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Stand Tall

Chapter XII

Stand Tall, Fight Back

Two weeks Later

Her quill strokes were quick and efficient, with very little time for flourishes and frivolities. As the Deputy Head of the school her quillmanship could not be further apart from her counterpart, Albus Dumbledore. His handwriting was full of swishes, flicks and glamorous twirls, as well as being overly large and loopy. It was every bit as flamboyant as the eccentric personality he presented to the world. Even Severus Snape managed to convey a certain beauty in his writing. His motion was smooth and full of finesse, every rounded letter precise and screaming a dangerous grace.

Her workmanlike handwriting was the lesser of Minerva McGonagall's flaws. The staff investigation into the attacks on Ravenclaw girls and the subsequent disappearance of Luna Lovegood had brought sharply into focus another, far more loathsome weakness - her treatment of Harry Potter. Already, the circumstance of his childhood was a prickly thorn of regret that had remained lodged in her consciousness since the boy had turned up at Hogwarts for the first time.

Clearly malnourished, little confidence in himself and far more reserved and polite than any child of James and Lily Potter had any right to be. His home life had clearly, at best, been not ideal and she could have prevented that had she mounted even a sliver of an argument against Albus' decision to leave him with Lily's sister. His personality made it easy for her to avoid confronting her guilt over this, as well as reconciling him to her two dead friends and former students. She had been particularly close to James Potter and the fact that Harry was so unlike him in manner made it very easy for her to keep her distance.

Her problem was the precise opposite to the one that Severus had.

It meant that, when he arrived at Hogwarts clearly having suffered neglect - it was easy to follow Albus' direction that Harry was being taken care of. That staff shouldn't interfere. It was even easier to dismiss Harry's concerns about the Philosopher's Stone. As it turned out, the only thing Harry had been wrong about was the real culprit; her refusal to listen when he had asked for her help had led to him going himself. As a former member of the Order of the Phoenix and friend of Dumbledore, Minerva was privy to information others weren't. She was one of a handful of people who knew that Harry hadn't just prevented the theft of the stone that night - he had prevented the rebirth of Lord Voldemort.

Harry had fought that monster alone, having been thoroughly dismissed out of hand by the Head of his House.

In his second year at the school Harry had, according to the Headmaster, fought and killed a basilisk. She had never seen the beast but even then, he had tried to get an adults help before putting himself at risk. Admittedly, choosing Gilderoy Lockhart could be considered a serious lapse in judgement but Minerva could understand how the logic of a frightened twelve year old might lead down that road.

Severus had a habit of accusing Harry of having an inflated ego, of believing he was better even than staff but she knew this to be false. He had tried asking for help, he had tried 'leaving it to the adults' and had been let down by them every single time. So now, in his head at least, of course it seemed as though everything was up to him. Of course he had been trying to protect the staff whilst investigating bullying in another house. Of course he hadn't come to them for help again. Why on earth would he? Especially upon hearing that staff had looked into accusation of Ms. Lovegood being bullied before and hadn't managed to stop anything. Merlin, she was half-surprised he managed to still be respectful towards most of them. How often had the adults in his life failed him?

Harry Potter worried her greatly. He was one of many things that did so. Albus' actions with the boy in recent years were becoming more and more suspect, more and more difficult to look past and trust him regarding. Leaving him with the Dursley's had been an unmitigated disaster in her view, yet Albus refused to be swayed on the matter - even with the emergence of Sirius. The presence of the stone, the hiring of Quirell, Lockhart and even Trelawney were all incredibly circumspect when put together. Why was it that the defenses placed upon the Philosophers Stone were all breachable by a group of ten-year old, scarcely trained children?

And now, Harry was being forced to compete in the Triwizard Tournament and students were being attacked and going missing. It was only the binding magical contract under which their brightest students were held that kept Beauxbatons and Durmstrang from leaving Hogwarts to it's mess and going home. Once again, several parents had written threatening to withdraw their children should the school not be made safe.

The corridors were now quiet and tense - she hadn't had to speak with anyone about their behaviour in the hallways for over a week now. Students were never late because they hurried in large groups from lesson to lesson. Fear, unspoken but ever-present, hung heavily over the school like a dark cloud and no-one - note even the staff - escaped it.

Her world was beginning to feel more and more like it did in the days leading up to the First War. People going missing, fear, confusion and suspicion. Voldemort had conducted his operation from the shadows for several years, assassinating and kidnapping key figures and opponents, well before wizarding Britain as a whole was aware of a large-scale threat. It terrified her to think those times were coming back, that her school and her pupils might once again be forced to go through such a harrowing experience.

A flash of red caught her eye, and an envelope she had been trying to keep out of her mind for as long as she could rustled it's way out from the papers she had buried it beneath. It was not like her to put things off, least of all unpleasant things. She was too old and had seen too much for that, but this she had put off because of what it represented. Dumbledore had approached her prior to the beginning of the school year, revealed some of his suspicions and asked the question then. She had said no, had told him to come back when he had some concrete evidence of what he said.

She no longer needed it, the answers were everywhere she looked. Regardless of the ill feelings she held towards Dumbledore's decisions with Harry, it was finally time for her to rejoin the Order of the Phoenix.

And soon, she knew, it would be time to fight for the future of those she taught.

Harry stepped gingerly into the disused classroom on the fifth floor, feet aching and slumped heavily into one of the few chairs left out.

"Anything?" It was Hermione who had asked the question, but with the tone of someone who already knew the answer. The rest of their defence group was there in the other chairs, all looking various degrees of frazzled. Neville looked tired, his approach to their task had been much the same as Harry's - just with a few less hours. Hermione had, predictably fallen back on books and hit the library hard - twice Harry had half dragged her from her books so that she wouldn't read through the night too often. Blaise's face had a tired tightness to it, the only hint of his own anxiety and tension.

He felt a surge of appreciation and guilt in equal measure seeing them like this. They had taken on this burden for him as much as they had done it for Luna, Blaise especially.

"Nothing." He sighed, exhaustion beginning to show. "It doesn't help that most Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws won't even talk to me anymore. No one has seen or heard anything. I even asked Hagrid to check in with the centaurs and Aragog just to make sure she hadn't wondered into the forest. Not sure how much I trust an acromantula to be honest about that kind of thing, but I reckon Firenze is pretty reliable. I don't think much happens in the forest without the centaurs knowing. You guys?"

"I'm finding very few specifics regarding ways out of the castle from the library. Hogwarts a History, though a little obvious refers several times to there being a multitude of methods of escape but obviously very few specifics. If I were to guess, the library has been culled of books that advise on ways to get out of the castle." Hermione responded first, shaking off her tiredness to appear as business-like as possible.

"What if she was taken against her will rather than left?" Blaise asked. "From what little I know of her, leaving by choice is unlikely even with everything she had been through."

The idea of kidnapping put a sour expression on Hermione's face but she still nodded to Blaise in acquiescence. "I would have to agree. And again the nature of a school library prevents me from really making ground in coming up with realistic ways Luna could have been taken. The literature agrees there are dark objects that could achieve that but gives no specifics on which objects or how they might do so." She grimaced. "I'd need access to the forbidden section of the library to have a hope of finding something."

Blaise nodded slowly. "I may be able to help with that. Professor Snape has never asked to many questions of his Slytherins when they've asked for access. If I can get in, we'll go see what we can find."

She blinked, surprised for a moment before smiling, "that would be a huge help Blaise, thank you."

"My search has been even less fruitful, Potter." Hermione momentarily looked a little put off Blaise hadn't acknowledged her thanks, but seemed to brush it off in favour of listening. "Usually with anything like this, any knowledge about it is the House's worst kept secret - especially if one of us had anything to do with it. But the common room is unusually silent about this - most just seem worried that we'll be painted as the villains of the piece again like in second year. Which either means no-one actually knows what happened, or someone's keeping it incredibly quiet - school children aren't usually so good at that."

Harry frowned at that. From what Blaise had said about his House before, Slytherins traded heavily on information. Knowledge was power to them and it was traded between them freely - good practice for adult life. He seriously doubted that information about Luna would not be circulating around the house if it existed at all. Neville's report was similar. He'd managed to make some friends in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw across the years and it seemed that no-one knew anything. The last time Luna had been seen was when she had left the common room for one of her evening outings. She hadn't been seen since. Two weeks. Anything could have happened in that time, anything at all.

The Daily Prophet had covered her disappearance of course - a missing girl at the supposed safest place in the country was a huge story. But their writing had changed over the last few days. There was no longer a presumption that Luna would be found alive.

The rest of their session was rather subdued, as was fitting to their moods - though Harry's in particular was low. He had managed in the immediate aftermath of Luna's disappearance to keep himself on top of things by focusing on what he could do to help find her. But after two weeks of no sign and no answers, he was struggling to hold on to hope.

He was terrified something terrible had happened, something terrible he could have stopped if he had made different choices, if he had been better. He was terrified of this ridiculous tournament and what might happen to him during it. He was terrified of Voldemort; of the man's surely inevitable return to life and the threat to his own life that would certainly follow. He was terrified that when Voldemort did return, he would be unable to protect anyone. Unable to do anything about it.

He didn't know what it was - he knew he wasn't special, or important, or powerful - but something told him that it would be down to him in the end. Something deep inside knew that when Voldemort came back it would be down to him. And he couldn't measure up to that responsibility. Who could other than Dumbledore? It was like a constant pressure, pressing at the peripheral of his mind that he couldn't get rid of. And with every additional burden, the pressure was growing ever more intense so that when he thought about everything at once it felt as though his brain would split in two.

Their morning session came to an end in unsettling silence, with the tolling of the bell for second period. Its seemed more solemn than usual and not for the first time Harry wondered just how sentient the castle and all of it's various features really were.

Potions, like always had been a dire affair. But for Ron, potions without his usual friends had been utterly awful. Seamus and Dean were an inseperable pair and as much as he had spent most of his time since he and Harry had fought with them, there was no seat for a third wheel in Snape's class. He had wound up next to Daphne bloody Greengrass of all people - a silvery blonde-haired Slytherin. Still, she had been weirdly polite and they had managed to get their potion done without much fuss at all, even if he had been on the lookout for sabotage the entire time.

Getting paired with a Slytherin turned out to be an unexpected blessing however, when it came time for leaving. Snape let him and Greengrass through without a second thought, whilst sending Harry and Neville back to restart their potion again. He took full advantage of the opportunity Snape had unwittingly provided and bustled out of the classroom as fast as he could. The hallways were quiet - third period hadn't ended yet - but they soon would be as everyone hurried to lunch. He had to be done by then so he could watch the fireworks. The main door to the Great Hall would have been perfect for what he had in mind but he would almost certainly be caught, so he dashed for a heavily travelled one that he knew Harry would pass through.

It was two doors away from the Hall, and students coming from Divination, Potions and Transfiguration would all typically use it to get to the Hall for lunch. It would be heaving by the time Harry made it there, which was ideal. His former best friend had changed. Making friends with Slytherins, cheating to get into the tournament and not even telling him. Maybe things were getting to his head. If they were, he needed to have his head reduced in size a little bit. It didn't seem that any of the others he was with were doing that, so it would be up to him as Harry's best friend to do it. More importantly, Harry's betrayal hurt. It hurt a lot. Ron knew he hadn't always been a perfect friend but for Harry to just leave him behind like that, to get into the tournament without him or Hermione was just plain selfish. No small part of Ron wanted Harry to realise just how much that had hurt him.

Arriving at the chosen doorway, he removed his wand and performed the required movements, tapping the doorway several times as he did so. Being Harry's dorm mate had given him the required access to the clothes he would be wearing today. Only when Harry's clothes passed through would the charm be activated, stopping any innocent parties from getting hurt in the process. He had no idea why the parchment with this spell on it had been in a Transfiguration book whilst he was doing McGonagall's essay in the Library but it had been an absolute blessing in disguise.

In a matter of minutes the hall started to fill as students filtered through from their classes and Ron spotted Seamus. Walking over, he grinned, "Here Seamus, watch when Potter walks through this door."

Seamus quirked an eyebrow. "What have you done, Ron?"

"You'll see, just wait."

Finally, Harry turned the corner. He was frowning talking quietly to Hermione. Ron recognised the face - it was one that he had seen when something big was wrong and they were trying to help. Suddenly, he remembered that Harry had been worried about that Lovegood girl before she had gone missing - he had been trying to help. He was probably worried about her. Ron made a start forward to stop him from going through that doorway - he wanted to put Harry in his place a little, but not while he was worried about that kind of thing. Even he knew that wasn't on.

He'd made it three steps, and breathed in to shout a warning. Too late. Harry walked through the doorway. The corridor went silent, before whispers broke out. People stopped to stare, nudged their friends to join them. Harry and Hermione engrossed in their conversation still hadn't noticed that all of Harry's clothes besides his boxers, socks and shoes had been turned invisible by Ron's spell. He was walking through the corridor in nothing but his pants and had no idea.

Ron swallowed, guilt filling him but of everyone it was Seamus that broke first.

"Ron Weasley that was bloody brilliant!" He shouted, before breaking into loud guffaws. Ron swallowed, throat suddenly dry but others joined Seamus' laughs. People that heard came over, congratulating him on a prank well pulled, mentioning that Potter needed pulling down a peg or two for cheating and so on.

Ron felt that tide of guilt begin to recede again, and a smile found it's way onto his face as he explained to the crown that had gathered what he had done. After all, Harry had needed his ego deflated.

He never noticed Harry running, nor the betrayal in his former best friends face as he did so.

Harry sat silently in the corner of a darkened classroom, knees clutched tightly to his chest. He'd never been much of a crier - Vernon was always so much worse when he did - but tears rolled down his cheeks now, despite the lack of sobbing. He didn't bother to wipe them away. His thoughts were a messy jumble of betrayal and guilt and pressure and he couldn't pull a single one out from the tornado to even begin to work through it. It was like what Ron did opened a floodgate and everything he had been holding back, every unwanted feeling, every burden he'd locked away in his mind so that he could get on with his life had just flooded in all at once, overloading all of the emotional defenses he had.

"Oh Harry." Hermione's quiet, sad voice came from the doorway to the room. And the girl, near tears herself walked over, unsure, and set herself down next to him. "I suppose asking how you are is pretty redundant."

"I can't do this Hermione. It's too much - everything - I can't-"

Hermione placed a hand gently on his face, silencing him. "Of course you can Harry, you're-"

"I can't Hermione!" He could feel himself building towards hysteria now, but he hardly cared. Things were starting to build towards a fever pitch and he knew he couldn't stop it by himself. "Voldemort is coming back, and he's going to bloody try and kill me. This tournament is supposed to do the same thing - hell, it's probably him that put me in it in the first place. I'm in way over my fucking head, Luna's missing and I can't help, but maybe if I had done something in the first place she would still be fine." Tears were falling faster now, and breathing was coming in short gasps. "I just feel- I just-"

He was stopped in his tracks by Hermione hugging him. Not a hard intense hug, but gently and calmly, as though all of the things he had just talked about didn't exist. "You know Harry, anybody else and I would say just about all of the things you just talked about were not even close to your responsibility to worry about. Dumbledore should be getting you out of this ridiculous tournament, it's other people's job to keep the students safe - but since it's you, I won't even bother.

"Do you remember what I said to you in our first year, before you went through the fire to face Voldemort?" Harry remembered, of course he remembered, but he didn't answer here. "It's still true you know. You see things that are wrong and decide to do something about it because you are you. A great wizard - Harry Potter."

"I'm just Harry, Hermione. Not great, not the Boy-Who-Lived, not anything like that. I'm just me. I-"

"Oh you stubborn... Never mind, obviously words aren't what you need right now." Hermione huffed in a complete change of direction from how she had been. "As if I ever cared even a jot about any of that Boy-Who- Never mind! Come with me Harry, let me show you exactly who you are to me and everybody else you've ever helped, and everybody you ever will."

He blinked, but was given no chance to respond as Hermione took him by the hand and bustled him off through the school.

"Where are we-"

"Never you mind, just wait and see."

She took him down stairs and through corridors until they arrived at a very familiar door. The door to the second floor girls bathroom.

"Hermione..."

"Inside." And she bustled him through this door as well, brazenly ignoring Myrtle who, in a remarkable feat of reading the atmosphere only stared as the went straight to the snake engraved sink. "Open it."

"Hermione, this is a bad-"

"Harry, just trust me on this please. You need to see what's down here."

"I know what's down there Hermione, I don't want to see it again. You don't want to see it."

Hermione just stared at him, before softening slightly. "I know you don't want to see it again, and normally I wouldn't even consider it but I honestly think this is important. Just... Please."

Harry sighed, before looking at the snake, doing his best to imagine it as real. "Open." The hiss came it low and dangerous and to Hermione's credit, she only looked slightly perturbed as a the entire sink unit came away to reveal the dingy, slime-covered entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

"I really don't picture Salazar Slytherin coming this way, it's vile." She said, face sour.

"It's all downhill from here, Hermione."

She frowned at him. "No, I mean I really can't picture Slytherin or Voldemort sliding down there on their behinds. I mean - can you?"

Now that he thought about it, he really couldn't picture that at all. Slytherin was supposed to have been incredibly powerful, and he knew just how vain Tom Riddle had been. The puzzle was a nice distraction, and he began trying a few things in parseltongue to no avail, before getting fed up and simply asking for stairs. The concrete slide began to grind and shift, creating a cavernous noise not unlike Dudley snoring into a megaphone, and stairs formed out of what had been the slide he, Ron and Lockhart had gone down nearly two years prior.

"Wish I'd worked that out the last time I was here." He grumbled, and Hermione smiled.

"To be fair, you had a lot on your mind the last time. Not unlike this time. Now then..." She paused and took out her own wand, staring at the ooze coated stairs. "Scourgify." She muttered the spell, jabbing her wand at the stairs, vanishing the ooze almost instantaneously,

"Really wish we'd done that, too." Hermione just smirked and set off ahead of him down into the chamber.

The inside was pretty much exactly as he remembered. Brittle, crumbling bones of animals long since hunted crunched underfoot, and the entire tunnel had a dank feel to it. The walls were coated in a thick layer of moist algae or moss, a the moisture flowing down them gave the impression that the walls themselves were moving, flowing entities. It was dark, but not so much so that you couldn't see and yet, there wasn't an obvious lightsource. Nonetheless, both of them cast lumos, the wandlighting charm, as they continued on into the depths of Slytherins ancient cavern beneath the castle. The danger of this place was two years dead, but the unsettling sensation of being watched, hunted still lingered heavily in the air.

Harry ran his fingers through his hair anxiously as he led Hermione on, trying to resist the urge to curse towards every single imagined movement or shadow.

Eventually, the cavern opened out into the chamber proper, and there lying prone in the middle of the room was the Basilisk. Monumental even now, and yet just a touch smaller than he remembered; it lay deathly still, open wound festering slightly on the top of it's head. That was where Harry had driven s sword through the roof of it's mouth, killing it. Dried blood on the floor that he knew was his own showed that the snake had given as good as it got.

"My God," Hermione whispered, awestruck. "It must be at least 40 feet long, if not 50." She turned to him, eyes wide. "How are you even still here? I mean, I know the story I know how - it's just..." She trailed off, turning back to the basilisk again.

"I told you you didn't want to see what was down here Hermione." He said. Just being close to the thing mad him sick with fear even if he knew it was dead. It had never left his dreams.

"You still don't get what I'm saying, do you Harry?" She asked, suddenly turning back to him, eyes intense. "I don't think you're a great wizard because you're the Boy-Who-Lived, or because your famous or anything like that. And it's not what makes me believe that you'll beat Voldemort if it comes to it, or that you'll be able to help Luna or survive the tournament either. I don't see the Boy-Who-Lived when I look at you Harry, nobody who really know you does."

"This, is what I see." She said, gesturing towards the snake. "I see the wizard who charged down here and fought this monster because it might save a little girl. I see the wizard who charged a bloody mountain troll to save my life - I see the person, my best friend, that has stood up whenever he's seen something unjust or someone that needed help, and helped them."

She took three steps towards him and jabbed her finger into his chest. "The Boy-Who-Lived didn't do any of those things - he isn't real. Just Harry did - you." She jabbed her finger again for emphasis. "You can say this was luck, and give a thousand other reasons why you don't deserve credit for this, but the fact is that no-one else came here and saved Ginny - you did. No-one else stopped Voldemort in our first year - you did it. It was your determination that saved Sirius, no-one elses." He opened his mouth to reply back, and Hermione jabbed again to stop him.

"Yes Harry, I know you had help but do you honestly think I would have been anywhere near brave enough to do the things we've done without you? I can tell you the answer. You make me want to do the right thing, to be brave and help and to question things that are wrong no matter who's saying them. If you hadn't been there I would have just trusted the professors to save Ginny - so would Ron. Lockhart would have run, and Ginny would be dead.

"You were lucky to have survived, sure. But luck wasn't all it was Harry, because you are an incredible wizard and an incredible person. I know everything is too much right now, I know that everything being heaped on to you like this isn't fair. But if there's one person I'd have faith in to cope with it it's you. When we've been up against it before, giving up was never an option so why is it now? The way I see it is that you have a choice in who you want to be and what you choose will determine how the rest of your life will pan out."

Hermione paused to take a breath, and Harry hardly dared move. That was the most he could remember Hermione ever speaking at once, and the most passionately too. It was difficult for him to align her descriptions of what he'd done with how he felt it had gone. But she had acknowledged he'd gotten lucky and that he'd had lots of help - it wasn't as though she had exaggerated the things he'd done either. That wasn't her style. But he had never considered the impact he'd had on her, or that he might have deserved or received any credit for the things he'd done in previous years.

He'd always been so resentful of the Boy-Who-Lived hysteria that seemed to permeate everywhere around him, he'd always just written of praise as undeserved because of who he was, rather than try to distinguish between when people were genuinely praising his actions and when they weren't.

"And what is that choice, Hermione?" He asked, with more than a little trepidation.

"Are you just going to lie down and accept everything that's coming your way, or are going to square your shoulders, stand tall and fight back? I know what the wizard who killed this basilisk would do. There's not a single problem that you're facing that you can't match if you choose to."

To accept, or to fight back. It seemed so simple when it was put like that. Why was he just accepting everything? He had started the year so keen to be ready for Voldemort when he came. A terrifying prospect, to be sure, but one that he had felt equal to. And yet, as the year had started and things had started happening, he had just let them pile up on him until they were too much for him all at once and he had collapsed under the weight of it all.

There had always been a part of him that had been able to dig it's heels in, and fight no matter what, a stubbornness to win no matter what. He had discovered it in his first year against Quirrell and experienced it once again against the basilisk. He tended only to find it in the direst of circumstances, when other people were in danger and there was nobody else to help, and only when there was no other options left to explore. It all came down to who he was, right down at his very core. Was he the person who just accepted the things that happened to him and let them overwhelm him, or was he the person who grit his teeth and faced down his problems, the person who helped people and won.

He honestly didn't know. But he did know who he wanted to be. Whether he really was that person or not didn't really matter he supposed. His problems would be there regardless, so why not try to be the person he wanted? After all, it wasn't like there weren't people depending on him now. What would happen to his friends when Voldemort came for him? What would happen to Luna if he didn't help find her? When Voldemort came back, how many more people could he help if he stood his ground a fought now? How many would he fail, how many would die, if he didn't?

Hermione was right - Merlin, how many times would he have to say that in his lifetime? It was time that he stopped playing the victim in all of this. He couldn't control what was sent his way so once it was there was no point crying about it. What he could control was what he did about it. Entered into this ridiculous tournament? He could moan and try and get out of it, let it eat away at him as he waited for each task. Or he could fight. Voldemort coming for him? Well, he knew there was only ever going to be one way to solve that problem - he could wait to die, or he could fight. Ron was out to get a little payback, was he? Well it was about time he stopped caring - he had bigger fish to fry than somebody that petty.

He had promised himself at the start of the year that he'd earn himself freedom to make his own choices. But the moment things had started getting tough, he had let himself fold. He should have known better than most that life never just gave you what you wanted. You had to earn it, fight for it. Life took more often than it gave in Harry's experience, unless you made damn sure it couldn't. He had worked hard until now for sure, but it had been out of fear. Fear of Voldemort, fear of the tournament, of failure.

Fear was a fantastic motivator, he knew - especially when it came to survival. But not for the scale of problems he faced. You couldn't stand in front of Voldemort afraid, or else he'd tear you to pieces. How many people had he killed just because they were too afraid to even try to fight back? He couldn't use fear - even if he survived, how many people would die to make that happen?

No, he needed to fight and to win. It was time to stand tall and fight back.

Cedric Diggory hated having to admit when he'd been a bad person - he prided himself on being a good one, or at least as good as he could manage. When Harry had told him that he hadn't put his own name in the Goblet, Cedric had believed him. He hadn't really acted like it though. He felt guilty enough straight after he had blown Harry off and even more so at how crestfallen it seemed to make him. The school's reaction - his own House's reaction had made it even worse. But what had really made him feel dreadful was the fact that he had done nothing about it as the school piled in again on a Fourth year who as far as Cedric could tell, seemed a decent enough person.

He had thought about talking to his house before now, but a small whisper of resentment towards Harry for becoming a Champion and taking away even slightly from his own opportunity to show what he could do had stopped him. And now things seemed to reaching a fever pitch for Harry. Cedric didn't know what else the Gryffindor had going on, but Cedric had been in that corridor earlier today when Weasley had hit him with that prank. He had seen the hurt that had caused Harry. The common room had been abuzz with talk about it when he had arrived after today's lessons, and most seemed to view it as harsh but deserved after Harry cheated his way into the tournament.

Only, Harry hadn't cheated his way in. Cedric had no proof, but he felt like he knew it.

"What did you want to speak about, Cedric?" Asked a sixth year among the crowd of Hufflepuffs Cedric had gathered for a House meeting.

"I want to talk about Harry Potter." He said firmly, making sure to rake his eyes across as many of those in front of him as he could manage. Murmurs began to break out - particularly among the younger students. "I met Harry this Summer at the Quidditch World Cup and he seemed a decent sort. We spoke for quite a while - and I have to say I quite liked him." He started, and the rest of the Hufflepuffs fell into curious silence. "Before I carry on - fourth years. What are your impressions of him, having shared classes with him for a few years?"

A few moments of silence followed, before a nervous looking Susan Bones raised her had. "He always seems to be in the middle of something and tends to keep to his close friends." She started, "but we've spoken a few times. He always seems friendly enough - I know he's even helped Hannah in Care of Magical Creatures." At that, a slightly blushing Hannah Abbott nodded shyly.

Cedric smiled. "Thanks Susan. I have to say, I agree with that assessment." His smile fell away. "Which is why I'm so disappointed that my house - myself included - are playing such a big role in making him feel miserable. We're supposed to stand for fairness and loyalty - and not just towards our own house."

"But he cheated Cedric, you're Hogwarts' Champion - not Potter." Ernie MacMillan piped up.

"Did he though? I don't know anybody that has spent any time with him that believes that, besides maybe Weasley - and I think it's pretty obvious that that's more about Weasley's jealousy than anything Harry did or didn't do. After the Champions were announced to tell me he hadn't entered the tournament, and I for one, believe him.

"Moreover, whether or not we believe him shouldn't matter. There is no evidence that he did it besides the fact his name came out of the Goblet. And if it's possible for a fourth year to get past protections put in place by Albus Dumbledore, then it's equally possible that somebody else did it to try and hurt Harry. We pride ourselves on fairness, but treating somebody as guilty with no evidence is the antithesis of that. I'm here to move that Hufflepuff House ceases in our current course of maligning Harry Potter until such evidence comes to light so that we can say for certain that he is either innocent or guilty."

Cedric watched and listened to the response with a feeling of a job well done. Not everybody agreed of course, but enough people did that it might ensure the others stopped their mistreatment of Harry. It wouldn't stop completely, but he hoped at least he had been able to make Harry's life a little bit more bearable.

Half moonlight shone the the shattered windows of the Shrieking Shack as Harry dropped to the floor in exhaustion. Sirius had just put him through the absolute ringer and even though he had given absolutely everything, Harry still hadn't been able to get close.

"Your shield charm is still too sloppy. You're putting far too much energy into it, and not getting nearly enough bang for your buck. On top of that, it takes you an age to cast." Sirius said, grinning cockily despite the admonishment. "You're faster on your feet than most wizards, but the best duelists will get you anyway so your shields need to be up to scratch."

Remus was nodding along in the corner. "We'll refine your spellcasting a few nights from now." He glanced out of the windows, face seemingly more lined than usual. "It'll be my last chance to work with you for a little while." Harry nodded in understanding. The full moon was not too far away now.

"In the meantime," Sirius continued, "have you given any thought to the First Task?"

Harry shook his head. "We have no idea what it is so I'm just trying to work on as much as I possibly can. It's difficult trying to focus on so much at once though."

"We might be able to help with that Harry." Lupin said, small smile half-hidden beneath his greying moustache. "I have some contact with people trying to organise the First Task."

Harry looked at Remus with wide-eyes. "You're just going to tell me?"

"If you think Karkaroff and Maxine haven't done their own digging and let their champions know, you're kidding yourself - especially with Karkaroff." Harry noticed a slight sneer creep into Sirius' tone at the mention of the Durmstrang headmaster, but the information about the First Task was too important for him to press his Godfather on that.

"Charlie Weasley has been called in from Romania to help with setting up the First Task." Remus cut in, almost as if he knew that Sirius had ventured into uncomfortable territory.

Harry frowned at that. Charlie? Why on earth would Charlie need to come home from the dragon reserve for this, unless-

His eyes darted towards Sirius and Remus, aghast. "Dragons! They want us to fight a bloody dragon?!" Sirius' wince told him all he needed to know. "How the bloody hell am I supposed to fight a dragon?" He demanded.

"You can't - not even the others would be able to, at least not yet." Sirius said calmly. "As best as we can tell you, your challenge will be about getting past a dragon, not beating it. It's a test of ingenuity, not strength." That calmed Harry, though not completely. A dragon was a bloody dragon. It was just as likely to try and eat him whether the task was to defeat it or not.

"So what do I do to get ready then?" He asked.

"In our opinion, you have to try and play to your strengths as best you can. What can you do already that might get you past a dragon?"

Harry frowned in though for a moment before a though came to him. "Don't suppose you two can help me work on my summoning charm?"