Chapter Text
“Did you guys knew that my name is apparently Hadrian?”
“What the Hell are you talking about, mate?”
“Harry, I swear to Hades, if you brought me to the middle of the Forbidden Forest at this unholy hour just to tell me you just found out your full name, I'll throw hands.”
“Now, 'Mione, why are you so annoyed? It is full moon yet? Do you want some chocolate?”
“For the last time, Ronald, I am not a werewolf!”
“The why do you always get annoyed once a month?”
“Because I have a uterus, you twerp! Never heard of basic human biology?!”
“No, I hadn't. I don't know if you remember, but I never went to muggle school and Hogwarts doesn't have biology classes!”
“Of course they don't, or else pure-bloods would be face with the painful truth of inbreeding.”
Ron and Hermione bickering doesn't annoy Harry as much as it used to. They are a lot tamer nowadays in comparison with their first year. Ron as kind of jerk back then, maybe Harry was too. Eleven years old should not be expected to be nice and easy when living away from home for the first time ever. That is just as stupid as putting a lid on a boiling cauldron and then being surprised when it explodes on your face.
Fortunately they're way past being overly excited, deeply annoying and low-key home sick eleven-years-old. Now they're overly hormonal, deeply sassy and low-key mood fourteen-years-old. Progress in Harry's opinion.
“I found a way to get out of the tournament.” Harry cuts their argument.
Hermione and Ron shut up in a second and turn to face him.
“Merlin's panties, that awesome Harry!” Ron all but screams. Hermione slaps him in the arm to shush him.
“What is the away?”
“The rules says that my magical guardian or a bloody relative can take me out of the competition.”
Harry seems as Ron's smiles rapidly vanishes of his face.
“But that means—”
“— that Dumbledore could have take you out at any time.”
“He could've,” Harry agrees. He doesn't even tries to masquerade his angry. Harry is done pretend that he doesn't hate Dumbledore and his ways.
“That sick bastard!” Ron rage. “He yelled at you, he let the whole school turn on you, and made you anxious and scared and tried to force you into participating in this bullshit when all there was to be done was he saying a few words to get to you out? How could he? I hope he trips o his beard going down the stairs and break his neck.”
“Don't be stupid, Ron. His beard isn't big enough for that.”
“Then I will jinx his beard and make it grow enough for that.”
“But then you could be arrested for murder if caught.”
“So I don't get caught, easy.”
“Can you guys stop plotting to murder Brian on the open where everyone can hear you?” Harry suggests.
“Brian?”
“It is two in the morning, in November, in the Scottish Highlands, and we're in the middle of a forest, there's no one to hear us.”
“Except—”
“— maybe —”
“— us!”
Harry, Ron and Hermione spin towards the voices to see Fred and George coming out of the shadows of a nearby tree.
“Why are you here?”
“Oh, Ronnikins, do you really thought we won't notice the Golden Trio disappearing at the middle of the night?”
"Not only disappearing, but going in the direction of the Forbidden Forest?"
"Of course not!"
"So as two very concerned older bothers—"
"— we followed you, of course."
“We go out all the time and you guys never care?” Ron points out.
Once more Hermione slaps him in the arm.
“Can you please don’t go around saying that we constantly break the rules?”
“But we do!”
“But they don't know that! Plausible deniability is still a thing.”
“She is right.” George nods. “Always denies everything, even if they have proof.”
“And when denying isn't enough—”
“— just play dumb.”
“How can you be their brother and not know the basics of not getting caught?”
“How do you know not to caught? Aren't the only one here that mortised all the rules?” Ron sounds annoyed.
“If I don't know the rules, how I'm supposed to know how far I can bend them without breaking it?”
Harry and Ron looked at Hermione as if she had grown a second head. First year Hermione Granger would have syncope if she heard her older self talking like that.
“Oh my Loki, George, are you hearing this?”
“I am, Fred. I am.”
“Are you crying?”
“I'm just so happy! Who could though that little miss Hermione Granger was a troublemaker like us.”
Fred has a proud smile on his face. George also seems beyond proud.
“Can we circle back to the why we're here and pretend the last five minutes didn't happen?” Ron pleads; Fred and George shedding happy tears because of Hermione breaking the rules is not something that Ron want to deal it in a empty stomach and no sleep.
“Yeah, Harrykins, why did you brought us here?” Fred asks.
“I didn't brought you two here, you guys followed us.”
“Same difference,” George shrugs.
Harry shook his head, he doesn't have to deal with it right now.
“I was saying, I found a way to get out of the tournament. All it is need is for my magical guardian to take me out.”
“And that would be—”
“— Dumbledore.”
“Now I understand why Ron was playing to kill the old man.”
“We will help.”
“Great!” Ron and Hermione are way to eager to agree.
Forgetting once more about Harry (rude), they launch in a heated discussion about unreachable ways of killing an old man.
Watching Fred, George, Ron and Hermione bounding over planing Dumbledore's assassination was not something Harry thought he would ever see.
Weirdly enough, it is a beautiful sight.
“He is not my magical guardian!” Harry says loud enough to talk over their shared voice.
The quartet stops their murderous train of thoughts to stare at him with wide and confused eyes.
Harry feels like the car driver seeing the deer caught in his headlights.
“What?” They say in unison.
"You just confirmed he could've got you out."
“If you lot would let me explain, I would have told you that the Goblet of Fire has an especial magic that emancipates anyone who is choose by it,” Harry explains.
“And that means?”
“That means that Harry doesn't need a magical guardian anymore, so he can decide for himself if he wants to be in the tournament or not.”
“It also means that Dumbledore withhold this information in order to force him to compete—”
“— so the murder plans are still valid.”
The Weasley boys go back to their schemes. But not Hermione.
She doesn't say anything for a heartbeat, just stares at him with narrowed eyes. Hermione is looking for something on his face or maybe his body language. Harry doesn't worry much about it, he has nothing to hide.
Not from her, not from them.
Never from them.
"What is catch?"
Of course she would pick up on that.
"There might be some consequences."
"What type of consequences?" Ron's voice lost all his enthusiasm.
"The rules of the Triwizard Tournament stipulates that any Champions that chooses not to participate, will lose their magic."
Silence never felt so loud.
“So, what you saying is that in other to keep your life, you need to gave up your magic?” Ron says with a thick voice. "Go muggle?"
The twins don't make any joke about it. They just look at him as if they're losing him altogether.
And that is kinda what is happening, isn't? Because he can either die or let the Wizard World behind, there's no in between.
Harry knows that going back to the muggle world doesn't mean cutting threads, and he knows his friends won't just leaving him for his lack of magic. But he also knows that the Weasleys have a cousin that is an accountant that no one talks to — Maybe they just don't talk to him because his personality sucks, like Filch's.
“Yeah, those are my options,” Harry nods. “I can accept my faith and enter the competition and die with my magic, or I can give Brian and everyone else the middle finger and refuse to participate. I'll lose my magic, but keep my life.”
“Again, who is Brian?”
“You could win,” Hermione blurts.
“No fat chance in that.” There is no way Harry is winning anything.
“No, she is right—
“— you could win, Harry.”
“We could help you!” Ron agrees. “I mean, look at everything we have done since first year.”
“The stone, Quirrell, the basilisk, Sirius,” Hermione list. “We did all that together, even though you always manage to get yourself separated from us at the last minute,” she adds a little annoyed.
“But is fine because you will have to do the tasks alone, so you will just use the experience of being a self-sacrificing idiot to your favour.”
"Not a complement,” Harry says.
“And we can help find out what the tasks are—”
“— and gathered information from the others competitors.”
"Are you guys trying to convince me to participate?" Harry asks incredulous.
"We are just giving you all the possibilities,” Hermione replies.
"And me winning is a possibility?"
"I believe there is a eighty percent of chance of you winning, but I suck a maths, so,” Fred shrugs.
Eighty percent? That seems like bad maths in Harry's opinion.
"Why so high?"
"Considering someone took they sweet time to put you in the damn competition in the first place, I wouldn't be surprised if whoever is behind it made sure for you ti get to the final task,” Hermione explains.
“Which makes winning more about if you can survive whatever they have planned for the last task or not,” George adds.
Harry blinks.
Of course, of course he would get to the end. How he didn't thought about it before? Someone put him in this mess, and whoever did it was not a student. It was an adult, and it was probably one Tom's cultist. Maybe even Tom himself — he did tried to kill him trice already (he sucks at it). And didn't his follows are at fault for the mess in the World Cup? How could Harry forget about it? Voldemort is somewhere doing something and it has to have something to do with the tournament — considering Harry's luck, it is probably the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher again. Moody seems to have a good reputation, but Lockhart also had one and it didn't stop him to try to obliviate Harry and Ron.
“And, considering your luck and the fact that every year we end up being attacked by the Defence teacher or You-Know-Who or both, I would just skip the plot and say that Moody put your name on the Goblet on his orders,” Ron finishes, voicing all of Harry's thoughts.
“Fuck!” the twins say, startling the trio. It is rare to hear the twins using actual swear words when they find it more fun coming up with random swears.
“What?” Ron asks.
“The tournament has three schools, three champions and three tasks —”
“— evenly scattered between seven months —”
“— three is a number that set things —”
“— and seven is the most powerful number in magic.”
“But you, Harry, you're the plus one,” George says looking directly at him. He looks somewhat scared. Harry doesn't like it.
“What does that means?” Harry asks. He doesn't believe in divination or numerology. But not believing something doesn't it it's not real, just means it hard to understand.
“That means that something bad is going to happen,” Fred answers.
“We already know that, so.”
“Not Ron, you don't get, okay,” George shakes his head. “Numerology is different from others kinds of divination, not because it works, but because people believe it doe.”
“Wixen are weirdly obsessed with numbers, believing that there's power in it, real power.”
“From the number of sacred families—”
“— to the years in Hogwarts —”
“— to the way your money makes no sense —”
“— everything has a set number, a magical number —”
“— and the Triwizard Tournament is the perfect equation —”
“— be it three plus three plus three or three times three times three —”
“— it is perfect. It is round and organized, and just do way it is meant to be —”
“— but Harry is a plus one. Plus one means chaos —”
“— and chaos means death.”
The moonlight shines upon them, illuminating their sorrowful expressions. His friends looks older then they should. Fred and George are only sixteen, Hermione is fifteen and Ron fourteen. They shouldn't have the same doom expression of some who as told to march to the front-lines, they shouldn't have the same eyes of those who saw the death of their brothers-in-arms. His friends shouldn't look like wars veterans, they shouldn't have to go out of the way to make sure a child doesn't die a terrible death when they themselves are also children.
Because that is what they're, they're children. All of them, even Harry. Or at least that is what they should be.
Yet, that was one more thing that was stole from Harry and his friends.
“I'll not participate in the tournament,” Harry finally said his decision out.
“But—”
“I will not participate,” he says again. “Some is toying with my life. Be it Dumbledore or Voldemort, I don't care. I'm sick of playing the adults' game, I'm sick of being moved around the board without my consent, and I'm sick of seeing you guys being dragged into this mess just because you're my friends.”
“We're not being dragged, we choose to go you!”
“You'll never get rid of us, mate, don't even try.”
Harry looks at his two best friends in the whole world. His brother and sister in all but blood that stayed with again and again over the past few years without never doubting him and just going with all his bullshit and rooting luck.
The ones he chose and that chose him back.
Ron and Hermione are his rock, his weighted-blanket on the hard days, his safety net. They're the real reason for him to go back to Hogwarts every year, and the reason he can endure his summers.
He loves them, they're his first family.
They're his everything in a very totally-not-healthy-but-who-cares kinda way with neon signs blinking codependency-in-its-finest over their head, but again, who cares? They almost died together four times in four years, they're allowed to not be normal.
“I know,” Harry smiles because he knows.
“There is really no other way?” George asks just for the sake of it.
“I would rather live a happy, magic-less life and die of old age then have a short and unfortunate life just to try to keep it.”
That is not fair, all them think together. Having to choose half of himself or bargain his life for the flimsy chance of keeping it all is not fair.
But Harry's life has been fair. Not one moment, and it definitely isn't going to start now.
“Alright, so what is the plan?” Hermione asks.
“Mischief and mayhem,” Harry smiles.
“Well, good thing I am Mischief —”
“— and I am Mayhem.”
Harry's friends have fire in their eyes, burning with self-rightfulness rage in a silent promise to delivered pain where it is doe.
Great.
After all, ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves.
“Wait, what the duck did you mean your name is Hadrian?”