Ron started coughing as he came out of the water, too, and Madam Pomfrey promptly descended on him with blankets, Warming Charms, and hot chocolate, clucking her tongue and glaring at Fudge as she muttered something about "children and lakes and challenges."
While the judges talked among themselves about scores and gave Harry dark looks, Harry got down from the stands and went over to Ron. Ron raised his head, blinked at him, and looked away.
"You decided not to come get me, then?" he asked, a little sullenly.
"I'm not participating in the Tasks," Harry answered, sitting down on the grass next to Ron. "And I didn't even know what it was until this morning, remember, or that I was supposed to dive under a lake to find someone." He waited. Ron still looked in the opposite direction. Harry sighed. "Did they tell your parents what they were doing?"
Ron turned and gaped at him. "Of course they did."
"But they didn't tell Hermione's, or Delacour's," Harry said, looking at the way that the French girl had wrapped herself around her sister and was glaring at everyone who tried to approach. "I wonder if they told Chang's? It would be interesting to know if they did and if she's a pureblood or a half-blood. I'm not sure."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Harry blinked at Ron, and then reminded himself that Ron wasn't used to thinking the way that Harry was learning to think. "They didn't tell Hermione's because they're Muggles, and most wizards don't think Muggles are worth anything," he said bluntly. "And they didn't tell Delacour's, and she's French and part-Veela besides. Wouldn't surprise me if people like Fudge think foreigners or people with creature blood are worthless."
Harry did lower his voice a little, since Fudge wasn't far away, but he was talking with Dumbledore and probably wouldn't have heard anyway.
"You think they only told mine because Mum and Dad are pureblood?"
Harry nodded. "I don't know about Chang, like I said. But if she's a half-blood and they only talked to her pureblood parent or no one at all, that would make a little too much sense, wouldn't you agree?"
Ron bit his lip, and then abruptly seemed to remember that he was supposed to be angry at Harry. He glared at him. "Why didn't you come into the lake and get me, though? I'm your best mate!"
"I thought that if Hermione had agreed—and they didn't ask her parents—it couldn't be anything that was deadly."
Ron rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but Dumbledore said last night that the clue in the golden egg had to do with it being something you sorely miss. You don't really miss me, then?"
It occurred to Harry that he could do something to keep this from becoming another simmering argument that would go on until the point when Ron felt like apologizing. He lifted his chin a little, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Not when you act like a prat, no."
Ron spluttered incoherently. Harry thought he might have got up and stomped away, but he was still shivering a little from the lake.
"I'm not acting like a prat! You're acting like a prat!"
"By not diving into a cold lake in the middle of February and rescuing you when it turns out that the challenge was just to find you? You weren't going to be drowned or taken away forever by the merfolk after all?"
"I would have come for you if I were a Champion!"
"Really? Seems to me that it would depend on how you were feeling that day."
Ron's face flushed so deeply that Harry was a little surprised steam didn't rise from it. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, but actually lowered his voice, maybe because the Minister for Magic was a few meters away and Ron didn't want him to see Ron and Harry arguing. "My mate Harry wouldn't do this! Are you just all stuck-up Malfoy now, Aldebaran?"
Harry noticed Draco and Mother watching him with more than the usual tension in their faces. Draco looked a little hopeful, though. Perhaps he thought Harry was finally going to drop Ron as a friend.
But Harry didn't want to do that. He just wanted Ron to be a better friend.
"That's not my name," he said steadily, his eyes fixed on Ron's face. "But neither is Harry Potter. And that means I have to think more about who I am, and who I want to be. And if you can suspect that I'm going to turn into a generic Malfoy after four years of knowing me, and get upset about me not diving into the lake even though you know I didn't put my name in the Goblet, then maybe I need to be someone who isn't friends with Ron Weasley."
Ron, for the first time, looked a little lost, and utterly stupefied. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.
"It's up to you," Harry finished, after a few minutes when he waited to see if Ron would speak again. "But I'm sick and tired of putting up with your mood swings, I can tell you." He got up and walked back to his family, feeling a little shaky but good overall. This probably wouldn't make Ron never get angry again, but maybe it would put an end to his periods of getting angry and disbelieving Harry over stupid things.
One way or the other.
"You should have put him in his place," Draco hissed when Harry stood at his side again. "I would have."
"What gave you the impression that I'm you?" Harry asked, and got to see a second person look stupefied.
He got zero points from the judges for the Task, which Bagman and Fudge seemed to think he should be upset about. Harry's main struggle was standing there trying to look bored instead of breaking out in a silly smile.
....
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