ShadowAI: I hated, hated this chapter. You'd think writing about Harry going to two classes would be a piece of cake. Apparently it's not, and I spent a week forcing myself to write the Herbology class. Once I was done I realized a second class would put this fic on indefinite hiatus so I switched gears a bit. What this means is, expect a lot less of class scenes, at least until Harry's Culture shock wears off and the marauders spring into action. I did not, however, spend this time in writer's block. Anarchy is planned out through the Yule Ball more or less, and the main story is fully mapped out. We know how the tasks will be solved and how the fic will end. That said, we have spent a lot of time building the Anarchy-verse as we're calling it for the sequel, and the prequel to the sequel which will take place in Magical Japan (because it just has to be Japan). I will be taking a one month break from Anarchy because by the time this is published, work will have started and I want to take some time to work on my other fics and let the Anarchy bunny seethe.

ZaionIndulias: Don't worry though. We have begun an intense world planning for this constantly growing story. There is a set of tv tropes troper works pages established for us to keep our notes straight. Feel free to look them up, but be warned that unmarked spoilers fill the pages. Don't look if you don't want spoilers and twists ruined.

Chapter Four: In which Lord Dedede meets his match.

Disclaimer: Google screwed me over. When I typed in "Creepy Bunny" all I got was Frank. I totally forgot about Robbie. I'm sorry dear reader. I promise I will make it up to you.

In Durmstrang Herbology was easily one of the most hated classes of the bunch. Professor Daru was a difficult man at his best and he treated teaching as a punishment. Naturally this meant he shared his attitude with his students and made the already-difficult class worse. The class was held at a large greenhouse compound which was a good fifteen minute walk away from the main castle. This walk became even worse when the winter set in (roughly in early October). When the heavy snows fell an underground tunnel that was only barely freezing had to be used. The lessons themselves almost never took place in the greenhouse proper. Professor Daru refused to allow students inside for fear that they would disturb his precious plants. Of course the old man claimed it was because the specimens inside were dangerous or required special care, but no one was really fooled. Professor Daru wouldn't let anyone touch so much as a weed if he could help it. Not that anyone minded, while most lessons wound up being boring lectures held in a building that could be better described as a large shed, practical lessons involved them being subjected to an hour of tedious and unpleasant labor in the greenhouses such as composting or weeding. In short, Harry spent more time coming up with ways of not paying attention in Herbology than studying for it. It was with these less-than-fond memories Harry Potter rounded yet another corridor while looking for the Herbology greenhouse, already ten minutes late to class.

It occurred to him that enrolling him into all of Hogwart's classes on day one of his stay in Britain had not been the most well-thought-out idea. For one, Harry had no idea what the internal layout of Hogwarts even was. The tour McGonagall had given him earlier was barely sufficient and Harry had spent the better part of it seething. The other, more glaring, issue was that Harry was not given any time to prepare for his classes. In fact he had to run off to the ship after breakfast to pick up some spare quills, parchment, and books which he placed in his spiffy leather book bag before running back to find his first class.

Eventually Harry had found the greenhouse he was supposed to be in. A short grey-haired woman was standing in the center of a bunch of black robed students, giving a lecture from the looks of it. Judging by their uniforms, the students were Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. He took out his schedule and checked, Herbology with Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, this was the place. He was not completely certain how the woman would react to him being late, his experience with Durmstrang suggesting that it was better to err on the side of caution, so with practiced skill he slowly opened the glass door and crept in.

"Ah, Mr. Potter." Harry flinched and straightened up, trying to regain some form of composure. "Please come join us, I was just finishing up explaining to everyone the proper precautions for collecting Bubotuber Pus."

Harry approached the group, his red tunic standing out brightly against the sea of red robes. "Bubotuber pus?"

"Yes," the elderly woman said cheerfully, "Have you not covered it in the Durmstrang curriculum?"

With so many eyes on him Harry felt the need to excuse his lack of intimate knowledge with the subject of today's lesson. He hadn't remembered hearing the name of that plant, not that he paid close attention, so he went with a simple lie, "No, Madam Professor, it's too cold." He heard a few coughs.

"Oh, I suppose it is." She said, not remotely fazed, "Well then please grab a spare set of gloves from the chest near the entrance. We're about to split into pairs, so you can find yourself a partner once you're ready."

Hogwarts Herbology seemed to be far more pleasant. The grey-haired woman, Professor Sprout, seemed to enjoy letting her students interact with her plants and moved in between the various stations as she corrected mistakes and praised good technique. The more hands-on and enthusiastic approach made Harry rather self-conscious due to his lack of botanical knowledge.

A pair of worn dark-green dragon-hide gloves in hand Harry made his way to the workstations where pairs of students were busy dealing with large thick bulbous plans that looked a sickly shade of yellowish-green. As Harry strode past the various tables he noticed that people tended to stop talking and slightly tense up when he walked past them. Harry tried his best to look like he hadn't noticed the sideways stares but they annoyed him to no end. His only consolation was that this much attention drawn to him could be used as an effective means of misdirection should it be required. Harry's annoyance turned into frustration when he couldn't find anyone he could pair up with, everyone seemed taken and those that didn't seemed to always manage to pair up when he looked in their direction.

"I can be your partner." Harry snapped his head around toward the direction of the rather quiet voice. The boy who spoke up almost shrank back when Harry looked at him. "Umm, I mean if you need one or something." He said a bit more quietly.

"Ok" Harry said, moving over to the boy's workbench glad to not have to wander around anymore, "Harry Potter" he extended his hand.

The short blonde boy hesitated before shaking Harry's hand, "Neville," he paused, "Longbottom." Although the boy looked to be somewhat scared of Harry, he was at least talking to Harry and not whispering about him.

Harry nodded and focused his attention at the plant in front of them as he put his gloves on. "So, err, what do we do?" Harry said, feeling more and more like an idiot.

In contrast with Neville's earlier mannerisms, the boy grabbed a flask and deftly squeezed one of the protrusions on the plant releasing a noxious smell that reminded Harry of large muggle towns. Harry grimaced as thick yellow pus oozed slowly into the flask. After there was no more pus left Neville offered the flask to Harry who took it hesitantly. Neville, Harry noticed, was completely unaffected by the smell or the pus.

After taking the flask Harry mentally prepared himself to get it over with and thrust out his hand to squeeze a particularly ugly looking bulb. Just as he was about to touch the plant Neville shouted, "Wait." and stopped Harry's hand in mid-air. "You have to be gentle with them or the pus will spray all over you." Harry winced mentally at the thought of being covered in smelly yellow goo and tried a second time, squeezing as gently as he could. Eventually the yellow pus began to flow out of the protrusion and Harry took a deep breath, regretting it immediately as his nostrils filled with the smell of muggle cars. After that bulb was drained he handed the flask back to Neville who, without hesitation, began to milk (Harry couldn't think of a less squicky description) the plant.

Harry tried to take the flask back so that Neville didn't look like he was doing all the work but Neville waved him off. "It's ok. I don't mind doing it." Harry looked around, the people who had been looking over at their workstation turned to their own work. Then he looked back at Neville and shrugged.

"Thanks." Neville wasn't so bad, thought Harry. He might have been shy and didn't seem to be particularly well liked but he was nice and he did spare Harry the task of extracting the pus which gave him plenty of points in Harry's book. After a few minutes of watching Neville work, Harry struck up a conversation. As Harry soon discovered Neville wasn't just good at Herbology, he loved the class. So when Harry mentioned that he found today's lesson unpleasant Neville went into a long discussion, all the while filling more flasks, about how useful bubotuber pus was. Although Harry's initial reflex was to slip into his 'feign interest' technique which he had built up over years of practice he reluctantly forced himself to pay attention, he didn't want to be an ass after Neville helped him out. Ninety percent of what Neville said Harry found dry and uninteresting but Harry did make a mental note of what happened when you got Bubotuber Pus spilled on unprotected skin as potentially useful knowledge.

"So, what's Herbology like in Durmstrang?" Neville asked interestedly.

"Cold, boring, lots of lectures and dirty work." Harry ticked off the reasons why he hated the class. "Also professor yells at us a lot. Pretty useless class, don't know why we have to take it."

"It's not useless." Neville said a bit aggressively. "Herbs are used everywhere, food, medicine, potions-" He said the last word a bit softly.

"Ok, ok, I get it." Harry mollified him and continued to watch him work in silence.

"What's your favorite class?" Neville asked, a bit more timidly.

"Don't have one." Harry said simply.

"None?"

"Well, D und V is ok." He said a bit thoughtfully. When Neville simply looked confused he clarified. "Dueling and Defense in English."

"So it's like Defense against the Dark Arts?" Neville asked.

Harry snorted. "I don't think so. From what our Professor told us Durmstrang is the only school that teaches anything useful. Hogwarts focuses too much on theory because it's afraid of teaching 'Dark Magic'. Beauxbatons, he says, is worse."

They continued talking through the lesson about the classes of their respective schools. Electives at Hogwarts were an odd lot, as Harry found out. Although he could see the practically in some of them, why anyone would bother with Diviniation was beyond him. Muggle Studies also seemed like a niche topic. Neville seemed very interested in the fact that Healing Arts were actually taught at Durmstrang. Harry was more surprised that they barely taught any healing charms at Hogwarts. In Harry's third year, every class he took had a section dedicated to healing and first aid for the first three months.

Once the hour was up, Professor Sprout walked through the Greenhouse collecting vials of gathered pus. After Neville handed her theirs she smiled and gave Gryffindor twenty points. Harry merely tried to not look too sheepish. After Harry returned his gloves, he pulled Neville away from Sprout saying that he needed someone to show him how to get to the next class. Harry felt a bit bad for exploiting Neville like this, but he needed a guide, and Neville already knew the schedule of classes. Besides, Neville reminded Harry of Al, except a lot shyer. Well, that was fixable if it became a problem.

Meanwhile on the deck of the Durmstrang ship Toshi was trying his best to enjoy a quiet read while Dima half-heartedly tried to finish his homework and complained about it every five minutes.

"List all the possible ways to modify the standard Shield charm?" Dima spoke up causing Toshi to consider a wordless silencer, or a stunner. "Don't you just adjust how much power you channel?"

Toshi continued reading, however when he felt his friend's eyes on him he looked up to find Dima waiting for him to answer. How was he supposed to know if Dima was asking a question or whining again? "That's the most primitive way. Wand-based spells are mostly changed by vocal, motion, mental, and material modifiers."

Dima stared back at him, "I know you take Spell Theory, this is only Spellwork. You already finished this assignment right?"

"I finished it a week ago."

"A week?" Dima asked, "How did you manage to get this far in a week?"

"I had-"

"You had practice, I know, I know." Dima cut him off. Toshi was inhumanly fast at finishing essays and homework assignments. Whenever asked for his secret the constant response was 'he had practice.'

"Look it up in chapter six of the book, they talk about common ways to alter the shield charm. I think they mention three vocal and two motion modifiers."

Dima groaned and grabbed his bookbag, removing the heavy tome titled Spelle Standarte VI, the book, being an international edition, was set to the Russian text. Fifteen minutes and several very wordy pages later Dima groaned and slammed the book shut.

"That's it. We're going for a walk." He announced.

"We?" Toshi asked peering from above his book.

"Yes. We. I know that between your skin and your hair you try very hard to develop an effective snow camouflage." Toshi scowled, "But it's still warm here, relatively speaking. We can take a walk, talk to people, enjoy the sunshine."

Toshi didn't respond and continued to read his book. Dima got up and tried to sneak up on Toshi and close the other boy's book on his nose. When Dima reached out, Toshi deftly moved the book away from Dima's hand without so much as glancing in his direction. Dima tried again with the same result. After several more tries Dima gave up, mentally cursing Toshi's stupid ninja reflexes. Just when Dima was reaching for his wand, Toshi closed the book and looked up at him.

"If I go with you on a walk, will your promise to let me read peacefully this evening?"

Dima thought about it, although he could probably bargain with Toshi that would be wasteful. Dima wasn't planning on doing anymore work today anyway. He was going to have dinner with his father which would most likely involve a lengthy lecture on what he was to do and not do for the duration of the tournament. With a nod of agreement from Dima, Toshi stood up and made his way down the port side toward the gangplank to get off the ship.

"Hey Tosh?" Dima asked, catching up to his friend.

"Yes?"

"Are you going to be wearing your pajamas?"

"They're not pajamas." Toshi argued back, "Why does everyone keep calling them pajamas? They're a traditional-"

"Ok, ok, jeez. Try to make a joke around you and you blow up. You should take a class on humor."

"I know what humor is." Toshi retorted. "That was just a crappy joke."

"Right, right." Dima said dismissively. "Let's see if we can find Krumpelstiltskin and see what he's up to." Toshi winced at the pun. Summoning his patience he followed the dark haired boy off the ship.

The day was a rather pleasant and breezy one. The sky was relatively cloudless, a bit surprising for mid-September. After a brief walk around the grounds, Toshi and Dima finally settled on the side of the lake opposite of their ship beneath a large tree. Their discussion settled mostly on the topic of the tournament and the tasks involved. Toshi, upon hearing the brief explanation of how the tournament was usually structured from Dima, immediately made a parallel with an event that used to be held in Japan to test Japanese shinobi and promote them through the ranks. Dima found the comparison faulty. Although he had a passing knowledge of Japanese magical culture, he had been fully briefed by his father on the Triwizard Tournament and its history during the summer.

"This tournament isn't at all like your ninja examination tests." Dima said in frustration.

"Why not? It's a comprehensive test of magical skill, three events-" Toshi argued.

"Yes, but first of all, there are only three competitors. Second, the mortality rate isn't as bad." Dima countered.

"Didn't you say they canceled it because the competitors kept dying?'

"Yes, but we at most had three people dead. I heard your ninja considered twenty percent losses to be a good year. And that was in exams featuring over a hundred competitors. Besides the tournament is more of an individual friendly competition."

"They prefer being called shinobi. And the exams were a competition of individual teams." Toshi said defensively.

"I thought they were a cold war between the shinobifactions after Japan was unified. Oh and another thing, there is no one-on-one dueling in the tournament."

"That seems stupid, why wouldn't you have a duel? It's a perfect test of skill."

"Well you can't have much of a duel with only three competitors. If they have a free-for-all," Dima cut off Toshi's expected comment, "then there's always the chance that two schools will collaborate."

"Well they have four competitors now, don't they?" Asked Toshi.

"Yes, but the events were determined by the tournament committee in advance." Dima said feeling slightly annoyed, "They won't change the events, just adjust them for a fourth."

"So why Krum then?" Asked Toshi, "I know Karkaroff has been preparing him to be the champion, think he knows the events?"

"No," Dima said, "committee is bound to secrecy. I wouldn't put it past him to groom Krum just because of the World Cup though. Imagine if Krum wins the tournament, probably more than makes up for the loss by the Bulgarian Team."

Toshi smiled, "That had to hurt his pride, losing the same way twice."

"Harry was way closer to the snitch in their game though, and he didn't fall for the feints so easily." Dima added thoughtfully, "Anyway, I wouldn't underestimate Krum. He's large, athletic, a powerful if a bit straight-forward spellcaster, and he thrives under pressure."

"And Harry is short, fast, creative, and doesn't like crowds even on a broom. The exact opposite." Toshi finished Dima's thought. "So any idea on the first task and how much trouble he's in?" asked Toshi.

"Nope, but there's usually a theme to the tasks." Noted Dima.

"Really? What was the last theme?" asked Toshi.

"Strawberries." Said Dima with a shrug. Noting Toshi's puzzled look he added: "It was centuries ago and at Beauxbatons. The first task was a scavenger hunt, they were dropped off in the forest with a box of strawberries and told to make a delicious dessert."

"Who won?"

"No one," Dima said, "The second task had the remaining two competitors try to stop a curse that would permanently turn them into strawberries after a certain amount of time, they both failed."

Toshi winced, "What happened to the third one?"

"He tried to hide in a dark cave after a troll broke his wand." Dima answered.

"Did the troll find him?"

"No, he was eaten by a Grue."

"A what?" Toshi raised an eyebrow.

"Don't ask."

After a pause Toshi asked, "You figure Karkaroff is expecting more physical than mental challenges this time?"

"Maybe." Said Dima thoughtfully, "Karkaroff probably planned to figure out the tasks ahead of time and coach Krum, that way covering Krum's lack of, ingenuity. Now that he has two contestants, though, the stakes are higher for him. I don't think he would be able to live with himself if Harry Potter and Victor Krum both lose while they are under his tutelage. He'll look like an idiot."

"Think the other schools will cheat too?" Toshi asked.

"The French I'm not sure about, but I doubt Dumbledore will." Dima said.

"You said Dumbledore is good at manipulation." Toshi countered.

"Yes, but Dumbledore isn't petty enough to try to manipulate a competition meant for teenagers. I don't think he would waste his time, or risk his reputation." Explained Dima. With a pause he added, "Makes you feel bad for the Hogwarts champion though, he's the only one playing fair."

"Speaking of the other champions," Toshi said, "shouldn't we go see what Harry's up against? I saw a bunch of Beauxbatons students on the way here having a picnic."

Vividly recalling the effect Veela charm had on him Dima asked, "Why them? What about the Hogwarts champion? Also why can't we do something else instead? I'm not one of your shinobi or whatever."

"Well, for one" Toshi ticked off the reasons, "Harry and the Hogwarts students are in class so we can neither work with him nor can we observe the Hogwarts champion. Two, Harry will need all the help he can get to win since Karkaroff will favor Krum. Besides knowing your enemy is one of the keys to victory."

Dima snorted, "Since when did you become Sun Tzu?"

Toshi ignored the remark, "Three, you haven't done anything to help him so far besides dumping him on me for training, and you have no idea how much he whines. 'Toshi it's too early', 'Toshi I can't run so fast', 'Toshi I'm bleeding', 'Toshi you might have broken something'." Toshi's voice became a high pitched imitation of Harry, and Dima noted Toshi's right eyebrow began to twitch. Dima forced himself to suppress his smile while Toshi stopped to take a breath.

"Besides," he added with his voice now calmer, "I know you're not going to bother doing any more work later tonight, so I think it's fair if we put your often bragged about skills of political intrigue to use." Dima gaped, his mirth gone so fast a Dementor would have been impressed, "You mentioned that the Beauxbatons champion is the daughter of the French minister of foreign affairs right? I'm sure you can find something in common with her Lord Dedede." Toshi put emphasis on Dmitry's marauder nickname, which stemmed from the three D's of politics, with a sly grin. Dima could only gape at Toshi who looked like he was trying hard to maintain his stoic façade.

Taking Dima's silence as agreement, Toshi stood up and began walking toward the site of the French picnic. Dima could only follow in silence. Not only did Toshi just outmaneuver him, but he was about to make an idiot out of himself in front of the daughter of the French Foreign Minister. His father would most likely rip his head off at dinner.

And it was looking like such a beautiful day too.

End.