I tried laughing and drinking Dr. Pepper at the same time.

Did not go well.

~WhatTheFuckAmIDoingWithMyLife?~

Oh, and all the French will appear in English. I'm too lazy to translate.

I got up very early the next day, (which was unpleasent) grabbed some food for Jackie (I've decided to call my Frenchie Friend Jackie) and headed up the the room on the seventh floor.

"Jackie..." I called, walking into the room. "I brought you food."

She sat up in the bed in the corner. Her hair was a mess.

"Thanks," she said. As she ate, she told me of her life. 

"My sister put her name into the Gobelt of Fire," she told me. "He name is Odette. Was she picked?"

"No, Fleur Dela-whatever was," I said. "As well as Viktor Krum from Durmstrang, Cedric Diggory from Hogwarts and..."

I hesitated. I never did find out last night if they were allowing Harry to compete. 

"And..? Aren't there only three?"

"Another name was called. No one knows how. He's not even seventeen yet."

"Who?"

I looked at her. "Ever hear of Harry Potter?"

She gasped. "He was called?" 

"Yup... fucking bastard's going to get himself killed... maybe that's the plan..."

Jackie looked at me. "How ever did you come to that conclusion?"

I smiled dryly. "I grew up in a family of evil bastards. My parents locked my in my room, planning to leave me there forever. That was in my first year here... Anyway, I learned to think rationally a long time ago. And, I've always had a sort of knack for guessing, I suppose."

"So is Harry going to compete in the tournament then?"

"I've got no clue," I admitted. "I'll ask him later."

I looked at the clock. Hermione would wake soon. She'd be worried if I wasn't there. I suppose my anxiety  showed on my face.

"You need to go, don't you?" Jackie asked me. 

"Yeah," I admitted. "My friend's would worry."

"Go," Jackie said. "I'll be fine."

I stood. "I'll be back later."

"Don't worry about me! Go!"

I said a quick goodbye and left. 

Then I went downstairs. 

And ate toast. 

Then Hermione showed up. 

She asked where I was and I told her I was here, eating.

Okay back to proper writing or whatever the hell this was.

We left the great hall and ran into the famous fucker who's going to die.

Otherwise known as Harry Potter.

I smell chocolate.

"Hello," Hermione said, holding up a stack of toast, which she was carrying in a napkin. "I brought you this.... Want to go for a walk?" 

"Good idea," said Harry gratefully. 

We went downstairs, crossed the entrance hall quickly without looking in at the Great Hall, and were soon striding across the lawn toward the lake, where the Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly morning, and we kept moving, munching their toast, as Harry told Hermione and I exactly what had happened after he had left the Gryffindor table the night before.

But I wasn't really paying attention. 

"Well, of course I knew you hadn't entered yourself," Hermione said when he'd finished telling us about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. "The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because Moody's right, Harry... I don't think any student could have done it... they'd never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore's -" 

"Have you seen Ron?" Harry interrupted. 

Hermione hesitated. 

"Erm...yes...he was at breakfast," she said. 

"He was?" I asked, trying to remember.

Nothing.

"Does he still think I entered myself?" 

"Well... no, I don't think so... not really," said Hermione awkwardly. 

"What's that supposed to mean, 'not really'?"

"It means yes," I said, twirling one of my blonde curls.

I wish I were ginger. 

Gingers are sexy.

But they have no souls.

"Oh Harry, isn't it obvious?" Hermione said despairingly. "He's jealous!" 

"Jealous?" Harry said incredulously. "Jealous of what? He wants to make a prat of himself in front of the whole school, does he?" 

"Look," said Hermione patiently, "it's always you who gets all the attention, you know it is. I know it's not your fault," she added quickly, seeing Harry open his mouth furiously. "I know you don't ask for it...but - well - you know, Ron's got all those brothers to compete against at home, and you're his best friend, and you're really famous - he's always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time too many..." 

"Great," said Harry bitterly. "Really great. Tell him from me I'll swap any time he wants. Tell him from me he's welcome to it.... People gawping at my forehead everywhere I go..." 

"I'm not teiling him anything," Hermione said shortly. "Tell him yourself. It's the only way to sort this out." 

"I'm not running around after him trying to make him grow up!" Harry said, so loudly that several owls in a nearby tree took flight in alarm. "Maybe he'll believe I'm not enjoying myself once I've got my neck broken or -" 

"That's not funny," said Hermione quietly. "That's not funny at all." She looked extremely anxious. "Harry, I've been thinking - you know what we've got to do, don't you? Straight away, the moment we get back to the castle?" 

"Yeah, give Ron a good kick up the -" 

I snorted.

"Write to Sirius. You've got to tell him what's happened. He asked you to keep him posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts.... It's almost as if he expected something like this to happen. I brought some parchment and a quill out with me -" 

"Come off it," said Harry, looking around to check that they couldn't be overheard, but the grounds were quite deserted. "He came back to the country just because my scar twinged. He'll probably come bursting right into the castle if I tell him someone's entered me in the Triwizard Tournament -" 

"He'd want you to tell him," said Hermione sternly. "He's going to find out anyway." 

"How?" 

"Harry, this isn't going to be kept quiet," said Hermione, very seriously. "This tournament's famous, and you're famous. I'll be really surprised if there isn't anything in the Daily Prophet about you competing.... You're already in half the books about You-Know-Who, you know... and Sirius would rather hear it from you, I know he would." 

"Okay, okay, I'll write to him," said Harry, throwing his last piece of toast into the lake.

"Hey!" I protested. "I could've eaten that!"

We stood and watched it floating there for a moment, before a large tentacle rose out of the water and scooped it beneath the surface. Then we returned to the castle. 

"Whose owl am I going to use?" Harry said as we climbed the stairs. "He told me not to use Hedwig again." 

"Ask Ron if you can borrow -" 

"I'm not asking Ron for anything," Harry said flatly. 

"Well, borrow one of the school owls, then, anyone can use them," said Hermione. 

We went up to the Owlery. Hermione gave Harry a piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink, then strolled around the long lines of perches, looking at all the different owls, while Harry sat down against a wall and wrote his letter. I read over Harry's shoulder. 

Dear Sirius, 

You told me to keep you posted on what's happening at Hogwarts, so here goes - I don't know if you've heard, but the Triwizard Tournament's happening this year and on Saturday night I got picked as a fourth champion. I don't who put my name in the Goblet of Fire, because I didn't. The other Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory, from Hufflepuff.

He paused at this point, thinking. After a bit he simply dipped his quill back into the ink bottle and wrote, 

Hope you're okay, and Buckbeak - Harry 

"Finished," he told Hermione, getting to his feet and brushing straw off his robes. At this, Hedwig fluttered down onto his shoulder and held out her leg. 

"I can't use you," Harry told her, looking around for the school owls. "I've got to use one of these." 

Hedwig gave a very loud hoot and took off so suddenly that her talons cut into his shoulder. She kept her back to Harry all the time he was tying his letter to the leg of a large barn owl. When the barn owl had flown off, Harry reached out to stroke Hedwig, but she clicked her beak furiously and soared up into the rafters out of reach. 

"First Ron, then you," Harry said angrily. "This isn't my fault." 

If Harry had thought that matters would improve once everyone got used to the idea of him being champion, the following day showed him how mistaken he was. He could no longer avoid the rest of the school once he was back at lessons - and it was clear that the rest of the school, just like the Gryffindors, thought Harry had entered himself for the tournament. Unlike the Gryffindors, however, they did not seem impressed. 

The Hufflepuffs, who were usually on excellent terms with us Gryffindors, had turned remarkably cold toward the whole lot of us. One Herbology lesson was enough to demonstrate this. It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that Harry had stolen their champion's glory; a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff House very rarely got any glory, and that Cedric was one of the few who had ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch. Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley, with whom Harry normally got on very well, (unless you count that minor incident in our second year) did not talk to him even though they were repotting Bouncing Bulbs at the same tray - though they did laugh rather unpleasantly when one of the Bouncing Bulbs wriggled free from Harry's grip and smacked him hard in the face. Ron wasn't talking to Harry either. Hermione sat between them, making very forced conversation, but though both answered her normally, they avoided making eye contact with each other. Even Professor Sprout seemed distant with Harry - but then, she was Head of Hufflepuff House. 

Harry would have been looking forward to seeing Hagrid under normal circumstances, but Care of Magical Creatures meant seeing the Slytherins too - the first time he would come face-to-face with them since becoming champion. 

Predictably, Ferret Face arrived at Hagrid's cabin with his familiar sneer firmly in place. 

"Ah, look, boys, it's the champion," he said to Crabbe and Goyle the moment he got within earshot of Harry. "Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he's going to be around much longer.... Half the Triwizard champions have died... how long d'you reckon you're going to last, Potter? Ten minutes into the first task's my bet." 

Crabbe and Goyle guffawed sycophantically, but Draco had to stop there, because Hagrid emerged from the back of his cabin balancing a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class's horror, Hagrid proceeded to explain that the reason the skrewts had been killing one another was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would be for each student to fix a leash on a skrewt and take it for a short walk. The only good thing about this plan was that it distracted Draco completely. 

"Take this thing for a walk?" he repeated in disgust, staring into one of the boxes. "And where exactly are we supposed to fix the leash? Around the sting, the blasting end, or the sucker?" 

"Roun' the middle," said Hagrid, demonstrating. "Er - yeh might want ter put on yer dragon-hide gloves, jus' as an extra precaution, like. Harry - you come here an' help me with this big one...." 

Mine was a runt and the biggest explosion it could manage was a small shower of sparks.

I'm a lucky little bitch. 

The next few days were some of Harry's worst at Hogwarts. The closest he had ever come to feeling like this had been during those months, in his second year, when a large part of the school had suspected him of attacking his fellow students. But Ron had been on his side then. It was lonely with dislike pouring in on him from all sides. 

He could understand the Hufflepuffs' attitude, even if he didn't like it; they had their own champion to support. He expected nothing less than vicious insults from the Slytherins - he was highly unpopular there and always had been, because he had helped Gryffindor beat them so often, both at Quidditch and in the Inter-House Championship. But he had hoped the Ravenclaws might have found it in their hearts to support him as much as Cedric. He was wrong, however. Most Ravenclaws seemed to think that he had been desperate to earn himself a bit more fame by tricking the goblet into accepting his name. 

No matter how clever Ravenclaws are supposed to be, I've always found them very stupid. 

Except for my bro's Azalea and Alex. 

Haven't spoken with them in a while... 

Then there was the fact that Cedric looked the part of a champion so much more than Harry did. Exceptionally handsome, with his straight nose, dark hair, and gray eyes, it was hard to say who was receiving more admiration these days, Cedric or Viktor Krum. I actually saw the same sixth-year girls who had been so keen to get Krum's autograph begging Cedric to sign their school bags one lunchtime. 

Gad, I better not be like them when I'm sixteen. I might Avada Kerdavra myself.

Meanwhile there was no reply from Sirius, Hedwig was refusing to come anywhere near him, Professor Trelawney was predicting his death with even more certainty than usual, and he did so badly at Summoning Charms in Professor Flitwick's class that he was given extra homework - the only person to get any, apart from Neville. 

"It's really not that difficult, Harry," Hermione tried to reassure him as we left Flitwick's class - she had been making objects zoom across the room to her all lesson, as though she were some sort of weird magnet for board dusters, wastepaper baskets, and lunascopes. "You just weren't concentrating properly -" 

"Wonder why that was," said Harry darkly as Cedric Diggory walked past, surrounded by a large group of simpering girls, all of whom looked at Harry as though he were a particularly large Blast-Ended Skrewt. "Still - never mind, eh? Double Potions to look forward to this afternoon..." 

Double Potions was always a horrible experience, but these days it was nothing short of torture. Being shut in a dungeon for an hour and a half with Snape and the Slytherins, all of whom seemed determined to punish Harry as much as possible for daring to become school champion, was about the most unpleasant thing Harry could imagine. He had already struggled through one Friday's worth, with Hermione sitting next to him intoning "ignore them, ignore them, ignore them" under her breath, and he couldn't see why today should be any better. 

When Harry, Hermione and I arrived at Snape's dungeon after lunch, we found the Slytherins waiting outside, each and every one of them wearing a large badge on the front of his or her robes. For one wild moment I thought they were S.P.E.W. badges - then I saw that they all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage: 

SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY-

THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!

"Like them, Potter?" said Draco loudly as Harry approached. "And this isn't all they do - look!" 

He pressed his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green: 

POTTER STINKS!

The Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around Harry. 

"Oh very funny," Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than anyone, "really witty." 

Ron was standing against the wall with Dean and Seamus. He wasn't laughing, but he wasn't sticking up for Harry either. 

"Want one, Granger?" said Draco, holding out a badge to Hermione. "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just washed it, you see; don't want a Mudblood sliming it up." 

Some of the anger Harry had been feeling for days and days seemed to burst out. He had reached for his wand before he'd thought what he was doing. People all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor. 

"Harry!" Hermione said warningly. 

"Fight, fight, fight!" I hissed under my breath. Hermione hit my shoulder.

"Go on, then, Potter," Draco said quietly, drawing out his own wand. "Moody's not here to look after you now - do it, if you've got the guts -" 

For a split second, they looked into each other's eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted. 

"Funnunculus!" Harry yelled. 

"Densaugeo!" screamed Draco. 

Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles - Harry's hit Goyle in the face, and Draco's hit Hermione. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up - Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth. 

"Hermione!" 

Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong with her; I turned and saw Ron dragging Hermione's hand away from her face. It wasn't a pretty sight. Hermione's front teeth - already larger than average - were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin - panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry. 

"And what is all this noise about?" said a soft, deadly voice. 

Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamored to give their explanations; Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Draco and said, "Explain." 

"Potter attacked me, sir -" 

"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouted. 

"- and he hit Goyle - look -" 

Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi. 

"Hospital wing, Goyle," Snape said calmly. 

"Malfoy got Hermione!" Ron said. "Look!" 

He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth - she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape's back. 

Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, "I see no difference." 

Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight. 

It was lucky, perhaps, that both Harry and Ron started shouting at Snape at the same time; lucky their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it was impossible for him to hear exactly what they were calling him. He got the gist, however. 

That's when I decided to skive off Potions and follow Hermione.

I caught up to her on the staircase leading down the dungeon. Tears were pouring out of her eyes. 

"Hermione!" I called. She turned. 

"What are you doing?" she asked me, though it was slightly muffled due to her teeth. 

"I don't give a fuck about potions," I told her. "However, I do give a fuck about you. Now I am escorting you to the hospital wing so you can get your teeth fixed, whether Greaseball likes it or not."

She gave me a slight smile. We continued up to the hospital wing. 

When we got there Madam Pomfrey immediately started doing stuff and Hermione's teeth started, very slowly, to shrink. 

"Now dear, this may take several hours," Madam Pomfrey said. "I'll let you teachers know that you are excused from the rest of your lessons today. As for you -- " she turned on me " -- go back to your lessons immediately."

"Nope," I said, sitting down beside Hermione. "I'm staying with her."

"Well if you insist, you may as well help a bit," Madam Pomfrey said. "Goyle spilled his anti-boil potion. Would you get a mop from a janitor's closet?"

"Alright," I said. Then I left.

Broom closet.... Where the hell is a broom closet. 

I wandered around the school until I finally found a closet. 

I opened it and found Harry and Rita Skeeter sitting on buckets, rather close together. 

I raised an eyebrow at Harry and smirked. He turned red. 

"Just need a mop," I said, grabbing one. "I'll let you two get back to... whatever you were up to."

I left, smirking. 

I brought the broom back to the hospital wing and stayed with Hermione until her teeth were back to normal, although they were smaller than they were before. 

"You let her make them smaller than they were, didn't you?" I accused as we walked back to the dorm late that night. 

"Maybe..." Hermione said.

"Well they look fabulous," I commented in a posh voice.

"Why thank you," Hermione replied in an equally as posh voice.

We giggled and continued our way back to the dorm.