Disclaimer: check!

Spoilers for GoF.

You've waited long enough. Get reading!

3.

"Sherlock."

There was no immediate reaction. Instead, the Slytherin kept walking and ducked into an empty classroom the first chance he got. Harry quickly followed.

"Don't talk to me in public, Harry," the younger boy said disparagingly. "People will think you're consorting with 'Those slimy Slytherins' and your reputation really can't take that right now." Harry's protest died in his throat at the glare Sherlock sent him. Stupid though it was, the Slytherin was right. With a groan, Harry tiredly rubbed his eyes. Sherlock raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath. "First Task, I presume. What do you know so far?"

Right. Reason for seeking out a Slytherin genius in the first place. Panic. "Dragons. The First Task is dragons, Sherlock! How am I supposed to defeat a dragon? Hermione says I'll most likely only have to get past one, but it's a bloody dragon! I don't know how to even begin to work this out! Sirius told me there's a simple spell I could use to survive this, but he got cut off before he could tell me what and I haven't been able to find anything yet! I'm doomed..." He tried not to be put off by how apathetic Sherlock looked about all of that. The younger boy coolly gazed at him, his eyes today a mixture of the silver and green of his Slytherin tie.

"I'm afraid I can't help you as dragons are hardly my speciality. I could offer to help you cheat, but I'm sure you wouldn't hear of it. Don't worry, they will hardly let you die through any of the more obvious ways. I would, however, strongly advise you to keep an eye out for sniper spells to your back during the Tasks. The security against the dragons will be airtight, but that means they might have overlooked something else, practically everybody's an idiot after all, and I doubt very much that whoever entered you in the Tournament did so with the purest of goals." Sherlock's voice sounded matter-of-fact and a bit bored, and while it probably shouldn't be so calming, it did the job for Harry. He let out a shaky laugh.

"Yeah, that's great," he muttered, shaking his head. "They won't let the dragons kill me, but I might just get assassinated anyway. Brilliant." He sighed in despair. "Thanks for believing I didn't put my name in, by the way."

"As if you ever would," Sherlock snorted. "Not without telling your friends and offering them a chance as well." Barely hidden contempt was etched on his face. Harry ignored it. "Besides, I saw your face when Dumbledore read out your name, and you're not that good an actor," Sherlock admitted. "Weasley is letting his jealousy blind him, but I'm sure he'll come around eventually, if you're willing to forgive him. Black will be fine, don't worry, he hasn't been found yet so he must be doing an adequate job of staying hidden. Dumledore will be there during the Tasks, has to be as he is a member of the jury, so you should worry about being transported away to where he can't help you rather than immediately killed, and keep in mind that there will be two other Tasks as well so chances are you will be left alone during the first. Now that we have that out of the way, could you please snap out of it? I can't stand your hysterics."

Harry was pretty sure 'hysterics' was not an appropriate name to his state of mind anymore, but habitually shrugged it off, as this was Sherlock and a verbal slap to the face was his way of saying 'I don't know how to deal with this'. He also didn't bother asking how Sherlock had known half of those things. Harry shook his head again, this time in order to clear it up, and, purely out of curiosity, asked: "So, anyway, how were you going to help me cheat?"

Sherlock smiled tightly, as if he'd much rather be grinning until his face split in half. "I could tell you now how you're going to get through it. I'm taking Divination, you see."

Sherlock took Divination. Sherlock claimed he could tell Harry about the future. That could only mean one thing, and it was not that the younger boy had suddenly developed an Inner Eye.

"You did it?" Harry exclaimed, "You actually talked Snape into giving you... Ahum," he tried to compose himself. "Very sorry. Another class? How on earth can you manage them all? Where do you find the time?"

Sherlock snorted. "Yes, of course. Very subtle, Harry." Harry grinned back unrepentantly, grateful for the distraction. "But you're correct," Sherlock continued, "I've been finding notes to myself all over the castle before I even write them. It's a marvellous opportunity for research and more than worth the hassle of my classmates calling me a psychopath when I don't care someone 'will not be with us for much longer', according to Trelawney. Thank God McGonagall cleared that one up."

Harry rolled his eyes and nodded emphatically. He, himself, was still grateful for the stern witch's reassurance. "Last year I was going to die. Still am, actually." Sherlock's raised eyebrow looked about as sympathetic about this as Harry had expected. "McGonagall told me that I looked perfectly fine to her, but if I were to die unexpectedly, I 'need not hand in my homework'." He grinned. "It's a promise I hope I won't be keeping her to anytime soon."

Sherlock nodded. "I wasn't there for Creevey's Transfiguration class afterwards, but McGonagall did tell us not to worry, and gave Sytherin five points when I explained to the rest of the class exactly why Divination is so wildly inaccurate. I lost three of those points for rudeness, of course, and another one for insulting a fellow student." He grinned. "Which means I still won Slytherin one point, as she somehow failed to notice how I called Trelawney a morbid, fraudulent drunk with an inferiority complex."

"Perhaps she would've if your description had been any less accurate," Harry said mock-thoughtfully. "Or obvious, for that matter. Although, you're one to talk about morbidity. And where did the 'inferiority complex' comment come from?"

"Well, she obviously tries too hard to be a seer because she has such a low self-image that it's the only thing about herself that she imagines people might appreciate about her." Pale green eyes met Harry's brighter ones and the older boy shivered, suddenly feeling slightly guilty for the way he's always thought of his Divination teacher. It was strange to think she might have an actual reason for being unbearable. Though she still shouldn't take it out on her students, he resolved.

"On that very note," Sherlock steamrolled on, "You know you could appreciate Granger's willingness to help you research a bit more. It gives her a sense of self-worth, which might have the added benefit of stopping her from compulsively spewing her textbooks all over people unaske-" "-Sherlock!"

Confused silver-green eyes stared out at Harry, who sighed. "Don't insult people's friends, Sherlock. Especially not mine, I don't deal with it well. You could have left it at 'appreciate her a bit more' and nothing would have been wrong. Got it?"

Sherlock nodded slowly, looking for all the world like he had, indeed, got it. Harry resolved to try not to snap when the younger boy inevitably repeated the mistake.

"You won't find anything useful in the restricted part of the library." Harry blinked at the sudden, seemingly unconnected statement, before remembering the reason he had sought Sherlock out in the first place. Again. It seemed he was developing a habit of forgetting his primary goals today. He blamed the lack of sleep.

"Right. Spells, dragons. Why nothing in the restricted part? You'd think that's where the unusual stuff is, and I can't think of anything usual to bring down a dragon." Sherlock's ensuing exasperation, however annoying, was better than the awkward moment from before. It was still annoying though.

"Obviously," he started, in his usual tone of voice (read: 'superior as all hell'), "there is a reason why the restricted section is restricted. It contains restricted information, mostly dark magic, dangerous magic, and magic that no normal student, let alone a barely exceptional fourth year," Harry valiantly fought to not take offence, "could possibly hope to accomplish. If you decide to use that fancy cloak of yours, yes, I deduced that, your father's, wasn't it? It's really not that difficult, he and Black have only one of Filch's drawers of their own, if you use your invisibility cloak to rummage around in the restricted section, not only will you be caught regardless, you will lose a night's sleep and still have no chance of finding anything useful."

Harry remembered Christmas of his first year and sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right, too." Maybe he'd run into some kind of magical artefact that would prove invaluable later on? Probably not, though. Not really worth the risk. "So what do you suggest?"

Sherlock looked down at the floor, thinking. "Find out what previous Triwizard tasks entailed, if there have been dragons before, what the champions had to do and how they did it. It might give you a hint. Research dragons, obviously. There is no point to learning spells to use against a dragon if you don't know what might have an effect. And for God's sake," he looked up, silver-green eyes latching on to Harry's. "Don't be afraid to ask for help. You are fourteen, your opponents are each seventeen or eighteen, and the tasks are designed for them. There is no shame in asking for assistance and I will not have you lose because you are bullheaded and prideful in addition to an idiot." Harry reminded himself that Sherlock was giving him genuinely good, if hypocritical, advise here, and did not take offence. "Hagrid knows about dragons, ask him. Granger can research, ask her. The Weasley twins, however undisciplined, are obviously skilled when they deign to apply themselves, and are good for taking Malfoy down a peg or two. Please ask them about that, you'll be doing everyone a favour."

Harry smiled tiredly. "Yes, that all makes a lot of sense. Have the twins prank Malfoy, good for morale. Not sure asking Hagrid is the best idea, though, he likes dragons too much. He'd never want any of them to get hurt. Sherlock?

"Yes, Harry?" Sherlock's face was entirely unreadable.

"About asking for help..." he continued. A raised eyebrow in return.

"Hmmm?" Was that smugness? Of course it was smugness. Bloody snake.

"Could I borrow your time turner to finally get a good night's sleep? Unlike some, I can't stay awake for days at the time to find the solution to a problem, and I'd rather not be ill on the day of the task. But I can't afford to waste much research time, either."

Sherlock's smile was entirely unlike him, and did an overall terrible job of convincing Harry that the Slytherin had not been planning to hand Harry his time turner from the very beginning. "I want it back when I walk out of this classroom a minute after you. You know the rules, no doubt Granger has told you, after all. Please do avoid her, by the way, I do not want anyone else knowing I have this." He pulled the time turner out from under his robes and handed it to Harry. "Remember, you are using it to get sleep. I do not trust your planning abilities to let you get away with anything more intensive," Sherlock sneered slightly. This time Harry was too grateful to get angry, and he liked to think that underneath that sneer there was a certain fondness. It just didn't look very menacing.

He put the thin golden chain around his neck and took the time turner in his hand. "Thank you, Sherlock. Really, thank you so much." The younger boy just nodded awkwardly. "I've got a map of the school" Harry continued. "It shows where everyone is, so I should be able to avoid running into myself. I'll just... Go to bed, go back a couple of hours, set my alarm for before I came in, and drop this off at the door about..." He checked his watch. "Seventeen past four pm. Will that do?"

Sherlock cleared his throat. "Yes, that should be fine. Good..." he hesitated for a moment, and finally seemed to settle on "Morning. Sleep well."

"Thank you, Sherlock. It'll be back." Harry nodded once, and turned towards the door. For some reason he felt ridiculously awkward about the whole ordeal. He opened the door and was about to leave when Sherlock's voice stopped him.

"Harry, if you ever lose too much sleep again, you can simply ask to borrow it. You will not be beaten by the quidditch sensation, nor the veela, nor the Hufflepuff. Understood?" Harry nodded, oddly moved, but as he opened his mouth to say 'Thank you' again, Sherlock glared at him.

"Now leave," he snapped, "I have somewhere to be and I want that back. Bye bye!" And who'd have thought such a cheerful salute could sound so disparaging? Harry laughed softly.

"Bye, Sherlock," He said. He walked out the classroom, closed the door behind him, and walked back to the Gryffindor tower, determinedly ignoring what sounded like someone breathing harshly behind a tapestry. When he fell asleep he realised that he had maybe set his alarm clock a bit late, and when he was running toward the classroom wherein he was currently speaking with Sherlock, he noticed the tapestry behind which he'd heard someone breathing. Panting, he ducked behind it, only just in time as he could hear his own footsteps pause for a second, before picking up their pace.

And when the first task rolled around, he thought he looked the most well-rested out of the four of them.

A/N: Three things:

1. I'm sorry.

2. Writer's block. Blame BOP.

3. I'm so sorry.

Now that I've said my part, please don't crucio me, tremors make it hard to type and pain is distracting. Constructive criticism is, as always, appreciated. Flames are kinda funny. Cheers!