49 Ch 18 The Trip Part 2

"Stop pacing around so much," Ron said, following Harry with his head left and right, "You're going to make me dizzy,"

Both of them were in the Gryffindor dormitory at the moment but just a few hours earlier shit had hit the ceiling when Harry's name had flown out of the Goblet of Fire. Everything had flown past him so quickly that it was only now that the realization hit him like a ton of bricks, and he felt a wave of panic wash over him as he struggled to come to terms with the gravity of the situation

"Dizzy! Dizzy! You say!" Harry's voice rose with each word, "I am on the verge of passing out here and you're worried about getting dizzy," Harry shouted with wide eyes before he went back to pacing, "Shit! Why did it have to happen this year? I knew everything was going far too smoothly and something just had to give sooner or later but... I had just hoped for once..."

"Oh! You don't have to be so dramatic about it," Ron said rolling his eyes, "It's not like this is the first time something like this had happened,"

"But it's not like the other times," Harry stressed, "Every other time at least I was given a choice, like in the first year, it was my choice for us to go to the third floor at the end of the year a-and it was our choice to go Myrtle's bathroom in the second year to save Ginny and so on but this time... I wasn't even given a chance. I didn't choose this," Harry said morosely while taking a seat on his bed while holding his head in his hands.

"You really didn't?" Ron asked hesitatingly.

"Of course not—" Harry said, looking up incredulously, "You don't think that I entered myself, Do you?"

"I mean i-it's not like I would mind if you did," Ron said, looking away and playing with the blanket in his hands.

Harry opened his mouth as he felt a surge of anger rising up in him but stopped at the last moment and took a deep breath before standing up and moving to sit directly in front of Ron.

"Ron," Harry said and quietly asked him, "What do you think you would get if you were the one who entered the tournament?"

"What?" Ron asked confusedly while turning his head toward Harry.

"What would you get if you entered and won the tournament?" Harry repeated his question calmly.

"Umm... A thousand gallons and E-Eternal glory and I would become famous I guess," Ron said shrugging, his eyes dilating and a smile appeared on his face as he thought about it.

"You are my best friend and the one who knows the most about me, Don't you?" Harry asked and continued after Ron nodded, "So tell me honestly, Do you think I need 1000 galleons?"

"No," Ron answered after a while, his face slowly turning red.

"What about fame? Do you think I need that?"

"No,"

"And Eternal Glory—"

"Alright! Alright!" Ron said exasperatedly raising his hands, "You don't need to make me feel so stupid. I was just asking..."

Harry immediately felt relief rush through his body when he saw that Ron had come back from the deep end. He had never been more thankful to Sirius than at that moment for teaching him occlumency and he was glad that the training was actually working.

The art had not only made his nights more bearable without any unpleasant dreams. They also left his mind uncluttered and it left him with the feeling as if he always had infinite time to think before doing or saying anything.

If it was him from before he knew that he would have either been too sullen to calmly assess the situation or too indignant to understand that it was just Ron having a momentary bout of jealousy.

Harry knew all too well about jealousy from his childhood years; watching Dudley receive all kinds of gifts and love from him while all he received was a list of chores was difficult, so he could easily relate with his best friend. Growing up as a seventh child in the Weasely family, who were not too well financially meant there would be some things that were inevitable.

"So what do you think I should do," Harry asked after a few minutes of silence while going back to his bed and lying down.

"I don't know," Ron said shrugging, "Ask Sirius. He always knows what to do,"

"I can't," Harry said sighing, "He said that he's going on some kind of trip to the mountains or forest or something and that I may not be able to contact him for a while,"

Ron offered a half-hearted smile. "Looks like you'll need to start working on your autobiography then, mate," he said. "At least I'll make a few Galleons from ghostwriting it."

Harry chuckled weakly, appreciating his friend's attempt at humor. But at that moment, he understood the metaphor "When it rains, it pours" all too well.

...

A few days later Ron and Harry were hurrying toward the library, their face contorted with panic.

"I've already told Hermione and she is already waiting for us in the library," Ron said without breaking his stride, "She's probably already deep into books about animals,"

"And you're sure that it's Dragon," Harry asked in a hushed voice, his eyes comically wide behind his glasses.

"Why else would my brother Charlie be here,"

Harry let out a despairing groan. "What in Merlin's name am I supposed to do in front of a dragon?"

Ron shook his head and shrugged. "Don't look at me," he said. "The only ray of hope you have is Hermione, so you better pray that your girlfriend's got some good ideas, otherwise if it was left to us you'll be dragon food before you know it."

Harry let out a mirthless laugh as they entered the library and scanned the rows of bookshelves. They finally spotted Hermione's unmistakable hair peeking out from behind a towering stack of books. "Let's go see what she's found," Harry said, a glimmer of hope in his voice.

"Umm... Hermione," Ron said tentatively, approaching the frazzled girl whose eyes were darting across the pages of a book. "I brought Harry."

"WHAT—" Hemione looked up; annoyed at getting disturbed while she was reading before she realized who it was, "Oh, Ron! Harry! Where were you? Did Ron tell you about the dragons? Are you scared?" Her words tumbled out in a rush. "Well, don't be. I'm sure we'll find a way to get you through this. And if we can't, we'll come up with a plan B. We could always hide you or maybe even have you stay with Sirius. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Or maybe..."

Harry cut in before Hermione could continue her rapid-fire suggestions. "I'm okay," he said, trying to sound reassuring. "Or I will be. I'm sure the three of us can come up with a solution."

"We will," Hermione said, nodding resolutely. "And speaking of which," she said, as she picked up a thin book from the stack, "Sirius sent me a few books for my birthday, and this one caught my attention. It's a muggle book that teaches effective problem-solving techniques."

Harry and Ron both looked at the book Hermione was excitedly talking about skeptically before Ron blurted out, "How in the bloody hell is a muggle book supposed to help us with a dragon,"

"It's not supposed to give us the answer. Instead, it's meant to give us a fresh perspective on the problem," Hermione explained, pausing when she saw the blank looks on Harry and Ron's faces. "But let's just give it a try."

She opened a fresh page in her notebook and wrote at the top, "Our main problem is a 'Dragon'." She looked up at Harry and Ron, encouraging them to speak their minds. "Now, we need to write down everything we know about the dragon's strengths and weaknesses. Anything that comes to your mind, let's start."

Hermione waited expectantly as Harry and Ron hesitated before finally, Harry said hesitatingly, "Um... How about its massive strength," just to get his girlfriend to stop staring at them.

Ron scoffed at the obvious answer but Hermione happily wrote it down, "No Ron! It's good. As I said you can say anything,"

"Oh! Then how about—It breathes fire," Ron said with a smirk, rolling his eyes.

"Good," Hermione wrote it down and looked up, "Anything else,"

"It can fly," "It's massive teeth," "It's magic resistant hide,"

Harry and Ron took turns coming up with more and more ridiculous things they could think of and made a game of it but before long, even their brains which had been trained by Trelawney's class to come up with ridiculous ideas ran out of things.

"Now," Hermione said taking her quill to the empty side of the page, "It's weakness,"

At that, all three of them were stumped, as it was really hard to think about the weakness of a huge magical beast like the dragon.

"How about its eyes," Ron said after a while, just to move things along.

"We would need a specific spell to exploit that," Hermione said frowning, still she wrote it down, "I guess it a start. Anything else,"

"Umm... How about cold," Harry said scratching his head.

"Maybe," Hermione said biting her lips, "I will have to check about that," she said while writing it down.

"How about breathing," Ron said absentmindedly.

Harry looked at Ron quizzically, "How is that supposed to be a weakness?"

"I mean it needs to breathe, Doesn't it," Ron said smirking, "So maybe we lather you up something like hippogriff shit and fill your pockets up with Fred and George's Stinkbombs. Then maybe the dragon will be so disgusted with you that it will leave you alone Pffft..." He burst out laughing at the ridiculous image he conjured in his head.

"Ha ha, Very funny," Harry said rolling his eyes, "You know, I don't even need to go that far. Just one of your old smelly socks will be enough to send any dragon running,"

While the boys were messing around with each other, behind them Hermione had gone into some kind of a trance, "Breathe... It needs to... Oxygen..." Hermione eyes were completely blank as she mumbled to herself incoherently and out of nowhere she suddenly jumped in her place with wide eyes and a blinding smile on her face, "That's absolutely brilliant, Ron," she exclaimed.

Without wasting a single moment, Hermione dashed off into the sea of bookshelves to see if her idea was feasible, leaving two stunned boys behind.

"Do you know what she's on about, Mate," Ron asked after Hermione had disappeared from their view.

"What are you asking me for?" Harry said incredulously, "It was your "brilliant" idea, after all,"

"Ah! Well," Ron shrugged, "I just thought you would have learned your girlfriend's secret language by now,"

"I don't think anyone can learn that..." Harry shook his head with a wry smile.

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