Harry sat up. He refused to feel guilty that he still thought of himself as Harry. It wasn't like he could have anticipated this, or known how the Goblet worked. And if it was really Voldemort trying to kill him, then he would have found some other way to enter Harry, maybe just by having someone write "Malfoy" on a piece of parchment.
Could that have bound Draco, too?
Harry had the horrible feeling that it might have. At least he was facing this alone.
"So what do I have to do if the binding is weak?" Harry asked. "Do I have to compete at all?"
"Yes," said Dumbledore with a sidelong glance. "And it would be best to do so wholeheartedly. We stand more chance of locating the person who put your name in the Goblet in that case, by seeing how they react to your efforts."
"Our son did not enter his name in this travesty," Father said. "And if the binding is weak, then all he needs to do is appear at the Tasks and make a little show of trying. There is nothing saying that he has to win or make a serious effort."
"The likelihood of catching the person who used his name—"
"Why couldn't they just react to how poorly I'm doing?" Harry interrupted, ignoring the fleeting thought in the back of his head that Hermione would be horrified about his interrupting the Headmaster. "Sir, why do you want me to compete?"
Dumbledore took his glasses off and polished them. Harry suspected he was only doing that to avoid having to look at Harry.
"I believe it is our best chance of finding Voldemort," Dumbledore admitted softly, "and his latest pawn. At the moment, I have no idea where the wraith is."
"You would let a situation dangerous to our son to unfold merely because you desire to know the Dark Lord's next move?" Mother shook her head slowly, and said nothing more. Harry was kind of surprised. The look in her eyes was once again the one she'd had right before she cursed Black.
But maybe she knew that cursing Dumbledore in his office wasn't a great idea.
"At least I know where you stand now," said Father. "And that is as an enemy of the Malfoy family." He shook his head in turn and spun away, touching both Harry and Mother lightly on the way. "Come. We should go out."
"Wait! Harry! If you would—"
"Call me Malfoy, Headmaster," Harry said, and this time he didn't feel any urge to look over his shoulder.
....
The next few weeks weren't brilliant.
As Harry had thought would happen, most of Gryffindor was shunning him once they figured out that he wasn't going to back down and recant the "lie" of not putting his name in the Goblet. Hufflepuff was angry at him for "taking away Cedric's glory." The Ravenclaws sometimes fell into that camp and sometimes into the camp of pitying glances.
Slytherin was actually the most supportive, a huge surprise, but with how many people Draco was cursing on a regular basis, perhaps it shouldn't have been. Harry shook his head at Draco when they met up briefly in the corridors where Draco was going to Professor McGonagall for another detention.
"I wish you wouldn't. You're going to get hurt."
"They're lying about you," Draco said hotly. "I'm not going to stop."
"But the more time you spend in detention, the less time you have to protect me," Harry said, and gave Draco a wide-eyed look that he'd been practicing in the mirror. "Please stop. For my sake?"
Draco blinked and looked completely caught off-guard for a long moment. Then he nodded. Harry smiled thankfully at him and went his way.
At least it worked, and Draco stopped getting as many detentions for the next little while.
Ron, meanwhile, was angry about Harry "not telling him" about putting his name in the Goblet. Harry had no idea why he believed that so stubbornly, but he didn't work on changing his mind. Ron would either come back or he wouldn't, and although it hurt that his first ever friend didn't believe him, well, Harry had seen Ron get upset and then come back to his side after the Malfoy thing. It would probably happen this way, too.
Hermione believed him, and was willing to spend a lot of time with both him and Draco, but she didn't like the way that Harry had argued with Dumbledore and refused to do what he said. She was also starting to nag Harry about attending class with Professor Moody, too, even though Ted's lessons were going well and Hermione had seen for herself what a great teacher he was.
"Professor Moody is a great professor," Hermione said one evening in the library, continuing her latest mantra. "He showed us the three Unforgivables."
Harry snapped his head up to stare at her. "He did what?"
"I mean, he cast them on a spider," Hermione said hurriedly, as if she was worried that Harry might think she was accusing Moody of illegal activities. "But it was brilliant, really, to see how well they worked."
"Why did he even know how to cast them?"
"Aurors have to, to counter them, I suppose. And they were allowed to use those spells in the war with You-Know-Who."
"They were?" Harry echoed softly.
Hermione nodded. "Wartime powers. Wartime emergency, I think. Mr. Crouch was in charge then, and he gave them permission."
"Wow." Harry was glad that he'd managed to avoid being cornered by any of the Headmasters or the Ministry officials working on the Tournament. He shuddered and returned to his Charms essay.
"Won't you at least visit our class once, Harry? Just to see what it's like?"
"No. That would be breaking the terms of the agreement by which Ted's allowed to tutor Draco and me. The Headmaster was very firm about that last year. I couldn't just drop in and out of Lupin's class. I had to stay out of it altogether once I decided I didn't want to attend it anymore."
"About Professor Dumbledore, Harry…"
Harry sighed and glanced at her. Hermione was leaning forwards over the table, and her eyes were wide and appealing.
"What?" Harry asked.
"You know that he was only trying to do his best, don't you? I think he was caught off-guard by the situation as much as you were."
"He's made it clear that he thinks Father is going to turn me over to Voldemort," Harry said bluntly. "Or at least he thought that before Father got the Dark Mark cut off. I have to admi that I'm not sure what Dumbledore thinks now."
"I just meant the Tournament situation. He wasn't trying to order you to go into the other room because he hates you. He really thought you were a Champion, and he was trying to cope with it."
Harry shook his head. "If he really knew me at all, he would know that I hadn't put my name in it." Ron should know that, too, he thought but didn't say.
Maybe Hermione had also made the connection, because she shifted uncomfortably. "I mean," she said, and then dropped it.
....
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