A/N: Happy anniversary, readers! Many thanks to all the people who have reviewed, and special thanks to all the people who have reviewed multiple times, or review consistently. If you write, then you know the excitement of checking your email and seeing "Review: [Your Story Name]." It's about as exciting as an email can get.

A few fun facts about this story...

There are 36 total chapters of this story, so we are officially 1/3 of the way through.

Currently, TWT has more words in it than all of HoS. Book Five is going to be even larger. Everybody should have seen this coming.

Yule Ball will take place at approximately Christmas. What timing! You might even get a bonus chapter to make the story coincide more closely with the holiday.

Enjoy your Tuesday update. I'll see you again on Friday.

Harry and Tracey spent their Herbology period distilling stinksap from Mumbulus Mimbletonia. Stinksap was rather unique, in that it was not reactive with itself or with glass. If it touched any other surface, however, the stinksap would immediately emit a potent and horrific stench. The stinksap of a juvenile Mumbulus Mimbletonia could be cleaned with a simple scouring charm, but stinksap from a mature adult plant was significantly more potent, and permanent. At the start of class, Professor Sprout warned the students not to get stinksap on themselves; Professor Snape's seventh year students would be brewing the stinksap cleaning solution later in the week, but it would be several days before the solution was ready for use.

The mysterious source of the badges proved horribly distracting to Harry, and he couldn't get the incident with Ron, Finnigan and Thomas out of his mind. After Harry broke two empty beakers in the first five minutes of class, Tracey insisted upon doing the greater part of the work, allowing Harry to grumble distractedly. Harry's only duty would be to pour the distilled stinksap into vials.

"I just don't get it," Harry said. "I can think of plenty of people who are clever enough to make the badges, and I can think of people who have money to burn, but the only people with both are in Slytherin. Nobody in Slytherin would have made the badges, so where did they come from?"

"Pay attention!" Tracey said sharply. Her patience with Harry seemed to be wearing thin.

Harry looked down—he had almost poured stinksap all over himself, which would have ruined his cloak forever. Stinksap could be washed off your body with cleaning solution, but once it was in your clothes, it was there for good. Harry moved his vial underneath the beaker and began to pour… carefully. "I can't figure it out," Harry said.

"Just ignore them," Tracey said. "It's jealousy."

"You can't ignore it," Harry said, placing a stopper into a vial of stinksap. He set the vial aside, then began to pour another. "It's so… obnoxious. I know that it's completely juvenile, but it's all I can think about."

"That's exactly what they want to do," Tracey said. "They want to distract you and make you feel bad. Don't let them win."

"I wish it was that easy," Harry said. He placed a stopper in another vial and set it aside. "How many of these do we need?"

"Two," Tracey said.

Harry looked down at the four full vials he had poured. "Oh. Do you think we'll get extra credit?"

"No," called Professor Sprout, head of Hufflepuff house. Harry shouldn't have asked; the normally kind Professor Sprout had been standoffish ever since Harry's name had been announced in addition to Cedric's.

Harry frowned and picked up two of the vials. He walked toward the rubbish bin, preparing to throw them away. Just as he was about to drop the vials, he stopped. Stinksap was absolutely repugnant, and Professor Snape hadn't prepared the cleaning solution yet. If Harry could find out who made the "POTTER STINKS" badges, he could get some terrifically appropriate revenge.

Harry turned his back to Professor Sprout, concealing the vials from her view. Harry subtly tucked the vials into his cloak and then, with empty hands, made an impressive throwing motion at the bin. When Harry returned and sat back down next to Tracey, he was grinning from ear to ear.

"Why are you suddenly in a good mood?" Tracey asked.

"I'll tell you later," Harry said.

Harry expected that it would take days of detective work to determine the source of the badges, but he was wrong. The source of the badges was readily apparent when Harry arrived in the Great Hall for lunch. Students from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were crowded around the Gryffindor table. Fred and George Weasley were standing on chairs, tossing "POTTER STINKS" badges into the crowd. Harry suddenly realized where his fifty galleons for supplies had gone.

When the Weasley twins made eye contact with Harry, the twins broke into identical large smiles. They continued tossing the badges into the crowd, grinning the whole time. Harry wasn't sure whether the badges were meant in good fun or not. On one hand, he had saved the Weasleys from financial ruin; on the other hand, Harry had caused their financial ruin in the first place, and had sort-of blackmailed them in order to save their business. If the twins didn't want an outsider to be part of the family business, the badges would be a perfect outlet for their resentment—not so flagrant that Harry would become enraged, but more than a mere annoyance.

Harry sat down at the Slytherin table and began to eat lunch. He couldn't just pour the stinksap on the Weasleys. If they meant the badges to be fun, then Harry couldn't respond with anger. But if they meant to provoke Harry with the badges, then Harry needed to demonstrate that he wouldn't allow himself to be pushed around.

Harry ignored Tracey's attempts to distract him with light conversation. He could feel a plan forming in the back of his mind.

Just before pudding, Harry settled on his course of action. He reached into his pocket and felt around for change. He had a galleon and a few sickles in his money pouch—hopefully it would be enough.

"I'll be right back," Harry said to Tracey. He stood and walked across the lunchroom, approaching the Weasley twins at the Gryffindor table. The crowd of students had dispersed, and the twins had finally settled down to eat.

"How much for the badges?" Harry asked the twins. The box of badges, still half full, sat between them on the table.

"Our beautiful badges are presently priceless," Fred said. In other words, they were giving them away for free, but not to Harry.

"But for you, three knuts," George said. Generally, George was the less loquacious of the two twins, but a better businessman.

Dammit. Just being around Fred was making Harry think in alliteration.

"Three knuts? I'll take them all." Harry pulled the galleon out of his pocket and set it on the table. It would more than cover the amount of badges in the box.

"I can't make change," George said slowly. He hadn't expected Harry to buy all the badges; without them, their fun was over.

Harry refused to be deterred by so simple a ploy, and pushed the galleon across the table. "Don't worry. Keep the change. It's all for a good cause, right?"

"Sure," said George, reluctantly. "I guess… they're all yours."

"Thanks," said Harry. He picked up the box and returned to the Slytherin table.

Harry took his seat next to Tracey. He removed a button and pinned it on his robe, setting it to "Support Cedric Diggory." He then transfigured his fork into a clothespin, the spring-loaded type that Petunia had always forced him to use on the washing. Harry tucked the clothespin into his pocket.

"Take a badge," Harry said to Tracey. "Put it on 'Support Cedric Diggory,' and pin it on your cloak."

"What are you doing?" asked Tracey. Tracey's question was asked out of curiosity rather than questioning Harry's judgment. Her trust in Harry was absolute; even as she spoke she was pinning her badge to her cloak.

"I'm teaching the Weasleys the real meaning of the word 'stink.'"

As the box of badges made its way around the Slytherin table, Harry saw that Cedric Diggory was standing up to leave the lunchroom. Diggory was followed closely by his typical entourage of Hufflepuffs.

As Cedric approached Harry's table, Harry leapt to his feet and climbed atop his bench. He began applauding as Cedric passed by.

"Yeah, Cedric!" Harry yelled as loudly and obnoxiously as possible. "Cedric's the REAL champion! Whoooo!"

Cedric abruptly stopped walking, stunned by Harry's display. The group of Hufflepuffs stopped as well, clearly confused.

Harry continued to cheer and clap, and motioned for Draco and Tracey to join him. His friends caught on quickly; they didn't know exactly what Harry was doing, but they knew he was doing something. Draco began applauding wildly, and urged the other Slytherins to follow. Soon, the whole table was applauding, Harry the loudest of them all. "Cedric is the best! Go, Cedric!"

Tracey, following Harry's lead, stepped up on the bench as well. "Cedric! You're so dreamy! Take me to Hogsmeade, Cedric! I think I love you!"

Cedric began to turn red in the face, and resumed walking toward the door of the lunchroom. The Slytherins continued to shout kind and supportive things at Cedric, which left Cedric's friends confused and frustrated; they knew that Cedric was the target of some kind of joke, but the Slytherins were being so nice that the Hufflepuffs were unsure of how to respond.

As Cedric left the Great Hall, Harry pinned his clothespin on his nose and turned to Tracey. "Change your badge to 'Potter Stinks.' Pass it on."

Tracey complied, and soon the entire Slytherin table was sporting "Potter Stinks" badges.

"EEEW!" Harry shouted. "What is that smell! Is that ME?"

"You smell awful!" Tracey shouted, playing along. She pinched her nose.

Draco took up the cry next. "Harry, you smell worse than a troll!"

Soon, the entire Slytherin table was shouting catcalls at Harry. Harry raised his arms and acted as if he was sniffing his own armpits. The students on either side of him began to fan their hands, and Theo Nott acted as if he was fainting. Harry removed the clothespin from his pocket with a flourish and clamped it on his nose, an act which sent a ripple of laughter through his housemates.

Harry hopped down from the Slytherin table and began to walk toward the Gryffindors.

"Can you guys smell that?" Harry yelled toward the Gryffindor table. "Something stinks!"

For the most part, the Gryffindor table was stunned into silence, but Fred and George were laughing nervously. They realized that their prank on Harry had somehow spun out of their control, but they couldn't figure out where Harry was going with it.

Harry walked directly toward Fred and George, stopping between the two twins.

"Seriously, do you guys smell that?" Harry asked loudly. "Do I always smell this bad?"

Fred grinned. "Almost always," he said, equally as loud. Then, dropping his voice, "You are becoming a powerful prankster, Potter, bogarting our beauteous badges so blatantly."

"I learned from the best," Harry said. Harry reached around their shoulders and jerked them into a strong hug, crushing one twin against each side of his body. There was a small crunch from each of Harry's pockets, and Harry froze in that position, grinning from twin to twin. It took a moment, but soon the pungent smell of stinksap began to waft from the smashed vials that had been hidden inside the pockets of Harry's cloak.

As Fred and George got their first whiff of the wretched smell, they began to struggle to get away, but Harry held them fast. The smell was so strong that the twins quickly began to cough and dry heave. Harry, his nose held shut by a clothespin, began to cackle with laughter.

The stench of stinksap was enormously powerful. The Gryffindors closest to Harry and the twins began to hack and cough almost immediately, and the students just beyond them quickly followed. The coughing spread like a ripple through the students in the Great Hall, and soon students from all the houses were retching and gagging from the stench of fresh stinksap. Students in all houses were belatedly trying to pinch their noses shut, but once mature stinksap was smelled, it could not be un-smelled. The only solution was to evacuate the area.

The Slytherins were the first to recognize the solution, and charged en masse for the door. They were followed closely by the other three houses, but even the large doors of the Great Hall would allow only a small portion of students to pass through at a time. Those who were unlucky enough to be caught at the rear of the crowd were coughing and gagging so much that their eyes had begun to water.

At the Gryffindor table, Fred stopped struggling and lurched forward to vomit on the table. Harry finally released the twins. Fred fell forward into his own puddle. George keeled over onto the floor and rolled around, holding his stomach.

The Great Hall was nearly vacant, now, as most of the students had forced themselves through the doors. As the Great Hall emptied of its last occupants, Harry ran after the crowd.

"Wait, guys! Wait! I don't smell that bad!"

Harry stopped at the doorway. Harry was alone, except for Fred and George. The twins were moaning piteously, unable to escape the stench of the stinksap that had soaked through Harry's robes and onto their own. Even the teachers had snuck out the back door, escaping into the room where Harry had met the other Tri-Wizard champions.

"Guys? Hello?" Harry grinned at the echoing sound of his voice.

Tracey appeared in the entranceway, pinching her nose shut. She appeared unaffected by the stinksap—it seemed as if she had anticipated Harry's actions, and had managed to avoid inhaling any of the odor.

"Nicely done, Harry," she said. Her voice was comically nasal, because of her pinched nose. "You realize those robes will have to be burned?"

"A small price to pay," Harry said.

"Agreed," said Tracey. She looked past Harry at the Weasley twins. "I'm going to get Madam Pomfrey. I think the Weasleys might need serious help."

Harry and the Weasley twins were quarantined in the Hospital Wing for the remainder of the day while Professor Snape brewed an emergency batch of stinksap cleaning solution. The stench of the stinksap had lessened, to the point that it was merely foul and no longer vomit-inducing. New clothing had been delivered by the Hogwarts house elves, and their old clothes had been taken away to be burned.

For the first few hours of quarantine, there was only a strained silence between Harry and the twins. Finally, it was Fred who spoke up.

"We were a wee bit aggressive with the badges," Fred said. "Sorry."

George nodded his agreement.

"Apology accepted," said Harry. "I'm sorry I made us all smell like a troll's arsehole."

"Apology accepted," the twins said in unison. With a quick shake of their hands, the three were restored to friendship. After all, what's one prank, more or less, between friends?

*!*!*!*!

When Professor Snape delivered the stinksap cleaning solution the next morning, he advised Harry that his antics had earned two weeks of detention. Harry suspected that the detentions were more for the inconvenience of brewing the emergency cleaning solution than for the stinksap attack itself. Certainly Snape understood the necessity of standing up to Gryffindors.

After Madam Pomfrey was certain that Harry and the twins had thoroughly cleansed themselves of stinksap, she released the students. The twins went directly to the Great Hall for breakfast. Before Harry could follow, Madam Pomfrey pulled him aside.

"Harry, I received a message from Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman. You are to report to the first classroom off the entrance hall for tournament business."

"Can't I get breakfast, first?"

"They message said 'immediately,'" Madam Pomfrey said. "I'm sure it won't take long."

Harry sighed and walked to the entrance hall. When he entered the classroom, he found that Krum, Diggory and Delacour were already present, as were Ludo Bagman and a bespectacled witch who was introduced to Harry as Rita Skeeter. Bagman told Harry that the wandmaker Ollivander would be arriving shortly to conduct the Weighing of the Wands (whatever that meant) and that Skeeter was present in order to take pictures and record the event for The Daily Prophet.

"You don't mind if I speak with Harry for a moment before Ollivander arrives?" Skeeter said to Bagman. She didn't seem to be interested in Bagman's answer—she had already grabbed Harry's arm and was steering him toward a door at the other end of the classroom.

"Not at all," Bagman said. "I'll be available afterwards, if you would like some more colorful quotes."

Skeeter did not reply. She pushed Harry through the door and closed the door behind them. Harry glanced around and discovered that they were in a broom cupboard.

"Wonderful," Skeeter said, even though the broom cupboard was anything but. She took a seat on an overturned bucket, and produced a green quill and a roll of parchment from her crocodile-skin handbag. "You won't object to the Quick-Quotes Quill, will you, Harry? That's a good boy." Skeeter spread the parchment atop a box of cleaning supplies. The quill hovered above the parchment, quivering in the air, poised to begin writing at any moment. "Now, Harry, what made you decide to enter the tournament?"

"I, er… I wanted to see if I could get past Dumbledore's age line. I spent most of the night trying."

The Quick-Quotes Quill flew across the page. Harry Potter's well-known scar disfigures his otherwise charming face. The Boy-Who-Lived claims that he entered the tournament as a test of his own abilities, and that he was able to dispel the protective spells of Albus Dumbledore—widely regarded as the most powerful wizard alive—in less than twelve hours.

"That's not what I said," Harry said, pointing at the parchment.

"Ignore the quill," Skeeter said. "How do you feel about the tasks ahead? Excited? Scared?"

"Well, excited and scared," Harry said. "It's hard not to be. It's only been a few days, but it's all I can think about."

Harry glanced over at the parchment, where the Quill was writing furiously. Potter's ambition is clear, despite his tender years. He is single-mindedly focused on the tournament, and says that he is excited about the upcoming tasks.

"Excited and scared," Harry said.

"Focus, Harry," Skeeter said. "Can you remember your parents at all?"

"What?"

"How do you think they would feel if they knew that you were competing in the tournament? Proud? Angry? Worried?"

The Quill was again writing on the parchment, even though Harry had made no response to Skeeter's questions. Tears, brought on by the ghosts of Potter's past, fill his striking green eyes as our conversation turns to the parents he can barely remember.

"Hey!" Harry said. "I do not have tears in my eyes!" He reached toward the Quick-Quotes Quill with his left hand. Skeeter quickly leaned forward and pulled the quill away.

With Skeeter distracted by the quill, Harry's right hand darted out and snatched the parchment away. Skeeter frowned, and Harry flashed an arrogant grin. That had been too easy.

"So your readers want to know about my parents, do they?" Harry asked. The Quick-Quotes Quill twitched in Skeeter's hands, desperate to record Harry's words.

"Don't cross me, boy," Skeeter said nastily.

"I don't intend to," Harry said. "You want an interview about my life? My parents? I'll give you what you want. But you won't be using a Quick-Quotes Quill, and it won't be conducted in a broom cupboard." This was a fantastic opportunity for Harry. Allowing himself to be interviewed for The Daily Prophet would convince all of wizarding England that he wasn't taking the tournament seriously. And if appeared that Harry wasn't taking the tournament seriously, then the person who had entered his name in the Goblet wouldn't take a more active role to ensure Harry's demise. And the interview's side effect of increasing his exposure, influence, and fame? That would be useful, as well… as long as Harry survived the tournament.

"Fine," Skeeter snapped. "Now give me my parchment!"

Harry shook his head. "No Quick-Quotes Quills." He drew his wand and muttered a quick incendiary curse. The parchment burst into flame.

Skeeter's eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "You should tread lightly around me, Potter."

Before Harry could reply, the door to the broom cupboard was yanked open. Albus Dumbledore stood in the doorway.

"Ack! Dumbledore!" Skeeter fell backwards off her bucket.

"Come along, Harry," Dumbledore said kindly. "The Weighing of the Wands is about to begin, and it won't do to have one of our champions locked away in a broom cupboard."

As Harry stepped out of the cupboard, he quickly turned back to Skeeter.

"Owl me," Harry said simply.