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Direct book quotes are bolded. Paraphrased quotes are not bolded.
Chapter 3
After sending a letter to Sirius explaining that he didn't enter himself and telling him not to believe whatever was written in the papers and to stay well away from Hogwarts to keep from being caught, Harry dove into his studies both to escape from the whispers and growing dislike for him in the school and to prepare for the unknown first task. He devoured Hermiones' notes from each of their classes and studied with a single-minded ferocity that managed to meet and satisfy Hermiones' previously insatiable desire to study.
Yes, Ron was no longer talking to him, but in Harry's mind that wasn't so bad, since he would only handicap Harry's ability to learn with his poor study habits.
The next few days were uncomfortable, but bearable. The closest he had ever come to feeling like this had been during those months, in his second year, when a large part of the school had suspected him of attacking his fellow students. But while Ron had been on his side then, Hermione more than took up his slack. She was a wonderful friend, always there and listening when Harry needed someone to talk to and willing to defend him when she heard those whispers in the hallway. She was a perfect study partner, a research machine capable and willing to help Harry find esoteric spells and data for both his schoolwork and his tournament preparations.
In all honesty, Harry thought he coped better with the vilification this time than he did with the last precisely because Ron wasn't his friend. Hermione had a whole notepad of useful tricks to ignoring insults and disparaging comments that she had compiled after the troll incident in their first year that he found immensely helpful.
Two weeks after his name came out of the goblet he was feeling and doing so much better in everything he did that Harry could scarcely believe it.
His mind seemed sharper, clearer, like a shroud that had been dulling his senses his whole life had been lifted. The frequent migraines he had been living with his whole life were gone, and he discovered an inner peace he hadn't ever felt before where there used to be a boiling mass of rage and hatred that needed to be carefully controlled. He felt light, like his magic was somehow more available and more responsive. Even his physical body felt better, like somebody had removed all the sand from his joints and given them a good greasing.
If that had been the only thing that had changed, he still would have counted the extra time studying as time well-spent, but it wasn't.
Not by a long shot.
Who would have thought that Potions class could be that much simpler if you memorized the reaction tables in the back of Magical Drafts and Potions?
Herbology was downright easy after doing the same for One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and carefully listening in History of Magic revealed that at the current pace of teaching, one apparently only needed to know the information from three chapters for the whole year to be finished.
Transfiguration and Charms just required focus and correct wand movements, so participating in Hermione's' daily hours of extra casting saw an incredible increase in his first-time casting success. He was actually far better at the practicals than she was when he put his mind to it.
He was already extremely good in DADA, so it was a bit hard to see improvement there, but Harry noticed his essay grades rising.
Oddly enough, Harry had even discovered that he didn't need glasses anymore after he took off his glasses to rub his nose and noticed that the world was clear and crisp. He had asked Madame Pomphry about it, but she was just as stumped as he was.
She commented that she had thought it was weird that he had his mothers' eye color and shape yet needed glasses like his father, but she had figured it was just an unfortunate genetic coincidence.
So yes, Harry was completely sold on the whole 'study more' thing.
A few days later, right after an incident outside Snapes' classroom in which a passionate defense of his reputation from Malfoys' insults landed Hermione in the infirmary sporting cursed teeth, (which Madam Pomphry promptly shrank to smaller than they were before, much to Hermione's happiness), Harry was summoned from Snapes' class for the first of the official tournament business.
When he entered the classroom and before he could say anything, he found himself whisked off his feet abruptly by a magenta-robed woman he had never seen before.
"I'll just have a little word with Harry before we start." The mystery woman said to Bagman as she ushered Harry over to a broom closet. "The youngest champion, you know...to add a bit of color?"
"Certainly!" cried Bagman. "That is - if Harry has no objection?"
"Er-" started Harry.
"Lovely," said the witch as she opened the door and shoved him in.
"We don't want to be in there with all that noise," she said, shutting the door behind her. "Let's see...ah, yes, this is nice and cozy."
It was a broom cupboard. Harry stared at her.
"I'm Rita Skeeter dear, reporter for the Daily Prophet." said the blond witch, perching herself precariously upon an upturned bucket and pushing Harry down onto a cardboard box. "Let's see now..."
She unsnapped her crocodile-skin handbag and pulled out a handful of candles, which she lit with a wave of her wand and magicked into midair, so that they could see what they were doing.
"You won't mind, Harry, if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill? It leaves me free to talk to you normally..."
"A what?" said Harry.
Rita Skeeter's smile widened. Harry counted three gold teeth. She reached again into her crocodile bag and drew out a long acid-green quill and a roll of parchment, which she stretched out between them on a crate. She put the tip of the green quill into her mouth, sucked it for a moment with apparent relish, then placed it upright on the parchment, where it stood balanced on its point, quivering slightly.
"Testing...my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter."
Harry looked down quickly at the quill. The moment Rita Skeeter had spoken, the green quill had started to scribble, skidding across the parchment.
"Lovely," said Rita Skeeter yet again as she evaluated the quill. She ripped the top piece of parchment off, crumpled it up and stuffed it into her handbag. Then she leaned toward Harry and said, "So, Harry...what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament?"
"I didn't." said Harry firmly, eyeing the quill as it shot into motion. "I don't know how my name got into the Goblet of Fire. I didn't put it in there."
Rita Skeeter raised one heavily penciled eyebrow.
"Come now, Harry, there's no need to be scared of getting into trouble. We all know you shouldn't really have entered at all. But don't worry about that. Our readers love a rebel."
"But I didn't enter," Harry repeated. "I don't know who -"
"How do you feel about the tasks ahead?" said Rita Skeeter. "Excited? Nervous?"
"Apprehensive," said Harry shortly, with growing irritation.
"Champions have died in the past, haven't they?" said Rita Skeeter briskly. "Have you thought about that at all?"
"Yes," said Harry bluntly, "Which is why I didn't enter myself."
The quill whizzed across the parchment between them, back and forward as though it were skating.
"Of course, you've looked death in the face before, haven't you?" said Rita Skeeter, watching him closely. "How would you say that's affected you?"
"What sort of question is that?!" asked Harry, appalled. "Of course it's affected me, I grew up without my parents!"
"Do you think that the trauma in your past might have made you keen to prove yourself? To live up to your name? Do you think that perhaps you were tempted to enter the Triwizard Tournament because -"
"I didn't enter," interrupted Harry,starting to feel extremely annoyed.
"Can you remember your parents at all?" said Rita Skeeter, talking over him.
"No," said Harry.
"How do you think they'd feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?"
Before Rita Skeeter could say a word, the door of the broom cupboard was pulled open. Harry looked around, blinking in the bright light. Albus Dumbledore stood there, looking down at both of them, squashed into the cupboard.
"Dumbledore!" cried Rita Skeeter, with every appearance of delight - but Harry noticed that her quill and the parchment had suddenly vanished from the crate, and her clawed fingers were hastily snapping shut the clasp of her crocodile-skin bag. "How are you?" she said, standing up and holding out one of her large, mannish hands to Dumbledore. "I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards' Conference?"
"Enchantingly nasty," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. "I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat."
Rita Skeeter didn't look remotely abashed.
"I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many wizards in the street -"
"I will be delighted to hear the reasoning behind the rudeness, Rita," said Dumbledore, with a courteous bow and a smile, "but I'm afraid we will have to discuss the matter later. The Weighing of the Wands is about to start, and it cannot take place if one of our champions is hidden in a broom cupboard."
Very glad to get away from Rita Skeeter, Harry hurried back into the room and quickly took a seat next to Cedric, looking up at the velvet-covered table where four of the five judges were now sitting. Rita settled herself down in a corner; Harry saw her slip the parchment out of her bag again and restart the Quick-Quotes Quill.
After Ollivander examined each of the wands, the reporters took some photographs for the papers and were set free to go to dinner.
The next day, Rita Skeeter had published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly colored life story of Harry. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of Harry; the article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about Harry, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions (misspelled) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn't been mentioned at all.
Harry found himself alternatively shocked, appalled, and fascinated by the myriad of lies and downright inventions claimed as fact in the article. Rita Skeeter had reported him saying an awful lot of things that he couldn't remember ever saying in his life, let alone in that broom cupboard.
One such quote was: "I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they'd be very proud of me if they could see me now...Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I'm not ashamed to admit it...I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament, because they're watching over me..." Which, as far as Harry was concerned, was absolute rubbish since one, he was pretty sure they would be screaming at him to get out of the country rather than telling him how proud they were he was in the stupid tournament. Two, he hadn't ever cried about them as far as he could remember (other than during some of his worse moments in the cupboard at the Dursleys when he cried for somebody, anybody, to come take him away). And three, he was pretty sure that even if they were watching over him (which he certainly hoped they were), he was completely sure that they couldn't protect him from anything in the tournament from the afterlife.
But Rita Skeeter had gone even further than transforming his denials of entering the tournament voluntarily into long, sickly sentences: She had interviewed other people about him too.
Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school.
Harry couldn't really disagree with much in that part, since he had been sticking close to Hermione ever since she accepted that he didn't enter himself, she was stunningly pretty in a bookish sort of way, and he was (now at least) one of the top students in the school.
The comments that followed in the next few days were annoying, but expected.
"Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?"
"Since when have you been one of the top students in the school, Potter? Or is this a school you and Longbottom have set up together?"
Hermione had come in for her fair share of unpleasantness too, and while she responded far more aggressively than Harry did (ever since the pool of anger had vanished he had responded far more calmly to just about every situation, and Hermione seemed to naturally move to defend him now that he wasn't doing it himself), she hadn't started yelling yet.
"Stunningly pretty? Her?" Pansy Parkinson had shrieked the first time she had come face-to-face with Hermione after Rita's article had appeared. "What was she judging against - a chipmunk?"
"Ignore it," Hermione said in a dignified voice, holding her head in the air and stalking past the sniggering Slytherin girls as though she couldn't hear them. "Just ignore it, Harry."
So he did. He thought she was rather pretty, and after he had told her that she had stopped looking so put out by those types of comments.
Ron still hadn't spoken to him since the Goblet had thrown his name out. Fortunately, that didn't bother Harry as it once might have, but Hermione was rather concerned by the abrupt end to their relationship.
She went from one to the other, trying to force them to talk to each other, but Harry was adamant: He would talk to Ron again only if Ron admitted that Harry hadn't put his name in the Goblet of Fire and apologized for calling him a liar.
"I didn't start this," Harry said stubbornly. "It's his problem."
"You miss him!" Hermione said impatiently. "You can't substitute work for friendship, even if you want to. There's no reason-"
"Miss him?" said Harry. "I don't miss him. And I have you as a friend Hermione. You're all I need."
Hermione's blush could have lit England, but she did drop the matter.
Time is a strange thing, it seems to go faster when you aren't paying attention and slow down when you are. Harry was submerged in his work, studying hard for whatever was to come.
The Saturday before the first task was a Hogsmeade weekend, and Hermione suggested they go. After a brief argument Harry agreed to go for the morning, as long as Hermione helped him with some extra research on offensive spells that afternoon.
She agreed.
"Relax Harry," she ordered, "No one's going to bother you here."
"Oh yeah?" said Harry, ducking into an ally and pulling her in as well, "Look behind you."
Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend had just emerged from the Three Broomsticks pub. Talking in low voices, they passed right by Hermione without hooking at her. Harry backed into the wall of Honeydukes to stop Rita Skeeter from hitting him with her crocodile-skin handbag. When they were gone, Harry said, "She's staying in the village. I bet she's coming to watch the first task."
He relaxed slightly as her hand tightened around his own. They didn't discuss it, but he had the feeling she didn't want to think about it.
"She's gone," said Hermione, looking around the corner toward the end of the street. "Why don't we go and have a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, it's a bit cold, isn't it?"
The Three Broomsticks was packed, mainly with Hogwarts students enjoying their free afternoon, but also with a variety of magical people Harry rarely saw anywhere else. Harry supposed that as Hogsmeade was the only all-wizard village in Britain, it was a bit of a haven for creatures like hags, who were not as adept as wizards at disguising themselves.
As he entered, the room quieted for a moment or two before picking back up to an even louder standard than before. Harry struggled slowly through the crowd toward a spare table in the corner while Hermione went to buy drinks. Hermione joined him a moment after he sat down, handing him a butterbeer and cracking open a notebook she had brought along.
They lounged together for a moment in comfortable silence while Harry drank his butterbeer and watched the people in the pub. All of them looked cheerful and relaxed. Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot were swapping Chocolate Frog cards at a nearby table; both of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! badges on their cloaks. Right over by the door he saw Cho and a large group of her Ravenclaw friends.
Harry wondered vaguely what he had ever done to deserve to not be one of those anonymous people. What wouldn't give to be one of these people? Sitting around laughing and talking, with nothing to worry about but homework?
'Hermione.' He thought to himself, 'I wouldn't give up Hermione for anything.'
He imagined how it would have felt to be here if his name hadn't come out of the Goblet of Fire. He wondered how the other champions were feeling. Every time he had seen Cedric lately, he had been surrounded by admirers and looking nervous but excited. Harry glimpsed Fleur Delacour from time to time in the corridors; she looked exactly as she always did, haughty and unruffled. Krum just sat in the library, poring over books much like he was these days…
"Look, it's Hagrid!" said Hermione.
The back of Hagrid's enormous shaggy head - he had mercifully abandoned his bunches - emerged over the crowd. Harry wondered why he hadn't spotted him at once, as Hagrid was so large, but standing up carefully, he saw that Hagrid had been leaning low, talking to Professor Moody. Hagrid had his usual enormous tankard in front of him, but Moody was drinking from his hip flask. Madam Rosmerta, the pretty landlady, didn't seem to think much of this; she was looking askance at Moody as she collected glasses from tables around them. Perhaps she thought it was an insult to her mulled mead, but Harry knew better. Moody had told them all during their last Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that he preferred to prepare his own food and drink at all times, as it was so easy for Dark wizards to poison an unattended cup.
As Harry watched, he saw Hagrid and Moody get up to leave. He waved and then the pair of them made their way back across the pub toward Harry and Hermione's table.
"All right, Hermione, Harry?" said Hagrid quietly.
"Hello," said Hermione, smiling back.
"Hey Hagrid, we're fine." Harry added.
Hagrid nodded, then bent down to read the notebook in front of Hermione and murmured something that Harry couldn't make out over the louder-than-usual roar of the crowd.
Straightening up, Hagrid said quietly, "Nice ter see yeh, Hermione, Harry." winked, and departed. Moody followed him.
"What did Hagrid want?" Harry asked, looking to Hermione.
"Did he say something?" asked Hermione, looking startled. "I didn't hear."
"I guess it wasn't that important." Harry said with a shrug, "He was probably just commenting on whatever you are doing in that notebook."
