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The Portrait Hole swung open, and the noise hit Harry like a physical blow.
The Gryffindor common room was a sea of roaring scarlet and gold. Crimson banners draped across the walls, and the air smelled heavily of spilled butterbeer and exploding bonfires. As soon as Harry stepped across the threshold, the room erupted.
"We knew you'd do it!" Lee Jordan bellowed, leaping onto a table.
"The real Hogwarts champion!" Fred and George howled in unison, trying to hoist Harry onto their shoulders. Hands clapped his back, fingers tugged at his robes, and a dozen voices shouted over one another, demanding to know how he’d bypassed Dumbledore’s Age Line.
Harry couldn't breathe. The room spun, a kaleidoscope of bright colors and wide, cheering mouths. They’re cheering, a cold, detached voice whispered in his mind. They’re celebrating.
The shock, which had kept him numb in the chamber downstairs, suddenly broke. The noise faded into a dull, underwater roar, replaced by a terrifying clarity.
They're cheering now. Will they cheer when the tasks kill me?
The thought tore through him, violent and visceral. His stomach violently recoiled. Harry wrenched himself away from the twins, stumbled toward the nearest corner, and collapsed to his knees. Before anyone could stop him, he heaved, throwing up right onto the stone floor.
The room went dead silent. The cheering stopped as if cut by a knife.
Harry stayed on his hands and knees, staring at the floor, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. When he spoke, his voice wasn't the heroic tone they expected. It was raw, cracked, and laced with absolute panic.
"I didn't do it," he gasped, wiping his mouth with a shaking sleeve. He pushed himself up against the wall, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he looked at the stunned faces of his housemates. "I didn't put my name in! I don't want this! I'm going to die!"
"Harry, mate—" Ron started, his face pale.
"No!" Harry shouted, his voice cracking as he looked around the room. "You don't understand! Moody said it—he said whoever did this used a powerful Confundus Charm. Someone wants me in this tournament. Someone put my name in to kill me! And the adults... the adults are just letting it happen! They're forcing me to do this!"
The silence in the common room grew heavier, suffocatingly tense. The excitement evaporated, replaced by the grim, unsettling reality of what they were actually looking at. This wasn't a glorious champion. This was a terrified fourteen-year-old boy shivering against the wall.
Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet exchanged a horrified look. Slowly, the older students began to move. Hermione knelt right beside him, her hands trembling as she rubbed his back, while Katie Bell conjured a damp cloth to hand to him.
"Sit down, Harry. Just sit," Fred said softly, his usual joking demeanor entirely gone. He and George gently guided Harry to the armchair closest to the fire.
An unspoken consensus passed among the upper years. Oliver Wood was gone, but the protective, fierce nature of the house remained. Wood had left a legacy of fierce loyalty, and looking at Harry now, the older Gryffindors saw exactly what the rest of the school forgot: Harry was tiny. He was young.
"Drink this, Potter," a sixth-year named Kenneth Towler said quietly, pressing a heavy goblet into Harry's shaking hands. It wasn't butterbeer. It was firewhisky, smuggled in from Hogsmeade.
Harry didn't care. He took a massive gulp. The liquid burned like liquid fire down his throat, cutting through the icy panic in his chest. He coughed, choked, and drank more. The older students kept his glass filled, watching in grim silence as the alcohol finally slowed his hyperventilating.
Within an hour, the adrenaline and the alcohol took their toll. Harry’s head lolled against the side of the armchair, his eyes slipping shut as he fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.
The common room didn't empty. No one went to bed. Instead, the older students gathered in a tight circle around the hearth, away from the sleeping fourth-year.
"He's fourteen," Alicia whispered, her voice trembling. "He's a third-year's age. And they're going to put him against dragons or worse."
"They aren't helping him," Hermione said, her voice dropping into a deadly, dangerous register. Her eyes were fixed on the fire. "Dumbledore, the Ministry, the teachers... they're all just going to watch him like he's a piece of entertainment."
A seventh-year prefect, a tall, stern boy named Alistair, stood up and looked around at the gathered lions.
"So, what are we going to do?"
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The atmosphere in the dragon arena was electric. The stands were packed to the brim, a chaotic tapestry of colors as Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, Slytherins, Ravenclaws, and visiting family members crammed together, shouting and waving banners.
Except for one corner.
An entire block of the stadium—the eastern stands—stood in stark, terrifying contrast. Every single Gryffindor, from the smallest first-year to the tallest seventh-year, sat crammed together in a solid wall of scarlet and gold.
They did not move. They did not speak.
Hanging from the stone wall directly in front of their block was a massive, stark white banner. Written upon it in bold, black ink were five words:
WE WILL NOT BE ENTERTAINED.
By the time the third champion had finished their heat, a deep, unsettling tension had rippled through the stadium. The rest of the crowd was shouting and stamping their feet, but the complete, dead silence radiating from a quarter of the arena was making everyone incredibly uncomfortable. It was like a black hole of grief and defiance in the middle of a festival.
Ludo Bagman, standing in the judges' box with his wand pressed to his throat, could no longer ignore it. The silence of the Gryffindors was dampening the entire event.
Bagman turned toward the Gryffindor block, his magically magnified voice booming over the roaring wind.
"And a spectacular finish by Cedric Diggory! But—uh—if I could have a moment of your attention, folks," Bagman said, trying to maintain his jovial, showman smile, though it twitched at the corners. He pointedly faced the silent block. "I couldn't help but notice our friends from Gryffindor house seem a bit... subdued today! Is anyone down there going to explain what's going on? Come now, don't you want to cheer for your school?"
In the front row of the Gryffindor stands, Alistair, the seventh-year prefect, drew his wand. He moved deliberately, without a sound. Because his own mouth was missing.
A close inspection of the Gryffindors revealed a horrifying sight: every single one of them had a blank, seamless patch of smooth skin stretching between their nose and chin. They had cursed their own mouths away.
Since Alistair had no mouth, he performed the magic flawlessly in his mind. With a silent flick of his wand, he cast a counter-curse on Hermione Granger, who was sitting beside him. A seam appeared on her face, opening up to reveal her mouth once more.
Alistair then pointed his wand at her throat and silently cast Sonorous.
Hermione stood up. When she spoke, her voice blasted across the rocky arena, carrying the weight of an entire house.
"The entirety of Gryffindor House is protesting," Hermione announced, her voice cold, steady, and utterly devoid of fear. "We are protesting the forced participation of a fourteen-year-old boy who did not enter his own name into this tournament."
The stadium grew deathly quiet.
"We are sitting in silence to protest the fact that not a single adult in this castle, this Ministry, or this international committee tried to help him," Hermione continued, her eyes locked dead on the judges' table. "We are here to remind everyone in these stands exactly what you are cheering for. Harry Potter is only one day older than the oldest of our third-years. His birthday falls exactly on the yearly cut-off date. He is a child."
Bagman’s face flushed a deep, embarrassed red. He nervously adjusted his robes, cutting in over her. "Now, see here, young lady! The Triwizard Tournament has undergone rigorous safety overhauls! The Ministry has taken every precaution! It is perfectly safe—"
"Then swear it," Hermione interrupted, her amplified voice cutting through his bumbling like a silver blade. "Unless you, Ludo Bagman, are willing to stand before this crowd and swear on your life and your magic that no one is going to die today?"
Bagman choked. He spluttered, his mouth opening and closing as he looked at the other judges. Fudge looked put out, Crouched looked entirely hollow, and Dumbledore merely watched with a heavy, somber expression.
"Well—I—there are always risks, of course—accidents happen in high-level magic—" Bagman stammered.
"Then we refuse to be entertained by the possibility of a child's death," Hermione replied coldly.
She sat back down. Alistair immediately raised his wand, terminating the Sonorous charm before reapplying the mouth-removal curse. The smooth, blank skin sealed over Hermione's face once more. She folded her arms, staring blankly ahead.
The silence that followed was total.
The crowd was no longer cheering. The flags stopped waving. The excitement had vanished, replaced by an intense, burning discomfort. Thousands of eyes turned away from the Gryffindors, moving slowly, heavily, to stare directly at the judges