6 Chosen

I sat down at the Gryffindor table next to Fleur again. I watched as Hermione and Ron came in and sat across from me.

"So Harry, who do you reckon is going to be our champion. I've been hearing rumors that Cedric and Angelina put their names up." Ron said, ignoring the tension that was still between Hermione and I.

"I don't know. It could be either one of them or someone we aren't even thinking of. As long as it's not me I couldn't care less."

It was at this point that Dumbledore stood up in front of us once again.

"We will now begin the choosing of the champions. If your name is chosen, please head to the room behind me."

The goblet lit up with red flames and spat out a piece of paper which Dumbledore grabbed from the air.

"The champion of Durmstrang is...Viktor Krum."

Durmstrang cheered along with a good portion of Hogwarts students who liked Krum as he stood up and made his way into the back room.

The goblet lit up once again and spat out another name.

"The champion for Beauxbatons is... Fleur Delacour."

I congratulated Fleur as she stood up, with Beauxbatons clapping but not being as rowdy as Durmstrang was. Fleur then made her way into the backroom as well.

The next name was shot out and read aloud.

"And finally, the champion for Hogwarts is...Cedric Diggory."

The cheering this time was the loudest of them all since there were mostly Hogwarts students here. Cedric made his way into the back room along with the rest of the champions.

'Maybe I was worried for nothing. I wasn't picked as champion, so I was probably just paranoid.'

In hindsight, I really wish I hadn't thought that.

"Those are your champions..." Dumbledore began but was cut off as the goblet lit up again and shot out one more name.

As Dumbledore caught the paper I felt something try to attach itself to me before being negated by my magic resistance.

'What was that,' I thought as Dumbledore opened his mouth to read the name.

"Harry Potter" he read out once.

"Harry Potter" he read out again louder.

Slowly standing up I walked towards the back door, ignoring the muttering that was going on all around me. Opening the door and entering the room, I took a deep breath to calm myself.

"Do they want us back outside?" Fleur asked.

"Nope, it's just my luck showing itself again," I said.

The three champion's faces took on a look of confusion, but before they could voice it the door behind me opened and a group of people entered.

Dumbledore was in the lead, walking towards me and standing in front of me.

"Harry, did you enter your name in the Goblet of Fire?" He asked calmly.

"No" was my response.

"Did you ask one of the older students to do it for you?" he asked.

"No...wait that would've worked? What was the point of the age line if it could be passed so easily?" I asked.

"The age line's purpose was to prevent an unnecessary number of submissions. In the end it was unlikely any younger student would be more worthy than an older one, so we felt it was sufficient." Dumbledore answered.

'Once again, Dumbledore comes through on failing to protect something. He's 0 for 3 right now.'

"Regardless the boy has been chosen as a champion. He must compete." Ludo Bagman said.

"It is not fair for Hogwarts to get two bites of the apple." Madam Maxine said.

"Wait wait wait. Why do I have to compete? It's a Triwizard Tournament, as in tri meaning three. There should only be three champions, why do I have to compete even if my name came out?" I interrupted.

"The goblet enacts a binding magical contract. If you do not compete you are at risk to lose your magic." Crouch answered.

'So that's what that feeling was. Regardless, I'm still not competing.'

"I'll take that chance. The contract is already a load of crap anyway since it was only supposed to choose three champions and somehow chose four," I said.

"I don't know why Potter is pretending he didn't enter his name. We all know he wants the glory and wants to take it from the more deserving students." Snape said.

"Be careful Snape. You're pretty close to those torches on the wall, one spark, and your whole head is going up in flames with all that grease in your hair." I sniped back.

I could see Cedric cover his mouth to hide his laugh, while Fleur had a small amused smirk on her face.

"Getting back on track, Harry you will have to compete as the fourth champion," Dumbledore said.

"Let me get this straight. You all decided to use a goblet that could enact binding magical contracts at the risk of someone's magic, then didn't protect it besides an easily passed age line. Wow, Dumbledore, you're 0 for 3 on protecting things, I'm beginning to suspect you are incompetent."

"Mr. Potter you will not speak to the Headmaster like that," McGonagall said sternly.

"I think I will. He's trying to force me into some tournament I didn't enter. Regardless of what you all think, I'm not competing. Instead of trying to force me into it, which is never happening, why not focus on the fact that someone entered me into this stupid thing and you haven't even considered who it could be."

"Right on lad, you're asking the right questions. Someone entered you into this tournament, probably expecting you to die." Moody chimed in.

"Professor Moody, don't encourage him," McGonagall said.

"Can we please get back on track now?" Crouch said.

"Feel free, I'm leaving since I'm not competing in the first place," I said, turning and walking towards the door.

"Harry, wait. You must complete, you don't want to lose your magic do you?" Dumbledore called out.

I just continued walking, flipping him off as I walked towards the door when it suddenly swung shut in front of me.

Turning around, I looked at Dumbledore, whose wand was extended.

"Really?" was all I said as I sent a wave of magic out that destroyed the door, letting me exit the room while ignoring the shocking conversation going on behind me.

"Well that was exciting," Kuroka said from my shoulder, still in her cat form.

"I'm sure that won't be the end of it. They'll keep trying to press me about the stupid magic contract, but it didn't work on me anyway so I don't particularly care."

Eventually, I made it to the Gryffindor dorms. Entering, I found pretty much the entirety of Gryffindor waiting for me.

"There he is, the man of the hour," Dean said.

"So how'd you do it?" Seamus asked me.

"I didn't enter my name into the goblet," I answered.

"Sure you didn't. Come off it, you wanted to steal all the glory again." Ron said, stepping forward.

Dragging my hand across my face, I thought 'I don't want to deal with this stupidity right now.'

"Ignoring the fact that I didn't enter my name, what do you mean by again?" I said.

"You wouldn't have survived the traps to get to the stone without me. Without me, you wouldn't have beaten the basilisk, but no, you get all the glory." Ron said.

"You know what, I'll give you the stone part. I wouldn't have done it by myself, but we all got points for that, not just me. As for the basilisk, I fought it by myself. You were injured and stayed back, don't act like you did everything."

Ron opened his mouth to respond, but before he could Angelina stepped forward. "Couldn't handle someone else having the glory for once, could you Potter."

'Alright, I'm not dealing with this all night.'

"Okay, who here believes I didn't enter my name in the goblet?" I asked.

Looking at the group in front of me, nobody raised their hands except for one person.

"Alright, as of right now the only person I like in this house is Neville. If you all want to be this idiotic that's on you. Why would I enter? For the glory, I have enough of that as it is. For the money, 1000 galleons, news flash I have more than that already. Whatever, I'll sleep somewhere else." I said and walked back out of the common room.

"Looks like we're sleeping in the Chamber for a little while," I told Kuroka.

"If we're staying down there, we need to get some furniture. All Salazar had in his study was a sofa and desk chair," she replied.

"It's fine, I'll transfigure something."

Making our way into the chamber, Kuroka changed back to her nekoshou form. We walked through the tunnels, eventually reaching the room Solomon was trapped in. I spent some time changing the room into something livable, with a couple of beds and desks around the room.

"Alright, I'm too annoyed to do anything productive right now, so I'm just going to go to sleep," I told Kuroka as I took my shirt off, climbing into bed.

I expected her to get in the other bed now that she could sleep in her humanoid form, but instead I found my covers pulled aside as she got into bed in front of me.

"What are you doing?" I asked, already having an idea where this was going.

"Going to sleep, obviously," Kuroka said as though I was stupid, backing up and snuggling into my chest.

"I figured, but why in my bed?"

"Why not, do you not want me here?" she asked.

'I'm not dealing with this.'

I quickly changed the bed into a larger one so we would have more room before wrapping my arms around Kuroka and quickly falling asleep.

--------------------------------------------------------------The next morning, I woke up to an unfortunate situation. Kuroka was pressed up against me all night, and I was dealing with a morning issue.

"Oh, someone's excited for today," Kuroka commented, having already been awake and felt me move a little when I woke up.

"Not one word," I ground out as I got out of bed, Kuroka's laughter following me.

We got ready for the day and made our way out of the chamber. I wasn't looking forward to seeing how the rest of the school reacted to the events of last night, considering how Gryffindor reacted and how the whole "Heir of Slytherin" thing when in the second year.

As I walked, I sometimes passed people who would look at me and whisper with each other, or not even bother whispering and talk about me loudly.

Ignoring them, I continued my way down until I reached the Great Hall, entering to see most people were already there. Ignoring the looks I was getting from everyone in the room, I made my way to the very end of the Gryffindor table and sat down, grabbing some food.

My eating was relatively uninterrupted since everyone was content to look at me and talk about me without actually interacting with me until I heard someone sit down next to me. Looking to see who it was, I found Fleur putting food on her plate.

"Good Morning Harry," Fleur said nonchalantly.

"Morning," I muttered.

"So how did everyone take your choosing last night?" Fleur asked me.

"You can't tell?" I say and glance around at the wide birth everyone in Gryffindor was giving me.

"I can, but I thought it would be polite to ask anyway."

"So you believe I didn't enter myself into the tournament?" I asked Fleur to make sure.

"Of course I do. There's no reason for you to lie about it. I'm confused why you didn't say the goblet couldn't bind you. I'm sure it can't get through your resistance." Fleur said, whispering to me at the end.

"I don't want to deal with actually explaining what I am and how the wizarding world would react to it all. If they keep pressing me about this stupid tournament I will, and they'll probably try to figure out how I don't lose my magic when I don't compete, but until then I'm fine to let them wallow in ignorance."

"Fair enough I suppose. I'm glad you're not competing, gives me a good shot to win then," Fleur said.

"Well, I'll be sure to show up to support you, even if I'm not competing."

From there we sat in companionable silence as Fleur and I finished our meal. Once we were finished, we both got up and began to head out the doors to the grounds. As we were leaving, I saw Hermione and Ron enter together. Ron scoffed and turned away, heading to the table while Hermione stared at me a second longer before following him.

Scoffing, I continued outside with Fleur. We began to wander the grounds as I asked her my question.

"Actually, can we talk outside Fleur?" I asked.

Fleur looked confused but nodded her head as we both stood up and walked outside to the grounds.

"What do you want to talk about?" Fleur asked.

"Do you have an idea how much the wizarding world actually knows about Campione? From what I understand, they're generally unaware of other magical communities because of how isolationist they are, but shouldn't there have been a few Campione from the wizarding world that would've told them of our existence?"

"Yes, wizarding Britain is one of the most isolated magical communities, but that's not the only reason. They wouldn't find out from someone else, but normally it would be possible for some Campione throughout history to be wizards." Fleur said.

"Normally?" I asked.

"It's true for a lot of magical users, but wizards specifically are extremely rare to become Campione. Pretty much all wizarding magic is completely ineffective against Heretic Gods and wizards refuse to learn anything else, so it's rare for one to be a Campione, which makes you a rarity."

'I remember Pandora said that the only reason I even managed to kill Adam was that I drew on my lifeforce, but wouldn't other wizards do it too? Or maybe, the few who did become Campione did what I did. My method was essentially a suicide bomb and with how selfish wizards, especially purebloods, are they wouldn't even think to do it.'

"Huh, interesting. Well thanks for telling me, Fleur. I'll let you get ready for the tournament, I've got something to do right now."

"No problem, and if you ever have time, it'd be nice to spar against a Campione. Even if my magic won't affect you, it could be good practice for the more magic resistance creatures that could be in the tournament," Fleur said.

"Sure, just let me know when you want to do it."

Leaving Fleur, I rounded a corner and made sure I was out of sight from everybody before disappearing in a burst of fire and reappearing back outside the Blandelli house.

They had told me the door was always open to me, so I just walked in. Spotting a group of maids waiting outside a door, I walked towards them. They didn't notice my approach as I lightly tapped one on the shoulder.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Ssh, not now. Ms. Blandelli is talking to Lord Doni," the maid said and turned back towards the door they have all huddled around.

I just waited, watching as the realization dawned on her and she slowly turned back around, staring at me.

She bowed her head quickly and said "I'm sorry Lord Potter. I didn't realize it was you."

"It's fine. So Lord Doni, as in Salvatore Doni?" I asked to make sure.

The maid got nervous as she nodded her head.

'So another Campione is in there. This would be the first time I've actually interacted with one of my adoptive siblings.'

"Well I guess I'll just have to say hello," I said, moving past the maids and placing my hand on the door. I heard all of them inhale deeply, but I was confused as to why. Shrugging my shoulders, I turned the handle and opened the door.

Entering the room, I found Erica sitting behind a desk, with a man sitting across from her, lounging in his chair. He was a blonde man, who appeared to be in his early twenties. He had dark blue eyes and was dressed in an unbuttoned blue shirt, grey pants, and had sunglasses sitting on his head.

He turned looking at me and his face grew into a smile.

"Well well well. Looks like the youngest of us has finally made an appearance," he said, standing up and walking towards me.

'Why do I get the feeling this is not going to go well?'