Chapter 9: Champions

"Good morning, Hermione," Harry said as she joined them.

"Good morning, Harry. Neville," Hermione said.

"Good morning."

"You are eating," Hermione commented. "Usually we have to force dry toast into you. Don't tell me dragons are less scary than quidditch games.

"Dragons aren't Oliver Wood," Harry said and Katie Bell who sat a little further down the table laughed. "He has a point," she said before focusing back on her own group of friends.

Hermione just looked between the two with disbelief written on her face before she grabbed a book from her bag and started reading it.

Harry once again did not ask McGonagall about dropping Divination, but this time Hermione seemed fine with it considering all the other things going on that day.

History of Magic was a boring class but an interesting subject. Part of Harry wished that he didn't have to sit there and listen to Binns though.

"Hermione, when we get to drop classes, can we drop History and just self-study it instead?

I'm sure you and I could do much better just reading books and researching than Binns can teach us," he said as they were walking to the greenhouses.

Hermione considered it for a moment. It didn't sound like that bad of an idea to be honest. "Why not," she said. While she didn't really want to drop any subjects she could see his point. They could probably learn History better on their own.

"Do you think I could join too?" Neville asked.

"Of course. If that is what you want," Harry said. "I mean we could probably just make it into one big study group, but we'll see."

Neville smiled as he walked there next to Harry. It was nice to not just be ignored and left out.

Once down by the greenhouses, Harry paired up with him rather than Hermione, and Neville was overjoyed.

"It is kind of like a non-magical sunflower, but it is poisonous if you eat too much of it," Neville said halfway into the lesson. "The flowers are just stunning, and they are really easy to care for."

"As long as you wear gloves when handling them I take it," Harry said.

Neville nodded and smiled. "At least if you are sensitive or you have a lot of them," he said. "Repeated exposure could cause similar reactions as digesting too much of them.

Or they can give you rashes." He was so happy that Harry was so interested in plants.

He wasn't sure why Harry was suddenly showing such interest, but he was so glad to have someone to talk to that would listen and come up with ideas. Hermione was great sometimes, but she tended to start spouting facts.

Now there was nothing wrong with reading about plants, but if you really wanted to learn you had to work with them, and Harry understood that. They finished replanting the flowers and got cleaned up.

Most of the class had gotten so dirty they wanted to shower so they headed for their common room to clean properly and switch clothes.

Harry came back down wearing clothes that were just a bit sporty with the Hogwarts crest on his chest and the Gryffindor lion on his back.

He headed down to lunch with Neville and Hermione. Everyone was so loud. People were excited while the Champions looked a little green.

Even Harry, though, his nerves came more from fear of messing up and using the powers he wanted to hide than from the task itself.

At least it seemed to calm Hermione that he wasn't quite as eager to eat and laugh as he had been that morning.

Eventually, Harry could see Professor McGonagall come walking down the length of the Gryffindor table towards him.

"Potter, the champions have to come down to the grounds now," she said as she reached them. "You need to get ready for your first task."

"Alright," Harry said as he stood up.

"Good luck, Harry," both Hermione and Neville said.

"Thanks, guys," Harry said. "I'll see you after." He smiled and waved as he followed McGonagall out of the hall.

He came to realise as he followed his Head of House that the people around him that seemed to care about him were more nervous than he was. Even McGonagall was tense.

She stopped halfway down the stone steps going to the grounds and placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Now don't panic," she said.

"Just keep a cool head. We have wizards on hand to control the situation in case it gets out of hand. The main thing is to just try your best, and nobody will think any less of you. Are you alright?"

"I'm okay all things considered," Harry said.

They had slowly started walking again and were getting closer and closer to where the dragons were.

They had built a stadium where the dragons had been just the night before. All Harry could see was a big tent which he was ushered into by Professor McGonagall.

"Mr Bagman is in there and he will explain things to you," she said somewhat shakily. "Good luck."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry said. He saw her walk away out of the corner of his eye as he entered the tent.

Fleur Delacour was pacing in a circle, and Cedric Diggory was slowly swaying back and forth where he stood. Viktor Krum looked like someone had destroyed his favourite teddy.

Harry figured that he was the calmest of the bunch. Cedric looked up and smiled faintly at him, and Harry smiled back reassuringly.

"Harry! Good-oh," Bagman said happily as Harry walked further into the tent. "Come in, come in, make yourself at home!"

Harry could see the glare that Viktor Krum cast at Bagman's back.

He was pretty sure that Bagman was the one who had destroyed Viktor's teddy from that look, and now Viktor was plotting his grim revenge.

He knew that none of that was true of course, but it was more interesting fantasising about insane scenarios than actually listening to Bagman talk.