First, the unpleasant bit. I honestly wish that I didn't have to do this, and I thought that people had more maturity than this. And yes, I know that I could delete this review from my account. But having thought about it, I seriously don't care enough to go to the trouble. It's more embarrassing for the reviewer than for me, and I'm not charitable enough to want to prevent this person from embarrassing themselves.

To Patre, my anonymous reviewer: Honestly, clearly you've been reading my author's notes, since the thing that you chose to comment on was in them. Have I not been ranting for the last five chapters about respecting other people's opinions, even if you don't agree with them? And, it's super cowardly to do it by anonymous review so I couldn't report you for it. The review function is there to provide constructive criticism and feedback on the writing of my story. Since you didn't comment on the story once, and I don't even know if you even bothered to read it, I can very clearly state that your "feedback" has nothing at all to do with my writing. Okay, bash a character. Slam me for writing OOC, if you think that that is the case. If you really need to hit me that badly, find something in the story to critic, and do it respectfully. Otherwise, it just isn't cool. Let me reiterate: If you don't agree with me and you must inform me why I am wrong, do so in a constructive, respectful manner. Because you weren't just bashing the story, which I can deal with since you can't please everyone and I'm really writing to please myself, but you were bashing me. That comment about chick flicks, for instance, was overly personal, highly insulting and completely uncalled for. You actually almost prompted me to block anonymous reviews, but I've gotten enough constructive feedback and encouragement from them that I didn't want to do that. Just, seriously, if you can't be mature and respectful, then keep your opinions to yourself.

Now to answer a few questions.

Chi Vayne: Harry doesn't leave because he thinks that these adventures are all good fun and is eager for them to continue. It's his parents pulling him out that he's worried about, which is why he has given them an extremely edited version of events over the years. And despite the fact that Ron and Hermione are not his only friends, he is closer to them than he ever got to others over the years, due to the living arrangements at a boarding school: you rely more on friends, because your family is so far away. So it is a combination of reasons. But the reason that Harry didn't want to compete in the tournament is because he's outclassed and because the school is treating him terribly, not because he doesn't want to try. In fact, he even considered putting his own name in with Fred and George, but Dumbledore's potential anger, the school's potential reaction and the worry of his family pulled him back. Also, Hogwarts is kind of his last connection to his birth parents, and even though he doesn't long for them the same way that he does in canon, he still knows that they were his parents and they loved him. He knows that they died for him.

Mrpietan: As far as that goes, JKR never said it either. I mean, it could be any school. I guess I'll just say that there wasn't a school on there, and Harry is technically an independent competitor. If you could confound the Goblet into selecting an extra champion, then you could confound it into selecting a competitor without a school, too. I could say that it was some made up magical school, but it's honestly so irrelevant to the story that I'm not going to bother.

"Harry!" Rita Skeeter greeted him enthusiastically as he slid into the booth across from her at The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. "So wonderful to see you. I trust you're well?"

"Yes, of course," Harry endured the usual pleasantries. "And yourself?"

"Wonderful," she repeated, eyeing him like a hawk would eye a mouse on the ground.

"Ms. Skeeter," Harry said, trying to get her attention. "I agreed to meet you here simply because I couldn't think of another real alternative, but this isn't exactly something that we should be discussing in public."

"The Hog's Head down the road, Ab Dumbledore's place, is less crowded," Rita offered.

"Even more likely to be overheard there, then—did you say Dumbledore?"

"Aberforth Dumbledore, the owner of the Hog's Head. The esteemed Headmaster's younger brother. Not many people know about that, though. They don't get on well." Rita looked very predatory right then, as if she would love to dig in that particular sandbox. Clearly, though, she didn't dare go after Dumbledore just yet.

"If it's less crowded, then there's even more chance of being overheard," Harry pointed out reasonably. "Maybe we should talk about this outside."

Clearly, Rita was so interested in what he wanted to say about Sirius that she didn't even bother to protest. Instead, she cast several high end privacy charms around the area that they settled into, a bench that was down a street away from the crowds of Hogwarts students.

"So, Harry. I have to admit, I was intrigued when you mentioned Sirius Black, and even moreso when I looked into it, and discovered that there weren't any trial transcripts. But what made you mention him?"

"Sirius Black was tossed into Azkaban for killing Peter Pettigrew and twelve muggles in an explosion. But that wasn't the only thing that they were going to charge him for," Harry answered. "I have to go back a few years for this, but when he was at Hogwarts, he had three best friends—Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin and my father, James Potter. So when my parents learned that Voldemort was going after them, they found an obscure charm called the Fidelius. It hides a Secret, in this case a location, in another living soul, called the Secret Keeper. Everyone knew exactly who the top contender for the Secret Keeper was Sirius. My father and Sirius were best friends in school, practically brothers," Harry explained.

"Go on," Rita looked like Christmas had come early—she knew enough about journalism by now to know that there was a huge story here, one that would make her career if she was the one who broke it.

"Okay, so that's the accepted public story, at least by the people who knew about it. Then, Peter cornered Sirius on the street, and Sirius agreed that it was all his fault and blasted the street apart, killing twelve muggles and annihilating Peter so badly that all that was left of him was a single finger. Sirius then got carted off to Azkaban without a trial, and everyone had honestly forgotten about him completely until he escaped twelve years later."

"I'm guessing that there's more to that story," Rita murmured.

"Exactly. If everyone knew that Sirius was the person that James Potter trusted most, then wouldn't it be easy for Voldemort to know who the Secret Keeper was?"

"Yes, so," Rita prompted him, the pieces starting to fall together in her mind.

"Sirius realized that. And so he suggested a switch. Nobody would ever think that they would use the weak Peter Pettigrew, after all. So Sirius acted as decoy and Peter was the Secret Keeper."

"Which would have been wonderful, except that Peter Pettigrew was a traitor!" Rita said excitedly as the pieces clicked into place and she finally figured out where he was going with all of this. "So Peter betrayed them to You-Know-Who, and, and, and then what happened?"

"My parents were dead, Voldemort was vanquished and I had disappeared to live with my mother's sister and her husband and son. Sirius always was impulsive and reckless, and he never really was quite sane. He's a Black, after all. He has his off moments. And he even told me himself that it wasn't because of his stint in Azkaban."

"So you've talked to him?"

"In a minute. First I have to tell you what happened with the muggles. So Sirius lost his temper and in his grief, he went after Peter for revenge. But Peter was ready for him. He shouted for the whole street to hear that Sirius had betrayed my parents, and everyone knew that already so it didn't take much to convince them. And then Peter used the wand behind his back to shoot an exploding hex at the muggle gas pipe in the building behind him and blew up the whole street. Then he sliced his finger off and disapparated, leaving Sirius in the wreckage." The last thing that Harry wanted to do right now was mention that Peter was an unregistered animagus. Anyone who had known him had known that he wasn't a very powerful wizard. They would easily be able to make the leap that if Peter had managed, James Potter and Sirius Black had been with him the whole way through. And since Sirius' animagus form was the best way for him to move around without detection, Harry didn't want to compromise that protection.

"Sirius blamed himself, see. He still blames himself. It was his idea to switch Secret Keepers, his idea to trust Peter. That's why he was laughing and saying that it was all his fault when the aurors showed up. Not such a great moment to have a bout of that famous 'Black insanity', eh?"

Rita stared at him. "So Sirius Black really was innocent," she said in astonishment.

"An innocent man spent twelve years in hell on earth because nobody could be bothered to give him a proper trial. But you have to be careful how you spin it, Fudge has a very corrupt administration. If you make him look bad, he'll have you blacklisted."

Rita paused, realizing this. Fudge wouldn't react well to this story, but if they spun it the right way... "It was Bagnold's administration that tossed him into Azkaban without a trial," she said. "We can use that. Bagnold did it, Bagnold's fault. And Crouch. After his son got caught as a Death Eater, he was a fanatic. Black probably wasn't the only person in there who didn't have a trial."

"What if we blasted that wide open?" Harry suggested with a nasty smile. If there was anyone in there that hadn't had a trial, and they were innocent as well as Sirius, he couldn't very well leave them there. And Rita was exactly the vehicle that he needed to get them out if that was the case.

"I can think of several high-profile trials that I attended before Crouch's son got caught—he was a shoe in for minister, the head of the DMLE. Where Amelia Bones is now. But Barty Junior destroyed his reputation, and he got shunted sideways into International Cooperation after Fudge took charge and cleaned house. The Lestranges, for one. Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan. They were pieces of work. And Augustus Rookwood, Igor Karkaroff—"

"Karkaroff? Like, the Headmaster of Durmstrang, Karkaroff?"

"Yes." Rita looked thrilled now, as if the chance to further tarnish someone's reputation was making her day. "He got off by giving them names. That's where they got Augustus Rookwood from. He gave them Snape, too. But Dumbledore told them that he'd turned spy. Let's see, who else."

"Where's Crouch now? Still in Azkaban?"

"Crouch Junior? He died, only a few months after being sentenced. Never left Azkaban."

"Hmm. I can't think of anyone high profile during that time that was arrested without a trial. But there could be low profile ones. Those days after Voldemort fell were chaos. And then when Crouch and the Lestranges went after the Longbottoms... The head of the DMLE and the last surviving members of an Ancient and Noble House, along with the elder one's wife. No one could talk about anything after that."

"The Longbottoms? What happened with them?" Harry heard Neville's name. That must be his parents—Harry knew that Nev had been raised by his grandmother, which probably meant that his parents were dead. "Did they kill them?"

"No, of course not. Lots of people got killed in the war, Harry. The Longbottoms wouldn't have been anything special if that was the case. But Frank and Alice Longbottom were Aurors. Decorated veterans, a couple of the best that the department had, along with your father and Sirius Black. The Lestranges and Crouch's kid broke into their house a few nights after You-Know-Who fell and tortured them into insanity with the Cruciatus Curse. The Aurors arrived in time to stop them from touching the baby, Neville Longbottom. But it was too late for the parents. They're still in St. Mungos—they can't even recognize their friends, family."

Harry stared in horror. That was almost—no, it was worse than what had happened to his parents. His parents were dead—they could rest in peace knowing that they had died protecting their son and now he had other people raising him, people that didn't seek to replace them in his life but were focussed on keeping him safe and happy. His parents could rest. But Neville—his parents didn't even recognize him. Prisoners in their own minds, but still alive. They couldn't rest, couldn't stop, but couldn't really live either.

"And Rookwood got nailed for sharing state secrets with You-Know-Who," she went on. "He was an unspeakable. Antonin Dolohov, that's another one. He got arrested for brutally murdering Gideon and Fabian Prewitt. Lucius Malfoy got cleared of all charges at the same time that there was suspiciously large donation to the administration. Nott, Crabbe, Goyle... all the same. But they all got trials. I think that's it, at least for the inner circle ones. Fenrir Greyback was wanted, but they never caught him. He's always been a slippery one. It's illegal for a werewolf to infect others, and there's proof that Greyback did tons. Children. He likes children. He'd threaten the children with lycanthropy to make the parents behave. But either way, he was wanted before the war, long before his name ever came up in conjunction with You-Know-Who."

"But you could still look into it. And as for Sirius, when you break the news you should just try to pin it on Bagnold. Paint Fudge free of blame. And Crouch makes a good scapegoat for him to use if some of the negativity hits him too. Everyone knows that he got pretty extreme after that, even though they don't know about his son. But it isn't hard to think that with everything that I've heard about him, that he would have tossed someone into Azkaban without a trial."

"Perfect," Rita said cheerfully, smiling that predatory smile at him again. "My article about the Tournament is going to run tomorrow. I think you're going to like it."

"And if this goes well, perhaps I can tell you about my other adventures during school? I've had some life-threatening fun every year that I've been here. This Tournament is nothing compared to second year especially. You can only write one article at a time, Ms. Skeeter, and you wouldn't want them to overshadow each other. Let's just stick to this for now."

She nodded, and Harry couldn't help but think that this would be the start of a beautiful friendship. She collapsed the privacy spells and went on her way, and Harry slipped inside the Three Broomsticks to meet Hermione and Fleur, who for some reason didn't feel the need to hang out with her own friends. Not that Harry minded, though. And he knew that she enjoyed being around people that didn't hate her for being who she was, and when she was with them everyone was too busy staring to whisper about him.

Hermione smiled at him before getting back to chatting with Fleur about some advanced Transfiguration theory and Harry took a sip of the butterbeer that she had ordered him. It was a pity that Gabbi couldn't come to the village with them—next Hogsmeade weekend he would have to stash her under his cloak and take her alone, since Hermione most definitely wouldn't approve of him sneaking an underage student off the grounds and Fleur would want to come with them. And who on earth brought their older sister along on a semi-quasi date (though not too much of one—Harry wasn't a pedophile, and he was way too old for her at this stage to really be thinking about dating), Harry didn't know. But he did know that neither he nor Gabbi would appreciate her presence.

The girls were interrupted from their intensely technical chat by the appearance of Hagrid and Mad-Eye Moody. It was honestly hard to determine which was more intimidating in that moment. Hagrid crouched down next to them as Moody stumped on. "Ello, Arry. Ermione. And Fleur, tha' you? Bin too long since I saw you—when I took Arry for his school supplies first year, yes. And look at you now. All grown up and Triwizard Champion to boot."

Fleur blushed. "It is good to see you too, Hagrid."

"Arry, Fleur, I have something to show you. Tonight at midnight, come to my house. Bring that cloak of yours, Arry. You'll need it." Harry paused.

"Sure, Hagrid." Fleur looked annoyed, but Hermione shook her head.

"It's best to humour Hagrid when he gets like this, Fleur. Just look at whatever he wants to show you and then get back to bed. You'll have Harry's cloak, you won't get caught," Hermione said as soon as Hagrid was out of earshot, following in the same direction as Moody.

Fleur glanced over at Harry and let out an exasperated sigh. "Fine. Whatever. Just—if we get in trouble for this, it's all your fault."

"Please, I have tons of experience with being out past curfew," Harry said airily. "I never get caught."

"Excuse me?" Hermione snorted at him. "Norbert comes to mind."

"Well—almost never. Same difference. But still. I'm very good at sneaking around after curfew, despite how badly Snape would like to catch me. And Dumbledore knows about my cloak—he hasn't really told anyone. I know that McGonagall has guessed—she knew that James Potter had it in school. And Snape knows—discovered it for sure last year in the shrieking shack."

"Anyway," Hermione cut in drastically. "How did your interview go? Do you think she's going to twist your words? Rita Skeeter's dangerous, from what you've told me."

"Oh, no, Hermione. She won't dare twist my words, not now. Not when I dropped some hints about my school career to her. She just wants the whole story too badly to risk getting on my bad side."

"About that school career, Harry," Fleur cut in with a clipped tone of voice. "What, precisely, is it that you've been avoiding telling me all about? Maman and Papa knew that you had gotten up to some things, that there was some incident with a loose monster in your second year. But I heard you after your name came out of the Goblet—the things that you said! Did they happen, Harry?"

Harry sighed. If he was really going to tell Rita about that so that she could publish it in the Prophet, his sister deserved to know from him first. "Okay, I'll tell you. But not now. Later, after we meet Hagrid. I have to talk to someone first about whether I can tell you what happened."

Hermione understood immediately. 'Ginny?' she mouthed at him across the table. When he nodded, she bestowed him with an approving smile. He certainly wasn't going to tell Rita about his second year without Ginny's permission, either.

Having thought of that, Harry found himself across from Ginny at a table in the corner only a couple of hours later. Hermione and Fleur had begged off another drink and headed back to the castle. Harry had been ready to throw in the towel with them when he had spotted the redhead and waved her over for a drink.

"Hey, Gin. How are you?"

"Good, Harry. I'm good. But I doubt that you're acting like this because you want to exchange pleasantries. What is going on?" Ginny traced a finger around the bottle neck of her butterbeer.

"Gin, you know that I would never tell anyone about what happened in the Chamber without your permission, right?"

"Of course, Harry. I trust you. Is that all that you wanted to say?"

"No. First, Fleur has demanded to know about my school career, and Gabbi is going to want to know as well."

"Of course, Harry. Tell them everything. Was that all? I can't believe that you thought that I would have a problem with you telling your family what happened."

"No. That wasn't all. Aside from that, well—" Harry broke off, trying to find a way to word it.

"Go on." Ginny looked a mixture of apprehensive and amused at his deliberations.

"I want your permission to tell the whole world."

Ginny nearly knocked over her butterbeer. "What?"

"There's this reporter—Rita Skeeter. She was eyeing me like a bird of prey watching a piece of meat. I've heard of her. I've no doubt that she would have jumped on the chance to destroy my reputation. So I baited her with Sirius—you know that that would be a massive headline. But now she wants to know about the rest of my Hogwarts years. We could maybe even pin Lucius Malfoy with this. But I would never do it without your permission."

Ginny paused. "Everyone would hate me. Or pity me."

"No! No, Gin, they wouldn't! The diary—you deserve a metal for that, not pity. And they can't possibly blame you for it! You were possessed. And nobody died, so ultimately no harm done. In fact, the person that came the closest to actually dying was you. So really..."

"Do you honestly believe that?"

"Do you honestly believe that I would tell the story without you there?" Harry returned, mildly insulted by what she apparently thought of him.

"No. Okay. We'll tell the story. Just tell me when and where, and I'll meet you."

"Thank you, Gin. You're very brave."

"I better be."

Sooo. That one is a bit shorter than any of the others, but I figured this made sense for a chapter break. And also, it's been awhile. No Gabbi in this chapter because it's so short. But Harry's alliance with Rita Skeeter. Next time: DRAGONS? THE FIRST TASK IS DRAGONS? Rita's first article comes out and Sirius' letter finally arrives. Possibly some Harry and Ron interaction. We'll see.

Oh, also: Please please please please please go vote in my pole, which I created mostly out of curiosity. You'll see. Just please do it. It'll only take you like two minutes.

~ITookTheOneLessTravelled