Chapter 25: Autumn 1994
Harry didn't think his summer could get worse after the events of the World Cup, but his father quickly proved him wrong. After reuniting, Mr Potter promptly brought Harry home and refused to let him leave Potter Manor—even to visit Diagon Alley to pick up his school supplies. The appearance of the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup had awoken a deeply repressed fear in Mr Potter, reigniting every paranoid and overprotective tendency he had worked so hard to overcome. The brothers were effectively put on lock down for the remainder of the summer, unable to so much as pick up school supplies from Diagon Alley or visit their friends. Even their mail was searched. Until they boarded the Hogwarts Express on September 1st, Harry was afraid they wouldn't be allowed to return to school at all.
The term wasn't off to a much better start due entirely to one person: Draco Malfoy.
Usually, Harry was largely indifferent to the pompous, if slightly irritating, Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch team. The boy was a social climber at best and had tried to get Harry's attention throughout their time together at Hogwarts. John interacted with Malfoy more than Harry, and whilst he had few complimentary things to say about him, Harry had chalked it up to some sort of petty inter-house rivalry.
Clearly, Harry had been very wrong.
"…so what did your father have to sell in order to get those seats?" Malfoy asked Ron. His back was to Harry, but he could imagine a twisted smirk on Malfoy's face. "Not that your family's got anything worthwhile, but…"
It took John and Hermione's combined strength to keep Ron from lunging at Malfoy. Not that Malfoy seemed to care. He let out a high, cruel laugh that had no business coming out of a fourteen-year-old's mouth.
"That's right, Weasel," Malfoy continued. "Listen to your pet Mudblood. Merlin knows—"
Harry slipped into the train compartment, his blood pounding in his ears. It took every bit of self-control not to curse Malfoy with the most gruesome hexes he knew (and Harry knew many). Instead, he took a steadying breath and said something he knew would hurt Malfoy more than a spell ever could.
"You know, Malfoy," Harry began softly, emphasising his surname. "For someone so obsessed with lineage, you don't seem particularly keen on doing yours justice."
Malfoy had been so busy antagonising John and his friends that he hadn't noticed that Harry was standing a foot behind him. He jumped and spun around, his pale face draining what little colour it had. "Potter, I—-"
"I'm disappointed in you," Harry said. "I expected better from someone from the Malfoy family."
And then Malfoy said something so astonishingly stupid, his face contorting in an angry snarl, that even Harry had no idea how to react.
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that someone like you would come to their defence."
Harry's vision went white. He had no clue what his expression looked like, but when his vision returned, Malfoy was looking up at him with fear. When he next spoke, his voice wasn't one of fury but a silky tone of indifference.
"I presume you're referring to either my friendship with Grace Cooper or my own Muggle heritage through my mother?"
"No, I—"
"Either way," Harry continued, not even bothering to raise his voice. "I find that I have little patience for uncouth children. If you insist on acting like a toddler throwing a tantrum, I intend to treat you like one." And with that, Harry stepped around Malfoy and placed himself between him and John, effectively cutting Malfoy out of the conversation.
John and his friends goggled up at Harry.
"Did you finish that book yet?" Harry asked John. There was no book, but Harry wasn't about to bring up the real reason for his visit with Malfoy standing a foot away.
To his credit, John didn't so much as blink. "Yeah! It was brilliant!" He even went so far as to pull his trunk down and rummage through stacks of robes and sketchbooks, chattering in a rapid amalgamation of Greek and English that left even Harry struggling to keep up. They spoke of inconsequential things as John pretended to look for the nonexistent book, stubbornly ignoring Malfoy's increasingly desperate attempts for attention.
It was, perhaps, a bit juvenile, but it was effective. Soon enough, Malfoy grew fed up with being treated like he wasn't present. He stormed out of the compartment, though not before slamming the door so hard behind him that its window shattered.
"Malfoy thrives off attention," Harry explained once he had gone. He flicked his wand and repaired the damaged window before facing his brother. "The best way to deal with people like that is to completely disengage with them."
"That's what my mum says," Hermione said with an emphatic nod. "I'm always trying to get the boys to ignore him, but—"
"Ignoring his taunts won't be enough," Harry said. "You have to act like he doesn't even exist. Don't even look at him if he tries to talk to you. He'll get bored when he realises nobody is giving him the time of day."
Hermione looked horrified. "Oh, but that would just be cruel!" she said, looking very worried indeed. "My mother says, 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'"
"I agree," Harry said, raising an appeasing hand. "And if I could think of another way to correct his behaviour, I would suggest it. But as it stands, nothing has ever been done to stop him. The only thing we can do at this point is to teach him that if he insists on being a wanker, we'll refuse to engage with him."
"'Sides," Ron said. "It's just Malfoy. Who cares if his feelings get hurt?"
Hermione swelled with indignation.
"So what did you come here for, Harry?" John asked quickly, before Ron and Hermione could start up another argument.
"Ah, yes." He waved John over to the corner of the compartment and motioned for him to sit. When he did, Harry leaned forward and began with no preamble. "I'm going back to the Chamber of Secrets."
Hermione's head snapped towards Harry so fast that he heard it pop. "How interesting!" she explained, abandoning her argument with a flushed Ron. "I've been ever so curious to—"
Harry held up a hand, and Hermione fell silent. "This isn't an educational excursion," he explained, although this was a blatant lie. Harry had several ideas he wanted to follow up on pertaining to Salazar Slytherin and the Chamber of Secrets. He just didn't want to turn his private research into a school trip.
Her face fell. Guilt squirmed in his gut, but he pushed it aside. As much as he liked Hermione (as much as one could like your little brother's friends, at least), he wasn't about to extend an invitation to her. Hermione had the infuriating habit of inserting herself into things, and he had no desire to play teacher.
He turned back to his brother, whose face had gone chalk white. "You don't have to come, of course. I just thought I'd offer in case you wanted to."
John stared at him for several moments before asking in Greek, "Would you think I'm a coward if I said no?" He shot a nervous look at his friends, as if worried they had spontaneously gained the ability to understand a foreign language and would judge him for his question.
Harry shook his head at once. "I still haven't been back to Godric's Hollow," he admitted.
John tensed at the mention of their former home. "That's different."
Unlike Harry, John accompanied their father every year to visit their mother's grave. For John, Godric's Hollow was one of the few ties he had to Lily Potter, and visiting the places where she once had lived and breathed made him feel connected to her.
He didn't remember Halloween, or what their house had looked like before the room had been blown off and Harry had to carry him over the rubble and their mother's body to safety. He didn't remember standing in the cold that autumn night in his pyjamas, blood dripping down his face, terrified and confused, too young to wrap his mind around the enormity of what he had witnessed. He couldn't remember the Aurors's questions, the Mediwizards's prodding, Uncle Sirius's screams as Uncle Remus grappled with him, begged him not to go after Uncle Peter.
John didn't have the same associations with their old house that Harry did. It didn't evoke the same terror and helplessness in him like it did to Harry. But the Chamber did.
"Is it?" Harry asked gently.
Harry might have slain the Basilisk and fought Tom Riddle, and yes, he had been scared for his and John's life. But what John went through in the Chamber had been a vastly different experience. John knew the rage and the fear and the poison that oozed through his veins as Lord Voldemort possessed him. He had spent hours in the Chamber, for months on end, unknowingly feeding his soul to the boy who made him attack his classmates, the boy who would someday become the man who killed his mother. He had lost a part of himself—had it stolen—down there. To John, returning to the Chamber wouldn't be empowering, but a reminder of his deepest shames and failures.
John pursed his lips before turning his head to look out the window. "I'll consider it," he said in a tone that informed Harry that visiting the Chamber was the very last thing he'd like to do.
Harry wasn't surprised by his answer. Ginny had given a similar one when he proposed his plan to her earlier.
"There's no rush. It's not going anywhere," Harry said. "I just thought I'd offer."
The corner of John's lips twitched at that, and he nodded to show he understood.
Having said what he came to say, Harry ruffled his brother's unruly hair, bid farewell to the Fourth Years, and went to find his friends.
Genius Fratris
"That must be the new Defence teacher," Grace mused as they took their seats at the Slytherin table.
Harry craned his neck towards the teachers' table and found the only new face amongst the staff. Even from across the hall, Harry would recognise the grizzled countenance of Alastor Moody anywhere. He was sitting, stiff-backed, in the chair to Professor Dumbledore's right.
"Is Lupin not teaching it again this year?" Malfoy asked, boldly taking the seat that Marcus used to occupy.
Harry grit his teeth and resisted the urge to hex him for the offence. Instead, he turned his attention towards Pucey and said, "Please tell me you're taking Care of Magical Creatures with me this year."
Pucey laughed. "You're joking, right? I'm surprised you are."
"My father's always complained about that oaf teaching," Malfoy said with an emphatic nod. "It's a wonder nobody's died yet. Did you know he never finished Hogwarts?"
"Madam Pomfrey said it would be helpful," Harry explained with a shrug. "Especially at NEWT levels. That's when you get to the really nasty beasts."
"Or, if you ask Hagrid, the tragically misunderstood creatures," Grace quipped.
"Besides, I don't think Snape would let me drop the class, even if I begged him," Harry said. "He likes to remind me how much I like animals."
"But you do like animals," Teddy pointed out. "You've got Medusa, Hedwig, and Grace—ow!"
Grace was shoving her wand back in the sleeve of her robes before anyone realised she had shot a stinging hex at him.
"Are you actually giving me the silent treatment right now?" Malfoy asked with an indignant scoff. "And here I thought you were supposed to be mature."
They continued their conversation as if he hadn't spoken at all, only stopping when a line of terrified eleven-year-olds stumbled into the Great Hall. Harry clapped for the newly sorted Slytherins and ignored Malfoy's commentary about which First Years were worth collecting. When the food appeared, none of Harry's friends so much as passed a salt shaker when Malfoy asked.
If Malfoy was embarrassed by the social cut, he didn't show it. Throughout the feast, he continued to inject himself into their conversation, showing a tenacity Harry didn't know that Malfoy possessed. If it hadn't been so annoying, Harry might've even been impressed.
They were saved from further interruptions when Professor Dumbledore got to his feet.
"As I'm sure you've noticed, we have a new face amongst our staff," Dumbledore said after giving the usual start-of-term warnings about staying out of the Forbidden Forest and informing them of a new ban on Fanged Frisbees. "Please join me in welcoming Professor Moody as your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher."
There was a smattering of polite applause as people eyed Moody warily. Remus had been the most popular Defence teacher in decades, and nobody was happy to see him leave. Moody, however, seemed indifferent to the lukewarm welcome he received and glowered out at the sea of students, his electric blue eyes spinning wildly in its socket.
"Professor Lupin, meanwhile, has agreed to take over History of Magic from Professor Binns, who, after teaching 273 years, has finally elected to retire."
Harry wasn't sure if the resulting cacophony was due to Remus's popularity or the student body's jubilation that they would never again have to suffer through one of Binns' lectures. Either way, it took several minutes for them to settle down so that Dumbledore could continue.
"Next, I would like to address why Slytherin and Gryffindor were not assigned Quidditch captains this year," said Dumbledore.
To Harry's left, Pucey leaned forward. After Marcus had left, everyone on the team had agreed that it would be him to take over as Slytherin's captain. But after exchanging dozens of letters, they discovered that nobody had received the badge. They had been understandably confused, although their Beater, Lucian Bole, was convinced that this meant that Marcus would be staying at Hogwarts for another year.
"It is my painful duty to inform you that there will be no Inter-House Quidditch Cup this year." Harry expected that the Gryffindors would loudly protest this announcement, but, like him, they were staring at their Headmaster with open-mouthed horror. Dumbledore continued his speech, "However, we shall not be without our fun. Instead, I am most pleased to announce that Hogwarts will be hosting the Triwizard Tournament this year."
Surprise rippled throughout the student body, and Dumbledore allowed them a moment before raising his hands for silence. They complied, sitting forward in their seats in anticipation. The Triwizard Tournament… there hadn't been one of those in centuries. It was a frightfully dangerous competition in which one student from each participating school was selected to undergo a series of magical tasks. Hundreds had died in pursuit of the Triwizard Cup until the tournament was discontinued.
"My father told me all about it over the summer, of course," Malfoy whispered, leaning forward to speak directly into Harry's ear. "You should enter. You'd chosen, for sure."
Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the blatant flattery. Even if he were old enough, he had no interest in risking his life for a fleeting moment of fame.
"Representatives from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will arrive in late October," Dumbledore continued. "As a safety precaution, only students of legal age will be permitted to put forward their names for consideration, and I will personally be ensuring that each applicant meets the requirement."
This announcement caused a tidal wave of outrage, but all Harry could feel was relief. Whilst Harry had no designs to enter the tournament himself, it was precisely the kind of thing he could see John doing. A brief glance towards his brother proved his assumptions were correct; John was muttering—scheming, no doubt—with Ron and the Weasley twins. Harry resolved to speak to his brother in the morning and nip any plots to circumnavigate Dumbledore's restriction before they had time to grow.
As they walked to the common room that night, it was hard to tell if students were more excited about the Triwizard Tournament or the arrival of foreign students. The outrage over the cancellation of Quidditch was quickly forgotten about, aside from Pucey, who complained the whole walk back.
"Maybe we can do pick-up games," Pucey said. "We can organise something with the other schools. It doesn't have to be anything formal. But a year without Quidditch…"
"It sounds like fun," Harry agreed. "Make it the team out of Hogwarts's best players and thoroughly embarrass the visiting schools."
Pucey nodded adamantly. "I bet Johnson would agree to it. Obviously, the Twins as Beaters…"
"Ginny Weasley could be your third Chaser," Harry said. "My brother could play Seeker. All you need is a Keeper and—"
Horrified, Pucey stopped in the middle of the corridor, causing a several dozen student pile up. "You're not joining?"
Harry gave him a wan smile as he helped a disgruntled Fiona Bradshaw to her feet. "Between my apprenticeship, prefect duties, and keeping my brother alive, I won't have the time."
"But surely, you'll want to be the Hogwarts Champion?" Cordelia Gamp said, appearing at Harry's side and winding her arm through his. "I just know you'll make us proud."
Grace wormed her way in between them and, none too subtlety, shoved Gamp away. "He's only sixteen," she reminded Gamp with a knowing look. "He can't put his name in."
When Gamp tried to take Harry's other side, Teddy materialised out of the crowd and blocked her path. With a huff, Gamp admitted defeat and fell back to join Beatrice Trouche and Willa Hornby, exchanging conspiratorial hisses.
"I'm surprised we're still hosting it," Hera Urquart, Harry's fellow Sixth Year prefect, said as they navigated the winding halls of the dungeons. "Papa said they had a devil of a time getting the other schools to agree. Durmstrang especially. Apparently, their Headteacher is violently opposed to the Dark Arts, and the whole thing with Flint last year really scared him."
"Hang on. I thought they learned the Dark Arts there," Grace said.
Harry considered this, trying to recall what his cousin had said when he had asked her the same question. "They study the theory of dark magic, but they don't actually cast the spells."
"Some of the best curse breakers are from Durmstrang," Urquart added. "You've got to know what you're up against if you want to fight it."
"How is that any different than what we learn?" Grace asked.
"It's far more in-depth—they study the mechanics of the spell and how it works. It's also part ethics class. They discuss the morality behind the use of curses," Harry explained. "By the end of their first lesson, nearly everyone has lost interest in practising dark magic. If you ask my cousin, Dark Arts is the most boring class they teach at Durmstrang."
"I wonder if discussing it more openly removes the taboo of it," Grace pondered thoughtfully. "It's hardly exciting if you have to write essays about it. Why don't we do that here?"
"You have Dumbledore to thank for that," Urquart said with a surprising amount of venom.
"Dark Arts was removed from the Hogwarts curriculum in 1951," Teddy pointed out in a breezy tone that suggested that this piece of information was more well-known than it actually was. "Armando Dippet would've still been the Headmaster."
Urquart rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows he only did it under Dumbledore's suggestion. My gran said Dumbledore had been running the school long before he took over as Headmaster."
Teddy glared at her. "Grindelwald had only just fallen. People were scared."
"And yet, even with the banning of the Dark Arts, You-Know-Who was able to rise to power, despite the lack of formal training," she snapped, red spots blooming on her pale cheeks. "Clearly, it was unsuccessful in stopping dark wizards from cropping up. In fact, the only thing it did was keep future generations from protecting themselves, making them dependent on the Ministry for protection."
Harry blinked. He didn't often interact with Urquart, but he wouldn't have taken her for a conspiracy theorist that rivalled Luna.
"Voldemort," Harry began, ignoring everyone's flinch, "first rose to power in 1970, although historians have found reference to him as far back as the fifties. He was reportedly middle-aged by the time he tried to kill my brother. Assuming he attended Hogwarts, he absolutely would've learned the Dark Arts in some capacity before it was officially removed from the curriculum. Your argument is nonsensical and purposefully inflammatory."
Urquart tried to cover her embarrassment up with a scoff. "Of course you'd say that. You Potters have been licking Dumbledore's boots for years."
"And now we've devolved into insults. Lovely," Harry sighed. "Next, I suspect you'll tell me I've been poisoned by the corrupt system, and I'm—"
"Owned by the man?" Grace suggested helpfully, hazel eyes alight with delight as she watched the drama unfold.
"Sure," Harry replied before raising a sardonic eyebrow towards Urquart. "If you want to win an argument, be able to back up your statements. Attacking people when you're challenged isn't going to help your case."
He turned away without another word and wove through the crowd of Slytherins. Behind him, Grace and Teddy scrambled to catch up.
"First Malfoy and now Urquart? You're certainly in a mood today," Grace teased.
"Yes, well. After the events of the World Cup, I find my patience vastly diminished," Harry replied a touch waspishly.
Grace's good humour evaporated instantly, and she gave him a critical look that he neither cared nor had the energy to decipher.
In the days that followed, Harry's exhaustion only grew as he sacrificed sleep and filled every spare moment in his hectic schedule with his studies. Headaches became his constant companion in his waking hours, and the little sleep he managed to get was full of hazy, stressful dreams he could never remember in the morning. Madam Pomfrey informed him that this was completely normal and assured him that he'd start to feel better once he'd taken a few of his Step tests and he adapted to his increased workload.
Her predictions proved correct, and two weeks later, he found that he was well prepared for the first Step test. Sure, the nine-hour-long test wasn't exactly fun, and recalling everything he knew about human anatomy, its biological processes, and how magic affects the body had been nothing short of gruelling. Ultimately, he decided to label the experience as 'tedious' rather than 'difficult.'
Still, as he stumbled out of Snape's fireplace that evening, massaging his hand, he thought that he would take Sunday off to spend with his friends. Whilst he wouldn't let himself grow complacent with his progress, Harry thought he could add time to relax in his schedule.
"A moment, Potter," Snape said when Harry nodded in greeting.
Harry paused at the door, his daydreams of a well-earned dinner screeching to a halt. He turned to face Snape, hand on the doorknob, and attempted to keep the irritation out of his voice as he asked, "Yes, professor?"
Snape watched him over the tips of his steepled fingers for a long moment, his eyes dark and inscrutable. "I never took you for a bully."
It took Harry several seconds to process what Snape was saying, and even then, he was still left incredibly confused. "What?"
His mind scrambled over the last few days, trying to recall all of his (admittedly few) social interactions, but came up blank. The only time he could think of evening getting remotely short with anyone was with his brother on Monday—he'd been complaining about having to write a foot on transfiguring a hedgehog to pincushion whilst Harry was working on a six-foot essay about the lymphatic system of goblins—but John was hardly the type to bring a professor into their arguments. He certainly wouldn't talk to Snape, of all people.
"Draco Malfoy has informed me that you have been ignoring him."
Harry briefly wondered if some sort of delirium had come over him, brought on by weeks of stress and a sub-optimal sleep schedule. "Professor, I haven't so much as spoken to my friends since Thursday. Why on earth would I talk to Malfoy?"
"Regardless," Snape said in a cool tone, "As a prefect, you are expected to comport yourself with more decorum."
"I'll keep that in mind in case I ever decide to start bullying someone," Harry replied. He knew better than to rise to Snape's baiting, but as exhausted as he was, he couldn't help but let a bit of sarcasm slip through. He was exhausted, hungry, and now, properly peeved at this unjust reprimand.
Gritting his teeth, he spun on his heel and yanked at the door. It didn't budge.
"We are not yet finished," Snape said in that silky, icy voice that always proceeded a lengthy and terrible punishment. "Sit down, Potter."
With few other options, Harry took the chair opposite Snape's desk. He resisted the urge to throw himself into the seat and petulantly cross his arms across his chest, knowing that it would only irritate Snape further. Instead, he arranged his robes neatly around him and adopted a vaguely irritated expression reminiscent of Snape's own.
Harry knew that Snape's typical modus operandi was to sit in silence and wait for the guilty party to confess their transgressions. This tactic had never been particularly effective on Harry—for obvious reasons. Instead, Harry's taciturn nature required Snape to go on the offensive in the hopes of provoking an emotional response.
"Perhaps I was correct in my initial assessment of you," Snape continued whilst Harry waited for him to get to the point, "in how very like your father you are: arrogant, spoilt, conceited."
Harry had many flaws, but he'd like to think he was neither arrogant nor spoiled. On the contrary, his father tried very hard to instil the humility he himself had lacked as a child. For Snape to apply such words to him only proved that he didn't know Harry at all. If he had wanted to get any sort of reaction from Harry, Snape should've described him as cowardly, passive, or overly dismissive of his peers' problems.
"I must admit that I am unsurprised to learn that you've been bullying the younger students—an abuse of your power as a prefect."
"I'm surprised you appointed me in the first place if this is how you view my character," Harry said evenly. Without breaking eye contact, Harry unpinned his prefect's badge from the front of his robes and handed it to Snape. "Would you like this back?"
"I should remove you from your position," Snape sneered.
It was a bluff, and they both knew it. The next best option for prefect was Adrian Pucey, who couldn't keep a schedule to save his life.
"Warrington would be a far better prefect than me," Harry said, his tone agreeable, extending his hand when Snape didn't move to take the badge. "He'd certainly keep the local cat population down. I've never quite managed it myself—the students absolutely insist on bringing them, year after year. It doesn't help that I've stopped Warrington on more than one occasion from…disposing of them. The mess, you know."
Snape sneered. "Do you think you are being clever?"
"Not at all. But if Warrington doesn't suit your needs, perhaps I might suggest Montague? Sure, he's failing two of his three classes this year—an impressive feat, given we're two weeks into term—but I'm sure he'd be able to tutor the younger students," Harry continued in the same light tone. "Or maybe Nettles would be the best option? True, he's barely said a word to anyone since our Third Year, but that would certainly stop him from—what was it? Bullying Malfoy?"
"So you admit it?"
"That I'm bullying Malfoy? Not at all. He is so low on my list of priorities, I hardly see how I'd find the time."
"He's sat with you and your gang of followers for every meal since the start of term and been summarily ignored, by, as I understand it, your orders."
"My friends," Harry corrected, his irritation leaking into his words, "have no more desire to entertain him than I do. No orders necessary."
"And yet they follow your example—-"
"Because he's a hateful little monster that espouses the same sort of evil rhetoric as the man who killed my mother," Harry snapped, finally losing his patience. "Perhaps you don't care if your friends are called 'Mudblood,' but I certainly don't."
Snape stilled, and for a moment, Harry thought he might hex him into oblivion. His already sallow face paled further, except for the two twin spots of red on his cheeks, which were the only indication that he was affected by Harry's words. When he spoke next, his voice was deadly quiet, and despite his own anger, the sound of it chilled Harry to his core.
"I never wish to hear that word come out of your mouth again. Do you understand me?"
"But it's okay that Malfoy—-?"
"Am I understood, Mr Potter?" Snape repeated in that same icy tone.
Harry couldn't remember the last time he had been intimidated by his Head of House. He nodded, rendered momentarily mute.
Snape gave him a searching stare before nodding himself. "I will see to Mr Malfoy regarding his caustic remarks," he said, continuing as if nothing had happened. "In the meantime, call off the dogs."
Harry's skin prickled. "I don't care for your implication that my friends answer to me. If there is an issue with their behaviour, might I suggest taking it up with them?"
Snape began riffling through a stack of papers on his desk, seemingly already bored with their conversation. "Yes, fine," he said, flicking his wrist in an obvious dismissal.
He knew he should've kept his mouth shut. But between his exhaustion and the idiotic accusations, he couldn't stop the quiet, "Well, at least you care when you think some of your students are bullied," that slipped out of his mouth.
The door, which had only just swung open, slammed shut before Harry could take two steps towards it.
"Why do you assume I did not?" Snape asked, his tone deceptively light.
Harry knew that tone of voice—it was the one that presaged a particularly nasty detention and tongue-lashing. Every instinct was telling him to apologise and escape.
But Harry was angry. Snape—all his teachers—had stood by and done nothing for years. Not when he had been shunned by his peers or when their cruelty put him in a hospital bed. They had watched his struggle to fit in, make friends, to speak, and rather than help him, they ignored him or outright punished him. But now that there was the slightest bit of inconvenience for Malfoy, they cared? They accused Harry of being the problem?
"I was bullied for years, and you did nothing about it," Harry said, trying to keep his seething hatred at bay.
Snape watched him for a long moment, his dark eyes cold and apathetic. "Is that so?"
"It sure felt like it when the Seventh Years used me for target practice. Where were you then?"
"I imagine in my office," Snape said, "waiting for you to ask for help."
Harry stared at him in disbelief. He hadn't stepped in because Harry hadn't asked for help? Since when was it a requirement for an adult to stop a gang of seventeen-year-olds from inflicting bodily harm on a child? Harry wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.
"I didn't realise traumatised children are only to be given assistance when they ask for it. From now on, I'll be sure to apply this wisdom in how I deal with the younger students."
Snape glared at him, something that would have made eleven-year-old Harry cower in fear. "You're twisting my words, Potter."
As the fight drained out of him, Harry could no longer muster the energy to feel anything other than sad. He had always known that Professor Snape hated him. Sure, the man was nowhere near as antagonistic as he had been in Harry's first years at Hogwarts; his caustic and snide marks were merely an annoyance these days. But for him to sit there and blame Harry for the hell his housemates had put him through? It was honestly pathetic.
"When I was three years old, I watched my mother beg for my life," Harry began in a low, measured voice. Snape flinched at this, but Harry found he cared very little for how his words made Snape feel. He continued, "I couldn't even tie my shoes yet, and I watched her plead with Voldemort, beg him not to kill my brother and me. He killed her and turned his wand on me anyway." Harry paused as the memory overtook him, and he let out a small, shuddering breath. "For years, all I could think about was her murder and how very little her words mattered in the end. When I felt particularly self-flagellatory, I wondered what I might've said to save her."
"You were a child," Snape interjected with empathy Harry didn't know the man possessed. "The onus of his actions was not yours to bear."
"No, they weren't," Harry agreed. "But it's difficult for anyone, let alone a child, to reconcile logic with their feelings. I didn't speak for years—even to my family. Madam Pomfrey said it was because I equated speaking with pain; I learned at a young age that words meant very little. So is it really that big of a surprise that I didn't come and beg you for your assistance?"
Snape's expression hardened into a scowl. "Those situations are not remotely similar."
"Aren't they?" Harry asked lightly. He knew Snape expected him to argue, but Harry was so tired. He couldn't bring himself to explain himself to someone who was clearly so unwilling to listen. "Regardless, I don't understand why you expected me to come to you for help."
"I was your Head of House."
"You hate me," Harry replied in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. "Perhaps marginally less so now, but certainly you did then. Would you truly have helped me if I came to you for help?"
If Snape was embarrassed by the accusation, he didn't show it. "Another professor, then."
"The professors that saw me in the Hospital Wing and did nothing about it?"
"You could've asked—"
"I was mute!" Harry snapped, losing his grip on his emotions. "A fact which was impressed upon all of you by my Healers and my father. I physically could not ask for help. And yet somehow, it was still my fault? You all have eyes and a modicum of intelligence. Each one of you saw how I was treated and did nothing to stop it. I was a child in your care, and not one of you helped me."
There was an ugly, stifling silence as Harry's uncomfortable truth hung in the air.
Harry's heart pounded in his chest, and he took a moment to regain control over himself. His fury was receding, exposing the old hurts he had managed to conceal all these years. Hurt that was caused not just by Snape but by his other professors, too—the ones he admired and greatly respected. After all, had not Professor McGonagall, a friend of his father and uncles, not penalised Harry when he suffered from a silent episode? Had Professor Flitwick, Sprout, Sinistra, Hooch, and Binns not turned a blind eye to the bullying that went on during their lessons?
"I apologise for my tone, Professor," Harry said at last. "I shouldn't have shouted. But my words still stand. You preach that I should be kind and fair and demand that I give consequence to someone who insults my friends and me when you couldn't be bothered to do the same when it was I who suffered. The injustice of it all hurts as much as your accusation that I am nothing but a bully."
"Suffering is not a competition," Snape replied, although his words lacked the same acrid bite they usually possessed.
"No, it isn't," Harry agreed softly. "But I have to wonder about your motives for intervention in what is little more than a petty dispute when you have been so content to ignore far greater violence in the past."
Harry wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved when Snape remained silent.
"If there is nothing else you wish to discuss, Professor, I'll take my leave."
Snape didn't stop him when he collected his bag, nor was there any resistance from the door. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognised that it was suppertime and his friends would be waiting for him in the Great Hall. But the thought of forcing himself to appear, to put on a pleasant facade whilst he felt so unsociable, felt like a herculean task. Sure, his friends never minded his maudlin moods, but at that moment, Harry just wanted to be left alone to his thoughts.
Sometime later, he found himself in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom on the second floor, with no clear memory as to how he arrived there. It was, perhaps, not the most ideal place for his gloomy mood, but he couldn't deny its appeal in his quest for solitude. A quick hiss of Parseltongue and several dozen cleaning charms later, Harry was sliding back down into the Chamber of Secrets.
The dingy corridor was much as Harry remembered it, albeit in sharper focus than his memories from two years ago. Harry spent a few minutes vanishing the old animal bones and draining the corridor of water, the chore tedious yet comforting in its familiarity. Whilst he couldn't predict the fallout that would surely come from his argument with Snape, he relished the control he could exert over this one aspect of his life. Slowly, his problems faded to the recesses of his mind, and his body relaxed as the familiar eucalyptus-scented sanitation charms replaced the stale air.
After the corridor had been thoroughly scoured and the newly transfigured sconces crackled merrily along the walls, Harry walked the length of the corridor until he reached the wall with the snake cravings. In the torchlight, emeralds glinted in their eye sockets. Harry could see that their bodies were elaborately painted in a pattern Harry instantly recognised. With a trembling hand, he reached out to touch the carvings of the Aesculapian snakes.
"A little bit farther down, if you please," said the one on the left. "I've had an itch there for years."
Harry wouldn't have thought that Salazar Slytherin would embrace the absurdity of sentient snake sculptures, but he appreciated the feature nonetheless. Complying with the snake's request, Harry raked his nails across the indicated spot.
The snake let out a hiss of pleasure, and its emerald studded eye spun in its socket. "That's it…"
"Was there something you needed?" The right snake asked waspishly.
"Don't be rude, Wallabee," the left snake chided. "He's clearly a speaker."
"Well, I beg your pardon for taking my job seriously, Eadlin!" Wallabee replied, snapping his mouth in her direction.
Recognising an impending fight, Harry quickly asked, "I was wondering if I might pass through?"
"Oh, now, he asks," Wallabee grumbled. "Didn't think of that before, did you? It's always the same with you humans. Always 'open up' and never 'Hello, Wallabee!' or 'Can I get you something to eat, Wallabee?'"
"You haven't got a functioning mouth," Eadlin pointed out. "We're made of stone."
"It's the principle of the matter!"
"I would like to go inside," Harry said, reminding the snakes of his presence.
Eadlin fixed her eye on Harry, scrutinising him. "Are you ill?"
"I'm a Healing student," Harry said, indicating to his robes.
Eadlin hummed thoughtfully. "So you are," she said after a moment. "And where is your snake?"
"Hunting, most likely," Harry explained. "She does as she pleases."
At that, Wallabee harrumphed! with approval. "Quite right!"
The snakes bowed and separated, exposing the dark room that lay beyond. Without thinking, Harry reached behind him, pulled his lime green hood over his head, and stepped into the Chamber of Secrets.
The room was similar to what he remembered: a long, narrow hall with a tall ceiling. Columns lined the central stone pathway, each decorated with hundreds of carved snakes. Like the corridor, parts of the chamber were flooded with dark, foul-smelling water. Harry ignored the dried blood and sticky ink residue as he crossed the room and came to a stop at the foot of the statue, the exact spot where John lay dying as Harry was tortured by Voldemort. Harry craned his neck back to inspect the statue, finding not the gaunt, monkeyish face of Salazar Slytherin, but a man with curly hair and a full beard. He was draped in a mantle with one shoulder bared, and by his side was a tall staph, around which a serpent was curled. It was a face Harry knew rather well. After all, how often had he looked at it over the summer? This was not a vain statue of Slytherin, as John had thought. This was a depiction of the famed physician, Asclepius.
Standing between the statue's sandal-clad feet, Harry turned around to face the ruined abaton that Slytherin had built and got to work.
Genius Fratris
Following their argument, Harry added Professor Snape to his list of people to avoid. Not that this was particularly difficult, of course; Harry had perfected the craft of going unnoticed over the years. September bled into October, and Snape's attempts to interrogate Harry dwindled the closer they got to the arrival of the foreign schools. And when Cormac McLaggen managed to blow up his cauldron and a vast portion of the surrounding dungeons, Harry found himself the least of Snape's problems.
The Hogwarts students, meanwhile, worked themselves up into a frenzy as Halloween approached. All anyone could talk about was who would be entering their name into the tournament and if any of the foreign students were single.
"Maybe it's because I'm in a relationship," Grace muttered to Harry the morning the other schools were due to arrive. "But isn't it a bit…weird how they're going off about potential dates."
Harry considered this for a moment before shaking his head. "Not really." Grace goggled at him, and he continued, "The marriage prospects for wizards are limited. Unless you marry a muggle, your options are a foreigner or someone you went to school with."
"Foreigners hold the appeal of being less related to us, as well," Teddy said, reaching for the teapot before he took his spot beside Grace. "Cuts down on inbreeding."
Harry nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if we hear of at least one engagement by June's end."
"Three, actually," Teddy corrected, rubbing his forehead with a pained grimace.
Grace baulked. "But why so young? Who the hell gets married right out of school?"
Harry filed this piece of information away for later. He'd need to inform Cedric of Grace's stance on marriage before he bought the ring. Instead, he shrugged and said, "My parents did."
"Yeah, but your mum was already pregnant with you," Grace pointed out.
"Perhaps not the best example," Harry conceded. "That was actually a bit of a scandal. Dad said most of the Potter side of the family refused to come to the wedding; they were so embarrassed. I don't know if you've noticed, but British wizards tend to be a bit…"
"Prudish?" suggested Grace.
Harry nodded in concession. "Other countries are less conservative. But if you ask the Americans, we're a bunch of hedonists. It's different in every culture, same as it is for Muggles."
Grace pursed her lips. "It's still weird, though."
"Then it's fortunate you aren't in the market for a husband," Harry teased lightly.
"And yourself?" she asked. "Looking for the future, Mrs Potter?"
Harry scoffed. "Please. When do I have the time?"
"I'm sure you could fit it in somewhere between studying and keeping your brother alive."
"After how Katie ended, I'm not interested in dating anyone for a long time."
Grace clicked her tongue. "That's bullshit," she said. "There are plenty of people who would jump at the chance to date you." As she said this, she shot an obvious look down the Slytherin table, where Cordelia Gamp was engaged in an animated discussion with Adrian Pucey.
"Gamp is infatuated with the idea of me," Harry said, trying to keep his annoyance from bleeding into his words. Gamp, like Katie, had preconceived notions of who Harry was, few to none of which were true. He knew she'd tire of him when he inevitably failed to live up to her expectations. He'd rather spare himself the heartache and stay single. And that wasn't even considering how much he disliked Gamp to begin with. "She's got as much a chance of that happening as the Canons winning their next match."
Grace's grin was wolfish as she turned to Teddy. "And what do you say to that, Magic 8 Ball?"
Teddy didn't rise to the bait and continued to stare into his teacup, turning it slowly as he inspected the dregs at the bottom.
"See anything good?" Grace asked, nudging him gently.
"Yes. It says you're a muppet who refuses to learn what a Seer actually does," Teddy replied drily.
Grace tossed her head back and cackled with delight.
Despite his lighthearted tone, there was something strained in Teddy's smile, and his hands trembled when he placed the cup back in its saucer. Harry observed him for the rest of breakfast, but other than an occasional sad, distant look that darkened his eyes, Teddy seemed to be his usual self.
After breakfast, Harry bid his friends goodbye and wandered up to the Hospital Wing, where he spent the morning brewing Healing potions in anticipation of the increased number of students (and germs) that would be at Hogwarts this year. St Mungos was already reporting an uptick in cases of the common cold, and Hogwarts didn't have nearly the amount of recommended Pepper-Up Potions in stock. He worked through lunch and was only pulled away from his brewing when a large group of Ravenclaws stumbled in with dog snouts and paws for feet. According to the scowling Professor McGonagall who brought them in, their inattention during their lesson resulted in partial human transfiguration that even she couldn't undo.
The Ravenclaws turned out to be a complex case, and had it not been for the arrival of the foreign schools, Harry probably would've worked through dinner. As it was, he was shooed away a little before six, where he joined the student body in the Entrance Hall.
There was a palpable excitement in the air, and voices echoed off the stone walls and vaulted ceilings, creating a din that boarded on painful. The teachers had attempted to separate the students into their respective houses, although nobody was paying attention. Indeed, Harry spotted Luna perched on Cedric's head as a lemur, despite a flustered Professor McGonagall's best efforts to get her to change back to a human. Harry fought through the crowd until he reached his friends, somehow managing to collect John and his friends as he went.
"She won't be able to see, Professor," Ginny insisted, having to shout to be heard over the noise. "And this way, there's one less person to take up space."
Professor McGonagall glowered at the excuse but evidently decided it wasn't worth the argument. She threw her hands up and stomped off, although not before demanding that Harry and John 'do something about that hair!'
At last, they were ushered out of the hall and lined up in front of the castle. There was a damp chill to the air as dusk fell, and Cedric spent the next several minutes tapping nearby students on the head and applying warming charms. Harry would have as well had Hermione Granger not demanded he teach her the spell.
"I generally put Bluebell Flames in jam jars for heat," Hermione chattered as she practised the warming charm on Ron. "But this is far more effective! Why haven't we learned this yet?"
"It's a Sixth Year charm," Harry explained. "And it's a bit more finicky than Bluebell Flames. Warrington set the entire classroom on fire when they covered it last month. I'm still treating some of the burns."
Ron blanched and shoved Hermione's wand away. "And you're letting her use it on me?"
"I'm right here, aren't I?" Harry said. "Besides, she seems to have the hang of it."
Ron's rebuttal was cut off when a gasp ripped through the crowd, and everyone pointed at the sky. They turned their attention towards the commotion, where a massive carriage was soaring over the Forbidden Forest. It was pulled by a dozen Abraxans, whose hooves shook the earth when they landed in front of the castle.
Harry watched with interest as the headmistress of Beauxbatons unfolded herself from the carriage and greeted Professor Dumbledore.
"She's so tall," Grace murmured as she stared up at Madame Maxime.
Harry patted the top of Grace's head. "Everyone is tall to you, dearest."
Grace tsked and elbowed him in the ribs.
"Can you see? I wouldn't want you to miss the arrival of our esteemed guests."
"Harry, don't make me hex you in front of all of these people."
He wasn't able to stifle his laugh in time, earning him several glares from the Beauxbatons students, who had clambered out of the carriage to stand behind their headmistress. Harry pressed his lips together, ducked his head, and tried to blend into the crowd—a feat much harder than previous years, given his white robes and most recent growth spurt.
Madame Maxime introduced her pupils, a group of fifteen boys and girls in their late teens who shivered in their blue silk robes. Taking pity on them, Professor Dumbledore offered them sanctuary inside the castle. The Beauxbatons delegation looked up at Hogwarts with something akin to disappointment. Harry exchanged a knowing look with Grace which had them snorting with stifled laughter.
Once the doors to the Entrance hall closed, the students of Hogwarts waited in restless anticipation for the Durmstrang party to arrive. They didn't have to wait for long. Within minutes, an odd sort of gurgling rumble began in the Black Lake, and a whirlpool formed at its centre. From it rose an ancient ship, complete with ragged sails and grotesque carving of a mermaid at the bow. A gangway was lowered, and like phantom sailors on the Flying Dutchman, the Durmstrang delegation disembarked.
Their headmaster led them up the sloped lawn, and he greeted Dumbledore with a warmth that didn't quite reach his eyes. Maia had spoken at length about Karkaroff over the summer. From how she had described him, Harry had expected the second coming of Merlin. Instead, Harry found the man off-putting for reasons he couldn't quite articulate.
Harry turned his attention towards the Durmstrang students, who wore thick cloaks made of animal pelts. Unlike the Beauxbatons party, the Durmstrang delegation gaped up at Hogwarts with open-mouthed awe, and a hush of whispers broke out as they pointed up at the castle's stained glass windows and soaring turrets.
All except for one student—a girl with a face Harry knew rather well. She was watching Harry with unadulterated glee, rather like a Kneazle who caught the canary. And as Dumbledore welcomed them to Hogwarts and the crowd of students began the stampede for warmth, Maia Ganas raised her arms and cried out: "Kalispéra, Harry Potter!"
Genius Fratris
Over the summer, Harry had made a passing observation that Maia and Grace should never meet, and he was dismayed to discover that his instincts had been correct, albeit for vastly different reasons. Whereas before, he thought that the two women, with their sharp tongues and mischievous inclinations, would get along like a house on fire, he now realised he was standing between two dominant personalities vying for control. Much to his dismay, they traded icy looks throughout dinner, ignoring each other when they could and exchanging terse replies when they could not. It was by far one of the most awkward dining experiences of his life, and he couldn't help but sigh with relief once the plates were wiped clean and Dumbledore stood to address the crowd.
He talked at length about the Triwizard Tournament, introducing Barty Crouch and Ludo Bagman, the two Ministry coordinators of the tournament, as judges and explaining the premise of the tournament for those who were living under a rock and had somehow missed all of the earlier explanations. He then unveiled the Goblet of Fire: a large, roughly hewn wooden cup full to the brim with blue-white flames.
"Anybody wishing to enter the competition will have twenty-four hours to do so," Professor Dumbledore explained. "I will also personally be ensuring that no student under the age of seventeen will be able to enter. I do this for your safety. The tasks that Mr Crouch and Mr Bagman have arranged are not for the faint of heart. These three tasks are designed to challenge the champions both mentally and physically."
Despite Dumbledore's warnings of danger, all anybody could focus on was who was putting their name in the Goblet of Fire and how those not yet seventeen might get around the Age Line Dumbledore cast. By eight the following morning, Madam Pomfrey had already removed four long white beards from students who thought they could hoodwink Dumbledore's line. Harry would've helped, but she cheerfully banned him from Hospital Wing and told him to spend time with his friends.
Harry watched with half interest, half dread, as champion hopefuls their name into the Goblet of Fire. Madam Pomfrey had explained to him only yesterday that he would be assisting her in the medical tent during the tournament's three tasks. Whilst he wasn't entirely sure what awaited the three champions, he knew that the first task involved a high likelihood of severe burns.
"You worry too much," Cedric said after he had added his name to the cup. "Dumbledore wouldn't allow anything too dangerous to happen."
Harry sent him an unimpressed look. "Have you somehow forgotten the death maze he put under the school three years ago?"
"Well, yeah, but we weren't supposed to be there," Cedric pointed out. "This is different."
Harry wasn't sure he agreed with that sentiment, but he grudgingly dropped the subject.
Cedric wasn't the only one of Harry's peers to add their name to the Goblet of Fire. In addition to Cedric, Angelina Johnson, Cassius Warrington, Aurora Dodderage, and Roger Davies put their names forth for consideration, as did several Seventh Years. From Beauxbatons, all but two students, a boy and a girl clearly too young to pass Dumbledore's age line, added their names.
And then there were the Durmstrang students.
Despite bringing fifteen students, only Maia put her name in the Goblet, which she did to thunderous applause. When Harry finally managed to ask one of them about it at dinner that night, they gave him an odd look, as if he were the crazy one for questioning it.
"There isn't a point in entering," the Durmstrang student explained. "Maia will be picked for sure."
The girl next to him nodded emphatically. "Maia is the best that Durmstrang has to offer," she explained, practically gushing with reverence for his cousin. "She scores the highest on every exam, and she's received international recognition for her charms work."
"And," the boy continued, clearly not wanting to be outdone in admiration. "She one the Headmaster's Distinction Award every year since she was twelve."
Harry had known that Maia was talented, having witnessed some of her spellwork over the summer. The Durmstrang students weren't wrong when they said she was probably the most gifted student their school had seen in a generation. Still, Harry didn't see why the other students had automatically written themselves off in favour of Maia. There was more to being a great witch or wizard than simply magical power.
"No one knows how the Goblet of Fire decides who is a worthy champion," Harry pointed out with a frown. "You still could have entered, no?"
They looked highly offended at the suggestion.
"And betray Maia?" The girl asked.
The boy's face hardened with disgust. "And you call yourself her family," he hissed.
Harry blinked, unable to think of a response. Had he said something wrong? He quickly replayed the conversation in his mind, trying to find the source of their hostility, to no success.
Before he could try and smooth things over, however, Maia herself appeared. She dropped into the seat to Harry's left that Teddy usually occupied. "Excited, cousin?" she asked with a charming smile.
Within moments, Harry was surrounded by the other Durmstrang students, who jockeyed for a spot close to Maia. He watched, equal parts fascinated and disturbed, as they attempted to gain her attention.
Harry gave her a tight smile. "As much as anyone could be," he said. "Although I hear congratulations are in order."
Maia waved his words away with a pleased smile. "I'm just flattered that my school wishes for me to represent them," she said humbly.
The Durmstrang delegation was quick to shower her with compliments and encouragement, which Maia soaked up, giving them a fond smile one might give to a stumbling puppy. Harry's skin crawled for reasons he couldn't articulate.
"I'm not sure who will be chosen as Hogwarts's champion," Harry said, finding he needed to clear his throat. "But I wish you all the best of luck."
Maia turned to look at him, bemused. "You didn't enter?"
"I can think of far better, less dangerous ways to make my mark on history," he teased.
There was a pregnant pause as Maia considered him coolly. "I forget how young you are," she said.
The airy, patronising tone brought Harry up short. It was as if she thought that because Harry was only sixteen, he couldn't possibly be expected to understand what really mattered.
Harry had expected her to take the invitation to banter, as she had countless times over the summer. Maia was known for her sharp tongue, but she had never spoken to him so rudely before. Perhaps she had misinterpreted his words and taken offence? Her English was good, but she was by no means fluent. Or was it him, overthinking things, as he was wont to do?
But no, it was a clear dismissal as she turned her head away, rather like a queen who had grown bored of watching a jester. She focused instead on the girl on her other side, who looked thrilled to gain Maia's attention.
Around him, the Durmstrang students sent him looks that wavered between smug and pitying. This was all Harry needed to know: this was a common occurrence with his cousin. But hadn't he already known that? He recalled the morning they spent at the waterfall, how her friends orbited around her, vying for her attention, laughing at jokes that weren't always funny and hanging onto every word she spoke, no matter how inconsequential. Maia wasn't just popular amongst her peers. She was worshipped. Her peers were desperate for her attention and approval and to lose it…
Harry remembered the girl Maia had introduced him to in Greece and how she had casually and effortlessly humiliated her. Had that girl (Despina, he vaguely recalled) done something to earn Maia's wrath?
Well, Harry wanted no part of it. He rose from his seat at the Slytherin table without another word.
Maia broke off mid-conversation and snapped her head towards him. "Where are you going?" she asked, her words hard as flint, challenging.
Harry glanced over his shoulder and raised an unimpressed eyebrow. He considered saying something biting—-perhaps that he was leaving her to her sycophants—-but ultimately decided against it. As rude as she was, it wouldn't benefit to alienate his only cousin.
Instead, he replied with a breezy, "To join my friends."
Without another word, Harry walked away, finding a spot as far away from a glaring Maia and her crowd of admirers as the Slytherin table would allow. His friends soon joined him, Grace dropping into the space across from him, Pucey on his right. To his surprise, Teddy took Harry's other side, his face pinched with an expression that had Harry tensing with worry.
"What's up?" he asked in a low voice.
Teddy's lips pressed together in a thin line, and he shook his head. "It doesn't really matter," he said in a tone that suggested that it absolutely mattered.
"Are you sure?" Harry hesitantly replied.
Something dark in Teddy's eyes made Harry's stomach drop. For a moment, Harry caught a glimpse of Theodore Nott, the Seer who saw thousands of possibilities and futures and was haunted by the knowledge he gained.
"Worrying won't change the outcome," was Teddy's only reply.
With a slow nod, Harry redirected the conversation towards the Triwizard tournament, inciting a rousing discussion over who would be Hogwarts's champion, which carried his friends and surrounding dinner companions through dessert.
At long last, once the plates were cleared and the chatter died away, Dumbledore stood beside the Goblet of Fire. Harry struggled to concentrate on the Headmaster's speech, instead watching the teachers' table. Ludo Bagman appeared to be the only person actually excited about the proceedings, as he grinned and waved to students like he was at a Wasps' press conference. Professor Karkaroff, on the other hand, looked incredibly bored as he swirled his wine goblet in slow, lazy circles. Clearly, he had no concerns over who would be chosen. By contrast, Mr Crouch seemed far more invested, as if he had stolen what should've been Karkaroff's anxiety and added it to his own. His face was set in a stormy mask as he watched the proceedings. Whilst he didn't fidget like a mere mortal might, Harry could see the tension in his body, his pulsating neck veins visible even as the light in the Great Hall dimmed until only the goblet's blue flames remained.
They didn't have to wait long. Within moments, the goblet's flames turned bright red, shooting sparks into the air and, with it, a small slip of parchment.
"The champion for Beauxbatons," Dumbledore said in a clear, carrying voice, "is Fleur Delacour!"
A tall girl with long, silvery hair rose gracefully to her feet, her beautiful face twisted into a triumphant smirk. She glided down the length of the Great Hall to a chorus of polite applause from the Hogwarts and Durmstrang students and disappointed sobs from her peers.
Grace watched the distraught Beauxbatons delegation with a mixture of pity and amusement. "French people," she sighed, shaking her head.
"Down, girl," Harry teased.
Grace snapped her teeth at him, but any further retort was cut off by the Goblet of Fire turning red once more.
"The Hogwarts champion," Dumbledore announced, "is Cedric Diggory!"
The Hufflepuff table went positively feral, and despite his reservations about his friend's safety, Harry couldn't stop the wide grin that broke across his face. He could think of no better champion than Cedric. Most of Hogwarts seemed to agree with the goblet's decision as well because it took several minutes to calm the crowd.
It was only when the final piece of parchment was shot into the air did a hush fell over the Great Hall, and they waited on bated breath for Dumbledore to read off the final name.
Maia was halfway out of her seat when Dumbledore called out, "Viktor Krum!"
She froze, face contorted in surprise, and her gaze slid down the long line of equally shocked Durmstrang students, coming to rest on the young man in question. She wasn't alone. Around the Great Hall, heads were snapping towards the Slytherin table, and murmurs of "like, the Seeker?" filled the room. At the Gryffindor table, Harry spotted Ron Weasley clambering onto his seat to get a better look.
It seemed that Harry wasn't the only one who failed to notice that the world-famous Quidditch player was in their midst. But whilst the general reaction from Beauxbatons and Hogwarts was one of awe and excitement, Krum's name being read seemed to only garner disgust from his peers. Around him, angry murmurs broke out. Although he couldn't understand the majority of the languages the Durmstrang students spoke, he was positive that they shared the same sentiments as the Greek-speaking students.
"Warlock!" a girl shouted as Krum shuffled, duck-footed and round-shouldered, out of the Great Hall. "Sorcerer!"
Harry watched in horror as the Durmstrang delegation began booing their champion, with one going so far as to throw their empty goblet at him. Krum didn't even flinch as it bounced off his head.
"As if being on Bulgaria's national team wasn't enough for him, he had to go and steal this too," a nearby boy snarled.
His companion let out a high, cruel laugh. "His spellwork isn't even that impressive. I mean, did you see that travesty of an Animagus transformation?"
"I can't believe he'd betray Maia like this!" another agreed, shooting a nervous look towards the woman in question.
Whilst the Durmstrang students continued to slander Krum, Maia sank back into her seat. Her shock had worn off, and although her tanned skin had paled, her face had twisted into a nasty scowl that had Harry's insides squirming. He knew that look—he'd been on the receiving end of it far too many times not to. It was one that always preceded cruelty and humiliation. Krum, it would seem, would be in for a very difficult year.
They were released not long after Krum disappeared into the back room with the other champions, their excitement dampened by the odd reaction of the Durmstrang delegation. Still, Harry tried to brush it aside for the evening and focus on Cedric, who returned to the Hufflepuff common room sometime later, only to find a rambunctious party in full swing.
"I don't know much," Cedric said when asked about the first task. His face was flushed (from excitement or the copious amounts of Butterbeer he'd imbibed, Harry couldn't say), and although his housemates tried to pull him away, he stayed firmly rooted to Harry and their friends the entire night. "It's supposed to be a test of daring."
Harry magnanimously decided to refrain from scoffing at the idiocy of such a plan, which sounded like nothing more than an excellent way to get people killed. A sentiment Harry was sure the other Headmasters would agree with. He wasn't sure if Karkaroff would be helping Krum, but there was no way Madame Maxime would let Delacour step into the arena blind.
"We'll help you prepare," Harry promised, silently vowing to find out what the task would be well before November twenty-fourth's due date. Cedric, of course, was too noble to cheat, but Harry wasn't above it. Not if it kept Cedric safe. In fact, he knew that figuring out a way to get Cedric to cheat would be more complicated than actually figuring out what the task would be.
And so they did. Well, Harry's friends did, at least. Harry was too busy studying to help, but they were all nice enough to pretend he was. At the very least, he sat with them in the Hogwarts Library in the following weeks, heads bent over stacks of books, loose pieces of half-scribbled parchment littering the table they had claimed as their own.
"First tasks historically involve some sort of magical beast," Teddy said. They knew from Madam Pomfrey's hints that magical fire would somehow be involved and had thus focused their attention on beasts that fit the criteria. "But I doubt the task would involve a phoenix or a hoo-hoo."
Harry was incredibly proud of Grace when she passed up a perfect opportunity to nettle Teddy about a vision and instead said, "Hagrid is breeding these nasty crab things that shoot fire out of their bum."
"He calls them Blast-Ended Skrewts," Ginny added helpfully. "He thinks they'll be at least ten feet long by the end of the year."
Cedric, whose father worked for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures at the Ministry, looked particularly concerned about this revelation. "Does he have a licence for that?"
Ginny shrugged. "I'd imagine. How else would he get a manticore in Britain?"
"Oh, it's well known that the Falmouth Falcons have been smuggling them into the country for decades now," Luna said airily. "They use their hides to make Bludger-resistant armour."
"Did Marcus tell you this?" Cedric asked hesitantly after a moment of silence.
Luna shook her head. "Oh no, he denied everything. Not that I can blame him, of course. He'd have to surrender the pelt to the ministry if word got 'round, and those are quite valuable, you know?"
Even if there was some truth to the Falcons running a Manticore smuggling ring (which there wasn't), Harry knew they weren't keeping the pelts for themselves. Marcus wouldn't have broken six ribs in the game against Pride of Portree last week if they were. Still, there was no sense in pointing this out to Luna. Once she had an idea in her head, no logical argument could shake it loose.
And so, Harry nodded sagely and asked Cedric, "Do you think he'd lend it to you?" which garnered an unimpressed look and ended the conversation.
Genius Fratris
Hagrid was known for his…creative lesson plans, so Harry wasn't too surprised when he was led into the Forbidden Forest two weeks later. That wasn't to say he was particularly pleased to do so—not in the damp Scottish November. But he wasn't surprised.
What did surprise him were the massive dragons.
"That's a Chinese Fireball," Hagrid said, a dreamy air to his voice. "Isn't she a beauty?"
Well, she certainly made her surroundings ten degrees warmer, Harry thought as the Fireball let loose a mushroom-shaped fireball from her nostrils, igniting a nearby tree. Harry could feel the heat of it from fifty metres away.
"And…er…what's it doing here?" asked Chambers, Harry's only other classmate and a Seventh Year Ravenclaw who seemed to be deeply regretting his choice to enrol in Hagrid's NEWT level Care of Magical Creatures course.
The moony expression on Hagrid's face flickered, momentarily replaced with panic.
"Oh, yer know… they're jus'…"
In an instant, Harry understood. "You've got to be joking," he breathed, glancing between Hagrid and the Chinese Fireball. "This is the first task?"
"Now, I didn't say that!" Hagrid practically squawked. But he didn't have to (not that Harry thought Hagrid wouldn't eventually say anything. He couldn't keep a secret to save his life). The confirmation was written all over Hagrid's guilty face.
Madam Pomfrey's insistence on learning about magical burns suddenly made a lot of sense.
Chambers let out a low whistle. "Don't fancy being Diggory right about now. Reckon he's got to slay it?"
"I should hope not!" A vaguely familiar voice said from behind them. They turned to find a heavily freckled man with a distinctive shock of red hair.
"You're Ginny's brother," Harry said. "Charlie."
Charlie grinned. "Not usually how I'm recognised, but I'll take it," he said, sticking out a blistered hand. "You're Harry. The Seeker who ended my winning streak on the Quidditch Pitch."
It took Harry a moment to recall that he and Charlie had overlapped at Hogwarts by two years. He even vaguely recalled playing against him as a Second Year. In Harry's defence, he had been far more worried about not disappointing Marcus than who his opponents had been. "I usually get 'John's brother,' so I'll take it."
Charlie let out an easy-going laugh that reminded Harry instantly of Mr Weasley. "So you've come to see the dragons, eh?"
"Supposedly for Care of Magical Creatures," Harry explained. He glanced over at Hagrid, who had resumed his starry-eyed staring at the dragons. "But it seems our teacher is otherwise occupied."
"Well, fortunately, you've got an expert to show you around!" Charlie cheerfully replied. He waved for them to follow and gave them a tour of the interim dragon sanctuary.
On more than one occasion, Harry had heard Oliver Wood lament about Charlie Weasley wasting his potential by giving up a Quidditch career to study dragons. But there was a difference between liking something and being passionate about something. And Charlie Weasley? He was obsessed with dragons.
As he led them through the sanctuary, Charlie described the dragons with more detail than any textbook Harry had ever read and possessed more knowledge on the subject than Hagrid could hope to achieve in a lifetime. He not only could rattle off facts about a dragon's diet, anatomy, reproductive habits, and general appearance, but he seemed to understand their behaviour on an instinctual level.
"We've given her a new egg," Charlie explained as they observed the Welsh Green in the sanctuary. It was the smallest of the dragons (at a measly eighteen feet) and by far the most docile. Whilst the Swedish Short-Snout and the Chinese Fireball were busy trying to eat the keepers, the Welsh Green calmly tended to her nest, letting out soft, musical coos, as if she were singing to her eggs. "She knows it's man-made, though, and doesn't want it near her clutch."
As if on cue, the Welsh Green curled her tail under a shiny golden egg and hurled it across her enclosure. The egg bounced off the bars with a twang and burst open, filling the air with an ungodly screech.
"Is that Mermish?" Chambers shouted, his hands clapped over his ears.
Charlie shrugged, wholly unfazed by the commotion. "You'd have to ask Crouch. He gave them to us. We tried to explain that giving an egg to a nesting mother wasn't a great idea, but he was pretty adamant about it."
Harry quickly scribbled this piece of information in the margins of his notes. "And the champions will have to retrieve their egg?" Harry asked, relieved when one of the dragon keepers managed to close the screeching egg.
Charlie shrugged again. "As I said: not a great idea. Originally, they requested we send Hungarian Horntails, but we managed to talk them out of it."
"What a shame," Hagrid sighed without an ounce of sarcasm.
Harry shuddered at the mental image of Cedric facing a Horntail. "Yeah. Such a pity."
Charlie winked, and they continued their tour. By the end of the lesson, Harry had used up six rolls of parchment and a hand cramp that would require a muscle-relaxing potion. Still, if it kept Cedric from being barbecued in a few weeks, he'd happily tolerate the pain. Harry bid Hagrid and Charlie farewell and returned to the castle for lunch. He found Cedric and Grace at the Slytherin table, no doubt avoiding what Grace called 'Cedric's Fan Club.'
"I think you'll find these interesting," Harry said as he tossed Cedric his notes before taking his seat across from them.
Cedric smiled jovially, only to blanch when he realised what he was reading. "I have to fight a—"
"Maybe not here, love," Grace said, tucking the notes away in her school bag. "How did you find out about it?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Hagrid can't keep a secret to save his life."
"Well, thank goodness for that," Grace replied. She reached for Cedric's hand, which had tightened so firmly around his goblet that his knuckles were white. "This is good. Now we know what we're up against."
For once in his life, it seemed that Cedric was at a loss for words. He nodded mutely before returning back to his lunch. Grace and Harry left him to his thoughts, quietly discussing what to do next. They agreed to meet in the Study that evening, away from prying ears, to assemble Cedric's strategy. As lunch ended, they bid each other farewell. Grace pulled a dazed Cedric off to inform the rest of their friends of this new development, and Harry departed for the Hospital Wing.
His patient was already waiting for him when he arrived, and Harry couldn't be more excited; Sally-Anne Perkins had arrived for her five-month follow-up. Although he had read through her patient chart several times this week alone, today was the first time he would get to examine her since the Hogsmeade attack in June, where he had transfigured part of her skeleton into titanium.
Unfortunately, Sally-Anne was not nearly as excited to see Harry as he was to see her.
"I don't want to be here," Sally-Anne informed him when he slipped behind the privacy screens. She had changed out of her school robes into a set of Hospital issued exam robes that were several sizes too large for her, and she had pushed the sleeves back to her elbows to expose her hands. Her arms were crossed across her chest, and the gesture somehow made her look even smaller.
Well acquainted with disgruntled patients, Harry didn't take her sour tone personally. He offered her a sympathetic smile. "I know you've probably got better things to be doing. I'll try to keep this brief. Your file says you're healing—"
"No, not here. Here," Sally-Anne snapped. She raised her hands and gestured broadly around her. "Hogwarts."
Confused, Harry asked, "Would you prefer to be seen by a Healer at St Mungo's?" From her chart, he saw that she'd been seen primarily by a Healer Rose at St Mungo's. Perhaps they'd already established a rapport that would be more comfortable for her?
Sally-Anne glared at him. "I don't want to see a Healer at all. I want to go home."
Harry nodded slowly. "I can arrange for a home visit if you like." Home visits weren't typically done, but he thought he'd be able to get Dumbledore to sign off on it if he could explain why he thought it was medically necessary.
Inexplicably, his offer only made her scowl deepen. "Forget it," she scoffed, looking away. "You don't get it."
"Then explain it to me?" Harry asked gently. He reached out to touch her elbow. "How may I serve you?" The words slipped from his lips as easily as a diagnosis, and for a moment, Harry forgot that he was in Scotland and not at the Asklepion.
To his surprise, tears sprung to Sally-Anne's eyes. "I want to go to a normal school and not worry about being killed by my teacher, or a giant snake, or an escaped convict. I want to be with normal people who don't look down on me because of who my parents are. I hate Hogwarts and magic and—" She broke off then, her breath catching as her tears turned to body-wracking sobs.
Harry set aside his file and pen and pulled her into a hug. This was, perhaps, against some sort of code of conduct, but if there was one thing Harry had learned over the summer, it was that there were times to be a Healer and times to be a human. He let her cry on his shoulder for several minutes before she pulled back and continued.
"Over the summer, my parents tried to withdraw me from Hogwarts," she explained as she accepted the handkerchief Harry conjured for her. "They wrote a letter to Dumbledore, saying I had had enough. And you know what happened?" When Harry shook his head, she let out a brittle laugh. "That I couldn't—that I had to finish Hogwarts. Apparently, there's a new law called the Muggleborn Protection Act that forces us to come to Hogwarts. Even if we don't want to."
Harry nodded thoughtfully. "The problem with magical children is that they need to learn how to safely channel magic through their bodies and control it so they don't have outbursts of accidental magic. But," he said, holding up a hand when she opened her mouth to argue. "Nothing says attending Hogwarts is the only way to accomplish this. It's expensive, but your parents could hire a tutor. Or you could attend one of the smaller magical schools around Britain. They're not as comprehensive as Hogwarts, but they're more than adequate to see you through your OWLs."
Sally-Anne only shook her head. "That's the problem," she said, sounding thoroughly miserable. "Dumbledore explained that the law explicitly stated that I had to attend Hogwarts."
Harry knew for a fact that this was untrue. Plenty of Wizarding families—the Shafiqs and the Ollivanders most notably—elected for private instruction for a variety of reasons. But just as soon as he thought this, something ice-cold curled in his gut.
Every single one of those families were wealthy. Wealthy pure-blood families.
The law only applies to Muggle-borns, Harry realised with growing horror. It made sense, in a way. It was implied by the name 'Muggleborn Protection Act.' Only Harry wasn't entirely sure who the law was meant to protect. From certain points of view, it certainly looked like the law was stripping away a Muggleborn's control over their own life. Sure, children often couldn't be relied on to make good decisions for themselves, but why, then, weren't their parents given a say?
Sally-Anne nodded miserably, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. "My dad's a solicitor. The only way I can leave Hogwarts is if I'm expelled, or I leave the country. I can't even attend a foreign school. My family has to move out of Magical Britain."
Harry tried to take a steadying breath as his heart galloped in his chest. He wasn't sure what was happening, but he knew he didn't like it.
"I'll look into it," he promised, despite knowing he had neither the time nor the resources to follow through. "In the meantime…" he picked up his file folder and pen. "Let's just finish up your check-up, yeah?"
The appointment continued without any further disruptions, and Harry found Sally-Anne to be in remarkable health for someone whose skeleton was mostly made of metal; her body had taken to the titanium well, and her magic hadn't been affected, despite the increase in body density. There was some weight loss, but that was to be expected, given the increase in metabolism while the body was healing, and it could easily be remedied. After prescribing a Nutrition Draught, Harry sent Sally-Anne on her way and retreated to his office, mind swirling with confusion and stress.
That's where Cedric found him, several hours later, surrounded by stacks of open textbooks and crumpled-up pieces of parchment. He poked his head inside, startling Harry out of the note he'd been writing.
"I thought I'd find you here," Cedric said. His skin was still a bit peaky, and his smile was tight, but he looked far better than when Harry had seen him last. "Are you busy?"
Yes, he was, but Harry wasn't about to admit it. He waved Cedric farther into his office, conjuring a chair for him when he realised that the one guests usually sat at had a cauldron of Fever Reducer brewing on it. "What's up?"
"It's dinner time," Cedric reminded him, amusement dancing in his grey eyes.
Harry glanced down at his watch and swore under his breath. "Blimey, I hadn't realised."
"I figured," Cedric said. "We're meeting in the Study at eight. Ginny said she'd let us in if you can't make it."
"I'll be there," Harry promised. He waved his hand, and his notes arranged themselves neatly in their designated folders, his textbooks snapping shut and zooming off to nearby shelves. There was a faint 'WATCH IT!' as a book on speech impediments was jostled, and Harry sent a silencing charm in its direction. "Have you had dinner yet?"
Cedric shook his head. "I was wondering… well, I was going to go for a fly, and I wanted to see if you'd like to come. I brought some food, but if you'd rather eat in the Great Hall—"
Harry knew Madam Pomfrey (and Uncle Remus) would have his head if he skipped another meal this week. And yet…
He grinned. "Let me grab my broom."
One quick trip to Harry's room later, and they were heading towards the Quidditch pitch. There were many things Harry knew he should be doing: studying, prefect duties, figuring out how to help Sally-Anne, and researching dragons so Cedric wouldn't get incinerated. And he would do all of those things. Later.
But right then, Harry could think of nothing he would rather do than fly with his best friend.
Genius Fratris
Two weeks later, Harry stood next to Madam Pomfrey in what Grace had christened the 'big kid section,' where the school faculty, ministry officials, and the press were gathered, waiting for the First Task to begin. Harry would never admit it out loud—especially to Madam Pomfrey, who hadn't stopped grumbling about 'reckless children' and 'idiotic organisers' since he arrived that morning—but he was actually excited to watch the event. It was dangerous, sure, but even he would admit there was something thrilling about witnessing someone outsmart a dragon. His only wish was that Cedric wasn't one of those people.
"I'll be fine," Cedric had promised at breakfast. They were sitting at the Hufflepuff table, surrounded by a larger crowd than usual, and he lowered his voice so they couldn't hear. "Those notes you gave me made sure of that."
Privately, Harry thought that reading about dragons wasn't the same as facing one, but he held his tongue. Cedric was looking peaky enough as it was. Instead, he said, "I'm still surprised you read them. I thought for sure they'd upset your Hufflepuff sensibilities."
"A side effect from hanging around you lot," Cedric teased.
"We've thoroughly corrupted him," Grace agreed before quickly kissing Cedric's jaw.
"Ah well, at least there's still Ginny," Cedric replied.
"Ginny's got six older brothers," Ginny reminded him. "She was never going to be a bastion of virtue and morality."
Harry was pulled from his musings by Professor Flitwick, who announced, "The champions have donned their robes."
In order to make the Tournament safer, the champions wore robes impregnated with monitoring charms. It was by no means a perfect system, but in the event of a life-threatening injury, that champion could be withdrawn from the task, even if they had been incapacitated. It was a clever piece of magic, something Professor Flitwick had spent months developing.
"Establishing baseline vitals," Madam Pomfrey said. She tapped three sheets of parchment with her wand, and words bled onto the page as if written by an invisible quill. "Elevated blood pressure from Diggory and Delacour—stress, no doubt."
"Krum's bradycardic," Harry noted with a frown.
"His resting heart rate is generally thirty beats per minute," Madam Pomfrey explained. "This is actually elevated for him. Nothing concerning, considering what he's about to face."
When Madam Pomfrey declared the champions healthy enough to continue, Ludo Bagman, who for some reason had elected to wear his old and ill-fitting Wasp robes, stepped up to the podium in the judges' booth. He would be the commentator for the day's event, but his face was aglow with joy and excitement, as if everyone in the crowd had really come to see him.
A hush descended over the crowd.
"It is my greatest pleasure to welcome you to the First Task of the Triwizard tournament." He paused for a moment to allow for the deafening cheers from the crowd. "In a few moments, our first champion will enter the arena. Their goal: to retrieve the golden egg from a nesting dragon. This egg holds vital instructions about the second task, so let's hope they all manage to get it!"
The crowd's laughter quickly turned to gasps when the dragon trainers appeared, levitating a cage into the rocky arena. Harry caught sight of a stubby, silvery-blue snout from between the bars before the trainers opened the cage and released the twenty-two-foot Swedish Short-Snout. It roared and sent a plume of brilliant blue flames into the air, the fire so hot that Harry could feel its heat from the safety of the judges' booth. At her feet was a clutch of silvery eggs, the golden egg glinting merrily in the late morning sun.
"Shouldn't that thing be chained down?" Professor Flitwick squeaked. They watched as the dragon began to scuttle around its new landscape, inspecting the crevices and massive boulders with what could only be described as interest.
"Nesting mothers don't leave their clutch," Harry offered, recalling Charlie Weasley's impassioned lecture on the behaviour of Swedish Short-Snouts. "Her mate hunts for her until their young are big enough to fly."
Despite his thinly veiled panic, Flitwick smiled. "Five points to Slytherin, Mr Potter."
Harry pumped his fist and replied drily, "Hooray."
Their banter was cut short by the sound of a whistle and Cedric's entrance to the arena.
Being in the judges' booth, which had been equipped with eavesdropping charms so the judges could hear what spells the champions cast, Harry heard Cedric's nervous giggle and the "Merlin, you're a big girl, aren't you?" as clearly as if he'd been in the arena next to him.
"Right," Cedric muttered, summoning a stone from the rocky terrain.
"Starting off strong, Diggory is showcasing his ability to cast a Summoning Charm silently!" Ludo Bagman announced. "And now he's casting a non-verbal Compulsion Charm? I'd question his sanity if I wasn't so impressed!"
"What does he plan on doing?" Professor Flitwick whispered, eyes glued to the arena.
"Your statement implies he was forewarned about today's task and was able to plan accordingly," Harry replied breezily. "I assure you, Cedric is an upstanding member of society and would never consider cheating."
Flitwick chuckled, and together they watched as Cedric transfigured his rock into an oversized Crup. The Croup barked at the dragon and crouched into a playful bow, its two tails wagging furiously. With another bark, it took off across the arena, bounding across boulders and weaving through the crevices with supernatural speed. The dragon let out a warning growl, its silver, lamp-like eyes tracking the Crup's movements.
"Well, that's certainly got the dragon distracted," Bagman exclaimed with childlike delight. "Look at that little rascal go! And, there's a non-verbal Disillusionment charm from Diggory. Merlin, I don't think I can cast one non-verbal spell, let alone four!"
Flitwick let out an appreciative hum. "We don't even cover Disillusionment charms until next year!"
The nonverbal aspect was indeed impressive, but Harry wasn't about to inform Flitwick that most Fifth Years knew how to cast a decent Disillusionment charm. They were too useful not to learn—especially for students wanting to sneak around after curfew.
Whilst the dragon was distracted, Cedric crept towards the nest, his movements slowed by the rocky terrain. And he very nearly made it before the wind changed.
The Short-Snout caught his scent and roared with fury. She abandoned the Crup in favour of shooting a jet of brilliant blue flames towards Cedric. The crowd screamed in terror.
"Not to worry, folks! It seems our Champion has managed to cast a St George's Shield!" Bagman announced. "If you look closely, you can see the distinctive red cage throughout the shield." He neglected to mention that the St George's shield was only effective up to two thousand degrees centigrade. A Swedish Short-Snout's flames could reach up to five thousand.
"Diggory has sustained second-degree burns on his face, neck, and hands," Madam Pomfrey announced. "Internal body temperature, forty-one degrees. Begin medical evacuation."
"Trainers at the ready!"
Heart pounding, Harry sprinted towards the entrance of the arena. It took him all of two seconds to reach the gate, but in that time, a cheer went up.
Bagman's voice soared above the clamour as he shouted, "I don't believe it! He's done it! Diggory's got his egg!"
Cedric's skin was already blistered when Harry skidded to his side. Steam hissed and curled around his feet, and the ground was so hot he could feel it through the soles of his shoes. He conjured a levitating stretcher and helped Cedric onto it, noting the hand-shaped patch of clear skin in the centre of Cedric's face. His right palm was likewise unharmed, and Harry realised that Cedric must've had the sense to protect his eyes and nose from the worst of the steam. It probably saved his life.
"Airway stable," Harry said quietly, knowing Madam Pomfrey would be able to hear him. "Transporting to the medic tent."
"I forgot to cover up my scent," Cedric groaned, eyes screwed shut in pain. He clutched his golden egg to his chest like a lifeline, his left hand clenched so tightly around his wand Harry thought it might snap.
Harry elected to ignore his friend in favour of pushing him towards the medic tent. There would be time for dissecting Cedric's performance later.
Madam Pomfrey met him at the entrance of the tent, ready with burn paste and a fever-reducing potion. Together, they transferred Cedric into a bed and began to stabilise him. Because his injuries were mundane in origin, he would make a full recovery in a matter of hours, and there would be no lasting physical damage. Still, Madam Pomfrey refused to let him leave other than to receive his score from the judges.
"Think of it this way, Ced," Harry said when Cedric complained that he wouldn't get to watch the other champions. "You could've been incinerated today."
"You know, you were always complaining about that Rodriguez bloke's lack of bedside manners," Cedric replied. "You're not much better."
Harry laughed and continued to slather burn paste on Cedric's hands.
Despite Cedric's complaints, the judges were rather impressed with his performance. They awarded him an impressive forty points out of fifty. Technically he was scored a little high, considering the penalty that should've been applied for the severity of his injuries. Still, Harry thought the judges had been impressed with the non-verbal spell-casting and the St George's shield.
As much as Harry would've liked to stay and chat, he was technically supposed to be working. He returned to the judges' booth, with Madam Pomfrey staying behind to tend to Cedric. The Common Welsh Green had already been moved into the arena when Harry returned, curled up in her nest and humming what might've been a dragon's version of a lullaby to her eggs. She seemed to have recovered from her initial distrust of the golden egg because it was nestled with the rest of the clutch, the dragon's long tail wrapped protectively around them.
The whistle sounded again, and Fleur Delacour stepped into the arena. With her powder blue robes and long, silvery hair, Delacour looked like a fairy tale queen surveying her kingdom rather than a French teen forced into a dragon enclosure. She and the Welsh Green stared at each other, and the audience waited in hushed silence. After several tense moments, she raised the tip of her wand to her throat and cast a Sonorous Charm, amplifying her voice to the whole stadium.
Harry recoiled when she began to sing. Not because she was awful—Delacour had a silky, bell-like voice that was actually quite pleasant to listen to. But that song… Harry had never heard it before, and he sincerely wished he never would again.
It had a haunting, dissonant melody that made his hair stand on end. He couldn't understand the words, which were in a language he didn't recognise. They sounded ancient, with powerful magic woven inside. In the audience, students and adults alike began to sway in time with her song.
Unable to stand it any longer, Harry cast a muffling charm around his ears, blocking out the worst of the sound. Looking around, however, he found that he was one of the few who had—Dumbledore and Mr Crouch alone were unaffected, the former looking far more excited by Delacour's song than the latter.
"What's happening?" Harry asked Dumbledore when he realised that Bagman had fallen victim to Fleur's charms. He was leaning so far over the side of the booth that had Harry not grabbed him by his robe's collar and hauled him back, he would've fallen into the dragon enclosure.
"If I'm not mistaken, this is a Veela song," Dumbledore explained, his blue eyes twinkling with delight. "How fortunate we are to hear it, even if it's not at its usual potency. Enchanting, is it not?"
"No," Harry gasped. "It's horrible."
"There are always a few who are immune," Professor Dumbledore conceded. "This song, in particular, seems to be a lullaby."
Harry looked back at the audience. Sure enough, people had begun to relax in their seats, releasing massive yawns as they slumped into an enchanted sleep. Next to Harry, Bagman let out a snore. Even the Welsh Green wasn't immune, and Harry watched with astonishment as her yellow eyes fluttered shut. With a thud that shook the earth and rattled the stands, the dragon's head fell to the ground, little puffs of smoke billowing out of her nostrils.
With the grace of a lioness, Delacour crossed the arena and plucked her golden egg from the nest. The dragon didn't so much as stir with the theft, nor did she wake when the dragon trainers stumbled out sometime later to remove her from the arena.
Tossing her long hair over her shoulder, Delacour waltzed out of the arena. From start to finish, her task was completed in under two minutes. She wasn't even injured. Harry thought for sure she'd get full marks, but it turned out that the judges weren't nearly as impressed with her actions.
Dumbledore (the only one to witness it) and Madam Maxime (admittedly biased) gave Delacour ten points each. Mr Crouch and Bagman, however, gave her both fives, claiming that, whilst she had completed the task, they couldn't prove what she had done was impressive. Karkaroff, meanwhile, awarded her a one.
"He's just mad you put him to sleep," Cedric consoled a furious Delacour as Harry performed a routine, if needless, medical exam. "You were loads faster than me, nobody got hurt, and you managed to knock out a dragon."
Delacour's thunderous expression melted, replaced with utter confusion. "You wanted me to score 'igher?"
Cedric shrugged, wincing when the movement pulled on the pink, tender skin of his burned neck. "Well, yeah. It would only be fair."
"Ced's big on fairness," Harry explained.
Cedric gave him a playful glare. "Don't you have burns to heal or something?"
"Not really. She hasn't got a scratch on her. It's you that got injured, remember?"
Harry and Delacour left the medical tent to Cedric's laughs. The walk back towards the stadium was awkward and silent, and Harry was relieved when she split off to join the rest of the Beauxbatons delegation. Harry continued on alone and returned to his position in the judges' box. In his absence, the final dragon had been brought in.
The Chinese Fireball was nowhere near as big as the Swedish Short-Snout had been, but after the relatively docile Welsh Green, it seemed to loom twice as large. And unlike the previous two dragons, the Fireball was tethered to the ground with thick iron chains. It paced back and forth in agitation, shooting off warning blasts of orange, mushroom-shaped fire long before Krum stepped foot in the arena.
Since his selection as the Durmstrang champion, Harry had seen very little of Krum. This was probably for the best, though, as Maia and her friends seemed to have it out for the man. From what Harry had managed to overhear, their torment had become so bad that Krum had been given a private living quarters in the castle for his safety rather than staying on the Durmstrang ship.
Regardless of how this affected Krum, his face was set into the same flinty look of concentration Harry had seen him wear at the Quidditch World Cup. He didn't so much as look up at the stands when the Durmstrang delegation began to boo and jeer. He watched the agitated dragon for a moment before bending down, his body rippling and stretching.
"Merlin's beard," Harry gasped.
The rest of the crowd gasped as well, although most were out of confusion rather than awe. Confused murmurs filled the stands, a sentiment shared by Bagman, who had to lean back to listen to Mr Crouch's hurried whisper.
"It seems that Krum is an Animagus," Bagman announced, bemused. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the arena, completely missing Krum as he leapt into the air in one fluid bound. "Er, I've been informed that he's above us. If any of you can spot him, let me know."
Propelled by his leathery, bat-like wings, Krum soared high above the arena with a grace that transcended his world-class athlete status. Very few spectators witnessed Krum's movements, but that was understandable. Not many people could see Thestrals.
What happened next could only be described as aerial artistry as Krum swerved the Fireball's (who clearly could very much see him) attacks. His movements were agile and surprisingly acrobatic, his sleek black form moving in ways Harry didn't know a Thestral's body was capable of. Krum, it seemed, was born to fly. It was mesmerising to watch, and Harry felt a pang of sadness for everyone who couldn't see it.
Krum climbed high into the sky, forcing the dragon to crane its head back and shoot its fireballs straight into the air. The dragon paused to breathe, and Krum dove, wings folding against his body as he plummeted headlong towards the ground. When he was mere feet from the nest, Krum's front hooves turned into hands, and he deftly plucked the golden egg from the dragon's clutch.
Harry gasped in awe as the whistle blew and the dragon trainers swarmed the arena. The control Krum had over his Animagus form was extraordinary. To be able to simultaneously hold two different forms … the concentration alone it must have taken was incredible, but to do it whilst out-flying a dragon? It was a remarkable feat of magic that Harry could only one day hope to achieve. Not that being able to turn himself into a human-hare hybrid would be particularly useful, but it was the principle of the matter.
He could admit that he was a little star-struck as he ushered Krum (once again human) into the medical tent for a quick check-up. He quickly went through the motions, finding Krum in perfect health, save for a few singed hairs and a slightly elevated internal body temperature.
"That was impressive flying," Harry couldn't help but say as he handed Krum a Cooling Potion.
Krum shivered as he downed the potion. "You are from Asklepion."
Harry blinked, momentarily thrown by this non sequitur. "I attended their summer intensive this year," he admitted with a smile. "Did the hood give it away?"
Krum stared at him, his expression flat. "Why are you not wearing it?"
Harry grinned and reached into his hood, extracting Medusa. "The dragons scared her."
"The overgrown lizards didn't frighten me," Medusa hissed indignantly.
"You're a fearsome snake," Harry indulgently agreed, rubbing the spot between her eyes with his thumb. "I'm lucky you were there to protect me."
"Too right," was her haughty reply. She snaked her way up Harry's arm and shoulders before slipping back into his hood.
Harry smiled at Krum, who didn't return the gesture. "I've tried explaining that she can't sleep in there, but she never listens."
Krum handed Harry back the empty flask. "I am surprised a Ganas is capable of such compassion."
He wasn't sure why he was so surprised by this statement—the family resemblance between himself and Maia was unmistakable. And judging by the few interactions Harry had witnessed between his cousin and Krum, it was no surprise that Krum would worry that Harry might share some of Maia's antagonistic traits.
Harry smiled weakly. "I'm a Potter, actually."
Krum watched him for a moment before hopping off his cot and walking off without a word, leaving Harry feeling off-balanced and incredibly ashamed. Harry knew better than anybody how badly it felt when the entire school was against you. He had known Maia was awful to Krum. And yet he had done nothing to stop her.
It was fortunate that Cedric didn't require any consoling when Krum was awarded forty-three points for his performance because Harry's mind was a chaotic storm of emotions and thoughts. In a daze, he listened with half an ear as Cedric lamented missing the show. He still hadn't fully recovered from his burns, but Madam Pomfrey had cleared him to leave, so long as he promised he wouldn't drink any Firewhisky in the next twenty-four hours. She then shooed both him and Harry out of the medical tent, despite Harry's offer to help her pack everything away.
"You wouldn't have been able to see anything, love," Grace reminded Cedric gently. She was holding Cedric's egg (his hands were still too burnt to be of any use) and struggled under the weight of it. "You can't see Thestrals."
Teddy relieved her of the egg when she almost dropped it on his foot. "I wonder what it looked like for the others."
"You know when Harry's under his Invisibility cloak and has to stick his hands out? It was sort of like that," Ginny explained. "Disembodied hands just sort of appeared out of nowhere. It was creepy."
"You think I'm creepy?" Harry asked, feigning hurt.
Ginny nodded with mock seriousness. "You're a creep."
"But you love me anyways, right?"
"Yes, of course, dearest," she replied, patting his arm consolingly.
Harry let out a relieved sigh and tossed an arm around her shoulders. Together, they all walked back up towards the castle, joining the crowds of spectators leaving the stadium. At least until a crowd of Cedric's fans found them. Cedric gave Harry an apologetic wave as he was whisked away, no doubt to a celebratory after-party in the Hufflepuff common room. Grace followed him, as did Teddy, although that had more to do with the fact that he was still holding the golden egg, and Cedric's admirers dragged him along. Harry and Ginny followed at a more leisurely pace, in no real rush to join the festivities that would surely last through the night.
"Harry, wait up!"
They turned to find John (and his perpetual shadows, Ron and Hermione) weaving towards them through the crowd. Harry stepped out of the mass of students and waited for his brother to reach him.
"Can I talk to you?" John asked before adding an apologetic, "Alone?"
Ginny squeezed Harry's waist before ducking out from under his arm. "I'll see you at the party. Send Medusa to let me know when you want in."
She bounded towards the castle, as did Ron and Hermione. Ron muttered something in Ginny's ear that annoyed her, and she shot a Bat Bogey Hex at him before stomping off. They watched their friends for a moment before Harry turned back towards his brother.
"Was there something you needed?" Harry asked.
John bit his lip and shot a furtive look towards the rapidly dwindling crowd. A few adults loitered about, although they were more preoccupied with taking down the stadium and setting the Hogwarts grounds right than paying Harry and John any mind. The dragon trainers were moving the caged Common Welsh Green—still asleep in her cage—back towards the Forbidden Forest. Charlie Weasley was amongst them, his bright red hair practically glowing in the afternoon sun.
Arms wrapped around Harry's middle, and he looked down to find John leaning against him in a hug.
"I don't think I ever thanked you," John muttered, stepping away. He raised a hand to scratch the back of his neck, his eyes cast down.
"What for?"
John gave him a grin that was somehow cheeky and embarrassed. "For telling McGonagall about Norbert."
It took Harry a moment to place the name. "That dragon Hagrid had in your First Year?"
John nodded. "It seemed so sensible at the time…but those things are terrifying. Who the fuck would think they'd make a good pet?"
Harry let out a startled laugh. "Hagrid, for one."
John shook his head, grinning. "I mean, Cedric is a Sixth Year, and he almost got turned into barbecue today. What hope did I have at eleven?"
"None at all," Harry said, pulling John in for another hug.
He came willingly and buried his face in Harry's shoulder. "Thank you for…"
John trailed off, but no words were really necessary. Harry understood him just the same. He pressed a quick kiss to his brother's temple, who, for the first time in a long time, didn't squeal and wiggle away.
"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature." ― Jane Austen
A/N: To all of my lovely readers, thank you so much for the support you've given me over these last few years (is this story really that old already? How am I not done with it yet?!). I truly appreciate each and every kind thing you've written. Unfortunately, this story has garnered a lot of hate lately, mostly on AO3. I've turned off comments over there, but in the past, people who were really dedicated to being a bully have come over here to shit on me some more. Unfortunately, there is no real way to stop them from commenting here or delete the hateful comments like I can on AO3. I know the hate will only get worse from here on out, so I want to warn you that this story might be deleted from FFN if the haters decide to invade my comment section. I know that 99.99% of you are absolutely lovely, and I don't want this announcement to come across as a punishment for you. But I need to look after my mental health, and getting doxxed over a Harry Potter fanfiction just isn't worth the stress. I promise you that if the time to abandon FFN ever comes, I'll let you know. I don't want to have to delete this story. I will always love Genius Fratris, but sometimes, the haters make it hard to like it.
