Chapter 10

Greengrass Manor

"So you got the details on the trade?" asked an eager Cyrus Greengrass when Alastor Moody marched into his luxurious office. He decided to ignore the fact that the man hadn't knocked before entering or hadn't even whipped off his muddy shoes, after all he was presumably the bearer of good news.

The old Auror waved off and took a sip off his flask before he answered "Sure, did. The lad didn't put up much of a fight."

"And you are certain that you have wiped his memories correctly?"

Moody gave the Lord a deadpan look and annoyedly replied "Do I look like a rookie? Of course I did."

Cyrus raised his hands placatingly "I was merely asking…"

Suddenly Dumbledore, who had been quietly sitting in a chair nearby, loudly cleared his throat a bit impatiently.

"If you two don't mind? I would like to know what you have learned, Alastor."

Moody rolled his good eye in annoyance.

"Yes, yes. The deal goes off on November the sixth in the evening at the docks in Portsmouth. As we thought, Crosby was mainly responsible for handing the bribes over to some guys from the magical import department - those treacherous basterds... But he didn't know much more than that."

Both Cyrus and Dumbledore nodded satisfied. That had been all the information they had needed to pull off their plan.

For over two decades the Malofy family had been earning an enormous fortune via their import business of exclusive potion ingredients. Sure, they also owned several properties all around the British isles, which generated a consistent, modest profit. However their main income was still based on the import business. The reason was rather simple: Due to several laws it was next to impossible for a small shop owner to purchase potent magical items from abroad. Everything had to be vetted by the customs department from the Ministry of Magic and the foreign seller and the British buyer required a special certificate, which cost a small fortune. Additionally, if the item originated from a magical creature the handlers also had to undergo a careful verification process. That all meant if you buy from another country, you had to get a rather large quantity in order to make any profits later on. So, all small shop owners and potion masters had to buy from a large import business, like Lucius Malfoy, who could then dictate the prices.

One of his most profitable ingredients was Manticore poison. Highly toxic, very rare, incredibly dangerous to harvest and of course ridiculously expensive. A couple years ago Cyrus himself had attempted to resell that particular ingredient and had quickly found out that Malfoy's prices were simply not beatable. At least not if one followed the law, which Lucius obviously didn't. Bribing a couple Ministry officials was apparently much cheaper than buying from verified handlers and doing all taxes correctly.

The illegal way however, had one very big catch. No contracts, no invoice and no insurance if something goes wrong. Everything had to be paid on delivery in hard cash. The good ol' galleons.

Which was exactly what they planned to exploit.

Like most wealthy families, the Malfoy's didn't leave their gold just lying around in a vault. No, everything they made would be immediately reinvested in either real estate or other business deals. Most however still left enough in their vault as a backup, but Malfoy in his arrogance and greed didn't.

Dumbledore's Goblin contacts had confirmed that fact.

So what does someone do when he has little liquid assets to pay for a large business deal? Rent some money from Gringotts, accept the minor interest rate and pay the loan back with the profits of the business.

And the Goblins surely had no problem granting such a loan. After all, the son of Lucius was to inherit the legendary Black fortune, right?

Lord Greengrass smiled to himself and poured generous portions of his finest Scotch into four glasses and offered it to the assembled men.

Dumbledore, Moody, he himself and a grinning Sirius Black clinked their glasses.

"To the downfall of dear old Lucius!" he hailed.

Hogwarts

"Harry Potter!"

Dumbledore's disbelieving voice echoed through the otherwise silent Great Hall making every single head turn in his direction and Harry swear all sorts of obscenities under his breath.

Of course his name would come out of that damn goblet! Why not? Sure he hadn't even put his name in or was off age to even approach the ancient artifact. But after all he was Harry Potter and had the worst damn luck in the entire world.

Hermione's gentle nudge brought him back to reality.

The headmaster once again called his name, this time a bit more forcefully.

Slowly he got up and wearily marched to the podium where Dumbledore and that blasted Goblet of Fire stood. The eyes of all the students followed him. Some gazed at him in curiosity, others in envy and some glared in anger. Harry had to suppress the urge to hex the fools into oblivion.

On his way he met Daphne's gaze, who tried to put on a brave face. Her lips however trembled slightly and her best friend Tracy Davis had put a comforting hand on her shoulder. A couple days before he had already told the Slytherin girl that he had a bad feeling about this tournament. From Hermione he already knew that the Triwizard Tournament had been canceled before because of the high death toll. When he had told Daphne so, she had waved him off.

"No way you'll be part of this tournament." she had said in denial.

Now that it might become a harsh reality she seemed to be quite distraught.

Forcing himself to keep walking, he broke eye contact with his friend and looked ahead instead.

When he finally made it to Dumbledore, the old man merely stared at him and passed him the slip of parchment. There it stood, more or less clearly written by himself: Harry Potter - his name. And then somewhat hard to decipher, the starting sentence of his last History of Magic exam.

Taking a deep calming breath he flipped the page back to the headmaster and pointed at that particular part. The man nodded. Obviously he had already seen that part as well.

"Later" Dumbeldore mouthed and then pointed in the direction where Cedric Diggory had just left off to.

Harry sighed, but did as he was told.

"Harry? What are you doing here?" Cedric asked with a frown "Do they want us to come up again?"

He just shook his head deep in thought.

Why had his name come out of the Goblet of Fire? He hadn't put it there of course and he was relatively certain that no student would have managed to fool the ancient artifact, not to mention the protections Dumbledore himself had raised to safeguard the champion selection.

No. There was no student capable of doing that, which only left a couple selected few…

"Harry?" Cedric tried again in a concerned tone and put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. "What happened?"

He blinked at the older boy for a moment before he muttered resigned "My name came out of the goblet."

"What?!"

While Cedric seemed momentarily taken aback by his answer, the voice of the French champion echoed loudly through the small room as she approached the pair. Victor Krum from Durmstrang too dropped his usual stoic mask and wrinkled his forehead in confusion.

At that moment the doors of the waiting room opened and in barged Dumbledore followed closely by the headmistress of Beauxbatons and the headmaster of Durmstrang who seemed to be in a heated discussion.

"... will not stand for it!" shouted Karkaroff at the headmaster of Hogwarts and once he saw Harry, glared furiously at him.

"Neither will we. This is a mockery of the entire tournament!" exclaimed the giant form of Madame Maxime, who simply decided to ignore his entire presence.

"I'm certain we can get to the bottom of this." Dumbledore said and placatingly raised his hand as he approached him and then asked calmly "Harry, did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire or asked someone else to do it?"

Harry shook his head and as clearly as he could answered "No, sir, I did not."

This was followed by a contemptuous snort from Karkaroff and a raised eyebrow from Madam Maxime.

"Not only a cheater, but also a liar!" accused the headmaster from Durmstrang.

While Dumbledore only sighed annoyed, Harry clenched his fingers in anger.

Nowadays he could keep his temper fairly well in check, however the baseless accusation from what was one of his prime suspects, made his blood pressure rise.

He made one step towards the bearded man and growled "That is rich coming from a former Death Eater, who didn't even have the balls to face proper justice."

Suddenly it was so silent, one could have heard a pin drop and all heads turned to him in surprise.

Karkaroff's eyes were wide as saucers before he seemed to find his bearings again and his previously surprised face turned to one in anger.

"Why you little…" he shouted and raised his right hand to strike him but stopped immediately when out of nowhere a wand was suddenly poking his cheek. Harry's own was already pointing at the man's belly but hidden underneath his cloak.

Moments later Alastor Moody removed his invisibility cloak and growled "Go ahead, give me one damn reason to repaint the room…"

"ENOUGH!" yelled Dumbledore, who suddenly looked every bit like the wizard that made Dark Lords rethink their life choices and then a bit calmer added "Enough of this! Alastor remove your wand, Harry that was uncalled for and Igor - I would like to remind you that you are a guest here!"

Still glaring at Harry, Karkaroff lowered his hand and adjusted his heavy cloak in an attempt to restore some of his dignity. Meanwhile Moody had pocketed his wand and Harry had to bite his lips to prevent himself from laughing when the man seemed to pout in disappointment.

The other students looked at them wearily, none of them sure on how they were supposed to act at the moment. Bagman, who had just entered, looked between the retired Auror and the Durmstrang headmaster as if he was watching an exciting tennis match. Crouch on the other hand looked almost bored.

"Now then, let us get back to the matter at hand. I very much doubt that Mr. Potter here could have bypassed the wards I have cast around the goblet, nor would he have been able to fool the Goblet of Fire. I think it is much more likely that he has been entered by an adult wizard."

Dumbledore explained and stared at the other headmasters, as if daring them to say that he, one of the greatest wizards of all time, had made a mistake with the wards.

However, no one was stupid enough to do that and the room fell into another deep silence.

Meanwhile Harry had managed to reign in his anger again and had slipped his wand back into his holster. Thanks to the ruckus that Moody's appearance had caused, luckily no one had even noticed him ever drawing it.

Finally Crouch cleared his throat.

"That is all well and good, however it seems as if the Goblet of Fire has accepted mister Potter as a fully fledged participant of this tournament…"

Then the man made a dramatic pause before whispering in a grave voice "... which means Mr. Potter must participate in the tasks as the fourth Triwizard champion."

"Fuck me." Harry groaned.

Gryffindor Common Room

"How do you think he managed to enter the tournament?" Ron asked his friend Hermione, who was staring worriedly into the fireplace. On that note, his sister Ginny nearby also looked rather concerned.

It took a while before Hermione reacted to his question, but eventually she turned to him and frowned.

"What do you mean with 'how did he manage to enter'?" she replied sharply "You don't actually think he entered that death trap of a tournament himself?"

Ron scowled, but realized that there was evidently something he was missing.

"Death trap?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Honestly. Haven't you listened to me the last couple of weeks? I went through the Triwizard Tournament history and it was quite bloody. Mutilation, dismemberment and even death happened at almost every single one. It got canceled in 1792 when a Cockatrice went on a rampage and killed all competitors and injured the headmasters from each school."

Ron gulped. Before he had felt a bit envious that Harry had somehow managed to compete and have a shot at the promised eternal glory, but now he felt that this was more likely another instance of his famous bad luck. No, Hermione was right. There was no way Harry would enter a competition like that.

Now Ginny nervously and with a hint of hope spoke up "T-They are going to make it safer though, right? Right?"

Hermione only shrugged and Ginny turned even more white than before, while Ron started to get a really bad feeling about all of this.

Slytherin fourth year's boys dormitory

Theodore Nott furiously ripped the letter from his father apart, while Blaise Zabini was merely observing his classmate with a raised eyebrow.

After watching Theo angrily pace around for another good five minutes, he finally asked "What's got your knickers in such a twist?"

The boy's head snapped in his direction and his eyes glowered at him. For a moment it looked like he would explode on him.

However, Theodore eventually just huffed and plopped down on his bed.

"I had this so well planned out…" the boy complained.

"What do you mean?"

"Greengrass. Draco wanted to get her in line and I had the perfect plan on how to do it." explained Nott.

Blaise snorted. Daphne by herself was not exactly someone you wanted to get on the bad side of. Not to mention that of her father.

But while Theo was sometimes a bit impulsive, he was also smart and ambitious. So Blaise was rather curious.

"How did you plan to do that?"

The boy huffed in annoyance before he said "Last summer I went to the family vault with my father… showed me all kinds of things and told me to look for something I might find interesting. There I noticed an unresolved contract between the previous Lord Greengrass and my grandfather. It was a marriage contract between a son of my family and a daughter of the Greengrass family. The only thing that was missing was my head of house's signature and then the deal would be active."

Blaise' eyes widened.

How the Nott family had managed to get hold of such a contract, he had no idea. But this was big. Really big.

"So what happened?" he asked curiously.

"I wrote to my father about activating it, when Crabbe told us about Potter and Greengrass. He wrote back today, saying that he was 'not going to risk offending her father over a schoolyard quarrel'." Nott answered angrily.

Blaise had to hold back a sigh of relief.

While he was not exactly on friendly terms with Daphne, even he wouldn't wish a marriage contract forced on her. After all, he had some standards.

"So what are you going to do now? Tell Draco that your plan is not going to happen?"

Nott huffed again and said "No, I'll think of something different…I just have to wait for a good opportunity to strike."

Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom

Two days ago Harry's name had come out of the Goblet of Fire and if he had to be honest, not much had changed. Not really at least.

According to a rumor that Ginny had heard, Cedric had apparently managed to calm his angry housemates after the champion selection. So he was thankfully not swarmed by a mob of angry Hufflepuffs.

His own housemates had been overjoyed that he had been chosen once they had realized that he hadn't cheated. Fred and George had even thrown a party in his honor.

For the remaining two houses nothing had really changed. The Slyterhin's mostly still hated his guts and the Ravenclaws didn't seem to care that he was selected as a champion.

Anyway, thanks to his status as the Boy-Who-Lived, he was by now rather used to people staring at him and pointing in his direction while whispering in hushed tones. Nowadays he didn't care much for that, even though he sometimes had to suppress the reflexive urge to draw his wand when some quickly pointed their fingers at him.

Thinking about that, he scowled when entering the room for Defense Against the Dark Arts with his friends Ron and Hermione. More often than not, he found the paranoia Moody had drilled into him, rather annoying. Especially when he found himself in a large crowd, which was the common occurrence in Hogwarts.

However, it was rather neat when he attended DADA, where Moody sometimes started the lesson by launching stinging hexes randomly at students.

Speaking of which, he just managed to grab Hermione next to him by the waist and pulled her out of the way of Moody's spell that instead hit Draco Malfoy right in the face when he was entering the classroom.

Harry grinned.

Yea sometimes it's good to be a bit more paranoid.

Hermione, who hadn't even seen the spell initially, stared at him in wonder before thanking him.

"Nice one mate!" Ron said and high fived him while laughing at Malfoy's misfortune.

Even Moody offered him a mildly impressed nod.

"You're starring! Again!" hissed Tracy.

Daphne shook her head and tried to focus on the lesson. In her defense half of the class was still shooting Harry glances in disbelief. After all, the boy had just casually pulled his friend away from Moody's spell like it was nothing, which was mighty impressive.

That the same hex then hit Malfoy was just the cherry on the cake.

Suddenly Tracy's elbow connected with her sides.

"For Merlin's sake stop it already!" whispered her best friend once again "Just snog him in an empty broom cupboard later!"

At the last remark Daphne threw her a filthy glare.

"Zip it Trace!"

However, her friend just snorted quietly "Forgive me your highness, but you are blushing."

Daphne ignored her and decided to focus on Moody drawing the wand movement of the stunning spell on the chalkboard.

"Might be useful in the future…" she thought and eyed Malfoy, who was sitting in front of her.

Suddenly, with his back still towards the class, Moody yelled "By putting that gum there, I assume you'd like to offer your services to demonstrate the spell Mr. Finnigan?"

The boy in question was suddenly stopped dead in his tracks with his left hand hovering suspiciously underneath his desk.

In the next moment Seamus Finnigan was launched off his seat by a red spell that Moody had fired at him in the blink of an eye.

The entire class stared first at Moody and then their stunned classmate, who was lying on the ground.

"Well at least DADA isn't boring this year…" sniggered Tracy.

AN: Another chapter done! Thanks to all the many followers of the story and especially to the many reviewers. The amount of positive feedback really means a lot to me.

On another note, I'd also like to thank a reviewer for pointing out the formatting issues in the story. I was honestly not aware of that. Apparently FFN is changing it once I upload the chapters.

I hope I have fixed it now.

Happy new year everybody!

-InvertedLogic