02
A select few…
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Harry had somewhat expected it when he entered the common room and saw the Gryffindors drop everything that they were doing and look at him in complete silence. He recognized the look on their faces as he mentally scoffed.
'Of course they think I'm lying,' he thought. It wasn't the first time for Harry. The same thing had happened in his second year when everyone had accused him of being the Slytherin heir when he'd accidentally spoken in parseltongue in front of the entire school. Lucky for him over three years of living with these people had made Harry quite good at ignoring them and their thoughts on him.
But what had hurt Harry was seeing Hermione in that crowd. While she didn't share their looks and instead appeared confused and struggling over her stand but the mere fact that despite being his friend for the last three years she wasn't standing by his side had really hurt him. He knew Ron was a jealous git but when Hermione wasn't on his side Harry knew that it was perhaps time to maybe change his friends.
She was one of the most sensible people Harry had ever met. Her ability to look for reason in everything is what made her an important friend of his. So the fact that despite her sensible nature she had chosen to not stand on his side had shocked him.
Nothing else mattered to him. When his own friends weren't standing by his side at a time like this then Harry didn't need to think about anything else at all. He simply ignored the Gryffindor bunch and headed for his dorm. Walking inside he had expected it to be empty seeing that almost all the students were in the common room (obviously waiting for him) but it was not. In the corner of the dorm room sat Neville reading what seemed to be a book on some plants.
Neville saw Harry walk in and stood up immediately as he closed his book. "Oh, Harry I didn't notice you come in," he said sounding a little surprised but that was Neville.
Harry didn't hear any malice or anger or any such tone in Neville's voice as he looked at the boy standing there in the dimly lit room. The boy had changed a lot since last year. He was no longer fat or had the round face. Instead, Neville had grown up to be one of the tallest students in their year but despite the physical change in his appearance the boy still hadn't lost his nervousness.
"Are…you okay?" Neville asked in his usual tone of nervousness when Harry realized that he had just been standing there looking at him. He closed his eyes and sighed.
"Sorry," Harry said. "I just…have a lot going on right now."
"It's alright," Neville said. "It's understandable from where you are coming. If you want to stay alone I can leave the room."
Harry looked at him with mild surprise. 'Did he really just offer to leave me alone?' he thought. "It's…It's alright," Harry said. "You don't have to." Neville nodded before going back to reading his book. Harry stood there looking at the boy. Ever since entering the room Neville hadn't judged him once. He didn't look at him the way other Gryffindors did which made Harry wonder what Neville thought about the whole situation and before he could think about it he had already asked Neville that question.
"Do you think that I put my name in the goblet?" he asked rather louder than he should have because Harry was very nervous at that moment. He saw Neville look at him for a moment before the boy spoke.
"No, I don't," he said.
"Why not?" Harry asked. "Everyone else seems to think that way."
Neville pressed his lips together as he seemed to be thinking. "Well, if you say that you didn't do it then you didn't do it," he said.
Harry however, wasn't satisfied with the reply. "You are saying that just to make me feel a bit better, don't you?"
"I'm not," Neville said.
"Then why don't you tell me why you really think that?" Harry asked with his tone a bit angry now.
Neville seemed to have caught it as he once again paused for a minute or so trying to think on what he should reply Harry with. He then sighed and looked at Harry with a serious look on his face. It was a surprise to see that look on Neville as the boy almost always looked either nervous, scared or on the verge of crying.
"Because no one in their right mind would put their name in it," Neville said. "At least if they are given the opportunity, that is. If there wasn't a rule that stopped under-aged students from putting their name into the goblet then maybe I, too would've believed that you had put your name in it but seeing that that's not the case I think that you didn't do it because to me you don't appear to be the type who would knowingly put yourself in danger for no reason."
Harry stood there looking at the boy. His words made sense and he seemed more believable this time, not that Harry didn't believe Neville earlier. He had barely talked to the boy in the last three years. Neville was always by himself. In the great hall he would sit alone at the end of the table. The same was during classes. Neville sat at the back by himself and with no partner. Other than when professors made students team up with each other Harry had never seen Neville with anyone else. In simple words the boy just didn't exist in the eyes of others and now that he thought about it Harry felt a little jealous. Neville's life was exactly the opposite of his. But at the moment what mattered to Harry more than anything was that Neville hadn't judged him for what had happened in the great hall.
'The boy that I barely ever talked to seems more trustworthy than those that I've been friends for three years,' Harry thought before smiling slightly. "Thanks," he said slowly, "for not calling me a liar or an attention seeker."
Neville said nothing but nodded, looking a little confused. It seemed he didn't know how else he could respond to Harry's words. He then saw Harry walk up to his bed and pull down the curtains. It was obvious that he was tired, especially after what had went down so Neville said nothing. He just cast a privacy charm around his own bed just in case he made any noise what would wake Harry up before he went back to reading his book.
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Harry woke up drenched in sweat and his heart racing. His throat was dry as he sat up looking around in panic before realizing that he was in his dorm, on his bed. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself down. Another nightmare. He had been having them since the start of his summer holidays. He hadn't told anyone about it, even more so because he didn't want them to worry about him after the death eaters' scare that took place during the finale of the Quidditch world cup. And now that he was being branded as an attention seeker over what went down yesterday night, Harry wondered if others would care about his nightmare.
He wiped his face before looking at the time. It was half-past ten so he was definitely late and had already missed breakfast and the charms class. Not that he cared though. Right now he wanted to stay away from people as much as he could and skipping classes for the day sounded like a really good plan. Since he was a champion now, he could skip his classes as per the rules of the tournament which applied to him. For the champions to be able to prepare themselves for the tasks they were permitted to skip classes and work on their skills. At least something good had come out of this, he thought as he slowly got off his bed and walked into the bathroom.
He came out after a few minutes when his stomach growled from hunger. Knowing breakfast was long over Harry headed for the kitchen. He didn't even bother to wear his uniform because he wasn't attending any classes that day and so he was in his oversized tee-shirt and pants walking down the corridor.
As soon as he walked into the kitchen the house elves all looked at him and welcomed him excitedly. After getting his freedom from the Malfoy family Dobby had started to work at Hogwarts and had told the other house elves about Harry. This had made Harry a hero for them and to Harry meeting them was just like meeting hundreds of Dobbys. As the elves came and gathered around him, Harry looked for Dobby who seemed to be not there at the moment. Perhaps he was busy somewhere else so Harry decide not to bother him.
"What would the great Harry Potter like to eat?" asked one of the house elves.
Harry had told them again and again to not refer to him as 'great' or any such titles but the elves didn't listen to him. Eventually he had given up as they clearly liked to address him with some form honor or the other.
"Just the breakfast, please," Harry said politely. The elves nodded and in seconds he had the food appear in front of him along with his favorite desert – the treacle tart which was surprising considering that it wasn't on the menu that day. Harry however, didn't care. Instead, with everything going on in his life recently he welcomed it. It was a nice positive change after everything that had happened last night. He knew that the elves cooked him his favorite desert because they liked him and he even thought of asking them to cook it for him every day but then decided against it. It would be like he was exploiting their trust and devotion for him.
'Trust,' Harry scoffed as he thought of that word before he began to devour the food. He didn't realize how hungry he was until after he had cleaned the plate. He sat there thinking what he could do today. He had all of his assignments complete. He was even ahead in some of the courses thanks to Hermione's insistence so he could ease around a bit. He decided to pay a visit to Hagrid but then realized that it was raining outside. Also, Hagrid probably had a class to teach at that time so he didn't want to bother his giant friend.
That left him with nothing as Harry wondered how he could spend the day. As he headed for the Gryffindor tower he noticed some people enter into one of the empty classrooms on the corridor he was at. He peeked in and saw the goblet of fire was kept in the room. There were also Maxime, Karkaroff and Moody along with the two strangers who Harry had seen a second ago. They were looking at the goblet and talking to each other. Harry couldn't seem to hear them but he guessed that the two people were probably the investigators that Maxime and Igor had talked about bringing in last night to look into the whole matter.
It made Harry wonder that he didn't really know anything about this tri wizard tournament. With nothing else to do and no classes to attend to he decided to head for the library and look up anything he could on this tournament. If he was going to be in it he might as well know about it as much as possible.
He walked into the library which was mostly empty with almost all the students attending their classes. There were a few students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and finding an almost empty library they had occupied all the free tables they could find and fill them up with books. Harry wondered if they were doing it just to piss the Hogwarts students or Madame Pince, the librarian. He looked at her desk and found her unbothered by whatever was going on and he wasn't surprised. He walked over to her desk and grabbed the index book which was used to look for the location for books in the library.
Harry found its working pretty impressive. If one didn't know where to look for a particular book in the library all they had to do was write its name or description in the index and it would tell them the location of that book if the library had them. So Harry wrote 'books on the Tri Wizard Tournament' because he didn't know any specific book on the topic and found three locations – one for each book.
He gathered them all up and found that they were very old and very thick – like seven to eight inches thick with thousands of pages in them. Luckily, only one of those books was completely on the tournament while the other two only discussed it in one or two chapters.
Now that he had his books he started looking for an empty table and found none so he went to the corner section of the library. It was the place Hermione had told him about where she would sit whenever she was in the library by herself. It had a single, worn-out table with less lighting and wasn't where one would normally sit to read or study. The spot was also surrounded by book shelves and it was also somewhat secluded from the rest of the place and gave privacy to whoever was sitting there which is probably why it was Hermione's favorite spot.
So Harry headed for the place but was surprised and somewhat disappointed to find that someone was already sitting there. He had no idea why someone else would use the place. With dim lighting and the smell of old books, it wasn't someone's ideal place for studying or reading in general. Only Hermione liked a place like this.
Harry looked at the girl. She was wearing the Slytherin uniform and was in his year so he recognized her. Her name was Daphne Greengrass and she was Draco's friend. Harry knew that because he had seen her hang out with Malfoy's group which consisted of all the Slytherins of their year. Harry often regarded it as a type of cult with Draco being their leader and that all the Slytherins in their year had to be in his little group.
She saw him standing there looking at her as she raised a brow. He didn't know why but he expected her to lash out at him because of her reputation as the ice princess. 'Ice' because she was always cold to others and 'princess' because her beauty was the talk among all the boys from third year and up. He knew that because he had often heard Seamus and Dean talking about Daphne and how all the boys were crazy for her.
With her straight blond hair that curled nearing the end, accompanied by grey eyes and the appearance of a classy lady Harry now realized why she was the talk among the boys at Hogwarts. He didn't realize that he was staring at her until she spoke up.
"Why are you staring at me like that, Potter?" she said. Harry came out of his thoughts and realized that he had been staring at her all this time without even realizing it.
"Uh, sorry," he mumbled. "I thought that no one was using this place."
"Of course someone is using this place," she said referring to herself. "Not many people like to sit here. I'm assuming you do because of Granger?" Harry nodded. She then saw the books that he was carrying and so she moved aside and cleared the table a little. "Here, those look heavy," she said pointing at his books.
"Th…Thanks," Harry said somewhat surprised before he put the books down and took a seat opposite to her.
"A Glance at the History of the Tri Wizard Tournament?" she read the title of one of the books before looking at him. "So you really didn't put your name in the goblet, after all."
He blinked. 'What did she just say?' Harry said in his mind. "Why do you say that?" he asked. He wasn't going to tell her right away that she was right. He wanted to know why she'd said it.
"We had a bet," she said without mentioning who this 'we' was, "where some of us wagered that you actually put your name in the goblet and are lying about it, while some of us jokingly wagered that you didn't."
"So, who won?" he asked.
She smiled. "I did," she said, "along with Tracey and Blaise."
"You wagered that I didn't put my name in the goblet?" Harry asked. She didn't respond but looked at him. "Why?"
"Because no one in their right mind would do something that," she said before realizing that Harry was looking at her with a surprised expression. "What?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said. "It's just that Neville said the exact same thing."
"Yeah, even for reckless Gryffindors who jump into action without thinking much about it, it's straight-up dumb to have knowingly done something like this," she said before pausing a little. "So any progress on who could've put your name in the goblet?"
Harry shook his head. "Professor Moody checked the goblet and the age-line himself last night and it seems the head of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons have called in their own investigators today to look into the matter as well. I don't know if they've found anything and I don't really care anymore. I have no choice but to compete if I don't want to lose my magic."
"So I guess that's what these are for?" she said looking at the three books. Harry nodded slowly. She chuckled. "This term will come to an end before you can finish those books."
"Well, what else do I do then?" Harry asked sounding frustrated but Daphne seemed to have caught something else in his tone.
"Something else bothering you?" she asked.
Harry didn't know what he sensed in her tone but it surely wasn't anything related to her mocking him. He looked at her and found her looking at him with curious eyes. He didn't know why but he felt like he could trust her. He had felt the same with Neville last night. It seemed that after realizing that his friends had left him he was somewhat desperate to make new ones. He then thought about that last sentence before looking at Daphne again and wondered in what world he would be friends with a Slytherin. Still, he decided to talk to her as doing the same with Neville had made him feel a bit better. Besides, both Neville and Daphne had said that they believed him. With everything going on Harry thought that maybe he could trust those few who thought that he hadn't lied.
"It's my friends…Ron and Hermione," he said slowly. "Just like the rest of Hogwarts I think that they believe that I am lying…that I put my name in the goblet. I can understand Ron because he has always been like that but it was Hermione that surprised me. To think that someone as reasonable as her would not trust me is what has shocked me. We've been friends for three years. We've been through a lot together and still, even after all that they don't believe me!"
He sat there, breathing a little heavy. Daphne noticed his face was slightly flushed which told her that he was angry at them. If she was being honest to herself then she would be, too. She didn't know much about what kind of a boy Harry was. Whatever she knew, she knew through her friend Tracey, Draco and the rumor mill of Hogwarts which she tried to stay away from. But if her friends betrayed her like that she would also be sad…and angry. Whenever she had seen Harry he was always with either Ron or Hermione or both. He was barely by himself and if he was he wouldn't often talk to other students, even from his own house.
"Well, then stop trying to make them believe you," she said after a minute's pause as Harry looked at her slightly confused. "If your friends for three years have still not gotten around on trusting you then why do you even bother? If I were you I would've cut my ties with them long ago."
"But they are my friends," Harry said sounding surprised that Daphne could say such a thing.
"It can be hard," she said, "but trust is the key in all kinds of relationships. If your friends don't believe you then just stop putting in effort to try and make them. Look for someone else who can help you – a teacher or a student."
"I don't think the professors have enough free time on their hands to help me," he said. "And you should've seen the look my house mates gave me when I walked into the common room last night."
"Well, then I think you should prove them all wrong by winning this tournament," Daphne said, obviously joking but Harry didn't catch that.
"I can't even imagine thinking that I would win," Harry said. "The only thing that I am barely good at is the defense spells. I mess up in charms, potions, runes and pretty much all other subjects. Cedric is a sixth year so he's obviously much better than me in terms of magical skills and knowledge and I don't even know anything about Fleur and Krum. If the reputation of their schools is to be believed then they are apparently better than even some of the professors that teach us!"
"Well, the tournament was meant to test a person's skill in desperate situations," Daphne said. "It's not just the points that you will be given that will determine whether you win the tournament or not. Many other things are taken into consideration like your knowledge and skills in magic, how you measure the situation that you are put into and how you try to tackle it or survive it. In the end all of these are looked at before the winner is decided."
"Seems like you know quite a lot about this tournament," Harry said.
"I come from a noble pureblood family. Of course I know about things like this," she said.
"Can you help me, then?" Harry didn't know why he said it but it seemed he did so because he was desperate.
Daphne was obviously surprised by his request. "You want me to help you?" she asked. Harry neither responded nor did he shook or nodded his head. "You really are desperate, for a Gryffindor asking help from a Slytherin. Why didn't you tell me this is how you wanted to get back at your house mates?" she smirked.
Harry blinked. He knew that of all the houses the animosity between Gryffindor and Slytherin was the worst. They both treated each other as nothing short of enemies. Slytherins had branded the Gryffindors as a bunch of mudbloods and blood traitors while Gryffindors called Slytherins the birthing ground of death eaters.
It was bad.
So now that Harry also thought about what Daphne had just said, he couldn't help but smile. His house mates had never come to his help. None of them trusted him so why should he worry about them?
"Maybe I am," Harry replied. "So, will you help me? I know you're brilliant. Scoring the second spot in our year is a remarkable feat. You are only behind Hermione."
"If you are trying to impress me by that line then you are sadly mistaken," Daphne said before pausing. She seemed to be thinking about it. "I won't help you."
Harry was dumbstruck and his expression was clearly noticed by Daphne.
"It's too risky for me," she said. "If my house mates come to know that I was helping a Gryffindor I wouldn't be safe in my own house."
"What do you mean you wouldn't be safe?" Harry asked.
"You don't have to worry about it," she said. "Just know that we Slytherins are not just members of the same house. We take it very seriously and going against the principles of our house is considered as treason. It's a pureblood thing."
"It's alright," Harry said understanding. "You don't have to risk yourself for helping me. I just thought that because you knew so much about the tournament that you will at least give me some pointers."
Harry picked up his books and checked them out with Madame Pince before leaving. Daphne watched him go as she wondered what the hell she had experienced right now. Never in a million possibilities had she thought that she would have a conversation with Harry Potter. And he didn't appear to be the kind of guy that the rumors described him as. Of course Draco always bad-mouthed him just because he and Harry were enemies but for someone who was rumored to be arrogant and self-centered – if one was to believe the rumors – then she had definitely seen the side of Harry Potter that others surely hadn't. Or maybe he was always like that and others didn't know about it.
Besides, he was a Potter. She remembered that when she was little she had heard her parents talk about the Potters and how they were one of the oldest magical families in all of Europe. They had descended from the line of Peverells – the legendary family that was rumored to own the deathly hallows, if the story of The Beadle and the Bard was to be believed.
However, even if the legends of the Peverell family were true, the Potter family, in itself was very influential and powerful in both the economic and political fields. Daphne remembered her parents once talking about how with the Potters gone the great alliance in Wizengamot had weakened and so the dark families were strengthening their grip on the magical society.
Despite belonging to an old, pureblood family her parents were neutral in terms of their stand on the ideologies and principles of the dark and light families. This often caused her family to be branded as traitorous by both sides. Sometimes, Daphne wondered if being neutral was actually the worst stand that her family had taken. At least by picking one side their problems would be cut down by half. This way they were seen as untrustworthy in the eyes of both the dark and the light families.
She sighed, trying to shove those thoughts to the side before focusing on her study but she couldn't. Her concentration was gone. She looked at the time and it was almost lunch so she collected her things and left the library before heading towards the great hall.
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Thanks for reading…