When Harry woke up on Sunday morning, it took him a moment to remember why he felt so miserable. Then the memory of the previous night rolled over him. He sat up and ripped back the curtains of his own four-poster, hoping not to run into Ron right now. He was thankful to find that Ron's bed was empty; he had obviously gone down to breakfast.

Harry dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The moment he appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into applause again. The prospect of going down into the Great Hall and facing the rest of the Gryffindors, all treating him like some sort of hero, was not inviting; it was that, however, or stay here and allow himself to be cornered by the Creevey brothers, who were both beckoning frantically to him to join them. He walked resolutely over to the portrait hole, pushed it open, climbed out of it, and found himself face-to-face with Hermione and Ginny.

"Hello," Hermione said, holding up a stack of toast, which she was car- rying in a napkin. "I brought you this. . . . Want to go for a walk?"

"Good idea," said Harry gratefully.

"Ben's outside," Ginny interjected. "He wants to talk to you."

Harry was briefly worried before he remembered what Ron had said the previous night. They went downstairs, crossed the entrance hall quickly without looking in at the Great Hall, and were soon striding across the lawn toward the lake, where the Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly morning, and they kept moving, munching their toast, Harry informing the girls about what happened after he went into the chamber off the Hall. He had finished by the time they made it to where Ben was sitting. He was glaring and grumbling at the Lake. Harry couldn't hear any distinct words. He only became aware of their presence when they were right behind him; he nearly jumped out of his seat when he spotted them.

"Goodness," Ben said, clutching his heart. "Don't sneak up on me like that."

"We didn't," Ginny replied. "We walked here normally."

Ben sighed, seemingly recovered from his shock. "Right. Harry, I just want to say that I believe you and you have my support for this tournament."

Harry felt relief rush through him, even though he already knew this.

"It's fairly obvious if you think about it. Just the look on your face made it incredibly obvious. I expect that the majority of the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs will be slightly hostile to you, but I'll ensure that Ravenclaw is at least neutral. Daphne, Luna, and Tracey also believe you."

"And, of course I knew you hadn't entered yourself," Hermione said. "The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because Moody's right, Harry . . . I don't think any student could have done it . . . they'd never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore's age line."

"Harry," Ginny spoke up, interrupting Hermione a bit as she clasped his hands. "I would never believe you'd lie about something like this. That's not the Harry Potter I've come to know over the time we've known each other. And, unlike my jealous, idiotic brother, I swear on everthing that makes me me that I'll always support, through thick and thin, through the good times and the bad, with all my heart. And know, I will never abandon you."

Harry was stunned by her declaration. Once the full implications hit her, Ginny started blushing spectacularly as she hastily let go of his hands. Harry, feeling himself blushing a bit, looked at the other people here. Hermione was smiling mischievously at him and Ginny. Ben, however, had a look on his face that was a bit like what Lavender and Parvati had whenever they saw some people doing couple stuff.

"So," Harry said, desperately trying to change the subject. "What should we do?"

"Well," Hermione said, a bit of reluctance to shift the conversation. "It'd be a good idea to write to Sirius about your entry into the Tournament. He'd probably prefer hearing about it from you rather than through the papers."

"That's true," Ben said, holding up a piece of parchment. "I've already written my letter, but if I were him, I'd prefer to hear it from you."

They went up to the Owlery. Hermione gave Harry a piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink, then strolled around the long lines of perches, looking at all the different owls, while Harry sat down against a wall and wrote his letter, with Ben lightly teasing Ginny over her declaration.

Dear Sirius,

I thought you'd prefer to hear it from me, but I've been entered into the Triwizard Tournament against my will. I didn't put my name in the Goblet of Fire, nor did I ask anyone else to put my name in. The proper Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory.

He paused at this point, thinking. He had an urge to say something about the large weight of anxiety that seemed to have settled inside his chest since last night, but he couldn't think how to translate this into words, so he simply dipped his quill back into the ink bottle and wrote,

Hope you and Remus are okay - Harry.

"Finished," he told his friends, getting to his feet and brushing straw off his robes. At this, Hedwig came fluttering down onto his shoulder and held out her leg.

"If you wouldn't mind bringing mine, as well, Hedwig," Ben said.

She gave a soft hoot, allowing both letters to be tied to her foot. She nibbled Harry's finger a bit before flying off.

-Break-

The next few days were some of Harry's worst at Hogwarts. The closest he had ever come to feeling like this had been during those months, in his second year, when a large part of the school had suspected him of attacking his fellow students. But Ron had been fully on his side then. He thought he could have coped with the rest of the school's behavior if he could just have had Ron back as a friend, but he wasn't going to try and persuade Ron to talk to him if Ron didn't want to. Nevertheless, it was lonely with dislike pouring in on him from all sides.

He could understand the Hufflepuffs' attitude, even if he didn't like it; they had their own champion to support. He expected nothing less than vicious insults from the majority of Slytherins — he was highly unpopular there and always had been, because he had helped Gryffindor beat them so often, both at Quidditch and in the Inter-House Championship. Only the Ravenclaws seemed to be willing to take a wait-and-see approach to his entry.

Then there was the fact that Cedric looked the part of a champion so much more than he did. Exceptionally handsome, with his straight nose, dark hair, and gray eyes, it was hard to say who was receiving more admiration these days, Cedric or Viktor Krum. Harry actually saw the same sixth-year girls who had been so keen to get Krum's autograph begging Cedric to sign their school bags one lunchtime.

Sirius arrived at Hogwarts a week after Halloween with the force of a wrecking ball. He and the professors had gone to a room where Sirius yelled himself hoarse about their failure to restrict the Goblet. He then took Harry and Ben to the side to brainstorm. His stress manifested in such a way that he nearly was given extra homework on the Summoning Charm — the only person who would have gotten any, apart from Neville.

"It's really not that difficult, Harry," Hermione tried to reassure him as they left Flitwick's class — she had been making objects zoom across the room to her all lesson, as though she were some sort of weird magnet for board dusters, wastepaper baskets, and lunascopes. "You just weren't concentrating properly —"

"Wonder why that was," said Harry darkly as Cedric Diggory walked past, surrounded by a large group of simpering girls, all of whom looked at Harry as though he were a particularly large Blast-Ended Skrewt. "Still — never mind, eh? Double Potions to look forward to this afternoon. . . ."

Double Potions was always a horrible experience, but these days it was nothing short of torture. Being shut in a dungeon for an hour and a half with Snape and the Slytherins, all of whom seemed determined to punish Harry as much as possible for daring to become school champion, was about the most unpleasant thing Harry could imagine. He had already struggled through one Friday's worth, with Hermione sitting next to him intoning "ignore them, ignore them, ignore them" under her breath, and he couldn't see why today should be any better.

When he and Hermione arrived at Snape's dungeon after lunch, they found the Slytherins waiting outside, each and every one of them wearing a large badge on the front of his or her robes. For one wild moment Harry thought they were S.P.E.W. badges — then he saw that they all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:

SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY - THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!

"Like them, Potter?" said Malfoy loudly as Harry approached. "And this isn't all they do — look!"

He pressed his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green:

POTTER STINKS

The majority of the Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around Harry. He felt the heat rise in his face and neck.

"Oh very funny," Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than anyone, "really witty."

Ron was standing against the wall with Dean and Seamus. He wasn't laughing, but he wasn't sticking up for Harry either.

"Want one, Granger?" said Malfoy, holding out a badge to Hermione. "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just washed it, you see; don't want a Mudblood sliming it up."

Some of the anger Harry had been feeling for days and days seemed to burst through a dam in his chest. He had reached for his wand before he'd thought what he was doing. People all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor.

"Harry!" Hermione said warningly.

"Go on, then, Potter," Malfoy said quietly, drawing out his own wand. "Moody's not here to look after you now — do it, if you've got the guts —"

For a split second, they looked into each other's eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted.

"Furnunculus!" Harry yelled.

"Densaugeo!" screamed Malfoy.

Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles — Harry's hit Goyle in the face, and Malfoy's hit Hermione. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up — Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth.

"Hermione!"

Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong with her; Harry turned and saw Ron dragging Hermione's hand away from her face. It wasn't a pretty sight. Hermione's front teeth — already larger than average — were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin — panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry.

"And what is all this noise about?" said a soft, deadly voice.

Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamored to give their explanations; Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Malfoy and said, "Explain."

"Potter attacked me, sir —"

"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouted.

"— and he hit Goyle — look —"

Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something

that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi. "Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape said calmly.

"Malfoy got Hermione!" Ron said. "Look!"

He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth — she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape's back.

Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, "I see no difference."

Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.

It was lucky, perhaps, that both Harry and Ron started shouting at Snape at the same time; lucky their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it was impossible for him to hear exactly what they were calling him. He got the gist, however.

"Let's see," he said, in his silkiest voice. "Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Potter and Weasley. Now get inside, or it'll be a week's worth of detentions."

Harry's ears were ringing. The injustice of it made him want to curse Snape into a thousand slimy pieces. He passed Snape, walked with Ron to the back of the dungeon, and slammed his bag down onto the table. Ron was shaking with anger too — for a moment, it felt as though everything was back to normal between them, but then Ron turned and sat down with Dean and Seamus instead, leaving Harry alone at his table. On the other side of the dungeon, Malfoy turned his back on Snape and pressed his badge, smirking. POTTER STINKS flashed once more across the room.

Harry sat there staring at Snape as the lesson began, picturing horrific things happening to him. . . . If only he knew how to do the Cruciatus Curse . . . he'd have Snape flat on his back like that spider, jerking and twitching. . . .

"Antidotes!" said Snape, looking around at them all, his cold black eyes glittering unpleasantly. "You should all have prepared your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one. . . ."

Snape's eyes met Harry's, and Harry knew what was coming. Snape was going to poison him. Harry imagined picking up his cauldron, and sprinting to the front of the class, and bringing it down on Snape's greasy head —

And then a knock on the dungeon door burst in on Harry's thoughts.

It was Colin Creevey; he edged into the room, beaming at Harry, and walked up to Snape's desk at the front of the room.

"Yes?" said Snape curtly.

"Please, sir, I'm supposed to take Harry Potter upstairs."

Snape stared down his hooked nose at Colin, whose smile faded from his eager face.

"Potter has another hour of Potions to complete," said Snape coldly. "He will come upstairs when this class is finished."

Colin went pink.

"Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants him," he said nervously. "All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs. . . ."

Harry would have given anything he owned to have stopped Colin saying those last few words. He chanced half a glance at Ron, but Ron was staring determinedly at the ceiling.

"Very well, very well," Snape snapped. "Potter, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote."

"Please, sir — he's got to take his things with him," squeaked Colin. "All the champions —"

"Very well!" said Snape. "Potter — take your bag and get out of my sight!"

Harry swung his bag over his shoulder, got up, and headed for the door. As he walked through the Slytherin desks, POTTER STINKS flashed at him from every direction.

"It's amazing, isn't it, Harry?" said Colin, starting to speak the moment Harry had closed the dungeon door behind him. "Isn't it, though? You being champion?"

"Yeah, really amazing," said Harry heavily as they set off toward the steps into the entrance hall. "What do they want photos for, Colin?"

"The Daily Prophet, I think!"

"Great," said Harry dully. "Exactly what I need. More publicity."

"Good luck!" said Colin when they had reached the right room. Harry knocked on the door and entered.

He was in a fairly small classroom; most of the desks had been pushed away to the back of the room, leaving a large space in the middle; three of them, however, had been placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard and covered with a long length of velvet. Five chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks, and Ludo Bagman was sitting in one of them, talking to a witch Harry had never seen before, who was wearing magenta robes. Sirius seated nearby, looking at the woman with distrust.

Viktor Krum was standing moodily in a corner as usual and not talking to anybody. Cedric and Fleur were in conversation. Fleur looked a good deal happier than Harry had seen her so far; she kept throwing back her head so that her long silvery hair caught the light. A paunchy man, holding a large black camera that was smoking slightly, was watching Fleur out of the corner of his eye.

Bagman suddenly spotted Harry, got up quickly, and bounded forward. Sirius, spotting this, came forwards as well.

"Ah, here he is! Champion number four! In you come, Harry, in you come . . . nothing to worry about, it's just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment —"

"Wand weighing?" Harry repeated nervously.

"We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they're your most important tools in the tasks ahead," said Bagman. "The expert's upstairs now with Dumbledore. And then there's going to be a little photo shoot. This is Rita Skeeter," he added, gesturing toward the witch in magenta robes. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet. . . ."

"Maybe not that small, Ludo," said Rita Skeeter, her eyes on Harry.

Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson.

"I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before we start?" she said to Bagman, but still gazing fixedly at Harry. "The youngest champion, you know . . . to add a bit of color?"

"Certainly!" cried Bagman. "That is — if Harry has no objection?"

"Er —" said Harry.

"Lovely," said Rita Skeeter.

"Not alone!" Sirius shouted.

"Oh - er - of course," she said, and in a second, her scarlet-taloned fingers had Harry's upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and she was steering him out of the room again and opening a nearby door. Sirius followed briskly behind them.

"We don't want to be in there with all that noise," she said. "Let's see . . . ah, yes, this is nice and cozy."

It was a broom cupboard. Harry stared at her.

"Come along, dear — that's right — lovely," said Rita Skeeter again, perching herself precariously upon an upturned bucket, pushing Harry down onto a cardboard box, and closing the door, throwing them into darkness. "Let's see now . . ."

She unsnapped her crocodile-skin handbag and pulled out a handful of candles, which she lit with a wave of her wand and magicked into midair, so that they could see what they were doing.

"You won't mind, Harry, if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill? It leaves me free to talk to you normally. . . ."

"Provided it's accurate, no," said Harry.

"Ah," she replied. Rita Skeeter's smile widened. Harry counted three gold teeth. She reached again into her crocodile bag and drew out a long acid-green quill and a roll of parchment, which she stretched out between them on a crate of Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover. She put the tip of the green quill into her mouth, sucked it for a moment with apparent relish, then placed it upright on the parchment, where it stood balanced on its point, quivering slightly.

"Testing . . . my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter."

Harry looked down quickly at the quill. The moment Rita Skeeter had spoken, the green quill had started to scribble, skidding across the parchment, transcribing exactly what she said. Sirius nodded in approval.

"Lovely," said Rita Skeeter, yet again, and she ripped the top piece of parchment off, crumpled it up, and stuffed it into her handbag. Now she leaned toward Harry and said, "So, Harry . . . what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament?"

"I didn't" said Harry, though he was distracted by the quill.

"Ignore the quill, Harry," said Rita Skeeter firmly. Reluctantly, Harry looked up at her instead. "Now — why did you decide to enter the tournament, Harry?"

"I didn't," said Harry. "I don't know how my name got into the Goblet of Fire. I didn't put it in there."

Rita Skeeter raised one heavily penciled eyebrow.

"Come now, Harry, there's no need to be scared of getting into trouble. We all know you shouldn't really have entered at all. But don't worry about that. Our readers love a rebel."

"But I didn't enter," Harry repeated. "I don't know who would've put my name in. I've gotten into enough trouble already."

"Oh?" Rita said, eyebrow raised.

Harry got the feeling he should talk a bit about what's happened. "First year, I had to rescue a friend from a troll, second year was the whole basilisk situation, and last year I had to deal with dementors trying to suck out my soul. I was looking forward to a quiet year this year."

"How interesting," Rita said. "If you're willing, I'd like to do an article about your … adventures, I suppose."

"Er - " Harry said, looking at Sirius. He nodded at him. "Sure. Provided Sirius is there for it."

"Of course," Rita replied. "Now, How do you feel about the tasks ahead? Excited? Nervous?"

"I haven't really thought . . . yeah, nervous, I suppose," said Harry. His insides squirmed uncomfortably as he spoke.

"Champions have died in the past, haven't they?" said Rita Skeeter briskly. "Have you thought about that at all?"

"Well . . . they say it's going to be a lot safer this year," said Harry. "So, hopefully it's better."

The quill whizzed across the parchment between them, back and forward as though it were skating.

"Of course, you've looked death in the face before, haven't you?" said Rita Skeeter, watching him closely. "How would you say that's affected you?"

"Er," said Harry again.

"Are you keen to prove yourself? Show that you're more than your fame?"

"I mean, a bit," Harry said. "Not enough to enter this willingly, certainly. Honestly, I'd prefer to not be famous."

Rita hummed. "Can you remember your parents at all?"

"No," said Harry.

"How do you think they'd feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?"

"Probably all three, from the stories I've heard," Harry said.

Sirius snorted. "Definitely. James would've been proud that you were chosen, but they'd have both been worried about you and angry at the people who made this possible."

Before Rita Skeeter could say a word in response, the door of the broom cupboard was pulled open. Harry looked around, blinking in the bright light. Albus Dumbledore stood there, looking down at both of them, squashed into the cupboard.

"Dumbledore!" cried Rita Skeeter, with every appearance of delight — but Harry noticed that her quill and the parchment had suddenly vanished from the box of Magical Mess Remover, and Rita's clawed fingers were hastily snapping shut the clasp of her crocodile-skin bag. "How are you?" she said, standing up and holding out one of her large, mannish hands to Dumbledore. "I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards' Conference?"

"Enchantingly nasty," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. "I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat."

Rita Skeeter didn't look remotely abashed.

"I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many wizards in the street —"

"I will be delighted to hear the reasoning behind the rudeness, Rita," said Dumbledore, with a courteous bow and a smile, "but I'm afraid we will have to discuss the matter later. The Weighing of the Wands is about to start, and it cannot take place if one of our champions is hidden in a broom cupboard."

Very glad to be done with the interview, Harry hurried back into the room.

AN: Well, this is the next chapter. I don't have much to say. I'll post the next chapter in about two weeks.

Uploaded Aug. 14th, 2022, Edited Jan 10th, 2025