DISCLAIMER: THE BOOK BELONGS TO J. I HAVE ONLY BORROWED BOTH CHARACTERS AND PLOTLINE.
Wigardium Leviosa may you Fly Fly Fly : ) This is for all the yummy comments from yesterday, love you guys for it!
CHAPTER 61
Albus Dumbledore Headmaster extraordinaire was standing beside his hospital bed and smiling down at him, sitting up Harry gathered up his scattered thoughts and waited for the eventual axe to fall on him, for him to be disqualified from the tournament.
"You need not worry Harry," Dumbledore guessed correctly the turmoil behind those green eyes "That was an amazing battle between you and the Chimaera, quite unexpected really! Here I have given you the golden egg you will need for the next task," he said and placed the egg on the bedside stand beside him "By the way Harry could you tell me how you managed to conjure up that golden bow?" he asked trying not to look too interested.
"Um…that is, Sir it's a…"
"It was an illusion Dumblydorrre, wasn't it Mr. Potter? A spell that made your wand look like a bow so that you could launch the spell easier isn't it?" said Madame Maxime winking at him with an innocent look on her face, walking into the room and smiling placidly at them, "It is a spell that was taught to him at our school Headmaster, quite a wonderful trick really!"
"Yes mam, it was an…an illusion" the injured boy said grateful for the intervention, knowing that she had saved him from a lot of lies.
"Headmaster Dumblydore, we seem to be having some problems with one of the dragons, it has been acting quite reluctant to leave the school and no can understand it, you are wanted immediately in the forbidden forest to help the tamers, Barty is beside himself with fury."
"Right Madame," he said and followed her outside the door, throwing with one last curious glance at Harry.
"You can leave the ward Mr. Potter," Madame Pomphrey said, coming out of her office "Your broken rib has nicely mended and the small bruises here and there have healed, so do not worry anymore and you can sleep of the sedation in your dormitory. I know how eager you brats are to be rid of me, now go downstairs to the great hall as you may be just in time for lunch."
Harry didn't want to go and face a bunch of random people questioning him relentlessly, he wished he could have stayed in bed and eaten in the hospital ward instead. Slowly heaving himself up and carrying the egg with him, he walked towards the staircase and was about to descend it when a silver cloth was thrown over him, "Harry, I got the invisibility cloak from Darren so we can get you out of here unnoticed, don't worry they're all waiting for you down in the kitchens." Draco's voice came from behind him.
Grateful for such an amazing friend, Harry walked towards the kitchens avoiding bumping into people, and was closely followed by Draco who was sauntering along unhurriedly behind him.
Tickling the pear they went inside and heard party poppers going off and were surrounded by blue glowing butterflies for an instant, "Hey kiddo congratulations, you passed the first task, and with a Chimaera that too! Charlie told us you were brilliant!" Darren said smothering him with a hug.
"If you call, being knocked out by a chimaera's ass brilliant, then you're nuts!" He said jovially and eyed Fred and George who were hold up a huge poster with a giant chimaera waving it's butt at him and winking coyly at him.
"Bastards!" Harry said laughing, and pulled it away from them.
"Oooooo! Ickle Harry called us a bad name brother! I'm going to tell his mommy on him!" Fred said while mock sobbing.
"You do that Freddy, and I'll let you into my stash of chocolate cauldrons anytime you want!" George said grinning.
Shaking his head at them, Harry sat down and eyed the enormous piles of food in front of him the treacle tart taking a central position. Sitting down beside him Draco asked "So what happened inside, they made you fight a chimaera for god sakes! Trust me we're all pretty pissed at Dumbledore right now!"
Harry narrated all the details slowly while facing his brother, the Weasley twins, a sullen looking Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Cho, Neville, Luna, who was humming and examining the tiny Chinese Fireball figurine absently and of course Draco who had gripped his wrist when he'd heard about the final leap of the beast.
Sitting around in this festive atmosphere Harry finally let himself go and relaxed completely, this was what he loved best, the easy camaraderie amongst friends, the lack of worry and large quantities of food.
"So do you guys know what the egg does?" Ginny asked fingering the huge golden prize.
"Nope, no idea" Hermione said looking disappointed with herself, "We know that it's a clue but nothing else" she said dejectedly giving the egg a whack "Darren even tried to break it open by chucking it from a height, but nothing happened."
"Ah! But you have plenty of time for the next task right?" Cho asked patting Darren on the back.
"Yeah, actually we have around five months till the next task so maybe we'll figure it out by then, hopefully" Hermione said a determined note creeping into he voice.
Later on after the impromptu party, Harry drew Draco aside and told him about how he'd felt the abnormal behavior of the dragons during the competition and how he thought he saw Crouch acting uncharacteristically before the tournament began.
Draco looked at him in awe when he listened about the cages that Harry had created and how it had calmed the creatures and then frowned when he heard about the man from the Ministry, "Maybe we should keep an eye on him" he said after thinking about it "Maybe he had something to with Darren's name being put in to the goblet!"
"Maybe…" Harry said looking stricken at that thought.
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The next morning everything started to go wrong for most of them.
It began when everyone received their copy of the Daily Prophet, which had the headlines reading 'Has Mr. Darren Potter gotten himself a girlfriend?' With a large picture of Hermione blowing a flying kiss in his direction, over and over again.
Further down was another title with the words, 'Brother of Boy who lived, flattened by Chimaera' followed by a long paragraph about how he had just barely managed to get the egg, elaborating on his being knocked over as opposed to the awesome fight he had put up against it.
Hermione now had had to avoid random boys sending flying kisses her way accompanied with suggestive winks and crazy fan girls who kept tripping her up in corridors, the most difficult part being that she had to explain herself to a rather distraught Cho who kept crying over the picture at odd times of the day. Oh! She was livid at the reporter who had written the article, yes, Miss. Reeta Skeeter was going down!
Harry on the other hand faced renewed contempt and loud laughter where ever he went, and it started to put him on the edge, he found him-self unable to maintain his usually calm front and started snapping at people around him with little provocation and was being an overall sourpuss. Even Draco kept his distance from him to avoid being yelled at for doing nothing at all.
This went on for nearly two and a half months, which actually surprised him a lot, as it made him think that his classmates were a tenacious bunch of idiots. There was no breakthrough on the egg so he and Draco continued training in their classroom where Harry was allowed to vent his frustration and where there was little conversation between. They were unable to work on their Animagus forms because Harry's mind was still chaotic from all the past month's tension and had put it off indefinitely.
Nowadays he had also started to feel as if one other person had started to take an inordinate interest in him and that was Professor Dumbledore, and it was making him want to run away before the man added him to his grand plans for the future.
Draco also had other problems of his own, like fending of a bunch of girls, led by Pansy Parkinson who was dogging his every step due to his now gorgeous countenance, providing Harry with his only source of entertainment as he watched Draco run from them like the plague on a daily bases, so much so he had now started to look as irritable as Harry and the name 'Pansy' became taboo, which of course the Weasley twins took advantage off and kept using it whenever he walked past them!
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One evening Harry was coming back from the library alone, when he felt the presence of someone standing behind him, ignoring the feeling Harry continued to walk away when he felt someone roughly and forcefully shove at him!
Due to the shock of the sudden attack, he lost his balance and fell, tumbling down the long staircase in front of him and landed in a crumpled heap at the foot of it, succumbing to the pain, confusion and concussion. He blacked out without being able to get a look of his assailant.
He woke in the ward to find Draco nervously pacing in front of him; making an inarticulate noise Harry drew his attention to him so that he came running up to his bed and sat down heavily beside him smiling with relief, "Welcome back to the living Potter! Darren is in training right now, so he just left your side, I'll go get him if you want?"
"No!" Harry exclaimed and settled down when Madame Pomphrey walked into the room.
"Why not live here Mr. Potter? Seriously if you come in here one more time during this year I'm going to label one of the beds as 'Reserved for one Mr. Harry Potter'" she said and stood smiling down at him.
"You have one leg in a cast Harry, it was severely fractured from your fall, it is what we call a compound fracture, wherein your bone is shattered and jutting out of your leg. I have pieced it together but the potion is very slow working so you're going to have to use a crutch to walk around with for a couple of days."
Harry nodded and was just glad that he had at least survived the ordeal, remembering the long flight of staircase and his fall from it. He waited till she had finished her check-up and then turned to Draco who was twirling the new crutch in his hands and said with no prior warning "Someone pushed me down Dray!"
Draco dropped the crutch and looked at him in shock "Wha…Harry you sure?"
"Never been surer in my life, I couldn't see who it was but my little tumble did not happen because of mere clumsiness."
"Shit! Why would someone do that now? It's been months since the article and the gossip has almost died down, why are you still being hated?"
"If only I knew!" Harry sighed, wondering what the person's motive could have been.
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At the end of the week, Harry was called to Professor Flitwick's office where he was informed about some Yule ball that the school was holding in honor of the Tri-wizard tournament at the end of the month.
He had gawked at the tiny man for a few minutes and then thrust the crutch in his face saying there was no way he could go being handicapped and all. But his dorm head shrugged it off saying that no matter what, he would have to at least enter the ball with someone just for the opening ceremony at least. Harry cringed at the thought of having to ask someone to this dance thing and went away depressed.
The whole week he lurked around the corridors looking for some random girl who was willing to go with the champion who had been sat on by a chimaera and found out that despite all the teasing and the being made fun of, there were still plenty of girls who very obviously wanted to be asked by him and that somehow made him even more nervous.
Finally three days before the dance he was sitting in the library with his head in his hands when Ginny sat down beside him, "The world has not yet ended Harry, why so morose?"
Harry groaned softly and lifted his head from his hands "I can't do it, I give up!" he said looking desperately at her.
"Give up what?" She asked him looking bewildered.
"I can't get myself to ask a girl out to the dance" he said looking away ashamed.
"Ah!" Ginny said looking all knowledgeable at once "You're all shy and red in the face!" She said laughingly at him "Look don't worry about it Harry, I know a ton of girls who would kill to be with you, they all think you're seriously hot! In fact I would have asked you out myself had I not known that there was someone that you already liked."
"Shut up Gin with all the excessive praise, I'm not suicidal or anything, also what do you mean I like someone, please enlighten me coz I don't know what the hell you're talking about!"
"These things must be left to fate" she said annoyingly and smiled cryptically at him irritating the hell out of him.
"Whatever Ginny, you're not being helpful at all" he said and was about to get up and leave when she held him back and said "Okay, okay, I'll go with you for this ball. It's a fantastic opportunity for me to get to dance and eat good food anyway, I can totally be your pretend date and all that, so how about it?" she asked, looking at him.
"You'll do that for me?" he asked her disbelievingly.
"Duh! As hard as you might find this to comprehend Harry, you're one the most desirable guy's in this school, this is a totally good bargain for me" she said happily while Harry turned a darker shade of red at listening to her and said "Fine" walking away with haste from the snickering that he could hear behind his back.
He and Draco had felt uncomfortable discussing their conquests so just before the ball they unwillingly mentioned to each other who it was that they were taking to the ball, "Ginny offered herself up as a sacrifice" Harry said, still clearly believing that no one could possibly want to voluntarily go with him, to which Draco said "And I'm going with Parkinson, stupid girl blackmailed me into going with her and now I'm stuck."
The night of the ball finally came and Harry had put on his dark green dress robes, looking quite stunningly handsome and was waiting for Ginny at the entrance of the Gryffindor common room when Colin Creevey cornered him and asked if they could talk privately. Harry nodded and put up the 'Muffliato' charm to block out eavesdroppers and waited for him to speak.
Pulling out a photo, Colin said without much preamble "I found out who pushed you down the staircases that day Harry!"
Harry looked bewildered at the photo and gasped.
"Yeah, my reaction was pretty similar" the younger boy said "I had been taking pictures of the banners around the school on that day and when I developed the photos last night I saw this by accident, it's simply shocking right?"
Harry could barely hear him with all the strange buzzing in his head, as he clearly witnessed Ronald Weasley pushing him down the staircase over and over again in the photo!