"What is it?" the elf girl, whose name turned out to be Fleur, asked as Harry entered the small lounge. It was the evening after he'd put his and his housemate's names into the Goblet, and things had gone weird. "Do zey want us back in ze hall?" She was standing near the room's fireplace with Viktor and Cedric to either side of her.

"Or are you another challenger?" Cedric asked with an amused grin. He'd been around, he knew how Harry's life worked. Honestly, Harry wasn't sure how the older boy was going to be Vanaheim's challenger, with how his injuries from the World Cup still pained him. He seemed to be having a bad day, sticking close to the fire and leaning on his cane, since the room lacked seating.

"Reporting to represent Midgard, that's me!" Harry agreed. The school had been surprised when a fourth name popped out of the flames after theoretically all the challengers had been selected. But then Dumbledore had read Harry's name out, and the surprise turned to annoyed resignation.

"Congrats!" Viktor told him, with a nod, taking a step forward to shake his hand. Harry realized that the boy must have been uncomfortable in the room with two other students he didn't really know… especially since Fleur's hair had gone up into curls not at all unlike Hermione's as she gave Viktor her attention.

"But you are too young, non?" she asked. Harry still wasn't totally sure why Alfheim seemed to come with a French accent. But he guessed it made as much sense as Vanaheim coming with an English one.

As she focused on him, he noticed that her hair started to redden. For a moment, he figured that she was picking up on his interest in Susan Bones, but then he realized that her facial features were changing to subtly reflect Natasha. Thankful for Moody's earlier lesson, he tried to clamp down mentally on whatever she was reading off of him. His scar prickled a bit, and she gasped slightly as her empathic insight into his mind was suddenly cut off. Her eyes narrowed in newfound appreciation that he might be competition after all.

"This is Harry Potter," Cedric told her. "He's probably fought more than most people twice his age. Even if he didn't have to face dark elf assassins like we did."

"But ve did," Viktor cautioned. "They come for me too, vhen Harry is there. He and his friends are only reason I survived."

Suddenly Harry's eyes widened as it all clicked. "You were the most likely challengers from your schools! Someone hired the dark elves to kill or maim you so you couldn't compete in the tournament."

"Because we might beat you?" Fleur asked, noticing that Viktor hadn't said Harry had been a target as well.

"How would they have known Harry would be included, since he's too young?" Cedric argued, not discounting the idea. "Maybe someone second place wanted to get in, and eliminate the strongest competition while they were at it. I'd bet one of the Slytherins."

"Or one of my schoolmates," Viktor figured. "Vasily, perhaps."

"My year-mates would never," Fleur argued, but then shrugged, "at least not to 'ire dark elves."

Before they could pick at the mystery any further, the door opened again and as many adults as would fit in the small lounge pushed their way in. To be fair, Madame Maxime filled up a solid quarter of the room herself.

"Four challengers!" Bagman said merrily. "It's going to be one for the history books, folks!"

"But 'ogwarts cannot have two challengers!" Maxime argued. "It's unfair!"

"I concur," Karkaroff—Durmstrang's sketchy-looking headmaster—added, clamping a hand on Viktor's shoulder. The boy barely concealed a grimace of distaste at the fatherly contact.

"I believe that we'll find that Hogwarts does not," Crouch said. "The challengers represent realms, not schools. It's true that Midgard has not competed previously, but that's only because they have traditionally waited to train wizards as full adults. I understand that Potter has talked Kamar-Taj into making an exception for him and his friends?"

"Summer school, and sometimes during winter break," Harry agreed. "I guess I should write the Ancient One and let her know…"

Dumbledore looked at him shrewdly and asked, "Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?"

"I did," Harry admitted, trying to convey his certainty that the headmaster wanted him to. "But for Vanaheim. It didn't actually occur to me to put in for Midgard. I guess the Norns decided it would be funnier this way?"

"See, Potter wants to compete!" Bagman agreed. "It's all above board. I'm sure the Norns know what they're doing. What an exciting update. Should we call it the Four-Worlds Tournament in the marketing?"

"It would be Quad-Worlds, or maybe Quadra-Worlds," Crouch disagreed, since he was absolutely that guy.

"Doesn't roll off the tongue as well," Bagman shrugged.

"Wasn't there supposed to be an age ward?" Karkaroff asked, acidly. "I think Dumbledore just wants two bites of the apple."

"Or someone's trying to kill the boy," Moody interjected. Harry hadn't even noticed him in the crowd, with Maxime in the way. "Seems to me that two of them had assassins trying to keep them out of the tournament." He fixed Karkaroff with both of his eyes and suggested, "Clearing the competition for your boy with your dark elf friends?"

"We were just talking about that before you came in, sir, and they also went after Krum," Cedric countered, before whatever beef the two men had could flare up. "And if someone was after Potter, how could whoever hired the assassins have known that the Norns would let him into the tournament?"

"If they even did," Moody argued. "Seems to me that it would be a lot easier to trick a magic item than the Norns themselves." He had the singed slip of paper with Harry's name on it that Dumbledore had caught from the cup and showed it to Harry. "That the slip you submitted?"

He peered at it and said, "Yeah, except, like I said, I wrote Vanaheim, not Midgard. That part's not really my handwriting, but maybe the cup changed it?" He was kind of with Moody that the whole thing was hinky, so he suggested, "Honestly, I could forfeit if people are worried about it. It just seemed like it would be fun. I don't need the prize or glory or anything, and I like all these guys." Well, he liked Viktor and Cedric and was willing to assume that Fleur was cool, too.

"I'm afraid you can't," Dumbledore said. "Even if Alastor is correct that the Goblet was tampered with to change your realm and ensure you a spot, it is still an ancient device of fortune and you did willingly enter. Unless we are certain that the Norns' will has been thwarted, attempting to abandon the tournament could have dire repercussions."

Crouch nodded, "I believe I recall a story of a challenger that attempted to flee after the first task, and only found himself stumbling into the second task through a series of accidents and without any preparation."

"Got it. Compete or get Final Destinationed into competing anyway," Harry shrugged. He gave it a beat and said, "I was going to get stuck in this tournament no matter what, right? It was just this year's dangerous thing. Maybe we should just all concentrate on who hired the dark elves and try to have a good time?"

"I agree," Viktor said, as Karkaroff was about to object again.

Madame Maxime was going to object herself, but Fleur shrugged and said, "It is interesting. I also am fine wiz it." The mystery of the assassins and Harry's ability to resist her empathic abilities had drawn her in.

"Excellent! Perfect, even!" Bagman said. "That's all the objections? Great. Let's just get the details out about the first task. Those details are… we don't really know exactly when or what it will be.

"The first task is traditionally about testing your daring. The auguries are good that a convergence should open nearby in the next few weeks. Once it is, we'll nip in there, figure out how to use the environment it opens to for a good, challenging task. Then we'll call you up, send you in, and see who comes out ahead. Did I forget anything?"

Crouch added, "Yes. You can take no enchanted or technological items into the first task: just your personal skill at magic and athleticism. A panel of judges made up of myself, Mr. Bagman, and the headmasters will award your score."

"I need to get a headmaster, then?" Harry checked. "I was going to write to Kamar-Taj anyway, or do you want to?"

Dumbledore frowned but allowed, "I shall contact the Ancient One, and ask her to come or send another of her Masters in her stead."

"Great! Fabulous!" Bagman said. "Meet everyone down at the Three Broomsticks for drinks?"

As the adults left, trying to work out who would be going down to the pub, and their headmasters ushered Viktor and Fleur back toward their lodgings on the grounds, Harry was left to wander back in the direction of their dorms with Cedric. The great hall had emptied of students while they'd been inside the lounge, and was dimly lit still from when the room's torches had been lowered to enhance the spectacle of names being spat out by the Goblet. "So… tell me…" Cedric asked. "How did you get your name in?"

"Trade secret," Harry grinned, not willing to give up intelligence about his cloak to a competitor—especially now that he knew it was powerful enough to let him through at least some kinds of wards. Figuring that he had to explain something, he suggested, "Let's just say that both my father and godfather were pranksters worse than the Weasley twins. Now that Sirius is back, he's been teaching me some tricks."

"Regular Loki-worshippers, huh?"

"You don't know the half of it. They even made friends with Peeves." Harry thought about it fondly, and then realized, "I guess I should tell Sirius that I'm a challenger. Oh no. I also have to tell my aunt."

"My father's going to be thrilled," Cedric said, with some faint bitterness. Ron had passed on that Mr. Diggory was a little too little-league-dad, so maybe the boy didn't like the idea of his father gushing.

"Are you going to be up for it," Harry asked, gesturing at how Cedric was leaning hard on his cane as they walked out.

"I should hopefully be fine in another month. St. Mungo's didn't really know how to heal that kind of wound, so that set me back. It's not actually that bad. Worst case, I can take a pain potion for the task and pay for it later."

"Guess we've got no choice, huh?" Harry asked. "If the Norns won't let me forfeit, they're not going to let you out because you're injured. Man. Did we all just sign up to get killed?"

"I'm sure it's not as bad as that," Cedric disagreed. "I don't think anyone's died in this for centuries."

"Small statistical sample size," Harry argued. "They haven't had many of these in centuries. One death every three tournaments is still over ten percent."

"Well if you're going to do arithmancy about it," Hufflepuff's golden boy gave him a genuine, if pained smile. They exited the great hall and Harry turned to the stairs while Cedric moved to go down to the Hufflepuff dorms. "Night, Harry."

"Night, Cedric."

When Harry stepped through the portrait into the Gryffindor common room, it was to raucous applause. There was already a party ongoing, with music in the background courtesy of Hermione's clockwork record player (she'd assembled the prototype off of Tony's designs, and was still working on using magic to make it self-winding and increase the volume, but it was much more music than they'd had). "It it wasn't me, at least it was someone from Gryffindor!" Angelina yelled, handing him a glass of buttermead.

"I wonder if it would have been Oliver if he'd still been here," one of the twins figured.

"Since we're in on the Midgard technicality," the other explained.

"Harry might have beaten Cedric, if he'd put in for Vanaheim," Ginny insisted.

"I did, though," Harry assured them. "We don't know why I got picked for Earth. Moody thinks someone manipulated the Goblet trying to kill me or something."

"Someone's always trying to kill you," Dean figured. "We'll see how well it turns out this time."

"You did put in all of our names?" Katie Bell asked.

"Me and everyone else in one big handful," Harry agreed.

"Then the Norns think Harry and Gryffindor have got it!" Alicia Spinnet said, raising her own glass of buttermead to toast and getting the whole house to join in.

Harry collapsed into bed way too late after the party. While it was clear that basically everyone wished they had been chosen, most of them were pretty sure that Harry's combination of experience fighting monsters, skill with wandless magic, and overall chosen one status wasn't something they could challenge. Well, Cormac McLaggen wouldn't shut up about how he should have been challenger, but basically nobody listened to Cormac. Harry had even been nice enough to include his name in those put in the Goblet; he probably wished he could pretend that he'd have been chosen if not for the age wards.

"This tournament is bilgesnipe dung," Ron tiredly complained as the boys were drifting off to sleep. "The one time in over a century, and I'm up against Harry. Of course I didn't get picked."

"Just think if you just graduated," Dean figured. "Bet Percy and Oliver are going to be pissed they might have been picked if they'd had it last year."

"I bet Percy already knows," Ron said. "He works for Crouch. I could tell he was keeping something from all of us this summer."

"Honestly," Harry said, already half-unconscious, "if it weren't based on the convergences and the Norns, I'd just think it was Dumbledore throwing something else at me. Huh. Maybe I've been blaming him all this time, but it's mostly the Norns that have been messing with me."

"Why not both?" Dean said, his own voice trailing off as he fell asleep.

"Bilgesnipe dung," Ron grumbled his way to unconsciousness.

Harry dreamed. His strangely-vivid sci-fi nightmares had been waning since school started, but he was suddenly again on one of the spaceships crawling with alien zombies. A creepy, robed sci-fi necromancer with a gold facemask rasped, "It is done. The plan can proceed. Our ally will make sure he is in place when the time comes." Another alien, tall, thin, gray-skinned, and missing a nose nodded in acknowledgement and said in a high-pitched voice, "I will be ready to resume the charade." The dream dissolved into less vivid fare with only that simple conversation.

The reality of what he'd signed up for began to catch up with Harry by the next morning, and he figured he better fess up to his aunt before she found out from someone else. He got a quick letter penned to her and sent with Hedwig right after breakfast. In his free period after lunch, he mirror-called Sirius.

"That's amazing, pup!" his godfather told him. "Your father and I were always hoping there'd be a tournament while we were in school, but the realms didn't line up for it."

"You're not worried I'll die? Or that elf assassins got sent after the other challengers?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine. Think of it! This is your chance to write your own legend. I know you don't like being the Boy-Who-Lived." Harry had forgotten he'd complained about that to Sirius. "Just start thinking about something spectacular you can do, and we'll get you a new nickname based on that!"

"I don't guess they told you what the first task is going to be?" Harry asked, hopefully.

His godfather shook his head, "The Ministry's been keeping it under their hats, if they even know. Though if you're right that Molly Weasley knew about the tournament and didn't share… I'll ask around to see what the rumor mill has. And I guess I'll poke people about the hunt for those assassins. You're probably not wrong that it's related. But whether it was just some jerk trying to get their own kid a slot or some greater conspiracy around you, I don't know."

"I don't think I'd ever lose money betting it was some conspiracy about me."

Sirius chided, "Don't let your head get too big! Sometimes it's just a conspiracy that you bump into and thwart, right?"

"Fair. I guess I'll hope it was just Vasily trying to bump off Viktor and I already did my part helping save his life. Oh, I think I'm supposed to meet the study group to check our homework before runes class. Talk to you later!"

Pepper's response came back within two days, which was fast for her.

Dear Harry,

You're obviously grounded. We'll figure out for how long once we find out how dangerous of a situation you got yourself into this time. Honestly, it's like you're trying to get yourself killed. I'd feel better if grounding actually convinced you to stop it with these stunts.

Also… I told Tony. Not everything, but enough. After meeting Sirius, he was getting suspicious, and I figured that I should tell him before he figured it out on his own. He's pretty mad and we're not really talking right now. I think you might want to stay with Sirius for the winter holidays, just to give Tony enough time to cool off and accept it. Sorry.

Love,

Pepper

"Well that's great!" Hermione said, when Harry informed them about Tony. "Or it's terrible, if he goes and tells more people. Wait. Do you think he knows it's all of us? What if SHIELD comes for my parents!?"

Harry hadn't gotten to that question as quickly as Hermione and thought about it. He mused, "I think Aunt Pepper would have warned them if that seemed like a thing Tony would do. If he's not talking to her, he's probably being quietly mad. I don't think he'd run off and tell SHIELD. Maybe Rhodey. She should have told him as soon as they started dating."

"Yeah," Dean nodded. "That's some 80s sci-fi/comedy shenanigans. My Stepmother is an Alien, or something. Shame she doesn't have any powers. They're probably doing a whole arc where he needs her to save his life in some weird way before he accepts her."

"Or they do separate dances, that turn into one big dance number as they come to terms with each other," Parvati suggested.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but was, herself, genre-aware enough to realize that if she protested that they weren't characters in a movie, someone would point out all the adventures they'd been on that would seem to prove otherwise.

Despite the fact that the challengers were all basically friends and, in their limited interactions, were willing to treat the tournament as a friendly rivalry, the rest of the students weren't. Perhaps it had something to do with the sign-up sheets for the promised non-task competitions that appeared toward the end of the week after the challengers were chosen. Someone had the bright idea that it would be more fair to the visiting schools if the Midgardborn were pulled into their own faction, along with Harry representing Earth. This limited Hogwarts' numbers advantage, but cut faultlines through the student body.

Slytherin was basically totally unsplit, having no admitted Midgardborn among its current numbers, and wound up allying themselves fully behind Cedric and Hogwarts. Meanwhile, Gryffindor still mostly supported Harry, but their Vanir natives were very excited to compete in any sports and games available. Hufflepuff was torn: it had, perhaps, the most Midgardborn of any house, who all were unsure of whether they were supposed to work against their own fellows and challenger. Ravenclaw was the least affected, though suffered some strange rifts when it was discovered that the competitions included academic ones.

Rumors started to fly that Harry had put his name in for Midgard specifically to so divide the school and cause drama. It was probably good that he was generally pretty popular, or the drama might have made him a veritable pariah. As it was, things were weirdly tense, especially when the Vanir students started wearing pins that said, "Support Cedric Diggory, the REAL Hogwarts challenger."

With a Hogsmeade weekend coming up, Harry finally decided to make a move, and managed to catch Susan Bones after defense class. "Hey, Susan," he said, catching up to the Hufflepuffs when she wasn't completely surrounded by her housemates at the end of the queue heading to drop off their bags before dinner. "I was just wondering if you wanted to go to Hogsmeade with me."

"Ummm, wow," she slowed enough to walk next to him, but didn't stop, and her friends Hannah Abbot and Megan Jones slowed down a little, clearly giving her a bit of space but ready to jump in if she needed it. "I didn't know you were… and I'd go but…" and she folded over the lapel of her robe to show that she had one of the pins. She gave an apologetic look and said, "Maybe after this is all settled?"

"Maybe," Harry said, disappointed that she'd be wearing one of the pins. He let her continue, falling back to his own friends.

"Wow," Dean said. "And she was hiding that so you wouldn't see it. Classy."

"Eh," Harry shrugged, trying to hide how much it had hurt that she'd blown him off over some dumb rivalry. And that he was worried he'd done it to himself by entering. "At least I didn't wait so long she already had a date?"

By the time they were leaving dinner, he'd convinced himself that Susan was a bad choice anyway. He'd thought she was pretty, but maybe he just thought that because she reminded him of Natasha, especially with her red hair. He'd liked that she was nice, but what she'd done wasn't that nice. And maybe, "We both live with our aunts," wasn't enough to build a relationship on. Yeah. Maybe it was good that he'd gotten that over with relatively painlessly. She hadn't even really said she didn't like him, just that she cared too much about the stupid school rivalry.

His mood was on the way up before Draco shouted over, "Really running out of dating options huh, Potter? I heard Bones shot you down! Did she show you the secret message?" With a wave of his wand, his pin and those of everyone nearby that was wearing one switched from the message supporting Cedric to a simple, "Potter stinks," in glowing green letters.

With a beat to consider that he hadn't seen the secret message, and how that made everyone walking around with the pins even more obnoxious, Harry fired back,"Ah, you were the one who got into button-making. What a neat little hobby. Did your mother help you with that, or did you have to pay someone to have them made?" He let that sink in and congratulated, "Either way, good job, Draco. Having a fun craft business does make you a bit more interesting."

Fortunately, Harry had been getting good at hanging onto his emotions with all the elves around. It was the closest that Malfoy had yet come to landing a hit on his confidence. The nearby Slytherins giggled anyway, as if Draco had won the exchange, but Harry was bolstered by the anger in his wannabe rival's eyes that a huge marketing campaign and a well-timed jab had been mostly brushed off.

Before Draco could decide whether to turn it into a full on diss-battle in the middle of the entry hall, McGonagall called out, "Ah. Potter. Excellent. Can you please go get the other three challengers and come over here?" She was poking her head out of the little side room near the front doors that the new first-years were kept in before the sorting. Harry thought he could make out "Rita Skeeter" inside.

"Yes, ma'am," he told her, passing on to his friends, "I'll catch up to you later," and completely ignoring Draco and his cronies as he wended his way back into the great hall. He managed to flag down the other three quickly enough, though each of them was followed by their own school or housemates. "They want the challengers in the room out in the entry hall," he explained. "I think it's a newspaper interview or something."

Extricating themselves from their own entourages, the other three followed him through the thinning crowd back out and into the room, where, indeed, Christine Everhart and a photographer were there to write a story about them. She arranged them for pictures. She asked them questions that seemed to be half general interest and half for Witch Weekly. While Christine was positively-disposed toward him enough that she wouldn't try any real "gotchas," that particular batch of questions ended on questions about dating.

Cedric admitted that he was starting something up with Cho Chang, which surprised Harry a little (not that he'd really still held designs on the girl after their failed date). Viktor deflected that he had someone in mind but didn't want to talk about it (but Harry knew that he and Hermione had spent several evenings in the library together already). Somewhat surprisingly, Fleur shrugged and said that she was still waiting for the right suitor (he'd seen any number of boys, and some girls, had already asked her out that week).

"And what about you, Harry? There are rumors that you've been seen dating several girls over the last year. Ready to settle on anyone in particular?" the reporter asked him.

Still stinging a little from Susan's rejection and Malfoy's joy at it, Harry knew that he wasn't going to admit that he'd just been brushed off by the girl he'd been thinking about for months. And Fleur had used up the, "I'm weighing my options," line. The worst thing that could happen would be Christine asking around and finding out about the rumor that he'd been rejected just an hour and a half earlier. He knew that Tony would often go with something funny and grandiose if he wanted to control the narrative.

Without really having time to think through whether there were any downsides he wasn't seeing, Harry said, "I'm kind of in the same boat as Ms. Delacour, you know. You only get so many chances to date here, and you really only talk to people outside your house in classes. I'd offer to take her to Hogsmeade, just so neither of us has to worry about it." He laughed in a way that he hoped would come off as genuine and joking.

He expected her to say something about not dating younger men, if she deigned to answer at all. He expected that everyone would laugh, Christine would write something about a little ladykiller like Tony, and that would be the end of it. He did not expect what actually happened.

Fleur looked at him with consideration. He felt her probe him again with her elvish empathy and he casually brushed it aside without even thinking about it. She nodded and said, "Zat would work for me. It's a date."