Chapter 3: To Pass a Dragon

Harry, Hermione and Daphne had spent much of their free time looking up spells in the library. Without knowing what the first task would be, it was impossible to know how he should prepare, so they decided to cover a lot of the basic territories of magic and taught him to think on his feet.

Daphne had actually come up with the idea of holding mock duels to help keep him on his toes, and over the course of the next two weeks, he learned to be quick and inventive with his spell work. Unsurprisingly, the blonde Slytherin was as adept as Hermione at casting spells, and with the two of them trying to catch him by surprise, he lost far more often than he won. Still, anyone could see that he was rapidly improving.

He was recovering from their most recent round and Hermione's use of the knockback jinx when the classroom door opened and Tracey Davis walked in, smiling brightly at Daphne and him.

Tracey was so unlike any other Slytherin Harry had ever met that he was frequently convinced she was actually from another house. She was joyful, boisterous and showed a particular fondness for any crude joke that made people uncomfortable. Harry, still unused to any sort of physical contact tended to blush within moments of Tracey's joking, a fact that the auburn-haired girl had picked up on, and used to tease him mercilessly.

"Hello Tracey," said Daphne, nodding.

"Sorry to interrupt your little threesome," said Tracey, sitting next to Daphne.

Harry felt himself go slightly red at her phrasing and even Hermione looked slightly abashed.

"Really?" Daphne asked her, sighing.

"You're all too easy," Tracey said, handing the three of them some food from the great hall. "The trio goes into a classroom purely to get all sweaty and somehow not a single one of you ends up even kissing someone."

"Well you'll excuse us if we aren't all trying to snog someone every minute of the day," said Daphne, being the only one of them who was used to Tracey's humor. "Any clues on what the first task might be?"

Harry eagerly bit into an apple and felt the juices from it quench his dry throat. He wasn't used to talking much, and he'd been calling out spells nonstop for nearly an hour.

"Nothing concrete," she said, sadly. "Malfoy's busy bragging that he knows what it is, but chances are he's just full of hot air. You'd think being turned into a ferret would cause him to shut up once in a while, but I swear it's only made him worse."

"Malfoy can get worse?" asked Harry, while he gasped for air. "Well the magical world is surely in true danger now."

"Daphne said you had a sense of humor," said Tracey, smiling at him broadly. "I thought she was just loopy."

Harry shrugged and stood, taking another deep pull from his water bottle, and trying to steady himself. Sirius had promised to contact him in the Gryffindor common room later, but Hagrid wanted to meet up with him first.

"Well," he said, pulling out his invisibility cloak. "I'm going to go shower and change before I meet up with Hagrid. I'll catch up with you later Hermione. Daphne, Tracey, I guess I'll see you lot in potions tomorrow?"

"Any idea what Hagrid wants to talk to you about?" asked Hermione, standing and brushing off her skirt.

"Wouldn't say," said Harry. "Hopefully he hasn't gotten a new pet."

Hermione grimaced thinking of Norbert the dragon.

Harry reached Hagrid's cabin just past eleven in the night, and knocked on the door, slipping his invisibility cloak's hood off his head. Hagrid looked down at him, smiling softly. Harry instantly felt his heart warm looking up at the giant of a man. Hagrid may have a bad habit of housing extremely dangerous creatures, but Harry always had and always would consider him to be his friend.

"Well 'ello there, Harry," said the half-giant, pulling on his large mole-skin coat. "Got somemit you'll wanna see. Best stay under that cloak now."

"Hagrid," Harry tried to say. "I really can't stay long! I have to be back in the common room before one…"

His protests fell on deaf ears as Hagrid began walking from his cabin. Harry gave up and followed the hulking figure of a man. His concern grew into irritation as Hagrid helped Madam Maxime from her carriage. There was no way he'd simply wanted to show Harry Maxime… she wasn't exactly hard to miss.

However, it appeared that what Hagrid had in store for her was the same surprise he'd spoken to Harry about, because at the point Maxime asked, "Vhere are you taking me, 'agrid?"

His curiosity winning out over his disgust at what was apparently Hagrid's date, Harry followed them into the forbidden forest. Only then did he realize there was a group of several other wizards dancing around what were, unmistakably… dragons.

Four fully-grown, fire breathing dragons.

Of course, Harry had realized dragons were a real thing since his first visit to Gringotts, but he'd never really seen a fully-grown one before, and they were terrifying. Then, he realized why he and Maxime where here.

"You've got to be kidding me!" he hissed softly.

He had to fight a dragon? That was suicide! Even full-fledged wizards didn't take on a proper dragon all by themselves. Even the other champions would have a horrible time doing it, let alone him! He was forcibly reminded that it was entirely possible someone had placed him in this tournament to kill him.

If that was the case, a dragon would be a great way to do it. He could practically imagine the headlines now.

Boy-who-lived killed in a tragic dragon fight.

Half-an-hour later, he head back up to the castle, feeling sick to his stomach. A few minutes before Sirius was supposed to show up, he collapsed into the armchair by the fire, and realized there were tears on his cheeks. This whole tournament was royally fucked up. Hermione soon came down the stairs from the girl's dormitorys and saw him sitting there.

"Harry?" she asked, seeing him curled up. "What's wrong?"

He opened his mouth to respond, and for the second time that night found himself speechless, as Sirius' head appear in the flames in the fireplace. After a long moment, he remembered that Mr. Diggory had done something similar in the Weasley's fireplace. The relief that washed over him was instantaneous and almost made him tear up again. Sirius had a way of making Harry feel… protected, like he would make sure nothing seriously hurt him.

Still, the rational part of Harry's brain knew that there was nothing Sirius could do about a dragon that would attack him on Tuesday. Still, Harry revealed everything to Sirius, and in turn Sirius told Harry that Karkaroff had once been a death eater. At that news, Hermione gasp and jumped a little.

Harry had no idea how long they talked, but when they finally stopped, the sun had started to rise over the hills, and he had some idea of how to possibly stop his dragon, although he didn't like the method. Sirius had suggested using a conjunctivitis curse and hitting it in the eyes, which would blind it.

Granted, it was nice trick to have up his sleeve, and if he found no other option, he could do it, but he was hoping they could find something else in the few days leading up to the task. When Daphne found the group them in the library the next day, she listened patiently to his explanation of the first task. To his and Hermione's surprise, she let out a huge breath and smiled at the pair of them.

"Well," said the blonde woman. "This is certainly much better than it might've been."

"I'm sorry," said Harry. "Am I thinking of some other magical beast?"

"No, you're not. But relax, you don't have to fight the thing. You just have to get past it, correct?"

"I think so," said Harry, looking at her with some confusion. "At least that's what Charlie said."

Daphne took out her wand and waved it over his head for a moment and suddenly a horribly unpleasant feeling like someone had cracked a cold egg over his head started to spread across his body.

"What was that?" he asked while Daphne smiled brightly and Hermione's eyes went wide.

"Look at yourself," said Daphne.

Harry looked down only to see that his body was invisible… well no. It weren't invisible, properly, but he could see through his own arms and chest. It was almost like his body was made of glass, and if he didn't move it was virtually impossible to see himself at all.

"What is this?" he asked, concerned.

"The disillusionment charm!" said Hermione, slapping her hand to her forehead. "Of course! Harry, you could get by the dragon without it ever seeing you. Dragons have a great sense of hearing and smell, but their sight isn't particularly good. So if we can get you to learn a spell to silence your footsteps, and teach you the disillusionment, I bet you could get past the dragon before it even realized where you'd gone."

Harry looked down at himself again.

"That's brilliant!" he said, smiling. "You're amazing, both of you!"

Hermione let out a sigh of relief as Daphne waved her wand again, bringing him back into a visible range.

"This is going to be much better than our last plan," said Hermione. "This way you won't have to face the dragon at all."

"Welcome to the Slytherin way of thinking, Hermione."

Harry stood and let out a long breath.

"Ok," he said, slowly. "I've got a few days to master two charms, and the conjunctivitis curse, just in case. That's… doable."

A few days later, Harry sat in the champions tent, nervously listen to Cedric fighting his dragon. He had warned Cedric of the beasts, thinking it was only fair, and the Hufflepuff had clearly planned something, although he was a bit lost as to exactly what the older student was doing. As Harry prepared to go face his dragon, he softly repeated the incantations he would need over and over again.

"Very clever move," he heard Ludo Bagman calling out for the crowd. "Pity it didn't work."

After a long moment, he heard the crowd cheering at the scores that the judges were doubtless providing… and then the whistle blew, and he stepped out onto the field, gathering up his courage.

The Hungarian Horntail turned and stared right at him with its huge yellow eyes. For a long second, Harry was too scared to move. After the dragon stayed put, Harry quickly took a deep breath and whispered the incantations he needed while waving his wand as Daphne and Hermione had taught him.

"And the youngest champion has disillusioned himself!" shouted Bagman, making Harry want to hex him. "A daring move, to be sure!"

He moved forward, forcibly reminded of several nights in the Dursley's home when he'd had to steal food. Then, just as now, he used many of the tricks he'd learned to be as hard to notice as possible. While his steps made no noise, he had a nasty feeling the beast could still smell him.

Carefully as he could, he edged around it, freezing anytime the beast's head shifted in his direction. The crowd began to grow restless and Harry realized they truly couldn't see whatever it was he was doing. He pushed the thought aside. He wasn't here to put on a show, just to stay alive. Let the proper champions entertain the masses.

He moved to the thing's backside and decided to move for the golden egg, nestled by the dragon's side. As he got within a few feet of it, the Horntail swung its spiked tail at him and Harry dove out of the way. Whether it knew where he was, or had just gotten lucky, he wasn't sure, but he dropped caution and sprinted forward, dodging again as the Horntail let loose a jet of fire towards him.

However, the flames were far enough away that he wasn't even grazed by the fire, and Harry mentally thanked the stars that Hermione had been right about their poor vision. He flew forward as fast as he could and snatched up the golden egg, then ran away from the dragon as quick as he could.

"Unbelievable!" shouted Bagman. "The young Mr. Potter has not only retrieved his egg, but has done so with minimal damage to both himself and the remaining eggs!"

As Harry dropped his charms, a team of dragon handlers ran out to help subdue the Horntail and he collapsed as the crowd cheered politely. He figured that his performance certainly hadn't been the most fun to watch, but he had escaped without injury, and that was important thing.

"Thank you two," he muttered, knowing there was no way Hermione or Daphne could hear him over the roar of the crowd.