Roaring in fury, and spitting small flames of outrage, she had immediately picked the egg out of her nest and dropped it on the ground well away from her precious offspring so they wouldn't be hurt when she destroyed the invader egg she hadn't laid. She then moved to stomp the egg to smithereens but Harry implored her to give it to him and let him deal with the matter. She used her tail to flip the golden egg over towards Harry who plucked it from the air just as he would a snitch and bowed to her before leaving the arena to catcalls, loud boos and jeering calls of what a coward he was not to fight the dragon for the egg as the other contestants had. The dragon, while standing hunched over her true offspring, showed an understanding of the event most people wouldn't credit her species with when she roared in anger and sent a burst of flames towards the stands that succeeded in quieting the spectators very effectively. The flames were stopped by the magical barrier put in place to protect the innocent. But still. They got the attention of the crowd well enough.
Harry didn't care what the stupid children, safe in the stands, thought of his tactics. He knew that a battle you didn't have to fight wasn't one you should fight. As any battle could end up costing you more than you were prepared to lose and quite frankly he'd already lost enough to stupid, pointless battles for the entertainment of the weak, quivering mass of cowards claiming superiority they did nothing to earn. He simply disappeared into the medical tent for his check-up as he was required by Tournament rules to do. The other three contestants were being treated for their injuries in the medical tent and though Harry had no injuries, he still had to go there before the event was considered over.
Madam Pomfrey gave him a once over and discovering him uninjured, let him go just as the tent flap was tossed aside to let his most frequent tormentors into the tent. All three of whom immediately started clamoring that they now believed he hadn't meant to enter the Tournament and someone must truly be trying to kill him as that event was so very dangerous. Harry ignored them all and walked out of the tent without a word to any of them.
He didn't see either Fleur Delacour, the French contestant, or Victor Krum, the Bulgarian competitor, sneering at the trio of Hogwarts students whom they knew had been targeting the boy and stirring up the student base against him ever since the drawing. Nor did he see their and Cedric Diggory's contemplative looks as they waited to see what he would do now that the three deigned to apologize to him for the way they'd been treating him. The two foreign students knew they wouldn't have accepted those apologies as they would've been suspicious of the motives behind them. And when he'd simply walked away without saying a word, he didn't see the satisfied expressions of the two foreigners or the frown of the Hogwart's champion. By doing what he did he'd just received the grudging admiration of his fellow contestants. Well Fleur and Victor's anyway. Cedric thought he'd cheated by using that evil talent of his. That plus the way he'd treated his friends condemned him as a person truly not worthy of respect. But then Cedric was a Hufflepuff and they always took people at face value. Never for a moment believing that doing so would only allow an enemy to stab you in the back when you were least expecting it or prepared to counter it.
But he also got the lowest score in the event since he didn't show the audience and judges any daring or false bravado and the audience hadn't liked his performance. Nor had he displayed any new talent or the outrageous growth in his magical power Hermione had spoken of in last years end of the year event so Dumbledore wasn't pleased either. Dumbledore tried to take him to task for once again using his unnatural talent to merely speak with the dragon as it had needlessly scared the audience. he'd chastised him for using such a dark skill as that so openly declaring Harry was allowing himself to be pulled into the dark arts which would only lead him down a road he didn't want to travel. And of course he lectured him over his unwillingness to forgive his friends for their simple misunderstanding of his entry into the contest. It was an honest mistake and Harry should forgive them because now they realized the truth and were willing to be his friends again. Harry ignored him. Once again, Harry didn't care.
Christmas time brought a new horror with the Yule Ball event at which each champion was required to bring a date of their choice to open the Ball. This was a public meet and greet event meant to build ties between the competing nations that could be used to strengthen their international relationship in other areas. Harry didn't care and refused to ask anyone as he knew he had no friends here. McGonagal tried to bully him into it and Dumbledore, Ron and Hermione tried to force him into taking Ginerva as his date of choice. She even had a ball appropriate dress robe in light green and gold to accent his dark green dress robes. Which since Molly Weasely had chosen Harry's dress robes, told Harry her mother had known of the event long before the Ball was ever announced to the students and planned on Ginerva being his date to the event. They all had. Therefore, the whole thing was nothing but a set-up. A set-up to force Harry into publically acknowledging the lies Ginerva had been spreading for the past year about how she was his chosen girl who'd one day be his wife. He refused. Openly and publically without a care for the false tears the girl wept or Hermione's very public lecture. Without a care for Ron's angry bellowing or Dumbledore and McGonagal's frowns of clear disapproval. He was not and would not escort Ginerva Molly Weasely to the Ball. Or anywhere else for that matter.
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