Chapter 18: The Triwizard Thingy

"Harry! Harry! C'mon get up!" said Hermione, shaking her sleeping friend.

Harry turned his head and muttered groggily as he brought his head off the table. He had fallen asleep during Dumbledore's boring speech. He wiped his cheek which had some drool on it and looked to Ron, who was laughing at his expense, before he noticed that there was food, and proceeded to stuff his face. Some things never change.

"You missed almost the entire speech! How will you know what is happening during the year!? Its, like, the most important speech of the entire year, and you just slept through it! Not even Ron does that!"

"Yeah… Wait hey!" replied Ron.

"Hermione… I think I'll live, plus I already know there is going to be a triwizard tournament thingy. I'm planning to enter."

"What!? That's an ancient tradition; you shouldn't mock it like that! And besides, Dumbledore said that you had to be of age!"

Harry chuckled. Oh the irony… In so many ways. At least he hoped he would be saving Cedric's life at the cost of the boy's fame… or would be fame. "Don't worry your little head about it. Besides, even if I enter, the goblet will only choose the most capable wizard or witch, meaning the person least likely to die. So what if that person is a bit younger?"

Ron looked like he was actually thinking about what Harry said while Hermione refuted Harry. Harry only argued half-heartedly while he chowed down. He looked towards the main table near Dumbledore Mad Eye Moody, who was next to Remus. Harry gathered that he was a guest professor this time around, since Remus' secret was still safe and sound. Harry smirked as he quickly formulated a simple plan.

As the feast slowly came to a close, and people were getting ready to head to bed, Harry stepped to the side and disillusioned himself carefully. Then, slipping under his cloak for double protection, Harry snuck up, slowly but surely, behind "Mad Eye Moody," who was trying to stay engrossed in a conversation where he had to carefully calculate each response.

Moody had just finished talking when he heard a sharp, loud voice, directly behind him, yelling, "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Moody jumped in his seat and fell over. Harry quickly took his goblet and his small pouch on his belt that held his polyjuice potion. The professors would handle the rest.

Harry entered the common room a bit later than usual, but found Ron and Hermione there waiting for him. Harry put on a cheery smile and greeted them. He had told them to go ahead and meet up with him later.

"So? What was that all about?" asked Ron, curious.

"Hm? Oh I was just talking to the new assistant professor, when this weird stuff started happening. The other professors panicked and hauled him off somewhere… wizard's chess?"

"Yeah sure" replied, Ron, reaching over to grab the board and pieces.

Hermione's eye was twitching. She then let out a sigh, and sat down on the side to watch the game. It was no use discussing normal around Harry anymore.

Soon enough, the school was filled up with students from the two other schools, and Harry found himself waiting around in anticipation as he planned to actually "enter" in a way this time. He imagined that Voltemort would be having a laugh when he heard Harry actually entered himself into the tournament. But then again, the joke would be on him.

So one night, Harry woke up while it was still dark and got Ron up too, and the two headed down under the cover of Harry's trusty cloak.

"So you found a way to get past the age line?"

"Yeah, I got a theory."

"Neat! Hope it works though, don't want to end up like Fred and George…"

Harry sighed, in all honesty, he thought he could probably just walk through the age line due to special situation, but trolling the goblet and Dumbledore would be just as good he figured.

So Harry ripped a good sized piece of parchment and wrote his name on it. Then he crumpled it into a ball and tossed it from a couple feet back into the goblet of fire. It went straight in and disappeared into the flames.

Ron was speechless.

"Hey it worked! Ron… Ron? Hello!? Anyone in there?" asked Harry, waving his hand in front of Ron's face. Ron was completely unresponsive.

Harry sighed at his friend. Captain crawled out of Harry's pocket, observed the situation, and instantly had an evil smile on her face. She crawled up and told Harry and a devilish smirk appeared on his face.

A quick trip to certain hidden room later, Harry was back with a pumpkin juice box, and Ron was still dazed. Harry carefully punched the straw into the box and went closer to Ron. Then, ever so carefully, Harry lifted the straw up to Ron's nose and put it in a little. He squeezed the box, right as he noticed Ron's eyes go glossy. Harry quickly hid the juice box in the dark.

"Wow… I'm shocked! I can't believe you did it Harry! You outsmarted Dumbledore! And… Why does my throat feel slightly wet and my thirst strangely quenched? That's weird… I don't remember drinking anything…?" *

Harry kept himself from breaking out in spontaneous laughter as he replied, "Dunno, but aren't you going to enter?"

"Oh, yeah" replied Ron.

And thus the two got their names into the selection process.

Footnotes:

1- Its from Clannad. A wonderfully funny and sad anime. A beautiful story though.