Daphne Greengrass

*** Present

Dumbledore hadn't given Harry any hints as to what the first task held in store for the champions. Despite Harry's persistent requests, all Dumbledore said was that he was not allowed to tell because of the "rules of the tournament"

"But all of the other head teachers will be telling their champions!" Harry said indignantly, "cheating is one of the biggest parts of the TriWizard tournament!" he quoted Bagman.

Dumbledore fixed Harry with a serious gaze, "You entered this tournament willingly, now you need to fight it yourself, if you have to face Voldemort in the next war, you won't always have a tip on them, you need to fight this yourself."

Harry looked to Arcturus for help but the Lord Black simply shook his head, "I know what the task is, kid, but I'm not going to tell you either, Albus is right, you'll need this experience, it'll teach you more than Albus or I could in 10 years."

"But it's unfair that the other champions will receive the information immediately from their teachers." Harry replied.

"Life isn't fair Harry, you need to know that." Arcturus replied, "but I'll give you a hint, usually, it's a good idea to research what has happened in the past to adjudge what could happen in the future."

Despite some further grilling, that was the most that Harry managed to extract from the two wizened wizards.

*** Library

Harry had discussed Arcturus' words with Hermione who immediately decided that they should look up past tournaments in the library, in typical Hermione fashion.

"There are records of every past tournament in TriWizard Tournaments, A History , and the Hogwarts library has at least a few copies!" Hermione had said to him, excitedly.

Harry and Hermione trooped down to the library, which was mostly empty at the time, apart from a Slytherin girl who was sitting in an alcove in a corner and a handful of Ravenclaws who were on a different table, studying for Charms.

Harry followed Hermione as they searched for a copy of the book, getting increasingly frustrated as they were unable to find one, no matter where they looked.

Hermione went up to the librarian, Madam Pince and asked her to check whether they had any copies of the book in stock.

Pince looked through some heavy stacks of parchment before finding the right one and flicking through to the right book.

"No. All 21 copies have been leased out already to other students AND I'm not allowed to lease it out to any champions, Mr Potter so you're out of luck…"

Pince looks over to Hermione, "And don't think about asking Ms Granger to lease out a copy for you either, you may read it in the library, but I'm not letting you lease out a copy of that book either."

The two friends glumly walked away from Madam Pince's table.

"How dare she withhold a book!" Hermione hissed.

"It's out of stock anyway, I guess I'll have to owl-order it." Harry said.

Just as they were about to walk out of the library, a voice stopped them.

"Excuse me…" spoke a sly silken voice that made Harry feel slightly uneasy and on guard.

"Yes?" Harry said, as he turned around.

It was the Slytherin girl who was sitting in the alcove. She sat up and turned the book she was reading towards them.

TriWizard Tournaments, A History.

Hermione almost jumped in excitement and a bright smile spread across her face, "Ah! Yes it is! How did you know? Can we borrow it? Please!" Hermione said, firing multiple questions at the blonde.

The Slytherin also gave a small smile, though Harry found it uncomfortably calculating for his liking, the girl wanted something for this.

"Oh, I just overheard your conversation with Madam Pince, and I thought I could help you guys."

She looked at Harry.

"You are our school champion after all."

"I don't think we've been introduced…" Harry trailed off.

"Aah, sorry, entirely my fault, I'm Daphne Greengrass."

"Harry Potter."

"Hermione Granger" Hermione cut in, "It's good to meet you."

"I doubt there's anyone in this school who doesn't know you two, the boy-who-lived and his best friend."

"So, can we have the book?" Harry asked.

"Sure, here it is." Daphne put the book down on a table and sat down.

Harry realised what Daphne wanted in exchange for the book, she wanted to be there.

Hermione didn't seem to have gotten that yet, "Umm, could we read alone?"

Daphne raised a delicate eyebrow.

"It's fine Hermione, it's her book after all." was all that Harry said, before taking a seat on the table and turning the book towards himself and beginning to read.

Hermione sat down too, having also arrived at the same conclusion that Harry did.

"The first task usually involved a fight with a magical creature to test versatility and adaptability to a surprise situation." Daphne filled in, as if she knew exactly what they were looking for.

"The creature is usually a large, lethal and fearsome one, in past years, they have brought dragons, black phoenixes and even lethifolds." Daphne elaborated, "Usually, they bring a creature with great physical strength and maybe a few magical abilities to add to their physical might, and have the task be to retrieve an item from the creature."

Harry hmmed thoughtfully, "So the best technique for that kind of task would be to get around the the big bad without actually having to battle it with a serious disadvantage. Perhaps a disillusioning spell could be useful."

"But the creature could have heightened smell or hearing, like a dragon. Perhaps your invisibility cloak?" Hermione pointed out, giving away a large piece of information to Daphne.

Harry almost grimaced, knowing that Hermione had just given away one of his most advantageous secrets to someone who could possibly be spying for Voldemort.

He would have to confront her to see who she was working for. She was a Greengrass, a largely neutral family who didn't support either side in the previous war, choosing to flee to the Americas where they successfully hid from view of the Dark Lord for over 7 years until his demise, at which point, they returned to the UK and continued to live seamlessly from where they had left off, never talking of what they had done in their extended trip abroad.

They generally worked for themselves only and were generally unlikely to put their neck on the line for a Psychopath like Voldemort, but Harry would choose to err on the side of caution rather than letting the blonde potentially inform Voldemort of his invisibility cloak.

Now, the only problem was actually getting her to tell the truth.

He knew she had occlumency shields from a light scan of her mind, and he wouldn't be able to enter without trying to wrench control from her, and legilimency wasn't his best field even against an inexperienced occlumens.

He was unlikely to get his hands on Veritaserum anytime soon, and there was too much risk in waiting the few months required to brew the potion…

Harry groaned in frustration.

He was going to have to keep a close eye on Daphne Greengrass.

*** End of Chapter