The Tournament

Harry sat at the Gryffindor table, clapping with the rest of the students for the chosen Hogwarts champion. He watched Cedric join the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang Champions in the room adjunct to the Great Hall.

Dumbledore had just called for students' attention to say a few final words when the flames in Goblet rose and spat out another piece of paper. He caught it. The entire Hall was silent, students stared at the dais in confusion.

"Harry Potter," called Dumbledore.

And Harry felt like a block of ice formed in his stomach. He should have known that there would be no such thing as a peaceful Halloween where he was concerned.

***

The heated exchange between adults in the room was escalating just fine entirely without his input. In fact, it seemed that most of them had forgotten that he was still in the room. Not that he minded all that much. He was still reeling from the fact that he would have to compete in the Tournament meant for wizards older and more experienced than him by far, not to mention the death rate Hermione had been going on and on about in the last two months. He and Ron got used to automatically ignoring some of her rants by now. Though, somehow that was all he could hear now - her voice telling him on a loop all the different ways people have died in the past Tournaments.

He came to the Gryffindor tower completely numb, having no recollection of his way to the common room. The fight with Ron had not helped the matter.

He was lying in his bed that night staring into nothing. Hermione's voice was replaced by Crouch's, saying that he had to compete due to a magical contract. Compete against students older and more experienced than him. Compete for the school that pretty much hated him at the moment.

Compete for what? Money? He had enough of it. For people's entertainment? Like it wasn't enough that they kept staring at him all the time. Now someone was trying to kill him while others watched and cheered them on. But it didn't matter. If he didn't compete in the Tournament, he would lose his magic.

Wait...

He suddenly sprung from the bed. They said he had to compete. Nobody said to what extent. Nobody said he had to win. All the other champions had willingly entered the tournament. They had something to prove and they wanted to win.

Well, none of those factors applied to him. So why would he give a damn about winning? All he had to do was show up at the task, wave his wand around a bit and then give it up as a hopeless task and walk away. That way he complied with the terms of the contract. He competed.

That was...

First, he would have to check the library if the plan was feasible. Hermione could help him. She had researched everything the library had on Triwizard Tournament in the last two months. But if the plan worked... Well, then he didn't have to concern himself with the Tournament anymore.

***

Apparently, his plan might actually work. Hermione and he spent the last few weeks in the library. There was no mention of champions having to put an actual, genuine effort into completing the tasks. The contract, formed between the Goblet of Fire and the Champions, only contained the clause that the champions had to participate in the three tasks and nothing more.

There was no clarification as to what exactly counted as "participation". Hermione theorised that since the Triwizard Tournament champions were supposed to be volunteers, who were eager to prove themselves and win the prize, the initial creators of the Goblet didn't see the need to add anything else besides participation to the contract. The clause was there in case someone changed their mind when faced with an especially challenging or dangerous task, however, since all the champions were expected to enter themselves, they assumed that, faced with no other choice but to compete, they would give it their best.

Based on her research, she believed that Harry should be safe but they couldn't be certain until the day of the first task. If Harry felt any kind of unnatural pull on his magical core urging him to try harder in winning the task, they would know their hypothesis to be incorrect and Harry would have to risk his life. Otherwise, he would proceed with his plan to do as little as possible, for it to still count as participation. 

***

In the days before the first task, everyone was trying to impart one last piece of wisdom on how to tackle it. Hagrid, Moody and some of the Gryffindors. Apparently, they didn't believe him when he told them, he didn't plan on winning the task.

The only thing he did in preparation was learn the summoning charm since he thought it could honestly come in handy if he actually had to have a broom – which according to Moody would be his best chance to survive the task, whatever the task was anyway. He only knew it involved a dragon. He figured being able to summon the broom to run away from it was a pretty good idea even though Moody probably didn't mean for him to use a broom for that purpose when he had given him the advice.

On the day of the task, he and the champions were gathered in the tent. Each had their own dragon in their hands when Ludo Bagman explained that their task was to get the golden egg from the nesting dragon.

Now, if Harry was actually serious about competing in the tournament, he would be terrified. However, as it were, he figured this task was practically made for him. 

The only source of nervousness was that tiny doubt that Hermonie's hypothesis was false. According to the books on the subject, it was only a small chance for that to happen, but a small chance was still a chance.

Finally, it was his turn. He stepped outside the tent and came face to face with a giant, irritated dragon. It was eyeing him suspiciously but didn't move away from its nest. In it, he could see a single golden egg among the real ones. 

Well, this was it. He took a deep breath. He knew the summoning charm, if it worked on the egg, then great. If it didn't, he could honestly say he tried. He figured he would quit after trying to summon the egg at least twice to make it look like he at least put some effort into obtaining it. The only concern now was if the magical contract would demand from him to try harder. But he figured he would deal with that obstacle if or when it turned out it even existed in the first place.

The crowd was roaring, wanting to see him face a dragon. He pulled out his wand and they all held their breath, waiting to see what he would do. The dragon eyed the wand warily from its nest. He aimed his wand at the egg.

“Accio!”

Nothing happened.

The audience and the judges were silent.

He pointed the wand at the egg again.

“Accio!” 

Again, nothing happened. The crowd started murmuring.

Harry put away his wand and started walking toward the medical tent he saw when he entered the arena. When he felt nothing from his magical core, the relief was so staggering, he had trouble staying on his feet but it was soon replaced by elation. He felt like he could fly without his Firebolt right now.

Ludo Bagman finally seemed to come to himself. “Mr Potter, where are you going? You still have to obtain the egg to complete the task!” he called after him.

Harry looked at Bagman and the table with the judges. He hoped he successfully managed to turn the expression on his face into something resembling innocent befuddlement. “Well, I tried to. But since it didn’t work and I don’t know how else to get it, I figured that was it and I was done.”

Bagman didn’t seem to know what to say to that. “But Mr Potter”, he cried desperately, looking quite distressed, “you are obligated to participate in the task or you risk losing your magic! Besides, you will need the egg as it is a clue for what awaits you in the second task!”

“Oh... well... I mean... I did participate?” said Harry, trying to sound confused. “I participated. Like I said, I tried to summon the egg. It didn’t work.”

To be completely honest, now that Harry knew he didn’t actually have to risk his life in the Tournament, the last couple of weeks started to catch up to him. He was sick of all the adults wanting him to trust them, only to turn their back on him when it mattered. He was done. He won’t be their little saviour anymore. They were adults, they were supposed to take care of the students, not him. And it’s not as if he benefited from saving the school all those times. He dealt with their shit for them, maybe it was time for them to deal with his shit for once.

The whole school hated him and they didn’t do anything about it. Mostly they treated him as a clueless incompetent idiot until they needed him to save their asses. Well, he would give them a clueless incompetent idiot.

He hoped they enjoyed it.

Ludo Bagman finally seemed to stop gapping. “But… But… The clue for the second task!”

“Don’t worry Mr Bagman, sir. I’m sure I will figure something out.” 

Harry did his best to copy his cousin's grin when he was trying to suck up to Vernon’s superiors and potential business partners.

Harry was sure Dudley thought he came across as charming but in reality, he looked like a complete idiot when he smiled. Basically, Harry was doing his best the-lights-are-on-but-there’s-no-one-home-so-don’t-try-to-argue-with-me-because-I’m-an-idiot-and-don’t-understand-a-single-word-that-is-coming-out-of-your-mouth impression.

His cousin had great success in delivering that message to Vernon’s associates since, after the first few sentences in Dudley's direction, they ceased trying to have a conversation with him or only used very small words when talking to him (Vernon seemed to think he was a great businessman but from what Harry saw, it seemed he got great deals mostly because people thought he and Petunia were so admirable for taking care of their “very special” boy).

It seemed he got the grin right. Ludo Bagman was once again speechless and the judges didn’t seem to know what to say either. He used that to quickly make his way to the medical tent and couldn’t help the relieved smile when he reached it.

His participation in the first task seemed to be a complete failure and he couldn’t be happier about it.