DISCLAIMER! This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy. This story is just a castle built in the clouds for some enjoyment of readers.
The Triwizard Tournament brings loneliness and isolation for an angry and disillusioned Harry Potter. When the financially astute goblins use a loophole to help a Vault-holder Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived begins to break free of Magical Britain.
This story concentrates on Harry, his interactions with Dobby, goblins, the students at Hogwarts. Bashing Magical Britain, DD and Weasleys. The Dark Lord ignores some important knowledge from his muggle upbringing.
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Two Weeks After Halloween 1994Harry Potter was furious – since he was forced to participate in the Triwizard Tournament on Halloween – everyone turned against him, just like in his second year. He felt totally alone and deserted by classmates and professors – again.
The Slytherins and Ravenclaws renewed the Heir of Slytherin claims again. The Hufflepuffs decried that Potter attempted to steal their moment of glory. And inside Gryffindor House, the Weasley family led the charge to discredit the Boy-Who-Lived when he refused to admit how he cheated to enter the contest. Ron was jealous which confused Harry, and he was angry that Potter wouldn't explain how he got around the age limitation. Fred and George were insulted that the fourth-year friend of their brother managed to get around the protections that defeated them – and they wanted to avenge their honour. And Ginny turned on Harry – he was not paying attention to her but got into the tournament to gain the attention of all the older witches in Hogwarts. He was hers or he would be no witch's boyfriend.
By the middle of November, Harry hissed at everyone who turned against him and seemed to return each hex thrown at him with spells twice that were twice as strong as those thrown at him.
Ron Weasley backed off first; he wasn't brave enough to jeer and curse Potter to his face after he'd learned that casting spells at Potter's back was asking for trouble with reflected spells. Worse had been the detentions with an angry Professor Moody. And even more Earth-shattering for Ron was that since he tried to curse Potter in the back, the platters of food on the table always moved out of his way, forcing him to climb up on the benches to fill his plate for second and third servings.
Hermione Granger found it expedient to keep some distance from Potter in early November – he couldn't protect her in the girl's dormitory. But then Harry defeated and humiliated the Weasley twins and their sister on Friday night; since that magical contest everyone in Gryffindor feared the Boy-Who-Lived. The confrontation began just before curfew on Wednesday; George, Fred and Ginny Weasley buried Harry underneath an avalanche of jinxes and hexes that left him misshaped, in pain and tied up behind one of the sofas in the common room for the whole night.
The prefects did nothing to relieve Potter's condition and left him there overnight in pain and agony. Neville was threatened and hexed to keep his mouth shut and Hermione was escorted to her room by the female prefects and locked in for the night. This First Battle of the Common Room was a complete Weasley victory because the victim had not anticipated being attacked by three of his fellow Gryffindors at once.
On Thursday morning, George and Fred were surprised that Potter was missing from behind the sofa. Lavender Brown made a quick trip to the infirmary and the witch reported the missing wizard was there. Before any Gryffindor prankster could steal a march to the infirmary to fire more jinxes, the prefects intervened and cautioned against any action before breakfast. With a shield she'd learned from Potter, Hermione provided cover for Neville to slip away.
He would warn Madam Pomphrey and Harry about the impending visitors and their planned attack. But when Neville made it to the Great Hall, he sat beside Hermione and told her that Harry had vanished from the infirmary. The wizard confessed, "Madam Pomphrey was looking for him."
No one saw Potter for the whole of Thursday though he appeared in classes and for meals on Friday. But he vanished from view in the hallway and disappeared with all his belongings from the Gryffindor Tower.
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Bald SlytherinsOn Sunday morning of that same week, there was another incident, this time in the Great Hall during breakfast. While the visitors from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and Durmstrang Institute were absent that morning, Draco Malfoy threw a charm across the width of the hall at Potter. Many people witnessed the fourth-year wizard stand up and shout, "Hey Potter! Let's see what you look like bald!"
After Malfoy cast the spell, Potter ducked as it approached, reached up his wand to catch the spell on the tip of his wand and throw it up into the magical ceiling. In the magical ceiling, a thunderstorm suddenly threatened the students and staff at breakfast. There were a few scattered rain drops for thirty seconds, but then the quiet conversations were replaced by screams from the Slytherin table as Draco's white-blond hair fell from his head. The students around Malfoy were covered with the white hairs while Draco screamed about his bald head.
None of the other students at the Slytherin table laughed though many of them hid their faces and looked away. There was some restraint among the Ravenclaw students but none among the Hufflepuff students. At Gryffindor there was a mixture of laughter and dark muttering – Potter had embarrassed one of the loudest mouths from their major competitor house, but they were not supposed to support the lying freak of Gryffindor. (And none of them wanted to irritate or anger the Boy-Who-Tamed-Gred-and-Forge.)
While Madam Pomphrey called for an elf to transport Malfoy to the infirmary, Dumbledore summoned Harry to stand in front of the staff table and explain his actions. Standing in front of the table, Harry blinked as though perplexed by the headmaster's request.
He stated, "I am confused Headmaster Albus Dumbledore; my actions were simple and straightforward."
"You attacked Mr Malfoy!" declared Snape.
Shaking his head and attempting to look confused, Harry replied, "Professor Severus Snape, I dispute your claim. When Mr Malfoy shouted and cast the charm from the Slytherin table, he aimed at me on the other side of the Great Hall. Like everyone at the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables I ducked out of the way – one of the first defences taught in my DADA class."
"The charm was relatively slow moving and very brightly coloured – orange I remember. Then I realised that Professor Sprout and Cedric Diggory were behind me and talking but they were not paying attention to the approaching charm. So, to protect them, I caught the spell and threw it into the ceiling."
"That's not possible, Potter!" growled Snape. "If it were, then you would avoid this!"
Snape's wand flicked up to cast a fast, red spell at the Boy-Who-Lived. But Harry's wand caught the spell and threw it into the ceiling.
"Snape!" screamed Flitwick, casting a powerful goblin shield in front of Harry Potter.
"Severus, do not curse the students!" Dumbledore said, trying to sound wise as lightning flashing across the ceiling and caught everyone's attention except for Harry and who was using legilimens to rifle through Potter's mind. Concentration on the wild memories of Harry Potter kept the potions professor from seeing the magical lightning bolt that struck him in the top of his head.
The potion's master smashed into the floor, lay there and moaned but didn't rise again. Professor Moody and Matron Pomphrey rushed to the crumbled professor's side.
"Mr Potter! What did you do?" demanded McGonagall.
"Weren't you watching, Professor Minerva McGonagall?" asked Harry, surprise evident on his face at the question.
"You're being disrespectful, Mr Potter!"
"Forgive me, Professor Minerva McGonagall, I thought you were watching. Professor Severus Snape threw a blasting spell at me. If it had hit me, I would have lost at least one arm and perhaps my head. The seventh-year students at Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff would have been blasted away from the table with broken bones and concussions. Rather than allow everyone to be harmed by the professor, I caught the spell in the tip of my wand again and threw it into the ceiling of the Great Hall."
"Then you attacked the professor with the spell!" McGonagall insisted.
Blinking as his look of confusion increased, Harry considered appealing to the students to back him up but immediately discarded the idea – since Halloween, he'd lost all the support of his few friends and walked the halls with shields up and spells charged in his wand.
Now he looked at the staff table – Sprout refused to meet his eyes – she still believed Potter intended to steal Hufflepuff's moment of glory, McGonagall continued her usual frown, and even Hagrid refused to look at Harry.
However, climbing onto the table, Professor Flitwick declared, "Mr Potter did not cast any spell! He merely reflected Snape's spell up into the ceiling to protect himself and the other students. They all owe him a debt of gratitude for preventing their injury."
"Surely not Flitwick," Dumbledore opined. "Severus would never harm a student. I'm certain it was a stinging hex on Professor Snape's wand…nothing more."
Flitwick frowned and said, "Are you certain, Headmaster?"
"Yes, Professor Snape has my complete trust."
"Then his wand will reveal only a stinging hex when we examine it," Flitwick insisted.
"Yes, I am certain. But the professor has his wand…" Dumbledore said, trying to avoid this conversation.
"Not so, I have it here in my hand!" Professor Moody declared. "I knew that Death Eater would try and kill Potter sometime this year!"
"Moody, don't…"
"Too late, Dumbledore!" Moody shouted. He held up the much-hated wizard's wand and announced, "Severus Snape cast a Bombard Maximus toward Mr Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived would have been bits of red goo sliding down the walls of the Great Hall with ten or twenty other students would have been dead!"
In the kerfuffle of shouting and threats at the staff table for the next ten minutes that kept everyone's attention, four students slipped from the Great Hall to send their memories of the two attacks against Harry Potter and the defensive steps the young wizard took. The four students – Luna Lovegood, Susan Bones, Neville Longbottom, and Daphne Greengrass – hurried to their dormitories and used secret methods besides school owls to contact their parent or guardian and transfer the memory of the events to that adult.
When some order was restored in the Great Hall, Dumbledore used his powerful wand to cast a spell that obliviated the memory from everyone – the headmaster's powerful charm swept through the entire school and caused even Severus Snape to forget what had happened. Because he was unconscious at the time, his powerful Occlumency skills did not protect the memory.
And because Matron Pomphrey lost her memory, she didn't know how to treat Snape's injury properly or how Draco Malfoy came to be bald. No one could explain what occurred to cause Professor Snape to be two inches shorter the next day. Draco Malfoy had no memory of how he came to be bald – but he used threats and galleons to force all the boys in the fourth-year rooms in Slytherin to shave their heads as well.
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Detentions and PointsIt took two full days for Pomphrey to have Snape ambulatory once again. The Daily Prophet was filled with pictures from the confrontation at the staff table and the lightening strike hitting Professor Snape. That morning, Dumbledore was late to breakfast because he was fending off Director Bones who wanted to come through the floo and arrest him. The students fled from the headmaster whenever he appeared in the hallways. Even the professors drew their wands anytime the headmaster entered their classrooms.
A healer walked through Hogwarts, stepped around Dumbledore, and placed medical wards on the infirmary that would prevent any obliviate charms from being cast in the suite of rooms and prevented the charm from entering the walls.
At breakfast on Tuesday, Snape took fifty points and assigned a week of detentions to 'Potter,' but Harry could care less about the points and refused to attend detentions with Snape or any other 'bloody professor' at Hogwarts.
There were several confrontations in the Great Hall between Severus Snape and Harry Potter on Wednesday and Thursday – the youngest champion refused to attend the detentions or potions class with the professor. It appeared that Snape was unable to properly use charms to shorten his robes and trousers. The hems of Snape's clothes drug the floor and tripped his steps continually. His shoes remained normal size for his normal sized feet, making his appearance even stranger. And the wizard's wand was continually wrapped up in his longer than normal sleeves.
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