HP 8

Carl paused to watch a particularly good play by the amateur chasers as they scored a goal, before continuing to wander the stands selling various snacks that he, Hermione, and Luna had made. Since the vast majority of customers were students, they weren't selling them for much, but everything they brought in was pure profit, since it came from stockpiles in Carl's farm and warehouse.

The change of pace from studying and the excitement that the crowd brought was actually pretty fun for Carl. And spending time with Hermione and Luna while whipping up some tasty treats had been enjoyable.

The games were scheduled to only last 3 hours, unless the snitch was caught early. Since they weren't official games overseen by the staff, and Hogwarts was an institution of learning, they couldn't have several hour to several day long games.

Carl sold his last treat and made his way back to the concession stand where Luna and Hermione were set up at. He was surprised to find the other girls of the group with them. Susan, Hannah, Ginny, Daphne, and Tracey seemed to be having fun making some baked goods under the directions of Luna, while Hermione would occasionally intervene when it seemed necessary.

Carl decided he could afford to slack in his sales. It was all for fun and play anyway, and hanging with the group of girls as they baked was much more fun and interesting. Snatching up an apron, he soon joined the group.

XX

For once the group was broke up to their separate tables due to it being an "official" feast on Halloween as they waited for the choosing of the champions. Carl, as usual. sat next to Hermione and Luna while the Beauxbaton students sat in a block at the front of their table closest to the professors table.

"I'm not saying that the Tri-wizard tournament is going to be a disaster for sure." Hermione was saying to one of the wizards in their house. "I was just pointing out that historically, there have been at least one death, if not more, each time they held the game. So they have a lot of history to overcome, now don't they?"

"There's one thing I think you need to factor into your assumptions." Carl suddenly interjected, bringing Hermione's attention away from Terry Boot, who she had been debating with. "St. Mungo's hospital has a regular influx of wizards that need help fixing whatever they messed up when playing with magic. Be it accidently giving themselves antlers or flippers, to cursing away their memories. Wizarding society is genetically predisposed to enjoying crazy. So this little tournament? Has a high chance of being crazy." Carl grinned madly as he finished.

Hermione groaned. "Thanks, Carl. That makes me feel ever so much better."

Carl just put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a half hug. "Well, Hermione. At least it will be entertaining from the spectator seats." He amusedly said. "Just because we might have to defend ourselves from there is no reason not to enjoy the games, right?" Carl laughed at Hermione's groans about daft wizards.

After a few more minutes, it was time for the choosing of the champions. Carl enjoyed watching Dumbledore's theatrics as he caught each name that popped out of the Goblet of Fire and announced them.

"The champion for Beauxbaton is Fleur Delacour!"

There was polite applause by the Hogwarts and Durmstrang students, while the Beauxbaton students barely bothered, and several of the stuck up princesses of Beauxbaton actually cried at not being chosen. Carl rolled his eyes at the display.

Apparently Fleur wasn't well thought of in her own school. Carl could guess it had to do with her Veela allure. Most of the guys probably made a fool of themselves while she was around, and then were subsequently upset when she didn't fall over herself accepting them, while the girls were upset and jealous at the effect she had on the men.

"The champion for Durmstrang is Victor Krum!"

And there was a lot of cheering from everyone. Krum had a pretty decent following for a 7th year due to having participated, and almost won, the Quidditch cup that summer. The solid figure of Krum got up and joined Fleur in the antechamber to await instructions.

"The champion for Hogwarts is…" Dumbledore paused in shock, shooting Carl a look before finishing his sentence. "Carl Edwards." Dumbledore flatly stated.

Luna gave him a knowing smile, while Hermione seemed very shocked. Carl stood up and moved up to where Dumbledore was staring at him very intensely. He wasn't surprised to notice that there wasn't a lot of cheering for him. Everyone was wondering how he, an under aged student, had gotten picked. Quite a few older students were glaring him for getting picked ahead of them.

Before he joined the other two champions, he stood facing the students, and cast the sonorous spell on himself. Time to set the record straight before the gossipy students mangled the news. And there was no way he was relying on the professors to pass the word.

"Now, I'm sure a lot of you are wondering how I, a 15 year old entered my name?" Carl had decided that his "birthday" in this world would be September 2nd so he would be the oldest student of his year. "Now, I didn't expect my name to be chosen, because I only put my name in on a lark to see if I could bypass the age line."

That was a total lie. He fully expected to be picked over everyone else. But hey, this announcement was all about public relations.

"Here, let me demonstrate my amazing technique on how I beat the age line."

Carl then transfigured a cup into a replica of the Goblet of Fire, balled up a parchment and, while standing twenty feet away, lobbed it in. Carl chuckled at the whispers that particular act produced. He saw Fred and George face palming at how easy it was to get in.

"Tadaa! I never crossed the age line. Glad we got that cleared up." Carl smiled around before entering the antechamber where the other champions were waiting.

In the lead up to the tournament, Carl had thought long and hard about whether or not he wanted to enter his name in the tournament. On the one hand, his natural inclination learned from the BtVS world was to strike from the shadows on unsuspecting enemies before they can counter him. And being highly visible in the tournament was against those instincts.

On another hand, his time in the HSDK world spent fighting martial artists had encouraged him to be eager to test himself against opponents and challenges, so the challenges of the tournament appealed to him. He expected he would come out number one in the tournament challenges, but he still wanted to test himself.

And on a third hand, or first foot, he could use the fame generated from being in the tournament when he finally got around to his goal to make 90% of the population of the isles believe in magic. Being a visible public figure in the Wizarding world would help him direct how the wizards and witches of the UK and Ireland reacted to having their world outed to the muggles.

Finally, on the fourth hand, or second foot, there was Fleur Delacour. With his interference in the plot of this world, he wasn't sure if she would still meet and marry Bill Weasley. A lot of the relationships and actions of people during the terrorism and war with Voldemort would never happen in this world, for good or ill. So he wanted to take the time during the tournament to interact with the hot, talented witch to get her to join his larger group.

Through his friendship with his various friends at Hogwarts he was already networking with a large majority of the canon cast. Everyone that was worth a damn, and some that his group was helping to become worth a damn, he was working to make friends with.

Fleur was not just a hot and talented witch, she had a whole network of people that she brought to the equation.

All those reasons had led Carl to be leaning towards putting his name in the cup, but another big reason trumped them all. He was broke at the moment.

Despite how big of a head trip Monopoly was, he had come out of it expecting to never be poor in a jump world again. And then the moment he learned he could purchase a goblin blade, he had impulsively jumped at the chance, signing away almost all his income for the next ten years to pay for it.

'I should have just spent the cp for the goblin blade, dammit.' Carl thought to himself after spending three years poor with minimal income. He was getting tired of having minimal funds and supplies that limited what he could do with his projects. 'Even though my blade is pretty badass.' He patted his extendable pouch where his sword was resting and soaking up his magic, slowly growing its power.

Once he entered the antechamber, Carl introduced himself to Fleur and Victor. They spent a few minutes chatting while the teachers and tournament officials were dealing with sending the students on their way. Since Carl was already a mature 5'10" at 15, and would reach his 6' within a year or so (his full height), his fellow champions assumed he too was a sixth or seventh year student.

Carl didn't do anything to indicate otherwise. If he could make a friend of Victor too, and not just Fleur, Carl would be happy to add him to his group. He was after all a powerful wizard and a popular quidditch player.

When the Headmasters, Headmistress, and tournament officials entered, no word was said about Carl's under-aged status. It certainly wasn't as offensive to the other schools as Hogwarts having two champions to their one. And Headmistress Maxime and Headmaster Kostov thought that having an undertrained wizard as Hogwarts' champion would improve their champions' chances of winning. The more fool they.

Barty Crouch Sr and Ludo Bagman were the tournament officials from the ministry. Ludo Bagman gave his spiel about how the first task was a test of their ingenuity and bravery in the face of the unknown, so they wouldn't be learning about the task until the day of.

Carl snorted in disgust in his mind. Like Ludo Bagman knew anything about ingenuity or bravery. He certainly knew about cheating at gambling, but not enough to keep himself out of trouble.

Once that useless briefing was done, Carl found himself requested by the Headmaster to remain behind for a moment.

Carl wasn't exactly nervous, but he did feel a moment of disquiet. Despite his barmy-ness and human foibles, Dumbledore had a reputation as a brilliant and powerful wizard. Being stared at and considered from close up by those ice blue eyes that weren't twinkling with mirth was an uncomfortable situation earlier. And Dumbledore was a man that Carl had looked up to when he read the books, similar to Gandalf or Belgareth. Men and mentors who had been around for a long time and, when the time was needed, could bring the hammer down on their foes.

So Carl really didn't want to encourage Dumbledore to think of him as an opponent or enemy. It would make the next several years uncomfortable to have Dumbledore's focus.

So Carl reminded himself that he was made of sterner stuff than the average student and firmed his backbone and stared right back in Dumbledore's eyes. He was trying to show Dumbledore that he had confidence in himself, he had nothing to hide, and almost dared the old man to use Legilimency on him.

"I find myself unsure of just what to do with you, Mr. Edwards." Dumbledore eventually mused. "I placed the age line for a reason. This tournament will bring great danger to you as a fourth year and I'm afraid you are missing a great deal of training that would help you through it."

'Dumbledore…is worried about me?' Carl thought with dawning glee at the old mentor of his childhood stories showing that yes, he cared. Ignore the parts where Dumbledore hadn't lived up to the hype, he was still an impressive wizard. 'That is so nice of the old man. Good thing I got rid of that trap so he won't die in two plus years if he discovered the ring horcrux.'

"Thank you for your concern, Headmaster. I've actually studied ahead in a number of topics, so I'm probably not as far behind as everyone assumes." Truth. And if he knew Hermione as much as he did, she was probably even now thinking about what they needed to study to get him "caught up". Bless her heart.

"I certainly didn't expect to be chosen by the goblet over the other students who put their name in." Lie. Carl had far more experience and power, physically and magically, than any seventh year student. He had fully expected to be chosen if he put his name in. He just didn't want the old man to worry too much about his motives and whatnot. If Dumbledore thought he just did it on a lark to see if he could get away with it, then that would be nice.

"But since I was chosen I'm going to do my best to represent Hogwarts." Truth/Lie. He would do his best, but it wasn't for the honor of Hogwarts. He couldn't really care less about that. He was in it for the galleons, networking, and fame. But he knew Dumbledore cared a great deal about his school, so no sense not buttering up the old man.

Dumbledore hummed in acknowledgement. "Very well, Mr. Edwards. Good luck. The rules of the tournament prohibit the professors from helping the champions prepare for the tasks, but if you find yourself with some…extracurricular questions about school material that you just have to know early, I or some other professors would be happy to make ourselves available. Good night." Dumbledore dismissed Carl for the evening.

Carl wandered up to Ravenclaw tower in a slight daze. Dumbledore, Dumbledore had just offered a loophole for training, for cheating. Carl laughed as he climbed the steps. "The old man is alright. He really does try his best, despite having too much on his plate." Carl laughed to himself.

He paused outside the Ravenclaw tower, girding his loins and preparing himself for the coming ordeal he was sure was coming. Opening the door, the first thing he saw was the unhappy faces of Hermione, and the slightly mischievous face of Luna. He smiled at their concern, and to show that he appreciated their care and friendship, he just folded them in a threeway hug before Hermione could start on her rant.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it. I just didn't expect that my name would come out of the goblet, and I only did it on a whim in the first place." Carl said.

Pulling back from the hug and seeing Hermione's flustered face, he was hopeful that his derailing tactic had worked. And it did, for all of 30 seconds. Hermione then let him have it with all her worry and concern she had been working herself up with over the time since he entered the antechamber.

"Do you have any idea what you're in for with this tournament! I can't believe you entered yourself with no consideration…" Carl just accepted that Hermione needed to vent, and let her work out her concern.

He peripherally noticed the presence of Padma and Sue Li, and further away was the rest of the house. Those two had been partially part of the group he'd gotten together. They came for the studying, but not much for the socializing, although they had been slowly showing up more and more over the past three years. He was more than happy to have them along in their friends list.

It seemed the entire house was willing to wait until Hermione had finished her rant before they celebrated. Carl appreciated their wariness of his witch. They certainly weren't the house full of bullies that he'd read about in canon Harry Potter, Carl had made sure of that.

And over the past three years of working on their stupid traditions, he'd at least made an impression on the younger years to change a bit. Most of those in their year and above were still stuck up credit thieves, due to their "traditions", but he had a good start on changing the younger years to be decent people.

Once Hermione wound down, the butterbeers came out, and the party started. Carl just sat back with his core group, enjoyed the music, and relaxed as Hermione, Luna, Padma, and Sue Li started planning out his training schedule.

Carl just sat back, amused at the girls in his life "taking charge" of his study/training schedule. He didn't want to dampen their enthusiasm or rain on their parade, so he just let them do their thing. He had already studied past his Owls and was into his Newts. He had plenty of time at night to study and train, so he wasn't worried about the upcoming trials. But if it made the girls feel better to be so involved, he was fine with it.

XX

[AN: Just so everyone knows, I have zero working knowledge of French or Bulgarian, or many other languages. I'm not even going to try to write accents out. I'll trust that the readers can use their own imagination to flavor an accent in.]

Over the next couple of days, Carl was amused to note that some of the upper years seemed a bit put out with him for snatching the glory of being the champion that they wanted. They didn't do anything about it except glare at him during mealtimes, so he didn't bother about them.

He had confirmed only last night with a trip around the school grounds that yes, indeed, the ministry was building a stadium where the champions would face dragons. Since he wanted to make friends with his fellow champions, he decided doing them a little favor would be a good offering to start a friendship.

"Hey Fleur." Carl greeted the French witch at the door to the Great Hall at the beginning of dinner. "Got a moment?"

"And just what do you need a moment of my time for, Mr. Edwards?" The blonde arched a suspicious eyebrow at him in question. Carl was sure that she was used to lots of wizards drooling over her and making a scene, so he wasn't surprised she was acting so wary.

Instead of getting upset at her standoffish behavior, Carl simply smiled at her. "Well, I had something that I found out last night that I'd like to share with you and Victor. Speaking of which." Carl noticed Victor entering the castle with his group of school mates. "Hey, Victor, since I've got you and Fleur here, got a moment before dinner starts?"

The dour looking young man glanced back and forth between Carl and Fleur for a moment, before deciding that he was interested in what was happening. "Yes. But only a moment. The boys will likely not leave me anything to eat if we don't hurry."

Victor's friends just laughed in agreement as they trooped by. Carl led Fleur and Victor away from the mobs of students to get out of earshot. Once he had their attention, he began.

"Last night I was wandering around the grounds and saw the construction they were doing to prepare the site for the first task. I overheard the people talking about what the task was going to be. They are importing three dragons to be the obstacle we have to get past. Three nesting dragons." Carl paused as he saw the shock on the two champion's faces. "Yeah. So the object is going to be a golden egg that we have to snatch from a mama dragon's nest."

Carl had to pause what he was saying because the two champions had two very angry and vocal reactions to the news. Carl made a note to file the words he was hearing in his creative curse words mental file at the end of the day. Eventually they calmed down a bit.

"Why tell us, Mr. Edwards? You had a lead on us you just gave away." Fleur asked.

"Please, call me Carl, you two." The two nodded in agreement. "The most honest answer I can give you is that I want to make friends with you two. Just because only one of us can win the competition in the end is no reason to turn this into a bitter feud. It's a matter of sportsmanlike behavior. And I don't want to see either of you injured or dead. The more time you have to prepare, the more likely we'll all be standing on the winner's podium at the end." Carl smiled at the two.

"I like your honesty. I'll extend the hand of friendship, then." Victor said as he held out a hand to shake. Carl shook his hand with a firm grip. "And we can't leave out the most good looking competitor of the lot, now can we?" Victor said, and then reached out and shook Fleur's hand.

"Indeed, the belle of the ball can't be left out." Carl smiled in amusement as he also reached out to shake Fleur's hand.

"Good! I'm glad we understand each other. Just so long as you both understand that in the end the best witch will win." Fleur smiled confidently at the other two champions, causing them to laugh.

"Indeed, may the best Bulgarian Wizard win!" Victor said.

"Aye, this British Wizard will happily wait at the finish line for you to join him." Carl joined in on the boasts, since it seemed like the thing to do. "So, dinner?"

With nods of agreement, the three champions entered the Great Hall as one. Victor split off to join his friends at the Slytherin table, but Fleur, at Carl's invitation, joined his friends at the Hufflepuff table for dinner.

And because Carl had long since made everyone in his group study Occlumency, Fleur finally found a group of wizards and witches in control of their emotions and thoughts that didn't lose themselves if her control over her Veela allure slipped a bit.

He was pleased to see the group readily accept her into their numbers. He had let them know the day before he would be trying to befriend the other champions, just so it wasn't a surprise for them.

Over the next month leading up to the first task Fleur was often in Carl's company with the group of fourth years and younger. Victor only occasionally joined them. It seemed strange to those on the outside that Fleur and Victor would be associating with students so far beneath them, but it was a different matter for those in the know.

Carl had been including the decent students who had a thirst to learn in each year batch into their general studies group, just to continue to instill decent ideals in the younger years. They would get a copy of the Occlumency book and receive tutoring. They were always welcome to join them in their clubroom for help in study and spellcasting. They didn't discriminate against any house, and they all focused on becoming the best wizard or witch they could. So the average knowledge base and casting ability of each member of the WDS was far above their year level. (WDS was the World Dominating Society that Carl had jokingly named, but the name stuck.)

So with the benefits of Occlumency and being the overachievers that they were, Fleur and Victor found that even though they were only fourth years, they had a very nice grasp on spell casting and theory that rivaled even those in their seventh year.

And while it looked odd to those on the outside to see a couple of older students happy to associate with students that were several years younger than them. To those in the know it was obvious that Fleur and Victor benefitted just as much as the rest of the students in the WDS.

XX

"That was quite the mesmerizing performance by the Beauxbaton champion as she overcame the Welsh Green! Now it's time for the Hogwarts champion, come on out, Carl Edwards!"

Carl snorted at the announcements by Ludo Bagman. It wasn't that he did a bad job of the announcing job, it was just because he had no respect for the man. "One too many bludgers to the head."

Carl stepped out of the tent and saw his opponent for the day. A Chinese Fireball. The smooth scarlet colored scales on the dragon made it seem even more serpentine than some of the other dragons. It had a short snout and a fringe of gold colored spikes around her head.

The moment Carl stepped out onto the battlefield, he saw the Fireball zero in on him. She hovered protectively over her eggs, glaring at him. Carl looked at the nest she was protecting and saw the one gold egg among the crimson colored eggs speckled with gold.

The Fireball didn't like Carl looking at her eggs and blew out a mushroom shaped fireball in warning. Carl smirked back at the dragon.

Taking his wand in hand, he started transfiguring different rocks around him into various creatures. He made some dogs and cats to run around on the ground outside the Fireball's range. Then he conjured up large flocks of birds that swarmed around the area while staying one step ahead of the Fireball's fire.

Carl did that to create a large distraction for both the dragon and the crowd. Meanwhile he applied all the stealth spells on himself. Sight, sound, and smell were blocked off. He also added one more for heat. He wasn't sure if the dragons actually had heat sensing organs, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

While he was doing all this, Carl was circling the edges of the arena, dropping off his next set of distractions. Once he was done, he positioned himself for the action. With a whispered command, the fireworks he had placed went off all at once, blinding the dragon, but more importantly, also blinding the entire crowd.

Carl was already in motion. His second master pokeball landed at the feet of the Fireball, sucking it in. Carl was at the nest, dropping the eggs and the master pokeball into his warehouse for later.

Holding aloft the golden egg, he stood posed in a dramatic fashion for when the fireworks finally died down and the crowd regained their sight. Carl smiled at the gasps of shock the audience let out upon seeing that he was standing there with the egg, the dragon nowhere in sight.

Carl had taken a page out of the stage magician's handbook. Misdirect the audience, blind them to what was actually happening, and presto change-o, magic happened. The only remaining thing to do was to ham up the mysterious magic act.

"Uh…the dragon is gone and Carl Edwards is all that remains in the arena." Bagman announced once he got his sight back. "And now Edwards is taking a bow to the scattered applause of the audience. Yes, well done. But how did he do it?" Bagman almost whined at the end, which put a larger smirk on Carl's face.

After the judges conferred with each other for several minutes, Carl received his score of 47, which put him in first place by a couple points. He didn't worry about the points overly much. Even though he should have gotten a perfect score for that performance.

"Before you leave, Carl Edwards." Bagman spoke up before Carl could leave the arena. "The audience is dying to know how you did what you did. And just where the dragon is now?" He plaintively asked.

Carl took his time, tucking the egg into the crook of his arm. He then lifted his wand to his throat and cast the sonorous charm. Looking around the audience that was on the edge of their seats, he smiled. "Why, it was done with magic. And a magician never reveals his secrets!"

Carl then strode out of the arena, ignoring all other shouted questions. With the clue provided the muggleborn might be able to figure out that he had done some misdirection stage magic if they thought about it, but he was sure no one would guess the specifics about his extra dimensional Warehouse space. Maybe an expansion trunk or other such things, but good luck to anyone trying to find his Warehouse.

After a quick checkup with Madam Pomfrey to insure he wasn't injured, he soon joined his friends in their clubhouse for a party, where he continued to have to dodge the question. He finally settled them down with a "I can't tell you right now. When the time comes that I can tell you, I will. Besides, if I tell, they may try to ban it on the next task for being too easy for me, or that I'm stealing ministry beasties or something."

He just wasn't willing to drop the big bombshell that he traveled from world to world to his group of friends just yet. He was hoping to eventually include all his friends from different worlds into his crazy adventure, but at the moment he couldn't promise them anything.

If in the future he found he could only take one person from each world, how bad would he feel for getting everyone's hopes up prematurely? He certainly didn't have a manual or a Jump-chan around to tell him what he could get away with and help him milk the system for all it was worth. At most he had vague promises of good things from Spere 037.

He hadn't run into any rules that said he couldn't talk about his world jumping, but human nature being what it was, once he started telling people these things, they were bound to talk about it where just anyone could overhear them. So unless he made his friends take really strict oaths not to talk about it at all, which show of distrust could damage his friendships, Carl had long since decided he would keep certain secrets secret until he was a lot closer to the end of his jump. Or if he felt that they were mature enough to keep the secrets. Or when he felt like it. Carl just didn't feel like getting into it at the moment, really.

And there was another example of the HSDK world messing with him, making him super open and trusting of the Masters of Ryozanpaku. Sure, they were trustworthy, but for him to just blatantly open himself up to them and reveal all his secrets had been wildly out of character for him.

Thank Merlin for Occlumency! Mental defenses for the win!

XX

After a week of fending off the ministry officials who wanted their dragon back, even though Carl won it fair and square in a possibly deadly fight, Carl was starting to think that being a showboat and openly and blatantly stealing a dragon and her eggs for his Farms was actually a bad idea. He should have done it sneakily instead.

He just had no idea they would be so dogged in wanting to know how he did it. Just goes to show that following the rule of cool, while awesome in the moment, had repercussions that he might not like.

It took him writing a letter to Madam Bones, the head of the DMLE, detailing their harassment and citing the ministry laws that allowed him ownership of the XXXXX class creature that he defeated in combat so she could come down on them like a ton of bricks before they would leave him alone.

Carl promised himself he would do his future heists much more stealthily and not get the ire of freaking bureaucrats without the proper forms to get them off his back.

XX

With the Yule ball coming up Carl decided that just because he was a Ravenclaw didn't mean he couldn't hope for a bit of fortune favoring the bold, so he soon found himself sitting in a room with Hermione and Luna shortly after he was informed of the Yule ball and his need of a dancing partner.

"There's a Yule ball coming up, and I thought about this long and hard. The two girls that I'm closest to are you two. I like you both a lot, you're both super intelligent, super gorgeous, and while I don't want to ruin anything with our friendship by diving into a relationship at this point in time, I'd like to take both of you to the ball as a group of friends, just to have fun. No pressure for romance or anything since we're still so young, we can just have some fun. What do you say, will you both go with me, or do you have your eye set on someone else?" Carl threw out there.

Luna seemed about to answer, but Hermione shushed her up and dragged her to the corner of the room, put up a silencing ward, and talked with Luna for a while.

After several minutes, Hermione dragged Luna back in front of Carl.

"Give us some time to think about it. We'll give you an answer soon." Hermione stated.

Carl smiled at the two girls. "Sure, take your time thinking about it."

He wasn't too bothered about Hermione's reticence to agree immediately. If she decided she wanted the whole romance and single date thing with someone else, he was fine with her choice. If she was willing to join him and Luna in a friendly date, he was fine with it. He could see that whatever Hermione decided, Luna would agree to be his plus one to the Yule Ball.

Even if both of them rejected him, he wasn't exactly a normal 15 year old that would get petulant over being rejected. Their friendship meant a lot more to him, and they were still pretty young at the moment so romance and sex weren't in the cards for another few years anyway.

So Carl continued to act like he always did as they attended classes, studied, and trained.

XX

A week later, Carl finally got his answer from Hermione; she was willing to join him and Luna in going to the ball for a night of fun and frivolity.

He had been really amused over the week watching how Hermione was watching and evaluating their fellow students for potential dating material.

Anytime her eyes drifted to certain Gryffindors or Slytherins, Carl couldn't help chuckle at her shivers of disgust. Ron wasn't necessarily a bad sort overall, but he was very immature for his age and didn't have very good table manners. Dean and Seamus on the other hand were very aware of girls and were open horndogs, which always seems to turn away girls who would like a little bit of class in their wizards. Neville had his eye on a certain blonde Hufflepuff, while Harry was acting as his wingman and taking a certain redhead Hufflepuff to the ball.

While Malfoy had improved markedly since his father left his life, he was never the friendly sort with what he saw as blood traitors and mudbloods. Many of the other Slytherins seemed to revel in being very thug like, which was a huge turn off for a girl like Hermione who was so invested in intelligence.

The Ravenclaw boys had permanently tanked any chance they had of a date with her when they stole her work and tried to get her in trouble with the professors. She still hadn't forgiven them after four years. Carl didn't blame her.

And the Hufflepuff boys seemed incapable of straying from the Hufflepuff crowd, so they were out.

Eventually, since no one who might have appealed to Hermione approached her for a date, she decided a night with friends was more appealing than a last minute date with someone she found to be skeevy.

The ball itself was pretty enjoyable for Carl. He got to see Professor McGonagall give him the stink eye for having two dates. He danced and talked, and joked around with his two friends. He shared a dance with a couple of his other friends in the WDS and Fleur. He truly enjoyed the face Hermione made when Luna dragged her onto the floor for some dances.

Afterall, Luna's logic was impeccable. They weren't there solely as Carl's dates, they came as a trio of friends. So it was only right for Luna to get her dances in with Hermione too.

One other accomplishment of the evening that Carl was pleased with was that he found Rita Skeeter buzzing around in her animagus form and stunned her, putting her away for later. During the weighing of the wands, he had tagged her with a tracking spell so he would know when she was around, looking for secrets that weren't hers. Finding her in her animagus form gave him a perfect opportunity to have her disappear for an evening's talk without raising suspicions, since she basically came to him.

He had often wondered, though, just how she, as a beetle, handled the winter weather of Scotland. Eventually he figured it was her magic keeping her alive, even though her form would normally have suffered greatly from the cold.

Carl was somewhat on the fence about Rita. One the one hand, she was a despicable human that ruined people's reputations and lives for her benefit. On the other hand, she wasn't complete scum that tortured and murdered people, so ending her life was a bit extreme.

He eventually decided that he would set down some rules for her to live by, administered as magical oaths. She needed strong boundaries to keep her from destroying just anybody's life, but at the same time Carl recognized that there were a lot of corrupt and evil people out there that he could use her to dig out and expose.

And he would have her available if he ever needed her particular skills in media, so she could be a useful tool. It was certainly quicker to suborn her to his service than to have to build up someone from scratch to take her place.

So during the break he took the time in the middle of the night to bind her to her new oaths and ways of doing things.

XX

Over the first few weeks of February Carl spent time under the Black Lake as he practiced for the second task. He was familiarizing himself with the landscape under the lake so he would have no problems when the time for the task came.

He tried out Gillyweed that Harry had used in the original story a few times. And while the experience was fun, he didn't like it for the purposes of the task. He was unable to talk while breathing water, and he was stuck like that for the whole hour. And while the webbed feet did give a little boost for underwater maneuvering, with his physical abilities he already didn't have any issues being mobile, so it was unneeded.

And finally, with his enhanced senses, he could already see perfectly well in low light and watery environments, so he didn't need the boosts from Gillyweed.

With all his practice and study with the girls, by the time that the second task rolled around, Carl was more than prepared for the event.