Hi, the next chapter is ready! Thanks to my great beta again for checking the new chapter. Enjoy.
Second Round for Earth and Fire
Daphne entered the arena and found the set-up for the Earth challenge quite intriguing. She immediately identified the niffler, the desert fox and the sniping badger. She knew that nifflers were treasure hunters and that could be a massive advantage in the challenge. But first things first. They had agreed on the summoning charm just to cover all bases.
"Accio golden stars," Daphne called out and one star flew towards her while she heard some rattling to her left from a box, which she would have to inspect closer later on.
She caught the star and then walked up to the niffler.
"Hey, little one, would you like to help me find more of these stars?" She asked while scratching the niffler behind the ears, which she knew they liked as much as any dog did.
She got a positive yip in response and the niffler shot off towards the desert fox. She saw how it started digging under the slab on which the fox hopped looking angry that he didn't get to play with her. Soon the niffler reappeared, the star in its mouth. The fox tried tackling the niffler, but it was faster and the pits of the fox didn't really cause it trouble. Daphne took the star, praising and thanking the niffler that shot off again into the opposite direction of the fox. Daphne meanwhile, knowing that the niffler would do well on its own, inspected the box she had noticed before. There were Egyptian Runes on top. A locking trap.
She quickly identified them as the runes for the four elements and as she had studied this kind of trap, she knew how to get them to open the box. She matched each rune with the element it represented and then connected them with her wand. The sides of the box fell away just before the niffler came running with the next star. She petted it again and pocketed the two stars. Now only one was left and she would bet that the badger was guarding it. Sniping badgers were nasty creatures, but there was a trick to avoid becoming their target.
She could see that the niffler was scared to come close to the badger, so she told it to leave the last star to her. Sniping badgers got their name for their accuracy while throwing rocks. But they relied on their eyes to hit their targets. So she applied a disillusionment charm to herself and added a silencing and scent erasing charm to be thorough. Then she carefully approached the badger's area. She could see that it guarded a slab that probably kept the last star hidden. She wondered about the inscriptions on the slab and kept a close eye on the badger that was trying to find her at the spot where she had been before.
She recognised the sign under the numbers as an Asiatic rune for equal size. It had been used to judge the worth of precious stones and when traders set prices for spices. So she had to place five items of equal size into the first hole and the number written over the others in them. She quickly summoned stones of equal size and put them into the holes. Sadly the badger reacted to the opening of the slab. Daphne levitated it into the air while grabbing the last star. She would have to get out of its range before she let it come down to the ground. She really didn't fancy the idea of having to dodge rocks being thrown at her.
She held the charm up, which cost some concentration while she walked away through the rocky area. Once she felt she was far enough away she set the badger down gently as letting it fall would only anger it. Now she only needed to wait for the challenge to end. She was very satisfied with her performance. She had shown that thinking things through in the beginning was the way to score like it became a Slytherin. And whenever you could, you should leave tasks to a professional. And the niffler only wanted some cuddling, she could easily live with that.
"Smart girl," Sirius commented. "She let the whole challenge look like child's play. She didn't even need seven minutes to get all stars."
"Yes, I noticed last year that Daphne is one of the few Slytherins that represent the best traits of her house. She first made a plan, used the resources she had efficiently and then executed her plan successfully," Remus agreed.
"She should get good marks for that. She did perfectly," Sirius said.
"We'll have to see how the judges see it, but I agree with you. Perhaps Rissof will mark her less harsh because she's in Slytherin," Remus mentioned.
"We'll see. The other two have more trouble with the challenge. Katharina still hasn't managed to reach the slab on which the fox sits because she fell into its pits three times by now and Bastian has two hits from the badger," Sirius commented on the performance of the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons champions.
"Well, I don't think that a school as far up north as Durmstrang would cover desert creatures. So her not knowing about the fox isn't all that surprising and Bastian didn't seem to know what kind of badger we have down there. At least the most from being hit or falling into the pits are bruises and sprained ankles," Remus stated.
Sirius nodded. He really liked the new challenges that the team he had tasked with the overworking for the tournament had come up with. It was obvious from looking into the audience that they were still interested, even if they had already seen this challenge once. And he didn't want to imagine how they would have reacted seeing teenagers face dragons. If something had happened to any of the champions thanks to that, the papers would have torn the Ministry apart for it and rightfully so. This was a competition between three schools, not professionals. Possible death of a competitor in a Tournament that was meant to improve international magical cooperation and create stronger bonds of friendship between the participating schools should never even be a possibility. No task should even have the chance of one of the champions dying in it. It was simply not right.
"Wow, she's done great," Cedric commented watching Daphne perform the same task he had been faced with perfectly and seemingly at complete ease.
"Oh yes, that'll bring us lots of points!" Fred cheered.
Jennifer nodded smiling. She knew that she hadn't won as many points as she would have liked, but none of the others had blamed her, instead they complimented her work with the flame-freezing charm and the cooling charm. The fire challenge seemed to be quite difficult and that she had got three stars was already good. They then watched how Daphne got twenty nine points, the highest total so far.
"Oh man, that arse Rissof seems to like Slytherins better than others, that's the first time he gave a four instead of his standard three for anybody not from Durmstrang," Harry cried out.
"At least the other two got a lot less and none of them got all stars. Three for both the Beauxbatons guy and the Durmstrang girl," Fred said.
"We've got a good lead so far," Jennifer pointed out with the others nodding.
They watched how Bastian got eighteen points, with the three from the stars he was at twenty one. Katharina got fifteen and her three stars, made eighteen overall.
"Alright, this'll be the last challenge before they start the battle royal," Cedric commented when the screen switched over to the Minister again.
Daphne entered the room just when the last challenge was drawn. Fire again.
"Hey Daphne, you were incredible!" Jennifer praised and the others quickly agreed with the sentiment and congratulated her.
"Thank you. I was really lucky that they had the niffler in the arena to make it easier for me to get the stars," Daphne accepted the compliments while giving some to the nice niffler.
"They seem to have placed a creature in every challenge that acts as a joker to help the champion with the task of getting all stars. In the Earth challenge it's the niffler, in my water challenge I could get a kappa on my side with soothe grapes, and they were also present in the Fire challenge, so I guess if you collect a few you could manage to get each of the creatures defending the stars to help you out. Harry's Air challenge there was a trained hippogriff that for a ferret that you could summon would take you to the places that were hard to reach. The added mobility cut down on the time a lot as many stars were high in the air," Fred told her.
"Interesting. So they're doing Fire again now?" Daphne asked.
"Yes. I'm curious how Christopher will do. He was a bit worried about getting Fire as his challenge," Harry mentioned.
"Why would he? His flame-freezing charms are better than mine," Jennifer commented. "And he's a lot better at Care of Magical Creatures than most of us."
"That's true, but he said that there was one fire creature that he was truly afraid of. I haven't seen Jennifer's challenge and you all didn't mention having seen that creature there, but if it was hidden somewhere there, he would be in trouble," Harry explained.
The others looked intently on the screen, hoping that the creatures wasn't in the challenge.
Christopher was nervous. He knew that there was only a slight chance of that one creature he really was afraid of being in this challenge, but it was really bad luck that he got the one element where it could possibly appear. He had really bad memories from his childhood coming across that creature. Well, no time to dwell in it. He would have to do his best. He had looked up all he could about fire from the research of the Weasley twins and knew how to counter it. He would have been better off getting the water challenge, but only Harry had so far got the element that he had done research on from the start. And they had exchanged the things they found massively and helped each other train the spells and memorise the ways to deal with different creatures.
His countdown reached zero and as soon as he felt the heat he cast cooling spells on his clothes to be better protected. His eyes looked over the arena and to his relief he couldn't see the creature he feared. There was a salamander, a field of fire walls surrounding a star, a field of suspicious puddles, a fire ring around a soothe grape tree, that one would be useful in this challenge, and he could see an area with black ground, which looked a bit like coal from afar.
He decided to first get the grapes as nearly all fire creatures could be made to cooperate with a wizard giving them to them. He froze the fire ring and collected a number of grapes. From the safety of the area under the tree he tried summoning a star, but none came. Well, it would have been strange if that had truly worked. He made sure that no star was hidden close to the tree and then went back through the newly frozen fire wall and walked over to the salamander. A soothe grape and the lizard pushed the star out of the fire. He cooled it down with an aguamenti charm and secured it in his bag.
Then he approached the five fire walls after renewing his cooling charms. He easily got the star from the middle. He recognised the oily scent from the puddles and mentally thanked Hagrid for covering more dangerous creatures than what the standard curriculum taught you. Pyrotails loved hiding in oil puddles and capture stupid wizards that came too close in fire geysers. So he levitated the oil out of the first puddle to find a startled pyrotail that started shrieking in outrage. Christopher managed to calm it down with some grapes and then convince it to get him the hidden star. He let the oil return to its puddle and the pyrotail dove into it again. Three stars down and still enough time left.
He walked over to the black part and then stopped dead in his tracks. There, in the shadow of a rock, he saw the tell-tale sign of a red tail. The rattling that he heard shortly after made his shiver in fear. His fears were confirmed when a red and yellow snake with a dangerously rattling tail came into view.
"Shit, why me?" He whimpered. He reflexively threw some grapes towards the snake that looked at them and then continued to pose against him. "Why did they have to put a volcano rattlesnake here?"
This was the one creature he feared, having seen what its venom could do to a human. His little sister had accidentally come too close to one on a vacation when she had been five and he eight. The snake had struck quickly and his sister had fought for her life for two weeks. Her body had been wracked with fever and the venom had destroyed a lot of the flesh of her leg, burning it up. His dad had only barely managed to get rid of the snake and it had burned itself into Christopher's brain. To this day he feared snakes, but especially this kind. He retreated as fast as he safely could. He wouldn't even try to get the star from the snake. He needed a minute to collect himself again and then he searched for the last star.
He finally found a hole with the number seven over it at a wall. Now the question was what he needed to do. On a whim he put seven grapes into the hole and they were all sucked inside. A small yellow bird appeared and flew off chirping happily. Christopher followed and the bird first circles over the place where the snake was, then it turned right and pecked at a stone on the ground. It continued to fly to the five rings of fire and the salamander before hovering in front of the oil puddles. He realised that the bird had pointed out all locations where stars had been hidden, so he needed to check the rock as he had already got the others.
There were seven runes on the rock. He hadn't taken runes, but they were Norse runes and the others had made sure to at least make the ones not taking runes or being in lower years learn the most important ones. There was basic instruction on how to get the star. The rune for fire, then wait, heat, five, water, wait, rock. Basically it said to use fire on this spot, wait five seconds, use water then wait again and lift the rock. He did just that and after the procedure was done he could lift the rock under which the star was hidden. He put it into his bag and despite knowing that he still had time, he wouldn't go anywhere near that snake. He had four stars; that was a good result.
"It had to be a volcano rattle snake," Harry complained watching Christopher.
"What's the matter with that snake? I mean I know that its venom is really nasty if you don't treat it immediately, but it's not as if it kills quickly," Daphne asked.
"His little sister was bitten by one and fought for her life for two weeks. He told me when he asked if I had a way to let others use my parseltongue abilities. I don't, but I can understand why he's like petrified seeing that creature," Harry answered. "Well, the rest went well for him. But it's a shame he didn't find that bird earlier on. Seems to be the joker in that challenge."
"True, it would have saved me a lot of time knowing where all the stars were. Even if the bird wasn't as helpful as your joker creatures," Jennifer commented.
"That would have made things too boring if the creatures could get all stars for you," Cedric said. "But Durmstrang seems to have good training with Fire creatures. Zephyr is performing really well and so far he avoided any injuries. Ivan also did well, but had the problem of getting burned for not being fast enough dealing with the pyrotails."
"Jean-Paul also gives a good performance. They should get a good number of points this round," Fred acknowledged.
Finally the end signal was given and only Zephyr had managed to get all stars while Jean-Paul had the same number as Christopher with four. But he had got burned when the last fire wall had turned hot before he had expected it again. While he had dealt with it quickly, his hand was slightly burned and that would cost points.
The judges gave their marks and Christopher got eighteen which totalled to twenty two with his four stars. They guessed that Rissof and Scrimgeour had deducted points for his reaction to the snake. Jean-Paul got twenty points coming to a total of twenty four and Zephyr got full twenty five plus five, making him the only one to get full thirty points. Well, they knew that the Durmstrang judge was biased. Still, overall Hogwarts had performed really well so far.
They listened to the announcement of a thirty minutes break to prepare for the last round, the battle royal and to give the audience time to get some snacks and drinks or to visit the bathroom. They had been at it for over an hour now and it was somewhat understandable that there would be a break. One of the organisers came to collect them to meet with the three that were chosen for the battle royal. As the last challenge wouldn't have any of the creatures or tasks that they had faced so far in it, they were allowed to see them and encourage them for the last challenge. There was also an intermediate result for the six challenges. Hogwarts was in the lead regarding points and stars. Beauxbatons was second in points and third in stars.
But they all knew that the last word wasn't spoken as the battle royal hadn't been done yet.
And cut. Till next time ;)