Blaise Zabini soon became a constant and welcome companion to Harry. The boy's quiet, soft-spoken nature greatly appealed to the Boy-Who-Lived, who had never been much of a talker himself.

Of course, with Hogwarts being what it was, this new friendship did not go unnoticed. Blaise's sudden appearance at the Gryffindor table to eat with Harry and Luna was the source of much conversation. The House of Lions were particularly mutinous over this new development, as Harry's association with a Snake seemed to confirm their opinion that their former hero had indeed gone Dark. But their fear of Harry Potter overrode their anger, leaving them with the only option of stewing in self-righteous silence.

Harry found, to his own surprise, that he did not care two whits about the school's reaction. Blaise was a far more interesting companion that his former friends had ever been. The boy was intelligent, and unlike Gryffindor's resident bookworm, his intelligence was not limited to mindless regurgitation of textbooks.

Blaise was a sharp observer of people, and possessed an almost uncanny ability to read situations very quickly. One of the first things he'd done was to gather as much knowledge as he could on the Triwizard Tournament to help Harry better prepare for the challenges that were sure to come. And this was not entirely limited to the three tasks.

"Harry dear! How lovely to finally meet you!"

Harry stiffened as he felt an arm wrap itself around his shoulders, long talon-like nails digging into his flesh. The sugary voice grated on his ears as he turned to look into the hideously-painted face of a heavy-jawed witch.

"Rita Skeeter, Reporter for the Daily Prophet," she introduced herself primly.

Harry knew who she was. Blaise and Luna had both warned him about her almost certain appearance at the Wand Weighing ceremony. The three of them had spent an entire night deciding on the best way for Harry to deal with her unavoidable attention before settling on a tactic that Harry had only ever used on the Quidditch pitch.

Escape. Evade. Distract.

"Madame Maxime!" Harry said suddenly, his voice loud enough to carry across the room. "Madame Maxime, could I have a word?"

The Beauxbatons Headmistress turned to regard him with no small amount of surprise. "Oui, Monsieur Potter?"

Escape. . .

Nimbly, Harry stepped out of the surprised reporter's grasp and walked across the room.

Evade. . .

He moved to plant himself between Fleur Delacour and her headmistress, thereby ensuring that he wouldn't be taken by surprise again. Already he could see Skeeter making a beeline towards him, no doubt eager to eavesdrop on his conversation.

Perfect.

Harry took a deep breath, mentally going over the lines he'd rehearsed so many times. "Madame, I apologize if I'm wasting your time," he began courteously. "But there's something important I'd like to discuss with you."

"Non," Maxime replied, pleasantly surprised by the young man's manners. It seemed that the rumors about him weren't that accurate, as rumors were always wont to be. "What is it zat you wish to discuss?"

Distract.

"I wanted to enquire if it was possible for me to transfer to Beauxbatons next year."

All talk in the room ceased at that statement. Ludo Bagman and Karkaroff stared in open astonishment, Skeeter looked like Christmas had come early, and Dumbledore looked like someone had climbed his table and proceeded to take a massive dump in his lemon drops.

Even Maxime reeled slightly. "But. . . why?"

"My years at Hogwarts haven't been as great as I'd hoped," Harry said with mock-regret. "My education has suffered and my life has been in jeopardy more than once." He paused, trying to stifle his laughter at the sight of Skeeter frantically noting his every word. "I've heard great things about Beauxbatons and the quality of magical education provided there. I was hoping if you'd let me transfer to your institution next year." He ended by shooting her his most sincere smile.

"Of course," Maxime smiled. It would be an incredible coup for her to be able to snatch the Boy-Who-Lived away from Hogwarts and the British Ministry. Not to mention the satisfaction of sticking it to that pompous old, lemon-drop sucking, self-righteous imbécile. "Why don't you come wiz me, Monsieur Potter?"

Thus did Harry Potter exit the room, accompanied by the half-giant Headmistress and a very curious half-Veela, leaving chaos in his wake.

And chaos there was.

As Luna and Blaise had predicted, Rita Skeeter's front-page article on the Triwizard Tournament was less about the Tournament itself and more about Harry. The news that the Boy-Who-Lived was seriously considering moving to a foreign school due to Hogwarts' falling standards and threats to his safety sent ripples across the British Wizarding community. The fact that Skeeter took Snape's duel with Harry as a glaring example of these accusations meant more sleepless nights for Albus Dumbledore, who spent the next couple of weeks rushing between the Ministry and meetings with the school's Board of Governors.

All of this was a great source of amusement for Harry Potter. He was even more amused when he saw the large amount of fan mail waiting for him every morning containing a mixture of pleas to not abandon his home, and a few choice letters congratulating him for getting rid of Hogwarts's resident greasy git (Snape, it seemed, had been more unpopular than most had suspected). Even the small amount of hate mail denouncing him as a traitor and a murderer could not spoil his good mood for long.

Still, Harry couldn't help but wonder how easily everything was beginning to go in his favor. A simple trick with the press had caused Dumbledore and so many other Ministry higher-ups so much trouble. An empty threat that he'd never even intended to carry out. He wondered whether his years at Hogwarts would have been better had he chosen to speak out and been more willing to create a fuss earlier.

Later that night, Harry Potter received another lesson in the education he had just begun. Alone in the privacy of his new quarters, courtesy of Bones and McGonagall, the three friends discussed the upcoming Tournament and the repercussions of Harry's actions.

It helped that, between the two of them, Blaise and Luna had an incredibly accurate understanding about the way the Wizarding world really worked.

"You have to understand, the Triwizard Tournament is a lot more than just a simple competition between schools," Blaise explained. "It's a major political move for the Fudge administration, which is part of the reason everyone is being so awful about it."

"How so?" Harry queried.

"The Ministry of Magic happens to be one of the largest employers, if not the largest employer, in Wizarding Britain. Every pureblood and half-blood student in the school has someone from their family working in a department at the Ministry, or knows someone who does. The Department of International Magical Cooperation and the Department of Magical Games and Sports are among the largest divisions within the Ministry, and it doesn't help that they're not the only ones involved with the Tournament."

"But what other departments could be involved in something like this?" Harry scratched his head.

"The DMLE, for one," Luna piped up. "They're in charge of providing security during the Tournament events and protecting the foreign delegation while they're here at Hogwarts. The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes has also been ordered to remain on standby, just in case something goes wrong."

Blaise nodded. "And my mother says that the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures has also been roped in to handle some 'imports': creatures they've brought in from overseas for the Tournament tasks."

"Ooh. . . I know about those. Father thinks they might be a shipment of Crown-faced Hornswaggles to give to the champions as gifts," Luna suggested happily.

"Riiiiiiight," Blaise said, looking askance at the upside-down magazine in her hand. Then he cleared his throat.

"My point, Harry, is that everyone in this castle is invested in the Tournament in one way or the other. Everyone was looking forward to see this thing become a massive success. Everyone was hoping to see the whole Tournament go off without a hitch."

Comprehension finally dawned on the Boy-Who-Lived. "But then my name came out the Goblet," he murmured.

"Exactly," Blaise nodded. "It might have seemed fairly muted here, but an extra name coming out of Goblet of Fire, and your name at that, caused a huge blowout at the Ministry. Mother says that many Department heads were practically scurrying around the Ministry that night in their bed clothes."

"In the end, it was only because some of Fudge's cronies convinced him that having you in the Tournament would give them a nice publicity boost that stopped him from trying to pin the blame on somebody."

"A publicity boost?" Harry growled. "Is that what I'm supposed to be? 'Good publicity'?"

"Well, what did you expect?" the other boy shrugged. "You're the Boy-Who-Lived, after all."

Harry flinched. He's always hated that particular moniker. It always felt like an insult to his mother, who had given her life so that he could live. "I never asked for this," he began hotly. "I've never wanted this bloody scar on my forehead! I. . ."

"You honestly think anyone gives a damn?" Blaise challenged. "Forgive me for being blunt, Don Harry, but this is something you need to understand about our world before you do anything else," he paused to look the green-eyed boy squarely in the eye, "Nobody cares."

"Nobody cares about what you've lost! Nobody cares that the price of ridding our world of You-Know-Who came at the cost of your family and your childhood! Nobody cares about the boy Harry Potter, because to them you're not a person, you're a bloody symbol!" He paused to take a deep breath. "You are the Boy-Who-Lived!"

"And you can't run away from it. No matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to escape that title. You'll never be "just Harry" to them, no matter how humble you try to be or no matter how much you try to dumb yourself down to their level."

"So you're saying I should just suck it up?" Harry asked bitterly.

"No, I'm saying you should stop averting your eyes from reality! No matter how unpleasant it may seem, this is the way things are, and the only way you can move forward is to accept them. Accept that you are a symbol to the people, accept your fame, your power. . . these are all a part of who you are. Whether you wish to admit it or not?"

"Like hell!" Harry snarled, gripping the arms of his chair in anger.

Blaise got to his feet, and even though he was not that much taller than Harry, the simple gesture seemed to make him seem more impressive. "You think any other bloke our age could have gotten away with killing a teacher in front of a hundred witnesses, even in self-defense?" he challenged. "You think anybody else would be allowed to simply walk away after illegally entering into a Ministry-sanctioned Tournament? Face it, Don Harry - the only reason you're not lying in a Ministry holding cell right now is because you're the bloody Boy-Who-Lived! Anyone else, and the Ministry would have expelled and arrested them first, magical contracts be damned!"

The sheer logic behind those words gave pause to Harry's anger. "Then what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"You need to understand your place in our world," Blaise said softly. "My mother always says: only through understanding can there be acceptance, and only through acceptance can there be recovery. If you really want to recover from all this, you have to understand and accept that you will always be the Boy-Who-Lived to these people."

Harry said nothing, gazing blankly at Luna as she continued to hum tonelessly under her breath. His mind went back to the conversation they'd had in that empty classroom. "What if I don't want to be just the Boy-Who-Lived, Blaise?" he said quietly. "What if I want to be more?"

Blaise saw the determined glint in those emerald eyes and smiled. "Then become more, Don Harry. Who's going to stop you?"

A week later, Harry was almost coming to regret those words.

He sighed in annoyance and glared at the person sitting across from him. His visitor returned the glare with equal intensity.

"Let me get this straight: you need me to do. . . what exactly?"

His visitor sneered. "I've always suspected that all those bludgers to the head must've affected your hearing, Potter. I didn't realize they've affected your brain as well."

"Daphne," Tracey warned, before turning back to their host. "I'm sorry about this. She's not usually this bad tempered. She's just. . ."

". . . tired of dealing with people pretending to be idiots when they're so obviously not," Daphne finished sardonically.

Harry fought to keep his temper under control. "What the bloody hell makes you think I'd be willing to help you?" he asked icily.

"Because Blaise said you would," she shot back. "It wasn't my idea to come here, Potter!"

Harry directed his glare towards his new friend, who had the grace to look ashamed. "I only told her to come here and present her case to you as best as she could," he said hurriedly. "I never promised anything."

"But why me!?"

"Because you're the only one in this castle who can stand up that ponce Malfoy," Tracey replied succinctly.

Harry sighed. "I still don't see what I could do to help you guys."

"We just need your help to convince Malfoy to back off," Tracey said quickly. "If you'd just lean on him a little. . ."

"You want me to convince Draco Malfoy to convince his dad to change his mind?" Harry said incredulously. "Just who the hell do you think I am?"

"We think you're the Boy-Who-Lived. And we think you're someone Lucius would be hesitant to cross. I mean, you've dealt with him before, haven't you?"

"Once," Harry muttered, vividly recalling the last time when he and Lucius had faced off against each other in the castle. It had not ended well.

"Still," Harry shook his head. "This is all a business matter between your families. How could I possibly interfere?"

"Figures," Daphne scowled. "C'mon Trace. We're wasting our time!"

Harry carefully studied the girl sitting across from him. He had to admit, he'd been rather surprised to hear that Daphne Greengrass, Slytherin's resident Ice Queen, had requested a meeting with him to ask for a favor.

Her request had also been an intriguing one: the Greengrass family was one of the biggest importers on Magical Plants in Britain, a business that had garnered them immense amount of prestige and gold over the centuries.

But fortune had not been kind to the Greengrasses. Steadily mounting losses had forced them to bring outside investors into what was until then a family-owned business. Unfortunately, one among those investors was Lucius Malfoy.

While the Greengrass family as a whole had no love for muggleborns, they did not share the Dark Lord's extreme philosophy either. Daphne's father, Lord Daniel Greengrass, had never particularly trusted Lucius Malfoy, and had been anxious to buy back the Malfoy patriarch's stake in his family business.

To that end, he had procured a large shipment of extremely valuable plants, some so rare that they weren't even found in the Hogwarts greenhouses. But what could have turned out to be a very profitable deal went up in smoke (quite literally) when a major fire broke out in one of their biggest greenhouses.

To say this was catastrophic for the Greengrass family was an understatement. Daniel Greengrass found himself hounded on all sides by debtors until Lucius came to the "rescue". He offered to help the Greengrass patriarch with his monetary problems. His price: a controlling interest in the Greengrass plantations, and a marriage contract between the eldest children of both families when they came of age.

Naturally, Daphne was less than thrilled by the whole arrangement. When asked for her opinion, she had haughtily proclaimed that she'd much rather marry one of Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts than let Draco Malfoy get within five feet of her.

But all that was merely hot air, and even Draco knew it. Refusing to honor the contract would mean that the burden of fulfilling it would fall on her sister Astoria's shoulders.

"My sister's a complete airhead," Daphne had explained. "She adores Draco, has had a crush on him since we were children. She's jump at the chance to marry that arse without even thinking about what it could mean for her." Her eyes had lit up with a cold fury. "I'll die before I let that happen!"

Or kill Draco, if the fire in her eyes was anything to go by.

It had been Blaise, a long-time friend of hers who'd convinced her to bring her case before Harry. Though unwilling at first, Daphne had conceded for the sake of her sister.

And so it was that the unlikely group found themselves sitting in an abandoned classroom.

"Potter, please," Tracey pleaded, restraining Daphne with one hand. "I know you don't exactly think the world of us Slytherins, but this is a child we're talking about! Astoria's innocent!"

"Not to mention it's a chance to piss off Malfoy," Blaise said carefully. "I figured you might not want to pass up on that."

Harry remained silent. Certainly he had no great love for the Slytherins, but Greengrass and Davis had never been one of his antagonists. They had always treated him with the coldness that accompanied most Slytherin-Gryffindor interactions, but never outright hostility. And if he had to be honest, even that coldness had existed mostly in part due to biased gits like Snape doing whatever they pleased. Ever since Aurora Sinistra had taken over as Slytherin's Head of House, tension between the House of Snakes and the rest of the school had reduced considerably.

Still, that didn't mean that he was under any obligation to stick his neck out for people he didn't even know. While the prospect of doing Malfoy a bad turn appealed to him, he didn't really care enough to throw a spanner into the works of what was obviously a business matter between two world-weary adults.

Then why the bloody hell did it bother him so much!?

He closed his eyes and opened them again, gazing into the faces turned towards him. Daphne, looking defiant, with a shadow of resignation towards her fate cast across her face; Tracey, looking hopeful, beseeching him to help them; Blaise, his face impassive, but his eyes betraying his anxiety and concern for his friends.

He could not say no to them. He could not say no those who had come to him with such hope in their eyes.

But why not?

Almost automatically, his eyes went to Luna, who was observing him with a neutral expression on her face. There was no sign of the usual dreaminess in her storm-grey eyes. They were focused, intense. . . the same look she'd had that day, in that empty classroom.

His mind went back to the conversation they'd had that day, specifically to the question she'd asked him: Would he blindly walk the path Fate had chosen for him, or would he create his own?

The answer was simple. What was not was the why.

Why was he making this choice?

Harry was not a naive fool like his peers in Gryffindor. His experiences with the Dursleys had long since taught him that there really was no justice in the world. Bad things happened to good people more often than they should. It was just the way the world worked. His parents' graves were proof of that.

But he could change it.

Harry narrowed his eyes. It was amazing how clearly he could think now, how precise his thoughts were. He'd never truly used his intelligence the way he was using it now.

Out there, in the muggle world, he was just Harry. A nobody who couldn't even help himself, let alone help others.

But here, he was the Boy-Who-Lived. A title bought with the blood of his parents, a title he despised, a title he would have given everything to cast away gave him the power to actually do something about the injustice he could see.

His fame was not a curse. Far from it. It was a weapon he could wield to do the right thing.

Here, he was not "Just Harry". He had never been "just Harry".

But now he had the option to be so much more.

"This is a waste of time," Daphne jumped to her feet. "Tracey, let's just. . ."

"I'll do it."

The Greengrass heiress stopped in her tracks. "What?"

Harry exhaled softly before turning to look her straight in the eye. His emerald orbs blazed with such fierce determination that they almost seemed to glow. "I'll help you. I'll get Malfoy to annul the contract."

Daphne felt her throat go tight. "But. . . how?"

"That's no concern of yours." He got to his feet, and such was the strength of his conviction that the short boy actually seemed to tower above them all. "It's late. Go back to your dorms. Lucius Malfoy will withdraw his contract and reconsider his demand for your family business. You have my word."

Harry waited until the two girls had left the tower before walking over to stare out the window. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds, bathing him in pale blue light.

"Blaise."

"Don Harry?" the boy straightened.

"Set up a meeting with Draco for me."

AN: So yeah, this story's going to move at a faster pace than Renegade. The reason being that I plan to focus equally on both plot and character development this time.

Thanks a lot to everyone who took the time to review this story. It's great to see some old friends like Alix33 again. :)

For those who're curious, unlike Renegade, this story will be linear.