to hear anything unusual. Let me know about the 22nd of November as quickly as you can.

Sirius.

Harry wrote his reply saying that he could then and there. He'd just have to send it off in the morning.