The letter came late in the evening, delivered not by school owl but by a nondescript tawny bird, carrying Remus Lupin's distinct seal. Harry broke it open quietly in the common room, while most students were already drifting off to their dormitories.
The letter was written in neat, deliberate strokes—Remus's usual calm voice came through even in ink.
Harry,
I've spoken with Dumbledore.
I brought him the truth. I brought him memories from the Shrieking Shack. I showed him proof that Peter Pettigrew is alive, and that Sirius is innocent. But he... refused. He refused to act. Said the Ministry would not accept it without Pettigrew himself in custody.
I don't think it's only that, Harry. He didn't say it, but I believe it's because I defied him this summer. I didn't return you to the Dursleys. I kept you with Sirius, like your parents would have wanted.
Be careful around him. There are layers to Albus Dumbledore. He is a great man, but even great men can let power cloud their hearts.
- Remus
Harry folded the parchment slowly, his face unreadable.
It wasn't shock he felt. It was confirmation. For months, a quiet suspicion had been growing inside him. That Dumbledore—who claimed to be his protector—wasn't acting in Harry's best interest. That maybe, just maybe, the old wizard had never really seen Harry as anything more than a piece on the chessboard.
And now... he was sure of it.
The next day, he brought the letter to the library, where Hermione sat working on her notes for Ancient Runes. She noticed the serious look on his face instantly.
"What is it?" she asked.
Harry slid the letter across the table.
Hermione read it once. Then again.
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
"So... he won't help Sirius?"
"No," Harry said flatly. "Because helping Sirius would mean giving up control of me."
Hermione closed her book. Her eyes flickered with thought.
"You think that's why he insisted you stay with the Dursleys?"
"I know it." Harry's voice was bitter. "He has too much power over me if Sirius stays a fugitive. Right now, he's my magical guardian. That's why he gets to make decisions. But if Sirius is cleared—"
"He loses that control," Hermione finished.
They sat in silence for a while.
"This is horrible," she said finally. "I always admired Professor Dumbledore. But… if he can look at Sirius, after everything he's been through, and still refuse to help…"
"Exactly," Harry nodded. "He talks about justice and light and fighting Voldemort. But when it really matters, he does nothing."
A voice interrupted them from across the table.
"You lot talking about Dumbledore?" Ron asked, a sandwich in hand. "Because you better not be saying what I think you're saying."
Harry and Hermione exchanged glances.
"We're just being honest," Hermione said carefully.
Ron dropped into a seat beside them, looking uneasy.
"Mum and Dad always said Dumbledore was the greatest wizard alive. Without him, we'd have lost the war. He's the reason Hogwarts is safe."
Harry met his friend's eyes.
"And what about Sirius, Ron? What about him rotting in Azkaban for twelve years for something he didn't do?"
Ron fidgeted.
"I—I dunno. Maybe Dumbledore has reasons. He always does. He knows more than we do."
Hermione gave him a pointed look.
"That's exactly what Dumbledore wants everyone to think. That he knows best. That we shouldn't ask questions."
"He's playing a long game, Ron," Harry added. "And I think I'm at the center of it."
Ron stood up, suddenly uncomfortable.
"You lot sound like conspiracy theorists. I'm going to the common room."
And with that, he walked away.
Harry turned to Hermione.
"Guess I know whose side I'll take from now on, when you two argue."
She smiled, faintly, touched.
"Thank you."
The weight of truth hung between them—heavy but freeing. Harry had always been alone in his doubts. Now, he had someone beside him who saw things just as clearly.
Dumbledore might still hold sway over Hogwarts. But not over Haraldin Slytherin.
Not anymore.
The Great Hall had never felt more crowded—or more tense.
Ministry officials in sharp robes had arrived with pomp and ceremony, and at the center of the hall stood a large, ancient cup pulsing with blue-white flames. The Goblet of Fire. The centerpiece of the coming storm. All around it, students whispered excitedly, the buzz of competition already infecting the air.
Harry sat at the Gryffindor table, half-listening as the Ministry's representative, a man named Barty Crouch Senior, gave a long-winded speech about the history and prestige of the Triwizard Tournament.
"Glory," Crouch declared grandly, "eternal fame and a prize of one thousand Galleons awaits the champion who triumphs through the three harrowing tasks!"
The students clapped enthusiastically. Most of them, anyway.
Harry Potter simply returned to reading the slim leather-bound volume Remus had gifted him that summer—Mental Defenses and the Magic Within: An Arithmantic Approach to Mind Discipline.
He didn't need the glory. He didn't need the money. And most of all—he didn't need any more danger.
Since the age of eleven, his life had been a non-stop whirlwind of magical threats: trolls in bathrooms, basilisk serpents, acromantulas in the forest, Dementors on trains, and dark wizards hiding under his nose. If anything, his life had already felt like one long, twisted version of the Triwizard Tournament.
What was the point of entering another one on purpose?
Even now, as the goblet sparked and flickered, casting strange shadows across the enchanted ceiling, Harry felt an odd chill. Something about this whole affair didn't sit right with him. But he kept quiet.
Later that evening, back in the Gryffindor common room, the air was thick with noise.
Fred and George were animatedly discussing how to get around the age restriction. Lee Jordan was taking notes as they debated various aging potions, decoy charms, and other forbidden techniques.
"I say we brew the potion tomorrow," Fred said, eyes gleaming. "Just enough to fool the goblet for an hour or two."
"We could make history, George," said Fred.
"We could be history," George countered, but he was grinning just the same.
Ron flopped into the armchair beside Harry, his cheeks flushed with excitement.
"Can you imagine, Harry? The Triwizard Champion? Your name in every paper, your face on the front page of the Daily Prophet—you'd be bigger than Ludo Bagman!"
Harry didn't even glance up from his book.
"Sounds awful," he muttered.
"Awful?" Ron looked personally offended. "Come on, you get to compete against the best from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, do spells no one else can do, and then take home a thousand Galleons!"
Harry finally looked at him.
"Ron, I already have more money than I could ever spend."
"Oh, right," Ron said, voice flat. "Must be nice."
Hermione, sitting across the table and scribbling in her Arithmancy notes, glanced up sharply.
"Money isn't everything, Ron," she said. "And the Tournament is dangerous. People have died in it before. Dumbledore said so himself."
Ron shrugged.
"Yeah, but they'll make it safe this time. Right? I mean, Dumbledore wouldn't let anyone die—again."
Harry went back to reading.
"I just want a normal year."
But even as he said it, he knew better. At Hogwarts, there was no such thing as normal—especially not for him.
The days passed quickly. The Goblet remained in the Great Hall under heavy magical protections. Students from every house passed through, murmuring spells of luck, tossing in parchments with names scribbled on them, and wondering who would be chosen.
Harry spent his days mostly away from the chaos.
He trained in secret, as always, in the room of requirement on the seventh floor. Dobby, now fully dressed in his eccentric Basilisk-hide uniform, was his sparring partner. The little elf wielded wandless magic like a master duelist—fast, erratic, and shockingly strong.
"Again, Master Harry!" Dobby chirped as he sent a pulse of force energy crackling toward him.
Harry twisted, raised his hand, and caught it midair with a telekinetic grip. The force trembled between his fingers like a caged animal. With a flick, he returned the energy, and Dobby squealed as he flipped backward—but landed on his feet, grinning.
"Master Harry has become very strong!"
Harry gave a small smile.
"Still not strong enough to stop being dragged into other people's games."
Dobby tilted his head.
"Is Harry Potter worried about the Goblet choosing him?"
Harry's expression darkened.
"It's not supposed to. I'm not putting my name in. But... this is Hogwarts. Things never go the way they're supposed to."
The room was a blur of motion and power.
Wards lined every inch of the enchanted dueling area Harry had secretly set up in the chamber of Salazar. The walls shimmered with containment runes—layered by Dobby and reinforced by Harry using notes from Salazar Slytherin's Holocron. Inside that chamber, raw power danced like lightning between two blurred figures.
Harry twisted mid-air, ducking under a blast of wandless wind conjured by Dobby. The little house-elf spun like a comet, vanishing from sight only to reappear behind Harry with a sharp crack of displacement magic. Their sparring had evolved far beyond simple spells or Force pushes—they were weaving spells, illusions, and telekinetic assaults in a brutal, beautiful dance of power.
Harry's lightsaber—crafted from magical crystal and Sith schematics—hummed with a bright amber blade as he swung to parry a flash of blue magic from Dobby's fingers. They collided mid-air, and the entire room shook with the backlash.
To anyone not trained in both Force and magic, the two of them might have looked like phantoms—streaks of motion, flashes of energy, disorienting bursts of speed.
But Harry was sweating now. Dobby was faster.
Faster than he had any right to be.
Dobby blurred across the room again, casting a blade of wind and flame that arced toward Harry's head. Harry barely ducked in time and retaliated with a focused burst of telekinetic pressure—Force Crush. Dobby blocked it with a tight ball of magical light and flung three hexes in return.
Harry rolled across the floor and grinned.
"Alright, Dobby. You win this round."
But Dobby wasn't stopping.
The house-elf's eyes were narrowed, focused. He moved as if something deeper, older, was driving him.
Harry closed his eyes briefly—and cast an illusion.
It wasn't a destructive spell, not even painful. But it was something personal.
A mirage of Malfoy Manor shimmered into existence behind Harry. Tall walls, cold torches, and the sneering visage of Lucius Malfoy. In the illusion, the elder Malfoy snapped his fingers and raised his cane at a younger Dobby.
"You dare speak without permission?" the phantom Lucius bellowed.
And Dobby froze.
His breath hitched. The magic around him shifted—growing unstable, volatile. A tremor passed through his small body.
"N-no... not again... Dobby is... not there... Dobby is... free..."
But his voice shook. And then—
A crack of raw power echoed across the room.
Dobby's eyes flared bright red, for just a blink.
And then came the storm.
With a scream of rage and memory, the air thickened, and from Dobby's outstretched hand erupted a bolt of brilliant violet lightning. It lanced forward, screaming with energy, arcing toward Harry like a vengeful storm unleashed.
"DOBBY—STOP!" Harry cried, raising his hand.
He summoned his strongest shield. Layered. Reinforced. Both magical and Force-hardened.
The lightning struck it with a deafening blast.
And then—it shattered.
The shield collapsed like glass, and the bolt struck Harry square in the chest. His body jerked, convulsed, and he was flung backward into the stone wall. He let out a howl of pain before falling to the floor, smoke curling from his robes.
The chamber went still.
Dobby blinked rapidly. The red in his eyes faded. He dropped to his knees and scrambled to Harry.
"Master Harry! Master Harry! Dobby didn't mean—Dobby didn't know—it just—just happened!"
Harry groaned, coughing, but raised a hand.
"I'm... alright... I think..." He winced. "That hurt like hell... but Dobby... that was very powerful technique."
A low hum came from the wall.
The Holocron of Salazar Slytherin, hovering silently on its pedestal. The ghostly visage of Salazar was watching the duel, his dark eyes glinting with interest.
"That," Salazar said slowly, voice heavy with ancient knowledge, "was a manifestation of wrath-fueled Force energy—Force Lightning. Rare among Jedi. Common among Sith. But nearly unheard of from one with a pure heart like that elf."
Harry blinked, still recovering.
"Why did it come out now?"
Salazar's image floated forward.
"It is born from pain. From suffering. From the pure intensity of emotion that cannot be suppressed. For a being like the elf—who has known degradation, trauma, and powerlessness—this was inevitable. He reached into the deepest part of his soul and found power."
Dobby looked horrified.
"Dobby never meant to hurt master Harry. Dobby saw the manor. Dobby saw... saw him again. And something inside... it broke. Dobby was only trying to make it stop."
Harry sat up fully, still tingling with residual pain.
"You did nothing wrong, Dobby. You're stronger than you know. I'm proud of you."
Dobby's ears drooped, but his eyes shimmered with emotion.
"Dobby... Dobby will help master learn it too. Dobby doesn't know how... but Dobby will try."
Salazar's Holocron swirled and narrowed its ghostly eyes.
"He may not know... but I do. And if you are willing to embrace all sides of the Force, young Haraldin, I will teach you."
Harry inhaled deeply.
"I'm ready."
And thus began the next stage of Harry's training—not just in defense, but in raw power. For the Force was not light or dark. It simply was.
And Haraldin would master it all.