lomonaaeren

“No Quidditch.”

Harry smiled faintly at Adrian, who had come up to him as he was sitting on the edge of the lake and tossing pebbles in. “Yeah. Sucks. Doesn’t mean that we can’t still practice, though.”

“Right,” Adrian agreed, and sat down next to him. He was still scowling as he started to chuck his own pebbles into the lake, though. “I can’t believe that they thought the Tri-Wizard Tournament was more important than Quidditch.”

“Well, a lot of people seem to think it is.”

“I thought you would be sensible, Harry. The people who participate in the Tournament have a high chance of dying.”

Harry paused. From the way people had been talking about it, he hadn’t thought it was like that. “Really? There are a lot of Gryffindors not that much older than me who are really upset that only people of age get to participate in it.”

“Gryffindors. I rest my point.”

Harry laughed and shook his head. “We’re not that different, you know. The Hat considered me for Slytherin.”

Adrian flopped back on the ground and gave a long and dramatic groan.

Well, I didn’t think he would react that way. “What?”

“You mean you and I could have been on the same team? We would have been unstoppable. Unbeatable!” Adrian rolled over, scowling at Harry. “And I wouldn’t have had to put up with that little berk Malfoy as the Seeker.”

The thought of being on the same team as Adrian was the only thing that had ever made Harry wistful about the Hat’s decision not to put him in Slytherin. “Well, in a way, it’s his fault that I’m not there.”

“Huh?”

“I met him on the train, and he insulted Ron. Then he was Sorted before me. So I sat under the Hat and thought ‘Not Slytherin, not Slytherin’ as hard as I could. So I didn’t actually go up there thinking I wanted to be a Gryffindor. I just knew what I didn’t want to be.”

“I am going to kill that little fucker.”

“Malfoy?”

“Of course. Then next year we’ll have to have a new Seeker.”

“Too bad that people can’t play for two House teams at once. Or just have one Seeker in the sky, and then the score would depend on which team was ahead the most points when I caught the Snitch.”

Adrian paused. For some reason, a flush stole across his cheeks. Harry glanced down at his robes, wondering if he had dirt on them or something and Adrian was too polite to mention it.

“What?” Harry finally asked, when he couldn’t see any dirt and a subtle feeling of his teeth with his tongue hadn’t produced any food stuck between them, either.

“Just picturing you in green robes, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Harry shrugged. “They’re talking about that Yule Ball, too, so I suppose you’ll get to see me in green there. That’s the color of the dress robes I bought.”

“Yeah.” Adrian sounded half-strangled. “Suppose I will.”

Harry watched him in concern for a moment, but he didn’t seem to be choking on anything. Harry shrugged and nodded. “What color dress robes are you going to wear?”

“Er. An old gold set that’s been in my family for generations. My dad doesn’t believe in buying new things if we have old ones.”

Harry pictured Adrian in gold robes for a second, and his stomach swooped in a funny way. But then he pictured Adrian sipping butterbeer and scowling at people, and he smiled again.

“Have fun with that. At least they’re probably better than Ron’s robes. His are covered in lace that an eighty-year-old witch probably wouldn’t wear. Poor Ron.”

Adrian laughed, and Harry was glad that he could go back to enjoying this moment with his Slytherin friend.

*

“Harry.”

Harry looked up, his shoulders already braced against the blow. Ron didn’t believe that Harry hadn’t put his name in the Goblet, and neither did Seamus or Dean, and they had known Harry for a lot longer and spent a lot more time with him than Adrian had. And Adrian had that sense of fair play that made him want to beat Harry on his own merits.

It would hurt, the hatred coming from Adrian as much as everyone else, but at least they would get it over with.

“What are you doing here?”

Harry was in fact sitting in the Quidditch stands, looking out over the deserted pitch. He took a deep breath and turned around to face Adrian. “You might as well say it.”

“Say what?”

“What you came to say about the Goblet of Fire.”

Adrian blinked. Then he said slowly, “That you obviously didn’t put your name in it and someone is trying to kill you by doing it, just like happened all the other years we’ve been here?”

The slow tone fooled Harry at first, and he opened his mouth to snap back. Then he listened to what Adrian was actually saying, and he sagged on the stands and rubbed a shaking hand across his face.

“You mean you believe me? Even Ron doesn’t believe me!”

“I didn’t think he was stupid. Stubborn, maybe, but not stupid.”

Harry couldn’t say anything. Adrian climbed up the stands and sat down beside him. This close, his height made Harry feel envious. It was really obvious how much shorter he was than the Slytherin Chaser. Although Adrian had so many muscles in his arms from hitting Bludgers at Harry and the like that he could really be a Beater if he wanted.

“Why don’t you believe I did it?” Harry whispered.

“Because I know you, and you wouldn’t cheat like that,” Adrian said simply. “You’d do crazy things that some people might count as cheating, like catching the Snitch in your mouth at your first match, but you wouldn’t actually cheat.”

“Oh.” Harry had to force the word past the painful tightness in his throat. “Thanks.”

Adrian nodded. “Thought you should know that Malfoy was putting together some kind of badges in the common room. They said something about Diggory being the real Hogwarts Champion and that you stink or something.”

Harry closed his eyes. He should have expected it of Malfoy, and he expected lots of people would wear the badges, too. At least learning about it now was better than having to deal with it in public.

“Thanks for warning me.”

“Well, I said he was putting them together. They all caught on fire, somehow. Mysterious spontaneous combustion. Very mysterious.”

Harry gaped at Adrian. Adrian cleared his throat and shifted in place. “You know I’d do more for you,” he muttered, his ears going red.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” Harry said, even though he hadn’t really known that until just now. He found a smile for the first time since his name had come out of the Goblet, or at least it felt like that. Adrian stared at him with his mouth a little open. “Thank you. Thank you.”

Adrian cleared his throat and stumbled to his feet. “I—uh, I wish I knew some way to get you out of having to compete in the Tournament, but unfortunately, I don’t,” he said, almost babbling. “I’d do it. Because I would.”

Harry blinked and wondered what was wrong with his friend. It was natural for him to be confused about Adrian destroying the badges, because Harry hadn’t known he would do it, but Adrian had planned it, right?

“Er,” he said, when he realized that he hadn’t responded to Adrian’s words. “That’s okay. I’ll just have to survive.”

Adrian abruptly lunged forwards and grabbed Harry’s shoulders. Harry gasped. Adrian shook him a little and snarled, “You’ll survive, or I’ll figure out why.”

“Why I didn’t survive?”

“Yes! And then I’ll learn necromancy just to yell at your spirit, all right? Don’t you dare die!”

And then Adrian let go of Harry’s shoulders as though Harry’s skin had turned scalding underneath his hands, and turned and ran away across the pitch back to the school, leaving Harry gaping again.

Harry finally shut his eyes and shook his head. Adrian had a real problem with the idea that Harry might die, it seemed. And—

Well, he might be the only one in the school at the moment aside from Hermione who did. Harry leaned back against the stands and breathed out. He knew, now, that he would have to work harder on figuring out what the First Task was and surviving it.

For Hermione and himself. But also for Adrian.

*

“Dragons.”

Adrian hadn’t stopped whispering the word in a dazed tone since Harry had told him what Hagrid had shown Harry in the Forest. Adrian was slumped against the Quidditch stands, in fact, staring into the distance.

Harry tugged on his shoulders. “Yes, and I need your help.”

“I already said I couldn’t get you out of this binding contract, Harry. I tried! I looked at every book in the library that even mentioned the Tournament, but I couldn’t come up with a way to—”

“No,” Harry said stubbornly. “I have a plan. I’m going to outfly the dragon, okay? Hermione is helping me practice the Summoning Charm so I can Summon my Firebolt. But I could be a little rusty at flying right now because I haven’t practiced as much this year. So you’re going to help me practice.”

Adrian stared at him. Then he sat up, face so solemn that Harry blinked a little.

“Yes,” Adrian whispered. “Yes. I’ll make sure you survive. You have my word.”

That hadn’t been quite what Harry had been intending to ask him, but it was good enough, especially if it got Adrian out of his desolate mood. “Great. So can we focus on fire spells? Maybe the same ones that you used to burn the—I mean, the ones someone used to burn Malfoy’s badges?”

“Spontaneous combustion, I told you that was,” Adrian said, but his smile was coming back. He hadn’t been smiling a whole lot in the last week, either. “Probably something about the materials Malfoy was using.”

Harry snorted. “But you’re good with fire spells.”

“Sure. But that’s a coincidence.”

This time, Harry gave in and laughed. When he looked up, he saw Adrian staring at him in unabashed wonder, maybe because he thought Harry didn’t have much to laugh about. Harry cleared his throat. “We can practice?”

“Yeah, we can. Let me get my broom.”

*

In the end, Harry did manage to outfly the dragon, and he did it with skill and flair that he honestly hadn’t thought he would manage. When he landed, he lifted his head, eyes seeking out one specific person in the stands.

And yeah. Adrian was clapping and whooping the way he had deliberately done for other teams when the Slytherin one had left him off last term. Probably no one else would be able to tell exactly how sincere he was being.

Harry floated into the Champions’ tent, feeling like he could fly without the broom. And Ron did apologize a few minutes later, and then Harry’s happiness was complete.