This story is going to be a multi-chapter, though I'm trying to keep it from getting too out of control and long. It was written in response to a plot bunny from magenta131 on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum, which gave me the main idea and some suggestions for the story. The writing is my own, but Harry Potter is not mine, nor do my views correlate with JK Rowling's. Not beta'd, because I have literally no idea where people find beta writers.
There is no bashing in this story. Harry doesn't like Ron in the beginning, but he comes around. Dumbledore isn't perfect, but he's not bad either. I give pretty much everyone the benefit of the doubt (except the Dursleys and Voldemort).
Ships: Vague implications of canon feelings, but no real ships.
Warnings: Death, violence (equal to or less than canon levels), implied child abuse, loss of abilities, fanon ideas such as magical cores. If there's anything you want me to warn for, feel free to tell me, and if anything else comes up I'll warn at the beginning of the chapter.
Chapter 1: Where I Stand
"…is where I fall." – Twelfth Doctor, Doctor Who; and quite a few others
Harry was dreaming.
It was a cold, dark night, but that was okay. Harry had a phoenix. It perched on his shoulder as he wandered through the Dark Forest, searching for the First Task. Any second now, the task would begin, and Harry was going to miss it. He couldn't miss the First Task!
The phoenix turned towards Harry. Instead of beady black eyes, it had two beautiful blue stones. They fell, like tears, one after the other, new stones welling up in their places and then falling in a waterfall of precious blue rocks.
"Fawkes," Harry said. "Fawkes, you have to stop it." He was being buried, buried in the blue stones.
There was one way out. Only one way out.
Harry would have to dig.
In truth, Harry knew how completely ridiculous this was. How could digging save him? But he also knew that it would work here, now. It was all fine, because, because…
Harry was dreaming. He was deep in the darkness, dirt surrounding him on all four sides. His only source of illumination was a pinprick of starlight above him, filtering down into the hole below. Harry was still digging.
He wasn't quite sure where he had gotten the spade, but it was Aunt Petunia's. Harry hoped she wouldn't be mad at him.
He kept digging.
And then there was a shift. Harry was a being of glass. He could see himself from the outside, crystalline and sparkling in the starlight. And then Harry broke, exploding into a million pieces, tiny little shards of glass falling to the dark Earth as rain.
But before the fragments hit the ground, they flew back into place, reuniting to make Harry whole once again. Harry was scattered and together, at the same time, the same exact point in time…
No, the same exact point in Time. There was a difference. Harry wasn't sure what it was.
Before he could think on this further, though, the floor gave out.
Harry was falling.
He tumbled down, down through the darkness. It was endless, a thousand years spent plummeting into the void below.
Harry was falling…
…and then he wasn't.
There was a room, a room with six doors. No, a room with seven doors. One was carved into the floor. The walls were spun of starlight, which made no sense for a chamber beneath the earth. The ceiling formed a dome-like shape, but the top was removed and replaced with a shaft that led up to the surface.
Each door was a different color. Each door was designed a different way. And on each door was a different Roman numeral—I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and on the floor: VII.
Harry knew he was supposed to go through one. But which? Which door was he supposed to choose?
Above him, far, far, above him, Harry heard Fawkes let out a mournful cry.
Eventually, Harry shrugged. The beginning seemed like a fair enough place to start. With a deep breath that passed through his body like a whisper, Harry stepped forwards and placed his hand on the old wooden door marked with an 'I'.
He jerked downwards, and then he was falling once more. But this time, it felt different. This time, Harry wasn't exactly dreaming.
Harry was falling, and he could feel gravity pulling him down, down into the unknown. His new tunnel had a feeling to it, too—it wasn't numb like the tunnels of dreams normally are. He could smell (taste) the coppery tang of blood and the salt of tears, hear the screams of fear and whispers of mourning, feel triumph and sadness and overwhelming exhaustion.
And then he was standing in a small room, with wooden floors and a purple couch by a television.
"Harry!" Harry's head whipped around to see Hermione. She looked so much older—maybe her late teens or early twenties. Her eyes were all puffy, swollen. And her hair was matted, even more tangled than usual.
"It's Neville, isn't it?" The door opened, and Harry saw himself step into the room. He was also older, a stubble growing on his chin and his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. This Harry sounded resigned.
Hermione nodded, her chin trembling.
"Why is it!" The other Harry yelled, slamming the side of his fist against the wall. The plaster caved inwards a bit. "Why is it that no one can just think for a moment! He shouldn't have—he knew he couldn't—he—"
"Harry," Hermione said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "There was nothing you could have done. It was his decision."
"I shouldn't have—"
"It was his decision, Harry," Hermione said. She shook her head. "We all knew this would happen. Even he did. But he had to try."
"He should've had backup!" Harry said. "Someone should have been there! I should've been there!"
"You can't save everyone," Hermione said.
"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah. But it seems like I can't save anyone."
"Bellatrix Lestrange can't keep this up for much longer," Hermione whispered. "We'll be able to leave hiding soon."
"It's not just her, though," Harry said. "We were so stupid, thinking that just because Voldemort was gone the war was over!"
"We were seventeen. Eighteen, I suppose, for me. We were bound to be stupid. This isn't on us."
"But it's on us to fix it," Harry said.
"Yes," Hermione nodded. "I suppose it is. But barging in there isn't going to fix anything."
"She's not losing. She's winning. Every second, her supporters flock to her. It's—there's going to be nothing left, if we wait."
"We're not waiting," Hermione said. "We're helping from afar. Harry, if the Boy Who Lived died…she'd win! We can't let her win!"
"I should be out there, fighting!" Harry insisted.
"Harry, don't you think I want to be there too? Ron's out there, fighting for his life, in danger every day! The reports come once a week. My husband could be dead, and I wouldn't even know it! I'd love to be on the battlefield—I've got as much right to kill her as anyone. But there are other ways to fight."
The scene froze, just there, a single moment in time.
And then Harry was falling once more, down into the ground.
He landed in the chamber of doors, but it didn't end there. The one in the floor swung open, and he tumbled down into the abyss.
Only, it was as if Harry had fallen through the center of the Earth, because he could tell he was getting closer to the surface with every meter.
Down, down, down. (Up, up, up.)
Harry was dreaming.
Harry jerked awake. It was still dark out, and none of the other boys were awake. He jammed his glasses on his face and whispered a quick charm that informed him it was 3:22 in the morning. Groaning, Harry took his glasses off and rolled onto his side. It was Sunday, and he had been hoping to sleep in a bit. But it seemed that the ever-present dread of the Triwizard Tournament had even invaded his dreams.
What had that dream been, anyway? It had felt different than normal, especially near the end. More like what he had seen over the summer, with Voldemort and Wormtail plotting his murder. Harry raised a hand to his scar, but it didn't hurt at all.
Harry thought about what he'd seen. Himself and Hermione, but older. Bellatrix Lestrange—who was that, even? She'd killed Neville, and Ron was off fighting somewhere. Ron. Harry tried to ignore the wave of resentment that washed over him. Ron Weasley, his best friend, until he wasn't anymore.
Bellatrix Lestrange…Harry felt almost as if he'd heard that name somewhere before.
In his sleep, Neville turned over, muttering something about 'the knotgrass 's watching.'
"Hermione?" Harry asked at breakfast the next day. He dug a fork into his food, but didn't eat any. Harry wasn't particularly hungry. Whenever he saw Hermione, he found himself picturing her older, with swollen eyes and matted hair.
"Mmhm?" Hermione said, barely looking up from Hogwarts: A History.
"Have you…" Harry trailed off. Surely, he was overreacting—the dream couldn't possibly be important. It had felt real, yes, but that didn't have to mean anything.
"Have I what?" Hermione turned to face him, perhaps sensing that the matter was serious.
"Have you…" Before he could lose his nerve, Harry pushed onwards. "Have you ever heard of anyone named Bellatrix Lestrange?"
Hermione narrowed her eyes at her lunch. "Maybe. I could go to the library and—"
"It's fine," Harry said quickly.
"Lestrange?" Someone said. Harry looked to his right and saw Parvati Patil. "Wasn't she a Death Eater or something?"
"Yeah," Katie Bell agreed. She was sitting several seats down, next to Angelina Johnson, but had somehow heard the conversation. "I heard that she was You-Know-Who's right hand, well, woman."
"I-I h-have to go, er, er, write t-to my aunt," Neville stuttered, standing up and running away from the Great Hall. Predictably, he forgot his bookbag on the bench.
"Did you know what that was about?" Hermione asked Ron.
Ron shrugged. "I dunno. Good toast, though."
Harry snorted.
"Oh, what now?" Ron asked.
"Can you two just—" Hermione cut herself off, before shoving her book inside her own bag. "You know what? I'm going to the library." She marched off. Just then, the owl post swooped in, dropping letters down to the students below. Harry, as usual, got nothing. He finished off his food and prepared to leave.
Only, a remarkable amount of whispering seemed to have started up.
"Hey, Potter, going to go have a cry?" Malfoy shouted from the Slytherin table. Behind him, Crabbe and Goyle guffawed.
Harry stared at them in confusion. Malfoy was obviously making fun of him…but what…normally Malfoy's taunts made a bit more sense.
"Oh, I never knew," Lavender whispered to Parvati. "It's so…"
"Tragic!" Parvati wailed.
"Harry," Dean said seriously. "If you ever need someone to talk to…"
"Okay," Harry said, looking around. "What is this all about?"
"Your interview…" Kellah trailed off.
"My interview?" Harry asked.
"Rita Skeeter published a piece about the Triwizard Tournament," Fred said, sitting down next to Harry where Hermione had been.
"Push over," George said, squeezing in-between Harry's left and Dean. "She did a whole interview on you," George clarified.
"Reckon it's all rubbish, right?" Fred asked.
"I dunno what she said," Harry admitted.
"Hey, Angel!" Fred called.
Angelina giggled. "Yeah, Freak?"
Harry stared at them.
"My brutish brother was going to ask if he could borrow—" George began.
"—your copy of the Daily Prophet, as Mr. Un-Charming over here was saying." Fred interrupted.
"Sure thing, Gourd," Angelina passed Fred and George a copy of the Daily Prophet. Harry stared down at the front page, much of which was covered in a giant picture of himself. The headline was TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT NO MORE – BOY WHO LIVED COMPETES.
Harry, already having a bad feeling about this, began to read. Next to him, Fred muttered "never calling her Angel again."
The article seemed to be written solely about Harry; Fleur Delacour and Victor Krum's names had only been squeezed in at the bottom. Or, if Rita Skeeter was to be believed, the other two champions (Cedric was absent entirely) were Feur Elacou and Viktor Crumb.
And Rita Skeeter had turned every "er" into a long, sickly sentence. Apparently, Harry cried about his parents at night and thought that they were watching over him. As he stared at the article, a feeling of shame burned away at him, devouring Harry up from the inside. He wished Hermione was there or Ron was still his friend so that he could take his mind off this. But with both of them off the table, Harry could do nothing but stare at the article.
Ron thought Harry was happy about this? The tournament had taken away everything from Harry! It had ruined everything—three quarters of the school hated him, and the rest was celebrating him for something he never did.
Harry wished that he could just…that he could just not compete. That would show them! Actually, why couldn't he? Minors couldn't sign contracts, could they? Harry was pretty sure that was a rule, at least in the Muggle world.
Harry would ask Hermione about that later, after she no doubt finished researching Bellatrix Lestrange.
Ron, who seemed to have gotten the article from Seamus Finnigan, turned towards Harry angrily. "If you think Hermione—"
"You know what?" Harry said, standing up. "Rita Skeeter is full of it, Ron, and you know that! But if you're really so insecure that a crazy reporter makes you worried I'm dating Hermione—why do you even care?"
"So you are?" Ron asked.
"I'm not!" Harry insisted. "You can ask her if you want, but I'm leaving." He grabbed his bookbag and stormed out of the Great Hall.
"Hey, Hermione!" Harry called, hurrying up ahead. The corridors were jam-packed with students rushing to their next class.
Hermione turned around. "Oh, hello, Harry."
A Slytherin fifth-year pushed past Harry, sneering as he jostled him. "Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?"
"I don't even have Transfiguration next!" Harry yelled back.
"Just ignore them," Hermione hissed.
Easy for you to say, Harry thought, before stuffing that thought down as far as it would go. "Did you find anything about Lestrange?"
Hermione shook her head. "I got a bit distracted." When she didn't elaborate, Harry looked at her questioningly. "Oh, it's nothing. I'll explain later."
Harry shrugged. "Er, so I was thinking about the tournament, and…" He looked around. The hallways were mostly empty by this point. Hermione's eyes widened.
"We have to get to class!" She said urgently.
"But—" Hermione was already winding the corner in her race to get to Charms. Harry sighed and hurried after her.
Harry sat at a table with Hermione in the Gryffindor Common Room. Her books were splayed out across the table, mainly reference sheets filled with formulas. He'd made the mistake of showing polite interest in them once and had received a lecture on trigonometric identities, whatever those were.
"So, what was it you wanted to ask about earlier?" Hermione asked, barely looking up from her parchment.
"The Triwizard Tournament," Harry said. "Professor Dumbledore said I entered a magically binding contract. But…I didn't put my name in."
Hermione sighed. "That's not how it works in the Wizarding World, Harry. Class A magic items work according to Ravenclaw's Fifth Law of Magical Identification, so your identification has been impressed on your magical core and is uniquely tied to your identity, hence creating an unbreakable bond." At Harry's confused stare, she sighed. "Your name is basically…a key to your magic. Someone gave the Goblet of Fire the key, and it chose it. It bound your magic to the contract. Whether you're the one who wrote the name down and put it in or not doesn't matter."
"Someone should've put Malfoy's name in there, see how he likes the idea of facing an unknown horror," Harry joked, half-serious. He pictured Malfoy storming away from the feast with a 'my father will hear about this!'
"Well, the system is absurd," Hermione agreed. "I wouldn't be surprised if at least one other underage student ended up in the Goblet of Fire but wasn't selected. If an older student entered them…the real question is how whoever put your name in the Goblet got you to be chosen. In addition to Cedric Diggory, that is.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Harry grumbled.
"You know what I meant! You're fourteen; you got selected not as a Hogwarts champion but something else. You weren't in competition with any seventeen-year-olds. But—"
"Professor Moody said something about that," Harry remembered. "He said someone would've needed to Con—confusious?"
"Confundous?"
"That. Someone would've needed to Confundous Charm the Goblet into thinking there was another school."
Hermione considered this. "I think that's possible. But, Harry—"
"That wasn't what I was wondering about," Harry said. "I'm in a magically binding contract, right?" Hermione nodded. "What happens if I just don't compete? I'm not of age; would I get—"
"Age doesn't matter," Hermione said. "Well…theoretically, I suppose, depending on the procedures…" She trailed off. "It's irrelevant, anyway, because the Triwizard Tournament began in the thirteenth century, when the legal age of majority for Wizarding Europe was thirteen years old."
"So, we'd be adults back then?" Harry questioned.
"Unfortunately, yes. Your magic is bound to the Goblet, and the Goblet bound you to the tournament. You can't get out of this, Harry." She looked down at her parchment before scribbling out several lines of equations. "Oh, no, I forgot the c! I can't believe it."
Harry resisted the urge to snicker. She seemed less worried about the fact that she'd have to redo some of her work, and more worried that she had managed to make an error. "What if…" He trailed off, face becoming more serious. "What would happen if I didn't show up for the First Task? Would I be disqualified or something?"
Hermione looked up. "Sorry, could you repeat that?"
"Er, yeah, sure," Harry said, feeling silly. "What would happen if I didn't show up for the first task?"
Hermione crossed out another equation, nearly tearing a whole in the parchment. "If u prime equals—oh, er, yes." She considered Harry's question, tapping the end of the quill against the table as she thought. This continued for several seconds, until Harry became worried that her mind had somehow gotten stolen away by her Arithmancy homework again. "I don't know, actually. I'll add it to my list of research topics."
"But what do you think will happen?"
Hermione shook her head. "I don't know. The effects of tying something to your magical core…could be catastrophic. But I doubt they'd allow students to participate in something that could lead to the practical application of…no, because then the ghosts…I have to do some more research."
"Er, thanks," Harry said. Hermione nodded absentmindedly, caught up in her homework once more.
Harry stood on a mountaintop, wind rustling through his hair. It was cold, colder than the long-past freezing nights in his cupboard. He shivered.
It was night out, and the stars twinkled in the sky. But instead of benevolent, they seemed to almost be mocking him. Blue eyes that shone like the stars bore into the back of Harry's head and he spun around, but no one was there.
"Hello?" Harry called, looking around. He didn't know where he was, or how he had gotten there, but he had a vague suspicion that he was dreaming. "Hello? Is anyone—is anyone there?"
The ground shook, and Harry struggled to keep his balance. Suddenly, the mountain began to crumble beneath him.
The urge to step forwards filled him. With a deep breath, Harry stepped out into thin air.
But he didn't fall. Instead, a room appeared around him, with starlight walls and a circle of light on the domed ceiling. A glowing red line burned around his feet, forming a circle. In the center was the Roman numeral "VII." After a few seconds, the circle cooled to a dark green color, almost black.
The six doors appeared around him, each different and oddly shaped.
Harry frowned. His memory took him back to the doors in the center of the Earth, the dream he had had—what was it, two days before?
This again. Why was Harry having the same dream?
Harry surveyed the other circles and then stepped onto the one marked III. It was a grey—not quite dull, but not shining silver either. Without warning, the invisible floor beneath Harry gave way, and he tumbled. The stars disappeared, leaving Harry falling through the darkness, alone.
Again, he felt a flurry of sensations. Lukewarm coffee, the smell of library books, salty tears, red spreading through the fibers of paper, hope.
And then he landed in a…a library? It wasn't Hogwarts's library, certainly. No, the floors were carpeted, three computers rested on long plastic table, and the books had bright-colored covers rather than leather-bound ones.
"What is it, Jean?" Harry spun around to see Hermione speaking with a teenaged girl. Both were wearing nametags—Hermione's said Jean Wilkins and the other girl's read Amelia Knock.
"Oh, nothing," Hermione—Jean?—said, placing a book on the shelf. Harry stepped closer to read its cover, but it was placed before he could tell. "It's just…" Harry followed her gaze to see several children, no older than twelve, playing games of chess at another plastic table. "Chess night."
"They're adorable, aren't they?" Knock agreed, leaning against a shelf.
"Always makes me so sad," Jean said. "Reminds me of someone."
"Well, maybe you used to play chess a lot before…you know."
"Maybe," Jean said. Suddenly, there was a screech as one of the children jumped up and pointed towards the window.
"Oh my gosh," Knock whispered. "Look!"
Outside, the sky had turned dark. But the streets were lit with beams of bright red light. Bright green light.
"I—" Jean began, just as the windows exploded in a storm of glass shards.
Harry woke up, the screams still filling his ears.