Life became even worse for James within the confines of the castle, for Rita Skeeter had published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly colored life story of James. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of James; the article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about James, the names of the Mahoutokoro, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang champions (misspelled) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn't been mentioned at all. The stuff that James had said about not entering the Quest had not been included in the article at all, other than a couple of lines that said he claimed to not have wanted to enter at all, but in reality had wanted to emulate his siblings.
Instead, the article said that his siblings were proud of him and that if they couldn't be part of the tournament, at least their brother was. Sirius was also quoted as being proud of his adopted son, and it was strongly hinted that Unity had known about James entering and supported him. Kevin Entwhistle had apparently also been interviewed, for he was quoted s saying that James could rarely be seen without the company of his two best friends Kyle Melling and Mariko Kishi. Rita Skeeter had then focused on Mari in the following paragraph, describing her as a stunningly pretty and very intelligent witch who was related to the ambassadors and Minister of Magic of Japan. Reading between the lines, it was clear that a relationship was being hinted at between James and Mari.
When Mari finished reading the article, she threw down the paper in disgust and then turned to James and asked, "Can I borrow Hedwig? I need to send a letter to my aunt and uncle."
"Go ahead, Mari," answered James.
The next day, both Sirius Black and Mr. and Mrs. Hirashi sued Rita Skeeter, or rather the Daily Prophet for libel, and interviewing a minor without another adult present. The matter was dropped when the Daily Prophet printed a retraction the day after that, put Rita Skeeter on a month's suspension, and gave the two families each a year's subscription for free.
Meanwhile, James became increasingly nervous over the first task. He had no idea what it was going to be beyond the fact that it was likely to involve a dangerous beast, since that was what most of the first tasks had been during previous Tournaments, according to his reading on the subject. Unfortunately, this wasn't much help, since there were a number of dangerous creatures, ranging from manticores and dragons to trolls and lethifolds. He could rule out probably imaginary creatures like Heliopaths and Umgubular Slashkilters, which only Luna, her father, and a few other people believed in. He could also rule out basilisks, since anyone gazing directly at their eyes would die.
The only dangerous creatures that James had any confidence against facing were trolls and lethifolds. With trolls, he knew enough spells to knock one out, and with lethifolds, he could do the Patronus Charm, which was the one spell that could combat them. Of course, lethifolds wouldn't be in the task, since not everyone could do the Patronus Charm. The other Ravenclaws spent most of their free time reading up on magical creatures that the champions might have to face, while Mari, Kyle, Hermione, and a few others researched spells that James might be able to do to combat dangerous creatures.
At the next Hogsmeade weekend, James was sitting with some of the other members of Unity at the Three Broomsticks, having some butterbeer and trying to relax. Hagrid and Moody came in partway through and when they spotted the group, headed over to them. Hagrid bent over and whispered, "James, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. An' be invisible." He then straightened and greeted the others present.
After Hagrid and Moody had left, James wondered out loud, "Why does Hagrid want me to meet him midnight?"
The others looked at him in surprise, except for Luna, who said very matter-of-factly, "Since a delivery is being made today that involves the Quartet Quest, I suppose Hagrid wants to show you what the delivery is. It will give you a better idea of what the first task is going to be, even if it is against the rules."
James blinked. "How did you know that, Luna? Never mind, you probably saw or heard something about it. But what should I do? I would like to know what I'm going to face for the first task, but I also don't want to cheat."
"I wouldn't put it past Madame Maxime and Professor Karkaroff to do everything to help Fleur and Krum win," pointed out Anthony logically. "Which would involve cheating. So they would no doubt do whatever they could to find out what the first task is and then tell their champions."
"But what about Cedric and my brother?" asked Keiko. "Headmistress Watoma will do what she can to help Hiroshi, but she would never do anything that could be considered cheating. Professor Dumbledore would never cheat, either, and I doubt any of the other Hogwarts teachers would as well."
James sighed. "So when I find out whatever it is that Hagrid wants to show me, I'll tell Cedric and Hiroshi. Or rather, I'll tell Cedric and you can tell your brother, Keiko. Some people might find it suspicious if they saw me talking with the Tokyo School champion, and he probably wouldn't call it cheating if the information came from you."
Keiko nodded and after awhile the group met up with the rest of Unity and returned to the castle.
That night, half an hour before midnight, James slipped on the invisibility cloak he had inherited from his father and left the Ravenclaw common room when Su opened the door so nobody outside of Unity would be suspicious if the door just appeared to open on its own. He checked the Marauder's Map to make sure that Filch nor any teachers were around and then swiftly made his way out of the castle.
The grounds were very dark. James walked down the lawn toward the lights shining in Hagrid's cabin. The inside of the enormous Beauxbatons carriage was also lit up; James could hear Madame Maxime talking inside it as he knocked on Hagrid's front door.
"You there, James?" Hagrid whispered, opening the door and looking around.
"Yeah," said James, slipping inside the cabin and pulling the cloak down off his head. "What's up?"
"Got summat ter show yeh," said Hagrid. There was an air of enormous excitement about him. He was wearing a flower that resembled an oversized artichoke in his buttonhole. It looked as though he had abandoned the use of axle grease, but he had certainly attempted to comb his hair - James could see the comb's broken teeth tangled in it.
"What is it you wanted to show me?" asked James. "Is it about the first task, like Luna told me?"
Hagrid didn't answer the question, instead saying, "Come with me, keep quiet, an' keep yerself covered with that cloak. We won' take Fang, he won' like it…"
James drew his cloak over his head as Hagrid opened the door and strode off into the night. James hurried to follow and found, to his great surprise, that Hagrid was leading him to the Beauxbatons carriage.
"Hagrid, what -?"
"Shhh!" said Hagrid, and he knocked three times on the door bearing the crossed golden wands.
Madame Maxime opened it. She was wearing a silk shawl wrapped around her massive shoulders. She smiled when she saw Hagrid.
"Ah, 'Agrid… it is time?"
"Bong-sewer," said Hagrid, beaming at her, and holding out a hand to help her down the golden steps. James blinked in confusion before realizing that Hagrid must have meant "bon soir", French for "good evening."
Madame Maxime closed the door behind her, Hagrid offered her his arm, and they set off around the edge of the paddock containing Madame Maxime's giant winged horses, with James, totally bewildered, running to keep up with them. Had Hagrid wanted to show him Madame Maxime? He could see her any old time he wanted… she wasn't exactly hard to miss… But it seemed that Madame Maxime was in for the same treat as James, because after a while she said playfully, "Wair is it you are taking me, 'Agrid?"
"Yeh'll enjoy this," said Hagrid gruffly, "worth seein', trust me. On'y - don' go tellin' anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh're not s'posed ter know."
"Of course not," said Madame Maxime, fluttering her long black eyelashes.
They continued on their way, James wondering exactly what was going on. If Hagrid was showing something that had to do with the first task, why would he take Madame Maxime along? James looked down at his watch and started debating if he should just leave.
But then - when they had walked so far around the perimeter of the forest that the castle and the lake were out of sight - James heard something. Men were shouting up ahead… then came a deafening, earsplitting roar… Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. James hurried up alongside them - for a split second, he thought he was seeing bonfires, and men darting around them - and then his mouth fell open.
Dragons. Five fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting - torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground; a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might; a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air; a dark green one with a long glittering golden horn that was tossing its head and had smoke coming from it's nostrils, and a gigantic black one, more lizardlike than the others, which was nearest to them.
At least thirty-five wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs. Mesmerized, James looked up, high above him, and saw the eyes of the black dragon, with vertical pupils like a cat's, bulging with either fear or rage, he couldn't tell which… It was making a horrible noise, a yowling, screeching scream.
"Keep back there, Hagrid!" yelled a wizard near the fence, straining on the chain he was holding. "They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I've seen this Horntail do forty!"
"Is'n' it beautiful?" said Hagrid softly.
"It's no good!" yelled another wizard. "Stunning Spells, on the count of three!"
James saw each of the dragon keepers pull out his wand.
"Stupefy!" they shouted in unison, and the Stunning Spells shot into the darkness like fiery rockets, bursting in showers of stars on the dragons' scaly hides - James watched the dragon nearest to them teeter dangerously on its back legs; its jaws stretched wide in a silent howl; its nostrils were suddenly devoid of flame, though still smoking - then, very slowly, it fell. Several tons of sinewy, scaly-black dragon hit the ground with a thud that James could have sworn made the trees behind him quake.
The dragon keepers lowered their wands and walked forward to their fallen charges, each of which was the size of a small hill. They hurried to tighten the chains and fasten them securely to iron pegs, which they forced deep into the ground with their wands.
"Wan' a closer look?" Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly. The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and James followed. The wizard who had warned Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and James realized who it was: Charlie Weasley.
"All right, Hagrid?" he panted, coming over to talk. "They should be okay now - we put them out with a Sleeping Draft on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet - but, like you saw, they weren't happy, not happy at all -"
"What breeds you got here, Charlie?" said Hagrid, gazing at the closest dragon, the black one, with something chose to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. James could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.
"This is a Hungarian Horntail," said Charlie. "There's a Common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one — a Swedish Short-Snout, that blue-gray — a Romanian Longhorn, the green one with the golden horn, and a Chinese Fireball, that's the red."
Charlie looked around; Madame Maxime was strolling away around the edge of the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons.
"I didn't know you were bringing her, Hagrid," Charlie said, frowning. "The champions aren't supposed to know what's coming - she's bound to tell her student, isn't she?"
"Jus' thought she'd like ter see 'em," shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at the dragons.
"Really romantic date, Hagrid," said Charlie, shaking his head.
"Five…" said Hagrid, "so it's one fer each o' the champions, is it? What've they gotta do - fight 'em?"
"Just get past them, I think," said Charlie. "We'll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don't know why… but I tell you this, I don't envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. Its back end's as dangerous as its front, look."
Charlie pointed toward the Horntail's tail, and James saw long, bronze-colored spikes protruding along it every few inches.
Five of Charlie's fellow keepers staggered up to the Horntail at that moment, carrying a clutch of huge granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket. They placed them carefully at the Horntail's side. Hagrid let out a moan of longing.
"I've got them counted, Hagrid," said Charlie sternly. Then heasked, "How's James Lydell?"
"Fine," said Hagrid. He was still gazing at the eggs.
"Just hope he's still fine after he's faced this lot," said Charlie grimly, looking out over the dragons' enclosure. "I didn't dare tell Mum what he's got to do for the first task; she's already having kittens about him…" Charlie imitated his mother's anxious voice. "'How could they let him enter that tournament, he's much too young! I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an age limit!' She actually believed some of the stuff in that Daily Prophet article about him until Sirius and Remus set her straight."
James had had enough. Trusting to the fact that Hagrid wouldn't miss him, with the attractions of five dragons and Madame Maxime to occupy him, he turned silently and began to walk away, back to the castle.
He didn't know whether he was glad he'd seen what was coming or not. Perhaps this way was better. The first shock was over now. Maybe if he'd seen the dragons for the first time on Tuesday, he would have passed out cold in front of the whole school… but maybe he would anyway… He was going to be armed with his wand - which, just now, felt like nothing more than a narrow strip of wood — against a fifty-foot-high, scaly, spike-ridden, fire-breathing dragon. And he had to get past it. With everyone watching. How? It wasn't as if he had focused on dragons during the research, as he and the rest of Unity hadn't thought it likely that he'd face a dragon. The only spell he knew that might be of any use was the Aguamenti spell. Well, he also knew the Full Body-Bind and Stunners, but considering it had taken at least seven dragon keepers to Stun one dragon, just one person wouldn't have much effect.
James sped up, skirting the edge of the forest; he really felt the need to talk to Unity about this, or rather just Mari and Kyle for now, since he could hardly rouse the entire group — when, without warning, he ran into something very solid.
James fell backward, his glasses askew, clutching the cloak around him. A voice nearby said, "Ouch! Who's there?"
James hastily checked that the cloak was covering him and lay very still, staring up at the dark outline of the wizard he had hit. He recognized the goatee… it was Karkaroff.
"Who's there?" said Karkaroff again, very suspiciously, looking around in the darkness. James remained still and silent. After a minute or so, Karkaroff seemed to decide that he had hit some sort of animal; he was looking around at waist height, as though expecting to see a dog. Then he crept back under the cover of the trees and started to edge forward toward the place where the dragons were.
Very slowly and very carefully, James got to his feet and set off again as fast as he could without making too much noise, hurrying through the darkness back toward Hogwarts.
He had no doubt whatsoever what Karkaroff was up to. He had sneaked off his ship to try and find out what the first task was going to be. He might even have spotted Hagrid and Madame Maxime heading off around the forest together – they were hardly difficult to spot at a distance… and now all Karkaroff had to do was follow the sound of voices, and he, like Madame Maxime, would know what was in store for the champions.
When he reached the Ravenclaw common room, it took him a few minutes before he was able to concentrate enough to correctly answer the question the knocker asked. For the first time in his life, he wished he was in a different house, so that he only had to give a password to gain entry to the common room. Once inside, he saw that the Ravenclaw members were waiting up for him. Michael got up and handed James his three-way mirror, while Lisa asked, "So how did the meeting with Hagrid go?"
James sat down and called Kyle, whose face appeared in the mirror almost instantly. James then proceeded to tell the gathered Ravenclaws and Kyle what had gone on during the meeting. "Dragons?" sputtered Terry in shock when James was done.
"Zhe shi sheng jing bing!" exclaimed Su. "Ni bu neng he yi ge long da zang! Tai-" She broke off as she realized that she was speaking in Chinese.
James looked blankly at her, as the only Chinese he had ever learned from Su was 'ni hao', 'zai jian', and 'xie xie', which was 'hello', 'good-bye', and 'thank-you' respectively. "Excuse me?"
"Sorry, what I said was, 'This is madness. You can't fight with a dragon.' And I was about to say that it was too dangerous."
"Well, of course it is too dangerous," snapped Keiko. "The only spell that James can really do against a dragon is the one that conjures water, and that is if it tries to set him on fire. James, may I borrow your cloak? I need to do some research and figure out exactly what you and my brother will have to do to get past a dragon."
James nodded and handed over the cloak. After Keiko left, Kyle said, "You really should go to bed, James. Some rest will help calm you down. We'll figure out what to do tomorrow. I mean later today."
The other Ravenclaws voiced their agreement and so with that, James closed the connection and went up to bed.