Harry rubbed his eyes and mumbled, "Just a bad dream..."
"What's bad, Harry?" Neville asked in a friendly tone as he fumbled with his Gryffindor tie.
"Err, nothing. It's nothing Neville..." though at the moment Neville seemed to pay full concentration on adjusting his collar, then trying again to fix his tie once more.
Since the Goblet of Fire called out his name, Ron continued to ignore Harry by any means possible. By the time he had arrived at the table, Ron was nowhere in sight.
"Where's Ron? He isn't having breakfast now, what's the matter with him?"
Hermione lowered her book, "He ate... it's just he isn't here right now..."
"Why not?" Harry frowned, "He's been acting like this since last night..."
She scoffed, "Isn't obvious? He's jealous of you!"
"Me?"
"Oh, is that why Ron's acting weird?" Percy spoke from behind the two, startling them. He then turned towards Harry, "Well, if it isn't my fellow champion! You excited?"
Harry's smile faltered. Usually Percy was encouraging and supportive, but with the suspicions from Hermione and the rest of the group, now wasn't the time to think of each other as "friends."
"Yes." he said with a dull, flat tone.
Percy and the others frowned, obviously upset with the lack of friendliness and took it as a sign to sit somewhere else in the Great Hall. Being from another school, they didn't find constraint to sitting at only one table. After a few minutes of browsing the Great Hall, students urging them to sit here and there, they found a place at the Ravenclaw table beside Fleur Delacour and across from Luna Lovegood and Padma Patil.
Hermione nodded, "I know they're nice Harry, but it can all be an act. We shouldn't trust them 'till we get to the bottom of this." She slid the strange, foreign gold coin towards him.
Harry studied it in his hands, the coin barely fitted in his palm. The side facing him was engraved with a woman wearing a large helmet and spear in one hand. Attached onto her other arm was a large, round shield of a head drowning in a sea of snakes. 'No,' he thought to himself, 'the head's hair IS the snakes...' The shield looked frightening, and Harry was afraid to find how scared he would be if he saw it in real life. The woman held the shield level to her waist, which looked very strange with the toga dress she wore.
Harry flipped the coin over, viewing the other side.
This version of the coin looked quite different. Instead of the ancient looking armor, there was a modern-looking skyscraper with a storm of thunder and lightning hovering above. It took a moment to recognize it, but Harry soon realized what building it was, "Is that the-"
"Empire State Building? Yes, it is..." Hermione nodded as she looked over his shoulder to observe the coin as well.
"Then what's this side?" Harry flipped it back over to the menacing looking... why did he want to say queen? The figure seemed to have a leader sort of presence.
Hermione sighed, obviously stumped, "So far it looks most promising to believe it is Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom. My best guess is because of the shield. In ancient mythology, Perseus offered Medusa's head after completing his quest, which is why it's a symbol of the goddess." she shook her head, and began to show frustration in her voice, "But it doesn't make sense! This is ancient mythology, and I have no clue why this is related to them being Death Eaters or spies!"
Harry sighed, handing the coin back to her,
"Why would they have something like this?"
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Throughout Herbology, Thalia noticed the glares and rude looks over towards Harry. It was really weird yesterday seeing everyone being chosen, and then seeing them flooded with disappointment when the Goblet had made the error. Heck, if Percy and Annabeth weren't assigned to protect him, she would probably join in on the frustration too.
But looking at his side of the story... Whenever Harry was confronted about it, he would always reassure everyone that he was not the one that put his name in the Goblet. And he had no idea who did.
"What a load of hogwash! I know you did it!" one of the Hufflepuffs had said, before leaving Harry's table with his potted plant firmly in hand. Percy and Annabeth sighed, obviously keeping their distance because of his mood during breakfast.
Suspicions? Ya right! Like that's going to keep Thalia from butting into his business!
She picked up her Bubotuber plant and slammed it onto the empty seat, "Hiya Harry!" she grinned cheekily.
He looked a bit surprised, "Err, hello."
"Thank the gods he moved, Lavender kept on whining about her hands getting dirty... couldn't handle another second of that." From behind her, Thalia could hear Lavender gasp in horror, sending dirty glares in her direction, "Ah, shut up! Nobody cares about your chipped fingernail!" she yapped back at her.
Professor Sprout wasn't quite pleased with the interruption, "Detention! Ms... uh... what's your last name?"
Thalia scoffed, "Like you'll ever get to know." Before turning back to her Bubotuber.
Professor Sprout seemed to be flabbergasted, and quickly gave up on punishment. Already finding that it was a fight she was going to lose against the stubborn American.
"So? What's with the silent treatment today, huh?" Thalia raised an eyebrow, before pulling her wand out of her parka jacket. She didn't really know why though. Even if she was suppose to use it to perform a charm to make it easier to harvest the Bubotuber, she was rather rubbish when it came to spells. Why can't she just stab someone or use her bow? It's much more efficient...
Harry stammered, "Well.... I... er... after the events last night..." his eyes seemed to light up, thinking of an excuse, "Percy's the champion of your school, so I didn't know what you'd think if we were competing against each other."
She frowned, looked back towards Percy and Annabeth, then shrugged,
"Oh..." But she knew something else was up.
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Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia were still not allowed to intereact with the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Especially when the Hogwarts students began taking them on "walks."
Unfortunately during today's class, Seamus' skrewt just accomplished biting off its leash and started racing towards the three. Percy managed to chuck one of the smaller pumpkins at it just in time, forming a small skrewt-pancake, and saving Seamus from finishing his homework on the Blast-Ended Skrewts progress for today.
Hagrid wasn't very thrilled about another dead skrewt (only about twelve were left within the first week), but at least Percy had one more roommate that didn't hate him.
Professor Flitwick was actually quite pleased with his progress on the Summoning Charm. Percy had managed to cause a book to fling across the room ONCE, and aimed straight at his face. But apparently that was enough to make the teacher impressed, compared to his usual progress.
He still seemed like a star student based off of Thalia's reputation. Her book 'mysteriously' started to crackle with electricity once she got frustrated, but it still didn't budge.
Of course Annabeth succeeded no matter what, which wasn't really a surprise...
She gave him a kiss on the cheek once the book had toppled onto the floor and smiled, "Good job, Seaweed Brain. You're getting the hang of it!"
All and all, it caused him to be in a very happy mood when he arrived in the dungeons for Potions.
That's when he saw Harry out of the corner of his eye, and was reminded of their current problem.
If anything, they were pushing him farther and farther away, and they didn't have the leeway to become his enemy. They couldn't fail, but what could they possibly do to fix their friendship?
________________________________________________________________________________
"Well, if it isn't Hogwart's champion!" Malfoy sneered, walking up towards them.
Harry and Hermione both turned around, not in the mood to deal with Malfoy's taunts.
"Hey Potter, look at this!" he shouted as he held out an abnormally large pin in his hand. On the face of it in bold letters it said:
Support CEDRIC DIGGORY -
The REAL Hogwarts Champion!
Its glowing red letters attracted lots of attention, as the rest of the Slytherins in the crowd gestured towards their left shoulder, where they each wore the same pins.
"Real mature, Malfoy." Hermione spat venomously.
Draco grinned triumphantly, "But that's not all they do, take a look at this!" The pin's text wavered, and quickly turned a bright green; replacing the pin's face with the words:
POTTER STINKS
"Want one, Granger?" he offered her the pin, which Hermione crinkled her nose at in disgust, "Just don't touch my hand though, just washed it you see... Wouldn't want a mudblood to touch it."
Ron leaned against the wall, watching the whole scene from afar. Even though he seemed quite irritated about Malfoy's comments he still didn't intervene. He just stared at Harry with a cold expression on his face.
Combined with Ron's abandonment and the infuriating Malfoy, Harry decided it was time to take action. 'It's much more satisfying than magic,' Percy had said a few days ago after the fight with Malfoy, 'Getting your hands dirty, not waving that stupid stick around... it has more meaning then a few stuns and charms.'
Harry decided it was time to take a page out of his book.
Draco's stupid grin was immediately wiped off his face with a quick 'WHAM' as Harry punched him in the gut. Malfoy wrapped his arms around his stomach, before toppling over on the ground.
"Harry!" Hermione stared at him wide-eyed, clutching her books tightly, but a smile quickly formed across her lips, "Come on, we'll be late for potions."
Harry laughed triumphantly, and soon Hermione joined in as well. The two friends headed towards the dungeons.
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Word Count: 1,666