AN(05 November): Hehehe... so I am a little late... sorry about that. I personaly blame the lack of reviews but feel free to blame anything else. My thanks to the people that did review. What else? Oh, things are really starting to pick up speed now so the next chapter will probably be one of the last carefree chapters for a good while...

Everyone confused about the magical classification I use is invited to check in my profile to see my companion fic especialy written for the purpose of helping you. Incidentaly, you can check my writing progress there too.

Harry Potter isn't mine. I don't even take credit for what isn't from the books as I can't possibly remember everything I went through on this site in the last three years.

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"Harry Potter."

Right. Of course. I don't even know why I was expecting anything else, really. Too much of a tempting target for my own good, both for real people and in Fate's eyes. And I can't blame anyone but myself for it either. Trust me. If your name is inside you'll be picked. What a stupid thing to say. Of course, I wasn't wrong. In fact, until two minutes ago I was cheering T (not with nearly as much gusto as Assistant or H, but at least twice as loud as B). So, that's not the true problem. Like always, I was right and all the others just lacked in the faith department. Long life to our supreme leader Harry James Potter and all that. Except not. While the powers that be couldn't get away with altering one of the most sacred rules of the universe by making me wrong (which just can't happen), they went for the second best thing.

That being making my life miserable, and possibly very short.

Having a fourth name pop out of the Goblet of fire isn't technically possible. It isn't. It just fucking isn't. The creator just didn't build it that way. If you wanted it to do that you'd need to build another one or bend the rules of reality. But, and here is the catch, I never said before that it wasn't possible. Because it's so impossible that it never even crossed my mind. It's a taunt, really. Whoever was responsible for it up there did it to show me that unless I start stating every single impossibility out loud I'm still under control. I'm sure of it! But that's not what is worrying me right now. The fact is that a real person must be behind this too. Someone wants me inside this dangerous event, and unfortunately the list of suspects is even bigger than the potential murderers' list.

Seriously, how is that even possible?

Well, because when you face something as impossible as this, you can't ask yourself who could have done it. The answer would be that nobody could. But somebody did. So if you forget about the means then all you have left is the motive. And pretty much everyone would enjoy seeing me struggle for my life. There are those who wish me harm, there are those who wish to test me, there are those who wish to make money on my back, there are those who wish to control me, and then there are those who just like watching the distress of celebrities. When I take into consideration that we are in the wizarding world, I wouldn't be surprised if some guys out there fit each and all of the categories.

Fuckers!

I wonder briefly if Sirius Black is involved this time. I saw him again on the Map just the other day (still on the grounds) but he doesn't look like he gathered enough guts to enter the castle just yet. But I really don't have time to dwell right now. I think that the old bastard is about to call my name again and that wouldn't go well with my public image. I prepare my unique form of occlumency, just in case, and start to smile thinly. "Thank you! Thank you very much!" My boisterous attitude seems to shake the twins out of their daze and they quickly stand on their chairs and start to shout. "Bravo" "Most excellent" "Remarkable!" "Hogwarts is twice better than anywhere else! I always said it!" That last comment really does the trick and my compatriots start to cheer me as well.

The foreigners though… not so much.

In fact, the only Brits I can see scowling as much as the French and the whatever-they-are in Durmstrang are little D and He-Who-Foams. So much for having sounding boards by owl mail. I have to hold myself from sighing. Bah, it's not like I could have kept my gift in check for a whole year anyway! I give several bows to the crowd to drive them wild. Some hats are flying. You never truly felt like an agent of Chaos and Destruction until you drove berserk a bunch of kids at least once. Mark my words. I keep waving while I direct myself to the room the other champions went to. I even blow a few kisses and send winks to some of the older girls. I do it all perfectly. While I really suck at acting humble I have a strong affinity with arrogance.

The next part is the one that'll be tricky.

My smile drops as soon as I enter the small room where T, the French girl we helped just the other day and the weirdo from Durmstrang are waiting. I force my eyes to start roaming and my body to shake in a show of nervousness. As hot as the place is I am even starting to sweat. I ignore the numerous questions from the blonde and the unspoken curiosity from T. The judges don't take long to join us, one of them couldn't look happier in fact. "Wonderful! Truly, we are making history! A first year as one of the champions! Of course, there was always the possibility since it was open to anyone who cared to try their luck and skill, but I never ever imagined that… And a fourth champion for the Triwizard Tournament!"

Of course the others don't look so pleased and soon everyone is talking at the same time.

But I don't pay much attention to the screaming and raging idiots. My eyes are focused on Dumbledore like any good sheep would in my supposed situation. I make my voice quiver slightly "Headmaster! It's a joke right? I won't really have to participate, right? Right?" Maybe I went a little heavily on the hysterical side near the end but I don't think that my interpretation is all that bad. Of course, I already know that there is no backing out of it. As I said to T, I know a lot about this particular artifact. But he doesn't know that, and I doubt he'll resort to using legilimency on me in a room full of untouchable witnesses.

It's not like I couldn't sucker him again if I had to anyway. Granted, it would make me a little crazier…

"I am truly sorry Harry. I can tell that you had no part in this, but there is nothing that I can do…" I make a show of shrinking upon myself. What he said is not technically true. While there is an unbreakable biding link and while directly destroying the goblet wouldn't do anything but kill the four of us, he could drain the magic of the goblet until it hadn't anything left to bind me (thus destroying the evil thing without ending my life), or change the tasks so that I wouldn't be at risk by participating (aka the common sense solution). Fat chance of any of the two happening. My pondering of any other escape means are interrupted by the Potion Master squib himself. "Headmaster! You can't seriously believe that he isn't involved. You saw his arrogance back there! He should be expelled!"

I give him an outraged frown.

"You aren't a judge! Who the hell are you and what are you even doing here?" Oh! Now he is mad! Biggest woman on this side of reality was in the blasting zone and has got foam all over her right sleeve and then some. "You insolent brat! I am your head of House!" Oh. Oh no. He didn't. I really can't let that one go. It's just too good an opening not to take advantage of it. Of course, I'll most likely be in mortal peril before I finish my answer but it's stronger than me. "Is that so? Well, you obviously don't usually take that responsibility very seriously since this is the first time you even talked to me." I don't know what did it. Was it the nonchalance? Or maybe the irony? All that I can say is that I still got it. Trying to attack an eleven-year-old student in front of two ministry officials and two foreign headmasters?

How wizard-like.

I stop myself from giving the stunned body of Severus Snape a kick. I am supposed to be an arrogant coward, not a bully. "Ah. Like he could take me anyway! Seriously? A potion master? I took dark wizards head on when at an age where he probably wasn't even potty trained!" The fact that I don't think I was either when I offed Voldemort is totally irrelevant. After all, who is to say that he is now? All the clues point the other way after all… well, he did have a wand since he tried to attack so maybe he isn't a squib… unless he tried to stab me with it? Who knows? Once more I find my musings rudely interrupted. "You have a very big mouth for one so small." Of course. Spit in the face of the guy who made sure you weren't eaten by centaurs, why don't you? Well, maybe not centaurs… molested maybe but I don't think that they eat human flesh. But then again the customs of the centaurs vary much from tribe to tribe… so I am unsure.

But there shouldn't be any shortage of things that could and would eat her in the forest if given the chance, I'm sure.

"Yeah, well… that's fine. After all, of the both of us I'm still the biggest man, no?" Yeah, I know. Cheap shot. But no-one gets away with calling me a wimp! I really hope that nobody tells D about it though… She is mad enough at me with the whole not-warning-her-sooner about the murders in the castle already. I shudder while I watch the charm struggle to keep up with the blonde spitfire. I guess that insults must be very hard to translate. That or it's the alacrity she is showing in yelling them. In fact, I don't get how she can still keep going… I'm pretty sure that the English language doesn't have that many insults… I think that if she hadn't witnessed the fate of Snape she would be getting physical already. It's the first time I recall sending two separate persons in a state of fury in such a small amount of time.

It warms my heart to see I'm improving.

The next to speak is the Durmstrang's headmaster. Maybe I can set him of too and literally destroy my previous record? "I do not care if the boy is to be believed or not! Hogwarts can not have two champions! It would be unfair for the other competitors. I demand to submit new names to the Goblet of fire until there are two champions for each school!" Is this guy for real? And why is she-Hulk nodding along? The champions are already selected so that's not possible until this tournament ends. Seriously, I may dislike (or hate as it is) the old coot, but at least he knows how the artifact on which the tournament he accepted to participate in works (which makes him very suspect here)!

Well, aside from him showing no signs of wonder at the fact that there is a fourth champion being possible.

"Don't be a fool, Mr. Karkaroff. You should know that the nonsense coming from your mouth is not even an option." Wha- How? When did Lockhart enter the room? The situation is clearly getting less and less comfortable… His 180 still creeps me out even if I have to admit that he is a good teacher. In fact, I'd say that he is the last person I want here right now, barred Sirius Black, since I don't know what to make of him. Hmm… Kark-whatever isn't looking so good right now. All red in the face, the poor guy. He looks like he want to draw his wand but he isn't doing it. For now. "And what would you know about that, you sad excuse for a wizard? We all know just how skilled you are here." I really don't think that I like the glint I just saw in Lockhart's eyes. I felt like he was a nutjob for a second… Ah, well… maybe there will be benefits? It would be cool if he turned K-man to dust like your regular vampire who forgot it was eleven AM before going out for a stroll.

What? Nobody likes headmasters!

Anyway. The guy clearly doesn't realize just how close to a messy death he is because he keeps ranting and ranting. "…and believe me when I say that I will submit a formal complaint in front of the I.C.W.! I will have your school banned from the Syndicate of Wizading Education!" So boring! And I just ate, so I know that he is the one to blame for me not paying attention anymore. What does he hope to gain by saying all that? There is nothing they can do to appease him so what's the point of making threats? "Will you shut up? I care very little of what a thug such as yourself, that didn't even have enough courage to stand by his accomplices when caught, may think of me. We all know here just how skilled you are, at torturing defenseless children, that is. Now listen. What is your problem here? Hogwarts having an unfair chance right?"

For some reason I really don't like where this is going. Not one bit.

"Of course it is. Well, I'll solve your problem for you then since you can't seem to think for yourself. Mr. Potter and Mss Tonks will participate as a team in the tasks. But, the tasks will be twice as hard for them. That would be fair wouldn't it?" Son of a Bitch! Did he just put my life further at risk just to make that moron stop whining? I'll kill him! They are all smiling and bobbing their heads now! Fuck! Of course they are happy with the solution. As far as they can see it's a seventh year facing a challenge twice as dangerous and having to drag a scared little firsty along! I feel oddly betrayed when Dumbledore accepts the proposal. I guess that it's the remnants of my occlumency stunt acting…

Well, at least I am not your regular first year, so we could yet live if we play skillfully.

I'm half tempted to state out loud that it's impossible for us to die in this bloody thing, but that would just be inviting the higher ups to kill us in between the tasks or to cripple us during it. I sigh. I am truly trapped. I hope they dismiss us quickly because I'm starting to lose my fight against my own frustration and as fun as exploding and melting random items can be, this just isn't the right place for it. "Very well! Since Barty here says that it won't be against the rules and since the judges unanimously agree on Mr. Lockhart's idea, the motion is approved. The first task will be in a month. More information may yet be revealed about it but only once we have suitably modified the challenges to accommodate young Harry's presence. Best of luck to you four!"

Is it wrong for me to be burning with a desire of choking him when the worst thing that he did to me, as far as I can tell, is smile too brightly?

Somehow, I don't seem to care. I take T's hand and start to drag her out of the room. "Come on! We need to start rehearsing our secret hand signs! I don't want them eavesdropping on us during the tasks!" While secret hand signs are something silly I just made up to look like a hindrance, it's true that we'll be at disadvantage if we don't have a secure mean of communication for the challenges… maybe I should start working on a sound-transmitting array? But that still could be heard with the right listening charms… I read somewhere about linked books that transmit text to each other but that would be way too slow. What then? I could always use recolouring to write fast, T can't do it as far as I know but at least people would only have half of the conversation.

I'll give it some more thought at a later date.

When we reach an isolate classroom I finally let go of her. Even as relieved as I am that I didn't have to butcher my own mind again because of Dumbledore's nosiness my face can't help but turn grim now that they are no witnesses around. "I dearly hope that I don't have to tell you that I did not put my name in that thing?" Yeah. My respect for it dropped significantly after it started doing impossible things just to spite me. I don't think that it would be good for its welfare if I were left alone with it in the same room after the end of the Tournament… "Whom do you take me for? You are obviously way too arrogant to change your plan like that. It would be like admitting that you had a stupid idea." Hey! It isn't arrogance when you are always right!

I narrow my eyes as a warning.

"Careful with what you say Nymphadora! Anyway, I'm glad I don't need to get a headache trying to convince you. Not that it's such a bad thing all in all, but their solution of making things twice as hard is really worrying…" I stop talking when T growls at me. Why is she doing that? I don't think that normal people are supposed to do that... "Where did you hear that name? No, don't answer. I don't care. But. Don't. Use. It. Ever. Again! Got it?" So okay. Maybe the trauma was a bit above what I expected. And maybe my revenge-to-be would be best served if I just burned her clothes instead of what I had in mind earlier. And no, I'm not afraid! I just feel bad about teasing her about it when she was obviously very hurt by something similar in the past, that's all… Ok, so maybe I am a little afraid. It's totally not my fault if I remember what happened the last time that D was like that (and please keep in mind that she is a first year only).

I give an awkward cough.

"Okay, good. I'm glad we resolved the issue. Keep the schedule we planned for now and I'll see how to integrate myself in it. You warn the terrible two about today's events and I'll take care of B and D. Meeting adjourned. See you tomorrow." Of course, the downside of rushing out like that is that I'm kind of alone now… Not that I feel lonely or anything, but I still have Hogwarts on my back for what I did that other time. Granted, maybe I shouldn't have said to her that it was all her fault for not protecting me from the ninja house elf at the time, but it was like the ninth time in four minutes that she managed to throw me face-first on the cold stone floor! Really, how long can she hold a grudge? I swear that one of my teeth is looser than before! It would be bad enough if it was only a hopeless tentative at making me look ugly, but the creepiness is increasing as of late. Just yesterday I thought I heard grumbles about how she was going to kill me, to rip me and to tear me apart!

Plus the voice was something you'd expect of a well dried mummy. But now that I think of it, the place is a millennium or older…

I try not to think too much about how screwed I am if she decides to go ahead and do it (or do me as it is) by thinking about the progress I made on the Marauders' Map. The decodification bit by bit was not working at all and I finally discovered why a little while ago. The creator was definitely a paranoid fucker, that much I can tell you. He or she adapted an old shifting array and hid it in the most useless part of the schematics possible (therefore in the last place I would try to decipher). That means that every day at midnight the whole thing activates itself and well… mutates would be the word. It changes almost nothing objectively, but the style of the arrays shift just enough to make any progress before it utterly useless. It's like having fragments of different pictures of the same object. The pieces simply won't fit together no matter what you do.

Like I said, devious bugger.

Now I just need to neutralize the shifting part without causing damage to the rest of the thing and that is fairly easy since I translated all the separate functions several times already. The thing should stay stable long enough for me to understand how to make my own for any place with monitoring wards I want. The good side of it is that I am a lot more used to Celtic runes by now and with the way their variations can be balanced. I am halfway through coming up with another subject to distract myself from the very real possibility of being maimed by the castle I managed to piss off when I hear someone call my name. "Harry Potter." I take a couple of seconds to realize that the voice isn't manly enough to belong to any of the people I'm certain that I don't want to meet with in a dark hallway. I relax slightly and turn my head to see who is talking.

Huh. Unknown female professor.

She's got a pair of huge glasses that make her look ridiculous enough to challenge Dumbledore for his title of lamest fashion sense of the place (though she would most likely still lose since he's got so much experience at it and since I wouldn't put it past him to bribe or coerce the judges) and even from where I stand I can tell that she reeks of incense. "Yes?" She takes her sweet time answering. "Shouldn't you be in your common room?" I have to squeeze my hands tight to prevent myself from telling her that if I am up after curfew today it will be the fault of her infuriating slowness. "I still have ten minutes before curfew becomes an issue." I went for a neutral tone, but my annoyance probably showed because she gives me a smirk and takes yet a little more time before speaking again.

Funny. I didn't think that someone could surpass She-Who-Hypocritically-Shows-Up on my all-girls (read old harpies since I'm pretty sure that I would forgive a pretty girl anything short of murder) hate-list in less than ten minutes. I feel like I just found a kindred spirit (though I don't think that she is quite as good as me). Which just made me think of soulmates. Which is disgusting is the instance. I shudder. "That was not what I said Mister Potter. I said that you should be in your common room. Curfew matters very little to those of us whose sight goes beyond the natural realm of reality. But I can see that you somehow realize just how tenuous your life is at this point of time. One wrong step and you will fail and fall and cease to be. This is not the time to tempt fate for fate finds you incredibly tempting as it is already."

She gives a thoughtful hum.

She strokes an old leather book for a moment before she starts talking again. "You see, young Potter, you will very soon stand before a fork of the road. While you might think that what you will be seeing is a multitude of choices available, there will in fact only be two real options laid at your feet. One leads to Death, the other to greatness. The first path is bright with light of the shinning sun and is wide, giving you apparently a variety of choices but ultimately will doom you by choking your potential. The second one is a narrow path, hard to follow and covered by the darkness of the night; if you chose this way, your actions will have little margin but the obedience of your fate but you will shine with power yourself amongst the shadows, only one other standing greater than you for the end of times. Chose wisely when the time is right."

She turns and leaves without another word.

Right. Not creepy at all. I think that I'm going to hurry up and go where it's safe (as in away from her to begin with) and where I can fool myself into thinking that this kind of things doesn't happen to me. I definitely need to know who the hell the weirdo is but that can probably wait until tomorrow, when I am not shivering anymore. What was that anyway? A warning? I'm not sure it really sounded very much warning-like… A threat maybe then? That fits a little better but there is still something off with how this played out… Urg! I hate my life. If only all those idiots could get rid of each other everything would be much more pleasant (not to mention simpler).

Whatever. I don't care what she meant. While I like to plan things, this is way too obscure to take into consideration. If someone wants to fuck with me and isn't a pretty girl I'll just have to blow that person up.