Harry Potter hurried through the corridors of Hogwarts, hoping to find Cedric Diggory before another opportunity slipped away.
He didn't particularly like Cedric. Cedric was undeniably popular—but students always used him as a measuring stick against Harry. Age, appearance, academic performance, Quidditch skill: every comparison was made to argue that Cedric was the rightful Hogwarts champion.
The Hufflepuffs' hostility had been sharpening by the day.
Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley, who had warmed to Harry back in second year after the Chamber of Secrets incident, had since pinned on their "Support Cedric" badges and, in doing so, quietly distanced themselves from him once more. Those who had never warmed to Harry at all—like Zacharias Smith, Chaser for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team—were more openly scornful, mocking him in the corridors with little apparent effort to hide it. The flashing "Potter Stinks" badge on his chest said enough.
As for Cedric himself, he had kept up appearances well enough. He had greeted Harry with a civil nod during the wand weighing ceremony. But it was plain to anyone paying attention that he did not believe Harry's claim to have had no part in entering his own name.
"Why do you even want to tell him?" Ron asked, pulling up beside Harry with a baffled look. "His housemates treat you terribly. Half the Hufflepuffs are wandering the school in those hideous badges, hoping you'll make a fool of yourself. Why should you care what happens to him?"
"It's not about whether I like him, Ron," Harry said quietly. "We're all in this together, aren't we? We should at least be on equal footing."
The night before, returning from Hogsmeade, he had accepted Hagrid's invitation and learned something alarming: the headmasters of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons had already seen the dragons. That meant Fleur and Krum both knew what was coming. It also meant that only one Hogwarts champion—Cedric Diggory—was still in the dark.
Harry wasn't certain how Cedric would handle himself on the day. He only knew that his own first reaction, upon learning a dragon was the first task, had been a wave of dizziness that had nothing to do with excitement.
"Only you would think that way," Ron muttered. "Has it even crossed your mind that if the situation were reversed, Cedric wouldn't do the same for you?"
"I don't know. But that's not why I'm doing it." Harry turned the corner and quickened his pace. "In a way, Hermione had it right—I represent Hogwarts just as much as Gryffindor. Same as Cedric."
"Right, Hermione would say that," Ron said, a little sourly. "Though I'd wager she said it partly because he's easy on the eyes. She's had that blind spot for good-looking people ever since Lockhart."
"It started well before Lockhart," Harry said, thinking of how Hermione had seemed to relish sitting beside Draco Malfoy in their first year. "Much earlier."
"There he is," Ron said, nodding toward the courtyard. "He's with that group wearing the badges. Do you want to head straight over?"
"I'll never get through them," Harry said darkly. "They always close ranks whenever I get near him. As though they think I'm going to hex him right there in the open."
"They're mad. But all right—I'll fetch him. You wait here."
---
Fifteen minutes later, Cedric Diggory walked back toward the Hufflepuff common room in a state of quiet bewilderment.
Harry had told him everything. The first task of the Triwizard Tournament: a dragon.
"Are you certain?" He had paused, then asked in a low voice, pushing down the first swell of fear.
"Absolutely," Harry said. "I saw it with my own eyes."
"How did you find out? We're not supposed to know—" Cedric said uneasily.
"Don't worry about that. I'm not the only one who knows. Fleur and Krum already know—Madame Maxime and Karkaroff have both seen the dragon."
Cedric had stared at him for a long moment—at the slight, green-eyed boy with the lightning-bolt scar half-hidden beneath his untidy black hair—and felt a slow confusion rise in him.
"Why are you telling me this?" he had asked.
They were rivals vying for the same prize. Was Harry trying to wrong-foot him somehow? To unsettle him?
But looking at Harry's expression, Cedric hadn't been able to convince himself that the boy was lying. Harry had even said, simply, that it was only fair.
If Harry truly cared about fairness, then why would he have cheated his way past Dumbledore's Age Line to enter the Tournament in the first place?
It was not the first time this thought had given Cedric pause.
He had watched Harry on the Quidditch pitch: honest, no dirty play, no bad blood off the field—nothing like the Slytherin Seeker's usual conduct. And yet, faced with the supreme temptation of a Triwizard championship, had that same boy truly stayed his hand?
All the students—Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons alike—held it as the highest possible honour to be named a Triwizard champion. Not merely for the prize money, nor for the exemption from end-of-year examinations, nor even for the renown it carried, but because selection itself was a mark of one's character and ability. A referee might be biased. A teacher might show favourites. But no one could question the Goblet of Fire.
It had endured centuries. It had weighed countless witches and wizards against its own impartial standard and found them worthy or wanting. The names it chose meant something.
Which was precisely what made Cedric uneasy about dismissing Harry Potter.
---
Back in the Hufflepuff common room, Cedric sat quietly for a while, turning it all over in his mind. Then he looked up at the cluster of housemates nearby and said, "Do you honestly think Harry Potter is the sort of person who would stop at nothing? From what I've seen, he seems sincere enough—and brave, in his own way."
"You can't afford to be that charitable, Cedric," Zacharias Smith said, with the casual disdain he usually reserved for anyone he considered beneath consideration. "Do Gryffindors being 'sincere and brave' mean anything? They mistake bluntness for honesty and recklessness for courage. Look at the Weasley twins—they tried to use an Ageing Potion to enter, didn't they?"
"That said," Ernie Macmillan interjected, "I don't think Potter would lie about something he'd actually done. I've misjudged him before—"
"Ernie, you're being naive again," Zacharias cut in. "Potter's a glory-seeker. Name one year at this school when he hasn't managed to land himself in the middle of some catastrophe that everyone ends up talking about."
"I'm not sure he seeks it out," Ernie said, puzzled. "He never seems to enjoy the attention. If anything, it just... follows him."
"Nothing follows anyone without reason," said Lacaris, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, Ernie—are you about to switch your badge over to Potter?"
"Of course not. Cedric is our champion—our real champion," Ernie said, going slightly red and touching the badge on his lapel. "I only meant—"
"But how could Potter even have crossed the Age Line? Dumbledore himself drew it—" Justin Finch-Fletchley said hesitantly.
"Because he used some kind of Dark Magic to corrupt the Goblet's enchantment—obviously," Zacharias said, with a contemptuous look at his Muggle-born classmate. "I've heard my father talk about people going to extreme lengths to get into the Tournament. Or perhaps Dumbledore simply gave him special treatment. Either way, it's disgraceful."
"That's enough," Cedric said. He hadn't quite rejoined the conversation—his thoughts were still circling the question of how, exactly, one was meant to get past a dragon—but something in Zacharias's tone pulled him back. He looked around at the group with a tired, uneasy expression. "I'm glad you're behind me. I mean that. But there's no need to make Harry Potter into a villain. We can't control what other people say or do. We can only focus on ourselves."
The students murmured agreement and drifted off. The bright red lettering of their "Support Cedric" badges shone as they went.
---
At that same moment, the boy who so puzzled Cedric was sitting in Professor Moody's office, facing the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher's one endlessly rotating magical eye and one normal, unblinking one.
"You just did something with a great deal of class," Moody said quietly. "Sit down."
Harry sat and glanced around. The office was cluttered with peculiar objects: a cracked Sneakoscope, a golden peephole of some sort, a mirror that Moody claimed could detect enemies, and a large trunk fitted with seven keyholes.
"So," Moody said, settling heavily into his chair and stretching out his wooden leg, "you've seen the dragon, have you?"
Harry said nothing.
"It's all right," Moody said, unbothered. "Cheating has always been part of the Triwizard Tournament's proud tradition." He gave a low, scratching laugh.
"I didn't cheat," Harry said. "I found out by accident."
He couldn't risk giving away Sirius, and he certainly wasn't going to land Hagrid in trouble for taking him to see the dragons in the first place.
Moody didn't press it. He went on at some length about how Karkaroff and Madame Maxime would never be so principled—Harry listened with half his attention, the other half fixed uncomfortably on the magical eye as it spun and swivelled without stopping.
"Have you worked out how you're going to handle your dragon?" Moody asked at last.
"I have a plan," Harry said.
"And what is it?" Moody's gaze sharpened.
"Is that something I should tell you?" Harry asked carefully. "I thought it was meant to be secret."
"As a professor from the host school, I obviously can't show favouritism," Moody said gruffly. "I'd just like to hear your thinking and offer a word or two of general guidance. Don't underestimate a dragon, Potter—that's the first piece of it."
"I was going to use a Summoning Charm," Harry said. "Accio."
"Ah—" Something flickered across Moody's face. "Use what you're best at—call what you need to you." He studied Harry intently. "That's genuinely clever. Did you come up with it yourself?"
"A friend suggested it, actually," Harry said.
"Weasley?" Moody asked, with a note of approval.
"No," Harry said. "Draco Malfoy."
"Is that so." Moody's incomplete nose twitched. "A Slytherin. A Malfoy." He said the name as though tasting something off. "You're aware of who his father is, I take it? You trust him, just like that—you're not worried he might be working an angle?"
"He's a Hogwarts student, same as me," Harry said, a flicker of irritation in his voice. "He's never been hostile to me. He's helped me practise spells." He couldn't quite keep the edge out of his tone. Why did Moody always speak about Draco as though he were something dangerous concealed in plain sight?
"Don't be too quick to trust, Harry," Moody said, his voice settling back into its usual rumble. "Constant vigilance. Always be vigilant. Spend time with your Gryffindor friends and keep practising—the charm alone won't be enough without the execution."
"I will, Professor. Thank you." Harry got to his feet and walked out.
Moody sat very still for a moment after the door closed. His magical eye drifted slowly toward the empty doorway, and he reached down to rest one hand on his wooden leg. His expression shifted into something harder and more calculating as his mind turned back—not to Harry—but to his encounter with Draco Malfoy the night before.