Chapter Text
Harry had spent his entire 5th year relentlessly training for the most important event of his life; The Monumental Aurors Championship.
The championship was to decide which student, out of a hundred from all around Europe, was the most remarkable at the Dark Arts, and could begin their journey in Auror training— no outstanding NEWT results needed.
Of course, they were a must to obtain, but at a much later age than usually allowed.
It was a golden opportunity, something Harry felt in his heart he needed. He had only ever envisioned one possible career path for himself, being an Auror. With the life he’s lived, and continues to, he cannot imagine a more fitting job for himself.
And so, to be able to compete for the position, and at such an early age? Harry had felt the luckiest he had in a long time.
Alongside him, another five students from Hogwarts have set to compete for the title. Ron Weasley, Harry’s best friend (alongside Hermione), has been one of them.
They’ve teased one another about beating the other, describing the violent ways they’d utilize to win.
But it never felt real. never felt truly close to happening. The Ministry of Magic and Magical Law Enforcement Department have given the competitors a year to perfect their craft. A year to become as greatly knowledgeable in the Dark Arts and Its counters, and offensive styles, as possible.
Harry’s taken this extremely seriously. He wanted this, and he knew he must do anything in his power to get this. Not because he is The Boy who Lived or the Chosen One, but because he is Harry Potter— a boy who lost his parents and suffered through eleven years of abuse and isolation, just to finally find a place of safety to be terrorised by his parents’ murderer. Not to mention, Harry’s lost Cedric, who he came to call a friend, just the year before. Harry was tired. He didn’t want Voldemort to have any sort of control over his life anymore.
And the best way to do so? becoming an Auror. fighting the source of his problems with newfound sight, instead of continuing to do so blindfolded and waiting for the Death Eater’s next attack.
Training daily was hard, and a challenge. Harry had to balance between his first year of OWLs, while maintaining an intensively stern yet rewarding training.
Weekly, they’d have an Auror come over to the school and check on their progress, while also rigorously training them.
Saying Harry was worn out would be an understatement; he was working as vigorously as possible, running on pure willpower for the finish line, to start his journey, that he worked himself to the bone.
One night on the sofas by the fire in the warm Gryffindor common room, Harry, Hermione and Ron sat quietly with heavy tombs in their hands. Professor Umbridge was teaching them absolutely nothing, yet happily assigned plenty of homework. All to keep us busy, too busy to stop and wonder if any of this was worth it. If she really taught us anything meaningful, that would help us keep safe in case of an attack.
“Harry,” Hermione called out into the silence. “You’re falling asleep on your book. Go to bed.”
Harry sighed. His friend’s worries were much appreciated, yet unnecessary. “I can’t afford slacking, ‘Mione,”
“Slacking? Harry, you’ve been doing the opposite! I've never seen you before as diligent as you are now!” She uttered in bewilderment. Shock colored her voice that he even considered this as ‘slacking’.
“Yeah, Mate,” Ron agreed with her, a tad covetous. “You’re working twice as hard as I am. Don’t think I can hear you get up each morning, an hour before our actual waking time.” His voice was laced with envy, a poisonous, destructive thing.
Hermione was casting wary looks at Harry, probably expecting him to acknowledge the obvious undertones to Ron’s statement.
Harry knew he ought to do something, make his friend feel better, and so for a moment he paused, searching for the right words to encourage him.
“That’s hardly the truth,” He settled on. “You’ve been working tirelessly, too. There’s no need to compare our efforts.”
“Easy for you to say,” He grumbled, standing up from the soft scarlet sofa and walking away towards the stairs, leading to the boy’s dorm.
Hermione’s eyes shone with sympathy for the self conscious ginger, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of her sweater. This conversation must be quite uncomfortable for her, as she herself has nothing to do with the competition yet has to watch her two friends clash one another.
Months went by, The championship nearing its date, and Harry hasn’t slowed his strenuous training one bit. It had a physical effect on him, of course— his muscles strengthened, his body composition improved, and his nightmares have mostly calmed. They did make appearances every once in a while, but after training Harry was so tired he’d knock out immediately.
A few days before The championship, one day before Hogwart’s competitors left for the event organised by the Ministry of Magic, Harry sat on the windowsill in a far section, away from all prying eyes, staring at the dark night sky, the clouds, with a letter clutched in his hands. It was from Sirius, his godfather, wishing him good luck. Sirius, one of the most important people in Harry’s life, his way out of the Dursley household, telling him how proud he is of him.
But Harry felt wrong. So, so incredibly wrong. It was a deep, unfavourable feeling in his gut screaming at him one clear thing; Something bad is going to happen at The Monumental Aurors Championship.
Harry's skin crawled, and he was breathing rapidly, as though someone was chasing him. His heartbeat, too, hammered violently in his chest.
He shut his eyes, hoping to force away the strong force of dread he suddenly felt, but that didn’t work either.
Could Voldemort really ruin this for Harry? Would he appear and drag away his dream? Would he be so cruel, so brutal, to take away this small thing? after tearing Harry’s parents away from him, and anything good with them?
Harry knew the truth; he would. If it was up to Voldemort, Harry would be long dead and have no chance to even compete.
Well, I'm alive, Harry thought.
There was no way Voldemort would be so suicidal, he’d actually break into a Ministry event full of Aurors, politicians, and to-be-Aurors.
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The Ministry wanted a way for each student to prove themselves. They wanted their newly attained skills to shine through, their magic.
They wanted to determine who seemed fit for the role, and yet, of course, like many competitions, to get some entertainment out of it.
Harry and the other Hogwarts competitors had to wear a T-shirt with ‘Hogwarts’ written on the back along with their last name, and the four houses logo on the front, on the right side of his shirt.
The first way was full of duels. Endless duels that had students bleeding, cursed and whatnot. At the end of the day, from a hundred candidates they’ve gone down to fifty. Harry had to duel a boy from Durmstrang.
He was taller than Harry and had shoulder length blond hair. Harry doesn’t know his name. He probably would, If the boy took a moment to introduce himself before launching into attack.
Harry toyed with him for a bit; kept dodging and using light spells, nothing too bad that would actually harm the boy. His competitor clearly had no such obligations as he hurled at Harry a few, if narrowly missed, ‘bombarda’ ‘s.
The edge of Harry’s sleeve was smelling vaguely like smoke, but Harry had no time to check before dodging yet again. He took his time to study his opponent, and with one, good aimed spell, he sent him flying a few feet away.
Ron lasted the first round, too, and Harry was incredibly proud of him. Ron hasn’t shown jealousy ever since that one conversation they had a few months before, and it was all clearly forgotten.
They celebrated at the end of the day, dorky smiles adoring their faces.
The second day, they all had to face a boggart. Harry, still quite fearful of the creatures ever since his 3rd year in Hogwarts, cast a patronus almost immediately, not even waiting to see what form it took.
And then they were down, by another half— students who froze in fear, or those that acted too little, too late— and twenty five competitors remained.
The third day, they each had to face a troll. Harry, who faced one already during his first year, found this to be quite.. well, it feels disrespectful calling it as such, but easy.
Fourteen contestants failed to defeat the troll.
This was all too easy. Harry’s talents went beyond anything he could hope for. And yet, Harry felt such a sickening feeling regarding the Championship. It was going too good. He was doing too good. He’s never had such a streak of good luck before. It is beginning to scare him. Scare him, and do something much worse.
It gave Harry hope.
Hope was a cruel, fragile thing.
It could be beautiful. Hope was the most encouraging thing there was, it filled one’s heart with faith and thrill for the things to come.
But it was also extremely delicate, and could shatter, escape one’s grasp, and break into a million pieces of unfulfilled dreams.
Harry didn’t tell Ron of his fears that night. He went to bed and had a fitful sleep, tossing and turning for an hour before falling asleep.
The next morning everything was normal. Like the days before concerning the tournament. Harry wondered how long it would all last.
Sirius, Remus, Hermione and the Weasley's, along with the other contestants' families came to watch them all. It was nice, and Harry felt momentarily calm when he had Sirius’ arms around him, wishing him luck and offering calming words.
Their last challenge with the remaining eleven competitors began. It was situated in a lengthy forest, and the instructions were simple; battle one another until one prevails.
Harry handled it with as much ease as he could. He made a point to mostly dodge but still use a few powerful spells for a good measure. He did not want to hurt his opponents, and he didn’t mind that he got a few scraps due to that choice.
He was in the middle of a duel with a girl from Beauxbatons who showed great skills at offensive magic, when in the corner of his eye he could see Ron getting knocked down, resulting in his immediate elimination.
Harry wanted to run to him, but he had to deal with his duel and wasn’t going to waste his hard work. Not now; he could comfort Ron later.
Harry didn’t know he wouldn’t be able to.
As more competitors got eliminated; Harry and only one another were left. This is your moment, he thought. don’t fuck this up. He turned around to face his final duel, and his emerald eyes widened almost immediately.
“Malfoy?!” He yelped, momentarily startled.
“Surprised, Potter? you seriously didn’t think I would miss out on such an opportunity?” Malfoy taunted.
“But— how?! you— we were five. five students chosen. you weren’t one of them. You didn’t get here with us, and I didn't see you on the first day when we all duelled!”
Harry knew mentioning the first day was a long shot. they were a hundred people there, he might’ve just missed him.
but he also knew Malfoy wouldn’t miss the chance to mock him, and that told him all he needed to know.
“Of course you didn’t see me during the first day,” Malfoy’s mouth twisted into a devilish grin, his eyes glinting in a ridiculing sort of way. “I only got here during the second.”
Malfoy shot a curse at Harry. He barely managed to dodge. He can’t afford to be distracted again, but he just had to ask; “How did they let you come here? You weren’t chosen. Did you even want to compete for this?”
“Not at first,” Malfoy indulged. “But then I saw you leaving with the rest, and knew I had to get here. Easy thing for my father to achieve, really. And I did it all just for you, Potter. To put the ‘chosen one’ in his place.”
Harry’s stomach churned with acid. He knew this; Knew things just couldn’t be right for him. But he was also pissed. Rage consumed him. How dare he come here and deliberately ruin this for him?
Harry’s eyes flashed dangerously and he raised his wand, opened his mouth to shout whatever spell he could think of, when Death Eaters flew right in, encircling Harry.
“Malfoy?!” Harry shouted, searching the boy’s eyes. Malfoy seemed to be as confused as Harry, before one Death Eater walked by him, whispered into his ear, and he did one unbelievable thing; he lowered his head in obedience.
“I—I didn’t know,” He mumbled, not meeting Harry’s eyes, before fleeting.
Harry knew the forest was a good few miles away from all their tents. Knew the Aurors wouldn’t get there on time.
On time for what? He didn’t know.
Spells began getting thrown. a few ‘Crucio’s he barely ducked, but he couldn’t hold them off. They were five; he was one.
A cutting hex left a big slash on his side, another hex burned a good chunk of his shirt and along with it a bit of skin on his arm.
He was thrown back, into the air, and knocked into a tree, before a sharp pain shot through his shoulder.
A small dagger was stuck in it, and he tore it out, crying out in pain. He was sweating, and it was rapidly increasing as though he was in a sauna, and his vision began blurring.
But then he heard a shriek, and barely turned his head to look Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, his best friends, who were now storming into danger for him.
He tried opening his mouth to tell them no, don’t, go away, but no words came out. His mouth felt unbearably heavy, and his lips were numb.
Hermione threw a tiny, gold thing at him in the midst of her run, her hair flattering wildly in the wind.
He somehow managed to catch it; Seeker reflexes aiding him in the process, and through heavy eyelids he saw it for what it was; a time turner. He put the long chain around his neck, giving the time turner a few spins for good major, before a wild force captured him, dropping him into the unknown.