A/N Ugh. I'm still not happy with this chapter but I don't want to have it hanging things up any longer. With not one but three of my favorite authors updating this week, I need to get my butt in gear, so here it is, warts and all. Then onwards to the dragons! As always, I own nothing. Nothing at all.
Hermione groaned and flopped back on the floor surrounded by pages of half translated runes and sketches of the Goblet of Fire. She glared at the ticking clock above the mantel. It was mocking her, she knew it. The thing had moved maybe five minutes from the last time she looked at it and she knew it took her longer to look up and compare elder futhark to early hebrew. It didn't matter though. She was making little progress on the runes inscribed on the Goblet and had a feeling it was protected by some sort of charm work. She hated feeling distracted and unable to concentrate on something so important. Especially when it came to Harry's wellbeing. But her mind kept drifting off. Normally she would be engrossed in the Goblet or in the design of the vault they were staying in. The expansion charms alone were amazing but her mind was hundreds of miles away in London.
Remus, Sirius and Harry were still at the Ministry for Sirius' trial. She planned on attending but with the most recent headlines from the Daily Prophet were an astounding work of fiction that had hate mail coming strong and Ironfist decided it was too dangerous for both her and Harry to be out in public with the tournament fiasco, even with a Goblin escort. Which just made Hermione worry all the more. Remus and Sirius tried to reassure her nothing would happen in the Ministry but these were the same people who kept Sirius locked up for 12 years. What was a little kidnapping to them?
She'd tried to work out with her remaining Goblin guard, tried guided and unguided meditation but her mind just wouldn't slow down (she actually hated the fact she had difficulty meditating. Her mind always whirled in a hundred different directions at once, pondering possibilities and discarding them at a whim) without Harry's presence to ground it. Which brought her full circle to thinking about the Prophet's article and the mess it made.
The first so-called headlines had come from the Weighing of the Wands ceremony - and even though Harry hadn't said anything directly to Rita Skeeter, the student body had apparently been more than willing to share their opinions on the Fourth TriWizard champion.
Boy-Who-Lived Once Again Tries to Become Boy-Who Triumphs as Unsanctioned TriWizard Champion
By Rita Skeeter
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is set to host the arcane TriWizard Tournament for the first time since it was disbanded in 1794 and already the tournament is causing quite a stir. At only twelve years old, Harry Potter, our famous boy-who-lived, has been chosen as a fourth participant in this momentous event. Though Headmaster Albus PWB Dumbledore insists that this is NOT a normal occurrence, Hogwarts (as well as our foreign guests) are divided over the apparent choosing of two local school champions.
Cedric Diggory, 17, Pureblood son of Amos Diggory, of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, was chosen first as the official Hogwarts Champion from Hufflepuff House. Cedric told this reporter it's a great honor to represent Hufflepuff and is looking forward to beating Harry Potter once again. Cedric is currently the only Quidditch player considered better than our famous Boy-Who-Lived.
"I'm the only seeker who's been able to catch the snitch against Potter, so I should have an advantage here as well." stated young handsome Mr Diggory (ladies, this reporter has yet to see him attached to one particular beauty so there is hope!)
It appears to this intrepid reporter that while Mr Diggory was striving for academic success as a school prefect, Mr Potter has been spending his time trying to impress his peers. Since the start of the school year, irregardless of the announcement of the TriWizard Tournament, Potter along with his Muggle-born best friend Hermione Granger continued to show their disregard for wizarding traditions by trying to arrange a muggle sports game as well as illegal Quidditch practices during the lead up the the Champions announcement.
As one brave Gryffindor stated, "I bet anything it was to distract us from Potter sneaking his name into the Cup. Didn't want us to know he was cheating."
A pretty fourth year in Slytherin added, "I wouldn't be surprised if Granger rigged it. She's only useful for her brains. She has no other prospects in the wizarding world so I'm sure she did it for show."
A Seventh year Slytherin who was beat out in his try for eternal glory told me "Potter pulls stuff like this all the time and no one cares except our Head of House. He doesn't let Potter or his Muggle-born friend get away with anything."
With even his own Gryffindor House of the brave against him, this reporter has to wonder what young Harry's motivation to enter was? To impress Miss Granger? To try and live up to some unknown parental expectation? Or just an attempt to gain even more fame?
Stay tuned dear readers as I bring my next exclusive from the First Task on November 24, 1994!
Please see page 2 for full interviews with the other 3 champions.
See page 4 for interviews with the Headmasters from each school.
See pull out for details on the history of the Triwizard Tournament, complete will full color pull outs of the champions!
The aftermath to the blonde harpy's excuse for an exclusive was more mail than Hermione had ever seen. A lot of it was addressed to Harry - letters that mentioned 'escaping the clutches of the uncouth, morally loose, nontraditional Mudblood' trying to get her talons into the Potter family fortune and convincing him to risk his life in order to gain "eternal fame and glory." Even more were pictures of said witches asking Harry for autographs or offering 'moral support' to the boy-who-lived.
Hermione was disgusted at what some of the witches (and a few wizards) were offering to do to keep a 14 year old wizard's mind off the upcoming task.
None of the letters seemed to offer any way out of the competition though. They all offered to come and watch him compete - and many of the young (and not so young) witches said they would be getting tickets to attend and show the Boy-Who-Lived their unwavering support. Harry was confused as to why Sirius and Remus started snickering when Hermione growled at that. Once the two pulled themselves together enough to explain what exactly the witches were supporting, Harry sputtered and left the room. Sirius didn't have the heart to tell him some of those letters contained the panties of said witches.
More concerning was the mail Hermione was receiving. The vitriol spewed at the fifteen year old girl had the Goblins seething. While the humans couldn't do much about it, the two Marauders and the Terrible Twosome of the Weasley twins were planning on replying to some of the worst of it, the Goblins were planning action against their Gringotts accounts. Hermione didn't want them to go to the trouble. From past experience, she knew that any reaction would just make them angrier and lead to another article in the Prophet.
The student body was settling in to having Cedric and Harry as champions. After the incident in the dungeons between Harry and Draco, most had stopped the tripping jinxes and shoving in the halls when she and Harry came in for dinner. Neville, Fred, George and Ginny usually sat with them and Neville begged Hermione to come back to classes. While no one thought it was a good idea, Hermione couldn't refuse Neville and Harry wouldn't let Hermione go back without him, so the two were back for every class save potions - neither would set foot in the dungeons after Snape's response to Hermione being cursed - History of Magic and Defense. Hermione preferred the Goblins teaching style for Defense and they were both spending a good portion of their days on the subject. Plus, with the Goblins teaching them potions, Harry was finally going to get a real grade rather than the T he usually was assigned at the beginning of the year.
While Harry personally thought it was a waste of time to attend classes when they had Goblin tutors available, he couldn't deny Hermione wanting to go and help out Neville. The poor boy was having a miserable time without them and was sick of listening to Ron bad mouth the two at every worst of it was, without Harry and Hermione there to talk to and act as a bit of a buffer, Neville was stuck. His other two close friends were Hufflepuffs and the House was sticking together for Cedric and so the girls said they couldn't be seen studying with him in the library anymore.
So Harry was back in the Castle for most of the day enduring the stares and whispers of his classmates. It was getting to him and his temper was poor to begin with. He couldn't understand how Hermione could sit there calmly and take notes while people two seats away talked about her as if she wasn't there. When he would open his mouth, she would just put a hand on his knee and squeeze it gently while shaking her head. Instead of cursing the lot of them, Harry was keeping a list. A list of everyone that insulted Hermione and what they said. She might not let him do anything immediately but he would make sure they were paid back.
Now he had twice as much work to complete each night but he had to admit he'd never understood his lessons as well as he did now. Being back in the castle also gave Harry the chance to really observe his fellow Hogwarts students while they were busy with their gossip and rumours. The Goblins emphasized spatial awareness during his training and Harry took the lessons to heart.
Harry noticed that while Gryffindor and Slytherin were on opposite sides of the Great Hall, supposedly to keep the peace between the two rival houses (a memo Draco apparently forgot to read since he made it a point to visit the Gryffindor table every time Harry and Hermione came in for lunch and dinner. Harry was beginning to worry Draco was nursing a crush on him.), both houses were put together for all but two classes, Herbology with the Puffs and Charms with Ravenclaw. It was almost like the Professors wanted to see if the two houses would antagonize each other in class. And with Draco there it was pretty much a certainty.
Hermione sighed as she thought about the last two weeks. The magical bond they shared continued to deepen and develop, most likely as a complication rather than a side effect of the Black family protection ritual. Since their magic had been so familiar prior to the spell and tended to seek out the other's magical signature naturally, the closest Remus and Sirius could guess was that now their magic actually needed the others to 'feel' secure. Everything was fine if they were within a certain distance of the other but anything past that - at least that they could tell right now - would cause the other to become anxious and irritable and their magic to become unstable until the other was back in sight. The distance of the Hogwarts grounds was fine - London apparently pushed their limits further than Hermione was comfortable.
Those senses made for some interesting training. One lesson had Hermione under Harry's invisibility cloak casting stinging hexes while Harry tried to anticipate where she was. It didn't help with Sirius and Remus both joining in. Harry was trying to stun his opponents while actively sending a tendril of his magic out to seek Hermione's while she was trying to hide herself from him. He brought down the two Marauders before he finally managed to catch Hermione. Carefulling walking along the floor to the area where he saw his spell hit, Harry felt for the lump that would indicate his cloak. When he found it, he pulled it off Hermione and ennervated her. She remembered laughing happily when he had finally managed to catch her off guard.
Suddenly, Hermione's head snapped up and her magic started to swirl in the air. Grimlock and Ironclaw, who had been keeping an eye on the worried witch, grinned slightly feeling the magic in the air shift. Harry was back!
A commotion sounded at the front of the vault and the sound of thundering footsteps had Hermione on her feet and racing to the stairs. Harry met her at the entrance to the common room and grabbed her up in a spinning hug, laughing like a loon.
"He's free! Sirius is free!" Harry whooped!
Padfoot barked around the two happily before transforming into the lanky wizard and joining the teens in the hug. Remus just laughed.
"That's right, Kitten, this Dog is finally free from the pound. And the Ministry was forced to issue a formal apology to the House of Black and pay compensation for false imprisonment to the Lord of a Most Ancient and Noble House. I thought Fudge was going to eat his hat! Oh, we need to get out of here and celebrate!"
"That may be where we have to draw the line, Lord Black."
They all turned to see Ironfist smiling. "While the press will be interested in the freeing of Lord Black, they will also be most interested in Mr Potter and Miss Granger still and I doubt either would want to be mobbed by the press at the moment."
Harry had pulled away from Hermione but left his arm draped over her shoulder. "Ugh, Ironfist is right. It was bad enough just going to and from the courtroom. They asked everything, Mi. Stuff about my parents, about Sirius, and about you and the tournament. They didn't even give me a chance to answer!"
"Welcome to the world of the wizarding press, Pup," Remus said, smiling. "They want to know your entire life story but they don't want to wait for you to tell it. By the way, we have an invitation to meet up with Hagrid during dinner tonight."
Hermione frowned. "During dinner? Why would…" Her eyes widened. "The dragons? They're here?"
Remus nodded. "Four of them. Confirmed through the Ministry. From what I understand they are a Chinese Fireball, a Swedish Short-Snout, a Welsh Green, and the final is a change from the original itinerary. Originally the fourth was to be a Hungarian Horntail -"
Sirius whistled. "Damn. I'd pity the champion who got that one. Vicious."
"Well, the alternative isn't much better. Possibly worse. A Peruvian Vipertooth. Small but fast and poisonous to boot."
"And what does a Vipertooth eat?" Harry asked, dropping to the couch.
"If it can? Humans. The Ministry of Peru has culled these dragons more than once trying to keep them on reserves but due their size and ability to hide in the Western desert areas these things build up fast."
Hermione was already at the bookcase flipping through a thick tome. "Okay, Peruvian Vipertooth. Aerodynamic. Fast flyers, exceptional at blending into their environment, track by movement…oh good, the female of the species is the largest at only 15 feet."
"Weaknesses?"
"Pretty standard for dragons. Eyes, mouth, nose are weak spots. Sensitive to ice and oddly fire. The claws and fangs on this one are poisonous and it tracks by both sight and smell. Lovely. Thoughts?"
Sirius frowned. "Conjunctivitis spell?"
"Wicked fast dragon, Sirius." Harry replied. "I don't know if I could hit something that small on something that fast without getting roasted first."
"Reducto as it gets ready to fire? It has to breathe first."
"Do I really want to kill it? It's supposed to have eggs."
Sirius gawked at Harry. "Really, Pup? It's going to try and kill you and you're worried about eggs?"
Harry ran a hand through his hair as Hermione sat beside him. "I don't like to kill anything, Sirius. I didn't want to kill Slytherin's basilisk but it wouldn't listen to me, it would only listen to Riddle so I didn't have a choice. And it hurt Hermione so I wasn't happy with it to begin with. I didn't want to kill Quirrell but he sort of turned to ash in my hands…"
Hermione grabbed his hand. "Harry, Professor Quirrell was already gone. The moment Voldemort possessed him, he was dead. He didn't have the strength to fight the possession and he didn't want to."
Harry locked eyes with her. "Don't think for a minute if you," he turned to the two Marauders, "or either of you get possessed by Riddle for any reason, that I'd be able to kill you."
"I don't think it'd be the same thing for us, Harry. For one, we would fight the possession with everything we had. Just like Ginny did. Anyway, this isn't helping us brainstorm. So, what can Harry bring with him?" Hermione released his hand to clap hers together and get the men out of their sudden funk.
"Just me and my wand. And my clothes."
"Clothes…wait…your cloak." Hermione muttered.
"My cloak? My invisibility cloak?"
"Hermione, we can teach Harry to disillusion himself if that's what you're thinking." Remus replied, scrunching his nose.
"Yes, but disillusioning still causes ripples in the air as you move. The cloak doesn't."
"What are you thinking, Mi?"
"A summoning charm, an invisibility cloak, dungbombs, and a solar flare spell."