Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
Sorry for the long break!
Hope you enjoy:
The entire crowd was restless, everyone craning their necks in all directions to try and get a sighting of Harry Potter. There was only two minutes left until the first task was supposed to commence, and the fourth champion was still absent.
The judges were all in varying emotional states, ranging from boredom to frustration to fear, and even the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge seemed to be anxious as he engaged in a hushed conversation with other ministry personnel including Draco's father, Lucius Malfoy.
Ludo Bagman stood by the microphone, his eyes constantly flickering between his watch and the dock, as if he expected Harry Potter to miraculously show up to compete within the next minute.
Harry himself sat on the edge of his sit, unsure himself as to whether Harry Potter was about to compete in the games. Luckily his positioning didn't give much away, with the entire Hogwarts congregation also on the edge of their seats as they searched for the elusive Boy-Who-Lived. It was only Terry's hand gripped firmly on his thigh that kept Harry from rushing down to the docks, his heart pounding as he imagined Dudley chained up in the darkness at the bottom of the Great Lake, with only the Giant Squid and the other hostages for company.
Harry had to go. He couldn't let Dudley die just to maintain his secret identity. He couldn't live with that. Harry stood up.
"He's not going to show." Draco drawled. "No need to stand and look."
"Why do you think that?" Harry asked, faltering in his step as Terry gripped his wrist.
"For starters, the task starts in thirty seconds, if he's not here by now he's clearly not coming, secondly, what incentive is there?"
"The death of a loved one."
Draco laughed. "Don't be dense. They wouldn't actually put the hostages lives in danger. Can you imagine the public uproar?" Draco scoffed. "I thought you were a Ravenclaw..."
Harry fell back into his seat. Ten seconds left. "Even Ravenclaws can lose their rationality in exciting times."
Bagman leant forward, announcing the beginning of the second task with a voice laden with forced enthusiasm. It seemed even the legendary beater was shaken by Harry Potter not showing up. The contestants dove into the lake, each with varying methods of countering the oxygen issue.
"Viktor Krum using particularly advanced transfiguration here as he successfully attempts the partial transfiguration into a shark-"
"I bet he was trying to do a full transfiguration." Terry murmured.
"Whilst Fleur Delacour, the beautiful witch from Beauxbaton Academy has used the bubble-head charm to good effect, less robust than Krum's spell, but aptly performed. Now the Hogwarts' delegate, Mr. Cassius Warrington appears to be using gillyweed, arguably the least technically efficient display from any of the contestants, but an effective method to breathe underwater - let's hope he has enough for the full hour!"
"Exciting?" Draco snarked, returning to their conversation as the group averted their eyes from the lake. "We're staring at a lake for an hour."
"Are they not following the contestants underwater?" Michael asked, searching for some sort of screen. "I figured this would be like watching the footy."
"The what?" Draco returned.
"The football - a muggle sport." Harry explained.
"Why would this be anything like a muggle sport?" Draco questioned dismissively.
"Well, at least with a muggle sport we can see what's going on. Even if you're not present at the match, you can still watch it." Mike returned defensively.
Draco's head shot round to face Mike, a frown adorning his face. "How?"
"TVs, cameras, radios..." Mike answered, smirking slightly at Draco's confused expression.
"Muggles aren't as medieval as you purebloods all presume," Harry reprimanded gently, an amused smile growing on his face as he temporarily forgot about his own precarious situation.
"All?" Daphne raised an eyebrow and Harry rolled his eyes.
"Either way," Mike intervened, "a football match would be way more interesting than this." He said, gesturing towards the tranquil lake.
"A quidditch match would be even better." Draco said, lifting his chin haughtily. He'd changed a lot since first year, but he still hated being wrong, or deemed inferior in any way.
"If we were playing, definitely." Harry replied wistfully.
"We should go steal the quidditch pitch, should be empty," Draco gestured to the full (and rather restless) crowd.
"You don't want to see what happens here?" Harry asked, nervously tapping his foot against the floor as the clock ticked on and the surface of the lake remained tranquil. Five minutes down and absolutely nothing had happened, which only increased Harry's anxiety as his mind raced to the worst possible scenario.
"It's not like in the first task with the dragons - nothing's happening. At the end of the hour someone will emerge first with their loved one, and the others will follow. Someone can easily relay that information to me later on without it losing any shock value." Draco said dryly, clearly unimpressed with the second task set up.
It seemed as though Draco's words sparked something (as they often did), and as if right on cue the peace in the lake was broken by a sudden, violent movement.
The crowd leapt to their feet in avid confusion as a figure emerged.
Alone.
"Something must have gone wrong," said Michael, peering over the others on his tiptoes in an attempt to get a better image of the scenes unfolding down at the lake. "he doesn't have anyone with him."
Harry craned his neck, trying to get closer to be able to see what was going on, but it was hard to see anything with the entire crowd gleaning for more information, the lack of any prior excitement leading to the increased desperation. A few seconds later Bagman's voice boomed over, enhanced by his wand in an attempt to drown out the bustling crowd.
"After an unfortunate encounter with some particularly pesky grindylows, Viktor Krum has been forced to retire from the task." Bagman announced and the crowd buzzed excitedly, eager to hear that the Hogwarts contestant was still in contention, whilst the star quidditch player had been unable to keep up with the pressures of the second task.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief: Viktor, having failed to rescue his hostage, was now in the same position as Harry. Even though the Bulgarian looked surly as he sat on the pier, ignoring Karkaroff's attempts to talk to him, his lack of hysterics relieved Harry greatly and the small amount of rationality Harry still retained insisted that it wouldn't be allowed for either of their hostages to be placed in life-threatening danger.
Unfortunately Krum's shock retirement from the task was the last interesting thing to happen for the next forty minutes, until Cassius Warrington emerged from the lake with the same Slytherin sixth year he'd taken to the Yule Ball ("his family approved, pure-blood girlfriend" as Draco put it) and was then forced to spend the last minutes of the hour swimming in the lake, with no immediate cure to the gillyweed available. This didn't seem to bother his girlfriend remotely, as she was instead engrossed in conversation with her friends - no doubt eagerly discussing the task.
Soon Fleur Delacour also arrived at the surface of the lake, with only a minute left on the clock ("cutting it short", Blaise remarked dismissively) and a small blonde by her side, a girl who was too similar in looks to not be her sister.
By the time Fleur Delacour was out of the lake the hour was up and Harry felt anxiety seeping back into his bones, wondering now when - or if - his person was about to emerge from the lake, whether that be Dudley or somebody else entirely.
The judges themselves were huddled around in a tight knit circle, ardently discussing something which the rest of the (now restless) crowd wasn't privy to. After what felt like an hour (though was likely merely five minutes), the group dispersed, each going their separate ways.
It was ten minutes later that they once more congregated together on stage, but this time there were two more figures on the pier.
"Holy shit, is that Hermione?" Terry asked concerned.
"Must have been Krum's person, they did go to the ball together after all... bit odd that she was his most prized person..."
"Viktor doesn't really get along with any of the other Durmstrang students, Karkaroff keeps them separated and isolates him." Draco explained. "The rest of his family's still in Bulgaria I presume, and I doubt the ministry could kidnap them like they could Fleur's sister..."
"How did they get away with that?" Anthony asked as the judges began their scoring.
"Probably had to have some magically binding contract guaranteeing her safety." Draco replied.
"Look," Terry nudged Harry's shoulder once he'd finally torn his gaze away from a shivering Hermione Granger, "is that...?" He pointed in the direction of what, for lack of kinder words, looked like a bundle of old, dirty, wet blankets all haphazardly thrown together in the shape of person.
Harry narrowed his eyes at the figure, who was engaged in a fervent discussion with Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. The figure twisted around, gesticulating weakly, but Harry recognised the face. It lacked any of the passion Harry had come to associate with the man in third year, and it seemed as though his sickly appearance on the bad days every month was now more of a permanent state.
"Why's he," Harry's eyes darted around to confirm that the others were too engaged in their own conversations to be eavesdropping, but lowered his voice nonetheless, "why's he my person? He was just our teacher last year, I barely know him - and Harry Potter certainly doesn't."
Terry shrugged, clearly as confused as Harry was. "Maybe he's the only person who the ministry could belittle into lying hostage in the lake for an hour... after what happened at the end of last year..."
Harry grimaced. Any dislike he had for Snape had quickly morphed into pure hatred for how he had treated Professor Lupin at the end of third year, outing him as a werewolf for no other reason than petty spite and jealousy.
"Hey, is that Lupin?" Draco asked, leaning over Blaise to engage in conversation with Terry and Harry.
"That's what we were just talking about." Terry replied.
"Why do you think he's here?" Harry questioned. It seemed nowadays he always had to turn to Draco to know about intricate ministry or tournament-related dealings - it even seemed as though Draco knew more about Harry - well, Harry Potter that is - than Harry himself. Harry half-wanted to ask Draco to give him some lessons about pureblood decorum and how the ministry worked - officially and unofficially - but he didn't think he could handle the inevitable smugness that Draco would have at Harry asking him for help.
"Potter's parents and Lupin were good friends back in the day." Draco replied.
"They were rumoured to be in Dumbledore's inner circle together." Daphne cut in from behind.
"The order." Draco confirmed with a nod, standing up to switch seats with Blaise, who'd finally gotten too annoyed at Draco leaning over him.
"Huh." Harry replied mutely. He didn't exactly know what to think about his old Defence Against the Dark Arts professor being a close friend of his parents.
"I guess he's the closest tie they have left to Potter... they have no idea who he's been living with since he left those muggles or who he's friends with."
"Is that why Professor Lupin was here last year?" Harry asked, furrowing his brow as he made a connection in his mind.
"What?" Draco replied, for once the perplexed one. In the background the crowd cheered as what they already presumed, was confirmed: Cassius Warrington, the Hogwarts representative, had won the second task and was now in the lead for the entire tournament.
"Well, Sirius Black was Lily and James' closest friend right?" Harry asked, trying to keep the bitterness and hatred out of his tone. Terry perked up, quickly understanding where Harry was going with this. "So, presumably Professor Lupin was in that same circle of friends, or at the very least, acquaintances with Black."
"So," Draco paused, "do you think Dumbledore was keeping Lupin close to keep him safe... or..." he trailed off pointedly.
"No." Harry shook his head quickly. "Professor Lupin's not a bad person, just because he's a werewolf-"
Draco held his hands up in surrender, quickly cutting in. "Not because he's a werewolf... well..." he paused cautiously, probably remembering how Harry had punched him back in third year for calling Hermione that slur. "Look, don't get angry but... we all know how the ministry treats werewolves, like the lowest of lows, and during the war, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named capitalised on that. He got all the werewolves who were angry at how they'd been mistreated by the ministry, and well the magical community as a whole, and he manipulated that anger and made them his allies, his foot soldiers if you will.
"His use of werewolves was probably one of his most successful fear-mongering plots in the war," Draco continued, "he used Greyback and his pack to attack Dumbledore or ministry loyalists' children, bite them young and force the people in charge to have werewolves as children, no mercy for the innocent, and anybody could be attacked. More often than not the children would be mistreated, abused, thrown out, and then Greyback would find them, and incorporate them into his pack. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named saw how well using the magical outcasts worked with the werewolves, and then adopted the policy further, with some goblins, trolls, other magical creatures who'd been ostracised by the magical community."
"But Professor Lupin... he seems good." Harry replied, remembering how Professor Lupin had helped him overcome the boggarts of Vernon and Petunia, the compassion in his eyes whenever Harry walked out of the classroom having fought one... he seemed to understand it. Now that all seemed twisted, Draco's words echoing in his head about how You-Know-Who manipulated abused kids into working for him.
"Maybe he is. I don't know." Draco replied. "It's just curious... the timing."
"He wouldn't be here if Dumbledore didn't trust him. Not so close to Potter." Terry countered and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Terry was right. There was no way Dumbledore and Fudge would have used Lupin as a hostage and allotted him time with Harry Potter unless they did trust him.
"Well, it didn't matter either way," Draco said, "Potter didn't show."
"Doesn't that break the magically binding contract?" Daphne asked.
"I'd have thought... unless..." Draco trailed off again.
"Unless what?" Terry questioned impatiently.
"Well, my father told me of some rumours which had circulated during his, and mother's time at school. Many people speculated that James Potter was in possession of an invisibility cloak - and not one of those cheap knock offs from Zonko's, a real one."
"A family heirloom?" Daphne quizzed.
"I don't know. As I said, it was a rumour, no confirmation. But perhaps if it is true that's how he could legally participate without being seen. He could have gotten to the lake under the cloak."
"It makes sense." Terry nodded, and for once Harry had to commend his acting - he didn't sound at all suspicious, despite knowing how Harry Potter really evaded the rules and contract. "Besides, the lake is huge, and if all you need to compete was to go in it, surely he could have just been at the other end." Terry gestured off into the distance, towards the opposite shore.
"I heard Fudge had aurors all the way around the lake in case Potter tried something like that." Draco replied dismissively. "Though, it certainly would be easier to approach the lake from the other side if he was using the cloak - reduces the risk of bumping into somebody."
"That's what I meant." He said firmly.
"Right." Draco obliged. "Either way, I doubt the third task will be as easy to evade." Draco added.
"Why do you say that?" Harry asked anxiously. "Do you know what it is?"
"No." Draco replied quickly. "I just mean that the ministry will surely set it up in such a way that participating fully is impossible to avoid."
"Well..." Terry trailed off, sharing a subtle look with Harry. "That could be interesting."
Interesting... or deadly?
A/N: If you're wondering why it was Viktor instead of Fleur who got caught with the grindylows it was because textually it was indicated that she just got really unlucky and that it was a matter of circumstance, so just the difference of a fourth competitor not competing could throw all of that off balance and change where each contestant headed thus Viktor instead of Fleur.