AN: Hay ho, here I come, sailing in 14 months later with a new chapter. There was a serious burnout in there, and then a desperate attempt to finish my thesis in time, which failed anyway. Hopefully, I will at least be able to finish this story...one day.
A quick reminder of where we are: Harry's fourth year, Harry was just extracted from competing in the Tournament. Five Horcruxes are destroyed. There are vague suspicions abut Moody. Kingsley is Head Auror and trying to prepare as much as possible for Riddle's return.
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The reporter, when Harry spoke to her, was serious and solemn.
"What do you believe was the intention behind putting your name in the Goblet of Fire, Mr. Potter?" She asked.
Harry, who had discussed his answers with his cousin in detail beforehand, replied: "I honestly hope it was a prank. It was in really bad taste, though, because if it wasn't for my cousin's knowledge of law I might have ended up actually competing and from what I know about Triwizard Tournament, it would have been extremely risky for me."
"Do you believe you wouldn't be up to the tasks, then?" She pressed.
Harry shrugged. "I don't know, do I? I don't know the tasks. But I haven't even done my OWLs yet. I know the tournament is for students, not for adults with completely finished education, but still. I'd be willing to test my mettle in Quidditch against just about anyone, but as for the rest, I'm not confident enough to think I know everything I'd need to know for something big like this."
She nodded in understanding. "So what would be your message to the prankster, then?"
Given that the 'prankster' was most likely Riddle, or someone who worked for him, Harry honestly wanted to say 'choke on a fish bone and die'. He controlled himself, however, and simply said: "Don't do stuff like this again, I guess? But I mean, like I said, a prank is still the better option. What worries me is that from what I can understand, to convince such a powerful object as the Goblet of Fire that there were actually four schools...well, I don't think just any student could handle it. I suppose a really talented seventh-year...or an adult."
"So you believe it to be an attack?" She immediately caught on.
Harry have a small, fake hesitation. "I don't want to sound paranoid," he said then, "and it would be a strangely complicated way to attack me. It's just all around strange, and definitely not completely innocent. I hesitate to say it, but it reminds me of the World Cup...there, too, people were speculating if it was just a joke in bad taste or something worse..."
"You believe it was done by the same person, then?" She wondered.
"I have no idea," Harry replied completely honestly. "It doesn't seem all that likely, does it? It's more...the same kind of person, you know? The kind of person that makes jokes that potentially involve someone's death in some way."
Fenwick grimaced a little. "All right, we have got very grim," she said. "So let me lighten up the conversation a bit. You mentioned you'd test your mettle in Quidditch against anyone. Does that include Mr. Krum?"
The interview veered into Quidditch after that, but Harry had a good feeling about it and Alduin, too, told him he'd done a good job.
The reception at school was mixed. His closest friends already knew his point of view, of course, but Sophie still told him he was being overly cautious, and Zacharias Smith, during the next Herbology lesson, sneered at him.
"That's the fabled Gryffindor bravery?" He asked. "Oh, woe is me, I can't compete in a tournament, I'd surely die!"
Before Harry could answer, Susan Bones appeared to roll her eyes. "Why are you such a prat, Zach?" She asked him.
No one else voiced their opinion quite so decidedly, but he knew a lot of them thought the same. Pansy was trying her best not to say a wrong word to him these days, but he could read the opinion in her face. It irritated him, and sometimes he wanted to scream at everyone to remind them this was not a bloody joke; but of course, they didn't know that, did they? They didn't have an ominous prophecy about them and dreams featuring Riddle…
All in all, he was not in such a great mood, and when a strange woman grabbed his arm in the corridor one day he almost drew his wand at her. "What?" He asked, probably rather rudely, but what was it with people grabbing him, seriously?
"Oh, Harry," the woman said. "I read the charming interview you gave to my colleague. Would you speak to me for a moment, too?" She asked, and without waiting for a reply, began to drag him somewhere.
"No," Harry said, digging his heels in.
"But why?" She wheedled, still trying to tug on his arm. "I see you have no trouble speaking to the papers..."
"To reporters I know," Harry corrected her.
"Reporters your cousin picked for you, you mean," she said, probably trying to sound shrewd. "Don't you want to try your independence a bit?"
Even if he had, it wouldn't have been with a woman like this. "Let me go," he said firmly.
"Oh come on, Harry, don't be like that." She actually batted her eyelashes at him. He was feeling mildly nauseous.
He was unsure what to do and considering drawing his wand when some other students appeared in the corridor and she rapidly let him go. "Some other time, perhaps," she tittered as she walked away.
Perplexed, Harry mentioned the encounter in his letter to Alduin.
In response, he was told he just met the most notorious gossip reporter of the wizarding world, and to never ever speak a word to her. "I'll ensure the Prophet doesn't print anything she might make up about you," Alduin assured him.
Harry thanked him, but he was thinking about her words of his dependence. He really should learn how to do things like this for himself, should he not? He was half adult according to the wizarding world, and he would have to know at some point. No sense putting it off, he supposed, though the more cynical part of him whispered that maybe Riddle would kill him before it would ever become an issue.
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Alduin saw Abdullah less often these days, as he no longer needed his help so desperately, but they did still meet up regularly, Abdullah clearly regarding it as his sacred duty of some sort.
Not that Alduin was complaining. It was nice to be able to complain to someone about the never-ending shite Harry tended to get entangled in.
Sometimes it was even funny. This day, unfortunately, was not one of those days.
"I spoke to Daniel Goldstein," he said, "about Harry."
Abdullah straightened up in his chair. "Did you finally come clear to him about what you needed from him?"
Alduin grimaced. "Yes. You can imagine his reaction."
"Pure, unadultered horror?"
"Pretty much, yes. He promised to look into it, but..." Alduin had to close his eyes to get his next words out. "He didn't look very hopeful."
Not that Alduin had expected he would be. He'd known it was a long shot. Still, there was that persistent thread of optimism, tiny but somehow still surviving, that had insisted that perhaps Daniel would simply smile and say that the solution was easy.
Well, he had not.
Abdullah pressed his hand, and when Alduin opened his eyes he could see him grimacing. "He might still find something," he said, but it sounded weak to the both of them, so they sat in silence, Alduin, once again, longing for a drink.
He had had one, actually, directly after coming home from his conversation with Daniel, and hen spent the whole following day both miserable and ashamed. He would much rather not repeat the experience, but still, the itch was persistent.
"Are you going to tell Harry?" Abdullah asked quietly.
"Not until it becomes necessary."
"Which will be when?"
Alduin exhaled. "Not until Riddle actually comes back, as more than this weird shadow or whatever he is now." Maybe he should get Theodore to explain instead, as the expert? Only that would require telling himt he truth about the Horcrux in Harry to explain how they got the information, and Alduin would much rather not. He didn't distrust Theodore exactly, but this information was a strictly need-to-know basis.
Abdullah frowned. "So you mean to tell him directly when the return is confirmed?"
Alduin thought about that. "No," he decided. One shock at a time would be quite enough. "I guess it'll depend on what happens next. If Riddle starts another war without further ado, I'll have to tell him...pretty soon. Otherwise...well, I'd really like to wait at least until he was seventeen with this, but as it is stands, chances are slim. Still, the later I can wait, the older he is, the better. Children shouldn't be forced to deal with this."
"No one should be forced to deal wit this," Abdullah replied, and well, Alduin could only concur.
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The morning before the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry received a curious letter from Sirius, talking about his Prophet interview.
Sometimes people don't pull dangerous pranks out of maliciousness, but just because they don't think it through, ro there are other extenuating circumstances. Not that I think it was the case with the Goblet and you, but you know, just keep it in mind.
Have you discussed it with Alduin? Did he maybe tell you to say that in the interview? I swear I'm not trying to criticise him again, I'm just being curious.
Harry had no idea what that was about, and refused to ruin his mornign by contemplating it.
He was looking forward to the first task with the added curiosity of someone who knew this had almost been his fate.
He'd agreed to sit with the Slytherins, because they, at least, had a reasonable attitude to Harry's participation in the Tournament. They all unanimously declared that it was a relief Alduin was able to extract him from the situation, and wondered how exactly it was arranged in the first place.
So Harry met up with them in the Entrance Hall and joined the crowd of students that was headed down to the ground, and, as it turned out, towards the Forbidden Forest.
Were the champions expected to go into he Forest on their own and just survive? Surely not?
As he found out, though, it was much worse.
Because whatever lived in the Forest would have clearly been too easy.
When Harry saw the first dragon appear, he stared, his mouth open in mute horror.
"Damn," Daphne said after a long while, when she apparently found her words. "Well, thank your lucky starts you didn't have to do this, Harry."
Harry only nodded. He'd have been – there was no other word for it – fucked.
He didn't think he could deal with a dragon even after months of preparation, and from what he could understand, the Champions had no warning at all.
"Are they actually trying to get them killed?" Draco wondered.
Harry privately thought it would explain his name in the Goblet quite well. If whoever threw it in knew what the first task was, Harry could easily imagine they'd think the chance was just too good to pass up. After all, there was no Quidditch this year for convenient accidents to happen.
Cedric Diggory was pale when he walked out of the tent, but he at least seemed to know what he planned to do. It was an interesting idea – he transformed a stone into a dog, and tried to draw the dragon's attention to it. It looked like it was about to work, and Harry cheered with everyone else, when suddenly the dragon noticed that her eggs were in danger, and she whipped around, suddenly going after Cedric. Now Harry joined the others in screaming, terrified a Champion would actually die, and in the first task to boot, but thankfully Cedric grabbed the egg and rolled aside just as the flames came in – those Seeker reflexes, Harry supposed, came in handy.
"What the hell?" Draco said when it was done and Cedric was taken to Madame Pomfrey to take care of his bad burns. "How...how in Merlin's name did anyone think this was an appropriate task for students to be dealing with? Just...how?"
"You already knew Dumbledore was crazy," Theo replied, though his voice made it clear he was equally shaken.
"Dumbledore, yeah," Draco replied. "But the Ministry actually helped prepare this..."
Theo snorted. "What, and you thought Fudge was better?"
They were distracted by the judges voting, evaluating the performance by giving points out of ten. Mostly, they were sixes and sevens, except for Karkaroff, who gave Cedric a five, and Bagman, who gave him a nine for some mysterious reason.
Fleur Delacour stepped into the arena next, and now they had seen how dangerous the task actually was, they all sat on tenterhooks, watching as she used a charm to put the dragon into a trance, and it looked like it was going to go well except the dragon suddenly snorted and her robes caught on fire, making the audience gasp, worried until she put it out with an aguamenti charm and then grabbed the egg and sprinted away.
Only then could Harry breathe freely again.
"This is nerve-wracking," he muttered.
Greg, who'd covered his eyes the moment Fleur's robes caught on fire, grunted out an assent.
Still, she made it out better than Cedric – and her marks reflected that - so Harry was hopeful Krum's turn wouldn't be quite so brutal either. In fact, it turned out the Quidditch star made it out completely unharmed, being the only one. He'd used a blinding curse on the dragon, and the only problem was that the dragon had trampled some of the other eggs as it stumbled around, confused. The judges were supposed to take off points for that, but Karkaroff seemed to have missed the memo, giving Krum full marks.
"That guy," Harry muttered.
"Yeah," Daphne agreed. "He hasn't seen fair from a distance."
As result of this, Krum had a three point lead over Fleur now, and she in turn had four points over Cedric.
"Not a great beginning for Hogwarts, eh?" Draco muttered as they rost with the rest of the school and headed down the stands.
"Well," Harry said, "there are still two more tasks left to go."
But frankly, he wasn't at all sure if that should be a consolation or a source of dread.
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AN: I thought long and hard about whether Cedric would have been warned without Harry being there to tell him, but in the end I decided that Hagrid is loyal to Hogwarts enough that when he went to show the dragons to Madame Maxime, he'd want to take at least one Hogwarts Champion with him. Cedric would probably try to leave as soon as he realized he was involved in cheating, but he couldn't exactly unsee it...