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With a loud thud and a collective grunt Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys landed in a clearing near where the Quidditch World Cup was to take place.
“Guh, why is every kind of magical travel such a pain?” Harry grumbled as he shakily got to his feet.
“That is a valid question.” Percy mused as he got up, “One that I have asked myself before actually, apparently whoever came up with Portkeys imagined that they wouldn’t be used much or as frequently as we do these days, so the enchantment to make them was never adjusted.”
“Thanks for the history lesson Perce.” Fred snarked.
“Real useful knowledge that Ministry got you, did they tell you how to fix it?” George added.
“Actually they haven’t but they did tell me why it won’t be fixed.” Percy countered with an eye roll.
“Oh?” Harry hadn’t meant to make it sound like a question but he was curious.
“Yes, apparently the Ministry and some of the other magical governments want to discourage people from using private Portkeys, while it’s technically not illegal to make them, they’re highly regulated and you can be fined if you’re found using them without permission.” Percy explained.
“Huh, good to know, any way to get that permission?” Harry asked as they walked towards the campsite.
“What’s with the sudden interest, Harry?” Ron chimed in, genuinely confused.
“Well I don’t know Ron,” Harry shrugged, “considering how many weird things I tend to get involved in, having some quick way out of it would be nice. If I can do it without getting into trouble, all the better.”
Percy smiled. “It’s actually pretty simple. I can arrange it for you if you really want.”
Harry contemplated for a moment before saying: “That’d be great. Thanks Percy.”
After the mess with the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup, Harry had all but forgotten about the conversation about Portkeys, until the Weasley’s absolutely ancient owl Errol crashed into his window, leaving a letter right where had collided with it and flew back off.
He had, over his vehement objections, been brought back to the Dursleys. Dumbledore’s decision, he had been told.
It had not helped that this was in the middle of the night but Harry had figured it was just as well, that way the Dursleys at least didn’t know that Harry had gotten that letter to begin with.
Apparently getting a Portkey licence was so laughably easy that all Harry needed to do was to go to the Ministry and request it.
If Percy’s writing was accurate, which Harry believed it was because he even cited various Ministry texts about the licence, it wasn’t even required to be of age to get it.
Thus Harry decided to visit Diagon Alley ahead of schedule, objections of people be damned.
Harry took the opportunity to get some things he usually wouldn’t have time to get. Specifically, he was looking for where Wizards got magical tents from.
He had found the one they had stayed in amazing, if a bit too tacky for his tastes.
It had taken him quite a bit of negotiating with Vernon to make him willing to let Harry go to the Alley and even more for him to understand why Harry was interested in a tent.
Vernon had remained not receptive until Harry brought up the idea that he could pitch his tent in the attic space where he was out of the way and basically invisible.
He had helpfully forgotten to mention that the space he’d actually have was bigger than the Dursleys entire house and likely better furnished.
Having gotten his tent and everything else he needed out of the way he headed for the Ministry to get the “Portkey Creator Licence”.
After being labelled by the Phone Booth entrance as “Harry Potter, seeking to send people to places” he made his way to the Portkey Office, staffed by one Basil Thorway.
“Ah, Mr. Potter. Weasley mentioned you’d be visiting.” The man smiled lightly, handing Harry some parchments.
“Not much to creating Portkeys. You learn the spells on these sheets, respect some rules that are mandatory to obey and take a small test with me. After that you get your licence and are off.” he explained.
Harry read through the spells. There seemed to be some variants to the Portkey creation spell. Mostly just different activation requirements.
There seemed to be three main ways to activate a Portkey and one variant.
There were time activated Portkeys, word activated Portkeys and finally contact activated Portkeys.
The only variant was a multi-key. Which only changed that an item could send you to more than one location.
Naturally all of that could be combined in some ways and as Harry read through the sheets there were some ways to alter them too.
“Rules are simple for Portkeys.” Mr. Thorway spoke up as Harry was learning the wand motions.
“If there’s a chance a muggle could use it, you gotta ask this office first. If not, you’re free to make it once you got your licence. If it’s supposed to take you to another country, you need to ask both the ministry here and the ministry in that country first. If not, you’re free to make it once you got your licence. Beyond that, there’s really not much to it.” the man shrugged.
Harry nodded before blinking a bit. “Sir? Do I have to have been to the place I’m using as a destination?”
Mr. Thorway shook his head, “No, it certainly helps but it’s not necessary. All you have to do is define and mentally picture where you want the Portkey to go. So technically you could send someone to a place in say, America, but you need at least be able to picture it to know where that is. Helps to be able to read maps too.” the man laughed.
After about half an hour of reading, Harry was ready to take the test.
“Last rule before we start: A Portkey can’t be stopped by wards if it was created while inside of those same wards. Now then, your test will be.…”
“Uh. Sir. I just thought of something, what about the underage magic rule?” Harry cut him off.
“No need to worry, once you got your license you’re officially exempt from that. Nice little detail people miss. Oh and I’ll deal with any warnings you would be getting for the test obviously.” Mr. Thorway smiled.
“Now. Your test is to make a Portkey out of this quill,” he held up a normal quill, “and make it go over there.” He pointed to a red square on the ground.
“That’s it. Extra points if you can make it a multi-key that gets you back to the start point.” Mr. Thorway smiled.
Harry took the quill into his off-hand and after a few motions with his wand muttered, “Portus”.
A soft glow on the quill later he muttered “Red” and with the navel pulling sensation vanished from the spot he stood and appeared in the red square. “Green” a moment later he was back with the quill where he had started.
“Excellent.” Mr. Thorway smiled, before noticing with a scowl that a paper airplane had flown in from what he knew to be Mafalda Hopkirk’s office at the ‘Misuse of Magic’ department.
He plucked it out of the air before it reached Harry and scowled more, shaking his head “That woman is such a busybody.” He muttered, clearly annoyed.
He walked over to his desk, wrote Harry a licence for Portkey creation and waved Harry over. “Sign this, lad. After that, I’ll deal with Hopkirk for you.”
Harry signed the parchment, which he noticed was back-dated by one day, and received a nice little card as well as a pin and a ring with the Portkey Office symbol.
“Do take care to have at least one of those items on your person at all times. I recommend the ring, it's the hardest to lose as it resizes itself to fit your hand. Having any one of them on you also turns off the trace while you wear them.” He noted as Harry did as he instructed and put the ring on his right hand, where it seemed to almost magnet itself to his finger after resizing.
He rolled up the parchment. “Now I get to do my favourite past-time, annoying the misuse of magic office. Don’t worry about getting any warnings anymore, Ms. Hopkirk is gonna leave you alone from now on.”
Harry nodded, responding with, “Thank you sir,” before he left the Ministry a short time later, getting to briefly see Ms. Hopkirk get reprimanded for trying to get a licensed Portkey Creator into trouble.
Harry really contemplated buying Percy Weasley a gift basket, if only to see the look on the Weasleys faces that someone appreciated their brother's work.
It had taken Harry all of an hour to already become a little addicted to making and using Portkeys as well as using his new found exemption to improve his living conditions.
The realisation that he had effectively been given the ability to apparate just with the added step of enchanting an object first certainly helped.
Aside from making one to the attic of the Dursleys so he didn’t have to travel back the old fashioned way (he had opted to just use a pebble to make a one-use Portkey), he had already cleaned up the entire attic using magic, locked the attic entrance so the Dursleys couldn’t just barge in and pitched his magic tent.
He had taken one that had a very ‘magic tavern’ feel to it, mostly because it had been the most home-like of the bunch without standing out too much. (Why someone would want to have a tent with a chimney or dancing gnome figures on the top of it he would never understand)
His new home was approximately twice the Dursleys house in size and thanks to a tiny window out of the attic space, Hedwig could just fly in and out of the place as she pleased.
For the first time since Harry had been living with the Dursleys he actually felt at home.
He sent a quick letter to Sirius, telling him to stay the hell out of Britain and about his changed living conditions before sending a letter to Percy thanking him for his help.
He sighed contently, now all that needed to happen was for his fourth year at Hogwarts to go smoothly.
Yeah. Like he’d have that much luck.
Getting to Hogwarts had been annoying as is, mostly because Ron, Ginny and Hermione had been annoying about the things he had gotten up to. Specifically the Portkey business.
That had stopped when he pointed out that they had been there for the conversation that caused it and hadn’t objected to him learning it. It wasn’t his fault that they hadn’t realised he was serious.
At least it had stopped until they started to pester him about the details of it at which point he had merely pointed them to pestering Percy if it mattered so much and heading to a different compartment of the Hogwarts Express.
Sitting with Neville and a girl by the name of Luna Lovegood had raised his mood, even if Luna was a little strange in a cute way, but then again he wasn’t sure if being Harry Potter ever qualified him for being ‘sane’.
The second the Triwizard Tournament was announced Harry had a sense of foreboding.
A dangerous tournament that regularly got contestants killed?
That was discontinued for two hundred years?
Starting up while he was still attending Hogwarts?
Harry wasn’t an idiot.
He had gotten through three years of various people and things (he wasn’t sure he’d call Dementors anything else) trying to murder him.
He knew how his life worked by now.
So when the announcement came he had an idea to pre-empt the inevitable insanity.
“Gred, Forge!” He called into the Gryffindor Common Room.
“Yes Harry?” They both arrived near instantly and in tandem.
“I take it you two are making people take bets on who’ll be in the tournament right?” Harry asked, in the same way someone asked if the sky was blue.
“Sure have.”
“Sure do.”
“Would you like a free win?” Harry smiled.
The two redheads blinked at each other before grinning.
“We’re listening.”
“Put my name down for ‘entered as a fourth contestant’.” Harry answered simply, still smiling.
“Wot.”
“You’re joking.”
“Look guys, you know my luck. You’ve known it for three years. Can you honestly say that you wouldn’t believe it if someone put me in a tournament with a fifty percent mortality rate to kill me?” Harry asked, tilting his head.
Watching the little scene in front of him was hilarious. Fred (or was it George) and George (or was it Fred) rapidly alternated in raising fingers to respond and opening their mouths but choosing not to.
The Weasley prank machine was temporarily out of service and had trouble restarting.
Eventually they spun around, muttered between themselves for a few seconds and turned back to him.
“What’s in it for you?”
Harry raised an eyebrow at them, “Aside from giving you free money? If you two put this up, chances are good when, note how I say when not if, I get picked? People will think it’s a prank gone horribly wrong. Not even your mom would get mad at the whole thing, because even she wouldn’t accuse you of trying to get me killed.”
They blinked for a while before Harry spoke up again.
“The way I see it, we all win. Gryffindor doesn’t have to deal with universal scorn from the entire rest of the schools, I don’t have to deal with the entire school bothering me while I try to survive this, you two get notoriety as the prankiest pranksters that have ever pranked, and whoever is actually behind it doesn’t get to enjoy watching the school tear itself apart.” He shrugged.
The two looked between themselves and nodded.
“Deal.”
“Harry Potter!”
Harry sighed lightly, of course he had been spot on, because why would his life ever be easy?
Harry walked towards where Dumbledore had motioned him to go but stopped halfway and speaking up loudly:
“I would like to state a few things for the record: One: I didn’t put my name in that damned thing, and anyone who thinks I would doesn’t know me. Two: If I’m required to compete in this, it’s entirely against my will. Three: Fred, George? Hope your pay-out was big, you earned it.”
With that he followed Dumbledore, leaving the rest of the schools to discuss among themselves.
Dealing with the Headmasters, Teachers and the other champions had been annoying but manageable.
Mostly.
Snape had been insufferable of course, when wasn’t he?
“Well, sir,” Harry bit out, “if you’re so certain that I did it, care to enlighten me how I supposedly got around the protections?”
That had shut him up fast.
“Matters little now anyway.” Ludo Bagman chimed in cheerfully. “You’ll have to compete. No matter how you got in.”
“Of course.” Harry smiled before turning to the other champions. “Hi! Did you know that about fifty percent of the participants of this dumb tournament die horribly?”
Fleur Delacour raised her nose dismissively. “Those who compete bring glory and fame to their schools.” She almost sneered, which would have been intimidating if her heavy French accent hadn’t been there.
“Oh?” Harry smiled, tilting his head and looking around the room, “Anyone happen to know the name of one winner?”
The mixture of indignant sputtering and fidgeting already confirmed what he already knew.
“Figured. Headmaster if that was all, I’ll have to start preparing. Seeing as I’m several years younger than the rest, I’ll need any advantage I get to not die horribly.” He put as much emphasis as he could on the last part to pound it into their heads that no, he really didn’t want to be involved in this.
When he received no answer, he left, no one bothering to stop him.
“You really didn’t put your name in?” Ron asked for the tenth time now.
If the twins hadn’t made a betting pool around that happening to Harry he would have been far less nice about this.
“Ron.” Harry growled. “I did not. Put. My. Name. In. Either believe it or don’t but stop asking! It’ll be hard enough to not die without having someone questioning everything I’m doing!”
That had put the lid on that situation.
It didn’t take longer than the next day for people to get irritating.
Specifically Draco Malfoy, who in his infinite wisdom had decided to make little badges that changed from saying, ‘Support Cedric Diggory the real Hogwarts Champion’ to ‘Potter Stinks’.
Harry had rolled his eyes at it for a minute before getting an idea.
He was a Portkey Creator after all.
“Hey Malfoy!” Harry called across the Great Hall, having just finished creating a Portkey out of a ‘snitch-ball’ (essentially a wizard tennis ball made for training Quidditch Seekers).
He threw it, making sure it left his hand before yelling “Catch!”
Draco Malfoy had all of a moment as he caught the ball before his smug grin changed into a look of horror as he disappeared.
“POTTER!”
As if on cue, Snape charged from the Head table to the Gryffindor table, where Harry sat.
“What did you do?!” He snarled.
“Me?” Harry asked faux-innocently “Seeker training. Not my fault Malfoy caught something that didn’t belong to him.”
“Where. Is. Malfoy?” Snape snarled so hard that Harry wondered if he was going to break his own teeth.
“Black Lake. About ten meters swimming distance.” Harry answered smoothly.
“I’ll see you expelled for this.” Snape growled.
“For what? Turning my own property into Portkeys so it doesn’t get stolen?” Harry asked, waggling his fingers, making sure Snape saw the Magical Transportation Office Ring. “The Ministry would laugh you out the door.”
Harry grinned as Snape seemed ready to curse him but instead Snape spun on the spot and stalked out the hall to retrieve Malfoy.
The “Potter Stinks” badges disappeared very quickly after that.
Rita Skeeter, Harry decided, was both the worst and best thing to have happened to him.
Worst because he was fairly certain she was going to torment him for a while and there would be very little he could personally do about it.
Best because Luna Lovegood, it turned out, really hated the woman and demanded that Harry give the Quibbler exclusive interview rights from that point forward.
He did, in part because it would snub the Daily Prophet but also because it gave him ample time to be around Luna.
It was nice to have someone as weird as yourself for company, he thought.
Harry paused mid-research as Hedwig flew in, having found him in the library.
He was here, because Percy Weasley had written to him a day or so ago about the first task.
Well Percy explicitly hadn’t written about the first task but had done so in a way that made it obvious that it was about it.
‘Charlie mentioned recently that four dragons had to be sedated for long distance travel. Nesting ones too, apparently it was a huge headache.’
Harry hadn’t needed more than that to figure out what was going on.
Dragons, the first task was dealing with a nesting dragon in some way. He thanked the stars for Percy’s lack of subtlety.
Hedwig dropped a letter from Sirius in front of him and waited patiently for him to read it.
Harry sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, why did his godfather have to be such an impulsive idiot?
Harry had made it emphatically clear for him to stay out of Britain!
He dropped his head slightly, before blinking into the pages of the book he had been reading.
He pulled back, realising that in his searches he had found a book on magic communities across the world.
He scribbled a note, put it in the envelope together with some galleons, tied it to an awaiting Hedwig and turned the envelope into a Portkey.
He knew Sirius would be annoyed, if not outright furious with him.
But hey, forcibly making Sirius take a spa visit in Jamaica could hardly be a bad thing.
Harry wasn’t nearly as nervous for the first task as he thought he would be.
Partially because he had a plan, partially because he had a backup plan, partially because he had a backup-backup plan. (Though he really hoped the first idea worked, he really didn’t want to try and out-fly a dragon.)
Also because Luna had made it clear to him that she wouldn’t allow him to not give her an after task interview.
He was not sure if he was supposed to take the statement ‘I will not have my right of first interview be violated by your untimely demise, Mr. Potter.’ as a threat or an encouragement.
Knowing Luna it was probably both.
Of course his Potter luck made it that he got the worst dragon of all of them. Because of course he did.
A Hungarian Horntail, the fact that the organisers thought that having one of the most dangerous dragon species in the world present for this tournament already told him everything he needed to know.
Of course he was also the last to go. Number four. It was almost a little token.
Cedric went first, he only knew of the dragons because Harry had sought him out to tell him.
Then Fleur, who still glared at him like he had eaten her baby or something.
Then Krum, who seemed to deal with the whole giant tournament like it was a day at Quidditch practice.
Harry nervously strode into the arena when Ludo Bagman’s magically enhanced voice announced him.
He had opted to wear his invisibility cloak on his back, it was a family heirloom after all, so if he was going to potentially go to his death in an official setting, it might as well be with it on his back.
He tilted his head slightly. There were a bunch of rocks and small stones strewn about the arena.
On the far end of the arena was the dragon, chained but still very clearly able to move.
In front of it were six eggs, one of them golden and clearly not a real egg.
Harry blinked, this might be a lot easier than he had feared.
Portkeys, Harry had realised, were a lot more lenient than people thought.
The enchantment of the ‘Contact Portkey’ didn’t care if the thing it contacted was alive or aware in any way.
It just had to touch something.
Harry paused, gathering his thoughts. He had checked where the Romanian Dragon Reserve was and had even asked Hagrid for current pictures. It turned out that asking a creature fanatic like Hagrid was like giving them the best birthday present in existence.
“Oh! Our fourth champion appears to be enchanting some of the stones!?” He could vaguely hear Bagman crow to the crowd.
Six stones, turned into Contact Portkeys, later Harry strode out from behind the large rock, glaring down the dragon which slightly reared back as if preparing to attack.
Harry threw the stones into the air one after the other “Depulso!”
Each stone was hit by its own banishing charm, the first five colliding with an egg and the last one hitting the dragon in the forehead.
It took a moment before all six vanished, each given just enough pause to shimmer before vanishing.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief before calmly walking up to the golden egg, picking it up and leaving.
It took a few seconds for the cheering to erupt from the stands.
Harry was ushered into the champions tent only for Pomfrey to look him over. “...Merlin! You don’t even look winded? What’s the world come to that you’re the least injured one I get? Well never mind, wait here until the results are tallied.” With that, she went off to deal with the rest of the champions.
Harry didn’t need to wait long before Charlie Weasley barged in, followed closely by the Headmasters of the various schools, Ludo Bagman and Luna Lovegood (she was Harry’s exclusive interviewer after all)
“Potter!” Charlie almost snarled, sounding a bit too much like Snape. “What did you do to my dragon?!”
Harry blinked. “Hi to you too Charlie, glad to see you care that I wasn’t roasted alive.” Harry deadpanned.
Charlie paused then shook himself. “S-Sorry about that Harry. It’s just…”
Harry waved him off. “I get it, you’re really passionate about dragons. I wouldn’t like me in your boots.”
Dumbledore took this as his moment to chime in. “Well Mr. Potter, we still don’t quite know what you did to the dragon and the eggs. If you would care to enlighten us?”
“Portkey.” Harry smiled, “I portkeyed it and its eggs back to its enclosure.” He elaborated seeing the dumbfounded looks.
“If you wanna thank someone, thank Hagrid.” Harry said to Charlie. “You sent him pictures of the place, so I could figure out which enclosure it belonged in.”
It took everyone a few seconds, almost a minute, to recover from his statement.
“Mr. Potter.” Dumbledore started, “Harry, you can’t Portkey things out of…”
“Yes. I can. A Portkey made inside wards can go outside of them and back inside too.” Harry smiled. “It’s not that hard, Headmaster. Though I’m sure some dragon handlers are now very confused that one of their biggest is back.”
They all blinked before Charlie hugged Harry with such force that Harry was certain that all of his vertebrae had set into the correct place.
“Thank you for not killing it.” Charlie eventually said after letting Harry go and remembering to breathe.
“How’d I have done that?! It’s a giant flying alligator that breathes fire! I might be crazy Charlie but not insane.” Harry grumbled.
Dumbledore cleared his throat. “Nevertheless, Harry, I’m afraid we cannot overlook your actions. Creating an international Portkey, let alone six of them, is quite a severe thing and could cause quite a scene.”
Harry blanched slightly, he had hoped not to get in trouble for all this. Then the colour returned to his face as another familiar redhead walked into the tent.
“Actually Headmaster, Mr. Potter’s actions are perfectly valid under a type three emergency situation as defined by the IPCU.” Percy Weasley strode into the tent, he had been subbing in for Mr. Crouch as the Ministry representative “As such he was entirely within his right to do what he did.”
Dumbledore… and just about everyone else present, blinked trying to process what Percy had just said.
“Who defined what as a valid reason to do what?” Headmaster Karkaroff snarled, he really didn’t like the idea that Harry would get away with making them all look stupid.
Percy smiled smugly as he could tell that Luna Lovegood was taking notes and he got to play rules lawyer for a good reason for once: “The IPCU. International Portkey Creators Union. A type three emergency happens to involve a five x dangerous creature being a potential hazard to people. Seeing as there was a giant nesting dragon near several hundred spectators that it could have attacked, it was a reasonable decision.”
“And his decision qualifies how?” Madame Maxime grumbled through her French accent.
“Well there were two choices, remove the humans or remove the threat. He removed the threat.” Percy shrugged.
“He still broke the rules.” Bagman tried to argue.
“Not really. If you see the ring on his finger?” Percy pointed to the ring on Harry’s hand “He’s officially certified as a Portkey Creator in Britain. Everything he just did was perfectly legal.”
“I will not stand for this!” Karkaroff growled.
Percy smiled amiably, “Oh please, sir. Do fight this.” His smile refused to fade, “I always wanted to see someone be dense enough to try. The Union would fillet you like fine salmon.”
Karkaroff, realising he had no ground to make, backed down.
Eventually, once they realised that yes Percy was correct and knew his stuff, the Headmasters, Bagman and Percy (who gave a thumbs up to Harry) walked out.
“So Harry!” Luna began excitedly, parchment and feather in hand. “How did it feel to dimensionally displace a dragon through the realms of the Wrackelspurts?”
Harry couldn’t help but smile and gave what he felt was possibly the best interview of his life. He was ninety percent sure that if anyone else had conducted it, he wouldn’t have had as much fun.
“You do know whatever she was talking about doesn’t actually exist right?” Cedric asked cautiously as he watched Luna leave.
Harry shrugged. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Apparently, no one portkeyed a dragon before either and I just did it across countries. For all you know, she could be right.”
The other three champions blinked at him but had no response.
Harry didn’t indulge anyone from Gryffindor in their festivities, instead opting to wander the castle together with Luna.
He had become absolutely furious to find out that Luna had been locked out of the Ravenclaw common room a few times because ‘the eagle sometimes couldn’t understand her answers’.
Which Harry mentally translated to ‘someone had messed with it to bully her’.
That wouldn’t stand.
Harry had, simply for his own amusement, taken several of the old “Potter Stinks” badges as souvenirs.
A few simple enchantments later, Luna skipped into Ravenclaw tower as Harry headed back to the Gryffindor Common Room.
There would be a few reports of about twelves Ravenclaws, including at least one prefect, suddenly disappearing into the Black lake and being forced to swim back.
Unlike Snape however Flitwick realised that something other than just Harry making some mean prank was the cause and asked Harry what they’d done.
“Well sir,” Harry smiled simply, “there’s a nickname among the Ravenclaws for one I really care about. I suppose they realised that calling someone ‘Loony’ isn’t safe when actual loons are involved.”
Flitwick had blinked for a moment, before a look of realisation crossed his face. “Oh dear.” He breathed. “Mr. Potter, I assure you…”
“It’s not me you have to assure or care for.” Harry cut him off. “Your words don’t help her. Your actions do.”
Flitwick paused before nodding. “Thank you for looking after her where I failed.”
Harry shrugged. “I know how it feels sir. A lot of people failed me.”
Flitwick barely acknowledged the statement before heading off to his table, a lot of things would change. That much he had decided.
The Yule ball had hit Harry like a sack of bricks for a few minutes.
He had to open a giant ballroom dance… thing?! He didn’t know how to dance for one. He didn’t like crowds either.
Why would he be expected to participate anyway? People didn’t want him in the tournament!
Then, about five minutes into his brooding, he knew who to ask and did so no ten minutes later.
He wasn’t sure what would devastate the masses more.
The fact that Harry Potter, hero of Wizarding Britain, was going to the ball with Luna Lovegood, certified loon of the second best local newspaper.
Or that Viktor Krum shunned Pureblood rhetoric and went with Hermione Granger, mousy Muggleborn who happened to be far smarter than most people, instead.
The press certainly wouldn’t be talking about the other two champions.
Cedric would be going with his girlfriend Cho Chang, which would surprise absolutely no one.
Fleur Delacour had the issue that she couldn’t win. Anyone she took, unless they were somehow immune to her Veela allure, would just be called a sucker for falling for it.
Fortunately, it was then that Bill Weasley stepped in for his brother Charlie in wrangling the dragon handlers left in Britain.
The Yule Ball itself wasn’t much of a spectacle.
Not to Harry at least.
He didn’t know how to dance, Luna didn’t either.
Which somehow worked itself out into both of them being apparently amazing to watch from the outside.
“Think of it as trying to hold a passing broom mid flight with the wind deciding where it goes.” Luna had told him.
Somehow that worked perfectly.
In layman terms, it translated to her leading him through whatever wild dance she came up with and him just playing along but they both had fun doing so.
After they had gotten tired, which took one tirade Ron had aimed at Hermione to achieve, they wandered the gardens together.
Luna snatched a bug out of thin air and put it in a jar at one point, for further study she had told him, he didn’t question it.
Harry was confused, he had to admit that, mostly because in between Luna’s off the wall statements, his own insecurities and inability to parse emotions, he really didn’t know how someone was supposed to feel about his situation.
His situation being: Sitting on a small bench between two animated bush sculptures of a Lion and Raven with a blonde, cute girl in a nice blue dress (and radish earrings) on his lap, her legs to either side of his, her gazing into his eyes.
It turned out that words were not necessary to understand emotions.
If being around Luna Lovegood had taught him anything it was that words only had meaning if you gave them one. She chose to show that by not saying anything, in the most pleasant way she could think of.
Harry had a bad feeling.
A. Really. Bad. Feeling.
A feeling that said ‘That Ball? That served a purpose.’
He walked up to Cedric on the day before the task and handed him something.
A small bauble, it looked like a raven protectively putting its wings around a small blue crystal.
“Ced.” Harry started, “I want you to turn this into an emergency Portkey, set to a few feet away from the shore of the Black Lake. Not for me, but for whoever you care for most.”
Cedric paused, looked at Harry, who stared back at him.
He eventually nodded.
Harry’s bad feeling turned out to be true.
Luna, Hermione and Cho hadn’t arrived at the edge of the Black Lake like everyone else.
Which meant that all the ‘significant others’ were indeed in the lake.
“Gabrielle!” Fleur cried “My little sister! She’s…”
Harry didn’t let her finish, taking out the Gillyweed he’d bought on Neville’s advice.
“Ced. Tell Luna I’m helping save someone when she shows up, if she doesn’t already know.” He grumbled.
He handed the other half of the Gillyweed to Fleur “We’ll go get her back.”
The organisers completely missed their discussion and were confused why only Harry and Fleur dove into the lake until with light crack sounds about ten minutes in three of the four hostages appeared on the pier as well as a very confused Bill Weasley, holding a small bauble shaped like a lion.
Harry, Fleur and Gabrielle appeared about twenty minutes later, Harry punching a rather perturbed Merman in the face as he left the water and the Gillyweed wore off.
Harry was not sure what Fleur and Gabrielle were saying but a lot of it sounded like very angry swearing against the people in charge of the tournament and the look on Madame Maxim’s face only helped to further that impression.
It took all of Harry’s mental fortitude to not start laughing like a lunatic when Bagman introduced them to what the final task would be.
Not just had they turned the well maintained Quidditch pitch into a hedge covered mess but they were using it to make a maze.
A maze, of which Bagman had just shown them the centre of.
Harry truly wondered if the man hadn’t been hit with a few too many Bludgers to the head region.
He wondered if the organisers realised that he had solved everything with Portkeys so far and wasn’t in any hurry to stop.
The other champions at least seemed to not realise it, as Harry could tell that Cedric was contemplating what kind of creatures they could be dealing with and the others seemed to think the same.
That had been one of two big events that day, the other was that Rita Skeeter had been arrested for being an unregistered beetle Animagus and the Daily Prophet was under investigation because of it.
This incidentally meant that the Quibbler suddenly got a massive rise in readership.
The day of the third task, Harry wasn’t worried.
He had spent his time preparing for several eventualities, specifically he had the suspicion that this was too easy.
Not on the organisers part but rather on the ‘attempts on his life’ department.
He had the suspicion that Professor Moody was a bit too confident in the solutions and advice he had offered Harry.
The whole ‘try and out-fly the dragon’ idea had sounded like something out of a book.
It certainly made sense to Harry that Moody would be the one to try and kill him.
The past DADA teachers had tried the same after all, though he was at least of the opinion that Remus didn’t count, it wasn’t his fault that he was a werewolf after all.
Regardless, Harry had been busy studying new ways to use Portkeys. You never could be too careful.
Harry had been the last to enter the maze, though only by a few seconds.
It turned out that the Headmasters had not been pleased with his decision to solve everything by portkeying it away.
Dumbledore had called his solutions ‘imaginative’, but the judges as a whole did not like that Harry had made a fool out of them twice.
Thus, he was the last to go into the maze, not that it mattered.
He casually walked a few steps in, picked a leaf from one of the hedge walls, turned it into a Portkey and a few moments later was at the centre of the maze, right in front of the trophy.
“Huh. That was disappointing.” He mumbled before touching the trophy and once again disappearing, this time not to where the trophy was supposed to take him to.
Harry never liked the disorienting effect that Portkeys had, something he would hopefully one day learn how to fix.
He had no time at all to take in his surroundings, a misty, dark, graveyard before immediately getting stunned.
When he came to, he was bound to a wood post, missing his wand and staring at a large iron cauldron.
Standing over whatever was in the cauldron was Peter Pettigrew, whimpering something before cutting off his hand.
Apparently Harry had just awoken in the middle of some ritual to revive Voldemort.
“You really are one pathetic wizard, Pettigrew.” Harry spoke up, making Pettigrew freeze slightly.
“You’d have every reason to hate this guy and want him gone, but no, you decided to grovel at his feet a second time. He killed people who cared for you, you bastard!” Harry continued mocking him.
“Y-Y-You don’t u-understand.” Pettigrew stuttered walking up to Harry and drawing blood from Harry’s arm.
Harry winced before he spat, “Bloody glad that I don’t, you disgusting coward.”
Pettigrew didn’t react much, though it seemed that having been called that at least hurt the man's feelings.
Harry didn’t pay too much attention to the rest of the ritual, instead he formed a plan.
He had no illusions that this whole scenario would be a fair fight, Voldemort had likely planned this for a while now and likely wasn’t in the business of giving Harry a fair chance.
“Robe me.” A high pitched voice stated as through the mist produced by the cauldron a thin, tall figure emerged.
“Wow.” Harry snarked. “If that’s how someone who’s come back from the dead looks like, then dying seems like the better deal. You look like a slimy mannequin, Tom.”
Voldemort, who had spent the past few seconds appreciating his new found body and gotten his slightly oversized robe on, glared at Harry.
He absentmindedly pointed his wand at Harry. “Crucio.”
Everything was pain for Harry for a few seconds.
“Guh. Don’t see that as much of a counterargument.” Harry grumbled through clenched teeth.
Voldemort laughed, “You certainly inherited your parents' foolishness.”
“Well if you inherited anything from anyone, it’s not your sense of care. I can see your servant bleeding out over there.” Harry growled. As much as he hated Pettigrew, he needed him alive if Sirius was ever to be free.
Voldemort straightened slightly but didn’t let the jab show an impact.
Instead he launched into a little spiel, first requesting Pettigrew’s arm, “No the other arm you fool,” and summoning his other bottom-feeder minions, taking great care to name every last one as they arrived via apparation.
After they had made their appearance, he finally lowered himself to the tedious task of rewarding Pettigrew with a silvery hand to replace the one he had lobbed off to bring him back to life.
“Now, my loyal followers.” Voldemort almost sneered the word ‘loyal’ “You shall witness the death of my greatest enemy. Release him, we shall settle this with a duel.”
‘Now or never’ Harry decided before starting to laugh, making the Death Eaters freeze in their paths, even as Lucius Malfoy had started to approach him to release him from his bond.
“Wow. I’m your ‘greatest enemy’ huh? Man.” Harry chuckled. “Why do you lot follow this guy again? He considers a fourteen year old his greatest nemesis! Not Albus ‘leader of the light’ Dumbledore, not some other great wizard of renown. A fourteen year old who hasn’t even finished his magic education.”
He could almost feel the amount of force Voldemort was increasingly gripping his wand with. The weirdly stiff motions of his followers did not help his mood.
Harry continued. “I guess you can’t expect a man who tried to murder a toddler in his crib to have some actual nads now can you? This guy felt the need to summon all of you here so in case he gets humiliated he can blame it on one of you, yes that includes you Peter. But hey, can’t exactly fault him, he got disintegrated by me when I couldn’t even talk, so he really probably would die if I managed to do anything.”
Voldemort sneered, “Do you believe this to be a game, Potter? That you could possibly get away?”
Harry giggled, one last push, “No quite the opposite actually. I just think we could make it worth people’s actual time you know? After all you did just call all of these grovelers here from whatever they were doing.”
Voldemort tilted his head, almost motioning Harry to continue.
“How about a wager?” Harry asked, “There ought to be some kind of magic that lets people bet on things.”
Seeing as his captor and his captors' cronies were in no hurry to talk he continued, “Since you’re so convinced you’re invincible and immortal and blah blah blah, how about I get one free shot?” Harry asked, doing his best not to smirk.
“One move. That you have to let yourself get hit by. If it takes you out of the fight? These guys are forced to give up, completely. No more magic, no more Death Eaters. If you are still standing after I make my move? Well, you get to torture me to death and parade my corpse around like a puppet on strings for the rest of eternity.”
Voldemort paused before bursting out in a mad laughter for a long while.
“Or are you just too scared of what I could possibly do to you?” Harry fought valiantly to keep the smirk of his face.
Voldemort froze his laugh dying in his throat, his red eyes almost glowing with hatred at Harry’s face like he was contemplating torturing Harry to death on the spot.
“You know boy.” He sneered in a high pitch, “I am aware of your petty manipulation attempt.” He motioned for Lucius to come to his side, “Fortunately for you, I find your offer too good to pass up.”
With a touch of his wand to Lucius’s Dark Mark, a cacophony of screams resounded through the graveyard as all of Voldemort’s followers clutched their arms in pain. Another scream sounded, this time from Harry himself, as he could feel that whatever Voldemort had done to them now had taken hold on him too.
“Consider your wager to be on, Potter. Release him and return his wand. Now.” Voldemort snarled, roughly shoving Lucius towards him.
“Do not interfere with him or the wager takes your magic. He gets his free shot.” Voldemort grinned.
Harry stumbled slightly as he took his wand back, he rummaged through his robe for what he was looking for before finding it, his snitch-ball.
“If you believe that making a Portkey to escape me will work you are sorely mistaken.” Voldemort sneered.
“Oh, I’m not running. You don’t have to worry about that.” Harry enchanted the ball after a few quiet seconds. “Portus”
Voldemort chuckled “Do you really think that a mere Portkey could possibly save you from me?” he laughed and for the first time his followers laughed as well. “I can just apparate right back, you foolish child.”
Harry let them laugh themselves sick for a moment. “Oh I’m sure you can.” Harry kept his features blank as he threw the ball to Voldemort who caught it, paused and started shimmering “Have a nice trip.”
What happened next was unlike most Portkey travel. Instead of simply vanishing, Voldemort began glowing slightly before with a sharp, explosion-like, crack disappearing, causing a shockwave to send everyone in the graveyard save for Harry sprawling.
“What do we do now?” Peter asked as he got up.
“We must wait.” Lucius grumbled solemnly “If our master returns, Potter lost. If we lose our magic, our master has lost. If we try to harm Potter now, there is no telling what our master's magic will do to us.”
The first time the pull of the Portkey stopped, he felt a freezing sensation across his being, his fingers almost involuntarily clutching his wand and the ball he had caught. An endless plane of white stretching before his eyes before the Portkey once again whisked him away.
The second time the pull stopped, he felt as if crushed by an endless, oppressive darkness, as every part of him was crushed by an invisible force all around him before he once again disappeared.
The third time he regained his senses he couldn’t breathe or move, he was floating above a strange landscape of rock almost too dark to see, pain keeping his mind from clearing he disappeared once more.
The fourth time his senses functioned again he could see nothing but a massive orb of brown and beige, almost incomprehensibly huge, a distance in front of him before once again vanishing.
The fifth time. He did not notice his wand, his robes and the ball in his hand disintegrating into nothing.
There was nothing but light and agony.
Harry tapped his foot slightly as the fourth minute passed.
Suddenly, inexplicably, the Death Eaters around him started convulsing in pain as their magic was very forcibly dragged out of them. He bemusedly noticed Pettigrew’s silver hand shrinking in on itself, fortunately not reopening his wound.
He didn’t realise at first that their Dark Marks were literally burning themselves into their skins, making it impossible to hide their allegiances.
He felt something vaguely wet on his forehead, touching his scar. Black gunk had apparently formed on the surface of the scar, he shrugged slightly, Pettigrew’s stunner must have made him hit a rock or something.
“W-W—W-What did you do to our lord?!” Lucius ground out through the pain as Harry rubbed his scar clean and fixed the cut on his arm with a quick healing spell, Luna had insisted on him learning a single basic first aid spell.
“Oh poor Mr. Malfoy.” Harry smirked “You’ll. Never. Know. You and the rest of your friends will rot in Azkaban, never finding out the truth.”
Before any of them could regain their ability to run or even stand up properly Harry started stunning all of them with a quick Stupify per person. Since they couldn’t cast magic anymore he figured it would keep them long enough.
He let out a long held breath, before starting to make the crowd of stunned Death Eater Squibs, Death Squibs? Float into a pile with Peter Pettigrew on top.
He sat on top of the pile and floated the Triwizard trophy over to him. “Dark Lord, defeated, Death Eaters, disabled, big murder tournament, won. All in a day's work.” He smiled a little tired as he touched the trophy.
A moment later, he and the entire pile of Death Squibs, all still in their robes even, disappeared back to Hogwarts.
Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, was pacing nervously in front of the judges of the Triwizard tournament.
Not only had Amelia Bones just arrested a man claiming to be Barty Crouch Jr. but the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’ was missing with no one having a damn clue where he was!
“This is an outrage, Dumbledore! This will all be on your head, I tell you!” He angrily growled. “Not only is the Boy-Who-Lived gone, but since he’s technically in the Ministry’s employ thanks to that Portkey License business, it will make headlines! In the Quibbler of all papers too!”
“Minister—” Dumbledore started before a noise dragged their collective attention to the victory platform.
Sitting upon a pile of stunned people in black robes and white skull-like masks was Harry Potter, holding the Triwizard trophy between his legs in a bemused and tired fashion.
“Hello Minister!” Harry called as they approached. “I have a supposedly dead man and several supposedly upstanding citizens here for Madam Bones to interrogate.”
“M-MM.Nmm.” Fudge couldn’t for the life of him even start a sentence as Amelia Bones and several Aurors walked up to the Platform.
“Hello Madam Bones!” Harry cheered, waving amused. “Hey, what’s the policy on exonerating people of murders they didn’t commit? Because this man,” he padded the head of the stunned Peter Pettigrew with a hand, "is supposedly someone Sirius Black killed, yet I can’t seem to notice he’s very alive. As are all of these people. Who I might add all have Dark Marks, as seen by the skulls burned into their arms.”
Amelia Bones blinked for a long second. “We will have to interrogate them but since Pettigrew is supposed to be dead I think the whole case needs to be rolled up again. Shacklebolt. See to it that the kill on sight order is removed immediately, we need Black for questioning.” She barked at one of the Aurors who sprinted off to do as she said.
“Also you may wanna detain the Minister.” Harry smiled. “Seeing as number two here,” he pointed at Lucius Malfoy, “is his biggest campaign supporter and ‘friend’, it may be necessary. Unless Minister Fudge wants to try and imply I somehow managed to confound several far more experienced wizards into thinking they’re Death Eaters.”
Fudge went from figuratively stunned to literally stunned as Madame Bones motioned Harry to leave the pile of stunned criminals to her.
“Phew.” Harry sighed. “Now could someone get me to a bed, please? I’m really tired.” He grumbled before leaning to the side, only remaining upright thanks to Luna who had arrived just on time to stop him from falling.
The fallout of the third task was far bigger than Harry had realized.
Mostly because there were a lot of Death Eaters hiding in the Ministry, who now had to deal with a lot of mysterious Squibs with Dark Marks.
By the time that Harry was deemed ‘ready for questioning’ by Madam Pomfrey, she had insisted he get at least two days’ rest for some reason, though he suspected a part of it was just to annoy him specifically, the Ministry was tied up with a lot of different problems.
This did not stop Amelia Bones, Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore, though Albus insisted that Amelia’s presence wasn’t necessary, from visiting him.
All of Harry’s friends were there, including Percy, who Harry considered had earned that moniker by helping him so much this year.
“Mr. Potter. Harry.” Dumbledore began, his eyes twinkling in a way Harry hadn’t seen before. “Please enlighten us as to what happened after you touched the trophy.” He smiled in a grandfatherly fashion as Harry noticed that Snape had walked in and stood menacingly in the corner of the room.
So Harry explained what had happened in a decent amount of detail, though leaving out some as to not give the game away, what had occurred.
Percy had to almost force the urge to call Harry’s word delusional down but considering the past year he had some measure of epiphany about the Ministry and figured that Harry must have actually been downplaying what happened not exaggerating.
Snape however had no such compunctions. “You honestly mean for us to believe that you could defeat the Dark Lord, Potter? You must have hit your head harder than I thought.” He sneered.
“Well Professor Snape, sir.” Harry began, noticing that Snape was struggling slightly to move his left arm. “Perhaps you know a diagnostic spell Madam Pomfrey missed? You are an expert in some fields she isn’t after all? Would you mind casting one?”
Dumbledore, in a strange sense of foreboding, tried to intervene “Now Harry, I highly doubt that…”
“I think it’s rather obvious what’s going on.” Sirius smirked. “Harry mentioned the Death Eaters lost their magic. Snivelus can’t cast anything, he was your spy in their ranks after all.”
Snape blanched slightly, as did Dumbledore.
“You’re hiding something.” Snape growled, taking a few steps toward Harry’s bed. “What did you do, Potter?”
Dumbledore paused before deciding to speak up “I think, Harry, you owe at least the people here the truth. What did you do to Lord Voldemort? It’s clear that your solution, while it has worked, involved more than you shared.”
Harry blinked at the two men, then at Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny, Percy, Sirius, Madam Bones before settling on Luna and smiling. “Well Luna, you get to tell the whole thing now, with a lot of extra witnesses.”
Before anyone could ask, Harry started yelling. “Professional Medi-Witch Madame Pomfrey! As you have yet to tell me that I can or cannot leave I’ve decided to take initiative and leave on my own power, you may blame the Headmaster if I for some reason pass out!” With that he got up.
“Walk with me.” He instructed, he was wearing his average Hogwarts robes as he technically not interred for a medical reason.
Snape sneered, “Does this have to be a spectacle, Potter?!”
“Yes. I want to have my fun, so you’ll just have to bite it.” Harry answered, almost skipping to the door as Luna rushed to his side, the rest still slow to follow.
“Come on. I swear you’ll feel enlightened in a few minutes.” Harry motioned for them to follow.
“So!” Harry started as the giant procession slowly meandered through the halls. “Do you know the biggest thing that’s changed with me since the start of this year?”
“Your obsession with Portkeys.” Hermione deadpanned instantly.
“Yep. Got it in one.” Harry smirked before he continued, “You see, once I got into the tournament, I looked more into them. Figured they could be useful for it or at least fun.”
“So I checked the library a lot, even went into the restricted section but found nearly nothing on the subject. Then I asked Mr. Thorway, from the Magical Transportation Office, what he knew of them.”
“Well he knew more than the library. Though there were some unanswered questions” Harry smiled, “So I decided to answer three questions as I went through the tasks.”
“Question one: Is there a limit to how big a Portkey Subject can be?” He smiled, making a grand gesture. “As the dragon showed: Not really! I mean I could try a giant but that feels needless and excessive.” He giggled, making some of the others titter along slightly a bit nervously.
As they reached near the open air he continued, Dumbledore hanging on his every word “Then I set out to answer: Does it matter what condition someone is in when the Portkey activates? Turns out, no. No it really doesn’t. Doesn’t matter if you are alive, dead, unconscious or if it’s just an object. If a Portkey hits it, it goes where the Portkey is meant to send it.”
He smiled as they continued into the open fields near the castle “Now I didn’t have a chance to answer the third question during the third task. But I got the answer when dealing with Voldemort. The question was: ‘Is there a limit to how far a Portkey can go?’”
He paused for a dramatic effect, turning to face them, as the small crowd paused, wondering what his answer was.
“No.” He smiled. “There is not. My final Portkey dealing with him proved and continually proves that.”
Dumbledore blinked. “How exactly does it do that?”
Harry pointed up, specifically to something in the sky. “The last Portkey was a multi-key. I increased the distance with each jump. First to some more...hostile places around the Earth, then further.” He smiled.
He eventually shrugged, looking up and shielding his eyes lightly. “You wanted the Dark Lord to see the light, Headmaster. He is seeing it now, in fact I’d argue he will never see darkness for the rest of life.”
A long silence followed.
“You.” Snape began, slowly realising what Harry had said, “Sent. The Dark Lord. Into the SUN?!”
Harry shrugged “Yes. What do you want from me?” He asked airily. “He made everyone think he was invincible and immortal. There were only so many options to disprove that.”
He tittered as Luna walked beside him “Now if you’d excuse us, we’ll be going on a vacation. I hear Sweden is nice this time of year. We’ll see you when our next, quiet, Hogwarts year starts.” A small tap on the ring on his right hand later, they vanished.
Leaving the rest to blink in confusion and uncertainty as to how the future would look like.