Why did everything seem to happen to him, Harry couldn't help but wonder as he trudged into Dumbledore's office after his name emerged from the Goblet of Fire. It wasn't enough that his parents were murdered by Voldemort at a young age. Or that he had to spend the next decade with some of the most miserable Muggles to have ever walked the face of the earth. You'd think he'd have deserved a break after that. But no. He just had to fight a troll, to face down Voldemort yet again over the Philosopher's Stone. To have to slay a damn basilisk with only a sword! To have to fight hundreds of Dementors with only a single Patronus! And that was only a small amount of the shit he'd had to endure at Hogwarts, the so-called safest place in the magical world.

Some days, not many of them, but some of them, Harry wondered if he should have stayed in his cupboard.

And now this nonsense. Of course his name came out of the stupid goblet. He should have seen it coming! Everything happened to him. Just once, he'd like Draco to be the one in the middle of everything. See how he liked that, the git. But no, it was going to be Harry who had his life risked over and over again. Harry who would have to endure the scorn of his peers. Harry who would be badmouthed behind his back, just like two years ago when the idiots thought he was actually the Heir of Slytherin. No, never mind that he had a Muggleborn mother and best friend. Heaven forbid we should use logic!

Harry was just sick and tired of it all. A normal school year. That's all he wanted! Was that truly too much to ask for? He could have been normal in Stonewall High. He probably wouldn't have been happy there, but he'd have been safe. So Harry was angry. Very angry. Angrier than he was in canon, in fact.

And he only got angrier the more time he spent in Dumbledore's office. No one at all was on his side. Not Bagman, who seemed to take an unseemly pleasure in the idea of him risking his life to entertain the masses. Not his fellow champions, who thought he was just a little boy. Had any of them fought Voldemort? Harry rather thought not. And certainly not Dumbledore.

Dumbledore gazed carefully at Harry. His eyes were twinkling madly. They did that often, now that Harry thought about it. The twinkling only seem to intensify when the two of them were face to face. Occasionally, Harry wondered if he would be blinded by all that twinkling. It just didn't seem anywhere close to natural. "Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Harry?" he asked calmly.

And that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Dumbledore knew him. He knew that Harry wasn't some attention seeking brat like Snape thought. He knew Harry's true character. He'd been nothing but supportive to him, even if the old man had a bizarre blind spot when it came to Harry trying to convince him that the Dursleys were spectacularly bad news. Dumbledore was always around with a lemon drop and a kind word whenever he was feeling down. Harry Potter trusted Albus Dumbledore implicitly in the same way the sun always rose and fell every day. It was a law of the universe. And now? Now Dumbledore had hopped on the "let's hate Harry Potter for no adequately explained reason" train.

Enough. Was. Enough.

They wanted him to be an attention seeking brat? They wanted him to have put his name in the Goblet of Fire? Fine. That was exactly what they'd get. Telling the truth had never gotten him anywhere. It was time for a new plan. It was time to lie his ass off. Hopefully, it would be more effective than his usual strategy of just rolling over and taking things. Though with his luck, it could just as easily make things worse.

But there was nothing for it. Harry knew no one would ever believe him if he said he didn't put his name in, just like they didn't believe him when he told them he hadn't attacked those students. And that was even less plausible! People were going to be upset, yes. They'd try to punish him. And that was exactly what he wanted.

Harry leaned forward, his eyes dancing with mischief. "Yes. I did put my name in the Goblet of Fire." He gave a savage, shark-like grin at everyone. "I'm going to be the winner of this tournament, and there's nothing any of you can do about it. Try to stop me. I dare you."

Everyone just stared at him. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled so much that everyone had to shield their eyes for a few seconds. Thankfully, it stopped just as soon as it started. "You put your name in the Goblet of Fire," Dumbledore said flatly.

Harry smirked. Oh, God, this was fun. He should have done this ages ago. "Sure did. You thought your pathetic age line could stop the Boy Who Lived?" He made his best Draco-style pose. It looked truly awful, in his opinion, but the people in the room saw what they wanted to see or didn't know him enough to know any better. "I slew Voldemort when I was one year old. Three years ago, I vanquished him again." Dumbledore's hand twitched, but he didn't react in any other way. "Two years ago, I – guess what, people – destroyed him a third time, and a basilisk to boot. Last year, I faced down a hundred Dementors at once. Your tournament? It's nothing to me."