The first task was drawing steadily nearer and not knowing what it would be Y/n felt as though it were crouching ahead of him like some horrific monster, barring his path. He had spent his evenings trying to form a plan but with nothing to work off it was proving to be difficult, there were just too many variables for him to count. The best he was able to do right now was practice his spell work and increase the range of spells he could use to his advantage.
He was sat down at the Gryffindor table one morning, still in the middle with Hermione as Ron sat on the other side of her and Harry on his side. Ron was still refusing to outright talk to them but Y/n had given up now. It had been long enough for Ron to see sense, If he wished to remain sulking and broody then Y/n would leave him to it.
They were in the middle of breakfast when the post owls fluttered into the room. Y/n wasn't expecting any post for now so continued with his breakfast. Harry's eyes looked out to see if anything would drop for him. Harry had written back to Sirius saying that he would be beside the common room fire at the time Sirius had suggested, and he, Y/n and Hermione spent a long time going over plans for forcing any stragglers out of the common room on the night in question. If the worst came to the worst, they were going to drop a bag of Dungbombs, but they hoped they wouldn't have to resort to that, Filch would skin them alive.
But no mail came for them. Only letters for other students and several copies of the Daily Prophet.
A copy landed near the four and Y/n noticed what appeared to be his and Harry's images across the front of it. Curiosity got the better of him as he picked it up now and saw the headline that read.
'POTTER VS GRINDELWALD...GOOD VS EVIL?'
Y/n's annoyance began as he opened up the paper now and began to read through it. But the more he read the angrier he became.
"What absolute nonsense!" Y/n finally said angrily throwing the paper down on the table and walking out of the Great Hall leaving his breakfast unfinished.
Harry and Hermione looked at one another with worried looks. Hermione worried about Y/n's reaction while Harry worried about what Rita Skeeter had written about himself. Both picked up the paper and began to read through it.
It had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly colored life story of Harry and Y/n's lives. Harry had been painted as the unsung hero of Hogwarts while Y/n was cast into the shadows as a villain who wished to follow in his Great Uncle and Parent's footsteps.
"But this is completely untrue!" Hermione said as they read through the article.
Harry got a sick, burning feeling of shame as he got to read that Rita Skeeter had reported him saying an awful lot of things that he couldn't remember ever saying in his life.
'I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they'd be very proud of me if they could see me now... Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament, because they're watching over me...'
"I have never said that..." Harry said.
But Rita Skeeter had gone even further than that she had interviewed other people about him and Y/n too.
'Y/n Grindelwald has always been unsociable. Only hanging around the likes of Harry Potter. Maybe he likes the attention? I remember he joined the Quidditch team only a year after Harry did.' One Ravenclaw says.'
'I remember in second year we were learning to duel. Y/n battled against his brother but toyed with him as if he were a lesser person. I think he's obsessed with gaining power as he's always nearly top in all our classes.' A fellow Gryffindor told this reporter.'
One interview caught Hermione's eye in particular.
'Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school.'
"Ridiculous..." Hermione said annoyed herself now.
From the moment the article had appeared, Y/n and Harry had had to endure people, Slytherins, mainly quoting it at him as he passed and making sneering comments.
"You take over the wizarding world? In your dreams Grindelwald..."
"Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?"
"Since when have you been one of the top students in the school, Potter? Or is this a school you and Longbottom have set up together?"
"Atticus is far more talented than you Y/n! He should have been picked!"
"Hey... Harry!"
"Yeah, that's right!" Harry found himself shouting as he wheeled around in the corridor, having had just about enough. "I've just been crying my eyes out over my dead mum, and I'm just off to do a bit more..."
"No... it was just...you dropped your quill." It was Cho.
Harry felt the color rising in his face. "Oh...right... sorry." he muttered, taking the quill back.
"Er... good luck." she said. "I really hope you do well." she said leaving.
"That could have gone better..." Y/n said quietly which left Harry feeling extremely stupid.
Hermione had come in for her fair share of unpleasantness too. Y/n did his best to drown out what people were saying about him and Harry was full of admiration for the way she was handling the situation.
"Stunningly pretty? Her?" Pansy Parkinson had shrieked the first time she had come face to face with Hermione after Rita's article had appeared. "What was she judging against... a chipmunk?"
"Ignore it, Y/n." Hermione said in a dignified voice, holding her head in the air and stalking past the sniggering Slytherin girls as though she couldn't hear them. "Just ignore it, Y/n."
Harry however couldn't ignore it. Ron hadn't spoken to him at all since he had told him about Snape's detentions. Harry had half hoped they would make things up during the two hours they and Y/n were forced to pickle rats' brains in Snape's dungeon, but that had been the day Rita's article had appeared, which seemed to have confirmed Ron's belief that Y/n and Harry were really enjoying all the attention.
Hermione was furious with the three of them, she went from one to the other, trying to force them to talk to each other, but Y/n would not entertain the idea. He would only talk to Ron again if Ron admitted that neither he nor Harry had put their names in the Goblet of Fire and apologized for calling him a liar.
"I didn't start this." Harry said just as stubbornly. "It's his problem."
"You miss him!" Hermione said impatiently. "And I know he misses you..."
"Miss him?" said Harry. "I don't miss him..."
But even Y/n knew this was a downright lie.
He and Hermione had been trying to teach Harry to use a summoning charm but he still hadn't mastered it, In fact he seemed to have developed something of a block about them, and Hermione insisted that learning the theory would help. They consequently spent a lot of time poring over books in the library during their lunchtimes. Y/n used the time to read up on the past tournaments in an attempt to get an idea of what they possibly might face.
Viktor Krum was in the library an awful lot too, and Y/n noticed that he had taken a dislike to him, always frowning whenever he was in sight. Y/n wondered what he was doing here was he studying, or was he also looking for things to help him through the first task?
Hermione often complained about Krum being there, not that he ever bothered them outside his frowning at Y/n, but because groups of giggling girls often turned up to spy on him from behind bookshelves, and Hermione found the noise distracting.
"He's not even good-looking!" she muttered angrily, glaring at Krum's sharp profile. "They only like him because he's famous! They wouldn't look twice at him if he couldn't do that Wonky Faint thing..."
"Wronski Feint." said Harry, through gritted teeth. Quite apart from liking to get Quidditch terms correct, it caused him another pang to imagine Ron's expression if he could have heard Hermione talking about Wonky Faints.
It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. The days until the first task seemed to slip by as though someone had fixed the clocks to work at double speed. Y/n was still no closer to working out a plan and wherever he went the snide comments about the Daily Prophet article continued.
On the Saturday before the first task, all students in the third year and above were permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade. Hermione was sat in the common room with Y/n as she tried to convince him to with her, telling him that it would do him good to get away from the castle for a bit.
"Hermione the task is already this close. I do not think I can afford to take time off, I need time to think about what I'm going to do." Y/n said.
"And you think you will make a breakthrough sitting here in the common room all day instead?" Hermione asked him.
"Well no, but..." Y/n went to argue.
"A change of scene will be good for you. It might even help you make a breakthrough." Hermione said to him.
"...You are going to persist with this aren't you?" Y/n asked her.
"Yes, I am." Hermione said.
"Very well." Y/n sighed conceding and Hermione smiled. "But what about Harry?" he then asked. "Do you plan to ask him to go as well?"
"Oh...well... "Hermione went slightly pink. "I was hoping you might be able to help me convince him."
But Harry didn't need much persuading. "Alright, What about Ron though is he coming?"
Hermione hesitated. "I thought...we might meet up with him in the Three Broomsticks..."
"No." said Harry flatly.
"You failed to mention this to me..." Y/n said turning to Hermione now.
"Oh Y/n, Harry, this is so stupid..."
"I will go, but I am not meeting Ron...and that is final." Y/n told her.
"And I'm wearing my Invisibility Cloak." Harry added.
"Oh all right then... " Hermione snapped. "And I hate talking to you in that cloak, I never know if I'm looking at you or not."
So Y/n and Hermione waited as Harry put on his Invisibility Cloak in the dormitory, and came back then together they all set off for Hogsmeade.
Being in Hogsmede did not feel too dissimilar from the castle to Y/n, everywhere they went he could see other students staring at him, most of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! badges, some horrible remarks came his way but he had started to become used to it now, no longer caring.
"People keep looking at me now." said Hermione grumpily as they came out of Honeydukes Sweetshop later, eating large cream-filled chocolates. "They think I'm talking to myself."
"Don't look to me when you talk then." Harry said.
"Come on, please just take off your cloak for a bit, no one's going to bother you here. "
"Oh yeah?" said Harry. "Look behind you."
Y/n and Hermione turned their heads to see Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend had just emerged from the Three Broomsticks pub. Talking in low voices, they both stopped however as they reached right by Y/n and Hermione.
Rita just smiled as the photographer's camera quickly flashed.
Y/n began to move now.
"Y/n don't..." Hermione said grabbing his arm and holding him back.
Rita Skeeter and the photographer disappeared into the village now and Hermione let go of Y/n.
"She's staying in the village. I bet she's coming to watch the first task." Harry said.
"She's gone..." said Hermione, looking right through Harry toward the end of the street. "Why don't we go and have a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, it's a bit cold, isn't it? You don't have to talk to Ron!" she added irritably, correctly interpreting his and Y/n's silence.
The Three Broomsticks was packed, mainly with Hogwarts students enjoying their free afternoon, but also with a variety of magical people Y/n rarely saw anywhere else other than Diagon alley. That was because Hogsmeade was the only all-wizard village in Britain, it was a bit of a haven for creatures like hags, who were not as adept as wizards at disguising themselves.
It was very hard to move through crowds with Harry in the Invisibility Cloak, in case he accidentally trod on someone, which tended to lead to awkward questions. Y/n and Harry edged slowly toward a spare table in the corner while Hermione went to buy drinks. On their way through the pub, Harry pointed out Ron, who was sitting with Fred, George, and Lee Jordan. Y/n had to convince Harry to resist the urge to give Ron a good hard poke in the back of the head for he knew it would give Harry away, they finally reached the table and sat down at it.
Hermione joined them a moment later and handed Y/n a butterbeer before slipping Harry's to him under his cloak. Y/n sipped his drink as he felt it instantly warm him.
Hermione pulled out a notebook in which she had been keeping a record of S. P. E. W. members. Y/n peered over it with his eyes and saw his, Harry's and Ron's names at the top of the very short list. "You know, maybe I should try and get some of the villagers involved in S. P. E. W." Hermione said thoughtfully, looking around the pub.
"Yeah, right." said Harry. He took a swig of butterbeer under his cloak. "Hermione, when are you going to give up on this spew stuff?"
"When house elves have decent wages and working conditions!" she hissed back. "You know, I'm starting to think it's time for more direct action. I wonder how you get into the school kitchens?"
"Hermione do not go down to the kitchens, You will end up frightening the elves..." Y/n told her rubbing his eyes.
"I won't just sit by and do nothing Y/n!" Hermione said adamantly.
"Nor am I asking you too." Y/n said trying to calm her down. "But the fact is we cannot just free them. Most would be lost and directionless if we did that. We have to ease them into the idea of freedom, and make it something they wish for themselves. S.P.E.W's goals are not something that can be achieved in a short amount of time. It is going to take years of hard work and it is going to meet a lot of resistance from the older wizarding families." Y/n explained.
"So you intend to give up on S.P.E.W?" Hermione asked him.
"Of course not. Like you, I am in favor of House elves being given freedom or at the very least paid if they choose to continue to work. In fact I had plans to show my support by wearing my badge during the tasks." He told her now.
Hermione lapsed into thoughtful silence as she just sipped her butterbeer now but Harry was certain he could see a small smile on her face.
Harry just sat and drank his butterbeer, watching the people in the pub. All of them looked cheerful and relaxed. Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot were swapping Chocolate Frog cards at a nearby table, both of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! badges on their cloaks. Right over by the door he saw Cho and a large group of her Ravenclaw friends. She wasn't wearing a Cedric badge though...This cheered up Harry very slightly...
He wondered how the other champions were feeling. Every time he had seen Cedric lately, he had been surrounded by admirers and looking nervous but excited. Harry glimpsed Fleur Delacour from time to time in the corridors, she looked exactly as she always did, haughty and unruffled. And Krum just sat in the library, poring over books and frowning at Y/n.
Harry thought of Sirius, and the tight, tense knot in his chest seemed to ease slightly. He would be speaking to him in just over twelve hours, for tonight was the night they were meeting at the common room fire...assuming nothing went wrong, as everything else had done lately...
"Look, it's Hagrid!" said Hermione.
Harry and Y/n looked to see the back of Hagrid's enormous shaggy head, he had mercifully abandoned his bunches.
"How did we not spot him when he entered?" Y/n asked as he saw that Hagrid had been leaning low, talking to Professor Moody. Hagrid had his usual enormous tankard in front of him, but Moody was drinking from his hip flask. Madam Rosmerta, the pretty landlady was looking at Moody as she collected glasses from tables around them. Perhaps she thought it was an insult to her mulled mead, but Y/n remembered that Moody had told them all during their last Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that he preferred to prepare his own food and drink at all times, as it was so easy for Dark wizards to poison an unattended cup.
As Harry watched, he saw Hagrid and Moody get up to leave. He waved, then remembered that Hagrid couldn't see him. Moody, however, paused, his magical eye on the corner where Harry was standing. He tapped Hagrid in the small of the back being unable to reach his shoulder, muttered something to him, and then the pair of them made their way back across the pub toward Harry, Y/n and Hermione's table.
"All right, Y/n and Hermione?" said Hagrid loudly.
"Hello." said Hermione, smiling back.
"Hagrid." Y/n nodded his head.
Moody limped around the table and bent down, Harry thought he was reading the S. P. E. W. notebook, until he muttered, "Nice cloak, Potter."
Harry stared at him in amazement. The large chunk missing from Moody's nose was particularly obvious at a few inches' distance. Moody grinned.
"Can your eye.. I mean, can you...?" Harry stammered.
"Yeah, it can see through Invisibility Cloaks." Moody said quietly. "And it's come in useful at times, I can tell you. "
Hagrid was beaming down at Harry too. Y/n knew Hagrid couldn't see Harry, but Moody had obviously told Hagrid he was there. Hagrid now bent down on the pretext of reading the S.P.E.W notebook as well, and said in a low voice so that only Y/n and Harry could hear it. "You two, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. Wear that cloak too."
Straightening up, Hagrid said loudly, "Nice ter see yeh, Hermione." winked, and departed. Moody followed him.
"Why does Hagrid want us to meet him at midnight?" Harry said to Y/n very surprised.
"Does he?" said Hermione, looking startled. "I wonder what he's up to? I don't know whether you should go... " She looked nervously around and hissed. "It might make you late for Sirius."
"Hagrid has never asked us to visit him so late at night." Y/n pointed out. "I think whatever it is about must be important.
"If we are quick enough with Hagrid we should be back in time for Sirius." Harry said.
At half past eleven that evening, Y/n and Harry pretended to go up to bed early, pulled the Invisibility Cloak over themselves and crept back downstairs through the common room. Quite a few people were still in there. The Creevey brothers had managed to get hold of a stack of Support Cedric Diggory! badges and were trying to bewitch them to make them say Support Harry Potter! instead. So far, however, all they had managed to do was get the badges stuck on POTTER STINKS.
Y/n and Harry crept past them to the portrait hole and waited for a minute or so, Harry keeping an eye on his watch. Then Hermione opened the Fat Lady for them from outside as they had planned.
"Thank you Hermione, we will let you know how it goes." Y/n whispered and he and Harry set off through the castle.
The grounds were very dark. Y/n and Harry walked down the lawn toward the lights shining in Hagrid's cabin. The inside of the enormous Beauxbatons carriage was also lit up, The two could hear Madame Maxime talking inside it as Harry knocked on Hagrid's front door.
"You there, Harry? Y/n?" Hagrid whispered, opening the door and looking around.
"Yeah." said Harry, as they slipped inside the cabin and pulled the cloak down off their heads.
"What is the matter Hagrid?" Y/n asked him.
"Got summat ter show yeh both," said Hagrid.
There was an air of enormous excitement about Hagrid. He was wearing a flower that resembled an oversized artichoke in his buttonhole. It looked as though he had abandoned the use of axle grease, but he had certainly attempted to comb his hair. They could see the comb's broken teeth tangled in it.
"What're you showing us?" Harry said warily, wondering if the skrewts had laid eggs, or Hagrid had managed to buy another giant three-headed dog off a stranger in a pub.
"Come with me, keep quiet, an' keep yerselfs covered with that cloak." said Hagrid. "We won' take Fang, he won' like it..."
"Listen, Hagrid, we can't stay long... We've got to be back up at the castle by one o'clock..."
But Hagrid wasn't listening, he was opening the cabin door and striding off into the night. Y/n and Harry looked at one another before hurrying to follow and found, to his great surprise, that Hagrid was leading them to the Beauxbatons carriage.
"Hagrid, what...?" Y/n began.
"Shhh!" said Hagrid, and he knocked three times on the door bearing the crossed golden wands.
Madame Maxime opened it. She was wearing a silk shawl wrapped around her massive shoulders. She smiled when she saw Hagrid.
"Ah, 'Agrid...it is time?"
"Bong,sewer." said Hagrid, beaming at her, and holding out a hand to help her down the golden steps.
Madame Maxime closed the door behind her, Hagrid offered her his arm, and they set off around the edge of the paddock containing Madame Maxime's giant winged horses, with Harry and Y/n having to run to keep up with them. Had Hagrid wanted to show them Madame Maxime? Y/n didn't understand they could see her any time... she wasn't exactly hard to miss...
But it seemed that Madame Maxime was in for the same treat as Y/n and Harry, because after a while she said playfully, "Wair is it you are taking me, 'Agrid?"
"Yeh'll enjoy this." said Hagrid gruffly. "Worth seein', trust me. On'y... don' go tellin' anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh're not s'posed ter know."
"Of course not." said Madame Maxime, fluttering her long black eyelashes but Y/n didn't quite believe her.
Still they walked, Y/n and Harry getting more and more tired as they jogged along in their wake, Harry checking his watch every now and then. Hagrid had some harebrained scheme in hand, which might make them miss Sirius. If they didn't get there soon, he was going to tell Y/n that the would turn around, go straight back to the castle, and leave Hagrid to enjoy his moonlit stroll with Madame Maxime...
But then... when they had walked so far around the perimeter of the forest that the castle and the lake were out of sight...They heard something. Men were shouting up ahead... then came a deafening, earsplitting roar...
Y/n lips parted with confusion and a small amount of anxiety. 'Surely not...'
Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Y/n and Harry hurried up alongside them... for a split second, Y/n thought he was seeing bonfires, and men darting around them... and then his and Harry's mouths fell open.
Dragons.
Five fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting, torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground, a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might, a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom shaped fire clouds into the air, one with dark scales and an arrow-shaped tip on the end of its tail and a gigantic black one, more lizard like than the others, which was nearest to them. At least fourty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs.
Mesmerized, Harry looked up, high above him, and saw the eyes of the black dragon, with vertical pupils like a cat's, bulging with either fear or rage, he couldn't tell which...It was making a horrible noise, a yowling, screeching scream...
"Keep back there, Hagrid!" yelled a wizard near the fence, straining on the chain he was holding. "They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I've seen this Horntail do forty!"
"Is'n' it beautiful?" said Hagrid softly.
"It's no good!" yelled another wizard. "Stunning Spells, on the count of three!"
Y/n saw each of the dragon keepers pull out his wand.
"Stupefy!" they shouted in unison, and the Stunning Spells shot into the darkness like fiery rockets, bursting in showers of stars on the dragons' scaly hides -
Y/n and Harry watched the dragon nearest to them teeter dangerously on its back legs, its jaws stretched wide in a silent howl, its nostrils were suddenly devoid of flame, though still smoking... then, very slowly, it fell. Several tons of scaly-black dragon hit the ground with a thud that they could have sworn made the trees behind him quake.
The dragon keepers lowered their wands and walked forward to their fallen charges, each of which was the size of a small hill. They hurried to tighten the chains and fasten them securely to iron pegs, which they forced deep into the ground with their wands.
"Wan' a closer look?" Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly. The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and Y/n and Harry followed. The wizard who had warned Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and Y/n saw who it was, Charlie Weasley.
"All right, Hagrid?" he panted, coming over to talk. "They should be okay now... we put them out with a Sleeping Draft on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet... but, like you saw, they weren't happy, not happy at all..."
"What breeds you got here, Charlie?" said Hagrid, gazing at a nearby dragon, with something chose to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. Harry could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.
"That's a Hungarian Horntail." said Charlie. "There's a Common Welsh Green over there, the blue-gray smaller ones a Swedish Short-Snout, a Chinese Fireball, that's the red and the larger black one is a Hebridean Black."
Charlie looked around, Madame Maxime was strolling away around the edge of the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons.
"I didn't know you were bringing her, Hagrid." Charlie said, frowning. "The champions aren't supposed to know what's coming...she's bound to tell her student, isn't she?"
Y/n's stomach dropped at these words and his thoughts were confirmed. These dragons were part of the first task...
"Jus' thought she'd like ter see 'em," shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at the dragons.
"Really romantic date, Hagrid." said Charlie, shaking his head.
"Five..." said Hagrid. "So it's one fer each o' the champions, is it? What've they gotta do... fight 'em?"
"Just get past them, I think." said Charlie. "We'll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers for some reason but I'll tell you this though...I don't envy the one who gets the Horntail, It's a vicious thing. Its back end's as dangerous as its front, look." Charlie pointed toward the Horntail's tail, and Y/n and Harry saw long, bronze-colored spikes protruding along it every few inches.
Five of Charlie's fellow keepers staggered up to the Horntail at that moment, carrying a clutch of huge granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket. They placed them carefully at the Horntail's side. Hagrid let out a moan of longing.
"I've got them counted, Hagrid." said Charlie sternly. Then he said, "How's Y/n and Harry?"
"Fine." said Hagrid. He was still gazing at the eggs.
"Just hope they're still fine after they've faced this lot." said Charlie grimly, looking out over the dragons' enclosure. "I didn't dare tell Mum what they've got to do for the first task, she's already having kittens about them... " Charlie imitated his mother's anxious voice. "'How could they let them enter that tournament, they're much too young! I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an age limit!' She was in floods after that Daily Prophet article about them. 'He still cries about his parents! Oh bless him, I never knew!' At least she didn't believe all that tripe about Y/n wanting to become like his great uncle."
Y/n felt Harry carefully nudge him now to let him know he had had enough. Y/n knew that Hagrid wouldn't miss them, not with the attractions of five dragons and Madame Maxime to occupy him, So they turned silently and began to walk away, back to the castle.
Y/n didn't know how to feel now that he knew what the first task was going to entail. He was going to be armed with his only his wand against a fire-breathing dragon. And he had to get past it. With everyone watching. How?
Y/n felt Harry speed up and matched his pace to keep up, skirting the edge of the forest, they had just under fifteen minutes to get back to the fireside and talk to Sirius. Y/n knew if there was anyone Harry would want to talk to right now it would be Sirius. Without warning however, Harry ran into something very solid.
Harry fell backward into Y/n who was caught by surprise and fell to the ground, clutching the cloak around him.
A voice nearby said, "Ouch! Who's there?"
Harry and Y/n hastily checked that the cloak was covering them and lay very still on the ground, staring up at the dark outline of the wizard Harry had hit. Y/n recognized the goatee... it was Karkaroff.
"Who's there?" said Karkaroff again, very suspiciously, looking around in the darkness. Harry and Y/n remained still and silent. After a minute or so, Karkaroff seemed to decide that he had hit some sort of animal, he was looking around at waist height, as though expecting to see a dog. Then he crept back under the cover of the trees and started to edge forward toward the place where the dragons were.
'He is going to look at the Dragons, no doubt Krum will also know now." Y/n whispered to Harry who just nodded and very slowly and very carefully, Y/n and Harry got back to their feet and set off again as fast as they could without making too much noise, hurrying through the darkness back toward Hogwarts.
They reached the castle, slipped in through the front doors, and began to climb the marble stairs, both boys were very out of breath, but didn't dare slow down... They had less than five minutes to get up to the fire...
"Balderdash!" Y/n gasped at the Fat Lady, who was snoozing in her frame in front of the portrait hole.
"If you say so." she muttered sleepily, without opening her eyes, and the picture swung forward to admit him. Harry climbed inside first with Y/n following. The common room was deserted, and, judging by the fact that it smelled quite normal, Hermione had not needed to set off any Dungbombs to ensure that they and Sirius got privacy.
Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak off of them now and threw himself into an armchair in front of the fire. Y/n joined him in the one beside it. Both remained silent as Y/n thought about the dragons again.
The room was in semidarkness, the flames were the only source of light. Nearby, on a table, the Support Cedric Diggory! badges the Creeveys had been trying to improve were glinting in the firelight. They now read POTTER REALLY STINKS. Harry looked back into the flames, and jumped and hit Y/n's arm to get his attention.
Y/n looked up to see Sirius's head was sitting in the fire. Harry scrambled out of his chair, crouched down by the hearth, and said. "Sirius... how're you doing?"
Sirius looked different from Y/n's memory of him. When they had helped him escape, Sirius's face had been gaunt and sunken, surrounded by a quantity of long, black, matted hair... but the hair was short and clean now, Sirius's face was fuller, and he looked younger.
"Never mind me, how are you both?" said Sirius seriously.
"I'm..." For a second, Harry tried to say 'fine...' but he couldn't do it. Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than Y/n had heard him talk in days, about how no one believed they hadn't entered the tournament of their own free will, how Rita Skeeter had lied about him and Y/n in the Daily Prophet, how they couldn't walk down a corridor without being sneered at ...and about Ron, Ron not believing them, Ron's jealousy...
"... and now Hagrid's just shown us what's coming in the first task, and it's dragons, Sirius, I'm a goner." he finished desperately.
Sirius looked at him, eyes full of concern, eyes that had not yet lost the look that Azkaban had given them... that deadened, haunted look He and Y/n had let Harry talk himself into silence without interruption, but now Sirius said. "Dragons we can deal with, but we'll get to that in a minute... I haven't got long here... I've broken into a wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time. There are things I need to warn you about."
"Warn us?" Y/n asked now speaking up.
"Karkaroff." said Sirius. "He was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don't you?"
"Karkaroff was a Death Eater?" Y/n asked surprised.
"He was caught, he was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I'd bet everything that's why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year... to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place."
"Karkaroff got released?" Harry said slowly his brain seemed to be struggling to absorb yet another piece of shocking information.
"Why did they release him? Death Eaters do not get released." Y/n asked but Harry sensed a small amount of panic in his voice.
"He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic." said Sirius bitterly. "He said he'd seen the error of his ways, and then he named names...he put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place... He's not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he's been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well."
"He is already been giving me looks, but I shall try to keep an eye on him." Y/n said.
"Sirius... are you saying Karkaroff put our names in the goblet?" Harry started slowly. "Because if he did, he's a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop me from competing."
"We know he's a good actor." said Sirius. "Because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn't he? Now, I've been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet, Harry..."
"You and the rest of the world." said Harry bitterly.
"...and reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman's article last month, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know she says it was another false alarm." Sirius said hastily, seeing Harry about to speak.
"But you think someone attacked him...deliberately?" Y/n asked.
Sirius nodded. "I think someone tried to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one's going to look into it too closely, Mad-Eye's heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn't mean he can't still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had."
"So...what are you saying?" said Harry slowly. "Karkaroff's trying to kill us? But...why?"
Sirius hesitated. "I've been nearing some very strange things." he said slowly. "The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn't they? Someone set off the Dark Mark...and then...did you hear about that Ministry of Magic witch who's gone missing?"
"Bertha Jorkins?" said Harry.
"Exactly...she disappeared in Albania, and that's definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last... and she would have known the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn't she?"
"Yeah, but... it's not very likely she'd have walked straight into Voldemort, is it?" said Harry.
"Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins." said Sirius grimly. "She was at Hogwarts when I was, a few years above your dad and me. And she was an idiot. Very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It's not a good combination. I'd say she'd be very easy to lure into a trap."
"So what you are saying is that Voldemort could have found out about the tournament?" Y/n asked now. "You think Karkaroff might be here on his orders?"
"I don't know." said Sirius slowly, "I just don't know... Karkaroff doesn't strike me as the type who'd go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put your names in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can't help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident."
"I can understand Harry Sirius, but where do I fit into this? Why was my name entered as well?" Y/n asked.
"I don't know Y/n." Sirius admitted to him. "It would be useful if we could spy on Karkaroff...just to be able to confirm our suspicions."
"I...could attempt such a feat." Y/n said to Sirius now.
"What do you mean?" Sirius asked.
"The instructions you sent last year. I have followed them and been successful." Y/n told him now.
"You've already achieved it? Only a few years quicker than James and I, well done!" Sirius said and Y/n heard what sounded like a small tone of proudness in his voice. "You'll have to show Harry how to do it if he ever wants to learn. Maybe you can use this to help you in the tournament?" Sirius suggested.
"I will not be able to use it in the tournament." Y/n shook his head. "Since I am not registering Dumbledore has forbidden it. I doubt a little cat could do much against a dragon to begin with." Y/n said.
"Right... these dragons." said Sirius, speaking very quickly now. "There's a way, you two. Don't be tempted to try a Stunning Spell, dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single Stunner, you need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon..."
"Yeah, I know, We just saw." said Harry.
"But you both can do it alone." said Sirius. "There is away, and a simple spell's all you need. Just..."
But Harry held up a hand to silence him, his heart suddenly pounding as though it would burst. He could hear footsteps coming down the spiral staircase behind him.
"Go!" he hissed at Sirius. "Go! There's someone coming!" Harry scrambled to his feet, hiding the fire now.
Y/n got his feet as well now, he desperately wanted to hear what Sirius was going to say about dealing with Dragons, but he knew that his safety was more important for if someone saw Sirius's face within the walls of Hogwarts, they would raise an almighty uproar and the Ministry would get dragged in, he and Harry, would be questioned about Sirius's whereabouts...
They heard a tiny pop in the fire behind them and knew Sirius had gone. Both watched the bottom of the spiral staircase. Who had decided to go for a stroll at one o'clock in the morning, and stopped Sirius from telling him how to get past a dragon?
It was Ron. Dressed in his maroon paisley pajamas, Ron stopped dead facing Y/n and Harry across the room, and looked around.
"Who were you both talking to?" he said.
Y/n went to answer with 'No one' but it was Harry who spoke first.
"What's that got to do with you?" Harry had snarled. "What are you doing down here at this time of night?"
"I just wondered where you both..." Ron broke off, shrugging. "Nothing. I'm going back to bed."
"Just thought you'd come nosing around, did you?" Harry shouted. he knew that Ron had no idea what he'd walked in on, knew he hadn't done it on purpose, but he didn't care... at this moment he hated everything about Ron, right down to the several inches of bare ankle showing beneath his pajama trousers.
"Sorry about that." said Ron, his face reddening with anger. "Should've realized you didn't want to be disturbed. I'll let you two get on with practicing for your next interview in peace."
Harry seized one of the POTTER REALLY STINKS badges off the table and chucked it, as hard as he could, across the room. It hit Ron on the forehead and bounced off. "There you go." Harry said. "Something for you to wear on Tuesday. You might even have a scar now, if you're lucky... That's what you want, isn't it?"
Y/n watched him stride across the room toward the stairs and he half expected Ron to stop him, but Ron just stood there in his too-small pajamas, and Harry having stormed upstairs.
Ron and Y/n looked at one another now.
"Care for a seat?" Y/n asked as he sat back down in his armchair and faced the fire. He expected Ron to storm back to the dormitory but perhaps it was because he didn't want to run into Harry for a while that Ron actually sat down in one of the armchairs.
The crackling fire was the only sound that could be heard in the common room and both boys sat staring at it in silence for quite some time.
"You are quite honestly an ass, Ronald Weasley." Y/n finally spoke after half an hour and Ron looked at him brows furrowed ready to argue.
Y/n got up now and bent down to warm his hands in the fire. "I say this because despite recent events, You are my friend. One of whom I must admit, I am jealous of sometimes."
"Jealous?" Ron spoke for the first time.
"I envy you at times Ron, You complain about not having nice things but you do have something that is worth more than all the gold in Gringotts. A loving family. When we stay at the Burrow I always find myself wishing that my own family was not so damaged and frayed. That we would just be happy together. I am sure Harry feels more jealous than I do however given the environment he has been brought up. It makes me glad I at least have my Grandmother, but sometimes I worry about the burden Atticus and I place upon her. Being her age and having to raise two children...Two children that are no longer on amicable speaking terms due to their views on the wizarding world." Y/n turned around now. "When you next complain about having nothing, please do not forget the wonderful family and home that you have."
Ron just looked at Y/n as he made his way to the stairs.
"And now I am going to bed. It has been a long and stressful night and I need to think of how I am going to deal with the first task so that I do not perish." He began to walk up a few of the steps but Ron saw him stop again.
"Oh, and Ron. Both Harry and I did not enter our names into the Goblet of Fire...Good night." And with that Y/n left Ron alone.