A letter is waiting for Harry when he gets back to his dorm room. It sits innocuously on top of his bed, and his heart pounds with fear at the realization that anyone could've opened it and seen the return letter from Sirius. He's never using one of the school owls again.
Harry,
I can't say everything I would like to in a letter. There's always the risk of an owl being intercepted. We need to talk face-to-face. Can you ensure that you are alone by the fire in Gryffindor Tower at one o'clock in the morning on the 22nd of November?
I know better than anyone else that you can look after yourself, and while you're around Dumbledore and Moody, I don't think anyone will be able to hurt you. However, someone seems to be having a good try. Entering you in that tournament would have been very risky, especially right under Dumbledore's nose.
Be on the lookout, Harry. I still want to hear about anything unusual that happens. Let me know about the 22nd of November as soon as you can.
Padfoot
The world feels a bit fuzzy around the edges. On one hand, he wants nothing more than to talk to Sirius and be reassured that everything will be okay, but on the other hand, it's such a huge risk to talk to him in Gryffindor Tower. There's bound to be someone else awake, regardless of the hour. He casts a furtive glance around the room before collapsing onto his bed with a sigh. "But what else am I supposed to do?" he murmurs with an aching heart. "I don't have any other ideas…" He startles when a familiar face suddenly pops up at his bedside, peering up at him with huge, green eyes. "Dobby…?"
An eager nod is his answer, and the house elf snaps his fingers before beginning to speak. "The great Harry Potter sir be looking for a private place to be making calls? Dobby can help!"
"Shh…!" he hisses quietly. "The others can't hear about this."
"Oh, they not be hearing, sir! I be casting a Muffling Charm first! The great Harry Potter sir's secrets be being too important to risk, Dobby knows."
The tension lining his shoulders slowly melts out of them. "Thanks, Dobby. That was really clever of you." Dobby beams at the praise, offering a thin, bony hand as Harry gets to his feet. He should probably get some sleep, but this is far from the first time he's spent a sleepless night wandering the castle. It's certainly not going to be the last. "You said you had an idea…?"
"Oh, yes! You be needing the Come and Go Room, sir, otherwise known as the Room of Requirement! The room can be anything you needs it to be. I can be showing the great Harry Potter sir if he has his cloak…?"
A wide, eager grin curls his lips as something like the faintest bit of hope stirs to life in his heart. "Give me just a second. I'll grab it real quick."
"Then I will be leading the way!"
He's relieved when Dobby slips underneath the quickly gathered cloak with him, grasping Harry's hand as they walk in tandem. Despite being much smaller, Dobby seems to have no trouble keeping up with Harry's pace, and, in fact, Harry finds himself struggling to keep up with the house elf rather than the other way around. It feels like they're walking for ages. Down the spiraling staircase in Gryffindor Tower, through a maze of hallways, and up several staircases they go, avoiding a few trick steps that even Harry didn't know about thanks to Dobby. They don't stop moving until they're standing in front of a peculiar portrait of a wizard trying to teach trolls ballet on the seventh floor, and Harry tilts his head in confusion as he stares at the odd painting that Dobby is pointing to with an excited grin.
"The great Harry Potter sir only need be walking in front of the portrait three times while thinking of what he be needing. Be specific! If sir be needing a private place to speak to his dogfather, then he needs be making sure no one can finds him."
Harry nods as he mulls the thought over, and gratitude swells within him at having an easy answer to at least one of his problems. "Thanks, Dobby. I really appreciate it."
"Oh, of course! It be the least Dobby can be doing after the great Harry Potter sir freed Dobby from his awful, nasty master. You be calling on Dobby if you ever needs anything, okay? There be no rules against house elves helping champions."
Harry's eyes get all misty again, and he really needs to get a handle on this whole crying thing. It's getting embarrassing at this point. "Thank you, Dobby," he repeats very emphatically. "You're a wonderful friend." And the best friend he has now, come to think of it. Dobby's eyes go very wide, and a pleased squeak escapes his throat as he flutters about.
"The great Harry Potter sir needs be testing the room now!" Dobby sounds pleased and embarrassed in equal measure, barely pausing to say, "Dobby has many chores to be doing around Hogwarts, but he always be answering sir's call," before he pops away as silently as he came.
Harry paces back in forth in front of the tapestry, thinking over and over again, 'I need a place to make a private floo call to Sirius Black. A place where no one else will be able to find me.' An entrance appears on the wall opposite the tapestry after the third time he passed it, and he takes a cautious step into the room with a smile slowly spreading across his face.
The Room of Requirement is currently empty of anything beyond a fireplace and some floo powder on the mantel. The door shuts behind him the instant he walks through it, and he finds himself very glad that he hadn't bothered to put away his school things yet when Dobby came to visit. He pulls out a parchment and quill and immediately begins writing his response.
Padfoot,
I can do you one better. On the 22nd of November, make a floo call to the Room of Requirement. One of my friends, a house elf named Dobby, gave me the suggestion, and it'll keep anyone from overhearing our conversation. I can be there at 1 am.
I can't use one of the school owls again. It left your letter sitting on my bed, and I'm lucky that no one else grabbed it. I won't risk it. I'll try to find a way to disguise Hedwig, but in the meantime, we'll have to take the risk of her being spotted over the risk of one of my dormmates finding out that we're talking.
I don't… exactly have Ron to cover for me anymore. Or Hermione, for that matter. This whole tournament thing really sucks. At least the champions are being cool about it.
Be safe and don't get caught,
Harry
Maybe Hedwig won't be quite so angry with him if he sends her off with this letter. He decides to give it a go tomorrow morning; he really needs to get some rest if he isn't going to be dead on his feet during lessons tomorrow.
Harry is still visibly exhausted come morning, but Hedwig does forgive him, so he at least has that going for him. He'll have to send her off to pick up more owl treats soon. He's already running low on them, and bribery is the best way to get back into Hedwig's good graces whenever he upsets her.
Classes are the same as ever, but at least the Hufflepuffs are talking to him again. Mostly because he still hasn't taken his badge off. It's especially fun to see the way Snape's face screws up whenever he sees it, but he can't make Harry take it off without forcing all of Slytherin to remove theirs too. It's immensely satisfying.
Meals have become far more relaxing too. Harry, Fleur, Cedric, and Viktor make a point of sitting with each other more often than not, and it's strange to think that sitting among a sea of black and yellow is swiftly becoming more familiar to him than being surrounded by red and gold. Everyone is so welcoming now that they aren't angry at Harry anymore, and it's easy to see how Hufflepuffs, in general, tend to have more friends both within and outside of their house. It's nice. Maybe he should have talked the hat into putting him in Hufflepuff instead…
On second thought, the Hufflepuffs might have been even more insufferable than the Gryffindors are being right now if the goblet had picked two champions from their house. It's probably for the best that he wound up where he is.
Harry tries his best not to think about the first task too much. There isn't much he can do in the way of preparing for something he knows nothing about, so beyond Fleur teaching him a few more advanced, defensive spells, specifically the Shield Charm; Smokescreen Spell; and Exploding Charm with the promise to teach him the more powerful version of the latter once she's sure he can manage it safely, and helping him finally figure out the Summoning Charm that he's been struggling with in lessons, there isn't much to be done. It makes him more than a bit nervous.
Hey, he said that he's been trying not to think about it, not that he's been particularly successful.
Skeeter's article for the Daily Prophet certainly doesn't help matters. Despite his refusal to answer any of her questions, the entire article wound up being focused around him. She even edited one of their photos to show only Harry's face, leaving out the badge that he refused to take off, and his displeased scowl takes up nearly the entire front page. Fleur and Viktor are only mentioned in the last line of what he does read, their names are misspelled too, and he doesn't think Cedric is mentioned at all. He's right furious about it, but maybe it's for the best that she didn't sink her claws into them too. Her article is genuinely nauseating.
"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 this tournament, because they're watching over me…"
Ugh. Aside from being blatantly fabricated, it's so horrifically forced and unlike him at all. "Can I sue?" he murmurs with a furrowed brow, glancing up at Fleur with a hint of trepidation. She looks even more furious than he is, and he won't be surprised in the slightest if her copy of the Daily Prophet goes up in flames. Fleur is especially skilled with fire spells; that's a veela thing, apparently. "This feels like something I should probably sue for."
"You should," Cedric agrees with a stubborn set in his brow. "This is blatant libel, and if you let her get away with it once, then she'll just keep doing it. Skeeter wouldn't dare write this sort of thing about most people with your influence, but she's probably banking on the fact that you're a kid and won't know what to do to stop it. It's sick. I'll have to write my dad, see if he can lend you our barrister…"
Viktor nods with a grim look. "Ve vill be vitnesses. Ve vere all there, and it vill be hard for her to call you a liar if ve back you up."
The lump in Harry's throat is really hard to swallow around, all of a sudden. "Thanks, you guys."
"Of course!" Fleur ruffles his hair with a fond smile, and even though he usually finds himself shying away from touch, he can't help leaning into it this time. He knows that Fleur is safe, as hard as that is to truly believe. "Zis is an outrage, and we will not let zem treat you like zis! You are only a child. You should not be part of zis tournament at all."
Having other people looking out for him once is… It's really nice.
It feels like the entire school is quoting the article at him, mostly the Slytherins, mocking him for Skeeter's blatant falsehoods that spilled across several pages. There's apparently a segment on how close Harry and Fleur, name still misspelled and primarily referred to as simply Beauxbaton's champion, have become since she arrived at Hogwarts too. It insinuates all sorts of things that really does make Fleur set the paper on fire when she hears about it. "Zat is absurd!" she snaps at one of the older Slytherins, and he's more than a bit pleased by how pale and uneasy their previously smug faces gets. "'E reminds me of my little sister!"
That starts up a whole new round of mocking, but Harry can't say that it bothers him at all. Not with the warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest that comes with Fleur basically calling him her little brother. Or at least admitting that she treats him like one. Is this what it feels like to have a family…?
The closer it gets to the day of the first task, the quicker the days seem to pass by. Harry is getting increasingly anxious about it, and he's grateful that the Saturday before the first task is a Hogsmeade weekend. Harry won't have to sneak around this year, and though Cedric is going on a date with Cho, both Fleur and Viktor agree to go with him.
"I vonder how different it vill be from Bulgaria…" Viktor murmurs with a contemplative hum. "There are far more restrictions here."
"Zat is true. But I've 'eard zey can get quite creative too! Zey keep 'aving to ban new zhings that someone creates to get around ze bans…"
Honestly, Herry has no idea what they're talking about, but they seem to be enjoying themselves so… He's content to merely walk alongside them and show them around. At least, he is until they stumble across Rita Skeeter prowling around the village, likely hunting for new victims to interrogate about him.
Viktor and Fleur exchange amused looks at his immediate, disgruntled sigh. "Vant to go scare her?"
Fleur's answering grin is positively predatory. "Oh, I'd loveto."
His new friends are a little scary. It's the coolest. It also keeps the instinctive panic from settling in when Skeeter's sharp eyes lock onto him in the distance, rushing toward their group of three with her photographer right by her side. Harry pulls out the piece of parchment that Cedric's barrister drew up for him, and he hands it to her before she can utter a word.
"How wonderful to see you again, Harry!" Skeeter simpers. "Is this for me? I knew you'd love that article–" her voice abruptly cuts off when she opens the roll of parchment, face paling as her smile fades into a grimace.
"It's a cease and desist," Harry says, more for the sake of the crowd gathering around them than Skeeter herself. She knows what it is. Cedric's barrister recommended that he give her this somewhere public, somewhere that she can't deny it was given to her, so this meeting is pretty fortunate, actually. Giving her a chance to back down will make him look more reasonable and mature than if he went after her for a single article, and it will also make anything she writes about him afterward subject to far more scrutiny. "If you write another blatantly fabricated article like that, then I will sue you for libel."
The murmuring around them fades into mere whispers as Skeeter stammers, "I- I have no idea what you are insinuating! I tell only the truth!"
"Vhat a funny thing to say," Viktor deadpans. "Since ve vere vith Harry the entire time, and he never said any of those things."
Fleur crosses her arms with a fierce scowl. "And Harry is a child. You cannot interview 'im without 'is magical guardian's consent, even if 'e 'ad given his own. Which 'e didn't."
Magical guardian? What? What does that mean? "Oh, but his magical guardian did agree," Skeeter says with a predatory glint in her eyes. "Dumbledore is hardly going to keep me from interviewing the champions."
His train of thought abruptly screeches to a halt. What? Dumbledore is his magical guardian? Then why…? Why has he been forcing him to go back to the Dursleys? Even if there are protections on the Dursleys' house or whatever, he hardly imagines that he's any safer beneath those than he'd be by Dumbledore's side. He tries not to let the shock show on his face, but he's probably not doing a very good job of it. "I still refused," he whispers with a shaky voice. "Don't do it again."
It's pretty hard for him to enjoy his trip to Hogsmeade after that. Fleur and Viktor do their best to cheer him up, though, and they eventually make their way to the Three Broomsticks as a group. He should probably feel a bit childish for sipping on his Butterbeer while the two of them drank Firewhisky, but they don't make it weird at all.
"'Ow are you feeling about ze task, Harry?" Fleur can't quite mask the concern in her voice.
"Really nervous," he admits with a sheepish grin that doesn't reach his eyes. "I'd feel better if I had some idea of what I was getting into, but… There's nothing for it, I guess."
"Ve can go over some curses and jinxes later?" Viktor offers, though it sounds more like a question than a suggestion. "Defensive spells vill be quite helpful, but ve don't know if ve'll have to fight."
"That would be really awesome," he agrees with a smile that's just a bit more genuine than before. "Are you sure? I feel kinda bad getting so much help from you guys…"
"I am sure."
"Zis tournament is supposed to be about improving international relations." Fleur's sharp grin is nothing short of mischievous. "Zey cannot stop us from 'elping each other without looking bad. I want to win, yes, but I want us all to live even more."
"You've got a good head on your shoulders, girl." Harry nearly jumps out of his skin at the sudden appearance of Moody. Hagrid isn't far behind him, holding a tankard as large as Harry's head in his hand and giving them all a friendly wave. "It'll serve you well. Though you could stand to be a bit more aware, Harry…"
His cheeks flush with embarrassment. "I'm not really at my best right now." That feels like the understatement of the century, but it's as much as he's willing to say. Moody levels him with a contemplative look before falling into an easy conversation with Fleur, eyeing Viktor warily from the corner of his eye.
Hagrid leans down, trying and failing to be subtle, and murmurs, "Harry, meet me by me cabin at midnight. Bring yer cloak." He nods in answer, and Hagrid's beaming smile as he and Moody leave them be has a smile twitching on Harry's lips. He probably should have known that a few rules wouldn't stop Hagrid from helping him.
"You zhink 'e is going to tell you what ze task is?" Fleur asks with a contemplative hum.
"Probably," he admits with a strained laugh. "I hope so… I'll tell you guys tomorrow?"
Viktor nods in easy agreement. "Thank you. It vill be easier to train you if ve know what ve're doing."
"You should probably take a nap once we return to ze castle," Fleur murmurs with a fond smile. "Sounds like you won't be getting much sleep tonight."
Harry scrunches up his nose at that, but she's right. They end up heading back to the castle shortly after they finish their drinks, and he does take that nap, too anxious to do pretty much anything else. His sleep is fitful, but he really does need it when he's going to be floo-calling Sirius right after meeting with Hagrid tonight. He'll probably be cutting it pretty close to make it back to the Room of Requirement in time.
Harry slips beneath his Invisibility Cloak and out of the Gryffindor common room late that night, and he's lucky that the Fat Lady is sleeping just as heavily as his roommates. She would have questioned why her portrait opened with no visible reason to do so, and the last thing Harry needs is for her to alert the other portraits or, even worse, his professors. He creeps through the castle, walking faster than is probably wise and stumbling over his feet a few times in the process. But Harry somehow manages to make it outside without running into anyone, and he's steadily making his way toward the flickering lights of Hagrid's cabin as his heart pounds in his chest. The Beauxbatons carriage is lit up too, and he can vaguely hear Madame Maxime's voice even through its closed doors. Harry knocks on Hagrid's door very quietly, casting a wary glance behind him as he waits for him to open the door.
"You there, Harry?" Hagrid asks with a whisper, looking around furtively as the door creaks open.
"Yeah." Harry slips through the door and pulls his cloak off his head. He doesn't remove it any further. The rest of him is still invisible right now, and he'll be able to duck back under it quickly and hide if Madame Maxime comes this way. "What's up?" He really hopes that this is about the first task and not something else. Harry doesn't know if he has it in him to deal with another three-headed dog or the Blast-Ended Skrewts laying eggs or something right now.
"Got summat ter show yeh. Come with me, keep quiet, an' keep yerself covered with that cloak. We won't take Fang, he won't like it…"
"Okay," he agrees easily enough, ducking his head underneath his cloak once more. "But I can't stay long. I need to be back up at the castle by one o'clock–" But Hagrid isn't listening. He's already walking outside, so Harry heaves out a quiet sigh and follows. He's quite surprised to be led straight to the Beauxbatons carriage. He keeps silent as Hagrid knocks three times on the door, wondering what on earth is going on here but knowing better than to ask. He'll find out soon enough.
Madame Maxime opens the door, and she smiles when she sees Hagrid. "Ah, 'Agrid… It is time?"
"Bong-sewer," Hagrid absolutely butchers his greeting as he beams at her and holds out his hand, helping her down the golden steps. Madame Maxime doesn't seem to take any offense, closing the door behind her and accepting his offered arm as he leads the three of them into the Forbidden Forest.
"Wair is it that you are taking me, 'Agrid?" At least Harry isn't the only one in the dark here.
"Yeh'll enjoy this," Hagrid says gruffly. "Worth seein', trust me. Only… Don't go tellin' anyone I showed yeh, right? Yer not s'posed ter know." Ah, so this really is about the first task. Looks like Fleur is probably going to find out without him telling her. Harry still plans on telling all three of them anyway, just in case, but it's pretty funny that Hagrid doesn't realize that Madame Maxime will absolutely, without a doubt, use this information to help Fleur cheat.
"Of course not," Madame Maxime lies quite convincingly, fluttering her eyelashes with an exaggerated smile. Hagrid seems quite pleased. Harry has to practically jog to keep up with their far larger strides, and he nearly falls over when he hears men shouting up ahead followed by an ear-splitting roar. That… does not sound good.
Harry swallows harshly before continuing forward, peering around Hagrid and Madame Maxime with no small amount of trepidation. He freezes in place at the sight before him. Dragons. Four fully-grown, huge dragons are rearing up on their hind legs and spitting gouts of fire into the air as they make their displeasure known. Four dragons. Four champions. That cannot be a coincidence.
He feels sick. He's going to die. Oh, what a horrible way to go…
There are at least thirty wizards, seven or eight per dragon, attempting to wrangle them into submission, and they are struggling. It doesn't exactly inspire much confidence in Harry's chances of surviving this thing. "Keep back there, Hagrid! They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know?! I've seen this Horntail do forty!"
"Is'n it beautiful?" Hagrid murmurs softly. Harry isn't sure if he's talking to himself, Madame Maxime, or Harry, but either way, he disagrees. He disagrees very strongly. They are terrifying, and he is going to die a brutal, agonizing death in front of the entire school. Harry isn't going to last a minute against one of these things–
"It's no good! Stunning Spells on the count of three!"
The wizards all shout "Stupefy!" in unison, and it takes a long time for even that many stunning spells to take effect. The dragons teeter and stumble before slowly collapsing, and the wizards rush forward to tighten their chains and fasten them to iron pegs that they send deep underground, tethering the dragons to the earth.
"Wan' a closer look?" Hagrid asks Madame Maxime, clearly excited and not even waiting for an answer before he leads her forward. Harry recognizes the wizard that called out to Hagrid as Charlie, Ron's brother, and suddenly his comment about them seeing him sooner than expected makes an awful lot of sense.
Oh, he should've figured this out ages ago. Harry feels so stupid.
"Alright, Hagrid?" Charlie pants as he walks over for a quick chat. "They should be alright now. We put them out with a Sleeping Draught on the way here, thought it would 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?" Hagrid's eyes are locked onto the huge, black dragon that looks the most like a lizard of all the dragons here. Its piercing, yellow eye is only just cracked open despite the Stunning Spells that it's currently under. Truthfully, it probably would be a bit beautiful if Harry wasn't staring his imminent death in the face.
"This is a Hungarian Horntail. There's a Common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one. That blue-gray one is a Swedish Short-Snout, and the red one is a Chinese Fireball." Charlie looks around as Madame Maxime strolls forward, studying the petrified dragons with sharp eyes. Harry is still frozen stiff. It's hard to breathe. "I didn't know you were bringing her, Hagrid," Charlie says disapprovingly as he glances in Madame Maxime's direction. "The champions aren't supposed to know what's coming. She's bound to tell her student, isn't she?"
"Jus' thought she'd like ter see 'em." Hagrid shrugs, still gazing at the stunned dragons with nothing short of reverence.
"Really romantic date, Hagrid," Charlie teases with a shake of his head and a disbelieving chuckle.
"Four… So it's one fer each o' the champions, is it? What've they gotta do, fight 'em?" Bless Hagrid for asking questions that Harry really needs to know the answers to. Even if part of him almost wishes he didn't know anything at all.
"Just get past them, I think. We'll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers. I don't know why, but I'll tell you this: I don't envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. Her back end is as dangerous as her front, look." The Horntail has long, bronze spikes all the way up her tail. They look wickedly sharp, and Harry wonders, more than a bit morbidly, if being killed by spikes would hurt more or less than death by fire. Five of Charlie's coworkers march toward the Hungarian Horntail, carrying a clutch of gigantic, granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket that they settle beneath her while she still can't move. Hagrid lets out a noise of pure longing that has Charlie leveling him with a sharp look. "I've got them counted, Hagrid." Then, far more gently, "How is Harry?"
"Fine," Hagrid murmurs. He still hasn't looked away from the eggs.
"Just hope he's still fine after he's faced this lot. I didn't dare tell Mum what he's got to do for the first task; she's already having kittens about him…"
Harry stiffly turns around, not wanting to hear another word of this. Dragons. Even just having to get past one is… 'Well,' he thinks. 'At least I'll get to talk to Sirius one more time before I die.' He waits until he gets just outside of the Forbidden Forest before he whispers, "Dobby?"
Dobby appears before him in an instant. "The great Harry Potter sir be calling Dobby?"
"Can you take me to the Come and Go room? I don't want to risk missing Sirius." It would take him forever to get up to the seventh floor from out here…
"I can be taking you to the hallway!" Dobby agrees with a rapid nod. "I just be needing your hand." Harry allows his fingers to slip out from beneath his cloak, holding onto it tightly with his other hand as Dobby's hand wraps around his. There's a brief twisting sensation that makes him gag before they're suddenly right in front of the tapestry. "Is you being okay?"
"I'm fine," he croaks faintly. "I already wasn't feeling very well. Thank you, Dobby. I really appreciate it."
"Of course! I be doing anything for the great Harry Potter sir. He need only be asking." Dobby's beaming smile makes him feel the tiniest bit lighter before the house elf disappears, and Harry starts pacing back and forth immediately. He doesn't have time to linger around out here, no matter how awful he feels.
'I need a place to make a private floo call to Sirius Black. A place where no one else will be able to find me. I need a place to make a private floo call to Sirius Black. A place where no one else will be able to find me.' He has to focus extra hard on what he wants this time. His mind is swirling with so much panic and fear that he's afraid of what might happen if he lets his mind wander for even a second.
Harry breathes out a sigh of relief when he finds himself in the same room as last time. Just in time, too. The fireplace crackles and flares green as Sirius's head appears in the flames. "Huh. I don't think we ever found this room. Good job, pup!"
Just the sound of Sirius's voice has tears welling up in his eyes. "I didn't find it," he reminds him with a wobbly smile. "Dobby showed it to me. How're you?"
"Forget me, how're you doing, pup?"
"I'm–" Harry chokes on a sob when he tries to say 'fine'. He isn't. Not even remotely. "I'm so scared, Sirius…!" His godfather's eyes widen with alarm. "Only the other champions believe I didn't enter myself into the tournament, and I can't walk down the hall without getting sneered at by someone. Skeeter wrote those awful lies about me, and even after giving her a cease and desist, I just know she's gonna do it again. I could see it in her eyes. She's just gonna try harder to be close enough to the truth that I can't sue her for it. Ron… Ron didn't believe me. About the tournament. He was mad. He was jealous, can you believe that?!" Harry laughs, and he knows that he sounds more than a bit hysterical. He is hysterical. "I'm going to fucking die, and he's jealous! Hermione thinks I'm being ridiculous for not trailing after him and sucking up to him, like I should be sorry for being thrown into this mess, and now she's not talking to me either! Ron seems annoyed that she keeps trying to make him apologize too, so I don't know why she's even trying…" He's not sure when his hand drifted into his hair or when he started pulling on it, but it does make him feel the tiniest bit better. "And now Hagrid just showed me that the first task is dragons, Sirius! Dragons!! I'm a goner! I'm gonna get eaten, or burned alive, or skewered, or…"
Sirius watches Harry's long-overdue breakdown with open concern, unable to hide his worry despite the deadened, haunted look that still lingers in his eyes regardless of looking so much healthier than when he saw him last. He keeps his voice carefully gentle as he says, "Dragons we can deal with, Harry, but we'll get to that in a minute. I haven't got long here. I've broken into someone's house to use the floo, and they could be back any minute… There's something that I need to warn you about."
Dread crawls up his throat and threatens to choke him. What could possibly be worse than dragons? "What?" he croaks with fear thrumming in his heart.
"Karkaroff. Harry, he was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don't you?"
"Yes. He… What?" Karkaroff doesn't really seem like a Death Eater to Harry, far too nervous and jittery, but then again, considering Pettigrew…
"He was caught. He was in Azkaban with me, but he got released." And how on earth is that fair? Sirius is still on the run despite being innocent, and they just… let an actual Death Eater walk free? One with the mark, presumably. Harry wonders if they ever even bothered to check Sirius for that mark before throwing him into Azkaban. He rather doubts they did, or they would've been forced to give him a trial when they saw that his arm was bare. "I'd bet everything that's why Dumbledore wants an Auror at Hogwarts this year, to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. He was the one to put him in Azkaban in the first place."
"Karkaroff got released?" he repeats slowly. "Why?"
"He made a deal with the Ministry of Magic," Sirius says bitterly, clearly just as unhappy about it as Harry is. "He said he'd seen the error of his ways, and then he started naming names… He put a lot of other people into Azkaban in his place. He's not very popular there, I can tell you." Well, that explains the nervousness. "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."
"Hey!" he barks sharply. Sirius looks pretty startled by it. "Viktor is my friend. He's not like that. He's helping me prepare for the task, and–"
"I'm just saying to be careful, Harry," Sirius groans with a roll of his eyes. "And to maybe consider that he doesn't have your best interests in mind." He will not. Something in the stubborn set of his brows must have given him away, because Sirius just shakes his head before saying, "It's pretty likely that Karkaroff put your name in the goblet."
"Well, if he did, then he must be a really good actor. He seemed absolutely furious about it. And it still doesn't have anything to do with Viktor."
"We already know that he's a good actor. He never would've gotten out of Azkaban otherwise. Now, I've been reading the Daily Prophet and–"
"You and everyone else in the world," Harry mutters bitterly.
"And," Sirius continues with a quiet laugh. "I've been reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman's article last month. Moody was attacked the night before he started Hogwarts. I know she says it was another false alarm, but I don't think so, somehow. I think someone was trying to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think that someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult if he did. 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, you think Karkaroff is trying to kill me? Even if he did put my name in, the task is more important right now. It doesn't really matter that he wants me dead if a dragon flambés me for him! And it's not like he's going to go out of his way to kill me when this tournament will do the job just fine."
"I've been hearing some very strange things," Sirius says as if he's not listening to him at all. Maybe he's not. Harry is starting to get extremely frustrated about the fact that no one ever listens to a bloody word that comes out of his mouth. "The Death Eaters seem a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn't they? Someone had to set off the Dark Mark. And then… Did you hear about the Ministry of Magic witch that went missing?"
"Bertha Jorkins?"
"Exactly! She disappeared in Albania, and that's definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last… And she would have known that the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn't she?"
This really feels like grasping at straws to Harry, and he feels a bit awful for not caring one bit about any of it. He's too freaked out by the dragons. They need to get back to the topic at hand, especially if Sirius doesn't have much time. "Yeah, but… It's not very likely that she would've walked right into Voldemort, is it? The dragons, Sirius–"
"Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins." Harry is going to cry. Again. "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, Harry. I'd say she'd be very easy to lure into a trap."
"Okay, so maybe Voldemort found out about the tournament through her," he says, mostly just to placate Sirius at this point. "That still won't help me survive it, so if we could please focus on the dragons –!!"
"Right, the dragons," Sirius says, speaking very quickly now and glancing behind him. That cannot be a good sign. "Now, Harry, don't be tempted to try a Stunning Spell. Dragons are strong and too magically powerful to be affected by a single Stunner; you need about half a dozen wizards to overcome a dragon–"
"Yes, I know!" Harry snaps as rage burns under his skin with all the fury of a swarm of irritated pixies. "I just saw that!! Just tell me what to do, Sirius!!"
"But you can do it alone. There is a way, and a simple spell's all you need. Just–" Sirius jerks back, and Harry barely has the chance to register him shifting back to Padfoot before his face disappears from the fire. He sits and stares at the empty fireplace in disbelief for several long moments, dragging his hand down his face when it becomes clear that Sirius isn't coming back.
"I guess they came home…" he whispers as he heaves out a sigh. "I hope he got out okay…" Because Harry isn't going to. He is going to die on Tuesday. Even if the others try to help him, there's no way that he can learn anything that will help him get past a dragon in just a couple of days. There's just this… numb sort of acceptance of that fact now. Even if he manages to summon the Invisibility Cloak, the dragon will still know he's there, and she'll probably be able to smell him. Mrs. Norris can certainly sense that he's around, even if she can't see him, and she's not half as magical as a dragon. There's just… nothing that he can do. He's going to die.
Harry isn't sure where his listless feet are taking him, but it's not toward Gryffindor Tower. He's holding onto the Invisibility Cloak, but he doesn't bother putting it on, either. Even if he is caught, what does it matter? He's not going to live long enough to serve detention for it anyway. He just… walks. Walks and walks until he finds himself climbing a different spiral staircase, emerging at the very top of the tower as a cool breeze blows across his face.
He slowly makes his way over to the edge of the Astronomy Tower, sitting down and dangling his feet over the ledge as he stares up at the stars. He traces several constellations with his finger before spotting Sirius, the Dog Star, and pausing as his vision blurs with tears. He's going to die. He's never going to get to know what it's like to live with Sirius, to live with someone who actually cares about him. He's never going to get to know what it feels like to kiss someone, to love someone so much that just being apart from them makes his chest ache.
Harry Potter is fourteen years old, and he's going to die on Tuesday. He's going to die horribly and brutally in front of the entire school, in front of his friends, and Mrs. Weasley is going to be so upset… 'But it doesn't have to be like that,' that quiet voice in the back of his head whispers. It's a strangely familiar voice, but he can't quite place why that is. It's a very young voice, though, even younger than he is. 'They don't have to watch you die.'
His gaze slowly shifts down. He is… very high up. It's even later than he thought it was, but the sun still hasn't risen quite yet. It'll be a while before everyone is awake, especially since it's Sunday. Would… Would this be so bad? Falling doesn't sound anywhere near as painful as whatever will happen to him if he tries to get past a dragon. It's just like flying, isn't it? One last dive for the snitch before he can finally rest. No more fear, no more pain, no more fighting…
Harry scoots even closer to the edge. His heart is pounding, but his mind is utterly calm. This is the best way, isn't it? For everyone? He's going to die anyway, so what does it really matter? At least this way, he can choose how. Trembling, calloused fingers grip onto the cool stone beneath him as he leans forward. "Oi, are you stupid?! Get away from the edge, Potter!" He startles violently at the sudden shout behind him. He doesn't fall off the tower, but it's a near thing. Harry glances back, and he's surprised to see Malfoy standing there, wide-eyed, pale, and trembling just as badly as Harry is.
"I'm surprised you didn't take the chance to push me off it, Malfoy. No one would have suspected you." Harry shakes his head with a chuckle. It's a rueful, bitter thing that burns the back of his throat. "Don't look so worried. I'm not going to jump." Not with an audience, anyway.
"You could still fall, you bloody idiot! Of all the reckless–!"
"Would that be such a terrible thing…?" he whispers. He may as well have shouted it for how deafening the silence that follows that question is.
"Would it… Merlin, Potter, what is wrong with you?" There's a sneer on Malfoy's face, and it's clearly meant to sound derisive but… He looks worried. He sounds worried. He's shaking like a leaf, taking an anxious step forward as his hand twitches like he wants to reach out for Harry.
"I'm going to die anyway," he says simply, shrugging as he glances back down. He can hear Malfoy scrabble forward, and that's the only reason he doesn't flinch when he gets dragged back a few inches. That pale, trembling hand clutches onto his robes and refuses to let go. "This tournament is going to kill me. I'd rather not make a spectacle of it, I think."
"I don't think there could be a much bigger spectacle than the bloody Boy-Who-Lived throwing himself off the Astronomy Tower."
"Maybe," he agrees easily enough, shrugging all the while. "But I won't be alive to care, so."
"Just… Just, why ?" Malfoy whispers, looking utterly distraught and horrified by the very thought. "I was just messing with you about the tournament. Don't… Don't do this."
"Oh, I know. But I wasn't. The first task is dragons, you know?" He's not sure how it's possible for Malfoy to get any paler, but he manages it somehow. He looks as sick as Harry feels. "So… I'm going to die. Very painfully. In front of everyone. Surely you can see why I'd consider going for one last dive instead."
"I… Merlin. Merlin," Malfoy whispers faintly. He doesn't even look vaguely reassured when Harry stands up, rolling his shoulders as he walks away from the edge. There's always another night. He can come back. "Do you… Do you know what kinds? I know a lot about dragons, maybe we can figure out some way to…"
"Um… A Common Welsh Green, Swedish Short-Snout, Chinese Fireball, and a Hungarian Horntail," Harry recalls, mentally ticking off the list as he went down it. "Oh, and uh, they're all nesting mothers."
"... What?" Malfoy deadpans with a disbelieving look. "You have got to be kidding me. I thought they wanted fewer deaths this time. Are they out of their minds?"
"Apparently!" Harry hisses in response, so furious that it borders on sounding like Parseltongue. "I don't know how the others are going to manage this. Me? I'm just dead!"
"I'd say you should try to rig it somehow to get the Welsh Green, but…"
"I'm not even supposed to know about it. And knowing my luck, I'm going to get the Horntail no matter what I do."
Malfoy grimaces as he dips his head in a nod. "Probably. Merlin, what a mess. Just… Let's get off this tower. I'll figure something out, and you've got the other champions to help you, right? You guys seem pretty close."
And oh. He feels awful now. Even if he knows that Madame Maxime is probably going to tell Fleur about the dragons, he really almost threw himself off the Astronomy Tower without passing that information along first. He's a horrible friend. "... Okay."
Malfoy breathes a quiet sigh of relief, waiting until Harry starts making his way back down the staircase before following him. If he had done this yesterday, then Harry would think that he's trying to stab him in the back or push him down the stairs. But he's doing it today, and now he knows that Malfoy is only making absolutely sure that Harry does not stay up on that rooftop.
He's being… really nice, actually, in his own way. Harry just hopes that the whole school doesn't find out about his little episode by tomorrow morning. That would be embarrassing.
"... Be careful, Potter. I'll pass whatever I find along through Krum. He'll listen if I tell him it's to help you, and he's not likely to go spreading it around either."
"I will. Thanks, Malfoy."
"Don't mention it. Seriously, don't."