An Eclectic Catalogue of Ideas

"Harry Potter!"

Harry sat there, aware that every head in the Great Hall had turned to look at him. He was stunned. He felt numb. He was surely dreaming. This was impossible. He hadn't put his name in the goblet, how did it come out?

Suddenly, the goblet turned red once more as it began to glow, the colour flowing through the various shades of the rainbow. As the colours shifted, the glow turned brighter, becoming a pure white pillar that streaked upwards towards the ceiling. Around Harry, the same coruscating light formed, hiding him from sight. When it ended and people could see him again, he had changed.

Harry was older.

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Harry looked around slowly, confused. He'd fallen asleep in his bed in Gryffindor Tower, glad to be able to rest; even days after the Battle, he felt tired. Suddenly he woke up here, sitting in the Great Hall? Surrounding him were all the students, but different than he remembered.

Younger.

Ron and Hermione looked positively small! And, dear God, was that Fred? He'd died! As his gaze swept over the hall, it landed upon the Goblet of Fire.

"Oh, bloody hell," Harry muttered. Beside him, Hermione was staring and flinched at his words. And then Harry did the only thing he could do in this case.

He leaned forward and bonked his head into the table.

"I don't bloody believe this." Harry looked to the side as he straightened again and asked Hermione, "Let me guess. Triwizard Tournament, right?" Around him, there was muttering the start of the usual gossip that so often filled Hogwarts.

Hermione slowly nodded, her voice a bit hesitant, "Yes. Harry, is that you?"

"Yep," Harry said with a sigh before he saw Dumbledore approaching, along with McGonagall and, of course, Snape. He slowly got to his feet, and sighed, "Hello, Professors," he stated. His mind was already working, trying to decide how he was going to handle this. One thing was certain: he wouldn't just let things go on the way they had, last time.

"Mr Potter. Is that you?" asked McGonagall. "What's going on, how did... this happen?"

"You're asking me?" Harry asked, before glancing towards Dumbledore and Snape, "Well, first thing's first. Excuse me a moment, I'm pretty sure Professor Dumbledore wants to speak to me as well."

"That would be a good guess, Mr Potter. You are Mr Potter, aren't you?" Dumbledore asked curiously.

Beside him, Snape was glaring at him, as he had so often done in the past. While Harry knew the man wasn't evil, he still didn't like him and thus he ignored him. At least until he felt a touch on his mind: a familiar one. Harry sighed. Unlike the original Harry, this Harry had managed to learn Occlumency after hard trials and having to shield his mind from Voldemort during the War. He was amused to watch Snape turn red as he tried to read his mind and was rebuffed each time. "Professor Snape, I'd appreciate it if you stopped trying to read my mind. I'm pretty sure that it's illegal." He looked at Dumbledore, "I think we have a lot to talk about, sir."

Snape opened his mouth to snarl at him and unless Harry missed his guess, to remove points. However, he was interrupted by Dumbledore nodding, "Shall we then?"

"Sure," Harry agreed. He walked with them past the staff table. Harry turned suddenly, wand in hand, and before Moody could move, a bolt of red light streaked from Harry's wand, hitting the man and causing him to slump.

There were screams of shock from the students, and Professor McGonagall said, voice incensed, "Mr Potter, what do you think you are doing?"

"Taking care of a problem," Harry answered as he approached the body, pulling out the man's flask and sniffed it, nodding. "I thought so." He offered it to Dumbledore, "Polyjuice. That's not Moody." His words carried and there was more muttering from the students, some staring at him in fascination, like they were watching a play.

"Mr. Potter, I must insist that you tell us how you knew about this?" Professor McGonagall insisted, and Harry sighed in answer.

"Don't you think we should, you know, call the authorities about the fake Moody, first?" Harry asked dryly. He perked up, glancing towards the Hufflepuff table, "Ms Bones? I'm sure you have a way to contact your Aunt in the case of emergency, would you be willing to do so?"

"Potter!" Snape began, only to almost sputter as his words were matched word for word by Harry at the same time, "You are as arrogant as...!" Snape took a breath, "Stop that!"

"Yes, Professor Snape. Heard it before." Harry paused as well, "Multiple times." For some reason, Dumbledore looked amused.

"She's coming," came a voice from the Hufflepuff table, and Harry nodded at her in thanks.

"Why don't we go to the back room with the other champions?" Dumbledore suggested. "I'm sure Professor McGonagall would be glad to wait for Madame Bones and keep a watch on Moody."

"He's not Moody," Harry reminded Dumbledore before nodding, "Of course, sir."

Harry followed the others into the antechamber, nodding as he was given curious looks. Cedric's response was incredulous, "Harry?"

"That would be me," Harry quipped.

"What is going on?" Madame Maxime asked, her French accent heavy.

"It's amazing! Mr Potter's name came from the goblet! He's our fourth champion!" came the answer from Bagman.

Harry interjected, "What he didn't mention is someone put my name into it. And before you say I'm lying, note that there's an unconscious person in the Great Hall with a flask of polyjuice on him."

Cedric blinked and Karkaroff looked disbelieving. Fleur chimed in with, "But then Hogwarts will have two champions!"

"I'm afraid there's nothing we can do," Dumbledore said sadly, "The Goblet of Fire is a powerful magical artefact. Once his name was chosen, he was magically bound to compete."

"Don't worry," Harry said with a shrug, "I'm pretty sure my name wasn't submitted as a Hogwarts student, or it'd have been myself or Cedric, not both of us. The man who did it confounded the Goblet to think there was a fourth school. So I compete not as a Hogwarts student, but as a champion of..." Harry grinned, ignoring Dumbledore's look of unease, "Harry's Halloween Hijinks School of Magic." A pause, "Or something like that. Or if I'm serious, as a Potter. I should be used to stuff happening on Halloween by now. Anyway, Cedric is the true Hogwarts champion, not me."

"You seem to know a lot about it," Karkaroff said suspiciously.

"Yup," Harry told him. "And I will be telling Dumbledore how I know this. And Madame Maxime. Definitely not you. I don't trust you." Harry casually lifted his arm and tapped his wrist, causing Karkaroff to flinch.

"That will be all, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said, looking at Harry with a frown as well as some curiosity. He looked at Bagman, "Mr Bagman, shall we?"

Bagman perked up, "The first task is designed to test your daring! So we won't be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard."

Harry watched the reactions: Krum squaring his shoulders, Cedric looking nervous, Fleur seemingly uncaring. Cedric moved towards Harry, "Harry, what happened to you?"

"Long story. Suffice it to say, for now, the goblet requires you to be of age to compete. I wasn't of age. Now I am." Harry wrinkled his nose. "Not that I mind, of course." He doesn't want to tell them about the time travel thing. From what Hermione told him of time turners, he might get experimented on if that went too far.

"I didn't know that was possible," Fleur said to him, looking curious. "So you are a fourteen-year-old boy whose body grew older, then?"

"Not exactly," is Harry's answer, "It's complicated; I have to tell Professor Dumbledore and Madame Maxime about it."

"Shall we then, Harry?" asked Dumbledore. In response, Harry nodded, turning to follow.

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"So, Harry," began Dumbledore, sitting down at his desk and gesturing for Harry and Maxime to sit as well, "What do you have to tell me?"

"Well, first of all, I'm not simply aged up," Harry began as he sat down, "I'm a little confused, as this didn't happen to me last time, but the Goblet of Fire pulled me here from the future. I'm actually a Harry who lived another three years. I know some things that happened before like that Professor Moody was actually a Death Eater under polyjuice."

"That is an interesting story, Mr Potter," Madame Maxime stated, "Do you have any proof?"

"Other than being older, knowing things that haven't happened yet, and so on? Not really." Harry paused, "The first Task is versus dragons. The second is finding something - a person - in the lake. The third Task is a maze." He saw Maxime's eyes open wide, and even Dumbledore blinked. "Like I said. Three years older. I lived through this before."

"Perhaps we should change the Tasks. Can we do that?" Dumbledore asked Maxime.

"I'm not sure. We've been preparing for the tournament for a long time," Maxime said with a sigh. "There will be a lot of complaints about the expense if we change the tasks this close to the Tournament. But it'll be unfair otherwise."

"How about I say here and now that I won't win the Tournament?" Harry paused, "We can even make it official in the papers. Due to interference, I must compete but will not be considered a Champion and cannot win."

"That would work, though if you come in 'first', it may cause problems," Maxime said with another sigh.

"I won't. Not unless an emergency happens. Then we'll have to deal with the backlash," Harry said. "Trust me, I don't want to be in this in the first place. A thousand galleons aren't enough money to risk your life, and unfortunately, I'm already famous."

Dumbledore looked amused at this, "I think this can work," He said with a nod.

"By the way, I'll want to take my OWLs and NEWTS at the end of the year," Harry told Dumbledore.

He was amused at Dumbledore's discomfort as he answered, "We can discuss that later, Harry."

Harry looked at Dumbledore a moment and sighed, but nodded. If worse came to worse, he'd get a portkey and take the tests with the ICW. "So, that's that. Can I go see what happened with Barty Crouch Junior? Er, the fake Moody?"

Dumbledore blanched, "That was Barty Crouch Junior? He died at Azkaban."

"Actually, he didn't. Barty Crouch's wife wanted her son free and convinced him to let her take her son's place. She was already terminally ill and died in Azkaban and was buried," Harry explained as he leaned back in his seat.

Shaking his head slowly, Dumbledore said, "Yes, you may go."

Harry nodded and stood up, slipping out of the office.

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As Harry entered the Great Hall, he was greeted with more muttering. He saw Hermione and Ron come over, "Harry!" Hermione looked curious as she greeted him, while Ron looked slightly embarrassed. "Everything all right?"

"I'm fine, Hermione." Harry shook his head, dismissing an idle thought, "Rather annoyed, but fine. What happened with the fake Moody?"

"Some aurors came in and took him away. A red-and-grey-haired woman went over to speak to Susan and said she'd be back after questioning the man. She said she definitely wanted to see you as well," Hermione stated. "What's going on, Harry? You got older, are you okay?"

"To put it succinctly, the fake Moody put my name in the cup," Harry stated loudly enough to be heard. "I'm not happy about it, but there's not much they can do about it. They're going to be running a newspaper article about it, but I'm not going to be considered a Champion regardless, just an unwilling competitor. Cedric's the Hogwarts Champion." With these words, he could see some of the Hufflepuffs nodding at him, though a few like Macmillan and Smith continued to sneer at him.

"Yeah, well, how'd you know then?" sneered Smith, who crossed his arms, glaring at him.

Without batting an eye, Harry lied, "The goblet told me. Part of why I'm like this now. Stupid magical contract." He sure wasn't going to mention time travel in public. "What, do you think I went up to a Death Eater and decided to convince him to enter me in the tournament." He looked at Smith, "Are you that bloody daft?"

Smith looked embarrassed and walked away as Harry sighed. He looked at Hermione and Ron, "Come on," he told them. "We have a lot to talk about." With this, he walked out of the Great Hall, heading turning to head up the stairs.

"Where are we going?" asked Hermione as she and Ron followed behind him.

"Someplace you will likely squee about," Harry said without batting an eye. Hermione slapped him on his arm gently, rolling her eyes, and Harry smirked. "It was mentioned in Hogwarts: A History."

Hermione perked up, "Oh?" As she spoke, they emerged on the seventh floor, and Harry walked back and forth in front of a wall near a portrait of a man teaching trolls to dance. After the third time he walked in front of the section of the wall, a door appeared, and Harry opened the door.

"After you. Welcome to the Room of Requirement."

As predicted, Hermione squeed, bouncing in place as they entered a sitting room that looked very much like the Gryffindor common room. Harry shut the door and willed it to disappear, saying, "Sit down. I have some things to tell you, and you might not like parts of it."

"What's that?" asked Ron for the first time as he sat in his seat. "You look bloody fit, mate, if older. You're taller than I am!"

"I didn't just age," Harry said simply. "The bloody goblet pulled me back in time from the future." He paused, "A future where this didn't happen to me, so I don't know if I'm from an alternate reality or what."

Hermione perked up, "That's fascinating! I didn't think that was possible! How did it happen?" Beside her, Ron snorted, laughing softly.

Harry just stared at Hermione, glancing at Ron, "Stop laughing!" He continued, "How in the hell would I know, Hermione? The goblet did it, ask it."

"Language," Hermione chided before shrugging, "Wait, you're a seventh year? What about your classes?"

"After my version of the Tournament, I kind of got my head out of my arse about studying. You helped me a lot actually, I caught up to you in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes and took my OWLs at the same time. You beat me, of course," Harry said with a shrug before continuing with a grin, "But I beat you in Charms, Defense, and Transfiguration, so neener."

"Neener?" Hermione looked at him in shock, before poking him, "We'll see about that."

Harry slowly grinned, "That reminds me. There's going to be a dance coming up at Christmas." He looked between them, "How about you two go together?"

Harry James Potter, trying to be a matchmaker.

Hermione opened her mouth. Shut it. She was blushing furiously and looking at Ron. Ron's ears were red, "Harry! What are you saying?"

"Last time, you two didn't get together until our sixth year, and it took a lot of fighting and arguments. Why not short circuit that? Though if you hurt her, Ron, I will kick your arse, got it?" Harry noted.

"D-do you like me, Ron?" Hermione asked, only to see Ron nod his head quickly, his entire face red.

"Would you like to go to this ball Harry mentioned?" Ron asked.

"Yes!" Hermione said, beaming.

"Thank god," Harry muttered, before adding to the pair, "Just please, if you get upset with each other, talk to each other. You guys fought so much before getting together and it was annoying."

"If I and Ron didn't get together till our sixth year, who'd I go with?" Hermione asked curiously.

"You and Viktor Krum went as friends. Well, mostly, he did kiss you after the ball. You were one of the few girls who didn't think of him as 'the famous quidditch player'. Viktor's an okay guy," Harry said with a shrug. "Ron went with Parvati, and he didn't really treat her well. He was too focused on being jealous of you." He smirked, "To be fair to him, though, I wasn't much better. I was a major berk. At least this time around, I won't upset Padma as I did."

Harry saw a flash of jealousy in Ron's eyes, and he rolled his eyes even as Hermione swatted him, "You can hardly get jealous for something I haven't, and now won't do," she told him, rolling her eyes.

He couldn't help it. Harry noted, "If it helps, Ron, you started dating Lavender in our sixth year before you and Hermione got together." He started to snicker at Hermione's look at Ron.

"Harry!" Ron yelped, "Are you trying to get us together, or get us to fight?"

Harry pretended to think about this, before saying with a grin, "Both?" He snickered and said, "Feel free to stay here and talk for a while. I'm going to go back to Gryffindor Tower, I have a few things to take care of."

He was amused when Hermione and Ron shared a look between them, and Hermione answered, "All right. We'll see you later."

"When I'm gone, concentrate on the room being private, and the door will disappear. Just concentrate on leaving and it'll return," Harry said. With that, after the door appeared he left the Room.

There was one more thing he had to do.

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Moving towards an empty classroom, Harry opened the door and called out, "Dobby?"

After a few moments, the energetic house-elf appeared, "Great Master Harry Potter wished to speak to Dobby?"

Harry couldn't help it, he smiled. The last time he'd seen the house-elf, he'd tried to save Harry from Nott Manor and gotten eviscerated by a Sectumsempra. Seeing him alive and happy was a relief. "Yes, Dobby. I had a question. Would you like to bond with me?"

The house-elf bounced in place, "Great Master Harry Potter wishes to bond with Dobby?" It was like all of the house elf's birthdays had come at once.

"Yes, though I have a few rules to follow first." Harry had often wondered what would have happened if he'd bonded Dobby and had his help at times. Because of this, he knew what he wanted to say. "You must set aside one day a week to rest. You don't have to rest if you don't want to, but it must be set aside, and I'd be happy if you did rest. And you are never to overwork yourself. You are not to punish yourself either; if you make a mistake, we can talk about it, all right?" Harry paused, thinking. "I will also give you a monthly stipend of twenty-five galleons." Harry was amused at the elf's look of horror, "You don't have to spend it if you don't wish to. But it will be there every month for you if you decide you need something."

This caused Dobby to relax, and after a moment, he said, "Dobby thinks you is paying him too much, but Dobby will accept." He reached out his hand and Harry took it, and a flare of magic appeared around them.

"Good," Harry said to Dobby. "Thank you. Now, you can teleport around Hogwarts. Can you teleport me? Preferably outside Hogwarts, to Diagon Alley?"

"Dobby can do that, Master Harry Potter, Sir," the house-elf agreed.

"Good. We'll do that tomorrow then. And please call me Harry."

"Master Harry?"

Harry sighed, "I guess that'll do." He paused, "Hermione's going to kill me." He shook his head, "I'm off to the dorms. I'll call you when I need you. Until then, you can help out at Hogwarts, okay?"

With the elf's nod, Harry turned, heading towards the Gryffindor dorms.

He was suddenly very tired.