Chapter two

The First Task

Harry woke up on the morning of the First Task – only several hours and his Fate would change forever, he was likely to die today. Neither him, nor Hermione, found any clues about the dangers he will face today. When they were on their way to the Great Hall, they met Malfoy, and the smirk on Malfoy's face – yes, his father definitely told him all about the First Task. Although Harry wasn't confident in his skills, he believed in Hermione's study sessions that covered the whole fourth year curriculum on Defensive and Offensive Magic in less than a month.

During the last few weeks, Harry and Hermione separated themselves from the rest of the Wizarding School – except Neville. He was one of the few members of the Gryffindor House that believed in Harry, but Neville choose to stay rather passive.

"Potter, the Champions are on the grounds… be sure to join them shortly." Professor McGonagall announced as she watched him in the Great Hall.

Harry nodded and hugged Hermione for support. "You will manage… I know that," he heard her whisper.

"Harry! It's nice to see you again!" Mr Bagman greeted as Harry entered the Tent. "Now that everyone is here, you are going to draw your opponent from this bag. You see… the First Task is to collect a golden egg from a dragon. After you are finished, the judges will rate your performance and decide your marks. The one with the most points will be actual leader of the Tournament."

Harry was completely frozen when he heard of the Dragons – they were vicious creatures of the Legends, even among Wizards the Dragons were something uncommon and dangerous, thanks to their power of destruction. Harry missed the breeds of Dragons that Fleur, Viktor and Cedric drew, but he had no doubts this is was going to be his last day.

"Mr Potter…" Ludo asked, shaking Harry. "You are left with Hungarian Horntail, one of the most malicious creatures on the Earth. I wish you good luck." His grin grew wider, when he saw the despair in Harry's eyes. `Yes, he has no clue how to deal with it… I`m happy I`ve switched sides on the last moment and bet the Goblins that Harry will loose at least one limb today… And they will double the money if he dies… He might be the Chosen One, but that doesn't mean I can't make profit from him. And Merlin knows I need all the money I can get to cover my debts…` Ludo thought.

Harry still couldn't understand why it was impossible to cancel the contract – his will slowly leaving his body. He faintly heard the screams and applause for others Champions as they completed the Task. He was the only one left.

"And last, but not least, please welcome Hogwarts Second Champion – Harry Potter." He heard the voice of Lee Jordan, "Young Harry is fight against Hungarian Horntail and I will tell you folks, I wouldn't want to be in his skin. Lets hope he will surprise us as he did all those years ago, when he defeated You-Know-Who."

Harry knew he had no other option, but to enter the Arena. The stands applauded, which agitated the Horntail even more.

"On count of three, Mr Potter!" Lee shouted. "One… Two… Three…" The counting echoed through the stands, multiplied by others joining in.

Harry remembered a charm - `Yes, this could work – it's the only thing I can think of…` he thought "Accio Golden Egg!" He yelled as he replicated the wand movements for the spell, pointing the tip of his wand to the dragon's nest. Harry hoped the Egg wasn't magically protected from being summoned.

Nothing. Nothing has happened, except… The Dragon focused his glare on Harry, his agitation grew. The Horntail screeched into the air, a ball of silverfish-bluish fire started to form in his mouth. That was a bad sign for the Dragon Keepers – they knew it was a Magical fire, one hard enough to dispel and even more difficult to be protected from. If this blazing sphere hit Harry, he would be gone, that was certain.

Harry tried to run away, when he saw the flames forming, but his legs were frozen – shaking from the fear the beast possessed. His hands trembled violently as he cast newly learnt Stunner towards the drake. Nothing.

Two young Dragon Keepers approached the Dragon to pacify it, reckless they were, forgetting the distance, where the beast was deadly – the area where the Dragon could reach with its claws or its poisonous tail. One was pierced by the thorns on the Horntails tail, throwing him fifty feet away to the wall , where he collapsed, his body quickly getting cold as the pool of blood under him grew bigger every second. The second keeper had his arm ripped off his body in mere blink of an eye, shrieking from the pain the lost limb caused.

Harry's body experienced the same effects as being under Body-Bind Curse, he could only watch the mayhem in front of his eyes.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry heard one of the Senior Keepers to shout towards the lifeless body of young Redhead, that was bleeding to death. "Quick, we need to stabilize Charlie… Get me antidote for the Horntail and prepare emergency Portkey to take him to St. Mungo!"

Hermione and the others watched in horror, as the beast focused now on Harry and sent the silver-blue sphere of fire to Harry, surrounding him in the flames.

Harry mind went blank, when he saw the inferno coming to him, unable to dodge or to protect himself.

`Wake up!`

`Am I dead?` Harry thought.

`Wake up!`

`No, I don't think I'm dead…`

`Wake up!` the voice said for the third time. `You need to shatter the locks on your Core.`

`What do you mean – on my Core?` Harry asked, curious about the voice inside his head. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't. They were blocked. He couldn't move as well.

`Your Magical Core – it`s been chained for a long time. Several locks and restrains are holding your true potential. Let your Magic run free…`

`I don't understand… What do you want me to do?`

`You will have to break these limiters yourself. Search your soul and discover your Core surrounded by chains. Tear them down to unleash your true power!`

The images flew through Harry's mind, his memories were soon replaced by his feelings. He searched for what he thought was till the end of time, but he finally managed to find it. Just in the corner of his imagination… somewhere you wouldn't normally look, but there it was - he found his Magical Core.

Harry saw many chains around his Core, each contained name and date. His worst assumptions were confirmed when he found several chains casted by Headmaster Dumbledore. One seal was applied at the age of one – it was after the death of his parents. The other four seals were created at the beginning of each school year in Hogwarts.

Harry tried to rip the chains from his childhood at first, but was unsuccessful, irritated with his failure he started from the other side around. This time, the seals disappeared quickly and he felt new power surge through his body.

The flames around Harry were still intact when the Dragon started to calm itself. The Dragon Keepers and the Teachers of Hogwarts tried to put the flames out, but the Magic in the blaze was strong. Even Dumbledore was unable to cast them out.

It was ten minutes after Harry disappeared in the flames, Hermione sobbed, holding tightly on Neville, who offered his shoulder to cry on.

"May I have your attention?" Dumbledore spoke with magically increased voice. "Today, the tragedy has fallen on the Wizarding World. Harry Potter, the only person in the Existence to survive the Killing Curse, was cremated in the flames of Hungarian Horntail – one of the few Dragons in the existence, that can create ultimate flames of destruction. It is my responsibility that I wasn't able to protect the security of our students! Let's all join the Prayer for the Young Boy, who lost his life today. And let's don't forget to pray for the lives of the two Dragon Keepers that tried to stop this tragedy from happening."

"Haha…" a loud laugh was heard through the field. "You are digging my grave too fast, Headmaster…"

Hermione was relieved – she instantly recognised the voice of her loved one – Harry was alive, even if it felt unreal. "Harry!" she yelled as another shouts of disbelief and surprise were heard through the audience.

Harry stepped outside of the flames, laughing. Hermione thought he would be badly burnt or worse, but his condition seemed surreal. His skin and body seemed different, but he had no scars or burns.

"Tressar is mad… How can the young human live…" the Dragon screeched as he shifted his glare towards Harry.

"Don't worry Tressar, I will repay your hospitability by hundred fold…" Harry shouted as he moved toward the beast.

"You know Dragontongue? Impossible… Human's can't comprehend this beautiful language… What is this?" the Dragon roared.

Harry didn't bother to answer – he knew from Hermione that dragons were mighty and proud creatures, looking down on all human. His pace increased and the young Gryffindor started running to the Drake.

The audience was stunned, when a fourteen year old attacked a dragon alone. They hold their breaths, even Hermione was speechless. For her, this was ridiculous act of Harry, but he already surprised her, when he survived the dragon's fire. Was this to become yet another one of his incredible feats?

Harry's speed increased beyond normal human and he was on fire… literally on fire – his elbows and feet were surrounded by golden flames, increasing his pace every second as he focused on the beast in front of him.

The Might Tressar thought Harry was a joke, just one of those human jokes… They were always amusing folks – getting killed so easily. `Yes, this boy will be nicely torn into pieces with my sharp claws…` The Dragon chuckled, if you can say a dragon can laugh… `Here he comes…`

The dragon was surprised… surprised indeed… He was sure his slash hit Harry, but it didn't slit the boy – it only left a small cut on his right arm. A second later, the young Gryffindor landed a strong punch on the Tressar's belly, sending the dragon to the fence. Harry quickly followed his prey, landing more punches before the large beast could react.

Punch after punch, the scream of pain was getting louder until it stopped. The old Dragon was surprised, when he realized his life would end – yes, he remembered his father talking about old legends, legends older than Babylon, the legends of Dragon Slayers. In his last moments, Tressar released himself from his body to avoid the pain he would otherwise feel.

There wasn't a soul on the Hogwarts grounds that wasn't shocked and stunned by Harry's performance. No one dared to make a sound in fear the Champion will get mad and attack again.

Harry slowly walked to the Nest, the flames disappeared from his body. He picked up his Golden Egg, spinning it in his hand as it was a basketball ball, walking to the Judges for his score. The Judges were silent as everyone else, looking for clues what to write in the report of today's Event.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, dear Judges, can you please give me my score? I'm afraid I'm too exhausted to stay awake for much longer…" Harry asked, wanting to get to his bed in the Room of Requirements as soon as possible.

The Headmaster nodded, silently counting the results. "Forty points! Everyone except Headmaster Karkaroff gave you full mark," he replied `I will have to find some answers about dragons and I will have meet Nicolas, I would have never thought a Wizard could defeat dragon with pure strength of body.`

Harry walked back to the Tent, ignoring the stares from other Champions and Rita Skeeter, exiting from the other side as he moved towards Hogwarts. He thanked Merlin everyone was so stunned he wasn't followed until he entered his favourite Room of Requirements.

Hermione joined Harry only minutes later as she had to avoid people asking questions about Harry on her way back to the Castle. She never noticed a bug on her robe – a little beetle that was holding tight and smiling.

The situation in St Mungo wasn't so frantic for a long time – the two patients brought from Hogwarts were in serious condition and the weren't sure the Redhead will even survive – his injuries were just too severe. Yes, he got blood replenishment potions and antidotes at Hogwarts, but this was not good enough. Several Mediwitches were doing the best to restore internal organs – one of his lungs was beyond mending. After many hours of treatment, the Mungo switched diagnose from Death to Critical – they had to wait to see how Charlie's body will take so many Potions and Spells in the long run.

Pierre was the name of the second Keeper, he finished Beauxbatons only two years ago with honours and he loved his adrenaline work. His situation wasn't as threatening as Charlie's, but he suffered from psychological shock as well – he knew this was the last day of his career and he couldn't imagine doing anything `fun` with only one arm.

Rita immediately flew from Hermione's robe off to find a nice spot for listening, when the young Witch entered the Room of Requirements.

Hermione saw Harry sitting on the bed. "What happened?" she asked as she approached the young Wonder kid to hug him.

"I have no idea, Mione. I just heard a voice in my head that told me to unleash my Magic. And it was there… a proof the Headmaster is trying to use me… He put several chains on my Magic since I was a little child." Harry replied as tears dropped on his shirt.

"Don't worry, I'm here for you… for anything…" Hermione added as she hugged him. "I love you…"

"Thank you, Mione… I will go to take a shower, I'm still covered in the blood, but I don't think I have too much power to get there and stay awake…"

"Don't worry about it Harry, why don't you just use bath in this room? If you fall asleep, I will just levitate you to the bed…"

"That's brilliant…" Harry replied as he got out of the bed. He went to the bath, took all his clothes off and stepped into the bath. The wound from the Dragon hurt, but there was no blood coming from it. He relaxed, when a pair of hands massaged his sore back. There was a Heaven on Earth after all. The touch of his best friend took him to sleep in seconds.

For Rita this was pure gold – she will not only win this year's Public Service Plotzers Price (Magical version of Pulitzer Price), but she had genuine information about The-Boy-Who-Lived. Rita knew some places would pay thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Galleons for the memory of nude Harry Potter. Deep in her thought, Rita didn't realize Hermione had levitated Harry to their bed and joined him for their deserved sleep.

`This year is going great, I'm to become the number one reporter in the whole Magical World. I will finally buy more jewellery –I love it , I just love it so much. And I'm to get close to the Minister – yes, this will give me even more background information about things. It can never hurt to have another man under my foot.` Rita thought devilishly. She never saw it coming – a burning blaze of green flames appeared around the sleeping pair, growing every second till it hit and cremated Rita alive.

Neither Harry, nor Hermione knew what happened with the Animagus reporter as the top story of tomorrow's Daily Prophet was a sudden disappearance of Rita Skeeter.

Author's Note: Thank you all for your support. It's sometimes hard to think in the language that is not my native (this is even harder, when it comes to dialogues to make them sound natural.)

And some answers:

As someone said in the Reviews - I've moved the HP Universe 10 years into the future (aka this fourth year is in 2004)

Harry + Hermione won't become extremely powerful from the start - yes Harry did something incredible, but think of it more as an Accidental Magic for now. He had to be on the bring of Death (and in the Dragon's Fire) to activate the Magic. As for Rita - same thing, but his soul actually sensed danger and reacted in defense.