An Incomplete Potter Collection ch Collection 7
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The Revenge of Tom Riddle
Fabled Harry
Chaos Magnet
An Interrupted Announcement 2
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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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Story: [The Revenge of Tom Riddle]
Summary: Tom Riddle is Lord Voldemort, but Lord Voldemort was never Tom Riddle, and he's not all too pleased at some upstart using his name to start a war.
Genre: Adventure
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Tom Riddle was not a happy child.
Ignoring the fact that he grew up unloved and bullied in an orphanage, the true reason for this lack of a childhood was perhaps more directly related to what would become his Professor in Transfiguration.
Having turned eleven, a Hogwarts Professor was sent out to introduce him to the wonders of magic.
By the time that said Professor arrived, Tom had already a certain degree of control over his accidental magic, something that was virtually unheard of amongst purebloods. It would've caused much rejoicing between the teachers, except for the simple fact that Tom Riddle was a muggleborn, and everyone knew that no muggleborn ever truly amounted to anything.
So, a little bit peeved at the child seemingly having more talent than himself, the by then rather famous Professor decided to scare the little boy into submission with a rather violent display of magic.
Tom was understandably a bit awed at the ability to do more than he already could. To not only gain more control over it, but to actually learn how to go beyond what he'd even imagined doing previously.
The Professor saw his enthusiasm at such a violent display of magic, and made a mental note to keep an eye on what would likely become a delinquent of some kind later on.
Everything continued rather spectacularly for Tom until he sat down on a stool in front of hundreds of older students, and had a talking hat placed on his head.
The moment that that Hat shouted "Slytherin", was the moment Tom's life truly went down the crapper.
Having been Sorted into the House mainly populated with pureblood bigots, Tom the orphan muggleborn quickly became their new favorite toy to play with. Behind closed doors, of course, since it wouldn't do for others to see the noble House of Slytherin turning on its own.
This meant that despite being bullied by his housemates, the rest of the school watched him in class and decided simply that he was a Slytherin like all the others. And with the Slytherins being distrusted by all, why should they listen to Tom's woes?
In fact, instead of listening to him, they were rather enthusiastic about teaching him a lesson for his 'bigoted' ways.
The bullying he received from other Houses met a turning point when it was discovered by Albus Dumbledore, the same Professor who'd introduced him to magic.
Now, finally, the discrimination and outright cruelty had caught the eye of the man who was not only a Transfiguration teacher, but also the newly elected Head of Discipline, surely now he'd be free from the bullying?
Except that Dumbledore remembered well the greed in Tom's eyes at the first sight of the violence he himself had demonstrated, and he knew better than to trust a Slytherin and their deceitful and bigoted ways, so he did the right thing and told Tom that obviously he'd deserved it.
Shocked silent at the dismissal of what had been months of near-torture by his fellow students by the man in charge of making sure that such events never happened, Tom numbly walked out of the man's office.
Once he'd recovered from the blatant disregard for his responsibility, Tom did what he did best.
He learned magic.
Magic awe-inspiring enough that he was finally able to leave the position of victim in all but the most unfavorable situations.
But that wasn't enough, because once the students realized that he could not be attacked outright, they began to attack him subtly, indirectly. And he just didn't have the pull to get around such attacks, because he was a muggleborn Slytherin, and nobody gave a damn if he lived or died.
No, he needed to get away from that somehow. He needed an excuse. A lineage showcasing his 'superiority' to the masses, so that he could escape them on this new battlefield.
Staying true to his quest for the wonders of magic. He found his answer in a book.
There, staring back at him from the page, was a ritual designed to give the user the ability to speak parseltongue. To speak the language of snakes. Just like Slytherin had done, all those many many years ago.
It was perfect.
With a magical link to the abilities of Salazar Slytherin himself, none of his housemates could ever declare him a mudblood again.
Still, he needed to do more research, find out if there were any heirs of Slytherin that might be upset with him for claiming such a relation, as well as finding a name for himself that new entrance to the House would classify as 'muggle' on first glimpse. First impressions were after all rather vital in the game of reputation.
So, he set out to research Slytherin's family, and happened upon the Gaunts.
They were born as parselmouths, they proclaimed to be descended from Slytherin, they were isolated, and they were too insane for their testimony to actually be considered even remotely trustworthy.
It didn't take long to Confound the villagers into believing that the beautiful woman that Tom Riddle – a local lord who shared Tom's name, making him vaguely curious if he was perhaps a bastard rather than an orphan – had briefly eloped with, before his parents had threatened to cut off his money supply unless he married his actual fiancee, was actually the revoltingly ugly Merope Gaunt.
So, now there was a possible bastard emerging from Merope, combined with the 'father's' name being Tom's own, and suddenly all he had to do was leave a few clues scattered around for whenever someone undoubtedly came to investigate his claim on Slytherin's lineage.
A week during summer, and suddenly Tom Marvolo Riddle was truly born – having taken his middle name from Merope's father – and he was now proudly a halfblood descended from Salazar Slytherin himself.
Obviously, the only thing he needed from there, was a name that would convince everyone in Slytherin that he hated muggles and 'mudbloods' just as much as they did. It was easier not to rock the boat after all, considering how his entire goal was to be able to finally escape his tormentors, and any attention he drew to himself, whether it be awe or disgust, would bring them down like vultures on his head.
In the end, he went for a suitably dramatic anagram. And Lord Voldemort entered the stage.
By now, Slytherin was finally cowed into silence in his presence, and the other Houses began to notice enough differences that they hesitated to point fingers or fling hexes at his back.
He was free, but he was now surrounded by people who honestly disgusted him to his core.
It shouldn't come as any surprise that by now he'd already made a plan of escaping the country at first opportunity and attempting to find a more non-hostile magical environment to spend the rest of his life in.
He still needed the money however, so when he graduated from Hogwarts with top honors, he rejected the long-term contracts of the Ministry, and picked up a slightly seedy job in Knockturn Alley.
However, despite his willingness to let bygones be bygones during his schooling, once he was safely out of reach of the bullies and their possible retaliation, Tom decided to acquire a bit of vengeance on his own.
Like any sufficiently organized child, he'd kept a list over who exactly was the most deserving in receiving that vengeance, and on top of that list stood the name Abraxas Malfoy.
Abraxas was by now married and the proud father of one, having graduated several years before Tom himself. The man was however also curious about Tom and his apparent transformation over the latter years he spent in Hogwarts.
And his curiosity was enough for Tom to establish a friendship. Because despite his innocence and blood-status, the Sorting Hat had most certainly not been mistaken in placing him in Slytherin.
It didn't take him long after that to set up a few rituals, having already memorized the sequence of just what horrors he was planning on implementing on the person who'd led the torment of his person for all those years.
No ritual could actually be reversed, after all. It was a thing to do with willing sacrifices and magic.
But, the ability that was gained through a ritual could still be lost through another ritual.
As an example, there was a ritual that caused great fertility in both men and women, but that also removed the person's hair. And if that ritual was followed by a certain ritual which would cause them never to fall ill, but at the same time sacrifice their genitals, then suddenly the person in question was a bald eunuch.
It'd taken him time to add these rituals together in this most horribly cruel of manners, but Tom had been bored, and he'd never proclaimed himself as an especially forgiving person.
So, one night he turned Abraxas Malfoy into a horrible monster, for an immense payment that Abraxas himself had signed on, and suddenly the man had lost both his fashionably good looks, his gold, and his credibility.
He'd doomed Abraxas Malfoy to live the rest of his life as a nameless, shunned magical creature.
His vengeance thus satisfied, and his minimal necessary budget more than achieved.
Tom finally cut the ties that kept him in Britain and fled the country in due haste.
It was only then, having left his horrible life behind him, that his great plan turned to ash in his mouth.
Because, alarming though it was, Britain truly was one of the forerunners in their society.
That is to say, every other country was worse. Much much worse than Britain had ever been to its inhabitants.
Horrified at the barbaric ways of the rest of the world, Tom still managed to gather together a fascinating collection of various magic as he traveled between magical communities, desperately hoping for one that would at least reach the defective laws that the muggles in the more developed societies usually acted by.
Unfortunately, he was finally forced to give up.
There truly were no other magical community that could match the 'good' of Britain.
And so, despairing over what the magical world had seemingly done to itself, Tom abandoned it all.
It should be noted however, that his reason for abandoning his quest might've been because he'd recently arrived at a secluded muggle beach where several women went topless.
Hey, he'd never really had time with girls, growing up like he had. And in a Scottish castle, no matter the dress-code, the girls will not be planning on wearing anything especially skimpy.
Okay yeah, he'd been shocked into a dazed awe at the wonders that the muggle world hid from the bigoted purebloods of the Wizarding World, and simply decided that perhaps this was something that needed closer examination.
So, despite having lived a rather awful childhood, Tom Riddle came to live a rather fantastic life, on the beaches of the muggle world, and with the unreasonable amount of cash that he'd legally acquired from the Malfoy family.
It's at this point that it should be noted that even without Tom Riddle's presence in the Wizarding World, its problems and inhabitants didn't simply cease to be.
Abraxas Malfoy was for example not quite as incompetent with magic as Tom had suspected, and had enough material to actually gain a thing or two from the collection of rituals that he'd paid Tom to put him through.
That and the man's undying hatred towards Tom Riddle's name was enough of a motivator for him to finally manage to organize his peers.
And they gathered to the name 'Lord Voldemort'.
Of course, Abraxas couldn't let anyone live who might dispute this claim on Tom Riddle's title, and so he hurriedly went about systematically wiping out both the Gaunt family as well as the Riddle family that happened to live nearby.
With his charismatically powerful title now secured, and an ability to speak to snakes having been acquired, Abraxas... went mad with power.
Having never been the most stable of individuals, the man's sense of self slipped deep enough that his role as 'Voldemort' became who he was.
Obsessed with the thought of abandoning 'his' name of Tom Riddle and fulfilling the goal his 'ancestor' had sought to accomplish all those years ago before leaving Hogwarts, Abraxas quickly became a force to be reckoned with in Wizarding Britain.
He, in fact, became so obsessed with this goal, that he decided to do another ritual that he'd stumbled on after trying to cure himself from the damage that Tom Riddle had done to him.
He began working with horcruxes. And someone as great as him, the descendant and true heir of Slytherin himself, the greatest of the Hogwarts Four, couldn't possibly use just anything as vessels for his fractured soul.
So he began his search for artifacts, all the while gathering his forces for the war that was just about to start.
In the end, the man's madness led him to the source of a prophecy, and the child that waited innocently in its crib impossibly caused his Killing Curse to rebound on him, ripping his soul out of his own body.
Obviously, the child became rather famous as a result.
Only... in this sudden explosion of gossip, word of Lord Voldemort and his war against the muggleborns finally reached Tom Riddle's ears.
The ears of a Tom Riddle who – despite not really liking the name that he'd chosen for himself – very much disliked having it dragged through the mud by someone else's actions.
So, with a deep sigh as he removed himself from the warm entangling arms of his many enthusiastic lovers, he decided that a visit to Wizarding Britain was in order.
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Story: [Fabled Harry]
Summary: Harry was adopted by Jack of Blades, but he was never part of the Guild, and he was never a Hero. Not that he might not have longed to take part in that and be free from his father's grasp.
Genre: Adventure
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Harry hated his father.
Well, 'father'... that was really a point of debate. But he was the closest thing he'd ever had to a father. Which wasn't really saying much since most of his memories were heavily steeped in a desperate struggle for survival.
His father had indeed... 'lessened' wasn't the word for what he'd done to the dangers he was exposed to, but the man had at least removed the sharpness of starvation from his mind.
Now his survival hinged on other things. Things that were in hindsight probably a lot worse than simply slowly starving to death.
If he'd known what his life would've been like, would he still have followed his father after the man saved him from those wolves?
The answer was probably 'yes', hunger having been a heartless enemy that was already known to him in its agony, and his father – for all the horrors the man committed – at least would never let him starve.
Unless it somehow benefited him that Harry starved.
Thankfully, he didn't seem to believe that it would, and so Harry was fed and clothed and given a proper roof over his head and a bed to sleep on.
For that, he should've worshiped the man.
Or... well, that would be what anyone would've said... until Harry told them his father's name.
His father was infamous after all. The cruelty which he displayed, the unstoppable power which he wielded. The common folk cheered his name, and hoped and prayed to their gods at night that they never drew his attention, all the while using the threat of his name to drive their disobedient children into bed at night.
No, Harry's father wasn't a nice man, whether you were close or distant in your relationship to him.
Harry had long since lost count of the plans he'd made for killing him. Plans had been made and discarded so many times that doing so was by now damn near instinctive.
Slit his throat in his sleep, only he doesn't sleep. Wait for him to let his guard down, only his hand never strays far from the pommel of his sword. Kill him in an honorable challenge, only he's the strongest and most skilled there has ever been.
All his plans were useless, and so he continued on with following the man's every order, knowing better than to defy the man who could so easily declare Harry of no more use to him and simply kill him.
Sometimes, he'd hesitated. Sometimes, he'd cried. Sometimes, he'd nearly turned his blade against his father instead.
But those 'sometimes' had happened a long time ago. By now, his heart was jaded, his hands so drenched in blood that not even the women who begged him to spare the children really made him worry about the taint that had spread across his soul when he simply killed the women first.
First, it'd been because of fear; then he'd tried to justify it with the wish of keeping the children from following in his own footsteps; then he'd schemed to use his loyalty to give him that one moment on inattention during which he could slit the man's throat.
Nowadays, he mostly did it out of calm, clinically practical habit.
It was easier to just kill everybody and simply not listen to their last wishes and dying screams.
And then came the day when Jack of Blades finally ignored Harry's presence for just long enough that he could slip a dagger in between his father's ribs.
The surprised gurgle of pain made Harry smile.
Of course, the dagger wasn't a normal dagger. He'd always known that if he tried to slit his father's throat, the man would simply find a way to heal himself and then kill him for his audacity. No, this was a dagger he'd found in the burnt out corpse of one of those he'd sacrificed on Skorm's altar.
He wasn't sure how he knew, but he'd known from that moment that he had Skorm's damnable blessing on his eternal quest of patricide. He didn't know if it was simply the act of turning against the man who'd raised him, or if his father's own plans actually went against Skorm's wishes.
Possibly, it was simply that he was Evil and yet refused to bow to any god, even Skorm, that had roused the god's fury.
It didn't matter in the end. Harry had always known that this dagger had been made for killing one person. It would never be of any use to him again after this, but then he saw no point in keeping a tool – no matter for how cherished a task – as a keepsake. He would let it return to Skorm's embrace, still lodged in his father's blackened heart.
Jack turned around to stare at him through his mask. "Clever. Very clever. I don't think anyone's ever gone quite so far in their hatred for me before."
Harry could almost hear him smile back at him, and it made him want to curse.
He'd always known the legends, of course. He'd searched far and wide for every last piece of information of his father that he could find, hoping to come across some kind of weakness that he could exploit. And when a man lives for centuries, with his face hidden behind a mask, people and the stories they tell begin to wonder just what that mask was.
Jack's body imploded in on itself as Skorm mercilessly dragged his carcass into the realm of the dead. But the mask remained, the strange material it was made of clattering as it fell to the ground, all other traces of the man who had been his father having vanished into thin air.
It was at this moment that Harry finally realized that his actions hadn't been enough. Because the empty eyes of the mask stared up at him, and he heard his father's voice whisper in his ear.
There was nothing he could do. He had nothing that would help. His dagger had been used. And neither his magic nor his sword would be enough.
The mask was looking for a new host, and it declared his own heartless cunning as a suitable replacement for power and skill that it might find elsewhere.
Wear me. It whispered its command, and Harry cursed himself a thousand times as his hand involuntarily reached for the object that was the closest thing to a father that he'd ever had.
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At this point, it should perhaps be told that Jack had not picked up the child of the goodness of his heart all those years ago. No, regardless of if such a thing even existed within Jack's chest, that had not been the case. It wasn't even that he'd detected some manner of potential talent that would serve him well in the time to come that had made Jack take the child into his fold.
His reason for his actions had been the sense of 'likeness' that he found in the boy with two souls.
The boy's 'second' soul had obviously failed in its attempt to do what he had succeeded with, by claiming a new body as its own. Possibly because of its obviously diminished state, and probably related to the odd magic lingering in the toddler's blood.
Still, the second piece of a soul had continued to linger within the boy's scar, and his experiments to find the cause, purpose, and origin of such happenings had been for naught. So, Jack gave up on the knowledge that he'd hoped to find there, and finally returned to his studies of the Sword of Aeons and the Key that would release it into his hands.
The boy made for a useful tool, as he'd been tempered by Jack's hand from an early age, and now unfalteringly obeyed his every command. So even though his original purpose for taking him in had been an exercise in futility, he was not overly displeased with having done so.
This is important, because whilst Jack was many a thing – manipulating and powerful, merely scratching the surface of his twisted genius – as his host died and he was again reduced to a mask of whispered wonders, he didn't stop to consider what he knew of his newly chosen host beyond what the boy had in the end become to him.
A useful tool, and a cunning betrayer.
And so he was caught by surprise when upon trying to crush the soul of his newest host, a second soul rose to the surface in order to fight him for control, he never expected the strange magic he had thought long since washed away by time returned in force in order to burn him for his attempt, and he never imagined that the jaded boy that had at his orders committed so much in his short life would unhesitatingly use that briefest of opportunities given to him by Jack's surprise in order to fight back.
The end of Jack of Blades, the Hero of Heroes, was not a great one that befitted his twisted legend. It was not a tale of struggle and violence and a Hero of the bravest sort. Jack's end, was found in a mother's love, a madman's hatred and fear, and a determined boy with a dagger.
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Harry opened his eyes to pain.
It felt as if someone had hit him over the head with an ax, splitting his head in two, and then tried to put it back together by wrapping a rope around his skull and pulling it far too tight.
There was some weird black gunk covering his face, having apparently leaked out of his scar, and Jack's mask lay on the ground, silent.
Wiping away the gunk, Harry grabbed his sword and got ready to start hitting the mask of his 'father' until it was nothing but dust on the wind and he would never have to remember him again.
Only to find that he couldn't.
He couldn't swing the sword down on the mask. He could think about doing so, he could swing the sword as much as he wanted, but he couldn't actually destroy the mask.
The feeling that overcame him whenever he tried was the same feeling that had previously stopped him from cutting off his own limbs. A nauseous fear of leaving something important behind to never be found again.
Of course, he didn't want to listen to that, even as he felt – felt – the mask resting on the ground, felt it feel his hostility towards it... It was like it'd become an extension of who he was.
He spent the next several hours just trying to think of a way to destroy it, only to be thwarted at every turn by himself, before finally surrendering to the inevitable and placing the accursed memento of his father safely inside of his shirt.
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Story: [Chaos Magnet]
Summary: Harry discuss his parentage, and what side of the family he gets what from, with his parents.
Genre: Humor
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"Actually Harry, other than your hair, I'd say that you inherited all your looks from my side of the family." Lily said.
"But everyone say I look just like dad, other than my eyes." Harry blinked up at his mother, feeling confused.
"Yes, well. They're wrong. If you'd inherited your father's looks, it'd be a lot more obvious than it is now." Lily shrugged.
"Because he'd be even handsomer?" James guessed, looking amused.
"Well... yes." Lily blushed slightly. "There's that."
Harry made a slightly disgusted noise at his parents flirting in front of him. Happy to see them or not, there were some things a child should not be exposed to in regards to their parents.
"Honestly, I'd say you'd inherited your father's personality and trouble-gene more than anything look-based." She admitted, deciding to ignore James's smug smirk.
"But dad went looking for trouble, didn't he? With all those pranks and stuff?" Harry didn't exactly enjoy the idea that he'd inherited his father's personality. Love him lots, he might do. But from what Harry knew, his father had still been kind of a jerk during his schooling.
"No, trouble would always come to him somehow. And then he'd get blamed. It was a bit of a sore spot for him actually." She remarked fondly. "Couldn't talk his way out of a wet paper bag, but would always charge straight into a fight in order to help others."
"Hey! I could smooth-talk with the best of them!" James interrupted her indignantly.
Lily glanced over to him, looking a bit annoyed. "Yes, and how long does a pregnancy take, James?"
"Seven months." James told her with a slightly confused face at the change in subject.
"Exactly." She smirked at him.
Harry blinked as realization began to dawn on him, and he felt his jaw drop at what his mother was insinuating.
"My dad wasn't James Potter?" He hissed, looking distinctly distraught.
"Of course not." Lily smiled a bit guiltily at him. "I only started dating him when I realized I was already pregnant. There are few worse things to be than a pregnant and unmarried muggleborn in the Wizarding World."
James turned around to gape in horror at his wife, unable to form coherent sentences as his worldview completely crumbled.
"Then who was my dad?" Harry asked, distressed.
"A young man called Ranma Saotome." She sighed longingly. "We knew we'd only have that one night... but what a night it was..." She smiled absently at the memory.
Harry continued to stare at her for a moment, before realizing that though his mother was indeed serious, it didn't really make much of a difference to his own worldview since he'd grown up orphaned. "Okay, and what about the prophecy?"
Lily made a displeased noise. "It shouldn't have touched you, but everyone thought that it ought to, since me and my husband fought against him. Your father however, didn't fight against him, so you really shouldn't have been affected, unless of course you count the 'born to those' as 'born into the marriage of those'." She sighed. "Still, I'm fairly sure that the prophecy is still in effect, unfortunately for you."
"Really?" Harry asked, a bit miserable at the thought.
"Considering how you seems to have inherited your father's luck, I sincerely doubt you'll be able to dodge it." She gave a sympathetic nod.
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Story: [An Interrupted Announcement 2]
Summary: Continuation of An Interrupted Announcement, this – a bit crazy – Harry's escapades through the Triwizard begins. This is the first time a posted Discontinued Story has ever been continued though, so seriously don't start expecting it.
Genre: Humor, Crack
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Harry cheered as another one of the Champion was chosen, in part because it was fun to cheer for people, but mostly because he was still a little bit high on the thought that there wouldn't be any death-defying stunts for him this year.
It was making him cheerful enough that he'd nearly been willing to hug Malfoy, so yeah. Definitely high.
With the Third Champion chosen, everyone returned their attention to whatever it'd been that they were doing previously.
Only for the Goblet to lit up a fourth time.
Harry didn't so much startle, as he reacted.
"Aguamenti!" He yelled as he aimed his wand at the godforsaken Goblet that he just knew was trying to steal his hard-earned year of peace away from him. "Aguamenti, Aguamenti, Aguamenti!" He repeated himself, still aiming at the burning Goblet.
The Great Hall were once again treated to a most unusual behavior from the Golden Boy of Gryffindor as the boy continued to hit the Goblet of Fire with water-spells.
"I refuse! I won't let you take my year of peace away! It's mine! You can't have it! I worked hard for that! I survived Dementors and basilisks and even my bloody professors! I will have peace!" He shouted, sounding a little bit hysterical. "Aguamenti! Stop burning you ruddy thing! Aguamenti!"
Dumbledore, who'd briefly considered disarming the boy as he'd aimed his wand at the staff-table, was beginning to wonder if Harry might not be a tad bit emotionally unstable.
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"Ruddy dragons." Harry muttered to himself as he entered the nurse's tent, still clutching the bag along with his newly found golden egg.
On the other hand, thanks to his plan in eliminating the dragon, he'd managed to find both a way and a reason to petrify Mrs Norris. He hated that cat. And it wasn't like he could be held responsible for his actions, since apparently he was classified as a full-on contestant, which meant that he didn't even get a detention for causing such a mess after he'd been able to prove that it was directly related to his ability to participate in the Task.
Who'd have thought that he'd be able to find a manual on how to create your own basilisk in the small amount of time that he had? After that, he just shoved it into a bag, and Summoned it once the Task started.
Sure, the basilisk's eyes hadn't developed to be strong enough to be capable of killing a creature at a glance, but they could still petrify, which was how he'd been able to claim his egg.
Thank you mythology for giving us Perseus, the hero who slayed Medusa and brought home its head in a bag, with its eyes still capable of petrifying the king who'd tried to retract his previously promised reward for the task.
So yeah, okay there could've been ways that didn't cause the entire audience to need mandrake potions, but not any that he could think of a the drop of a hat.
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With nearly half the audience still petrified since Dumbledore refused to purchase what Hogwarts' greenhouses could grow for itself, there was a sudden extreme lack of potential dance-partners – in both gender-directions – by the time the Yule Ball came into play.
Unless, of course, you were looking at students that weren't part of Hogwarts, because apparently their headmasters weren't cheapskates.
Harry had obviously caught a lot of flak from pretty much everyone for his decision to make use of a basilisk in the tournament, but the basilisk – who he'd named Spot, mostly for the irony of it spotting others – was good company since he'd found a way to make yourself immune to its eyes with a potion made in part from its blood.
And it wasn't like he didn't appreciate good company.
Ron was obviously still petrified, his family refusing Harry's offer of buying the mandrake potion necessary for him. Hermione was still giving him the cold shoulder for doing such a horribly dangerous thing as raising a basilisk. And most of his classes were sparsely populated, with most of his professors giving him the stink-eye for that.
All in all, he was really happy that he was a parselmouth and could talk with the actually surprisingly intelligent snake that he kept in his dorm.
The dorm had obviously been hurriedly evacuated by the other boys of his year, since there were a lot of empty beds that didn't make you sleep right next to an extremely poisonous snake that could petrify you with its eyes.
In the end, Harry had said 'screw it' and stood up in the middle of the Great Hall, announcing that if he couldn't find a date, he'd dance the night away with Spot.
Suddenly realizing that one of the Champions couldn't be excluded from the Ball, thereby avoiding the possibility of a basilisk appearing in the middle of a crowded room, the students hurriedly decided that someone needed to go with him and prevent that from happening. Stat.
And as all the girls took an obvious step backwards at the thought, a certain eccentric Ravenclaw absently wandered off to meet the person who'd acquired such an interesting pet.
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Harry cursed heavily as he stood on the bank of the lake, staring out over the black water that hid the thing that he'd sorely miss.
Ruddy wizards, ruining his winning strategy.
Looking up in order to wave to Luna in the stands, he took another deep breath and began to make his way into the lake.
"I'm coming for you Spot, don't worry." He whispered nervously to himself.
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Harry emerged from the waters, looking drained and carrying both an unsettlingly cold Spot and a small blonde girl who'd apparently not been rescued by her own Champion.
Dumping the girl on Fleur, who looked immensely grateful, Harry rounded on the judges and began to scream at them.
It was one thing that they'd taken Spot away without his permission – him being his owner, meaning that what they'd done was technically classified as theft – but none of the idiots seemed to have considered that he was a cold-blooded creature and that putting him away in the middle of the Black Lake in February without any protection from the cold could be seen as attempted murder.
Now, obviously, people didn't at all mind the thought of the judges having figured out a way to kill off the basilisk that had petrified half the school, but that was before they realized that no matter how horrible a monster the basilisk was, it was Harry's property.
What they'd tried to do was the theft and destruction of the private property of a very famous and quite rich young wizard.
The Daily Prophet would definitely have a headline.
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Smiling to himself, Harry wondered when the judges would realize that the basilisk he'd given them so that Spot didn't interfere with the Third Task was actually a transfigured twig.
Running into the maze, Spot's head popped out of his neckline, hissing in good humor at the faces the judges would make once they realized that they'd been played.
With Spot along for the ride, no creature was of any danger to Harry, he still had to watch out for things like traps and the possibility of getting lost however.
Also, apparently the basilisk couldn't petrify something as inherently changeable as a Boggart, so he had to deal with that one on his own.
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Staring out over the graveyard where he landed, Harry hurriedly hunched down behind cover.
All three of his fellow Champions had ended up being petrified, so he'd had no choice but to take the Cup for his own, not knowing that it'd been a portkey that had most likely sent him to wherever it was that Voldemort wanted him sent to.
The man was kind of predictable that way.
Frowning slightly as a shape emerged from the shadows, carrying a bundle in its arms, Harry hissed what he felt had become his catchphrase – not that anyone who didn't speak parseltongue knew that, of course.
"Spot 'em, Spot."
His loyal basilisk heard and obeyed.
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Returning to the school, carrying a petrified Peter Pettigrew, a petrified baby homunculus, and Spot – with a large bulge on his stomach signaling the technical presence of a slightly smaller snake – caused a bit of chaos.
It didn't become better when Alastor Moody went ballistic and tried to kill the Boy-Who-Lived for 'ruining his master's plans'.
Turns out, he wasn't Moody, and nobody had noticed. Ruddy wizards.
Not that Harry minded particularly, as his godfather was now a free man, Luna had snogged him most thoroughly for 'being dashing', and he'd finally found some sunglasses that Spot could put on and remove of his own volition in case he didn't want to petrify people.
Life was good.
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