The Stand

The First Task

The day after the Weighing of the Wands, Dumbledore was having a bad morning.

He thought Harry would take the abuse from other students badly, and would come to him for guidance. That would bring Harry under his wing and firmly in the light side.

Now, he wasn't so certain with that plan. None of Harry's friends left him so Harry was fine. And when Harry was attacked, he fought back. They guy wouldn't let someone hurt him.

And now, he had the issue of the dual cores. He expected for Harry to get the holly and phoenix feather wand. That was supposed to be the plan. Instead, Harry had a combination of two wands, which meant that his and Voldemort's wand may not be connected.

Dumbledore's thought were interrupted when a letter arrived. Upon seeing that it was red, he applied silencing spells on his room and opened it.

"ALBUS DUMBLEDORE, YOU DUMBFUCK" the howler blasted in a combination of Sirius and Lupin's voice "YOU REALLY LET HARRY GET ENTERED INTO THE TOURNAMENT! AND YOU WOULDN'T LET HIM WITHDRAW! YOU REALLY FUCKED UP THIS TIME PAL! I SWEAR TO GOD THAT IF YOU DO ONE MORE STUPID THING, WE WILL END THE LIFE OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE, THE STUPIDEST MOTHERFUCKER KNOWN TO MAN!"

With that, the letter dissolved into ashes, leaving a frightened Dumbledore in its wake.

It was mere days before the first task when Fred and George popped up in front of Harry "Hiya Harry!"

Harry gave them a small smile "Hi guys. What's up?"

He suddenly found himself being dragged away by the twins, who simply told him "We need to talk."

Once they were in a secluded classroom, Harry stared at the twins "Spill."

"We got a letter from our brother, Charlie" Fred began.

"Charlie works in Romania, with dragons" George's eyes gleamed "In his letter, he mentioned that he would be coming to Hogwarts for the first task."

Harry started realizing what they meant as Fred continued "If Charlie is coming, then the task has to do with dragons. So when Charlie arrived, we went down to say hi and overheard him and his coworker talking."

"Apparently, you need to get past a nesting mother dragon in the task" George finished.

Harry grinned "Thanks guys. I'm going to go tell Cedric."

"Why would you tell him?" Fred asked.

"His house has been jerks to you" George added.

"Cedric's been nice" Harry answered "If he sees someone being idiots, he tells them off. He believes me about the Goblet and I thank him for that. Besides, who's going to tell him? Teachers can't help and I don't see anyone from Hufflepuff figuring it out."

Fred nodded "Make sense."

"Bye Prongslet" George and Fred said in unison as they left the room. After they left, Harry raced to find Cedric. He eventually found him in the library. He moved to get to him, but was blocked by Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, Zacharias Smith and Ernie Macmillan.

"What do you want Potter" Zacharias snarled.

Harry rolled his eyes "I have no business with you. So move."

"We're not going to let you hurt our champion" Hannah crossed her arms, trying to look tough. In reality, none of them did.

"Look, I'm trying to help him. So let me pass or else..." Harry growled.

Susan laughed "Or what Potter?"

By this time, Cedric saw the confrontation and walked over "What's going on?"