29

"So who's going to be teaching us defence?" Hermione asked, chewing her bottom lip worriedly. They were in the common room, hogging the seats by the fire and Harry had just finished telling her, Ron and Neville about what had happened with Moody and the imposter. The three boys rolled their eyes- of course that was the first thing she thought of to worry about, not the plot for Voldemort to rise again but the lesson.

"Not sure yet. Me and Siri and Remus went up to see Dumbledore this morning to see what was going on, and he asked Siri to teach us for a few months, if you can believe it," Harry chuckled, remembering his godfather's face of shock. No-one in their right mind would ever put that man in any sort of authority position.

"Not bloody likely," Ron snorted.

"Didn't he teach you tons of defence over the holidays though, Harry?" Neville asked thoughtfully.

"Yeah, he's a decent enough teacher when he feels like it. It's more the fact that a) he would never get up early enough to get to lessons on time and b) he'd spend all his time in lessons docking points from Slytherin. Huh, might not be such a bad idea then." Hermione hmphed, annoyed at their lack of interest in their studies.

"So he didn't say anything about anyone else then?" she asked.

"Nah. By the looks of it we're gonna be doing some independent study shit for a few months before the real Moody's recovered enough to teach," Harry answered. Hermione's eyes lit up and Ron stifled a groan.

"Independent study? Like, a project or something? Ohhh, I wonder what I should do it on. I mean, there are so many different directions you could go with something like that, especially if they don't set you any guidelines..."

Harry fished out a cigarette from his jeans pocket and lit it, trying with all his might to tune his best friend out.

"... oh, I'm going to go to the library!" she finally finished, almost five minutes later, jumping up and bounding out of the common room.

"Jeez, I thought she'd never go," Ron grumbled. Harry and Neville exchanged a glance, grinning.

"Oh come on, mate, we all know you fancy her," Harry said, laughing.

"What? I don't... what?" Ron spluttered, his face reddening.

"It's true, Ron. We've all known for ages. Even Professor Snape probably knows," Neville said smiling.

"But... oh, shit," Ron said.

"Harry!" a voice called down the corridor along which Harry was wandering, hip flask in hand and one eye on the marauder's map. Hastily, he stuffed the map into his jeans pocket and turned to meet Cedric who was hurrying towards him.

"Hey, Ced," Harry called, taking a swig of firewhiskey.

"Christ Harry, are you drinking again?" Cedric asked, exasperated, when he noticed the hip flask, "You know, as a prefect I should really confiscate that."

"If you don't confiscate it, I'll share," Harry tried, slurring his words slightly.

"Sure," Cedric answered, taking a drink, "Anyway, I was just gonna go meet Fleur and Viktor down by the lake, they said if I saw you on the way to bring you along too."

"Oh. 'Kay. They say why?" Harry asked, confused. He was good friends with Fleur these days, but he had barely spoken to the Durmstrang champion and he hadn't realised that Cedric was on speaking terms with either of them. After all, for him they were 'the enemy' and all that.

"They didn't say, but I think it's got something to do with the first task."

"Shit, I forgot about that," Harry said, shaking his head at his own forgetfulness.

"How can you forget about the first task? It's like, a week away!" Cedric exclaimed, his eyes fairly bulging out of his head.

"I, dunno, Ced, I mean I know the tournament's all important for you and everything, but I really don't care about the fucking thing. You heard about the Moody thing- I'm only entered because some psycho wanted to use me to bring Tommy back."

"Tommy?" Cedric asked, confused.

"Yeah, Voldie's real name is Tom. He told me in second year."

"What? He told you? How the hell did You-Know-Who tell you anything in second year? I thought he was like, dead or whatever?"

"Nah, he never died. Hagrid once told me he's not human enough to be able to die, and I reckon he's about right on that. But yeah, second year..." The story of the Chamber of Secrets lasted them all the way out into the grounds, and by the time they found the other two champions sitting by the lake Cedric was speechless.

"Fleur my love, you look intelligent as always," The part-Veela laughed out loud as the younger boy took her hand in his own, covering it with kisses. Harry had long since found that compliments to her appearance did nothing for Fleur- she was far too used to them, and always wished to be noticed for something other than her beauty. Harry was never one to say no to a pretty lady, especially one with hair the exact same colour as Malfoy's, and so he made a point to notice as least one of her lesser known qualities every time he saw her. "Krum, mate."

"'Arry," nodded Krum, before looking at Cedric, "Iz 'e okay?" Harry turned to Cedric, chuckling as he saw the older boy's face still fixed in an expression of shock and amazement. It seemed that the tale of the chamber hadn't been so widely publicised as Harry had assumed.

"Oh, I just told him a story. I think he needs to process it a bit more, and then he'll be fine," Harry said, plopping himself down next to Fleur and taking another gulp of firewhiskey, "Drink, anyone?" Fleur scrunched her nose up at it in distaste in, Harry reflected, a very similar way to Hermione. Krum paused for a second before accepting the offered flask. With an apologetic glance at Harry, he ran his wand over it before taking a sip. He was from Durmstrang, after all, and it did not pay to be lax about security when one was so far away from home.

"'Arry, Cedric," Fleur began formally, "What do you know about ze first task?" Harry blinked and Cedric came out of his shocked trance finally.

"Umm... it's testing our courage, right? So we're not meant to know what it is until the day," Cedric said.

"Zat is how it should be," Krum grumbled, "But our head teachers haff decided zat zere iz more honour in cheating."

"I think our own head teacher has been a bit busy with other matters lately, so we haven't been coerced into cheating, I'm afraid," Harry chuckled.

"If only we could say ze same," Fleur sniffed, annoyance clear in her tone, "But as we know, we thought it only proper zat you two know also. Zat way we will be on even footing."

"Makes sense," Cedric said slowly, eyeing the two other champions with interest. Harry nodded vaguely, his mind on the figure of Draco Malfoy who had just walked out of the castle with Pansy Parkinson hanging onto his arm. They were heading towards the quidditch pitch, which made sense for Malfoy but what that Slytherin bint Parkinson knew about quidditch probably wouldn't fill a post-it, Harry thought bitterly. Malfoy was still ignoring Harry though he had toned it down slightly and was now turning up to meals. He just wouldn't look at Harry, the Gryffindor table or anything except from his food the entire time he was in the hall. Harry was fed up with it. He knew the whole thing was ridiculous- it was him and Malfoy, after all! But he had never been one to be confused about what he wanted. And right now, he wanted the blonde Slytherin. It was only too well that Harry was used to not getting what he wanted, as Malfoy had made it clear that Harry had no chance of getting him.

"Harry?" Cedric's voice interrupted Harry's inner monologue impatiently, "Are you even listening? I know you don't care about the tournament, but even you should care that you're going to have to face a dragon!" Harry had just been taking a swig from his hip flask which he promptly choked on.

"Dragon? We're fighting fucking dragons?" he croaked out, looking at the other three champions in disbelief. He received three nods in answer. "Huh. You guys are so screwed, you know that, right?" he grinned, laughing as Cedric swatted him round the back of the head.