Awakening || Harry & Hermione

Chapter 8.2

Harry got up and demonstrated the regular bubble-head charm on himself and when Flitwick asked to see his 'experiments' he pointed his wand at the professor and chuckled as a half-goblin sized bubble surrounded him, lifting him off the ground.

"Marvelous," Flitwick's voice came out dimmed from behind the bubble. "These walls are very tight, almost solid. What was the reason for the change?"

Harry scratched his head. "Before I found out about the gillyweed, this charm was my only option and it just didn't seem enough. So I played around with it like the charms guide showed me, making sure I would be guaranteed a supply of oxygen that wouldn't run out and making sure that nothing else could come in. Then, I got bored and tried different things."

"Well, I hope you get bored much more often." Flitwick looked much too pleased for someone trapped inside an air chamber. "It takes more than just talent to modify charms, it takes ideas and a willingness to try new things. Usually, we don't teach modification until after your O.W.Ls. I was right when I said you have a knack for charms, just like your mother!"

Being compared to his mum always filled him with pride, but he was barely given any time to bask in the glow when Flitwick murmured, "These enhancements, however, can be rather dangerous. You could use this to render your opponent immobile in the middle of battle. The layers making up these walls are so thick that even I would take some time breaking out and in that delay you could have either deprived me of oxygen or substituted it with another gas entirely. Was that inten—"

"Intentional? I don't know." Harry let out a bitter laugh, cancelling the charm. "Anything I try to learn or do this year, I always end up thinking, 'How would this help me if I was attacked? How would this help me in the tasks?' I guess that's what happens when you're forced into a tournament of death and have your life hanging in the balance by a thread. Everything gets twisted, no matter the original intention."

Flitwick walked over to his desk and sat back down, with solemnity in his expression that had been absent from their meetings so far. "I wasn't accusing you of anything there, Harry. Frankly, it bothers me that you—a fourteen-year-old boy who should be at most stressed over exams—have to worry about survival to the point of obsession. It's not right."

"A fourteen-year-old boy? No one seemed to remember that when it came to me. It was just finger-pointing and judgemental stares, even from the professors who I was supposed to be able to turn to."

Flitwick looked stricken. "The professors were under instruction to not help any champion in order to make it fair."

"Fair?" His voice rose. "Is that really what you all thought? That ignoring and leaving me to fend for myself was fair? When all the other champions are older, all of them legally adults, all of them prepared and trained, all of them ready for what they signed up for. And then there was me—I just wanted to get out in one piece. I never cared about winning, not when I was forced into this. Was that never factored in?"

Harry was silent for a moment and his voice was low when he asked, "What do you make of this scenario? A player in the shadows goes past the defences of the Ministry and the Headmaster in order to enter one particular student into a tournament of death. You know that letting the student participate is giving the suspect exactly what they want, yet you force the student to go through with it anyway, with minimal help. Why? Is it still for the sake of fairness?"

"Harry. That's not—" Flitwick turned pale. "I'm sure Dumbledore had no such intentions—"

"I never said his name." Harry said quietly.

Harry had realized early on why he was being forced to participate in this farce. Going through the old wizarding laws and magical binding contracts had made it clear to him that no matter what Dumbledore had said about having no choice, there were ways that it could have been made easier on him. He could have been made an honorary participant and given permission to merely go through the motions instead of risking his life. They could have compensated his young age and lack of knowledge with real training if they really wanted to make it fair. So much more could have been done, yet in the end... nothing.

The answer was simple, really, once he stopped seeing everything through rose coloured glasses. He had realized as early as that morning, when he had woken up on Hermione's shoulder and opened his eyes to reality. After, he had pushed that thought to the back of his head for most of the year. There was nothing he could really do about it at that point, but dwelling on the truth hurt more than he cared to admit.

He was bait.

Flitwick got up from his chair and started pacing around the room, heavy lines on his forehead. For a second, Harry was sure that he heard something resembling grunts and snarls, but it was so jarring with the polite, gentlemanly image he had of the half-goblin that he convinced himself he had imagined it.

The professor turned around then and barked. "What have you learned so far?"

"What?"

"I may be a Charms professor, but I'm no stranger to offense. I'm half-goblin, Harry, we know how to protect ourselves against an enemy. So tell me, what spells have you learned to defend yourself?"

Harry was taken aback at the frenzied look in Flitwick's eyes but listed out the basic spells he had been practicing with Hermione in the Room of Requirement. Spells like Incendio to set things on fire, Bombarda to make explosions, Defodio to gouge out weak spots like the eyes, Reducto to disintegrate objects near the opponent, Stupefy to knock them out and the list went on. He was careful not to mention any of the Black Family spells.

"All good, decent spells. Some of them you won't learn until sixth year." Flitwick scrunched up his eyebrows in thought. "But if you're right and you really are being used as bait for a person even Albus can't handle, then that might not be enough."