lomonaaeren

“It’s amazing.”

Harry smiled up at Madam Marchbanks. She’d brought him to the train platform so he could catch the Express, but she hadn’t stopped exclaiming about Dumbledore’s unexpected good sense all through breakfast. “I suppose he had to make the right decision sometime.”

“Just wouldn’t have expected him to make it this soon, after only three years of bad ones.”

“Bad ones that you were paying attention to.”

Harry’s heart still kind of squeezed when he teased Madam Marchbanks like this, but she just cackled and prodded him with her cane. “Knew you wouldn’t let Ravenclaw make you soft. Good lad.”

Harry leaned in and hugged her. He had the charm she had given him to detect Dark creatures with him, one of the spiders that would weave a magical web that could block or hold someone as necessary, and a few other little surprises that Madam Marchbanks had found or devised over the summer. “I’m going to miss you.”

“You’ll be too busy learning to miss me.”

That was probably true, but Harry still knew it was polite to express sentiments like he had. And it made Madam Marchbanks look pleased, so Harry was pleased, too, as he stepped back. “I’ll see you at Christmas.”

“That you will.”

One final poke with her cane, and his guardian turned and stumped back towards the Floo that had brought them there. Harry watched her go, but still turned around quickly when someone moved behind him.

“It’s just me,” Parvati said, rolling her eyes a little. She hooked her arm through Harry’s without asking and hauled him towards the train. “Michael owled me this morning to say he would get a compartment for us.”

Harry looked down at her arm, but Parvati only gave him a hard, bright smile. Harry nodded with a little smile of his own. “Have you heard from Theo or Zacharias?”

“My mother said she didn’t want me associating with Theo after the incident at the World Cup.”

Harry rolled his eyes a little. “You’ll notice that’s not what I asked.”

“He has an owl that my mother doesn’t recognize. I just told her I made a new friend in Gryffindor, and she was too relieved to ask for details.”

“They don’t hate you in Gryffindor.”

“Of course not. There’s Lavender. But she thinks—well, it doesn’t matter what she thinks.”

“It does, if you want me to do something about it.”

They had just come aboard the train, and Parvati turned to face him, fingers digging into his arm for a second. Harry tensed, and she stopped. But Parvati shook her head and said, “Let me handle Lavender. Please. She’s just being silly.”

“All right. But you’ll tell me if you want me to handle it.”

“I’d only tell you if I wanted her terrorized.”

Harry had to smile a little as he and Parvati went to find the compartment Michael was holding for them. It was a comfort, in some ways, to know that his friends understood him so well. And in other ways, his skin crawled the way it had when Madam Smith had told him what Harry had felt like to her Heart-Sensing.

But it didn’t matter. He would learn the spell to block the Heart-Sensing soon. He had ways to handle his friends if they tried to hurt him.

He was going to be the victor in the battle for survival, no matter what odds he had to face and conquer.

*

“Dramatic entrance.”

“Yes,” Harry said, eyes locked on the new Defense professor. This was the one bit of sense Madam Marchbanks thought Dumbledore had shown in the past four years. Moody was a former Auror, one with a dazzling arrest record, and although his sense of morality might be rigid, Harry thought he could learn from him.

Moody was sniffing his food at the head table carefully, not drinking except from the flask at his hip. Harry cocked his head. Learning detection charms he could cast on his own meals wouldn’t be a bad idea.

He would learn all he could. And Moody had an impressive sense of paranoia. Harry couldn’t wait to see what Moody would teach them.

“There’s the Tri-Wizard Tournament, too,” Michael said that night as they walked into their dormitory.

Harry shrugged a little and began pulling on his robes. “A concern for the older students, not us.”

*

“I’m not going to be nice.”

Harry sat near the front of the Defense classroom, which he didn’t usually bother with, eyes locked on Professor Moody. The man was moving back and forth in a way that reminded him of Madam Marchbanks, but he stumped a little less heavily. Harry could see the remnants of a fine duelist in him, while Madam Marchbanks was old enough that the remnants were fading.

“Can’t have you getting soft when you might have to fight a war soon,” Moody said, his magical eye locking on Harry for a minute, and then spinning on to look at the rest of the classroom. “Those Death Eaters at the World Cup weren’t caught, you know. More could pop up any time. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!”

Harry jumped along with everyone else, and Moody smiled a little as he looked at him.

Harry stared back. Teach me what you can. Yell all you like. I won’t flinch when it comes down to it.

Maybe Moody saw that, because he asked for Harry to stay behind when he would have left. Harry stood waiting with his hands down loose at his sides, although his right one was resting near his wand holster.

Moody took a long sip from his flask and then studied Harry. “Albus said that you didn’t get along with your other Defense professors.”

“You could say that.”

“Tell me why.”

Harry raised his eyebrows a little, but Moody showed no sign of not wanting to order him around, and Harry could put up with a little rudeness if he could learn some of Moody’s battle tactics. “The last one, Lupin, was a friend of my parents, but he never tried to contact me when I was a kid.”

“And he was a werewolf.”

“That, too.”

“You hated him for that?”

“No. Just for not contacting me, and acting like it wasn’t a good idea for me to be living with my guardian.”

“Griselda Marchbanks,” Moody murmured. He seemed to be thinking deeply. “And your second year?”

“That was Gilderoy Lockhart. He tried to take advantage of my fame as the Boy-Who-Lived to end up on the front page the first time we met, so Madam Marchbanks shouted at him. He mostly left me alone after that, but I didn’t care for him.”

“And the year before that?” Moody leaned forwards a little, as if he expected Harry to say something more interesting than he had so far.

“Did you know Professor Quirrell, sir?”

“Not well.” Moody seemed amused for some reason. “He certainly wasn’t teaching here when I was a student, and he never tried to become an Auror trainee.”

Harry nodded. “Well, I didn’t like the way he stuttered or smelled like garlic. It made it hard to learn from him. But I don’t know exactly what happened when the curse on the Defense post took him. I suppose he wasn’t any worse than some of the other professors.”

“Hmmm.” Moody took one more sip from the flask, and then tucked it into a loop on his belt. “You might as well know that I’m only going to be here for one year, as a favor to Albus. Then back to my quiet retirement.” He cackled, a broken laugh that ended in a cough near the end. “So if you want me to teach you dueling and the like, ten months is all we have to do it in.”

“Did Professor Dumbledore ask you to do this, sir?” Harry did want to learn from Moody, but not if he was doing it on Dumbledore’s agenda. Then he probably wouldn’t tell Harry any of the most important stories or show him the most important spells.

Moody cackled again. “Not as such. He just hinted. It was another person who suggested that I might train you.”

“Madam Marchbanks?”

“Mmm.” Moody eyed Harry. “You’ll have to show me what you know already. If you didn’t get along with your Defense professors, I suppose that you didn’t show them your skills or try that hard in their classes, either.”

“I didn’t show them what I knew, sir.”

It was a challenge, a dangled bait, and from the way Moody smiled at him, he knew it. But he only nodded. “Then let’s begin. Tonight, my office, seven-o’clock.”

Harry was smiling as he stepped out of the classroom, and even the careful way Zacharias and Michael looked at him couldn’t dampen his spirits. Harry just shook his head. “He didn’t do anything to me.”

“All right.” Michael still looked a little dubious, but he turned away and began to lead them towards the Great Hall. “The stories about him don’t say he’s that sane.”

“Does that matter, as long as we can learn from him?”

Michael’s gaze said that it ought to, but Harry shrugged that off. He was smiling as he sat down at the Ravenclaw table, more than he usually did, and enough for some people to ease away from him. He didn’t care that much.

I’m going to learn from the best. I’m going to keep myself safe.

*

“I want you to shield.”

Harry nodded and cast Protego in front of him, then waited for the first of Moody’s spells. But nothing came. Harry looked up slowly at the man, wondering if Moody was studying the shield and deciding on the spells he should throw.

But instead, Moody was staring at him with undisguised shock and both eyes fixed in the same place for once. Harry stared back, feeling a frisson of unease, instead of just respect and fascination, around Moody for the first time.

“You cast that silently,” Moody whispered.

Harry grimaced a little. He had been practicing silent casting for most of the summer. Honestly, a lot of the spells Erik and some of his other tutors showed him were as likely to be silent as spoken aloud. Harry had adapted well to it, he thought because of the way that he had studied History and Potions and Arithmancy, all of which involved some silent magic. “Is that going to be a problem, sir?”

“No. But do you know how rare that is in students below sixth year, boy?”

“Please call me Mr. Potter. Or Potter, if you have to.”

Harry’s voice had gone thin, and he saw from the way Moody had cocked his head that he’d homed in on it. Moody grunted a little. “You ought to know that that’s the kind of vulnerability that enemies will take advantage of, boy.”

Harry heard Uncle Vernon in the tone. Saw him, too, in the way that Moody’s normal eye was piercing him.

He fought himself back under control. Part of him wanted to pin Moody to the wall with one of the spells he’d been studying in Grimmauld Place, but he shook his head and resumed control of himself. “But in a duel or the like, then I’ll already know they’re an enemy, sir. And if I’m going to learn from you, I need to not hear it.”

“Why not? What does it make you think I’m going to do?”

“Shut me in a cupboard.”

Moody paused. Then he said in a different tone of voice, different from all the others he’d been using so far, “Ah. This is about the Muggles.”

“It is.”

Moody studied him with both eyes again. Then he stepped back with a little grunt and a shake of his head. “You don’t need to worry about that. I won’t shut you in a cupboard. But you have to get used to words. Usually, those would be the least devastating weapons your enemies would use.”

Harry nodded slowly. He had the impression that Moody’s personality had changed somehow, not just his voice. But that was ridiculous. “What kind of spells are you going to cast at my shield, sir?”

“A simple Protego, eh?” Moody’s magical eye whirred into the back of his skull as he lifted his wand. “Let’s see if I can make it a challenge for you.”

*

By the time Harry left Moody’s office, he was panting and sweaty, far more so than he had been during his last session with Erik, but also exhilarated.

It was an odd sensation, one that Harry couldn’t remember feeling before. He walked along, thinking about it, feeling it, and nearly ran into Snape.

They both stopped, and Snape looked at Harry with hard, gleaming eyes. But he hadn’t pressed his luck with Harry since second year. He simply glanced away and said in a neutral tone, “It is nearly curfew, Mr. Potter.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll go back to the Tower.”

He could feel Snape staring at him as he walked away, but Harry didn’t understand why. He could keep up the pretense of respect if Snape could.

When he got into Ravenclaw Tower, all of his roommates were already in bed. Harry shook his head as he went to gather up his pyjamas. He didn’t think he would sleep half the night, given that his head was whirling with the stories and spells Moody had told him about.

“Harry.”

Harry turned around and saw that Michael was peeking between his bed-curtains. Harry walked over and sat down next to his friend’s bed. Michael darted his eyes back and forth as if checking to make sure none of their roommates were paying too much attention, and then whispered, “How was it?”

“Great,” Harry said, keeping his voice low, too. “He’s powerful and brilliant, and he knows a lot of spells that are legal but could really stop someone in their tracks.”

Michael smiled, but he looked a little worried. “You know we would defend you, too, right?”

“Of course. But you don’t know spells like that.”

“We could look them up.”

“Do you want to study together outside class, then?” Of course, they had been practicing some spells with each other like that since first year, but Harry hadn’t shown his friends the most powerful and devastating magic he was practicing. Even Theo only knew a few of the spells.

“Yes. I do.”

Michael had that stubborn look he got when he thought someone was being stupid about Runes or the like. Harry didn’t understand how it applied here, but he nodded amiably enough. He thought that Michael and Zacharias would probably get concerned and refuse to learn some of the magic, but Theo would want to know it. And maybe Parvati.

“All right, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Michael reached out of his bedcurtains and gripped Harry’s hand hard. Harry gripped back, blinking, and got into his bed with a faint frown for his canopy.

Michael had acted worried about Harry when he stayed back with Moody, too. Did he think that Moody was going to be unhelpful to Harry because the last few Defense professors had been?

Harry supposed he could see that, but in reality, their Defense professors had all been different kinds of unhelpful. It was about time they had someone who could actually tutor them in powerful magic.

*

“Not the others. Only you.”

“Why, sir?”

Moody paused, leaning one hip against the desk as he watched Harry practice with a shield spell he hadn’t named. This one created a huge, spreading pool of black like a barrel of tar turned on its side in front of Harry, and it swallowed most hexes and curses without deflecting them. Harry found it tiring to hold, but he was determined to succeed, since Moody had said that even most Aurors couldn’t cast this kind of shield.

“You’re the one I think could benefit the most from my help,” Moody said at last.

“The others could, as well.”

“Why do you think they will?”

“Because if the Death Eaters attack, any of them could be at risk,” Harry said. He kept one eye on Moody while also watching the shield. It spread across the air in front of him, rippling, and then snapped into a dripping black curtain that cascaded down and across the floor. Harry tried to Vanish it, but Moody was the one who had to do that, with a cackle and a wave of his wand. Harry swallowed back the exhaustion and faced Moody again. “Michael’s a half-blood, Zacharias is the son of a rich family people might want to influence, Parvati has people who will hate her because they think she’s foreign, and Theo was supposedly the son of a Death Eater.”

“Supposedly.”

Moody hissed the word. Harry raised his eyebrows and stared Moody directly in the eye. “Yes, sir.”

“Kalder Nott was a Death Eater. Who should know that better than I?”

Odd. Theo hadn’t made a reference to Moody arresting his father or fighting him. Then again, Harry had the impression that Kalder did keep a lot from his son. He arranged his face in an expression of patience. “Under Imperius, sir.”

“You’re a fool if you believe that, boy.”

Harry had learned not to flinch at being called that, even if he still hated it. Now, he just held Moody’s eyes. “I know what the official story says, and I don’t have a reason to question it.”

“Why not?’

“He’s welcomed me into his house and not hurt me multiple times, sir.”

“He could be playing the long game. Waiting for a time when he could take you hostage or manipulate you to get concessions from the Ministry.”

Harry had to laugh a little at that. “Why would he? Everyone knows that Theo and I are friends. If I vanished or started acting strangely, Kalder is the first person everyone would turn to point their fingers at.”

“You call him by his first name?”

“Yes. Sir.”

Moody continued to stare intently at him. Harry stared back. He felt nothing of the push of Legilimency against his mind that Erik had taught him to recognize, and he wasn’t sure that Moody could use Legilimency with one magical eye instead of a real one anyway.

Moody grunted and looked away. “Fine. But the answer is still that I won’t teach your friends. I don’t have time. Teach them on your own if you want to.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said, keeping his voice carefully respectful. In truth, he had asked because Michael had asked and because he wanted to see what Moody would say. Not because he wanted his friends to learn everything he was learning.

“Go to it. Again.”

Harry lifted the tar shield again, and Moody began barking spells. Harry swallowed and deflected them all, ignoring the pull in his muscles from the exhaustion.

He had to get better, faster, stronger. And better to get exhausted in a situation like this, with a professor who wouldn’t hurt him, than on the battlefield.

*

“Who from Ravenclaw do you think is going to put their name in the Goblet?”

Harry ignored the chatter of his yearmates as he walked towards the Great Hall, much as he had ignored the arrival of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons the night before. To him, the Tournament just wasn’t that interesting. It was one more thing that would take up time he could be using to study when he had to go watch the Tasks.

“Harry?”

Harry glanced at Michael, slowing a little so he could catch up. “Yeah?”

“Who do you think is going to put their name in?”

“Uh.” Harry barely paid attention to the older, upper-level Ravenclaws, and so couldn’t have stated who was ambitious or stupid enough to think they’d survive the Tournament. “I don’t know. Cho Chang?”

“She’s not seventeen, Harry.”

“Then I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you care? It’s a chance for fame and eternal glory!”

“I have both, and it’s not that fun.”

Michael gaped at him. Harry looked back. Michael certainly knew he was the Boy-Who-Lived, even if Harry didn’t emphasize it a lot. Harry didn’t know why he was acting so taken aback now.

“Uh. Yeah, I suppose to you it wouldn’t be.”

In truth, Harry didn’t see why anyone would want to risk their lives for a thousand Galleons and some fleeting recognition, but he just nodded politely and let Michael assume this was another quirk of Harry’s. It was easier that way.

Sometimes being the only sensible one is exhausting.

Dinner was tense, although Harry mostly ignored it to read a book on the history of wards that Moody had recommended. Madam Pince had squinted suspiciously at him when he took it out of the library, but Harry hadn’t known why. It wasn’t like it had even been in the Restricted Section.

“Attention, students!”

Harry sighed and looked up. Apparently they were doing the drawing of the Champions’ names now, the flickering flames of the Goblet throwing odd, twisted shadows on the wall from the students and professors alike.

“The Champion for Durmstrang is…Viktor Krum!”

How surprising, Harry thought as he added his polite applause to that of the rest of the Hall. The Goblet seemed to be influenced by fame or what other people thought of the “Champions,” too. Krum stood up with a scowl and slouched over to the small room off the Great Hall that his Headmaster was herding him to.

“The Champion for Beauxbatons is…Fleur Delacour!”

Harry clapped limply. Delacour was pretty and got looks of jealousy or longing from half the Hall as she walked by. Harry thought the Goblet was probably influenced by that, too. It would be more impressive if it had chosen someone unpopular but skilled with spells.

“The Champion for Hogwarts is…Cedric Diggory!”

“Who?” Harry hissed under his breath to Michael as a boy stood up from the Hufflepuff table.

“Honestly, Harry. He’s the Hufflepuff Seeker.”

“Oh.” Harry shrugged. Yeah, the Goblet was functioning on popularity. He felt a moment’s fleeting curiosity about how other people’s expectations could influence a magical artifact, but it wasn’t anywhere near as pressing as his curiosity about the wards in the book Moody had recommended him.

Dumbledore started making another speech about the Tasks and inter-school unity. Harry turned and picked up his book again.

A startled murmur that ran around the Great Hall made him glance up. Even Dumbledore was staring in surprise at the Goblet, which spat out another piece of parchment.

Harry narrowed his eyes. Someone had made the Goblet pick a fourth Champion? That seemed so unlikely that it made him more interested in how people’s expectations influenced the thing.

“Harry Potter!”

For a moment, Harry thought Dumbledore had somehow sensed his desire to experiment with the Goblet and was scolding him for it. Then he realized the Headmaster was holding up the slip of parchment that had flown out of the flames and was waving it back and forth.

“No,” Harry said flatly.

Flat, but far underneath the surface, he could feel the fury rising.

“Harry Potter. The Goblet of Fire has chosen you as the second Hogwarts Champion. Please join the other Champions in the anteroom.”

“No.”

“Mr. Potter, you don’t have a choice. Entering your name in the Goblet constitutes a magically binding contract.”

“And I didn’t enter my name in the Goblet. Why would I do such a bloody stupid thing when I already have all the money and fame I’d want?”

People were gasping in what sounded like offense now, probably the people who had entered their names in the Goblet. Harry ignored them. His gaze was locked on Dumbledore, and Dumbledore was staring at him with a tight face and a pinched expression.

“Harry Potter.”

“No.”

“You will enter the room off the Great Hall,” Dumbledore said. “Otherwise, you stand a chance of losing your magic.”

He was trapped. Trapped. Someone was targeting him because of the Boy-Who-Lived thing or for a prank, and he would have to go through the Tasks.

He was going to die.

Harry’s magic surged out of him, and the Ravenclaw table cracked all the way down from where he was sitting to the end that was closest to the professors’ table. People cried out like the stupid, awful pigeons they were. Harry rose, still holding Dumbledore’s eyes, seeing his shock and something like fear.

“If I die in the Tasks,” Harry whispered, “I’m not going to forget that you didn’t prevent my name from going into the Goblet. I’ll come back as a ghost. I’ll follow you day and night. I will give you no rest.”

There was silence as he turned and walked towards the small room where the Champions stood, but it broke soon enough, and then people started arguing and yelling. Harry didn’t turn around, didn’t look at them. He knew they would call him a cheater and worse.

He didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He had to work out how to stay alive, in the middle of a terrible game that Madam Marchbanks couldn’t get him out of, and which he didn’t know enough magic to survive.

Freezing cold hammered in his veins. Whiteness covered his mind. He ignored the taunts of the Champions as he was “introduced” to them as well, and stepped away when Ludo Bagman would have put a hand on his shoulder.

He knew only one thing, one thing that pierced through the snowstorm falling inside him.

Survive.