Chapter 4
When Ron saw Harry talking with Malfoy, he didn’t say anything.
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Dean had set his alarm at 8, sure that it would wake both Harry and Sam, so that they could start training. He knew harry wasn’t going to be a hunter. He couldn’t. He saw what it has done to Sam, and he isn’t sure Harry would take to it like he did, or regret ever hearing the word ‘hunting’ like he knew Sam did. But dad had drilled into him that if you weren’t prepared for monsters, they would kill you. Dean couldn’t let that happen, probably some older brother instinct forming. So he would prepare him as much as he could without letting it slip why they were preparing. To his surprise however, the only grouchy voice he heard while he got up was Sam’s. Looking over his bed onto the mattress on the floor where Harry had gone to sleep, he found it empty.
He got up and left, the room, knowing that Sam would never be able to return to bed once he was woken up. Peeking into the living room he found harry reading that Latin book Sam had made him study.
“Y’know, you don’t actually need to read that right? Sam isn’t making you.”
Harry jumped, whipping his head towards where Dean was leaning against the open entrance between the Living room and hallway.
“Uh- no- I know that!” Harry squeaked, then turned red and consciously made his voice deeper, “yeah, I know. But it’s pretty interesting. Hermione would die if she saw me reading for fun, let alone it being non-fiction.”
Dean smirked, turning on his teasing mode, “so, you like ‘em smarter than you, yeah?”
Harry made a confused face before he turned red and his eyes widened, “No! Ew, not Hermione!” He seemed to realize what he said then added, “Not that she’s not pretty or anything, but she’s like my sister! That’d be weird.”
Dean felt victory, it didn’t really matter if Harry really did like the girl like that, though with the way he talks about her and that Ron kid you’d think they’d be in a love triangle with Harry as the female lead. It did matter that he got him flustered, however.
He began to walk back to walk back to their room, quickly throwing over his shoulder, “Be ready in 10! We’re going jogging.
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They’d been running for 30 minutes now, and with the pace they were going, he felt like he was dying. ‘It’s their stride length!’ he told himself, ‘They have longer legs! Its unfair!’ But no internal grumbling could stop him from heaving desperate breathes.
He thanked whatever god existed when he saw that they were approaching Bobby’s house.
“Merlin!” Harry looked up from where he was gasping, hands on his knees, to see Sam and Dean barely winded! It was in the middle of summer in this godforsaken state, and they weren’t even tired!
He heard Sam mutter “Merlin?” but brushed past it.
“Can we have breakfast now?” Harry pleaded.
Dean paused, and Harry could tell it was just to wind him up, wanker, then said, “Fine. But in thirty coming back out to see how good a shot you are.”
Harry felt that burst of excitement, but it was drowned out by the need for air conditioning.
He was the first in, and almost ran into Bobby.
.
“Oh! Sorry, sir.”
For some reason Bobby looked bewildered at that, Harry even heard Sam snicker behind him, before Dobby said, “just call me Bobby, kid.”
Harry devoured his food, Sam having made these frankly glorious sandwiches, saying he learned how to make them from this guy he’d known in college. Harry could tell college was a bit of a touchy subject, so he didn’t press.
After a few minutes of enjoying the gloriousness of modern air conditioning, something he had grown to appreciate after having to suffer through herbology one too many times without the option to cast a cooling charm, Dean told him it was time to go.
Harry leaped up and waited for Dean to grab the guns he wanted to show him, Sam had declined the invitation to come with citing ‘his earthly need to not die of heatstroke’ big words for a guy who early ran for 30 minutes without being winded the least bit, no care for the heat.
Once Dean deemed it far enough away from the house, he set up a table, a couple cands for targets, positioned Harry about 10 meters away from the target, then spent an hour talking about gun safety.
By the fourth time he said the rule about not aiming it at anything he wasn’t willing to shoot, Harry was about ready to burst.
“Dean, please, I get it. Could I shoot it now?”
After Dean acquiesced, he spent 20 minutes perfecting Harry’s form, and finally, mercifully, he deemed him ready. Harry shot… and missed completely. He frowned.
Harry knew the gun was goanna be loud, thank you Dean for telling him twenty times, but he didn’t realize just how loud. The recoil to, but thanks to his form, it was mitigated largely.
Harry looked to Dean, who had been behind him, guiding him to the right position, and saw him grinning. Suddenly the fact that he hadn’t even hit the can didn’t matter. He found himself mirroring Dean’s grin.
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It was past noon when they trudged back in. Dean was surprised just how good he was, by the time they headed back for lunch, Harry was hitting more than he was missing. Harry said he was in a sport or something, and that his position needed excellent eyes. Dean took his word for it.
They had lunch, this time less excellent, Sam had warned him bout Dean’s pancakes, but he thought, like an idiot, that there was no way Dean could mess up pancakes. They were salty.
Afterwards him Sam and Dean left the house, found a soft patch of dirt, and started sparing. The first hour or so was just Dean and Sam guiding him through the basics, then using them on each other. Then they actually began. If it wasn’t for the Dursley’s, he never would’ve been this sore. Quidditch practice could never compete with this.
The couple hours between when they lined up to take turns with the shower, and dinner, Harry spent studying Latin.
Harry doesn’t think he’s ever been this content.
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Hermione felt a bit shameful that she was a little grateful that while Malfoy had stopped being a prat, he didn’t suddenly get buddy-buddy with Harry.
She respected Harry’s whole…no petty rivalries thing he’s got going on, though she’s still concerned about why he’s doing it. It couldn’t be healthy expecting to die any month now, but she truly couldn’t stand that bigoted prat.
Dumbledore had just released them so they could go meet the Beauxbutons and Durmstrang students, and she felt quite excited. She could see that Ron was also excited, as he was visibly trying not to join the first years in racing to be the first ones out. Harry had a smile on his face, they hadn’t talked about what happened in the abandoned classroom yet, and she didn’t really think they would, though they probably should. Harry had acted right as rain the next morning, and Ron, desperate to not have made his best mate pissed at him, let him.
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The day of Halloween Hermione could tell it wasn’t going to be a good day. Harry’s smile as he greeted everyone was so obviously fake that everyone knew it.
They had no classes for the holiday so the three of them sat silently in the boy’s dorm, Hermione reading, Ron playing chess against himself, and Harry glowering at the ceiling. The silence was deafening.
I was suddenly broken when she heard Harry’s feet hit the ground, she looked up and he spoke, “let’s go to the feast, its in what 15 minutes?”
Hermione cast a quick tempest and confirmed Harry’s guess, then cautiously asked, “I’m beat, I kinda want to hang out here, you?”
Harry looked at her and smiled, silently thanking her for giving him an out, even if he was the one suggesting leaving in the first place, before saying, “I’d rather see the Halloween feast, wouldn’t you?”
Translation: I don’t want to miss my last Halloween feast.
She tried to ignore the depressing unsaid meaning, then said, “let’s go then”
Ron leaped up and punched his fist up “Yes!”
Harry chuckled a bit and they made their way down to the great hall.
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Dumbledore’s words got stuck in Hermione’s mind, “A fourth champion? Harry potter!”
Before she could react a stone faced Harry had stood up and was walking to where the champions were led. She absently notice his hands were made into fists so tight they were white.
“He entered? How?” Ron said in shock, and just the slightest bit of jealousy.
“No you idiot!” Hermione whispered angrily to Ron, “He’s been having a crisis about dying! Why would he enter the bloody death tournament!”
She gave Ron a look, just seeing the red, embarrassed ‘I’ve been chided’ face he pulled, before whipping her head back to Harry, where she saw her head into the room.
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Cedric Diggory thinks he was in shock. He’d put his name in, like almost all his friends that could. He didn’t really think he was going to be chosen! He though he was doing an alright job at not showing. Right? Did anybody see how unprepared he bloody is!
‘Ok- ok, think Cedric’ he thought, ‘upsides, are there any upsides. He’ll probably be spending a ton of time preparing for this bloody tournament, so there goes his hopes for good grades this year, less time for his friends. Cedric! Good things! Okay, okay… dad’s goanna like this, right? He’s going to be at least a little proud when he finds out. And- and Cho! Cho might like it, right. She likes when they compete, so maybe if she sees him be tough, maybe even win, she would date him! Yes! That’s it. So fatherly approval, and, hopefully, Cho as his girlfriend.
He came back to himself, hoping to Merlin his breakdown didn’t show, and that he didn’t miss anything important that Crouch was saying, that would suck. A bang sounded behind him and everyone turned around. I was Harry Potter, looking pissed. Dumbledore followed quickly behind him, shutting the door afterwards.
Dumbledore, addressing the room, announced, “Harry Potter, the fourth champion.”
The headmaster of Durmstrang, Karkaroff, was obviously blind because he didn’t register the building eruption inside Harry, saying, “Two champions! That’s against the rules! Dumbledore, if Hogwarts is cheating-”
“My boy, no, Hogwarts has done no such thing.” He turned to face Harry asking calmly, “Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?”
“No I bloody well didn’t! I refuse to compete! Fuck this shit!”
The room was temporarily caught off guard by Harry’s vulgarity, Cedric included, he didn’t think he had ever heard him swear, even second-hand.
Dumbledore mad the exact wrong response, “I’m sorry, my boy. Truly, but it is magically binding, if you refuse to compete, you’ll die.”
Cedric saw the anger visually rise; he would be amazed by it if he wasn’t in spell firing range. His face scrunched up like it was trying to contain whatever fury it could, face becoming red, knuckles pure white. He abruptly turned around, walked up to the door that led back to the great hall, and fucking kicked open.
Everyone in the room was frozen in shock, even Dumbledore. He could hear the quiet noise that had been barely audible blast into the room, the stop when they heard the door. It was like watching a car crash, he couldn’t look away.
Harry walked to in the middle of the room, just before the student tables, then yelled, “WHEN I FIND WHOEVER PUT MY FUCKING NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE IM GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE! PAINT YOUR FLESH WITH SALT! TORCH YOU-
It was at that point that Dumbledore seemed to come to his senses a throw a silencing spell at Harry, not that he seemed to notice, as he looked like he was having the most explosive, world shattering, silent yelling match.
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When the got Harry into a room alone, he collapsed, gripping his hair like a lifeline, tears slipping past his cheeks. He looked like he was being sent to the gallows, like his life was over.
Ron couldn’t have hated himself more for ever thinking Harry had willingly put his name in.