Disclaimer: I didn't write and do not own Harry Potter. Harry Potter was written by a TERF. Still processing my feelings on that one.

Harry Potter and the House Elf Liberation Pact

Chapter 1

Every ounce of Harry Potter was racing.

His feet were racing to find Hermione. Professor Moody had given him an idea of how he could live to see supper the next day and he needed Hermione's help to pull it off.

His mind was racing. This plan is barmy! How am I going to master a charm in a day that I've spent a month fumbling through? And even if I can summon my broom, can I really out fly a bloody dragon?

Most importantly, his heart was racing. He'd spent the past three days in a numb haze, as the inevitable doom of the first task drew ever closer. He had no clue what he would do, and the knowledge that if he did nothing he would surely die.

Now you're only going to likely die The pessimistic voice that had haunted him the past few days reminded him. He snuffed the errant thought out. He had a plan, which meant he might not die, and focusing on that was all that mattered.

He slid into the greenhouse and muttered a quick apology to Professor Sprout as he dashed past her to a startled Hermione Granger.

"I need your help with the first task," He huffed as he tried to get his breath back.

Her eyes went wide.

"What do you think I've been trying to do?" There was a fear behind those brown eyes that he didn't understand.

"I need to learn how to do the Summoning Charm by the task tomorrow."

Hermione looked down at her messy station and hurriedly started to clean up. Professor Sprout was hovering nearby, "Nevermind that Ms Granger, I'll clean up for you. Hurry along now."

Hermione thanked her professor and hurried to the basin. Sprout leaned over to Harry and whispered. "It was a kindness informing Cedric. I'll be rooting for you tomorrow."

In short order, Harry found himself in an unused classroom standing paces away from Hermione. Sweat dripped down his brow as he once again failed to wrench the hefty tome from her hands. Hermione had a look on her face that conveyed her disappointment. "You aren't concentrating properly. You need to concentrate!"

"I'm trying to! For some reason the image of a dragon eating me keeps popping in my head!" He was frustrated. He'd had a block on learning this spell for months, what made him think he could get it right in a day.

A bell rang out signalling that the next classes would be starting soon. That meant he had Divinations. Well it'd be easy enough to skive off that. He didn't need his professor to tell him he was likely going to die tomorrow. Before he could say so, Hermione spoke up.

"Oh, I have Arithmancy. I should probably be getting to it then."

Harry's face fell. Hermione was the most brilliant and studious witch at Hogwarts, she traveled through time to ensure perfect attendance. A little dragon fire wouldn't keep her from her studies. He decided to have a go at it anyway.

"I have Divination, but I was thinking of giving it a miss to keep working on this."

She spoke back with some heat. "Well I think that you shouldn't-" She paused, the energy of her rant dissipating from the air as she seemed to study him. "I don't approve of you skiving off your classes Harry, even ones as useless as Divination."

He nodded glumly as he started packing up his things. "However, I believe that given the circumstances, perhaps some allowances should be made." He was dumbfounded. "If you'll accompany me, I'll simply tell Professor Vector that I will not be able to attend her class today, and then we can get back to work."

Harry followed Hermione as she marched out of the room and headed in the direction of the Astronomy tower. He'd never been to the Arithimancy classroom before. He wondered if it was held in the Astronomy tower. "Errr… I don't think that's how this works, Hermione. You don't ask the professor, you just don't show up."

"That would be incredibly rude to the professor."

He struggled to keep up. "Well skiving off isn't usually the polite thing to do."

"Well pardon me if I'm not an expert in delinquency, but I think I'll try my way."

She veered right into a room and he was about to follow when all eyes fell on him. He self consciously took a step back. Padma Patil, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, Anthony Goldstein, Justin Finch-Fletchey… this was the class for smart people. People like Hermione. Not for folks like him who could only be in awe of their intellect. He pressed himself back against the wall and saw another figure marching down the hallway. Draco Malfoy smirked at him as he held his wand to change his badge to say POTTER STINKS.

"What are you doing here Potter? I thought you would be off getting your affairs in order before tomorrow."

"I am preparing for the first task. I don't need any advice from you."

"Oh, I've been preparing too. Made loads of new buttons. Working on getting the charms to switch over to 'Potter's Dead' once you keel over." His smirk turned to a nasty leer.

"You really stepped it in this time, seeking glory and fortune in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. You clearly don't know how deadly it is, and I can't wait to see it get the better of you."

Harry had the same line of thought as Draco for the past week, but he steadied himself. He was working on a retort when Hermione stepped out of the room. She ignored the ponce "Well that's all settled then Harry, let's go."

"Where do you think you're going, Mudblood? Have you forgotten you've got Arithmancy?"

Hermione granted Draco a cool expression. "Professor Vector thought that I was far enough ahead to not suffer too greatly by missing a single class. Unlike some of her pupils."

Malfoy's expression grew thunderous as Hermione grabbed Harry by the arm and led him away.

Harry whispered as they left. "Did she really say all that?"

Hermione smiled. "No, she just said that helping you prepare was more important than a single class. Now let's crack on."

Another hour of gruelling practice passed, and Harry was no closer to mastering the charm. Another failed attempt left Hermione holding her dictionary and looking once again disappointed at him. "You need to concentrate Harry."

"Can we try with something else?" He huffed. "I think it may just be extra difficult taking books away from you."

She glared at him. "This isn't the time for jokes, Harry. This is serious, you don't have a plan besides this and if you can't master this by tomorrow." Her breath hitched, as the reminder of what would happen to him settled over both of them. "Come on, let's try again."

"Fine, Accio dictionary." The dictionary vibrated momentarily, but did not leave Hermione's grasp. "Are you sure I've got the wand motion right? I'm not flicking when I need to be swishing? Or maybe I'm saying it wrong. It's not 'Ass-ee-oo' or 'Ah-ki-oo' is it?" He was getting irritated.

Hermione sighed. "Your verbalization and wand work is fine, but this charm is all about visualization and intent. You could probably say 'Daccio dictionary' and as long as you had the visualization and intent right it would work. Now try again."

He had heard this all before. He let out a breath and focused his eyes on the book in her hands. He had his wand at the ready when Hermione interrupted him. "Harry! Stop focusing on my dictionary, you need to concentrate on it."

Harry closed his eyes and reminded himself that Hermione was doing him a great favour and had even almost done something improper to help him. "Hermione, those are the same bloody things!"

"Language, Harry. You need to visualize it in your mind. You cannot lose focus on the object."

"You just said I shouldn't focus. Which is it?"

Hermione froze as if struck. Then took a few steps towards Harry, and he could see an idea forming in her mind. He wasn't entirely sure what was happening when she reached out and snatched his eyeglasses away from him. The world turned into a mass of poorly defined blobs, and he could see the Hermione blob dancing away from him. "Hey! I need those!"

"If you want them you can just summon them away from me." Blob Hermione spun away from him as he reached out for what hoped would be his glass.

"I can't see without them!"

"Merlin, I imagine not, what is your prescription, Harry? These appear to be a half an inch thick."

Anger built within his chest "If I can't see, I can't cast the charm!"

"That's what I've been trying to say, you don't need to see something to summon it!"

Harry's glasses were possibly the one item better than any others. Most waking moments of the day, they were situated comfortably on the arch of his nose, and every time he looked into a mirror he could see them resting on his face. He certainly wanted them back, if only so this childish game could end. He concentrated on those thoughts and brought his wand up and down. "Accio glasses"

The glasses flew with force from Hermione's hand to his, pulling her bodily into Harry as he tried to catch her from falling to the stones.

As he caught her, parts of Hermione squished into him.

Then parts of Harry decidedly didn't.

An instant later the two were standing straight up, several meters apart, backs to each other. Harry could feel his cheeks burning. He took several breaths as he tried to calm down. Seconds passed, and an awkward tension fell over the room. He peeked over his shoulder to see Hermione standing with her back to him, her hair a veritable cloud around her head. Somehow it seemed even bushier than normal. He quickly turned his head back towards the wall.

"Erm." He tried to say something, anything to get past this awkward moment, but his mouth suddenly felt both dry and hot and it seemed his words were ill-suited to such a climate.

"Yes, well…" Oh good, Hermione had something to say. He waited patiently for her to continue only to realize that her words seemed to be on holiday as well.

Time stopped meaning anything as Harry couldn't tell if a minute had passed or an hour but all he knew was he was trapped in this awkward prison and he needed to do something, anything to escape it. He saw Hermione's book bag and an idea popped into his head. It was a stupid idea, but it was the only one he had. He ran forward and scooped it up and dashed out of the classroom. "Catch me if you can!"

"Hey, what are you-" she followed behind him.

"Fair's fair, y'know. It's not nice playing keep away." He looped the bag over his head and took off down the hallways.

"Accio satchel"

Harry fell to the ground as the satchel yanked back on him and flew to Hermione, a box spilling out as it travelled. It popped open and scattered buttons in front of him.

"Oh!" Hermione was scooping up the mess as he got back to his knees. "What was the idea of that."

Harry didn't answer as he picked up one of the S.P.E.W. badges that Hermione had made. Suddenly he felt guilty at just how much he'd blown her off. She had put in so much work, and cared so much about this, and he had just ignored her whenever she tried to involve him but here she was missing classes when he needed her. He pinned the badge to his robes. "Harry?"

"What? They've got their ruddy badges, I reckon I can have one of my own."

She clearly wanted to say something as she put her bag back together. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I thought you said this was a silly cause."

"Well, maybe I did think that, but if the smartest person I know thinks it's worth looking into, maybe I should listen to her."

She ducked her head at the praise. "Thank you, Harry"

Author's Note:

Welcome to my new story, please leave a review if you have the energy to. If you found this because you are a follower from an old story I've got an update explaining things in my bio.

Special thanks to HHrPie from the HMS Harmony discord server for beta reading this.

Stay safe out there friends