Don't Act Like You Know Me

Year 4 - I Feel

Harry Potter didn't move an inch. He looked to be petrified with fear.

"Go on, Harry," Hermione nudged. No movement. "Harry, for goodness sake." Hermione placed her hands on his back, feeling his tremble from the outside. She pushed him onto his feet. 

"He's a cheat!" Michael Corner called as he walked through the aisle down to Dumbledore. Michael Corner was a creepy-looking Ravenclaw that Hermione had only spoken to when they did a class project together. She didn't like him very much. Hermione gave him a death glare. Corner ignored her glare. "He's not even seventeen yet!"

Hermione ate her dinner quietly. Harry and the other champions had gone into Dumbledore's office together. Ron looked furious through the entire dinner. "Ron, what is it?"

"What do you mean, what is it? Bloody guy put his name in the goblet and didn't tell me! Didn't think I would want to put mine in there, maybe?" Ron grumbled.

"I don't know, Ronald. I didn't think Harry would do something like that."

"Yeah, well he did."

"Bloody lucky, he is," George said.

"Yeah," Fred chimed. "He should've told us his secret!"

"We're the upperclassmen," mumbled George.

Professor Flitwick took center stage. "Students may return to their dormitories on their own when they are finished eating. Curfews are still as usual."

"I think I'm going to go back upstairs," Hermione said. "Ron, would you like to come along?"

"Yeah," he said. "Just let me finish this last piece of food." Ron said everything filled with gloom now. Even when he was eating. He usually looked happy when he was eating. He stuffed a turkey leg in his mouth and tossed the bone back on his plate. "How d'you think he did it?" Ron asked on their way back to the common room. "I mean, you said yourself that no student could outsmart something procured by Dumbledore."

"That was what I thought." Hermione and Ron entered the common room to see Harry sitting on the couch, looking troubled.

"Well, this is bloody fantastic," Ron scoffed. "Tell us, oh, powerful Tri-Wizard fucking champion, how did you do it?" Harry sat in silence with his head in his hands. "Never mind. Doesn't matter. You could have let your best friend know, though."

"Let you know what?" Harry snarled.

"You know bloody well what."

"Boys," Hermione scolded. Neither of them seemed to listen.

"I didn't ask for this to happen, Ron. Okay? You're being stupid," Harry said.

"Yeah, that's me. Ron Weasley, Harry Potter's stupid friend," Ron said back.

"I didn't put my name in that cup. I don't want eternal glory, I just want to be... Look, I don't know what happened tonight and I don't know why, it just did, okay?"

"Oh, piss off," Ron said. He was fuming. He looked at Harry with the nastiest look Hermione had ever seen him produce. He stormed up the boys stairwell. 

"Harry, how did you put your name in the goblet?" Hermione asked softly.

"I didn't, Hermione!" Harry said a bit more aggressive than she'd anticipated. 

"I'm sorry."

"I think someone put my name in. Someone did it to mess with me."

"I believe you."

"Wait, you do?"

"Yes. I thought about it all during dinner. Dumbledore put down an age line, which would make it impossible for you, a fourteen year old boy, to penetrate it. No offense, but Dumbledore is a far more knowledgable wizard than you. And again, no offense, but I don't think you'd be able to outsmart him."