2. Shock

Hermione sat, staring at the entrance to the arena, waiting for Harry to appear. The day had been terrifying beyond belief, so far. The first part of the day had been bearable, just barely. She shuddered.

Lessons were a welcome distraction that Tuesday morning, and held her worry back as she concentrated on what they were doing. Harry was . . . well, Harry was almost in a trance, barely noticing the classes as he stared straight ahead. She had to keep prodding him to keep him on track. Then it was lunch time.

Harry had even less of an appetite than she did. She, at least, managed a few bites. He just pushed his food around on his plate. There were no afternoon classes, instead everyone would troop down to the dragon enclosure and arena. Not that the rest knew they were going to be seeing dragons.

The room was filled with chatter about what the First Task might involve.

Halfway through lunch, Professor McGonagall came hurrying over. She didn't seem herself either; in fact, she looked nearly as anxious as Hermione. Everyone was watching, staring. Professor Flitwick was approaching an almost equally listless Cedric.

"Potter," their Head of House said, "The champions must go down onto the grounds now. You need to get ready for your first task."

"Okay," said Harry, standing up, his fork falling onto his plate with a clatter. He hadn't even taken a bite, yet. Hermione hadn't taken more than two or three, truthfully.

"Good luck, Harry," Hermione whispered, her own stomach felt as if it were full of butterflies. Her appetite, what little there was, vanished. "You'll be fine!" she said, more to convince herself than him.

"Yeah," said Harry in a voice that was most unlike his own. His hands were trembling.

He left the Great Hall, with their Professor ushering him in front of her.

Later, Hermione had followed in his footsteps as the rest of the school made their way to the arena. Seeing the first dragon, a blueish-grey Swedish Short-Snout, as she entered the arena was heart-stopping.

The dragon was already in place at the far end of the prepared arena. She was not happy at the Wizards and Witches filing into the seats around her. She crouched low over her eggs, and voiced that displeasure with numerous roars and random flaming.

Finding seating was easy, most people were intimidated by Hagrid, despite his classes in Care of Magical Creatures. So, finding a spot beside him was simplicity itself. As almost everyone didn't want to associate with her, she didn't have to worry about upsetting a friend. Not that she had any other friends besides Harry.

Ron had turned into such a disappointment.

Unfortunately, the half-giant sat in a front-row seat, as close to the dragon's head as possible. Ginny joined her a few minutes later, but sat on other side of Hermione. Hagrid still intimidated her.

The arena was large, with numerous boulders and holes scattered about the rock and sand ground.

Shortly, Cedric came walking into the arena. He surveyed things for a moment, then transfigured a rock on the ground into a Labrador. He clearly hoped the dog would distract the dragon from what he was doing.

Hermione, despite her fears for Harry, had to sigh. Did he care that the fake Labrador would revert to a rock, and could possibly kill the dragon if she ate it?

He did get the egg, fifteen minutes later, but he got burned as well — the Short-Snout apparently decide she would rather have him for dinner, considering he seemed to have one of her eggs.

It took another twenty minutes for the handlers to get the dragon under control enough to get her out of the arena. And then ten more minutes to get the second dragon, a Welsh Green, into the arena with her eggs.

Fleur was next, and started an odd sort of dance. She managed to get the dragon to actually fall asleep — as did a large number of the audience, Hermione was amused to note. After fifteen minutes, she had the egg. Unfortunately for the Veela-witch, the dragon started snoring and a jet of flame shot out to set her skirt on fire. She put it out with aguamenti, of course.

Swapping out the dragons was faster this time, barely ten minutes, before the scarlet Chinese Fireball was crouching over her eggs, staring balefully at everyone around her.

Viktor Krum came into the arena.

Naturally.

Harry had to be last, just her luck. Why couldn't he have been first?

Krum took a totally unexpected approach; he attacked the dragon directly with spells until one connected properly — it hit the poor creature in the eye. While that prevented the dragon from seeing him, it meant he had to scramble around as it went trampling around in agony. Unfortunately, it ended up squashing half its real eggs. Fortunately for Krum, he did get the egg in the shortest time, so far. However, the penalties for the lost Dragon eggs would counter most of that time advantage, she expected.

Trading out the dragons took much longer as they had to volley-fire a version of stupefy until the poor creature collapsed. Only then were they able to approach the nest and assess the damage. Clean up took longer, too, as they had to erase all evidence of what had happened or the final dragon would go ballistic at the smell of smashed eggs around her nest.

It was now four, by her watch, when they finally brought out the Hungarian Horntail. The arena smelled of flame-baked rock, and glassed-patches of sand and gravel were everywhere. The faint smell of sulphur overlaid everything.

The sight of the dragon made her heart stop. The others had been terrifying, but they held nothing on the Horntail. Black and clearly vicious, she couldn't imagine how Harry could hope to raid the winged-lizard's nest and get the egg.

Harry smiling as he walked into the arena was . . . shocking. Had he lost his mind?

Some in the watching crowd seemed to think so.

Watching as her best-mate slowly walked right up to that terrible dragon had been torture, especially after seeing what had happened to the other Champions. Astonishingly, he walked as casually as she strolled through her parents' back-garden at home!

She wanted to run out there to him, to beg him to run away. But she couldn't even manage to get to her feet.

Ginny had grabbed onto her arm and was clutching it so tight she had started to lose feeling in it, she distractedly noted.

Hermione could scarcely believe her eyes when Harry started talking . . . talking . . . with the dragon. The dragon had been wildly belligerent until he stepped in the arena. The ground shaking from her stomping her legs, the air reverberating to her roars of defiance. Then she had become calmer the closer he came, until he was literally close enough to touch her! His hair ruffled with her every breath.

And he seemed so happy, totally unlike the trance-like state he had been in earlier in the day. His smile, his face, fairly beamed happiness into the air.

He looked as if he had been hit with far, far too many cheering charms. She wondered what had happened in the Champions tent.

Seeing them clearly holding a conversation, short though it was, was astonishing — and more than a bit creepy. Many in the audience screamed as the dragon hissed at Harry. Harry hissing back, faint though it was, wasn't that much of a surprise.

Then Hungarian Horntail moved back slightly, lifted the golden egg from her nest eggs, the item every Champion was supposed to retrieve, and dropped it at his feet!

Seeing the dragon give . . . give . . . Harry the egg almost made her collapse in relief! She didn't even notice the disbelieving reactions of those around her. Maybe this horrible task would end with Harry being safe!

He barely seemed to notice, though. In fact, he seemed . . . disappointed?

They conversed some more, then he bent down and picked up the Golden Egg. As he straightened, the dragon exhaled the hottest, most focused flame anyone could imagine from such a huge creature. Being that he was only a step away from her mouth, there was no way he could dodge, and it was so fast, that even if he had wanted to, there wouldn't have been enough time to move so much as an inch.

The boy disappeared under a white-hot flame barely bigger than himself. Hot enough to melt and vaporize iron in seconds, the flame destroyed the flesh and blood Wizard in a tiny fraction of an eye-blink. He probably hadn't even had time to register the flame coming before he was gone.

The flame disappeared, leaving an afterimage of brilliant green on everyone's eyes. For a moment there was the faint black outline of something, but the wind rushing in after the flame blew it away.

The audience in the stands around her erupted into screams.

The dragon settled back, rested her head on her paws, with her eggs between them, and placidly awaited the wizards who would take her back home.

Hermione fainted.

.o\O/o.

He had no idea how much time passed, but much faster than he expected, he heard, "Harry James Potter, door nineteen." As Harry hopped to his feet and headed for the hall, he noticed a man in a deep-red suit walking over to a blue-skinned woman who had been chopped in half. The waist-up torso was on a chair on a pillow, and the below-waist part with legs was in a different chair. The man, who was bald in front with wild yellow hair behind sticking up in all directions — worse even than Harry's hair — sat in between the two-sectioned woman. He had a white complexion, with black-circled baggy eyes. The man was, of all things, pouting worse that Dudley when denied ice cream for dinner.

The moment Harry walked in the door, the man behind the desk barked out, "Sit!" in the same tone of voice you would say that to a misbehaving dog.

Raising his eyebrows in surprise, Harry quickly complied in the chair in front of the desk. The man looked more like a heavy-weight-lifter than a clerk, with arm-muscles that were bigger than Harry's thighs. He could probably snap a steel girder, if he wanted, Harry thought. He was also huge, definitely in the running for being as big as Hagrid. And tanned. Very tanned, an attractive golden-colour, nearly.

He looked ludicrous stuffed behind a desk that was a normal size. He looked sort of like Harry's Uncle Vernon trying to sit at one of the children's desks in primary, Harry thought. He had a hard time not chuckling, but managed to keep it to a small smile.

The man growled at the folder he was holding, signed it, then slammed it into a basket marked "Next Great Adventure" The words on the basket glittered and shone like silver or gold — they kept changing, so he wasn't sure which it was. There were two other baskets beside it. One was labelled, "Punishment" in flaming letters and the other was "Downward Reincarnation," with letters that he realized were crawling caterpillars and bugs. On the other side of the desk was a basket labelled "Pending." Its letters looked like ice.

As soon the folder, hit the basket, it disappeared.

He grabbed the folder in "Pending" and opened it.

He still had not looked at Harry.

It was almost like a cartoon the way the man's eyes bulged out and his face turned red. Harry could almost see steam pouring from the man's ears.

The man jumped to his feet and pointed at Harry in rage. "You!" he screamed.

Harry leaned back, "Me?" he said in shock.

The man was taller than Hagrid, and terrifying.

"Yes, you!" he shouted back. "I am sick and tired of YOU showing up every month!"

"What?" said Harry even more bewildered.

"Don't you what to me!" He yelled, spittle flying from his mouth.

With a massive show of control, the man took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling, visibly counted to a hundred, then sat down. He stared at the folder on his desk. He looked back up at Harry. He slammed his hand on the folder.

"I am at the limit, at the absolute limit! I have destroyed worlds for less!"

Harry just stared at the man, too scared to move.

The only reason Harry hadn't fled the room was because the man hadn't moved from behind his desk. That, and Harry's legs didn't seem to work anymore.

"The boss has been generous beyond belief. He's given me one extension after another. But if you show up one more time before you dealing with Riddle, it's back to cleaning the River Styx for me!" He leaned forward over his desk and said through gritted teeth, "And if I have to do that, YOU will be my assistant . . . Using. Your. Tongue!"

Harry felt himself get paler as the blood leeched from his face.

The man leaned back.

"What do you have against me?" he said, in a whinging tone. "I'm just a common bloke," he said. "Sure, I ordered the slaughter of a few trillion innocents, but they were a waste of space, anyway." He glared at Harry. "And here I was making excellent progress at paying for my sins until you showed up! A thousand years of nonstop clerking, no sleep or breaks, all shot to hell and gone when I was assigned to be your agent."

He stared at the table moodily. "I figured it would be an easy job. Then you died when your cousin pushed you down the stairs when you were three. An accident, an inconvenience, nothing more. Changed the angle you fell at, just bruises. Easy-peasy.

"The second time was annoying, but the solution was the same. Then you did it a third time. I fixed that by having the lard-tub miss you and fall himself. Unfortunately, he didn't die.

"Then the tub of fat started chasing you." The man shook his head. "You ran between two cars and a motorcycle took you down. I made you run a bit faster. Scared the shite out of the motorbike rider to barely miss you; made him give up drugs long enough to find his life-partner. Added nearly fifty years to his life.

"That became the pattern for the next six years. Five cars, seven lorries, and a frickin' eighteen-wheel monstrosity that I still haven't figured out how it got on Privet Drive! Nor how you managed to trip on flat pavement and end up rolling under the wheels." He stared at Harry. "How could you not see them? It was like . . . you tried to get them to hit you! Like you were some kind of isekai character hopeful." He shook his head. "Interestingly, all of them did straighten out their lives for the better, as a result. That's the only reason I got an extension when you got older." He sighed. "Then there was the time that you apparated to the school roof and left your legs behind!" He shook his head. "It didn't take a genius to figure out what would happen next! So, I fixed it so that you'd never splinch, again!"

Harry's eyes were bugged out, and his jaw hung down.

"Then, then you went to Hogwarts . . . and I stupidly thought, 'Okay, now things'll settle down! No cars, no lorries, no Harry hunting.' HA!" he laughed bitterly. "Between falling from the Grand Stairs multiple times, being squashed by a troll, spider bites, snake bites, getting beat into paste by the Whomping Willow — seven times — fatal hexes from Professors, and Hagrid's little beasties deciding you'd make a nice snack, you can barely make it two months without appearing here, sitting in that chair!" He pointed angrily.

His arm dropped to the desk and he sighed tiredly. "Not to mention the end of year hijinks, death by cerberus, death by keys, death by chessmen — for the gods' sakes, eaten by a basilisk, having your soul sucked out — four times! Four! Times!" He glared at Harry. "There's a betting pool on when you'll get it the next time! I'm losin' my mind here!" He rubbed his face with both hands for a moment.

He looked at Harry with narrowed eyes, "I told you last time, the thirty-ninth time you died, that if you came here again before your time, I would make your life in hell a true hell!"

Harry finally managed a strangled, "I don't remember any of that!"

The man who claimed to be Harry's agent rolled his eyes. "Of course you don't! We wipe your memory every time we reset the clock!" He glared at the folder. "Usually, it's only a fraction of a second we have to redo. Each time, I hope you'll wisen-up. That your subconscious-magic will remember the dangers and prevent repeating them. But, nooo, that would be too easy! Here you are! Back again! Now I gotta do something a bit more complicated. Now shut-up and be quiet!"

The agent stared at the open folder, flipping pages back and forth several times. Finally, he sighed.

"Okay, here's the skinny. You are prophesized to battle Tom Marvolo Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort, for the fate of Wizarding Britain, and, by extension, the rest of the world, as well." He rolled his eyes, "Born to those who have thrice defied him, blah, blah, blah, he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, blah, blah, blah, either must die at the hand of the other, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

He glared at Harry again.

"The only power you seem to have is creative dying every couple of months!" He sighed and leaned back in his chair, which creaked alarmingly.

"We can't let you just die, that would screw up the prophecy! If you die, it must be by Riddle's direct involvement. He can kill you himself, or order someone to do it, but he must direct the action. The same is true for you. He can only die if you kill him or direct the action. You don't kill him? No one else can!"

Harry sat in shock Was his whole life nothing but a script in which he merely read the lines? What was the point? "Don't I have any choice in this?" Harry said, desperately, after a few moments' thought.

The man stared at him blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing. He slowly stopped. He stared at Harry a moment more, "Wait, you're serious?" he said, and burst out laughing, again.

This happened several times. He'd stop laughing, look at Harry, and start again. Truthfully, Harry was getting a little tired of it, and angry.

Finally, he managed to get his mirth under control and stared up at the ceiling, wiping tears from his eyes. "Oh, by the gods, I needed that." He glanced at Harry and chuckled. "For that, I'll give you bit more than I intended.

"Yes, there is free will. You can choose to bugger, shag, screw, whatever, every girl, boy, centaur, thestral, what-have-you in your school." He stopped and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at Harry. "And there's more than one girl who isn't wearing knickers in the hope you'll notice and do a little probing!" He chuckled, and continued, "You can choose to study, you can choose to spend your time licking your privates, you can choose to kill someone instead of putting one in their oven, and spend the rest of your short life in Azkaban. However, it is fated by a prophecy that you and Riddle will have a face-to-face confrontation. You can choose when and where you fight Riddle, but . . . that's . . . all.

"Nothing you do or don't do before the confrontation will change that. But there's no set path to that confrontation. You can have as much fun as you want on the way from now until then, and postpone if for as long as you can, too — or wallow in self-pity and misery, bemoaning your fate.

"It is a set point in your world and cannot be changed." He frowned heavily at Harry. "Unless you die one more time before that fated meeting. Do that, and you spend the next thousand years cleaning the River Styx with your tongue, with me as your supervisor — and I won't be nice, I'll tell you that right now! I'll be kicking your ass every inch of the way — and," he glanced at folder, "we reset the world so that Neville Longbottom is the Boy-Who-Lived, and the Potter family is tragically wiped out by Death Eaters a few days later."

Harry felt like sicking up. "What about the Next Great Adventure the Headmaster talked about? What about my parents?" He gasped out, mentally stunned and flailing.

The man laughed again. "Oh, you get your Next Great Adventure," he said somewhat bitterly. "But only after that thousand-years of licking the Styx clean'," he said vindictively. "And maybe, maybe, if you work hard enough, you get to see your parents for a few seconds at the end of that time."

Harry sat, blinking, and shuddering.

"Now, listen up. The soul-shard in your scar being gone changes things, dramatically. There is absolutely no way I will get Death to give that soul-piece back. It has had a bar-on for Riddle for the last fifty years, ever since he offed his first victim and deliberately created a soul-jar." He shook his head ruefully. "Stupid wanker split it seven times, eight pieces, countin' you, so, Death's not gonna give it up for love, money, or soul until it has the full collection!" He huffed.

"But," Harry said bewilderedly, waving his hands randomly in front of himself, "what makes this time different?" he shuddered at the thought of having a piece of Riddle's soul stuck in his head. "I died all those other times, too!"

The agent rolled his eyes. "Listen, you dolt," he said, "There is always a period of time between someone dying and their soul leaving their body — death is rarely instantaneous. The French were the first, in your world, with the Guillotine, to discover that. Some brave or insane soul had a friend ask questions after their head was loped off. He showed he was awake and responded by blinking in answer to yes/no questions, for about fifteen seconds. Only after the original soul leaves the body and the brain shuts down, does a soul-shard realize the host is dead and leave the body. Which is why non-magicals in your world, uh, Muggles, can revive someone whose heart has stopped for up to three minutes under normal conditions.

"This time," he continued, "the dragon vaporized your body — you were instantly dead, and your soul had nothing to tie it to life or the soul-shard. Once that soul-shard was freed, nearly instantaneously, Death snatched it."

He straightened and rubbed his hands together. "Without the shard, things that should happen, can't. Which means I can stick in a few things to get you to that showdown with Riddle!"

Harry stared, wide-eyed again, at the man.

"That gives me options . . . opens avenues that are supposed to be closed." He gave Harry a vicious smile, one that promised someone much pain."

Harry suspected it was probably him.

"So, here's the freebie — if you want a chance at a long life instead of dying when Tommy-boy arrives to deal the finishing blow: Find the tapestry on the seventh floor of that idiot teaching trolls to dance. Walk back and forth three times asking for Professor Hogwarts to teach you what you need to know over the next thirteen weeks to pass your NEWTs and beat Riddle. If you study two weeks in that room every night, in eleven weeks you'll cover the four years of Hogwarts you have left to do. Play your cards right, and you'll be able to checkmate that wanker — not that he has anything to wank with, anymore.

"Don't?

"Then you and I get a nice looonnng vacation on the River Styx.

"Got that?"

Harry nodded rapidly. "Seventh floor, troll tapestry, walk three times asking for Professor Hogwarts, compressing time."

"Good. Now, then, some adults can see things you've done if you look them in the eye. Stop doing that."

"Next is the tricky part. I can't roll you back a second and let things go forward. You were too close to the dragon to move more than a metre, maybe two. The dragon promised to help you, so she would just re-aim her flame, and vaporize you again before you could escape.

"I can't just move you somewhere else when I move things back. I have to wait until you are vaporized." He paused. "That's the other reason the soul-shard is gone.

"I need to get you completely away."

He frowned. "Definitely wasn't something any other dragon would have done; I'll need to do something nice for her when she gets here. Maybe it's time for her to move up?" He pulled something out of a desk drawer, made a note, and dropped it back.

He looked back at Harry and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Fortunately, I know of a way to put you back where no one will suspect a thing!" he gloated.

His eyes twinkled and glittered in a most disturbing way. Then he sighed and slumped a bit. "As much fun as it would be to chuck you out through the Veil of Death in your Ministry of Magic, I fear the Unspeakables would never let you go."

He slammed his hands on his desk and stood up. "Welp, nothin' to it!" He walked around the desk and grabbed Harry by the scruff of his robe. "Come along," he said, as if Harry had a choice.

"Oh wait, before we go," he dropped Harry and returned to his. He rummaged in a drawer for a moment, then pulled out a paper. He bent over it and added a paragraph or two. "Here, sign this," he said coming around the desk and pulling Harry over to it. He shoved a biro in his and pointed to bright red "x" on the paper.

The contract had lots of dense print.

Harry hesitantly took the biro and looked at the line beside the "x".

"Well, sign!" the man ordered.

Harry hastily complied.

The man tossed the paper on his desk.

"Avatar Korra, door fourteen . . .," Harry heard as the agent half-dragged, half-carried him out the door and down the hall, dodging the people streaming to and from the other doors. None spared him more than a curious glance, if they noticed him being carried at all.

"We'll call it accidental magic. I'll put a trace of teleportation magic on the spot — it'll drive them nuts trying to figure that one out!" He chuckled. "No way to trace where you went or how you did it, just enough to show you left the area with accidental magic."

"Lê Hoàng Hiếu Nghĩa Đệ Nhất Thương Tâm Nhân, door five . . .,"

He glanced at Harry. "You'll remember how to teleport — you only need to want to be somewhere you've been, seen a picture of, or had someone describe quite clearly — but you can only teach it to family. I leave you to figure out the limits — just don't kill yourself doing it! No teleporting to a volcano or the Moon! At least, not until you off Tom."

"Lalisa Chidchob, door eighteen . . .,"

"What was that paper?" Harry said hesitantly.

"Contract, says you can remember what I told you, extenuating circumstances and total destruction of body." He smirked. "And a few extras to add a bit of chaos."

They arrived at their apparent destination. The door slamming closed behind them cut off the next announcement, "Bilbo Baggins, room . . .."

The man dropped Harry, who stumbled on finally having his feet on the floor. He took a quick look around the room.

It was a rectangular room with a circular, panelled, raised platform cut into one corner. The walls were a bluish-purple, the floor a non-descript grey. The platform was only three steps above the floor, and red with six circular lights spaced evenly in a circle in both the platform and its ceiling. Nine green-lit panels made up part of the circular wall that enclosed three-quarters of the circle, and stretched from ankle height to a hands-length from the ceiling.

A control panel on a two-legged pedestal was set about three meters from the platform, in the opposite corner.

Something twinged in his memory, the room looked vaguely familiar, something he had seen once on the telly in a science fiction show.

The man waved him towards the platform. "Stand on one of those lighted circles."

Hesitantly, Harry complied. He positioned himself carefully, then looked at the man now standing behind pedestal and doing something to the controls on it. His size made it look like he was playing with a child's toy.

His agent looked back up at him. "I almost forgot. Take those tracking charms off your cloak, and your other things, too. And do something with that basilisk corpse, it's worth a small fortune! The Goblins'll do it at a fair price if you haggle a bit. Offer them a third of whatever they first offer."

He paused a moment and frowned. "Oh, yeah, Death said to tell you, if I ever got the chance where you'd remember it, thanks for sending along that one soul-shard in the diary."

He did something to the panel and grinned savagely. "And there'll be much more mayhem if I can knock you out for a while!"

He waved his off-hand at Harry, and the boy was abruptly very tired.

The man suddenly leaned forward; hands pressed against the control panel. "You should enjoy your life; see how many birds you can wet your willy with. There are quite a few who'll say yes, and a few are even up for threesomes! More than one is willing to let you put one in their oven, just to have it, if you know what I mean!"

Harry didn't.

A hum started to fill the room. "Oh, and you have a soulmate, a girl named Ginger? Gracie? Granny? Granger?" He frowned. "Maybe its Luner? Lurra?" He paused. "Or is it Ellie? Gillony? Sue? Susie?" He shook his head. "Whatever." He frowned. "Oh, yeah, visit Gringotts, you got more political pull than you think."

Was he having Harry on?

An odd feeling that he should be somewhere else hit him. Just before the room disappeared, the agent shouted, "And get your head out of your ass! You got brains, use them!"

The man's words still ringing in his ears, Harry had just enough time to look around where he was. He was in the Chamber of Secrets, he realized, facing the dead basilisk, before his knees buckled and he fell to the stone floor, unconscious.

.o\O/o.

Seated above and behind the commentator's box in the stands, Headmaster Dumbledore stared in abject horror as the dragon's flame vanished. How could things have gone so wrong? Fifty years of careful planning, plotting, and manipulating gone in less time than an eye-blink — and everything had been going so perfectly!

The Dursleys' had moulded the boy into a passive, unquestioning, easily controlled wimp. He had been pitifully grateful for Ron Weasley's friendship. The Weasley boy's laziness and lack of drive had prevented the boy from really getting excited about magic and working at improving himself. Instead of being at the top of his classes like his parents, his pawn was barely scrapping through.

Like a beaten puppy, the boy was pathetically eager to please anyone who was even remotely nice to him. Being afraid that doing better than his mate would lose him that mate kept him from performing as well as he could. Any time the other boy suggested a game, he'd agree out of fear of disappointing his mate, and gradually losing his friendship.

In addition, the Weasley boy jealously guarded Harry, making sure to drive off any who might threaten his position as The-Boy-Who-Lived's best mate — which kept the boy at arm's length from the rest of the school. There would be no other friends for the Potter boy, as planned.

He hadn't even had to bribe the lazy twit!

Meanwhile, Harry's various mishaps had kept him quite isolated from his peers, forcing him to rely on his lazy best-mate. The genial grandfather-like image that Dumbledore projected whenever he was around the boy also helped keep the boy in line, accepting the Headmaster's "wisdom" and doing as he was told.

Any other famous child would have been constantly surrounded by sycophants and hangers-on vying for his attention and friendship. Harry had two friends, one of whom had managed to sneak in only after a near catastrophe. One that the Weasley boy couldn't chase off without drawing condemnation from his family and other friends for picking on a girl — oh, yes, Weasley had friends other than Harry. Yes, Harry was quite alone in a crowded school.

When the time came, the wretched boy would unquestioningly critically wound Voldemort while selflessly dying in the process, willingly giving his life to help destroy Voldemort. Then he, The Great Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, would swoop in once more to save the Wizarding world from wrack and ruin. He would go down in history as the Greatest Wizard Ever Known, even greater than Merlin.

Everyone still thought the disgusting weakling was being raised by a Wizarding family — thanks to his non-answers to questions. Everyone thought the boy had been trained and taught Wizarding customs, history, and mores as the son of a Noble and Ancient Family — thanks to his misdirection. Everyone thought the milquetoast's ignorance of those details was instead the derisive attitude of a rich, spoiled, prat who thought he was better than everyone else, that the rules applied to others and not himself — thanks to his apparent privileged treatment by the professors.

Everyone thought he was someone who believed the Wizarding world owed him success, fame, and acclaim.

Plus, his adventures through the years, escaping punishments and gaining points, seemed to show favouritism, and reinforced those assumptions. Everyone thought his fantastical escapades were his vain attempts to draw attention, rumours that most disbelieved as wild exaggerations by an attention-seeking prat— despite him never talking about them! An opinion that Dumbledore was careful to cultivate while appearing to champion the boy instead.

His abysmal Wizarding manners and attitude, with his casual disregard for the proper respect for dressing for his position, drove the Pure-bloods spare. They saw him as a walking, talking insult to them and their honoured traditions. The Half-bloods were upset at his lack of respect for the very positions they aspired to reach.

His lack of respect meant he didn't respect them, either. The Muggle-born were put off by his ignorance of their traditions and customs — the Dursleys had done well in isolating him and keeping him ignorant. In short, everything he did offended the very people who should have been his staunchest allies. Three groups of people and he fit in with none of them while offending them all.

And the mug never suspected a thing!

This year, as he had planned, the Potter's brat had been isolated from everyone in the school, all except one thinking him a liar and cheat, even those who supported him in the Tournament. The other schools also had bought into the lie. Nobody outside of his one friend actually liked the child. Lonely, isolated, miserable, he was the perfect mug for Dumbledore's plans.

Albus had had to adjust his plans for that one exception, the buck-toothed know-it-all Granger. Her devotion to the prat had surprised him, but he had that well in hand. A few more minor potions with her meals and she'd be spending all her free time with that Victor fellow instead of Harry. A few jealousy potions to the lazy Weasley would set up the trio for self-destruction as his two friends ignored him while fighting. Then the boy would truly be alone and receptive to his plans.

Barty Crouch was perfect as Mad-Eye Moody, tricking that ridiculous antique, the Goblet of Fire, into choosing the boy for the Tournament. No one suspected a thing, not even Barty . . . pardon, Moody.

And now it was all gone. He had wanted the boy to be miserable, not suicidal! The Champion he needed to wear down Voldemort was gone.

He had been surprised to hear the Dragon speaking Parseltongue. Because the Dragon was at the opposite end of the enclosure he had only heard a bit of what she said, and nothing of what Harry had said. The protective spells separating the arena from the stands had muffled sounds as well as blocked any spells cast into it, which had prevented him from casting a hearing spell on the boy. It hadn't helped that Harry had had his back to the Judges' Platform.

He was jolted from his revere by the sonorous at his side.

"Everyone is to remain in their places!" came the orders from Madam Bones. "This is now a crime scene, disturb nothing."

.o\O/o.

Author's Note: A German mathematician, Germain Tobar (School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, Australia) working on his Graduate Thesis looked into time travel, and, using Set Theory, came up with mathematical proofs that certain events were set-points that had to occur. The details between those points are more fluid. As an example, if you were to time-travel to the first person to get COVID, and stop that from happening, then another person would have become the zero-patient because conditions were ripe for that to happen to someone. Similarly, the things that set off WWI and WWII were complex and not driven by any one person. Stopping the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand or the rise of Hitler would not have prevented either war. The individuals affected, and how they were affected, would be different, but that's all. (Search for "Reversible dynamics with closed time-like curves and freedom of choice")

Otherwise, if this is "all according to God's plan," then there is no free will. You can do anything you want because anything you do God has ordained that you do it, and, so, it's not your fault for merely doing what God wanted.