“-. JUNE 24, 1995 .-“
On that fateful day of the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament, so strongly were dark thoughts still percolating through Harry Potter’s mind that he didn’t even register when Cedric Diggory won the Triwizard Tournament until everyone in the stands was getting up to cheer.
Harry got up too and did some cheering of his own, if only because he was determined to take every possible excuse to go on with life instead of hiding under a rock like those glowing creeps wanted. It wasn’t the same without hanging out with his friends, that was why he was on a different row instead of with them, but he could wait until they got somewhere else to make up for that lost time.
He’d come to Hogwarts for the Third Task incognito, having used contacts and a wig to change his eye and hair color to brown, and muggle face putty to make his nose look a bit different. Charles Gordon was a man of many skills. Also, magical disguises wouldn’t have worked because of the dispelling waterfalls set up over the access ways to the stands.
After the complete failure of security on not just the part of Hogwarts but the Ministry itself, as seen in the Crouches, nobody was taking any chances. If figuring out that enchantment gave Dumbledore an additional reason to talk to the DoM and conceal what they really most wanted, Harry wasn’t going to complain.
The Gringotts goblins still hadn’t finished having a fit about it, as Harry understood it, but he was fine with that. Those swindlers were overdue a reminder anyway, of why they lost every one of their ‘rebellions’ – enough thought and effort let a wizard achieve or duplicate any magical feat, especially if they already knew it was possible. It was just the goblins’ bad luck that Dumbledore needed distracting from his worry over Harry’s coma, and generally being depressed.
Harry might still be annoyed at the actions of Griphook and the bank from that first life, now that he remembered them.
The security on site still had spells and checks to check for regular stuff too, or rather highlight the real appearance of the person through whatever disguise they had, like interposing outlines. Not cast on the person but the air around them, thus bypassing personal glamour items and spells. Fortunately, Dumbledore was quite accommodating of Harry these days. They had arranged ahead of time for Harry to go through the security point manned by Dumbledore’s own handpicked security expert, namely the real Alastor Moody. It stuck in the old auror’s craw, but Moody owed Harry for saving him from Barty Crouch Junior.
The only hitch in the ‘support Cedric Diggory without stealing his thunder’ plan was that Harry’s hair turned from black to red and back a few times when he passed through the waterfall. Nobody else saw it thanks to the wig, but Harry had other ways to see and feel besides eyes. It was as if his body couldn’t decide which was his ‘real’ hair color. It was strange, it wasn’t like he ever had red hair until the prank by his dad’s ghost, and Herla – Arth – had been a blue-eyed blond.
Prematurely aged from stress though, Harry reconsidered as a vague echo of memory bubbled up. Red hair turns blond as you age, and eventually snow white.
If he’d been any good at metamorphing, Harry might have been able to force or suppress the shift, even though the waterfall, but he was pants at that. He had tried to practice, but he could never make changes happen.
They had better luck when Nicolas or Sirius used transfiguration on him, but not how they hoped. The idea was to get him used to feeling the changes in the hopes of reproducing shifts without external magic, but the opposite happened. When something about him was changed by anything not him, whether or not he was conscious of the spell or not, Harry immediately felt the difference along with a profound unease. His metamorph magic activated extremely easily then, almost automatically, reverting him to his natural state.
Whether a holdover from being petrified or just a mental block, it seemed that Harry would have to settle for just having a physical reset function, at least for the foreseeable future. Hopefully Nicolas was right that it would also work to keep him in perfect health, but they didn’t exactly have a way to test or practice that while Harry was still enjoying the lingering benefits of the Elixir.
Well, unless he used psychometry on his biology, maybe?
Harry suddenly had the very clear premonition that trying that for the first time in the middle of a roaring stadium was a bad idea.
Right. Best leave it for later.
Harry had arranged to meet with his friends inside the Hogwarts corridor leading to the greenhouse. Well, more like Hermione had arranged it, there was something going on with her but Harry had been too busy to more than notice, and it didn’t feel like anything too bad.
He ran late because he got caught up in the crowd headed down to – futilely – try and get a piece of Cedric while he was already being crowded by the judges and press, and the aurors hired precisely to stop that very thing. Harry managed to break away before the mob forced him to be part of the stampede – weren’t people with first-class seats supposed to have more class? – but he lingered because he saw something interesting happening with his second sight.
If not for his own dealings with the Goblet of Fire, Harry wouldn’t have understood what was happening. It was quite the thing to see a magical contract unravel because its terms had been fulfilled. It went quite thoroughly against the purpose of Nodens’ actual enchantment, since that one had been intentionally designed to exploit the harsh and indiscriminate nature of geas penalties. It did give him the clearest view yet, though, of where the Goblet’s own enchantments ended and the original cauldron’s began.
Harry didn’t know how he’d make use of this, or when or if, but he wasn’t ruling anything out.
I’m turning into a bigger research nut than Hermione.
Since he wanted Cedric to know Harry had been there to support him, Harry went to hang out with his friends until Cedric finally got away from the mob. That got mixed results. Ron was waiting at the right spot, but Neville was elsewhere being monopolized by his grandmother, and Hermione was absent. When pressed, Ron said she said she had a ‘surprise’ for Harry, one she’d been working on for weeks apparently, so much so she’d been MIA outside classes, but both Ron and Neville had been sworn to secrecy.
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Fair enough.
Harry and Ron were enjoying treats in the kitchens when the Marauder’s map finally showed Cedric alone. Well, alone with just his father and girlfriend.
“Expecto Patronum: Hey, good job. Wish I could say I saw the whole thing, but the organisers sadly don’t know what a jumbotron is. I was in the stands the whole time though. Good luck with your eternal fame, maybe you’ll actually enjoy it.” Harry would’ve left it at that, but he hesitated. Maybe it was marauder mischievousness, maybe it was his old life as a king that weighed all opportunities, maybe it was not being kidnapped and used in a foul resurrection ritual this time around. Whatever it was, the spiritual malaise from what the Others did to him was temporarily lifted. “I might have an employment opportunity for you in a year or ten. Think about it.”
He watched Prongs disappear through the wall, then focused to see how long he could share his sight with the stag, like he had while petrified. Pretty well now, it turned out. He experienced the stag’s lightspeed dash to the receiver – it wasn’t teleportation, was that its highest limit? – and even got to watch the gobsmacked reactions of Cedric and those with him before Prongs dispersed.
The patronus didn’t so much rejoin Harry as it reformed in his spirit, not crossing the intervening distances this time. What a good mystery to distract Hermione with, next time she went all frizzy.
Unfortunately, the Marauder’s Map also showed a bunch of people gathering outside the kitchen doors by then, most of them unfamiliar. When they asked the elves, they found out it was press people. Someone had brain enough to wonder if the unknown fourteen year-old young wizard Ron Weasley left with might be more than he seemed.
Harry grabbed Ron and apparated to the seventh-floor corridor, right outside the suite Nicolas and him used on and off when they visited. Dumbledore was accommodating in more ways than one, these days. Harry probably could’ve bypassed the block on apparition anyway, by asking Hogwarts itself for the special permission, but he didn’t want to mess up the castle’s sleep just for that.
Didn’t want to walk back any second chance he gave either, until and unless it was thrown in his face. That was no way to live, Nicolas always said. Or run society.
They didn’t find anyone in the suite, but there was a note in Hermione’s writing and co-signed by Nicolas, saying to go to the Room of Requirement. So that’s what they did.
When he and Ron reached the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, Harry found out why he hadn’t been able to divine anything about Cedric Diggory today. Well, he already knew most likely why – if you can’t divine anything about someone’s future, it most likely meant they’ll be directly and meaningfully involved with your own around that point in time.
Now, Harry finally knew how Cedric would be involved – he was right there, in front of the tapestry. And so was Cho Chang.
“Alright there, Potter?” Cedric greeted him as they arrived, then nodded at Ron. “Weasley.”
“Diggory.”
“Diggory,” Harry shook the older boy’s hand. Or man, now. Not just of age, but proven in all three tests of skill, might, and character. “When I said a year or ten, I did mean a year or ten. I’m not employing anyone yet.”
“Anyone else, you mean?” Cedric said shrewdly.
“No comment.” Did he mean Charlie, or someone else? Doctor Strauss? Dumbledore, even? Yeah, pull the other one. “Was there something you wanted, or is you being here just coincidence?”
“In this one spot where the Golden Four keep vanishing and reappearing mysteriously? Obviously not.”
“So?”
“I was wondering if your mysterious job offer might not be preceded by, let’s say, anything at all resembling internship.”
“You’ll have to explain that one.”
“Look, Potter-“
“You can call me Harry. And Miss Chang may as well.”
“Then you should call me Cho.”
“And you should call me Cedric. Could we talk somewhere a bit more private?”
Harry and Ron exchanged a look, then they led the way into the nearest classroom, where everyone did all they could think of to maximise security.
“Harry, people talk,” Cho said after the last spells settled. “A lot.”
“Which makes it really obvious when they aren’t talking about something,” Cedric picked up. “There’s been a lot of not talking about you this year, from Weasley, Granger, Longbottom, the teachers, the headmaster, even the press. After what you did last year, it should’ve been a media circus but it wasn’t. Even now they’re only doing the bare minimum of mentioning you.”
“Your influence is impossible not to notice,” Cho continued. “Don’t even try to deny it. The intellectual high society through Nicolas Flamel, the Wizengamot through your godfather, the Ministry through Dumbledore, maybe even the ICW. The headmaster has never played second fiddle to anyone, but he did for you that night, and he’s been extremely careful to avoid the implication that he might have any influence on you. And then there’s Hogwarts – the wards, the ghosts, even the castle grounds do practically whatever you say. Cedric’s already mentioned the press.”
“Yeah, my family knows all about what it means to control the press, we had our own man as Minister for Magic once, you know?”
“… Alright?” Harry said. “Yeah, that’s all true. So what?”
“You won’t deny it?” Cho asked, surprised.
Harry shrugged. “I’m a private person, not a liar.”
“Huh,” Cedric muttered. “I thought we’d have to do a lot more proving ourselves, guess I filled my bag with all those notes and charts for nothing.”
“You’ve got charts?” What? “When did you have time to make charts?”
“I don’t know, whole year?” said Cedric.
“It’s been obvious for a while that you’re building up to something too big for just four people,” Cho waved vaguely. “You were bound to start recruiting at some point.”
“We want in.” Cedric twined his fingers with Cho’s, but he didn’t look away from Harry. “Both of us. We’ve been discussing it for months, we already cleared it with our parents. They said they’ll do the plausible deniability thing, but we can do whatever we decide for ourselves. We figure the chance doesn’t come twice, to be part of the thing what will shape the world for at least the next generation.”
Harry crossed an elbow over his fist and wiped his mouth several times. “Just… what do you think I’m up to, you two?”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? We don’t know.”
“Right fine job there,” Cedric huffed. “But you took the mask off to warn me of danger back then. That’s enough for me.”
It was just a coincidence that you were on the way out of the Great Hall. Harry decided not to say that though. “What’s your best guess?”
“Something to do with the Dark Lord,” Cho said hesitantly. “I know, right obvious, but as I said, the whole not talking about you deal has worked really well.”
“Annoyingly well.” Cedric’s amusement took any sting out of it though.
“Right.” Harry looked between the two. “That’s not it.”
“Pardon?”
“Whatever you think ‘this’ is, it’s not about the Dark Lord. Well, we’ll probably have to deal with him at some point, but he’s not it. But fine, come on. Since you’re here anyway, there’s no need to wait.”
“Wait what? Not about – what do you mean you’ll have to deal with him, is he back? Even without – you know?”
“Not yet, don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry?!”
“Harry-“
“No more questions right now, please. Nothing you’ll see today will make any sense either, probably.” Harry took down the security spells and led the way out. “We’ll need to have a long sit-down at some point to get you up to speed. Later though, after we’ve come up with some manner of security process. And maybe when we’ve put something together that won’t immediately make you think we’re all insane. No guarantees on the last one, I don’t know what Hermione’s been cooking for today, but it’ll almost certainly seem completely barmy.”