Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't even own Dudley.
Harry, Ron and Hermione walked to Herbology, where Professor Sprout led the class inside of greenhouse 4. Everyone was slightly confused, as it appeared that the greenhouse was completely empty. As soon as everyone was in, Professor Sprout shut the door, and turned to ask Hermione a question, "What's your favorite color?"
"Red," Hermione answered. The rest of the Gryffindors smiled – red was one of their house colors. Sprout turned, and walked towards the wall. She pulled out a wand, and tapped the pane of glass with it. Immediately, a sort of red fungus appeared on every pane of glass, the ceiling, and even the dirt floor.
"This," Professor Sprout said as she gestured around, "is Irish Funiculae. It's one of the fastest growing plants in the world, and as you just saw, changes color very easily. Because of this, some wizards use it as a sort of wallpaper." She then took out what looked like a combination of a quill and a beaker. "Now I'm going to use this device to spread some salt water on the walls. Watch what happens."
As soon as the salt water touched the plant, it seemed to disappear. Sprout carefully applied the salt water up the wall, across the ceiling, down the opposite wall, and finally connected it across the floor. When she was done, she turned to Hannah Abbot, and asked her what her favorite color was. The Gryffindors all looked at Hannah with anxious looks. It was clear that they were dying for her to say yellow.
Hannah gave a smile, and told Professor Sprout that her favorite color was yellow. The Gryffindors cheered, and Professor Sprout promptly changed half the room to a goldish-yellow.
Sprout then proceeded to talk about the origins of Irish Funiculae, and its uses in modern day. Afterwards, she gave them each a salt-water marker and set them loose.
It's almost like kindergarten all over again, thought Harry. Harry and Ron worked on making a picture of the Gryffindor lion, while Hermione had fun making some abstract art. At the end of the hour, the students walked over to Sprout to hand back the markers.
"I don't think so," Professor Sprout said, then handed them each a tiny vial. "You have an assignment for next week. I want you all to decorate your 5th year dorm rooms with the funiculae in those bottles. When you're done, take a photograph of it and hand it in to me next class."
As class was dismissed, Harry, Ron, and Hermione caught up to Hannah. "Your favorite color isn't really yellow, is it?" asked Hermione.
Hannah smiled, and shook her head no. She pointed at Greenhouse 4, which not only was predominantly red/yellow, but which bore several Gryffindor Lions, and giggled, "How do you think the Slytherins will like entering the greenhouse when it looks like that?" Harry, Ron, and Hermione laughed – they could just picture Malfoy looking at all the Gryffindor colors and symbols, retching.
Harry and Ron were busy poring over Magical Rocks by Hilda Parkway in the Gryffindor common room when Hermione came down the stairs from her dorm. "Come on you guys, we have to go visit our faeries. Hagrid said we had to visit them at least once a day!" she urged. Harry and Ron gladly set down the book. Frankly, they were tired of looking up crystal properties for divination. They set off across the grounds to the little hut the faeries lived in. After taking off their watches, the three entered the cabin and were amazed by the decorations.
Clearly, the faeries had managed to get some of the Irish Funiculae from Professor Sprout, but they were far better at using it than any of the 5th years. An intricate mural filled the room. On one side was a bright yellow sun, casting a reddish glow across the land. A bright yellow road passed was drawn, reminding Harry of The Wizard of Oz. Red houses dotted the landscape. But the glow slowly diminished towards the other end, where it looked like a night scene. Instead of red and yellow, a black sky was over beautiful green hills, laced with silvery dew. Harry realized that the red and yellow section was where the Gryffindor faeries were, and the black, silver, and green section was where the Slytherin faeries lived. He wondered how the faeries picked up on the house colors, when he noticed several students had decorated their faeries' beds in their house colors.
After Harry, Ron, and Hermione were done taking in the beautiful artwork, they walked over to their faeries' beds. Hermione's faerie wasn't sleeping, but reading a tiny little book, which made Harry and Ron laugh. When Harry looked inside his faerie's bed, he noticed that it was empty. Suddenly, a little figure was whizzing all around his face, and pretended to get squashed on Harry's glasses. Harry laughed, and the faerie stuck out his tongue at Harry and giggled in a high pitch.
"You like flying? So do I – tomorrow I'll bring in a few photos of me flying," Harry told his faerie. The faerie grew even more excited, and buzzed off to talk with some of his friends.
Ron, however, was standing over his faerie's bed, with an odd look on his face. Harry then realized that Ron's faerie's bed was right next to the Slytherin section. Harry peered in, and noticed that Ron's faerie was asleep under a blanket of silver and green. Sure enough, the blanket in the Slytherin basket next to his was red and gold.
"Look, Ron, those faeries made each other a blanket!" Hermione cooed. Ron, however, was not pleased. He grabbed both the blankets and switched them.
"Ron," Hermione hissed, "Why did you do that!"
"My faerie shouldn't be hanging around that Slytherin faerie. He'll get contaminated, or something!" Ron complained. Harry and Hermione shot him dirty looks, and they all left the Faerie enclosure and put back on their watches.
"Wow, two hours passed while we were in there!" remarked Harry.
Somehow, the 5th years seemed to be overwhelmed with homework their very first week. Besides the veela counter-charm, funiculae decorations, and faerie raising, Professor Binns announced that they were to make a 10 roll report on a famous wizard of their choice, due within a month. Harry took awhile to decide. He first thought about doing Dumbledore, but decided that he didn't want to have to include all the events involving Voldemort and himself. Unfortunately, that was a problem with any witch or wizard alive. They all seemed to be involved with Voldemort somehow. Finally, Harry chose Merlin, sticking with someone relatively neutral. Ron didn't have to the same reservations as Harry, and immediately chose Dumbledore. Hermione, however, shocked them both when she told them her choice.
"Slytherin! Salazaar Slytherin! Are you mad?!" Ron hollered.
"I think it will be fun. Everyone's going to do a wizard like Dumbledore or Merlin. Nobody will think to do an evil one! Well, nobody outside Slytherin house," Hermione earnestly replied.
Between assignments for Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, Herbology, Divination, and Care of Magic Creatures, the three didn't have much free time on their hands, and before they knew it, they were walking into Fleur's class on Monday.
Sure enough, Fleur was waiting at the door to cast enchantments on the females so they would be susceptible to the Veela Charm. Harry and Ron researched the bubblehead charm, remembering how Fleur and Cedric had both used it last year during the tournament. However, neither Harry nor Ron could determine what spell Hermione was using. When Fleur started class, she smiled. Almost everyone had used the bubblehead charm, and the sight of all those bubbles was kind of funny. When she spotted Hermione, she grinned even wider. "Miss Granger, will you come explain what you did?"
"I found out that the Veela Charm is airborne. I cast an air-stilling charm around me, so the charm will not reach me," Hermione smugly spoke.
"Excellent. 5 points to Gryffindor," Fleur beamed, and then continued, "As for the bubblehead charms. They work, but you might want to find a better approach. Unless you want to look like your head is in a plastic ball every class."
"Now, I heard that last year you learned about unforgivable curses. However, most harmful spells you'll encounter won't be those three. The next several lectures will cover the more commonly encountered borderline dark arts spells. All of them can be blocked, but it requires constant vigilance." At Fleur's last two words, the class collectively cringed.
After lecturing the class about various hexes, Fleur let the class go. Ron, however, went to the front and began talking with the professor. Hermione watched him oddly, and Harry only smiled. He had a good idea of what Ron wanted to talk to Fleur about. Of course, Hermione probably had a different idea of what Ron was doing, and Harry had to partially drag her out of the classroom.
"But…" Hermione stammered.
"Trust me, he's in there for the right reasons." Harry stated, but only smiled enigmatically when Hermione asked him what he meant.
The next day, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked into the Great Hall, where the Triwizard Tournament was about to be started. Sure enough, Dumbledore soon got up and addressed the crowd.
"Welcome to the start of this year's triwizard tournament. However, before we get started, I'd like to introduce this year's ministry officials. First, the new head of Magical Games and Sports, Richard Joel," Dumbledore introduced. Joel seemed likable enough, Harry noted over the applause. He was smiling lopsidedly, and his hair was somewhat rumpled, almost like his. "And we're also joined by Percy Weasley, the assistant head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation," Dumbledore spoke. Fewer people clapped for Percy, whether it was because he didn't seem as friendly as Joel, or because the students remembered his stiff prefect practices.
"I didn't know Percy was promoted." Harry said to Ron.
"Yeah. I try not to talk about it." Ron whispered, which made Harry laugh.
Dumbledore continued, "Candidates are instructed to put their names in the Goblet of Fire, which will choose the champion for each school." At this, Professor McGonagall had set up the Goblet in front of the staff high table. Dumbledore announced, "And I believe the delegation from Durmstrang and Beauxbaton has just arrived." Upon these words, Madame Maxime and another wizard, whom Harry assumed must be the new Durmstrang headmaster, led the Beauxbaton and Durmstrang candidates up to the Goblet of Fire. Each of them silently put in their name, and left the hall. This left most of the students staring at them in surprise. "I should point out," Dumbledore spoke, "that this year the Beauxbaton and Durmstrang parties will not be staying at Hogwarts. Only the headmaster and champion will remain, and will be sleeping in a special dwelling created for them. I apologize for this, but the Ministry of Magic insisted upon it to address safety concerns. The hope is to avoid the type of events that happened last year." At these words, the students in the hall sobered up. Dumbledore seemed at a loss for words for once, and simply dismissed them.
The next several days, Ron was hardly in the common room. Hermione kept asking Harry if he knew where Ron was. Finally, Harry had enough and said, "He's in the library, ok?"
"The library? Well, I need to look up some things about Slytherin. I'll go join him," she decided.
"Hermione – Ron needs to be there alone right now," Harry stopped her. Hermione was starting to look very angry, but before she could say anything to Harry, she was distracted by Angelina Johnson.
"What do you mean you're not going to enter?" asked Angelina, looking at Alicia Spinnet.
"I'm not going to enter. Simple," Alicia replied.
"Simple? But why?" asked Angelina.
"Last year Cedric died in the tournament!" Alicia said.
"They're going to make sure that doesn't happen this year, though," assured Angelina.
"That's not it! It's just… I don't want… Listen, Cedric died. If I enter, won't it be disrespecting Cedric's memory?" stammered Alicia.
"That's the silliest thing I've ever heard."
"Then why aren't you entering, Angelina?" shot Alicia.
"Well… It's because…" Angelina stuttered.
"See. It's the same reason." At this, Fred and George entered the common room. However, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the four of them. Apparently none of them were going to enter. At this, Hermione cut in.
"What do you mean, disrespecting Cedric's memory? That's completely foolish!" snapped Hermione.
"You don't understand, Hermione," Angelina spoke softly. Hermione glared at her, and then looked up at the twins, both who were silent and solemn for once. Hermione harrumphed, and took off for bed, forgetting about Ron entirely.
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Oh, I hope nobody minds, but I decided to get Chapter 5 up at the same time as this chapter (so there won't be very many notes for Chapter 5…)
Thanks to Camelot, Caius, and StarDazzle, Risi, and Atheis & Aeris, who have reviewed. In particular, I got a lot of feedback about not allowing Anonymous Feedback, which has now been changed (THANK YOU!)
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