Stunned stares converged on Harry from every direction.
A fourth Champion who had no business existing—and a boy who had only just entered his fourth year, at that. Whatever weight the name The Boy Who Lived carried, entering the Triwizard Tournament seemed flatly impossible by any reasonable measure.
Confusion, shock, bewilderment, suspicion. As many emotions churned through the Great Hall as there were people in it.
The person at the center of it all looked merely annoyed.
"Professor!"
Harry Potter raised his hand and called out in a clear, carrying voice.
"I think there's been some kind of mistake? I never put my name in the Goblet of Fire!"
"Is that the truth?"
"Absolutely. On my grandfather's honor."
He was still seated. The casual way he stayed in his chair, making no move to rise, made it plain he had no particular desire to go anywhere.
The students from every house except Gryffindor, however, were not inclined to look kindly on Harry Potter. Hufflepuff least of all—it was obvious they believed he had stolen the moment that should have belonged to their pride and joy, Cedric Diggory.
"He's lying."
Zacharias Smith of Hufflepuff muttered it loudly enough for the whole hall to hear.
"He must have used some underhanded trick to get past the Age Line. Getting 'special' treatment again, as usual."
"Sorry—was that Zapoyika Smith?"
Harry singled him out by name, and Smith flinched.
"I have no reason to enter the Triwizard Tournament. Special treatment or otherwise—why would I even want to compete?"
Under ordinary circumstances, Hufflepuff would have backed down at that.
But Hufflepuff, riding high on the Goblet's selection of Cedric Diggory, now felt shoved aside by Harry Potter once again—and that feeling made them react with unusual heat.
"The prize money—a thousand Galleons—the glory—that's what you're after!"
"I have the fortune my father left me, and the rather crushing honor of being called The Chosen One. The only thing I'm short on is time. Why would I bother?"
Was that supposed to be a defense? Carina exhaled quietly.
The Potter family fortune and the crushing weight of his fame—both were plainly true. But saying so only stoked the fire. Fresh outrage was already building when—
"You fools! This is a conspiracy. Someone has placed a Dark enchantment on the Goblet of Fire!"
Mad-Eye Moody bellowed across the hall. He lurched forward toward the Goblet, his uneven gait cutting through the noise.
"Hand me that parchment, Dumbledore."
Moody took the slip from Dumbledore's hand. His magical eye, which had been spinning erratically, snapped to a halt as though snagged on something, and fixed on the parchment with unblinking intensity.
He studied it, then scowled.
"Can't make out the handwriting at all. Written with a Self-Completing Quill! Damn it—whoever did this was thorough."
Zacharias was already sputtering again.
"Potter obviously used that to hide his own handwriting!"
"Why would I hide my own handwriting while writing my own name? That makes no sense. Do you put on a disguise by changing your clothes but leaving your face exactly the same?"
It was a perfectly logical point. A few people might even have nodded—if Harry had stopped there.
"Then again, without your school robes you'd probably look less like a student and more like someone sleeping rough."
The hall's mood had already been hostile toward Harry. Hufflepuff in particular looked as though they'd been personally insulted.
A crowd running hot turns emotional fast.
Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students were already questioning why Hogwarts alone had produced two Champions. Slytherin had never needed an excuse to be antagonistic. And Hufflepuff, stung by a deep-seated inferiority complex, had now joined Harry's enemies in full.
Ordinary, hardworking children—that was the Sorting Hat's verdict on them, and Hogwarts had always treated them accordingly. Cedric had been their hero. He'd led them to Quidditch victory and now stood as a Triwizard Champion, proof that Hufflepuff was not lesser. He had given them something to be proud of.
And Harry Potter, who trampled that pride as though it were nothing, drew from them something beyond mere irritation.
"This is outrageous!"
"It's cheating!"
"It's illegal—"
"Quiet!"
Dumbledore's voice cut through the noise, and the hall fell silent. But the resentment only banked itself, smoldering beneath the surface. It would not go out entirely.
Regardless, Dumbledore moved to settle the matter.
"Harry. The moment your name emerged from the Goblet, you were bound by a magical contract. Come forward, if you would."
"Ugh, I really don't have time for this..."
Harry raked a hand through his hair and stepped forward. He waved toward his table, but only Fred and George Weasley waved back. Hermione Granger wore an expression of open worry. Ron Weasley's face had gone oddly rigid.
Harry followed Professor Dumbledore into the side chamber.
Before the embers in the hall could flare up again, Professor McGonagall's voice rang out.
"Right—further announcements regarding the Tournament will follow in due course. Everyone back to your dormitories, now!"
Carina rose carefully from her seat.
She needed to find Harry before returning to the dungeons.
"Tell them you're withdrawing. Right now."
Carina fixed Harry Potter with a look that left no room for argument. Harry answered with infuriating calm.
"I said exactly that. But apparently a name drawn from the Goblet constitutes a magical contract—there's no withdrawing once it's done. Ludo Bagman and Barty Crouch both said there's nothing to be done about it."
"Are you stupid, or just naive? That's precisely why you need to withdraw."
Carina stepped closer and jabbed a finger into his chest.
"Can't you see that someone has deliberately put you in a position you can't escape? Someone is targeting you—someone who pulled you into this Tournament on purpose. They want you dead or injured. This competition has been suspended for two hundred years because of the body count. What exactly is a fourth-year who hasn't finished learning magic supposed to do in it?!"
She didn't notice it herself, but the words coming out of her mouth were not so different from what Narcissa had once said to her.
"You're worried about me? I'm flattered. Carina Malfoy, actually worried."
"Don't think you can brush this off with a line like that, Harry Potter! I don't—you're not—!"
Carina stopped herself there, lips pressing together.
She'd said it on reflex, but the fact remained: she and Harry were together, however secret it had to stay. Admitting she was worried wasn't actually a problem. Just slightly embarrassing.
No—more than that. Worrying was the obvious, natural thing to do.
"...Of course I'm worried! Even if it's only a little—even if it's the smallest amount—that's completely normal!"
She glared at him, her voice full of reproach.
It was more honest than anything she'd shown him before. Harry was briefly surprised—in the best possible way.
Seeing his girlfriend worried about him, he decided to be honest in return.
"Professor Dumbledore and Professor Moody said exactly the same thing you just did. That this could be a plot to harm me."
The tension went out of Carina's shoulders.
Of course. If she'd worked it out, there was no chance that Dumbledore—with all his cunning—or the paranoid Mad-Eye had missed it. They would have already thought it through and prepared accordingly.
She was a little put out that her concern had arrived slightly later than theirs, but the knowledge that the staff already knew brought her a measure of relief.
"But they also said that since the Goblet constitutes a magical contract, simply refusing to participate isn't an option. I have to at least appear to compete."
"So Dumbledore has finally come up with something resembling a plan. Participate and then do absolutely nothing."
"About that, Carina."
Harry glanced at her with an uncharacteristic hint of caution.
"If someone has laid a trap for me, they'll almost certainly use the Tournament as cover to make their move. Agreed?"
"Agreed."
"Then doesn't that mean we could use that same moment to catch them?"
Carina took a moment to work through what he was saying.
Harry Potter intended to compete. He meant to use himself as bait—to draw out whoever had infiltrated Hogwarts.
Her expression hardened.
"Are you out of your mind? When you should be keeping your head down, you want to step forward deliberately? You—do you actually think that because you're The Chosen One, you have more than one life? What on earth are you and Dumbledore thinking, charging in recklessly like—"
"Carina. It's the opposite. I'm doing this to protect myself and the people around me."
Harry gripped her shoulders firmly. A faint, intermittent trembling ran through her—the only outward sign of what she was feeling.
"Do you think whoever wants to hurt me will give up just because I withdraw? No—if I step down, they'll come after me more openly. They could poison my food. They could ambush me in a corridor. At least in the Triwizard Tournament, I can read what they're planning."
What must it feel like, to have someone hunting your life every single year?
One thing was certain: Carina had never experienced it, and she couldn't fully understand it.
First year, Quirrell. Second year, Tom Riddle's diary. Third year, the Dementors—openly, relentlessly targeting him.
For Harry, the threat of his own death had long since stopped being hypothetical.
Carina pressed her forehead against his chest—a quiet, blunt impact.
"...Don't get hurt."
She knocked her forehead against him once more, right over his heart, then lifted her face to look up at him. Her silver-grey eyes were full of the worry and fear she couldn't bring herself to say aloud.
"If you get hurt, I'll kill you."
"I'd better not, then. I'd hate to miss seeing your face."
He always knew exactly what to say. Carina, thoroughly dissatisfied, grabbed the front of his robes and rubbed her forehead against the fabric.
Sensing an opening, Harry slowly raised his arms to pull her into an embrace.
Then Carina noticed the badge pinned to his chest.
It was a garish, childish thing bearing the letters S.P.E.W.—a combination of words that made absolutely no sense to her.
She knocked his approaching hands away with her shoulder and pinched the badge between two fingers.
"...What is this?"
"Hm? Now, of all moments?"
Where had she seen this ridiculous badge before?
A memory she would normally have let slip past came back at Carina's silent summons.
The Great Hall. The Gryffindor table she occasionally glanced toward. On the chest of Hermione Granger, who was always at Harry's side—the exact same badge.
"Again? Granger?"
The fingers working at his chest held none of the warmth or tenderness the gesture might otherwise have implied. Her voice dropped to the temperature of the lake in January.
Harry, sensing danger, rushed to explain.
"No, no—it's not like that. This is a badge for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."
Fortunately, the sheer absurdity of the phrase made Carina's suspicion give way to bewilderment before jealousy could fully take hold.
"Society for the Promotion of... Elfish Welfare?"
"Right. An organization dedicated to improving the rights of house-elves. Hermione founded it, and I'm member number two. You'd be number three. The membership fee is two Sickles—what do you say?"
"Pointless."
Carina dismissed it without a second thought.
"House-elves are a species born to serve wizards. Liberate them? Neither the wizards who employ them nor the elves themselves would want that."
"Dobby aside."
"...Yes, Dobby aside. But he's an anomaly. Founding an organization over a single anomaly is a complete waste of effort."
Ancient manors absorbed magical energy over centuries, and when that energy reached a certain threshold, house-elves came into being—maintaining the household, bound to the estate and the family by their very nature. Service was their purpose and their joy.
Liberation was a denial of what they were.
Carina's eyes asked the question plainly: surely you don't actually agree with this nonsense? Harry looked away.
"You're right. Freeing a house-elf is often the crueler option. Still—I can't help thinking they deserve to be treated with a bit more kindness."
"Kindness or not, service and loyalty are what they find fulfilling."
"I know. But they have feelings too. There's a difference between loyalty bound by magical contract and loyalty given freely from the heart. I felt that this summer, when we went looking for the Horcrux—"
Harry caught himself mid-sentence and let out a small, pained breath. Carina was staring at him with both eyes narrowed to points.
"Horcrux? This summer?"
Harry whistled and looked elsewhere.
"What did I just say? Wasn't it something about the Hog's Head?"
"Explain. Now."
It didn't work, naturally, and Harry began his account with a look of resigned discomfort.
Before the Quidditch World Cup, Harry Potter and Sirius Black had searched the Black family home for a Horcrux hidden somewhere within it.
The Black family, with the exception of the disowned Sirius, had been devoted supporters of Voldemort—and among them, Sirius's younger brother Regulus had been among the most fervent. The Black family's standing was comparable to the Malfoys', and since a Horcrux had been entrusted to the Malfoys, it stood to reason one might have been left with the Blacks as well. Following that logic, they had begun their search.
Harry had traced the footsteps of Regulus, who had served as a Death Eater, and eventually reached Kreacher—the Black family's house-elf. Kreacher was bound to obey Sirius as the last heir of the Black line, and through methods that were, by Harry's own admission, somewhat forceful, they had extracted the information they needed.
"...We went to the location Kreacher told us about. The cave was riddled with defensive magic."
An entrance that opened only with a blood offering. A lake teeming with walking corpses. A boat that could carry only one person at a time.
Professor Dumbledore had guided them through it with relative ease, but every one of those traps had been genuinely lethal.
Knowing Harry was standing in front of her, perfectly intact, Carina's palms still went cold.
"We made it to the center of the lake, and there was a basin filled with poison. The magic on it wouldn't yield unless someone drank from it. Sirius wanted to make Kreacher drink it, but that didn't sit right with me, so I looked around instead—and that's when we found Regulus Black's body."
The moment Kreacher saw it, he had wept openly. Dumbledore, sensing there was more to the story, pressed for the truth.
Regulus Black, in his final hours, had turned against Voldemort and attempted to destroy the Horcrux. But his body was too broken to guarantee the return journey, so he had entrusted the task to his house-elf and drunk the poison himself.
Learning this, Dumbledore had promised to see the Horcrux destroyed—and in doing so, released Kreacher from his obligation.
"That elf had been trying to destroy the Horcrux on his own for twelve years, without telling a soul. For the master he truly served, in his heart. Isn't that something? Hearing that—I thought the least I could do was treat him decently."
Harry seemed genuinely proud of having destroyed a Horcrux, his voice carrying a barely suppressed energy.
Carina, however, was not moved in quite the same way. She was a witch to her marrow, and to her, a house-elf's obedience was as unremarkable as breathing.
"A house-elf's loyalty is a magical contract, and a master's command transcends time and distance. An order given twelve years ago is still an order to be carried out for a lifetime."
"...Is that really how an ordinary witch sees it?"
"Of course."
Regulus Black had apparently formed a genuine attachment to his elf—but even he would have taken that obedience for granted. That was simply what it meant to be a wizard. A house-elf's service was expected; no reward, no freedom was required in return.
Carina's eyes asked whether he actually agreed with this foolishness. Harry looked away again.
"You're right. Freeing a house-elf is often the harsher thing to do. Even so—I think there's something to be said for treating them with a little kindness."
"Whether you're kind to them or not, service and loyalty are what they find joy in."
"I know. But they have feelings. There's a difference between loyalty bound by magical contract and loyalty given from the heart. I felt that this summer, when—"
He'd already said that part. Carina let it pass.
"...Hand it over."
"Sorry?"
"The membership fee—two Sickles? How quaint. How perfectly small-scale. I'll give you two Galleons. So give me the badge you're wearing right now."
Without asking permission, Carina unclipped the badge from Harry's chest. She turned it over in her fingers, the faint warmth of his body still in it, and said sharply:
"Don't misunderstand. I'm not endorsing Granger's absurd ideology. This is simply... an acknowledgment. My mother, Narcissa Malfoy, was born a Black. Tell the elf. Tell him that Carina Malfoy, in whose veins Black blood runs, recognizes his service."
House-elves did not seek reward. Service was their reason for being, the source of their contentment.
So the right thing to do was give them the recognition they had earned. That alone would be enough.
Having said what she needed to say, Carina turned her head slightly aside.
"...And don't wear that badge around."
If he was going to wear something, she wanted it to be something that belonged only to the two of them.
Even if it was just a badge from some organization.
"Why do you always do this out here? It's difficult."
"What is?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
"You're impossible."
Carina brushed down the front of his robes and straightened his tie. Her fingers lingered in the air for a moment afterward, reluctant—then, with a small decision made, she gave him a light push and stepped back.
"I'm going. If I don't leave soon, Crabbe or Goyle will come looking for me."
"I should go too. The others will want to know what happened."
Carina cracked the door open and peered out. Satisfied that the corridor was empty, she slipped through the gap.
"Don't try too hard in the Triwizard Tournament. If it goes wrong, just quit."
"That's a novel sort of encouragement. I'll keep it in mind."
Of course, encouragement alone would not be enough.
Someone was targeting Harry. Carina needed to find them. As a Slytherin with a Death Eater for a father, she was positioned to do it.
No—she was the only one who could.
Carina set her jaw and turned toward the Slytherin dungeons.