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Part Three

"I have an announcement to make."

Everyone in the Great Hall was staring at Harry and Mr. Malfoy. Then again, that was probably because they had walked through the doors and Mr. Malfoy had immediately led Harry to the front, by the professors' table. Harry hunched his shoulders.

"Stand up straight, Harry. You have done nothing to be ashamed of."

Harry blinked and lifted his head. He couldn't actually remember someone talking to him in that tone before, quiet and firm, not scolding. He glanced at Mr. Malfoy, who just nodded and began to speak. His words dropped into a fascinated hush. Harry didn't think it had even been this quiet right after the Goblet had said he was a Champion.

"As you saw the other day, Mr. Potter did not put his name in the Goblet. The current best candidate is Barty Crouch, Junior, who was a Death Eater and would have reason to want Mr. Potter dead." The noise started then, but Mr. Malfoy just raised his voice and spoke above it without sounding terrible for doing so. "He supposedly died, yes, but in Azkaban, and his mother died right after. There is speculation that his mother may have taken his place. While this is not confirmed, the Goblet did announce—"

"Potter just cheated to try and get Cedric's glory!" shouted someone from the Hufflepuff table. Harry thought it sounded a little like Susan Bones, but he couldn't see her from where he was standing at the moment.

"What glory?" Mr. Malfoy asked, his face so bored and his tone so drawling that it silenced some of the people who had started shouting their agreement with maybe-Bones. "What kind of glory could compare to defeating a Dark Lord?"

Silence. There were some more glares, but maybe because Mr. Malfoy had mentioned Voldemort, no one seemed inclined to speak up.

Harry was staring at the Gryffindor table. Both Ron and Ginny were watching him, and both were terribly pale.

"As Mr. Potter's godfather, I am able to pull him out of the Tournament," said Mr. Malfoy, and he turned around. Harry turned with him, wondering if there were officials here from the Ministry and if he would have to sign something. But instead, there was the Goblet of Fire. Harry swallowed. He wondered if they had wanted to put it away but Mr. Malfoy had forced them to leave it out.

"I am Mr. Potter's godfather," Mr. Malfoy said loudly, at the same moment as he flicked his wand. An aura of white flame appeared around the Goblet, and for long moments, it swayed back and forth. "And I never consented to his name being entered and say that the one who entered it did so falsely." He looked down at Harry. "Do you see the same?"

"Yes," Harry said, relief blazing through him harder than the Goblet's flames. "I never wanted to compete in the stupid Tournament!"

There was a sharp snapping sound, as though someone had broken a wand. Then the white flame swirled and surged into the Goblet, and appeared again as the image of a chain between it and Harry. As Harry watched, the chain broke apart into sparks of light and faded.

"Well done," Mr. Malfoy murmured to Harry, gripping his shoulder once before releasing him.

Harry sagged back against the professors' table. It was done. It was over with. Mr. Malfoy gave him one more intense glance, and then turned to look around the Great Hall, seeming to meet the eyes of everyone who was looking at them.

"I trust that if people have other ideas about Harry Potter, they will remember that I am now watching over him," he said, and then he walked towards the doors of the Great Hall with a swish of his cloak.

Half the students' heads turned back to Harry as if on swivels. He bit his lip and started following Mr. Malfoy. He didn't feel like eating in front of everyone today.

"Harry! Harry! Over here!"

Harry turned and stared at Draco, who was waving enthusiastically from his place at the Slytherin table. He seemed to be ignoring the fact that even his Housemates were giving him weird looks.

"Uh—"

"Are you going to go and sit with the Gryffindors who have been calling you a cheater and a liar for weeks when they should know you the best?" Draco asked loudly, smiling at someone Harry couldn't see behind his back, but who was probably Ron. "Or with me, your godbrother?"

"Should I sit with the person who made the Potter Stinks badges?"

The smile slid off Draco's face. "I said I was sorry for those."

"Technically, you didn't," Harry said, but his eyes had locked on Nott. Nott had his head tilted slowly, echoing Draco's invitation the only way he could. Harry could sit between him and Draco, in an empty place on the bench, and at least know that he was with two people who wanted him around.

Harry took a deep breath and walked over to sit down next to Draco. Draco promptly picked up what looked like an entire sliced apple and dropped it on his plate. "You don't eat enough," he said bossily.

"Harry!"

Harry ignored the shouts and dug into the food. At least the Slytherins weren't shouting. They were muttering and staring, and Crabbe leaned over to ask Draco something that made Draco get very short with him, but they weren't accusing him of things he hadn't done.

"I'm glad," Nott's voice said beside him, low, fierce.

Harry glanced sideways and smiled a little at the way Nott was leaning on his elbow and staring. He nudged Nott's leg with his foot under the table. Nott nudged back.

"Me, too."


"Harry? Can we—talk?"

Harry drew in a deep breath and turned around. He'd followed Draco and Nott out of the Great Hall when the meal was done, mostly because he didn't know what else he ought to do. He wasn't really prepared for Ron's voice to come from behind him.

"What, Weasel, you want another go at undermining Harry's self-confidence?"

Harry turned and frowned at Draco, to shut him up. Then he turned back to Ron, who looked—lost, mostly. As though he wanted to be upset or angry or sad but didn't know what to feel.

"We can talk if you really don't believe that I put my name into the Goblet of Fire anymore," Harry said, and despite himself, his voice was cold.

"Of course I don't!"

"Really? You—"

Draco shut up with a gasp. Harry didn't turn around to look, but he was pretty sure Nott had hexed him. Something else for Harry to thank Nott for, later.

"You did," Harry said, and Ron's face crumpled.

"I know," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I just thought that if anyone could get past the Age Line, it would be you. And I thought maybe you wanted an adventure and to stand out for something that wasn't just your fame. Sorry."

Harry sighed. He thought what Ron was saying was kind of stupid, but he could see where Ron was coming from. "And you wanted to be included in that adventure."

"Yeah. I thought—I thought you were leaving me behind." Ron's eyes moved vaguely to the Slytherins, but then returned right away to Harry, which Harry appreciated. He didn't think he could have put up with Ron taunting Draco and Nott right now. "And then when you came back in with the Malfoys, I thought you had."

"I don't want to," Harry said. "But if you're stupid like that again, I don't know if it would be worth trying to come back."

"I won't be stupid like that again, Harry. I promise."

Draco snorted loudly. Ron flushed, but he visibly struggled and held his tongue, which was something Harry could appreciate right now. He touched Ron's shoulder gently and then turned around and glared at Draco when he opened his mouth to say something. Draco shut it, too.

"Harry!"

And there were Ginny and Hermione. Harry took a deep breath. He thought Ginny would probably be worse. Hermione could accept that Harry and Draco were sort of forced into the position of godbrothers and Harry hadn't made the decision to be nice to someone who had called her a Mudblood. But Mr. Malfoy had hurt Ginny, deeply and profoundly.

"Is it really true?" Ginny asked. Her arms were crossed and she was plucking at the sleeves of her robes. "That Mr. Malfoy is your godfather?"

"Yes," Harry said, deciding he should be as simple as he could. "He and my dad were friends before the war, and they decided that they would name each other their firstborn children's godfathers. My dad kept the promise."

"That makes Harry and me godbrothers," Draco said.

Well, the silence was nice while it lasted, Harry thought crossly. But he nodded. "Yeah. I didn't know about any of this," he added, in the face of Ginny's silence. "I didn't know he even knew my dad."

"But you took advantage of it."

"Yeah, so he could get me out of the Tournament."

"I need some time to think about this," Ginny whispered, and then she turned and walked away. Hermione, biting her lip a little, looked back and forth between Harry and Ginny and Ron, and then took a deep breath.

"I think I need some time to think about it, too, Harry."

"It's all right," Harry said, as gently as he could. "I know that Mr. Malfoy and Draco haven't been good to you."

"But you'll stay with them anyway."

Harry took a step towards her and lowered his voice. "Yes, because anything is better than being in a death Tournament that could kill me, and anything is better than where I was living during the summers."

Hermione caught her breath and then abruptly hugged him. Harry leaned against her for a second. "I'm so sorry, Harry. I never knew it was that bad."

"What was that bad?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Hermione snapped over his shoulder, and gave Harry another hug before she let him go. "If you can keep him from insulting me, then you deserve whatever happiness you can get, Harry. You should never have been put in either of those positions."

Harry gave her a small smile, and glanced at Ron. Ron swallowed and nodded. He didn't say anything, maybe because he knew it wouldn't turn out well.

"I should go talk to Ginny," Hermione said, and stepped back. "But you'll come to the Tower later, right, Harry, and we'll talk?"

"'Course," Harry said, and saw her really smile for the first time in days.

Ron lingered for a minute, and said, "We want you to come to the Tower, too." He was studiously not looking at Malfoy or Nott. "We have a lot of things to talk about, you know." His smile flickered and faded.

Harry nodded. It would take some time before he really forgave Ron completely, he thought, but he didn't want to fight with him forever. He wanted his best friend back. "Yeah," he said.

Ron and Hermione walked away then, and Harry turned to face Draco. To Harry's surprise, though, it was Nott who caught his eye and tilted his head towards the doors that led out onto the grounds before he started walking in that direction.

Puzzled, Harry followed.


Nott kept walking into the Forbidden Forest once they were outside, until he was near the place where he had found Harry when Harry was sulking after being chosen by the Goblet. Then he turned around, stared at Harry, and sighed as if he was releasing poison from his lungs.

"I didn't intend that to happen."

Harry smiled a little. He thought he was probably hearing a Slytherin apology. "I know you didn't, Nott."

"But it did."

Harry half-shrugged. "Yes, but no one could have known about Mr. Malfoy being my godfather, if Mr. Malfoy himself didn't know it. You don't have to worry. I'll accept your gesture the way it was intended."

"And how do you think I intended it?"

Nott was leaning back against a tree, his arms folded, his eyes so guarded that Harry wondered if he had done or said something that had made Nott upset. But he just had to say, "You saw weakness, and you wanted me to stop being weak. If Draco had known we were godbrothers, he might have done the same."

Nott stared at him some more, and then tilted his head back and laughed just when Harry would have asked what was the matter. "You call him Draco. And godbrother?"

"My father made a promise when he and Mr. Malfoy were young that he would make Mr. Malfoy the godfather of his firstborn child. And Mr. Malfoy made the same promise. I suppose he—took it seriously."

"Yes, he probably took a vow," Nott said, and shrugged a little when Harry blinked at him. "It binds even beyond death, if you make it in the right way, and someone can lose their magic or worse when they violate it. I'm a little surprised that your father would have taken something like that, but…"

Harry nodded, part of him relaxing. It made sense if a vow had bound them, and that was why his dad had decided to make Mr. Malfoy the godfather. Harry had been a little worried that it meant his dad approved of Mr. Malfoy being a Death Eater or something.

"I didn't teach you that spell because I despise weakness."

Harry cocked his head. "All right. Why, then?"

"Because I saw how loyal you were to your friends. Even when Weasley turned on you and Granger didn't defend you as strongly as she was defending Weasley, you still wanted to talk to them, to have them back." Nott took a long step towards Harry, who swallowed nervously, suddenly unsure whether the space between the trees was big enough to hold them both. "I want that loyalty for myself."

"You think I would…"

"Be loyal to someone who did something for you? Yes." Nott smiled, and it was a different smile than before, twisted across his face like the roots across the forest floor around them. "I already have proof that you are. If you had told them where you'd learned that spell to make the Goblet reveal the truth, I already would have been dragged up to Dumbledore's office."

Harry nodded slowly. "They tried to make me tell, but I wouldn't."

"Of course not."

"You could have just asked to be my friend, Nott."

"I'm sure that would work for most of the people you know."

Harry spent a long moment looking at Nott, who looked back at him. His eyes were deep and dark and had gone back to not showing what he was thinking. Harry nodded and stepped towards Nott, who tensed.

"You're my friend," Harry said softly, almost into Nott's ear, and watched in interest as Nott shivered a little. That was new. "And you don't need to do anything else to prove it. I'm loyal to you because that's what friends do."

Nott stared at him.

Harry winked at him, and then turned around and walked back to Hogwarts. Nott didn't follow him.


"Do you have to?"

Harry grimaced a little. He was sitting in a circle of chairs in a corner of the Gryffindor common room with Ginny and Ron and Hermione gathered around him. And of course that was the first question Ginny had asked after Harry had explained that he was going to stay with the Malfoys for part of the summer.

"Yeah, I have to. Mr. Malfoy is my godfather, and it seems that he takes that responsibility seriously."

"But you know what he did—to me."

Harry nodded. "I don't have an answer for you, Ginny," he said, after a minute had passed with her staring at her hands clenched in her lap and Ron and Hermione looking at Harry. "Mr. Malfoy was bound to be my godfather by a vow, probably. Otherwise, I think he would have turned against me, too. I think he's a horrible person, and this isn't really—it isn't that he's a good person, it's that he'll protect me."

"But you have another godfather who will protect you, too," Hermione whispered, checking over her shoulder, even though they'd put Privacy Charms up and told Ginny about Sirius being innocent. "You could reject Mr. Malfoy."

"Not if it means having to go back to the Dursleys again."

"Harry, they didn't treat you that badly—"

"Yeah, they bloody did."

Hermione blinked at him in what seemed to be true surprise. Harry pulled his anger back. He'd never told her the details about it, and she could have heard about the bars from Ron or the twins but thought they were joking.

"They made me sleep in a cupboard," he said. "They called me freak all the time, and let my cousin beat me up, and decided not to feed me as a punishment. They told me that my parents were addicts who died in a car accident because they were driving drunk. The summer before second year, the summer Ron and Fred and George rescued me? They had me locked in my bedroom and were feeding me through a cat flap. Yeah, Hermione. I'd live with Voldemort if he'd swear a vow not to kill me over that."

Hermione made a sound of despair and suddenly hugged him. "Oh, Harry, we never knew it was that bad! I'm so sorry!"

Harry sat stiffly for a second and then hugged her back. He turned to Ron and Ginny, whose eyes were huge.

"I'm sorry the Malfoys hurt you," he said. "I still think Draco's a git, and I don't like Mr. Malfoy. But I am going to live with them in the summers. I don't think Sirius can take me, and I'm never going back to the Dursleys again."

Ron swallowed. Then he nodded. "'Course, mate."

Harry turned and looked at Ginny. She was the one of them who had been hurt the worst by the Malfoys, and Harry wouldn't really blame her for walking away and deciding she didn't want to deal with this.

On the other hand, he also wouldn't walk away from having Mr. Malfoy as a godfather and getting out of the Tri-Wizard Tournament because she disapproved.

Ginny said nothing for a long minute. Then she said, "My mum said once that Mr. Malfoy would do anything for friends of his family. Well, then she snorted and said that she meant allies, because a pureblood like Mr. Malfoy doesn't really have friends. But it seems he considered your dad a friend, and you're important to him because of being his godson. Do you think you can make him—make promises to treat us well because we're your friends?"

Harry smiled. "Of course. That's a brilliant idea, Ginny. Draco has already acted as though he'll stop making remarks about Gryffindors because I am one and I'm his godbrother."

"It really should be that he decides not to say things like that because of the principle of the thing," Hermione murmured, pulling back and wiping away her tears. "Or decides not to use the word Mudblood again."

"Right, but that's not going to happen. So I'll go with what will work."

"Very practical of you, Harry."

Harry couldn't know for certain if Hermione really approved of that, but he just shrugged, because this was another thing he was going to cling to no matter what happened or what anyone said. He didn't like Draco. He didn't trust Mr. Malfoy. But he would ensure they behaved, in return for what they could offer him.


"What's he doing here?"

Harry looked up, ready to head off another confrontation between Draco and his friends, but his eyes widened when he saw Theodore Nott step out from between the library shelves and walk briskly towards the table where he and Ron and Hermione were sitting.

Hermione watched Nott warily. Ron had his arms folded and a scowl already building up on his face. As it was, Harry felt a bit wary himself.

He had assumed that he would meet Nott in the Forest and other hidden places and they would continue their friendship that way. The courage it must have taken Nott to come up to him in public like this was…immense.

"Potter."

"Nott."

Harry hated the stiffness in his own voice. It shouldn't be like this. They should be laughing and seeking each other's eyes for a more private laugh over the fact that no one knew Nott had taught Harry the spell to control the Goblet.

But they weren't doing that. And Nott was even potentially risking trouble because Dumbledore might hear about this and decide he did know the truth about who had taught Harry the spell.

Nott let his eyes pass over Ron's scowling face and Hermione's gaping one and then come back to Harry. He nodded. "See you around, Potter."

And he turned and left.

"Harry, why was he here?"

Harry turned around and told the lie that he was pretty sure Nott would want him to tell, given that he wouldn't want to be exposed for having taught Harry the spell to work on the Goblet. "He's one of Draco's friends. And, well, Draco hexed Crabbe the other day for using the word Mudblood about Justin in Hufflepuff. So I think Nott is trying to be nice because Draco would want him to."

"Oh." Hermione's eyes flickered after Nott's retreating back, and she shook her head. "Honestly, you would think they could be pleasant just because it would be the right thing to do…"

Harry nodded absently along with her lecture, but part of him was rolling in delight and surprise and shock.

Nott had decided that Harry's friends were worth being pleasant to, or at least not taunting in public, for the same reason Draco had. Because Harry mattered to him.

It was—something he had never considered.

Something he wanted to ask about.


Draco sighed, his nose wrinkling. "Of course I won't hex or taunt your friends anymore. They're your friends. And we're godbrothers."

Harry leaned forwards to take a sweet from the bowl in front of him. Draco had found a place deep in the dungeons that he claimed used to be the ancient Slytherin common room, and had taken Harry there. Harry wasn't sure if he believed Draco, but the room was comfortable, large and decorated in stones with bright green and silver tinges, and there was a bowl on the low table that was always filled with sweets of all kinds. Chocolates, in this case.

"Does being godbrothers matter so much? I've never heard anyone else talk about it."

Draco laughed a little. "And that's what you base things being important or not important on?"

Harry shrugged, sucking on his chocolate. The couch was comfortable, too.

"Well, I suppose that you wouldn't have a lot of other things to base it on, growing up with Muggles as you did."

Harry frowned. He didn't like the way that Draco seemed to dismiss all of Harry's experiences growing up if he thought he could trace them back to Muggles. But Harry had also come to accept that it wasn't really one of those things worth arguing about.

"Godbrothers, or godsiblings in general, are…" Draco seemed to be searching for words. "They don't happen that much anymore, because people get appointed as godparents to someone else's children, but they don't always return the favor. Especially in the last generation, with the war. Lots of people didn't survive to have children of their own." Draco's voice was low.

Harry nodded.

"Our parents found each other to be worthy—"

"And to fight on opposite sides of a war."

Harry wasn't sure why he pushed back at Draco so much, why he tried so hard to irritate him. He supposed it was just because he was waiting for the mask to crack, for Draco to turn out like those kids at Muggle school who had supposedly been his friends until Dudley pushed them away.

Sometimes literally.

"Yeah, but that was later. The important thing is that they were friends, once." Draco leaned forwards, eyes fastened earnestly on Harry. "That's important. My father had very few friends. It's no wonder that he named your dad my godfather even though he knew by then they would be fighting on opposite sides of a war."

"And my dad did the same thing." That was still weird to think about.

Draco nodded earnestly, his hair falling into his eyes. The time he spent with Harry was the only one when Harry didn't see it combed into perfection. "I mean, yours also fluffed his Abraxans by appointing another godfather, his best friend at the time. I'm sure that he never really thought Father would take up his responsibilities. But he did it. And that means that Father has the responsibilities."

"And towards Ron and Hermione as well?"

Draco grimaced a little. "I won't attack them. I'll hex people who speak badly about them, or say Mudblood. But Father wouldn't do something like recommend Granger for a job at the Ministry he didn't think she was qualified for."

Harry stared at him for a second. Then he laughed. "You know that Hermione will qualify for something all on her own, right?"

"Oh, I have no doubt."

"And anyway, your father wouldn't recommend her for anything. He believes in blood purity. He would think she wasn't qualified just because she's Muggleborn."

Draco was silent for a second, struggling for a long moment. Then he said, "That's political, you know."

"His hatred is political."

"Yes."

"He can turn it on and off like a light switch?"

"What's a light switch?"

Harry sighed. Sometimes speaking to Draco was like speaking with one of the Muggle kids that Dudley had driven away, and sometimes it wasn't.

But Harry still knew which world he would prefer to be in.

"Never mind. Muggle thing. I just don't believe that he can hate people and then stop hating people on a whim."

"Oh, I think he hates Muggleborns all the time. But how he expresses that is up to him. He would recommend a talented Muggleborn if he thought it would benefit him."

"Okay. Then he won't recommend Hermione, ever."

"Don't be stupid, Harry. It would benefit him because it would make you happy."

Harry felt a moment's uncomplicated warmth, and then his mood crashed down again. "Right, because I'm the Boy-Who-Lived."

Draco rolled his eyes probably as hard as he was capable of and said, "No, because it would make you happy, and he likes seeing you happy."

Harry took another chocolate and ate it instead of replying. Honestly, he thought he could see what Draco was saying, but he also couldn't discount that it was because he was the Boy-Who-Lived and Mr. Malfoy would benefit from people seeing him go along with Harry's political agenda.

This is so complicated.