A/N - As always, HJP & Co are property of JKR, and as always this will be very AU, with any bits I fancy stolen from canon. This idea came to me and won't go away! Weasley fans won't like this one - although there may be redemption somewhere along the way!
I originally started posting this back in April '21, but not going to lie, I wasn't in a good place then, my mother had just passed away, and some of the comments part of the story generated really pissed me off to the point where I decided that it wasn't worth the hassle. Petulant and very much "it's my ball and I'm going home", I fully accept, but hey, I never claimed to be perfect. To be clear - I've no issues with criticism, as long as it's constructive. People getting pissy and personal because my story isn't going the way they think it should isn't constructive. Anyway, I've had some time away, reworked bits of it, and am working on some new ideas to add to it, so figured why not. If people like it, great, if not, I hope you find something else that's more to your taste.
So, here we go with the resurrection of…
Chapter 1 - The Boy Who Died
Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry stood in front of the staff table at the head of the great hall. All students of the school were assembled, alongside their counterparts from two schools in Europe - Beauxbaton in France and the dark and mysterious Durmstrang, located, well, somewhere. Durmstrang was unplottable so whilst there were rumours abound, only those who went there knew exactly where it was, and they weren't saying.
In front of the aged head, was the Goblet of Fire. Pressed into service to select participants for the resurrected Tri-Wizard tournament, designed to pit the best students from the three schools against each other. To the winner the spoils of 1000 Galleons and the promise of eternal glory. The former was set in stone, the latter was much more ethereal. If pushed, less than 1% of the assembled throng could name any previous champions.
Eyes throughout the room were fixed on the magical artefact as the flames changed from blue to bright red and a slip of parchment, smouldering at the edges, was fired out and fluttered through the air.
"The champion for Beauxbaton is Fleur Delacour."
A cheer with a distinctly Gallic hue rose, accompanied by slightly more muted cheering from the Ravenclaw table to which the French visitors had attached themselves. The Old wizard paused as a staggeringly beautiful blonde stood from the aforementioned table and made her way to the top of the room. With a nod and a smile, Dumbledore motioned for the newly selected Beauxbatons champion to take a position to his left.
The flames once again flashed red, and the second parchment piece flew into the elderly hands of Dumbledore. "The champion for Durmstrang is Viktor Krum"
A scowling Bulgarian stood from the Slytherin table and like his French counterpart approached the headmaster. The snakes in green and white cheered for their adopted friend, as did the rest of the Durmstrang contingent. There was a smattering of polite applause from elsewhere, along with one lone cheer from the Gryffindor table. Krum was directed to take a place to Dumbledore's right as the two chosen champions along with the rest of the hall waited for the goblet to flash red for the final time.
"The champion for Hogwarts is Cedric Diggory"
Hufflepuff erupted in cheers as their chosen champion also approached the headmaster, nodding at his fellow champions as he passed. The headmaster returned the nod and directed Diggory to the left of Miss Delacour. The headmaster then turned to address the hall, his eyes flickering one last time to the goblet. He raised his hands in a motion to indicate silence before doing a classic double-take at the goblet. With its task now complete the magical flames spewing from the inside should have died away, but they burned as brightly as they had at the start, before turning red for a fourth time. The gasps from around the hall were clearly audible as an unexpected fourth piece of parchment flew out and fluttered back down to be caught by the headmaster. No amount of experience in life or magic could stop the venerable and venerated wizard's eyebrows from shooting up as he read the two words on this final piece of paper. Before he said anything he cast his eyes back to the goblet and saw that it had finally been extinguished. With no thoughts of what else he could do, he spoke a fourth time.
"Harry Potter."
This time there was chaos throughout the great hall. People were shouting everywhere, asking how it was possible that the name of someone long thought of as dead could come out of the goblet. Dumbledore himself was not encumbered by such thoughts, he had long known that Harry Potter lived, but since the boy had vanished, along with his parents on Halloween 1981, no one had seen hide nor hair of him. The aged wizard had, not long after the Potter child had been born, surreptitiously acquired a small amount of his blood to fashion a powerful, complex and unbelievably illegal charm which was imbued into the crystal of a Sanguinem Thaumadam, an ancient and banned device which was tied to the blood of an individual. Whilst the crystal stayed red, the person whose blood it held yet lived, it would turn black if the person, or at least the magic in the person, died. It was all very Quantum, not that Dumbledore knew anything about that. Sadly what the ST couldn't do, was track where the person was. All it did was use the link the magic in the blood had with the magic in the blood of the person. It was highly esoteric and generally considered to be dark. There were rumours that a tracking charm could also be applied to it to allow the person whose blood was used to be located, but Dumbledore had never found a way to make it work. He had tried scrying, had delved into magic which was at best grey, but found nothing. He had considered going down the very dark route, but had somehow stopped himself.
Igor Karkaroff and Olympe Maxime the heads of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons approached, anger clear on their faces. As he looked around the room he cast a silent charm which allowed for privacy as Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Alastor 'Mad Eye' Moody and Ludo Bagman all approached.
"What ees the meaning of thees, Dumblydorr" screeched the half-giantess. Karkaroff wasn't far behind.
"This is outrage" he growled in his thick Kurgan accent. "Zer can be only three champion! Is Tri Wizard for reason!"
McGonagall was too shocked to say anything. Like most of the wizarding world, she believed all three Potters to be dead, something she had mourned every Halloween since. James and Lily Potter (nee Evans) had both been Gryffindors in the 70s, had ascended to be Head Boy and Girl before marrying almost straight after graduation. As much as the head of Gryffindor didn't have favourites, James and Lily were very much amongst the favourites she would never admit to.
Her sallow colleague, on the other hand, was unencumbered by such reticence to make his thoughts clear. "There is nothing that would surprise me of James fucking Potter" he growled. Severus Snape had established a quick, deep and permanent enmity with Potter, fuelled by two driving factors. The first was because Potter was a bully and Snape was often victim to his bullying dressed in the shape of 'pranking'. The second was because by the time James had realised how much of an arsehole he had been and tried to clean up his act, he had fallen in love with Lily Evans, as had Snape. He had tried to apologise to Snape, but a combination of 6 years of resentment coupled with the knowledge that Lily had reciprocated James' interest meant that not only had Snape refused the apology, he had used the attempt to further harden his heart and proceed down the path of darkness he was already traversing. "I would not be surprised if the bastard somehow had a hand in this."
Bagman by now had also recovered the power of speech. "There is no way the goblet could have been interfered with. It's normal residence is in the Department of Mysteries, it's been there for decades, if not centuries, the unspeakables have guarded it, you saw yourselves that there was an unspeakable and an auror when it was delivered to the school."
Dumbledore had kept quiet, his mind going thirteen to the dozen. Only he knew for sure that Harry Potter was alive, although there were persistent rumours. That fateful Halloween when the self-styled Lord Voldemort attacked the Potters at Godric's Hollow, no one really knew for sure what had happened. By the time anyone made it to the house it was a smoking ruin. There were bodies on the floor but they were severely disfigured. What was clear that two were male and one was female. Oddly, the only clearly recognisable body was missing a wand, and there was no sign of the fourth person who would have been expected to be in the house, the infant Harry.
Dumbledore had dispatched Hagrid along with a couple of members of the Order of the Phoenix to Godric's Hollow as soon as his dark magic detectors had flagged that an unforgivable had been used. The half-giant had soon returned with his findings - three bodies, no toddler. At that Dumbleore had been forced himself to visit the scene of the crime, which by then saw the village crawling with aurors and ministry personnel. Dumbledore had never been convinced that the bodies he saw were those of James and Lily, but couldn't make any tests whilst there were so many people around. He was, however, sure that the third body, a desiccated husk, was that of Tom Marvolo Riddle - Lord Voldemort. He was also sure that the fact that the body was very much dead didn't mean the end of the darkest wizard since Gargamel.
Still, necessity being the mother of invention, Dumbledore had quickly moved to suggest that rapid funerals were held for the two supposed Potters, with a suggestion that Voldemort must have used arcane dark magic to fully banish young Harry before a frenetic battle ensued which saw the death of all combatants. His reasoning was sound - Voldemort would have wanted to torture the Potters as much as he could both physically and mentally. What better way to break them completely than by murdering their son before their eyes.
That then became the accepted story. Young Harry, along with his parents, had become martyrs. Dumbledore had wasted no time in creating a whole narrative which had absolutely no basis in fact, but fit the evidence as well as anything. Harry Potter had somehow managed to weaken the most powerful dark wizard of the age sufficiently that his parents were then able to defeat him, but at the most terrible of costs. Harry Potter had therefore become known as The Boy Who Died, his memory along with that of his parents, revered.
Snape's views however were somewhat unexpectedly being mirrored along at the Gryffindor table. Despite the Potters being two of the most famous Gryffindors outside of the founder Godric and Dumbledore himself, there was one dissenting voice.
"My dad always said that those Potters were trouble" said the voice, its owner clearly holding court amongst the majority of the fourth year lions. "When mum was pregnant with Ginny there was talk of a contract between the families, dad said the Potters strung him along and then backed out and ran off."
"What kind of contract? What on earth could any contract involving someone who at that point hadn't even been born?" interjected another voice. This was feminine, inquisitive laced with a touch of scorn.
"Why do you care, know-it-all" retorted the first voice. "It's a magical culture thing, you wouldn't understand."
The second voice piped back up, a light of understanding had been shone upon the speaker and the scorn had increased. "I think I do understand, and I can't believe that anyone would try and pair off an unborn baby with another child who was not even out of nappies!"
"Shut it. Betrothals are perfectly natural, they just show an alliance between families. They aren't set in stone, the heads of each house could revoke them at any time."
"But the children involved can't! That… that…. That is bordering on the barbaric!"
"Listen Granger, no one cares about your opinions, so just stick your rabbit teeth back in a book. Muggles might be a hobby of my dad's but no one else gives a shit about what you think. This is the magical world, if you don't like it, fuck off."
"That's enough Ron." The third voice was quiet, almost timid but firm. "There's enough going on tonight without you and Hermione getting into another one of your screaming matches." Neville Longbottom was not one for confrontation but he was getting rapidly bored of the brash redhead's attitude.
"Well, what do you expect, shes a fucking nightmare."
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger did not get on. A running joke in Gryffindor was that it would take a troll attack to ever force them to voluntarily work together. Ever since first year they grated against each other starting from an otherwise innocuous charms class where the latter had tried to help the former Unfortunately, Hermione was not the most social of people, she had always found making friends difficult and was somewhat socially awkward as a result with a bossy streak that she wasn't sure she could control even if she wanted to. Ron, having grown up the second youngest of seven children (and the youngest boy) was already finding that his elder brothers had cast a long set of shadows and that there was a weight of expectation upon him to follow in their achievements. His eldest brother, Bill, was head boy in his final year and had become a renowned curse breaker for Gringotts bank, his second oldest was a quidditch star at school and now a dragon wrangler. The third of his brothers had followed Bill in becoming head boy and the twins, both in 6th year were determined to open a joke shop so had a plan in place they were working toward. Ron however had no such plans. His loves were quidditch, chess, eating and more quidditch. He had tried out for the Gryffindor team in third year but didn't make the cut, as he had expected were he to be honest, but had at least got his interest out and had been allowed to join in during open training sessions to help out. He was fully intending to try again this year, so the earlier announcement that quidditch had been cancelled for the year had set him off on a foul mood which was part of the reason for his blow-up at Hermione - not that he really needed one. The bushy-haired bucktoothed know-it-all really wound him up.
For her part, Hermione was well aware of her failings, thank you very much. She knew she was bossy, she was ambitious, driven by learning and utterly determined to prove that her status as a muggleborn witch didn't mean she was inferior to anyone else. She wasn't entirely friendless, she had a cordial relationship with the Patil sisters, Parvati the Gryffindor and Padma the Ravenclaw, she got along well with Susan Bones from Hufflepuff and after having to gently rebuff Neville, who had admitted to developing something of a crush on her in third year, the two of them had become something approaching friends. Her relationship with the rest of the Gryffindor lions was more strained. Hermione often thought she was much better suited to Ravenclaw and repeatedly found herself wondering just how on earth the sorting hat could have possibly put her in the house of the brave, rather than the house of the nerds as they were often unfairly (in her opinion) called.
Back at the head table, conversations were still going on between the adults.
"We must proceed" said Dumbledore. "We have the three champions waiting, it would not do to allow this unexpected circumstance to delay the remainder of the evening."
"But what we do about zis Potter thing?" Maxime asked. "Do we know what ze consequences are of ze goblet speeting out a name if zat name is dead? Zer can be no contract wiz a dead man, non?"
McGonagall had spent the time thinking and something the Frenchwoman said stuck at the back of her mind. The goblet couldn't make a magical contract with a dead man. The goblet therefore couldn't spit out the name of a dead person, no matter how that name somehow had managed to get in there. She looked over at the headmaster to see him deep in thought.
"Nonetheless, Madame, regardless of a fourth name coming out, we must continue. As you said, there is no fourth participant in the castle, it is quite impossible that Harry Potter entered his own name, so regardless of anything else, we should continue."
"Quite. I have gone 13 years without hearing that damnable name, I would prefer for that state of affairs to continue." Snape still wasn't happy, but was never one to let that mere fact stop him from making his opinion heard.
"Agreed. Is nothing to do with this Potter, dead men play no games" agreed Karkaroff.
Dumbledore summoned the three champions. "Now, we have discussed things and have decided that the tournament will continue as normal, however I must ask two questions of each of you. First, did you enter your names of your own free will, fully accepting that should you be drawn you would be entered into a magical contract and secondly, did you enter any name other than your own at the same time?"
"Yes to the first, no to the second." Diggory was the first to answer.
"Oui et non" said Fleur, lapsing back into her native French.
"da i ne." Krum figured if the glamorous French girl was going to speak her native tongue, he would too.
Dumbledore nodded. "Then I would ask you to retire to the room off to my right there, Professor McGonagall will show you the way." With that the deputy headmistress led off the three champions to the briefing room where they would shortly receive their first instructions.
"What do we tell students?" asked Karkaroff. "We ignore Potter thing?"
"I think that would be for the best, at least initially" agreed Dumbledore. "I shall make passing reference to it,but focus on the three champions."
"Zat is probably wise Dumblydorr" agreed Maxime.
"It would be a bludger to the stones if he was to turn up though, eh!" chuckled Bagman, seeing the look of revulsion which passed over Snape's face at the thought. Karkaroff laughed,Maxime looked at him with a small measure of disgust. "Erm, yes, well, little joke to lighten the mood and all that…"
"Maybe you theenk eet is acceptable to joke about ze dead, I do not". Maxime's accent got thicker as the tension and ire found its way into her voice. Bagman had the good grace to at least look somewhat abashed.
"Well, inopportune humour aside, I think we should agree what our policy regarding this should be. We must maintain a united front" said Dumbledore, trying to get the discussion back on track. "Severus, can you ask Professor Flitwick to join us?" As Snape went to find the professor Dumbledore explained why he had asked for him. "As you know, Filius is a charms master, I thought it prudent to consult with him to determine if there is likely to be any impact on the other students resulting from the unexpected fourth name."
At that the diminutive professor entered the privacy bubble. When Dumbledore asked his question, Flitwick thought for a moment and ran various scenarios through his mind. "As long as none of the other competitors entered the fourth name, they have nothing to worry about. One person entering two names could cause a magical dichotomy, it's been a long time since that happened, and the results of that were spectacular. Devastating, but spectacular, if the reports are to be believed anyway. I would have to look through some very niche books to work out what might happen."
"If zis Potter did not enter name, someone else did, da?" Karkaroff mused.
Flitwick nodded. "A reasonable assumption, why?"
"If someone enter name, and Potter not compete, what happens to person who enter name?"
"A very good question, it would depend on the charms and jinxes which the goblet is imbued with. The thing is, despite how old it is, no one really knows what the charms are. The history of the Tri Wizard Tournament only has two instances of someone entering their name and then not being at the starting to compete in the first task. In 1597 there was a witch called Margaret Aitken who entered the tournament but for reasons lost to time, did not compete in the first task. What happened to her thereafter is well known however, it seems that her magic was stripped from her and she was cursed, the exact curse used is unknown, but she was banished from Hogwarts back to the small village on the east coast of Scotland she came from, almost as soon as she landed there she was arrested, ironically on charges of witchcraft, and was burned at the stake. It is believed that the curse was responsible, but not known for sure. In 1770 a wizard called Thomas Chatterton entered but when he found out that the first task was to subdue a cockatrice, he lost his nerve and ran away. On the morning the first task was due he was found dead in his home. It was suggested that it was suicide, others believe there was a larger, more nefarious power at play to cause his death."
"Da, but both of those entered own name, da?"
"Yes, as far as I know there has never been a proxy entry, so there's nothing to go on with that regard." Flitwick looked at the headmaster. "Unless you know something I don't? I've never had the opportunity to examine the charms on the goblet, I presume you haven't either?"
"Indeed I have not. I do not know exactly how the goblet will detect a magical signature, or make the magical connection between the name drawn and the person so named."
Flitwick thought a bit longer. "Magic is all about intent. Whoever entered the fourth name surely intended that the name Harry Potter be spat out. It's possible then that the magic would recognise that the intent was for Harry Potter to compete and thus compel the name on the parchment by way of the magical contract, although how that works with someone who is dead, I have no idea."
"Thank you professor" said Dumbledore. "At least we can have no fear that there will be any adverse impact on the champions who are no doubt waiting for us. Shall we make our announcement and then send the students back to their common rooms?"
The other two heads and the Ministry man nodded their agreement.
With a wave of his wand, Dumbledore cancelled the privacy charm. Casting a sonorous charm upon himself, he addressed the hall. "SILENCE PLEASE" he roared. "Thank you. I am sure you are all discussing the events of the evening, needless to say they will be investigated, but regardless, we have our champions who are anxiously awaiting their initial instructions for the first task. Now, I would ask that the Hogwarts students return to their respective common rooms and dormitories, the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students will return to their respective accommodations. Details regarding the date and time of the first task shall be announced after the champions have been informed, so look to the notice boards tomorrow. Thank you for your participation in what was surely an exciting evening!"
"What about Harry Potter?" a voice rang out from the assembled masses. Before Dumbledore could respond there was a crash from the main doors at the end of the great hall. Every pair of eyes in the room swivelled en-masse to the source of the noise to see that the doors had been swung open, the sound was them hitting the wall, such was the force of their opening.
Standing in the doorway were three figures, a tall slender boy in the middle was flanked by an even taller man and a woman who was half a head shorter than him. The boy scanned the room and then focussed his eyes on Dumbledore before speaking for the first time.
"Did somebody say my name?"