Author's Note

This is my first work of fan fiction, though not my first written work. I do hope that you enjoy it, as my desire is to entertain readers just as much as it is to get this story out of my head.

I despise typos, continuity errors, and formatting mistakes. Do not hesitate to point them out so I may set them on fire, though I would prefer you DM me so my shame does not live eternal in the reviews.

Please. Review. I cannot stress this enough. Your feedback, both positive and negative, motivates me and helps me to become a better write.

Do. Not. Post. Spoilers. In. Your. Review.

Disclaimer: I am not the immensely talented and inspiring woman known as J. K. Rowling, and therefore hold no claim to the fantastical world she allows our imaginations to frolic in.

Special Calendar Note: A reader let me know that in Goblet of Fire the Halloween feast was set on a Saturday, not the Monday it actually should have been on in 1994. However, as continuity is very important to me, I have decided to keep Halloween on Monday, that way if any other issues arise we can all reference the real calendar rather than try to figure out what it was in the books.

Chapter 4: Party Favors

There was a long silence that followed the headmaster's departure. Harry couldn't help but wonder why he had been here. Usually the headmaster only came to Harry at the end of some terrible event in which he and his two friends managed to save the school, while simultaneously breaking most of its rules. But this time, the very night that something had happened, Dumbledore had been here. Been here undeniably for Harry.

A small amount of anger welled in a part of him as he thought that. Why now? Why this time? Why wasn't he there to help Sirius, to fight the basilisk, to protect the stone? But he shook those feelings away almost as soon as he felt them. Dumbledore was a powerful figure, but Harry knew that he wasn't omnipotent. Whenever he had been made aware of and danger the headmaster had always tried his hardest to get to him as quickly as he could. And tonight he had arrived so quickly that it had taken the boy completely by surprise.

Harry let out a long breath before turning back to his friends, both of them still staring at the place Dumbledore had just been. He walked back over to the two of them, rubbing the back of his head. "I kind of can't believe that happened."

"Hermione and I couldn't bloody believe it either when the headmaster walked in and began talking to us. I mean . . he's Dumbledore, and we're . . "

". . Great friends to talk to." Harry completed, beaming a smile at them. Ron and Hermione both grinned, Ron puffing out his chest while Hermione had a slight blush.

Harry stretched a bit and looked wistfully across the room towards the staircase, atop which he knew his four poster bed was waiting for him. But as he gazed at the silent common room it reminded Harry of something he had been curious about when he first entered the room.

"Everything looks so quiet right now. Honestly I'm a bit surprised there wasn't a party." He said, looking around. "I thought we used any chance we had for them, and having a Gryffindor champion would be enough for most people. Most of them wouldn't stop to think about the reason for it of course."

Hermione huffed loudly and pushed herself back into the sofa cushions.

"It's not like they didn't try! We went straight back to the common room with everyone else after the ceremony, and there was already a case of butterbeer out when we got here. I'm a quite concerned how quickly some of the upper years have gotten at conjuring banners. And they must be hiding their drinks down here, they didn't have time to run up to their dorms!"

Hermione held her book tighter to her chest as she scowled. Harry tried to keep a neutral expression on his face, but was grinning at the corners of his mouth. It wasn't that Hermione didn't like parties, but they always seemed to spring up just as she was in the middle of studying. It didn't help that Fred and George used any excuse they could find to throw one. Just the previous week they had thrown a party due to the fact that Neville's pet toad, Trevor, had been found in the greenhouse after having gone missing for several days.

Admittedly, Harry recalled, the party had been worth it just for the Toad Tarts. Even if Trevor did go missing once more during the excitement of the party.

"But wait." Harry realized. "If there was a party then where is the mess? Gryffindor's aren't exactly known for their cleanliness, and even with the house elves it usually takes the common room a few days to get sorted." He took a moment to lean on the chair he had been in and look underneath to see if an empty butterbeer bottle would roll out on its own.

Hermione rolled her eyes at this. "I said they tried."

"Yeah." Spoke up Ron. "But Fred and George put a stop to it right away."

Harry blinked, dropping the chair with a small thud. "Fred and George, stopped the party? Why would they do that?"

Both Ron and Hermione looked at each other for a few moments, as if they were having a silent conversation. They did this to Harry every so often, and he knew it meant they were trying to decide if they should keep something from him or not, usually for his own good. Eventually they seemed to come unspoken agreement and turned back to him.

"Well . . " Hermione began. " . . some of the others in the house did try to start a party. They said that the Goblet had decided to break the rules just so there could be a Gryffindor champion. Or that you were magic's champion so of course you would be in the tournament . . ."

"And a few idiots said you had cheated to get your name in the goblet just to give Gryffindor an extra chance for the glory." Ron finished darkly.

Even though Harry had expected people would assume he cheated, it still hurt him to hear about it. The good feelings Dumbledore had left Harry feeling quickly evaporated and his mood turned somber as he looked down towards the floor.

"Yeah." Ron continued. "Fred and George didn't like hearing that either. They said that you found yourself in trouble every year and that it had never been your fault, so it was the house's responsibility to stand up for you. A lot of people, mostly upper years, see Fred and George as goof offs, so they ignored them and kept saying they didn't know a Gryffindor could act enough like a Slytherin to cheat."

Hermione winced and gave Harry an apologetic look. This was obviously what the two of them had wanted to hide from him. Harry remembered the last time the school had decided to call him a Slytherin, and what a terrible year that had been.

"So that was that then, Fred and George weren't going to have any of that so they stopped the party before it could get started really." Ron finished matter-oh-factly.

"Er . . " Harry looked between the two of them. "But how did Fred and George stop the party? The only ways I could think of for them would mean less furniture still in the room and a few more fires."

Ron grinned goofily and puffed out his chest. "Simple mate, they recruited for you. Got up and said they knew you wouldn't have cheated to get in some bloody tournament, and whoever believed otherwise was against you. They said the people who wanted to keep celebrating like your life wasn't at stake would have to 'forcibly eject' your supporters from the room."

Hermione slunk down in her seat and sighed. "That was a very foolish thing for the two of them to do, they could have started a fight, gotten hurt, or even worse; detention."

Harry and Ron rolled their eyes.

"Didn't stop you from standing with them, did it?" Ron leaned over and cuffed Hermione lightly on the shoulder. She smacked his hand away, but was smiling gently.

"Wait, you really had to stand with them?"

Hermione nodded while Ron kept explaining "Oh yeah, a few of the sixth and seventh year chaps didn't like being spoken to like that. They were ready to take Fred and George down a few, and then start their party. But Hermione and I were with them in an instant."

Hermione held up her hand and started holding up fingers. "Ron and I, followed quickly by Neville and Ginny . . "

"Seamus and Dean o' course. Lee Jordan, he always goes along with Fred and George."

"Lavender, Parvati, and even Fay Dunbar who rarely seems to care what's going on."

"The Creevey brothers were falling over themselves to get to our side of the room."

"Most of the first and seconds years did too, actually. Though I am sure a fair amount of them were just following friends."

"Oh and, the entire Gryffindor quidditch team." Ron finished, smiling brightly.

Harry felt like his brain had stopped working. That was a lot more people standing up in his defense than he ever would have guessed.

"Oh!" chirped Hermione "And of course once it looked like there would be a fight, all of the prefects stepped in. They cleaned up and sent everyone to bed right after that."

"They sent everyone else to bed, but let you stay down here?" Harry asked.

Hermione frowned slightly and bit her lower lip. "Well, no, they sent us to bed too . . we just . . came back down."

Harry smiled to himself, remembering that no matter how often Hermione recited the rules she never seemed to have trouble breaking them when she considered it important enough. Ron walked over to Harry and slung an arm over his shoulders in an overly dramatic way, grinning sleepily.

"Couldn't let you come back up here without having your best friends to talk to. That would have been a tragedy. Impossible to know Dumbledore would show up though, or that we'd still be down here so late."

Harry glanced over to the clock on the far side of the table to try and make out the time. Unfortunately the glasses his Aunt had given him didn't allow him to make out the numbers, but even he was able to tell that it was much later than he had thought.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to . . . "

"Harry." Hermione interrupted, pulling herself off the sofa and walking over to them. "There's nothing to be sorry for. We know you didn't enter the tournament, and we're going to be here for you no matter what the rest of the school thinks."

Ron bumped Harry and pulled his arm away. "Yeah mate, we won't hear any rubbish about any of this being your fault. If you even start I'll ask an upper year to curse you. Or worse; Hermione."

Hermione scowled at Ron for a moment, but it was easy to see the corners of her mouth were fighting a grin. Harry felt truly happy to know that these two would be by his side tomorrow when he faced the school.

He wouldn't be alone.

"Actually, I was going to say I didn't mean to stay up this late. We really should head to bed?"

"Yes we should." Hermione said, perking up, as if only just remembering that it was the middle of the night. She hopped over to where she had been sitting and picked up the tournament rulebook with both hands, bringing it up into her arms in such a way that it was clearly very heavy. Suddenly, she spun around and gave them each a harsh look.

"I expect to see both of you down here in the morning as usual. Just because we are getting to bed late doesn't mean we get to be lazy . ."

Ron opened his mouth to say something, but was swiftly cut off by Hermione.

". . or that we should miss going down to breakfast."

At that Ron seemed to close his mouth, either because he didn't want to risk upsetting Hermione, or because he didn't want to risk missing breakfast. The teens moved slowly over to their respective staircases, Harry making sure to give a yawning Hermione a wave, and then parted for the night.

Harry was unsurprised to find the rest of his dorm mates fast asleep when they entered the room, though strangely Neville seemed to have fallen asleep sideways in bed. He wondered if he should bother to put his clothes away properly. Now that his bed was before him his arms felt like lead and his eyes were drooping dangerously, but he didn't want to leave a mess and risk upsetting the others. He turned to Ron to see what he was doing, only to find his friend already in bed, fully dressed.

At that Harry shrugged and piled his clothes on top of his trunk, he could deal with it in the morning. While he put his glasses on the side table he couldn't help think how much better things had gone with his friends than he had expected. He wished he could go back in time, like he did last year, only to tell himself to head straight back to the common room.

Harry knew that he still had the school to deal with in the morning. That there would be people calling him a cheat or a liar, maybe even people that he knew. But having his two best friends stand by him made all the difference. He was sure tomorrow when he saw the school's reaction it would be hard for him.

But at least for tonight, in this moment, he felt as happy as he could be.

Author's Thoughts

This is my shortest chapter so far, because I never meant it to be a chapter. I just meant to write a few sentences to get us to the morning, but it somehow turned into several pages. This meant that the fourth chapter was going to be larger than chapters one through three put together! I didn't want that, and I do like a nice chapter break between scenes, so I split it up.

Also, considering what is coming in the next chapter, I thought there could be a little more lead up and details about what the house did that night. If you liked this chapter at all, you are going to adore the next one.

The most interesting thing that happened while I was writing this chapter was that I realized with Harry dropping his classes in the previous chapter that I would actually have to figure out his schedule going forward. It turns out JK was not always perfect with dates or class consistency, so I had to spend two whole days trying to figure out his fourth year schedule. Most people probably wouldn't bother, but I love knowing exactly where Harry or his friends are headed when they get out of a class.