After the Yule Ball tensions in the castle rose. While many were disgusted that some Slytherin students had attacked the fun auror who came to the castle, others were afraid because of a different reason. Harry had proven that his cage could not keep him if he was truly determined to get out and he had attacked students in his rage. That they had not been clawed or bitten was not taken into account by the younger students, Harry was back to being the big scary monster.
The Daily Prophet was clearly loving all this drama as Rita Skeeter's articles were full of nothing but smeers against Harry for every little thing, twisting the events to portray him as nothing more than a feral animal.
Although in a sign of unity the Durmstrang students had all moved over to the Gryffindor table, either through disgust of the green wearing student's actions or because Viktor switched seats, it wasn't clear, but the support was appreciated nonetheless.
However his biggest problem was still the golden egg that he hadn't been able to figure out just yet. "Tonks said it was a magical creature making that sound, but what?" flipping through another book on the various creatures.
"Mr. Potter," Severus interrupted his studying in the library. "It is time."
Harry looked up to see the potion in the potion professor's hand. "Yeah," closing the book he was going through, Harry put it back on the shelf with a sigh.
While knocking back the potion he noticed that Professor Snape walked over the bookshelf. "Mr. Potter, with how little time you have before the next task, I would think you'd choose your reading material with more thought," he stated while tapping a book that Harry had originally overlooked.
"Did you just-," Harry raised an eyebrow at his professor.
"Best not waste time, the ministry isn't going to be lenient with you after last month's incident," Severus warned in case Harry had assumed things would simply remain the same.
"They're your students," Harry glared back at the man. "And they should count themselves lucky I didn't go for the throat."
"Clearly," Snape rolled his eyes. "Auror Tonks being in danger had nothing to do with your actions."
Grumbling to himself as he was led through the castle, he didn't like that of all people it was Snape who was teasing him about how he felt about Tonks. And he didn't even know how he felt about Tonks.
For the walk Harry was thinking about how she made him feel. Whenever he would feel down about having to be caged, the thought of seeing her smiling face when he entered the room and all the conversations she'd have with him always perked him up. Despite everything she never talked to him like he was lesser than her, never tried to pity him because of his affliction. He wasn't The-Boy-Who-Lived, he wasn't 'The Werewolf', he was just Harry Potter.
"Wait…" Looking around the room that held the cage. "Where's Tonks?" He asked because instead of the upbeat woman, a surly man stood in the room.
"Auror Tonks has been replaced, according to the Minister's orders. She's compromised and was no longer fit to do her job," the auror answered. "Now into the cage and against the wall." Nudging his wand at Harry who cautiously entered the cage.
Once he was against the wall he turned to see why he had to stand here when with a clack manacles flew off the wall and wrapped around his wrists, ankles and throat, pulling him tightly back to the stone, he let out a gasp of surprise as the metal tightened around him.
"I don't believe that was what it means to secure Mr. Potter," Snape spoke up to the auror because this level of security seemed unwarranted.
"Either he's chained up or he's put down," the auror countered. "Now you leave, only me and the beast tonight."
Now Harry really didn't enjoy his time during the full moon, at least on the nights before Tonks he could move around and didn't have to go through the transformation under restraints.
"This is inhumane," Professor McGonagall protested once she had been made aware of the way Harry was being treated. "Albus, they are chaining up a student for no good reason."
Albus pinched his brow. "I have spoken to Cornelius about this, but it apparently was drafted by his undersecretary for how to handle dangerous creatures in the school, apparently when not being used for a lesson, then anything must be returned to the forest or locked up securely and the ministry is the one to determine what that means, since it applies to all werewolves, we would need to let Mr. Potter loose in the Forbidden Forest, which I had considered until Hagrid informed me that the centaurs have spotted a number of wizards laying in wait, no doubt with the express purpose of slaying young Harry and claiming self-defense."
"There has to be something we are able to do," Pomona huffed. "Why is Nymphadora not here to watch him, she wouldn't do this to him."
"Apparently she's been reassigned," Filius commented sourly. "One incident and suddenly she's too biased."
"If I recall that was the reason she was chosen in the first place," Snape responded with a small smirk at being able to be snarky in the conversation. "Black's relation to her meant she was less likely than the other aurors to cast first and not ask questions after."
"Well couldn't Sirius do something to convince the minister?" Minerva asked, and the implications of what she meant by convinced were understood by the adults who knew how readily their head of government took bribes.
"Not unless he's willing to start a bidding war for Cornelius' ear," Albus said tiredly while he took off his glasses to rub his head. "It would then simply be cheaper for everyone to just replace him in the next election."
Albus rose from his seat and went over to a section of his personal library that dealt with pertinent legal cases that he felt might come up for some students and ran his hand over their spines looking for anything that might be useful for Harry, but even this selection of books represented a small fraction of all the odd laws and rules for their society. "I need time, young Harry will simply have to tolerate this situation until we can find a solution."
"This one," Harry said as he pulled out the book Snape had pointed to the night prior. He turned to put it on the table only to find Hermione standing before him with an outstretched hand.
"Harry you look absolutely dreadful, let me do some of the reading while you get some sleep," she said while grasping a corner of the book.
He wanted to protest and say that it was his responsibility to sort out what the egg meant, but the last two nights of his transformation had completely wiped him out. Despite not moving, being chained to the wall was more exhausting than running around, and his body was feeling the aches of his new arrangement. "Sure," He let out a yawn and passed her the book.
Not even feeling up to walking all the way up the stairs Harry just found a corner of the library that someone was unlikely to trample him in and settled down for a nap. He wasn't aware that Madam Pinch had walked by and seen him, normally the librarian would have quite loudly woken up the student and ejected them from the library, but all the staff were aware of how Harry was currently being treated by the ministry and they didn't want to give him anymore grief than he needed.
When he had awoken a number of hours later Hermione had already deduced what magical creature was making the noise and while she hadn't taken the egg to translate the clue for him, she had the idea that whatever the task involved it would take place in the Black Lake and was already preparing a list of useful spells and items that would allow one to survive in the cold, dark waters.
Later that night Harry took the egg to one of the baths since Hermione had told him that mermish could only be understood underwater if you didn't know their language. "What I'll sorely miss? What could that mean?" Harry questioned just what the task would take from him.
But since he couldn't figure out what the judges would be taking from him, Harry just kept practicing the spells that would help him in the lake. And it seemed that the other champions had also come to that conclusion so in the early morning hours it wasn't out of place to see all four champions swimming.
"Damn Harry, when did you get so fit?" Cedric wondered, because after the champions would train sometimes they would just relax near the lake and being in their swimsuits it did show off more skin than the traditional robes.
Harry pulled his bottle of butterbeer from his lips. "Huh? Oh, yeah Tonks suggested I work out since she figured it might help with the transformations, and it kind of did a bit. Then I just ended up joining a gym for the summer and kept it up once we all came back."
"That explains the muscles, but where all the scars come from?" Viktor asked while looking over Harry's body. He had not expected to see this many wounds on someone so young.
Humming to himself, Harry pointed up to his shoulder where the large scars from Remus' fangs dug into his flesh. "Well these ones are from when Moony got me."
"Got this from the basilisk back in second year," raising his arm to show the blackened veins. Rotating that same arm to show a rough patch of skin. "When that cursed bludger broke my arm, Pomfrey got my bones back, but the skin just isn't the same."
"Oh this one is from Ripper, little blighter," Harry pulled his left leg back to show the faint bite marks on his calf.
"Who is Ripper?" Fleur inquired while sipping her tea.
"My uncle's sister's pet dog," Harry answered the veela's question. "And I guess the rest are your everyday bumps, bruises and scrapes."
The other champions shared a look because they themselves had gotten a number of injuries over their years, from doing the same things kids always did but none of their scars were like Harry's.
The morning of the second task and Harry was fighting off a headache and it wasn't because of his transformation, that wasn't for a few more weeks. Instead it was because he and the other champions had just been informed that no, the judges hadn't taken something from each of them and stuck it in the lake. That would have been understandable.
Instead the judges had gone and placed four people in the lake to be rescued. People that they cared about. Each of the champions would have done the task to get whatever was put in the lake but that it was people just made it unnecessarily stressful.
Thankfully Hermione had gotten him very well prepared for this because the gillyweed he was going to use was the most important part of the plan, the not drowning portion. If he could manage that then surely he could make it to the end of the task alive.
While swimming through the dark waters, Harry saw Fleur start to get dragged down into the kelp by grindylows, so he diverted from his course to fling some bludgeoning hexes into the lakebed which scared off the voracious water vermin.
The young veela witch offered her thanks and Harry found that it was easier to swim through the dark waters with Fleur helping to provide light. But when he arrived at the location of the hostages to see Sirius chained up in the water, what shocked him was that someone had drawn all over his face. He started laughing at the cat whiskers and glasses that marked his skin.
Fleur had tapped Harry's shoulder and asked if he was going to go up to the surface but Harry motioned that he was going to wait for Cedric and Viktor, just to make sure all the hostages were safe before leaving. Thankfully he did not have to wait long before the other two arrived and took their hostages.
Breaking the surface of the water awakened each hostage and Harry after an overly dramatic performance from his godfather for 'saving' him, just dunked the man back down in the hopes it would immobilize him again. Unfortunately for him, that didn't work but at least Sirius could swim himself back to the docks, even if he had to morph to a dog to do it, since apparently nobody taught him how to swim.
The points followed with Fleur taking the lead by a wide margin due to arriving first, although there had been a protest from the other champions that Harry was marked so poorly as he had technically came back last, even though Viktor, Fleur and Cedric swore that Harry arrived at the hostages first and had remained behind out of interest in their safety.
But Harry decided it wasn't worth the fight. "Don't bother, I'm not really even in this tournament anyway, I just want to get it over with."
He despondently shuffled away from the lake to go find some place in the castle to spend his time, his mood continuously dropping as the months went by.
It didn't help that even when he wasn't doing anything the Daily Prophet was still trying to stir up controversy. An article by Rita about a scandalous love triangle between himself, Viktor Krum and Hermione had much of the attention from the students who wanted the drama to have something to talk about. It didn't do much to affect his relationships with his friends, new and old. But it was getting annoying that the prophet was so interested in getting a rise out of him.
And while he wanted to coop himself up in the castle until the end of the year, Ron and Hermione had been persistent on not letting Harry isolate himself. "Come on, just one butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks," Ron said while tugging on Harry.
"We'll be in Hogsmeade for no more than an hour, promise," Hermione pleaded as it was taking a lot of effort to even get Harry to entertain the idea of traveling outside Hogwarts grounds.
Knowing that it had been weeks of pressure and they were just trying to look out for him with what they thought was best, Harry relented and threw on his coat. "One bottle, then I'm coming back to study."
"Honestly, I never thought you'd be the one to focus more on studying than fun Harry. That's more Hermione's deal," Ron chuckled before getting whacked lightly by Hermione.
"I know when to have fun, I just prefer to get all my work done before that," Hermione huffed.
Harry snorted. "So all those times you sneak off with Viktor, was that work or fun?"
"Harry," Hermione gasped in shock. "You weren't supposed to see that."
"I didn't," he replied before tapping his nose. "I smelled it."
"Guh, that's so crude," Hermione wrinkled her nose before discreetly casting a scent removal charm from herself. Seems she hadn't taken that into account after spending time with her new star athlete boyfriend.
"You aren't the only one," nudging his thumb at Ron. "He's been getting his head picked by Katie for plans and strategies for next year's Quidditch matches."
"I'm just saying, there's a benefit to not having a year of the game, we can really focus on finding the right keeper to replace Oliver with," Ron shrugged as since Oliver had graduated last year and immediately found a place on Puddlemere United the vacancy which would have normally left them scrambling for a month to fill the spot had resulted in a much longer and more thorough process to test for the abilities of the new keeper.
Their friendly conversation was cut short because Harry sniffed the air and whipped his head around to a side alley. Normally this behavior would have been alarming had Harry not immediately smiled and ran down between two buildings. "Tonks," Harry exclaimed as he came around the corner to see the witch standing with another red robed auror.
"Hare Bear," Nymphadora exclaimed, having a moment before Harry launched himself into her for a hug. "So good to see you."
Her time back at the ministry after the incident over the Yule Ball had been a problem to say the least. Even with Madam Bones working with her since she had quickly gotten to the root of the problem, Nymphadora was still feeling the pressure from all sides of the ministry that were against Harry. Other more senior aurors wanted to bust her back down to the academy for numerous reasons. And the minister, or at least his undersecretary, was trying to have her removed all together for 'fraternizing with the enemy', thankfully Shacklebolt was still willing to take her on as a partner so she wasn't stuck to desk duty.
Speaking of, the tall auror just coughed loudly to get the attention from the two people hugging. Nymphadora realized that this would be seen as highly inappropriate, especially with how long the hug had lasted but she was kept abreast of what was going on in the castle with Harry through her cousin so she could tell he was having it rough. She was plotting ways to get even with the aurors who decided that Harry had to be chained to a wall when he clearly wasn't a threat.
"Oh Harry this is my partner," motioning to the tall black man. "Kingsley Shacklebolt."
Harry eyed the older wizard carefully, partner would normally mean just working together, but did this wizard have any intentions with his favorite person. "He's a friend of Dumbledore's."
"Aye, and I was in the academy with your father James," Kingsley nodded before reaching out his hand. "Good to see that you are just as upstanding a man as he was."
Harry slowly accepted the handshake. "Really? My father was an auror?"
"Yes, one of the best too," Kingsley answered before explaining some of his time at the academy back with James, before they got separated to different areas of magical Britain during the war with Voldemort. "Auror Tonks explained how things were going with you in Hogwarts, disgraceful."
"It is what it is," Harry offered a shrug. "But what have you been up to Tonks, I hadn't heard a word until Yaxley was in the next full moon to restrain me?"
Nymphadora's hair shifted to a deep red. "It was so infuriating. I gave my statement of what I could remember to Madam Bones, since I didn't see much of anything before getting hit by the stunner, the obliviate is pretty much impossible to reverse since there's really nothing there to bring back. Of course she was on my side and pieced together what happened from your statement and what she could get out of the Slytherins before she was pulled back by Fudge."
"So I get shoved to desk duty since I'm persona non grata because I actually give a damn about you," Tonks fumed and paced. "Some of the other aurors are mad that you 'escaped' and nobody got a chance to put you down. But they can't push to try you for assaulting the little shites who attacked me, because they'd have to testify why they were there in the first place."
"That doesn't seem very fair," Harry muttered, in all his time spent talking with Tonks, he had learned that she was very passionate about becoming an auror ever since her time in Hogwarts and it had been hard because the budget barely covered the current numbers, let alone new recruits. So really politics was playing a big part in who would get hired and with her being a half-blood without a strong family backing, it wasn't easy to get into the academy over a pureblood. To hear that she was being given crap duty was not making him happy.
"Well at least not all the aurors at the department have a wand up their bums," Tonks smiled at Kingsley who had returned to keeping an eye on the area while his partner chatted with Mr. Potter.
Being a friend of Dumbledore's from the old days of their secret organization he was told a bit about the situation when he wanted to learn about his partner who had been up at the castle. It was a damn shame how the young man was being treated, it was worse than many werewolves because at least not everyone knew their names and faces before getting outed.
"So what managed to bring you all the way out of the castle today?" Tonks asked because Harry had even told he was going to avoid Hogsmeade for the rest of the year to not put up with the townsfolk. "Ooh, was it a date?"
Harry chuckled as Tonks wiggled her eyebrows comically at him. "No way, I couldn't dream of getting a date."
In his head he was thinking that it wasn't someone in the castle he wanted to ask out anyway. "Ron and Hermione convinced me to go to the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer and I guess I owed them at least that since I've been a bit of a tosser lately. And they've been waiting a bit so I should- huh, where'd they go?"
"Those two," Tonks snorted. "They left like an hour ago. We've been talking for nearly a half hour longer still."
"Shite really," Harry groaned as he had already gone over the time he said he would just talking with Tonks to catch up with her.
"Don't worry about it, they were all smiles when they walked away, seems they were more interested in getting your spirits up than sharing a drink," Tonks guessed as to why they went off without him.
Harry rubbed his arm. "Well who wouldn't feel better just talking with you? You're brilliant."
"Aww, why thank you Harry," Tonks curtsied. "But I do need to get back to work, Shacklebolt can only look like he's working for so long standing in one place."
"I should go find Ron and Hermione as well. But, it was really good talking with you. I guess I needed that because I was really missing you," Harry blushed before running off to catch his friends at the pub.
Nymphadora watched with a smile as Harry turned a corner before she heard Kingsley speak up. "Harry and Nymphie sitting in a whomping willow, s-n-o-g-g-i-n-g, first comes courting, then comes wedding, last comes the puppies in the- ow dammit woman."
"Shut it Shack," Tonks growled at the man for teasing her.
"Still have the blush Auror Tonks, how unprofessional to be so flustered by a suspect."
"SHUT UP," Tonks whined while pulling up her hood after being unable to morph away the redness from her cheeks. "Merlin, why don't you have a girlfriend so I can tease you about her."
"Oh so Harry's your boyfriend now is he?" This was too good for him, honestly made him wonder why nobody wanted to partner with the metamorph, she was like an open book.
Coming back up to the castle as the sun began to set, Harry saw that Ludo Bagman had been waiting by the gate, likely for him. "Ah just the person I wanted to find. Been looking for you all over the castle my boy."
"What's going on Mr. Bagman?" Harry questioned just why this man had been searching for him, whatever it was probably wasn't good news.
Ludo Bagman smiled. "The date of the final task has been chosen and I was to take you to the Quidditch Pitch to show the champions a taste of what they will be facing."
"I'll catch up in the common room later," waving off his friends who kept walking up the path to the castle. He walked with the judge across the field towards the pitch to find that instead of the freshly cut lawn, it had instead been replaced with slowly growing hedges.
"It's a maze," Ludo cheered happily, having brought Harry last to the area where the other champions had been waiting.
"So we just get to the end of it and that's it?" Harry questioned.
"Absolutely, and to ensure that it is the most important thing this school year, the final task will take place the night after the final exams," Ludo clapped happily since it would still give him time to collect any winnings to try and pay off his debt to the goblins.
The man didn't waste any time and had hurried to start scrounging up money for even more bets that he missed the look of dawning horror on Harry's face, but the other champions who were still there, did not. "What's wrong Harry?" Cedric asked why it looked like Harry just got awful news.
"The night after the final exams," Harry paused before turning to the other champions. "That's a full moon."
