Harry made his way into the Great Hall for dinner with a smile on his face. Although the idea of fighting a dragon was not very appealing, just knowing what to expect made him feel a lot better about his chances of surviving at least the first third of the tournament.
Plus, he still had a little more than a week to figure out what he was going to do. He decided to spend the rest of his night in the library trying to find out how to attack a dragon, and hopefully by tomorrow he could have someone else thinking about the challenge as well.
Dinner was already half way over by the time Harry noticed an empty seat across from Neville and sat down. As he began to eat he noticed Ron, who was sitting at the other end of the table, get up and walk out of the Hall after glaring at Harry for a few moments. He didn't mind, and in fact was happy Ron had not decided to make a scene during dinner. Meanwhile, Neville had stopped eating and was looking at Harry with a curious look on his face.
"What's got you so happy, Harry?" Neville asked.
Harry thought about what he should tell his friend, and Neville truly was a friend. Harry regretted the three years in which he had known Neville and not let him get as close as he allowed Ron and Hermione.
Harry wondered how much he should tell him and how much he should keep to himself. While he didn't want anyone to find about his advantage, he also knew that this was the best time to test Neville's loyalty. Even if the others were to know about the dragons, it won't affect him much. On the other hand he could weed out a potential traitor.
"Neville, you can keep a secret can't you?"
"Of course, Harry."
"OK. I know what the first task is going to be." Harry said prompting a shocked reaction from Neville. Harry leaned in a little closer and whispered mysteriously "Dragons."
"Seriously? Wow, that is going to be tough."
"Yeah. You don't happen to know an easy way to bring one down, do you?"
Neville laughed and answered "No, I don't think there is an easy way. Gran took me to a dragon preserve once on vacation and we saw the dragon handlers trying to get one into a cage. It took ten wizards a half hour to do it." Harry frowned, clearly this was going to be even more difficult than he had anticipated.
"Well, I don't have to cage one or even kill it. I just have to take something from its nest."
"You don't really think that is going to be easier, do you? Dragons are very protective of their nests, Harry. You really don't want to fight one head on. Maybe you could try distracting it somehow, and then get to the nest while the dragon is gone." Harry nodded at the idea, it was one he had been considering.
"But how do you distract a dragon?" Harry wondered.
"I dunno, but they've got to be scared of something right?"
"I guess. I'm heading to the library after this, hopefully I can find some way to get their attention."
"Do you want some help?" Neville offered. "I'm caught up on my homework, and I would probably just end up playing exploding snap in the common room the rest of the night otherwise."
"Thanks Neville, that would be great."
"No problem. I…" Neville stopped what he was saying and looked up. "Harry, Hermione's headed this way."
Harry turned around and sure enough, his bushy haired old friend was headed directly towards them. He tried to keep a neutral expression on his face while she sat down at the table next to him. Neville, having watched how the three 'friends' had acted around each other since Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire, eyed Hermione with suspicion.
"Hi, Harry." she said quietly.
"Hello. Is there something I can do for you, Miss Granger?" Harry asked, causing Hermione to frown.
"I don't want to fight anymore, Harry. I want things to go back to the way they were."
"We're hardly fighting Hermione. In fact, this is the first time you've talked to me in almost two weeks. So what has changed? Did you finally realize that I have been telling the truth this whole time?" Harry retorted.
"I don't know. I want to believe you, but Harry I saw how excited you got when they announced the tournament and I know how competitive you can be."
"Sure I was excited, but so was the rest of the school!"
"Hermione," Neville spoke up for the first time, "I thought Harry was supposed to be your best friend. I trust him to be honest, why don't you?"
Harry and Hermione were both a little shocked by this statement, as neither of them had ever heard Neville speaking so strongly in defense of anyone before. Harry smiled, Neville was a better friend than he had given him credit for.
"Neville, this is between Harry and I. Please let us…"
"No, Hermione." Harry said, cutting her off. "It's a good question."
"It's not that I don't trust you, I just thought that there was more going on here than you've told us. I guess you could be right. Just let me think about it, ok?" Hermione asked. Harry merely shrugged his shoulders.
"Hermione, I think I have already lost Ron's friendship. I hope I don't lose yours, but I haven't done anything wrong here."
"Surely things with Ron can't be that bad." Hermione said, not responding to the rest of Harry's statement. "You two can patch things up, right?"
"I don't think he wants to. I know you have seen how he has treated me the last two weeks. In fact, I had hoped you would say something about it."
"I thought that if I got involved I would make the situation worse. I didn't want to take a side if that meant the three of us wouldn't be friends anymore."
"Things can't just go back to the way they were, Hermione. Everything has changed. I can't force you to see it my way. Just think about it. I'll see you later."
Harry pushed his chair back and with a nod to Neville left the Great Hall leaving Hermione and Neville alone. Hermione sat thinking, obviously on the verge of crying. Neville looked at her, wondering what her reaction would be. He had already chosen his side, and in retrospect it wasn't a hard choice at all. Harry had always treated him as a friend. He had the feeling that Ron, on the other hand, was only nice to him because of Harry.
"Hermione, Harry seems to really care about you and I know you care about him. He probably should be angrier with you than he is. For both of your sakes, I hope you don't drag this on too much longer." Neville quietly gathered his things and got up from the table to follow Harry to the library.
As he left, Hermione finally started to cry. She wished she could find some way to mend all of the broken friendships between herself, Ron, and Harry. Harry didn't seem to think it was possible, and Ron had given no indication he was interested in doing so.
'How did things get so messed up?' she asked herself as she tried leave the Great Hall before anyone could see her crying. She didn't notice, however, that two tables over a certain blond Slytherin had been watching the entire scene since Hermione came in with more interest than anyone would have expected. Daphne sighed, hoping her Gryffindor friend could make it out of this situation without being hurt too badly.