The morning after, Harry forgot for a minute that the task was already over. He woke up entirely convinced that the task was that morning, and he'd really just dreamed facing the dragon the first time.
Then reality set in, and he slumped against his pillows in a mixture of disbelief and overwhelming gratitude. He'd already done it. He didn't have to do it again. He never had to look at another dragon in his life if he didn't want to.
The castle was abuzz with chatter when he went down to breakfast, though for the first time since Halloween people were looking at him with amazement rather than annoyance. His little flying stunt had been the most visually impressive, according to just about everyone in Gryffindor Tower — Harry thought they were biased, but seeing a group of second year Slytherins staring at him and then break into hushed whispers and bright grins, maybe they weren't.
Either way, it was over. And now he was back to classes like nothing had happened.
Neville was checking on some sort of extra-credit Herbology project right after breakfast, so Harry walked up to Charms alone. At least, he tried; halfway there, he was yanked into a narrow passage behind a tapestry. "What—" He relaxed when he saw pale blond hair. "Draco, what the hell? Anyone could have seen that!"
"You reckless, idiotic, foolhardy disaster of a wizard," Draco hissed, grey eyes burning, fist still clenched in the front of Harry's robe. "Do you have any idea how many years it took off my life watching you fly around with that bloody dragon like it was a game of tag? You could have died!"
"Well, yeah," Harry said with a shrug. "But I didn't."
Draco stared at him incredulously. "Gryffindors!." The word sounded like an insult, but it made Harry grin.
And then Draco's fingers tightened around his robe, and he pulled Harry forward, their lips slamming together.
Harry forgot to breathe.
He forgot to do a lot of things, actually. Luckily instinct kicked in and he was kissing back before he could even think about it, his hand settling on Draco's shoulder. They parted, but not far, foreheads pressed together. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, alright?" Draco breathed. Harry was amazed the blond could find words. His head was still spinning, stuck in the moment Draco's lips touched his. Did this mean… what did this mean?
"I, er, can't guarantee that," he said eventually. "Triwizard champion. Harry Potter. Kinda comes with the territory."
Draco snorted, reluctantly amused. "A little bit of warning would have been nice, at least. 'I've got it handled, Draco'."
"I did have it handled!" Harry protested. "Look, I got the egg, I didn't die, I still have all my limbs. I'd say it was a resounding success."
The Slytherin stared at him, looking like he regretted every last one of the life choices that had brought him to that moment. Harry wanted to kiss him again. He wasn't sure if he was allowed. "I have to get to History of Magic," Draco said eventually, leaning back. Harry didn't let him go too far.
"Wait a minute, you can't just leave, are we not going to talk about what just happened?" Had he imagined it? Judging by the blush on Draco's cheeks, he definitely hadn't.
"Meet me tonight. Usual time, third floor classroom." Draco dropped his gaze for a moment, then met Harry's eyes. Harry was glad he didn't seem to be the only one whose entire worldview had been rocked in the last five minutes. He thought about pulling him closer, demanding they talk about it now, but they really didn't have time. He stepped back, letting Draco smooth down the front of his robes.
"See you tonight, then," he agreed, and with one last lingering look, he was gone.
.-.-.
Harry was noticeably distracted through the rest of his classes. Luckily, people seemed pretty happy to put it down to the shock of having faced a dragon the day before.
Hermione seemed to know better, by the suspicious looks she kept shooting him. Things like that were just another day in the life of Harry Potter. "What's the matter with you today?" she asked at lunch, and Harry shrugged, wishing his brain could think of anything except the feel of Draco Malfoy's lips on his own. Someone could have walked up to him and given him the solution to the second task, and he probably wouldn't have paid attention. "Nothing," he lied easily. "Just tired."
The curly-haired girl levelled him with a long, slightly sad look. "I miss the days when you used to tell me things," she said eventually. A tendril of guilt wormed its way around Harry's heart. Should he be trusting her more than he was? What if he'd misjudged things?
He shook it off. If Hermione wanted to be told things, she should have stuck up for him when Ron was being a pillock.
"I don't have to tell you everything about my life, Hermione," he replied, slightly harsher than he'd intended. Hermione flinched, and Harry felt bad about it for a minute.
There was a moment, right there, that Harry would later look back on and wonder if he could have changed things. If he'd just opened up to Hermione, she might have come around. But he was tired, and he'd just faced a dragon, and kissed Draco Malfoy, and he really didn't have the brain capacity for anything more complicated. So he let it go, and Hermione pursed her lips, and walked away.
.-.-.
Other things that Harry didn't have the brain capacity for included a meeting with the heirs right before dinner, but he didn't know when he'd next get the chance, and the clock was ticking. They deserved to know the truth.
They were all gathered when he arrived, slumping down into his usual empty chair.
"What's all this about, then?" Anthony asked, quill tucked behind his ear as he looked up from an essay he was writing. "Surely you don't want to study that desperately after yesterday."
No, if Harry had his way, he'd be in bed until dinnertime. "I was talking to Neville, and I think it's time I tell you all about the full reason Dumbledore can't know about this. About me. I'm trusting you with an awful lot, and it's unfair that you're not being told why. Also, you'll need to be in on it if we're going to achieve what I'm hoping for."
"And just what is it, exactly, that you're hoping to achieve?" The question came from Padma, her gaze shrewd. Harry winked at her.
"World domination." The answer made several people laugh. Harry sat up straighter, and took a long breath.
"When I was a baby, Dumbledore did a ritual to block my family magics from my core."
There was a beat of silence. Everyone was too horrified to speak. Then finally, Susan swore loudly. The sound of such a filthy curse coming from the mild-mannered Hufflepuff's lips was almost as shocking as Harry's announcement.
"How dare he!" she exclaimed. "If my aunt ever found out, he'd be dead before he could make it to Azkaban!"
"One day, maybe," Harry said with a shrug. "It's not worth getting the truth out just yet. I need too much information from him first."
"He's turning you into a weapon." Harry whipped around to look at Sullivan Fawley, whose dark eyes were frighteningly aware. "A block that extended from a man like him on a person as powerful as yourself, you'd explode as soon as you turned seventeen. Or the moment the block was released."
The realisation went around the room quickly. Harry nodded. "Whatever he's planning, he's aiming for a moment in my life, before I turn seventeen, where he can pull the pin and make me go boom. Along with the block was a Compulsion charm — to make me reckless, and to make me easily influenced. Dumbledore made himself my saviour, with just enough magic to stop me looking for other options. So that when I was surrounded by people who said that all Slytherins were dark wizards and I should hate them, I agreed. When someone told me all Hufflepuffs were the Hogwarts rejects, I smiled and nodded. When I heard that Ravenclaws had their noses too far in books to be worth talking to, I didn't question it. Obviously, I know better now. I got the block and the charm removed before third year, and it's only a matter of time before he finds out. But I'll be ready when he does."
"So where do we come in?" Blaise asked quietly.
"When I expose Dumbledore, it's going to rock the foundations of the wizarding world. As far as they're all concerned, he can do no wrong, and I'm just an idiot teenager with a death-wish and a puffed up sense of self-importance. Skeeter isn't helping with these articles."
"Aunt Amelia's working on that," Susan assured. "You should get a letter from her at the end of the week."
Harry nodded; that was one angle covered. "Between us we have thirteen seats to inherit. I know of three more I can trust. And I'm betting there's a few more, if we can go about it the right way." He glanced pointedly at the Slytherins. There was no way they and Draco were the only Slytherins who didn't want the dark to rise. They just had to be wary of their parents.
"I'm not counting thirteen," Anthony cut in, looking around the room. Harry bit his lip; he had to tell them eventually.
"I'm the heir to the Potter, Black and Peverell seats," he declared. There was no point in telling them about Slytherin; from the sounds of things, that would sit passive his whole life.
"Well, fuck," Daphne muttered incredulously. "That'll take three of Dumbledore's proxy seats away." A catlike smirk flashed across her pale face. "You're going to cause all sorts of trouble, aren't you, Potter?"
"That is how it usually ends up, yeah," he admitted, because even though he didn't try and cause trouble, it always just sort of… happened. "So there's enough of us to have a good safety net when it all goes to shit. But there could be more. Even if they're not with us, if we can make them neutral at the very least — in an ideal world, every student who leaves this castle in the next five years would do so wanting to serve neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore. Because the way things are going, that's a very real choice they're going to have to make."
"Who would you rather we serve, you?" Cassius asked somewhat snidely. Harry winced.
"Merlin, no. I'm asking people to serve no one, but to fight with me. For themselves. For the good of the wizarding world."
A long silence followed his words. It was Daphne who broke it by snorting. "Bit dramatic." Harry flushed.
"You're proposing a third side to the war? Right under Dumbledore's nose?" Susan's sharp gaze met his. He nodded slowly.
"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I am."
Harry looked around the room at the children gathered in front of him — because that's what they were. Children who had seen too much, who had been raised in a time that didn't give them a chance to be young, but children nonetheless. What was it the muggles were always saying? Children were the future?
If Harry didn't take a stand, he'd be dead before he was seventeen. And if the only people willing to help him were kids his own age, well. He was constantly surprising people — why couldn't they, as well?
.-.-.-.
Somewhat unintentionally inciting a minor revolution was the least of Harry's worries as he crept through the corridors beneath his invisibility cloak, heart pounding so loud he was surprised it didn't echo off the walls. He pushed open the door to the unused third floor classroom, breath catching in his throat at the sight of Draco perched on the edge of the teacher's desk. He looked up, smile more shy than Harry had ever seen from the young Malfoy. "Hi, Harry."
Harry lingered by the door. Seconds ticked by with neither of them moving. Abruptly Harry realised that Draco's little burst of courage that morning had been more motivated by panic than anything else, and if he wanted another kiss he was either going to have to buck up and do it himself, or wait until he got into another life-or-death situation. And while those were becoming increasingly common for him, Harry didn't want to wait.
He strode across the classroom until he was stood right in front of Draco, almost between his knees, the blond boy freezing at the sudden movement. Harry met his gaze. "I'm going to kiss you, now," he warned. Draco didn't move. Harry leaned in.
This time, both of them were expecting it, and it was so much better. Draco's lips were astonishingly soft against his own, the Slytherin's hand resting on Harry's hip, pulling him just that little bit closer until Harry was stood between Draco's thighs, the blond barely on the edge of the desk. Harry heard a faint moan that may have come from him, but also might've been Draco, and when a tongue peeked out and swiped across his bottom lip, he broke away, blushing.
They stared at each other.
"That was… nice," Harry said lamely. Draco kept staring.
"Nice. Nice? That's really all you've got to say?"
"Well I don't know, do I?" Harry retorted defensively. "I've never kissed anyone before!"
That made Draco blink in surprise. "What, really? So… I was your first?" Harry scowled at him; he had been a little busy thus far in his life! Suddenly, Draco smirked. "Maybe we should try it again. See if I can't do a little better than nice." His words were cocky, but he raised a pale eyebrow at Harry before leaning in again, as if to check it was okay with him. Harry did what he'd been wanting to do for months and slid a hand into the soft blond strands at the back of Draco's head, pulling him back in to a kiss.
Just because Harry didn't know what he was doing didn't mean he wasn't keen to learn.
From what all the boys in his dorm had said, kissing was something that just… came naturally. Harry had always been skeptical, sure that if it ever came to it he wouldn't know what to do and would make a fool of himself, but Draco didn't seem to be complaining. Harry was too busy enjoying himself to over-analyse every little movement, though having someone else's tongue in his mouth was a bit weird. Good weird, though.
Eventually they had to breathe, and Draco leaned back on one hand, looking up at Harry with hooded eyes. "So you like me, then." His tone was unbearably smug. Harry poked him in the thigh.
"You're not a total prat," he returned cheekily. "And… you like me?"
"Despite my best efforts not to," Draco sighed. He reached out with his free hand, capturing one of Harry's and threading his fingers together. "The Boy-Who-Lived and the son of a Death Eater. What will the Prophet say?"
"I don't care," Harry whispered fiercely, wanting to get one thing clear right from the start. "I know it's not safe to be open about… this, not for either of us. But I don't care what people will say when they find out. They don't matter."
Some of the tension seemed to fall from Draco's shoulders. "Good. That's— good." His lips quirked. "I suppose that means I can take the hit to my reputation that will come from being known to fraternise with a Gryffindor." They stayed there for a minute, holding hands and grinning at each other like idiots.
"So are we, like, boyfriends now, then, or…?" Harry trailed off expectantly, unsure how that sort of thing went. Draco gave an ungainly snort.
"Disaster," he declared affectionately. He leaned forward, pressing his lips to Harry's once more. "Yeah, alright, Scarhead," he agreed, breath whispering across Harry's skin. "I'll be your boyfriend."
If nothing else came from the Triwizard Tournament — and he was still alive by the end of it — at least it had given him this, sort of.
.-.-.-.
Sirius ended the conversation and watched his godson's beaming face fade from the surface of the mirror, then let out a quiet cheer of success. He bounded out of bed, hurrying to the living room and hoping the lovebirds hadn't gone to bed yet. Severus didn't get many chances to get away from Hogwarts, and when he did they tended to lock themselves away in their room for half of it. "Oi, Snape!" he called, finding the pair on the sofa by the fire, both reading. Remus had his bare feet wedged under Severus' thigh. "Our family ties just got closer than ever!"
"I have no idea what you're blabbering about," Severus sighed, looking unimpressed. Sitting down on the coffee table to face them, Sirius grinned.
"Our godsons are snogging," he announced proudly. He'd had his doubts about the Malfoy kid at first, but he was far more Black than Malfoy, and Harry could probably do worse.
The slight uptick of Severus' eyebrow was all the sign he gave of acknowledgment. Remus actually put his book down.
"Don't you think that's information Draco would have liked to bring to me in his own time?" Severus drawled. Sirius shrugged unrepentantly.
"You're a spy, you can fake being surprised."
"As if any of us would be surprised by that turn of events," Remus said dryly, putting his book down. "It's been coming for months."
"Well, the moment has finally arrived. From the sounds of things, seeing Harry put himself in mortal danger made Draco feel all sorts of impulsive, Gryffindorish feelings. He cornered Harry behind that tapestry of Chief Bragge by the Charms room and planted one on him while telling him off at the same time."
Remus gave Severus a look that made Sirius want to vomit a little bit. "Ah, that sounds familiar," he sighed fondly.
"I don't recall you risking your neck nearly half as often as Potter does," Severus retorted evenly. Sirius snickered.
"Yeah, Draco will have to get a handle on that whole 'wanting to snog him every time he does something reckless' thing. He'll be found out in a week." Sirius loved his godson, but Harry's regard for his own personal safety was… not fantastic.
"They'll both have to be careful," Remus said, sobering up. The three of them shared an uneasy look. These were dangerous times for a Potter and a Malfoy to be dating.
"We'll protect them the best we can," Sirius vowed, before grinning again. "Oh, Cissa will be thrilled! Harry's got four houses to his name, you don't get much more pureblood than that." Regardless of the muggle side of his family, that was a sort of status boost that even Lucius Malfoy wouldn't turn his nose up at. If not for the whole 'being Harry Potter' part, of course.
"Don't you dare tell Narcissa before Draco can," Remus scolded. "That's his news to share."
Sirius pouted, but nodded, knowing it wouldn't be fair on Draco to spoil that moment for him. He'd just eagerly await his cousin's owl once she heard the news.
.-.-.
It was the worst thing in the world, being on cloud nine and not being able to tell anyone about it. The secret was filling Harry's chest, desperate to burst through his lungs and declare to the world that Draco Malfoy was his boyfriend. But he couldn't.
He did tell George, though. Which had the unintended result of also telling Fred, and Harry used the time to tell them the truth about Dumbledore, too. Both because they needed to know, and to distract them from the news that he was dating a Malfoy.
It sort-of worked. They were too busy being angry at Dumbledore and confused by their mother's actions to really say anything about his choice of boyfriend, but they got round to congratulating him eventually. In between some mild insults to Draco's father, which Harry couldn't really complain about. Draco's father was the worst.
Having two people at school know his secret was enough, sort-of. It had to be, for now.
Harry almost thought about telling Neville, but the other Gryffindor didn't even know that Harry liked boys, and every time he tried to bring it up the words got stuck in his throat. It was ridiculous; he knew Neville wasn't going to judge him. But he still couldn't bring himself to say it. It didn't help that Hermione had decided she wanted to be friends again, and was at his side almost every free moment he had.
Tugging his cloak tighter around himself, Harry surveyed the few remaining blast-ended skrewts that they had just failed to encourage to hibernate, somewhat wishing one of them would set something on fire. Not anything important, mind. But it was freezing outside, and warming charms could only do so much.
"Well, this does look like fun!" The overly-cheerful voice made Harry even colder.
His letter from Amelia Bones had arrived the weekend after the first task, as Susan had promised it would, introducing Harry to the lawyer that would be helping him take legal action against Rita Skeeter. He'd been assured that it was most definitely not legal to quote a minor who had denied being interviewed, and a warning had been sent to Ms Skeeter forthwith. Clearly she was looking for other angles. Harry was amazed the woman was even allowed in the castle.
To Harry's surprise, she didn't immediately come up to him. Instead she started talking to Hagrid about the skrewts, smirking delightedly as the man got more and more flustered. Harry watched with a feeling of impending dread; she was doing this because of him. She knew she wasn't supposed to talk to him, so she was going to start going for the people he cared about instead. That bitch.
"Oh, you're here, Harry. Hello, there!" she greeted far too innocently, before turning back to Hagrid and asking him more about the skrewts, eventually making arrangements to meet for a proper interview at the Three Broomsticks. Class ended, and Skeeter stayed by the hut as the rest of them trudged up towards the castle.
"She's going to twist everything he says," Hermione breathed, horrified. Harry grimaced. "You should've just given her that interview, Harry. She wouldn't be going anywhere near Hagrid then."
Harry stared at the girl, unable to believe what she'd just said. "Excuse me?"
"Well it's obvious the real story is you, and you're not giving her anything! So she's got to get her dirt elsewhere," Hermione said diplomatically.
"The article she did about me was bad enough without me giving her more fuel for the fire!" Harry argued. "She writes nothing but rubbish, and I don't need her dragging my name into her ridiculous lies. My reputation is bad enough as it is."
"Since when have you cared about your reputation?" Hermione's voice was sharp. "Surely, knowing what people think of you already, you should just let her write whatever she wants about you, to stop her writing awful things about anybody else. Clearly she's not going to stop looking for a story from you, she's just going to drag everyone else into the crossfire."
"What, so I should just throw myself under the bus?" Harry spat back. "That's easy for you to say, Hermione; you're not the one whose face is in the paper every bloody five minutes. You're not the one who has to deal with the public's opinion every time you so much as breathe!" He forced himself to try and calm down; if their argument got much louder, Skeeter would hear him, and then she'd really have a story.
"But I was in the paper," Hermione argued. "People think I'm your girlfriend now, because she started making up her own rubbish when you didn't give her anything!"
"And I'm sorry about that, I really am," Harry said earnestly. "But it isn't my fault, and for all we know she would've written that crap anyway. Besides, no one really thinks you're my girlfriend."
Hermione went red at that. "Some people do," she spat. "If you had any sort of consideration for others, you'd stop throwing a tantrum and just agree to an interview."
Harry rather thought that only one of them was throwing a tantrum at the minute, and it certainly wasn't him. Still, he merely shook his head, turning back towards the castle. It wasn't worth the argument. .-.-.
Every time Harry opened that bloody golden egg, it just screamed at him. It was getting incredibly frustrating, both for him and the other residents of Gryffindor Tower. The only good thing to come of it was the improvement of Harry's Silencing charm, once Seamus had threatened to throw both Harry and the egg out the dorm window if he didn't stop opening it indoors.
"Does yours just screech the whole time?" Harry asked wearily, sliding onto the bench of the Hufflepuff table next to Cedric. They had only sat together a handful of times since the day after the champions had been announced, but Harry was somewhat starting to get used to it. Cho offered him a wave from Cedric's other side.
"Yes," Cedric groaned, running a hand through his hair. "It's the worst, isn't it? We even tried throwing it in the fire to see if that would do anything, but I think it just made it worse."
"What he means is, Patrick got so pissed off at the noise it was making, he threw it in the fire in the hopes it would stop," Cho supplied, grinning. Harry snickered.
"I tried 'exing my egg," Fleur declared, gracefully stepping over the bench and dropping down opposite them. "Eet did not 'elp." Alongside Fleur were two other Beauxbatons students, and a couple of Ravenclaws. Harry recognised one of them as Roger Davies, the quidditch captain.
"What spells did you use? Maybe we can compare lists," Cedric said thoughtfully.
"It has got to be some sort of creature," Viktor insisted, sitting much less gracefully on Fleur's open side. He brought with him a Durmstrang boy, and Cassius Warrington. Cassius caught Harry's eye, and winked.
"We already faced a creature in the first task, though," Harry pointed out. "Surely they wouldn't just make us face a different one? That's not very imaginative."
"What if the creature is part of the clue itself?" Cedric suggested. "Like, we don't have to fight it, but knowing what it is will give us an idea of where it comes from, and that might have something to do with it."
"Or ze 'ole thing is just to waste our time, and eet will be anuzzer surprise." Fleur scowled into her soup as she spoke, clearly fed up with the egg already. Harry could definitely relate.
He saw Neville walk into the hall and do a double-take at Harry's position, and he beckoned him over, patting the bench beside him. Neville complied, though he looked a little confused at being invited into the odd group.
Neville wasn't the only extra addition, though. Like a chain reaction, people began to join them; Roger invited a Slytherin girl over, and she brought her Ravenclaw friend. One of the Beauxbatons boys with Fleur managed to flirt enough with Katie Bell to bring her to the table, which of course brought Angelina and Alicia, which naturally brought the twins and Lee Jordan. Cassius swapped places with the Durmstrang boy to sit and talk to his fellow Slytherin, and the next thing Harry knew there were four more Slytherins at the table, striking up a conversation with the Durmstrang boy in what sounded like German. Before lunch was even halfway through, the entire end third of the Hufflepuff table was taken up by students from other houses and other schools. The Hufflepuffs had just spaced themselves between them, happily joining in whichever conversation was closest.
"What if we try making all four eggs scream at the same time? To see if there's any differences?"
"NO!" was the immediate response to Cedric's casual suggestion, from everyone in the vicinity who had heard the eggs.
"I'll be so glad when you lot figure it all out," Cho declared vehemently. "I swear, I can hear that thing in my sleep these days." Neville nodded in agreement.
A hush fell over the table, and it took Harry a minute to realise it was because Dumbledore was approaching. He didn't look amused. "Mr Potter," he greeted, his voice cheerful enough. "You and several of your friends here seem to have lost your way to your house tables."
Harry wasn't sure how the headmaster could pin this one on him, or how he could declare forty-odd people, half of whom Harry had never spoken to, 'his friends'.
"There's no rules about having to sit at our tables every meal, sir," Cedric piped up innocently. "Only during formal feasts."
"We're just trying to make the other schools feel welcome," Angelina agreed. She was sat beside a Beauxbaton girl with hair down to her waist, and was fixing it in several tiny braids down her back.
Dumbledore stared at them all for a long minute, then smiled. Harry was sure he wasn't the only one who could see the angry fire hiding in those twinkling blue eyes. "Excellent, excellent." He said nothing more, continuing on his way to the head table, and slowly the chatter started back up. Harry looked up at Susan Bones, who was sat with Parvati and Lavender, discussing dress robes. Susan caught his eye and grinned.
It was beginning.