Harry lies back on his bed, the curtains drawn around him. Above him, his candle burns, and beside him is Winston, Theodore's cat. Winston's sleek, inky body is sprawled on the sheets, his paws in the air and Harry's cheek warm against his furry belly. The cat's got an obscenely powerful purr, and Harry can feel it vibrating through his skin. Cats like Harry. Most of the cats in the castle will approach him and let him give them a scratch behind the ear - barring Mrs Norris and a pure white monster of a short-hair that wanders the dungeons now and then, Harry likes every cat at Hogwarts.

But only Winston will clamber into his bed and purr beside him when he can't find Theo instead.

The curtains shift, and Harry reluctantly opens his eyes. Blaise slips into Harry's bed, barefoot and wearing just his pyjamas, and he leans forwards, hands either side of Harry's hips.

"Not now," Harry says, leaning away from the other boy's mouth. He's been thinking about his kiss with Luna since this morning, and he hasn't told Blaise about Luna - nor has he told Luna about Blaise. Blaise frowns at him, tilting his head slightly to the side as he examines Harry's face, and then he shrugs. No concern shows in his face, but Harry knows the other boy feels it, and he does his best to ignore it.

"You worried about the Tournament?" Harry feels a slight lump in his throat, and he shifts slightly, sitting cross-legged with Blaise across from him. Winston stands up, kneading his paws painfully into Harry's knee, and Harry absently scratches the cat's ears.

"Not really," Harry says. It's maybe the tenth time he's been asked today, and with each repetition he's felt less excitement, less panic, less feeling where the looming First Task is concerned. "Are you?"

"No," Blaise answers. It's a lie. Harry knows it's a lie like he knows water is wet. "If it's just that you don't want the cat watching, Harry, I can-"

"I'm just not in the mood," Harry says, his tone a little stiff, and Blaise won't display concern, but he will display offence. His jaw shifts, clenching slightly as he looks at Harry, but Harry doesn't say anything. He turns his head to the side, looking at the cat instead of at Blaise's face, and he wonders if he's the sort of person to date two people at once. He isn't even- all he's done is kiss Luna, as yet, and yet... "Sorry."

Something in Blaise's expression changes, and he leans back.

"Good night, Harry," he says, with an edge of something cold in his tone, and he slips out of Harry's bed. Sighing, Harry lies down again, extinguishing his candle with a muttered command and burying his face in Winston's fur. Winston doesn't mind. Winston wouldn't mind if Harry pet every cat in the castle, so long as he slept in the same bed and Winston could still climb over his face in the middle of the night.

---

Harry spends the next week avoiding Luna and Blaise both. He goes to classes early and to bed late, wandering the castle at night and lingering in corridors when he knows Blaise or Luna will be crossing his path. One night, he even finds a bedroom on the seventh floor, and he sleeps there to keep from having to go to the Slytherin common room - unfortunately, he can't find it again the next day, and he writes it off as one of the Hogwarts things that only appears on Thursdays, or between the hours of eight and nine, or because you've stepped on twelve flagstones in exactly the right sequence.

Despite the pains he takes to keep himself isolated, though, he's well-rested on the morning of the First Task, and he meets Cedric in the Hogwarts courtyard. Down the hill, Harry can see hundreds of people filtering in through the gates and being lead into the arena's numerous stands, and he swallows slightly. The idea of that sort of audience is...

Well. It could be worse, actually. Harry feels excitement, his heart beginning to beat a little faster, but it just makes him want to bounce on his heels: by no means is there the slightest inkling of fear in him.

"You ready?" Cedric asks, and Harry can see by the grin on his face that he's feeling exactly like Harry right now, primed and excited to get into the arena to do something.

"Fuck no," Harry answers, and Cedric laughs as they jog together down to the arena. Through a wooden set of doors, they're brought into an antechamber beneath some of the stands. Fleur and Maxime are talking rapidly in French, and Harry guesses from the way Fleur keeps nodding her head as she speaks, her fists clenched, that Maxime is quizzing her - Hermione does the same thing when she demands help with her revision. Krum sits alone: Karkaroff had only been able to leave the hospital wing the night before, and Harry suspects he's barely up to spectating, let alone pushing his competitor.

"Hello!" Ludo Bagman says once all of them are inside, and he claps his hands together, grinning. He's got a face that might have been handsome once, but now it's ruddy, and there's something in Bagman's grin that's ugly to Harry. "Now, Champions, your task is simple: climb the pyramid and retrieve the mirror." He draws a set of three strws from his pocket, putting them out. "Shortest straw goes first, and longest last." Cedric draws the longest straw. Krum draws the shortest with a grim expression and a slow, decisive nod of his head, and Fleur sits down as Krum leaves.

Fleur doesn't seem nervous in the least, but she doesn't seem excited either. If anything, she seems bored. Harry can hear the screams and cheers of the crowd outside, echoing through the huge stadium, and he breathes in, shifting on his feet. For forty minutes, they stay in their places, listening to the crowd as they yell and cheer and laugh: they know he's grabbed his prize when the crowd goes silent for a few long seconds, holding their breaths, before breaking out into a huge, ridiculously loud cheer that must ring through Scotland, let alone the school.

"Good luck," Harry says when Fleur stands, and she grins at him.

"No need, Harry," she says, and pats his cheek before she runs out and into the arena to loud cheers from the crowd. Fleur takes only twenty five minutes, and Cedric and Harry share a look as the silence comes once more, before the loud cheer.

"Well then," Harry says, holding out his wand, and the both of them walk out into the stadium together. Harry might die, or he might not, and either way, he's buzzing with feeling.

"And our final Champions, hailing from Hogwarts, are Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter!" The announcer has his wand held to his own throat, no doubt using a Sonorus Charm - Harry guesses the little antechamber blocks out amplified voices, just so that later champions don't get an unfair advantage. He and Cedric run up to the starting platform, and when Harry sees the challenge laid out before them, he begins to laugh.

He laughs long and hard, bending over at the knee and smacking the side of his own thigh, and when he stands up properly, Cedric is glancing between him and the pyramid before them, an expression of horror on his face. The Mayan-style pyramid spans across the whole of the arena's dirt floor, and on every single level are more and more of the exact same creature: snakes. "Why are you laughing?" Cedric hisses, and Harry claps his hand on the other boy's back.

"Those are snakes, Cedric," Harry says. "And I'm a Parseltongue." Realization dawns on Cedric's face, and the two of them approach the pyramid's base. "Excuse me! Would any of you like some rats?"

---

"And with an utterly legendary three minutes and thirty nine seconds, with forty nine points awarded, the Hogwarts Champions are the winners of the First Task!" Harry grins as he grasps the side of the silver mirror, lifting it high with Cedric holding the other side, and the two of them exchange a grin. Harry lingers as Cedric heads back into the antechamber with the mirror in hand, and he feels the euphoria sing through his chest. Of all the tasks it could have been - dragons, Boggarts, dementors, monsters - and it was snakes.

Harry watches as a beautiful, rainbow-scaled snake begins to slowly make its way down the side of the pyramid. It has a thick plumage of red feathers as a crest, and Harry kneels on the ground as it comes towards him. "Why," the snake asks, "Is there noise?"

"It was a competition," Harry explains, bowing his head slightly and letting the snake coil itself warmly around his body. It's at least as thick as his thigh, and Harry guesses the Phoenix Snake is forty foot long at the least, but he doesn't mind: it had complained about the cold when Harry and Cedric had reached the top of the pyramid, and Harry feels a little bad for it. He strokes over the feathers on its neck, feeling its heavy weight on his body. "They were excited that Cedric and I won. You helped us win." The snake hisses. Harry gleans from context that it's meant to be like a derogative snort. "You're so handsome."

"Yes," the Phoenix Snake agrees, basking in Harry's heat and compliments, and Harry watches as handlers coax different snakes into different containers. "I will be returned to my homeland?"

"Yeah, soon," Harry promises. "Egypt, right?"

"Yesssss," it says, and Harry laughs as it flicks its tongue over his eyebrow. "You taste bad."

"Good," Harry says.

"Hey, hey there," says a grinning man with copper-brown skin and a thick scar down one of his cheeks. "You're the Parseltongue?"

"Yeah," Harry answers. "I'd stand and shake your hand, but this one's kind of heavy." The man laughs. He's American, Harry thinks, but where in America he's from Harry has no idea. The only American wizard he knows anything about is Chad Arnett.

"It is Takoda. Have him take me."

"It wants you to take it," Harry says, and he leans forwards, letting the snake slither from him and wind its way around Takoda's neck. Despite its hefty weight, Takoda doesn't so much as bend his knees, and Harry can't help but admire the strength that must be involved. "It's beautiful."

"Oh, yes," Takoda agrees. "By the way, I'm-"

"Takoda," Harry says. "Yeah, it knows your name." The man laughs again, and he kisses the Phoenix Snake on the nose. Its tongue flicks over his nose in retort, and Harry smiles, stroking over its colourful scales. "Do you work in the snake sanctuary?"

"Yes, I do," he says, nodding his head. "You should give us a call when you finish school, kid. It'd be great to have a Parseltongue around." Takoda walks off, and Harry is left slightly pensive as he steps out of the arena: the crowd has mostly been ushered out, the last of the audience meandering towards the Hogwarts gates, and Harry gives Sirius and Remus a wave as they keep walking.

He can't believe it.

He and Cedric did it - not only is Harry alive, but they're first place. He can't help but grin so widely he feels like he might split open his face as he walks into the castle, thinking about the mirror, and the Triwizard Cup, and Phoenix Snakes, and the feeling of victory. He feels so good, he forgets to feel bad when Blaise grabs him by the collar and pulls him into an empty classroom: Blaise prioritizes their private celebration over the party that will no doubt shake the dungeons, and Harry lets himself enjoy it. He'll worry about Luna in the morning.

Is he a bad person? He wonders this as he drags his teeth over Blaise's neck, pressing his thigh between the other boy's legs and grinding against him. Is he bad? Duplicitous? Does he deserve this? Does he deserve anything?

"I kissed Luna Lovegood," he blurts against Blaise's lips.

"Okay," Blaise says. "Let's get back to me."

"What?"

"I don't care," Blaise says, enunciating each and every syllable. "Now, Harry, please. Suck my cock."

"No, no, wait-" Harry says, and he puts his hands on Blaise's shoulders. Blaise rolls his eyes. "Is that- you don't care?"

"I couldn't possibly care less," Blaise says. "Now, please, let us celebrate your victory, and-"

"But I kissed her! While I've been kissing you!"

"I'm sure I would have noticed, were that the case." Harry stares at him, studying Blaise's face, and Blaise asks, "Is this why you were being funny the other day?" Harry doesn't need to nod for Blaise to see the silent confirmation in his face. "Potter, look. We're men. This isn't cheating - it's not the same. I don't know what those Muggles have taught you, but this arrangement... It's purely physical. Seeking out a romantic connection with a girl is to be expected. Perhaps a better girl than Lovegood, but a girl nonetheless."

"But-"

"Stop," Blaise orders. "Either one of our mouths is put to work, or I'm exiting this cupboard." Harry hesitates, just for a second, and then he leans in, kissing Blaise on the mouth. He does it solidly, pouring his heart and his lingering euphoria into the embrace, and when Blaise draws away, he says in a slightly dreamy tone, "Not what I had in mind, but nonetheless quite satisfying. For that, my friend, you can come first."

Harry leans back against the wall, closing his eyes, and doesn't think about Luna as Blaise pushes up his robes.