Thank you to all of my supporters, with a special thank you to my awesome tear supporters: Jo Daviz, Antar Das, LegendaryWasabi, Ibuki Mioda, SvenGTX, Optimum Prime and Jack Schriner. I love you all.

Also, I don't say it nearly enough, to my beta FlyingDeutschman, you are epic man, and I couldn't do this without you.

as always chapters 15 and sixteen are already available on pat re on /Lowten where there is also a full-sized downloadable copy of the cover art.

there is now a poll on my fanfiction bio page about what story I should do next u/4442866/Lowten . It won't be published soon but I need to start putting a story board together. Anyway, I have rambled enough hope you enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 14

Harry woke up slowly, and the first thing he noticed was the headache. It was only small, but it was annoying enough that it was still the first thing on his mind. The next thing he realized was that his mouth was dry and disgusting, and only then did he notice that there was a large weight on his chest. Harry opened his eyes to examine what on earth the weight was, only to see a large mass of Hermione's bushy hair covering his face. he Then he remembered what had happened the night before: the Yule Ball, the dancing, taking a walk in the garden, and kissing Hermione.

Harry felt a warm feeling welling up in his chest. They had talked once they got back to the common room and decided to give a relationship a try, but they were going to be careful about it. No matter what, they didn't want to risk their friendship, though he was sure after the rough patches that their friendship had already been though, with the bond between them only growing stronger, that it would take something monumental to truly risk it. Their one concern was from Greengrass and Zabini, the way they had taken their photo last night suggested that something more might have been going on. At Hermione's insistence, they were going to go by the hospital wing today and have Madam Pomfrey check to make sure neither of them were under the effects of something like a love potion. They didn't think they were, but Hermione wanted to make sure.

They had ended up falling asleep on one of the sofas in front of the fire after their talk. Harry had checked the time once and found it was two in the morning, and they had kept talking for some time after that. He couldn't see the common room clock from where he was lying, and Hermione had the arm with his watch trapped between her, him, and the sofa so he couldn't check it either, but given the amount of light that was coming through the window he guessed that the only reason the two of them were still alone in the common room was because the other students were still sleeping in after their late night.

Harry decided that he had to wake Hermione up, as it wouldn't be long until students started coming down, and if the two of them were down here showing obvious signs of having not gone to bed they would make assumptions that he was sure Hermione didn't want them to make. "Hermione," Harry said as he placed a hand on her side making sure she didn't roll a little and fall off the sofa as she woke up. "Hermione, I need you to wake up."

"Don' wanna. Comfy." Hermione mumbled, still half asleep.

"People will be here soon." Harry told her.

Hermione turned to look at him and half opened one eye. "Harry? Why are you in my bed? Am I dreaming again?" Hermione asked, her head still clouded in sleep.

Harry smiled at that. In her early morning confusion, she had just admitted to dreaming about him in her bed and the part of him that was flooded with teenage hormones couldn't help but grin at the idea of what he and Hermione were doing in her bed in those dreams. However, he had to focus, "I'm not in your bed. We fell asleep in the common room, and everyone is going to start coming down soon and we need to shower and change," he told her.

Harry's words seemed to quickly bring Hermione to her senses. "Oh my God, oh my God, I need to go get changed. I'm so sorry for falling asleep on you." She climbed up off him, straightened out her robes, and started to rush off up the stairs before stopping and turning back, walking up to Harry with a slight blush on her face before she leaned down and captured his lips with her own. Harry quickly lost himself in the sensation of Hermione kissing him. She reluctantly broke the kiss, stood up, and smiled at him. "I really enjoyed my time at the ball last night, Harry," she said before she turned around and disappeared up the girl's staircase, leaving Harry with a dopey expression and a smile on his face.

-ϟϟϟ-

Harry and Hermione waited until mid-morning before they went to the Hospital Wing for what must have been the most awkward conversation that Harry ever had with the school nurse. "Excuse me, Madam Pomfrey." Hermione spoke rather nervously and quickly. "I was wondering if Harry and I can get checked for love potions, please?"

The nurse looked over Hermione and Harry with a piercing look, noting that the two teens were holding hands before she sighed. "And what makes you think that the two of you may need a test for love potions, and do you need a morning after potion Miss Granger?"

Hermione blushed. "No I don't need one of those, nothing like that happened." She told the older woman, and Harry noticed that the healer's shoulders relaxed when she said that. "Harry and I became a couple last night, but something someone said makes me afraid it wasn't our choice. I'm really hoping that I'm just being paranoid, but I'd rather be sure."

Madam Pomfrey nodded. "I can understand that. Given how the two of you are together I don't think you are under a love potion, but I will check and make sure. Can the two of you please sit on that bed there while I receive a testing kit? Oh, can I ask what was said?" Madam Pomfrey motioned to one of the beds nearest her office, which she stepped into and left the door open so that they could keep talking.

Harry answered this time as they sat down on the bed. "One of the Slytherins took our photo during our… uh, first kiss, and said something about winning something."

"That makes some sense,'' Madam Pomfrey said as she returned with two packets in her hand. "While not strictly allowed under the school rules, it's not uncommon for students to have betting pools. I wouldn't be surprised to find that there was one on when you two would share your first kiss. And at the Yule ball, at least after it became so well known that the two of you were going together, it might have been a good bet that someone took the photo for evidence to collect on a bet." Neither of the teens knew how to feel about that, the idea that there were enough people in the school who considered their relationship such a foregone conclusion that they were betting on "when", not "if", was a big thing to get their heads around. "Now these kits are pretty simple to use." The healer said as she held out two vials, each with a potion. "Un-stoppering the vial, you will find it has a pin on the underside of the stopper. Use that to prick your finger and add 3 drops of blood to the vial, give it a little shake, wait 30 seconds, and then we can consult a colour chart to determine the results."

Both teens did as instructed; Harry pricked his thumb while Hermione decided to prick her index finger. They added the requisite three drops of blood to the potion stop at the vials, gave it a little shake, and waited 30 seconds. Both potions turned a shade of pale blue, and Madam Pomfrey looked at the potions and smiled. "Well, this is good news, this is exactly what I want to see whenever I use one of these kits. Pale blue means you are not under the effects of any love potion, nor are there any remnants of such in your system."

Both of the teams felt a wash of relief flood through the system, their feelings were just theirs and there was no trickery involved. So what if someone like Daphne Greengrass was able to make a few Galleons by guessing when it would happen? The two of them left the hospital wing feeling lighter than they had when they arrived.

-ϟϟϟ-

With the Yule ball out of the way, Harry and Hermione returned to their preparations for their upcoming conflicts. They made sure they were still proficient with the bubble head charm, after having learnt in their sixth year. Being a spell that Harry hadn't had any cause to use much for years, it took him a bit of practice to get back up to scratch with it, but once ready the two of them did spend some time in the Room of Requirement after having used it to create a replica of the environment at the bottom of the Black Lake to practice some of their spells underwater. They were also planning on what they were going to do at the end of the third task. They were sure that was the day Voldemort was going to try and kidnap Harry again. According to Hermione, when she been reading the horcrux books, there were some references to the ritual that Voldemort had used to return himself to a body, and the summer solstice was an important component of the ritual (or rather the end of the ritual; Voldemort would have had to start making some preparations on the winter solstice, the symbolism being that Voldemort grew as the days got longer).

Would Voldemort still try using the triwizard cup as a portkey? Without Crouch Jr taking the place of Alastor Moody, would they be able to ensure that Harry was the first one to get to the cup? After all, Voldemort wouldn't be happy if after all his preparations he was stuck with some random person that wasn't his enemy. What if he got Krum? The Bulgarian wasn't a bad sort, but he had some loyalty to his school and his Headmaster, a school that preached blood purity and a Headmaster who was at one point a Death Eater. Hardly counts as the blood of an enemy. And what about Fleur? From what Harry knew of the young woman, she would definitely consider herself on the opposite side to Voldemort and therefore would count as an enemy, but how would Veela blood, the blood of an all female near human magical race, affect the results of the ritual? Would Voldemort want to take such a risk? But if Voldemort didn't want to take such a risk, how would he go about kidnapping Harry, and more importantly, how could Harry turn that kidnapping to his advantage?

With Christmas over, the time until the second task didn't seem that long. Before Harry knew it, January was over and February was disappearing just as quickly. On the morning of the second task, he couldn't find Hermione anywhere, so he knew who his hostage was. His plan for handling the second task was rather simple, he was going to speedrun it. Armed with his knowledge of the task from the previous timeline, he knew he didn't have to worry about other hostages, waiting down there concerned for the other champions to show up, so he was going to get down there and back as fast as he could. Given what he knew and how long he and Hermione had to plan, he thought he could be down there and back pretty quickly.

As they had guessed, the tournament organizers chose Hermione as his hostage this time; she was the obvious choice for him, especially after she became his girlfriend at Christmas. It didn't mean, however, that he was a fan of the idea, especially as Hermione wasn't asked beforehand. So Harry stood on the pier with the three other champions listening to Bagman drone on and on about stupid stuff while trying to get the crowd excited about sitting and watching the surface of a lake on a cold morning in February, wanting to get the task underway as soon as possible.

Finally, 11 am came around and all the waffling ended with the whistle blown for the start of the task. Harry checked his pocket again for the weird random-looking items he had brought with him. As eager to get on with it as he was, he did wait until all the other three champions had dove into the lake before he did anything, starting with summoning one of the school boats that quickly came floating over to him. He climbed in and pulled out a map he had copied from the Marauders' Map that morning.

Harry had gotten lucky; while the whole lake was not on the Marauders' Map, the part of it that contained the merfolk village was. He had been able to see exactly where Hermione and the other hostages were in relation to the rest of the Hogwarts grounds, so with a quick tap of his wand he was able to send the small boat so that he was parked directly over the village. It was only then that he cast the bubble head charm and pulled a stone out of his pocket that he had picked up on the shoreline. He cast Engorgio on it, turning the pebble into a boulder, and held on as it suddenly pulled him under the water, straight down to the village of the merpeople. Either the Black Lake was much deeper than Harry realised, or gravity works surprisingly slowly through water, because it took Harry a few minutes before he had to end the Engorgio on the rock before it could hit one of the merpeople's homes. He heard the singing of the merpeople calling to the champions to the center of their village, so he swam in that direction.

Harry found the hostages quickly enough that the merpeople, who all seemed to have gathered in their village square to watch for the champions, were surprised to see one of them so early. He didn't wait around, though, he swam up to Hermione and released the bonds that were holding her to the statue. He took the rope that had held her and used it to tie Hermione to himself so that she was on his back looking over his shoulder. Then Harry withdrew the last weird item he was carrying, a balloon. Not a standard party balloon, but instead a much larger, stronger variety called a punch balloon that Hermione had gotten her parents to get for him. While not indestructible, these balloons were meant as toys for kids that would last at least a few days, and also had a loop on them that came with a long elastic band attached. Kids were meant to hold the band in their fists so that they could punch the balloon and it would spring back, allowing them to punch again and again in rapid succession. Harry, however, had removed the elastic and instead attached a shorter piece of rope that he now looped through the rope that was holding him and Hermione together. He took his wand and put the tip in the open neck of the balloon and cast "Ventas!"

The spell created a gust of air, but it was trapped inside a balloon blowing it up instead of creating wind as the spell originally was intended for. With the air in the balloon (that was now the size of a small beach ball), the two of them started to rise to the service. It was a little awkward for Harry to get his wand out of the neck of the balloon and to pocket it without letting all the air out of the balloon, but he managed it and was even able to tie off the balloon once he had two hands free. It took quite a bit longer for them to float to the surface than it did for Harry to sink to the bottom, but Hermione came to life as soon as her head broke the surface of the water. After a few seconds, she got her bearings and he untied the rope that was holding them together. Once freed, Hermione gave Harry one of her patented rib crackers she called hugs and he summoned the boat to them, as they had surfaced a good 100ft from it.

The boat floated over to them, and then the two of them had fun trying to work out how to get into the boat without tipping it over. In the end, Harry levitated Hermione into the boat first and she returned the favour. With a tap of his wand, Harry sent the boat back to the pier and pulled Hermione into his arms in an attempt to share what little body heat the two still had. He stepped back onto the pier twenty six minutes after eleven (according to his watch), and the two were quickly bustled into the medical tent by Madam Pomfrey, who didn't waste any time in pushing pepperup potions into their hands and told them to drink.

-ϟϟϟ-

Being the first back by such a large margin meant that when it came time for the judges to give the scores, Harry was already dry and clean, whereas most of the others (while dry) were still covered in a layer of lake grime and shivering a little. The only exception was Fleur, who was probably using her innate Veela fire magic.

"What an exciting task we had today!" Bagman's voice boomed out, sounding cheery although it came across as false, as all the spectators grumbled after having had to watch the surface of a lake for over an hour. "The judges have decided to give out the scores as a whole this time rather than separately.

"In fourth place we have Miss Delacour, who arrived back at the pier 10 minutes outside of the time limit with her hostage, her little sister. According to the chieftainess of the merpeople, Fleur was also the last of the champions to arrive at their village where the hostages were being held. She did, however, use the bubble head charm to great effect, and fought off a pack of grindylows so we award her 30 points!" The crowd clapped politely, though there were a couple of boys cheering like she had won the whole tournament.

"In third place we have Cedric Diggory, who also used the bubble head charm and arrived at the pier with his hostage, his date to the Yule Ball, three minutes outside of the time limit. According to the chieftainess of the merpeople, Mr. Diggory and Mr. Krum arrived at the village at the same time. Mr. Diggory is awarded 35 points." The crowd reaction was more enthusiastic this time, though Harry guessed this was more to do with the fact that Cedric was a Hogwarts student and a majority of the students were also from Hogwarts, rather than any particular joy at watching what Cedric had accomplished.

"In second place we have Viktor Krum. Mr. Krum, instead of using a bubble head charm like the other champions, used a partial human Transfiguration and turned his head and part of his upper torso into that of a shark, giving himself gills. He also transfigured his hands and feet so that they would be more adapted to moving in the water. These changes meant that, even though he reached the village at the same time as Mr. Diggory, Mr. Krum was able to swim back to the pier with his hostage, who was also his date for the Yule Ball, much quicker. He arrived 4 minutes inside the time limit of the task, and as such he is awarded 40 points." The cheers for Krum were almost as loud as the ones for Diggory.

"And in first place, we have the largest upset of the task and the tournament of all so far, The Boy-Who-Lived himself, Harry Potter, who arrived with his hostage back on the pier only 25 minutes into the task. Mr Potter used a combination of the bubble head charm, the engorgement charm, and the summoning charm to reach the merfolk village in record time. He summoned a boat and used it to position himself above the village, then the engorgement charm on a pebble to sink directly down to the village. After freeing his hostage, Mr. Potter used a wind charm to fill a balloon and use it to return to the boat, which he then used to return to the pier with his hostage, who was also his date to the Yule Ball. Most of the judges feel that this warranted full marks, however we decided to officially award Mr. Potter 48 points." Harry received the loudest cheer of all, even if a large part of the school didn't like him (such as the Slytherins), they did not want to be seen not supporting a Hogwarts student who had done so well. Harry suspected that by tomorrow most of them would return to business as usual, such as calling him a cheat when they passed in the halls. Right now he didn't care at all for the adulation, he actually was cheating because he had done all this before. It might be necessary, but every second he had made over the others was a chance to keep them alive.

"So as the scores currently stand: in fourth place, with a total of 50 points out of a possible 100, we have Fleur Delacour! In third place with 67 points, Hogwarts's Cedric Diggory! In second place, we have the international Quidditch star Viktor Krum with a total of 79 points! And in first place, with a total of 89 points, we have Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived." Harry winced at the commentator using that hated title again, but Bagman continued. "The final task will be on midsummer's day, and the champions will be informed of all the pertinent details exactly one month before the task. Until then, let's have one final round of applause for the champions." Bagman got everyone clapping and cheering again.

Taking it as their dismissal, the champions climbed down from their platform and made their way back into the medical tent where the hostages were waiting for them. Hermione was waiting there now more because of madam Pomfrey's more cautious nature rather than any actual need. Harry laughed to himself when he had the thought that Madam Pomfrey would keep someone overnight for observation if they came to her with a splinter. He sat himself next to Hermione, rather than in the bed Madam Pomfrey wanted him in, because honestly right now he needed to hug his girlfriend more than he needed fussing over by the nurse.

"Hey Hermione?" His girlfriend turned to look at him. "It's a Hogsmeade weekend next week. Want to go together?"

"Harry, we always go to Hogsmeade together.

"I meant...I meant more like a date," Harry clarified.

"Oh...right. Yes, um...sorry I was being an idiot for a moment, I would love to go on a date with you." Hermione agreed, a big genuine smile on her face.

A/N

remember I love reading your reviews :)