Late in the night of Halloween, Harry Potter sat alone in a dusty unused classroom tucked in the forgotten hallways of Hogwarts.
He sat there alone in the darkness, with his head bowed and tracks of tears drying on his face.
It's been a long and harrowing night, filled with desperation, dread, and disappointment.
Desperation he felt when he tried to explain to his friends that he did not enter the tournament. Not of his own volition at least. Desperation when the professors and students stared at him with accusing eyes. Desperation when Dumbledore, the bloody fool of a headmaster, strong-armed him and questioned his honour.
Dread when he realized that there was no escape from another potential near-death encounter. Dread when he realized that this most likely had something to do with Voldemort. His dreams this past summer seem all the more ominous as all signs are starting to point towards another plot of his nemesis's never-ending attempts at his life.
Disappointment when the professors looked at him with disbelieving eyes surrounded by the officials and representatives of the other schools. Moody was the only one that said anything different in support of this being an assassination attempt, and wasn't that comforting. The only man who questioned the circumstances is someone widely known for his paranoia and less than subtle madness. Disappointment when upon entering his house common room, he was confronted by his housemates and his so-called best friends. Glory, fame, wealth! Hah! Those imbeciles know nothing about his life and his wants, and apparently the same goes for his 'best friends'.
Harry was silent for the entire half hour he had perched on the rickety desk covered in dust. He had been thinking about his life in Hogwarts, and in the wizarding world. It wasn't as lustrous and glamorous as he was hoping for when he first heard from Hagrid that he was a wizard. A part of a wonderful world filled with magical wonders, where he can find others like him, where he belongs. Friends and family.
Not really. It was far from it.
His return to the wizarding world has seen him shoved upfront against some of the darkest elements known to wizard-kind. Trolls, enchanting mirror of doom, dark wizards, wraiths, possession, basilisk, dementors, and the list goes on.
He was sick of it.
No. Harry thought.
He was angry and bitter about his circumstances.
That was something he was familiar with. Anger and bitterness. He hasn't had much of a chance to feel anything else since his childhood. Envy and jealousy died quickly, when he was met with the cold treatment from his aunt and uncle. The long periods of starvation and light deprived prison under the stairs ended that. His sense of self-preservation taught him that was useless.
The wizarding world was the same he reflected. His brief reflection on his experiences in the wizarding world evoked the same emotions he had associated with his childhood at the hands of the Dursleys. All he managed was to trade one prison for another. From one where his very existence was ignored and scorned, for one where he was stared at like he was a circus freak and constantly shoved into the spotlight for things he really had no control over.
Oh, he wasn't dumb. Nor ignorant.
He'd just learnt to hide it better.
He was aware that many of the happenings in the past three years were highly suspicious. Not just the suspicious, as in, there was a dark-wizard-plotting-for-his-life kind. No. It was suspicious in how most of these things occurred upon his return to the wizarding world and only in his thereabouts.
The immortal alchemist decides to give his stone away for protection after six centuries? Why not just destroy the stone himself if he was 'ready to move on to the next great adventure'?
Why didn't they shut the school down when students were mysteriously attacked in the hallways? Throwing the 'most powerful wizard' out of the castle and keeping the kids in the castle hardly seemed like the solution. Why wasn't Dumbledore able to access the Chamber of Secrets with his phoenix that conveniently appeared during his showdown with the basilisk?
Why wasn't he told about the wizarding world orientation materials that muggleborns had access to? His brief stint in Diagon Alley prior to the start of his third year certainly raised his eyebrows when it came to things that he wasn't aware that he had access to.
He tried to pass it off as Hagrid being a tad oblivious to the needs of someone with zero knowledge of the wizarding world. Yet, subtle inquiries to the shopkeepers had informed him that the head of each house were the ones showing the muggleborn students around prior to the start of the new year.
Harry felt like a puppet. Heck, he was dancing to someone else's tune his whole life.
Gathering himself, Harry could feel his anger and bitterness settle deep down in his gut. Enough is enough. He has played along for the past three years and now he was shoved into a tournament death match. Looking into a dusty mirror in the corner of the room, Harry saw his own reflection staring back at him. His green eyes glimmering as his thoughts started racing. He will become the green-eyed monster of rage. Not jealousy. There was nothing to be jealous of, if the bloody idiots are so hung up about his title and fame.
Standing up, Harry stretched his legs and started pacing around the room.
If they wanted to play him like a fool and point fingers at him when it was convenient, then he would have to do the same. Turnabout is fair play, after all. Harry thought, his anger simmering and motivating him.
He would start small. Targets that are more accessible to him, and less likely to draw suspicion to him.
The students. It would be easy to pass off as another joke or prank gone wrong. They are highly susceptible given their past showing.
Now that he had his targets, what should he do? Humiliation? Not really what he was looking for. He wanted something with more long-lasting effects. Rumours would be a good place to start. He has heard enough of those, casting aspersions on him. Thinking back to his second year, Harry was able to come up with a variety of things for his list of retribution.
Rumours that question a person's integrity? Check. Accusations for a perceived wrong? Check. Pranks in the hallway? Check. Shunning? Check.
Now he just needs to contact Sirius for help on his pranks.
That's the minor part done. Moving on to the big league, there are three major targets that Harry was aiming for.
Dumbledore. Voldemort. The ministry.
He has something special planned for them.
Prior to returning to his dorm, Harry had skimmed the library for books on the Triwizard Tournament and any related information. The rulebook would be something he had to work through later on. During his brief forage, he had come across something that caught his interest. A small journal fashioned from fading black leather on the history of the Goblet of Fire. The journal detailed the goblet's origin and use before it was instated as the impartial judge for the Triwizard Tournament. If the goblet was able to force his participation without his consent and knowledge and was supposedly unbreakable, he definitely has to learn more about it. How is the goblet made? What is powering the goblet? How are the rules enforced? What are the consequences of breaking said rules? How are participants entered into the goblet?
Harry had snuck the book out of the library along with the tournament rulebook. He had hoped to convince Hermione to help him with the books at least. Not anymore.
Harry sat back down on one of the wooden chairs that has not rotted completely. He had the beginnings of a plan in his mind. Now, he would just have to flesh it out and see if it was possible. He wanted to orchestrate his own version of a tournament with his three targets as the participants. If he could force their participation, then they would be dancing to his tune.
Harry opened the journal he pilfered earlier from the library, commencing his research on the Goblet of Fire.
It was an interesting read.
The history of the Goblet of Fire was steeped in blood and sacrifice, and Harry was surprised that the artifact was being used in a ministry sanctioned school tournament. He thought the ministry would be up in arms about a dark artifact binding students to unbreakable contracts. But thinking about it, the tournament has a mindboggling death count for both participants and spectators. The tournament itself is soaked in bloody history, and gladiator-styled events were apparently still a rage prior to the previous annulment, after all the participants and a good half of the spectators were killed by a rampaging cockatrice.
In the year of AD 57, the Goblet of Fire was crafted by goblins as repayment to the Roman Emperor Nero, after a disastrous war that wiped out half of goblin-kind. Nero had a strange fascination with fire and ordered for a goblet filled with mystical flames to be crafted for the purpose of electing the most suitable candidates for his gladiator matches. The goblet was crafted by the goblin craftsmen, and enchanted by the goblin mages and Nero's imperial mages. As part of the enchantment and powering process, the goblet was first filled with mystical blue flames that does not burn, and then soaked in the blood of a thousand sacrifices. The ritual gave the goblet power to overcome and bind a person's will to the rules prescribed prior to the flames being relit. The goblet is indestructible as it was crafted with mithril and goblin silver and any blood spilled and lives lost during the tournament further empowers the goblet. During Nero's reign, the goblet was used to select champions from the slaves and captives of the Roman empire for the monthly games. In the year of AD 64, hostile mages held captive revolted against the emperor and tried to destroy the goblet with hellfire. Failing to destroy the goblet, they sacrificed themselves to enchant the goblet's flames to consume everything in the vicinity. It took seven days for the fire to subside, and re-enchant the properties of the flames. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the goblet fell into the possession of the Byzantines. In 1666, after the Great Fire of London, which was caused due to mishandling of the artifact, the goblet was confiscated by the Headmaster of Hogwarts of the time and was repurposed for use as an impartial judge in the Triwizard Tournament. From what he was able to glean from the journal, Harry realized that the journal was written by the aforementioned headmaster. Most of the information gathered was unknown to the public and the headmaster spent many years scouring the public and private libraries in mainland Europe to piece together the goblet's origin.
The accounts in the journal further detailed some of the experiments that the headmaster had conducted on the goblet. The goblet can naturally be relit every four years if it was left in a magically rich environment. For more frequent usage of the goblet, a sacrificial payment of blood has to be made. The more potent the magic in the blood, the more frequent the goblet can be used. Quantity can be used as substitute for quality.
The rules governing the tournament is placed in the goblet before the relighting ceremony and the contract is established when lit. The participants in the tournament are added into the goblet by a piece of parchment with their name on it written in their own hand. That it is their name written by their own hand seems to be only requirement to confirm intent of entry. During the gladiator games, the participants were forced to write their names on pain of death. Harry's own entry was a piece of torn parchment from what seems to be like an old homework assignment. It smelled of a conspiracy amongst the staff of Hogwarts, which unsurprisingly does not come as a shock for Harry. It wouldn't be the first time and certainly not the last. The selection process is determined by a number of factors that the organizers have decided on, including number of participants per school, number of schools, and can be as specific as which houses like Slytherin or Ravenclaw, gender, or even blood purity.
Near the end of the journal, a short paragraph summed up the consequences of breaking the contract. Any bounded individual who broke the contract pays in blood, for wizards this essentially referred to their magic. Past observations noted that the offending party feels a significant amount of their magic being siphoned and their blood thinned to a watery substance before eventually dying due to the collapse of their magical core and blood loss. Blood replenishing potions were ineffective because they don't have enough magic in their body to work with. For muggles, they are drained of blood and die. The magic is used to further empower the goblet. The monthly gladiator games during the Roman Empire are often powered by the deaths of participants during the tournament or those who broke the contract.
It seems that the author of the journal had hidden the darker details about the goblet from the public when he introduced it into the tournament. Later entries in the journal mentioned use of the goblet as an unsuspecting tool for assassinating the children of political rivals by entering them into the deadly tournament. Some of the challenges were rigged to be impossible to complete, and the selection process engineered to pick a preselected student.
Harry surmised that Dumbledore and the officials were probably unaware of the intricacies of the goblet. They made the assumption that the Goblet was safe to use since it served as the impartial judge for over a hundred years until the dissolution of the tournament in 1792. Heck, they might have gone with it anyway, in the name of tradition. Harry chuckled darkly. If he is able to light the goblet again, he would have the perfect tool to take out all his enemies. Challenges of pitting them against a horde of dragons and swimming in basilisk venom flitting across Harry's mind as he allowed his imagination to run wild.
His plans would have to wait though. The goblet can't be relit when a tournament is ongoing.
Harry pondered on his current situation and compared it with what he read.
With how powerful the goblet was, it was safe for Harry to assume that the goblet has not just been confounded but the purpose altered by sacrifice. Harry felt a chill down his back as he considered how big of a sacrifice it must be when the goblet is already lit. The thought of a mass-murdering psychopath wandering around the halls of Hogwarts was not conducive to a restful night for him. Not that he would be able to sleep peacefully in his dorm with his housemates out for his blood.
Shaking himself to regather his wits. Harry decided to start gathering the materials needed for his nefarious plots.
"Dobby!" Harry quietly voiced out.
Pop.
"How may Dobby be helping the Great Master Harry Potter Sir?" Dobby squeaked excitedly. He was dressed in an odd assortment of mismatched socks and a clean pillowcase, hopping around on each foot before hugging Harry's legs.
"Can I ask you to do something for me quietly? Without letting anyone else know?"
"Dobby has to answer to the master of the castle if he be asking Dobby questions. But, Dobby can be quiet and sneaky and won't tell anyone!" Dobby nodded his head rapidly.
"Hmm." Harry was troubled. It wouldn't do if Dumbledore decided to ask Dobby if he knew where Riddle's diary went when he steals it. Dumbledore would mostly likely seek out Dobby first because he was one of the few beings aware of the diary's existence. Harry needed the diary for his plans because it was the only source he was aware of with Voldemort's real name written by his own hand.
Seeing Harry's hesitation, Dobby's enthusiasm died down and his ears started flopping downwards.
In a hesitant voice, Dobby said "If, if Dobby becomes your elf, then Dobby won't answer nobody's questions."
Harry turned and looked at Dobby in surprise.
"I thought you wanted to be free?"
"Dobby wanted to be free of bad master and his family. Dobby was hoping to be the Great Harry Potter's elf when he needs one. That's why Dobby started working in Hoggywart."
"Oh. I see." Harry scratched his neck.
"Are you sure you want to be my elf?" Harry asked to make sure.
"OOH YES! Please let Dobby be your elf! Dobby will keep great master's secrets and be quiet and sneaky when great master wants!" as he started bouncing in excitement again.
"Okay then. So um, how do you become my elf?"
"Master just has to hold out his hand and ask if Dobby wanted to be his elf."
After a quick bonding process, Harry sat down and began telling Dobby his plans.
"I'm going to need you to sneak into the headmaster's office and take Tom Riddle's diary back. You can't be spotted by the portraits, or Fawkes."
"The diary of bad master's master?" Dobby eyes widened till it looks like it was going to fall out.
"Yeah. That diary. I'm going to need the diary for my plans. Do you know where they stored the Goblet of Fire after the Halloween party earlier?"
Dobby shook his head, ears flapping around. "Dobby doesn't know. But Dobby can find out."
"That's fine, let me know when you've found it."
"Dobby will be going then. Dobby will find the cup with fire and the diary when the master of the castle not be looking!" Dobby popped away.
Hm. Well, that's one thing down. Now, Harry had to go through the tournament rulebook and prepare for the tournament. He'll have to sneak into the restricted section to study more on rituals and sacrificial magic as well. This is going to be a long year.