Chapter Seventeen
Dumbledore sighed and leaned back against the chair. He placed his long fingers together and smiled at Cedric, "Cedric, it's been a very busy evening, I suggest you get up to bed. You too Harry. I'm sure Hufflepuff and Slytherin are waiting to congratulate you and I, for one, would not like to deprive them of this chance to make a lot of mess and noise."
Harry and Cedric glanced at each other and left the room, Harry closely followed by Lily and Severus.
"So looks like we're playing against each other again." Cedric said, only a slight smile playing on his lips.
"I'm really sorry Cedric. Honestly… I… I never wanted this to happen." Harry said as earnestly as he could.
Cedric nodded, "Yeah, right. Night Harry."
"Night Cedric." Harry.
He stood in the Hall, eerily lit by the dying light from the pumpkins, one of his parents on either side.
"Harry?" Lily said, softly.
Harry turned round and forced a smile, "So, this should be fun."
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "You listen to me, I don't care if you win this thing, I don't care if you come last; I just care that you come out of this in one piece."
Harry nodded, "Yeah, I know that Mum. I promise I'll be as careful as I can." he didn't want to talk about this any more, it felt like his brain had been through a blender, "Where's Danica?"
"Nikka and Sirius have her. I got the Patronus message from Severus and came straight here." Lily said.
Severus was staring off at the wall behind Harry, Harry knew he was thinking about everyone who could possibly want to hurt Harry.
"It's going to be OK, right?" Harry asked, "I mean, they said there was going to be extra safety and stuff."
Severus nodded, "It's going to be fine. You just have to be careful and don't take any extra risks."
Harry nodded, he didn't really want to be in the Tournament anyway; he had been looking forward to having a year watching other people risk their lives for once.
"Well after all I've already been through, it can't be that bad." Harry said, smiling, "I'm going to go to bed, I'm beat."
Lily and Severus nodded and wrapped him in a hug. Harry let himself get lost in their warmth for a moment before they pulled away.
"I should get home. I left in such a rush, and Sirius will be loosing his mind with worry." Lily said, "And November 24th is far enough away that you can prepare."
Harry gave a nod and a weak smile, the 24th didn't seem all that far away for him and he had no idea what he was going to have to face. It would be OK though, he'd faced some pretty bad stuff before with less warning than this.
"Anyway, Danica will never forgive me if I die the day before her birthday." Harry joked.
He knew as soon as he'd said it was the wrong thing to say, the last of the colour drained from Lily's face and Severus went even stiffer than he was before.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it." Harry said, "I'll be fine, I promise."
Lily nodded and hugged him tightly, "I just don't know what I'd do if I lost you."
He walked with Lily to the Entrance Hall and hugged her goodbye at the door. The huge wooden doors slammed shut behind her leaving Harry feeling very cut off from her.
Severus walked him to the common room door and hugged him goodbye, "You know I'm always here for you. We'll get through this."
Harry smiled and stepped though the doorway. He wasn't really surprised at the strange sight in the common room. Half of the common room was in the middle of a party, celebrating the fact that Slytherin had a champion; the other half was sitting sullenly, glaring at Harry as he walked over to Daphne, Pansy and Draco.
"Hey." Harry smiled at them.
Daphne stood up and gave him a large hug, "Are you OK?"
Harry shrugged, "I have no idea." he looked over to Draco, who was hanging back, "Are we OK?"
Draco stepped towards him, "I'm jealous, I'm not going to lie about that."
Harry felt anger and betrayal bubble up in his stomach, "You think I put my name in there?"
Draco smirked, "I said jealous, not stupid. I don't think you would ever have put your name in there, and I know you would never lie to us over something like this, you're too good of a friend."
Harry relaxed, "I never would lie to you guys, not over something like this, not over anything, and I have no idea how my name got in there."
Someone pushed a glass of pumpkin juice into Harry's hand and patted him on the back, "Well done Harry!"
"Yeah, thanks." Harry mumbled, as they disappeared back into the crowd.
Harry let Pansy get him some food and nibbled at it, he smiled at all the compliments and congratulations people gave him, feeling more and more empty inside.
"What's the first challenge?" Pansy asked.
"I don't know." Harry said, "It's to test our bravery, so they didn't tell us."
"Well you faced a basilisk, you should be able to skip this one." Daphne laughed.
"Technically it was me who stabbed the basilisk." Pansy grinned.
Harry conceded the point and smirked.
"Well I hope you're proud of yourself." Gemini said, marching over from the other side of the room.
"Proud of what? Being able to represent the school?" Draco asked, "Seems like a pretty big honour to me."
Gemini rolled her dark eyes, "No. You embarrassed us, Slytherin house and Hogwarts. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons didn't cheat, however you, the famous Harry Potter, you made us all look cheap and pathetic."
Harry took two steps forward is annoyance, Gemini lent close to his ear; he could feel her breath on his ear.
"It's such a shame the Dark Lord didn't kill you." She whispered, almost seductively, it was so quiet Harry almost thought he might have imagined it.
He pulled away and stared at her, "What did you say?"
"I'm off to bed." Gemini smiled, "You should think about what I said, shameful behaviour."
Pansy, Daphne and Draco stepped forward,
"Sleep well." Draco said, pulling Harry back into the crowds of people.
"What did she say to you?" Daphne asked, "You're as white as a sheet."
Harry shook his head, "I… she said it was a shame Voldemort didn't kill me." he muttered.
Pansy, Daphne and Draco looked stunned at him.
"Harry that's not funny." Pansy whispered.
Harry glared at her, "Tell me about it. It couldn't have been her who put my name in the Goblet?"
Draco shook his head, "She's not old enough."
"Does Hermione still have the time turner?" Daphne asked, "If she does we could go back and use the map to see who went up to the cup."
"No." Harry sighed, "She gave it back at the end of last year. Would have been good plan though."
"Right." Pansy said standing up, "We need to get some sleep, we were told that the first challenge is on the 24th of November?"
Harry nodded.
"That gives us just over three weeks to get you as prepared as possible." Pansy said, forcing a smile, "We'll start tomorrow."
Harry nodded and gave her a fake salute, "Yes Ma'am."
Pansy laughed and gave him a huge hug, before her and Daphne went up to bed. Harry followed Draco through the common room and up into the dorm. It was a relief for Harry to just be able to fall into bad and pull the drapes closed around his bed.
The blankets were warm and the pillow was pleasantly cool and sleep came easily to him.
The next day Harry would have been happy to stay in the common room but Daphne, Draco and Pansy dragged him down to breakfast.
"You can't show them that you're bothered by it all." Pansy said, forcing him to sit down at the Slytherin table, in his normal spot.
Harry helped himself to a slice of toast and rasher of bacon to make a show of eating at least; he didn't exactly have much of an appetite.
The Durmstrang students had chosen to sit slightly further down the table, away from Harry. Krum didn't look to bothered, and gave Harry a small smile, the others however seemed completely furious with Harry for being a champion.
Harry turned away from them, he couldn't think about that right now. Only he looked across to the Gryffindor table to see where Hermione and Neville were but instead he caught Ron's eye.
Harry wasn't sure how he'd expected Ron to react to the news that he was a champion but he wasn't honestly surprised to see Ron glaring at him. He shook his head and tried to avoid Ron's eyes but it was too late.
Ron stood up and marched over, stomping stupidly loudly and turning several heads as he stormed passed.
"Well?" he demanded.
Harry took a deep breath and turned to face him, "Well?"
"You could have told us how you did it." Ron huffed, "Given us all a chance to enter. It was a stupid rule anyway, limiting the age range like they did."
Harry gritted his teeth, "It wasn't me Ron, I didn't put my name in."
"So what you got Professor Snape to do it for you?" Ron asked, his face was turning the same colour as his hair.
"No." Draco answered, coolly, "We don't know who it was but whoever it was clearly wanted to hurt Harry."
Ron let out a snort, "Yeah right. Perfect golden child gets everything and we're meant to feel sorry for him? Sorry but I'm all out of fake sympathy for poor little Harry Potter. If we should feel sorry for anyone it's Cedric! He worked really hard to be good enough to be champion! But you couldn't help but steal his limelight!"
"I didn't ask for this Ronald! Stop sticking your nose in things you don't understand." Harry said shaking his head and turning away from Ron.
"Is there a problem here Mr Weasley?" Professor Snape asked, walking over.
Ron turned to face Professor Snape, "No. Sir." he spat.
Professor Snape nodded, "Then I suggest you run along back to your own table before I feel the need to take more points from Gryffindor."
"More?" Ron said, glaring up at Snape.
"You've already lost five for coming over here in the first place and disrupting the hall. Now run along." Professor Snape said coolly.
Ron frowned and stalked off. Harry sighed, Ron wasn't the only one who was annoyed at him, he'd had nothing but nasty looks from the Hufflepuff table all through breakfast. He couldn't blame them, Hufflepuff rarely got a chance to shine and once again another house had stolen that chance.
Not on purpose
Harry thought to himself. He was getting annoyed at everyone, even those who were happy he'd been chosen were still blaming him for his name getting in that blasted Goblet in the first place. He managed to finish his breakfast just as Hermione and Neville walked over.
"Hello Harry." Hermione smiled, "Are you ready for some research?"
Harry grinned and nodded, the six of them heading to the library. It wasn't the most fruitful of searches, there was just no where near enough information to be able to make any sort of plan.
"It wont be a basilisk." Neville said.
"It could be, we don't know." Hermione said.
Draco shook his head, "I agree with Neville. They need something that isn't going to kill the champions or the crowd just by looking at them."
Hermione sighed and crossed 'basilisk' off the very long list, "It could wear a hood." she joked.
Harry snorted with laughter at the thought of a basilisk with a hood on like a hunting hawk. The list was so very long, Harry wasn't sure where to even start with trying to fight anyone of the things he might have to face.
"If it's bravery, maybe it'll be something you're afraid of? A Bogart?" Daphne suggested.
"That would be way to easy." Harry sighed, "But we can hope, I guess. I could manage a Bogart."
"Maybe something plant based?" Neville suggested, showing them a large, sentient, looking tree that was crushing a small boat in the book picture.
Harry shrugged, "It might well be. Certainly wouldn't be something that we would expect."
"And that would make you brave, I guess." Daphne said, "If they said they didn't want you to know what was happening?"
Harry nodded.
Pansy grabbed another book off the shelves, 'Worlds most aggressive plants' and opened it up, ready to make another list of what Harry could be facing.
The two long lists left Harry feeling helpless and completely overwhelmed.