Ron said nothing, and when Harry looked at him, he was very red in the face, and turned away. Harry got a horrible sinking sensation in his stomach. He had thought his two best friends would believe he hadn't put his name in the Goblet, even if Hermione also thought he should do what Dumbledore wanted, but if they didn't…
It was going to be like first year after they'd lost all those points for being caught out after curfew all over again. He'd be shunned and people would laugh at him.
Harry clenched his hands in his lap. He had his family now, he reminded himself. He had Healer Letham now. From the way Draco was yelling at some Durmstrang students, his face turning a bright pink, he wasn't about to decide that Harry had pulled some kind of grand prank.
Harry sat back in his chair, ignoring the way Professor Moody kept staring at him, and settled in to wait for the results.
....
"There is nothing that can be done. Harry's name has been drawn out of the Goblet of Fire. It constitutes a binding magical contract."
"And you have nothing that would identify who entered the name?" Father stared at Dumbledore over his desk, while Mother sat quietly beside him. Harry thought they were letting Father take the lead because of the bare left forearm he could rest on Dumbledore's desk. Dumbledore had trouble keeping his eyes off it. "Do you mean to tell me that the only security you had on the Goblet was that Age Line around it?"
"We didn't think we would need more." Dumbledore raised his hands in a helpless little gesture. "We all assumed that students would want to enter their own names, not those of someone else."
"And if it was not a student who did it?"
"Well, professors aren't supposed to want to enter someone else's name, either," Dumbledore said.
Through his shock—Harry wondered if he would ever get angry about anything again, or if his reaction was just going to be numbness all the time—Harry still gave Dumbledore a disbelieving look. "You didn't think that Voldemort would use a professor if he wanted?" he asked. "He was using Quirrell first year!"
Dumbledore sighed. "It honestly doesn't matter who did it, although of course we will try to find out. Harry has to compete. He is bound."
"What is the binding based on?"
Mother's voice was so quiet that Harry thought Dumbledore was going to ignore her at first. But he turned towards her, maybe because it would spare him from having to look at Father's blank arm any longer. "Pardon me, Mrs. Malfoy?"
"What comprises the binding contract between the Goblet and the Champion chosen? It cannot be the intent of the person submitting the name, as we have established that it accepted Henry's name despite his lack of interest in entering." Mother was leaning forwards, fiercely intent, and Dumbledore hesitated.
"It is based on the school," he admitted finally. "Someone must have submitted—Mr. Malfoy's name as a Champion for a fourth school, and the Goblet chose him because it had no other candidates."
"And is that all?" Mother stared hard at Dumbledore. "Or is there more?"
Dumbledore folded his hands on the desktop. "Well, it is also based on the name of the Champion. If someone had submitted the name of a dead person, the Goblet would not have chosen them."
"And," Father said, smiling a little, as if he had already known the answer but wanted to see if Dumbledore would actually say it, "the name that came out of the Goblet was Harry Potter. A name our son no longer bears."
Harry looked up, hopeful for the first time since he had started fearing that Ron and the other Gryffindors would shun him. Dumbledore, though, was shaking his head.
"The binding would not have taken at all in that case. If Mr. Malfoy thought of himself as a completely separate person from Harry Potter, then the Goblet would have kept the name and not emitted it, the same way it would have for the name of a dead person. Harry Potter still exists." Dumbledore stared at Harry. "In Mr. Malfoy's head."
"But I don't think of myself as Harry Potter," Harry said quickly. He didn't want Dumbledore to blame him. Ten to one that would get out and people would start deciding that he did want to be in the Tournament even if he hadn't entered his own name. "I promise. I don't think of the name Potter as mine."
Dumbledore hesitated again. Father narrowed his eyes, but Mother was the one who spoke. "The binding is weak, isn't it, Headmaster?"
"Well, yes. Unexpectedly so." Dumbledore coughed. "But enough so that your son is bound to compete."
"Why is it weak?" Harry asked. Dumbledore sighed.
"Because you think of yourself as Harry Malfoy," he said. "If your name had been Harry Potter, then the binding would be strong and you would have to compete simply to survive. If your name were Henry Malfoy, even in your head, then the binding wouldn't exist."
....
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