Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own anything, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, JK Rowling is the coolest, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately.
Harry Potter and the Lightning Scar
The next several days were extremely unpleasant for Harry Potter. The entire student population of Hogwarts (with the possible exception of Fred and George Weasley, who viewed Harry's entry into the tournament as a successful prank) was shunning him, and even the professors had basically given him the cold shoulder. While the last two months had seen many of his professors praising his much-improved classroom performance, now they barely spoke to him. Snape, of course, had taken the opportunity to be even more cruel than usual; as a result, Gryffindor had zero points, and the rest of the lions blamed Harry for that, too (which was likely Snape's intention).
"It's like second year all over again," Harry hissed bitterly to Gadsden. "What will it take for these idiots to give me the benefit of the doubt?"
Harry had just had another argument with Hermione, after which she finally threw in her lot with Ron and the rest of the school, all having decided that they couldn't trust Harry's word that he hadn't entered the tournament.
"It's just another example of you lying to us, Harry," she had said, almost apologetically—as though her words were hurting her as much as they hurt Harry. "First you come back with a snake, and you won't tell anyone what you did last summer, and you're doing so much better in classes...you've been pulling away from everyone all term, and now you broke the rules to get into the tournament."
"Fine," Harry had spat, barely keeping himself from drawing his wand. "Forget all about the troll, and the Stone, and the Chamber. Forget all the times I've put my neck out for everyone here. Cast your lot in with the rest of them—follow the herd, yeah? There's that Gryffindor courage."
With that, he had stomped up to his dorm, leaving Hermione in tears and Ron crowing savagely. Harry had always known that Ron was jealous of his wealth and fame (both of which Harry disliked), but now he was taking it much further than Harry had ever thought possible. It was like he wanted Harry to be cast down, like it gave him some sort of boost. Hermione was hurt by the break, but Ron was practically taking pleasure in it, even going so far as to try to use Gadsden's presence to convince people of Harry's sneaky, dishonest nature.
"You should go from here," Gadsden said, a note of concern in his sibilant hiss. "I've seen the other humans poking around in your things...I think they will try to sabotage you."
Harry suspected that Gadsden was overreacting; people were likely scouting his belongings for future pranks. However, he did not intend to let people walk all over him again—in second year, he had been afraid to stand up for himself, but that was before he'd killed a basilisk, fought off a hundred dementors, and stabbed a demon to death. Most importantly, that had been before the changes wrought by his animagus transformation.
"You're right," Harry replied, cold determination washing over him. "I'm done here. We're moving into the Chamber."
Harry had explored much more of the Chamber of Secrets this term; it was the perfect place to practice spells that he had learned over the summer, which he wouldn't want to have to explain to Hermione. Also, it went below the anti-apparition wards laid over the Hogwarts grounds, so he could even practice apparation. In his exploration, he had found several rooms—one looked to have once been a library (though the had long-since turned to a mildewy mess), another was some sort of study, and another was a bedroom. It was actually very similar in décor to the Slytherin common room that Harry had seen in his second year, but somewhat nicer (as one might expect, considering that this was likely where Salazar Slytherin had slept). It had only taken Winky a few days to get the whole place liveable again, including removing all of the remains of the basilisk.
Within days, of course, people noticed that Harry was nowhere to be found any time he wasn't in class. He didn't even go to the Great Hall for meals; why bother, when he had his own house-elf? Therefore, it was not entirely unexpected when Professor McGonagall held him back after class on the second Thursday of November, almost a week after he moved into the Chamber.
"Mr. Potter," she said sternly. "You have skipped a number of detentions assigned by your professors, your whereabouts are never known, and Gryffindor house has remained at zero points for several days. Explain yourself."
"With all due respect, professor," Harry replied, sarcasm dripping from his words like venom from fangs. "I really don't see why I should."
McGonagall's eyes flashed with righteous anger. "I am not accustomed to such disrespect, Mr. Potter," she snapped. "I am the Deputy Headmistress of this school, and you will address me with the respect I am due, or you will face the consequences!"
"That's right, you are the Deputy Headmistress of this school," Harry hissed. McGonagall almost jumped back at the cold rage in his voice. "So why have you allowed the entirety of the student body, and most of the professors, to treat me like dirt for the past two weeks? Are those the consequences for being foolish enough to entrust my safety to you and the headmaster? It's second year all over again, and I'm sick of it!"
"Mr. Potter—" she began, but Harry cut her off.
"Consider this my resignation from Gryffindor House, professor," he growled, tearing the house patch off of his robe and throwing his scarlet and gold tie onto her desk. "I've moved out of Gryffindor Tower. I will attend classes for the rest of the year because the tuition has already come out of my trust vault, but I will have nothing else to do with this school. If I survive this farce of a Tournament, I'll be looking into alternative options for my education."
Harry skipped the rest of his classes that day, knowing that McGonagall would immediately report his tirade to the headmaster, who would inevitably attempt to meddle at the first opportunity. Instead, he spent the remainder of the day blowing things up in the Chamber. That night, a mild storm swept over the school; it was the perfect chance for Harry to go flying for real, and actually let off some steam. Thus, what had begun as a mild storm turned into a raging tempest, with thunderclaps that shook the school and bolts of lightning that turned wide patches of ground into smoking, charred glass.
As Harry flew over the Forbidden Forest, he saw four dragons thrashing against their chains, with dozens of handlers trying to regain control. One was at least half again the size of the next-largest, and nearly twice the size of the smallest. Obviously agitated by the storm, it swung its massive spiked tail, crushing and impaling a particularly unlucky handler.
'So that's the first task,' Harry thought. 'Dragons. I wonder if that handler was the first life this tournament will cost?'
Colin Creevey—who had thankfully jumped on the "Potter Stinks" bandwagon, and thus had stopped pestering Harry for photos and autographs—was a most unlikely savior, Harry mused as he beat a hasty retreat from Snape's class. He would have bet all the gold in Gringotts that Snape had planned to "test the antidotes" on him.
Of course, nothing was without cost; the price for escaping Snape's clutches was to walk into some sort of "meet the press" event for the tournament, thinly veiled as some assurance that each champion had a working wand. He walked as slowly as possible, examining every portrait along the way as though he had never seen them before, to Colin's obvious discomfort (and thus his own intense amusement). Finally, they reached the classroom, just in time for Harry to overhear Fleur admitting that she was part veela.
"Ah, there's our fourth champion!" Ludo Bagman practically shouted—didn't that man have an inside voice? He clapped Harry on the shoulder and maneuvered him over to the other champions. "I hope you don't mind that we got started without you—I guess old Snape didn't want to let you loose, eh lad?"
The other occupants of the small classroom stared at Harry. Cedric couldn't take his eyes off Harry's unadorned robe and plain black tie, so apparently the fact that Harry had abandoned Gryffindor had not yet made it into the rumor mill—though, of course, it would now. A reporter dressed in gaudy magenta robes and clutching a crocodile-skin handbag was staring at Harry like he was a particularly juicy steak. Albus Dumbledore's expression was unreadable, but Harry got the impression that he was not pleased to see that McGonagall's report was true.
Ollivander examined and tested Cedric's and Krum's wands, and then it was Harry's turn. Harry handed Ollivander his holly and phoenix feather wand. There was nothing in the rules stating that the wand examined at the Weighing had to be the wand used in the contest, and Harry knew that Ollivander had some connection to Dumbledore (it was surely no coincidence that Tom Riddle and Harry both had a wand made with Fawkes's feathers), so he wasn't about to let the man see him with a wand made in America.
"Aaaah, yes," Ollivander murmured, stroking it. Harry suddenly pictured Sirius pantomiming that same action as part of a joke he had told that summer, and only barely contained his laughter. He finally shot a stream of wine from the wand (humming in satisfaction as he did so, causing Harry to snort in amusement), and then handed the wand back to Harry. To Harry's surprise, the old man met his eyes and winked; Harry was given the distinct impression that Ollivander knew that the wand was no longer the best match for Harry, and he might even have an idea why.
After a few photos, Harry tried to make it to the door, but found his path blocked by the headmaster.
"Mr. Potter," he said gravely. "I believe we need to have a discussion."
"Mr. Dumbledore," Harry replied, obviously mocking the headmaster's severe tone. "I believe I've already had this discussion with your deputy. If the result was not to your satisfaction, perhaps you should consider different strategies for the next orphan you try to manipulate. Allowing the entire student body and your professors to shun and abuse me for your failures doesn't seem to be working out for you. Makes me wonder what exactly you tried with Riddle—we all know how well that turned out."
Those still in the room stared in fascination at the tense confrontation; the reporter (who had been introduced as Rita Skeeter, muckraker extraordinaire) was writing frantically—Voldemort's true identity was not well-known, but Harry was certain that was about to change, because Rita Skeeter was on the case, and she smelled blood. Also, practically everyone in magical Britain had always been under the impression that Harry Potter was the headmaster's protege, and Dumbledore had always subtly encouraged that notion, owing much of his postwar reputation to the fact that he was supposedly watching carefully over their precious savior. This confrontation, though, was direct evidence to the contrary; it was clearly of the "I've got a bone to pick with you" variety, and the tone alone (to say nothing of the words themselves) spoke volumes about the ever-widening gulf between Harry and Dumbledore.
"Harry...surely whatever problems you are having can be worked out to the satisfaction of all. There is no need to put aside your classmates and friends."
"Yes there is; you know as well as I do that they put me aside first. They made their decisions, and I have made mine. This discussion is over, headmaster."
"Please, Harry, I truly believe that we—"
"Have you acted on the topic of our discussion from after the Welcome Feast?" Harry cut in, already tired of Dumbledore's act. Harry paused for a few seconds, but Dumbledore remained silent. "I didn't think so. Until then, there's precious little you can say that I care to hear, and even less for me to say to you. Now get out of my way."
The headmaster's shoulders slumped as Harry pushed past him and strode through the door. Harry managed to conceal the savage grin on his face until he was back in the Chamber. As unpleasant as having the entire school set against him was, it did have the benefit of allowing him to tell people off. Plus, now he had planted the seed in the public consciousness that Dumbledore was holding something back from Harry, and he would bet his Firebolt that every reporter in magical Britain would want to know what it was. Once he got public opinion behind the idea of Sirius's innocence, his freedom was all but guaranteed.
"Dragons?!" Remus and Sirius shouted at once. Harry had not had a chance to mirror-call them after his exertions the previous night (the storm had been strong enough to scar the Forbidden Forest, swamp part of the Hogwarts grounds, and warrant a mention on the second page of that morning's Daily Prophet—though today's confrontation with Dumbledore would certainly be front-page news tomorrow), and had done so after dinner. He told them first about his confrontations with McGonagall and Dumbledore, and then moved onto the real issue: surviving the first task.
"Dragons," Harry confirmed. "I don't really know much about them, except that they're big and powerful. I even watched one of them kill one of the handlers." Harry didn't mention that the dragon had been thrashing about in agitation from his storm; he didn't really feel too bad about the man's death, considering the fact that Harry had been thrown into this tournament, and that handler's idea of fun was apparently to force a child to fight a dragon.
"Well, you've got that right," Remus said, getting over his shock about the dragons. "Their scales are almost completely resistant to magic, their breath is a giant magical flamethrower, and they are much faster and more agile than their size would suggest."
"Maybe go for the eyes?" Sirius suggested, not fully confident in his idea. "That might convince it you're enough of a threat not to be worth the effort?"
"I dunno," Harry said. "The basilisk was still able to fight by hearing and scent once it was blind. I got a lucky stab into the roof of its mouth—but then again, it bit me and I almost died, and a dragon would be roasting me with fire."
"Wait," Remus mused, the wheels clearly turning in his mind. "That channeling magic you were telling us about...you said that can take energy from the environment?"
"Yeah," Harry replied, suddenly understanding what Remus was getting at. "You think it might be possible to..."
"I think so," Remus replied. After a brief explanation (Sirius wasn't quite as fast on the uptake), the three wizards began to plan the prank of the century. Their mark: a dragon.
Though Harry had avoided taking meals at the Great Hall for the last few weeks, he didn't want to miss the general reaction to Rita Skeeter's inevitable hatchet-job. Clad in his invisibility cloak and peeking down from the rafters (he had flown up on his Firebolt before anyone else arrived), he watched as the morning post arrived, and chaos began to unfold.
It started, predictably, at the staff and Ravenclaw tables, followed closely by the rest of the students. At first, it was a low buzz, a murmur of discontent, but it soon grew into a cacophony of outrage. The best part was that it was mostly directed at Dumbledore (they weren't about to blame Harry's estrangement on themselves, after all). Dumbledore soon beat a hasty retreat, with Snape and McGonagall at his heels.
Harry waited for the bedlam to die down, and stealthily made his way back to the Chamber once the rest of the crowd had left the Great Hall. Winky had procured a copy of the article for him, and as he began to read, his smile grew—Rita Skeeter certainly hadn't disappointed. The headline alone practically called for Dumbledore's head:
Boy-Who-Lived Mistreated at Hogwarts by Students and Staff, Driven From Gryffindor House!
Will Dumbledore's Scheming Give Us Another Dark Lord?
Grinning—it was only a matter of time before the owls started coming in to beg for his side of the story—Harry put down the paper and got to work. After all, he had a dragon to slay.
Harry continued attending classes the next week, and quickly noticed that Rita's article had had a significant chilling effect on the students and staff. Most wouldn't even look at him, let alone insult him to his face, and the whispers and ridicule behind his back were also dramatically reduced. Perhaps everyone was finally feeling a little guilty, he thought, before snorting to himself. More like they don't want to look bad, in case I end up proving that I'm not responsible for all this, he thought.
Outside of class, he continued to train for the dragon. He briefly felt guilty that he hadn't told Cedric about the first task, but reasoned that the older boy had three extra years of schooling, and if he was as great as everyone had been saying, he'd do fine anyway. Plus, he hadn't objected to the whole "Potter Stinks / Support Cedric Diggory" fashion line (which had grown from badges to hats, tee-shirts, and, oddly enough, capes), so as far as Harry was concerned, the "super-Hufflepuff" was on his own.
He took a brief break from training the following Saturday, November 21. It was a Hogsmeade weekend, which he planned to use to meet Rita Skeeter (about whose tactics Remus had given Harry a full briefing) and discuss an article about Sirius Black's innocence. Harry was fed up with waiting for Dumbledore to do anything—several sessions of the Wizengamot had come and gone since the Welcome Feast, with Dumbledore presiding, without any mention of Sirius's case.
As he left the Chamber, though, he was greeted by a surprise that had his wand in his hand before his mind even caught up. Standing in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was Daphne Greengrass, a Slytherin in Harry's year. They had never spoken, but Harry had often gotten the impression that she didn't really care much for...well, anybody. She was about his height, with deep blue eyes and long chestnut-colored hair. Her current clothing—the mostly-shapeless Hogwarts school robes—concealed her figure, but Harry knew that she was quite fit, having seen her in a swimsuit down by the lake earlier in the term, on one of the last days before autumn turned cool.
"Whoa there, Potter," she said placatingly, holding her empty hands up. "I'm just here to talk."
"You've got a lot of nerve, coming to talk to me wearing that," Harry said coldly, aiming his wand at the "Potter Stinks" badge pinned to her robe.
"Come on, now," she said dismissively, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. "You're a fourth year, you must know by now how things work around here. People think that Hufflepuff is the house of the sheep, but it's got nothing on Slytherin—it can be dangerous to go against the crowd in the dungeons. Right now, that means at least pretending to agree with Snape and Malfoy. They may be twats, but they're in charge."
"Fine, then. Talk, and be fast—I've got an important appointment in Hogsmeade."
"Hot date, Potter?" Daphne asked. Seeing that he was not amused—and suspecting that his meeting was more along the lines of actual business, given the hints Rita Skeeter's article had laid out—she cut the comedy and moved on. "Alright, then, I'll get to the point. You probably don't know this about me, but I like the outdoors. When it's warm enough, I go swimming. When it isn't, I like to hike."
"And this concerns me how, exactly?" Harry asked flatly.
"I'm getting to that. I don't usually incriminate myself, but somehow I think that you of all people won't tell Dumbledore or McGonagall about a little rule-breaking. When I go hiking, I go into the Forbidden Forest."
Daphne paused, expecting another snide comment from Harry, but he remained silent. Harry had a sneaking suspicion that he knew where this was going, and if he was right, he might have a new ally.
"Anyway," she continued, "I was out hiking yesterday afternoon when I heard some...roaring. I was going to run, but I heard human voices, so I went to investigate. I reached a clearing, and...there were dragons."
Harry merely raised an eyebrow.
Surprised by his lack of reaction, she elaborated. "Four of them. Four dragons. Four champions. And the first task is coming up. Do I have to spell it out for you?"
Harry smiled. Finally, someone was on his side! "No, but thanks—I've actually known about the dragons for over a week, ever since the night of that big storm. I actually watched one of the dragons kill one of the handlers, and I've been training ever since."
"Do the other champions know?" she asked. "You didn't do something absurd, like go and tell them to be fair, did you?"
Harry snorted in response. "Of course I didn't; I'm done falling on my sword for these people. I expect that Karkaroff told Krum—he was a Death Eater, so I can't quite imagine him caring about cheating in a tournament—and Maxime might have told Fleur. I don't know if Cedric knows; if he does, good for him, and if he doesn't, then that's his problem. If he's so bloody great, he should be able to deal with it."
Harry turned and hissed in Parseltongue, closing the entrance to the Chamber. Daphne looked very interested to hear him speak Parseltongue, and a thought suddenly occurred to him.
"How did you know to find me here?" he asked. "I thought nobody else knew where the Chamber entrance was? I never heard its location in any of the rumors."
"True," Daphne replied. "But last year I had to hide from Filch in here, and Myrtle mentioned you. I put two and two together. And that was actually the only time I've ever heard Parseltongue, except for that one time in Lockhart's Dueling Club. Were you really trying to save that Hufflepuff?"
"Yeah," he replied, moving toward the door—after all, he did have someplace to be. "And he promptly repaid me by telling the whole school that I was a dark wizard trying to kill him. Some thanks, right?"
"And Dumbledore and the rest of the staff let it happen," she finished softly. "I get the feeling that last week's article was just the tip of the iceberg. Are you meeting Skeeter today?"
"You are a clever one, aren't you?" Harry teased, before a sudden impulse struck him. If he hadn't spent the last three weeks so alone, he probably would have never considered it, but as it was, he had finally found someone to take his side, and he didn't want to leave her behind. Plus, if he let her in on more secrets, there was every chance that she might become an actual friend. "Yeah, I'm meeting Skeeter, for another article. It's a big one. Come with me, and you'll get to find out before anyone else why Albus Dumbledore is about to lose his seat as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot."
Author's Note
Harry meets the press!
Harry trains for the first task! Cue Eye of the Tiger.
Harry makes a new friend (kinda sorta maybe)! Daphne Greengrass (along with many of the other named but largely non-described students), is an extremely useful character for the aspiring fanfiction writer. She is a Slytherin, which allows for more Malfoy and Weasley conflict, and can be used to temper and counterbalance some of Harry's more irrational and self-destructive tendencies. Little is known about her, which means that she can be used to fill pretty much any position in a story. There is just enough canon information to show that Daphne exists—everything else is left up to the fanfiction author. In canon, Harry doesn't find out about the dragons until that night (late November 21, early November 22), two days before the first task; now, though, he sees them by chance much earlier, giving him much more time to prepare. As for Karkaroff and Maxime, they are both present that night, and immediately tell their respective champions (though I always thought it was absurd to think that they didn't know each of the tasks ahead of time—they're judges, and they all had a hand in arranging the tournament, after all).
Thanks for the insightful reviews—it seems that pretty much everyone thought that the penultimate section of chapter 22 kind of sucked, or at least it didn't work quite as I had intended. I meant it to be a sort of montage, to show his deteriorating relationship with Ron and Hermione between September 2 (the Snape Incident) and October 31 (the Goblet Incident). It's a safe bet that Harry pushed back at each of these affronts (particularly the one where Ron rummaged through his trunk), but I thought it would work better if I just included the increasingly-invasive actions of Ron and Hermione. Apparently, what I thought would be clever turned out to be a great example of why no author ever uses a written montage—it just doesn't really work. So, note to self: leave the montages in 80's movies, and don't publish anything you wrote while you were so tired that a montage seemed like a good idea.
The main problem that Harry has is that he can't really bring himself to confront Ron and Hermione, because they've gone and turned one little thing—his reluctance to discuss his summer vacation—into an inquisition that basically defines their relationship for the first two months of school, and he's afraid that if he tells them to basically fuck off, it might end their friendship. Harry's apparent lack of backbone when it comes to his friends is intentional—it's easy to "rage against the machine" when the machine is Dumbledore and Snape, who Harry believes are conspiring against him, but he's got a soft spot for Ron and Hermione that leads him down the road of appeasement, rather than nipping their nosiness in the bud. The irony is that now that the entire school thinks he cheated his way into the Tournament, his friends—who might otherwise have believed him—are so used to his platitudes and deception that they side with everyone else, so Harry would have been better served putting them in their place earlier.